Howdy dear reader! 👋 I'm your host Glagger, and today I'm here to bring you the first installment of a multi-part analysis on the friendship and romance between Dave Halloway and Roswell Sinclair from Password VN.
It shouldn't exactly come as a surprise that I'm quite fond of Roswell, and I will also admit Dave is without a doubt my favorite character in the vn by far. Naturally, that means I'm very invested in their bond and progression, and today I've decided to share my thoughts and observations on both.
Instead of focusing on their entire route content, I've decided to keep things simple by focusing on only the really important scenes, and I'll be discussing one per post. Today, we'll start with the day 8 argument between them, and use a few past and future scenes to back up the conclusions I've arrived to.
Please keep in mind that this post has spoilers for the novel. With this in mind, let's begin, shall we?
Roswell and Dave: how denial and naivety can generate dependency, neglect and accidental abuse. - Part one.
At the beginning of the argument, Dave uses his intuition and knowledge of Roswell to identify there's an unknown reason for the boar's cruel and strange behavior towards Tyson. He approaches the situation cautiously, trying to bait Roswell subtly with the topic to try and figure out the root of the problem.
Roswell, however, immediately answers back in a brash, confrontational and dismissive way, having an explicitly negative emotional response to Dave showing disapproval of his actions.
As Dave presses the issue further, using logical arguments and explaining why the boar's actions are hurtful and unfair, Roswell becomes even more aggravated and aggressive, refusing to acknowledge Dave's arguments and claiming he's being manipulated by Tyson.
Roswell gets progressively more unreasonable, demanding that Dave provides private information as a reason for his strong defense in favor of the wolf. Dave becomes more objective, choosing to reveal some of the discoveries he made about the wolf and how their relationship grew from them to try and defend that Tyson deserves to be considered a friend and be treated fairly like the rest of the group.
The argument reaches a breaking point when Dave demands Roswell apologizes to Tyson, claiming that he expected better of the boar. Then, he is the one to press Roswell for a reason behind his actions.
Roswell finally confesses his reasons are purely selfish, and that he's afraid of dying without confronting Tyson and saying everything that's stuck in his chest.
In his route, he even goes as far as to admit that his interest in Dave is also influencing his thoughts and actions. He states that he always sees things logically, but when Dave is involved, it becomes difficult to know what's the correct thing to say and do.
Dave presses further, saying that Roswell has to forgive Tyson because he's family to the hyena. He concludes this argument by claiming that he won't pick sides between friends, but implies that if the boar forces him to choose, he'll choose the wolf because of Roswell's pressure. He also confirms that Roswell is important to him once the boar asks, but says that doesn't give him the right to force him to choose.
Roswell becomes so unreasonable hearing this he tries to use the fight he deliberately forced to happen with Tyson on day 3 as an argument, to which Dave responds he knows both of them enough to notice Roswell forced it to happen on purpose to cast blame on Tyson.
Roswell finally drops his facade of calmness and admits he's jealous of Tyson when Dave asks him directly, claiming he wishes he had known about Tyson beforehand so he could have stopped him from coming.
Dave also drops all pretense of impartiality, and straight up says that, from his perspective, Roswell is wrong and owes Tyson an apology.
Realizing Dave won't relent, Roswell finally returns to his rational behavior and agrees to apologize under the condition the wolf shows him proof of his improvement and apologizes to him as well.
Dave returns to his more common emotional tendencies, trying to appeal to Roswell by asking if he's not willing to just trust him on this matter.
Roswell rejects that, but is willing to accept not fighting is the logical action given the proximity, and then retreats back to his room to cool off, ignoring Dave's plea for him to stay.
There are two things here to point out. The first is how Dave and Roswell's behaviors reverse during this conversation.
In the third intermission of my medal analysis, I've brought to your attention that Dave and Roswell parallel the other by reflecting the other's nature and behavior. Dave is internally rational and practical, but very emotional and sentimental externally, while Roswell is internally emotional and sentimental, but behaves logically and rationally externally.
During the argument, however, their natures are brought to the surface, causing them to behave and think like the other. This is an intentional change on their part, because it's an attempt to speak in the language the other understands.
Dave calmly uses arguments and facts to convince Roswell because that's the way the boar behaves. Roswell, on the other hand, exibits his emotional distress and uses sentimental appeal to convince Dave because that's how the hyena communicates.
This strategic change is caused by their emotional investment in Tyson. Dave loves and sees him as family, so he becomes confident and serious when he tries to protect him. Roswell, however, despises Tyson and sees him as a bully, so he can't understand why Dave shows such appreciation for the wolf and lashes out as a result.
Secondly, it's interesting to note how Roswell didn't manage to win this argument even though he was supposed to. The reason he's the one who should be correct is because even though his behavior towards Tyson is unfair and hurtful, the true source of this conflict doesn't lie in the grudge he holds against Tyson. The true root of this issue is Dave's selfishness and naivety.
Dave is the one who invited Tyson to the manor without consulting the others. He does this intentionally because he knew they wouldn't accept the wolf's presence at the manor. Dave claims he did this because it was fair and correct, saying that Tyson is a friend too and deserves the same treatment as everyone else.
What he fails to understand, however, is that this isn't his vacation, this is Roswell's vacation, for their friends. Tyson is Dave's friend but not the group's friend and even less Roswell's friend. Tyson is, however, the bully and abuser of both Roswell and Orlando, as well as the guy Dean and Sal are disapproving against thanks to the wolf's own behavior.
Dave quite literally lied to a victim of bullying to force said victim to be in the presence of their bully in an isolated environment for a month. This is very serious, and Dave is completely oblivious to the severity of his mistake.
Roswell could have immediately won the argument by saying this directly to Dave's face. After all, Dave trampled on his and Orlando's emotions by making such an awful, abusive and selfish decision. But instead, Roswell completely ignores that and guns for Tyson instead, which works against him because Tyson is innocent in this situation.
The questions that come to mind then are: Why doesn't Roswell call Dave out? Why does he target Tyson who's innocent in this matter? Why does Roswell behave so irationally and allows Dave to trample on his feelings in such a manner when he always defends himself and confronts people when he feels that they are treating him unfairly?
The answer to that is simple, it is because he loves Dave, and the way roswell expresses his love is based on a single concept: Devotion.
When he loves someone, he always has that person on his mind. All of his actions, thoughts and decisions are affected by that person because he always has their best interest in mind. This also causes him to wish for that person to act the same, to think about him and what's best for him, for them to believe in him, value him, side with him and do everything for him, just like he does.
These things are stated in canon to be felt by Roswell towards Dave. He openly states in the argument that his love for Dave makes him think of the hyena first before any decision or action, and in his final letter to Dave on day 24, he writes that, even though he knew it was impossible for Dave to save him, the boar wished that Dave would do everything he could to keep him alive like he did for him.
Roswell doesn't want to acknowledge that Dave's behavior was insensitive or that he's responsible because that would mean admitting that Dave is the offender, and that he doesn't value Roswell in the same intensity as the boar does him.
Roswell denies Dave's guilt by gaslighting himself into believing the reason Dave is treating him with such coldness is because of Tyson. Dave being naive enough to be manipulated by Tyson into bringing him so he could take advantage of the hyena by pretending to be nice is an easier pill to swallow than the simple truth that Dave just didn't care about him or the others at all when making the decision.
Villainizing Tyson to victimize Dave is the goal here, which is why Roswell antagonizes Tyson on purpose. He wants to show Dave that Tyson is still bad by drawing it out of the wolf by force. That way, Dave will finally reject Tyson and see that Roswell is right. This is a direct result of the boar's devoted love, because it gives him the desire to prove his righteousness to Dave so that he acknowledges Roswell is correct and takes a stand for him.
But this isn't the truth. Dave willingly made the decision to bring the wolf, and Tyson has truly changed for the better and is innocent in the situation. This is made very clear by Dave himself in the argument, and we can see that the clearer this becomes to Roswell as they argue, the more desperate and sad he becomes.
Dave claims that Roswell is forcing him to pick a side, however, Dave himself has already picked a side in the matter from his perspective, and that side was Tyson's. From the moment he chose to bring the wolf, Dave was already valuing Tyson above Roswell, Orlando and the others.
Roswell tries multiple times during the argument to make Dave see that indirectly, such as saying directly that he values him enough to consider his feelings before acting and asking Dave if he's not important. It only makes Dave more inclined to side with Tyson rather than Roswell, however.
He loses the argument by attacking an innocent instead of the offender, giving said offender ammo against him and causing Dave to feel further justified in his actions even though they are selfish. Both of them behave selfishly and childishly, and both are abusive to the other as a result.
Dave is naive to his selfishness, neglecting Roswell and taking him for granted without meaning to. Roswell is in denial, enabling Dave to keep behaving in abusive ways towards him because he's emotionally dependent on the hyena thanks to his feelings and doesn't want to damage their bond. The abusive nature of their relationship generated by their disconnection from separation is exposed.
The scene shows the reader that Roswell needs to stop being so unfairly dependent on Dave to the point he stops behaving rationally, and that Dave has to stop being so naive to the emotions of others to the point he behaves selfishly and hurts everyone around him.
It sets their characters well, and makes it clear that in order for their fractured bond to be restored, both will have to acknowledge their flaws and mistakes to each other and apologize so they can be better towards the other.
To conclude, these flaws were actually already foreshadowed by the narrative before they were explicitly shown, which further supports these observations.
In day 1, after Roswell is picked as the dinner partner, Dave and Roswell reminisce about their past together. Mid conversation, Dave wonders why Roswell stopped coming over to his house, and the boar answers it's simply because Dave didn't invite him over anymore at all. This statement shocks Dave, as he realizes it's true.
This visibly shows that Dave has been neglecting and taking his relationship with Roswell for granted for a while, and that he has been completely ignorant to this until the boar directly told him so.
It also shows that Roswell's aware of Dave's neglect, but has been pretending everything is fine and doing nothing to fix the problem. His dependency and denial are creating a toxic situation, to which neither him or Dave have the tools to fix... yet.
