The Little Mermaid 1989 / Tropes O to Z

The Little Mermaid (1989) Trope Examples
A - D | E - N | O - Z

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O

• Ode to Food: "Les Poissions" is a hammy song sung by a chef about how he loves to cook fish. Sebastian, who hears him singing, is simultaneously horrified and grossed out.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Ariel's sisters and Sebastian have one when they see Ariel is not where she was supposed to be for the concert when it is her cue, and know full well what this means when all eyes turn to Triton as his go red with fury.
  • Sebastian when he sees Ariel has rescued human Eric and is singing over him. Complete with Jaw Drop.
  • He does another one when he accidentally rats Ariel out to Triton.
  • Also, when Ariel sees her father in her grotto after she swoons over the Eric statue.
  • After Ariel blurts out she loves Eric directly to Triton's face, both she, Triton, AND Sebastian have this expression. Cue another one from Ariel and Sebastian when Triton shortly afterwards starts destroying the grotto.
  • Sebastian is a king of this trope; he does ANOTHER one when Ariel tells him she's going to Ursula, and this time, he has good reason to be horrified.
  • And both Sebastian and Flounder when Ariel signs Ursula's contract and gets turned into a human. He gives another one when they're on land.
  • Sebastian again when he finds himself face to face with the kitchen's contents, including stuffed crabs. Cue faint. Then once more when he sees Chef Louie and nearly throws up. Then again when he runs into a dismembered fish head. As a matter of fact, Sebastian does an Oh, Crap! look virtually every five seconds in this part of the film as he gets noticed; every example would require its own page (along with Louie when the jig ends).
  • Eric when Ariel starts their carriage running towards a cliff.
  • Ariel and Sebastian when they see Eric hypnotized into marriage with Vanessa/Ursula.
  • "Vanessa" does a big one as a big flock of birds speed towards her.
  • "Vanessa"/Ursula when she speaks after this and realizes she no longer has Ariel's voice.
  • The entire wedding barge when Ursula drops her disguise.
  • Ariel and Sebastian after Ursula turns Triton into a polyp.
  • Ursula when her "babies" get zapped.
  • Flounder and Sebastian when Ursula goes One-Winged Angel.
  • Ariel and Eric when confronted with One-Winged Angel Ursula.
  • Ariel when Ursula traps her.
  • Ursula when she gets Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by Eric.
  • Sebastian when Louie finds him on the wedding barge.
  • "Oh my gosh! My father's gonna kill me!"
  • Scuttle when he sees Ursula's reflection in Vanessa's mirror. Ariel has the same reaction when he frantically reports that the "bride" is Ursula in disguise! It suddenly all makes sense now!
  • Flounder when he sees the shark behind him, then when he tries to taunt Glut after Glut gets stuck by blowing a raspberry at him, one near-miss snap of Glut's jaws quickly has Flounder put on the granddaddy of all bug-eyed Too Dumb to Live Oh, Crap! looks before he wisely decides to go Screw This, I'm Outta Here and rejoin Ariel with a terrified whimper.
• Old-Fashioned Rowboat Date: Invoked as part of the song "Kiss the Girl".
• One-Winged Angel: Ursula at the end. Vanessa changing back into Ursula also counts.
• Only Six Faces: Ariel's sisters in the original appear to be exactly the same. The only difference is their hair and the color of their tails and bras. Although they look the same in the face, Adella is the chubby one out of the bunch, differentiating her from the rest of her slim sisters.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Normally Scuttle when telling Ariel "facts" about the human world is in a jovial tone, or at least she can figure out he's wrong instantly. When he flies to Ariel, Flounder and Sebastian after seeing Ursula's reflection in Vanessa's mirror, he's frantic and serious, quickly telling them "the prince is marrying the sea witch in disguise!" Even though Sebastian questions him, the trio realize that he's right, and that they have to get to the ship. Then when Sebastian orders Scuttle to stall the wedding, Scuttle calls all the sea creatures and birds he can find, to give Vanessa a Humiliation Conga and smash her shell.
  • Sebastian ordering Scuttle to stall the wedding also counts. For their time together, Sebastian has treated Scuttle as a fool. When he gives his orders, he sincerely tells Scuttle to get to it, without his usual condescension.
• Orcus on His Throne: More or less with Ursula. For the majority of the film, Ursula's operating out of the grotto and through Flotsam and Jetsam. The Sea Witch finally takes to the field at the end of Second Act once it's clear Ariel might just fullfill Ursula's bargain after all (thus ruining her plans for Triton).
• Orifice Invasion: The giant hands Ursula summons go down Ariel's throat to claim her voice.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: Ariel definitely popularized mermaid characters for a generation. The filmmakers certainly claim that they subverted the blonde, otherworldly, mischievous archetype of the mermaid by creating a rebellious redheaded mermaid who was very human rather than fiery in character.
• The Outside World: Ariel is fascinated by the world above the ocean surface, particularly in humans to the point that she falls in love with one, and makes a Deal with the Devil to get the chance to live up there.
• Overly Long Name: Horatio Felonious Ignacious Crustaceous Sebastian.

P

• Papa Wolf: Triton. And he protects Ariel from Ursula (well, he tries).
• Parental Abandonment:
  • Ariel has no mother, and while he's not evil, her father is so misguided in his attempts to protect her that she feels emotionally abandoned.
  • Eric seemingly has no parents whatsoever and was possibly raised by Grimsby.
• Parental Favoritism: Despite their personality conflicts, Ariel is Daddy's favorite. According to the DVD Commentary, the directors and producers were a little uncomfortable with the idea of a parent having a favorite child, but rationalized it out as Ariel being the most like her father in temperament.
  • Also, she's the youngest daughter and the one more resembling her dead mother. Psychologically, she reminds Triton of his wife and, while her eldest sisters had, at least for a while, a mother and a father, Triton feels constantly the brunt of educating, caring and sheltering Ariel alone.^note However, this was not part of the original filmmakers' considerations, as it was added in by the direct-to-video team two decades later.
• Parents Are Wrong: Ariel wants to live on land and marry a human. King Triton vetoes this, but eventually relents and realizes that "children should be free to live their own lives."
• Pimped-Out Dress: The dinner dress Ariel is given as well as her wedding dress.
• Poor Communication Kills: The stage version has a song called "If Only", in which Ariel, Eric, Sebastian, and Triton all in different places mourn that they can't understand or be understood by someone they care deeply about.
• Post-Victory Collapse: Eric passes out on the beach after his battle with Ursula.
• Powerful and Helpless: Triton can do nothing to break the contract Ariel signed with Ursula. All the power he wields through his trident cannot destroy the contract. All he can do to save Ariel is pull a Take Me Instead.
• Power Hair: Ursula.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The Broadway musical adaptation removes the Vanessa subplot, replacing it with a contest scene where several princesses compete for Eric's affection through singing. Also, during the climax, Ursula never grows into a giant beast once she gets the trident, as it would've been impossible to pull off onstage (this means that there's no final battle between Eric and Ursula; instead, Ariel is the one that kills her).
• Precision F-Strike: In the stage musical, one of Ursula's songs, "I Want the Good Times Back", manages to squeeze in this line:
  Ursula: And get the good times back, I mean with all the perks/The trident, crown, and throne, all mine alone! The whole damn works!
• Prefers the True Form: Heavily implied in the case of Ursula. Despite her infamous ugliness, she shows several times to be proud of her looks (i.e. calling herself "starving" despite her bulk). She also on being a Vain Sorceress by her use of glamour magic. Instead of relying on her "Vanessa" disguise to win the trust of her customers, she uses it only to complete her Evil Plan and turns back into her normal form immediately after Ariel runs out of time.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: As Ursula is about to do in Ariel with the trident, she bellows, "SO MUCH FOR TRUE LOVE!!!" Only a split second later, Ursula gets killed when Eric impales her on the bowsprit of a sunken ship, which also somehow causes the trident to backfire on her.
• Princesses Prefer Pink: Ariel's dinner dress and nightgown are both pink.
• Princess Protagonist: Ariel, the protagonist of the movie, is the princess of her undersea kingdom, though she rejects the life set out for her and falls in love with a human prince.
• Princesses Rule: Gender Flipped with Prince Eric, who is the ruler of his kingdom because his parents are deceased, but retains the title "Prince", presumably because he's young and unmarried.
• Product Displacement: The 2013 restoration/3D conversion removed the words, "In Association With Silver Screen Partners IV" from the opening credits.
• Progressive Instrumentation: "Kiss the Girl" has the various animals jump in one at a time.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "...You turn back into a mermaid. And, you belong. To me."
• Punctuated Pounding: "DO YOU HEAR WHAT I'M TELLIN' YOU? The Prince! Is MARRYING! The Sea Witch! in DISGUISE!" All while Scuttle has grabbed Sebastian and is slamming him into the dock.
• Purple Is the New Black: A major color for Ursula.

Q

• Quivering Lip: Ariel does this when her father King Triton reprimands her for going to the surface, then swims away before he can see her cry.

R

• Race Against the Clock: Ariel has only three days to get a kiss from Eric and remain human permanently, otherwise she'll turn back into a mermaid.
• Rage Breaking Point: Triton was already furious that his daughter had made contact with a human, but Ariel's defying shout of "I love him!" proved to be the straw that broke the seahorse's back.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: In Ariel's Beginning, Ariel joins Flounder, Sebastian, and the Catfish Club Band after escaping from Atlantica.
• Rainbow Motif: The seven daughters of Triton each have a different color tail. If we were to arrange them chromatically, they are: Arista (red), Attina (orange), Adella (yellow), Ariel (green), Aquata (blue), Andrina (purple), Alana (pink).
• Ramming Always Works: Well, how else are you going to take on the giant sea monster when you don't have any cannons (or wizards)?
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Prince Eric, master of Ship Fu.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Played straight with Grimsby. He is basically Eric's Parental Substitute and implied to be his guardian before he came of age, telling him he deserves to be happy. Eric at least appreciates the sentiment if not Grimsby trying to fix suitable matches for political reasons. While Grimsby hates being on the water and doesn't believe in the sailors' folktales, he goes anyway because it's Eric's birthday and will endure any discomfort for his sake. Later, Grimsby clearly ships Eric with the voiceless Ariel when the latter eats dinner with them, and encourages Eric to pursue what is real and before him rather than what's impossible. The ending confirms that he is more than fine with Eric marrying a transformed mermaid, because what matters is his adopted son is happy, and he can't help but comfort Carlotta who is sobbing Tears of Joy.
  • Subverted. King Triton tries to be as he's gently telling Ariel off for missing her debut concert, while Sebastian is playing the Bad Cop. When he finds out Ariel went to the surface, he chews her out because she could have been hurt by humans and won't listen to her protests that nothing happened.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Ursula has only six tentacles instead of the traditional eight because of budget issues. Though if you include her human arms, she does have eight limbs.
• Rebellious Princess: Ariel fits this to a T. She's pretty much the Trope Codifier, at least for Disney's near-constant use of this trope ever since.
• Red Live Lobster:
  • Sebastian is the classic bright red crab standard to cartoons.
  • Inverted with the lobster in "Under the Sea" that is colored blue. Blue lobsters exist, though they're a darker blue than that cartoon lobster. It's a rare mutation.
• Red Filter of Doom: When King Triton activates his trident where he destroys Ariel's human treasures in a blind fit of rage, the entire grotto turns from cool undersea blue to hellish red (where the trident's glow creates the filter) before transitioning to chalky gray after Triton blasts the statue of Prince Eric.
• Related in the Adaptation: The musical reveals that Ursula is Triton's sister, making it a double example as they weren't officially related in the film itself (the scene saying so was deleted) and the Sea Witch wasn't related to the mermaid's family in the fairy tale.
• Rescue Romance: It goes both ways, too.
• Riddle for the Ages: Why does Triton see humans as enemies and forbid merpeople from going above water? It isn't until the threequel that we probably get this answer.
• Right Behind Me: When the Prince Eric statue gets added to her secret grotto, Ariel begins caressing and wooing it ("Why, Eric, run away with you? This is all so sudden.") — and then turns around to see her very pissed-off father right in the entryway!
• Right-Hand Attack Dog: Ursula the Sea Witch's pet green moray eel minions Flotsam and Jetsam.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: After a long string of generic Prince Charmings, Prince Eric actually turns out to be quite the hero. He killed Ursula by impaling her with a freaking boat. Dialogue during the dinner scene suggests that Eric is quite active in the ruling of his kingdom and has to take time off just to show Ariel around. Ariel, Triton and Melody are pretty active as well, when danger shows up.
  • The scene at the beginning of the movie also bears this out - Eric clearly knows his way around the ship, leaping to help a sailor lash down a line on a cleat. And right after this, another sailor remarks of Eric's ignorance of Triton "Thought every good sailor knew about him", indicating that he, a real old salt, considers Eric to be a good sailor.
• Rule of Symbolism: Ursula is meant to be the personification of lust with Ariel being purity. There is a similar metaphor in the original story with the mermaid being lust and the Temple princess being purity, which is why the latter gets the prince.
• Rule of Three: "Before the sun sets on the third day..."

S

• Sacred Hospitality:
  • Downplayed since she has ulterior motives, but Ursula doesn't physically harm Ariel, Sebastian, or Flounder when they visit her lair. While the eels shut up Sebastian when he tells Ariel not to take the deal, it's not physically binding for long.
  • Eric takes Ariel to the castle to get cleaned up on seeing she's mute, alone, and scared on the beach thanks to Max chasing her. It's also why he doesn't want to kiss her the next day since she's technically his guest and he is the one with the power, but he gives in on hearing her name.
• Sanity Slippage: Ursula, while not a good character, was sane and composed during most of the film. However, when she transforms into Vanessa, it's implied that she lost quite a bit of sanity (to the point of becoming a borderline Ax-Crazy) when turning into her, as she talks to her mirror in a manner similar to a schizophrenic, emits a psychotic grin when throwing a pin at a mirror's head with enough velocity to knock the mirror back, and most certainly kill a person had that been a human being, plus her cackling.
  • The whole reason for Ursula resorting to her Vanessa alterego was counteracting Sebastian's proactive plan to have Ariel seduce Eric. Basically, she got her arms twisted into action, with all the consequent pressure.
• Scary Symbolic Shapeshifting: When King Triton is destroying Ariel's grotto in a fit of blind rage, the lighting of the scene makes him look like a shadowy, black devil, with his crown serving as the "horns" and his trident as the "pitchfork".
• Scenery Censor: Nude Ariel on land: while Sebastian & company might be getting an eyeful in a few scenes, the audience won't. Also, in addition to the Censor Shadow while she's under the water, few strategically placed bubbles block the view between Ariel's legs just in case any particularly lecherous viewers should try gamma-correcting those shots in a graphics editing program.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Meta example. While composer Alan Menken had a great deal of experience writing stage music for Howard Ashman's lyrics, this film was his first attempt to write a background score for a feature film. According to the DVD Commentary, he sought out advice from fellow composers, who essentially told him "It's a cartoon. Nobody cares, blow it off." Menken decided not to take their advice... and won an Oscar for Best Original Score.
• Sealed with a Kiss: The clause of Ursula's contract with Ariel.
• Seashell Bra: Made of what appear to be purple clamshells. Ariel stands out among the other mermaids in the franchise, as her bra is not the same color as her mermaid tail. Also of note is that the sixteen-year old Ariel was the first Disney character designed and animated in a way that showed the line of her cleavage.
• Setting Update: According to Word of God, Atlantica is located in the Mediterranean and Eric's kingdom is located in Italy, rather than what is commonly presumed to be Denmark and the North Sea.
• Shadow Discretion Shot: Ariel's transformation into a human by Ursula. Subverted though, in that if you lighten the color on your monitor, you can see a good deal of Ariel's nude body.
• Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: Zig-zagged. Ursula's spell to transform Ariel into a human doesn't include clothing, leaving Ariel completely naked aside from her Seashell Bra. However, when Triton transforms her at the end of the movie, he has the decency to include a sparkling dress for her.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Eric first sees Ariel in human form when she's wrapped tarp around her body. When Carlotta dresses her in a pink dinner gown, they're delighted to see how she looks.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Scuttle, Sebastian, and Flounder kind of get pushed to the side during the climax. Justified as Ursula goes One-Winged Angel. There's literally nothing they can do against a veritable kaiju (and we see Sebastian and Flounder are pararlyzed with genuine terror as Ursula begins her transformation).
• Shout-Out:
  • Prince Eric was named after animator Eric Larson, one of Disney's Nine Old Men, in his honor.
  • So an octopus-monster, Ursula, is menacing everyone. Heroically, Eric pilots a ship into her, the snapped bowsprit impaling it and sending it back to whence it came. But enough about the end of H. P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu"...
  • One of Ariel's sisters is named Alana, after composer Alan Menken.
    • Alana also means 'harbor'.
  • This is the reason why they ended up changing the ending to the final version. Apparently, one of the creators had recently seen Die Hard, and thought they should make the movie more action-packed like the movie (which probably explains the "Ship-Fu" at the end of the movie).
  • The "Part of Your World" reprise features Ariel perched on a rock near the shore, just like the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen.
• Shown Their Work: Ursula's blood is shown to be blue when Eric harpoons her. Cephalopods do indeed have blue blood in real life.
• Signature Instrument: The first time that Ariel sets eyes on Prince Eric, he's playing a festive tune on a flute while the seamen dance and cavort. Later, Eric plays Ariel's theme in the longshot hope that his dream girl will return. When at last Prince Eric heeds Grimsby's advice to pursue the lovely on-hand Ariel, he pitches his flute into the sea, allegorical to discarding his pursuit of someone unobtainable.
• Siren Song: Prince Eric is so charmed by his memories of Ariel's voice that he's determined to find the girl who rescued him. Later on, Ursula (disguised as a young human maiden by means of a glamour spell) uses Ariel's voice and her magic to entrance the prince when the latter was ready to propose himself to Ariel. This backfires when the shell holding Ariel's voice shatters, the voice returns to her owner and Eric finally puts two and two together.
• Slasher Smile: Ursula does this quite a bit during the final battle. Vanessa, Ursula's disguise, has this when gloating about her inevitable victory (specifically, when she throws her hairpin at a mirror with enough force to knock the mirror back upon impact).
• Sliding Scale of Animal Communication: Zig-zagged. The merpeople communicate fully with the sea animals, and Ariel maintains that ability once she becomes human, but she cannot communicate with Max. Regular humans cannot understand animals, except when Eric understands Sebastian whispering Ariel’s name during “Kiss the Girl.” But animals can largely understand humans.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Scuttle, about knowledge of human life.
• The Smurfette Principle: Ariel as the protagonist and Ursula as the villain. All of the supporting cast are male, making it a 6:2 male-to-female ratio. Ariel's sisters have no importance and Carlotta the maid has only a handful of lines.
• Socially Unacceptable Collection: Rare good guy example with Ariel's collection of human artifacts. Humans are fish eating monsters as far as the merfolk are concerned, particularly in King Triton's eyes. That Ariel has a whole grotto full of human stuff is considered appalling, and her father ends up destroying the collection trying to get her to see how dangerous humans are.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The mermaid in Andersen's Fairy Tale died, although her soul remains in what amounts to Purgatory, and for every good child she observes, she gets closer to entering Heaven, but for every bad, disobedient child, the process will take longer.
• Spell My Name With An S: Ariel's sister's name, Aquata, is clearly pronounced (and spelled, in the captions) AquaNta in "The Daughters of Triton" in the 1989 film.
  • Also, concept artwork indicated that Vanessa's name was originally supposed to be spelled with an "e" instead of an "a" (meaning, it was intended to be spelled "Venessa").
• Springtime for Hitler: The reason why Ursula demands Ariel's voice as payment for turning her into a human is that she knows Eric is in love with the voice and not the actual girl, and humans don't fall in love in just three days. Her scheme backfires; Eric starts falling for Ariel because she makes him laugh and have fun, and when he finds out her name he's more flexible about potentially imposing on his guest. Ursula has to hypnotize Eric to make sure Ariel doesn't get the kiss in time.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Before Triton destroyed her grotto, Ariel's plan was to find out where Eric lived and go see him, while still in mermaid form, and using Flounder's splashing to get Eric's attention. As she realizes, however, as long as she's in the sea then she's in her father's domain and he would ''never'' allow that.
• Steamrolled Smart Guy: King Triton assigns Sebastian to keep watch over Ariel. However, Sebastian is repeatedly unable to convince Ariel to follow his instructions, as she sneaks off to visit humans instead.
• Steel Drums and Sunshine: "Under the Sea," Sebastian the crab's song about how it's great to live in the ocean, prominently features steel drums. The song is also popular with pannists in real life.
• Strong Family Resemblance:
  • In Ariel's Beginning, Queen Athena looks exactly like Ariel with green eyes.
  • In the sequel, Melody looks a lot like Eric, down to her bangs and eyebrows.
• Stumbling in the New Form: Prior to her first transformation, Ariel never had to support her upper body thanks to water buoyancy. As a human, she quickly realizes that human legs don't work like her mermaid tailfin and trips over twice. Out of sheer determination, she manages to learn how to stand, walk and run (courtesy of Eric's dog) on two legs in less than five minutes.
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: The "Daughters of Triton" song.. It's a concert Sebastian has created with all of Triton's daughters and is supposed to be the grand debut of Triton's youngest daughter, the lead character of the film, the Little Mermaid we know as Ariel.
  Six Daughters: And then there is the youngest in her musical debut / Our seventh little sister, we're presenting her to you / To sing a song Sebastian wrote, her voice is like a bell / She's our sister, Ari... (gasps of shock and surprise at Ariel's absence)
  King Triton: (in extreme fury) 'ARIEL!'
• Suddenly Shouting: When Sebastian discovers Ariel's collection in the grotto, he shouts, "IF YOUR FATHER KNEW ABOUT THIS PLACE, HE'D...", but Flounder cuts him off.
• Super Drowning Skills: As soon as Ariel turns human, almost every scene involving her and water goes...poorly until Flounder and Sebastian help her out. Justified as she's used to having a tail and breathing underwater, and even those who have been human since birth need to be trained and taught how to swim.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: On the other end of the spectrum, Eric seems to possess this in the first movie's finale, during which he dives into the sea, and to throw a harpoon at Ursula, while he's about 6 feet away from his rowboat.
• Super-Strength: Implied with Ariel when the movie first shows her grotto, where she moves a boulder aside with ease when accessing it.
  • Flounder is a freaking powerhouse. He's able to pull Ariel and the barrel fast enough to catch up with the wedding barge, too; and he pulls her all the way to the surface from the bottom of the ocean right after she transforms.
    • And let's not forget it was Flounder who got Eric's statue into Ariel's grotto.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Sebastian has this reaction a lot after following Ariel to land; mostly in response to Scuttle.
  Sebastian: Jeez, mon, I'm surrounded by amateurs!

T

• Take Me Instead: This is the essence of King Triton's offer to Ursula. Ariel has signed her soul over to her and in order to break the Magically-Binding Contract he has to put his signature in place of hers.
• Teeth Flying: At the end of the movie, Louis the chef loses a few teeth after getting hit on the face by a mast.
• Tempting Fate: Eric uses a very poor choice in words with the following line.
  Eric: When I find her, I'll know. Without a doubt. It'll just - bam! - hit me... like lightning.
  [cue Dramatic Thunder]
• They Have the Scent!: Max tracks Ariel down by scent twice in the film, licking her face upon finding her both times. The second time is even how Prince Eric first meets her.
• This Is Reality: Grimsby is fond of saying this. He tells Eric that folktales about the sea aren't real, and girls don't just rescue princes from drowning and vanish. Needless to say, he's proven wrong about both.
• Title Drop: During "Vanessa's" song: "Soon I'll have that little mermaid and the ocean will be mine!"
• Tranquil Fury: King Triton is furious about Ariel rescuing a human from drowning and her secret grotto, and he is initially like this when he suddenly shows up to confront Ariel in her grotto.
  Triton: (while standing in the grotto passageway within the shadows and in a low whisper) I consider myself a reasonable merman. (he swims forward out of the shadows) I set certain rules, and I expect these rules to be obeyed.
• Transformation Exhilaration: While her first two transformations (enacted by Ursula) are disorienting and chaotic, Ariel's final transformation into a human (aided by her father) is greeted joyfully.
• Trash the Set: Triton destroys Ariel's secret grotto out of extreme anger after Ariel confesses her love for Eric, and only Ariel can do is watch in horror during his rampage as her desperate pleas to stop fall on deaf ears. The sequel implies that Triton does later rebuild it.
• Treated Worse than the Pet: Ursula is as cruel to animals as she is to people (merfolk and humans), going as far as kicking Max and trying to strangle Scuttle. However, she loves her eels Flotsam and Jetsam, going berserk when they are accidentally killed by a stray blast from the trident.
• True Blue Femininity: When Eric is showing Ariel around his land, she wears a dress with a blue skirt, and a large, blue hair ribbon.
• Triumphant Reprise:
  • One of the most iconic scenes in the film, just after Ariel rescues Eric, and vows to return to him on land someday.
  • A second reprise of "Part of Your World" plays over Ariel and Eric's wedding. Additionally, the original ending would have had Ariel appearing in human form singing the Triumphant Reprise herself.
  • A smaller one; Ariel sings a solemn chorus so that Ursula can steal her voice and hypnotise Eric. When the shell breaks and Ariel's voice is returned to her, she sings a more triumphant version of the chorus.
• True Love's Kiss
• Truth in Television: During the "Kiss the Girl" sequence, flamingos are seen despite the setting being implied to be around Europe. In real-life, there are actually species of flamingos that are native to Southern Europe (The greater flamingos, which are also native to parts of Africa and South Asia). Likewise, the fireflies being in the lagoon is also of this trope, as they can exist in temperate environments as well as in marshes.
• Two-Person Love Triangle: Because Eric thinks that Ariel, not having a voice, can't be the woman who saved him, given that he heard this mystery woman singing.

U

• Unbuilt Trope: As the first proper Disney-Broadway film, that so many Animated Musicals have been inspired by, it's surprising to see that the musical elements are at least justified in-universe. A supporting character is a concert composer and he's responsible for some of the film's more splashy numbers. The heroine having a beautiful singing voice is also a plot point - and it's exploited by the villain.
• Uncanny Valley:
  • Invoked with Ursula's plankton creatures. She casually reveals they were formerly merfolk that couldn't "pay the price" of her deals and that she unfortunately had to punish them. It doesn't help that all they can do is writhe around as green blobs, unable to speak or warn Ariel. Ariel being half-transformed into one is super-creepy with how she's trapped and Forced to Watch her father to bargain with Ursula for her freedom.
  • Ursula's disguise, Vanessa. While conventionally attractive, there's a subtle off-factor with how she glares without saying a word, like a monster hiding behind a mask. This gets further expanded upon when her face distorts to exaggerated degrees or her pupils become smaller either for comedic effect when the animals attack her to get the conch shell containing Ariel's voice or nightmarish just before she returns to her previous form. Additionally, Vanessa's voice gets this effect- either through Ariel's voice being a harsher tone than her sweeter original owner or when Ursula's voice comes out of her still conventionally attractive form, leading to an extreme juxtaposition.
• Under the Sea: Although it's about video games, this is the Trope Namer. On the other hand, it IS the main setting in most Little Mermaid video games.
• The Unreveal: It is not mentioned at one point why King Triton forbids Ariel going to the surface. The prequel film implies otherwise, as her mother was crushed to death by a ship while above water.
• Underestimating Badassery: Played with. Ariel is by no means a Badass, but the voiceless mermaid does prove more adept at pursuing Eric than Ursula anticipated. At the end of the Second Act, the Witch is forced to concede she underestimated Ariel (which them prompts her to take to the field herself).
• Unscaled Merfolk: Ursula, being half octopus (a cecelia).
• Unstoppable Rage: King Triton flies into a destructive fit of blind rage when Ariel tells him that she's in love with Eric.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Had the Seahorse Herald had been a tad bit more specific on why Triton needed to see Sebastian about Ariel, the crab wouldn't have thought it was because the Sea King knew about Prince Eric.
• Unwitting Pawn: While Ariel was completely aware of what she was getting into when she made a Deal with the Devil with Ursula, she didn't know that Ursula was using her as a pawn to become the ruler of Atlantica. As quoted by the 2004 Disney Princess storybook:
  Ursula: "It's not you I'm after. You're merely the bait to catch your father."
• Urban Legends: In similar fashion to the word "SEX" allegedly appearing in the sky in The Lion King (1994), one of the posters and the 1990 Walt Disney Classics VHS front cover for The Little Mermaid feature a decidedly phallic-looking column on King Triton's castle. The legend goes that a disgruntled animator had been fired and drew the column into the poster out of spite before he left. Whatever the case, the art has since been changed and recent posters no longer feature the castle anyway.

V

• Villainous Breakdown: Ursula near the end.
• Villainous Glutton: Ursula's figure implies it, but there is only one scene of her eating one shrimp. Her monologue about missing the "fantastical feasts" from Triton's palace is likely the movie's way of explaining that she used to be this, though.
• Villain Has a Point: Ursula agrees that if Ariel becomes human then the latter won't see her family, but she'll have her man: "Life's full of tough choices, innit it?" Even though Ariel at the end becomes human thanks to Triton letting her go, she will still have to leave her father and sisters.
• Villainous Advice Song: "Poor Unfortunate Souls" is Ursula's song to convince Ariel to sign a binding contract. In it, she paints herself as regretting her past misdeeds and wanting to help people, but her Stage Whispers to Flotsam and Jetsam betray this facade to the audience if they weren't already drowning in her sarcasm. On the TV series, there's Ursula's song "You wouldn't want to Mess with me".
• Villain Song:
  • "Poor Unfortunate Souls". And to a lesser extent, even though it's more comedic, "Les Poissons". Chef Louie's sadistic glee is almost certainly villainous as he comes close to serving Sebastian for dinner.
  • In The Musical, "I Want The Good Times Back", again by Ursula.
  • The prequel has Marina Del Ray's "Just One Mistake".
  • The sequel has a deleted one, "Gonna Get My Wish".
• Visual Pun: A rather dark one. When Ursula sings the line "It's she who holds her tongue, who gets her man.", she tosses a human-looking tongue into her cauldron.
• Voice Changeling: It actually is Jodi Benson talking and singing for Ursula in the Vanessa disguise, sounding pettier and more cacophonic. Ursula uses it until Scuttle smashes her shell and Ariel receives her voice back.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: During the opening "Fathoms Below", Grimsby is seasick from the rough waters and is Green Around the Gills when responding to Prince Eric's comment about the fresh sea air, and then his cheeks bulge and he leans over the ship's railing to puke, facing away from the camera.

W

• Waist-Deep Ocean: In the film's climax, Ursula uses the power of King Triton's trident to transform into a colossal version of herself, rising straight up out of the ocean and towering over everyone while submerged up to her waist... which enables Prince Eric to impale her with a shipwreck.
• Was Too Hard on Her: King Triton dwells over this after scolding Ariel. He also thinks this after destroying her secret grotto filled with human treasures. To be fair, he did go overboard with the latter.
• Watching the Sunset: Ariel stares with silent melancholy as the wedding ship carries Eric away.
• Water Is Air: The animators worked their butts off to make the underwater physics at least more believable than usual, so we'll chalk up Ariel gasping and crying as a Translation Convention. Actually, it is theoretically possible for her to gasp underwater because, since she lives underwater, she probably has gills that activate when underwater, a binary respiratory system, if you will.
  • Subverted on the whole with Ariel's movements within the water, for the creation of which animators referenced the movements of astronauts in zero gravity.
  • Also, why they censor Ariel's movements on land: they don't show how she got Eric on the shore, or how she climbs the ship and later the rock. It would look really awkward if they showed her dragging herself around, but still,...
  • And completely un-subverted in the prequel by having merpeople swim down the 'streets' in a completely upright posture, as if they were walking on feet, even though their tails don't touch the ground.
• Wedding Smashers: Scuttle rounds up every critter in the area to crash the Vanessa/Eric nuptials, buying Ariel time to get to the wedding barge.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: King Triton, although unlike others he actually has a Freudian Excuse.
• Wham Line:
  • Said by Ariel during an argument with Triton about saving Eric's life:
    Ariel: Daddy, I love him!
  • The above is followed by Triton saying this before he lays waste to her grotto:
    Triton: So help me, Ariel, I am going to get through to you! And if this is the only way... so be it.
  • Ursula tells Ariel exactly the thing she wants to hear: "The only way to get what you want is to become a human yourself."
    • And Ursula wants only one thing from her in exchange: "What I want from you is… your voice."
  • A more positive one of these is said at the end when Triton decides to let Ariel live with Eric.
    Triton: Then I guess there's just one problem left.
    Sebastian: And what's that, your majesty?
    Triton: How much I'm going to miss her.
• Wham Shot: Ariel is about to kiss Eric...but the sun goes down. She collapses onto the deck, with a mermaid tail, gesturing apologetically to him. Eric has a look of surprise as well as This Explains So Much.
• Wicked Witch: Although Ursula is a member of a fairy race rather than human, she's considered a Wicked Witch to merpeople.
• Witch with a Capital "B":
  "I admit that in the past I've been a nasty, /They weren't kidding when they called me, well, a witch..."
• Wolf Whistle: After Ariel turns into a human, she uses an old sail as a dress, and Scuttle wolf-whistles at her.
  Scuttle: (whistles) You look great, kid. You look sensational.

X

• X-Ray Sparks: At the end of the film, when Ursula is electrified by King Triton's trident just moments after Prince Eric skewers her with the broken bow of a ship, her skeleton can be seen beneath her skin.

Y

• You Are Too Late: Pointed out by Ursula when the heroes arrive too late to complete Ariel's contract.
• You Are Worth Hell: Eric changes into his sailor clothes and goes out in a little rowboat to save Ariel from Ursula, armed with only a harpoon. When Ariel tells Eric he needs to get away from Ursula's wrath, he pulls her in a hug and says he's not leaving her.
• You Can Talk?: Eric is surprised when the shell is shattered and Ariel gets her voice back, as she had been up until then seemingly completely mute. He realizes she's the girl who saved him.
  Eric: You can talk. You're the one. It was you all along.
• You Monster!: Ariel to Ursula, once King Triton gets transformed into a polyp.
• Youngest Child Wins: And is the only one to actually get married and leave home, apparently in this movie. Word of God says that Ariel is her father's favorite, because she's the most like her deceased mother.

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