Guess who was the REAL MANJULIKA in Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 ? - Page 3

Originally posted by: RaniPreityAish

This ended up cluing me in as well.

But very disappointed (but not surprised) to see the usual suspects deriding Kartik's character.

***SPOILERS***

He wasn't gay, he was trans. It was made clear he identified as a woman and like his sisters and even they realize he was one of them. They didn't use female pronouns for Kartik though which confused me. Kept calling Kartik "he" so I felt the film's ending would have been more impactful if Vidya and Madhuri identified him as their sister and used female pronouns.

Also Kartik was the real Manjulika, he wasn't just pretending to be her. The flashback had him reveal to his sisters that on the inside, he identified as Manjulika and that was the name he considered himself to be. Although why he took his sister's name instead of using a unique name wasn't explained. But Kartik already identified as Manjulika before becoming a ghost.

**Spolier Warning***

I don't think that's completely true. Prince Kartik's ghost used that name to play along with the rumor/legend that their father spread, which was that "Manjulika killed her brother" so the ghost used Manjulika as pseudonym after literally "possessing" the sisters to have both of them killed by the hands of modern Kartik.

This is the in-film explanation. Out of the universe explanation is that Manjulika is a common theme between all Bhool Bhulaiya films, so the villian/ghost has to use than name.

Although I completely agree that prince Kartik's character was Trans and not Gay. I am surprised that people still don't/can't understand the difference between the two in 2024. That's why we see so many ignorant comments on that character in different threads. Prince Kartik most likely identified as a woman (or maybe non-binary) but not gay.

Originally posted by: diasingh2

**Spolier Warning***

I don't think that's completely true. Prince Kartik's ghost used that name to play along with the rumor/legend that their father spread, which was that "Manjulika killed her brother" so the ghost used Manjulika as pseudonym after literally "possessing" the sisters to have both of them killed by the hands of modern Kartik.

This is the in-film explanation. Out of the universe explanation is that Manjulika is a common theme between all Bhool Bhulaiya films, so the villian/ghost has to use than name.

Although I completely agree that prince Kartik's character was Trans and not Gay. I am surprised that people still don't/can't understand the difference between the two in 2024. That's why we see so many ignorant comments on that character in different threads. Prince Kartik most likely identified as a woman (or maybe non-binary) but not gay.

***SPOILERS***

In the scene where we first learn Prince Kartik's secret, when he's at the mirror (I'll continue to use he/him pronouns since that's what the movie uses even if I feel that wasn't quite accurate) and Vidya and Madhuri see him, Prince Kartik reveals that he identifies as a woman and uses the Manjulika name. So even before he was betrayed/burnt/killed/turned into a ghost, he was using Manjulika as the name to identify as his true self.

It worked out storywise that the real Manjulika, Vidya, was blamed for Prince Kartik's death and Kartik could then use the name he already identified as for his revenge plot as well by impersonating Manjulika. But storywise, he already did mention identifying as Manjulika before that happened. It was just a brief mention though so it's easy to forget or miss.

And like you said, from a meta purpose, the name has to be Manjulika because that's the ghost in all the movies.

Unfortunately this ignorance has existed on IF for a while now. We've had users who were literally bullied here for mentioning that they use they/them pronouns and don't identify with a gender. Other users were accused of not being masculine enough because they spend their time online posting about their female favorites. And besides the transphobia, there's been plenty of homophobic comments as well like seen in the thread about Fawad Khan's show in Pakistan getting censored/banned. In all these cases, it's been one user who is always behind the bigotry. I won't mention that user's name but just by reading this thread you can probably identify them.

But I do think that BB3 added a bit to the confusion about Prince Kartik being trans vs gay by not giving him female pronouns. The performance was done very sympathetically and respectfully but the one thing missing is that choice to have Prince Kartik truly identify as a woman and be considered one by his sisters, so I do feel that needed clarification.

Originally posted by: oyebollywood

Yeah he was gay and used manjulika name to take revenge

I just want to correct you because there's been some confusion about this, but Prince Kartik was not gay. Prince Kartik identified as a woman and would be considered trans. Prince Kartik said they feel like a woman inside and feel the way Vidya and Madhuri feel on the outside. Some of the confusion is because the movie still uses male pronouns for Prince Kartik instead of female ones.

But it's made very clear when Madhuri and Vidya note that in life, Prince Kartik was trapped in a body he didn't feel was his and then he was trapped in that room as a ghost. A gay character would be attracted to men but would not identify as a woman or feel trapped in a male body. In fact, we don't even know if Prince Kartik is attracted to men or women. His sexuality is never brought up because it's not important to the story, only his gender identity. And I'm using male pronouns for him only because the movie did otherwise Prince Kartik should really be called a "she" or "her."