King Triton (Disney)

King Triton is one of the two overarching protagonists (alongside Queen Athena) in The Little Mermaid franchise. He is the King of Atlantica and the father of the titular Ariel. His character is somewhat similar to the Greek Mythology sea god, Poseidon.
He was originally voiced by the late Kenneth Mars in the first two films, and is currently voiced by Jim Cummings since 2008 in English and the late in Japanese. He is be portrayed in the live action remake by , who also portrayed Stilgar in Dune (2021) and its 2024 sequel and Hector P. Valenti in Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile.
==Overview==
Triton is the king of the underwater Kingdom of Atlantica. He is the husband of the late Queen Athena, and the widowed father of seven daughters: Attina, Alana, Adella, Aquata, Arista, Andrina, and Ariel. He is also the father-in-law of Prince Eric and the grandfather of Ariel and Eric's daughter Melody.
His arch-enemy was Ursula, the old sea-witch who was once a senior member of the Court of King Triton. She has for many years been seeking a way to exact her revenge upon King Triton for banishing her from the kingdom and become queen of the ocean.
==Appearance==
He is a huge, muscular merman. As King of Atlantica, he has in his possession a powerful magical trident which appears to be made of gold. It emits a glowing light and typical sound when in use. Furthermore, he wears a five-pointed crown resembling a sea star and two arm bracelets, which also appear to be made out of gold.
==Personality==
TBA
==Biography==
===The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning===
Triton was having a happy time with his seven daughters, and wife, Queen Athena. He understood that Athena loved music so much, that he even gave her a music box as a present. However, one day, Athena is killed by human pirates when she was trying to retrieve her music box. Traumatized forever by the death of his beloved wife, Triton held a huge hatred towards humans and music, banned all music from Atlantica, and forced everyone (including himself) to follow a strict routine. Ariel is annoyed by this routine, which caused an argument with her father. Triton then forces Ariel to pick out barnacles as punishment for tickling Adella during their walk.
Later, when Triton finds out that his daughters and his servant, Sebastian, were secretly part of a music club called the Catfish Club Band, thanks to the governess Marina Del Rey, he locks Sebastian and the Catfish Club Band and confines his daughters in the palace.
Ariel asks why the kingdom can't have music, but Triton ignores her question since he was trying to forget the incident years ago. Ariel tries to tell Triton she and her sisters love music, to which Triton angrily screams that he won't have music in his kingdom. However, when Ariel tells him that Athena wouldn't have wanted music banned, Triton started realizing that he was doing things wrong.
Somewhere in the kingdom, as he looked at the statue of him and his late wife, Triton started feeling sorry for what he did to Ariel and Sebastian.
The next day, Marina, who was now the new attaché of Triton, was overjoyed. However, Triton didn't have any interest in her since he still felt guilty about his actions. When his oldest daughter, Attina, tells him that Ariel is gone, Triton decides to free Sebastian from prison. Marina's servant, Benjamin, tells Triton that Sebastian is gone too, so Triton decides to find Ariel and Sebastian on his own.
When he finds Ariel and Sebastian, he gets shocked when he witnesses Ariel protecting Sebastian from Marina. Triton quickly swims to his daughter and sees that she has found Athena's music box, causing him to completely feel regret and remorse for his actions. When Ariel regains consciousness, Triton apologizes to his daughter for not listening to her, and they both embrace before returning home.
Triton then announces to all of Atlantica that music will return to the kingdom, much to Ariel's delight. The film ends with Triton dancing with his family and friends.
===The Little Mermaid: The Series===
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===Sebastian: Party Gras!===
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===The Little Mermaid===
In The Little Mermaid, Triton shows severe distaste for humans, and Ariel's fascination with them strains their relationship. Because of this, Triton orders his servant, Sebastian, to look after Ariel. When Triton discovers that Ariel has fallen in love with a human prince named Eric, he destroys her grotto and collection of human artifacts in a fit of barbaric rage. After Ariel disappears, Triton subsequently orders a search for her to apologize, not knowing that she has accepted Ursula's deal and become a human. When Sebastian arrives with news of Ursula's scheme, he offers to take his daughter's place to regret his actions. Triton is transformed into a polyp by Ursula, but is restored to his original form when she is defeated by Eric. Seeing that Ariel really does love Eric and that Eric proved he is different, Triton uses his trident to transform Ariel into a human.
===The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea===
Triton appears in the sequel, The Little Mermaid II: Return To The Sea, where he meets his newborn granddaughter Melody and gifts her a necklace to show her mermaid heritage.
However, after Melody's life is threatened by Ursula's sister Morgana, Ariel decides that for Melody's safety, she must not know about the sea or her mermaid heritage, meaning that she cannot have contact with Triton and the other merfolk. Triton reluctantly throws the necklace away into the water and assigns Sebastian to watch over Melody for him. 12 years later after Melody goes out to sea, Triton turns Ariel back into a mermaid to find her.
Morgana tricks Melody into stealing Triton's trident and makes Triton and the other merfolk bow to her, but Melody (being human) is immune to the spell and takes back the trident and gives it to Triton, who defeats Morgana by trapping her in a block of ice. Triton then asks Melody if she wishes to be a mermaid permanently, but Melody instead wishes to destroy the wall that was built to stop her getting to the sea all those years ago.
==Video Games==
===Kingdom Hearts===
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==Trivia==
*The death of King Triton's wife, Queen Athena, may be the reason why he forbade Ariel and his other daughters from interacting with humans in the original film. Athena's death was a misunderstanding because the ship had unintentionally crushed her.
*A theory among Disney fans is that King Triton, alongside his daughters (including Ariel) are related to Hercules. King Triton confirms that Poseidon is his father in one of the episodes of the animated series, and if true, would make him cousins with Hercules, whose father is Zeus whose brother is Poseidon. However, it is not confirmed whether or not the Disney incarnation of Poseidon is fact his father as Hercules is set roughly 3000 years before The Little Mermaid.  However this can also be countered by the fact that King Triton is technically a god and thus is immortal.
*He is the second father of a Disney Princess to be alive after King Stefan he is also the first father to be a widow and the first to be a grandfather, the third being Maurice, the fourth being The Sultan, the fifth being Chief Powhatan, the sixth being Fa Zhou, the Seventh being King Frederic, the eighth being King Fergus, the ninth being Chief Tui and the tenth being Chief Benja
==External links==
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