Let's give duck comic characters D&D statistics!
You all know how this works, right? The statistics are strength, dexterity, constitution, charisma, intelligence, and wisdom. The numbers generally range from three to eighteen, although they can go higher in exceptional circumstances. Any sentient character without serious mental disabilities will have an intelligence of at least five. Right now, we're dealing exclusively with Barksian characters.
Donald Duck
Alignment: Chaotic Good
STR: 11
DEX: 11
CON: 14
CHA: 09
INT: 13
WIS: 07
Commentary: Donald's an everyman, obviously. The better side of his nature mostly wins out, probably, putting him more on the "good" side of the equation. His higher-than-average constitution reflects the many, many beatings he endures. His intelligence is as high as it is because when he sets his mind to it, he's able to accomplish some pretty darned impressive things. His low wisdom is probably self-explanatory.
Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck
Alignment: Lawful Good
STR: 09
DEX: 14
CON: 10
CHA: 12
INT: 15
WIS: 13
Commentary: I'm assuming all three of them are essentially identical, statistically. Actually, some of these statistics are highly variable, depending on whether they're in regular-kids-mode or Junior-Woodchucks-mode. These assume the latter. High dexterity because of all the woodcrafts and stuff they do.
Scrooge McDuck
Alignment: Neutral
STR: 15
DEX: 15
CON: 17
CHA: 07
INT: 15
WIS: 10
Commentary: Not declaring Scrooge to be any manner of "good" might be controversial, but it has to be admitted, the single-minded pursuit of wealth is, at best, amoral. Mostly high stats, as you can see. "Tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties," don't you know. Low charisma because being liked never seems to be a priority for him (you'd think it would sort of HAVE to be, what with all his business dealings, but I have seen little evidence of this). Wisdom is a tricky one. It's not always easy to tell how self-aware he really is. He's certainly not entirely serene. I'll just split the difference.
Daisy Duck
Alignment: Neutral Good
STR: 08
DEX: 08
CON: 08
CHA: 14
INT: 09
WIS: 08
Commentary: Jeez...you can't not include Daisy, but as you try to assign her numbers, you realize just how poorly-defined her character IS. I assume these are about right, but I could easily be shown to be mistaken.
April, May, and June Duck
Alignment: Neutral Good
STR: 07
DEX: 11
CON: 08
CHA: 14
INT: 12
WIS: 10
Commentary: I have no commentary about April, May, and June.
Gladstone Gander
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
STR: 09
DEX: 08
CON: 07
CHA: 15
INT: 10
WIS: 03
Commentary: That's right--straight-up evil. I've written about Gladstone as, in some ways, a tragic figure, but that doesn't change the fact that he's easily the most reprehensible regular in the Barksiverse, full-blown villains included. If it were just a matter of him living off his luck, I'd call him chaotic neutral, but he also has a pretty wide malevolent streak that pushes him over. His statistics are assumed to be average (with the obvious exceptions of a high charisma--reflecting his charmed life--and, for obvious reasons, no wisdom to speak of), but these of course are irrelevant, given the luck factor.
Grandma Duck
Alignment: Neutral Good
STR: 13
DEX: 13
CON: 14
CHA: 12
INT: 12
WIS: 15
Commentary: You've gotta figure Grandma's actually pretty badass--she's ancient--a generation older than Scrooge, meaning she's gotta be pushing a hundred--and yet she's still capable of managing a farm almost single-handedly (Gus's help is, obviously, very limited). Her statistics should reflect that.
Gus Goose
Alignment: Neutral
STR: 15
DEX: 07
CON: 12
CHA: 06
INT: 05
WIS: 12
Commentary: I give Gus perhaps undue credit for "wisdom"--guy's unmotivated, certainly, but he seems to have his life pretty well worked out. Otherwise: strong (albeit super-lazy), clumsy, dumb--that's our Gus!
Gyro Gearloose
Alignment: Neutral Good
STR: 07
DEX: 14
CON: 08
CHA: 07
INT: 21
WIS: 12
Commentary: Gyro is repeatedly shown to be pretty weak physically. He's gotta have some dexterity to do all the science-y chemical mixing he does, however. And, obviously, he's a super-genius.
Gyro's Helper
Alignment: Neutral Good
STR: 06
DEX: 15
CON: 06
CHA: 10
INT: 18
WIS: 14
Commentary: Seriously, what the hell does "charisma" mean for a little lightbulb robot thingie? Being so small, you've gotta figure he couldn't take much of a beating, though we've seen him demonstrate what could be called "dexterity."
Ludwig Von Drake
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
STR: 10
DEX: 09
CON: 10
CHA: 06
INT: 20
WIS: 07
Commentary: He appears in a single Barks one-pager; therefore, he counts! Pretty similar to Gyro in a lot of ways, though where Gyro's mostly kind of oblivious about his genius, Ludwig's got a serious ego on him. And you really can't tell WHAT he's going to do next; therefore: chaotic.
The Beagle Boys
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
STR: 13-16
DEX: 11-13
CON: 14-16
CHA: 05-07
INT: 12-15
WIS: 06-09
Commentary: I assume the Beagles' stats vary a bit. They are NOT DUMB, in spite of what you might think. They frequently refer to the academic courses they took in prison, and they seem to generally have done pretty well at them. And they built a GIANT FUCKING AXE THING, fercrissake. I think the fact that they always screw up when it counts can be considered a wisdom failure more than anything else. Finally, although they're portrayed as being more or less malevolent in different stories, in general, no, I wouldn't describe them as "evil."
Flintheart Glomgold
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
STR: 15
DEX: 14
CON: 16
CHA: 06
INT: 14
WIS: 08
Commentary: If this were based on how other artists have used Flinty, you'd have to call him "evil," but I'm looking mainly at "The Second-Richest Duck" and "The Money Champ" here (also disregarding "So Far and No Safari"--not that he probably would have been portrayed as morally ambiguous by others in any case--moral ambiguity is hard--but that story cemented him as "boring, standard-issue evil," which is why, even though it's a decent story otherwise, I kinda wish it hadn't been written)--and looking at them, I don't think you can call him "evil" at all. He's basically Scrooge, only just that tiny bit less tough/smart (hence, second-richest), and without the humanizing influence of family.
Magica de Spell
Alignment: Neutral Evil
STR: 10
DEX: 15
CON: 10
CHA: 14
INT: 18
WIS: 05
Commentary: If ever there were an object lesson in the gulf that can exist between intelligence and wisdom--that's Magica! I assume she needs to be fairly dextrous to make foof bombs and shit, and we see her be charismatic when she wants to be. Problem is, her strengths tend to dissipate when she's in one of her fugues of dime-lust.
Ratface
Alignment: Neutral Evil
STR: 09
DEX: 13
CON: 08
CHA: 05
INT: 14
WIS: 07
Commentary: Magica's raven certainly acts malevolently often enough, but I can't get over the perhaps-unfounded impression that he's at least as put-upon as he is "evil." And I find his loyalty to his mistress to be sort of touching. I dunno. Still neutral evil, but perhaps less so than Magica herself. Not much else to say.
Neighbor Jones
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
STR: 14
DEX: 10
CON: 15
CHA: 09
INT: 10
WIS: 07
Commentary: Um, yeah. Very similar to Donald, though bigger and hence stronger. I call him "chaotic neutral," implying that Donald is morally superior, but that's not really a meaningful consideration in their feuds. It's just that you never see Jones in any other context, so there's no other lines along which you can judge him.
Miss Quackfaster
Alignment: Neutral
STR: 10
DEX: 18
CON: 09
CHA: 12
INT: 14
WIS: 11
Commentary: Okay, it's really impossible to judge such a marginal character in any meaningful way. Let's give her a high dexterity since, presumably, she types faster. And let's give her a fairly high intelligence, since you would need it to deal with Scrooge and his complex network of business interests on a daily basis. Otherwise, pretty average.
Bolivar
Alignment: Neutral Good
STR: 17
DEX: 07
CON: 18
CHA: 09
INT: 03
WIS: 12
Commentary: Um...the ducks' Saint Bernard clearly has it going on physically. Compared to many Disney animals, he's not very highly anthropomorphized; hence, the low intelligence. But I like the big lug. And I REFUSE to call him "Bernie!" I don't care HOW many notional South Americans I offend!
General Snozzie
Alignment: Lawful Good
STR: 12
DEX: 15
CON: 15
CHA: 08
INT: 15
WIS: 12
Commentary: The Junior Woodchucks' Official Hound is a terrifyingly accomplished beast. I know it seems a little weird to treat one dog as having regular dog intelligence and another as being smarter than most people, but that just seems to be how it works out. Anyway, trust me--if Snozzie's trailing you, you might as well just give up. Dude has serious smarts and endurance. There's one highly disturbing Barks-scripted Junior Woodchucks story in which--at the behest of Western, I assume--he's replace with fucking Pluto. NOT ACCEPTABLE. GENERAL SNOZZIE WILL NEVER DIE.
Donald Duck
Alignment: Chaotic Good
STR: 11
DEX: 11
CON: 14
CHA: 09
INT: 13
WIS: 07
Commentary: Donald's an everyman, obviously. The better side of his nature mostly wins out, probably, putting him more on the "good" side of the equation. His higher-than-average constitution reflects the many, many beatings he endures. His intelligence is as high as it is because when he sets his mind to it, he's able to accomplish some pretty darned impressive things. His low wisdom is probably self-explanatory.
Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck
Alignment: Lawful Good
STR: 09
DEX: 14
CON: 10
CHA: 12
INT: 15
WIS: 13
Commentary: I'm assuming all three of them are essentially identical, statistically. Actually, some of these statistics are highly variable, depending on whether they're in regular-kids-mode or Junior-Woodchucks-mode. These assume the latter. High dexterity because of all the woodcrafts and stuff they do.
Scrooge McDuck
Alignment: Neutral
STR: 15
DEX: 15
CON: 17
CHA: 07
INT: 15
WIS: 10
Commentary: Not declaring Scrooge to be any manner of "good" might be controversial, but it has to be admitted, the single-minded pursuit of wealth is, at best, amoral. Mostly high stats, as you can see. "Tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties," don't you know. Low charisma because being liked never seems to be a priority for him (you'd think it would sort of HAVE to be, what with all his business dealings, but I have seen little evidence of this). Wisdom is a tricky one. It's not always easy to tell how self-aware he really is. He's certainly not entirely serene. I'll just split the difference.
Daisy Duck
Alignment: Neutral Good
STR: 08
DEX: 08
CON: 08
CHA: 14
INT: 09
WIS: 08
Commentary: Jeez...you can't not include Daisy, but as you try to assign her numbers, you realize just how poorly-defined her character IS. I assume these are about right, but I could easily be shown to be mistaken.
April, May, and June Duck
Alignment: Neutral Good
STR: 07
DEX: 11
CON: 08
CHA: 14
INT: 12
WIS: 10
Commentary: I have no commentary about April, May, and June.
Gladstone Gander
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
STR: 09
DEX: 08
CON: 07
CHA: 15
INT: 10
WIS: 03
Commentary: That's right--straight-up evil. I've written about Gladstone as, in some ways, a tragic figure, but that doesn't change the fact that he's easily the most reprehensible regular in the Barksiverse, full-blown villains included. If it were just a matter of him living off his luck, I'd call him chaotic neutral, but he also has a pretty wide malevolent streak that pushes him over. His statistics are assumed to be average (with the obvious exceptions of a high charisma--reflecting his charmed life--and, for obvious reasons, no wisdom to speak of), but these of course are irrelevant, given the luck factor.
Grandma Duck
Alignment: Neutral Good
STR: 13
DEX: 13
CON: 14
CHA: 12
INT: 12
WIS: 15
Commentary: You've gotta figure Grandma's actually pretty badass--she's ancient--a generation older than Scrooge, meaning she's gotta be pushing a hundred--and yet she's still capable of managing a farm almost single-handedly (Gus's help is, obviously, very limited). Her statistics should reflect that.
Gus Goose
Alignment: Neutral
STR: 15
DEX: 07
CON: 12
CHA: 06
INT: 05
WIS: 12
Commentary: I give Gus perhaps undue credit for "wisdom"--guy's unmotivated, certainly, but he seems to have his life pretty well worked out. Otherwise: strong (albeit super-lazy), clumsy, dumb--that's our Gus!
Gyro Gearloose
Alignment: Neutral Good
STR: 07
DEX: 14
CON: 08
CHA: 07
INT: 21
WIS: 12
Commentary: Gyro is repeatedly shown to be pretty weak physically. He's gotta have some dexterity to do all the science-y chemical mixing he does, however. And, obviously, he's a super-genius.
Gyro's Helper
Alignment: Neutral Good
STR: 06
DEX: 15
CON: 06
CHA: 10
INT: 18
WIS: 14
Commentary: Seriously, what the hell does "charisma" mean for a little lightbulb robot thingie? Being so small, you've gotta figure he couldn't take much of a beating, though we've seen him demonstrate what could be called "dexterity."
Ludwig Von Drake
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
STR: 10
DEX: 09
CON: 10
CHA: 06
INT: 20
WIS: 07
Commentary: He appears in a single Barks one-pager; therefore, he counts! Pretty similar to Gyro in a lot of ways, though where Gyro's mostly kind of oblivious about his genius, Ludwig's got a serious ego on him. And you really can't tell WHAT he's going to do next; therefore: chaotic.
The Beagle Boys
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
STR: 13-16
DEX: 11-13
CON: 14-16
CHA: 05-07
INT: 12-15
WIS: 06-09
Commentary: I assume the Beagles' stats vary a bit. They are NOT DUMB, in spite of what you might think. They frequently refer to the academic courses they took in prison, and they seem to generally have done pretty well at them. And they built a GIANT FUCKING AXE THING, fercrissake. I think the fact that they always screw up when it counts can be considered a wisdom failure more than anything else. Finally, although they're portrayed as being more or less malevolent in different stories, in general, no, I wouldn't describe them as "evil."
Flintheart Glomgold
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
STR: 15
DEX: 14
CON: 16
CHA: 06
INT: 14
WIS: 08
Commentary: If this were based on how other artists have used Flinty, you'd have to call him "evil," but I'm looking mainly at "The Second-Richest Duck" and "The Money Champ" here (also disregarding "So Far and No Safari"--not that he probably would have been portrayed as morally ambiguous by others in any case--moral ambiguity is hard--but that story cemented him as "boring, standard-issue evil," which is why, even though it's a decent story otherwise, I kinda wish it hadn't been written)--and looking at them, I don't think you can call him "evil" at all. He's basically Scrooge, only just that tiny bit less tough/smart (hence, second-richest), and without the humanizing influence of family.
Magica de Spell
Alignment: Neutral Evil
STR: 10
DEX: 15
CON: 10
CHA: 14
INT: 18
WIS: 05
Commentary: If ever there were an object lesson in the gulf that can exist between intelligence and wisdom--that's Magica! I assume she needs to be fairly dextrous to make foof bombs and shit, and we see her be charismatic when she wants to be. Problem is, her strengths tend to dissipate when she's in one of her fugues of dime-lust.
Ratface
Alignment: Neutral Evil
STR: 09
DEX: 13
CON: 08
CHA: 05
INT: 14
WIS: 07
Commentary: Magica's raven certainly acts malevolently often enough, but I can't get over the perhaps-unfounded impression that he's at least as put-upon as he is "evil." And I find his loyalty to his mistress to be sort of touching. I dunno. Still neutral evil, but perhaps less so than Magica herself. Not much else to say.
Neighbor Jones
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
STR: 14
DEX: 10
CON: 15
CHA: 09
INT: 10
WIS: 07
Commentary: Um, yeah. Very similar to Donald, though bigger and hence stronger. I call him "chaotic neutral," implying that Donald is morally superior, but that's not really a meaningful consideration in their feuds. It's just that you never see Jones in any other context, so there's no other lines along which you can judge him.
Miss Quackfaster
Alignment: Neutral
STR: 10
DEX: 18
CON: 09
CHA: 12
INT: 14
WIS: 11
Commentary: Okay, it's really impossible to judge such a marginal character in any meaningful way. Let's give her a high dexterity since, presumably, she types faster. And let's give her a fairly high intelligence, since you would need it to deal with Scrooge and his complex network of business interests on a daily basis. Otherwise, pretty average.
Bolivar
Alignment: Neutral Good
STR: 17
DEX: 07
CON: 18
CHA: 09
INT: 03
WIS: 12
Commentary: Um...the ducks' Saint Bernard clearly has it going on physically. Compared to many Disney animals, he's not very highly anthropomorphized; hence, the low intelligence. But I like the big lug. And I REFUSE to call him "Bernie!" I don't care HOW many notional South Americans I offend!
General Snozzie
Alignment: Lawful Good
STR: 12
DEX: 15
CON: 15
CHA: 08
INT: 15
WIS: 12
Commentary: The Junior Woodchucks' Official Hound is a terrifyingly accomplished beast. I know it seems a little weird to treat one dog as having regular dog intelligence and another as being smarter than most people, but that just seems to be how it works out. Anyway, trust me--if Snozzie's trailing you, you might as well just give up. Dude has serious smarts and endurance. There's one highly disturbing Barks-scripted Junior Woodchucks story in which--at the behest of Western, I assume--he's replace with fucking Pluto. NOT ACCEPTABLE. GENERAL SNOZZIE WILL NEVER DIE.
posted by GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. at
1:24 AM
12 Comments:
Funny idea, great execution; love the blog, thanks for your efforts :)
And thanks for your kind words!
Great analysis, my dear Blog Author. Evaluating Daisy's aspects do reflect how undeveloped she was. Regarding this, I want to ask you...
...What's your opinion on Daisy's characterization as handled on (gulp!) Quack Pack? As flawed as that series was, it's certainly the most fleshed out and dynamic that Daisy has ever been portrayed in official animation.
A good question that I cannot answer, never having seen the show in question (I should poke around on youtube, perhaps). I can't say I find the general concept to be particularly appealing, but I have indeed heard good things about the portrayal of Daisy, which might be enough alone to make it worthwhile.
Your stats are pretty well thought out in general, but...it's a bit disturbing that the old geezers like Scrooge and Grandma Duck are "stronger" than Donald, especially when in several Carl Barks comics featuring the midget Native Americans (forgot the title), they challenge the strongest to fish for the King Marlin fish which ends up being Donald. Then, in Return to Tra-lala, the boys send Donald alone (which took all FOUR of them to do earlier) to turn the HUGE lock that will prevent the river from flooding Tra-la-la and he succeeds yet again proving to be the strongest. Plus, he basically acts like the muscle in most of Scrooge's adventures anyway. So....I'm not buying Scrooges' or Grandma's physical stats being higher than Donald's. Yeah, they're pretty cool for being old, but they're OLD!
And just because Jones is bigger than Donald does NOT necessarily make him "stronger" than him! Let's not forget Don Rosa's "Car Wreck" where Donald literally beats the crap out of Jones for selling his beloved car parts. That being one of MANY fights with Jones where Donald has come out on top. Literally. Donald stands on his chest in triumph and everything. And let's ALSO not forget that Donald's rage greatly increases his strength!
So..I think it'd be a bit more believeable if you increase Donald's physical strength a bit (he can take a beating but he sure as hell knows how to dish it out, too!) or lower Jones, Scrooges,' and Grandma's. Hell, there have been times when Donald's seen to be stronger than the beagle Boys for that matter! You didn't give that poor duck enough credit! :(
You are hard on poor Gladdie .....
if he's too Lucky ,put the blame on mame!
About General Snozzie: it's not that he's been replaced with Pluto in that story, it's the other way around. In most original versions of Barks's JW stories, Pluto was there instead of Snozzie; when Daan Jippes re-drew them, he most of the time put Snozzie back where he belonged and kicked Pluto out, but Pluto was there first.
"the single-minded pursuit of wealth is, at best, amoral."
I got the impression this was your view, but this is the first entry I've read where you spell it out explicitly, so I'll say here that I'm genuinely shocked that someone raised on the Disney Duck comics like you were would have that worldview. So you don't agree with Barks and the theoretical true Scrooge McDuck that the HONEST "single-minded pursuit of wealth" as long as it doesn't involve force, fraud, or coercion is not only moral but admirable, huh? "A Financial Fable" didn't teach the virtues of capitalism very well after all lol.
Well, as much as I love Disney comics, I don't derive my worldview from them. I'm a total commie pinko, you know. I think Scrooge is admirable, kind of, with all sorts of complications and qualifications, within the context of his world. In the REAL world, spinning out all the implications, he'd be monstrous. This is a tension you sometimes see in Rosa's work: he wants Scrooge to be living in something closer to the "real" world, but the character doesn't function in the "real world."
I agree with the comment above.
Donald's Strength Should Be: 12-14 (normal) but 15-18 (full rage) is more accurate based on Barks, Rosa comics and others (he can take it AND dish it out)
Thanks for sharing this informative content.,
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That Bolivar remark about Latin Americans...
One can tell Geo wrote this one over ten years ago.
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