The movie Encanto is ostensibly a woke Disney production about Latino family dynamics and intergenerational trauma. And sure, I see it. However, whether it was intentional or not, Encanto tells another story more prominently: the story of familial wealth and power—and the hidden costs of those gifts.
The official narrative.
In Encanto, we meet the Madrigals, a magical Colombian family living in a picturesque village hidden in the mountains. The family matriarch, Abuela Alma, oversees a household where every child receives a supernatural gift—except for one: Mirabel.
Each Madrigal gift serves a clear communal function. Luisa has superhuman strength and performs the village’s physical labor. Isabela can make plants grow and beautifies the environment. Julieta heals with food, Camilo shapeshifts to meet others’ needs, and Dolores hears everything. Even the youngest, Antonio, gains the ability to speak to animals.
Mirabel begins to notice cracks in their magical house—both literal and metaphorical. She suspects the family’s magic is fading. Her quest to save it leads her to Bruno, the exiled uncle whose gift of prophecy made him a pariah.
Eventually, Mirabel realizes the miracle is not fading because of outside threats, but because of the internal pressure to perform and the silencing of anything that doesn’t conform to the family’s expectations. She confronts Abuela, who has rigidly clung to the original miracle as a way of preserving unity and purpose. The house and the gifts collapse. Mirabel, who has always been giftless, is the one to guide the family and the community in rebuilding—and in finding again, in love and harmony, the miracle and the gifts.
The ending reframes the miracle as a metaphor for family unity, forgiveness, and unconditional love. No one needs to earn their worth anymore. Everyone is enough.
Open your eyes. What do you see?
The story starts decades earlier. Boy meets girl. Pedro meets Alma. They marry. They get pregnant with triplets. Their town is ravaged by bad guys, maybe narcos, maybe guerrilla. They scape, along with a crowd. Pedro immolated himself so that Alma, and the whole group of people, can flee. In the movie, we see the literal miracle be born out of his sacrifice. In real life, dynastic power often is born out of the sacrifice of a life, whether real or symbolic. You can see the story unfold here, to the tune of the gorgeous Dos Oruguitas.
Let’s recap. The Madrigals live at the literal top of the hill. They have the biggest, nicest house in town. They control labor, construction, infrastructure, weather, information and intelligence, medicine, arts, and agriculture through family members’ powers. They centralize trust and dependence under one family brand.
They are the benevolent ruling class.
Living in the house at the top of the hill has its tradeoffs. No one in the family can leave. Even Bruno had to exile himself within the house. Roles are assigned, not chosen. The moment you get your “gift,” your identity is locked in. To question the system (like Mirabel does) is to threaten the family’s myth of perfection—and by extension, its social capital. The Madrigals never talk about class, wealth, nor power, but they don’t do farmwork nor manual work either.
The film dresses itself as a warm story of love, forgiveness, and magical realism. But underneath the music is the dissection of a dynasty. This isn’t a fairy tale—it’s a parable of quiet power. The movie looks like a warm story but really is a cold autopsy of power structures dressed in color and song.
Exceptional families—dynasties, mythic lineages, houses of power—are almost always built on a sacrifice. Literal. Symbolic. Chosen. Imposed. But always paid. In Encanto, that sacrifice is Pedro’s death: a literal act of protection, buying time not just for his wife and children, but for an entire town to scape. His death births the miracle. It becomes the origin myth.
Pedro is the capital base.
His death becomes the emotional currency that legitimizes Abuela’s authority. It becomes the foundational trauma around which all expectations are built. It becomes the unspoken debt that everyone in the family must repay—not in sorrow, but in performance.
That’s the true tax:
We were saved by sacrifice, so we must always deserve that salvation.
This is not just fiction. It’s pattern. Dynastic power tends to follow the same cycle:
- The Sacrifice — someone gives everything: killed, exiled, discredited, erased.
- The Myth — the moment is canonized, retold, institutionalized.
- The Pressure — descendants must make it worth it.
- The Crack — someone questions whether survival at that cost was justified—or what that cost still demands.
Mirabel is the crack. Bruno saw the crack. Abuela fortified the walls around it. And Pedro? He is the statue. The eternal receipt. The original burn offering.
Whether it’s Encanto, the Kennedys, biblical lineages, startup cults, or imperial families—there is always a sacrifice buried beneath the marble. And the longer it’s unexamined, the more it controls the living.
The miracle isn’t just power. It’s debt made divine. A shrine built atop one man’s death, funded by the gratitude of a saved population. The family doesn’t just serve the people—they are consecrated by them.
The miracle isn’t fading. The contract is cracking.
And Mirabel sees it. All of it. That’s why she’s dangerous. It positions Mirabel not as a girl who “saves the magic,” but as the one who rewrites the entire logic of what power means in the family.
She is the family’s community liaison and Abuela’s natural heir.
She is also an engineer of reality.
Let’s zoom out. Who is who in the family.
You can get the musical rundown in this video. Here’s a less naif, more insightful description of each family member and their relationship with power.
The triplets.
Julieta Madrigal – the healer who stabilizes the system.
Julieta, the eldest of Alma and Pedro’s triplets, holds the power to heal through food. But this isn’t just a charming detail or a maternal gesture—it makes her the town’s doctor, therapist, and quiet stabilizer. Her role is to repair damage without questioning its source. When someone gets hurt—emotionally, physically, even structurally—Julieta steps in with an arepa and resets the equilibrium. She doesn’t treat causes. She remedies consequences.
Her power is profoundly political: it enables the system to keep moving without reform. If Pepa’s storms cause chaos, Julieta restores calm. If Luisa breaks under pressure, Julieta revives her. In a world where change would require admitting failure, Julieta allows the family (and the town) to avoid hard conversations. She’s a healer.
She’s the mechanism of continuity.
She is loved, but taken for granted, like all institutions that work quietly. And because she soothes, she is never feared.
Pepa Madrigal – the weather as emotional infrastructure.
Pepa, the middle child, embodies volatility. Her emotions control the weather, which means that her mood has the power to grow crops—or destroy them. In a farming town, that’s not just symbolic. That’s infrastructure. Her interior state becomes the climate model the entire community must live under.
But the family doesn’t offer Pepa emotional regulation or support. They offer containment. She is constantly told to “calm down,” to “keep it together,” to manage her feelings not because it would help her—but because her instability threatens the appearance of control.
What Pepa represents is how power systems fear emotional truth. She is not allowed to feel authentically—only acceptably. She is the embodied warning of what happens when internal chaos leaks into external perception. And rather than being treated as a barometer, she’s treated as a liability.
Still, her weather feeds the village. They depend on her. They suppress her. She is useful, not safe.
Bruno Madrigal – the exiled economist.
Bruno, the youngest, is the only son. His gift is prophecy—seeing the future. But the village doesn’t celebrate this. They fear him. Not because he’s wrong, but because he’s right too early.
Bruno is not a mystic. He’s not a madman.
He’s an economist.
He sees the trends, the fault lines, the externalities. He sees collapse on the horizon—years before anyone else is willing to look. And like all economists who forecast systemic failure, he’s blamed for the forecast instead of praised for the warning.
Bruno isn’t a mad prophet—he’s the Madrigals’ resident economist, the “Dr. Doom” who spots systemic stress before anyone else will admit it. Like Nouriel Roubini warning of a housing implosion in 2006 or Robert Shiller ringing the bell two years earlier, Bruno’s foresight threatens the family’s confidence premium, so they exile the messenger instead of addressing the message. In power systems, early accuracy is reputational suicide: the model that shows cracks in the façade gets banished until the façade finally caves. Only then does everyone remember the forecast was right all along—and by then, the cost of silence is baked in.
He becomes a scapegoat. Not because he caused harm, but because he disrupted comfort.
This is how systems treat prophetic intelligence: exile it, ridicule it, wrap it in shame. Like Cassandra. Like whistleblowers. Like any analyst whose insight destabilizes the myth of control. So Bruno disappears—not entirely. He lives inside the walls. Watching. Listening. Repairing what he can. Still serving, even in exile.
He is the ghost of accountability.
And his silence is the cost of preserving the narrative.
The grandchildren.
Isabela Madrigal – the aesthetic regime.
Isabela is the eldest grandchild, the family’s crown jewel. Her gift—the ability to conjure and control plant life—appears innocent at first. Flowers, vines, beauty. But look closer: she controls narrative through aesthetics. She is a landscaper, yes, but also an architect of perception. Her vines reshape reality. Her flowers beautify distortion. She doesn’t just decorate the house—she disguises its cracks.
Isabela is the dynasty’s propaganda wing. Her perfection is its brand. And she knows it. She performs beauty as burden. The problem is not that she’s vain—it’s that everyone else needs her to be flawless. Her rebellion doesn’t begin with rage. It begins with color. With chaos. With a cactus.
She’s not an artist because she controls beauty. She becomes one when she loses control on purpose. That’s when her gift becomes creation, not preservation. But until then, Isabela is the aesthetic mask that allows the system to pretend nothing is wrong.
Luisa Madrigal – the labor backbone.
Luisa is the second daughter, born between the family’s crown and its outcast. Her gift is superhuman strength. She carries donkeys. She lifts buildings. She keeps the town running.
But Luisa doesn’t just do labor—she represents labor. She is the public works department, the construction company, the logistics system. And like every essential worker in a top-heavy structure, she is praised only when she doesn’t falter.The moment she hesitates, the family panics. Because she is the only thing standing between order and collapse.
What breaks her is not weight. It’s expectation. The belief that she must never tire. Never cry. Never need help. Luisa is what happens when a system assigns worth based entirely on output. She doesn’t live in the house of miracles—she holds it up.
Her value is structural. Her breakdown is political. And her silence is enforced.
Mirabel Madrigal – the liaison and future architect.
Mirabel is the youngest daughter of Julieta and the only grandchild without a gift. But this absence, rather than disqualifying her, is exactly what enables her to see the system. While the others are locked into their roles, Mirabel moves between rooms, people, functions. She is dismissed by the family and underestimated by the town—but that distance is what makes her dangerous.
She is the only one who interacts with everyone. She knows the townspeople’s names. She listens. She remembers. She bridges the family myth with public reality.
Mirabel isn’t just a curious girl trying to belong. She’s the cultural and community liaison between the town and the ruling class. And unlike the rest, her identity isn’t determined by magic. It’s formed by observation, memory, and relational capital.
She is Abuela’s heir—but not because she inherits the miracle. Because she is the only one capable of redefining it.
And quietly, unmistakably—she is the engineer of a new reality.
Dolores Madrigal – the master of secrets.
Dolores is the eldest daughter of Pepa and Félix. Her gift is supersonic hearing—not metaphorical. Literal. She hears whispers, twitches, secrets, shifts in tone. She is the intelligence agency of the Madrigal regime.
She doesn’t just overhear gossip. She monitors the internal state of the system. She knows who’s hiding what. She knows what’s about to break. And like all intelligence agents, she must choose what to disclose, what to withhold, and when silence is more strategic than intervention.
Dolores is the NSA of Encanto. She’s not feared because she’s not threatening—but the whole family knows she knows. The town knows she knows. And she lives under the pressure of knowing everything and still pretending to be soft.
Her power doesn’t create control. It creates surveillance, soft domination by omnipresence. She’s not a loud character, but she’s one of the most structurally dangerous.
She doesn’t rule. But she ensures the rulers aren’t caught by surprise.
Camilo Madrigal – the shape of morale.
Camilo, Pepa and Félix’s middle child, can shapeshift into anyone. It sounds mischievous, even comedic—and it is. But structurally? Camilo is public morale control. He is a psychologist, performer, comedian, storyteller, mood regulator, and empathic mimicrolled into one.
He doesn’t just change faces. He reads rooms. He becomes what people need to feel okay. In a fragile system based on perception, he’s the lubricant that keeps things from locking up.
When Camilo acts out, jokes, performs—he is absorbing stress from the system. He’s the soft pressure valve. When the town is tired, he brings relief. When the family is anxious, he diverts attention.
He’s not a threat. He’s a buffer. But that’s power, too. He carries emotional risk so others don’t break.
He’s not shaping reality—he’s cushioning it.
Antonio Madrigal – the translator between worlds.
Antonio, the youngest Madrigal and Mirabel’s closest cousin, receives the power to communicate with animals. But this isn’t just about cuteness. Antonio’s real function is that of a translator—a polymath of cross-species understanding, and more deeply, a connector across domains of intelligence the family doesn’t control.
He speaks with systems the others can’t reach—nature, instinct, nonverbal knowledge. He is a biological polyglot. He doesn’t analyze; he listens. He doesn’t dominate; he collaborates. Antonio is early-stage ecological intelligence, a symbolic diplomat between human order and the world beyond it.
He also carries the legacy of Mirabel—their bond is significant. He trusts her. She’s the only one he brings with him to receive his gift. Structurally, Antonio is the bridge between the system’s foundation and its future. He’s not just a veterinarian—he’s a connector of realities.
The others operate within the house and within the town.
Antonio brings news from the forest.
First gen.
Pedro Madrigal – the burn offering.
Pedro is the silent patriarch of the Madrigal dynasty. He dies in the opening myth. That’s all you need to know—and everything you need to understand.
He doesn’t lead. He doesn’t return. He doesn’t explain. He sacrifices. And in return, the miracle appears.
Pedro is the capital base.
He is the one who pays.
His death isn’t just a tragic backstory.
It is the original transaction that legitimizes everything that follows: the house, the mountain sanctuary, the family’s elevated status, the town’s obedience.
Pedro dies so that everyone else can live—and in dying, he consecrates the family line.
He becomes a statue. A mural. A fixed point in memory. Not a man, but a proof of worth.
Pedro is not the patriarch. He is the currency.
Alma Madrigal – the keeper of the Myth.
Abuela Alma is the true founder of the dynasty. The system is hers. The Myth is hers. The pressure is hers. Her authority doesn’t come from force—it comes from custody of sacrifice.
She doesn’t just preserve the miracle. She manages it. She assigns it. She polices its use.
In the opening of the film, she sings:
We swear to always
Help those around us
And earn the miracle
That somehow found us
The town keeps growing
The world keeps turning
But work and dedication will keep the miracle burning
And each new generation must keep the miracle burning
That’s not a song lyric. It’s a doctrine. A demand.
Work. Duty. Performance.
Because the miracle wasn’t free—it cost Pedro his life. And that debt must be repaid with obedience, perfection, and service.
Alma is not cruel. She is devout.
She leads like a priestess protecting a flame that cannot be questioned.
To lose the miracle would be to make Pedro’s death meaningless.
So she builds the system. The house on the hill. The ceremonies of gift bestowing. The structure of succession. The quiet repression of dissent.
She is not just the matriarch. She is the high priest of Pedro’s martyrdom.
She doesn’t just keep the family together. She makes sure no one ever forgets what they owe.
Through the layers of space and time.
The capital of the Madrigal family is not magic. It’s sacrifice. Pedro’s death is not just a tragic prologue—it is the foundation of the system. The miracle that follows is not random. It’s compensation. Pedro dies so that Alma, their children, and the townspeople can scape. His death doesn’t just buy time. It buys legitimacy. It sanctifies survival. It demands repayment.
This pattern isn’t unique to Encanto. It’s historical. It’s universal. It crosses continents, cultures, and empires. Exceptional families—dynasties, mythic lineages, houses of power—are almost always built on a sacrifice. Literal or symbolic. Chosen or imposed. But always paid.
Sometimes the sacrifice is public, like Jesus or Julius Caesar. Sometimes it’s a fallen revolutionary, like JFK. Sometimes it’s a burned-out founder, whose ghost haunts the company’s branding. But the architecture is always the same: death becomes doctrine. Performance becomes tribute. The myth becomes law.
Pedro’s death becomes a monument. The miracle becomes the proof of his price. The family becomes the stewards of a town that owes its very existence to him. The townspeople don’t obey the Madrigals out of fear. They revere them out of debt—emotional, existential, generational.
The structure repeats across space and time:
| Element | Function |
|---|---|
| Sacrifice | Legitimizes the origin. The cost that starts the miracle. |
| Myth | Sanitizes and retells the sacrifice. Makes it palatable. |
| Capital | Emotional, moral, and political authority drawn from myth. |
| Dynasty | Maintains inherited control under the guise of service. |
| Tradeoff | Silence, obedience, and eternal performance from descendants. |
Pedro is not just a man. He is the original burn offering. And as in all dynasties—his death doesn’t fade. It calcifies. And the longer it goes unexamined, the more it controls the living.
Concrete examples.
Throughout history, dynasties have rarely been built on peace alone. Behind every lasting lineage lies a sacrifice—real or staged, personal or collective—that becomes the moral justification for power. Whether it’s a death in battle, a war for unification, or the survival of a founder through catastrophe, that founding trauma becomes myth. And that myth becomes structure. From China’s imperial cycles to religious empires, from Silicon Valley to political dynasties, the same architecture repeats: a foundational wound, a sanctified story, a generation locked into repayment. What varies is the costume—robes or robes, IPOs or palaces. But the logic stays the same. Let’s look at a few of the most revealing cases.
Political dynasties.
| Dynasty/System | Sacrifice | Myth | Capital | Dynasty | Tradeoff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kennedy Family | JFK & RFK assassinated | “They died to fix America.” | Political mystique | U.S. government legacy | Every Kennedy must bleed |
| USA Founding | Revolutionary War | “They risked lives for freedom.” | Founders as secular saints | Constitution | Moral superiority myth |
| Nehru-Gandhi | Indira & Rajiv assassinated | “They held India together in blood” | National sympathy | Three PMs | Martyrdom over merit |
| Bush Family | WWII heroism | “Duty and honor.” | Military valor = legitimacy | Two Presidents | Morality cloaks empire |
| Roosevelt Family | Assassination attempts, illness | “We bleed to lead.” | Crisis-born trust | Long public service | Suffering moralizes overreach |
| Bhutto Family | Zulfikar executed, Benazir killed | “Martyrs of democracy.” | Loyalty from the wounded | Multiple PMs | Legacy weakened by rot |
| Kim Family | Anti-Japanese resistance myth | “He gave us sovereignty.” | Sacred bloodline | Hereditary dictatorship | Famine, fear, divine myth |
| Marcos Family | Exile and hardship narrative | “We were betrayed.” | Nostalgic infrastructure myth | Bongbong Presidency | Dictatorship rebranded |
| Cuomo Family | Mario sacrificed ambition | “Service over self.” | Gravitas + Italian stoicism | Gov/media presence | Myth cracked by scandal |
| House of Windsor | Edward abdicates | “Duty over desire.” | WWII legitimacy | 70-year reign | Grief buried for stability |
| Habsburgs | Failed empire, inbreeding | “We bore Christendom’s weight.” | Divine monarchy | 600+ years | Madness and collapse |
| Bourbons | Executed in Revolution | “They paid in blood.” | Sanctified restoration | Bourbon revival | Loss turned into symbol |
| Romanovs | Execution in 1917 | “Holy martyrs.” | Diaspora myth | Symbolic influence | Martyrdom sustains exile |
| House of Savoy | Abdication for unity | “Servant King.” | National father image | Until 1946 | Power lost, story retained |
| House of Glücksburg | Coup, monarchy lost | “Last loyal king.” | European nostalgia | Symbolic survival | Legacy via marriage |
Business dynasties.
| Dynasty/System | Sacrifice | Myth | Capital | Dynasty | Tradeoff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Silicon Valley | Burnout, madness, exile | “They changed the world.” | Genius fandom | YC, PayPal mafia | Innovation worship = suffering required |
| Startups (General) | Founder burnout | “They gave everything.” | Branding & loyalty | VCs + CEOs | Founder erased, brand preserved |
| Rockefellers | Monopoly backlash | “We gave it all back.” | Philanthropic legitimacy | Finance + politics | Ruthlessness retold as vision |
| Murdochs | Internal war, loyalty tests | “We gave the people a voice.” | Global media influence | Succession battle | Exile or power, no middle ground |
| Waltons | Sam’s frugality | “Low prices as morality.” | Retail empire | Trusts + boards | Emotionless dynasty |
| Rothschilds | Exile, anti-Semitism | “Tradition through secrecy.” | Banking hegemony | Europe-wide finance | Survival via invisibility |
| Agnellis | Public image sacrificed | “Italy’s First Family.” | Industry + culture | Stellantis + Juventus | Purges for modernization |
| Bettencourts | Scandal, lawsuits | “Beauty through vision.” | Corporate mystique | L’Oréal legacy | Reputation weaponized |
| Slims (Mexico) | Hidden power | “Buffett of Mexico.” | Telecom monopoly | Foundations + children | No scrutiny allowed |
| Santo Domingos | Risk in volatile economies | “Globalized excellence.” | Beer/media/aviation | Colombian–European elite | Identity diluted by global wealth |
| Safras | Possible assassination | “Quiet capital guardians.” | Banking + religious ties | Discreet heirs | Paranoia and privacy |
When we think of dynasties, we think of China.
When we talk about dynasties—real dynasties, not just metaphorical ones—China stands at the center of the map. Its history isn’t just old. It’s recursive. From Qin to Qing, each dynasty inherits not only power, but the trauma, structure, and ritual designed to contain it.
Across 5,000 years, the Chinese dynastic cycle repeats like a cultural operating system: collapse, sacrifice, order, ossification, collapse again. Each dynasty begins with an act of survival or conquest—what you’d call a foundational sacrifice. Each emperor positions himself as the restorer of harmony. And each regime builds its legitimacy around a miracle: not of fire or magic, but of heaven’s mandate—a divine license to rule that must be earned, defended, and justified through performance.
Like in Encanto, Chinese dynasties are structured around the sacred memory of collapse—and the bureaucratic obsession with preventing it from ever happening again.
The House of Zhao – Founders of the Song Dynasty.
Zhao Kuangyin (Emperor Taizu of Song) seized power through a military coup, but immediately reframed it as a moral restoration. China had fractured. The people suffered. He wasn’t a usurper—he was the man who returned order to chaos.
That myth gave the Song Dynasty its mandate. But maintaining that order meant institutionalizing it. The Song emperors became obsessed with ritual, bureaucracy, and harmony. Roles were rigid. Creativity was a risk. Like the Madrigals, everyone had a function. And to question that function was to question the system Pedro—sorry, Zhao—had died (or killed) for.
They didn’t rule with charisma. They ruled with the weight of memory. And they silenced anyone who tried to remember it differently.
The Ming Dynasty – Zhu Yuanzhang and the Gospel of Survival.
Zhu Yuanzhang, later known as the Hongwu Emperor, was no aristocrat. He was a peasant, orphaned, starved, nearly erased by plague. But he led a rebellion against the Mongols and won. He became emperor. And from day one, his regime was built not on legacy, but suffering.
His hardship became currency. He had survived hell—so no one else was allowed to complain. The Ming court became a system of rigid control. Harsh laws. Family surveillance. Loyalty rituals. Zhu ruled not through love, but through a kind of trauma-tax: I suffered, so you must behave.
He wasn’t the fire. He was the man who carried the ash on his back. And his children inherited that burden—not his freedom.
The Qianlong Emperor – The Aesthetic Cage.
Centuries later, the Qianlong Emperor ruled during the Qing Dynasty’s golden age. It was a time of wealth, expansion, and cultural brilliance. But behind the scrolls, gardens, and painted palaces was a ruler who governed through controlled beauty.
Qianlong didn’t just oversee prosperity—he curated it. Every building, poem, and portrait reinforced the idea of harmony. But this harmony was enforced. Dissent was buried. Identity was frozen. The Manchu elite—like the gifted Madrigals—were locked into symbolic roles, meant to perform, not question.
He ruled like Isabela: creating beauty to keep the structure intact. But beauty can become a prison, too.
What is Power?
Power is consensus.
There’s a scene in Encanto where the family gathers for lunch outdoors. It’s a beautiful image—sunlight, community, food. A moment that should offer rest and communion.
Instead, it’s another opportunity to assert the family doctrine.
Abuela is proclaiming a monologue about the family values. Their lunch is a Mass, but the parting of bread is an afterthought—all that matters is the Homily. Mirabel is distracted and so Abuela (and the casita) make her fall back in line.
In Power families, consensus about the narrative and values is paramount: it’s the branding itself. Too much of a diversion from the guiding doctrine and the family breaks. Maintaining the Myth and Symbols alive with recurrent sermons and ceremonies, like Sunday lunch in Italian families, is paramount to the survival of the institution.
Power is a choice.
Money and fame may fall upon you by chance. But power is always a choice. Power asks for commitment and requires sacrifice. For the Madrigals, the original sacrifice was Pedro’s life. For the Madrigals, the sacrifices of continuity are Mirabel’s obscurity, her magiclessness, and her willingness to risk her life for the miracle.
At Mirabel’s gift bestowing ceremony, she cleans her hands after touching the Miracle Candle and before touching her bedroom’s doorknob. There’s a theory that says that because of that, she kept the power in herself, in custody. When the house falls down, everyone runs away, and it’s Mirabel, powerless and all, that runs to save the Miracle Candle. When Casita is falling down, Mirabel protects the candle with her body (and Casita uses its last breath to protect Mirabel, in turn).
While everyone in the family is thrown into their gift, Mirabel has to make the choice to step into her own Power (community liaison and leader), and she does so thrice: when she embarks her quest, when she tries to save the Miracle candle with her life, and when she leads the reconstruction of the house.
When, after reconstructing, Mirabel places the doorknob on the house’s main door, Casita comes alive again, and Power is restored. Mirabel’s sacrifices mirror both Pedro’s (giving up his life so that others can live) and Alma’s (being the custodian of the Miracle instead of its receptacle). Power is a choice that requests surrender, and it must always be paid with Life, whether literally or metaphorically (giving up your days for a cause).
Power is a priesthood.
By the end of the movie, it will be apparent that Mirabel is the rightful heir to Abuela. And for that priviledge, she pays in frugality and asceticism. She is a Madrigal, so she lives in the Madrigal mansion and shares in the Madrigal luxury. But where the other family members have vast, luxurious bedrooms that reflects their own inner worlds, Mirabel has a little room reminiscent of a monastic cell.
Her room and her clothes are adorned by manual labor—frescos in her walls and embroidery in her dress. The interests reflected in her room and dress are the interests are the whole family: like all good priests, she’s the glue that holds things together. She also carries the family sigil (butterflies), symbolizing her future leadership. But she has no apparent hobby or interest of her own.
Her interest is her family’s best interest.
And the Gifts themselves are restrictive. Isabella represents beauty but also extreme duty. Luisa represents strength but also crushing responsibility, even when others are having fun. Pepa has to repress her emotions at all times. Camilo has to contain everyone else’s emotions and needs. Dolores is called a gossip but keeps secrets nobody knows exist, like Bruno’s presence in the house.
This movie is full of fantasy, and the biggest fantasy of all is that each family member has a gift. They don’t have a gift—they are had by it. Power demands duty. Isabella must be perfect at all times and marry the perfect match she doesn’t love. Dolores must keep secrets and let go of true love. Luisa must be of service even during celebrations.
Choice is the spark that starts Power. Priesthood is the architecture of sustaining it. Priesthood is the right metaphor: not kinghood, not rule. Kings and presidents come and go, because leaders come and go. Power stays in the Presidency and in the Crown. Power stays in the institution, in this case, the family. Priesthood demands sacrifice, restraint, ritual, invisibility.
The miracle is a blessing, but it’s also a system of roles, priesthoods, and containment.
True Power requires focus and asks that everything else—love, money, fame—fall.
Power is Love.
Mirabel is part of the crack. She is a good kid and loves her family, but she is also jealous of their shine and envious of their Gifts. Jealousy, envy, and hate hurt dynastic power. They aren’t just emotions—they’re fractures. And fractures spread. Jealousy, envy, and hate are the opposite of love.
True Power requires love, kindness, and generosity, because Power is always smart. Control and dominance can be evil—and therefore dumb—but they are also short-lived.
Goodness is power itself, because where evil compels to compete, goodness compels to grow.
Real power isn’t dominance. It’s generativity. Not coercion, but attraction. Not fear, but loyalty freely given.
That kind of power outlasts the tyrants. Because control needs fuel. Love regenerates itself.
Jealousy, envy, hate? They corrode the center. They fracture dynasties, betray empires, end revolutions. They are the opposite of love—and therefore the opposite of durable power.
History shows us this again and again:
Ashoka the Great ruled after witnessing a massacre. He turned from conquest to compassion. His empire expanded not through swords, but through welfare and moral clarity. He is remembered as one of history’s greatest rulers—not because he won, but because he changed.
Abraham Lincoln carried a country through civil war and still made room for mercy. His refusal to hate—the South, his rivals, even his assassins—is what made his power unshakable. People didn’t just follow him. They believed in him.
Nelson Mandela, after 27 years in prison, emerged without vengeance. He chose forgiveness. Reconciliation. Peace. That choice didn’t weaken his power—it cemented it. His love for a fractured people made him larger than any ruler born to a throne.
George Washington could’ve been king. Twice, he stepped away. That restraint—that love of country more than self—built a republic that still bears his name. You don’t get monuments for grabbing power. You get them for letting go.
And after the blood of two world wars, Europe could have returned to rivalry. Instead, it chose cooperation. The European Union was born not out of greed, but out of a desire never to kill each other again. That’s not weakness.
That’s evolution.
Mirabel doesn’t win because she’s clever or strong. She wins because she loves them more than she hates.
She carries no gift—only care. No crown—only memory. No demand—only presence.
And when she places the doorknob on Casita and the house comes alive,
we are reminded that the miracle isn’t magic. It’s love, remembered. Love, restored. Love, rebuilt.
And that, in the end, is power. The kind that doesn’t burn out. The kind that doesn’t break.
The kind that holds the house together.
Power is community.
It’s good to have friends in high places, but it’s better to have friends in low places. Or so I like to say, sometimes.
When the Madrigal house falls apart, the community rallies around the family to support them in the reconstruction. The song “All of You” sings:
What’s that sound?
(Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh)
I think it’s everyone in town
Hey!
Lay down your load (lay down your load)
We are only down the road (we are only down the road)
We have no gifts, but we are many
And we’ll do anything for you.
Power is a network of loyalties bound by love and gratitude. In Encanto, the Madrigals give themselves to the town. The magic that creates the Madrigal house and brings the Gifts is the same magic that builds the town. When the house falls, the whole town breaks down alongside it.
And in return for their service, the Madrigals have a multitude of helping hands in their time of need.
This is true in the real world, too. Mark Zuckerberg’s success with Facebook is ours too: the jobs employ people, the tax money and salaries improve the economy, and we all get to talk to grandma through the product.
When Elon launches a rocket to space, we all get to touch the stars.
Wealth makes us all wealthy. Trickle-down economics doesn’t quite work, always. (Insert here a future conversation about capitalism and taxes). But still—the wealth of one is the wealth of all.
A medieval castle was usually owned by a family. The castle often had a citadel: a little city of people who were given protection, community, an economy, and a burgos to belong to. In return, they would lay their lives down for their Lord, if necessary.
But this is the part people forget: when the Lord stops serving, the people stop showing up.
A king is only a king if, when the castle falls, the town comes running to rebuild it. Power that isolates itself may remain rich, feared, even famous. But it is no longer held. It is merely defended. And when that defense weakens, it collapses into silence.
It’s good to have friends in high places. But it’s better to have a crowd that would die for you.
And better still
one that would live for you, and rebuild the house by hand.
Power is grey.
Mirabel has a little dusty room. She doesn’t shine. She fades in the background. She is literally not in the picture: when they take a family photo in Antonio’s celebration, she is left out.
True power is structural. A dynastic family is only as big as its sigil. The sigil must be bigger than any single member of the family—so that when one is lost, the house remains.
Real power doesn’t perform. It blends. It holds the structure while everyone else poses for the picture.
Mirabel isn’t missing. She’s holding the picture frame.
The pop culture image of power—gold, red, glowing—relates to people’s fantasy of what power is (the king of the year) instead of what real power is: a grey hand behind the fluorescence of the staging of power. Real power is dust, quiet, absence.
Real power isn’t king: it’s kingmaker. Not on the throne, but behind the lineage. Not always in the spotlight, but always woven into the architecture. Not always a name in the story—but always the reason the story holds.
Power is connection and flexibility.
Connection and flexibility are the cornerstone of mental health.
Connection and flexibility are the cornerstone of built Power that lasts.
Rigid systems snap. Isolated systems collapse. What bends, can hold. And what connects can grow.
The reasons the Roman Empire survived to our days are connection and flexibility, represented by its roads and its Pantheon. The Roman Empire was vast. That vastness was connected by a system of roads. The Roman roads—nearly 250,000 miles of stone—linked provinces to the capital, armies to borders, and markets to cities. They weren’t just infrastructure. They were veins in the imperial body. The viae enabled military control, economic flow, and cultural exchange.
That vastness wasn’t monolithic: Rome allowed conquered peoples to maintain their languages, customs, and gods—as long as they paid taxes and acknowledged the empire’s authority. Many of their deities were absorbed into Roman worship, symbolically enshrined in the imperial imagination, if not literally in the Pantheon. The message was clear: if you joined Rome, your gods could live forever.
It’s not dominance that keeps dynasties alive—it’s adaptability.
It’s not control that sustains communities—it’s presence.
Mirabel is the ribbon that connects the Madrigals to the community. And she is the pressure valve that allows Abuela’s regidity to survive reality. She soothes Luisa’s pressure and frees Isabella’s duty cage and even gives voice to Abuela’s grief just enough so that they can endure.
Dynastic Power requires generational transition and change.
To build the house up, it takes a life’s sacrifice, stoic discipline and profound service.
To keep the house up, it takes connection and flexibility.
To bridge the two, you need a healthy generational transition.
Mirabel and Abuela seem to be at odds: Abuela acts as if everything is fine and Mirabel is causing trouble. But we are shown how Abuela is worried for the Encanto as much as Mirabel. In fact, it is Abuela who, unbeknownst to her, sparks Mirabel’s quest to save the Encanto.
Abuela is talking to Pedro, almost like a prayer, emptying her worries and fears onto the candle, and when Mirabel overhears her, she takes it upon herself to help. Abuela represents the first generation, the one that sacrifices, designs, builds.
That call is best embodied by Luisa’s structural strength and Isabella’s image of perfection, but it’s upheld by her children and grandchildren.
Except for Antonio.
Antonio’s gift seems a little useless at first. Why talk to animals? Every gift in the family has clear social and economical value. Antonio’s is a little more… out there.
Why?
Antonio is the first kid in the family raised by Mirabel. They sleep in the same bedroom. Antonio asks Mirabel to walk to his door with him in his Gift bestowing ceremony. Antonio represents the seed of change. Where all the other gifts are part of building structure, Antonio’s gift is about growing and scaling. He is a diplomat of sorts. His power takes the family beyond the town’s limits.
Mirabel is the hinge, but Antonio is the proof that the hinge opened.
Mirabel’s quest starts with Abuela’s blessing, and it ends with a family that still holds structure, but with enough flexibility to keep its members from crushing and allow them to grow.
Before the transition, Luisa is asked to do stupid tasks like holding the piano while it’s played, even as everyone else eats dinner. Yet the piano could very well sit on the floor, with similar results. After the transition, Luisa is allowed to take a moment of respite in a hammock. Luisa goes from the constant, relentless measuring of the quantified self, to a more relaxed, balanced existence, where she fulfills her responsibilities while taking a moment to relax.
Before the transition, Isabella is forced to limit herself to a certain palette and certain types of plants and flowers. After the transition, she still beautifies her surroundings, but with more creative freedom.
Luisa still serves—but rests. Isabela still beautifies—but with joy.
A fashion house that’s too rigid grows stale. A tech company that doesn’t innovate grows obsolete. A power family that doesn’t adapt, collapses under its own weight.
But the transition is a tricky business. It’s a delicate process that American families often trip upon. Instead of flexibility, second and third generations often bring chaos, waste, vanity. Power and fortune are often diluted or lost.
Commonly, there’s no Mirabel to be found. No kid with leadership talent and sacrificial spirit willing to take on the family affairs.
No Elizabeth Regina. No Tim Cook.
The examples of failure—second sons, legacy hires, “the kids who ruined it”—are everywhere. And so are the missing Mirabels. No one willing to serve without ego. To lead without being crowned.
This is the fractal of Power transition.
To build the house up, it takes a life’s sacrifice.
To keep the house up, it takes connection and flexibility.
To bridge the two, you need a healthy generational transition.
This is the three-act structure of dynasty. It holds across cultures and time—from the Roman Empire to Encanto, from early tech founders to aging monarchies. The pattern repeats:
Founders → Operators → Stewards
Grandparents → Parents → Children
Sacrifice → System → Renewal
The danger is always in the handoff.
When the founder won’t let go. When the next generation mistakes inheritance for insight. When the house forgets that what matters most is not the gift—but the willingness to carry it.
Mirabel is not powerful because she is gifted. She is powerful because she chooses to serve. She listens. She sees. She connects.
And most importantly—she shows up.
Without a Mirabel, there is no future. Just a beautiful house waiting to crack. A lineage waiting to fade.
A miracle waiting to be forgotten.
But if there is a Mirabel—if there is even one—the house might not just survive. It might become something new. it might thrive. It might grow.
Not perfect. But perfectible.
Not just gifted.
But alive.
References.
Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years.
Spence, The Search for Modern China.
Rawski, Early Modern China and the Great Divergence.
Ward, Perpetuating the Family Business.
Landes, Dynasties: Fortunes and Misfortunes of the World’s Great Family Businesses .
Roubini, NYU white paper, 2006.
Shiller, “Irrational Exuberance” (2nd ed.), 2005.
Talbert, Barrington Atlas appendix – Roman roads mileage.
Schuman, Declaration of 9 May 1950.
Congressional Research Service, 2012 report on top-marginal tax cuts.
Disney, Encanto screenplay (2021).
Levitsky & Ziblatt, How Democracies Die.
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