One thing bothers me in Don Rosa's stories.

[marco996]

Don't take me wrong, I love some of Rosa's stories (Life and Times especially, and early Donald vs Jones stories!)

But, what I don't like is how he makes Donald a wimp much more than other authors, and how other characters mistreat him:

Look at these situations, I might name it abuse!

Even aunt Matilda who didn't see him in 20 years participates in the physical abuse! and his nephews do nothing to defend him! I don't find this funny.






Compare with Carl Barks, where there is not much power difference (we don't count financial power of course!) between Scrooge and Donald:


In Barks stories, even if Donald receives a kick or a punch from any character (Scrooge, Daisy...), he doesn't take %%%, he defends himself.
Here for examples, he doesn't let Scrooge outpower him:


What happened to Donald all this time?? Did Don Rosa want to just make him the butt of the joke??






Compare this with this. In Rosa's stories, Donald is scared to speak his mind to his uncle, while in Bark's stories, he will knock his uncle to common sense!!

Bark's version of Donald.                              Don Rosa's version of Donald.  (Big difference huh?)









So I must say I'm quite satisfied when I see other authors give Donald a strong personality believe me:
Here:                                                                                                                                                       
      
Or here:





What do you think guys??

[Baar Baar Jinx]

DuckTales '17 (especially the IDW comic version) similarly presents Donald as everyone's punching bag. I think there's a degree of political correctness involved here; the young adult male must be the one to whom all bad things happen, he can't fight back, physically or verbally, against the elderly (Scrooge, Matilda), kids (HD&L) or women (Della). 

[Orora]

Political correctness makes for terrible writing...

[thadwell]

I'm not sure if it's a political correctness thing so much as it's bad characterization—the former was never an issue in Keno's stories. I love the point that in those wonderful early Barks stories that Donald gives it as good as he gets it, which is why I adore them. And I agree: the overly-cowardly/subservient DD in Rosa stories is certainly one reason I don't like them very much.

[thadwell]

I should also add that Rosa is so beholden to the concept of Donald never being able to put one over on Scrooge that he "rewrote" history in at least one instance. In "The Money Pit", he recalls that 1951 dime story as if it ended with Donald flooding the market with Scrooge's rare coins and rendering them worthless—disregarding the real ending where, yes, Donald does put one over on Scrooge by finding an even rarer coin in that pile. Not sure why he's never been called out on this, especially since it's easily his most sanctimonious story.

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Nov 29, 2017 20:52:45 GMT Orora said:

Political correctness makes for terrible writing...

I couldn't agree with you more. Barks was never one to let political correctness get in the way of biting social satire, and we have that to thank for the gems he produced. I wonder, though, how much he'd be able to get away with in today's hypersensitive environment (to be clear, I'm not referring to the inarguably problematic and dated representations of indigenous populations in stories like "Darkest Africa" or "Voodoo Hoodoo", but his more subtle observations of interpersonal dynamics based on class, gender, etc). 

[Minotaur]

I agree with thadwell. Don Rosa doesn't feel like a person who would write for political correctness. He views Donald as a-- well, I don't want to use this word if I could think of anything better -- loser, as we have seen in the last two Donald story. They feel more or less similar with those movies when the main character failed in everything at the beginning of the story.

[Matilda]

Rosa does let Donald be heroic occasionally, as in Xanadu. And he does have HDL appreciate Donald--in ways that some readers complain of as too sentimental (e.g. end of Super Snooper Strikes Again--but at the end of WHADALOTTAJARGON, the sentiment is cut humorously by Donald being blown up in his chair again, so then readers might complain of Donald's mistreatment....).

Yes, his stories are often very hard on Donald, but I've seen the same pattern in stories by several other writers...not even counting the last four DuckTales comics stories, with the new formula of Della/Donald/Scrooge adventures that leaves Donald in some unpleasant/painful state.

And yes, it's not about Political Correctness, which is (at least in the USA) a phrase more useful for polemical slapping-down than for clarifying discussion.

I don't think it's a matter of the young male character being the only allowable victim. I think it's more a matter of Donald being the Everyperson, who has to put up with all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that the typical (non-rich) person has to endure.

On Matilda in A Letter from Home-- I'd say that spanking bit probably originally was assigned to Hortense, and then transferred to Matilda when Rosa wasn't allowed to use Hortense. I myself don't find it funny in either case, but it would have made a bit more sense if it had been Donald's mother. I'm generally in the anti-corporal-punishment camp, so the one story by Rosa that I don't like is Metaphorically Spanking. I'm not righteously judgmental about this, I just don't find it funny.

I think the Scrooge/Donald dynamic in Rosa's stories is well worth discussing. It doesn't much bother me personally that Rosa's Donald doesn't win in face-to-face battles with Scrooge, because Rosa makes it clear that Donald "wins" in a deeper sense, by having family in a way that Scrooge envies. At the same time, I like the fact that I can balance the Rosa Scrooge/Donald dynamic in my headcanon with stories by others where Donald does sometimes get the better of Scrooge (Barks, Halas & Rota's Wonderwool, etc.).

[marco996]

I also wanna add that in Barks stories, actions of Scrooge towards Donald are actually funny. It's their momentum, their dialogue that make me laugh and NOT feel bad for Donald, because in these situations it's not abuse:

-Here Scrooge tells to Donald to hurry up because seconds ago he said they will go on an adventure to Alaska in 20 minutes! It's hilarious!


Here Scrooge wants Donald to have an important position in one of his companies, but Donald just wants to sit reading comics all day:

[Minotaur]

Rosa made Donald the hero more often than not, even when Scrooge is the title character: Dutchman's secret, the dream of a lifetime, a letter from home, Kalevala, etc. The problem is, he seems to fall into the formula of "a nobody becomes the hero and saves the day", such as his three caballeros stories. I'm not saying this is not OK, it is actually nice to consider character development in each story. But he's trying too hard and sometimes a bit off. For example, his Donald is more level-headed/capable than arguably any other versions of Donald (despite PK & Doubleduck), yet he suffers from misfortune quite frequently, which feels unfair.

Another thing is, Scrooge's power as the richest man in the world has been toned down quite a bit in the story. You can see other characters give him what he deserves without worrying about the consequence. He's not going to destroy anyone who dares to disobey his will. If Donald is afraid of Scrooge for his power... that would make me feel Scrooge is not as decent as I would like to believe.

[Minotaur]

Nov 30, 2017 7:19:21 GMT marco996 said:

I also wanna add that in Barks stories, actions of Scrooge towards Donald are actually funny. It's their momentum, their dialogue that make me laugh and NOT feel bad for Donald, because in these situations it's not abuse:

-Here Scrooge tells to Donald to hurry up because seconds ago he said they will go on an adventure to Alaska in 20 minutes! It's hilarious!


Here Scrooge wants Donald to have an important position in one of his companies, but Donald just wants to sit reading comics all day:

Yeah, I remember when I read Scrooge chases Donald across half a city to make him his heir I laughed out loud, but if you put the same plot in Rosa's story, illustrated by his art, it would feel too realistic to be funny. It's the problem of the sytle.

[marco996]

Nov 30, 2017 7:37:34 GMT Minotaur said:

Yeah, I remember when I read Scrooge chases Donald across half a city to make him his heir I laughed out loud, but if you put the same plot in Rosa's story, illustrated by his art, it would feel too realistic to be funny. It's the problem of the sytle.

Can you remind me in which stories Scrooge has a group of dogs to chase Donald??
That's the genius of Barks, Scrooge uses dogs to chase Donalds (a bad thing!), but it's for Donald's benefit as he wants to make him heir and responsible for all his money later (a good thing!)

[Hector]

Scrooge/Donald relationship in Rosa's stories is nowhere near as bad as in Martina's.

[Minotaur]

Nov 30, 2017 8:44:52 GMT marco996 said:

Nov 30, 2017 7:37:34 GMT Minotaur said:

Yeah, I remember when I read Scrooge chases Donald across half a city to make him his heir I laughed out loud, but if you put the same plot in Rosa's story, illustrated by his art, it would feel too realistic to be funny. It's the problem of the sytle.

Can you remind me in which stories Scrooge has a group of dogs to chase Donald??
That's the genius of Barks, Scrooge uses dogs to chase Donalds (a bad thing!), but it's for Donald's benefit as he wants to make him heir and responsible for all his money later (a good thing!)

Oh no, I didn't mean Scrooge has a group of dogs to chase Donald! They run across the city on foot. Sorry I really can't remember which story it is, but Barks wrote it for sure.

[rasterax]

Good point about the art. Rosa's Donald really looks as if he's in pain/suffering/scared, which makes it come off much harsher.
Rosa's Donald really buys into his image as a loser and is constantly self-concious in a way he rarely is with other writers. This lets Rosa really indulge in his sentimental streak every so often, but it doesn't always work for me - what made Rosa's stories really stand out is his combination of off-the-wall humor and unabashed emotion, both rarely seen in Disney comics, and it can be incredibly effective. But his portrayal of Donald is quite limited, and among the worst sufferers of the self-indulgence and Flanderization of his late-period work. (Barks' Donald isn't as clearly defined and can shift personalities quite wildly depending on the story, but he's too proactive and driven to let himself get down for too long.) The one "depressed Donald" story that really works, IMO, is "The Duck Who Never Was", but that is helped by the framework of the Wonderful Life parody and being a special anniversary story, and just generally by being made during Rosa's peak years, where nearly everything he did was great.

(I also don't care for how much he is being pitied by the nephews in Rosa's stories. They spend pages in the Super Snooper and Cabelleros stories lamenting how pathetic his life his, without a shred of concern for themselves. Contast Barks' No Such Varmint, where they only really care about Donald having a career because they want to feel good about themselves. Rosa's idea of the nephews that they must be constantly flawless and morally superior is okay when it's played for laughs, but becomes quite annoying put in a dramatic context.)