“Oh. Mirabel didn’t get one.” [intro] So. I love Dolores. I love her with my entire soul and she is
relatable to me in a deep, visceral way which is why things like this- -make me see red. No I have not watched this video, I know
it’s just going to upset me, and I am not in the habit of watching
things specifically to get upset. In general I’ve seen the idea that Dolores
could have “solved” the plot within seconds if she only cared to way too
much. Usually from white dude-bros and ‘um, actually’
geeks who have less emotional intelligence than your average hamster. This is… completely inane. The plot of Encanto is not a logic puzzle
to be solved, it’s a tangled mess of human emotion. It’s the story of a family, of flawed but
ultimately good human beings, and of the impact of generational trauma. So all of the people I’ve seen have this
take? Sit the fuck down, this is a story about feelings,
not an Uncharted treasure hunt. Which is why, before I even get into how obviously
not neurotypical Dolores is, let me explain to you why she never outright mentioned any
of the myriad things she must have overheard. Because it doesn’t make sense for her character. Any story will always be dependant on characters
following a logical path, but that logical path will not always look perfectly logical
from an outside point of view. You have to be able to set aside your bird’s
eye point of view and consider what this particular character is feeling, who they are, and how
that is guiding their actions. The most famous example I can think of is
“If Hamlet and Othello switched places, their stories would cease to be tragedies”. Because they are different characters, with
different motivations and personalities, so what becomes an inevitable downward spiral
for one, would be easily solved by the other. Then what about Dolores? Why didn’t she ever tell anyone about tío
Bruno living in the walls? We’re not exactly sure. There could be many reasons. The most compelling, to me, are either that
he outright asked her not to, that she knew her words would likely not be heeded
anyway because of the rule of silence around him, or simply that she could sympathise with him
and didn’t want to betray his secrets. That last one seems particularly plausible if you
consider her verse in ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’. Even so, she is constantly hinting at his
presence throughout the entire movie, practically begging someone to look a little closer at
what she’s saying and realise what she means. She has never stopped talking about Bruno
in present-tense. If the family talked about him more, they’d
probably have caught that. Ok, fine, you might say. But why didn’t she tell Mirabel, or anyone else,
about Abuela talking to Pedro? Well, for startes, because there is a big difference
between gossiping about your cousin and telling on the family matriarch!
Good God, people. Besides, if she heard Abuela, she’d probably
have heard Mirabel too, so repeating information would be unnecessary. The other possibility, the one that is actually really likely,
is that since Dolores’ room is soundproof, by the time Alma had that conversation
with Pedro, she’d already gone to bed. That’s not a headcanon, by the way, Jared Bush has
confirmed that Dolores’ room has soundproofing. Which is great because I already had that
headcanon, because it makes no sense for Casita not to give her some reprieve from the noise
of the outside world. Yes she said she heard Luisa’s eye twitch
all night, but there’s really no reason to think she wasn’t being at least slightly
hyperbolic. Or she was talking about during the party
and the rest of the evening, after Mirabel saw the cracks. Dolores gets honestly unfairly painted as the town
gossip, and I won’t deny that she does gossip. But in actuality she is the family secret
keeper. Think about just how much she must have accidentally
overheard throughout her life. Her entire life since she was five years old has been
a constant mess of sorting the stuff she can and should tell others from the stuff she
has to pretend she doesn’t know about. Some of the things she overheard as a child
would absolutely not have been something she should have been exposed to, but there’s
no way for her parents to protect her from her own ears. She had to grow up quickly and learn what
was and wasn’t alright to share. When she finally does run up against a massive
secret that she feels she has to tell the family, because this is a big deal and they
need to know, she physically can not wait until
after the Guzmáns leave. It’s urgent, they need to talk about it,
and every second that goes by her anxiety only mounts. None of which is aided by the fact that this
night is her literal nightmare come true, because she’s supposed to sit there and
watch the man she’s in love with propose to her cousin who, depending on how
careful Isabela’s been up until this point, she might even know doesn’t
want to marry him at all. Hell, she might have been actively looking
for a way to sabotage this night without making it obvious that’s what she’s doing and
Bruno’s vision just happened to unfortunately be her only, last minute option. And if that was what she was doing I have
to assume it was not purely selfish. Because Isa and Dolores are obviously so close. You can see it in how they stand during Antonio’s
Gift ceremony. Furthermore, if you read a bit more about
the family you’ll learn that they’re almost exactly the same age, Dolores being only slightly
younger than Isa. If, and that's again an if, she was actively looking
for a way to sabotage the engagement, then I have to assume she knew that Isa didn’t
actually want to marry Mariano. And of course being autistic and interacting
with a neurotypical world would not help with any of this. But I suppose I should actually talk about
why I read Dolores as autistic. And no, it’s not necessarily because of
her squeaks, because I know those are cultural. Doesn’t mean she couldn’t have taken a
cultural thing and used that as a stimm, in fact it’d make a lot of sense if she did
that, but that alone is not enough. No, really it’s just… everything about
her. So first let’s talk posture, actually. Dolores is very particular in her movement. She has a very practised air to how she walks
and moves and interacts with the world. Additionally, almost every time we see her
on screen, if she’s not handling something else or interacting with a family member,
she’ll be holding her hands in front of herself. This gives her something easy and discreet
to fidget with, her own hands, while also serving as a self-soothing measure. I do something similar in that I cross my
arms a lot. I’m honestly not being defensive when I
do it, it’s essentially me hugging myself and it helps with my anxiety. When I’m not doing that I’m likely playing
with one of my rings in a very similar pose to the one we often see Dolores take. It’s like… the neurodivergent urge to
t-rex, or something. Then we have her communication style. Dolores is extremely blunt. She doesn’t speak a lot, but when she does,
she tends to strike directly to the heart of what she wants to say and leave it at that. I’ve seen so many people assign some kind
of malice or “call out” to this moment right here; “Oh. Mirabel didn’t get one.” And… no. Just no. Mirabel’s lack of Gift is common knowledge. From Dolores’ perspective there’s nothing
wrong with providing this information to these children who will learn about it one way or
another anyway. Honestly it was this exact moment that made
me sit up and go 'Oh. You’re one of us.' Because everything about how Dolores says
this, how she pops up, casually drops the information, and moves on with her day? There’s no malice here. As she sees it, she is imparting a widely-known,
largely neutral piece of information. Then we have at least two moments on screen
where for one reason or another her emotions are running high and as a result, whatever
she wants to say practically explodes out of her. The first being at dinner, where obviously
she’s feeling primarily worried and scared. Here, we see her tension and discomfort grow
with every second of the staring contest between her and Mirabel, and when things finally do
come to a head Dolores yells out the worst, catastrophised version of what her anxiety
has allowed her worries to build into. Which obviously isn’t great, but given how
much pressure has been on her this entire evening it’s also understandable. The second instance is her confession to Mariano. The moment she has the chance, she essentially
lets everything she’s been holding back for Isabela’s sake just flood out of her. I’m honestly tempted to call it an info-dump? She finally has a chance to talk to Mariano
about how she really feels so she tells him everything immediately as quickly as she can. Luckily Mariano is a hopeless romantic so
that actually works out for her and I love that for them. When Dolores talks she says what she means,
and doesn’t feel the need to clarify because it doesn’t register that maybe her tone
was off or her words might come off as harsh. The only time she ever purposefully obfuscates
is when she’s both trying to keep Bruno’s secret and practically begging someone to
catch what she’s hinting at. Beyond that, she always speaks very quietly. Her voice almost always has a gentle kind
of monotone to it, which is honestly very pleasant to listen to. If you didn’t know, some autistic people
may have trouble conveying emotion in their voice or regulating which emotion they’re
vocally portraying. I have a bit of a similar problem with regulating
my tone. It was a lot more present when I was a kid. Which ironically means that as an adult
I sometimes speak too softly. Though I do also still have slip-ups where
I’m just a bit too loud. So Dolores’ generally quiet presence is
extremely relatable to me but like… on the other side of the loudness spectrum from me. Then of course there is the biggest, most
neon sign in all of this. Dolores’ powers. It’s no secret that the family’s powers
in one way or another ground themselves in who each of them are as people. Julieta is caring and nurturing, she gets
the healing powers. Pepa feels everything with an incredible intensity,
she gets the weather mood-ring. Bruno worries about everything all of the
time, he gets the power to see into the future to hopefully mitigate his anxiety a little
bit. That didn’t work out so well, but at least
Casita tried. Every single member of the family has gotten
a Gift that was somehow either reflective of who they are or an attempt to help them
somehow. And what does Dolores get? She gets to control her hearing. Because obviously she can control it. If she was constantly hearing everything inside
the Encanto, she would not be able to function, and we actively see her direct her senses
towards the Guzmán residence when Abuela tells her to. Now, why do I think this is so significant? Because I can’t do this. I can’t decide what noise in my environment
I want to pay attention to. And I don’t mean like, if there’s an annoying
thing in the background it might break my concentration. I mean I hear everything around me all of
the time. Unless I’m hyper-focused, but
that’s a different conversation. If there are too many noises, or one particularly
bad one, my brain will essentially shut down because there’s just too much input and
I cannot sort through all of it. This is why I hate crowds. And vacuuming. But despite Dolores’ control, her ears are
obviously still sensitive. We see it when she covers her ears because of the
fireworks, or Pepa’s storm, or the house cracking. And with this ability to control her hearing
she also gets the ability to observe people. How they act around each other, how they react. What makes people mad, what do
people think is inapropriate? All the things that a young, autistic child
might be worried about. Because so many of us learn pretty early on that
our concepts of what is normal and chill aren't necessarily universal? So what I think happened is we have
Dolores, this young child who gets easily overwhelmed by sound,
and we have Casita, this magical house who cares for its residents and wants to help. And the best way it can think to do that? Is to give her some control. So in conclusion Dolores is autistic and Encanto’s
story is deeply emotionally driven and not a god damn puzzle box. The plot could not have resolved without true
reconciliation, and that wouldn’t have happened if the answers were just handed to the characters
on a silver platter. Thanks for watching this video, if you liked
it consider liking it and maybe subscribing, I will be back here Thursday after next. Bye. [rustic music] Oh also this is my 100th video and I just
wanted to stop in here at the end to say Thank you so much for all of the support recently. It’s been unreal, and it truly means the
world to me.
