I've always felt incredibly sympathetic toward Charlie Brown and often pondered what message Charles Schultz was trying to convey with that trope.

What made Lucy like that?! I often think of the trope in the context of US politics, and specifically progressive capitulation to capital. I find it one of the darkest and yet prescient parts of Schultzes lore.. (Snoopy being an adult with a long, colorful history yet still treated as a dog, being another)