johnsegbert-deactivated20140211:
okay so
the first thing that really pushed me in that direction during the first 3 acts was the fact that dave’s narrative always seems to shift back to or arbitrarily mention john. on the beat machine, one of the hidden tracks is ghostbusters; that second panel is basically “john john’s birthday john’s happy john john;” the title of the third panel is Dave: Pester John to Ease Your Nerves which, surprise, seems to be the case in a lot of situations wherein dave is uncomfortable.
(there’s also the notorious “because i love him” thing, which to me wasn’t so much remarkable because he’s saying he loves john, but rather because it’s one of the few incidents of dave confessing with complete honesty his affection for someone without supreme call for it.)
and then you start really getting into their characterizations, which brings about an interesting point: dave is maybe the hardest to completely get, but john handles him with a fair amount of ease. john, on the other hand, is pretty easy to figure out, but dave sort of sets him up to be this one grand embodiment of that phantom outline of “the hero” and that really adds a few layers to their dynamic.