Dolores Madrigal

**Dolores Madrigal** is a supporting character in Disney's feature film *Encanto*. She is Félix and Pepa's eldest child, as well as the older sister of Antonio and Camilo. Her magical gift is super-hearing.

## *Encanto*

Dolores is the quiet second grandchild of the Madrigal family. Because she has hearing so advanced she can literally hear pins drop on top of the noise in her normal environment, she doesn't like to talk much herself. She has a hard time keeping the secrets that she hears with her powers.

### Description

*Dolores is the daughter of Pepa and Félix, and although she may be quiet, she has inside information on everyone in the family.*

Adassa, Dolores' voice actor, describes her character: *"I absolutely love the character. I think that Charise Castro Smith, and Byron Howard, and Jared Bush did an amazing job writing this character, because she has all the secrets, she can hear everything. But sometimes, you know, her well-placed heart is a little bit out of order when she kind of speaks up and she can't help it."*

### Physical appearance

Dolores has curly dark brown hair tied into a bun with a red ribbon. She has light brown skin and hazel eyes. Her dress has a long red skirt and a frilly white and yellow top, both with gold sound wave motifs representing her enhanced hearing. She wears red lipstick, a red with a gold gem choker necklace and matching earrings that are shaped like hearts.

### Personality

Dolores is Pepa and Félix's daughter, who is like an assistant parent, being rather mature as well as helpful. She is the most well-informed about everyone else's business thanks to her magical super-hearing, which also causes her to be rather quiet and not noisy because she does not want to cause any more noise than what she hears normally. Usually whenever she hears something embarrassing and/or reveals what she hears, she gets visibly nervous and even squeaks. As prophesized by Bruno, Dolores garnered a crush on Mariano, who was to marry Isabela and thus never noticed Dolores, causing her to be slightly annoyed at Isabela and even more reclusive than normal, as shown during the proposal dinner, although she is very joyful after she meets Mariano later on, visibly becoming less downcast. She also enjoyed letting herself be loud when she went without her gift.

## Relationships

* **Camilo Madrigal**: Camilo is Dolores' younger brother and during most of their appearances they are side by side. Although they have very few interactions throughout the film, they are shown to not be on bad terms and in fact get along quite well and have no trouble speaking (unlike their cousins Mirabel and Isabela, a similar aged sibling pair, albeit one who argue). After Antonio gets his gift, the two look at each other happily for their younger brother. When Félix catches Camilo posing as her to get seconds, Dolores appears next to Félix. But unlike her father, she doesn't seem upset or irritated by her brother's actions and just stares silently at Camilo and Mirabel, showing that Dolores has no problem with Camilo's pranks unlike much of the family. At Mariano's dinner proposal, Camilo is the first person she trusts to tell about what she heard Mirabel talking about. During the fall of Casita, while it's very quick and a bit blurred out, Dolores can be seen putting her arm around Camilo to try to protect him, showing how protective she can be of him. At the end of the movie when the family sings "All of You", she says she knew Bruno never left and she heard him every day. Then she gives Camilo a jab that turns out to be harder than she thought. Camilo looks around in bewilderment as no one says anything about it.

* **Antonio Madrigal**: Antonio is Dolores' youngest brother. She encourages him along with the rest of his family before his gift ceremony and wishes him luck. When he does get his gift, she is relieved and very happy for her little brother. She is seen clapping as he rides his jaguar around in his room for the first time. During "All of You", Dolores is seen jumping off a platform onto a pulley and falling to the ground, while the other end holds Antonio being boosted up to the same platform.

* **Isabela Madrigal**: Isabela is Dolores' older cousin by a few weeks. Being younger than her, Dolores grew up being overshadowed all her life by Isabela to the point of being called her shadow. Although their relationship is described as complicated, in the film it seems that both are very close and it is clear that they love each other very much to the point of looking like sisters. Dolores at no time ever showed jealousy towards Isabela for being their family's golden child, unlike Mirabel. Dolores does not treat her badly or hate her because of her commitment to Mariano, the man she had fallen in love with. Dolores even seems to have some admiration for her older cousin, presumably having a better understanding of Isabela than Mirabel initially had. In the graphic novel, Dolores is seen smiling alongside her parents when Isabela makes her entrance before Antonio's gift ceremony and during the ceremony, Dolores was affectionately hugging Isabela and they held hands with her. Despite that, Dolores can also play pranks on Isabela like Camilo does, if not on a smaller scale. At breakfast, Dolores gives her a snooty look after freaking Isabela out by saying Mariano wanted to have five babies with her, though she was lying about that.

* **Mirabel Madrigal**: Mirabel is Dolores' youngest cousin. When Mirabel goes to ask her if she heard anything about the miracle, Dolores tells Mirabel the only person worried about the miracle is herself, as well as the rats squeaking loudly in the walls. She then tells Mirabel to go ask Luisa, as she has heard her eye twitching all night before. When Mirabel puts together Bruno's broken vision and Agustín finds out, he says they can't tell anyone about it until after the proposal dinner. Unfortunately, Dolores had heard everything about the vision. With a small whisper she says, "I know", squeaks, and hurries away. Mirabel tells Agustín that Dolores will tell everyone, and soon enough, everyone knows about the vision, including Abuela Alma. After the house collapses, Dolores helps search for Mirabel when she runs away, visibly saddened at being unable to find her and presumably guilty for revealing her role in Bruno's vision.

* **Mariano Guzmán**: In "We Don't Talk About Bruno", Dolores sings about having a crush on Mariano, but then Bruno prophesying that he would become the fiancé of Isabela, her cousin. In "All of You", Dolores confesses to Mariano that she loves him, and the two start a relationship, with the latter being smitten immediately and saying they should get married, with Dolores telling Mariano to 'slow down'.

* **Bruno Madrigal**: Bruno is Dolores' uncle. She knew Bruno never left, but that he moved into Casita's walls. She chose not to tell anyone this until he came back after the collapse of the house. It is possibly because she felt sorry for him because everyone in the Encanto expected the worst of him, due to his frequent bad visions, and never told about him to keep Abuela from finding and confronting him. This could be because like she relates with him on having no control over what they learn from their sensory gifts. When Dolores is singing her part in "We Don't Talk About Bruno", Bruno can be seen walking in the background as well, and Dolores appears to be shielding Mirabel from seeing him.

* **Alma Madrigal**: Alma is Dolores' grandmother. When Alma asks her if Isabela and Mariano had a date, Dolores responds dutifully. Dolores is also seen assisting Alma when La Casa Madrigal/Casita falls down by sitting her down in a small piece of debris to calm her own. Dolores seems to try to please her grandmother by only telling what is wanted to be heard, even though Alma was probably a bit angry at her for revealing a secret that broke Casita.

## History

### Past

Dolores was born twenty one years before the events of the movie on August 31st and is the first child of Pepa and Félix Madrigal. In the early years of her life, Dolores lived in the nursery of the Casita with her cousins Isabela, who is only a few weeks older than her, and Luisa who is two years younger than her. When Isabela turned five and received her magical gift, she moved into her own room, and Dolores was left in the nursery with Luisa until her own fifth birthday a little while later. On the night of her fifth birthday, Dolores received the gift of enhanced hearing. There was a large celebration and she moved out of the nursery into her new magical room.

At some point, Dolores received a vision from her uncle Bruno, who told her that the "man of her dreams" would be out of her reach because he would be engaged to someone else. With her enhanced hearing, she listens to Mariano Guzmán, and, simply by listening to him, she falls in love with him.

### *Encanto*

At the beginning of the film, on the morning of Antonio's gift ceremony, Dolores is helping around the house to get everything ready. When Mirabel was concluding her talk about her family in the song "The Family Madrigal", Alejandra told Alma that Mirabel was about to tell her and the rest of the kids about her magical gift, only for Dolores to tell the kids that Mirabel didn't receive one.

On the night of the ceremony, Dolores, along with her parents and first younger brother, Camilo, greet Antonio just before his ceremony. As her parents and Camilo are talking to Antonio, Dolores tells everyone that Alma says it's time to start. A few minutes later, Dolores and Isabela can be seen holding hands as they stand with the rest of their family listening as Alma gives her speech. When Antonio received his gift, Dolores, along with the rest of the family are very happy, although Dolores can be seen covering her ears in reaction to people clapping and fireworks going off.

Early the next morning, at breakfast, Mirabel tries to ask "Dolores" if she knew what was going on with the magic, only for "Dolores" to shift into Camilo much to the annoyance of the real Dolores and their father Félix. Dolores, having overheard Mirabel's concerns, tells her that the only one worried about the magic was her, the rats in the wall, and Luisa since her eye was twitching all night.

While eating breakfast, Alma makes an announcement to the family that she spoke to the Guzmáns about Isabela's engagement, and when asked, Dolores tells everyone that Mariano is planning on proposing to Isabela that same night, then lying by saying that he wants five babies, whilst giving Isabela an evil side eye. When breakfast concludes, Dolores joins everyone in the family chant "La Familia Madrigal".

Later in the day, after Mirabel finds Bruno's vision, Pepa leads the discussion into the song "We Don't Talk About Bruno". During Dolores's verse, she says she can still hear Bruno and she associates him with the sound of falling sand. She acknowledges that Bruno's gift is more of a burden, and that Bruno's prophecies left the family "fumbling" because they couldn't understand them. Later in the same song, Dolores comments about the vision that Bruno gave her about the man of her dreams being out of her reach. She again states that she can still hear Bruno. Dolores said and I fine and I fine and I fine I am fine when everyone was singing at same time. Towards the end of the song, Dolores helps the rest of the family get ready for dinner with the Guzmáns.

    Shortly before dinner, Dolores, overhears Mirabel's conversation with Agustín where she discussed Bruno's vision. Much to their dismay, Dolores acknowledges that she heard what they said before rushing off. At dinner, Mirabel stares Dolores down much to her discomfort, but as soon as they break eye contact, Dolores takes that opportunity to tell Camilo that Mirabel found Bruno's vision.

When events at the dinner start spiraling out of control, Dolores, in a panic, blurts out that Mirabel found Bruno's vision, and she was in it and she was going to destroy the magic and they were "all doomed".

Later that same day, Dolores and the rest of the family gather in the courtyard hearing an argument between Alma and Mirabel. When the magic starts fading, and the house starts collapsing, the Casita forces everyone, except Mirabel out of the house. After the house fell, Dolores can be seen helping Alma sit down.

When Mirabel disappears, Dolores helps the rest of the family look for her. Dolores tries to use her enhanced hearing, but having lost her gift after the magic faded, Dolores can only hear what's immediately around her.

When Mirabel returns with Alma and Bruno, Mirabel leads everyone into the song "All of You". When Bruno is re-introduced to the rest of the family, Dolores nudges Camilo's arm saying that she knew Bruno never left and she heard him everyday since his disappearance.

The rest of the people in the Encanto come to the aid of the Madrigals as they help rebuild the Casita. At some point while rebuilding the Casita, Mirabel consoles a visibly upset Mariano and she introduces him to Dolores. When Dolores takes over the conversation, she expresses her feelings towards Mariano which he accepts, much to Dolores's happiness, although Dolores tells him to slow down when he suggests that they should get married.

At the end of the song "All of You", after the Casita was rebuilt, Dolores, her parents, and brother Camilo, acknowledge how "bright [Mirabel] burns". She then watches along with her family and the rest of the town as Mirabel attaches the door knob to the front door of the house and restores the magic. When the family celebrates with one last family photo, Dolores joins in on the chant "La Familia Madrigal".

## Powers and Abilities

Dolores was gifted with the power of enhanced hearing, which means she can hear everything, even the slightest noise such as an eye twitching. According to Mirabel's song, she can hear a pin drop and a chorus from a mile away. She however also has to hear normal interactions at the same time she hears these things, making her gift out to sometimes be a pain, and when people applaud and clap loudly like when Antonio received his gift, she has to cover her ears. She also seen clapping with her fingers, a sign that loud applause hurts her ears.

## Trivia

* Dolores' birthday is on August 31st.
	+ This means that her star sign is Virgo.
* She and Bruno are the only ones with their eyes open on their door, indicating they use their senses for their gifts.
* Jared Bush mentioned that Dolores' room contains some sort of soundproofing.
* Early in production, Dolores' gift was originally to heal people through her food, however, it was given to Julieta, due to her more maternal personality.
* The squeaks she make are based on how most Colombians gossiped with one another.
* Although Dolores has a gift of being able to hear everything, she apparently never heard Abuela Alma's concerns about Casita cracking and did not hear Casita cracking, or perhaps she did but decided not to tell anyone to avoid causing distress.

## Gallery

* Posters
* Stock Art
* Concept Art
* Screenshots

An early concept of Dolores

Five-year-old Dolores"I know"Do you understand?Dolores sings about Mariano
## References

1. ↑ https://twitter.com/thejaredbush/status/1468685739969814528
2. ↑ https://www.laughingplace.com/w/news/2021/09/10/encanto-character-details/
3. ↑ https://www.vitalthrills.com/encanto-movie/
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 https://twitter.com/thejaredbush/status/1510331589800062976
5. ↑ https://twitter.com/thejaredbush/status/1487944858396356608?ref\_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1487944858396356608%7Ctwgr%5E56f4c95f681b2e7fde53bf47dd6e55a1fe792490%7Ctwcon%5Es1\_&ref\_url=https%3A%2F%2Fscreenrant.com%2Fencanto-dolores-isabela-mariano-babies-lie-director-confirmed%2F
6. ↑ https://twitter.com/thejaredbush/status/1479866638811877380
7. ↑ Chores!
8. ↑ https://www.tiktok.com/@adrimontano/video/7046076267686268207