not to theorize hard bc im new here, but sparking off the wally & autism coding ask, what ive gleaned from all the info on how like. wally had to be taught what a joke is, doesn't understand hugs, doesnt say piss words - other than he's an audience surrogate as you said - i feel like is driving home the theme of being & growing up heavily sheltered. It comes through in the overall setting of the story being a children's show, Wally as the main character of the show is required to have a static, codependent relationship to Home for the sake of episodic material, also the benefits gained off ignorance by the person housing you (in this case, its entirely the show runners, but a real life parallel would be like an abusive parent).
The show's narrative necessitates his ignorance of simple concepts, even as an adult character, because the show requires it of him as a protagonist in order to keep writing material. There's a lot to be said just on becoming aware of that alone in the context of the ARG, but stepping back from it and thinking in relation to the real world, that's terrifying. It would be an indescribable horror to realize your entire existence has been catered to fit the narrative of someone who was supposedly taking care of you, which like. we're seeing the ramifications of that in the prologue already. It screams metaphor pretty much out the gate, I feel like. Admittedly, I'm also self projecting with this take on it by a LONG mile, lmao.
not discoursing btw; while i do feel that the overall presented themes should inform the intent of the material, it's genuinely interesting to see the differing reads people have based off their life experiences. I also enjoy your analysis on WH, its all good food.
addendum i feel like i should add that my ask was all more a response to the idea of infantilization and child coding, not refuting that the characters have autism that would be buckwild
oh, no worries, i didn't take it that way at all! i actually agree with a lot of what you wrote, or at least i think it's very plausible in terms of Overarching Themes and Metaphors. i don't even think its mutually exclusive with the aforementioned experiences with one's own neurodiversity - i've written about that briefly before; it's part of what i mean when i say things like "cosmic horror coming of age" (meta horror coming of age, as well?)
i will say, though, i don't think it's exclusive to wally. as it's been said before, every neighbor is the nebulous age of Adult, even if some seem to be considered more mature than others even in-universe - but i think they each have some degree of immaturity about them, in their own way. their environment doesn’t seem to give them much room or encouragement to grow, for obvious reasons. something something status quo is god, something something their existence seems to be both sustained and limited by human interference, in all its imperfection and susceptibility to bias (particularly in the context of 60s-70s usamerican culture.) it's just that based on what we know so far, wally seems to exhibit this the most.
