There’s a monster in Coraline that everyone
missed. This being is powerful, sneaky, and once it traps you, good luck finding
your way out. It’s not the Other Mother. It’s not a creepy doll. It’s not even the Pink
Palace! (although that's getting closer) It IS ancient and similar to the living corridor
between realms, but it’s one of the earliest characters we see in the movie and books…
but everyone missed it. Quite literally. So in this video I went through and obsessively
watched this entity through EVERY WINDOW that appears in the film. (those 12 leaky windows have
NOTHING on the toll this took on my brain) I know that sounds like overkill, but it was necessary
research, and there are a LOT of interesting, creepy things that I discovered doing this!
And THEN I also reread the book and graphic novel and compiled all my notes on THEM in order
to paint the most complete picture that I could about this slippery, ‘mystical’ being, and what it
means for Coraline… and for you. So, if you like deep dives into very obscure details and ancient
folklore, I hope you enjoy my twisted tale… and the special announcement at the end of this video!
Coraline is lovingly crafted, frame by painstaking frame, so everything in it is intentional. Same
for crafting a story with words. Or images. Which is why when something is mentioned repeatedly, we
should take notice… But what if the thing we’re supposed to notice… is visually subtle? Well,
that’s exactly what the mist is in Coraline. It’s… alive., Now hold on, I know you might be
thinking… The mist? Yes, it sounds bizarre, but by the end of this video I assure you’ll
think differently of this foggy fiend. We have a lot to cover in both the movie and book,
but we first need to make some things clear. It’s important to note from a lore and climate
perspective that the book takes place in England, a place heavily steeped in folklore, and not the
Pacific NorthWest like the movie. In the book there is no Wybie or doll, but there are RATS
that are NOT costumed as cute little rodents. The pacing is also VERY DIFFERENT in the book vs
the movie. The book is much faster and creepier in most ways, but despite the differences,
the mist seeps through the plot similarly. I’m going to start off with the book’s timeline
to put some hyper focus on all the occurrences of mist and fog, and pop into the movie
for the relevant scenes as we get to them! To quickly set up: The Book mentions the Door on
the first story page, but Coraline lives in the new old house for 2 weeks before that, exploring
the grounds in the colder-than-usual summer, finds the well and “a fairy ring, made of squidgy
brown toadstools which smelled dreadful if you accidentally trod on them.” Which, this is
fairy 101 - DO NOT ENTER MUSHROOM RINGS lest you enter the fairy realm unknowingly. Book
Coraline, at this point, could very likely be in the another realm. But unaware, and she keeps
exploring outside until one day the rain makes it impossible. So she explores the house and finds
the creepy large door. She
has mom unlock it, and because it leads to bricks, mom doesn't’ lock it. That night, it creaks
open, Coraline wakes to investigate it, tracking a little patch of moving rat shadow to
the creepy door, behind which is still bricks. Coraline also casts a shadow in the room - but
“she looked like a thin giant woman.” Hello Other Mother! She’s already watching Coraline
in the real world - as if simply unlocking the door unleashed the Other Mother… and SOMETHINGS
ELSE. Anyway, bravely, Coraline returns to sleep, but the slippery rats infiltrate her
dreams with their creepy, creepy poem song. “The next day it had stopped raining, but a
thick white fog had lowered itself over the house.” Lowered itself, you say?! Book Coraline
goes out in it, where she runs into Miss Spink who comments on the “rotten weather” and then
gets lost in memories Coraline walks away, a mere three quarters of the way around
the house in fact, when she bumps into Miss Forcible who asks after Miss Spink,
saying “I do hope she doesn’t get lost” This mist is SO disorienting that the theater
gals have lost each other already. “You’d have to be an explorer to find your way around
in this fog.” Which, of course, she is. “Coraline continued walking through the gardens
in the gray mist. She always kept in sight of the house. After about ten minutes of walking she
found herself back where she had started.” Which, remember, Coraline has spent 2 WEEKS getting
familiar with these grounds. This dense mist, which soaks Coraline’s hair and face, rolls
in RIGHT AFTER the door was unlocked (but NOT entered) is NOT natural. Not only had it “lowered
ITSELF over the house” but it's made Miss Spink and Forcible lost and on edge in their own way,
and has Coraline, the capable explorer, walking in circles, unintentionally. Like the movie, the
mice warn Coraline not to go through the door, but also “The mice do not like the mist. It
makes their whiskers droop.” These mice know a LOT, and you KNOW if they fear the mist
it’s for more than a bad whisker day. This pervasive fog is a hint at what’s to come
once she finally does traverse the Corridor into the
Other World… or SHE’S ALREADY ON HER WAY THERE. Because you see, the Corridor Door is LOCKED.
And, unlike the movie, mom didn’t do it. Coraline hasn’t gone through the door yet, but she DID trod
on a mushroom circle AND walked through this MIST. She’s also so taken with the mist that she tries
drawing it, but “after ten minutes of drawing she still had a white sheet of paper with M I S T
written on it in one corner in slightly wiggly letters.” Mist IS REALLY DIFFICULT to capture on
paper, and yet it completely changes environments and feels as though it transports you ANYWHERE.
And, what’s more, this mist changes form in the other world… it becomes gray and the world
becomes sketches (so Coraline’s drawing is kinda prescient!) Barely a page later (after
her iconic interaction with bored overworked dad,) Coraline finds herself in
Miss Spink and Forcible’s flat, where they read ambiguous “danger” in her leaves, and give her
the stone with the hole it in. Eventually Coraline heads out where, “The mist hung like blindness
around the house.” she “stopped and looked around. In the mist, it was a ghost-world.”
Which could mean it’s even thicker now, or has altered the landscape in some way, or has
ensnared Coraline and is bringing her elsewhere. In the movie, this scene takes place
AFTER Coralline has unlocked and GONE THROUGH the door. But to get us here from the
movie’s perspective, let’s rewind just a bit: Mist is one of the first characters we meet!
Right after the Other Mother sews the Coraline doll and it flys out the starry window, we see
our hidden monster right away: in the moody, heavy gray clouds and in the mountains. It's
in the first shot the whole time - with Mr Bobo (bravely!) doing calisthenics on the roof of the
ominous Pink Palace, the moving truck, movers, mom, neighbors, a beetle themed front door,
etc. This mist also creeps into the mountain sides. Quintessential Pacific Northwest,
right? Perfect for setting the tone and location of the movie, right? Yes, but it’s so
much more! The clouds loom overhead as Coraline explores and unwittingly steps into a mushroom
ring. (not great) And then sticks her head in. The next day, the clouds are CLOSER to the
house. It’s raining so much that exploring outside is impossible… almost like Something
wanted Coraline to HAVE to stay in… to find (and unlock) the creepy little door. _ When
Coraline bargains with her mother in the kitchen, we see raindrops though the thicker, blurry
kitchen window. Judging by the swaying pine trees it’s pretty windy… And yet… it’s
still FOGGY Despite this. This cloud must be TENACIOUS and purposefully moving
towards the house, like it has a mission! This is when Coraline gets the spying doll.
Every window leading up to finding the door is misty - dad’s office one is dreary. The “12
Leaky Windows” are, surprise surprise, FOGGED THE FOG UP. The Drawing room beetle-themed windows
are clear, but rainy, which she finds the door. That night, Coraline goes through
the tunnel to the other world, where all the windows are NOT misty, but clear
and starry. (A tiny tiny sliver of a waxing moon is hanging in the kitchen window,
and dad’s office shows twinkling stars, not dreary rain!) This is VERY reminiscent
of the Intro scene - all darkness and stars. Coraline wakes, in what we assume is her real
bedroom, and there is low billowing mist right outside of her window. Well, DENSE FOG (Fog
is technically denser than mist). Cut to the kettle with steamy steam to crank up this extra
misty morning! Just look at that heavy fog that rolled in…EVEN CLOSER to the house! (This is that
mist scene from the book, but visually changed so we could see the animation and not just fog).
Coraline goes out in it, and it’s gets thicker up by Mr Bobo’s flat, inside of which is a pot
boiling over: steam spewing out of it’s lid! By the time Coraline gets to Spink and Forcible’s
flat downstairs, the mist has reached the house, and fog has gotten so heavy it’s absolutely
pouring down into the stair well. Almost like it’s reaching for Coraline, following her, trying
to grab her. And, because we’re 2 for 2, let’s go for 3: As the actresses warn Coraline about danger
and prattle about death, the tea kettle boils, more misty steam coming out of it! (And then
of course the tea cup and pot). So there’s misty wonderland outside, of course, but ALSO
mist INSIDE each residence too! When Coraline leaves Spink and Forcible’s flat, the low mist
has thickened even more and it keeps on pouring in! So much so that it completely obscures slug
hunter Wybie and the cat. It’s also moving much much faster and feels… agitated. And pushy. And
hungry. It’s been getting closer… now it’s HERE. In the book, after the big mist, “The next
day the sun shone” Almost too good to be true, hmm? Coraline goes shopping, asks about
the empty flat beyond the bricks, and FINALLY GOES THROUGH the musty old CORRIDOR. She meets
the Other Mother (who is creepy right away), goes to the theater show, and retreats back to
the real world, where HER PARENTS ARE MISSING. Already. Like the movie, her parents appear in
the mirror. Now interesting thing about THIS MIRROR in particular is that it was already in
the house when book Coraline’s family moved in. They didn’t bring it with them. It could be a
window into another realm, could be anything. The trapped parents cannot speak through
it, but mist allows them to communicate: Mom breathed on it “and quickly, before the fog
faded, she wrote SU PLEH with the tip of her forefinger. The fog on the inside of the mirror
faded, and so did her parents.”” Then Coraline realized “They aren’t going to come back, are
they? Not under their own steam.” Which, Breath. Fog. Mist. Steam. All clouds. All mysterious
and important in this story. The Book Other Mother twists this fog when she uses the mirror to
show Coraline’s parents, happy to be rid of her. In the movie, this seems to be icy fog mom and
dad use to communicate in the mirror. It’s still raining outside when Coraline burns the doll,
but note that the snowglobe, in this world, is STILL mist free, even though her parents are
gone. It’s like the Other Mother’s magic cannot work in Coraline’s world, but this foggy frothy
outside Mist… CAN. Through the Corridor we go, and the ONLY snowglobe that is misty is the one
her parents are trapped in! Here, mist is used to obscure. But there’s something else: it’s also
possible that the MIST itself stole them - mom went out into the mist to get groceries and
we never saw her again. Dad was in town. Now they’re gone. Something to watch: as the Other
Mother’s power wanes, this globe stays misty. On the Other grounds - the further Both Coralines
get from the house the sketchier the trees get until they become the rough IDEA of trees. Then….
“She kept walking. And then the mist began. It was not damp, like a normal fog or mist. It was not
cold and it was not warm. It felt to Coraline like she was walking into nothing.” The other
Mother could only create the house. The MIST is just … HERE. On the borders. AS the borders,
perhaps? “The world she was walking through was a pale nothingness, like a blank sheet of
paper or an enormous, empty white room. It had no temperature, no smell, no texture, and no
taste. ‘It certainly isn’t mist’ thought Coraline, although she did not know what it was. [...] there
was no ground beneath her feet, just a misty, milky whiteness.” Just like her first mist
adventure, she’s back where she started: the ”dark house, which loomed at
them out of the formless whiteness.” The cat confirms she hasn’t gotten turned
around, but it’s just a very small world. This scene plays the same
in the movie, but the house, instead of looming darkly like in
the book, sorta Twilight Princess glitches back into existence on top of
the empty white fog that’s not a fog. After she finds the second soul: “outside, the
world had become a formless, swirling mist with no shapes or shadows behind it, while the house
itself seemed to have twisted and stretched.” The Other Mother’s power is weakening with every
soul found, and the Mist that lingers on the edges of her power is encroaching more and more,
erasing her ‘trees’ distorting her home. Coraline tells the Other Mother she has only one more
soul to find…. “Thank you, Coraline,’ said the other mother coldly, and her voice did not
just come from her mouth. It came from the mist, and the fog, and the house, and the sky.” She’s
just creepily standing there in “the paper-gray fog of the flattening world.” Between her voice
coming from everywhere, and the flattening of the world into fog, It seems like the Other
Mother is unraveling in this mystical mist. On here way to the third soul, Coraline
“walked around to the side of the house, in the gray mist that wasn’t a mist.” “”I’m an
explorer,’” said Coraline out loud, but her words sounded muffled and dead on the misty air” This
more-than-mist entity is everywhere and hungry, eating her words. And, from now on, the word
“mist” is no longer referenced, but “gray” seems to have replaced it, like the gray in the movie.
Once the exists have flattened. The house no longer looks real - “more like a drawing, a crude,
charcoal scribble of a house drawn on gray paper.” The ‘mist’ (well, “gray’) is EVERYWHERE now.
Gray overtaking the scrawled house. The souls’ marbles are “a frosted gray” (like the Other
Mother’s influence had been drained from them) The movie ALSO uses gray in this way - to show the
Other Mother's power draining out of the world, the souls, whatever it was used to create, and
the Grey Nothing is taking the space back. And like Book coraline’s words, something's
“eating” the stars: After the Theatre, there are less stars out, and more distant
clouds and the shadowed moon is nearly full. By the time we see Wybie’s clothes hanging,
there are barely any stars left in the sky. The button is about to eclipse the
moon when Coraline nearly loses the third soul. The cat's timely… ah gift…
stops it in its tracks though. There are EVEN FEWER stars in the gray sky now. Like
something’s obscuring them, or eating them. The movie uses the button shadow the show
the other mother’s “score in the game against Coraline” if you will. But there’s another
thing at play here: I think the glitchy gray is her score against the MIST. And uhh… she’s
losing there! When the last soul is collected, I think the near last bit of the Other Mother’s power is
lost: the part holding the white mist, the Gray Nothingness REST of the other world at bay. The Other Mother
lives in pocket, and has been able to maintain her home for so long only by harvesting souls… which
she no longer has. With the power crumbling, the house crumbles, paper peels, and the defenses of
the Other world in general are crumbling against the bigger, blank threat of the gray emptiness.
The button moon that was keeping Coraline’s score now implodes to show the Other Mother’s time is
nearly up. She can no longer maintain illusions. But something is still maintaining that misty
snow globe on the mantle! In a last ditch effort to steal power, the Other Mother resorts to
overtly trapping Coraline in her actual web… which is NO LONGER an illusion but a flimsy
spiderweb amid the vastness of blank white mist-but-not mist nothingness. It’s scary how
small she feels now, how insignificant her power feels when this is in the picture. The web is
literally her last thread against the blank mist. Back in the book, Coraline, now home
still has more to do to get rid of the gray in the REAL WORLD, because it’s bled over
metaphorically to that world too! The gray, predawn light showed her the whole of the
corridor, (not THAT corridor) completely deserted.” she “opened the front door and
looked at the gray sky” knowing she has to get rid of the key. Yes, these are poetic
uses, but it feels as though this gray is fighting for it’s grip on Coraline’s world…
and losing. Because after this gray morning, the weather is wonderful! And once Coraline tricks
the hand, the night finally turns warm. The End! And to end the movie, the clouds do this same
lingering in the real world. After escaping, for the first time the outside world is
not rainy, or misty! Mom and dad are back, and it’s an uncannily clear night at
what we HOPE is the real pink palace. We can see the first moon in the real
world (again if you trust that’s where we are) - and it’s waning! Losing face,
just like the Mist and the Other Mother. As Coraline and Wybie struggle to destroy
the hand and dispose of the key, the clouds above are positively roiling and boiling - like
they’re fighting from above! When they succeed, The clouds thin to almost nothing, and have STOP
moving once the hand is gone and the well sealed. Other Mother misty hands finally release their
hold on the moon, and we transition into the FIRST SUNNY DAY in the whole movie! I WOULD say ‘happily
ever after” but I have serious doubts about that. In the book, this Mist appears AFTER the door
is unlocked, but BEFORE Coraline goes into the Corridor, like it’s been unfettered and eager
to escape. Mist is also used to communicate, and to twist and deceive. As the Other Mother’s
power weakens, the Mist or Gray Nothingness gains strength and space. It’s everywhere
- outside, in the mind, in the other world. It destroys whatever is too weak. The Mist in
the movie is similar to the mist in the book, although visually it had to change. It’s there all
the time, constantly waiting in the background, but AFTER Coraline has visited the other world
it feels like it followed her back out and is clawing to get her back. In both book and movie,
the fog and mist is present in the real world, AND the other world, both as clouds, and THEN
as gray nothingness. The Other Mother’s magic (specifically the snow globe) does NOT
show in the real world, but the mist does. By looking through all of
the windows in the movie, we get to track few things. First is the
mist, and how it works between worlds: generally it’s always raining/foggy in the real
world, and starry clear in the Other World. Then they flip. As the OM’s power weakens, there
are fewer and fewer stars in the other world, and it becomes dark, where as the clouds pull
away from the real world windows. Second: Through the windows we also get to track how time
is passing in the Other Realm via the moon phases: When Coraline first visits the other world, we see
a tiny sliver of a waxing moon. In Our Real world this would actually be a waning moon - it’s almost
a dark moon. But here it either seems backwards (And I’ll call them by the motion of light across
the moon surface that we see in the movie), or relative to the Other Mother’s increasing
or decreasing power. Because Next trip through has a HALF moon rising above the
garden, and by dinner breakfast time, the moon outside the kitchen window is now
a smidge more than half full. Next time, after Coraline runs upstairs to get away from the
Buttons, we see NEARLY FULL MOON! Back home after saving her parents, Coraline’s real bedroom
window shows a waning moon in a clear night. If these moon phases are anything to go
by, time passes a lot FASTER in the other realm - we went from essentially a New
Moon to a FULL Moon over the course of a couple days in the real world. In the book
too: a ghost child says: “...she’ll keep you here while the days turn to dust and the
leaves fall and the years pass one after the next like the tick-tick-ticking of a clock.
” Time passes differently in the other realm, kinda like the fairy realm… which is a MAJOR
clue to what our sentient seeming mist could be. And, finally this is where we’re getting nerdy
into specific mist folklore. Unlike rain, where there’s usually some warning it’s on the way
(tree leaves will turn upwards (thanks grandma!) as a hint) Mist can just… appear. Sometimes
out of nowhere. Specifically Fairy fog, or Féth fíada. We’ve sorta covered it here
before, but it’s extremely important in this context. Especially when you consider the
book and how it’s more steeped in folklore. The Fairy Mist’s purpose is many-fold: It is
what ancient beings, the Tuatha De Danann, would wrap themselves in to hide from humans.
According to legend, this enabled them to survive, but also to sneak up on enemies, or to capture
mortals. (Book coralline accuses the Other Mother of “stealing” her parents, and Wybie
uses the world STOLEN when talking about his great-aunt) This mist can roll into the hills and
mountains of the country side without warning, and woe be to anyone caught unawares in it… They
could be transported to the fairy realm. The Coraline mist could be a type of the Fairy Mist.
We’ve also covered that the Cat could be a type of fairy entity, and we also know from the book that
the Other Mother has access to the fairy realm: by the little fairy soul she trapped ages ago
or the other world is a fairy world itself. Fairies are notorious for unfair bargains
(here, skinned as “games”). They also use food as a way to entrap a mortal in their
realm longer - just like the Other Mother and her mouthwatering cooking. Also, everything
supernatural happening after Coraline crosses a mushroom circle at the very start of the stories
certainly seems like fairy mischief to me! All these little details add up. The mist in
Coraline seems to act just as Fairy Fog but WITH SOME MIND OF ITS OWN, or worse, a mindless need to
expand and overtake. It is present in both realms, and also changes form in the other realm,
and I think overwhelms the Other Mother’s little pocket of pink palace - with her power
waning she can no longer maintain her borders, and she (and her home) are dissolving in it. (Like
they’re in the stomach of a much bigger entity… hello old corridor!) The mist is disorienting,
and potentially, indiscriminately destructive. Another way to look at this is mist in
terms of being a symbol: Mist is commonly used to represent the border between reality and
non-reality. Like dream worlds, fairy words, and, in this case, the Other World. It’s a liminal
space, where anything can happen - best dreams and worst fears. And appears naturally on
BOTH sides of the things it’s separating, like the real and other world. It can go between
because it IS the between. And, if one of the worlds is losing power, well, the border pushes
more and more into it. In Coraline, all it took was a little key and a lot of imagination to
set it loose and begin a terrifying adventure! To get a bit esoteric: This border concept
is perfectly summed up in one particular type of tarot card: The ACE. It can be
of any suit (cups, pentacles, swords, wands) because they all follow the same theme: A
Single HAND, holding the suit (potential) coming Out Of The Clouds. Clouds here are used as
a threshold, or entry point to reality. The obscured made visible. It’s full of potential. Can
we just appreciate how cool that is? It just feels like the Other Mother’s hand is trying to guide…
or beguile us! Or handing us a ‘key’ to a problem. But now, I’d like to demystify something else…
something special and OTHER worldly… I’ve been uploading videos to Nebula, which is now my
Other home in a way! Nebula is a creator-owned and operated streaming service where creators get
to experiment with new and interesting content, and I’m thrilled to be a part of
it! I’ll actually be releasing my next video on Nebula first. But it is
not just early access to my videos, Nebula is filled with exclusive original content
that ONLY lives there! Like fellow creator Tale Foundry’s exploration into Neil Gaiman’s creative
process, which covers some of my favorite works, like Coraline, and the Sandman. I’ve just moved
in with my creepy and weird animated stories, and if you want even more animated lore, check
out Tale Foundry and Extra (Mythology) there too! Right now, Nebula is offering my viewers
an incredible 40% off annual subscriptions, which works out to $30 / year or just $2.50 /
month. That’s it, for exclusive and hand-crafted early content from your favorite creators,
with no ads or interruptions! You can even download episodes in the app and listen to them
on the go, or drift off to sleep while listening to me recount the creepiest of dark fairytales
(sweet dreams friends and fiends!) This month, Nebula is offering lifetime memberships for $300.
That’s ‘forever and always!’ But, honestly, the annual subscription is the absolute best deal. And
using my link would support my channel directly, just like watching my videos over there
does! Thank you so much for checking out go.nebula.tv/abitfrank, and seeing what Nebula
is all about! I hope to see you there very soon! Mist. What everyone… Missed. I hope you enjoyed
this kinda poetic, very obsessive video about the mists in Coraline! Just what or who is maintaining
the snow globe trap: the powerless other Mother, or the swirling, shapeless tasteless mist? Or
something else? Let me know in the comments below! If you’re out exploring, and a fog rolls
in around you, do keep your wits sharp, and your non-button eyes peeled! And be sure to
subscribe so you wont miss the next spooky video!
