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Calvin and Hobbes CRT

King_Dom470

King_Dom470

He/Him
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So theres a lot of controversy surrounding Hobbes and whether or not he's a real character or just Calvins imagination so I was asked to make a CRT.


Theres this quote: The cartoonist said in an interview that the assumption that Hobbes isn't real is because no other adults in the strip see the tiger the way that Calvin does. "It would seem to me, though, that when you make up a friend for yourself, you would have somebody to agree with you, not to argue with you," Watterson said. "So Hobbes is more real than I suspect any kid would dream up."

There are also multiple points where Hobbes and Calvin are fighting and Calvin gets injured. Couldn't find a picture from the comic but there are times where after the two fight characters like his mom comment on his injuries, so this confirms his injuries are real.

Theres also no way to play baseball by yourself. Now you could say that he's just throwing the ball up into the sky and then hitting it himself but its shown that he has a lot of trouble doing that (Here)

Got hit by a snowball thrown by Hobbes

Also why would Calvin imagine someone who argues and annoys him literally every chance he gets.
 
Yes, and Hobbes is also portrayed as more knowledgeable and wise than Calvin is, which doesn't seem to fit into the assumption that he isn't real in some sense.
 
I've already discussed my opinion on profile deletion. Hobbes is consistently shown to be just a stuffed animal, with any character aside from Calvin interacting with him as such- I'd go further and argue that Hobbes being pretend is more or less the point, since that means most of the comic is the internal dialogue of a child with his own ideas and ideas he perceives to be wiser. All activities they perform together, miraculously, can also be done via playing pretend. For example, none of this actually happened. You're assuming that because it is something simpler (playing baseball), that it must be real, but it's in a context that deliberately plays against this notion.

I defy anyone to find any evidence of Hobbes interacting with other characters directly as a tiger. If that's done, I'll cede the point. Otherwise he's just a figment of Calvin's imagination (like Calvin's alter egos, before we open that can of worms and pretend those are real too).
 
Calvin sees Hobbes one way, and everyone else sees Hobbes another way.
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Hobbes is more about the subjective nature of reality than dolls coming to life
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These are the two statements they cite for this. They then go on to make, despite their summary, points that directly contradict the notion of Hobbes being real-
There has been more than one instance of Hobbes appearing the way Calvin sees him around another person. One instance is when Calvin loses Hobbes in the first Calvin and Hobbes book, Hobbes is seen as a tiger in the company of Susie Derkins. However, she was facing the other way when it occurred (see picture on right). In a Sunday strip from the same book, the car stops going and Calvin and Hobbes beep the horn hoping for someone to come help. Hobbes is seen as a tiger when Calvin's mother is there, but she isn't looking. There is one strip when Calvin is fighting with Hobbes' and we see Susie's perspective in one panel, but some people think it was Calvin seeing him transform back into his stuffed animal form and expressing confusion.

At one point, Calvin stated that Hobbes was steering, however since Susie was there, the imagination became to 'realism', and Hobbes was riding in the back as a stuffed tiger, displaying a hint about whether Hobbes is real or not.
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Their own interpretations would seem to imply that Hobbes is more than likely imaginary and has more to do with a child's perception of the world vs an adult's, rather than earnestly giving a comic strip about a real tiger living with a child. I would remain against considering Hobbes "real".
 
I was thinking more of Hobbes maybe being some kind of spirit animal, but I am not at all certain regarding the issue.
 
Antvasima said:
I was thinking more of Hobbes maybe being some kind of spirit animal, but I am not at all certain regarding the issue.
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I think there are other interpretations than the commonly held one, but I think it takes more speculation than I'm willing to defend for the purposes of the wiki.
 
Yes, I was thinking of Native American culture, for example, but again, it is just speculation.
 
Lou_change said:
If the natural of his existence is debatable can't we can still index him with a note that explains while we aren't certain he is a figment of Calvin's imagine or not for the purpose of the profile we assume he is real it is intended to be left to interpretation after all.
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I agree with this. There is a lot of evidence supporting that he is and isn’t real but no actual conclusive answer. So it’s really all just speculation/up for interpretation.
 
Mr._Bambu said:
Their own interpretations would seem to imply that Hobbes is more than likely imaginary and has more to do with a child's perception of the world vs an adult's, rather than earnestly giving a comic strip about a real tiger living with a child. I would remain against considering Hobbes "real".
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Based on how he is described he definitely is not real in a traditional sense. He is consistently described as part of a reality separate from the one most of the cast experience per word of God. There are several events that are hard to explain without Hobbes being "real" like when Hobbes ties Calvin up in a way Calvin can't escape. There's also this supposed statement that is annoying left without a source about Watterson responding to a journalist's assumption Hobbes is imaginary, "But the strip doesn't assert that. That's the assumption that adults make because nobody else sees him, sees Hobbes, in the way that Calvin does. Some reporter was writing a story on imaginary friends and they asked me for a comment, and I didn’t do it because I really have absolutely no knowledge about imaginary friends. It would seem to me, though, that when you make up a friend for yourself, you would have somebody to agree with you, not to argue with you. So Hobbes is more real than I suspect any kid would dream up." The Calvin and Hobbes wiki claims the Duplicator had real effects but I am not entirely sure what it is referring to. There are also times it's implied Hobbes helped Calvin lift things he couldn't otherwise.
 
Lou_change said:
Based on how he is described he definitely is not real in a traditional sense. He is consistently described as part of a reality separate from the one most of the cast experience per word of God. There are several events that are hard to explain without Hobbes being "real" like when Hobbes ties Calvin up in a way Calvin can't escape. There's also this supposed statement that is annoying left without a source about Watterson responding to a journalist's assumption Hobbes is imaginary, "But the strip doesn't assert that. That's the assumption that adults make because nobody else sees him, sees Hobbes, in the way that Calvin does. Some reporter was writing a story on imaginary friends and they asked me for a comment, and I didn’t do it because I really have absolutely no knowledge about imaginary friends. It would seem to me, though, that when you make up a friend for yourself, you would have somebody to agree with you, not to argue with you. So Hobbes is more real than I suspect any kid would dream up." The Calvin and Hobbes wiki claims the Duplicator had real effects but I am not entirely sure what it is referring to. There are also times it's implied Hobbes helped Calvin lift things he couldn't otherwise.
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Again, the evidence of those linked comics is easily explained by, "Calvin is alone, and therefore we are seeing his imagination without the persepctive of an outside source". Although I think a child can carry or at least drag a microwave.
 
I mean, especially given the Watterson quote that Hobbes is more about the subjective nature of reality rather than about stuff animals coming to life, it seems very clear to me that we are going against the grain of what this work represents and the intention behind it by trying to pin it down to a concrete thing, like thinking that Hobbes has some kind of Toy Story thing going on where, for some inexplicable reason, he shapeshifts to being a stuffed animal whenever someone other than Calvin is looking at him.

Hobbes is a stuffed animal, but just like playing in the bathtub turns into an alien invasion, Calvin sees him as a real life tiger and that's what matters because reality is subjective. I wouldn't tier a character based on a child's imagination.
 
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Okay. I suppose that the page should probably be deleted then.
 
Deagonx said:
I mean, especially given the Watterson clone that Hobbes is more about the subjective nature of reality rather than about stuff animals coming to life, it seems very clear to me that we are going against the grain of what this work represents and the intention behind it by trying to pin it down to a concrete thing, like thinking that Hobbes has some kind of Toy Story thing going on where, for some inexplicable reason, he shapeshifts to being a stuffed animal whenever someone other than Calvin is looking at him.

Hobbes is a stuffed animal, but just like playing in the bathtub turns into an alien invasion, Calvin sees him as a real life tiger and that's what matters because reality is subjective. I wouldn't tier a character based on a child's imagination.
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vsbattles.fandom.com

Winnie the Pooh (Disney)

Winnie the Pooh (also known as Pooh Bear) is the titular protagonist of Disney's animated franchise with the same name. He is an anthropomorphic, honey-loving teddy bear with a "very little brain" who resides in the Hundred Acre Wood, an imaginative world inhabited by anthropomorphic stuffed...
vsbattles.fandom.com vsbattles.fandom.com
 
Mr._Bambu said:
Again, the evidence of those linked comics is easily explained by, "Calvin is alone, and therefore we are seeing his imagination without the persepctive of an outside source". Although I think a child can carry or at least drag a microwave.
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I suppose but I doubt it in the first one he is clearly scared and I don't recall him using his imagination to help calm himself down at any point in the comic. For the microwave Calvin uses we implying he didn't carry it himself.
 
Mr._Bambu said:
Again, the evidence of those linked comics is easily explained by, "Calvin is alone, and therefore we are seeing his imagination without the persepctive of an outside source". Although I think a child can carry or at least drag a microwave.
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Microwaves weight like 20 pounds which isn't insane but still pretty impressive for a 6 year old kid to carry around.

And small generators apparently weigh 30 to 60 pounds while the bigger ones can weigh 100 to 200 pounds so calvin is not moving either of these by himself
 
King_Dom470 said:
Microwaves weight like 20 pounds which isn't insane but still pretty impressive for a 6 year old kid to carry around.

And small generators apparently weigh 30 to 60 pounds while the bigger ones can weigh 100 to 200 pounds so calvin is not moving either of these by himself
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Like I said, my basic argument is that both of these things are done by Calvin alone, meaning we have no reason to assume it's not imaginary like everything else Calvin does alone, such as become a detective that solves crimes and fires guns, or travels to other planets to fight aliens. I just raised an eyebrow at the notion that it was physically impossible for a child to move a microwave.
 
Deagonx said:
I mean, especially given the Watterson clone that Hobbes is more about the subjective nature of reality rather than about stuff animals coming to life, it seems very clear to me that we are going against the grain of what this work represents and the intention behind it by trying to pin it down to a concrete thing, like thinking that Hobbes has some kind of Toy Story thing going on where, for some inexplicable reason, he shapeshifts to being a stuffed animal whenever someone other than Calvin is looking at him.

Hobbes is a stuffed animal, but just like playing in the bathtub turns into an alien invasion, Calvin sees him as a real life tiger and that's what matters because reality is subjective. I wouldn't tier a character based on a child's imagination.
Click to expand...
The situation is intentionally left ambiguous. Watterson never says it is Calvin's imagination when it comes to Hobbes and has directly statements opposing he is a doll that comes to life or an imaginary friend there are also several events that happen in the comic that are difficult to explain without Hobbes.
 
I just remembered that there was a time Calvin and Hobbes pushed their mom car out of the garage and we know this is real because Calvin’s mom gets mad at him for it. So either this 6 year old boy pushed a car or Hobbes did truly help him.
 
King_Dom470 said:
I just remembered that there was a time Calvin and Hobbes pushed their mom car out of the garage and we know this is real because Calvin’s mom gets mad at him for it. So either this 6 year old boy pushed a car or Hobbes did truly help him.
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Could you show the actual comic, and was the car in gear to do that
 
Mr._Bambu said:
Could you show the actual comic, and was the car in gear to do that
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Here it is:

6xRwW5Y.png

The car must have, at the very least, been in neutral.
 
The car is in neutral and we can infer that they must be on some sort of hill given the fact that the car keeps going of its own volition. I presume none of you have pushed any particularly old cars but they really aren't that hard to move. We don't know the specifics of how (Calvin's imagination, we can't confirm the legitimacy of what we're seeing, only that he did somehow move the car), but like... it's not that hard given the context here.

A six year old doing it is a stretch, I'll grant you, but not one that I'd be willing to take as "damning" evidence of his stuffed animal being a real life tiger- more in the realm of "this guy wasn't necessarily scientifically fact-checking the exact martial statistics of six year olds for his comic strip".
 
Mr._Bambu said:
The car is in neutral and we can infer that they must be on some sort of hill given the fact that the car keeps going of its own volition. I presume none of you have pushed any particularly old cars but they really aren't that hard to move. We don't know the specifics of how (Calvin's imagination, we can't confirm the legitimacy of what we're seeing, only that he did somehow move the car), but like... it's not that hard given the context here.

A six year old doing it is a stretch, I'll grant you, but not one that I'd be willing to take as "damning" evidence of his stuffed animal being a real life tiger- more in the realm of "this guy wasn't necessarily scientifically fact-checking the exact martial statistics of six year olds for his comic strip".
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It was on a hill but the garage surely wasn't slanted otherwise they wouldn't of even needed to push it for it to move. So either the garage was totally flat and in neutral or the garage is slanted and the car is in park, both would make it equally impossible for a kid to do by themselves

Also Calvin himself says that he isn't able to move the car without Hobbes's help so the cartoonist was probably well aware how crazy it is for a six year old to push a car.
 
King_Dom470 said:
It was on a hill but the garage surely wasn't slanted otherwise they wouldn't of even needed to push it for it to move. So either the garage was totally flat and in neutral or the garage is slanted and the car is in park, both would make it equally impossible for a kid to do by themselves

Also Calvin himself says that he isn't able to move the car without Hobbes's help so the cartoonist was probably well aware how crazy it is for a six year old to push a car.
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Yeah, Calvin would have had to have moved it at least a few feet. That said, I addressed the overall situation in my comment- I wasn't proclaiming he didn't move it at all.
 
Mr._Bambu said:
The car is in neutral and we can infer that they must be on some sort of hill given the fact that the car keeps going of its own volition. I presume none of you have pushed any particularly old cars but they really aren't that hard to move. We don't know the specifics of how (Calvin's imagination, we can't confirm the legitimacy of what we're seeing, only that he did somehow move the car), but like... it's not that hard given the context here.

A six year old doing it is a stretch, I'll grant you, but not one that I'd be willing to take as "damning" evidence of his stuffed animal being a real life tiger- more in the realm of "this guy wasn't necessarily scientifically fact-checking the exact martial statistics of six year olds for his comic strip".
Click to expand...
Given Calvin seemingly needed Hobbes help based on what we are shown. It is support of the idea Hobbes is more than a plushie and there are other events that are difficult to explain if Hobbes is each can be explained away with different explanations. What we are actually given is Hobbes as the explanation to these events but the nature of Hobbes existence is otherwise ambiguous. If we take some of Watterson's explanations literally Hobbes is a normal plushie about the size of Calvin and an anthropomorphic tiger at least twice Calvin's height these things are both true and don't contradict each other.
 
So what are the conclusions here so far?
 
Antvasima said:
So what are the conclusions here so far?
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For me personally, I am still against indexing it. It was a very long running series, so the presence of a small handful of instances where Hobbes' lack of involvement seems questionable are not enough to push me over the edge to saying Hobbes is quite literally real, and the perspective of the author IMO contradicts this.

When he says that Hobbes is both a stuffed animal and a real tiger because the series is about subjective reality, I don't interpret that as him saying Hobbes instantly shapeshifts in and out of tiger form when other people are watching. If reality is subjective, then what he's getting at is that Hobbes is a real tiger because that is what Calvin believes him to be, and what we believe is reality. This, IMO, is tantamount to saying Hobbes is a stuffed animal, because if everyone else sees him as a stuffed animal, then his "real life tiger" aspect is quite explicitly just a matter of Calvin's imagination.
 
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