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Sue Ellen Armstrong

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Sue Ellen Armstrong
Sue Ellen
Age 8[1]
Grade 3rd
4th ("First Day")
Gender Female
Animal Cat[2]
Eye color Blue[3]
Hazel[4]
Green[5]
Hair color   Moderate vermillion (s1-s5)
  Brilliant vermilion (s6-present)

Blonde (some books)

Complexion   Light gamboge (s1-s5)
  Brilliant gamboge (s6-present)
Favorite color Olive green[1]
Residence Sue Ellen's House, Elwood City
Family Mr. Armstrong (father)
Mrs. Armstrong (mother)
Book debut Arthur's Valentine
Cartoon debut "Arthur's Eyes"
Voiced by Patricia Rodriguez (s1 - s8),
Jessica Kardos (s10 - present)
Mariana Evans (Living Books)
Mary Kay Bergman (Computer Games)
“ ...It will be one month since April 9th. So much has happened since then. I never want to go through another fire, but I also never want to lose this feeling that each day is special, that my friends are the best friends in the world, and that if we stick together, we can make it through just about anything. ”

—Sue Ellen writing in her diary, "April 9th"

Sue Ellen Armstrong[6] is a student in Mr. Ratburn's third grade class at Lakewood Elementary School, and later, she is in Mrs. Grimslid's fourth grade class.[7] She is the "new kid" at school upon moving to Elwood City from abroad.[8] As the daughter of a diplomat, she is knowledgeable of the cultures of other countries, but she still manages to build great friendships and love for Elwood City and her friends there, especially Arthur. Being a Taekwondo expert,[9] she is unafraid to challenge any injustice she sees.

Physical appearance

Sue Ellen is an anthropomorphic cat who has a tan complexion, curly orange hair worn in "messy buns" bound by lime green scrunchies, and wears a teal "T-shirt"-type dress with a open cream-colored sleeveless vest with red buttons over it, finished with red-and-white high-top sneakers and lime green slouch socks. In the early Arthur books, she wears her hair down; she was given her messy-bun hairdo starting with the book Arthur's TV Trouble. In some of the later books, her hair color had changed from blonde to yellow-orange. She wears a two-piece green swimsuit with a purple trim when swimming. For her sleepwear, she wears cream pajamas with red edging.

Personality

Sue Ellen is assertive and tough, as she is the only kid at school who is brave enough to face Binky in a fight.[9] She is courageous and willing to face her fears.[10] She frequently engages in civil protests when necessary, since she has a strong desire to be proactive in standing up for what is right.[11][12][13] Occasionally, her charisma and overall excellence is seen as a threat[9] and she can be perceived as bossy, like when Brain would not accept her contributions for a class project.[14]

Upon noticing that some of her friends have siblings, she begins to feel a bit lonely, being an only child, but she ends up regretting this need to have a brother or sister after she goes to Arthur's house and plays with D.W. for a few hours.[15] She has a very independent spirit and remains steadfast in her beliefs, even when she is alone.[16] She is also vegetarian.[17]

She is creative and artistic.[18] In one instance, she cannot stand using a normal #2 pencil for an exam, because of its "dullness"[19], and another time in art class, she paints trees with purple leaves.[20] She is well-read, able to identify poetry from a single line,[21] and is an amazing storyteller herself.[10][22] She has journaled in a private diary since first grade.[23]

Sue Ellen has a very mature spirit. She is quite tolerant, open-minded, and interested in world cultures[24][25][26] which helps her make friends with people older than herself, such as Betsy Johnson.[27] Since her father is a diplomat, her family has lived all over the world.[28]

Athletic-wise, she is defender for the Lakewood Elementary Soccer Team, and she is very skilled in Taekwondo.[9] She also does gymnastics.[29]

Biography

Life before living in Elwood City

Sue Ellen's father is a diplomat, so she and her family have lived in various places around the world. She has lived in places like Egypt and Nicaragua, mostly for a couple of months to a year. Her family also spent a year in South Africa. Other places she has lived in include Togo and Kenya. She had never been to a place with snow before moving to Elwood City. She is skilled in martial arts, for example, Tae Kwon Do[9] making her more physically strong than the average third grader. In the Postcards From Buster episode "Buster Gets on Board", Buster meets Sue Ellen's friends who are skateboarders including Sue Ellen's pen-pal Brandon. This gives hint that Sue Ellen at one time resided Los Angeles, California. It is unknown why her family has settled in Elwood City.

Future life

If the intro to "The Election" does happen in the future, she will be either future President Muffy's running mate or a member of her party. In the imagination of Arthur in "Arthur Rides the Bandwagon", Sue Ellen appears next to the Brain and with a child much like him (but with glasses).

Season 1

In "Sue Ellen Moves In," Sue Ellen moves to Elwood City. Buster thinks she is an alien because she has many strange objects. He later realizes that she has lived all over the world and they become friends. She tends to be scared when getting yelled because in the episode, Arthur and the Crunch Cereal Contest, she was hiding behind a chair after Arthur screamed at the band. In "Bully for Binky", Sue Ellen stands up to Binky and is not afraid to stand up to someone much bigger than her. Binky becomes intimidated by her because she knows martial arts. Later, Sue Ellen says that she doesn't want to fight him, but if he ever does, she'll be ready. Binky soon stops his bullying.

Season 2

In "Sue Ellen's Lost Diary," she loses her diary in the library. She asks her friends, but they haven't seen it. They wonder what is inside. Soon, they find her diary, but they ultimately chose to not open it. Sue Ellen recovers her diary and hints that she has a crush on Arthur; this was probably to an allusion to Arthur's crush on Sue Ellen in the Arthur books. In "Sue Ellen's Little Sister," Sue Ellen feels sad that she wishes she had a sibling. She asks her friends to be their siblings and realize that older brothers won't work. She looks for little sisters and ends up with D.W. whom she cannot stand. She later realizes the pros of being an only child. Her parents get her a brother-like friend from Tibet to whom she can write letters to.

Season 3

One of Sue Ellen's biggest appearances in this season is in "Sue Ellen and the Brainasaurus". She later appears in "Popular Girls," in which she is the central character with Fern, and "Arthur's Almost Live Not Real Music Festival."

Season 16

In "Sue Ellen Vegges Out," she becomes a vegetarian because she considers animals as friends and loses her taste for consuming them. It is unclear if she remains a vegetarian following this episode.

Family

Sue Ellen lives with her father, a diplomat,[28] and mother, a homemaker.[28] She is an only child but keeps in touch with her best friend Tenzin in Tibet[15] (she also has a Tibet World Girl doll.) Other family members aren't mentioned or seen. Like the Brain, her parents' given names are unknown.

Friends

  • Arthur Read - In early seasons, Arthur and Sue Ellen were not very close friends, and sometimes had some levels of distrust amongst each other. In "Arthur's Lost Library Book", Arthur initially labelled Sue Ellen as a potential suspect for stealing "The Mysterious Hand" book from the library. However, Sue Ellen's name was cleared once Arthur realized she bought a copy of the book herself from reading it. In "Arthur Cleans Up", Sue Ellen angrily blames him for having her mother sign her up for the "Clean Up Brigade", not wanting to take part in helping him take out the garbage, although she later joins alongside him. Eventually, Arthur and Sue Ellen eventually become close as time went by. In "Sue Ellen's Lost Diary", Arthur locates Sue Ellen's private diary, and hesitantly decided alongside others if they should read it, only to decide not to. In "Hide and Snake", Sue Ellen volunteered to help Arthur locate a snake in his house, fearing that it could be venomous.
  • D.W. Read - In "Sue Ellen's Little Sister", Sue Ellen initially thought that having D.W. as a little sister would be a good idea. However, upon first encounter, this was more what she had bargained for, as D.W. acted pretty needy and obnoxious towards her. Sue Ellen's experience with D.W. acted as a final straw for her to be grateful to be an only child. In “Sue Ellen Gets Her Goose Cooked” the two of them play together at Muffy’s house and DW teaches her how to win at Virtual Goose.
  • Buster Baxter - Buster's first encounter with Sue Ellen was based on fear and suspicion. In "Sue Ellen Moves in", Buster thought she and her parents were aliens from outer space. Over time however, Buster became much closer to Sue Ellen. In "The Ballad of Buster Baxter", Sue Ellen comforts Buster about how alienated he is feeling from his friends, because he has been away from them for a while.
  • Alan "Brain" Powers - Sue Ellen worked with Brain as a partner for their science project in "Sue Ellen and the Brainasaurus". Initially, Sue Ellen trusted Brain to give her tasks to finish the project. However, she later realized that Brain doesn't trust or appreciate her contributions, thus making her accuse him of being a "report hog". After Brain discovers how she felt from being treated by him, Sue Ellen forgives the Brain and apologizes to him for calling him a "report hog".
  • Binky Barnes - Binky's initial encounter with Sue Ellen was pretty tense. In "Bully for Binky", Sue Ellen was the only person who stood up to Binky and even accepted Binky's request to fight her after school. However Binky, realizing that Sue Ellen was well trained with martial arts, would eventually yield to her, thus making Sue Ellen the only effective solution to Binky's bullying antics. Eventually however, Binky calms down to the point, he is able to get along with Sue Ellen pretty well.
  • Francine Frensky - Like Arthur, Francine initially maintained a very neutral relationship with Sue Ellen in the early seasons. In "Sue Ellen's Lost Diary", Sue Ellen initially accused Francine of stealing her private diary and laughing from it, only to realize that Francine was just reading a joke book. Still suspicious of Sue Ellen about the incident, Francine initially believes that Sue Ellen must've written pretty negative things about her in her diary. However, after working with her friends in locating her diary, Sue Ellen and Francine became close since. In "Sue Ellen Gets Her Goose Cooked", Francine advises Sue Ellen to take a break from Virtual Goose as means of fighting off her gaming addiction. Once Sue Ellen finally decides not to play in the tournament, Francine congratulates her for keeping her promise.
  • Muffy Crosswire - Muffy and Sue Ellen hardly interacted with each other in early seasons. This is briefly seen in "Sue Ellen's Lost Diary" where Muffy speculates on what Sue Ellen would've written about her in her private diary. In "April 9th", after seeing Sue Ellen heartbroken about losing her journal from the fire, Muffy insists on cheering her up by buying her a new, more expensive journal. Initially Sue Ellen rejected it. But after seeing Muffy trying her best to cheer up, she gratefully accepted the journal from her.
  • Fern Walters - Fern and Sue Ellen are shown to share a special similarity with each other in "Popular Girls". Both are insecure about how others see them, and tried their best to change their personalities to become more likeable.

Appearances

Books

Arthur

Postcards from Buster

The Arthur Podcast

Trivia

  • There are several episodes in the series that group her with Arthur, Buster and Binky such as "The Secret Guardians", "April 9th" and "What Scared Sue Ellen?".
  • She's based on Ruth Ann, Marc Brown's childhood girlfriend.[30]
  • She becomes a vegetarian because she loses the taste of eating animals whom she considers friends.[17] However, "Wish You Were Here" implies that it might of being a phase as she is seeing eating spaghetti bolognase.
  • She has a brother-like friend named Tenzin who lives in Tibet.[15][31] He comes to visit Sue Ellen in Elwood City.[32]
  • It is implied that Sue Ellen has a crush on Arthur since she says she wrote some "nice things" about him in her diary.[33] However, she might just be expressing her friendship or admiration for him.
  • Sue Ellen's full initials spell out SEA. Given she has traveled around the world, the initials fit.
  • She does have a speaking role in any Season 9, Season 12 and Season 18 episode.
  • She has a pet snail in "Sick as a Dog."
  • She went to volunteer at the hospital in "Muffy's Classy Classics Club."
  • Mr. Ratburn taught her a magic trick in "The Short, Quick Summer."
  • Early in the series, she is portrayed as the "new kid" at school, particularly in Season 1. Later, in Season 16, Ladonna Compson assumes this character trope more prominently.

Gallery

Sue Ellen at the Library
The full image gallery for Sue Ellen Armstrong may be viewed at Sue Ellen Armstrong/Gallery.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Trading Cards
  2. ↑ http://www.pbs.org/parents/arthur/help/answers/faq_friends.html (archived page)
  3. ↑ "Buster's Growing Grudge"
  4. ↑ Arthur and the Lost Diary - see cover
  5. ↑ Arthur and the Popularity Test - see cover
  6. ↑ "I'm down to three suspects: Buster Baxter, Francine Frensky, and Sue Ellen Armstrong." — Arthur Read, "Arthur's Lost Library Book" (season 1)
  7. ↑ "Arthur's First Day"
  8. ↑ "Sue Ellen Moves In"
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 "Bully for Binky"
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 "What Scared Sue Ellen?"
  11. ↑ Sue Ellen Chickens Out
  12. ↑ "Sue Ellen & the Last Page"
  13. ↑ "Arthur Takes a Stand"
  14. ↑ "Sue Ellen and the Brainasaurous"
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Sue Ellen's Little Sister
  16. ↑ "The Pride of Lakewood"
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Sue Ellen Vegges Out"
  18. ↑ "Sue Ellen Adds it Up"
  19. ↑ "S.W.E.A.T."
  20. ↑ "Arthur's Chicken Pox"
  21. ↑ "Arthur's First Day"
  22. ↑ "Falafelosophy"
  23. ↑ "April 9th"
  24. ↑ "D.W.'s Backpack Mishap"
  25. ↑ "World Girls"
  26. ↑ "What's Cooking?"
  27. ↑ Strangers on a Train
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 28.2 "Kids are from Earth, Parents are from Pluto"
  29. ↑ "The Tardy Tumbler"
  30. ↑ A Marc Brown interview that is sometimes included with Arthur's Perfect Christmas. https://www.wgbh.org/programs/2019/12/27/marc-brown-arthur-and-the-real-mr-ratburn-the-rewind
  31. ↑ "So Funny I Forgot to Laugh"
  32. ↑ "Wish You Were Here"
  33. ↑ "Sue Ellen's Lost Diary"



v • d • e
Lakewood Elementary School students
Kindergarten
Third Grade
Mrs. Fink's class:
Beulah • Jessica • Kenny • Mary • Paul • Dog boy
Miss Sweetwater's class:
Mary • Cindy • Edith • Dog boy • Rabbit boy • Rat boy
Mr. Ratburn's class:
Alex • Arthur • Binky • Brain • Buster • Fern • Francine • George • Jenna • Ladonna • Maria • Muffy • Norbert (books only) • Sue Ellen
Ms. Yollanda's former class:
Bear • Bird • Cats • Giraffe • Owl
Other:
Aardvark boy • Aardvark girl • Aardvark girl • Bear boy • Bear girl • Cat boy • Cat girl • Dog boy • Dog boy • Dog boy • Monkey boy • Rabbit boy • Rabbit boy • Rat boy
Fourth Grade
Prunella's classmates:
Brian • Chris (books only) • Helen • John • Luke • Marina • Nancy • Patrick • Prunella • Steve
Tough Customers:
Billy • Fletcher • Kiefer • Molly • Rattles • Slink • Aardvark girl • Dog boy • Rabbit boy
Mr. Ratburn's former class:
Arthur lookalike • Brain lookalike • Buster lookalike • Fern lookalike • Francine lookalike • George lookalike • Jenna lookalike • Maria lookalike • Muffy lookalike • Sue Ellen lookalike
Other:
Jack • Norman • Otis • Aardvark girl • Bear boy • Bear girl • Bear girl
Other
Former


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