[ 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

[(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.

[morieris]

keep insisting it's not your fault

That was so stupid! She kept blaming the witch, and I'm watching going "Well, first of all, you said 'I want a spell that changes my mother' - she gave you exactly what you asked for, might I add, FROM A WITCH!'

[stainless]

I thought that was part of the point - that Merida was trying to run from the realization that she did, in fact, make mistakes, and that she needed to face up to that to truly "mend the bond."

[morieris]

Ah, this reminded me of what I had first wanted to comment - as wrong as that particular choice was by her, I feel like the narrative was soundly trying to punish Merida for not wanting to be married and that it gelled together poorly at the end.

[stainless]

As I understood it:

I don't think it was trying to punish her for not wanting to be married. I think her fault was dismissing her mother's whole set of values and way of living because there were some really shitty things in it that stifled women like Merida who didn't fit the paradigm like Elinor did. Instead of being mature enough to articulate what that meant and compromise, she went overboard.

Instead of being mature enough to understand Merida's personality and needs, Elinor went overboard in her own way too, becoming stiflingly controlling instead of thinking about ways to respect who Merida was either by interpreting the traditions in a different way or re-examining them.

Both of them were wrong and both of them were right. Merida was right about the marriage thing, and Elinor realized it.

[deadtree]

I agree, that seemed really clear to me-- she didn't want to have ANY responsibility, and the events that followed forced her to take some for her decisions. Thus, she grew up.

[stainless]

Yeah. She wanted Mom to admit she'd been wrong without admitting she hadn't been right either, so she kept talking about the witch's badness rather than taking responsibility for her actions. It took until the very end for her to realize that, or maybe just to be humble enough to admit it aloud.

[(Anonymous)]

This.

I was especially disgusted right before her mother began changing into a bear, when she was groaning and generally looking extremely ill, and all Merida could ask was if she had changed her mind.

[(Anonymous)]

Hold up. She didn't know the pastry thing would poison her mother. She knew it would change her mother. While there could be some semantics over meaning here argued, she didn't think the food would actually hurt her mother in any fashion, just "change her mind" about the whole making her get married part.

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT
IA, but she didn't know how exactly it would work and then her mother acted like she was poisoned. She has shown clear signs of becoming physically ill and Merida paid it no mind and even pestered her. I would be sick with worry if I saw my mother like that, so I did side-eye Merida during that part, even though she was just dumb/ignorant and not malicious.

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt

OMG YES! Her mother acts like she's practically dying and Merida doesn't show even the slightest bit of worry? She's a freaking horrible daughter!

Yes, there have been times I've been furious with my mom and wanted to change her mind about something. But if she became physically ill or majorly hurt, especially if it was because of a magical pastry I just fed her, I would put aside everything that had been going on between us and worry about helping her.

[stainless]

I also felt weird about that scene so I think it was done quite poorly. But, just as an alternate view:

I thought Merida was concerned, actually. I thought her posture and her body language showed that. I felt like her trying to bring the conversation back to the marriage over and over was not about her not caring, but about her desperately wanting nothing more to be happening. Like thinking "well, if I can just get her to say 'Yeah, I don't think you need to marry any of them' then this will all be over and I'll have been worrying for nothing."

Which is still dickish and the wrong way to react, but isn't "I don't care."

[(Anonymous)]

No, that's really stretching it. Watching it in the theater, all I could think of was that Merida was acting beyond a selfish brat. Even my bratty younger siblings would stop arguing and pleading if our parents got sick or injured.

If that was intent they were going for, it really fell flat. If Merida's mother had just gotten sleepy all of a sudden, then Merida's reaction would have been fine. But with her mother getting violently ill, it just seemed way too cold, even for a daughter who was majorly pissed at her mom.

[fuchsiascreams]

I haven't seen the movie, but maybe it's possible that she kept saying that to see if the pastry was working, or hoping that if the pastry was working, that her mother would suddenly get better? idk.