Post by Scrooge MacDuck on May 16, 2019 20:51:57 GMT
Friendship Hates Magic
OK, Lena's back, I should be happy, right? I am unmoved. In the first season, they did make me care about Webby and Lena, and I was not happy to find out that Lena wasn't, shall we say, a real person, by which I mean here: one who had grown up from infancy cared for by adults--a pretty basic component of human psychology.
Do we know why Launchpad has videotapes rather than DVDs? To evoke the time period of the cartoon, in-universe as well as in real life? And why does Scrooge's mansion's living room have a working VCR?
Let's also remember that Scrooge became a recluse with even less reason to buy a DVD player in 2007, and only shook that off in 2017. VHS players were still fairly common in the mid-2000's in my experience, and by 2017, as we know, DVDs were already in decline in favor of streaming. So that's another reason — a VHS player is what he had in 2007, and he hasn't bothered changing it since because the kids didn't ask for it, instead using the Internet when they want to watch something other than live TV.
Either way taking it for granted that Scrooge does have a VHS player rather than a DVD layer, Launchpad's ownership of Darkwing VHSes makes sense: since he lives in Scrooge's house, Launchpad would have his Darkwing Duck as VHS, if he wanted to have a shot at watching it without having to buy his own device.
Does Beakley really have no friends? There's no reason to think that should be the case, and I find it unnecessarily sad. And I don't find it convincing that, having said "Name one person I don't get along with" only to have Launchpad show up, she would then decide to try to bond with Launchpad. I suppose I'm to think, she does it for the challenge? Or to prove that she's really open to being friendly with anybody?
Since The Shadow War raised the interpretation that Beakley is not unlike a Donald with (usually) better self-control, I think it's useful to imagine this scenario as a Donald ten-pager: offended that HDL accuse him of being bad at socializing, he boasts "Name one person I'm not friends with!", and then Neighbor Jones walks past. Cue ten pages of Donald trying to force himself to make friends with him.