I think stories where bullies just receive a payback (be it prison or a good beating or another form of humiliation) are also unfair. People of that kind need help, just getting revenge against them makes those lost souls even more miserable.
It's true in real life, but in-universe, there were enough stories about redeeming Peg-Leg Pete to prove that this was basically unfeasible. And with some characters like Madam Mim, there isn't even any use in trying. Maybe with Neighbor Jones, you could get somewhere, but then again, he rarely behaves any worse than Donald himself.
Donald ends up in prison with his dog alongside the Beagle Boys. Why? He tried to help Scrooge at least! Without his help the BBs would have robbed all his money!
One rather unfair trend I've noticed in several Italian stories is... well, it's become a formula, really.
- Scrooge has some problem or other, and Donald makes a wisecrack about it -- like for example "I've got money in all the banks on Earth and nobody wants to accept any more of my money." "Too bad you can't start a bank on Mars then." - Scrooge takes Donald's joke seriously, and does exactly what Donald said. - Things go really well for a while, but then some unforeseen consequences makes everything go to hell. - The story ends with Scrooge chasing after and threatening to kill Donald for giving him such a bad idea -- usually while HD&L watch and laugh at the entire thing.
The problem is twofold. For one thing, Donald was just joking; he didn't mean that Scrooge should actually build a bank on Mars, and it's not his fault that Scrooge just jumped into the project without looking into potential problems first. For another thing, Donald had no way of knowing that Mars was populated by metal-eating bank robbers, and it's not his fault that said metal-eating bank robbers decided to rob Scrooge's bank and eat all his money.
But just because Scrooge based his idea on a joke Donald came up with, Donald gets the blame, and the punishment.
It's a little more justified if Donald actually meant to give Scrooge the advice -- but in too many of these stories Scrooge takes one of his jokes out of proportion and then shifts all the blame onto him.
One rather unfair trend I've noticed in several Italian stories is... well, it's become a formula, really.
- Scrooge has some problem or other, and Donald makes a wisecrack about it -- like for example "I've got money in all the banks on Earth and nobody wants to accept any more of my money." "Too bad you can't start a bank on Mars then." - Scrooge takes Donald's joke seriously, and does exactly what Donald said. - Things go really well for a while, but then some unforeseen consequences makes everything go to hell. - The story ends with Scrooge chasing after and threatening to kill Donald for giving him such a bad idea -- usually while HD&L watch and laugh at the entire thing.
The problem is twofold. For one thing, Donald was just joking; he didn't mean that Scrooge should actually build a bank on Mars, and it's not his fault that Scrooge just jumped into the project without looking into potential problems first. For another thing, Donald had no way of knowing that Mars was populated by metal-eating bank robbers, and it's not his fault that said metal-eating bank robbers decided to rob Scrooge's bank and eat all his money.
But just because Scrooge based his idea on a joke Donald came up with, Donald gets the blame, and the punishment.
It's a little more justified if Donald actually meant to give Scrooge the advice -- but in too many of these stories Scrooge takes one of his jokes out of proportion and then shifts all the blame onto him.
I'd like to add that, in most stories of this type, Donald is not joking and his advice is actually good. In the beginning, it results into a great profit for Scrooge and, when something goes wrong, it's usually because Scrooge got extremely greedy and abused that idea; of course, he never considers his mistakes, but puts the blame on Donald instead. A good example is a story (probably drawn by Giorgio Cavazzano) where Donald advices Scrooge to shrink the residents of his apartments, so that he can split the space in his buildings into more apartments. Scrooge does so, with Gyro's help, and everything goes well, until Scrooge overdoes it with the shrinking devices. Maybe i write a review of that story one of these days.
But yeah, that is another pretty common twist on that formula. Usually in these stories the fault is Scrooge's, but he will inevitably just put the blame on Donald for giving him the idea. I mean, it's okay if Donald generally screws up, but that's not usually the case. And Don just gets no sympathy whatsoever.
One rather unfair trend I've noticed in several Italian stories is... well, it's become a formula, really.
- Scrooge has some problem or other, and Donald makes a wisecrack about it -- like for example "I've got money in all the banks on Earth and nobody wants to accept any more of my money." "Too bad you can't start a bank on Mars then." - Scrooge takes Donald's joke seriously, and does exactly what Donald said. - Things go really well for a while, but then some unforeseen consequences makes everything go to hell. - The story ends with Scrooge chasing after and threatening to kill Donald for giving him such a bad idea -- usually while HD&L watch and laugh at the entire thing.
The problem is twofold. For one thing, Donald was just joking; he didn't mean that Scrooge should actually build a bank on Mars, and it's not his fault that Scrooge just jumped into the project without looking into potential problems first. For another thing, Donald had no way of knowing that Mars was populated by metal-eating bank robbers, and it's not his fault that said metal-eating bank robbers decided to rob Scrooge's bank and eat all his money.
But just because Scrooge based his idea on a joke Donald came up with, Donald gets the blame, and the punishment.
It's a little more justified if Donald actually meant to give Scrooge the advice -- but in too many of these stories Scrooge takes one of his jokes out of proportion and then shifts all the blame onto him.
I'd like to add that, in most stories of this type, Donald is not joking and his advice is actually good. In the beginning, it results into a great profit for Scrooge and, when something goes wrong, it's usually because Scrooge got extremely greedy and abused that idea; of course, he never considers his mistakes, but puts the blame on Donald instead. A good example is a story (probably drawn by Giorgio Cavazzano) where Donald advices Scrooge to shrink the residents of his apartments, so that he can split the space in his buildings into more apartments.Scrooge does so, with Gyro's help, and everything goes well, until Scrooge overdoes it with the shrinking devices. Maybe I write a review of that story one of these days.
Unbelievable that Donald's making a joke should have Scrooge becoming an evil menace to Mankind (actually shrinking people to make more money for himself!). He should burn in Hell on one of the lowest of Dante's rungs, for acting like he's God, and changing people's physical condition, to their detriment, just because of his greed. Gyro should burn in Hell, as well, probably not on so deep a rung, as he was more stupid than evil, for providing the tool for an evil man to shrink innocent people. But, nevertheless, he SHOULD know that it is wrong to make people smaller (which is a lot more likely to be bad for them, than good). Donald was only joking. So, he should not burn in Hell, nor even go to jail, IF he was 100% joking. If he had any idea that scrooge could actually get Gyro to make such a machine, Donald SHOULD be punished, somehow. This shows extremely bad morals to the young comics readers, who should see that Scrooge and Gyro should be, at least, mentally tortured, for the rest of their lives, to the point where they can't even function as adult members of society. I would have, at least. had Scrooge offer smaller housing units, at lower prices, and then had Scrooge also offer a people-shrinking service to people who wanted to shrink themselves to fit the smaller units, who would get themselves shrunk VOLUNTARILY, because they were too lazy to do the hard work of learning what they need to to earn enough money to pay full rents or buy whole houses. Then, not being forced to be shrunk, but wanting to do it on their own, would allow the story's morals to be acceptable. Then, Donald's silly idea actually "helps" some people, and Gyro is not contributing to a insensitive, non-caring, evil miser's exploitation of his fellow beings.
From what I remember, the shrunken people were aware of what was going on, and they were only shrunken while in the apartments. It's not like Scrooge shrunk them down permanently or anything; it was more like when you entered the apartment building you and everything you had with you would shrink down to miniature size, and then the moment you exited the building you were back to your normal size. Don't quote me on this, because it's a long time since I read the story and only remember it vaguely... but I'm pretty sure it was all voluntary.
Still, I don't think the writer of that comic thought of anything like a moral, except possibly "if you have a good thing going, don't get carried away with it."
RobbK1: You're mean. Nobody deserves to burn in Hell, no matter what he has done.
Hyaroo: The shrunken people had no idea what was happening. In addition, someone from the ministry investigated the case at some point, but couldn't find anything. A good question is how come nobody realized anything? When they entered the building and got shrunk, shouldn't they have noticed that the door suddenly got huge?
Ah. Like I said, it's a long time since I read the story... and it wasn't a particularly good one either (like I said, that formula kind of rubs me the wrong way) so I only read it the once and the details aren't very clear in my memory.
RobbK1: You're mean. Nobody deserves to burn in Hell, no matter what he has done.
Hyaroo: The shrunken people had no idea what was happening. In addition, someone from the ministry investigated the case at some point, but couldn't find anything. A good question is how come nobody realized anything? When they entered the building and got shrunk, shouldn't they have noticed that the door suddenly got huge?
I don't believe there's a "Hell" in which "souls" burn in eternal torment. So, my comment shouldn't be taken so seriously regarding the characters - only for how the author used them.
But I DO think the author, who allows Scrooge to change people's size in a negative way, just to gain money, and allows the usually philanthropic Gyro, who generally cares not for profit, wealth, nor glory, to be completely callous to such action by Scrooge, and carelessly (stupidly) enabling him to do that, has written an ill-conceived story, making Scrooge a terrible villain, and Gyro an airheaded boob of an accomplice, who should be hospitalised as an incompetent imbecile, or burn in Hell along with Scrooge, if he realised what Scrooge could do with such a machine.
We can't seem to know whether or not Scrooge's tenants were aware ahead of time of the shrinking, and approved of it, or they were shrunk WITHOUT their own "permission" or volition, as Whatever says they DIDN'T give their approval, and request the shrinking, and Hyaroo says they DID give their permission and consent, and requested they be shrunk. Which is it?
We can't seem to know whether or not Scrooge's tenants were aware ahead of time of the shrinking, and approved of it, or they were shrunk WITHOUT their own "permission" or volition, as Whatever says they DIDN'T give their approval, and request the shrinking, and Hyaroo says they DID give their permission and consent, and requested they be shrunk. Which is it?
Probably Whatever's right in this instance, as I was working from some vague memories and may have misremembered the story completely.
(I do agree that the "burn in Hell" thing is a little uncomfortable... I wouldn't wish that on anyone either. No matter if it wasn't meant seriously, it does bring back some rather nasty associations...)
We can't seem to know whether or not Scrooge's tenants were aware ahead of time of the shrinking, and approved of it, or they were shrunk WITHOUT their own "permission" or volition, as Whatever says they DIDN'T give their approval, and request the shrinking, and Hyaroo says they DID give their permission and consent, and requested they be shrunk. Which is it?
I'll try to find my volume with the story, reread it and write a review. Stay tuned.
