Nerissa

* Chelsea
* Regular mermaid form
* Nerissa

> I'm Chelsea! Chelsea Van Der Zee! It's Dutch.
>
> "Chelsea" as she introduces herself to Ruby

**Queen Nerissa**, known by her human disguise **Chelsea Van Der Zee**, or just **Chelsea**, is the antagonist of Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, she's a popular mermaid turned human from Oceanside High School.

## Appearance

In her human disguise known as Chelsea, Nerissa has the appearance of a tall, slender, beautiful fair-skinned teenager with pale blue eyes, fluttery-like eyelashes, thin brown eyebrows, and dons light blue nail polish on her finger nails. Her most distinctive feature is her long, silky, wavy knee-length red hair.

For clothing, Nerissa usually dons a color scheme consisting of shades of blue; she wears navy-blue zigzag choker around her neck, a set of small hoop-earrings with tiny turquoise decorations, and a sleeveless aquamarine-blue ruffle crop-top. She also wore sparkly-teal-blue bell-bottom loose jeans and simple white sneakers.

In her base mermaid form, the only change physically is gaining a turquoise mermaid tail with dark orange spikes and fin tips.

In her giant (titan) mermaid form, Nerissa seems to have another mermaid form, possibly her original form, which is much larger than her human form and is around the size of a kraken. The sclera of her eyes in this form is bright blue and her iris is red; her hair is long and silvery-white and appears to be made of a watery texture, and her skin is dark red with blue patterns, and her tail has turquoise areas on her spikes and fin tips.

## Biography

Nerissa, the queen of the mermaids, had a rivalry with Grandmamah and Agatha. After the battle of the trident, she attempted to steal the Trident of Oceanus back but was unsuccessful and presumed dead.

Years later, she discovers that Agatha’s daughter is living in the surface and enrolls at Oceanside high school under the name Chelsea Van Der Zee to manipulate her into getting the Trident. She takes credit for Ruby saving Connors life and basks in the students praise while attempting to befriend Ruby.

## Personality

Nerissa is self-absorbed and thinks the world revolves around her. She is a "Little Miss Perfect" type character with very high standards at Oceanside High School, given the fact that the students love everything about her. She is a deception-master, as evidenced that none of the humans suspect who Nerissa really is, and she lacks remorse for manipulating people, and her true focus is getting power for herself. She appears to be somewhat sadistic and hates the Gilman family with a passion, and presumably all krakens.

According to Ruby's grandmother, like other Mermaids, she is vain, selfish, and narcissistic, which is easily seen even in her human form (wherein she has a persona of a dim-witted, selfish, and yet somewhat caring girl who feels just as detached from reality as Ruby does and dreams of peace between the krakens and mermaids.

The PSA promo states that Chelsea is a mermaid, they are "charming and peaceful creatures" at least to humans, however, they are actually described as violent, unpredictable, vain, and power-hungry narcissists.

## Abilities

* **Mermaid Physiology:** Like Krakens, Nerissa's form changes between land and water to accommodate for living on both.
	+ **Land-Water Adaptability:** While on land, Nerissa grows a pair of human legs. While in water, her legs are replaced with a fish tail.
	+ **Underwater Breathing:** While in her mermaid form, Nerissa is capable of breathing underwater.
	+ **Super Speed:** Nerissa is shown to be able to move incredibly fast under water on par with Ruby.
	+ **Agelessness:** Nerissa looks like a teenager despite being at least as old as Agatha Gillman. She states that mermaids don't age.

### Abilities with the Trident

When using the Trident, Nerissa takes on a more monstrous looking mermaid form that allows her to stand up to krakens.

* **Size Changing:** With the Trident, Nerissa grows to gigantic size, rivaling krakens.
	+ **Super-Strength:** Nerissa gains great strength proportionate to her size. This strength is enough to tackle krakens.

## Trivia

* Chelsea’s design is most likely a reference to Ariel from *The Little Mermaid*, as they're both mermaids with red hair, blue eyes, and a turquoise tail. However, Ariel’s tail is greener.
* Chelsea is the tenth DreamWorks Animation female main antagonist, after Mrs. Tweedy from *Chicken Run*, Eris from *Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas*, Fairy Godmother from *Shrek 2*, Chantel DuBois from *Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted*, Ms. Grunion from *Mr. Peabody & Sherman*, Chef from *Trolls*, Morgana from *Trollhunters*, Dr. Zara from *Abominable*, and Queen Barb from *Trolls World Tour*.
* Chelsea appears to be able to shapeshift to some degree, as she has a human form and a mermaid form which appear very different form her presumed true form.
* Chelsea states mermaids don't age, so its likely she's the same age as Ruby's mother, Agatha Gillman, or possibly even Grandmamah.
* She says the name Van Der Zee is Dutch. This could be a reference to the character Chelsea Daniels from *That’s So Raven*, who was played by Dutch-American actress Anneliese Van Der Pol.
* ”Van Der Zee” is faux-Dutch for “of the sea”, further foreshadowing that she is a mermaid.
* In an early draft, Chelsea was more of a delinquent and her “bonding time” with Ruby involved her stealing someone else’s bike and tying a knot in the air tube of a scuba diver. In addition she had hypnotic powers. She also truly was Nerissa’s daughter and her motivations was to avenge her mothers death in addition to regaining the throne of the ocean. However, the filmmakers resolved to make Chelsea a disguise and alias for Nerissa so Agatha wouldn't have blood on her hands.
* In the trailer, when she first meets Ruby, Chelsea ousts her as a kraken and is more antagonistic. This is contrary to the movie where Chelsea attempts to bond with Ruby right away as part of her plan to manipulate her.
* Nerissa's name is derived from the nereids of Greek mythology. A group of 50 sea nymphs which were partial inspiration for the myths of mermaids.
* Nerissa claimed to have a mother who died, but in reality Nerissa never had a daughter and she was Nerissa herself.