Moe (Calvin and Hobbes)

Moe is a bully from Calvin and Hobbes and one of the main antagonists of the series. He bullies Calvin, often for money whenever they run into each other, he often serves as the brunt of Calvin's unfortunate moments whenever the latter goes to the school he finds insufferable, mainly due to how Moe seems to beat up or threaten Calvin every time he appears.

Why He (Intentionally) Sucks
Note: His character only exists so we can sympathize with Calvin.
 * 1) He constantly bullies Calvin by stealing his toy truck, extorting money from Calvin, or physically injuring him for example.
 * 2) His primary purpose in the comic is to threaten and bully Calvin, taking his stuff (e.g. lunch money, or in one storyline, Calvin's truck), to the point of absolute resignation and operating solely through brute force and physical coercion.
 * 3) Usually, a character only bullies Calvin whenever they're provoked by Calvin. But he’s the only person who is very sadistic towards Calvin.
 * 4) While Calvin can be a bully/villain to himself, at least he has redeeming qualities (and it’s implied that due to his overactive imagination, so he’s not fully aware that his actions are hurting people when he does something wrong due to being a kid). But Moe, however, has no justification for his actions, and while he is dumb, he is fully aware that his actions are hurting people and doesn't care what happens, making him seem sadistic and heartless.
 * 5) * Calvin isn’t exactly a teacher’s pet, though he doesn’t deserve to be constantly bullied by someone like Moe.
 * 6) Speaking of his stupidity, aside from being a brute; his levels of intelligence are notably subpar.
 * 7) * The biggest example of Moe's brainlessness is better seen in Calvin's rare attempts to retaliate that have mainly consisted of mocking Moe with words Moe can't understand, which Calvin seems to take a certain delight in this. In one strip that showed Moe "shaking down" Calvin for lunch money, Calvin tells Moe that his "simian countenance suggest[ed] a heritage unusually rich in species diversity." Moe replied, "What?" Calvin handed over his money, saying "Here you go. That was worth 25 cents."
 * 8) ** Another time Calvin asked Moe, "Are your maladjusted antisocial tendencies the product of your berserk pituitary gland?" Moe responded a while later, with a mere "What?" and Calvin announced to the audience, "Isn't he great, folks? Let's give him a big hand!".
 * 9) Unlike Calvin, who doesn’t get away when he does something bad with what he does most of the time, Moe only gets his comeuppance on very rare occasions. Which makes him a Karma Houdini because of what he gets away with.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Some of his interactions with Calvin can be funny in a dark way.
 * 2) As noted above, he has his moments of getting what's coming to him.
 * 3) * Calvin once managed to scare him with his toy tiger Hobbes, and another time Calvin’s mom called Ms. Wormwood about Moe’s bullying habits and made him give Calvin’s quarterback to him, but that’s about it when it comes to karma.

Trivia

 * Since he was immediately shown to be merciless and have no capacity for kindness, Bill Watterson describes him as "every jerk I've ever known".
 * His words are written in a sprawling, childish scrawl (with any letters that don't need capitalization not being capitalized) which suggests Moe's slow speech patterns and/or level of intelligence. Calvin's observations to the audience support this; he once described Moe's vocabulary as monosyllabic, which is partially true. It seems like his favorite word is "Duh."
 * Moe commonly calls Calvin "Twinky".

Comments
