In the world of Craig McCracken "Wander Over Yonder",
relationships are seen as one of the most powerful forces in the Galaxy,
with its main character whole-heartedly believing that just being someone's friend can give them
the encouragement to take those first few steps towards becoming a better person. Unfortunately,
not all relationships are sunshine and rainbows. Today, we're going to figure out
which relationships are the best in all the Galaxy, and which could use some more work.
I'm Brad with WickedBinge, and this is Wander Over Yonder relationships: Healthy to Toxic.
Now, with how many planets Wander and Sylvia visit, there's obviously a lot of relationships
we could talk about for just them - way too many, in fact. So for this video, we're mainly going to
focus on the main relationships of the show, as well as a few of the most notable minor ones.
As always, we're going to be starting with our strongest and Healthiest
relationships before working our way down. These are The Healthy.
Getting the Gold Medal of Healthiness, we have easily the best romantic relationship
in the show - Princess Demurra and King Dracor. While we only see these two in a couple episodes,
the brief screen time that they do get paints a pretty clear picture of just how healthy and
loving their relationship is. Any conflict that happens with them - from an old ex showing up
to getting captured by Lord Hater - is handled with patience and plenty of emotional support.
While he can be an emotional guy, Dracor does try to control and improve himself for his
wife’s sake and apologizes when he overreacts. He also respects his wife and her strengths,
which is much more than what we can say for a certain Sir Brad Starlight. Demurra,
meanwhile, truly loves Dracor for who he is and doesn’t mind offering him a bit of extra support,
and it’s said after their wedding that they both are focused on communicating
properly with each other and putting in the work to give themselves a true happily ever after.
For our Silver Medal of Healthiness, we're giving it to Wander and Westley. This is another
relationship that we sadly only got a few scenes of, but those scenes were incredibly sweet. Thanks
to Wander’s empathy and patience for the little guy, his and Westley’s relationship was able to
evolve gradually throughout the episode. Along with trying to encourage Westley to loosen up,
Wander - along with Syl - also saved Westley’s life several times during their adventure, slowly
but surely earning his trust. While there was a slight relapse on Westley’s part when
he decided to betray the wandering duo, it didn’t take very long at all for Westley to
feel guilty about it and help Wander and Syl escape. Basically, Wander was able to
give Westley the courage to live the life he wanted, and an appreciative Westley was more
than willing to return the favor. Given that they give each other gifts during “The Gift”,
we can assume that Wander and Westley were able to remain great long-distance friends.
Moving onto our Bronze Medal of Healthiness, we have to award it to best friends Wander and
Sylvia. While not a flawless friendship, it’s still one of the strongest in the
show. Despite having opposite personalities, they’re able to compliment each other well,
displaying excellent teamwork more often than not. These two also give each other a ton of support,
whether that’s emotional or - usually in the case of Syl being protective - physical. They tend to
have a lot of trust in each other, and while they may disagree at times, they’re always willing to
compromise in the end. We should mention, however, that sometimes Wander can be just a bit dismissive
of Sylvia’s needs or concerns, which usually occurs whenever he’s hyperfocusing on his own
‘mission’ of helping someone. We understand that he doesn’t mean to put his best friend in danger
for the sake of the ‘greater good’, but it’s still a bit concerning at times. He does still
TRY to listen though, and truly cares about Sylvia. Because she knows this, it’s easy for
Sylvia to stick around and accept her best buddy’s flaws, acknowledging that while he may sometimes
frustrate her, he still brings a lot of light and happiness into her life in addition to helping her
become a better person. And really, that’s the best thing we can say about this relationship
in spite of any flaws, and that’s that they’re still better off WITH each other than without.
Finishing off the Good, we'd like to briefly mention the owner and pet relationship between
Lord Hater and Captain Tim. This one may be just a bit odd considering how destructive the little
spider-beast can be, but we feel it just barely counts. While many saw Captain Tim as a monster,
Hater immediately saw him as an adorable pet, showering him with love, affection and praise.
For a skeleton like him, Tim’s ‘love bites’ are more ticklish than painful, and he views
Tim as someone who can always cheer him up. When Captain Tim goes missing, Hater does everything
he can to try and find him. He later protects Tim from Ripov’s attacks, insisting that in spite of
Ripov’s claims that Tim is a heartless creature, Tim still cares about him. And it turns out, Hater
was totally right! We see Tim take down the queen of the Arachnamorphs and save Hater, as well as
the others, from being eaten. Even spider-beasts can have a secret soft-side, much like Hater
himself ironically enough, and it’s just sweet to see how much these two care about each other.
Next up, we have the relationships that have some merit and their own positives,
but they also have a couple of concerning flaws. Welcome to the Grey Area.
Starting off this tier are rivals/frenemies, Sylvia and Peepers. For the first season,
these two were enemies through-and-through, almost always fighting and attacking each other whenever
they saw each other. By season two, however, they were starting to acknowledge how similar
they - and their respective situations with their best friends - were. While they still
weren’t besties or anything like that, their rivalry became just a bit more friendly and
the two of them were able to respect each other’s strengths. They were even willing to work together
occasionally for the sake of Wander and Hater’s safety in the episodes "The Battle Royale",
"The Show Stopper", "My Fair Hatey" and “The End of the Galaxy”. Although they’re still technically
enemies by the end of the show, we’d say they’re still well on their way to being actual friends.
Probably the most important relationship of the show next to Wander and Syl, we have Wander and
Hater next. Not quite friends but not quite enemies, these two are… well,
complicated. All Wander wants is for Hater to be a better person, and he hopes to do that through
offering friendship and kindness - all while still making sure to stop him from hurting anyone,
of course. Hater, meanwhile, only sees Wander as a threat to his evil empire and,
on the surface at least, wants nothing more than to destroy him once and for all. Much of
this relationship, we feel, depends on perspective. Is Wander being pushy and
manipulative whenever he uses his friendship and silliness to try and change Hater’s ways,
or is he simply being supportive as he tries to bring out Hater’s secret softer side so that Hater
can be happier? Is Hater too cruel to be saved in spite of any hidden heart he may have? After all,
he still frequently tries to hurt Wander either physically or emotionally, even during season
two when he’s supposedly starting to soften up to the little furball. On the other hand,
Wander states himself that Hater has already changed quite a lot, having the potential to
truly go good and even being able to save the day in the series finale. Overall, the two cause quite
a bit of conflict for one another, so we couldn’t realistically put them in the Good Tier. Still,
there are a few positive spots as well, moments where Wander’s actually helped Hater,
where Hater has shown some change or where they’ve actually gotten along well enough to
work together, so this relationship still tends to come off more as complicated than toxic.
Just underneath it, were ranking Hater and Sylvia. Funnily enough, this relationship is much less
complicated than the previous one. Much like she did with Peepers, Sylvia hated Hater and usually
got a kick out of humiliating him. Hater, on the other hand, barely even paid attention to Sylvia,
focusing all his hatred on Wander and seeing Sylvia merely as an obstacle to his revenge
against the ‘wandering weirdo’. Their biggest moment of interaction in season one was in the
episode “The Date” which… yeahhhh that didn’t go well at all. Fortunately, these two actually end
the series on a pretty positive note. Hater saves Sylvia from being killed by Dominator, and Sylvia
returns the favor by being the first to cheer Hater on after Dominator tries to push him into
giving up. It’s at this point that Sylvia begins to actually believe that Hater can actually be
good, and while it doesn’t last long, it’s still enough to show some improvement between them.
Finally, we're going to finish off this tier with former partners-in-crime Ryder and Sylvia.
Having a sort of Han Solo and Chewy from Star Wars vibe, Ryder and Sylvia were partners who
had fun pulling heists and stealing riches for themselves. When they reunite in “The Rider”,
we see just how well they work together, often calling each other playfully insulting
nicknames and executing combat moves and maneuvers by numbers rather than through
speech. But for as affectionate as they may be, their friendship ends up being relatively
shallow in the grand scheme of things. As soon as things go wrong, Ryder is willing to betray
Sylvia in order to try and save himself, caring only about ‘number one’. What’s worse is that
even after Sylvia and Wander rescue him from certain death, he doesn’t even apologize and
makes it clear that he’s only thinking about their next big score - hence why Syl decides
to dump him once and for all. Prior to that, Sylvia also notes that, contrary
to the positive impact that her friendship with Wander has had on her life, being friends with a
bad influence like Ryder in turn makes her a worse person. It just goes to show that just
because two people get along well doesn’t mean they necessarily have a healthy relationship.
We've finally arrived at the more troubling relationships
in this galaxy. These relationships are The Toxic.
Starting this tier off is the pretty shallow relationship between Peepers and the other
Watchdogs. Yeahhhh, there is absolutely no respect in this relationship from either side, even from a
professional sense. With the Watchdogs, we get the sense that they only ever do what their commander
asks of them because they know that if they don’t, they’ll just get punished. Outside of that,
they seem to only see Peepers as a nag and an annoying, way-too-high strung boss. Peepers,
meanwhile, truly sees his subordinates as lower than him. While we may understand his frustration,
we still can’t exactly excuse how he screams at them, physically attacks them and even
shoots lasers at them when he’s really angry at them. All in all, it’s a relationship that takes
the phrase ‘hostile work environment’ to the next level.
Although they could've been friends, the Sylvia and Lord Dominator relationship
definitely belongs here. Much like Sylvia and Ryder, it’s a case where their similar
rough-and-tumble personalities and willingness to brawl allow them to get along extremely well.
When Dominator disguises herself for a night out, the two end up having a ton of fun, with
Dominator even being a bit touched when Sylvia calls her a friend. Unfortunately, things take
a turn when Dominator realizes that ‘friendship’ and ‘subservience’ don’t mean the same thing. She
gets angry at Sylvia for disobeying her, all while Sylvia gets offended when Dom tries to
order her into doing something evil, quickly seeing her as crazy and cruel. In the end,
Dom decides to abandon any sort of friendship with Syl, to the point where she can’t even remember
Sylvia’s name when they meet again in “The Flower” and actively tries to kill her in order to
emotionally destroy Wander in the series finale. So much for the power of friendship…
Entering our bottom 5, we've finally arrived at the relationship between Hater and Peepers. Now,
we can’t deny that these two do care about each other deep down. Like… REALLY deep down. But when
it comes to the rest of their relationship, it tends to come off more as them using each
other for their own means. Hater needs Peepers for his intelligence and organizational skills
while Peepers needs Hater for his strength and power, resulting in what feels like a
codependent relationship. With how often Peepers gets frustrated with Hater’s emotional issues,
even snapping at him in episodes like “The Funk” and caring more about getting Hater ‘back in the
game’ than actually being sympathetic, you have to wonder if Peepers would even bother sticking
around and dealing with Hater if he had the means to be a conqueror on his own. Hater,
meanwhile, tends to vary between being a mean boss and a bully, not being very
sympathetic to Peepers’ frustrations and even being physically abusive at times. But while there
are a lot of negatives to their relationship, they still do care about each other on some level, as
we said before. There are occasionally times where Peepers actually cares more about Hater than their
goals, seeing the skeleton as pretty much his only friend, and there are even times where Hater is
able to show how much he cares about Peepers - like in the climax of “The Cool Guy” where
he stops Awesome from beating Peepers up. They also hang out on occasion,
again showing how well they can get along - just as long as their goals align.
Following them, we have Brad Starlight and Hater. Given
how similar these two look to characters like He-Man and Skeletor, maybe the hatred between them
is pretty obvious. This is another one-episode relationship, as we see in “The Enemies”, though
they apparently have a history. In that episode, they fight over the mystic Sword of Synergy before
deciding to try and work together in order to finally destroy Wander. Unfortunately,
both of them are incredibly self-centered, and that combined with the low opinion they have of
each other makes it VERY hard to actually work together. Eventually, the two manage it and nearly
win, but it only takes one disagreement for it to all fall apart, leading to them foolishly arguing
and fighting once again. Perhaps this is a case of being TOO similar to someone, given
that it’s the awful traits they share that then lead to the most friction between them.
Earning our Bronze Medal of Toxicity is Hater and Awesome. Very similar to Brad and Hater,
but we feel it’s an even worse example of bitter enemies and rivals just based on how often
these two have competed with each other. They aren’t afraid to get physical with each other, nor
are they opposed to tossing insults at one another, making their hatred VERY clear. But hey,
maybe it’s for the best that they hate each other. In “The Cool Guy”, Awesome and Hater
try to hang out for a night of fun and Awesome actually ends up manipulating Hater the entire
episode into doing what he wanted, all while showing just how shallow he and any
friendship he offers is. There’s also just a ton of pettiness between these two, which just results
in further trouble - usually for Hater, as we see in “The Bad Neighbors”. Like
two high school rivals, these two should just stay far FAR away from each other.
For our Silver Medal of Toxicity, we're giving it to Wander and Dominator. In a way, this is just a
more toxic example of the relationship between Wander and Hater. Both relationships are similar
in that it’s Wander trying to show someone love and kindness in order to encourage them
to be better. Unfortunately, while Hater can be pretty harsh with his rejections, Dominator
ends up taking that sort of cruelty to a whole other level, choosing to torment him along with
threatening him the more times that she runs into him - which we see in “The Flower” and the series
finale. Even when Wander offers her a hand after she loses everything, Dominator just can’t accept
it and insults his efforts before walking off. But while Dominator is the most toxic person in
this relationship, we can’t exactly approve of Wander’s big plan to try and help her become
good - that being his plan to get Hater and Dom to fall in love. With this plan, not only was it
incredibly naive and not handled very well at all, but you could argue that Wander was only thinking
about the benefits it would give Hater and the rest of the Galaxy, not even bothering to ask
Dominator if she was interested in romance in general. That wasn’t cool…
Finally, our Gold Medal of Toxicity is going to Dominator and Hater. From hate to incredibly
shallow love and back to hate again, this relationship was - in a word - a total mess.
Dominator only saw Hater as a dork that she could mess with and take power from while Hater,
once her mask was taken off, only saw Dominator as a “pretty lady” that he wanted to date. To
be fair, we do see him genuinely try to be a good date in “My Fair Hatey”, where he tries
to actually care about HER instead of just himself, but let’s be real - these two never
had a chance in the first place. Throughout the “Hater’s Crush” arc,
Dominator either ignores Hater’s attempts to woo her or, in the case of “The New Toy”,
manipulates his crush for her own amusement before eventually telling him the truth in the
harshest way possible. After Hater goes back to seeing her as an enemy and even tries to stop her
from destroying the last planet in the Galaxy, Dom once again tries to manipulate Hater into
giving up using incredibly cruel insults. Frankly, there are no positives to this relationship, and
even if there was somehow a tiny chance of love or friendship between them, we just
feel like they’d end up bringing out the worst in each other - and what’s more toxic than that?
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking,
and tell us what we should cover next! Remember to hit that notification bell
and binge more of our videos. But most importantly, stay wicked!