The Little Mermaid (Disney Cartoon): Characters

Ariel
Ariel is the youngest and seventh daughter of King Triton and Queen Athena, rulers of Atlantica, and has six older sisters. She is classified as one of the Disney Princesses and is often seen in the company of Flounder, her best friend, and Sebastian, her father's advisor who is often assigned to watch over her. In the television series and first film, Ariel has a fascination with the human world and often goes off to find human artifacts that she displays in a secret grotto. Ariel is often rebellious, wandering off on her own to explore her surroundings whatever she sees, and frequently disobeys the orders of her father or Sebastian (which don't make sense), causing conflict between the characters. In "The Little Mermaid" she is depicted as being willing to do anything to be with Prince Eric, even giving up her voice to become human. Clements described her as a typical teenager, prone to errors of judgment. She also is incredibly curious, and her curiosity often leads her into dangerous situations.

Ariel is kind to others no matter what their circumstances, as depicted in the television series. In an early episode, Ariel helps an orphaned merboy who had fallen in with a bad crowd. In another episode, Ariel befriends a supposed bad-luck creature and protects it from Ursula and other merfolk who wish it harm. Ariel is also self-taught with magic like in "Land of the Dinosaurs", she uses her father's trident to thaw the ice. She appears as an adult in "Return to the Sea", and gives birth to a daughter named Melody. Ariel is protective of her daughter, as Triton was of Ariel in the first film. After Morgana threatens Melody, Ariel refuses to let Melody in the ocean. Ariel's Beginning depicts her personality as it was in the original film, after Jodi Benson had advocated returning the character to her roots. Ariel is once again rebellious, and after her father decrees music to be banned in Atlantica she runs away with Sebastian and his band.

Flounder


Flounder is Ariel's best fish friend. Flounder scares easily, and is prone to panicking under stressful situations, but when Ariel is in trouble, he comes through for her without hesitation. As seen in Ariel's Beginning, Flounder was not always jittery and nervous, in fact, Flounder was just as adventurous as Ariel. However, it can be concluded that after the first few adventures with Ariel, Flounder began to suffer from anxiety.

As mentioned above, despite his fear, Flounder will eventually come through for Ariel when needed, to the point where he's not only her closest friend, but her most loyal one, at that. Because of this, the two are nearly inseparable, and the bond is incredibly strong throughout the franchise, especially during episodes within the television series. Like Sebastian, though, even Flounder, at times, tires of Ariel's reckless behavior and expresses so when a dangerous adventure is at hand, but he willingly puts up with it not only to watch out for her, but because he truly loves her, much to Ariel's relief and joy. Because of this, Ariel is rather protective of Flounder, and when in peril, she always puts his safety before her own, making her he's always the first to make it out safe, once again showing the connection between the two to be powerful, to say the least.

Sebastian
Sebastian is an old crab from Jamaica. Sebastian is the king's royal court composer and holds a rather passionate love for music. While usually carefree, Sebastian is often seen to be very grumpy and worrisome. This is mostly due to Ariel's stubbornness, who he is found with regularly. He is also prone to having panic attacks and fearing King Triton will murder him if he slips up on a task. Like the other sea inhabitants, Sebastian holds a great fear of the sea king, King Triton. Despite the fear, he still shows great respect and they are obviously on good terms, friendship wise.

When scared, Sebastian's voice tends to become humorously higher in pitch.

He can be sensitive at times about his size and the fact that his tiny arms prevents him from swimming as fast as Ariel and Flounder. This makes it difficult to tag along on adventures which is why he'll just grab onto Flounder's tail fin.

Despite his size, the enemies of the kingdom, notably Ursula, still find Sebastian to be a big enough threat to foil their plans. Being part of the royal family, Sebastian is fairly intelligent and knows mostly all secrets of the sea, even more so than King Triton. Sebastian is also willing to put his own life on the line, such as willingly swimming to Ursula's lair despite being terrified to save Ariel and later to save Melody, Ariel's daughter.

King Triton
King Triton is the ruler of the underwater kingdom of Atlantica. He is a muscular merman, the widower of the late Queen Athena, and the father of Aquata, Andrina, Arista, Attina, Adella, Alana and Ariel. He is also the father-in-law of Prince Eric and the grandfather of Ariel and Eric's daughter Melody. As King of Atlantica, he has in his possession a powerful magical trident which appears to be made of gold. It emits a glowing light and a typical sound when in use. Furthermore, he has a crown and two armbands, which also appear to be made out of gold.

His archenemy was Ursula, the old sea witch who was once a senior member of the Court of King Triton. For many years, she had been seeking a way to exact her revenge upon him for banishing her from the kingdom.

Ursula
Ursula is a purple-skinned sea witch. Ursula is a very dark and sinister villain with a sense a humor. Ursula is very manipulative and has a talent of making great sense and making persuasive points when trying to strike a deal. Unlike many Disney Villains, most of whom care very little for their followers, Ursula puts her henchmen Flotsam and Jetsam before anything and everyone else. Ursula treats the eels like children and refer to them as "babies" or "poopsies". When the eels are killed accidentally by Ursula because of Ariel, she mourns and takes all of her anger and sadness out on Ariel and attempts to kill her once and for all. She is known to fill the heads of merpeople with deceptions; she feeds Ariel with the lie (or at best half-truth) that men on the surface like silence in women. In fact, Prince Eric loved Ariel's voice, and Ursula manipulated her into giving up precisely the thing that would have let him recognize the mysterious girl who had saved him from the sea. Despite using contracts to get her way, Ursula has little regard for following her end of the bargain. This is demonstrated when immediately after Triton signed away his freedom for Ariel's safety, Ursula claims she'd have no qualms killing Ariel, despite being implied to have promised to not harm Ariel as a condition of the contract, and gleefully tries to in the final battle. The latter instance is possibly due to Ariel being the cause of Flotsam and Jetsam's deaths. However for a villain she expects standards in her home, even telling Ariel "We mustn't lurk in doorways. It's rude."

Ursula's magical abilities, even without the Trident, were very potent. She was able to concoct various potions to create various spells, including mass-transfer (implied during the song "Poor Unfortunate Souls") as well as physically altering people's bodies, as evidenced by her transforming Ariel into a human, as well as her own transformation into Vanessa and Arsulu (although in the case of Vanessa, it was implied to be the result of her nautilus). However, in both instances that she utilized it on herself, she was incapable of altering her reflection, which is eventually how her enemies got the drop on her. When it comes to physical powers, Ursula possesses Superhuman Strength, though not as strong as Triton, yet strong enough to throw a mermaid to a rock, as what she did to Ariel in the alternate ending of the movie. She was also, capable of creating poisonous ink clouds which could absorb the energy of the Trident, and enhancing Ursula's power. Her most dangerous ability, however, was her ability to turn people into polyps should they fail to fulfill their end of the bargain via contracts, having done so multiple times under unspecified circumstances, nearly did so with Ariel, and successfully did so with Triton. It's also implied that she absorbs their souls while transforming them into polyps, making herself more powerful in the process. Likewise, once the contract is made, it is indestructible even to someone as powerful as Triton. Presumably, this arcane power is one-way, as she does not end up becoming a polyp for failing to fulfill her end of the contract. In fact, the only way to completely stop a contract short of fulfilling it is via her death, as evidenced by the aftermath of her death at the hands of Prince Eric.