Girl.
You have an entire kingdom. You are out here trading your diaphragm for a man with a boat and no discernible interior life.
Cool, your romantic compass is broken (or you are a teenager. Hard to tell) but… he is not even that interesting.
Prince Eric = the mayo of Disney men.
Smooth, socially safe, and probably does not recycle.
Ariel, I am not saying to ignore those tingling scales and the forbidden energy of the surface world. That is fine. That is real and human (er… fish adjacent).
The real weird? Eric? You kissed a sea mammal.
Are we going to talk about Disney’s interspecies romantic personality arc? No?
Alright, The Hormonal Aquatic Crisis We Will Not Be Unpacking Today.
Ursula did not lure. She was a guide.
“Kid, the surface world is wild. But I will give you a test run. You work for me for three days and I will give you three days on land. And while we are at it, let us talk about the patriarchy, pleasure and emotional regulation.”
It is the story Disney never dared to tell:
You do not find love until you find your damn self.
Sea-witch apprentice story. Coming-of-power story vs. coming-of-age story.
Not a spell.
Not a contract.
The truth:
If you are still trying to walk (or swim) like someone else, you are not yet ready to stand beside anyone.
You do not need a prince; you need a platform.
Ariel finds her voice not by trading it in, but by understanding herself and what she stands for.
Straight from the tentacled, glamour-dripping lips of Mentor Ursula, leaning in with sea-salted eyeliner and zero tolerance for drama. She rolls her eyes at Ariel’s existential “I NEED LEGS OR I WILL JUST DIE!” angst.
Ursula (queer-coded. bold. unashamed. so dangerous to the machine) helping this poor mermaid was never glittery vengeance that has been assumed.
Nope.
That fat, fabulous, tentacled powerhouse had the audacity to stand in her truth and sing loudly from her guts.
Who gets blamed when things go sideways?
Not the fish who signs without reading.
Or the fork hoarder who throws away her family.
Not the painfully generic prince who marries the first mute girl who smiles at him.
They blamed the contract-honouring, vocal coach and sea witch extraordinaire WHO LITERALLY SAID:
“I help the poor unfortunate souls.”
You are not wrong for wanting more.
You are not bad for having power.
You are not a monster because you do not look like a princess.
