Arthur Cleanup

Lol, thanks. I wanted a creative opener.

Regarding "D.W. the Picky Eater," it's not that D.W.'s tantrum is abnormal for a four-year-old. It's that it doesn't line up with her previous behavior, where she'd grouse at the food and push it away. Jane and David tolerate that behavior because it's either eat what's in front of her or go hungry, implying eventually she either eats it or goes to bed.

Season one, "Arthur's Chickenpox" showed D.W. being served spinach, but she doesn't toss as huge a tantrum. Instead, she complains that Arthur isn't being made to eat spinach and accuses him of Playing Sick. Likewise, with the Hawaiian shrimp in "D.W. the Picky Eater," she complains that it's part of the Smelly Fish Food family. In "Arthur's Family Vacation," she simply refuses to eat the lobster, and even Arthur isn't thrilled about it.

D.W. was acting her age like a toddler, but past behavior shows she knows better. All she had to do was apologize, and she'd be in the clear.

Is that really What An Idiot though, or just inconsistent writing? It doesn't sound like D.W. was being an idiot, just very self-centered.

It was very stupid. D.W. could have refused to eat the salad or complained about it verbally without banging her fist. While her parents would have been annoyed, as Jane was in "Arthur's Family Vacation," they wouldn't have grounded her. Granted, in the picture book she just tosses the salad, which makes their reaction slightly more extreme to ban her from restaurant visits and have her stay at home with a stern babysitter.

The other part that was deleted is that D.W. never catches on that Arthur is manipulating her to agree to go to the restaurant. He tries for about five days straight with different schemes, and she even was suspicious that he wanted to go bike riding with her for the first one. D.W. is many things but she is not oblivious. Also, she hates being left out of things. So logically she ought to have realized, as she did in the picture book, that she needs to shape up. But instead, she waits until Arthur forces her hand by implying Grandma Thora would want to go to the restaurant without her.

you're still expecting logical and consistent behaviour from a four-year-old

Yeah, that's the thing. DW is barely even old enough to go to preschool. She's still very very young, and kids that young don't fully understand the consequences of their actions, nor do they fully have developed personalities.

On StrawmanHasAPoint.Western Animation, it says that Arthur is justified in his anger in "Arthur's Big Hit", while at the same time admitting that the actual hit was wrong. But the narrative never said that it was wrong for him to be angry.

This is on WoundedGazelleGambit.Western Animation:

• In one episode of Arthur, D.W. thoughtlessly destroys Arthur's model plane he told her multiple times not to touch. After Arthur loses his temper and punches her in retaliation, she has a Delayed Reaction before bursting into tears, indicating that Arthur didn't actually hit her that hard and she used Crocodile Tears to get him grounded.

I don’t get this entry; she was likely in shock after getting punched, which is why she didn’t cry immediately. This entry just seems like it’s trying to paint D.W. as Manipulative Bastard or something like that.

Edited by jandn2014 on Nov 1st 2020 at 2:45:20 PM

It was also probably delayed for dramatic effect, to highlight how stunned they both were that he hit her. This is borderline victim blaming logic and really discomforting.

Yeah I have a hard time believing that entry. D.W. is literally a toddler. She is not a psychopath. Cut.

I swear, the way these people talk about her, you'd think she was Rhoda Penmark.

Man, people really can't get over that one episode, can they?

Speaking of psychopaths, this entry on the YMMV page appears to be zero-context.

• Memetic Psychopath: Mr. Ratburn is something of this in-universe, but it tapers off a little as the series goes on and Arthur and his friends get to know him a bit better. By the end of season 19, the kids all admit that Mr. Ratburn is the best teacher they could ask for and that they love him.

I was on that page because I want to add this Arthur's Big Hit nonsense to Misaimed Fandom - it seems people completely missed the moral that violence isn't the answer if they keep wanting D.W. to get beaten up.

Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 1st 2020 at 9:02:04 AM

It's also misplaced and doesn't seem accurate. I'd cut it.

I cut the D.W. example, as well as two similar ones for Crocodile Tears on both the trope's page and the Arthur character page.

There's this Never Live It Down entry that's just pure complaining. Maybe it can be rewritten into an example of how the fandom genuinely exaggerates how awful D.W. is and how bad the Reads supposedly are because of the few times they aren't outright aggressive towards D.W.

• D.W. throws a tremendous tantrum in "Arthur's Perfect Christmas" when she doesn't get the toy she wanted for Christmas, and spends several minutes screaming. It's honestly quite embarrassing especially since Dave and Jane don't do anything to stop their daughter.
  • As of late, their reputation for hardly ever punishing D.W. when it's deserved has become a common criticism of both David and Jane Read.

DW doesn't even spend "several minutes" screaming. She cries for a few seconds before realizing the duck toy her mom got her is actually really cute, and then cheers up.

Honestly, the fact that people make it out to be worse than it actually is only adds support for it being a Never Live It Down moment.

"As of late, their reputation for hardly ever punishing D.W. when it's deserved has become a common criticism of both David and Jane Read."

The fact that D.W.'s parents are referred to this way makes me think a gigantic portion of this show's fanbase takes this show ridiculously deathly seriously. It's a children's cartoon on PBS Kids. These aren't real people, they're cartoons. D.W. is a toddler, not a sadistic psychopath.

I think the reason the Arthur's Big Hit episode is so despised in particular is because it became victim to what I call "Negative Online Review Syndrome." Basically, an online Caustic Critic (in this case The Mysterious Mr. Enter, who IIRC did a review of this episode) reviews a piece of media that wasn't well known before, but becomes well-known for being loathed and despised afterward largely because of that critic or critics, if it was multiple reviews. We've seen this with The Nostalgia Critic, we've seen this with The Angry Video Game Nerd, and we're seeing this with The Mysterious Mr. Enter. I believe on this wiki it's called Reviews Are the Gospel.

The reason I bring this up is because I often see complain-y entries on this wiki regarding certain pieces of media cite the aforementioned critics or other critics to back up their opinions. I don't know what to do about it, but I think we should keep it in mind. Another troper made a Sandbox for Infamous And Controversial Works, so maybe we should keep adding examples of pieces of media that were reviewed by a Caustic Critic there to help with complaining.

And keep in mind, I'm not attacking people for watching these critics, I'm just saying don't add a complain-y entry just because they said something about X piece of media. Just because someone online criticized something doesn't mean it has to be repeated here.

Sorry for the long and strongly-worded entry, I just found that wording ridiculous. Entry can be easily cut.

As a huge fan of several Caustic Critics (and a former fan of Mr. Enter), I agree that Reviews Are the Gospel is a huge problem on this wiki, especially entries made before, say, 2018 when the perspective on most of those critics started to shift to be more negative. I think the real problem occurs when other critics try to follow in those critics footsteps and just echo the same points about infamous episodes without bringing much new to the table - this was especially common in cartoon communities. I think the aggressive D.W. hate predates Enter but he's one of the people to amplify it.

I think we could definitely rewrite the Never Live It Down entries into actual Never Live It Down entries based on context from all these entries exaggerating the scenes.

Yeah if we can rewrite, we should. I admit, I was venting a bit there. Anyway, back to the cleanup.

On Awesome.Arthur, it lists every moment of D.W. being punished/told off. I highly doubt that's kosher.

Yeah no. Cut.

Another factor in this wiki’s growing hate-boner for DW.

Spotted this on ValuesDissonance.Western Animation:

• The Arthur episode "Arthur's Big Hit" ends with Arthur getting punched by Binky ^note due to peer pressure from his friends which is treated as Laser-Guided Karma (his father even outright saying so) after he punched D.W. earlier in the episode. Nowadays, if the reaction of fans is anything to go by, Arthur's parents would be seen as condescending and uncaring for responding this way to his pain, not to mention the episode has been denounced for its Broken Aesop.

This just comes off as an excuse to complain about the episode. Cut?