Why the real villain of Chhota Bheem was King Indravarma: A meta-analysis of who he really was.
Alternative Title: An episode where I go nuts and have zero backing behind my essay.
(A note to the readers: This essay does not take into account the existence of the Mighty Little Bheem show. The matter at discussion is purely based on the Chhota Bheem show only.)
Most Indian Children born in the late 2000s can easily recognize the musical ensemble of the theme song of Pogo’s crowned jewel: Chhota Bheem. Eyes were glued to the television and clock ticks were memorised for when the show would start because Chhota Bheem to them was not just an animated show; it was an expression, a memory, a piece of childhood, if you will.
And yet, while watching the show through an “adult” lens, Chhota Bheem leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.
Why?
The answer, I personally believe, is of two aspects. One would be the obvious irritation in how King Indravarma ruled the land, and the other is about how Chhota Bheem was a Mary-Sue and how the show perhaps needed to be styled around Kalia, his imperfections and his character arc. (But that’s for another time.)
Let’s focus on the topic at hand: King Indravarma. He was, bluntly put, a stupid King.
Imagine a King as such in the real world. A King who had no strong Military, who constantly relied on a 10-year-old for any trivial matter whether it was an external threat to the kingdom instead of sending out an army, did not invest in new technology for the betterment of his people and used it for personal gain. The list can go on and on.
The argument presented here is that King Indravarma as a villain is not a bad evil person but rather how his aloofness was the one reason his kingdom suffered. Being a “villain” does not always necessitate violence and crude language; all it requires is to bring harm to others. And King Indravarma, indirectly, does that.
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“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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On the other hand, we can theorize that King Indravarma was merely “acting” to be stupid and always had ulterior motives behind his every move. This argument is also proven along the way when I dissect his character in this essay.
In fact, this essay reaches a conclusion that King Indravarma was a strategist who was…. stupid. A perfect balance. (But not for Dholakpur.)
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I.Outsmarting a kid; getting outsmarted by the world.
When scouring through the deep dark pages of the internet, one question plagued me: How did Chhota Bheem get his powers?
Yes, it’s common knowledge that eating a Laddoo gives him super-human strength but how does he get such a power in the first place? Alas, that’s not an answer that the cartoon canon can answer but it is integral to the next question that follows: How did King Indravarma realize Chhota Bheem had such powers? Maybe he never found out because had he, he definitely would’ve chosen to make all his citizens the perfect citizens. (A strategist, remember?)
It’s natural for any parent to desire the safe protection of their child from the dangers of the world. As seen in Spider-Man, Aunt May chooses to protect the identity of Peter as his alter-ego and would go to any extent for his safe keeping. But why didn’t Bheem’s mother do the same? Why didn’t she hide the powers of Bheem?
Or maybe, she did.
She did try to hide it but somehow it reached the ears of King Indravarma. And King Indravarma strategicallydecided to use it to his advantage.
And I say strategic because, by all rights, Bheem deserved official employment. He worked as a protector of the kingdom more than the soldiers ever did. He could’ve been a member of the royal guards, or a leader of it too. But instead, the king always played along with the HA-HA Bheem- is- just- a- loyal- citizen- who -helps- sometimes card and gave him no remuneration.
This could’ve had two motives: An economic perspective where he didn’t have to pay Bheem for his services and/or a jealous King perspective where he wanted to avoid a 1789 France Bastille-Storming situation. Empowering Bheem and giving him more administrative power on top of the physical power he already had would make him a dangerous weapon. He was already charismatic and loved by the villagers; it would only be a matter of time until they felt that Bheem would be a better leader than the King himself.
The king further added on to this plan by employing some of the most useless soldiers in his army ever therefore making it seem that the King did try to save his kingdom, but it was to no avail. And at some point, he stopped using the soldiers (probably dismissed them, thus saving even more money for his personal gain) and purely relied on Bheem, a kid who he didn’t even have to pay! (And Bheem, being a “kid” did not have the sense of asking for remuneration as well.)[1]
Smart, isn’t he? (King Indravarma, I mean.)
But also, stupid.
By following this method, he made sure that the one key asset that Dholakpur had was revealed to the entire world. He placed the country in danger from threats all the time! (And I truly mean one asset because by its looks Dholakpur had nothing else to offer. The crops often struggled due to pests, the landscape was unappealing to the eyes, it had no tourist’s income etc.) It’s truly surprising how Dholakpur was not already overtaken by some other colonizer or king because all they had to worry about was defeating one kid. Just one kid. (Yes, he’s strong and what not, but Bheem’s got to have some limit?)
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II. Economic drain for… what exactly?
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“Th’ abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.”
Brutus in Julius Caesar (2.1.19-20)
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In one episode of Chhota Bheem, King Indravarma had no qualms or shame in announcing that the kingdom had no new bicycles for a bicycle race when the neighbouring kingdom had brand new, shiny bicycles and therefore, Bheem and his friends had to manage with the old bicycles. Either the kingdom was not financially stable to accommodate the purchase of such bicycles, or the king lied that the kingdom had no money.
Let’s explore both the views, shall we?
The kingdom being too “broke” to purchase bicycles implies how financially unsecure it is! Perhaps the kingdom was knee-deep in debts or just refused to spend whatever reserves it had on importing foreign goods. Maybe the kingdom had an import substitution policy (similar to what the post-British India followed) but was not able to implement it seeing how the kingdom had an agrarian economy.
Which brings us to the question: How is an economy expected to grow without any investment in additional technology?
The only source of revenue that was noticed were from the fairs conducted, the crops reaped and Tun-Tun Mossi’s Laddoo sale. And as anyone with two eyes can note: It is not enough. The policies followed by King Indravarma were dangerous to Dholakpur in the short-run and long-run. Inflation was just a door’s knock away for the citizens of Dholakpur! People would’ve been forced to lead even more horrendous lives and forced to spend a bucketful of cash but a pocketful of things! (Again, how the kingdom survived is such a mystery.)
On the other hand, maybe the King just wanted to hold all the gold reserves to himself and did not wish to splurge on any investment in technology for the kingdom. Which again proves how he is a stupid strategist because if he wanted more money, the country needs development. More jobs, more employment brings about higher level of income, GDP and better lifestyle. How are the people supposed to pay taxes to the King if he doesn’t provide them enough opportunity to make money for paying the taxes? It would’ve been more understandable if he invested in their advancement first and then participated in red-tapism and what not.
(Idiot.)
The King, in my opinion, is begging for a Marie Antoinette situation by running around in gold chains and necklaces while his people slog and suffer.
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III. Diplomacy at its finest. Not.
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To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.
-Will Durant
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The third, and final facet of why King Indravarma was the real villain is perhaps the shortest and the simplest. [2]
There’s no doubt why Dholakpur was often plagued with terrorists and external threats and challenges from other kingdoms than the neighbouring countries: King Indravarma’s tongue.
Instead of rallying allies and forming alliances with other countries, the king often chose to goad other rulers into competitions of which-kingdom-is-better game which is humorous to think because Dholakpur had no additional advantage except …Bheem. The entire fragile ego of Indravarma’s was built on nothing but a nine-year old boy!
The demise of the King’s pride would be swift and sweet the day Bheem decides to move out of the godforsaken kingdom.
Conclusion
“It is unwise to let a man who isn't king sit on a throne for too long.”
― Costanza Casati, Clytemnestra
Thus, I bring this essay to its end. A hyper-fixation of my childhood has now become a piece of media that will forever make me think of this 1600+ word essay that brings no added meaning to this world.
To you, Bheem, I wish that you escape from the clutches of Indravarma’s stupid reign. Perhaps if the King was just evil I could’ve respected him more. Alas, stupidity is a turn-off.
To you, Dholakpur, I wish that you understand that it’s better to have no king than have Indravarma as a king. Rise and revolt, fellow comrades. History would look kindly upon you.
And to you, King Indravarma, thank you for spoiling my favourite cartoon.
Aisling Elle
16.04.2024
[1] A further note to be added is that the king was a frequent enabler of Child Manipulation because he always made it seem that Bheem voluntarily decided to choose to fight for the kingdom and was not requested by the King.
[2] This argument is in reference to the cycle competition that the King engages in with Pehelwanpur.
Smash that like button if you think dating monsters is, kinda hot.
Smash that like button if you think dating monsters is, kinda hot.
So, you’ve found yourself watching The Shape of Water for umpteenth time? It happens. Or Hellboy, maybe Hellboy 2, maybe Twilight or Beauty and the Beast. I was thinking myself lately, what’s up with monster romances? Why did Guillermo Del Toro watch The Creature of the Black Lagoon and ship the titular creature with the female protagonist? What’s up with wanting to bone monsters?
Monsters make…
How brightly it shone. How musical were its notes as it chimed in your mind, striking chords deep within you as it formed itself. Colors danced together, harmonizing and creating new shades.
You nurtured it, you beamed at every fresh instance of food for it, you watched it weather high winds, you rejoiced when it not only grew but flourished. You kept it alive through life’s hard knocks. Although there were moments when it looked like it would die, something else came along and fed it. You took those moments as signs that it was a good dream. A dream you could hold onto.
But life is longer and harder and more full of twists and turns than even you can imagine, strain your mind power as you might. And through the twists and turns of your latest path, you have begun to suspect that the dream should be allowed to go. To die. Because it lived its time and now it’s over.
Perhaps life was never going to go that way. Perhaps you made mistakes that meant it cannot flower. Perhaps you had an incomplete picture of what you really wanted. Perhaps others who were involved in the dream don’t want it any more. Perhaps you were the only one who ever saw that future, no matter what others said.
However it happened, you suspect the time has come. Deep down, you know that if you continue to cling to it, it will become a parasite, a plant fed only on your blood. It will harm you in the long run, when you are faced with the inescapable truth that it has been dead for a while. When you feel the blue flame of idiocy, of stupidity for clinging to something you should already have relinquished.
And you know it will be kinder to yourself to let go now. You’ll save yourself pain. Save yourself the reproach of being an idiot.
So you stand before it, ready with shears to snip its life. You cry. And then you cry again. It hurts. It feels like a part of you has opened into a hole that will never ever fill.
But you know that for your health, for your continued stability, you have to let it go.
Snip. Click. Snap.
You lay it away in the forest of lost dreams, one grave among a thousand ghosts. You do not leave a headstone. It would be too bitter a reminder, and there will be enough of those already to come when you feel the regrowth from the hole where it used to live. You merely brush the dirt over the grave and force a smile when you think of how grass and flowers will cover it in the future. And after it will come the dead leaves of autumn, whispering in tune with the lost dreams that still flicker in and out among the trees.
You cry again. Then you square your shoulders, set your chin, and rise to your feet.
And the stars and moon rise on your tear-streaked face. With their nods of empathy, they remind you that they have watched over countless other dream funerals and dream losings and that this too will pass. The world will keep turning. You might find a new dream. You might find new hope. Perhaps the sun will eventually rise again. Or perhaps many of the months and years ahead will remain cloudy.
But whatever happens, you will survive. You are strong enough, and you will survive this death too.
There are the people whose presence you miss intensely, those whose return you can hardly wait for, the people you find yourself noticing the absence of at random minutes all through the day. And when they return, you’re overjoyed, you welcome them back with crushing hugs and can hardly wait to do things with them again and want to hang out for two or three solid days even if you are an introvert.
Does absence make the heart grow fonder? you ask the void, quietly and curiously at times, boisterously and jokingly at others, not really expecting an answer either time.
Does it?
Yes. Sometimes.
But sometimes...no.
Because then there are the people who leave for a little while, and a few days later you realize with a jolt that you don’t miss them as much as you thought you did. And then you start thinking about it, and the more you think, the more you realize that deep down, you don’t feel the way you thought you did about them. You begin to understand that they have become appliqués on the fabric of you, that no longer are they threads within the design of your life. You smile, perhaps sadly for what you had, perhaps with relief, perhaps bittersweetly, perhaps - very rarely - with the satisfaction of closing a good chapter.
Does absence make the heart grow fonder? you ask the void, laughter covering startlement or wistful searching, half worried about the answer you will receive.
No. Sometimes it does not. Sometimes it makes you realize that someone does not hold the same place in your life as they used to.
Does my absence make their heart grow fonder? you ask next. Would they miss me if I left? Would they want me back?
Sometimes you learn to your joy that they did. Other times, you learn they did not...sometimes to your relief and sometimes to your sadness.
And sometimes you never know. You never learn that answer and you must go on as you have, the question always niggling at you if you cannot or do not let go and leave it behind you.
Does my absence make their heart grow fonder?
If you love them, may it be so. May you never know the tearing flame that is you missing someone more in their absence and them missing you less in yours.
Does my absence make their heart grow fonder? you ask, your heart keening desperation that cannot be expressed in words in that moment, silent screaming to understand who and what you truly are to the people in your life.
Can or should I leave to try it out? Would I come back to discover that I was missed? Or would I come back to find that my going and returning was barely a ripple in the breeze? Dare I make the experiment? Is it fair to those who say they love me and would miss me? Is it fair to test anyone like that?
But if it brought me truth, even the bitter black lonely truth of not being missed, shouldn’t I find out, if I can? In the pursuit of truth, is there anything I should not do?
Stop thinking for a moment, the void whispers back at last. Just be. Clear your mind of people and remind yourself that you were thought wonderful enough to be given life by a master weaver. Hold to that for a moment.
And then another moment.
And then one more.
Does absence make the heart grow fonder?
Perhaps.
But the one thing it does always bring is the reminder of how keenly alive you are, how deeply you feel, how vast and complex and complicated the great dance of life will always be as it spins and swirls under the vast expanse of the starry heaven above.
May you shape that reminder to taste like starlight and not ashes.
I feel like we all need to have a talk fandom, because some of the shit I’ve seen is so far past, “hey, that’s not okay” that it’s frankly ridiculous we have to deal with it at all.
Now for as much as the fandom has honestly made me shake my head in bewilderment I love this show. And, I’m not disillusioned as to what show I’m watching. This isn’t Glee, this is Hamlet on motocycles, no, seriously, it is. And, if you ever forget that, which I don’t understand since it frequently smacks me in the face then you need to step back.
There are certain things in the 1% subculture that are not okay to society as a whole, that’s why they’re a subculture. Woman are objects, drugs are the norm, and violence is the go to answer regarding conflicts. John Teller said, “I realize that in my downward spiral of hopelessness that I was actually falling into the huge hole created by my absence of basic human graces. The most obvious was forgiveness. If I was wronged by anyone, in or out of the club, I had to be compensated: money or blood. There was no turning the other cheek. When relationships become a leger of profit and loss, you have no friends, no loved ones, just pluses and minuses, you are absolutely alone.”
This passage is as telling into the show as almost anything I’ve witnessed because you can’t just let things go, letting things go make you look weak, weakness is dangerous, which is why any and all threats are taken seriously. Wendy threatening to take Abel away, regardless of whether or not she had any proof was not something that Jax was going to let happen. As much as Jax’s decision to destroy Wendy’s life was about protecting his family, it was also a political maneuver. If it was found out that an outsider threatened a National President, the entire patch looks weak, that just can’t happen. Losing face in this particular subculture is deadly.
However, Jax isn’t the victim in this scenario. The loss of Opie, hit him hard and I’m not denying that. Opie was his brother in all but blood, even before they were in the same club. Opie was the only one who had the ability to check Jax and make him listen to reason, without Opie, Jax is left to spiral, but he is by no means powerless.
Jackson Teller does not need a hug, he does not need someone to be his shoulder to cry on. And, for as much as Charlie Hunnam is attractive, which I mean god damn I’d climb him like a tree, that doesn’t mean I excuse his behavior. His looks don’t hide the fact that behind the pretty boy appearance, his is outlaw. You can sympathize with a character without excusing their actions and that is something that people seem not to realize.
When Jax beat up Ima last season, people were relatively happy with it. He’s protecting his family. He’s putting a whore in her place. Yes, to both those things but what happened with Ima was so much more. Ima is the woman he used to push Tara away, and as much as he can blame himself for his actions, it’s always easier to blame another so he scapegoated Ima. Not that Ima is without fault, either, because I’m not saying that. It’s just curious to me that while what Jax did to Ima is brushed away, what he did to Wendy is not.
Not that they are all similar because I’d much rather be punched in the face then knocked off the wagon completely, because that’s going to destroy Wendy’s life, make no if, and’s or buts about it. Those that are arguing that he could’ve killed her, have a point, I thought he was going to. But, injecting crank into someone fully sober could kill them, no? I mean the needle looked rather full to me.
Those surprised by Jax’s reaction with Wendy, should see that what happened to Ima was not a one time thing. Jax is capable of complete brutality, the kind of rage that will destroy anything and everything that lies in it’s path. We’ve seen that rage before, we’ve seen it directed inwards and outwards and it’s fucking biblical. That does not give him license to knock someone who’s a former junkie full of their drug of choice, just to destroy any chance of credibility she has. That’s disgusting and the fact he’s being excused for it, boggles my mind.
And, those who think Jax's love for Tara will save her from his wrath are woefully fooling themselves. Old ladies are property, if she up and moves and takes Thomas and Abel with her, nothing is going to save her. As an old lady, she has certain perks that go with the title of Queen, however, at the end of the day she's just an old lady, a woman without a patch, subservient, seen not heart, etc. It's something that's only been hinted at but Jax has said it, well, screamed it at Tara, "You want to be an old lady? Then act like one! Do as you're told!"
Yes, Sons of Anarchy is a TV show but the reactions people feel are real, the revulsion I felt watching that last scene was real. Charlie Hunnam is attractive, just like Tom Hiddleston is attractive, but that doesn’t mean that the characters that they play just need a hug. Because like Loki, Jax Teller does not need or desire your compassion.
I mean, they jumped head-first into Kurt and Rachel's future in the very first episode last season, while this season it was the Extreme Glorification of Rachel Berry's Legacy with everyone cat-fighting because they wanna be just like her omg~!!
And even last season, the only ones who had long-arc future storylines to any degree were Rachel, Kurt and maybe Finn. Everyone else's future was either given one episode's worth or just dismissed with two lines.
And within those three, Kurt was just Rachel's accessory best gay and Finn's storyline came right back round to base zero since he neither got anywhere nor did anything nor even figured out what he wants, and was pretty much just to compliment~ the Finchel.
So basically just Rachel tbh. And people ask me why I resent her.
So I genuinely wonder if we'll get a future storyline for Blaine. Where he figures out a college, goes through the ups and downs of choosing and applying, angsts over acceptance or rejection... So far there hasn't even been a mention of senior year storylines except for the president thing, but we havent heard if its FOR college, we just know he's running. And on the show, there was the propping of rachel's legacy~, introduction of finchel-puckelberry-fuinn 2.0 (and as boring as ever) and most of the others continuing to play side-characters/being manipulated to prop up the above. So really... a proper long arc storyline? I wonder... Well one can hope I guess but I certainly wont hold my breath.
