[ SECRET POST #2016 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2016 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 065 secrets from Secret Submission Post #288.
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]

19. http://i.imgur.com/JHeu4.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

She kind of was, but she's a teenager, they do that. Plus, her mom was forcing her into marriage and she didn't want that, so I'm actually pleased that a Disney movie bucked it's usual "princess getting married at 16" stereotype.

[(Anonymous)]

what a unique point of view.

[nagaina]

....I kind of think you're supposed to sympathize more with Elinor.

Admittedly, I'm saying this as someone who wanted to take Dash from The Incredibles over my knee.

Spoilers Follow;

[morieris]

I always wonder how people expect Merida to act when she doesn't feel ready to get married. To be fair, she doesn't really tell Elinor this - and even though we don't get a ton of backstory, the snippets we do see in the beginning show that Merida doesn't quite have the will, enthusiasm, or even talent for royal duties and expectations. & I'm not even sure why the queen changes her mind halfway through to let Merida follow her own destiny. Gratitude for her daughter not leaving her a bear?

It's just - argh, the narrative...

[sorrylatenew]

I think the point of the movie was that they were both wrong about things and too bullheaded. But they came to understand each other, learn from each other, and compromise in the end.

[rmg]

i think an important element of brave is that both elinor and merida have valid points of view, neither of which is entirely right or wrong. so it's important to empathize with elinor, too, since she's not like the evil abusive mom from tangled or whatever.

[(Anonymous)]

I sympathized with both of them? I mean, Merida was a total brat, but she was a kid, and I feel like her dad really wasn't helping Elinor in terms of providing a united front so Merida was getting a lot of mixed messages in terms of what she was expected to do and be. But on the other hands Elinor did need to try to actually connect with Merida on her level (and obviously was capable of it! That scene that intercuts the conversation they both wish they could have with each other shows they have a lot more in common than they think at the beginning). And I mean I'm always going to be on the side of not being forced into a marriage you don't want, so.

[(Anonymous)]

I could relate to and empathize with Elinor. Merida was a horrid, stubborn, selfish child, and the more I watched the movie, the more disgusted I became with her. Not being down with arranged marriage? Fine. But you don't blame your mother for the entire concept and system of royalty, give her a spell that for all you know will poison her, and after turning her into a bear, keep insisting it's not your fault while giving your mother grief for the past when she's got no way of even responding.

[helishdreams]

I sympathise with them both (which I'm pretty sure is the point). On one hand, Elinor is making a 16 year old marry against her will (fine for the time, not for now, obviously), but on the other - does Merida ever explicitly tell her this? No - she just huffed around in a typical teenage fashion. And I'm not begrudging her of that - it seemed pretty realistic teenage behaviour (if my childhood was anything to go by). Also I have a hard time not sympathising with Emma Thompson, tbh,

[fauxkaren]

lol. I think it's a sign of me getting older that I was #Team Elinor too.

But I mean, I don't think Merida was a brat. The movie was about women coming to understand each other and find a common middle ground.

[nachtmusik]

Uh. How was Merida a total brat? I mean come on, marriage is a big deal, and it was just kind of dropped on her as a total bombshell out of nowhere. She probably knew it was coming eventually, but it suddenly being right there in front of her freaked her out. On top of that, the whole arranged marriage thing has never been pleasant and any woman ever to argue against it is in the right, quite frankly. She did go too far re; the glib comments about going to war and re; being more worried about the marriage than her mom's wellbeing when she was groaning in pain after eating the cake, but it's not like Elinor was being mom of the year either. I mean, Merida in a dress so tight she could barely move? Not "perfect". Not even okay.

The whole point of the movie was that both sucked at listening to each other at first, but came to realize their mistakes through their ordeal and both chose to atone for them.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree. Maybe this is just my ASOIAF-esque understanding of how medieval royalty works, but I thought Princess Merida betrayed a remarkably poor understanding of her situation for a sixteen-year-old. Merida gets to eat three meals a day and ride around on a horse shooting arrows for fun, and in return she has to consent to a political marriage in order to maintain an alliance between four clans that could go to war with each other at any time. Even within the not-quite-adult universe of the film, I got the sense that, if the clans hadn't had a demon bear to rally together against at the end, there would have been trouble between them despite Merida's talk of breaking from tradition and writing one's own story.

[miarrow]

I was with you, but calling Merida a brat kind of over simplifies the situation. I was kind of HORRIFIED at certain points where I thought maybe she should be worried that she poisoned her mother, but it worked, because it made both characters flawed (and therefore real).

[(Anonymous)]

I sympathized with both. But that's because their relationship was entirely about a mother and daughter being so different, that it seemed impossible to communicate to each other when it wasn't. AKA, every teenage girl who is wildly different from her mother and not in an abusive or neglectful relationship. It was just put under the lens of 11th century Scotland.

Yes, Merida did a lot of bad things out of pride. But she learned, and that's the point. She grew up and admitted she's not perfect and that this all WAS her fault, and she even united the clans WITHOUT marriage. And Elinor, meanwhile, learned to listen when Merida said she wasn't ready for something and her way of life was entirely valid for a young woman.

They renewed their bond, something that had been wearing away because BOTH of them are stubborn. Yes, when you're a parent, you get some degree of control. But it's still a relationship and goes two ways and sometimes you have to listen to your kid. You don't get to be a damn dictator. Likewise, kids, you don't get to walk all over your parents, and sometimes it seems like things aren't fair when they are--you're just not getting their way. When things aren't fair, then year, you can call your parents on it. Not being allowed to go to a midnight showing of a movie when you have a full day of testing tomorrow is not one of them.

[gabzillaz]

Yeah.

I know that Merida is a kid, but I kinda stopped rooting for her when she fed her mother food made by a witch.

[iggy]

I think that if you're 'team either of them' or think either of them are really worse than the other, you've pretty much missed the point of the film entirely. Nothing wrong with having favorites, but I thought that the narrative successfully made it clear that neither 'side' was right.

So congrats on that.

[(Anonymous)]

Yo OP that was kind of the point.

[murderershair.livejournal.com]

OMG YES. Elinor was badass. I didn't like, hate Merida by the end, but I did spend a lot of the movie wanting to smack her.

[la_petite_singe]

I saw both of their points of view. I really liked that the movie focused on their relationship & they really learned from each other in the end. ♥

[(Anonymous)]

As others have said, pretty sure you were meant to empathise with both of them. Kids/teenagers could understand Merida's anger about her mother not listening to what SHE wanted, and adults could understand Elinor's frustrations that her own child wouldn't listen to her when she was trying to do what's best for her.

I think that montage of their "imagined" talk about what they both wanted that they couldn't actually seem to say to each other face-to-face illustrated that pretty well.

Anyway, I imagine if you did end up taking one side over another, might depend on your maturity level.

[rbhudson]

I haven't seen Brave yet, but that happens to me all the time :P I just hate children, what can I say?

[(Anonymous)]

I think the filmmakers underestimated the reaction to Merida feeding her mother something she got from an untrustworthy source, especially as we in the audience knew something terrible was going to happen. But I think that Merida was being less of a brat and more kind of a dumbass for not thinking to specify "change my mother's opinion on arranged marriage". That girl is not genre savvy at all.

[opal_skies]

I...kind of agree. But then, I don't buy the premise of the film's drive, for lack of a better word, in the first place. I don't buy that her mother would have all these presuppositions and rules about "princesshood" and primness etc., when their culture is the way that it is. I would buy it in an 18th century French court setting, where such a precedent has been set, and people aren't living with the wilderness at their backdoor, the only city/civilization for quite a few miles around. I should think hunting and horseback riding and an understanding of the lay of the land and how best to get around in it would be valued qualities in the future ruler of a kingdom (clan...dom?) like the one portrayed in Brave.

[mutantjules.livejournal.com]

I thought both were sympathetic. (actually, I loved how pretty much NO ONE in this movie was a distinctly Bad Guy. Not even the witch! Even the SPOILER.......turned-into-a-bear man seemed like he was just bitter and grew more and more so after living as a bear for who knows how long)