Relationships
Upon the introduction of Charlie Brown's little sister, Sally Brown, into the strip in 1959, Linus had the desire to marry her. However, as the strip progressed, he outgrew this idea, while Sally on the other hand fell in love with Linus, calling him her "Sweet Babboo", much to his displeasure. Linus in turn has an innocent crush on his school teacher, Miss Othmar (later Mrs. Hagemeyer). In some of the later '90s strips he developed an interest in Lydia, the girl who sits behind him, who keeps changing her name and, as Linus is two months older than she, asks him, "Aren't you kind of old for me?" (This is a subtle reference to cartoonist Schulz and his own second wife, who was some twenty years younger than he.) It was also Linus who first introduced Frieda, as "...a sort of a friend of mine" who sat behind him in school. He also fell for several different girls in various animated television specials, as well as a girl called Truffles, whom he and Snoopy met while looking for the fungi bearing her name.
Linus meekly submits to domination by his older sister Lucy, who has been known to attack him at the drop of a hat. Linus did finally challenge her to a fight when he thought he could beat her in a boxing match, only to get knocked out.
However, Linus often defuses Lucy's temper through passive resistance and clever use of his intellect, either logically talking Lucy out of hitting him or confusing her into submission. Later in the strip, the pair got a younger brother, Rerun, who looks nearly identical to Linus, though smaller. Coincidentally, this occurred at the same time Lucy kicked Linus out of the house, leading her to cry "A new baby brother? But I just got rid of the old one!"
Linus generally plays second base on Charlie Brown's Little League team. Sometimes, when for some reason Charlie Brown can't pitch, Linus takes the mound and is unhittable. Charlie Brown's team always wins games when Linus pitches.
Read more about this topic: Linus Van Pelt