Mulan/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • So it's easier to retrieve the arrow without strength and discipline?
    • It's a pretty neat analogy, actually--"strength" and "discipline" seemed like burdens until you figure out how to use them.
    • It's also possible that the wood was too smooth to climb up without resorting to Mulan's little trick.
      • For some reason, I got the idea that oil was smeared on the wood.
    • Yes, but it would mean cheating (either by not using the weights, or by dropping discipline to make up for a lack of strength). So still a pretty neat analogy. And you literally need strength and discipline to retrieve the arrow, since no matter how disciplined you are and figure out the trick of it, without enough strength to lift the weights in the first place, you're not going anywhere. This is a pretty neat analogy.
      • Thus making this Fridge Fridge Brilliance? What do you call it when at first it seems fine, then stupid, then clever?
      • We'll call it fuckin' awesome.
  • As The Nostalgia Chick points out, if she wanted to be believed about the Huns, why not just dress up as a man again?
    • Because they already knew what she looked like dressed as a man and would have recognized her.
      • Troper was probably referring to the crowds around the palace - people who would not have recognized her. This troper suspects it has more to do with Mulan becoming too familiar with the respect and attention given to her as a man, the scene in the city being a rather unfortunate reality check.
        • I always thought they didn't believe her because they just thought she was some crazy chick running around.
        • Either she left her "man" disguise on the mountain, or she was too panicked to find another.
    • This Troper always thought it was because her "man clothes" were bloody, torn armor. Her priority (and that of the soldiers in their original journey) was speed, so they packed as little extra clothing as possible.
    • Also, it's very likely that the soldiers took her male clothing away so she couldn't trick anybody else by posing as a soldier again.
  • A minor problem with Mulan's overt motivation presents itself when you think about it: Any competent commander/officer/NCO would look at her father and stamp R.E.M.F. on his file, if not his forehead, due to his injury and age so the odds of him ending up on the front lines are pretty low.
    • It's possible the severity of Fa Zhou's injury may not have been well known beyond his home town, and considering Chi Fu was the "competent" officer who arrived...
    • Averted and Justified when you study Middle Age militaries, who had an ENTIRELY different concept of "combat-ready" than we do, what with intense press scrutiny and electorates to please. And even now, if the threat was perceived to be great enough (say, a bunch of genocidal manias have been cutting a swath through the country and defeating the regular military at every turn) we today probably WOULD be scrounging REMFs, NFFSMFs, and any MF we could find to throw into the battle line and HOPE they do something. And given that this is Imperial China- which decidedly does NOT have such issues- and the apparent ease at which the Huns cut the regular army to pieces coupled with the fall of at least a large section of the Great Wall and the fact that even after the mountain pass they STILL made it to the Imperial City, the truly amazing thing is that they ONLY conscripted one man per family (indeed, in the historical Xiongnu conflicts, the Emperor often went even further). That, and they were recruiting for the Imperial Army in general rather than merely combat units, and the Imperial Army doubtless had support units- we just don't see them- which would include the need for REMFs, and...
  • When the crossdressing attempt fails, the three guys take out their "busts". Ling takes out apples. Chien Po takes out watermelons. Yao takes out an apple...and a banana?
    • Considering he didn't even bother shaving off his beard, the banana was the least unconvincing part of his getup.

"Ugly concubines."

    • Not to mention it was lampshaded in movie. Ling glanced at Yao baffled at his choice of food boobs, if you recall.
  • In the reprise of "Be A Man," when Yao, Chien Po, and Ling dress as concubines - where did they get those clothes? And wigs? And fruit, for that matter?
    • Stuff they found lying around the palace? There probably were rooms set aside for the real concubines that would be stocked with stuff.
      • No, they were outside the palace at the time (hence the need to break in). Maybe they found a few street vendors in the crowd?
      • "Special discount! China is about to fall to the Huns! Everything must go! Buy now!"
        • "We're members of the army and we have swords, that discount is now 100%."
  • When Chi Fu is giving the enlistment notices to the Fa Family and Mulan tries to stop her father from being enlisted, it's made quite clear to that she has no other male relatives to take his place. Yet when she shows up as Ping to the training camp Chi Fu merely comments that he didn't know Fa Zhou had a son. Chi Fu isn't stupid yet the thought never occurs to him that maybe the daughter is the son that no one's ever heard about.
    • It's not made clear, all that they know is that there wasn't another male relative in the streets at that time. Shang comments that he didn't know Fa Zhou had a son, and Chi Fu's reaction to Ping's reply of "he doesn't really talk about me much" seemed to imply that he figured that there was a son who was so much of an embarrassment that he was hidden away. As for why they didn't suspect crossdressing, the penalty for what Mulan did would have been certain death. Probably "Fa Zhou has a crazy, little-known son" seemed more probably to them than "Fa Zhou's daughter is actually insane enough to dress up as a man and go to war, risking her entire family's honor and her life".
    • Also note that Chi Fu simply announces each family's name and hands out conscription notices to whoever steps forward. There's no indication that he had any information about the number or gender of children in each family.
      • True. Before he calls for the Hua family, Chi Fu hands a conscription notice to son who explicitly says "I will go in my father's place." Chi Fu obviously didn't care who accepted the notice so long as each family sent someone, so his willingness to accept "Ping" may just have been a result of the dire situation, where any warm body was appreciated.
  • Small one: During the Honor To Us All montage, one of the women fixes a very tight sash around Mulan's waist like a corset, specifically saying, "With good breeding and a tiny waist, you'll bring honor to us all." Later, when Mulan is being examined by the matchmaker, the matchmaker says, "Too skinny. Not good for bearing sons." Um, what?
    • The previous girls were skinny, the matchmaker was fat. Their differing standards of beauty are very convenient.
    • Also, a tiny waist doesn't mean you're skinny. *pats her trusty old hips*
    • I'd always assumed that it was to emphasize how hard it was to please the matchmaker. She might have called Mulan "too fat" without the sash.


  • Why is Mulan's group so small? I don't think I ever saw more than 20 soldiers onscreen at once. Such a ridiculously tiny number of reinforcements wouldn't have had an impact one way or the other in the war if it hadn't been for Mulan's canon trick; even the assassination of the emperor, while tragic, wouldn't have been such a big deal for the country. And before anybody mentions Thermopylae as an example of small troop numbers making a huge difference, that was several thousand men with superior armor and weapons deliberately holding a choke point. It could be an animation simplification, but they were able to animate the hundreds/thousands of Huns descending down the snowy slope to kill them all, so I doubt it.
    • The animation for the thousands of Huns probably cost enough as it was.
    • I thought they were just supposed to get trained in a small group, and later join the bigger group (led by Shang's father, the General). Meeting the Huns was an unfortunate coincidence.
    • I remember seeing a piece where they talked about the "horde of Huns" animation sequence. Long story short, they cheated, using a few tricks of animation to make it a lot easier than it should have been (such as looping sequences of animation) in ways that an audience generally won't notice.
    • The second answer was right; Shang's father left with a HORDE of men on horseback at the start of the movie, and Shang trained the few that were left. Pretty clever way to save on animation...
    • It's possible that there are more, and they weren't cut for animation issues but for time issues.
    • In the "I'll make a man out of you" song, there were quite a few of them, although not as many as there were Huns. Most of them mysteriously disappeared after they encountered the Huns, leaving just the main characters. My theories are that either they ran away after seeing the Huns, or they were killed in the avalanche.
  • Since I can't quite pin this on a conventional timeline, I have to ask: if Mulan is old enough to pose as a man, shouldn't her feet have been bound for many years at this point? Her family is also clearly a family of means, so wouldn't she be expected to have bound feet? Or is it too early for that? Footbinding started around the 10th century.
    • Depending on when the story actually takes place, this could be during the Tang dynasty proper, or Mulan could be descended from some of the northern families that founded the Tang dynasty. Some Chinese groups didn't favor footbinding, since it basically incapacitates the woman.
    • The legend of Hua Mulan was commonly accepted as written in the 4-7th centuries, and that was a few centuries before foot-binding appeared.
    • I think I recall reading somewhere that foot-binding was only practiced among the wealthier classes. Even if this was set in a time period when feet were bound, wouldn't Mulan have been spared anyway on account of her being the only child of a farming family?
    • "only child of a farming family?" They live in a pretty fancy house, with the pond and statues and all...I figured that was some benefit Mulan's father got after working in the army.
      • Probably not. This isn't the Dirt Ages (which weren't like that either). The premise that being a peasant/non-upper class child and thus required to do some sort of labor is probably the best rational.
    • At the beginning Mulan is shown as performing chores around the household. A) Foot binding would obviously not allow her to perform those chores B) If Mulan's family was rich enough to bind her feet they wouldn't have needed her to perform chores in the first place having the money for servants and such.
    • irrc the Hua Mulan story is supposed to be set in northern Wei dynasty (386–534).
  • Critical Research Failure here. The earliest evidence of the practice comes from the 10th century, while Hua Mulan at the latest the 6th century. And it took centuries to spread to anything approaching universal even among the upper classes.
  • Mushu. Dragons in the East are generally associated with yin energy and water - see Tiger Versus Dragon. Wise, patient, calm and wet. Mushu breathes fire.
    • This gets kinda-sorta addressed in Disney's Hollywood Studios where Mushu is (as of last visit) the focus of their segment on character design. Mushu is a Composite Character of several potential companion dragons, and Mushu at least has the overall shape of a classic Chinese dragon.
  • At one point, Chi Fu makes it clear that he intends to send a failing report about the unit's training so that Li Shang's soldiers will "never see battle." Overhearing this, Mushu takes the initiative and delivers a fake message claiming that the unit is needed on the front lines... Isn't that kind of a stupid idea? Mushu's job is to make sure that Mulan is kept safe, so shouldn't it be a good thing that her unit is being kept out of the fighting?
    • The unit being unfit and never seeing battle would dishonor everybody in it. That's a big thing.
    • Plus although Mushu was ordered to keep Mulan safe, his personal goal is to help her win honor and glory so that he can regain his place as one of the family's guardians.
    • Also if you recall, Mushu said something along the lines of "I have worked too hard to get Mulan into this war."
  • I haven't thought of this until now, but what happened at home when Mulan was in the army? Wouldn't anyone have found it weird that Mulan seemed to have just disappeared randomly, and that her father still seemed to be around?
    • The father could have stayed inside and away from people, and they could say Mulan was sick, working in the house, or recovering from humiliation and dishonor.
    • This troper watched the DVD commentary, and the directors actually said something about this. They said there were going to be more scenes back at home while Mulan was away, but they ultimately decided not to include them.
  • So... Shang seemed pretty upset that Mulan lied about being a man and snuck into the army. However, if they all knew that the penalty for revealing that she was a woman equaled death, shouldn't he be a lot more understanding?
    • Just as everything seems to be going well, Shang is suddenly thrown into a situation where he has to either execute a person he likes and respects, or disobey the law. His reaction is quite natural.
  • What bugs me about the sequel is two major things;the anti-arranged marriage aesop and the Critical Research Failure on the Mongolians. For one thing, in the first movie we see Mulan getting prepared to enter into an arranged marriage without any complaints, while in the sequel she is obviously against arranged marriages. That's an obvious example of character derailment on her part and the fact that the arranged marriage would have saved the country from war. Besides, Mulan in the first movie would have understood the happiness of the majority outweighs the happiness of the few. Also another thing; they have the Mongolians in the movie which if any one did any research came after the Huns. Also the Mongolians in the movie are dressed similarly to the Chinese when they would have been dressed and be culturally like the Huns.
    • The arranged marriage thing actually seems more like Character Development to me: having been burned by the system during that disaster with the matchmaker in the first movie, and at the same time land an extremely good catch like Shang on her own, Mulan might very well decide to be against matchmaking. She was clearly already conflicted about having to act all delicate and demure when it goes against her character like that, so having her want to protect other girls from that kind of situation doesn't seem too out of place.
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