A New Theory for Your Consideration

   New theory: it was not Hobbes who was imaginary, but Calvin. Bear with me on this.

   In Freudian psychology, we have the id, the ego, and the superego. The superego represents restraint and the id represents impulse, yes? Between them is created to ego. Makes sense so far, right?

   So my theory is that Hobbes represented both the id and the superego, which has between them the mediation in the form of Calvin. Hobbes is more mature than Calvin (obviously) thus representing restraint and superego. But for the mediation of the id and the superego to be such a trouble maker, that would require Hobbes's id to be extremely powerful. He'd have to be like some kind of wild animal or someth... Oh.

   We do see Hobbes's libido (id power) to be quite strong at points. Pouncing on Calvin is, after all, one of his defining character traits. He is shown to have the hots for Susie Derkins, even going as far as to suggest her becoming a member of GROSS- and even, at one point in '96, he is shown to have the hots for Rosalyn the babysitter. He seems to be fair obsessed with smooching, although he'd be the first to admit that he doesn't know where babies come from. And who could forget the "hot tigress babes" of the National Geographic magazine (man, have we been there, brother.)

   You know that Bill Watterson knows enough about psychology to know his basic Freudian theory. The natural extension of a sapient tiger, the wild animal balanced with the philosopher, would obviously be a six-year-old boy who never ages, even as the years go by. Obviously.

  ...

  Yeah, I'm still working on it.