Bathorys Daughter wrote: It also appears one bath lasts about a month. Is this what we are supposed to take away from all this?
Either that, or she did it once a month,
before the smell was bad enough to bother people... so if she happened to not have time and waited a few days or even a few weeks, it might not have been too bad. She just played it safe.
Of course, it could also be that when Nudge was younger, she played in mud and/or water and/or other stuff that would make her fur smell, so she had to get that bath regularly, whether such a bath would otherwise have lasted longer or not.
Bathorys Daughter wrote:I kind of doubt being dipped into a volcano is really Nudge's worst fear. Maybe her worst dislike. It just seems like a worst fear would be much more frightening than this. It seems to me this is a superficial dread more than a worst fear.
I wouldn't discount that as her worst fear. If she knows she's nigh invulnerable, and can usually manage to stay one step ahead of the people that she tricks, so that she doesn't worry too much about retaliation, it may well be that her fears would be of a more mundane nature. Having had poor experiences with lava baths growing up, it may have left her somewhat stigmatized about the whole thing, so it may very well be that the lava bath is her worst fear.
Take me, for instance: I'm fairly built, tall (only 6', so officially on the low end of tall...), an imposing figure. So I'm not too worried about someone trying to rob me on the street. Only if there was a gun involved, would I not stand a chance, but that would be true no matter what my size... I'm fairly calm, not nervous in the least, and confident about my driving ability, so I won't worry about getting in a car accident, or a bicycle accident either, for that matter (I know how well I can handle a bike). And if such an accident was caused by someone else, there's probably not much I could have done to prevent it, so why worry ahead of time about it? I fear not heights, nor tight spaces, nor bugs. So what is it I worry about?
Dropping my car keys in a sewer grate.
Pretty mundane, but since I'm mostly not worried about more dangerous stuff, it had to fall somewhere... Same with Nudge.
One thing that does favor that hypothesis is the fact that Phix, who did not know ahead of time what took place, knew that since Monica made Nudge face her worst fear, they would be able to breathe freely for a while (from a lack of pungent odor emanating from Nudge).
Bathorys Daughter wrote:It could be Monica is only able to get just so far when reading others. She is not yet able to get deep into someone to dredge up the really fundamental stuff.
Of course, that could be true regardless of whether Nudge's worst fear is a lava bath or not.