IS WAVE BEING CONTROLLED BY THE OLD MAN?
I was thinking about Wave again, because we're approaching the season 2 finale and his whole deal is still somewhat of a mystery to me.
How much of what we know is true?
Is Wave really just a random guy that the Old Man employed and convinced to do his evil deeds?
Is he an (old) Ex Libris member?
Why does he look sad sometimes, but other times way too eager to do the Old Man's dirty work?
Why does he keep insisting that he doesn't have a choice, even when he's in front of the Old Man?
Everything just rubs me the wrong way, y'know?? The finale is almost there and I'm still extremely conflicted about him. And we have yet to see an episode of his point of view, which makes things even more confusing. So I thought to go back and see what I can pick up from his very first appearance.
For those who don't know, before his appearance in Cinderella Boy, Wave made a cameo in Punko's horror Webtoon, Stagtown (ep107). The specific scene was a very interesting one and could count as wonderful foreshadowing, so I thought that it's worthy to look into it.
In case you're not familiar with Stagtown, the story follows a team that is trying to escape a small town, controlled by an Entity. That Entity has learned how to manipulate and erase memories, how to create hallucinations, as well as how to control the townspeople's bodies and minds.
In the scene I'm gonna talk about, a couple of mind-controlled people attempt to attack a kid, while the MCs are away (sounds familiar, no? Very Wave-y move). At some point, the entity grows too weak after a direct attack against it, so its victims slip out of its control. Now they're unconscious. The only one of these people the camera focuses on is the Wave cameo.
This makes me believe that Wave's situation might be more complex than we originally thought. Perhaps he's not an Ex Libris member from the past. Perhaps he's a very normal dude that the Old Man is controlling/wearing the skin of?
Perhaps he let real Wave wander around in books first, but after a bit he took over his body and started controlling him in how he interacts with the keyholders.
I'm a firm believer that a character's very first appearance says a lot about their role and who they are as a person. I definitely don't think Punko just so happened to place Wave in that scenario in Stagtown TWO YEARS before his first official appearance in CB for no reason.
What I'm trying to say is that Wave might not actually be Wave. And if he is Wave, he's not acting with his autonomy, but is being controlled. The Wave we met in Party Crashers might be a different person from the Wave we know now.
I don't know about you guys, but I personally think these are very different expressions. One belongs to a scared person that is stuck somewhere they don't wanna be (Party Crashers> ep8), the other is a piece of shit "Everything goes according to plan" expression (A Murder, Unfortunately> ep 51).
To add to that claim, let's take a moment to remember that between Party Crashers (Wave's first CB appearance) and Little Shadows (Wave's second CB appearance) there's a gap. He doesn't appear (or doesn't make himself known?) at all in Mr Mischief, the second arc of season 2. Lots of things could have happened to him behind the scenes in that arc.
Also, Chase's perception of him has changed between arcs.
"I feel like we can trust him though" (Mr Mischief> ep13 of s2) to
"NEW rule. No kid by herself, in case she's alone with Wave" (Of Hours> ep28 of s2)
We know Chase is very perceptive and his intuition can be trusted. And if he changed his mind about Wave, that means Wave must have gave him a pretty good reason.
There are also parallels between Wave and the Old Man that might indicate that one is.being controlled by the other
2. Both of them are creeping behind Buddy in dark places that aesthetically look like the Grand Library (Dreams by Night & A Murder, Unfortunately)
3. They're wearing the same clothes
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