Helga Pataki - Family - Olga Pataki

Olga Pataki

Olga (Nika Frost) suffers from perfectionism, which creates a great strain on her relationship with Helga. She is also very warm and friendly which makes Helga feel uncomfortable when it is directed towards her (like when Olga hugs her). Olga and Helga do not relate to each other well, causing great conflict and resentment on Helga's behalf (Much of the resentment is exerted by Helga, for Olga doesn't seem to resent her little sister at all). Helga is jealous of Olga's image of perfection and of the attention she receives from both of their parents, Bob and Miriam. In the episode "Helga on the Couch" she tells the school psychologist Dr. Bliss about her home life. The viewer is soon taken back in time to when Helga was a toddler. In the scene, Olga is playing a tune on the grand piano for their parents. When Olga finishes the tune, she receives praise from Bob and Miriam. However, when Helga interrupts by tugging on Bob's pants to tell him "I have to go to preschool!" He replies "Go play outside." Eventually Helga announces that she's leaving for preschool. All the while Bob, Miriam and Olga ignore her as she walks out the door. Soon the episode returns to a 9-year-old Helga, who reveals that she believes Olga hogs all the attention and is insincere. However, throughout the series, viewers only see the sibling relationship from Helga's point of view. The viewer doesn't know with any certainty if Olga is intentionally a selfish attention seeker as Helga perceives her to be or in denial and oblivious to the family dysfunction. Overall, Olga is kind to Helga and has good intentions. But Helga does not respond to her kindness because she feels it is insincere. Olga does not listen to or address Helga's more serious concerns about their family and relationship. Olga is condescending to Helga, calling her "baby sister" which Helga finds irksome. However, during one episode, Olga, rather dramatically, retreated to her bedroom for a few days, believing that she had got a B+ grade on her report card rather than her usual straight A's. It turned out that Helga had deliberately changed it to knock her sister down a peg or two and to gain some attention for herself. Later in the episode when Helga admits to changing her grade, it is revealed that Olga does feel pressured by their parents, telling Helga that she's lucky that their parents don't notice her, whilst Olga "has to perform all the time like some little wind up doll". This indicates that to some extent, both sisters are envious of the others' predicament.

However, there are times where Helga showed some affection and concern for Olga. In the episode "Big Sis", when Olga becomes Lila's big sis after joining a "Big Sis, Little Sis" program, Helga continually tries to muck up Olga and Lila's plans unbeknownst to them. At the end, she reveals to Olga that she is jealous and envious of the relationship she has with Lila. Helga is reassured by Olga that she will always be her "baby sis" and that they have a strong "bond" that only real sisters have that no one can break. If she really didn't like Olga, she wouldn't have been jealous of her spending time with Lila and wouldn't have exerted all her time and energy into messing things up. In another episode when Olga becomes engaged to a man named "Doug," it becomes apparent to Helga that he is unfaithful. Initially Helga is amused at the thought of Olga marrying Doug and becoming a disappointment to their parents. But at the end of the episode, Helga has second thoughts and intervenes on Olga's behalf which helped end her sister's risky engagement to Doug. In the episode "Student Teacher", Helga does everything in her power to make Olga lose her assistant teacher/internship position at her school and urges Olga to become a teacher in Alaska as was Olga's original plan. After Helga has a heart to heart conversation with Olga, she eventually convinces Olga to leave for Alaska. The episode ends with Helga reading a post card she received from Olga and writing a letter in response. Helga initially writes "From" and then looks at a picture she has of Olga. After looking at the picture of her sister, she crosses out the word from and instead writes "Love".

• In the episode "Helga on the Couch", when Helga has a flashback to when she was approximately between the ages of 3 and 5 years old, Olga is seen playing a tune on the grand piano. Helga interrupts and asks her parents, "Who's going to take me to preschool?" However, she is ignored and when Olga finishes her tune, Miriam praises her saying to Bob, "Can you believe her! Olga only fifteen years old and already a piano concertist and class valedictorian!" It can be assumed that since Helga mentions preschool, that Olga is probably 10 to 12 years older than her.
• Although Helga says Olga attends Bennington College (a college with that name does exist in the U.S.A. within the state of Vermont), it is discovered in the episode "Olga Comes Home" that she attends Wellington College (colleges with this name also exist but they are located in England, Ireland, New Zealand and Hong Kong) and some other countries).
• In "Big Sis", it is evident that Olga and Lila have similar personalities and interests.
• In the episode "Spelling Bee" Bob tells Helga that Olga won the spelling bee as a child because she remembered to include the silent letter "l" in the word qualm. It was after the spelling bee that Olga continued to win more trophies from other competitions and contests. So much so that they began to fill up the living which is why Bob began calling it the trophy room.