Was Bradford Buzzard Right?
Was Bradford Buzzard actually the tragic hero of Duck Tales (2017)?
And if he was the villain, is the series an example of the TV Tropes:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainHasAPoint
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WellIntentionedExtremist
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JerkassHasAPoint
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheExtremistWasRight
In chapter one "An Unexpected Party" of The Hobbit Gandalf says:
...I am looking for someone to share an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone.
And Bilbo replies:
I should think so--in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anybody sees in them.
And I think that reading The Hobbit greatly reduced my desire to have any real life adventures.
The crazy credits section of the IMDB article on Blackbeard The Pirate (1952) says:
Opening credits prologue:
"The meeker the man, the more pirate he,
Snug in his armchair, far from the sea,
And reason commends his position:
He has all of the fun and none of the woes,
Masters the ladies and scuttles his foes,
And cheats both the noose and perdition!"
"THE ARMCHAIR PIRATE" -Anon.-
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044426/crazycredits/?tab=cz&ref_=tt_trv_cc
And I can't help agreeing with that attitude, that is its much more fun to read about or view the real or fictional adventures of other people, than to actually have exciting, scary, and dangerous adventures. Vicarious adventures are enough for me.
So I have to consider Scrooge, Della, Donald (before Della was lost), Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and Webby to be insane adrenaline junkies who rush in where angels fear to tread with suicidal disregard for their safety and to a lesser degree the safety of their enemies and many innocent bystanders. So I can't help thinking that Scrooge could be considered by some to be as evil as Soran in Star Trek: Generations (1994) who was willing to kill hundreds of millions of people to achieve his personal happiness.
And in my opinion the alternate universes where the family all survived to the end of "The Last Adventure" should be outnumbered by millions to one by the alternate universes where one or more of them were killed in failed adventures. Probably alternate univeses where Scrooge was killed before he made his big gold find in the Yukon over 120 years ago are many times as common as universes where he lived to die of old age in 1967, as Don Rosa believed, let alone the much rarer universes where Scrooge magically prolonged his life until the start of Duck Tales (2017).
So I guess that the alternate universes where Bradford Buzzard cancelled his plots when Scrooge & Co. were killed in some dangerous adventure, or even were killed before Bradford ever decided they were a menace and started to plot against Scrooge, should be millions of times as common as alternate universes where Scrooge & Co. survived until the end of "The Last Adventure".
And I note that when Scrooge, Webby, Huey, Dewey, and Louie are last seen they are holding hands in free fall without any parachutes visible. So Lena has just a few minutes to notice their peril and stop them from falling to their deaths, possibly having to let someone else fall and die to save them. Can Lena think fast enough to save everyone?
So I think that, depending on the contents of the clauses in the contract that the audience didn't see, Scrooge's family might have been much better off if he accepted the contract and told his family to do the same.
And I can't help wondering whether the world they lived in would also be better off if the McDucks were less adventurous. Is our pleasure as viewers in our alternate universe worth the horror and suffering, death and destruction they may have caused in their alternate universe with their reckless adventuring? share