Alma Madrigal

Antagonist Overview

Gallery

Antagonist-doer

Old
Young

Full Name

Alma Madrigal

Alias

The Matriarch of the Family
Abuela
Mamá
Señora
Doña Alma

Origin

Encanto

Occupation

Matriarch

Powers / Skills

Leadership

High Intelligence
Diligence
Patience
Intimidation
Charisma

Hobby

Helping the people of the village.

Training her family to use their gifts to the best of their ability.

Goals

To keep her family perfect in every way, even if it means shunning those who step out of line (abandoned)

Marry her granddaughter, Isabella off to Mariano Guzman
Forcing her other granddaughter, Mirabel into submission
Keep up the facade to the villagers that she and her family are perfect (all failed)
Save the Casita, the miracle and her family.
Fix her relationship with Mirabel and Bruno (both succeeded)

Opposes

Familial Abuse

Abuse of Power
Emotional Abuse
Verbal Abuse
Illegal Authority
Attempted Forced Marriage

Type of Antagonist

Tragic Matriarch

“	♫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 main antagonist of Disney's 60th animated feature film Encanto. A woman whom 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.

She was voiced by María Cecilia Botero, with Olga Merediz providing her singing voice.

Personality[]

Deeply traumatized by the tragic loss of her husband and endlessly grateful for the miracle that came to rescue her and her triplets, Alma believes she is indebted to the magic that found her family and must do everything she can to ensure she gives back to the world around her. She also enlists all of her children and grand-children for the same mission, instructing them to master their gifts and spend every second of the day putting them to use. In this manner she secures that her family stays strong, though she fails to give full attention to the stress and anxiety the members of the family have to deal with under the weight of all the untenable expectations set upon them.

Having lost everything before and never fully healing from it, Alma is exceedingly worried over the eventual cracks in the Casita's foundation. She falls into something of an obsession because of this, encouraging her family to work harder and harder, asking Bruno to have a vision of the future despite his poor reputation and even unjustly placing the blame on Mirabel when the magic's abatement seems to coincide with the giftless grandchild's quest to save it.

In the end, after getting into a heated argument with Mirabel, Alma realizes she's been seeing the family as their gifts, not their persons, and feels immense regret, promising to change her ways.

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, she 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 is a unique example of a Disney antagonist who not only isn't villainous but entirely means well. In reality, she wanted the conflict resolved just as much as her granddaughter, Mirabel. She only had to recognize that she was the one causing it in the first place.
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.

External Links[]

Alma Madrigal on the Heroes Wiki
Alma Madrigal on the Disney Wiki

Navigation[]

Antagonists

Antagonists
Alma Madrigal \| Bruno Madrigal \| Pepa Madrigal \| Félix Madrigal \| Isabela Madrigal \| Dolores Madrigal \| Luisa Madrigal \| Camilo Madrigal \| Osvaldo