Goodbye, Lara ‒ Episode 12
What is “true love?” Throughout most of Goodbye, Lara, people have had very specific ideas about that. For the most part, it's been framed as heterosexual love – Rowan and Rigmor, Lara and her prince, maybe even Grace and her prince. The loss of it has been painted as catastrophic. Rigmor's death destroyed Rowan, turning him from an easy-going, loving merman to one ravaged by hatred. Grace lost her true love and became a sea witch. Lara lost hers and turned to foam. And for twelve episodes, we were told that the only way for Lara to save the merfolk was to find her true love once more…and this time, to kill him.
But no one gets to say what true love is except the person experiencing it. True love is, ultimately, something personal, and something that we get to decide for ourselves. I'd argue that Grace's transformation wasn't because she lost her prince, it was because she lost her twin - Rigmor was Grace's one true love. That's neither heteronormative nor romantic, and that's a valid expression of true love just as much as any other.
It also opens the door for multiple interpretations of Goodbye, Lara's finale. Is her true love Mari specifically, or is it the human life she lived with her? Did Lara's heart-knife kill Mari as she says, or did she instead eat Mari's mother's heart, represented by the cross she wore? I tend towards the latter, not only because that's very much in line with Hans Christian Andersen's works, many if not most of which have distinct religious overtones, but also because it fits with the rest of the story. The absence of mothers is something that we snark at Disney films about, but it's also a very real theme in Andersen's literature. The Little Match Girl dies dreaming of her mother figure, the Little Mermaid lacks mother, and their father's remarriage is what leads to Elisa's brothers being turned into swans. For Mari's mother to be with her always in the form of her cross necklace (and for her grandmother to be a minister) carries on both Andersen's use of religion as a theme and the idea that mothers are always with us. Because if Mari's mother has been watching over her since her death, that means that Rigmor is there, too. It is her light, after all, that Lara has inherited.
I think the most important message we can take from this episode is that true love isn't a monolith. Does Lara love Mari romantically? I think so, and I think that not making that as explicit as they could is a nod to Andersen in a different way. Extant correspondence lets us know that Andersen was gay, not an easy thing to be in the 19th century when homosexuality was criminalized. (Primarily male homosexuality, but that's another essay.) Jackie Wullschläger, in the 2000 book Hans Christian Andersen: the Life of a Storyteller states that Andersen's tale The Snowman, about a snowman who falls in love with a stove, is based on one of his relationships, and if that's true, it's uniquely tragic. The Snowman loves that which will ultimately destroy him, which is the same story that Grace and Lara followed in their pasts. Likewise the Steadfast Tin Soldier's love for the Ballerina ends up killing him, while Elisa's love for her brothers nearly kills her. Love unrequited spells death in Andersen's works. Having Mari and Lara not explicitly declare their love is a nod to Andersen having to live a life in the closet. That they both live is the greatest indication that their love is real and true.
But it's not the only true love Lara feels. She loves the human world, which is why she ultimately gives up her mermaid life to stay there, her sore, scarred legs and sewn-together tongue the only remaining signs of her prior existence. She has become fully human in the end: her hair is thinner and duller, her ears without gills. She also loves the undersea world, which is why she does give her light to them – in the hope and knowledge that, long after she has passed from this life, her family will be revived. After two hundred years, Lara has chosen to live, which is perhaps the greatest measure of true love.
Andersen's literary fairy tales rarely end with “and they lived happily ever after.” His idea of a happy ending isn't ours – his heroes and heroines tended to die or live in pain as atonement for their mistakes. Elisa's youngest brother goes through life with a swan wing instead of an arm, Thumbelina never sees her mother again, and Karen no longer has feet after cutting off her red shoes. The Little Match Girl and the Little Mermaid die. Inger spends centuries in Hell. Lara and Mari being separated, at least for a time, is positively ebullient by Andersen's terms. And no, maybe it isn't exactly what we wanted, especially with the implication that Lisa has lost Kota and now must continue on alone.
But it's a better ending than Andersen gave himself, if we believe Wullschläger's theory about The Snowman. It's a hopeful ending, and I'll take that. Mari and Lara have a lot of life left, and they deserve time to explore their other true loves, boxing for Mari and living for Lara.
Through the constant retelling and reimagining of his tales, Andersen lives on. Every time you rewatch or think about Goodbye, Lara, you're remembering him and his work. And if that isn't true love, I don't know what is.
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Recommended Reading: Hans Christian Andersen by Jack Zipes. An in-depth biography and analysis of Andersen's tales by one of the foremost fairy tale scholars.
Goodbye, Lara is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
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