This article about “Brave” takes a while to get going

but is worth skimming until it starts to get good. “If it weren’t already obvious, this isn’t a film that fetishizes courage in its ordinary sense.” And this:

The paradoxical “changeable fate” is probably a familiar fantasy to most parents. That it stumped me for as long as it did I attribute partly my lack of imagination and partly to the fact that I haven’t had to think about the archetypal patterns parenthood introduces. It’s a parent’s destiny to nurture a child at considerable expense and personal sacrifice until that child becomes an adolescent and despises him or her (hopefully briefly). Every parent hopes they can change that charted course. Very few parents succeed.

Link via Jesse Walker.