Smurfs some considerations

[frigidmagi]

I have a younger brother. As a result, I watched some T.V shows longer then the norm. Case in point, smurfs. At the age of 8, I came up with questions about Papa Smurf (it's at this point my little brother didn't want me to watch the Smurfs with anymore, as I was ruining it for him). Let's ask some questions.

First off, why do Smurfs have gender? Smurfs are shown to reproduce asexually. As in a fucking stork shows up in the middle of the night from parts unknown to deliver a tiny baby smurf in white blankets. The Smurfs live in a society where the very concept of sex has no reason to exist, let alone gender. In fact the only female we see in the show is artificially created by an evil wizard who wants to use her to kill them all off! Yet on first sight all the Smurfs figure out exactly what she is and experience physical attraction to her to the point of creating social distributions (there was a riot). Why? How could the Smurfs possible have the concept of male/female? Why would they have it? Remember this is an in-universe question, so requires an in universe answer.

Next up, What Is Papa Smurf Hiding? The village is shown in flashbacks as being constructed despite Papa Smurf as the only resident! He is the sole parent raising all these delivered children. Additionally he is learned in magic and other subjects, complete with books and equipment in his size. Where did he get those books? Or his education? His magical and scientific equipment? For that matter where does Papa Smurf come from? Who raised him? Was he raised an only child? If not, where are all the people Papa Smurf grew up with and what happened to them?

Now I asked CT and WH and they came up with an interesting answer.

Comrade Tortoise and White Haven's Theory:

Smurf Village is a Penal Colony where the children of executed criminals are raised away from greater Smurf Society. Papa Smurf is a trustee and senior prisoner with the evil wizard what's his name as the actual warden. Why is he trying to kill them? Because he's sick and tired of being the warden of a bunch of fucking smurfs! This... Actually answers most of my questions...

Do you have your own answers? Go ahead and post.

[The Minx]

Papa smurf is an idealistic academic trying to create a utopian society away from the evil smurf empire. He manages to get new members in his colony since he has managed to pass it off as a sociology experiment, and paid for the stuff he started with using the remains of his university grants.

Smurfs actually reproduce normally. Papa Smurf just wanted a non-sexual society the better to make it egalitarian and communal and without family and dynastic structures, and picked males by necessity because he is one himself.

The Wizard Gargamel thought of sending them a female smurf because he believed that would mess up Papa Smurf's sociological model (he almost succeeded too).

[frigidmagi]

That's a good answer Minx, but I have to ask, if he wanted to avoid family structures, why does he let everyone call him Papa?

The village tends to function as a giant family, with all the smurfs looking up to him as the lead. Brainy if I remember rightly considers himself XO because he is the eldest of the current generation. Is this Papa resigning himself to reality here or something else?

[Dark Silver]

I have nothing to add to this thread.....

but this

[B4UTRUST]

The smurfs as we know them aren't true smurfs. They're a genetic defect, a mutant subgroup that generally afflicts only the males of the true smurf race. There is the occasional female smurf(Nanny Smurf) that was 'born' instead of created, though in general it seems to be the only manner in which they occur(Smurfette, Sassette). However, there is never any proof that Nanny Smurf isn't just a transvestite so it may still stand that the affliction only affects the males of the true smurf species. Smurfs themselves aren't asexual as is commonly believed. Just as human males unconsciously realize what females really are around the time of puberty so too do the smurf males. It's just that they've probably never actually seen a real female smurf. And hundreds of years of vanity being probably the only homosexual smurf has got to get old. Is there any wonder there was a riot? Dozens of males in their equivalent of late teens/twenties who have never had a viable outlet for their sexual frustrations finally discovering a female smurf? You can bet your smurf they smurfed themselves off multiple times thinking about what they'd smurf on Smurfette if given half a chance.

The smurfs live in isolation away from the true smurf species due to their being outcast. Papa Smurf is just the current of a long line of caretakers and leaders. Before him was who is now known as Grandpa Smurf, the previous wise-man/elder of the village. Papa smurf studies tomes and books of ancient true smurf magic and rites in an effort to find a way to end the affliction causing their offshoot of the race to exist. Many theories over the centuries have been explored from their existence being a curse to rare genetic mutations(as smurfs really don't have a working theory of evolution the idea that they may simply be an evolutionary step or offshoot is unknown to them). To aid in the efforts of the afflicted smurf elders to find a cure for their plight they worked high magics and long rituals to create what became known as the Long Life Stone, granting their kind a very slow aging process(the smurflings are about 50 years old, whereas Papa Smurf is over 500 years old and Grandpa Smurf is said to be nearing 1000 years) so that they could have the necessary time to figure out what caused their condition and correct it. While most of the true smurf people view these offshoots as abominations, there are a few sympathizers that smuggle the afflicted out when they can. Usually, as the affliction is displayed at birth, the child smurf is secreted away and sent by stork to the Papa Smurf(a title more than a name by itself, as is his red garb to signal his role as current elder. When he chooses a successor he will assume the role of Grandpa Smurf and don the yellow hat and pants as did those before him) to raise and take care of. It has been this way for many many generations of both True Smurf and Afflicted Smurf.

The village itself is an ancient thing, a place raised and created to be home to the Afflicted when they were first outcast many millenia ago. It has served as their haven since. In their pursuit of learning the origins of their problem many have sacrificed themselves on the altar of knowledge, and have died as this cure or that fix was tried. Many an Afflicted Smurf has perished from consuming a potion meant to change them into a True Smurf, not to mention failed rites and rituals or the everyday hazards they face far away from the protecting army of the True Smurf people. The affliction has never been widespread, affecting only a small handful of the True Smurf children at birth. This means that the roughly 100 Afflicted Smurfs are pretty much all there is in the world. When an experiment or trial goes particularly bad or a disaster occurs their entire group could come close to being wiped out. Such an event occurred when the Long Life Stone began to fail and smurfs began to age rapidly. The resulting deaths were horrific, devastating the population of the Afflicted Smurfs and leaving only two. The Papa Smurf managed to partially restore the Stone to power, preventing the rapid aging for the time being. The then Papa Smurf assumed the role of Grandpa Smurf and promoted the only other living smurf to the role of Papa and began his quest through the world for the materials to fully restore the Stone to power and prevent any more deaths. Papa Smurf stayed behind to care for the village and the new smurfs to come when they arrived. Grandpa Smurf entrusted him with his library and tools just as they had been entrusted to him by the previous Grandpa Smurf when his time of passing came. Such is the way that the magic is passed from elder to elder. Papa has been secretly evaluating his fellow smurfs for a successor for years.

In an attempt to aid their quest, over the years various humans and other beings of magic and power have been sought, befriended and learned from. Gargamel was one such human. Many years ago he was approached by the smurfs to learn from him. Gargamel was originally a friend to the smurfs and did indeed aid them in their quest in return for allowing him to study them to learn more of their own nature, curious about their exceptionally long life spans. Upon learning that the secret of their longevity was a magical artifact Gargamel plotted to obtain it for himself, to find the secret of what he believes to be immortality(and hey, at 1000 years with Grandpa Smurf who is gonna argue that point? Sure, they grow old and die eventually but when we're talking 1000 years for someone who is looking at 70-90 that's practically the same.). This lead to what we know of the series itself wherein Gargamel keeps trying to capture and kill them to get a hold of the Long Life Stone.

[frigidmagi]

What's difference between them and a true smurf?

Also, Grandpa Smurf? Must have happened after I stopped watching.

[Dark Silver]

Sassie and the other Smurflings, along with Grandpa Smurf and Grandma Smurf (no shit) all came in the last year or two of the cartoon when it still played on NBC's saturday mornings.

[B4UTRUST]

Grandpa Smurf came about in Season 6 and stayed through the remainder of the series(another 3 or 4 seasons if I recall correctly). Several weird smurfs came about during that period of time (Wild Smurf, Nanny Smurf, etc).

As far as differences between True and Afflicted Smurfs? One would be the total lack of any sort of cranial hair(a few are shown to have beards and such but all are shown without hats to be bald! Male Pattern Baldness from birth? Gasp!). Though we know them as normal since that's what we're given in the show, throughout it there are several other smurf-like creatures shown and the majority of them are shown to have tan-ish/Caucasian skin tones more or less. Though no factual evidence is presented to argue for this, my feelings are that this would indicate that the bluish skin tones(turning purple when angry/going red) is the abnormal and thus the 'affliction.' Little is known about the True Smurf line, really, but given that these other smurf-like creatures and the Afflicted Smurf are very small in number(a hundred or so Afflicted Smurfs supposedly, ones and twos of the others) this would lead me to believe that they may all be related somewhere(True Smurfs) and we are shown the abnormals and outcasts of their society. To prevent the Smurfs from becoming angry at their plight and trying to take action thus causing more problems for the Afflicted Smurfs as a whole the elders hide the knowledge of the True Smurfs from them and raise them as a normal Smurf society. This lets them believe that they, in fact, are the True Smurfs and in fact to their knowledge the only Smurfs. Though of course the elders know differently and this is one of their most closely guarded secrets.

[frigidmagi]

I don't recall that honestly but it is an interesting theory.

[The Minx]

That's a good answer Minx, but I have to ask, if he wanted to avoid family structures, why does he let everyone call him Papa?

The village tends to function as a giant family, with all the smurfs looking up to him as the lead. Brainy if I remember rightly considers himself XO because he is the eldest of the current generation. Is this Papa resigning himself to reality here or something else?

Well, I was more thinking that he wanted to avoid internal family divisions. Making the whole thing a single huge family is good for enforcing the communal/collectivist idea (as opposed to everyone basically being an autonomous individual).


B4UTRUST, that's interesting though a bit disturbing. Actually, all the ideas thus far are kind of disturbing for some reason.

[B4UTRUST]

B4UTRUST, that's interesting though a bit disturbing. Actually, all the ideas thus far are kind of disturbing for some reason.

Ask DS about the theories I gave him behind Rugrats and Doug. Disturbing is an understatement. One involved drugs, abuse and psychotic breaks, the other involved rape, murder and a mental hospital...

[frigidmagi]

You better not be dissing Quail Man.

[Dark Silver]

Doug had a psychotic break, rape and murdered Pattie, and the entire series was a delusion in his own mind while he was in a insane asylum.

The Rug Rats were a entire series based off the mental delusions of a crack baby in a very "Fight Club" kind of way.

[B4UTRUST]

Doug had a psychotic break, rape and murdered Pattie, and the entire series was a delusion in his own mind while he was in a insane asylum.

The Rug Rats were a entire series based off the mental delusions of a crack baby in a very "Fight Club" kind of way.

In my defense it made having to sit through them when I was younger far more tolerable for me by me making them more screwed up...