Bruno’s Room?? Analysis??? Theory? Headcanon?? Thingy???

Bruno’s room?? Analysis??? Theory? Headcanon?? Thingy???

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Encanto Spoilers!!!

Okay, I promise this will get to Bruno’s room but for starters, I think I should talk about how the casita’s rooms are implied to work. Sorry but it’s important!!

In both the film and the concepts, it very much seems that the casita’s rooms reflect a combination of who their owners are to others, and who their owners want to be. We only see a small handful of rooms in the film but this is best seen in Isabela’s room, which is a perfect, flowery, empty room. There isn’t any furniture that we can really see besides her hanging bed, the rest is all for show, literally advertising how perfect she is with topiaries of herself making “perfect, practiced poses”. This is who she wants, and strives to be for others, but secretly worries that she is lacking in identity outside of what she portrays to others.

Bruno’s Room?? Analysis??? Theory? Headcanon?? Thingy???

Why is this important? Because her room changes with her. In “What Else Can I Do” her entire room shifts and changes just as she does– the more she explores herself and the freedom and passions she never knew she was capable of, the room grows more colorful and wild and more difficult to navigate with her.

The concepts for Luisa’s room were similar– her room concepts consisted of various training areas with a secret room that led to an amusement park– a place where she could just relax and be a kid, but that she felt the need to hide it from others to appear strong. Jared Bush also recently confirmed that Pepa’s room never had “a place for her to let loose”, that that was “part of her problem”-- insinuating she’s been taught to compartmentalize and suppress her emotions instead of letting them go.

So now… we talk about Bruno.

So firstly. No way did Bruno’s room always look like… that. Casita would have never given a five-year-old that room. And it logically doesn’t make sense!! We know from extra content that when Bruno first got his gift he was the “golden child”-- that people were impressed by his gift to see the future, it was only when they believed that he caused bad things to happen that they rejected him. Does Bruno’s room really reflect that golden child?

One thing I noticed was that the wood to Bruno’s room is… hardwood. Underneath all that sand and rock is the remnants of the beginnings of a normal room. It seems like such an odd choice and detail to put there when the rest of the room is all built into natural surroundings. It looks like the remnants of a living space that’s just been covered up to the point of becoming unlivable. And when we examine the specific ways this room has become unlivable, it starts to paint a very interesting picture about Bruno and how he perceives himself.

So we know that over the years Bruno’s reputation has shifted from the “star child of the family” to the Madrigal that no one talks about except in hushed whispers– the one that people are afraid of and dislike. We know from implications as well as discussions from Jared Bush that Bruno had already started isolating himself long before leaving to protect Mirabel.

So what better way to isolate yourself than a literal mountain of spiraling stairs?

They’re so impossibly long that it’s clearly meant to keep most sane people out (sorry Mirabel, it’s true). And we know he didn’t have a shortcut, he used the excuse of the tower having a lot of stairs as a reason to not live there. But again, and I can’t stress this enough, no way did casita give a five-year-old that amount of stairs (and in such a dangerous fashion!).

They’re there to keep people out. Now whether this is because Bruno just wants to avoid them and keep people away from him, whether this is to keep people from harassing him for visions, or maybe (and likely) a combination of both, isn’t explicitly stated. We know that Bruno’s visions can be both emotionally and physically exhausting and draining– to the point of physical pain and weakness. It isn’t much of a surprise that he would want to avoid people asking for visions.

But personally? I think it was also out of a desire to protect people as well. He really starts to internalize this idea that he makes bad things happen, so the more he can avoid people, and the visions, the better. The more he hides away, the more a burden it all becomes, the longer and longer the stairs get.

They’re eventually disconnected completely from the door with an enormous gap. I think this was the last straw when Bruno broke the vision and left, and his door stopped glowing. It disconnected from the inner sanctum completely and the entire room disconnected from the casita. When Bruno disconnected from his family. When he rejected his gift, and with it, himself.

Mirabel knows the casita to the point of even being able to understand its non-verbal communication like she would anyone else, and she seems shocked that it cannot help in Bruno’s room, implying that this isn’t the norm for the magical rooms. His room is cut off because he is cut off. And the deleted scene “Chores” contributes to this idea. Félix says that “his room turned all rotten and gross and Abuela was like ‘no one is ever allowed in there again.’” We know that Alma forbids anyone from going into Bruno’s room because it’s ‘off-limits”, and we can clearly see how dangerous and unstable the room has got, so this isn’t out of the realm of possibility for film canon either. Like Luisa said, his room is off-limits for a reason.

His room refused to let anyone find that vision.

AND NOW FOR THE BEST PART. THE INNER CAVERN.

So after Mirabel risks her life to get to the inner part of Bruno’s room, we finally see these relief sculptures of Bruno on the walls. There’s no beating around the bush, they are terrifying. Empty eyes, blank expressions, gaping mouths. (And they pretty much prove that Bruno’s room didn’t look this way because they display the steps of his ritual, which Jared confirmed he invented himself later on after receiving his gift.) It’s a terrifying depiction of himself, meant to scare people away. He’s considered a curse, treated like the village bogeyman, and he’s clearly internalized these ideas about himself because his room reflects it so much here, in the same fashion that Isabela’s room flaunts the topiaries of her perfect posed stature.

But here’s something I have to mention. The designers did not simply pull this design out of thin air. It is heavily inspired by existing Colombian architecture… specifically burial tombs. The Tierradentro tombs, located in the southwest region of the nation in the Inzá municipality, were made somewhere between 600 and 900 CE and served as a burial site for elite groups. Their structural and decorative features are entirely unique and not found anywhere else on Earth, and the geometrical patterns within them signify the individuals buried there.

So. Bruno’s room is based on an existing gravesite. That’s a lot to unpack.

Bruno feels that he, or at least the version of himself that his family wants from him, is dead. The star child. He had tried to cling to this idea, to be someone they could be proud of, but he just doesn’t know how. His family no longer understands him. He feels like a stranger who has replaced the person they used to love, who’s now buried in a literal tomb of self-doubt.

A tomb that Mirabel almost dies in because of how unstable and disconnected it has become. A tomb that follows an infinitely long spiral staircase up to a room filled with spiraling imagery– all to find a man who truly has spiraled. And one who isn’t there because he is so terrified of hurting people.

Bruno’s room looks the way it does because of his warped self-image that has become so twisted over the years. This internalized perception that he hurts people- that he causes these twists of fate- and while I think he knows on a logical level that this isn’t how his gift works, clearly doubt has infected the way he feels. We can see it in the way he treats Mirabel, wanting to push her away at first because he’s scared he’ll somehow hurt her, refusing to do visions, refusing to help until she tells him that the family needs him. And that’s all he ever wanted, really.

Maybe his next room won’t have all those stairs.

More Posts from Khayltille and Others

khayltille

1 year ago

Friendly reminder that Héctor has been dead much longer than he was alive, he was only 21 thats literally around one 5th of his existence since then he has been a skeleton. What if he doesn’t really remember being alive, sure he has his memories of events, he remembers the people in his life but specifically what a living body felt like? Not so much.

One of the twins mentions missing his nose, Héctor shrugs as he touches his fingers to his nasual bone, it’s been so long it feels like he just always never had one.

Rosita watches as he helps her cook one day, accidently spliling a boiling pot of water down himself, she smiles and points out a least he hasn’t got skin that can burn. He can’t really remember what it felt like to be burnt.

Imelda holds his hands in hers, stroking his fingers and comments on how smooth the bones feel compared to his calloused fingertips from years of playing the guitar, he comments on how good her memory is because he had forgotten that before distracting her with kisses.

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khayltille

1 year ago

Encanto is on Disney+ for Christmas, so here’s another piece of meta that no one asked for but

As much as I like Bruno, I don’t think he’s actually immune to the whole “trying to do the right thing but causes harm instead” itis that plagues the rest of the family

Like, to start with, his disappearance after Mirabel’s gift ceremony. He thought he was trying to do the right thing, but he didn’t really stop to think about the emotional and psychological harm that would cause his family. (Even Alma was probably retraumatized IMO, given that her darkest moment was someone she loved disappearing from her.)

And yes, Pepa has her whole “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” song, but she’s also the first person to run and hug him when he returns and I bet 100% that it’s easier to be pettily mad at Bruno then to be sad all the time (and potentially flood the Encanto.)

BUT that’s not even the main thing I want to talk about: Instead I’m talking about him fixing the cracks.

“Wait, why is that a bad thing?” You might be asking.

Simple: He’s only fixing the symptom, and he’s hiding from the rest of the family the fact that there’s even a problem in the first place. He’s spackling up the cracks so that everyone only sees smooth “perfect”/”strong” walls. No one is aware of the faults, so they operate under the assumption that everything is fine, until the cracks get so big that they can’t be ignored any longer.

tl;dr A Madrigal takes a course of action that they think is for the best based on their own history of trauma without really acknowledging how it would hurt their family emotionally/psychologically. They then spends their time focusing on covering up the cracks/issues in the Casita/Familia Madrigal allowing it/them to project a facade of strength and perfection without actually unpacking the underlying cause of damage.

Am I talking about Bruno or Alma?

tl;tl;dr Bruno takes after his mother

(editing to add: this is not an Anti-Bruno post or an Anti-Alma post. I left the theater caring for all the members of the family.)

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khayltille

4 months ago

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khayltille

8 years ago

sssdd

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khayltille

1 year ago

I’m reading the essay on John Nettleship, the character whom Snape was based on, and some parts are really interesting.

It gives a new perspective upon Snape. Like the fact John was assaulted as a teacher. The owner of the essay states that the students kicking John in the balls repeatedly or supposedly throwing him out of a window were like the real-life Marauders. The fact John refused to can his students and was kind of a saviour from physical discipline is a nice parallel on how Snape tried to protect the students in 7th year. How John, after recieving much violence as a child and as a teacher, had the tendency to think verbal violence was kinder than physical violence (although John didn’t approve of Snape’s handling of a class). How ironically it was Mr Mooney who canned the students the most (if I remember well). Or finally how he was eccentric in class because slightly Aspie and suffering from chronic insomnia because he was going through a nasty divorce.

Did you know he made a poem called The Wizard, where the protagonist glorifies a mysterious “dark” wizard staring at you with a terrible smile? It was made before the first HP book came out, as if without knowing it yet, John had the idea of a Snape-like wizard inside. John and his inner wizard — very poetic.

You can read the poem on this essay. Here’s the link:

http://www.whitehound.co.uk/Fanfic/A_true_original.htm

Here’s a shorter version of the essay:

quora.com

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khayltille

5 months ago

Wow so smooth

It's Our Favourite Greasy Old Bat's Birthday!! 🥰🎉 Wish Him A Happy Birthday Everyone, He Will Hate

It's our favourite greasy old bat's birthday!! 🥰🎉 Wish him a happy birthday everyone, he will hate us all (he's so grumpy I love him so much)

I pick one of his famous quotes to make this small animation (using Tvpaint this time), sound source from yt, rough animation and ugly animatic on my ig

Mycroft Territory (Part One)

This is the second of my blog resources for fanfic writers who want to create a better sense of place by including stuff about London that is relevant to specific areas.

In this case, I’m talking about St James, Westminster and Whitehall,, all three of which add up to the seat of British Government.

St James

Let’s take St James first. Bounded to the north by Piccadilly and Mayfair, to the west by Green Park, to the south by The Mall and St James’s Part and to the east by Haymarket. The home of the Buckingham Palace, St James’ Palace and Clarence House, royal residences to this day. Think aristocrats, think of Savile Row and Jermyn Street. The Mall, and of course, The Diogenes Club.

If you’ve been a tourist in London, this is an area you are highly likely to have been to visit. You may, however, be less familiar with its history.

The area’s name is linked to St James the Lesser (where have we heard THAT name before? Mary’s skip code and John’s bonfire night) It was the name of a leper hospital in the 12th century which was knocked down to build St James’s Palace.

In the 17th century the area developed as a residential location for the British aristocracy. Clarence House, Spencer House, Lancaster House, Marlborough House- these are all masterpieces of English architecture built for the aristocrats to enjoy the “London season” before returning to their estates in the country.

By the mid-19th century, it was the chosen place for a whole slew of gentlemen’s clubs: The Reform, The Travellers, The RAC, The Oxford and Cambridge Club, The Army and Navy Club, The East India Club, etc. Since the re-development of London post WW2, the area has moved from residential to more commercial premises. That said, many of the gentlemen’s outfitters of Savile Row and Jermyn Street have been there for centuries, and Fortnum & Mason’s was their local grocery store.

Whitehall

Whitehall is small but packed with power because this is civil service land. The Ministry of Defence, Horse Guards, etc now, but the history is even more interesting. Ever since the 12th century Whitehall was the route from Charing Cross to Westminster. Henry VIIth built “York Palace” on the route, which Henry VIIIth re-named Whitehall Palace. It was a rather splendid place. He married Anne Boleyn here. It was the palace of the Stuarts, too. By 1680 it looked like this:

If you zoom in, you will notice something interesting.

Yes, that’s SCOTLAND YARD, the very first one. As the Stuarts were Scottish kings, this is what the area was called. And it was the site much later of the very first home of the Metropolitan Police.

When New Scotland Yard moved from Victoria to its new home, it was to a site on the Thames that is on this map, just above the V in River.

So, now you know why it was called Scotland Yard.

To be continued in Part Two, Westminster (which includes Belgravia

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khayltille

1 year ago

"Given how important the idea of intelligence is to most people’s vanity, it is critical never inadvertently to insult or impugn a person’s brain power. That is an unforgivable sin." - Robert Greene When I read this sentence, I immediately thought of how Snape's immediate response to James and Sirius's Gryffindor aspirations was to impugn their intelligence, and how - for years and years - they insisted that he was in fact the stupid one, from the insults on the marauders' map (I think "padfoot" called him an idiot?) to the party line they all toed, that the underlying reason for the enmity was that James and Sirius were... good at things. Every time I start getting over how angry the whole thing makes me, something occurs to me that makes me angry all over again. Truly, how dare this impoverished nobody suggest that he might be intelligent, and more intelligent than the two rich purebloods! I wonder how come this is not such a sore spot for Lupin. Meanwhile, whenever Sirius does ascribe intelligence to Snape, it's of the "evil" and "wrong" kind. I gotta hand it to Harry and Ron. They got to age 12 (TWELVE!) already able to live with the fact that someone's cleverer than them and love her all the same. Imagine

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khayltille

1 year ago

idk what ricks daemon would be but i feel like their relationship would be really volatile cus ricks got a pretty self-destructive personality also pretty sure mortys daemon hasnt settled yet (but itd be cool if it was usually a guinnea pig cus that kinda works with the whole being used in mad science experiments thing)

ah definitely! i can see their dynamic as being very unbalanced though.. i feel like rick’s dæmon would be pretty ruthlessly cruel to him (”jeez rick why did you fuck that up!” when he makes a mistake; ”hey remember that time you fucked up!” when he’s trying to relax–probably one of the reasons he drinks so much is to sedate her & get her to shut up)

meanwhile he’d be kind of affectionately grumpy towards her, but idolize her too? because she’s this purely intellectual being who ultimately doesn’t have to take any responsibilities for her actions, just perch on his shoulder and theorize & scheme, and i think he’d envy her detachment and kind of put his own wisdom & knowledge on a pedestal you know?

also he gets a raven because.. i enjoy obvious mythology cliches, and like..

“Odin, the father of all humans and gods, though in human form, was imperfect by himself. As a separate entity he lacked depth perception and he was apparently also uninformed and forgetful. But his weaknesses were compensated by his ravens, Hugin (mind) and Munin (memory) who were part of him. As a god, Odin was the ethereal part—he only drank wine and spoke only in poetry.” -x

(also a guinea pig for morty omg–me and janin were thinking some kind of sad little rodent too? janin says a rat, but also i like the idea of a hamster, because hamsters look so harmless, but they seem like they are secretly bloodthirsty..)

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