Who are your favorite characters and why?

Personality-wise, Anya and Swansea. Writing-wise, Jimmy.

My heart just absolutely hurts so much for Anya. She tries so, so hard yet gets little recognition for it in the game’s universe. She’s failed to get into med school 8 times. She just doesn’t stop trying and I love her for that. Anya has so much more going on beneath the surface, and we get glimpses of who she is when we’re not seeing her through Jimmy’s warped perspective. She’s lively, competitive, likes to goof around, she likes fast food, and awful reality tv. She is a normal, relatable woman who was determined to succeed in her dream of entering med school, and I wish she could have gotten that. I can relate to her myself, and as a woman, her story was the most harrowing for me.

As for Swansea, I really like characters who are gruff and very flawed, but kind-hearted deep down, even when they try their damnedest to hide it. Again, Swansea is very flawed, but I like that about him. His speech is by far one of the greatest moments in the game, and really made his character mean so much more to me. It’s an interesting perspective to take, where someone’s fondest memories aren’t their days of success, but rather the days where they were at their “lowest”. It’s relatable for many people who don’t feel the need to keep pushing, and would rather just try to live a life without stress and worry, even if society sees it as a failing.

Now onto Jimmy. He is the main character and the most fleshed-out, so maybe it’s an unfair advantage, but I think he’s the most well-written, though all the characters are very well-done. Anyway, the way he was written was clearly done with a lot of care and tact. He’s unsympathetic, yet he’s not a card-carrying villain who does evil things for fun. His evilness is realistic. It’s so realistic to where many of us know a Jimmy in real life, and he’s so violently hated because of his realism. Writing complexity for a villain can be tough because it can almost feel like attempts at excusing their actions or making people feel sorry for them. That is definitely NOT the case with Jimmy. His complexity doesn’t come from explaining how he turned out so terribly, but rather how he handles his own evil actions after the fact and the downward mental spiral that comes with it. It’s very fascinating.

These are my low-energy thoughts. Trust me, I have way more I’d like to say, but I can’t quite put them into words. They’re more like ideas bouncing around my brain. Tell me your favorite character(s) and why you like them!