Who Is The Hero Of “How The Grinch Stole Christmas”?
By: Michael Major
Tags: Christmas, Dr Suess, Dogs, Heroism, The Grinch

Photo by Rebecca Campbell on Unsplash

Who Is The Hero Of “How The Grinch Stole Christmas”?

The tale of How The Grinch Stole Christmas has been woven into the fabric of western culture to such a degree, that I need not bore you with the plot of Mr. Grinch’s yuletide heist. We know that the Grinch is our antagonist in this tale but, there is a character who plays a pivotal role in the narrative and is the catalyst for the garlic souled Grinch’s eleventh-hour epiphany.

Who is the hero of this classic tale? Who is it that the Whos owe a debt of gratitude for saving Christmas? Is it Cindy-Lou Who?

No, it is not Cindy-Lou, it is Max the dog that is our hero in this iconic Suess tale.

Room for Redemption

The simple fact that a rotter like the Grinch lives with a dog foreshadows the good that lies within that heart that was two sizes too small. I don’t think that there is any debate about whether or not dogs bring out the best in their owners. For someone with the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile to feed and care for an animal demonstrates, that like our favorite Sith Lord Darth Vader, there is good inside that evil exterior.

Max acts as the Grinch’s conscience and although he is largely ignored and neglected he is still there as a tiny voice of reason and virtue who serves as a persistent reminder of what good is.

He knows that the Grinch can be saved, and to continue with my Star Wars analogy, Max is much like Luke Skywalker who will stop at nothing to see the Grinch turn back to the light.

Loyal to the End

In both the 1966 and 2018 animated versions of the story, Max genuinely appears to have all the characteristic loyalty that we come to expect from our canine companions.

There is more to this loyalty than meets the eye though.

Max knows the Grinch’s views on Christmas and how the Whos down in Whoville celebrate the season. We can make a safe assumption that Max has seen this day coming for years and probably knows how the events of the evening are going to play out. It is clear that Max the dog is a big fan of the Christmas season, so why is it that he would stick around with someone who is the antithesis of what he loves?

The loyalty Max shows is not blind, he has an agenda and that agenda is the redemption of the Grinch, not just in the eyes of the reader, but also in the eyes of the Whos and the Grinch himself.

Max is well aware that if it is not he who rides with the green menace, then there is a risk that no one would be there to put an end to the plot. Worse yet would be the Grinch locating an accomplice that shares his dim view on Christmas and the Whos.

Courage and Grit

While we do not know how many years he has been in exile with stink, stank, and stunk, we must make the assumption that those years have been challenging to say the least. Max endures hardship because he understands something that others do not.

Max understands that the Grinch can be saved and that he is the only one who can save him.

Max lacks the vocal ability to give the Grinch the proper dressing down he deserves so he resorts to the only medium he has to influence others.

Puppy eyes, which are the ultimate canine weapons of mass destruction. Since Max is a skilled tactician, (well I’m assuming that he is, based on my anthropomorphizing human levels of badassery on to this fictitious animated dog) he knows that he must be there by our antagonist's side throughout the Christmas caper to time his surgical strike into that heart full of unwashed socks.

Max has the true warrior spirit in where he is going to put the mission before himself and face great peril to redeem the goblin that the world has cast off. Max is charged with pulling the imposter’s sleigh not only down to the Whoville but back up to the top of the mountain. On the way, he is run over, crushed repeatedly by heavy bags of ill-gotten loot, and in the 1966 version, he finds himself on the business end of a whip.

Not to mention that during the construction of the Grinch’s sleigh I doubt that Max was offered the proper PPE and it is unclear whether or not the Grinch followed proper safe work procedures. That isolated cave is the very definition of an unsafe workplace and Max is lucky to have gotten out of there with all his limbs intact.

Max has faced untold peril to skillfully execute the greatest last-minute redemption since that time on the second Death Star.

Operation Three-Decker Sauerkraut and Toadstool Sandwich with Arsenic Sauce

Max carefully calculates his strike. The whittling down of the Grinch’s resolve is phase one of our courageous canine’s plan. He carefully and strategically influences the Grinch, much like the frog in a pot having the heat gradually turned up, our king of sinful sots is unaware that his resolve to destroy Christmas is being weakened.

Max knows that once the Grinch begins the looting of Whoville there is no stopping him, but Max also knows what the true spirit and meaning of Christmas is and that the populous of Whoville will wake to find their stuff gone but will band together and outflank the Grinch at the pivotal moment.

It is a perfectly timed coordinated assault on the crooked dirty jockey and his crooked hoss. The moment of revelation for the Grinch comes as he stops to listen to the reaction of the Whos, an action he undertakes to bask in the glorious conclusion of his plot, alongside his trusty accomplice. He hears the sweet Whosong and looks over to Max to see the atomic puppy eyes nuking his soul and supercharging it with good.

Puppy eyes from one direction and the sweet songs from Whoville from the other inflamed that charming eel’s heart three sizes. Even from 39 and a half feet away the Grinch is helpless to resist the vaporizing of his evilness.

Max is obviously a student of military philosophy made obvious through this quote from Sun Tzu.

To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. — Sun Tzu

Final Thoughts

While it can be argued that without Max the plot could never have been undertaken, I think it is clear that the Grinch would have found a way to steal Christmas from the Whos regardless. If anything, Max had probably delayed the onset of the Grinch’s wrath for many years by merely being there as a beacon of goodness.

The fact of the matter is simple, Max the dog is the only hero in ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas’ and Cindy Lou Who’s only role was to buy into the weak-ass fibbery of a nasty-wasty skunk. I mean seriously, why in the hell would Santa bring a tree back to the North Pole to change a lightbulb? He would replace it with one off the back of the tree like the rest of us would.