Ben And Gwen: Lonely Kid And Gifted Child

Ben and Gwen: lonely kid and gifted child

I’ve thought a lot about these two and their family dynamic. Both are relatable to me but in different ways. Like Gwen, I’ve always been the “mature” one who was good at school and loved by the adults in my life, but I also don’t have any friends and have a desire for fame and attention like Ben. At first glance, they seem to have little to complain about, being white kids with stable homes and two parents, compared to someone like Kevin, but there’s more to a character than just the surface and I think both have a lot of emotional issues relating to their self worth.

With Gwen, we get glimpses into her life and how everyone views her as perfect. Sunny envied how she was adored by her parents and Verdona and Gwen wished her mother would stop thinking of her as the “good influence”. All the adults in her family loved her and expected her to be the role model for the other kids which is a double edged sword. Yes you get praise and love but also pressure and high expectations. You’re expected to babysit the other kids and often have to bury your true feelings to please everyone and people will envy the love you get. And that love is often conditional and based around living up to their standards, remember how Natalie told her “normal people don’t glow” and how she doesn’t like her daughter or nephew using their powers around her.

As a kid, she was constantly doing extracurriculars like cotillion and judo before earning a scholarship to go to college early in Omniverse. We got a glimpse into her daily life in “It’s not Easy Being Gwen” where everyone expects her to fulfill certain obligations. Gwen seems like a child prodigy who feels she has to be the best and is always filling her schedule with activities and is always trying to get into the top schools. I think that’s why she fell for Kevin. He was the only one who loved her without putting her on a pedestal or because she’s family. The only person she could be herself around and doesn’t force her to act like a perfectionist. People complain about her outfit change in OV and I agree with some of the criticisms, but with all the pressure in her life, I get why she would want a change from the expectations in her life.

Ben strikes me as someone with a deep inferiority complex. It’s implied that he’s a bit of a loner who doesn’t have many friends with JT ditching him for Cash. He did get along better with Sunny which makes me wonder if he can relate to being in Gwen’s shadow. Fans talk about how great Carl and Sandra are as parents and while they are nice people, their free range approach can seem negligent. They only seemed concerned about Ben’s heroics once they witnessed it. By that time, Ben had been on late night road trips with Kevin, who punched holes in their doors, for weeks and didn’t even come home one night in “Save the Last Dance”. Ben may have acted the way he did in the OS as a cry for help as he feels neglected and the favoritism everyone has towards Gwen may rub off on him. It reminds me a bit of how Steven from SU acted the way he did in the early episodes because he was constantly being left alone without the gems or Greg while being compared to Rose. Kids who don’t have friends nor get much attention while living in a family member’s shadow can and do develop inferiority complexes.

Ben’s desire for fame seems to stem from wanting to be loved and wanting to feel special. He becomes so full of himself because people finally love him as opposed to viewing him as some average kid. Fans have dismissed the bullying he faced as cliche or unnecessary but it adds to his character. A lonely, bullied kid who’s in the shadow of his overachieving cousin will want something that makes him feel special, like the Omnitrix. Ben has to learn throughout the 4 shows that he is the hero, not the watch. I think that’s why he loved using transformations like Four-arms, Humungousaur and Feedback so much even if they were inadequate for the situation as they made him feel confident. The way he fights is reminiscent of standing up to a bully too, picking an intimidating form, offering a chance to back off and then doing what he can to stop the threat. It’s easy to write him off as just a spoiled brat or narcissistic but I think 1, that’s ableist and 2, is a rather shallow way of looking at his character. While he can be insufferable at times, is it wrong to want acknowledgement or praise when there’s people like Will Harangue or the Rooters who hate you just for existing? I think he deserves a break from fans who hate him and he acts a lot better than most kids would in his situation. Compare him to Shinji Ikari from Evangelion, who I also love as a character, who would break down after seeing what Ben has to deal with every day.

I think both may envy each other at times. Gwen has been shown to be jealous of Ben getting all the glory as well as how Ben was given a car by her boyfriend despite her parents being wealthier. Like Sunny, Ben may have viewed Gwen as a stuck-up overachiever who got all the respect from their parents. That was until they bonded and became friends in the OS but it occasionally came back like when Ben lashed out at her for telling him he couldn’t use Feedback, believing she was trying to take the only thing he had. Because they have it easier than Kevin, it’s easy to expect them to just get over it but I think both Tennyson cousins need a lot of therapy and need to talk about their issues with each other. Both characters mean a lot to me and remind me of my own struggles.