The Coraline Bug Theory

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BUSINESS INQUIRES:

Thank you for watching! :)

[francesgardner]

The praying mantis could also be about how the other mother created the other father, and eventually destroys him when he gets in her way. Female mantises bite the head off of their sexual partners once they reproduce

[michaelandrews]

Humanity: *dreams of spiders*
Sigmund Freud: "Oh ho ho, someone has mummy issues again don't they?"

[Pelicanarecool]

Can we just talk about how much of a hero the other dad is? His first appearance he sings a song basically telling her to gtfo and never return. Then in the button eyes scene he tells her about how sharp the needle to try and scare her from the buttons and after Coraline rejects the buttons he has a massive grin. Even when he was horrifically mutated into a pumpkin with no free will he resists the other mothers control to give Coraline the eye all while apologizing. There are probably even more times where he was trying to help Coraline get out.

[elgwopo]

Fun fact: the book almost wasn’t published. His editor said it was going to traumatize kids, so he asked her to read it to her daughter and see if it was too scary. The girl said she was enjoying it every night, and they got through the whole book and she said it wasn’t scary so the book was published. Many years later, Neil got to talk to her about the book and she said she was absolutely terrified The whole time but wanted to know what was next, so she lied because she was worried that they’d stop reading the book if she said it was terrifying. The book got published because a kid lied about how scary it was.

[itachiversace]

In a deleted scene, Coraline finds a spider near the sink and accidentally throws it into her mother’s coffee.

[vhs]

Bugs can also indicate decay, and the other mothers world is dying without a child to feed off.

[isaashley]

2:22 The mantis wasn’t used BY the dad to attack Coraline, it was USING the dad to attack Coraline. You can see that he clearly tried to help her from saying “sorry, mother made me, I don’t wanna hurt you” to shaking his hand off of the metal and giving her the ghost eye. He’s genuinely on her side.

[mintyhippo]

I think coraline is treated like a pest a lot by her parents, too.

So that ties into the bugs and also the circus mice. It’s like, in the other world, the pests are pretty cool and celebrated. But then when the other mother eats the beetle in front of her, it kinda takes you out of the fantasy. The other mother is now a threat and not someone who is accepting. The bugs are her food and furniture, not something she cares about.

[valentinadallarosa]

in the book, coraline has a huge fear of spiders

[m.vincentius]

This dude's highschool english teachers prolly loved him.

[marinaferreira]

i love the fact that neil's explanation for coraline is that he wrote it to answer to his daughter where cats go when they disappear

[EskimoPagan]

7:38 There is a subplot/backstory in the book about the rats and the crawl space behind the little door. The crawl space is definitely alive in some way, and the rats have been there a very long time: “…We were here before you rose, we will be here when you fall.”

A word the other mother uses in the movie to describe the cat in my opinion sums up the viewer’s perspective of the rats and bugs: vermin.

[whatdafuck]

I like how the presence of the cat is so reassuring throughout the movie

[joliethomas]

Coraline is honestly one of the best stop motion animated films ever

[velvetine]

another thing to point out is how bugs often live and hide in plants, the way that the other mother’s world was floral and decorated but hid her true intentions

[MaxOakland]

Coraline is an amazing movie. The bug things aren’t part of the book at all, it was a cool addition by the talented film crew. To me it seems obvious that the other mother is being compared to a spider with Coraline as the bug. She slowly reveals her true nature over the course of the movie and at the end when all is revealed, she shows that her beautiful little world is really just a giant web to trap her prey

[caroxoxo]

i love how this movie is STILL being theorized about. shows how compelling the story truly is.

[PINGAPONGSM]

i watched coraline years ago, i literally only remember the naked grandmas swinging around

[theoverseer]

I think the biggest thing you missed, is that dragonflies are the most successful predators. And this shines through when coraline actually counters Other Mother’s plans by playing a game

Coraline managed to outmaneuver Other Mother at her own goals, and escaped the web alive

[CreoTan]

I find it a little odd that you didn’t mention the popular image of female praying mantises eating the heads off of their mates. This isn’t a truly accurate behavior, but imo it’s ubiquitous with praying mantises way more than wisdom or reliability. And it fits thematically with how the garden mantis used by other father eventually came to control HIM, physically tying him down and forcing him to chase coraline. It further highlights the control other mother has over all her pawns and the lack of care she has towards them, even towards her “husband”