okay maybe i’m wrong but i think RAWFEAR is nova bishop’s song like how each of the original bishops had their own song associated with them that explained what fear or insecurity they represented
1) RAWFEAR title is the way blurryface types (all caps weird spacing), nova bishop is pretty clearly taking the blurry mantle given the everything about the ending of city walls
2) “you’ve met my fears [the other bishops], they’re all regulars, wait who’s that new kid?” (it’s tyclancy turned nova bishop)
3) ending of the song: “you know what scares me? who’s that new kid? not getting stronger” (this is directly telling us the new fear is of not getting stronger)
so this song shows us WHY tyclancy became a bishop. he’s afraid of not getting stronger, and he’s controlled by this raw fear. no wonder he became obsessed with taking control of dema and the power the bishops had — he thinks to get better, he must get stronger than they are. in his moment of crisis, when everything came unglued, he realizes he can’t fully kill blurry, so he decides at least he can be stronger than him, taking up the mantle. (this line of thinking was fully shown in his letter to torchbearer too!)
oh the delicious irony of his fear causing him to try to take control of dema as a way of ending vialism…only for him to be under the complete control of his own raw fear, which is always been a big part of what the bishops/dema/vialism represent. the bridge of the song seems to recognize this, pointing out the nature of things is to slowly improve, not to immediately get stronger than all your demons. it seems like there is a duality inside tyler, where the push to “get better” is both a positive force (torchbearer, clancy) and a negative one (nova, blurry) depending on whether the driving emotion behind it is hope or fear. this is actually fascinating to me. it’s a recognition of that part of recovery where like, you’ll be using the tools of your mental illness to try to heal from the mental illness (like accidentally becoming perfectionist about beating your perfectionism, or doing compulsions about your compulsions with ocd). the desire to get better is good, but this all-consuming fear is twisting it into something still unhealthy pushing you toward relapse. hence why torchbearer must continue the cycle, find clancy, and try again, learning and improving more each time.
damn this song genuinely is invaluable to the lore
also, do we think that means this bishop’s new name is hidden in the lyrics somewhere the way all the others are? i already checked and there isn’t a “nova” hidden anywhere in this song but idk maybe that’s just his title to differentiate him from the old blurry
