Enchanted Tales – Melody; Mother of Annoying Torments

The main focal character in the Enchanted Tales Version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame is Melody, our Esmeralda character.

But why did they call her Melody? It’s not like Esmeralda’s personality isn’t repeatedly altered movie after movie that by changing the name they made a new character, it’s Esmeralda. So they gave her instruments instead of a goat, she is still the beautiful dancing Gypsy girl who captures Quasimodo’s heart.

My guess is that the creators thought Disney made-up the name Esmeralda for their movie because clearly no one on Enchanted Tales read the book and thought they would be sued.

Also, why Melody as the name choice? Everyone else has a French name, even her mother and the freaking donkey gets a French names but Melody doesn’t.

As for Melody’s look, not being Esmeralda, is not sexualized. She has brown hair and blue eyes. She has a tan skin tone and just to make her more pretty she has a beauty mark under her eye (eye-roll). She also doesn’t wear any red but wears yellow. Esmeralda did wear a golden corset once in the novel so one thing right about her overall look.

Oh wait fuck that, she’s not Esmeralda she’s Melody. I take back my almost positive comment.

Melody gets the most screen time, so we must get an idea for her personality. Well, her mother did call her wild and free. I didn’t see that but I didn’t see anything against that. Melody kinda just does what she wants. Melody doesn’t let much bother either. She leaves Notre Dame and walks knowingly into a trap and is not phased. She gets thrown into jail and she doesn’t care the much, in fact she sings a stupid happy song. She is about to be executed and she yawns. She finds dying boring.

I think this mostly bad writing than character development. Otherwise she is just nice but fairly selectively, she not nice to Jean-Claude but he’s a douche. But more over she is just boring. Boring maybe a new facet for an Esmeralda-character but it’s a not a good thing.

Melody, unlike Esmeralda, has some kind of magic power. This power is the ability to bring musical instruments to life. This power is not explained and results in annoying-ness. This is her biggest flaw, it wasn’t for her those hell spawn of animation garbage wouldn’t have been in this. Those instruments make the gargoyles in the Disney version look charming. And if Melody had been executed perhaps they would have died with her.

I really hated those instruments and she is responsible for their creation so she is the worst Esmeralda ever.

Next Time Quasimodo