R1: She can be socially awkward as just the triplets' neighbor who tags along. That's my point. What does go decently about Webby doesn't need her to be another protagonist. R4: We're obviously supposed to see Louie's being too harsh on his mom and that she's a caring and good mom. They glance aside what being stranded on the moon should mean to Della by just making a little joke about her being damaged on in the inside. R6: A. I'm not seeing how Steelbeak is any better than his first real episode. He's still a loud thug, not a swaggering schemer like in DWD. He what, beat up an actor? B. I find Bradford's reveal forced. Coming off like the showrunners forced in Bradford revealing himself in the same episode as the one that introduced Darkwing Duck as a superhero with Bulba and Gosalyn since they couldn't think of a better place for it. When really all he had to do was just say Bulba tried to kill him for not funding his schemes.
I think that the role Della has, as is presented in this series, is an extremely significant problem. It's something that NEEDS time and space to develop; with everything being crammed so tightly in this show, there's just not enough room for it to be handled properly.
Regardless of your opinions on Della as a character, it's her own fault that she was separated from the kids. First off, they were due to hatch soon, so getting into ANY sort of danger is a terrible thing to do if it can be reasonably avoided. Even at that, we know that Donald was pushing for her to just stay safe for a while and be there for her children. Not to mention the fact that, even if you ignore all that, the Spear of Selene wasn't supposed to be flown yet. Like, I know he's the richest duck in the world, but still; if your uncle literally has a rocket built for you to go into space, could you not even be respectful enough to wait a little while for it?
As aldwayne put it, this left Donald to take care of the triplets. That completely changed the course of his life. As we know, he loves them and has taken them on as his own sons; he has absolutely no resentment towards them for it and there's absolutely no unhealthy element in their relationship stemming from that. Still, it's because of Della that he was left with three children that he wasn't equipped to take care of. He made tons of sacrifices for their sake and made sure that they had a happy childhood, but it ended up being at his own expense. Della is EXTREMELY lucky that Donald was there; he's an excellent parent, and if it hadn't been for him, the boys' lives could have turned out much worse.
Then there's the rift it caused between Donald and Scrooge; this one's debatable in how much it was her fault, true, but it's still relevant overall.
Then there's the reaction of the triplets themselves; since they have individual personalities, each one has their own way of processing it.
All in all, it's a very heavy and complicated situation. It's not something that you can handle in a short burst while also dealing with a million side characters, separate plotlines and the occasional gag episode.
Yet everyone just sort of... accepts her back? There's not enough time for the show to actually consider how everyone feels about the situation, because on top of everything else, the Moonlander Invasion is tied in so closely that it doesn't get enough space to breathe properly.
There are so many jokes around her return that it ends up getting frustrating - between her botching the introduction, the triplets' original names, her not understanding parenting and trying to be cool... it just happens too quickly to be earned. Her being gone had a SERIOUS impact on these people - it destroyed Scrooge and Donald's relationship for ten years. It led Dewey to not only keep secrets from his brothers, but to endanger his family's lives over a clue to her whereabouts (and not in the show's jokey manner - the danger was played completely seriously).The truth of the situation led to the triplets abandoning Scrooge, and him basically giving up on life. To see her basically just be welcomed back in a few episodes is so jarring. We need to see the characters actually process what's happening. Louie is the only one that really casts any doubt on the situation, and even that's knocked away too soon. I loved his stance on it in the beginning, to be honest; he has never had a mother, and her return just doesn't have much of an impact on him. He's had Donald as his parent and, while he absolutely has a place for Della in his life, he's not ready to accept her as his mother because she's not much more than a stranger to him. Then, soon after, that's done away with and he accepts her as his mother... sigh.
In all honesty, speaking of Louie, I was really disappointed about how the arc post-Timephoon went. So, he gives a cliché apology and everyone responds with apathy (With Scrooge even throwing in an "I'm sure you've learned... something"); this is bad enough on its own because everyone is made into a caricature (most likely because the actual ensuing drama doesn't stand on its own). Then, Della steps in as the reasonable authority figure and grounds him. She tears him down over how irresponsible he was, and outside of a short comment from Louie, she's not called out on her hypocrisy at all. It's even worse because the show makes it clear that Louie's supposed to be seen as being wrong; Mrs. Beakley is about to yell at him, despite the fact that he absolutely has a point. After a short comment about how hard it was to ground him and a pep talk from Beakley, she's back to smiling and making gags. The entire thing feels so unearned - she's barely even made a return to his life at this point. From what the audience has actually seen, she's barely even spent any time with him, let alone the time to establish herself as a parental/authority figure. Then there's the problem of her hypocrisy - she simply can't call him out on his irresponsibility when it was her own irresponsibility that got her stranded on the moon in the first place. It'd be like Donald chiding them for being angry - it just doesn't work. Then, to make things even worse, the show goes with the clichéd plot of "Someone's grounded, but everyone else is doing something super fun", but makes it so much worse because of the circumstances. She specifically brings everyone on adventure to a place that Louie specifically adores, and brings everyone else along for the ride. That's absurdly mean-spirited - they could have gone anywhere else, but no, it had to be the place that Louie wants to go to, specifically. Louie, who has been established as not really liking adventures all that much in the first place. It's a mix of clichés, but the circumstances make Della look like a lousy, even vindictive person. The fact that anyone is surprised when he ends up being resentful is absurd.
Then there's the situation with Dewey - ignoring any general problems around their relationship, there's Raiders of the Doomsday Vault. In which she actively encourages bad behaviour from Dewey. It's not like "you probably shouldn't be having ice-cream right now but a little irresponsibility is okay at times", it's both criminal activity and extremely dangerous. She eventually realizes it, but not until its far too late. And of course, the lesson is nothing to do with that, but rather that she's already proud of Dewey and he doesn't need to prove himself to her. Again, this just actively takes away from Timephoon - you can't encourage Dewey to do things that are wrong and then get mad at Louie for doing the same thing. Obviously, the consequences were worse in Louie's case, but things could have gone much worse in Raiders, too.
Huey... has an arc? Oh, right, the video game thing. Glad we spent plenty of time on that and not, say, establishing the impact that her disappearance had on him or anything like that. Instead we get an episode where Della points out that the way Huey enjoys spending his time in the game is wrong. He's totally happy to use the game as a relaxing farming simulator, and she continues to press him to play the game the traditional way. This results in Huey's in-game farm being destroyed and him going into a blind rage, with Della having to pull him away from the game. The lesson is that Huey needs to leave his comfort zone, but that's wrong. He's playing a video game, he gets enjoyment out of it by playing it his way. Then, when he DOES leave his comfort zone... everything is ruined. Yay? It's not the case that he's sitting on the farm constantly wanting to leave but not having the guts to. He's totally content to play it his way, and he's not framed as having any issues until Della interferes. He doesn't play it the way she enjoys it, so he has to change.
Honestly, I'm not too bothered by her episode with Webby. I didn't really like how it was handled, but I'm still glad that something was done, at least. The fact that Webby doesn't know how to handle things and what her place is in the dynamic is really interesting and fleshes out a family dynamic that could very easily be glossed over.
Honestly, though, I feel like the amount of time spent between her and Launchpad was ridiculous. He should not have been prioritized at all; it should be about Scrooge, Donald and the kids. I can forgive Donald's absence to an extent, but really, there was much more that could have been done in place of that. Especially when the lesson is that Della, an experienced pilot, needs to listen to the idiotic lunatic. Usually I don't mind that kind of plot, but it just hit differently here - she is an experienced pilot and is getting annoyed with him because he is terrible at his job. She is completely within reason; having her 'accept his way' doesn't work because his way is objectively wrong.
Plus, this one is more of a personal issue, but I feel like it's worth bringing up - there's seriously no resentment over Della's disappearance from the kids? Obviously, it's a different experience for everyone, and it's entirely feasible that the three of them didn't have any resentment over it. But... maybe it's my own personal experience, but I find that difficult to believe. Especially when they know that Della took the Spear of Selene (which she wasn't supposed to) by her own choice, while being urged by literally everyone else not to. Between the three kids, wouldn't one of them think "We could have had a mother in our lives if you could have behaved yourself"? Again, this one isn't a concrete point, but it just doesn't sit right with me that the notion was never even discussed.
At the end of the day, I wouldn't have been expecting perfection - it's an extremely complicated situation and dynamic. I wouldn't expect anyone to get it perfect. But because of how tightly packed the show already is, something like this just doesn't work. So many real issues get resolved in a single episode, trite way that glosses over how badly things like parental abandonment can affect people, not to mention how difficult it can be for people to adjust to radically changing family dynamics. I don't think that Della as a whole is a bad character - but the way the show is written makes her come across very negatively in many episodes. The way they handled basically everything about her in season 2 just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Resident autistic, diabetic duck fan.
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When I saw Della return not even an entire season in, I already knew she was going to be too rushed to work. Your post doesn't surprise me but strikes me as a good summation of what went wrong.
hindsight is 2020 as is backseat writing but I still wish the show'd just been like Scrooge's a grumpy duck who has a tough maid who has her granddaughter live in the mansion Scrooge and Webby start getting along and adventuring Cut Donald, cut the nephews, cut everyone, they're busy doing something else
Webby never worked, replace her with Dickie Duck and we got a deal.
Alternatively, a Phineas and Ferb-esque A plot/B plot with Scrooge exploring in the one half and Donald in some kind of ten-pager style domestic comedy in Duckburg.
Honestly, just drop the whole DuckTales IP and start from scratch. I'm brimming with ideas for Duck-based series that has nothing to do with DuckTales.
Webby in the new show is already inherently a whole different character from the original- between using Dickie, or writing Webby literally as Dickie, it's about literally the same thing. And I'm adding a touch of cynicism, maybe- I know that execs would only approve this show if it's a reboot of Ducktales, and it'd have to have a main female character. I think making it Webby would fit both elements hopefully enough to let said execs be cool with it- if not, I'd choose maybe picking one specific nephew and using him along with Webby, instead of three. But even if we end up using the three nephews (each as a distinct character) and Webby it could still work- have all the adults be cameos, pretty much, and the show's main characters be only the nephews, Webby, and maybe Scrooge.
Instead they tried to make everyone a main character, and by force that made nearly everyone a cameo.
Again, they made the mistake of including both Launchpad and Fenton when they're both stand-ins for Donald to begin with. Donald can't be Scrooge's vehicle. He can't be his muscle. They try to wave off this problem by saying Donald played a secretly big role by talking with Penumbra, but we already saw that she was against what Lunaris was doing.
It was already brought up by duckhuefan that supposedly the kids being shoved in too much was a mandate. I'll be generous and apply it to Donald's sloppy usage by speculating that MAYbe they wanted Donald to be a legit protagoinst but had to make the kids be important enough combined with insisting on including both Fenton with Launchpad.
I think that the role Della has, as is presented in this series, is an extremely significant problem. It's something that NEEDS time and space to develop; with everything being crammed so tightly in this show, there's just not enough room for it to be handled properly.
Regardless of your opinions on Della as a character, it's her own fault that she was separated from the kids. First off, they were due to hatch soon, so getting into ANY sort of danger is a terrible thing to do if it can be reasonably avoided. Even at that, we know that Donald was pushing for her to just stay safe for a while and be there for her children. Not to mention the fact that, even if you ignore all that, the Spear of Selene wasn't supposed to be flown yet. Like, I know he's the richest duck in the world, but still; if your uncle literally has a rocket built for you to go into space, could you not even be respectful enough to wait a little while for it?
As aldwayne put it, this left Donald to take care of the triplets. That completely changed the course of his life. As we know, he loves them and has taken them on as his own sons; he has absolutely no resentment towards them for it and there's absolutely no unhealthy element in their relationship stemming from that. Still, it's because of Della that he was left with three children that he wasn't equipped to take care of. He made tons of sacrifices for their sake and made sure that they had a happy childhood, but it ended up being at his own expense. Della is EXTREMELY lucky that Donald was there; he's an excellent parent, and if it hadn't been for him, the boys' lives could have turned out much worse.
Then there's the rift it caused between Donald and Scrooge; this one's debatable in how much it was her fault, true, but it's still relevant overall.
Then there's the reaction of the triplets themselves; since they have individual personalities, each one has their own way of processing it.
All in all, it's a very heavy and complicated situation. It's not something that you can handle in a short burst while also dealing with a million side characters, separate plotlines and the occasional gag episode.
Yet everyone just sort of... accepts her back? There's not enough time for the show to actually consider how everyone feels about the situation, because on top of everything else, the Moonlander Invasion is tied in so closely that it doesn't get enough space to breathe properly.
There are so many jokes around her return that it ends up getting frustrating - between her botching the introduction, the triplets' original names, her not understanding parenting and trying to be cool... it just happens too quickly to be earned. Her being gone had a SERIOUS impact on these people - it destroyed Scrooge and Donald's relationship for ten years. It led Dewey to not only keep secrets from his brothers, but to endanger his family's lives over a clue to her whereabouts (and not in the show's jokey manner - the danger was played completely seriously).The truth of the situation led to the triplets abandoning Scrooge, and him basically giving up on life. To see her basically just be welcomed back in a few episodes is so jarring. We need to see the characters actually process what's happening. Louie is the only one that really casts any doubt on the situation, and even that's knocked away too soon. I loved his stance on it in the beginning, to be honest; he has never had a mother, and her return just doesn't have much of an impact on him. He's had Donald as his parent and, while he absolutely has a place for Della in his life, he's not ready to accept her as his mother because she's not much more than a stranger to him. Then, soon after, that's done away with and he accepts her as his mother... sigh.
In all honesty, speaking of Louie, I was really disappointed about how the arc post-Timephoon went. So, he gives a cliché apology and everyone responds with apathy (With Scrooge even throwing in an "I'm sure you've learned... something"); this is bad enough on its own because everyone is made into a caricature (most likely because the actual ensuing drama doesn't stand on its own). Then, Della steps in as the reasonable authority figure and grounds him. She tears him down over how irresponsible he was, and outside of a short comment from Louie, she's not called out on her hypocrisy at all. It's even worse because the show makes it clear that Louie's supposed to be seen as being wrong; Mrs. Beakley is about to yell at him, despite the fact that he absolutely has a point. After a short comment about how hard it was to ground him and a pep talk from Beakley, she's back to smiling and making gags. The entire thing feels so unearned - she's barely even made a return to his life at this point. From what the audience has actually seen, she's barely even spent any time with him, let alone the time to establish herself as a parental/authority figure. Then there's the problem of her hypocrisy - she simply can't call him out on his irresponsibility when it was her own irresponsibility that got her stranded on the moon in the first place. It'd be like Donald chiding them for being angry - it just doesn't work. Then, to make things even worse, the show goes with the clichéd plot of "Someone's grounded, but everyone else is doing something super fun", but makes it so much worse because of the circumstances. She specifically brings everyone on adventure to a place that Louie specifically adores, and brings everyone else along for the ride. That's absurdly mean-spirited - they could have gone anywhere else, but no, it had to be the place that Louie wants to go to, specifically. Louie, who has been established as not really liking adventures all that much in the first place. It's a mix of clichés, but the circumstances make Della look like a lousy, even vindictive person. The fact that anyone is surprised when he ends up being resentful is absurd.
Then there's the situation with Dewey - ignoring any general problems around their relationship, there's Raiders of the Doomsday Vault. In which she actively encourages bad behaviour from Dewey. It's not like "you probably shouldn't be having ice-cream right now but a little irresponsibility is okay at times", it's both criminal activity and extremely dangerous. She eventually realizes it, but not until its far too late. And of course, the lesson is nothing to do with that, but rather that she's already proud of Dewey and he doesn't need to prove himself to her. Again, this just actively takes away from Timephoon - you can't encourage Dewey to do things that are wrong and then get mad at Louie for doing the same thing. Obviously, the consequences were worse in Louie's case, but things could have gone much worse in Raiders, too.
Huey... has an arc? Oh, right, the video game thing. Glad we spent plenty of time on that and not, say, establishing the impact that her disappearance had on him or anything like that. Instead we get an episode where Della points out that the way Huey enjoys spending his time in the game is wrong. He's totally happy to use the game as a relaxing farming simulator, and she continues to press him to play the game the traditional way. This results in Huey's in-game farm being destroyed and him going into a blind rage, with Della having to pull him away from the game. The lesson is that Huey needs to leave his comfort zone, but that's wrong. He's playing a video game, he gets enjoyment out of it by playing it his way. Then, when he DOES leave his comfort zone... everything is ruined. Yay? It's not the case that he's sitting on the farm constantly wanting to leave but not having the guts to. He's totally content to play it his way, and he's not framed as having any issues until Della interferes. He doesn't play it the way she enjoys it, so he has to change.
Honestly, I'm not too bothered by her episode with Webby. I didn't really like how it was handled, but I'm still glad that something was done, at least. The fact that Webby doesn't know how to handle things and what her place is in the dynamic is really interesting and fleshes out a family dynamic that could very easily be glossed over.
Honestly, though, I feel like the amount of time spent between her and Launchpad was ridiculous. He should not have been prioritized at all; it should be about Scrooge, Donald and the kids. I can forgive Donald's absence to an extent, but really, there was much more that could have been done in place of that. Especially when the lesson is that Della, an experienced pilot, needs to listen to the idiotic lunatic. Usually I don't mind that kind of plot, but it just hit differently here - she is an experienced pilot and is getting annoyed with him because he is terrible at his job. She is completely within reason; having her 'accept his way' doesn't work because his way is objectively wrong.
Plus, this one is more of a personal issue, but I feel like it's worth bringing up - there's seriously no resentment over Della's disappearance from the kids? Obviously, it's a different experience for everyone, and it's entirely feasible that the three of them didn't have any resentment over it. But... maybe it's my own personal experience, but I find that difficult to believe. Especially when they know that Della took the Spear of Selene (which she wasn't supposed to) by her own choice, while being urged by literally everyone else not to. Between the three kids, wouldn't one of them think "We could have had a mother in our lives if you could have behaved yourself"? Again, this one isn't a concrete point, but it just doesn't sit right with me that the notion was never even discussed.
At the end of the day, I wouldn't have been expecting perfection - it's an extremely complicated situation and dynamic. I wouldn't expect anyone to get it perfect. But because of how tightly packed the show already is, something like this just doesn't work. So many real issues get resolved in a single episode, trite way that glosses over how badly things like parental abandonment can affect people, not to mention how difficult it can be for people to adjust to radically changing family dynamics. I don't think that Della as a whole is a bad character - but the way the show is written makes her come across very negatively in many episodes. The way they handled basically everything about her in season 2 just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
They already got angry about the Spear of Selene (remember how angry they were in Last Crash of the Sunchaser) and only reason they didn't direct it at Della initially was cause she was gone and Scrooge was there to take the heat. By the time Della did come back, everyone had already cooled down from that. And we do see in Scrooge's rant in Raiders of the Doomsday Vault he has some unconscious resentment toward Della's recklessness.
And as for your Timephoon thing, that may be something I'm gonna be defending the most cause I really did love it. And hypocrisy or not, Louie did almost get everyone stuck in different times forever which is even worse since at least Della's mistake only got her separated and she possibly had no idea at that point (hey, Frank never specified WHEN she found out about the estrangement) that there was more seperation (she already had to face consequences in the worst way possible with the loss of her leg, almost getting killed by moon monsters, being horrible alone for a decade which caused issues like her gaining a fear of her own reflection, and episodes like Raiders of Doomsday Vault, Moonvasion, and Golden Armory of Cornelius Coot show the trauma still kinda lingers on her). Heck, the time seperation possible did end up triggering some of Della's trauma since she is once again being seperated from the family she worked so hard to get back to (and Beakley's advice throughout the episode may have been another factor in her deciding to put her foot down).
As for Della not bonding with Louie before grounding him, that was partially on Louie too. Keep in mind the reasons on why the others bonded with her. Dewey bonded with her cause he was the only one willing to go to the Money Tree with her (it was even specifically said Huey and Louie refused to go), Huey bonded cause he opened up to her on nerd interests like video games, and Webby bonded cause she opened up to her on her insecurities. Louie on the other hand didn't and there's a chance Della wanted to do it at Louie's pace since when she tried rushing things in Nothing Can Stop Della Duck, it only did more harm to the kids. Am I thinking Louie's a bad person for that? Of course not, he has his reasons but I'm just shedding light on the situation of Della not bonding with Louie at that point. And even if they had bonded, Della still would've grounded Louie anyway.
For Dewey not being punished in Doomsday Vault but Louie being punished in Timephoon, keep in mind Della was also involved in Dewey's mess so grounding him for something she helped him with is kinda weird whereas with Louie, she didn't even have a clue that he caused the Timephoon until she went to check on him. Course there's also the fact Beakley wasn't there to lecture and advise her to be more assertive during the Doomsday Vault episode (and keep in mind maybe the events of Doomsday Vault pushed Della as well).
The trip to Big Rock Candy Mountain was SCROOGE's idea, not Della's so don't go being angry at her for an idea she didn't even come up with.
For them doing Della and Launchpad, maybe the writers just wanted to have the two pilots of Scrooge interact especially with the question of if Della will replace him and have Della interact with everyone in main cast (consisting of Scrooge, Donald, HDL, Webby, Beakley, Della, and Launchpad).
Then how would you have done Della and Huey bonding if you didn't like it?
Again, they made the mistake of including both Launchpad and Fenton when they're both stand-ins for Donald to begin with. Donald can't be Scrooge's vehicle. He can't be his muscle. They try to wave off this problem by saying Donald played a secretly big role by talking with Penumbra, but we already saw that she was against what Lunaris was doing.
It was already brought up by duckhuefan that supposedly the kids being shoved in too much was a mandate. I'll be generous and apply it to Donald's sloppy usage by speculating that MAYbe they wanted Donald to be a legit protagoinst but had to make the kids be important enough combined with insisting on including both Fenton with Launchpad.
Donald ain't a pilot though like Launchpad and Della wasn't there at the start so they did need Launchpad there as a pilot. And without Fenton, where would the Gizmoduck or Gandra be? Donald doesn't seem like a Gizmoduck person. Penumbra still had no idea about Lunaris' exact plans til Donald showed up on the moon.
Fenton isn't even a main character BTW, only a supporting one who appears less than Donald. The main cast is Scrooge, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Webby, Launchpad, Beakley, Donald, and Della.
And as for the whole Donald applying for Mark Beaks' internship, Frank said it was cause he didn't wanna short change Daisy (the reason Donald would've taken the internship) since he wanted to make her more than just Donald's girlfriend and female Donald (which is why Daisy didn't appear til season 3), avoid repeating another Donald estranged from someone conflict with Daisy (which is why they had no prior history when they met in season 3), and it would've cluttered the episode.
And what about the show's expanding on Donald being a parental figure to HDL more than any other animated Donald? Episodes like Whatever Happened to Donald Duck, Woo-oo, Spear of Selene, Shadow War and Daytrip of Doom really emphasize that angle. Frank and Matt have even said they want Ducktales to be for Donald like how Goofy Movie was for Goofy so they aren't trying to make a bad Donald.
Last Edit: Dec 24, 2020 15:59:43 GMT by duckhuefan
Donald in the comics is repeatedly shown as an able enough pilot when he needs to be. As for Fenton/Gizmoduck, even with originating from Ducktales I'd say he was always better suited to Darkwing Duck's world/tone.
In regards to Penumbra, Lunaris made his plans obvious (invade the Earth). Donald wasn't the one who let Scrooge and Co. find out about Lunaris since he gets stranded on a deserted island.
Donald already was shown as willing to work for Glomgold since he was job hunting. It wouldn't be that hard to frame him going to Beaks as just that with no Daisy. And frankly him knocking Graves off of the roof is less ridiculous than him falling for a child's trap.
On the claim on doing more with Donald as a parent, I guess? I mean, we're at the point where it comes off like the showrunners don't know how to write both Della and Donald as parents operating in unison with Scrooge so they always write out one whenever one has to be the "other parent" alongside Scrooge.
They already got angry about the Spear of Selene (remember how angry they were in Last Crash of the Sunchaser) and only reason they didn't direct it at Della initially was cause she was gone and Scrooge was there to take the heat. By the time Della did come back, everyone had already cooled down from that. And we do see in Scrooge's rant in Raiders of the Doomsday Vault he has some unconscious resentment toward Della's recklessness.
And as for your Timephoon thing, that may be something I'm gonna be defending the most cause I really did love it. And hypocrisy or not, Louie did almost get everyone stuck in different times forever which is even worse since at least Della's mistake only got her separated and she possibly had no idea at that point (hey, Frank never specified WHEN she found out about the estrangement) that there was more seperation (she already had to face consequences in the worst way possible with the loss of her leg, almost getting killed by moon monsters, being horrible alone for a decade which caused issues like her gaining a fear of her own reflection, and episodes like Raiders of Doomsday Vault, Moonvasion, and Golden Armory of Cornelius Coot show the trauma still kinda lingers on her). Heck, the time seperation possible did end up triggering some of Della's trauma since she is once again being seperated from the family she worked so hard to get back to (and Beakley's advice throughout the episode may have been another factor in her deciding to put her foot down).
As for Della not bonding with Louie before grounding him, that was partially on Louie too. Keep in mind the reasons on why the others bonded with her. Dewey bonded with her cause he was the only one willing to go to the Money Tree with her (it was even specifically said Huey and Louie refused to go), Huey bonded cause he opened up to her on nerd interests like video games, and Webby bonded cause she opened up to her on her insecurities. Louie on the other hand didn't and there's a chance Della wanted to do it at Louie's pace since when she tried rushing things in Nothing Can Stop Della Duck, it only did more harm to the kids. Am I thinking Louie's a bad person for that? Of course not, he has his reasons but I'm just shedding light on the situation of Della not bonding with Louie at that point. And even if they had bonded, Della still would've grounded Louie anyway.
For Dewey not being punished in Doomsday Vault but Louie being punished in Timephoon, keep in mind Della was also involved in Dewey's mess so grounding him for something she helped him with is kinda weird whereas with Louie, she didn't even have a clue that he caused the Timephoon until she went to check on him. Course there's also the fact Beakley wasn't there to lecture and advise her to be more assertive during the Doomsday Vault episode (and keep in mind maybe the events of Doomsday Vault pushed Della as well).
The trip to Big Rock Candy Mountain was SCROOGE's idea, not Della's so don't go being angry at her for an idea she didn't even come up with.
For them doing Della and Launchpad, maybe the writers just wanted to have the two pilots of Scrooge interact especially with the question of if Della will replace him and have Della interact with everyone in main cast (consisting of Scrooge, Donald, HDL, Webby, Beakley, Della, and Launchpad).
Then how would you have done Della and Huey bonding if you didn't like it?
(Chopped my original statement so that I'm not taking up loads of space quoting it again)
Last Crash of the Sunchaser is what I was referring to when talking about the impact of Della's disappearance and how badly it affected everyone - how Dewey was willing to put everyone's lives in danger over a single shred of evidence as to what happened to her. My issue there is that both parties were at fault - Though Della's behaviour was reckless and irresponsible, Scrooge shouldn't have enabled her. Plus, as the adults point out, he knew exactly how Della was, and should have held off on the construction. I get what you're saying, but having Scrooge take all of the blame is ridiculous. He gets called out on several things that weren't his fault, everyone leaves him behind and he has to suffer the consequences all over again (Following the estrangement from Donald). I'm not saying that Della necessarily needs to suffer as much as Scrooge did, but nobody called her out in the same way that they did to Scrooge. "Unconscious resentment" is my main issue for the most part when it comes to the boys.
The rant that you refer to is, honestly, a perfect example of it. When Scrooge is alone with Glomgold, he has an utter meltdown - he lashes out about how Della hasn't learned anything, how now she's roping Dewey into dangerous schemes too. Now, whether or not Scrooge is justified in that argument is its own debate, so I won't go there because it'd end up going off-track, but that's his general feeling. Then, when he actually meets up with Della again... he starts to rant at her. Only for it to get cut off by her saving the day. In the end, Della is the hero that fixed the problem (which she caused), made Scrooge heaps of money and made Dewey feel good about himself. No consequences, no real reprimanding, just a feel-good ending where everything gets wrapped up neatly. The show starts to say that Della's actions were irresponsible, but then decides that they're totally justified because she remembered where the exit was - never mind the serious danger that she and Dewey were in for most of the episode. Her actions in that vault could have had serious consequences - they could have destroyed the Doomsday Vault or lost Scrooge the bet (The latter isn't really a big deal imo, but it's important to Scrooge so it's worth mentioning), but because she was able to fix things, she gets away with it and is even praised for it in the end.
I have two main issues with the resolution - one from the standpoint of the show, and one from the standpoint of Della.
1. Someone going on crazy adventures and putting their loved ones in danger to do so is literally the premise of the show. Scrooge is constantly bringing the kids along on adventures and putting them in danger for some treasure or another. Even ignoring that, the main characters constantly get each other involved in life-threatening scenarios all the time. Dewey in particular has nearly gotten them all killed on multiple occasions and is never punished for it. The show needs to be consistent with these things - if you want to say that responsibility needs to be taken, that's totally fine. You can't just randomly say that it's worse in certain situations - what if the Sky Pirates just decided that they'd slit everybody's throats when they captured them the second time? What if Huey was right about the Terra-Firmians, and they all died underground because Webby wanted to prove Huey wrong? The show involves them constantly getting each other into danger - you can't just randomly decide that it's wrong all of a sudden. Especially when you keep these plots going, so it's just the case that Louie gets singled out for the sake of plot, despite the fact that it's inconsistent with the rest of the show.
2. Louie's actions were wrong, of course - there's no disputing that. The problem is how Della handles it. Now, as you say, it's pretty likely that she didn't know that Donald and Scrooge were estranged, at least when she got back. Now, while I think it's kind of ridiculous that she wouldn't have either been told or caught on that something happened by Timephoon, there's no solid evidence of that, so I'll leave it be. Della's actions still left Huey, Dewey and Louie without a mother for ten years. The hypocrisy is a problem because Della has barely landed as an authority figure at this point - she's only been here for a few episodes. She tries so hard to be a 'cool mom', which makes it even less feasible for three children to take her seriously. Plus, Louie in particular has made it clear that she isn't someone he sees as a parent yet - he needs more time before he can reasonably take orders from her. She's barely back in his life, she's done very little to actually impose any rules, he doesn't even really see her as a mom yet - then, on top of that, she's criticizing him for exactly what she did. She simply does not have the authority to be doing that yet. Had she done more to establish rules with him, or even if she had been around a little longer, it would have been somewhat reasonable. As it stood, though, it's entirely unfair on him. This particular part isn't on Della, but the scene is made much worse because Scrooge and Beakley don't criticize him whatsoever; the show knows that Della's stance is too weak, so they have to prop it up by making the other adults easily forgive him. Then they have Beakley criticize him for talking back to Della... it's a complete joke. Beakley of all people doesn't care that he nearly got everyone killed, but talk back to his mom? "SEE HERE YOUNG MAN!"
Della did face consequences for her actions. That means nothing to the family. She was separated from the family entirely through her own actions. She purposefully stole a ship that she wasn't supposed to be flying and she took it to the moon without considering ANY of the consequences. It's made even worse because we know that Donald tried to stop her. To get her to consider her three unborn children. Yet she went anyway. Because of that, the family was torn apart. No matter how badly she suffered on the moon, that doesn't change what the family went through on earth. If Huey, Dewey or Louie rejected her as their mother, they would have been entirely justified in doing so. There are some mistakes that you simply cannot take back - that threshold is different for different people. To be a mother to the boys, she needed to earn it - Louie doesn't seem to feel that she has at that point. Whether it's because nobody stands up for him or because he's not able to properly articulate his feelings, it's pretty clear from my perspective that that relationship hasn't formed between them yet. Now, as you say, Beakley's pushing is relevant here. I think that's an entirely separate problematic issue by itself, but I'll concede that it was a significant factor in her behaviour in the episode.
"Partially on Louie too" - I try to stay fairly neutral on things, but HARD disagree on that one. You cannot blame a child for not bonding with a new parental figure - especially one that has only been in his life for a short amount of time. I can understand the idea of not wanting to pressure him, but that's in no way his fault. Della is making an entrance into his life. If he's not okay with that, or if he doesn't take to her as quickly as the others do, there's nothing she can do about it. The way the show is structured, there's barely any time for healthy dynamics to develop, and certainly not enough time for her to be an authority figure in his life. Plus, you say to keep the reasons that the others bonded with her in mind, but they're a significant element of why I don't like the dynamic developed.
Dewey: They bonded because he was the only one willing to go on an adventure with her. Given the show's standards, that's reasonable enough at first - the issue arises with how it goes throughout the episode. They specifically go behind Scrooge's back to look at the seeds (Going against the wishes of a more established authority figure in Dewey's life). We won't touch on the legality of that, but it's definitely worth bringing up. She then brings him into the vault (specifically prompting him to take the more dangerous path in doing so), and puts him into life-threatening danger multiple times throughout the episode. The only reason they were able to bond was because of how alike they are - birds of a feather and all. She wanted the adventure and he was happy to join her.
Huey: Huey was playing his game, and Della joined him. Which was all well and good, until she realized that he had his own way of playing it. It was unconventional, sure, but it made him happy. Then Della continuously pushes him to play the game traditionally. When he relents and DOES do things her way, his farm is ruined and he loses it. So, their bonding experience ended with her ruining the game for him - and, of course, it was made into a gag, so no one actually takes anything from it. Not exactly a solid bonding experience...?
Webby: Again, I actually thought they handled her relationship with Webby pretty well, so i won't say much here.
Then there's Louie. The two don't really have anything to 'bond' over in a traditional sense - they're different people, and their interests are completely different. There aren't any organic opportunities for the two to bond, so any bonding would have to be set up by Della. The responsibility is on her to even prod at something to get things moving. Louie is content with her not being a prominent figure in his life, so if she wants to be a part of it, she needs to take action. Notice, though, that they only bonded over things that Della liked in the first place - with Dewey, it was adventure (a trait they both share), with Huey it was a game of his that she liked, and with Webby it was literally her own adventures. There was nothing (that we know of) that goes the same way with Louie, and she made no effort to engage him on his own interests. I'd say 'that we know of' for that, but I feel like something that important would have come up.
The problem with that is the example she's setting - being involved only makes it worse. She's encouraging Dewey to misbehave and do dangerous things. You can't do that and then turn around and tell your other child not to do dangerous things. As for Beakley, she shouldn't be needed in regards to Doomsday Vault - even if you're not the brightest parent "Don't encourage your child to break into a vault which could have serious long-term effects" is not something that anyone should need to be taught. You can't have one set of rules for one kid and then different rules for another. That's favouritism. The only reason that Louie was punished was because his actions almost had consequences - so, realistically, there should be a ban on adventuring full-stop. Her logic isn't internally consistent. You can't constantly encourage children to be in dangerous situations and then punish one because his dangerous situation almost got people killed.
My mistake on Big Rock Candy Mountain - it was, indeed, Scrooge that actually planned the expedition. However, I still take issue with Della's attitude (and the show's writing on this particular subject, but that's nothing to do with Della in particular). So, Louie looks out and sees the family getting ready to go on an adventure without him - he's fine until he realizes that they're going to the one place he actually wants to go. I'd still put it as mark against Scrooge, though - it feels so mean-spirited. Still, as you say, that in particular isn't Della's fault - I just think it's lazy writing at best and absurdly mean-spirited at worst. So, the family, well within earshot of Louie, talk about the place. And what's Della's description of it? "Where all of your laziest, schemiest dreams come true!" - that's pointed at Louie, no way it's not. Especially when you consider that the DT87 is specifically geared against schemes. It just feels vindictive - "This is a specific thing you'd love and you don't get to experience it." Likewise, later in the episode, when he asks Huey to describe the place - "Describe nothing! He hasn't earned it. (gasp) It's the Hobo King on a gold silk reclining throne. He's glorious." It goes from harsh to just vindictive. This isn't going to teach him anything, it's just going to make him resent you even more. Della is either a nasty person or more oblivious to her child's feelings than a parent has the right to be.
Then there's something that I forgot, but I despise - "If you want to be a part of this family, you've got to stop." Now, my actual response to this wouldn't make it through censorship, so I'll phrase it differently - That is a repugnant thing to say, and is certainly not appropriate for ANY parent to say to a child. Plus, she disappeared from the family from ten years. This specific phrasing is extremely toxic - to a child, that easily carries the implication of 'you'll be removed from the family if you keep up with this behaviour'. I could easily just see it as poor phrasing on Della's part, but that kind of phrasing is often used by emotional abusers, and is NOT okay. Not to mention, from Louie's perspective, it's another situation of someone who he barely knows dictating what's okay without establishing enough of a connection with him to justify that - only this time, it's dictating his place in the family.
Then, what I was trying to communicate before is summed up much more clearly by Louie - "This is the one thing I'm good at. Why can't you see?" Della is making no effort to understand Louie. She's approaching him on her terms, and he's being blamed when it doesn't work. Yes, Louie has done wrong, but he's only being punished because it's a kind of wrong that Della can't jive with. It's totally unfair to Louie. They make up in the end, but it feels so shallow and forced - she tells him that she'll be more considerate of his perspective from then on... then does nothing when he cons Scrooge out of all of his money...? Bonus points in that, in one episode, Scrooge manages to actually teach Louie the error of his ways while understanding things from his point of view.
I get the reason behind the Della/Launchpad interactions, but the amount of time spent on them is ridiculous. For the plot they wanted, they needed to have as much time as possible between Della and the kids - Launchpad is a non-factor. Why have so much time spent on their interactions that ultimately add up to nothing? I don't really have many objective complaints on that part, I just think too much time was spent on it for too little payoff, especially with such major stakes going on elsewhere.
Again, it's hard to discuss how I'd do things considering how many problems I have with the show on a fundamental level. Assuming that everything has to be exactly as is to that point - don't end the plotline with a gag, for one. Have Della accept that, even if she doesn't understand why Huey enjoys the farming stuff, she won't begrudge him for his own interests. She'd accept that his differences are something that she can't mesh with, but she's glad that her son is happy. Failing that, I'd at least have her apologize - it was her interference that ruined the game for him. She could at least say "Look, I didn't understand the way you played things, but I should have tried to see things your way." Something simple, and ending the plot with actual bonding instead of making a joke out of it.
Resident autistic, diabetic duck fan.
I love hearing about bizarre/obscure Disney works - recommendations welcome!
duckhuefan said: They already got angry about the Spear of Selene (remember how angry they were in Last Crash of the Sunchaser) and only reason they didn't direct it at Della initially was cause she was gone and Scrooge was there to take the heat. By the time Della did come back, everyone had already cooled down from that. And we do see in Scrooge's rant in Raiders of the Doomsday Vault he has some unconscious resentment toward Della's recklessness.
And as for your Timephoon thing, that may be something I'm gonna be defending the most cause I really did love it. And hypocrisy or not, Louie did almost get everyone stuck in different times forever which is even worse since at least Della's mistake only got her separated and she possibly had no idea at that point (hey, Frank never specified WHEN she found out about the estrangement) that there was more seperation (she already had to face consequences in the worst way possible with the loss of her leg, almost getting killed by moon monsters, being horrible alone for a decade which caused issues like her gaining a fear of her own reflection, and episodes like Raiders of Doomsday Vault, Moonvasion, and Golden Armory of Cornelius Coot show the trauma still kinda lingers on her). Heck, the time seperation possible did end up triggering some of Della's trauma since she is once again being seperated from the family she worked so hard to get back to (and Beakley's advice throughout the episode may have been another factor in her deciding to put her foot down).
I think alquackskey's point is less about Della not being called out on her mistakes or facing consequences and more about there not being enough time to handle that issue. There's too much to be handled in such broad strokes, and so it seems like the issues revolving around her disappearance, her being stranded from her sons and how she's being welcomed into the family are solved too easily and too quickly.
I do think that they intended to make the conflict betwen Della and Louie more nuanced than alquackskey pointed out: yes, Della isn't called out on her hypocrysy, nor on the fact that after actions in Raiders of the Doomsday Vault make her morally unfit to call out Louie on his deeds. But that's the point: when Louie spits back on how her descriptions of his actions echo hers, nobody besides Mrs. Beakley (not even Dewey, who often puts Della on a pedestal) calls shim out, implying that deep down they're still affected by the awarenness of what her decisions caused to the family, but they don't know how to verbalize that.
Keep in mind that Della is struggling to be a mother, and part of her lesson is imposing discipline. Before Timephoon, she acted as little more than a cool aunt, all fun and no responsability. And because of that and her mistakes in the past and present, she had no authority to displine her sons, but this is an important step for her to become a good mother. The conflict is, Louie's acts and recklessness mirror hers, especially when she describes them to him when she's justifying why he's being grounded. Which takes me to the other factor: her mistakes from the past and recent past:
For Dewey not being punished in Doomsday Vault but Louie being punished in Timephoon, keep in mind Della was also involved in Dewey's mess so grounding him for something she helped him with is kinda weird whereas with Louie, she didn't even have a clue that he caused the Timephoon until she went to check on him. Course there's also the fact Beakley wasn't there to lecture and advise her to be more assertive during the Doomsday Vault episode (and keep in mind maybe the events of Doomsday Vault pushed Della as well).
It's not about her not punishing Dewey; it's about her punishing Louie at all, or any of her sons. She had yet to earn the authority and their respect as a parent, something that of all the adult characters, only Donald has, being their legal guardian. Even Scrooge's never seen disciplining the triplets because he's not their guardian, he's the cool uncle. But with Della it's even more complicated because her mistakes still resonate in the present, so of all the adults she's the least respectable authority figure regarding discipline. And that's further complicated when we have her call out and punish one of her kids for his recklessness and inconsiderate behaviour, when that perfectly describes what she encouraged her other son to do in Doomdsday Vault.
Having all that said, I don't think this whole issue is a problem per se. I liked that this was being brought in rather than just having her past and the impact in the family entirely glossed over. The problem is, it just isn't given enough time to handle. In the next episode, he's left out of the one adventure he'd thoroughly enjoy, which like you pointed out wasn't in Della's plans for Louie. At that point, there was another interesting thing, in that her efforts to keep him grounded didn't seem entirely out of rage so much as that she was afraid he was going the same path as she was, commiting similar mistakes and alienating their family. However, in the end this isn't all that well handled, because it's reduced to "I understand now that your schemes are part of you are and we're gonna work on that", then in the next episode he keeps Scrooge's company and they don't even interact, so we don't see how she reacted to his new actions. And by the time they interact again in the finale, they seem to be in perfectly good terms.
So it's not that the issues envolving Della and her return and how she affected the family are a bad thing per se, so much as it's that everything is too rushed and too easily solved. By the start of Season 3, she and Donald are perfectly adjusted to each other, barely appear together as the kids' guardians and it's like all the conflict was solved. And that's made all the more visible when we compare to the show's tendency to introduce as many characters as possible, resulting in some of the characters and arcs not receiving enough time, hence Della's return.
Then they have Beakley criticize him for talking back to Della... it's a complete joke. Beakley of all people doesn't care that he nearly got everyone killed, but talk back to his mom? "SEE HERE YOUNG MAN!"
"Partially on Louie too" - I try to stay fairly neutral on things, but HARD disagree on that one. You cannot blame a child for not bonding with a new parental figure - especially one that has only been in his life for a short amount of time. I can understand the idea of not wanting to pressure him, but that's in no way his fault. Della is making an entrance into his life. If he's not okay with that, or if he doesn't take to her as quickly as the others do, there's nothing she can do about it. The way the show is structured, there's barely any time for healthy dynamics to develop, and certainly not enough time for her to be an authority figure in his life.
Then there's something that I forgot, but I despise - "If you want to be a part of this family, you've got to stop." Now, my actual response to this wouldn't make it through censorship, so I'll phrase it differently - That is a repugnant thing to say, and is certainly not appropriate for ANY parent to say to a child. Plus, she disappeared from the family from ten years. This specific phrasing is extremely toxic - to a child, that easily carries the implication of 'you'll be removed from the family if you keep up with this behaviour'. I could easily just see it as poor phrasing on Della's part, but that kind of phrasing is often used by emotional abusers, and is NOT okay. Not to mention, from Louie's perspective, it's another situation of someone who he barely knows dictating what's okay without establishing enough of a connection with him to justify that - only this time, it's dictating his place in the family.
Cut a ton down for this response.
Given how Della proceeded to stop Beakley before she yelled at Louie, Della likely knew Louie had a point. duckman87 honestly sums that moment up a bit better than I can.
I wasn't trying to claim Louie is a bad person for not opening up to his mom, I don't blame him for that. I was only trying to put some neutral logic.
And now we reach THAT infamous line in the argument which really caused a tizzy. Personally, I don't think she was trying to sound as emotionally bad as she did. The best way to see this is that Della doesn't want Louie to end up having the same mistakes and regrets as her where she herself was out of the family for years and a way to interpret is "My own schemes cost me my family and kicked me out of it and I don't want you going down that same hole I did". And on the happier side, they do bond in Moonvasion, Quack Pack (where they were planning their own scheme in the beginning of the episode), and Escape from the Impossibin so at least that was there.
Someone on tumblr did make posts on how to sorta modify the second half of season 2 with the big one being on how to fix Della's story a bit which can be read here: throwawayzoo.tumblr.com/tagged/fix-it-au Let me know if you like that person's modification on the plots?
The whole Della disaster is part and parcel of the huge, insurmountable problem with this show: It wants to be hip, self-aware, cool, and self-mocking, with characters who are relentlessly reckless, flippant, shallow and self-obsessed, but at the same time wants to pretend that it's "all about family" (Angones' own words) and evoke HEARTFELT DRAMA through inter-family conflicts between these same hollow, jokey characters. Try as they might, they can't have it both ways: the "Della" on this show is either an amusing (in theory) lunatic (if she's regarded as a superficial caricature) or a horrifying sociopath (if she's regarded as a dimensional character with actual human feelings and motivations). The same is true of most of the other characters, especially Scrooge, Goldie, Louie, Dewey, Webby, and Glomgold--they're over-the-top caricatures dominated by one or two reductive "character traits," but the showrunners periodically try to pretend they have depth and use them in attempts to force painfully insincere sentiment down our throats.
The whole Della disaster is part and parcel of the huge, insurmountable problem with this show: It wants to be hip, self-aware, cool, and self-mocking, with characters who are relentlessly reckless, flippant, shallow and self-obsessed, but at the same time wants to pretend that it's "all about family" (Angones' own words) and evoke HEARTFELT DRAMA through inter-family conflicts between these same hollow, jokey characters. Try as they might, they can't have it both ways: the "Della" on this show is either an amusing (in theory) lunatic (if she's regarded as a superficial caricature) or a horrifying sociopath (if she's regarded as a dimensional character with actual human feelings and motivations). The same is true of most of the other characters, especially Scrooge, Goldie, Louie, Dewey, Webby, and Glomgold--they're over-the-top caricatures dominated by one or two reductive "character traits," but the showrunners periodically try to pretend they have depth and use them in attempts to force painfully insincere sentiment down our throats.
Geez, little extreme calling Della a sociopath much?
Well, what else would you call someone who's so narcissistic and so oblivious to other people's needs that she abandons her unborn children to steal a rocketship and make a life-risking solo flight, rather than simply waiting till the ship is ready and allowing others to join her on the flight--and who then rejoins her children after having been absent from their lives and starts acting like she has a right to act like their mother and regulate their lives, after she abandoned them in an entirely selfish pursuit? Again, if the Duck family on this show was a real family, they'd be a depressing, horrifying train wreck, with issues that would probably cloud their entire lives--which kind of makes all of Angones' ridiculously smarmy statements about the importance of "family" ring hollow.
Well, what else would you call someone who's so narcissistic and so oblivious to other people's needs that she abandons her unborn children to steal a rocketship and make a life-risking solo flight, rather than simply waiting till the ship is ready and allowing others to join her on the flight--and who then rejoins her children after having been absent from their lives and starts acting like she has a right to act like their mother and regulate their lives, after she abandoned them in an entirely selfish pursuit? Again, if the Duck family on this show was a real family, they'd be a depressing, horrifying train wreck, with issues that would probably cloud their entire lives--which kind of makes all of Angones' ridiculously smarmy statements about the importance of "family" ring hollow.
I'd call her reckless, not a sociopath. And she did apologize as much as possible in Nothing Can Stop Della Duck. If Della were that much of a sociopath, why would she have tried for ten years to get back and reunite. Seriously, are they not allowed to have flawed characters that make mistakes? And as if the Duck family in the comics isn't depressing too. There, Scrooge is meaner, Donald is more selfish, HDL are bigger brats (heck, remember those shorts where they were being mean to Donald like in Donald's Nephews and Mickey's Remedy), Gladstone's even meaner there, Daisy's a total jerk to Donald, and Della didn't even come back to HDL. At least this version can give us sweet moments too?
And what did you think of how they used Daisy and Goofy in the series BTW? I legit wanna know.
Della's behavior in stealing the rocketship evidences such "recklessness" that, like the behavior of so many other characters on this show (cf. Dewey's lunatic actions in the Sunchaser episode) is so beyond any relatable human conduct that the only word I can find for it is sociopathic, if I'm being asked to believe in the reality of the character who engages in it. There's a difference between being flawed (which Barks' Ducks are) and being so self-centered and insane that you're no longer a recognizable human being (like most of the characters on this show are). As to why Della wanted to get back and reunite, that was because the show creators wanted to manufacture sentimentality and DRAMA, not because it was consistent with her insanely selfish "personality." The Della as depicted on this show, both before and after her disappearance, wouldn't seriously want to be reunited long-term with her family; she'd only want to use them as an audience for her to display her wonderfulness to. We're supposed to believe that she's a "flawed" but hard-trying Mom, but that's pretty hard to accept when she's screaming things like "Take that, family!" (after reestablishing contact with Penumbra).
As to the comics, how many of them have you even read? And why on earth are you suddenly pivoting from talking about Della to Daisy and Goofy? I'm really beginning to get the impression that you're incapable of defending your opinions on this show by any other means than engaging in whataboutism or changing the subject.
Della's behavior in stealing the rocketship evidences such "recklessness" that, like the behavior of so many other characters on this show (cf. Dewey's lunatic behavior in the Sunchaser espisode) is so beyond any relatable human conduct that the only word I can find for it is sociopathic, if I'm being asked to believe in the reality of the character who engages in it. There's a difference between being flawed (which Barks' Ducks are) and being so self-centered and insane that you're no longer a recognizable human being (like most of the characters on this show are). As to why Della wanted to get back and reunite, that was because the show creators wanted to manufacture sentimentality and DRAMA, not because it was consistent with her insanely selfish "personality." The Della as depicted on this show, both before and after her disappearance, wouldn't seriously want to reunited long-term with her family; she'd only want to use them as an audience for her to display her wonderfulness to. We're supposed to believe that she's a "flawed" but hard-trying Mom, but that's pretty hard to accept when she's screaming things like "Take that, family!" (after reestablishing contact with Penumbra).
As to the comics, how many of them have you even read? And why on earth are you suddenly pivoting from talking about Della to Daisy and Goofy? I'm really beginning to get the impression that you're incapable of defending your opinions on this show by any other means than engaging in whataboutism or changing the subject.
The idea Della only came back cause she needs an audience is flat out ludicrous and ridiculous and comes off as you trying to find as much reason to make Della look worse than she is. And the take that family thing was a one time joke not meant to be taken seriously.
I am so capable of defending my opinions on the show. For crying out loud, did you not see my post where I explained why I love it so much? And how did I engage in whatbaoutism that time? I didn't even bring up another cartoon that doesn't have the Ducks.
I only asked about Daisy and Goofy as an off topic question for curiousity, not cause I wanted to change the subject. Can't I do that?