Frankenstein and the Mermaid

http://www.retronaut.com/2012/12/frankenstein-and-the-mermaid/frank/

“”Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid” was shooting near a set where “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” was filming. Tourists were shocked to see Glenn Strange’s Frankenstein Monster having lunch with Ann Blyth in her fishtail costume. Both Strange and Lon Chaney in his Wolfman make-up were invited to the Mr. Peabody wrap party, where they hammed it up in make-up.”
- IMDb

Glaucus

Usually mer-folk are born that way or at least have an undersea ancestor. Glaucus is an exception. He began as a normal human although he was unusually skilled at building boats. He built the Argo which Jason used on his quest for the golden fleece.

One day he noticed that the fish he caught were reviving and escaping back into the water. It turned out that he had dumped his catch on a strange herb and it was responsible.

Glaucus tried the herb and felt a compulsion to dive into the water where he changed into a merman with green hair. He learned prophesy and became known for helping sailors in distress.

A different version has Glaucus plunging into the ocean during the fight between Jason against the Tyrrhenians. Glaucus sunk to the bottom of the sea and was transformed.

Review: Drowning Mermaids

Drowning Mermaids (Sacred Breath, Book 1) by Nadia Scrieva

This is not your typical mermaid novel. For one thing, the mermaids have legs instead of fishtails. Als, it is written for a more mature audience - not that it contains adult subject matter, it just has content that will interest adults.

The aging captain of a fishing boat takes his crew to a stipper bar to unwind after losing a crew member. There he becomes entranced with a young stripper and invites her to be his house guest along with her two sisters.

Actually, she is over six hundred years old and ruler of an undersea kingdom. Even her youngest sister is 90 but looks 10. They are on the surface to raise money in order to buy weapons to defend their kingdom from aggressors.

This is a very well-written book. All of the plot twists were thought out in advance. The characters are well-developed and each has a distinctive way of speaking.

This book avoids one of the big traps of mermaid books - the undersea world is fully integrated with the modern world. Too often the undersea parts seem dreamy and indistinct compared with the modern world but not here.

Also, the writing itself is compelling enough to keep up interest even though very little actually happens in the first half.

One warning - while this is novel-length, it breaks off abruptly and is continued in the next novel. The first one is free (as an e-book) just to get you hooked. I've already bought the sequel.

Mermaid Technology

Mermaids are usually depicted as naked. If they carry anything, it is a comb and mirror. This shows just how alien life in the sea would be from life on land.

The basic building blocks of technology were fire, rocks, and wood. There is evidence that cooking food predates modern humans and that the extra calories gained from cooking food allowed us to develop our larger brains.

But there is no fire underwater.

Tool-making also predates humanity. These were a combination of stone and wood. Knives and scrapers were made from hard, brittle stone like flint but spears began as pointed wood with stone heads being added later. Flint is hard to come by on land or sea but the initial impulse to pick up a stone and use it is not as obvious when stones are as close as your feet. And wood just doesn't grow underwater.

The main tools that mer-folk would have to work with are shells and coral. Coral is soft enough that it could be worked with shells although there are limits on what can be made. Traditionally mer-folk have made things like necklaces and bras from sea shells but that would require drilling holes in the shells. How would this be done?

Clothing is its own issue. The first clothing was made from animal skins that had been dried and later tanned. It was worn to protect humans from the weather.

While you can make leather from many sea creatures, it cannot be done underwater. Also there is little point. Sea people would not need protection from the sun or rain and leather will not keep you warm in the water. Also, wearing clothes does not affect travel appreciably in the air but can slow you down underwater.

All of this is an intellectual exercise. Novelists depicting mermaid civilizations have to account for these things or their civilizations will feel off. If the mer-people live in set villages then the novelist has to explain why. What is the benefit of this way versus living in a constantly-moving school like dolphins? If they make things then the novelist has to know how and why.

This is a problem in some of the mermaid novels I have read. The set-up is detailed, down-to-earth. Then the lead character travels to a mermaid settlement and the tone becomes dreamy. The change can be jarring.

Granted, it is much easier to describe existing civilization than to make one up from scratch and still seem authentic. Thinking through these questions would help. How did the mermaid civilization develop and why don't they live like dolphins? If you can sell this to yourself then you can sell it to the world.

Control Your Own Mermaid

Do you want a virtual mermaid that you can control? You can have one through Second Life and it's free.

Second Life has been around for years. It is sort of a cross between a multi-person video game and a chat room. It takes place in a virtual world made up of islands. Like real life, some of these islands are public and some are private. When you join you select an avatar (which is supposed to represent you) from a series of pre-packaged ones. You can get new clothing for your avatar or even replace it completely. After that you can wander around or teleport to specific landmarks.

To create an account in Second Life go to their web site and sign up. This will give you a link for the Second Life Viewer. Everything you do in Second Life is through this. You can walk around with your avatar or interact with special animations for things like dancing.

The first thing that you need to do to make a mermaid is to modify your avatar. Start at Freebie Island. This is full of signs showing clothes and body parts. The default avatars have permanent underwear which conflicts with the mermaid look so you will need a replacement skin. Be sure that you get the full thing and not just a demo. You have to look around and you might need to change your preferences to include "adult". You can also look around for some new hair and eyes.

Now, use your web browser to go to the Second Life Marketplace and search on "mermaid tail". You will find an overwhelming number of hits, many of them free. I'm using the term "mermaid" but there are male version also. Some of them are pretty fierce.

A note on money. Purchases are made in "Lindon Dollars". Free members have to buy these but they are pennies on the dollar. Premium members get L$300 each Tuesday which is enough for almost any tail.

Mermaids are handled three different ways in Second Life. The most common is to include an Animation Override (AO) that keeps the legs together so that they resemble a tail. The fluke is attached to one foot. There may be additional fins. Most of the mermaids done this way have a light, airy look. They can also take up a lot of room with all of these fins floating around.

The second way of handling a mermaid is to make the legs invisible using something called an "alpha channel" and to attach a tail at the waist. This can be very convincing but many of the animations looks a little strange unless they were specifically designed for mermaids. Also, sometimes your tail gets on crooked. When this happens you can fix it by removing it and putting it back on. In between you are floating since your legs are invisible. Also, if you are wearing anything like anklets, they will seem to be floating below you.

I haven't tried the third way yet. It involves removing one leg and reshaping the other into a tail. This is, of course, painless. That would resolve the problem of animations since you still have a leg and it should look better than trying to fuse two legs together.

Once you have your mermaid, what do you do with her?

If you search for locations with the term "mermaid" you will find several. These are mainly bars where you can hang out and stores where you can buy more mermaid-related things.

If you really want to get into Second Life then you can buy property and start decorating it. There are numerous mermaid beds available. You can also get poses, animations, and props such as seaweed.

All of this is great but the truth is that Second Life peaked some time ago. Most of the areas I have been through have been empty or nearly empty. The Trident Bar has a nice mermaid dance floor with enough animations for multiple mermaids to be dancing at once but out of several visits I've only found one other mermaid present. The dance with only two mermaids is impressive. It must be spectacular with all of the animations in use.

Another issue with Second Life is that a good bit of its content is adult oriented. Some of the mermaid beds include animations for mermaid sex. Many areas are devoted to casual or kinky sex and some to violent sex. I would strongly recommend that anyone below 18 stay well away from Second Life. It is also easy to underestimate the strength of on-line relationships so even adults need to be careful.

Melusine

Currently it is pretty common to depict mermaids as being able to grow legs when needed. As far as I know, that mainly dates from Splash. Before that, mermaids did not change form.

But, if you go back far enough, you find some exceptions. One is Melusine. I first ran across this term in an article about Starbuck's logo which is a topless, two-tailed mermaid. The article claimed that this creature is called a melusine.

It turns out that when you look it up, Melusine refers to a specific character in a number of medieval myths. She appeared to be a normal human most of the time but changed into a mermaid (or a half-serpent) on Saturdays. She married a noble (possibly a king) on condition that he not disturb her on Saturdays. Of course, he does eventually and she left him (possibly turning into a dragon on her way out).

Wikipedia concludes by saying that Melusine is a holdover water sprite from pre-Christian legends.

Mermaid Divers

Here is a video of a scuba diver in a mermaid diving suit. This is the next step up from swimable tails. You can order them from Otter Bay.

Here is a similar video.

H2O: second season

There are a lot of similarities between the first and second seasons of H2O: Just Add Water.

They both have five full moons with a full moon that gave powers in the first episode and one that removed them in the last episode.

They both have multiple references to the 1950s mermaids and how they resembled their modern counterparts.

There was a major change in emphasis. In the first season, the girls were portrayed as people with super powers who also turned into mermaids. They used their powers in every episode but were not always seen with their mermaid tails. In the second season this was reversed. Every episode had them as mermaids but they used their powers a lot less. They also spent a lot more time in the Moon Pool and less time at the juice bar. Maybe they were saving their special effects budget for the final episode. It was quite spectacular and probably had as much CGI as the rest of the season put together.

In the first episode the girls were moonstruck and went to the Moon Pool where their powers were enhanced. Their powers were out of control until the end of the second episode. This was a bit of a red herring (so to speak). They barely used their enhanced powers.

The main plot arc involved someone who became romantically involved with a regular and who found out about the mermaids. In the first season it was Zane and his romance with Rikki. In the second season it was Charlotte and her relationship with Lewis. In both seasons the romance threatened to break up the close-knit group. The others wondered if they could still trust the one in the relationship. Also, our view of the outsider changed radically in the last few episodes. In Zane's case, we found that he could be trusted to do the right thing. In Charlotte's case, we found out that she was not as nice as she originally seemed.

The handling of Charlotte's character was handled well and is an example of how the writing for the show is better than most shows aimed at a teen-age audience.

I had read the Wikipedia entry on the show before watching it so I knew who Charlotte was before we met her. My first impression was, "But she's nice!"

This was actually a relief. It would have been annoying seeing a jerk all season. Instead, Charlotte was pleasant. She was also smart and talented. We saw her artistic talent from the beginning and, at one point, she was recruited as a tutor for Cleo.

Her body type was also a bit of a surprise. She is tall - taller than Lewis. She is also noticeably heavier than the stick-thin stars. She is a bit reserved and the type who would never be one of the cool girls. Actually, she is exactly the type of girl I would expect Lewis to be dating. Speaking immodestly as a fellow genius, it can be a strain being with someone who doesn't understand what you are talking about.

Through most of the season Charlotte is long-suffering. She is constantly kept waiting so that Lewis can do something with his ex-girlfriend and her friends. It is understandable that Charlotte would begin to dislike Cleo.

This dislike got a lot stronger when Charlotte found a photograph of her grandmother in Cleo's room. Then she noticed that Cleo was wearing a locket just like her grandmother's. No wonder she suspected that Cleo and the others were keeping something from her. They were keeping something big secret. Once Charlotte discovered their secret she was convinced that they had been keeping her heritage from her.

Then she found out that she was as powerful as all three of them put together and had more control.

No wonder it went to her head. There was the implication at the very end that being a mermaid had changed her and that she couldn't handle it but that she was back to normal once she lost her powers.

Charlotte's personality is similar to Emma's although not as obsessive/compulsive. There were hints of this all along starting with the way she pursued Lewis. She managed to get herself invited along to things like a camp-over at Mako Island where she was not exactly welcome. At one point Lewis suggested a couple of things for the evening and she was surprised because he usually let her make all of the decisions. At the time she took this as a sign that he was becoming more interested but it also showed the general direction of their relationship.

After becoming a mermaid, Charlotte felt that the others are trying to hold her back, insisting that she should not be using her powers. Considering that a couple of episodes earlier Emma and Rikki were using their powers to throw a pool game or that Cleo had just used her powers to cheat in a volleyball game, she was justified in thinking that there was a double standard.

It is unclear if Charlotte got the girls' original powers or the enhanced version. We never saw her create snow, or lightening. Maybe she could have done those things, also if she had seen Rikki and Emma do them. Instead she seemed totally surprised when Rikki used her lightening powers in the final episode.

Charlotte and Rikki just plain didn't get along. No surprise there. It was established early on that Rikki had problems making friends and she found Charlotte abrasive.

A note on performances. I've already written about Rikki's. Episodes featuring Rikki tended to be the most realistic.

Emma's tended to be silly. She only got one good scene. Her boyfriend Ash knew that she was a competitive swimmer and couldn't understand why she wouldn't go swimming with him. She explained that she had had a life-altering experience, letting him assume that she had nearly drowned and was afraid of water. He took it upon himself to desensitize her by carrying her into the surf. She convinced him to put her back on dry land but, in a fit of anger, decided to show him what happens when she gets wet. Just before she reached the water some other people came into view and she had to put off the big reveal. This was the juiciest piece of acting that Claire Holt got.

Emma also got the creepiest episode of the season. After being poisoned by a some exotic coral, she became voracious and her scales began bleaching out. As time went by she stopped talking and started having fish characteristics (gills, scales on her arm), even when human. There was some question if she would attack her friends or family.

Angus McLaren as Lewis got to move beyond his one-dimensional character. He spent the season caught between Cleo who broke up with him but didn't want to see him move on and Charlotte. At various points he had to communicate that he was miserable just through his expression. In one late-season episode Cleo finally thought to ask him if he was ok and he answered, "No." He looked miserable.

Phoebe Tonkin as Cleo finally got a good episode at the end of the series. In the second-to-last episode she had a total meltdown. Her father was demanding that she do the dishes. Charlotte had bullied her and taken her locket. And Lewis wasn't talking to her any longer. After Charlotte took her locket she collapsed in tears. When her father tried to force her to do the dishes (without rubber gloves) she ran away. rather than going to the Moon Pool, she hid in the shark-infested reef beyond Mako Island (presumably the same area as Zane's run-in with a shark in the first season). Lewis had to come and bring her back.

Book Review - The Mermaid's Mirror

The Mermaid's Mirror by L. K. Madigan is aimed at teens but readable by adults.

Lena (short for Selena) has just turned 16 and wants to learn to surf. Her father refuses. Lena's desire increases after she sees a mermaid in the surf at Magic Cove.

Lena has some issues. She sleepwalks and even fainted, just from being in a high-rise building. Apparently this is tied to the mermaid, assuming that she really exists (spoiler: yes, she does).

The book is essentially in two parts, the first part is highly realistic with details about Lena's friends and boyfriend. A lot of time is spent explaining how to surf and what to do when you fall off.

The second part follows what happens after Lena finally makes contact with the mermaid. This part is much less detailed, almost dreamy which matches Lena's state of mind but is still a little jarring.

The mermaids in the book breath air and have to surface occasionally for air. They communicate telepathically and live in small settlements. Much of their culture is through song which matches primitive human cultures.

One oddity of the book is that the mermaids carry sealskin cloaks like silkies. They do not change shape with these but they use them to appear to be seals and sea lions to humans.

The book left quite a bit of room for a sequel.

An Interesting Look

I happened on an unusual mermaid makeup job. It is from a short, independent fantasy film amde in Australia called Glamour; A Faerys' Kiss. It mainly features fairies including Titania, the Queen of the Fairies in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. It also has a mermaid or two. You can see one in the FaceBook link.

This is the one that caught my eye.

Notice the gills along her rib cage. I think that Colin Wilson, the person I linked to, did the complete makeup including the tail.

Pibgorn

The on-line comic strip Pibgorn recently picked up a mermaid as a supporting character. You can see her here.

The strip started as a Christmas story about a fairy who took one last flight for the year with a mouse friend. Her wings iced up and she was revived by a church organist who put her in a cup of warm tea.

Originally planned as an innocent joke-of-the-day strip it quickly changed to lengthy stories suitable for gathering into graphic novels. Besides Pibgorn (Pib), the main characters are Geoff, Pibgorn's lover and Drusilla (Dru), a succubus possessed of great power. Both Pibgorn and Dru are usually naked but covered with natural coloring. The mermaid is also naked (topless) and spends her time face-down in the water or in silhouette.

The current story involves a golden genie who hangs out with the mermaid when he is not being summoned through wormholes. Apparently Pib was sucked through a wormhole in the other direction.

The current story began here with the mermaid appearing the next day.

Pibgorn ran a text story with illustrations about a mermaid three years ago starting here. Technically, this was about a Tookora who is sort of a flying mermaid.

Haunted Ship Mermaid

Mermaids and Halloween. They don't exactly go together. But we did one on a haunted ship.

I volunteer on the Columbus Santa Maria. Each year we transform the ship into a haunted pirate ship for Halloween. The event is kid-friendly (as much as it can be with very small children). The monsters are not too scary and there is no gross-out factor or chainsaws.

The background story is that the captain (Captain Boony) has cursed the crew. We have several effects scattered around the ship and we rework parts of it every year.

Last year someone got the idea of being a mermaid. She was planning to just lie on the bunk in the cabin and wave at people.

But, someone else knew how to do a neat effect. By using a pair of mirrors and a round lens (a round fishbowl full of water works perfectly for this) the mermaid was projected into the fishbowl.

We also have some cursed treasure and a seaweed monster who hides in the corner and shuffles out. Usually people don't even notice the monster at first.

It is a nice effect but it requires the mermaid to spend three nights lying on her back with her feet up to show her tail. The woman who did it last year has some health problems and could not do it again this year so we had to get a new mermaid.

This year's girl did a great job.

On the final tour, the mermaid and the seaweed monster shucked off their costumes and joined in. They hadn't seen the rest of the ship. Other effects include an octopus that jumped around inside a crate, a head in a cage, a spider with a human head, and a skeleton that turns into Captain Boony himself.

The Mermaid's reaction to the rest of the ship was, "We were doing Disney compared with everything else."

I wish I had gotten a picture of the effect but it was too dim for my phone's camera.

H2O - relationships

During the first season the main story arc in H2O: Just Add Water involved the reformation of Zane and his relationship with Rikki. At the end of the season they broke up but stayed friends.

In the second season the main story arc concerns the relationship between Cleo, Lewis, and Charlotte. I'll have more to say about that also.

In the first season Emma had a mild relationship with Byron but that never amounted to much. She got a new boyfriend, Ash, in the second season. Their relationship is typical of a show aimed at teens. When Emma first meets Ask she resents him without much reason. In their second meeting, Ask has been hired as the new assistant manager of the juice bar that Emma has been working at for a year. On his first couple of days he changes things around completely, angering Emma who expected the manager's job. Eventually he fires her unjustly. Later he apologizes, hires her back, and asks her for a date. With material like that to work with, I can see why the actress who played Emma left the show after the second season.

Rikki and Zane's romance is featured in three episodes and they are an example of great writing. The relationships seem real and the episodes are based around established personality traits.

Rikki is the most reserved of the mermaids. If she thinks that someone will disapprove of something, she hides it. This is central to these episodes.

In The One That Got Away, Rikki runs into Zane on his new dirt bike. He wants to get together but she declines. He still thinks that she lost her mermaid abilities and she doesn't want to start hiding that from him.

But, she is still attracted to him and starts hanging around a dirt bike track to watch him. He gets suspicious after tossing her a drink from a cooler and seeing her dodge it (the bottle is wet). He is also convinced that she still cares for him.

Later she is talking with Zane at the dock and Zane's friend Nate revs the motor of Zane's boat and covers her with water.

A suddenly terrified Rikki asks Zane to help her. He distracts Nate while Rikki dives into the water.

Zane catches up with Rikki in the Moon Pool and convinces her that she can trust him. Also, unlike his 1950s counterpart, he doesn't care that she is a mermaid. She agrees to start dating but only if he keeps it secret.

In The Wrong Side of the Tracks, everything comes to a head. Rikki is ashamed of where she lives and has been hiding it from everyone. She hasn't told anyone that she is dating Zane or that he knows that they are still mermaids. She has gone so far as to have Zane walk her to a house in a nice area to hide where she really lives.

Things start to go wrong for Rikki when Nate sees an old Harley in a trailer park and pries the emblem off of it. The owner sees them and blames Zane. Zane later takes the emblem from Nate and returns it but the owner catches him and accuses him of stealing more parts. Zane reverts to spoiled boy mode.

It turns out that the Harley is owned by Rikki's father and that he has been working on it for the last year.

Deciding that Zane would reject her if he knew where she really lived, Rikki breaks up with him and swims off.

Zane goes to the other girls, tells them that he knows that they are still mermaids and that he is worried about Rikki. They finally realize that they don't know anything about Rikki (it only took them 32 episodes to notice).

She decides to show Zane where she really lives. He doesn't care and kisses her - just in time for her father to show up and forbid her to see Zane again.

So Rikki is still miserable.

But Zane fixes things. He stays up all night and secretly fixes the Harley, finally getting to start. Zane and Rikki's father bond and a beaming Rikki invites the other girls and Lewis to her house for dinner.

The episode In Over Our Heads concerns trust. The mermaids are not sure that they can still trust Lewis since he is dating someone else now. He points out that he is the only one who knows their secret but they tell him that Zane also knows.

In the meantime, Rikki learns that her father is having money troubles and that they may need to move someplace cheaper. Typically, she doesn't tell anyone.

Zane approaches Rikki about an opertunity. A yacht with a priceless statue on it sank. There is a substantial reward but he knows about it first. He figures that a mermaid would have a better chance of finding the statue than a regular diver but they only have one day before the area will be full of treasure hunters. Rikki agrees to help if they split the reward 60/40. Zane says that he is mainly in it to be a hero, anyway (still trying to impress his father?).

The area is too large for Rikki to search so she enlists the other two mermaids but does not tell them about the reward. She simply appeals to their good nature. She plans on splitting her share of the reward with them and Zane decides to do the same thing.

During the search, Emma hears Rikki and Zane talk about the reward. They blame Zane and leave. Rikki continues the search, exhausting herself. She still has not told Zane why she is so driven.

She eventually finds the statue and uses a rig that Zane designed to lift it. Unfortunately, use used a cheap caribiner. It breaks and the statue falls on Rikki, knocking her unconscious.

Zane rescues Rikki and Lewis applies first aid. The girls decide that they can trust Zane and Lewis after all.

Lewis improves Zane's design for lifting the statue and the two recover it first thing the next morning (we already know that both are divers). They give the check to Rikki figuring that she earned it for finding the statue and getting hurt.

I am impressed with Cariba Heine, the actress who plays Rikki. All three of these episodes have quick flashes where you totally accept the emotion she is feeling. She she is splashed with water she really looks panicked. When she invites the others to meet her father she is glowing with happiness, and when Zane complains that she is pushing herself she really looks exhausted.

While I started watching the show because of mermaids with superpowers, episodes like this got me hooked (so to speak).

H2O: Rikki and Zane plots

In the show, H2O, Just add Water, plots involving the mermaids Cleo are usually a bit silly (she works extra shifts at the marine park because of a sick dolphin and her family thinks that she has a secret boyfriend). Emma's plots can be a bit over the top (Emma accidentally freezes someone solid and Rikki and Cleo have to revive her). In contrast, Rikki's plots are serious and realistic.

Rikki's first plot begins when one of Cleo's fish dies. After realizing that she has been insensitive, Rikki swims out into the open ocean and catches a new fish for Cleo. Someone sees her with it and offers to buy it. He says that he works with the breeding program at the marine park. Cleo is soon making good money selling rare fish and she is generous with her money.

But it turns out that the guy deals in black market rare fish. Rikki confronts him but he grabs her, takes her back to his warehouse, and threatens her. Rather than being intimidated, she starts making things boil and ends up scaring the hell out of the fish breeders. The main one jumps into the water and the other girls have to stop Rikki from boiling him. This is the only time the mermaids start acting like superheroes.

Rikki's relationship with Zane is complicated and spans the entire series.

From various references we know that Emma's parents are long-time friends of Zane's parents. Emma and Zane knew each other since they were two but had a falling out, probably when he became a jerk after his parents broke up.

Just prior to the first episode, Zane insults Rikki somehow and she sabotages his boat which begins a chain of events that lead to the girls becoming mermaids. For the next few episodes Zane and his girlfriend are annoyances.

Things begin to change when Zane enters a video contest. Zane's father set a record for the fastest run on a windboard to Mako Island and back. Zane's father repeatedly makes it clear that he considers Zane soiled and useless. Zane decides to win his father's respect by breaking the record and he hired Lewis to record it. Partway through, Lewis's boat stalls and a shark knocks Zane off of his board.

Rikki has been recording shark footage for the same contest and sees Zane in trouble. She drives off he sharks. Lewis catches up and gets footage of Zane calling for help from non-existent sharks. The footage makes Zane a laughingstock but Rikki, who knows that there were sharks, tells him that she believes him.

Mrs. Chatham, the last surviving 1950s mermaid, has been living on a decrepit houseboat. Zane complains after it breaks free and damages his jet ski. even though her boat has been declared unsafe, Mrs. Chatham decided to take it and leave. On her way out she accidentally sinks Zane's jet ski. He catches up and demands that she pay for the damages. Mrs. Chatham's health is not good and she has forgotten to take her pills. The excitement causes her to collapse. Emma and Lewis take her to get medical care but Zane returns to the houseboat, searching for her "treasure". At the time it seemed like he was just being greedy but in retrospect he may have been trying to save her valuables. Regardless, the boat was unsafe and sinks with Zane in it. Emma saves him and he catches sight of her fluke (the end of her tail). After that he is convinced that there is some unknown sea creature living near Mako Island.

The full moon has strange effects on the mermaids. In Rikki's case, her powers go out of control and she begins heating everything nearby. She goes to Mako Island where she ignites several small fires. Zane, who has been out looking for sea creatures, sees the fires and finds Rikki in despair ("I just can't do this any longer!"). He kisses her and her power lights a ring of fire around them, knocks both of them unconscious, and gives Zane a mild sunburn. The next day Rikki has forgotten everything that happened.

Zane's father is holding an investment seminar and Rikki attends, hoping to learn how to handle money better than her father. She has no money for lunch and accepts Zane's invitation to help herself from the hospitality suite. They go out on the large balcony and the door shuts and locks. With nothing else to do, they talk and, by the end of the episode, are kissing.

In his search for the sea creature, Zane finds footage of a very young Mrs. Chatham who was being interviewed after saving a sailor. He decided to search her sunken houseboat for clues. Emma realizes that there is a large photograph of the 1950s mermaids still in the houseboat and retrieves it but Zane spots her and realizes that the sea creature is a mermaid. Fortunately, Emma had dyed her hair red so he didn't recognize her.

Rikki agrees to start dating Zane if he will stop going on about mermaids.

Zane's father is having a business lunch with some potential investors and tells him to bring a date. He brings Rikki although his father disapproves of her. Emma and her family are also invited. By this point Emma and Cleo are wondering if they can still trust Rikki.

It turns out that he wants to develop Mako Island. Rikki storms out but returns to list all of he rare species on the island and to inform him that she is filing an environmental complaint. Zane follows her out and Emma is impressed.

The 1950s mermaids had three identical lockets made to remind them of their friendship. Rikki sees on in an estate sale and Zane eventually gets it for her. Rikki's 1950s counterpart was betrayed after revealing her secret to someone like Zane and the other girls are afraid that Rikki will repeat this mistake. She does not and points out that she is a different person and will not give away their secrets.

The point becomes moot. Zane's father has not given up on developing Mako Island. He hired a noted marine biologist (Dr. Denman, who is also young and pretty) to do an environmental impact study. She places several remote cameras and manages to photograph a mermaid. Zane is ecstatic since he is finally vindicated. His father doesn't show him a second picture that shows the mermaids' faces.

Dr. Menman is sure that studying how the girls change into mermaids in the presence of water will bring fame and fortune so she traps the mermaids in the Moon Pool. This is a dangerous move since the mermaids could easily overpower Denman and her assistants but she is holding Lewis hostage against their good behavior.

When forced to choose between his father and Rikki, Zane frees Lewis and the two of them free the mermaids. Zane's father washes his hands of the affair and reconciles with Zane.

By an amazing coincidence, there is a lunar eclipse that night which will remove the girls' mermaid powers. They decide that this is the only way to be safe from Dr. Denman.

Rikki and Zane decide that "this relationship isn't going anywhere," and part as friends (until they get back together next season).

It turns out that the girls only lost their powers for 12 hours (surprise!).

H2O - Just Add Water - the premise

No discussion about mermaids can be complete without discussing this show. It was an Australian production that ran for three years. It currently shows daily on Nick Teen and is popular enough that a spin-off (The Secret of Mako Island) just finished filming. The show has spawned several YouTube videos produced and staring children.

The premise of the show is that three high school students (do they call it "high school" in Australia?) are turned into part-time mermaids by a magical pool. As long as they stay dry they are normal but ten seconds after they get wet they turn into mermaids. The girls also have powers that they can use in either form and are affected in unpredictable ways by the full moon.

During the transformation into a mermaid, the girls' clothing vanishes as well as her make-up. Even her hair is loose after the transformation. In addition to growing mermaid tails, the girls also have scales on their chest that just happen to look like a bikini top. This is never mentioned in the show but in a second season episode one of the mermaids is poisoned by a piece of coral and scales on her top start to bleach out so they must be part of her.

The show has high production values and a huge cast. A lot of attention is paid to details and there is a large and consistent back-story to go with the show. All of the episodes are stand-alone but there are story arcs taking place in many of them. Originally I watched a couple of episodes just out of curiosity but I became hooked by the quality of the writing.

The mermaid tails are especially good. They are two feet longer than the girls' legs and hide her feet completely. The amount of mermaid footage varies from episode to episode. The same is true for the use of the girls' powers. In the first season, the middle episodes are most likely to be generic ones that could come from any teen-oriented show. In contrast, there are many episodes that could only be from this show.

The cast is:

Cleo. I think of her as the "any girl". She is the least mature. She constantly fights with her little sister. She gets decent marks in school but needs tutoring to keep her grades up. Her father is a fisherman with his own boat and she is intensely interested in ocean life. She has pet fish, the wall of her bedroom has an aquatic mural on it, and she gets a job at the "marine park" (Sea World is never named in the series). Despite all of this, she can't swim at the beginning of the show and it took several episodes before she would actually go into the ocean as a mermaid. Episodes featuring Cleo tend to be closer to typical teen shows (mistaken identity, etc.). Cleo can levitate water and make it expand. She uses this most often to play tricks on her sister.

Emma (or "Em"). She is the perfect daughter. She gets along with her little brother. She gets top marks in school. She is neat and tidy. She also borders on obsessive/compulsive. Personally I would have her in counseling for this if she was my daughter. She constantly tells the other girls that her family gets along because they never keep secrets from each other. The fact that she is secretly a mermaid drives a wedge between her and her family. Episodes featuring Emma tend to be about her getting out of control, often because she is a mermaid, and disappointing her family. Emma can generate cold and freeze water.

Rikki. She has the most complex personality of the three. She is the rebel. She is outspoken bordering on rude. She never studies or does homework but is smart enough to get passing grades (barely). She is impulsive but surprisingly responsible. She is also the least "girly". She knows more about engines than dying hair. In many ways she is the opposite of Emma. At the beginning of the show she is a complete stranger to the others but she and Emma quickly bond after becoming mermaids (she doesn't really bond with Cleo until Cleo accepts being a mermaid). We find out during the series that she has never had any close friends and that she is an only child living with her divorced father. Note that even though we know these things the other mermaids do not. These tidbits came from conversations with Emma's brother and Zane. It takes until episode 32 (second season) before the other girls realize that they know nothing about Rikki. Episodes about Rikki tend to be the most mature dealing with relationships and trust issues instead of broad comedy. I'll have more on this later. Rikki can generate heat and boil water.

Besides the mermaids, there are a few other important characters.

Lewis. Lewis is the final staring character and is in every episode (until he left the series half-way through the third season). He is the resident genius and thinks of himself as a scientist. He has been friends with Cleo since they were children and tutors her. The girls let him in on their secret early on and come to him every time they have a problem. He reminds me a lot of the people I hung out with in high school (except none of them got to hang around with three hot girls). He and Cleo are dating by the end of the first season. The main plot arc of the second season involves him dating someone else after Cleo breaks up with him.

Zane. Rich, hansom, athletic, and acid-tongued. When we first meet him he seems like a spoiled rich boy and a bit of a bully. Later we find out that he parents are divorced and he lives with his verbally abusive father. The main story arc of the first season involves Zane's transformation from unlikable to likeable and his romance with Rikki. I'll do a separate post on this later.

Mrs. Chatham. The current girls are not the first ones to become mermaids. In the 1950s, a different trio of girls became mermaids with the same powers. Only one of them still survives, an aging hippy who is the closest thing to an instruction manual the girls get.

The first episode sets up the characters. Cleo and Emma are already long-time friends and Cleo is helping Emma train for her swim team. Later Zane asks Cleo to help him with his boat. As soon as she is on it, he casts it adrift. Someone removed the spark plug and for some reason he blamed Cleo (she isn't even sure what a spark plug is). Worse, she doesn't swim. Zane tells her that if she can fix the boat she can keep it.

Before the boat drifts away from land, Rikki jumps aboard and replaces the spark plug. She was mad at Zane for some reason and sabotaged his boat. Once she has it working she decides to go for a joy ride. Cleo introduces herself and they pick up Cleo.

Rikki decides to go out onto the open ocean but the boat runs out of gas and they have to paddle to the nearest island, Mako Island. Emma has a phone but cannot get a signal and decides that they should try higher ground. Cleo slips and slides down a tunnel. The other girls follow her. They find themselves at the base of an ancient volcano with a pool (later to be known as the Moon Pool) at the bottom. Emma finds a way out underwater. Since Cleo does not swim, Rikki helps her.

While the three are in the water the moon shines down the volcano into the pool. There is a light show. The girls escape and are rescued.

The next day they discover, individually, what happens when they get wet. Cleo and Emma also discover their powers.

Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama

This is a dual-plot novel. One part follows the romance between the mermaid Syrenka and a naturalist named Ezra in the 19th century. The other plot follows Hester, a modern girl in her late teens who is facing the fact that the women in her family die shortly after giving birth.

Syrenka is a thousand-year-old mermaid who periodically falls in love with mortal men. As we learn in the prologue, she forgets her strength and the need for her lovers to breath so she has not successfully consummated any of her relationships.

We know from the beginning that Hester must be Syrenka's descendent. When she was young she was saved from drowning except she insists that she was able to breath underwater.

The modern plot follows Hester's attempts to solve a 140 year old mystery involving multiple deaths.

This book could have been written for me. Not only does it have mermaids, it takes place on Plymouth Massachusetts and Hester has a job at Plimoth Plantation (I have been to Plymouth multiple times and volunteered for special events at Plimoth Plantation).

The book is well-written. I think that it is supposed to be a young adult novel but it is written at an adult level.

The novel does take a few liberties with Plymouth. In fact, many of the important plot elements involve things that do not exist. For example, there is no back door to the church (I went through Plymouth right after reading the book and I checked).

One jarring element is when Hester finally meets the mermaids. The transition to a fantastic undersea world and back is rushed and has a different tone than the rest of Hester's story.

Regardless, I would recommend it.

Why Mermaids?

Why did I suddenly get interested in mermaids? I'm not sure. It started when I read some news reports about girls and women buying expensive mermaid tails as swimming suits. I also became aware of professional mermaids who come to festivals. I saw a few in August at a pirate festival.

What really amazes me is that there is an entire mermaid and merpeople community. Just going through relevant entries on Youtube seems endless. There are even series produced in homage to H2O, Just Add Water by young girls. I thought that there were two or three of these but I found some more last night. I think that there are around a half dozen although I'm not sure that all of them made it past the first episode. None of them are really watchable to an adult.

Then there is H2O, Just Add Water. I've been watching it on Hulu. Originally I only planned on watching an episode or two but I got hooked. It is much better written than I expected and the requisite wacky situations never go over the top. If you pay close attention, the character growth is very well executed.

I'll have more to say about this later.

So, what's the attraction?

I'm not sure but somehow the half human/half fish is a powerful image.

Of course mermaids were not always a happy image. Sirens who lure sailors to their death are often shown as mermaids. In other myths, sighting a mermaid was a sign of bad weather or other misfortune. I know a couple of sea shanties about this.

That image seems to have vanished during the 20th century. Now they are neutral or helpful.