#Edwin may be a bitch but i draw the line at know-it-all /j

[bluebugjay]

So when they're solving the Devlin murders and Charles says 'don't yell at her cause you're not the all knowing expert on everything' and then when Charles gets stuck in the loop and Edwin immediately admits 'he's right, I don't know everything' and then in the next scene Edwin says it took Charles years to learn how to use his backpack so he has no chance being able to use it, I think it proves Edwin doesn't actually think he knows everything. Sure he's stubborn and a control freak and he likes things done in a particular way but I don't think he really acts like a know-it-all.

And when you factor in that scene with Despair where he says he doesn't have his books as an answer for not knowing where he is/ who Despair is, it seems like knowing things, reading, writing things (everything) down is something he does to cope. He doesn't like lacking control or knowledge so he learn and he collects and he knows. He's the brains not the brawn, he can't defend himself or Charles physically but he can with his knowledge - we even see it with the museum ghost in episode one, when Charles is pinned to the ground by the ghost, Edwin doesn't rush to push him off or fight, he finds the spell book, casts the spell and saves Charles that way. And in the Devlin episode when he's explaining the loop and the stone tape theory, he berates Charles on not reading the books around the office but he doesn't show off that he himself has. I think it's more that to Edwin having knowledge is a shield, it's his protection and seeing Charles not have that same shield feels the same as how Charles feels trying to teach Edwin to throw a punch in the first episode. They're both just trying to protect the other in their own ways.

So I think Charles saying that, was maybe more of a reflection on how he seems himself, that Edwin is the clever one and he's just the one who acts impulsively and does 'stupid things' like he says when he possesses Esther. I think this is implied when he refers to 'your way' and 'my way', Edwin's way being the thought out way with theories and backed up by research and logic, and Charles' way being get straight to the source with no plan and use aggression. And obviously he's so much more than that, and Edwin believes this too but Charles was in such a vulnerable state it makes sense he'd let other insecurities of his slip too.