Part of Your World
by Stephanie Strohm
art by Kelly Matthews and Nichole Matthews
adapted from the novel by Liz Braswell
2018, adapted 2023
Starting about ten years ago, Disney has begun putting out a series of YA novels called Twisted Tales that are basically like Marvel What If? stories, except for Disney movies. That series is still ongoing, but this year they've also started publishing graphic novel adaptations of the earlier books. Part of Your World is the first of these YA comics. In Marvel style, we might ask "What if ... Prince Eric married Ursula the sea witch instead of Ariel the little mermaid?"
So this is like, kind of a fanfic sequel, with the original publisher's approval. I wasn't really sure what kind of quality to expect here. I was initially unaware that Disney's been selling these books for a decade now, but the premise seemed interesting enough, and I was intrigued by the cover art of an adult Ariel decked out as the queen of the oceans, with a crown, breast plate, a spiny conch shell pauldron on one shoulder, the trident, the whole bit.
When Ursula won, she transformed King Triton into one of her gross little sea polyp captives, and sent the mute Ariel home in disgrace. Ariel's sisters decided they liked being princesses and party girls, so they made her take on the responsibilities of leadership as penance. Without her voice, Ariel learned sign language, but became isolated outside of her official responsibilities. Back on land, Ursula remained disguised as 'Vanessa,' married Eric, and became princess of his kingdom. With Eric and many of the palace servants beset with a magical confusion that prevents them from clearly remembering what's happened, Ursula takes the reigns and immediately starts the kingdom on vanity projects and wars with their neighbors.
Sometimes I think that, contrary to what Tolstoy said about unhappy families, that all bad leaders are bad in pretty much the same ways. They may look different, but that's mostly window dressing. Inevitably, they collect sycophants, punish critics, take in too much of the community's resources and use them to enrich themselves, reward their friends, and build monuments to themselves. They try to crush any way people might form groups that could give them strength in numbers, they drain the trust from society by encouraging spying and snitching. The rules apply only to the ruled. And sooner or later they'll want to send you and your children to die in a land war that is essentially a personal conflict between themselves and some other leader (good or also bad) who wouldn't accede to their demands. All of this is inevitable, even if the statues and slogans look a little different each time. For awhile, maybe this seems okay if you're one of the sycophants or friends, if you don't mind everything being wrecked and ruined around you, but ultimately it's still like having a comfortable seat to watch the house you're inside get burned down.
Anyway, Ursula is a bad ruler, Ariel is seemingly a good one, a servant to her people, and Eric is befuddled and spends his time writing operas. As the story opens, he's just written one that accurately recounts the events of Disney's The Little Mermaid, suggesting that he may be regaining his senses. A seagull brings the news to Ariel, who decides to return, although initially not for Eric, but to rescue her dad.
With the power of her trident, Ariel can temporarily turn herself into a human without needing extra help, so she does, and goes to sneak into the royal palace. She meets a couple servants, who recognize her and thus regain their memories, and steals back her voice, which Ursula was keeping in a locket. This tips Ursula off, since she immediately realizes what it means when she gets her own real voice back.
The next part of the book is structurally repetitive, but the conversations the characters have change enough to keep things interesting. Ariel sneaks onto shore, she doesn't find Triton but does talk to Eric, they achieve some degree of reconciliation, Ariel returns home and talks to one of her sisters, Eric learns more about how Ursula's been ruling while he wasn't paying attention, and confronts her some about it. Ursula keeps threatening to execute various people if Ariel or Eric cross some red line, but never actually stops them.
This is the part of the book that felt the most like fanfic to me, partly because of the episodic format, but mostly because it had so much embedded meta-commentary about the original story. Ariel gets to scold Eric for not being able to tell her and 'Vanessa' apart, and Eric gets to offer a possible defense. They debate why mermaids are sexy but octopus women are gross. Eric realizes that Ursula's dependency on contracts makes their marriage vows much more binding for her than they would be for a human wife. It's the kind of thing readers talk about afterward, but coming out of the mouths of the characters.
The culmination of all this is that Eric and Ariel come up with a plan to expose Ursula to the public. Meanwhile, she plans a mass human sacrifice of that same public to 'a great old one' whom she invokes by chanting a text she got when she invaded Carcosa, a text that includes "ia ia!" and "phtagan" ... yes that's right, Ursula the sea witch is summoning Cthulhu! There's a great page where the whole crowd grasps their heads in pain as the madness starts to take them.
But fortunately, of the two dueling plans, it's Ariel's that succeeds. Triton is freed, Ursula dies, and Eric and Ariel start dating again, both as grown adults, this time on a far more equal basis.
I'm definitely not going to read all of these, but as a proof-of-concept, Part of Your World shows that one of these stories can be pretty good, so I might read another if one interests me.
So this is like, kind of a fanfic sequel, with the original publisher's approval. I wasn't really sure what kind of quality to expect here. I was initially unaware that Disney's been selling these books for a decade now, but the premise seemed interesting enough, and I was intrigued by the cover art of an adult Ariel decked out as the queen of the oceans, with a crown, breast plate, a spiny conch shell pauldron on one shoulder, the trident, the whole bit.
When Ursula won, she transformed King Triton into one of her gross little sea polyp captives, and sent the mute Ariel home in disgrace. Ariel's sisters decided they liked being princesses and party girls, so they made her take on the responsibilities of leadership as penance. Without her voice, Ariel learned sign language, but became isolated outside of her official responsibilities. Back on land, Ursula remained disguised as 'Vanessa,' married Eric, and became princess of his kingdom. With Eric and many of the palace servants beset with a magical confusion that prevents them from clearly remembering what's happened, Ursula takes the reigns and immediately starts the kingdom on vanity projects and wars with their neighbors.
Sometimes I think that, contrary to what Tolstoy said about unhappy families, that all bad leaders are bad in pretty much the same ways. They may look different, but that's mostly window dressing. Inevitably, they collect sycophants, punish critics, take in too much of the community's resources and use them to enrich themselves, reward their friends, and build monuments to themselves. They try to crush any way people might form groups that could give them strength in numbers, they drain the trust from society by encouraging spying and snitching. The rules apply only to the ruled. And sooner or later they'll want to send you and your children to die in a land war that is essentially a personal conflict between themselves and some other leader (good or also bad) who wouldn't accede to their demands. All of this is inevitable, even if the statues and slogans look a little different each time. For awhile, maybe this seems okay if you're one of the sycophants or friends, if you don't mind everything being wrecked and ruined around you, but ultimately it's still like having a comfortable seat to watch the house you're inside get burned down.
Anyway, Ursula is a bad ruler, Ariel is seemingly a good one, a servant to her people, and Eric is befuddled and spends his time writing operas. As the story opens, he's just written one that accurately recounts the events of Disney's The Little Mermaid, suggesting that he may be regaining his senses. A seagull brings the news to Ariel, who decides to return, although initially not for Eric, but to rescue her dad.
With the power of her trident, Ariel can temporarily turn herself into a human without needing extra help, so she does, and goes to sneak into the royal palace. She meets a couple servants, who recognize her and thus regain their memories, and steals back her voice, which Ursula was keeping in a locket. This tips Ursula off, since she immediately realizes what it means when she gets her own real voice back.
The next part of the book is structurally repetitive, but the conversations the characters have change enough to keep things interesting. Ariel sneaks onto shore, she doesn't find Triton but does talk to Eric, they achieve some degree of reconciliation, Ariel returns home and talks to one of her sisters, Eric learns more about how Ursula's been ruling while he wasn't paying attention, and confronts her some about it. Ursula keeps threatening to execute various people if Ariel or Eric cross some red line, but never actually stops them.
This is the part of the book that felt the most like fanfic to me, partly because of the episodic format, but mostly because it had so much embedded meta-commentary about the original story. Ariel gets to scold Eric for not being able to tell her and 'Vanessa' apart, and Eric gets to offer a possible defense. They debate why mermaids are sexy but octopus women are gross. Eric realizes that Ursula's dependency on contracts makes their marriage vows much more binding for her than they would be for a human wife. It's the kind of thing readers talk about afterward, but coming out of the mouths of the characters.
The culmination of all this is that Eric and Ariel come up with a plan to expose Ursula to the public. Meanwhile, she plans a mass human sacrifice of that same public to 'a great old one' whom she invokes by chanting a text she got when she invaded Carcosa, a text that includes "ia ia!" and "phtagan" ... yes that's right, Ursula the sea witch is summoning Cthulhu! There's a great page where the whole crowd grasps their heads in pain as the madness starts to take them.
But fortunately, of the two dueling plans, it's Ariel's that succeeds. Triton is freed, Ursula dies, and Eric and Ariel start dating again, both as grown adults, this time on a far more equal basis.
I'm definitely not going to read all of these, but as a proof-of-concept, Part of Your World shows that one of these stories can be pretty good, so I might read another if one interests me.
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