To dismiss Lilo’s violence as her being a brat is candidly wrong. She’s a traumatized 6 year old who doesn’t understand why some people fetishize her culture and why others make fun of her dead parents.

Not only did she lose her parents in a car accident but she also lost her disorder- her best friend. Nani would never get to love Lilo like a sister ever again... that bond was stolen from them too.

Stitch symbolizes the chaos and pain in their life that they can’t control... Nani tried to handle it like she knows how- by trying to parent the weird out of him. Like she’s done with Lilo. Lilo on the other hand learns to care for him and teach him in a way that he can process-

Which is something no one has tried to do with her. She tries to fix things with stitch without yelling at him like Nani would... until the stresses of parenting “get” to her and she begins to understand that Nani isn’t mad at her, Nani is mad at both of their lives being ruined

Lilo grows up tremendously in the story and echos so much truth and authenticity. I was a kid who was abandoned by my birth parents and given to my grandparents- who should’ve been able to love me in a different way but were forced to be my parents. I was Lilo in a way.

I screamed a lot and cried a lot and didn’t understand why people got to make jokes about my birth mom being on drugs... I felt cheated. Like Lilo, I thought that things were supposed to be good because they were for everyone else but they weren’t good for me and I was angry

I’m glad the movie doesn’t gloss over how cruel lilo’s hula classmates are to her because kids were cruel to me too. Kids in general are cruel. Lilo’s anger is valid. Her violence... is valid.

She is finally able to see her reflection in stitch- mostly good but but filled with chaos (his from being manufactured to be evil, hers from the very recent tragedy in her life) and using him as a vessel she is able to mend the broken but still good things in her life.

Lilo is like stitch in so many ways but the main one is she just needs to be taught how to process and control her angers even when she’s surrounded by things to be angry about. Something that she has done for stitch, something that no one has taken the time to do for her

Rage and Violence are never good but that’s all Lilo knows that can clearly convey how she’s feeling. When no one is paying attention to your pain the typical reaction is to make your actions bigger and bigger until they can’t be ignored

Lilo is proof that school systems and child services systems are not alone equipped to help a child in emotional crisis. There are so many people in Lilo’s life who love her but don’t know how to help her so they just dismiss her as “weird” so they aren’t compelled to intervene

The movie isn’t about Stitch- he’s just a hook.
The movie is about Lilo and Nani. The story is about how trauma can change people to their core.. The story is about the fact that even if a person is broken... they can still be good.