Does the Beldam HAVE to Eat? - The Fangirl Coraline Theory

Thanks to a letter from Phoebe, I'm pondering whether the Other Mother has to eat. If not, why does the Beldam eat Cocoa Beetles from Zanzibar?




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#coraline #laika #beldam #othermother #TheFangirl

[heidibarker]

My first interpretation of the "ate up our lives" was that the Beldam kind of absorbed the kids futures. So maybe the Beldam needs the kids to take their future (one of the kids lives for the next 50 years, if the Beldam takes one of those kids she earns those years

[carterchase]

What if the beetles act as an emergency food source? Her magic is running so low that to keep it going she eats the beetles just to get her through until she can feed off Coraline. It's not a statainable thing but she just needs to last until she can get a proper meal.

[rebbekahcannons]

I think she ate them because she enjoyed the discomfort and possibly fear around eating the bugs.

[Torichan]

I'm reminded of a saying, "Break bread, not heads". We humans are instinctively calmed by sharing food. The Beldam could be trying to invoke that by sharing a box of chocolates with Coraline.
Why beetles instead of actual chocolate? Maybe her power is giving out and she can't produce a box of chocolates. Or maybe she is still playing the Weird Adventure game that originally lured Coraline in or letting Coraline think she is.
Also, considering the Beldam is an illusionist, who's to say that anything was there to be eaten? Coraline didn't eat any.

[tbjoshua]

Hello the fangirl i remember coraline when i saw my sister watching it and i got in to coraline because of the theorizer and you

[_Fizel_]

Theory: I think she feeds off energy in general, not just love or confidence/pride/whatever, but they just happen to be the most effective things. She can only feed on living things but she doesn't need to physically. Maybe she had earlier victims who she ate but she ended up bonding with one and saw she could feed for longer off having the kids love her then eating them. Maybe her earliest victims are the silhouette pictures we see but the reason they don't match the ghost kids is because there are no ghosts because she ate them whole, spirit and all. So she can eat the living bugs because they are live things giving off the energy she needs but other things just can't nourish her at all so there's no reason to do so.

[iwuvtosuckpeepee]

I’m pretty sure you’ve completely abandoned your original theory, but you said that “coraline is trapped either way” she just chose the harder alternative for the beldam. But then that doesn’t explain why the clock stops. Wouldn’t it be easier for the beldam to keep the clock going and make coraline stay blind in the other world?

[slashercat]

i don't think she does actually consume the bugs because we see her eat the key to the other door in a very similar fashion and then also cough it up and its still intact. Maybe she has some kind of pocket where she just keeps stuff that she eats?

[robby]

Kind of always thought that when she "ate" it was really more like she just passively absorbed the souls of the children. Almost like how some sea creatures filter feed.

In other words, she really needed to sustain herself by taking in their lives without necessarily eating their bodies.

[lunanighter]

YESH PLEASE NEVER STOP THIS SERIES ! I LITERALLY SAW TIHS AND SCREAMED FROM EXCITEMENT, LUV YA .... MISS ?

[BleakNovemberrain]

This story SO reminds me of the Baba Yaga, a Russian (Slavic) crone goddess witch who eats people, not just children. There is also a little doll in Baba Yaga but it is the main character Vasalisa's intuition and protectress. Youth and beauty is something witches in fairy tales are so captivated to snatch and devour.

[whizz_]

Lots of people are talking about Wybie’s hand, but in my theory I think that when he blows away the soul sand from his hand, he is indicating that the Beldam is getting weaker ( because she has to eat ), and he is saying that if he went with her it wouldn’t matter because he would still disappear since he is still the Beldam’s puppet, so if she does somehow die then he would also die with her because he is her creation.

I don’t know if you guys noticed this but when it started to become creepy ( after the button eyes suggestion ) the other father said that mother is resting and “her energy is our energy” ( or something like that ) and when he is saying that she is becoming weak, I’ve come to notice that they ( the puppets ) also started to look more sickly, which backs up my theory of Wybie’s hand, and when Coraline was trying to find the ghost eyes, she saw Wybie’s clothes hanging like a flag, which probably means that the other mother “got rid of him”.

[misspinkpunkykat]

She was probably gaining some energy from the life force of the beetles. I always got the impression the black cat was a ghost.

[mysticalgamermom]

About the bug. Another Red Herring the idea you mentioned about "I'll die without you!!" Also a red herring, to give her the idea that it's needed when it really isn't. I like this theory.

[ડ_rડ]

Maybe the reason she didn’t eat coraline the moment she walked in is because she might have the chance to run away. And if the buttons are blinding her, she wouldn’t be able to tell if the other mother was planning on eating her. And maybe all the food to get her full to where she fits a little bigger so a larger meal for the other mother and the souls behind the mirror are all that is left of the children that were eaten in the past

[sarahlynn]

Happy Birthday Megan!!🥳 My birthday is tomorrow, I love that ours are so close! About the Beldam, what is also interesting is the fact she never drinks either. Humans can go weeks without food but only days without water. She definitely is not human but I wonder what kind of being can go without water or liquid. Hope you have a wonderful birthday!!

[aaronfangheart]

The fact that your able to come up with so many theorys for this one little movie surprises me I didn't think there was so much I didn't know about it I thought it was all clear cut and to the point but since I found you I've come to question it a little more thanks so much for this your awesome and I can't wait to see what else you come up with

[zwmoktl]

Pheobe is so well spoken for only being 10 years old

[tonshie]

Omg yas I love coraline and it's theories hehe ;)

[NOIZZYT]

lol I watched ur coriline vids a WHILE a go and I just found u in my recommended again