Hi. This is Thesecret1070. I am an admin of this site. Edit as much as you wish, but one little thing... If you are going to edit a lot, then make yourself a user and login. Other than that, enjoy Villains Wiki!!!
NOTE: This article is about the incarnation of Ursula from the 2023 live-action remake. The mainstream version can be found here: Ursula (Disney).
“
Yes, hurry home, Princess. We wouldn't want to be late for Daddy's gathering, now, would we? Perhaps I'll join them. Oh, wait, what a shame. It seems that Big Brother forgot to invite Auntie Ursula to the party… again. Oh, I should be the one throwing the parties, not waiting on an invitation. Oh, the feasts we had when I lived in the palace. And now look at me, the family pariah. Wasting away to practically nothing. Banished and exiled, driven halfway to madness in this dim little crevice for fifteen long years, while Daddy and his spoiled little mer-brats celebrate the Coral Moon. Well, I'll give them something to celebrate. I may have finally found Daddy's weakness. Yes. Red's fascination with humans might be just the opening I've been waiting for.
„
~ Ursula plotting her revenge on King Triton and seeing Ariel's naivete as the perfect opportunity.
“
Ursula: Poor child, I can help you. You can't live in that world unless you become a human yourself. Ariel: Is that even possible? Ursula (chuckling briefly): It's what I live for.
„
~ Ursula offering her services to her niece Princess Ariel.
“
We got a deal? I mean, I just gave you the premium package, kid.
„
~ Ursula making her deal with Ariel.
“
You belong to me.
„
~ Ursula stealing Ariel's voice - her most famous quote.
Ursula, also known as The Sea Witch or Vanessa, is the main antagonist of the 2023 musical fantasy film The Little Mermaid, the live-action remake of the 1989 animated feature film of the same name.
She is a cecaelia sea witch and the younger sister of King Triton. Her hunger for power led Triton to banish her from the aquatic kingdom of Atlantica. Upon finding out that Princess Ariel, Triton's youngest daughter and her niece, is in love with a human prince named Eric, Ursula sees this as an opportunity to trick her niece into signing a deal to start a chain of events by overthrowing Triton and taking over the Seven Seas, putting everything that Ariel knows in jeopardy. She is also based on her original incarnation of the same name as well as the Sea Witch and the Shrine Maiden from the fairy tale The Little Mermaid by the late Hans Christian Andersen.
She was portrayed by Melissa McCarthy, who also played DNAmy in Kim Possible, Diana in Identity Thief, a possessing Rowan North in the 2016 Ghostbusters remake, Sean Spicer in Saturday Night Live and Lee Israel in Can You Ever Forgive Me?. While in her human form Vanessa, she was portrayed by Jessica Alexander.
The live-action version of Ursula is mostly similar to that of her animated incarnation, being an overweight lavender skinned cecaelia with white hair, black tentacles with neon blue suction cups, red lips, gray eyes and earrings. Her Vanessa disguise is a young and beautiful girl with fair skin, shoulder-length black hair and gray eyes.
Personality[]
Just like her original counterpart, Ursula is depicted as a sadistic, manipulative, sinister, psychotic and humorous sea witch who seeks to overthrow her estranged older brother King Triton and become the new queen of the seas. While getting banished by her brother sometime before the events of the film could be seen as a bit tragic, it is never played for sympathy as she simply wants to overthrow him and take control of Atlantica herself instead of simply ruling by his side.
While Ursula was honest in the original film about the conditions of her transformation spell and simply assumed that the obstacles facing her niece Ariel, such as her lack of voice, would be insurmountable on their own, Ursula in the remake not only took away Ariel's voice, but even erased her niece's memory of what she had to do in order to ensure her legs would be permanent, leaving Sebastian and Scuttle with a greater challenge to help Ariel win Eric's heart as she doesn't even know what she has to do to beat the deadline.
Upon gaining Ariel's voice, Ursula is shown chuckling maliciously as she casts her spell to transform her niece, into a human while still underwater. It would appear that Ursula seemingly would watch her niece drown, but instead allows Ariel to swim away from her lair to the surface for air, all part of her true plan to take down Triton.
Like the original film, Ursula deals with merfolk from Triton's kingdom where she would promise them something. Unlike the original film, if the merfolk fail to reach her goal, Ursula kills them instead of transforming her victims into polyps when they fail to live up to their end of the deal, with their bones littering her lair. In spite of her notorious nature, Ursula genuinely adores her pet eels Flotsam and Jetsam. She even feels extremely devastated upon learning that she has accidentally killed both her pets with her brother's trident by accident all thanks to Ariel making her miss her aim at Eric.
Biography[]
Past[]
Ursula is King Triton's younger sister, but she was exiled for treason. She then moved to the bottom of a deceased Mosasaurus skeleton and gained two moray eel followers named Flotsam and Jetsam. Ursula swore revenge on King Triton and conspired to overthrow him as Ruler of all the Oceans. Ursula made bargains with merfolk using her witchcraft, and if they failed to keep their end of the bargain, she would murder them and keep their skeletal remains in her lair.
The Little Mermaid[]
Fifteen years later, Ursula watches over Ariel using Flotsam and Jetsam's magical eyes as she plans on using Ariel to overthrow King Triton. Once Ariel saves and falls in love with a human prince named Eric and King Triton destroys her collection of human items after discovering this, Flotsam and Jetsam go to Ariel and show her a magical hologram of Ursula, who offers to assist Ariel. Ariel accepts and follows the eels to Ursula's lair. Ursula tells Ariel that she will help her by making her a potion that will turn her into a human for three days. Before the sun sets on the third day, Ariel must receive the kiss of true love from Prince Eric which will permanently make her a human. If Ariel fails, she'll turn back into a mermaid and belong to Ursula permanently. Ursula also says that as payment she will take Ariel's voice. Ariel accepts the bargain and Ursula uses her magic to make Ariel human, takes Ariel's voice and keeps it in her magical nautilus shell.
Later, Ursula notices that Ariel and Eric are falling in love and has her eels sabotage a boat they were riding in before they can kiss. Ursula transforms into a human woman named Vanessa and uses Ariel's voice to hypnotize Eric into marrying her while manipulating everybody else by lying that she was the one who saved him, causing Ariel to mistakenly believe that Eric cheated on her, unaware that Eric is under Ursula's influence. However, Scuttle, a female northern gannet and one of Ariel's friends, discovers that Vanessa is Ursula in disguise and, seeing that she is planning to marry Eric, she informs Ariel. As Scuttle crashes the wedding by attacking Ursula to prevent her from marrying Eric with Eric's dog Max intervening as well, Ariel runs up to Ursula and fights her to get her voice back, eventually smashing Ursula's nautilus shell, restoring her voice and breaking the spell placed on Eric. However, before they can kiss, the sun sets, and Ariel reverts back into a mermaid. Ursula transforms back to her true self, kidnaps Ariel and returns to the ocean with Eric following in pursuit.
Triton confronts Ursula after being informed of the situation by his assistant Sebastian, a loyal crab and one of Ariel's friends. Triton trades Ariel's place for his and Ursula has her eels murder him via electrocution. Ursula steals Triton's magic trident and attempts to use it to kill Eric when he intervenes by mortally wounding Ursula to save Ariel, only for Ursula to accidentally murder her eels with the trident, devastating her. Shocked and remorseful for killing them, she uses her witchcraft to transform into an enormous kaiju-sized sea monster, where she attempts to kill both Ariel and Eric. Ursula then summons a storm to kill Eric and Ariel, but Ariel impales Ursula using the bowsprit of a wrecked ship, killing her, bringing Triton back to life and ending Ursula's reign of terror forever. This, in turn, avenges all the innocent merfolk who have been killed by Ursula in the process.
Powers and Abilities[]
Ursula's powers derive from thalassomancy (ocean magic), which is the main source of her magical powers that gives her certain abilities such as creating tempests and storms. Her magical cauldron along with her necklace are the main instruments she uses for her magic, being able to create potions and spells for various purposes, how to turn a mermaid into a human being and transform herself into a human, although she had to use Ariel's voice to disguise her own. Her most terrifying abilities is her ability to produce poisonous ink and become a giant sea monster by gaining greater physical strength.
Oh no, no, no. She's in love with the world above and has already found her soulmate.
„
~ Ursula discovering Ariel has fallen in love with Prince Eric.
“
So much for true love! So long, Lover boy!
„
~ Ursula's last words, moments before her death.
Trivia[]
In contrast to her original animated counterpart, the remake's Ursula is actually related to Ariel, being the sister of Triton and thus her aunt. Interestingly, this idea was originally intended to be used in the original film, but was dropped during development and The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea indicates that Ursula isn't related to the Atlantica royal family in any ways, having a mother of her own and a sister called Morgana who are cacealias just like her.
Though not to the same extent as Halle Bailey's casting as Ariel, Melissa McCarthy's casting as Ursula caused some mild controversy due to the idea of casting a cisgender woman in the role despite the original version being based specifically on the drag queen Divine, with many fans of the character opining that some drag queen or male actor in drag should have played the role (Harvey Fierstein was cited as one top choice for the role due to his drag performances back in the 1990s), in addition to that such hypothetical casting could have benefitted Disney's intent to respectfully promote LGBT representation.
To address such complaints, McCarthy announced in the lead-up to the film's release that she actually based her performance as Ursula precisely on Divine, in addition to her own experiences as a drag queen from when she worked at New York City clubs before she started her film career, taking inspiration of a drag queen's performance in keeping the humor, sadness and edginess of Ursula in line as she was about to go full-time with her character.
Fittingly, once the film was actually released, McCarthy's performance was well-received alongside that of Bailey's.
The popular singer Lizzo lobbied hard to play Ursula in the remake, even dressing as her for Instagram, but she didn't land the role. On a similar note, Kacey Musgraves was considered to play Vanessa, Ursula's human form, but she turned down the role.
Poor Unfortunate Souls received several modifications on its lyrics in order to update them to modern times, as compositor Alan Menken stated in an interview with Vanity Fair that they had some revisions on Ursula's song regarding lines that might make girls somehow feel they're not allowed to speak out of turn. As well as when Ursula tells Ariel that she doesn't need to speak in order to make Prince Eric fall for her, as she already has her "pretty face" and "good looks" is also absent. Instead, Ursula pushes Ariel into making her choice.
Unlike Cruella De Vil, who got arrested, The Red Queen and Maleficent, who got redemption, and Lady Tremaine, who got exiled, Ursula gets killed off. However, in the original film, it is Prince Eric that kills her, while in the remake, it is Ariel (likely done due to a belief that female leads should no longer be saved by the male leads which some label a "damsel in distress" scenario).
For some reason, in this adaptation, Ursula's tentacles seem to be sentient and have a mind of their own, as shown in the scene where Ursula has trouble finding the potion bottle that she placed Ariel's voice in, they bring her the wrong bottles when she isn't looking, to which she rejects when presented to her. In the same scene, she also gripes that nobody ever puts her things back, which confirms that her tentacles have some kind of sapience.
In the tie-in novel The Little Mermaid: Against the Tide, it's revealed that the reason Triton banished Ursula from Atlantica was because Ursula tricked Triton's wife (also Ursula's sister-in-law) to swim to the surface in an area filled with hunters, resulting in the death of Triton's wife.
Villains