Origins-Disney Version

Brave

Brave is an original story by writer and director Brenda Chapman. Though she was canned from the project and replaced by Mark Andrews, he mostly just polished up the details and got the project on a faster timeline.  Brave is a Pixar work, but it shows the influence of Disney in its framing – it’s Pixar’s first fantasy film, first film with a female protagonist, and first film to take place in the past.

When Brave was released, it officially took place in 10th century Scotland. While the setting was lifted straight from the Scottish highlands, it doesn’t look anything like it did in the 10th century. The clothing spans an an oddly wide era, from the late Iron Age to the 12th century, and there’s even a corset in one scene- they didn’t appear until the 16th century. Castles of the type shown in the movie also came significantly later.

Chapman has stated that the story was inspired by her relationship with her daughter, and by the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. As I explained earlier in this series, Andersen was Danish, the Brothers were German, and they both lived in the 19th century. That might be why the time periods got mixed up, and the influence of Celtic folklore is superficial at best.

Disney probably set Brave in the 10th century because that’s the last time Scotland had any bears. Unfortunately, there aren’t any surviving Scottish folktales that feature bears. However, there are a few stories from Andersen and the Brothers Grimm about men who have been turned into bears by witches or other magic workers. In all of these stories, a young and beautiful woman – who is often the protagonist – looks past the man/bear’s fearsome appearance. This proves she is a worthy bride once he turns back into a handsome prince. Brave’s plot is clearly meant as a subversion of these fairy tales and other stories from Disney. In Brave, Merida fights to free herself from marriage instead of proving she’s worthy of it. However, she does show that she can be a loving daughter, and that allows her to get her mother back.

The witch herself is a villain in countless fairy tales, including those written or adapted by Andersen and Grimm. Brave’s version, where the witch is a trickster rather than a villain, is a pleasant move towards modern values. In Grimm and Andersen tales, most witches are given a painful death before the end of the story. However, that might not have been true for 10th century Celtic tales. For example, Morgan le Fay, who is probably Welsh in origin, was a positive figure who helped and healed King Arthur until the 13th century, when she was turned into an antagonist.

The wisps do appear in Scottish folklore, although they’re also in folklore throughout most of Europe. Usually, they are depicted as a single light that appears in the marshes,* luring travelers into dangerous areas. Once the traveler gets close, the wisp moves farther away, staying out of reach. Sometimes the light is actually the lamp of an evil spirit, who eventually puts it out and leaves the traveler in the dark. When the wisps themselves are ghosts, they are generally depicted as unhappy spirits trapped in limbo. However, there are some stories where wisps lead brave travelers to treasure, so their helpful purpose in the movie isn’t an entirely new invention.It’s also likely that Chapman and the Pixar creative team took some inspiration from Brave Margaret, a children’s retelling of a 19th century Gaelic folktale by Robert San Souci and Sally Wern Comport. Robert San Souci was a Disney consultant years earlier. He wrote the script for Mulan, and it’s possible he still had some influence on the Disney creative team when the concept for Brave was first conceived. However, past a vague concept, it’s clear that Brave went in a different direction. The similarities between Merida and Margaret are striking, but superficial. Unfortunately, Merida doesn’t slay large monsters like Margaret does.