A quick analysis of Nickelwise and the Warners' fears
Quick for my standards, I mean.
So Nickelwise is a direct stand in for Pennywise. Warner owns the rights to Pennywise which makes me wonder if they just could've used him, but maybe they only have an agreement to use him in the movies. It's besides the point anyway. (Any time I use the word "it" in this post will make me internally chuckle.)
Pennywise uses his targets' deepest fears to torment them. He can read their minds entirely, meaning he knows their true worst fears exactly. He is essentially a reflection of his victim's fears.
Nickelwise is portrayed the same way. He preys on fear and shapes reality to terrify his targets. What, then, can we learn about the Warners' deepest fears by the way Nickelwise reflects them?
Nickelwise first targets Dot and taunts her with an image of her aged self.
This does not frighten Dot at all. Not only is this not Dot's deepest fear- it's not a fear of hers in the slightest. We can thus determine that Nickelwise does not have Pennywise's full range of powers. He does not know his targets' fears with certainty. He seems to just be guessing. He completely whiffed on this guess.
He next targets Wakko by setting up a huge buffet of rubber food. He believes that someone who loves to eat so much will fear seeing a big spread of food but being unable to eat it. Wakko, however, eats anything. He doesn't care if it's real food or not. Anyone who knows Wakko knows this very well. So Nickelwise can't even get the very basic traits of his victims down. Another total failure.
Then comes Yakko. We all know that this one is completely different. Likely by pure chance, Nickelwise does land on an actual fear of Yakko's- not being able to get a reaction out of people. Being seen as unfunny. Silence.
I think he may have gotten even luckier than that, though. He stumbled into taking advantage of Yakko's true deepest fear- being without his siblings. He managed to make them split up. Even worse for Yakko, he doesn't know where his siblings are or if they're okay. And that's probably the scariest part to him.
Without his siblings' support, he falters. As soon as they return, he's fine. The first thing he asks? "Where have you two been?"
Our main conclusion? Nickelwise is a total fraud. We can't really determine anything about the Warners' fears from his antics, except for Yakko of course. What are their biggest fears, do you think? I would say it's likely the same for all of them- losing their siblings. Yakko had a moment of weakness which caused him to spiral when his main coping mechanism, yakking, was taken away from him. His foundation was less solid than his sibs. They assumed that they would all be fine- that Nickelwise was a total joke. Yakko, seeking Nickelwise's approval, put the power in his hands and turned him from a joke into a serious threat.
The last thing I want to note is that I love how Yakko's soul is shown to be so big and filling for Nickelwise. That is very fitting for the soul of a toon- a meal that, nine times out of ten, someone like Nickelwise would never be able to get.
