Chapter 1-
1. Our quester: Princess Merida (From Disney's Brave). She is a headstrong and free-spirited 16-year old who is quite tomboyish and willful, and she is driven away from her mother because of the high expectations she has for her. Meanwhile, Merida is determined to take control of her own destiny.
2. A place to go: Merida's quest is to reach not a physical "place", but a state of being: free. She wants to break away from tradition and avoid becoming what her mother wants her to be, which is in all reality an exact copy of herself. But if a place had to be identified with, it would have to be the place that the Will O' the Wisps are leading her, to the witch's hut, the place where she thinks the solution to her problems lies.
3. A stated reason to go there: Merida's reason to follow the wisps and find the witch is so that she can obtain something that can change her fate. She seeks out a spell that will change her mother so that she will be free to live out her own life and make her own choices.
4. Challenges and trials en route: The spell that Merida believes is the solution to her problem turns out to be almost the exact opposite. The spell changes her mother into a bear instead of the intended "change her mind" it ended up being more along the lines of "it changed her into a bear". This transformation causes many problems within the storyline, from angry Vikings searching the castle for a rogue bear, to the fear that Merida encounters when her mother switches between being herself on the inside to acting like a real bear. In the meantime they must deal with a newfound, yet old, enemy, the bear known as Mor'du. Formerly a prince, at one time he wished for the same thing as Merida, to change his fate, but suffered permanent consequences of his rash decision to also use a spell.
5. The real reason to go: The real reason for this short lived excursion was to show Merida and her mother how to understand and listen to each other, which they neglected to do for a majority of Merida's life. It also extended to show the other three clans that non-traditional methods can be acceptable, and changed to tradition will eventually come about, shifting the paradigm of an entire culture and bringing about a positive and necessary enlightenment.
Chapter 2-
In the movie Beautiful Creatures, the Ravenwood and Duchannes family, along with Ethan Wate, one of Lena's friends, sit down to have dinner. Lena's cousin/childhood friend, Ridley, sits next to Ethan because she recently possessed him. The dinner starts out calm but Ridley, the "dark" cousin, brings up something about "the curse" and how it would "claim Lena to the darkness" in the near future. ("Dark" referring to the type of caster, or witch, she is.) Their mere exchange of words eventually turns into a telepathic battle that causes the dinner table to turn, and sends objects from the table flying around the room. Ending with Ridley turning into a black cloud and being thrown into a door, the table finally stops spinning and the possession of Ethan fades with the absence of his possessor. The atmosphere of this meal, tense and violent, hints to later conflict between Lena and Ridley involving the curse and its fulfillment.
Chapter 3-
The customary elements associated with a Vampire story are selfishness, exploitation, and a refusal to respect the anatomy of other people. Other components include body shame, unwholesome lust, seduction, temptation, and some sort of danger. When the constituents of a Vampire story are applied to a storyline such as the one in Disney's Frozen, it shatters one's previous perspective of this heartwarming tale and opens one's eyes to the reality of the presence of a "vampire" in the movie. Hans, the dreamboat of a prince that Anna runs into and falls unmistakably in love with, could be labeled as a vampire. He practically seduces Anna with his charm and good manner, but it is all in an attempt to exploit her for who/what she is, royalty. He does this in order to gain a higher position due to the stance he holds in his own family, the thirteenth in line to rule. He is selfish and refuses to respect Anna in the way that he tries to project, which is also key in any vampire story. Hans shames Anna by abandoning her in her time of need (after her usefulness to him had expired) and sets out to kill Elsa, causing a moment of danger for the queen. If this information isn't screaming "vampire" by now, I don't know what would. I am thoroughly convinced that one of my favorite movies is one involving a "vampire", even though it is not literally in the script.
Chapter 5-
Intertextuality- the ongoing interaction between poems or stories.
The movie Big Fish is chock full of intertextuality, which manifest as examples that could also be considered allusions. It makes references to Biblical encounters such as David and Goliath, and the story of Jacob and Rachel. I found it easy to recognize such references due to my prior knowledge of the Bible and the stories held within. Previous knowledge paired with my newfound knowledge of the interconnectedness of all literature aid in the recognition of the connections between many stories and movies I have viewed to date. Another example of Intertextuality could be found within the Bible itself. When the New Testament quotes the Old Testament it serves as its own source for intertextual examples. A third and final example of prominent intertextuality would be the novel Wicked which was inspired by the well-known story The Wizard of Oz.
