My Half-Analysis-Half-Theory on Why Bugs Bunny Acts the Way He Does
oh i was SO locked while writing this. i don't have much to say as an introduction, but everything is under the cut as per usual my friends. happy reading!!!!
Just as a precursor to this, I do not intend to defend Bugs Bunny with literally anything I’m about to say. I’ll probably restate this multiple times throughout, but he is a horrible and morally corrupt character. I do not want my attention towards his possible motivations to come off as empathy for them, or for him as a whole. Alright, now that I’ve said that, I’m comfortable starting.
Bugs, love him or hate him, is an extremely interesting case study. A character who at first glance can just be taken as an evil, manipulative monster–but as I’ve previously established, I don’t believe in monsters, only people. So to truly understand Bugs, you must look deeper than just his surface level attitude. Being that he looks uncaring, sarcastic, and nonchalant, I understand why so many people find it hard to characterize him.
Nonetheless, that’s what I’m here to attempt (despite his critical lack of panel time so far).
Per my post on morality in Myth of the Machine, I’ve already stated that I think that every toon is traumatized to some extent. Due to the horrifically dangerous, adrenaline inducing, fight-or-flight encouraging world that this story centers around, I guarantee you it would be almost impossible to find a toon without mental or emotional damage from simply.. growing up on the planet they did.
What I will emphasize, though, is that toons are encouraged by societal pressures to hide that part of themselves and continue on with their daily lives as if they are fine. Those who do not tend to face scrutiny–see Oswald, for example. These parts of society do not vanish when we get to Bugs, and I actually think they’re rather vital to his character.
Bugs grew up, we can assume, either right before or during the golden age of reanimation. Either way, a significant portion of his life would have been spent in it. This era seemed to be peaceful for toons, with years of hope where they felt that they would be able to survive and calmly live their lives. This was ripped from them rather harshly when things took a turn for the worst, the blot beginning to spread throughout toons and the ink machine being dismantled.
This kind of sudden chaos is exactly how PTSD is formed. An event so tragic and so intense that your brain can’t process it properly, and it becomes a mental health disorder. I wouldn’t call it a stretch to say a lot of toons who lived for this shift may have post-traumatic stress disorder, or at least the general trauma that I think all toons have. Bugs, of course, would be one of these toons.
When your life, which seemed so calm and happy before, suddenly takes an intense shift for the worst without you being able to do anything about it, it creates severe psychological damage. How people react to that damage is different, of course, but I think for our favorite little bunny, it has manifested itself in the form of an intense desire for control.
We see this in his goals and ambitions–the way he wants more government rein in ToonTown, how he wants the people to rely on their regime. We also see this in his actions towards people like Mickey–the manipulation, the way that he tries to shift his actions into ones that he thinks are most beneficial for himself. He is extremely intelligent and competent, but beneath that, it seems to me almost as if he’s grasping at straws to try to get back any semblance of normalcy that his life once had.
He knows that there’s no going back, no fixing what has happened to ToonTown, at least not currently. But if he can control the people around him, if he can control what’s happening to some extent at all times, then at least it doesn’t feel so horrible all of the time. If he can just make sure things go his way, then things won’t be so unpredictable–he can work with what he is sure of, it’s harder to work with total chaos.
His desire for control over people, over the toons, over life as a whole, has led him down a path of complete moral decay. He has stopped caring about the people around him, he has stopped minding who lives and who dies as long as it pushes him closer to his end goal. His greed for power and stability has driven him so far off the deep end that he’s willing to take advantage of others in their lowest moments. He’s unnaturally cruel towards toons like Mickey and Tails, and it all stems back to this desire to have everything in the palm of his hand.
What I think we’ll end up seeing, if I’m correct about this, is that he’ll never truly be satisfied. His insatiable greed could end up being his downfall, as somebody who is doing things for the reason I think he is could never really be content. He’s acting to try to comfort himself in a way, but in the process, destroying his mind.
This level of almost disgusting amounts of yearning for power is what seemingly drove the celestials away in the first place. I think that every Star represents some form of it, we just haven’t seen it in all of them yet.
To finish myself off, I will say that, once again, I do not empathize with Bugs whatsoever. I’ve stated that I think life is what you make of it, and that rings true here as well. Despite his troubles and traumas–which ever toon has–he has chosen to be as wicked and horrible to people as he is. He has made the conscious decision to be an absolute piece of shit. He’s awful, and it’s nobody's fault but his own.
I simply think that to hold a character (or person) accountable for their actions, you must acknowledge what may have led them down the path they are on, and still hold them responsible for the way they have chosen to respond to their environment.
But hey! That’s just a theory. A GAME THEORY!!! Thanks for watching.
