Melody

**Melody** is the protagonist of The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea. She is the daughter of Ariel and Prince Eric, who dreams of living life under the sea.

## Background

### Appearance

Melody is a beautiful preteen girl with straight black hair, most often tied back with a green hair tie in a ponytail, pink lips, aqua blue eyes and always barefoot. She seems to have inherited a relatively even blend of traits from her parents: She inherited her mother's eyes, nose, facial structure, and beautiful singing voice, as heard in "For A Moment", a duet between Melody and her mother; Eric gave Melody his skin tone, smile, and thick eyebrows. Melody's hairstyle seems like a blend of both of her parents, as it's the same black color as Eric's while being as long as Ariel's.

For most of the film, Melody wears her undergarments, which is a separate pair of white pantalettes and a white camisole; the pantalettes cover the bottom half of her stomach.

At the ball, she wore a pink ball gown with a light pink bow on the back and pink heels.

As a baby, she wore a white-and-pink christening gown and a bow of the same colors.

Her casual outfit, worn at the end of the film, is a Munsell yellow dress with short puffy sleeves, a bronze bodice, a white contrast collar, and her hair tie is white instead of green.

She retains her camisole in mermaid form, but a salmon-pink tail replaces her pantalettes and legs; her navel is also visible. Oddly, the merteens she meets do not notice she does not wear a typical seashell bikini top like other mermaids. Since she found it, she wears her locket that has her name on it.

### Personality

Melody is a sassy, tomboyish, and socially anxious, but well-mannered princess with an adventurous spirit. She inherited her mother's natural curiosity as well as her father's determination. Her parents wanted her to enjoy ordinary life throughout her childhood and tried to suppress her Atlantican nature to keep her from harm. Unfortunately, they underestimated how much her mermaid half would affect her life.

As her Atlantican nature kept resurfacing in her, Melody kept feeling more and more drawn to the ocean without knowing why and compelled her to collect all sorts of items from the sea, a parallel to her mother at age sixteen only in reverse. More often than not, Melody found herself incapable of fitting in with children her age due to her mermaid half, making her appear out of place, such as talking to marine creatures and pretending she has a tail in the eyes of her peers. Because of this, Melody was shunned by her peers throughout her childhood, which had highly adverse effects on her; Melody became socially inept, insecure, and even self-loathing to a small extent. Eventually, she came to believe that she had no place in the world. But once she discovered the existence of merpeople, Melody immediately wished to live among them, believing them to be the only ones in the world who could empathize with her and relate to her.

However, after becoming a mermaid, Melody matured from that mindset as she slowly began to see that she was still the same person she was before and that life in the ocean wasn't better, but merely different. She ultimately realized that what she truly wanted was not to be a mermaid but accepted for who she was. As such, she gained a better perception of herself and the world and found out that a life of honesty and self-acceptance was the only key to her happiness. Despite no longer wishing to be a mermaid, Melody still retains her passion for the sea and shows much joy in getting to know her grandfather and aunts, as her heart belongs to the ocean just as much as it does to the land.

Throughout the film, Melody displays multiple signs of social anxiety disorder, such as her inability to maintain eye contact during conversations, general shyness, dislike for attention, and dislike for most social encounters. As part of her social anxiety, Melody is also shy around attractive boys, becoming quite flustered when Alex, a handsome merboy, tried befriending her in Atlantica. She later met him again after the wall was disintegrated, with both recognizing each other. Despite her social anxiety, she is usually confident and sassy when in her comfort zone. This is evidenced by the expressive demeanor while swimming in the ocean and when she imitated Sebastian's speech in his accent as he tried to lecture her about the consequences of sneaking out into the ocean.

Unlike her mother, Melody doesn't seem to care much for her femininity, as evidenced by her lack of interest in activities often associated with girls and her interest in physical activities.

## Role in the Ed-Chronicles

### Ed, Edd n Eddy: Heroes Assemble

Melody will make her debut as one of the four main protagonists (along with Ed, Edd and Eddy) in Ed, Edd n Eddy: Heroes Assemble.