Emma Gilbert

**Emma Gilbert** is one of the main characters who became a mermaid in *H2O: Just Add Water*. Along with Cleo and Rikki, Emma discovered her powers after her trip to Mako Island. She is portrayed by actress Claire Holt.

## Background

When Emma was only six-months-old, she had been introduced into the world of swimming by her father, Neil Gilbert.
 Since then, Emma dedicated most of her free time training and competing
 for her swim team, and had won countless trophies for it.
Unfortunately, due to protecting her secret, she quit the team. Out of
all three girls, Emma grew up in a more stable environment as her father
 is a business man in sales and financial development. Her mother, Lisa Gilbert, was once a junior lifeguard and currently collects crystal figurines. Because her father’s job allows him to affiliate with Harrison Bennett's business and investments, Emma and her brother, Elliot Gilbert, grew up along-side with Zane Bennett,
 Harrison’s son, since she was three years old. Despite their childhood
companionship, Emma and Zane grew weary of each other as they grew
older. Because their parents are still close friends, the two of them
continued to be friendly towards the other on some occasions.

Despite growing up in a more wealthier lifestyle than her
friends, Emma lacks the personality of a snob. Unlike her popular
classmate, Miriam Kent,
 Emma and her brother were taught to be respectful and truthful to one
another. Used to her perfect family lifestyle, Emma admits feeling
guilty whenever she had to lie to her brother or her parents. Unlike her
 friend, Cleo Sertori, Emma shares a close relationship with her
younger sibling, Elliot, and at often times she would try to comfort and
 reassure him whenever he’s unhappy. Although several times, they still
got on each other nerves and argue.

Sometime during her childhood, Emma met Cleo and the two of them
became close friends ever since to the point where Emma is aware of
Cleo's bad singing. Because of her yearly intense training for her
competitive swimming team, Emma had only attended Cleo’s first few
childhood birthday parties, last being her sixth. After years of
friendship, she wasn’t aware that Cleo’s birthday parties had remained
the same childish party, courtesy of Cleo's father.

## Personality

Emma has a confident and responsible, if somewhat controlling,
personality. She tends to worry if things get out of control. She is
very organized. Living in a perfect family lifestyle, she developed a
need to be a perfectionist. She enjoys being the most organized of the
girls and can’t help but encourage others to do the same. As well as
being a driven individual, Emma once dedicated her free time in training
 for her regional swimming competition. Although she resigned after
turning into a mermaid because it precludes her from swimming, Emma
retains a bit of her driven personality.

She does seem to be more empathic than her friend, Rikki Chadwick
 when it comes to understanding other people’s feelings and daily
problems. She tends to express many concerns for her friends and would
even go out of her way to try and do the impossible for them, even
trying her best to restore Louise Chatham’s
 decaying boat. Although Emma is often the most conscientious and
considerate of the three girls, at times she can be pedantic and
controlling, once even suggesting that she considers chewing a
prescribed number of times before swallowing as a normal practice.

Emma also displays a responsible trait where she tends to wake up early for work before café opens and stays late after closing as we found out in the episode "Cleo vs. Charlotte".
 Being the responsible one, she constantly reminds her brother and
friends to do their work and is often paranoid when things aren’t
organized. This tends to drive those around her insane at times when she
 stressed about it too often.

Often times, she doesn’t listen to what other people say and
assumes the situation for the worse. When push comes to shove, she would
 often show-off and proves to others that she can be more or just as
skilled as they are in certain events. In "Riding For a Fall", she attempts to show off her newfound knowledge about riding horses to Ash, but her plan only backfired. In "Emma Rebel",
 she attempts to become a rebellious girl, just like Rikki, to show that
 she can be fun to be around. She fails to do this when she decides to
have a party while her parents are away. Once the party gets out of hand
 with the help of Rikki she gets it to stop and admits this isn't the
way for her. But in the same episode she shows true honesty when she
confesses about the party to her parents who assumed Rikki had thrown
while they were away for the weekend. Her ideas for organization and
control sometimes brings her into conflict with Rikki, who is Emma's
polar opposite.

Often times, Emma would disagree and argue with Rikki, who is her
 polar opposite. While in contrast to Rikki’s rebellious and care-free
personality, Emma is controlling and organized. Because of their
opposite personalities and different ideals, Emma and Rikki often argue
and have various conflicts, leaving Cleo stuck in the middle of their
fight. Aside from her girly personality, Emma is shy and emotional.
Also, another trait for Emma is bossy. While arguing with Rikki, she
bosses her around but no knowing that it sometimes hurts her feelings.

Emma is not as tough and thick-skinned as she puts on; in her own words, "I may seem tough, but I'm easily hurt."

## Appearance

Emma is a very pretty teenage girl, and has golden hair and blue eyes. Her hair is extremely long, reaching along her waist. Her skin is quite fair and smooth. She usually lets her hair down, but as the series progresses, she begins to tie it up. As a mermaid, her hair is let down and she has an orange-scaled tail with a matching top. After the storm, Emma went to another island during a special full moon, where her tail and top changed to a turquoise color.

Her casual clothes have a lot of blue and white tank tops, based on her powers on turning water to ice. So this basically means her favorite colors are blue and white.

She also wears a locket identical to Rikki, Bella, Andrea, Natalie, and Cleo's, only with a white stone, to represent the water's freezing ability.

## Becoming a Mermaid

One day, Cleo was helping Emma train for her regional swimming
competition by timing her. While Cleo later left for home, Emma
continued to train some more. Later on during her walk home, Emma ran
into Cleo again but this time she was riding in Zane’s zodiac boat with
the new girl, Rikki. Cleo and Rikki invited her for a ride with Rikki
suggesting that they go out into the ocean for some fun and Emma
expressing her concern. With the carefree Rikki steering the boat out
into the sea and miles offshore, the girls soon found out that they are
now out of fuel in the middle of the ocean. With little choice, the
three girls paddled their way to the closest land they could find: Mako
Island.

Once ashore the deserted island, Emma and her friends pondered on
 how they should call for help. Being the most prepared one in the
group, Emma brought out her cell phone but only to find that it couldn’t
 get a signal. Emma suggested that they should head inland towards a
higher altitude in hopes of getting a signal for a call. As they
ventured in deeper into the jungle-infested island, the three girls soon
 came across a clearing where a river stream turns into a waterfall over
 several boulders. While Emma and Rikki were able to jump over to the
small waterfall, Cleo became hesitant and without a warning, fell into a
 hole. The other two followed her and continued to pursue a way out of
the underground cave.

Several hours later, the three of them ended up at the end of the
 tunnel and found the moon cave with a pool at the bottom of the
island’s dormant volcano. Emma realizes that the Moon Pool
 is connected to the ocean and may be their only way out, dove in to
find out. Confirming her find, she and Rikki convinced the hesitant Cleo
 to escape with them. When all three of them entered the pool, the full moon
 became aligned with the moon pool, causing it to bubble and glow a
mystic blue glow and emitting small orbs of magical light particles into
 the air. Oblivious to what was happening to them, the girls ventured
out into open sea where they were rescued by the local water-police.

Around twelve hours later, Emma went to the ocean for a morning
swim. After ten seconds in the ocean water, Emma was shocked to feel
that she no long has human legs but instead, she sprouted a mermaid
tail. She later confirms that she wasn’t the only one who became a
mermaid as the same thing had happened to Cleo and Rikki.

## Mermaid Powers

Emma possesses the ability to transform into a mermaid ten
 seconds after physical contact of water. She turns back into a human
several minutes after climbing out of the the water and once her body is
 completely dry, she turns back into a human along with the clothes she
was wearing before she transformed. As a mermaid, Emma has the ability
to swim at super speed of 600km/h, hold their breath for more than fifteen minutes, and possibly dive at a depth lower than any ordinary human being.

### Hydro-Cryokinesis

Emma is the second mermaid to discover her individual powers over
water: the ability to freeze water. Her ability can cause things to
become brittle enough for her to break, such as an electronic lock. She
can freeze an entire person and put them into stasis lock or render them
 immobile by freezing only their wet suits. With Cleo’s power, Emma can
create ice sculptures or ice-orbs, but it would eventually melt or
shatter. At first, it implies that she could only freeze things with
water over it. But several times in season one, Emma was able to freeze,
 cool, and lock objects with her powers without the aids of water. This
could imply that she can freeze the small water molecules around those
dry objects. With this power, Emma can freeze water and all other
liquids to freezing temperatures literally to absolute zero.

### Cryokinesis

In the second season premiere,
 a special full moon along with a rare planetary alignment greatly
strengthens and increases her powers to much more powerful levels.
Emma’s new mermaid power is Cryokinesis,
 the power to create, generate, manipulate and control ice, snow, sleet
and hail at will and also control clouds. It allows her to freeze any
object without water, even freezing an entire room. When in combination with Cleo and Rikki's
 advanced powers, she can create unusually strong electric storms and
levitate a person. It is shown that she can explode ice, too, in the
episode when they were practicing their powers in the moon pool with the
 balloon penguin. With this power, Emma also can create, control and
manipulate ice, snow and hail at will.

## Relationships

### Ash Dove

Her love interest is Ash, a horse riding instructor and
and the new supervisor of JuiceNet Cafe. Emma has often been encouraged by her friends Rikki an. Cleo to reveal her mermaid secret to Ash because he lacks the determination to find out her mermaid secret.

At first, Emma despised Ash and thought he was an arrogant person
 when she met him as the instructor to her younger brother Elliot. But
when she accidentally poisoned his horse, Rebel, Emma felt terrible, and
 used her power to create snow in order to cure the horse. Surprised
that she stayed with the sick horse overnight, Ash expressed his thanks
to her.

Later on when Ash was chosen to be the new supervisor of the
Juice Net Cafe, Emma hated him more than she already did because she
felt that he had stolen the job position that was meant for her. Failing
 to get the other employees to strike against him, Emma felt more hatred
 for Ash. Emma witnessed helpless as she watched Ash introduced new
schedules for the staff, new uniforms (which included a silly hat), took
 her own hard-worked juice recipe off of the menu, changed the ice-room
storing system, and even created basketball games for the customers.
When Emma saw how much fun everyone was having, she decided to swallow
her pride and work with him instead of against him, only to be shocked
to find out that Ash had fired her because he thought she broke the new
storing system.Later, Ash discovered that she was innocent and it was Amber
 who didn't follow his new orders because too many changes came too
fast. Ash appeared at her front door steps, begging her to come back,
which she didn't want to at first. He offered to slow down his ideas of
changes for the restaurant, admitted that she was right, and offered to
put back her home-made juice recipe on the menu to which then, did she
agreed to return to work there. Later on, they went on a few several
dates. At one point, Ash almost forced Emma into the water because he
believed that she's aqua-phobic and that he wanted to help her get over
her fears. Luckily, she convinced him to stop just in time, but was in
danger of having her secrets revealed again near the end of the second
season. As the pressure of her secrets pressed on her relationship with
Ash, he demanded to know what she was hiding, but she refused despite
having Charlotte
 using her magical powers against her, almost revealing her secret in
front of him. Emma decided to reveal to Ash that she is a mermaid. Ash was okay with it and they continued their
relationship.

## Trivia

* Before becoming a mermaid, Emma was a professional swimmer.
* Emma likes dolphins.
* Emma is richer than Cleo and Rikki, and in the same social class of Miriam and Zane.
* Emma is very sensitive.
* Just like her friend, Cleo, Emma is very good at science.