Our Mermaids Are Different: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
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{{quote|''"Mermaid, oh murmur into my ear
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Merfolk are generally portrayed as beautiful women (mermaids) or handsome men (mermen) with fish- or dolphin-like tails in place of legs. Sometimes they are not ''so'' pretty, but still fall under the [[Cute Monster Girl]] heading. Others are more blatantly sea-creatures with few human characteristics and are quite ugly, for example the [[Harry Potter]] merman ([[Viewer Gender Confusion|mermaid?]]) pictured. Sometimes they have features reminiscent of other, more exotic seas-creatures, and sometimes they ''are'' sea-animals that [[Humanity Ensues|become human-like]] under certain circumstances.
Some joke that merfolk have the fish half on top instead of on the bottom in order to resolve "the [[Mermaid Problem]]". Mermaids who are more human-looking (and modest) tend to wear [[Seashell Bra
'''[[Humanity Ensues|Merperson to Human:]]'''
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* [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|The Fredericka Bimm Method]]: Mermaids can switch forms more or less at will. Unlike the Splash method, getting doused with water is not a problem.
* [[Transformation Trinket|The Magical Item Method]]: Common in some mythologies but, curiously, not often utilized in modern fiction. The Mermaid has a magical item which allows her to change from one form to another. Some of these items are obvious; a [[Selkies and Wereseals|Selkie]] needs her shed seal-skin to return to her home in the sea. Others are... kind of random; a Merrow needs a hat made of red feathers to (depending on which variant on the legend you are reading) return to the sea or assume human form.
* And of course, some mermaids don't posess shapeshifting abilities at
'''Good or Evil?:'''
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* Sophia and The Mermaid Tribe and The Merman Tribe in [[Doraemon]].
* Usamaru Furuya's ''[[Short Cuts (manga)|Short Cuts]]'' has a mock poll about mermaids, asking which would you prefer, regular (fish bottom) or reverse (fish top) mermaid. The final "moral" is that people liking regular mermaids is the reason the population is decreasing: Put up with your partner, [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?|even if they have a fish face]].
* ''[[Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch]]'' involves mermaids who follow "The Splash Method"; though it also has elements of "The Little Mermaid" in there. If a mermaid tells a human her secret she'll turn into sea foam (supposedly; it's never tested, and the manga implies it might be a lie spread to keep up the [[Masquerade]]). Additionally, her human form is quite different looking from her mermaid form besides just the obvious lack of tail. The main character also sacrifices her voice - but ''just'' her singing voice (she can sing beautifully as a mermaid, [[Cute but Cacophonic|not so much as a human]]). On top of this, they are also [[Magical Girl
* A one-shot manga tale by [[Rumiko Takahashi]] had a passionate romance between a human boy and a mermaid - which ended as soon as they kissed. (Mermaid breath tasted like rotten fish, and human breath tasted like rotting plants. Yuck both ways.)
** The mermaids from Takahashi's ''[[Mermaid Saga]]'' are vastly different than most, as they are monstrous, flesh-eating, and very hard to kill. Eating their flesh has a [[Million-to-One Chance]] (really) of granting
* The much older ''[[Mahou no Mako-chan|Mahou no Mako Chan]]'' shares some similarities with ''Pichi Pichi Pitch'', as they are both based loosely on ''[[The Little Mermaid]]''. Mako-chan uses a magic pendant to transform and is more of a [[Cute Witch]].
* ''[[Seto no Hanayome]]'''s mermaids can assume human form, but revert to their fishy one if [[Water Induced Transformation|touched by water]]. Adults grow out of this, and it is possible for younger mermaids to resist the change with limited success if they are disciplined enough. Their songs can cause a variety of status effects. Otherwise nice people, aside from being [[Yakuza]]...
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* In ''[[Ponyo]]'', the mermaid equivalents are magical goldfish-sized creatures with protohuman faces and powerful magic who can turn [[Humanity Ensues|shapeshift]] [[Blood Magic|if they taste human blood]]. Oh, and they appear to be the [[Half-Human Hybrid|result of breeding]] between [[A Wizard Did It|a no-longer-human wizard]] and [[Physical God|the goddess of the ocean]].
* ''[[Satou Kashi no Dangan wa Uchinukenai]]'' lampshades this trope when Nagisa remarks on Umino's supposed transformation story: ''"That's the scenario from'' [[The Little Mermaid]], ''isn't it?''
* [[Token Mini-Moe|Bluebell]] from ''[[Katekyo Hitman Reborn]]'' has a box weapon which turns her into a [[wikipedia:Shonisaurus|shonisaurus]]/[[Half-Human Hybrid|human hybrid]] that resembles a mermaid. However she doesn't seem to have heard of [[Seashell Bra
* [[Digimon Frontier]]: One of the antagonists, [http://dma.wtw-x.net/dexrana.shtml Ranamon], is a human hybrid fairy digimon with control over water. Despite not having the typical mermaid traits (human upper body and fish tail), she definitely constitutes being a mermaid. She is a big fan among many digimon due to her attractive appearance, but this changes when she digivolves into her hideous, tentacled beast form, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-3oc1mNUnc Calmaramon]. Her benevolent mega form, Ancientmermaimon, is [http://dma.wtw-x.net/dexancientmermai.shtml more typical of a mermaid].
* [[Level E]] has mermaids with the rather unusual power to detect any attempt to lie to them... by their tongue involuntarily shooting out and stabbing the liar to death. {{spoiler|Unfortunately, it doesn't stop them from being sold into sex slavery and pretty much wiped out, because a loophole is found to evade the ability but the mermaids don't realize it.}}
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** And their leaders (?) look like giant, luminescent brine shrimp. No, I'm not joking.
* In ''[[Gold Digger (Comic Book)|Gold Digger]]'', Atlanteans are humanoid amphibious aliens with dolphin-like skin, gills, and small fins on their arms and legs to assist in swimming.
* ''[[Meat Cake]]'' has Effluvia, a beautiful but slutty mermaid who flirts with
* [[Hellboy|Abe Sapien]] is basically a [[Creature from the Black Lagoon|gill-man]]. A good-natured, erudite, streamlined gill-man.
* The [[Elf Quest]] spin-off ''Wave Dancers'' played with this in several ways. (The "mermaids" were [[Our Elves Are Better|space elves]] modified by magic to live in the water. Exactly ''how'' they were modified varied wildly.)
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* ''[[Dagon]]'' starts with the protagonist having a dream about a classic mermaid, only that it turns out she had sharp teeth. Later in the movie, he meets that mermaid... {{spoiler|but she does not look like a typical mermaid or have the fangs she had in the dream. She looks like a human with gills along her ribs and a long, squid-like tentacle in place of each leg}}.
** She was also {{spoiler|his half-sister}} and {{spoiler|wanted him to marry her.}} Yay Lovecraft.
* The [[Creature from the Black Lagoon]]. Now, now, he is ugly and lives in [[The Amazon]] rather than the
* The Made-for-PAX-TV Movie ''Mermaids'' (not to be confused with the 1980s Cher vehicle - which has nothing to do with mermaids) features the "Splash Method," with an added complication: the protagonists also turn into mermaids at low tide every night.
* ''[[The Nightmare Before Christmas]]'' has an "Underwater Gal" as a scene-stealing minor character. She is essentially a Mermaid-as-[[Cute Monster Girl|Monster-Girl]].
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** At the VERY end, the mermaid who wanted a soul dies and becomes an air spirit who can earn a [[Our Souls Are Different|soul]] by 100 years of good deeds - with the [[Anvilicious]] remark that an air spirit's time may be reduced if she sees well-behaved children who make her smile, or increased if she sees wicked children who make her weep.
** Arguably, the [[Disneyfication|Disney version]] is the more sadistic and power-hungry version of the sea-witch, placing not only a time limit on the spell, but planning to ruin the mermaid's chance at happiness herself and steal the kingdom to boot. The original witch is neither good nor evil, and warns the mermaid of the consequences presented by the deal she wishes to make.
** The witch provides the only way out of the spell to the mermaid's concerned sisters: a special knife for her to kill the prince in order to splash his heart's blood over her legs, reverting them to their fishtail form. The knife was much
* In the ''Ingo'' Young Adult books by Helen Dunmore, the Mer ('''don't''' call them Mermaids, Mermen, or Merfolk) are described as [[Selkies and Wereseals|half-human, half-seal]]. They can't become human but humans can become Mer apparently. They don't like humans very much, except for the [[Half-Human Hybrid|Half Human Hybrids]] with whom they can communicate.
* In ''Four Kids, Three Cats, Two Cows, One Witch (Maybe)'' Kevin tells Beverly a story about a family of merpeople where the father gets fed up of being neglected by his family and leaves to marry a human woman. He loses his tail because of this but is able to regain it at night time.
* The original, printed page ''[[Aquamarine]]'', by Alice Hoffman, centers around a Mermaid who is stranded in a swimming pool after a storm. She's a bit self-centered, but eventually realises she will need the help of the only humans who know about her if she is ever to return home and to her sisters. She cannot transform into a human ''at all''. The rescue actually takes some time and
* There's also Indigo, also by Helen Dunmore, which is about two [[Half-Human Hybrid]] boys, who have webbing between their fingers and toes, can hold their breath for a very long time, drink salt water, love eating fish, and constantly daydream about the ocean. Their mother was a traditional mermaid with a tail instead of legs, however.
* The [[Emily Windsnap]] books also use "The Splash Method".
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* K?b? Abe's short story ''Ningyoden'' (Mermaid Legend) is about a man falling in love with a flesh-eating mermaid. There's also some cloning involved. Since his work was influenced by [[Franz Kafka]] it's also a [[Mind Screw]].
* Three examples from the work of [[Jack Chalker]]:
** The Umiau from Chalker's ''Well World'' series are an alien species of aquatic mammals that just happen to look remarkably like traditional mermaids. (They're also [[Hermaphrodite
** Mermaids in the ''[[River of Dancing Gods]]'' series are half human and half dolphin but their social organization resembles a pack of hyenas crossed with the mafia. They make their living extorting protection money from fishermen.
** The [[Half-Human Hybrid|Half Human Hybrids]] of Chalker's [[Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke]] novel ''[[The Moreau Factor]]'' (note the title) include at least three species of merfolk: [[Half Human Hybrids|hermaphroditic frog-women]], [[Unscaled Merfolk|humanoid dolphins]] and "Creature from the Black Lagoon"-style [[Fish People]].
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* [[Goosebumps]]: Deep Trouble - The main character is rescued by a mermaid before it is captured and almost sold to a zoo by the mean humans.
* In Andrei Belianin's ''Thief of Baghdad'', the main character ([[Fish Out of Temporal Water]] with [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]]) and his friend [[wikipedia:Nasreddin|Nasreddin]] encounter a mermaid, who will only help them if one of them satisfies her. The main character, recognizing the [[Mermaid Problem]] promptly passes the "honor" to Nasreddin. After some time, Nasreddin returns with a smile. When asked, he is surprised that his companion doesn't know that mermaids briefly turn into humans when they want to "get it on".
* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[Chronicles of Chaos|Fugitives of Chaos]]'', Amelia speaks of sailors who brought back mermaid
* Kit Whitfield's Deepmen in ''In Great Waters'' are air breathing (although they can stay under for up to 30 minutes) mammals with tails, notably less intelligent than humans, although they have a language it's limited to purely practical matters, abstract concepts like religion being alien to them and can breed with humans. In fact all the royal houses of Europe (and possibly the world) [[Half-Human Hybrid|have some Deepman blood]].
* "[[The Princess Series|The Mermaid's Madness]]" by Jim C. Hines features a proud tribe of merfolk (they prefer the term "Undine") who appear to be of the standard human-on-top, fish-on-bottom variety. Members of the nobility of this tribe differ however, in that they have two tails (bypassing the [[Mermaid Problem]] quite nicely.)
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** Not to mention the actual mermaid in Link's Awakening.
* The Mermen race in ''[[Darkstalkers]]'' are an odd mix of the traditional beautiful merpeople, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Lovecraftian Deep Ones. They have disturbingly beautiful faces, webbed claws for feet and hands, come in a multitude of rainbow colors, and can [[Shapeshifter Weapon|transform their body parts]] to mimic the appearance and abilities of any other sea creature - although usually on a bigger scale.
* In ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]] 9'', Splash Woman's look is based on the regular
* In ''[[EVO Search for Eden]]'', you are able to ''become'' a mermaid, albeit only temporarily, in the last age by stepping into the ocean off the southmost point of South America. While you're first given a workable amphibian version of whatever you've evolved into, you now have the option to "evolve hands and feet"; doing so will turn you into a seal, then a dolphin, then... something the [[Let's Play]] titled "Abomination" for [http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/EVO/Update%2031/36-evo033ew.jpg a good reason], and then blonde mermaid. It's not clear which gender you are, but you apparently attack with devastating effect by ''kissing'' your foes. Also, since you cannot evolve further, you cannot replenish HP by minor evolutions, making the boss fight a good deal more difficult. Of course, since you're an evolutionary dead end, once you've defeated the local boss you're returned to the shore as the creature you entered with.
* The Nereids of ''[[Soul Nomad and The World Eaters]]'' are essentially a [[One-Gender Race]] of mermaids. Due to this they use males of other species in order to breed. This is why [[Wife Husbandry|they have a little human boy around with them.]]
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* The mermaid we meet in the Telltale ''[[Sam and Max]]'' games is completely human in appearance (save for oddly-coloured hair), and (by [[Word of God]]) basically immortal, except for accidents. She's also psychotically evil, but that's probably not a mermaid thing.
** She's not really a mermaid either. Her outfit has a distinct mermaid theme to it, but that's neither here nor there. {{spoiler|She's actualy an unholy golem created from an infernal recipe called "The Cake Of The Damned", and why the ambulatory form of The Cake Of The Damned should be a psychotically evil, attractive young lady in a mermaid-themed outfit is for the writers to know and us to never find out}}.
*** At least, {{spoiler|that appears to be the case until episode 305 apparently, and somewhat confusingly, [[Retcon
* ''[[Ōkamiden|Okamiden]]'' allows the player to have a mermaid girl as their partner. She looks like a traditional mermaid, but she has the Dragonians' fin-ears.
* The Undines from ''[[Monster Rancher]] 2'' have a transparent, Jell-like appearance and use both water and ice based attacks.
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* ''[http://citizenofzozo-art.deviantart.com/art/Mermaid-Transformation-47459835 Mermaid Transformation]'' by CitizenOfZozo-art. Apparently, sometimes you dive to pick some valuables off that sunken ship, put found jewelry on and BLOOP! blurgle-blurgle.
* ''[http://coralwerks.deviantart.com/art/A-Sudden-Change-85360508 A Sudden Change]'' by Coralwerks. "Another magical pool, another changed human (there really outta be a law)."
* In [[The Dragon Wars Saga]], the merfolk can shift their tails into
* [[The Whitest Kids U' Know]] has a sketch [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyOQoKDkkVQ on this very trope].
* The one encountered in ''The Adventures of [[The League of STEAM]]'' episode, "Tall Tails", is of the standard "beautiful woman with fishlike tail" variety.
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