Fridge / Babar

Fridge Horror

• In the human city, people don't bat an eye on a sapient, talking elephant. When a policeman catches Babar, he sends him to the court instead of the animal control. This means people are aware that elephants in this universe are sapient, presumably including the hunter. Thus, the hunter is killing creatures that he knows are sapient for sport, practically Hunting the Most Dangerous Game.
  • Maybe it presents an another side and another reason for us to despise the Hunter?

• Babar et le Père Noël (Babar and Father Christmas) depicts Father Christmas (Santa Claus) as living inside a mountain in Bohemia. This book, the last written by Jean de Brunhoff before his death in 1937, was written when Bohemia was still part of Czechoslovakia. However, by the time the book was published (posthumously in 1940/1941), part of that country, including the mountainous borderland, had been annexed by Nazi Germany (1938) and the whole country had been occupied and divided up in 1939, with Bohemia-Moravia being made a German protectorate. Now let that sink in...
• "My Dinner with Rataxes" reveals that Rataxes has secret tunnels hidden inside his palace. That would be Fridge Logic on its own (just how would Rataxes' palace stay up if they collapsed?), but it becomes this when Rataxes lets slip that he intended to use the tunnels for a surprise attack on Celesteville. He doesn't explicitly say it, but Babar knows the truth because he also knows his men couldn't dig their way out of a sandbox. Basil points out that Rataxes ordered the tunnels to be made during the hostile period, which makes you wonder how long ago this had to be.

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