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Coraline 020

The well

The well is a land-mark located in Ashland, Oregon, U.S.A. The well is likely over 150 years old, much like the Pink Palace Apartments.

Plot Appearance[]

Movie[]

An excerpt from the main article: Coraline (filmography)

The well is one of the first locations that Coraline explores. Coraline tries to find it by using a Dowsing rod of poison oak. She succeeds only when Wyborn Lovat shows her the exact location. A fairy ring surrounds it. Coraline drops a pebble down the well.

Coraline returns to the well for the epilogue. She walks to it with the intent of dropping the key down it. The beldam (Other Mother)'s right hand stalks her to it. The moment Coraline is prepared to drop the key; the hand jumps her and starts pulling both her with the key back toward the Pink Palace Apartments, away from the well. Wybie Lovat swooping in on a dirt-bike to save Coraline. The two stage a fight against the hand at the location of the well. As he rides by, Wybie grabs the hand but it attacks him and causes him to fall off his dirt-bike and down in the well. While Wybie struggles to climb up; the hand climbs up on him and attacks his hands in an attempt to have him fall. Due to Coraline's distraction, Wybie manages to climb up and smash the hand with a rock. The two dump the hand in a blanket down the well, then the key.

Books[]

An excerpt from the main article: Coraline (books)

April Spink & Miriam Forcible warns Coraline against exploring the well but with little success in deterring her. Coraline proceeds to exploring the area to find it. Coraline finds it and drops a pebble down it and counts to 49 until hearing a splash. The fairy ring is located at a random place, not near the well.

Coraline returns to the well for the epilogue. She fakes a picnic, by placing the blanket, over the well then places the key in the middle. The beldam (Other Mother)'s right hand runs to the key then the blanket falls due to the weight and all three objects goes in.

Video Game[]

An excerpt from the main article: Coraline (books)
This section requires expanding with knowledge derived from the video game. 

History, Folklore, Mythology[]

In the movie, Wybie Lovat describes the legend of the well to Coraline Jones when he first meets her: "that if one was to fall in the well and look up, they would see a sky full of stars, even in the day-time." Similarly but in the book, an unknown person told Coraline that one would see stars if they were in a mineshaft, and wonders if the same applies to the well.

This is due to the depth of the well, as in both movie and novel. Coraline attempts to measure its depth by dropping a stone (pebbles and acorns in the books) in it then counts until it hits the water.

In the movie, it is possible, though unlikely due to the distinctiveness, that the sound of the stone hitting the bottom of the well was actually the sound of the rain starting. At the end of the books, Coraline counts up to 40 seconds before she hears the beldam (Other Mother)'s right hand splash at the bottom of the well.

Theories and speculations have suggested that the well can be a portal to the other world. Possible factors that arguably prove this theory is that Wybie states that you can see a sky full of stars in the middle of the day from down the well. In the other world, it's always a sky full of stars. In addition, the well has a fairy ring around it and popular folklore believes that this indicates a portal to another realm.

Trivia[]

  • There are some theories speculating that The Well is actually the main portal to the other world. Evidence for this is that Wybie said that if you fell to the bottom and looked up you would see a sky of stars in the middle of the day. The other world is set at night with a sky full of stars. In the movie, the shots of portal to the other world look very similar to the shots from inside the well.
  • If that theory is true then Coraline gave The Other Mother the key

Gallery[]

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