Please add comments so I know WHY you voted and so I can add reasons why.

Okay. I consider every single one of the princesses to be selfish in their own way. But some princesses display greater quantities of self-absorption than others do. The moderns, as a whole, tend to be the less sacrificial ones. They do display more selfish instances ( and some people interpret this as being "more realistic" than their older predecessors who were "too nice" and "didn't have a backbone").

Merida's my first choice. While I do know the circumstances and the reasons for why Merida acted as she did, Merida also crossed a great moral boundary by thinking she had the right "to change someone else's mental thought process for them." When things backfired on her, I didn't feel as sympathetic towards her.

Sorry, but she rarely ever considers how her actions are going to hurt the people around her, and most of what she does is purely out of self-interest. She never gets called out it and she's never expected to change. You can take that as a necessary character flaw or whatever, but it's still there.

I will never get why people think Elsa is especially selfish. Everything she does is rooted in her desire to protect her family, and especially her sister, from her powers. If she were truly selfish she would have ignored the isolation order years ago. Instead she spends her whole childhood repressing even the most basic human emotions - she won't even let her parents touch her when she's upset. And when she runs off, it's because she knows she can't control her powers, and she's afraid of making everything worse. Does she make good decisions? Maybe not. But they're not selfish desicions.

^And yeah. Elsa is selfish. Anna comes and tells her about the mess she has created, and what does Elsa do? Panic and get angry at the messenger. Elsa shoots Anna straight in the heart with ice, which she knows is deadly, and then she throws her sister out on her bottom. And let's not forget the giant snowmonster Elsa creates to finish the job: to chase her sister away. Yeah. Elsa was selfless until she was confronted with the problem she created. She wasn't selfless after that. More like selfish in the extreme. It's one thing to not know you did something wrong. It's another thing to know you did something wrong and then do zip, nada when you have the knowledge and could correct it.

Ariel is selfish. BUT Ariel does get called out on her actions by her father seeing her becoming a polyp. That's the price Ariel was going to pay for her disobedience. Her father got tricked by Ursula into "offering an exchange." Ariel does pay a stiff price in basically losing her dad to Ursula. She is remorseful, when confronted with her mistakes. Ariel doesn't panic and HIDE from the consequences like Elsa does. Ariel physically tries to battle Ursula before anybody else "jumps in" to save the day.

^ You may not like what Elsa does but but prove that any of this was done more for her own benefit than out of concern for Anna or the people of Arendelle. Her stated desire in the movie -- this is literally canon -- is to protect her sister. Whenever Anna presses her to come back, she counters with stuff like "you're not safe here" and "I'll only make things worse" and "I don't know how." Yeah, she admits that she enjoys the freedom to explore her powers in a way that wasn't safe for her to do before. But the other stuff is voiced way more often. And it wasn't why she ran away. She was afraid and knew she had no control over the ice magic. She did the smart thing; she needed the time away to learn how to harness her powers. And even when Anna does find her, Elsa still doesn't have total control over them - how is Elsa supposed to believe she has the skill to reverse the damage when she's still accidentally striking people with ice? It isn't until the confrontation with Hans' soldiers that she really masters her powers.

When is Ariel ever explicitly motivated by concern for other people? When does she ever take anyone else into account when she goes after what she wants, and how often does it stop her? I'm sure she wishes her father hadn’t been caught up in her bargain with Ursula - but where is the open acknowledgement from her that she screwed up? Everything and everyone is secondary to her wants.

^WE NEEDED a scene in Frozen, right after Anna departed the ice castle ( where Elsa had shot her in the heart with ice, that Elsa was DOING something--- PRACTICING how to "unfreeze" stuff. That is NEVER SHOWN. ) Elsa loses all credibility when she tells Hans that "she can do nothing about the blizzard." After that, Elsa claims she didn't know ANYTHING about shooting ice into her sister, which--- wait for it--- she saw herself do, and then sent a snowmonster after her sis. I'd believe Elsa wasn't becoming selfish, if she'd actually tried something--- anything at all! But she doesn't. She just whines at the villain that she can't do anything. She built a magnificent ice castle, but is too afraid to try anything else! Anna has to hit Elsa with the answer of love, by dying in front of Elsa's eyes. Elsa should have TRIED harder. Elsa just caved. I don't feel much for Elsa because when Anna most needed her, Elsa went for her selfishness and isolation. It's right there.

Ariel is selfish. BUT Ariel gives up Eric and everything associated with him, when she sees her dad turned into a polyp. Ariel physically goes after Ursula BEFORE Flounder and Sebastian decide to help ( they who are conveniently cowering in a corner), and before Eric shows up ( with a harpoon). Ariel does openly voice concern. She yells, "Daddy!!!" And then, at Ursula, "You monster!" as she grabs Ursula in a choke-hold. Ariel says to Eric, "Eric, you've got to get away from here!" as Ursula swells to enormous size. Eric tells her that he isn't leaving. And the onus is then on Eric. Ariel told him to leave. He chose not to.


Ariel also doubles back and saves Flounder from the shark at the beginning of the film. If Ariel were truly heartless and selfish in the extreme, she wouldn't have tried anything to save him. She would have swum on with her new "Fork" and left Flounder behind.

If Ariel didn't care, and was completely selfish about her risk-taking, she would have let Grimsby eat Sebastian during the dinner scene. Nope. Ariel wasn't heartless and completely looking after her own interests. Ariel motioned to Sebastian to walk over to her plate and hide there. Ariel ate nothing seafood, and only lettuce, during the entire meal, most likely.

You also really need to go back to that scene in TLM right after Triton exits the grotto after destroying everything precious to Ariel. You need to listen to the dialogue between Ariel and Flotsam and Jetsam. You also need to listen to the dialogue Ariel has with Ursula, and look at Ariel's facial expressions all throughout that scene. Ariel looks terrified and confused all the way up until Ursula's blatant demand that she's "on a timeline" and Ariel needs to sign the scroll "immediately." Reviewing those scenes might help you see more of what is going on.

I wish Elsa had gotten a scene where she was shown struggling to overcome, showing her shooting air and partial melting of the ice castle-- or something. I wanted Elsa to be displaying partial autonomy with handling her own mistakes, before shouting "it's love!" out of the blue. Fortunately, Ariel gets more scenes of "action" showing her 180 degree shift in focus right back to her family, and Eric was suddenly a secondary presence. As for Ariel's acknowledgement that she screwed up, Ariel distinctly says to her dad. "Daddy, I'm sorry. I--I didn't mean to--- I-- I didn't KNOW!!" Yeah. That's what you HEAR in the audio track to the movie in that scene. Ariel verbally admits that she is sorry and that she didn't know all of what was in the deal she signed. Ariel gets cut off by Triton firing on Ursula's document. Ursula then gets rude and grabs the conversation thereafter, by asking Triton about making a deal. Ariel does voice an explicit acknowledgement that she made a mistake. Watch that movie again, and listen to the audio track!!!! Further poof that Ariel admits her mistake and that she didn't know? Look at the actual movie script. --> link. You can find the EXACT line that Ariel says, to which I am referring.

So I hate Jennifer Lee for not giving Elsa more agency, and shoving the "answer of it's true love" right into Elsa's lap as it were. Elsa didn't do much "working out of her own mistake," much to my chagrin. Elsa's sister, Anna did more working out of the tough problem, and solved it for Elsa.

She doesn't want an arranged marriage - ok, I understand that, can't blame her. But she actually puts that above her people and her family's safety:

"Call off the gathering! [...] We'll expect your declarations of war in the morning!"

She also gives a potion to alter her mother's mind - that was really selfish, even if she was left emotionally shaken by her confrontation with Elinor. And it doesn't stop there: when Elinor is agonizing in bed, she pesters her mother with questions about the marriage. She doesn't worry for her mother and say "Mom, should I call for help?" And even after she sees her mother has turned into a bear, all she can think of is how things went awry for her. Nevermind that she tries to shift away from the blame.

She does get points though, because just before the climax of the movie, during her speech to the clans, she shows she is willing to marry if that means keeping the peace. But I still feel like she commits more selfish acts than any of the other princesses. Oh, and I think that trying to reverse the spell and ensuring Elinor's safety while she is a bear was her responsibility, seeing as she got her mother in that situation in the first place.

(Btw, I'm not hating on Merida. She's not my favorite of the bunch, but I rather like her character)

By far!

She is selfish. She ignores her father's warning to not go to the human world but she still do it. She leaves her family to asked Ursula to be human and get along with a stranger that she is just met, without think about her family's feelings after she left. They are going to be worried about her, but she didn't care, all she think is just to be together with a man.
Unfortunately in my mind she still seems to be selfish after the end. Instead Triton was changed to be selfless. He changed her to be human again and let her go to live with her prince. Her father thinks about her happiness, instead she never think about her family, that obviously feeling sad to see her left.

I don't see why peoples think Merida and Elsa are more selfish than Ariel.
First going to Merida. Okay we all know that she is really selfish. She refuses to getting married, she made her mother furious, she changed her mother to be a bear, etc. But at least she realized her mistake and she was changed to be more better person. She cried and ask an apologize to her mother. She is doing the same thing like Ariel, however she learns from her mistake and tried to be more selfless.

Now with Elsa. I agreed a lot with what UnholyNoise said. She isolated herself and stay away from her parents and sister, she just want to keep them safe from her uncontrolled power. She was afraid if something worse happened with them because her power. And she isolated herself because her parents asked her to do. If she was selfish she would ignored their order and doesn't care if someone may be hurt because her power.

Or Elsa.

I see Merida is a big choice for this but I haven't seen Brave so I have no idea. I also see the debate between Ariel and Elsa. And while I think both Ariel and Elsa have selfish qualities, you have to keep in mind their ages. Ariel is 16. She liked a boy who her dad was against. She just wanted to see him. To know him. Of course, it's expected that she might go against his wishes. Elsa is an adult. She knows better. Now, of course no matter your age you're still gonna make mistakes. But why again, did Elsa make a snow monster to go after her sister? Really? How come she didn't try to do something to stop the storm? How does she even know she couldn't help it? Did she know she could make a dress? Because she did that pretty easily. Selfish is when you don't even try and it just didn't seem like Elsa did. At the end of TLM, you see she was finally listening to her dad because she was a mermaid, even though yes she did go through a lot of trouble til she learned. It just seems that Elsa is a little more selfish.

some people are not being reasonable at all

at least Merida learned from her mistakes and fixed the problem she caused to her mother

what did Ariel do aside from complaining and getting exactly what she wanted?

^Actually, you have no right to say that people are being unreasonable. You think Ariel is awful. Some people don't think that way. That doesn't make you any more " reasonable" or "better at analysis" than we are.

Strangely the only three that anyone is picking are my least selfless ones (I mean I love all of them, but they are pretty selfless). I agree with wavesurf that each princess is selfish in their own way, yet each princess does something selfless. But Merida, as someone said before, is more selfish than selfless. Yes, she learns her lesson in the end but that was the only thing she did for someone else. The rest was for her.

Agree with SparkleFairy375

I've never understood and probably never will why is Ariel selfish? 'cause she wanted to find love and beginning a new life with her love? I mean kids leave the nest eventually. She just followed her dreams and desires. Why would that be wrong or selfish? It wasn't Ariel's fault that Ursula set up a trap for her and wanted to use Ariel for her plan. And because she is disagreeing with her father(I think half of the world have this problem) that doesn't mean she is selfish and never loved her father.

I don't dislike Ariel, but I feel like she is sorta selfish. She knew the consequences when she signed the contract with Ursula, but she didn't seem to care. All she really cared about was meeting Eric. In addition, she never tried to reason with people and see things from their point of view, especially her father. In the end, she got a happy ending although she never learned anything from her mistakes. At least Merida learned from her mistakes and apologized.

As always explained earlier. Merida would be next, i guess her redemption makes her less selfish than Ariel to me. And more, all things that Merida is often accused for being selfish wasn't brought on by her, she was forced to give her consent on marriage, she could have sacrificed herself or the kingdom. Yeah, she isnt the epitome of selflessness, but she never really wanted to be selfish like Ariel. Ariel wanted the life that could be dangerous for her and her kingdom.
I never really get how easily people ignore that Elinor literally forced a mental decision on Merida and then accuse her of changing Elinor, just because it is out there to see.

Ariel considered the fact that she would never see her father or sisters again. Merida felt like she had the right to make others suffer in order to satisfy her own needs and to change who her mother is.

^I agree. *sigh*. Well I guess the poll has closed and she got the most votes and comments, so Ariel is first gone, I guess.