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Sue Ellen Armstrong has a gallery at the Elwood City Art Museum.
This article has a gallery to help represent its content. To view it, visit Sue Ellen Armstrong/Gallery.
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 Dark red (s1 - s5)
Dark orange (s6 - present),
Blonde (some books)
Complexion Peach (s1-s5)
Tan (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)
Sue Ellen April 9th
...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 becomes the new kid at school (until Ladonna), 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 is depicted with 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 cream-colored vest over it, finished with red-and-white hi-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 is often seen wearing cream pajamas with red edging.

Personality

Sue Ellen is assertive, proactive, brave,[10] tough,[9] strong, a little bossy, kind, athletic, tolerant, honest, creative, open-minded, nice, mature, charismatic, well-read, lonely, artistic, and vegetarian [11]. She is an amazing storyteller and is big-hearted. She is also easy to get along with and can solve problems on her own. She is very mature and artistic for her age and interested in world culture,[12] which is the reason she makes friends with people older than herself, such as Betsy Johnson.[13] Athletic-wise, she is defender for the Lakewood Elementary Soccer Team. She wanted a sibling so she would not be as lonely, but she ends up regretting the need after she goes to Arthur's house and plays with D.W. for a few hours.[11]

Biography

Life Before Arthur

Sue Ellen's father is a diplomat, so she and her family have lived in various places around the world. It is unknown why her family has settled in Elwood City. 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.

Future Life

If the intro to the episode, "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 can't 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,[14] and mother, a homemaker.[14] She is an only child but keeps in touch with her best friend Tenzin in Tibet[11] (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 realize 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

Specials

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.[15]
  • She became a vegetarian in the episode Sue Ellen Vegges Out because she lost taste of eating animals whom she considers friends, although it is unclear if she remains a vegetarian after this episode.[16]
  • She has a brother-like friend named Tenzin who lives in Tibet.[17][18]
  • It's implied that Sue Ellen has a crush on Arthur since she said she wrote some "nice things" about him at the end of "Sue Ellen's Lost Diary," however, she might just be expressing her friendship or admiration for him.[19]
  • Sue Ellen's full initials spell out SEA. Given she has traveled around the world, the initials fit.
  • She didn't 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."
  • Sue Ellen has some similarities as Ginger Foutley from As Told by Ginger. Both characters are female, they have curly red hair and they love to write in their journals.

Gallery

Sue Ellen Armstrong (Wish You Were Here) station scene
The full image gallery for Sue Ellen Armstrong may be viewed at Sue Ellen Armstrong/Gallery.

References



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