Calvin and Hobbes: Encyclopedia II - Calvin and Hobbes - The main characters

Calvin and Hobbes - The main characters

Calvin and Hobbes - Calvin

Named after 16th-century theologian John Calvin (founder of Calvinism and a strong believer in predestination), Calvin is an impulsive, imaginative, energetic, curious, intelligent, self-centered, and often selfish six-year-old. Despite his low grades, Calvin has a wide vocabulary range that rivals that of an adult as well as an emerging philosophical mind. Watterson has described Calvin thus:

• "Calvin is pretty easy to do because he is outgoing and rambunctious and there's not much of a filter between his brain and his mouth." (Williams, 1987)
• "I guess he's a little too intelligent for his age. The thing that I really enjoy about him is that he has no sense of restraint, he doesn't have the experience yet to know the things that you shouldn't do." (Dean, 1987)
• "The socialization that we all go through to become adults teaches you not to say certain things because you later suffer the consequences. Calvin doesn't know that rule of thumb yet." (West, 1989)

Calvinistic predestination as a philosophical position basically entails the idea that human action plays no part in affecting a person's ultimate salvation or damnation. Calvin's consistent gripe is that the troublesome acts he commits are outside of his control: he is simply a product of his environment, a victim of circumstances.

Calvin commonly wears his distinctive striped shirt. His last name is never mentioned in the strips.

Calvin and Hobbes - Hobbes

Hobbes is Calvin's stuffed tiger who, from Calvin's perspective, is as alive and real as anyone else in the strip. He is named after 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who had what Watterson described as "a dim view of human nature." He is famous for his claim that humans' natural state is a state of war, where "the life of man [is], solitary, poore [sic], nasty, brutish, and short." Hobbes is much more rational and aware of consequences than Calvin, but seldom interferes with Calvin's troublemaking beyond a few oblique warnings—after all, Calvin will be the one to get in trouble for it, not Hobbes.

For the most part, Calvin and Hobbes converse and play together, reveling in what is ultimately a deep friendship. They also frequently argue or even fight with each other, though their disagreements are generally short-lived. Often Hobbes ambushes Calvin with an energetic pounce-and-tackle attack, which leaves Calvin bruised and scraped up but not seriously harmed. Hobbes takes great pleasure in his demonstrations of feline prowess, while Calvin expresses keen frustration at his inability to stop the attacks or explain his injuries to his skeptical parents.

Watterson based some of Hobbes's characteristics, especially his playfulness and attack instinct, on his own pet cat, Sprite. Hobbes takes great pride in being a feline and frequently makes wry or even disparaging comments about human nature, declaring his good fortune to lead a tiger's life. In Calvin's philosophical ramblings, it is evident that Hobbes is usually Bill Watterson's voice on the subject, whereas Calvin usually seems to echo the sentiments (or lack thereof) of modern America. It may otherwise be asserted that Calvin rather portrays an alter-ego of Watterson.

Interestingly, Hobbes almost never calls Calvin by his name. Instead, he simply uses pronouns when speaking to his human counterpart.

From Calvin's point of view, Hobbes is a walking, talking, bipedal tiger, much larger than Calvin and full of his own attitudes and ideas. But when the perspective shifts to any other character, readers see merely a little stuffed tiger. This is, of course, an odd dichotomy, and Watterson explains it thus:

Many readers assume that Hobbes is either a product of Calvin's imagination, or a doll that comes to life when Calvin is the only one around. However, both of these theories are incorrect. As Watterson explains in the Tenth Anniversary Book, "Hobbes is more about the subjective nature of reality than dolls coming to life": thus there is no concrete definition of Hobbes' reality. Watterson explained: "Calvin sees Hobbes one way, and everyone else sees Hobbes another way." Hobbes' reality is in the eye of the beholder.

Sometimes Hobbes breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the reader, such as when Calvin tries to parachute from his house's roof ("His mom's going to have a fit about those rose bushes"). On other occasions, it is difficult to imagine how the "stuffed toy" interpretation of Hobbes is consistent with what the characters see. For example, he "assists" Calvin's attempt to become a Houdini-style escape artist by tying Calvin to a chair. Calvin, however, cannot escape, and his irritated father must undo the knots, all the while asking Calvin how he could do this to himself. In a rare interview, Watterson explained his approach to this situation:

In response to the journalist's assumption that Hobbes was a figment of Calvin's imagination, Watterson responded,

Another argument for Hobbes' reality is the "cookie incident", when he is taken by a dog and Calvin finds him at one of Susie's tea parties. Someone ate all the cookies, but it cannot be Calvin. In another story, Susie has to stay at Calvin's house after school because her parents are working late. Calvin only finds this out on the way home and when Calvin and Susie reach the house, Hobbes is waiting by the door for Susie and wearing a tie. But the question is, how is Hobbes wearing the tie? Another instance of ambiguity is a strip in which Calvin imagines Hobbes and himself on the front page of many newspapers after winning a contest. Although these newspapers are clearly a figment of Calvin's imagination, Hobbes appears in "stuffed" form. In one instance, Calvin attempts to capture a picture of Hobbes pouncing on him. Calvin's father assumes Calvin just threw Hobbes up in the air, a viewpoint to which Hobbes takes great offense. Calvin and Hobbes also spend an afternoon taking a multitude of Polaroid pictures of Hobbes making various faces. To the pair of them, every picture is different, but to Calvin's father, it looks like Calvin just took a whole roll of his stuffed tiger sitting on the ground.

Many people feel that the blurred reality between Hobbes' two forms is both amusing and philosophical. Hobbes is often the voice of reason, contrasting Calvin's manic impulsiveness. Readers are left to wonder if this rationality is in Hobbes as a distinct personality, or in Calvin as a kind of conscience. In the end, the question becomes less about absolute truth and more about different versions of reality: the nature of Hobbes' existence was never a puzzle to be solved, but rather a subtle comment on the power of imagination, and on the similar power of a lack thereof.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The main characters", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki