#no it can still be canon-adjacent since we only ever see her in flashbacks and memories

[popculturebuffet]

Life and Times B-Sides Retrospective: The Goldie Trilogy: I Can't Get Started With You

Hello all you people and welcome back to my life and time's retrospective and a look at the various other flashback tales, followups and what have you related to one of the greatest stories ever told.

This time we're looking at all three flashback tales featuring the love of scrooge's life, with the temper, right hook and moxie to match him Goldie O'Gilt, the best singer in dawson turned queen of the bears turned succesful hotel tycoon.

Rosa was a huge fan of goldie, considering her Scrooge's true love. She wasn't his only love interest and only showed up once in Carl Barks run aka the only run Rosa deemed canon, but she made quite an impression 3 feet to be exact.. but was such a faviorite of his he had to bring her back. He did what the best comic writers do: He took a character who had tons of potetial but hadn't been used much and fleshed her out, keeping her temper and moxie and like Scrooge before her showing just what that was like in her prime. Where Scrooge relies more on thinking int he moment at the point they met , Goldie is more a schemer, always having a plan and trying to outwit him while falling for him. It's a wonderful dynamic you'll all get to bear witness as we look at all three of the LIfe and Times Adjacent Goldie stories.

The Prisoner of White Agony Creek

I'm doing these stories in the order they occured in canon, the reverse of when they came out in the real world. As mentioned this is Don Rosa's final story: With his eye sight dwinlding there was one last story he wanted to tell, one he'd wanted to his whole career: While he loved Last Sled to Dawson, he always wandered just what made scrooge and goldie go from enemies to lovers who also probably stabbed each other a few times in bed.

The answer is this story: It starts with the boys in the bin, working on stuff and wondering what Scrooge's most precious treasure is. They all debate, the bin, his #1 dime, castle mcduck, and end up bringing up the Goose Egg nugget and helpfully filling in Scrooge and Goldie's backstory for the audience and Me who hasn't read last sled to dawson since I reviewed it. Saves me my due dilligence and some time, thanks boys!

To recap the recap: It was a classic boy meets girl story: She drugged him to steel his goose egg nugget that made him rich, he beat up her minons and kidnapped her for a month to teach her a lesson. You can see why Don kinda needed to step in as "our hero kidnapped a woman and forced her to chop chop dig dig for him" is just a tiny bit insane. I mean she drugged him but still.

So the boys wonder

I love everything about this... i'm sure any adults reading with thier kids had the same reaction. Donald i'm sure dosen't even know what happened exactly just that it probably involved the loudest angriest sex in the history of the universe and nopes the kids out of there. He could've just told them "I'll tell you when I'm older" but i'm not sure "Uncle scrooge's angry sex adventures" is something they ever need to hear.

So we flash back to when Scrooge what kidnapped the love of his life. Rosa adjusts it well: Scrooge still straight up Napped her.. but it's made clear as soon as the second page: When Scrooge tries to easily scare her with the frozen mammoth he uses to guard his claim... Goldie just whips out a pistol and shoots it, making it clear she could've shot him and ran off any time and her thought bubble after he takes it making it clear she's only playing along to steal his gold. It takes it from her being someone who scrooge forced into slave labor to teach a moral weapon into someone whose only going along with his shit because she has her own scheme. Granted the reality of the situation is played for a very dark, very well timed laugh

This joke should not work.. but it does because it's VERY clear until that moment Scrooge had never thought through the implications of a young man kidnapping a woman. It's the only reason this story really works: Scrooge has been living on the road, mostly in hyper masculine fields like cattle ranching or mining, in an era already dripping with sweat, and has avoided relationships up to this point because it just wasn't a priority. Getting money for his family was. So combine the two and you get a man who of course is not going to get the implications of what he's done till he's stepped in it.

Scrooge also constantly lectures goldie. Scrooge pointing out he left home at 13 and has scarely went back, being his family's main breadwinner for most of his life puts it into perspective: The bulk of miners work hard for their money and Goldie just casually drugs them and steals it.. something she realizes

It's a well done bit of character development. Scrooge mansplaning could easily come off bad.. but he has a point. She simply never thought about what the gold rush MEANS to a lot of the people she swindled. I'm not saying every one of them is a saint, Dawson is consistently portrayed in this universe as a wretched hive of scum and villainy... but many could be like scrooge: someone desperate to move up who lost anything simply because they got horny once.

The work begins how you'd expect.. roughly with Goldie not liking scrooge's breakfast. He COULD hunt him some game.. but being scrooge he instead made a deal: he dosen't harm the wildlife and they dont' harm him. It's brilliant. Goldie gets covered in bees, attacked by a bear, a nice call forward to show she's not queen of the bears just yet, and generally has a bad time.

Not having one are three gentlemen meeting with Soapy Slick. Soapy was a one off villian Rosa brought back a few times, and one who wants revenge against Scrooge for wrecking his previous riverboat. Scrooge STILL claims it was just an engine failure and will in a later story today.. but I still don't buy that explanation. The man can scare bears off with no real effort. He once road a lion into town to tar and feather Glomgold. He survived a massive flood in the australian outback and later held off the entire us army while sneering

He didn't do the last part alone, but it shows that the man was and is nigh unstoppable. He has enough weakness to be intresting and enough failings as a person, but trying to downplay his legend is like trying to put a tempest in a teacup.. which i'm damn sure he has.

The three want to buy Soapy's old saloon since he's in exile and all.. and soon reveal themselves to be living legends: Wyatt Earp, Batt Masterson and Hanging Judge Roy Bean, all legends in their own right and all exagerated to fit the setting.

For those like me who aren't familiar with these cowpokes, Wyatt Earp is a famous gunslinger and sheriff known for being at the OK Coral shootout, Masterson was a gambler, adventuer and writer who wrote up a lot of their exploits and Roy Bean was a judge and a mean son of a bitch who despite only hanging twice got a rep for it.

The former two are pretty much just neat lawmen, with Bat simply being a bit more stylish. Roy on the other hand is a ghoulsih old man with a hilariously dark running gag, especially for an all ages comic. Allow him to demonstrate

Yup Roy just.. keeps trying to murder everyone he meets for the mildest of reasons. I also love that they, unlike my pendantic self, don't point out the obvious: They aren't anywhere NEAR langtry Texas. Their not even in the US. Roy just loves a hangin.

Naturally Soapy sees a bit opportunity here to take out his biggest headache and convinces the three to go on a rescue mission to goldie.. and when first conceived I assumed this was some sort of understanding but no... Scrooge really just took Goldie and assumed no one would come for him. I mean he's not wrong, Dawson being a laweless mess at the time is a consistent plot point, but it's still just a mite fucked up. I'm not a fan of the police but i'm also not a fan of women getting kidnapped to do the gold panning equilvent of workign in a mine.

Two suspcious men offer to take the team on their way and the race is on. Back on the claim Goldie is tried of working so hard in her dress and Scrooge.. is actually concerned. He wants her to learn her lesson.. but is worried she'll become him, looking at a flower. They bicker because that's their love language.. but when she sees the flower she pauses, realizing why he stopped for a second.

The rescue party arrives.. and runs into a problem. Goldie still hasn't gotten to Scrooge's strongbox. She knows where the gold is.. but without it all of this is for nothing. So she instead plays both sides against each other claming their just ruffians and knowing Scrooge can easily handle them. Unfortunately for her the guides.. turn out to be famous outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. This whole chapter feels like a chance for Rosa to cram in a bunch of historical figures he hadnn't got to play with yet and despite not knowing any of them paticuarlly well it actually helps the story: he writes them well enough that even knowing not a lot you get a sense of who these men are.

Scrooge easily deals with his opponents with some slap stick, some mining gear and a pie plate and finishes them off with a horde of moose.. he could've easily done this all day but he's busy. Earp eventually realizes he's met scrooge, back in the klondike chapter of life and times an incident I almost forgot about, and that his legend's been exagerated a bit in prose... and that their guides were butch and sundanc.e Worrying for Goldie Scrooge chases after... by riding some moose

Or is it Caribou. Either way it's majestic and of course rosa got off one last feat of strength. Butch and Sundance fire off warning shots.. not realizing A) gunfire is useless at range against scrooge an B) their going to cause an avalanche. Scrooge quickly improvises and sets himself up to ride the avalanche afte rthem. Goldie ends up on an ice floe, nowhere to go with the strongbox.. and Scrooge naturally dives down and rescues her. I also like a little gag where they go back to reasue the animals.

We also get a nice bit of Karma: Soapy is pleased as punch, confident the trio will drag Scrooge back... only for the flood of water and ice from the ruckuss to wash his boat away.. with Soapy correctly assuming Scrooge somehow did this and Butch and Sundance deciding to flee to south america, as far as they can from Scrooge. Smart boys.

Scrooge and Goldie get back to the cabin still unable to admit they like each other.. and we get a hell of a panel

I can be hard on Don Rosa. Some of the stuff he loved so much from Barks he carried on has not aged well and is not stuff he ever should have kept, like Scrooge's rampant finacial abuse of Donald. It's stuff that even for it's time wasn't great and has aged worse. I'm taking time to point this out though.. because the man was a truly amazing artist and it's devastating he had to retire. No one can draw ducks like him. Few can panel at his levels. THe detail, the small bits of comedy like Bat's fear, it's all so good. He was one of the best artists there's ever been and deserves every ounce of praise he get. I may not have liked every opinon the man had or every choice he made and I will never like how he only considers one writer in a massive sea of them absolute canon.. but damn if I don't love and respect his work. Rosa is one of the best writers Scrooge has been and along with Barks, Argones and Youngberg, is one of the pillars of this character.

Goldie convinces them to leave scrooge and they prepare to leave.. but while the trio fumbles with getting a sled, Goldie looks at the nugget. Earlier she'd spotted Scrooge gazing at his strongbox.. but realizes he had the nugget out and it wasn't the deed either... instead...

Now is taking a lock of someone's hair a little weird yes.. but again.. Scrooge does not know better and the fact he cares for ANYONE that much especailly goldie is a suprise. We knew he had the lock from life and times chapter 9, Scrooge's sisters teased him over it.. but it's clear Barks had this story for it in mind the whole time and finding out it was the one thing of her he had and something he kept and fawned over .. it's genuinely sweet. Weird and mildly creepy, but still somehow sweet.

So Goldie, genuinely flattered and realizing just how deep her own feeling go and their reciprocated makes Scrooge breakfast. An naturally.. Scrooge assumes this is some scheme and the two end up fighting, starting with slapstick then the hitting starts and then..

Yup.. excellent way to get the obvious past the radar.. the two finally consumate their rleationship with what defintely started as some loud hate sex.. turns passionate and gentle. Conveying THAT much without making it obvious to children is a masterstroke and I love that roy bean, of all characters, finally got the message and ended the threat.

Sadly these two just can't get started. They love each other.. btu Scrooge's stubborn determination to pay her for her work and send her on sends the wrong message and while the spark's still there.. the two don't really settle.

Still, it's clear that one night of passion, love and property damage meant a lot and when asked about what his most valuable treasure is, if it's any of what the boys thought.. Scrooge's answer is simple

These three beautiful panels.. are a perfect capper for Rosa's run on the character. I really wish he could do more and it's still tragic he couldn't.. but it gets to the core of what Rosa's stories are about: memory is the greatest treasure of all. The experince, the adventure, a life well lived. Scrooge may have everything.. but this is the one thing money cannot buy and he would never trade. A memory of love.

The Prisoner of White AgonY Creek is easily the best story of the three. Another one here isn't bad, but Hearts is Barks final story, what he knew would likely be his last. It was never going to be a contest. Hearts is a fun screwball comedy that somehow makes a kidnapping work as it's setup, with Scrooge not really seen as RIGHT for it and running into trouble for his impulsiveness, but Goldie seen as an equal partner, someone who only dosen't get away with her tresure.. because she cares about HIM more and vice versa. It's a story of two people who love each other but can't get past their own egos, tempers and hard wired values to just admit it. And it's a story that's not over.. the rest had been written by this point, but this perfectly starts the dominos rosa had set up with his previous two flashbacks to the yukon and perfectely continues from the one set before this. The man somehow pulled off a coherent heartbreaking story he told almost entirely in reverse. That's genius. It's a beautiful ending to a beautiful run.. but it's not the end of this story or this article.

Hearts of the Yukon

Hearts of the Yukon is a decent story but it's one I had trouble writing about. It's why this part of the project took a while. The first half is pretty.. okay. A few gags as Scrooge wonders into town, there's a food shortage, and Goldie as usual pines for Scrooge.. and as usual rather than actually talk to him like a normal person she fakes a claim to a visiting mounty to get him to come visit her.

That mounty is the best part of this story, the decorated real life figure Sam Steele, who always gets his man.. and spends the comic getting that catchrphase down to a writer, being a proper gentlemen and genuinely being comedy gold every time he steps into page

He's pure gold and a perfect opponent to Scrooge. Scrooge is outside of the law and dosen't care for it and Steele is all law and order and muscle to the smaller scrooge. He's tricked into revoking Scrooge's gold claim

This leads to a minor slog as Scrooge deals with a corrupt mounty, a hallucination and santa.. nothing terrible but most of this story is just okay for the first half

The second... is pure greatness. The town starts to burn and Scrooge dashes across it to get to goldie, dealing with Steele all the way and having to improvise. I also love Steele not getting muddy because of coures he dosen't and the above joke. It's a good show from scrooge. He does stop to save Cornelius Coot, more on him next story, but his main target is goldie. The first half is fairly week.. but the art as ever is great.. and the climax is truly heartbreaking.

Scrooge comes to the blackjack where Goldie's been waiting for him to save her.... and freezes. She fakes fainting.. he tries to save her and gets knocked out. And as we'll see when we get to the end of this retrospective and my faviorite scrooge story period, it's his greatest regret, something he repeats in his head night after night.. the thing that seperated him and Goldie forever.

While scrooge is aquitted.. he leaves before GOldie is done with the medics.. and has a message taken to him. This scene.. is a punch to the gut as Scrooge makes the second biggest mistake of his life. The letter is a confession.. one we never find the consequences of.. but clearly her being honest with him.. but it's scrooge's own fear and pride that destroy his relationship with Goldie. It won't be the last time as we'll see.. but it's one of the big reasons why he couldn't be happy.. if he'd just opened it.. jus tread it... he'd have a long happy life, a diffrent life.. but a good one. Hell he probably still would've gone to america so it's one where Donald likely still exists. As Dawson cleared out the two could've gotten married, headed to scottland, got his sisters and created kinder duckberg. I doubt Scrooge would've stopped entirely.. but it might've been a less cold mean and cruel life for both of them.. instead..

Hearts of the Yukon isn't the strongest story in Rosa's library, Steele aside.. but that ending is one of his best, another truly heartbreaking moment as Scrooge slams the door shut on what could've been... but it still creaks open one last time... one last possible fate that sadly just didn't work out.

Last Sled to Dawson

Our final story today is fittingly both Rosa's first goldie story, his third story overall and the only one to fully intersect with present day. Instead of a wraparound the main story is in the present with the flashback setting up everything else.

So we open with Scrooge swamped with work, having to put out crisis after crisis. He admits as exhausted as he is he geninely enjoys what he does, big same man, but sometimes longs for the simplier life he could've had with Goldie. He gets cut off but you knows it, I knows it so let's not dance around it.

He flashes back to times past, our final flashback and to another milestone in his life, one that would briefly come up in the main life and times story: Scrooge has made his first million. With this he wonders what to do, become a philanthropist perhaps? He's honestly not sure... this is something he dreamed of, and as Rosa would flesh out later he fought hard for: he worked his feathers to the bone to get this and is now what we all dream of but will sadly likely never achieve: finacially secure.

He decides on his fate after talking to Cornelius Coot: He'd make cameos in Rosa's later stories set earlier

More importantly he sells Scrooge the deed to Killmotor Hill and Scrooge decides with this what to do: cash out and leave this life behind. He encounters soapy slick on his way up, this will be important later, and heads out. he makes it back to his claim and packs up something he can't bear to loose

Naturally he looses it on the way there, caught in the storm and leaving his rifle as a marker. After fighting some wolves and ending up on Slick's boat by pure accident, Scrooge blames all his misfortune on deciding to settle down. Once again the door to a better, simplier life that still coudl've been packed with adventure and buisness is slammed shut.

In present day Scrooge TRIES to act like the old life's behind him.. but the second the boys inform him that the marker has been found and the glacier is thawing, he has them pack up to dawson.

Our heroes return to Dawson for the second time in Rosa's continuity. Donald wants to know why their there and scrooge is a dick about it saying "you pay someone top dollar and they think their your partner!"

At this point i've just.. tried to harden myself best I can against Scrooge's finacial abuse of donald. And it is finacial abuse: he barely pays somneone he knows can't afford to turn down the work and is supporting three children. It was funny back in barks day, it wasn't too funny by the 90's and now

Scrooge finds two changes, a Statue glorifying him, a welcome sight and a fancy hotel. He naturally balks at the 15 dollars a night charge, and for once is probably right as even if his 30 cents is practically nothing 15 dollars in 1940's money sounds like a decent amount for one room.

Thankfully he knows the manager. Given the hotel is where the Blackjack Ballroom would be and the statue, it's naturally Goldie, who is both happy to see him and the only person who can get his goat with him flustered and the boys enjoying seeing him sweat.

Goldie's also gotten a redesign from Barks... she's still a tad thin, but now has a lot of her old figure back and still looks as gorgeous as the day scrooge met her. It makes perfect sense too: She opened the hotel with the money from Back to the Klondike so with money coming back in she's no longer restricted to whatever she can scrounge up in the wild and has the money to buy nicer clothes. I like this because instead of just sitting pining for scrooge waiting for his retirement like in the original story, a shell of her former self, she's picked herself back up, found a modern equilvent to her old buisness and done something that could bring Dawson back to life: tourism. I used to think Barks just had her waiting but i'm happy that no, he made her a successful entrepreneur in her own right, like Scrooge having gone from a depressed husk of their old self to a final act worthy of their reputation and cunning. While it's not confirmed I like to think she got Dawson back to thriving, not what it once was but a beautiful tourist spot while keeping the local beauty of the location in tact, a place full of adventure but still far enough from buisenss Scrooge can comfortably retire there one day.

She offers him a room and he takes it.. with his pile of nephews. Not exactly what she had in mind, but everyone misses the subtext and gets a godo nights sleep. Goldie is likely sore and not in the way she intended.

Unfortuantely for our heroes this wouldn't be much of an adventure without a villian and he happens to own the only ship: Soapy Slick, pissed Scrooge beat him last time and probably still sore over the boiler he's been keeping an eye on the glacier all this time and gets salvage rights when it falls in the ocean. Goldie warns them that the riverboats the only way to sail it.. but not the only way. Naturallly scrooge is a dick about it and assumes she has a plane.. but Goldie has a better way: a hot air balloon used for tourism. Donald naturally gets into some shenanigans and Goldie gets left behind, as Donald has to parasail his way up and ends up suspended with Scrooge being scrooge. While they do this Soapy theroizes the deed to duckberg is in there.

This is where life and times hurts this story a bit: when it was published this was implsuable but possible: Scrooge probably couldn't of claimed the deed without it but he's lost enough stuff and gone on enough fetch quests to get it back to make it at least a possibility. Once you've read life and times though it's clear that he took it with him and had it the whole time.

We get a nice character moment as Scrooge looks over the valley.. and bemoans that he can't appriciate it like he once did. What was once a majesty beauty to behold.. is just potetial lumber. His decades and buisness have drained the joy out of it.

With them just above the glacier the triplets come up with a plan: turn the balloon into a sled and slide down the fucker. Scrooge does not get a say in this and I chortle both at the genuine joke and someone strong arming him into something for a change.

They land roughly and Soapy arrives, ready to claim the glacier.. but it's not adrift and he BADLY underestimates clan mcduck: Donald instantly snaps into action holding the thing, while the boys pelt the old man and the other old man digs.. only for the glacier to go on a ride. Scrooge still dosen't give up though and cuts Soapy off when he dangles off a glacier and weakly tries to make a deal for a partnership.

It becomes a mad dash as soapy tries to knock it onto his warf with the riverboat.. but fails it instead ending up on land. He still tries to foil scrooge... but in a nice fit of irony it's another scrooge that stops him

As you can guess, and the boys figure out there's nothing of monetary value on the Sled. It's all of Scrooge's old gear from when he first started out

It's a beautiful moment.. Scrooge gets back something invaluable.. his past. Pieces of who he was .. a simplier time... it's something we all have. I don't have many mementos unfortunatley, I either sold them or lost them over the ages.. but i've still picked up a few and just looking at the nightcrawler on my desk, one of my last marvel legends, my glomgold I got from Kev as a gift or even my donald duck from house of mouse, something more recent but gotten the same day I lost my dog.. everything has a memory. It's a key part of Rosa's work on Scrooge.. that he's not just rich in money.. but in experince.. it's what we do not what we have that defines us.

The box the boys found is for Goldie, a box of choclates and a note that while we don't see clearly touches her. He was once again going to confess.. but didn't. She dosen't fully regret it, a bit disapointing.. but we see WHY she loves him so dearly even after all this time

It's a beautiful ending once again showing why we love scrooge: he may be an asshole.. but he's a man with a life well lived... a man whose richer than god.. but also rich in the ways it counts. No matter what he's lost.. he's not alone and he never was. And while he may not be with goldie now I do agree with Rosa's sentment on how they ended up: together, in retirment having a few more years together.. and god knows how many memories.

Thanks for reading and remember i'm pulling for ya we're all in this together.

[antirepurp]

maria whose influence made shadow the way he is. maria who was bitter and mean and who held a gun with a firmer grip than she should have. maria whose legacy was altered by her loved ones for you can't speak ill of the dead. can anyone hear me

[carryoncastiel]

I'm not sure if you know this or not, but I ran into an old video from early access for wyll where they used mods to make the companions accessible origin picks (pre ea patch 5 since if I remember correctly that one stopped people from being able to access other origins via mods), and it's so interesting because he had a "talk to mizora" free action button, which makes sense considering ea implied that's how he and mizora communicated, and there was actually recorded dialogue that would play.

Mizora seems to have been also rewritten a little. She's much more chill compared to current Mizora, and they were definitely going to lean into the relationship angle (although that was obvious from ea romance). Her pet name for him was also sweetheart instead of pet (less dehumanizing and more condescending it seems).

The other interesting tidbit is that it seems like the wyll arc had a lot more to do with his trauma, since mid convo at the mention of spike he starts to flashback (it seems the didn't have the narrator dialogue recorded by then, but it is written) and Mizora yells at him to snap him out of it.

Anyway sorry if you knew all this already I just never knew that scene was ever a thing and was excited lmao

No, I didn't know this so thank you for the info! I don't know that much about ea tbh. I was kinda interested in it when the game had just released and it was more relevant, especially in regards to how Wyll's character/story had changed. But not enough that I went and looked for videos of it, though I have seen the Wyll romance scene at some point.

I know there definitely exists a way the Wyll and Mizora relationship could've been written without making me queasy and irritated at all of the bad implications of it - but sadly Larian has not written it in ea and they certainly have not written it for the final canon of the game. Maybe, had Mizora stayed a mysterious character that Wyll secretly communicates via sending stone and we only get to see in Act 3, and she wasn't some sexy devil lady tehe who sexually harasses and demeans Wyll and annoys the fuck out of me but actually a scary and powerful devil who poses an actual threat to not only Wyll but maybe the player character themselves and one of Wyll's personal quests would've been to deal with her one way or another... But no - it's not what we got.

Adjacent to that point though: One of the many baffling choices in the final canon of the game is the complete irrelevance of the sending stone for Wyll's story. I guess because they made Mizora already show up and be annoying in Act 1 it didn't make much sense to have Wyll also talk to her via sending stone (They could've obviously still incorporated in another way had they wanted to but, well...) It irks me that since they changed that aspect from ea we don't get to know how this communication works exactly. I remember some people even thinking Mizora could straight up look through the eye to spy on Wyll (which ewww) but I'm pretty sure that's not actually the case. One DnD explanation I read said you can send a short message via the stone and the recipient will hear it in their mind and can respond in the same manner. So it's more like text messaging and not direct like a phone call. But do you have to hear the message immediately? Or could you ignore it for a while? Could Wyll be assaulted by Mizora's voice just popping into his head at any moment or could he ignore her for a time until the sensation(?)/notification noise(??) got too annoying or she showed up in person? It's wild that something like this is in the game and they just do nothing with it!