“It is an honor to protect my country and my family.”

“So you’ll die for honor?”

Honor is a recurring theme in Mulan’s world.  Twice in the movie, Mulan directly challenges the concept of honor voiced by the people around her.  The first time is quoted above, when she can’t stand that her crippled father will ride to war and certainly die: so she takes his horse and armor and rides to war instead.  The second time, when the meager remainder of the recruits from Wu Zhong prepares to fight the massive Hun army, Shang comforts them:

“If we die, we die with honor.”

Again, Mulan thwarts this outcome by grabbing the last cannon and causing an avalanche that wipes out most of the Huns.

But the impression that Mulan doesn’t care about honor is wrong.  Honor means a great deal to her.  Her objective early in the movie is to bring honor to her family, especially her father; she tries to achieve this by playing the part of a model bride, but fails and disappoints her family.  When her father tells her in public that she’s dishonored him, it hurts all the more because earlier, he was patient and reassuring about her failure with the matchmaker.

Essentially - honor has a different meaning for Mulan than it does for the people around her.  And Mulan’s concept of honor has multiple levels to it: a narrower personal one, where honor is equated with her family’s pride and contentment; and a broader sense of honor that tells her that sending a crippled man to war is no honor at all.  

One, somewhat universal aspect of the idea of honor is the nobility of bowing gracefully to the inevitable.  But in the cases quoted above, Mulan refuses to recognize the outcome as inevitable and she does not bow to circumstances.  She joins the army feeling that to save her father’s life will have been honor enough for her, though she also hopes that she’ll die honorably - in (likely her first) battle, as opposed to the dishonor that would come with being executed if it was discovered she was a woman.  But as we already know, she returns home with more honor - both physical honors and personal achievement - than she could have dreamed of.