> Entry: 23/02/25
venture bros analysis compilation
been on a huuuuuge vbros kick recently, and with that comes me wanting to explore every single tiny detail of my fav booboo freaks. i've written a few small essays in order to explain my personal perception of some of the characters from the show, so i figured i'd compile them here for easy access, as they're all scattered across my tumblr and twitter accounts.
i will almost certaintly end up making more in the future, and when i do i'll update this entry.
1)
i love thinking about rusty and the monarch's dynamic a lot cause they're like antagonistic soulmates. they were made for each other but in the way where they bash each others skulls in with hammers over and over as a representation of self hate and how it can stick with you for your entire life. because they're very literally the same guy twice.
to me there's like one of those bullshit cartoon rules where rusty can only be killed by the monarch and vice versa. except the monarch doesn't want to outright kill him. because he hates him for the love of the game. and because of that he eternally perpetuates the cycle.
even if someone else tries to kill either of them they both survive it no matter what it might be. funniest outcome is because of some looney tunes shit.
2)
the monarch has always had a fucked up sense of identity because he literally never got a chance to develop into his own person due to that plane crash killing his parents and causing his life to become extremely hectic from that point onward. it also removed him from an environment that would've helped him out a lot in terms of finding himself as a child which is the venture compound. both because he would've been around a kid his own age who also desperately needs a friend and because. well. you know [go my clones]
because of those monarch butterflies at the scene of the crash, he was able to find Something to latch onto, something for him to base his life around. but those are butterflies and not humans, and it would've directly contributed to him feeling extremely alienated from the rest of society and causing him to be more emotional towards everyone and everything - especially with the baboon dna enhancing it tenfold.
and all of this would end up causing him to develop feelings of hate towards himself, because he'd end up thinking he's a loser and his life sucks and no one will ever truly understand him etc except for those butterflies.
then comes college and insert rusty venture who immediately reminds him way too much of himself [COUGHS] and he gets hit with such a confusing blast of profound rage towards rusty that ends up defining his life for the next 20+ years - years that could've been spent trying to repair his sense of identity which he just made so much harder for himself and eventually virtually impossible.
the way he reacts when he isn't allowed to arch rusty is pretty much concrete proof of his habit to base his life on something else. he's literally being ripped away from the only thing he knows how to be. he still doesn't truly know who he is, but that doesn't matter as long as he's got this. it's what he's known for, and at least that's Something.
and he finally does learn exactly who he is when those clone results came out at the end of ritbotbh. he was literally never his own person in the first place, always based on something else from day fucking one!!!!!!!!!!!!
tldr who up borderlining they personality disorder
3) im including this. because it counts. to me. if you understand pink floyd's the wall you'll understand rusty.
ohhh you're constantly pressured by society and your former stardom to be someone you never wanted to be and you're constantly forced to pick up the pieces that your father left behind? should we tell everybody? should we have a party? should we invite pink floyd?
4)
its kind of funny that due to The Horrors the monarch's biggest strength villain wise is being able to mess with someone psychologically. because he's been in that position many times before and he knows how bad it hurts.
and the sad thing is he barely utilizes this strength even though he literally acknowledges it himself. it only really happens in one scene with rusty but that one scene tells you everything you need to know.
hes not very good at fighting no matter how intimidating he tries to appear. and the times where he does end up killing people its either accidentally or not even for the love of the game its just to relieve some of that good old explosive rage due to Everything
5)
really really love how the concept of dependence on a specific person is portrayed in vbros. especially because you barely ever see it done outside of a romantic sense.
fandom spaces love being yaoibrained and believing that the only way for a dynamic like this to be compelling is if 2 characters are in love with each other but that is simply not the case most of the time.
the monarch and rusty and hank and dean parallel each other crazy style with this. none of them would be who they are without the other and they all rely on each other so much just for basic survival half the time.
if rusty had a more competent arch enemy he'd probably be dead by now and he relies on the monarch for attention etc etc and dean is the only one who truly pushed everyone to try and find hank when he ran off etc etc.
i could talk about this shit all day. i love you deep obsessions that are completely platonic [it makes them a lot funnier too] i love you reliance on the only thing you've truly ever known i love you two halves of a whole.
6)
i think its really interesting how the monarch and rusty were unintentionally [?] written with personality disorders because they end up becoming so integral to their characters that it makes them a whole lot less compelling when you don't perceive them as such.
especially because they both have a different one. those being bpd and npd respectively. really makes you think about how despite coming from the exact same place, the way that these two were raised ultimately ended up shaping them into two different people.
7)
the way vbros handles cloning is extremely transgender to me.
this is because you are trapped in what is basically a template of yourself for years that you cannot build upon via shared and individual experiences since you are so insanely death prone and so you are constantly forced to start again from square one.
but once you no longer have those templates. once that illegal clone factory gets bloawn up. this is your last chance to truly develop into the person you want to be - rather than a person that you are forced to be.