[ SECRET POST #5931 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5931 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Will be missing a Friday post this week (traveling!). Just a heads up!

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 24 secrets from Secret Submission Post #850.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

01. https://i.imgur.com/6HqDXyu.png

[(Anonymous)]

Considering the original book ending was going to have Matilda's brain explode and she died, most other endings are okay with me.

[(Anonymous)]

Where did you hear her brain would explode

[philstar22]

I totally agree. I didn't like the movie much, for this reason and a few others. It was like Wizard of Oz for me where everyone else loves the movie and that's the version they think of, but I thought the movie was a bad adaption of a great book.

[(Anonymous)]

I definitely appreciate the logic of the book ending, that she didn't NEED her powers anymore and she finally had a real outlet for all that brainpower, but at the same time, there are so many stories where female characters lose their powers that I'm not all that fussed about a movie where a girl gets to be loved, smart, AND have special powers.

[(Anonymous)]

This so hard. Besides the movie and book said that she didn't use her powers for punishment? She probably use them to grab a book she cannot reach.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you have sources on this being a female character specific thing? It's a pretty common trope in general and I think that's fine in stuff for kids. Real kids reading the book will never have powers, and it's nice to be reminded that it's not some imaginary powers that you'll never have that will make you live a happy life.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, off the top of my head I can think of several girls but zero boys whose happy ending involves losing their powers, but I'm open to hearing otherwise. NAYRT but I see their point.

[(Anonymous)]

The only male character that comes to mind is Edward Elric.

[(Anonymous)]

And in his case, it was very much an informed decision on his part, in line with the entire theme of Equivalent Exchange

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, it's a pretty common trope in magical girl series that the girls ultimately lose their powers in the end. Which, okay, it sort of makes sense in that they don't need their powers anymore once the world is safe, but why can't they keep them? It always seemed decidedly unfair to me when most of the male characters in the shounen series I read got to keep theirs.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think it's really fair to expect Roald Dahl to have been familiar with gendered anime tropes and choose to subvert them.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, to each their own but sounds like a downer ending to me: a kid loses her powers/creativity because she's too busy. Kinda like most kids that grow up to become adults with jobs and/or families.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, combined with anon above's comment about how many female characters lose their powers (compared to male characters), I prefer the movie ending that it's nice for her to be loved, smart, and powerful.

[cakemage]

Yeah, that's pretty much how I've always felt about it, myself. After all the shit she went through, Why can't she just keep the powers? As a little treat?

[(Anonymous)]

I can appreciate the reasoning behind the book's version, and it probably was a "better" ending in the literary sense. But man, I would hate that ending. Having powers and then losing them? What a kick in the teeth!

Having TK obviously doesn't remotely make up for being unloved, neglected, and abused by your family, but gaining a loving and nurturing home-life also doesn't make up for losing your magic freaking powers. The powers may have only developed as a way to cope with the absence of a nurturing home-life, but that doesn't mean that's all the powers would be to the person who had them.

It's not that I see the book ending as unhappy. I just don't see losing one's TK as something that wouldn't feel like a tremendous loss to a person, even if they were overall much happier and better off than they used to be.

[(Anonymous)]

I think in this case, the book was very clear that she had the powers *because* she was so understimulated and miserable. It wasn't that she lost them, it was that her life was so vastly better that she no longer needed them - as if she had the superpowers as a defense mechanism and now she had nothing to defend against.

But I also liked the movie version that she had them still as a bonus extra.

[(Anonymous)]

the book was very clear that she had the powers *because* she was so understimulated and miserable.

No, I understand that, I just disagree with the book's outlook on the whole thing. Regardless of why she develops them, they are their own thing. They have value, and an effect on her self-identity, that is entirely unique to what the are. So to lose them is to lose that value and that part of her self-identity. The fact that she's no longer lacking the things that caused her to develop them in the first place doesn't negate that losing them is, well, a loss.

SA

[(Anonymous)]

Another anon clued me in that in the books her powers are exhausting for her and that she doesn't really have fun with them the way she does in the movie, which really changes the entire dynamic, and in light of that, the book's ending works a lot better for me.

[(Anonymous)]

But in the book she had to exude a lot of mental effort just to get the powers to work at all. They weren't fun for her like in the movie, so she didn't see losing them as a tremendous loss.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, okay, in that case the ending makes way more emotional sense to me and tracks a lot better conceptually too. Thanks for clueing me in to the info I was missing to make it make sense.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with you, but most people saw the movie first, and people on both sides are going to be defensive of the version they consider "theirs." I would've liked the entire movie a lot more if it hadn't been a book to begin with, but I hated everything from the powers being fun instead of a necessary burden to Matilda's changed "cool 90's kids are smug brats" personality.

[(Anonymous)]

OP - Thank you for making my secret, secret maker!
Also, thank you to everyone for leaving interesting comments. I can appreciate why some people like the movie's ending. The book's ending will always be the more satisfying ending in my mind, because Matilda's intellect was also a power, and being able to use it was what made her happy.