Trevor Clarence Hills
- Voiced by: Yuri Lowenthal
I'm also the most popular person in Arcadia. But you probably already know about that, right?
A 28-year-old accountant who has lived his entire life in the city of Arcadia. His life quickly gets turned upside-down one eventful day.
- Atomic F-Bomb: At the end of the game, Vivian asks Trevor to address the audience and explain he was never in any real danger. Instead, Trevor just shouts a single sentence into the microphone.Trevor: LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!
- Berserk Button: Because of Angela's use of it during the two week lead-up to him going on the run, Trevor hates the song "Don't Be A Fool" and grows increasingly furious whenever he hears it as the game progresses. Vivian accidentally presses the button when she advises him to just play along and "Don't be a fool", triggering his Atomic F-Bomb and making him refuse the deal on reflex.
- Breakout Character: Trevor's escape becomes the most-viewed event in all of AA history, making him more popular than anybody else ever on the show. Unfortunately for Vivian and Walton Media, he walks out at the end, forcing them to recast the now-unpopular Steve Just as a Trevor-esque lead for the "Escape from Arcadia" spinoff.
- Character’s Most Hated Song: The in-universe song "Don't Be A Fool" ends up becoming Trevor's Berserk Button. While he liked the song at first, Angela's repeated use of it in the days leading up to him going on the run have slowly caused him to hate the song and he grows increasingly furious whenever he hears the song throughout the game. When Vivian advises him to play along with the script and admit he was never in danger, she says "Don't be a fool" to him, causing him to drop an Atomic F-Bomb and refuse the deal.
- Dork in a Sweater: Trevor wears a blue checkered sweater vest, which further adds to how much of an Everyman he is. Though, a Flashback at the beginning of the game and the demo depicts him without it. He loses it after his first car crash, but he gets it back after being captured by Arcadia's security.
- The Everyman: Trevor enjoys his unchanging life of being an office worker, and it's the main reason why he's involved in the plot. Because there isn't any excitement in his life, the audience doesn't see him as interesting, making Trevor the least popular character in the show and the next person in line to be killed off. As revealed by Vivian Walton, this was designed by choice for her latest show idea: picking out low-viewed boring people in American Arcadia and putting them in a fake perilous escape show to boost the company's ratings.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Trevor prefers terms such as "horrible person," in contrast to Angela's potty mouth... making his Precision F Bomb at the end of the game all the more significant.
- Hidden Depths: For someone who doesn't get a lot of exercise, most of the acrobatic feats Trevor pulls off over the course of the game can be pretty hard to pull off in real life without proper training. He's also a surprisingly talented piano player.
- Hot-Blooded Sideburns: Not at the start, but he qualifies for the trope at the end of the game when he raids the Spire.
- Made of Iron: Trevor takes a lot of punishment over the course of his escape from Arcadia without needing any proper treatment for his injuries. Said escape being scripted only goes so far as an explanation.
- Negated Moment of Awesome:
- When realizing he's the top viewed feed in Arcadia, Trevor starts giving a rousing speech to the audience about how the people of Arcadia don't just exist for their amusement. The climax of his speech is interrupted by an ad break, leaving Trevor fuming.
- Trevor successfully reaches the top of Arcadia Spire and presses the failsafe button to destroy the Arcadia Dome. Instead he gets a pitiful spray of confetti and a stilted "Congratulations" from Vivian for winning the gameshow.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Trevor's attempts to escape Arcadia directly lead to Arcadia's ratings getting a much need boost after showing their first ever slump. Without his success and unexpected popularity, Walton Media might never have gotten the win they wanted with "Escape from Arcadia".
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Trevor's disguise in the Blue Fountain Mall consists of a brown jacket and red cap over his attire, making him look like Steven Spielberg. When spotted by two travel agents, they ignore him since he doesn't look like who they're looking for, and they remark that Trevor looks like Steven Spielberg.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Trevor is the Blue to Angela's Red: he wears a blue argyle sweater-vest and is an average Nice Guy who normally keeps his head down, and thus feels in over his head once he's swept up in the action.
- Roofhopping: Trevor is reluctant to do this when escaping the INAC building, as he asks Angela what to do once he's confronted with a gap between buildings. He's forced to make up his mind when travel agents start chasing him.
- Soul-Crushing Desk Job: Double subverted. Trevor is actually quite content in his job at INAC, and what little we see of it just involves him typing whatever at a computer and sending files through pneumatic tubes to a supercomputer. Then we find out that it is/was soul-crushing for the audience, who tuned out of Trevor's life from boredom and put him on the chopping block to be removed from the show. When he gets "backstage", we see that the tubes he's been sending haven't even gone anywhere, just collecting in a big pile to eventually be disposed of, so what work Trevor was doing is meaningless both in-universe and out of it.
- Stronger Than They Look: It's an easily missable exchange at the start of the game, but Gus comments on Trevor's physical form when they chat in the office. It may explain the amount of punishment and effort Trevor takes over the course of the story.
- Trash Talk: By the final chase sequence at Arcadia Spire, Trevor has gained enough courage to start taunting the Interceptors who are pursuing him.Trevor: Time to go jogging, idiots!
- Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: Near the beginning of the game, he shares an elevator ride with a tourist couple from outside Arcadia and has to awkwardly pretend he's a tourist himself. The same couple returns in an elevator ride near the end of the game, where the couple feels uncomfortable when Trevor explains he plans to destroy Arcadia.
- You Are Number 6: The Interceptors and Marcus refer to Trevor as subject Ten-Three-Ninety-Two (10392), which is his citizen ID.
- Younger Than They Look: Trevor is 28, but his choice of clothing and large mustache makes him look way older than he really is. Even Angela gets thrown off when she compliments Trevor for handling the physical stress "despite his age". In the epilogue he has switched to a more modern style, making him look closer to his age.
Angela Solano
- Voiced by: Krisia Bajos
This, Trevor, is your life. A life that has been recorded and compiled right down to the last second.
A stage technician working for Walton Media who is Trevor's handler in his escape from Arcadia.
- Deuteragonist: As Trevor's handler and the secondary playable character.
- Gender-Concealing Voice: Angela initially uses a voice modulator when talking to Trevor. It's only after her first gameplay segment where she forgoes using it when a comment from Trevor causes her to realize that she forgot to turn the modulator back on.
- Gratuitous Spanish: Angela, a Latina, tends to lapse into this occasionally. You’re going to mostly see her do this whenever she's frustrated.
- Hide the Evidence: Kendra arrives at Angela's apartment looking for evidence that she's working with Trevor. Angela has to quickly hide the embarrassingly large amount of incriminating evidence lying around the place before Kendra gets inside.
- Meaningful Name: Just like a Guardian Angel (in whose guise she actually appears during the dream sequence), she's the one who guides Trevor in his quest towards freedom.
- Nice Girl: She grows to care for Trevor as a person over the course of his adventure. Notably, when Number Six calls Trevor "an asset", Angela is quick to rebuke him. In the epilogue, Trevor speculates that he avoided becoming like Vivian thanks to Angela's positive influence.
- Oh, Crap!: Angela probably has this reaction the most of any character in the story because of how many things don't go to plan. To list some major examples, she does this when:
- The travel agents begin chasing Trevor on the rooftops.
- Trevor is first affected by the Jingle. She has an even bigger one moments later when Marcus shows up while Trevor is immobile.
- She sees five Interceptor cars drive straight to the Arcadia Dome.
- Trevor is forced off the road and crashes.
- She realizes that Number 6 is Vivian Walton.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Angela is the Red to Trevor's Blue: she has a red streak in her hair and is a passionate activist.
- Spanner in the Works: Angela constantly acts as one to Arcadia's operations. Even though Vivian reigns in control of her meddling early by contacting her as "Number Six", she still manages to do things that catch them off-guard, such as replacing the "Escape from Arcadia" trailer with one containing incriminating footage, and of course being a genuine friend to Trevor so that he refuses Vivian's deal in the end.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: Unlike Trevor, who is controlled on a 2D plane, Angela's playable sections of the game are done in first person.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Being one of American Arcadia's stage technicians, Angela serves as this to Trevor in order to help him escape as not only is she verbally giving Trevor directions on what to do, but she's also able to control the show's "set".
Vivian Walton (Emily Garland)
- Voiced by: Cissy Jones
- Anti-Villain: She's selfish and greedy, but in truth she sincerely thought she was giving the "boring" Arcadians a chance at being celebrities.
- Better Living Through Evil: Walton Media is obviously corrupt and amoral, but it makes a lot of money, pays its staff well, and gives the Arcadians an idyllic life so long as they keep their ratings high. Emily is one of the original Breakout members who accepted money from Walton to build a new life, in her case taking the guise of Vivian Walton and returning to Arcadia. She in turn offers Trevor money and a new job in "Escape from Arcadia" if he plays along with Walton.
- Big Bad: As the boss of Walton Media.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: She warns Trevor that, unless he accepts the Realignment, the only way to escape Arcadia would be to climb to the top of the heavily-guarded Arcadia Spire, enter her restricted quarters, and press the failsafe button to bring down the Dome. Trevor decides to do just that in the final act to free everyone in Arcadia. The button is actually the finish line for fugitives on the "Escape from Arcadia" spinoff which Vivian is nudging him towards.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: She's the CEO of the company who effectively has enslaved an entire city for ratings.
- Even Evil Has Standards: She's a bitter, soulless suit, but she draws the line at actually killing anyone, the whole Released to Elsewhere thing was
Enforced Method Acting. - Exact Words: Vivian Walton reminds Trevor that she told him, "The only way to Escape from Arcadia is by pressing the failsafe button". When Vivian said this in her earlier monologue, she was actually giving Trevor instructions on how to win her game show spin-off: Escape from Arcadia.
- Karma Houdini: Ultimately Vivian and the company settle with Trevor and Angela out of court and are free to continue running "American Arcadia" and its new spinoff. The fact that the whole Released to Elsewhere thing is a lie (she has no intention of killing anyone) helped a lot with that. Downplayed, in that Trevor and Angela also were working on a documentary, implying they're not done being a thorn in her side.
- Nice Character, Mean Actor: Vivian Walton is very pleasant in announcing the winners of the Edge Travel Grant or general announcements on camera. Behind the scenes, she doesn't hesitate to insult Trevor when preparing to announce him as a winner and Angela can bring up how being an ass is typical behavior of her. Downplayed with her reveal of the "Escape from Arcadia" spinoff project and her motive for doing so (see Gilded Cage above), she's a manipulative sellout but not a murderer.
- Orcus on His Throne: She only appears in person at the end of the game, once Trevor reaches her penthouse at the top of the Spire. Ultimately subverted; in truth she was involved in the plot of the game the whole time as Number Six.
- Shadow Archetype: As a previous Arcadia escapee, she's what Trevor would've become had he not received Angela's support and had he accepted Vivian's deal.
Marcus Javert (Terry Robinson)
- Voiced by: Regi Davis
- Meaningful Name: Javert's last name is likely inspired by Inspector Javert from Les Misérables, a character who doggedly pursues lawbreakers. Considering he turns out to be an NPC, this name may have been chosen on purpose In-Universe.
- The Men in Black: The security of American Arcadia works like this, and Marcus Javert is dressed like a typical Men in Black, only he wears a long coat in place of a suit and his tie and pants are red and blue, respectively.
- Paper Tiger: Marcus behaves like a Scary Black Man but drops the act when Angela shoots him with a taser gun. This, combined with the game cutting to his interview which is really his audition for the role, is actually one of the first clues that something is off.
- Punch-Clock Villain: "Marcus Javert" is actually an In-Universe character portrayed by Terry Robinson, an actor. Once Angela tases Terry, he drops character and leaves the plot entirely.
- Scary Black Man: Marcus Javert is Arcadia's chief of security, and he lives up to it. He's stoic, has a deep voice, keeps Angela on edge when he personally visits her and may as well be The Ace when it comes to fighting and pursuing people. Terry Robinson, the guy who's playing Marcus, is anything but.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: When Marcus Jarvet is held at gunpoint by Trevor in their first chase, he invokes You Wouldn't Shoot Me. It works as Trevor simply throws away the gun in his direction. Marcus repeats this tactic against Angela, but she actually fires her taser at him. When it's revealed that "Marcus" is actually an actor, it's fitting that he expected the encounter to follow the usual tropes like last time..
- You Just Ruined the Shot: When Angela tases Javert, he complains she isn't actually supposed to do that because it's not part of his NPC script.
- You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Trevor grabs Marcus's taser gun and threatens to shoot him, only for Marcus to say Trevor doesn't have it in him to pull the trigger. Sure enough, Trevor instead throws the gun at Marcus and runs away. Subverted when Marcus gives the same speech to Angela... and she tases him mid-word.
Gus Rainey
- Voiced by: Regi Davis
- Released to Elsewhere: As winner of the Edge Travel Grant, he's not actually travelling to Fiji but he's instead kidnapped by Walton Media and likely killed, as Angela tells Trevor "Gus is dead" via rotating billboard. Except that was a lie to motivate Trevor to become the unwitting star of Escape from Arcadia, and Gus was only safely relocated to another part of the city away from the cameras. And even that may be an additional lie on top of a lie, as a secret room in Vivian's penthouse reveals that Gus was a NPC all along.
- The Reveal: Twofold!
- Towards the end of the game, Vivian reveals that Gus isn't actually dead and was just relocated to another part of Arcadia.
- An optional secret room late in the game reveals that he was a NPC all along, playing an integral part in setting up Trevor's protagonist role in the Escape from Arcadia spin-off.
- Small Role, Big Impact; Gus only shows up at the beginning of the game for a single scene, after that he wins the Edge Travel Grant and is never seen again. But his disappearance was the very thing that allowed Angela to get Trevor's attention and get him to safety. Near the end of the game, it is possible for Angela to uncover that Gus was an NPC specifically assigned as the "hook" for Trevor's escape, making this an Invoked Trope.
- Token Black Friend: Trevor's only known friend in Arcadia and the only Black person of the main cast alongside Marcus Javert.
The Arcadia Six and Breakout
The Arcadia Six is the name given to the group of six citizens who escaped Arcadia in 1992. After their escape they founded Breakout, an activist network dedicated to freeing more citizens from the Dome. One of them, codenamed Number Six, is Angela's handler in her mission to guide Trevor to liberty.- Became Their Own Antithesis: Emily/Vivian went from being one of Breakout's six members to becoming the CEO of Walton Media, out of the belief that the real world was far worse than Arcadia. It is implied that the other Arcadia Six got a similar deal with Walton Media too.
- …But He Sounds Handsome: Number Six describes Vivian as "shrewd and cunning like no other" to Angela during her infiltration into the Hexagon. Then we learn later that Number Six is Vivian.
- Gender-Concealing Voice: Vivian uses this to conceal her identity when speaking to Angela and Trevor as Number Six.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Number Six is one for Angela, and briefly becomes it for Trevor too during the Old Arcadia chapter.
- Walking Spoiler: Angela notes towards the end of the game that she doesn't know anything about the whereabouts of Number Six or Breakout. As the hidden spoilers in this folder can attest, there's a big reason for this.
- You Are Number 6: Each member of Breakout is referred to by number. The one who regularly communicates with Angela and gives her directions is Number Six.
Kendra Tomlin
- Voiced by: Tara Platt
- Ambiguous Situation: Whether she knew about Vivian's plan and went along with it or was Locked Out of the Loop for its entirety is never made clear. She is suspicious about Angela being the person helping Trevor escape and personally goes to her apartment to investigate. But she's also infuriated that someone would want to risk their job at Walton Media and help someone try to escape and sounded furious when she accuses Angela of helping Trevor near the end of the game despite the fact that Angela unknowingly did so on orders from Vivian, the person who Kendra may as well idolize.
- Bad Boss: Kendra is one to a tee and she barely realizes it. Whenever Angela and Kendra are talking to each other or are in the same room, it's very apparent how much the former loathes the latter and it mostly has to do with all the corporate bullshit that gets thrown Angela's way. Even one of Angela's coworkers imitated shooting himself in the head before he had to deal with Kendra's issues. When Angela tells her off for being a shit boss and human being all while threatening to quit and sue the company, she laughs at how great it felt to do that.
- Hate Sink: Kendra's role in the story can be easily narrowed down to being an annoyance to Angela and being despised by the player.
- Override Command: If Angela takes too long to let Kendra into her apartment, Kendra uses an override to open the door herself. The building is owned by Walton Media and Angela's contract allows Kendra to enter the apartment any time she wants.
Elijah Walton
- Voiced by: Blair Holmes
- Mr. Alt Disney: Elijah Walton created multiple cultural touchstone movies and had big plans for a big utopia-esque retrofuture city he called Arcadia, as parallels to Walt Disney's own highly-successful career in animation and his inception of EPCOT. The main difference between the two is that Elijah Walton lived long enough to oversee Arcadia's construction, but died before it could be completed. Even his name takes directly from Disney's given names: Walter Elias (the Greek variant of Elijah).
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Other than the obvious Disney parody, he was conceived by the developers as a mix of several Hollywood media moguls such as Marcus Loew, Samuel Goldwyn, Louis B. Mayer, and the Warner brothers.
- Posthumous Character: Just like his inspiration, Elijah Walton was the architect of Arcadia, but he died of heart failure in the 1960s before it could be completed. His brother, Donald, took over to finish Elijah's work.
- Shout-Out Theme Naming: Again, other than taking inspiration from Walt Disney's name, "Walton" is also George Lucas's middle name.
Donald "Don" Walton
- Voiced by: Christopher Swindle
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Donald is a far cry from his optimistic brother Elijah, forcing natural-born citizens of a tourist attraction city to remain inside for the entertainment of the outside world, including brainwashing them to physically shut down in the presence of a specific tone and getting an act of Congress signed to legalize corporations owning people as well as those same incarceration methods.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Donald Walton is the one responsible for turning Arcadia into a massively commercialised Immoral Reality Show and had a direct hand in its more unethical aspects, but he has no direct influence in Trevor's escape attempt. For all that we know, he may not even be alive anymore.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: As Elijah Walton's brother and successor, he's a send-up of Roy O. Disney, Walt's brother who was in charge of the business side of the Disney corporation and oversaw the completion of Walt Disney World after Walt's death.
Arpad Kovacs
- Voiced by: Stephen Hughes
- Character Catchphrase: Kovacs and his show "Architects of Tomorrow" has "Science Always Finds a Way".
- Herr Doktor: He's originally from Hungary and retains a thick accent.note
- No Celebrities Were Harmed:
- As the main technical mind behind Arcadia, he represents the entirety of Disney's "Imagineers".
- Word of God (the American Arcadia developers' blog
) also states that his role as an edutainment show host is a mix of Steve Wozniak, Bill Nye and Fred Rogers. - He may also be a reference to Mickey Mouse co-creator Ub Iwerks, who ironed out the technical side of Disney animation while Walt handled the business side. While Ub's work is acknowledged and appreciated in animation circles, he's nowhere near as famous as Walt is.
- Reluctant Mad Scientist: Downplayed. The use of his inventions for unethical purposes led him to part ways with Walton Media on unfriendly terms.
- Resign in Protest: The original Kovacs was disgusted when Donald Walton and the board of directors decided to create the Jingle. He quit the company and left in disgust, though that didn't stop them using his technology.
- Shout-Out Theme Naming: His last name comes from Ernie Kovacs.
