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Post by toons27 on Jan 6, 2009 14:55:54 GMT -5
Eric is my hottie disney prince!! ^_^ I agree with everything WickedElphie said about him. Eric is the only prince that's not so princey. (and Ariel's the only princess that's not so princessy). The song, "Her Voice", was originally going to be in the 1989 movie but somehow the producers cut it and put it in the Broadway stage version instead. Yeah, I can imagine Eric and Ariel being friends with Aladdin and Jasmine. In modern high school or college, Eric would be in a abusive relationship with Vanessa then Ariel comes along and helps him end the relationship with Vanessa then he and ariel go out. Or Ariel was dating THor but Ariel doesn't want to marry THor b/c she only thinks of him as a friend and then Eric comes along then after much conflicts and drama Ariel ends up marrying Eric while THor marries some other character.
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Post by Zavi on Jan 6, 2009 15:14:24 GMT -5
Although I can't picture C.D. Barnes singing, Eric should've had a song in TLM. It would've given a much better name to the...well...no-name Disney princes. Beast/Adam barely even had a song, unless you count the Broadway show.
Haha, the Disney characters need to restrain their animal sidekicks should they ever meet up.
Max would get along well with the cast of Lady and the Tramp, of course! I can see him falling for the pretty lady-mutts and giving that dog catcher a run for his money.
Edit: So, as I'm on the first -pass revision of my fanfic, I had some thoughts about Eric's character that sparked some questions. I could go on and on with the analysis I've done, but I'd like to hear what you guys think as well.
We all know what makes Eric a strong character--his modesty, his taste to see the world on the high seas, and that heart of gold.
What makes Eric a weak character? What are his glaring flaws, and what does he have to overcome? I find these much more difficult to decipher in Disney characters, as each character's strengths are put forth the most.
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Post by fridamoonbeam on Jan 6, 2009 20:37:16 GMT -5
I think Eric's flaws are; that he overthinks, he can be a little bit of a moper. XD He's also as stubborn as Ariel is.
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Post by WickedElphie on Jan 6, 2009 21:53:48 GMT -5
I would agree with Frida's points and add:
IMO I think Eric has problems trusting his own judgement and as such can be hesitant to make a decision.
On the flipside he also doesn't have much of a self-preservation instinct and when things happen suddenly will jump into the fray without thinking things through. (See his ship sinking and rescuing Max and saving Ariel from Ursula.)
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Post by fridamoonbeam on Jan 7, 2009 1:02:46 GMT -5
Very very true. Okies, just thought of a different scenerio for an Eric/Belle story. It would be more likely that Eric maybe was on his way to meet the princess of France (begrudgingly, of course) along the way, they'd get attacked by baddits. Eric would probably try and get the rouges away from everyone else. So he'd run off and try to distract them. It end up that Eric gets knocked out cold, no one knows where he is. Enter Belle and Maurice coming back from the fair and find that someone is unconscious and just as a wolf is about to attack our poor sailor boy, Belle grabs a branch and smacks it away from him. They then take him back to their little village. Eric wakes up to pressing a cloth to his face as Belle hums. He's blown away. They begin to talk and come to find that Eric, from the blow to his head has no idea who he is. Belle feels bad for him and Maurice insists that he stay as long as he needs to. Eric offers to help out. Eric bonds with Belle and they discover little things about him, like he loves the ocean and they guess he's a sailor since he happens to know a lot about it. This happening after talking about Robinson Crusoe and how he rememberes reading it (when he was stuck at the castle, again. Which was a release for him in a way) but of course he can't place where. They see more and more that they have a lot in common, where Belle would discribe her life feeling like she was meant to be somewhere else, and he fully agrees. Anyway,I can see going to the bookstore with her, and acidently knocking over a bookself. XD Of course there would be trama with Gaston most likely. I'll stop! I need to, I'm letting this idea take more life when I'm very pro Ariel/Eric DX
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Post by Zavi on Jan 7, 2009 16:55:39 GMT -5
Yay, I'm not totally off-base!
I've always loved the fact that, even when the answer to all Eric's conflicts is sitting right in front of him with bright red hair and huge eyes, he doesn't get it. Or at least he takes a while to get it. He can be so indecisive at times, but since Ariel is the exact opposite, they fit together well. They have so much they can teach each other.
Maybe someday, Eric will learn that Max is always right...
XD
I think Belle would be interested in all the different sailing knots, or the complicated decorative ones. Ariel would be, too, but she's eager to know about everything.
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Post by fridamoonbeam on Jan 8, 2009 0:13:18 GMT -5
Naw, c'mon Zavi! You have not been way off base. You have pointed out a lot of things And yeah, lol. It always seemed funny to me that people expected Eric to have perfect memory just waking up after and explosion and almost drowning. ^^ Imho, I think he was so dead set on 'One true love' that he wasn't sure how to deal with this 'other' girl he had strong feelings for. And you're right, I think Ariel and Eric could learn a lot from one another, and that's why their such a good match. XD I said it before and I'll say it again; Max was the most intelligent character in TLM. ^^
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Post by Zavi on Jan 8, 2009 15:17:45 GMT -5
Aww, thanks. ^^; My best friend's a diehard Shang fan and she said Eric was kind of a wimp. I totally went on a giant spiel to defend him. We have the best arguments about Disney (and everything) and it's fun to get so into things like this.
I think he may have felt like a jerk, having strong feelings for two girls at once. He had his heart set on something and he didn't want to give it up, no matter how charming the mute girl was. Perhaps he'd been around the worldly sailors too much and wanted to set himself apart from the philanderers.
People underestimate how much Eric and Ariel have to teach each other, too. They've got just enough in common to get along well and enough complementary traits to help each other grow. I think, with some time together, they'll balance each other out a bit.
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Post by WickedElphie on Jan 8, 2009 22:26:12 GMT -5
Wordy McWordWord Zavi.
Ariel and Eric have plenty of both similar and opposing traits, which allows for them to both act as compliment and counterpoint to each other.
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Post by Aquisha on Jan 8, 2009 23:11:42 GMT -5
Oh guys, I am so excited that this thread is doing so well! It makes me exceptionally happy!
I totally agree; Ariel and Eric bring out the best in each other and have a lot of opposites going on. Ariel is just the personification of life and spirit and adventure but she has the potential to be mature and take on leadership roles and give direction (i.e. "In Harmony"). Eric leads on his ship and having the kingdom probably made him grow up really fast and take on a lot of responsibility which he handles really well, but everytime he goes on a ship he finds that bit of adventure that's dormant in him when he's on land. To me at least, they're flip sides of a coin; they posses the same qualities but different ones are dominant. I don't know; I just think that their relationship works really well because of that.
Now that I've proven how much I've overanalized this movie...I agree with fridamoonbeam and WickedElphie that Eric overthinks a lot. Unlike Ariel, I don't think he makes many quick impulse decisions (there are exceptions but, for the most part...), and I think that his inability to just "do" something really gets in his way.
I have a question to put out there for everyone: What do we think happened to Eric's family? Does he have an existing sibling or parent or what? I think the answer to that question determines a lot about him so I'd like to know what everyone thinks about it.
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Post by fridamoonbeam on Jan 9, 2009 0:00:23 GMT -5
ITA, Aquisha. And you're in good company when it comes to over analyzing the movie ^^
I think after writting Eric for a while (I used to be awful at writting him XD Not to say I'm great now) But I'd say that maybe Eric's mum and dad were very loving to him and supportive. But I think he may have lost them when he was REALLY little and from then on he was raised by those around him. Even though Grim loved him, I also think there was sort of this 'Let's get him grown up and become king already' vibe going on from how people spoke of him in the movie. So in a way he became like the 'Kingdom's child'
Any thoughts? LOL
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Post by Zavi on Jan 9, 2009 15:18:34 GMT -5
I get that all the time. XP I think the views on Eric's family can be so varied that there isn't really an answer in the wrong direction. Every theory can make subtle differences in his character or spark an entire plot. Eric's a pretty hard character to write because if you overplay him, he's whiny. Blech! For some reason, most everything I write is dominated by the male point of view (I have no idea why) and it's interesting to try to strike a balance with Eric. He's a character of such contrasts--gentle and strong, sensitive an stoic, bright eyes and dark hair, adventurous and cautious, with a tendency to overthink and put his neck on the line--that if you overdo one element it seems off.
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Post by seryass on Jan 9, 2009 17:03:34 GMT -5
Firstly hi everyone as this is my first post here. Little Mermaid is one of my favorite Disney movies along with Lady and the Tramp. Although I can't picture C.D. Barnes singing, Eric should've had a song in TLM. It would've given a much better name to the...well...no-name Disney princes. Beast/Adam barely even had a song, unless you count the Broadway show. Christopher Daniel Barnes actually is musically inclined and can play the guitar as well as sing (in the latter case though it's not something he does a lot of). You can actually see him play the guitar and sing in the first Brady Bunch Movie made in the 90's. Actually an extended version of the song he sings is on the CD which I own. It should be noted though that the song in this case is somewhat of a parody which is what the film itself is about (being a parody of the original Brady Bunch series). I'm guessing the reason he didn't sing in Little Mermaid is because he didn't feel confident enough since at the time he was only 16 years old. The closest we will ever get is the song in the Kingdom Hearts 2 game and even then he doesn't sing in that but just has dialogue whilst Jodi Benson and Pat Carroll do the singing.
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Post by WickedElphie on Jan 9, 2009 17:16:34 GMT -5
Aquisha! We've missed you! And by we I mean me-a lot. As for Eric's parents my personal feeling is that he lost them really young. My new favorite theory is that at least one of them was killed by pirates sinking their ship. I also feel like if he does have extended family they're really geographically distant. There's just a vibe that he's been kind of on his own. Not that there aren't people who care, just that he hasn't had that kind of familial intimacy, if that makes any sense.
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Post by fridamoonbeam on Jan 9, 2009 17:40:24 GMT -5
Oh Lord, how that makes sense Zavi. And that's why he's so interesting cause he's not completely one or the other.
When I first started writting for him, I killed off his mom when he was eleven, and how she die was that she was out for a walk one day, and over some men talking about sniking aboard his ship and 'cutting the little' jerks throat, since they were hired to start a war. She of course can't let this happen. She also knows that if she ran for help she'd be too late. So being lovely as she is, tries to distract them. It works for a while before they get her.
And that I had his pop get sick not long before he turned eighteen.
But as I thought about things more; it really doesn't seem like he's had anyone for a while so he kind of made family from those around him and that he was just 'used' to how things were I mean Max was probably the closest thing he had to family so it makes sense you'd risk your life for family.
I LOVE the idea of (sorry that sounds bad!!!) of one of his parents getting killed y pirates. Maybe it was his mom, and tried to get him off, but she couldn't. Which also explain why he'd be drawn to Ariel (if that makes sense....)
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Post by arielnmelody on Jan 9, 2009 21:10:11 GMT -5
Max would get along well with the cast of Lady and the Tramp, of course! I can see him falling for the pretty lady-mutts and giving that dog catcher a run for his money.
lol I read this and died laughing thats great. But Ive got a question for you all. What about Erics Parents? What do you think happened to them? Why are they never mentioned to me I get the feeling Grimsby raised Eric.
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Post by Zavi on Jan 10, 2009 13:13:10 GMT -5
Under-confident protagonists are hard to write in general. I'm sure Eric likes himself, but he needs to learn to trust himself more. Ariel will certainly help in teaching him that.
I think the fact that Eric has no parents and no siblings puts all the more responsibility on Eric's plate. He has to rule the kingdom whether he likes it or not, and depending on how good (or bad) the previous rulers were, it sets the stage for how people will view him as a ruler.
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Post by arielnmelody on Jan 10, 2009 13:35:48 GMT -5
Well yes thats true but I still ponder on what happened to them?
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Post by fathomsbelow on Jan 10, 2009 16:03:33 GMT -5
I think that the weakness I see in Eric is his stubbornness--he refuses to consider Ariel as a love interest at first, because he thinks she couldn't possibly be the girl who saved him, since she's mute. Well, I was under the impression that his parents died when he was younger, and Grimsby pretty much raised him after that, since they seem to have a close relationship. He's always looking out for him, and Eric looks after Grimsby( hence he saved him from drowning in the storm ). I love the Eric/Belle plot! It's really interesting, and I can so imagine him knocking over a bookshelf XD.
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Post by Aquisha on Jan 10, 2009 16:54:56 GMT -5
It's so funny how we've all filled in the blank spots of Eric's character with the same traits and backstory!
I agree with everyone that Eric's parents are dead. For me, I like the idea of his mother dying in childbirth, leaving Eric and his father to have a really close relationship. Then I think that his father died at sea when he was around ten. This left him in the care of Grimsby and Carlotta who had always been there but were now officially parent figures for him. At least that's how I see it for now. I think I've said this somewhere on the forum before, but I think it would be really interesting to play around with the idea of Eric having a little sister. I just think that Eric would be a great big brother and Ariel would be a fantastic big sister!
And I just have to say how happy I am to hear that people are writing stories with Eric as a major character! There are just not enough stories like that out there! Don't get me wrong, Ariel swimming around with Sebastian and Flounder is great, but that's kinda what the series was for. Yay for writing about Ariel AND Eric; something that thanks to the sequel and prequel, we fans have not seen enough of.
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