I love Encanto but I think we all agree that it's got many flaws in terms of execution of ideas. Let's see. To name the basic ones, Bruno's visions are simplistic, harmless. Come on, rain? Gut? Dead goldfish? Is that all an adult fears? Plus, how can they act as if nothing happened when Bruno left his hidden room for 10 years? Children's movies have never been so stupid, so that is no excuse. But there is a more subtle, sociological problem when it comes to the attitude of the family, especially Abuela Alma. I understand the justification for the narrative tension, the fact that Abuela gets obsessed with the Encanto and the survival of the candle. But worst than that, she didn't mourn Bruno's departure but thought the worst of him. A Hispanic person never thinks that way! Catholic hispanismo is NOT utilitarian, that's the Anglo-germanic mentality: I need things to survive, better if they are useful to me. Hispanic people's values are on society's events. Abuela should have been showed not so happy about her SON too, not just and only the candle! The pain in her should have been BOTH her son and the unity through the magic, not just "magic before family" but "magic is family and I cannot risk another loss so please Mirabel don't talk about the magic!". I am extremely tired of consuming films, books and videogames about other cultures made by the Anglosaxons. Why cannot we make OUR own movies about us? Why does the English world always feel they have to be in every part of the world? Or at least ask, do research etc. When I read about ancient Greeks, it's the same flaw in their socialisation and linguistic expressions and values (yes, Madeline Miller, I'm also talking about you). I just hope one day the world would be a better place to think and do. A real Encanto.
Do anglos dare to equal their imperial, protestant actions on their colonies which were treated as subordinates to the English economy and made laws to segregate the English people superiority to the natives (see India and South Africa, not to say north America and Australia where they exterminated them), against the Spanish Empire where its "colonies" were actually as provinces as any other and had universities and hospitals and roads for all and the same rights and married mixed and preserved their languages and traditions and "race"? So tiring.
Tab Murphy (screenwriter for Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame) posted on FB the “first treatment” that he had written of the movie. There are thirteen pages in all, but already the first three are a riot. I just highlighted parts that made me roll:
Look at it you all, Murphy was already writing the villain’s origin story before Diz Inc. got in the act and did it for other villains.
18th century?!??
BORIS AND BELA.
BONAPARTE.
THEY REALLY WERE SHAPING PHOEBUS AFTER GRINGOIRE.
HIS POEMS ARE SO BAD THAT EVEN HIS HORSE CRINGES.
*warning: g-slur
Edit: Putting the rest of the pages behind “read more”, since people asked about them!
Could you do a prompt with student Merlin and any founder?
I'd forgotten how much I love them. Hope you like it!
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Salazar walked into their little antechamber, took one look at Rowena’s very large glass of wine, and sighed.
“What did he do this time?”
Rowena blinked up at him. “Salazar,” she said. “How much time and effort did you put into making sure that no-one else could Apparate within Hogwarts?”
Salazar stared at her, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “I haven’t even taught him how to Apparate yet.”
“Well, the good news is that you won’t need to,” Rowena bit out. “You can spend the extra time working out how he did that!”
Salazar smothered a smile with a cough. “I will speak to him.”
“Thank you,” said Rowena with a sigh. She took a sip of wine and rested her head back against the chair. “I surrender. I am very glad he ended up in your house.”
“Thank you,” said Salazar dryly. He paused, then took a vial from his pocket. “Take this before you sleep.”
Rowena blinked, then took it with a smile. “Thank you.”
Salazar squeezed her shoulder, took a moment to locate his target, and vanished with a rush of magic.
Myrddin didn’t even look up from his book.
“Did I upset Professor Ravenclaw?”
He shuffled along the bench as he spoke, and Salazar eased himself down with a faint sigh. He took a moment to massage his aching leg before speaking, “Perhaps a little.”
Myrddin blinked up at him. “Oh. I didn’t mean to.”
“I know,” said Salazar. He gave the boy a long look. “Do you know how you managed to Apparate within Hogwarts?”
Myrddin shrugged. “I’ve seen you do it before. I just did the same thing.”
Salazar suppressed a sigh with an effort. That was the last thing Myrddin needed. “Did you feel how I did it?”
Myrddin cocked his head to one side. “That’s closer,” he agreed. “I just did what felt right.” He paused, and for the first time since Salazar had known him his unnerving confidence faltered. “No-one else can do that, can they?”
“No,” said Salazar. Myrddin flinched, and Salazar rested a hand on his shoulder. “But I can do things that Godric can’t. We all have our talents.” He gave a slight smile. “Yours are new to us, but no less valuable.”
Myrddin continued to eye him. “Does Professor Ravenclaw think that?”
“Rowena doesn’t like not understanding things,” said Salazar after a moment. “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t like you.”
Myrddin thought about that for a moment, then hummed. “I suppose that makes sense.” He looked down at his shoes. “I don’t think I can stop doing it.”
“Good,” said Salazar. “Because I don’t want you to.” Startled hazel eyes blinked up at him, and Salazar gave in to the urge to ruffle his hair. “You are intelligent and talented, and have more potential than I ever imagined.”
Myrddin started to open his mouth, but Salazar didn’t give him a chance to interrupt, “We created Hogwarts so that children like you could learn to explore their magic in safety. Hogwarts is for you, Myrddin. You don’t have to hide anything here.”
Myrddn stared at him for a moment longer, then made a strangled noise and flung his arms around Salazar’s chest. Salazar froze, but forced the tension from his body and patted Myrddin on the back.
“It’s all right,” he said softly. “Everything will be all right.”
Martin Luther (German) said "non placet Hispania" (I don't like Spain) when he refused an invitation to come to Spain because he explicitly said: "Spain is a land full of jews and moors (Muslims)". Now the Power in the Western World (North Europe and North America) complain, proclaim and show Spain as a "dangerous country in History" because he "ALONE" was "against jews, moors and native Americans" (guess where the natives are nowadays). There could be no greater hypocrisy and cynicism.
I'll be waiting forever for an Assassin's Creed game set in the Spanish Empire or Spanish Middle Ages with the Umayyad Caliphate, the mixing of Christian and Muslim cultures, the rise of mathematics, hygiene, astronomy, philosophy, architecture, the Silk Road, because apparently fantasized vikings (look for real clothing) in England (where else) are a Very Crucial Moment in the History of Humanity and Spain is bad because Columbus.
Good Omens is just another example of British Empire propaganda when the authors decide to mention Spain as the witch hunter inquisition. The least of all of Europe in witch hunt were Spain,
Portugal and Italy with minimum data (and only accused, not fan of executions). Meanwhile, Scotland, England, Switzerland and Germany, thousands of women accused of witchcraft. Think also of each country's population to notice if the percentage is unnoticeable or a big elimination of women.
But you won't see it on any media product made by the Commonwealth countries. 🤷🏼
Bonus: Belgium used to cut the hands of its Congolese slaves when they did not meet the rubber or ivory quota. and this picture is from 1960.
APH Hetalia fandom is funny. They show you Spain as a blood/gold-thirsty conquistador and genocide. Then, you've got America being white as if nothing happened. As if USA is just like that. What genocide there? What still-present-day difference between South America (still mostly native with their languages and traditions) and North America (all white and English tradition)? Obviously it's Spain the worst.
Thinking about Tolkien, and how he was an orphan, and came of age just in time to be traumatized for life by the unprecedented horrors of WWI, where he watched most of his friends die, and then returned to a home indelibly changed, and lived to watch it all happen again to his children.
And still he believed in (and taught, and vehemently argued for) eucatastrophe: a sudden and favorable resolution of events in a story; a happy ending.
His stories are full of darkness and danger, fear and sorrow sharp as swords, sacrifice, desperate heroism, loss, hurt.
Theses things are real. He felt them. We all feel them.
But you know what follows those things? Healing, hope, and the sweet dawn that follows the darkest hour. Bonds forged in fire. Fellowship. Learning. Wisdom to overcome. Love that outlasts death and destruction.
This wasn’t wishful thinking or mere escapism. He lived it. He fought for it. He kept on writing for the sake of his friends who didn’t live long enough to write their own stories. He knew death wasn’t the end.
He considered it a sacred duty to tell others. (Do you like C. S. Lewis? Yeah, thank Tolkien.)
And here his stories stand today, waving their banners, rallying the troops, more popular and beloved than ever. Tolkien belonged to what we call the lost generation. Do you realize how many writers WWI produced? Do you realize how countercultural Tolkien was, creating legends of light in the darkness of the trenches, penning the words not all those who wander are lost that we now slap on bumper stickers and emboss on journals and stitch on hoodies and tattoo on our bodies? (Even Lewis was still writing sad, bad poetry at this point.)
This is the power of faith. And Tolkien had it.
So, in summary, I guess… To all the modern nihilist storytellers who’ve never missed a meal and are getting filthy rich by selling their sad and unsatisfying “endings” as somehow truer and braver and more enlightened: You are cowards, everyone can see and sense it, and I sincerely hope you don’t take a single soul with you into that abyss. I pray you take the hand that’s offered you if and when you decide to climb out of the hole you’ve created with your muddled and meaningless worldview. There is warmth and hope and even laughter waiting for you in the light.
And to anyone struggling to keep up the fight today, remember Tolkien.
“There is a place called ‘heaven’ where the good here unfinished is completed; and where the stories unwritten, and the hopes unfulfilled, are continued. We may laugh together yet.”
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