Abed Nadir: A Balance Between Primary and Secondary Control

 “Abed, stop being meta. Stop taking everything we do and shoving it up its own ***!! ” - Jeff Winger

As a character Abed is both constantly trying to be outwardly understood and fit in. This dichotomy is stressed by his neurodivergent traits, reference humor, and as Jeff Winger stressed above, often making everything a little more 'meta'. In this balance of primary and secondary control come some of Community's best moments. In this blog post we will go over a couple of examples of times when Abed Nadir lends himself to both secondary and primary control and the fantastical events that followed. 

Season 3, episode 4: Remedial Chaos Theory, widely considered one of the best episodes of Community, lends itself to conversations about primary control quite well. In primary control people attempt to change the world around them so that it fits the needs and desires they have. In this very unique episode we see our study group meeting at Troy and Abed's new apartment for the first time. A moment come when the buzzer goes off for the pizza man and everyone instantly touches their nose, signifying they don't want be the one to go down and grab it. Jeff comes up with a solution of rolling a dice with each number corresponding to someone on the table. Whomever it lands on, gets the pizza. Abed exclaims

 "Just so you know Jeff, you're now creating six different timelines." -Abed Nadir

What follows is a 6 part episode showing us what would happen if the die had landed on each number. It is brilliantly conceptual and sets up the "darkest timeline" which comes full circle in later seasons, in a way that transcends the form of the show. Since Abed said their would be 6 different timelines, we as the viewer saw 6 different timelines. Abed is creating perception of the groups behaviors and actions as if they are characters in a story. This is inherently ironic though, as they are characters within a story. This attempt to sway the group into being apart of the reality that he has created is Abed's most meta use of primary control. He has gone beyond the physical limits of what a 'normal' TV character is capable of. Not just trying to get those around him to change, but instead actually gave the viewer a window into the worlds that are created due to his primary control of the episode. 

This is not the first time Abed has done this and in fact he often tries to shape the world around him to fit into narratives that he understands. These narratives often the use of seeing the world through a lens of TV and movies, whether that be through certain tropes, character acrs, or homages. In Season 5, episode 10: Advanced Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Abed leads the study group in a game of Dungeons and Dragons, in which he is the Dungeon Master. This is a perfect role for Abed as the role involves being in charge of the reality the players are apart of. He shapes the game world in this Episode to help connect Professor Hickey (Jonathan Banks) to his distanced son. Here Abed's command of the situations serves as a clear display of primary control, dictating the very environment of the group. 

Secondary control, unlike primary control, is about adjusting yourself to fit the environment. Changing ones mindset or expectations as opposed to changing external circumstances. For Abed this looks like finding his own meaning through a lens of meta-awareness. Some episodes will see the study group fight or break up. He interprets these real emotions as "character arcs". One time, wanting to speed up Jeff and Britta's relationship in Season 2, Episode 1: Anthropology 101. He does this to ruin their relationship so that he can prounce them "canceled". Jeff blows up saying "Oh, good. Yeah, Abed, cancel us. Why don't you take your cutesy 'I can't tell life from TV' gimmick with you? You know, it's very 'season one'.". Abed's response is proof that this secondary control is just a way to cope with the very real life that his fake character lives. 

"I can tell life from TV, Jeff. TV makes sense, it has structure, logic, rules, and likable leading men. In life, we have this. We have you. 

- Abed Nadir