Merliah Summers

Merliah Summers, also known as Princess Merliah or Queen of the Waves, is the main protagonist in Barbie in A Mermaid Tale series. She is a surfer from Malibu and a half-mermaid princess of Oceana. Merliah was born to Queen Calissa and Rip Summers. She is the granddaughter of Break Summers and also niece of Eris.
She was played by Barbie Roberts and voiced by Kelly Sheridan, who also voiced Starlight Glimmer from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
==History==
===Background===
Merliah is born half-human and half-mermaid. She was born in Oceana, an underwater kingdom, ruled by her mother Queen Calissa, but her father was just a normal human. When she was just a little baby, her mother gave her to Rip's father, Break, because she was born with legs and couldn't live in Oceana.
When growing up, Break thought Merliah couldn't handle the truth about her origins and told her that her parents died when she was a baby. She grew up as "super-surf champion". She also has two friends named Fallon and Hadley, and the trio loved to surf.
Merliah was also one of the competitors of the team for Malibu, winning every surfing competition, earning her the title 'Queen of The Waves'.
===Barbie in a Mermaid Tale===
One day, when she was in a surfing contest, her hair unexpectedly turned pink and after wiping out, learned she was able to breath underwater by hearing a pink, sparkly dolphin named Zuma talking to her. When she got home, Break told her the truth about her past, but she had trouble believing it. After speaking with her friends at the seaside, Zuma tells her that everything Break told her was true, and that her mother Calissa was once Queen of Oceania before Eris overthrew her. Still not believing her, she yanked off the magical necklace given to her as a baby and threw it to the ground, revealing an image of her mother, confirming that she is still alive. She agrees to go with Zuma to Oceana, but just to see her mother to change her back to just a "normal" girl. Upon her arrival in Oceana, they hide themselves in a fashion boutique owned by Kayla and Xylie as the Eris Festival begins.
After the festival, she meets the owners, and they give her a fake tail to hide her legs in so she can swim around in. Following this, she goes to see The Destinies; three oracles who can see the future. They tell her she must retrieve three items: the Celestial Comb, a dreamfish and Eris's own protective necklace. One of them also tells her that Fallon will be promoted to the varsity surf team before the next surf meet. After this, she begins her quest. After getting some help from Fallon and Hadley, Merliah and her friends seek out the comb. Over the course of her adventure, however, she starts to accept her mermaid half. Merliah learns that, what makes you different may be your greatest strength. This is proven after she succeeds in the first two tasks with retrieving the Celestial Comb and acquiring a Dreamfish.
Upon returning to Oceana to get her aunt Eris' necklace, Merliah, aided by Kayla and Xylie, attempts to impress Eris with a performance of "Queen of the Waves" in her honor, but once Merliah gets Eris' necklace, realizing she'd been tricked, Eris sends her manta sharks after Merliah, who manage to bite and pull off her fake mermaid tail to expose her human legs to the merpeople, including Eris. Pleased with having finally found her niece after all these years after Calissa sent her into hiding, Eris prepares to banish Merliah to the deepest trench in the ocean in one of her whirlpools. After being sucked in, unable to escape, Merliah calls the Dreamfish, who offers to return her to the surface and erase her mermaid half forever so she can live as a normal human being.
However, after all she's been through, Merliah refuses to give up her mermaid half of herself, finally accepting it is a part of her. This results in Merliah being magically transformed into a full-fledged real mermaid, with a powerful tail that she is able to use to escape Eris' whirlpool, to Eris' shock and prove to the merpeople of Oceana that she is Calissa's daughter and the rightful heir to the throne. After then revealing that Queen Calissa is still alive, but imprisoned by Eris, Merliah finally realizes why Eris is so angry and jealous: Despite being born in the royal family, Eris is the only one who can't make Merillia and she hates being different.
Despite Eris trying to deny her niece's accusations, Merliah knows she's right, and in a fit of rage, Eris tries to attack her niece, but thanks to Merliah's powerful mermaid tail, Eris ends up being trapped in her own whirlpool and carried off to be imprisoned in the deepest trench in the ocean, freeing Oceana from her tyranny. Afterwards, Merliah frees her mom and reunites with her, before Snouts returns Calissa's crown to her, making her once more the rightful and true monarch of Oceana. With her position as queen restored and freed of her imprisonment, Calissa restores the ocean life force now that her Merillia was at full strength again due to her restored freedom, and returns to a joyful population happy to have their true Mermaid Queen back in power with her daughter and Crown Princess joining her.
However, despite being offered to stay in Oceana with her mom and fellow merpeople, Merliah is worried about her friends back on land and her grandfather Break, so Calissa offers Merliah a necklace that will allow her to transform back and forth between human and mermaid whenever she wants. With that, Merliah bids her mom and Oceana goodbye for the time being as she returns to Malibu and reunites with her grandfather. Later, as she resumes her surfing career, she wins the trophy for the competition she was training for, as it is seen with Calissa as she watches Merliah practice her surfing skills, before joining her friends, grandfather, mom, and animal friends in Zuma and Snouts with having found balance in her life between her human and mermaid halves and reunited her family.
===Barbie in a Mermaid Tale 2===
In Oceana, the residents were celebrating Merliah's one-year anniversary of her arrival to Oceana. In the human world, with support from Break, Hadley and Fallon, Merliah was competing in the annual Surf Invitational at Laguna Beach. Merliah and her biggest surfing rival, Kylie Morgan from Australia, were very competitive with each other. In the competition, Fallon came third place, Kylie was second, and Merliah was first. The next part of the competition would see Kylie, Merliah, Fallon and their friends going to the World Championship Surf Invitational in Australia. Snouts came to see Merliah, so she went with him to tell her mother about the surf meet. Transforming back into her mermaid form, Merliah heads to Oceana, where she is given a heartfelt welcome back by the merpeople, who are happy to see their princess again in having come home for a visit.
When Merliah meets up with her mom, Calissa showed Merliah her seashell, and Merliah watched her mother's memories of her first Changing of the Tides Ceremony. Calissa explained that to make Merillia, a mermaid in the royal family had to sit on a throne in the city of Aquellia. Then, they must recite an ancient rite. At mid-day, they would be able to make Merillia. Calissa wanted Merliah to see the ceremony, but Merliah often considered the World Championship Surf Invitational to be more important. After an argument, Merliah refuses to go to the ceremony and leaves her mother to return to shore and get ready for the invitational, leaving Calissa heartbroken from her decision.
In Australia, Kylie won the first round of the World Championship Surf Invitational. However, at one point, she kicked Merliah off of her surfboard, and it caused Merliah to do a handstand while she surfed. When they returned to the shore, everyone ignored Kylie, even though she won first place and Merliah won the second place. A group of people went to interview Merliah about her handstand, and she was even picked to be a model for a surf gear company by its founder, Georgie Majors. Their first photo shoot took place that night at a luau. While Merliah was modelling, she had to take off her magic necklace because it wasn't made by Wavecrest. She gave it to Hadley to keep safe.
Meanwhile, Kylie was told by Alistair, an evil fish, that Merliah's necklace gave her a magical advantage. Kylie decided to listen to him and stole the necklace while Hadley was busy eating. Kylie used it to became a mermaid and went to the bottom of the deepest trench of the ocean with Alistair, while Merliah, Hadley, and Fallon looked for her necklace. In the ocean, Snouts witnessed Kylie being trapped in Eris' whirlpool by Alistair. With Kylie inside, Eris was freed. Snouts went to Merliah, who was still looking for her necklace hours later. Merliah could sense that the ocean was in danger, so she followed Snouts to the whirlpool, hoping she would be back in time for the final part of the surf competition.
However, Merliah tied a plant around her waist and went into the whirlpool that Kylie was in. Kylie was freed, but the current of the whirlpool was so strong and the plant tied around Merliah wasn't strong enough to pull her out. Kylie and Snouts helped her to climb out, and the whirlpool disappeared, self-destructing on itself without a mermaid to keep imprisoned in it. Kylie told Merliah that Eris had gotten out of the whirlpool. Merliah explained to Kylie that Eris is her aunt, and she would have to stay in Oceana to stop Eris, so Kylie apologized to Merliah for stealing her necklace and tries to give it back to her, but her mermaid tail turned into legs and Kylie loses the ability to breathe underwater, and Merliah decided give her necklace to Kylie to prevent her from drowning and Kylie decided to stay and help.
Queen Calissa was at Aquellia preparing for the Changing of the Tides Ceremony with mermaid ambassadors from different oceans. Eris found them and made their worst nightmares come true, so Calissa could no longer swim, and she sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Merliah could sense that her mother was in trouble and met up with Zuma. They found Calissa, and Merliah and her mother apologized for their misunderstanding. Merliah, Zuma, Kylie and Snouts were unable to lift Calissa from the ocean floor even when working together. Merliah decided she would sit on the throne in Aquellia instead of Calissa and lose her legs forever to save her mother and Oceana. In Aquellia, Merliah and her friends got past Eris’ henchmen, large evil fish named Stargazers, and saved the ambassadors.
After getting Eris away from the throne, Merliah sat on it and recited the rite for the Changing of the Tides Ceremony. Unfortunately, because she had no tail due to Kylie having her necklace, nothing happened. Kylie stopped Eris from hurting Merliah and gave Merliah back her necklace. She quickly became a mermaid again and was able to reflect one of Eris’ nightmare spells back at her. Once the ceremony was performed, Queen Calissa and the ambassadors’ nightmares were gone. Merliah gave Kylie the necklace to wear so she could breathe underwater. Calissa soon returns now that she was free of her sister's spell and reunites with Merliah, proud of her for saving the ceremony and stopping Eris from gaining the power to make Merillia.
Alistair pretends he wasn’t working with Eris at all, so one of the ambassadors considers making him a pet. Everyone then notices Eris, who’s worst nightmare came true: she had legs instead of her mermaid tail, and would have them forever. While Eris is locked away somewhere secure by the ambassadors, Merliah felt sad that she would never be able to surf again, but she was supportive of Kylie anyway. They went back up the surface to watch Kylie compete. Kylie wanted to give Merliah back her necklace, but Calissa and Merliah decided she should keep it because she helped to save the ocean.
However, Merliah told her mother she wished that she was could still change back so she could show a new trick to Kylie. Suddenly, with just those words, Merliah was able to become a human again. Merliah was overjoyed and Calissa told her that, because the ritual at the ceremony transforms a mermaid into her fullest self, Merliah’s fullest self was clearly both human and mermaid. Merliah got to surf in the final stage of the competition, but because she was able to make Merillia, she became distracted and lost to Kylie. 
When Kylie was being rewarded, Georgie Majors offered to make her a surf gear model beside Merliah. Kylie decided to share her trophy with Merliah, because she felt that it was special to be a part of something big. They held up the trophy together, and were cheered on by the hundreds of people in the crowd.
==Personality==
Princess Merliah is competitive, optimistic, proud, and brave. She loves to surf more than anything, and sometimes puts her own desires and wants over the needs of others—but she always does the right thing in the end. Although she has come to embrace her mermaid heritage, she loves to spend time with her friends above and below the waves.
==Trivia==
*Her name is originally Marisa.
*She appearing in the bloopers from both films.
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