The Magic Fish is a graphic novel by Trung Le Nguyen. It was published in 2020.
Hien and her husband are Vietnamese refugees getting by and providing the best for their son. She's saving money so they can take a family trip to see her mother. In the meantime, she and Tien bond over telling stories, while Tien is struggling on realizing that he's gay. When tragedy strikes, Hien only hopes that she can find the way to communicate with her son.
The fairy tales mentioned are Tattercoats, a variant on Catskin;Tam and Cam and The Little Mermaid.
Tropes for this graphic novel include:
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: Hien enforces this after her child's homeroom teacher forces him out of the closet. She gets mad on his behalf and grabs the copy of The Little Mermaid, telling Tien that she will be finishing the tale tonight. Instead of the mermaid dying while her prince marries someone else but achieving a soul in the process, Bertie the prima ballerina reveals that she politely declined Brandon's marriage proposal; while he's not a bad guy, he's a bit of a tool and more like a brother to her. Bertie then comes to Ondine, the transformed mermaid, and says that she loves her, asking if Ondine will give her a chance. The mermaid finds herself able to speak and gives a Big "YES!".
- Adaptational Badass: Alera is braver than her Tattercoats counterpart, downright demanding her freedom. She shows no fear of royalty and faces the Old Man of the Sea when he comes hunting her down. All the while, she remains a Badass Pacifist.
- Adaptational Heroism:
- Alera's father doesn't want to marry her; that's a mercy. Instead, the Old Man of the Sea demands her as payment, and the merchant is too weak-willed to argue. Aunt Velvet has to step in and point out that the Old Man must make the bargain with Alera.
- Tam isn't the one who boils her stepsister alive. Instead, a bird tells Cam that Tam boils herself in sesame oil every night to take off her old skin. Cam is stupid enough to follow those instructions. The bird also collects the Cam's cooked remains in a jar, leaving it out for the stepmother to sniff and eat.
- Adaptational Intelligence: Cam's husband was a prince in the original fairy tale who was obligated to marry Tam after his wife mysteriously disappeared. Here, he's a merchant and squints at her stepmother and sister in suspicion when they lie that Cam hasn't been home in days.
- Adaptational Species Change: The original girl in Tattercoats was an ordinary human. Here, her mother and aunt are merfolk, with Aunt Velvet revealing her true form after coming to rescue her niece from the Old Man of the Sea.
- Big Bad Slippage: It's noted that Tam didn't hate Cam personally in the beginning; most of the time, she looks at her stepsister with pity when her mother is ordering Cam around. Years pass before the pity becomes envy, as she obeys her mothers' every order, no matter how cruel each one is. What does her in is her envy about how Cam is still beautiful, while Tam is subject to natural aging.
- Chekhov's Gun: The pearl necklace in "Tam and Cam". At first, the stepmother is wearing it and passes it onto Tam. Her finding it in a jar of meat makes her realize she was eating her own daughter.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Scenes (and even individual panels) are color-coded based on when they take place:
- All the scenes that take place in the present have a red-and-pink color palette.
- The fairy tales take place in shades of blue, with small pops of orange and red for important props that recur in across the three tales (like peaches and blood).
- Flashbacks to the past are colored in yellow and gold. These are mainly reserved for scenes of Hien's life in post-war Vietnam.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Tien raises his voice while arguing with a friend. His homeroom teacher gives him detention as a result. Later, she forces him out of the closet and tells his mother because at a religious school, being gay is a sin.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Each of the girls in the fairy tales do this:
- Alera reveals herself to the prince, while Aunt Velvet saves her from the Old Man of the Sea, turning him into a harmless squid. Prince Maxwell is more than thrilled to realize that the princess he loved was his new best friend, and embraces her.
- When Tam returns to life thanks to the merchant's dream of her beneath a peach tree, she ignores her stepmother and Cam while going to pay respects to her dead father. One of her bird friends whispers to Cam that if she boils herself in sesame oil as Tam does, then she'll be beautiful. Cam does so and dies, with the bird collecting her remains in a jar. Her mother eats the meat, only to realize too late it was her daughter and dies of shock.
- In Hien's version of The Little Mermaid, Brandon isn't a prince but a ballet dancer. He foists off caring for the mermaid-human on his coworker-crush Bertie. Bertie finds herself falling for Ondine while they perform on stage, and in the end, asks if they can be together, offering her heart. The mermaid finds herself able to speak and gives a Big "YES!" about spending a life with Bertie, short by mermaid standards but an eternity for humans.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Tam looks horrified when her mother bites off the head of the bird she has caught that was accusing them of murder. Not helping is the bird's blood is dripping from her mother's mouth.
- Everyone Has Standards: Though he doesn't offer up his own soul in his daughter's place, Alera's father looks incredibly guilty when the Old Man of the Sea tries to claim her.
- Exact Words:
- Alera knows this trope and treats it with finesse. She says she will "consider" the Old Man of the Sea's marriage proposal if he produces her three impossible dresses. When he ends up doing it, Aunt Velvet helps her run away before she has to take more drastic means. The Old Man finds her, but Alera said she never accepted his proposal, only that she would consider it. Aunt Velvet finds this a suitable loophole and goes Mama Bear on the Old Man for trying to forcibly marry her niece.
- The sea witch told the mermaid that she would live as a human if she could win the heart of her beloved. It turns out the mermaid realizes that Brandon isn't her love, as he treats her as a new dance partner, and finds herself falling for Bertie. Bertie then asks if "Ondine" will give her a chance, offering her heart. Ondine is thrilled and gives a Big "YES!".
- Familial Cannibalism Surprise:
- A variant; the stepmother sees Cam being happy, and orders Tam to investigate. She catches the fish that Cam had befriended, and turned it into soup, ordering Cam to eat every last drop after revealing this fact to her.
- The stepmother suffers Laser-Guided Karma when a bird convinces Tam to boil herself in sesame oil and then puts her cooked remains in a jar. When she smells the sesame, the stepmother can't stop herself from eating the meat and nibbling at it. The same bird flies by and asks if her daughter tastes good; when she swipes at it, the stepmother knocks over the jar and sees a jawbone in it, as well as a pearl necklace she had given to Tam. She dies from shock on the spot.
- Fate Worse than Death: Alera's father, when she runs away to seek sanctuary, becomes the Old Man of the Sea's slave, carrying him from place to place. It's implied even death won't save him, giving a walking skeleton was carrying the Old Man earlier.
- Mama Bear:
- Aunt Velvet doesn't approve of Alera's father selling her to the Old Man of the Sea. She says that the bargain needs to be with Alera and her choice alone. Later, Aunt Velvet takes on the Old Man of the Sea to protect her niece pointing out that Alera didn't agree to be his wife.
- Hien is a pacifist version of this. She doesn't appreciate that Tien's teachers forced him out of the closet when he wasn't ready to tell her and informed "Helen" as they call her. Instead of getting angry at them, knowing it won't help, she retells the tale of the Little Mermaid to show him that she'll always love her son, no matter what.
- Obliviously Evil: Tien's homeroom teacher and the priest she calls are smiling when they find out he's gay. He even says he hasn't told his parents because he doesn't have the words. The priest says that is a blessing because parents react to a child coming out of the closet as a death in the family, a great loss. This is while he knows that Tien just lost his grandmother, and his mother is attending the funeral.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Tam normally greets her stepmother with warmth and politeness, even with all of the abuse that she suffered. When she comes back to pay respects to her dead father, returning to life after her stepmother stabbed her in the back her look is stony-cold and dismissive. The stepmother is appropriately alarmed.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: The actual tale of Tam and Cam has more twists and turns, with Tam marrying a prince and Cam later marrying him per tradition after her mother murders her stepsister. Here, the love interest is a mere business merchant and it's shown that he's smarter than the prince by being suspicious of his in-laws after Tam disappears. It also cuts out Tam personally killing Cam to avenge her first death, so as to make her look less like He Who Fights Monsters.
- Shout-Out: In Hien's retelling of The Little Mermaid, Bertie's ballet costume for the role of Palemon in Ondine resembles the dueling costume worn by Utena. Aside from being a fun shout-out, this foreshadowing how Bertie rejects Brandon's proposal (who fills the traditional role of "Prince" in "The Little Mermaid," having been saved by Ondine when his ship capsized) because she has fallen for Ondine the mermaid.
- Too Dumb to Live: You probably shouldn't listen to a bird that says boiling yourself in sesame oil will make you look eternally beautiful.
- A Wizard Did It: Hien gives her aunt a funny look when she says that Cam came back to life after her husband had a dream of a peach tree. The aunt handwaves it by saying that the story changes every time a person retells it to the next generation.
