Line #34 Headscratchers/EllaEnchanted


1	* Is it ever addressed why Ella's fairy godmother or somebody doesn't give her an order like, "Don't allow your curse to compel you to follow any instructions other than this one", or something with similar logic? I remember it bugging me when I read it, but that was almost a decade ago so I may have missed something.
2	** Most likely, it just wouldn't work, since that order would conflict with the nature of the curse.
3	** Also, it might just be canceled out by the later orders.
4	*** This. The book has several clear examples where Ella is given a new order that contradicts one she's already obeying, and she just stops obeying the old order and starts obeying the new one.
5	*** Yes, but is she ever given an order that is explicitly designed to override future ones? That's not necessarily the same as getting contradictory orders. The latter relates to executing an analyzed order, while the former relates to the process of analyzing the order itself. I know none of this probably would have worked if it came up in the story, but I just like to approach it like a computer program or a logic puzzle.
6	*** Also, if new orders cancel old orders, the stressful order at the climax could have easily been avoided - [[spoiler: Instead of having the elf chain you to a tree, just have him order her to stay home all night.]] When one considers all the loopholes available... yeah, just don't think too hard on things.
7	*** because Lucinda would still have shown up at the house and told her to go, like she did with the tree situation.
8	*** Well Lucinda does order her to enjoy all future orders. She does so until Mandy orders her to feel however she likes about them. After a period of confusion between struggling with the remnants of the old order (which would make her enjoy receiving a new one) and her own views (which hated being given orders), she went back to being able to feel however she wanted.
9	*** Why didn't her Mother just say something like "I order you to live the rest of your life as though you were never given the Gift of Obediance- unless it saves you life" or something like that? That way, she was still obey people ''sometimes'', just like a normal human would- but she wouldn't be ''compelled'' to all the time, like the 'gift' said to.
10	*** In the movie, when given an order to "Freeze", she defies gravity in order to do so. Makes one wonder why she was never given an order to save her ill mother.
11	*** Maybe Mandy didn't know that the curse could make Ella defy laws of physics and magic. In the movie (but definitely not in the book) she seems really inept. If it were in the book, Ella would probably have just fallen on the ground in that position.
12	*** In the book, it's shown that being ordered to do something doesn't automatically make Ella able to do it. She has to work ''really'' hard to be able to obey all her finishing school orders. Later, when the parrot keeps ordering her to kiss him, but flies away from her, she isn't actually able to ever kiss the parrot, but is free from her curse-symptoms as long as she ''tries'' to do it.
13	*** The movie blurs the lines on this (i.e. "bite me"), but the book is explicitly set in a different cultural context which doesn't seem to have these kinds of expressions. This isn't to say they have no expressions that could be construed as directives, but probably not sexual ones at least.
14	** Most likely, Lucinda put a caveat in the "blessing" to prevent it from being overridden so easily, especially given how hard Mandy and Ella's mother fought her on it. One of them might have even tried this before Ella was old enough to remember and found that it didn't work.
15
16	* Before Lucinda realizes the error of her ways, it's completely possible for Ella to try and convince her that there's a nice girl out there who really, really wants a fairy gift (Hattie), or say something along the lines of, "Oh, my gift is so wonderful that I'd love for a dear friend of mine to share it with me!" Yes, it's corny, but if Ella kept up the 'simple child' act, it'd probably work. Then Ella could command Hattie to never give her another order for as long as she lived. Or forbid her from speaking at all.
17	** It would be possible, but Ella would never inflict her curse upon anyone else, not even someone as vile as Hattie. That's just plain evil.
18
19	* There's one throwaway line when Ella orders herself to wake up at a certain time. I assume that her own orders could be overridden by another's orders, but why didn't she give herself orders more often? Things like "don't forget" or "wake up on time every day"? That'd be pretty damn useful, but other than that one time she acts like she can't do that to herself.
20	** We can order ourselves about all day, and we do it to keep ourselves in line. Ella did the same thing - it's only human. Remember "don't slurp"? She was only reminding herself, and Lucinda didn't say anything about giving herself orders.
21	** That order didn't work. In the next scene she wakes up at three in the morning, not "when it's light enough to read".
22
23	* In the film, she's shown to do several physically impossible things when ordered to. Why doesn't she take advantage of that? "Make a mansion appear out of thin air", "Make your fairy god mother take away the gift", that sort of thing.
24	** Well, the film is a very different continuity than the book...but yeah, once they introduced that they could have done more with it.
25	** "Ella, invent a cure for cancer!"
26
27
28	* There just one thing in the movie that makes me scream and pull my hair out: In the long run Prince Char doesn't question anything [[spoiler: when Ella is thrown to the dungeon, accused of his attempted murder (because his evil uncle ordered her to do so)]]. Sure, he doesn't believe it first, but it only takes few words from his uncle to persuade him not to pay a visit to Ella so she could tell the truth and the prince then drops the subject and silently agrees with him and believes his lies. This is mind-boggling, because he knows very well that Ella has been cursed to obey every order she receives, and he didn't stop for a second and think that anyone could exploit that and use her as a tool and a scapegoat. And not to mention, why didn't he see that something was horribly wrong [[spoiler: when Ella first tries to run away from him while trying not to obey the order and later begs his forgiveness and pleads with him to order her go away when it doesn't work?]] Did this guy swallow an IdiotBall or what?
29	** Char didn't know Ella was cursed to obey until she explains everything at the coronation. As to why he easily believes his uncle instead of Ella (despite evidence she's not happy about what's going on), it bugs me as well, but it's implied his uncle has done most of the truly serious thinking in his life for him. Years of being under his uncle's influence are likely hard to toss away in one night without direct evidence.
30
31	* So she has to obey every order she's given, right? It's been a while, but does she have to obey commands left in note form, or does she have to hear them? Because if she doesn't ''know'' she's being given an order/ doesn't hear it, she can't obey (can she? Again, it's been a few years and I was half delirious with a fever) so why doesn't the girl invest in some good earplugs? wax? Ask Lucinda to make her deaf? Yeah, it would suck, but better to be deaf than to be a slave to everyone, right? Or... Leave home and build up the illusion that she's deaf, so that eventually everyone in town assumes she is and stops talking to her, instead using writing and/or hand signals? Ella's good at languages, she could pick up whatever it is deaf people in Kieria use.
32	** She has her fairy godmother read a letter from her father (or Char, I forget) at one point just in case he had ordered her to do something within its contents, so yes, she had to obey written commands too.
33	* Would it have been possible for Ella to ask Mandy to command her to never take another order from her stepsisters or stepmother ever again for as long as she lived, or something to that effect? The orders don't really seem to overlap - let's say someone commanded her to tell them why she always obeyed. Would she then disobey her mother's long-ago order to never tell anyone?
34	** In the book, Mandy initially had to pretend to act harsh towards Ella for fear of Dame Olga throwing her out, leaving her unable to help Ella. So, Mandy might be worried doing that would expose her.
35	** New orders cancel previous, conflicting orders. So yes, if someone directly ordered Ella to tell them why she always obeyed, Ella would tell them about the curse, and it would be impossible for Mandy or anyone else to protect Ella by trying to preempt future commands.
36	*** When Char first proposes to her, Ella considers asking Mandy to order her to tell him about the curse so they could try to find a way to work around it together.
37	* If new orders override/cancel previous orders, why didn't Ella just tell Char to say, "Tell me what's bothering you" after his uncle ordered her to kill him? That way, Char's order for her to tell him would've overridden Edgar's not to tell anyone.
38	* Movie-only plot hole: When Olga tells Ella to end her friendship with Areida, Mandy is ''right there'', and she knows of the curse, but instead of ordering Ella not to she simply protests to Olga. ''Why?'' The solution was so easy.
39	** She might not want Olga to figure out how deep the order thing actually goes, since Olga doesn't know that Ella is compelled to obey her. Olga thinks she's just giving Ella a directive as a parental figure to a child, and Mandy would have no authority to override ''that''; her giving Ella a contradictory directive despite this would potentially tip Olga off that there's more to it. Plus, if Mandy told Ella not to, Olga would probably just tell Ella to not listen to Mandy and do what Olga told her to, making Mandy's order pointless.
40	* Another movie only question: since Ella’s dad is actually a good parent in the film (unlike the book) why didn’t Ella’s mom and Mandy tell him about the curse? He would be an ally to Ella in the film, even if he couldn’t do much.
41
42	* Many readers have wondered why no one tries saying "Ella, only obey orders if you want to from now on, no matter what orders you may get in the future" as an order.
43	** More FridgeLogic could explain this: Lucinda knew that someone would try that (in her mind, she probably saw them as misguided or some such), so she made sure the "blessing" couldn't be contradicted so easily.
44	*** In the book it is shown that new orders can override old ones. If memory serves correctly, Lucinda orders her to be happy with her curse and it does last for a while until Mandy orders her to feel how ever she wants about it. Though it does seem to fight itself for a while until the new order takes over.
45	* Does anyone else find it strange in the movie that in a film with a bunch of other British actors (Carry Elwes, Hugh Dancy, Eric Idle, Lucy Punch, etc.) that use their natural accents, Minnie Driver uses an American accent as Mandy? Are they doing it since Vivica Fox is Lucinda, so they are implying that the Fairies' dialect has a more North American tone, or is it because Ella is played by an American, and they wanted her to fit in with Ella and her Parents, given Ella's father is played by an Irishman but he speaks with an American accent as well?

Context Headscratchers / EllaEnchanted