Why Dave Strider was EXTREMELY in Character for the Pilot, Actually
First of all, HOLY SHIT THAT PILOT??? fucking loved it. Yes it was fast paced, but for what it was and all it had to show and get across, it was extremely impressive.
Now onto the important shit
I truly believe that if Dave was voiced in the original, this would be much closer to how he would sound.
Throughout the pilot we almost exclusively see Dave when he is talking to john. We never see him interact with anyone else. He is acting as his namesake, an insufferable prick. He talks fast, he gets on johns case, he talks up his bro, all totally normal early acts Dave stuff.
My theory is that the tone feels off because of the way we normally see Dave type. All lowercase, no tone indication, no punctuation. But lets remember, much of Dave's character hinges on the mask he wears Infront of his friends.
With the switch from totally text based story telling to animation, this meant having some updates to how the kids spoke to each other. Having them physically talk on shitty flip phones rather than texting each other was needed to help with narrative pacing and to give ease with the visual story-telling.
Its very easy to mask as the ironic cool-guy through text, but when talking with your voice, whether its over the phone or face to face, ya wanna know the best way to mask? Raise your pitch, sound upbeat, act happy and cool and, in Dave's case, insufferable.
When Dave isn't trying to play up his personality for john, we do see him frown, and his voice sounds a lot more "normal" to how we may expect him to sound all the time. But also, Dave is 13 years old!! His voice being a bit higher pitched, slightly crackly, lots of fluctuation, is perfect for a teenage boy right at the cusp of puberty!
As an experiment, below I'm going to type out the "title drop" conversation that Dave and John have in the pilot in their typing styles (Filling in the parts where john gets cut off and adding potential page changes) to see how it physically reads.
-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 16:13 --
TG: dude did you get the title drop yet
EG: Dude, what the fuck are you even (talking about?)
TG: dont tell me you missed the fucking title drop you gotta pay attention to this shit
TG: did jade knock you off your game with her fucking space cadet bs
EG: dave i don't have time for your vaguely ironic horse shit, i need to go (grab the game)
TG: i got my title drop with haste bro
TG: up at the crack of dawn
TG: early bird and all that
TG: just looked up at the sky (and) boom
TG: gave me a hella jolt of protag syndrome
TG: not that imma be the hero of this bitch thats all you bestie
EG: you are such a piece of shit!
EG: can you just tell me (what the fuck you're talking about?)
TG: look in the sky numb nuts
This entire conversation is so in character! its hard to tell outside of the medium we are used to, but it really is. I think we all pictured Dave talking a bit quieter, playing up more of the "too cool to talk to you" sort of thing. but john and Dave really are best friends. this is how they talk to each other.
I understand why people feel the way they do. It can be challenging to interpret a piece of media in a different format, and when we don't think something is interpreted the way it should be, it's frustrating and easy to dismiss it as "out of character." This really isn't anyone's fault, art is always interpreted differently by each individual, eye of the beholder and all that.
Obviously everyone is entitled to their own opinions and thoughts on the subject, but I felt compelled to share my 2 (two) cents. But I do hope my thoughts on this interpretation of Dave can help shed some light on why these choices were made.