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Was Charlotte a Real Mermaid all along?

(Caution: Spoilers for H20: Just Add Water Season 2 Spoilers and H20: Island of Secrets Season 3 Spoilers.) 

Charlotte Watsford was introduced on Season 2 of H20: Just Add Water in 2007. She developed as a main character for the season, as being an antagonist. If you search for any H20 Season 2 episodes on Youtube, you will quickly find out in the comments that a lot of people of younger generations dislike Charlotte a lot. As a woman with a child of my own, Charlotte quickly became my favorite underdogs as I understood why she lashed out at the end of the season. I feel there is much more than surface value with her, and I would like to explore that with you. This is redemption for Charlotte. This is my theory. Please feel free to share and discuss!

Let’s recap because I feel strongly about this:

Charlotte, when we first see her she is on campus, on her first day at the school. She gets doused in water by Cleo, as Cleo is trying to avoid water, but due to a recent full moon, her hydrokinesis (The ability to control water) has evolved into developing the wind. After the awkward apology and awkward welcome, she meets Lewis. Lewis whom has been clingy to Cleo (He is her boyfriend at the time), walks off with Cleo, leaving Charlotte to watch. It was made clear that she found an immediate attraction to him. At this time, it is also not established to Charlotte that Lewis is involved romantically with Cleo.

Cleo, tired of Lewis being so clingy, breaks it off with him as she and her mersisters can figure their powers out themselves. This causes Lewis to go off on a long walk to the beach where he sits to thinks about the situation whilst grieving his lost relationship. Charlotte catches him on the sand dune and does a quick sketch. The following day, Charlotte catches up with Lewis to give him the sketch after giving him comforting words. This leads into Charlotte and Lewis hanging out with each other frequently as she supports him through his hobbies and feelings of inadequacy. Not once did Lewis’ friends, the other mermaids,  talk or comfort Lewis once. The other mermaids spent their time comforting Cleo and supporting her decision because of the “secret.”

Cleo was Triggered

This makes me angry because Lewis obviously has risked his well-being, putting his neck out or these girls on numerous episodes in the first season. For them to drop him like a bad habit and not be real friends irritates me. They don’t even ask him how he is. Every time Lewis interacts with Charlotte, however, she has healing words that he is obviously comforted by; he even uses some of her wisdom to help the mermaids out with controlling their enhanced powers.

Cleo gets incredibly irritated and jealous over Lewis spending time with this new girl. Although the viewer knows Lewis is only being a friend, it is obvious Charlotte is crushing on Lewis. At least she is being polite over it.  Charlotte being more sensual, artistic, level-headed, fuller-figured, and articulate than the mermaids, Lewis finds kinship with the human girl. This causes Cleo to always draw the worse conclusion of Charlotte. Cleo’s paranoia has her digging into Charlotte’s past and invading her privacy by taking her private property.  This stigma follows Charlotte the whole season, she really doesn’t get a break. Even though it is clear that Cleo wants Lewis back, Lewis is turned off with all the unnecessary aggression toward Charlotte. Lewis even turns down Charlotte’s advances politely on few occasions but eventually goes with her.

With her Zen Nature Slowly being Whittled Away

It comes down to this aggression breaking Charlotte’s tolerance. After being picked up, publically humiliated, and the interference with her relationship with Lewis, Charlotte makes the decision to fight back. When Charlotte and Lewis get in a relationship, the jealousy gets crazy. It gets even worse when Charlotte finds out that they knew Charlotte’s own grandmother, Gracie, was a Mermaid. She is infuriated when she finds out that Cleo has been wearing her Grandmother’s necklace. This almost causing her to break up with Lewis, because he knew as well the whole time. Resulting in Charlotte becoming a mermaid herself, following the footsteps of her Grandmother.

Charlotte is manifested into a Monster

Charlotte tries her hardest to fit in with the girls, and their obvious resistance to accepting her upsets her. Charlotte quickly develops all three of the mermaid powers, to the original three’s dismay. This gives Charlotte a sense of control that she didn’t have most of the season because she was bullied.

In a very unhealthy way, she becomes a loose cannon. Obviously letting out all her aggression in a teapot like way. She becomes physical with Cleo, attacking her with her powers, which results in Lewis breaking up with her. Charlotte being heartbroken and angry is tricked into going out to Mako Island on the night where the planets align with the full moon.

She battles off with the three mermaids, with all her controlled and advanced super powers. She is defeated when Cleo, Emma, and Rikki work together as a team. She then loses her mermaid powers forever.

They abandoned Charlotte and she is never spoken of again

Charlotte was empathic, grounded, and a very developed character. The other three mermaids, being natural teenagers, were worried about their own problems and that CAUSED their own problems. They were so paranoid about their secret and Charlotte stealing Lewis from Cleo, that they misdirected their aggression at Charlotte, who was just a new girl in the school. Instead of cradling her into the sisterhood where her deceased Grandmother once swam, they pushed her out. Which caused Charlotte to become the unstable, self-absorbed person she was at the end. She snapped. They could have forgiven her like they did to Zane (The trouble maker from Season 1), but didn’t. Which is odd because they accepted Bella, who is an outside mermaid who is also a new girl. They ultimately treated the villain that didn’t exist in the first place. They derailed her core personality and robbed her of her heritage. It was girl vs girl mentality; it was toxic.

Charlotte becoming a mermaid was essentially a beautiful thing. So, was she a real one?

How could Charlotte from H20 Be a Real Mermaid?

This dawned on me watching the final season of H20: Island of Secrets Season 3 in Episode 15.  This is the episode where the mermaids of the season confront a deep sea diver on an artifact that must be used to protect the pod from a water dragon. The diver happens to be Rikki, from the original series ten years ago. They knew she was a mermaid and had to confront her boldly at an event to save the Southern Pod. Rikki asks them how they know how to do so many powers and cohesively they reply that they were real mermaids born at sea. They also come to the realization that Rikki is a “land girl” and only “half-mermaid” due to the fact she can only use heat.

This astonished me. What if the moon pool woke up some inherited mermaid DNA Charlotte might have had from her Grandmother? It is curious to think about and would be an answer to why she had all the powers.

Now, you will probably say: But Charlotte’s Grandmother, Gracie, was only half-mermaid then.

You would be correct, but after becoming a mermaid… anything after that is free game.

Now you will probably say: But Gracie’s mermaid powers were taken away from her by the planetary alignment of the moon.

Right again, but just because the tail and main powers are gone, doesn’t mean something doesn’t remain. Which is certainly established with the apparent psychic ability of Louise Chatham, who was one of the original mako land mermaids with Gracie, who on numerous occasion pops up out of nowhere to help Cleo, Emma, and Rikki. Also, it was also mentioned that there were eccentric behaviors Gracie had after her powers were gone in stories told about her to Charlotte before she died. What if a part of her mermaid spirit remained? Passing it to Charlotte’s mother Annette, who owns a Seafood restaurant by the way, then to Charlotte. Which would make Charlotte more mermaid by nature than the girls. Don’t get me wrong, I like Cleo, Emma, and Rikki, but I hope you understand what I am getting at. Perhaps her powers were awakened the same way Zac’s were from Season 1 of H20: Mako Mermaids. Zack being a full-merman. It was his heritage that required a push. Moon energy can do that. 

I hope you enjoyed my thesis on how Charlotte from H20 was a real mermaid. (At least partially.)

Thank you,

Tags: Charlotte H20 mermaids, Charlotte from H20 Mermaids