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@carosbee : 🐺 - Should Wilbur get a redemption arc?
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ok iwill try to be brief (1/80000). i think this is actually a rlly complicated question w plentiful angles but if ihad to condense MY personal thesis: i think practically everyone deserves redemption, and cwil is no exception. if it was up to me, he'd never see the ppl he hurt again. but the ppl tht love him will always love him. idk if he deserves that. but they do. so if he's gnna come back, v v v bar to the floor least he cn do i acknowledge how truly, truly, truly fucked a lot of wht he did to them was + needs to put an unbelievable amnt of work to deserve their grace and forgiveness no if ands or buts. let me explain ☝️ rest under cut bcs i'm the humble hating nutjob. warning fr cwil "crit" + cwil "neg" (in quotations bcs these r just his canon actions) but i do wnna be transparent that this talks abt said shitter actions n if thts too much fr you yr welcome to scroll away :] gen this isn't a slight do what ygotta! also warnings fr canon typical toxicity and suicide
cwil is capable of being. extremely monumentally cruel. and this isn't a unique trait, many of the dsmp characters are, but the consistency and selfish root and target of his actions iit's like. i feel like i'm in a mass gaslighting campaign or smthng i like never see ppl rlly look at the shit he's done and contend w what it means.
objectively, he's a antagonist in all this, there's really no arguing here. in the pogtopia-manburg war, he's a bad guy who wants to blow up the crowd w him multiple times. in revival, he's a tense force tht imposes on people. the full quote isn't "ctubbo doesn't wnna be like cschlatt." it's "ctubbo doesn't wnna be like cschlatt, and ctommy doesnt wnna be like cwilbur." they're both on the hitlist, like. what does tht say. but, of course, crucially, fr both, he's also a victim. his antagonist role doesn't mean he's not sympathetic, it doesn't mean he wasn't being set up, it doesn't mean he wasn't sick and scared and delusional, it doesn't mean that nov16 wasn't a deeply horrifying suicide attempt. it's all awful and terrible, and he didn't deserve that. and tht can coexist w the fact that the totality of his targets, the power he wields over them, how conditional the remorse he shows can be.* (i won't even get into his wack ass apology streams.) like. you surely get what i'm saying. all those actions he chose to do can be awful too. it can just be two things.
*and ithink thts wht makes ghostbur so effective,,,at least did b4 those stupid ass retcons but idgaf, if it spits in the face of its own internal consistency and lore and betrays the core of the characters, idon't have to hold onto it. so taking this as it was written: ghostbur says he wants to distance himself frm alivebur. the point of that is alivebur n ghostbur ARE the same person. even if it's blurry, even if the intricacies of limbo make things harder to explain. but tht fractured sense of self, a coping mechanism to even be able to live w yrself...he wants to seperate himself in the sense of separating his actions, not wanting to be hated, not wanting the weight of it on his shoulders...there's a Lottttt of scenes where ycn p easily parse tht ghostbur DOES remember more thn he lets on, he just doesnt wnna look at it. he cant bare to. it's tragic.
i'm bringing this up bcs up to this point, iwas v much still on the guys side even if he was. intense smtimes, to put it mildly. ycould rlly feel tht sense of remorse and pain and iwas like ok...this will all. mean smthng. but for it to do that, it needs to contend! it needs to take his mistakes seriously while understanding the pain that lead to them, it needs accountability and sympathy and an actual point, and instead it delivers on fuck all. it wants to have its cake and eat it too, telling us the audience oh! isn't he sooo sad! please extend your understanding! while still having him over and over do worse and worse actions tht "being sad" don't erase. while not wanting that understanding to extend to the people he harms.
and it doubles down on that all through the revival arc.
if i may be so bold. ithnk ppl smtimes overstate or overlean on cwil mental illness as sm barrier. it's always this nebulous third thing tht conveniently absolves him of everything,,,even the smallest, more coherent moments robbed of their agency bcs its more palatable fr him to be sm poor baby woobie rather than sm jackass who smtimes just makes the wrong fucking choice. which imo is the more interesting version of the character, as is for all characters!
and ithnk tht v revival arc then also recontextalizes his earlier actions...ythink its just the circumstances, it's largely, maybe, probably just that, maybe, and sure, he's being selfish and shitty, and awful, and he's still responsible fr a lot of it, but he's struggling, he's hurt, it's fucking SAD! i feel for the guy, it all just fucking sucks!! and that hope is still there. and then you're forced to see tht it WASN'T like sixty flukes, it wasn't just this continuous, continuous set of mistakes, it wasn't smthing he... cwilbur just fucking sucks. ok? he just fucking sucks sometimes. he'd short sighted and self serving and places his own needs above others. over and over and over.
he abandoned his son b4 and after revival. he disowned fundy, mocked him for his spy efforts, fucking. waterboarded him? even if it's more comedic on his end, this was a v serious moment fr cfundy! and tht never comes to fruition bcs cwil Doesn't Respect Him. can you imagine if any other character did this? he watches his kid kill himself infront of him, just like his own dad did to him, and then left him behind. never checked on him again despite saying thts all HE wanted fr HIMSELF. cwil got revived and he never even looked for cfund, despite cfundy counting on it, preparing fr a grand total of nothing. even cq feels so bad abt it, he lies to cfundy's face to spare his feelings abt the fact cwil has been popping into lnv to see everyone BUT cfundy. wow.
he CHOSE to scapegoat tubbo, demean him, and physically punish him fr disagreeing him on nov16! he wanted the destruction to hurt ctommy the most specifically, but whn ctommy rejected being on stage in the middle of a pre-planned ctech attack, he was more than happy to settle fr ctubbo!! LOL. (and i'll get into how he treats ctommy more just hold on a second.). cwil was more than happy to put this kid in this position knowing ctech would shoot him in the face. which is the second time he's done that. btw. three if we wnna count the pit and a different target. which i do. LOL. you're a good kid, and an even better spy. i'm going to put you in a position i instigated and i consider dangerous for my own gain. you're not a coward, tubbo, are you? give the signal so i can blow up the crowd with you inside it. 😁🔫 guys.
ctubbo has his batch of "safe targets", ppl he cn talk to and confront knowing they won't hurt him, and cwilbur just isn't one of these people. he made the kid CRY upon revival. he put him in a position where his feelings were more important thn ctubbos grief and fear, both b4 and after death, GETS HIS HUSBAND KILLED over literally nothing, then gives him the empty gesture of an empty country after, smthng ctubbo never wanted, who stays quiet and small and yessiring all the way, in a direct parallel to all the other times he's disrespected him, as well the country being a parallel to the time he set it up fr him to get shot in the face. twice. need i mention. smthng tht perma-killed cschlatt. btw. which iwill get to ☝️ as cschlatt and cwil are canonical parallels, and it provides insight to my point here. they r v v v important and crucial to eachothers arcs, and yet the way they're treated by the larger fanon is completely different and erm. well. like. ido fear it's relevant.
ppl looove to invent shit fr cschlatt, say he's this n that, crazy n volatile, take scenes where he's doing fuck all and interpreting it in the most bad faith way possible to reverse engineer a point. it's shitty n bad fr a multitude of reasons, which i've touched on quite a few times, but it bcs extra stupid bcs erm. uhm! cwil is actually the one doing all that shit. like. on screen. on screen! HE'S the one who actually had a son, who he abandoned and is awful to! HE'S the one who HIT TOMMY fr disobeying him in a srs context like ihave the clip if ywnna act crazy!!! cn you imagine another character doing shit like this? HE PERMA-KILLED JACK W HIS OWN TWO HANDS IN A PARANOIA EP! which again, that paranoia and illness- it's awful, it's sad, he's not well, same as other characters but. like. is there nothing to unpack here? he never apologizes to the guy! he never feels bad! he never visited him whn he came back! he didn't pass it off (like he was capable of doing w the pit), he didn't perma-die in the grief/confusion of it then ask in genuine shock how smone else let that happen and then forget he ordered the execution in the first place, fully thinking the person was still alive. cwil just did it. and nobody cares! what does that mean? how am i supposed to feel abt that?
and tommy oughwmmy goddddd. how much sympathy am i supposed to feel when he spent the entire three months ctommy was trapped alongside him in limbo, in SENSORY DEPRIVATION, insulting him, demeaning him, saying he deserved to be dead and this is all there is and leaving the kid horrified of him, of himself. cschlatt is right there with them, w the same disorders he has, and he's perfectly capable of leaving the kid alone and still being held in a "looking up to" status by ctommy even up to the last streams. how am i supposed to feel when he set sm shit abt pogtopia up to hurt ctommy the most as possible? insulting him demeaning him? ctommy says himself tht cwil scares him, tht he wants to protect others frm the manipulation he recognizes he's done to him, admits in a moment of panic tht he's actually v hurt cwil threw away his sacrifice w his discs back in the day fr his ego! he himself says this b4 cutting himself off! and none of this even scratches the SURFACE of wht cwil is willing to do to this kid he considers an extention of himself.
on that point. why is it so easy fr ppl to discard that on an objective level, cwil wanted ctommy to "understand wht he feels", and tht means becoming goddamn suicidal. he wanted to break him down, he wanted to twist the knife, he was willing to say anything and do anything as long as ctommy suffered so HE could feel justified in his OWN suffering. this sweet little boy who fights for him and does anything he asks, who looks up to him like he's his world, who puts himself in danger over and over again as long as he can make cwilbur safe and happy. EVERYTHING ctommy does is fr him. and cwil chooses HIM to lash out on. he finds every angle to humiliate and isolate this boy who he raised like oughmny god! this isn't a partners conflict w ppl of the same age w no real power over eachother, this is a grown ass man who can't stop punching down at the kid HE raised tht HE made his family tht HE made unspeakably codependent on him!
how am i to take him manipulating ctommy into not entering lnv, to not hang out w smbody who has proven over n over again to be in ctommys corner in a "him vs me" framing? smone who point blank calls out and gets incredibly upset on ctommys behalf fr the awful things cwil does to him? why SPECIFICALLY is smone like that a threat to cwil? is weaponizing the pit tht HE built and HE encouraged to paint cq as crazy, whn he's canonically v weak not a threat and not willing to hurt ctommy in any srs context, while HE was the one who pushed an actual dangerous fuckhead to beat him into the ground? (and again, this parallels the festival, ik he's manic and sick, but then tell me why he did it another time before and another after!!) wht abt the time he forced ctommy into the prison in sm elaborate plan to make HIMSELF feel better, destroying ctommy's most important property on a lie so the kid CRIES CONVINCINGLY ENOUGH HYSTERICALLY ENOUGH? actively putting a target on ctommys back then ABANDONING HIM COMPLETELY, LEAVING CTOMS SOBBING AND BEGGING FR HIM TO NOT LEAVE HIM TO THAT? are we actually SERIOUS?
so what, are all these things RLLY abt just cwil hurting Himself? none of this is allowed to be his fault, none of it affects the other characters? is this framing of his entire character actually worth something out of a deliberately obtuse way to declaw whtever he does? no guys, it isn't him hurting others, its just at himself! like 1. you cannot do both things at the same time, and 2. does tht suddenly erase the v real damage he does to them? 3. IT'S NOT EVEN TRUE.
and b4 iget sm beastly ghoul on my house, lemme be clear. ☝️ i thnk mental illness objectively changes how smones actions should be read and taken as, and i DO think mental illness cn just be an "excuse", whatever the hell tht means fr some. it's all case by case. like sorry if smone is so delusional they don't know wtf is happening, there's no reason to punish them bcs WHY. wht do you gain frm hurting smone who can't see the full picture in that way. and yes, ik sm ppl cn cling onto things a touch too much but. yget what msaying, right?
the point i'm trying to make here is tht even tho thts my belief, i still v much think the ppl affected are allowed to feel as they may. a car accident may be an accident, but the ppl injured are still injured. and i think if ycrash a car you should maybe pay the damn insurance! or accept you did it! or at the v least feel sm kinda bad abt it in a way tht isn't exclusively self pity! like fawk!!! and esp when you do it COHERENTLY! ON PURPOSE! SELFISHLY AND CONSTANTLY AND MALICIOUSLY!!! LIKE FAWKKKKK!!!!!
so to close my thesis, again. i do think he's still, still, despite everything, despite EVERYTHING, i think he can be redeemed. if it was up to me, he should heal on his own goddamn time, his own new set of people, and he'd never fucking see these kids again i swearrr to god i'd kill him. and i didnt even touch on other ppl he acts crazy to!but. idk. it's crucial tht these like sweet-hearted, warm-hearted, forgiving, family first, the love was there, we choose eachother ass little freaks would still accept him into their life, even if it took sm work, even tho ithink they'd be better off never seeing his ugly ass again. so i'll just stand over him w pliers and if he does anything crazy mgnna start prying out his knuckle bones one by one i'm 100% srs. and i personally will never ever ever ever be fucking w him again. EVER.
