♫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!♫
„
~ Alma's philosophy.
“
There is nothing wrong with La Casa Madrigal. The magic is strong! And so are the drinks.
„
~ Alma’s most famous quote.
“
I was given a miracle... a second chance. And I was so afraid to lose it... that I lost sight of who our miracle was for...
„
~ Alma explaining how her motives got derailed over time.
Alma Madrigal is the deuteragonist of Disney's 60th full-length animated feature film Encanto. A woman who was blessed with a gift-granting magic candle, Abuela is the matriarch of the Madrigals, the mother of Julieta, Pepa and Bruno and the grandmother of Isabela, Dolores, Luisa, Camilo, Mirabel and Antonio. As the original source of its magic, Abuela also serves as the head of the village in which she and her family resides.
Deeply traumatized by the tragic loss of her husband and blessed with a miracle, Alma was a deeply complex individual. Alma believes she is indebted to the magic that found her family and that they must do everything they can to ensure they give back to the world around them. Thus, she has all of her children and grandchildren to master their gifts and use them to serve the community. In this manner she secures that her family stays strong, though it becomes something of an obsession as she is unaware of how all the untenable expectations affects them.
Alma's perfectionism leads her to show more affection to certain family members while at the same time be distant to others, unaware of how much hurt it causes to both. Out of all her grandchildren, she favors her oldest Isabela; this doting both placing a lot of pressure on her while making her sisters and cousins feel lesser in her shadow, negatively affecting Isabela's relationships with some of them. Due to the problems his gift caused, supposedly along with being unmarried and childless unlike his sisters, Alma often doubted Bruno's contributions, causing their relationship to become so strained that her son through the years began to fear and avoid her. Even playing favorites with her sons-in-law, Alma preferred charismatic Félix over clumsy Agustín, approving of the former for his soothing influence on her daughter Pepa while questioning why her other daughter Julieta chose the latter.
As the family matriarch, Alma tries to be patient and understanding, but believes, from her point of view, that some should just step aside and do nothing without her express approval, making her come off as a cold and severe woman who is hard to please. Alma puts up a firm front for herself and her family, denying there is anything wrong and that there is nothing to fear, even when things say otherwise. But in truth, Alma knows that her home and perhaps even her family is in danger, as she privately reveals to herself how afraid she is for her home, family, and losing everything as they did before, and cannot bear to go through that again, and prays to her late husband, Pedro, to help her. This displays Alma's vulnerability that she hides from even her family and feels the burden of trying to preserve her family, her community and their miracle and their Encanto, explaining why she does everything she can to protect them. Unfortunately, this fear of losing everything again, coupled with closing it off from others, often causes her to assume the worst in a situation or even in others, including her own family. Upon seeing Bruno's vision of her, Alma, previously looking on down Mirabel, feared her youngest granddaughter destroying the magic and everything their family had built.
When she sees how her expectations of her family are unraveling because of Mirabel, Alma misinterprets her attempts to help as jeopardizing the magic according to Bruno's vision, and jumps to conclusions without hearing her out and accusing her of hurting the family out of spite for not having a gift. It is when Mirabel, fed up with this harsh treatment, turns these accusations against Alma and states that no one can meet her expectations, going as far as to say that it is she, Alma, causing the miracle to fade, that the older woman, initially denying this, can only be stunned and silent before the Casita collapses as a result of their heated argument. Taking in the destruction of their home, and Mirabel's words and near-death in trying to save the candle, Alma's hardened exterior would be broken as she realized how hard she had been on her family in trying to ensure their wellbeing.
In a heart-to-heart with Mirabel by the river where her husband perished, Alma reveals more about their family beginnings and how they received their miracle. In her youth, Alma was once a cheerful woman full of life and hope looking forward to starting a family with her husband, but was left devastated and heartbroken when he sacrificed his life to buy time for her and their neighbors to escape from the soldiers who forced them to flee their home. Losing the love of her life, her home, and everything she knew and loved in one night traumatized Alma so much that she swore it would never happen again, determined to preserve what had given them a second chance to live peacefully. But over time, she lost sight of what really mattered and unconsciously took their miracle, the magic and her family (the supposed miracle and actual one) for granted. It was because of this, that Alma was always looking for an outside force threatening all she held dear, in a similar vein to the soldiers, that she never thought to look within and realize her well-intentioned actions were the problem until it was too late.
Now understanding the pain and loss Alma had never healed from (and never had time to due to having to raise her infant triplets and lead a new village), Mirabel assures her grandmother that it is because of her that they were saved and that they are a family, and nothing is so broken that they could not fix together. Mirabel's words and maturity would make Alma finally realize that Mirabel was the answer to her prayers all along and they reconcile. As a first step, Alma also reconciles with her lost son Bruno when he suddenly appeared to take all the blame for Mirabel and confront her, embracing him and happy to have him back. Alma then becomes a happier and warmer person than she was before, letting go of her dark past and making peace with Pedro's passing. Returning to the family and the ruins of the Casita, Alma reconciles with the rest of her family, apologizing for how she held on too tight out of fear she would lose them all as well, but now understands that they alone are the true miracle, as she guides Bruno back. Working together with their community as they rebuild the Casita, helping the bonds of their family to become stronger than ever and cause the magic to be restored later in the Encanto.
Biography[]
Past[]
In her youth, Alma was married to Pedro Madrigal, with whom she had three children: Julieta, Pepa and Bruno. Their happy marriage was cut short when a band of conquerors attacked, likely as part of a civil war or a raid. Pedro sacrificed himself to let his wife and children escape and was killed as Alma watched. This scarred Alma, but just as things looked their darkest, her candle became enchanted and created the sentient house the Casita, which imbued her children with magical powers. A village eventually spawned around this house, and Alma and her family became the pillars of its society. Bruno was eventually ostracized due to his gift being the ability to tell the future, leading him to predict many haunting developments that gave people the impression that he was evil.
Encanto[]
Alma is first seen at Mirabel's gift ceremony, telling her an abridged version of the origins of the Casita and the family's magic. To Alma's horror, Mirabel isn't given a gift at all.
Many years later, when Pepa's youngest son, Antonio, is about to receive his gift, Alma is seen stringently supervising the decorations. When she sees Mirabel trying to prepare her own humble decorations, Alma awkwardly suggests that she "step aside" for the ceremony as to ensure that everything goes perfectly (much to Mirabel's frustration). Julieta, Mirabel's mother, implores Alma to be gentle with Mirabel since tonight would be hard for her since her ceremony didn't go well, to which Alma asserts how the family will suffer if the ceremony goes awry.
On the evening of the ceremony, the Casita gifts Antonio the ability to speak to animals, to the palpable relief of Alma. The entire village celebrates, taking a picture of the whole family apart from Mirabel, who discovers that cracks are forming in the walls and floors of the Casita. Horrified, she breaks up the ceremony to tell Alma, but when they get to the room wherein the cracks were allegedly formed, they're nowhere to be seen. Mirabel tries to explain herself, but Alma angrily silences her and whips the crowd back up.
Later that night, as Mirabel is sneaking around, she overhears Alma lamenting to her candle and a photo of Pedro that she's aware the magic is dying. She begs for a sign on how to save her family. This encourages Mirabel to go on her own quest to save the family and the miracle before it's too late. She asks around the house, confronting her older sister Luisa, who is gifted with immense strength, about her obvious nervousness. Luisa reveals that she is burdened by the constant pressure on her to be strong and distressed by the fact that she's growing weaker. She hints that their ostracized uncle Bruno might have known about this conflict, and Mirabel goes to his abandoned tower to investigate.
On her way out Bruno's abandoned tower, Mirabel bumps into Alma. Before she can excuse her disheveled appearance to her grandmother, Luisa comes in, sobbing and spilling all the details of her conversation with Mirabel to Alma. Hearing this, the matriarch becomes further unhappy with Mirabel, telling her to stay away from Luisa until she can talk to her and orders her to stop whatever it is that she's doing.
That evening, Alma has invited local heart-throb Mariano Guzmán and his mother to dinner with her family in the interest of arranging a marriage between Mariano and Isabela, Mirabel's beautiful oldest sister and the current pride of the family. Over the course of the dinner, the news that Mirabel has undertaken to research Bruno's vision about the family's magic dying (which mysteriously depicts her) spreads around the table, causing the family members' magical abilities to go out of whack, ruining Mariano's proposal and the night as a whole, despite Alma's desperate attempts to redeem it.
As Alma furiously assures the shocked townsfolk (who came to celebrate the planned engagement) that her family's magic is still strong, Mirabel journeys into a hidden area inside the walls of the house to find Bruno, a regretful figure who isolated himself as, per Alma's request, he'd had a vision about the miracle's future, which involved Mirabel. Not knowing exactly what the meaning of Mirabel's appearance was but knows how Alma and the family would react since they always assume the worst, he scatters the vision and disappears in order to protect Mirabel from undue ostracization.
Bruno and Mirabel discover together that the key to saving the family's magic appears to be making amends with the catty Isabela by embracing her, much to Mirabel's utter annoyance. Concerned over Mirabel's disappearance, the family comes clean to Alma about her secret mission. This sends Alma into a panic, causing her to lash out at them for not telling her sooner and demand they find Mirabel so her antics can be stopped and the chaos ended.
Shortly thereafter, Mirabel sneaks into Isabela's room and attempts to patch up their relationship. Isabela reveals that she, like Luisa, endures a constant pressure to be perfect, in her case perfectly fair and beautiful, as she's the golden child. Moreover, she only agreed to marry Mariano for the good of the family. After accidentally creating a cactus during an emotional fit, Isabela is encouraged to go wild with her powers, and the two sisters knock themselves out singing and creating a messy splash of colorful plants and flowers. Gradually, this causes the cracks to fade and the candle to light up. Alma, who was heretofore occupied with apologizing to Mariano and his mother for the botched dinner, notices all the confusion and resolves to put an end to it.
Alma bursts into the house, appalled by the disorder. Upon seeing her grandmother, Mirabel eagerly begins revealing her plan and its success to her, but Alma falsely berates Mirabel for both the magic dying and the family falling apart (even berating her for Bruno's departure, Luisa's powers failing, and Isabela going out of control), even going as far as to insinuate that it was all because she wasn't given a gift.
Finally fed up with this treatment, Mirabel furiously states that she, as well as the rest of the family (even with their magical gifts), will never be good enough for Alma, no matter how hard they try (and that Bruno really left because she always saw the worst in him). When Mirabel reaches her breaking point, she goes as far as to say that she's the one killing the miracle, to Alma's horror and shock. This angry confrontation is enough to fully demolish the Casita.
Heartbroken, Mirabel runs away to the river where her grandfather, Pedro, had been murdered and releases stress, ashamed of indirectly destroying their home. Alma catches up to her and assures her it's not her fault. Remorsefully, she admits to her mistakes and confesses that, in working so feverishly to make certain her family and its magic never falter, she lost sight of what was really important: not their gifts, but the family itself.
The family is reunited, even Bruno, who rushes in to shoulder the blame for everything, is simply embraced by Alma, who is delighted to see him again (which surprises him completely). Together with the village, the Madrigals rebuild their house, and as soon as Mirabel adds the Casita's doorknob, the magic returns.
Trivia[]
Alma's name in Spanish and Portuguese means "soul".
In Hebrew, Alma's name means "young woman", which also refers to her in the flashbacks being seen as a young woman.
Heroes