… HOLY SHIT, BLAINE FIGURED IT OUT! — A Blaine Anderson & The Warblers meta
Blaine isn’t dumb, but I don’t think anyone would argue when it comes to the fact that Blaine has a tendency to be a dumb ass. One of the things that has always been a questionable subject is Blaine’s relationship with the Warblers. It’s strange how Blaine acts completely differently with them than he does when they’re not around. Most people think that it’s Season 2!Blaine vs. Season 3!Blaine, but it’s not!
What’s interesting is that there are two key members of the Warblers missing during the Sebastian era. One of them is Blaine. The other is Wes. And while I’ll cheerfully admit that I could very well be ascribing more authority to Wes than he actually had (I can’t help it; Wes won my heart when he said “‘Welcome to Ohio, Lucky Lindy’”), I can’t help but think that part of the change in the team might also be due to Wes’s absence.
When Kurt joins the Warblers, Wes is the one leading the meetings. Wes is the one to initially veto the public performance, and he’s the one who needs to be convinced. Wes is the one to call for order when the group is fighting. Wes makes the decision to put the Regionals duet up to a vote. Although it’s technically a senior council, and Thad and David should have equal say, Wes is the one in the center, the one with the gavel, and the one who seems to handle all questions of procedure. (He’s also the only one of the three to remain silent when they’re arguing over whether it’s enough that Blaine’s version is better than the original or whether it also needs to be in his natural key.) Admittedly, he always does let Blaine have his way in the end, but Blaine usually has to argue his position at least a little bit to get there. When Blaine wants to try something new, the Warblers look at him first. Then they look at the council.
They look at Wes.
I feel a little weird making too many definitive statements about Wes and what his relationship with Blaine might have been, because while he’s the Warbler we see the most of (at least, the one who isn’t Kurt or Blaine), we still don’t see a lot of him. But given that he’s a member of the senior council, while Blaine describes himself as a “junior Warbler,” it seems likely that his time at Dalton predates Blaine’s. (I’d go so far as to say that, given his tendency to go “Dalton: A History” at a moment’s notice, he’s probably a legacy student, but it’s possible he’s not. Either way, he seems to have been there for some time.) No one but Blaine ever really questions Wes making decisions on behalf of the group, although in theory Thad and David should be of equal stature. People seem, by and large, to defer to him, and he takes not only a leadership role, but an ambassadorial one as well (he’s with Blaine during that first coffee with Kurt and is the one to reassure Kurt that he won’t be beaten up. He’s also the one who explains Dalton’s zero-tolerance policy. He officially welcomes Kurt to the Warblers, and when Blaine goes to McKinley to say goodbye, Wes is standing at his side the entire time.) Blaine had to learn the traditions of Dalton from somewhere. He had to hear “We’re all in the same uniform” from someone. Wes seems like the likeliest candidate.
I don’t think Blaine was the ruler of the Warblers during his tenure there. I think Wes was. Blaine was the heir apparent. But because Wes was so insistent on doing things properly, putting things up to a vote and following Robert’s Rules of Order, Blaine didn’t realize that he stood to inherit the monarchy. He thought that, with two-thirds of the council still there, everything would be fine. But without Wes’s insistence on upholding tradition and Blaine’s vision of the future, the Warblers were left adrift.
And then Sebastian stepped in.
And then the rest we know.
But I don’t think it’s fair to say that Blaine made the Warblers who they are, or even really that Wes made them who they are. The Warblers have a very long history; I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some kind of unbroken lineage of Councils under whose guidance the Warblers thrived. But by the time Blaine arrived, the leadership of the Warblers had dwindled down to one devoted history buff with a gavel. And then he was gone, and Blaine (who still believed the Warblers stood for something) was gone. And there just wasn’t anyone left who cared about what the Warblers stood for.
(I don’t actually know how Blaine would have fared if he’d stayed with the Warblers. Sebastian, for all his flaws, is a strong personality, and the Warblers seem to be swayed pretty easily by someone who’s willing to step in and take charge. And Sebastian, more than anything, wants to win. If he couldn’t win Blaine over, and if he thought that Blaine wouldn’t lead them to victory against Kurt and the New Directions, I think he very easily could have attempted a coup. And I genuinely do not know how that would’ve gone.
And when I put aside my blatant Wes-stanning, I have to concede that he might not have fared that well either. He probably needed Blaine’s easy charisma and charm as much as Blaine needed Wes’s forcefulness and strength of conviction.)
(Source: imnightbird, via bobbiejo1)
