Clara

Clara is the female protagonist of the 2001 Barbie film, Barbie in the Nutcracker. After receiving a Nutcracker from her Aunt Drosselmayer for Christmas, Clara's parlour is ambushed on Christmas Eve by a Mouse King and his army. Clara tries to fight them, but she is shrunk, by the king's magic, to the size of a mouse. In order to be transformed back to her full size, Clara must embark on an expedition to find the Sugar Plum Princess - a powerful fairy who possesses the powers to return Clara back to her normal size.

Story
When Clara and her little brother Tommy were young, their parents died. They live with their strict Grandfather Drosselmayer. When we first see Clara in the movie, she is a teenage girl staring into a snow globe, depicting a castle. Grandfather Drosselmayer tells her to stop daydreaming, so she can help finish decorating the family's manor for a party before their guests arrive.

Clara and the Maid do some more decorating; Clara reveals a decoration depicting a ballerina that her late mother gave her the Christmas she saw her first ballet. She carefully hangs it high on the Christmas tree and admires it before the maid worriedly announces that mice have been in the Christmas boxes. Clara examines an edible, bitten gingerbread man decoration, and comes to the conclusion that it was not mice, but in fact her brother Tommy who had been snacking on the gingerbread biscuits.

Clara expresses her authority over her brother when she snatches the bicuits away from Tommy and tells him to go wash his face. He is not going to back down without taunting Clara, so she warns him that if he doesn't listen to her, their grandfather will insist on Tommy having a bath, so he rushes away, and Clara and the maid smile at each other.

Personality and Powers

 * "You are the Sugar Plum Princess! It all makes sense; you saved me from the Mouse King in your parlour; you rescued us from his dungeon; your bravery led to his defeat and... your kiss has broken his spell."


 * -- Prince Eric.

Clara is most easily described as kind, clever and brave.

Family, and Family Friends
Clara's grandfather is a strict, bossy man, but he does love her and Tommy. He raised them after the sibling's parents died. Clara does not seem to be able to really talk to her grandfather, though, and is closer to her aunt Elizbeth. Her aunt is a fun and interesting woman to Clara, and Clara enjoys hearing about her travels. She wants to travel with her aunt but knows her grandfather would never allow it, because he wants Clara to stay at home. Clara considers Elizabeth her favourite aunt, and possibly a mother figure, seeing as her own mother is gone.

Clara and her snarky brother Tommy have a typical brother-sister relationship; they squabble a lot, and one of their squabbles leads to Tommy breaking Clara's Christmas gift: her Nutcracker. He does show that he is guilty, and says he is sorry, but in the morning he just refers to the Nutcracker as a hunk of wood and says "Why would I want him?", showing that may not have been sorry about breaking the Nutcracker after all (and was possibly just more afraid of getting in trouble, as the purchaser of the gift saw it break, and his grandfather is, of course, very strict).

Also, Clara is able to talk to the family maid in a casual way, and was never shown giving the maid any orders, but rather treating her like an acquaintance.

Miscellaneous Relationships
Clara is a kind girl who is easily capable of befriending people. She is treated nicely by the faeries of Parthenia, and they help her throughout her journey. She was also quickly accepted by Marzipan, the horse, and Marzipan allowed Clara to stroke her. Clara showed, when she met the Gingerbread Boy and the Peppermint Girl, that she prefers to resolve conflicts through peaceful conversation rather than physical violence; instead of attacking the children with snowballs, Clara picked up the girl's doll and gave it back to her, winning the girl's, as well as the boy's trust. Also, when the Mouse King was invading her parlour, she was most likely going to just trap him in the vase she was holding, rather than kill him.

The Major and the Captain were not very close to Clara, but they never seemed to dislike her either. The Major did have some sexist thoughts towards Clara, though (when she tried to warn him about the Rock Giant, and he assumed that she had just seen something small and was overreacting) and did not seem to think he needed to treat her with too much respect (as he was unaware that she was the Sugar Plum Princess, and thought the princess did not exist altogether). The Major and the Captain were interested in assisting Clara and the Nutcracker on the expedition to find the Sugar Plum Princess, however, showing they meant well.

The Mouse King did not seem to find Clara to be too much of a threat, but more of an obstacle. He only used her to get information about the Nutcracker from Pimm, as he was intent on defeating Nutcracker.

General Appearance
Clara is a teenaged girl. She comes from a wealthy background, so she always looks immaculate. Clara has light skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. Her hair is long, straight and shiny, and she styles it with a middle parting, and the sides of her hair pulled back into a ponytail. The rest of her hair is left down.

Clara is the same height as her aunt Elizabeth, and when Elizabeth proposes that Clara is "at least a head taller", meaning she has grown a few inches since Elizabeth had last seen her (Elizabeth travels a lot, so it is possible she had not seen Clara for months).

Party Gown
When we first see Clara, she is dressed in a detailed purple gown. This is because her grandfather is expecting guests for a festive party (Hints at this are that grandfather Drosselmayer says that Elizabeth has arrived early. Also, when he is arguing with Elizabeth about her telling Clara about her travelling, she says that his guests are waiting at the door. Lastly, the time is twenty-two to nine in the evening).

The dress has a square collar, and there are white frills on it. There is white detailed stiching on the front of the dress, and there are 3/4 length sleeves with white ribbons on them. The skirt is large and full, and Clara is wearing white stockings and medium heeled shoes.

Nightdress
Clara's second outfit is her night gown, which she spends a large majority of the film wearing. It is a light pink, long sleeved dress that goes past her knees. On the chest of the dress is white frills, and there is a band on her waist. The shoulders of the dress puff up a bit. The bottom of the dress has white horizontal stripes on it, and Clara matches the dress with white slippers.

Princess Attire
Near the end of the film, Clara transforms into the Sugar Plum Princess. Her hair becomes very volumised and wavy, and the she gains a tiara. She also wears the heart locket that Clara's ballerina Christmas tree decoration had. Clara wears a glittering pink ballet dress; the torso of the dress is pale pink and has pink straps, and the skirt is a darker shade of pink, and is puffy like a tutu. She wears white tights and pink, flat ballet shoes.

Quotes

 * "A nutcracker! He's wonderful! Thank you, Aunt Elizabeth!"
 * "This has to be a dream!"
 * "Here, let me give you a hand!"
 * "We're trying to find the only one who can defeat him, the Sugar Plum Princess."
 * "That's not true! You're risking your life to save your kingdom! Isn't that what Princes do?"
 * "I should never have come. What was I thinking? That I was going to find a magical princess?"
 * "I can't leave. I'm their only hope!"
 * "You and I know, you're much more than that... (she kisses Nutcracker) Prince Eric."
 * "This locket was supposed to take me home... but in my heart, I feel I'm already there."
 * "I couldn't say 'no' to the king."

Behind the Scenes

 * In the original story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (which Barbie in the Nutcracker is loosely adapted from), the main character was a 12 year old girl named Marie, who Clara is based on, though Clara is clearly older than 12.
 * Clara and Barbie are both voiced by Kelly Sheridan. Mattel auditioned 70 people to find the right voice for the pair, and they eventually picked Kelly Sheridan.
 * One animator was devoted to Clara's hair, ensuring it would move naturally when she dances.

Trivia

 * Clara's surname is unknown in the movie. Possibly, her last name could perhaps be Drosselmayer, for her Aunt and Grandfather share that name as well.