{"id":157,"date":"2008-02-09T02:48:39","date_gmt":"2008-02-09T09:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=157"},"modified":"2008-02-09T02:48:39","modified_gmt":"2008-02-09T09:48:39","slug":"thoughts-on-the-little-mermaid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/thoughts-on-the-little-mermaid\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on The Little Mermaid"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had this great<\/em> idea for a story the other day, and it sounded a lot like Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid<\/em>, so I decided to read it (the original, of course) to see what the story is like.\u00a0 Having read it, I can definitely see why it is considered to be a classic–and how it could motivate people to build a statue in honor of it<\/a>…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When I checked the book out from the BYU library, it was kind of funny because I ran into this girl who was camped out in the fairy tale section.\u00a0 She had books pilled all around her and was just sitting cross legged, reading them.\u00a0 The library is a quiet place, so I tried to look for my book without disturbing her, but then it became apparent that she was sitting right under where it was.\u00a0 Our conversation went kind of like this:<\/p>\n

Me: <\/strong>You sure like fairy tales, don’t you?
\nHer: <\/strong>(smiles) Yeah!
\nMe: <\/strong>Do you come here a lot?
\nHer: <\/strong>Oh, yeah!\u00a0 Are looking for a book–am I in your way?
\nMe: <\/strong>No, it’s not a problem.\u00a0 I’m just looking for a copy of The Little Mermaid<\/em>.
\nHer: <\/strong>(gets up and starts helping me look) Here’s a copy, and here’s another one…
\nMe: <\/strong>Yeah, but I’m looking for the original one.\u00a0 That’s the one where the mermaid dies in the end, isn’t it?
\nHer: <\/strong>I think so.
\nMe: <\/strong>(finds it) here we go.\u00a0 Are you an English major?
\nHer: <\/strong>Oh, yeah!
\nMe: <\/strong>Cool.\u00a0 Well, I’ll see you later!<\/p>\n

I should have asked her if she likes to write, and then invited her to join the Quark writing group.\u00a0 Or maybe I should have told her my idea for a story.\u00a0 She seemed like a pretty cool girl.\u00a0 Ah, well, I’ll probably never see her again…though you never know…maybe if I post up some of those Quark fliers in the JFSB again…<\/p>\n

So, I read The Little Mermaid<\/em> today, and man!\u00a0 It was a really good story!\u00a0 So emotional!\u00a0 I was sucked into it!\u00a0 Hans Christian Anderson was definitely a master storyteller.<\/p>\n

The story is basically about unrequited love (yeah…Disney totally rewrote it and turned it into something else).\u00a0 It’s also complicated because it deals with some existential issues, like what is a soul and what it means to have a soul.\u00a0 It’s also about hiding your pain from others, and about what it’s like when the world isn’t fair.\u00a0 All kinds of really cool stuff.\u00a0 I’d highly recommend the story to anyone–and it’s not that long, only about 12 pages or so.<\/p>\n

It was really good to read The Little Mermaid<\/em> because the story I’m thinking about writing is going to follow a similar plot line and deal with similar issues.\u00a0 Here’s what I’ve got so far:<\/p>\n

Turn the mermaid into an artificial intelligence, turn the prince into a CS major, turn the girl the prince marries into another student that the CS major ends up dating, and you’ve got the basic gist of the story.<\/p>\n

This artificial intelligence is born somehow and finds herself wandering around on the BYU network.\u00a0 She falls in love with a CS major, and tries to get him to love her back.\u00a0 As she does so, she starts to grow and learn about her virtually limitless capabilities.\u00a0 But then, after a while, she realizes that the relationship isn’t going to work because he has needs that she can’t meet–physical needs, emotional needs, etc.\u00a0 He starts dating this other girl, and she gets so crushed that she ends up dying.<\/p>\n

It needs a lot more conceptual work, but I think it could be really cool!\u00a0 It’ll probably work better as a short story…but I might try and expand it if I come up with some other cool ideas…hmm…<\/p>\n

So now, to research artificial intelligences, I’m reading some Kurzweil.\u00a0 Crazy stuff, and I don’t think I agree with all his conclusions, but it’s pretty freaking awesome to read!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had this great idea for a story the other day, and it sounded a lot like Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, so I decided to read it (the original, of course) to see what the story is like.\u00a0 Having read it, I can definitely see why it is considered to be a classic–and… Continue reading Thoughts on The Little Mermaid<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[33],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-girls-and-dating","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-2x","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}