Mulan / Tropes M to R

Mulan Trope Examples
Main series: A - C | D - F | G - L | M - R | S - Z

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M

• Made of Plasticine: The Fa family's statue of the Great Stone Dragon somehow falls apart just from Mushu breaking its ear off, due to Rule of Funny.
• Makeover Montage: Mulan goes through this twice: once at the hands of a pair of Makeover Fairies in "Honor to Us All" to look like a potential bride, and again when she "becomes" a man.
• Makeover Fail: Played with in the makeover Mulan is given before being presented to the matchmaker. Mulan's facial expressions indicate that she is initially taken aback by the change, though when it is finished it seems like she might be satisfied or at least have accepted it as part of her duty to impress the matchmaker. After she fails at the meeting with the matchmaker, Mulan sings "Why is my reflection someone I don't know?" She wipes off the makeup and takes down her hair. In effect, the makeover imposed on her is made symbolic of the role that she is expected to play in society and that does not reflect who she is inside.
• Manly Tears: Yao totally cries when Mulan is honored.
• Masculine Lines, Feminine Curves: Mulan is drawn with an angular jaw when in her Ping disguise.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!":
  • Shang's company are shocked to silence when they see the massacre of the main Chinese army, then it happens a second time when Shan Yu attacks them, and then when they see the size of his army.
  • Then just as the army is cheering on Ping for saving them, and for everyone being alive, they have this reaction when the soldier is revealed to have a serious stomach wound and passes out from blood loss. 
  • Every citizen outside the emperor's palace panics when they realize Shan Yu is still alive.
• Mauve Shirt: Shang's father gets killed, along with his Red Shirt army. He was previously established as a Reasonable Authority Figure and a loving father. Shang's shock and grief carries a lot of weight when Chien Po finds General Li's helmet.
• Maybe Ever After: It doesn't end with a wedding but with a 'get to know her family' dinner. The marriage takes place in the sequel.
• Mermaid Arc Emergence: Mulan throws her wet hair in a backward arc when she emerges from the water while she's bathing.
• A Million Is a Statistic: Averted. The massacre of the village and the Imperial army both take place off-screen, and it is still horrific. An Empathy Doll Shot is used to great effect.
• Misfit Mobilization Moment: Mulan is accompanied by her three friends—the short-tempered and surly Yao, the loud and awkward Ling, and the kind but huge Chien Po—and Shang in her plan to infiltrate the Imperial Palace. The trio take it further by doing so in drag.
• Misplaced Wildlife: Downplayed. In one scene, Mushu rides a panda - an animal that is native to China, but southern China, not the northern border where the scene takes place.
• Model Planning: When the general describes the planned advance to his son, he illustrates his example with a map and figures to represent his units and those of the enemy.
• Monster and the Maiden: When Mulan decides to join the chinese army in place of her elderly father, the (ex) guardian spirit of her family, a small dragon named Mushu decides to take up with her. During her time in the army, Mushu does his best to make her into a hero to restore his place as Mulan's family proper guardian spirit.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • After we see Mushu meeting Cri-Kee and cracking jokes about being a loser, we suddenly cut to a burning mountain village destroyed by the Huns.
  • "A Girl Worth Fighting For" is an upbeat, comedic song in which the soldiers describe idealized women whom they wish to marry after they return home. However, the final utterance of the chorus is abruptly interrupted as the heroes arrive in a village that has been completely destroyed by the Huns, at which point their jovial enthusiasm is quickly replaced by despondent grief and horror. To emphasize the shift in tone, there aren't any more musical numbers for the rest of the movie.
  • While the heroes are in the snowy mountains, somberness turns into humor when a rocket fires out of Mulan's cart, having accidentally been lit by Mushu (who, stunned, weakly tries to blame Cri-Kee); then humor turns into panic as the Huns take notice and attack.
  • After burying the Huns under the avalanche, the army celebrate Mulan's brilliant plan and her promotion as Shang's second-in-command. Then Mulan winces in pain from the wound Shan Yu gave her, and passes out from blood loss.
  • After Mulan's "Reflection" number, there is a heartwarming scene of her father cheering her up. Then the mood quickly switches again after Chi Fu arrives to deliver the conscription notices.
• Moral Luck: Mushu, for completely selfish reasons, deceitfully forges a letter from General Li claiming to be in dire need of help after Shang's recruits are deemed to be not ready to fight. He turns out to be absolutely right, but he had no way of knowing that, or what he would do if General Li was alive to reveal that he didn't send that letter...
• Mortal Wound Reveal: Mulan is revealed to be injured after the initial defeat of the Big Bad, but not mortally so. Although, given she passed out from blood loss and shock, it could have been had she not received medical attention.
• Morton's Fork: Mulan's parents are hit with one when she runs away to the army.
  Fa Li: You must go after her. She could be killed!
  Fa Zhou: If I reveal her, she will be.
• Most Definitely Not a Villain: In this case, Most Definitely Not a Girl in Disguise. Mulan trying to join the army.
  Fa Mulan: But you know how it is when you get those manly urges, and you just gotta kill something—
  [Tries to punch Shang on the shoulder and hurts her hand]
  Fa Mulan: Uh, fix things... cook outdoors...
• Motivation on a Stick: Mulan uses a dog and bone to feed the chickens. The bone-on-a-stick is tied to the dog's back so the bone is always in front of the dog, and the dog runs around with a feedbag leaking grain behind him.
• Mouth Screen: When Mulan is passing out from being wounded by Shang, the camera briefly shows Shang's mouth saying "Hold on..." before the view goes black.
• Mr. Fanservice:
  • Captain Shang trains without a shirt.
  • Ping is also one In-Universe, according to Yao:
    "I bet the local girls thought you were quite the charmer."
• Multigenerational Household: Mulan's household includes her parents and her grandmother.
• Musicalis Interruptus: The end of "A Girl Worth Fighting For" is the strongest, and the most horrifying, example of this trope in the Disney Animated Canon, and possibly the entire genre. It is so jarring that, for the remainder of the film, there are no more musical numbers sung by the cast.

N

• Naked Freak-Out: Played With during the bath scene. While Mulan is freaking out at being naked in the water with the male soldiers, she's more worried about blowing her cover than being seen naked.
• Naked People Are Funny:
  • The entire sequence of Mulan trying to bathe in the river, while avoiding her equally naked soldier friends, is played for Cringe Comedy.
    Fa Mulan: I never want to see a naked man again.
    [Fifteen naked men run past Mulan]
  • Hayabusa getting his feathers burned off is treated the same way, and is made more comical by making him look and sound like a chicken.
• Nepotism: Chi-Fu heavily implies to Shang that he believes the latter only earned the title of Captain because his father is Imperial General.
• Nerves of Steel: Nothing unsettles The Emperor. He's a noncombatant, and the much younger and bulkier leader of the army that just crushed his own is swinging a sword at him. He doesn't flinch. When Shang saves his life, the Emperor walks away calmly.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The teaser trailer makes the film seem more like an action-adventure drama. The movie itself turns out to be a kids' musical with bits of action. Surprisingly, it doesn't shy from the fact that Mulan is going to ''war''.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Played with. Mulan's grandmother gives her a cricket to give her luck in order to help her with the matchmaker. Although Mulan doesn't perform well to start with, it's obvious that the cricket is the direct cause for her failing the matchmaking. Had she succeeded, she might not have joined the army in her father's place, in which case the Huns would have succeeded in their invasion. She also would not have won the heart of Shang, who is a better match than the matchmaker could have arranged for her. It's possible that Mulan still would have taken her father's place in the army had her meeting with the matchmaker been successful, but her having a match would have introduced a complication in her relationship with Shang.
  • Some of Mushu's actions serve to make things harder for Mulan, such as when he accidentally sets off a cannon on the mountainside, inadvertently signaling their presence to the Hun Army.
  • After he learns the truth about Mulan, Shang disregards her warnings that the Huns are still alive. Though he credits her words enough to be cautiously glancing around the courtyard where he meets the emperor, the lack of a more proactive response allows the Huns to seize the emperor.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: If Shan Yu didn't focus on making the emperor bow to him, then Mulan, Shang, and the others wouldn't rescue him in time. Also, Shan Yu chasing Mulan for revenge gives her the perfect position to launch lethal fireworks at him.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Mulan's three friends among her fellow soldiers count as this during boot camp. Namely, Chien-Po is the nicest one of the bunch; Yao is the hot-tempered bully; and Ling is somewhere in the middle. They all become Fire-Forged Friends in the course of the training montage.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Shan Yu versus Shang is brutal. Although Shang puts up a good fight, and his training pays off, by the end of it he's semiconscious before being disabled by Shan Yu. When Mulan lures Shan Yu away, Shang tries to get up but can't.
• Non-Human Sidekick:
  • Mulan has Mushu the little dragon, her horse Khan, and Cri-Kee the blue cricket.
  • The falcon Hayabusa supports Shan-Yu.
• Noodle Incident: Mushu's previous chance to prove himself worthy of protecting the Fa family somehow led Fa Deng to be decapitated. Fa Deng is still pretty bitter about the whole thing.
• Not Quite Dead: Despite being buried by an avalanche, Shan Yu and several of his men pop right out of the snow! Like daisies!
• Not-So-Innocent Whistle: Ling, while not heard, is clearly whistling when he kicks out Mulan's cannon stand, causing it to misfire and blow up Chi-Fu's tent.
• Not So Stoic: Even a sword to the throat doesn't faze the Emperor. What does is a loyal soldier bowing to him, picking him up and escorting him to safety using a sash and the nearby lantern wires as a zipline. The Emperor has a stunned expression while this happens.

O

• Oh, Crap!:
  • The Chinese soldier patrolling the Great Wall during the film's introduction. His facial expressions when the Huns start to scale the walls and at his first sighting of Shan Yu say it all.
  • Mushu gets one when he accidentally destroys the statue of the Great Stone Dragon.
    Mushu: Stony? Stony? (knees shaking) Oh, man, they're gonna kill me...
  • Shan Yu gets several. He gets one when Mulan sets off the avalanche and an even better one when she launches him into a tower containing what seem to be half the fireworks in the country.
  • Shang's company when they find the mountain village has been utterly destroyed and that the Imperial Army led by Shang's father has been wiped out along with it. Their scond time comes when they find out just how large the Hun army really is.
  • After the mishap with the Great Stone Dragon, Mushu gets three more. The first is when he accidentally sets off a rocket and Mulan death glares at him. His face says it all. The rocket gives away the army's position and they are promptly attacked by the Huns. The second is during the avalanche when he sees that he, Mulan, Shang, Khan, and Cri-Kee are about to go over the edge of a cliff. The third is after Mulan passes out from her wound, when the doctor treating Mulan tells Shang that Mulan is a woman, as Shang enters the tent to confront her.
  • Mulan gets one when Shang enters her tent after she's bandaged up and she realizes that he knows she's a woman.
• "Oh, Crap!" Smile: During "I'll Make A Man Out Of You", Shang catches Mulan cheating by putting apples on her arrows (courtesy of Mushu). Mulan reacts with the awkward smile pictured in the trope page.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Mulan loses her father's helmet in the fight with the Huns, and it gets buried in the avalanche she causes. At the end of the movie, Shang reveals he found the helmet and came to her house to return it, meaning he dug for it despite the snowfall being heavy. Isn't love great?
• One Hit Poly Kill: Mulan wipes out the majority of the Hun army with a single rocket, defeats its leader with another, and then flashes Shan Yu a smirk when he has his Oh, Crap! moment. This rocket is typically meant for only one person, so it counts.
• Only Sane Man: Poor Shang is this while leading the recruits. They are lackadaisical and untrained, with Ping being the worst. He also has to deal with Chi-Fu reporting the lack of Progress to General Li and the superiors.
• One-Steve Limit: Mentioned when trying to find an alias for Mulan:
  Mushu: Ling! How about Ling?
  Fa Mulan: His name is Ling.
  Li Shang: I didn't ask for his name; I asked for yours.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Mushu is an Eastern dragon, but he is small and has relatively few powers. This may be because he was demoted from a family guardian after he failed. He can, however, breathe fire, a trait more typical of Western dragons.
• Outdoor Bath Peeping: Inverted and Gender-Inverted. Mulan is mid-bath when Ling, Yao, and Chien-Po decide they want to wash up. The sequence is marked by Mulan sinking as low in the water as possible, desperately trying to make a hasty exit, maintain her disguise, and avoid getting an eyeful of her nude comrades, who are guilelessly trying to befriend "Ping" with a little good-natured water fight.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Chi Fu is a Jerkass stick in the mud who thinks Shang got his way by nepotism. The one time he calls Shang "Captain" with sincerity is when he finds a battlefield dotted with corpses of General Li's men, and Li himself.
  • Shang is normally a no-nonsense Drill Sergeant Nasty. He's lapsed into Stunned Silence when learning his father was slaughtered. Shang doesn't even say anything when Mulan tries to comfort him. Much later, when "Ping" steals the last cannon, Shang's more worried than angry when ordering "him" to come back, because from the look of it his soldier is pulling a Suicide Mission to kill Shan Yu.
  • Mulan keeps her gruff man voice up at all times while training, even when Shang is kicking her butt. She speaks in her real voice when saying, "I'm sorry" after he finds his father's helmet, knowing exactly what he's going through. Then when the avalanche knocks out her commander, Mulan screams, "SHANG" and goes over to pull him onto Khan. Shang both times isn't aware that her voice changed.
• Outrun the Fireball:
  • Mulan's "Get off the roof. Get off the roof. Get off the roof!" as Shan Yu is about to be blown up.
  • A colder variant occurs when everyone's outrunning the avalanche.
• Out Sick: Mulan's dad has a lame leg when the emperor calls for men to push back the Huns, which is what motivates her to go out in his place as a man named Ping.

P

• Parents Are Wrong: Mulan's parents expect her to be traditionally feminine so she can be a good bride. Mulan eventually proves her mettle as a soldier (and finds a love interest along the way), and her family relents.
• Papa Wolf:
  • The Emperor is this to Imperial China. He calls them "my children".
  • The ancestors of the Fa family send supernatural guardians to aid their descendants.
• Pervert Revenge Mode: Mushu: "My eyes can see straight through your armor—" [Mulan slaps him]
• Pet the Dog: One of the elite Huns picks up an apple for an "ugly concubine". Unfortunately for him, said concubine was Ling in disguise and part of Mulan's crew to save the Emperor.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Mushu seems to have the ability to break the rules of reality for his gags, brushing his teeth with a standard modern toothbrush and toothpaste, and referring to a panda as a "black-and-white", a reference to a police car. People don't see or hear him even when they reasonably should.
• Plucky Girl: Mulan doesn't let a little thing like a bleeding wound stop her from saving Shang's life. Aside from the initial pain, she doesn't even seem to notice it until things have calmed down.
• Post-Victory Collapse: Played for Drama. Shan Yu slashes at Mulan for the rocket trick, but Mulan perseveres to rescue Shang and herself from the snow. She stays conscious and alert, even when facing death by falling off a cliff. Then the soldiers manage to pull her, Shang, Mushu, Khan, and Crick-Ee up, with Shang both telling off "Ping" for being crazy and thanking him for saving his life as well as that of his fellow men. Just as Mulan starts to stand, she winces, realizes she's got a bad wound, and passes out from blood loss.
• Protagonist Title: "Mulan" is the name of the heroine.
• Put Their Heads Together: In the final act, Yao, Ling, Chien-Po, and Mulan getting past two mooks on their way to the Boss Fight involves slamming melons on the mooks' heads and then slamming those heads together.

R

• Race Lift: In the original ballad, Mulan, her family, soldiers and monarch were all Xianbei, the ancestors of the Mongols, and rather than the Huns/Xiongnu, they were facing the Rourans, also ancestors of the Mongols. Interestingly, the Rouran may have been descended from the Xiongnu.
• Rage Against the Reflection: A variation, as no mirrors are broken or water splashed — it's a shiny, shiny sword.
• Raised Hand of Survival: The supposedly killed-in-an-avalanche Shan Yu pokes his hand out from the snow. (Like a daisy!)
• A Real Man Is a Killer: "I'll Make a Man Out of You".
  Li Shang: Let's get down to business, to defeat, the Huns!
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • General Li is this. He sets up a strategy to protect the villagers of the Tung Shao Pass and ambush Shan-Yu when he will march through before he can cause more devastation. Li then promotes his son to captain but gives him a hard duty — training the recruits — so that Shang can prove himself with one of the more frustrating tasks a commanding officer can take. It's also a ploy to keep his son out of the actual battle since Li can see the men are a mess. Unfortunately, both plans fail; Shan-Yu deduces the general's plan and ambushes him, wiping out the army. Shang successfully whips his men into shape, and Mushu forges a letter from the older Li to get the recruits into battle.
  • Despite being a Drill Sergeant Nasty, Shang proves to be this. He kicks "Ping" out of the army initially for failing a number of the training exercises, but lets the recruit back in when the latter figures out the weight challenge and retrieves the arrow from the pole. After the recruits pass their training with flying colors, he defends them to Chi-Fu and silently accepts Mulan's compliment that he's a great captain. When Mulan defies orders and steals the last cannon, his first priority is for their safety in seemingly making a suicide run and praises the soldier when he and his men survive the avalanche and what would have been a Curb-Stomp Battle. He also spares Mulan after she's outed, albeit angrily, and when she's proven right about the Huns surviving the avalanche, he defers authority to her to save the emperor. Once Shan Yu is dead, Shang prepares to defend her actions to the emperor.
  • The emperor recognizes the possibility that his standing army may lose to the Huns and so calls up new recruits. Also, although he is furious at Mulan's many transgressions, he recognizes the good she has done.
• Red Is Heroic: Shang, General Li, and the Imperial Army soldiers wear red capes as they march off to defend their homeland and families. The Huns do not because they are invaders.
• Red Shirt: The soldier on the Great Wall in the opening sequence is a goner. We don't see him die, but we know he will.
• Redshirt Army: The supposed "elite" Imperial Army, led by Shang's father, is killed off-screen to demonstrate how dangerous the Huns are.
• Revealing Injury: The medic discovers that Mulan is a woman while treating her injuries.
• Rhetorical Request Blunder: A mild one, played for laughs after Mulan escapes from her friends bathing in the river:
  Fa Mulan: I never want to see another naked man again.
  [A group of naked men runs down to the lake immediately after]
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Cri-Kee, the cricket sidekick of Mushu and the luck charm for the Fa family.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: When Mushu blithely forges a letter informing Shang that General Li is in desperate need of aid. Mushu only does so hoping to get Mulan on the front lines and make her a war hero. It turns out the Huns had already wiped out General Li's men by the time Mushu wrote the letter. If Mushu hadn't forged that letter, the Hun army would have likely made it to the emperor's palace unopposed. Mushu himself has a Jerkass Realization about it.
• Rule of Three: Mulan's family is the third in her village to receive a conscription notice.
• Running Gag: Mushu continually referring to Mulan's horse, Khan, as a cow. Made even better when he correctly identifies Khan's species after getting blown out of an exploding cart, implying he really does understand what a horse is and just calls him a cow to be a troll.
  Mushu: Oh, sure. Save the horse.

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