#please reblog this im unironically so fuckign proud of this

[indigos-shits-and-giggles]

Charlie the Unicorn is Paul Matthews coded: An overly long analysis

So, I've rewatched the entire series of Charlie the Unicorn multiple times, and with it has come a whole lotta brainrot. Not only is it just a great series in general and I love the absurdism of it all, but there's also something else I love about that I just... could not put my finger on. Well, that's until I listened to the song "Everyone is Smiling", and the reprise Charlie later sings. Charlie the Unicorn (both the series and the character) is incredibly Paul Matthews coded and I feel things about it.

(the rest is under the cut because I kinda made this waaayyyyy too long than I meant to)

First, let's talk about Charlie the Unicorn. Charlie, as a character, has no control over his life. He has to follow along with whatever his tormentors, two other unicorns by the name of Pink and Blue, decide would be fun, and it seems like he exists only to follow along with what they want. If they want to steal his kidneys or drag him to the moon, there is nothing he can do about it.

Well, nothing except complain.

See, there is one thing he CAN control, and that is his emotions, and how he feels about all the fucked up shit he has to deal with. The antagonists of the show constantly are shown to be annoyed by Charlie's negative outlook, and they make desperate attempts to strip him of the tiny shred of autonomy he has. The most obvious of these attempts, of course, being the somg song "Everyone is Smiling", where a dolphin wonders how Charlie could still frown and be so depressed when everyone around him is having a fantastic time, and tries to get him to join in and ignore the horrible shit that's going around him. The final lyric of the song before the dolphin leaves is literally "Just stop feeling dread, so there can be good times ahead." Then, there's the reveal that both Pink and Blue, the people that have been torturing our protagonist since the series began, are just corpses puppeted around by literal demons, where you can really start to see the similarities.

Then, there's other half of this comparison, that being Paul Matthews himself. In TGWDLM, there are many signs pointing to the fact that Paul's fate was sealed the moment the show began.

For example, there's the opening of the show, which has the entire cast of actors all onstage already singing and dancing, including Emma who only gets infected by the very end, or the entire existence of the finale and how it's literally just Paul singing about he was doomed from the start and the fact that the song is LITERALLY TITLED INEVITABLE, or the little detail you see even before you watch the show: the title of the musical. What is it called again? Oh, right, The Guy Who DIDN'T Like Musicals, "didn't" being in past tense. He has no control over what will happen to him, his fate is set from the moment the show began.

However, there is one thing he does have control over, that being how he feels and reacts to the apocalypse, his strong dislike of musicals, and his strong lack of a "want". The infected zombies see all of this for what it is; the one thing standing between them and complete control and power over him. Paul's lack of strong desires especially means that they don't have something obvious to exploit, and they can't trick him into accepting apotheosis by making him sing an I Want song.

That leads us to "Let It Out", where the infected zombies all wonder how Paul could possibly not accept apotheosis yet, how he can still refuse to listen to call of the singular voice when he'd finally feel happy (wouldn't that be nice?) and get what he wanted. In this moment, he is surrounded by corpses of his friends puppeted around by an eldritch god, trying to strip him of the small shred of autonomy he has.

This is where their stories start to kind of diverge.

See, Charlie succeeds in defeating his tormentors, shaking off their control over him and his world for good. He does this by singing a reprise "Everyone is Smiling", a direct response to the passive aggressive tune claiming that it's his fault for being miserable, that everything would be easier if he decided to smile instead. In this reprise, he asks why he has to smile, even as the world ends and it withers and dies. He accepts a world that is dead and through his negativity he manages to banish the demons that have been ruining his world. Paul, meanwhile, succumbs to the Apotheosis with a smile. His tormentors succeeds in stripping him of his autonomy, in removing his dislike of musicals and forcing him to accept apotheosis and the withered and dead world that comes with it. This is made increasingly easier by the fact that Paul has a want now, he wants to make a world where he and Emma can be happy together. Where Paul fails to save his world, Charlie succeeds.

In a way, the stories of Charlie the Unicorn and TGWDLM are kind of different versions of the same core premise. One where the protagonist manages to not only cling to their teensy shred of autonomy but also use it to defeat the demons that have been sucking the life out of their world, and one where their small amount of control is not just ripped away, but they're convinced to throw it away themselves.