By far! Merida's rebellious act has the better reason. She refuses to marry and againts her overprotective parents that too controling her. She just want to free and have her own life, she want to decides her life with her own.
And I never really understand with Ariel's rebellious act. She do it just for a stranger prince that she was just met. She againts her father that not allowed her to go to the human world, that her father does that for keep her safe.

^ i agree. I don't think Ariel's reason was time bound or required immediate rebellion. And i always believe that walking away is just so easy, you need to be able to fight it out while not simply abandoning the people who love you. Ariel's right wasn't being trampled that she needed to take such an extreme step.

I think Merida didn't have the right to take the extreme measure she took. Merida didn't have "the right" to change the way Elinor thought, acted, or behaved. Merida decided that only her wishes were top priority, and she did not care about the outcome of war. Staying to fight something out to the last possible nth degree seems a great solution for some people...but in the real world this tactic leads to genocides, wars, famines, disease, and misery for everyone --- families, individuals, and communities. Deciding that fighting it out is the answer-- turns out NOT to be the answer.

Leaving an abusive household is not shameful. Taking measures to leave an abusive relationship ( whether it is between parent and child, between lovers, at workplaces, etc) is not the wrong thing to do. Nor is it too extreme an action to take...unless you want to be completely damaged psychologically from the mental beat-downs. Ariel made the right choice. Ariel had a good reason to leave! After her father let his rage loose and turned her into a victim of his explosive anger--- by showing her how little he supported and loved her for her interests and her hopes...it was time to go.

Ariel did not leave for Eric. That's a stupid misread of the entire movie. For the trillionth time-- Ariel wanted to be human LONG BEFORE she met Eric. The TV series says as much, as does the original movie!

Merida turned her mother into a puppet because it allowed her to get the upper hand in the situation, and so she did not have to marry.

Ariel left because her father completely lost his self-control. Triton finally overstepped and abused his authority as a parent. Ariel left because there was "no room for her to live a life that involved knowledge while under the sea..." If Ariel remained in the seas, she would have been waiting to die from psychological misery. Triton's repeated attempts to bully her into submission would not stop... Abusers smell blood in the water, and once they find your weakness, they keep circling and attacking you at that exact spot. Leaving home was the only way for Ariel to retain some dignity and hope.

Basically, Merida turned her mother into a bear over a disagreement. Ariel turned herself human after her father broke her spirit, and demonstrated that he didn't tolerate anything about his child anymore.

people who threatens to go to war because they were turned down from a proposal are narrow minded and do not value the relationship at all. This is a new philosophy I've heard for the first time. I guess everyone who were being oppressed by powers should have just changed themselves and left their homes and families - Jews in WWII, Syrians, Africans, just because it would avoid wars. It was totally right of Hitler to oppress people;s right.
Fighting for your right isn't shameful or wrong. Ariel turned herself into a human, without thinking if she'll be able to accomplish her goals or not, and people around her end up paying the price of it.
Did Elinor consult Merida before arranging for Betrothal? No. Did she inform her? No. Elinor treating Merida as her own property to give away to other kingdom to build relation or strengthen kingdom alliances is just a minor disagreement and not at all trampling of basic human right of choosing the way to live. After all, Ariel wanting to be human is her right while not wanting to get married isn't for Merida.

^Fighting a big ugly war rarely solves problems. Sure, the Nazis and the Axis powers were finally vanquished...but what about all of the devastation it took to rid the world of them? I'm not a pacifist, but I do consider war a very extreme way to settle an argument. Averting a war is a good idea, even if you aren't so happy with your personal life.

Merida didn't want to get married. That part was fine. Merida shooting for her own hand was EVEN FINE by me. What killed my enthusiasm for Merida was when she went further than was needed--- she wanted a spell to totally change her mother's mental thought process. That's really overreaching in my book. That's the loss of liberty for another person. Ariel didn't choose to inhibit her father's mental capacity to think as he did. She chose to act on her own thinking capacity and removed herself from the intensely narrow-minded atmosphere of life under the sea-- where any and all humans were written-off as dangerous without a whole lot of justifiable evidence-- and only one isolated accident ( if you consider the halfassed prequel)--- to back it up. Triton did not seem to be mounting an army to launch a war over the humans killing his wife, did he? NO. Did Triton mount a rescue operation for the fish that were taken from the ocean? NO. Triton picked and chose how and when he thought humans were dangerous entities. Did he investigate his premonitions? No, he did not do that, either. Instead, Triton made up a set of laws and forced everyone he knew to abide by them-- OR ELSE. Laws are only as good as the evidence supporting them.

But back to my point. Infringing upon the personal liberty of another person is what I am getting at here. Elinor infringed upon Merida's personal liberty--- and Merida DID tit-for-tat. Merida infringed upon her mother's personal liberty in return. It was all basically revenge. And this is what separates Merida from Ariel. Ariel is not totally responsible for becoming Ursula's pawn, because Triton aggravated his already bad relationship with Ariel, by blowing up everything in her grotto, while she pleaded for him to stop. Triton drove Ariel out of his life--- by literally making Ursula's bad deal "look good" and "enticing"-- more than her family life was. Ursula took complete advantage of a family fallout. Triton is to blame for letting his anger towards his daughter drive his daughter away. In a way, what Ursula did was an act of unforeseen "just punishment" for Triton, because Triton had let his wrath define who he was, and he had let his anger rule his entire family life. The consequences caught up with Triton, just as they caught up with Ariel and Merida.

The reason why I don't relate to Merida is that the witch in Merida's case TRIED to get Merida to wake up and rethink her rash decision. Ursula didn't give Ariel a wake up call. Nope. Instead, Ursula demanded that Ariel sign that Faustian bargain immediately. The witch in Merida's case did not take advantage of the situation for personal gain. Ursula did. The witch wanted Merida to buy carvings, but Merida was dead set on changing her mother's entire thought-pattern about the wedding. When Merida ruins her mother's life, and the lives of her community,,, the witch in Brave is not responsible for exploiting the situation. The whole idea about changing her mother's thoughts was Merida's idea. It is then Merida who is the one to blame. And this becomes a large part of Merida's character arc...and it is an unpleasant one. Merida was not exploited and deceived as Ariel was. Merida did what she did out of her own sense of justice. And I don't like Merida's sense of justice--- because she makes exacting her justice very cruel, and the consequences are rather ruthless. A good princess is not supposed to think like a villain. But Merida's justice was too close to that for me to embrace her fully.

^Well, I personally disagree about Triton being abusive. I'm not trying to excuse his temper explosion, but I can think of a lot Disney parents that are much worse then him. But I do agree with everything else you said. It's one thing to try to change yourself, but it's another thing to do it to somebody else. And Ariel did want to be human long before seeing Eric.

I agree with Sparklefairy375. Merida had a more valid reason for rebelling than Ariel. Merida acted rebellious because she was forced to get married, while Ariel only acted rebellious because of a stranger that she's never even had a conversation with. Besides, at least Merida developed and learned from her mistakes in the end.

I think they both had pretty equally good reasons.

I mean, eventually. Especially because her narrative calls for compromise in the end while Ariel's selfishness and rebellion are glorified and she walks away with everything she wanted.