- The Cat is sly, self-serving and clearly untrustworthy from a glance, but she's far from genuinely malicious and the Conductor's exertion over her indicates she's no less a victim of the train than Tulip is. The Steward viciously destroying all of her collected items and her subsequent reaction comes off as genuinely pitiful as a result.
- Tulip's reflection, MT, is somewhat two-faced, since she completely considered leaving Tulip trapped in "her world". However, she also had to deal with and listen to Tulip's issues from the beginning of her existence, and it's heavily implied that she only became sentient once Tulip stepped into the Chrome Car. So her desire to gain freedom and become her own person are completely justified.
- The Conductor/Amelia for Book 1. She's a psychopath who wants everything to go her way and will hurt anyone who doesn't do as she likes, but she's also a grieving woman who has been mourning her fiancé for decades and only wants the train to build a car so she could have Alrick back in some way. Notably while Tulip forgives her, the train does not (given her number winds up to her neck), and her actions have heavy repercussions as shown in Season 2's "The Mall Car".
- Simon reveals in "The Chat Chatet Car" that The Cat took care of him for a few months when he entered the train, but disappeared one day and he was attacked by Ghoms before Grace saved him. However, he's also a sociopath par excellence who, on the next episode, murdered Tuba and told it to Hazel with a sickening grin on his face. Yet strangely enough, it's because he's a sociopath that it shows just how easy it is to break him, such as when he stubbornly refuses to accept the Awful Truth from Amelia of the train's true purpose, as that would obviously mean that just about everything he did, including said murder of Tuba, was All for Nothing. Also, his first reaction to learning that Grace hid from him that Hazel is a "null" is to just quietly burst into tears. Even after he gets his life force sucked by a Ghom, Grace can't help but cry at his death.
- Grace is a manipulator and easily puts the charm on a lot of children but "The Debutante Ball Car" and "The Origami Car" reveal that deep down, she's a lonely girl who controls people so she didn't feel pain, having to relive memories of being abandoned by her parents and wishing to be noticed. Not to mention that due to her betraying Hazel at a very critical moment, Hazel leaves with Amelia and doesn't even smile or say her farewells to Grace. She also couldn't prevent the deaths of Tuba and later Simon, and all of this left her rather broken. By the end of the Book, you just want to give that poor woman a hug.
- Min can be extremely self-righteous and patronizing, to the point he pushes all the blame for everything that goes wrong on Ryan in the first few episodes. He also abandons Ryan several times out of fear what others might think about him. But deep down he really does want to play music with Ryan again and hates how he's had to reshape his entire life to what his parents want instead or what he himself wanted. In "The Party Car", he opens up to Ryan about how much he regrets letting his anxieties control his life, especially since no matter what he does, he never seems to be safe from failure and disappointment.
Let's just say there are a
lot of people who need a hug.
- Tulip's abrasive behavior may turn her into a Jerkass Woobie for some people, but it's hard to deny that the poor girl didn't have it easy. Even before they officially divorced, her parents were almost always fighting, to the point where Tulip had to repress those memories and replace them with happier ones. Even in the present, there is nothing she can do about the divorce and it clearly tears her up. That's not even going into the things she went through on the train, while being stuck on it for 5 months.
- Out of Tulip's parents, her dad Andy takes the cake, considering how he was kicked out of his own house and hardly ever sees his daughter anymore, who he clearly loves. One can only imagine how much blame he put on himself during those months that Tulip was on the train, thinking that it was one schedule slip-up that ended with his daughter disappearing.
- One-One. Glad-One may be an Iron Woobie, but Sad-One is completely succumbing to every single bad thing happening to them, like being evicted from his rightful place on the train as the Conductor and then thrown away like he's just some disposable piece of garbage.
- Jesse. His "friends" are bullies who target his younger brother Nate and use Jesse's passivity to turn him into one, too. After pranking Nate to the point where the latter gets injured, Jesse realizes how terrible of a big brother he really was, but gets picked up by the train before he ever got the chance to apologize.
- Terrence the Toad, seemingly only exists to be kicked so that a passenger can continue on the train. Jesse thankfully saves him from that life, now he at least gets paid to be kicked.
- Nate. His Cool Big Bro suddenly vanishes without a trace after pulling a cruel prank on him, leaving Nate to wait for Jesse to come home and apologize for it. Thankfully he eventually does.
- Hazel is such a sweet and adorable little girl who eventually breaks when Simon gloats on killing her gorilla friend Tuba. When it's revealed that she's actually a failed clone of Alrick, Amelia doesn't even recognize her as her daughter and is ready to quarantine her. Not to mention that she's afraid of being wheeled by Simon. Thanks to Grace betraying her in "The Hey Ho Whoa Car", Hazel ultimately leaves with Amelia and doesn't even say goodbye or hug her big sister.
- Tuba herself also counts. All of her daughters died a long time ago, leaving only Hazel as a daughter figure to accompany her in wandering throughout the train. Even when she finally warms up to Simon, he betrays and brutally kills her. Of course, her death is avenged by a Ghom who kills Simon at the end of Book 3.
