Dragphu | #1 Singed Truther

WARNING: The following analysis includes references to child neglect & the mistreatment of children in the foster care system, which may be especially upsetting for some. I also will be alternating between characters’ legal names and their respective villain aliases throughout this analysis. (Malcolm/The Monarch, Sheila/Dr. Girlfriend, etc.)

Reader discretion is advised.

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We all know that The Monarch was orphaned following the plane crash that took his parents’ lives. He was “adopted” by a colony of monarch butterflies living in the New Jersey Pine Barrens but, after their migration south, he headed back to the city and was able to claim his inheritance. However, with his butterfly brethren being the only foster family he talks about in present day…does that imply that nobody cared to adopt little Malcolm, even with the possibility of eventually having access to a massive influx of wealth?

It didn’t seem that the Fitzcarraldo family had butlers or nannies or anything of the sort. If so, you’d think The Monarch would’ve mentioned them or that the series would’ve at least alluded to their existence. This is shown to not be the case, as their absence is quite evident from the way the Fitzcarraldo house had been abandoned for decades and was in shambles by the time Malcolm, Sheila, and Gary move into it.

Dr. Girlfriend directly states The Monarch was raised in that house, but seeing as how he never mentioned any other foster parents or, at the very least, loving parental figures in the wake of his parents’ deaths and migration of the monarchs…well, it sparked some inquiries for me.

Why wouldn’t Malcolm have simply stayed in his parents’ house following their death? And if he didn’t want to have the house anymore, why wouldn’t he simply sell it for more money instead of letting it fall into such disarray? Why wasn’t he taken in by his closest living relatives or somebody else his parents could entrust him with (ex. Jonas Venture Sr.) in the event of their untimely demise?

All of these unanswered questions led to me developing a theory, which inspired me to write this post in the first place:

Malcolm “The Monarch” Fitzcarraldo was left in the state’s care after his parents’ death but aged out of the foster care system due to nobody wanting to adopt him, which left him with an unshakable bitterness towards the world and a strong sense of hatred towards himself to this day.

Think about it- a young, spoiled, likely neurodivergent boy with a genetically-ingrained predisposition for aggression who, on top of that, has severe trauma and difficulty connecting with others, is placed in an orphanage. The unfortunate truth is that a lot of kids like this- like Malcolm- are considered “problem children”.

Prospective foster / adoptive parents tend to be averse to dealing with “challenging” kids and are sometimes even outright discouraged by adoption agencies to veer away from certain children due to them being “disagreeable” or otherwise requiring too many needs to be cared for “properly”.

One could argue that The Monarch refused to go with anybody who did want to adopt him because his real foster parents- the monarch butterflies he considered his family- were still out there, and he was still waiting for them to come back for him. But, even so, don’t you think a truly loving set of parents who really wanted to take him in would be able to persuade him by saying he could stay with them while they waited for his butterfly foster parents to return?

With this in mind, the idea of The Monarch not having anybody in his life during the time period between his butterfly companions’ migration and his early adulthood doesn’t seem so farfetched. His behavior would likely isolate him from other kids and make him off-putting to adults, the likes of which would make any love-lacking and attention-starved child disillusioned with other people and the world as a whole. And it certainly would have made The Monarch’s years in whatever orphanage(s) he stayed in quite unpleasant and detrimental to his sense of self.

Sure, Malcolm acquired more money than most people will ever see in their lifetimes but, at the end of the day, he ultimately had nothing. Nobody. No amount of wealth could change the fact that he was an unwanted orphan child who knew he was unwanted. What made him so unworthy of love in the eyes of others? Why couldn’t he stop being so agitated and volatile all the time? Why did everybody he’d loved up to that point abandon him? Why did he have to keep having outbursts so terribly violent that he frightened other kids and made the adults cross with him? He couldn’t help it.

It goes without saying that feelings like these would be so big and overwhelming for a grieving little boy- a boy who’s scarred by his past, deeply lonesome, and just wants to be adored unconditionally by someone- to withstand.

So, what is a person to do when they have, for most of their life, been neglected and seen as nothing more than a burden by society?

It’s simple, really: you get a person who will do anything to be noticed, even if the attention they receive as a result is negative. You get a person who knows that what they’re doing is wrong but ultimately harbors no remorse over their actions because their goal is to be heard and seen, which is exactly the wish that’s fulfilled when they do those things. Why would they stop there? It’s not like they can go home, so why not go big?

They’ve already tried their best to be nice, to slice away all their sharp and unseemly edges and bare their bellies at the expense of their own well-being, as a means of satisfying others and hopefully receiving the love that they’ve craved for a lifetime.

But why be loved when you can be feared?

Why not be…a supervillain?

Thus, Malcolm slowly comes to accept himself as the rotten-to-the-core person everybody up to that point had made him out to be. Oh yes- he’d prove them all right and make them regret it for what little time they had left in their pitiful lives. He pursues the life of villainy, takes on his identity as The Monarch while serving as a henchman, eventually finds himself forging friendly relationships with other villains as time goes by…for the first time since The Summer of the Monarchs, Malcolm finally belonged to a group.

He’s not shunned, not viewed as a nuisance, and not disrespected for merely being himself. Why, he even meets the woman that ends up being his future wife as a result of taking the path of evil!

“I am not a good guy. Period.”

Being bad never felt so good.

And yet, despite it all, The Monarch is a deeply insecure man who loathes himself and, in his own words, is “lonely” and “unable to connect with real people.” He has a beautiful wife who loves him, riches out the rear, a doggedly loyal henchman/best friend, raw sexual prowess, a passion for his craft that oher villains admire, phenomenal improvisation skills, a ferociously confident air about him, and is powerful in his own right. He’s desirable! He’s respected! He’s loved!

So why is it that Malcolm is still…broken?

I imagine spending a whole decade being perpetually demonized by other children and cruelly punished by adults who are supposed to provide for you would make any man think pretty poorly of himself, even if it’s been over 20 years since he’s escaped from that life. He certainly isn’t going to heal from it overnight, and he certainly isn’t going to be “fixed” by the “power of love”. Having somebody who supports and adores you does help, sure, but it isn’t a cure-all and it should never be treated as such. It takes a lot of time to recover from a past like that and the healing process certainly isn’t going to be linear, especially when said treatment occurred during such a vital development phase for a person.

That being said, if The Monarch did spend those 10 years between his return to civilization and his early adulthood years being mistreated by others on account of behaviors stemming from his naturally-heightened aggression levels (which he can’t help) and probable trauma responses, it’s no wonder that he has such a strong hatred for literally everything. It’s no wonder that he spiraled so badly after his (temporary) breakup with Dr. Girlfriend because he spent so many years with her and had never been that vulnerable with another person before she came along. It’s no wonder that, under certain circumstances, he reacts in a way that is rather immature and irrational for a man of his age.

In other words, it tracks that Malcolm would have lowered emotional intelligence/regulation as a result of neglect from adults, isolation from kids his age, and lack of adoring parental figures in his youth.

I feel like Sheila knows how Malcolm used to be treated in depth and, as a result, tries her best to be patient and understanding with him. Maybe even more than he deserves sometimes. She knows he’s impulsive, short-tempered, stubborn, and utterly childish at times, but he’s also passionate and loving and ruthless and witty. Sheila loves Malcolm for who he truly is and, even though he really REALLY grinds her gears sometimes, he’s still her king butterfly at the end of the day. And she wouldn’t change him for the world.

“Can you do better than a man you adore and who really needs you?”

Anyways, all of this is to say that The Monarch was likely subjected to a very lonely and miserable rest of his childhood following his parents’ deaths, which only exacerbated his developing behavioral issues, made him hate himself and everybody else due to nobody willing to put in the effort to get close with him, and led to him adopting a dangerous, heavily antagonistic lifestyle.

I don’t believe Malcolm’s arrogance and confidence is a façade, though. It’s clear that he relishes in the path he’s carved out for himself. He has acquired a decent amount of self-love and heightened euphoria surrounding the person he’s become. It doesn’t exempt him from going through intense rough patches, though, and he finds himself sometimes falling back into those old patterns he had during his lowest point(s) in life. Not that he’d ever confide that sort of thing in somebody he didn’t 1000% trust and who he knew wouldn’t pity him for his “oh-so-sad” childhood. It’s far too late for condolences you could never properly provide to him in the first place, so do him a favor and keep all of that weepy, sympathetic bullshit to your fucking self.

My point is, Malcolm is not helpless or some kind of misunderstood soft boy deep down. There’s plenty of villains out there who would fall into that category but he is definitely not one of them. He’s ruthless and cunning and very VERY intentional in what he does. We know what he’s about because he makes it very clear what he wants. He is, however, an incredibly sensitive man with a hair-trigger temper that shows a deeply insecure and juvenile side of him.

No matter how much therapy The Monarch might choose to go through, it won’t fill the mommy & daddy shaped hole that was violently punched into him at the age of 7 (almost 8). That “childish” side of him will never grow up because it’s something that could have only flourished with the guidance of a parents’ love.

Some stolen things can never be returned, no matter how badly you wish for them to be. And in the case of Malcolm “The Monarch” Fitzcarraldo, the thing he lost was something nobody would care to give back to him.

But that’s okay- he doesn’t want it.