How did I spend my Saturday night? Curled up in my room, with some chocolates and the 2012 movie, ‘Brave’. Yes, see I wanted to watch the movie for myself, and see the similarities between the main character Merida, and Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games. Having watched both movies now I can see that there are both some major similarities, and major differences between the two stories.
The major difference between them is the plot. Brave is about a young woman named Merida, who is a princess to a castle. She loves to spend her time in the woods, with her bow and arrow, and her horse Angus. Yet her mother wants her to be a proper princess. They hold an archery competition among the four clans’ eldest children. The three men compete, but Merida, joins in claiming she is the eldest child of the fourth clan, and is competing for her own hand in marriage. She wins of course, being extremely talented in archery, but her mother is terribly embarrassed. After a heated argument with her mother, Merida escapes into the forest with her trusty horse, and stumbles upon a witch’s cottage. And not to spoil the rest of the movie for you, I will just quote Wikipedia, “In the film, set in the Scottish Highlands, a skilled archer named Merida defies an age-old custom, causing chaos in her kingdom. After consulting a witch for help, Merida accidentally curses her family and is forced to undo the spell herself before it is too late.”
Whereas the plot of ‘The Hunger Games’, is completely different. 24 kids thrown into an arena to fight to the death against each other. Being a big Hunger Games fan I obviously prefer it to Brave, but I will agree there are many similarities between the two.
Some things that were similar between the two movies include the fact that both Katniss and Merida feel most comfortable in the forest. They both are also very skilled with a bow and arrow. They are both rebellious, and neither of them have a particularly close relationship with their mother (although this changes). Both hate dressing up, Katniss at the capitol in the fancy dresses, and Merida with the dresses her mother wants her to wear. They both compete in ‘games’ although the circumstances are very different. Katniss volunteers to compete in The Hunger Games, in place of her sister. Merida competes in an archery competition, winning her own hand in marriage, to avoid marrying one of the men. Although, the Brave ‘games’ are much more festive and celebrated, though this could be seen as the capitol. They are both very resourceful. Katniss demonstrated this in supplying food for her family, and in her time in The Hunger Games. Merida indicated this when her mother and her were living in the forest. And another example of a similarity between the two movies, is the presence of a deadly berry called ‘nightshade’ in Brave and ‘night lock’ in The Hunger Games.
While the plot and characters of ‘Brave’ and ‘The Hunger Games’ are completely different, there are many similarities between the two movies, and their main characters. If you haven’t seen these movies, I recommend you watch them both, and make your own comparisons. Comment on your own thoughts!
Rach, x
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