had a realization while rewatching descendants one
as y'all know, i'm maybe a little bit too picky about which depictions of aurora i like (it's out of love, i promise!) especially when it's modern aurora. and seeing audrey, i was going through my thought process of her in relation to aurora. and my first thoughts were, "yeah, i can imagine aurora getting stuck in a permissive parenting style to overcompensate for her own childhood. this is believable but i do wish audrey had more blue."
and this is something that happens to me a lot. like, where is the love for aurora's blue dress? it's the dress she wears when she has her most important moments in the movie. not just the kiss or the pricking of her finger, but the buildup of it. the sadness, the desperation, the disappointment!
it happens with the other auradon kids too! chad wears a lot of blue, alluding to a blue cinderella dress that only exists in marketing. lonnie wears a lot of pink and florals, going for her mom's matchmaker dress instead of something that actually represents her mom, like green or blue. why were they only representing their princesses as they were most marketable?
that's when the realization came.
they're representing the princesses as they show themselves to be.
the auradon kids are spoiled because they reap the benefits of their parents' legacy. they don't learn the lessons of what their parents have been through, and they don't acknowledge it unless it benefits them. chad never says a word about cinderella having to be a servant for her stepfamily unless thrown around as a joke. audrey never brings up her mother except as Sleeping Beauty and not as Aurora.
it's why you see ben so consistently in blue with yellow as an accent color. he's more in touch with his parents as people and he's learned from them. and it's also why you see lonnie in significantly less pink moving forward, because that's when they start utilizing mulan a bit more. they're actually appreciative.
and lonnie is really interesting to me because she's in so much pink in the first movie (mulan's marketable color) and the only thing she has to say about mulan is "she makes good cookies and she's such a good mom!" which is valid, but moving forward, she starts talking about how her mom inspires her to be better. "if my mother thought that way, she would've lost the war". she's growing past seeing her mom as just her mom and instead seeing her mom as a person.
that's why they use the more marketable colors for each Auradon kid. they haven't grown to that point. they just reap the benefits of their parents without really appreciating the sacrifices their parents took to get there
and it's so neat in comparison to the VKs, who only have one color scheme per villain. villains are simple, they are who you see on the packaging. what you see is what you get. but the VKs are painfully aware of their parents' struggles because their parents are constantly making them aware of it. they constantly air their grievances out
so is it better to have spoiled kids with parents that care about their kids' wellbeing or is it better to have aware kids whose parents prioritized their own grievances over them?
(or y'know maybe they just used the common colors associated with each princess for marketability and i'm thinking too far into it, but i think this is more fun!)
Ok so I'm definitely over analyzing this but it's fun so
To add to that, Audrey having those god awful pink and blue streaks in three is performative - she's trying to be her mother for her grandmother (who imho has taken over parenting Audrey to compensate for not getting to parent Aurora) and she gains some purpley colouring as a villain - to reflect maleficent? To reflect her trying to be her own person? And the addition of black and dirt as something tainted due to the influence of the staff makes sense. But after she goes right back to the start and it pisses me off.
I would have loved if they made her pastel purple at the end - both pink and blue, a reflection of her character having gone through a massive change, a development in her understanding of not only herself, but Mal, the VKs, and the villains, a reflection on the fact that she is only alive because of Hades, an acknowledgement of her villain side- but still pale because she is at heart and Auradon girl who was under too much pressure, and made bad choices. I like that at the end there are fewer of those awful streaks than at the start but I really wanted a bigger change.
oh my god YES. the performative pink and blue. like "i'm special too rigjt?? im special like my mom right?? i have dyed hair too! like mal! im special! look im blonde like my mom too!" ngl i thought it looked bad but i can appreciate a bad look if it serves the story
but you're so right. that purple would be much more even, and being that purple is a "villainous" color, it would be her coming to terms with her flaws and coming to terms with the VKs. ur so right. this is amazing thank u for bringing this up
Was showing this to my partner and he brought up that Mal's thing is purple, which reminded me that Mal's whole colour scheme changes because she connects to Hades' ember, to a more blue purple than before, so there's even a premise in that exact film for the change so now I'm more annoyed and gonna go watch them... Again
Ok so this would not leave me alone until I got it out of my head so here's my idea of what post Queen of mean Audrey might look like, with my limited artistic skills.
Her pose is somewhat confident, one hand on her hip, but the other hand is down and playing with her skirt to show some nerves.
I wanted her hair to be curly, imperfect and brown. Healthy and recovered from the insane over bleached look.
I gave her a silver phoenix necklace, silver as it looks closer to stone and it acknowledges her cold hearted actions, and a phoenix because it's a Greek symbol of renewal and she's remade herself. The thorns are to acknowledge how much she's been hurt and the hurt she's caused.
The outfit style is based on Aurora as Briar rose - not Aurora the princess - because I definitely think Audrey is her grandmother's replacement child and she doesn't get a chance to be her mum's child or just herself. This is also an acknowledgement she's just like everyone else, she's closer to common folks and villains than she would ever have admitted as of descendants 1.
She has gloves as it's a bit more isle/villain, and chipped nails because she's letting herself be imperfect.
The stone walls on her skirt for when she turned people to stone. Flames on her leggings as acknowledgement of Hades, who saved her life.
Her boots are based on Phillip's, cause she's her dad's daughter too damnit. Also her dad was the one who was willing to give up his throne for a peasant girl - the opposite of her grandmother's attitude.
The boots have purple poppies on, as a symbol of hypnos (she put a sleeping spell on everyone, saved by a Greek god), but also as their flower language meaning - introspection, spiritual awakening, and transformation.
