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Francis Butthurst Pope (or simply called Francis), is the deuteragonist of "Big Nate" and is Nate's #1 friend (despite his #1A friend, Teddy), although he is a bit of a nerdy geek according to Nate. He is also the electric guitarist for Nate's garage band, Enslave the Mollusk. Francis is very intelligent and excels in school. He studies a lot. Much to Francis' annoyance, Nate often expresses the superiority of dogs to cats, because he is a dog lover who hates cats due to his ailurophobia. Francis rebuttals with his evidence of the superiority of cats, though the evidence usually pops up by itself. Francis doesn't mind dogs nonetheless, but always argues that cats are smarter.

"Remember, it's never too early to start thinking about the S.A.T!"
―Francis to Nate on February 15, 2011.

Francis even owns a cat named Pickles, whom Spitsy, the dog of Nate's neighbor (Mr. Eustis) is engaged to.

Francis is friendly to his Social Studies teacher, Mrs. Godfrey and to Artur Pashkov, contrary to Nate's feelings in which he says that Francis "sucks up" to her. Francis' mother, to whom he described, in Big Nate from the Top, was "quite slender.”

Biography

6th Grade

Francis first appeared in 1991. He is shown to have had a crush on Ellen Wright in the early 90s. In 1994, during the Charlie Brown play, it was shown that Francis had stage fright.

Physical Appearance

Francis has blonde hair that goes out in a swoop to whichever direction he faces and has a noticeable gap in his teeth. Francis always wears a green shirt with an 'F' (for Francis) in the center of it. He also wears jeans and circular glasses. His outfit changes in the summer, in which he wears a T-shirt version of his normal shirt and shorts, and the winter, where he wears a jacket or coat instead. In the Mold! story arc Francis wore a Jefferson shirt and carried around a flag.

Personality and Traits

Francis has been shown to be very kind and friendly to other people. Although he is smart and caring, he is also geeky; his geekiness can become annoying toward his friends, like Nate and Teddy (like whenever Francis gets a new edition of Book of Facts). Francis is highly intelligent for affairs relating to the school. Francis can also sometimes be shown/called a nerd, mostly because he sometimes carries around a book of tons of facts. His brain, according to Nate Wright is "25 percent math, 25 percent social studies, 40 percent geekiness, 10 percent other." He wants to get into the Ivy League.

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Francis

Relationships

Friends

Nate Wright

Along with Teddy Ortiz, Nate Wright is Francis' best friend at home and school.

The only thing Nate seems to hate about Francis, in general, is his aptitude for being neat and a goody-two-shoes, which Francis probably knows about. He is also very annoyed when Francis talks to him about trivia saying the information in it is "useless". Nate especially is dismayed when Francis brings a new edition of the Book of Trivia.

Francis sitting on the couch

According to Nate's Q-scores he made, Nate dropped Francis' score to an 89 from a 93 just to get on his nerves.

Teddy Ortiz

Teddy Ortiz is the other of Francis' two best friends. They tend to tease and pick on each other but according to Nate, this is how their friendship operates. Like Francis, Teddy also finds Nate to be somewhat to a good bit annoying.

Others

Gina Hemphill-Toms

According to Nate, Francis thinks Gina Hemphill-Toms to be a "pain." Although Francis has been seen a numerous amount of times working cooperatively with Gina. At an unknown date, Francis and Gina were forced to work together as Co-Editors on the Chronicle, after Gina attempted to take full control of the position...

Trudy

Trudy met Francis Pope after Nate introduced the two shortly after she and Nate became a couple. However, she is determined to spend time with her friends instead. Whether or not she was trying to avoid Teddy and Francis is unknown.

Teachers

Clara Godfrey

Francis respects Mrs. Godfrey as a favored teacher in the comics starting in the mid-1990s. Francis is also one of Mrs. Godfrey's favorite students, and Mrs. Godfrey could be Francis's favorite teacher (with the possible exception of Mr. Rosa). Francis can also be seen brown-nosing Mrs. Godfrey in some comics.

Girlfriends

Sheila Stapleton

Sheila Stapleton is Francis' girlfriend. Their relationship seemed to last throughout most of the school year, though it is possible they met in elementary school. Sheila is also willing to respect Francis' friends, namely Nate Wright, even though Nate thinks their relationship is annoying to him. According to him, Francis is not himself around Sheila (likely correct).

Ellen Wright

Ellen

Ellen Wright

At one point, in the very early years of Big Nate, Francis had a crush on Ellen Wright, Nate's older sister. However, his crush ended in 1992, when he had a sleepover at Nate's, and found out how ugly/scary she looks when she wakes up and doesn't tidy things up. Ellen most likely did not like Francis back.

Trivia

Francis in Little Big Nate.

Francis in Little Big Nate.

  • Francis was very chubby as a baby as a result of baby fat.
  • He is a member of the P.S. 38 cartooning club.
  • Francis fell in love with Ellen in Big Nate: Add More Babes.
  • Francis and Nate are neighbors.
  • He is obsessed with trivia.
  • Francis eats his lunch in alphabetical order.
  • Despite Nate unfavorable view of Mrs. Godfrey, Francis likes her a lot.
  • Francis was the captain of the Trivia Slam team "Francis's Factoids".
  • Francis and Gina are overall the same when it comes to intelligence. One year, it is revealed that his GPA (grade point average) was 99.5, and Gina's was 99.8. Francis also compares himself to Gina, while Nate compares himself to Artur and Teddy to Jay-Z.
  • His name is a reference to Pope Francis.
  • He wants to be an epidemiologist.
  • Although Francis prefers cats, he still doesn't mind dogs, unlike Nate, who loves dogs but hates cats. Nate always starts arguments with Francis about why dogs are better than cats, but the argument is always blown out of the water by a subsequent event, in favor of Francis.
  • Francis is the first character to appear in comics who is not related to Nate.
  • He is based on a real life person.
  • He has a lot of allergies.
  • He saved Nate's life in Big Nate: Silent But Deadly.
  • His favorite color is red as seen in https://www.gocomics.com/bignate/2007/10/21.
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