Ariel is the main titular protagonist of Walt Disney's 1989 The Little Mermaid film and TV show. She has vivid flowing red hair and blue eyes. When she was a mermaid she had green fins and a lavender seashell bra. She is voiced by Jodi Benson. She is the fourth official Disney Princess in the franchise.
Background[]
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. 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.
Physical appearance[]
Ariel is a beautiful 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 represented; for example, 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.
Appearances[]
The Little Mermaid[]
Ariel was the 16 year old daughter of the sea king, King Triton, who hated humans. However, she wanted to know more about the humans and was fascinated by them. Her goal was set when she fell in love with a human prince Eric. Desperate, she traded her voice with the sea witch Ursula for human legs, which would last for three days. Before the sunset of the third day, she had to let Prince Eric kiss her with true love's kiss in order for her to become human permanently. However, Ursula kept thwarting Ariel's plans. By the third day, Ursula changed into a human with Ariel's voice, enchanting the prince. Nonetheless, Ariel had her voice back, but her father was changed into a polyp, and Ursula gained control of the trident and the seven seas. In the end, Eric stabbed Ursula with a broken ship, killing her. King Triton felt symphamthy for his daughter and bestowed her with legs.
She and Eric lived happily ever after. As depicted in the 1989 film, Ariel is the youngest of King Triton's seven daughters, and is 16 years old. Ariel has a vast fascination with the world of humans, despite such contact being forbidden by her father, King Triton, who is xenophobic, meaning that he hates humans. At the beginning of the film, Princess Ariel and her fish friend Flounder swim through a shipwreck where they salvage human items. During their adventure, the two are attacked by a shark, but Ariel manages to outwit the vicious creature. After escaping the shark, Ariel and Flounder swim up to the surface, where they speak to Scuttle to identify human objects. Scuttle misidentifies a fork as a "dinglehopper" used to straighten their hairs and a pipe as a "snarfblatt" used to make music.
Trivia[]
- Ariel's name in the original story was Serena. Serena's name is spelled Sereneta in the book. She also has blonde hair and blue eyes.
- She was the first Disney Princess to have red hair.
- She was the only Disney Princess to be of mythical species.
- She is the only Disney Princess to be a mother in any Disney media.
- She was the first Disney Princess to have her own television series, following Jasmine and Rapunzel.
- She appeared in the Peter Pan's Flight ride in Walt Disney World.
- Ariel is seen in one of the paintings for Pirates of the Caribbean: on Stranger Tides. She's on a rock with two other mermaids.
See also[]
Videos[]
