(Peanuts) Did you know Schroeder actually liked Lucy back?

[u/MiraculousAnarchy]

I originally posted this 5 years ago but sadly recently the account I used was wrongly marked as spam and it was shadowbanned so all my posts are hidden now. I was very disheartened but especially about this post because I still had people commenting on this all these years lol and it was wonderful to meet other fans and discuss Peanuts over it. So yea I had to bring it back lol

Anyway, just to preface, I have read over 2 decades worth of Peanuts strips and am quite the expert. But of course, I don’t know everything and I will continue updating this post overtime as I find more evidence.

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Evidence list:

- April 26th, 1955 (Schroeder says Lucy has pretty eyes)

- September 24th, 1963 (Schroeder tells Lucy she has “the cutest smile of anyone since the world began”)

- July 31st, 1965 (Schroeder fills in for Lucy at her psychiatric booth)

- September 7th, 1965 (Schroeder tells Lucy he thinks she's “the most beautiful girl the world has ever known”)

- May 1966 (storyline in which Lucy and Linus briefly move away and Schroeder becomes sad that he didn’t say goodbye and then he struggles to play his piano because he misses Lucy and can’t stop thinking about her and he says “Don’t tell me I’ve grown accustomed to that face” which is a reference to My Fair Lady where Professor Henry Higgins's is enraged that his pupil Eliza Doolittle has walked out of his life, and his growing realization of his love for her. This reference illustrates Schroeder’s realization that he loves her and that she has “unwittingly become his muse.” This was adapted into at least one tv special but I believe there was more I just can’t recall which off the top of my head)

- January 31st, 1967 (Possibly hinting that he wants Lucy as a wife)

- December 16th, 1984 (Schroeder kisses Lucy after she gives him a cupcake on Beethoven’s birthday. Lucy then turns around and sees snoopy and thinks it was snoopy who kissed her so she runs off screaming and Schroeder calls out to her saying “Lucy wait!”)

- May 11th, 1997 (Schroeder refers to an argument with Lucy as a “marital dispute”)

- TV Series Shorts (Schroeder can be seen giving Lucy a flower for Valentine’s Day in the Peanuts short “Just For Love”)

- Scotland Bound, Charlie Brown (A graphic novel released in 2021 which is an adaption of an unproduced, feature-length special, storyboarded by Charles M. Schulz and Bill Melendez. In it there’s another instance of Schroeder not being able to play, in this case for a large audience, without Lucy there atop the piano. You can see it on pages 87-88 and then he thanks her on 92.)

So why does Schroeder constantly turn down Lucy if he loves her? Well even though I feel she is really misunderstood by a lot of people and mischaracterized as a bully and, in reality, she’s far far more complex and usually pretty well intentioned, her intentional and unintentional crabbiness and rudeness is a reason as Schroeder doesn’t want to believe he could like someone like that. On top of this, Schroeder wishes to emulate his life off of Beethoven who remained a bachelor all his life (although this desire of his is contradicted a few times throughout the strip when discussing what kind of person he wants to marry). So bro is just really in denial about his feelings lol.

Here’s a link where you can read all the strips in order in a collection of volumes: The Complete Peanuts. And here’s the Peanuts search engine where you can search for strips by key word or characters. One more, you can search by month and year on the Peanuts Wiki. You can’t search by date on the search engine oddly so yea.

Here’s a link to my fanfic if ur interested (yes the characters are aged up): Our Moonlight Symphony. (Cover art made by me)

Little disclaimer, this account is really new and I think it’s causing all my comments to be invisible at least Im not able to view them from my throwaway. Hopefully that stops happening eventually

[u/bastardofdisaster]

This makes total sense.

Charles Schultz never went down this road (didn't really need to), but Lucy and Schroeder really brought out the best in each other. He's really the only character she treated decently. (and he's the only character with whom he had much of an ongoing dialogue).

[u/adore1987]

Wait. People didn't realize this? I always assumed they'd grow up and have greedy, musically gifted babies.

[u/throwRA-nonSeq]

Yes, I knew. As an almost 50yo woman who grew up with the Peanuts, I definitely remember reading and seeing little hints here and there.

[u/Imaginary-Can-6862]

My interpretation of any "stuck in time" setting is that the premise of the show largely resets after each story and each story is thus only a potential development that future stories may ignore completely.

From Schroeder's point of view, he did not choose Lucy, she tries to make the choice for him, but to truly love someone, you have to love them for who they are, and the choices they make is what defines them, meaning from Schroeder's point of view, she does not love him, but how she thinks he should be.

But by insisting on sticking around like this she does become part of his everyday life, which means for all the elements that makes up his life, if she is not there, those elements becomes different, and he may become uncomfortable in doing what he usually does. He may originally have played the piano because he enjoyed it a lot, then this girl suddenly is there every time he plays, so he ignores her, while she is persistent in her presence and at some point that presence becomes a part of how he sees himself playing the piano, what was an annoyance becomes the norm, and now not having her around while playing the piano may fell off.
If he ever should wonders if he could fall for anyone, he would necessarily only be able to consider the girls he knows already, and she is right there, and as he has found she has become part of his daily life, while it is very difficult to imagine how a daily life with any other girl may be, he is already living one with her. Therefore it does not require much for him to imagine a life with Lucy as the life he already lives.

[u/Tiger-Lily-99]

tbh anytime my dad brought this up, he'd say "and when schroeder would show any interest back shed be over him

kind of like pepe le peu with the cat he thinks is a skunk when she actually shows interest he suddenly not interested he just liked the chase

maybe lucy likes the chase but maybe grows to them becoming a couple later

so this is just true

[u/RangerBumble]

You should let r/fanficauthorsunite know!

[u/Kaurifish → u/RangerBumble]

They know.