#ella enchanted

[rocktheholygrail]

Ella Enchanted (2004) Hannibal (2013-2015)

[nsevens]

ELLA ENCHANTED (2004) — dir. Tommy O'Haver

[iheartblondetwinks]

[marzipanandminutiae]

Ella Enchanted is. SUCH a good book.

like guys I'm serious. it's an amazing book. formative, changed-my-childhood-brain book. it doesn't talk down to its child audience. it has lush descriptions and imagery. the characters are complex and layered. I wanted to find those candle trees (espaliered pear trees as described by a 14-year-old in an alternate universe) so badly, as an adult, and when I saw them at the Cloisters for the first time, I cried

so. good.

and the movie adaptation is, by comparison, an example of early 2000s anti-intellectualism. in this essay I will

[jamiextartt]

FILMS WATCHED IN 2025: 13. Ella Enchanted (2004)

[lands-of-fantasy]

Cinderella on Film and TV

Ilene Woods voiced the character in Disney's Cinderella (1950). Jennifer Hale was cast in the role for the 2002 and 2007 sequels. Tami Tappan was the singing voice in movie 3.

Ella Enchanted book has more references to Cinderella's tale than its movie counterpart

Jessy Schram was a guest star in Once Upon a Time, appearing as Cinderella/Ashley in episodes 1x04, 1x12, 4x07 and 6x03. Dania Ramirez's Cinderella/Jacinda was a main character in Season 7.

My Happy Marriage animation has a few more references to Cinderella's tale than the live-action movie

Brandy Norwood played two iterations of the character: one in the 1997 version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, and later in a small role in 2024 film Descendants: The Rise of Red. Paolo Montalban played her prince in both films!

[bobellafofella]

who else up drawing ella enchanted fanart in 2025? i reread it every year or so and always walk away thinking that it's one of the best fantasy books ever written. shout out to my girl gale carson levine. the only one to ever do it.

[fictionadventurer]

Part of the reason that the ending of Ella Enchanted works so well is that the final command she resists is the voice of temptation. A voice tells her to do something she wants to do more than anything in the world, but that she knows the long run would cause immense harm. Her fight against this is difficult and heroic because she has to fight her own inclinations.

Ella's endured a million commands that force her to do something she doesn't want to do. We see the injustice in that. We don't want her to have to blindly obey. But if the curse was broken by resisting one of those commands, it wouldn't feel nearly as powerful. It would merely be an escalation of what she's already done. She would rebel against authority and do what she wanted to do, which could be good or bad depending on what it is she wants, but it is ultimately self-serving.

Ella's resisting a command that offers her the greatest desire of her heart is heroic because it is self-sacrificial. She is called to obey a voice that is greater than her own desires. This resolution rings so true because it points to ultimate truth. The curse of obedience is broken when she obeys--not the voice of authority, or the voice of temptation, or the voice of her own desires, but the voice of virtue. She breaks the bonds of obedience by choosing to take on the bonds of love.