Ursula

Ursula is an antagonist and a member of The Villains.

## Character Information

### Personality

Power-hungry, evil, manipulative, ambitious, vengeful, cruel, sinister, ruthless, elegant, greedy, persuasive, psychotic, highly intelligent, crafty, arrogant, murderous, cunning, pompous, wrathful, sultry, immoral, conceited, megalomaniacal, selfish, menacing, sadistic, fiendish, vain, glamorous, baleful, confident, flamboyant, violent, two-faced, eccentric, nefarious, classy, conniving, scheming, opportunistic, malevolent, traitorous, belligerent, demonic, hegemonic, heinous, mysterious

## **BIOGRAPHY**

Ursula (also known as the Sea Witch) is the main antagonist of Disney's 1989 animated feature film *The Little Mermaid*. After being banished from Atlantica by her longstanding rival, King Triton, a scorned Ursula vowed to exact vengeance by harnessing the power of the king's trident and installing herself as ruler of all the ocean.

To accomplish her goals, Ursula strikes deals with unfortunate merfolk that will (supposedly) make their dreams come true, but are covertly designed to advance Ursula's own ambitions. Princess Ariel, being one such merfolk, trades her voice to Ursula in exchange for human legs. Should Ariel fail to uphold her end of the deal by winning the love of Prince Eric, she will be bound to Ursula, and thusly used as a bargaining chip for Triton's crown.

Outside of Atlantica, she is also a member of the Villains. She is also the one who made the contract for Homura to stay on the villains if she was willing to protect Madoka Kaname.

## **APPEARANCE**

Ursula is a morbidy obese octopid. She has light lavender-skinned, white-haired cecaelia and from the waist down has six black octopus-like tentacles with violet suckers. Although she has a light complexion, the area around Ursula's eyes is a darker shade than the rest of her skin, in addition to having gray eyes and a mole on the right side of her mouth. She is always seen wearing makeup, in particular, she has aqua blue eye shadow, deep red lipstick, and red nails. She wears purple coral shell earrings and a gold nautilus shell necklace.

## **PERSONALITY**

By nature, Ursula was very dark in tone, with a wicked sense of humor. After her banishment from Atlantica, the sea witch established herself as a physical beacon of hope towards unfortunate merpeople, allowing them to strike deals and business propositions that would supposedly result in their happiness, should they successfully fulfill their end of the bargain. During such deals, she speaks in a grandmotherly tone, as if her only concern is the satisfaction of her customers. This makes her schemes easier to fall for, though should she feel a deal is going nowhere, she resorts to pressuring her victims into accepting her offer, additionally portraying herself as their last attempt at making their dreams come true. However, if Ariel's deal is to be believed, Ursula sadistically ensures her customers fail at upholding their end of the deal, resulting in their souls being forever in her possessions and their bodies becoming permanent members of her living garden, as polyps. The motivation of such practices are never revealed for any individual other than Ariel, whom Ursula uses to obtain power over the seas, implying the sea witch simply enjoys causing havoc to the innocent, having no sense of true morality or remorse for those she torments. Apart from this, Ursula may also be cannibalistic, as she was seen eating some sort of tiny sea creature alive.

Ursula was vengeful, holding a vendetta against King Triton for a prolonged period of time, spending her days spying on his relatives to eventually take advantage of them and concoct a scheme capable of ending in her favor - as ruler of the seas. This also ties into Ursula's power-hungry nature, which drives her motivation throughout the film, and is greatly expressed once she finally crowns herself queen during the climax.

Despite Ursula's irredeemable traits, she had a softer side, as seen in her relationship between herself and her minions, Flotsam and Jetsam, Ursula lovingly refers to the duo as her "babies" and has been seen to treat them with affection, despite barking orders at the two from time to time when enraged. She was also extremely protective of them, even expressing her (genuine) remorse over killing them with the trident by accident before turning their rage towards Ariel for causing it in the first place. In the TV series, however, she does abuse her minions for failure at times.

## **TRIVIA**

* Ursula's species is a cecaelia (a half-person (usual woman)/half-octopus).
	+ In the TV show, however, her species was referred to as Octopid.
* As her death scene reveals, Ursula actually appears to have a skeleton, despite having a lower body of an octopus (as octopuses are cephalopods and do not have bones).
* Ursula's death is one of Disney's most violent defeats when she is impaled by Prince Eric's ship. When Ursula is sinking, blood is clearly visible on the top of the ocean. She is also one of a few villains to be electrocuted with Jafar, Flotsam and Jetsam, and Roscoe and DeSoto being the others.
* In the original story, Ursula (simply known as "the Sea Witch") was not malevolent, but rather neutral. She was also a minor character only appearing once. In the film, while she was a cecaelia she is not an animal but rather hideously ugly. In the film, she never met Ariel's sisters but in the original story, she did.
* "Ursula" is a Latin word meaning "little female bear".
* Despite being half-octopus, Ursula only has six tentacles. However, if her arms are counted as limbs as well, then she actually does have eight limbs altogether.
* Although Ursula is usually depicted with light lavender skin, her appearance as a child in both the family photo and the song "Gonna Get My Wish" indicated that her natural skin color was actually light green colored similar to Morgana and their mother.