Post by TheMidgetMoose on Sept 17, 2022 4:03:17 GMT
Some discussion that we had on the "What other family member would you like to become recurrent" thread got me thinking about a semi-unimportant character, Donald's uncle, Eider Duck. One can see from that thread that some on this forum have some pretty neat headcanons about Uncle Eider, so I figured that we might as well make a thread to just talk about these headcanons! Let's share any thoughts about Eider Duck! Let's share ideas and theories about things like his placement on the Duck family tree, his backstory, his occupation, his children or lack thereof. The fun thing about Eider is that he's mostly a blank slate, yet there's still so much that we could say about him. From what I can tell, he's made basically no significant comic appearances. We learn that he apparently trains falcons in his debut (debutish... Eider is never actually seen but just mentioned). We see in his first (presumably) physical appearance in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck that he was quiet, muscular, and somewhat annoyed at his sister Daphne's luck back in 1902, but that's about all we know! Let's fill in the gaps! Let the Eider Duck thread begin!
First, my headcanons/theories about Eider's placement in the Duck family tree. "Uncle Eider Duck" is first mentioned in Carl Barks's Farragut the Falcon, and that moniker of "uncle" is the only indication that we are given regarding his relationship to Donald and/or Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Years later, Don Rosa, the Barks fan that he is, used this fellow in his famous Duck family tree and in The Invader of Fort Duckburg, a chapter of his famous Life and Times of $crooge McDuck saga.
Now we've got something regarding Eider's exact relationship to Donald and HDL. In the family tree, he is a son of Grandpa and Grandma Duck, the husband of a not yet used in comics (as far as I know) character named Lulubelle Loon, and the father of two previously-seen characters, Whitewater Duck from Barks's Log Jockey and Fethry Duck from many stories by various authors but first seen in Dick Kinney and Al Hubbard's The Health Nut. Invader of Fort Duckburg bears no mention of Lulubelle, Whitewater, or Fethry but does have Grandma Duck refer to Eider as one of her "young'uns" (children). This tree and story would make Eider be Donald's paternal uncle and would make both Whitewater and Fethry his paternal first cousins. That makes everything simple and straightforward enough, but there's two problems... In Log Jockey, Donald explicitly states that Whitewater is his "distant cousin," and the two seem to have never met before the events of this story, with Donald proudly introducing himself to his kinsmen and Whitewater claiming that he's never heard of Donald before. The term "distant cousin" is not usually used for a first cousin... The same problem appears with Fethry. In the 1965 Kinney/Hubbard comic Suds in Your Eye, Fethry tells Daisy that he and Donald are "distantly related," which, again, is not what one would call his first cousin.
Whitewater and Fethry could genealogically be brothers with no issue, but them being the sons of a son of Grandma Duck and thus merely first cousins to Donald rather than, say, second or third cousins, is an issue if you want to be faithful to what Barks wrote about Whitewater and what Kinney wrote about Fethry. I know some fans have proposed breaking up Eider's family as depicted on Rosa's family tree and giving Whitewater and Fethry to different parents, but I really like what Rosa set up! I just don't like Eider being a son of Grandma Duck... Here is my fix in an attempt to stay faithful to Barks, Kinney, and Rosa: Eider is not actually Grandpa and Grandma Duck's biological son but was adopted by them after his parents, Grandpa Duck's brother and sister-in-law, died. This would make Whitewater and Fethry actually be Donald's second cousins, which one might call "distant," but would still let Grandma, not one to distinguish between the children she's adopted and the ones she hatched herself, call Eider her "young'un." I know this theory may seem convoluted and try-hard, but LP 's Ultimate Duck Family Tree got me researching more obscure Duck family members, and I think I found something that really adds some spice and story to the theory. Behold, Eider's biological father, Swashbuckle Duck!
Swashbuckle Duck is only mentioned in Vic Lockman and Tony Strobl's Outer Space Safari, which also shows a painting of him. Donald describes him as his "great-uncle," which, since his last name is Duck, would presumably make him a brother of Grandpa Duck's. Donald says that "he was famous for bringing back alive wild animals from the jungle." And this is why I think that Swashbuckle is the perfect candidate for Eider's father, which would make him the grandfather of Whitewater + Fethry. In Eider's only modern-day "appearance" in Farragut the Falcon, he sends a not-so-ordinary animal -- a falcon -- to Donald as a gift! In the aforementioned "What other family member would you like to see become recurrent" thread, Scrooge MacDuck made the wonderful suggestion that, presently, Uncle Eider "owns lots of strange animals — perhaps he runs some kind of animal rescue operation?" That is an idea that I absolutely love on its own! I love the idea that Eider has a real heart for animals. He seems kind of quiet and reserved in Invader of Fort Duckburg. I like to imagine that he prefers confiding in animals rather than people (er... I guess the "people" are animals, too... but you know what I mean). He seems like he could, deep down, be a sensitive and caring animal lover. In Farragut the Falcon, he gives Donald some detailed and thoughtful instructions on how to care for the gifted falcon, Farragut. He didn't just dump a bird on his nephew, but he did give some instructions on how to care for it, including calming him down by stroking him with a feather. Eider being a lover of unusual or exotic animals matches him perfectly with Great-uncle Swashbuckle, who made a name for himself by capturing unusual and exotic animals!
Here is my headcanon: Eider Duck was born on April 1, 1886 to Humperdink Duck's brother Swashbuckle and his wife. April 1 was chosen as that is when INDUCKS says that Barks turned in the Farragut the Falcon story. 1886 is an estimate based on Eider's appearance in Invader of Fort Duckburg. Swashbuckle was at least locally famous for traveling around the world, finding jungle animals, and bringing them back home to Duckburg. When Eider was a child, one of these jungle expeditions went wrong... Something happened, and both Swashbuckle and his wife were tragically killed. Thankfully, Uncle Humperdink and Aunt Elvira were there to welcome Eider into their family, having a few other children around his age for him to grow up as a brother to. Eider was a quiet and incredibly intelligent child. He was old enough when his parents died to still remember them. Humperdink and Elvira treated him as one of their own, but he still remembered all the animals that he used to grow up around and continued to have a lingering affection for animals besides the boring old goats and cows on the Duck family farm.
Next, I believe that Uncle Eider was once a pilot. In the cartoon Donald Gets Drafted, Donald boasts to the fellow at the draft board that he comes from "a family of aviators" and lists some examples - "my father, my uncle, my cousin, *unintelligible*." I like to think that the last unintelligible bit was him saying "my sister" (80 jaar), but which uncle and cousin was he referring to? Obviously, there's no sure way of knowing. It's just a quick line in a cartoon. Still, I like to think that Eider is the uncle being referred to. After rereading Farragut the Falcon, I can maybe come up with some evidence from that story that Eider might be a pilot. Over the course of the story, Donald enters Farragut the falcon (who previously belonged to Uncle Eider) in a race. Farragut gets very distracted by a toy plane that some kids send whizzing by.
Now, of course, this is probably just supposed to be an aggressive falcon trying to attack a flying object. But hear me out. What if Farragut is actually a bit more intelligent than he seems? What if Eider owns or has flown a red airplane just like that toy one, and Farragut was grabbing the plane to try to find his old, beloved owner Eider. What if? A stretch, to be sure, but hey, what's the fun of a headcanon that doesn't stretch things a little bit?
Now, of course, this is probably just supposed to be an aggressive falcon trying to attack a flying object. But hear me out. What if Farragut is actually a bit more intelligent than he seems? What if Eider owns or has flown a red airplane just like that toy one, and Farragut was grabbing the plane to try to find his old, beloved owner Eider. What if? A stretch, to be sure, but hey, what's the fun of a headcanon that doesn't stretch things a little bit?
So Eider grew up on his uncle and aunt's farm and became very interested in flying after hearing about the Wright brothers' successful flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903, just a year after some cranky Scottish billionaire named Scrooge McDuck made his way into town with an even meaner little sister who keeps on calling Eider's cousin and adoptive brother Quackmore "Quackie-poo." Seeing the beginnings of a population boom in Duckburg, Eider, who prefers quieter and more rural settings, moves away when he turns 18 in 1904, perhaps heading over to wherever the Wright brothers are to offer his assistance. Sure enough, Eider soon becomes an aviation machine. When the United States enters World War I in 1917, Eider, now in his thirties, is one of America's first-ever fighter pilots. A muscular and healthy drake, Eider stays with the United States Army and makes a career of it. This causes him and his family to move around a lot. Eider becomes a genuinely skilled pilot and continues serving and climbing the ranks until World War II, retiring at the end of that conflict at the age of fifty-nine. Eider's love of planes gives him a semi-close bond with Quackmore and that McDuck girl's daughter, Della, who dreams of becoming a pilot herself. After his retirement, Eider finally gets to spend time with the animals that he so loves and even sends some of them as gifts to his relatives, leading us to Farragut the Falcon.
What of Eider's own wife and children? I probably tend to think of Lulubelle being a couple of years younger than Eider and, in many ways, opposite to him. Where Eider is quiet and reserved, Lulubelle is loud and even obnoxious. Where Eider finds comfort in animals, Lulubelle has got to be around people. Where Eider is intelligent and studious, Lulubelle is ditzy and scatterbrained. Where Eider can perhaps even be a bit cold and uncaring towards people, Lulubelle is loving and empathetic. Somehow, each finds the other to be the perfect match. Perhaps Lulubelle is the one person who seems to really understand and connect with Eider. Anyhow, they marry at some point in their lives and begin having children. I have assigned five children to Eider and Lulubelle in my headcanon. In addition to Whitewater and Fethry, they are also the parents of fashionista Dora (YD 38-08-12), astronaut Cosmo (The Overnight Hero), and photographer Nancy (A Likely Story). Now there is the issue that, according to Log Jockey, Whitewater and Donald almost certainly did not grow up together, while Fethry and Donald did grow up together according to multiple stories, probably one of the earliest of which was Donald's Buzzin' Cousin. The solution for this is found in Eider's role with the military. Whitewater is probably a few years older than Donald and grew up when Eider and family were living somewhere besides Duckburg. When Fethry was a child but Whitewater was already grown and moved out, Eider's family was back in Duckburg, allowing for Fethry to meet his (in my headcanon) older second cousin, Donald. Whitewater claims to have never heard of Donald, but I think he was being sarcastic. Of course Fethry would have talked about all the fun that Donald had with him non-stop. Fethry's obsessiveness made Whitewater borderline dislike Donald before ever even meeting him. He had heard of Cousin Donald Duck, alright... perhaps a bit too much for his liking.
So there's some of my headcanons about Eider Duck. Now, tell me yours! Let's have some fun! Any thoughts about my headcanons that you'd like to share? Any thoughts on Swashbuckle Duck as Eider's father or on Eider as a pilot?
