FB 2/7 - Chris mourns Bob

Careful with that edge, boy.

Bob was a shitty parent, no doubt about that. But he at least tried to be a good parent (granted, he failed miserably), which is more than we can say about Barb, who just holds Chris hostage and treats him as part of her hoard.

 

Totally disagree, at least about his other kids. If they had any kind of relationship with him, they would have made it to his funeral no matter what. He was probably a really shitty dad.

 

I wonder if Chris realizes that Bob probably would have voted for Trump.

 

Well I get the impression he let himself become pussy whipped and manipulated by Barb; which is why in some of the later 'saga' moments he seems to just be comping with her and everything she says about how Chris is just a victim and everything he does is just the fault of 'evil internet' trolls.

I think at some point he should've just manned up, dumped the bitch, and tried to have Chris committed or sent to an assisted living facility, instead of just sitting around like a lapdog and letting Chris and Barb help themselves to his credit cards and pension so they could buy more junk and toys. He seems to have started out as an okay father, but eventually just devolved into a beta male, pussy-whipped househusband who let his nasty wife ruin everything.

Not sure on that, what's odd though is in the case of his stepson Cole, he disowns Bob because he blames Bob for somehow "manipulating" his mother Barb against him. But Barb appears to be the biggest manipulator; most likely in Cole's case Barb was the worse parent and he doesn't want to accept that his mom was a piece of shit, so he just blames Bob for' making her that way' somehow; Barb herself probably helped put that idea in his head.

If anything I'd assume he was originally an okay dad in his own right (he actually had a good job, and served in the military), but he has horrible taste in women, and his other exes might've all been manipulative, nagging shrews like Barb who tried to turn their kids against him and keep him out of his children's lives.

(And as far as we know about Barb, he met her as a drunken skank in a bar when they got married, and most of Barb's own family hates her and wants nothing to do with her; supposedly she'd try to sleep with her sister's husbands and things of that nature when she was younger. I don't think she's ever had a good job or done anything with her live other than hook up with naive men and use them for free room and board).

 

He can't even realize that most people would rather not be around him. He puts on his MLP skirt and his empty bra, and it does not even occur to him that he looks completely deranged by both Western and Eastern Standards.

 

Bob had a lot of health issues himself, its entirely possible that one of the reasons he didn't leave, is because of his health. When you hear him in the Emily date audio, I think its quite clear that Bob is in poor health and it is entirely possible that he was suffering from a mental illness too.

 

Could be, I don't think he's completely innocent though seeing as he enabled Barb and Chris to live that way on his own dime; I just think that Barb is by far the worse influence on Chris.

 

Can you imagine what it must have been like to be Bob? Having to wake up every single morning to the ravages of age, a manipulative wife with an ass like Sardinian maggot cheese, and the incessant prattling of your big, loud Koosalagoopagoop of a son?

I feel for him, I really do.

 

I don't think Bob is innocent at all, he has a few plus points going for him: getting Chris on SSI, taking away his bank cards, giving him a budget to live on, trying to get him a job, but he has so many black marks against himself, the biggest one of all being that he allowed Barb to take control. How can you fight in Korea and yet not be able to stand up to your wife?

 

I feel for him a little, i just don't give a complete pass to guys who willingly enter relationships/marriages to manipulative women and continue to stay in them even when it's blatantly obvious she's a piece of shit, especially when they're pretty much the sole breadwinner in the relationship and can put the bitch out on the street any time they want. I'm not even sure if Barb has ever even had a job, and at one point Chris and/or Barb even stole his credit cards or opened cards under his name and racked up ridiculous debts on junk. (Considering that neither of them work I think the only way they were even getting approved for credit cards, payday loans, etc was by opening them under Bob's SSN and probably destroying his credit in the process).

(No offense intended; but I'm definitely not one of those autistic manbabies who sits and whines about how helpless men are to the 'wicked wiles of female manipulation by them durn wimmin' folks).

 

I think the best way to judge someone is their family interactions. The fact that Barb was already a pariah to her family should have been a big warning to Bob.

 

The sign Bob put up in the shed chokes me up a little bit. I agree that Bob probably tried more when Chris was young but was just too old and out of touch to deal when the internet madness started.

 

The hoard in front of the door adds to the visual metaphor.

 

That sign is slightly heartbreaking, Bob probably had some aspirations for Chris' future, none of which would come to pass.

 

One of them did attend his funeral, so there is that.

I know from experience that family can be estranged even when nobody did anything wrong, especially when they live out of state or on the other end of the state, as in the case of Bob's kids. For all we know, Bob could have been a shitty dad, but they were already fully grown adults by the time Chris was born and well out of the nest. Plus we know next to nothing about Chris's half-siblings, with the notable exception of Cole (who himself is an insufferable pseudo-intellectual hipster and a generally bad person, though not as bad as Chris or Barb). For all we know, Bob was an okay dad but largely forgettable once the two kids moved far away and had lives and responsibilities of their own. We don't really have the full picture on his older kids.

I'm not saying Bob was not a shitty dad to his older kids, all I'm saying is that we don't really know if he was or he wasn't. He truly cared for Chris up to a point, and that took a lot of patience. It wasn't until Chris made it abundantly clear that he couldn't be saved that Bob finally gave up. Even then, he didn't do the sane thing and leave Barb and the Hoard, so it's clear he still cared for Chris on a certain level (and was probably whipped by Barb as well).

Let me put it this way, I was saddened somewhat when Bob died and felt bad for Chris.

But when Barb dies...well, not to sound like an A-Log, but I think Chris will probably be better off without her once he gets past the initial grieving process. She won't be there to hoard him and control him, and he can finally leave the hoard. Marvin has confirmed he knows how to set money aside to pay basic bills and rent, so if one of his ass-patter acquaintances steps in (and if there was a reason to step in, Barb's death would be it), Chris could get a cheap low-end apartment or trailer somewhere in the Charlottesville area.

While there's no way in Hell Chris would end up in a group home at this point, there is still a decent chance he could leave 14 Branchland Court once Barb is out of the picture. He'll probably be living in some shitty rat-house apartment in the middle of nowhere and barely scraping by, but it'd be a step up from the hoard.

 

I really think that Barb dying will be make or break time for Chris. Rocky and Anna will only be able to do so much for Chris, he will have to find some hidden strength inside himself if he is going to make it on his own. Thats not a completely impossible task, Chris has shown in the past that he is capable when it suits him(the Ohio trip and the Tomgirl stuff for example)

 

This. Barb's death will either be the very best or absolute worst thing to happen in his life in the long run, and the ball will entirely be in Chris's court when it happens.

 

I believe that Chris was Bob's last experiment to get things right and prove he was not a bad parent, which had the opposite effect. Never underestimate the power of the human ego, or the willingness of people to pat themselves on the back. People patting themselves on the back is the reason we're in the global refugee crisis.

 

You know despite my earlier comment on this thread i think Bob and Chris genuinely loved each other. Chris may seem downright sociopathic at times but i think hes capable of love in his own way. When Bob died, I don't think Chris knew how to react at all especially since he didn't see it coming like most of us would have. They may have had a rough relationship but I don't think that affects how Chris felt when Bob died.

 

Bob's biggest mistake was not cutting down that god damn internet when he had the chance. Not even kidding here.