The Power of Imagination
Todd Chavez
BoJack Horseman
Welcome March! After a tumultuous winter here’s hoping for a milder and kinder spring. In this vein we will look a very mild Character Type— the Power of Imagination.
Tod Chavez of BoJack Horseman, the Netflix animated series, is a great example of this kind of character. Power of Imagination Characters are, gentle, accommodating, and hate direct confrontation.
They are kind, inclusive, and see the best in everyone. Their challenge is to draw boundaries and become more self-assertive.
Naïve and Childlike
We meet Todd Chavez as an easygoing slacker who sleeps (and lives) on BoJack’s couch. While Todd may seem lost in everyday life because of his consistent and quite stunning lack of focus, his unfeigned optimism can be very inspiring: “As my blood type always says… B positive.”
Todd is a lazy dreamer and likes to go with the flow. Nevertheless, he comes up with crazy ideas almost daily. Although these ideas are rarely thought through from beginning to end, Todd believes in them with the conviction of a child. “I never know if I can handle anything”, he says at one point with genuine delight. “That’s what makes my life so exciting.”
Believing the Best
Todd’s naivety and innocence serve as a contrast to lead character BoJack’s self destructive behavior. Actions that often harm the people around him. In fact, Todd is one of the people that BoJack repeatedly hurts. At the start of the series, Todd wants to have a friendship with BoJack who he genuinely believes to “secretly have a good heart.”
He naturally sees the good in people and believes that they can improve.
Season 1 sees the first big crack in their relationship when BoJack sabotages Todd’s rock opera for selfish reasons. At first, Todd who naturally likes to restore peace resorts to passive-aggressive behavior instead of confronting BoJack. Later in the series, Todd learns his lesson and stands up for himself, resulting in cutting BoJack out of his life. He finally realizes how much of a toxic influence BoJack is on him. When Todd learns that BoJack slept with the girl he likes in season 3, he finally confronts him: “You can’t keep doing shitty things and then feel bad about yourself like that makes it okay. You need to be better.”
Finding Himself
In later seasons, Todd’s and BoJack’s relationship is restored to some extent although it never gets back to how it was. Todd learns to follow his own path instead of going along with everyone else’s. In season 4’s “Hooray! Todd Episode!”, Todd spends a whole episode trying to fix the problems of his friends who simply expect him to have nothing else to do.
While he masterfully performs multiple tasks at once in his own chaotic but highly creative way, nobody even recognizes his efforts.
In a way, this is his curse: While Todd stumbles through life with the unwavering need to keep the people around him happy, he himself is constantly being overlooked and undervalued by these very people. Fittingly, he says in this episode: “I do love getting my picture taken. It’s proof I exist.” Todd becomes increasingly aware of this, stating only a few episodes later: “It’s always nice to be included in a sentence someone says.”
At the end of “Hooray! Todd Episode!”, however, it’s BoJack who surprisingly acknowledges how much Todd does for everybody. After BoJack tells Todd how much he appreciates him, Todd finally finds the courage to do what’s best for himself instead of doing what’s best for others. Having recently realized that he is asexual, he takes the first step to embracing it and goes to an asexual meet-up. Todd comes to terms with his childhood, reconnects with his family and even finds love.
In the last season, his stepdad Jorge tells Todd that he had always been mean to him because the world is mean. Todd replies: “Not my world.” While asserting himself, Todd chooses to hold on to his optimism and never loses his intuitive ability to anticipate what his friends need. In the last episode, Todd drags BoJack out of a party to watch fireworks with him on the beach. But while Todd uses his childlike exterior to convince BoJack to come with him, he doesn’t do it for himself. “So, why did we need to be on the beach?”, BoJack asks. “Oh”, Todd replies. “You just seemed really overwhelmed at the party.”
