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mdhwrites · 7 months

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Ever think Polly felt like a bit of an afterthought at times in Amphibia? Like among the main cast, she's probably the one who adds the least. Among them, we have Sprig being the younger frog sibling who guides Anne into outgrowing her bad traits and being a better friend, Hop Pop being the well meaning authority figure for Anne in Amphibia, Sasha/Marcy being indications of how toxic things were for Anne before Amphibia and Anne learning to forgive, and Anne's parents show what Anne's life on Earth was like, but what does Polly add to Anne that no one else provides? Heck it's telling how she probably has less episodes that actually make her the main lead than even Sasha (despite appearing more than Sasha). Sure you got Frobo, but I doubt it'd make much a difference if Sprig had been the one to befriend and be close with Frobo in a world where Polly didn't exist considering he has similar reckless younger sibling traits like she does. It's even more obvious in season 3 where after Fixing Frobo, Polly barely does anything on the show with virtually no individual focus after that (Sprig and Hop Pop still got focus episodes in season 3B, while Polly's more or less in the background until All In) until All In and even then, it only really amounts to Frobo helping the group escape from Andrias' castle at the start and that's it. The moment where she helps tame the herons doesn't even hit the same impact it does for Sprig and Hop Pop considering she never quite talked about how the herons affect her. We see Sprig talking about how he misses his parents that he lost to the herons in Hopping Mall (and also likely fuels his behavior in Thai Feud to be seen as family by Anne's mom, and gives a touching moment in Sprig's Birthday) and how the heron attack is why Hop Pop buried the music box and acts overprotective. Polly on the other hand never even thinks or talks about it until All In so she doesn't quite hit the same emotional beats as Sprig and Hop Pop do with the taming herons. Like it makes me think the show probably wouldn't change much if Polly didn't exist or simply just merged her and Sprig instead.

So again: Long and unformatted so I'll sum up the main thesis of the statement: Did Polly need to exist? And does she feel sidelined?

And you know... Not really to the first and a bit to the second but I actually chalk that up more to her archtype/role than I do her being bad conceptually, especially since she's actually a good example of her trope and executed her role well. Polly isn't as important as Hop Pop or Sprig though. Hop Pop isn't even as important as Sprig which is usually why when I mention main character status, I include all three and sometimes mention Sprig alone as a true main character away from the Plantars as a unit.

But none of this is really all that surprising with Polly to me. Comic relief are almost never main characters. They can be main supporting cast like Polly is but- "Weh?"

Oh, hey King, wish I could say it's shocking to see you here. Unfortunately... I almost can't personally talk about this without bringing up King because Polly and him are almost identical at the starts of their shows and how they split off as their series go on are emblematic of the shows themselves. They're both meant to be extremely violent children where their role as comedic relief is derived from how they're so small and yet are either so bloodthirsty or so adult. This isn't a new trope, just like Miss Croaker being a tough, badass granny isn't, and King leans more into the adult side of the trope's humor while Polly leans more into the violent side of it.

Both characters suffer from being a part of this trope though and a main character. There are actually a couple tropes I consider almost taboo for me because of this one effect: The trope IS their character. They spend so much time obsessing over the silly juxtaposition of their nature that they don't really get to escape it. Polly actually doubles down on this with her sudden intelligence which just made her comedy stick out more than anything else to me, even if I'm happy she got to find a more interesting outlet for her desires and violent tendencies as a mechanic. It still feels awkwardly grafted onto the character which can happen a lot when you try to go from using someone as a trope to using them as a character. It's why Polly's best episodes are ones that embrace her tomboy or adventurous nature (including Fixing Frobo) because they keep her in character. In fact, adding super intelligence is just doubling down and being irreverent about the juxtaposition. It's admitting it's a children's comedy so why not go all in?

That's not a position The Owl House can accept though for itself, not when it so badly wants to claim it's not like other kids shows, and this is why in S2, King effectively inverts the balance of his character. He becomes his trope 10% of the time and now daddy issues and a proper child 90% of the time. It causes him to commonly feel out of character with what came before and him gaining wisdom at the end isn't doubling down for comedy like with Polly's intelligence, it's just making the eight year old suddenly a damn near Buddha compared to effectively anyone else in the series. With how little time is spent getting him to that place, it's hard to say it feels earned, especially when his character didn't make the change from S1 to 2 with any real grace honestly.

It's also part of why I like Polly more. Is she fairly one note and could have potentially been cut? Maybe. But at least she's consistent for the most part and while her jokes are a bit cheaper than a lot of jokes in the show, they keep them varied enough to keep them somewhat fresh and know to tuck her away when she's not needed. They also remember her age, like with the herons (since the ask did bring this up) as she wouldn't have the same reaction as Sprig or Hop Pop because she was barely alive at the time. She doesn't remember anything about her parents and so she just accepts Hop Pop as her parent and moves on rather than trying to give her the same angst of a character five years older than her (or however many years older Sprig is). Instead, her angst, the few times she has any, is a lot more about being taken seriously and proving herself which absolutely happens to children as young as her. Not in a supernatural way or the like, not because she sees herself as grown up, but because she's finally starting to figure out the start of her identity and what matters to her beyond play.

Side note: I LIKE that she doesn't angst about her parents. Not only is her being accepting of Hop Pop as her sole parent and okay with that befitting the found family and community themes of the show, it's also nice to adopted kids. Yes, Hop Pop is still blood related but he still didn't have to take her in and is still not her biological parent. He had no obligation and if Polly acted like that mattered, it could have been seen as a kind of middle finger to any adopted kids out there who never knew their parents and don't care either because whoever adopted them IS their parent. Not everyone has to have mommy or daddy issues, let alone if the never knew them and while I think Polly once or twice does admit to wishing she at least knew what they look like, she never acts like her family is lesser without them or that she's lesser for not having known them, something I actually like.

Meanwhile, King is hamstrung by the fact that TOH is a MUCH worse comedy and so the comedic relief is going to suffer from it. He has maybe three jokes repeated ad nauseam throughout the first season and while he gets one episode that's okay dedicated to him, Really Small Problems feels like an entirely different character. Then when he drops the mantle of comic relief, he almost vanishes from the show and his heritage becomes not only his whole character but also the whole point of his character. So he goes from an almost one note comic relief character to a one note side character who's almost more a plot device than a character and the transition isn't exactly graceful, especially since some of the retcons in S2 are just straight up incompatible with parts of S1.

And just while I'm talking about this trope, you do have the middle ground between these two with Spike from My Little Pony where his shtick never gets old, or takes a long time to get really old, and his episodes are definitely extensions of his character... It's just a problem that neither element is written great in the first place. Spike wasn't a terrible character but you NEVER wanted it to be a Spike episode and the more Spike was playing into his jokes instead of being just a helpful friend, the more hit or miss he could be. He never damaged the show by his existence like King but he never added a nice flavor and different angle on characterization like Polly does, all while still being constrained by being the child amongst older characters. I will also admit that Spike arguably doesn't entirely fit into this trope because he actually stays fairly age appropriate when it comes to violence and adventure, not that he couldn't have his moments where he felt a little older than he should have.

So yeah, in conclusion I think Polly could have been way worse and that honestly she's used as much as she needs to be. Do I love her writing? Not really, I don't think Amphibia needed a strictly comic relief character when Wartwood has so many that work for that, but she works well enough and they do still very effectively use her to explore additional family dynamics as she gets at least one episode as granddaughter to Hop Pop, little sister to Sprig and baby sister to Anne. She also is consistent with the sillier tone Amphibia goes for 99% of the time and frankly I love the little gremlin too often to think that she failed in her role.

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#the owl house criticism #amphibia critical #pollywood #polly #king clawthorne

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