History Characters / Devolution

* ButNotTooGay: He is gay, but his separation from and reunion with his husband are only mentioned in passing.

* TextualCelebrityResemblance: Kate describes him as looking like "the [[Creator/GeorgeRRMartin ''Game of Thrones'' author]], without the Greek fisherman’s hat."

* SanitySlippage: After the eruption cuts Greenloop off from the world and the Sasquatch attacks begin to wear away at the village, Tony completely falls apart, going from a confident, in-control leader to a slovenly, drunken wreck of a man who can barely string two words together and [[spoiler: abandons his wife at the first sign of danger]].

* FaceDeathWithDignity: [[spoiler: After Kate finds his body, she notes he didn't look like he struggled back or tried to alert them, which is at odds with everything else he's done]].

* VengefulWidow: Maybe. [[spoiler: Her brother Frank believes/hopes that she took Palomino and went deeper into the Cascades to finish off the survivors of the Sasquatch clan after they killed Dan and the rest of Greenloop]].

* VengefulWidow: [[spoiler: She tears into Reinhardt after Vincent's death, revealing that he encouraged Vincent to leave to his certain death]].

* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler: Scout, Princess, and the new mothers all manage to escape the final fight in Greenloop, but Scout and Princess have been injured, and it's possible that they now have a VengefulWidow and her adopted child on their heels]].

* AlphaBitch: She hides it well at first, but she clearly doesn’t like Mostar very much and is furious when the older woman starts usurping the Durants' position as leader(s) of the settlement. When she tries to assert her authority, however, Mostar effortlessly forces her to back down.

** This one is debatable. Kate's narration suggests instead that he might simply have frozen in terror, like a prey animal, accepting his fate without trying to fight back.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: An actual version. Effie manages to get between Pal and Juno when Palomino is seconds from being Sasquatch meat, although she gets killed for it]].

A senior park ranger in charge of recovery and cleanup efforts after the Rainier eruption. She is also the person who tipped off Frank [=McCray=] and by extension the book's unnamed author as to what really happened to Greenloop.

* NotSoDifferent: By the end of the book, there's not much to differentiate Kate from the Sasquatches she's fighting. Both of them are ruthless, intelligent, tribalistic apex predators locked in a desperate struggle for survival. [[spoiler: Her brother even suggests that she may have taken Palomino deeper into the Cascades to [[GottaKillEmAll finish the job]].]]

* NotSoDifferent: Alpha and Mostar are both tough, wily, determined matriarchs who are fighting to keep their respective tribes alive at any cost.

* TattoosAsCharacterType: Kate briefly mentions Tony's ink during their first meeting, noting that he has "tribal lines and Asian characters" tattooed on his arms. This may be a very subtle bit of {{Foreshadowing}}. In the current day and age, white people who get "tribal designs" as tattoos are generally regarded as cultural appropriators who are trivializing a practice with significant spiritual and emotional meaning to many native cultures. Likewise, those who get Asian characters tattooed on their body are often stereotyped as ignorant poseurs who are more concerned with how cool something looks rather than its actual significance. This is a pretty neat encapsulation of Tony's personality: an unprepared poseur who is focused on appearances and lacks a real understanding of nature.

* NaiveAnimalLover: Much like his wife, he refuses to admit the possibility that the Sasquatches might be hostile. [[spoiler; It gets him killed]].

* {{Fauxreigner}}: Yvette affects an upper-class English accent, though it gradually disappears over the course of the novel as her authority and sanity start slipping away.

** This one is debatable. Kate's narration suggests instead that he might simply have frozen in terror, like a prey animal.

* SenselessSacrifice and StupidSacrifice: [[spoiler: His death is an example of both, because it isn't clear (even to Vincent himself) what his intention is with going out to face the Sasquatches. He's sort of looking for a road out...but he doesn't make it very far before he's caught and tortured to death by the Sasquatches. Although it does finally wake everyone up from complacency]].

* DrivenToMadness: She spends most of her time [[spoiler: after Vincent's death screaming hysterically]], although in the circumstances, nobody can blame her.

* TheLoad: While she's not '''completely''' useless, Bobbi generally does more harm then good. She acts horrified by the idea of defending the community against first a mountain lion and then the Sasquatches, spends most of the early confrontations as a hysterical wreck [[spoiler: (though given her husband died it's understandable)]], has to be forcibly silenced by Carmen when they are hiding from the Sasquatches under Tony's bed and during the LastStand doesn't seem to accomplish all that much [[spoiler: before getting killed]].

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Gary asked Kate and Dan to move into his house in Greenloop after a messy split from his husband, and thus put them directly in the path of the Rainier eruption and the marauding Sasquatches.

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: They're always seen together, at least until [[spoiler: Twin One takes a fatal javelin wound to the chest and Twin Two flees after nearly being disemboweled by another javelin]].

* ActorSharedBackground: In the audiobook, a single short chapter is done from the point of view of Mostar. In it, Mostar is voiced by the distinctively accented Mira Furlan...a Croatian artist that came to America to escape the Bosnian War, just like Mostar.

* NeverFoundTheBody: spoiler: She and Palomino disappear sometime after the destruction of Greenloop. Her brother Frank thinks they may have gone hunting for the rest of the Sasquatches, though he acknowledges the possibility that they died of exposure while trying to walk to safety]].

Per wiki policy, spoilers on this page are unmarked. Proceed at your own risk.

* BadassAndChildDuo: Frank [=McCray=] suggests that Kate may have taken Palomino with her to hunt down and exterminate the rest of the Sasquatch clan.
* FinalGirl: Kate is the last adult inhabitant standing in Greenloop after the final fight against the Sasquatches.
* NeverFoundTheBody: She and Palomino disappear sometime after the destruction of Greenloop. Her brother Frank thinks they may have gone hunting for the rest of the Sasquatches, though he acknowledges the possibility that they died of exposure while trying to walk to safety.
* NotSoDifferent: By the end of the book, there's not much to differentiate Kate from the Sasquatches she's fighting. Both of them are ruthless, intelligent, tribalistic apex predators locked in a desperate struggle for survival. Her brother even suggests that she may have taken Palomino deeper into the Cascades to [[GottaKillEmAll finish the job]].

* UncertainDoom: After the last battle against the Sasquatches, Kate and Palomino disappear sometime before Ranger Schell's rescue team arrives. Her brother Frank acknowledges that they most likely died while trying to walk to safety, but he also suggests that they might have gone hunting for the survivors of the Sasquatch clan.
* VengefulWidow: Maybe. Her brother Frank believes/hopes that she took Palomino and went deeper into the Cascades to finish off the survivors of the Sasquatch clan after they killed Dan and the rest of Greenloop.

* BrilliantButLazy: Strongly implied. He was the valedictorian of his graduating class, and Kate describes him as having been much more energetic and engaged in their college years. When he applies himself, he quickly works out how to {{MacGyver|ing}} together a variety of useful tools and weapons from bamboo stalks and household implements and eventually teaches himself to control the entirety of Greenloop from his iPad. However, at the beginning of the book, he’s an unemployed “entrepreneur” who spends all day monkeying around on the internet, and Kate notes that he’s usually a passive, do-nothing person.
* HeroicSacrifice: He attacks Alpha to stop her killing Kate, and though he dies, he gives Kate the opening she needs to kill the Sasquatch.
* TookALevelInBadass: After the eruption, Dan is the first person to adapt to the new reality of Greenloop and immediately becomes the most useful person in the village behind Mostar. He takes another level when he hacks the Greenloop houses to turn them into gigantic bombs, then kills a Sasquatch in hand-to-hand combat with a glass-bladed spear.

* ActorSharedBackground: In the Audiobook, a single short chapter is done from the point of view of Mostar. In it, Mostar is voiced by the distinctive, accented Mira Furlan...a Croatian artist that came to America to escape the Bosnian War, just like Mostar.

* DyingMomentOfAwesome: She’s the first inhabitant of Greenloop to score a Sasquatch kill, using a homemade spear, but she dies in the process.
* GenreSavvy: She’s the first person to realize that rescue services won’t be miraculously swooping into Greenloop after the Rainier eruption, and therefore pushes Kate into helping her plant a garden and set up rationing schemes for their food. Later, she is the first person who identifies the Sasquatches as a threat, recognizing that they’re hungry and territorial enough to be dangerous and that they’re torturing Vincent to try and draw the rest of them into the forest.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Mostar is described as being extremely blunt and caustic which initially alienates her from the Greenloop inhabitants. However, on top of becoming extremely close to Kate and saving everybody's lives, she is also very forgiving and understanding when it takes Carmen and the others a long time to come round to her way of thinking.

* MentorOccupationalHazard: Mostar teaches the rest of Greenloop to survive and thrive without access to civilization, and later prepares them to fight the Sasquatches. Of course she wasn't going to make it.
* MutualKill: She manages to spear one of the Sasquatches to death at the cost of her own life.

* ReplacementGoldfish: Kate ''might'' be one for her. It's shown that Mostar had a daughter who likely died in one of the bombardments of their hometown during the Bosnian War. Based on what Kate says, she is about the same age as Mostar's daughter would have been.

* ToughLove: Played with. Mostar accurately identifies Dan as a "fragile prince" who doesn't know how to deal with failure and is in a sulk because his life isn't going the way he wanted it to, so she starts literally and metaphorically pushing him around. It works pretty well.

* VasquezAlwaysDies: Mostar is the toughest, savviest, and most well-prepared member of Greenloop. So, naturally, she dies before the climax of the novel.

* AssholeVictim: He becomes this when he tries to abandon Yvette to certain death during a Sasquatch attack. Alpha promptly rips him out of his Tesla and tramples him to death.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Tony's veneer of self-confidence and unselfishness is very thin. He abandons Yvette to death after becoming a recluse.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Alpha drags him out of the backseat of his Tesla, snapping one of his legs in the process, then tramples him to death, slowly crushing his chest and skull into pulp.
* DirtyCoward: Twice. At the very beginning, it's implied he was looking for a way to escape (and leave everyone else, including Yvette) behind, but he's thwarted because the whole road has been swallowed by a lahar. Later, and more explicitly, he clearly leaves Yvette [[spoiler:to be ripped apart by the Sasquatch, although he does get killed anyway.]]

** Tony and Dan are also sharply contrasted against each other. Kate develops a crush on Tony while bemoaning the fact that Dan has none of Tony's charisma or drive. Tony then collapses almost immediately and loses his mind after the Mt. Rainier eruption, then is even more useless when the Sasquatches attack, whereupon Kate loses all her respect and attraction for him. Dan, meanwhile, becomes reenergized by the crisis and develops into a confident and hardworking leader, which helps rekindle his and Kate's relationship.
* KarmicDeath: For half a second it looks like Tony might get away from the Sasquatches while they brutally kill Yvette, who he's abandoned. Then he gets killed anyway, and much more brutally.
* NotEnoughToBury: There isn't much left of Tony after the Sasquatches are through eating him. Kate manages to scrape together what's left for a burial anyway.
* SanitySlippage: After the eruption cuts Greenloop off from the world and the Sasquatch attacks begin to wear away at the village, Tony completely falls apart, going from a confident, in-control leader to a slovenly, drunken wreck of a man who can barely string two words together and abandons his wife at the first sign of danger.
** Kate also notes that when he tries to escape the Sasquaches in his Tesla he doesn't display the sort of urgency that one would expect, comparing how he is driving with how he might go ont he commute to the grocery store. He even responds to Yvette shouting for him to stop and blocking his car by simply honking at her.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Tony ''may'' have tried to pull this shortly after the eruption. He disappears for part of the day, then returns covered in ash and mud and acting totally shell-shocked. Kate sees him pull an overstuffed backpack out of his car before looking around in a suspicious manner and dropping it back into the trunk, strongly implying that he was trying to get to safety without regard to the rest of the Greenloopers. He later definitely tries to pull this when the Sasquatches attack his house, even abandoning his own wife, but the alpha Sasquatch stops him cold.

* BeautyToBeast: In a matter of weeks, Yvette goes from being a famous ex-model to an unkempt, unwashed, and skeletal mess.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Alpha claws her back open, snaps her neck, smashes her through the windshield of Tony's Tesla, then disembowels her and offers her corpse to the rest of the Sasquatch clan in a ritualistic manner.

* KarmicTransformation: Having previously fooled Kate as to her competence with her beauty and veneer of kindness, Yvette reveals her true self when she works out constantly even though everybody else in Greenloop is on starvation rations and becomes horribly skeletal and malnourished.
* IWasQuiteALooker: Over the course of two weeks of constant exercise and starvation brought on by SanitySlippage, she manages to go from “StatuesqueStunner ex-model” to “smelly, emaciated hag”. Kate is horrified by the sight.
* NotEnoughToBury: There isn't much left of Yvette after the Sasquatches are through eating her. Kate manages to scrape together what's left for a burial anyway.
* OohMeAccentsSlipping: As the pressure mounts on Greenloop, Yvette’s posh English accent gradually disappears, replaced by her natural Australian twang.
* SanitySlippage: She’s revealed to have spent most of the time since the eruption and the beginning of the Sasquatch attacks working out on her elliptical and starving herself while Tony turns the house into a pigsty; as a result, she is a smelly, emaciated bundle of nerves who shrieks like a madwoman at Kate and the others when they try to pry her and Tony out of the house.
* UndignifiedDeath: She is brutally killed by the alpha Sasquatch while screaming at Tony not to leave her behind.

* TheAtoner: After he indirectly sends Vincent to his death by convincing him that the Sasquatches are peaceful and won't attack him if he goes for help, then suffers a cardiac episode that nearly puts him into a coma, he seems to realize what he's done wrong and starts trying to contribute more actively to the community.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: After Kate finds his body, she notes he didn't look like he struggled back or tried to alert them, which is at odds with everything else he's done.

* HeelRealization: After recovering from his panic-attack-induced cardiac episode, Reinhardt seems to understand that he's been a useless jerk who did nothing but get Vincent killed and starts trying to help the community.

* KickTheDog: He encouraged Vincent to go to his death and won't even admit it when Bobbi tries to make him do so.
* KnowNothingKnowItAll: Reinhardt repeatedly pontificates on the probable habits and diet of the Sasquatches, despite acknowledging that he has no expertise in primatology. These lectures are usually accompanied by a GilliganCut to the unnamed author’s interviews with Frank [=McCray=] and Josephine Schell, who point out exactly how and why Reinhardt was wrong. He also possesses the largest personal library of the entire community, but Kate quickly discovers that he has nothing of practical use for their current situation.
* TheLoad: Reinhardt is ''the'' most useless member of the group. He hides food from the others, none of the books in his library are remotely helpful, he constantly sides with Tony and gives people bad information despite admitting he doesn't know anything. This becomes even clearer when he has a panic attack after Vincent's death and needs to be monitored and cared for by Effie and Kate.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: Immediately after he starts trying to be a better member of the Greenloop community, he gets his head torn off by a Sasquatch that sneaks into his house.

* FaceYourFears: Carmen is germophobic, but she conquers her fear when it becomes necessary to save lives; she uses Tony's soiled underwear and filthy clothing to make a scent-blocking barricade when hiding from the dowager Sasquatch, then actively participates in collecting the community's "solid waste" in order to poison the field of punji stakes.

* JavelinThrower: Carmen proves to be remarkably adept with Kate's homemade javelins. She hits Twin One in the chest, which he then makes into a fatal blow by inadvertently punching the barbed glass head into his lung, and inflicts a probably fatal stomach wound on Twin Two.

--> '''Mostar:''' "Carmen, they're not good or evil. They're just hungry."

* TookALevelInBadass: Carmen is among the last of the Greenloopers to adapt to their situation, but she is in magnificent form by the end of the book. She kills Twin One and fatally wounds Twin Two, then charges Juno barehanded in an effort to save Palomino.

* MamaBear: When Juno, one of the Sasquatches, grabs Palomino, Effie goes into a rage, throws herself at the much-larger Sasquatch, and ''rips out its throat with her teeth''. While she is killed for her trouble, Effie does save Palomino and takes Juno with her.
* HeroicSacrifice: An actual version. Effie manages to get between Pal and Juno when Palomino is seconds from being Sasquatch meat, although she gets killed for it.
* MutualKill: She tears Juno's throat out with her teeth, while Juno smashes her chest in.

* BadassAndChildDuo: Frank [=McCray=] suggests that Kate may have taken Palomino with her to hunt down and exterminate the rest of the Sasquatch clan.

* CuteMute: Palomino remains silent all throughout the novel, speaking only one word during the climax.
* DueToTheDead: Palomino convinces Mostar to pray for Vincent after his death, and she probably helped Kate bury the dead of Greenloop after the final battle.
* FinalGirl: She shares this status with Kate.

* NeverFoundTheBody: Kate and Palomino disappear sometime after the destruction of Greenloop. Kate's brother Frank acknowledges that they most likely died while trying to walk to safety, but suggests that they may have gone hunting for the rest of the Sasquatches.

* TraumaCongaLine: Poor Pal has been through a lot in her short life. First she survived the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar, which apparently claimed her entire family. Then she was displaced from her home and wound up in a Bangladeshi orphanage, with only a tattered picture book and a loaf of bread to her name. Then she lives through the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre and sees both her mothers die.
* UncertainDoom: Kate and Palomino disappear sometime between the end of the final battle and the arrival of Josephine Schell's search and rescue team. Kate's brother Frank acknowledges that they most likely died while trying to walk to safety, but suggests that they may have gone hunting for the rest of the Sasquatches.

* AnArmAndALeg: After the Sasquatches capture Vincent, they torture and slowly dismember him in an effort to draw the rest of the Greenloop inhabitants out. Kate spies one of them waving his severed arm at them from atop a ridge.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Vincent gets ripped apart all while still living, as slowly and painfully as ''possible'' in a failed attempt to lure the humans out.
* NaiveAnimalLover: Much like his wife, he refuses to admit the possibility that the Sasquatches might be hostile. It gets him killed.
* NotEnoughToBury: Vincent is dismembered and probably eaten by the Sasquatches after their attempt to use him as bait fails. Kate buries his head, which was the only part they didn't eat.
* SacrificialLamb: Vincent is one of the kindest and nicest Greenloopers. So, naturally, he's the first character to be killed, and in a pretty brutal and drawn-out fashion.
* SenselessSacrifice and StupidSacrifice: Both, because it isn't clear (even to Vincent himself) what his intention is with going out to face the Sasquatch. He's sort of looking for a road out...but he doesn't make it more than a minute before he's ripped apart. Although it does finally wake everyone up from complacency.
* SoundOnlyDeath: The Sasquatches capture Vincent and slowly torture him to death, ripping off each of his limbs, in an attempt to lure everyone else out. The rest of the Greenloop inhabitants are forced to listen to his agonized screams.

* AintTooProudToBeg: Pleads for help or mercy when she is grabbed by a Sasquach in the climax. It doesn't work.
* DrivenToMadness: She spends most of her time (not much) after Vincent's death screaming hysterically, although in the circumstances, nobody can blame her.

* HystericalWoman: Although nobody blames her, she spends most of her time after Vincent's death crying and screaming. Carmen finally punches her in the face to shut her up before she can betray their hiding place to Dowager.
* NaiveAnimalLover: She absolutely refuses to admit that the Sasquatches might be hostile until given irrefutable evidence otherwise. Unfortunately for her, this evidence comes in the form of her husband being captured and slowly torn apart in an effort to draw the rest of Greenloop into the forest.
* TheLoad: While she's not '''completely''' useless, Bobbi generally does more harm then good. She acts horrified by the idea of defending the community against first a mountain lion and then the Sasquaches, spends most of the early confrontations hysterical (though given her husband died it's understandable), has to forcibly silenced by Carmen when they are hiding from the Sasquaches under Tony's bed and during the LastStand doesn't seem to accomplish all that much before getting killed.
* VengefulWidow: She tears into Reinhardt after Vincent's death, revealing that he encouraged Vincent to leave to his certain death.

* TheAtoner: He feels responsible for his sister's disappearance, having been the one to suggest that she and Dan move to Greenloop in the first place. When the unnamed narrator meets him, he's preparing to set out into the mountains to look for her.

* SympathyForTheDevil: He admits that he almost feels sorry for the surviving Sasquatches. Their alpha is dead, along with most of the clan, three of them are injured to some degree, and if his theory is correct they have a pair of crafty, angry, vengeful humans on their tail.

* LateToTheTragedy: Her search and rescue team arrives a week after the destruction of Greenloop, too late to retrieve Kate and Palomino.

* FinalBoss: She is the last Sasquatch that Kate has to fight.
* HeroKiller: She kills Dan when he tries to take her out with his coconut knife. It may be stretching it to call them "heroes", but she also kills Tony and Yvette, and may or may not have been the one to finish off Vincent. Either way, she has the highest body count of any of the Sasquatch clan by the end of the story.

* DesecratingTheDead: After his death, Kate and the other Greenloopers repeatedly stab his corpse, and Kate then urinates on his face in a successful effort to provoke the rest of the clan into attacking in a blind fury.
* HeroKiller: He kills Mostar.
* MutualKill: Mostar fatally impales him, but he is able to break her neck before dying.

* EyeScream: An enraged Effie gouges out both of her eyes when she threatens Palomino.
* HeroKiller: She has the second-highest body count of the entire Sasquatch clan, killing Carmen and Effie in quick succession during the final battle.

* MutualKill: She crushes Effie's chest, but Effie rips her throat out with her teeth in return.

* WouldHurtAChild: She grabs Palomino and holds her up in a clearly threatening manner.
--> '''Kate:''' With a growling hoot, she held up Palomino, dangling her like a taunt, or a warning. "Don't come any closer. I'll hurt your baby. Get back! I'll kill her!"

* AgonizingStomachWound: Twin Two gets a javelin to the gut courtesy of Carmen. When he rips it out, it nearly disembowels him.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Twin One takes a glass-pointed javelin to the chest, then inadvertently snaps the head off inside his chest and compounds the damage by pounding on it, driving the barbed glass straight into a lung. He's last heard of crawling on the ground and choking on his own blood while calling out to his fleeing brother. Twin Two doesn't have it much better. Carmen hits him in the gut with a javelin, and when he pulls it out it nearly disembowels him. Though he escapes the battle, he most likely dies a slow, painful death shortly thereafter.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Twin Two flees the battle after being badly wounded by several javelins, leaving his dying brother behind.
* UncertainDoom: Twin Two flees from the final battle, but he's so badly injured that his survival is unlikely, and Kate and Palomino may be on his trail . . .

** Goldenboy, one of the youngest of the clan, gets caught in one of the exploding houses, then falls into a bed of punji stakes and bleeds out.
** Possibly the new mothers' babies, if Kate and Palomino really are hunting them down.
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Goldenboy falls into a bed of punji stakes and bleeds out from multiple wounds.
* PummelingTheCorpse: Gray's body gets thoroughly mangled after his death; Kate crushes his skull into pulp with a rock, while Dan and Carmen stab him over and over.
* SatelliteCharacter: Dowager, Goldenboy, and Gray only appear a handful of times before dying in the final battle, while Princess and Scout flee after being caught in the burning houses. The new mothers and their babies only appear once, which is justifiable by the fact that Alpha would want to keep them away from any possible danger.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Princess and Scout both run for the safety of the forest after being injured by the exploding houses.
* ShoutOut: Dowager's name comes from the title of Violet Crawley in Series/DowntonAbbey
* UncertainDoom: Scout, Princess, and the new mothers all manage to escape the final fight in Greenloop, but Scout and Princess have been injured, and it's possible that they now have a VengefulWidow and her adopted child on their heels.

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: They're never seen apart until the end of the novel, when Twin Two bails on his wounded and dying brother and flees back into the forest.