Talk:Ariel/@comment-10252860-20130614062108/@comment-1672596-20141003043720

Yeah, I agree, wholeheartedly. Maybe Return to the Sea could have done a better job at actually depicting her as a good mother (not that she wasn't one, she was, but the complaints do have some merit), but I can at least see where she is coming from. After all, Melody was nearly killed by Morgana during her presentation ceremony, and she did make a direct threat that she will hunt down Melody even when driven off. As Morgana successfully went into hiding, there's far too much of a risk to Melody's life to even have her touch the water, much less swim in it. Not to mention exposing her mermaid heritage would probably have worsened things as well, since Melody would probably become even more determined to swim out if she learned this. So really, I can't really blame Ariel for having to hide it. It also doesn't help that Flotsam and Jetsam also constantly stalked Ariel and secretly observed her under Ursula's orders, even sabotaging her actions, specifically to get to Triton, and assuming Ariel realized that (and considering what was going on late into the film, it's unlikely she wouldn't have at least suspected it), she'd probably realize Morgana would attempt something similar with Melody and thus is perfectly justified in wanting to go to extremes to ensure something like that doesn't happen. If anything, that was actually pretty smart of Ariel. And that's not even getting into your valid points as well. Had Ariel and/or Eric truly been a bad mother, I can guarantee that she would have treated Melody exactly like how Lois and Peter treated Meg in Family Guy (and keep in mind how they treated her was truly despicable).

Also, regarding the wall, I'm doubtful they surrounded the entire kingdom with the wall, just the castle. After all, they still have to let fishermen go about their business to ensure the kingdom doesn't decline economically. And besides, considering that Prince Eric formed an armada late into the film, I'm extremely doubtful that the wall would have been designed to prevent ships from coming in and out even if it did.

At least Ariel's reasons in Return to the Sea, as badly written as it was, were more understandable and justified than Belle's reasons to expose the Beast to a bloodthirsty mob whom she should know full well would never listen to reason, not to mention is led by a man who was already proven to be willing to go as far as to blackmail her with her father's imprisonment unless she marries him (and thus certainly would go as far as to try to kill the Beast if he even got the slightest suspicion that he was a possible mate for Belle), even to save her father. Honestly, she was already proven to be good enough at deductive reasoning to deduce, from casual observation of the servants, that the castle and its inhabitants were enchanted, all without even being told beforehand, and was pretty good at thinking at her feet, not to mention considering her being implied to have placed the Beast onto Phillipe after he was injured saving her from wolves while he was still unconscious was strong enough to lift up the Beast (whom I should remind all of you was far larger than Gaston), yet instead of going for the best way to evade the situation by knocking Gaston out, lighting the paddywagon on fire before Maurice is thrown inside without being caught, and using the villagers scrambling to find water to put the fire out and the chaos that would ensue to escape with Maurice to Beast's castle, and even make sure to leave no evidence of where she is headed (in other words, make sure to bring the Enchanted Mirror and Chip along), thus ensuring she doesn't marry Gaston, have Maurice locked up, or have the Beast and his servants placed into grave danger, she stupidly exposed the Beast's existence. Honestly, I would have just knocked Gaston out, set the paddywagon on fire, and all of that had I been in her position, certainly I would not expose the Beast's existence specifically because I know full well doing that would only make things worse and risk his and the servants' deaths as a result.