Ariel

Disney's 1989 animated feature film *The Little Mermaid*. She is the seventh and youngest daughter of King Triton and Queen Athena, rulers of the undersea kingdom of Atlantica. Ariel lived through much of her young life with a passionate - yet forbidden - admiration of the human world, and longed to someday experience life on the surface.

## Appearance

Ariel is a beautiful adolescent mermaid with an hourglass figure, fair skin, red lips, red hair, and large, aqua blue eyes. In stark contrast to the three previous Disney Princesses created before her (Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora), who were drawn with smaller eyes and smaller heads in proportion to their bodies similar to adult women, Ariel is drawn with somewhat semi-neotenous features, with larger eyes and with a head more similar to a child's than an adult's in proportion to her body, giving her an appearance of youth rather than maturity. This suggests the combination of youthful innocence and physical maturity which Ariel represents and it eventually became the design basis of most Disney Princesses created after her in recent years, such as Jasmine, Rapunzel, Anna, Elsa, and Moana.

From childhood to her teenage years, she wore a lavender seashell bikini top. As a child, her lips were the same color as her skin, and as a teenager, they are bright red. Ariel's most defining feature is her long, flowing, thick, bright red hair. From the waist down, she has a green horizontal fish-like tail with sea-green scales and sea-foam green fins and a matching V-shaped waist-line resembling fish-lips that reveals her midriff and her belly button. She most likely has the reproductive organs of a cetacean. In *Little Mermaid's Island*, her seashell top looks more like a strapless top that covers all of her torso. She is also fairly tall in human form, being only a few inches shorter than Eric, himself a fairly tall human.

When Ariel becomes a human, the only article of clothing she wore was her seashell bikini top, leftover from her mermaid form. She eventually wears an old sail from a shipwreck with some rope to keep it closed, fashioned by her friend Scuttle. Being prepared for dinner, she wears a pink-and-white gown, silver barrettes in her hair, and pearl white earrings. Getting ready for bedtime, she wears a pink nightgown. After being taken in by Prince Eric, she wears a multi-shade-of-blue dress consisting of a powder-blue blouse with long sleeves, a midnight-blue bodice, and a cobalt-blue foot-length skirt, along with black heels. She wears a big royal blue bow in her hair. Ariel's hair was worn loose while wearing the outfit when she swims through the boat to stop the wedding between Eric and Vanessa (Ursula in disguise) before her feet reverts into her mermaid tail. After she's turned into a human once again, she wears a periwinkle, glittering dress. After she kisses Eric and during their wedding, she wears a white wedding dress with pale green trimming, big puffy sleeves, and a sparkling golden tiara on her veil.

During and after her daughter Melody’s christening, she wears a gold-and-white dress, and has her hair in a low ponytail decorated with a white bow. She also wears a periwinkle gown with an up-do decorated, a golden tiara with green and white gems, a golden necklace and earrings with a green gem, and periwinkle heels with a yellow ornament during Melody's 12th birthday party with her hair being a bit shorter due to it being adjusted and pulled in a bun. She still wears the same up-do with a green peasant dress when she's on Eric's ship and a blue-and-white dress with light blue earrings in the song "Here on the Land and Sea" in the second movie. In one of the video games, she wears an aqua-colored gown with a matching flower on the side of her hair.

## Personality

Ariel is a bright, spirited, and headstrong mermaid princess with a strong passion for adventure and exploration. Her tendency to explore the more mysterious depths of the ocean (or more importantly, the world beyond the ocean) can lead to an array of problems to both herself and her friends, and in the confines of her personal life - as seen when she gets into an argument with her overprotective father, King Triton. Despite this, Ariel's selflessness, compassion, and intuitive way of thinking often resolve such problems, as she always takes full responsibility for her actions.

At the start of the original film, Ariel is shown to have a burning obsession with the human world and a desire to learn more about their culture. Unlike her father at first, she views humans as aspiring creatures, astonished by their ability to constantly create, and heavily goes against the idea of them being "barbaric" and selfish as a result of this. This passion is revealed to have been prominent throughout Ariel's life years before the events of the film, as seen in the television series. By the point of the film, as seen through her lament, "Part of Your World", Ariel's obsession with the human world has reached unimaginable heights, as she spends most of her time focusing on finding, observing and collecting various human objects that have sunk into the sea. Her obsession has also taken a toll on her emotionally, as the song begins with a sense of wonder and enchantment, but ultimately climaxes with a soft end, filled with hopelessness and despair, representing Ariel's dying hopes of ever experiencing life upon the surface. These feelings of desperation and despair are the prime motive behind Ariel's eventual deal with the sea witch, Ursula, to become human and experience the world above the surface. Despite not having the best relationship with her father, especially in regard to their respective views on humanity, she nonetheless was very loyal to him as well as her sisters, as after Ursula explained the deal to her, Ariel expressed some hesitance as she realized that if she succeeded in the deal (never mind if she failed her end of the bargain), she wouldn't be able to see Triton or her sisters again, and later when Ursula cursed Triton, Ariel's first action was to attack Ursula to avenge him, even calling the sea witch a monster for what she did.

Ariel is extremely compassionate and loving towards almost all living things; more so platonically than romantically. This is most notably seen through her friendship with her closest companion, Flounder, and even her father's court composer, Sebastian, who, despite being against Ariel's recklessness and overly adventurous nature, is given a considerably large amount of love and respect from the princess, which is often reciprocated. With Flounder, she is comforting and patient, as well as protective, with the tendency to risk her own life for the guppy on various occasions.

Her ability to befriend all various creatures, including an abandoned killer whale, an irrationally feared sea creature. and even the son of one of her nemeses is displayed throughout the franchise. She is also one of the very few to be patient with Scuttle as she was barely did not get annoyed with the seagull's absent-mindedness and quarks. Before she met Eric, she was rarely interested in romantic relationships, not even with any of the merman princes that Triton tried to get her to marry. The only known exception was Prince Waverly of the Pacifica Kingdom, with whom she was infatuated.

However, after meeting Eric, Ariel is revealed to be a romantic, willing to make daring sacrifices for the sake of true love. Her love for him is validated by Eric's returned selflessness and sacrificial actions for the sake of love; notably seen during the climax of the film.

Like Ariel's father, Triton, she has a bad temper if she is ever provoked, although her temper is not as short as his. Although spirited, even she has had some degree of self-doubts about herself, as she actually at one point considered her father might have been correct and that she may have been a freak for having any fascination for humanity. She also had a degree of seeing the good in things, as she also doubted that humans could have been pure evil from their tools and artworks.

Also, despite her usual naivety and impulsiveness, Ariel has shown to be serious, careful, and very intuitive on many occasions. One example of her occasionally showing intuitiveness was just before exploring the sunken ship, where she suggested that Flounder stay outside and be on the lookout for sharks in the area when the latter tried to fake illness.

In *The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea*, as an adult, Ariel has matured into a sophisticated and distinguished woman, fully embracing her responsibilities as a mother and the princess consort of Eric's kingdom and fully adapting to her human body that she has had for some time now thanks to her father's magic. However, when Morgana threatens Melody at her christening, Ariel becomes overprotective of her daughter similarly to how she was treated by Triton in the first film. As a result, she severs all ties with Atlantica and the ocean in hopes of preventing Morgana from using Melody's heritage to her advantage. Despite being happy with her new life as a human mother and wife, she misses her father and sisters, but keeps this hidden from Melody for the latter's own safety. Later, she comes to realize that this decision does more harm than good.

However, at one point, Ariel subtly alludes to her true heritage, as she mentioned to Melody when sympathizing with her about not fitting in that she was "a fish out of water", with Melody not quite believing her.

Regardless of Ariel's few flaws, she is very much selfless, sweet-natured, and inspirational. However, her most notable trait was her deep love and fascination for humans, having desired to become human during the first film's events, even before meeting her future husband, Eric. However, she did not always have this trait; until she was 15 years old, she expressed a deep fear of humans similar to Triton's prejudice towards humans, although her witnessing a human saving a beached dolphin changed her views on the matter. Ironically, the human responsible for saving the dolphin was Eric, although she never knew it.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Mermaid Physiology:** As a mermaid, Ariel possesses superhuman attributes, such as superhuman durability, speed and senses. Ariel still retains most of her superhuman attributes even in her human form.
	+ **Aquapathy:** Ariel is capable of understanding and communicating with other aquatic creatures, albeit only with the creatures that are sentient.
	+ **Superhuman Durability:** Ariel is far more durable than normal humans and certain aquatic creatures, being able to withstand the immense underwater pressures. Ariel can also withstand great impacts, such as surviving falls from tremendous heights that would have severely injured or kill a normal human.

#### Former powers

* **Magic:** In the episode "T'ank You For Dat, Ariel", Ariel briefly became a sea witch and learned how to use magic. She used her new-found talents to grant Sebastian's wish of being bigger. Unfortunately, it continuously worked, making him continue to grow to the point that he surfaced while standing and it was fueled by the light of the full moon. She lost her magic and status as a sea witch when she wished the whole entire mess never happened and her magic did just that, erasing the entire event and influencing her so it wouldn't happen in the reset timeline.
* **Superhuman Senses:** Ariel's senses are far more developed than normal humans and certain aquatic creatures, allowing her to see clearly in the dark.
* **Superhuman Speed:** Ariel is much faster than normal humans and certain aquatic creatures. She can move at blur-like speeds while underwater and was able to outpace Glut (a great white shark) relatively easily. Ariel was also able to get from Eric's kingdom all the way back to Atlantica as well as getting from Atlantica to Norway in less than a day. According to Sebastian, Ariel is the fastest mermaid in all of Atlantica.
* **Aquatic Breathing:** Ariel is capable of breathing both on land and in the water indefinitely.
* **Thermoendurance:** Ariel is immune to extremely cold or hot temperatures and environments.

#### Abilities

* **Adaptability:** Ariel is capable of gaining knowledge very quickly. After becoming human via Ursula's magic potion, she was able to learn how to stand up in a few minutes, then walk in the same time. Ariel also quickly figured out how to run when Max appears and unintentionally frightens her. She quickly learned about human customs. Ariel was also able to master other skills on land at a much faster pace that would have taken normal humans months or years to learn, such as dancing, horse riding, etc.
* **Expert Singer:** Ariel is a highly skilled singer. According to Sebastian, she has the most beautiful voice in all of Atlantica. Ariel's voice is so beautiful that Eric fell in love with her just hearing her sing to him once while she was drawing him to consciousness after rescuing him from drowning at sea.
* **Expert Dancer:** Ariel is a highly skilled dancer. In her mermaid form, she is a very talented dancer and after becoming human she was able to dance with Eric as if she was human for years.
* **Expert Swimmer:** Ariel is a highly skilled swimmer. In her mermaid form, she is able to swim in a dolphin-like manner. But after becoming human via Ursula's magic potion, Ariel was initially not very good at swimming (due to her inability to breathe underwater and swim without her mermaid tail that she was accustomed to) so Flounder and Sebastian had to help Ariel get to the surface, otherwise she would have drowned. However, by the time of the events of *The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea*, Ariel has regained her swimming skills.
* **Expert Rider:** Ariel is a highly skilled rider, being capable of riding giant seahorses and also horses. She can ride Stormy and Seabiscuit, as well as command the reigns of a carriage controlled by Triton's dolphins relatively easily. In Ariel's human form, she is able to ride horses in a similar way, which is seen when Eric attempted to teach her how to ride a carriage controlled by his horse. Initially, Ariel lost control of the horse, but she soon was able to gain control of the animal. In the storybook of *The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Baby Beau*, sometime after Ariel's marriage to Eric, he gifted her a foal, who she named Beau. Once Beau became an adult, she began to ride the horse very often with skill and enthusiasm similar to that of riding giant seahorses.
* **Expert Musician:** Ariel is a highly skilled musician, being capable of playing the bongo drums, guitar, harp, and piano with admirable skill. The only musical instrument that she is not proficient at is the sea calliope, the equivalent of the organ. Even when Sebastian tries his best to teach Ariel how to play the calliope, her skills with it don't improve at all. Her lack of skill with this musical instrument is in fact so bad that it not only wakes up the Seaclops but it also annoys the sea monster to the point that it tries to annihilate Ariel.

#### Weaknesses

* **Oxygen:** When Ariel is in her human form, she cannot breathe underwater. If she remains underwater for too long, she will lose consciousness and eventually drown. Despite this, Ariel can at least hold her breath far longer than normal humans.

#### Former Weaknesses

* **Limited Knowledge:** Initially, Ariel had limited knowledge of the human world due to not traveling to the surface very often and not directly interacting with humans. She didn't know much about their culture and objects that are used by land-dwellers. This also lead her to make up names for the human objects that she would find, such as calling a magnifying glass a "biggermajiger". She once also used a fork to comb her hair due to Scuttle telling her that is how to use that object. She later realized the mistake when she saw the confused looks of Eric and Grimsby's faces, much to her embarrassment. After marrying and starting to live in Eric's kingdom, her knowledge of humans and the land above water has greatly improved.