#i LOVE carlos. he's my boy. and i do appreciate the irony of cruella treating him like an abused dog

[inamindfarfaraway]

Yeah, the only thing Cruella specifically had against the dogs was that it was so difficult to turn them into a coat. They were worth killing to look good to her because that's just how much she values all life, as expendable in the pursuit of her greatness through her fashion. Carlos absorbing her materialism is such an interesting concept.

The other three VKs each start out having ostensibly the same beliefs that made their parents evil, but with an underlying sympathetic twist rooted in their circumstances. Their drive isn't pure pride or greed or vanity, it's self-preservation. Fear rather than malice at the base, fear of the world or their own parents destroying them which is completely justified in their environment.

Mal: "Power is everything; love (especially romantic) is nothing", but unlike the totally confident Maleficent it's because "love makes you weak and I need to be strong, or I'm a failure". Learning that love is actually good and can make you stronger disarms her immoral traits.

Jay: "Success is everything (and all the better stolen through underhanded methods); trust is nothing", but unlike the entitled Ja'far, who acted out of sheer entitlement, it's because "I can't trust anyone, so I need to lie and steal to survive". Learning that he can rely on others and have sincere, non-transactional relationships disarms his immoral traits.

Evie: "Beauty is everything; all other qualities are worthless", but unlike the spiteful Evil Queen it's because "I'm unworthy and incapable on my own, and need beauty to win a boyfriend to take care of me". Learning that she has value beyond her appearance and can provide for herself disarms her immoral traits.

But Carlos doesn't HAVE any immoral traits! None of his unhealthy beliefs lead him to hurt others! He's the soft, nice, anxious youngest kid for Mal to boss around and Jay to pick on, and also the Smart One. He literally never does any tangible harm. Chad can’t even manage to accuse him of anything in his rant. And that isn't unrealistic. That is absolutely a type of abused kid. But if Descendants is meant to be a story about the type of abused kids who are messy and have selfish, antisocial coping mechanisms and could be written off as lost causes doomed to turn out like their criminal parents, and how that doesn't have to be true and seeing them that way will just make it more likely, Carlos is thematically out of place.

His role of the Smart One could intersect really smoothly with materialism, since he canonically has a way with gadgets. I'm imagining him collecting every scrap of broken, discarded technology he can find, tinkering with them, fixing them, turning them into tools and weapons that are more helpful to a gang on the Isle. Everyone else has tools and weapons, knives and swords and bats and pipes and crowbars, but nobody has what he has. Or if they do, they can’t accomplish the same results with them. Nobody can offer his allies what he can. He’s different, special, gifted. At this one thing, he’s the best. Is he physically weak? Yes. Bad in a straight fight? Yes. Unimposing, neurotic and easily frightened? Yes. Would he get obliterated without his gang’s protection? Yes. And he knows it, he knows it all too well. Cruella loves to remind him of how pathetic he is. So he desperately clings to the notion that he can prove his worth and secure his safety by producing works as brilliant as his mother’s fur coats. They have to be perfect. He has to be perfect. If what he builds is faulty or useless, so is he. He affects a cold, haughty, misanthropic detachment from people and animals to disguise his vulnerability, acting condescending and dismissive to everyone outside his gang in a less angry imitation of Cruella’s callousness. But it’s obvious that he cares about his friends and he drops that mask around them. He just doesn’t understand that yet because unconditional love doesn’t fit into his framework. Cruella is an obsessive mad artist with a superiority complex who creates objects that aren’t strictly practical for personal gain and will cause innocents any degree of senseless pain to achieve her selfish goals. Carlos is an equally obsessive mad scientist with an inferiority complex who creates objects that are entirely practical for his friends’ gain, is averse to directly causing pain and has partly selfless goals all along.

Auradon is a dream come true. On top of escaping Cruella, the vast improvements in scientific knowledge, application and education allow him to expand and hone his engineering skills more than he ever could have before, therefore increasing his worth. He’s the least invested in the evil scheme, as he’s lost faith in ever earning his mother’s approval and Maleficent’s world where the strong dominate the weak is not one he’s suited for in body or spirit. But Auradon is. His horizons are endless with the laws against magic levelling the playing field. He can be invaluable to this whole society! Even thinking it will fall apart, he’s determined to get the most out of his studies.

A distraction like the wretched, stupid campus mutt is the last thing he needs. They really should have put that thing down by now. You matter as much as you can give, and all Dude can possibly offer his human overlords is hassle, fleas, mess and injuries. He isn’t trained to do any jobs. He’s too plain and common to be a status symbol. His coat is hideous and not particularly soft or warm, were you to skin him. Why would anyone want such a useless creature?

Oh.

That’s why.

Well, shit. Long live good.

His inherited belief is “objects are everything; living things are worthless”, but it’s because “…above all myself, unless my material output can justify my existence”. Learning that no living thing, not even a stray dog, needs to justify its existence disarms his immoral traits. That’s a Villain Kid arc!

Now I’ve got to alter his character design accordingly. On the Isle, his clothes are big, bulky and layered, protecting him but making him look tiny, and covered in pockets that store his arsenal of equipment, along with a tool belt or two. He views himself exclusively as a vessel for his productivity. You should be able to picture his section of the gang’s hideout in utter disarray and him insisting that he has a system. His hair is slightly longer, wild and matted. His gloves have full fingers to defend his hands from burns and they and his sleeves are singed. He has black makeshift goggles with red-tinted lenses that he uses to shield his eyes and try to be a little scarier in the field, as seen in “Rotten to the Core”. His design is a cluttered, asymmetrical mess that conveys ‘eccentric, workaholic engineer’ and ‘underfed, overburdened workhorse’ and, in deliberate contrast to his mother, that he couldn’t care less what he looks like or how people perceive him. In Auradon, his outfits progressively get more comfortable and better fitting to reflect his lowering guard and improving mental health. He loses the layers. He pays increasing attention to hygiene, washing and brushing his hair. He trades the goggles for red-tinted sunglasses (growing up beneath a constant sheet of clouds would give the VKs light sensitivity) and switches to fingerless gloves to match his friends when not actively doing hazardous science, because he has other hobbies and a richer life outside that now. Most of his tools are transferred to a box in his room as he comes to trust that no one will take them. He learns to enjoy his clothes. To enjoy his life. And finally at the coronation, he turns out to clean up nicely in a formal suit. Just by finding control and confidence in self-care and self-expression, he ends up being more fashionable than Cruella has in years.

ok further thought having finished re-watching the OG Descendants:

not only is Cruella de Vil wildly out of place in a line up of otherwise fairytale & fairytale-adjacent villains the film also just completely fails to grasp her as a character?

Like: Jay's thing is that he was raised to be selfish and only look out for number one and he learns the value of being a good team player. Evie was raised to think being beautiful is the only thing that matters and learns that she's actually smart and talented. they're both solid character arcs w good messages for the audience and engage with what made their respective parents evil.

Carlos's thing is that he was. raised to think dogs are bad and then learns that dogs are nice? problems here:

a. this isn't a Growth Arc like the others bcos its not like he was raised to think dogs suck bcos love & friendship are bad his mother straight up lied to him that they're dangerous and as soon as he met one he realised they're not. he doesn't have a personal flaw to work on, he was just ignorant.

like there's shades of a good arc here w idk his mother having raised him to think love&friendship are overrated and that the only thing that matters is what people can provide for you? he would be all like 'what's the point of having a dog they're nuisances who just eat and poop all day' and then he would learn about unconditional love. but no that's not what happens bcos his mother just lied to him about what dogs are.

& this stands out bcos the other character journeys are actually very solid!!

b. hating dogs. was never Cruella's thing? Cruella's thing is consumerism. she's into furs bcos it's a way of showing off how rich and powerful she is and slaughtering 99 puppies just to make the world's fanciest coat is the ultimate expression of her conspicuous consumption. its a custom baby seal leather boots situation.

so like Cruella's kid's issue should be having been raised to value material goods over people's feelings which is an arc that absolutely could be resolved by him befriending a dog but again the root cause of his issue with dogs is that they're 'rabid pack animals'

aughhhh (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻