Sylvia

**Sylvia** is a Zbornak, Wander's loyal although bullish steed, his best friend and deuteragonist of *Wander Over Yonder*, who explores and travels the universe with him. Sylvia will never back down from a challenge and loves fighting. Even though Sylvia is tough, she has a soft side, mainly for Wander since he is her best friend and companion. She used to be partners with Ryder. At one point, she was a bounty hunter who tried to capture Wander.

## History

### Early life

In "The Waste of Time" it is revealed that Sylvia used to be a bounty hunter, and she met Wander when she took him from Kill Bot 85. She was revealed to have been a racer at some point in the past in "The Time Bomb", although her temper always prevented her from winning. She wasn't always partners with Wander, as she was once partners with Ryder, a brash renegade-like man who Sylvia enjoys traveling with, as he is more adventurous and tough than Wander, but hates how he makes her a worse person.

### Present life

Sylvia and Wander have been inseparable since the day they met, and she accompanies him on his many adventures throughout the universe as his steed, bodyguard and best friend.

## Personality

### **Toughness**

Sylvia is very tough and competitive. She is kind but tries not to show her soft side too often. Sylvia is smart, but is sometimes overpowered by her own temper. Sylvia is very tough when battling bad guys, and is able to take out her adversaries very quickly with her punches. She utilizes her strength to protect Wander in most cases, but also uses it to help out the various inhabitants of the planets they travel to, usually at Wander's behest.

She also has a guilty side to her aggressive actions, as seen in "The Time Bomb" when she purposely bucks Wander off her back when he tries to calm her down. She then goes back to Wander after realizing she had been tricked and apologizes.

### **Soft side**

Whenever Wander heads into trouble or danger, Sylvia's protective side of her violent nature kicks in and she rushes into danger to protect or save Wander (Or the baby hatching in "The Egg") from any threats. Most always Wander is seen giving Sylvia a hug and she returns them with a smile, indicating that in spite being tough and bullish, she can be gentle and caring for her best friend. In "The Fugitives" she comes back to save Wander from the Watchdogs after she abandons him because of his niceness foiling her escape plans. She tells Wander that helping her best friend is far more important then escaping the planet herself. This is her first ever act of love, loyalty and affection for Wander shown in the series.

A major form of her love for Wander is shown when she mistakenly believes that Captain Tim (A dangerous spider creature whom Wander names after finding the tags in its mouth) kills Wander and stores his body in a cocoon, but what she finds is really the liquefied remains of a teddy bear. She shows extreme sadness over finding Wander's "body", screaming that it "should have been (her)". She sets the ship to self-destruct in order to destroy Captain Tim, and "avenge" Wander. Upon finding that Wander is still alive, she returns to the ship, and is overjoyed to find him alive and well.

### Physical appearance

Sylvia bears blue scales, has a long neck, stubby arms, big expressive eyes, and large two toed feet. She has a black rein wrapped around her muzzle and a big floppy tuft of red hair jutting upward from her head, matching the tuft of fur on the tip of her tail.

## Skills and Abilities

### **Strength**

Sylvia is very strong and enjoys having a good fight when the opportunity arises. A major part of her super strength is when Wander is taken prisoner aboard Lord Hater's Ship in "The Prisoner". When Commander Peepers finally traps Wander in a cell, Sylvia not only knocks Peepers out but she yanks the bars, the door and parts of the wall around the door clean off to free Wander from his cell and rescue him from the exploding ship. In "The Little Guy", she does the same but this time from inside the cell. She could also twist the Lord of Illumination's arm in "The Box." In

### **Neck extension**

In "The Egg", she makes her neck long so she can hear the egg's hatching after supposedly harming the baby inside by cracking the egg. She then brings the rest of her body up to the egg. In "The Bad Guy", she twists her neck all over the bike in the run from the motorcycle gang to warn Wander about the explosives. Her neck is also known to turn 180 degrees until it's facing backward, most common when she turns to talk to Wander while he is riding her.

### **Prehensile Tail**

Her tail acts as another hand as shown in the theme song, where she uses her tail to hold on to Peepers and punch him and smash him on the floor, "The Pet", where she uses her tail to grab a pipe and "The Bad Guy", to snatch up Wander and talk to him before they could enter Doomstone. She can also be seen using her tail to pound Peepers from under the table and the hold him to face the black hypnotic cube monster in "The Fancy Party."

### **Super speed and stamina**

Sylvia is a very fast runner, as she used to be a racer. She can run the circumference of a planet in a very short amount of time, and can travel extremely fast while in a orbble.

### **Musical talent**

Sylvia is shown to have a good singing voice in "The Birthday Boy". In "The Day", it's shown that she can play the cymbals and the banjo, though she doesn't play so well on the latter.

## Relationships

### **Main Characters**

#### **Wander**

Wander and Sylvia are a pair of pals who can never be separated, although they have very different personalities. Wander provides Sylvia with a comfort and emotional support, despite the fact that his antics often lead to her getting hurt or inconvenienced, while Sylvia provides Wander with protection and physical support. She respects Wander's kind and sweet nature, even when it clashes with her own rougher personality, saying that even though Wander looks like a skinny, clueless weakling, he always manages to "get the job done, in his own weird little way". His behavior towards Lord Hater often annoys Sylvia, to the fact that you should never befriend a villain, though she works with him sometimes. Even though Wander has ignored Sylvia ("The Troll", "The Tourist"), the two are still best friends, and value each others company above all others. Sylvia lets Wander sleep on top of her, and is one of the only people who she lets ride in her saddle.

#### **Lord Hater**

Lord Hater is Sylvia's biggest enemy and she hates him. The two don't interact much, although Sylvia has tried to fight him ("The Greatest", "The Brainstorm"). Unlike Wander, Sylvia is fully aware of Lord Hater's evil doings and doesn't have fun with him like Wander does. Lord Hater is still stronger than Sylvia and she knows it, saying "you'd have to be crazy to try and stop Hater" ("The Greatest"). Lord Hater seems much more concerned about hurting and scaring Wander than Sylvia, though she is Number Two on his Most Wanted list. Sylvia once went on a date with Hater in disguise under heavy protest, which consisted of dinner and a night at a carnival. Then Hater wanted to smooch and Sylvia denied it. Hater cried and out of pity she kissed him. She was almost betrothed to Hater, but Wander rescued her. ("The Date")

#### **Commander Peepers**

Sylvia and Peepers are enemies. Every time Peepers does something bad, Sylvia's always on time to stop him. ("The Prisoner", "The Birthday Boy", "The Day", "The Fancy Party"). There have been times where Sylvia and Peepers worked together ("The Battle Royale", "The Show Stopper", "My Fair Hatey"). Even though they have a clear rivalry, they are shown in various similar situations and can even be caught saying almost identical things.

#### **Lord Dominator**

Sylvia used to want to hide from Lord Dominator, until "The Family Reunion", where Sylvia's mom convinces her to stop hiding from Lord Dominator. This can be seen in "My Fair Hatey" where she helps Peepers defeat Lord Dominator (even though the plan backfired). In "The End of the Galaxy", she was almost killed by Lord Dominator's drill, until Hater saved her.

### **Recurring Characters**

#### **Emperor Awesome**

Ever since "The Fancy Party", Awesome has liked Sylvia, and although he got turned down by her twice, he won't stop trying though. In "The Party Animal", he is again attracted to Sylvia in the crowd of his concert even when she was dressed like a partier. He randomly called her "Rebecca, Becks,and B" out of affection. In "The Boy Wander", after Empreor Awesome is shirtless in the hot tub and after Wander left, Awesome got out of the hot tub in his bathing suit and said "What's your hurry, Becks"? Sylvia left saying "Gross."

#### **Watchdogs**

Sylvia and the Watchdogs are enemies, as they are constantly trying to capture her and Wander. She consistently beats up and takes out the Watchdogs, but is sometimes overpowered by them when there are too many of them around. ("The Fugitives", "The Buddies")

### **Others**

#### **Sir Brad Starlight**

Sylvia was Brad's "steed" in "The Hero". She sees Brad as an immature fool, rather than the hero he claims to be, but Wander kept reminding her that a princess would be in danger, making her reluctantly continue on into the Labyrinth of Delusion. Brad returned in "The Enemies", but did not interact with Sylvia due to her falling asleep while playing hide-and-seek with Wander. In "The Hot Shot", she got jealous when he starts fighting Dominator's forces.

#### **Harvax** and **Stok**

Harvax and Stok first appear in "The Time Bomb", and keep teasing Sylvia, saying "tick-tock" and calling her a time bomb. She greatly dislikes them because of this, but Wander helps her to ignore them and dispel her reputation as a "time bomb" during the "Galactic Conjunction 6000". After winning the race, Sylvia acts like a "sore winner" and rubs her victory in their faces.

#### **Little Bits**

Unlike Wander, Sylvia is immediately distrustful of Little Bits in "The Stray". Her suspicions are confirmed when Little Bits is revealed to be a bounty hunter working for Lord Hater. Sylvia unsuccessfully tries to stop Wander from falling under Little Bits' manipulation, and joins him on the teleportation pad. She manages to rescue Wander in the last moment by punching him out, and Little Bits is sent to Lord Hater alone. Cute isn't her thing so Little Bits' cuteness powers are rendered useless against her ("The Catastrophe").

#### **Ryder**

Ryder was Sylvia's old partner before she met Wander. He and Sylvia work very well together, calling each other playfully insulting nicknames and executing combat moves and maneuvers by numbers rather than through speech. Though Sylvia enjoys Ryder's rough-and-tumble nature, especially after tiring of Wander's good nature, she ultimately remembers that being with Ryder makes her a worse person. She dumps Ryder on a planetoid after the two fail to steal Lord Hater's stolen treasures, but Ryder states that "they'll be back".

## Trivia

* In an early render clip of the show back at Comic-Con 2012, Sylvia was shown with a pink mane, but in the show her fur color is blue.
* Sylvia's species is a "Zbornak," so named as a nod to Bea Arthur's character in The Golden Girls (Dorothy Zbornak)
* She dances like Snoopy of "Peanuts" fame in "The Greatest".
* Sylvia is the second Disney Heroine to have triplet brothers, the first being Merida from "Brave".

* Sylvia bears a resemblance to a saurolophus, a horse, and an ostrich.
* Sylvia is voiced by April Winchell, who previously voiced Eli's P.A.L. in The Powerpuff Girls, another show created by Craig McCracken.
* Many have noted the similarity of her voice to the narrator (a talking cow) in the commercial for the Game Gear game *Sonic Triple Trouble*.

* According to Wander, she uses the bathroom once every five months, due to having a slow metabolism and a curiosity of her species. This means she goes to the bathroom every 2-3 times a year. One instance of her using the bathroom was during the events of "The Picnic".
* Sylvia is very down-to-earth and likes to resort to violence versus Wander's "sappy smooshy lovey dovey silliness" (as she calls it in "The Egg") but she often gives into his nature and still cares for him all the same.
* Sylvia's skin color is the same color as Wander's shoes.
* Sylvia can have a short temper as shown in "The Fugitives" and "The Good Deed", but can also be understanding and inspiring when Wander needs it the most.
* In "The Egg", it's noted that she's not good with caring for children and nurturing them correctly. But she does learn so and becomes attached to the little puffball baby inside the egg, calling it "Sweetie".
* She sometimes rejects Wander's obsession to help others and begs him to drop it, as revealed in "The Fugitives", "The Good Deed, "The Ball", and "The Epic Quest of Unfathomable Difficulty!!!".
* According to Wander in "The Picnic", she doesn't want anyone to know she's going to the bathroom and she thinks its kind of embarrassing.
* Sylvia is the first major character to have her species revealed.
* "The Picnic" and "The Prisoner" are the only two episodes where Sylvia has less than a minute onscreen.
* She likes jellyfish pie as mentioned in "The Hat" and "The Time Bomb", while Wander does not.
* If examined closely, the bristles of Sylvia's blanket spell out "CMCC", which are Craig McCracken's initials.
* She cares very deeply about Wander as shown in "The Fugitives" where she gave up the chance to escape the planet herself just to save Wander from the Watchdogs, "The Pet" where she mistakenly believes he got eaten and mourns gravely for him, "The Hat" where she risked her very life to reunite herself with Wander after they had been separated using only his hat, and "The Lonely Planet" when Sylvia goes through Planet Janet's challenges to save Wander.
* Sylvia is often shown to use some intergalactic off-color language words, like "Flarf-narblin'", "Lupsork", "Zlorged", "Grop" and "Flarp". This could be the show's outer space version of profanity.
* She occasionally mentions her desire to take a shower as revealed in "The Fugitives" and "The Pet".
* In "The Lonely Planet", Wander reveals that exercise makes Sylvia hungry and she loves having her snout scratched.
* She named her right and left fists Lady Haymaker and the Duchess of Whaling, respectively. ("The Fancy Party")
* She is a light sleep as revealed in "The  Day" and "The Night". However she can sleep deeply as  revealed in " The Sick Day "
* Sylvia dislikes the color pink as revealed in "The Hero".
* She is only ticklish behind her knees as revealed in "The Boy Wander".
* She always knocks Peepers unconscious.
* In "The Family Reunion", we learn that Sylvia left home without informing her family.
* Sylvia is never short of money, despite having no visible form of employment.