Merida's Journey of Familial Love in Brave

Merida's Journey of Familial Love in Brave

Brave follows Merida, an archer being trained to rule a kingdom, who is told to follow tradition but wants to chart her own path in life. She has been told her whole life by her mother to act lady-like and get married to a royal man, but she wants to be an archer, and is trying to defy age-old traditions. She finds a witch in the woods who agrees to “change” her mother, and instead of changing her mom’s personality, the witch turns her into a bear, an animal which their entire kingdom hunts and kills for sport. Merida must find a way to turn her mother back into a human before it is too late.

The betrayal/realization stage of Schmidt’s Heroine’s Journey is shown during the dinner scene when Merida finds out her mother invited suitors without her permission. She is reminded that her life does not belong to her. Her coping strategy has always been to act superior and take on a male role that she feels suits her better, but her mom is insistent on preparing her for her role as princess. When she hears that she will be required to marry one of the suitors, she realizes her dreams will never be a reality and that she must stop the events to have any hope at a future of her own. Merida and her mother want different paths for Merida, and refuse to talk to each other. They both think the other wants the worst for each other, largely because they can’t see eye to eye. The next day when she is supposed to meet her suitors and watch them compete, she joins them in an archery competition and wins against all of them. This leads to Merida and her mother getting into an intense fight ending in Merida slashing a tapestry depicting her happy family, symbolically showing Merida trying to break the ties of her family. The following scene represents the Awakening stage as Merida runs into the woods, meeting the witch who will soon transform her mother. This scene shows how the betrayal and realization stage of the Heroine’s Journey always leads to a journey, but can sometimes be more complicated. A lot of the time, this stage makes you sympathize only with the main character, but in Brave, it is easy to see her mother’s perspective as well.

The all is lost stage in the Heroine’s Journey is represented through Merida’s realization her mom will remain a bear forever if she can’t reverse the curse in 24 hours. In my opinion, the middle steps of the Heroine’s Journey are out of order and repeated in different ways during this story, as they are in most children’s movies. I think there are moments of happiness following this scene that could be seen as the eye of the storm but nothing represents the all is lost stage better than Merida realizing the terrible thing she did. Merida went to a witch in the woods and asked her to change her mother, not knowing what this vague wish could turn into. She wanted her mom to understand her and thought that this witch could help her with that, but instead she turned her mother into the thing that their kingdom hates most: a bear. This scene clearly shows Merida’s perspective changing as she realizes that she is responsible for her mother’s slow decline. At this point, she doesn’t know if she will be able to fix the curse and as time is running out, her mom is losing her human characteristics and starting to act more like a bear, reminding Merida of the grave mistake she made. 

The last scene in Brave is a perfect representation of the return to the perfect world in Schmidt’s Heroine’s Journey. In this final part, Mirada finally fixes the tapestry that she tore when she was mad at her mother at the beginning of the movie. She thinks this is enough because the witch had said to “mend the bond torn by pride”, but in reality, her relationship with her mother was what she needed to mend. In the final moments before the sunrise, Merida begs for her mother to turn back and in doing so, mends their broken bond. She and her mother started off with a rocky relationship, each wanting something different from the other, but in this scene, she shows how much she loves her mother despite their differences. In the Heroine’s Journey, the whole point of these final stages is for the main character to have an epiphany about what she wants from herself and the people around her. For Merida, this meant understanding that she wanted her mother to be who she has always been, even if that means they disagree constantly. The whole plot surrounding Merida is how she will understand herself and repair her mother daughter bond in the process. Finally in this last scene, Merida returns to a perfect world she hasn’t been in since she was little and held no judgment.

Work Cited

Brave, Directed by Mark Andrews & Brenda Chapman, Pixar Animation Studios, 2012.

Cruz, Ariane. “Disney Pixar Brave 10th Anniversary: 5 Things You Didn’t Know about the Movie.” FandomWire, 24 Apr. 2023, fandomwire.com/disney-pixar-brave-10th-anniversary-things-know-ia/. 

Wickman, Forrest. “When Did Archers Start Splitting Arrows?” Slate Magazine, Slate, 22 June 2012, slate.com/culture/2012/06/braves-merida-like-robin-hood-splits-arrows-can-you-really-split-an-arrow-with-an-arrow.html. 

“Brave | The Spell Is Broken.” YouTube, 8 June 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=UVgspD1IoSo. 

“Pixar Review 31: Brave.” Rachel’s Reviews, 14 Oct. 2014, rachelsreviews.net/tag/merida/.