The Little Mermaid (1989 film)/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Why do people make such a big stink over the priest apparently getting "aroused" at the wedding (an urban legend that's untrue), but the fact that Ariel is naked from the waist down when she first becomes human, is usually ignored?
  • Wait a minute. If Ariel left in the middle of the "Under the Sea" music number, and Sebastian not only finished the song, but also went back to the castle and accidentally spilled the beans about Ariel, then how did both him and Triton get to the grotto at roughly the same time as Ariel?
    • Off-screen Dramatic Teleportation. It's not just for monsters and killers.
      • Ariel probably didn't get to the grotto nearly as quickly as we're imagining. She is highly distractable and Flounder was having to coax her on for most of the way because he just kept saying "it's a surprise"
  • Why are Eric's boots gone when Ariel brings him ashore (after rescuing him from drowning)? Boots are very difficult to slip off, and would be even more difficult to slide off in water.
    • Maybe Ariel took them off? Boots are also quite heavy when soaked with water and she probably thought it would be easier to carry him without them.
  • The Prequel. Both of Ariel's parents are/were redheads. Ariel is the only one of her siblings with red hair. Red hair is a recessive gene, meaning you need to inherit the gene from both parents. Meaning, red hair is the only hair color the child of two redheads can have. Either merpeople's genes for hair color work completely differently from humans', or Ariel's mother has been less than faithful...
    • Hollywood Genetics?
    • In the stage musical, the daughters are also different races.
    • Maybe they really aren't all his, or all hers? Considering that fish reproduction is a lot less intimate than the human kind, mer-folk probably wouldn't consider Triton or his wife unfaithful if either of them had been passing unfertilized eggs around to and from friends who came up a bit short for eggs of their own or had too many to use for themselves. Waste not, want not! Ariel being their only child with each other and all the others being half-sisters from either one or the other of her parents might also explain Triton's slight favoritism for Ariel and why she's a bit spoiled: in a way, it would mean she's an only child.
  • In the sequel, why did Ariel search for Melody underwater when she ran away in a boat?
    • The reason she's turned back into a mermaid in the first place is "because she knows these waters." She hadn't been in those waters for 12 years (plus the pregnancy, plus however long she was a human before that), there's no way she'd know those waters better than all the merpeople who'd been searching for Morgana all those years. Not like if she did know those waters, she'd even know where to look to find Melody (which she didn't).
      • I thought Melody went out of range of her waters so she wouldn't have been familiar with them - Maybe Ariel assumed Melody was still within the range of Triton's influence, stuff she was mor familiar with?
    • Mobility. Melody did run away in a boat, but she could catch the boat and get Melody to turn around and go home (or take her home herself -- numerous reasons, probably.) instead of a ship. Plus, she's a mother who lost her daughter - She'd probably feel worthless waiting around at home or riding in a ship with Eric when she knows she can swim if she were a mermaid again. I could also say she could describe Melody to other fish, but I imagine that Triton more or less had his daughters and kingdom on the lookout already. Although it could also probably because she really wanted to go swimming again since she spent about 12 years behind a wall with limited sea access, so impulse.
  • What happened to the trident's power in the canon TV series? In the movie it showed almost unlimited power, but in the series it couldn't even take on the villain of the week most of the time. Plus in the series it is revealed that Triton is the only one who knows how to use all of the trident's power. So, um, if Ursula could do all those badass things she did with it in the movie with only part of its power, couldn't 90% of the series plots have been resolved by Triton pointing the trident at whatever villain was around that week and telling it, "You have 30 seconds to get out before I vaporize you, starting now".
    • The film and the series take place in slightly divergent universes. Alternately, they left it out in the yard on a cold night and killed the batteries, so it won't fully recharge.
      • The TV series takes place prior to the film when Ariel's a teenager, thus the trident's had time to build up power.
    • Ursula is a rather skilled witch, it's not that surprising that she manages to do so much with it, even with it at limited power as it's boosting her already impressive power.
      • To the part about the whole "You have 30 seconds to get out before I vaporize you, starting now" issue in the series (or lack thereof), one episode DID have King Triton resorting to such a method. To put it simply, it was the episode where Sebastian had to act as a negotiator between the Sharkanians and the Atlantican Merpeople, nearing the ending of the episode, the Sharkanians attempt a trojan horse method involving a treasure chest to sneak into the palace and attack King Triton, only he was prepared for them. Long Story short, they seemed to meet their maker as implied by the immediate cut to the outside of the palace.
  • At the end of the second film, why do they indicate that Melody's choice would be permanent, I mean Triton seems to be able to change people merpeople into humans and vive versa pretty casually, she could alternate between Atlantica and... wherever she lives without restraint.
    • He probably just didn't want her constantly shifting back and forth as casually as changing clothes. As a king, he has better things to do than being on his granddaughter's beck and call.
    • Well, he could probably easily put a spell in place so when she's on dry land, she's human, but the moment she becomes immersed in saltwater she becomes a mermaid-considering all the other things he's been capable of, I see no reason he couldn't do that, both for her and her mother and even her father, if he wanted to come visit his wife's homeland.
    • It may have been a test of character, to see if Melody had actually learnes to be responsible, or something like that.
  • All of the princesses' names begin with one and the same letter (A) so in the DTV prequel what's the point of marking their possessions if nothing makes a difference. It's just redundant. And it's not like anyone but them are using them. The smart thing to do was to put their initials with a different color, like the color of their tails. You know:
    • Aquata -- A; Andrina -- A; Arista -- A; Attina -- A; Adella -- A; Alana -- A; Ariel -- A
  • When Ursula drags Ariel underwater after the sun goes down, she's clearly seen still wearing her dress. But in the scene IMMEDIATELY after that, the dress has suddenly vanished and she's wearing her clamshell bra. Even her big ass bow is gone!
    • This was done for the sake of not-looking-stupid. It happens. How silly it'll be to have Ariel underwater as a mermaid dressed as a human. The scenes after Ursula takes her underwater work best with Ariel wearing only her purple seashell bra. If she was still wearing those human clothes, the underwater scenes before the final battle could loose their credibility.
    • Ursula probably ripped Ariel's clothes off off-screen just to intimidate and humiliate her. It's in character.
  • In the original, why doesn't Ariel simply write down the things she wants to say to Eric? For a few moments I was thinking, "Oh, well she's probably illiterate, at least in human languages." But she did sign her name in English on that contract. Just because you can't speak doesn't mean you can't communicate, and she does do some nonverbal communication such as facial expression and charades, but never once does she attempt to write anything down. (It'd probably be a short movie if she did, right?)
    • The contract was Translation Convention? It was really written in Mer-language and just appeared in English for the convenience of the audience. That could be why the middle part of the contract looked like gibberish; it wasn't translated.
    • Multiple things - first, some powerful curses prevent people from talking or even writing about it - watch Howl's Moving Castle sometime. Second, everybody considered her a little unusual when she arrived, but put that down to shock from being in a shipwreck. Imagine if she'd started writing down things like "I'm a mermaid and I made a deal with a sea-witch to become human by trading my voice!" And third, telling him she's under a spell and only him falling in love with her can lift it? Well, it's actually quite hard to make somebody love you when they think that there's an ulterior motive (like not becoming a polyop). No matter the reason, Ariel tried to tell Eric what happened. He wasn't any good at charades.
  • "If you want to cross a bridge, my sweet, you've got to pay the toll." Ariel and Ursula both live underwater and Ariel forgets what streets are called. Even assuming Ursula is more knowledgeable about land-dwelling culture, why would she assume Ariel knew what a bridge was?
    • I'm sorry...Whut??? You're questioning the logic of musical numbers??
    • Also, why would she care what Ariel knew and what she didn't? No big deal if someone won't get a metaphor. The main idea is still clear: if you want something you have to pay, that is all Ariel have to know.
  • If Eric's parents are actually dead, why is he not a king? And if they're not dead, you'd think the least they could do is show up at Eric's wedding.
    • It's possible he was deemed too young to be king. If his parents are dead and Eric is too young to inherit the throne, they may have a council or advisor running things until Eric is old enough. Altnerately, if they are dead, there could be some law that he couldn't officially be king until he got married.
      • In the official book that I used to read, Grimsby is Eric's guardian. (My first encounter with the word, that's why I remember!
    • Or maybe "Prince" is the title of the ruler in his land.
    • Another variant: Eric is the brother of the king or even some distant relative, who's got the title but no real chance to become a king.
  • In "Under the Sea", they say "The seaweed is always greener/in somebody else's lake". How could they know what a lake is? Lakes are freshwater and all the singing creatures live in salt water, they couldn't even know about lakes.
    • Just because you live in one place, doesn't mean you know nothing of other areas. It's possible they learned about lakes from birds or other animals who can get away from water.
    • Also, does seaweed grow in lakes?
      • It usually has to grow in salt water, but there are a couple of salty lakes.
    • Speaking up that musical number, why is Sebastian's primary argument against going to the surface that people eat fish? Ariel is probably the least likely sea creature a human would ever want for food. I'd also mention that fish are already plenty preyed on under the sea anyway, but... ah, whatever.
      • Ariel and the other mermaids can talk to fish. They see the fish as sentient beings. So another sentient being (humans) eating a fish would be really horrible to them.
      • Actually they shouldn´t... fish eat each other all the time. Everything seems to indicate the shark doesn´t speak, and probably isn´t considered a "friend" by the rest of the sea folks, but still, many animals including seagulls and crabs (both friends to Ariel) eat fish. To merfolks, this should be seen as normal and a natural fact of life, although I agree that dinner time would probably be very akward...
  • So, wait, let me get this straight... at the start of the first movie they're staging a big musical show for the king and his kingdom... and NOBODY bothered to take a roll call of the performers?? NOBODY noticed that Ariel hadn't shown up that day? They start the show without checking that Ariel had arrived for the show, nevermind that she was in her place on stage. Seriously that's one ****ed up theater.
    • Perhaps she slipped away between a rehearsal and the performance? It's not uncommon for performers to have one final rehearsal before the actual show, so no one may have thought to take roll call because they assumed no one would leave.
      • Can't be. Ariel missed the concert because she forgot it was that day, not that she took off on purpose before it.
  • How does Ariel not get the bends swimming up from the ocean floor to the surface in less time than it takes to black out from lack of oxygen?
  • I always wondered, if Ariel had originally succeeded and the deal had been played out honestly, would she have gotten her voice back? Or did that happen only because the seashell was smashed?
    • I believe she wouldn't. The voice was a fee, not a pawn, if I remember correctly.
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