>>123598606>>123599595>Arnold is a little dense?I've always figured that more than anything it's due to how early in the show that episode happened(indeed there's a fanmade chronological rearrangement of the show to make it work better in that regard* and it happened really early there too), so Helga would have been at her peak meanness to Arnold, so more than anything else it's just how different "Cecile" acts from Helga, not to mention he was trying to do a date with both "Cecile" and Ruth at the same time so his attention was divided too
always thought a fun story could have come out of an alternate version of Arnold's Valentine where Arnold does figure out that "Cecile" is Helga(say maybe Ruth comes down with a cold so Arnold spends the whole date with "Cecile" rather than running back and forth and has more time to pay attention to her), confronts her about it resulting in Helga admitting her feelings for Arnold way ahead of schedule^, and the ensuing heart to heart results in them becoming a couple(very ahead of schedule), would be interesting to see how this butterflies the rest of the series
*found here;
https://www.deviantart.com/utopianpeace/art/Hey-Arnold-Timeline-379048581^yeah it'd be more realistic for her to get all confrontational about it and try to blow it off as a prank or something, but that's less interesting
