Okay so to start off, I don’t want this to be a “maturing is realizing that X is right” post. Like Percy was pretentious and ashamed of his family, and that’s why he was made fun of by the twins and some of the other kids. Arthur is also factually correct about Fudge offering Percy his job in order to keep tabs on the family and Dumbledore.

That said, I’ve also come to empathize with Percy a lot more.

Firstly, there are times where his siblings legitimately get him wrong as a product of them being so dang dismissive of him. In CoS, he’s shell shocked by Penelope getting petrified, and Ron’s reaction to it is (paraphrasing): “Percy thinks prefects are too amaaaaazing to ever get hurt and now he’s trying to cope because they aren’t untouchable.”

Well, then it turns out that Penelope is Percy’s girlfriend. Rereading this, I just kind of felt bad. This guy is sitting there worried sick about his friend and romantic interest, and people kind of just continue to badmouth him.

And while he does have a serious pretentious streak which is why Harry feels annoyed talking to him at points, I actually feel like many of their interactions are Percy trying to be friendly or helpful as he sees it.

Additionally, he just has some sweet moments scattered throughout. When he’s standing in for Barty Crouch Sr. as a judge for the lake task, he becomes really anxious upon seeing that Ron is one of the captives. He goes out to meet him when he’s brought back and checks in with him and fusses over him. Percy does care for and dote on Ron and Ginny quite a bit. It’s clear he loves them and worries about them because they’re his two youngest siblings. (Edit: like it’s Percy who tries to help manage Ginny’s anxiety and health in the second book)

I also just thought all the betting and house spirit activities going on in the 3rd book with Gryffindor playing for the cup brought out a fun side of Percy too. He bets money he doesn’t have against Penelope, but it’s kind of cute to see him get in on the festivities and put that faith on Harry.

I think, as things went on, I acknowledged there were times Percy deserved to be humbled but there’s also a level at which he wasn’t being fairly supported by Fred, George, or the trio (edit: actually iirc, Hermione did sympathize with him at points)? I think I started to feel like, you can check someone without scoffing at all his ambitions and knocking him down a peg EVERY time he wants to talk about his achievements. Like the constant pranking and hiding his prefect badge, etc. toes a line between deserved and unsupportive that I didn’t recall.

Now back to the main thing…

Percy was wrong for snapping and treating his family like idiots and like the low-brow riff raft that some other members of the Wizarding World see them as. He was undoubtedly wrong for talking to his dad how he did and cutting everyone off… But there’s also a level at which I feel bad because Percy absolutely works hard (edit: he worked like hell for Crouch only for Crouch to not even know his name). He does his best to put in effort and follow guidelines and keep his head up while the twins tease him—and then it all amounts to a success… only for his dad to sit him down and go “Actually nobody recognized your merits, and it’s really about me and Harry and Dumbledore again.”

I’m glad Percy got reconciliation with the twins at least, and I think if the books had had more time to spend on this ultimately not super important character, all of this could have been cracked open to have some interesting nuance.

Hey guys,

This post is about the stat behavior in the 2015 version of Until Dawn. The original game certainly had a problem with unhighlighted stat changes. The game usually indicates one or two stats after you make choices, showing you what changed. These stats are obvious; the trait lights up and the bar clearly moves.

But then, in the original game, you also got some slight shifts of the other, non-glowing stats. This happened nearly every time.

These patterns are so clear and so pervasive, I think it's pretty indisputable that unhighlighted stat changes aren’t meant to be giving you valid information about the characters. Now full disclosure, I didn’t look at every stat in the entire game, but I looked at a ton and this trend is consistent for everything I checked.

THIS IS THE STAT PATTERN IN THE ORIGINAL GAME

While I did find some slight exceptions which I have a heading for, the majority of stat changes follow this pattern. Again, I looked at MANY MANY stats and nearly all but the ones in my exception section (which actually do this as well but with a caveat) did this:

1. If the indicated stat goes up, all other stats but Curious go down almost imperceptivity.
   • Curious will eventually go down, but this will not be shown happening. It will just be there by next stat change.
2. If the indicated stat goes down, all other stats but Curious go up almost imperceptivity.
   • Curious will eventually go up, but this will not be shown happening. It will just be there by next stat change.
3. If two stats rise, the drop happens moew, making the non-highlighted shifts clearer.
4. If two stats drop, the raise happens more, making the non-highlighted shifts clearer.
5. If one stat goes up and the other goes down, then nothing else moves.

EXAMPLE ONE: IMPACT OF TINY SHIFTS UP AND DOWN

Here is Sam's first choice is about whether to snoop or close Chris's bag for him. I chose to close Chris’s bag which is an increased stat (Honest). Here, because of where the line is, you can see barely visible drops in everything but Curious and Honest.

Honest up, everything else but Curious (for now) is opposite.

Sam’s very next stat-related choice is about if her tone towards Chris and Ashley will be mocking or flattering. I chose flattering which is another increase, this time in Romantic. (NOTE: I noticed Curious is now level with the other stats that barely dropped, meaning it also dropped, just off-screen)

Because I increased Romantic and Honest, that meant Funny, Brave, and Charitable all went down slightly twice. After two choices, the stat behavior is more obvious, and it doesn’t make sense. Why would respecting Chris’s privacy then flattering him and Ashley make her less charitable>

Then, I took Sam in the opposite direction.

I avoided stat changing decisions until I told Josh that he was also scared of the noise. This drops Sam’s bravery. NOTE: Curious is again level with the other stats from last choice.

I then had Josh go with Sam to explore the noise which has Sam’s bravery go down again. Likewise, this very slightly increases the non highlighted stats of honesty, funny, romance, and charitable. If I show you her stats again, all those seemingly unrelated stats are raised back towards the line. Curious is now reflected as being part of this.

This is the opposite from the first example. Sam's Brave drops so all other stats but Curious rise (and you can tell Curious has been lowering off screen for my pervious stat raises. Next choice, I saw it had risen based on this one).

So that’s what most choices look like. To me, the stats almost seem like they’re accommodating the highlighted ones by shifting to make up some of the difference. I can’t actually say why they’re doing it, but that’s how they behave. 

EXAMPLE TWO: DOUBLE STAT ONE DIRECTION

I also tested this on double stat changes and the effect made sense.

One example is Mike being heroic and jumping to help Jessica. This increases two stats: Romantic and Bravery. Each stat that normally would go down almost imperceptivity gets dropped double and the change is far more noticeable. (The Curious thing happened with his stats off screen as well.)

Seeing this, I made the guess that if a choice raises one stat and lowers the other, that the remaining stats would balance out. And I was right.

EXAMPLE THREE: STATS BALANCING

Just one example of many: if Matt threatens Mike, it increases his Romantic but drops his Charity. Because of this, Funny, Brave, and Honesty get a raise and a hit, so none of them move.  

SO ADDRESSING ASHLEY

So let’s go to the topic at hand. 

When Ashley shows remorse for the prank, she's obviously getting a Charitable boost. So what happens? Everything but Curious takes that teeny stat hit.

Like the earlier Sam examples, all unhighlighted stats move oppositely from the highlighted one.

It’s not just her Honest dropping, everything but Charitable which rose and Curiosity (which stays in place unless that's the highlighted stat) drops.

I think the issues was that someone once checked Ashley's stat page after showing remorse, and her lowering Honest stat caught that person's eye. But there are two issues:

1. Romantic, Funny, and Brave are also lowering. You can't even see the others if you focus on one.
2. If you rarely look at stat shifts OR don't know what you're looking for, you can't see that this same thing impacts everyone.

The hilarious thing is that basically every time Charitable goes up, Honest will go down (unless it's a double boost with honesty or another stat was lowered). This is true of EVERY character.

In fact, I even checked it with Chris. He gets a Charitable bump if he asks how Matt is doing. You can see here that what happened to Ash's stats happened to his stats when he said something charitable. You can also see his other stats are also lowered equally from when I was Charitable to Josh at the door:

Identical to Ashley's stat change. If Charitable goes up, ALL other stats but Curious go down.

EXCEPTIONS

Here are a few odd exceptions I found.

Mike shooting Emily.

His stats do somewhat follow the pattern but also not. I'll explain. If I check Mike's stats right after shooting Emily, all of them are highlighted and move. Oddly, only his relationship with Chris moves. However, if I leave his stat page then go back in, the stats for Ash and Sam will be low. I also think it's interesting to note that Curious is on a slight delay, as that is the one that changes off screen for unhighlighted stats..

In the remake, he only gets drops in Brave and Charity. This makes a bit more sense I think. There's not good logic for like why his romance would go up after shooting Emily.

Now here's the thing. This is an exception because everything IS highlighted. However, the stats DO behave in line with the bug. If you take the remake's version to be what the stats SHOULD do (two going up) then the others all dropping are in line with that. The remake is, across the board, keeping stats that make sense and removing those that go in the opposite direction. I do want to point out that this case is less obviously part of the bug because of there's a red bar for honest (despite it not lowering more than everything else) and everything highlighted though.

Another odd thing is that, I tried waiting a bit longer to check Mike's stats, and it showed honest as the only highlighted stat.

Ashley at the projector.

I tried to make Ashley sorry here to see what happens. And these choices stat behaved a bit against pattern.

If I make Ashley unrepentant, she gets a lot of highlighted stats. Her Romantic and Charity dip and her Honest, Funny, and Brave rise. This is the same as Mike shooting Emily. It does in fact behave in line with the bug, but it's different because everything IS highlighted. The remake kept the Charity and Romantic dips which makes sense, and it removed everything else going in the opposite direction, employing a "fix" that follows the trend of what they did to the unhighlighted choices.

I saw two different things if I made her apologize:

I saw one version where her Charitable went up and everything else slightly went down without highlights, the typical stat behavior in the og. But I also saw another version where her Charitable went up and her Brave went down unhighlighted for some reason. Like with the Mike thing, it changed based on when I checked the stat.

Mike in the guest cabin.

This one is the same. Every stat gets highlighted. However, the stats still behave in line with the bug, and BM's version acts like what they did for the clearly unhighlighted stats. Charitable and Romantic go up, everything goes down). The remake only keeps the Charitable and Romantic stats and removes everything that went in the other direction.

While everything is highlighted, this still works in line with the bug. The reasonable traits (Romantic and Charity) rise while all others drop. Interestingly, Curious is delayed, and that's the one that shifts off screen. This same thing happens if he kills Em.

(Note: When Mike tells Jess she's hot and carries herself well, it's completely in line with the bug. Charitable and Romantic up, everything else down.

My guess: I think that if the stat change is dramatic, it might end up highlighting everything. For example, in the guest cabin, Charitable gets a very large boost. If Mike shoots Emily, Charitable gets a very low drop. At the projector, Ash's Romantic gets a large drop. Then all these choices also get a stat boost for another stat, making everything else move far more than the typical.

CONCLUSION

I mostly did this for the wiki footnote on the page tracking remake stats. Thanks u/zakplayk and Abstruse for doing so much for that page. I just wanted to add more to it by showing actual comparisons. This was really interesting because it gives the picture that the stats are trying to balance themselves out in the original game? Again, doesn't happen in the remake. What the remake did was move everything that move opposite the intended stats.

I don’t know if this is a cold take or a hot take since I think he could also be interpreted as a pawn and pushover who died on a failed act of defiance. But I love him.

What I liked so much about Vax this season is that he’s not as emotionally reactive as many of the other characters. He’s thoughtful and is trying to parse out the truth and big picture.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand Vex and Keyleth who don’t want their loved one to die. And I get their frustration at the Matron being so nebulous with her explanations.

Pike’s behavior was less understandable. Part of her frustration was that the gods and Vox Machina let innocents suffer for the greater good. The thing that irritates me is that there’s a moral difference in your action being inherently good (ie stopping a murderer) yet causing an *unintended* effect leading to collateral damage—and your action itself being inherently evil but for a greater good. Vox Machina is in camp one and Whispered One is in camp two. And Pike is oblivious to the difference. And while her being upset that Vox Machina split up is human, it’s selfish. There’s little acknowledgement for how important the Aramente is to Keyleth and the Ashari. And little acknowledgment of the fact that Whitestone also needs Percy and Vex. They’re literally helping a group who suffered collateral damage!

Vax, in contrast, came across as the wisest of the group this season. He understandably is frustrated with the Matron but sees the writing on the wall that something BIG is about to happen. So he leans into trusting someone who is obscure and cold over someone proven to be outright evil.

And his thought process pays off when it turns out the Blight strengthens him in the Whispered One’s realm. And he was right about being worried about the flower which came from Delilah’s research and would negate the effects of an entity that might be on their side.

Vax’s position is unfair—but that’s so often what heroism is. It’s doing the right thing in situations that aren’t always fair towards you to begin with. Him beginning to accept that the right thing may cost him his life and refusing to submit to pure evil even when he knows it will probably kill him is heroic to me.

Idk I just felt like he had the best head on his shoulders this season and came across as such a genuinely good person. At the end, he didn’t come across as quixotic or impractical, he came across as someone who rejected selfishness.

(Unrelated to my main point but Vax also has such good fight choreography. It just keeps getting better and better. I love watching him on screen. Percy is my favorite but I needed to talk about just how good Vax was this season.)

The two main examples of this are Jess killing the bird and Chris hitting Josh.

The player clearly intends to hit the bird, but when Jessica kills it, her reaction to the situation shows that the writers have determined that Jessica is inherently a person who does not like hurting animals. And you can’t change this fact about her. She freaks out when the bird dies, and she says she didn’t mean to do that. She’s genuinely sad for the bird. To me, this choice tells you one thing about Jessica which is that there’s actually no universe in which she would intentionally kill an animal.

The second example is Chris hitting Josh with the 2x4. If you decide to do this, maybe you the player think that Josh is irritating and deserves it. But the game shows you that Chris is actually incapable of feeling that way regardless. He immediately feels bad then gets horrified, wondering if he could have killed Josh. He tells Mike he didn’t like doing it. Then, regardless of how the player felt, Chris expresses remorse for this decision, and it becomes his motivation for risking himself to save Josh’s life.

So sometimes when I see these treated as bad acts the characters do, and I agree… But I also feel like they say something positive about Jess and Chris in a round-about way which is “there’s actually no universe where Jess would want to kill a bird even if you choose it” and ”there is actually no way Chris’s character would agree with his own decision to knock out Josh even if you have him do it in anger.”

Okay, I've already talked about this so much to people who know me but I will more.

But Chris and Sam have great interactions and a really memorable overall dynamic to me.

Interactions

https://preview.redd.it/vafkdxne338h1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=76ced4e24e802a5ffa3804b0a2888c534841e2f9

Overall, they're some of the characters who interact the most - which might seem odd since it's mostly bound to the early game, but the truth is that most characters don't interact significantly with many people beyond canon love interests.

Chris interacts with Sam the second most in the whole game, after Ashley obviously. Josh is clearly a more significantly-defined relationship for Chris, but Chris actually has more dialogue branches and screen time with Sam. This takes into account their shooting range segment, the cable car segment, their segment with Jess, the optional conversation they can have outside the lodge, the optional dialogue at the front door, when Chris pranks her and Josh, an optional conversation in the safe room, and an optional conversation at the rock wall. Plus Chris spends a long segment where finding Sam is his main goal.

Likewise, Sam's second most interacted with character is Chris, after Mike. I did interaction counts here.

So I bring that up because, in the grand scope of the game, they interact far more than the vast majority of the cast ever interacts with each other. (They're 5th of 28 possible pair interactions and among the 7 pairs to go past 100 lines of dialogue - there's a steep drop after). So when people are like "they barely spoke," I don't really understand that from a comparative standpoint. Besides, I feel like that nukes the validity of every ship but the canon three and Sam/Mike since every other pair interaction is below Chris/Sam. This includes Climbing Class and Jossam - though I fully acknowledge those have strong lore-related reasons and high dialogue significance.

Lore

Image by Hardyoungpro

Speaking of lore, I really like Chris and Sam's lore potential. I wish it were explored more, but I love the starting point. You can imagine a more specific past for them since it's clearly defined why they're in the Washington's group - more defined than for most characters. Chris is close friends with Josh while Sam is close with Hannah. I like the implication that these relationships started further back in time (confirmed further back with Josh and Chris). I can more strongly imagine that Chris and Sam were kind of honorary members of the Washington clan, and that's sweet to me.

Though deleted dialogue isn't canon, I love how good their deleted stuff can be. The dialogue showing that Sam's mom has met Chris and likes his dynamic with Sam enough to feel like they should date kind of rewired my brain. I like Sam's introduction line for Chris which implies that Chris had convinced her to go to some event with him. In fact, I feel like there's an ongoing tone to their relationship where Chris kind of pulls Sam alongside him into things. He has her come to the shooting range with him, and their in-game banter is great as well as their deleted banter about how this was a "date." I love it.

Dynamic

Image by Arthit5

And going off this idea of banter, I was also drawn to Chris and Sam's introduction section because I think it's the strongest segment in the game showing that these characters are indeed old friends who have gone through some stuff and are hoping things work out. A lot of their later interactions are based on survival, but here you get to see a strong example of their friendship in a non-dire situation. I actually love the brief exchange between Ashley and Matt at the telescope for this reason too.

Besides that, I also like that Sam and Chris's values seem to intersect. Of course, they quarrel over Sam potentially snooping and Chris potentially shooting a squirrel. But - along with Mike - I think they're two of the characters who stick their necks out most for the rest of the cast. Chris is intent on finding and helping Sam in the way Sam is about reaching Mike. They are the two who continue to care about Josh most vocally. Because of all this, I can imagine Chris and Sam remain friends after the events of the night. They're both capable of sacrificing their own safety for another person (Chris potentially in the gun trap and when going back for Josh. Sam potentially when calling for the Wendigo so Mike, Ashley, and Emily can escape). They're my comfort characters, man.

Story

https://preview.redd.it/eozyujmt338h1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c187b2cf5afc5697aee76373994699603c2efaed

Finally, I love the story significance of Sam and Chris's survival ending. You have these two characters who knew Josh and Hannah better than anyone else who run into each other on their way back up to Hannah and Josh's home a year later and cross this threshold together. By the end, they have the strongest possible version of the Washington's story to tell - Sam, who has all this knowledge about Hannah's diary, Josh's medical records, and the details in Hannah's room; Chris, who experienced Josh's behavior more closely than anyone because of the traps and shed scene. And they both had a strong point-of-view on these characters before everything went south. I like the idea of them surviving and having to live with this story.

Besides that, the story significance of both of them being observers/not guilty in the events of the prank, showing up at the start of the main story together, and then standing outside the lodge together when it ends is so good. It scratches the part of my brain that years for these kinds of story beats lol.

There is such potential here. 💙

I definitely did notice this name when I first went through Josh's report in the movie. I even looked at the full cast and crew to see if maybe it was a reference to one of them like how David Sandberg appeared in one of the missing posters. Eventually, I kind of chalked it up to being just a throw-away name to show that Hill had other patients.

https://preview.redd.it/q6gt5d6rxy6h1.jpg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d76ef031660deb9e5b6458a1ebd8cafe7576b799

However, now I'm wondering if it could be foreshadowing for 2?

I recall a couple people like a year ago questioning who was and nothing really came of it. But now that the newspaper Clover finds is proven to have meant something... I don't know.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised either way: if it's just a filler name or if it will eventually reference something. What do you guys think?

I made this for fun. It’s 30 lines from the game. Mix between easy and hard.

To prepare for the sequel, see how well you remember the previous game’s script!

https://www.quotev.com/quiz/17439733/Who-said-that-line-Until-Dawn

I think I ran a bigger version of this on Tumblr actually, but I was reading the comment section on a post below and wanted to know what was most popular. I think these ones are all talked about as groups of three.

Mike/Sam/Josh are plot armored.

Josh, Sam, and Chris have a lot of focus as friends in Ch 1 and 2. And they share some backstory elements.

Chris/Josh/Ashley are the seance and saw trap crew.

Sam/Mike/Emily are liked for the prom photo and as a badass crew.

I just saw someone bring up Sam/Emily/Chris which makes sense as a configuration, I guess. Sam spearheading the main plot and Chris and Emily have their own subplots?

And I’ve seen Mike/Sam/Chris liked as sort of a “hero” crew. Mike and Sam for the game and Chris for the Psycho arc/film.

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