Whitewater and Fethry

[Lars Jensen]

Don Rosa wrote:

>> 1) Where does "Abner" comes from about Whitewater Duck?
>
> I had to choose a name for "Whitewater" Duck since that's obviously a
> nickname.

Just out of curiosity: Why is that obvious? Characters with names such
as "Magica" and "Flintheart" have been seen in a number of stories. Or
are those nicknames, too?

> As for Whitewater's brother Fethry, another thread is saying that he
> can't be acceptable as Whitewater's brother (I don't think somebody
> has met very many brothers)

The thread you're talking about has had two posters: Rich Bellacera and
me. I wrote:

> To be honest, I don't really see [Whitewater] working as Fethry's
> brother -- they're too different, in my opinion.

Rich agreed, although he thought there might be merit to this
relationship:

> I'm inclined to agree that Whitewater's temperment really seemed so
> diverse from that of Fethry's, while Biquinho/Dugan Duck seems to
> be much closer to Fethry, at least in appearance.
>
> [...] Still, Whitewater does have black string-like hair, though
> trimmed much closer than Fethry and Dugan's long wild mops.  As a
> mountain man, maybe Whitewater is a widower and not inclined to raise
> a child on his own?

Where does either one of us make the (strange) statement that having
Fethry and Whitewater as brothers is not "acceptable"? You make us sound
like über-fanboys. Please don't put words in other posters' mouths.

As for the "I don't think somebody has met very many brothers" line...

The "somebody" (a.k.a. Lars Jensen) has indeed met a few brothers over
the years, even some twins. Some of them looked alike, others didn't.
That's hardly relevant, though: In this particular case, we're talking
about fiction. And in fiction with a visual component (comics, movies,
TV), casting is usually made with an eye on physical similarities. In
most cases, when a pair of siblings are cast for a movie, the casting
agent will look for actors that can pull off a convincing sibling act.
Unless we're talking about a movie such as "Twins", Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Danny De Vito won't be cast as brothers. Not because
the casting agent hasn't seen a lot of real-life brothers, but because
we're talking about fiction. In an already-out-there setting, where it's
difficult enough making the audience believe that guy up on the screen
is *not*, say, Sylvester Stallone and is *actually* a cop from a
parallel universe ruled by evil reptiles, why stretch people's
suspension of disbelief by having his brother played by Woody Allen?

If we take a look at your own creation, Scrooge's sister Matilda McDuck,
it looks to me like you have taken the "Donald/Scrooge design" (except
for the eyes) and based the look of Matilda on this. Why did you do
this, rather than have her be a "dogface" or a humanized pig? I'm
guessing it's because you (consciously or subconsciously) wanted Matilda
to look like she could be Scrooge's sister.

In the case of Fethry and Whitewater, the two have different hair,
different eyes, different beaks, different bodies, different feet,
different speech patterns, different body language and different
personalities. In my opinion, there's absolutely no reason why anybody
would "cast" these two as brothers, other than the fact they have the
same last name. So why stretch people's suspension of disbelief?

> If Fethry's last name is Duck and he's Donald's cousin,
> there's no place else he could be than the son of a son of Grandma.
> And the same goes for Whitewater.

Except for your Duck Family Tree, Whitewater has only ever appeared in
*one* place: The story "Log Jockey" (WDC 267). Let me quote from the
beginning of that tale, where Donald and HDL are entering a forest:

> Text: "In a dither of curiosity about his kinfolks, Donald is driving
> hither and thither tracing the limbs of the Duck family tree!"
>
> Donald: "I read in our album that we have a distant cousin named
> Whitewater Duck living in this forest!"
>
> Nephew: "Let him stay distant, Unca Donald! We don't like the idea of
> tracking down relatives you've never met!"

So Whitewater is not an actual cousin of Donald's -- only a distant
relative. Which, of course, means that there's no reason why he would be
the brother of Fethry. Other than their common last name, that is.

> there was no objection [from Barks] to
> the Fethry-Whitewater question (though I suspect that's because he
> really didn't remember Whitewater and probably didn't know Fethry)

Judging by the fact that Whitewater isn't actually Donald's cousin, I
suspect so, too.

Lars