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Comment by jbrnh | Hacker News Reader

I think it is a commonly held view that HC Andersen conceived of TLM after his unreciprocated love interest in his (male) friend. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hans-christian-andersen_n_563...

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Your link doesn't seem to support what you're saying? It says that he wrote his letter about Riborg (a woman) and sent it to Christian (her brother) as a confessional. After Riborg's death, it was found she had kept Andersen's poems about her.

> After Riborg's death, it was found she had kept Andersen's poems about her.

LOL, brutal.

The link is a different story, but it is often assumed The Little Mermaid was inspired by Andersens affection for the male friend Edward Collin. He was not able to express his feelings, which inspired the mermaid literally losing her voice and (in the original story) having to witness her love marry someone else and not being able to do anything about it.

I don't know if this biographical reading is valid, but the interpretation predates the Disney version and have nothing to do with modern identity politics. If anything, the Disney version tones down this subtext.

The article is very clear that Riborg, the woman he never got over, is in fact a woman, though he wrote of interest in men as well as women. He focused his affections on the unattainable until his death at 70 years of age.

The link doesn’t support the implication you’re making.

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