SO. TO KICK OFF THE WEEK OF SPECULATION BEFORE THE UPDATE DROPS.
last night i had a bit of a Revelation. literally. i borderline woke up in a cold sweat with this realization. the way i lunged for my laptop to scream at friends... ough. lets get into it
so. i do believe I've made a couple of theory posts about Barnaby not being quite as receptive to his and Wally's "forced" best friendship as Wally - since the show wrote them to be friends instead of it happening naturally. i thought it might be a point of tension for Barn. i thought a lot.
YES SO I'M TOSSING (almost) ALL OF THAT OUT THE WINDOW!
the bios state Barnaby as Wally's best friend multiple times over. it had to be regularly reinforced. their colors were chosen to mark them as friends.
but Barnaby - presumably - can't see the bios, he wouldn't know the scripts. the friendship would be natural from his perspective. how would he know otherwise? even if the relationship started out synthetic, i don't doubt that it became genuine. in the context of their world and perceptions, realistically speaking Barnaby probably wouldn't sense anything wrong.
the reminders to be best friends weren't for Barnaby.
they were for Wally.
i'm starting to suspect that Wally is Barnaby's best friend, but Barnaby isn't Wally's. i think that Wally's "best friend" is Home - or at least Wally has a closer connection to them / Home is more important to Wally than anyone else is.
i remember reading this livestream trivia (from theneighborhoodwatch's doc, if you haven't their resources yet what are you even doing?):
and i assumed it was for Barnaby's side of the relationship. but it's not, is it? it's Wally's? and it makes too much fucking Sense! it fits! i can see it perfectly! i can feel things slotting together in my mind due to this shift in perspective, and i'm scared
Barnaby probably thinks the relationship is natural, just like how he thinks he's a real person in a real world. Wally probably knows that the relationship is a role, just like how he knows he's a puppet in a false reality.
that leaves me wondering how much of it is genuine on Wally's side. i don't doubt that they really are friends, but how deep does that connection go? in the interview, Wally sounded excited/proud about having a best friend, but how much came from a place of feeling, and how much came from a place of Fulfilling The Role? how much of it is performative? how much of it is a mask?
i've been seeing everything differently. Barnaby poses for Wally the most because he has good balance and is good at staying still, not because of favoritism or because he's Wally's best friend. in the 14 (15 including the hidden halloween) audios, Barnaby consistently seeks out Wally and checks in on him. Wally seems more casual about their relationship than Barnaby is.
i'm worried that Wally values Home & You/Us over Barnaby. that Barnaby is second or third place in Wally's heart. that Wally means more to Barnaby than he means to Wally. after all, only one of them needed their relationship to be reinforced on a seemingly regular basis.
i'm confident that Wally cares about / loves Barnaby, but the question is how much? to what extent?
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I’ll preface this by saying that I’m reading ENTIRELY too much into this. But I was looking at some of the onboards from the China GP, and this one caught my eye:
Stallard : So there was contact with Ricciardo, who touched the back of our car in 14, and we have damage at the rear there.
All I could think was “they’re still calling you Daniel.” After all these years, GP, who wasn’t even his engineer, still calls him Daniel. And yet Tom Stallard, who was Daniel’s own engineer, calls him Ricciardo.
I know that it’s far more common for engineers to refer to drivers by their last names, so it’s really GP who is doing the unusual thing here. But the difference in energy from “Daniel’s out of the car, Max. He’s all okay” vs “is the car okay? …uh, I’m okay” is staggering.
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everybody stay with me im shifting back into speculation & analyzing mode, this time about everybody's favorite pair of besties. ill put this under the cut for everyone's sakes
and please, take all of this with a Hefty grain of salt.
so ive been... thinking about a thing. a maybe-possibility. which if this has some merit, the part of me that loves characters having a good time and feeling good feels is screaming in fear. but the louder part of me that loves angst and hurting characters is rubbing its little fly hands together.
short version: i think Barnaby is going to emotionally distance from Wally, if not outright grow to resent him. maybe temporarily, maybe not.
full version: *cracks knuckles* strap in folks. so.
first of all, an entire chunk of Barnaby's bio is dedicated to his character relation to Wally. everyone else only has one-off lines dedicated to their relationships to other neighbors - even Frank & Julie just have single sentences about each other (note that they're described as "partnered with" and "depicted with" respectively. more on that soon). even Wally's bio has his Barnaby mention tacked onto the end of his first paragraph instead of being its own dedicated section
and then there's their character designs - their bios explicitly point out that they share characteristics; color schemes, hearts on their soles, similar outfits.
they were made to be best friends. literally. this quote is what made me start turning this theory over in my mind (sourced from @ /theneighborhoodwatch's collected & absolutely fascinating livestream trivia)
it appears that Barnaby literally did not have a say in whether or not he and Wally are friends. their bios even say "illustrated pages note that they were best friends multiple times." they have to be best friends.
which brings us back to Frank & Julie. they briefly reference each other in their bios, but they aren't described as best friends. it's incredibly likely that they were meant to be a romantic couple - i briefly covered that theory in this post (dont read the first one i was going insane) but they managed to avoid that. Frank and Julie defied the script and chose to be best friends instead.
and then in the trivia document a few more character relationships are briefly touched on, like how Howdy considers Barnaby a close friend, and Sally considers either Barnaby or Poppy as her closest friend, etc.
everyone else seems to be choosing who they're close with. they're forming their own opinions and dynamics and relationships. & its interesting that Barnaby is stated for both of these - as if implying that he may return the friendship feelings, or at the very least he's developed enough of a relationship with them to earn their affection
Barnaby and Wally... i doubt they ever got that. they were best friends from the start, no development, no choice. it's written into them.
and then there's how their relationship has been portrayed so far. i believe i saw an ask where Clown stated that Barnaby is very polite to Wally, which struck me as odd. have you ever had a polite relationship to your best friend? have you ever seen best friends be polite? i'd be surprised!
best friends mess with each other! they tease and rib and roast! what is a best friend for if not mutual tomfuckery?! jesting around? playfully pushing boundaries? a Polite best friendship... that's a straight up oxymoron. no such thing. that sounds boring and exhausting.
not only that, but the fact that Barnaby is often used for Wally's painting segments, and is the go-to guy for teaching Wally something new, is kind of concerning. it gives me the vibe that a big part of Barnaby's literal reason for existing is to be Wally's friend & guide.
which would make the fact of him being described as polite to Wally make sense. of course he's not going to push their relationship or try to deepen it - he's forming his own dynamics with the other neighbors. with Wally... it's already established. that is how they are with each other. that is what they are to each other.
and it's not like Wally can be the one to introduce nuances. i don't mean that as a slight or anything - he's just the way he's been described and the things stated about him that make me think that he wouldn't really... know how to? it just wouldn't occur to him. he probably thinks his and Barnaby's relationship is what a best friendship is and is how it should be.
but they have to hang out. they have to refer to each other as best friends. and while i believe that Wally does wholeheartedly think that they're best friends, close as can be... i doubt Barnaby feels the same. like - yes, he probably does care about Wally. everybody likes Wally.
but it's gotta be frustrating for Barnaby, especially as time goes on and he becomes more himself as a person over just being a character playing a part. it probably stunts his relationship growth with others, since his ~best friend spot~ is already taken and who would want to encroach on that? especially since its taken by Wally mcfuckin Darling?
their friendship might become less of a role and more of a responsibility. Barnaby might grow to feel obligated to stick with Wally as his "best friend". someone invites Barnaby to hang out and/or help with something? sorry, he has to pose for Wally's painting. Barnaby is trying to do his own thing? sorry, Wally is knocking on the door and asking for help with something.
i wonder if Barnaby ever hopes that Wally will go to someone else, or feels relief when he does. and then does he feel irritation/guilt over that denied hope or that granted relief? then does he get angry at himself for those emotions?
how would this effect how he treats Wally and acts around him? this confusing muddle of emotions and this strange growing resentment for his painfully earnest friend who only ever means well, if he means at all.
it makes me curious whether or not this theory has merit. and how this could come to a head. what would Barnaby, in this situation, do if/when he discovers that they're puppets on a set, and he's literally written to be Wally's bestie while everyone else changed their scripts and chose their own relationships.
personally, i don't think he'd be happy, and i doubt he'd handle it well.
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