Ivan always struck me as being like a seeing-eye dog-- loyal to his creator and hellbent for election on keeping him safe, the leash and collar like JJ pointed out, even the way he introduced himself to Mac and Bloo-- I'm Stevie's seeing-eye friend!

Of course it's been a while since I've seen the episode and on top of that, I'm operating on roughly 30 minutes of sleep. ;D

Ivan reminded me of a seeing eye dog, too, for the same obvious reasons as have already been stated. Except he can explain what things look like too, not only lead Stevie around to he stays safe.

He also reminded me of a bug, with all those eyes he has. I'm picturing a magnified shot of a fly's face. I wonder how on earth his brain functioned with all those eyes each drawing in a different picture. Wouldn't it be a giant mess when it got there? Or perhaps it was pieced together to create an amazing panoramic view that we two eyed people will never be able to comprehend.

Plus maybe the fact he's a seeing-eye-friend that he gets better quality of vision than that of a normal human bieng...? :D

Do we even know Stevie created Ivan? I can't remember if it was said in the ep. If he didn't, do we know that Ivan was actually created to be a seeing-eye friend? Maybe there's a place out there that adopts friends that they think would work as different "service friends" and trains them, then adopts them out to people who need them. Or maybe Stevie's mom just adopted/otherwise obtained Ivan, thinking "oh he has lots of eyes he can be Stevie's seeing-eye-friend".

Sorry, I can't remember if the question of if Stevie is Ivan's creator has come up before, so I apologise if it has and I'm repeating something already said.

If Stevie was born blind (and I don't recall there being any confirmation that he was, so this is purely a hypothesis) then I can picture there being a little difficulty in the possibility of his having created Ivan...ie: if he had always been blind, then how would he know what all of Ivan's visual features (eyes, colour et al) should actually look like? Of course, a blind child would still have as much capacity to create an imaginary friend as a seeing child, but I am curious to know how this actually works within the realm of Foster's, in which imaginary friends become fixed and real as their creators envision them. In a blind child's case, it would presumably have to draw upon sensory information other than sight...in which case, does the "creation process" fill in all the remaining gaps by itself? Is this the case with all imaginary friends? Do the creators have to imagine every single physical detail down to a tee before anything can happen? I'm probably overthinking this, but it's an interesting thought nonetheless.

In Eduardo's case, Nina created him in a moment of fear so I doubt she had time to dream up every last detail about him. She needed someone fierce, or at least fierce-looking, and there he was, so I think the actual creative process is at least partially instinctive. Each Imaginary Friend might be created partially from instinct, partially from deliberate design, the proportion of each depending on the creator and the circumstances under which the IF is created, with both parts constrained by whatever limits the creative process has.

Good questions, by the way. :)

I feel the more "complex" imaginary friends would have more time spent on actually making their physical form, (Coco, for example, looks NOTHING but complex) while the more simpler ones, were a thought that just became real. The "instinct" ones could explain why so many of the imaginary friends resembled their creators so much - they may be, regardless of gender, their "alter ego" coming to life.

For Stevie, (if he created Ivan) he probably thought "a seeing eye friend", and pop, Ivan the....25-eyed? imaginary was brought into existance. But of course, having 25 or so eyes, who can just stop there? Maybe have better senses altogether to, to sense danger or have a "spider sense" or something, with better vision than a human's...the list can go one forever.

Something new I thought of...I do think that a blind person would be more likely to imagine an albino friend than a seeing person - without meaning to that is. (Ivan appears albino to me.) After all, a blind person can't easily imagine pigmentation. So that could be one argument for Stevie, or another blind kid, being Ivan's creator.

Ah-ha, you're right. Ivan is an albino, he even has the pink eyes to match.

Oh thank you. Your response was good too - I take your point about the creative process being at least partially instinctive. We know from Nina's story in GWH that a child's subconscious will have a big influence upon what kind of imaginary friend they create.

Is that the friend with lots of eyes?