Character Analysis
He's Everywhere, He's Everywhere
Pablo, like Hermine, is a sort of a shape-shifter. He shows up first as a saxophonist in the band. In the Magic Theater he is a chess player, and even Mozart:
And as he spoke and conjured up a cigarette from his waistcoat pocket and offered it to me, he was suddenly Mozart no longer. It was my friend Pablo looking warmly at me out of his dark exotic eyes and as like the man who had taught me to play chess with the little figures as a twin.
"Pablo!" I cried with a convulsive start. "Pablo, where are we?"
"We are in my Magic Theater," he said with a smile […] (683-685)
So Pablo is kind of the puppet-master behind all of the manipulation of Harry's brain. He's also the one who provides the drugs that make the hallucinations happen… so that could explain his power. Again, have we mentioned that the hippies in the 1960s really dug this novel? Pablo is for-sure one of the reasons why. It wouldn't be much of stretch of the imagination to figure that the Magical Mystery Tour to the Magic Theater.
The fact that he is a foreigner and supposedly exotic lends him an even more (magical) mysterious air, and this connects back to just how strange all of these activities are for someone like Harry, who lives his life with his nose in either a book or a wineglass.
It's a Love Fest
Pablo is all about free love: he collects lovers like Pokémon cards and he is pretty interested in making Harry one of them. This has probably more to do with Harry's desire for men (notice how obsessed he is with his friend Herman?) than Pablo, but it's a way that Pablo the character reveals something about the protagonist, Harry. After all, we don't know how fully Pablo exists in reality.
For example, at one point Pablo tries to get Harry to have a threesome with him and Maria, but Harry won't. He does, however, let Pablo kiss him on the face:
He gave us each a little opium to smoke, and sitting motionless with open eyes we all three lived through the scenes that he suggested to us while Maria trembled with delight. As I felt a little unwell after this, Pablo laid me on the bed and gave me some drops, and while I lay with closed eyes I felt the fleeting breath of a kiss on each eyelid. I took the kiss as though I believed it came from Maria, but I knew very well it came from him. (387)
You can see from this passage that Pablo is sort of the forbidden fruit for Harry. He instinctively says no to his advances, but he is tempted and interested in them. Pablo is the person who can awaken Henry's other selves, and in the novel that is the whole point of Henry's journey.
In fact, in one room of the Magic Theater (where you get to experience all the love affairs that could have been) Harry does experience that missed opportunity with Pablo:
Even that seduction to which Pablo had once invited me came again, and other, earlier ones which I had not fully grasped at the time, fantastic games for three or four, caught me up in their dance with a smile. Many things happened and many games, best unmentioned were played. (614)
Pablo shows up all over Harry's brain, and his openness about sexuality lets Harry see other moments where he could have had some extra sensual fun but didn't even notice that it was being offered.