One of the most basic things they teach you in Teacher School is that if you know a kid is being bullied, bringing all the other kids together and scolding them for being mean and excluding That Kid is a great way to escalate it from “they don’t let this kid play with them” to “they are beating up this kid.”

If you actually want to address the problem, the other kids can’t know they’re being told what to do. A good way to address it is to create a situation where the bullied kid gets to be the big cool hero in a way that benefits everybody, then put the bullied kid in that situation and let them save the day.

Santa, in “Rudolph,” is essentially doing the same thing that any teacher does when they have a class jeopardy game with a pizza party riding on it, and give the last question to the weird kid who’s bullied for being super into anime, and that question happens to be about that kid’s favorite anime, and they get it right, and now EVERYBODY gets pizza, thanks to Anime Kid!

Creating a situation, among a community of christmas-loving deer, where christmas can only happen because of the thing that’s special about Rudolph, was literally LITERALLY him intervening on Rudolph’s bullying. Do you think Santa, an immortal time-bending elf-saint who is sanctioned by god to monitor the children of the world and deliver them toys, is unable to navigate a foggy night? You really think his offering Rudolph, an untested rookie, the glamor post was an act of last resort? Do any of you know ANYTHING about Pedagogy or Classroom Management? These are deer. BABIES understand this song.