Encanto: 10 Things About Mirabel That Make No Sense

The newest Disney hit Encanto has been captivating audiences with its heart-wrenching story of generational trauma, and a moving soundtrack. This is helped, of course, by the fact that the soundtrack was composed by the genius behind Hamilton and In The Heights: Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Yet, some things about the film don’t make sense to audiences, particularly about its main character, Mirabel Madrigal. The teenager voiced by ranged actor Stephanie Beatriz is fun and quirky, though some aspects of her story are a bit confusing – and despite rewatching, these questions still have fans baffled.

10 Why Can’t Mirabel Tell Camilo Apart?

Mirabel’s cousin Camilo has the gift of shapeshifting. Even still, his family can generally tell when he is impersonating someone else, such as when his father Félix reprimanded him for disguising himself as Dolores to get second helpings of food.

Mirabel, though, can’t seem to tell when the person she thinks she’s talking to is Camilo in disguise. Despite living with Camilo all her life and being close to him, Mirabel still hasn’t learned to tell when Camilo is in shapeshifting form. This may, of course, be another layer to the fact that she seems fairly unaware of what’s actually going on with her family – and discovering this is what saves the day.

9 Why Is There A Toucan?

When Mirabel goes into Bruno’s room, her one companion on this adventure is a toucan. Why, though, is the toucan there in the first place? Mirabel isn’t the character that has an affinity with animals– that title goes to Antonio. The toucan seems to be with her totally at random.

Perhaps the toucan was a certain member of the Madrigal family, a member who can shapeshift? It’s possible that Camilo wanted to give Mirabel some companionship as she underwent this journey into Bruno’s room.

8 Why Didn’t Mirabel Know About Bruno?

Mirabel knew nothing about Bruno other than that he could see the future. That’s why she had to ask the whole family about him in the song, We Don’t Talk About Bruno. So, how come Camilo knew enough about Bruno to sing about him?

Camilo is only a few months older than Mirabel, so they both would have been small when Bruno disappeared. Yet, Camilo seems to know more about Bruno than Mirabel does at the beginning of the film. Granted, Camilo didn’t get everything right about Bruno in his part of the song, as Bruno is not seven feet tall – so this could be put down to the legend of Bruno growing and morphinh. Though, if that is the case, how did Camilo know about Bruno’s rats?

7 Why Did Mirabel Think She Was Ruining The Magic?

When Mirabel found herself in Bruno’s prophecy, seeming to be at the center of the cracks appearing in Casita, she at once jumped to the conclusion that she was ruining the magic. Yet, Mirabel hadn’t done anything other than live her life as normal.

Why did Mirabel think she was ruining everything when she had done nothing wrong? This can be explained possibly by a life filled with gaslighting, and Mirabel being made by her family to feel as though she is always doing wrong, even when she isn’t. This is also most likely explained by the lingering repercussions of Mirabel’s lost door – and her belief that there has always been something wrong with her.

6 Why Didn’t Mirabel Get Covered In Colors?

In Isabela’s song What Else Can I Do?, Isabela and Mirabel prance and dance in the exotic new plants that Isabela creates. In doing so, Isabela gets covered from head to toe in the colorful plant fumes. Yet, Mirabel escapes unscathed by the colors.

They were playing and dancing near each other, and then shared their iconic embrace in front of the candle. So why didn’t Mirabel end up also getting covered in the fumes? Both sisters should have ended up with colors stained on their clothes.

5 Why Don’t All The Townsfolk Know About Mirabel?

Mirabel is the only member of the family Madrigal apart from Abuela Alma to not receive a gift. They live in a small town, where they are the central figures of everyone’s lives, and Mirabel’s non-gift receival was big news. Yet, not everyone in town knows that Mirabel doesn’t have a gift.

While some townsfolk do, the little kids don’t, and neither, it seems, do the musicians playing in the opening song. While it makes sense that the kids are too young to remember Mirabel’s failed ceremony, why don’t the musicians know?

4 How Does Mirabel Get Back Out Of Bruno’s Room?

This one makes possibly the least amount of sense. To get to the part of Bruno’s room where Mirabel needed to go, she climbed a lot of stairs, then used a rope to jump across a deep chasm. Then, the part of the cliff with the rope broke off and fell.

How on earth did Mirabel get back out of Bruno’s room? There was no way to get across the chasm after the rope fell, and Casita was no help in that room. Also, the room was falling apart after Mirabel pieced together Bruno’s prophecy. It seems like a miracle that Mirabel escaped with her life.

3 Why Does Mirabel Still Live In The Nursery?

Yes, Mirabel doesn’t get a gift, but why couldn’t she at least get a new bedroom that wasn’t the old nursery? It seems cruel and unusual that on top of the disappointment of not getting a gift, the family didn’t allow Mirabel to move out of the nursery.

While this allowed Mirabel to become close with Antonio, the Madrigals own a magic house that could have created a new room for Mirabel upon being asked. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been as cool and magical as the other bedrooms, but it still would have been a place for Mirabel to call her own as she came into adulthood, instead of being forced to have a child’s room all her life.

2 What Is The Significance Of The Butterflies?

The costuming in the film was intricate, with everyone’s costume featuring details that correspond to them as characters. For instance, Bruno’s poncho has designs of hourglasses. Mirabel’s outfit has a theme of butterflies from the beginning, but butterflies don’t become significant until halfway through the film.

It can be guessed that Mirabel herself represents a butterfly, starting as a caterpillar at the beginning of the film and turning into a butterfly by the end. Though, while the butterfly symbolism is abundant, it’s unclear what it means, leaving the viewers to make their own assumptions.

1 Why Didn’t Mirabel Get A Gift?

The most obvious confusion of all: why didn’t Mirabel receive a gift? This was something that viewers perhaps expected to find out throughout the film, but were left guessing by the end after having received no answers.

One interesting Reddit theory is that Mirabel is supposed to inherit the matriarchal role after Abuela Alma passes on. After all, Abuela is quite old, and as far as viewers know, is not immortal. This could also explain why Mirabel doesn’t have her own room, as she is supposed to take Abuela’s room once it’s vacant. With this theory, the whole story becomes about Mirabel coming into her own as the next leader of the family Madrigal.

About The Author