This one is actually hard to explain because after the first third, they aren't even the same story. The little mermaid is one of 6 sisters. All of them were interested in the surface but the little mermaid the most fascinated, especially that she had a sunken statue of a boy. She was the bravest and when a ship was going past in a storm, she saved the prince and brought him to shore. She found out from her grandmother that mermaids did not have an eternal soul like men on the land, however she could obtain one if she was married to a man. She wanted the prince and the prince wanted her because he wanted she who saved him, but he didn't know exactly who she was. When the little mermaid went to the sea witch the sea witch offered to turn her tail into legs if she gave her her tongue, which was the most beautiful sounding in world land and sea. She went to the surface and became 'a human' without a voice. The prince found her and took her in. Always commenting that he either wanted to marry the girl who took him from the shore to the temple, or the girl who took him to the shore, and he didn't remember the girl who took him to the shore, but that the little mermaid looked the most like her he'd ever seen. After this the events really take off in completely different story directions. The ending isn't just completely different than the movie, it's a whole different story. I mean, the movie isn't even a *variation* of the book. It's a different story with new different and developed characters that was *inspired* *by the beginning* of the book. It's an absolute abomination that they'd take on the name of the book really.