ON THE TOPIC OF BARNABY. as well as his relationship with Wally.
So. To kick this off - Riv (@funonion) and I were Speculating, and they introduced me to the johari window:
They put Barnaby in the “facade” section, and I entirely agree. To quote them;
“So he’s Wally’s guide, right? He’s the “knowledgeable” one of the two and is always the one teaching him new things. And you know, it’s one thing if you’re just teaching him how to laugh or how to tell a joke. But.
Clown has given us two doors. One says that Barnaby understands Wally in a way the rest of the neighborhood doesn’t, and is willing to do his dirty work so to speak. The other says that their friendship was not a natural occurring thing and had to be enforced repeatedly within the show. HOW THAT’S BEING ENFORCED IS ANOTHER THING ENTIRELY but it is worth it to note.
What is Barnaby willing to keep? What is he willing to bury for his little buddy? I can’t say anything definitively yet, but the fact that I even have to ask is telling. The class clown archetype is usually used as a way to cover up for something else a character might be experiencing”
And my response, (I won’t directly quote because I have little things in the phrasing & elaboration to add / tweak );
Barnaby being a Comic Relief Character immediately raised so many alarms in my head. I love comic relief characters. They’re always so fucked up in one way or another, and Barnaby is almost certainly SO inauthentic. He’s wearing a comedy mask just as opaque as Wally’s own mask. In everything we’ve seen about him so far he’s either Teaching Wally, wisecracking/joking, or… pretty much nothing else. We got that moment of concern in audio 14-14, but that doesn’t reveal anything beyond genuine care for Wally.
Comedic characters have the best disguises. Their poker faces & ability to deflect is always top tier [and practiced], and just look at comedy-focused actors and entertainers - so many of them have severe issues, either with their mental health or life. From what i’ve observed both in that aspect & with fictional characters, they play it off & work hard to entertain/deflect [one in the same] right up until the end. Sometimes it’s a coping mechanism. Usually it’s both. If they laugh loud enough and make people think they’re lighthearted fools w/ nothing underneath, no one will look any deeper and thus they’re “safe”.
& I’m a little suspicious that Barnaby’s red/orange/yellow spots aren’t naturally those colors. While yes, he could be (in-universe) designed that way to echo Ms. Beagle, there’s a strong possibility that that’s not it. What if he paints them to feel a connection to her, or it’s a physical manifestation of Barnaby covering up his insecurities/issues - what if it’s part of him striving to convince the world that he is what he paints himself as.
The laidback funnyguy with a loving mom and not a problem in the world.
And I mean, Barnaby claims to be a natural blue and I believe him! But the other colors? I’m doubtful
(I was going to include the Cast As Lil Kids Designs in this since Barnaby has all blue spots, but given how early in 2021 it was posted and how there seem to be little discrepancies from the ~official~ designs, I don’t want to provide it as evidence.)
& on the topic of Wally and Barnaby’s relationship being both real and not - disclaimer, this conversation happened before my Updated Thoughts On Them post, so there may be some minor rephrasing here from what I originally said - I’m sure that the relationship started out as inauthentic. Wally was assigned Barnaby as a best friend and technically vice versa, but I don’t doubt for a second that it became real to some extent. Clown wouldn’t treat their relationship outside of “canon” WH stuff the way that he does if they weren’t actually friends. They’ve said that Wally & Barnaby would be friends in every universe (which melts my heart <3 platonic soulmates my beloved <3), so then I have to agree with Riv. what WILL Barnaby do for Wally? I touched on this in the Milk Theory, but especially if Barnaby prides himself on “knowing Wally better than anything else”, what would Barn do to preserve that?
This relates to another conversation we had - Barnaby possibly having abandonment issues. It’s such a choice to have him of all characters be explicitly stated as an orphan. That and while every other Neighbor with a mentioned family have a somewhat large one (Howdy and his gajillion relatives, Julie and her three siblings, Poppy and her crowded tree [note: Eddie has a mentioned mother, but that info is tenuous and who knows if there are other Dears]), Barnaby has also explicitly stated that Ms. Beagle is his only family. That’s it. And farm life can’t be a sociable way to grow up, not with all the chores he must have had and how rural he might have grown up. Barnaby jokes that Home is the “Big Apple”, which could just be a joke - but jokes often come from a place of truth, and Home might be the most populated area Barnaby has lived in. Who’s to say!
Either way, Barnaby was orphaned one way or another, and I don’t doubt that it weighs on him. Especially if his birth parents really did abandon him. That added to a possible life of loneliness… I wonder if he’s latched onto Wally emotionally, which would hit all the painful places if it turns out that my “Barnaby is more attached to Wally than Wally is to Barnaby” theory has merit. Abandonment issues could also strongly back the apparent walls he’s plastered over with circus tent fabric
Back to Barnaby & Wally: the fact that, at present, Barnaby and Wally seem to have the best disguises / strongest masks. That. looking at 14-14, i suspect that Barnaby is excellent at keeping his up, but as soon as Wally’s mask cracks, so does Barnaby’s.
And then there’s the side of their dynamic that we could look at - it seems to be a very multifaceted relationship. The way that Barnaby genuinely cares yet in the 00 Halloween audio Wally was left off to the side and Barnaby was just “checking on him” while socializing (then again, this could be part of Barnaby understanding Wally & respecting his space / Wally wanting a break from that socialization). Barnaby is patient with Wally and yet he seems to sometimes treat Wally as his sidekick / let him fade into the background and yet Barnaby kept checking in on Wally during the 14 bug audios (this last one I could tie into the abandonment issues theory).
Then there’s how Barnaby calls Wally kid & can tend to treat him like one despite both of them being in the same age group. The way that all of this could, in a way, relate to the infantilization of autistic people (no matter how well-meaning or unintentional) & internalized ableism.
Note: Riv pointed out that Barnaby does seem to be doing the best with what he has, and that this can connect to the Johari Window’s blind spot / unknown.
I do agree with this wholeheartedly! And I have to mention that - and making a Very educated guess here - the interactions we’ve seen take place in the very late 60s / very early 70s, so Barnaby’s behavior towards Wally is actually pretty fucking stellar given the time period. We can’t expect him to be perfect or do everything / say everything right. That would be boring I think! And one thing I deeply appreciate about the Neighbors & their dynamics is that they feel like real layered people, not cardboard cutouts being perfect caricatures of what people are “supposed” to be like.
We likely are going to reach a point where Wally asks Barnaby something that he can’t / doesn’t want to / won’t answer. And like.. Ok. This is a slight tangent but I swear it’s related! When I first discovered WH and learned the Wally basics, I wondered two things.
Are we going to watch Wally “discover” new emotions? Because he certainly has them. Clown has said that Wally only ever feels happy, and a lot of people took that to mean that Wally can’t feel anything else. I don’t think we should take that answer at face value, because. I mean. Look at the project & creator we’re talking about. Layers, guys. Indirect direct answers. I think that Clown meant that Wally only ever feels happy in the Neighborhood because he has no reason to feel any negative emotion. Everything is as it should be. Until it isn’t - and I think that’s where he’s going to have to struggle with new emotions as he encounters them through new situations/events unfolding as the “story” starts to deteriorate. We’ve actually seen this a little bit - in Wally’s record audios (i believe the chronological second to last?), the way he says “Let Me In” so insistently. That’s definitely not a positive emotion being expressed.
How will the topic of death be handled - because it will be handled, it’s stated in the project warnings. I was wondering this even before I read the list, because I was presented with a blank slate puppet character and so went “oh fuck, this dude doesn’t know about death, does he?” Obviously I wanted to know how that would go. I want to know how it Will go!
How would Barnaby explain emotions that Wally doesn’t know how to convey? How would Barnaby explain death in a way that Wally would understand - given that Barnaby (& all the Neighbors sans Wally) knows what death is - and would Barnaby be willing to explain such a thing? I have a feeling we may find out.
And in a way, I suspect that if none of them know, Wally will find out himself and have to process it without help. But then again, how can something die if it was never really alive in the first place? Unless the death warning relates to human characters… I’m currently assuming it relates to both humans and puppets.
In conclusion: Barnaby has a carefully fabricated facade, he's doing the best with what he has but it likely won't be enough, and uh. shits fucked!
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