Walter Seymour Skinner - Armin Tamzarian

Friday, July 22, 2022

Walter Seymour Skinner (non-canonically born as Armin Tamzarian), better known as Seymour Skinner and Principal Skinner is a recurring character in The Simpsons. He is the principal of Springfield Elementary School, and a stereotypical educational bureaucrat. He struggles to control the crumbling school and is constantly engaged in a battle against its inadequate resources, apathetic and bitter teachers, and often rowdy and unenthusiastic students, Bart Simpson being a standout example. A strict disciplinarian, Skinner has an uptight, militaristic attitude that stems from his years in the United States Army as a Green Beret, which included service in the Vietnam War, where he achieved the rank of a sergeant, according to his rank insignia. As a result of his service in the Vietnam War, he is often plagued by horrible memories of his involvement via post-traumatic stress disorder, sometimes even happening at the most inopportune of times. It is also implied that he received a severe injury during the Vietnam War on his posterior to require a metal plate to be installed in it.

In late 2017-early 2018, an old segment of the show featuring Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers having a luncheon went viral, spawning what has become known as the "Steamed Hams" meme.

He was born in 1944, meaning he is 45 (in 1989)

Biography

Out of genuine concern for the quality of education of his students, most of Skinner's actions revolve around ensuring the school has adequate funding. His constant desperate, and usually ineffective attempts at maintaining discipline are an effort to receive good reviews from the frequent inspections of his capricious, temperamental, and whimsical superior, Superintendent Chalmers - who makes no effort to hide his disapproval of Skinner. These inspections usually turn away due to Bart Simpson's elaborate pranks—which playoff Skinner's desperation for order. Over the years of pranks and inspections, though, Skinner has developed a love-hate relationship with each of them; when Skinner was fired and replaced by Ned Flanders, Bart found pranks less meaningful, due to Flanders' lax approach to discipline.

In an accident involving both Skinner and Chalmers, Chalmers showed grief over Skinner before he realized he was still alive. Although he likes to maintain the image of a strict disciplinarian, he is often weak-willed and nervous and has a very unhealthy dependence on his mother who constantly makes demands from him. She addresses him by the nickname "Spanky." Also, it was heavily implied that Seymour Skinner suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from his days in Vietnam, where he spent eighteen months as a prisoner of war. Seeing his entire platoon devoured by an elephant was one of the many things that led to the development of his post-traumatic stress disorder. Once, his PTSD kicked in in the middle of trying to alert students of a prank that Bart pulled involving heart message candies with crude statements on the PA where he remembered his war buddy Johnny being killed while he was writing a Valentine's Day card for his girlfriend back at home, causing Bart to think he "broke brain". However, one PTSD related episode didn't deal with the war itself, but rather his experiences after the war, where he was apparently spat upon by people who were presumably anti-Vietnam when he was earlier promised with a parade.

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Walter Seymour Skinner - Armin Tamzarian

Biography