WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.940 Welcome to the Deep Dive. Imagine, if you will, 00:00:04.099 --> 00:00:06.759 just mapping out a family tree. Right. Picture, 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:09.580 tracking down cousins, you know, digging through 00:00:09.580 --> 00:00:11.960 old census records and really trying to figure 00:00:11.960 --> 00:00:14.320 out how everyone connects. A lot of work. It 00:00:14.320 --> 00:00:16.859 is. Now take that image and expand it so the 00:00:16.859 --> 00:00:20.440 family tree spans literally thousands of years. 00:00:20.579 --> 00:00:23.399 It covers multiple continents, involves ancient 00:00:23.399 --> 00:00:26.920 curses, hidden Templar treasures. And everyone 00:00:26.920 --> 00:00:29.460 on it is a cartoon duck. Yes, everyone is a cartoon 00:00:29.460 --> 00:00:33.380 duck. Today we are opening up a massive, meticulously 00:00:33.380 --> 00:00:36.380 detailed Wikipedia article entirely dedicated 00:00:36.380 --> 00:00:39.960 to the sprawling genealogy and lore of Clan McDuck. 00:00:40.240 --> 00:00:42.960 If you are picturing us sitting in, well, a warmly 00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:45.600 lit mahogany paneled library right now, surrounded 00:00:45.600 --> 00:00:47.979 by ancient Scottish maps. I mean, that's exactly 00:00:47.979 --> 00:00:50.439 the vibe. It is the exact right mindset for this 00:00:50.439 --> 00:00:52.380 deep dive. Because taking a closer look at this 00:00:52.380 --> 00:00:54.840 source material reveals that this is not, this 00:00:54.840 --> 00:00:57.039 isn't just about a Saturday morning cartoon character. 00:00:57.259 --> 00:00:59.700 Definitely not. We are looking at an epic multi 00:00:59.700 --> 00:01:02.060 -generational saga. It traces the very origins 00:01:02.060 --> 00:01:04.480 of wealth, frugality, and incredibly complex 00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:07.680 family psychology. Our mission today is to extract 00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:11.219 the absolute best, most fascinating nuggets from 00:01:11.219 --> 00:01:13.840 this fictional family tree just for you. Yeah, 00:01:13.900 --> 00:01:15.980 filter out the noise. Exactly. If you are the 00:01:15.980 --> 00:01:17.819 kind of listener who loves looking at things 00:01:17.819 --> 00:01:19.980 from multiple perspectives and who wants that 00:01:19.980 --> 00:01:23.319 thorough aha moment knowledge, but without drowning 00:01:23.319 --> 00:01:26.930 in info overload. This is a masterclass. It really 00:01:26.930 --> 00:01:29.290 is. We are going to look at how comic book writers 00:01:29.290 --> 00:01:32.769 constructed a backstory that is honestly as complex 00:01:32.769 --> 00:01:36.069 and rich as real world history. Okay, let's unpack 00:01:36.069 --> 00:01:39.049 this. Starting with the architects of this lore. 00:01:39.209 --> 00:01:41.870 I mean... How does a multi -generational Duck 00:01:41.870 --> 00:01:45.590 Dynasty even begin to take shape on paper? So 00:01:45.590 --> 00:01:47.950 the foundation was actually poured in the 1940s 00:01:47.950 --> 00:01:50.129 and 50s. Oh, wow, that early. Yeah, by a legendary 00:01:50.129 --> 00:01:52.269 comic book author named Karl Barks. He had been 00:01:52.269 --> 00:01:54.469 creating these incredibly popular stories starring 00:01:54.469 --> 00:01:57.010 Donald Duck. And to keep the plots fresh, he 00:01:57.010 --> 00:01:59.189 started just, you know, dropping in new relatives. 00:01:59.230 --> 00:02:02.150 Just inventing them. Pretty much. He introduced 00:02:02.150 --> 00:02:04.750 the impossibly lucky cousin Gladstone Gander 00:02:04.750 --> 00:02:07.109 and, of course, the impossibly wealthy Uncle 00:02:07.109 --> 00:02:09.710 Scrooge McDuck. But the connected tissue between 00:02:09.710 --> 00:02:12.490 all these different birds wasn't strictly defined 00:02:12.490 --> 00:02:15.770 at first. Right. Barks was simply inventing relatives 00:02:15.770 --> 00:02:18.490 on the fly to serve whatever adventure he was 00:02:18.490 --> 00:02:20.689 writing that month. So if Barks was just creating 00:02:20.689 --> 00:02:23.389 characters as plot devices, when did someone 00:02:23.389 --> 00:02:25.909 actually sit down and turn those random appearances 00:02:25.909 --> 00:02:29.469 into a coherent historical timeline? Well, that 00:02:29.469 --> 00:02:33.080 began in 1940. Okay. With a story Barks wrote 00:02:33.080 --> 00:02:36.560 called The Old Castle Secret. In that specific 00:02:36.560 --> 00:02:39.960 issue, Scrooge and his nephews go looking for 00:02:39.960 --> 00:02:42.819 hidden treasure in their ancestral home, McDuck 00:02:42.819 --> 00:02:45.599 Castle. Setting the stage. Exactly. That was 00:02:45.599 --> 00:02:47.400 the true introduction to the clan's backstory. 00:02:47.860 --> 00:02:50.060 Behind the scenes, Barks actually sketched out 00:02:50.060 --> 00:02:52.360 a crude version of the family tree just for his 00:02:52.360 --> 00:02:54.669 own personal reference. Like a cheat sheet. A 00:02:54.669 --> 00:02:56.430 literal cheat sheet. He was essentially trying 00:02:56.430 --> 00:02:58.050 to figure out how his own characters were related 00:02:58.050 --> 00:03:00.090 so he wouldn't contradict himself in future issues. 00:03:00.250 --> 00:03:02.169 Yeah. It totally makes sense that he needed a 00:03:02.169 --> 00:03:05.330 cheat sheet. But a private sketch is a long way 00:03:05.330 --> 00:03:07.389 from the massive encyclopedia we are looking 00:03:07.389 --> 00:03:10.650 at today. Who took that basic outline and turned 00:03:10.650 --> 00:03:13.889 it into this sprawling. Thousands of years long 00:03:13.889 --> 00:03:16.469 epic. For that, we have to leap forward to the 00:03:16.469 --> 00:03:20.030 1990s to meet Don Rosa. Don Rosa. Rosa was an 00:03:20.030 --> 00:03:22.830 incredibly talented writer, artist, and a massive 00:03:22.830 --> 00:03:25.789 fan of Karl Barth's original work. The Egmont 00:03:25.789 --> 00:03:28.150 Group, which was the publishing house Rosa worked 00:03:28.150 --> 00:03:30.909 for, gave him an incredibly ambitious commission. 00:03:31.210 --> 00:03:33.210 What did they want him to do? They wanted him 00:03:33.210 --> 00:03:35.650 to create the definitive biography of Scrooge 00:03:35.650 --> 00:03:38.870 McDuck and a cohesive family tree to end decades 00:03:38.870 --> 00:03:41.110 of comic contradictions. That's a small task. 00:03:41.310 --> 00:03:44.310 No. Rosa meticulously gathered what he called 00:03:44.310 --> 00:03:46.810 Barksian facts. Barksian facts. That's great. 00:03:46.969 --> 00:03:49.530 Right. These were tiny throwaway clues and historical 00:03:49.530 --> 00:03:52.770 references scattered across decades of old Barks 00:03:52.770 --> 00:03:56.490 comics. And he wove them into a massive 12 -part 00:03:56.490 --> 00:03:58.990 saga called The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. 00:03:59.110 --> 00:04:02.330 When you think about canon in comic books, we 00:04:02.330 --> 00:04:04.509 aren't talking about a single author writing 00:04:04.509 --> 00:04:07.349 a single planned out timeline. We were talking 00:04:07.349 --> 00:04:10.939 about... Dozens of writers across decades, all 00:04:10.939 --> 00:04:12.840 just kind of stepping on each other's toes. It's 00:04:12.840 --> 00:04:15.939 messy. Super messy. Rosa's job wasn't just writing 00:04:15.939 --> 00:04:18.379 a story. It was an act of archaeological continuity. 00:04:18.879 --> 00:04:21.779 Did he view his version as the undisputed law 00:04:21.779 --> 00:04:25.000 of the land? Not at all. And his humility throughout 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:27.860 that monumental process is actually remarkable. 00:04:28.259 --> 00:04:31.100 How so? In the introduction to his saga, Rosa 00:04:31.100 --> 00:04:33.579 explicitly stated that his work was just his 00:04:33.579 --> 00:04:36.319 personal telling of Scrooge's life. He didn't 00:04:36.319 --> 00:04:38.740 expect other writers to adhere to it. That's 00:04:38.740 --> 00:04:41.379 rare for a creator. It really is. It highlights 00:04:41.379 --> 00:04:43.899 the deeply collaborative, fluid nature of comic 00:04:43.899 --> 00:04:46.399 book canon. He built this towering historical 00:04:46.399 --> 00:04:49.279 edifice, but recognized it was just one interpretation 00:04:49.279 --> 00:04:51.920 of the mythology. Let's actually travel to the 00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:54.139 ancestral seat of that mythology. The geography 00:04:54.139 --> 00:04:56.639 the writers chose is brilliantly specific. It 00:04:56.639 --> 00:04:59.199 really grounds the story. It does. The source 00:04:59.199 --> 00:05:02.199 material places Macduck Castle in dismal downs, 00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:05.240 located in Rannoch Moor. And for those of you 00:05:05.240 --> 00:05:08.439 listening, Rannoch Moor is a real, actual moorland 00:05:08.439 --> 00:05:10.939 area in Scotland. Very bleak, very atmospheric. 00:05:11.300 --> 00:05:13.939 Yes. In the comics, the nearest village to the 00:05:13.939 --> 00:05:17.120 castle is the fictional MacDooch. So how far 00:05:17.120 --> 00:05:20.139 back does this fortress actually go in the timeline? 00:05:20.670 --> 00:05:22.870 The comic continuity places the castle's first 00:05:22.870 --> 00:05:25.230 appearance on the historical timeline in the 00:05:25.230 --> 00:05:28.610 year 946. Over a thousand years ago. Yep. It 00:05:28.610 --> 00:05:30.370 was originally built when the area was under 00:05:30.370 --> 00:05:33.290 siege by the Saxons. It served as the home of 00:05:33.290 --> 00:05:35.970 the clan chief for centuries. However, the clan 00:05:35.970 --> 00:05:38.189 didn't hold onto it peacefully. What happened? 00:05:38.449 --> 00:05:40.470 Well, in 1675, the McDucks were actually run 00:05:40.470 --> 00:05:43.189 out of their own ancestral home. Wait, a wealthy 00:05:43.189 --> 00:05:45.269 Scottish clan gets completely chased out of their 00:05:45.269 --> 00:05:47.269 own fortress? What kind of army does it take 00:05:47.269 --> 00:05:49.750 to dislodge them? That's the funny part. It didn't 00:05:49.750 --> 00:05:52.579 take an army. It took a monstrous devil dog roaming 00:05:52.579 --> 00:05:55.519 the dismal downs. A devil dog. A giant glowing 00:05:55.519 --> 00:05:59.100 hound. The clan fled in absolute terror, though 00:05:59.100 --> 00:06:01.379 years later the lore reveals this was actually 00:06:01.379 --> 00:06:04.120 a massive plot by their bitter rivals, Clan Whiskerville. 00:06:04.240 --> 00:06:07.319 Clan Whiskerville. Amazing. They used the fake 00:06:07.319 --> 00:06:10.279 beast to scare the McDucks off the land so they 00:06:10.279 --> 00:06:12.959 could claim it for themselves. A giant glowing 00:06:12.959 --> 00:06:16.689 hound scaring heirs off an estate. That is a 00:06:16.689 --> 00:06:18.750 brilliant nod to The Hound of the Baskervilles. 00:06:18.870 --> 00:06:21.269 Completely. But comic book continuity is famous 00:06:21.269 --> 00:06:24.050 for having multiple timelines. Do other adaptations 00:06:24.050 --> 00:06:26.610 play with this exact same Scottish location? 00:06:27.050 --> 00:06:30.209 They absolutely do. If you look at the DuckTales 00:06:30.209 --> 00:06:33.170 continuity, there is a totally different but 00:06:33.170 --> 00:06:36.050 equally fascinating origin for the castle. Oh. 00:06:36.250 --> 00:06:38.990 In that version, Scrooge's great -great -grandfather, 00:06:39.110 --> 00:06:42.230 a duck named Silas, built the castle. But to 00:06:42.230 --> 00:06:44.769 save on construction costs, he incorporated the 00:06:44.769 --> 00:06:48.660 castle into an existing druid stone circle. Stealing 00:06:48.660 --> 00:06:51.199 a sacred monument to save a few bucks on granite. 00:06:51.240 --> 00:06:53.160 That sounds like a terrible real estate decision 00:06:53.160 --> 00:06:55.259 that is bound to backfire. The druids certainly 00:06:55.259 --> 00:06:57.720 thought so. I bet. They were furious about their 00:06:57.720 --> 00:07:00.139 sacred meeting place being stolen, so they sought 00:07:00.139 --> 00:07:02.740 revenge using trained phosphorescent hounds to 00:07:02.740 --> 00:07:05.300 scare the clan away. More glowing dogs. Exactly. 00:07:05.339 --> 00:07:08.779 And the lore escalates wildly in the 2017 DuckTales 00:07:08.779 --> 00:07:11.199 television series. What did they do? Silas's 00:07:11.199 --> 00:07:14.439 use of those discount druid stones actually cursed 00:07:14.439 --> 00:07:18.360 Scrooge's parents with immortality. Wow. Yeah, 00:07:18.519 --> 00:07:20.800 binding them to a castle that only appears in 00:07:20.800 --> 00:07:23.120 our dimension once every five years. That is 00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:25.560 such a fantastic escalation of the mythology. 00:07:26.500 --> 00:07:29.300 Speaking of the clan's visual identity, there 00:07:29.300 --> 00:07:31.420 is a piece of trivia about their tartan that 00:07:31.420 --> 00:07:34.360 completely changes how you view these meticulous 00:07:34.360 --> 00:07:37.660 details. Oh, the green and orange. Yes. Clan 00:07:37.660 --> 00:07:40.680 McDuck has a very distinct green and orange tartan 00:07:40.680 --> 00:07:43.180 pattern. But Karl Barks didn't actually choose 00:07:43.180 --> 00:07:45.620 those colors. How did that specific pattern become 00:07:45.620 --> 00:07:48.860 canon then? So when the story was first published 00:07:48.860 --> 00:07:52.319 in 1960, the colorists at Dell Comics just happened 00:07:52.319 --> 00:07:54.939 to pick green and orange completely at random. 00:07:55.120 --> 00:07:58.040 Just a total fluke. A total fluke. When Don Rosas 00:07:58.040 --> 00:08:00.560 later drew the tartan decades later, he strictly 00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:02.839 adhered to that random choice out of absolute 00:08:02.839 --> 00:08:05.160 respect for the original printing. That is dedication. 00:08:05.620 --> 00:08:07.779 Right. Even though some European publishers kept 00:08:07.779 --> 00:08:09.920 getting it wrong and changing the colors, Rosa 00:08:09.920 --> 00:08:12.800 insisted on the Dell Comics accident. Canon is 00:08:12.800 --> 00:08:15.339 so often just an accident of production that 00:08:15.339 --> 00:08:18.180 a later writer decides to treat as gospel. Now, 00:08:18.279 --> 00:08:20.540 tracing the lineage of the Ducks who wore that 00:08:20.540 --> 00:08:23.560 green and orange tartan is a journey into hilarity 00:08:23.560 --> 00:08:26.899 and disaster. The history of the McDuck ancestors 00:08:26.899 --> 00:08:30.060 in the Dark and Middle Ages reads like a masterclass 00:08:30.060 --> 00:08:33.419 in how not to run a dynasty. I know the timeline 00:08:33.419 --> 00:08:36.679 stretches back absurdly far. We can trace the 00:08:36.679 --> 00:08:40.299 roots all the way back to 2050 BC with King Scrooge 00:08:40.299 --> 00:08:42.740 Shaw and Prince Donduk. Oh, they only get more 00:08:42.740 --> 00:08:45.919 ridiculous. Just over a century later in 1057, 00:08:46.100 --> 00:08:49.299 we meet Sir Quackley McDuck. He was the clan 00:08:49.299 --> 00:08:52.399 chief when the real historical figure, King Macbeth, 00:08:52.399 --> 00:08:54.980 was killed. The actual Macbeth. The actual one. 00:08:55.259 --> 00:08:57.299 Macbeth had given Quackley a massive treasure 00:08:57.299 --> 00:08:59.639 chest in exchange for his support in the war. 00:09:00.159 --> 00:09:02.679 Quackley protected this treasure, but he became 00:09:02.679 --> 00:09:04.960 deeply, deeply obsessed with it. How obsessed 00:09:04.960 --> 00:09:07.919 are we talking? So obsessed that he accidentally 00:09:07.919 --> 00:09:10.059 trapped himself inside the castle walls while 00:09:10.059 --> 00:09:12.779 trying to hide it. Oh no. Yeah, dying alongside 00:09:12.779 --> 00:09:15.740 the gold. His ghost supposedly still protects 00:09:15.740 --> 00:09:18.759 the castle. In the comics, that very ghost actually 00:09:18.759 --> 00:09:22.000 saves a young Scrooge in 1877 and is the one 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:24.120 who tells him to go to America to seek his fortune. 00:09:24.590 --> 00:09:26.490 Here's where it gets really interesting. Let's 00:09:26.490 --> 00:09:30.070 talk about Sir Murdoch McDuck in 1066. This ancestor 00:09:30.070 --> 00:09:32.909 was a businessman who literally patented the 00:09:32.909 --> 00:09:35.490 longbow. A visionary. When the Normans invaded 00:09:35.490 --> 00:09:37.990 England, he signed a massive military contract 00:09:37.990 --> 00:09:40.429 to supply them with enough longbows to fight 00:09:40.429 --> 00:09:42.669 off the invaders. That sounds like a brilliant 00:09:42.669 --> 00:09:45.070 business move. Where is the catch? The catch 00:09:45.070 --> 00:09:46.769 is that the Normans didn't have enough arrows 00:09:46.769 --> 00:09:49.139 to actually shoot from the bows. Let me guess. 00:09:49.320 --> 00:09:51.600 Because Sir Murdock charged extra for the arrows. 00:09:51.860 --> 00:09:54.519 It is the medieval equivalent of selling someone 00:09:54.519 --> 00:09:57.899 a cheap printer and then charging a fortune for 00:09:57.899 --> 00:10:00.320 the ink cartridges. That is exactly the same 00:10:00.320 --> 00:10:03.919 business model. And the catastrophic mismanagement 00:10:03.919 --> 00:10:06.940 continued through the centuries. Between 1189 00:10:06.940 --> 00:10:10.940 and 1205, Sir Roast McDuck completely bankrupted 00:10:10.940 --> 00:10:14.539 the clan. Sir Roast? Yes, Sir Roast. He offered 00:10:14.539 --> 00:10:17.059 the clan's vast wealth to the King of Scotland 00:10:17.059 --> 00:10:19.720 so the king could pay tribute to Richard I of 00:10:19.720 --> 00:10:22.840 England. Okay, so a political play. Right. It 00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:25.080 was a grand act of patriotism that completely, 00:10:25.159 --> 00:10:28.190 utterly ruined the family finances. How did Sir 00:10:28.190 --> 00:10:30.690 Roast handle the stress of bankrupting his entire 00:10:30.690 --> 00:10:33.690 lineage? He raided the king's pantry and literally 00:10:33.690 --> 00:10:36.049 ate himself to death with gluttony. You're kidding! 00:10:36.330 --> 00:10:38.710 Nope. If you visit the castle in the comics, 00:10:38.809 --> 00:10:40.769 his memorial suit of armor is actually holding 00:10:40.769 --> 00:10:43.250 a knife and a fork. The visual gags are just 00:10:43.250 --> 00:10:45.710 incredible. Then you have Sir Swamphole McDuck 00:10:45.710 --> 00:10:49.090 in 1220. Swamphole. He sealed up the castle dungeons 00:10:49.090 --> 00:10:51.470 and told everyone it was to decrease maintenance 00:10:51.470 --> 00:10:54.730 costs, which sounds very much like a McDuck excuse. 00:10:55.279 --> 00:10:58.019 Very on brand. In reality, he was just hiding 00:10:58.019 --> 00:11:00.340 his own secret treasure down there. And we cannot 00:11:00.340 --> 00:11:03.480 skip over Black Donald McDuck in 1440. We really 00:11:03.480 --> 00:11:06.659 can't. Black Donald is a crucial figure. He apparently 00:11:06.659 --> 00:11:09.539 invented golf, the hammer throw, and the caber 00:11:09.539 --> 00:11:12.919 toss. An athletic pioneer. Yes, but his temper 00:11:12.919 --> 00:11:16.899 was so unbelievably foul and his behavior on 00:11:16.899 --> 00:11:19.940 the green so atrocious that King James II of 00:11:19.940 --> 00:11:22.940 Scotland had to completely outlaw the sport of 00:11:22.940 --> 00:11:25.600 golf. What's fascinating here is how deliberate 00:11:25.600 --> 00:11:27.740 this character design is on the part of the comic 00:11:27.740 --> 00:11:30.440 writers. How do you mean? Each of these ancient 00:11:30.440 --> 00:11:33.519 ancestors represents a different, highly magnified 00:11:33.519 --> 00:11:37.000 facet of Screech McDuck's own complex personality. 00:11:37.500 --> 00:11:39.860 Oh, absolutely. You have extreme frugality with 00:11:39.860 --> 00:11:42.159 Sir Eider, explosive temper with Black Donald, 00:11:42.360 --> 00:11:45.139 ruthless business acumen with Sir Murdoch, and 00:11:45.139 --> 00:11:47.639 a fatal obsession with treasure with Sir Quackley. 00:11:47.779 --> 00:11:50.120 That's all there. These traits are passed down 00:11:50.120 --> 00:11:52.500 through centuries of lineage. It shows that Scrooge 00:11:52.500 --> 00:11:55.000 isn't just an eccentric billionaire. He is the 00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:58.000 culmination of a thousand years of highly specific 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:00.500 genetic traits. So how do we get from bankrupt 00:12:00.500 --> 00:12:03.480 medieval knights to the modern tycoons? As we 00:12:03.480 --> 00:12:05.700 move into the early modern era, we see those 00:12:05.700 --> 00:12:08.000 knightly traits transition into high seas merchant 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:12.500 adventures. In 1563, we meet Malcolm Mady McDuck. 00:12:12.779 --> 00:12:15.580 He served as the first mate on an English Navy 00:12:15.580 --> 00:12:18.840 frigate called the HMS Falcon Rover, which raided 00:12:18.840 --> 00:12:21.580 Spanish targets in the Caribbean. And the source 00:12:21.580 --> 00:12:24.159 material notes a very specific crew member on 00:12:24.159 --> 00:12:27.059 that ship. Who was it? The bosun on that ship 00:12:27.059 --> 00:12:30.419 was named Pintail Duck. This is a very clever 00:12:30.419 --> 00:12:33.740 bit of narrative seeding by the writers. It establishes 00:12:33.740 --> 00:12:36.559 a generational link between the Scottish McDucks 00:12:36.559 --> 00:12:39.000 and the American duck family centuries before 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:41.730 they officially married into each other. But 00:12:41.730 --> 00:12:44.389 perhaps the most tragic and foundational story 00:12:44.389 --> 00:12:47.470 of this seafaring era belongs to Captain Hugh 00:12:47.470 --> 00:12:51.309 Seafoam McDuck in 1753. Seafoam's story is rough. 00:12:51.549 --> 00:12:54.269 It is. Since the clan had been driven from dismal 00:12:54.269 --> 00:12:57.230 downs by that fake devil dog, Seafoam moves to 00:12:57.230 --> 00:12:59.950 Glasgow and turns to the sea. He becomes a very 00:12:59.950 --> 00:13:01.870 successful merchant with his own ship, the Golden 00:13:01.870 --> 00:13:04.070 Goose. Okay. He signed a contract with a character 00:13:04.070 --> 00:13:06.950 named Swindle McSue to deliver a massive cargo 00:13:06.950 --> 00:13:09.409 of horseradish to Jamaica. Given a name like 00:13:09.409 --> 00:13:12.159 Swindle McSue, You can imagine the contract was 00:13:12.159 --> 00:13:15.159 not honored in good faith. Not at all. Swindle 00:13:15.159 --> 00:13:17.820 McSue secretly sabotages the Golden Goose and 00:13:17.820 --> 00:13:21.340 the ship sinks. Sifo manages to survive and get 00:13:21.340 --> 00:13:24.019 back to Scotland, only to discover the brutal 00:13:24.019 --> 00:13:26.620 fine print in his contract. The fine print always 00:13:26.620 --> 00:13:29.139 gets you. Always. Because the shipment wasn't 00:13:29.139 --> 00:13:31.899 completed, he had to forfeit absolutely all of 00:13:31.899 --> 00:13:35.200 his possessions to McSue. Wait. Swindle sabotages 00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:37.860 the ship and Seafoam is the one who legally loses 00:13:37.860 --> 00:13:40.519 everything. Legally, yes. The sheer injustice 00:13:40.519 --> 00:13:43.379 of that is staggering. He's left with nothing 00:13:43.379 --> 00:13:45.360 but the clothes on his back, a silver pocket 00:13:45.360 --> 00:13:48.159 watch, and his own golden dentures. It's a hard 00:13:48.159 --> 00:13:51.919 reset. That single Swindle basically resets the 00:13:51.919 --> 00:13:54.940 McDuck fortune back to zero, setting the stage 00:13:54.940 --> 00:13:57.000 for the modern generations to claw their way 00:13:57.000 --> 00:13:59.840 back up from the gutters of Glasgow. That struggle 00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:02.529 brings us to the immediate family. which serves 00:14:02.529 --> 00:14:05.169 as the true emotional core of this entire saga. 00:14:05.330 --> 00:14:07.570 Right, getting closer to the present day. Before 00:14:07.570 --> 00:14:10.289 we get to Scrooge's parents, the lore introduces 00:14:10.289 --> 00:14:14.350 his uncle, Angus Pothole McDuck, born in 1829. 00:14:14.690 --> 00:14:17.929 He moved to the United States and became a Mississippi 00:14:17.929 --> 00:14:20.529 riverboat captain. Pothole seems like the ultimate 00:14:20.529 --> 00:14:23.190 colorful relative. He really is. He raced his 00:14:23.190 --> 00:14:25.909 steamboat against his rival porker hog, which 00:14:25.909 --> 00:14:28.679 resulted in both of their boats sinking. He spent 00:14:28.679 --> 00:14:31.539 a decade as a professional poker player, eventually 00:14:31.539 --> 00:14:34.460 hired a young Scrooge to work on his boat, and 00:14:34.460 --> 00:14:37.139 then retired to New Orleans to write highly exaggerated 00:14:37.139 --> 00:14:39.899 dime novels about his own life. If we connect 00:14:39.899 --> 00:14:42.500 this to the bigger picture, the real psychological 00:14:42.500 --> 00:14:45.600 depth of Clan McDuck lies with Scrooge's father, 00:14:45.919 --> 00:14:49.000 Fergus McDuck. Arcus. Fergus is, without a doubt, 00:14:49.100 --> 00:14:51.720 the emotional crux of Dawn Rose's entire narrative. 00:14:51.919 --> 00:14:54.840 Fergus and his wife, Downey O'Drake, were poor, 00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:57.980 working -class mill workers in Glasgow. But Fergus 00:14:57.980 --> 00:15:00.519 saw incredible potential in his son. Everyone 00:15:00.519 --> 00:15:02.860 knows about Scrooge's famous number one dime. 00:15:02.980 --> 00:15:05.879 The very first American dime he ever earned shining 00:15:05.879 --> 00:15:08.360 shoes in Scotland, which supposedly inspired 00:15:08.360 --> 00:15:10.639 his relentless drive for wealth. Right, the origin 00:15:10.639 --> 00:15:13.700 of his fortune. But the encyclopedic lore reveals 00:15:13.700 --> 00:15:17.419 a massive twist about that dime. Fergus secretly 00:15:17.419 --> 00:15:20.639 paid a ditch digger to give Scrooge that specific 00:15:20.639 --> 00:15:23.240 American coin for shining his shoes. He set the 00:15:23.240 --> 00:15:25.220 whole thing up. Hold on. Isn't that incredibly 00:15:25.220 --> 00:15:28.860 manipulative? He orchestrated his own son's core 00:15:28.860 --> 00:15:31.500 foundational memory based on a complete lie. 00:15:31.779 --> 00:15:34.730 It might seem harsh. But you have to view it 00:15:34.730 --> 00:15:36.669 through the lens of a desperate working class 00:15:36.669 --> 00:15:40.009 Scottish father trying to prepare his son for 00:15:40.009 --> 00:15:43.649 an unforgiving world. Tough love. Exactly. Fergus 00:15:43.649 --> 00:15:46.350 did it to teach his son the ultimate lesson in 00:15:46.350 --> 00:15:49.029 self -reliance. He wanted Scrooge to experience 00:15:49.029 --> 00:15:51.730 the direct correlation between hard work and 00:15:51.730 --> 00:15:54.710 reward. But why an American coin? By using a 00:15:54.710 --> 00:15:56.370 foreign coin that couldn't be spent in Scotland, 00:15:56.690 --> 00:15:59.389 he forced Scrooge to realize the world is vast, 00:15:59.610 --> 00:16:02.370 tricky, and requires sharp wits to survive. A 00:16:02.370 --> 00:16:04.710 brutal but effective parenting strategy. And 00:16:04.710 --> 00:16:06.690 Fergus's psychological parenting doesn't stop 00:16:06.690 --> 00:16:09.210 there. Later in life, Fergus actually uncovered 00:16:09.210 --> 00:16:11.590 a massive Knights Templar treasure that had been 00:16:11.590 --> 00:16:14.029 hidden beneath McDuck Castle by their ancestor, 00:16:14.230 --> 00:16:17.769 Simon McDuck. Another treasure? Yes, but he kept 00:16:17.769 --> 00:16:19.789 it a complete secret from his billionaire son. 00:16:20.220 --> 00:16:23.360 Why on earth would he hide a priceless Templar 00:16:23.360 --> 00:16:26.000 treasure from his own family? Well, for years, 00:16:26.340 --> 00:16:28.299 Scrooge thought his father hid it because he 00:16:28.299 --> 00:16:30.460 disapproved of Scrooge's greedy ways. That would 00:16:30.460 --> 00:16:32.919 make sense. But the truth, revealed in a letter 00:16:32.919 --> 00:16:35.379 Fergus left behind, was that Fergus fundamentally 00:16:35.379 --> 00:16:38.580 understood his son's psychology. What did the 00:16:38.580 --> 00:16:41.100 letter say? He knew Scrooge would feel infinitely 00:16:41.100 --> 00:16:43.899 better and be a much more fulfilled person, building 00:16:43.899 --> 00:16:46.600 his own fortune from scatch, rather than simply 00:16:46.600 --> 00:16:49.879 inheriting an ancient one. Wow. That adds so 00:16:49.879 --> 00:16:52.039 much incredible heart to what could just be a 00:16:52.039 --> 00:16:54.500 shallow story about a cartoon duck hoarding gold. 00:16:54.620 --> 00:16:56.860 It elevates the whole thing. And the women of 00:16:56.860 --> 00:16:59.179 the modern McDuck family are just as vital to 00:16:59.179 --> 00:17:01.759 the empire. Scrooge has two younger sisters, 00:17:02.080 --> 00:17:05.779 Matilda and Hortense. How do they fit into this 00:17:05.779 --> 00:17:08.660 massive financial empire? Matilda is known for 00:17:08.660 --> 00:17:12.160 her calm, steady demeanor. When Scrooge was traveling 00:17:12.160 --> 00:17:14.259 the world aggressively expanding his empire, 00:17:14.519 --> 00:17:17.460 it was Matilda, along with Hortense, who actually 00:17:17.460 --> 00:17:19.460 stayed behind in Duckburg. Keeping the lights 00:17:19.460 --> 00:17:22.680 on. Literally. Together, they successfully ran 00:17:22.680 --> 00:17:26.039 his massive financial empire from 1902 to 1930, 00:17:26.460 --> 00:17:28.980 keeping the entire operation afloat while he 00:17:28.980 --> 00:17:31.339 adventured. While Matilda was calm, the source 00:17:31.339 --> 00:17:34.779 material explicitly states Hortense was a spitfire. 00:17:35.279 --> 00:17:38.079 Oh, totally. She had an incredibly nasty temper 00:17:38.079 --> 00:17:40.960 and shocking physical strength. There is this 00:17:40.960 --> 00:17:44.140 epic anecdote from 1902 where Hortense single 00:17:44.140 --> 00:17:46.960 -handedly caused the entire U .S. military and 00:17:46.960 --> 00:17:49.180 the sitting president, Theodore Roosevelt, to 00:17:49.180 --> 00:17:52.160 flee in terror from Kilmutter Hill. That is amazing. 00:17:52.460 --> 00:17:54.299 And she was armed with nothing but a broom and 00:17:54.299 --> 00:17:57.220 her bad temper. A truly formidable matriarch, 00:17:57.220 --> 00:17:59.420 and Hortense is the crucial bridge in the family 00:17:59.420 --> 00:18:01.900 tree. How so? She meets and marries Quackmore 00:18:01.900 --> 00:18:04.380 Duck, officially linking the Scottish McDucks 00:18:04.380 --> 00:18:06.880 to the American Ducks. Hortense and Quackmore 00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:09.480 are the parents of the twins Donald Duck and 00:18:09.480 --> 00:18:12.240 Della Duck, which means all of Donald's famous 00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:15.339 uncontrollable rage. He inherited it directly 00:18:15.339 --> 00:18:17.779 from his mother, Hortense, who inherited it from 00:18:17.779 --> 00:18:20.309 ancestors like Black Donald. The apple did not 00:18:20.309 --> 00:18:22.609 fall far from the tree. Not at all. Before we 00:18:22.609 --> 00:18:24.470 wrap up, we have to acknowledge the extended 00:18:24.470 --> 00:18:26.529 relatives that pop up in the comics to flesh 00:18:26.529 --> 00:18:29.710 out this world. You've got Gideon McDuck, a moralistic 00:18:29.710 --> 00:18:32.789 newspaper editor in Italy. Right. There's Rumpus 00:18:32.789 --> 00:18:35.730 McFowell, Scrooge's intensely lazy half -brother. 00:18:36.250 --> 00:18:38.609 Douglas McDuck, a cousin who looks just like 00:18:38.609 --> 00:18:41.529 Scrooge and is even stingier, but is hopelessly 00:18:41.529 --> 00:18:44.089 bad at finding anything but fool's gold. Naturally. 00:18:44.569 --> 00:18:47.369 And Moocher McDuck, a beggar cousin who wears 00:18:47.369 --> 00:18:49.369 tattered clothes but is actually an absolute 00:18:49.369 --> 00:18:52.190 sweetheart. The sheer volume of distinct characters 00:18:52.190 --> 00:18:55.109 required to build a world this dense over eight 00:18:55.109 --> 00:18:58.940 decades of publication is staggering. So what 00:18:58.940 --> 00:19:01.059 does this all mean? If you are wondering why 00:19:01.059 --> 00:19:03.519 we just spent time dissecting the Dark Age ancestors 00:19:03.519 --> 00:19:06.079 of a cartoon duck, it's because what seems on 00:19:06.079 --> 00:19:08.200 the surface like a simple children's comic is 00:19:08.200 --> 00:19:10.960 actually the culmination of a massive, deeply 00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:13.660 collaborative, mythological world -building exercise. 00:19:14.039 --> 00:19:16.410 It's genuine mythology. Whether you are looking 00:19:16.410 --> 00:19:19.390 at the extreme wealth, the disastrous stinginess, 00:19:19.430 --> 00:19:22.529 or the explosive tempers, beneath it all are 00:19:22.529 --> 00:19:25.730 very human stories about family expectations, 00:19:26.170 --> 00:19:29.509 historical pride, and the deep driving need for 00:19:29.509 --> 00:19:32.509 self -reliance. It is basically Shakespeare. 00:19:33.309 --> 00:19:35.829 but with beaks. This raises an important question, 00:19:35.849 --> 00:19:37.069 though. It's a thought I want to leave you to 00:19:37.069 --> 00:19:39.650 mull over. What's that? We know so much about 00:19:39.650 --> 00:19:42.150 this clan. We know what they were doing in 2050 00:19:42.150 --> 00:19:45.690 BC. We know the exact hourly wage of a serf in 00:19:45.690 --> 00:19:50.630 946 AD. We know who invented golf. Right. Yet, 00:19:50.630 --> 00:19:53.309 a massive glaring mystery remains in the canon. 00:19:53.799 --> 00:19:55.880 What happened to Donald Duck's mother, Hortense? 00:19:56.039 --> 00:19:58.519 Where did she actually go after running the empire? 00:19:58.880 --> 00:20:00.920 According to the source material, Don Rosa was 00:20:00.920 --> 00:20:02.980 actually prevented by his publishers from using 00:20:02.980 --> 00:20:06.160 Hortense in later stories. Really? Why? The reasoning 00:20:06.160 --> 00:20:08.059 was that he wouldn't be able to adequately explain 00:20:08.059 --> 00:20:10.240 why a mother would simply abandon her family, 00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:12.339 because they couldn't find a satisfying narrative 00:20:12.339 --> 00:20:15.140 reason that fit the family -friendly brand. The 00:20:15.140 --> 00:20:17.480 publisher declared her officially dead in their 00:20:17.480 --> 00:20:20.059 internal notes. Erasing a character entirely 00:20:20.059 --> 00:20:22.240 just because the narrative became too difficult 00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:25.240 to explain, that is a grim reality of the publishing 00:20:25.240 --> 00:20:28.359 business. It is. However, comic continuity is 00:20:28.359 --> 00:20:31.000 always evolving, and writers love to fix old 00:20:31.000 --> 00:20:35.079 plot holes. A 2024 comic recently suggested a 00:20:35.079 --> 00:20:37.210 completely different fate for her. Oh, modern 00:20:37.210 --> 00:20:39.529 update. Yeah, it hinted that Hortense didn't 00:20:39.529 --> 00:20:41.849 abandon her family at all, but was actually an 00:20:41.849 --> 00:20:44.470 adventurer and a scientist who had traveled to 00:20:44.470 --> 00:20:47.089 Africa to study apes, and that she might still 00:20:47.089 --> 00:20:49.390 be alive. That's a twist. Oh, I leave you with 00:20:49.390 --> 00:20:51.920 this thought. In a fictional universe where every 00:20:51.920 --> 00:20:54.680 single historical gap from the Dark Ages to the 00:20:54.680 --> 00:20:57.440 Industrial Revolution is meticulously, obsessively 00:20:57.440 --> 00:21:00.519 filled, isn't it wonderfully ironic and incredibly 00:21:00.519 --> 00:21:02.799 poignant that the fate of one of the most recent, 00:21:02.859 --> 00:21:05.019 fiery, and deeply important matriarchs of the 00:21:05.019 --> 00:21:08.279 family remains the clan's greatest unsolved mystery? 00:21:08.460 --> 00:21:11.720 A literal ghost in a fully mapped family tree. 00:21:11.859 --> 00:21:14.269 That is a brilliant place to leave it. Thank 00:21:14.269 --> 00:21:16.250 you so much for joining us on this deep dive. 00:21:16.349 --> 00:21:18.450 Keep asking questions, keep exploring the lore, 00:21:18.609 --> 00:21:20.390 and we will catch you on the next one.