In my head, Tugger is an enormous floofball and will use this to his advantage if he needs to be a meat shield, or to bluff dogs into running away. Can he land a blow? Absolutely not. But he can usually put on a good enough show that he doesn't have to. And against a serious enemy... well, we might be into whump territory, because if needed he'll get serious too and just take damage so others (especially kittens, Deut, or Munk) can get away.
In my head, that's what he was doing in Vienna when Mac showed up: charging him to draw his fire. But in the US revival, when he's there for the abduction and the first part of the fight then runs off, he tries the meatshield approach and fails, so falls back on strategy... the strategy of Misto-fetching!
i cant see it. sorry yall. the rum tum tugger isnt a protector to me. hes there to look pretty and act as moral support in the worst of times. that one gif of him running and hiding with sillabub during one of the macavity scenes is canon to me
@statisticalcats I'm sorry there's just no going back from that. They's his. 😌 platonic or romantic or familial or just messy, he's gonna have to step up if he dies for it.
Mungojerrie just before Macavity appears: still terrified, but despite that beginning to be drawn into protector mode, when his Rumpelteazer and Demeter are scared..!
Brian Craig Nelson as Mungojerrie, Taryn Smithson as Rumpelteazer, and Nora DeGreen as Demeter. US tour 6, October 2022.