Traumatized Characters in Media and the Symbolism of Braids

WARNING: This post may contain small spoilers for Kpop Demon Hunters, Frozen, Tangled, and Arcane.

Have you ever watched a show or a movie and thought, “huh, another damaged character with braids”? If you haven’t,  I bet you will now.

I recently watched the new movie Kpop Demon Hunters, and first of all, I have no shame in claiming it was a great piece of cinema. I truly enjoyed the animation, the music, and the story! You can tell me it’s a kid’s movie all you want, but I am not one to ignore the joy and whimsy of a kid’s film.

Watching the movie, I realized something. The main character, Rumi, sports a beautiful long purple braid. And something struck me. I know so many characters in media that have struggled, are traumatized, or sometimes emotionally damaged in some way – and a strange number of those characters’ designs include braided hair. Some of those on the list include Rumi from Kpop Demon Hunters, Elsa and Anna from Frozen, Rapunzel from Disney’s Tangled, and Jinx from Arcane.

So, is there a connection? Is there a reason behind the traumatized character to braided hair pipeline?

I tried looking into it first. I looked all over the internet for some sort of explanation or essay explaining the connection, and the most I could find were a few TikToks pointing out the design similarities.

So, I thought that I’d explain my theories here for you all!

Let’s start with Rumi.

Rumi is a half-demon human who was raised by Celine, her adopted mother, who trained and created the Kpop group Huntrix that Rumi heads. Throughout the decades in this world, there have been many singer groups that have been tasked with keeping the magic force field called the Honmoon strong with their voices. They protect the world from demons in this way, connecting people and their soul energies through song.  

Rumi and her long, beautiful purple braid:

Rumi has been taught from a young age to hide the purple demon markings that show on her skin. She wears clothes that cover them, and even her friends and fellow pop stars do not know of her demon secret. Rumi is shown to sport a long purple braid since she was young. Her mother, who died when she was little, also wore a long braid, but other than this character, the only other character in the movie seen with this hairstyle is a hunter from the original hunter/singer trio. I find it interesting that these are the only three characters with this hairstyle, and I can’t help but wonder if Rumi’s braid is a nod to the original trio and the realization that she will have toward the end of the movie that she needs to be authentic to herself and her origins.

Rumi has struggled her whole life with hiding a part of herself from everyone. She has been taught to hide her demon markings because she will not be accepted. The damage that teaching has caused to her psyche is mixed with the trauma of finding out her own father was a demon and not having her mother there to support her through that. Her braid is long, and her hair has been there as a constant through all the trauma she has endured. Every memory and pain she has experienced is symbolically held in the complexity of her hairstyle. When Rumi’s markings are revealed and she faces her fears of not being accepted, her pristine hair becomes mussed. Strands poke out of the braid and the front of her hair, making her look much more disheveled. In that moment, the strong, impenetrable braid that has carried her trauma and protected her from it for so long is finally unravelling. Her mask has cracked, and it shows in her iconic braid.

Rumi, hair disheveled:

After I noticed Rumi and her braid, I really thought about the pattern in media of traumatized characters wearing braids. Let’s talk about Elsa and Anna from Disney’s Frozen next.

The two sisters grew up best friends, always playing together. Then, when they were still young, Elsa accidentally caused harm to her sister Anna with her icy powers. After that, Elsa couldn’t bear the thought of accidentally hurting her sister again, and so she locked herself away for the rest of their shared childhood. Anna didn’t have any memory of the accident, and so to her, the sudden retreat of her sister was shocking and confusing.

To make matters worse, their parents die in a tragic storm when they’re older. At such an upsetting time, the sisters need each other more than ever, but Elsa is afraid, and stays away.

Throughout this time, Elsa is depicted with her white hair in a neat bun. The updo is poised and royal, with not a strand out of place. Meanwhile, Anna wears two braids (except for during Elsa’s coordination, where she wears the same bun as Elsa).

Elsa’s royal hairstyle:

 When Elsa runs from the kingdom to avoid harming anyone, she creates her own palace of ice and takes her hair down, finally wearing a long white braid with the front pieces of her hair out and falling around her face.

Elsa’s hairstyle seems to connect to her emotions and the situation she is in. Up to the point in her life that she decides to “let down her hair” and be herself, her hair is in a royal style of a braided bun cleanly piled on her head. The tight, neat style fits the lifestyle she leads.

She spends her days confined to her room, a prison cell she has corralled herself into for reasons she thinks are her own fault. She harmed the person she loved the dearest accidentally, and does not trust herself not to lose control of her powers. She views herself as dangerous, and so she locks herself away to protect others. She lives a lonely, secluded life shrouded in guilt and fear. Her hair symbolizes the strict rules she has imposed on herself to keep her sister safe. The bun’s neat perfection is a reflection of the mold Elsa is so desperately trying to fit.

When Elsa finally releases herself, she makes a point to take down her hair during the song she sings entitled “Let it Go”. Her hair tumbles down, the braid and strands of hair falling wildly and free. She is letting go of her guilt, feeling she can keep everyone safe is she stays far away in her palace of ice. She lets her hair down, undoing the neat and proper bun for the first time that we have seen.

Elsa’s braid:

The loss of the bun symbolizes her stepping away from the ties of her title, as well as breaking free from the confines she placed on herself. The braid is complex, strands weaving amongst each other, just like Elsa’ character. To me, I see the braid as a symbol that all that she has been through has been woven into her character, and the complexity of her traits is shown in her hairstyle.

Now, Anna, Elsa’s sister, also sports a braid. However, she has two braids for the entire movie. Some hairstyles are often seen as “younger”, and double braids or pigtails are some of those. I find that Anna wearing two braids symbolizes that childlike innocence that she retains throughout her life. When she was first hurt by Elsa, she was young, and they were playing as kids do. A strand of the braid turned white after the accident, as if acting as a symbol of a struggle or hardship she faced.

Anna’s braids:

Anna spends her life locked in the castle, away from the town and other people. She talks to the paintings on the walls and dreams of seeing her sister again, or even meeting  a romantic interest. She does not have much room to grow up as a character. Not to say she cannot be mature, but her character is a more silly, innocent, and carefree than others, like her sister. Thus, the two braids remain a staple in her design. While they connote an air of innocence and being stuck in the emotions of her past, it also represents the trauma she has experienced. Braids are a more complex design, symbolizing the situations that she has gone through; her sister shutting her out seemingly at random, her parents dying, and being locked out from the world around her. While the complexity of her experiences is shown in her braids, so also are the childlike traits she still carries with her.

Elsa and Anna sporting their braids:

Moving along the same Disney vein, lets take a look at Rapunzel from Tangled.

So, even if you haven’t seen the movie, I’m willing to bet we all know Rapunzel’s main design trait. She is known for her golden hair that measures around 70 feet in length (according to Google). Her hair is the cause of her entire story; it possesses magical healing properties, and as a child, she was stolen by Mother Gothel who raises her as her own child purely to use her hair to keep her young.

Rapunzel’s long, golden hair:

For much of the movie, her hair is depicted long and down, trailing behind her everywhere she goes. However, in a specific scene during the movie, she goes into town for the first time with Flynn Rider. A few young girls are seen braiding each other’s hair, and their eyes light up when they see Rapunzel with her majestic, never-ending hair. The girls then work together to create a beautiful, thick braid that reaches Rapunzel’s feet, and flowers are placed into the braid for the finishing touches.

All her life, Rapunzel’s hair has been used for the gain of others. It has grown to incredible lengths, following her through the trauma she has experienced. Have you ever heard the phrase “hair holds memories”? Because I, for one, happen to believe this notion explains the length of some braided-haired characters, specifically those that have unnaturally long hair. Rapunzel has grown up confined to a tower, never-ending meeting anyone except for Mother Gothel, her kidnapper.

It has been a constant in her life, and she has been taught her hair is the most cherished part of her. All the repressed memories of her past, of being the princess, is held in her hair. When she finally steps out of the confines of the tower, and begins to experience the world, her hair is braided by strangers she meets in town. These new experiences are woven Into the braid, moments adding to the complexity of the character and the conflicting feelings she has at the time.

Rapunzel’s braid:

When her hair is cut off in the final act of the movie, she is being born anew. Her hair and all the trauma and conflicting emotions of the past are released, and she is free to grow.

The final character I will ramble about is Jinx, from the show Arcane, which is based off of the video game League of Legends. Personally, that show changed my brain chemistry and I will literally recommend it to anyone that will listen, and Jinx’s character is my personal favorite.

Arcane tells the origin story of multiple in-game champions, the main focus being on the sisters Vi and Jinx. The show is set in the utopian city of Piltover and the unjustly tyrannized underground city of Zaun.

When we first meet the sisters, they have just lost their parents to an invasion of “enforcers” (police) upon Zaun. Jinx is known by her original name, Powder, and her blue hair is short and adorned with a small pigtail on the side. She’s very young in the introductory episode, so I feel like this hairstyle fits the age of the character. The little ponytail soon turns to a mid-length choppy style with a single short thick braid down her back.

Baby Jinx/Powder:

11 year-old Powder:

This version of Jinx, or Powder at the time, already has experienced so much trauma. The loss of her parents changed her and Vi’s life, and living as an underprivileged child in an oppressed underground city has not been easy. Her hair is already holding the complex damaging past in the woven plait, and I would even go a step further to theorize that the multiple metal barrettes she has clipped throughout her hair are a symbol of her efforts to stay strong and put together regardless of her damage.

After a tragic accident in which Powder is responsible for the deaths of her found family, Vi has a break down and hits Powder in the face. Vi has been her protector for all of Powder’s life, and someone she has looked up to. The betrayal and the guilt hits Powder hard, and to make matters worse, Vi is kidnapped and brought to prison immediately afterward without Powder's knowledge.

So, Powder kills her family trying to save them, is hit by the one person she has always relied on, promptly abandoned by her sister, and then is found by Silco, a crime leader of the underground. Eleven-year -old Powder has been beyond traumatized at this point in her life, and this is her rock bottom. When Silco comes across Powder sobbing in the alley after Vi has hit her and is taken, he makes the decision to take her in and raise her.

The next time we see Powder, she has changed astronomically. She goes by Jinx, and her knack for tinkering and inventing has grown. She helps Silco with his crimes, and has become a valuable asset. Silco has become her father figure. Jinx’s design has now changed, and her blue hair is in two extremely long braids adorned with brass cuffs. The front of her hair falls wildly in choppy bangs and strands.

Jinx is an extremely conflicted character. She began as one of the good guys, just a young girl trying to survive in the underground of Zaun. Once she was taken in by Silco, she changed. The trauma of her past never left her. The length of her braids alone shows how much baggage she carries. The trauma that she has endured has been plaited into her hair, and she has let it grow to such long lengths because she cannot bear to cut off all the good that intertwines with the bad throughout her life. When she was young, she only had one braid, but as she grew and her hair got longer, she adopted the two-braided style. I find this to be an interesting way of showing yet again that she is split. She still loves her sister, and the guilt and shame of her part in the accidental deaths of her family lurk over her, often taking form in visual and auditory hallucinations. The feelings of her past still reside within her, and she has never been able to let go. However, Silco has brought her up to be a valuable asset and to turn against those she once loved. The two braids symbolize the divide of her own personality and emotions. She battles the two sides of herself constantly, and those memories her hair holds are laced into two separate braids to show it.

Two-braided Jinx:

SO, there it is! My theories about why traumatized characters in media often wear braids. I am not claiming that any of this is true or confirmed at all, but I honestly just had so many thoughts that I had to put onto paper, and I guess that’s what my blog is for! I am a huge fan of symbolism in media, and I am constantly analyzing and picking things apparat with my own theories and thoughts. If I must end this post with anything, let it be this: WATCH ARCANE!!! It is my absolute favorite show and truly an impressive piece of media.

Well, that’s the end of my rambling!