#morgan enchanted

[princess-ibri]

Loved Disenchanted so much, but bummed that Morgan and Tyson’s song and dance got cut, they were cute, would have liked to see more of them together

[peantbutter-honeycombs]

Enchanted is my favorite Disney movie. Ever. And I have been waiting for the Disenchanted official announcement since September last year.

The premise sounds great. Giselle upset with how her relationship with Morgan has turned after moving makes a wish for their lives to be a fairy. However she neglects to realize that in fairytale the stepmothers, which she is, are wicked.

I'm concerned about the baby. Now to be fair I don't know if they'll play an important role beyond being the reason the family had to move.

It's just babies due to their lack of most qualities necessary to make a full character, mostly act as objects within a plot, resulting in stories that tend to be incredibly grating and played out.

I don't want to get too deep into it. I just have some concerns. I feel like most of you understand what I'm trying to explain.

[someopinions]

In defense of Enchanted's (2007) Robert.

So, Enchanted is probably one of my favorite Disney movies. I love how it blends classic 2D animation with live action, the great soundtrack, and memorable characters.

And about the characters, I love them. Giselle, Robert, Nancy, and Edward. I especially like Nancy and Edward, and am so glad they returned for the sequel Disenchanted (2022).

I'm glad they had each other in the end. And who would pass up the opportunity to live in a fairytale land, where your biggest problems are the occasional trolls or dragons? And you don't have to worry about student loans or nuclear warfare!

Because I want to see more of Nancy and Edward, I look for fanart and fanfiction of them. This brings me to their pairing tag on Archive of Our Own. There are some great fanfics about them, but while browsing the tag, I came across a fic that I wanted to discuss now.

By all means, there was nothing mechanically wrong with it. Spelling, grammar, etc. And there's some fascinating ideas in there, like the "return" (?) of Queen Narissa in Nancy's dreams to tempt her and persuade her to learn magic. But I take issue with the author's depiction of Robert.

In Enchanted, we never know the ages of the characters, and nothing has been confirmed by the writers/directors/etc.

The fanfic author seems to think that Robert is 40 however, and Giselle is 18. So of course the author has Nancy react with shock (which makes no sense because she has met Giselle and can judge for herself how old she is), and the author basically drags Robert's name through the mud, saying how "he didn't want a woman who could challenge him".

I could just leave this at that, since this is "fan"-fiction after all, and it's not supposed to be entirely accurate. But I was quite surprised to discover that there is a portion of Enchanted's viewers, who have similar opinions on Robert. Even going as far back as 2007-2008.

Therefore, I would like to use this post to refute a couple of the most common claims against Robert's character.

#1. The "age difference"

Like I mentioned before, there is no official confirmation from either the movies, or staff who worked on the movies, on the character's ages (other than Morgan, Robert's six year old daughter).

As such, it is not fair to assume things about the characters, reflecting their actions in respect to those "ages". It is not fair to villainize Robert for being in a relationship with a woman "younger" than him, when we don't even know their actual ages.

I assume the aforementioned fanfic writer thought that Robert was 40 because of the actor, Patrick Dempsey's age. He was 40 years old when Enchanted came out.

If you're using the actor's age to estimate the character's ages, than let's be impartial here, okay? Amy Adams was 33, Idina Menzel was 36, and James Marsden was 34, when Enchanted came out.

On the topic of age differences in relationships however, let's step back from Enchanted for a moment and discuss it.

An age difference is fine. If both parties are consenting adults, then they are allowed to be in a relationship. As an outsider observing that relationship, you may have problems with it because it is not what you personally agree with, but this is not about you. This is their relationship, and thusly, no outside party should interfere with the wishes of two capable and consenting adults.

Therefore, responsibility for the age difference in relationships should fall on the parties involved. Both parties should be prepared for the differences in maturity and life experience compared to their partner.

Back to Enchanted, I believe that the four main characters are similar in age to each other. Giselle and Edward, the reason the audience may be led to think they are younger than they actually are, is because of their animation in Andalasia, and the way they act.

The animation style/art style of the fairytale land of Andalasia is very ambiguous. It is not clear how old Giselle and Edward are from the art style alone. Even Nancy, when marrying Edward at the end of the movie, looks younger than she was when she was in live action.

If you observe Nancy and Edward in Disenchanted, which takes place ten years later, Edward has hardly changed at all in the 2D art style. Nor has Nancy, other than changing her hair with bangs.

Giselle acts immature because she was an orphan woman living by herself in a magical forest. Her only company in the forest is the animals who raised her.

Similarly, Edward only acts "immature" because of the environment he was raised in. Queen Narissa definitely did not educate Edward as a prince, since that would make him more capable of going against her. Edward's father, the King, is not there to raise him either.

Their immaturity comes mainly from their backgrounds, not really because of age differences with their partners.

Plus, as shown in Disenchanted, Giselle and Robert have a baby ten years after Enchanted. Even if Giselle was inexperienced in "sexual relationships", it took them ten years to have a baby. Robert clearly did not rush things with Giselle, on account of her immaturity. Nor did he take advantage of her immaturity.

#2. Robert's interactions with Giselle

When Robert first meets Giselle, she is someone with nowhere to go and who has no idea of the world around them. He is justifiably wary of her, and yet he stills allows her to rest in his home.

He is not heartless, and what he did was incredibly kind compared to what someone else would do in his shoes.

Nor does Robert "put Giselle down" and deliberately make her out to be someone she isn't. His attitude towards her throughout the movie does not stem from maliciousness, but practicality. After all, people in New York do not spontaneously burst into song everyday, or act the way Giselle does.

Robert is concerned for her, which is why he tells her not to sing, or to not believe "Prince Edward" is coming for her. He views her from the lens of someone from Earth, not Andalasia, which is why he didn't believe she was from a fairytale world.

In conclusion, Robert doesn't have to be your favorite character. But please don't accuse him of being a criminal, nor an evil person!

[milfromanroy]

finished disenchanted and um.... that was definitely a movie!!

[sidecharactersdomatter]

Hi! I recently read Disenchanted rewrite and from the snippet I saw, I find it to be better than the movie. I especially love how you gave the two sisters an actual relationship with each other.

Oh my, this is really huge for my rewrite, thank you so much for your simple and really helpful feedback. While we’re at it, how about I break down the first 5 things on my fic to do list to help share why I’m rewriting Disenchanted:

I rewrote Disenchanted because I had to: This is going to be really quick, the reason I’m rewriting this sequel is because I got so pissed off by how out of character Giselle, Robert, and Morgan were depicted in the movie I couldn’t get past the first act satisfied and ended up looking at spoilers on wiki and Moderngurlz’s review. Since Disenchanted got sent to streaming and the sneak peeks ended up killing the hype, this movie never stood a chance with the Rotten Tomatoes critics and the Oscars. Hopefully, once Wish comes out this November it’ll end up avoiding the pitfalls Disenchanted ended up in. Let’s face it, no one on the Disenchanted writing team actually understood the assignment.

2. I rewrote Disenchanted’s prologue because I felt like it: Let’s just say I didn’t like the chipmunks recapping the first movie and speedrunning the whole prologue. That’s why I had Morgan and Sofie recap the first movie to make it more audibly tolerable for the readers.

3. I made Morgan the main protagonist because I felt like it: Let’s be honest, Morgan was done so dirty in the sequel, because the whole movie had Giselle be the main character (*cough* main character syndrome *cough) I really did not like how her portrayal as a stereotypical angsty teenager felt really forced and the excuse got old super fast. It also shows that nobody knew how to write an authentic teenaged character. Mirabel, Camilo, Mei, Miriam, Priya, and Abby worked because they were all given their own unique traits that made them likable to the audience, while Morgan in the first act felt pretty irritating and unoriginal. That’s why I drastically changed her personality in my rewrite.

4. I aged up Morgan’s little sister Sofia to be 6 years old because I felt like it: One of the issues of Disenchanted that ended up being executed poorly, was Giselle having a new kid, Sofia. The downside why it didn’t work out was that in the film Sofia doesn’t really impact the story since she’s just a freaking infant that doesn’t do much. The problem with writing infant characters especially under one is that they don’t really have much agency in the story and end up becoming living props.  Heck, Mayday Parker from Across the Spiderverse was a more compelling character cause she was animated really well in her own movie. Oh yeah, Across the Spiderverse works so well as a sequel because it respects its characters. More infant characters that actually work in a story are Jack Jack (Incredibles), Sunny Baudelaire (A series of unfortunate events) and Grogu (The Mandalorian) In Disenchanted, Infant!Sofie existed as a plot device just to show how tough city life(well not really to me) got for the Philips and why Giselle decided to move her family to Monroeville.  She existed as a plot device just so knockoff Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather could find someone to babysit.  She existed as a plot device just so Edward and Nancy could give her a wand.  She exists as a plot device as a true Andalasian(oh yeah spoilers that doesn’t really touched upon in the movie) to make Morgan feel inferior in her own family. Maybe they should’ve had her be played by a child actor instead of twin infants. Not only would that have given us an interesting dynamic with her older sister Morgan, but it also could have subverted the mean step sister trope, (that whole trope subversion gimmick never happens in the sequel, that’s when you know this was gonna be disappointing.). Or if they wanted the evil stepmother personality shifts to make more sense, they could’ve just had Giselle be pregnant until the end of the movie (no wait, that topic would be too sensitive for Disney to show). Or just not have a new child to keep the focus the conflict between Morgan and Giselle, not much would change. That’s why Sofie is 6 in The Fairytale of my life, and I’m going to show her dynamics with her 3 family members.

5. I gave Morgan and Sofie a really good sibling dynamic because I had to: This answers the topic above. Disenchanted is one of the prime examples that shows why a sibling age gap between a teenager and an infant does not work. One of the positive traits I wanted to give Morgan was being a good role model for her new sister and it’s going to be shown throughout my fic.

Well, I hope this satisfies your ask. I’m going to be very busy finishing Ch 2 and writing the rest of my rewrite

[violetrose-art]

This is how I imagined Morgan, Robert's daughter from Enchanted, when she's older

[sidecharactersdomatter]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Well, well well~ Wouldja look at that? I started my rewrite of Disenchanted! Woo!

[laylamva]

An Eryn Cerise line came to me.