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There's been a theory going about for a long time about how Donald suffers from severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, mostly because he's so easily provokable, overly vigilant, and has wears a sailor's uniform all the time. That's a logical assumption to make, but it has deeper canonical support than that.

In the early cartoons, Donald was a bit explosive, but, probably due to comic regulations back then, (where in a love scene so much as a phone left at the table without being hung back up was too suggestive of sex to be published,) not nearly as vicious as he is sometimes today. Donald was also never in the navy, even though he dresses like a sailor. In the various propaganda cartoons that were made by Disney in WWII, he was a paratrooper and a commando, meaning he probably saw some pretty tense shit out there fighting the Nazis and the Japanese. At one point he was a prisoner of war, Which brings us to the cartoon "The Furher's Face" in which he has a bad dream about being forced to live the life of a person in Nazi-controlled regions.

Hell, he has a lot of nightmares, even in modern cartoons, and some are particuarly shown in this cartoon featuring him trying to murder his nephews:

Yeah, he's also violent. Notice how in the Pre-WWII media, he always tried to trap or catch Chip and Dale, where in much of the later things, he tries to outright kill them. He also has trouble talking about it. After the WWII era, I've never seen him say anything about war in general, let alone his own service. It's rather odd, really. And, as many people with severe and un-treated PTSD have, he has significant problems with work, family, relationships, he's even violently threatened some of his best friends.

Of course, this could all just be because violent tempers are funny and often used in cartoons, but with Donald's WWII history, it really makes me think.

Well, I'm going to say yes, because of the fact that he was having flashbacks of wartime prior to this strip, and also because I remember that this strip was based on someone stealing his food, and I also remember that this happened to him before the war, just in a different strip. The difference was that before the war, he set up a camera to catch the thief. After the war, though, he just goes immediately batshit crazy on his nephews. 

But if he did, in a way, it doesn't really make sense. Didn't Daffy Duck go through more than him? I mean, take all the times he's been shot at by Elmer Fudd. It's not a war, but given how many bullets come his way, it probably would cause trauma. And Daffy doesn't seem crazy or violent, he's got a more self-absorbed character, he can be delusional at times, but it doesn't seem like PTSD or anything. He's more... goofy, shall we say.

So, it kinda defies logic to give Donald this personality change, but the post-war strips were as funny as hell,  and it's well punctuated by Huey, Dewey, and Louie. The duck is one whacked-up dude.

Daffy is as schizophrenic as shit. He once envisioned his pond as a picture in a book, the prelude of which was a crazy animated musical number taking place in a giant library. The resulting social ostracism would, no doubt, result in the self-absorbedness since he only has a few friends that treat him nicely. Not to mention it takes a while away from such dangerous situations for the trauma to make itself apparent, and Fudd doesn't really let up on Daffy that much, does he? Daffy is a mostly harmless lunatic, but I'm pretty sure you can find him being violent somewhere...

Does this count?...

Not really, it shows that he suffers from a lot of problems though, probably some manic depression in there somewhere.

No, it shows him being an idiot, look at the first three panels.

Daffy tended to be a lot more insane in the older cartoons. When Bugs Bunny started getting more prominent in the Loony Tunes stuff, Daffy's personality became that of a bitter jealous rival.

Unless he was paired with Porky Pig, then he was usually just an arrogant dick that gave Porky grief, but still a lot less insane than he was in the really old cartoons.

Have no idea why they briefly had him as an enemy to Speedy Gonzales for a while though.

I've read plenty of comic books and I can't see I've noticed something like that... but perhaps that's why he can't get a steady job and is always in debt to his uncle?

Also probably why he can never seem to maintain a smooth relationship with that girl duck.

Pretty sure that things were going smoothly with Daisy most of the time

In a lot of stories I've seen he starts off single, and has to impress her over and over again to earn her affections.

The only recall that he was jealous and overprotective of her when Gastone appeared, which he had a point to actually, I don't think , Gastone would do something like that since he could have all the ducks in the world. Still he spent too much time alone with Daisy so I wouldn't be rsuprised if he gave her the thin feather once or twice

Okay... foxes are enough. We don't need ducks as it is!

Oh come on, it's obvious that Daisy has quacked around the lake once or twice

Every old school cartoon female did. It was just *muscular flexing man* *swoons* *male tries to look adequate in comparison* *male wins*. Either that or they get kidnapped. 

Pretty masochistic viewpoints. Fun fact: in the mideival era men thought that all women were hypersexual. They thought witches became witches because they needed Satan to satisfy their sexual urges. The book compiled about witchcraft and the artistry about the topic are really interesting. And disturbing. Best history lecture ever.

well shit O.o

Did you pick this up off of Cracked.com? lol

But yes, Donald Duck likely has PTSD since he was in the Navy before he started getting a little crazy like in the comics above.

Cracked is a horrible website

Lies heathen. It may not always be truthful but it's an awesome humor site.

http://i.imgur.com/Vc9bHmn.jpg

I honestly don't see the difference... (Aside from layout)

Read closer....

Yeah, while I can't say the site doesn't have its funny moments, the place over the years has basically become a soapbox for the writers to go on about how something is racist, sexist or homophobic. It's like they're so afraid of losing any sort of audience that they go out of their way to say "HEY LOOK WE'RE SO TOLERANT!"

I mean I suppose it's a good idea from a business standpoint, but it sort defeats the point of being a humor site, if you aren't willing to mock everything. I'm not even saying they have to fill the site with rape and holocaust jokes, I'm just saying they need to tone down the fucking preaching every other article.

And the comments section is even worse than what you'd find on Youtube. A bunch of cheerleaders that shriek like howler monkeys when anyone makes a comment that disagrees with the writers. Still it's sort of amusing when you get commenters even farther left than the writers and they're calling them a bunch of bigots.

It's just boring and not amusing for me.

Fireplay, Ford, I'm offended. I didn't get jackshit from cracked, I got this from experience, youtube, and an article in Cartoonoveranalyzations. ( http://cartoonoveranalyzations.com/2009/02/20/diagnosis-donald-duck-suffers-from-ptsd/ )

Where's the article that says this though?

Is that from a creepypasta?