In reading Cristina Bacchilega and Marie Alohalani Brown’s “Introduction: The Stories We Tell about Mermaids and Other Water Spirits” (Penguin, ix-xxii), I found that humans’ never-ending obsession with merfolk and hybrid humanoids comes from our obsession with ourselves. Ancient stories of mermaids and their deadly power may be proof that we feared these aquatic beings because they were mysterious and terrifying monsters, but I think they induced so much fear because we knew humans to have conscious minds. Minds capable of free will to be harmful or evil. A large animal, we can kill with no forethought or deep fear, but a clever mermaid who is just as capable of killing us, that’s what’s scary. Those same human minds and capabilities are also what attract us to merfolk. We can’t help but be curious about what it means to be human to merpeople and to desire connection with them. As much as it entices us, “we humans do not deal well with betwixt or between” (Brown xi). We like our boxes and labels, and having clear lines drawn. We don’t want to mix, or at least we are taught that we don’t want to mix.

Wanting what we cannot have seems to be a timeless and universal trope for us humans. Lacking the ability to live in the ocean and the constant threat of death by drowning make us all the more curious. We crave the knowledge of the seas because we physically can’t experience it. Like the forbidden fruit, we want something even more when we are told we cannot have it. What lies beyond in the unknown, beyond a human-centered world, consistently calls to us.
It is so strange to me how humans are capable of being so fearful yet so enthralled and attracted to something at the same time. Nowadays, we sit at home and watch things like murder mysteries and documentaries in order to feel that fear. We also watch them because we are so intrigued by what we do not know or understand.