Isabela Madrigal

* Formerly
* True Self
* Current

**Isabela Madrigal** is one of the main characters of Disney's 2021 animated feature film, *Encanto.* She is the eldest daughter of Julieta and Agustín, as well as the older sister of Mirabel and Luisa and the eldest granddaughter of Pedro. Her magical gift is the ability to manipulate and generate flora.

## *Encanto*

Being the first grandchild of the Madrigals, she is described as the "golden child" of the family due to her grace, beauty, and gift.

### Description

Isabela is Mirabel's older sister who is smart and brilliant. She is so perfect that flowers start to bloom with every footstep she takes. This leads to a complicated relationship with imperfect Mirabel as everything Isabela does seems to be a success.

Diane Guerrero, her voice actor, describes her character: "Isabela was sort of given the role of kind of being perfect, and her gift is to grow, make things grow, plants and beautiful flowers. And so, I guess with this gift sort of came the expectation that she just sort of had to be perfect, and just sew, and make beautiful, and sort of, she uses it kind of like a defense mechanism, something that has worked for her for so long. But I think she discovers that you know, when you're growing up, and you're an actual, real human being, that perfection really isn't sustainable."

### Physical Appearance

Isabela is a young adult with deep brown skin, dark brown eyes and long, straight, dark brown hair kept loose. Her makeup consists of reddish-brown lipstick as well as rosy blush. Isabela wears a lavender satin dress layered with frills and decorated with flowers. Around her neckline is an embroidery of orchids, representing the national flower of Colombia. Her dress has short frilly bell sleeves, and she also wears pink ballet flats with ribbons laced around her ankles. She wears a pink orchid on the side of her head and light violet diamond earrings.

After realizing who she really is, she stains her dress with various colors: dark indigo, yellow, green, red, and blue. Her hair is also stained, and the pink flower hairpiece on the left side of her head is gone. Nearing the end of the movie, she remodels her dress again: into a brighter indigo with red-to-orange splotches and a green one at the bottom of dress, as well as a vine-like accessory on her right hand. She also adds multicolored flowers to the design and dyes a streak of her hair in a deep turquoise color. She also now wears an orange anthurium flower in place of where her pink flower hairpiece used to be.

### Personality

At the beginning of the film, Isabela appears to be kind and gentle person, who is perfect in every way, such as creating beautiful flowers and plants. However, this is mainly a facade, as it is later revealed she is only acting that way to meet Abuela's expectations. When Isabela decides to embrace her imperfections, she is shown to be very high-spirited and enjoys making a wide variety of plants, even those that are "imperfect".

## Relationships

* **Alma Madrigal:** Alma is Isabela's maternal grandmother as the mother of Isabela's own mother Julieta. Isabela is Alma's oldest and presumably favorite grandchild. Isabela respects and cares about her grandmother and wants to make her proud. She is considered to be "perfect" in her grandmother's eyes and Alma is incredibly affectionate towards Isabela by affectionately kissing her cheek and hugging her several times. Isabela was willing to fit into her grandmother's vision of perfection even if it meant sacrificing her own happiness, the biggest examples of this being Isabela suppressing how she truly feels to project an image of perfection, and going along with an engagement to Mariano Guzmán despite not wanting to marry him. Isabela seems to be very afraid of upsetting or disappointing her grandmother. When Alma gets mad at her for the mess she accidentally caused in the town, Isabela goes from confident and happy to scared and ashamed. She also knows that she will never be able to meet Alma's expectations or be "perfect" as she wishes. Even after Alma yelled at her about not liking her new look, when the house started to break down and everyone started to stumble on the cracking floor, Isabela's first instinct is to take care of her grandmother.

* **Luisa Madrigal:** Luisa is Isabela's first younger sister. While she doesn't get along with Mirabel for most of the film and is clearly distant from her, Isabela doesn't share the same strained relationship with Luisa and gets along with her from the start. In the novelization of the film, it is revealed that Isabela lovingly made Luisa a flower crown for her to wear when she had her fifth birthday and had her gift ceremony, showing that Isabela has had a soft spot for her younger sister from a very young age. Throughout the film, Isabela and Luisa don't really interact much, however it is clear that Isabela thinks highly of Luisa and cares about her. Isabela was shown to be worried about Luisa when she cried during the proposal dinner, and was upset with Mirabel on Luisa's behalf when the latter's superhuman strength ​was fading. Isabela becomes incredibly affectionate with her younger sister at the end of the film. When they rebuild the Casa Madrigal in the song "All of You", Isabela praises Luisa's strength and, along with Mirabel, gives Luisa a comforting hug when she reveals that she cries sometimes. In the family photo at the end of the film, Isabela stands next to Luisa for the photo.

* **Mirabel Madrigal:** Mirabel is Isabela's youngest sister. When they were younger, Isabela and Mirabel were very close, but drifted apart as they got older. By the start of the film, their relationship had become so strained that they have mutual contempt for each other. Isabela's dislike of Mirabel is shown several times throughout the film, such as being visibly annoyed when she accidentally flipped her hair in Mirabel's face and Mirabel got mad, subsequently commenting that Mirabel was in the way, rolling her eyes at Mirabel when she interrupted Antonio's party to warn everyone that the house was in danger, and glaring at Mirabel during dinner with the Guzmáns. She even proclaimed that she hated Mirabel and that Mirabel ruined her life. Despite this, their relationship dramatically improves during the song "What Else Can I Do?", when Mirabel was able to see what her sister actually felt and encouraged her to embrace her imperfection. By the end of the song, the two sisters hug which causes the magic to become stronger and the candle to burn brighter.

* **Pepa Madrigal:** Pepa is Isabela's maternal aunt as the younger triplet sister of Isabela's mother Julieta. Despite their limited interaction in the film, Isabela and Pepa are shown to be incredibly close. Isabela is affectionate with her aunt, helps calm her down when she gets stressed and is even closer to Pepa than to any of her parents. When Pepa was nervous that something might go wrong at Antonio's gift ceremony, Isabela appeared to calm her down and happily gave her a bouquet of roses. Isabela's closeness with her aunt is best seen in "We Don't Talk About Bruno", where she and Pepa dance and hold hands while smiling showing the affection that Isabela really has for her aunt. Pepa is also very supportive of Isabela's relationship with Mariano, which Isabela seems to appreciate despite the fact she truly does not want to marry him.

* **Dolores Madrigal:** Dolores is Isabela's younger cousin by a few weeks. Being older than her, Isabela overshadowed Dolores all her life and left her in her shadow. Although their relationship is described as complicated, in the film both are very close and it is clear that they love each other very much. Isabela is not very affectionate with her family for most of the film, but she proves to be very affectionate with Dolores from the beginning and even treats her as if she were her own younger sister. During Antonio's gift ceremony, Isabela is seen holding Dolores's hand while hugging her reassuringly for most of the ceremony. In the song "All of You", Isabela is noticeably excited and happy for Dolores when she proclaims her feelings for Mariano and they become a couple.

* **Camilo Madrigal:** Camilo is Isabela's second youngest cousin. Unlike the more loving relationship she has with her other cousins, Isabela is not on good terms with Camilo and dislikes being around him. In the same way that she treated Mirabel at the beginning of the film, Isabela is cold and dismissive towards her cousin and attacks him with flowers when he makes fun of her. Of all the family members, Isabela is the person he enjoys teasing the most, much to her dismay. One of the things in which Camilo makes fun of Isabela the most consecutively is for her commitment to Mariano and every time he is near her he transforms into the man to annoy her. However, Isabela may worry about Camilo at some point. After they lost their gifts during their attempts to save the Miracle Candle and had to be saved by Casita, Isabela's first instinct was to quickly glance at her cousin with concern.

* **Antonio Madrigal:** Antonio is Isabela's younger cousin. Isabela wanted Antonio's gift ceremony to go well and decorated the entire Casa Madrigal with flowers for her cousin's special day. During the ceremony, Isabela waved her hands in a jump of joy when her cousin received her gift. After Mirabel interrupted Antonio's gift ceremony, Isabela looked at her sister with a lot of anger because she thought she was envious of Antonio's successful ceremony and wanted to ruin the day. In the family photo at the end of the film, Isabela was happily trying to get closer to her cousin.

* **Mariano Guzmán:** Mariano was initially Isabela's soon-to-be fiancé by the will of her grandmother Alma. Although she does not treat him badly, Isabela never loved Mariano nor was she interested in him. In "The Family Madrigal", Isabela does not even look at Mariano when Mirabel sings about him and gets angry with Camilo when he shapeshifts Mariano, showing from the beginning that Isabela had a hard time accepting that she had to marry the man. During the dinner proposal, Isabela was nice to Mariano, but had a visibly forced smile on her face during his proposal due to her unhappiness with the arrangement, and the fact that she doesn't want to marry him, something that she didn't show to anyone except her youngest sister Mirabel. She also broke his nose twice, once during the proposal, and the other during "What Else Can I Do?", and saying that his nose looks like a smashed papaya during her argument with Mirabel, before she asked her if she has lost her mind. Despite having a slight dislike for Mariano, Isabela seems to still recognize Mariano is a good guy and at least someone to be friends with, even though she doesn’t want to marry him. At the party in Antonio's new room, she dances and chatting amiably with Mariano during "All of You", she was happy when Mariano fell in love with her cousin Dolores and became a couple with her.

## History

### Past

Isabela was born twenty one years before the events of the movie on August 7th and is the oldest daughter of Julieta and Agustin Madrigal. In the early years of her life, Isabela lived in the nursery of the Casita with her cousin Dolores who is a few weeks younger than her, and eventually her younger sister Luisa who is two years younger than her.

At some point early on, Isabela received a vision from her Uncle Bruno who told her that some day Isabela would be able to live the life of her dreams, and he also told her that her powers would "grow like the grapes that thrive on the vine".

On the night of Isabela‘s fifth birthday, she received the gift of chlorokinesis and she moved out of the nursery into her new room.

### *Encanto*

On the morning of Antonio's ceremony, during the song "The Family Madrigal", Isabela can be seen walking throughout the town and growing a vast array of flowers. When she returns home she continues to grow flowers to decorate the outside of the house.

When her aunt Pepa started panicking about Antonio's gift ceremony, causing her to create a mini hurricane and damage the flowers, Isabela calms Pepa down by growing more flowers to replace the ones Pepa accidentally ruined, and hands her a bouquet, all while swinging down from the upper level of the house on a vine. When she lands, Isabela accidentally flips her hair in Mirabel's face. When Isabela notices Mirabel's presence, she rolls her eyes and tells Mirabel that if she wasn't trying so hard she wouldn't always be in the way. Mirabel tries to tell Isabela that she's helping while Isabela proceeds to walk away and roll her eyes.

Before Antonio's gift ceremony later in the day, Isabela can be seen dancing and entertaining the guests by creating flowers. During Antonio's actual ceremony, Isabela can be seen holding hands with Dolores as they listen to Alma's speech and watch Antonio receive his gift. When Antonio gets his gift, everyone celebrates, and while celebrating in Antonio's room, Isabela dances with Mariano.

When Mirabel interrupted Antonio's party to warn everyone that the house was in danger, Isabela follows everyone outside as Mirabel tries to show them the cracks. When the crack seemingly vanished, Isabela expresses her disgust as Mirabel tries to explain herself before everyone returns to the party.

Sometime the next morning, Isabela joined the rest of her family for breakfast, and Alma announces that he spoke with the Guzmáns about Mariano's proposal to Isabela. Throughout the conversation, Isabela is visibly nervous about the prospect of getting married to Mariano, especially when Dolores comments that Mariano wants five babies which makes Isabela sprout nervous flowers on her head.

After breakfast was over, Isabela expresses annoyance for Mirabel who accidentally walks into her while trying to chase after Luisa who left the table in a hurry.

Later that same morning, Isabela and Alma are talking about Mariano, and Isabela agrees with Alma that her and Mariano are a perfect match.

During the song, "We Don't Talk About Bruno", Isabela recalls the vision that Bruno gave her about how she's guaranteed to live her dream life, as well as him telling her what her power was going to be. She also tells Mirabel that she doesn't want to hear her say anything during the dinner.

During the Madrigal part of the song, Isabela helps the rest of the family set the table for dinner.

On the evening of the proposal, Isabela sits in between Mariano and Mirabel, and often glares at Mirabel when she speaks. Isabela becomes visibly confused when Mirabel and Agustín try to hurry Mariano along and get him to propose faster. She gets irritated when Mirabel interrupts Mariano's proposal, but as he's proposing Isabela has a forced smile on her face.

When the dinner starts spiraling out of control with the spread of Bruno's vision about the magic fading, Isabela briefly loses control of her powers and accidentally grows a plant that breaks Mariano's nose.

When the dinner is ruined and everyone leaves the dining room, Isabela walks past Mirabel and proclaims that she hates her.

After the ruined dinner, Mirabel enters Isabela's room to talk things out with her, saying that she knows they've had their issues but she was ready to be a better sister and they should just hug it out. Isabela gets annoyed with Mirabel, pointing out that their sister Luisa has grown so weak that she can't even lift an empanada, and that Mariano's nose, which is now broken, looks like a smashed papaya. When Mirabel tries to get close to get a hug, Isabela blocks her way with her vines and tells her to get out. She tells Mirabel that everything was perfect for her proposal and that their grandmother was happy as well as the rest of the family and that if Mirabel wanted to be a better sister she should apologize for ruining her life. When Mirabel lashes out and passive aggressively apologizes for Isabela's life being so great, Isabela uses her vines to drag Mirabel out of her room.

When she does this, Mirabel tries to break free of the vines, insisting that she's sorry and that she wasn't trying to ruin her life but there are much bigger problems to deal with. Isabela is shocked when Mirabel refers to her as a "selfish entitled princess". Isabela tells Mirabel that she was "stuck being perfect" all her life and all Mirabel has ever done is mess things up for her. Mirabel tells her things aren't messed up and she can still get married to Mariano, and Isabela reveals that she never wanted to get married to him in the first place and she was only doing it for the family.

Out of her anger, Isabela accidentally makes a cactus which she is stunned at due to its faults. She then opens up about her desire to be imperfect leading into the song, "What Else Can I Do?", and she gets along with Mirabel, by creating more exotic, flesh-eating plants, all over the town and staining her dress from the bright fumes that comes out of a colorful plant. Towards the end of the song, Isabela acknowledges that she owes everything to Mirabel, as Mirabel encourages Isabela to be herself, saying that there is nothing she can't do.

Isabela's joy quickly turns to fear as Alma comes into the house angry demanding to know what's happening. Isabela stands silently before walking off to the side as Mirabel tries to explain what was going on. Isabela stands with Luisa quietly, and sadly watches as Alma berates their sister as she proceeds to blame her for all the family's troubles.

When the argument concludes and the house starts cracking, and the candle starts fading, Mirabel rushes to save the candle. Isabela tried swinging on her vine to reach the candle from Alma's window, but as the house continued to crack and fall apart, Isabela's powers fade, her vine disappears and she falls to the floor. She subsequently thrown out of the house by the Casita along with everyone else except for Mirabel. Isabela then watches as Mirabel desperately tries to save a candle before the house falls.

When Mirabel returns with Alma and Bruno, Mirabel leads the family into the song "All Of You". While helping to rebuild the Casita along with her family and the townspeople, Isabela comments that it's a dream when they work together and compliments Luisa's strength.

Isabela and Mirabel proceed to give Luisa a comforting hug when she admits that she cries sometimes, saying that they cry too. Isabela then says she needs sun like a fertilizer, and along with her younger sisters plants new cacti saying that they should plant something new and watch it grow.

After awhile, when the Casita is almost complete, by the end of the song "All Of You", Isabela and Luisa acknowledge Mirabel's bravery. Isabela, along with her family, and the rest of the town, watch in awe as Mirabel attaches the door knob to the front door and restores the magic.

Isabella then proceeds to remodel her dress again as well as create a new variety of exotic plants. Isabela then gathers with the rest of her family for a complete family portrait.

## Powers and Abilities

Isabela possesses the magical gift of growing beautiful plants and vegetation with her mind. Like Pepa, her powers are influenced by her emotions as flowers sprouted in her hair when she was shocked. Originally, she stuck to beautiful flowers, showing the capability of conjuring flowers either by waving her hands, twirling her feet, and even flicking her hair while having the flowers appear within her range, or travel across the surface of an area. While having an argument with Mirabel, she sprouts a cactus in anger and realizes she can grow a bigger range of plants than what she usually does. After the emotional revelation, she starts growing tropical plants and can even create pollen capable of dying her hair and clothes.

## Trivia

* Isabela's birthday is on August 7th.
	+ This means that her star sign is Leo.
	+ Her birthday falls on Colombia's Battle of Boyacá Day, which commemorates a decisive battle in Colombia's bid for independence from Spain. It is also Colombia's presidential inauguration day.
* At the start of production, Isabela was initially called "Ines".
* Like each member of the Madrigals, Isabela was based on a family archetype - in her case, the archetype of the "perfect sister".
* At one point, Isabela had a dorky suitor named "Bubo Marquez", with whom she would elope, leaving the Encanto. But this was eventually scrapped as the staff took Isabela's character to a new direction which didn't involve a man.
* According to the books *Disney Encanto: The Deluxe Junior Novelization* and *Disney Encanto: A Tale of Three Sisters*:
	+ Isabela sometimes thinks it would be nice if she didn't have a gift.
	+ Isabela secretly wishes that her gift was more useful.
	+ Isabela always carries a handkerchief.
	+ Isabela drinks *café con leche*.
	+ Isabela thinks Mirabel and Camilo are too old for toys.
	+ Isabela has a pond in her room filled with water lilies.
	+ Isabela never wears her shoes on her bed.
	+ While Isabela doesn't love Mariano, she does hope to marry someday.
	+ Mariano often sent presents - chocolates, trinkets, and bouquets of flowers - to Isabela before he proposed.
	+ Isabela made Luisa a flower crown to wear when she had her gift ceremony.
	+ Isabela doesn't like messy foods, especially because she could spill them on her dress.
	+ Isabela thinks Mirabel is Agustín's favorite.
	+ Isabela's room has fireflies in it.
	+ Isabela doesn't like to have anything in her room out of order.
* Diane Guerrero believes Isabela to be lesbian. However, this was not confirmed by Disney.

## Gallery

* Posters
* Stock Art
* Concept Art
* Screenshots

Isabela blooming flowers on Casita

Digital concept art of Isabela drawn by Samantha Vilfort.Pencil and digital concept art of Isabela drawn by Jin Kim.Digital concept art of Isabela drawn by Meg Park.Concept art of Isabela by Neysa Bove

Isabela dancing with the townspeople"I HATE YOU!!!"Isabela rolling her eyes at MirabelIsabela's forced smileIsabela's flower archIsabela in "What Else Can I Do?"Isabela wakes upIsabela annoyedIsabela remodels her dressIsabela and Mirabel hug
## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://www.vitalthrills.com/encanto-movie/
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://twitter.com/thejaredbush/status/1504921121711292417
3. ↑ https://thedisinsider.com/2020/12/09/exclusive-new-details-for-walt-disney-animation-studios-encanto/
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 The Art of Encanto
5. ↑ Isabela Goes Into the Woods
6. ↑ https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/the-brunos-underwear-blog/672601800162131968
7. ↑ https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/the-brunos-underwear-blog/672647114000580608
8. ↑ https://www.etonline.com/media/videos/diane-guerrero-believes-encanto-character-isabela-is-gay-hopes-to-explore-in-sequel