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Lana, also known as The Little Mermaid, appears in Sink or Swim.

Appearance[]

Lana has is a very beautiful teen girl of fifteen years. She has long blonde hair the color of butter. As a mermaid, Lana wears a green bikini top. Her tail is green with an orange fin shaped like a fan. When on land, Abby describes that Lana walks wonderfully considering the fact that she was a mermaid majority of her life. She is seen on Abby's jewelry box lying on her stomach writing in a notebook.

Personality[]

Lana is brave and determined. She fights for her dreams and follows her heart. However, she can be very stubborn at times and her judgment can be flawed, leading her to make mistakes. Because of her stubborn streak, she will chase her goals despite the chance of danger or something worse.

While her love for Mortimer seemed shallow since thought that just because he was royalty like her and handsome that they were meant for each other, Lana genuinely cared for Mortimer and tried to bond with him and learned to read and write so they could communicate.

According to Abby, Lana is very smart and a good learner since she learned the whole alphabet in a day.

History[]

The Original Story[]

In the original fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, the Little Mermaid journeys to the surface on her fifteenth birthday. She sees a prince on a ship and falls in love with him. A storm rises and the prince falls overboard. The Little Mermaid rescues him and brings him to the shore. A group of girls from a nearby school find the prince and frightened Mermaid hides in the waves. During a party in the sea kingdom, the Mermaid sneaks away to the lair of the Sea Witch. The Sea Witch gives her a potion that will turn her mermaid tail into human legs but she must give up her beautiful voice as payment. The witch also adds a curse to the spell; if the prince marries someone else, the very next sunrise, the Little Mermaid will die and turn into sea foam. Though frightened, the Little Mermaid agrees and the Sea Witch cuts out her tongue.

After drinking the potion and gaining human form, the prince, smitten by the silent stranger invites her to stay in his palace. The prince and mermaid grow closer but the prince sees her only as a friend. The prince reveals he is marrying a princess from a neighboring kingdom in order to stop the war between the two kingdoms. The princess was one of the girls who found the prince on the beach. Thinking she had saved him, the prince fell in love. They soon were wed and set sail on the prince's ship. That night, the Mermaid was visited by her five sisters. They had cut their hair and gave it to the Sea Witch in exchange for a magic knife. If the Mermaid plunges the knife into the prince's heart, she will regain her fish tail. The Little Mermaid refuses to kill him and as the sun rises, she dissolves into foam.

Sink or Swim[]

Lana saved prince Mortimer and was dragging him to shore where she meets Abby and Jonah who had just fallen into her world. Frightened, Lana pushes Mortimer into their arms and swims away. Abby who knows Lana's story wants to change her ending by convincing her to remain a mermaid. Abby puts a portrait of Mortimer on the beach and Lana arrives during the night. Abby tells Lana what will happen if she tries to be with Mortimer. Though frightened, Lana refuses to give up. Abby agrees to help if Lana doesn't go to the Sea Witch.

Abby brings Mortimer to the beach to meet Lana and tells him she was the one who rescued him. He instantly falls in love with her and proposes but his love turns to revulsion when he sees her fish tail. Abby tries to convince him that with a magic potion, he could live part-time under the sea and Land could live part-time on land in the palace swimming pool. Mortimer is disgusted at the notion of living in the ocean, insults Lana's home and runs off. Lana's heart breaks. Despite Abby's warning, that night, Lana visits Nelly the Sea Witch who turns her human. Abby wakes up to find Lana writhing on the ground as her tail painfully turns into legs.

Abby introduces a now human Lana to Mortimer who is overjoyed to marry her now that she has legs. Lana and Mortimer run into trouble when planning the wedding as Lana can't talk. Abby teaches Lana how to read and write so she can communicate with Mortimer. The night before the wedding, Lana writes a book about their first meeting and gives it to Mortimer as a wedding present but he puts it aside. An angry Abby stands up for Lana but Mortimer says that a princess just has to be pretty. Lana is upset that this is all Mortimer sees.

The next day, Lana runs out on their wedding and tells Abby (by writing), that she made a mistake and doesn't want to go through with the wedding. Mortimer is upset but his father asks who will marry Mortimer instead of Lana. Princess Alison of Watermelon agrees, sealing Lana's tragic fate.

Abby asks Carolyn to make an underwater breathing potion. Lana's mermaid spit completes the potion but it won't work on Lana. Abby and Jonah take it and journey into the sea to ask Nelly the Sea Witch to spare Lana's life. They succeed.

Fate[]

Lana becomes a writer and stays human instead of going back to live as a mermaid. She decides to write about the world under the sea so humans would learn about merfolk and think they weren't all make-believe.

Etomology[]

The name Lana has many origins, but most noticeably from Irish and Hawaiian meanings. For Irish, the name might have come from the word "leanbh", which was used to call a child, reflecting Lana's childish behaviour of her decision to marry Prince Mortimer. For Hawaiian, the name means "calm as still waters", or "afloat", which signifies her coming from the sea.

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