7. Pepa Madrigal - The Cast of Encanto and their Archetypes

Archetype: The Storm / The Emotionally Expressive One / The Somatic Empath

Pepa embodies the archetype of emotional transparency—her internal state is literally mirrored by the weather. She is the Somatic Empath, someone whose body expresses what others work hard to repress. In the Madrigal family, this makes her both an outlier and a lightning rod. While her magic is visually dramatic, the real tension lies in her emotional vulnerability: her feelings are too much, too unstable, too exposed. In this way, she often becomes the scapegoat for the family’s collective discomfort with emotional intensity.

In Jungian terms, Pepa channels aspects of The Storm—a symbolic archetype linked to transformation, disruption, and the release of repressed material. She also edges toward The Orphan archetype, carrying the pain of being misunderstood and dismissed. Her presence reminds others that emotional chaos is part of the human experience, even as the family tries to minimize or pathologize it.

In Internal Family Systems (IFS), Pepa often seems blended with a Firefighter part—reactive, quick to discharge feelings, attempting to avoid deeper vulnerability by externalizing distress. She is not emotionally unstable so much as emotionally overexposed in a system that lacks co-regulation. Félix, her husband, plays the grounding Self-like Part in their relational dynamic, consistently helping her co-regulate rather than suppress.

Through the lens of the 7 Inner Child Archetypes, Pepa represents The Emotional Child—a part often punished for being “too much” or for disrupting harmony. This child learns to brace for impact, to fear their own intensity, and to internalize shame about emotional reactivity. Pepa hasn’t rejected this part—she lives from it. But that vulnerability is never fully embraced by the family until late in the film.

Pepa’s evolution is subtle but vital. She does not need to become less emotional—she needs to be witnessed without judgment. Her weather doesn't need to be controlled; it needs to be understood. In this light, her story offers a lesson: the path to emotional regulation is not suppression, but compassion. True family healing begins when every emotional forecast is allowed to pass through without shame. Pepa’s weather reflects her emotional state—an embodiment of dysregulated emotion and somatic expression. She plays the role of The Feeler or Emotional Container in a family, often scapegoated for her instability. In trauma-informed frames, she mirrors the part that carries emotional reactivity on behalf of the system.