Fanon Clover and How it Relates to Canon Clover
For those who don’t know the most common complaints in sprite comics featuring Clover living in the underground is that Clover is softer than their canon in game counterpart. I would like to say that these are not necessarily mutually exclusive. To me, Clover’s obsession with justice and cowboys feels like trauma. People cope with trauma in many different ways and one of such ways is retreating into fantasy. Now, what trauma is Clover facing? There is nothing officially said, however the most likely source of trauma, as per the dev’s words, is him being an orphan. There’s no telling specifically what happened to his parents, if he remembers them, or how their absence affected them. What this does do is support Clover’s personality changing when put into a situation where he isn’t alone anymore. Him acting like a normal kid in a dangerous situation is the natural progression of healing trauma. I’m fine with both, but to say that Clover isn’t Clover because he’s acting like a kid is denying that he has the capacity to move beyond his trauma.