Why was she the best character in the show?

why was she the best character in the show?

you're thinking of Sid

Ignoring that her obsession with arnold got extremely old, she was the character that was subjected the most to moral dilemmas and being forced to compromise her hardass facade frequently to do the right thing.

With other main characters, doing right and being friendly was more in their nature and weren't afraid of doing so.

>Ignoring that her obsession with arnold got extremely old

I never found myself getting tired of it personally. I didn't like how occasionally it would be used as a paper-thin excuse for a "Helga Gets Trapped In Arnold's House" episode but then those episodes usually ended up being absolutely hysterical so it ended up being alright in the end.

Those few moments where her and Arnold would actually bond when she let guard down briefly were always fantastic. When they're building sandcastles, when they hatch their school project egg, when they almost drown in Arnold's greenhouse, when she asks him if he is OK when her father calls him "orphan boy" etc.

Because she was rescued and adopted into a family where she didn't have to eat salty penis... I mean pennies.

Also, her obsession with someone who has had a tragic start, but maintains his innate innocence drives her to being the "best girl". I'm surprised she hasn't become an icon for soft-feminism.

>I'm surprised she hasn't become an icon for soft-feminism.

This has stunned me more than anything.

There's a bit in one episode where she's sneaking through the vents of Arnold's house to try and destroy her recorded confession of her love for him. She comes across a spider in the vent, she looks at it for a second and then just brushes it aside before moving on. The entire "It Girl" episode is just phenomenal from a feminist's perspective since its about her taking the piss out of models, becoming a model solely to take advantage of being given free shit and then being so disgusted with it that she leaves. Then there's the episode with the makeup.

Any sort of over the top femininity that a feminist might take issue with only exists for satirical purposes, to be deconstructed, for Helga to try to attract Arnold before realising it doesn't work since it isn't actually her personality etc.

>i'l just pick the most useless, garbage, pile of shit character i can to be a contrarian heh that'll show 'em

you're thinking of Stinky

Wilikers!

...

Because she has flaws that are endearing.

She loves Arnold to the point that it is borderline stalker-like but she would go through hell and back just for his sake.
She is crazy jealous of Olga and Lila but would still care for them and at the same time still admire them in some way.
She's crass and rude but deep down she has a delicate talent for poetry and the arts.
She's just a girl that has problems expressing her feelings because of neglecting parents (though they still care about her and vice versa, they're just really bad at showing it.)

Helga just grows on you. I hated her at first but now I just want a girl like Helga.

nope. get a clue, squirt.

>Helga just grows on you. I hated her at first but now I just want a girl like Helga.

I think most people dislike Helga when they're a kid, but as they get older they begin to sympathise with her and see how well-rounded she is as a character.

She was quite identifiable as a somewhat tragic character.

>literal sociopathic stalker
>likable
Pick one.

You're just jealous that nobody will ever love you enough to justify doing all this shit.

She was the one with the most character development. Compare her to season one where she couldn't talk to Arnold honestly about her feelings, to the Jungle Movie trailer where she admits she is the one that came up with the video montage of Arnold to fund their field field, all while being civil and nice in her conversation with him.

Season 1 Helga was far less interesting until the redesign and the events of the Valentine episode, but even the very earliest, kind of of a shithead Helga, had some interesting moments.

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>what are you staring at, football head?

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=3 POMF
>What are we doing on the bed, footuBAH!

What IS this crap?

>her father calls him "orphan boy"

alpha as fuck

Helga is an obnoxious cunt and exists purely to teach girls "if you're an ugly hog but pursue a boy for literal years and years and do everything for him, he will surely fuck you then." This is the worst fucking message you can send anybody, and you can't even argue it's not sending that message because in the end the creators did a total ass-pull and made it so Arnold eventually does respond positively to all this bullshit, as opposed to him politely rejecting her and Helga having to grow as a character and just fucking deal with it.

If anything she's probably the worst example of a female role model. She does nothing but pine for a boy and act like a total asshole, and teaches girls that aformentioned horrible, unrealistic lesson.

I think you're missing the point entirely. Helga, acting like a massive bully and cunt to Arnold, doesn't endear herself to him at all and he spends most of the series actively disliking her. When she acts like an asshole she gets punished for it by pushing Arnold further away from her, and when she acts like sane he approves of it. She acts like an asshole at times, but it is rarely actually malicious and the two of them do hang out as friends throughout the entire series, playing baseball and shit together. The actual horrible stuff she does to him is always in the context of her jealous of a girl and it is always resolved by the end of that respective episode.

> in the end the creators did a total ass-pull and made it so Arnold eventually does respond positively to all this bullshit, as opposed to him politely rejecting her and Helga having to grow as a character and just fucking deal with it.

Ignoring the fact that Season 5, the movie and even the upcoming TV movie all have Helga's hostility and crabbiness massively toned down and the positives of their relationship stressed, Bartlett's plan for the franchise was for Helga and Arnold to have a brutal spat after the events of the series, for Helga's feelings to mature somewhat and then for them to get together and live happily ever after. i.e. not without any pain as you seem to suggest.

Also, you seem to ignore all of the shit that Helga herself has to go through to eventually succeed. It isn't exactly trivialised in the way you seem to be saying.

>ugly hog

Based on her mom and sister, Helga will probably be a butterface at worst. Unless her father has some hideous female relative Helga takes after.

As kid I hated her as Arnold's love interest, and for the most part still do. I will admit she's an excellent character, but I just don't like the idea of actually getting with Arnold. If anything moving on from him would be for the best, since she just uses him as an emotional crutch.

But they're so cute together user!

>but it is rarely actually malicious

That is complete bullshit. There was an entire episode where Helga WAS actively malicious and Arnold had to apologize for being tired of her shit.

Helga did nothing wrong.

There was one episode where it was almost revealed that she loves Arnold, via like a freakin' parrot or something and even as a kid, I very clearly remember just wanting it to happen so it would be out there and she'd have to deal with it and however Arnold responded, at least she wouldn't have to hide it anymore.

It was a weird mix of me rooting for her while also being extremely frustrated with her, but she wand Phoebe were still my favorites by far.

Arnold my love,
My sultry preteen,
Why must I hold you
only whilst I dream?
Will I be forever enslaved by your spell?
Why must I worship you and never ever tell?
Arnold, you make my girlhood tremble,
My senses all go wacky.
Someday, I'll tell the world, my love...
Or my name's not Helga G. Pataki!

That's the one.

I think some kinda alligator ate it.

It was a monitor lizard.

>girlhood tremble

Haha, I remember that. How that shit got past the censors, IDK.

What annoys me the most is that a fucking therapist excused her actions as “well as long as you're not hurting anybody it's fine”, and the fandom uses that line as an excuse for her sometimes genuinely creepy behavior.

Writing poems about Arnold is one thing, having a fucking shrine is another. How the hell is that not hurting Helga?

I really want to like Helga, I really do. I just wish the writers and fans would pull their heads out of their asses and realize what she's doing is harmful to herself and Arnold.

I sincerely hope that Pataki show plan is implemented in someway for a Season 6.

Something being unhealthy isn't the same as being full on harmful to others.

This was the episode that took me from hating Helga to sympathizing with her, I probably wouldn't be alone if I was able to express my feelings.

But her obsession is harmful to HER. It causes her to be a train wreck that relies on a single person's affection just to get by. That is not healthy in the slightest, because if he rejects her, or leaves town, or dies, etc, then she's either going to end up killing herself or everyone else in the school. That is not normal, and the fact that a fucking therapist enabled her is nothing short of disgusting.

>affection

I meant existence. Affection is a poor choice of words since Arnold could care less about her.

>Alaskan Bullworm

This thread is still going?

Of course, it's a thread about best girl.

god that movie was a piece of shit.

>then she's either going to end up killing herself or everyone else in the school.
Suicide would be my bet considering she sees him as her Romeo.
That'd be a dark episode. A student dying already hurts the rest of the student body but Helga's suicide would be devastating as fuck to Phoebe and her teacher. It'd be a gloomy episode of each kid going to a grief counselor and dealing with that trauma. Not to mention seeing her family either crack or worse not be affected much at all.

>that episode where Helga falls through the ceiling covered in dust in the middle of Arnold's crowded room
>everyone stares in complete silence as she slowly backs away and leaves
>they start talking again like it didn't happen

>at first they think it's Olga who died, and they're relieved when they realise it's just Helga

I kinda wish I had as many friends as the HA students when I was little, hell even Rhonda the rich girl got down and dirty to play some football, I've never seen any other show that did.

The most funny part of it all is that it's never mentioned again in later seasons. Arnold and his friends know Helga is weird and just witnessed her invade Arnold's home for some reason, but they continue to act and see Helga as this tough bully, instead of a weird, creepy ntruder.

>ALASKAN BULLWORM

One would wonder why Rhonda would even attended an inner city public school.

Probably for the same reason as Lorenzo.

There was a gloom about her character and life that was pretty unique compared to other shows. It wasn't the same old "Attractive guy/girl who is treated by sort of like a geek even though they have a bunch of friends and there's a popular girl/guy they want". She had a dysfunctional family that gave her a nasty personality that pushes those around her away, the ones that could help her be happy. But being vulnerable is something that doesn't come natural to her anymore.

It's just nice to see something like that in a show kids can watch.

She's the definition of a 'strong female character'. She isn't beautiful and perfect but flawed, conflicted and real and even though she does some very shitty thing she never really loses her humanity.

Her and her family were the best because they could have just been one-note antagonists, but instead they're just dysfunctional. Working to understand each other despite being pretty bad at it.

>it's just Helga
Fucking hell user I could see that. Like they trash her Arnold Shrine and convert her room to something else. But I think that'd be too harsh to happen.

Because Arnold went from being the adventures voice of "sure, why not?" to the voice of "I don't know about this, you guys".

It feels like the later seasons they really wanted to flesh of the others kids and characters, which isn't really a bad thing.
Arnold's character did suffer, but we got to see more of Helga's character, and that's ended up being really good.

Tsundere done right, and that wasn't even all there was to her.

Arnold and is literally the 2nd worse character on the show, after Iggy.

Pretty sure she's the only "tsundere" I like, because it actually works under the context of being a repressed and bullied nine-year-old.

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>Lila's not number 1
Get out, user. We all know Lila is worse girl and nothing that witch will ever do will redeem her Mary Sue status.

Calm down Helga.

Lila>Ruth>6th Grade black chick>Summer

>no one posted the actual best girl from HA!

see

Oh come on, Timberly, Summer, Jamie, Wolfgang and Harold are worse.

I always wanted to fuck Helga when I was 12. she was my no. 1 fap fantasy over even the Gadget.

I gotta go wash my socks!

I'm surprised Arnold wasn't freaking out that some creepy stranger was video taping his life adventures without his consent.

Once you're nearly forced to be a sewer mutant's man servant you start to roll with the punches.

...

One of the only shows where I truly liked the leads, Arnold and Helga, more than the rest of the cast. And that's not to say the supporting cast was bad, because they were great... it's just amazing when the leads are that likeable while also being flawed (well Arnold is a Gary Stu, but it's okay).

so according to google pic related voiced Helga since episode one.. the thing is, she was born in 1985 and the first episode was aired in 1994.. was she really playing her character when she was 9?

She was even in the pilot.

Anyone else find it odd that Helga and Arnold were conversing like close friends? Even in the last episode of HA! Helga was still mocking, insulting and arguing with Arnold. I'm so curious what happened in this time skip between the Journal and the Jungle movie teaser, because it seems that Arnold and Helga grew closer and bonded during that time.

Hmmm, yes. Look the guys who voice Gerald and Arnold. also.

When I heard that there was going to be a timeskip, I had a feeling that we would see a slightly different Helga. Arnold knows that Helga like likes him and he has had time to process that. Helga has had some of the pressure taken off her by telling Arnold so now she's putting a different side forward.
Maybe she kept going to Dr. Bliss and has been getting advice on what to do.
We'll see soon.

That and since they're older it's not that weird that boys and girls should be friends.

I'm 27 and I don't have a single female friend.. just saying.

Sorry to hear that but don't you remember the transition from girls and boys being separated to gradually hanging out and liking each other more?

STEM major, so no.

That would have been around middle school to high school you ya dingus.

underrated post

Hey Arnold was the best 90's show
it felt sound grounded in a world similar to our own and had really fleshed out characters