Let’s talk about Bobble’s strength for a moment
Taking a look at Bobble, one might assume he is just a scrawny geek who could be knocked over with a slight breeze.
Ok… maybe he could be knocked over with a slight breeze… he is a fairy… But all joking aside, I believe Bobble is likely a lot stronger than he looks. We’ve seen a few moments where the animators have made little jokes about Bobble trying to lift heavy things and not being very successful at it. For example, in the first movie, we see him and Clank carrying the music box during liftoff toward the Mainland.
And yes, Bobble is clearly struggling t o lift the base of the music box, while Clank is having no trouble carrying it by the hand of the dancer. But we already know Clank is strong. And of course Clarion throws extra Dust Bobble’s way to help him carry the music box, leaving a bright glow on his body.
Cute moment, for sure. Very silly and definitely plays at the dynamic of Clank being the stronger of the pair while Bobble tries to be strong too.
But take a look at how Bobble is holding the music box in those two pictures. He doesn’t have a good grip on the base at all, meaning it could easily fall from his grasp. In fact, lets have a look at a moment just after this when everyone is flying to the mainland.
Ok, so in both instances where we see this, the boys are right at the bottom edge of the shot so we can’t really see it well, Tink being the real focus and all, but see how the two of them are holding the base together now? Bobble is no longer struggling to hold the music box. Also he’s no longer glowing from the extra dust, so I’d assume it’s no longer in effect.
“But RK! Couldn’t it be that Clank is supporting more of the weight than Bobble is?”
I suppose that could be the case, so let’s look at another moment from The Great Fairy Rescue.
I’ve always found this moment hilarious. Why the heck does Bobble think he can lift Clank up to see over the rocks? He’s so skinny and Clank is so big!!!
Well, it probably didn’t occur to him that he’d struggle with it. It’s raining, the rocks are slippery, he kind of got under Clank to boost him up too quickly. All in all, not good technique for lifting someone larger than yourself. But the fact remains that Bobble WAS able to boost Clank up, though with great difficulty, and ultimately ended up slipping out from under him as referenced by the sound bits and him shouting “I can’t feel my legs!”
Again, this is likely played up for humor, but doesn’t accurately show how strong Bobble really is, because once again something happens later that paints a different picture.
All seven of these fairies stacked up together to open the door. Clank is of course on the bottom because he is in fact the strongest of the bunch (and largest) but who is second from the bottom? Bobble! And though we don’t really get a closeup of him here, we can see that he has his whole body straightened out and his arms completely extended over his head unlike when he was trying to lift Clank.
“But they’re not as heavy as Clank is, RK!”
I doubt that. I cannot possibly believe that the combined weights of Rosetta, Vidia, Fawn Silvermist AND Iridessa could possibly be less than the weight of Clank on his own. No way.
(Side note: I find it hilarious that Iridessa is on the top of the stack. She’s a light fairy. So she’s light.)
What I see here is that this group was able to take more time to stack themselves up more steadily to reach the door, possibly use the door itself for balance as they stacked up. And balance is just as important as weight, if not more important, when it comes to lifting an object. So in all likelihood, Bobble is actually pretty dang strong, and just lacks technique to lift things properly.
Plus one other thing…. He’s a gosh darn Tinker! Tinkers are heckin’ strong! Fairy Mary even stated to Tink that they’d build up her “Tinker Muscles” in no time! And Bobble’s been around longer than Tink, so it’s a safe assumption that he has built up muscle from tinkering over the years. So even though Bobble may not be as strong as Clank or Fairy Mary, he is by no means weak.
