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Gosalyn Mallard
First appearance	Darkly Dawns the Duck
Created by	Tad Stones
Voiced by	Christine Cavanaugh
Aliases	Quiverwing Quack, Crimson Quackette

Gosalyn Mallard is a fictional character created for the Disney animated series Darkwing Duck. She is the adopted daughter of Drake "Darkwing Duck" Mallard. She first appeared in the pilot episode Darkly Dawns the Duck. Gosalyn is voiced by Christine Cavanaugh.

[edit] Background

Born Gosalyn Waddlemeyer, Gosalyn was an orphan who lost of all of her biological relatives after her grandfather, Professor Waddlemeyer, died. She met Darkwing after Taurus Bulba almost kidnapped her. During their time together, Darkwing and Gosalyn got to know each other and they forged a close bond. After Darkwing defeated Taurus, Gosalyn was eventually adopted by Darkwing's normal alter ego Drake Mallard and the two of them, along with Launchpad McQuack, moved in together. Gosalyn is best friends with Honker Muddlefoot, the boy next door. Gos differs from most fictional adoptees in that she never refers to Darkwing as her "foster father". After the first two episodes she completely embraces her identity as the daughter of Darkwing, referring to herself by Drake's surname instead of her own. Conversely, Drake never mentions her being his foster/adopted daughter or himself as her adoptive father. In fact, beyond the first two episodes, the issue of her being an adoptee is only mentioned once, when she mentions in an episode that the she would often escape the orphanage she use to reside at, so she could have fun.

Gosalyn's origins and relationship with Darkwing are very similar to those of Batman's adopted son, the first Robin, Dick Grayson, who like Gosalyn was saved and taken in by a masked hero following the death of his only family. Most of the show is based on Drake and Gosalyn's father-daughter relationship. Gosalyn sometimes gets on her dad's nerves, but he loves her anyway, like any father loves his daughter.

The episode Time and Punishment shows how important Gosalyn is in Darkwing's life. She is accidentally transported into the future, and results in Darkwing Duck becoming DarkWarrior Duck, a merciless vigilante and alternate future version of Darkwing himself. In the episode, it is revealed that Darkwing-after crushing both supervillains and F.O.W.L enemies-went mad after a time of depression, believing that Gosalyn had run away because he would not allow her to help him in his work.

According to an interview with the show's creator, Tad Stones, Gosalyn was partly based on what he believed his then two-year-old daughter would be like when she grew older.

In the episode "A Star is Scorned", the characters of "Darkwing Duck" are depicted as actors employed by "Dizzy" Studio {Walt Disney}, and that Gosalyn has her own fan club, while "Drake Mallard/Darkwing Duck" has only a single fan - who mistakes Drake for Donald Duck!

In the episode "Slime Okay, You're Okay", it's revealed that Gosalyn can speak Swahili.

[edit] Personality

Gosalyn is a rambunctious nine year old who often gives her father grief. It is never mentioned how Gosalyn acted with her biological family and we are forced to assume that her behavior hasn't changed with time or the loss of her family. Even though she often disobeys her father and tries to escape from daily chores (such as homework and cleaning her room, which she never ends up actually doing in any of the episodes), Gosalyn has a soft side. She is often seen hugging her father and, even if she doesn't want to, she will promise to behave on certain capers and not get involved; however, she usually finds a loophole within her own promise and ends up tagging along with Darkwing anyway. This is just one example of her manipulative nature. Gosalyn's spunky spirit has often gotten her into trouble, forcing Darkwing to come to her rescue. Even though we frequently see Darkwing punishing her verbally, we never actually see Gosalyn when she's grounded or how she survives on no allowance.

In the episode, "Life, the Negaverse, and Everything," Darkwing enters the Negaverse and comes across a sweet, obedient Gosalyn who wants nothing more than Negaduck's love and acceptance. However, even though her personality was opposite to her counterpart, their moralities weren't as reversed. In this Negaverse, Negaduck is Gosalyn's guardian, according to Bushroot, but they are never shown interacting.

Gosalyn is often seen by many villains in Darkwing Duck yet none of them question why Darkwing would be hauling around a small girl. Presumably, the only one to know of Darkwing's daughter would be Negaduck since he has his own Gosalyn, but he never seems to use this to his advantage. None of the other villains ever put the pieces together and Gosalyn is seen by them as any other little girl in the city.

Darkwing and Gosalyn are alike in the respect that they are both hard-headed and extremely persuasive. Their "never give up" attitude is what often keeps them going when all seems lost. Even though Gosalyn isn't the easiest child in the world to raise, Darkwing has an obvious affection for her and she loves her father without question.

[edit] Crime fighting

[edit] Quiverwing Quack

Knowing her adopted father's secret identity, she too has occasionally donned a crime fighting alter ego known as Quiverwing Quack. Quiverwing's weapon of choice is a set of arrows that Launchpad took her out to get. Gosalyn discovered a hidden talent with them and was even able to take out Negaduck in combat (season one episode The Quiverwing Quack). Even though Darkwing was bothered by Gosalyn's Quiverwing Quack identity, he eventually recognizes she had potential to fight crime. While Quiverwing seemed to have retired at the end of the episode, Gosalyn's alter ego returned in the season three episode Paint Misbehavin. In contrast to her father's unpopularity in St. Canard, Quiverwing enjoys a large fan following despite her rare appearances. Quiverwing Quack's costume and archer fighting style may be a parody of the DC Comics superhero Green Arrow. A spin-off series was originally planned for her to become the main character in a Quiverwing Quack series, to be portrayed as a young adult or teenager, however the series was rejected by Disney.

[edit] Crimson Quackette

She also briefly adopted a costume similar in design to Darkwing's that she called the Crimson Quackette (season one episode Dances with Bigfoot), and may have been the prototype for the Quiverwing Quack identity.

[edit] Yucky Duck

Gosalyn also had a short stint as a crime-fighting slime creature after being mutated by Dr. Bushroot's GI-CU2 plant formula and rechristening herself "Yucky Duck." (episode Slime Okay, You're Okay) However, her slime-body was unstable and forced her to eat constantly, which resulted in her growing larger and less intelligent. She was eventually returned to normal.