Melody

Melody

Background information
Feature films	The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea
Television programs
Video games	The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea (playstation) The Little Mermaid II Pinball Frenzy
Park attractions
Portrayed by
Portrayed by
Animators
Voice	Tara Strong
Performance model
Designer
Inspiration	Ariel
Honors and awards
Character information
Full name
Other names	Princess Melody Mel-Mel (when stutters by trying to say her name)
Personality	Intrigued, headstrong, intelligent, curious, stubborn, tomboyish, adventurous, shy, persistent, determined, brave, spunky, cute
Appearance	Slender, 12 years old, fair skin, pink lips, long black hair tied by a green rubber band in a ponytail, blue eyes (in her human form): Both white pantalets and camisole, barefoot (in her mermaid form): White tank top, red tail
Birthday
Occupation	Princess
Affiliations	Good
Goal	To someday fulfill her destiny of living beneath the waves instead of on land (formerly) To foil Morgana (succeeded)
Home	Prince Eric's castle
Relatives	Ariel (mother) Prince Eric (father) King Triton (grandfather), Queen Athena (grandmother/deceased) Aquata, Andrina, Arista, Adella, Alana, Attina (aunts) Poseidon (great-grandfather) Grandpa Neptune (great-great-grandfather/deceased)
Pets	Sebastian (crab), Max (dog)
Allies	Sebastian, Tip and Dash, Scuttle, Flounder, Max, Ariel, Prince Eric, King Triton
Minions
Enemies	Morgana, Cloak and Dagger, Undertow
Likes	Going to the sea, swimming, exploring, treasure hunting
Dislikes	Rules, reprimands, secrets, her mother's lies, her mother forbidding her to go to the sea
Powers and abilities
Weapons
Fate	Vaporizes the wall that once separated the land from the sea with the help of her grandfather's trident.
Quote	(sings) "Wish my mother could hear it, the sea is my song, for a moment, just a moment I belong." (whispers to Sebastian) "Sometimes, I pretend, I have.... fins!"

[Source]

Melody is the protagonist of the Little Mermaid II: Return of the Sea. She is the daughter of Ariel and Prince Eric and the princess of her father's kingdom. She is voiced by Tara Strong.

Background

Physical Appearance

Melody is a tomboyish 12-year old princess. She has straight black hair, most often tied back with a green hairtie in a ponytail, pink lips, and aqua blue eyes. She seems to have inherited a fairly even blend of traits from her parents. Most noticeable is her hair (the same color as her father's). She inherited her mother's eyes, nose, and facial structure. It is also possible that she inherited Ariel's beautiful singing voice, which is heard in "For A Moment", a duet between Melody and her mother. Eric also gave her his skin tone, smile, and thick eyebrows. Melody's hairstyle seems like a blend of both of her parents'.

For most of the film, Melody is seen in her underclothes, which is a separate pair of white pantalettes and a white camisole; the pantalettes cover the bottom half of her stomach. As a baby, she was wearing a cute and very pretty pink and white dress and her bow also has the same colors. While in mermaid form, she retains her camisole, but her pantalettes and legs are replaced by a salmon tail; her navel is also visible. It is odd that the merteens she meets don't pay notice she does not wear a typical seashell bikini top like other mermaids. She also has a pink ballgown and a yellow casual dress both with short puffy sleeves. Since she found it, she wears her locket that has her name on it.

Personality

Melody has a sassy, well manned and has respect for her mother Ariel and the rest. And mostly for her father. She was raised with beauty respect confidence manners and have a self made attitude. Melody's curious and tomboyish nature leads her to collect all sorts of items from the sea, a parallel to her mother at age 16. Melody's swimming proficiency and ability to hold her breath for long periods comes from her mermaid parentage. Largely because of her mermaid heritage, she was also seen as somewhat of an outcast, as evidenced by the guests at her 12th birthday celebration shunning her. She is also shy around boys, becoming quite flustered when a merboy she found attractive tried befriending her in Atlantica. She later met him again after the wall was disintegrated, with both recognizing each other. It is unknown if she revealed she wasn't a mermaid anymore to him.

Abilities

Due in part to her partial mermaid heritage, Melody was a skilled swimmer. She also had inherited some of her mother's superhuman traits, namely speed and strength, the latter of which is demonstrated by her scaling an ice wall with little problems late into the film. She also inherited superhuman endurance, as evidenced by her not being crushed into oblivion when forcibly changed back into a human by Morgana despite the depth she was at. She also was able to speak to marine life.

Role in the film

Little-mermaid2-disneyscreencaps — Melody as an adorable infant

Melody first appears as an adorable infant at the beginning of the film. Her parents, Ariel and Eric, are celebrating her birth, and have taken her out on a ship to meet with Ariel's father, King Triton and the merpeople. Triton presents Melody with a locket which bears her name, meant to remind his granddaughter of her mermaid heritage. However, the celebration is interrupted by Morgana, Ursula's sister. Morgana kidnaps Melody and threatens to feed her to her shark, Undertow, if Triton does not hand over his trident. Though Triton almost does so, Ariel and Eric are able to thwart Morgana's plan. Morgana vanishes, but not before vowing revenge. Morgana is now a threat and until she is captured, Ariel decides that Melody can't know anything about the sea, including her mermaid heritage, Atlantica and her grandfather King Triton. She bans the merpeople from seeing Melody, and later has a large sea wall built to separate their castle from the sea. Meanwhile, Melody's locket is tossed into the sea.

Several years later, Melody grows up banned from entering the sea, but is ignorant of the reason why. Despite the ban, she loves the sea and regularly sneaks out to swim. This causes a difficult relationship between her and her mother. On her 12th birthday, while out swimming, Melody discovers the locket and is surprised to see her name on it. The locket opens to reveal a picture of mermaids swimming in Atlantica. She confronts her mother about it, noting that Ariel has told her that Atlantica was only a fairytale. After Ariel refuses to give any answers, Melody takes a rowboat and runs away from home. After learning of Melody's disappearance, Ariel resumes her mermaid form to aid in the search.

Meanwhile, Melody is lured to Morgana's lair by Undertow. Morgana uses a potion to turn Melody into a mermaid, which excites Melody. However, the spell will only last a few days. Morgana explains that she can make the transformation permanent of she has the trident, which she claims Triton stole from her. Morgana asks Melody to retrieve the trident. Unknown to Melody, Morgana is lying and only wants the trident for her own selfish purposes. However, only a descendant of Triton can remove it from its resting place, and Melody is ignorant of Triton's connection to her.

While searching for the trident, Melody tries to use the map Morgana gave her and due to the ticklish sea kelp, the whale sneezes forcing Melody off of it and her map gets broken. Later on, she befriends a penguin named Tip and a walrus named Dash, and they join her in her search. The trio manages to sneak into the Atlantican royal palace and make off with the trident. Melody returns to Morgana at the same time that her mother Ariel arrives. Ariel attempts to explain the situation, but Melody, angered at Ariel's decision to hide Melody's mermaid heritage, gives Morgana the trident.

Afterward, Morgana reveals her true colors and the truth to Melody, takes Ariel hostage, and traps Melody and Flounder in a cave by sealing the entrance with a thick layer of ice. Soon afterward, Morgana's spell on Melody wears off. She reverts her human form and nearly drowns, but Tip and Dash get Undertow, Morgana's shark minion, to ram into the ice, and help Flounder carry Melody to the surface. While Morgana is terrorizing everyone with the trident, Melody is able to sneak up behind Morgana and take back the trident. Melody throws the trident to Triton. She is then knocked off the ice pillar by Morgana, but is saved by Dash. Triton catches his trident and imprisons Morgana in an iceberg.

With the danger past, Melody reunites with her parents and Triton offers to allow Melody to become a mermaid permanently. Melody refuses the offer, instead choosing to destroy the sea wall, so that everyone could be together again.

The Little Mermaid II (video game)

Melody is also a playable character in the PlayStation and PSP game The Little Mermaid II, which is based on the two movies.

The Little Mermaid II (pinball frenzy)

She is seen on the cover beside her Mother of this Game Boy color game

The Little Mermaid II (Disney Creativity)

She is a playable character in the game for PC.

The Little Mermaid II (Golden Books)

She is used in the 6 golden books that follow the story line of the movie.

Trivia

Melody is the first Disney character to be the offspring of a Disney Princess.
It should be noted that Melody's bedroom is the same room as Ariel's guestroom when she first took human form and was staying with Prince Eric.
Although Melody inherited a lot of Ariel's traits in both personality and appearance, her mixture of black hair, thick eyebrows, and blue eyes make her a perfect blend of her parents.
Despite the unpopularity of the sequel, Melody has a large fanbase. In fact, Tara Strong says Melody is her favorite character that she's ever done the voice for.
Melody means "song" in Greek.
Since it was Morgana using Ursula's magic that turned Melody into a mermaid, it is unknown if salmon would be her natural mermaid tail color.
In a rather amusing coincidence, Tara Strong would later voice two of Ariel's sisters in the prequel The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning.
Although Melody is a princess by birth, she isn't included as an official Disney Princess in the franchise, because of her young age and status as a heroine of a direct-to-video film. However, her mother is.
- On a related note, not counting Descendants, Melody is so far the only character to be the offspring of one of the Disney Princesses.
Melody is the only known grandchild of King Triton.
Like her mother, Melody has two friends, Tip and Dash, but unlike Sebastian and Flounder, Tip is a penguin, while Dash is a walrus (a marine bird and marine mammal opposed to a crustacean and a tropical fish).
Having taken over for her mother from the first Little Mermaid film, Melody is the third offspring of a predecessor's main character to take over as the protagonist in a sequel, with the first being Nicky Ferris (taking over from Sharon McKendrick in The Parent Trap II), the second being Kiara (taking over from Simba in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride), the fourth being Scamp (taking over from Lady in Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure), the fifth being Jane (taking over from Wendy in Return to Never Land), the sixth being Patch (taking over from both Pongo and Perdita in 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure), and the seventh being Sam Flynn from Tron: Legacy (taking over from Kevin Flynn).
The first dress Melody is seen wearing is pink, which is the same color of the first dress her mother wore in the first film.
Melody's dream was the opposite of her mother's; while Ariel was a mermaid who wanted to be a human, Melody is a human who wanted to be a mermaid.
Melody also shares the same worries for not being a mermaid, and she wishes to tell her mom what she feels, but she says to Sebastian she would never understand her. In the first film, Ariel wishes to be human, and she tells her worries to Flounder and also tells Sebastian that her father would never understand her fascination with the human world.
Melody also inherited her mother's speed. While Sebastian tries to convince her to return home for her birthday party at the palace, he says, after Melody goes into the water again, that she's like her mother. In the first film, he tried to tell her mother to take her head out of the clouds and convince her to not think about the human world.
When Melody finds the musical locket she had gotten when she was a baby, and her mother finds the music box of her late mother; they recognized the melody.
Melody makes the same back pose when she is transformed into a mermaid, just as her mother did in the first movie.
It is unknown why Melody was unconscious after she landed on Dash when Morgana pushed her and she recovers in her father's arms just like Ariel in the third movie, when she was hit by Marina. Melody was conscious when she landed on Dash, but when Morgana's lair and the icicles collapsed, she was unconscious when Tip pushed them both out the way.
Melody is the first sequel hero/heroine who runs away from home to see another world like the ocean. The second is Scamp, who runs away from home to live the junkyard dog life. Jane from Return to Neverland is not included, since she did not run away to Neverland.
Coincidentally, Tara Strong, Melody's voice actress, later voiced the Ariel parody character Princess Clara from Drawn Together, who resembled an adult version of Melody in all but eyebrows.
- In addition, Strong would later voice the character Elisa from Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, who, coincidentally, had a sister/stronger alter ego named Ursula.
Melody's hairstyle for most of the film appears to be almost similar to child Ariel from the flashback sequence of the TV series' episode " The Evil Manta".
She does share some similarities with Kiara and Scamp.
- The three of them are the protagonists of their films.
- They are stubborn and headstrong.
- They all runaway from home for certain reasons.
  - Melody ran away because she wanted to be part of the ocean world.
  - Scamp ran away to live the junkyard dog life.
  - Kiara ran away to find Kovu after her father Simba exiled him.
- They have a strained relationship with their parents for Melody (her mother), for Kiara and Scamp (their fathers), but make amends with them at the end of their films.
- The only two differences are that Kiara and Scamp have a love interest in their films, while Melody does not. Melody and Scamp both have socialized and interacted with main antagonists of their films (Morgana and Buster), while Kiara only briefly interacted with Zira.

Quotes

How would you know? You've never even been in it!
Sometimes I pretend... (whispers): I have fins!
You're a mermaid?
(Singing): For a moment, out of me, is alive and at home in the sea.

Gallery

The Disney Wiki and Disney Fan Fiction Wiki has a collection of images and media related to Melody.

The Little Mermaid