Arthur Cleanup

So complaining is allowed on WMG?

It's not really part of the main wiki so as long as it's not violating ROCEJ I think it's okay.

Does this entry under Kids Are Cruel kind of come off as leftover D.W.-bashing to anyone else?

• D.W. might as well be a poster girl for this trope, being incredibly rude, bossy, selfish (even by the standards of a toddler), manipulative and constantly harassing, taking advantage of, and accusing poor Arthur of things he didn't do, and she has a massive Lack of Empathy even by toddler standards. In fact, she's easily the cruelest of all the main characters. In addition to Arthur, she can also be mean to her other family members and friends at times.

Yeah that seems excessive, plus isn't Kids Are Cruel about actual childhood bullying and not just... a bratty toddler?

Yeeeeeah, exactly.

On that note, should we drop the entries for the Tibbles and possibly the one for Francine and Muffy as well?

• The Tibble Twins are little hellions who constantly cause trouble for each other and other people, and to make matters worse, their grandmother is almost never willing to discipline them for their actions.

• Francine and Muffy can fall into this occasionally, the former by virtue of being a Jerk Jock, and the latter by virtue of being a Rich Bitch.

The Tibbles don't really know any better (they're barely as old as D.W.) and can recognize when they go too far ("Attack of the Turbo Tibbles", "To Tibble the Truth") and Francine and Muffy are not usually written to be bullies. The remaining entries (Cousin Cora, the Tough Customers, and Portia) seem to check out, though.

TBH Kids Are Cruel always sort of confused me because it was never clear to me if it applied to individual characters or not. I'm okay with the cut suggestions either way though.

Alright, they've been cut.

From DoNotDoThisCoolThing.Western Animation:

"Tales of Grotesquely Grim Bunny" is even worse. It's a not-so-subtle condemnation of the idea of kids liking horror comics (Arthur reads one due to peer pressure, and gets nightmares), but the fact that the comic itself is Creepy Awesome means that its negative portrayal backfires on many viewers.

I have my doubts about that being on there, because:

• I don't see how it could be about kids liking horror comics, because Arthur disliked the one he read.
• Arthur only complained because the comic book store was selling nothing but horror comics. He wanted the comics he liked back, so he was happy when he got them back, even though they kept the horror comics as well (confining them to the "creepy stuff" section).
• At the end, Fern still buys the horror comics from the aforementioned "creepy stuff" section, and she's in no way portrayed as being in the wrong for doing so, even though she's also a kid.

Edited by Unicorndance on Sep 9th 2023 at 10:04:21 PM

It’s not. We’ve had instances where people got in trouble for using WMG to wonk about works.

The Jerk with a Heart of Jerk, Enfante Terrible, and sociopath WMGs involving D.W. were actually added by me prior to my suspension for D.W.-bashing. Since those kinds of entries are apparently not allowed even on WMG, I will now remove them and cite this thread.

Edit: It turns out the sociopath one had already been deleted by Scraggle. But I still removed the other two. I tentatively left the ones added by other people alone until this thread reaches further consensus on their complaint-ness.

Edited by SereneSpecter13 on Sep 12th 2023 at 12:25:48 PM

Bumping for help on the Do Not Do This Cool Thing examples.

Edited by Unicorndance on Sep 23rd 2023 at 10:36:23 PM

Sounds fair.

Hey, I was wondering about something.

This is on the the YMMV page under Alternate Character Interpretation:

• Are David and Jane Read legitimately good parents who just want what they think is best for their children, or do they show blatant favoritism by not allowing Arthur to do things most kids his age do (reading scary comic books, going to PG-13 movies) while letting D.W. do whatever she wants?

The part about this that I'm bringing this up over is the "not allowed to go to PG-13 movies" part. First, if I recall correctly, NONE of Arthur's friends were allowed to see the movie either (leading to them deciding to make their own). So it's not just Jane and David here.

Granted, that little detail may or may not matter to the point the example is trying to make, so...

Also, IIRC it wasn't "Arthur wanted to read a scary comic, but his parents didn't let him", it was "Arthur didn't want to read a scary comic, but he felt pressured by his friends". The troper who added it might have gotten confused, because in one episode, Muffy's parents try to ban scary novellas from all children.

I think the actual ACE example probably counts but the examples given can be cut if they're inaccurate. Plus Arthur is like eight, and it's common for parents to not let eight-year-olds do those things — I don't remember DW being allowed to do things that are particularly age-inappropriate.

and 3x: The episode "Arthur's Family Vacation" actually has both Arthur and D.W. seeing a Jaws-esque shark horror film on a family vacation trip. Although age ratings aren't explicitly discussed in that episode, nor is the film actually shown to the audience (which might imply a Gory Discretion Shot) I don't imagine something like that would be too age-appropriate for an 8-year-old and a 4-year-old. Both of them are shown to be freaked out by it, at least. Also, Prunella was allowed to see the PG-13 movie by her parents despite being only a year older than Arthur and his other friends. Also also, the episode "D.W. and Dr. Whosit" has Mr. and Mrs. Read initially allow Arthur (but not D.W.) to watch a Doctor Whomage, even though Mr. Read the show is even going to give him, a grown adult, nightmares, although they go back on this at the end of the episode and decide he's too young for it as well.

Edited by SereneSpecter13 on Oct 3rd 2023 at 12:44:40 PM

Someone made a Crowder edit a while back, should I let it be or should I remove it: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=YMMV.Arthur#edit37682458

It looks like unnecessary rambling and can just be cut down to mention Crowder voicing Brain was controversial. If people want further details they can google it.

Oh for Pete's sake, how did that edit squeak by for several months? Go ahead and cut all those ramblings, yeah.

I'm beginning to wonder if we should move the Crowder Clause from where it currently is above Retroactive Recognition to the top of the page if people are just going to move on to other entries to shoehorn in mentions of Crowder's litany of controversies.

Alright, I went and changed the entry I showed. Not sure if it's any better now.

Anyways, saw this under YMMV.Arthur S 4 E 1 D Ws Library Card Arthurs Big Hit

• Never Live It Down:
  • Many fans have not let Jane and David Read's hypocritical behavior towards Arthur as well as their No Sympathy reaction towards him getting hit by Binky slide despite the fact that they're normally loving albeit strict parents towards Arthur and D.W.
  • Despite the fact that Binky was peer pressured into doing it as well as the fact that he apologized, a lot of fans have not forgiven him for punching Arthur.

Arthur's parents, sure; but Binky, I don't think I've really ever seen anyone hold it against him for hitting Arthur. And funnily enough, this entry dosen't even mention D.W. in this entry, even though this episode played a big part in her reputation as a unpunished demon child.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Oct 9th 2023 at 8:26:49 AM

Tbh, maybe we should go ahead and just drop the mention of Crowder from the Seasonal Rot entry altogether. Crowder's scandals didn't happen until years after the season aired anyway (so it's not like they affected the season when it originally aired, if that makes sense), and I feel like even just mentioning him there is just going to invite more shoehorning mentions of his controversies into it when it isn't necessary (especially since it doesn't have a Crowder Clause as a deterrent like the Retroactive Recognition entry does, hence why I wondered if we should just move said Clause to the top of the page).

Regarding "Arthur's Big Hit", I haven't seen anybody really holding it against Binky either since it's fairly clear, and even asserted by the entry itself, that Binky didn't even want to hit Arthur and apologized afterward (if anything, he's the most sympathetic character in the entire episode)

Edited by kablammin45 on Oct 9th 2023 at 8:53:52 AM

Oh, if Crowder is just a Retroactive Recognition issue then yes, I'd say he's not really relevant to the reception at the time. And I agree, cut Binky from NLID (I feel like he's quite a liked character). Not sure about DW cuz fans hold other episodes against her as well.

There's also this on NeverLiveItDown.Western Animation:

• Arthur:
  • To an extent, Arthur is known for calling Sue Ellen a sheepdog or comparing her to one relentlessly in "So Funny I Forgot to Laugh".

Ah, Weasel Words, my old nemesis. Arthur isn't really known for this, people actually recognized how Out of Character he was here unlike with a certain sponge in a certain episode...

I'm wondering, should I add Lack of Empathy regarding Arthur's friends in Arthur's Big Hit? They shame him for hitting D.W. without even trying to understand how frustrated he felt when weeks of his work got wasted by his sister which was what lead to the altercation in question.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Oct 12th 2023 at 11:59:44 AM

Did they know why Arthur hit D.W.? I haven't seen the episode in years, so I don't remember if he tells them why. Also, did he specifically say that building the plane took weeks?

Also, from reading the description, Lack of Empathy seems to be about characters who never feel empathy, not one time a character wasn't empathetic when they should've been.