#wilbur analysis

I've seen a few takes based on this specific scene, l and what I've seen most of them do is talk about how Wilbur seemed almost disinterested at Tubbo while he burst into tears, even leading away Ranboo to follow him instead of comforting his sad husband.

I feel like this scene is the opposite, he's actually respecting Tubbo's boundaries, and leading Ranboo away to Tubbo can deal with his emotions without getting overwhelmed. You can see him wait for Ranboo to ask him first, and then for Tubbo's response before quickly leading him away when Ranboo asks a second time after Tubbo declines. I can't really give that facial expression a name, so i'm just going to call it the "ah, this probably isn't the right time to push him more" face.

He may have fucked up big time the way he treated Tubbo and especially what happened in the Red Festival, but he does one hundred percent care about Tubbo. There is no doubt about it. That does not mean he needs to be trusted, or forgiven, on the contrary actually. Tubbo should stand his ground and set boundaries until he's comfortable otherwise, but erasing parts of Wilbur's personality to villainise him and make him seem apathetic are not the ways to go about it.

- yay no death. Wilbur didn’t intend to kill himself, he just REALLY made it seem like he did. And Tommy was ready to stop him if he tried.

- we got to see the explosion from the burger arc. 

-I really want to know what the book said.

- UT stood for Utah!! WHAT!!

- he kinda apologized to Tommy. Yay. Some awesome c!crimeboys feels

- He is an american, and L’manburg was all about having no Americans XD

- I don’t like this backstory for Wilbur that much. What do you mean that Utah and gas stations are real. What about my cottage core sbi family? What about Wilbur finding tommy and giving him his name? What is the timeline?

- Technically both Techno and Philza have the same jacket, did they also work there?

- The Wilbur cosplay XD IRL wilbur

I can’t believe that was it. I’m not sure I understood that stream completely. Time to gather my deeper thoughts.

(...)

Wilbur lifted his mask

“If I truly believed it was the truth, does that make me a liar?”

(...)

“That’s the difference between me and Schlatt. That’s the difference between me and Phil. That’s the difference between me and Quackity.” The sparks had stopped flying so it was impossible to make out Wilbur’s facial expressions as he spoke. “I have never lied to you. I have been wrong but never lied to you, Tommy. I won’t lie to you. Do you trust me, Tommy? ‘Cos right now I feel like you don’t trust me.”

(Excerpt from Hitting on 16 by Wilbur Soot)

So, in this line, Wilbur references Schlatt and Quackity as purposeful liars while saying that in his Pogtopia mindset he wasn't lying because he truly believed what he was saying would come true, thus differentiating them, and it's pretty obvious that he's referring to stuff both of them (Schlatt and Quackity) did and said during the Manburg administration (which he still has a lot of resentment for).

However, he also mentions Phil, and I haven't seen anyone yet say where exactly Phil's lie that Wilbur references is. Well, I think I got it:

VOD: Healthy competition, 25th July, 8:03

Wilbur: Not many people do. I mean, Phil, you don’t seem afraid of me, you’re not afraid of me, are you, Phil?

Phil: No, not at all

Wilbur: Good. Good, ‘cause I’m not afraid of you

I think this is where Wilbur is convinced that Phil lied.

He says that "Good. Good, 'cause I'm not afraid of you" only after a pause, in what I can only describe as a slightly distrustful tone. "Not showing his true colours" with that response one could say:

“I think, I think you might be a bit braver than me, in showing your true colours. I feel like with you, Ranboo, I never have to be guessing your next move, I never have to be guessing your hand, you know? I feel like life dealt us the same cards, and the difference is that you build your trust by showing people your cards, while I keep them close to my chest. And I feel like that might be the big difference.” - (Wilbur’s Healthy Competition: 41:22, 25th July)

And this is also supported by the very explicit way in which later on the same stream he says:

“Can I be real with you, man? I think I scare people.” - (Wilbur’s Healthy Competition: 36:30, 25th July)

He’s convinced that people are afraid of him, that his social limbo is ever-reaching and that everyone looks at him like they did in Pogtopia, that they see him as crazy and scary, thus, he’d see that Phil just lied to him there

“I mean, like I, I, I, I don’t think I, I- I think a lot of people share your idea, but they share your idea in trying to- trying to keep me from hurting them, you know? Like they’ve seen what I can do, and they don’t want me to do it again, so they adopt your emotion in order to do it.” - (Wilbur’s Healthy Competition: 36:46, 25th July)

“I’m living in eternal limbo, again. I’ve been through limbo, I’m out of limbo, and socially, I’m still in this limbo.” - (Wilbur’s Healthy Competition: 38:36, 25th July)

“And, man, Ranboo, hearing you say those words that you said to me. Do you remember what you said? You said, 'I think people can change’, that was number one. And number two, you said you’re scared if people don’t like you.” - (Wilbur’s Healthy Competition: 38:45, 25th July)

“Okay. Tubbo, I’ve literally- I was dead for thirteen years. I know it wasn’t long for you, I know it was only a couple months for you, but, thirteen years, Tubbo. Thirteen years of my life. I aged! Look at me, I’m not the same young man you knew!” - (Wilbur’s A Year Later: 20:52, 3rd Aug)

“I relived that explosion in my head so many times man. And, and, and I- I get that you don’t, you don’t trust me, I do, but like, man, look at me, bro, I’m not gonna do it again. I’m not gonna- I’m not gonna hurt you again.” - (Wilbur’s A Year Later: 21:21, 3rd Aug)

As cc!Wilbur mentioned in that one reddit post (it's in the replies): Quackity makes him feel human, while "everybody's trying to get on his god side out of fear", he remarks Quackity as "Someone who looks at him, not as "insane" not as "evil" or a "freak" but rather just unpredictable. Human. This is exciting for Revivedbur. He feels human again."

Quackity and Ranboo are the two he feels look at him as a person, not as just "that crazy man from Pogtopia", that's why he opens up so completely to Ranboo, it's why he remarks this:

“I feel alive, Ranboo, I feel alive. Someone’s looking at me and talking to me! I’m alive, I’m alive! This is great.” - (Wilbur’s Unhealthy Competition: 27:22, 4th Aug)

Phil however, enters in the larger camp of "looks at me with fear" (as well as the camp to use him as a scapegoat after his death), he's in the larger group of people Wilbur feels the need to appeaase by having more obvious comeuppance:

“Dream is- He’s had his comeuppance, and I have not! My comeuppance was apparently not good enough for this people. They’re just waiting, they’re waiting for the next thing for me to slip up on, and, Ranboo, I’m not gonna fucking slip up, Ranboo. I’m different.” - (Wilbur’s Healthy Competition: 38:07, 25th July)

This also is a lie that Wilbur would care about, because I've seen others mention how Phil lied about Fried having infinite lives, which was in reality a "replace the goldfish" situation and how Phil also lied about not killing him no matter what he did or said in november 16th. However, Wilbur wouldn't care much for either of those instances, as he saw him dying on the 16th as something good and didn't pay much attention to Friend.

I’ll also write my general thoughts on the finale later at some point I promie. (Edited: changed the formatting a bit :])

CW Wilbur Finale Spoilers

Right, so recently, Phil did a stream where he explained the events of the 16th and how he got there. One of the things he mentioned was c!Wilbur would build things up to tear them down again in his childhood. Notes about cc!Phil's knowledge of kids aside, let's break that down, shall we?

Destructive play is not inherently a sign of an ill behaved child. No child is born evil or nasty. In some cases, it can even be a sign of good development but they have to be taught early on what is safe to break and what is not. We're gonna work through some of the reasons why c!Wilbur engaged in destructive play and how it could have been handled. This is by no means intending to place the blame on c!Phil, I just wanna actually use my childcare training for something.

Curiosity. This is the the best case scenario in my opinion and fits what we know about c!Wilbur quite well. A curious child will take things apart to see how they work, will break things to see what will happen to both them and the object or will do things that are seen as destructive because they wanted to see if they could. The best way to handle this is providing toys that stimulate the child's mind or, if they are old enough, explaining what they can and can't destroy and why.

Perfectionism. This was pointed out in another post but the reason why c!Wilbur was tearing down his creations could be because he already struggled with perfectionism. This can be addressed by regulating your own self talk, praising your child's efforts instead of the result and engaging with your child a healthy amount so they don't feel like they have to be perfect to get your attention.

High emotion. Children, especially neurodivergent ones, struggle with emotional processing. C!Wilbur as a child could have been very angry, very sad or very tried, causing him to push outwards and destroy the things he made. After repremanding, he may have pushed this inwards to cause the self destructive spiral we saw on the smp. The way to handle this is to talk to your child, let them know those feelings are valid and try to steer those high emotions into some thing else, rather then just telling them off for it.

Lack of attention. This is the one I don't want to be the case as I hate the words "attention seeking" when it comes to children but it is a valid argument. We don't really know how c!Phil reacted to Wilbur breaking the things he made but any reaction would make this point valid. This one is a pretty easy fix though. Make sure your child is getting regular amounts of attention, both positive and negative. If you are in a situation where you are unable to (work etc), make sure you communicate with your child and spend the time that you can with them.

but he comes back and the world has continued on without him! even though c!wilbur knows he was necessary. he has to have been. so c!dream must have been filling in for him, the understudy must have taken up the lead role while the original actor wasn't there. and c!dream did his best but he ended up in prison and unlike c!wilbur, his "end" wasn't on his own terms because he wasn't a permanent replacement.

my twt timeline discussing c!Wilbur's mental health: ''ew he's even more crazy now'' ''I can see he's already back to be being manipulative'' ''why is he complaining about how he felt in pogtopia, does he not know how bad he makes people feel?'' ''listen to how crazy he sounds''

like, I don't know if It's just because I sympathise more with Wilbur due to my own mental health struggles being similar to those his character portrayed (paranoia and depression) but I really don't like the way some people are talking about the Wilbur now that he is back. They always seem to go so easy on characters with more acceptable mental health struggles than those with the messy ones. this is gonna be a long one btw.

this is just my interpretation of what was going on in his head but even then I'm not fully confident because c!wilbur seems to be a character with a lot of contradictions so keep that in mind

/rp

so as we all noticed, wilbur was contradicting himself over and over again in the stream today. the most notable example of this was him saying that if it wasn't ghostbur with tommy in exile but him instead, he would've killed dream, but then a few minutes later saying that dream was the hero of the server. while wilbur seems to understand that dream has done terrible things, he also seems to think they were all justified for keeping the server intact, furthering dream's goals of 'stopping conflict' (although we all know that's not really what dream does, that's just what he claims his motivation is).

in all honesty, it seems like wilbur is grasping at straws to justify why so many terrible things have happened or to make it easier for him to sleep at night. we know, at least during l'manberg's era, wilbur was one of the people who put way too much pressure on his shoulders, who blamed himself for failures that weren't actually his fault. I wouldn't be surprised if now wilbur is still secretly blaming himself for things that were out of his control, while using random outside reasons for justification as to why he failed so he doesn't blame himself

wilbur might blame himself for what happened to tommy in exile. because he wasn't himself, he was ghostbur, and ghostbur didn't help tommy. wilbur might be angry with himself for not stepping up, for not helping tommy, so he tries to justify his failure by saying that dream was in the right all along. that it was better that he didn't do anything, because dream is the hero of the server.

in short, wilbur is lying to himself. another example of this is when he tells tommy that he didn't care about l'manberg. he claims that he never cared, that he just used l'manberg because he wanted to stick it to the man, because it hurts too much to admit that he regrets what he did and regrets failing l'manberg. it's easier to claim he never cared instead of confronting the fact that he was the reason l'manberg was brought to its knees.

wilbur claims that he's not going to lie anymore now that he's alive again, but he's lying more than he ever has before. he's trying to convince himself of a truth that's far less painful to accept. he can't admit that he's lying to himself and to others, because if he does, then the reality of his situation is impossible for him to deal with.

does this excuse all the different ways he's tried to manipulate tommy or ignored his trauma? no, of course not. but this is just another example of wilbur needing to lie to himself. if he accepts that tommy has been traumatized repeatedly, that he failed this terribly in protecting the kid who once saw him as an older brother, wilbur will break down.