Ludwig and Matilda

Olaf Solstrand olaf.solstrand at andebyonline.com
Wed Apr 12 22:20:38 CEST 2006


M.J. Prior <M.J.Prior at student.rug.nl> skreiv Wed, 12 Apr 2006 21:20:28  
+0200

> When the quarrel took place in 1932, ALFH must be situated
> in 1957, which corroborates with my earlier assumption
> that ALFH had to take place after January 1957:
>
> http://nafsk.se/pipermail/dcml/2003-November/020020.html
> http://nafsk.se/pipermail/dcml/2003-November/020127.html
> (Messages by me, figuring out a date for "Crown" and
> ALFH.)

Goooood flashback. Always amusing to see such effort being put into  
figuring something out these things.

Though, let me first say one thing: except for it being an interesting  
parlor trick, I think this pinpointing of times and dates should only be  
done with the greatest caution.

Okay, Rosa dates his stories to the fifties. However, the *reason* he does  
this, is that «otherwise, the characters would have aged and died». The  
validity of that statement kind of fades away when people start  
pinpointing «this story finds place in 1951, and this story finds place at  
the very earliest in 1957», and Huey, Dewey and Louie don't age at all  
between those two stories.

That's why I like to see all Don Rosa's stories -- and even Carl Barks's  
stories when seen in the context of being refered to in a Rosa story -- as  
a kind of blur in time. Everything happens approximately at the same time,  
the order is not that important, and the dating can be altered with in  
coming stories. Carl Barks stories, when referred to in a Rosa story, is  
taken out of its context in the time-space-continuum and placed anywhere  
preceding the current story, because that is a necessity to make them work  
in the Don Rosa "universe" -- Don Rosa needs to be able to use characters  
in his early fifties stories even though they first appeared in the  
sixties and he needs to be able to refer to artifacts occuring in  
mid-to-late-fifties stories without explaining why the characters haven't  
aged in the five years that has occured since his early fifties stories.  
Basically, to make the whole idea work, one has to mix it all up and just  
say that everything is happening at about the same time, without giving an  
exact year for it. Just like in Asterix stories -- we know they're  
happening about year 50 B.C., but apart from that it's all a big blob  
where everything is happening at the same time -- and that is how I think  
Rosa stories should be read (only ... 2000 years later, of course).

But hey, the discussions can be fun anyway ... :-)



> And please note that a possible marriage between Ludwig
> and Matilda still isn't stated in canon. Moreover,
> according to "Kids is kids" Ludwig is a bachelor.

Hm ... is it stated that he is not married, or is it stated that he has  
never been married? Is a divorce out of the question?

Okay, divorces in Disney is perhaps not a topic many stories are written  
about, but hey, we have several occurences of people raising children on  
their own (e.g. Zeke Wolf). Of course, we don't know if Zeke was ever  
married, but since I kind of doubt that he was ever pregnant, it sounds  
likely that he must have even been left by his son's mother at a point at  
least ... (uhm, for how long is a wolf pregnant?) ... after they first met  
and probably started going out. She could be dead, but for some bizarre  
reason I don't find that very likely.

But since we're discussing unoffical "facts" anyway, whether or not  
divorces are accepted by Disney is not really relevant for the problem in  
question. :-)




Olaf the Blue
http://www.andebyonline.com/





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