The Ladder Theory (of Daria and Quinn)
Originally posted to alt.tv.daria on December 14th, 1998
                                           
Think of a ladder with five rungs. The ladder represents five possible interactions between the natural beauty and intelligence of an individual as follows:


|                                                               |
|                                                               |
| total domination of natural intelligence       |
|                                                               |
|                                                               |
|dominance of intelligence, some beauty    |
|                                                               |
|                                                               |
|harmony between intelligence and beauty |
|                                                              |
|                                                              |
|dominance of beauty, some intelligence   |
|                                                              |
|                                                              |
|total domination of natural beauty            |
|                                                              |
|                                                              |

           If this ladder represents all of the possible combinations of natural beauty and natural intelligence that can be present at the birth of any individual, then the Ladder Theory holds that Daria would reside on the rung second from the top and Quinn would reside on the rung second from the bottom. Daria openly exhibits and makes the most use of her intelligence, while her natural beauty is almost neglected. This is not to say that she has no natural beauty, but her position on the ladder would suggest that she tends to hide her beauty to promote her intelligence. In general, Quinn does the same thing as Daria, but she flaunts her beauty at the expense of her natural intelligence.

           This theory came about through reflections and observations made while watching episode #203 (Quinn The Brain). Basically, Quinn finds her natural intelligence in this episode after her one good essay gets some press in the school paper for being thoughtful. As we all know, she does take it too far for a while to upset Daria but in the end, her ladder position takes over and she reverts back to that way of being. Daria, on the other hand, has a slightly different situation; she is more comfortable with her intelligent side. This is the reason why she was unable to go through with her idea of being like Quinn until it was the only option that was left to her. Both Daria and Quinn are capable of drastically changing their position on the ladder temporarily. Quinn's braininess led her to act more like she was on Daria's rung. Daria's plan to resolve her problem with Quinn pushed her onto the middle rung, since she used her beauty in an elaborate plan to push the reset button on the episode (her actions reset all circumstances to the way they were before the episode). These quick drastic changes are most likely to dissipate after a relatively short period of time because they are volatile. However, long- term changes are also possible if they happen more gradually. Anyone can operate at any level at any time, but they will always have a dominate (or default) rung that will dictate how they act in everyday situations.

         This theory is not intended to make any comment as to how smart or beautiful Daria or Quinn is, it only is meant to suggest how the use their natural gifts of beauty and intelligence. Its assumed that they both have some natural beauty and intelligence. Also, there is nothing about any rung on the ladder that makes it better than any other rung. Each one is meant to give a possible way that an individual can choose to portray their own natural beauty and intelligence to others.

Copyright © Mike Quinn and Toonscape, Inc., 2000.
Daria and all related characters are © 1998 MTV Networks, Inc.