Discussion Series / TheNewNormal

I thought that Expies only count if they're confirmed to be deliberate.

That's why I am wondering. Other than fans trying to associate two sets of Ryan Murphy couples, I am not aware of any deliberate attempt to make them an older version of Kurt and Blaine. Thus I question whether the Expy line entry is valid. Thoughts?

One can count the fact that, when asked, Ryan Murphy said that they were an adult version of Kurt and Blaine, even though personally I see David as more of an Expy for David Karofsky minus the bullying and self-hathred (the scene in ep 2 was a happier version of the scene in Glee's episode On My Way where Dave approaches Sebastian (minus the glasses)) if we want to count him as an expy of any Glee character. not to mention that admission could also be interpreted as either wishful thinking or his pandering to the insane klainers, which he usually does.

I'm going to launch the analysis page. Like The Princess And The Frog, there was a lot of politics and controversy tied to the show before it aired. Stuff about that should go there.

Other than the Camp Gay versus Straight Gay couple dichotomy there really is not much about Bryan and David that resemble Kurt and Blaine, which is why I wonder how truly canonical their similarity is meant to be, as opposed to it having been a purely metaphorical statement on Murphy's part. For what it is worth, David is in no way an expy of Dave Karofsky. It has been clearly established that despite a love of sports David and his best friends are all Hollywood Nerd types rather than jocks (and David apparently still reads comic books since he had been upset about the very recent gay Green Lantern flap according to Bryan).

I don't know enough about Ryan Murphy's personal life to contrast the similarity there. But he did notably choose a similar set of names: Ryan=Bryan and David=David, as well as giving Bryan the same career he himself has. So the expy argument is much more solid there.

Uhm, David and Dave share a love and talent for math, an inner geek (Dave suggested 'It's Not There' in TSSBS, both feel like they have to play a role... to say that David is in no way an expy of Dave just because of the type of friends he has (although one could argue that his only true friend ended up being Kurt) is way too simplicistic.

Not just the type of friends he has, but the fact that he is personally unapologetic about being a geek. What we saw in the flashback is that David was even more of a geek back when he was still in school, and has become less of one since he has been together with Bryan. Clearly image was not very important to David previously. Also recall the comment: "I haven't cried since I got second place in the 6th grade science fair!" (cut from the shortened version of the pilot).

So David has clearly been a geek his entire life and has no personal angst over that fact.

In contrast, Dave pretended to be a dumb jock when he really wasn't and consciously limited his friendships to people who fit that image, such as Azimio.

Thus we are down to non-canonical hypothetical histories in order to make David and Dave even remotely similar characters. While it is possible that Dave might change post-graduation to let his "inner geek" out so as to be more like David in college, that remains entirely offscreen. Conversely, if David was ever the kind of Jerk Jock that walked around high school in a letter jacket and bullied people, we have been given no evidence of that.

To say that one is an expy of the other just because both are into sports and are good at math is rather a bit of a stretch. Neither trait is really all that unusual. Stereotypes aside, quite a few gay men enjoy sports. One might as well say that Karofsky is an expy of Alan Turing based on the criteria of athleticism and a knack for math!

Now, if we get another flashback showing that David was actually a jock in high school (especially if he played football) then there would be at least some basis for suggesting that he is an expy of Dave. But for right now, the backstory we have for David indicates that at least around the time he graduated from med school, he bore no resemblance to Dave (or Blaine for that matter) in terms of personality or even physical appearance.