Lol. It took people posting pics of Freya and Wendy side by side to convince me that Wendy WAS Freya, so I see what you mean.
I do think Lanie is a very pretty and she does have an Ariel look, and after looking at some pics on Google, her hair is a nice natural gingery. That can’t be coincidence. And they would have always darken it if they thought it was called for.
BUT I think it’s more likely that they’ll give us Tinkerbell before they give us Ariel since we are seeing Pan’s *uber creepy* shadow in SSTR. The TVGuide quote said that mermaids AND fairies exist in NL and that will pay off. I guess we’ll know for sure in a week and a half.
Also, I think Tinker Bell is a far sexier role for a teenager like Laine MacNeil to play than the Little Mermaid. Tinker Bell is portrayed in the Disney version as a pixie vixen, with a very short dress who struts her little bottom like a little minx. She’s also extremely volatile and jealous, and not at all a cute or innocent little girl-like fairy. I think that role would be better played by an older, sexy actress in her 20s.
I think it all comes down to how they want to tell their story. In one of the interviews H and K said that they were doing NL and PP completely different, for instance the shadow in SSTR is not the “cuddly” shadow of Disney. So it stands to reason that their Ariel AND their Tink will be vastly different from the iterations we’re thinking of. We were so convinced Freya would be playing Ariel and now we know she’s Wendy. But since we know the focus is on NL and traditionally Ariel is NOT associated with NL and that’s a much bigger reveal for S3, I think I’m standing by Lanie as Tink.
But again: mostly, I’m just thrilled we’re getting Ariel at all. That’s probably been the biggest asked for character since the show began.