You know, I never realized that in the mirror room scene, she’s giving HERSELF an order that in turn creates a paradox with the curse. She tells herself to no longer be obedient as an order so the curse actives but the very nature of the order counteracts the curse itself. I never read it as her telling herself a command before but now it makes a lot of sense.

The way this could’ve all been solved if her mother just said “I command you to never obey anyone without your own personal consent towards that command”

I find it interesting too that in the movie, the magic took over and Ella just did whatever she was commanded to do. In The book however, she had to choose to do it, or else she started to feel physically sick, like the magic was punishing her, threatening to destroy her. This seems even more sinister to me, because Ella is forced to make the choice to be obedient to the commands every time. She is in essence being punished into giving consent.

I watched this as a child and was so distressed by the premise that i screamed to stop the movie. The second hand embarrassment coupled with i think the subconscious feeling that i experienced how horrible coercion feels as a high masking autistic woman constantly pushing down my own needs to fit in and survive.
And survive I did. I survived until i found a partner who has gently built up my confidence to say no. To be me. To take care of myself. To safely unmask. I couldn't ask for better.

As an autistic (f) individual who grew up loving this movie, and abused for not being obedient even w exes this remains my fav movie. My male fiance was the first person I felt right of consent and breaking curse obedience. He respects every boundary I ever held. He read my body language. He never forced me accept uncomfort.

Watching this video explains now why he calls me  his Ella enchanted when I say thank you to him every time he respects my boundaries. It explains why it was my fav movie without having words to say so.

The book is so much more disturbing about this. Someone brought up Ella’s father drugging her to get her to marry a rich older man (which only doesn’t happen because the man lost most of his wealth in a recent fire), but the part that disturbed me the most is this section where Lucinda tells Ella to be happy with her “gift.” Afterwards, Ella talks about relishing any order that might be given to her and how much joy it brings her. It only stops when her godmother realizes what happened and orders her to think and feel however she wanted about it.

In the book, Ella's father forces her to eat magic mushrooms (essentially drug herself) so that she would be compliant about getting married off to an older man. The father in the book was absolutely diabolical.

But also, there is actually a charm sound in the kiss scene. But it's quieter and not as powerful as it was previously. But I could still hear it.

The other heartbreaking yet brilliant revelation the mirror scene adds to the story is that anyone could have given Ella this order. Ellla's mother likely didn't because she had already been affected by one of Lucinda's curses, and didn't want to upset her again by circumventing what she saw as a gift. The rest of the world was either explicitly out to use the curse to their own benefit or totally ignorant. In the latter case, Ella being unable to tell anyone becomes as much a curse as the curse itself because it makes it impossible for her to ask for help in breaking it. Even if she told someone to tell her not to be obedient, they would likely ask why - a question she couldn't answer. And it likely didn't even occur to her until the person she loved was in mortal danger because that way of life was so internalized.

That one change adds so much to the film.

"no one can consent until everyone can" reminds me so much of "we are not free until everyone is free."

this video made me uncomfortable, but in a good way. being forced to confront your own ideas and behavior is a good thing. i think i need to advocate better for myself. you are your first and best advocate! it's so easy to tell other people, but so hard to act on.

It hurts to realise her mother could have changed her order to make it so Ella didn't have to be obedient

1:27 "but Ella's mother does something much more extreme: she dies"

i loved your point about how schools are literally unable to teach consent, because the entire project of compulsory education relies on overriding the consent of the children to force them into a situation where they have so little agency that they can even be denied permission to use the bathroom. not that i'm against the education of children -- far from it, i work in education -- but we need to talk about how the environment we place children in from before the age of reason prepares them to have their consent violated repeatedly, without language to explain why they're unhappy.

I am a 54-year-old man.  And I am still dealing with my mother programming me that when somebody asks you to do something you have to do it.   How it has messed up my life.  And messed up the lives of the people around me , who sometimes asked me to do things. Not knowing that I was doing them out of kindness because I wanted to or because I thought it was a good thing for them or me or us and made them miserable as well.

Your statement about how schools and society inherently teach children to obey those with power no matter what really made a dent in my own logic about consent.

I was given the tea analogy in my teens. Consent is easy, just consider how you would respond to a response to you offering someone tea. If they say “no.” Don’t give them tea. If they shrug disinterestedly, maybe pour tea, but don’t go shoving it down their throat. If they say “yes” but as your giving them tea, they change their mind, don’t then force them to down the tea. Etc etc.

But now you’ve got me realizing that completely ignores coercion. Food related coercion, that we have all been exposed to by our own parents as children.

“Well, it’s either tea or nothing so you should have tea.”
“Well I don’t like tea, but I am thirsty, so I guess I have to drink the tea.”

“If you don’t drink the tea, you can’t have dessert.”
“Welp, I want to be able to have the fun thing, or the close bond, or the lac of argument, or the help with chores that dessert represents, so I guess I’ll tolerate the tea.”

Etc. etc.

Gosh, I never even realized how early having no bodily autonomy invades a person’s life. Almost immediately when I child becomes self aware enough to understand they don’t like something, is the same moment they also learn they don’t get a say in whether or not they’re forced to do it anyway.

I don’t even know how we as a society can combat that, I mean, it’s not like you can just give your 5 month old complete power over their decisions their whole life, but how do you keep them alive and healthy and safe without also removing their ability to learn to trust their own ability to have boundaries?

9:41 you can hear a slightly altered tone when she leans on for the kids. And it's after she does the face like she's being forced. I thought it was still forced and plays into what you were saying even more. "That even when you want to do something the second that the choice is removed it becomes forced" she lost her ability to choose the second he said "kiss me" regardless of if they both wanted it. It's going to happen now. I personally feel as though that subtle change to the sound of the spell indicates that she still has no free will. And at the end when she does have free will and they kiss. There is no sound at all.

it's interesting; in my high school sex ed classes, we were taught that coercion is rape. i think we were also taught examples of what coercion can look like - but this video and the comment section is teaching me that a lot of people weren't taught it that way. although, i don't even think other high schools in my area discussed consent in sex ed at all- i think it was just my school.

thank you for bringing up the topic of consent outside of sex scenarios. i've always found it hard to say no to my parents, even when there's no actual repercussion attached to it. i'm 27 now and live in another town, and it's still very, very hard for me to say no to them. which is saddening because i do love them and they are good parents (not perfect, but definitely not bad), but the thought of meeting up with them stress me out because i know i'll end up forcing myself to do what they ask me to because i always feel bad about even thinking of saying no.

I wonder if I'm the only one that noticed:
When Lucinda appears to Ella while she is chained to the tree, Ella berates her and complains about her gift.
Lucinda's response is to tell her to "Get rid of it yourself". There is no 'charm sound' but I feel it was clearly a command. I therefore feel that even with her motivation and willpower, Ella was not able to break the curse without that command.

I invite any replies.

another important dialogue is when Ella asked Charm about his planes as king and he said he hasn`t any and he just trust his uncle to know better. i love that Ella was pissed and she said to him "you have the power to make a change and you won`t do it; you don`t even care"- it was so powerfull because it shows that even the prince has no voice if he kept following the social status quo that mantain the opression of all in the kingdom.

Recently, I told my husband to stop asking me for consent because when he asks me a question, I’m more compelled to say yes, regardless of how I’m feeling.

Since we’ve applied this, I’ve been feeling much better about our sex life because if he starts to initiate something past cuddling, I can more easily reject the advance by pushing him away or saying no (because in this case, I’m not being asked verbally, so I don’t feel pressured).

I’ve always hated the whole consent thing because of growing up watching my mom say yes to everyone, even if it inconveniences her, and me learning that. Even at work or school, I struggle to say no, and like it or not, people expect you to finish whatever you agreed to even if you no longer want to do it halfway through (overtime for example).