This will be the first installment of a new series I’m doing, where I flesh out the little details in the books with my own personal headcanons and thoughts about them (I’ll also be adding details that weren’t in the movie or the books, but have been confirmed by the people on Twitter- basically this series will expand on any detail that wasn’t in the movie itself.) Let me know which character you’d like me to expand on next! (Please note: only the little detail is canon in any way, and even that is unconfirmed except if it’s one of the Twitter ones. The expansion headcanons are mine and are definitely not canon.)
Starting with Bruno, because of course we are!
• Bruno’s ruana is three sizes too big for him.
Starting with this one because @fuzzynat was curious about my ideas for this! First off, it could just be for comfort’s sake. We also know from concept art that Bruno’s ruana is supposed to be part of the ceremonial outfit he would wear when he had visions. It could be too big in order to give him a more mysterious air- we also know that he made up his vision ritual himself, so he has a bit of showmanship he’s added to the whole thing.
But I think it goes a little deeper than that. Bruno is the first boy born to the Madrigal family. It seems natural that, if Abuela didn’t keep any of Pedro’s things in her room (her room is described as “honoring her Pedro”) then they would have been passed down to Bruno, as the oldest male Madrigal child. And there’s a slight bit of actual evidence for this- I can’t remember for the life of me where I saw it, maybe it was concept art, but there’s a picture of Pedro wearing a green jacket floating around somewhere. Abuela’s colors are right in the middle of warm and cool, and so is Bruno’s green color- I think if Pedro had lived, green would have been both his and Bruno’s color. As it stands, Abuela may have given Pedro’s ruana to Bruno, perhaps added the hourglass pattern to it both to make it more personal for Bruno and so that it didn’t hurt quite so much to look at every day.
• Bruno’s room has a picture/sculpture of him with the eyes scratched out.
Where are my angst writers at? This one hurts. We know that nobody really went into Bruno’s room even before he left- when Abuela asks him to look into the future on the night of Mirabel’s ceremony, he does it alone- it doesn’t look like there’s anyone else in the room with him. And we know that even before Mirabel’s ceremony, Bruno wasn’t exactly…liked, because of his whole “seeing something terrible” thing. I think it’s safe to say that Bruno doesn’t particularly like his Gift. Maybe, after yet another awful vision, he scratched the eyes out of his picture/sculpture as a way of getting those feelings out without taking them out directly on himself (one book calls it a picture, the other a sculpture, so I don’t know which one is right.)
• Bruno carries a gilded case of matches in his ruana.
This one is simple on the surface, but once you get down into it…ouch.
We know that Bruno made up his vision ritual himself. I don’t know if he actually needs to do it in order to have a vision, or if it’s just for extra flair. But this headcanon works for both.
Bruno seems to have had a lot of visions about unnecessary things. Did Señora Pezmuerto really need a vision of the future to see the fate of her fish? Was the priest that concerned about his hair that he needed a vision to see if he would go bald or not? Bruno’s ritual involves matches and possibly salt (that could have been part of the ritual, or it could just have been another of his superstitions- unclear) and we see that he carries both of those things with him. I think it’s very likely that he got used to having people demand visions every fourteen seconds, and due to Abuela’s expectations he couldn’t exactly turn them down, no matter how trivial they were. So he started carrying the supplies he needed with him, in case he was asked to see into the future. (Also, both books make it a point to tell us that the match case is gilded, which seems oddly out of character for Bruno to have. You can’t convince me that wasn’t a gift from Abuela…and another subtle way to enforce her expectations, giving Bruno something he would need to be able to have a vision anywhere, any time someone asked for one.)
• The junior novelization seems to imply that Bruno’s gift can be physically painful for him to use.
Both books actually do this, although the junior novel says it more directly (weird.) Bruno’s Gift is the only one of the original triplets that has a physical indication of when he’s using it (his eyes glow green.) While I don’t think regular visions hurt him, I think trying to see something specific, like he did with Mirabel, probably is painful. (Which makes the fact that Abuela asked him to look into the future of the family…a tad bit more concerning.) I don’t know what form the pain takes- probably a migraine headache or something- but I do think it’s probably fairly bad, and likely gets worse the longer the vision lasts.
• Bruno, if not the rest of the family, is Catholic (he crosses himself when meeting Antonio’s jaguar.)
I’m not even Catholic and I think I would cross myself if I met a jaguar.
In all seriousness, though, this one makes sense to me. A quick Google search tells me that 70% of Colombia is Roman Catholic. There’s plenty of evidence of Catholicism in the Encanto. There’s a church, we see the priest of that church bless Luisa and cross himself when the proposal falls flat, Pedro and Alma are married in a church. While I personally think that the whole Madrigal family is Catholic (although I do have some other thoughts about this for when I get to Abuela), Bruno’s the only one officially confirmed as far as I know. So let’s get to the headcanons.
Bruno is very superstitious. We see that plain as day in the movie. We also know that Bruno was regarded as a bad-luck penny because of the nature of his visions. I think this definitely did go a little farther than what we heard in the song- it’s very likely that the extremely Catholic Encanto started to think of Bruno as cursed or something along those lines. Bruno may have developed his superstitions as a way to combat the bad luck everyone thought he brought with him. He’s also very ritualistic. I like to think that the rituals and rites of Catholicism were grounding for him, and even once he “left” he stuck with them. He seems to do anything he can to ward off bad luck- I think crossing himself is something he does often, and it’s a mix of an actual religious gesture and another way to try and keep his own bad luck away from him.
(Side note: I’ve seen a headcanon that the priest and Bruno used to be friends, and I can definitely see that happening. I can also see the priest getting ever-so-slightly concerned- “my child, you have been in this confession booth for at least two hours and you haven’t named a single actual sin yet, are you okay?” On the angstier side of things, I can also see the townspeople getting upset that Father Whatever-His-Name-Is (I called him Father Manuel in my fic Cambiante, but his official name remains unconfirmed) seems to be so close with that cursed Madrigal boy.)
• Bruno is the baby of the triplets.
This one is from Jared Bush’s Twitter. He says that this fact “made his departure all the more tragic.” Bruno’s both the youngest triplet and the only boy. I think, while Abuela did have high expectations for him just like she did for everyone else, she may have doted on Bruno a little more than she did Julieta and Pepa, and also had higher standards for him than the girls. I think he definitely reminds her of Pedro, if just because he’s her only son. I can imagine Pedro talking nonstop about having a son (and probably jokingly trying to get Alma to name him Pedro Jr.). When Pedro died, Abuela may have expected Bruno to carry on his legacy as the only Madrigal son, and that fact would likely have brought them a little closer (while simultaneously giving Bruno some issues. This also ties in very nicely with my headcanon about Abuela giving Bruno Pedro’s ruana.) When Bruno left, it probably broke Alma’s heart- she lost one of her last connections to her husband and her youngest child all at once. I think this is when she started to go from just having high expectations to being more stern and cold.
• Bruno doesn’t wash his underwear.
For anyone who missed the memo, this has been confirmed to be a joke by Antonio and Bruno’s rats. And I know what you degenerates are expecting. I am not making headcanons about Bruno’s underwear. The ONLY thing I will say is that I’m glad he and his rats have the kind of friendly relationship where they can embarrass each other like that. I like that they’re more than pets to him.
That’s it for Bruno! Let me know which character you’d like to see me flesh out little details for next!
why is no one talking about the possibilities of the madrigal family lowkey being cryptids like???? encanto gothic is RIGHT THERE
it’s sunny. suddenly it isn’t. suddenly it is. suddenly it’s raining. hard. lighting is everywhere. you’re terrified to step outside
your future has been seen. you cannot do anything to change it. it’s known. it is out of your hands. there’s nothing you can do, except hold the green glass in your hands
you break your hand. you eat an arepa. your hand is working again. perfectly. too perfectly.
you whisper a secret. you know she’s listening. you know she knows, and she knows you know. you look at her across the town and ask her under your breath to not tell a soul. she knows everything you’ve every said
the rock is 10 times your size, and it’s flying into the air, like a feather. she catches it and snaps it because it is a feather in her hands. it’s a rock, and if you tried to catch it, it would snap you
you look across the street and see yourself, walking the other way. talking to other people. you hear your own voice in your ears. you disappear in the crowd
there are flowers everywhere. between the cracks in the sidewalks and inside walls and busting outside of pots. you’re afraid to touch it in case it’ll break. it grows bigger and stronger and taller than you
the birds are flying in a perfect pattern. they dive in synchronization. it’s too perfect. they land in order. they chirp and he answers. he’s sitting on a tiger. the tiger looks at you and you walk away
(you’ve asked for mirabel and i’ll deliver.)
she seems normal. flowers don’t bloom under her footsteps and her eyes don’t glow and neither clouds or parrots follow her and she can’t heal or hold or hear the world and she has only one face. but they all follow her, and her every word.
and as much as they are terrifying, nothing strikes more fear into someone’s poor unsuspecting heart than knowing that she is all of them combined. she is lighting and thorns and wisdom of times to come and endurance. she does not need them to defend herself. they need her to protect themselves from what they can do.
because in spite of everything, she is still kindness. she protects them and the house that moves and the village and everything she can touch. and no one wishes to not be under her protection.
she is not one of them, no. she laughs like you and squints in the sun like you and can be bruised like you. she is of the people like you. but are people even people anymore after being with the gods?
You’re a weary traveller, out on a contract for a cattle rancher who’s looking for fertile valleys with cheap farmland to expand his stock. In your search for new ground, you’ve pushed farther into the jungle-covered mountains than you’ve ever gone before.
All day, you’ve thought about turning back — the terrain here is punishingly steep, with barely a place to put a foothold — but you haven’t seen another soul in weeks and you’ve heard rumours of a village somewhere in the mountains nearby.
You’d love somewhere to rest your head, and maybe they can even help you with your task. Your boss doesn’t like you to return with empty hands…
You round the corner, and enter a rare patch of sparse cover, almost meadow. You crane eagerly forward, but your view of the next real valley is still blocked by another ridge…
Just then, from up ahead, you head the unmistakeable clatter of tack, and the gentle breath in and out of livestock. Not like the small creatures of the wild — these animals are unworried of being overheard, because of human protection. Then you hear a clear, low-pitched whistle. A man’s voice, you think. You don’t recognise the melody he’s whistling, but it’s sweet.
You let out your own breath in relief and give a shout. “Hoy! Over here!”
A train of several mules rounds the corner, headed by just one figure: a pale-skinned man of about fifty. He has a kind face, with broad forehead and aquiline nose, and although he is tall for the folk in these parts, he sits with a slight stoop, as though weighed upon by the years. He has a slender moustache, well maintained, although the circles around his eyes suggest great weariness. He’s wearing the standard garb of the people who work the land in this area.
He spots you right away, and leads his mules over. “Hello, señor. Are you lost?”
Excuse me, OP, but you have the gift of writing- this is the absolute best thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
This is my jam, okay? This is my kind of writing even though I can’t actually write it. Gothic is so good and this is just absolutely top-tier. I am physically biting back words I am not allowed to say because this is incredible.
I want so much more of it. Like, all the Encanto Gothic. I want to bury myself in it.
The prose?!! hello?!! Who said you could put words together like that?? The suspense? It’s awesome and I am jealous. How did you do it? Give me your secrets!
This may just be the best thing I’ve reblogged in a long time. Masterfully done, OP. This is BEYOND amazing.
