Zanna
A "magical matchmaker" who takes it upon himself to pair up everyone in Heartsville with the help of his magic wand and bird friend Cindy.Tropes that apply to Zanna include:
- All-Loving Hero: He doggedly pursues anyone who he thinks needs to be paired up, all to make sure they're not lonely. Plus, his best friends are his magic wand and a bird that flies in his window. He's basically a Disney Princess, complete with the idealistic personality and animal sidekick.
- Ambiguous Gender: Similarly to Angel, the ambiguity comes from not definitively knowing what Zanna's gender identity is. If the line "I'm man, woman, gay, straight, all things in between/ I leave no one out" from "Someday You Might Love Me" is any indication, Zanna appears to be either genderfluid, bigender, or something existing both within and outside of the gender and sexuality spectrums. At any rate, he's likely not cisgender or solely monosexual.
- Ambiguously Bi: See Ambiguous Gender above for details.
- Break the Cutie: Starts breaking around the time Kate and Steve are outed and rejected by the entire town and breaks completely once his newly-heterosexual friends ostracize him and his wand is snapped in half.
- Break the Haughty: At the beginning of the musical, Zanna believes himself to be the sole reason anyone falls in love ("if I stopped for just one day, how would life go on?") but soon comes to realize otherwise.
- The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Zanna is so focused on making other people happy and finding matches for them that he completely ignores his own love life. It comes back to bite him when he’s trying to repress his feelings for Steve (knowing that he’s already dating Mike) and his wand, whose job it is to alert Zanna to people in love, starts zapping him to get him to act on his feelings.
- Did Not Get The Guy: He doesn't end up with Steve in the end, but with Tank.
- Friend to All Living Things: Is best friends with Cindy, and an incredibly generous and kindhearted person, often to a fault.
- Heroic BSoD: After his friends reject him and his wand is snapped, which comes with a Heroic BSOD Song.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Desperate to make everything better after Kate and Steve are outed, Zanna finds a spell that will “make the world safe for heterosexuals,” at the cost of his magical power. See I Want My Beloved to Be Happy below.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Seeing how devastated Kate and Steve are when Everyone rejects them after they accidentally kiss at Mike's chess tournament, Zanna casts a spell that permanently flips their world into ours, making heterosexuality the norm and costing Zanna his magical powers and his two best friends in the world.
- Magical Queer: Literally!
- Magic Wand: Zanna has one that can tell him if there's someone around that he needs to focus his matchmaking skills on. It’s also sentient (and if Zanna’s reactions are anything to go by, pretty sarcastic), although it only speaks in Tinkerbell-esque chimes. It can also zap Zanna when he doesn’t pay attention to it, like when he’s trying to ignore his feelings for Steve.
- The Magic Goes Away: After Zanna casts a spell to "make the world safe for heterosexuals," thereby flipping his world into ours and making heterosexuality the norm, he loses his magical powers, including his ability to understand his friend Cindy. As a final nail in the coffin, Steve snaps Zanna's wand, making it truly impossible for Zanna to ever use his magic again.
- Matchmaker Crush: On Steve. This is treated as a real problem by Zanna, since firstly he doesn't think he'll be able to perform his matchmaking duties if he himself is in love, and second, Steve is already dating Mike.
- Randomly Gifted: He's the only one in Heartsville with any sort of magic, so he's probably this.
- Unwanted Assistance: Can’t seem to resist helping people with their love lives, even when they don’t ask for it and/or actively tell him not to.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Zanna's worldview seems to be based on a combination of fairytale logic and The Power of Love. This makes it all the more crushing when his friends cruelly mock and ostracize him after his spell [[spoiler:makes heterosexuality the norm and wipes everyone's memories. Doubly so when you think about the fact that the only reason he performed the spell in the first place was because he wanted to help his friends (particularly his crush Steve ) who coldly rejects him and breaks his wand, which was Zanna's only connection to the magic he had to leave behind.
Steve Bookman
- Token Minority: Inverted. The only known heterosexual at Heartsville High, aside from Kate.
- I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me:: Said almost word for word after Zanna helps pair him up with Mike.
- Gay Guy Seeks Popular Jock: Is on the receiving end of this by Mike, although chess is much more popular than football at any rate, making it more of an inversion.
- Meet Cute: He and Kate bump into each other when they first meet.
- The Quarterback : While he is a quarterback, since chess is cooler than football in this world, he’s not the Big Man on Campus you’d expect, and is actually kind of insecure. Played straight in the other world, however.
Mike
- Gay Guy Seeks Popular Jock: Except that it's inverted and he's the popular jock of the chess team crushing on Steve, a football player who is almost a nobody in terms of popularity.
- Smart People Play Chess: Downplayed, as he’s not portrayed as smarter than the rest of the cast despite being a chess champion, but is still smart and bold enough to suggest performing the controversial play. Played straight in the other world, however.
- Platonic Life-Partners: With Roberta in the original world. Subverted after Zanna casts his spell: with everyone straight now, they end up together.
- Did Not Get The Guy: He ends up with Roberta instead.
Kate Aspero
- Extracurricular Enthusiast: Captain of the Intramural Bull Riding Club.
- Academic Athlete: Strives to eventually earn a medical degree, and is the captain of Heartsville High's intramural bull riding team.
- Intelligence Equals Isolation: A self-imposed case; she's been so focused on schoolwork that she doesn't have time for love.
Roberta
- Butch Lesbian: Downplayed, but she’s easily more masculine than her girlfriend Kate, and is super excited when she gets to play with power tools while setting up for the play.
Candi
- Clipboard of Authority: She’s always carrying around a clipboard, making sure things go to plan.
- Heteronormative Crusader: Inverted. Approves of the school board's decision to ban straight couples at the prom.
- Platonic Life-Partners: With Buck. In the other world, they end up together, as everyone is now heterosexual and societal norms are different.
Buck
Homosexual Life Partners: With Candi. In the other world, they end up together, as everyone is now heterosexual and societal norms are different.
- Yes-Man: Acts this way towards Candi.
Tank
Runs the school radio station, and serves as the DJ for the prom near the end of the play.
- Walking Spoiler: He ends up with Zanna in the end.
- Cloudkookoolanders Minder: Has shades of this towards Zanna.
- The Reliable One: Quietly supports Zanna throughout the show and tries to get him to think about himself, until finally confessing his love for him at the end.
