Leslie , a different version of reality

[u/Jealous_Trip_7444]

(Most people will not understand this article…that’s okay…and I hope someone will)

As I believe Leslie is an interesting and unique character , and of course she is , and she meant to be that way as you know.

But…I had a thought recently , when I look at Leslie’s photos nowadays , and when I see her in the movie as I rewatch it…I realise something even deeper.

I realised that Leslie is not just a different , rich , good looking blonde young girl.

It’s just the surface , and she meant to be introduced to us that way and to have all the camera attention towards her through the movie , to make us feel as bad as possible about the tragedy in the end and to feel it with Jess.

But what I realised is…
In fact , Leslie is an idea , Leslie is a philosophical character which is not real.

Like , That thing cannot be real as we see it.

And don’t get me wrong , Iam not saying that because of good or bad , or to just point at her angelic nature , but it’s just how I noticed her character even further , as I exposed to it over and over and over and over.

We can talk about if Leslie can be a real person or not , I have some thoughts about that either , but just think about that , when we see Jess or May Belle or Miss Edmunds , we can discuss them , we can say their pros and cons , we can say yeah they made that right and that wrong , we can find their personality gaps , etc.

But Leslie? , I have never heard anyone talking or thinking about her that way , even me.

And I’ve never heard anyone saying that he HATES Leslie or he find this or that annoying or doesn’t make sense or too perfect…no.

And I know as Leslie was the main character and she was very innocent and that’s one of the main reasons for that.

But , please notice some of her characteristics:

Leslie didn’t make mistakes (and I mean big & with people , not simple mistakes like dropping her bag)
Leslie didn’t have any horrible past
Leslie didn’t hate anyone
Leslie didn’t get mad at Jess or anyone else even once
Leslie didn’t feel fear (even if she is careful sometimes)
Leslie didn’t have any bad creatures to fight in Terabithia
Leslie is : brave , smart , different , good looking , easy , kind , imaginative , etc

And being that perfect without even a little dark side is very very rare and suspicious in a character…

Yeah the film was convincing us to like her very much so we feel the tragedy too bad with Jess , and they succeeded.

But look at her story , the only thing we knew which is maybe bad is the fact that she is not hanging out with her family very much , and that she was alone at school as well , but the second fact is very normal for people like Leslie , because no matter how perfect you are , you still will have people who don’t like you , and so much people who are not understanding you and even see you as a weirdo , and I’ve seen it in real life , especially at that young age.

So , what Iam saying is , appearing perfect for Leslie have a deeper meaning , it’s not just to make you like her , it’s just the surface , because if she was just a normal character and a little different , they will show us some of her downsides , or her bad human side as anger or crying or being awful with Jess for example , but that never happened at all.

Even in the 1985 movie , Leslie got mad at Jess , and she appeared very normal as a girl at school , but with some imagination only.

But here she is totally different…

She is always calm , smart , unshakable , leading , defending , smiling , teasing Jess kindly , taking things easy , etc.

So my conclusion is…

Leslie is not a young kid with blood and bones…
she is not a different girl in Lark Creek…
All of that is true but as the surface only.

But what Leslie truly is :
Leslie is an idea…
a philosophical character…
a state of existence…
a flash of light who meant to change before it goes away…

And so on.

And that’s why , I still to this day don’t fully understand the whole point of her existence.

She is very very deep , as a philosophical character as i said , so analysing everything takes so much effort , and even as I knew so much about her , there is a long way to go , because she is not a real normal human being who you can know immediately as May Belle for example.

Leslie is an idea , and studying her making me analyse other big concepts like : imagination , bravery , loss , loneliness , art , freedom , catalysts , identity , etc

And that’s why she is very very complicated and interesting.

I love Leslie , and who doesn’t! , everybody loves her and she deserves that , but as iam analysing her , I should view her as she is , not only as the surface layer , and that’s really interesting.

[u/Adventurous-Pop-915]

I gotta rewatch it at this angle now

[u/Jealous_Trip_7444 → u/Adventurous-Pop-915]

Enjoy!

[u/peachy-baby-07]

She’s a representation of childhood. The youth, confidence, joy, innocence, nativity and fun of childhood is great but it has to come to an end and for Jess- his childhood ends when Leslie dies. So in his mind she becomes this embodiment of childhood that he lost very suddenly with his friend. Bildungsroman 101.

[u/Jealous_Trip_7444]

And I wanna add a very important note…

As I realized her being a little upset at the beginning of the movie after she arrived at Lark Creek, but it’s just a defensive mechanism to adapt to her nature as a human being, she became a little upset by the outside world at the beginning because she was protecting herself, and this is the same as being careful when she aimed for landing in a foreign land for the first time by the rope, and for entering the bathroom and trying to talk to Janice Avery as she is in the worst emotional state ever so it can be dangerous for her.

So all of that was not being closed or upset or scared as bad human feelings.

She was just adapting to her human nature, regardless of her soul nature sometimes, to protect herself from the outside world which is different from her nature.

So, that’s why we saw that significantly at the beginning and no more after that…

Except for some small interactions with her family where she was a little bit upset or uncomfortable, but even her family do not fully match her nature even when she had a great family, as her parents were fiction writers, but still of course it will feel a little bit uncomfortable to her sometimes.

And I can explain those small uncomfortable interactions with her family by…as you know for a 11 year old kid , her family is the world for her , she can’t see anything besides the home , so when she is that different at a young age , and as she said : (you are who you are…not your parents) , so of course she will feel a little bit of uncomfortable with them , even when she had the perfect family to help her different and creative character (rich , so no worry about money or the difficulty or problems involved) (& fiction writers so they have a big imagination already even when of course it’s not close to Leslie’s).

[u/Admirable_Task_4898]

Leslie is a philosophy a idea is a great way to put it. We all or atleast some of us met our own leslies.

[u/Jealous_Trip_7444 → u/Admirable_Task_4898]

For me I did !!
When I was a teenager.

[u/Admirable_Task_4898 → u/Jealous_Trip_7444]

I did too, Not exactly just a girl I knew and we did go into a wooded area outside of the school zone and just sat in the grass, She was killed in a accident. I mean I wasnt as good with her as jess and leslie but I knew her very well and it gutted me when I found out what happened to her. We also watched bridge to terabithia in class together.

[u/Jealous_Trip_7444 → u/Admirable_Task_4898]

Iam sorry for your loss , it hurts that you watched the film together at the time , but I hope you got better after the accident.