Frozen Is Cool! Elsa the Snow Queen Rules!

As much as I love Disney media, with most of my favorite fictional pairings being ones from Disney, my #1 favorite pairing of all is Arnold and Helga from Hey Arnold! ❤️💗❣️💕

In this pairing, Arnold is an optimist and Helga is a realist. Sometimes these differences make the two seem like polar opposites, so much so that it gives an impression that they just wouldn’t work as a couple.

Yet the truth is, these differences, combined with what things they do have in common, are actually very complementary to the point that the two complete each other. Arnold and Helga are perfect together, and even Craig Bartlett himself said that they are indeed meant for each other. 😊

And Arnold and Helga’s personality traits have made me realize how they are very much like Hercules and Meg, as well as Anna and Kristoff. 😉

As @silentviolin678 described it to me, within these three pairings, you have the "cinnamon roll" (to describe how sweet, kind, and caring they are) optimist and the cynical realist. The cinnamon rolls are Hercules, Arnold, and Anna, while the respective cynics are Meg, Helga, and Kristoff. The differences between the cinnamon rolls and cynics offer exactly what the other person needs. The cynics keep the cinnamon rolls grounded in reality, while the cinnamon rolls show the cynics kindness, hope, and all other positive traits that they have rarely to never seen in other people.

In short, the differences between the man and woman (or boy and girl, in Arnold and Helga’s case) of each of these pairings complement one another perfectly and bring out the best in each other. In particular, the cinnamon rolls bring out the best in their cynical partners by softening them and shaping them into better people.

And you know what cool thing I realized between two of these pairings?

Yep! 😁 As you can see here, when Meg kisses Hercules and Arnold initiates a kiss with Helga in The Jungle Movie, BOTH girls lift up their legs, obviously to show how much they are enjoying the kisses! 😊😍❤️

TV/Movie Ship Questions❓❓❓

Rules: Answer the ❓'s w/ gifs.

1. Favorite ship?

Arnold and Helga; my #1 OTP of all! ❤️💗💘💕

2. First ship?

Not really sure why I choose Simba and Nala, but probably because The Lion King was the first Disney animated film I ever saw in theaters. And even “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” was a prominent song that I remembered very well.

3. First ship you were crazy for?

Yes, it’s true! When I was a child, I had a VERY soft spot in my heart for Hercules and Meg! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

4. Newest ship?

Yes! Since seeing Coco, I am just LOCO for Hector and Imelda! 😆❤️💗💘💕

5. Ship you like but no one else does?

I choose Victor and Victoria for this because VERY few Corpse Bride fans to whom I’ve talked actually ship them, even though they ARE canon! 😔

6. Ship you wish was endgame?

Uh...say what???

7. Ship you wish had screen time?

All of my favorite ships and others I do like have time together onscreen. 😉

8. Ship you want to have more screen time?

Yeah, I know we see more of their romantic relationship in the sequel, especially considering they do get married. But Mulan II and the other “sequels” aren’t considered canon since DisneyToon made them instead of WDAS. So...yeah. 😔

9. Ship you wish had been canon?

None, because all of my favorite ships are canon. 😉

10. Ship you want to be canon?

Again, of all my favorite ships are canon. But if I had to pick another, it would be...Fred Jones and Daphne Blake of Scooby-Doo! 😉

Considering that there are so many TV show incarnations, made-for-TV films, and direct-to-video/DVD films of this franchise, I’m just so confused if they’re ALL truly meant to be in one single universe or not. So because of this, whether or not the Fred and Daphne pairing is actually canon is debatable.

So over the past year, I have made gif sets of my top favorite fictional pairings (out of ten, and a bonus one), half of which were from Disney and Pixar movies. But I decided to save my #1 pairing for last. And without further ado, my top favorite fictional pairing is...

ArnoldxHelga from Hey Arnold!

It is also my birthday today, so I made this set of my #1 pairing as a birthday gift to myself! 😄 🎁 🎂 🎉 🎊

I’ll be honest here, when Helga revealed her locket to be used to replace the Corazón in order to activate the machine that would aromatically spread the medicine around the city, I was not expecting this moment at all! In fact, it might initially seem very out of character for her to do such a thing when you first watch the film.

As shown throughout the series, for almost her entire life, Helga has lived in fear of being ridiculed and mocked by others if her crush on Arnold (as well as her kinder, softer side) was revealed. She was especially fearful if Arnold learned this because she thought he would be repulsed so much and consequently reject her. Due to this fear and her other insecurities, Helga developed a defense mechanism of aggression and hostility to protect herself from emotional harm, particularly to ensure that no one would ever learn that she loved Arnold. In doing so, her feeling of pride often mattered more to her than being kind and understanding, because she worried that being as such would make her vulnerable and an easy target for bullies and anyone else who enjoyed teasing and picking on people.

Furthermore, we have seen Helga go through several comical extremes to prevent Arnold and anyone close to him from discovering her secret. This was focused in episodes such as “The Little Pink Book,” “Helga Blabs It All,” “Helga’s Parrot,” and most especially, the appropriately titled episode “Helga’s Locket.” In the latter, Helga breaks into Arnold’s house to retrieve her locket after Abner steals it. In trying to do, she also struggles to ensure that Arnold does not open it to see her newly inscribed love message to him.

So given her bully defense mechanism and all the crazy attempts Helga has done to make sure her secret remained a secret, you’d probably think that she would NEVER do something as unexpected as personally revealing her locket, complete with his picture inside it, to Arnold himself!

So just why did Helga do this? Because she loves Arnold, simple as that.

By the events of The Jungle Movie, Arnold knows that Helga loves him, but he has yet to give her an answer about his feelings for her. Helga still acts as if she hates him, but remains hopeful that he will one day reciprocate her feelings. Almost as an act of desperation on her part, Helga helps Arnold win the video contest so he and the class can go to San Lorenzo. But it initially seemed that her motive for doing this was so that he would be grateful to her and love her in return, not because she really wanted to help him find his parents.

After Arnold ignores Helga’s second attempt at confessing her feelings, she decides to give up on trying to win his heart and throws away her locket, complete with tearing up his picture. From then on, Helga shows nothing but anger and contempt towards Arnold during the trip. She blames everything that goes wrong on him, especially after Lasombra reveals himself after masquerading as Eduardo and imprisons everyone. But after she hears Arnold sobbing in his cell as he laments about never finding his parents, Helga is overcome with remorse for her previous behavior. Immediately filled with sympathy and understanding, she decides to help Arnold locate his parents, no matter what sacrifices she may have to make. (While she forgets that she had thrown away her locket, Brainy shows up, revealing to Helga that he managed to retrieve it.)

So when Arnold, Helga, and Gerald finally locate the Green-Eyes and their city, they discover that Miles and Stella have caught the sleeping sickness along with all the adults in the city. Learning from Eduardo that they could only be awakened with the now-lost Corazón, Helga is distraught for Arnold and his predicament.

But when she realizes that her locket may be the key (no pun intended, of course 😝) to reviving the sick, Helga puts her feelings of fear and pride aside to help Arnold and the Green-Eyed children by revealing it and allowing Arnold to use it (even letting him hold it, no less) in place of the Corazón. By this point, even though she knew that Arnold knew the truth about her feelings, Helga didn’t seem to really care anymore whether or not he would ever return them. All that mattered to her was Arnold’s happiness. And even though she knew she was showing how vulnerable she was by revealing her locket to Arnold, which showed him (and to Gerald) that she truly loved him (Arnold), Helga still did it because she felt it was the right thing to do. If she didn’t do this, she would probably never forgive herself for being so selfish and inconsiderate in Arnold’s greatest time of need.

Besides when she secretly helps him find Mr. Hyunh’s daughter and to save their neighborhood, giving up her locket to wake his parents is arguably the greatest moment when Helga has helped Arnold and selflessly put his needs and desires before her own. If that isn’t love, then I don’t know what is. ❤️ 💕

Check this out, my Hey Arnold! friends and fellow fans! I sent a tweet to Francesca Marie Smith, the voice of Helga, on Twitter about three weeks ago, and she actually liked the tweet! I follow dozens of celebrities on Twitter and have sent tweets to many of them, but only a few of them have actually gotten back to me by liking the tweets, and I’m so thrilled that Francesca did so for this one!

Even though Olga is the oldest and Helga is the youngest of the Pataki daughters, they constantly act the exact opposite in terms of their ages and maturity, especially when it comes to how they handle certain situations presented to them. As a perfect example, one is how they handle the dangers associated with Lasombra and his henchmen in The Jungle Movie.

In the movie, Olga comes off as very childish, melodramatic, pansified (or wussy), ditzy, pathetic, prissy, weak, and even somewhat cowardly following Arnold and the entire class being taken prisoner. When Lasombra reveals who he really is and announces that the entire class are now his prisoners, Olga stands frozen in place, completely terrified. After they are put in the cell and the door is locked, she wails loudly and hysterically like a baby (which probably annoyed the hell out of Lasombra and his men). Olga panics and throws another lame sobbing fit upon seeing the men leaving the camp to go after Arnold, Gerald, and Helga. She resumes her wimpy crying after she says that the beepers are a one-way form of communication “just like me and Che!” And finally, when her parents and Arnold’s grandparents arrive in San Lorenzo and parachute into Lasombra’s camp, just as the guards break out of the cell, the first thing Olga does is run to her father and wail about how Che was mean to her. Enraged, Bob tackles Che to the ground and chases him around the camp, as if he were a lion trying to catch his prey.

On the contrary, Helga comes off as more independent, clever, sharper, bolder, stronger, braver, and even fearless when faced with danger. When Lasombra announces that the group are now his prisoners, Helga talks back to him, calling him “La Bozo” and fearlessly stating who she is and that she will not let him push her around or tell her what to do. Still showing no fear, Helga continues by defiantly telling Lasombra to open the gate so they can leave, and she is the only one of the group who attempts to walk out. Only after two of the henchmen block her way with machetes does she actually stop and look afraid. However, throughout everything she does for the remainder of the film, Helga never lets fear get in her way. When she escapes the camp with Arnold and Gerald, they wander far out into the jungle only using Arnold’s map to guide them. Then they narrowly escape the dangers of the series of booby traps while trying to locate the Green-Eyes’ city. Helga also crosses the rope bridge even as it begins to come apart, and hangs on for dear life over the cliff with Arnold and Gerald when the remains of the bridge are about to completely fall apart. And finally, Helga (along with the boys) helps Eduardo ward off Lasombra by throwing a backpack over the latter’s head, climbing on to his shoulders, and aggressively punching out his lights, all while the man is holding a poisonous dart!

What strikes me most about the two final scenes I described for both the Pataki sister, which are also featured in the gifs above, is how they each handle the situations before them. I personally thought the way Olga told Bob about Che was very childish and immature. She wailed as if she were a young child tattling to her parents about a bully who had hurt her. It shows me that, even though she is 23, a young adult, Olga has little to no ability to be independent, to do things on her own and fight her own battles; rather, she still counts on her DADDY to fight for her! But on the other hand, her MUCH YOUNGER, 11-year-old sister doesn’t hesitate to stand up for herself, to leap into action and fight her own battles against the bad guys, even when the bad guy is a ruthless, merciless river pirate! When the situation calls for it, Helga doesn’t sit around, waiting to be helped or rescued. If she can fight the villains, she will do it, and she’ll even give them a taste of her fists as she does!

All I have to say about these scenes are, only the strong survive! Helga may still be a child, but I hardly think it’s difficult to see that she is the stronger, braver, more reliant, and more resourceful Pataki sister here! And Olga may be much older, but she seriously lacks many of the capabilities her “baby sister” has been proven to do. Guys, Helga is the sister who is doin’ it for herself, and she does it well!

As a finishing note, I wanted to add that Bob and Miriam aggravate me so much with how think they have such a wonderful, perfect daughter in Olga while they simultaneously grossly underestimate Helga by having no ability to see that she is unquestionably the most amazing Pataki daughter! As described by my dear friend @minervadeannabond, Helga is an absolute kick ass girl, while all Olga does is whine like a spoiled brat!

This analysis is for @minervadeannabond, my best friend, little soul sister, and fellow Hey Arnold! fan, who also suggested the title and the term “pansified” to describe Olga! You are the best, little soul sister! Love you, girl! 😄 ❤️

When I first saw “Married,” I was confused and somewhat dumbfounded with Arnold’s dream, because from the start, not only do he and Helga look like their normal child selves, except for being much taller, but they wear their wedding clothes during his entire dream, never anything else. However, it is just the opposite with Helga’s dream. She dreams that she and Arnold are grown up and look it very well, complete with Helga no longer sporting a unibrow and Arnold having his hair smoothed down, and they wear different clothes for the duration of her dream.

So what explanation is there on why Arnold’s dream features Helga and him looking so drastically different from Helga’s dream in terms of how they look and what they wear?

I think a lot of it relates to their personalities, including in what kind of imaginations they have and how much they think about the future. Helga and Arnold are both 9 years old, but Helga often acts a lot older than she really is, especially when it comes to her crush on Arnold. She loves Arnold to the extent that she wants to marry him. She sees him as a ticket to a better life, one where he loves her in return and they will live a successful, fancy, and happy life together. Since we know Helga wants to marry Arnold, she has lots of fantasies of what life would be like if they were together. She tends to imagine about how perfect and fancy her life with Arnold would be, so her dream is just an extension of her fantasies.

In Arnold’s case, however, it’s an entirely different story. Although the first season depicted Arnold as a heavy daydreamer, I don’t think he’s so much of a dreamer when it comes the future. Although Arnold acts mature for a 9-year-old, I think he is far more stuck on the present than Helga is. Because of this, he hasn’t really taken any time to think about who he will marry one day, how he will look as an adult (if he even thinks he and Helga will look very different from their current appearances), and what kinds of clothes he will wear. It may have just been a lot easier for Arnold to think he and Helga will be much taller than they are now while wearing the appropriate wedding clothes.

I think a lot of the dream differences also relates to Arnold and Helga’s respective personal lives and how they feel about it right now. In the case of Helga, she has a very dysfunctional family and unhappy home life, from which she is desperate to get away. So she dreams of a better life for herself, one with which she shares with Arnold because she believes she will have a happier life with him than she does with her family now. And of course, while Arnold’s family is dysfunctional and without his parents, he has a more stable and happier home life than Helga does. So I believe Arnold doesn’t think so much about the future because he is quite happy with his current life and doesn’t thoroughly consider about how much it will change for him one day.

Among other things, I have wondered if Arnold thinking he is still only 9 when his dream begins is a inside joke to the fact that characters never age more than year in a cartoon. In other words, since cartoon children never grow up, maybe Arnold thinks he will never grow up, either. 😉 Not to mention, cartoon characters seldom ever change their wardrobe, which also may explain why Arnold and Helga never change clothes for the duration of his dream.

If you recall in the episode “Married,” near the end of Arnold’s dream of being married to Helga, after continuously suffering cruel treatment from her, he finally stands up to Helga and forces her to admit that she’s not truly mean like she makes herself out to be. Realizing she can’t hide it any longer, Helga breaks down and tells him that he’s right, saying that "You've seen through my tough, blustery exterior and into my soft, mushy, good-hearted center.”

Helga’s entire monologue in this part of the dream is important because right before Arnold’s alarm clock wakes him up, which ends the dream, Helga nearly confesses that she loves Arnold. This means that Arnold not only knows (subconsciously) how Helga feels about him, but it suggests that he has feelings, albeit repressed, for her as well. In particular, however, the above mentioned line is also important because Helga’s speech pattern and most of her words are almost identical to an earlier scene in the episode.

A few minutes into the episode, Helga hides behind the school dumpster and recites one of her “I love Arnold” monologues. Right before Arnold finds her, Helga ends her monologue by saying, “If only he could see past my mean, blustery veneer, and into my soft, mushy interior, wherein I adore him!”

As I said, these two lines are almost identical in the choice of words and the order in which they are said. Due to the dream words being very similar to the real words, I honestly believe this means that Arnold had heard Helga during the last moments of her monologue.

Now I don’t think Arnold heard all of her monologue, but I do think he heard her say just those last few words, even if he didn’t realize that she was talking about him. Yes, it could relate to the fact that he subconsciously knows about her true feelings, but I’m just saying that It seems far too much of a coincidence for Arnold to dream Helga saying a nearly identical sentence. If he heard her, that would provide a more possible explanation on why her words played out so similarly in his dream.

What do you guys think about this?

As a continuation from this post, I wanted to further discuss Olga and her image of perfection. Because Olga only appears in seven episodes of Hey Arnold!, not to mention her relationship with Helga is portrayed as being more from the latter’s point of view, not much is revealed about what Olga is or may be really like behind the cheery disposition she portrays on a daily basis. But after watching these episodes over and over, and even ones that feature just the other three Patakis, I don’t think it’s too difficult to interpret what may really be going on with Olga.

As I previously said, I think when Olga was a child, she was a frequent witness to Bob and Miriam’s unhappy relationship, but since was their only child at the time, she did not want them to split up. So she decided that she had to somehow keep the peace between her parents. Ultimately, Olga did this by becoming a perfect, dutiful daughter, with winning numerous awards, playing the piano, and excelling in every class in school. And it appeared to have worked. As revealed in the show, Bob and Miriam are extremely proud of Olga for her accomplishments. They are always excited about her visits and instantly turn all of their attention to Olga when she first comes home, showering her with nothing but love and praise. And when they do, Bob and Miriam appear to get along with each other and the three of them act like a perfect, happy family.

However, Olga doesn’t seem to realize that what she has started actually creates a problem for herself, and that it is merely a temporary solution for her parents’ relationship. When she is not home, Miriam and Bob seldom interact with each other, much less in a positive light. It seems that Olga has been putting on a show for her parents for years and continues to do so because by now, it is expected of her by Miriam and Bob. While it’s possible that some of her perfect ways are due to natural ability, I think Olga overworks herself to be perfect and do well in everything in which she is involved. She may actually feel anxious, burdened, and pressured by her parents’ constant praise and what they expect from her. She knows that by now, she cannot mess up; she has to keep being perfect in order to ensure that they get along and do not fight like she wants. So Olga maintains a cheerful disposition and masks her real feelings every time she is home and puts on a show for her family.

Simultaneously, the behavior she exhibits in almost every episode doesn’t actually make Olga appear to be genuinely perfect and flawless. She doesn’t seem to understand that what she does doesn’t truly bring out the best in her family, particularly Helga, or even in herself. Although she acknowledges Helga much more than their parents do, there are times that she (Olga) still seems to be as neglectful of Helga as they are. Like her parents, she seemed to completely ignore her sister’s existence on Helga’s first day of preschool. Olga also seems totally ignorant and oblivious to the fact that the attention given to her is taken away from Helga entirely. My dear friend minervadeannabond once mentioned to me that, “Olga, despite her front of philanthropy, seems, in actual fact, shallow, narcissistic, self-absorbed, spoiled, and in blatant denial of the real world,” and I couldn’t agree more!

Now when I say that Olga seems spoiled, she isn’t in regards to how most children are spoiled by their parents. What makes her spoiled is the fact that Bob and Miriam give and have always given her excessive amounts of attention, which is always positive, never negative. They indulge her with so much and treat her like she’s the best kid in the world. Of course, you could also say that Olga spoils Miriam and Bob by putting on her perfect, cheerful disposition all the time. 😉 My point is, because of the type of attention she always gets, that is how Olga likes things to be, which illustrates her self-absorption and narcissism. She is so used to being the center of attention that she wants to remain as such. Despite her claiming otherwise in “Olga Comes Home,” Olga actually seems to enjoy being in the spotlight. She likes to talk about herself and her achievements. She likes to have things her way. She likes things to go smoothly and perfectly as they can. When something doesn’t go well for Olga, even in the smallest way, then she gets upset and makes a big fuss about it. A good example is when she cried hysterically and refused to leave her room for several days after she believed she got a B+. This was all because it wasn’t an A, which is a “perfect” grade.

Olga spends so much time striving to be perfect that she seems to think everything else around her is perfect. This where she acts very unrealistic about her family and the world around her. But again, it connects to her childhood. Since Olga saw her parents’ dysfunctional relationship as a child, she eventually came to a point that she didn’t want to face it anymore. After becoming such a stellar student and daughter, it’s possible she decided that she didn’t want to face anything else that was bad, and decided that ignoring the bad was the best approach rather than trying to work through it to make things better. Even by this point in her life, Olga knows that her parents are still not happy, but she refuses to accept that fact and keeps up her facade in order to make things look as good as they can possibly be. She wants her parents to think that their marriage has succeeded because of her, so she may think that if she stops acting perfect, then Bob and Miriam’s marriage will end. But of course, she would rather them be unhappily married than happily divorced.

In summary, even though Olga does have a genuinely nice, kind front, sometimes it is does not always seem genuine or sincere, especially from Helga’s point of view. She is not truly perfect or flawless as she constantly portrays herself. She has her own set of flaws just as Helga does, which she refuses to acknowledge, and that only makes her human.

In the Pataki family on Hey Arnold!, I believe that Olga never faced ignorance and neglect from her parents, like Helga does, when she was a child. But I do think when she (Olga) was younger, there came a time when she noticed her parents fighting a lot. For instance, she probably often saw Bob, being the blowhard he is, doing and saying hurtful things to Miriam that brought down her self-esteem. In other words, Olga was a frequent witness to her parents’ dysfunctional relationship and realized that they were not happy with each other. From what we see in the show, Bob and Miriam probably feel, and have felt so for a long time, that they have nothing in common anymore and that their marriage is a failure.

For many years, Olga was Bob and Miriam’s only child, so I think she felt that she needed her parents to stay together since they were all each other had as a family. Although she saw that they were not happy, Olga did not want her parents to split up because the idea of that happening upset her, just like it is for many children whose parents get divorced. If Miriam and Bob had split up much sooner, Olga probably would have blamed herself for it, just like how Helga blames herself for her family’s dysfunction. Such a thing is also not uncommon for children from broken families; they often think they did something wrong to make their parents divorce when it happens. So to prevent such an undesirable consequence from happening, Olga took it upon herself to become the glue to keep her family intact.

By the time Olga makes her first appearance as a young woman in the first season of the show, we see how much Bob and Miriam fawn over her and her accomplishments. The reasons are that she always gets straight A’s in school, she has won many trophies and other awards, and she is a very talented, accomplished pianist. From seeing these scenes and those in later episodes, I have the opinion that Olga purposely puts on a show, and has been doing so for many years, of being a perfect daughter for her parents to keep the peace and make them believe there is something successful about their relationship and marriage: her! As long as Bob and Miriam focus on Olga and the great things she has done and still does, they won’t be fighting or arguing. In Olga’s mind, her being this way means that they can be happy and get along all the time.

Whenever Olga is home, the Patakis appear to be a happy, functional family on the outside (of course, Helga is the only Pataki who never looks happy, which is another reason why they ignore her), just like she wants them to be. But what she does also creates a big problem for herself, her parents, and Helga.

When she witnessed her parents’ unhappiness as a child, it no doubt made Olga so upset that she just didn’t want to face it anymore and wanted to change that as much as she could. Even now, as an adult, Olga knows that her parents’ relationship is still dysfunctional and that they are unhappy. She doesn’t seem to get the idea that her parents would/could be a lot happier if they were no longer together. A divorce could make Miriam and Bob happy, but not Olga, just like many children whose parents are divorced. A divorce is bad in Olga’s mind, so she wants her parents to stay together and not make the “bad” decision to break up. In a sense, this means that Olga would rather have her parents be unhappily married (while occasionally pretending to be happy) than happily divorced.

After spending years of putting on an act for her parents to keep them together, Olga has developed the idea that ignoring or running away from problems and pretending that they don’t exist is the best solution. I mean, when she puts on a show for them, excluding Helga, they do look and act happy. But the sad truth is, what they do is all just an illusion; it’s not real. They’re doing nothing more than pretending. They are just being a pretend family. And you can’t pretend or ignore what’s real in order to really be happy.

A major reason why Helga can’t stand Olga is because the latter, and even her whole family, really, do not have a firm grasp on reality. Helga is very aware of the dysfunction in her family, and she wants to address the problems in order to make them better. But Olga does just the opposite. What she does is only a temporary solution. She and her parents will never truly be happy if they don’t address the problems and talk about them in order to improve them. If you don’t confront or acknowledge a problem, well, then it is a lost cause. You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.

Part of the reason I would have loved to see the planned, cancelled spin-off series The Patakis was because I am interested on what things would have been like in Helga’s life now that she was a teen, but also to see what would have happened with her family. I’d like to think that things could improve between her parents and Olga, though it would still take a lot of effort on everyone’s parts. But anything is possible. 😉

In the famous play Cyrano de Bergerac, the titular Cyrano is a soldier in the French Army. He is a remarkable duelist as well as a talented poet. Though he is in love with a woman named Roxane, Cyrano is insecure about himself because he has an abnormally large nose and believes that she could never love him because of this feature. Simultaneously, Roxane likes a man named Christian, who is a soldier in Cyrano’s regiment. Christian has the handsome looks that make Roxane like him, but he has no clever wit for words like Cyrano does. So basically, the two men have just what the other one inwardly and outwardly lacks. Cyrano helps Christian win Roxane's heart by feeding him his own poetic words of love to woo her, which makes Roxane fall for Christian.

However, what I want to say in this Hey Arnold! post is just about the opposite of that.

You see, Helga makes me think of Cyrano because she too has a remarkable skill for poetry, along with the fact that she is in love with Arnold and fears he could never love her in return. Her insecurities differ somewhat from that of Cyrano, though. Besides having a very rough home life with a dysfunctional family, Helga constantly teases Arnold and calls him names. She fears so much that he will reject her that she covers this up by being a bully towards him. Helga’s lack of confidence to be her real, kind self around Arnold and others, along with her not-always-so-good looks, make her even more afraid of being rejected.

Despite her bullying facade and struggle to keep Arnold from learning her real feelings, Helga still wants Arnold all to herself. Therefore, she easily becomes extremely jealous of any girl, particularly pretty ones, on whom he has a crush. This includes Ruth, Summer, and especially Lila. Arnold likes Lila (and the previous girls) for easy, shallow reasons, such as her being nice, pretty, and easy to be around. He pretty much likes girls who appear to significantly differ from Helga, since her mistreatment of him for six years doesn't exactly give him a lot of reasons to like her.

Anytime she sees Arnold and Lila together and having a good time, Helga always frowns, growls, and sometimes shakes or clenches her fists in fury. As a result of her jealousy, Helga often attempts to sabotage any chances Arnold has with Lila or his other crushes. Helga can be very possessive of her love for Arnold and thinks non-stop about him to the point of obsession. These traits, along with her sabotage attempts, make Helga actually seem quite selfish and uncaring at times, because she thinks only about her own desires. She doesn't seem to take Arnold’s feelings into account and what he wants with the other girl(s). Not to mention it clearly hurts Helga that Arnold prefers girls who are her complete opposite in terms of looks and personality. Helga only wants Arnold all to herself and just can't stand it when he looks at other girls, even though she always has to hide this whenever she is around him.

So because she desperately wants Arnold, even though she mistreats him and is insecure about herself, I can certainly say that Helga is not and would never be like Cyrano in regards to secretly helping the person she loves win over another girl that he likes. In other words, she would never help another girl that Arnold liked (even if said girl liked Arnold, too) to win his heart, whether or not the girl even asked Helga to help her.

In all, Helga may be talented at poetry like Cyrano, but she certainly will never be like Cyrano by helping another girl to win Arnold’s heart. She’s just no Cyrano! XD Luckily, though, she won't have to be because Craig Bartlett said that Arnold and Helga are meant for each other and will be together in the end. :)

During the course of the series, Arnold hugs Helga three times. The first two happen because he thanks her for finding his hat, then because he thanks her for getting her dad to sponsor his float idea for the city parade. But when he hugs her for the third time, Arnold never offers an explanation as to why, which leaves Helga confused, yet delighted simultaneously. So why does he hug her that time?

If you remember prior to this scene, during much of the episode, Arnold was dreaming about visiting Arnie in the country and meets Arnie’s friends, who are the exact antitheses of Arnold’s own friends. The two most important people in the dream are Lulu, who is the exact antithesis of Lila, and Hilda, who is not actually the antithesis of Helga, but is Helga when she is being her true self.

Arnold’s dream has a purpose by taking the viewers deep into his subconscious, where he knows how Helga feels about him and that he may repressed feelings for her. As I said before, the dream relationships between Arnold, Arnie, Lulu, and Hilda are the mirror images of the relationships between Arnold, Arnie, Lila, and Helga in real life. Lulu is created to show Arnold that Lila is not the right girl for him, and Arnold knows this subconsciously. On the contrary, he falls for Hilda, which shows he could very well fall for Helga if she showed her real self more often.

So within his subconscious, he knows about Helga’s feelings for him, and Hilda is there to show Arnold that Helga is the perfect girl for him.

Anyway, back to the moment he hugs Helga. No explanation is ever provided, and it appears very random, but given everything that happened to Arnold has dreamed and what is happening in his subconscious, there is likely a psychological reason for it. As an old Hey Arnold! friend of mine, as did an anonymous writer who wrote an essay about this episode, once stated, maybe Arnold hugged Helga because it was a way of his subconscious giving him a push towards her, or a nudge in the right direction, to help him realize that she is the perfect girl for him.

As for when he says, “Wow, Helga! It really is you!”, I was initially confused about what that line might mean. But then I got to thinking of how Arnold seemed genuinely happy to see Helga and that maybe he realizes, on a subconscious level, that she is worthy of love from him and that he can love her. So he expresses it with those words, as if he’s really saying to her, “It’s you! You're my true love!”, like my friend once suggested. I really liked that thought, because it seems to tie in with the idea that Arnold is beginning to realize that Helga is the girl for him, so maybe what he said to her was his way of saying just that.

In conclusion, Arnold's dream in this episode tells us that Lila is not the girl for him, but that Helga is the right girl for him. And while Arnold knows this subconsciously, he just needs to find it in there, figure it out and come to terms with it on a conscious level, and, finally, accept it and take action. And when he does, he will have finally found the girl of his dreams. ;)

special thanks goes to my good friend foreverfrozensolid for making the gif for me!

Besides “Helga on the Couch,” another one of my all time favorite Hey Arnold! episodes is “Married,” in which Arnold and Helga both dream of being married to one another. While Helga’s dream serves as service to fans of the pairing, Arnold’s dream is the most important, especially near the end, when Helga almost confesses that she loves him.

I can describe a lot about what makes his dream important, but for now, I just want to mention one moment that stands out to me, which is when Arnold grabs Helga (who has been cruel towards and mooching off of him) and forces her to admit and show that she’s not truly as bad as she makes herself out to be.

Now there have been times in the show where Arnold loses patience with Helga and fight back when she pushes him too far. But because he is such a good guy, I do think Arnold would never stoop so low and become very violent with Helga. He would never hit or punch her if she angered him, despite everything she does, but as shown in his dream, in order to successfully get through to her, he will get physical with her if all else fails.

Previously throughout the dream, Arnold has had no power over anything and Helga has always been one step ahead of dominating him. But by the end, he is fed up and finally stands up to her. His actions prove that he will get physical if he has to, but no further than grabbing and only as a last resort. The point is, when Arnold grabs Helga, he's once and for all trying to get her to admit that she's not really mean or bad like she claims. She tries to deny it, just like she always does in real life, but his increasing pressure on her ultimately forces Helga into dropping her ruse and admitting the truth.

In my eyes, Arnold grabbing Helga to finally get her attention almost seems like he is literally trying to shake the truth out of her. Many times on the show we seem him just coping with her teasing and trying to ignore it, and only a few times has he fought back. But we never see him take the kind of “hands on” approach that he does in the dream. If Arnold attempted to stand up to Helga just by verbal communication, she might not take him so seriously, since he always suggests talking as a solution in solving a problem. However, if he touched her and/or then got a little more physical with her in order to get her to listen once and for all, I have no doubt that Helga would finally listen to him and he would get through to her like he wants.

In Hey Arnold!, we fans know that Arnold is the idealist while Helga is the realist. These kinds of differences between the two give them just what the other person needs, which is part of why they are a perfect match. At the same time, though, there are times in the show when Arnold is the more practical person and Helga is more optimistic, particularly if it has something to do with their relationship and what their future may hold.

A great example of them switching personalities is when Arnold’s takes Rhonda’s origami test in “Married.” Much like in “Friday the 13th,” this episode shows how realistic Arnold can be because he does not believe in curses or superstitions. So he is not at all convinced that the test will really predict his future wife, most especially after he is paired up with Helga. As can be expected, because he faces teasing and tormenting from her on a daily basis, he is dismayed about this result, and he probably thinks Helga would feel the same way. But on the contrary: Helga, who is hiding and listening in on the whole thing, is overjoyed and convinced that the test is correct. Even though he still doesn't believe in the test, Arnold ends up taking it again and gets Helga. In the end, after he comically takes the test 110 times, Arnold always ends up with Helga. XD This completely dismays and terrifies him, but Helga is well over the moon about it. In one of my favorite moments in the episode, the scene quickly pans back and forth between the two as they prepare for bed while showing them at opposite ends of the spectrum: Arnold says it’s horrible, a nightmare, he’ll never marry Helga. Helga says it’s wonderful, a dream come true, she and Arnold will marry each other.

Another good example which never came about would be an aftermath of “Girl Trouble.” In that episode, Phil tells Arnold that he went through the same thing as a kid, with Gertie constantly teasing him, playing pranks on him, and getting him into trouble. The end of the episode reveals that that Gertie is now Arnold’s own grandmother! In summary, that episode has a hidden message in it, saying that, if Arnold’s grandparents once had the same relationship he and Helga had when they were kids, but still ended up together, then Arnold and Helga will, too.

Moving on, Arnold never learns that the same Gertie who picked on his grandfather is now his own grandmother. If and when he learned the truth, I think his reaction would go two different ways, regarding if he found out before or after Helga confessed. Before Phil tells Arnold his story, he suggests to Arnold that Helga picks on him because she likes him (which made him the first person to make this very suggestion). But Arnold dismisses said possibility as crazy and thinks that Helga just hates him, period. If Phil had told him the truth about Gertie before Helga confessed, I think Arnold might have just brushed it off as a mere coincidence because he wouldn't know the truth about Helga’s feelings for him. In not knowing how Helga really feels, he wouldn't take it as a sign of fate or anything serious.

However, if Arnold learned about his grandparents’ pasts after Helga’s confession, his reaction would probably be somewhat different. Knowing about Helga’s feelings would give him a chance to rethink about his own repressed feelings for her, and he might be more open to the idea of them being in a relationship, particularly since he admitted to Gerald that it wouldn't be so bad if he ever did marry Helga. At the same time, though, because of his practical side, Arnold would also be very confused and freaked out about the whole thing. He would not come to the immediate conclusion that just because his grandparents went through the same thing as kids and still ended up together, that he would take it as a sign of fate, embrace it completely, and make sure that he and Helga have a future together.

Now contrary to Arnold’s potential feelings on the situation, if Helga somehow learned that Arnold’s grandparents were just like the two of them as kids, she would wholeheartedly take it as a sign that she and Arnold will meet the exact same fate. Of course, while Helga does not always seem to believe in superstitions or ghost stories, a big factor in why she believed that Arnold’s marriage test results predicted the truth (and why she would believe that they would end up together just like his grandparents) is solely because she loves Arnold. Despite being mean to him and playing pranks on him, Helga still loves Arnold and wants to be with him. Since the day they met, after he was nice to her, she’s had eyes only for him. She’s never had a crush on any other boy and her feelings never changed over the years. Even though her feelings for him often seem to border along the lines of an unhealthy obsession and possession, Helga truly cares about Arnold. They may still be kids, but her love for him is deep and real.

Whether or not Arnold would believe that he and Helga would end up together, while she would, just because his grandparents were just like them, we fans still consider it foreshadowing. The best part of it all is that Craig Bartlett himself said that Arnold and Helga are meant for each other and will end up together, and that’s all I need to hear to make me very happy. :)

“Helga on the Couch” is my favorite episode of Hey Arnold! because it gives a great deal of development on Helga, what with her dysfunctional home life and what caused her to become a bully and why she fell in love with Arnold in the first place. I can talk so much about the psychological depths of Helga in this episode, but maybe some other time. What I really wanted to talk about for the moment is one scene in particular.

As Helga discusses her home life and her relationships with her parents and sister, she mentions what happened the last time Olga came home to visit. The start of the flashback is shown in black and white and acts as a parody of a “picture perfect family” sitcom of the 1950s, complete with a traditional applause-and-laugh track. The entire scene shows Olga and her parents having a sitcom-like moment, in which Olga is portrayed as a perfect, loving daughter with appreciative parents who shower all of their love and attention on her. In a sense, the moment appears to show all three Patakis as a picture perfect family.

However, when Helga enters the scene, the black and white fades back to color and the laugh track ends, as if she had ruined a family moment.

I never understood the purpose of the use of black and white for this scene, but seeing it again years later makes me understand it completely. Although the laugh track is used to make the situation seem more light-hearted and humorous, its true purpose was to show that Helga is being neglected by her parents and that they only give Olga all of their attention. The scene is set up in a way so that it appears that the three Patakis are happy without Helga and treat her like she’s an outsider and unwanted family member. Olga is, again, represented as a totally perfect child and brings happiness to her parents in the scene, which means the sad part is that they might be a "picture perfect family" if Helga didn't exist. :(

So this whole scene was done as a little joke and for irony, given the dysfunction in the household, to show that a picture perfect family is just what the Patakis aren't.

We Hey Arnold! fans remember that Arnold and Helga have their first kiss in “School Play,” in which they play Romeo and Juliet, respectively, and it was a scripted kiss. The second time they kiss is in “Summer Love,” in which they film a TV episode of Babewatch and Helga was playing a lifeguard giving Arnold mouth-to-mouth. Although they also kiss each other in their own dreams in “Married,” they were dreams, so they don't officially count. The third and final time the two kiss is during the movie, when Arnold discovers that Helga was Deep Voice and she confesses that her being in love with him was why she was secretly helping him save their neighborhood.

As a kid, one thing I noticed about the first two kisses, along with their kiss in Arnold’s married dream, is that we never see his and Helga’s lips touching. We don't see that happen until the movie, although Helga’s lips are clearly overlapping Arnold’s lips and he’s not reciprocating the kiss. I always wondered why we never saw their lips making contact with the previous kisses, but after I talked with ultra-dancergirl recently, she came up with a good psychological reason as to why this happens.

When Helga kisses Arnold during the play and TV episode filming, he does not yet know the truth about Helga’s feelings for him. Therefore, hiding the contact of their lips touching when they kiss symbolically represents the fact that Helga is (still) hiding her secret from Arnold and the rest of the world. The same thing goes for Arnold’s dream, after she tricks him into marrying her. Like in real life, his dream self doesn't know about Helga’s true feelings, so again, we don't see their lips touch when she kisses him.

However, in Helga’s dream, since she’s marrying Arnold, he obviously knows the truth, so it’s an entirely different story. Although we don't see the actual contact of lips after they exchange vows, we do see it happen at the very end, when they eat the pastrami sandwich together, then kiss after finishing it. Although it’s just a dream, some fans regard this moment as the first time we actually see their lips touch when they kiss.

Then by the time of the movie, Helga finally admits the entire truth to Arnold about how much she loves him and helped him because of this. Due to the fact that she lets her secret out in the open at last, it offers a good explanation as to why their lips are finally visible during this spontaneous, but forceful and passionate kiss.

Even though this moment is shown on screen for only about three seconds, it still brings out my annoyance at and great dislike of Olga.

We Hey Arnold! fans know that Helga can't stand Olga because the latter is her exact antithesis: popular, beautiful, and flawless in almost every way, from her perfect behavior to her exemplary grades. For those reasons, their parents always direct their attention at Olga when she is home, and rarely at Helga, just because she is not acting the way or doing the things her sister does.

In the Thanksgiving episode, everything is going bad for Helga, not only because her parents are at their worst, as usual, but because Olga is home, making her slave away over helping prepare the food, and all their parents care about is what Olga wants to do. When she returns home after being out with Arnold for hours, she finds her family in a panic over her disappearance. Olga even makes missing posters to help, but even though she is doing it to find Helga, once you catch a glimpse of one, it doesn't appear to be that way.

First of all, look at what the poster says: “Missing-Award Winning Olga Pataki’s Sister.” There is no mention of the name “Helga Pataki” on the poster; she is merely referred to as “Olga Pataki’s Sister.” Second of all, while the picture does contain a scowling Helga, who is the missing girl, it more prominently features the aforementioned award-winning girl Olga, who has her eyes closed, a big smile on her face, and one hand on her head while the other is on her hip.

Now why does this moment bug me since Olga is supposed to be doing it to find her sister? Well, why do you think? Olga has claimed and claims to care about Helga very much, but there are times when she seems to be as neglectful of her as their parents. The fact that she chose this kind of picture and what she wrote on the flyer supports my point. Helga is the girl who is missing, but she’s not even mentioned by name, much like how her father sometimes doesn't call her by name or absent-mindedly calls her Olga. AND Olga is the one with more prominence in the picture, looking she's having the time of her life, while Helga only glances towards her sister with a frown.

It just bugs me so much that, even though Olga thinks she is doing something useful to find Helga, she still simultaneously (though maybe unconsciously) makes herself the real attention-getter on the poster. It’s as if she’s so used to and fixated on being the center of attention that she HAS to do something that emphasizes the attention on her, even when it isn't supposed to be. She may have claimed in her first episode that she doesn't like performing so much for their parents’ attention and that Helga is lucky to not be noticed, but this picture clearly proves that Olga DOES enjoy the limelight, even hogging it from Helga now and then. Obviously, when the picture was taken, she was completely ignorant, to the possible point of denial, that Helga was angry and looking towards her with that look, and she probably still didn't take time to notice when she chose it for the flyers.

So to me, this picture choice does not show that Olga truly loves Helga like she says she does; it shows her as a selfish, self-absorbed narcissist who just loves being the center of attention, always wants to be the center of attention, and is in complete denial about how it makes Helga feel.