#scotland the brave

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I was in a rollerblading race around a Tesco parking lot. My main competition was my best friend and a guy carrying bagpipes for some reason.

I lost. Bagpipe man celebrated his win with a rendition of ‘Scotland the Brave.’

[scotianostra]

Binns Clock, Edinburgh West End.

Not a great video, I'll maybe have be there when it chimes and catch it from the start!

This historic timepiece was a popular meeting place for romantic rendezvous in the 1960s, originally Binns, later Houses of Fraser, the building now houses Johnny Walkers, who restored the clock after it had been left in disrepair for, god knows how long ...🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[scotland]

Flying over Calton Hill, Edinburgh’s own acropolis 🏛️

scotland.co

[incorrectsmashbrosquotes]

When I was a kid and really got into online music for the first time, my mom was worried because she’d been reading a bunch of articles about how Death Metal and stuff influences your kids and she came to me all subtle like and said, “Can I hear what you’re listening to sweetie?” So I unplugged my earphones and it my mom was treated to the loud stylings of John McDermott singing “Scotland the Brave”. My mom just... had this look on her face like she was comprehending some cosmic irony and just was like “Okay, go on honey” and never asked to hear my music again.

[daveydoodle]

Watch "Scotland the Brave by the Lonach Pipe Band on the march to the 2022 Braemar Gathering in Scotland" on YouTube

❤️ 🎶 🥁

[rehfan]

Hello from the highlands of Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[avillainousmagician]

Oh hooray! The prime minister is blocking our gender recognition bill! /s

Union of equals my arse.

[persephoneboleyn]

Rock the bagpipe! Scotland the Brave /We will rock you @ Switzerland

[oconnormusicstudio]

An Oldie but Goodie

  This video just came up on my Facebook feed this morning but I hadn’t seen it before.  Even though Washington is misspelled, this is still a fantastic performance for Sean Connery in 1999. Sean Connery is honored at the Kennedy Center for lifetime achievements. The music consists of the Washington Pipe Band, Alasdair Fraser, Davidson School of Scottish Dance, Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis.  

[scotland]

Dunnottar Castle in Stonehaven 🏰

Perched atop a 160 foot rock and surrounded on three sides by the North Sea, these dramatic and evocative cliff-top ruins were once an impregnable fortress of the Earls Marischal, once one of the most powerful families in Scotland.

scotland.co

[daveydoodle]

Watch "Clanadonia playing their "Scotland the Brave" mix during Perth's 2022 Robert Burns Celebrations" on YouTube

❤️ 🎶 🥁

[sinistersinita]

Some Brave Police drawings i did this week Woe!

I call King/Bishop Checkmate <---(has no idea how to play chess)

[rehfan]

I have been to the Scottish Highlands today again.

There are no words.

[artist-issues]

Forgive me if you've already discussed it, but what's your opinion of "Brave?"

I want to like it, but somehow (I haven't taken the time to analyze it) it doesn't quite fit together. The story is much more about the mother learning and growing than about Merida. I actually didn't like Merida very much.

No it’s okay, I actually haven’t ever discussed Brave, and I haven’t watched it or analyzed it in a long while. So forgive me, I’ll analyze while I verbalize, so this might be a little all over the place, but your observations give me a starting place!

It definitely isn’t my favorite Pixar movie, but I don’t think it’s a poorly made movie, either.

I will say it’s not true that it’s much more about Queen Elinor learning and growing than Merida does, (but I can see why you’d come away with that.) I think the movie actually does a really intentional job of showing them both, equally, learning and growing toward one another’s points of view. Way better than Turning Red did, anyway.

I mean, for example, they parallel each other’s “hypothetical argument.” They’re both struggling to communicate with the other. The first act is Merida being taught by Elinor, unwillingly. The second act is Elinor being taught (how to fish and survive) in the woods, at first unwillingly. Then she learns to trust Merida knows better and follows Merida’s lead to survive out there. Just like, when she enters the Great Hall and is ready to give up control of her fate for keeping the peace, you see that Merida has finally learned to follow her mom’s lead as a Princess, too. They go back-to-back, and learn almost equally.

I would put it like this: Merida learns that Queen Elinor was right all along—AND she learns more about who Queen Elinor is and how to understand her. On the flip side, Queen Elinor just learns more about who Merida is and how to communicate with her.

So that’s much better than a movie that says, “hey the mom is wrong and should let her daughter do whatever she wants, I guess.”

In general, the story is about a mom who wants her daughter to fulfill her fate, because it’s what’s best for her—but the daughter doesn’t want to follow anybody’s lead, and thinks she needs to get as far away from being traditional as possible.

Here, I’ll try to dive into it.

Queen Elinor knows that tradition is important, because she understands the lessons hidden in those traditions. The Princess sacrifices her own independence as a symbol of unity for the kingdom, by marrying one of the lord’s sons. She’s not just a symbol of unity—she’s a symbol of peace, wherever she goes. Clean, tidy, on time, never ruffled, in a world full of brutish hairy men who’s favorite pastime is killing each other. That’s what Queen Elinor knows is important. For the big picture. For everyone, including Merida.

And she’s right. A Queen’s selflessness saves her people.

But. Trying to force a Princess who doesn’t understand or believe in that lesson to do it anyway is no good either. You can’t force a leader to live by principals they don’t believe in. When you do, you get Mor’du, the demon Prince.

So there’s this balance. Yes, Merida, you’re fated, by birth, to lead and be a shining beacon of hope and peace in a war-torn land. That’s a good thing. But you can only be that leader and beacon when you’ve accepted it.

Queen Elinor doesn’t start out twitch that balance. She’s just trying to force Merida into her fate. Why? It’s the age-old struggle of parenting: you know what’s best for your kid, so you try to get them into that safe-zone as fast as possible. But they don’t get it, so they buck and kick and you decide “I don’t care if you don’t get it, I’m going to force it on you because it’s what’s best.” And you know where that attitude, of “you’ll do it, and I don’t care how you feel about it” comes from?

Fear. Fear that if your kid is given an inch to argue, buck, kick, run away, that they’ll run right out of your control into danger.

And what’s the movie called?

Brave.

And Merida doesn’t want to be a Princess because…”I’m not ready for this.” Fear. What’s Merida afraid of? Her own fate. She’s not fated to be an adventurer, she’s fated to be a Princess. She just has a wrong idea of what that means.

And they both think that they know, not only what’s best, but where the other person is wrong. Just like how Prince Mor’du thought he knew that he could be a better leader on his own than with his family. Both stem from pride. Which “tore the bond” of their love for each other.

Because—and now we’re back to their broken relationship, which is the real story here—

Queen Elinor and Merida can’t communicate with that pride, that false image of who the other person is and what they supposedly want, in the way. So it takes Queen Elinor getting out of her comfort zone and into Merida’s (the wild) to understand that Merida can survive and choose what’s right, on her own, and doesn’t need to do it Queen Elinor’s way. It also took Merida getting out of her comfort zone and into her mother’s (having to stop a fight between warring lords because her mom’s not around to do it, which is a snapshot of her future) to understand what her mother has always been saying.

Basically, the scene where she sees Mor’Du’s story is true is where Merida changes and grows the most as a character. Because that’s her suddenly realizing that her mom was right. And that’s a really good allegory for growing up and parenting. You can tell your kid all the right things and teach them all the right lessons, but at some point, it has to become real to them on their own.

It’s even neat because that scene is shot with Merida down in “the cave of discovery, “ while her mom is where?

Watching from afar. Not in there with her.

So yeah, those are my disheveled thoughts on Brave. It’s a good movie. It does feel like something about the actual events in the movie are a little lackluster—to be honest, the scenes where Merida is teaching her mom in the woods come to mind. I mean, on paper, all she’s really doing is teaching her to fish and do something a little unladylike. And then to calmly wait for the Wisps to appear instead of chasing them down. The events aren’t as…deep or attention grabbing as I think they could’ve been. But that’s okay, because it still gets the point across.

Thanks for asking!