User blog:Corbierr/Character Analysis- Eddie



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Season 2- Such a bad boy, I don't even care about funny titles!
Eddie entered in a surprisingly simple way. He just magically spawned into existance and came out of the cab. My only issue here is that he maybe could have been foreshadowed more. Maybe we could have had Victor or Sweet on the phone talking about the "new student" and then later have Eddie arrive. Then again, I'm probably just nitpicking. We all knew he'd be coming, after all, so he wasn't as random as, say, Benji, or even Piper.

And what's the first thing he gets to do? Argue with Patricia, of course! (What's with newbies and getting into conflict with Patricia right away?) Peddie cuteness aside, this was probably the best way to let us know who Eddie was. We knew he was stubborn because of the way he was willing to argue with her. We knew he was also kind of lazy, rude, and certainly a "bad boy". Yet he was also funny, and the only person at that point who managed to match Patricia's attitude and give her an actual reason to hate him. Eddie was given a pretty good introduction with just one single scene of dialogue. I still say his actual arrival could have been given just a tiny bit of foreshadowing, and I do wish he and Joy had spoken a little as well just to give a little bit more to the scene than he and Patricia just insulting each-other. That would have added diversity and maybe would have showed us a sneek peek of Eddie's other personality traits. My general thought about this, though, is that it was still a good scene.

I shouldn't be too surprised at the fact that the whole introduction was he and Patricia bickering, however. Besides the one off scene here and there where he'd interact with characters like Nina and Jerome, Eddie had very little to do outside of bother Patricia. I won't say this is just so we can get Peddie moving, especially seeing how even the characters noticed that Eddie was spending a lot of time just hanging around Patricia and that it was his own choice to do so (which means it's more of Eddie just being Eddie and not forced romance scenes), but I will say that it didn't do much to let us know more about Eddie, either. During these few episodes, it wasn't hard to sum up Eddie's current personality: He was a bad boy, who liked stirring trouble, and is also a flirt. There was not much else to learn about him, because he either just continued his thing with Patricia or just interacted with Jerome...and because there was no reason, yet, for us to see any other side to him. IDK, I guess I just wish that he interacted more with other people like Fabian or Joy or even Alfie, or had scenes where he was alone and just doing his thing, if only so we could have a more diverse picture of Eddie's character and could see more sides of him than just the bad boy.

I was just going to write about how that may have been a good thing because it kept his good side less obvious until his development kicked him, but then I realized...well, why not foreshadow these things? Why not show more of his personality? Why not do more with him than just hanging around Patricia? It's not a matter of keeping it surprising, and I do in fact like the idea of keeping his good side a bit hidden until it has a reason to come out. What the issue is here is not that I think we should have seen his entire personality at one- the issue is that these scenes kept him seeming a bit one-dimensional and put too much emphasis on his relationship with Patricia, rather than developing relationships with other people as well- like his room-mate, for example?

Okay, enough of that. How about when he actually does start to develop? Well, I guess it started around the time he finally decided to admit to Patricia how he felt. It was one of the few times we've seen him let down his bad boy attitude and show his nicer side, if only for a few seconds. But it not only let us start to learn more about Eddie, and what was inside his head, but it also served as a clue that he was developing. I guess he was getting tired of constantly pretending he didn't like her, and wanted to change things. From here, we get he and Patricia once again returning to rival mode...but Eddie was clearly starting to change. He started showing moments of frustration and anger, moments of worry and moments where he was trying his hardest just to act like the same guy he was at the beginning. This was an interesting case where he seemed to be trying to not develop, at least that's how I see it. He didn't want others to see him as a good guy yet at the same time was starting to become angry about his situation. It seems that on one hand, Eddie didn't want to feel or act weak around Patricia and so was doing everything he could to change things, but he also didn't want to keep being her enemy. In all honesty, that makes for a very interesting character arc, but it was done in a way that came off as rather subtle. But again, we could have used scenes were he was with anyone but Patricia and wasn't focusing on Patricia in order to let us see more of who Eddie is in different situations and so we could get a better idea of what's going on in his head.

However, I think the biggest influance on his development was when he was revealed to be Sweety's son. I'm going to ignore the affect it had on Peddie, partly because I honestly don't care about it, partly because it has almost nothing to do with this. The thing I want to focus on is the arc that happened between him and his dad themselves. Not only does this reveal give Eddie a good reason for the way he's been acting all his life (although I do wish they explored it more, as it could have several explainations and any of them could have made for a genuinely good backstory, plot and reason for development: A cry for attention, a response to feeling unwanted, simple anger making him act out, an attempt to hide his broken home, a developed hatred for authority in general and an idea that they are all incompetent and/or neglectful? What is it? I honestly want to know, and I'm suddenly upset that the show skipped out on the chance to truly flesh out Eddie's backstory. Hey now I have an idea of a One-Shot I can make in the future...(or an entire backstory series...this is totally going to be a thing in the future omg)), it also gives Eddie a good reason to start showing much more of his secret personality as well as for him to start maturing. He started out resentful and rejected his father's attempts to, well, be a father to him. But once Mr. Sweet tried to prove that he really did care about Eddie and that he did want to be a father, Eddie finally agreed, and the two of them started to try and become an actual family...

...Which was unfortunately an arc that needed work. When writing this, I found some flaws. First of all, Eddie got over his anger really fast. What reason did he have to just decide to stop being upset and call Mr. Sweet his dad? It was a very heartwarming scene, don't get me wrong. But what did Mr. Sweet do to deserve it? Eddie had the right to be angry at him for leaving him behind for no reason, for all these years with minimal to no contact, just to try and suddenly start being a father to him. Mr. Sweet didn't even really apologize for everything he had put Eddie through emotionally, so his insistance on being respected as a father seems a bit selfish when you realize that Eddie was given no reasons to respect him. Unless there is something I'm missing, and if there is, someone please tell me in the comments! (Seriously, if you remember something I don't, share it so I have the actual facts!) It acted like Eddie was the one who needed to apologize when he was the one who had been hurt by this and he was the one who deserved a bit of sympathy, but all he got was Patricia treating him like shit just for keeping this a secret, which was entirely justified. Finally, Jerome's plot with his father was going at the same time, and that was done much better- it showed both sides of the story and didn't put either side in the wrong, it was slower so we could see every step of their development, and it played the biggest role in changing Jerome than anything else had. (And yes, I did have to make the comparison. It was practically required with this topic seeing as both parent/son relationships are almost identical on paper, with the disappeared father who is trying to make it up to their resentful son.) It was just a plot that could have been done so much better, and while I'm on the subject, why is everyone so obsessed with their father on this show? Unless both parents are dead or something, the emotional stuff always comes from the character dealing with their father, not their mother. Hell, even fathers we've never seen, like Mara's, was given more importance than her mother was. The only exception to this is Patricia, and that's just because of the one phone conversation she and her mother had. It just seems really weird to me now- can't mothers be just as important to a character's life than the fathers are?

...So back on topic, we eventually started seeing more sides to Eddie and more relationships of his got fleshed out. He had his adorable friendship with Mara become a thing, he had his little arc with Piper, and again, he and Jerome started having some sort of partnership type thing going, he began to react to Joy and started getting suspicious of Sibuna...he just started to break from the mold and do more things, maybe because he and Patricia were dating by this point so the Peddie stuff was not the big plot anymore, or maybe just because so many things had opened up that he could get to do a lot of new things. No matter what the reason is, I liked it. It's good. But he probably should have interacted more with Nina. Why?

Don't act like you guys don't know why! It's because he's the Osirian, of course! And it came completely out of nowhere, and while it did help to expand Eddie's role and served as a minor twist, it also could have been done so much better. I just think they should have foreshadowed it. Show he and Nina interacting and having some strange and immediate connection, where she begins to trust him for reasons unknown to her, for example. I don't know, just more than the one scene we got the episode before the reveal where he and Fabian were both hinted at being the Osirian. Yeah, maybe the foreshadowing would have made it less of a twist, but hell, it also would have made the question of whether or not the Osirian is Eddie of Fabian more thought-provoking and more of an actual mystery, rather than just a curve ball being thrown at us last minute.

In general, season 2 Eddie did have a lot of good scenes, a well developed personality and some of the most potential of the season. However, not all of the potential was acted upon. We could have learned a lot more about his life and had his reveal as the Osirian more foreshadowed than it was. But over all, I did think he was a funny, interesting and rounded character- just a few more edges could have been cleaned up.

And then things take a sharp turn in...

Season 3- Mary Sue 2.0- New Male Version
When we met up with Eddie in season 3, he had now become the protagonist. And that meant his personality had to be changed to fit!

...What? Why?

What reason is there behind taking a relatively complex and interesting character and making him basically the male Nina? And if you think I'm exaggerating, think about it. He got a 36 on the Mary Sue Test. He suddenly quit being a bad boy and turned into an average guy. Where did this even come from? It's not like he had any reason to change over the summer, so what happened to his season 2 personality?

...HIs new personality wasn't awful. It just wasn't the Eddie we got to know last time. I mean, this could have been done well and even could have made sense if they just took the time to explain it. Except, no, it couldn't have. How could they have possibly explained what made him change is ways? Unless, of course, it had to do with Peddie breaking up? They could have said that he noticed Patricia was becoming distant and he wanted to fix it, and blamed himself for it so he tried to change, and then after she dumped him he may have felt even worse which made him try harder to get rid of his bad boy personality once and for all. I just came up with a reason for this in a minute and maybe the reason sucks but it's still better than the writers or whoever is behind this sudden personality change just thinking we're morons who won't notice anything! It just doesn't make sense!

I need to go on a tangent for a minute. A protagonist does not always need to mean a standard hero. Sometimes it's a character who starts off very flawed and then changes their ways as time goes on; sometimes it's the opposite, and they turn more flawed due to being unable to overcome some key issue. Hell, sometimes the protagonist is a villain! I mean, yeah, it's not like Eddie was arrogant and careless at the end of season 2 which means he still could have made a good and very interesting protagonist! They only changed him so they could let him adopt the protagonist role and I think that's just insulting to the intelligence of us viewers as well as anyone who liked Eddie in season 2. There's nothing wrong with making a protagonist be some sort of anti-hero, especially not if it could lead to character development where they get into trouble and have to start changing their ways to fix it. I'm getting sick of standard protagonists, as well as of protagonists that are assholes in practically every way. We should have more middle ground, damn it!

Anyways, Eddie became the leader of Sibuna and blah blah blah. Honestly, I have no interest in explaining his character for the season. Sorry if you're disappointed, but all I'm going to do is be ranting about how the show became centered around him and how he was the only character actually needed for the plot in the end, how he and Mr. Sweet had absolutely no closure to their plot (but it does prove my point about how Eddie had no reason to respect his father in season 2),  how his plot with Patricia was tedious and frustrating for no reason, and how he was an idiot for a lot of it. (He made a lot of dumbass newbie moves and you all know it.) Look, I'm sorry that I'm not going to be explaining further, but I just know that this will get tedious, and I'll just start devolving into cursing and angry gibberish.

Eddie in season 3 just really needed a rewrite. He should have never lost his bad-boy personaity, and they should have been more creative with his character. Let him struggle with being a leader and let him honestly go through development. Let him and his dad have their closure. Let him need to rely on his friends for help and let him become a true hero not by luck or personality-change, but by actual effort to save the world and through genuine and paced development. There was a lot of wasted (and never even noticed) potential here, and I'm just very disappointed.

'''Well, that's it for now! Tell me what you guys think!'''

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