- Chelsea: I've waited 15 years for this. 15 years waiting to get revenge on your mother...
- Ruby: What?
- Chelsea: Dethrone your grandmother, and lay waste to the kraken kingdom.
- Ruby: Chelsea?
- Chelsea/Nerissa: (chuckles evilly) Oh, there is no Chelsea. I... am... Nerissa!
―CHELSEA BETRAYAL RUBY AND TRUE NATURE QUEEN AND HER REAL EVIL NAME
Chelsea Van Der Zee (real name Queen Nerissa) is the main antagonist of DreamWorks Animation's 2023 feature film Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. She is Ruby Gillman's ex-best friend and arch-enemy.
Appearance[]
In her human disguise known as Chelsea, Nerissa has the appearance of a beautiful teenager with fair skin, wavy knee-length red hair, and pale blue eyes. For clothing, Nerissa wore a navy-blue zigzag choker around her neck, hoop earrings, a sleeveless, aquamarine blue ruffle crop-top, sparkling dark blue bell-bottom jeans, and a pair of white sneakers. She also has light blue nail polish.
In her base mermaid form, the only change physically is gaining a turquoise mermaid tail with dark orange spikes and fin tips.
However, Nerissa seems to have another mermaid form, possibly her original form, which is much larger than her human form and is around the size of a kraken. The sclera of her eyes in this form is bright blue and her iris is red; her hair is long and silvery-white and appears to be made of a watery texture, and her skin is dark red with blue patterns, and her tail has turquoise areas on her spikes and fin tips.
Biography[]
Nerissa was the queen of the mermaids who has a rivalry with Grandmamah and Agatha. After the battle of the trident she attempted to steal the Trident of Oceanus back but was unsuccessful and was presumed to have died in the process.
Years later, she enrolls at Oceanside high school under the name Chelsea Van Der Zee. She takes credit for Ruby saving Connors life and basks in the students praise while attempting to befriend Ruby.
After Ruby accidentally ruins prom by growing into her giant kraken form she is seen by Nerissa. Realizing that Ruby is a royal kraken she decides to befriend Ruby to manipulate her to get the trident back.
Personality[]
As the queen of the ruined Mermaid Kingdom, Nerissa's desires are to kill Ruby's mom, dethrone Ruby's grandmother, and lay waste to the kraken kingdom, as they did to hers, and is willing to manipulate, and hurt anybody, in order to accomplish her goal.
Due to Nerissa being a plot twist villain, determining the exact details of her personality is extremely difficult, and is made even more difficult due to the fact that, while normally, it can be assumed that her personality after the reveal is her actual one, due to her returning back to her Chelsea personality after being defeated, and staying in it, even after it became clear that it will not help her Escape, it may be possible that her Chelsea personality maybe her actual personality (although this is unlikely). Her voice as Chelsea sounds like an average teenager, while her voice as Nerissa sounds a little deeper like an adult.
According to Grandmamah, Agatha makes a unknowingly false statement that "Nerissa's daughter" is manipulating her, In response, Grandmamah is confused and replies agitatedly "Daughter?! Nerissa never had a daughter!" So sometimes, her mermaid physiology can sometimes confuse that of krakens.
At first, Chelsea appears to be kind, friendly, sociable, and charming. In truth, however, Nerissa is evil, cruel, vindictive, manipulative, cunning, two-faced, arrogant, power-hungry, "will-do-anything-to-destroy-the-world" kind of a mermaid, and since the queen of the mermaids is the central antagonist, she would do anything to twist the backstory, and turn the table, like how she did by revealing Ruby's identity intentionally using social media. She's also very narcissistic.
A possibility that is made even more likely due to statements made by the director of the film Kirk DeMicco, which were further supported by statements made by co-director Faryn Pearl, which essentially state that the backstory that Nerissa gave to Ruby was genuine and that she was genuinely relating to Ruby's plight, which, in turn, possibly means that all of her other reactions, such is the one where she appears to be confused, and possibly worrying about Ruby, after she ran off to the library, are genuine, a possibility that is further supported by the fact that many of set reactions occurred when nobody was looking or paying attention to her.
Additionally, the sequences in the movie in which Grandmamah talks about the mermaids and the Battle of the Trident, cannot be considered good sources of information about her, due to being too vague, and as a result of Grandmamah's clear hatred towards the mermaids, to the point where the movie basically confirms, that she either wants to, or is actively genociding the mermaids, clear bias.
With the same or similar problems existing with every statement about her made by every Kraken in the movie.
Due to this, the only sources of information that can be considered reliable, of her post reveal personality are her own words and actions following her reveal, alongside any statements made about her by the creators of the film.
Perhaps spawning from the persecution from the Krakens (real or imagined), Chelsea revealed a victim complex when defeated; instead of acknowledging her defeat or the fact that her planned destruction ended up threatening people who had nothing to do with the Kraken-Mermaid war, she claimed that she was only attacked for being "pretty." Similarly, she fails to take responsibility for her actions, displaying no guilt at manipulating and betraying Ruby, even though the Kraken girl thought of her as a friend; thus, even if she did start with a righteous cause, the years and her hatred had twisted her into the monster the Krakens feared she was the whole time.
Abilities[]
- Mermaid Physiology: Like Krakens, Nerissa's form changes between land and water to accommodate for living on both.
- Land-Water Adaptability: While on land, Nerissa grows a pair of human legs. While in water, her legs are replaced with a fish tail.
- Underwater Breathing: While in her mermaid form, Nerissa is capable of breathing underwater.
- Super Speed: Nerissa is shown to be able to move incredibly fast under water on par with Ruby.
- Agelessness: Nerissa looks like a teenager despite being at least as old as Agatha Gillman. She states that mermaids don't age.
Abilities with the Trident[]
When using the Trident, Nerissa takes on a more monstrous looking mermaid form that allows her to stand up to krakens.
- Size Changing: With the Trident, Nerissa grows to gigantic size, rivaling krakens.
- High Strength: Nerissa gains great strength proportionate to her size. This strength is enough to tackle krakens.
Role in the film[]
Chelsea, the new girl at Oceanside High.
Nerissa takes on the identity of a human girl named Chelsea Van Der Zee, arriving at the school at the exact same time that Ruby saves her crush, Connor, which she steals the credit for, resulting in her getting heavily praised, stating that she was prompted to save him by a saying her mother told her in her youth, which, alongside her beauty, immediately skyrockets her to the top of the school's popularity poll.
Later, Chelsea saves Ruby from being killed by the Oceanside's tour guide Gordon Lighthouse, revealing her true identity as a mermaid in the process. The two later become closer friends when they ditch school together, spending their leisure hours relaxing in the ocean, where they then end up deciding to try to bring peace between their species, by getting the Trident and using it as a symbol of peace. Chelsea then tells Ruby that her mother was Nerissa, and that she died trying to retrieve the Trident from the Well of Seas.
Nerissa is revealed.
On prom night, Ruby is elated to tell her mother, Agatha, about Chelsea. Due to her being a mermaid, Agatha questions Chelsea's true motives and forbids Ruby from seeing her grandmother out of disappointment. Frustrated, Ruby runs off with the trident and gives it to Chelsea. With the trident in her hand, she reveals that she is Nerissa and that her friendship with Ruby was a façade so she can get the trident to gain more power. She then grows to a monstrous size and goes off to attack the town. As a result of her friend's betrayal, Ruby is distraught; however, with some words of encouragement from her uncle, Brill, Ruby gains enough confidence to take on Nerissa.
Nerissa then arrives at Oceanside from underwater to search for Agatha as she knocked down the door of a house the latter sold to a couple. When Agatha asks where Ruby is, Nerissa explains that they have said their "goodbyes", while mocking Agatha for being a waste of time with Grandmamah defending her before they try to stop her, only to be overpowered.
Ruby then arrives and fights Nerissa while protecting her family and friends. Nerissa tries to stop Ruby by knocking out the children with a tidal wave. However, Ruby saves everyone from danger, with her friends and Connor seeing her in her giant form. Before they can say anything, Margo warns Ruby about Nerissa, who knocks the latter underwater.
Nerissa taunts Ruby telling her she'll never win and that she is just a dumb teenager, and continues to mock her for thinking that someone like her would ever be friends with a "monster". This has Ruby stand up to Nerissa while distracting her by using her laser-eyes to take the Trident out of her hand, while the latter goes to Agatha and Grandmamah about her plan, that the trident can be destroyed with enough power.
Chelsea trapped in Captain Gordon's cage.
After Nerissa finds the Trident, Ruby tries to reason with her on redemption, and convincing her to give her the trident but the latter refuses, saying she'll never take it from her. However, Ruby, Agatha, and Grandmamah combine their laser eyes to shoot at the trident together, destroying it and defeating Nerissa, returning her to her normal size of Chelsea as she is then taken away on Captain Gordon Lighthouse's boat. Captured, Nerissa pleads to Gordon to let her go under the excuse that she is pretty and misunderstood and not evil to no avail, and while Grandmamah suggest cooking Nerissa for her actions, Ruby convinces her not to. Nerissa is last seen still caged while Gordon makes a livestream about how mermaids are the real monsters rather than krakens, leading Nerissa to ask if she's attracting more followers, possibly staying in the cage or being imprisoned somewhere else.
She deserves to return in the sequel as the anti-heroine[]
Ruby and Chelsea as friends (This art made for fans on the internet.)
Internet fans liked the character so much, they wanted her to return. Chelsea became very popular on the internet, including fanarts. In the sequel, Nerissa will no longer be the villain, but rather an anti-heroine, Ruby's future partner. She was going to help Ruby, Agatha and the queen of the krakens will have to face the new threat. Nerissa was going to apologize to Ruby for the evil things she did and they become friends again. After all, Nerissa wasn't so evil when they think. Only problem internet fans didn't like of Chelsea as a villain and yet they became jokes on the internet because Ariel from The Little Mermaid is a villain. In theory, Chelsea was going to work as a sailor for Captain Gordon right after she was locked in the cage.
Trivia[]
- Her true name, "Nerissa," means "sea nymph" in Greek.
- Nerissa's name is derived from the nereids of Greek mythology. A group of 50 sea nymphs which were partial inspiration for the myths of mermaids.
- If one takes the "Neris" part of her name and reverses it, it becomes "Siren", another mythological sea creature of Greek mythology.
- Chelsea's design and name is inspired by Chelsea Belcha, a story artist at Dreamworks who worked on The Bad Guys, & the Oscar-nominated Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, but her personality is based on Regina George from Mean Girls.
- Chelsea is the tenth DreamWorks Animation female main antagonist, after Mrs. Tweedy from Chicken Run, Eris from Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Fairy Godmother from Shrek 2, Chantel DuBois from Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, Ms. Grunion from Mr. Peabody & Sherman, Chef from Trolls, Morgana from Trollhunters, Dr. Zara from Abominable, and Queen Barb from Trolls World Tour.
- Chelsea appears to be able to shapeshift to some degree, as she has a human form and a mermaid form which appear very different form her presumed true form.
- Chelsea states mermaids don't age, so its likely she's the same age as Ruby's mother, Agatha Gillman, or possibly even Grandmamah.
- She is based on Regina George from Mean Girls.
- She says the name Van Der Zee is Dutch.
- ”Van Der Zee” is faux-Dutch for “of the sea”, further foreshadowing that she is a mermaid.
- In an early draft, Chelsea was more of a delinquent and her "bonding time" with Ruby involved her stealing someone else's bike and tying a knot in the air tube of a scuba diver. [1]
- In one of these drafts, Chelsea was actually Nerissa's daughter and was taking revenge for her mother, who had been killed by Agatha Gillman. [2]
- In the trailer, when she first meets Ruby, Chelsea ousts her as a Kraken and is more antagonistic. This is contrary to the movie where Chelsea attempts to bond with Ruby right away as part of her plan to manipulate her.
- A shot of her sternly wielding the trident also appears in the trailer but never in the final film.
- Amanda Peet, Claire Forlani, Dakota Fanning, Lily Collins, Ashlee Simpson, Taylor Swift, Miranda Cosgrove, Isabella Amara, Kathryn Hahn, Elisha Cuthbert, Hailey Duff, and Yari Shahidi are considered for the role before Annie Murphy (a newcomer who had never been in a major motion picture) got the role.
- Ironically, Nerissa's encouragement to Ruby about using the latter's Kraken heritage became a contributing factor to the former's downfall, as it was crucial for Ruby to team up with both her mother Agatha and her grandmother Grandmamah in finally defeating Nerissa with their shared Kraken powers.
- She is based to Gwen Grayson / Royal Pain from Sky High. Executive producer Mike Mitchell, who directed Sky High, inspired this character.
- The pretty and popular teenage girls at high school (Chelsea and Gwen Grayson), who are the daughter of an ancient supervillain who the parents of the protagonist defeated (Nerissa and Royal Pain).
- Despite this and their opposite status at school, both form a strong bond with the protagonist.
- Or... Did they? Turns out they were only using them to get a powerful weapon (the trident and the pacifier).
- On top of that, it turns out their whole identity was a lie. In reality, they weren't the daughters of said ancient supervillain, they straight up ARE said supervillain.
- In the end the protagonist embraces the powers that come with their heritage (Kraken and superpowers) to beat the shit out of our combatants in the end.
- After defeat (Nerissa and Royal Pain), they are imprisoned at the end.
Gallery[]
.png "They destroy Nerissa% 27s trident (1).png (635 KB)")
.jpg "Caged and pinched in the nose (1).jpg (966 KB)")
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