Arthur Cleanup

Any operation is a big deal to a four year old.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

That, too, can be interpreted in two ways: either "a four-year-old is more likely to be scared of an operation than an adult or teenager because they are young and inexperienced", or "an operation is more deadly for a four-year-old than an adult or teenager because they are small and weak." But I assume you meant the former, right?

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Both, I guess, but moreso the former.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Wait, then does that mean the Like You Would Really Do It example for "Operation: D.W.!" was valid after all? Because you're acknowledging that the operation was potentially deadly.

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I mean... no, I still don't think it's valid, since the show needs to portray it as deadly and they didn't. They only said that it's a big deal, which is vague and has more to do with D.W. being a child undergoing something scary and potentially traumatic than it does with the risk of death.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

The show needs to build up the threat of death — as in, really hype the viewer up for the risk of it — for the example to count. The fact it's debatable whether such a threat was even made means it's not valid.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

On Karmic Overkill, we have this (and it's from "Arthur's Big Hit"; I feel like we could almost make a Drinking Game from that):

The bolded part seems unnecessary to me, since it doesn't mention anything about Arthur's karma.

• In the Arthur episode "Arthur's Big Hit", Arthur hits D.W., then later Binky hits him. While it's meant to be a case of "what goes around, comes around", many viewers objected to this because Arthur didn't do anything to Binky, and the moral was meant to be "don't hit people". Not to mention that Binky only attacked Arthur because his friends demanded he do it or get kicked out of their club, which sends its own messed-up message with no one calling out Binky. Plus, many people felt that D.W. really deserved some sort of punishment for what she did, including wrecking Arthur's model airplane and then getting mad at him that it couldn't fly. Arthur probably shouldn't have hit D.W, but treating her as a Karma Houdini wasn't much better. ^note Their mom says "we'll deal with what she did", but this is never actually shown.

For every low there is a high.

I agree that the bolded part seems unnecessary. It reads more like Broken Aesop (which that episode is already listed on).

Edit: Also, I would like to bring up this... questionable entry on the show's YMMV page:

• Ensemble Dark Horse: Molly has quite a following, though mostly due to rather illicit reasons. Outside of that, there's also the "tough girl" image she has, as well as her positive relationship with her little brother James.

Molly is nine years old, so the part potholed to Perverse Sexual Lust is... iffy, to say the least. Even if it is technically true that there are some creeps out there who are attracted to her in that way, we're still not interested in documenting that sort of thing, right? (No Lewdness rule #6: "We don't need to describe children sexually. This should be cut immediately. We're not interested in hosting pedophilia fantasies. Period. If a work contains children having sex and/or sexualizes children in a titillating way, even if portrayed negatively (e.g. Kodomo no Jikan), flag it◊ as explained here."

Edited by SereneSpecter13 on Mar 8th 2023 at 10:59:07 PM

On a semi-hiatus from this site due to being busy with other things (may contribute here and there, but nothing major).

Yeah, nuke that shit, good God.

Nuked the pothole with a citation to this thread, and also sent a lewdness notifier to the troper who added it (which was back in 2013; how the heck was it allowed to stay there for that long!?).

On a semi-hiatus from this site due to being busy with other things (may contribute here and there, but nothing major).

If it was added in 2013 I doubt the original troper stands by it; they may not even be on the site anymore.

Edited by mightymewtron on May 5th 2023 at 12:30:24 PM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

From YMMV.Arthur, under Never Live It Down:

• 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 David and Jane don't do anything to stop their daughter.

For every low there is a high.

What is that example getting at? It doesn't read like an actual Never Live It Down example, it's just "DW was annoying again".

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

So this edit was just made to the YMMV page, with the added part in bold:

I mean, yeah, that's absolutely terrible, but it's not really relevant to the entry at all. I'm beginning to wonder if we should just straight up blacklist this entry (or at least blacklist Crowder) because this is far from the first time someone has shoehorned one or more of his many controversies into the Retroactive Recognition entry for him.

"Lucian, don’t be afraid, we’ll make it through this."

I'd say keep the entry, because I definitely only knew about Crowder from his pundit behavior and I'm shocked to hear he was on Arthur of all shows?!

Just leave a commented-out notice saying not to derail the entry further; it has all the context it needs that's relevant to Arthur.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Alright, removed the shoehorn and added a notice to not shoehorn mentions of his controversies and scandals into it.

"Lucian, don’t be afraid, we’ll make it through this."

I discovered this entry on the Western Animation subpage of Series Continuity Error:

• In one episode D.W.'s mother calls her by her full name: Donna Wilson. A later episode revolves around D.W. hating her full name: Dora Winifred. The latter name has been used ever since.

I don't recall seeing any episode where "D.W." was said to stand for that. Granted, I haven't seen every single episode of the show, but I also searched "Donna Wilson" on Arthur Wiki and "Arthur pbs kids donna wilson" on Google and found no references to that being D.W.'s original name.

On a semi-hiatus from this site due to being busy with other things (may contribute here and there, but nothing major).

There's this rude-as-heck example of Idiot Ball on the main trope list:

• Idiot Ball: "Arthur's Lost Dog" has Kate crying because she can't get a balloon. The only one who can figure that out is Pal; Arthur, D.W., his parents, and everyone else are completely clueless. However, it sorta had to be that way in order to have an episode. Balloons ARE a major choking hazard for babies. So you know. Not unreasonable to not give an infant one.

For every low there is a high.

Pretty much the entire second half of that entry (the part starting with "However") sounds like natter to me.

online since 1993 | huge retrocomputing and TV nerd | lee4hmz.info (under construction) | heapershangout.com

Yeah, agreed.

How's this revision look?

Dropped the Natter-y part and tried to tone down the harshness of the entry.

"Lucian, don’t be afraid, we’ll make it through this."

online since 1993 | huge retrocomputing and TV nerd | lee4hmz.info (under construction) | heapershangout.com

Alright, done.

"Lucian, don’t be afraid, we’ll make it through this."

On WMG.Arthur, there are several theories that seem to be made by D.W.-haters, or Read-parent-haters:

This child was Nadine. Of what we see of Nadine, it is very likely that she is a ghost. A likely explanation is that she was a child who was either twins with Arthur or born right after or right before him. Arthur then accidentally caused Nadine's death. This all happened before DW was born. This would explain their seemingly hatred towards Arthur for no reason. He caused the death of one of their children.

• Jossed Nadine is a squirrel while the Reads are anthropomorphic aardvarks and there's no evidence supporting the fact that Reads had four children. Plus Nadine is DW's imaginary friend!
  • Or maybe Nadine could’ve more been a soft toy, though not seen or mentioned. Just like the way in Barney & Friends, Barney the dinosaur who came to life in one’s imagination is a soft toy.

• That's pretty much self explanatory.
  • If she needed Arthur for sustenance, she wouldn't be fine running away to live without him in "D.W.'s Baby".

This is the only explanation.

• Another explanation is that Mr. and Mrs. Read know that four-year-olds just have less sophisticated brains than eight-year-olds and can be rude sometimes.
• I think your both right, it’s showing that parents are people... Yet she doesn’t get punished as much as she should. She honestly only seems to get punished when she inconveniences the two of them they didn’t punish her when she broke Arthur’s plane or when she lied about her voice still being lost both of those times involved Arthur‘s suffering (they didn’t mean to make him suffer the second time but they also refused to believe him even though DW has lied to them before.)

Season 20 gives us an episode called "Cereal," where Buster makes his own podcast. It's sort of an Unsolved Mysteries or Criminal Minds spoof, and centers on D.W.'s accusation that Arthur took her last box of Puffy Unicorn Crunch. The thing is, not only does D.W. believe Arthur did this, but so does Buster, and so do all of Arthur's friends.

Of course, this isn't the first time Arthur's friends have taken up for D.W. against him—see "Arthur's Big Hit" for instance. But at least then, Arthur had actually done something wrong. Here, he is being accused of the pettiest crime imaginable (leaving aside the whole snowball incident). One wonders why eight- and nine-year-olds would keep doing this, especially since so many of them seem to be much smarter than average.

The explanation that comes to mind is a bit of Poison Oak Epileptic Trees: D.W. is a gifted mastermind (with or without shades of Asperger's; see above WMG on that). She has somehow engineered the entire show so that even if episodes are not in her POV or make her unsympathetic, she can control them and make herself out to be a Mary Sue. This also explains why nobody ever gets older, even after "The Last Day." D.W. fears—perhaps knows—that the other characters' aging would mean her reign of terror would be toppled. Eerie.

The Heartwarming page has listed a number of moments where D.W. supposedly shows a nicer side to others, but those seem rather ingenuine considering she has no problem being mean to those same people most other times and blaming them for her own wrongdoings. She always continues being mean even after having a seeming Jerkass Realization, which might mean that she's simply a Manipulative Bitch who fakes remorse for her actions to make it seem to other people that she's a good person deep down when she's not. This is also supported by the fact that in some episodes, such as, for example, "Lost!", she apparently shows that she cares about Arthur deep down, but that also seems contradictory to the fact that she takes downright sadistic enjoyment out of making his life miserable, and in other episodes she's outright eager to get rid of him. She is actually a complete Jerkass doesn't actually care about anyone but herself, not even her parents or her supposed friends, and only does nice things to her "friends" at times so that they will do things for her in return. Also, her aforementioned concern for Arthur in "Lost!" could be interpreted as her only wanting him back so that she can continue harassing him for her own amusement, not because she actually cares for him.

The way she's portrayed in fanfics such as Proper Discipline is pretty much what she's actually like; the only reason she hasn't done anything as bad in canon as she does in such fanfics is because of Arthur's target demographic.

Seriously, she fits the symptoms of one perfectly. Lack of Empathy, Manipulative Bitch, a grandiose sense of self-worth, a Never My Fault mentality, selfishness, and chronic lying. This also opens up some Fridge Horror at how she will turn out as an adult.

It explains the parental favoritism. It's likely that Jane and Dave had bigger dreams that they had to give up to raise him.

For every low there is a high.

Do we police character hate that strongly on WMG? It's supposed to be a more lighthearted section of the wiki without much regard for logic. We usually only cut if it's like bigoted or a personal attack about real life.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

I don't think we do although guidelines on WMG are naturally looser. I'd say those entries are fine as deleting them makes it look like we are getting rid of theories we don't like.

Edited by MacronNotes on Aug 2nd 2023 at 10:51:56 AM

Macron's notes