# Calvin and his imagination: cause and effect
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 13, 2011, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479 "2011-01-13T17:32:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/1 "2011-01-13T17:32:02Z")
Poll to come, but I’ve been pondering something.
Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes had no friends. I mean, yeah, he had his stuffed tiger, but that doesn’t count as “real.” Sure, Susie would play with him occassionally but even she would get disgusted and leave, which suited Calvin just fine. Other than that…nothing. No neighborhood kids, no classmates, nothing. His parents didn’t seem to care about this all that much and it seemed that Calvin enjoyed being a loner. Or, rather, with Hobbes at his side, he probably didn’t think of himself as alone at all.
But Hobbes was there. An imaginary character for Calvin to play with, through thick and thin. The strip never really delved into the origin story of Hobbes but I’m wondering how Calvin came to be the way that he is. Why doesn’t he have friends? Why doesn’t he relate to other kids?
I’ve set up a poll with two theories but feel free to create your own. My two theories are a flip of each other’s cause and effect. Understand that when I say “weird” or “normal” in this poll I’m not making a judgement. I’m merely comparing it to general societal behaviors.
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/2 "2011-01-13T17:37:06Z")
Obligatory _Robot Chicken_ [linky](http://video.adultswim.com/robot-chicken/happy-birthday-calvin.html).
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/3 "2011-01-13T17:43:11Z")
One of the very early strips had Calvin in some local version of the Cub Scouts but Watterson realized that having other kids around wouldn’t allow Hobbes to be “real”.
Making him friendless makes the whole strip work.
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### Author:  [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/4 "2011-01-13T17:50:34Z")
Yeah, without having to compare him to normal and the resultant need to conform, Calvin stays free to pursue any and all tangents.
(Did anyone else note a resemblance between Hobbes and the Auburn U. mascot during Monday’s BCS game? Expressions looked a wee bit ‘similar’.)
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/5 "2011-01-13T17:53:32Z")
Had to dig out my copy of _The C&H Tenth Anniversary Book_.(pg. 31)
Posted by Watterson.
> [@](#):
>
> I made a mistake in the early strips by putting Calvin in the Cub Scouts. I originally thought that hiking and camping trips would offer some humorous stories, but the situation was always awkward. Calvin and Hobbes need to be in their own world, so putting a troop of kids around them didn’t provide much material. Eventually, I realized thatCalvin is not the kind of kid to join such a group anyway.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/6 "2011-01-13T17:57:55Z")
I’ve always found this [fake version of Calvin’s last strip](http://davidguy.brinkster.net/goaste/stuff/calvin/calvinretouchdistressed.jpg) sad, but entirely realistic.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/7 "2011-01-13T18:07:07Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#):
>
> I’ve always found this [fake version of Calvin’s last strip](http://davidguy.brinkster.net/goaste/stuff/calvin/calvinretouchdistressed.jpg) sad, but entirely realistic.
I thought it would be [this](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1tHpzYmQe9k/TNRMUEFXXUI/AAAAAAAAAHc/NHjjgSJy8Qk/s640/lio080120ij0.gif).
If you don’t remember, in the last strip, Calvin and Hobbes are heading over a snowy hill to explore the world.
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### Author:  [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/8 "2011-01-13T18:47:40Z")
**runner pat** , the one that **Bryah** linked to is fake, as he even says.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/9 "2011-01-13T18:54:30Z")
Bees, the one that runneh linked to is also fake, or more accurately it’s a strip by another artist that purportedly (but not seriously) shows what happened after the last genuine C&H strip.
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### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/10 "2011-01-13T19:01:33Z")
I would say neither in response to the poll. As mentioned upthread Watterson kept Calvin as a loner to have Hobbes be real.
Having imaginary friends is not weird, even for kids in “real life”. My 3 year old plays with an imaginary friend, quite extensively. But she also goes to preschool and has play dates with other kids. The imaginary friend doesn’t go to school with her or stays around when others are over.
The strip just wouldn’t be as interesting without Hobbes and Hobbes is really only around when Calvin is by himself.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/11 "2011-01-13T19:03:26Z")
> [@Wilbo523](#):
>
> The imaginary friend doesn’t go to school with her or stays around when others are over.
Are you sure…?
[sub]dun-dun-DUNNNNNNN![/sub]
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### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/12 "2011-01-13T19:07:22Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#):
>
> Are you sure…?
>
> [sub]dun-dun-DUNNNNNNN![/sub]
Well at least my daughter doesn’t interact with her is she is around at those times.
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### Author:  [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/13 "2011-01-13T19:30:20Z")
I selected the first option. However, I don’t really think Calvin was really “weird” per se. He was just a kid with a very active and vivid imagination. Hobbes is actually kind of irrelevant, as he was really just there as the “straight man” for Calvin’s imagination to play off, and to some degree he was the “voice of reason” (as opposed to Calvin’s parents, who were merely flabbergasted all the time).
I do so want this T-shirt, though:
> **[T-Shirt Hell :: HOBBES' REVENGE](https://www.tshirthell.com/funny-shirts/hobbes-revenge/)**
>
> Hobbes' Revenge
(Linked shirt SFW; many other shirts on that site probably _not_.)
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### Author:  [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/14 "2011-01-13T19:41:45Z")
I completely understand the artistic reasoning behind why Calvin was a loner. From a story standpoint, it makes sense because Hobbes is only in the imagination and that doesn’t work when you’re around everyone else.
But that’s my question, really. Calvin isn’t around kids because the story would be weird. Calvin is just weird around other kids. Sure he’s got an overactive imagination and there’s nothing wrong with that. But he’s got no one else besides Hobbes that he ever relates to. Why? Was he always like that and it drove everyone away? That seems the most likely situation.
But the alternative is that he was just slightly awkward, and never related to anyone, and it was the shunning that drew him more and more into himself where even he can’t admit that the only reason he acts like he does is because he’s trying to compensate for the fact that no one else likes him.
Probably not. But it’s just a theory.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/15 "2011-01-13T19:46:43Z")
I think he became increasingly “weird”, but not because he couldn’t relate to others. His imagination was just growing. And, unlike most people, it became so powerful that some of it really was real, like that one time Hobbes tied Calvin up. (Either that, or all of it was real, and Calvin is the only one who can see it.)
I’d say his loner status was pretty much constant throughout.
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/16 "2011-01-13T19:57:03Z")
I’ll just leave this here…
[http://ignatz.brinkster.net/cfightclub.html](http://ignatz.brinkster.net/cfightclub.html)
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/17 "2011-01-13T19:58:12Z")
And as far as the poll, I picked the first option. Suzie, for example, seemed to really want to befriend him, but he was just too weird for her. I suspect that a lot of other kids felt the same way. Besides, they probably couldn’t understand what he was talking about most of the time, since he had the vocabulary of a college student.
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### Author:  [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/18 "2011-01-13T22:31:42Z")
“How existential can you get?”
Calvin is perfectly happy in his imaginary world. His real world sucks, as was portrayed in a number of C & H comics.
One that always stuck with me was four panels of Calvin waiting for his school bus in the rain:
Panel 1: Why do I have to be standing out here in the rain waiting for a bus to take me to a place that I don’t want to go?
Panel 2: I hate my life. I hate the world. I wish I were dead.
Panel 3: Well, no, not really…
Panel 4: I wish everyone else were dead.
Boy, do I know how that feels.
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### Author:  [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2011, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/19 "2011-01-13T23:04:43Z")
As I recall, the very first C&H has Hobbes being caught outside in the woods in Calvin’s “tiger trap”. So clearly, Hobbes was an alien infiltrator who imprinted on Calvin in order to study humanity for its eventually destruction.
Clearly.
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### Author:  [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2011, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calvin-and-his-imagination-cause-and-effect/567479/20 "2011-01-14T00:06:27Z")
I believe it was Calvin’s uncle who questioned why Calvin had no friends and asked the mother if it worried them. She replied, something along the line of “no,” and that in time he’d give it up.
Besides, he had Susie to play with too. Susie loved Hobbes and Hobbes LUSTED after Susie. Which made interesting strips as Calvin could possibly lose his best and only friend, especially to a, YECH, girl.
I view the strip as just a PART of Calvin’s life. We only see him in the times he’s with Hobbes and not the times he isn’t. Because Calvin’s life without Hobbes is boring and we don’t want to read about those times.
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