I was kind of disappointed in the character of Dan Hole: Crutcher didn’t show a fleshed out character, he showed a piece of comic relief that doubled as a stereotypical nerd. He likes to use big words that nobody understands, he’s always busy calculating everything, and he can’t help sending fake pictures of musclemen to random girls across the internet for attention.
It was odd: He spent so much time giving everyone a back-story, and here comes Dan Hole, who almost has nothing to hide and nothing of interest, and you always knew everything that was coming. Now, while I earlier argued that everyone’s motives seemed to be child abuse, that doesn’t mean the characters just SHOULDN’T HAVE MOTIVES. That’s even worse.
The ten-pushup routine, I have to say, was funny the first few times, but the fact that Icko made him go out into the snow for using a decent vocabulary sort of seems like the wrong message to be sending. Now, know that I’m the last to think that good, moral values are above all in society, but I think the fact that so few kids read books at all and that some of the people reading the book can relate to Dan Hole because they’re actually taking the time to read it might make him sort of a walking statement of mocking towards them and that maybe a good vocabulary isn’t such a bad thing,
While sadly, admittedly I find myself a bit relatable to Dan Hole, and a cross of him and some aspects of T.J. describe me perfectly, I think it’s in part because I think I’m somewhat intelligent, and nothing to do with his life story or how he views the world, of which little to no insight was given. He just seems so one-dimensional as a character, and Crutcher tried to turn him into a somewhat major character.
I was just overall disappointed with Dan Hole as a character. He’s relatable because of his basic character traits, you can connect with him or laugh at him because of his nerdiness, and the quirks that he has seem to come right out of most low-grade internet message boards. While Crutcher attempts to describe a character everybody knows, he does little to make those of us who can relate to him feel like anyone will understand us any better because of his input.
7 comments:
Haha "nerdiness". That's a good word to describe him. But you're right, I was kind of dissapointed in him too. As well, I read a lot, and you don't see me using big words ALL the time. He was like, the classic nerd. Something I also found odd about Dan, was that he was the first to call T.J. about the swim notice, was he not? Since Dan is such a 'classic nerd', you really wouldn't think a nerd would be the first to volenteer for a swim team, right? Just something to think about.
He was, and I suppose that's right, but his motives weren't described, and let's face it: a deciding factor in wether he would join or not was the chlorine content of the pool. Perhaps he's a bit out of the norm, but there's no denying that the parts of him that do conform to a nerd stereotype are strong, and somewhat pathetic, exaggerations.
mhm....pssh, he wasn't even blond >XD O_o was he?
Same thoughts on the making him go out into the supposed driving snow to do ten pushups because he used some good vocab.
I felt left out of the conversation, and Stauffer's jealous of my 10 COMMENTS ON 1 BLOG, so althout I've commented on your "Overdoing It" Blog. I would also have to agree with Whale Talker here with the "Why is a smart guy being punished for teaching some dumb kids vocab" argument.
So now smart people are being punished for being brainy? *goes into hiding in underground bunker*
and btw, it's 11 comments on one blog now, Alvin >XD
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