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I've got a question regarding the recent movie Wolfwalkers and the Parents in Distress and Extremely Protective Child tropes.
Mebh is the daughter of Moll who (while in her wolf form) is captured and caged. When Mebh finds out why her mom has been missing for days, she goes ballistic in her attempts to free her in a way that fits both tropes.
The question is that because the main story of the movie takes place over just 2-3 days, the story picks up with Moll already in a Parents in Distress situation although Mebh doesn't learn about this until 2/3 through. We don't see enough of Mebh and Moll together outside of the "distress" circumstances for the movie to say that Mebh is always extremely protective.
Because they are Wolfwalkers, Mebh and Moll have a certain degree of "pack mentality" and from what we see of Mebh's personality you could build a case that she would always be instinctively protective of an obvious physical threat to Moll. However, as Meb is only 8 years old, it's hard to see her picking up on emotional threats to be defensive about, nor would Moll, who is shown as a protective mother, be encouraging her daughter to put her safety at risk.
As such I feel that the movie only fully justifies the Parents in Distress trope but leaves the Extremely Protective Child trope open to "maybe, kinda" but still speculative.
Feedback welcome.
Edited by rva98014