It somehow never occurred to me until just today that the way kicking a football works, Charlie Brown would have fallen every time regardless of whether Lucy van Pelt moved the ball or not.
Is Lucy really playing a cruel trick that her friend can’t help but fall for every time, in a thin allegory for postpubescent heterosexual courtship? Or is it an act of mercy, a plausible alibi for the famously self-deprecating Charlie’s own failures, so that for once he will blame someone other than himself?