Timothy O'Neill: Difference between revisions
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|firstappearance=[[Esteemsters]]
|lastappearance=[[Is It College Yet?]]
|voicedby=[[Marc Thompson]] <br/>
|episodecount= 35 episodes
|gender=Male
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}}
'''Timothy O'Neill''' is
{{quote|He meant well, for a teacher who does nothing well.|Jane, "[[The Story of D]]"}}
<br><br><br><br>
==Character Overview==
[[Image:O
Mr. O'Neill primarily teaches English (at Lawndale it is called "Language Arts") and also teaches an after-school course on Self Esteem, at which [[Daria Morgendorffer]] and [[Jane Lane]] meet. [[The Daria Diaries]] also have him teaching Drama ("Dramatic Horizons") and present English and Language Arts as separate subjects. He is shown to be well aware of a vast swathe of classic and seminal literature, such as [[Fair Enough|Canterbury Tales]], War and Peace, [[This Year's Model|Walden]], [[Write Where It Hurts|The Dharma Bums, Breakfast of Champions]], and [[Daria's Inferno|Dante's Inferno]], and uses them in his class. However, his ''grasp'' of the literature and their meaning seems suspect: in "[[Fair Enough]]", he asked the class why Tolstoy made War and Peace "so darn unpleasant" (and seemed thought-provoked when Daria joked it was so nobody would want a sequel).
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Mr. O'Neill was gentle, soft spoken and ludicrously sensitive, very in touch with his emotions but incapable of controlling them. His English assignments were often ill-disguised attempts to get his students to express personal pain or experiences, and he himself would often cry in class. His ability to perform such simple tasks as remembering his own students' names was come and go at best during the first season. During the summer holidays, he ran the disastrous [[Okay To Cry Corral]].
<br><br><br><br><br>In "[[Cafe Disaffecto]]", he said he identified with Daria's essay about "being a big misfit whom everyone hates" and "[[The Daria Diaries]]" have him say he identifies with Daria (see below). This implies interesting things about his childhood days. We learn more in "The Daria Diaries" when he says Daria reminds him "of myself at a young age, before I discovered Gestalt and the writings of M. Scott Peck". He doesn't specify what this means, but it comes after he says he believes Daria has deep rooted issues and is detached from people. It's possible that the younger O'Neill had problems with loneliness. We know two other things about young O'Neill: he wanted more than anything else to join the high school gymnastics team, he tried and tried, and then didn't make the grade after all ("[[Quinn the Brain]]"); and he joined a fraternity at college, where he had to recite the Gettysburg Address while wearing a rainbow wig and panties that said "Tuesday" ("Cafe Disaffecto").
His teaching beliefs, according to "[[Quinn the Brain]]", are that any student can achieve academically if their imagination and interest are engaged, and he clearly attempts to do this - he just proves unable to pull it off. When a problem student ''has'' improved in class, he has been known to 'reward' this by displaying the student or their new work to the school... which mortifies the student in question. ("[[Esteemsters]]", "[[Quinn the Brain]]") He is really eager to be seen by students as their friends and not just have a teacher/student relationship. This leads to things like him inviting himself to student parties. ("[[Groped by an Angel]]")
In "[[Fair Enough]]", for the first and only time he snapped at a student who was acting up ([[Brittany Taylor]]) to get them to pay attention, but immediately went back to his usual style after he'd got their attention. Later, when Kevin never turned up, O'Neill showed a brief glimpse of anger in referring to him as "sabotaging our play".
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==Relations with other characters==
[[Image:Daria_annoyed_ONeill.jpg|thumb|left|240px|Daria puts up with O'Neill (sort of)]]
[[Image:O
On the second season episode, "[[The Daria Hunter]]," Mr. O'Neill (unwittingly) began a sexual-but-not-romantic relationship with the misandrist [[Janet Barch]], which is repeated in episodes plotted similarly to "[[The Daria Hunter]]," "[[Fair Enough]]," and "[[Just Add Water]]" (and was mentioned briefly in the episode "[[Murder, She Snored]]"). The clear implication is that they engage in sexual practices that most would find unusual or disturbing. They don't appear to have done much in their relationship outside of sex. Janet's attraction to him was that "you're sensitive... but you're a ''man!''", though when he attempted (badly) to stand up to her about the engagement in IICY?, she was intrigued and attracted by the idea of him having a backbone.
The [https://web.archive.org/web/20070629212449/http://www.mtv.com:80/onair/daria/chapter2/ Daria website] once had the two introduce a section on romance:
''O'Neill: The human need to love and be loved is a wonderful thing. To stand vulnerable before a fellow being, open and innocent and�
''Barch: Pick it up, Skinny. I've got the keys to the broom closet and we only have 20 minutes before the staff meeting.
''O'Neill: Oh, um, yes�so this month we will explore the subject of romance: the subtle dance of attraction, the dropping of boundaries that allows a manifestation of selfless, limitless devotion and�
''Barch: �the attention to a woman's needs ''finally'' after a decade-plus of insensitive, ape-like groping from a man whose mid-life crisis conveniently arrived after she had already sacrificed her youth indulging his every whim, until one day he takes off without so much as a "see ya later," so is it surprising that she felt damn near to bursting with pent-up--
''O'Neill: Uh, look at the time! Heh heh. Time to go. Enjoy the features below!
''Barch: C'mon, Mr. Clean, we've got some polishing to do.
''O'Neill: Oh dear.''
DeMartino has often found him supremely irritating, but in ''IICY'' referred to O'Neill as a friend. This may have been caused by "[[Is It Fall Yet?]]", where an elated DeMartino rediscovered why he wanted to be a teacher and thanked O'Neill for the responsibility.
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Helen's response in "Diaries" was to chew him out for sending her these letters, attacking his views and defending Daria's "coping mechanisms" as necessary for the working world (and had at him for misspelling Daria's name). In "[[The Lawndale File]]", she referred to O'Neill as being "creepy".
==Trivia==
* Timothy O'Neill was voiced by actor [[Marc Thompson]], who also gave voice to [[Anthony DeMartino]], [[Kevin Thompson]] and [[
* "The Daria Diaries" were written early in the show's run. Later episodes would make it explicit that Daria ''does'' suffer from real problems that she masks with sarcasm; while his letter to Helen in "Diaries" was meant to show him being overly sensitive, it retroactively indicates that he ''does'' have some insight into Daria.
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* O'Neill is similar in a number of respects to [[Mr. Van Driessen]], from ''Daria'' parent series ''[[Beavis and Butt-head]]''.
==Misc. Trivia==
* In the [[Daria Behind The Scenes Special]], Thompson said O'Neill's voice came from a teacher he had.
* In the Latin American dubbing, he was voiced by Herman López.
==Fanfic Portrayals==
*
* In the [[Blood Oath of Patriots]] series by [[Galen Hardesty]], O'Neill's political affiliation is revealed to be [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism 'American Marxist'.]
* In [http://www.theangstguy.com/fanfics/justdesserts.htm Just Desserts] by [[The Angst Guy]], O'Neill was given a suprisingly dangerous side after he started to take direct action against people like [[Ken Edwards]].
==External links==
*[http://web.archive.org/web/20120821145533/http://www.outpost-daria.com/ch_oneill.html Mr. O'Neill's Character Profile]
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