She can be rather self-centered in how she doesn’t think about her mother or her feelings, only her own pain and sense of guilt, until she’s forced to spend more time with her, and get to know her on a better level. She resents and fights any attempt to change her, force her to behave in a manner she doesn’t like, and even flouts convention and propriety by disobeying the queen in public.

The entire plot revolves around Merida’s rebellion against what the clans expect of a “proper princess” in favor of what she herself wants to do, become, and secure for her own future. Thus, her intuitive leap is wrong, although later she does figure out, given actual visual clues, the bear’s true identity. Merida is eager to interpret the spell and its complications, but turns to the most obvious solution rather than an inward pointing one – she thinks if she mends the broken tapestry (physical), it will break the curse, when in reality, the spell speaks of a metaphorical “break” between her and her mother, and asks her to undo her own pride. Given an opportunity to see a loophole in the clan rules, she asserts herself and insists on competing for her own hand in marriage.

If she’s mad, she goes out to the stables and mucks out her stall. She spends all her free time climbing mountains, riding her horse, learning to be a flawless archer, and doing all the unladylike things her mother doesn’t approve of. Merida is all about the outer world and engaging with it, often without thinking things through or considering the consequences, such as when she trusts a witch to give her a spell without a nasty undercurrent, thus risking transforming her mother into a bear permanently.

Brave merida and mother