MovieChat Forums > The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008) Discussion > A dotty aunt?

A dotty aunt?

posted 13 years ago by grp032363
3 replies | jump to latest

A part of the description of the movie says, "...mom who moves her kids from NYC to the country home she inherited from her dotty aunt."

I watched the film for the first time earlier last week and I saw a discrepancy in it.

According to the show, the aunt's father is the mother's great uncle -- Impossible.

If the dotty aunt was in deed the aunt, then the aunt's father would have to have been the grandfather to the mother. (Not the great uncle.)

For someone to be a great uncle, the great uncle must be the brother to the grandfather or to the grandmother; therefore the dotty aunt in the show had to have been a second cousin to the mother.

[–] grp032363 13 years ago

After posting this, I saw that someone else had pointed this out too. Sorry for the repost.

[–] Mandyjam 13 years ago

What you are saying is right, technically. But when a relative belongs to an older generation, they are sometimes spoken of as Aunt or Uncle, rather than "First cousin once-removed" or "Second cousn" just out of courtesy.

"great minds think differently"

[–] One_Man_Army 13 years ago

To add to Mandyjams comments, I'd just like to point out that in some families, certain family members prefer to be called an aunt or uncle even though that technically isn't the case. It all depends on the people involved.

ALL HAIL THE HIGH QUEEN!!!!!