Obsessed with how the CG5 songs for the Prototype and CatNap play off each other.
The first verse for "Sleep Well" opens with the premise of community:
You're not alone, you will see
The children, they have each other
And each other is all they need
CatNap first shepherds the listener to follow his lead. He identifies them as one of The Children only to later reposition himself as a fellow child, switching from I's to we's.
In "Wrong Side Out," the opening verse is individual:
From what was once a prison
So if you share my vision
Thank me, dear, for paradise
Like CatNap, the Prototype's introduction starts from a position of authority. However, the Prototype does not identify himself as a member of society the way CatNap does. He introduces himself as the founder of paradise, as God, and remains elevated above the listener and his fellow toys for the entire duration of the song. This individualism is oppressive as the entirety of "Wrong Side Out" is dominated by the Prototype's voice.
Compare this with "Sleep Well," where the mini Critters readily and openly voice their desires for freedom. CatNap harmonizes with them and makes space for their grievances. He acknowledges their yearning in lines that read as gentle pacification:
Freedom, freedom, freedom (we all fall down)
We'll sleep well now, dream dreams knocked out
New blooms when playtime sprouts
Though life in the shadows isn't much
It's better than living in a cage
When other toys sing in "Wrong Side Out" it is in clear distress. There is no playful back-and-forth or safe atmosphere. It is tense, desperate, and immediately cut off by the Prototype:
Tell me who I am, don't put me in the box
I'll be good, I'll be good (but a child's what they made you)
The Prototype does not entertain the other voices. He is swift to penalize and minimize them as juvenile. Their requests are painfully silenced.
Compare this with CatNap, who does not treat the mini's wants and inability to make peace with their reality as punishable offenses. He relates to them and tries to assuage their unease using his individual power and through group support.
Note that when the minis call out ("Can you see us? / Can you hear us?")
Artificial facade from a fraud of a God
All due to the path that we trod
We just wanted to heal, but now our nightmares are real
And now we'll never wake up, for we've torn apart
He identifies what ails the minis and the source of said ailment, but interestingly he frames it as a collective wrong. In this way, he also absolves the Prototype of culpability by positioning his deification and creation of Paradise as the direct consequence of the Hour of Joy. The Prototype, conceptually, is a deception created by the toys. The tone of the song is resigned as a result: CatNap and the minis (which we can safely presume to be his Somniferous Flock) are painfully aware of the falsity presented to them. They are not content with this so-called Paradise. However, CatNap perceives their shared nightmare as the result of collective sin. The Prototype, who is just as much of a jailer as he is their God, is a punishment they designed for themselves. The toys, therefore, must endure by finding solace in each other's company or through escapism.
This clarity is entirely absent in the Prototype's song. A point of great interest is that the Prototype, unlike CatNap, appears to hold genuine belief in his godhood:
This is the start of my immortal perfection
This contrast is one I am particularly fascinated with, because it inverts our understanding of the dynamic between the Priest and the Judge. It is not CatNap that acts with an unshakeable belief in the Prototype, but instead the Prototype buying into his own hype. It presents an interesting relationship in which the Prototype's delusions are held by himself alone and his Paradise is only comprehensible when repackaged and disseminated by the children to the children. Thus, what was meant to be a statement of power by the Prototype instead support's CatNap's assertion that their "fraud of a God" is a social construct. The Prototype can only be as strong as the toys allow him to be.
Another difference between CatNap and the Prototype is how they relate to others in their song. CatNap is able to connect with other toys on an emotional level while the Prototype cannot. He does not offer solidarity, comfort, or awareness of why toys feel the way they do. Instead, he pathologizes their feelings and turns to procedures to eliminate the "ailments":
Maybe now you'll see reason
And you'll get lost in the white
Maybe now you'll feel freedom
Note how reason is equated with sight—which we know is damaged or outright removed from the Outimals. Freedom, which was external in "Sleep Well," is internalized here as something gained through one's loss of self.
What the Prototype reveals within his song is ignorance. He believes himself to be better than a child, yet he readily buys into fantasy and treats it as reality. When friction threatens his Paradise, the Prototype silences his dissidents so as to preserve his dream. He is alienated through his refusal to connect with the others and failure to recognize that his godhood was not decided by his biology.
Thus, if "Sleep Well" is a lament meant to soothe the masses, then "Wrong Side Out" is the pomp that sparks regicide.
