Can we just quickly talk about how Quasi is basically a superhero...
He just yanks a fully-grown man (and a hefty-looking one at that) clean off his feet WITH ONE HAND.
What we’re seeing here is essentially the Spiderman of Disney.
And again, he lifts a fully-grown man in a full suit of armour WITH ONE HAND.
Yep, that happened.
He doesn’t break the chains, he breaks the building.
But I love that Quasi’s brute strength absolutely makes sense in this movie- he’s been ringing bells the size of elephants (and probably weight as well) nearly all his life - of course he’s going to be strong.
It’s a great character point too - he doesn’t use his strength to intimidate (not counting the incident when he has that squabble with Phoebus in the Cathedral- he was protecting his new friend). But rather uses it, like any good superhero should, when he absolutely needs to in a pressured situation where he has no other choice.
As the above examples tell us:
He needed his strength in order to defend himself and fight back against a ravenous mob
To get Esmeralda back to safety and then protect her from a supposed threat from a soldier
To aid in the hunt to warn Esmeralda about Frollo
And then finally when saving Esmeralda from the pyre
It’s also worth noting how often Quasi uses his strength specifically to help and/or protect Esmeralda, showing that his loyalty and heart is just as fierce and powerful as his strength.
As ‘Hercules’ taught us, a true hero isn’t measured by the size of his strength, but by the strength of his heart.
(Sorry, I didn’t anticipate how corny this post was going to get)
As a member of the Hunchback fandom for a few years now, I’ve come across many debates about Quasi’s heritage and who his birth parents actually are.
The main question that has been flagged on this topic is about why he has light skin, red hair and blue/green eyes when his parents are dark-skinned Romani.
Some have said Quasi’s light skin is due to the fact that he lives in a bell tower that doesn’t get much sunlight.
Two things to that:
1. Quasi was definitely born with light skin, which we can see briefly in the beginning of the film when he’s a baby.
2. It looks like Quasi gets his fair share of Vitamin D by his frequent ventures to the balconies as well as scaling the rooftops of the Cathedral. If anything, he seems to spend more time outside of the tower than in it.
And a lack of sunlight wouldn’t automatically turn your hair red and eyes blue. Though some could argue that these traits, including his fair skin to a degree, were caused by a recessive gene that either or both of the Romani parents could have been carrying.
But my personal assessment of this debate is that the Romani couple we see in the beginning of the film aren’t his biological parents.
And here are a few reasons why I think this:
Abandoning infants due to physical deformity or other unfavourable conditions was common practice during the time this film takes place, in the late 1400′s. So it’s not far off to reckon this same thing may have happened to baby Quasi. Even more so is the fact that red hair was seen as a sign of the devil in those days so it’s not looking good for him.
One major plot point in the book is that Quasimodo was abandoned on Quasimodo Sunday in Notre Dame and Frollo found him and took him in. With the many references to the book that this film makes, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if this aspect was one of them. It’s also a nice easy way to garner sympathy from the get-go for the character if he has a sad, tragic backstory. This is a classic Disney trope and in the case of Quasi’s backstory, the writers had two options: have him be born to Romani parents who are killed, leaving him an orphan to then be raised by the same tyrannical lunatic who murdered them. Or have him be abandoned by his birth parents, be taken in by a nice Romani woman who took pity on him so all seems fine now, only to have her be murdered, leaving Quasi a double orphan while growing up lonely and abused while dreaming of a better life that he unknowingly nearly had if it wasn’t for said tyrannical lunatic. I would have gone for the second option and I feel this was the more appealing option to the writers who are trying to gather sympathy from any means for a character who is one of the most, if not the most, unconventional characters to feature in a Disney film.
One of the running themes in the film is the persecution of the Romani for nothing other than the superficial, stereotypical judgement of them by the majority of the Paris citizens and, to a much, much greater, more insane extent, Frollo. Perhaps the woman in the beginning discovered the foundling, sympathised with him as a fellow outcast herself and took him in to ensure that he is raised with and by those who understand and can protect him.
A small dialogue point: the woman refers to baby Quasi as “little one” when trying to soothe him. I don’t know how far-fetched this is but I see the term “little one” as something a friend would say in reference to someone else’s baby or young child, not towards your own. A mother would call her own child something more familial; “little one” is a bit more distanced. It could be that the scene taking place was only a short while after finding him and she maybe hadn’t thought of a name for him yet. Plus, if the writers were wanting to drive home that this woman is in fact Quasi’s real mother, they would have the language be more explicit and possessive like “my child,” or “my darling” or “my little one.” Such phrases are used many times with Disney mothers to their children: Zira calls young Kovu “my little one,” Athena (Ariel’s mother) refers to her daughters as “my girls,” Mrs Potts refers to Chip as “my love,” Sina (Moana’s mother) refers to Moana as “my little minnow.”
In a similar way, if we are lead by the writers to think the man next to the woman is Quasi’s father, they wouldn’t have him say “shut it up” in response to the baby’s crying. He is seen with his arm around the woman, both on the boat and when Frollo arrives so he is clearly protective of her. So we could assume he is her husband who maybe begrudgingly accepted the new infant into the family out of his love for his wife but doesn’t feel any close bond to the baby yet. If he were intended to be the baby’s father, we would see him use more gentle language or even try to soothe the baby himself. Quasi is clearly only a nuisance to him and the one thing that is compromising their safety. Though having said that, his protectiveness of her doesn’t necessarily mean he is her husband, perhaps he is just a brother or close friend.
This is something I had recently noticed on a re-watch of the scene where Quasi thinks Esmeralda is dead.
As the possibility that Esmeralda is “dead” starts to sink in, he cradles her seemingly lifeless body as he starts to break down. But before he does, he takes her hand and lifts it in his. And it’s the way he does so that makes this interesting.
We see him clasping Esmeralda’s wrist in such a fashion that really makes it look like he is checking her pulse. And it is only after he holds her wrist for a few seconds that he then allows himself to totally accept the fact of Esmeralda’s supposed fate by completely breaking down one second later. Because, to him, there was no detectable pulse and this was the determining factor for him that made his expression go from unsure to downright dread at the fact (in reality Esmeralda’s pulse would just have been weak to the point of being undetectable from the smoke inhalation).
This may be me just seeing things that aren’t there but I have replayed this scene a few times now with this idea in mind and it gets more cemented for me with each viewing that this is actually Quasi being ahead of his time and smart enough to check for vital signs before assuming Esmeralda is dead like we’ve seen many other Disney characters do in the past.
How he was aware of such things and learned how to check pulses is still a mystery but my theory is that Quasi was a bookworm when not carving and had read his way through the Cathedral’s (however limited) archives where he found a few tomes about the likes of medicine and biology.
Quasi can definitely be considered literate seeing as near the beginning of the film we see him going through the alphabet with Frollo (a bit old for the alphabet but I reckon Quasi had learned it many years ago and it was just an excuse and exercise for Frollo to indoctrinate him with more cruel “teachings”).
Sooo I can’t say how many times I’ve watched Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (it’s a lot) and one thing I’ve always noticed is how jacked Quasimodo’s legs are. Like for real. Beautiful calves.
Observe...
I mean, ShZAAM
I’m sure there are many more examples but this gives you a rough idea of what I’m talking about!
I love how much detail they put into Quasi’s appearance. It allows the audience to draw parallels to what that character is like as a person. their back story, strengths, weaknesses, hobbies, etc.
In the case of Quasi’s damn fine legs, It really adds to his profession as sole bell ringer of a giant cathedral, and his hobby of parkour/acrobatics around the cathedral’s exteriors. It makes sense. If you’re bell ringer/resident acrobat you’re going to have killer jacked legs (and massive ape-like forearms, which I’m sure I’ll get more into in a later obsessive post!). And I just love that they gave him that trait.
It also counteracts his label as ‘deformed,’ ‘disabled,’ ‘cripple,’ ‘incapable,’, etc. It tells the audience that this character is still able to do things, to achieve things, to do his job well despite his deformity. It doesn’t limit him, or, perhaps more accurately, Quasi doesn’t let his deformity limit him, which shows his tenacious character. He is not what he is seen as by the townsfolk and Frollo, just as much as his personality tells the viewer that he is not the monster everyone in the movie thinks he is as well.
So, all in all, I personally really love the idea to give him hella calves, it just gives Quasi more dimension.
Stay tuned for another Hunchback post coming to your tower soon!
I saw the news about the new development at Coronado Springs (and Caribbean Beach) this morning - and felt the accompanying mix of excitement that it'll be something new and dread that they'll mess it up. Coronado is the only Disney Resort I've been to twice; I introduced my parents to it the first time they stayed on property; it sort of feels like my home resort. The heart of the place, in my opinion, is the lakeside bar area, just outside the Pepper Market and the Maya Grill, next to the topiary of the Three Caballeros (the Plantchito as we refer to him). While thinking about the proposed tower might change the ambience of that area, it occured to me that I like it because it is -just Disney enough-. The theming makes it feel like a place beyond Florida, a slightly fictive version of a place that exists in the real world, and Donald, Jose and Panchito are there to remind you that Walt Disney World. But the overall effect is not Disney branding, it's Disney quality. The other WDW resort I've stayed in, Port Orleans Riverside, felt the same, and the Deluxe resorts give that impression when visited too. The lack of that feeling is why I just can't get too excited for the Values, even if Art of Animation is apparently all that. Thinking further, I think this Disney Enough quality is what drives conservative opinions on characters in Epcot and, particularly, World Showcase. Maelstrom was Just Disney Enough, but is Frozen Ever After too Disney?
