Recap / DuckTales (2017) S3 E7 "The Rumble for Ragnarok!"

Dewey must embrace his inner heel to beat beloved Viking wrestling champ Jormungandr.

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Tropes:

• Actor Allusion: This isn't the first Disney show to have Kristofer Hivju voice an antagonistic reptile.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In Norse Mythology, Fenrir and Jormungandr are enemies to Asgard, Odin having both of them imprisoned because he foresaw them causing Ragnarok, while he gave Hel her realm to keep her out of the way. The whole point of Valhalla was to amass an army of capable warriors to fight them (and by extension, the various giant races that antagonize Asgard). Here Jormungandr, Fenrir and Hel's Expy "Hecka" are all on the same team, the episode framing Ragnarok as something the fallen warriors are craving would happen.
• Adults Are Useless: As Scrooge explains, he didn't pick Della or Donald as his potential wrestling successors due to how difficult is to get them to cooperate with each other, preferring to train the next generation, aka Webby or one of the triplets.
• An Aesop:
  • Doing the right thing is more important than getting praised for doing it.
  • You can't force people to like you and support you, and you certainly won't win their approval if that's all that drives you. Forget about being popular, do what's right, do what comes naturally to you, and people will eventually start noticing you are worth supporting for who you are.
• Alliterative Name:
  • Scrooge has several alliterative wrestling monikers, of which "Millionaire Miser" is used the most often.
  • Webby gets called both the "Pink Predator" and "Marauder of McDuck Manor".
  • Launchpad's wrestling alter-ego is called "Captain Crash".
• Alternate History: In the DuckTales universe, what became known as professional wrestling was invented in ancient times for the tournament between Earth and Valhalla. Mundane Earth wrestling simply copied it at some point. There is a passage in the Edda where Thor wrestles with the personification of old age, an old woman, and loses, so the plot doesn't come completely from left field.
• Anthropomorphic Transformation: Jormungandr's true form is a snake so huge that he literally encircles the world (or at least does in some extra-dimensional manner). As fighting in a wrestling match would be impossible for him in this form (and extremely unfair to his opponents), he takes on a much smaller and weaker Beast Man transformation every ten years for his bout with Earth's champions.
• Apocalypse How: Upon Jormungandr's victory, the Earth will break into two, and all mortals will die honorably and enter Valhalla. Every victory Team Ragnarok gets causes the ground to crack open.
• Basilisk and Cockatrice: While accepting the tag-team challenge in the final round, Scrooge calls Jormungandr a "showboating basilisk".
• Beard of Barbarism: As implied by his name, the Viking wrestling champion Strongbeard has a large braided beard. Besides indicating its wearer's badassery, the beard itself is badass on its own right, being able to curl into fists and be used in a fight, as well as granting superhuman strength to those who touch it.
• Big Damn Heroes: Mrs. Beakley suddenly appears when it looks like Webby is going to be beaten by Jormungandr. Launchpad attempts to do this too in order to help Scrooge when Jormungandr beats Webby and Beakley, but all he ends up doing is distracting Scrooge, which leads to Jormungandr getting the upper hand and knocking them both off the ring.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Louie, to motivate a disheartened Dewey, first tells him "Let's do this"; when that doesn't work, he amends it to "Let's Dewey this."
• Bowdlerise: Hecka is quite clearly supposed to be the show's version of the Norse goddess of death, Hel, whose name has been changed for obvious reasons.
• Broken Pedestal: The pedestal for Jormungandr breaks among his fans when they realize how eager he is to beat up the far weaker Dewey.
• Call-Back:
  • Jormungandr was first mentioned in "Last Christmas!"
  • Huey mentions having his Sports Commentary badge, which he earned by commentating with Launchpad back in "The Missing Links of Moonshire!"
  • Dewey's "ChamPopular" persona and outfit is based on his "popular high school jock" outfit from his dream in "A Nightmare on Killmotor Hill!" (the same leitmotif even plays when he reveals it).
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Dewey's attempt to win the crowd by giving his lollipop to Fenrir (the wolf) backfires when someone in the crowd points out that it's bad to give candy to a canine.
  Audience Member: What are you doing? You can't give candy to a dog! What are you, a dummy?
• Captain Crash: Oddly averted with Launchpad who manages to smoothly land the plane in Valhalla, but he uses "Captain Crash" as a wrestling moniker later in the episode.
• Cerebus Callback: In "Quack Pack!", there is a quick gag about public disapproval being Dewey's one weakness, which causes him to comically lose his strength, energy and determination. This time his need for approval is Played for Drama.
• Chairman of the Brawl: Beakley uses a folding chair for her surprise attack on Jormugangdr.
• Chekhov's Gun: The strength-enhancing abilities of Strongbeard's beard get used twice. The first time, Scrooge uses it when he plucked a single hair during his match against him; the second time was when Strongbeard gave Dewey a lock in his match against Jormungandr.
• Composite Character: In Norse Mythology, Fenrir was Hel's brother. Here, he's her pet wolf, a role that was originally held by Garmr.
• Creepy Crows: The Valhalla champion Hecka is a one-eyed (because she has a half-dead face) raven with a macabre gimmick, with necromantic energy flowing around her. She's based on (or is the actual Duck-verse equivalent of) the Norse death goddess Hel, although ravens are more associated with Odin, who famously has one eye.
• Cut Your Heart Out With A Spoon: Webby ends her tirade against Jormungandr with one.
  Webby: And lastly, I will use the dust of your bones as sweetener for my tea.
• Cuteness Proximity: Webby starts cooing at Fenrir upon sight. Unfortunately, the wolf takes advantage of this to throw her out of the ring. Lampshaded by Launchpad, who dubs this the "Who's a good boy" gambit.
• A Day in the Limelight: This episode focuses on Dewey and his need for attention and approval.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: The Vikings of Valhalla see nothing wrong with Jormungandr destroying the mortal world, since it would mean that the mortals would die an honorable death and join them in Valhalla. For this reason, they see him as a hero and cheer him on. However, they also believe in fighting fair and look down on Jormungandr for beating up Dewey and gloating about it.
• The Determinator: Dewey in the final bout. It's part of what causes the crowd to come over to his side.
• Even the Dog Is Ashamed: Just like everyone else in the audience, Fenrir shows his disapproval at Jormungandr toying with Dewey for being weak. He agrees (through barks) with Strongbeard and Hecka that they should make the fight fair for the young duck.
• Everybody Has Standards: Vikings may be Blood Knights that are looking forward to the end of the world, but they are also known for their sense of honor. Jormungandr is the Face and the hero of their narrative, but they turn on him when he starts drawing out his fight with Dewey just to beat on him.
  Strongbeard: This is not the Norse way.
• Everybody Hates Hades: Played with. The death goddess "Hecka" looks creepy and she’s on a wrestling team whose goal is to destroy Earth, but she’s a wrestling Face whom the Valhallan audience loves. She’s also shown to be more honorable than Jormungandr, as she apparently disapproves of him toying with the much weaker Dewey.
• Everything's Better with Rainbows: The family flies through a rainbow to get to Valhalla, much to Webby's delight.
  Webby: Is that a barbarian with a battleaxe? They found a way to make rainbows BETTER!
• Face–Heel Turn: Discussed in the context of a wrestling match and defied. When Dewey's ChamPopular persona turns out to be unpopular with the crowd, Scrooge tries to get him to embrace his inner Heel and turn against the crowd. Dewey, wanting to be liked as a hero and not as a villain, refuses, which pays off later when Jormungandr unintentionally plays this straight during the episode's final moments.
• Fastball Special: Mrs. Beakley gives Webby one during the final fight.
• Fluffy the Terrible: Played with. The second round of Team Ragnarok features a wolf named Fenrir, and has a water dish labeled "Fenny."
• The Friends Who Never Hang: This is probably the first episode since "The Day of the Only Child!" where all three brothers are shown standing around talking to each other, without one missing or other characters around. Also the second time since "Louie's Eleven!" where Louie and Dewey are shown to address each other directly.
• Full-Boar Action: Strongbeard, one of the champions of Valhalla, is an anthropomorphic boar. He's a boisterous fighter who charges into battle, fitting the Animal Stereotype about boars.
• Furry Confusion: Fenrir, unlike the other champions, is not anthropomorphized at all - he's a giant wolf that behaves like a dog. This is despite anthropomorphic wolves being frequent background characters in the show.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Hecka's name is a comically bowdlerized version of "Hela" or "Hel", whom she is based on.
• Green and Mean:
  • Scrooge's Heel wrestling persona is dressed in all green, presumably to resemble a dollar bill.
  • Jormungandr may be a wrestling Face, but he's a Villain with Good Publicity that intends to end the world. He’s also not above using underhanded tactics to win a fight.
• Gretzky Has the Ball: Huey ends up becoming this while trying to commentate the match, and he freaks out because he doesn’t understand the terms.
• "Harmful to Pets" Reminder: Dewey gets called out for attempting to offer a lollipop to Fenrir the wolf, who chokes from the candy and spits it out.
  "What are you doing?! You can't give candy to a dog! What are you, a dummy?!"
• The Heckler: Numerous audience members jeer Team Earth during the fights.
• Heel: The Rumble for Ragnarok works like a pro wrestling match, and Earth being the away team makes the Ducks Foreign Wrestling Heels by default, so Scrooge encourages them to play heel:
  • Scrooge as the "Millionaire Miser", a Rich Bastard who demands the audience pay back taxes and is (as far the audience knows) willing to backstab his own family for the belt.
  • Dewey's attempts to become the Face "ChamPopular" backfires, as him constantly telling the crowd how much they love him makes him come of as a Narcissist heel by accident.
  • Mrs. Beakley as the "Shield Maiden" acts as an Enforcer, getting heat for fighting alongside Scrooge against the champ, but not really bothering to work the crowd up (she's more focused on the actual fight).
• Heroic BSoD: Both Huey and Dewey go into one: Huey when he realizes he doesn't know a thing about wrestling and can't do commentary on the match properly, and Dewey when his ChamPopular persona fails to gain the audience's approval. It takes a pep talk from Louie just as the world is about to end to snap them out of it.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Thanks to the Values Dissonance at play between Valhalla and Earth, Scrooge and co. are forced to act as heels where the Valhallan warriors are faces despite fighting to save the world. Dewey takes this to an extra level as he refuses to be seen as anything but a face unlike the others, despite his attempts heavily upsetting the audience.
• Hidden Depths: Launchpad’s the one that describes the wrestling roles of Jormungandr and Scrooge before stating he watches wrestling while flying.
  Huey: Wait, while?
• Horny Vikings: Averted, as none of the Vikings are shown wearing the stereotypical horned helmets (that they never had in real life). Mrs. Beakley's "Shield Maiden" persona, however, includes a winged helmet (that they also didn't have) - which is justified as being an over-the-top wrestling costume rather than a realistic armor.
• Hourglass Plot: Dewey is able to flip the crowd's opinion during his fight with Jormungandr by simply not backing down as the snake toys with him.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Dewey can’t accept playing the Heel in a wrestling match, and focuses more on winning the crowd's favor than preventing the end of the world.
• Lampshade Hanging: When Dewey notices Louie selling "Stop the Pop" shirts immediately after he makes his entrance, he asks him how he possibly could've known what character he'd make up and have T-shirts ready. Louie explains that, having grown up with Dewey his whole life, he just knew what he'd do.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: Scrooge employs this as a heel, playing as the Millionaire Miser, a greedy tax collector who takes taxes from the audience, constantly flaunts his wealth and backstabs his own allies for the belt. ChamPopular accidentally ends up being this, as Dewey expects the audience to root for him, failing to recognize that he's making himself look like an egotistical Foreign Wrestling Heel. Scrooge tells him to embrace the audience's boos as encouragement, like Webby does as she makes fun of her opponents after beating them down, but Dewey refuses to accept the fact that Valhalla doesn't like him, instead opting to pull a Heel–Face Turn.
• Meaningful Echo: Louie twice comments that he's known Dewey his entire life, first as an explanation for how he knew what his wrestling persona was going to be, and again as the beginning of a pep talk to help him get back in the fight.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Scrooge's "Millionaire Miser" persona is a nod to his original initial Carl Barks incarnation where he was often portrayed as a money-hungry villain.
  • Mrs. Beakley's wrestling costume resembles the outfit she wore in the "Maid of the Myth" episode of the original DuckTales series.
  • Launchpad being an enthusiast of pro wrestling, with some good wrestling skills of his own, was established back in Darkwing Duck.
• Noble Demon:
  • Jormungandr may want to bring the end of the world, but he honors the rules of wrestling, taking up the form of a human-sized snake-person for the fight and returning to encircle the world after he loses the match. That being said, he’s a Combat Pragmatist and he won't hesitate to use underhanded tactics to win a fight.
  • His partners as well, assuming they understand the full implications of destroying the world more than the audience does. They are fine with such destruction, and may even bend the rules when fighting, but at the same time won't abide a battle in which the opponent has no chance of winning and is mocked for it.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Jormungandr is on the receiving end of one during the final Tag Team fight by Webby and Mrs. Beakley. He is getting beaten up so bad that he has to use underhanded tactics to knock them out of the ring and eliminate them.
• "Not So Different" Remark: During the final fight with Jormungandr, Dewey realizes that his opponent craves the crowd's approval almost as much as he does. Realizing that, he decides to let go of this desire and just fight with all his strength simply as Dewey without caring about winning the crowd to his side. Which is, ironically, what leads the Valhalla audience (and more importantly the rest of Team Valhalla) to start sympathizing with him.
• Only Sane Man: Despite selling shirts to the audience that make fun of Dewey's bad reputation, Louie is the one to tell Dewey that it doesn't matter if the audience loves him or not because the entire world is at stake and his ego is nowhere near as important as that.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: You know the end of the world is coming when Louie puts an abrupt stop to his merchandising shenanigans in order to give his brothers a pep talk and snap them both out of their respective Heroic BSODs.
• Papa Wolf: Scrooge gets taken out because he pushed Dewey out of the way when someone threw a chair at him.
• Prehensile Hair: Strongbeard, one of Valhalla's champions, has a magic beard that he can curl into fists and fight with.
• Pro Wrestling Episode: The episode focuses around a wrestling match between Jormungandr's "Team Valhalla" and Scrooge's "Team Earth". Jormungandr is the Face whereas Scrooge is the Heel as the "Millionaire Miser".
• Pro Wrestling Is Real: The format of pro wrestling was actually taken from the ancient Norse ritual to fight Jormungandr and save the world. Unlike mundane pro wrestling, the Norse fight is not scripted and has actual stakes.
• Produce Pelting: The crowd would throw garbage and chairs at the Heel or anyone else they dislike.
• Resolved Noodle Incident: In "Last Christmas!", Scrooge casually mentions that his duties include keeping Jormungandr at bay, as a throw-away gag. This episode elaborates on what that entails.
• Savage Wolves: Fenrir is a ferocious (non-anthropomorphic) wolf that fights for Team Valhalla.
• Seemingly Hopeless Boss Fight: Dewey's fight with Jormungandr plays out this way. Jormungandr is wiping the floor with him and taunting him for being too weak. And yet Dewey still gets up and goes at him, determined to save the world and his family. All this prompts the audience to turn against Jormungandr and the serpent's team-mates to help Dewey out by granting him the strength to beat his opponent.
• Shout-Out:
  • During Webby's stalling, she introduces her fists as "Lady Haymaker" and the "Duchess of Whaling", the same names that Sylvia has for her fists. (Co-creator Francisco Angones was a writer on Wander.)
  • The audience break out into an impromptu version of the main riff of "We Will Rock You" by banging on the bleachers.
  • A fighting tournament with Earth's champions saving the world by defeating superpowered warriors and gods is the basic premise of Mortal Kombat.
  • There are numerous references to professional wrestling throughout the episode.
    • Scrooge's pro wrestling persona "The Millionaire Miser" is a homage to "The Million Dollar Man" Ted Di Biase. Jormungandr plays air guitar at one point like Hiroshi Tanahashi. Ms. Beakley even hits a Stone Cold Stunner at one point.
    • Hecka's costume and elaborate entrance are an homage to The Undertaker; she even does The Undertaker's famous "zombie sit-up" spot.
    • Before Launchpad and Huey take over the commentary, we briefly see an announcer that's a dead ringer for Gorilla Monsoon.
    • Dewey's sunglasses and haircut as "ChamPopular" resembles a young Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Like Johnson's initial character "Rocky Maivia" ChamPopular fails to get over with the crowd and Dewey only manages to win over the audience after he embraces being a heel.
    • Jormungandr sometimes ends his sentences with a brief "uh" when he's speaking to the audience is similar to Triple H's manor of speaking.
    • Strongbeard's massive, muscular frame, long hair and pastel-colored ring gear gives him a similar look to the Ultimate Warrior.
    • The crowd chants "This is awesome!" early in the episode.
  • A reference to Norse Mythology: "Hecka" is an obvious family friendly version of Hel. Hecka being a one-eyed raven also links her to Odin.
  • The final shot of Dewey and Scrooge facing off in their wrestling personas is a homage to the ending of Rocky III.
• Shown Their Work: The writers had to do a lot of research to make sure everything about wrestling in this episode is accurate.
• Skewed Priorities: All the kids have this to a degree.
  • Dewey is concerned about the crowd liking him and focuses more on that than the battle at hand.
  • Louie is busy making a profit, selling merchandise to the crowd. Granted, he does drop everything once team Earth is actually close to losing and goes to snap his brothers out of their funks so they can focus on winning.
  • Huey is also upset the crowd doesn't like his commentary and prefers Launchpad's, obsessing over not doing it well.
  • Even Webby, who is far more focused than the rest of the kids, has her moment where she allows herself to fall for Fenrir's cuteness, cuddling and petting him, allowing the wolf to sucker-punch her.
• Snake People: Jormungandr's mundane form is an anthropomorphic snake with a muscular body, arms and legs, which makes him look more like a Lizard Folk than a snake.
• Snakes Are Sinister: Jormungandr, the world-encircling sea serpent, is the Villain of the Week.
• So Proud of You: Scrooge tells this to Dewey for defeating Jormungandr and finally learning what's most important.
• Stealth Pun: Dewey names his face persona "ChamPopular" because his gimmick is always sucking on a lollipop. In pro-wrestling jargon, a "pop" is when the crowd cheers in support of a wrestler, exactly what Dewey was fishing for.
• Stock Money Bag: Scrooge uses one of these as part of his wrestling costume. He uses it to collect back taxes from the audience.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: Scrooge asks the kids which of them will be the "next champion of Earth".
  Scrooge: Which of you will it be? Webby? Huey? Louie? [beat] Webby?
  Dewey: You're saving my name for last, right? For dramatic effect?
  Scrooge: Yes... that.
• Swapped Roles: Huey and Launchpad's dynamic from "The Missing Links of Moonshire" is reversed here, with Huey being completely ignorant about commentating for professional wrestling and Launchpad being the knowledgeable expert who is able to give better commentary. Huey has a brief moment of panic when he realizes this.
  Huey: Am I the Launchpad?
• Tag Team: Well, it's a wrestling episode so that's to be expected. The second match is explicitly said to be one, but also notable is Mrs. Beakley and Webby teaming up to give Jormungandr a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• Third-Person Person: Louie briefly falls into this upon noticing an aspect of their current adventure that speaks very much to him personally.
  Louie: Hmm... merchandizing. Guess Louie knows what Louie's doing today.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: In Norse mythology, Jormungandr, Hel and Fenrir are siblings, the three children of the god of mischief Loki and the giantess Angrboda. Here, there's no indication as to whether or not the three of them are related.
• Unsportsmanlike Gloating:
  • After beating up Strongbeard, Webby taunts him to help get the audience to boo her. She also does this to Jormungandr to stall him, which the audience agrees was too far.
  • Jormungandr doing this to Dewey is part of the reason why he loses the audience's support.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Jormungandr is the beloved people's champion that the deceased Vikings of Valhalla love, as in their view him winning just means everyone on Earth will be able to join them in Valhalla after dying a "glorious" death. From Earth's point of view, however, he's a monster who will bring the end of the living world if he wins. By the end of the episode, however, he loses his popularity among the Valhalla crowd too due to being too mean to an underdog like Dewey, not respecting the boy's determination, etc.
• The Voiceless: Hecka never speaks during the episode.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • Jormungandr pulls no punches fighting Dewey, which causes his fans to turn on him. He and Hecka don't hold back when fighting Webby, either; no one had a problem with that though, because it's Webby.
  • An audience member throws a chair at Dewey for telling them off for booing Scrooge.
• You Were Trying Too Hard: When Dewey tries to turn the crowd in his favor, they're repulsed by his pandering and gimmicks. When he simply resolves to focus on the actual fight, his determination impresses them.

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