8 Most Devastating Disney Deaths Of All Time
5. Queen Athena (The Little Mermaid III: Ariel’s Beginning)
An underrated Disney movie to say the least. The third film in The Little Mermaid series, which is set years before the events of the first, reveals a character that we never got to see in either of its predecessors: Queen Athena.
She’s the mother of Ariel and all of her sisters, a beautiful Queen and wife of the great Triton. However, her death is not for the faint of heart. She is brutally killed by a pirate ship which attacks the mermaids and mermen… (merpeople? Merkin? I’m not sure the gender appropriate terms of gender fluid mer-creatures). She does her best to protect her people, but is killed whilst trying to retrieve a present that Triton had gifted her for their anniversary.
This all leads to a very sad demise of yet another Disney character's parent, but even sadder still resulted in Triton losing all hope in humans and made him the cynic we see in the original The Little Mermaid. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, ey?