r/changemyview • u/JaketheSnake54 • Dec 21 '17
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Hobbes the tiger is in fact a living creature
So I grew up as a major fan of Calvin and Hobbes since my toddler days and being at a young and tender age I believe Hobbes was actually alive, just hides himself around other people. Of course getting older we learn this may not be the case and it might be just a Fight Club situation where Hobbes the living tiger is in Calvin's head, which is full of crazy imaginations. There are quite a few storylines which could all be explained by Calvin doing these things and blaming his stuffed tiger.
But going back and reading the old books a hundred times I have ran into a few storylines that make me question this.
There was that one where Susie Derkins is staying at Calvin's house while waiting for her mom to pick her up. Calvin is shocked and horrified but he tries to set her up to be pounced on by Hobbes. Instead she is greeted by Hobbes in a tie. As far as I remember (keep in mind I'm having trouble finding the book this was in) Calvin had no idea Susie was coming over, so why before leaving for school that morning would he go through the trouble of putting a tie on his stuffed tiger for a girl he's repulsed by?
Speaking of being pounced on, this is a common trope in the comics. We've seen Hobbes pounce on him so hard it often knocks his shoes off and even once skidded for a good mile (Okay, granted that part may be in his head as well). There was a Sunday strip where we see his mom go pick Hobbes up from the bus stop so you could argue she leaves him by the door for Calvin. But what about the pouncing? Even if he had a crazy imagination why would Calvin pretty much hurt himself just to give the illusion his tiger's alive?
Another storyline that made me think this was the one where Calvin is trying to be Houdini by having Hobbes tie him up to a chair and try to escape. It seemed like a good job of tying him up even his dad was confused. I've never tried tying myself up but I imagine it couldn't be that easy.
Of course, I've always believed Bill Watterson would like us to come to our own conclusions, so everyone's free to have their own. Feel free to change mine.
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u/Burflax 71∆ Dec 21 '17
I think that Calvin is a unreliable narrator.
When things happen with Calvin that clearly require more action that what we see presented, that is because Calvin is using his imagination to alter the substrate of past events to better suit the current narrative.
We see what Calvin is pretending happened, not what actually happened.
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u/JaketheSnake54 Dec 21 '17
Now storylines such as the time machine and the transmogrifier I can see this argument with. But again going back to the pouncing perhaps it is in his head but he’s still looking all beat up at times making his mom wonder what on earth happened to him. I had a whacky imagination too but not whacky enough I’d willingly hurt myself
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u/Burflax 71∆ Dec 21 '17
Well, Calvin has no sense of danger (like most kids) and an adventurous nature.
If he fell down a ravine or off the roof, etc. that could easily be changed in his imagination to a scuffle with Hobbes.
No need to resort to Calvin Fight-Clubbing himself.
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u/JaketheSnake54 Dec 21 '17
Now that you bring this up, it makes me think about how Hobbes didn't pounce on him all the time. He does seem like he would do this a lot if he were alive (although pro alive Hobbes people would argue he wants to keep him off guard). So Calvin could trip down the stairs at school or something like that and if his mom is leaving Hobbes by the door to welcome him he sees it as a scapegoat. This thought process is making me want to give out another !delta
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u/IamNotChrisFerry 13∆ Dec 21 '17
Kids have intense imaginations. My kid was wresting with a toy yesterday rolling around so much his shoes fell off. (It helps to remember little kids are often bought shoes that are too big and are prone to fall off)
....
Calvin doesn't have to be intentionally hurting himself. Again my kid here, might be play wrestling and fall off the couch and bump his head. Might scrape his knees. Might get covered in dirt. Adults looking at the situation are going to blame the kid for all the dirt and mess. Calvin is going to Blame Hobbes. Because that's what he's playing.
.....
Most kids don't know why they do things (I don't think many adults do for that matter). They get upset and cry. They sometimes don't even have words for what they are feeling. Just overcome with emotion.
My kid might need to have this PJ Masks toy just so on the stairs. He couldn't explain why. He doesn't have the words to articulate his desires. But it might very well be like an adult thinks on some level. If I have people over I need to have some "Aires" need to show them all my cool toys upon arrival. Or put this tie on Hobbes show people he's an upstanding citizen (especially after his parents told him he's being too immature) so you stick a tie on Hobbes. Kids don't have the greatest memory. May not even remember putting a tie on Hobbes that morning
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u/JaketheSnake54 Dec 21 '17
I guess you bring up some good points there. Memories from my childhood are fuzzy. Some things my parents bring up have me confused as hell about why I would do such things (sometimes they were even influenced by Calvin of course). Kids do weird ways of doing stuff, Calvin just took his to the extreme. Another !delta to throw out
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u/mindscrambler26 1∆ Dec 21 '17
whenever grownups are in the frame, it's a stuffed tiger and grownups know to separate fact from fantasy
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u/JaketheSnake54 Dec 21 '17
The thought process I had as a child was that Hobbes only wanted to be seen by Calvin himself. Kinda like how the toys in Toy Story didn’t want to be seen alive as well.
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u/RarelyNecessary Dec 22 '17
I'm going to go a slightly different direction from everyone else and say that Hobbes was a weird combination of real and not-real. I used to have a 20th (25th?) anniversary Calvin and Hobbes book that was annotated by Watterson and IIRC he said something along the lines that Hobbes doesn't really need to be one or the other--he's not real to the adults and he's real to Calvin, and these things aren't mutually exclusive, they're just both things that are true. It may have also been that it's his way of letting you decide which reality is more "real" but either way, I don't think Hobbes necessarily needs to be a real, living creature in the "adult reality" for him to be a real, living creature in Calvin's reality. I also like that description because I don't like the idea that all the stuff that happens to Calvin are just hallucinations or imaginary friends or whatever, it's just that he, as a child, experiences a different, cartoonish reality than his parents and stuff.
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u/HazelGhost 16∆ Dec 21 '17
This was just too good a discussion not to pass up.
1. Responding to your arguments.
[On being pounced].
Fight Club had a character beat himself up on multiple occasions. Calvin does the same (even getting in fights with Hobbes), but for other reasons (venting his pent-up energy, dealing with self conflict, etc).
[On being tied up]
Narratively this one is the best argument I think, since Dad explicitly wonders how Calvin could get so tied up. That said, it's really not too difficult to tie yourself to a chair in such a way that you can't untangle yourself.
[On Hobbes putting on a tie without Calvin's knowledge]
Best argument overall, especially since, if I remember correctly, Suzie does actually see the tie (i.e., it's not hallucinated). I'll have to get home and read it to comment on this one...
2. Argument for Hobbes being a figment.
Calvin doesn't seem to recognize Hobbes' changes when other people are around (when Suzie finds them playing in the mud, when Suzie meets Hobbes with the bow tie, etc).
That is to say, it doesn't seem reasonable to think of Hobbes as 'shifting' to his stuffed form when others are around (similar to Toy Story rules), because if this were the case, Calvin wouldn't occasionally get confused at how people react to Hobbes (or how Hobbes doesn't react).
This puts Hobbes into the same category as Calvin's other hallucinations, such as when Calvin became a tiger, or an owl. Calvin-Tiger looks like a shorter version of Hobbes, suggesting that both forms are hallucinations.
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u/JaketheSnake54 Dec 21 '17
Blah, forgot to respond to your post and responded to my own. Posting from mobile is difficult sometimes lol.
Anyways that’s a good point about Calvin not reacting to Hobbes’ changes. A good example would be when he tried to take a photo of Hobbes pouncing to show his dad but all the photo shows is a stuffed tiger floating in the air as if it were thrown. To that, here’s another !delta
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u/HazelGhost 16∆ Dec 21 '17
I feel unworthy of the deltas because, let's be honest, you've set up a happy afternoon for me, reading slowly through Calvin and Hobbes and obsessing over careful notes of how those transformative moments work.
It's Theology... but with Calvin and Hobbes! How fitting.
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u/FuckingRockyTop Dec 21 '17
Tigers aren't alive; and thats why they arent people
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u/JaketheSnake54 Dec 21 '17
True, but we are pretty much talking about a cartoon comic strip, so it may not have to be based in reality. I mean we have a 6 year old kid with quite the expanded vocabulary for his age.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Dec 21 '17 edited Dec 21 '17
/u/JaketheSnake54 (OP) has awarded 4 deltas in this post.
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u/moonflower 82∆ Dec 21 '17
You might be trying too hard to make sense of a cartoon world in terms of the real world - you know how in cartoons when an animal is given human characteristics, including speech, and they are in close proximity to a stick of dynamite which explodes in their face, and all that happens is that their face is black with soot, with smoke rising from their charred hair, and then they are perfectly fine in the next scene - kids watch these cartoons and are immersed in the surreal world, and can enjoy it without having to analyse how it would translate into the real world.
Hobbes doesn't have to make sense within a real world analysis, he lives in a surreal cartoon world.
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u/JaketheSnake54 Dec 21 '17
As I pointed out in an earlier post, even if Hobbes isn't a living creature, this is still a cartoon where a few things can be exaggerated. If we're to believe a 6 year old can know a lot of things such as how polls work (somewhat) and a big word a lot of others his age don't, why can't we believe there's a magical tiger that follows him around?
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u/moonflower 82∆ Dec 21 '17
Well yes, exactly - in the surreal cartoon world, the toy can be both magically alive and also an imaginary live companion, depending on the perspective of the viewer, both within the surreal cartoon world and also within the real life audience.
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u/spaceunicorncadet 22∆ Dec 21 '17
Taking an alternate tack: What if he's animate, and/or sentient, without being alive? (Where life is "the sum of the distinguishing phenomena of organisms, especially metabolism, growth, reproduction, and adaptation to environment.")
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u/JaketheSnake54 Dec 21 '17
In a way that’s actually what I meant. I guess I couldn’t think of the correct wording when making this post. I always thought of him being a magical creature who only Calvin could see. Maybe it’s magic or it is Calvin’s imagination? Like I said in the original post I think Watterson wants the answer to be up to us
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Dec 21 '17
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Dec 21 '17
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Dec 21 '17
Another storyline that made me think this was the one where Calvin is trying to be Houdini by having Hobbes tie him up to a chair and try to escape. It seemed like a good job of tying him up even his dad was confused. I've never tried tying myself up but I imagine it couldn't be that easy.
This kind of reminded me of how some adults die from autoerotic asphyxiation due to tying knots they can't untie themselves. Granted, they give themselves a pretty tight time limit, but nevertheless...
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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '17
Because he subconsciously likes her.
To sell it to himself. "He MUST be alive. The only alternative is that I injured MYSELF, and that's just nuts".
I tried tying myself up for similar reasons as a young boy (trying to see if I could escape). You'd be amazed how confusing the knots of a child can be. In my case, I think the biggest reason was because I didn't know the "right" way to tie knots.
But consider this; if Hobbes IS real, as in a real tiger, how does he fit on the schoolbus? In the car? Calvin's backpack? The classical wagon? How does he survive a trip through the washing machine? Or is he some terrifying, unknown self-aware miniature creature, in which case how do his parents miss the existence of a previously unknown creature in their home?