History Headscratchers / Arrietty

* How did Sho find Arrietty's house location in the closet ?

** First of all, she didn't "know" about the Borrowers, she her grandfather had only claimed to have seen them, but she, herself, didn't have any verification... By all means, she may have ''wanted'' to know if the Borrowers really did exist or not and, if they did, help them any way she could... That said, she ''knows for a fact'' that rats are real and may reasonably even be aware of the fact that some rats live in her walls (rats aren't necessarily silent when they crawl around). Frankly speaking, given her skepticism when Haru claimed she had found Borrowers, she had very little reason ''not'' to have a cat.

*** Nowadays, maybe. If medieval people discovered Borrowers they'd call them devils or put them on display or something. Some people would even still do that now, I'm sure.

*** Realistically, you think that ''someone'' would make contact with human civilization. Everyone could stop hiding and we'd work out some sort of agreement between the two groups. Maybe the humans could trade goods in exchange for services. (Borrowers would be great at anything that requires fine detail, like fixing watches or inspecting for termites or whatever.) And maybe some of them would live in borrower-sized villages, instead of always hanging out in human-sized houses where everything is far too big.) But these sensible ideas never get explored, because the whole idea of the borrowers comes from the fact that things get lost in real life, so it's fun to imagine that tiny people have taken them away. And since we never see tiny people in real life, this suggests that the tiny people are all hiding for some reason. Hence the Borrowers and their take on humanity. But realistically, yeah, we could make this work without anyone needing to hide or steal.

** There's a nice mini-essay [[http://www.decentfilms.com/blog/are-the-borrowers-thieves here]] discussing the moral implications of what the Borrowers do and whether it constitutes "stealing".

*** OK, but there's something else. After the maid tells Sho's granny that the kitchen from the doll's house was stolen, they go upstairs to Sho's bedroom and open his door without unlocking it first (the maid locked it with a key). Did I miss something?

* ... so does it bother anyone else that the Borrowers and (friendly) humans don't talk or work things out? Yes, yes, I know that's meant to be part of the film's tragedy -- but there's just so much that Sho could do for Arrietty and her family. And for that matter, an awful lot that Borrowers could do for humans. Just think how much difference a tiny-sized intelligent worker could make in fields requiring small-scale precision... like, for instance, heart surgery.

** Honestly, I see the entire issue as irrelevant from a moral standpoint. The Borrowers have to borrow in order to survive in a hostile world. They borrow in such small quantities that it's impossible for them to harm humans financially or in terms of required resources. As thinking, feeling beings, the Borrowers' need to survive far outweighs the issue of theft, as far as I'm concerned.

** Maybe all the doors in the house are unlocked and locked with the same key. He dug out a spare one from the kitchen while he was there.

** Actually you're right - If Sho/Shawn climbed out the window, he had the ''kitchen'' with him... Sho had to have been very ''very'' careful to not fall off the roof. The only explanation is that maybe he locked the door... but how'd he know which key?

** This is discussed at length in the book, where the boy (who was named Sho/Shawn for the movie) points out to Arrietty several time that their "Borrowing" is technically stealing. She repeatedly blows him off, because Borrowers have basically come to believe that humans exist only to support them, and thus it can't possibly be stealing to take things from a human -- it's what humans are ''for.'' While Arrietty does come to revise her opinion on humans, and realizes that they don't just exist for the convenience of Borrowers, she never quite loses the "it's not stealing if it's from a human" mentality.