The Disney Woman

Well, I’ve run out of Disney women to talk about.

At least for now.

So I want to take this opportunity to wrap things up and make a (hopefully) strong conclusion.

I actually started this blog because of Frozen. While I love the music and the characters, I was honestly not that impressed with it overall (forgive me). That is to say, I liked it, but I wasn’t nearly as impressed as the rest of the nationwide population seemed to be. And then this sort of thing started:

“Frozen is the first Disney movie that shows a woman doesn’t need a man to save her.”

“Frozen is the first Disney movie that shows a love between sisters.”

“Frozen is the first Disney movie to question someone getting married after a day.”

And it all just irked me, because…

Where

on earth

are those ideas coming from?

I had the same issue with people saying the Princess and the Frog was Disney’s attempt to end its recurring racism.

But…

If we insist on seeing the world as divided between white people and “people of color”

I can still say, with complete confidence

that Disney gave me quite a variety of women to look up to.

Heck, the first time I ever saw a black person and a white person get engaged was when I watched Annie as a little girl.

I think what matters here is what these movies are teaching children. I can only speak from my own experience, but as a kid who grew up watching Disney, I can say that these films taught me a lot of good.

And as a young adult, I love exploring how people reimagine Disney.

There are many people out there who like to put tattoos on Disney characters.

Or make them goth.

Or mermaids.

There are “twisted” Disney princesses, which are these super grim but incredibly detailed drawings. They can get really dark, but they’re also very clever, and I find them fascinating.

People draw Disney characters in zombie apocalypse scenarios.

People imagine Disney animals as people. Above, if you haven’t guessed, Lady and the Tramp are depicted.

Ever wonder what a Disney character would look like as the opposite gender?

Then you might like what people call “genderbending.” I myself think it’s really interesting.

Esmeralda seems to be the most popular in that regard, by the way. If I’m gauging the Internet correctly.

This is inspiration and creativity at work. People shape these characters to make them more like themselves, and I think that’s beautiful. And Disney has given them more than enough material to work with.

And don’t get me started on all the crazy pairings people come up with.

Some folks like to picture Frollo and Esmeralda together.

Some prefer Pocahontas with Nakoma.

And they get way crazier. These two examples are just ones that I happen to kind of like. But as a person who reads and writes a lot of fanfiction, I’m pretty content to explore the strange and the forbidden when it comes to character pairings.

My point is…

Disney gave us, and continues to give us, a multitude of beautiful stories. And everyone who watches them has his/her own points of view, and opinions, and life experiences. Which means that everybody can take away something different from the same films. Different details stand out to and inspire different people. And then it can all come together and be shared on the Internet. In this way, we are using Disney to express what makes us unique, and to better understand one another.

And doesn’t that just work so well with what Disney has been telling us all these years?

I don’t know about you, but I have found a strong message about the power of good in every Disney movie I’ve ever watched. It’s always about kindness, love, overcoming your circumstances, doing what you know is right, following your heart…all that and so much more.

Now, I can’t claim that everything Disney puts out is a masterpiece.

*cringe*

But the good heavily outweighs the bad, if you ask me.

Just look at what some of these films have done for people.

If you have trouble reading the words at all, here they are:

“Lilo and Stitch means a lot to me, given my childhood and how child services tried several times to take me away. I was also bullied for being weird and the only thing that got me through it was my pets. The scene where Lilo and her sister release the flowers makes me feel like I can let go of all that and it makes me tear up every time.”

“Trigger Warning: Hercules will always have a special place in my heart because when I was 15, my first relationship was abusive. It lasted for 2 years. Meg taught me to be strong and I learned that it’s alright to be on my own. The right person will come along and I don’t have to settle. For that I will always be thankful to Disney.”

“Disney has not made me weak. It taught me to embrace my quirks, to value courage and loyalty above all others, that relying on my own inner strength does not mean that I have to face the world alone, and that facing challenges with ingenuity and an open heart will get you through any obstacle.”

I’m very inclined to agree with that.

I can’t say that Disney is perfect, because it certainly isn’t.

 

*shudder*

But I daresay we ought to focus on the good.

Because we can face our fears, and good does triumph over evil, and love really does conquer all. This is a hard world to live in, but there is beauty and there is magic, and it all comes from people who refuse to see it any other way, people who never give up hope.

As a girl, the Disney heroines were some of my best role models, and I have tried to emulate their strength and their goodness as I’ve grown up. I started this blog as a way to stick up for them, and it became a weekly exercise in appreciation and optimism.

And I have continued to grow as I’ve explored and learned more about them.

Now, after twenty-one weeks, I bring this at last to a close. And in the spirit of appreciation, here is a tribute to Disney as a whole:

Who am I?

I am a Disney Woman.

 

 

 

 

 

Frozen came out in 2013, and we were introduced to not one, but two new Disney princesses, Elsa and Anna.

They are the daughters of the king and queen of Arendelle, a kingdom that I believe is set somewhere around Norway.

Elsa, the eldest, has essentially limitless and rather non-specific ice powers, which enable her to do anything from freezing water to creating sentient beings out of snow. How she came to have these powers is unknown. It is only mentioned that she was born with them.

A major downside to this power is that it is tied very strongly to her emotions, which can make them potentially dangerous. When they were young children, Elsa accidentally struck Anna in the head with her powers, and what followed basically set the entire plot into motion.

Attempting to keep her powers under control, her parents (not knowing what they’re doing) teach Elsa to stifle her feelings and encourage her to isolate herself from her sister–and basically everybody else, too. And she grows up like this. This is her life from age eight(ish) to age twenty-one. There is nothing okay about that. Extreme isolation can be very psychologically, and sometimes even physically, damaging. And it only gets worse when her parents die–Elsa being between the ages of sixteen and eighteen at that time. I think a decent case could be made that by that point, she begins to suffer from some level of depression.

Because of the whole “conceal, don’t feel” thing, Elsa comes to have a very reserved, highly controlled demeanor. She’s quiet, and she keeps all of her problems carefully internalized. Ironically, this makes her character come off as “icy.”

But she’s suffering through it, and remaining just as strong as she can, because of her dedication to protecting Anna. After their childhood accident, she has lived in constant fear of hurting her sister again, and she is willing to go through all of this just to shield her.

Anna, in many ways, is the exact opposite of Elsa. She’s bold, talkative, and unrestrained. Though she does suffer through some isolation because of how distant Elsa is, it’s not the same for her. It’s not so much that she’s struggling with a significant inner problem; it’s more like she just has nothing to do all day without a real companion at her side. But she stays remarkably perky and good-natured about it. One thing about Anna, she is not easily phased.

The plot begins in earnest on Elsa’s coronation day. She has just turned twenty-one and is therefore of age to become queen. (People say that this makes Elsa Disney’s first princess who is older than a teenager, but those people are forgetting about Kida, the 8,500 year old princess from Atlantis). As you can see from the above picture, Elsa isn’t exactly feeling confident about ruling a kingdom. And the gravity of her situation is fairly severe. Nobody knows about her ice powers, not even Anna, and she has to live with the burden of that enormous secret while being held responsible for the well-being of a nation.

Honestly, I have a lot of respect for Elsa. She handles this with an impressive amount of fortitude and dignity, qualities that I myself try to emulate.

During the coronation ball, Anna happens to take up with Prince Hans, and after a catchy musical number, they decide that they want to get married, which certainly isn’t unheard of in a Disney film. However, when they tell Elsa the news, she refuses to give her blessing, saying that ever-so-popular line, “You can’t marry someone you just met.”

I understand that the idea is to appeal to the modern viewpoint, but I have to admit, this is where the movie starts to lose me a little bit. Where Brave maintained a strong level of historical integrity regarding the idea of marriage, Frozen goes in the opposite direction. Given the time period, I just don’t think that Elsa would have actually said that. I feel she would have said something more like, “Where does this man come from? What are his family’s connections? Would a match with him be a strong political choice?”

Whether we like it or not, that was what marriage was about back then, especially for a princess. Marrying exclusively for love–rich or poor, connections or not–would have been about as ridiculous a notion to them as arranged marriage is to us. This movie’s stance on that is so modernized that I actually find it a little obnoxious (please don’t kill me).

Excuse my rant. Back to the plot.

Anna refuses to be kept at arm’s length any longer and confronts Elsa about the distance she puts between them. This leads to Elsa’s powers accidentally being revealed to everyone, and as she runs away, her fear causes the kingdom to completely freeze over.

Once she gets away, however, one of the most beautiful and inspiring transformations in Disney history takes place. During the empowering song “Let it Go” (a song I still make a point to listen to at least once a week), she creates an ice palace and a new wardrobe, one that reflects who she truly is on the inside.

Fun fact: from what I understand, Elsa was originally meant to be this movie’s antagonist, but when “Let it Go” was produced, it was decided that it was too uplifting to be the song of a villain, and so they went in a different direction.

What’s important about this scene is that Elsa finally sets all of her defenses and fears aside for once, and then her sparkling personality shines through. She’s always been capable of creating good, beautiful things, but the fear of hurting people made her overly cautious. Alone in the mountains like this, she has room to breath. She can let her hair down (literally) and make a spectacle.

And look at this ice palace. Is it not one of the most gorgeous spectacles you’ve ever seen?

But since she permanently froze everything back home, she has to be retrieved. Anna goes after her, and meets Kristoff along the way. She enlists his help to get her up the mountain, and–spoiler–they happen to fall in love. She doesn’t admit this until much later, of course. For most of the movie, Anna is loyal to Hans.

I find Kristoff 100% adorable, however, and I completely approve of this match. He’s perhaps a little rough around the edges, but he’s calm and reasonable where Anna is reckless, so their balance is a good one. And she’s such a dork, really, which he finds unbelievably cute. They make a strong team and a very sweet couple.

Sadly, Anna’s meeting with Elsa ends on a seriously bad note, and Elsa accidentally strikes Anna in the heart with her powers. When Anna flees, look at what happens to the ice palace. The ice begins to glow red and spikes begin to grow inward, towards Elsa. This reflects what is going on inside of her, the nightmarish curse she feels she is living with. Outwardly, she still seems fairly strong, but behind it all she is being torn apart.

Anna is now in grave danger, having been struck in the heart. Only an act of true love can melt a frozen heart, and so Kristoff gets her back home as quickly as he can, leaving her to Hans.

And then we get one of the most diabolical plot twists I have ever experienced…

So Hans is evil.

Yep. Say hello to the first Disney villain to have ever sung a romantic musical number with a princess. I can’t tell you how much this caught me off guard when I saw this in theaters. There were practically no warning signs for this. It was just like someone suddenly flipped on his evil switch. And geez, Hans is so blatantly evil. Emotionally manipulative, verbally cruel, entirely without sympathy, and perfectly willing to commit cold-blooded murder…

He is a psychopath.

And considering how charming I found him at the beginning of the movie, I feel personally betrayed by his sharp personality change.

The above scene is the climax of the movie. Anna is slowly freezing, and has gone out on the fjord to look for Kristoff. Hans has told Elsa that Anna is already dead. And this is where Elsa finally and truly loses all of her control. This is what breaks her, knowing that she failed to protect her sister. And this is when Hans is going to strike and claim the throne for himself.

But Anna jumps between them and stops his blow just as she freezes solid. This is an emotional moment in which Elsa clings to her sister, sobbing. It’s the most connected they’ve been since the beginning, when they were little girls.

But–and I find this a tiny bit confusing–Anna’s sacrifice, being an act of true (sisterly) love, did in fact break the spell, and she changes back to normal a moment later. Either that, or perhaps Elsa clinging to her like this was the act of true love… I’m just not totally sure. Maybe it’s meant to be kind of ambiguous.

In any case, once Elsa understood the meaning of true love, she was able to let the good in her nature truly shine through, and she could then unfreeze Arendelle.

The overly modern view of marriage aside, this movie is about love vs. fear, and that’s a strong theme. It shows just how powerful and damaging fear can be if we let it control our lives, but that love is ultimately the more powerful, and empowering, of the two. It’s a matter of what we allow ourselves to be ruled by.

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.” –1 John 4:18

Words to live by.

 

 

Disney gave us Brave in 2012, which introduced us to Princess Merida. She is, in my opinion, possibly the most underrated princess of them all. I have really been looking forward to blogging about her.

Merida’s story takes place in ancient Scotland. She is the first born of King Fergus and Queen Elinor, and has triplet younger brothers (making her one of the few princesses who has siblings). Here is what I believe I can speculate about her family’s history:

Before Merida was born, the great clans were at war, but united under Fergus’s leadership when invaders attacked from other lands. This is mentioned during the movie. Because of this, Fergus, of the house DunBroch, was chosen as king. I don’t know if it was before or after this that Fergus competed for and won Elinor’s hand in marriage, but I’d guess it was most likely before. Merida was born, probably soon thereafter, during a time of peace. Her brothers were born much later on, several years after Fergus lost his leg to the demon bear, Mor’du, the villain of this film. But I’ll get to that in a bit. I’d like to take a moment to appreciate the king and queen.

Fergus and Elinor. Talk about a power couple. They are a beautiful example of an arranged marriage gone right. Their dynamic is fun to watch, because they’re so different. But they balance each other out to perfection. Fergus is a warrior through and through. He’s big. He’s strong. He’s hardcore. During the climax of the movie, he punches Mor’du in the face at one point. Even weaponless, he is fierce and dangerous. Fergus is a badass. But when he’s not fighting, he’s laughing and telling stories and generally enjoying life. He loves his family like mad, and he’s always trying to make them smile.

And he couldn’t have found a wife better suited for him. The clans may rally around Fergus, but it is Elinor who has the head for running a kingdom. She’s the very definition of a lady. Elegant and proper in all things, she is highly respected. And she has this incredible presence about her. Let me put it this way: when in a room full of brawling Scotsman, all she did was walk through them, and one by one they stopped in their tracks at the sight of her. With just a stern look, she holds that kind of sway. She’s not a fighter, but she’s a political powerhouse. Though it’s never talked about, Fergus depends on her very much for that.

But it’s not just that they make a great team. They truly love one another. That much is made very clear. It’s not that they always agree; they’re too different for that. They have very different ideas about what’s acceptable for their children, and that sort of thing. But they respect each other. They talk and listen to one another. One is never totally dominant over the other. And it’s not just that they’re fun to watch. I really appreciate how Disney approaches arranged marriage in this film. Nowadays, we have an entirely negative connotation regarding arranged marriages, and in most movies, the “good side” fights against it. In Brave, it is treated as the norm, which is how it really would have been viewed at the time. And though our main character does rebel against it, it is not shown as “bad,” per se. Through Fergus and Elinor, Disney shows us that true love can blossom even in that circumstance. I don’t know if they liked each other right away, or if they gradually learned how to work together (the latter would be my guess), but they obviously both committed to the relationship, and I don’t see how it could have turned out better.

Merida is highly spirited, to say the least. This is her at sixteen years old, riding her horse, Angus, and shooting targets with incredible skill. She always had an interest in fighting and being active, something her father encouraged, and archery is her great passion. It is later this same morning that she finds out she will soon be betrothed. The three leaders of the surrounding clans will each present his eldest son, and those young men will compete in the games for her hand.

She hates this.

Merida wants nothing more than to maintain her freedom. Marriage will change everything. She won’t just be suffering through her mother’s lessons every day; she will be living and applying those lessons in real life. She’ll be expected to manage her own household, not to mention submit to a man she barely knows, who could very well try to control her. None of it appeals to her in the least.

The girl in the above picture is who Merida was born to be.

This is the lady her mother tries to make her into. It is in this outfit that she is introduced to the suitors, and it heavily represents how stifled she is in this environment. Her crazy, voluminous hair is stuffed out of sight. The dress itself is so tight she can barely breath, let alone move. As if the situation isn’t uncomfortable enough, Merida is practically in distress in this ensemble.

The suitors are only minor characters in this movie, so I don’t really intend to focus on them.

But…

Team MacGuffin!

Moving on.

Tradition dictates that the princess choose the sport in which the suitors compete. So she chooses archery, and then makes quite the statement by “shooting for her own hand,” making fools out of all of them with her expert skills. Merida has guts; there can be no doubt.

She and her mother butting heads is essentially what this whole movie is about. Elinor loves her, and truly is only doing what she thinks is best, but Merida can’t help but resist all the rules and expectations. It’s in her nature. She is at her happiest when she is outdoors, being active, more like a man. But Elinor doesn’t see that as realistic, not for a princess. Neither of them are totally wrong, but they don’t know how to communicate about it, and they get frustrated with each other.

So Merida buys a spell from a witch and turns Elinor into a bear.

It’s not that she meant for her to become a bear. She was just very vague about what she wanted. She asked for a spell that would “change” her mother, meaning change her mind about the marriage and stuff. Well, she got a bear.

This actually all ties in to the movie’s theme about fate, and how people’s destinies are often interwoven.

Because Mor’du, the demon bear I mentioned earlier, was once a man. He was changed by the same witch long ago, having asked for the strength of ten men (again, too vague). All throughout the movie, he is looming, roaming the wilds and attacking any time he runs across our main characters.

Mor’du is terrifying. I’m getting jumpy just writing this and looking at his picture. He’s massive, feral, and darn near indestructible. And sometimes his face has these almost human expressions of rage and hatred… I’m freaking myself out.

Having never broken the spell, he lost his humanity completely, and he is never at peace. Always angry. Always ready to kill. How would you like to have that thing barreling at you?

And Fergus punched him in the face. Let that sink it. I respect the heck out of that man.

After Elinor’s transformation, the rest of the movie is about their mother-daughter journey. Their primary goal is to break the spell, but along the way, they discover how to appreciate each other again. Elinor comes to understand that Merida’s skills are not only impressive, but can be practical, too. And Merida, most importantly, learns to take responsibility for her actions.

Even regarding this whole marriage issue.

In fact, she actually goes before the lords and not only apologizes, but almost agrees to go along with the betrothal. Her mother stops her, however, and instead encourages her to break tradition, making the case that they should all find love in their own time. It’s a touching moment, and it really shows how much Merida can be like her mother as well–whereas before, she only acted like her father.

The climax of this film is one of the most spine-tingling, action-packed, heart-pounding scenes of any Disney movie ever. Fergus doesn’t believe that Elinor has been turned into a bear (and why should he?). He thinks that she’s been killed by a bear (and his heartbreak is gut-wrenching, by the way), so he and the other men hunt her down. Merida breaks out of the castle, rides out to them, and literally disarms her father in order to protect her mother. It’s intense.

And then Mor’du joins the party.

(Look at him. Look at him. I’m sitting here in the dark writing this. He’s freaking me out.)

What follows is a crazy epic fight. Mor’du fights Fergus; he fights Elinor; he fights everybody, but he seems bent on attacking Merida in particular. It’s not explained, but I think he senses that she used the same spell he did, and something about that sets him off.

Elinor is finally the one to take him down, but only because she causes a giant stone to fall on him. Literally nothing else was even making a dent. That is when his spirit is released, and at last Mor’du finds peace.

Everyone looks on as the sun rises and Merida, after a suspenseful moment, breaks the spell. She and Elinor have truly connected at last, and their bond has been mended.

This is a story about fate. How it can be changed, and how it connects us all. We must strive to understand that we each walk our own path, but that those paths will often intertwine.

“Our fate lives within us. You only have to be brave enough to see it.”

Disney gave us Tangled in 2010, introducing us to the adorable Princess Rapunzel.

In the original fairytale, Rapunzel is not born a princess, but marries a prince. Disney, however, switched that around a bit. The movie opens with her backstory. The queen, pictured above with baby Rapunzel, became ill when she was pregnant with her. To save his wife and child, the king sends men out looking for a particular flower which could magically cure or heal anything. Miraculously, the flower is found and given to the queen, who becomes well again and gives birth to a beautiful little girl with sunshine-golden hair.

The villain comes to play in this film right away, unfortunately. Mother Gothel had been using the flower to keep herself young and beautiful for years (quite possibly centuries), and she has no intention of giving that up, no matter what it takes. So, one night, she creeps into the palace and steals baby Rapunzel away.

You see, the magic of the flower is in Rapunzel’s hair now, so this…

…becomes this…

For the following eighteen years, Mother Gothel keeps Rapunzel in a tower, hidden away from the world, raising her as her “daughter.” I put “daughter” in quotation marks because she really doesn’t look at Rapunzel that way, not truly. It’s all about the hair, about staying young and beautiful, always.

Gothel is one of the more unique Disney villains. She is never physically abusive or overtly cruel. She supplies Rapunzel with everything she could need in the tower, keeping her healthy and diverted. And she’s behaves nicely to her little daughter/captive.

Except she doesn’t.

Mother Gothel constantly, and I mean constantly, belittles Rapunzel. Everything she says is said in a friendly tone or in a joking manner, but she never has a kind word to spare. Every compliment is backhanded; every comment is biting. It shows us that there are more subtle forms of villainy. There are real people like this. Real mothers. Honestly, I find the realism of her character particularly chilling.

Rapunzel is beautiful, intelligent, and honorable. She’s a talented artist and a tremendously sweet, good-natured young lady. She takes all of this emotional abuse in stride, but it’s obviously very damaging to her self-confidence.

But again, it’s all about the hair for Gothel. The above picture is a good example. You’ll notice that anytime our villain shows Rapunzel affection, she is actually focusing on her hair. She kisses her hair; she pets her hair. Even Gothel’s endearing nickname for her is “my flower.” Her detached, selfish obsession with immortality keeps her from ever appreciating Rapunzel as more than just a means to an end.

But Rapunzel still loves her and thinks of her as a mother. I find that touching, and, at the same time, very sad. She deserves better.

Well, things do start to get better when she meets this guy. Flynn Rider is a thief. He climbs up into the tower to hide from the law, having no idea what or who he’s just stumbled upon.

And then Rapunzel hits him in the head with a frying pan.

Which is hilarious. She then ties him to a chair and interrogates him a bit, and ultimately suggests a deal. You see…

Every year on Rapunzel’s birthday, her parents, as well as the whole kingdom, release thousands of lanterns into the sky. It’s a way of maintaining the hope that their daughter might find her way back to them.

Well, Rapunzel has watched them from her tower every year, not even knowing what they are, but feeling drawn to them nevertheless. She tells Flynn that she will return his stolen prize to him (which turns out to be her tiara) if he takes her to see them in person. It’s her dream to see them. And since it’s his dream to be rich, he needs that tiara back, so he agrees.

Rapunzel’s view of the world is, like her, adorable. On the one hand, she’s terrified. Mother Gothel has spent all this time telling her that she should fear the outside world, that it’s filled with nothing but danger and despair. And it may be that Gothel actually believes that on some level, but it has mostly been a way of keeping her locked up. So Rapunzel is very jumpy and super suspicious of everything they come across, at least at first. And sometimes it’s not altogether a bad thing. After all, throughout their journey, she and Flynn have to evade soldiers, other thieves, and even Mother Gothel, who learns of Rapunzel’s rebellion and follows at a distance, patiently waiting for a vulnerable moment.

On the other hand, she loves the outside world. Everything is new and beautiful, and she’s curious about all of it. And she learns that there are good people out there. Given her kindness and openness to everyone she meets, she has no trouble making friends, even ones who might seem a little scary at first.

Flynn is similar to Naveen in a way. They both start out as kind of money-obsessed, thinking of little more than getting material luxuries for themselves. But they both change when they meet the women they love. Flynn, who reveals to Rapunzel that his real name is Eugene, gradually falls in love with her during this journey, and it’s a really sweet thing to watch. Just look at the way he’s looking at her in the above picture. She’s staring up at the castle; the lanterns are just getting released. She’s nervous and entranced, and he can’t take his eyes off of her.

And this next detail is important:

Whenever he looks her in the eyes like this, Eugene always pushes her hair away from her face. Even after she reveals to him that her hair has magical healing powers, he doesn’t focus on it much. His focus is always on her. He doesn’t think of how he can use her. Given what she can do, she would be worth a hundred times more than a tiara, but the thought never seems to enter his mind. Rapunzel makes him rethink his priorities. She becomes his new dream.

But it’s never that simple while the villain is still around. Mother Gothel strikes at last, separating the pair, sending Eugene off to prison and returning Rapunzel to the tower. Eugene escapes and goes after her, but is literally stabbed in the back when he finds them. Gothel would leave him there to die, but Rapunzel convinces her to let her heal him before they go, promising not to fight her anymore if she does.

But then Eugene does this.

Using a shard of mirror, he severs her hair, permanently halting its flow of magic. It’s a moment of extreme self-sacrifice on his part, because now he has no chance of surviving his stab wound. But he does this for her. He saves her from a lifetime (an eternity, in fact) of being used and unloved. With the power of Rapunzel’s hair brought to an end, Mother Gothel’s true age suddenly catches up with her, and she essentially turns to ash. But now Rapunzel has to watch helplessly as her new dream dies in her arms.

However, as she cries over him, Eugene is healed by her tears (which is quite close to the original Rapunzel story, actually), and then they share the most beautiful hug of all time. Seriously, watch the movie or look at it online. You’ll see how he deepens the hug, squeezing her tighter and burying his face in her neck. I personally have never seen a more special hug in my life.

Although this one may be a close second, when she is reunited with her parents.

The central theme of Tangled is about following your dreams. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, what you struggle with, follow your dreams.

And when you accomplish them, start again. Live a life that makes you happy.

Find a new dream.

The Princess and the Frog was released in 2009, introducing us to one of Disney’s most beautiful and unique princesses, Tiana. And I admit, I’ve been looking forward to posting about her. Though she is relatively new, she’s one of my favorites.

Like many princesses before her, Tiana was not born into a royal family. She is the only child of James and Eudora, both of whom work very hard for their modest living. Eudora is a seamstress, and though James’ job is never exactly specified, it’s made clear that he works long hours at some kind of physical labor. They are what we would call a poor family, but that isn’t what’s really emphasized about them. Yes, they live in a small house, in what is more or less a shanty-town, on the outskirts of New Orleans. And yes, they have to work hard every day just for that much. But this is what I love about them: they are still happy. Yes; in spite of difficult circumstances, their happiness is evident, and it’s because they have what they need, and they have each other. And that’s really what this movie is all about.

Tiana and her father share a particular bond over cooking. It’s their dream to one day open a restaurant, one which James has affectionately planned to call “Tiana’s Place.” And their hearts are in the right place for it. As James says, food brings people together from all walks of life. That’s the feeling they want to give their restaurant, that wonderful, warm feeling of having plenty of good food to go around.

Tiana’s personality comes out a lot in the beginning, when she’s a child. When we first see her, she’s listening to her mother read the story of the princess and the frog. Eudora is doing this as she finishes sewing another princess dress for young Charlotte La Bouff, the only daughter of “Big Daddy” La Bouff, the wealthiest man in town. Charlotte is an excellent foil for Tiana. They are good friends, but extremely different in their aspirations. When Eudora gets to the part of the story in which the princess kisses the frog, these are their reactions…

This shows how rooted in reality Tiana is, even as a little girl. She already understands that life isn’t like a story. Charlotte is used to getting everything she wants without giving a lot of thought to where it comes from. She’s only thinking of the magic of the kiss, and how she would marry a prince afterwards. That’s her dream. To be a princess. Tiana, on the other hand, is thinking in terms of performing the actual kiss with an actual frog. A cold, slimy little amphibian that has no business being near her mouth.

Charlotte is enchanted. Tiana can hardly contain her disgust.

Fast-forward to Tiana as a nineteen year old woman, and not too much has changed regarding her character or her dreams. Her father has passed, having likely died in World War I, during which he received a medal of honor. She now works two different waitressing jobs, saving every penny she can spare to someday buy an old mill, which she plans to renovate and turn into her restaurant. And she throws everything she has into this goal. She barely has time to sleep between shifts; she never goes out with her friends; and though her mother encourages her to make herself more available for marriage, Tiana is interested in little more than getting that restaurant.

The male lead in this movie is Naveen, Prince of Maldonia. To sum him up, he grew up rich and spoiled. He lives a carefree life and is in constant pursuit of fun and excitement. And though it’s not exactly shown, it’s heavily implied that he’s been quite the playboy up to this point. But he is visiting America for a specific purpose. His parents have cut him off, and so to go on living his lavish lifestyle, he must marry a rich young lady. His sights are set on Charlotte La Bouff (and her sights are equally set on him. He is a prince, after all).

His first encounter with Tiana is only in passing. She is clearing an outdoor table and Naveen tips his hat to her, a look of pure charm on his face. And she just rolls her eyes and walks away. Honestly, I love that. It’s funny, but it again shows how grounded she is. Every other girl Naveen comes across swoons over him, but Tiana simply isn’t impressed. And a man isn’t what she’s after anyway. She’s going places.

Now’s as good a time as any to introduce the movie’s villain. Dr. Facilier, sometimes called The Shadow Man, is a voodoo conman. Everything about him, even his name, is the exact opposite of Tiana. In French, “facile” means “easy.” (There are hints of French all over this film, as Louisiana was colonized a great deal by the French). The name Facilier implies that he’s going to “make things easy,” and that’s just what his character is about. The Shadow Man is all about taking shortcuts, finding the easy way out.

Tiana is industrious; she believes that the only way to get what you want in life is through hard work. She also represents the idea that you don’t need a lot of material things to be happy. Her whole family characterizes the concept that it’s not about what you want; it’s about what you need; it’s about having love.

To Dr. Facilier, money is the real power, but working for it is too hard and takes too long. No backstory is given for him, but based on his behavior, let me give you my best guess: it’s most likely that he grew up in poverty, like Tiana, or quite possibly worse. And it’s fair to suspect that he didn’t have the advantage of a close-knit family. I would guess that he’s had to fend for himself for most of his life. But instead of working hard (and he could have; he’s intelligent and charismatic; he could have gotten somewhere), he essentially made a deal with the devil (his “friends on the other side”), looking for a shortcut. Over the years, he mastered the art of voodoo, which gave him great power, and in exchange, he would lure wayward souls away from the straight and narrow. His business is to tempt people with the easy way out. And all the while, he’s been watching people who have money, growing more and more bitter over what he doesn’t have.

The arrival of Prince Naveen presents him with the opportunity he’s been waiting for to get at the La Bouff fortune. He manipulates Naveen’s jealous manservant, Laurence, into helping him, and performs a spell which changes Naveen into…

A frog, as you might have guessed.

Now, Tiana is catering the dessert at Charlotte’s masquerade ball, during which Charlotte plans to woo Prince Naveen. This particular job gave Tiana enough money (at long last) to make the downpayment on the mill. She was supposed to sign the papers for it at this party. However, the owners tell her that she was outbid, which crushes her, as you can imagine. Well, she gets upset and ends up accidentally crashing into the dessert table, ruining the food and her dress. I wanted to point this scene out in particular because of Charlotte.

When I first saw this movie, I was afraid that Charlotte would get mad at Tiana. After all, her long-awaited prince is at this ball. She wants everything to be perfect. And then Tiana makes this little scene and ruins her “man-catching beignets.” Given how spoiled Charlotte is, I thought that she’d throw a fit over it. But she does just the opposite. She actually leaves the prince’s side to help her friend. She takes Tiana up to her room and lends her one of her own beautiful dresses. It’s really sweet, and it gives Charlotte more depth of character. I wanted to take a moment to appreciate her in this blog, because although she’s not one of the Disney princesses (however desperately she longs to be), she’s still a good example of a Disney woman.

Well, Naveen mistakes her for a princess and wants to kiss her, believing it will break the spell. And given how extremely reluctant she is to do that, he offers her a reward. Desperate to have her restaurant, she steels herself and kisses him. However, because she isn’t a real princess, the spell is not lifted, but rather transferred to her as well.

So she becomes a frog, too, and they wind up lost out in the bayou. Now it is a matter of finding a way to break the spell, whilst avoiding The Shadow Man, who sends dark spirits out to re-capture Naveen.

A lot goes on during their journey, and they meet new and interesting characters along the way. I won’t go into a great deal of detail about it all, but it is during this time that they stop disliking each other and, in fact, slowly fall in love. And I approve. I don’t necessarily like Naveen that much. His attitude is one I would get tired of quickly. But he actually does have a good heart, and Tiana shows him what it means to find happiness outside of the realm of the material. Watching him fall in love with her is really heartwarming.

And Tiana learns something as well. She’s got the working hard part down. She’s been doing that all her life. She knows what she wants, and she has the drive to make it happen. However, she’s reminded that life needs to be enjoyed, too. All these years, she has done nothing but work, thinking that her happiness will come when she’s achieved her dream. Tiana slowly realizes that she needs to give herself time to actually be happy in the moment.

When Naveen falls for Tiana, he throws away his notion of marrying Charlotte for her money. Instead, he intends to propose to Tiana. And it’s incredibly sincere. He realizes that she is worth a great deal more to him than a wealthy lifestyle. He talks about getting a job, or two, or three. He’s ready to start putting someone else’s needs before his own. But then she starts talking about her restaurant, and how much it means to her, and the way she lights up about it makes Naveen rethink the proposal. If he doesn’t marry Charlotte, he could never get Tiana the money she needs to fulfill her dream. And so, he lets her go, deciding that the sacrifice is worth her happiness.

Tiana finally understands what she really needs when she finds out that he meant to propose to her. She realizes that love is the one thing that’s more important than her restaurant.

But of course Facilier has to interfere.

Throughout the movie, he’s used a talisman filled with Naveen’s blood to transform Laurence into Naveen, posing as the prince to marry Charlotte (and therefore gain access to her fortune). At this point, Tiana has taken the talisman, and Facilier corners her in a cemetery. And then he does what he’s good at…

He tempts her with the easy way out. With a wave of his hand, he transforms her into a human again, and shows her a vision of her restaurant, just as she’d always imagined it. He reminds her of how hard she’s worked, and how hard her father worked, to make that restaurant a reality. How she owes it to her father’s memory to make their dream come true. And she almost falls for it. For just a second, her resolve wavers. “My daddy never did get what he wanted,” she says. But then she says this:

“But he had what he needed. He had love. He never lost sight of what was really important. And neither will I!”

A moment later, when the talisman breaks, we see a (rather horrifying) example of what happens when you sell your soul. Without the talisman, Facilier is no longer capable of paying his debts to his friends on the other side, and is therefore taken by them, dragged (presumably) to hell.

So, long story short, Naveen and Tiana find that they have all they need as long as they have each other. They learn to be content as they are, with what they have. Remaining frogs, they get married in the swamp, surrounded by their new friends. However, when they seal it with a kiss…

I’ll just let them sum it up. I love this bit of dialogue.

Naveen: “Once you became my wife…that made you–”

Tiana: “A princess. You just kissed yourself a princess.”

Naveen: “Yes. And I’m about to do it again.”

So romantic.

I’d like to take just a moment to discuss Tiana’s controversy. Namely, she’s the first black princess. There were at least a couple things people didn’t like, race being such a sensitive issue these days (though our use of the word “race” doesn’t make any sense. We are the Human Race. If elves existed, they would be a different race. But people who are different colors are not different races; that just isn’t logically sound). Anyway, as beautiful as this movie is, it seems like it was too little too late for many people. Disney putting out a black princess in 2009 met not so much with appreciation as with “well it’s about time.”

Also, this movie does rewrite history a bit. It makes the 1920s seem way friendlier towards black people than it actually was. People of both colors are mostly good to each other in this film, and segregation is only just hinted at. Now, I can understand how that could raise some eyebrows, but I actually think it was very wise on Disney’s part to play it that way. This movie, just like all the other Disney movies, is not meant just for us, but for future generations. For my kids and grandkids in the years to come, The Princess and the Frog will simply be one of the Disney princess movies in their collection. It won’t matter when it was made, because it’ll all be equally new to them when they start watching those old films.

The rest of the world (school, other movies, life in general) will teach our kids that we were once a nation divided. They will learn about past discriminations, and they will grow to understand that something so terrible will take our country a very long time from which to heal. But before they are taught about the bad, they can watch this movie, and see the world more like how it ought to have been. A strong character like Tiana will no doubt show them that all people have dreams, and those dreams can be achieved, no matter what color they are. That is the kind of hope we all need to instill in our children.

So work hard. Play hard. And love hardest of all.

        

In 2007, Disney gave us Enchanted, and allow me to just dive in to how clever this movie is…

This is the film in which Disney tastefully makes fun of itself.

Giselle has no backstory. Not really even an implied one. She starts out as little more than a Disney-princess stereotype. Enchanted begins with a book opening and a narrator bringing us into the scene. Giselle is talking with her woodland animal friends about a dream she’s had about a prince, and she breaks out into song about True Love’s Kiss. She’s just this beautiful, innocent maiden living in a charming little house in the forest. Prince Edward (the classic Disney-prince stereotype) catches her when she falls out of a tree, asks her name, and then declares that they shall be married the following morning. They ride off together into the sunset.

The villain is introduced seconds later. Queen Narissa is Edward’s stepmother, and she’s just as easy to figure out as the rest of them. She sees Giselle as a threat to her crown, and therefore turns to sorcery to get rid of her. Just before the wedding, she coaxes the naive future princess near a well, saying that it is a wishing well, and then shoves her in.

And poor Giselle ends up in present-day, three-dimensional New York City. This is why Enchanted is particularly clever. Giselle, played by Amy Adams, is the epitome of sweet, untouched innocence, and that’s basically her whole character. In her own environment, she would have fallen flat. It would have been the most boring, underdeveloped, lazy, unoriginal story ever. She was nothing but a cliche among other fairytale cliches. But in New York, suddenly the opposite is true. She sticks out like a sore thumb, and she is a disruption within her new environment.

Giselle is lucky enough to happen upon Robert, however (though he does almost everything he can to get rid of her). Robert is a single father and divorce attorney. He’s a good man, and entirely likable, but he is pretty much the exact opposite of Giselle. He’s cautious, cynical, and slightly embittered. If Giselle is the representation of innocence, Robert characterizes experience.

The above picture essentially sums up the whole movie. Her movements, the way she speaks, everything about her is so whimsical, to the point that it simply looks out of place. And there’s Robert, looking confused by it.

This scene is important actually because it introduces Giselle to something she’s never known before. Anger. You see, just beforehand, she was caught in the shower by Robert’s girlfriend, who had just come by, and who naturally jumps to a bad conclusion. So she (her name is Nancy) storms out, and then Giselle emerges in this adorable dress that she made out of Robert’s curtains. Robert has every reason to be angry in this scene, but Giselle just finds it bewildering. She claims that she’s heard of anger before, but she’s apparently never seen it or felt it herself.

Robert takes her with him to work that day, seeing no way around it, and she meets the couple he is currently helping divorce. She immediately starts pointing out how lucky they are to have each other and such, making everyone uncomfortable. When it’s explained that they are separating, she becomes completely distraught. The idea that two people could fall in love, get married, and then break that bond horrifies her. She can hardly wrap her head around it. To her, love isn’t something that can just end. It’s meant to endure forever. The concept of divorce breaks her heart.

Robert tries to wash his hands of her after that. He gives her some money and sends her strolling along down the sidewalk. But as he watches her go, he sees her give all of the money to an old woman sitting on a park bench, and so he decides against letting her go off alone. This is actually what he finds intriguing about Giselle. She’s innocent and trusting to a fault, yes; in fact, to experienced people like Robert, she could very well be seen as…kind of an idiot. But she relentlessly sees the good in everybody she meets, and she gives to others as if kindness were the most natural thing in the world. Her goodness is like a beacon in that way.

So they talk. He asks her about this Edward she keeps talking about, and she tells him that she’s known him for a day. Just one day. Which Robert laughs to scorn. He insists that a day simply is not long enough to know a person, and that it is exceedingly foolish to marry at first sight. So she asks how long he’s known Nancy, and he replies ‘five years.’ Her response is:

“And you haven’t proposed? Well, no wonder she’s angry.”

They go on to talk about true love, how she obviously believes in it, and how he honestly does not. This leads to her breaking out into spontaneous song, something totally normal in an animated film, but strikingly out of place here.

And it’s hilarious because all of New York joins in, and Robert is just following along, looking at everybody like “what the heck is going on?”

By that night, we can see that Giselle is actually starting to round out as a character. After she tucks Morgan (Robert’s young daughter) into bed and tells her a story, she curls up on the couch and starts to read through a book about women of history. This is when Robert offers to help her if Edward doesn’t come for her. She insists that he will, and he in turn insists that he likely won’t. He means well here; he just wants her to realize that life isn’t a fairytale. He doesn’t want her to put so much faith in the lovey-dovey stuff, because he knows what it feels like to have it thrown back in your face. But she literally thinks of life in terms of happily-ever-afters, and his cynicism is wearing on her patience. This is the scene in which she first experiences anger, and she barely knows how to react to it.

And when she calms down, she experiences something else, too… Lust.

It’s subtle and subdued, but it’s certainly there. It’s like she’s awakening as a person, growing into more than just the silly Disney-girl stereotype. And while this does technically chip away at her perfect innocence, it makes her into a role model whose example we can actually hope to follow.

So when Edward shows up the next morning to rescue her (very much to Robert’s surprise), things aren’t the same. They’re not the perfect couple anymore, and though Edward remains wholly devoted to her, she keeps trying to think of reasons not to leave New York with him. After a full day of stalling, she agrees at last that she’ll go with him after they attend a ball.

Robert and Nancy happen to be attending this ball as well. One detail I’d like to point out about this event is the clothes. Everybody there is in costume, dressed as they would be if this were a real, fairytale gala.

Except Giselle. She wears a modern, mermaid-style gown instead. I remember being thrown off by this when I first saw the film, but I came to really appreciate it, because it just makes a whole lot of sense. This movie revolves around how different she is, how much she sticks out in the modern world. And now here she is, and the modern world has rubbed off on her. That isn’t to say that she’s become like the world. She’s still innocent. She’s still kind. She still believes in love. But she’s changed, however subtle that change may be, and I believe the dress aids in showing us that.

Well, her chemistry with Robert only continues, despite Edward and Nancy being present, and so when Edward is ready to finally take her away, her sadness is evident.

And exploited.

Queen Narissa, desperate to eliminate Giselle, comes to New York herself and tricks her into biting a poisoned apple (classic evil queen). Now it’s a matter of waking her with True Love’s Kiss.

Which Edward tries and fails.

That’s when all eyes fall on Robert. He’s extremely reluctant at first, saying it couldn’t be him, that he barely knows her. And aside from that, it would be inappropriate, as his girlfriend is there. But Nancy gives him permission, and…

True Love’s Kiss wins the day.

And we can also place Giselle among the Disney heroines who save their princes, because when the evil queen transforms herself into a dragon and grabs Robert, she’s the one who picks up a sword and climbs the building out in the rain to rescue him. I think that this is probably also a result of her modernization (and broadening character), because the Giselle in the beginning of the film likely wouldn’t ever think to jump into action. She was more the damsel-in-distress type.

So things are wrapped up quite neatly. Robert and Giselle get their happily-ever-after (and Giselle becomes a stepmother, ironically).

And don’t feel too bad for Edward and Nancy.

Drawn to his straightforwardness and spontaneity (not to mention his wholehearted willingness to love wholeheartedly), she decides that very night to run away with him, and she becomes the princess.

She’ll be a handful for Edward, but it’ll be interesting that way. They’re like Robert and Giselle in reverse, and Nancy will likely serve as the catalyst to modernize the fairytale world, just as Giselle brought purity and love to New York City.

Regarding marriage, I’d like to talk about that a bit more in terms of this film. Now, while the movie does not fail to point out that this is the real world and bad things happen, and that “true love” in marriage doesn’t always manifest, it’s obvious that the concept of true love is favored. From what I gather, the point of the film is that true love is real, and whether it happens over time or in an instant, it is what marriage should be built upon. Not only do I think that idea is lovely, I think its quite modern.

But here’s what I think is really interesting…

When Robert talks about proposing to Nancy in the beginning, he describes them as being “rational, [having] taken the time to learn each others strengths and weaknesses.” He talks about her as being a suitable match, but never says he loves her, not even when pressed. And well, that actually strikes me as way more old-fashioned than the idea of fairytale romance. During the periods we so often base our fairytales after, like the Medieval period, marriage and love had little to do with one another. Marriage was about community survival and strengthening family prospects. It was all about strengths and weaknesses. And how funny that he should emulate that, given that Robert is the modern one.

On the flip side, Edward knew nothing about Giselle except her name when he whisked her away to be married. That so wouldn’t have happened back in those days. As a prince, his marriage would have been arranged to someone who could benefit the kingdom somehow. Yet Edward had every intention of marrying Giselle simply because he fell in love with her.

Now, we scoff at this because we have an entirely different frame of mind. We believe that you can’t love someone until you know that person, and how can you know someone after just a day? We don’t expect a happily-ever-after when the couple is barely acquainted. And yet it’s a recurring theme among fairytales. Why?

Well, part of it is simply because these are short stories, not novels. But it also has to do, again, with historical context. In a time when arranged marriage was normal, the ideal marriage would involve two people who go into it willing to make it work, committed to getting along and living a good life. And maybe, with luck, love might even grow from that. So when we read a story or watch a movie and we see two people getting married, saying they’re in love after meeting two days before, I think we ought to look at it more within that context. Even if we can’t believe it’s really love, we can believe that they want it to work, and why must we be so cynical all the time anyway?

I’m not sure how much of that was speculation regarding the movie Enchanted, and how much was just me rambling. But in any case, I hope it served to be thought-provoking.

Disney managed to cleverly satire itself with this film. Hilarious and uplifting, it shows us that a balance needs to be struck between fairytale romance and the complications of reality–that neither works without the other. Giselle is a brilliant representation of that balance.

In 2003, Disney released the first of an incredibly successful and exciting series, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. In it, we meet Elizabeth Swann, and we follow her story through the next two movies as well. And let me tell you, she’s really something.

Elizabeth’s backstory is relatively standard within the realm of Disney. Her father is the governor of Port Royal, a British colony on the island of Jamaica, and she is his only child. Her mother died some time before they moved to Port Royal, though it is never mentioned how or when.

One of the first things we find out about Elizabeth is that she is powerfully fascinated by pirates, as well as ships and life at sea. This fascination will serve her well in the years to come, as you might have guessed. On her way to Port Royal as a young girl with her father, they come across the wreckage left behind by pirates who have attacked a merchant ship, and along with the debris, they find a boy, Will Turner. Elizabeth finds he has a pirate medallion and takes it.

Eight years later, she has grown into the woman you see in the above picture, but her mentality has not much changed. Nevertheless, she is a lady of round about eighteen now, and her father is encouraging her to marry James Norrington, an officer who has just been promoted to Commodore. Now, let me take a moment to introduce him…

James Norrington is essentially ideal. He’s tall, handsome, powerful, and honorable. He’s firm and assertive, but kind and thoughtful as well. Were I in Elizabeth’s place, I would marry him so fast it would make his head spin. But if I were Elizabeth, this story would be very boring. As it stands, she respects the Commodore, but feels nothing more for him.

Instead, she fancies Will Turner.

Will took up an apprenticeship with the blacksmith when he came to Port Royal, and by now is the finest sword-maker on the island (and probably the best swordsman outside the Royal Navy). He’s a fine man, yes, and handsome. A step down economically, but that’s not what Elizabeth cares about, and that’s part of her charm. She wants what she wants; she’s very modern in that way, and things like the social hierarchy aren’t going to stop her.

But this is not a simple star-crossed-lovers sort of story. This is about pirates, after all. Long story short, the crew of the Black Pearl is attracted to Port Royal when Elizabeth’s pirate medallion touches the water. They ransack the town searching for it, and she ends up a captive on their ship. It is here that Captain Barbossa explains the curse. They are all undead, and have been for the last ten years, because of stolen Aztec gold. The medallion is the last piece, and with it they intend to lift the curse and retire.  Through what is essentially a misunderstanding of intentions, Elizabeth gets taken along to be part of the ritual.

The rest of the movie is more or less about getting her back and defeating the pirates. It’s pretty straightforward once you get into it, and it wraps up neatly enough that the movie could stand alone. The curse of the Black Pearl is lifted, the pirates are beaten back, and it looks like happily ever after for Elizabeth and Will (James is an incredibly good sport about that, by the way). But it’s not over yet.

The next movie introduces new adventures and two new villains. I won’t go into a great deal of detail, because I’ve got a lot of material to go through, but suffice it to say that complications arise in the second film. Throughout all the massive amounts of danger and grand adventure, the first three Pirates movies revolve around Elizabeth and her relationship with Will. The very beginning of Dead Man’s Chest shows their wedding being interrupted as they arrested for aiding in the escape of pirate Captain Jack Sparrow (aka the reason these movies are so popular).

As the movie progresses, Will discovers that his father is alive and trapped on the Flying Dutchman, a supernatural ship captained by the notorious Davy Jones. On the path to save his father, Will gradually becomes a darker character, and his choices ultimately make it harder (if not nearly impossible) for he and Elizabeth to be together. As for Elizabeth, she kisses and betrays Jack at the end of the film in order to save the rest of them. Will sees the kiss, but is told nothing else, and so a rift is created.

People generally seem to have mixed feelings about the third movie, but it happens to be my favorite. And in regards to Elizabeth, her character has seen a lot of development by this point. She started out as a bold girl who liked to fantasize about pirates, and she happened to have the backbone to live out some of those fantasies when the opportunity thrust itself upon her.  By the third film, she’s spent a good while at sea, and in the company of many of the same pirates she fought in the first movie.

Really and truly, she’s become a pirate herself. Gone are the dresses and corsets, and she doesn’t seem to miss them at all. Out on the sea, with almost complete freedom, she’s very much in her element, working and fighting alongside her crew-mates.

But the rift between herself and Will has only divided them further. For a great deal of the movie, they can’t really trust one another, they barely communicate, and it’s all and all just not looking good.

I admit…I’m just not a fan of them as a couple. I’m just not. I feel like a lot of their chemistry is simply physical attraction, and they also appeal to each other’s sense of adventure. They are similar in age and ambition, and in that way, they are certainly compatible, but this movie brings out many of their problems. There’s just a lot of…angst with these two, especially when they are together, and I personally find it off-putting.

Elizabeth is a loaded pistol. She’s fiery, outgoing, and though she is often reckless, she’s resourceful enough to get herself out of whatever corner she backs herself into. Over the course of the films, she’s learned how to handle swords and guns, as well as run a ship. Life was handed to her on a silver platter, but she chose a new life, one of danger and hardship and excitement. She is a compelling character because of her choices, as well as the sheer amount of willpower she uses to see those choices through. I really just feel that Will doesn’t truly bring out the best in her.

Nearly every male character over the course of three movies expresses some level of desire for Elizabeth. She has her pick. And, well, I just can’t help myself. Let me briefly tell you who I think she should have considered more carefully. Please indulge me.

I think her best match is Captain Barbossa. He was the main villain in the first movie, but he becomes a very handy ally at the end of the second one. They aren’t a super popular pairing among fans, but I truly think they work. Hear me out…

Barbossa is what you might call a veteran pirate, and he’s one of the first Elizabeth ever meets. He is an extremely effective captain and one of the nine Pirate Lords, making him one of the most powerful characters in the series. But he tempers that power with a great deal of wisdom. He’s persuasive and crafty, which is probably one of the main reasons he’s done so well for so long, but he can back it all up with use of force when need be.

In the first movie, his interactions with Elizabeth are interesting, but you don’t see their compatibility right away because they are pitted against each other. In the third film, however, they spend much of it working together, and they make an awesome team. They negotiate together, they fight together, and, in my opinion, they balance each other out. Barbossa is almost always entirely calm, trying to reason through things, whereas Elizabeth is such a firecracker, led for the most part by her passion.

On the flip side, James Norrington, for example, is a very obliging man, and I get the feeling that Elizabeth might have ended up walking all over him. And Will takes everything she says and does so seriously. When she gets frustrated and mouths off, or when she doesn’t communicate in order to avoid dealing with things, he really takes it all to heart. He lets it hurt him, and their relationship suffers for it.

Barbossa isn’t like that at all. He’s experienced, witty, and sarcastic. He knows when to take her seriously and when to laugh things off. He looks out for her, but never tries to influence her choices once they’ve been made. From the very beginning, he accepts her absolutely for who she is, and though they are not without conflict, there is a consistent air of respect between them. She doesn’t quite have that with anybody else.

Forgive me for the rant, but there it is. I hold Barbossa in extremely high regard, and I think he has a great dynamic with Elizabeth. Think what you will, but that’s what is in my heart.

Now of course, she does still choose Will in the end. It’s their love story. They reconcile their differences during the climax of the film, and they get married during the final battle. And thank goodness, because he dies shortly afterwards. Not to worry; he does come back as a sort of “undead” guide who ferries souls who die at sea to the other side (it makes sense if you watch the movie). He becomes the new captain of the Flying Dutchman. Their happily ever after is probably the most bittersweet of any Disney romance, however. He can only come ashore one day every ten years.

After the credits, it shows her ten years later, waiting for Will to return to her. She is standing with their son in the above picture as they look out to the horizon. She looks happy. She looks content. And I’m glad, because she got exactly what she so fiercely pursued. Her life has been and will continue to be one of incredible adventure. She’s living out precisely the sort of life she secretly fantasized about as a young girl. And though it was probably a lot more intense than she might have expected, she really took to it.

Elizabeth rocks at being a pirate. Towards the end of the third movie, she even becomes king of the nine Pirate Lords, and she is one of the leaders in the final battle. If I were to try to sum her up, I would say that she stays faithful to what her heart desires, be it a particular man or a particular lifestyle. And although she grows and changes as a person over the course of the movies, her heart does not change.

This particular Disney heroine fights tooth and nail to get exactly what she wants out of life. She’s somewhat of a loose cannon, but that makes her unique and unpredictable. And I respect anyone who is determined and faithful enough to endure such a long separation and still wait for her love.

An interesting mixture of crazy and steadfast, Elizabeth Swann is the perfect example of a woman who controls her own destiny.

In 2002, Disney gave us one of its most unique movies ever, Lilo and Stitch. It’s about a young girl in present-day Hawaii who rediscovers the meaning of family by befriending a small but very powerful alien terrorist…more or less. Yeah, it’s out there. But it’s absolutely one of Disney’s most special and meaningful films.

I could write a whole lot about the main characters–Lilo (the young girl) and Stitch (the alien)–but today my focus is on Nani, Lilo’s older sister and guardian.

We piece together Nani’s backstory as the movie goes along. She is a native Hawaiian, maybe lower middle class, and the only family that her sister has left. Her parents have recently died in a car accident, leaving her to care for her much younger sister on her own. She is nineteen years old at the time of this movie. Almost nothing about her life before the accident is mentioned. In fact, what little I know is actually just speculation based on what I’ve seen in their house.

Above is a picture of Nani’s room. You can see a John Wayne poster, a Mulan poster, and a few medals hanging on the wall. What’s not pictured here is the other corner, where a huge pile of surfing equipment and trophies lay, collecting dust. It’s reasonable to assume from this that Nani was on her way to becoming a professional surfer before she suddenly had to become the head of her household.

As for the Mulan poster, not only is it a nice little easter egg, but I like to think that she thinks of Mulan as a role model. Mulan was incredibly strong; she didn’t let anything beat her down. I bet Nani tries to be like her in that way. There’s a lot in her life trying to beat her down right now.

Nani is grieving her parents, but at the same time, she feels she has to be strong for Lilo. And that would be hard enough to deal with on its own, but now she’s kind of like a big sister and a mom. Lilo is only six (so there’s a thirteen year age difference between them), and therefore she still needs a great deal of parental nurturing and guidance, and Nani now has to play that role, as well as maintain the sisterly bond they’ve always had. Pile on the fact that she now has bills to pay and a house to keep; Nani is handling a lot, and she’s still very young herself.

But the worst of it is that she’s having to deal with the legal issues of her new guardianship. There is this ever-looming threat that the social workers will deem her unfit to raise her sister and put Lilo into foster care, taking away the last family that Nani has.

I feel like I would be an emotionally exhausted wreck if I had to deal with even half of this stuff. All of this grief and responsibility and pressure has been suddenly thrust onto her all at the same time, and she has everything to lose.

And yet, Nani still smiles. She still has fun and acts goofy with her sister. I can’t tell you how much I admire her for that. To have so much fortitude; to wake up every day and feel so much hurt, and yet rise above it… I hope I don’t ever have to be that strong. But if I ever did, I would look to Nani as an example.

While the movie revolves around Lilo bonding with Stitch, Nani is constantly nearby, and for most of the movie, we watch as she tries and tries to find a job (one of the requirements of her being a fit guardian). She starts out having a waitressing job, but loses it because of Stitch.

But she handles it so gracefully. Look at the following conversation between the two sisters:

Lilo: “Did you lose your job because of Stitch and me?”

Nani: “Nah. The manager’s a vampire, and he wanted me to join his legion of the undead.”

Lilo: “…I knew it.”

This little exchange is a good example of how quirky Lilo is. She’s an odd little girl with strange interests, and Nani supports every single one. She never tells her sister that her ideas are weird or wrong. In fact, she encourages them, and tries her best to nurture the unique person that Lilo is growing into.

Nani spends this entire film frantically trying to care for her little sister. And she’s not just trying to give her food and a roof over her head; it’s not simply about meeting Lilo’s physical needs. She also looks out for her emotionally. She gets her involved in things, like a hula dance class. She gets her a dog (that actually turns out to be a highly intelligent monster from outer space, but it’s the thought that counts). She talks to her and holds her and does whatever she can think of to make Lilo smile and laugh. Lilo is her entire world.

But think about what that implies. We almost never see Nani give herself the same sort of care. She’s putting everything she has into being what her sister needs, but she doesn’t really get to be just a nineteen year old girl anymore. She is constantly scrambling to find work and do what she needs to do, so what social life she had has evaporated. She consistently fends off the advances of a very nice (and very adorable) young man named David, for example. She likes him a lot, but she tells him she just doesn’t have the time right now. And she’s being honest. With what she’s currently dealing with, there’s no room for romance. That’s just one of the many sacrifices she’s making. Her selflessness, her maturity, it’s astounding.

The low point is when she finds out that she’s failed. Despite all her efforts, despite giving it everything she had, she is still deemed unfit, and they are going to take Lilo away from her. But even now, she says what she can to make Lilo understand:

“Sometimes you try your hardest, but things…don’t work out the way you want them to. Sometimes things have to change, and maybe sometimes they’re for the better.”

It’s a hard thing to hear, but what she says is very wise, and there’s a lesson in it for all of us.

But of course things aren’t as simple as Lilo being taken away. She actually winds up being kidnapped by aliens who have come to retrieve Stitch, and what follows is a very action-packed climax. Despite its serious undertones, this is a really fun movie, don’t forget. In the picture above, Stitch is explaining to the aliens what he’s found with Lilo on Earth:

“This is my family. I found it…all on my own. It’s little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good.”

The sole focus of this film is to explain what a family is, and it does an incredibly good job.

Now, before I wrap this up, I want to address the mild controversy surrounding Nani (though I’m not sure controversy is the right word). As you can plainly see, Nani is drawn differently than your average Disney woman. She’s thicker, more athletically proportioned. She’s more of what people consider a “normal” body type. Keep in mind that Nani receives nothing but praise for this, but it’s always in comparison to other Disney woman. While Nani is called “realistic,” people shame many of the other heroines in the same breath for being “unrealistic,” usually accused of being unnaturally skinny. And Disney is subsequently shamed, therefore, for being sexist.

In keeping with the spirit of absolute honesty, this really bothers me. Now, I do get the point people are trying to make. Nani is beautiful, though she is a different shape from several other Disney ladies. And there’s the whole issue about self-image. People worry that their little girls will see these very thin princesses and feel pressured to look that way, even if their natural body type is different. I understand that, and it’s a valid issue. But we need to look at this with an open mind. It’s not as black and white as that…

For one thing, and I cannot stress this enough, these women are cartoons. They are representations of people, and they are simply not meant to be proportioned like real individuals.

Look at Pocahontas, for example. She barely has a nose. Truly, through most of the movie, all you can see of a nose are just those two little marks where her nostrils are. There is no question that she does indeed have a nose, but her face was designed artistically, not realistically. In a drawing, a small nose brings an easiness and an element of beauty to the face. On the flip side of that, witches are usually drawn with large, exaggerated noses, which have the opposite effect.

Do you see what I’m getting at?

Next, we need to always bear in mind that most of the Disney princesses live in long-ago time periods. And what was very often a statement of ideal feminine beauty back then?

An unnaturally tiny waist, typically made so by a tightly strung corset. And we can be almost certain that corsets were involved in many, if not all, of the dresses and ballgowns worn by the various Disney girls. So I do think it’s important to be aware of historical context here.

Lastly, and most importantly, all of the heroines, all of them, in every single Disney movie, are healthy. You have never seen one of the princesses starve herself, or otherwise consciously worry about her waistline. And unless Disney makes a movie someday that deals with overcoming anorexia or something like that, you never will. The women in these movies are too busy overcoming impossible odds, finding their inner strength, learning to make their way in whatever crazy world they live in. Negative body image isn’t on the agenda.

Nani is gorgeous. She’s curvy and muscularly toned, and there’s no question as to why. She’s constantly active in the movie. Not only does she surf, she also runs almost everywhere she goes and we see her jump over stuff a lot. She represents one of several entirely healthy body types.

Aurora is a good example of the type that gets more called into question by critics. The probability of a corset aside, Aurora’s thin, willowy body was actually designed after Audrey Hepburn, so the idea to draw her this way didn’t just come out of thin air. And I know real people myself who are built like this. Ladies who are tall and lean, with very thin limbs. It’s just what is natural for them.

What I’m trying to say is that all of the Disney women are beautiful, and here is why I think that:

Yes, they are all beautifully drawn and designed. The artists and animators who work on them are amazing. But each and every one of them is lovely on the inside, and that’s what shines through. That’s what their outer beauty represents on an artistic level. Nani is an excellent example. It is her love and strength of character that we should be admiring.

Disney’s consistent themes of courage and love are meant to teach kids of all ages how to be kind in a world that can sometimes be very cruel. It doesn’t matter whether your hips are narrow or curvy. It doesn’t matter what color you are or what kind of family you have. Inner beauty always shines through.

And, as Lilo and Stitch teaches us:

Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind.

Or forgotten.

Disney gave us a second princess in 2001, and this one is the first to not be animated. Mia (Amelia) Thermopolis is played by the beautiful Anne Hathaway, and I daresay she’s one of the most relatable princesses, as she is a modern-day one.

Background time!

Mia lives in San Francisco with her artist mother, Helen, and her cat, Fat Louie. Just at the cusp of turning sixteen, she is very similar in age to all of the other Disney princesses. The big difference is that the other princesses live in time periods in which a girl of sixteen was considered very much a grown, marriageable woman. Mia lives in the 21st century, and as such, she is like just about any other fifteen year old of this time: rather awkward and simply trying to survive high school.

Mia’s father is not in the movie, as he has passed on, but his influence is still very much with her, and you can tell that he was a loving father by how she remembers him. It is mentioned that he and Helen divorced before his death, but that doesn’t seem to have injured the strong father/daughter relationship. And while that residual bond remains, Mia has an equally strong relationship with her mother, who is her constant support throughout the film.

Life changes drastically when Mia meets her paternal grandmother for the first time. Clarisse Renaldi, played by the glorious Julie Andrews, turns out to be Queen Clarisse Renaldi, ruler of a small country called Genovia. While just the day before, Mia was struggling with normal teenager problems like a fear of public speaking and crushing on a guy who doesn’t know she exists, now she finds out that she’s a princess.

Yes, as it turns out, Mia’s father was the crown prince of Genovia, technically making her the heir to the throne. The only heir, as a matter of fact. So, in the midst of trying to figure herself out as a shy, somewhat dorky girl in high school, suddenly this happens.

I want to say she takes it well, but…

Actually, Mia’s reaction to this news always puzzled me, because her immediate response is to completely reject it. I mean, if somebody told me I was a princess, a real live princess, I feel like I would be pretty excited about it, at least initially. My mind would turn to the beautiful clothes, the lavish lifestyle, and the sheer novelty of it all. But Mia is entirely negative about it, and for a very long time, I just did not understand why.

But here’s what I think now. It’s obvious throughout the movie that Mia is very bright. A little dorky, a little awkward, and more than a little accident-prone, but certainly intelligent. And that really comes through in a strong way here. Her mind blows right past all the fairytale ideas of being a princess and centers immediately on the reality. Being a princess means essentially starting her life from scratch: moving to another country, learning and being subject to different traditions and expectations, and taking on an education that would prepare her for the task of ruling a country.

Ruling a country. Something Mia in no way feels she can handle. The pressure, the responsibility, and the scrutiny that goes along with being a world leader is, after all, a lot to put on a fifteen year old’s shoulders. Quite suddenly, every decision she makes could have huge political consequences, and she realizes that. She has the sense to know that being a princess would more or less turn her life upside down.

Begrudgingly, Mia does agree to “princess lessons,” and Queen Clarisse, slowly but surely, teaches her how to “walk, talk, sit, stand, eat, [and] dress like a princess.” The lessons are definitely my favorite part of the movie, simply because I find them funny. Mia tries, but it takes her awhile, as she is hilariously uncoordinated–certainly not your typical graceful princess–and meanwhile Clarisse is the long-suffering instructor, never failing to remain calm and elegant as she faces this challenge. The dynamic is consistently interesting and amusing. They play off of each other very well.

Mia also receives a makeover during this time. Her voluminous curly hair is tamed, her glasses replaced with contact lenses, and her wardrobe in general becomes more mature.

And she does convince her grandmother to take a day off and enjoy San Francisco with her. They drive around; they go to an arcade; they get pictures taken together in a photo booth. Clarisse even tries a corndog. It sort of reverses their roles for a day, as this time it is the queen who is out of her element. It’s some wonderful bonding between two very different ladies.

But none of this makes high school any easier. In fact, Mia’s social life only becomes more difficult. Friends and foes alike give her a hard time for changing her look, and when it’s leaked that Mia is actually a princess, the downward spiral only continues. The mean girls at school pretend to be her friends in order to humiliate her in front of the press, the boy she had a crush on uses her for his “fifteen minutes of fame,” and her real friends feel neglected because she got so caught up in everything and forgot to fulfill some promises. Essentially, being a princess is just as bad as Mia thought it would be. It’s taken the normal strife of high school and amplified it a lot.

But somewhere along the way, Mia finds her voice. She seeks forgiveness from her friends, and they give it, because the few friends she has are true friends, and they accept her–princess title and all–in turn. And she learns to stand up for not only herself, but for others. Above, you can see her shoving an ice cream cone into the front of the top mean-girl’s cheerleading uniform. She does this because she was putting down another student. And I love the exchange between them afterwards:

“Mia, you’re such a freak!”

“Yeah, I am a freak. But you know what? Someday I just might grow out of that. But you, you will never stop being a jerk.”

Still feeling insecure about ruling a country, however, Mia decides that she is going to run away on the night of the ball, when she is supposed to make her official announcement regarding whether she will accept her title. Her mind is changed at the last minute when she finds a note from her father inside the diary that the queen gave her. One of its more powerful lines is:

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear.”

This is when Mia realizes that she is letting her fears get the better of her. This is when she understands that, yes, she is terrified of being a princess, but being terrified isn’t a good enough reason to run away.

So she goes to the ball (after having car trouble in the rain), appearing before everyone soaking wet and dressed quite inappropriately for a formal event, and she makes a very poignant speech (conquering her fear of public speaking). Here is possibly the most powerful thing she says:

“But then I wondered how I’d feel after I abdicated my role as Princess of Genovia. Would I feel relieved? Would I feel sad? And then I realized how many stupid times a day I use the word I.”

This movie is pretty much a comedy, but it is not short on empowering and inspirational quotes, let me tell you. The ones I’ve mentioned are just the tip of the iceberg.

So Mia accepts that she is a princess, having made up her mind to use her newfound power for good. Then, she gets changed into proper attire and enjoys the dance, even getting a kiss later in the gardens with Michael, the boy who had been her friend throughout all of this. And I love what she says to him in answer to his question, “Why me?”

“Because you saw me when I was invisible.”

There is a sequel, and in it Mia faces an entirely new challenge: defending her right to become queen when another heir comes forward. A lot of the movie has to do with her feelings about an arranged marriage, and whether or not she will ultimately choose duty over love. Again, it’s a lighthearted movie, but she’s put in a position that Disney princesses from other periods often deal with, and it’s interesting to see her present-day take on it all.

With Mia, it all comes down to relatability in my mind. She’s modern. She thinks more in terms we are all familiar with. She’s not the sort of princess we’ve come to expect from Disney, in that she isn’t really graceful in any sense of the word, and that she’s just a mess sometimes. She gets confused about her feelings. She makes reckless decisions. Sometimes, she can’t even seem to stand up without falling over. She’s one disaster after another. And yet, she makes an enormous difference, because she never loses sight of her original goal as a princess:

To give others a voice.

In 2001, Disney released Atlantis: The Lost Empire, giving us another incredible individual to add to this list. Kida (Kidagakash) is the princess of the lost city of Atlantis, and I think one of the most underrated Disney women of all.

Kida is not the main character in this movie. That would be Milo Thatch, a linguist from Washington D.C on an expedition to find the ruins of Atlantis. He just never imagined that it would still be a functioning civilization. I’ll go ahead and say that I completely adore Milo. He’s not your average Disney hero. He’s a nerd. A major nerd, and I love it so much.

We learn a lot about Kida right away when Milo and the others find Atlantis around halfway through the movie. One awesome (and convenient) thing is that she is multilingual, fluent not only in English, but in French and several other languages. From what I gather, this is because her civilization is ancient and is an original source of many modern languages. She takes to Milo right away because he can speak (with some difficulty) her native Atlantian. Another thing that is obvious right away is how physically capable she is, but I will go into that more later on.

Backing up a bit, I want to go into Kida’s background. She explains some of it to Milo, and we also get to see a scene in the beginning of the film. Kida is the only child of the king and queen of Atlantis. Her mother, the queen, was lost when Atlantis faced tragedy and sunk into the sea, which took place several thousand years before Milo. That brings up another important detail: Kida is by far the oldest of the Disney princesses. Her age is estimated to be between 8,500 and 8,800 years, made possible by the city’s power source, the crystal. Everyone wears a piece of this crystal around their necks, and it can heal wounds and slow aging, as well as power objects and provide light.

Getting back to Kida’s backstory, her mother was drawn into the crystal in order to save the city all that time ago. Since then, her father has kept it more or less hidden, and from this stems a disagreement between him and his daughter. He thinks of the crystal and their way of life as being preserved, whereas Kida thinks it is slowly wearing away. I can see both sides of the argument, but I think Kida may be right. Atlantis is very isolated, and no one there can even read Atlantian anymore. Though it could take millennia, their culture would eventually go extinct.

Which is why she finds Milo so intriguing (aside from his being adorable). He’s studied their culture for years, and he actually can read Atlantian. With his insight, a lot could be restored to Atlantis. As its future leader, she recognizes that. Meanwhile, Milo is trying to absorb all he can about everything, especially the crystal. One thing I like about this pair is that they both have strong goals, and they would make a great team just on a professional level. They just also happen to fall for each other, which makes total sense. Milo is sweet and scholarly and cute, and he’s actually very brave when the situation calls for it. And Kida is an absolute powerhouse. She’s curious, quick to learn, confident, and strong in both will and body. And she’s gorgeous. I couldn’t tell you her exact ethnicity, because she’s part of an ancient culture and nothing modern would be quite right, but she’s relatively dark-skinned and has stark white hair.

I actually want to spend some time on Kida’s demeanor, as she is quite distinct from the other princesses. For example, you know how most of the others have little animal friends? Well Kida would eat those things for breakfast. The only time I can remember seeing her interacting with an animal is when she is showing Milo around the city. The fishermen throw him some kind of big lobster-like creature and it writhes and snaps at him. And she just grabs it and bites it, right at the base of the neck, and it goes limp. As a kid, I didn’t realize this, but she totally just killed that thing. Or at the very least paralyzed it. With her teeth.

On that note, Kida has a strong tendency towards violence, and it’s one of my favorite things about her. It’s not necessarily that she has a temper. No, she’s very much in control. But she is not about to take anything off of anybody.

This is Kida punching Mole in the face. They are meeting. He finds out she speaks French. He whispers something (presumably) dirty in her ear. And she immediately punches him right off his feet. I support this wholeheartedly.

And here is a taste of what happens when you actually attack Kida. Do you see this? She’s not just bringing this guy down; she’s about to end him.

Sadly, this guy shoots the knife out of her hand.

This is all happening because the head of the expedition, Commander Rourke (pictured above), is after the crystal for monetary reasons. He turns on Kida and Milo, and essentially waves his gun around until everyone complies. In this scene, Kida and Milo have just been swimming. As soon as they surface, Kida is grabbed by the hair and pulled out. Which she does not condone.

And possibly my favorite moment of all…

Playtime ended about 8,000 years ago, boys.

She’s ferocious. Two grown men are dragging her off of this guy, and still she delivers a savage blow to his groin. This is what I was talking about when I called her physically capable. Kida doesn’t mess around. I can’t tell you how much she truly impresses me. If it were a matter of just fighting hand to hand, Kida would crush this little mutiny in five minutes.

Guns complicate things, however. From this point until they find the crystal, Kida is held hostage. From that point…

To be honest, I find this a little hard to fully explain. Basically, since she is of royal blood, the crystal absorbs her in order to protect itself. This is the same thing that happened to her mother all that time ago, and now it is happening again in response to the current danger. I don’t know what goes on in there while she’s bonded with the crystal, but she does get to see her mother again (somehow).

Milo, being the main character, is the hero in this movie, and so the final battle is his thing. What can I say? It’s all awesome. You should watch or re-watch this film.

Our happy ending comes when the crystal releases Kida. Right into Milo’s arms.

So the remainder of the crew goes home, all of them carrying the secret of Atlantis with them. Milo, however, stays behind with Kida, half-jokingly saying that “they have an opening for an expert in gibberish.”

Kida’s father was killed during the mutiny, and so at the very end of the film, she takes her place as queen, her loving nerd at her side. This is a new beginning, not just for these two people, but for Atlantis as a whole.

Kida has had a lot of time to prepare for this. She is intelligent, fierce, and she has a deep love for not only her people, but what her people represent. She understands that the language, art, and history of Atlantis are like nothing else in the world. They are like living, breathing fossils, and if their culture is not revitalized, it could erode away. As queen, she can take the crystal out of hiding and learn new ways to heal and improve her kingdom. And Milo can teach them all how to read and write Atlantian, as well as give major insight from the outside world.

Together, they are going to bring the Lost Empire into the light again.