r/Arthur

Does anyone feel like Arthur acts completely out of character in this episode? I know that he’s still capable of bullying because at the end of the day he’s a child, but he’s never come across as a bully and he goes very far in this episode. It felt more natural when Fern became mean as a way to get back at Francine in Draw! Arthur just kinda becomes unhinged for no reason.

I also think about how Francine acts, like she’s never bullied anyone before. She was quite mean in the earlier episodes, even to Muffy at one point. Maybe that shows character growth though because she does calm down. I wonder if it would have helped Arthur for her to bring it up and acknowledge what she did was wrong (and apologize because she never actually DID that to anyone she bullied, in fact it was the other kids who showed maturity by forgiving her). I can see Arthur’s point, even - he was bullied and didn’t do anything like tell a teacher - so to his 8 y/o immature brain, he does see it as overreacting.

Also, why aren’t his parents made aware of the situation?? You’d think that if a kid bullies his peer so horribly that it causes her to switch classes, the teacher would say something to the parents, but Mr. Ratburn only does one thing - and he doesn’t even read Arthur’s letter?

And then the fact that the following episode is The Best Day Ever and the characters all realize that Arthur contributed is so coincidental that it has to be an accidental coincidence.

(I also hate how his voice sounds which makes him more annoying in my eyes.)

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The Tibbles should’ve both been punished for destroying D.W’s sand castle.

After winning good student of the week award, Tommy threw a tantrum after winning a vanilla cupcake, because he wanted a chocolate one instead.

As punishment Mrs. Morgan should’ve made Tommy clean that mess up, talk to Timmy also for misbehaving send both of them to time out and tell their grandmother of what they did.

Your thoughts?

As a hardcore d.w. defender I always say Arthur could at times be just as rude, or unfair to d.w. as she is to him and episodes like "return of the snowball" prove as much. In the episode DW's snowball that she lost in "D.W.'s snow mystery mysteriously re-appers in the freezer and d.w. becomes determined not to lose it again, and as a result she constantly accuses Arthur of stealing it much to his, and Jane's annoyance. I agree having her obsess over it must have been really annoying but in her defense it didn't seem peculiar that it just miraculously appeared in the freezer again after so long then it's revealed at the end Arthur revealed he bought a snow cone from the ice cream shop, and put it in the freezer with the ice cream so d.w. would think it was hers so d.w. wasn't exactly wrong about Arthur having something to do with its mysterious reappearance. I know the point of the episode was that DW should stop obsessing over the snowball cuz no one will ever know what happened to it but Arthur purposely deceived her, and caused her to get a time out when he knew perfectly well that wasn't her real snowball. Also he claims he did it because he thought it would make her happy, but I'm not sure if that's true or if he just did it to stop her from bringing it up. I know a lot of you are probably going to bring up DW breaking Arthur's model plane and say dw pulls a lot of shit on Arthur, but the point I'm making is that Arthur can sometimes stoop to d.w.'s level which does no good for their sibling rivalry but what do you all think?

Yes, we have the two pretty well known instances of her not being a good big sister, but first off, I do not count ANY of her behavior from Kate’s introductory episode because as I have shared numerous times, DW had nothing but the purest (if not ignorant) intentions towards Kate. She was practically sabotaged by Jane and David (and the Tibbles) into acting out when her right to uninterrupted sleep was disturbed.

I can fault her for the episode where she threatens to pinch Kate and is sent to her room, however, I also give her kudos for being able to process the error of her ways and recognize what she did was wrong. She even came to that conclusion before her timeout was finished…this is a side note, but it’s wild that Jane left Kate in the same room as DW before her ten minute timeout was even finished. Like, DW is in a ten minute timeout for threatening to pinch the baby, and you put that baby alone with DW before the timeout is even finished?

Nearly every other time we see DW interact with
Kate, she’s playing quietly and gently with her, talking to her, giving her wagon rides, etc.

I also think that the flash forward of their dynamic in DW and the Beastly Birthday does show some parallels to her relationship with Arthur. Like how DW wants Kate out of her room and the “keep out” signal with Kate’s picture on it (which is a really clever callback to the famous “that sign won’t stop me” meme), however, there do seem to be a few differences between the two girls when compared to DW and Arthur.

Okay, I have to contend that one of those differences is that Kate does seem to be significantly less pushy towards “Dora” when compared to DW and Arthur HOWEVER I think another difference is that when DW is telling Kate to leave her alone, her tone is significantly calmer than the tone Arthur always seemed to use with her. There are so many times in this show where DW is just asking a question and Arthur just instantly defaults to either yelling at her (or yelling for their mom).

Dora on the other hand seems to keep a level head and calm tone with Kate, even when she’s essentially telling her to leave her alone, and I do think that makes a difference. She even gave Kate the cute nickname of “Katie Bug” at some point and I think that’s sweet.

Anyways, yeah, I think that the fact that they are sisters and will likely have similar interests as they grow up does play a part, but it does also speak highly of DW that she does seem to want to put forth an effort to have a strong relationship with Kate, especially because I feel like the cards were kind of stacked against DW to have her resent Kate.

The kids could have choked on the quarters if they had never found out why the quarters were missing.

And just how did the lunch lady not realize that she was putting quarters in the brownie mix? Surely if she didn't see the quarters going in, she would have at least have heard the distinct sound the quarters made while going in.