Post by TheMidgetMoose on Oct 29, 2020 1:46:20 GMT
Well, I've only read a handful of Brigitta stories (by which I mean stories featuring Brigitta, not necessarily storeis which focus on her), so I don't feel like I have quite as good of a grasp on her character and relationship with Scrooge. I've also expressed that my headcanon is that Scrooge and Goldie do end up marrying sometime in the hypothetical future of the Duckverse. Thus, my vote goes to Goldie, but I will point out that I have considered before that Romano Scarpa's stories might exist in a separate universe from Barks's and Rosa's stories in my headcanon. With that mind, both could be a spouse of Scrooge. Goldie would marry the Scrooge of the Barks/Rosa Universe, while Brigitta marries the Scrooge of the Scarpa Universe.
No matter what I say or do, know that Jesus loves you.
In the Dick Kinney/Al Hubbard-verse, Belle Duck would be in the running, too. Honestly, I think old McDuck is too set in his ways to marry anyone. Having Donald, Daisy, Gladstone, Grandma Duck, Gus Goose and the nephews around probably satisfies his need for someone else to talk to, without boxing him in to a marital relationship, which would require more of his time that he probably wouldn’t want to give up anyways. Money and family are what he wanted most, and he’s got them. Although if you asked him about it, he’d quickly and abruptly shoo you out of his office, as he doesn’t have time to sit around discussing all this sentimental rubbish. “There’s money to be made and businesses to run, so get lost!”
I agree with both Deb and The Moose. Scrooge is not husband material. If he were to marry, though, he would only marry Goldie in Rosa's world and could conceivably marry Brigitta in Scarpa's. I thoroughly dislike the character of Brigitta as she is portrayed in her beginnings, as the "romantic" stalker, a trope I find quite unfunny. If I had read more recent Italian stories where she is more of a capable businesswoman with business-related motivations, not just a crazed stalker with no learning curve, I might feel differently about her. But I can't get over my dislike of her original depiction, so she's not real in my headcanon and I generally don't seek out stories featuring her.
In Rosa's world, I get the impression that Scrooge could only go off with Goldie if he "retired" from managing his gazillions...which maybe I can imagine him doing in his 90's.
I have a rather limited knowledge of Brigitta. But I guess she's kind of the Charlie Kelley to Scrooge's Waitress of the Duck universe - she's been obsessed with him for years. Obsessions like that never end well.
However, with Goldie it's the other way around - here it seems like Scrooge is the obsessed one. The thing is that even though they spent a month together 50 years ago, they haven't really interacted too much in later years. A lot of personal development happens in 50 years! So they don't really know each other; any potential love for each other is them merely being in love with the idea of the other.
In the end I don't think any of these pairings are healthy for the characters. However, out of the two options, Goldie is the clear winner, as Goldie at least recuperates Scrooge's feelings. Both participants are happy, whereas Scrooge would hate being with Brigitta... if I understand their relationship correctly.
Both participants are happy, whereas Scrooge would hate being with Brigitta... if I understand their relationship correctly.
I don't think you really do. Obviously different authors have written her differently over the years, but there's been tons and tons of stories pretty heavily focused on the fact that they'd genuinely have a happy marriage if Scrooge would just get over his pride and admit his true feelings (which is generally a theme in the Goldie stories too).
Both participants are happy, whereas Scrooge would hate being with Brigitta... if I understand their relationship correctly.
Welll… that was the case in the early Brigitta stories, when she was essentially a Pépé Le Pew sort of character. Later stories have provided a more nuanced look at their relationship, however — where Scrooge now clearly admires Brigitta in many respects, and even appears fond of her in some way (though it can be interpreted as platonic). He clearly doesn't think a marriage between the two of them would work, in part because he's uninterested in getting married at all, and in part because he knows Brigitta is significantly less thrifty than he is and fears she'd spend his fortune away. But it's no longer a “run for the hills if she walks by” situation.
…At any rate, I think ultimately all three marriages could feasibly work out. Scrooge has met up with present-day Goldie in a number of stories and circumstances now, and they clearly still get along; the “pining for an idealized memory” thing is a valid criticism of how Rosa sometimes portrays it, but if you accept more stories into your HC the problem dissolves away. And Clementine… well, I'd gently chastise Robb by pointing out that presenting your own OC is kinda cheating at this game, heheh, but the fact remains that their relationship as presented in The Wedding of Scrooge McDuck seems quite healthy. They have stayed in contact all these years and clearly enjoy each other's company.
My take on Scrooge is that he really had to reinvent himself gave up prospecting and became a businessman. So while Scrooge and Goldie may remain very fond of one another, I'm not sure current Scrooge and current Goldie could sustain a long-term relationship. A great what could have been. In that sense, Brigitta is a better fit.
But honestly, I think Scrooge and Brigitta work much better as a platonic couple. I agree that early Brigitta is problematic, but her later evolution as more of a business rival to Scrooge is much more interesting than one where they're in a relationship. Scrooge doesn't have a lot of antagonists that he's also on friendly terms with. I think the tension between Scrooge and Brigitta is so key to their relationship that marriage wouldn't turn out too well for the two.
Magica... that's only a possibility due to recent reinterpretations of the character, especially Italian stories. It's... tempting?
How about Emily Quackfaster, then? They've known one another for a longer sustained stretch than any of the others, right?
Magica is in my headcanon several decades younger than Scrooge, for just one thing.... What on earth would she see in him, other than money? She may be impressed by certain qualities of his character, but that's a far cry from attraction or love. I can imagine Magica being attracted to someone, but not to Scrooge. And she wouldn't marry him *for* his money; she wants to win it for herself, that's key to her obsession, and part of what's sympathetic about it. She works damn hard to steal ol' Number One.
While Goldie herself has a rapacious side, which helps her stand toe-to-toe with Scrooge, she has the advantage over the other women of having known him when he *wasn't* a gazillionaire. She knows what he was like before he had countless billions to swim in. Not that he's changed fundamentally--but still, her assessment of him is not originally shaped by his status as the World's Richest Man.
I also have a problem with the apparent age difference between Scrooge and Brigitta, though that's partly because Scarpa & Co. probably weren't thinking of Scrooge being as old as Rosa (and Barks, in the 75-candlepower birthday cake one-pager) would say. Brigitta isn't as young as Magica in my mind, but she looks a couple decades younger than my headcanon Scrooge. Yes, of course, powerful men commonly marry much younger women (especially as their second or third wife!), but it's very rarely the kind of equal partnership I'd like to see for any of the Ducks.
Emily Quackfaster sticks with her job because it's an extremely steady job, even though she's underpaid. Also she gets some self-esteem from knowing how well she performs in a complex managerial position. She knows how to handle Scrooge, but in my mind she has zero interest in going home with him at the end of the day. He's the stingy boss she's had to maneuver into giving her even a minimal raise--see here and here.
I had a great-aunt who was the secretary to the patents-and-trademarks lawyer for a huge international firm, nearly a century ago. He was an alcoholic and died of cirrhosis of the liver. They looked for a replacement for a while without luck--it was then a very rarefied field of law, international trademark law. Finally someone said, Wait, this guy died of cirrhosis of the liver--he can't have been doing his job well for quite some time. Who's *actually* been doing his job? Sure enough, it was his secretary! Who then for a while finally got paid in proportion to her contribution to the company. Until they found a male lawyer to take over. This is just to say that I think of Emily Quackfaster working away at her underpaid job for the same reasons my great-aunt did, when she was doing her alcoholic boss's work: because it was a steady job, and she remembered the Depression, and there weren't many choices for women, and she was proud of her competence, even if she didn't get public recognition or adequate compensation for it until after the boss died.
How about Emily Quackfaster, then? They've known one another for a longer sustained stretch than any of the others, right?
I suppose it could work on paper — except for the fact that she's got that thing with a Beagle Boy, which, even if we take it to be solidly over, still suggests that she's not quietly carrying a torch for her boss usually. She also gladly participates in setting up his date with Goldie in A Little Something Special. But even laying both of these aside, I dunno. It doesn't feel right to me.
Honestly, I'd sooner believe Quackfaster hooking up with with the butler (whatever we're calling him these days—but I'm talking about Albert-Battisa-Quackmore, here, of course, not James Wadly or Duckworth). He and Quackfaster seem to have a much closer friendship than Quackfaster and Scrooge do. There is, to be sure, an emotional bond between Scrooge and Quackfaster, but she cosniders herself, as I see it, more of a mother- or big-sister surrogate to Scrooge. And at the risk of being overly sappy I'd go so far as to say Scrooge probably sees her as a "dependable sister" to fill the hole Matilda and Hortense left behind in 1930. Heck, would it be overly fanficcy to suggest that Quackfaster remained in semi-regular contact with the McDuck sisters, unbeknownst to Scrooge? They did hire her for him, after all.
(…Now on the other hand, and not that anything like this is even likely to be gestured at in an official Disney comic in our lifetimes, being honest, but… I could actually imagine Scrooge developing a relationship with Battista/Albert/etc. more easily than with Quackfaster, if one gets over the audacious leap-of-faith about the width of both characters' romantic prospects.)
Magica is in my headcanon several decades younger than Scrooge, for just one thing.... What on earth would she see in him, other than money? She may be impressed by certain qualities of his character, but that's a far cry from attraction or love. I can imagine Magica being attracted to someone, but not to Scrooge. And she wouldn't marry him *for* his money; she wants to win it for herself, that's key to her obsession, and part of what's sympathetic about it. She works damn hard to steal ol' Number One.
I don't “ship” those two myself, but I've read some fanfics with that pairing, and you actually get at the heart of the 'ship with the end of that paragraph. The idea is that they'd come to realize that they've got fundamentally very similar ethics, surprisingly enough; Magica admiring Scrooge's foxiness in foiling her, Scrooge her grit and determination. Besides which they've got, by the time it is proposed that they realize newfound feelings for each other, a lot of shared history. The Midas Touch has Magica act a bit like a star-struck fangirl to Scrooge when they first meet; there is something oddly intimate about wanting the Number One Dime because it's a coin he, with all his qualities she admires, has touched it so much. (This is somewhat lessened by the later soft-retcon of the Midas Touch spell where she needs the first coin of the richest man in the world, rather than it being a common effect to all coins that is going to be particularly strong with the Number One Dime, which is how it's presented in The Midas Touch.)
And yes, Scrooge is definitely quite a bit older than Magica, but, I mean, “May-December romances” happen. Scrooge is definitely very spry for his age, and he was clearly considered quite handsome by a duck standards, in his Klondike-era prime. If we assume Magica doesn't mind older men, I find her coming to find Scrooge attractive — though it would certainly be love first and lust second in terms of how her feelings would develop.
I also have a problem with the apparent age difference between Scrooge and Brigitta, though that's partly because Scarpa & Co. probably weren't thinking of Scrooge being as old as Rosa (and Barks, in the 75-candlepower birthday cake one-pager) would say. Brigitta isn't as young as Magica in my mind, but she looks a couple decades younger than my headcanon Scrooge. Yes, of course, powerful men commonly marry much younger women (especially as their second or third wife!), but it's very rarely the kind of equal partnership I'd like to see for any of the Ducks.
I'm faaairly sure it's been established the age difference between the two isn't that huge, and that Brigitta knew Scrooge before he got rich.
I also have a problem with the apparent age difference between Scrooge and Brigitta, though that's partly because Scarpa & Co. probably weren't thinking of Scrooge being as old as Rosa (and Barks, in the 75-candlepower birthday cake one-pager) would say. Brigitta isn't as young as Magica in my mind, but she looks a couple decades younger than my headcanon Scrooge. Yes, of course, powerful men commonly marry much younger women (especially as their second or third wife!), but it's very rarely the kind of equal partnership I'd like to see for any of the Ducks.
I'm faaairly sure it's been established the age difference between the two isn't that huge, and that Brigitta knew Scrooge before he got rich.
Yeah, Brigitta's debut (The Last Balaboo) refers to her having actually first met Scrooge in 1896, in the Klondike! Wonder what that looked like with Goldie around. But yeah, while it can safely be assumed Brigitta is a little younger than Scrooge due to Goldie treating her as a significantly younger woman than herself in The Miner's Granddaughter, Brigitta is no spring chicken. She'd have to have been born around 1880 at the latest.
(Also, Matilda, do check out my edits to my reply above, answering to some of the points you raised about Magica!)