"I think I've seen this film before,
and I didn't like the ending"- Taylor Swift, exile
After the Queen of Hearts incites a coup on Auradon, her rebellious daughter, Red, and Cinderella's perfectionist daughter, Chloe, join forces and travel back i...
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Chloe decided that coming off as annoying was worth it if she might receive some good advice. So against her better judgment, she ended up back at Ella's evil stepmother's château.
But when Chloe arrived, she found a scene she never could've imagined her mom in. Hunched over, sweaty, and filthy, Ella plunged her hands into the dirt of the circular garden bed surrounding the fountain at the front of the home and tugged free a large gnarly weed.
The dilapidated fountain hadn't worked in ages and was full of sludge and debris. Chloe walked up and tried to appear friendly, even though she was irritated with Red and Skyler nervous that her mother wouldn't want her there.
"Hey! Can I talk to you about something?" she asked Ella.
Ella looked up from her work briefly and then went back to weeding.
Chloe gave in; she could've guessed that Ella would react that way. "Normally I talk to my mom when I have a problem, but she's... she's far away right now, so..." Chloe shrugged like, Here I am.
Ella just stared, but Chloe pressed on. "Say you have a friend-or, not a friend, but someone you know who's a bad person."
"How do you know they're a bad person?" Ella asked.
"Cause she says so herself!"
"Bad people don't think they're bad. Trust me I live with one," Ella said, jerking her head toward the château.
"Okay-but what if they keep pushing you to do something bad, but they say it's for a good reason?"
Ella considered the question and then handed Chloe a trowel, pointing to the overgrown garden bed. "Right and wrong; Cruel and kind. Who's to say."
Chloe tried to do as instructed, but she was terrible at it. "There's a code that I believe in." She jabbed at the ground with the point of her trowel.
Ella looked at her smiling. "Every choice you're gonna find, there's shades of gray."
Ella demonstrated, grabbing a weed by the base and yanking it out, root and all. Chloe looked up at Ella and exclaimed: "There are rules for a reason."
While they worked, Ella explained her perspective on Chloe's problem: that sometimes a bad action could be done for a good cause.
"Robin Hood."
"Yeah?"
"Awesome guy!"
"Yeah"
"You'd agree?"
"But he stole for the poor." Chloe tried to explain herself while tilting her head looking. She couldn't be wrong, right?
"So you could then cross that line theoretically?" Ella tried to explain to her but Chloe avoided looking at her. "I don't know you anymore."
