Discussion Characters / UntilDawn

I'm so tired of saying the same stuff I've said a bajillion times before. Mike never shows an ounce of remorse for anything he does, but calling Josh a "murderer" is insanely hypocritical. Not just because of the Hannah prank, but also shooting Emily (which he will gain honest and funny points from if he does so). Wouldn't it be a heartwarming moment if Mike took some time to stop and think about how maybe his own previous actions catalyzed Josh's Sanity Slippage...or if he sincerely apologized outside of just throwaway sentences? We're given zero reasoning to believe that Mike even went to the anniversary in the first place for any reason other than to screw his girlfriend somewhere more romantic.

Okay, except he genuinely didn’t mean to kill Hannah and Beth - none of them did - and the only information he has is that he has reason to believe that Josh killed his girlfriend. There’s a difference between a prank gone wrong and straight up dragging Jessica through the woods and potentially ripping her jaw off, and keep in mind, Mike has no way to know about the wendigos yet and potentially killing Emily doesn’t happen until much later. Plus, if I recall correctly, Hypocrite entries have to be called out in universe, which it’s not

And for the record, I’m not defending the prank, I’m just saying that to call him a hypocrite about it is a bit of a stretch

No offense but that is such horseshit. No character in the history of anything ever would have Hypocrite listed if being called out on it in-universe was an explicit requirement. And it's not just shooting Emily that bothers me, it's also the fact that Mike apparently enjoys it. I've seen people defending this detail by just calling it a game glitch and it makes me sick to my goddamned stomach.

Look, I wouldn't be so salty about this and could understand the whole Humans Are Flawed argument if there were hints that Mike was even a remotely good person before Josh's sisters disappeared, or if the game was longer and had more content, or if he simply had more Pet the Dog moments. His honesty meter decreases whenever he appeals to Jessica's insecurities, and it increases if he rebuffs them, which to me shows that he's a sexist jackass. Also what was stopping Mike from tying Josh up in the lodge, instead of the shed where outdoor carnivores excluding Wendigos could break in and enter at any time? So many problems would've been avoided if this happened.

How am I supposed to even call this guy a Jerk with a Heart of Gold when...I see so very little of the actual "heart of gold", outside of Wolfie and scenes that only happen when someone dies?

I'm in the camp of... "I don't really see it as hypocrisy". Yes, Mike is an asshat - I do enjoy him as a character, but in that "haha wow you're so punchable, look at this douche who thinks he's smooth..." kind of way - like, he reminds me of the title character of Archer except he's more invested in at least superficially seeming charming - and yes, it's... outlandish of him to assume that Josh killed Jess (people leap to dumb conclusions or "look for something to blame" at times when situations are stressful/heated, but yeah, it still says something about Mike that he didn't step back and re-process for... so much as two seconds), and yes, it also says a lot about him that he can never express earnest regret for what happened to Hannah and Beth despite the prank having been kind of about him and him having been one of the key players, and the most directly involved, which is horrible; I'd think any reasonable person would indeed regret pulling a "fake asking-you-out"-style "prank" in general let alone one that resulted in them going missing and almost definitely dying in the snow - and yes, I hate the way he treats Josh - the closest he comes to having a "nice" interaction again is "let me make a pun about the psychotic break you were clearly having"...

...but for all the shitty things about him, calling him a hypocrite on this particular point just feels kind of "off" to me. He rails on someone who he accuses of directly and physically harming someone without owning up to guilt for his huge and conscious part in something that emotionally hugely hurt someone and resulted in their death. I'm not saying that makes it better, but that I understand there being "degrees of distance"/"them not being quite the same thing" there.

Alright, well when you open the debate by calling my argument "horseshit" I'm not inclined to say that you're coming in for a good faith discussion, especially when you ignore a lot of my points, but I think you're really taking this way too harsh. Yes, I'm aware of how Mike's personality meter changes if he shoots Emily, but you're making a mountain out of something less than a molehill like it's a crime against humanity (like "sick to my goddamned stomach"... over something that's an Informed Attribute already?). To be a bit blunt, you really seem biased against him and are using the entry to complain, like calling the idea that Josh killed Jess a "dumb rumor" as though he's not working off of legitimate evidence that Josh is nuts and then dismissing the counterarguments as "bullshit" based off of the review you left.

You've clearly got your own viewpoint and I'm not in the mood to debate someone who's just gonna dismiss everything I say, so this'll be the last thing I put here - do what you will afterwards - but in all honesty, I really think you're getting way too heated over background detail regarding a character in a video game.

I gave up civility when talking about Mike a long time ago. I can count how many Until Dawn fans I've encountered that were nice to me on one hand; I have literally been told "fuck off and KYS" on Youtube and gotten at least 30 downvotes on Reddit just because their favorite character isn't my own and not for any personal reasons. It's been going on since the game came out in 2015 and it's likely never gonna stop. It just makes me hate the dude more, to be honest.

Maybe it depends.