DCML digest #697

Don Rosa donrosa at iglou.com
Thu Oct 11 16:09:28 CEST 2001


From: YMH at aol.com
>>>Er, about that... Why exactly *does* she seek the dime?
-Yossi

If you've read almost *any* of my Magica stories, at least if your
translators have not scrapped my dialogue for something else, I always make
a point of explaining and reaffirming why Magica, according to Barks'
original stories, wants that Dime.
Actually, Barks developed her motus-operandi slowly over her fairly short
original career, and certain aspects were already disappearing by the time
he stopped using her. I pick a version that is about 3-stories into the
Barks canon...
In the original Magica tale "The Midas Touch", even though she is referred
to as a sorceress, she exhibits absolutely NO magic powers or the use of
magic wands, etc. The only weapon she has is her "FOOF" bombs which could
be a very ordinary concoction. Barks, for some reason, seemed to really
disdain the use of a character with occult powers... his previous uses of
witches ("Trick or Treat" and "Golden Xmas Tree") were assigned to him by
his editor, not by his choice. In "Midas Touch", Magica claims, in a
seemingly purely scientific manner, that she has found that if she gathers
up coins owned by the world's richest men and melts them in the fires of
Mt. Vesuvius, she will be able to create an amulet which will give her the
Midas Touch (ability to create gold at will). There is no indication of
magic in this story, but it's more like *alchemy*, which would be how I
still prefer to view her abilities or arcane knowledge. Anyway, she was
well on her way in doing this, peacefully and legally buying up coins from
tycoons, when she learned of how $crooge has always kept his *first* coin
he ever earned as a souvenir. Magica reasoned that if she had *that* single
coin, owned and held the longest by the world's *very richest* man, she
would not need any other coins and she'd also be certain that her spell
would work. That coin would have maximum power because of the power that
has rubbed off on it from being owned and handled for decades by $crooge.
(Note that this is quite the opposite of the "Lucky Dime" error... it's
*not* that the Dime has given $crooge special powers, it's that $crooge has
given the *Dime* special powers! BIG difference!) She offered to buy the
coin, but $crooge naturally declined. As a matter of fact, he accidentally
*sells* her the Dime, then gets it back, and Magica then decides she liked
the original deal. Does this mean that the Dime has been Magica's legal
property all these years? And $crooge is unjustly withholding it? Hm.
In Magica's second story "The Unsafe Safe", she is still after the Dime,
but she still uses NO magic powers. She has a "zap ray" that she claims to
have "perfected" which is a purely mechanical device that she hides up her
sleeve with a battery pack. She seems to be losing ground as a sorceress
rather than gaining it.
In her third story "Oddball Odyssey", she still has no magic powers, but in
this story we see for the first time that she discovers a cache of ancient
wands and spells belonging to Circe, and because Magica is a student of
sorcery, she says she knows how to translate the ancient words that
describe how she (or anyone) can use Circe's goodies. She uses these items
for the next few stories, referring to her discovery of Circe's
storeroom -- perhaps this is the main batch of magical items she has always
used? Anyway, it's also in this story that Barks begins to simplify
Magica's story about why she wants the Dime, just to save space -- Magica
now begins to imply that the Dime *by itself* is an amulet to make her
rich... the melting in Mt. Vesuvius is not referred to... it's becoming a
Hitchcockian McGuffin.
So... the Magica we see in this third story is pretty much the one I use. A
normal person who uses her knowledge of ancient languages and alchemy to
utilize magical "tools" she discovers or perhaps buys.
Later Barks Magica stories began to drift into other areas... she often is
not even interested in the Dime any longer, but $crooge is crossing paths
with her in pursuit of some other magical item that she wants to use to
make herself rich, such as Aladdin's flying carpet, or some golden feathers
she needs in a potion. And I think that would be a nice way to use her in a
future $crooge story... but I think that readers have been conditioned with
this lust she has to get that Dime that they might be puzzled or
disappointed that the Dime is not part of the story... and that's okay,
too.





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