Divided/Tropes

Divided would be a 2029 animated comedy adventure film directed by Nyla Innuksuk and produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. The film would center on a princess who has to learn to work with her seven alternative personalities in order to save their kingdom. The film would become a critical and commercial succes, soon growing into a multi-media franchise.

Tropes for the franchise

 * Actor Allusion: Bill Farmer once again voices a comedic non-anthropomorphic Disney dog.
 * Awesome Music: Kathryn Bostic's score definetly mixes the emotion and comedy present througth the franchise.
 * Hidden Depths:
 * Genius Arnaq is a self-proclaimed otaku and a conspiracy theorist.
 * Througth the second season of the series, it is revealed that Genius Arnaq is rather existencial about her status as an alter, and implied to be somewhat self-loathing,
 * Hyde Plays Jekyll: A non-villanous example, but Arnaq's personas often pretend to be Arnaq herself when talking to people who know them for a long time and don't know about their Dissociative Identity Disorder. Additionally, when talking to people they've never met, they try to keep as close to their public image as possible while also acting as if they have Hidden Deoths they only show to said person or in a certain enviroment. The alters also keep tract for their behavior in such occasions in case they come across people who met different alters at the same time and are unaware in order to avoid any contradictory and/or suspicious behavior.
 * Like An Old Married Couple: This is the dynamic between the Extreme and Genius personas. Accoreding to director Nyla Innuksuk, this would be done on purpose, as the two serve as mother figures for the system.
 * Medium Blending: While predominantly done througth CG animation, the franchise would also see one of Arnaq's personality being created througth hand-drawn animation. Hand-drawn animation would also be used when the Genius persona is co-conscious, and in the "Personal Room" sequences. Additionally, Artist Arnaq would be created using the CGI/2D hybrid animation system used in Paperman.
 * Shout-Out: All of the works of art in Artist Arnaq's museum are painting or statues of characters from multiple Disney media, varying from movies (such as Pocahontas and Kuzco and Pacha), to series (such as Goliath and Elisa Maza from Gargoyles to Anne Boonchuy from Amphibia), to miscellanous media (such as The Three Caballeros).
 * Shown Their Work: Thanks to its "Pyschiatric Story Group", the franchise is argubly one of Hollywood's most accurate depicitons of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Most notably, it features lesser known aspects of it such as the host often changing.
 * Additionally, the franchise made huge use of Native American culture, with the characters often using Native American languages and every single weapon they use coming from their respective tribe.


 * Split Personality: The franchise's bread-and-butter.
 * Split Personality Team: Arnaq's system is perhaps one of the most heartwarming examples, not only working together througth life but also loving each other and treating each other as family.
 * Talking to Themself: Many scenes througth the franchise have Arnaq and her alters interacting with each other in their inner world, to the point you can easily forget that they are supposed to be alters.
 * Talking to Herself: All of the alters are voiced by Anna Lambe, with the partial exception of the Wonder persona, whom she only voices when she's in control, due to being a child alter.
 * Toon Physics: The inner world would make a high use of this. Justified since its meant to be a mental space and not real, thus, it dosen't have to strictly adhere to real-life physics.

Tropes for the film

 * Alternative Identity Amnesia: Arnaq initially experiences this with her other alters, but eventually stops after she develops a close bond with them
 * Adult Fear:
 * Arnaq's trauma? Almost getting her mother killed. And this time, there are no lies, manipulative uncles or evil plots behind it. It was an accident by Arnaq.
 * Two from when Hitty exposes Arnaq's actions to Elisapee:
 * On Elisapee's part, she discovered her daughter not only disobeyed her, but risked her own life by attacking a dangerous amd insane person.
 * On Arnaq's part, the person she angered comes around, taunts her with her trauma, and destroys her relationship with her mother, before watching how said person kidnaps her mother in front of her.
 * A small one, but when Aranaq finally tells her mother sbe has DID, you can tell she is quite distressed. Learning that a loved one, speacially your oen child, has a mental disorder is never easy to hear.
 * An Aesop:
 * The only way to live with a traumatic experience is letting go, and don't let it control the rest of your life.
 * Don't be what people tell you to be.
 * Never try to bury your true self. Embrsace it and show it with pride.
 * The past does matter, but it does not define your life.
 * Author's Saving Throw: The film's more emotional and lighthearted tone helped alivinate worries that it may be "another scary Split Personality movie".
 * Battle at the Center of the Mind: A highly downplayed example Played for Laughs appears at the end that feels more like a "Sibling Bickering at the Center of the Mind". As Extreme Arnaq fights Hitty's forces, Prankster Arnaq and Cynical Arnaq start arguing whether their mission will succed or not, and quickly begin fighting until Genius Arnaq tells them to stop.
 * Celebrity Voice Actor: Averted. While the main voice cast is not compromised of regular voice actors (aside from Bill Farmer, who provides the vocal effects for a dog) it dosen't really have any celebrities either. In fact, it is the first Hollywood big-budget production for all lead cast members.
 * Complete Monster: Hitty could rival even Scar as Disney's most monstrous villains. Sure, many villains are sadistic, but only Hitty is to the point of being her one and only motivation througth the entire movie.
 * Dark and Troubled Past: Arnaq's trauma is that she nearly killed her mom as a child, and didn't recovered in months.
 * Darker and Edgier / Lighter and Softer: The film actually manages to be both things from different point-of-views:
 * Within the Disney Animated Canon, the film is in some ways darker than other films, as it centers on themes such as trauma and mental illness in a realistic way, to not to mention it features one of the most insane and sadistic Disney Villains ever.
 * Within the Split Personality sub-genre, this film is one of the most lighthearted entries, featuring big amount of jokes and family-friendly moments, albeit without overcoming the more emotional elements.
 * Deconstruction: The film descontructs the idea of getting rid of a mental illness featured in media. Unlike most movies and TV series, where Arnaq would be potrayed as having an understanding and noble wish that would give her a happy ending and a normal life, Divided potrays the idea of a person with DID wanting to get rid of her alters as completly, outright, and undeniably wrong, and DID itself is potrayed as a coping mechanism needed to deal with trauma as in real life instead of a side effect of the trauma or a hindrace or problem.
 * Disney Villan Death: As Extreme Arnaq and Hitty fight in the latter's exploding ship, the former and her Genius persona work together and use the ship's state to tip oHitty off the ship, causing her to plummet to her death in the ocean.
 * Enemy Within: Lampshaded, as Arnaq suggests that she fears one of her personas may turn on her, only to be corrected by Genius Arnaq. Ultimately averted, as the personalities, as much as they bicker with one another, they care and love each other.
 * Evil Is Hammy: Averted. For all the gloating and one-liners Hitty delivers througth the film, not a single one of them is even close to be considered hammy. Word of God would state that this would be because the filmmakers felt that, while her joy was already very felt when they recorded them in a hammy way during production, they ultimately decided it was even more felt, and she was more threatening, without the hammy aspects.
 * For the Evulz: Hitty, and how much. She clearly not only enjoys doing evil, but she dosen't even care about what happens, even if it derails her plans of conquest, as long as it means she gets to do more evil. As best described by director Nyla Innuksuk: "Most villains do evil because they want power. But Hitty, instead, wants power because that's evil. For her, evil is another word for fun, and she deeply loves having fun".
 * Genius Bonus: Hitty is definetly a silly name for one of the villest Disney Villains ever... unless you know that, in Inupiaq, "Hitty" means hyena.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar:
 * While meeting Arnaq and Wonder Arnaq, Extreme Arnaq eats dynamite so her head can explode (which her head does) to prove Jessica that there's no danger in their inner world.
 * When Wonder Arnaq asks Arnaq what she thinks of her alters after meeting them, she responds by claiming she can saying it to her because "[she] would feel bad for saying that in front of somebody as young as [her]".
 * When Elisapee tries to ask Arnaq where she has been going, she notices her daughter's child-like behavior (as its actually her Wonder persona who's in control), and comments that "she has figured out one of those places".
 * Hate Sink: In the spirit of past Disney Villains, Hitty has absolutely no reedeming or even likeable qualities whatsoever. She's a sociopath and a completly sadistic and maniac walking Nightmare Fuel not only willing to kill the protagonist, but her own henchmen for no reason at all. By the time she gets gruesomely killed by Jessica and her alters, those who weren't relieved to see her get her comeuppance because they hated her is because they feared her.
 * She Really Can Act: Its not easy to voice 7 main characters in one movie, but Anna Lambe managed to voice all of them very convincingly. And, to top it all noch, she also manages to deliver a deeply emotional performance as Arnaq, making the audience truly feel the character's pain througth the film.
 * Nightmare Fuel: Hitty. She is this in spades. Whenever she shows up, expect for horror and suffer of the worst kind to accompany her. From murder without cause to causing or furthering emotional pain, the film establishes her as one of the most depraved and sadistic villains to ever appear in a Disney movie. Her final duel with Arnaq is especially noteworthy. She attacks as if she were an enraged demon, and you can tell easily that is less because of revenge for foiling her plan and more because she wants blood. As in blood in general.
 * Meaningful Echo: "We're all with you". First said by Wonder Arnaq as a way to state that all of Arnaq's alters are in the same body as her. She later repeats this near the climax, througth, this time, as a way to tell Arnaq that, no matter what happens, they will always have each other, and they will always be with her.
 * Moral Event Horizon: Hitty crosses it many times:
 * In her debut scene, she learns that her plot to take over Arnaq's kingdom is mving smoothly, yet when she asks one of her soldiers if he prefers to live or die and he responds with living, she throws him off her ship and then she displays geniune enjoyment from doing so.
 * After learning what Arnaq did to her base and how it will mean she won't be able to torture people in months, Alexandra uses a dagger to stab one of her soldiers by thrweing it simply to calm herself down.
 * While talking to Arnaq for the first time, Hitty tortures her emotionally by bringing up her traumatic experience, before destroying her relationship with her mother by revealing the truth about Arnaq's secret attack on Hitty's base, and finally, she makes Arnaq essentially relive her trauma by taking her mother and threatening to kill her in response to Arnaq's actions. All while smiling with joy.
 * Finally, after torturing Elisapee by revealing her kingdom is about to be hers and Arnaq dissappeared, Hitty asks whether she prefers to live or die. This time, she displays her biggest smile yet, knowing that, if Elisapee chooses to live, she'll kill her, and her kingdom will finally be hers, and if Elisapee chooses to die, she'll let her live, knowing that she'll suffer emotionally for years, if not the rest of her life. All in all, she was going to go througth a lot of pain.
 * Take That!:
 * Genius Arnaq's entire explicaton about DID is a big example of this towards Hollywood's previous films featuring characters with split personalities.
 * Througth the film, Hitty uses Disney's very own "It's a Small World" in a threatening and terrifying tone. According to Innuksuk, this would be because "it made sense that a sadistic Disney villain would use the most annoying and irritating song Disney ever made".
 * The Mentally Disturbed: Played with. Althroigth Arnaq does keep her DID by the end of the movie, she is actually happier than at the start thanks to her alters, whom she sees as her second family.
 * Throw It In: Many of the dialogues between Arnaq's personalities would be add-libbed by Anna Lambe.
 * Villanous Breakdown: While always clearly insane, Hitty would still have some semblance of composture througth the film. Any sort of composture, however, would be gone by the film's climax, as her lust for blood and joy for evilness would completly consume her. Much like with Ratigan in The Great Mouse Detective, this makes her even more threatening than before.
 * Ville Villain, Saccharine Show: While the film does deal with rather heavy themes such as mental health and PTSD, the approach it takes on it would give it a tone similar to productions such as Coco rather than The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Whenever Hitty shows up, however, the film takes on a more tense show and most laughs are dead.
 * What Do You Mean Its For Kids?!: It may be quite funny, but, at the same time, Divided explores the life of the daughter of the chief of a futuristic Native American Inuit tribe plagued with mental illness, having both Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder. And when it explores them, it explores them in a very deep way.
 * The Woobie: Arnaq. She nearly got her mother killed for accident when she was a child, got traumatized by the event, suffers from two mental illness (DID and PTSD), and just when she started to recover, a villain appears and makes her essentially relive her trauma. Suprisingly for a movie about Dissociative Identity DIsorder, Jessica's life would have been worse if her alters didn't showed up.

Tropes for the TV series

 * Disproportionate Retribuition: Played for Laughs. The reason Adam Roberts hates homosexuals so much? A gay couple adopted him from an orphanage where he had friends. Lampshaded by Genius Arnaq, who points out he could've just tried to contact them at his new home.
 * Loves My Alter Ego: Helen falls in love with Geniys Arnaq in the second season. In a rare and unique example of this trope, Arnaq not only dosen't really feel anything for Helen, but she actually approves their relationship and even is a full-blown Shipper On Deck.
 * Shipper On Deck: Arnaq and the rest of her alters are this regarding Genius Arnaq's feelings for Helen.
 * Take That!:
 * During the first episode, Cynical Arnaq watches a painting by "Isaac P.", and would describe it "a crime against humanity". This would poke fun against Isaac Perlmutter, the head of Marvel Entertainment who infamously delayed development on Black Panther and Captain Marvel because he thougth they would fail at the box office, and created the infamous "Marvel Creative Comitee", whcih had several creative clashes with filmmakers who worked at the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige until Disney disbanded the Comitee and integrated Marvel Studios into the main Walt Disney Studios division.
 * At the start of the third season, among the many melodies Artist Arnaq tries to create but discards is the opening of the Looney Tunes song "What's Up Doc?".