Lisa Simpson

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[Archonix]

Thread created for Fionn to start a reference for Lisa Simpson

[Fionn]

*Takes swig of whiskey, sighs* Okay, here goes!

Lisa Simpson is a popular character for fanfics, as we nerdy types seem to relate to her.

Age: eight.  remember, she may be genius, but she's still a kid.

Lisa's Character Traits


Intellect  Lisa's most obvious gift is her intelligence. From biology to history to useless statistics (mankind will eventually have five fingers) Lisa is the most learned individual of the Simpsons household.  She is also the most logical: when she tells Homer about having a nightmare about a bogeyman being in the house, she admits that such a thing seems ridiculous-meanwhile, Homer freaks out and orders Bart to board the windows while he gets the gun ("$pringfield, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling").  Lisa is often the voice of reason, generally to Bart or Homer, the most impulsive members of the family.  Lisa also exhibits linguistic skills, learning Italian ("Last of the Red Hat Momma's) and speaking some French ("The President Wore Pearls", "Barting Over").

Music  Lisa is also musically talented, and, as I'd hope we'd all know, plays the saxophone with great proficiency.  Though naturally talented, she practices, as any artist does("Lisa's Rival").  Her favorite musical genre in jazz, and Bleeding Gums Murphey, her hero, had a direct influence on her continuing her musical pursuits.  In addition to the sax, Lisa plays guitar ("Last Exit to Springfield") and piano ("Miracle on Evergreen Terrace"). 

Jazz means a lot to Lisa.  Her favorite song (as mentioned in "Lisa the Greek") is "Broken Neck Blues" and her favorite album in Miles Davis' "Birth of the Cool" (another album she loves is Bleeding Gums Murphey's "Sax on the Beach").  Tito Puente is one of her favorite artists, along with the afore mentioned Miles Davis and Bleeding Gums.  Brush up on jazz music and musicians, as well as episodes "Moaning Lisa", "'Round Springfield", "The Dad Who Knew Too Little", and the recent "Jazzy and the Pussy Cats" for a good overview of Lisa's musical preferences.

Lisa Lionheart  "L'il Agitator'.  Lisa has a very sharp sense of right and wrong.  Injustice, corruption, hypocrisy, and cruelty anger her greatly, and she is often the first to stand up and proclaim something to be wrong.  She sided with Homer and the Power Plant Union in "Last Exit to Springfield", stood up to big tobacco and college sports in "Lisa the Beauty Queen", to animal cruelty in "Lisa the Vegetarian", junk food being pushed on kids in "The Heartbroke Kid", sexism in children's toys in "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy", and corporate intrusion in religion in "She of Little Faith". 

Lisa's attitudes and compaigning for a better world often put her at odds with the rest of Sprinfield and the world, either because they're all too stupid/ignorant (Homer, most of Springfield, Ralph: "Doing what the machine says is fun"), disagree with her morals (Rev. Lovejoy fits in that category), or would lose money or power if she had her way (Mr. Burns, Laramie Cigarette company in "Lisa the Beauty Queen"). 

In fact, Lisa's sense of "rightness" has lead to the two developments that sepparate her from her family: her becomming a vegetarian, and her conversion to Buddhism. Both of these should be considered permanent, set parts of her character, especially the vegetarianism, (they mentioned in the commentaries that Paul McCartney only did that ep because they assured him her change to vegetarian was going to be permanent).

Body Image  Though an intellectually precocious and ectremely logical girl, Lisa is still an eight-year-old American girl, and is not immune to the trials that come with that.  One problem that Lisa has faced twice thus far is her body image.  In "Lisa the Beauty Queen", she becomes horribly depressed after she becomes convinced that she is ugly.  More recently, Lisa's become obsessed with her weight in "Sleeping with the Enemy".  Each time, the crisis seems to have originated not inside Lisa, but with someone else commenting or making fun of her, and each time Lisa is likewise helped out of the crisis by someone else (so far, Homer and Nelson).  Remember this is planning to include such an issue for Lisa in a story.

That's part one.  Part two will be her relations with other characters.

[Fionn]

Lisa's Relationships

Homer  Lisa and her father both love each other very much, but have very different levels of intelligence and personalities which results in much conflict.  Homer very much considers himself a good parent, despite his general ineptitude and forgetfulness.  Lisa and Homer have found themselves at odds over such things as her vegetarianism ("Lisa the Vegetarian"), and Homer is generally annoyed by her practising her saxophone.  However, we see Homer missing the sound of her saxophone when she is taken away by Child Welfare, for even though it annoyed him, it was part of someone he loved("Saxa-ma-phone!  Saxa-ma-phone!"). 

Homer's low intelligence and general mental defectiveness often annoys the more intelligent and clear-minded Lisa.  In "The Dad Who Knew Too Little" we see that, while he does care about Lisa and desperately wants to be a good father, he just doesn't know anything about her.  In "Blame it on Lisa", he chides her for being vegetarian on vacation ("I'm not wearing my wedding ring!"), not because he's being an insensitive dolt, but because he views it as a burden and/or obligation that needn't be followed on vacation.  Lisa, however, views her vegetarianism as a moral obligation, as the consumption of meat is tantamount to murder or cannibalism, and would be hard pressed to eat meat even to save her own life. 

We've seen brief improvements in Lisa and Homer's getting along in "The Dad Who Knew Too Little" and "HOMR".  Both incidents are based on Homer somehow becoming more intelligent: In "HOMR", the crayon jammed into Homer's frontal lobe is removed, upping his IQ considerably.  He and Lisa get along much better, but Homer becomes unsettled by the world around him.  Quite simply, ignorance is bliss, and while Lisa embraces her genius, even though it may isolate her from the rest of the world, Homer can't take it, and re-dumbens himself.  In "The Dad Who Knew Too Little", the report of Lisa that Homer gets allows him to know all that he should know about his daughter, and enables him to be a better dad.  Again, this is not without its costs, in this case, a crooked PI going after Homer and Lisa.

Simply put, the two love each other very much, but intelligence and preferences cause conflict between them.

Marge  Lisa very much loves her mom.  She's very much like Lisa, only Lisa is more vocal with her observations and moral objections, while Marge is more likely to murmur disquietedly while Homer cooks up another crazy scheme or Bart plots some mischief.  Marge is often behind Lisa and supports her ambitions, as in "Girls Just Wanna Have Sums" and "Moaning Lisa".  Marge, however, having been raised in an era less encouraging of girls' success, and being older and thus, having lived through more heartbreaks and disappointments, she tends to be a little more bitter and conservative in outlook, as she initially is in "Moaning Lisa", and is in "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy" and "Lisa's Rival".  Marge is both a role model and a symbol of the oppression of the older generation t Lisa, and though their relationship is not as contentious, they occassionally are at odds on issues, though they rarely quarrel.

Bart  Bart and Lisa's relationship is possibly even more contentious than Lisa and Homer’s.  Bart and Lisa are very close age-wise, which means that they are the right age to be able to get along as friends-which they sometimes do.  More often we see the conflict produced by their wildly different personalities.  Bart is very much the polar opposite of Lisa: reckless, antiauthoritarian, impulsive, and lazy.  While Lisa works hard for her grades, Bart is more one to play tricks on the teacher and create general chaos.  Both have a desire to be at the center of attention, but employ different means; Lisa works hard and develops her artistic skills, while Bart, perpetual underachiever, seeks attention but breaking the rules and generally acting up.  As a result, Bart gets the negative attention, and Lisa gets the praise.  Bart is not usually envious of the positive attention his sister gets, but can become jealous or angry with her when she upstages him, as seen in “My Sister, My Sitter”. 

Bart does very much love his sister.  A good example is in “Round Springfield”, in which he uses his settlement money to buy her Bleeding Gums Murphey album. 

Maggie  We see very little actually interaction between Maggie and her younger sister.  We know that she is very proud of having a sister, as seen in “Bart vs. Thanksgiving”, and wants her to succeed, even to the point of subconscious cheating in “Smart and Smarterer”.  She is glad that her sister is intelligent, but becomes jealous when it seems that she is smarter than her, and thus, likely to upstage her.  She even hides her saxophone talent at the end of “Smart and Smarterer” (“Not for babies”). 

Maggie’s personality, though not as developed as other characters in the family, seems to be more like Bart’s thatn Lisa’s: wild, mischievous, impulsive.  That and her apparent genius make possible conflict between the two girls very likely.

[Dracula]

Nice job here