it is pretty annoying how the fandom erases shaggys flaws to make him into a uwu precious scoobie snack babie…like hes a coward that when push comes to shove isnt there to help out his friends lmao
alright, lemme school your dumbass because obviously you’ve never watched scooby doo before
shaggy rogers is a hero
yes, he canonically has anxiety issues, but when it comes down to it, he is there for his friends no matter how scared he is. he cares very deeply for his friends and he would absolutely not hesitate to put himself in danger to keep them safe
in ‘music of the vampire’ when the vampire threatens his friends, shaggy’s first response is to grab a bunch of wooden stakes to attack the vampire with
later in this same movie when he (albeit falsely) believes he’s fallen victim to the vampire curse, he runs away and gets as far away from his friends as possible so there would be no chance of him harming them or inflicting the curse on them as well
and in ‘camp scare’ when the fish monster they’re dealing with hurts scooby, shaggy’s first response was to shatter a two-by-four across its face.watch it go down here, skip to about 1:30
during the climax of ‘legend of the phantosaur’ after struggling with his anxiety for the whole movie, shaggy overcomes it for the sake of saving the lives of his friends and the villains who put them in danger in the first place
in ‘ghoul school’, without any help from fred, daphne, or velma, shaggy saves the lives of several monster kids, and in ‘reluctant werewolf’ when he’s cursed to become a werewolf, he wins back his humanity in just under two days, again without help from fred, daphne, or velma
hell, the whole plot of ‘goblin king’ was about shaggy and scooby travelling into the realm of monsters, the very things he’s afraid of mos, so he can save his friends from being turned into monsters themselves. and he does save them
and those are just the examples i could think of off the top of my head!
shaggy is as essential to the gang as everyone else is. he’s the one who repeatedly throws himself headfirst into the path of the monster of the week to lead it into fred’s traps, despite his anxiety issues, because he’s the only one fast enough not to get caught. fun fact! he’s won multiple awards in high school for gymnastics and athletics. he isn’t just all about fear and food. he’s a friendly, caring person who would do anything for his friends, and on top of all this?
he’s only seventeen. of course he’s scared, he’s just a kid.
tl;dr, shaggy rogers is more than his anxiety
canonically, shaggy and scoob have dealt with more real monsters than the entire gang.
the mystery gang tends to unmask humans. The exceptions (authentic monsters, zombies, witches, ghosts, etc) are in certain movies. some of which (Zombie Island, the Witch’s Ghost) involve the full gang. Others (Ghoul School, Reluctant Werewolf, the Boo Brothers) have Shaggy and Scoob (and Scrappy) on their own adventures.
oh hey and in ghoul school, looking for some peace and quiet, they get hired as gym teachers at a school for girls, that turns out to be a school for ghouls. Despite being terrified,
they stay, become fantastic teachers, inspire their students and lead them to victory in the volleyball champion, and then risk their lives saving the students from an evil witch and spider minions.
oh and they befriend an adult mummy, vampire, wolfman, and phantom along the way
not to mention whenever they hang with the rest of the gang, they invariably get used trap bait against their expressed wishes. but still they stick around
oh, and despite their reluctance, scoob and shaggy regularly play some of the most vital roles in the gang’s adventures, to the point the movie posters regularly feature them as the most prominent members. the rest of the gang may provide the motivation, but shaggy and scooby are the lifeblood of the show:
conclusion: Shaggy Rogers and Scoobert Doo have enormous hearts that lead them to face their greatest fears on an almost daily basis for the sake of protecting those they care about.
PROTECT AND APPRECIATE SHAGGY ROGERS
Also, THEY ARE ALWAYS RUNNING AROUND LIKE CRAZY AND DOING SUPER DANGEROUS STUFF. THEY ARE BURNING MORE CALORIES THAN THEY HAVE IN THEIR BODIES. OF COURSE THEY’RE GONNA EAT LIKE CRAZY. IF THEY DON’T EAT CONSTANTLY THEY’LL DIE.
im currently kinning jared 19
Also the mystery machine was originally Shaggy’s but he gave it to Fred because he’s too anxious to drive more often than not. Miss me with this fake as shit about my favorite guy.
In this house, we stan Norville “Shaggy” Rogers.
Shaggy would be a great Green lantern
He actively supports his friends interests even if they are outside of his own and when presented with opportunities to call out one of his friends on their occasional b.s. he typically keeps his personal knowledge to himself because he cares about them and doesn’t want to cause them embarrassment. Per the comics his support is why the rest of the gang managed to be comfortable with themselves enough to follow their various quirky interests which is why Mystery Inc is able to exist in the first place.
There’s also the fact that while the show makes his fears comedic, they are in reality completely legitimate. Shaggy knows real dangerous monsters exist, he knows the supernatural is real, and he knows that people with or without masks can be dangerous. It is canon that he has been dealing with this stuff since he was at least a toddler.
Not only do villains constantly chase him and try to capture him, occasionally succeeding, they have also tried to shoot him, stab him, drown him, push him off of ledges, blow him up, run him over, suffocate him, freeze him to death, smash his skull in with blunt objects, burn him alive, seal him into a wall, run him off the road while driving, toss him out of planes while in flight, trapped him with large, hungry, predatory animals in hopes that the animal would kill and eat him, etc. and that’s just off the top of my head.
He has watched friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers be nearly killed and often was the one who jumped into the fray to keep that from happening. Despite Daphne often being referred to as a damsel in distress character and her alliterative Danger Prone Daphne nickname, if you watch the various series and movies, Shaggy is actually the most danger prone, most frequently captured, and also most often injured character in the series. Yes, he often jumps at things that end up being innocuous, but ptsd and anxiety are real things, and let’s be honest, if all of the above was my every day life, I’d be pretty darn jumpy too.
Shaggy is the voice of reason in the group. When the gang is inevitably informed that some giant beast in the area has been rampaging about causing destruction, and kidnapping and/or trying to murder people, he has every right to voice concern over intentionally going out to search for the thing, especially when he himself attracts that danger and the supernatural more than anyone else in the gang, including Scooby. If a pathway looks dangerous and he points it out, everyone else will roll their eyes and keep going and he’ll inevitably follow them and its his feet it ends up crumbling under. His completely valid concerns are constantly dismissed and he’s usually the one who ends up suffering the consequences for it.
And while I agree he would make a great green lantern, he was in canon a pretty awesome yellow lantern.
There have been many hints throughout the series that Shaggy actually obliviously wields magic and Scooby is his familiar, which was basically made canon in Goblin King and there was a gag about it in a Be Cool Scooby Doo episode. Read more about this
In the above comic, Shaggy manipulated the ring without even trying while Sinestro was both wearing it and actively trying to wield it, and then it flew off of Sinestro’s finger and onto Shaggy’s. As his familiar, Scooby is affected by the ring too. Sinestro freaks out about them having the ability to both cause and instill the greatest fear of all. There’s another team-up comic with Green Arrow and Green Lantern where Psycho Pirate shows up and uses his ability to cause the rest of the gang to feel sheer terror and flee, this has seemingly no affect on Shaggy and Scooby because that’s just their normal state.
The big takeaway here is that despite all of the perfectly legitimate reasons to be scared listed above, the yellow lantern comic suggests that the primary reason Shaggy is actually afraid is that he’s been taking his ability to cause and instill the greatest fear of all and subconsciously inflicting all of it on himself (and unwittingly on Scooby as well due to their connection). He has stated that his greatest dislike is being afraid, so he’s basically wielding the feeling he dislikes most in the world at epic proportions onto himself because he would never want anyone else to have to feel that way, all the while still managing to investigate spooky places, find clues, solve mysteries, be a good friend, act as bait, and throw himself into danger for the sake of others.
So yeah, Shaggy is a hero and his friends should give him all the hugs because he sure as heck deserves them.
Most of my arguments are already made above, but I do have one thing I can add.
Shaggy’s still there.
Shaggy does not like cases. He does not put ‘solving mysteries’ down as something he enjoys. And you know he doesn’t like being perpetual bait. But at no point does he say ‘screw this’ and go home, leaving it to the others to deal with. At no point does he stop hanging out with his friends, no matter how often his wishes in the matter are overridden.
Shaggy cares about them enough them to stick with it every time. So you see, OP, it’s not that we’re erasing his flaws, it’s just we can see that there’s more to him than them.
Cheloneuniverse 