Written by Gianine Pantig

“And you’re a beast! That’s what you are! I’ll never be like you. I’d rather die than be like you!” These were the words that Merida, the main character of Disney’s Brave, and the 11^th Disney princess, harshly retaliated at her mother as she pierced a blade at the tapestry the woman and queen made for their royal DunBroch family and tore it apart, leaving a huge rip between where they both stood as sewn in the cloth and inciting an even bigger one in their relationship.

If this doesn’t imply enough combustion of raw, robust emotions, and shifting of core ties, here is another one.

“You’re the one who doesn’t care! You’re the one breaking our home! The miracle is dying because of you!” Yet another movie line from, this time, the newly released and rising in popularity Disney film Encanto, as uttered by the fans’ newest favorite main character, Mirabel, when she revealed to her family, the Madrigal’s, the pains and hardships they buried just to maintain the miracle her Abuela Alma was so focused on protecting. This unraveling occurred as their house, their home, started falling apart around them, crumbling in every nook and cranny, until finally, a huge crack on the floor appeared, revealing a rift between Mirabel and her Abuela. Surely, it was a diverging of not just concrete cement, but a threatening severance of their connection.  

We see the media proliferated with a bunch of creative metaphors and symbols indicating different kinds of connections and affiliations of people with each other, like the tapestry as a direct illustration of Merida’s relationship with her mother and the house or casita as the Madrigal’s familial bond. Even without seeing these two films, people would most likely be able to mention other materials, be it a television series, novel, a historical moment, or a conspiracy theory involving concepts such as these. 

Thus, versed as we theoretically are, it is easy to connect the dots or pick up the pieces like jigsaw puzzles and put them together whenever some key events are happening in a material which we are consuming that may make or break these different humane attachments. After all, human trust and unions are fragile and vulnerable. Just as easy to construct as it is to wither and deteriorate. Without a clear trigger. All on its own. What more in this reality of ours where there are a lot of possible prompts, ticking bombs ready to explode at any moment, that may decide whether we get to keep or let go of a relationship?

It is easy to predict, to expect, to prophesize, or to assume how something ends, when we are merely bystanders, a third person, or a listener. Our generation would even point fingers and scream, “Red flag!” to their friends’ faces, implying that they should have known that a person they were with was just bad news. And yes, these red flags do not only encompass romance. It can apparently be used for family, relatives, and friends. But when it is happening to us, it is harder to notice, even harder to recognize, and more difficult to break away from. 

These days, everything can be considered a red flag. Not making your bed in the morning, drinking coffee at any time of the day, turning off mobile phone notifications, literally everything. So, how would we know? Well, Merida knew, tried to do something about it to break tradition, only to turn her mother into a bear. Mirabel realized it, bitter tears and all, only to lose their house and have it all fall apart right in front of her eyes.

Surely, overseeing the connections and attachments we have with people does not have to require turning people into bears and demolishing houses, right?

Experiences and representations may be different, but there must be something that we can get from others, from Disney even, to understand how bonds and relationships work?

But of course, there are always lessons to be learned wherever we go, but most of these lessons would not function as a blueprint that provides a complete walkthrough to life and how to maintain the people that we want in it. It is even vaguer and more mystifying than a witch’s enigmatic chant, or a flame of a candle’s connection to magical, unseen beings. Our unions are not just entwined to and by family tapestries or a miracle holding up a casita. But it is interwoven to our sense of self and how we make ourselves to be.

One thing that the movies Brave and Encanto have in common is how the two protagonists were kept from being their own true selves by their relations with others. Even though Merida is headstrong and confident, certain of who she is, she was forced into this princess bubble, her potential being cramped and limited, just so expectations from her could be preserved. Meanwhile, Mirabel, despite knowing what she is meant to be and how extraordinarily special she still is, and being determined and unstoppable, still ended up trying to be someone she is not, being swept by the tides of, again, toxic expectations and standards.

Both protagonists had their relationships with the people pushing them to be who they are not and people who are expecting something superficial from them, threatened and almost completely shattered. Using it as a direct comparison to reality–is it not that the weakest relationships we have and the ones we lost are mostly those that make us realize eventually that we are pretending to be someone we are not, just to satiate the image they hold of us and to please them?

Is it also not that the constant people in our lives, these attachments which persevered throughout our darkest times, the ones we could always count on, are the ones that we could also truly be ourselves with? The ones that urge us to be who we are?