Disney Animated Canon / Tropes I to P

Disney Animated Canon Trope Examples
A | B - H | I - P | Q - Z

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I

• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Often used as a justification to give the villains a Karmic Death. If a villain is on the verge of death or defeat, the hero will try to spare them only to fail.
• In Name Only: Some of their adaptations fall into this:
  • Lampshaded in the original Fantasia in the Nutcracker Suite segment. The narrator says "You won't see any nutcracker on the screen. There's nothing left of him but the title."
  • The Jungle Book (1967) bears little resemblance to Kipling's original except for a few character names and the basic premise of a boy Raised by Wolves.
  • The Fox and the Hound: How Walt Disney Studios managed to look at what reads like a fictionalized documentary about the life and times of a mongrel hunting dog and a human-reared wild fox who live through bear hunts, rabies epidemics, and the rise of suburbia among other things and thought it would make a wonderful talking animals musical about racism is a mystery for the ages.
  • Hercules: Due to the sheer amount of changes made from the source material, the only things this movie has in common with the original Heracles myth is that they both star a super strong demigod protagonist and share a couple of similar plot points and settings. Heck, it feels less like an adaptation of the myth and more like Superman: The Movie and Rocky mashed up and set in Ancient Greece. See Sadly Mythtaken for how the film differs in so many ways from the original myth.
  • Chicken Little dispenses with the original tale's plot of the title character believing The Sky Is Falling and warning everyone when the townsfolk figure out it was an acorn all along a few minutes into the movie. The bulk of the movie is about Chicken Little trying to live down has poor reputation and connect with his father. And then there's an Alien Invasion of all things, but at least the fleet's Cloaking Device kind of looks like falling pieces of sky... It's worth noting that Disney released a more accurate adaptation of the tale long ago as part of their Miscellaneous Disney Shorts.
  • Frozen was originally billed as an adaptation of The Snow Queen, but after several rewrites, it became Inspired by… the title. The original Fairy Tale was about a peasant girl trying to rescue her friend from an Ambiguously Evil member of The Fair Folk, with random encounters along the way; the Disney movie is primarily about a good, human queen with uncontrollable ice magic and her relationship to her sister, with the threat of Endless Winter and a few original characters thrown in. They both include a reindeer sidekick, though. Once Upon a Time takes advantage of this divergence by establishing Frozen as its own tale and Retconing Anna and Elsa into the Spin-Offspring of Gerda and Kai.^note This is a small deviation of the film's canon, in which Anna and Elsa's parents were named Adgar and Idun, and the names of Kai and Gerda were given to some handmaids as an Inspiration Nod.
  • Aside from the names, Big Hero 6 has very little in common with the comics it's inspired by, including Race Lifting the entire team and moving the setting from Japan to the fictional city of San Fransokyo. A case of Tropes Are Not Bad, as the source material is not as well looked upon due to being a rather Shallow Parody of Japanese media tropes.
  • Despite the name being an allusion to The Emperor's New Clothes, The Emperor's New Groove has nothing in common with the story outside of featuring a Jerkass emperor as the protagonist.
• "I Want" Song: Starting with "I'm Wishing" in Snow White, these songs became a staple of Disney musicals.

K

• Karmic Death: Happens to many if not most of the villains.
• Killed Off for Real: The films tend to avoid this with good guys, and greatly enforce this with villains.
  • Villains who play it straight:^{click here} The Evil Queen, Maleficent, possibly Madame Medusa, The Horned King, Ratigan, Sykes, Ursula, Percival McLeach, Gaston, Scar, Frollo, Shan-Yu, Clayton, The Carnotaurs, Rourke, Helga, Scroop, Dr. Facilier, Mother Gothel, King Candy a.k.a. Turbo, the viral Ralph clone monster.
  • Villains who avert it (Karma Houdini examples are marked with an *):^{Click here} Honest John and Gideon*, Stromboli*, the Coachman*, Monstro, Chernabog*, Man*, The Wolf, Willie the Giant, Mr. Winky, The Headless Horseman*, Lady Tremaine* (she got her karma in Cinderella III, though), Queen of Hearts*, Captain Hook, Si and Am*, Cruella, Madam Mim, Shere Khan (until the sequel came around), Edgar, Prince John, Jafar (again, until the sequel), Governor Ratcliffe, Hades, Yzma (is stuck as a cat at the end, and possibly gets more karmic backlash in the sequel), Gantu (who suffers even more karma in the sequel films and TV series before turning good in the final one), Alameda Slim, Bowler Hat Guy, The Backson, Prince Hans, The Duke of Weselton, Yokai/Professor Callaghan, Dawn Bellwether, Te Ka, Tamatoa, Double Dan, J.P. Spamley.
  • Non-villainous characters (heroic, neutral and villain sidekick alike) who really did bite the dust:^{Click here} Bambi's mom, Willie the Whale, Slew Foot Sue, Cinderella's dad, Tod's mother, Bartholomew and Felicia the cat, Roscoe and DeSoto, Flotsam and Jetsam, Mufasa, Kocoum, Quasimodo's mother, Kerchak, Mr. Arrow, Sitka, Tiana's father, Ray the Firefly, King Agdar and Queen Idun, and Tadashi Hamada.
• Knight of Cerebus: Though some may still be somewhat comedic, a lot of villains have a very menacing tone (especially in the earliest examples) and are responsible for a lot of Mood Whiplash away from Disney's usual whimsy. See this page for their rather haunting effect on many audiences.

L

• Later-Installment Weirdness: In the original Disney movies from Snow White to The Jungle Book (and several of the features afterward), getting the audience to suspend their disbelief was usually taken very seriously by Walt Disney—broad cartoony gags were often verboten, and what gags in the picture had to come strictly from personality and be internally consistent with the stories setting and tone (however, there were exceptions such as Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros). From Aladdin and onward, Disney has become notably more lenient on broad gags and breaking the tone of a picture for cheap laughs. Also, whereas Walt went out of his way to avoid having anything topical or contemporary in his features to keep the feel of them timeless, the modern Disney features often have settings and stories that are heavily rooted in modern culture (e.g. both Wreck-It Ralph films, Zootopia, Big Hero 6).^note Animator Andreas Deja said on his blog that he learned from Disney's Nine Old Men that if Walt had lived to see Aladdin, he would've considered it his least favorite of the movies because of this and the former. Also, the majority of the animated features from the mid 2000s onward are done with CGI, not hand-drawn animation.
• Lighter and Softer: Some of the Disney animated films tend to be much, much lighter than others, in addition to some of their adaptations being lighter than their source material, despite the franchise generally being for young children.
  • Dumbo is this in comparison to Fantasia. It was produced on a lower budget with less intricate animation, intended mainly to generate money and therefore more catered toward children, which resulted in a more kid aimed film than Fantasia. Dumbo does an excellent job of proving Tropes Are Not Bad in this case, however.
  • The Aristocats, as both movies preceding and succeeding have antagonists who are far more threatening, as well as ironically also belonging to the Felidae family.
  • The Fox and the Hound , seeing as in the original book the title pair aren't friends and die at the end.
  • The original Hans Christian Andersen version of The Little Mermaid ends on a by far darker note than the Disney version. The Prince marries another woman. The Mermaid is given a Last-Second Chance to return to the sea by murdering him with an enchanted knife, but unable to murder the man she loves she throws herself into the sea and turns into foam. That's right, she dies.
  • Although Hercules has some dark moments, it was created as a lighter followup to the infamously edgy The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
  • The Emperor's New Groove is a full blown Zany Cartoon that frequently breaks the fourth wall, has an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist, a Laughably Evil Butt-Monkey villain, few major dramatic scenes, and intentionally nonsensical plot points. It feels more like a Looney Tunes cartoon than a Disney one.
  • Home on the Range is very lighthearted and comedic, even by Disney film standards.
  • The second Winnie the Pooh movie in the Disney Animated Canon is this towards The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, faithful as both adaptations are to their source material.
  • Many of the direct to video sequels, The Hunchback of Notre Dame II and The Fox and the Hound 2 being the 2 most egregious examples.
• Light Is Good: Both this and Dark Is Evil are played straight in most of the movies.
• Light Is Not Good: This and Dark Is Not Evil are in Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tarzan, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and Zootopia.
• Long Runner: The canon started with Snow White in 1937, has well over 50 films under its belt, and is showing no signs of slowing down to this day.
• Love at First Sight: Ubiquitous; we might as well just focus on the ones that avert it.
  • Deconstructed and later averted with Frozen.

M

• Maid and Maiden: Several princesses have an older motherly character who isn't their birth mother to give them guidance.
  • Sleeping Beauty kicked off the Disney universe with a bit of a subversion. Aurora was the Maiden, but the role of The Maid was split between three fairies — Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. Future examples play it much straighter.
  • Cinderella: The Fairy Godmother is the Maid who helps Cinderella, The Maiden. She's Older and Wiser, rounder, and by way of being a Magical Guardian is 'in the service' of Cinderella. The Fairy Godmother also gives her a sweet ride to the Ball behind the Evil Stepmother's back, and the iconic dress and shoes that entice Prince Charming.
  • Beauty and the Beast: Mrs. Potts is the Maid to Belle the Maiden. She plays matchmaker in order to break the curse. Technically she's actually Beast's servant, but gives Belle motherly support at the castle.
  • Pocahontas: Grandmother Willow is the Maid to Pocahontas, The Maiden. Willow's a spirit that helps everyone who comes her way, but does try to steer Pocahontas from her intended in favor of John Smith.
  • The Princess and the Frog: Grandma Odie is the Maid who helps Tiana The Maiden. She tries to get her together with Naveen as soon as they meet, and even marries them at the end. Despite being a little crazy, her role is a mix of the previous three Maids, being a helper to everyone in her realm like Willow, a matchmaker that breaks a curse like Potts, and a magical old lady that teaches tricks and gives gear like the Fairy Godmother.

• Mum Looks Like a Sister: If a mother appears at all, odds are she'll look to be only in her twenties, even if she's still around when her child reaches his or her late teens. To whit:
  • Sleeping Beauty: Aurora's mother.
  • The Lion King (1994): Post-time skip, Sarabi doesn't look any older than when Simba was a cub, even though he has grown up to strongly resemble his long-deceased father.
  • Hercules: Averted for his mortal foster mother, justified for his immortal goddess birth mother.
  • Treasure Planet: Sarah to Jim.
  • Tangled: Invoked by Gothel, who uses Rapunzel's hair to keep herself looking young while posing as her mother. Played straight for her birth mother, who has no such round-the-clock access to de-aging hair, yet barely ages a day eighteen years after Rapunzel's birth. Their resemblance is especially pronounced after Rapunzel's Important Haircut.
  • Frozen: Elsa's and Anna's mother looks to be a brunette version of her 21- and 18-year-old daughters, even when she lived to see them reach 18 and 15 in the prologue.

N

• Never a Self-Made Woman: Surprisingly often, the hero/heroine or heroes have a connection to a relative who is greatly revered (in most cases, a royal parent; but in other cases, a war hero dad or a renowned scientist grandfather will do just as well).
  • Only a handful Disney movies subvert or avert this trope. In some examples, John Smith (explorer), Taran (pigkeeper/peasant) and the main characters of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (soldier, son of a gypsy, gypsy performer) are self-made heroes.
• No Antagonist: There are several films with no real villains in them:
  • Dumbo: Dumbo has no clear cut villains; the conflict came about mainly because Dumbo's ears made him a target for mockery—Dumbo lived in a selfish, rather than hostile, world that causes his problems. The other elephants simply looked down on him and his mother, the ringmaster had no idea what to do with Dumbo once he's forced to lock up his mother, the clowns had their own problems to deal with, and the kids that got Dumbo into the whole mess were just insensitive, not outright malicious.
  • Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros have no villains either.
  • Neither The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh nor Winnie the Pooh (2011) have a real villain in them — they're just figments of the characters imaginations.
  • Brother Bear: Kenai blames a bear for the death of one of his brothers and kills her in revenge, but his own experience as a bear helps him realize that the bear was just a mother trying to get food and that killing her was a prime case of Revenge Before Reason. Denahi, Kenai's own brother, keeps on trying to kill Kenai for most of the film, but that's because he doesn't know the bear he saw next to Kenai's empty clothes was Kenai and instead jumped to the logical conclusion that the bear must have killed his one remaining brother. The plot's major conflicts are essentially the product of multiple misunderstandings.
  • Bolt: Meddlesome TV executives and dog catchers cause problems for the main heroes, and Bolt initially blames "Dr. Calico" for everything, but in reality there is no central villain.
  • Ralph Breaks the Internet The movie has no villain (though the closest things to villains are Arthur, the virus from the Dark Net and the clones of Ralph it creates), but rather a series of conflicts caused mainly by Ralph himself, who acts out of concern that he and Vanellope might no longer be friends when she finds the Slaughter Race game more appealing and Vanellope looks up to Shank as a Cool Big Sister figure.
  • The closest thing Frozen II has to a villain is King Runeard, whose actions set up the plot of the film. The catch is, by the time the film takes place, he's been dead for 34 years, and as a result doesn't directly oppose the heroes in any way.
• Non-Human Sidekick: Most of the main characters and/or their love interests have one, as do some villains.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Most of their films centering on a human cast (especially their princess ones) use this type of design formula: The lead characters, such as the prince and princess, and sometimes their parents, have hyper-realistic designs, while the rest of the cast have more cartoonish and exagerated proportions.
• No Smoking: Since July 2007, Disney has banned onscreen smoking from being depicted in any of their films. Even before they enforced the ban, they edited a couple (but not all) of their older films to remove instances of smoking, such as Goofy lighting up a joint in Saludos Amigos (the uncut version was eventually released as a bonus feature on the Walt and El Groupo documentary) and any instance of Pecos Bill with a cigarette in Melody Time.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: A lot of the less sinister villains of the franchise are known for being very fanciful, hammy and at face value outright buffoonish and vain, though during the climax can prove to be just as calculating and deadly as the more serious ones:
  • Prince John of Robin Hood (1973) is depicted as a cowardly Manchild, and he and his forces most of the early half of the film suffering slapstick humiliation, to the point of ending up a laughing stock with the rest of Nottingham. He does not take this well however, and increases taxes and arrests to an extreme detriment and plans to have Friar Tuck executed simply to leave fear in the town. Robin intervenes, though he still almost perishes after a far more fearsome battle from the equally buffoonish Sheriff of Nottingham.
  • The hyena clan of The Lion King (1994) are at first set up as bungling Starter Villains who are easily chased off by Mufasa. Then Scar utilizes them in his plan to kill Mufasa and take his place as ruler of the Pride Lands. They later make a meal of Scar after he double-crosses them, quickly abolishing any suggestions of them being mere grovelling lackeys.

O

• Obviously Evil: A great many of these films do this, even going so far as to base their color and shape schemes around it (as talked about in the Aladdin DVD documentaries). Just take one look at a character sheet for an average Disney film and you can immediately pick out the villains. This is kind of odd when it's done with Animal Stereotypes — bears are painted as horrible, deadly, kaiju-like monstrous demons in The Fox and the Hound and as friendly and lovable heroes in The Jungle Book (1967) and Brother Bear. However, there have been subversions and aversions of this in the canon's more recent films, such as Frozen.
• Oddball in the Series:
  • The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is unique in a number of ways: in that it's a Compilation Movie of three short films released over the course of a decade ago, it's the only Cash-Cow Franchise to come out of the studio's films from the 70's and 80's, and it's not under full ownership by Disney; the estate of A. A. Milne licenses the rights to Disney and receives credit for every production.
  • Winnie the Pooh (2011) is the oddball of the Disney Animated Canon's "Revival Era". While every other movie in this era is either a full-on musical or a non-musical comedy/adventure with high emotional stakes, Winnie the Pooh is a throwback to its predecessor, with very few songs and low to non-existent stakes.
  • Due to moviegoers tiring of the formula used throughout the Disney Renaissance era, their later "Post-Renaissance" era contained very few Animated Adaptations / Animated Musicals and featured highly experimental storytelling (to the point that said era is also called the "Experimental Era"). Standout examples include:
    • Dinosaur was produced by a Special Effects company called the Secret Lab, using CGI characters, over photography-made backgrounds. It's also one of few pieces of Dinosaur Media made under the Disney banner. Because of these oddities, Europe doesn't even consider this a part of the Canon, instead replacing it with The Wild, which was made by C.O.R.E. Feature Animation and distributed by Disney.
    • The Emperor's New Groove is very loosely tied to The Emperor's New Clothes, but not enough to be considered an adaptation. Instead, it's a Denser and Wackier "Buddy Road Trip" comedy in a Purely Aesthetic Mayincatec setting. Since it more closely resembles a traditional Disney flick than Dinosaur, the fact that it bucks most of the Canon's staples makes it stand out more.
    • Atlantis: The Lost Empire is an action Sci-Fi epic, and the second film after The Black Cauldron to be rated PG (this being before Disney started to Avoid the Dreaded G Rating).
    • Disney was rather hands-off for the development of Lilo & Stitch, and it shows. Further information can be found on its franchise's page. The fact that it was the only real success of Disney's "Post-Renaissance" Era makes its oddities stand out more, to the point that Disney really played up its oddness in comparison to other Disney films in its marketing. It's quite fitting that the film's protagonists are regarded as weird In-Universe.
    • Treasure Planet is an adaptation on Treasure Island, but is one of few Disney adaptations to use the Recycled In Space treatment, and does so with such boldness.
    • Chicken Little went down in history as Disney's ill-fated attempt at a more "sharp-edged" brand of humor not unlike that seen from DreamWorks Animation. It's also one of few Canon films to be set in a World of Funny Animals.
• One-Winged Angel: Their use of this trope is only surpassed by Square Enix.
• Outside-Context Problem:
  • Prince Hans from Frozen is this for the entire canon. Unlike every other villain in the canon, there is no indication whatsoever that he is even morally suspect until the Motive Rant at the climax. In a canon defined by hammy Classic Villains, he is entirely defined by Pragmatic Villainy, a flawless mask and skill at manipulation to which even the audience is not immune.
  • Hans would be followed by the villains of Disney's next two movies, Robert Callaghan from Big Hero 6 and Dawn Bellwether from Zootopia, both of which are revealed as being the main antagonist after only brief prior appearances in which they were helpful and supportive to the main protagonist, were not particularly hammy, and did nothing that would directly indicate anything morally suspicious about their character, and Callaghan was even presumed dead by the time of his reveal as Yokai.

P

• Parental Abandonment: At least 28 of the features either have their parents missing, dead, or separated from their kids.
• Period Piece: While all of the films in the canon take place at some time in the past, there is only twelve films are set in The Present Day of when they were made: 1. Dumbo (early 1940s; according to the newspaper at the end of the film, which sets the film in March 1941), 2. 101 Dalmatians (late 1950's-early 1960s, setting the film in November 1958), 3. The Rescuers (1970s), 4. Oliver & Company (1980s), 5. The Rescuers Down Under (early 1970s), 6. Lilo & Stitch (early 2000s), 7. Chicken Little (mid-2000s), 8. Meet the Robinsons (mid-2000s when not in the future), 9. Bolt (late 2000s), 10. Wreck-It Ralph (early 2010s), 11. Zootopia (mid-2010s) and 12. Ralph Breaks the Internet (late 2010s). And then there are the relative indeterminates: Bambi and The Lion King (1994) take place in an unknown time period (Bambi can be narrowed down to anytime in the last 2-3 centuries), and Treasure Planet and Big Hero 6 are set in a constructed universe.
• Pigeonholed Voice Actor:
  • Phil Harris (The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, Robin Hood) and Cheech Marin (Oliver & Company, The Lion King) are particularly glaring examples of this.
  • Kathryn Beaumont (Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan) who voiced both Alice and Wendy Darling (respectively).
  • Hans Conried (Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty) who voiced Captain Hook/Mr. Darling and the announcing servant called Lord Duke (later a major character in his actual appearance for the first segment of Aurora's story in Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams'') respectively, is best known for voicing and portraying villains, authority type figures, servants, or foils. ^note Ironically, Conried modeled for King Stefan and initially auditioned for Stefan until that role went to the late Taylor Holmes, making an unsolved mystery of the herald's voice actor.
  • Barbara Jo Allen (Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the Stone) who voiced both Fauna and Lord Ector's scullery maid, respectively.
  • Tudor Owen (101 Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone) and Junius Matthews (101 Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone, and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh'').
  • invokedVerna Felton only ever voiced either energetic characters/stuffy villains (Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, Lady and the Tramp) or kindly matriarchs (Dumbo, again), Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Jungle Book).
  • Pat Buttram (The Aristocats, Robin Hood, The Rescuers, The Fox and the Hound) used his own distinct rural Alabama accent for every character he voiced.
  • Alan Tudyk (Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Moana) is a more recent example, if only for playing antagonists in four movies in a row, two of which were examples of Evil Old Folks. A downplayed example as he brings a good deal of vocal variety to his characters and is being considered the "good luck" voice of the Disney Revival.
• Plucky Comic Relief: A cute, goofy sidekick will show up a lot in these movies, from Dopey in Snow White, to Olaf in Frozen.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Several of the movies villains fall into this, such as the animal abusing, fur skinning Cruella De Vil, the misogynistic Gaston, the xenophobic John Ratcliffe and genocidal racist, and the religious zealot and would-be rapist Judge Claude Frollo.

• The Power of Love: This is brought up in a few films, particularly true love's kiss, or other acts of true love.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: A few films in the canon fall into this:
  • The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad: Very much so in the Mr. Toad segment. It does avoid being an In Name Only adaptation by keeping Toad's personality the same as in the book (even if other characters are very different) and staying true to the basic story structure of the Toad parts of The Wind in the Willows, but it does change a few things up, attempting to turn Toad more sympathetic by having him actually innocent of the crime he's imprisoned for. The Sleepy Hollow segment on the other hand is quite true to the original tale, both story and character wise. A few liberties were taken, but none that really change the story or characters of the story.
  • Alice in Wonderland; The film is actually a combination of the original book and its sequel "Through The Looking Glass". Keeping every character from the books would basically be impossible, so the movie uses the most iconic ones from each book, while the plot itself is based off Wonderland. Tweedledee and Tweedledum, The Walrus and The Carpenter and the singing flowers are originally from Through The Looking Glass.
  • Hercules: The original Heracles myth — and Greek Mythology in general — were as family unfriendly as you can get and had a lot of built-in Values Dissonance (the basic conflict alone was unacceptable for a family film, since Hercules is a product of Zeus' adultery with a mortal, and Hera, Zeus' wife, is the villain who constantly makes Hercules' life miserable because of this), so the studio was forced to heavily rework the concept; it borrows the character names (not so much the personalities), story points and the setting from the myths, but throws out and adds in things from other parts of Greek Myth (such as Pegasus and the Muses, who were not in the original Heracles story), and reworks everything else (such as expanding Hades role in the story by turning him into the main villain), ultimately making the film less an adaptation of Greek Mythology and more like a mashup of Superman: The Movie and Rocky set in a burlesque of Ancient Greece.
• Prince Charming: Played straight for early Disney classics (to the point that the official marketed name of Cinderella's prince is this trope) and later played with in recent Disney films. They can be refusing their royal duties (Simba), be jerks at first (though later become better) (Beast, Kuzco, Naveen), actually start off as commoners who reach their role as prince through marriage (Aladdin, Flynn Rider), or even be the Big Bad (Hans).
• Princess Classic: The princesses before the renaissance are absolutely pure and good, but later princesses still could have these elements.
• Public Domain Character: The canon's movies are often based on fairy tales, which are public domain stories.

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