beatnikchick300
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2003
- Messages
- 832
- Reaction score
- 269
Yeah, and another thing about her sad backstory is that Arnold was...basically the first person to show her any kindness; I think that with that in mind, the fact that she treats him so poorly makes her look worse, not better. And even Phoebe, her best friend, shows her kindness and undying loyalty, and yet Helga treats her terribly (even with a "Pet the Dog" moment here and there, such as in "Phoebe Skips"; even so, it's generally not a good idea to treat your best friend like a manservant (woman servant? Girl servant? Eh, whatever).I tend to think it's a little more nuanced than that. She's clearly screwed up and that does tend to warp some people's emotions. I never felt that Helga was entitled to Arnold so much as too screwed up to show her feelings. Which makes that pairing worse because she loves Arnold enough to have an obsessive stalker's shrine to him, yet doesn't care about him anywhere near as much as keeping her tough girl reputation. There are so many episodes where she had the chance to to tone herself down and actually be nice to Arnold. Not romantically, just be a decent human being. She purposely puts up these walls, alienates Arnold, and then soliloquizes over why she acts that way out of habit. She sabotages her relationships out of fear that being soft will make her overly vulnerable, yet hates that it drives Arnold away. It's all on her why Arnold doesn't like her.
So I hate the pairing too, but not so much for the "it's a cliche" so much for the fact that it was intended that Helga screwed herself up and now she has to deal with it by never being able to bond a good enough relationship with the only person she actually likes.
It's hard to feel sorry for a character who treats those who show kindness to her like something she scraped off her show (Arnold and Phoebe, in another dimension, could be her full-time Morality Pets; the only people she does show genuine kindness to, even with her "tough girl" image, and as you said, that does happen at times, but not nearly enough).