YMMV / Reconstructing Amelia

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is Zadie a lesbian (or bisexual woman) who's in love with Dylan? It's damn hard to say. Dylan says she's not, but Zadie's over-protectiveness of Dylan stems into obsession, and she's obviously very jealous of anyone else Dylan gets close to. And technically, Dylan never says Zadie isn't gay - she just says they were never together. It's entirely possible that Zadie has unrequited feelings for Dylan that Dylan either doesn't notice or chooses to ignore.
  • Does Jeremy refuse to tell his wife Vera about his affairs because he does actually love her despite his philandering and doesn't want her to leave him, or is he just too cowardly to own his mistakes and face the judgment of others? Does he stay with Vera primarily because they have kids together, or for appearances' sake, or are they genuinely Happily Married outside of Jeremy's cheating? Has he stopped cheating?
  • Was Jeremy really going to leave Vera for Adele Goodwin like the latter claims, or is Adele just kidding herself? Did he actually dump Adele for Kate, or would he have dumped Adele anyway? Did Jeremy have actual romantic feelings for Kate, or is she just a friend he had a fling with, and his soft spot for her is solely because of Amelia? It's worth noting there's no indication he's as fond of Adele as he is of Kate...
  • Did Dylan love Amelia, or did she not see their relationship as seriously as Amelia did? Did she stick with Zadie due to spinelessness, not caring for Amelia enough to risk her reputation, or genuinely caring about Zadie more and choosing her over Amelia because of that?
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Dylan is said by her mother to have some manner of social disorder, heavily implied to be Asperger's, but whether or not her mother is actually telling the truth is left vague.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Sylvia. She's not a very nice person and isn't a great friend to Amelia, but she's obviously deeply insecure and feels (not incorrectly) like her best friend is shutting her out. In Kate's storyline, she's also coping with the grief and guilt of having accidentally killed her.
  • For a brief moment towards the end, Zadie becomes a Jerkass Woobie as well. With a mother like that, it's not much surprise she's so messed up. And it's hard not to pity her when her own mother believes she killed Amelia, and Zadie is very clearly hurt.
  • Jeremy is a lying serial cheater, but he's obviously grieving Amelia's loss very deeply, and truly wanted to get to know her. While he made everything worse by refusing to own his mistakes and tell everyone the truth about Amelia's paternity, it's hard not to feel a little bad for him.
• Moral Event Horizon: Zadie outing Amelia, which leads to her school-wide humiliation.
• The Woobie:
  • Amelia is shoved around by her best friend and often doesn't get to see much of her mother. After she joins the Magpies, she's subjected to hazing and bullying, especially because the leader has it out for her. Then, her first (and it turns out, only) love refuses to stand up for her, and she's outed as a lesbian against her will, with a video of her and another girl together getting spread around. Oh, and she, you know, dies at the age of fifteen.
  • Kate loses her beloved daughter and has to wrestle with the guilt of not having been able to prevent her death, and then is taunted by texts telling her there's more to the horrible story than she's been told. She also becomes suicidal in the wake of Amelia's death.

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