T’Jadaka in a world of T’Cherik

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We as film viewers tend to make some assumptions about how close T'Challa and W'Kabi were before T'Challa took the throne. Generally, we assume they are best friends, ride or die, and have been for years if not since childhood. But these assumptions are based on a T'Challa-centric viewing of those scenes, assuming the best of T'Challa and imagining nice things for him in general. It is also a commentary on the amazing acting chemistry between Chadwick Boseman and Daniel Kaluuya. However, it’s entirely possible their friendship has always been one sided, that T'Challa was self centered enough to either not be as good a friend to W'Kabi as we would like to assume, or to not realize W'Kabi was just there for political reasons.

Maybe they were friends since they were kids, and young W'Kabi’s parents arranged for him to hang out with the older T'Challa because they (T'Challa’s parents, too) were thinking about future political capital. Even if W'Kabi approached the relationship with good intentions, maybe he’s been increasingly wronged by T'Challa moving his weight around, or about their parents/previous generation and eventually society around them being more oriented around T'Challa than him.

Maybe T'Challa and W'Kabi have disagreements or even fights sometimes and W'Kabi being upset at T'Challa is not a betrayal and nothing new. Maybe they have a friendship that is tentative at best.

Maybe T'Challa is not as good at reading people as we would like to assume and never saw:

W'Kabi was never a close friend, T'Challa just assumed he was 

W'Kabi was always in it for the political angle 

W'Kabi was sincerely T'Challa’s friend but he and his family and tribe had serious problems with T'Chaka that T'Challa either didn’t see or didn’t take seriously enough, and those problems were transferred onto him when he failed to capture Klaue 

The first time I saw the movie, I thought W'Kabi was so unreasonable- T'Challa came back empty handed but had only left for Klaue a few days before, returning wasn’t necessarily admitting defeat or giving up. Give him time, give him a chance. But thinking about the larger context changed my view.

Klaue had become a fugitive from Wakanda in 1991, remained a fugitive, and since the Avengers in AOU find Klaue with intel that had been on paper (for who knows how long) basically as soon as they think to look for him, we can assume Wakanda (T'Chaka?) had been allowing Klaue to remain a fugitive. T'Chaka must have either not been looking too hard, or had stopped looking years ago. Either way, W'Kabi had probably either accepted the line that Klaue had gone to ground so well Wakanda couldn’t find him, in which case T'Challa losing Klaue could have meant no chance of picking up the trail again (a devastating revelation), OR W'Kabi didn’t accept T'Chaka’s excuses over the years, decades of Klaue’s continued freedom, and had just assumed T'Chaka was never going to give him the justice he deserved for his parents.

In the latter case, I find it more than reasonable for W'Kabi to befriend the useless king’s son and presumptive heir to hopefully ensure justice will finally be done when T'Challa takes the throne. And even if W'Kabi hadn’t been upset at T'Challa at all for his father’s failings, even if he approached his friendship with T'Challa sincerely and was truly close, assuming T'Challa was nothing like his dad, how upsetting would it be to get the same excuses from him when Klaue is finally in the open again. 

W'Kabi is the one who feels betrayed. 

I like to believe T'Chaka never wanted Klaue found. Or wanted him found but only discreetly, and then killed, so uncomfortable revelations about N’Jobu would never come to light. Whatever the case, it’s fundamentally unfair to view W’Kabi through a T’Challa-guided lens while making assumptions of their closeness and relationship when it may not be the case and when you consider the history surrounding Klaue and his capture.