Film Theory: The DARK Secret of the Little Mermaid (Disney) 

This isn't what I was expecting for a Little Mermaid theory, but now I want MatPat to do one about realistic centaurs. No idea how he'd justify it, or what he'd do for it, but I wanna see it.

I like the theory centering around the voice because it elevates Ursula from a Petty villain to a legitimate monster. The more voices she has, the more damage she can do in her home.

I like how Mat is analyzing a bunch of details to find the location of the Little Mermaid while ignoring the fact that Ariel’s dad is literally a Greco-Roman god

Although, judging by what you described a realistic mermaid, it would've been interesting to have Ariel in love with Eric but she has to become a human because she fears he'll be scared of her appearence, giving a beautiful message to never judge a person you met by appearence.

What I'm taking away from this is that I'm not crazy for wanting to see an adaptation of this story where mermaids are literal monsters.

I once heard a theory that Ariel would be a collectionist, because she worked in that huge human collection of hers for years and that´s mostly why she is so fascinated with humans and stuff, and her "love" for Eric actually be caused by her obsession to "complete her collection" because she craved the only thing that she was missing to complete her human collection: a human being of her own

One note on the hair thing - keep in mind that MANY animals show disadvantageous traits for purposes of mate attraction, as well as displaying warning colors and making themselves look bigger - all of which the hair can do while presenting a low-risk thing to have get bitten off if something does try to eat a Merfolk.

That's one of the excellent things about Splash: when Madison tries to tell Paul her actual name, it's basically terrifying.

The only reason I care about Disney live action remakes anymore is because I know MatPat will make an awesome theory on the animated originals

MatPat: "Mermaids have hair, so they must be mammals" Also MatPat: "Mermaids don't have hair."

Oh I love how this entire theory means that Ursula is SOOOOOOOO much closer to a proper mermaid.

Tremendous, I have always felt compelled to pursue knowledge and power in order to contribute to the betterment of humanity. Been seeking a means to be influential and find out more knowledge about the human race and about the things not everyone is destined to know. I wish to fulfill the goal of enlightenment passed down by our forebears.

The realistic mermaid mammal evolution reminds me a lot about the likely evolution the human body would undergo after spending thousands of years in space looking a lot like the standard grey aliens.

Something that would be interesting to consider about this topic is the strange and often counterintuitive ways humans pick their mates. The realistic mermaids would probably have a similar turn to conquering the sea before starting to prioritize things like singing voice, beauty, and nobility over strange new evolutions, the same way humans tended to shun people with "strange" traits like left-handedness back in the Middle Ages. Most of the conclusions you came to make sense for survivability's sake, but once their tool use, function, and intelligence hit the mark, I don't think they'll be praising baldness or camouflage.

10:15 My swim coach told us that the whole shaving ritual is more to make you "feel slicker" than it is to actually reduce drag. Unless you're extra hairy, it doesn't make that big of a difference. Also, no, you don't have to shave all your body's hair. If it's covered by your swimsuit, then again, it doesn't matter.

You should watch the documentary called "Mermaids: The Body Found", it talks a lot about what would happen if apes really did evolve to the sea as well and what they would look like. It's super interesting and honestly the most realistic view of mermaids yet.

I have an idea for how mermaids can still have long beautiful hair. What if it is something like a mating ritual? Like how birds have a lot of bright and colorful feathers to attract mates, mermaids want beautiful hair.

11:28 so basically Ursula is the most scientifically accurate sea person in the show Also if we were to go off size to noise ratio it'd be more likely that they would likely be about as loud as a seal which as matpat said was around 126Dp In other words at most Ariel would be shouting just above the loudest recorded yell ( which was 121Dp ) Not only that it should be noted that is just how loud she CAN be it would be impractical if she couldn't adjust how loud she was ( matpat forgot inside voices exist)

The part about the volume of a mermaids voice, and it being able to harm a human being, actually puts Ursula in a way better light, than the Disney-movie. It's almost reminiscent of The Sea Witch from the original fairytale, who is not really malicious. She tries to help the mermaid, and her wish just so happens to have consequences and require sacrifices, which joining a different society, than the one you came from, often does. I would love to see Ursula become a more neutral character, like she was in the original Hans Christian Andersen fairytale. Do we really need villains in stories? Can't we just let it's original message shine through? I honestly think that the original fairytale is one of the most beautiful stories out there. We don't have to include ALL the darker elements of the original fairytale, since it is a kids movie. But I would love to see the movie be closer to the original fairytale. ☺️

Hair I could argue could work as a display feature. Many fish have fins that are drag inducing and impractical. Its not impossible to suggest that aside from possibly display fins, some form of display on the head is not too crazy.

There’s also the theory, that Prince Eric didn’t fall in love with Ariel. Mermaids are known (as the mythical story goes) to use their voice to sing and hypnotize sailors, typically, they can be called sirens. It would explain to why as soon as Eric hears Ariel’s voice, he fell for her instantly. It would also explain why Ursula wants Ariel’s voice, because a mermaids voice is supposed to be powerful. Prince Eric’s love could all he a hypnosis lie, but I’d love to hear everyone else’s thoughts on this. Also, I’m not the only one who thought of this theory. I forgot who made the theory, but I do know that I’m not the first. Edit: Don't take this seriously, because I could be wrong. XD But I still appreciate the feedback.

I’m surprised MatPat didn’t take the mock documentary Mermaids: The Body Found into account on the accuracy of what a mermaid looks like

I actually think Freeform's Siren series probably portrays mermaids a lot more accurately to how they would look. They generally resemble how you describe, but they can also switch between human and mermaid forms by shedding their skin and regrowing it as needed, though the process is shown to be painful for them.

I’ve always pictured mermaids as small, deep sea creatures, with webbed fingers, dark scaly skin, and gills etc with no ears or long hair. Me and my bestie actually had so many conversations about it when we were younger about how they would look like if they were real, and I’m pretty sure we had the right idea, according to this video, except we looked at it more from the perspective of fish that looked like it had humanoid characteristics more than a mammal. 8:06 in the book I think they’re supposed to be in Scandinavia

I can’t believe Disney is going all in on live action remakes when they own the rights to the Muppets.

It'd be interesting to see if Ursula's body is realistically suitable for being an underwater creature.

When I saw this theory with the thumbnail saying "Don't Kiss", I thought he was going to go the "She's actually a Siren" mythology route since Sirens use their voice to lure sailors to their deaths, and Ariel loves to sing so much (like most Disney characters, ofc). This was still pretty interesting to watch, finding what irl evolutionary traits a mermaid would have if they weren't fiction.

Imagine if the movie took place about 1000 years earlier than it did with Eric being a Viking raider exploring and looting the Mediterranean: Denmark and Disney's Mermaids could still be linked and we could get some axe wielding berserker coming after Ursula at the end.

"Mermaids: The Body Found" explores more realistic mermaids pretty well, imo, and are pretty similar to how you described. It features the aquatic ape theory, following a branch of early hominids adapting more heavily to a seafood diet, driving them further into the water. Over time, their hands and feet became webbed, their eyes grew larger, they lost their hair and external ears, and their skin became a mottled mix of blues and grays. Their legs became fused and far more flexible, and the fluke was comprised of what used to be foot bones and was shaped more like a scallop shell. They also developed a dorsal ridge from their forehead down their spine, and even more interestingly, a massive indentation in their skull showed that they were capable of sonar like cetaceans. These mermaids weren't able to breathe underwater; like all marine mammals, they could seal their nostrils shut and hold their breath for long periods. They also couldn't speak like humans. Their vocalizations consisted of various "ah"s and sonar clicking. They were capable of crafting hunter-gatherer type tools like spears and nets, hunting both fish near the surface and squid in the darker depths. They even formed a mutualistic relationship with dolphins similar to humans and wolves, though more so as peers than pets. On a side note, I was royally annoyed when I found out the documentary was faked like they did with "Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real", but I still like them both under the context of speculative evolution. I just wished that disclaimer was a bit clearer.

Immediate thought: Would she really be as loud in air as in water? Water is a better conductor of sound than air overall, and that means that sounds can easily get louder underwater than an equivalent sound in air. And this goes double if Ariel's vocal chords are optimised to use water. Combine that with her having had experience speaking to the seagull in air, and her observation of humans beforehand giving her some idea of how loud humans normally speak among themselves, and she can probably avoid blowing out eardrums. The bigger problem might be that a beautiful voice underwater might not be in air.

8:24 the webbed fingers I know lagoons from monster high had in 2010 and 2016

10:57 as warm as 15°c hypothermia? Thats like burning summer weather here in Canada hahaa

I need a whole film theory about how Ursula wasn't the villain

Interestingly enough, MatPat's theoretical mermaids look very similar to how Bill Everett drew his race of sub-mariners in his Golden Age Sub-Mariner comic stories. The only main difference being they were green, and had legs instead of a fish tail.

0:41 friendly reminder that the “live action” lion king is act just fancy animation. Not a single aspect of that move was live action.

The movie waterworld with Kevin Costner is the origin story for how mermaids could be... He gets webbed feet and eventually his kids grow with one tail instead of 2 feet and the gills are behind his ears leaving for the top half to still look human....

I was a sonar technician on a submarine. I love how informative this video was about how sound travels through water. I had to learn all that in classrooms before I even made it to my first station. There's a lot of math involved in figuring out how far something is according to how loud or quiet it is. Of course there are lots of other ways to figure out range. But anyway, I've heard dolphins, whales, shrimp, fish, clams, and other sea creatures from underwater. You are correct in saying that their sound travels quite fast and far in water. Air does not have as much substance to carry sound with. You know those machines at Dave & Busters that have mechanical arms pushing tokens toward a coin collection slot? The more quarters there are, the more likely coins will fall into the slot. That's one way of possibly understanding why sound travels better in water than in air. And that is also why there is no sound in space.

The underwater volume of a mermaid's voice was actually addressed (briefly) in another live-action Disney movie from a few years before their animated version of "The Little Mermaid." In "Splash", starring Darryl Hannah and Tom Hanks, when the mermaid speaks her actual name, it creates a powerful shockwave that makes all the humans within earshot wince with pain and cover their ears, as well as shattering the many nearby TV screens (as the scene happens in the electronics section of a shopping mall).

When you were talking about Ariel's voice, you should have referenced Daryl Hannah when she was a mermaid in Splash and when she spoke her real name it nearly made Tom Hank's deaf in the ears

I totally forgot about aquatic sound travel. Fun to think what her voice would be similar to. Even the quietest marine animal would be too loud.

My highschool just got done with its production of Little Mermaid. I was Prince Eric, so this video and movie release are flawlessly timed.

Fun fact: Mermaids are said to have magical powers such as immortality, shapeshifting, clairvoyance, telepathy, and hypnosis. Plus a kiss from a mermaid is able to give you gills, allowing you to breathe underwater. If Ariel had these powers in the movie, she would’ve been a goddess.

Love this theory, HOWEVER, the hair thing feels kind of wrong. There are two options for why a mermaid would still have hair. They could have human like hair as a way of attracting a mate despite it causing problems with survival. similar to how male peacocks have very large, colorful, and most importantly hard to hide plumage. Bad for staying hidden from predators, but great for attracting a mate. The other option is for food, feeling, and/or warmth. This wouldn't be human like hair at all, but hair-like stuff. The yeti crab has hair-like setae to collect food. with a mix of this is SOME blubber, our mermaids would be able to stay warm as well as have food to eat (which I noticed MatPat didn't talk at all about what they would eat or how they would eat it. Which was strange to me, as it would GREATLY affect how they would look). So yes, our mermaids could have hair, and its not totally outlandish to think about.

Did a little *_RESEARCH_* and it turns out a lot of fish do actually have hair. It's just that it tends to be on the inside of their bodies and functions the same way as the hairs in our ears do. Essentially the majority of the fish's body is It's ear. There are also a few fish that swim horizontally, mostly flat fish, but still.

One of the things you mentioned is that sounds moves through water 4x faster and farther than in the air. By that definition, creatures in the ocean are only as loud as they are because of their environment, and if Ariel was really that loud in the water, she would be significantly quieter on land. Right? Am I missing something?

I’d imagine thrills of some sort would technically be possible for a mermaid. We see plenty of fish species with such, primarily as warning. Additionally, there’s always the factor that normally causes useless colourful hair like Ariel’s. Mating signs. And none of this matters, because Poseidon is Ariel’s grandfather. Triton himself, in mythology, was the progenitor of all mermaids. Therefore, all the traits of Ariel can be explained by It’s magic, they don’t need to evolve.

I think you've forgotten the most important feature of the mermaid and, that is that it is half human which means the ability to reproduce trumps other adaptations that would be more important than necessarily adapting to the environment so red hair could just be a form of peacocking.

i finally did it after watching this channel and the sister channels for year i.e. game theory in 2014 i finally guessed a matpat joke and ive never been so proud b4 in my life (for reference 0:09)

THANK YOU! I said the same thing about Halle's take on Part of Your World. Jodi's version sounded like what it was supposed to be: a teenage girl, wandering around singing to herself while she muses about the human world. Halle's version, while beautiful, sounds like it belongs more in the Broadway show or at one of her shows with her sis.

13:03 "Things aren't always better down where its wetter".Quote of the year right there

Makes sense. Matt just basically said Ariel would look like one of the Trench from Aquaman.

Matpat hesitating to talk about "the seashells" at 3:36 as if he didn't have a whole episode on game theory about which game character has the best pair is hilarious to me

12:14 "who you callin' pin-head"

I'm really glad that you mentioned at the beginning that the song isn't a vocal show because the lyricist Howard Ashman put a lot of thought into exactly how the song was supposed to be sung to show how exactly Ariel was thinking. Howard Ashman was really particular with this stuff, but it made perfect songs that people got attached to for years, and I just hope that most of his original idea gets through in her performance. He is a big inspiration to me, if it isn't clear 😅

I guess scientifically it would make sense. I had not realized that underwater is much louder than in the air. Thank you for this video. I hope you stay well.

You know, I've tried drawing much more scientifically yet aesthetically pleasing mermaids before, its actually my preferred style for them, and I always imagine most of them as fish. I usually add some gills on their neck and mid torso because they end up being larger and needing more air. Plus they always have nonhuman skin, and look more like they have actually fish patterns and scales. I also add several fins in order to help with swimming/changing directions, and of course there's the webbed-hands.👍

Hey MatPat, at 13:26 you mentioned a lot of sea creatures can make really loud sounds. With Areial's approximate size and weight what DB would she produce?

One of the major things matpat misses is the fact that water dB(decibels) are not the same as air dB because sound travels different. To convert decibels from water to air, you subtract about 60 dB. So, Areal would actually likely be about as loud as a regular person.

So I like this theory except for the fact about her voice being booming. Given that their civilization is under water and communicate at the same average distance as humans, i feel above the surface of the ocean they'd become much quieter. Seeing as the need to produce loud noises like other aquatic mammals would be detrimental to their evolution by way of giving their location away to potential threats, I feel they'd become significantly quieter to communicate at the short distances.

This actually gave me a ton of inspiration/validation for my own aquatic race! Thanks Matpat and crew 😊

Another Disney theory about a “dark” secret, a classic

7:05 LOOK HOW THEY MASSACRED MY BOY

the part about Columbus being the one who thought a manatee was a mermaid, just made so much sense to me

I’m actually not sure Ariel can breathe both underwater and above- yes in the animated version. But in the live action, when she is signing to prince Eric, you can see her start to shake and turn pale. So idk 🤷🏻‍♀️

One of my fav autors described his meerfolk as fatty, big eyed, gray seals with useable hands and slightly seperated feet. And I love that. They were designed to live deep under the ses, to be warm and see underwater. They also communicated with click sounds.

10:26 THIS GAVE ME NIGHTMARES

If King Trident couldn't void Ursulas contract because it was legally binding. How was Ursula able to attempt and succeed in making Ariel unable to kiss the prince? She practically commanded her eels to get involved. Then went ahead and became a pawn in her own schemes 🤔

The realistic mermaid crafted is interesting, yet it doesn't consider one key factor: lack of danger. There is no need to evolve as efficiently as possible, since we see that mermaids live in a large city (or even a civilization), have access to magic, and are intelligent enough to use weapons. Therefore, it is possible that they could evolve some features that may be inefficient for escaping predators, but are good for attracting mates. While some adaptations would still have to be true (like blubber), there would certainly be room for more human-like features (like hair and ears).

I honestly had a thought about the underwater breathing. Ariel is meant to be 16. She also has a very small waist a ribcage and it has me wondering if part of mermaid biology includes a period of life where their ribs compress their lower lungs then a puberty stage where they expand which can increase lung capacity. This is similar to the way wearing a conical rib corset shrinks your lung capacity while wearing it but when you stop wearing it you have an expanded lung capacity for even years after you stop wearing it. I've worn corsets on and off for nearly a decade and even two years of non use due to an illness resulted in a greater lung capacity. While I tend to use very short shallow breathing all the time from my long term use of corsets I can also take extremely deep larger breathes and hold my breathe for about a minute and a half. It's terrifying to my friends the first time they see me swim because I don't surface for over a minute. I got in trouble at a water park for doing it. It could even be a biological cycle where they train their lungs to extend their breathing cycle. And their extremely hourglass figures even on mermen like triton may indicate a larger lung at top. This combined with enhanced subcutaneous breathing could potentially allow them to stay below water past the length of time for the longer end of a whale. Maybe they stay below water for 6 plus hours without a deep breathe. You should reach out to Lucy from Lucy's corsetry if you want to learn more as she's both a corset wearer and designer, but also a corset health researcher. She's hardly active on RU-vid anymore, but she's still highly active in the corset community. I spoke to her a few weeks ago. I'm a nobody in the corset community. If you ever want to do a film theory about corsets, please speak to her.

dolphins produce very high frequency under water, but they still produce their 'eek eek' sound above the surface of water. I think mermaids would have something like that, after all, in tales the mermaids are known for their hypnotic songs that sends ships afar from their route.

The funny thing about watching this video for the first time and knowing of a certain Disney game where they have mermaids kinda like how matpat describes makes me giggle a little

Making “part of your world” a power ballad was my exact problem with the movie too!! I was excited till then. Also I saw flounder and all my interest died. Sigh

11:11 I knew it was coming but I was just hoping I was wrong

“Mermaids the body found” is an animal planet documentary that examined the same thing. It’s definitely an interesting watch. Edit: I meant mockumentary

I've read a theory that mermaids have their long hair to have it billow around them and appear bigger to predators

10:58 isn't that the average temperature of the earth how do you freeze at that temperature?

Honestly TLM taking place in The Mediterranean makes sense given her father hails from Greco-Roman mythology, so they’d be local to that area. I think the weirdest thing about the live action design is the new chest patch. With the shell bikini top you could tell this was clothing, but with the new one I can’t tell if that’s clothing or a patch of scaly skin that happens to be the same color as her tail scales and happens to have evolved to resemble a bikini top. Is live action Ariel nude?

14:00 reminds me of Darryl Hannah in splash where she broke glass by saying her name

Thank you Matt SMG who's trying to figure out the biology of mermaids this was very helpful

I grew up on the Little Mermaid, it's y favorite Disney movie of all time. I would sing Part of Your World all the time growing up and I loved Jodi's version. I cry every time I listen to Halle Bailey's version. It is so raw and beautiful, but I understand if you can't resonate with that, but don't knock what you don't understand.

I love how MatPat wanted to create a “realistic” mermaid and basically just described þe merfolk from Mermaids: the Body Found. Anyone else remember þæt show on Animal Planet?

Considering the Universe the Little Mermaid lived in, Ursula witch powers and Arials fathers Trident, they can breath underwater because of Disney magic. As for her voice killing him, dolphins aren't known for blowing eardrums, also, Eric falls in love with her because of her voice upon waking on the beach... so... important to keep.

Theory idea: because oh the new film on him can u determine how strong George Foreman was irl

Love the intros so much! They hilarious! My fave is the back shark one where he’s like “fim theory doo doo doo doo doo doo!”

2 things that i can think of about this is 1: because the mermaids are a sentiant species to the point of being able to have some communication with humans, this would indicate enough intellegance that some persisted long enough that some of the specific traits with them might if bin phased in/out much differently. 2: in terms of there voice, considering ariel did go upto the water surface and sing a lot that humans could hear her properly, there might be cases of her having good control over if they even developed it to begin with, again the intellegance might of not needed to use large sounds like that. also people would definintly smash that

There’s an old mock-umentary I saw as a kid (and actually believed it was real for a few years because I saw it on a hotel TV and missed the “this is fiction” warning lol) that looked at what a “mermaid” would evolutionarily look like. Among other things, like calling out the US Navy for testing sonar weapons and beaching a bunch of whales. If you’ve seen it, you know what I’m talking about by now lol.

My fav was the tulip one, it was creative and had so much detail! For 45 minutes thats really good!!

dang I should’ve put Eric’s palace as one of my sight seeing yours when I went to see my grandma in Italy this summer

Human embryos do have gills at one point during their development, but they close in. It wouldn’t be too extreme of a mutation to think that those gills would continue to develop

Animals tend to have things for mating purposes, which could be what the hair and abs are. Also, they would likely be close to or louder, as language-based creatures in such a loud place, they'd need to be able to overcome that volume just for basic communication.

loved the theory- just failing to see the DARK SECRET lmao love you matpat!

I love how Matpat did all that analyzing to show us why The Little Mermaid was most likely set I'm the Mediterranean, only to then go "oh yeah and Disney told us this was where it is"

9:27 You’re correct that seals have internal ears but that’s a picture of a sea lion who does in fact have external ears as a species and in the picture

What if mermaids never lost their hair and vibrant colors due to other evolutionary factors? They still have hands in this scenario, so what if they learned to make weapons from coral, reducing the loss of hair for speed or color for camouflage?

MatPat, can you do Murder Drones? The series isn’t over yet, so there’s plenty to theorize about.

I can imagine that the whiskers and blubber could have been arranged to add to the idea of singing to sink human ships, made to keep looking classy and attract targets while also keeping in mind the necessity of body temperature, remember that blubber wasn't always unattractive anyways for humans, especially according to ancient statues. The hairs could also be whiskers stylized to imitate hairs, with a mechanism that keeps them able to swim while minimizing drag. Basically the bottom line would be the idea of imitating humans to better drag them down. As for Ursula and her sister, I can imagine that her tentacles are just to match with the idea of witches. Maybe the tentacles were added onto themselves, although the idea of going there thanks to convering evolution or common ancestors wouldn't have lacked sense either.

12:26 I am going to draw this little abomination of a creature Update: I finished drawing it and no wonder Mr Columbus mistook a manatees for a mermaid

Matpat: (talks about aquatic ape theory) Everyone who watched the mermaids the body found documentary as a child: Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.

about the location part.... in Ursulas song "poor unfortunate souls" she literally sings " winds of the CASPIAN SEA" so....they're in that sea...:) 😅🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

My life has changed Thank you Jesus $15,000weekly profit Our lord God have lifted up my Life!!!, Glory to the everlasting God Almighty. 0:03