The Matriarch Isnβt the Villain. Sheβs the Mirror
I often hear a discourse where Celine in K-pop Demon Hunters, Alma in Encanto and Ming in Turning Red are seen as vilains. Theyβre the ones who restricted the younger generation, hurt them, and are ultimately responsible for their pain, trauma and self-doubt. Theyβre framed as the real villains of the story. But Iβd like to differ.
These are stories of intergenerational trauma. They are women who survived, repressed, and tried to protect their families the only way they knew how: through control, perfectionism, and emotional suppression.
And yet, when the next generation begins to reclaim joy, freedom, softness β they become the obstacle. Not because theyβre bad people, but because theyβre scarred. Their minds cling to survival strategies, unable to recognize that the environment has changed.
Alma is still stuck fleeing the colonizers.
Ming is still afraid of her true self.
Celine believes that fear and mistakes must be hidden.
Itβs not about hating these characters. Itβs about how unprocessed trauma twists love into control. How survival, unexamined, turns into rigidity. These women were never given space to process their own pain and they project it onto their daughters and granddaughters.
And hereβs something we rarely say enough: intergenerational trauma can create toxic patterns but that doesnβt always mean there was abuse or conscious harm. Even when their love becomes suffocating or controlling, these women are not necessarily βabusive parents.β They are daughters of silence, fear, and sacrifice. And they were never taught another way. Itβs important to make that distinction, especially in a world that often pushes a binary, punitive reading of family dynamics.
Theyβre the product of a generation that was told to endure. But endurance without healing becomes its own kind of violence.
Whatβs powerful in these stories is that they donβt end in vengeance. They end in confrontation and transformation. The confrontation is necessary: the younger generation refuses the silence. Refuses the shame. Refuses to carry a burden that wasnβt theirs to begin with.
The house is destroyed in Encanto.
Mei accepts her full self.
And in the best cases, this confrontation allows the elder to soften too. Alma opens up. Ming listens. And Iβm hoping in the sequel, Celine will open too.
Maybe thatβs also why these stories speak so deeply to POC audiences. These arenβt stories about cutting ties. Theyβre stories about how hard it is to transform them, to protect ancestral bonds while refusing to perpetuate inherited pain. In many racialized families, collectivity, loyalty, and intergenerational duty are sacred... even when they come at the cost of personal boundaries.
And sometimes, Western individualist frameworks read these tensions as dysfunction or villainy. But for us, theyβre just the difficult truth of growing up and trying to do better.
These women arenβt villains. That would be too easy. They embody the fragile, necessary work of bringing change without breaking the thread. These stories are about refusing to inherit their pain without reflection. Because love, without accountability, is not enough.
These stories show us that each generation has something to learn from the next. And the new generation must also break free from the chains they inherited while preserving what is meaningfull.
But itβs not just their story.
One day, weβll be the older generation.
And weβll need to be humble enough to learn from the ones after us.
We may be Mei, Rumi, or Mirabel today.
But tomorrow, we could be Ming, Celine, or Alma.
And when that time comes, weβll realize how hard it is to unlearn what once kept us safe.
So letβs have compassion for all these characters.
Because these stories show us not just how the cycle of generations works, but how it can make us better, stronger, and more connected... if weβre all willing to go through the change.
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If youβre curious, Iβve written more on K-pop Demon Hunters:
A post on the mental health themes woven through the songs β right here.
A breakdown of Celine-Rumi in comparaison to GothelβRapunzel dynamic β here.
An analysis about Rumi, Jinu, and the danger of sinking together β here.
Some book recs for each of the K-pop Demon Hunters characters β here.
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