Queen of the Mermaids
| Queen of the Mermaids | |
| Dragon Quest II HD-2D Remake | |
| Japanese name | 人魚の女王 |
| Romaji | Ningyo no joō |
| Race | Mermaid |
| Voice actor | Yuka Komatsu |
The Queen of the Mermaids is a side character in Dragon Quest II HD-2D Remake, who rules the oceans of Greater Alefgard from her palace in the kingdom of Mersea.
Appearance and Personality[edit]
The Queen is a tall woman approximately twice the size of a common mermaid and human. She has a mane of wild blonde hair capped by a silver crown set with a turquoise gem, and wears a red bikini top. Her royal sceptre resembles a spiraling conch shell with a large orb placed at the top. As with all mermaids the Queen speaks in rhyme.
The Queen is a model monarch, putting the well-being of her people before her own needs. She keeps an approachable disposition, but there is a certain distance in her voice and mannerism that implies she keeps her feelings hidden from others. The Queen has a very poor opinion of humanity as a whole, describing the race as one of thieves and liars due to terrible personal experiences she's had in the past and discourages her kind from interacting with the surface-dwellers. She is perfectly willing to put her prejudices aside for individuals who've proven themselves to be a cut above, however, and is not shy about expressing her gratitude to the Scions of Erdrick for saving her subjects from disaster.
Appearances[edit]
Dragon Quest II HD-2D Remake[edit]
The Queen of the Mermaids is first encountered when the four Scions of Erdrick rush to the Mermaid's Sanctuary after being informed of Mariella's attack on the fish women by Belial in the Shrine of Rain. Mariella had laid siege to their home in Mersea, but the Queen ordered an evacuation to the Sanctuary. The Queen and her guards stand between Mariella, her peon the Toadalitarian, and several defenceless mermaids. The Toadalitarian begs its mistress to not kill the Queen, pointing out that their orders were to take her alive and dreading what Belial would do to them should he find out that they disobeyed one of his direct orders. Mariella will hear none of it and cannot restrain herself form wanting to kill a woman more beautiful than herself when she stands before her. When the Scions arrive and Mariella shouts in confusion over seeing humans walk the ocean floor, the Queen gets in a sly quip by mocking the monster's ignorance of her master's greatest foes. Seething, Mariella orders the Toadalitarian to slay the children and blanches as she witnesses her strongest minion be defeated with ease; the Queen identifies the four as none other than the descendants of the legendary Erdrick. Mariella then kills the weakened Toadalitarian by casting Kacrackle and flees for her life in the chaos.
The Queen cast a powerful barrier on the four Scions to protect them from the ice spell's range, saying its the least she could do for saving her people. As the Princess of Cannock is overcome with giddiness at seeing how the Children of Hargon betray one another while the four have made fast allies with the faeries and even the Dragonlord's great-grandson, the Queen of the Mermaids declares that the four can count the mermaids among their number as well. She asks the children to return to Mersea so that they can be justly rewarded for their hard work, asking that they go ahead of her so she can assess the damage done to the Sanctuary first. As the children unwind from the clash as the Sanctuary and speak to a school of mermaids, the sirens wonder how the Queen could be so biased against humans when four little ones risked their necks to save them. As the Queen enters the scene she admits she was wrong about humans, and once more expresses her gratitude. The Princess of Moonbrooke then interjects, coming clean that the Scions had asked Elaine and Melinda to give them the faerie trumpet without the Queen's permission so that they could come to the aid of the Faerie Palace, and that she wants to apologize for the theft. The Queen simply chuckles and tells them that coming to the faeries' aid is more than enough recompense, and allows the quartet to keep the instrument. She does ask to see Lorelei's harp, taking a moment to place one of her pearl earrings into a slot on it before giving it back along with bequeathing them the magic key.
The Scions of Erdrick will need the Queen's help to empower Lorelei's harp so that they can reach the bottom of the sea later in the quest, as that is where the Shrine of Rubiss awaits them. The Queen points out that the harp has another alcove where a second pearl should be set, and without that she cannot draw out its latent potential―she explains that some decades prior to the game's events a foolish mermaid fell in love with a human. When he asked her to give him her people's most sacred jewels, she plucked the pair of pearls from the harp and crafted them into earrings, giving one to the young man and keeping the other. As time went by the man visited the mermaid less and less often, prompting her to go to him in Galenholm. There, hiding under the bridge, she overheard the man and his father plot to abduct mermaids for profit. Crushed by this betrayal and the guilt over being deceived, the young mermaid fled far from Galenholm. At some point she encountered a shipwrecked sailor near death on a rocky outcropping; though emotionally devastated and now rightfully suspicious of humans, she could not deny her better nature and carried the man to an inhabited island, placing the second pearl earring in his hand as she was unable to bear the sight of it.
The Queen reveals this foolish mermaid was none other than her own young self. When the Scions tell her they obtained one of the pearl earrings from the Shipwright's Shrine, which they had given to Melinda to behalf of Sylvester as a way of thanking her for saving his life and in turn the mermaid gave it to the Queen to make up for filching the faerie trumpet, the Queen states the wreckage of her ex-lover's vessel is to the north of Galenholm and forty fathoms down. Once the Scions arrived to investigate, they find the missing pearl in a chest right at the helm along with a letter in a bottle. The letter was written by the Queen's former lover, who penned the events from his point of view; though at first he did make contact with the princess of mermaids out of lust for riches, with the intent to sell whatever treasure he could con out of her, he soon found himself falling for her. He had doomed their love by telling his father of her, who conspired with him to capture her and tour her around as a sideshow freak.
What the young Queen witnessed under the bridge in Galenholm was her lover arguing with his father to cease his plan, but it was too late. The merchant had already assembled a force of avaricious men to capture the mermaid, setting sail from Galenholm on the lad's own boat. Strong-armed into joining the voyage, the young lover dreaded what his father and the wicked men would do to the mermaids, knowing their greed would not be sated by capturing just one. Determined to protect his beloved at all costs, the young man planned to take the lives of the scum of humanity by sinking his boat. He penned the his plans and placed them in a bottle, then set it and the earring the Queen gave him in the chest the Scions found them in.
Upon returning to the Queen's palace in Mersea, she is delighted to see the four have retrieved the pearl and bemoans the trouble they must have gone through to get it. She quickly inserts it into the alcove in Lorelei's harp and brings the magical instrument to full power, granting the player access to the abyssal depths. On the Prince of Midenhall's insistence, the Scions give the Queen the letter in the bottle; the Queen begins to weep as she reads it and the Scions take their leave, with the Princess of Cannock dragging her brother out. The Queen's own chancellor also tactfully leaves her be, and she remains alone in her throne room to reconcile the news for the remainder of the game. When spoken to she laments what the misunderstanding had done to her, causing her to cloister herself in a shell of sternness while remaining a vulnerable girl inside, and how each day she would rue their meeting, the pearl earrings, and her foolishness in losing two of the keys necessary to help awaken the Goddess Rubiss from her slumber. Learning the truth of the matter has freed her from a cloying weight on her heart, and she thanks the four Scions for all they've done for her. Later, during the credits roll of the game's true ending, the Queen is seen meeting with the King of Midenhall at Gaggle Rock, showing her grudge against humans has been laid to rest and that she is eager to establish formal ties surface kingdoms.