Margaret Manson is the school psychologist at Lawndale High. She is voiced by Jessica Zaino.
Physical Appearance[]
Margaret Manson is a woman with wrinkles on her face and a prominent jawline. Her dark brown hair falls below her shoulders with light brown side bangs. She wears a light brown turtleneck, unbuttoned white lab coat, pants, and shoes. She wears a pair of brown spectacles on a chain and a necklace.
Personality[]
Like most of the staff of Lawndale High-School, Manson clearly doesn't like her job and will often try to avoid making effort into it. She seems to value shallow and popular personalities as her standards as normal as she was accommodating to Quinn, even when Quinn tried to protest the psychological exam.
She does however hate when people undermine her work. As seen when Daria messed with her standard questions, which in turn caused her to falsely diagnose Daria with Low Self Esteem. As well as deliberately mispronounce Daria's name even after being corrected the first time.
It was her attempts at reigning Daria in that kickstarted Daria's adventurous and chaotic life in Lawndale High School.
Background[]
Manson is tasked to give every new student a psychological test, so Angela Li can "spot any little clouds on the horizon". What qualifications or training Manson has is unknown. (She doesn't have "Doctor" in front of her name, so there's no Ph.D.) Her tests include a picture of two people talking, where her patients have to describe what they are talking about, and a form written test.
In Esteemsters, she did not get along with Daria Morgendorffer; the girl launched cynical barbs at her and refused to cooperate at all. Manson got annoyed and subsequently diagnosed her as having low self-esteem. During the test, Manson got Daria's name wrong twice, the second time in the very next sentence after getting it right (was she doing it deliberately?).
In The Daria Diaries, Manson also had Daria and Quinn fill in written tests (Daria's answers deliberately taking the piss); the tests warned that writing on the back of the paper could see you classed as a "delinquent personality" ("it's too late to worry about that" wrote Daria). She also says that she loves her job and yet has a recurring dream where the students turn into bloodsucking bats.
The Daria Database shows her in a counseling session with a weeping Stacy Rowe—and thinking about lunch instead of paying attention to her.
Trivia[]
- Margaret only has one speaking role, in Esteemsters in which she declares Daria has self-esteem issues.
- In Lucky Strike, Margaret joined the teacher's union strike.