When a DEEP Character Pretends to be SHALLOW... (Hobie Brown)

Kobe Brown is a fascinating side character he is a bizarre side character for sure and one that kind of begs to be dissected on the star telling level because of how instantly popular he became among the fandom of this movie he gets like five ish minutes of screen time five minutes and the characters already so beloved so talked about what is going on here how do you do that and this might sound a little weird but in hobie's case I think it starts with deception Hobie gives us some brilliant juicy deceptive characterization and I love it so much I live for this kind of complex character work especially when it is so efficient so much depth in five minutes it's crazy so deception is the word I'm using here because we know me you watching this video all of us now know having seen the entire movie who Hobie really is all of us now know that Hobie is spending the entire story stealing vital technology and reverse engineering it all while cultivating these Grassroots relationships that will eventually rise up and come together to undermine the autocratic hegemony of Miguel's spider society that level of planning that level of plot involvement and that unique vibrant Hillary various Hobie personality we see all this filtered through is in actuality so deep and only gets deeper the more you think about it but that is not how Hobie is introduced at all not even close I want to talk about a phenomenon that I talked about twice before I believe in these two videos but I never seen it done with anything close to this level of both meticulous care and efficiency what we're getting here is a double introduction to characters introduced layered on top of one another in these five minutes we do meet true Hobie but we're also getting a much louder introduction to who I'll call superficial Hobie and these are two different characters who develop almost entirely separately from each other and I want to highlight two structural tools that they're using here that are not only cool and effective in their own right but writers out there I rarely say this but this is actually not that hard to implement in your own writing I mean everything in writing is obviously hard to some extent but looking at these two tools they just seem very doable to me so let's go through hobie's glorious five-ish minutes which actually really start before we meet him in this scene with Gwen and Miles Gwen is talking about her awesome new life in spider society and she brings up Hobie to Miles and just like the worst way possible oh you're in love with me let me tell you about my guy friend who is older than you and cooler than you who I'm so enamored by I think you two are gonna become great friends oh and sometimes I spend the night at his place horrible introduction for miles miles is gonna hate this guy right off the bat and also we us the audience we're gonna side with Miles here because he's our guy he's our protagonist we're experiencing the story through him and now we got this Hobie jerk standing in the way of these two cuties getting together maybe and the funny thing here is that all of this is based on nothing about the character none of what we know about Hobie is about hoping it's only about Gwen's relationship with him and even that we don't actually know we're worried but we don't know and despite all this we already have ill feelings so who is Hobie at this point Hobie is Gwen's friend he's a competitor to Miles and we don't like him superficial hobias who are being introduced to here in the most superficial way possible and then when we do meet Hobie for real he just confirms everything miles feared everything we feared right off the bat he humiliates Miles by easily doing what miles fail to do Breaking the Barrier and also Gwen is so happy to see him and also he's best friends with the other cooler better version of Miles friends and then now he's lecturing miles about how to use his own powers great advice use the poem not just your finger it just hurts so much and then to our absolute devastation we get hobie's intro where we come to understand oh no oh crap this guy actually is just so much cooler than me I can't even deny it and I can't even hate him either this guy is amazing I can totally see why Gwen likes him heck I already like him and I'm someone who hates him so we as miles we are just left feeling inferior nothing we can do about it we can't even really get angry we're just sad we're frustrated that we're not cooler so at this point by the end of this whole sequence by the end of Hobie phase one we have a pretty fully formed picture of who this guy is and what his place is in the story phase one Hobie is a walking talking incarnation of Miles insecurities and everything we've seen about him so far fits into this understanding of the character very well his close relationship with Gwen is to make us jealous his high level Spidey skills are there to humiliate us and then we got the sheer coolness his life his britishness his aesthetic it's all there just making us feel so uncool by comparison you compare hobie's intro with Miles awkward intro in the second movie which is kind of mundane and frankly pretty embarrassing and it's just over this guy beat me just put me in a shoe box and tossed me in the dumpster and you two go and ride off into the sunset happily ever after Mr Mrs Brown uh it's terrible so all of this up until now this is great this is solid characterization but what supercharges it is our first tool our first tool is fake stop signs which looks like this I don't believe in consistency this is where hobie's coolness which is already pretty over the top communicates to us that he's kind of a parody of himself we should not expect some super deep cool layered character study here whole thing is an aesthetic doesn't really mean anything he's cool British Punk caricature at this point the story it's like we're kind of driving down Hopi Road and that line is like a road sign saying to us dead end it's saying no more depth turn back we hear this we're like oh this guy is kind of just saying stuff it's just what he does he's no less cool but what he is is he's paper thin and the story wants me to know that he's paper thin so the writing here starts throwing in these little signs that if you reach deeper there's not going to be anything there we also got the I don't believe in X which ends up kind of being the simplistic refrain summing up how simplistic this guy is it's purposely reductive just the same thing over and over again nothing more I don't believe in consistency and at that point we're starting to see no one takes this guy seriously not even himself from here in addition to this first kind of fake stop sign changing things up a bit the star gives us another totally different kind of fake stop sign in the 4 form of a cute little Arc we've seen enough to conclude that hobie's Mal's insecurity incarnate and nothing more and the story is kind of thrown at us this Arc that begins with Miles getting humiliated by Hobie and then we go off and we fight spot a bit and we save some abandoned people and break Cannon and now huzzah miles was a good Spider-Man and he saved the day pav is indebted to him Gwen is impressed with him and she's all warm and loving again and even Hobie even cool British Anarchist Punk Hobie who I will never be as cool as even he is blown away by what I did that is a nice little Arc and it's done we've overcome our insecurities and the walking symbol of our insecurities is congratulating us we've conquered the character flaw and just like we're done with this new Spidey we are also officially done with this new Spidey right oh never mind I guess he's coming with us that end of the arc that stops on we saw there I guess that was fake and the story is continuing okay then okay but while all this was happening with superficial Hobie true Hobie also snuck in here right under our noses listen to this this is true hobby foreign all that is true he'll be true he'll be the legit revolutionary who will be a major supporting force in the plot whereas complex and deep motives and values and plans but we don't even notice true Hobie because a we're so set in our Hobie ways we had this powerful and complete feeling first impression that we're so distracted by and B because of our second tool each of those lines we just heard listen to a little more context and tell me if you see the pattern but I'm not playing all faces what we're getting here is some immediate misdirection every time we get a hint of the real Hobie we get more jokes we get more of the caricature we get a hefty dose of superficial Hobie and it either comes immediately before or immediately after or both listen to this one bro [Music] and then what what follows our biggest spoonful of true hobby yet why it's an equally big spoonful of superficial Hobie they don't even have time to think deeper into his anti-establishment side because all of a sudden we are right back to simplistic when competition mode with its accompanying I'm just here to make you feel insecure Hobie characterization how many sweaters do you have the story is just giving us no time to dwell on what we just heard even though it might be meaningful and this all works because of ambiguity antagonizing fascists might be part of a real anti-establishment revolutionary character or it might just be a superficial aesthetic it actually could be both it could just be part of the cool British Punk culture and nothing more does Hobie actually not believe in being a role model or a hero or is he just saying that because it sounds badass we don't know the story lets us decide and we end up deciding according to what's louder and according to our previous biases and as this phase continues as it concludes we get more instances of some standard ambiguity I don't follow all this neither does he that is true Hobie talking in both of these instances but he can just as easily hear it as superficial character Hobie okay and on that note we move into phase two and this is where we catch our first glimpse of unambiguous true Hobie we get lines like this Whitney how much have you told him about his place notice his true hobby zero ambiguity we got no jokes no asides no character stuff that's just the real him not to imply that all the joking on all the flares like faking that is not real him but what I'm saying is that there's no superficial way of interpreting those lines those lines only make sense with a legit revolutionary model but us just where we are right now we're seeing Hobie not being funny and superficial and ironic and it's a little weird for us we hear him saying this stuff and we're like taking it in we're kind of withholding judgment but we're not changing our mind it's not like a quick oh I'm wrong I've been fooled it's more like a hmm where is this going and that said even these Hobie scenes are still peppered with misdirection it's less pronounced and there's less of it but if phase one gave us like 90 superficial Hobie and 10 true Hobie I'd say phase two gives us more like 40 60 superficial to True we'll get stuff like this where Hobie is pointing out human rights violations that is a true Hobie moment but he'll also talk about how much he likes the name that is a superficial Hobie moment we see him stealing random stuff but then superficial Hobie tells us and we chucked the whole thing up to superficial Obi this guy's not up to anything serious it's Toby listen to how he talks he's just being mischievous don't take it too seriously in this sequence Hobie actually has a real heart to heart with Miles and that is probably where we start to think maybe we were wrong about this guy maybe there is a true Hopi that we missed and maybe this guy is some kind of oppositional Force to spider society and even as that is starting to enter our mind we get more deception I mean is this deception it definitely feels like a stop sign it feels like we're back to superficial mode somehow back to nonsense the answer doesn't really make that much sense if he's really this oppositional Force then he's done what 24 missions for this cause that he's against just because of Gwen does that really make sense but hey that's what he's saying so maybe he's just being chaotic Kobe again and then we meet Miguel and if anyone can confirm whether true Hobie exists or not whether this character is real opposition it should be the actual autocrat in the room and we immediately see nope and you Miguel does not take this guy seriously at all that is another stop sign right in our face and I think my favorite example of all this and the most subtle in my opinion is that just when it starts to really sound like he's trying to talk miles out of joining we see him do this and it's visually demonstrating to us I'm not actually a serious barrier to anything going on here and then before we can make any more progress in understanding Hobie Hobie literally just leaves he pieces out of the story and even if we do kind of Wonder is this guy going to turn up again this story is definitely declaring Hobie has exited this world and the narrative and we watch this and we're like okay see you in movie three I guess that version of the fake stop sign the structural stopping point where we assume we're just actually done with a character narratively that only works if we feel like we've experienced a complete character we understand who has fulfilled their purpose in the story and with superficial Hopi we have both these conditions easily fulfilled phase one we think this guy is Miles insecurity that he had to overcome that's what he is and miles does indeed try and function fulfilled are complete that's it so how does this work with our phase two stop sign who do we think Hobie is in this phase and why do we think he might be done at this point so I think by the time we get here by the time we see this we have concluded that Hobie is this starry's voice of descent but he's nothing more than a voice no action is taken and this is a necessary function because we have miles who's a little too excited about joining the spider Society The Narrative needs a cautionary voice that we've built up respect for that miles will hear and proceed to ignore until he cannot ignore it any longer and that is exactly what happens once Mao sees for himself what Hobie was warning him about we have no more need for our voice of descent character so that's it he'll be out That's all folks oh sorry wrong Spider-Man so phase two ends once again we think we understand Hobie and then we move to phase three which is barely a phase and hope he is barely in it this whole time it turns out Hobie was building his own watch he sends one to Gwen that enables her to form her own Elite spider force and thus Begins the very real Revolution against the spider society that Hobie was working towards this entire time and this is true hobie's superficial Hobie is nowhere to be seniors gone maybe he was never even really there it's almost like it was a mask this whole time and Hobie was hiding who he was from the very beginning huh how about that didn't see that coming and this phase three Hobie this is the jackpot this is the character that does just get deeper the more you try to understand him and almost as soon as we meet him the movie is ending and we don't even have a chance to think into him and this whole time maybe we suspected that there's that kind of depth but we didn't actually know he truly existed until the very end of the movie and then we're like oh my gosh this character but it does prompt the question of why seems like a whole lot of effort for five minutes of the movie what exactly is being accomplished for the audience experience this whole complex deception misdirection fake stop sign stuff how does this make the story better so I see two lessons underlying all this the first one is simple just that it feels good when characters surprise us like this it's fun when characters keep us guessing basically as long as it doesn't destabilize their star experience and there's a good payoff we like this kind of characterization where the character exceeds our initial expectations simple idea good note to keep in mind for characters of All Sorts second lesson is this it's not quality versus quantity known crafting Rich deep characters that will stick with you equality is quantity we go through phase one and get a bunch of fun scenes and a fun character with a simple purpose that's great and then we hit phase two and we meet Hobie the dissenting voice a more complex character with a more complex purpose and at this point we're like wait a second all that stuff from before antagonizing fascists hating autocracy doesn't believe in teams that stuff has started to look really relevant again I gotta go back and think about this some more and wait hold on again when Hobie was cheering for Miles here this wasn't a moment of overcoming Securities at all no Hui was cheering for him because miles disrupted a Canon event and here he wasn't being a goofball no after seeing when miles did Hobie thought miles actually was independent minded like him and that he wouldn't go to HQ once I had this new understanding of the character I'm going back I'm connecting all these dots and then we hit phase three legit revolutionary Hobie even more complex in every way and now again I'm looking back on everything and I'm questioning it again so Hobie was stealing materials for his watch here is that right was he keeping a low profile so he wouldn't let me go his scheming what about this little detail what about that Nuance what about this little line is maybe like really an anarchist those are the things I'm going back and evaluating right now I'm taking this character so much more seriously and that's making me look at all this through a new lens so yeah we get five minutes with this character but each perspective shift enables us to go back and see the whole five minutes in a new light and hey we just turned that five minutes into 15 minutes at least and then now we have three versions of the character three versions of all the different relationships he has to all the story elements we got three versions of all these little details and we can take all this we can compare we can contrast We can question we can analyze we can think and think and think our hearts content to infinity and beyond those 15 minutes have turned into hours of discussion that is how you get depth depth isn't just additional stuff it's not a longer laundry list of facts about the character you don't need to keep working on that character profile sheet more details about his life more details on what his childhood was like what is his favorite cereal he has uh allergy to penicillin there that's gonna make him deep you can keep working on your character sheets if you want if that helps you there are ways to get depth from that even Hobie gets some of his death from there that's his intro but most of his depth comes solely from his incredible presentation not depth in the what but depth in the hell it's how the story explores who this guy is it's depth from sequencing it's from complex ways of arranging beats highly underrated method of achieving depth okay now how cruel would it be if I just ended the video here 12 to 17 minutes talking about how deep the Hobie Rabbit Hole goes but then not actually explore any of it not actually find the bunny waiting for us at the bottom and we love bunnies on this channel you all know you've seen the bunny video so let's actually do the bunny work now that we have hobie's entire story how are we going to answer all of these questions and there are a lot of questions and I don't think we gotta answer all of these shortly even at phase three there's a lot of jokes and goofball stuff that's just there for flavor and for fun but how much of it can be explained how much can we unify some of these threads of chaos so let's start out with a simple question how is Hobie experiencing the story we're used to thinking of everything we're seeing through the perspectives and personalities of our protagonist miles and Gwen what is hobie's unique outlook on the events of the story that generates hobie's unique plans in the story what is he seeing that we are not seeing through miles and Gwen so let's compare and contrast that starting with Gwen she is our first main character who is introduced to the spider society and she sees it as a new home and that is something that she is desperately in need of Gwen sees it has a place where she fits in after being thrown out of her own universe and she sees it as a place to receive guidance which she is thrilled about we hear the enthusiasm in her voice and her conversation with miles in the scene Gwen is flourishing here and sure it's not all great there are things about her she doesn't like but for the most part she focuses on the good and doesn't concern herself too much with the bad folks who wound up in the wrong Dimension they're not very good and miles at first is in basically the same position he is floored this is everything he's always wanted it's Grand it's sciency he gets to make all these new friends and best part of it all he gets to be around Gwen so in Miles eyes it's a place where all these spider people all these people like him all these friends people he loves people he likes everyone is dedicating themselves to doing good for the Multiverse in glorious superhero fashion and what does Hobie think Hobie sees fascism appearance symbol true Hobie the Revolutionary sees the spider society as a fascistic cult founded meticulously controlled by one megalomaniacal leader I have been the only one holding it all together we got the surveillance State big brother is definitely watching you as we see Miguel doing right here or sometimes it's big sister watching you we got the imprisonment of people who don't belong followed by force deportation cleansing of all these people who will destroy the world and the whole idea of the Canon this dogmatic ideology about making everyone the same for this Grand purpose of saving the universe allow me to quote mineconf directly here tell me if you can see how this matches up to Miguel's rhetoric dolphy here in this passage is talking about me and my people the Jews as he likes to do and he's seeing the result of not fighting against the Jew is quote the Jew's Crown will be the funeral wreath of humanity and this planet will as it did millions of years ago move through the ether devoid of men tell me that doesn't sound similar and as a result of that we get this world of extreme Conformity based around sacrifice based around the same once again happens to be nazi-esque ethic of hardness where being able to commit horrific Acts or standby stoically while Horrors are happening in front of you was considered a value in Hitler's Germany that is what forges you into a strong capable Soldier for the cause not for Uncle Ben most of us wouldn't be here miles and this is getting a little dark but let's lean into it let's get even darker I'm not afraid to get dark when it's relevant and I honestly do think Hobie has a distinctly Grim view of what's happening in the story what this really reminded me of is my children's room video which is a very old video on my channel from the time I spent in Rwanda studying the Rwandan Genocide quick summary rewarding genocide about 2 million hutus killed about 1 million tootsies and these were two groups within Rwanda that were very mixed especially at that time and that's something that unfortunately made the genocide way more horrific listen to this and Trigger warning just for the darkest side of humanity two women you know those who are in mixed marriage so they turned against their own husbands and some turned against their own wives and they kill their children we have several cases of you know of mothers who killed their own children we gotta make sacrifices so we can have a unified Society with no one who acts out of line and no one who doesn't belong I think that's how Hobie sees what's happening in the story so what does Hobie do about it how does Hobie do revolutionary it's actually been pretty interesting seeing actual anarchists and anti-establishment people weighing in on Hobie it seems like overall the response has been positive people think the movie did a pretty good job representing this life and this Outlook and the more I looked into hobie's methods and his attitude the more I started to understand why and I'll preface this by saying I am not a political guy at all but I do really like reading about developing countries and their struggles and triumphs hobie's style of combating autocracy and being a revolutionary reminds me of an actual legit revolutionary scholar named George aite I'll look his book defeating dictators in the description highly recommended if you're about that revolutionary life but as someone picking this book up who is totally ignorant about the topic I remember two points standing out to me the first was that it's not just about taking to the streets and marching in Civil Disobedience and big rallies that stuff has its place maybe it feels good maybe it's empowering but to enable actual real National political change a revolutionary movement needs to take control of the components of Civil Life the levers of civil power and by that I mean institutions like the courts election centers Banks Academia the professional class Security Forces controlling even one of those or possible a few of those that is a gigantic step towards actual change and may seem like having people work in the election centers or getting involved in the nitty-gritty politics necessary to impact the Judiciary that stuff may not seem as glamorous as doing a big ride or whatever but ultimately these are the levers of society these are the Reigns of power wielded by this autocratic government you're fighting against and the second surprising priority for Mr ayete's book was the importance of radio Yes you heard right radio also not very glamorous and granted this book was that Revolutions in the developing world but the point is that governments can shut down a lot of means people have of congregating and communicating but it's actually really hard to stop radio and it's also really easy to get a radio even poor people even people in rural areas people in slums and townships and you can keep the people informed all the regular normal people people who are going to be the real force behind your Revolution and that's the idea here the priority is not these grandiose steps that might look very cool it's forming connections with the regular people whose potential you know even if the powers that be underestimate them so in hobie's efforts to fight against the Spidey autocracy he doesn't do either of these things exactly but what he does is actually really close in the spider Society there is no Judiciary or organized security forces or Banks or real professional class but there still are levers of power of course there are in the spider Society first and foremost it's the watches which is not even like an abnormal lever of power it's the transportation system basically and here it happens to also be the surveillance system and what am I even saying is even more than that obviously the Scientology prevents you from glitching out which means that Miguel in some situations is controlling your very ability to live so understandably our spider revolutionary would set his sights on that technological lever of power the main lever of power and seek to rest it from the hands of the fascists which he does but outside the watches there's also another system of control here we got the prison system which the state claims is for criminals and bad guys but we all know that once it's there it can be for anyone we can just lock away anyone the state identifies as a threat I've seen people asking this first scene where we see Hobie where he says this main advice use the poem not just your fingers I've seen people ask about the scene how does Hobie know how to use miles power Better Than Miles and I think looking at it in this framework is pretty straightforward it's not that Hobie knows anything specifically about miles Powers now Hobie has studied how barriers work he has learned how to easily break them on his own because he knows this technology is one of the levers of power of the state this is something Hobie needs to figure out how to undermine and then once he understands it he has a responsibility to share that knowledge with the people which is exactly what he does with Miles here and then here again third lever power which I think is the most subtle and I think it's most fascinating is mental smigiel's means psychological lever power which I'll call authoritative presence it reminded me of this line from Game of Thrones power resides where men believe it resides it's a trick a shadow on the wall Miguel is a character who casts a very big Shadow figuratively and literally hears this Hawking domineering physical presence he has this Aura of respect for what he's accomplished in terms of his history in terms of what he went through in terms of what he's built but also just the prowess he's demonstrated in the field he's earned respect there pretty thoroughly and then even just like his voice just the way he speaks is the kind of voice that makes you want to listen makes you want to obey and Hobie cannot be that he can't take a portion of that authoritative presence for himself just to break the Monopoly and he wouldn't want to either way but once again he absolutely can undermine it he can be a voice of mockery which is a crucial tool to combat power humor satire laughter that is what undoes these kinds of ours is what shines the light on the shadow Hobie can also act as a picture of disrespect he can be the person who doesn't exactly fall in line even on missions so that other people can see that that happens and it's okay okay I did all the work and most importantly he can monopolize what is the opposite of the psychological lever of power what isn't Miguel Miguel isn't funny Miguel isn't friendly he isn't easy going he's not artistic he is not playful he's not one of the guys he's not caring and Hobie is all of those things Hobie is so funny he is so friendly he is so easy to be around and he absolutely does care about all of his friends we see that so prominently and that's something that Hobie just naturally is but it's also important to his cause that he be all of those things because anyone who wants to follow a strong leader is just gonna flock to Miguel there's nothing anyone can do about that but anyone who doesn't want that is going to become besties with Hobie and that's really the fourth lever of power people the spider Society can have all the watches in the world and have the best prison system they can have Migos domineering persona but without people none of it works so hope he makes that his other top priority he makes a lot of really good friends he prioritizes his personal relationships and like many revolutionaries that starts with young people who aren't set in their ways who still do crave and enjoy freedom and Independence Hobie is a Grassroots revolutionary for him it's all about making real genuine personal connections that function independently of work or anything civil really any systems at all that other people control we are just good friends and there's power in that maybe not a gigantic amount of power maybe not an immediate source of power but definitely enough to build on itself definitely enough to result in some real change somewhere down the line there's a minor theme or motif of both spider-verse movies that broadens this point in a pretty cool way it starts with previous iterations of Spider-Man Peter Parker is a photographer and photography is Art and sure it's also a plot device here but at the end of the day it is a way for this character to express himself so spider-verse took that perspective and ran with it the spideys in this franchise are all about art I think you can see art here is code for the idea we've just been talking about art is who you are as an individual divorce from any systems and there's power in that for Miles art is a huge part of his life a huge part of his identity the way he processes everything that's happened to him is through his art and we see even when it comes to being a better Spider-Man his love of music helps him there as well in the first movie what do you do to relax needless to say I [Music] and then with Gwen you see this an even greater extent she consciously understands her Artistry as crucial to being a superhero when you swing and flip with the grace of the train dancer when she's mentally preparing for the most difficult spider work of the vulture fight we see and hear her drums playing in her head that sense of fluidity or that sense of Rhythm Is everything to her when she's operating at the top of her game like this and she even makes it an iconic part of her costume she stubbornly wears her point shoes into fights despite it probably not being the most practical shoe for the job and we eventually do see her switch into her Chucks when she's in the spider society and we got a couple more little hints from other characters Pop's whole style of spider skills is extremely artistic it's like one part professional yo-yo slash Diablo one part Dance One Part acrobatics and it's all combined with its traditional fashion very artistically expressive and they'll even mention for what it's worth rip Peter's Christmas album that counts sort of but then you have Hobie Brown AKA spider Punk the spider who literally named himself after his favorite genre of music Hobie epitomizes this idea he is by far the most artistic of the spideys we've met his art isn't just a mindset or a style for his fighting he literally uses his guitar as a weapon and we hear him say when he's antagonizing fascists he's doing it by putting on shows and doing performance art he sees art as intertwined with his ideological fight in that way as well and then we have a sense of fashion even aside from being a runway model his sense of fashion is just by far the loudest of all the spideys we've met from the clothes themselves the spiky Mohawk to all the little pins and accessories he's attached to his suit and then when he talks about his friend gwendy he even sometimes calls her his drug that is how he thinks of her art is just his lens for how he naturally views everyone and everything but also especially her is probably the Spidey friend who is most similar to him in terms of seeing the expressiveness of art is so crucial to the actual spider work now you could take this point and relate the individual expressiveness that they did we just talked about earlier people being the most powerful tool there is but with Gwen it goes further than that further than even I realized until I learned about her lore in relation to Hobie and I'll preface this by saying it is so fittingly badass that Hobie would see Gwen in this way this all just fits so well take a look at this this is spider Punk meeting spider Gwen in the comics Hobie freaks out when he sees her he cannot believe it and he says this where I am from Gwen Stacy is a legend maybe the most influential musician the greatest artist of Our Generation and the way she croaked epic I can't believe I get to meet you because of where he comes from Hobie knows the potential Laden in Gwen Stacy as a concept the potential she has purely as an individual purely through her art which in this Gwen's case is also her superpowers her fighting skill and her fighting Spirit you can bet that Hobie is 100 ready to stick by the side of this young Gwen watch over her do everything he can to support her and then follow her once she unleashes that potential he knows is there this potential he has seen with his own eyes he's lived through it in his own universe and that is exactly what he does and he's right by the end of the movie we see this potential he has always been seeing her this entire time Daniel khalido hobie's voice actor said this about that Hobie line I thought this was pretty interesting why is Hobie in the spider Society quote Yeah it was to have Gwen's back Hobie watches over people that are coming from the same type of place that he feels he comes from so him being in the spider Society is a lot about that when I think about having people's back and watching over people I'm usually thinking of like danger someone being there to protect you but what's different here is that spider people are superheroes they don't need physical protection and when I think about this idea of Hobie watching over Gwen because he came from similar circumstances as her I think about how lonely Gwen is how abandoned and betrayed she feels and how desperate she is for Real connection the fact is the sad fact but the fact that Humanity has always had to contend with is that extreme ideal apologies prey on young Lonely People exactly like this people like one who have been abandoned by loved ones who never really feel like they fit in with everyone else in the world and also lonely young people like miles who feel weak and want to do more in the world it's these kinds of people who are especially wowed by the grand scale of these dangerous movements the impressive works these movements are capable of building and the ambitious designs and duties these movements have in relation to the world combine that with the seemingly powerful bonds between people that come from absolute Conformity the kind that is stronger and more impressive than anything we've ever seen before this degree of Conformity that is so extreme that doesn't even seem to represent anything real what is the horoscene and it's on people who have been through that people like Hobie who understand that emotional state to just be there for all these lost young people not necessarily even as a role model but just as someone they can see someone they can look at and say if this guy can be even cooler underneath the mask maybe I also don't need it Hobie Hobie Brown down is like storytelling slapping Us in the face and saying this is what side characters can be plot wise they needed him for two things make miles jealous and give Gwen a watch you could so easily do so much less and still end up with a character that accomplishes these goals but instead we look at this potential relationship with our female lead and say okay we could just have this be the simplistic nothing jealousy thing okay or we could do more we could make it a love triangle everyone loves love triangles that is sarcasm seriously we can look at this we can just do the normal thing but why do that why not do something more why not do something different why not just ask the question how can I make this more interesting what more could this relationship be we need a cool guy could just make him handsome and capable but again ask the question what more could we do here even as a punk we could just make him superficial Punk aesthetic Kobe and then that's it that's where it ends punkness is this interesting thing what could punkness bring to our story that it doesn't have what kinds of themes what kinds of ideas what kinds of perspectives what would a punk say about the story what if we actually just forget everything we planned for this movie for a second here and ask that question genuinely what is the story in the eyes of this character we're designing let's take a moment and explore that experience really consider it honestly for real genuine Punk superhero walks into the spider Society meets Miguel meets all these young spiders hears these ideas about Canon how does he react what does he do how does he feel what kinds of things does he say what does he want to do about it and what do his relationships look like along the way asking those kinds of questions that is how we end up with this degree of richness that's how we end up with all these beautiful little details of how he interacts with miles and how he acts around Miguel and how he regards his drummer all these intricate relationships that are way more than what we usually see with side characters it's how we end up with this character who doesn't just do stuff but is an entirely new lens to view everything in the story and then they weren't even satisfied with that either then they went further and asked how can we tell this in a more interesting way we could just plop this guy down fully formfully understood right away but we have an opportunity here we have this unique and interesting character can we find a unique and interesting way to write this character let's talk about the audience experience what would be fun for them what would be rewarding what would make them love this character or curious about this character really how do we think they would want to feel about this character maybe they want to hate him and maybe that opens up these interesting ways of writing him how does miles feel about this guy how does Gwen feel about him what role does he play in their lives and their arcs what about the nature of his plans how does that impact how he write him he is doing something secretly here maybe secrecy could play a more interesting role in this catcher than just this plot thing in fact maybe secrecy and deception could characterize the entire way we write this guy from the very start wouldn't that be interesting so much care with this character so much thought so many great decisions subscribe another day another very difficult spider-verse video to make what I've learned here is that Hobie is just a character who doesn't want to be understood that is what I walked away with I was staring at these scenes for so long like I just don't understand what's going on here I'm loving it I feel like there's a lot to say this character is obviously really interesting people are super excited about him but what do I make of all this random chaotic messiness and actual serious plot and character stuff how do I just what do I do with that and part of me feels like I barely even scratched the surface I think the Hobie Rabbit Hole goes even deeper than all this so feel free to comment feel free to leave any thoughts you have about this character I would love to hear it all if you're liking the content consider supporting me on patreon two dollars gets you into our Discord server you can chat and hang out with other creative people chat with me and have the type of discussions that leads to videos like this and on that note thanks to everyone who helped me talk this out on Discord and off the YouTube comments everything big shout outs New Height to your patrons Galactic Beyond Emily Workman the mystery exp Dion lactancy to the new people thanks for joining to the upgrades thanks for supporting me even more big thanks to all the patrons as always I am not sure what I'm going to be making next but stay tuned for it in the coming weeks hope you all enjoyed and thanks for watching

Channel: schnee

Views: 2,303,931

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Id: GQ90GIuawAo

Length: 35min 48sec (2148 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 06 2023