- “There, there, there. It's okay, Daddy's here. Daddy's got you. I promise, I will never let anything happen to you, Nemo.”
- ―Marlin comforting the egg of his only surviving unborn child[src]
Marlin is the protagonist of Disney•Pixar's 2003 animated film Finding Nemo and the tritagonist of its 2016 sequel. He is the widower of Coral and the father of Nemo and 400+ unborn clownfish children.
Background[]
Marlin is a clownfish who makes his home inside a sea anemone in the Great Barrier Reef. He once had a mate named Coral who was eaten in a barracuda attack, along with all but one of his children, whom he names Nemo.
Marlin can be somewhat overprotective of Nemo, although he means well. He also tends to be neurotic, worrisome, and pessimistic, believing Nemo can't swim well when he actually can swim pretty well for a fish with a small pectoral fin due to egg damage from the barracuda attack. However, this does not stop him from going on a journey to find his lost son, proving his determination.
Personality[]
Marlin was initially a very playful, happy, and easygoing clownfish, as seen through the interaction with his wife, Coral. He was shown to be slightly lazy, as he wanted to name half of his children Marlin Jr. and the other half of his children Coral Jr. However, he was also shown to be very brave, as he attempted to defend his wife against the barracuda who sought to eat his children and his mate but was ultimately repelled and knocked unconscious and into the sea anemone before he could do anything. This protected him, but also cost him his entire family, except for Nemo, who was left with a crack in his egg, which resulted him in having a tiny right fin.
From this moment on, Marlin became overprotective, neurotic, paranoid, worrisome, and pessimistic, as he made several practices and conditions for Nemo and himself to follow to make sure they were protected and safe. He was especially paranoid and neurotic about any potential danger that could occur to Nemo, and as such, rarely left him alone due to the traumatic experience of losing the rest of his family to a barracuda attack, and not wanting the same thing to happen to him. However, this overprotectiveness is what puts somewhat of a strain on his relationship with his son, as Nemo feels suffocated and oppressed by it.
He also initially seems to be very serious, as shown when he can't tell a proper joke to some of Nemo's classmates' parents because he keeps explaining obvious aspects of the joke, causing him to be considered unfunny despite the apparent notion that all clownfish were supposed to be funny, which became a recurring gag throughout the movie as others state, "He's not very funny for a clownfish".
During his journey, Marlin was on the verge of losing Nemo, the only family member he had left, and was rushing as fast as he could to save him. This caused him to have little patience for Dory's antics and other distractions.
However, despite these qualities, Marlin has proven to love his son more than anything and anyone in this world, and it is this love that fuels his determination, strength, courage, and bravery as he journeyed through the sea to find his son after he was kidnapped by human divers. Marlin overcame these obstacles with bravery and courage not seen in his previous behavior to recover the one he loved most in the world despite the odds being against him.
Throughout the journey, he makes several friends and begins to understand that he should have given Nemo more freedom, particularly through his interactions with Dory and Crush, because as she states, "You can't let nothing happen to him, because then nothing will happen to him", meaning if he doesn't let him grow up and get out in the world, he won't be able to live life to the fullest.
He also begins to enjoy himself more throughout his journey, and slowly sheds his serious side, as shown when he has fun when he competes with Dory in racing to see who could get out of the jellyfish valley first and finally manages to have fun with his son Nemo by the end of the film.
Physical appearance[]
Marlin is a slender orange common clownfish with big white stripes, small black stripes, and scarlet eyes.
Appearances[]
Finding Nemo[]
At the beginning of the film, Marlin and his mate, Coral, are admiring their new home and the Drop Off and expecting over 400 children, who are due to hatch soon. She believes there's too much space, but Marlin assures her that their children deserve the best. He gets a little too excited, causing Coral to remind him that the kids are sleeping. They swim down below their sea anemone to a small grotto where over 400 clownfish eggs are being kept. Coral points out to Marlin that they need to give them names. Marlin decides to name half the kids "Marlin Junior" and the other half "Coral Junior". However, Coral says that she likes the name "Nemo", to which Marlin agrees with, but says that he'll only name one egg "Nemo" (as he wants most of them to be called "Marlin Junior").
Coral expresses her excitement over the fact that she and Marlin are about to become parents within a few days, though Marlin worries about the possibility of the children not liking him. Slightly annoyed, Coral reminds him of how many eggs there are, implying that at least one of them is bound to like him before swimming into the anemone. Marlin peeks in and affectionately smiles at Coral, to which the latter wonders why the former is looking at her the way he does at one point.
Marlin asks Coral if she remembers how they first met, to which she smiles back and claims that she tries not to (though she's likely kidding). Marlin then starts teasing Coral for fun, making her laugh so hard to the point where she ultimately freaks out and tries to get away from Marlin by quickly swimming out of the anemone. When Marlin swims out after her, he notices that everyone outside had gone into hiding for some reason, which confuses him. He then turns to Coral, who is fearfully and silently staring into the distance at a barracuda watching them viciously. Marlin orders Coral to get back into the anemone, but Coral, worried about the unprotected eggs, looks down at the grotto. Marlin tells her not to go to them as he believes they'll be fine, but Coral doesn't want to take the chance and rushes down to the grotto, thus encouraging the barracuda to go after her and, at the same time, prompting Marlin to rush down in an attempt to save her, but nearly gets eaten by the barracuda. Marlin tries to block the hungry fish and fends it off from eating him, but then gets slapped by its tail, sending him crashing into a rock and landing in the anemone, knocking him out and losing consciousness. With Marlin knocked out, the barracuda eats Coral and the eggs, and presumably, while eating them, one of the eggs falls out of its mouth.
When Marlin later regains consciousness that night, he discovers that the grotto is completely empty, and Coral and all but one of the eggs are gone, as they had gotten eaten by the barracuda. Mourning over the loss of Coral and his 399 unborn children, Marlin finds the only surviving but slightly damaged egg and names it "Nemo" to honor Coral's wish to name one of their children "Nemo". To keep his son safe, Marlin moves to a new anemone in a more secure area of the reef.
As Nemo grows, Marlin becomes overprotective of him, in part due to Nemo's unusually small right fin, which was a result of the egg damage from the barracuda attack. One day, Marlin reluctantly sends Nemo to school. When Marlin and Nemo arrive, he chats with Bob, Sheldon's father, Phil, Tad's father, and Ted, Pearl's father. When Mr. Ray arrives, Sheldon urges Nemo to hide under him with the rest of the class, but Marlin stops him, fearing he would get hurt or left behind, especially because of his "lucky fin". After the students get on Mr. Ray, Marlin tells him Nemo has a little fin and encourages him to take a break for ten to fifteen minutes if he's having trouble swimming. As Mr. Ray takes his students on a field trip to the Drop Off, Marlin bids farewell to his son. However, when he learns that, he chases after Mr. Ray. After Mr. Ray and his students arrive at the Drop Off, Nemo, Sheldon, Tad, and Pearl sneak away from the rest of the class and discover the Drop Off, seeing a boat in the open water. They dare each other to see how far they can go from the reef, but Nemo tells them that his father says it's not safe. A frantic Marlin rushes in, attempting to stop Nemo from swimming into open water. The two clownfish engage in a heated argument, with Marlin believing Nemo's disability is too much of a hazard to his safety. Marlin then decides that Nemo is not ready for school and tries to take him back home to the anemone, but Nemo, who is fed up with his father's worrying, insists he is fine, can take care of himself, and is not afraid of the open ocean unlike his father. The argument reaches its peak when Marlin tells Nemo he isn't ready and can't do things he thinks he can, causing Nemo to declare he hates Marlin, much to his shock. As Marlin tries to explain the situation to Mr. Ray, Nemo decides to prove he can survive dangers by touching the boat. Thanks to the alert of one student, Kathy, Nemo swims out into the open ocean and touches the boat as a result of a dare, much to the anger of Marlin and the amazement of his friends. As Nemo swims back, Marlin tells him that he is in big trouble. However, his scolding is cut short when a scuba diver appears in front of Nemo. Marlin tries to intervene, but another diver blocks his path. The diver puts Nemo in a net and the other diver takes a picture of Marlin. Marlin tries to reach the boat, but gets blasted away by its propellor. The diver heads off to his dentist's office in Sydney and puts Nemo in a bucket. However, the diver accidentally drops his mask that bears his address.
Marlin swims after the boat, but eventually loses the trail. He swims to the surface to look for it but it's nowhere to be found. He then heads to the sea floor, begging passing schools of fish for help until he bumps into a blue tang named Dory. She claims to have seen the boat and leads a thankful Marlin in the direction it went, but, as they swim along, she becomes lax and even tries to evade Marlin when she notices him behind her. When she confronts him, he questions her and is then told that she has short-term memory loss. Dumbfounded, Marlin turns to leave but is stopped by a great white shark who introduces himself as Bruce. He invites Marlin and Dory to a get-together he's having and, despite Marlin's objections, escorts them to his lair in a sunken submarine surrounded by live sea mines. They meet Bruce's friends, a hammerhead shark named Anchor and a mako shark named Chum, before beginning an assembly where they pledge to abstain from eating fish. When Marlin spots the diver's mask stuck on a shard of metal, he discovers markings on the strap that might provide a clue to Nemo's whereabouts. Dory picks up the mask to see if the sharks can read, but Marlin tries to take it back, engaging in a tug-of-war before the mask snaps into Dory's face, causing a nosebleed.
The smell of the blood invokes Bruce's inner carnivore and, though Anchor and Chum try to stage an intervention by holding him back, he mindlessly chases Marlin and Dory through the submarine, taking hold of the mask in his mouth in the process. During this time, Dory reveals that she can read human words before she and Marlin take refuge in a torpedo well. Dory releases the torpedo, which wedges in Bruce's mouth, giving Marlin enough time to grab the mask and flee back into the well. Bruce unintentionally throws the torpedo, and Anchor and Chum are able to regain his attention in time before they’re able to escape just when torpedo sets off one of the mines. Dory pops up with Marlin and thinks if the "party" is over, which the torpedo hits one of the mines, causing a massive explosion of other mines across the ocean as Dory and Marlin both retreat into the submarine.
The next day after surviving an explosion at the sharks' lair, Dory does not notice that the mask she is sleeping on is about to fall into the abyssal zone. Marlin wakes her up, much to her shock, as the two attempt to swim away from the submarine, which hits a rock formation just before Marlin notices the mask falling onto the abyssal zone. Worried that the mask fell into the abyssal zone, this leads Marlin and Dory to retrieve the mask as she tells Marlin to keep swimming, much to Marlin uncomfortable of Dory singing to him just as the two arrive at the abyssal zone.
Dory and Marlin attempt to find the mask that fell into the bottom of the abyssal zone only to find a mysterious light, which is revealed to be none other than an anglerfish, which pursues Dory and Marlin in the abyssal zone. Soon as the anglerfish chases Marlin, Dory suddenly finds the missing mask which contains the address to Philip Sherman's office in Sydney while the anglerfish keeps chasing Marlin as Dory patiently reads the text on the mask carefully, causing her to remember the words, "P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney". After finishing reading the text, the anglerfish suddenly becomes stuck onto the mask, just as Dory and Marlin celebrate just before escaping the abyssal zone after Dory tells Marlin about the address to Philip Sherman's office.
Elsewhere in the ocean, Marlin approaches a school of Moonfish trying to get their attention of helping him and Dory find their way to Sydney just before Marlin approaches Dory, telling her if he could do it by himself, taking advantage of her short attention span, but he later regrets it when it physically hurts her. However, the leader of the Moonfish tells Dory if she likes impressions from them. Seeing that the Moonfish are not really helping her and Marlin, the latter asks them for directions, but later finds them useless, frustrated with Dory and her short-term memory loss. Dory never remembers Nemo's name, as Marlin regrets that no one is helping him. Dory then asks the Moonfish if they have heard of Sydney which may be linked to the mask's written text at the bottom of the ocean, which they realize they have heard of it. The school of Moonfish advises Dory and Marlin to follow the East Australian Current by going through a dangerous trench. Current from a distance just before Dory encounters a small pink creature which she nicknames it "Squishy" just before touching its tentacles, realizing that this creature is a jellyfish, which Marlin shoos it away. However, Dory and Marlin find themselves in the ocean with various pink jellyfish around the two, worried that they are surrounded by large pink jellyfish. Dory interacts with a jellyfish bouncing on its top, which Marlin realizes that only the tentacles sting and not the tops of the jellyfish. Marlin offers Dory to play a game to find a way out of the jellyfish forest without getting stung. Dory accelerates past the jellyfish as Marlin attempts to beat her, only for Dory to be lost within the jellyfish. After Marlin escapes, she returns to the jellyfish forest to find Dory to make sure she is all right. He later finds an unconscious Dory and brings her out of the jellyfish forest using his confidence to rescue her just as he successfully brings Dory out of the jellyfish forest, finally escaping from the jellyfish just before the two find themselves at the East Australian Current. Marlin soon passes out and awakens on the back of a sea turtle named Crush, who is riding the current. After Marlin shares his story with some young sea turtles, word of mouth soon reaches Sydney and eventually, Nemo.
Later, Crush tells Dory and Marlin that they are almost at the spot where Nemo would be just as he tells them to get ready to leave so that they can continue their journey to find Nemo just as Dory and Marlin exit the current which they feel happy that they had a lot of fun in the East Australian Current. As Dory and Marlin find themselves in the deepest part of the ocean, Dory sees no one to ask for directions except for a large whale swimming in the ocean. Dory tries to ask the whale from a distance, but could not hear the two fish asking him. Dory continues doing a whale call to get the whale's attention, much to Marlin's worry of what Dory is saying is not getting the whale's attention. However, the whale approaches Dory and Marlin and as he approaches the two, they are suddenly swallowed by the big blue whale.
Marlin eventually reaches Sydney's harbor by way of the whale, after becoming lost in the polluted water. Nigel, a pelican who has heard of Marlin, and knows Nemo, takes Marlin and Dory to the dentist's office where Nemo was taken. There, they find Nemo, apparently dead (Nemo was actually faking it in an attempt to escape). Saddened, Marlin leaves for home, leaving Dory behind despite her claims that her memory is better with him. Later, while swimming through a fishing area, he hears a familiar voice calling out to him. He soon realizes that it's Dory and a still-alive Nemo. Dory had met Nemo and soon remembered everything, leading him to Marlin. Marlin happily reunites with his son, but the moment is cut short when Dory is caught in a fishing net. Marlin watches as Nemo is able to successfully rescue her with skills he learned while in the tank at the dentist's office. Marlin finally relents and becomes less overprotective. The end of the film shows Marlin, along with Dory, waving goodbye as Nemo goes off to school.
During the end credits, Marlin and Nemo can be seen playing together when many sea turtle children jump on Marlin.
Finding Dory[]
In the sequel, Marlin, along with Nemo, accompanies Dory to the Jewel of Morro Bay, California in her journey to find her parents, whom she suddenly remembers.
Marlin first appears in the flashback during the events of the first film where Nemo was captured by the divers and is worried that he lost his son after a boat (which is Philip Sherman's boat that Nemo touched from Finding Nemo) zips above Dory's head. As soon as Dory swims away, she collides with Marlin as the adventure of Finding Nemo begins.
One year after Nemo's rescue, Dory is the next-door neighbor to Marlin and Nemo, living in a purple coral bowl, similar to her original home in the Marine Life Institute. Marlin and Nemo are disturbed by Dory in the middle of the night, who tells her to go back to bed until he gives up and gets ready for the day. The next day, Marlin and Dory accompany Nemo's class on a field trip to a stingray migration, much to Mr. Ray's annoyance. After Dory is knocked unconscious by a large flock of migrating stingrays and Dory decides to swim to the drop-off to find her parents after mumbling the "Jewel of Morro Bay, California", Marlin refuses to go at first until Dory asks him if he's ever missed his family, which brings up memories of Nemo's capture. However, he begrudgingly takes Dory and his son with him as they go to see Crush and ride the current to California. In it, Marlin, Dory, and Nemo hang onto Crush as the three arrive at their destination in a sunken wreckage in Morro Bay, California where he and Squirt wish the three good luck in finding Dory's missing parents.
Upon arriving in Morro Bay, he, Nemo, and Dory arrive in a wreckage where hermit crabs keep shushing the three as they swim along, and shortly after, the three are chased by an enormous giant squid after seeing its eye and fearsome beak inside a crate. While trying to escape, Dory and Marlin are worried that the giant squid grabbed Nemo with one of its tentacles and tries to eat him with its fearsome beak the two escape from the marine predator after the squid is stuck on a sunken crate while chasing the three. The squid is suddenly crushed as the three suddenly escape the sunken wreckage and arrive in the kelp forest in Morro Bay, California where Marlin tells Dory to slow down because the giant squid is crushed when it tries to eat Nemo.
Upon stopping in the kelp forest of Morro Bay, California, Marlin is worried that Nemo is injured after being chased by the giant squid and snaps at Dory for putting them all in danger, during which he tells her to go somewhere else and forget about it since "that's what she does best", leaving her feeling hurt and causing her to swim off in despondency. Upon arriving on the surface of the Marine Life Institute, Dory gets kidnapped by two volunteers of the Marine Life Institute, and the father-son clownfish duo goes on a quest to find her. Marlin quickly panics due to feeling responsible for her getting captured since the reason she wandered away from him in the first place is that he insulted her.
Upon hearing two sea lions telling him to be quiet, Nemo attempts to speak to them, but Marlin warns him that he should not talk to the sea lions, explaining to him that the two are natural predators that could pounce on them at any second. Nemo then explains to his father that the two sea lions do not have the chance to pounce at them while Marlin asks the two about the Institute, to which the two explain that it is a fish hospital. Fluke and Rudder help the two get inside the Institute by calling a flock of loons, including their friend Becky. After Fluke introduces their friend to Marlin and Nemo, she begins to peck at Marlin; Fluke tells the loon to bring Marlin and Nemo to Quarantine, and Marlin is suggested to imprint by looking her in the eye and do a loon call.
After Gerald brings a green bucket to Fluke and Rudder, Marlin suggests that he and Nemo need water as the two sea lions kick and shoo him off from their rock after inviting and giving the bucket to them. Meanwhile, Marlin and Nemo get in the green bucket carried by Becky and she flies off with them to the Institute while the two sea lions wish them good luck in their quest to find Dory and help her find her parents. As the two clownfish are carried by Becky, Marlin is disappointed that Becky is confused and doesn't know where to find the quarantine area. She then leaves Marlin and Nemo on a branch after she spots popcorn that fell on the floor and goes to eat it after Hank bumps into a girl who is carrying a cup of it while trying to get to the Open Ocean exhibit. The father-son clownfish duo, still in the green bucket, plans to approach Becky so that she can pick up the bucket again; however, the branch flings the two clownfish into a small tank outside a gift shop.
Upon ending up in the tank, Marlin and Nemo see Becky carrying the green bucket to the quarantine area's roof. Marlin tries to call Becky for attention to rescue the two, but Becky cannot hear Marlin yelling for help. Nemo becomes upset with him and his failed attempts and later snaps at him, saying he made her feel like she couldn't do it. However, Marlin realizes Nemo is talking about Dory, and Nemo says he misses her. Upon seeing a wind-up toy fish that resembles Dory, Nemo then asks what would Dory do, and they soon find a way out of the tank by using the spouts of water coming out nearby to safely hop over to a nearby fountain, where they discover a lonely, yet obnoxious clam who wants to chat with them due to having no one to talk to for such a long time. The two become quickly annoyed before discovering they can escape the fountain through the pipes.
Marlin and Nemo later appear swimming through the pipes, shortly after which they finally find and reunite with Dory. Marlin explains to Dory that they encountered a talkative clam in the tide pool exhibit, and as they backed away, the two ended up in the pipes. Dory then guides the father-son clownfish duo to quarantine where her missing parents are supposed to be, and along the way, Marlin both apologizes to Dory for being too harsh and insulting her earlier, as well as comforts her when she worries if her parents will be happy to see her by assuring her they'll be overjoyed when they reunite. Dory and the clownfish duo soon end up in the quarantine area in which the two leap from tank to tank to find her missing parents, then end up in a mop bucket in which Hank lifts them in a cup of water and brings them to a tank of blue tang fish. Upon encountering and asking the blue tangs about her parents, some of them explain to her that her parents are not in this area, leaving Nemo, Marlin, and Dory to worry that they may be dead. Due to the truck being ready to depart for Cleveland, he quickly scoops up Dory but forgets to grab Marlin and Nemo, leaving them on the truck, then gets spotted by some MLI employees, forcing him to quickly flee, during which he drops Dory down a drain that washes her out into the ocean, leaving her all alone. Thankfully, however, she manages to find her parents and has a heartfelt reunion with them by following a trail of shells they had left for her since while they left the institute, they created a new home and situated themselves right outside of it in case she ever came back.
Meanwhile, Marlin and Nemo are seen inside the truck that is en route to Cleveland looking for Dory since they lost track of her in the confusion. However, Dory then arrives at the rescue with some otters, since after finding her parents, she quickly remembers them and devises a plan to stop traffic by getting a bunch of the otters on the highway to temporarily stop and distract everyone with some help from Destiny and Bailey. Soon after the otters are shooed away by a truck driver and the traffic begins to move, Marlin calls for Becky's attention to rescue them, and Becky suddenly appears perching on Hank's head. However, after Nemo and Marlin leap into the green bucket, they realize Dory got left behind as Becky brings the two to the ocean. Upon arriving back in the ocean, the two clownfish suddenly encounter Destiny and Dory's parents, Charlie and Jenny. Marlin tells the two that Dory is still inside the truck while he tells Becky to return to the truck to rescue Dory. However, the otters have been cleared off the highway and the truck resumes heading to Cleveland again along with the rest of the traffic. Marlin, along with Nemo, Jenny, Charlie, Destiny, and Bailey, prepare to stop the truck again, but they miss it. However, all of them then witness the truck being hijacked by Dory and Hank, frantically escaping the highway and driving it off the cliff into the ocean, which also causes all of the fish being transported in it to spill out of their tanks and go free as well.
During the epilogue, Dory finds Nemo and Marlin, along with her parents and the school children by playing hide and seek as they attend a substitute class by Hank, Bailey, and Destiny. After Dory says goodbye to her parents, Marlin suggests that Dory should return home, to which Dory tells him that she planned on going to the drop-off, which Marlin doesn't think is a good idea since he worries she could get lost again. However, Dory tells him that she would enjoy the view safely. Marlin then accompanies Dory there, during which he finally relaxes and enjoys the view with her, as well as praises her for finding her parents, sparkling one last flashback when Dory was a baby and her parents proudly praised her for following the trail of shells home to the coral, as the two allow her to play with the other fish children as she swims off happily. Back in the present, Marlin and Dory are last seen watching the drop-off view safely as Dory smiles, feeling accomplished and satisfied for finding her missing parents, and she deems the memories "unforgettable".
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- In Monsters, Inc., a painting of Marlin can be seen on the wall behind the Sushi Chef. This was part of a trend Pixar established for a while where they would include a brief cameo from a character that would appear in their next movie as an Easter egg for observant viewers.
- As pointed out by Nigel, a marlin is actually a type of billfish (such as the sailfish and swordfish) that is popularized by sport fishing.
- In reality, clownfish are protandrous hermaphrodites (meaning they are born male but can change sex later in life), so whenever a female clownfish within a school of fish dies, a male will change sex to make up for the dead female and mate with the other males.
- Scientifically speaking, if Finding Nemo had been more accurate to nature, Marlin would have become female shortly after his wife's death. This would have made him Nemo's mother, not his father. Also, Marlin wouldn't have had to care for Nemo, as clownfish leave their parents once they hatch from their eggs.
- Marlin was originally voiced by William H. Macy, who actually had most of his lines recorded before Pixar decided to change his voice actor to Albert Brooks, as they felt that Macy's performance was too dramatic.
- In the early stages of the first film, there were two alternate openings:
- The first one involved Marlin telling Nemo a bedtime story of their last home and when Nemo was still an egg, in that Marlin actually talks about Coral. In this version, it can be seen that Coral was taken by the sea rather than a barracuda.
- The other opening showed a concerned Marlin watching his son sleep and looking around their home worried that something was coming for Nemo. Here there are only a few glimpses of Coral's death but nothing is really explained. The scene then shifts to Nemo wanting to see and touch things but Marlin not allowing it.
- His sarcastic saying of "Why don't we just fry them up now and serve them with chips?" is in reference to the dish called fish and chips.
External links[]
Marlin on Pixar Wiki
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