Corpse Bride — A personal quick analysis on why Victor and Victoria just makes sense

See, most people believe that Victor should have ended up with Emily, and in a way, I agree with them but Victor and Victoria simply are solid as a couple and I will prove why it is so.

I will start by briefly viewing their personalities, family, possible childhood, status, interactions, and how things just unfolded in the movie.

To start with, Victor is the lovable introverted slightly bumbling protagonist. Being a noble in say the Victorian era of England, he would have had quite the strict childhood. His hobby of drawing butterflies and releasing them shows that he is gentle and quiet sheltered assuming he didn’t have a lot of friends aside from his dog. His father seems to be the go-with-the-flow kind of guy and simply reacts to things, rather average really, however, his mother is a pushy, demanding woman with high expectations and goals. A domineering mother and a passive father can end up having a son who is quite passive to all forms of confrontation. From this environment, it shows that he must have been rather lonely growing up and perhaps looking for someone to fill that hole? Victor Vandort is a textbook gentleman, with emphasis on the word gentle. He is kind and respectful to all but he does tend to be cowardly, clumsy, and jittery.

Victoria is as plain as they come, but I don’t think she is boring. Victoria Everglot, seemingly only child to the also noble Everglots A.K.A. Mr. and Mrs. Cranky; being a noble herself she must have had a similar childhood to Victor. Her father and mother detesting each other but seeming don’t argue or fight a lot could hint that they have a form of understanding. They don’t like each other but they don’t hate each other, it’s either they had simply gotten used to each other and enjoyed the money or they formed a sort of uneasy “friendship”. Having no clear image of family love she could have been lonelier than Victor. Victoria is seen as one of those cookie-cutter daughters where she is the product of her family’s guidance. Which again only proves my point that she’s quite plain.

Now for our dark horse Emily. Although not much is known about her, we can gather that she’s positive and sweet. Underneath that bright exterior hides deep trauma; she’s also gullible, naïve, and emotional. Based on the song it is assumed that her parents were okay parents because they said no to Barkus, but she didn’t listen and defied her parents taking some of her family’s money. She allowed her impulsive actions to get her killed simply by marrying a guy she blindly believed in.

We will now start to analyze each of the character’s interactions with each other before the interesting events took place. When Victor first met Victoria it was when she popped in on him playing the piano beautifully. They had a conversation, very casual. From this brief interaction, he had perhaps found himself a kindred soul, someone that could understand him and get along with him. When he returned to Victoria from the world of the dead he had expressed his feeling and emotions to her expressing vulnerability and she had done the same.

With Emily, It all started with a major misunderstanding which then led to a chase scene and her kidnapping him. From here we can assume that she was basically conscious of the whole ordeal even if she was buried, yes Victor did sort of ask her to marry him but he was merely practicing; didn’t she hear him call a tree and a stump Mr. and Mrs. Everglot? It is apparent that Emily only heard what she wanted to hear. Although she was nice in presenting him the gift of seeing his dead dog again, she still whisked him away from important matters into an unknown yet colorful place. Victor managed to trick Emily into taking him back, she then starts dancing around in the moonlight and then trips over, heh funny. Here she was trying in a way to seduce him by showing off her more attractive qualities. Victor asked her to simply wait for him to return, although oblivious to what was actually going on. She was waiting and after a long, while she was bothered by the maggot in her head, she basically allowed it to let her doubt Victor as to why he was taking so long. Here we can see that she could have a trust issue, though when someone who you thought was the love of your life kills you I guess it’s understandable. When she saw him with another woman her first instinct was to grab onto him, call him a pet name and then show her wedding ring when asked who she was. This here is a clear depiction of possession and jealousy over victor, and when victor tried to play down their relationship; she again takes him back to the land of the dead. After that sure they had a cute romantic piano duet thing going on but that was really more of a reconciliation and a start to a proper relationship between the two. So in the first rough half of the movie; Victoria’s interactions with him have been fairly positive and comforting while Emily’s was more selfish on her part.

During the interesting parts I like to start with Victoria’s escape, it’s interesting because that’s probably the first interesting thing she’s done. When her man got taken she tried to ask for help, and when her parents didn’t work she escaped and looked for help elsewhere at the church. When she got caught again she tried to escape even though she failed again; during this time you can clearly see that she’s being more forward about her wants and took a risk at the expense of the anger of her parents. She was even brave enough during the whole dead people popping up fiasco; staying calm and finding out what was going on and trying to find perhaps Victor. Now as for Emily, we will start at when she just dragged him back from the land of the dead. She starts arguing with him saying how he lied to her, which he did, see afterward he states that perhaps under different circumstances they could have been together. This shows that Victor does have some interest in Emily but he’s pretty much fixed on Victoria. Throughout the whole film, Emily hasn’t really risked anything, she’s dead so she literally didn’t have much to lose in trying to pursue him.

Now some of you might be thinking: what about the fact that she’s dead? There’s no way a live guy can love a dead person. And to that, I say what about the fact that living is only temporary and the victor was literally willing to die for Emily to get married to her. When Victor and Victoria had their piano moment, that was when he stopped seeing Emily as a dead person and more of just a person. But this wasn’t enough to really get him to come around, even in the end Emily agreed that she was stealing him from Victoria. So what is the underlying factor in all of this? Timing. What if Victor had met Emily before Lord Barkus did? What if she never really died? The likeliness of them being together would have increased because they are pretty compatible and share some interests. Not only that, but Emily’s more positive personality balances well with his introverted shy nature. However, Victoria was really just the first one to get to him first.

Timing is really a bitch.