Headscratchers / Klaus (2019)

Klaus and the Island

• Why would Klaus and his wife, who want to raise a family and have lots of children, live on an Island with a feud so terrible that they're almost killing each other? Considering the feud has halted any schooling on the island, and the flashback with them having brown hair indicating that they weren't on either side of the feud, it'd be a pretty bad place to raise their kids, even in the farthest corner of the Island. Why would they live there?
  • It's possible that several decades ago, when Klaus was young, the feud wasn't half as bad as it is during the events of the movie, which means that the town was not even half of a bad place as it is now.
    • I dunno; the Feud has been going on since time immemorial, and if at any point the feud wasn't boiling over there would be better chances for Post Officers to actually do some kind of work, which is established as never happening (the Postmen come, and pretty quickly they leave, based on comments by the Townsfolk and the Ferryman).
    • One would guess Klaus was self-sufficient enough to support his family up in the woods.
  • Presumably they both grew up on the island and retreated to the woods to escape the feuding. Or maybe they came to a remote town and had no idea it was going to be... THAT, but by then they didn't have money to set up elsewhere.
  • Klaus has the mass of an Ellingboes, while his wife has the skinniness of a Krum. Maybe they just fell in love and weren't willing to leave their homeland, even if they had to escape the feud.

Why is Alva even here?

• Since the Krums and the Ellingboes never send their children to school, why was there even a school house, let alone a teaching position advertised? Alternatively, if Alva was assigned there by the main land, wouldn't her superiors know of the difficulties in trying to teach in Smeerensburg and provide her with some backup?
  • She was a newly graduated teacher looking for a job. Advertised position or assigned by her superiors, she would probably be desperate or naive enough to take the first job she could.

Why wasn't Jesper aware of the plan?

• Why wasn't Jesper aware of the plan to replace all the toys with chopped wood as a decoy target as a countermeasure against the townsfolk?
  • Presumably they formed the plan after Jesper was already on his (temporary) way out of town so they didn't get a chance to tell him. Or else were going to tell him about it before his motives were revealed.
  • The two families probably didn’t plan on sabotaging the toy deliveries until after Jesper was on his way out; they could’ve thought that maybe him being gone would put such a damper on the gift-giving that no one would want to keep it up afterward.

The Ghost of the Sami

• Who's making Klaus's Toys in the Afterlife? Angels? The Sami who have died? Actual Christmas Elves? It was one thing when Klaus was alive and getting living people to help (mostly himself and the Sami people), it's a different situation when he's dead.
  • Maybe he doesn't need help in the afterlife. It's not like he has a physical body to slow him down.

Klaus, the Clockman?

• Where Klaus gets the Lumber for his toys is obvious... Where Klaus is getting the Clockwork bits to make the toys, isn't...
  • Maybe he salvages axes/weapons that fell to the streets below and brought them to a smithy to create the mechanical parts during the night? It's not like there's an incredible shortage of iron and weapons the townspeople have.

The Sami Tribe

• How come the Sami settled near an island with a notoriety for Feuding Families with little to no economic values, save for occasional whaling (that has been inactive by movie's present time) and iron tools (even said tools being repurposed as weapons)? Secondly, how come they managed to remain unscathed from possible crossfires to the point of Márgu meeting with the children, who seems to have little linguistic barrier.
  • Well... they're nomadic people, living in tents and not permanent housing. They needn't have been there very long, and they might not have remained much longer either if it weren't for Klaus. The Feuding Families don't care about them; to the Krums, at least they're not Ellingboes, and also vice versa, and the children of either faction don't dislike Márgu for the same reason, even if they don't quite understand her or especially include her either.

How did the feud die out so fast?

• So a decades-old feud ended just like that by two of its members falling in love? Just because two members could do that doesn't mean the rest of their relatives could just bury the hatchets so easily.
  • No it died out because the kids starting getting along playing together and doing good deeds, there is a whole long montage of the people slowly getting along more and more. Example; The children harvest the berries for a Krum woman rather then steal them. Not wanting to be in debt to someone from Ellingboe she makes jam and gives it to the kids mom. The mother retaliates by giving her a pie after which they decide that being friendly is more enjoyable then fighting. The couple falling in love was just the nail in the coffin.
  • No one in town really liked hurting and getting hurt, except for the clan heads who were too old to change; the rest just did it as a routine. And when a routine makes people miserable, then any change is better. It shouldn't be a surprise that people were quick to embrace the betterment after years of degrading torment.
  • A film compresses events. Maybe a TV series would have shown a more effective portrayal.

Only One School?

• Why would their only been 1 school intended for the two families to mingle? That doesn't make sense considering the families have despised each other since time immemorial. Shouldn't there be two schools, one for each of the families, each headed by one of the families? Or if there is to be only one school, it would make sense that one of the Families would go there/patron it, but not the other.
  • The rivarly between the families seems much more to be traditional than any political formalized division, so the building of the school most likely didn't consider that when they built it.
  • It's likely that there were other residents of the town who weren't members of either of the two families, people in the same boat as Jesper, Alva, or Klaus and his wife. In that case, the feud would not have been the sole dominating factor in considering how many schools to build. By the time the feud had driven all the neutral townsfolk away, no one saw any need to lobby for a second school since their lives were so simple and close-minded that education wouldn’t have seemed like a necessity.

Silk Sheets

• Okay, but does Jesper realize that he can just have his silk sheets sent to him in Smeerenburg? Hell, once he becomes successful, he can buy new ones if he wants?
  • Him missing the silk sheets was more of a general complaining about the whole situation than simply lacking them, I suppose him and his father continued to make contact after their meeting. Besides, I'd guess silk sheets would be too thin for the freezing cold in the island.

Klaus Coming Back From the Dead?

• So I was pretty satisfied with the ending, except for one thing. How can Klaus be Santa once a year if he's dead? Does he come back to life, deliver the presents, and die again and repeat the process every year? Lydia is still on Earth as the indicating wind, so we know that the planes of existence aren't exclusive. But going by that logic, how can Klaus essentially come back as himself? Also, when he dies, do his reindeer die with him? Of course they don't die of old age, but it wouldn't make sense for living reindeer to pull along a dead Santa.
  • M.A.G.I.C.
  • He doesn't die every year, but he's only allowed to physically interact with the world of the living at Christmas.

Postman's Welcome

• Upon arriving at the island, Jesper asks about why the locals haven't prepared a reception of sorts for him. At first, I thought this was meant to show how hopelessly sheltered and self important he was for expecting such a thing. But later on, it's pointed out via exposition that Mogens pretty much pulls the "ring the bell to get your reception" gag on all the postmen who set up shop here, which seems to indicate that throwing a lavish reception for postmen is indeed the norm. Are postmen just that revered and respected in this world?
  • The fact the school for postmen was like a military academy, that could be possible but it's more likely that people would pull the bell for other reasons.

How exactly does the letter system work

• So Jasper collects the letters from the children and seems to be bringing them straight to Klaus in order to fulfill the children's wishes for toys. Yet Mogens seems to be taking the letters from the island and possibly having them picked up by another postal worker. Are these letters going all the way from Smeerensburg, back to the main office to be sorted, then all the way back to Smeerensburg, then delivered back to Klaus by Jasper? Or is Jasper opening the letters to show to Klaus, resealing them, then shipping them off to be sorted and delivered later?

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