A Question About King Triton

[arielluva222]

Is King Triton abusive?

I’m watching The Little Mermaid and I noticed during the part where Triton surprises Ariel in her grotto that when Triton starts getting angry, Ariel starts backing away from him and ends up behind the statue of Eric and after she tells him “Daddy, I love him!” she gasps and hides herself behind the statue as if protecting herself. Also, when Triton is destroying Ariel’s grotto, Ariel says, “No! Please! Daddy, stop! Daddy, stop it! Daddy, no!” and if you didn’t know that it was objects being destroyed/closed your eyes during the scene, it sounds like Ariel is pleading for her father to not beat her (yes, this is also mentioned on the Nightmare Fuel section of The Little Mermaid page on TVTropes: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/TheLittleMermaid).

I was wondering if anyone else thinks/is starting to think that Triton was abusive?

[buckmana]

I think he was just overprotective.
That he was allowing his unreasonable fear to stop him from making rational decisions.

From Triton's perspective, it seemed like this:
He follows Ariel to a hidden cave and finds her stockpiling dangerous objects, all of which could potentially be harmful to her.
So he destroys them "for her own good".
He doesn't know that they are harmless.

Or alternatively, he's just so afraid that her fascination with the surface world is going to take her too close to them or away from him that he destroys them to stop her being interested.
There is also a subtext that he regards the surface world as dangerous, so doesn't like the idea that Ariel has been going there regularly. Or as close to it as a mermaid can get.

[arielluva222]

Oh, okay.

[merprincess]

He also shows a lot of remorse for what he did. He looks back at Ariel with regret when she is crying, and consults with Sebastian or the other staff in Atlantica about how he's not sure if he's the best father he can be or that he thinks he's being too hard on Ariel. He's deeply flawed and he knows it, but has a major turn-around by the end of the film. In a weird way, The Little Mermaid is as much Triton's story as it is Ariel's story, as he has just as much change and character development as she does. It's about him coming to terms with himself as a father and learning that humans aren't all horrible and learning how to let go when it's time.

[arielluva222]

Yeah, that definitely makes a lot of sense! I'm glad he had a change of heart!