Debussy found his first orchestral work after Pelléas capable of rebutting both the favourable and unfavourable questions raised by critics and his own artistic conscience, but Laloy was surely wrong in his assessment of La mer as marking the beginning of a new phase in Debussy's development. In fact the major work he began directly after La mer's composition (the orchestral Images) is strikingly free of the symphonic outline Laloy had remarked upon so forcefully; only in the final phase of his career did Debussy approach the symphonic style again, this time in chamber music. Many would also consider La mer unique among Debussy's works in the depth of feeling it reveals, especially in its final movement.

La mer was the last thing the loyal Pelléastres expected: even at the level of programme music and general manner Debussy confounded them by overtly depriving the work of many of the Impressionist attributes they had come to expect; and he added the subtitle ‘symphonic sketches’ lest there be any doubt about his intentions. He manipulated his reception in this way, drawn by both the instinctive and the calculating aspects of his creativity. If this makes him sound overly reactive to others' views, then a degree of calculation in the type of work he undertook should be considered alongside his intense reluctance to repeat himself from work to work, which had become something of an obsession with him, and was constantly demonstrated during the prolific period of La mer.