The Little Mermaid
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Princess Melody or Melody for short is the main protagonist of Disney's 2000 direct-to-video feature film, The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea, the sequel to the 1989 film. She is the daughter of Ariel and Prince Eric, and the only known grandchild of King Triton and Queen Athena. She is also a descendant of Neptune.

Personality[]

Melody has a sassy and headstrong personality; which reflects upon the personality of her mother, Ariel in her younger years; but her insecurity around others and socially awkward tendencies seem to stem more from her father, Eric. Well. Sebastian states that Melody is "just like her mother, Ariel." In fact, there are many similarities between Melody and her father, Eric.

Melody sense of adventure, curiosity, and willingness to take risks just like both Ariel and Eric; but her mild shyness stems from a sheltered upbringing and her father's personality.

Melody's curious nature leads her to collect all sorts of items from the sea, a parallel to her mother, Ariel. Melody's swimming proficiency and ability to hold her breath for long periods comes from her mermaid heritage. She is also shy around boys, becoming quite flustered when a mer-boy that found her handbound attractive tried befriending her.

Well Melody also goes to the sea; despite her mother, Ariel telling her not to, Melody does not know; why she is not; allowed and is against rules that; make no sense or does not have a good purpose to follow it.

Physical appearance[]

Melody is a 12 year old tomboyish princess of average height and build for her age. She has straight/slightly wavy black hair, often tied back with a green hair-tie in a low ponytail, and blue eyes. Melody seems to have inherited a fairly even blend of traits from her parents. Her hair is the same color as her father's, and she inherited her mother's eyes, smile, nose, and facial structure. It is also possible that Melody inherited Ariel's beautiful singing voice, as the 2 were heard side by side in "For a Moment", a duet between Melody and her mother. Eric also gave her his skin tone and black hair and eyebrows. For most of the film, Melody is seen barefoot and, in her underwear, which is a separate pair of frilly white calf-length pantalettes and a matching button-front camisole with a green bow; the pantalettes cover the bottom half of her stomach and is seen barefoot while in this outfit. As a baby, she was wearing a pink and white dress and her bow also has the same colors. While in mermaid form, Melody retains her camisole, but her pantalettes and legs are replaced by a pink tail; her navel is also visible. She also has a pink and white ballgown and a yellow casual dress both with short puffy sleeves. Melody also wears pink high heeled shoes on her feet. Since she found it, she wears her locket that has her name on it.

Melody with her family[]

When Melody is an infant, her parents sail out to sea and is presented to King Triton and the rest of her family and the merpeople. When the proud new grandfather sees her, he instantly loves her, calling her "His precious Melody", and gives her a seashell locket, which, when opened, plays the melody of "Down to the Sea" and shows a moving image of the underwater city of Atlantica. The celebration is interrupted by Ursula's sister, Morgana, who threatens to feed Melody to the shark Undertow if Triton does not hand over the trident, which Triton almost agrees to do in order to save her. He ends up not having to when Ariel grabs Eric's cutlass and cuts the hatch to knock out Morgana and he retrieves Melody. When Morgana escapes, Ariel decides that until Morgana is found, the sea would be too dangerous for Melody and vows to keep all knowledge of the sea from her, including her grandfather, late grandmother, and her aunts. Ariel, heartbroken, gives her father the locket he had given to Melody. A baby Melody looks back at her sad grandfather who then asks Sebastian to watch over Melody (just like he had done for Ariel).

Melody grows up banned from entering the sea, and isn't told the reason why. This causes a misunderstanding between her and Ariel, who refuses to explain the truth to Melody, making Melody believe that Ariel hated the sea and could not or would not understand her love of it. By her 12th birthday, she had been regularly secretly sneaking out to swim in the sea against her mother and father's wishes. When Melody finds her locket on the day of her 12th birthday she finds her name on it and the image of Atlantica when she opens it. Melody begins to question Ariel as she had told her Atlantica was "just an old fish tale." Ariel, however, panics when she hears this and yells at Melody for her disobedience that it was dangerous in the sea (like how her father had yelled at her). Melody ends the argument by telling her mother "How would you know? You've never even been in it!" Melody then runs off from her room, and both Ariel and Eric decide that they can no longer hide the truth from her. However, Melody runs away from home before they can tell her the truth.

Melody eventually is coerced by Undertow to go and meet Morgana, who uses Melody's love of the sea against her. Morgana promises her that she will be a mermaid forever if Melody will retrieve the trident from Triton, claiming that he stole it from Morgana. Wanting to be a mermaid forever she agrees to get it, not knowing she would be stealing from her grandfather. Morgana then gets a potion and drops it on Melody's foot. A green light then goes around her foot and spreads to both of her legs. She is then lifted in the air as her legs change. She is then set back down, and the green light disappears, revealing her tail.

Unknown to Melody was the fact that, as the granddaughter of King Triton, she had the power to retrieve the trident from its resting place when Triton did not have it resting on its pedestal. While searching for the trident, Melody befriends a penguin named Tip and a walrus named Dash, and they join her in her search. They manage to sneak into the Atlantican royal palace to make off with the trident. When Melody grabs the triton it glows very brightly as her body extends and elongates as she pulls it off, but Melody loses her locket. Melody returns to Morgana at the same time that her mother Ariel, who's been turned back into a mermaid, arrives. Melody was shocked and upset saying "All this time...and you never told me?", when Ariel told her she wanted to protect her, Melody angrily says "by fencing me in!?", believing her mother was ashamed of her mermaid heritage. Before Ariel has a chance to fully explain, Melody, angered at Ariel's decision to hide Melody's mermaid heritage, building the wall to keep Melody from the sea and for lying to her all these years, gives Morgana the trident.

Afterwards, Morgana reveals her true colors to Melody and also tells her that she had stolen from her grandfather. Morgana then grabs Melody with her tentacles, then traps her in an ice prison. As she is trapped, Melody begins to blame herself for this and starts to cry. Soon afterwards, the sun sets and Morgana's spell on Melody is about to wear off.

We see Melody with her hands on the glass with her facing trying to find a way out, then Melody starts to turn to the right, as her facial expression becomes more confused as the sun sets. Afterwards Melody then jerks in pain and crotches down before straightening and clenching her chest with her arms in massive pain as she screams. We cut to Melody's face with her eyes and mouth squinting as she lifts her head up as her hair starts to become less straight and unbalance. Melody with her head up then opens her eyes and mouth as bubbles come out of her mouth. Her hair when this happens undoes and is wavy like she was when she was a human.

We then cut to Melody's tail were it starts turning around and lifts up as a green swirl wraps around it. Her tail then goes down as she lifts up the green swirl becoming even bigger as her tail splits apart into two as her left foot turns two a foot along with her pantalettes. Her other foot turns back to normal as well as the green swirl disappears with Melody kicking around.

Tip and Dash trick Undertow, who has been restored to his original form, into ramming into the ice. They look down and see that she is on the floor, still not breathing. They quickly take her to the surface, where she then wakes up and coughs out water. A battle ensues, which is eventually ended when Melody retrieves the trident from Morgana. Morgana grabs Melody's foot and tries to take the trident but Melody pierces the trident through one of her tentacles. She throws Triton his trident. Morgana pushes her off afterwards which sent her falling and screaming. Tip and Dash save her and she becomes unconscious once more. When Triton catches the trident, he proceeds to encase Morgana in ice, and falls in the water.

When Melody wakes up, she apologizes to her mother for her actions, and tells her she hoped that she'd be a better mermaid than a girl, while Ariel and Eric apologize for lying to Melody about her mermaid heritage, keeping her from the sea and not telling her the truth about Morgana. Ariel then tells her that it didn't matter if she had fins or feet. That they loved her for what she was on the inside, their very brave little girl, and her grandfather decides to add in "Just like your mother." Melody then runs and hugs her happy grandfather, who offers to allow her to be a mermaid permanently. Melody however turns it down, as she had thought of a better solution. Opting instead to destroy the barrier wall that separated the royal palace from the sea in order to reunite both sides of her family, where they could all be together. It's also hinted Melody and the mer-boy, Alex, are starting to like each other more.

In the film, Melody sings in the songs "For a Moment", "Tip and Dash", and the finale song "Here on the Land and Sea". Melody is also a playable character in the PlayStation game, The Little Mermaid II, which is based on the two movies.

Trivia[]

  • Melody is the first human/mer-person hybrid.
  • Melody was born on July 8, 1854.
  • Melody expresses the same wishes as her mother when she wants to be a mermaid, while her mother in the first movie, wishes to be a human.
  • Like her mother, Ariel, Melody goes to a sea witch for the transformation. Melody was born a full human but became a hybrid after her mermaid transformation.
  • Her name means, "Song" in Greek.
  • Melody is voiced by Tara Charendoff.

Gallery[]

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The Little Mermaid has a collection of images and media related to Melody.
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