PonyoPower

This however is no where near the point of this post no, you see I’m currently watching descendants, and I was curious what impacts each of the main VK’s upbringing would have on them. So I looked into a couple mental health sources and found a pretty good condensed list of common effects found in children with abusive upbringings and unstable parents:

So please feel free to peruse my theories on what consequences the villains parenting would have had on the main 4! (In my personal opinion with this is no sense being a mockery or dismissal of these health risks! All very serious things that deserve proper education and care)

Evie- development of an eating disorder and body dysmorphia, perfectionism, and people pleasing tendencies. I say this based on the comments about appearance she receives from The Evil Queen on a seemingly regular basis. Combine this with the fact that her mother only lets Evie give compliments to her, with Evie receiving none. An example of this in the film being the comment about not going anywhere until they fix that uni brow just before they leave for Auradon.

Carlos- anxiety disorder and a constant sense of impending doom, combined with permanent hyper vigilance and especially strong fear of abandonment, most likely due from his mother’s constant manipulation leading to his perceived dependency on her for safety. I say this specifically from the scene where Cruella mentions dogs merely existing in Auradon and Carlos is immediately aware and anxious of going away, plus his steady mentions back to what his mum tells him being treated as gospel and fear mongering his decisions. He strikes me as the person to develop visible nervous habits and suffer from panic attacks through out his life, even years after living on the Isle of the Lost.

Mal- they would all suffer with low self esteem but I fear Mal would severely struggle with her sense of worth and identity, unsure of who she is and what her value is without her mothers plan for her particularly after living with an overbearing presence of authority that implements their own set of expectations and standards. This would understandably lead to perfectionist behaviours and a fear of abandonment (because she relies on the people she surrounds herself with for a sense of purpose and worth)

Jay- emotional dysregulation and behavioural issues. This feels pretty self explanatory. And it makes sense I guess, left to grow up unsupervised on a crime filled island with the sole purpose of stealing for his dad. And if he didn’t steal good stuff he didn’t matter, more of a casual contract employee to his boss than a son to his father. He wasn’t actually raised enough to develop control over his emotions and choices, let alone learn that strong displays of physical acts and sharp emotions aren’t a healthy way to deal with problems. So god forbid he’s a lil brash and impulsive… (and no he’s not stupid!! I’m tired of seeing everyone say he’s just the brawn on the group but has no intelligence, maybe it’s a front hmm?? Play stupid so your dad expects less, everyone expects less and you’re safer? So you can’t let them down? So they won’t get mad when you fail them because your personal fail is still miles above what they expect from you???)

All of them- I think they would all face some similar impacts in their lives, in my mind it would be feelings of guilt/shame which is quite commonly observed in survivors of unstable parenting. The development unhealthy coping mechanisms, permanent hyper vigilance in case of danger, learnt both from the isle and the conditions with their parents, a fear of abandonment based on the isolation they faced growing up on the island and the dependency they were forced into with their parents, plus boundary issues mainly in the sense they never learnt boundaries so they don’t know when people cross theirs (less so in the sense of they don’t respect others boundaries, although that would be a learning curve) difficulty trusting of course coz yk they’ve all been manipulated by parents for their entire lives and betrayed at every opportunity by the one people they should be able to trust unconditionally. We can see my logic here no…? Just a little bit?

Here have some random scenes and quotes that allude to this:

>>Museum scene with the statues shows heavy trauma response symptoms?!? Like they’re all constantly terrified and seeing their parents prompted an immediate reaction that’s so sad

>>“Even villains love their kids!… oh” yep cool Lani just don’t even bother kissing the brick

>>“Are you afraid of her?”

“Sometimes. Are you afraid of your mum?”

“I just want her to be proud of me…” cue trauma

So imma introduce yall to this really cool concept called therapy, I think you might have fun

>>The video call scene is mm yeah alright CPS? Yeah? Hi I’m just calling about four individuals with access to too much hairdye…

>>Side note the really crappy photoshop of the ball on jays stick during the Turney game is frying me, did they even try to budget this film 😭

BE PREPARED FOR:

- La La Land analysis of things I noticed and scribbled down when showing my friend the movie

- more Lego ninjago analysis…

- my questions and look into Wu and Garmadon

- B99 x Ninjago maybe

- B99 x PJO definitely

- A discussion of Kai’s hydrophobia

- A TedTalk on the treatment of Kai when he lost his powers

- a mad ramble about Kai not being selfish and what his childhood must have been like

And one medically prescribed touch grass that will devolve into grass is green… ykw else is green :D

…send help