What Bojack Horseman Teaches Us About Character Development

this video is sponsored by camp fire unlike mr. peanut butter when Bojack spirals he takes his feelings of inadequacy or depression out on those around him while Bojack compulsively tears down those close to him mr. peanut butter lifts them often the same exact people up mr. peanut butter confronts dilemmas head-on whereas Bojack almost always runs from his problems lies or sabotages those around him in order to protect himself from the outside bojack's life is great and he's achieving everything he ever wanted but can't help being his own worst enemy these words come from an article published in calm on September 5th 2017 and I love everything about them the reason why that date September 5th 2017 is so important is because that is just three days before the release but Bojack horseman season four and the reason why I love this article which is literally titled why mr. peanut butter is the real hero of Bojack horseman is because it pretty much perfectly sums up the amazing amount of character development that mr. peanut butter has gone through from season 1 to 5 this article written for IGN by freelance writer Loren Lavin exemplifies the feelings that many of the show's fans had about mr. peanut butter going into season 4 he was the fun happy intensely loving dog man that while being a bit much at times stood as the beacon of joy in a show filled to the brim with depressed lonely broken characters the point is I'm going to be here for you 24/7 247 percent that's how they're for you I'll be he is the perfect contrast to Bojack which Loren Lavin's article makes sure to note they are both rich middle-aged television celebrities but the way that mr. peanut butter copes with the struggles that come along with such status are more or less viewed as functional and healthy while bojack's coping mechanisms are dangerously dysfunctional you set up with your actions what actions oh look at that baby Eva me the cutest baby you ever saw what no what we're Bojack harms others mr. peanut butter heels were Bojack hates mr. peanut butter gloves and if I'm being honest I probably would have agreed with Loren Lavin and her article at the time of its publishing across the first three seasons I saw mr. peanut butter as a happier and healthier version of Bojack many of you fans probably might have too but on September 15 2017 a week after Bojack season 4 premiered on Netflix the website dotted-line posted an article titled if you think mr. peanut butter is better off than Bojack think again let me read you a section that I feel captures the spirit of the article for many mr. peanut butter seemed across bojack's first three seasons to be the most put together character in bojack's cast but dogs can't be people and people can't be dogs he often seems vapid but such is the law of one tasked with needing approval at any cost he avoids that conceptualization though because to acknowledge it would be to acknowledge the impossibility of achieving the only thing he truly desires and the only thing he wishes to give to others unconditional love it's an addiction as real as booze or dope it's just less tangible and harder to explain in some ways it might even be harder to quit that makes it in its own way even more dangerous a meager ten days separates the publishing of the IGN article and the dotted line article yet these two write-ups could not have any more opposing views on mr. peanut butter as a character the IGN article hails him as a hero who helps those around him while the dotted line article argues that mr. peanut butter has an addiction to affirmation that is a danger to himself and maybe even others of course though the catalyst for this drastic difference in opinions was the release of Bojack horseman season 4 on September 8th 2017 and to throw another of course in here neither of these articles or definitive canon statements about the moral makeup of mr. peanut butter these articles were not written by the creators but that doesn't mean they are without value what these contrasting articles do is give us a picture of the Bojack horseman audiences characterization of mr. peanut butter before season 4 and then after season 4 and now in 2019 with season 5 far behind us I will go one step further and share my own opinions about mr. peanut butter I dislike him more than any other character in the show and I love that I can say that somehow some way a character I perceived in season one to be genuinely pleasant and good and now perceived to be a toxic cowardly liar and amazingly that transformation never felt rushed or jarring or out of place it really just felt like the more time I spent on mr. peanut butter and the more I learned about him the less I liked him on a personal level what we can do now in this video is explore the techniques and choices the show's creative team used regarding character development and how they have progressed mr. peanut butter from season one to five before we get into that though I just want to give a quick shout out to this videos sponsor campfire campfire is an incredibly helpful writing software that basically acts as an all-in-one organizer for a writer the parts of campfire that I'm actually head over heels for are the character tools being a fantasy novelist I have made quite literally hundreds of characters across my five different books my usual method of keeping track of them is just putting their names down in a Word document in wishing myself luck but with campfire there is an entire dedicated section for detailing characters there are backstories personalities physical traits and even art if you want to include that and if it weren't enough there is a feature where you can organize how characters are narrative ly related and even give characters their own detailed encyclopedia pages as someone who reads the isang of Ice and Fire Wikipedia page for fun and wishes desperately that he could do something similar for his own fantasy world this encyclopedia section of campfire is a godsend for me the same crazy amount of organization can be used for world building two campfire allows you the option to upload maps and add in pins to keep track of all specific locations of importance this is all done through a really easy to use drag-and-drop system on a clean user-friendly interface great channels like hello future me and shadow versity agree with me in thinking pretty highly of campfire most importantly though they helped support my channel in a huge way which means that I have the resources to create better content for you guys so let's support campfire in the same way for all you writers out there who are interested I will leave a link in the description below now getting back to mr. peanut butter to understand his character development we have to talk about what kind of character he is there are two real classifications that can be used to describe a character number one is what type of character they are and number two is what role that character fills let's tackle character type we can look to British novelist e/m Forster for some guidance on this topic and just in case we're wondering why we should care what this guy has to say his 16 nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature gives him a wee bit of authority on writing in foresters book aspects of the novel which he published in 1927 he defines two basic character types he writes about flat characters and round characters flat characters are two-dimensional in that they are relatively uncomplicated these are also referred to as static characters by contrast round characters also called dynamic characters are complex figures with many different characteristics that undergo development or change these are the two types of characters and Forster wasn't trying to get complicated with them there are those that change across a narrative and those that don't by definition since mr. peanut butter experiences change across the series you know character development he is a dynamic character next we can look at the role of a character which is the basic summation of their purpose in the narrative the most commonly known roles are the protagonist whose goal is the focus of the plot and the antagonist who wants to keep the protagonist from achieving their goal but there are many other roles in writing like the deuteragonist the tritagonist the rival the focal character the straight man the love interest and on and on however the role I want to focus on is fairly well known and has a fairly weird name the foil now for those of you who care and especially for those of you who don't the name is directly ripped from a technique used by jewelers they would slip an extremely thin sheet of metal aka foil behind the gemstone of a ring or necklace causing the foil to act as a reflector for the gym in front of it increasing the light that bounced from it and therefore increasing the gemstones shine the foil would literally highlight the gem storytellers heard of this technique and like the depraved insatiable thieves that they are stole it to use with their own characters for centuries narratives have included a character whose main purpose is to highlight the attributes of another character they are the foil to that character and since you are probably getting what I'm leading up to I will just come out and say it mr. peanut butters narrative role is a foil in the character he highlights his bow Jack if the contrast wasn't quite obvious enough with bow Jack being a horse with a long face and mr. peanut butter being a bouncy happy dog the show introduced his bow Jack and mr. peanut butter along each other as a comparison of personalities they are both rich middle-aged television celebrities who even starred on similar shows but where Bojack copes was such a lifestyle by being a vicious alcoholic mr. peanut butter is outwardly pleasant in positive if mr. peanut butter wasn't in the show we of the audience might be more sympathetic to Bojack thinking of course he's broken he has to deal with the emotional baggage that hollywood creates that would break anyone but since mr. peanut butter does exist and is so positive in a beat it casts Bojack shortcomings and a light that reflects negatively on Bojack as a person rather than on his circumstances a huge part of mr. peanut butters character in season 1 is look at what Bojack could be if he tried so with all that said we can finally pin down what type of character mr. peanut butter is a dynamic foil except he's not really one of the things that makes mr. peanut butters character development across a series so incredible is that it literally transcends types and roles let me explain in season 1 it is pretty clearly established that mr. peanut butter is a foil as we've talked about but there is an aspect of this particular role that we have not yet considered by definition of a foils narrative purpose being to highlight another character the foil only exists to further that characters plotline to fulfill their purpose the foil must interact with either the highlighted characters conflict or their goal because doing so allows for a comparison for how each of them approaches the situation to make things a bit more clear because I know that was really confusing season 1 of Bojack is a perfect example of what I'm talking about the main conflict for our protagonist Bojack in season 1 is his relationship with Diane or should I say how he wants to be in a relationship with Diane of course at the same time Diane is dating mr. peanut butter the three exist in a textbook love triangle meaning that anything Bojack does in pursuit of Diane will affect mr. peanut butter in anything that mr. peanut butter does to keep Diane will affect Bojack mr. peanut butter the foil shares the conflict with Bojack the highlighted character mr. peanut butters whole narrative existence in season 1 is centered around Bojack struggle for Diane and likewise in season 1 mr. peanut butter doesn't change much from start to finish if at all he's just as dumb a pible and in love with Diane in the last episode as he was in the first except the only difference now is that the two are engaged by sharing in bull Jack's conflict in highlighting bojack's characteristics mr. peanut butters role in the first season is a foil in by generally not changing much he is static making him a static foil but simplicity has never been in the vocabulary of the Bojack writing team and mr. peanut butters character only gets more complicated after season one instead of keeping bojack's expressed conflict centered on Diane and therefore involving mr. peanut butter as a foil the writers decided to have bojack's personal plotline focused on something completely different when asked about the love triangle that existed in season 1 and how season 2 moved away from it show creator Raphael bob-waksberg said I think we did season 1 and we're like ok season 1 is done what are we gonna do for season 2 we don't want to revisit that I thought we did a good job of explaining in season 1 why Diane was not a viable romantic option for Bojack or vice-versa that Diane would not want to date Bojack and that wasn't a relationship that we would see happening at this point by completely changing course on bojack's conflict and goals in the second season mr. peanut butter was thrown into a little bit of uncertainty since foils must share the goals or conflicts of their highlighted character in order to remain comparable mr. peanut butters narrative would have to change to align with Bojack except and the writers didn't do that either instead of keeping mr. peanut butters conflict tethered to Bojack the writers decided they wanted to explore the narrative they had built around Diane in mr. peanut butter show creator Raphael bob-waksberg has said then we looked at season two and how Diane rushed into this marriage with mr. peanut butter what is the reality of that what is the first year of marriage like for this couple and how do they interact with each other with mr. peanut butter squarely planted in his own plot line with his own conflict seasons two through five saw him become something more than just a foil he became his own unique character independent of Bojack each subsequent season after the first is an exploration into mr. peanut butters relationship with Diane and how he conducts himself with a significant other but even after the writers made the decision in season two to give mr. peanut butter his own conflict and narrative there still remained an issue and a pretty significant one by continuing on with mr. peanut butter story without Bojack as a main focus they basically removed the gemstone and just left the thin metal sheet behind mr. peanut butter was a character whose attributes were specifically purposed to contrast and highlight Bojack he was kind and caring and loving and happy which are all great qualities but without Bojack to play off of they don't amount to much as far as encompassing a meaningful complete character so what did the writing team do to address this well season by season they revealed him to be a character that wasn't actually any of those things they showed through different circumstances and experiences that mr. peanut butter is just as selfish angry and unhappy as many of the other characters in the show in season five week at the deepest exploration into the reality of his character other divorced couples can't handle it but we are handling it so well because we are better than them are we the best divorced couple I think we might be after his relationship with Diane ends his abject terror of being alone spurs him to quickly start dating pickles a dog young enough to be his daughter who he promptly cheats on twice but he's too much of a coward to admit it so he makes the completely underhanded and depraved decision to ask pickles to marry him as a cover up all of this character development was possible because the writers routed it in the traits that they had already given mr. peanut butter even before they knew they were going down this path in season one when he was still just a static foil he was obsessed with happiness and love and comfort this positivity allowed we as the audience to see him as some healthier character when compared to the rest of the cast but as the show continued mr. peanut butter developed into a character that would do nearly anything in service to his own personal happiness and comfort no matter how much it inconvenienced or hurt someone else from my perspective he went from the character that IGN called a hero who lives others up to a character that Don line called a dangerous addict who needs approval at all costs mr. peanut butters character development successfully takes him across types and roles which is a testament to the expertise of the team that arrives for Bojack and it's not just mr. peanut butter that has a fantastic narrative journey many of the characters that appeared in episode 1 to be simple in static had developed to be complex enduringly honest depictions of life in fact the cast has become so detailed in dynamic that it calls the show itself to go through a development of sorts when the show initially aired the website indieWIRE gave season 1 the rating of a c+ this was because indieWIRE had a policy where they only reviewed the first six episodes of a Netflix show well after releasing their rating indieWIRE finished the rest of the first season and surmised that the Bojack horseman show had such deep development in its final few episodes that it would be completely unfair to continue rating the show just on the first six the effect was so profound that indieWIRE ended up changing their entire reviewing policy vowing to watch all episodes of a network show before assigning a rating in 2014 indieWIRE gave Bojack horseman season 1 a c+ rating in 2018 they call Bojack horseman the greatest animated show of all time in a bad ascent development I don't know what is hey guys thanks for watching all the way to the end I really appreciate it two quick things first let me know down in the comments what you think of the new video style I think it is a real improvement but I would like to hear your feedback too second as of last week I opened myself up to do editing work if you have a short story or a novel that you want edited or you want guidance or coaching on writing feel free to contact me through email I offer stuff like developmental edits where I work alongside you chapter-by-chapter novel critiques concept development first impression edits and as I said before coaching opportunities and if you are worried about pricing you can probably relax I want to make things as affordable as possible for you guys if you are interested email me with your genera word count and name to get more information again thank you all for watching as always it was a pleasure and I will talk to you all again soon

Channel: Savage Books

Views: 689,536

Rating: 4.921474 out of 5

Keywords: bojack horseman, mr. peanutbutter, bojack horseman season 5, free churro, bojack horseman season 5 analysis, mr peanutbutter, season 4, bojack season 5, princess carolyn, bojack horseman theme, savage books, writing, breakdown, mr. peanutbutter best moments

Id: 2LZd146-xTE

Length: 17min 9sec (1029 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 23 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/charredmerm]

This was the first BH video essay I watched and it's good! I like Mr PB a lot but lately I've been learning about toxic positivity (to help myself) and he's a perfect example of that.

[u/newyne]

Wow, that was great! I'd never known where the term "foil" came from. Although... does a foil necessarily have to relate to another character's goals or conflict? I've always thought of them as kind of a contrast. That is, they're equal and oppoiste, with the purpose of... Honestly, I usually think of pairs of characters as each other's foils, in that they both work to help you understand the other. I'm not sure of a formal definition, though.

Anyway! I don't know that I'd say that Mr. Peanut Butter is just as bad off as Bojack. He may not be truly happy, but he does seem to get more enjoyment out of life, and at least he's not as physically self-destructive. I guess what I'm saying is that distracting yourself from your own misery, while not healthy, is at least healthier than wallowing in it. But what do I know?