#murray cooper

murray is the only one with even vaguely healthy sleeping habits (when they're not on a mission, obviously)

hes trying to con bentley and sly into getting 8 hours in their downtime. it is not going well

sly likes to sleep in a hammock! idk where this came from i just have vivid imagery of him in a hammock. also it seems like the most convenient choice for somebody who moves around as much as sly does

he however possesses the ability to fall asleep anywhere bentley keeps finding him in trees

(ok this one might have a canon counterpoint idk if they have canon birthdays or not but) contrary to popular belief, sly is the youngest of the trio!! it's only by a few months, but hes teased about it RELENTLESSLY

murray is the oldest!! of course this makes bentley a raging middle child

("when i was your age-" "wHeN i WaS yOuR hEiGhT-")

if you have siblings You Know

everybody ALWAYS thinks sly is the oldest it's bc hes the smooth talker

bentley is their 'medic' of sorts but sly and murray also know a good deal of first aid. for being their punchy punchy brawn, however, murray is pretty squeamish when it comes to actual like blood

a handful of sly's vocal stims are just the passwords from Opera of Fear so occasionally you'll just hear "tenor tenor bass bass"

oh did i mention none of these idiots are neurotypical no they're just like me fr they cant be

Sly 1 Murray: the murray you defend during Murray's Big Gamble and one of the panda king levels and the murray you play as during At The Dog Track and another panda king level. scared of everything. described as "part time driver, full time burden" by sly (dick.)

Sly 2 Murray: prime The Murray. makes a Meteoropic Entrance. recieves his title as The Brawn and clings to it like a lifeline. "I may be big, and I'm not as smart as the other guys, but I am not weak." <- not a direct quote but a rough estimation of one.

Sly 3 Murray: just murray for part of opera of fear and is super chill and pacifistic and then bentley gets hurt and he becomes like 200% more bloodthirsty. iirc just a slightly chiller version of sly 2 murray; a balance between sly 1 and sly 2 i think.

i feel like this one is a lot of me taking canon and running with it but i am a very fast runner so i think it's okay. but um i hope it's okay if this one's a little more headcanon-y. i've tried to make clear what was My Brain and what was Actual Stuff thus far but i have many emotions about this song and i need to explain their complicated self-image ok. hopefully that's okay

also this might be LESS comprehensible than the last one but probably not less comprehensible than my little reason why. braincell is ping ponging around within me skull

update from midway through, this is very sly 2 focused i think. oops but like not really fdhsjkafhd

"I'm the strong one, I'm not nervous / I'm as tough as the crust of the Earth is"

yeah that's just murray in a nutshell. well post-sly 1 at least. just know that "i'm not nervous" is said in the absolute most nervous way possible, because murray absolutely is.

"I move mountains, I move churches / And I glow 'cause I know what my worth is"

the beginning of this song is very murray lol. he seems to be the one most confident in his strength & skills during 2 & 3, esp. during 2. but he is also the one to reassure bentley that they're equals during 3 which isn't entirely related but it does show that he does indeed know his worth. <3

"I don't ask how hard the work is / Got a rough, indestructible surface / Diamonds and platinum, I find 'em, I flatten 'em / I take what I'm handed, I break what's demanded, but"

more murraycore lol. i think this is pretty self-explanatory

(fun fact: murray has the most health of the cooper brothers, meaning comparatively to, say, bentley, he does in fact have a "rough, indestructible surface" <;3)

"Under the surface / I feel berserk as a tightrope walker in a three-ring circus"

okay now we fall out of the surface level "yeah that makes sense". i gotta say using the word Berserk there ... has me thinking of the Murray Tries To Kill You section w/ the agitators. to be FAIR i'm pretty sure tightrope walkers Don't Do That. but i've also never been to the circus, so.

anyway ! i feel like he's also the like. the Silliest, y'know? the naive one that's usually getting made fun of, i think. and he presents the most, he's not built for subtlety; he's very visible. which is also part of why this line is He. he probably feels like he's a circus act to be watched and laughed at, y'know?

"Under the surface / Was Hercules ever like 'yo, I don't wanna fight Cerberus'?"

note the missing green bc i feel like bentley feels much less Forced into his role. he likes being the smart guy !

now, that's not to say that murray and sly don't like their roles, because of course they do! but being the strong one was, as we see, not murray's first choice. and being the strong one means you do all the heavy lifting, and while murray likes that most of the time... i'm sure there are times where he'd rather have stayed just the getaway driver.

and then there's sly, who loves the whole thief thing and loves his role and wouldn't trade it for the world, but... he got shoved into this whole thing too, y'know? he loves being a thief, but i'm sure he would love it more if it had been his choice, if anybody had asked him before it was suddenly his everything.

"Under the surface / I'm pretty sure I'm worthless, if I can't be of service"

yet another cotton candy line. look i can go SO in-depth about sly and his self-esteem issues esp. during sly 3. there's an interaction during a cold alliance that is pretty much the entire formation for this head of canon ("Sure you won't need my help on the inside?" "I'm afraid this is a problem only technology can solve." "...Right. Well, have fun with your, uh, technology." "Don't wait up- this could go all night!")

and then there's murray, who thinks he's not "of service" and leaves because he doesn't want to hinder the team any more than he thinks he already does (see the sly 2.5 comic.) he doesn't just think he's worthless if he's not doing something, he thinks he's worse than that; if he's not helping, he's a hinderance. hell i'm pretty sure he thinks he's a hinderance even when he IS helping sometimes. (see: him blaming himself for the clock-la incident.)

"A flaw or a crack / The straw in the stack / That breaks the camel's back / What breaks the camel's back? It's- / Pressure like a drip, drip, drip that'll never stop, woah / Pressure that'll tip, tip, tip 'til you just go pop, woah"

admittedly this is mostly just vibes. but also they need a nap and a hug. i'm pretty sure that by the end of sly 3 and all the fighting and the tensities and the bigger team that they're all about 3 seconds away from snapping.

"Give it to your sister, your sister's older / Give her all the heavy things we can't shoulder"

yet another gender swap but again for the sake of lyrical clarity i'm not changing the pronouns. just Know that pretty much every she is actually a he. that's a good life motto in general actually /j

this is mostly just bc i am an oldest bentley truther lol. but also i think he does wind up with a lot of "heavy things [they] can't shoulder" because as the planner i think that's just how that goes. he knows his brothers' skillsets! if something needs done that the two of them can't do, it's bentley's job. (see: demolitions, rc, etc.)

"Who am I, if I can't run with the ball / If I fall to... / Pressure like a grip, grip, grip and it won't let go, woah"

okay this was originally combined with the next one but i needed a place to talk about sly and the generational trauma. like sly's entire LIFE is built around being a thief (hence the "who am i if i can't run with the ball"- if sly cooper isn't a master thief, who even is he?) and living up to his family's legacy, hence the pressure. and no matter what he does, he can't escape it (it won't let go, wink wink.)

now because sly 4 simply isn't real this'll probably be the only time i mention it in this breakdown but even when he isn't a thief he still can't escape the Cooper burden, and his whole bloodline is once more put into peril because of something he had nothing to do with.

...i think. i'm only like 1/4 of the way into sly 4 but i'm pretty sure it's the classic steven universe style my parent(s) did something to you but now they're dead so you're determined to take it out on me bc i'm their kid thing.

"Pressure like a tick, tick, tick, 'til it's ready to blow, woah / Give it to your sister, your sister's stronger / See if she can hang on a little longer / Who am I, if I can't carry it all? / If I falter..."

murray honey your self-esteem issues are showing again. this is more of that "if i'm not helping i'm hurting" mentality that he seems to have. and also more Strong One shenanigans !

also the "tick tick tick 'til it's ready to blow" is very the murray very much so has Some Rage Within There. most notable example of this is Opera of Fear when octavio pisses him off by harassing bentley and he beats the shit out of the poor opera lion man.

i'm realizing the way him and sly view themselves are very similar lol. however i think murray finds some peace in training with the guru and is able to fall back from this mindset a bit. but that's not related.

again, more Strong One. he's big and tough and therefore he should be the one handling these things. he's the Strong One and therefore he is handling these things and he is handling them fine, he says, like a liar. he is Not Fine.

"Under the surface / I hide my nerves, and it worsens / I worry something is gonna hurt us / Under the surface / The ship doesn't swerve as it heard how big the iceberg is"

bentley is very Worried in General, as we know. "hide [his] nerves" probably comes into play bc he's their voice of reason, and if the voice of reason is panicking then everything is terrible and they're all gonna die. HOWEVER if he's not panicking then he might accidentally make sly and murray think they're in less danger than they are (leading to them being a little more careless and only worsening his nerves.)

OKAYOKAYOKAY "the ship doesn't swerve as it heard how big the iceberg is" gives me very much so vibes of the one Ro.tTM.NT episode with the poison pizza puffs and the younger three are constantly like "rap.h'll bail us out :]" and rap.h is like "NO."

i think sly and murray do that to bentley a lot, esp. post jailbreak. it doesn't matter what kind of trouble they get into because bentley can bust them out ! which is why the metaphorical ship isn't swerving. it's kind of sweet the amount of trust they have for bentley however bentley would like to humbly request they stop showing him they trust him by throwing themselves into danger!

"Under the surface / I think about my purpose, can I somehow preserve this? / Line up the dominoes, a light wind blows / You try to stop it toppling but on and on it goes"

and the return of the cotton candy self-esteem issues again and still pretty much for the same reason. though i admit this line is mostly murraycore, hence why it's so much more pink than blue <3

murray's 'purpose' is to be the strong one, sly's is to be a thief. again they both think that they're "worthless if [they] can't be of service" but sly is a little different in the fact that his purpose rlly isn't going anywhere.

meanwhile murray after the clock-la incident is pretty sure he has lost his purpose! he thinks he failed at being the Strong One ("can i somehow preserve this?") and that dominoes (wink) into him spiraling over every tiny mistake he makes (as we see during the aforementioned sly 2.5 comic where he blames himself for every little thing) but all that really does is make him clam up and mess up more which. "you try to stop it toppling but on and on it goes," y'know?

"But wait, if I could shake / The crushing weight of expectations / Would that free some room up for joy? / Or simple pleasures"

sly is atlas and the cooper name is his globe, y'know?

"Instead we measure, this growing pressure / Keeps growing, keep going / 'Cause all we know is / Pressure like a drip, drip, drip that'll never stop, woah / Pressure that'll tip, tip, tip 'til you just go pop, woah"

again with the very sly 2 vibe i think. the whole Growing Pressure just reads as them learning about the klaww gang and their spice schemes and neyla and suddenly this isn't just about destroying the clockwerk parts it's about saving paris and i doubt neyla would have stopped with just paris and i'm sure the cooper brothers know that too

these colors are out of order (usually it would be green -> pink -> blue) because i wanted sly to have the "all we know is" ... despite the fact that it really matches all of them. they've never lived any other way, sly especially.

"Give it to your sister, it doesn't hurt and / See if she can handle every family burden / Watch as she buckles and bends, but never breaks / No mistakes, just"

again w the family thing like i said i will never shut up about it. 'cause sly's been dealing with the consequences of his family's (specifically his father's) actions this whole time and he's been succeeding, he destroyed clockwerk, he destroyed clock-la, he defeated dr. m, but he's still floundering under the pressure of living under legends.

even when he's Literally About to Die bc his dad didn't believe in minimum wage he's worried about how he compares to the Coopers before him ("Would he be proud? Or ashamed?") like bb harbor some resentment in there for the hell you've been put through.

"Pressure like a grip, grip, grip and it won't let go, woah / Pressure like a tick, tick, tick 'til it's ready to blow, woah"

debated switching sly and murray's lines for this ending segment but i think this works the best. again with the Rage That Will Explode and also his inescapable hell of being The Strong One.

"Give it to your sister and never wonder / If the same pressure would have pulled you under"

this is both about bentley being the jack of all trades when he needs to be and about him keeping the other two out of trouble. he's certain the other two would be 'pulled under' by the stress of more things to do, and he's certain they would be 'pulled under' and kept under if he wasn't there to bail them out.

"Who am I, if I don't have what it takes?"

guess what .. it's the generational trauma again <3 more about sly and his need to live up to his family line because as the line says who is he if he doesn't have what it takes!

"No cracks, no breaks / No mistakes, no pressure"

bentley's determined to not crack under the pressure because of his brothers, both to keep them out of trouble and to bail them out of the troubles they get into anyway. murray's determined to not break because he's The Strong One, and if he's not, then he's certain he'll be some kind of hinderance. and sly's determined to not make any mistakes so he can earn his cooper name and make his father proud.