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Maddie the Western Inland Taipan
"I am the deadliest snake on the planet. One drop of my venom can kill a hundred men. But I'm not a Monster..." ~ Maddie.
Maddie is a taipan snake who serves as the main protagonist of the Netflix film Back to the Outback. She leads the group of zoo animals to the outback.
Contents
Personality
Despite her status as a deadly snake and being called "monster", Maddie is actually the opposite - she is kind, caring, friendly, benevolent, intelligent, polite and sensitive. She is a very optimistic person who loves spending time with friends or helping others. However, this optimism can be easily ruined if something bad happens, which might lead to her in tears despite her best efforts to stay positive.
At first, Maddie believed that humans would love her, but quickly realized that Chaz didn't care about her wellbeing and people visiting the zoo were getting scared when they saw her. This made Maddie sink into a depression, leading her to stop considering herself special before deciding to give up this life of prejudice in search for something better.
When Maddie first met Pretty Boy, she was slightly more tolerant of him than her friends who openly despised the obnoxious koala, although she disliked his condescending behavior throughout the journey, ending up berating and even slapping him in the face a few times. However, the two rivals slowly come to see themselves as true friends, even family.
Due to being treated like a freak, Maddie developed a certain contempt for humans. This contempt diminished after meeting a little girl who found her as good as she was, allowing her realize to see that not all humans are bad. She also had compassion for this same girl because of their similarity to seeing themselves as monsters.
Physical Appearance
Maddie is a Western Inland Taipan, who unlike her real life counterpart, has a large round head with yellow eyes with eyelashes and purple pupils. Unlike others of her species shown in the movie, she has blue scales possibly some sort of mutation.
Biography
Before hatching
"Sleep little one close your eyes, your bodies cooling with the night. Let your worries slip away" - Maddie's mother singing her lullaby
Maddie's mother sung her eggs a lullaby as she wrapped herself around them at least once. Eventually when singing the song, a storm caused Maddie's egg to get carried away by water. Her mother tried to stop it but was too late. Maddie's egg floated through a body of water avoiding hungry predators before eventually drying up far away in the outback. A hawk tried to eat her before Chaz Hunt arrived in a jeep scaring it off. He picked up the egg and she hatched, she then immediately imprinted on him.
Life in the zoo
Early on in the zoo she befriended the other animals: Zoe, Nigel and Frank. Who like Maddie were raised by Jackie the saltwater crocodile, who every night would tell them about her mountains in her home the outback. Maddie longed for the day she would be able to perform her first show so that everyone would like her, just like Pretty Boy whom she watched on the security cameras.
First show
"First shows always the hardest" - Jackie comforting Maddie
After being the last to be woken up Maddie met Chaz who told her that they were going to go nuts over her, encouraging her to show her fangs in a "beautiful smile". Maddie was overjoyed by the crowds initial reaction to her but when Chaz Hunt told her to smile she terrified them with her fangs. She got particularly upset when Chaz started to call her hideous and a child started crying upon seeing her. She tried to cover up her fangs before being thrown back into her box.
She refused to speak to her friends afterwards (and almost cried) before eventually, Jackie managed to cheer her up. She finally sung her mother's lullaby to the group for the first time, before Jackie told her babies about the outback for the last time.
Again and again Maddie would be brought out for shows getting thrown back into the box over and over again started to get to her.
Losing Jackie
Eventually back in the reptile house, upon seeing Jackie being taken away after Chazzie fell into the saltwater crocodile enclosure, she tried to smash the glass open to no effect. Eventually Zoe went up to see what was going on to calm Maddie down, but Maddie saw via the cameras that Jackie had been taken away. After everything she broke down crying and declared that she would lead her cold blooded comrades out of the zoo back to their ancestral home - the outback.
Escaping the zoo
Maddie then asked Zoe to open up the cages of the animals, they then snuck past the watchtowers, passed the security cameras and made their way through the botanical garden before making it to the koala enclosure.
Meeting Pretty Boy
"You're really mean" - Maddie upon meeting Pretty Boy
Suddenly the group froze when a loud noise echoed through the enclosure. Maddie noticed Pretty Boy banging a piece of wood against a windchime. She asked him to stop before eventually he started insulting them whilst continuing to make the noise. She climbed up the tree trying to disarm him before eventually Nigel knocked Pretty Boy out. After falling outside of his enclosure, Maddie brought him along as they made their way across the water using a bird nest as a raft.
Joining U.S.S
As the gang rowed across the water they looked up at the sky. After Frank mistakes the star for human dandruff they all slow down to admire it. However suddenly Pretty Boy wakes up, Maddie got in an argument with him but their interrupted by a tiger shark. The tiger shark reveals herself to be Jacinta a member of the Ugly Secret Society. Jacinta gave them the code and let the gang ride on her as she swum to Sydney. Afterwards Pretty Boy separates from the group.
The big city
The gang then snuck through the city by hiding in rubbish bins. Then suddenly an angry crowd who were chasing Pretty Boy cornered them. They remembered the password just in the nick of time before making their way into the sewers. There Maddie and the gang were surrounded by redback spiders where they met their leader Legs Luciano a member of the U.S.S. She persuaded Legs not to let the other redbacks eat Pretty Boy. Eventually she and the others were washed away by the flush before eventually being thrown out a vent into the sky.
Eventually she and the others fell onto a gondola where they disguised themselves as clothes on a wealthy woman drinking nearby. After she spotted and chased them away, they ran across the road except for Pretty Boy who stopped to watch his own funeral video. Maddie and Zoe launched Nigel across the road to get Pretty Boy. Eventually they yet again avoided Chaz and Chazzie by escaping onto an ice cream van.
Cane Toads
"No human could sing like that" - Maddie on Doug's singing
The gang escaped into the school where they encountered Doug and Dourene two cane toads. Maddie despite reluctance from Zoe released them, in thanks the two of them pointed her to the direction of the school children specifically the blue ribboned one who was called Norine.
The bus
Later Maddie and the others snuck onto a bus they thought the blue ribboned girl was on, only to discover they were on the wrong bus. They made their way back on via skateboard before finally resting on the top of the bus as they were brought into the wild. The gang rested on the sleeping Pretty Boy. The group wondered what family meant, Maddie defined it as people who are always there for you and then Nigel realized it sounded like them.
Hunted by Chaz
"I'm looking for some very dangerous animals" - Chaz, when entering the bus for Maddie and the others
Later Chaz tried to hunt the animals on the bus before they accidentally fell into the inside of the bus. After getting attacked by children they were protected by the blue ribbon girl (though had a brief close call with Frank's mating dance). Eventually they were let out of the bus, before they all fell down a small cliff. Pretty Boy woke up and got in an argument with Maddie before suddenly Chaz fell down from the cliff on top of them. Eventually he accidentally captured Maddie with a stick and prepared to tranquilize her when he's attacked by Tasmanian devils Dave, Lucifer and Beelzebub. Maddie pointed out that Pretty Boy didn't hate her anymore as he did save her, he simply responded that he was a Capricorn and hated everyone.
Escaping the zoo
The Tasmanian devils brought them to a cave filled with flying foxes, however when the bats tried to suck Pretty Boy's warm blood, Maddie and the others fended off the mammals. Later they rode on the backs of two female razorback hogs who snuck them past a house near the outback. Afterwards they were helped through the swamp by Phil the platypus. Eventually she and the others were rolled by dung beetles through a herd of cattle.
Rest
The gang then rested with the mountains in their sight, after pressure from the others she finally sung her mother's lullaby again, shocked when thinking about how she was near her old home and how far she had come. Eventually she finally got Pretty Boy to admit that he considered her a friend.
Pretty Boy leaves the group
"It's ok if you miss him too, Maddie" - Nigel comforting Maddie
On their way through a eucalyptus forest the group discusses what they want to do in the future, Pretty Boy is about to suggest what he will do before leaving upon seeing koalas. Maddie tries to hide her own feelings stating that she won't miss him but that he will miss her, but its an act the others can easily see through.
Arrival
Eventually the group made it to Jackie's mountains. Sliding down a hill, the group tried to introduce themselves to the locals at the outback, before suddenly the biker army led by Chaz interrupted.
Capture
Maddie hid behind some rocks before eventually they collapse causing her to encounter Chazzie, she struck by terror flinched and braced for impact before eventually realizing Chazzie was just as afraid of her. Suddenly she was grabbed and thrown into a separate glass cage from the rest of her friends. She reached her tail out to touch the glass separating her from her friends, realizing she was never going to touch them again.
Meeting Pretty Boy
"You guys are my family and I'm never leaving you again" - Maddie
Suddenly Chazzie flung her cage out after finally realizing she wasn't a monster, she tried desperately to slither after her friends who were still in the jeep. Then she burst into tears and tried to rally the rest of the outback's residents to arms, but they were too afraid. Eventually Pretty Boy met up with her stating that the other koalas were very superficial. Together they banded together to save her friends.
Maddie followed Pretty Boy to a fire station near the outback before she hijacked a fire truck with him. She then lowered a ladder to reach Chaz's jeep avoiding many objects being hurled at her as she slithered towards the jeep. Trying to bite open the lock of the cage, after admitting she saw them as family, the ladder she and Pretty Boy were on jerked them away.
Later after Pretty Boy was nearly stabbed by a biker Maddie bared her evil stare to scare him off before driving the bike as her friends hopped on. They dodged the hurling boulders. Later upon seeing the upcoming cliff she slithered onto the firetruck before escaping onto the ladder which remained whilst the rest of the vehicle fell off of the cliff.
Home
Later upon seeing the upcoming cliff she slithered onto the firetruck before escaping onto the ladder which remained whilst the rest of the vehicle fell off of the cliff. She later saw Chazzie dangling off the edge of the cliff. Realizing the only way to save him she bit onto Chaz's wrist protection before wrapping herself around Pretty Boy who had grabbed onto Maddie. Chaz pulled all three of them up before hugging the group realizing they weren't monsters. Afterwards a parade was thrown for Maddie and her friends, she reunited with Doug and Dourene and eventually Jackie, who revealed she was the head of the U.S.S. She along with the others rode on Jackie's back as they made their way home for the final time.
Trivia
- • She is the most emotional character in the movie because she cried more than others - 4 times in the entire movie.
- • Like many of her friends, Maddie's species (the western inland taipan) has not killed a single human being in all of its recorded history, despite containing enough venom to kill approximately 100 men.
- • Maddie is the second snake main character in a Netflix film, the first being Ajar from the film Sahara.
- • Netflix executives were initially hesitant to make their main character a taipan, suggesting other animals before eventually giving in.
- • It has been theorized that Maddie has childhood abandonment issues, possibly stemming from being separated from her mother as a child.
- • There's an implication that one taipan she stares at in the outback is indeed her long-lost mother.
- • Real taipans don't shed tears in emotional distress, but rather to dry out their eyes.
- • Maddie is not short for "Madison" but rather "Medusa", who was a serpentine figure from Greek mythology who was also maligned by the masses for her lack of beauty, and who also left human civilization to live out in the wild.
Gallery
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