A Helga Sinclair Analysis
When I was watching Atlantis as a young boy, I always thought 'that blonde lady is so evil.' Flash forward to now and I see a much more complicated character. She's the type of character I'm used to loving: Morally complex badass women, who have done terrible shit and she is clearly no exception.
Disney is widely known for their simplicity when it comes to handling morality. It's usually all just black and white. No middle ground, but however, there have been plenty of times where they subverted this. First, you had the huntsman from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Not complex really yet not your typical bad guy. Then you have Megara, my other favorite disney gal who happens to walk alongside the path of gray. She was in love with Hercules while also working for the big bad of the movie, Hades. And for my last example I bring you Dinosaur. A film where none of the antagonists are exactly evil. One is an arrogant jerk (Kron) who believes in survival of the fittest, his second in command (Bruton) though actually gets a redemption arc, and then ofc you got the carnotaurs, which I'll be honest with you unlike the other characters mentioned here, they're basically just natural predators searching for food. Nevertheless, they do perfectly tie into what im talking about. they aren't hunting out of pure malice, rather for survival in a post mass extinction world. With that being said I believe they all in some way, shape, or form paved the way for Helga Sinclair.
Atlantis is not your typical disney movie as it's full of mature themes and lacks songs and I think that it makes perfect sense to have a character who subverts a lot of Disney's tropes. Enter Helga: a ruthless leader and mercenary who aids a monster in stealing the Heart of Atlantis, but also contains a buried conscience.
Throughout the movie, we see her humanity break through in moments such as the vigil scene, where see her mourning for her fallen crew members and of course, the scene where they're entering Atlantis. Helga questions exploiting these people while her boss Rourke juat shrugs it off (more on that guy later). Even after Helga is revealed to be a bad guy, we see her let Kida pray without stopping her as well as her genuine shock and awe in reaction to Kida transforming and in her final moments we see her going up against Rourke, who has just betrayed her. This scene, especially the line "You said we were in this together! You promised me a percentage!" showcases that they had a code which he broke. I think this sequence alone with the amount of interpretations you can come up with sum up how complex of a character she is.
In fact, I have an interpretation of my own, if we go by her bio, it provides strong evidence that Rourke had groomed/corrupted her into becoming a pawn in his own twisted game. She was young enough to be corrupted when he started training her. I think it does justice for not only Helga and Rourke, but also for the story as he manipulates Milo. The thing is Helga had the capacity to help out Atlantis adn do good things. Instead she chose undying loyalty to a nasty man who she never expected to betray her. The movie never states what her true goal is outside of money, but I believe its financial security so she could never be put in a position of weakness ever again by building herself an impenetrable fortress of wealth. I saw one interpretation on here I liked about her reason being to prevent her younger brothers from being drafted into World War I.
Overall, her story is very compelling once you piece it together although it always remains puzzling because I can never really put her morality in one single category. Helga unlike Rourke, is a tragic antagonist that we can relate to. There are moments where she gets scared and reacts in ways Rourke could never. Shes not robbing the Atlanteans or trying to kill milo and friends out of pure malice. Shes just doing her task. While yes her actions are objectively awful and shes definitely not a good person, I cant help, but feel sorry for her. She had it very rough, wasn't really close to anyone other than Rourke, who constantly vouched for her, but also again saw her as a pawn. Growing up in a military background in the late 1800s-early 1900s was already hard enough.
Upon reading the first draft of The Lost Empire's screenplay, I discovered she was always meant to be this morally ambiguous figure. Shes just less explicit in the final product. Disney finally crafted a character who challenges the viewer by forcing them to look beyond a black and white mindset. A character who is both lovable and tragically a villain.
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