Queen Athena is one of the two overarching heroes (alongside King Triton) of The Little Mermaid franchise. She was the late wife of King Triton, the late mother of Attina, Alana, Adella, Aquata, Arista, Andrina, and Ariel, the posthumous mother-in-law of Prince Eric, and the posthumous maternal grandmother of Melody. She is voiced by Lorelei Hill Butters for her speaking voice, and Andrea Robinson for her singing voice.
Appearance[]
Queen Athena is shown to be a beautiful mermaid with long, red hair tied in a partial pony tail, green eyes, and a bluish-green tail. She wears a gold crown. Of all her daughters, her youngest, Ariel, resembles her the most. This is most obvious in the original release of The Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea, at least 23 years following the film's events, when Ariel has matured and become a mother herself. It is possible that the animators of Athena based her appearance on the mature version of Ariel.
The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning[]
Queen Athena appears in the film's flashbacks to when her daughters were very young. She and Triton are shown to be very much in love. They are shown to share a special song (known as "Athena's Song"). They share the song with their daughters, and use it as a lullaby.
One day, they are relaxing in a cove with the princesses and some other merpeople playing fine music. They are celebrating their anniversary, and so Triton gives Athena a special music box that plays their song. However, the pirates soon approach the cove in a large ship, attack the merpeople, and snatch their instruments. Most of the merpeople escape safely, Triton escapes carrying Ariel, Arista, Aquata, and Adella to safety while Andrina and Alana dive into the water to swim to safety, but Attina, the oldest and also the first-born princess, gets her tail stuck between two rocks. Athena is able to free her in time, but she was crushed to death by the ship while trying to save the music box and the ship sinks after hitting the rocks.
Athena's death leaves Triton completely devastated. As a result, he tosses the music box in the ocean, bans music from the kingdom and raises his daughters very strictly because of pure evil and selfish mermaid Marina Del Rey (voiced by Sally Field).
However, Ariel and her six older sisters inherited their late mother's love of and talent for music, including Japanese music. Later on, Ariel references her at several points. When she learns of the Catfish Club, she sings a song remembering her mother and her love for music. Later, when confronting Triton over his ban of music, Ariel points out that her mother wouldn't have wanted music to be banned from the kingdom. She had sacrificed herself to save them.
To honor the death of her beloved mother Athena, Ariel finds her music box, but before she can give it to Triton and convince him to allow music back into the kingdom, the final battle begins when Marina carries the fishing net, bans Ariel from the kingdom and orders the eels to have her and Flounder eliminated before catching Sebastian. As a result, to make Athena happy, Ariel pushes Marina away, preventing her from trying to kill and crush Sebastian to death, and Triton allows music back into his kingdom and orders his guards to arrest and sentenced Marina to death after Ariel recovers.