Helga G. Pataki

Helga Geraldine Pataki is the semi-antagonist/protagonist in the Nickelodeon animated television series Hey Arnold!.

She is voiced by Francesca Marie Smith in series and movies.

Personality
Helga is something of a tomboy, as evidenced by her interest in playing contact sports alongside her male classmates, blatant lack of femininity, and disregard/dislike for stereotypical female behavior, as seen in the episode "Helga's Makeover". She can also be very cynical and bossy, bullying her 4th-grade classmates with an iron fist, and often taking advantage of her best friend, Phoebe, making her a bit of a spoiled brat. However, Helga also has a much softer side, which becomes apparent when she is alone and involved in her school work. She is very emotional, and as such, able to comprehend a spectrum of emotions such as love and hate. This emotional extremity is a running joke throughout the series; although Helga is seen as a "tough girl" by her classmates, she is frequently the first to go into hysterics in times of crisis. Her personality fits that of a tsundre (i.e. showing signs of bipolar disorder). She has also been known to be somewhat materialistic. Helga is occasionally clumsy, but is also a genius. In the episode "The Aptitude Test", in which the class takes a standardized exam, it is eventually revealed that she achieved a perfect score on the test and the most outstanding result since her perfectionist sister, Olga Pataki, took the test. Presumably, however, the types of grades she receives on an average basis in school vary from low to high — in the episode "Quantity Time", Helga tells her parents that she failed another math test at school, though in "A Day in the Life of A Classroom", her teacher Mr. Simmons encourages Helga to help Harold because she received excellent scores on the past two math exams. Her bad grades are most likely caused by her lack of motivation, attention, and academic concern. Helga appears to excel academically in literature classes as evidenced by Mr. Simmons' constant praise of her literary work, though he always withholds her name possibly out of respect as she gets embarrassed when he reads them aloud. Helga displays a remarkable gift for poetry, and is able to create, often on the spot, dramatic soliloquies expressing a situation or feeling with an impressive use of vocabulary, especially for someone her age. These poems and monologues were simpler in the earlier episodes, but grew in their intensity as the series progressed. Aside from poetry, Helga exhibits further evidence of cultural experience, being able to identify the work of Edward Hopper and make reference to George Orwell's 1984 in "Helga on The Couch". Helga's catch phrase is "criminy", which she apparently picked up from her father. Her hair looks like brooms and she has a monobrow. She is allergic to strawberries (see "Quantity Time"), which cause her to break out in hives.