The Origins of Bernard Drakoon
Unlike Harriet, Bernard's development isn't that storied. I knew I was going to need another member of Star Wolf for the series. The Star Fox team is going to end up with seven members total, Star Wolf is going to need some additional members to make up the difference.
Rivals Arise was actually written after War's End. While writing it I knew I couldn't mess with Pigma's reveal, but I still needed Star Wolf to be a four member team. So enter Bernard Drakoon.
He's a bearded dragon, because I saw the bearded dragon in A Fox in Space and went... 'ooh that looks cool!'. Also, it was a type of lizard we hadn't seen in any official media. It also worked with venomians seemingly being either lizards or monkeys.
I decided that Bernard would be an older character - in the same age bracket as Peppy, James, Pigma, and so on - and that he would be Andrew's bodyguard. This is why we meet him along with Andrew in Rivals Arise, and how he ended up on the Star Wolf team to begin with.
Now, the way it works with Star Wolf and Star Fox is that they are rival teams and each member has a counterpart. Wolf and Fox, Leon and Falco, so on and so forth. When Krystal was added to the team, Star Wolf got Panther.
Bernard was created to be the 'rival' of a Star Fox member. However, he is not Harriet's rival. Given she is a support member and will very rarely be seen in an arwing, I don't think Harriet will have a Star Wolf rival. (Also Star Wolf has a doctor in the form of Leon, who studied medicine in order to be a more efficient assassin. He has absolute shit bedside manner, but he can keep his teammates from dying... if he feels like it.)
This is why Bernard is an older character. Also why he is from Papetoon - not only from Papetoon but the exact same village James was from.
Funnily enough, he won't be the last member of Ta'ton we meet. There is one more character who left that village and made it to the stars. One who will be important later in the series.
But wait, isn't Bernard dead? Nope. He won't be seen again for a while, but he still lives. Something he has in common with his rival.