If they'd made her narratively truly embody Scotland, made it really feel like it, rather than like a woman made to hurt and bleed and die for a male hero. Now, in the end, even though Female Suffering As Male Motivation is Bad, I don't think I'd have minded it (after all, I am rather used to it, it's not like you can grow up without being exposed to that in media to the point where you need to think about it to notice it) if only they'd made her suffering a symbol for Scotland's suffering. That in this movie, William Wallace went to war because of a woman. Narratively, it was never about the oppression, about the historical context. And even though I think it may have been meant to be taken as this sort of that it's not bad to be fighting for dead loved ones, especially dead loved ones who ended up dead as a result of such wrongs as they did (and it wouldn't be!), I realized that Hamish was right. Wallace says that yes she's watching and Hamish' dead father is, too. Hamish says something to the effect that he's really doing it for Murron, because he thinks that she's somehow watching. I think I realized it in the scene where William is arguing with Hamish about whether to go negotiate with Robert the Bruce and the Scottish nobles.

Which would not necessarily be a bad story in itself (provided you could write one and not make it sexist), but I feel like Braveheart especially, but honestly Rob Roy too, should not be about it. It was written so that the motivation was avenging that one single woman.

Oh yes, there's big talk about everything else, too, but ultimately, it didn't to me feel like it ever truly was about the oppression. But when the person who suffered was a woman, they can conveniently make all of that a backdrop, instead.

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