plot hole (spoilers)


We're lead to believe when Maria and Von Trapp dance at the party and she blushes, she starts having impure thoughts about him and leaves the house because of love and stuff. However, Maria confesses to having first fallen in love with Von Trapp when he blew the whistle pretty much when they met. If that's the case, she would have had impure thoughts then, and would have left the house, never knowing the children!

You just got served Sound of music 😎

Time is a poem, the world is a verse, people are a word, I am a letter

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It was the dance that told Maria that the Captain was having the same impure thoughts about her. THat's what freaked her out.

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Weak! Not a plot hole at all. It actuall makes it all more realistic. It's easy to have a crush on someone. Soooo easy. When it's reciprocated - that's when it gets fun, or scary as it was for Maria.

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While I LOVE the gazebo scene, I've never thought that line made sense either. If she really did have a crush on him way back then, it was never apparent!

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I have the screenplay, and there's a scene earlier in the story that was cut from the movie. It essentially mirrored the sequence just before the Captain breaks it off with the Baronness -- where he's standing on the patio staring at Maria as she strolls by the lake. In the cut scene, Maria was staring out her window, watching the Captain as he pensively strolled by the lake. I always thought that scene was necessary because it showed that the attraction was reciprocal, and it wasn't something that suddenly occurred.

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Sorry it was cut, I would have liked to see it. :-) Where in the script was it placed?

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Right after Edelweiss, like later that night.

Ha ha, made you look.

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i think it was the idea that it might be reciprocated that confused her, because she was still supposed to be going to be a nun. also, the baroness encourages her to leave.

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Well you do see a couple of hints in their first scene. "I don't know your signal" definitely comes across as a little playful flirting. His 'inspection' of her also seems like he's checking her out. He probably wasn't expecting a nun so young and pretty

But Maria's been in the abbey most of her life so she's probably not used to getting crushes or falling for men too often. She probably either didn't realise that she was actually falling for him, or else was in denial about it. Elsa telling her about it is what forces her to admit it to herself, and she's terrified. Later on when she's had time to process everything, she can now recognise when she first started liking him - even if she didn't know it at the time

I'm gonna die of long hair!

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If I recall, the conversation where she talks about the whistle is when they share with one another when they "first started loving" one another. So she's basically telling him she's been attracted to him since they first met. This seems to fall in line with their interactions. After all she's always been a little cheeky with him, as she flouts his rules and does not seem intimidated by his law and order ways and the power he radiates.

But as a previous poster mentioned, being intrigued by someone or having a crush on them is a very different experience from the moment where you suddenly realize that they're interested in you too: especially when the person you are crushing on is...
1. not available,
2. your boss,
3. out of your league socially, and
4. realizing it at the same time you are at the party he's thrown for his aristocratic fiancee and fancy friends - and she's just walking into the room.

Up to that point she might have felt some attraction and may even have been aware of it but it was just a private crush she could keep to herself since he was items 1-3 above and she was committed to becoming a nun.

It likely was really scary for her at the moment she blushes since it's not fun to find yourself in an unexpected love triangle and I expect the man of the house having an affair with the governess/nanny was a common cliche even then so she felt like the "other woman".
The whole moment probably made her innocent crush feel very sinful all of a sudden - especially since she was supposed to be committing herself to the convent.

I know the Baroness nudged her out the door in the middle of the party, but I think her fear might have sent her running anyway. Elsa just spoke her thoughts out loud.

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Absolutely correct - in the stage play, she *does* in fact leave on her own when Brigitta tells her innocently that Georg loves her.

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You can see they're attracted to each other the second they meet. I really doubt the Captain spent the same amount of time talking to the previous governesses that he spends talking to Maria. It would be how do you do, and then the housekeeper would probably tell Maria the rest.

In the movie, the captain sounds stern, but he's eyeing up Maria a lot, tells her she looks nothing like a governess, and is always checking to see how she's reacting to what he says. When she's cheeky with him it leaves a mark. If this were a regular, standard-issue governess he wouldn't have stuck around in the entrance hall as long as he did, or paid much attention to what she said or how she said it.

I actually see his attraction to her more immediately than hers to him, although she is playful with him - especially her facial expression. But she's certainly not intimidated by him. He's an impatient guy with a lot of stuff on his mind - if she didn't interest him he wouldn't be in tune with what she said, did and thought, and he is from the start. In the entrance hall, and then at the dinner table.

I think when he returns from Vienna with the Baroness, he's curious to see Maria again. I also think when he's angry, it's way OTT and maybe an excuse to get rid of her so she'll stop distracting him. But then he realizes she brings something needed into the house.

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Let me say I like the movie and almost never judge musicals the same way I judge gritty realistic films. I try not to do too much psychological interpretation because often actions and lines are included to make a pleasant interesting pattern of tension and release. The writers have to keep up the conflict and resolution pattern and will insert a conflict and then think up a psychological reason second. The Captain and Maria were dancing, the audience is loving the exquisite choreography and the charming repurposing of the Goatherd tune, so they have to interrupt with a quick emergency. Think of all the movies and operas that do this. It's really exciting. Cinderella scrams! TGeh sharks and jets start a fight at the dance, and in Fiddler the Russians stop the fun at Tzeitel and Motl's wedding. a murder mystery writer had the murder already planned. The reason and psychology are an after thought. I can hear readers saying, "Duh. No sh-t."

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