When I saw the movie in the theaters, I was very disappointed in her character. Essentially, I thought she was a jerk. I recently had the opportunity to see it again and was able to revise my first impression of her, but I do believe she is overrated as a strong female character. I came up with a title that, in my opinion, I think she is better suited for.
First off, let's take a look at her heritage. She is a Scottish princess from the middle ages. A quote by Walter Scott from his work, Old Mortality, also sums up the Scots quite nicely: "It has often been remarked of the Scottish character, that the stubbornness with which it is moulded shows most to advantage in adversity, when it seems akin to the native sycamore of their hills, which scorns to be biased in its mode of growth even by the influence of the prevailing wind, but, shooting its branches with equal boldness in every direction, shows no weather-side to the storm, and may be broken, but can never be bended." Merida is a very good embodiment of this particular description. She also comes from a time where women across the world were more submissive and often used as political pawns. For a young woman of her time, she is very independent and aspires to become more than she is. These are good traits for strong women to have, especially in children's movies and television.
But here's the clincher on her character: she isn't smart.
Now Merida does have some semblance of brains; she listens to her father and takes his lessons more to heart than her mother's words, and she can easily survive by her wits. The problem with her intelligence is that she is near sighted: she doesn't think past her own circumstances. All she sees is what is happening to her and how she wants things to go her way. She doesn't consider the consequences of her actions and whines about how no one listens to her.
It is true that her mother, Elinor, isn't giving her teenaged daughter's words much heed; but at the same time, Merida isn't listening to her either. Neither woman can find the middle ground to reach out to each other. These two are a matched pair, despite the obvious differences in their character.
Elinor is a product of her time and believes that Merida should act the proper role of a traditional lady. Does this make Elinor a weak character? Not in the least. She may be too focused on marrying her daughter off, but it's more than just the assumed power control that parents are often shown to demonstrate over their kids in movies. What Elinor wants is for Merida to be a good leader, and for an alliance to be made to strengthen their kingdom. She is more far-sighted in being able to see that the good of her family and clan comes first, but not being able to see that her unbending plans aren't the best means of achieving her goals. Like mother, like daughter.
Despite all this, Elinor does command a great presence. She has enough prowess and wisdom to stop fighting clansmen from killing each other, and getting them all to submit to her. Just watch this from 1:56:
She literally parts these ferocious fighting Scotsmen just by walking through them and gets the leaders under control by grabbing them by the ears! Why isn't she getting credit for this? Up until this point in the movie, all we have seen of Merida is how independent and physically capable she is, and how much trouble she can stir up; not only by herself but also with her impish brothers. For Elinor's story, we have seen how proper and traditional she is, but when she takes command of an entire room of angry Scotsmen without losing her cool, she proves that she is a woman of great aptitude.
By promoting Merida before Elinor, the previewed story makes Merida out to be a victim. In reality, both she and her mother are victimizing each other. Each has their own strengths and virtues, but neither one wins when they battle. Both wind up being hurt and more determined to have their way, despite their both knowing what the problem is: they aren't listening to each other. And then, Merida goes over the edge when she humiliates her would-be suitors in the archery contest. A good, strong female character would have the intelligence to know that public humiliation (in any era) would be a bad idea. Merida did not even consider this outcome and made the more immature choice, resulting in humiliating her family and touching off a feud between clans. Proper or not, strong women don't make choices like that; they weigh the options and come up with better strategies; hence the reason why Merida is not a smart character.
Here is the best example of Merida not being smart: her request to the witch. She wants to change her fate by changing her mother! Anyone else see the flaw in this logic? Merida is independent enough to know that fate is her own to change, but she instead chooses to blame her unhappiness on Elinor and change her. In her request to the witch, she doesn't even explain what about her mother to change: she just tells her to change her mother. That could mean any number of changes: physical, as it went down in the movie; personality, in changing every aspect of her thinking; emotionally, changing how she feels about Merida's potential marriage; or even to the extreme of having her removed from Merida's life altogether. Merida doesn't tell the witch how or what to change about her mother. She instead assumes that a spell to change her fate by changing her mother will solve her problem. The request she makes, lacking all specificity, is completely naive.
Now any good tale shows how the hero undergoes a personal change. Once Elinor is transformed into the bear by the witch's fate-changing spell, Merida begins to see the error of her ways. As the two venture off to break the spell, both characters are able to connect because they have to communicate without being able to completely understand Elinor's bear talk. It is when they work together that both characters begin to change and see where the other is coming from. In the end, they are able to compromise when Merida takes her duties as princess seriously to put a stop to the clan fighting but to Elinor's agreement that tradition should be changed and Merida be allowed to make her own decision when she's ready. It is in the middle ground that the two resolve their differences in.
To say that Merida is a good example of a strong female character is premature. Her tale in Brave shows more of teenaged rebellion rather than actual strength. It would be more appropriate to characterize her as becoming a strong female character. Every strong female character in popular culture, such as Buffy Summers or Sarah Conner, all have a story we don't know about and had to grow up at some point. Odds are they weren't always strong, like the aforementioned Conner. Merida's story can be seen as how a strong character is born. At this point in her life, she has learned her lesson and will hopefully continue to grow from there. Instead of being strong from the start, her experiences allowed her to grow into that role.
If Merida's tale were to continue, I'm sure she would eventually become that character that she now has the potential to be. In the meantime, we are left with the journey we were given, which is a tale that we can hope will eventually lead to that greatness.
