Al Dös!: The Commentary

Click on the cartoon for a better view. You can also see it in the Still Image/Pocket Joke Section, Page #15.


Another good title for this cartoon is: "Forgiveness Vs. Betrayal". The cartoon itself shows why, but as the narrator, I wanted to introduce the villain by his name, so I named it after him. You already know that the blue muppetoid is the hero of the story. (& The principal character of this cartoon series) The red muppetoid is a very babyish, immature, stupid character that our hero Derek Cyannus Jr. befriended when he was first in elementary school.

 

Al Dös betrayed Derek umpteen times over all sorts of silly, petty reasons; he was a sore loser, as the text says in the cartoon! Al was even too picky about which video game characters he wanted to play as! In fact, Al felt uncomfortable about playing as a female character since he is of course male. But playing as a girl doesn't make you unmanly. (Heck, I have no problem playing as Princess Peach Toadstool© in a Nintendo™ game, ever!) Al's attitude about playing as a female video game character could be a clue that he's a misogynist. (I'll let you decide that for yourself...)

 

Anyway, the most violent scene of the cartoon was when Al tried to strangle Derek to death over a video game, accusing him of distracting him from winning! Derek had to defend himself against his not-so-good friend. This wild behavior gave Derek a reason to unfriend Al. Al betrayed him once too many since this sudden attack. Although he turned against Derek several times & wasn't very loyal, Derek forgave Al each time; but then Al would betray Derek again & again, after receiving all that forgiveness. The lack of trust & security ended the friendship for good; Al took too long to change & mentally grow up to keep Derek's friendship. His behavior & childish stupidity made the relationship too toxic for Derek.

 

This is the kind of karma a doer has to live with if he/she makes such stupid, simple-minded decisions to solve complicated problems. Problem-solving is NOT that simple! There are consequences to actions you take. Plus, you'll have to pay for them somehow, eventually, if your actions were morally bad, in other words, evil. This story may make our blue-furred hero seem unforgiving in the ending, but he's still making a rational decision, because not only must we be forgiving, but also the forgiven ones must stop betraying the forgivers, if they value friendship. A friendship can't last if there's neither trust nor security in it. Derek couldn't trust Al; that was the main problem! Also, considering his attack against our hero, Al was dangerously stupid!

 

Conclusively, however, if Al thought harder to find the solutions to his problems, he wouldn't have lost our hero as a friend. Furthermore, he kept picking the wrong approaches to his problems! Killing a person (especially an innocent one) wouldn't solve Al's problems; in fact, that would just get him into more problems with the law! If he successfully killed our hero, he would lose his friend at a faster rate. (Not to mention that Derek would be dead!) But since he started the unnecessary fight via temper tantrum, he lost it & our hero's friendship! Fortunately, people do grow up mentally & change, even though it's not always for the better how they change... If they do remember the foolish things they did in youth, they may spend some time feeling bad about it & wondering why they lost someone's friendship. Since time goes on, & normally not backwards, all they can do after the fact is learn from it. You can learn from any mistake!

P.S.: This is what discipline is all about. You must rationalize possible outcomes to get to the solution of a puzzle. And also, Al Dös hated puzzles!

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© Derek Cumberbatch