the BoCo analysis
(Is this too much to post in one day? I don't care. I'll not have a lick of free time for another month anyway, so feel free to peruse this spree I went on today at your own sweet pace! But I promised last year to finish polishing up and publishing my old analysis essay on the three RWS diesels. You have Bear here and Daisy here. Wanted to get this one up too before Responsibility intruded again.)
I've said this elsewhere (but bear with me if you've heard me say this before, I'm gonna take it a bit further this time): BoCo in Main Line Engines has a distinct "echo" thing going on. What I mean is that — apart from his interactions with Bill and Ben — most of the lines he says in this book are a conversational bid to echo or confirm what one of the other engines has said. I mean he gets in at least one every single story:
"There's no real harm in them… but they're maddening at times." -> "Maddening," he said, "is the word."
"You know," went on Duck, "I sometimes call them the bees." -> "A good name," chuckled BoCo. "They're terrors when they start buzzing around."
Gordon thought he was wonderful… "How do you do it?" -> "Ah, well. It's just a knack."
"You're all jealous. Edward's better than any of you." -> "You're right, Duck."
Pretty sure psychologists and sociolinguists call this "mirroring." I'm not saying he's being insincere — no reason at all to think that in the context of everything we know. But throughout his intro book BoCo seldom ever ventures a remark that is anything but a confirmation or, at the very most, a modulation of what one of the other (steam) engines are saying.
Now, I'm not at all sure Wilbert Awdry meant to convey what this behavior usually conveys when you see people rely on it IRL — that the person in question is anxious or uncomfortable (or, possibly, manipulative). I think in Awdry's mind he's just having BoCo say pleasant, inoffensive things to convey that he's a pleasant, inoffensive bloke, one of "the good diesels." End of.
But, frankly, the very fact that Awdry thinks BoCo needs to be at maximum pleasant inoffensiveness at all times in order to be a "good" diesel demonstrates starkly the social bind that BoCo is in. I don't think BoCo's being excessively anxious — if his goal is to make a good impression on a main line whose previous impressions of diesels have all been awful, then I think he's being a pretty rational, well-calibrated amount of careful.
More importantly, however, I refuse to limit myself to Awdry's intentions here because the implications of why BoCo would be mirroring/echoing everyone else in this book are so much more interesting! It's extra interesting when you map this onto what's going on with BoCo's class IRL at this very moment. Mechanically, they've failed and and failed and failed, having fallen from grace in just about every way that a class of engines can. And BoCo's exceedingly careful behavior is not just about people-pleasing (well, engine-pleasing) — that seems to really be a subset of his larger goal: Doing a Good Job. This is not an unusual goal for an engine, of course, but BoCo is very single-minded about this. The only times he contradicts (or even mildly pushes back) against anyone not-china-clay-related are when it comes to his jobs. Therefore, he does not immediately drop everything to go cover James's express train (despite that the whole of this book series has led us to expect that an engine who gets to cover an express is on! it!! hellyeah!!!) — no, first Duck has to assure him that he'll see to BoCo's trucks (yes, yes, I pinky-promise, don't worry, now go). And, too, I think BoCo's preoccupation with seeing his job done is what's at the bottom of his first encounter with Bill and Ben.
But the "Diseasel" incident is worth taking some time with. First, of course, because it's the one exception to BoCo's extremely circumspect behavior — when Bill "sidles up alongside" and tells BoCo to give his trucks back, BoCo at once dismisses him, quite brusquely. "These are mine. Go away!"
But his curtness makes my eyebrow climb all the higher because BoCo is actually in the wrong here. I haven't yet seen a fanfic or a discussion that acknowledges this? So I think it's time for us to remember and say with our full chests: BoCo done fucked up that time. He really did go to an unfamiliar harbour, he apparently didn't ask anyone for confirmation or help in locating his train, and sure enough the trucks that he took without the evidently common courtesy of asking the resident engine for permission were. in fact!. THE WRONG ONES.
Probably the main reason we either don't address or don't realize how much BoCo screwed up here is because of Edward's reaction. The gist of his intervention is to go rather hard on Bill and Ben, because to Edward playing a practical joke and calling someone names are way worse offenses than a newcomer making a mistake and also because Edward is already heart-eying BoCo something shameful. Seriously. Lookit this b.s. The referee is biased.
Sorry. Tangent over. It should be noted, too, that Edward did not see BoCo's reaction when Bill first approached him and claimed that BoCo had his trucks. If we trust the narrative, Bill (though he had mischief in mind, of course) was up to this point pretty polite and, of course, his claim that BoCo had taken his trucks was (I cannot shout this loudly enough) legit! It is, in fact, BoCo who really fires the first shot by essentially telling Bill to fuck off.
Does this torpedo my whole case that BoCo is being so circumspect in this book? Not really. That "not talking to anyone in the harbour before taking what he thought were his trucks" — it was a mistake. But it was a mistake predicated on his single-mindedness to do his job, risk no drama, and cause no problems. He's avoiding any unnecessary interaction whatsoever (he just misjudged the necessity of this one). As for his dismissal of Bill/Ben, to some extent I think there's some good old-fashioned engine classism there — he's looking at some industrial engine that's about yay high (Bill’s ridiculously titchy), and classic engine size-ism comes into play. BoCo has a job to do and he does not have the time to indulge so insignificant an engine. I also think his finely-tuned "social dynamics" sensor is correctly pinging that this engine intends some mischief — he fails to realize that he himself did make a mistake, but of course he is correct in judging that Bill's intentions are no good. So I think his whole attitude here is the same self-defensive, tightly-wound one he carries throughout the book. He just expresses it differently in this case, but I think all his ticky-box crossed-t's and dotted-i's pleasant-inoffensiveness throughout the book has the same root as when he tries to freeze out and leer away whatever trouble or delay Bill has clearly come to throw at him.
One reason I want to emphasize BoCo's screw-ups (two screw-ups, actually) in "Diseasel" is because it corrects the notion that BoCo is either flawless or even especially smart. He's responsible and grounded and street wise rather than clever. The one area in which I think he is fairly sharp is in his constant scanning of the social scene. And even there, I don't think BoCo is incredible at it relative to his mainland peers, I think the Machiavellian nest-of-vipers situation on the mainland in the late '50s/early '60s just trained the entire first-gen B.R. diesels (probably the last B.R. steam engines, too) to all be very sensitive and circumspect about social dynamics. The engines' society was just a mess. Against a background of massive and cruel mismanagement, the new young engines would have learned life is cheap, managers don't have a grip on engine affairs and are easily manipulated, some engines are spying for management in order to secure their position, and scrapping is a common event that can be planned around and exploited for advantage. In such an environment schemes and backstabbings and betrayals would all be enormously common, and antisocial behavior would flourish. In such a world I reckon all BoCo's generation, whether they are nice or nasty, quickly became practiced in evaluating other engines and in knowing when and how to avoid giving offense (unless they damn well intended to). These are all behaviors that BoCo brought with him to Sodor… a relatively carefree sanctuary where there are few consequences for running your mouth. Oh, sure, there's a peculiar island karma where you often have an accident after inadvisable boasting, but that's quite a different thing. The engines are all safe enough to freely quarrel and twit each other. In comparison BoCo looks so tightly wound and comes across as so much more mature and smart — but I think in those regards he would have been pretty normal on the mainland.
What would have been exceptional about BoCo on the mainland is his commitment, his optimism, and his tenacity. Of the first, we have a good bit of evidence but I think his work ethic apparently matching Edward's and even winning over Donald and Douglas says it all. As for the second, fortune has already knocked him down a thousand times in his short life before we meet him in canon — but we meet him, and despite all these clear signs of anxiety and hesitation, he is still moving forward and living his life. He's poking his way across the bridge into steam engine territory; he is willing to try new things, homsomever high up his guard might be while he does it. We see him laughing — not just smiling, but the engine equivalent of a belly laugh — at the end of the first two stories he's in, and according to Christopher Awdry he's "the funniest diesel on the island." Perhaps I read him in MLE as having (especially at first) his guard way, way, way up — but he is not cynical. Nor timid. Cautious yes, but not timid. And then there's his tenacity, which got him so far as Sodor to begin with.
These are all pretty positive qualities that should have surely guaranteed BoCo's popularity… even without the maximum-pleasant-inoffensiveness thing. But I agree with BoCo that he needed all of said maximum-pleasant-inoffensiveness initially. Long enough to get the railway to give him a fair chance.
The thing is, though, I don't know that I see in the RWS proper that BoCo ever entirely gets over this "echo" shit:
This is really nice, but I'm gonna be honest, almost artificially so. The garden thing in particular feels like a daft tangent. Like, bro — what are you talking about? You think Gordon is going to feel better by learning soil enrichment factoids? And you're just going to drop that brief commiseration of "oh yeah engines on this island have a go at me all the time" and then merrily roll the conversation along? Look, it's nice (especially in the context that BoCo helps Gordon with his train by the end of this story, there's definitely nothing but amity here). But it's almost a bit… weird. The other engines we see in the book so far are being spectacularly unhelpful so far as Gordon's feelings (a tune we've seen sung before, in this series!) but this feels a bit unnatural in a way that's hard to articulate. And I'm pointing the finger at BoCo, lol. It's his fault. There's a lot wrapped tightly up in the bundle of that one little speech. I think BoCo is still so very tightly controlled, so very close to the vest. And he and Gordon are actually good friends? So if this is what he's like with Gordon, what is he like with some of the others?? (I almost wonder if he's freer and easier with the engines who he is slightly less tight with. Gordon is talking about feelings, Of Which He Has A Lot. BoCo is supportive but he would rather keep things brisk and talk about anything more… concrete, than Gordon stewing.)
Indeed BoCo fading from the canon proper (both RWS and TVS) almost feels like an inevitability, so long as he's keeping most of his personality in rein. We know he can be forceful. We know he can be cross. But he spends a lot of time doing… this. Even his RWS interactions with Edward are, like, smiling indulgently at station while Edward excitedly tells him some news. BoCo's humoring them. Again, I don't think any of this is insincere. BoCo really likes his friends (we see that especially in his interaction with the visiting diesel), I think he even feels a sense of protectiveness because a lot of them are much more naive than he is ("Boco my dear engine!! Save me!!!!") But we know he's plenty tough and independent. It's weird how we see so little of it. It's weird how BoCo gets far more screen time in the magazine and annual stories, probably because in them he's often depicted as annoyed by something. Like, y'know, he has an actual personality, and he's far easier to like during these moments when we see it.
BoCo is good, he's a thoroughly good egg sort of inherently, nothing about his Dickensian early life could crack it. But I don't think he's inherently nice. His pleasantness comes off as a bit… artificial.
Incidentally, this makes him almost an inverse to how I read Edward. And in fact this is a contrast that actually illuminates what I'm trying to express about BoCo, so let's dive into this: Edward is nice inherently, I suspect even at his youngest and most immature he had that sort of drive to be polite and cooperative and have ordinary everyday pro-social behavior. It was probably drilled into him and his class. But it's easy to be nice when the world is nice and easy to you. Being genuinely kind is an entirely separate thing. Edward had to choose to go beyond niceness in order to be good in a way that BoCo, I think, was naturally. That's Edward's early Sodor arc—he's adjusting to life on the short end of the stick, and he has to choose how to handle it. Plenty of "nice" people fail to be kind under those sort of pressures, they fade into the bushes (or just plain become bad people) the second that niceness would really cost them something. The making of Edward as a character, the thing that makes him special, is when he goes beyond that. Being good is an often thankless task in many of these stories. He does it anyway.
The fascinating thing about BoCo is that I think all that higher stuff—loyalty and courage and sense of fairness—kinda came naturally to him. But! That doesn't of itself prevent one from becoming a straight-up villain, under the wrong circumstances. Plenty of notorious villains and anti-villains have similar strengths of character, and that's why D5701-the-bounty-hunger is a source of such fascination to me — BoCo has a built-in foil to show us who he could have been. Instead, BoCo falls in love with Sodor because it offered him an alternative to becoming, mortally and even morally, a mainland casualty.
But he saw that in order to stay there he would have to learn to be nice. And it's that which took some doing — especially since 1) he may very well just not have seen a lot of it modelled for him, before he drifted over to Sodor, so he has to play catch-up and 2) he had to experience, several times indeed before MLE is over, that on Sodor it is safe to be nice.
(But, of course, is it? You can tell no one is reading the Christopher books like that because if more people did then we would spend a lot more time digesting what he says in that scene above to Gordon. He still gets crap on the island for being a diesel engine. I gotta assume this is more from the Unseen Eighty than the characters we know — by this point even James has had the scales removed from his eyes by St. The Works Diesel — but it's still kinda crazy to think of. And in New Chapter, that's something that I have informing all three of the diesel's characterization. It's also in part why Oliver wins them over so quickly. He's involuntarily terrified of them, of course, but he's making an effort to be friendly and that puts him in the minority, it seems.)
Shifting gears fully into New Chapter — putting BoCo around the other North Western diesels really allowed him so much more room to breathe and express himself, given that it's only three years removed from his constraint in MLE. So it was kind of a joy to have him interact with Daisy. BoCo is straight-up kinda condescending towards Daisy and honestly I think it's really good for him that he has someone to condescend to, ha! Daisy doesn't seem to mind — she enjoys playing the 'little sister' role; she enjoys that she has someone she can go to and badger — and it's great for him that he has someone he feels easy being so much less self-conscious with. Vent all that judgment and frustration outta your system, brother.
It was equally a joy to have him bounce off Bear, his inverse in a lot of ways. As I discussed in the Bear essay, Bear and BoCo have a similar background and similar experiences on the mainland. So they're already hitting it off well; I'd say I think they'll only ever become better friends as Bear is installed permanently — but honestly I think they've already hit their stride. But they are also inverted in a lot of ways. Notably Bear speaks first, thinks second. It's important that both of these characters do both of these actions! But they do them in a different order. That means they have a lot to offer each other in their somewhat unique-to-them mainland-to-Sodor life path. In the fic they're already pretty comfortable with each other, and Bear gives absolutely no quarter to BoCo's throat-clearing and circumspection ("I know that, BoCo.") Which is probably also really healthy for BoCo.
In short, the more I dug into all three, the more I thought all three are probably really good for each other. The Oliver-ness of the fic quickly became less important to me than the dynamic these three are developing. The former was a fanfic whim. The latter is rapidly becoming an important headcanon.
... But it will be even more lit when one day I finally get around to writing the story of BoCo and his brother D5701. 😈
Pictured in background: A narrative foil. What if, early in life, these two were Not So Different?
