Warning: Major spoilers for the Ducktales episode “The Last Crash of the Sunchaser.” This article assumes you have already seen the episode and does not include a recap, so go catch up on this wonderful series.

When conflicts between characters arise in a work of fiction, fans have a tendency to pick sides very quickly and very adamantly. After all, being planted firmly on one side of the other gives us a higher sense of belonging than if we try to sit on the fence; we feel closer to the characters we side with and the other fans who fit cleanly into that box. Plus, let’s be honest: a part of us actually likes the debate that ensues. Obviously, we don’t appreciate when someone immature brings name calling and death threats into the mix, but we like civil debates with other fans that allow us to analyze a show we love at a deeper level.

The Ducktales fandom finally got their answer to one of the show’s biggest mysteries in “The Last Crash of the Sunchaser” and everyone – characters and fans alike – are coping with the situation by tossing blame around at every character possible. (Except you, Donald. You did absolutely nothing wrong.) Many fans lay the blame squarely on Della for going off on her own in the Spear of Selene before she was supposed to. Other fans feel we’re being too hard on Della and that Scrooge was the real instigator.

It’d be really easy for me to drop into the middle of this debate and be all “hey both of you guys have a point – both characters contributed to the situation” and while that may be an accurate answer, it’s still a gross oversimplification of the incident. Not to mention, people love having a common enemy to be angry towards in situations like this, and a more detailed look at the Spear of Selene actually does offer that.

And so, Ducktales fandom, I give you our common enemy: Grief.

In our society, we tend to only see grief as something associated with bad moments in our lives, but that’s not actually how grief works. Grief doesn’t care if the end result of a situation is net good or bad; all grief needs to exist is some sort of loss. We don’t like to talk about this, but grief can happen even when a good change causes us to lose something. It’s why even people who truly love their spouses are known to grieve the loss of total single freedom when the wedding rolls around. It’s why graduates grieve the loss of their structured learning environment while celebrating getting their diplomas.

Your brain treats grief the same way whether you’ve just lost a loved one… or just found out you’re expecting three beautiful children.

Della may have been 100% excited about the prospect of raising children, as is implied by her intention of making sure she was there for her incoming triplets, but she was still grieving a fairly big loss: the loss of Della the Adventurer. And she wasn’t alone; Scrooge and Donald were also coping with this same loss. Adventuring was such a massive part of Della’s life and Della was an important member of Scrooge’s adventuring party. To make matters more complex, it’s very likely given Della’s situation what the triplets were completely unexpected, so nobody in the adventuring trio had an opportunity to prepare themselves for the incoming change, and that lack of foresight tends to make grief even more difficult than it already is.

(A bit of a sidenote, because I don’t know how likely it is that the Ducktales staff considered this: Coping with huge life changes can also be made more difficult when societal standards make someone feel bad about the change. If Ducktales society is anything like our society, going from being a strong independent adventurer who holds her own beside the boys to a single mother of three is almost universally – unfairly – considered a downgrade.)

And so, what you wind up with is three adventurers coping the loss of one of their numbers, sitting firmly in the bowels of the early stages of grief primarily marked by denial and bargaining. It is at this point that the Spear of Selene incident occurs.

For whatever reason, Donald’s mind wasn’t as clouded as Scrooge’s or Della’s. Maybe he was handling the grief a different way. Maybe, growing up with Della, he knew how much more there was to her than just adventuring and so the loss didn’t hit as hard. For whatever reason, Donald was the sensible member of the group who knew the hard truth that neither Della nor Scrooge wanted to accept:

If Della’s priority was to be there for her sons, her days of adventuring had ended as soon as she’d realized she was expecting the triplets.

Della’s last adventure had already passed, and this is something Scrooge doesn’t even seem to acknowledge years later when he tells the story of the Spear of Selene to the nephews.

So, I did the only logical thing; I built the rocket and didn’t tell Donald, or anyone. It was meant to be a surprise for Della to celebrate your birth, but your mother was always good at sniffing out surprises. She found the rocket and decided to go for a little “test run” in orbit.

When fans first listened to Scrooge tell this story, the natural reaction (because we were all freaking out and dealing with our own grief over the loss of the idea that Della was some perfect being) was to think “Well, Scrooge’s compromise” sounds reasonable.” But when you step back and think about it, you realize it really isn’t.

“Oh, Della, don’t go off on some big adventure when you could risk leaving your eggs behind. Wait until your children are born… then go on some big adventure and risk leaving your infants behind!” When you put it that way, you realize Scrooge’s “compromise” really wasn’t any better and made no difference in how Della’s story ended. (Heck, ducks imprint, right? So wouldn’t it have been even worse if Della has vanished after the triplets hatched?)

Della wanted that one last adventure she couldn’t really afford to have. Scrooge fully and completely enabled this. The Spear of Selene is a tragedy based around two characters who couldn’t accept a loss that had already happened unless they pretended to have control over when Della’s adventuring days were over. Am I trying to say that both characters were to wrapped up in grief that we can’t blame either of them for making poor decisions? No, but I think understanding what these characters were going through makes the mistakes of two characters who are generally portrayed as good people easier to understand.

If people take one thing from my analysis of this situation, I hope that it’s this: We may have yet to see who Della Duck really was. A lot of people have been decrying Della as a selfish, immature person, but people often act very differently under the pressure of grief than they would otherwise. Maybe Della was always this immature, responsibility-shirking character, but maybe not. Maybe she was usually fairly responsible and made one bad judgement call in a weak moment with someone enabling her. It’s important to keep in mind that Ducktales is not contradicting itself if we learn more about Della and the Spear of Selene starts to feel like an outlying incident that doesn’t accurately portray Della’s character.

I think as we move forward – my guess is into space (come on, like she really died in that space storm) – we’ll learn more about who Della really was, just like we have seen enough of Scrooge to know he wasn’t normally the kind of character who would build something to let a family member expecting children go off on her own into a precarious situation.

Here’s looking forward to the season finale and another season of this wonderful show!