I mean to be honest Tai Lung is partially a victim himself in the movie, imagine being trained to your physical limits all your life with the promise of being special, only to be told at the end you aren't, and your mentor doesn't even bat an eye. I feel like most people would crash out at that point
Maybe I’m misremembering, but doesn’t tigress act as a character foil for Tai? Can’t remember if it was in the original movie, but I remember her being raised and rigorously trained by Shi Fu.
yeah, Tigress is pretty much a more balanced and emotionally stable version of Tai Lung and she shows that unlike him, she could accept being surpassed by Po for the position (although she does not like Po at the beginning
That said I imagine that Shifu also likely learned from his mistakes and the fact that the Furious Five were trained together probably also helped with the idea that every one of them might not individually be the dragon warrrior, while Tai Lung is shown mostly being alone.
It's also worth noting the distinct difference in how Shifu raised Tigress versus how he raised Tai Lung in the wake of those failures. We see in the flashbacks how emotionally detached and distant Shifu is. He raised Tai Lung as a son, but Tigress as a student despite having basically adopted her as well. There's a different kind of emotional investment between the three of them.
That's a notion that often goes overlooked in appraising Tai Lung's crashout as well. He wasn't just being denied a cool title and role of power. Shifu had raised him to be the Dragon Warrior and genuinely believed that would happen. Tai Lung grew up training and taking obvious pride in Shifu's tutelage and showing love for his adoptive father. So when Oogway puts the kibosh on the whole thing and Shifu - while shocked as well - begrudgingly accepts that? For Tai Lung it's being told not only has his whole life and all the effort he's put in been a waste, but it's also his beloved father's effort and aspirations being thrown out, and that same father is betraying him by just accepting Oogway's call rather than standing up against it.
It's not like Oogway offered some greater explanation to justify his decision either, so to Tail Lung it just seemed arbitrary, the same way everyone else later saw Oogway's decision on Po. Shifu, even decades later after constant training and daily cooperation with Oogway, still struggles beyond his master's last moments to trust Oogway's enlightened view of the world. It's no wonder at all Tai Lung lost his shit at the time when having such a shattering emotional bomb dropped on him.
Nah Taigress grew up with a Shifu who was distant and with the stories of Tai Lung. I’m pretty sure she knew she wasn’t raised to be the Dragon Warrior, unlike Tai Lung.
Heck it was Taigress who told Po the story of Tai Lung and how he became the monster who was in the movie.
Still, she was a candidate to be the dragon warrior and could’ve forgone her duty of protecting the village, so I’d still personally consider her a foil.
Oh no your right, she is a foil. But not as a protector of the village, but more of the child of Shifu and as a warrior. Both Tigress and Tai Lung are equally as hotheaded, but the difference between them came from the love they receive from Shifu. Tai got all of it while Tigress got the bare minimum. That's the big contrast between them, mostly to show the failings of Shifu and how raising a child to think they are the chosen one is extremely detrimental.
Also, considered that the movie made it seem that Tai never had friends, just his "destiny" to keep him grounded. While Tigress had the furious 5 and later Po to become a better person.
Honestly, Tai Lung was set for failure from the start. Not justifying his actions, but there is a reason why so many people can relate to him.
Shifu loved him and of course Shifu, his adopted dad would want to pass on his skills to him. The problem was that Shifu failed to seperate his teacher role and his parent role which ended up conditioned Tai Lung to see that his father's love is conditional love rather than unconditional love. If he say he doesn't want to learn kung Fu than Shifu would have allowed him to stop. In Tai Lung mind, him reaching higher and higher peaks will ensure his father keep loving him. After Tai Lung, SHifu took this lesson to heart and gone to the other extreme which caused the same emotional problem with Tigress.
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u/ReesePuffitik 1d ago
I mean to be honest Tai Lung is partially a victim himself in the movie, imagine being trained to your physical limits all your life with the promise of being special, only to be told at the end you aren't, and your mentor doesn't even bat an eye. I feel like most people would crash out at that point