"Raffle Reversal"

Woof.  Tough week, eh?  It's great that civilization didn't end, but the fact that was apparently on the table, uh...well, that's just what we're stuck with for oh my god HOW long?  Ack.  Under the circumstances, I think more Barks is called for, so let's go with THIS.

We're seeing the contours of Gladstone's luck here, and from some of these stories with luck duels, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Duckburg had an entirely raffle-based economy.  Like Borges' "Lottery in Babylon?"  Sure; why not?  You'd think Gladstone would get himself banned from these things if he's driving off all the weird-looking dogfaced who'd otherwise be participating.

I mean, seriously.  How fun is this for anyone else if Gladstone's just taking everything?  What a jerk!  And that is one terrifying expresssion he's got in the last panel there.  In general, this story is about as malevolent as he gets.

Poor Donald.  Sometimes he reads books or otherwise convinces himself that he's become an expert at something, but it's a bit hard to "train" in luck, innit?  Alas, I feel like he would be extremely susceptible to scams like The Secret or (to be more period-appropriate) Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. It might be interesting, a story where he reads a book like that to try to pump up this luck.

I dunno; maybe it is!  Because (not to get ahead of ourselves) he kind of does!  Magic is definitely real, I think it's fair to say.

The men from the boys!  In terms of random events occurring, that is.  You have to think HDL are saying this in an ironic kind of way.  They know the nonsense their relatives get up to.

I dunno...you think maybe your luck surveyed the situation, saw that the only thing at stake was a lame chair that you didn't actually want and would probably break and decided, nah--I'm gonna sit this one out?  I get that that's not the point; the chair doesn't matter, he just wants to win out over Donald.  But...I dunno; maybe the luck finds that just a little too petty to take seriously.  So, like, if there's a raffle for a fancy vacation, beating Donald for that is satisfying--but it's ALSO a fun vacation you want to take.  It can only be partially about spite, but not wholly.  That's the difference.  Maybe.

Also, Gladstone's internal monologue in the third panel: how great is that?  Way to imbue this character with wholly undeserved pathos!

I mean, yeah, okay, fair enough.  Although it does seem fairly likely that he'd've broken the chair anyway if he'd won it, rendering the question of whether he wins or not irrelevant.  Anyway, I'm a big fan of the fact that Duckburg has ruins of something called Pirate Inn.

"We don't believe it was that--but let us hope!"  What a good line.

Now, you might think, wait, if we're talking about Gladstone's luck, shouldn't, like, a freak cyclone show up and dig down through the sand, or something?  But this is actually where the story turns, because from this point onward, nothing Gladstone does has any relation to luck.  It's just him being remarkably dickish to his cousin.  He is full of passionate intensity.

And again!  As in last week's "Easter Election," for someone who abjures work,  he is doing a remarkable amount of work here.  Guy's not as lazy as his rep.  What do you think?  Is he just naturally dickish, or does his luck make him that way?  Or is that even a meaningful question to ask?

I mean, we may not like him, but I suppose we can give him some value-neutral props for the inventiveness of this scheme.

And, I mean, if that were all there was to it, it'd be one thing.  Not great, but only incidentally malicious.  But the way he goes full-bore here--what a piece of shit!

He's not going to give them to Daisy just because Gladstone prompted the idea; he was going to do it anyway.  In spite of how much cash he could sell them for.  What a romantic!

Doesn't Gladstone have designs on Daisy, theoretically?  Even if she scorns Donald for giving her fake pearls, this behavior on his part really isn't going to do anything to endear you do her.  Truly now.

But really, it's the ending of the story that's quite unusual, I must say.  Usually when a character is chasing another character in rage at the end, it's because they have suffered awful, terrible indignities and they just can't take anymore, so they explode.

Which, okay, we can allow that Donald's had some shit piled on him in this story--but at the end, he wins.  Very clearly.  Gladstone's treachery is unveiled, and Donald gets the necklace back.  He doesn't have any less claim to them than our favorite gander (more, considering that he did the hard labor), such that I don't think even he would think it worth his while to raise an objection.  Clearly a case of finders; keepers winning out against losers; weepers.  Maybe it would be a little awkward to give them to Daisy after all this, but then again, maybe she'd be super-apologetic about doubting him.  Everything could work out perfectly!

And a story like this with a definitive winner is ALWAYS going to end with the smugly lording it over the loser.  Except this one, somehow.  It seems like, as annoyed as Donald is, he'd easily calm down knowing that he'd come out on top.  Maybe Barks felt he would've needed a little more space to wrap it up like that and elected to go with that archetypal ending just because it was shorter.  Difficult to say!

Also, how about THIS: can we speculate that Gladstone lost specifically because he stopped relying on his luck and started engaging in basic villainy?  Will he learn a valuable lesson from all this?  Well, stay tuned, I guess.  And to be clear, that's not a hint as to a future entry; it's just some general sort of advice.  See ya next time.