*Does anyone still need spoiler warnings for The Little Mermaid? If so, here it is.*
Obviously, much of this characterization is the same in the original animated film, but since the live-action movie is 1) what I saw most recently and 2) awesome, I’ll mainly be drawing from that. As I’ve said before, Ariel can get a bad rap among the Disney renaissance princesses, and she really shouldn’t. While she makes some crucial mistakes, her flaws are a part of her character and don’t take away from her more admirable qualities.
The youngest daughter of King Triton, Ariel has never fit in. While everyone around her is content with life under the sea, she dreams of the human world above the surface. She’s fascinated with the objects they drop from their ships or that she finds in wrecks, not knowing what they are or how to use them but loving them all the same. She cherishes her collection of human things and will risk sharks near the shipwrecks for the sake of discovering more glimpses of humanity through the things they leave in the sea.
When she catches her first sight of real live humans, among them Eric, Ariel is understandably enchanted. She was already gaga over the human world anyway, and now one of the first ones she sees is handsome, charismatic, and puts his dog’s safety before his own? Come on now, what’s a teenager to do? Her first direct interaction with the human world finds her saving Eric from drowning when his ship goes down. Ariel doesn’t just brave the rough waters of the storm here—she also braves her father’s disapproval and everything he’s told her about humans being dangerous.
Ariel’s passion and bravery can be mixed with a strong dose of impulsivity, which comes back to bite her when Ursula tricks her into a misguided deal. Ariel gets what she wants more than anything—becoming a human herself, with a bonus of (hopefully!) getting to be with Eric. But she doesn’t realize that Ursula rigs the deal, making her continued freedom contingent on Eric falling in love with her while taking away the one thing he could recognize her by: her voice.
This is obviously a major setback for Mission: Get Eric to Kiss Me (and in the live-action film, Ursula also makes Ariel unable to remember this mandate in the first place,) but Ariel doesn’t let it get her down for long. Voice or no voice, she remains her bold, enthusiastic self, and she bonds with Eric over their shared love for worlds they long to be a part of. Even if he thinks she can’t be the girl who rescued him, it’s no wonder that he starts to fall for her anyway.
It's Ariel’s lust for life and longing for new experiences that make her a great princess, her tenacity at going after what she wants and her belief that she really can achieve it. I love her utter delight and wonder at exploring the human world, finding such joy in an open-air market or getting her first chance to use a real dinglehopper/fork! And at her lowest, when it looks like Ursula has won and is going to take everyone Ariel cares about, she wrestles back her voice from the witch who took it away and then fights back for the people she loves.
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