Melody

Melody is the protagonist of Disney's 2000 feature film The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea, the sequel to The Little Mermaid. She is the daughter of Ariel and Prince Eric, the only known grandchild of King Triton and the late Queen Athena. She is voiced by Tara Strong.

Appearance
In terms of appearance, Melody is a beautiful and tomboyish 12-year-old princess of average height and build for her age. She has straight/wavy black hair, most often tied back with a green rubber band in a low ponytail and blue eyes. Melody 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, smile, nose and facial structure. It is also possible that Melody inherited Ariel's beautiful singing voice, which are heard side by side in "For a Moment", a duet between Melody and her mother. Eric also gave her his skin tone and eyebrows. For most of the film, Melody is seen in her underwear, 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, Melody retains her camisole, but her pantalettes and legs are replaced by an orange tail; her navel is also visible. It is odd that the merteens she meets don't pay notice she does not wear a typical sea-shell bikini top like other mermaids. She also has a pink ball gown 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's sassy and headstrong personality reflects upon the personality of her mother in her younger years, but her insecurity around others and socially-awkward tendencies stem from her father. While Sebastian states that Melody is "just like her mother" in The Little Mermaid II, many similarities exist between Melody and her father, Prince Eric. Her sense of adventure, curiosity and willingness to take risks exist in both Ariel and Prince Eric, but her mild shyness stems from a sheltered upbringing and her father's personality.

Melody's curious 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.

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.



Role in the film
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 herp 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.

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

Disney world
She has been seen a few times with Ariel and Eric at the Disney parks part-time.

Trivia

 * 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.
 * Melody means "Song" in Greek.
 * Since it was Morgana's magic that turned Melody into a mermaid, it is unknown if pink would be her natural mermaid tail color.
 * Although Melody is a princess by birth, she isn't included as an official Disney Princess in the franchise, possibly because of her young age and status as a heroine of a direct-to-video film. However, her mother is.
 * 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, the first being Nikki Ferris (taking over for Sharon McKendrick in The Parent Trap II), the second being Kiara (taking over for Simba in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride), the fourth being Scamp (taking over for Lady in Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure), the fifth being Jane (taking over for Wendy in Return to Never Land), the sixth being Patch (taking over for both Pongo and Perdita in 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure), and the seventh being Sam Flynn from TRON: Legacy (taking over for Kevin Flynn).
 * Melody is the first Disney character to be the offspring of a Disney Princess.
 * 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 opposite of that 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.