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Hey brother.
Guys, what if Mirabel did not fulfill the prophecy
and never hugged Isabela?
As ever, when it comes to prophecies,
the future is never as crystal clear
as the concept might suggest.
Like that is supposed to be the whole point
of a prophecy in the first place, right?
Like it tells you the future?
But instead they're always cryptic,
confusing, and completely open to interpretation
and never is this more true than Encanto.
If you will recall, Mirabel's door ceremony goes wrong
and after which Bruno has a vision that says
that something to do with Mirabel will lead
to the ultimate destruction of the miracle itself.
This kind of becomes the last straw
in Bruno's mind who has been constantly blamed
for all of his previous prophecies,
no matter how goldfish related they happen to be.
Naturally, then Bruno doesn't actually decide to physically
leave the family, but instead live inside
of the walls of Casita for the next 10 years
in what I can only describe
as what must be the harshest form
of loneliness I've ever seen.
Either way, we end up learning quite a bit
about this particular prophecy.
Mirabel discovers that this is ultimately
the reason why Bruno left the house,
and it had something to do with her.
Mirabel does convince Bruno to reenter
this particular vision where we then discover
that there are actually two different outcomes.
In one of these outcomes,
the house crumbles and in the other,
the house remains standing.
And it all comes down to this one
very particular moment where Mirabel hugs Isabela.
And I just gotta say, Disney is really harping hard
on this notion of like true love's hug.
Like anybody else remember in Frozen
when it's like literally the thing that saves Anna's life?
don't forget to tell your friends you hug them.
You don't need to actually do it.
Just tell them that you do.
That you would.
Right? Yeah.
Anyway, the point is, once this prophecy
is fully fleshed out, it feels like
the most obvious interpretation
of the information is, "Mirabel, go and make good
with your oldest sister and all will be well."
But we also know that Mirabel does go and make up
with her sister, and this exact moment does in fact happen
and the house crumbles anyway.
So the interesting question here is if Mirabel never went
and made up with Isabela, then would that mean the house
would remain standing in the first place?
Would that have actually been the better outcome?
Today we discuss.
(suspenseful jazzy music)
- [Mirabel] Isabela.
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Okay, Isabela's hug or lack thereof.
This is a very critical piece
of the story because what it represents
within the Madrigal family is the biggest bridge being built
between Mirabel and any other member of the family.
We know, of course, that Mirabel, as a little girl,
like every other member of the family before her,
had a door ceremony.
Although when hers came about, something strange happened.
The door did not yield a power, and Mirabel became the first
of her family to not receive a gift.
This is sheer speculation, but I have always
assumed what her power would have been
had she been granted one is super intelligence.
It seems like her two sisters already have the beauty
and the brawn and brains feels like the obvious
like conclusion to that golden trio, but I digress.
The full extent of Mirabel failing to get a power
can't be fully understood for another 10 years
until Mirabel's youngest cousin Antonio
has a door ceremony of his own.
As we all know, this ceremony does go according to plan.
Antonio is given an absolutely breathtaking room slash
jungle that has to be said is a nightmare to vacuum.
And yes, the kids are responsible
for cleaning their own rooms.
- [Abuela] Clean your rooms.
I don't care how big they are.
- I recap these bits because I hate vacuuming
and because they have a lot to do
with how the story progresses as is.
Maribel on the whole absolutely loves her family
and I think that she is immensely proud
of them and she does her absolute best to contribute
however she knows how without holding too much resentment
for not having a power of her own.
And this is true for everyone in the home
and the family with one possible exception, her golden child
of an oldest sister Isabela, who she always
seems to have a slightly more sour relationship with.
This is obviously a potentially big problem when it comes
to the prophecy itself because the very thing
that is necessary to prevent the house
from crumbling is for those two to make up and hug.
Or is it?
Is that the correct interpretation of the prophecy?
Let's review, because the original prophecy
that caused Bruno to leave in the first place
was actually fairly unique to even Bruno himself,
first because it was actually unresolved,
and also because it had two possible outcomes
instead of just the single one.
And because he abandoned it prematurely,
he also doesn't know that the variable that will
determine this potential outcome is this specific embrace
between these two sisters.
Whether or not this happens
determines the two possible outcomes.
Either the house crumbles or it doesn't.
And it goes without saying,
though the obvious interpretation is
if they embrace, the house will not crumble.
However, we ultimately know this to not be the case
because they do ultimately have this very hug
and the house still crumbles,
which interestingly means that we must assume
that the alternate scenario available to us here
is that if they don't hug,
the house actually remains intact.
It sounds wrong, right?
Like no hug, house survives.
But that is correct.
However, it is worth noting here
that this doesn't mean that the future is indefinite
and that the magic will persist forever if they don't hug.
Just in the same way that the fact
that the house does collapse doesn't mean
that the magic is gone forever either.
You see what I mean?
When the story plays out as we know it,
it almost takes the house collapsing
for the magic to persist.
This is what makes this question so interesting to us.
If the house remains intact,
what does that mean for everything else?
Let's try and figure it out.
Mirabel and Isabela's reconciliation usually leaves
to Isabela living more in the moment in discovering
that she can grow a lot more than just pretty flowers.
Or as far as Abuela is concerned,
imperfect creations that threaten the very magic
that holds the house together.
Isabela's huge step in self discovery as far
as Abuela is concerned, is the last straw.
- You have to stop, Mirabel.
- [Ben] It's what finally leads her to accost Mirabel,
blame her for everything and really lose sight
of what the meaning of the miracle actually is,
the family itself.
As a result, the magic breaks, the house crumbles,
and everybody loses their powers.
The worst has happened for a short time, anyway.
As soon after, Abuela then reconciles with Mirabel,
they rebuild the house and everybody is happier
and healthier than before.
But so again, what happens if they don't embrace?
Well, we pretty much get the answer as Mirabel
is being dragged out of Isabella's room and says.
- You could still marry that big dumb hunk.
- And I actually think that's exactly
what would've happened.
Mirabel is right here because despite the events
from the night before,
Mariano still wants to marry Isabela.
And again, if not for Mirabel's intervention here
Isabela probably would've just continued forth
with the engagement.
This is maybe short term good news
if you're Mariano because he gets to marry
the person he thinks he wants to marry.
But in the long term, this is bad news because we also know
that Isabela doesn't want to marry him in the first place.
But without this final straw being broken,
it means the magic probably would continue to remain,
and Isabela and Mariano's children would probably
continue to receive powers just like
all the kids before them.
But it also means that Isabela never really learns
to live inside of the moment
and grow anything other than flowers,
and that her and Mirabel's relationship
would probably continue to get rockier and rockier
as time went on.
Isabela marrying Mariano also means misfortune
for another member of the family, Dolores.
We of course know that Dolores has been harboring
a crush on Mariano for a long time
and is very romantically interested in him.
And when the hug is in play,
they do ultimately end up together.
- Let's get married. - Slow down.
- Assuming Mariano is capable of pumping the brakes
a little bit here, I'm assuming
that they ultimately would or do.
But no hug means no Doloriano.
That's their new couple name that I just coined just now.
You can use it whenever you want.
Instead, it means that Dolores must live out the rest
of her life listening to her cousin be married
to the man of her dreams when that cousin doesn't even
like him in the first place.
But hey, on the bright side, the house never crumbled.
There's that.
I suppose that's also good news
for Bruno who's been living inside
of the walls of that house for quite some time, right?
Yes, but again, for a very short term.
With the hug in play, the house collapses
and Bruno makes a very narrow escape
and essentially becomes homeless.
But he also ends up reunited
with his family and is no longer family-less.
That's a word, right?
If there is no hug, then it is assumed
that Bruno would just never leave the walls of Casita
and we could just very sadly assume
that he just remains there indefinitely.
- Oh, because she's his aunt and she has amnesia,
so she can't remember that she's his aunt.
- [Ben] Although I guess Mirabel and Antonio
and I guess Dolores also will know
that he is there.
♪ You know I knew he never left ♪
♪ I heard him every day ♪
- So maybe he'd have a little more company?
Maybe they would eventually tell somebody about it?
Then again, maybe not.
I mean, Dolores does claim that she basically knew
that he was there the entire time and never says anything,
and the moment that Bruno does reveal himself,
Antonio kind of like plays dumb right away.
♪ No. ♪ ♪ That's Bruno. ♪
- What do you mean, that's Bruno?
He literally just did like a whole vision seeing ceremony
in your room, dude.
Probably too busy vacuuming to notice, am I right?
Lot of sand.
So let's recap.
Isabela ends up being married to Mariano,
someone she doesn't actually love.
Dolores is eternally jealous.
Bruno continues to be trapped in the wall
and presumably Maribel and Abuela's relationship
just continues to get worse and worse
as more grandchildren do receive powers.
But hey, at least Abuela is happy
and the house is still standing, right?
Maybe, but for how long?
I'm sure you've noticed that we keep pointing
out all the obvious implications of the short term wins
but ultimate long term fails of this scenario.
The same I think is true for the existence
of magic in the house.
Because in the normal story, after Abuela and Mirabel
finally reconcile, the keeper of the magic role
is being passed from Abuela onto Mirabel.
Neither of these characters have powers of their own
but they arguably have the most important role in the house.
Although if all of this never happens,
then they never reconcile and this particular gift
never gets passed down from Abuela onto Mirabel
which would then mean with the inevitable passing of Abuela,
so too would be the passing of the miracle itself.
But this time there wouldn't be any way to recover it.
So in a nutshell, if Mirabel
and Isabela never have that hug,
then it never pushes Abuela to her breaking point.
Meaning most of the characters never resolve
any of their issues and the status quo
just kind of continues to carry on.
Sure, the magic never breaks, or at least
not for a while to come.
But also nobody is happy and eventually
that magic will die with Abuela.
Short term, status quo is saved
but long term prosperity is sacrificed.
But the most interesting part of all of this to me
is just how absolutely uninformative
Bruno's vision actually is.
It correctly predicts two potential outcomes
based on a single action, which again is this hug,
but it fails to connect the dots
between the embrace and the immediate outcome
which when you think about it, also makes sense
because if they knew that the hug was going
to be the thing that would cause the house to crumble,
they never would've done it.
So in a weird way, it almost seems
like the vision is using reverse psychology
to get them to get to the ultimate correct outcome.
Which sounds ridiculous until you remember
that the vision is the product of the magic itself.
So in a weird way, the magic here
is actually preserving itself.
I honestly think my mind maybe just exploded a little bit.
The more we dig into this movie, just the more solid it is.
Also possibly a good reminder
that sometimes, tough conversations, worth having.
Anyway, guys, that is what would've happened
if Mirabel never made up with Isabela.
But guys, as always, thank you so much for watching.
Be sure to like this video
and subscribe to the channel if you haven't already.
If you'd like to find out why Isabela
is actually the most powerful of the entire family Madrigal,
you should check out this video right over here.
But otherwise, until next time, bye.