A Broken Heart
is a Hey Arnold! fanfic written by Flowerprincess 11.
An alternate ending to TJM where Arnold and Helga don't get together. Six grade begins and Helga tries to move on from Arnold and deal with her broken heart. At the same time, a new student joins their class and he won't leave her alone. Now Helga has to deal with some guy who may be more than meets the eye... How will Arnold react to this?
This story has examples of:
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: This story focus on the premise of Arnold not returning Helga's feelings at the end of TJM and Helga dealing with heartbreak as a result.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Averted. People ASSUME that this is the reason that Helga wants to date Drake, who used to be a delinquent but has turned over a new leaf. However, Helga insists that Drake isn't bad and she is more attracted to his kinder, more sensitive side underneath all of his bravado, than his "bad boy" traits.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Once word on his past is revealed, people begin alienating Drake.
- Alternate Universe Fic: This story's follows this premise:"What if Arnold and Helga DIDN'T get together at the end of TJM?".
- The Atoner: Drake seeks to be a better person out of guilt for his actions.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Between Helga and Drake.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Arnold is usually the nicest person possible, but he's not someone you want as an enemy.
- Birds of a Feather: Drake and Helga find that they have more in common than initially believed. Such as being sarcastic, troubled kids who want to move on with their lives.
- Broken Ace: Helga.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Helga immediately calls out her parents for insisting that never seeing Drake again is for her own good when they barely care enough to even remember her name half the time.
- Character Development: The theme of this story is Helga truly trying to move on from Arnold and try and find an identity outside of him.
- Crazy Jealous Guy:
- Arnold, who becomes jealous of Drake and Helga's relationships, is letting jealousy turn him against his better judgement.
- Despite his relationship with Helga, Arnold's presence and past friendship with her make Drake rather suspicious of him.
- Dark and Troubled Past: It's reveal that Drake used to be an even worse delinquent than Helga was and at one point, even joined a gang. His actions resulted in someone being sent to the hospital after a prank went wrong, which he confessed to and was sent to military school, where he decided to change for the better.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: Bob finds out about Drake's past and forbids Helga from seeing him.
- Deconstruction Fic: This story deconstruction many tropes and elements from the original cartoon, especially about Arnold:
- Master of the Mixed Message - Oblivious to Love: At the end of the second film, Arnold and Helga admit their feelings to each other and have their Relationship Upgrade. It was also implied that Arnold knew about Helga's feelings for him (due to her confession from the first movie), but both were not ready and just pretended the confession was in the heat of the moment. However, in this story, it appears that either Arnold forgot about the confession or genuinely thought the confession was in the heat of the moment, so instead of getting together with Helga, he tells her that she is a good friend, unwittingly friend-zoning her. Unsurprisingly, Helga was heartbroken over this and the fact that after all she had been through, she was just friend zone by her crush.
- After spending the summer dealing with her heartbreak, she tried to move on and distance herself from Arnold while trying to find an identity outside of him. Helga eventually managed to somewhat succeed in this and even find a new boyfriend named Drake Sanchez. However, not understanding that he hurt Helga and wondering why she became distant from him, Arnold remained in the dark and still acted like their best friends and nothing wrong between them. Eventually, Arnold gets into a conflict with Drake, not trusting him despite him not doing anything to provoke him (partially due to Voz's influence), and remains hostile towards him, but even Arnold admits to Gerald he does not know why he distrusts Drake so much. It becomes apparent to Arnold and Helga's close friends and Arnold's family that Arnold does have feelings for Helga, and he just did not know it at the time. This all but destroys their friendship, especially in chapter 86, where Helga finally tells Arnold her feelings for him and ends their friendship, pointing out that they are not friends and that he broke her heart. Things get worse when later, when arguing with Helga about throwing away her locket, he kisses her, something he realizes was wrong with her having a boyfriend even if he can't stand her boyfriend.
- Helga's family is also shown to be deconstructed in this story. Despite her family being dysfunctional, her parents Big Bob and Miriam being neglectful to her at best and abusive at worst (those never physically). And older sister Olga being favored over her but choosing to be oblivious to their family problems by ignoring them, her family has shown that they care for Helga. Helga does appreciate the moments when they show that they care for her. Unfortunately, in the show, those moments, while genuine, don't last, were few and far between, and the family's dysfunctional continued to be a problem with things never really improving. The jungle movie left Helga's family close to homeless because Bob's beeper business has taken a fatal nosedive due to the rise of cell phones, causing the family to lose their fortune and their home. It reaches the point where they are forced to live in the beeper store, and again, Helga's parents show they care without improving. Their negative traits continue to be a problem in this story, and ultimately, Helga's relationship with her family collapses. Helga is already dealing with her heartbreak with Arnold and her new relationship with Drake; she is sick of her father's obsession with restoring his business when it is clear that he is delusional and needs to switch to a better product as his current business has failed. Her relationship with his mother and sister is not better as Miriam is still an alcoholic, and Olga is still unwilling to accept the reality of her family's financial problems and acts as though everything is perfect.
- The breaking point comes when they learn of Drake's past as a delinquent and forbid Helga from seeing him with Olga supporting their decision. Helge, in outrage, points out that they barely cared enough to remember her name half the time and doesn't hesitate to call them out on their own mistakes. This was also the final straw, and Helga decides to continue the relationship, not caring if she damaged or destroyed her relationship with her family.
- It is especially jarring seeing that Helga's father, Big Bob, was not concerned for her safety. He was more concerned about how his daughter dating a former delinquent would affect his image, while Miriam and Olga were genuinely concerned for her. Still, they do not listen to Helga's side of the story and only insist that she breaks up with Drake.
- Helga, due to all the problems she has dealt with and furious with her family, does not try to get them to understand her view and gives up on having a relationship with her family.
- Master of the Mixed Message - Oblivious to Love: At the end of the second film, Arnold and Helga admit their feelings to each other and have their Relationship Upgrade. It was also implied that Arnold knew about Helga's feelings for him (due to her confession from the first movie), but both were not ready and just pretended the confession was in the heat of the moment. However, in this story, it appears that either Arnold forgot about the confession or genuinely thought the confession was in the heat of the moment, so instead of getting together with Helga, he tells her that she is a good friend, unwittingly friend-zoning her. Unsurprisingly, Helga was heartbroken over this and the fact that after all she had been through, she was just friend zone by her crush.
- Disappeared Dad: Drake's father abandoned his family when Drake was 4 years old.
- Everyone Has Standards
- In chapter 74, Overcoming Sort Of, Arnold discovers that Helga's family has moved out of their house and into one of his dad's beepers stores. When Voz told Arnold that Helga does not live there anymore because of the work of "a stubborn, prideful idiot," Arnold automatically assumes that Voz is referring to Drake. However, Voz, annoyed with Arnold, told him that even Drake couldn't do that much damage quickly, and he was actually talking about Helga's father, Big Bob. Even though Voz is obsessed with taking down Drake, even he was annoyed that Arnold jumped to that conclusion.
- In chapter 80, Meddling and Fights, Arnold's parents may not have a positive opinion of Drake, mainly because of learning about his past, Arnold's biased opinions, and their concern that he could hurt Helga. However, they were shocked when Helga told them that her father threatened to beat Drake up and when Bob confirmed that he indeed did so, they angrily chastised him for threatening a child and dealt with him themselves.
- In chapter 86, Arnold vs Helga Part II, when Helga and Arnold were arguing about Drake, Helga pointed out that Arnold got along with most people that wrong him in the past and asks why Drake is so different. When Arnold realizes that she was right, he fires back and says: And look where acting like that got us, Helga?! That kind of thinking nearly cost us our lives in San Lorenzo. I'm not letting bad people like Drake ever get close to the people I care about ever again!. Helga, after registering what he said, angrily retorted, You did not just compare Drake to LaSombra. As angry as he was, and despite his obsession with proving Drake is a bad guy, even Arnold had to admit that is a little too extreme of an accusation since, in Arnold's opinion, no one is as bad as LaSombra.
- While arguing with Helga about throwing away her golden locket with his picture in it in chapter 94, Arnold unexpectedly kisses Helga. In chapter 95, when Arnold realizes what he was doing, he is shocked; Arnold admits to himself it is wrong to kiss Helga when she has a boyfriend even though he can't stand her boyfriend.
- Freudian Excuse: Drake came from a broken home after his father abandoned him. His original behavior was him acting out from it. Currently, he still has a temper but is actively trying to not let what happened control him anymore.
- Foil: Arnold is an old friend of Helga's who unwittingly broke her heart when he rejected her. Drake is a new guy who quickly became her boyfriend. Even their pasts are a contrast, Arnold has always been a Nice Guy while Drake is a former delinquent.
- Heel–Face Turn: Drake already went through it back in the fourth grade after his prank on Gwen resulted in her being sent to the hospital. While he has long since turned away from his trouble making days, circumstances make it hard for him to stay clean.
- I Hate Past Me: Drake really regrets his past as a delinquent and is genuinely trying to become a better person.
- Innocently Insensitive: Arnold, of all people, seems to have trouble grasping that Helga doesn't want to be Just Friends with him and it takes 87 chapters and Helga to spell it out to him that he broke her heart.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Drake
- Let's Just Be Friends: Helga sees Arnold calling her his friend after the events San Lorenzo as this trope, which breaks her heart and kick-starts the plot.
- Lovable Jock: Drake is on the same soccer team that Helga later joins.
- Love Triangle: Between Helga, her former crush Arnold and current boyfriend Drake.
- Never My Fault: Surprisingly, Arnold has this attitude as he blames Drake for Helga's distance from him following the events from San Lorenzo.
- Original Character: Drake Sanchez is a new student that joins Arnold's and Helga's class at the start of sixth grade.
- Positive Friend Influence: Oddly enough, with the exception of Arnold (and prior to discovery), most of their classmates think Drake has this influence on Helga.
- Reformed Bully: Drake does not want to be the bad kid anymore.
- Reformed, but Not Tamed: Drake has difficulty letting his temper get the better of him.
- Second Love: Drake seems to be slowly becoming this for Helga.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: During Drake and Helga's one month anniversary, Helga decides to doll herself up by giving herself a makeover, as in wearing makeup, fixing her eyebrows and making her hair into a more flattering style. The end result is that everyone is amazed by how good she looks...including Arnold.
- Trauma Button: Arnold has become this to Helga after he rejected her in San Lorenzo.
