Ludwig von Drake theories

[That Duckfan]

In order to distinguish from the other LvD thread, which covers his genealogical connections to Donald, I was wondering: who is Ludwig? What do we know about his life? What can we infer? Couple of things.

1. I've seen it mentioned that he was from Vienna, Austria. How solidly has this been established? (see 3)

2. The prefix von suggests an aristocratic heritage (albeit one that was stripped from any real power in 1918). What do we know about this side of the family?

3. Inspiration for Ludwig was taken from a whole host of Germanic intellectuals. He famously has degrees in just about anything, but is there any side of his that sticks out?

[Scrooge MacDuck]

May 16, 2020 20:17:04 GMT That Duckfan said:

2. The prefix von suggests an aristocratic heritage (albeit one that was stripped from any real power in 1918). What do we know about this side of the family?

He hosts his Symposium on Popular Songs from his humongous family home, so there's that.

[RobbK1]

May 17, 2020 16:41:14 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

May 16, 2020 20:17:04 GMT That Duckfan said:

2. The prefix von suggests an aristocratic heritage (albeit one that was stripped from any real power in 1918). What do we know about this side of the family?

He hosts his Symposium on Popular Songs from his humongous family home, so there's that.

Is that humongous family home in Vienna, rural Austria, or Duckburg?  Maybe he's from The Tyrol?  He sometimes wears a Tyrolian hat. Although, he speaks with a heavy Viennese accent (supposedly patterned after that of Sigmund Freud.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Well, it *looks* like an Austrian castle.

[RobbK1]

May 17, 2020 17:11:32 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Well, it *looks* like an Austrian castle.

Well, Barks' Castle of The Mad Duke of Duckburg looked like a European manor.  But, I'm sure that Barks didn't place Duckburg in Europe.  On the other hand, there were no Dukes in USA (Only The Baron of Arizona) .  Don't forget that several European Castles, and the 2nd London Bridge, were taken apart, stone, by stone, and transported to USA, and then re-constructed there.  Was there no indication in the story of where that house was located?  Did The Duck family members who attended fly an airplane to get there?  - Or drive there in a car?  Or take a train or stagecoach to get there? 

[Baar Baar Jinx]

May 17, 2020 16:55:32 GMT RobbK1 said:

 Although, he speaks with a heavy Viennese accent (supposedly patterned after that of Sigmund Freud.

It's been reported that Von Drake was inspired by Sid Caesar's "Professor" character (though that character in turn may have been based on Freud. Von Drake's background in psychology seems to suggest that).

[RobbK1]

May 17, 2020 18:12:25 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

May 17, 2020 16:55:32 GMT RobbK1 said:

 Although, he speaks with a heavy Viennese accent (supposedly patterned after that of Sigmund Freud.

It's been reported that Von Drake was inspired by Sid Caesar's "Professor" character (though that character in turn may have been based on Freud. Von Drake's background in psychology seems to suggest that).

I have read in many places that his strong Viennese accent was based on Freud's.  And I even remember that being said on the 1961 Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color episode in which Ludwig was introduced.  That may have even been said by Walt in the introduction.

[Hector]

I think his DNA was somehow mutated (either because of a random chromosomal anomaly or because his rich parents paid some scientist when Miss Von Drake was pregnant) and his brain can absorb all contents of a book even if he just browses through it. That explains how he has managed to get a bazillion degrees.

[RobbK1]

May 17, 2020 20:35:21 GMT Hector said:

I think his DNA was somehow mutated (either because of a random chromosomal anomaly or because his rich parents paid some scientist when Miss Von Drake was pregnant) and his brain can absorb all contents of a book even if he just browses through it. That explains how he has managed to get a bazillion degrees.

But in the comic books, we almost NEVER see evidence that he's really a genius, and we can't know if the answers he spouts are really true facts.  All we do know is that he's an egotistical Know-It-All, who spouts out esoteric facts, which, generally, in these stories, is information that the characters don't need nor even care to hear.  Whenever he actually succeeds at helping the people is is attempting to help, he has failed, attempting it in the way he thought would work, and they are helped (or Duckburg is helped) only because of some wild coincidence.  In other words, he is generally portrayed as an egotistical, limelight-seeking braggart, who is actually a bumbler.  I think that his brain, rather than his DNA, was affected (in a negative, rather than positive, way) by a sever bump on his head, after birth.

[That Duckfan]

From another thread...

May 18, 2020 20:37:38 GMT RobbK1 said:

May 18, 2020 18:50:36 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

You seem to be forgetting the twist ending of Der Fuehrer's Face where the all-American Donald wakes up from his nightmare…

Yes, I DID forget that.  Too bad!  I very much liked the idea that an under-aged Donald worked as a spy for The US OSS, and sabotaged The WAKs' war effort - especially because ALL The US Military services turned him down. 

The blending of Donald's histories from animation, newspaper comic strips, and comic book comics causes problems for fans trying to accept any life-long timeline for Donald, when considering trying to reconcile the timing of changes in Mickey's anf Goofy's lives, and Pete losing his lower leg.  The cop-out of Pete getting a new, natural-looking prosthetic leg, isn't very satisfying, - making the Donald Duck comic book fans question any attempt to reconcile Donald's lifeprogression timeline with that of Mickey's and Pete's.

I like this take on Ludwig, more so than him being some kind of actual supergenius -- although I disagree on the 'bump on the head' part.

Another issue I've been trying to solve what you might call 'the MacDuich problem'. That is, why does Ludwig pronounce his family name in the English fashion when he clearly sounds like a first-generation immigrant. If Drake is his real German name, he should be pronouncing it something like "DRAW-ke". And he's not the kind of immigrant who would have changed his name at the border. Furthermore, Drake ought to refer to his ancestral home -- but there's no place in the German language sphere that starts with D-R-A or D-R-E. Most likely, this combination of sounds is highly unlikely to develop due to the historical growth in the language.

Luckily, I may have hit upon a solution. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the seat of the Von Drake family: Dräkely Castle, in present-day Hungary. Hungary was still a part of the Habsburg monarchy when Ludwig was born (some time at the turn of the century), and Hungary was famous for its aristocrats in the 19th century (especially those from Transylvania, though that is a different area). Maybe Ludwig's roots were originally Hungarian a long time ago, but Germanized to such an extent that they were effectively Austrian by the time of his birth?

I wonder, too, how Ludwig's aristocratic heritage reflects on his character. Aristocrats were a hunted species by the turn of the century, so they must have put up all pomp and circumstance. They sent Ludwig to all the best schools money could buy, and he played the part because he had a family legacy to uphold. Perhaps there were some famous academics in the family already? Money can buy you degrees, but it can't buy you true intelligence.

There's always been a little con artist hidden in Ludwig -- claiming to have invented something or other that obviously can't be true, including the influences on American music mentioned above. But, as long as your writing is so dense no one can challenge it, and you cover your tracks, and you have others vouch for you, you can go a long way in academia. You can go a long way anyplace.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

May 19, 2020 13:45:10 GMT That Duckfan said:

Another issue I've been trying to solve what you might call 'the MacDuich problem'. That is, why does Ludwig pronounce his family name in the English fashion when he clearly sounds like a first-generation immigrant. If Drake is his real German name, he should be pronouncing it something like "DRAW-ke". And he's not the kind of immigrant who would have changed his name at the border. Furthermore, Drake ought to refer to his ancestral home -- but there's no place in the German language sphere that starts with D-R-A or D-R-E. Most likely, this combination of sounds is highly unlikely to develop due to the historical growth in the language.

Luckily, I may have hit upon a solution. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the seat of the Von Drake family: Dräkely Castle, in present-day Hungary. Hungary was still a part of the Habsburg monarchy when Ludwig was born (some time at the turn of the century), and Hungary was famous for its aristocrats in the 19th century (especially those from Transylvania, though that is a different area). Maybe Ludwig's roots were originally Hungarian a long time ago, but Germanized to such an extent that they were effectively Austrian by the time of his birth?

That's quite good! I'd already considered the idea that historically, Ludwig's family name was Von Dräke, but that he styled it "Von Drake" without the diacritical mark after he emigrated to the U.S., but Castle Dräkely is news to me. 

May 19, 2020 13:45:10 GMT That Duckfan said:

I wonder, too, how Ludwig's aristocratic heritage reflects on his character. Aristocrats were a hunted species by the turn of the century, so they must have put up all pomp and circumstance. They sent Ludwig to all the best schools money could buy, and he played the part because he had a family legacy to uphold. Perhaps there were some famous academics in the family already? Money can buy you degrees, but it can't buy you true intelligence.

With all due respect to Rob, I think it's unfair to the guy to suppose he doesn't really have (or deserve) the degrees he hoards. My take would be that Ludwig is a satire of scholars who have memorized All There Is To Know^(TM) about this or that subject as far as university libraries are concerned, and thinks this will translate to practical ability, which it never does. Besides, a number of comics showed him actually succeeding in building various machines — it always goes wrong, of course, but more because Ludwig didn't think through the purpose of what he was building in the first place, rather than because he doesn't actually know engineering.

The Disneyland episode Fly with Von Drake included a flashback to child-Ludwig, and he seemed to reside in an ordinary house:



And of course, even if he's lying to one extent or another about how he pulled through, it's clearly the idea in Symposium that he really was broke during the Great Depression. The Austrian castle may be the ancestral home of the Von Dräkes, or it may not; but he clearly didn't have access to it in the 1920's. I would propose that the Von Dräkes had been bankrupt and disgraced for at least two generations when Ludwig was born; and he later bought the castle back from whoever owned it using the money he made as a world-renowned lecturer. 

At any rate, with his Albert-Einstein-like-ness, it's always seemed quite likely to me, and I know this is an idea shared by many other fans online, that Ludwig had Jewish roots. Which, early 20th Germany being what it was, might well explain how the Von Dräkes fell from grace, come to that. 

[crazycatlord]

I read somewhere that von Drake is inspired by the economist Ludwing von Mises (Jewish, btw).

[crazycatlord]

May 17, 2020 20:53:30 GMT RobbK1 said:

May 17, 2020 20:35:21 GMT Hector said:

I think his DNA was somehow mutated (either because of a random chromosomal anomaly or because his rich parents paid some scientist when Miss Von Drake was pregnant) and his brain can absorb all contents of a book even if he just browses through it. That explains how he has managed to get a bazillion degrees.

But in the comic books, we almost NEVER see evidence that he's really a genius, and we can't know if the answers he spouts are really true facts. 

At least in Battle of the Brains, he defeated a computer in every question; in contrast (?), in Quiz Fizzle, every business suggestion that he gave to Scrooge had bad results - but both situations are consistent with a profile "genius in knowledge and abstract reason but not in practical issues".