Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-25624943-20141211075940/@comment-1894786-20141223230055

Levi.goodliff wrote: Omg but what about King Neptune? O_O According to the actual canon of the Little Mermaid animation (the prequel movie and tv show, the actual movie, and the sequel) Neptune is the father of Poseidon (don't remember where this is confirmed), Poseidon is the father of Triton (and originally, Ursula) (prequel TV show; scrapped idea from the movie which was included in the Broadway musical), while Triton and Athena are the parents of Ariel (prequel movie).

Obviously, Disney prequels and sequels are not canon (except for The Rescuers 2, and most likely Frozen 2 when it debuts) but if A&E stick to that, then Neptune would be Ursula's grandfather, or they might make Neptune and Poseidon rival kings, and Ursula and Triton could be an interracial Romeo & Juliet type of couple who get ripped apart and she becomes evil.

And in response to the white-washing comment, skin color does not equal race. In fact, race isn't even genetic, it's social and cultural. If a person has black ancestry, whether or not they don't look it, they are allowed to identify as black if they so wish. So I really see no problem with Ariel being light-skinned and coming from a dark-skinned PATERNAL family (if the familial connection is even kept, she might be completely unrelated to Ursula) as long as she obviously has a light-skinned MATERNAL family, because if both sides are dark-skinned and she comes out light-skinned, then there's a problem I would totally feel strongly about.