| “ | Mr. Clade, I’m a huge fan … of your dad. | „ |
| ~ Caspian awkwardly saying this retcon to Searcher Clade. |
| “ | Not bad for a farmer, huh? | „ |
| ~ Searchers most infamous quote. |
Searcher Clade is the main protagonist of Disney’s 61st animated feature film, Strange World. As the son of the well-known explorer Jaeger Clade, he used to be unintentionally an explorer like his father until he found an electrical plant named Pando. While his father left him for his big target to reach the other side of the mountains, he stayed in Avalonia as a farmer of this Pando-plants which are used as an energy source.
He was voiced by Jake Gyllenhaal.
What Makes Him a Scrappy?[]
- Many fans felt that this character is extremely flat, just like pretty much every character of the film. So, the main character felt as flat and one-dimensional like a side character which only makes it worse.
- In fact, he is completely outshined by his son Ethan, who is also pretty flat and one-dimensional but the fact that he's the first major character in an animated Disney movie who is confirmed to be gay is more than enough to be more interesting than his father in the eyes of the audience.
- He seems to be quite ungrateful when he’s being saved by his father, making him unintentionally unsympathetic.
- After the discovery of Pando, the movie makes a time skip about 25 years in the future. In this time, he harvests Pando, and the fuel resource helps his home Avalonia a lot to modernize. For all the machines they use Pando without exception and it’s all the achievement of Searcher. And yet, when he comes to town, nobody seems to acknowledge him even a bit like his father, who is missing since this time skip. Many found this extremely illogical.
- Also illogical are his flashbacks about his father. Again, he didn’t see him for 25 years, since then his father is missing and even before they didn’t have the best relationship. It’s considered as not understandable why he’s sometimes suddenly afraid, that his father could not be proud at him.
- Suddenly because otherwise, he lives the perfect life, he’s happily married, has a solid relationship with his son and is always portrayed as happy. So, it’s quite inconsistently portrayed.
- Also illogical are his flashbacks about his father. Again, he didn’t see him for 25 years, since then his father is missing and even before they didn’t have the best relationship. It’s considered as not understandable why he’s sometimes suddenly afraid, that his father could not be proud at him.
- Callisto Mal asked Searcher to help to find the problem why Pando loses power, despite Callisto being a part of Jaeger’s expedition team and could observe a long time that Searcher wasn’t born to be an explorer at all.
- The argument, that as the discoverer of Pando know more about that kind of problems was deemed invalid as Searcher himself was surprised as he never had such problem either and he clearly never went that giant sinkhole down all by himself to observe the root.
- Besides that, it’s deemed again as not understandable that apparently, even after 25 years of using, nobody knows anything about the plant apart from Searcher. Not even Callisto, despite being also there when Searcher find Pando.
- Despite discovering Pando and revolutionizing Avalonia, Searcher was never presented as important and more like a nobody in the mission. It already begins by Caspians infamous quote "Mr. Clade, I’m a huge fan…of your dad," so as he’s some random guy who has achieved nothing.
- That situation remembers at the Introduction by Milo Thatch in the 2001 Disney Film Atlantis, where the expedition crew also not taking him seriously at first. But in Strange World, this "nobody" was the whole reason this giant flying ship and overall, the whole city works at all and in this film, this doesn’t change when the mission goes on.
- Over the course of this mission Searcher proved to be a big load, exactly like before with his father, despite having so much experience. Many times he needs to be saved and couldn’t achieve much on his own.
- Fans don’t consider him disposable yet, but not because he’s so interesting but they feel like his failures are needed cause otherwise the whole story wouldn’t work. He falls from the ship, so that his wife can save him and be presented as a strong, independent female character and stay with the crew. He falls from the ship again, so that he can meet by chance his long missing father and Ethen leaves the crew to look for him and meet spot again by chance on his way, so they also can stay with the crew on the mission too.
- When he argues with his father, they behave quite childish, which many found frustrating and annoying to watch.
- His conversations with his father and his son are mainly considered as flat and as a strong case of wasted potential. Any chance of an interesting conflict was thrown away directly because someone (mostly Searcher) just gave up immediately after just one or two arguments. Even when It’s apparently about something very important for him, like his wish that Ethan take over his farm, when he cannot do it anymore.
- He has the infamous quote: “Not bad for a farmer, huh?”, which simply belittle the job of farmers as one of the easiest jobs, where you don’t have to be good at anything.
- Even if this is meant as a joke, farmers are already so underappreciated and yet so important for our daily life, it’s not fitting in this kind of production where Disney tried so hard not to excluding anyone. Many fans didn’t like that.
External Links[]
- Searcher Clade on the Disney Wiki
- Searcher Clade on the Heroes Wiki
[]
 Scrappies
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