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Trauma and Protectiveness in Wish and Encanto

So, I watched Wish...

I don't think Wish needed a villain. In fact, I would have liked the film to follow the approach of Encanto (which I loved very much) because they both have points in common.

Yes, I will compare Abuela and Magnífico, two characters who, despite their differences, share similar problems.

Abuela went through a deep trauma in which she lost her home and her husband and had to raise her triplets alone while guiding her community as the bearer of the candle with the miracle that saved them, which originated from the sacrifice of her husband.

This trauma left her afraid of losing everything again, her family and her home. For her, the miracle was what protected them from doom. Therefore, she saw the miracle as the most important thing of all. She also saw it as her responsibility to serve the community with the magic of the miracle.

This made her become very strict and demanding, putting a lot of pressure on her family to be perfect and to serve the community with their abilities at all times.

What they could do became more important than who they were.

This is what caused the destruction of their home and their family relationships.

Magnifico also suffered a trauma, losing absolutely everything — his home and his family. However, he decided to dedicate his life to helping others and preventing them from suffering the same as he did. So he works hard to learn magic and build a kingdom from scratch with his own hands where everyone is welcome and he was very successful at it.

(yes, this is a very good character we have here)

His trauma, like Abuela's, made him afraid that tragedy would happen again.

His way of dealing with it was to take all this responsibility and pressure of caring and protecting and put it on himself and no one else. Carrying it all on his shoulders.

He will only do what he thinks is safe. And since we have trauma involved, he has his own safety measures. He becomes overprotective. (I can talk more about this in another post haha)

He would do everything he could for them because he didn't want them to feel pain and sadness. That was his motivation.

And that's not healthy either.

He sounds a lot like a family man who lost everything when he was young, someone who grew up in need and had to work hard to create a successful life. A story of overcoming.

So he starts a family. He wants them to have a good life and not suffer the pain he suffered. He protects them. He gives them everything he can. He does everything for them. Everything he didn't have when he was younger he will give them. Because he knows the pain of lack.

But then he ends up spoiling his children and being overprotective.

There are many parents like that.

The tendency is for the children to become spoiled, ungrateful and dependent.

They will not appreciate what they receive because they do not have to work for it. Everything was handed to them on a silver platter without effort. They also start to think they deserve to have everything handed to them just because yes. So they expect to get more and more. Give me! give me!

That's exactly how the people of Rosas were.

They expected their king to give them everything and more because, well, he did.

For them, the most important thing was what the king could do for them.

I really wish they had gone the route of Encanto.

At the end of the movie, when the house falls down, Abuela acknowledges her mistakes and Mirabel shows empathy by acknowledging her pain and all her work. She says something like “Nothing is so broken that we can’t fix it, together” and they reconcile. It was beautiful. After that, everyone comes together to rebuild, with the help of the community as a gesture of gratitude for everything the family has done for them.

If the ending of Wish had been one of understanding, reconciliation and respect, it would have been so good.

And it would have achieved the production’s idea that you should work for your goals.

The people of Rosas would have learned gratitude, respect, and to work and strive for their goals alone.

Magnífico would have learned to take a step back and let his people try to achieve their goals alone. Let them succeed on their own, let them feel the sadness and pain of failure because that is part of the process and part of life. And don't carry everything on his shoulders.

Of course, he can still help, but in a different way depending on each case.

He is a wise king after all.