Headscratchers / Bright

So why are orcs so universally hateful towards an orc cop?

• I mean, presumably most orcs are integrated into society, as they don't seem to be engaged in a civil war or anything like that. Which, in turn, suggests that cops would be a good thing for the average orc. Yet the main character seems to be literally the only orc who doesn't hate cops to the point of making threats.
  • Reality Subtext is in play. In the real world a good number of gangsters hate it when one of their own joins the cops. Claiming that it's selling out and that they're 'just as white' as the cops that arrest them.
  • You could chalk it up to the Elves. Not only are they long-lived but they also seem to be supremely petty and self-absorbed assholes. Since it's implied they all but run society in LA it would make sense that their own racial prejudices filter down among the other races.
  • Orcs are racially profiled not only by society, but by cops who are supposed to protect everyone equally. We clearly see a difference in the way (unarmed) Orcs are treated (ie, getting their asses kicked by cops whilst being told to not resist...as they are getting their asses kicked) as opposed to how an armed human posing an active threat is treated (being casually spectated before being arrested). Orcs simply see cops as an extension, and even enforcers, of the society that puts them on the underhand. As Jakoby said, no jury would stand with an Orc. Cops don't protect Orcs. Society mistreats Orcs. Now imagine an Orc wants to be a part of that. They see him as someone who isn't going to help or uplift them, they see him as someone who is going to further their discrimination. Again, this is a heavy case of Reality Subtext.
  • And also, you have to remember that while the Orcs are "integrated" into society, the history the races share in this land isn't even their fault. They are all facing the ripple effect of something that happened 2,000 years ago but still affects them today. If this world is anything like real life, you can bet the history of the police and Orcish relations isn't as pure, just as the history between non-whites and cops is not. And that isn't because one group is just bad and the other is there to protect, it's because of corruption and racial profiling and society turning a blind eye.
  • The IA detective mentions that to orcs Clan Law is paramount which suggests that the issue is Conflicting Loyalty. Orcs are supposed to be loyal to their clans and police officers are supposed to be neutral and uphold the law equally for everyone. Jakoby is an outcast in orc society because by swearing an oath to the LAPD he is seen as an oathbreaker who betrayed his clan. IA is investigating him on the assumption they he let a potential cop killer go because the suspect was from the same clan as him.
  • There's a high likelihood that the Orcs that are hostile to Orc cops are specific to Los Angeles, and they're hostile because this universe's version of the LAPD is extremely racist toward the Orcs - mirroring their real-life history toward blacks. Remember that we're only seeing the urban landscape of Los Angeles; it's possible that outside of LA Nick would be treated with more respect by other Orcs who aren't getting beaten down by a hyper-aggressive, racist LAPD. That and this attitude mirrors real-life attitudes from minorities toward law enforcement officers who are of that minority; one common attitude among gangsters of African American or Hispanic ethnicity is that African American or Hispanic police are "traitors" or "sell-outs."
  • There are some real life parallelisms with this. Romani people for example (colloquially known as gypsies) who are often marginalized in many societies and suffer a lot from cops have very few members inside the police force and those who become members are often seen as traitors for others, which in such a family-centric culture is complex. They also sometimes value their own cultural rules and traditions over laws “of the whites”. And the same phenomenon happens in other situations like Albanians and North Africans in some European countries. Is the chicken and the egg situation as the general marginalization from society at large and law enforcement also makes that large numbers of members of these communities are into organized crime, thus re-enforcing the mistrust of police authorities and society in a vicious cycle.

The elves and the baby

• Why do they kill the baby? It's not like he'll remember what they look like.
  • Because they could.
  • The Inferni are strongly indicated to be psychopathic murderers who enjoy killing. Killing the baby on top of the rest of the family is a simple and effective way to establish that these guys aren't just pragmatic but outright psychotic.
  • The Baby might be a Bright.
  • Doubtful they killed the baby just because maybe it could be a Bright. They had no way to sense Brights for one thing. Another thing as stated prior they had no reason not to kill the Baby. They despise humans with a bloodthirsty hatred, saw a small human. Killed said small human.

Why is Tikka so childlike?

• As the title says: Why does she act like a child?
  • I got the impression that she was an extremely sheltered person.
  • To me, it looked a lot like it was a side effect of being psychic and pretty much sheltered by the Inferni from everything because they needed her powers. I mean, it did look like the elves were more psychically aware than humans, but Tikka was practically a precog.
  • Considering that, after she uses the Wand to resurrect Nick, Tikka seems to be more calm and stable, it is possibly some form of magical affliction. It may be something specific to elves - their equivalent of ADHD or autism, or something similar. Considering that all of the elves act very strange compared to humans and orcs, and no one seems to treat her behavior as strange, Tikka's actions may be common among elves.
  • Meta: In an earlier draft Tikka actually was a child. She was made into an adult when the bar scene was written in for obvious reasons, and the writer simply forgot to change her early characterization.

Why do people try to pick up the wands?

• Given that the magic wand is an interesting means of committing suicide for practically everyone who touches them, why is it that the first thing everyone who sees it does is try to pick it up?
  • The distinction is that anyone who touches a wand with their bare hands will perish if they are not a Bright, but presumably if one has a barrier in the way, the wand is still usable. There are several instances within the movie of people picking up the wand with thick gloves or some heavy cloth in the way, like Nick carrying it in several parts of the movie. It might also be that most people (like the humans who don't grow up with the legends) don't know that picking one up will kill them, such as the gangsters who tried to grab it. Plus, there's just the power allure of being able to have their wish granted. Presumably those with minions might just make their minions grant their wishes and ignore the consequences. Finally, it's said in the movie that human Brights are one in a million (assuming that's not just conjecture, but the Elven FBI agent does confirm that there are human Brights), but even then, that's approximately ~7000 potential human Brights. It could be that people think that they could be one of the rare ones.
  • I only recall Ward and a random latino gangster picking up the wand. Ward was basically committing suicide, and the gangster might not have even known the rules. Even the corrupt cops, who explicitly plan to use the wand's magic to fulfill their wishes, only stuff it in a sack.
  • It's implied that common knowledge of the Wand is somewhat erratic and incomplete; the LAPD treat it like its a Reality Warper tool while the elves and MTF treat it like a magical WMD. It's possible that it's not general knowledge that grabbing a Wand will kill you instantly... or those that know it dismiss it as a fairy tale or are simply willing to risk it. After all, Poison wanted to use it to be able to walk again and heal his wounds, and if you were to ask a lot of crippled and handicapped people, they'd willingly risk death to be healed.

Orc racism

• Why are orcs treated like second-class citizens for the crimes of their ancestors when they sided with the Dark Lord while at the same time, the elves get to be privileged when the Dark Lord himself was an elf?
  • The Occam's Razor answer is "Racism." Racists don't need a good justification, they just need a justification.
  • Possibly an example of people perceiving that beauty equals goodness. Elves are beautiful and their wealth and power means they can make big public shows of helping society. Orcs are ugly and they don't have any powers that would make them spectacularly useful to society. Orcs simply lost the propaganda war because of these things.
  • The propaganda writes itself very well. The Dark Lord was an elf, sure, but he was just one elf, so he can be written off as a rogue. And despite him being defeated by Jirak, an Orc, he's just one orc, and many others sided with the Dark Lord, so he too is written off as a 'rare good one'. Despite it being unfair (and given that none of the cast are history scholars and elves rule the world and as such write the history books, its entirely likely that's not even accurate), its a set up that makes it easy for bigots to justify their bigotry.
  • Given that we are repeatedly told that this happened 2,000 years ago, it's likely that Jirak is viewed as a Jesus figure and revered even by the most virulently anti-orc bigots as divine. Which makes the rest of the Orcs metaphorical killers of Jesus. It's not rational, but what it is a metaphor for isn't rational either.
  • Maybe is a take out to religion itself, like religious people that act in opposite as the scriptures say, as racists basing their views on the Bible or something like this.
  • At one point a character rather cynically notes that elves tend to be both among the powerful and wealthy elite of society and the species that tends to produce the most powerful magic users, with the clear implication that these two things are not entirely unconnected. Could be that there's some sort of magically-induced culture-wide brainwashing which is enabling this particular spin on events to be propagated. The elite write the histories, after all.
  • It's possible the Elves are pushing a re-written history in order to make people overlook the fact that not only is it one of their own who almost destroyed the world, but it's also a sect of elves that keep trying to bring him back so they don't lose their comfortable position in society.
  • Elves most likely already were the privileged elite controlling the world back then, so barring a massive worldwide revolt against them (which would have been ridiculous, seeing that Elves also played a big part in beating the Dark Lord), it's understandable that their position didn't change.
  • Hence the re-written history casting all of the blame on the Orcs while subtlety ignoring the fact that it was an Elf that started the whole mess in the first place. The Elves exaggerate their own involvement with the defeat of the Dark Lord because they don't want a social uprising against them because the last time it happened one of their own got royally stomped.
  • Considering that it's been two thousand years since the Dark Lord and all the events surrounding him, it's been more than enough time for the elves, with their apparent long lives, physical capability, and Brights, to go to the top, and then manipulate the narrative to make the Orcs into the villains of the story. I'm not going to name names right now, but we've already seen in real life that its very easy to demonize a specific race or ethnicity for one's own gain, and creating a narrative that the Orcs are evil and filthy barbarians who can't be trusted certainly smacks of the behaviors of real-life racists and power-brokers who want to make an enemy for their followers to blame.
  • Elves are kind of a stand-in for the WASP in American society, with Orcs as African Americans (albeit the “paying for something done 2000 years ago” indeed seems to have similarities with Jews) with humans in the middle encompassing the middle class; not as discriminated as Orcs but still second class citizens probably a lot like other non-WASP minorities like Irish, Italians, middle class Hispanics, Armenians, Jewish, Arabs, etc. On that sense you may also ask why in real life we have certain ethnic groups on top and certain ethnic groups subject of lots of prejudice and stereotype. It doesn't even mean that every single member of the elite on top is encouraging that prejudice (I bet they have "liberal Elves") but is the way how societies work, we can see it in our world.

why does the centaur cop only wear armor for his/her human half?

• So when Nick and Ward go to the elf district near the beginning of the film, you can see a centaur decked out in riot gear. What puzzles me is the fact that s/he only seems to be wearing armor for his/her human half so to speak. The horse half does not seem to be covered by anything. Is Dota 2 right in telling me that centaurs' hide is so thick as to reflect bullets?
  • Reality Is Unrealistic: Real life mounted police often doesn't have body armor for their horses.
  • While some parts are exposed, they do wear some gear in their lower bodies◊ so its not like they are only going completely unprotected.
  • Is there a centaur anatomy chart in the promotional material? Maybe the majority of their vital organs are contained in their humanoid upper torso, which both of the centaur cops seen cover with Kevlar and ballistic plate. It’s quite possible that a centaur’s horse body is mostly just muscle and bone that won’t risk anything other than blood loss if shot. Granted, one would think their heart and lungs, at least, would be larger than those of a human, but what the hell...
  • My first thought when I read this, and I'll try my best to keep this as clean as possible, but stallions are famous for having quite big private parts. You would think in a riot he would want those protected. It'll take one thug creeping up behind him to ruin the rest of his life. Although maybe that is proof as any that this cop is female.
    • He may have them, but from the angle you can't see.
  • The centaur probably isn't wearing armor on his lower body because they don't need it. If you're in a riot and you're in range to hit a centaur with a melee weapon, you're in range of the centaur's legs, which is going to be a lot worse for you if he starts kicking.
  • Alternatively, upon looking at the photo, it does look like the horse half is covered with what looks like a thick blanket, that is similar in coloration to the horse-half's fur color. It's possible that they are actually wearing something like a Gambeson, or Kevlar, type of armor, which would absorb blows from melee weapons and certain projectiles.
  • Another possibility is that when they enter into combat, both the centaur and his opponent instinctively hit the torso and head, so he would need more protection in that area.

Basic year math.

• The movie consistently refers to the Dark Lord/Jirak events as happening 2,000 years ago. The History of Magic featurette puts the final battle between the Dark Lord and Jirak as happening specifically in the year 2109 BC. Did no-one involved notice that 2000 BC is over 4000 years ago?
  • Could very well be that there was a lack of communications and that's why we get the contradiction, or it could be that the calendar system of the Bright universe works differently from ours but Writers being human, they use BC anyways.

Magical Creature Logistics

• Parts of this world just do not seem that well thought out to me. The dragon for example. That thing is taking up airspace. How to they stop these things from colliding with aircraft? In real life, small birds and wayward drones are an extreme hazard, and yet here we're talking here about a creature the size of an elephant that is allowed to just fly around without any supervision. The centaur is another one: a four-legged sapient creature that size and shape would require all sorts of infrastructure changes such as widened doors, corridors, vehicles and furniture, as well as custom restroom facilities as he/she wouldn't be able to use the same kind of toilets and showers that we do. We get no sign of anything remotely like this; this is a world made for humans in all respects. And I just don't buy that you can explain this 100% using racism.
  • For the dragon: how do we know it didn't have clearance to fly? The fact that no one is shooting the dragon down implies it's allowed to fly around, meaning either flight plans are already set up to deal with this sort of thing or the creature is self aware and is following a prepared flight plan like any other large flying object.
  • We also don't get quite a good look at the dragon in the film. It could be a bit of forced perspective. Maybe it's like a Terry Pratchett swamp dragon the size of a large dog. Still an issue, but not an elephant sized one.
  • For the centaurs, it's Conservation of Detail. Not very many of them show up, and we never really get to the parts of the city that they frequent, so there's not much reason to show centaur-specific accommodations. Considering that "elves run the world" its possible that attempts to push through legislation mandating accommodations for centaurs might never have passed like it did for handicapped people in our timeline.
  • Alternatively, it's possible that there are areas of the city that are more "Centaur Friendly", along with having areas that are more accommodating for the other races in general. After all, in real life, where there are areas where a minority group is a majority, such as Chinatowns, that area is geared more towards that group, such as having the names of the local stores in Chinese, as opposed the the common language more normally used in the city, like English.
  • As for the dragon, it is rare that the birds of real life are very rare that they fly at the height of the planes (the only case that I know of was that of a griffon vulture that crashed against the window of an airplane), for what the case of the dragon may be similar.

Leilah trying to win over Tikka

• Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Leilah given orders to terminate Tikka for betraying the Dark Lord? If so then why is she trying to convince her to come back with her near the end of the film!?
  • Tikka is Leilah's sister. Perhaps that sentiment prompted Leilah to have that one last bit of mercy of Tikka.