Muriel Bagge

**Muriel Bagge** is the deuteragonist of the series *Courage the Cowardly Dog*.

A Scottish elderly woman, Muriel is the kind and sweet owner of Courage, as well as the industrious wife of Eustace Bagge. Though she is the show's damsel-in-distress, Muriel is also an excellent cook and refuses to tolerate any nonsense or misbehavior - she employs her weapon of choice (a rolling pin) to smack Eustace whenever he scares, teases, abuses, or otherwise mistreats Courage.

## Personality

As a 3-year-old child, Muriel was an extremely mischievous, spoiled, and silly toddler.

In her later years, Muriel is a devoted housewife with a truly gentle, sweet, and kind demeanor. She also enjoys cooking, knitting, and quilting, though she can be ambitious where her crafts are concerned (in *The Quilt Club*, her desire to join Elisa and Eliza Stitch's quilt club became an obsession).

Muriel's kind, sweet, and naive nature makes her an easy and attractive target for villains, for her unconditional kindness towards complete strangers is often to her detriment, as she usually fails to recognise their true intentions until things are dire for her. With this, she is shown to be exceedingly dependent on Courage (who also assists her with many of her household duties) to rescue her.

Muriel also truly loves her husband, Eustace, though she does not hesitate to discipline him with her rolling pin whenever he crosses the line, such as his deliberately scaring Courage or just being wholly unreasonable or downright malicious. For instance, in *Ball of Revenge,* Muriel punishes Eustace by forcing him to sleep with a blanket on the floor for the night, while Courage claimed Eustace's chair. However, when Eustace is in real trouble, Muriel expresses genuine concern over him - as shown in *Queen of the Black Puddle*, she became increasingly worried about his increasingly erratic behavior due to the Black Puddle Queen's growing control over him. When he was finally kidnapped by the evil Queen, Muriel cried inconsolably over his absence, which resulted in a resigned Courage going off to rescue him. While Muriel's tearful episode ceased when Eustace returned home, her initial joy was overridden by her anger towards his recklessness, referring back to her no-nonsense policy.

There are rare cases where Muriel does not get along with others, including with Eustace's mother, Ma Bagge whom she openly loathes. Muriel refused to visit her in *Mother's Day* and unabashedly thwarted her attempts to take the Coralites' coral.

Perhaps Muriel's most notable trait is her affection for Courage, whom she undoubtedly adores and cares for as her own child. Although Courage was the one who usually rescued her, Muriel is shown to become infuriated when Courage is placed in danger or forcefully taken away from her. In *Muriel Meets Her Match*, Muriel aggressively pursued the villains and crashed their car for kidnapping Courage. Muriel is also shown to unresevedly support Courage, as in *Ball of Revenge* when Courage was nearly defeated by his opponents, Muriel desperately encouraged him not to give up from her chained position.

However, one of Muriel's quirks is that she appears to intentionally ignore or misinterpret Courage's attempts at communicating with her, despite other characters and even strangers who understand him without any issue. This is especially emphasized *The Mask*, where Muriel is shown to completely dismiss Courage's pleas for help as him "playing" with the masked woman, who repeatedly assaults Courage and proclaims that she despises all dogs on multiple occasions. It is evident that Muriel has the ability to understand Courage, as when he later warns her about the masked woman Muriel angrily disapproves of Courage criticizing their guest despite Courage's earlier cries for help and visible injuries.

Above all, Muriel enjoys peace and quiet, and loves sitting in her rocking chair and watching television with Courage on her lap.

## Appearance

During her youth Muriel had reddish-brown hair, but in her old age, she has semi-short, curly white hair. She wears glasses like her husband, and her usual attire is a dark yellow dress with a bright yellow apron paired with sturdy black leather boots.

## History

As a girl, Muriel was a talented cheerleader and girl scout who performed well in school. She also attended college, worked as a secretary, and married Eustace at a young age.

## Skills

Despite her seeming obliviousness and "damsel-in-distress" role, Muriel is actually a multi-talented artist: she is remarkably talented at playing the sitar and the piano. While Muriel plays the sitar mostly to relax, she performed live in New York after winning a sitar-playing contest after giving a world-class performance that was met with rapturous applause. In *Record Deal*, despite the lack of any preparations or practice beforehand, Muriel still gave a stunning piano performance that delighted her audience.

Muriel is also an excellent cook - so good, in fact, that she has been the recipient of numerous culinary awards, such as: best dog food, best eggplants, and best toffee apples. Her cooking, specifically her happy plums, have been shown to aid in the peaceful resolution of conflicts. Since Muriel's late Aunt Gertrude taught her to put vinegar in every recipe, Muriel continues insisting vinegar "always does the trick" - with this, her excessive use of vinegar has has been one the show's running gags.

Muriel also knows how to drive although she seldom does - she was seen driving Eustace's Truck on one occasion.

As revealed in *The Great Fusilli* and *Nowhere TV*, Muriel is shown to possess great physical strength and excellent juggling skills - she could perfectly juggle heavy objects (a motorcycle, an anchor, and a bowling ball) with her hands and even her feet. Muriel's strength also allows her easily knock out antagonists - though her primary target is usually hitting Eustace with her rolling pin or on occasion with equipment like a badminton racket.

## Trivia

* Muriel is one of two characters (the other being Courage) to appear in every episode.
	+ She is also one of seven characters (the others being Courage, Eustace, Shirley, Dr. Vindaloo, the Computer, and Katz) to appear in every season.
* As a toddler, Muriel's hair was white, then red when she was married, but brown in "Remembrance of Courage Past".
* Muriel's blood-type is "ABXYZ", which is an extremely rare blood type according to Dr. Vindaloo.
* As revealed in "Courage Meets the Mummy", in one of Muriel's past lives, she was a Mayan princess who loved cookies.
* Muriel often showed a far greater level of common sense and practicality than Eustace when it came to solving a problem or fixing something, even though he always refuses to listen to her and Courage until it was usually too late.
* Muriel made an appearance in the Villainous special, The Lost Cases of Elmore.
* There are several running gags throughout the series associated with Muriel, such as:
	+ She would always hit Eustace on the head with her rolling pin whenever he did something mean to Courage.
	+ Due to her Aunt Gertrude's advice, Muriel had a tendency to use too much vinegar in her recipes, but strange to say, her cooking always turned out to be award-winningly delicious because of it.
	+ She reveals her underwear - as seen in "Little Muriel", her underwear was the only clothing she wore.