Disney’s Winnie the Pooh is filled with wholesome lessons, sweet friendships and some of the most heated fan debates, from whether or not the animals of the Hundred Acre Wood symbolize various mental illnesses to whether Piglet is really a pig or an armadillo.
Like many cartoons, it’s also home to some terrible lessons in self-esteem and friendship, some of which are courtesy of everyone’s favorite timid pig, Piglet. In most cases, Piglet is a sweet little pig with a giant heart who would do anything for his friends, but he’s also made some major mistakes that kids watching might pick up.
He Always Says Pooh Is Right
Pooh is defined as a silly old bear. He’s often grossly wrong to an obvious extent. If Piglet were a good friend, he would kindly yet clearly point out when Pooh’s being a bit of an idiot and help his friend to set himself right, but instead, he always goes along with whatever Pooh thinks is right, even if it’s obviously wrong.
Piglet’s far from the cleverest little pig. He even spells his name wrong. But during moments when he’s hesitant to tell Pooh that the bear is off his rocker, he really needs to speak up and save them both from possible doom.
He Helped To Kidnap Roo
What kind of kind animal thinks of kidnapping a defenseless baby kangaroo from his mother? While Roo wasn’t exactly an infant, he definitely didn’t deserve to be stolen from Kanga during some ridiculous plot, which is what happened to him in Piglet’s Big Movie. While Piglet didn’t concoct the scheme on his own–that was Rabbit’s doing–he definitely was there for the nefarious plot all along.
Later the gang reminisces about the incident fondly, but they’re really lucky Kanga is the forgiving type and not the dangerous beast they assumed she’d be, or worse, a scorned mother bent on revenge.
He Posed As Baby Roo
If it weren’t bad enough that the animals of the Hundred Acre Wood devised a plot to steal Roo from his mother, they also used Piglet in the role of changeling, replacing the joey with the pig, who isn’t much bigger than Roo. It’s rather horrifying for a children’s program; after all, a child’s worst nightmare is being stolen.
Luckily Kanga, who often has a more level head than the rest of the characters, saw right through his plot and treated him like her son, bathing him and giving him a cookie to demonstrate her kindness, rather than holding him at knife-point and demanding the whereabouts of her real baby.
He Sulks When He’s Not Appreciated
When Piglet helps save the day or otherwise completes a big accomplishment, he expects high praise. For someone so timid, he sure demands a lot of respect, even if he’s still shy about it. When other animals are given recognition for something Piglet has done, instead of speaking up for himself he sulks away and feels sorry for himself.
This is one of the biggest themes of Piglet’s own movie. In fact, his friends, upon realizing they haven’t recognized his accomplishments, go after him when he disappears, which just promotes pouty behavior and the need for extrinsic motivation and recognition.
He Pretended To Be Roo Again
Piglet really has no shame when it comes to posing as Kanga’s kid, attempting to trick the mother. How many kids learned to lie from this deceitful behavior, we’ll never know, but Piglet certainly thought he could fool Kanga once more and tried to pose as the joey in order to give Tigger and Roo more playtime.
Kanga naturally knew Piglet wasn’t her kid the whole time, again, and doled out baths as punishments for all of the animals involved: Tigger, Roo, and Piglet. This is also weird behavior since baths shouldn’t be punishments and you can’t just bathe people who aren’t your kids.
He Dresses As A Fake Tigger
When Tigger believes that his family of Tiggers will be visiting him after his friends wrote letters pretending to be Tiggers, Piglet and the rest of the gang dress up and attempt to act like Tiggers instead of telling their friend the truth. They believe it’s to save him heartache, but of course, he discovers their ruse and storms off in a fury instead.
Sometimes Piglet is a fantastic friend. He’s even nearly laid his own life down in order to rescue a friend in need at times. But in this case, what he and the rest of the Hundred Acre Wood animals did was unethical toward their friend.
He Coerces Rabbit To Not Move
When Rabbit decides to move, Piglet and Tigger decide to act like the opposites of themselves in order to convince their friend to remain where he lives. This is rather selfish on their part, especially since they’re the reason he wants to move away in the first place, and given how annoyed Rabbit is all of the time anyway, why not let him and see if it makes him happier?
Piglet tries to bounce and act like Tigger, but as all of the friends swap personalities it’s just even more annoying than ever. Can they not just see how rude they’ve all been and apologize to their friend before promising to respect his boundaries?
He Wants To Bail On His Friends
During Pooh’s Heffalump Movie, the animals go on a hunt for heffalumps after Piglet has heard one of them make a noise. He whines about how scared he is the entire time, even though he’s the one who was most terrified of heffalumps to begin with and wants them dealt with most. He goes as far as saying that he wishes he were Roo since Roo didn’t have to go on the hunt! Who says they wish they were the baby to avoid a scary situation with friends? He’s basically the Eddie Kaspbrack from It of the group.
Luckily the heffalump is just looking for her baby and Piglet bucks up to make a new friend.
He’s Super Passive
It’s not that Piglet only lets Pooh be right all of the time, even though he’s wrong. He also is a total pushover, letting animals walk over him and even giving up his own beloved home to Owl when Owl’s home blew down. Piglet almost never stands up for himself, which is terrible to teach children.
While adults are beginning to find value in teaching children to be assertive and leader-like rather than passive and quiet, and therefore easier to handle, Piglet seems to stem from those outdated ideas and really needs to find a way to establish healthy boundaries with his friends.
He Jumps Into The Backson Trap
During the 2011 Winnie the Pooh animated feature, almost all of the critters of the Hundred Acre Wood fall into the Backson pit they’ve built themselves to catch the Backson, which is really a note from Christopher Robin that read “Back Soon.” It is the most baffling scene in Pooh history, with Pooh himself being the first to fall into the pit, but Piglet fares even worse.
As the last remaining hope of the animals, Piglet is supposed to help get his friends free. Instead, he jumps into the trap when he sees Tigger and gets scared. They make a leaf ladder to escape afterward.
