I can’t contain my contribution to 500 characters in an Ask Box, so onto my blog it goes.

I’ve been reading that people think that Helga’s story-lines seemed to always center around her infatuation with Arnold. I disagree with that, because personally, I think that Hey Arnold! covered deeper issues in Helga’s life than her unrequited love for Arnold.

Helga came from a neglectful and verbally abusive household. In “Helga on The Couch,” it was made clear that the reason she latched onto the idea of Arnold so early is because his character embodied all of the qualities that she yearned for but could never find at home. He noticed her. He was nice to her. He liked her bow because it was pink like her pants.

Helga’s sister Olga was a Type-A overachiever that was rarely home, so when the part-time bum/full time beeper emporium king Bob Pataki and his perpetually dazed and alcoholic wife Merriam weren’t wrapped up in their own banal day to day existences, they were devoting their attention to one of the few constants (Olga) in their life that made them feel like they were doing a good job, and that they were justified with the way they went about raising their family. The Pataki parental unit had their own issues.

So Helga grew up in the shadow of her “perfect” sister Olga. Vying for any type of attention from her parents proved fruitless a lot of the time, so she turned to her books. Helga’s vocabulary and literary allusions proved that to me. Coolest nine year old ever. From these books, she was inspired to write. She over-romanticized a lot because of living vicariously through her books to escape the unpleasant life at home. I feel like maybe the reason Helga is so emphatic about Arnold is because he’s the object of all the affection she’s been too hardened to release. He’s also someone real that sees through that hardness. Even if Helga doesn’t really let him in, the fact that he’s willing to come in upon invitation is assurance enough for her that the world is a little bit like all that positivity that Arnold spews— even if she can’t wrap her cynicism around his way of thinking sometimes.

The reason that Helga was so “mean” to Arnold was because of her pent up frustration toward her parents who, as mean as she could be to them, still didn’t pay her much attention. Then there were the peers at school who took the way she presented herself for face value and didn’t bother to get to know her further. The way Arnold was still nice to her after the way she treated him was an affirmation for Helga; who still cares for you even when you’re a bitch? Someone who loves you. Even if she knew it unconsciously, it was still there. It kept her dependency on having Arnold in her life there. She felt like someone finally cared for her.

The show was always exploring Helga’s personal life beyond Arnold, but the reason that it seemed so centered around Arnold is because he is her anchor. He represents the qualities in herself that weren’t nurtured by a warm environment, so they lie deep inside of her because any time she has shown them, she has been rejected or ignored. It’s apparent in a lot of situations that he inspires her to want to show them. It’s easy to want to view the way Helga is portrayed vs. the way Arnold is portrayed, through the feminist lens and say that her infatuation with him is typical to what we expect the female character’s story to centered around, but

I don’t think it’s about that.

Because Helga isn’t infatuated with Arnold, so much as she is with the idea of everything he represents.

The Helga/Arnold story is a look into the hope and inspiration you can find in people when the ones closest to you have let you down and how even the smallest of kind gestures can change a person’s world.

That can be a dangerously cliche message to convey, but I think Hey Arnold! executed it brilliantly.