Brave Movie Symbolism

Brave came out in 2012, however, it is the first movie in the list. The setting is during mythical medieval Scotland, where Merida, a young girl, has to become a princess. She wishes to continue her own path and make a destiny of her own. Her mother, Queen Elinor, wants her to behave more like royalty, and teaches her tedious royal obligations. Merida rebels, and runs away to the wilderness where she first encounters the “wisps.” ***EBSCO – EXPLAIN WHAT THE WISPS ARE!!!***
The wisps play a big role in Brave, as they are the ones that lead her deep into the woods where her encounter with the witch occurs. Merida makes a deal with the witch, who casts a spell on her mother in order to change her fate; Merida’s mother turns into a bear. The

most important factor in this movie is magic, the witch and the spells and things she can do.

Magic in general is a common theme in all Pixar movies. In Brave, magic is the main factor. Even though everything else in the movie sticks to reality, everything related to the witch is fantasy. The witch remains unnamed throughout the movie, which is the first piece of evidence to connect this theory.
The unnamed witch has a workshop where she carves different wooden things, as well as keeps her knives and brooms which are magical.

She mentions, “Wood cannot be imbued with magical properties. I should know. I’m a wi-wittler…of wood,” (Brave, 2012) which is another really important factor throughout this theory. Throughout Brave the movie, animals can’t speak with all humans, only with the witch. Something very relevant with Pixar films is how animals can’t fully communicate with humans (only in specific cases) but they can understand and relate to them. However, in Brave there is a crow in the witch’s workshop that can communicate with her, once again only in the presence of

magic.
The next and probably most important factor in the movie, is the witch’s ability to manipulate doors. During the scene where Merida and the witch come to an agreement, they go outside. As they make their way back in through the same door, it leads them to a new entirely different place. That is just one of many other scenes where the witch uses doors to transport to new places.
Their goal is to make a potion that will return Merida’s mother back to normal; One of the ingredients needed is a piece of Merida’s hair. This is the first sign that in this alternate universe, “humans are batteries.” “Humans seem to be catalysts for intelligence, or even products of Pixar’s own version of biological evolution.” (Pg. 165, Negroni) For this specific situation, it is Merida’s hair where the magic will be found, the source of it. There is evidence that might point towards the fact that it is her red hair what makes it special. In the upcoming movies, red hair seems to be a characteristic for the people that are special: Linguini, Syndrome, Carl and even Lightning McQueen.

**Pictures/Evidence**

The Incredibles:

The film seems to be set during the imaginary 1950s and 1960s. Imaginary, since everything in the setting seems to be exactly like our world, however, superhero’s blend in society. The cars, buildings, even fashion point out to be set during that era, but there is one exception that proves it is in an alternate universe –technology. It is also proven when Bob meets Edna for a new costume; Edna argues how capes are dangerous since they have lead to various superheroes’ deaths. As she states the years of their deaths she says, “Stratogale and Thunderhead in ’57 and ’58, respectively.” (Incredibles, 2004) All these supers attended Bob’s wedding at the start of the movie, which proves they are all his friends. Third piece of evidence is while Bob is having supper with the family, he reads a newspaper with the date 1968.
At the start of the film, it is explained how supers live in harmony with the rest of society. The government is fully aware of their existence as they financed much of their acts and allowed them to live peacefully. Supers benefited the government as well, bringing security and justice to their cities. Said that, there is a chance the government where the ones responsible for the creation of supers, as this era is known for a lot of new discoveries and improvement, supers in this universe could be a creation of the government. Evidence on that is when Elastigirl is flying the air plane, she uses accurate military lingo. All of Bob and Elastigirl’s techniques on fighting and ways they handle missions point out to have been trained by the government. The government supports them so much because in reality more than supers they are secret agents, they have been trained by the government to protect their people and handle difficult situations.
An incredible human is evidence of human evolution, as seen with Bob and his family, the powers are hereditary, creating more and more generations of evolved humans. However, after many lawsuits the government faced by people they are forced to shut down the supers and make them find secret identities.
Most importantly, that they were created to protect the citizens from combat robots like Omnidroid. Even Bob guesses himself that the machine became too intelligent that it rebelled against its creators, so now the supers are the ones in charge of fixing their mess. The machines showed throughout The Incredibles have amazing artificial intelligence, which society seems to fear.

Artificial intelligence is the biggest factor throughout this movie, as it is what will later control the world in this alternate universe.

Many different machines with A.I. are shown in the movie, they seem to be controlling lots of events happening. However, supers are able to stop them from trying to control the world during the film, which might point out that they learn their lesson on not trying to be weapons. Instead, they take a different path –consumerism. Consumerism will be their way of taking over the planet, gaining power and staying there forever. Machines themselves start a new corporation called Buy n Large; This corporation is seen through almost all our Pixar

movies.
The scanner Syndrome deploys when Bob falls down the waterfall scans for him as he looks for him in the cave. It mistakenly confuses another death body for him and leaves. That scanner is the same machine that appears way later in Wall-E. “Eve uses it to find life forms on the barren Earth.” (Pg. 345, Negroni) Those same scanners are shown in a different version, yet same purpose, during Finding Nemo. The Aquascum is the scanner the dentist uses to clean the fish tank and also identifies if there is still life in there.
The machines also use Syndrome’s inventions to harness zero-point energy, “which is the infinite potential energy that exists around us, to insert artificial intelligence into almost everything.” (Pg. 356, Negroni) Once again, humans are batteries. Machines give humans objects that will provide them happiness and love, objects that can become self-aware and bring humans joy.

Toy Story:

Toy story is the movie that starts it all. Toy story proves that the rise of the machines occurred in The Incredibles, as it is the continuation a few decades after.