- “I knew it! My nose always knows!”
- ―Cinder Lumen when her daughter declares her love for Wade
Síddèr "Cinder" Lumen is a major character in the 2023 Disney/Pixar animated feature film Elemental. She's the wife of Bernie and the mother of Ember. She works as a matchmaker in her husband's convenience store, The Fireplace. She's the first to discover Ember's budding romance with Wade Ripple, a water guy and is initially convinced that Fire and Water can't be together. But by doing their reading, Cinder learns that Wade and Ember are a perfect match.
Background[]
- “Cinder Lumen is Firetown's resident matchmaker, utilizing her natural gift that allows her to smell true love in a fire person's smoke, whether they know it or not. She boasts numerous matches throughout her tenure—she's proud of her track record—but this brusque, no-nonsense, and traditional mom has yet to find a match for her daughter. ”
- ―Elemental Press Kit
Personality[]
Cinder cares very much for her family. She loves romance, can smell love, and knows if a couple is actually meant to be together. Cinder can be very traditional. When a couple she consulted kissed, she sprayed water at them and told them to "save it for the wedding." She also dreams of her daughter, Ember, finding love of her own. Yet, Cinder wishes for Ember to fall in love with a fire guy as it was her mother's dying wish and due to suffering prejudice from other elements in the past.
Because she and Bernie suffered prejudice from being fire elements since they arrived in Element City, both she and her husband did not respect non-fire elements. When Cinder noticed Ember starting to fall in love, due to her sense of her smell, Cinder grew happy and suspicious to know who Ember was dating. When she found out Ember was going out with Wade, a water element, Cinder was shocked and immediately against it; directly telling her daughter that she and Wade couldn't be together due to being different elements. However, when Wade managed to light his stick during a matchmaking session, Cinder was surprised and helped cover for Wade so her husband wouldn't find out about him. In addition, she realized that Ember and Wade truly loved each other, Cinder accepted their relationship and is now genuinely happy for them. As a result, both Cinder and Bernie get along well with non-fire elements and accept them coming into their shop, even by the time they retired.
Physical appearance[]
Cinder is an elderly woman with noticeable wrinkles under her eyes. Being a fire element, her entire body is made out of red, orange and yellow fire, forming a rather round body shorter than her family, complete with eyebrows, a small pointy nose, thick eyelashes, and eyes having a similar color scheme as fire.
Cinder's attire consists of a pair of small, magenta colored gem earrings, a black knitted shawl around her shoulders, and a necklace with a ruby pendant. She also carries a small black bag when she goes out.
When she was younger, she wore a purple dress with a crisscross design and the same ruby necklace she wears nowdays.
During the ceremony for Bernie's retirement, Cinder wears a transparent red shawl with many colorful stones on it, and still wears her gem earrings.
Trivia[]
- Like Bernie, Cinder is similar to King Triton from The Little Mermaid as both were prejudiced against a certain species for their daughters after they fall in love with one of them (humans for Triton after Ariel fell in love with Eric and non-fire elements for Cinder after Ember fell in love with Wade), until they both got over it.
- Another similarity is that both where happy when found out that their daughters were in love with someone and believed that it was another member of their respective species before finding out the truth.
- She is the second character to have the word "cinder" in her name; the first being Cinderella.
- Her name "Cinder" means "a small piece of partly burned coal or wood that has stopped giving off flames but still has combustible matter in it".
- She is also similar to The Matchmaker from Mulan, though the only difference is Cinder more nicer to her visitors than the Matchmaker was.