Goodbye, Lara ‒ Episode 11
One of the most interesting things about folklore is that there's no one “original story.” There's a story that was written down first, typically by a folklorist intent on preserving oral narratives, but you can't really point to one tale and say, “This. This is the first.” That's not true of most of Hans Christian Andersen's stories, of course, because they're literary fairy tales rather than folkloric, but Goodbye, Lara keeps the spirit of folklore alive – because Lara herself is not the original little mermaid.
Years ago, before Lara was born, Grace and her twin sister Rigmor dreamed of the surface. While Rigmor eventually gave that dream up for the love of Rowan (and, I daresay, her princessly duty of bringing the Light to the merfolk), Grace took a potion, went to the land, and fell in love with a prince. When, like Lara's prince, he rejected her after seeing her true form, she took her heart-knife and killed him. Grace, arguably, lived the story as it was meant to be written – she learned the treachery of humans and returned to the sea.
I keep going back to the first episode of this show when its creators thanked Andersen, not just for The Little Mermaid, but for all of his stories. I've said before that Lisa is Elisa from The Wild Swans (and please note the swans in this episode), and I think Grace represents another of Andersen's characters: the Snow Queen. In her story, a mirror made by the devil shatters, and if even a microscopic piece lands in your eyes or heart, you become cold and see only the ugliness in the world. Grace has been associated with mirrors from the start, and this week her skull-faced eel guides Mari to her secret underwater chamber, where her magic mirror stands. Through the mirror, Mari watches Grace's story, sees how she goes from beloved and adventurous princess and sister to a murderous witch – and then the mirror shatters. The point isn't to inflict coldness on Mari's heart, but to serve as a metaphor for what Grace has gone through. The moment she was rejected by her prince and stabbed him with her heart-knife, the mirror shards entered her eyes and heart. When her twin sister Rigmor died saving her, the shards took root. And when her brother-in-law Rowan banished her as a witch, Grace's heart froze over. She wasn't a witch or a snow-hearted woman until she was made to be one.
What's worth thinking about is how Grace's experiences have shaped her view of Lara. She seems to equally want her to fail and to succeed – the Light needs to be brought back to the merfolk, yes, but what does she think will do that? At times it seems to be Lara finding true love; at others, it's Lara using her own heart-knife to kill her true love and become a witch herself. And what is a witch but a woman with more power and knowledge than the world is comfortable with? Grace's have brought her no joy, but maybe she hopes for something different with Lara – a witch-queen, perhaps, or maybe just one who loves herself in a way Grace hasn't in a long, long time.
Pain can make people do unfathomable things. We've seen that amply demonstrated over the course of these eleven episodes, and nowhere is it more obvious than in Rowan and Grace's shared past. Both of them are living with the pain of loss, fed by the pain of their mutual betrayal brought about by Rigmor's death – and their inability to accept that Rigmor made her own choices, just as they did. Lara is the sum of all of their hopes, but neither of them sees her for herself. Only Mari does that, and if that's not an argument for true love, I don't know what is. Living for love and not the rules, as Grace's mirror whispers, may be the only way to break generations of curses.
Lara's the Little Mermaid, but I think she's Gerda, too. In The Snow Queen, Gerda goes on a quest to save her friend Kai from the Snow Queen's influence, to remove the mirror shards from his heart and eye. If Lara can do that for Rowan, Lisa, and Grace, maybe everyone can still be saved.
Rating:
Recommended Reading: Robbergirl by S. T. Gibson, a queer retelling of The Snow Queen.
Goodbye, Lara is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
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