"Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates."
One of the most popular subjects among TaleSpinners to muse over is the mystery of Kit Cloudkicker's past. How was he orphaned? Who were his parents and did he know them? Who has he met, what has he done, and how did he wind up where he is? If you were to search for these answers in the series, you would probably be disappointed in your discoveries, because the series simply never addressed the details of Kit's history.
Most of what we know includes:
- He is an orphan.
- A lousy speller, but he can read and write on the grade-school level (in other words, he has had some kind of formal education)
- Knows his manners.
- He has an extensive knowledge of aircraft. Flying is an obsession. (in case anyone didn't know)
- He has been in 200+ planes and has taxied before.
- Prior to meeting Baloo, he had been an air pirate for a year.
That's not a lot of information to work with, is it? "Off-screen," TaleSpin co-creator Jymn Magon has implied that Kit was homeless well before he joined the Air Pirates, but that hardly narrows things down.
Regardless of all the unknown details about his past, I think most TaleSpin viewers would agree that the most significant part of Kit's life was when he met Baloo, and the events that followed immediately thereafter. I, however, respectfully disagree. I believe that the most significant part of Kit's life was about a year prior to his encounter with Baloo, when he joined the Air Pirates.
Now, when one poses the question, "How did Kit join the Air Pirates?" I'm in a predicament to answer them, because I didn't see it happen! It's a moot point, however, because it's not the how that makes it significant… it's the why. Why did Kit decide what he did about being a pirate?
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"Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates." |
From that bit of information, we can deduct the following points of consideration: Kit likes to be where the planes are; he'll tend to befriend those who share a like interest in flying, and especially, those who might give him a shot at flying. Life as an air pirate actually fulfills all of these. The Iron Vulture itself is a flying aircraft carrier chock full of planes; certainly the pirates have a number of members who have a like passion for aviation. Plus, under the mentoring of Don Karnage, Kit would have inevitably learned how to fly once he was sufficiently old (or big) enough.
Being homeless, Kit would have a need for food and shelter, which the pirates obviously provided. Some might be inclined to believe that food and shelter—just getting himself off the streets—are the only reasons he ever joined the pirates, but as discussed in the K&K Theory and this editorial, that's not at all true. In fact, I'm willing to bet that if the reasons Kit was an air pirate were prioritized, food and shelter would be bottoming the list.
From all we've seen of Kit on the series, we know these two definite things about his character… he has adventure in his blood, and he is very independent, at times defiant to authority (but not malignantly). He's a good kid, mature in his own right, but not afraid to take charge of his own life. Well, the very nature of being an air pirate means one adventure after another, and as a whole, the pirates have no authority to answer to. Adventure and freedom… right up Kit's alley.
Food, shelter, planes, adventure, freedom… these are all excellent reasons of why Kit was a pirate, but they don't entirely satisfy the question.
Consider if you will why Kit stays at Higher For Hire. Certainly, minus a small ding on his personal freedoms, he has all those things listed above, but none of those are reasons that really keep him there. There's only one thing that takes precedence over all other reasons why Kit chooses to live where he does… the friendship!
This reason has to extend to why he stayed with the pirates for as long as he did, unless you think that Kit holed himself up for an entire year and avoided any and all social contact with another soul. If Kit were to seclude himself from the other pirates for that long of time, without any friendships, or at least acquaintances, it would have had a profoundly negative impact on his social healthiness by the time Plunder & Lightning came around. Yet, you can plainly see in P&L, his social abilities are quite healthy. (Note that this is not an implication on whether Kit is shy or outgoing, but that there is nothing noticeably awkward or abnormal about his sociality, as one would expect if he had just spent a year surrounded with people he could not fit in with.)
One obvious question would arise, "Okay, then what pirates did he befriend?" I really don't know. There are about forty pirates, and certainly the series did not delve into the personalities of each and every one of them, that we may determine which ones were likely "Kit-friendly" and which weren't. We can be assured Mad Dog and Dumptruck weren't, but they only represent roughly 5% of the crew.
However, I can say with utmost certainty at least one pirate he befriended, Captain Karnage. This is where the rubber meets the road, and ultimately, it's the answer to the question. Don Karnage is the why behind Kit's life as an air pirate.
I know the validity of a friendship between Kit and Karnage has been questioned… that being, frankly put, how can a good guy like Kit get along with a bad guy like Karnage? As if it'd be like Batman getting along with the Joker.
Kit is a good kid. He's conscientious, respectful, has a remarkably big heart, and anyone would truly be blessed to have a son like him. Should it seem then, that being an air pirate would be the last thing he would ever be? On the surface, this might seem like an irreconcilable contradiction, but it can't be, because we know for fact that he was an air pirate!
I believe one of the biggest misconceptions of Kit's history is that during the time he was a pirate, he put on a completely different, darker personality. I refute that idea because the proof is in the pudding… if he had such a personality that so contrasted what we saw of him in the series, it would have been impossible for him to suddenly turn around one-eighty degrees and all the sudden acquire a great heart. Think about how much time elapsed in P&L between Kit's departure from the Iron Vulture and the first time you noticed he was a "good kid." It was probably only a few minutes, when several weeks to months would realistically begin to be enough time for someone to turn their personality around so.
Now, there's no doubt that in the early parts of P&L, Kit put on a "tough-guy" façade in front of Baloo. This might lead some to believe that he put on the exact same act with the pirates while he was with them. There's something wrong with that, though.
As established, he had to have had social interaction with the other pirates. If that interaction was at the cost of him having to constantly put on a tough-guy act around them, and he did this for an entire year, he would not have been able to drop it so quickly and easily as he did after he met Baloo. It would have been too much of a habit, by far. Also notice that he only used it a few times with Baloo, that it wasn't a constant thing for him to do.
Therefore, it would be a more reasonable conjecture that Kit picks and chooses when he uses his tough-guy act. I wouldn't doubt he used it here and there with the pirates under particular circumstances, but notably, he uses it around people he doesn't know that well… or rather, people that don't know him that well. Likewise, it should also be said that during his life as a pirate, this boy's ability to just be himself was not infringed upon.
My meager point is that the Kit you saw on the series, the kid with a big heart and robust desire to enjoy life, was the same Kit who was an air pirate beforehand. This is probably easier to validate if you consider that Kit clicked very well with the pirate life, such as this example noted in the K&K Theory editorial:
Second Quarter: (Plunder & Lightning) |
Based on such information, I dismiss the notion that it is in any way out of character for Kit to be a pirate. To further my point, consider once more the previously listed aspects of what pirate life offered him: food, shelter, planes, adventure, freedom, and yes, friendship. You could even throw in a career if you wanted. Do you notice that those listed aspects are strikingly similar to what he has at Higher For Hire? It's not a coincidence. Though Higher For Hire offered Kit more family-like affection, it's really no more out of character for him to want to be Karnage's protégé than to be Baloo's navigator.
Was Kit cared for as a pirate? Well, again, it's a tough question to answer because the series didn't explore his days onboard the Iron Vulture. Still, I would answer with a confident yes.
As mentioned before, Kit was homeless before he met Karnage. Now, think about it… a homeless orphan, younger than ten years old, out there trying to make it on his own. Let alone how almost impossible it would be for a child in such a predicament to get by today, but since TaleSpin takes place circa 1937, we're looking at Kit scratching to survive on the streets during the mid 1930s! Needless to say, Kit had it tough. Very tough. Judging by the number of planes (200+) he has been in, he has traveled a lot, inevitably winding up in places he wished he was far away from. With nothing or no one to depend on for protection against the world, can you imagine what nasty places and ugly—even painful—situations he's been in? Can you imagine all the disgusting creeps and perverts out on the same streets that would have loved to take advantage of a little boy? Where or who could he have gone to when he was sick? How could he have kept healthy?
We really don't know the extent of what Kit's been through, but I think we can conclude it wasn't anything we'd like to experience. Yet, you'll notice something… right from the start, the Kit we see in the series is lighthearted, affectionate, perfectly healthy, not a scratch on his body, and completely undaunted from living life to it's fullest. In other words, he realistically shows nothing of having to live as a homeless orphan or dealing through the physical and emotional grief that kind of lifestyle would mandate.
There's only one way to account for this. You see, though we know little of Kit's past, the one thing we do know for sure is that there was a bridge between his homeless life and Higher For Hire, that bridge being the Air Pirates.
This is proof positive that Kit was nurtured as a pirate. By the reasons discussed above and in the K&K Theory editorial, we can be quite certain that Don Karnage was the one responsible for that nurturing. Without it, Kit may have been able to keep physically clean and healthy, but mentally and/or emotionally, he would have been a kid with major issues. Those issues certainly would have carried over into P&L, and would have significantly hindered the odds that Kit and Baloo would befriend one another. You think Baloo would have just welcomed the responsibility of taking care of an eleven-year-old emotionally unstable basket case? The big lug wouldn't welcome the responsibility of taking care of a geranium, let alone a child who needed special care and counseling.
Not that I am implying Kit was emotionally unstable when he came across Karnage, or at any point in his life for that matter, but if you take all the tough and lonely times he had already gone through, and add to that another year of neglect, solitude, and internal conflict, there's simply no way to explain how he was able to keep from being unstable, untrusting, and cold to affection.
In fact, if it hadn't been for Karnage's friendship and positive touch on the boy, Kit's friendship with Baloo would have never existed, and TaleSpin as we know it on the series would have never been. (…unless, of course, the writers thought of something else, but fortunately, they didn't. Good for them. ;-)
They were mentor and protégé, and for all intents and purposes, they were the closest thing to father and son either one had.
Why then did Kit get "sick of 'em"? Why, by the time of P&L, did they despise each other so? Why did Kit, a loyal person to those he's grateful to, turn into a Benedict Bearcub and run away with Karnage's treasured stone? Well, we don't know. It could have been something as trivial as a single disagreement. It happens, even when people genuinely care about each other. Look at the absurd divorce rates in America today… many people just aren't willing to reconcile, and even the littlest thing can turn into the most bitter resentment.
I think the two were very immature in realizing what their father-son relationship had for them. Kit finally had a father-figure, albeit far from a normal one, but considering nothing much else about Kit's life can well be classified as "normal" anyway, it's a agreeable fit for him. He had someone that would teach him, take interest in him, and concern that he was well and happy. Plus, I wouldn't be surprised if Kit found himself scrubbing floors or scraping barnacles a few times for stepping out of line; he certainly didn't learn about being accountable to authority from being a do-as-you-please street rat.
I also think of the moment when Baloo once asked Kit if 'his dad was a pirate'. Remember how it set Kit off? It was sort of like the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, and it drove him to an uncharacteristic angry, emotional outburst. It was a question that cut a little too deep into how Kit looked up to his former Captain, and moreover, touched at the anguish left in his heart from it ending.
As for Karnage, he finally had someone around whom he could trust, share his wonderful life with, and know he wouldn't be totally alone in the world. After all, being the boss, it was his decision whether or not to take Kit under his wing… and pirate captains just don't go around hiring ten-year-olds! Look, the logic speaks for itself. He didn't take Kit in because he felt the need to have an extra mouth to feed, or because he wanted a little squirt to pester him about flying lessons every twenty minutes. He didn't take Kit in because he suddenly wanted a spare ten-year-old around who could offer him neither muscle, flying, or fighting ability. He didn't even take Kit in because he was thinking years in advance when he would need a proper protégé to take over the reign of air piracy when the time was right. Karnage took Kit in because he needed someone to look up to him, and even, to love him.
I suppose one could question, given Karnage's egocentric personality, how much love he was ready to give back… but one thing for sure is, his loss turned into Baloo's gain. "That boy of Baloo's is less than something to me," Karnage said in Captain's Outrageous; an interesting choice of words. Gee Captain, we're not bitter over anything, are we?
But, I digress. It's all a number of thoughts that point to one simple conclusion, that a lot was lost between Kit and Karnage, both in what was and what could have been. But at least, for it to have been lost, it had to exist once before. As far as I'm concerned, there's no better reason why Kit was a pirate.