WMG / ParaNorman

Courtney becomes good friends with Mitch's boyfriend—and I'm going to call him "Trent Jacobs" based on a this fanfiction I read.

And at first, Trent's a little angry and jealous after discovering that Courtney was flirting with his boyfriend throughout most of the movie's events—but Courtney defends herself by making it clear that she honestly had no idea that Mitch was already in a relationship (let alone the fact that he's gay). Also, I feel like Courtney's also the type of person that (despite her flirtatious nature) wouldn't really go after someone if they're already in a relationship.

After learning this, Trent and Courtney get to know each other and discover that they do actually have a lot in common, becoming close friends in the process—I also like to think that Trent would get on his boyfriend's case for getting Courtney's name wrong.

Norman's grandmother had the power.

It makes sense honestly. She is Mr. Prenderghast's mother and she passed it down to him, also giving the gene to either Norman's mother or father. That's why she promised to stay behind to look after him.

• Actually she's Mr. Babcock's mother, Norman's father so this wouldn't make sense. He gets his powers through his mother's side, the Prenderghasts, and Mr. Prenderghast is her uncle. There's the scene where they're in the car and Perry is complaining about Norman, he puts the blame solely on his wife's uncle.
  • They could still be related distantly. This tropers maternal grandparents are third cousins.
  • Since many of these families appear to have lived in Blithe Hollow since colonial times (one of the zombies resembles Alvin) it is very likely that most of them are related to some extent or another. It would account for why the Prenderghast psychic powers continue to manifest in people after all these centuries even though many of the actual psychics (like Norman's uncle and Aggie herself) didn't produce children. The genes are being carried by many people from many families, and whenever the right combination is brought together, another psychic is born.

Aggie hasn't moved on yet.

Her unfinished business was getting revenge on those who wronged her, but where does it imply that giving up the task means it's done? Aggie simply went to sleep on Norman's shoulder, but until she does get revenge on the judge, she's probably going to be stuck here for a while, even if she doesn't want revenge.

• It wasn't getting revenge, it was having someone understand her.
• Also, she did get revenge. The judge and her accusers, aside from being held captive in their graves for 300 years, were indeed raised as the walking dead, and subjected to the immediate hostility of the townspeople.
• If her unfinished business is getting revenge, then losing the desire for that revenge would mean that she didn't have any unfinished business anymore. Even if her goal isn't accomplished, it's gone.

Agatha's mother was the ghost that she was talking to

.

Agatha's mother was dead before Aggie was found to be a 'witch.' And it was talking to her mother's ghost that got her caught. It makes the trial and execution all the more tragic, because Aggie did have someone who loved her — just not someone who was alive anymore.

The Animation Age Ghetto is the only thing that let the PG rating fly.

Blasting zombies to pieces with guns, repeated swear words, child executions, and not throwing crap past the radar but throwing it straight at the radio tower, how did this movie get PG rating? Simple, it's animated.

• 9 was distributed by the same company , and that got a PG-13 rating.

Agatha's appearance is intentionally based off of Silent Hill's Alessa Gillespie.

Both are characters played by Jodelle Ferland who were executed, or nearly so, for witchcraft as children and returned to terrorize a community with horrifying psychic powers. There are a lot of parallels between their appearance, to the point where Agatha's clothing is essentially just a pallet swapped version of Alessa's. It's hard to imagine that this was unintentional.

Aggie Prenderghast and the Other Mother are somehow related.

The powers the two display are broadly similar: personal pocket dimensions, Reality Warping, dominion over lost souls, One-Winged Angel form, same hair color and a limited capacity to influence the mortal world. The Other Mother's hand escaping through the door and Aggie's Witch Storm come to mind. Maybe Aggie simply has more power due to having ensnared more victims to feed off of or being forced to sleep for three hundred years allowed her to preserve her energy. Regardless, what if these two are connected? Maybe the Other Mother is actually Aggie's mother gone mad with grief and trying to recapture her bond only for it to go horribly wrong? Maybe the OM (when she was still alive) could also talk to the dead, was persecuted for her powers and died a violent death?

The ability to speak to the dead is a metaphor for being LGBT

Agatha has the ability, and in the 18th century, is executed for it, a fact that is completely supported by the government, and mandated by law. Norman's uncle has it, and he's completely cut off from society. Sure, nobody is killing him, but he's completely ostracised. And with Norman, officially, he's fine and his powers aren't something he can be executed for, but nobody believes he really has them, and the second people realize he actually does and something goes wrong, all the blame is placed on him, and an angry mob springs up demanding his death. To the point that the police are assisting the mob instead of the frightened child. This troper grew up as an LGBT kid in a small town, and the entire situation hit terrifyingly close to home, especially the scene with the mob. Technically, it isn't legal and wouldn't happen, but there's still the constant fear that it's happened before, and it could absolutely happen again, and if it did, nobody with any power would care enough to stop it or save you. And having to live with the constant knowledge that society finds the persecution and murder of everyone like you to be a hilarious event of the past is also something LGBT people are faced with.

• Or it's just the ability to speak with the dead.
• It's not a direct metaphor, but rather applicability. The ability to speak with the dead is something that makes Norman, his uncle, and Agatha something that makes them different from the masses, and mistrusted by them. Being LGBT yourself, you see it as a metaphor for LGBT, but it has similarities to a mental or physical illness or any other condition discriminated by society.
  • As someone who is LGBT, I see this as a very far stretch for a metaphor. You could say this exact same theory for just about any other superpower in fiction. The entire mob thing was based on actual witch hunts that happened in history. Plus, they already have a canonically gay character, so I don't see how they'd need to use a LGBT metaphor if they already have someone who's queer as a character. Why not just use him for a different kind of movie about LGBT stuff?
• The scene of Norman saying "I didn't ask to be born this way!" and his father replying with "Neither did we" seems to strongly support this theory, as does director Chris Butler's (who is gay himself) comments on Mitch's sexuality being pivotal to the film's overall message.

Mitch's boyfriend is Thompson

Just for fun.

• That's the reason we never see the guy: it's a long-distance relationship.
• As both Paranorman and Gravity Falls take place in a small North American town and deal with the supernatural, the two can easily take place in the same universe, supporting this theory.

The Prenderghasts weren't blameless in Aggie's fate

In the Fridge page, a troper expressed the belief that Aggie's sealing ceremony initially began as a family lovingly reading to one of their deceased children. But a couple of seemingly unrelated things point against this conclusion. First, the legend of the witch's curse. How did this legend begin? I doubt Aggie was aware enough of her abilities to scream such a specific curse right before her execution. Second, the townsfolk had put to death someone they believed was a witch. Immediately, Aggie functionally proved them right: the six that actively participated against her in the trial died post haste, and she evidently did something to make the townsfolk believe in her very oddly specific curse regarding these deaths. What happened, and how did the Prenderghasts manage to survive and live in Blithe Hollow after these events, rather than being further persecuted? Families of suspected or convicted witches were almost always under suspicion as well, and another family member was almost always accused if the "witch" was a child (they had to learn it somewhere!) But no one else died. There's only one "witch" of Blithe Hollow. And the Prenderghasts have stayed in Blithe Hollow to the present day. The logical conclusion is that the surviving Prenderghasts—Aggie's mother, father, siblings, and any extended family—managed to give the townsfolk reason not to kill them despite the townsfolk almost certainly being convinced they were a family of witches. Why spare them? Aggie's curse. The townsfolk genuinely believed in Aggie's curse. Why? Aggie's curse wasn't likely to have been announced like some monologuing supervillain. No. More than likely, it began to manifest. Days after the trial, after the deaths of the Judge and witnesses, Blithe Hollow gave witness to the walking dead for the first, legend-sparking time. Perhaps it wasn't to house-destroying, car-flipping, town-burning levels yet, considering that isn't described in the legend; perhaps Aggie wasn't as strong when freshly dead. Regardless, the townsfolk have witnessed the Witch of Blithe Hollow kill six victims and reanimate their corpses. In anger, in fear, they surround the Prenderghasts. To the Prenderghasts, Aggie is dead, yes. But she is free in death. She is free to be angry, free to be mobile, free to seek her vengeance... and perhaps, maybe, eventually, free to seek solace, to recover, to find peace. But that will not be immediate, and the girl is angry—so, thinking fast, the Prenderghasts... strike a deal. If the town spares the Prenderghasts, they will become her jail wardens. And to make sure they are not expendable, the prison will have to be renewed every year. And so you see, the town needs the Prenderghasts. The agreement is made, the dead reinterred, and the deal holds... until it is forgotten, belief turned to irreverence. And the family imprisons its own daughter, a child of eleven years old, in her own corpse in an unmarked earthen pit in the forest. Where she is bound, underground, for three hundred years—denied the opportunity to work towards finding peace or any resolution, suspended in her rage and pain, her own family keeping her locked away long after even they have forgotten why.

ParaNorman is an allegory for neurodivergent discrimination

While ParaNorman is, in general, a story about accepting those who are not considered "normal" by society, it could be argued that Norman is coded as a neurodivergent individual. Norman doesn't interact with society like a neurotypically-coded person; he literally perceives the world differently. He hears and sees things differently than others, and while his family love him, even they don't fully understand his behavior and fear what kind of future he'll have—and the strain of this causes tension in the home. He carries a social stigma for his weird behavior and has uncontrolled fits in public. Uncle Prenderghast has obviously been abandoned by everyone—including his family—for his abnormal behavior and he's clearly suffering from mental health issues on top of the neurodivergent coding. Even minority characters, whom socially othered characters like Norman are more commonly coded as, discriminate against Norman for his performance of what they consider to be weird and unsettling behavior, which, while terrible, makes more sense if we read Norman as neurodivergent rather than coded as a more commonly discussed social minority. While it could be argued that Norman's still "proving his worth" by doing something for the intolerant town in exchange for acceptance—a distasteful trope commonly seen in narratives about minority-coded social outcasts coming to be appreciated by society at large (a la Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer)—the plot of ParaNorman is arguably more subversive than that: the movie in a neurodivergent reading can be read as literally validating the perspective of someone who is neurodivergent; the neurotypical majority of the town accepts that Norman's perceptions are genuine at the end not because he's "earned" the respect but because he saves the town in a manner that forces the town to recognize that Norman's perception of reality is indeed as real and valid as their own.

• Further subversive, no matter what kind of coding you interpret Norman to have, is the fact that Norman's ultimate goal in the third act is not the wellbeing of the discriminatory town necessarily (although that comes with it), but the wellbeing of a similarly-coded individual whose pain over mistreatment needs just as much understanding and acceptance and validation as Norman himself. The town is saved not by punishing people, like Aggie did, but facing fear with understanding without shying away from the truth, regardless of whether it's unpleasant. Is it saved forever? Considering how the townsfolk immediately alter their roles in the events of the movie when talking with others at the end, probably not. But their wellbeing and acceptance wasn't the main achievement at the end anyways.
• An interesting historical tidbit: it's suspected that neurodivergent people made up a disproportionate amount of actual accused "witches" during historical witch hunts and witch trials in Real Life for similar reasons; whoever and whatever paranoid societies didn't understand were generally assumed to be involved with the supernatural. The myth of changelings is suspected to exist for related reasons.