in my mind, as a child marion firmly believed the idea of toys, esp dolls and teddy bears, secretly being animate/sentient to some capacity and because of this he was really really fucking weird about how both he and his peers interacted with and played with toys. he was fiercely and obsessively protective of his belongings and would not let other children play with them. despite being a pretty mild-mannered kid he would get actively violent if his toys were handled incorrectly and had a hard time willingly parting with them
i don't think he believed they could like move on their own or whatever but i do think that they had some level of influence on the manner in which he played with them and going against their wishes would cause bad things to happen, so he was also pretty scared of them.
once his mom realized he was not engaging with his dolls and stuffed animals in a normal way she sold them at a garage sale while he was visiting family. in the short term, this did help (at least in curbing his irrational fear of and overly possessive behavior in regards to his personal toys/objects as he got older) but in lieu of no objects to project his abnormal thoughts on, things got much more complicated as they both projected inward and he started seeking outlets for them elsewhere.
all i'm saying is that marion probably read The Lonely Doll by Dare Wright when he was a child and it had a fundamental and evil psychosexual effect on his psyche that has lasted until this day and there's not really anything we can do about that