Daria Morgendorffer

For information on the TV series of the same name, see Daria (TV series).

Daria Morgendorffer is a fictional animated character from two of MTV's animated series: Beavis and Butt-head and Daria. In 2002, Daria placed at number 41 on the list of the Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of all Time by TV Guide for her role in the two shows.TV Guide's 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time. She was voiced in both incarnations by Tracy Grandstaff.

Character Overview
The character is a smart, snarky, sensitive teenage girl in an otherwise "normal" environment. This is to say that she doesn't fit in all that well, and was often subject to ridicule. Though the outcast of her school, she appears to have earned a degree of grudging, nearly surprising respect from her fellow students. ("Surprising" because there's little evidence that they are capable of appreciating her.)

She has described Jane Lane as basically the only real friend she's ever had.

Her experience with romance appears to have been limited for most of her teenage life, until Tom Sloane consisting largely of a few dates and odd flirtations (see Robert, Ted DeWitt-Clinton, and Trent Lane).

Beavis and Butt-Head
See also Character design of Daria

In Daria's first incarnation as a recurring character on Beavis and Butt-head, she formed a female, intelligent foil to the two male dunderheads. (She was, a producer/writer for the show stated, "the smart girl who hung around with Beavis and Butt-head because it annoyed her parents.) Often, the two would openly mock her and refer to her as "Diarrhea." Though she is not amused by their antics, she does not have the passionate hatred for them that Principal McVicker and Coach Buzzcut have nor does she really believe there is any hope for them either as Mr. Van Driessen had. At times, she would also make fun of the two for their stupidity. In the episode U.S. History, she turned around to talk to the duos and said they'll never graduate, and she told them that "to graduate" means to be all done with the final year of school. In the Christmas Special, it is stated that Butt-Head had been responsible for giving her a negative outlook on boys. In the final episode of the series when the boys "died," Daria expressed the sentiments that Beavis and Butt-head did not have very bright futures to look forward to. She was one of the few characters that the duo never managed to drive crazy as they had with many other students and teachers. In the Marvel Comic books, however, the duo did manage to push her closer to the edge than they did in the TV show.

In one episode, Daria's snarky mouthing off to then-President William J. "Bill" Clinton earned her some grudging, and probably unwanted, respect from Beavis and Butt-head. "Diarrhea's pretty cool sometimes," Butt-head half-laughed, half-snarled.

Beavis and Butt-head took place in a small town called Highland, Texas, where Daria, Beavis, and Butt-head were in the ninth grade at Highland High.

Daria
In her eponymous series, Daria became more angsty; to some, she's the poster child for "teen misfit." Daria is a bespectacled, plain, unfashionably dressed, but highly intellectual and seemingly cynical teenage girl who is portrayed as an icon of sanity in an insane household, with her vacuous, fashion-obsessed sister Quinn and career-obsessed parents Helen and Jake.

Unlike most animated characters, Daria and her counterparts aged during the duration of the series. When the series began, Daria is generally believed to have been 16 years old, a sophomore in high school. (Because she was said to be a Scorpio in a Beavis and Butt-head book, Reading Sucks, it is possible she was 15 when the series started.) When she graduated from high school in the show's final TV movie, she was 18 years old. According to the episode "Lane Miserables," her height is 5'2". Her hair, by general fan agreement based on color matching screen captures, is auburn (red-brown). Her eyes are brown, per an interview with Glenn Eichler and general implications made in "Through a Lens Darkly."

While much of the show is a vehicle for Daria's droll deadpan monotone one-liners, a recurring plot element in early seasons is Daria standing up to misused authority, leading some fans to conclude that her apparent cynicism is only skin deep (or at least that she is only cynical in the classical sense).

An oft-quoted line from "Esteemsters," the first episode of Daria, sets the tone for Daria's attitude: "Don't worry, I don't have low self-esteem. It's a mistake. I have low esteem for everyone else."

Daria's personal views on politics and religion are subject to intense debate. Because she so often speaks with a sarcastic or cynical twist, one cannot always be sure she means what she says.

Series
During the series, Daria attends Lawndale High School, where on her first day she meets Jane Lane, the artist and classmate who will be her first real friend and her best friend through the rest of her high school life. Their strong friendship and mutual endurance of gloomy adolescence was a motif of the series, which survived despite Jane's boyfriend, Tom Sloane, becoming Daria's.

The final two seasons of Daria made a departure from the "static world" that most animation series occupy, giving all of the characters opportunities for growth, and crises to manage.

Movies
The first Daria movie, Is it Fall Yet?, gave the principal characters time apart from one another in parallel narratives which foreshadowed further changes in their relationships.

By the time the finale movie Is It College Yet? arrives, Daria's character has undergone noticeable growth. She graduates from Lawndale High, winning the Dian Fossey Award "for dazzling academic achievements in face of near total misanthropy", and crowning her acceptance speech with the assertion that "...[T]here is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life that can't be improved with pizza."

Daria's Growth


Though the series was a rich one, replete with interesting characters and multiple points-of-view, it was mostly the story of one character, Daria herself, and her evolution.

At the beginning, she can be fairly characterized as smart, cynical, and a little ruthless. She is not afraid to physically rough up her little sister when the latter clearly deserves it (note the ending of The New Kid). She is not afraid to take a series of very risky, manipulative actions to call attention to her school's principal's unethical behavior (This Year's Model). She has, by her own admission, never had a real friend until Jane Lane; She has, however, alluded to her own consideration of Beavis and Butt-head with some slight affection. During her freshman year at Highland High School, Daria was seen as spending time with the two boys for the purposes of her own amusement, to manipulate them as subjects for a science class project and a school newspaper photo-essay, and because her association with the two boys bothered her parents.

While a simplistic view of Daria's personal view of relationships with boys can be seen as being summed up in a single line, spoken to Jane in Dye! Dye! My Darling: "Can you picture me making out with anyone? Ever?" (this view made even more so when taking Trent Lane into the picture from his very first appearance in the series) - an in-depth observation of the character reveals her to be a young woman with a classical view on romance, one soured by what she perceives as the idiocy of the young men around her (in both Highland and Lawndale), and (almost certainly) by the dating mannerisms of her sister Quinn. Daria is certainly not above the idea of romance - her year-long crush on Trent (which arguably lasted from Road Worrier to Jane's Addition, and was most famously displayed and dealt with in Lane Miserables) is proof of that. However, Daria's own incredibly high standards have invariably led to problems in this area, as well as her fear of opening up emotionally to others (which could be seen as the reason that her brief relationship with Ted DeWitt-Clinton never progressed beyond casual dating.) In addition, her emotional naivete in terms of relationships was the dominating factor in her relationship with Tom Sloane through Seasons Four and Five (as well as the two 'Daria' television films).

It must also be noted that this naivete, in terms of romance, led to a temporary dissolution of her friendship with Jane Lane, as it could be argued (and has by some members of the fandom) that had Daria possessed any level of emotional maturity in this area, she would have never allowed Tom's growing infatuation with her (which she was bluntly confronted upon by Trent in Fire!) to progress without speaking to Jane about it, let alone begin dating Tom. While Daria managed to salvage her friendship with Jane, her own actions could easily have ended it; the scene in Boxing Daria where Daria hugs Jane indicates that their friendship may, in fact, not be as strong as it was before Tom entered their lives. Daria and Tom dissolve their relationship in 'Is It College Yet?'; the manner in which the breakup (initiated by Daria) happens demonstrates that she still has not yet matured emotionally in this area (as opposed to the other aspects of her life; CINCGREEN also argues this position in an essay on the character's development across the whole of the series).

In Is It College Yet?, the series' finale, Daria outlines what could be considered her own personal philosophy during her acceptance speech for the Dian Fossey Award:


 * "I'm not much for public speaking, or much for speaking, or, come to think of it, much for the public. And I'm not very good at lying. So let me just say that, in my experience, high school sucks. If I had to do it all over again, I'd have started advanced placement classes in preschool so I could go from eighth grade straight to college. However, given the unalterable fact that high school sucks, I'd like to add that if you're lucky enough to have a good friend and a family that cares, it doesn't have to suck quite as much. Otherwise, my advice is: stand firm for what you believe in, until and unless logic and experience prove you wrong; remember, when the emperor looks naked, the emperor is naked; the truth and a lie are not 'sort of the same thing'; and there is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life that can't be improved with pizza. Thank you."

Daria Triumphant
Daria Triumphant (see also here) is the Daria of seasons one and two, the Daria who always wins at the end of the episode or, at worst, breaks even. She is the one most in tune with what's really going on, the one best able to detect hypocrisy, duplicity, idiocy, pretension, and doomed enterprises—and avoid them. (Jane can do this 90% of the time, but her libido screws it up a little, as with Evan in "See Jane Run.") Daria does all this while being a lazy, irritable, smart-mouthed teenager unencumbered by self-doubt or fear of authority. She is nobody's fool and is the master of her own ship. The third season drifted away from this characterization (in "Just Add Water" this trope never appears), and The Kiss and The Triangle spelled the end of it. However, this trope reappeared once in a rare while (e.g., "Fizz Ed").

Genius Daria
That Daria is quite intelligent is a given, but exactly how intelligent she is has been a subject for intense debate. It is usually the case that she is exactly as intelligent as a fanfic author wants her to be, and in some cases she can be a savant on almost any topic imaginable. Extremes tend to portray Daria as knowledgeable about everything from the proper use of high explosives to calculus. It is not often that Daria admits in fanfic that she doesn't know the answer to a particular problem.

Bitch Daria
In contrast to the standard fanfic portrayal of Daria as a persecuted hero who overcomes the stupidity of others, an increasingly popular fanfic portrayal of Daria is of Daria not as the persecuted, but the persecutor. In such stories, Daria is portrayed not as the only intelligent person in a world given to shallowness, but as a woman of harsh standards applied to others with a judgmental and intolerant attitude. Usually, this intolerance is given as the reason for Daria's social unpopularity; in other words, Daria's outcast status is her own fault, because she sees herself as better than her peers, either knowingly or unknowingly. The amount of blame cast on Daria and her opportunities for redemption vary from writer to writer and story to story. The line between protagonist and antagonist is often blurred in such fics, as Daria can be seen as both or neither, as at least some of her behavior and character is cast in a negative light. (See Evil Daria.)

Intimations of this viewpoint can be seen even in some early fics, such as John Takis's "Daria's Christmas Carol" and Austin Covello's "Otherwise Known as Quinn the Great," but the genre was first fully developed in Brother Grimace's fics, "The Sun Will Come Out, Tomorrow" and "It's All About Respect." See also The Angst Guy's "Prisoner of Hope."

Sexy Daria
According to some fans of Daria, there are episodes such as "Quinn the Brain" that indicate Daria is just as physically attractive (if not more so) than the majority of girls at Lawndale High. Because of these episodes, a fanfic stereotype has arisen in which Daria actively resists making herself sexually desirable to the opposite sex for several reasons. Pparamount among them are her admittedly high standards and her fear of being hurt emotionally after putting her trust in others. Thus, she refuses to put herself in situations where romance is a possibility for her.

In some of these fics, Daria is either passive or actively working towards maintaining her facade of unattractiveness for the reasons stated above; in some cases, she lowers her guard to devastating results. Fics of this nature include "The Beaches of Barksdale" by Galen Hardesty. A second subset of this trope involves Daria lowering her defenses, including the changing of her canonic garb and manstopper glasses, as she finds a person worthy of trust; in stories of this nature, Daria (when allowing her physical nature to assert itself) is usually seen as a woman with a extraordinarily romantic and passionate nature, as she has found someone to express her inner desires and feelings with without fear of rejection, betrayal or abandonment. Such fics and serials include the works of Richard Lobinske, The Other Side of Time series by The Sidhe, and the Pause in the Air series by The Angst Guy.

One notable inversion of this trope is found fics such as Galen Hardesty's "Kidnapped", "Turnabout Confusion" by Dennis, "The Devil in Miss Morgendorffer" by Brother Grimace, and the Legion of Lawndale Heroes series. In this subtrope, Daria is discovered to be attractive, but not willingly or by her own choice, and still comports herself as before while also how having to fend off the slavering attraction of young men (and some women). BlackHole's "Size Does Matter" may also fall into this subtrope, as well.

Some fans also feel that the use of depictions of physical intimacy within such fics can be seen as a barometer of the quality of the work; these fans believe that with a greater use of graphic scenes of intimacy within the work, there is a equal decrease of the overall quality of the fic involved. These fans believe that the best fics depicting this Daria trope illuminate Daria's blossoming or aroused sexual/romantic nature without the need for such intimate details, and by not using them, project a more arousing image of the character.

Violent Daria
In the series, Daria rarely showed an inclination to hit anyone, and then it was only in childhood sibling fights with Quinn (not counting the time Daria punched Quinn at the end of "The New Kid"). Still, her attitude and obvious anger issues have led some fanfic writers to assume Daria is violence-prone and willing to strike out if pushed far enough (or if pushed even a little bit). She has even shown this attitude toward Jane at times, which is rather startling to read. One shocking example of this variation is seen in "It's All About Respect," when Daria verbally decimates Trent Lane and Jesse Moreno, and then, in a memorable scene, tears through three rogue bikers who attempt to rape her and steals their valuables afterward. (In a later scene it is revealed that, among the injuries to the bikers, one of them has lost a testicle that Daria speared with an ink pen.)

Daria the Telepath
Although there are many stories where Daria and her friends are superheroes or possess powers, it seems that there is a subtle bent in fanfic towards Daria possessing psychic abilities (usually telepathy or some form of mind control). Among those stories are:


 * Estrangesters, by Ostragoth
 * It's All About Respect, by Brother Grimace
 * It's All About The Mission, by Psychotol
 * Legion of Lawndale Heroes, by Roentgen and Brother Grimace
 * Hell Hath No Fury, by Danny Bronstein
 * Avalon, by Legendeld
 * False Starts by thatLONERchick ("The Psychic One," appropriately enough)