History Fridge / TheSecretOfNIMH

[[AC:FridgeLogic]]
* The male characters who play a significant role in Mrs. Brisby's ordeal in the film (save for Mr. Ages and Nicodemus) have names starting with "J". Jonathan, her husband. Jeremy the crow. Justin the guard captain. Jenner the BigBad.
** Namely, all of the four guys directly impact the well-being of Mrs. Brisby and her kids. Jonathan is obvious as their father. Jeremy cares for her kids directly as a babysitter and is a friend of Brisby’s, Justin leads the Rats to help move her home out of danger, and Jenner puts her family IN danger.

* When I was a kid, I always thought the weird images in the "our world began changing" sequence were supposed to be pain-induced hallucinations the rats were experiencing--just abstract nightmare images with no rhyme or reason. It was only after not having seen the movie for several years--and learning more about biology in the meantime--that I realized the twisty ladder-like structures were supposed to be DNA strands being disrupted, mutated...and as they changed, so did the way the rats viewed their world.
* If the process the rats went through slows the aging process, why does Nicodemus (who was presumably the same age as the others when NIMH took him) look like he's about a hundred years old? Magic (or psychic powers, or whatever) appears to be physically taxing, judging by Mrs. Brisby's exhaustion after using the amulet, and he seems to use it almost constantly.
** Why are you assuming that Nicodemus was the same age as other rats like Jenner? We never really see all of the rats/mice that were experimented on, and seeing as the animals were all shown being gathered from the streets at random there's no reason to assume they'd all just happen to be the same age. Therefore, it's very possible that Nicodemus was already a fairly old rat when he was originally captured, who managed to then reach years that'd be considered absolutely ancient or unheard of for a rat due to the experiments.
* Some clips in this wiki describe the Great Owl as thematically a dragon. It makes sense; a giant flying beast that's both very dangerous and very wise in old age. Then I thought about the cobwebbing stuck to his wings and back. It just hit me, the webs are meant to make his normally feathered wings look like a western dragon's leathery wings.

* NIMH is a real world organization.
** Not just that, but what happened to the rats and mice was based on ''real-life experiments''. They were controversial, but they ''existed''.

* Why was Jenner so determined to keep the rats from leaving anyway? You could argue that he desperately wanted to rule, but he could've ruled somewhere else too, and he knew NIMH was coming and would likely take him back to a life of imprisonment or death.
** The reason Jenner didn't want to leave is because he's strongly against "The Plan" ([[spoiler: the rats leaving the rosebush, abandoning the lifestyle and technology they made there and moving to Thorn Valley]]). He even [[spoiler: killed Nicodemus]], thinking it would put a permanent stop to "The Plan." Additionally, [[spoiler: he didn't know about NIMH arriving to find them, as Mrs. Brisby was the first to hear about it, and is in denial about her warnings and tries to make her out as a hysterical liar]]. Add to that Jenner didn't come off as particularly stable a being.
** Also, Jenner was willing to fight NIMH. If he had stolen the Stone, it isn't hard to imagine he would have won.
*** Except that [[ArcWords ''Courage of the heart is very rare. The stone has a power when it's there.'']] Jenner was ultimately a coward and probably wouldn't have been able to use the stone effectively.
*** Jenner was many things, but cowardly was definitely not one of them.
*** That's up for debate. The narrative provided by Justin makes it sound as though he's only gotten bolder about openly attacking Nicodemus over time, which could suggest that a lack of genuine reciprocation has encouraged him. Too, his plan to [[spoiler:get rid of Nicodemus]] - an incredibly old rat who needs the aid of a walking stick, wheezes audibly, and speaks laboriously - involves [[spoiler:crushing him to death under a brick, which - as Jenner is ''well aware'' - is currently occupied by at least one young, very sick child who is explicitly too sick to move, and who could be hurt or killed in the commotion of the entire thing falling what equates to several mouse-sized stories, particularly with so much furniture and other trappings being loose enough to tumble about in the fall.]] If Jenner is no coward, why not challenge Nicodemus directly? The other rats appear to run on a system that's somewhere between HonorBeforeReason and ObstructiveBureaucracy - even [[spoiler:Sullivan,]] Jenner's lackey, seems motivated more because he's buying what Jenner is selling, and the other rats have been entertaining Jenner's open outcry against Nicodemus long enough to suggest they would at least respect an outcome where Jenner defeated Nicodemus in a fair duel. Does he think Nicodemus or one of the other rats would cheat as hard as Jenner was willing to?
*** He is evil, though, so the courage of his heart is corrupted.
*** See just below:
* Jenner's plan was doomed from the beginning because he did not know enough. First, living in the Rosebush longer was not only immoral (which he knew and didn't care about), but also impossible since N.I.M.H. agents were coming soon (and that he did ''not'' know). Later, he wants to get the Stone. But all he knows is that it's a magical stone with telekinetic powers. He doesn't know about the "courage of the heart".

* Jenner's plan was doomed from the beginning because he did not know enough. First, living in the Rosebush longer was not only immoral (which he knew and didn't care about), but also impossible since N.I.M.H. agents were coming soon (and that he did ''not'' know). Later, he wants to get the Stone. But all he knows is that it's a magical stone with telekinesic powers. He doesn't know about the "courage of the heart".

** Jeremy is a crow, which are also attracted to sparklies. Also, he's not shown being dumb, just an excitable klutz.
*** ...crows ''are'' corvids.

* The moving of the Brisby home was fairly dangerous. Timmy's case is obvious, he can't go outside, but why weren't the other children evacuated for this? Or they could have had Mr. Ages, Justin or someone go into the home to take care of the kids and make sure they stayed calm and safe?

* [[MadScienceLaboratory NIMH is a real world organization.]]

* The reason Timmy has to be the hero in the sequel is that if Martin was the hero, Timmy wouldn't care enough to do a FaceHeelTurn, breaking the SelfFulfillingProphecy. That makes Timmy's hero status EVEN MORE arbitrary.

* The two cats survive the elevator falling, despite it audibly crashing a few seconds after Timmy escapes. They then come back to chase him (where they fall down the elevator shaft again). Timmy lampshades this turn of events, that they could come back unharmed after the fall. But the elevator is an explicit ACME product, and while ACME products are always failing in horrific ways they never actually cause long-standing or highly-disabling damage.

* The much disavowed sequel to ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfNimh'', ''The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue'' has one particularly disturbing FridgeHorror moment. [[spoiler: It is when the lab catches fire and the firefighters break open a cage to free several labcoat clad men (presumably scientists) who act and move like dogs]]. It is not scary as a little kid, but once you know some history, several ''very'' unpleasant instances of human experimentation come to mind.
** There's also a "Quickthaw" variant of the same scene: Imagine showing up for work in NIMH one day and several other scientists ''who may have been your colleagues'' capture and forcibly experiment upon you. When it's all said and done you are left as [[AndIMustScream a canine in a human's body]]. And it isn't a whole lot better to think they might have ''volunteered'' for this experiment.
*** What if they made you a man in a dog's body?
** Another example of a "Freeze-by-Time" one, in which you have to know a bit about animal behavior, is especially terrifying; animals, even domestic species, don't just go to people naturally. You have to condition and imprint and handle these animals, especially at a young age, before they look up to a human as someone to trust. Wild animals will avoid people, even if they have food. Most people think the alley cats from before were just that; stray cats. But, their trust of a human, and their willingness to follow him, can only mean one thing; ''these were once someone's pets, and they're'' experimenting ''on them.'' Not only that, but the fact that all you see to try to bring in cats was a bowl of food for them, and they weren't wearing gloves in case the cats scratched them, meant that very docile, pet cats, ''were what they were after.'' After all, they've been studying mental health, and this has been known for a while.

* When the rats and cats are rescued from the burning lab near the end of ''The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy To The Rescue'' you will notice (probably long after the credits roll) that none of the animals Martin mutated/spliced were rescued.

* The much disavowed sequel to ''TheSecretOfNimh'', ''The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue'' has one particularly disturbing FridgeHorror moment. [[spoiler: It is when the lab catches fire and the firefighters break open a cage to free several labcoat clad men (presumably scientists) who act and move like dogs]]. It is not scary as a little kid, but once you know some history, several ''very'' unpleasant instances of human experimentation come to mind.