Thumbelina (Don Bluth)

Thumbelina is the main protagonist of Don Bluth's Thumbelina.

She is a tiny, thumb-sized girl who wants to marry Prince Cornelius who lives in the Vale of the Fairies.

Why Anastasia Blew Her Out Of The Water

 * 1) Right off the bat, her original book counterpart, as well as many other characters from Hans Christian Andersen's stories (with the notable exception of Gerda from The Snow Queen), isn't a well-written character to begin with for animated film standards, since most of Hans Christian Andersen's characters are basically reactive characters where things happen to these characters instead of the characters doing something to drive their plot, which doesn't make an interesting or compelling character for the screen. But here in Don Bluth's film adaptation, she has been drastically flanderized to become a much worse character by making her a lot dumber, more passive, more immature and more male-depending than her book counterpart, due to the various reasons as listed below.
 * 2) *Her original Hans Christian Andersen book counterpart may have been a weak, whiny and passive character, but not to this extent like how Don Bluth made her out to be.
 * 3) She is a very weak and whiny protagonist who is unable to stand up for herself because she is dumb and passive and gets demotivated whenever something goes wrong for her.
 * 4) *Worse, she cries way too frequently throughout the film to the point that it gets annoying after a while, even over stuff that aren't that big of a deal, such as when Berkeley Beetle calls her ugly and when she gets lost on the way home. In fact, she cried for a total of about six times throughout her film;
 * 5) * Even the Disney Princesses created before and after her (e.g. Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine) do have scenes where they break down and cry, though at least they have valid reasons which are relatable to audiences and they still remained strong no matter what unlike Thumbelina, and not to this extent of oversaturation that it gets annoying.
 * 6) *She easily gets demotivated over whenever something goes wrong for her that she frequently whines and laments that "it's impossible" to the point where it gets old.
 * 7) She is way too much of a weak damsel in distress, even when compared to past heroines in other media created before her, so much to the point that it makes these past heroines much stronger in comparison, which is absolutely ridiculous and also unacceptable since most female characters created in the 1970s and beyond are strong female characters in any way, regardless whether it is physical or inner strength, or both.
 * 8) *Even the earliest Disney Princesses created before her such as Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora, despite their more reactive nature compared to the later Disney Princesses created after them since Ariel, are shown to have moments of inner strength and resilience which makes them strong female characters, such as how they managed to stay optimistic and courageous no matter how much bad luck and abuse they had to endure throughout their respective films. Thumbelina, on the other hand, has none of that AT ALL.
 * 9) *Speaking of weak, not only does she have no inner strength whatsoever, she is also a complete weakling on the physical side to ludicrous degrees as well, even for a person her size, such as how she easily passes out unconscious in the most minor moments of peril or danger such as when Mama Toad kidnaps her when in her walnut bed and when she is saved from drowning in the river by some background fish when Jacquimo's attempts at saving her proved to be completely useless.
 * 10) She gets little to no character development, nor does she have any purpose in life or personality outside of being with her love interest Prince Cornelius, hence making her a bland, flat character for the most part. Does that sound familiar?
 * 11) Despite that she is the main protagonist and gets a fair amount of screen time, she barely has any agency of her own nor does she have an active role throughout her film, hence making her more of a plot device than a character.
 * 12) She is so dumb and super-naïve beyond belief, that she displays a lot of questionable moments of stupidity throughout the entire film. For example:
 * 13) * Despite that Prince Cornelius (literally) breaks in into her room window and accidentally frightens her with his sword, for some reason she quickly forgives him when he apologizes, and after Prince Cornelius introduces herself, she figures it's okay to go on a bumblebee ride with this guy who, just broke into her room and waved a sword at her. And despite that Prince Cornelius accidentally lets her fall of his arms literally as he's saying, "And I'll never let you fall." during the song sequence "Let Me Be Your Wings", she still falls in love with him very quickly, and once he proposes to her by the end of the film despite having spent with each other for only one night, she immediately agrees to marry him on a whim without any further second thoughts.
 * 14) * Despite the earlier breaking and entering from Prince Cornelius, Thumbelina doesn't bother to close her room window at night, and consequently she gets kidnapped by Mama Toad. Even Marina, another damsel-in-distress character from Don Bluth, was resilient enough with priorities and at least takes advantage of preoccupancy to escape (albeit always backfiring). Thumbelina, however, doesn't even attempt, let alone fails, to get out of distress.
 * 15) *She is so easily influenced and manipulated into almost everything by anyone regardless whether it is harmful to her general wellbeing or not every time, like how Mama Toad manipulating her to either pick between marrying Prince Cornelius and having a career as a singer in the Toad family's Singers De Espana show and Ms. Fieldmouse manipulating her to marry Mr. Mole turned out to be very easy on these villains' parts after their respective villain songs because Thumbelina herself is incredibly dumb as a bag of rocks that she'd fall for everything.
 * 16) *Why does she happily dance to all the villain songs with her enemies when they are the one who force her to marry them against her will?
 * 17) *After the musical number "On The Road" with the toads, why did she even thank Mama Toad once she becomes famous for her singing voice among the pond creatures despite the fact that Mama Toad was the one that kidnapped her earlier that night?
 * 18) *Her butterfly dress falls off during "You're Beautiful Baby" and she is seen wearing her underwear, but keeps on dancing anyway.
 * 19) *She is so clingy and dependent on almost anyone, to the point that she is blind to the fact that some people she's heavily dependent on are potential abusers. This is widely reflected in the scene following Prince Cornelius' presumed death, she, under persuasion from Ms. Fieldmouse, decides to marry Mr. Mole in hopes that he could take care of her, despite the fact that she doesn't even love him at all, as well as the fact that Mr. Mole himself is heavily implied to be an evil serial killer who outright kills insects and other small living creatures for taxidermy purposes.
 * 20) **Worse, her stupidity isn't funny, cute or endearing in the slightest, but rather irritating and frustrating.
 * 21) **Though some of the Disney Princesses created before (and to a lesser extent, after) her such as Snow White, Aurora, Ariel and Anna for example are naïve at times and occasionally had done some questionable decisions in their respective films as the result, however they are still far from foolish, shallow or stupid and they at least do have some degree of intelligence in their own unique ways, and considering that most of them are between the ages 14-19 range (with the notable exception of Elsa whom is 21 years old) and therefore it is clearly understandable that this is how teenage girls their ages would've acted in real life. However, Thumbelina on the other hand, is an incredibly too-dumb-to-live moron with zero traces of intelligence whatsoever, even for her age (though to be fair, she was practically (or literally) born yesterday during the events of her film).
 * 22) She feels like a rip-off of various Disney Princesses created before her, specifically Snow White from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Ariel from The Little Mermaid at some parts (the latter character is also both voiced by Jodi Benson), except with none of everything that made both Snow White and Ariel such great, likable and memorable characters. In fact, if you take away both of Snow White and Ariel's respective intelligences, maturities, resilience, inner strengths and resourcefulness, you are basically left with Thumbelina in a nutshell.
 * 23) Her love story with Prince Cornelius is quite rushed and cliché because they don't take their time to know each other and get married too soon; Thumbelina and Cornelius meet for only one night and the latter spends the rest of the film looking for Thumbelina, after she gets kidnapped, but winds up in danger while trying to find her way home. The two meet again and get married at the end of the film, even though that they've known each other for only one night.
 * 24) *Throughout the film, she is very clingy and dependent on Prince Cornelius without logic or reasoning. Speaking of male depending, she gives the bad message to girls that "you only need a man to have happiness", which is absolutely not true. Again, does that sound familiar?
 * 25) * Because of this, she outright literally "marries the guy she does met", which gives a bad message to kids since romantic relationships do not happen instantly and instead takes time and therefore can't be rushed.
 * 26) **On the topic of "marrying the guy she does met", though the Disney Princesses created before (and to a lesser extent, after) her do have rushed romantic relationships with their respective love interests, at least they take their time to know each other and therefore forming believable romantic chemistry (as with the case of Ariel and Eric (The Little Mermaid), Belle and Beast (Beauty and the Beast), Jasmine and Aladdin (Aladdin), Giselle and Robert Phillip (Enchanted), Tiana and Naveen (The Princess and the Frog), Rapunzel and Flynn Ryder (Tangled) and Anna and Kristoff (Frozen)), or if they do have extremely rushed romances because of the royalty laws demanding either one of them or both of them get married ASAP which is a circumstance beyond their control (as with the case of Cinderella and Prince Charming (Cinderella) and Aurora and Phillip (Sleeping Beauty)), or is left completely ambiguous whether they got married at the end (as with the case of Snow White and The Prince (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) and Mulan and Li Shang (Mulan), though the latter couple eventually got married in the sequel)). And though Anna did attempt to marry Prince Hans right after meeting him for no valid reason reason whatsoever in Frozen just like Thumbelina, at least she did receive some repercussions for her action in said film when Prince Hans turned out to be the villain who betrayed her whenever she needed him most. In contrast, Thumbelina literally did married Prince Cornelius right after meeting him for no valid reason whatsoever and is outright rewarded for it, which gives a bad lesson to kids.
 * 27) Despite the fact that she's supposed to be a teenager around the age of 16, she is extremely immature and never acts her age, since she is extremely clingy (especially to Prince Cornelius) and cries a lot over things that aren't that big of a deal to begin with.
 * 28) *Though some of the Disney Princesses created before (and to a lesser extent, after) her such as Snow White and Ariel for example had childlike qualities, however at least those traits are balanced out by levels of maturity, and considering that most of them are between the ages 14-19 range (with the notable exception of Elsa whom is 21 years old) and therefore it is clearly understandable that this is how teenage girls their ages would've acted in real life. However, Thumbelina on the other hand, is extremely childish with absolutely zero traces of maturity whatsoever despite her being a teenager.
 * 29) *She is supposed to be 16, but she has the mentality of a toddler.
 * 30) *To add salt to the wound, she is very easy to be emotionally broken down at the smallest of misfortunes, something which no teenage girl her age would be this emotionally fragile and vulnerable, like how Berkeley Beetle calling her ugly and being left stranded alone out in the wide open world even when nothing scary or frightening ever happens to her is enough to easily send her off crying and spiraling into a self-pity crisis! Not even Disney's Snow White was this emotionally vulnerable when she got stranded in the forest with intense fear all by herself.
 * 31) *While this is understandable, given that he is actually less than a week old, it doesn't excuse the fact that she has little to no control over her life and is too dependent on others for the most basic things, such as relying too much on Jacquimo for finding her way home, despite that Jacquimo, who isn't any better, often gives completely vague advice to her such as "following her heart", and for some reason doesn't bother to fly her home on his back until near the end of the film.
 * 32) She gets a lot of up-skirt shots due to her skirt constantly going up and down from above her waist and therefore exposing her bare legs in the process many times, which is considered sexualization.
 * 33) She can be considered a Mary Sue in some way, as she immediately gains the romantic attention of all the guys (specifically Grundel Toad, Berkeley Beetle, Mr. Mole, and even her love interest Prince Cornelius) because of her physical beauty and beautiful singing voice, and has nothing else to her aside from these two aforementioned quirks.
 * 34) Overall, she is a misogynistic man's dream come true, since if you think about it throughout her film, she basically represents every single outdated traditional female stereotype ever written in the book and every misogynistic man's stereotypical expectations of what their ideal woman should be like in the worst possible way, even more so than any other female protagonist in any animated film ever, hence consequently making her a terrible role model for girls, regardless of the times.
 * 35) *Only has her beautiful looks and nothing else to offer, so much to the point that she becomes a huge target of the male gaze? Check one.
 * 36) *Exists only to look for companionship with a romantic partner (in her case, Prince Cornelius), so much that she'd practically die without him? Check two.
 * 37) *A ludicrously weak damsel-in-distress in constant need to be rescued, especially from her boyfriend? Check three.
 * 38) *Brainlessly dumb? Check four.
 * 39) *Being extremely submissive with zero agency or mind of her own whatsoever? Check five.
 * 40) *Being very over-emotional, including the tendency to whine and cry a lot? Check six.
 * 41) *Physical beauty matters so much to her that being called ugly by one person is enough to hurt her feelings? Check seven.
 * 42) *Having zero independence whatsoever and is very clingy to others? Check eight.
 * 43) Since she gets miserable over getting lost far from home and being unable to be with her love interest Prince Cornelius throughout most of her film, this causes her film to get too dark and depressing for younger children, despite being rated G, mainly due to her constant sadness and misery going on non-stop throughout her film without even taking a break from it. Not helping is the fact that her constant whining and crying over her predicaments throughout the film makes things even worse.
 * 44) Most of her dialogue is incredibly stupid and laughable, such as her infamous "DOESN'T ANYBODY CARE WHAT I THINK?" line.
 * 45) The wedding dress she wears to marry Mr. Mole near the ending looks very laughable.
 * 46) At the end of the film, she magically grows fairy wings and gets everything she wants. Not only does the film never explain how she got her fairy wings upon agreeing to marry Prince Cornelius, but has done nothing worthy to earn fairy wings when all she ever does is whine and mope around throughout the film, which conveys a bad message to kids: "If you only whine and mope around, you'll eventually get what you want", which just influences young children, especially girls, to become mopey, whiny spoiled brats (similar to in vein of other spoiled brat characters in other media such as Caillou, Gus and to some extent, Bella Swan) in order to get what stupid thing they want.
 * 47) Because she is always constantly forced to marry various perverted male characters against her will throughout the film, combined with how her problems are made worse by her dumb but well-meaning bird sidekick Jacquimo, she can already be considered a huge punching bag in some way.
 * 48) *It doesn't help that most of the male characters she was forced to marry against her will are adult animals, which not only makes them pedophiles (considering that Grundel Toad, Berkeley Beetle and Mr. Mole are all older adult men in comparison to the 16-year-old teenage Thumbelina) but this also promotes bestiality (though to be fair, this is actually a problem which is carried over from the original source material).
 * 49) *She is basically kidnapped and sexually assaulted by various perverted male characters throughout the film, such as Berkeley Beetle, who comes out of nowhere, caresses a nearby mushroom and then Thumbelina's face with his antennae and kiss her arm repetitively even though she says, "I wish you wouldn't do that " and "I'm not your toots" which is incredibly disturbing and creepy. But if that's not creepy enough, Berkeley Beetle makes her dress up like a butterfly and dance in this bug club packed full of an audience filled with scary-looking insects, and once she's accidentally stripped down to her underwear and is deemed ugly by the beetles onstage and the insect audience, Berkeley Beetle spanks her on the butt with his cane onstage while calling her ugly.
 * 50) *Each time she gets into such bad luck and misfortunes, she always ends up actually crying, even though some of these aren't that big of a deal, not helping that Thumbelina herself is super-immature and is a huge crybaby whom is so emotionally fragile and vulnerable (see WSS #9).
 * 51) * She often finds herself randomly transported to various suspicious places by other villains (such as Mama Toad, Berkeley Beetle and Ms. Fieldmouse) with her being completely unaware of it and not knowing where she is. And when this happens for the third time by Ms. Fieldmouse, Ms. Fieldmouse tells her off for not wanting to socialize with Mr. Mole just because Ms. Fieldmouse saved Thumbelina from the bitter cold despite the fact that she's clearly too heartbroken to do so upon finding out about Prince Cornelius' presumed death. And to add salt to the wound, Mr. Mole constantly berates and belittles Thumbelina's positive view of the sunlight when the latter first meets him, and as she walks along to Mr. Mole's place, she had to face the horror of seeing a lot of dead bodies of insects being pinned on Mr. Mole's wall since she does know the jitterbugs, who are insects, as her friends, which heavily implies that Mr. Mole is an evil serial killer who outright kills insects and other small living creatures for taxidermy purposes.
 * 52) *Later when she is about to marry Mr. Mole, she clearly looks unhappy about it. Once Grundel Toad and Berkeley Beetle find her in Mr. Mole's lair, all the villains start giving a chase at her, all because she abandons Mr. Mole at the altar since she doesn't love him.
 * 53) * On the topic of her being a huge Butt-Monkey throughout the film, even before she gets abducted my Mama Toad, she isn't safe at all even at her own home;
 * 54) **Due to her small size she constantly gets into grave dangers (albeit by accident), especially from the farm animals around her in the song sequence "Thumbelina" such as getting blown away by a talking goat to the point that she gets blown away into a water trough and almost drowns, constantly gets blown away repetitively by the farm animals around her as they sing about her, and even almost gets baked in a pie by her own mother (though fortunately she gets out of the pie in a nick before the pie gets baked).
 * 55) **After the musical number "Thumbelina", even when her mother reads her a story, it's heavily implied that she could've almost get squashed between the pages of a book by accident.
 * 56) **Despite that she is a supposed to be a teenager around the age of 16, her mother still treats her like a baby, as her mother makes her sleep in a walnut in a cradle (though to be fair, she is basically a newborn during the events of the film despite her appearance, and even acts like a baby throughout the entire film).
 * 57) **On her first day of birth, she herself is completely deprived of any new clothing aside from the one she's born with, including pajamas to sleep in with, and is made to her sleep in the shoes she was born in.
 * 58) ** For the love story meet-cute, in a scene reminiscent to Aurora and Prince Phillip's first encounter in the woods from Sleeping Beauty, Prince Cornelius (literally) breaks in into Thumbelina's room, vandalizes her book, and brandishes a weapon at her, which frightens her at first, though she eventually forgives him and the two quickly fell in love after the song "Let Me Be Your Wings".
 * 59) **During the song sequence "Let Me Be Your Wings", Prince Cornelius flies around holding Thumbelina, until he accidentally lets her fall literally as he's saying, "And I'll never let you fall" before catching her as she falls.
 * 60) While not necessarily a bad thing, a lot of things that happen to her and around her are all out of pure dumb luck and plot contrivance, mainly as the result of her film's badly-rushed writing:
 * 61) *For no particular reason whatsoever, her beautiful singing voice is automatically able to attract the attention of various male characters, specifically Grundel Toad, Berkeley Beetle, Mr. Mole, and even her love interest Prince Cornelius (see WSS #11).
 * 62) *For no explained reason whatsoever, her beautiful singing voice is able to melt all the ice and frost covering the Vale of the Fairies near the end of the film.
 * 63) *Her film never even explains and elaborates on how she gets her own fairy wings at the end of the film once she agrees to marry Prince Cornelius.
 * 64) Her voice by Jodi Benson can be shrill and annoying at times, mainly due to her voice being incredibly whiny as well as being high pitched to the point where she sounded like she is on helium, especially whenever she yells or screams.
 * 65) Although she was tolerable in the first 22 minutes of the film, she went downhill once Mama Toad kidnaps her while in her walnut bed when the film reaches the 22 minute mark for reasons above.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Despite her poor portrayal due to her being whiny and annoying, she is sweet and kind and does care about those around her.
 * 2) Her design is cute, much like Don Bluth's next princess.
 * 3) Jodi Benson performance as her isn't too bad.
 * 4) She has a beautiful singing voice.
 * 5) Despite crying way too much throughout the entire film, there's only one instance where Thumbelina has a valid reason to cry, and that's the scene where she finds out the news from Ms. Fieldmouse that her love interest Prince Cornelius is found stone-cold in the snow and presumed dead, which is relatable to audiences since losing a love interest to (presumed) death is incredibly heartbreaking in real life.
 * 6) Near the end of the film when she is forced to marry Mr. Mole, she finally stands up for herself to leave the mole at the altar because she doesn't love him, as well as to outright reject the lustful Grundel Toad who chased after her to her wedding, which are her only acts of agency throughout the entire film, meaning she does have some minor character development, though that isn't saying much.
 * 7) Despite her being extremely immature and whiny throughout her film, as well as her toddler-like mentality age, at least she doesn't stoop so low as to do things most spoiled bratty toddlers would do like throwing tantrums.
 * 8) To be fair, she acts the way she is in the film is because she was practically a newborn in most of the events of the film despite having the physical appearance of a teenager.
 * 9) Like mentioned before, she was tolerable in the first 22 minutes of the film.

Reception
Like the film itself, Thumbelina herself received generally negative reception from critics and viewers alike, with most criticism being targeted at her ludicrously weak and whiny personality, her frustratingly lack of intelligence, her constant need to be rescued, as well as the fact that she, despite being the main character of the film with a good amount of screen time, has no purpose whatsoever in the film aside from being with her love interest Prince Cornelius.

Film critic Tim Brayton criticized the Thumbelina character for her overall weak and whiny nature when reviewing the film "Thumbelina herself remains a complete drip of a character, insipidly mewling her way through the film's thankfully concise running time".

When reviewing the film, Roger Ebert criticized on how much of a complete weakling the Thumbelina character as a whole is, saying "Thumbelina's woe-is-me act got old real fast, and I couldn't care less about her matrimonial prospects."

For these reasons above, she has been considered by many to be the worst female protagonist Don Bluth has ever created in his animated filmography, even surpassing Rosie from A Troll in Central Park, Bluth's worst-reviewed film to date. Despite this, she still fared as a much better Don Bluth protagonist than Stanley from A Troll in Central Park (and to some extent, even Gus from the same film).

Trivia

 * Thumbelina is the second Hans Christian Andersen heroine voiced by Jodi Benson, the other one being Ariel from Disney's The Little Mermaid (1989), whom is a far better-written character than her. Co-incidentally, both heroines do share several similarities, as both of them are also cute redhead teenage girls with childlike mindsets that want something more out of life than what their respective lives they were originally born with.
 * In addition to Disney accepting the deal with 21st Century Fox (including 20th Century Fox, which owns current rights to the character's film as of 2002) as of March 20, 2019, Thumbelina is an unofficial Disney princess and is not part of the "Disney Princess" catalog, hence reuniting both Disney's Ariel and Don Bluth's Thumbelina under the same roof.