DCML digest #1260

Don Rosa donrosa at iglou.com
Tue Feb 18 10:23:43 CET 2003


From: Cord Wiljes (cord at wiljes.de)
Subject: AW: Relations between Ducks
>>>Grandma Duck and Scrooge belong to the same
generation. In the "official" tree she is a whole generation older. I
dont't think so.

Why not? Besides, that's not technically true in my Family Tree. Since they
are of two different families, their "generations" are not related. Elvira
"Grandma" Duck married and had children at an early age (as American farm
folk did in the 19th century); her son Quckmore was born perhaps around
1876. Meanwhile, in Scotland, $crooge's youngest sister was born about that
same year. Grandma Duck is certainly older than $crooge, say about 7-8 years
older, putting her in her about 90 in the (my) stories (when I use her,
which is virtually never). But there's nothing impossible or even unusual
about it, and she is not a "generation older" than $crooge. Besides, this is
based on the writings of the creator of this "Duck Universe". The European
translations veered from accuracy at some point, never imagining that anyone
would ever care (and there are few of us who do pay attention).

>>> For me Scrooge and Grandma are brother and sister,
Donald is Grandma's son and raising her grandchildren. Views rooted as
deeply in my own childhood as these could probably never be unrooted
anyway.

And that's fine! I have no direct desire to want to uproot childhood
memories, even if I think they are wrong, and even if I can't tell the facts
in my stories to match your memories. The same with this idea that the Money
Bin is filled with gold coins rather than pocket change -- it's a European
tradition, and I know people don't want to be told it's inaccurate to the
original. It's become a "fact" in the Euro-produced stories and in
Euro-produced readers' minds -- that's what's important.
But while I allow you that, you also must allow that you can't say that the
Money Bin *can't* be filled with common pocket change, as Barks intended.
And you can't say that Elvira Duck *can't* be Donald's grandmother, as Barks
stated.





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