Barbie: Mermaidia

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Barbie: Mermaidia is a computer-animated movie that is a sequel to Barbie: Fairytopia, produced by Mainframe Entertainment and released direct to video.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In Barbie: Fairytopia the wingless flower fairy Elina defeated Laverna, the evil sister of Fairytopia's ruler the Enchantress, and the Enchantress gave Elina wings as a reward. Mermaidia's plot begins almost immediately afterward with Elina flying through Fairytopia with her friend Dandelion, still learning to use her wings and not quite believing she has them. They are soon sought out by a juvenile sea-butterfly fairy who witnessed Nalu, the merpeople prince Elina had befriended in the previous movie, being kidnapped by several of Laverna's goblin-like Fungi at the Crystal Cove. She was unable to intervene but Nalu was able to send her to find Elina for help.

Laverna, who was banished to the Bogs of the Hinterlands by the Enchantress' magic, is seeking the Immunity Berry - a berry that makes whoever eats it immune to all magic, past present and future. Nalu knows where to find the berry, and so she has sent Fungus Maximus (aka "Max", a cowardly and obsequeous but relatively intelligent and very well-spoken Fungus) along with two henchmen to recover it. Max threatens to pour a bottle of magical poison into the ocean to destroy Mermaidia if Nalu doesn't lead him to the berry. After convincing Nalu that he will make good his threat if the merman refuses, Nalu reluctantly agrees. The Fungi eat a variety of seaweed that grants the ability to breathe underwater and take him away with them.

Elina arrives at the Crystal Cove some time after their departure, accompanied by her companion puffball Bibble. She finds no trace of Nalu, but does encounter a mermaid named Nori. She had planned to meet Nalu at the cove and is unaware of the reason for his absence. She's heard of Elina, however, and is immediately unfriendly - Nori is in love with Nalu and considers Elina a rival. When she learns of the trouble Nalu is in she initially insists on going to rescue him by herself. Elina knows about the water-breathing seaweed too, however, and decides to follow since Nalu had asked for her help specifically.

Nalu, meanwhile, has delayed the Fungi in their quest by leading them into a region of the ocean known as the "Carousel of Confusion", where the waters cause people to forget what they're doing and allows him to direct them in circles for a long while before Max finally wises up.

Elina soon reaches Mermaidia and catches up with Nori, who has been unsuccessfully attempting learn the location of the oracle Delphine so that Nori can ask her where to find Nalu. The only people who know the location of Delphine are the merfairies, who are too childlike to take any situation seriously and so are nearly impossible to speak with. Merfairies do settle down enough to converse with when entertaining guests in their above-water homes, however, and so Elina is able to visit them and convince the merfairies to give her the location. The merfairies tell her to seek out the fair ferry Shellie, and gives her a riddle to help find Delphine.

Since Elina has proven her usefulness to Nori, the mermaid reluctantly agrees to let Elina accompany her - "as long as you can keep up with me." Nori easily out-swims Elina, but Elina takes to the air and skims along just above the waves to make the race more even. The two reach Shellie together and Elina impresses Nori with her flying, prompting her to finally begin dropping some of her hostility. The two of them ask her To tell them where to find Delphine, but Shellie won't tell them directly. Elina recalls the riddle and this leads to them discovering that Shellie is, in fact, Delphine the oracle.

When they ask her for Nalu's location, Delphine once again refuses to tell them directly, saying that they first have to prove themselves. She tells them to travel to the bottom of the Depths of Despair to find the Mirror of the Mist, which will lead them to him. She warns that the two of them will have to rely on one other to make it, and that Elina will have to make a sacrifice; the Depths of Despair are too dangerous for a weak swimmer so Elina will have to trade her wings for a mermaid's tail. Elina refuses, having just gained wings recently after a lifetime without.

Delphine gives Elina a magical pearl necklace that will allow her to change her mind later. Using the necklace is not without risk, though. When the necklace's magic is invoked the 5 white pearls that adorn the necklace turn blue and then begin slowly turning white again one at a time. If the user is out of the water when the last pearl turns white she will return to her original form, but if she is still underwater, she becomes a mermaid forever. The two then head to the Depths of Despair together.

The Depths of Despair is a dark vertical shaft in the ocean floor. The two of them begin swimming downward but Elina is unable to progress against the powerful currents flowing through the shaft. Nori presses onward, telling Elina to wait for her, but is soon entrapped by the fronds of one of the hostile sea plants growing on the shaft's walls. Elina can't reach her to rescue her and ends up having to activate the necklace after all, turning into a mermaid. She is then able to reach Nori and free her and the two of them fend off the plants to reach the cavern at the bottom. They find the Mirror of the Mist there in the keeping of a fish who operates it on their behalf, showing an image of Nalu hanging suspended in air by his tail from a stone arch and creating a magical bubble beacon for them to follow on the next leg of their journey. While en route the two of them discover themselves spontaneously developing matching tattoos on their upper arms. Nori recognizes the symbol as the "Crest of Courage," which mermaid legend says will decorate anyone strong enough to travel to the very bottom of Mermaidia.

The bubble takes them to the entrance of a cave filled with boiling hot thermal vents and dissipates. Nori recognizes the cave and realizes that at the other end is an area that matches what they saw in the Mirror of the Mist when it showed them Nalu. She assures Elina that it's possible to make it through by properly timing one's passage with the eruption of the vents, having done it before, and leads them through. Bibble becomes stranded partway through and Nori goes back to rescue him for Elina.

Beyond the vents lies a cavern filled with a variety of sea plants bearing magical fruits, including one that causes the eater to speak backwards, one that causes all of one's hair to fall out, one that reveals the eater's true self, and one that causes the eater to sing beautifully. Bibble eats one of these last fruits, displaying the effects wonderfully. When they reach the surface they find Nalu being guarded by Max's two Fungi henchmen and have Bibble distract them with his song while the two mermaids leap from the water to cut the seaweed ropes holding him.

Nalu is grateful to be rescued but tells them that Max has reached the cave where the Immunity Berry grows, very near where he was being held by the two lesser Fungi. Realizing that if Laverna were to become immune to the Enchantress' magic she would become unstoppable, the three battle with the Fungi to retrieve the berry that Max has picked. They succeed, with Elina snatching the berry and leaping out of the water at the top of a waterfall just as her final blue pearl begins to turn white. Max is lurking nearby, however, and threatens to release his magical poison into the water if Elina doesn't hand over the berry. She tosses the berry to him but Max breaks his side of the bargain and drops the bottle over the edge of the waterfall anyway. Elina dives to catch it and manages to replace the stopper just before hitting the water at the bottom. Her last pearl finishes turning white, trapping her forever in mermaid form, and Max escapes with the berry.

The seeming defeat is soon partly reversed, however, when Nori reveals that she and Elina had swapped the Immunity Berry during the heat of the chase with a similar-looking substitute - one of the berries that reveals the eater's true self. Upon Nori's suggestion, Elina then decides to risk eating one of the true-self berries herself in the hopes of restoring herself to fairy form. She succeeds, gaining wings even more spectacular than she'd had before. Nori and Nalu reveal their love for each other and Elina returns to Fairytopia.

Meanwhile, in the Bogs of the Hinterlands, Laverna takes a bite from what she believes to be the Immunity Berry and finds herself transformed into a toad. She swears vengeance on Elina.

In the end, Elina returns to the Magic Meadow to be congratulated by the guardian fairy, Azura, and Dandelion. Elina and Bibble fly off while relating their adventure to Dandelion, and they all live happily ever after.