Triton's Arrogance

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I've read before an argument about how horrible it must be to live under King Triton, from Disney's The Little Mermaid. It argues mostly about his quick anger and outrage, but it also argued another point that felt off to me. The point was how vain King Triton must be, given how the movie opens with his daughters forced to sing about how great and loving a father he is. The idea was more a question, is this a daily thing? Does the whole kingdom get constant reminders via song that Triton is a great king with lovely daughters? The more I think on this, the less I feel that's the case. While the song does make glorifying notes about the king, most of it is focused on his daughters. This seems odd for a father as well, until I remember that this is a kingdom. Triton is a king, and ruler of all the oceans at that. Certainly the people attending are not ALL of the citizens of the ocean, and probably not all from the local area. If this is a kingdom, likely those merfolk attending were of nobility at least. So why have his daughters sing for nobility? I think it's probably a coming-of-age song, showcasing the daughters old enough to wed. This would explain the event in general, but also explain why each sister gets her mention as if she's already known, but Ariel gets a longer and more showcased introduction. She's now old enough to wed, and this gets her known among those who are important. I assume Ariel is of age to wed as Triton doesn't at all object to her romantic interests while thinking it must be a merman, but instead takes a personal interest in who it may be. Given his other anger issues, if he assumed she was too young I doubt he'd have been calm at all about her being in love. It also explains why it was so terribly enraging and humiliating to have her not show up to the performance, as it wasn't just an exhibition. It was her exhibition, meant to shine a light on her marriageability. She openly humiliated her father and publicly displayed that she doesn't take her role in the kingdom seriously. Assuming, as is more than a little hinted, that she does these things regularly, it might explain why Triton is so short-tempered in dealing with her, and why he resorts to sending a spy after her instead of just asking her. In fact, he only becomes frightening when it comes to direct threats to the safety of his daughters, mostly in finding out about Ariel's love interest being human, and in learning Ursula had scammed Ariel. In fact, most of what you see in Triton is centered around his rage and his rules. You only see his softer (and likely more usual) side before the concert is ruined, when he only knows Ariel is in love and is interested and delighted to learn more (presumably to support her choice until he learned it was a human), and at the end when he sees that Eric is just as willing to risk his life for Ariel and so gives in and gives her her legs at last. Frankly, he seems more overprotective and softhearted, a bad mix in this case but not leading to a bad person overall. So while we don't get to see much of his actual rule, I don't really see any signs that he's a tyrant or really particularly cruel. He's fallible, just a person, but certainly not the self-centered arrogant hothead he gets painted to be.