Characters found in “The Melissa Allen Trilogy''.
Warning: folders may contain unmarked spoilers. Proceed at your own risk!
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Characters Introduced in Never Let Me Sleep:
Melissa Allen
- Action Survivor: Melissa defeated the Mega Aphis in Onida, South Dakota. She more or less upgrades to Action Girl by the Par Lab incident.
- Batter Up!: Mister Bat is Melissa's primary weapon of choice.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: Melissa has fond memories of both of her parents who were killed in a collision before Never Let Me Sleep.
- Genre Savvy: Melissa follows basic horror movie rules in all three books, this helps keep not only her, but her companions alive.Melissa: “Horror movie rules, No goes alone.”
- No Medication for Me: Thankfully averted. Melissa is schizophrenic, but she understands all of her medications and what they’re supposed to do for her, and she relies heavily on them.
- Ship Tease: With Adam in Never Let Me Leave. In Never Let Me Die, she refers to him and Carrie as her siblings, but the Coalescence believes that if it can take Adam, Melissa will rejoin willingly.
- Survivor Guilt: Discussed as occurring between Never Let Me Leave and Never Let Me Die.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With Thomas. They both fight the Coalescence, but he understands that he may have to sacrifice the front line if that means protecting the rest of the world, and she tends to be on the front line.
- Unreliable Narrator: Melissa is a fairly honest teenager, but she does hallucinate under stress.
Agent David Hood
- The Atoner: While the army, he made a call to leave without someone he thought was dead. He finds out later that the man was alive. As a POW the man was later publicly executed.“We left a man behind because we had no choice. I left a man behind. It was my decision, my command. Only he wasn’t dead.”
- Closet Geek: The grin he gives Melissa when she finds out that he uses the Imperial March as his boss’s ringtone, indicates he may be this.
- Combat Medic: Justified, he was a trauma medic in the army.
- Conflicting Loyalty: Between Thomas and Melissa. Melissa usually wins.
- Demoted to Extra: David was arguably the deuteragonist of Never Let Me Sleep, The Calvary of Never Let Me Leave, and only shows up at the beginning and end of Never Let Me Die
- I Gave My Word: This mixed with The Atoner is why he comes for Melissa in the first book.
- Imaginary Friend: He’s not, but Melissa wonders for a while, especially when he shows up in person.
- Promotion, Not Punishment: While he probably got some kind of mark on his record for disobeying Thomas in Never Let Me Sleep, David still ends up promoted to being Melissa’s liaison given his rapport with her.
Agent Thomas Harrison
- The Chains of Commanding: The opening of Never Let Me Die suggests that Thomas may have shades of this, regretting things he feels he must do, but as most of the story is told from Melissa’s perspective, it’s unknown just how badly affected he is.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: There is very little love loss between Melissa and Thomas Harrison because he frequently does what he has to do, but he does tend to do right by her and the other heroes when given the opportunity, such as making David her liaison and allowing Adam and Carrie to move in with her and Heather.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He and Melissa don’t get along, but he does listen to her and makes the best plans he can around what information she provides.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With Melissa. They both fight the Coalescence, but he understands that he may have to sacrifice the front line if that means protecting the rest of the world, and she tends to be on the front line.
Heather Shaker
- Cool Old Lady: Heather’s initial description is of a matronly grey-haired woman. As soon as they have cleared the hospital however, she lets her hair down, and introduces herself to Melissa.“There now. Plenty for them to gossip about for a while.” …she laughed at the look on my face. “My name is Heather Shaker.”
- Declaration of Protection: To David about Melissa in Never Let Me Leave. He feels the same way.“You realize that if something like that does happen, I’m coming after her.”“I’ll be right there with you.”
- Mama Bear: Heather understands she is working world-saving kids that have been through a lot, but she will still hold a gun on Thomas and David if she thinks they’re a danger to her kids.
- Parental Substitute: Becomes one to Melissa at the end of book one, and to Carrie and Adam between book two and book three.
Characters Introduced in Never Let Me Leave:
Carlita Lopez
- Genre Savvy: Carrie is the last one of the teenagers to show up after the lockdown starts because she was getting dressed, because naked girls die first.
- Immune to Mind Control: Carrie is immune to possession by the Coalescence, but Ian keeps her alive because he needs her to get out.
- Like Brother and Sister: She and Adam grew up together in the PAR lab after she was caught.
- Playful Hacker: Carrie enjoys the exercise of hacking into things and getting one over on the people testing her, but she's not really malicious, just curious.
Adam Erickson
- The Ace: Justified. Adam was genetically engineered to be perfect.
- Dude in Distress: Gets kidnapped in the third book and has to be rescued by his sisters.
- Immune to Mind Control: Adam is immune to possession by the Coalescence.
- Like Brother and Sister: He and Carrie grew up together in the PAR lab after she was caught.
- Meaningful Name: Discussed. He was named Adam because he is the first genetically crafted human, and Erikson after the man who created him.
- Parental Abandonment: By his creator when he was young.
- Pretty Boy: Apparently his cheekbones are to die for.
- Ship Tease: With Melissa in Never Let Me Leave. In Never Let Me Die, she refers to him and Carrie as her siblings, but the Coalescence believes that if it can take Adam, Melissa will rejoin willingly.
- The Shut-In: Adam, having been created as opposed to being born has spent his entire life in the Par Lab. He knows enough about the outside world to know that it’s terrifying, and he doesn’t want to leave his home.
Sean Macgreygor
- Action Survivor: Prior to coming to the Par Lab, Sean defeated the Nehrings off the coast of the Orcas Islands.
- Batter Up!: Sean favors a cricket bat.
- Claustrophobic: Semi-Discussed, as while it’s not put into context with his Claustrophobia, Melissa does point out that he spent several days trapped on a boat with nowhere to go while the Nehrings were attacking.
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: Somewhat understandable as Carrie and Adam only knew him for a couple of weeks and Melissa knew him for less than forty-eight hours.
- Immune to Mind Control: Sean is killed because he is immune to possession by the Coalescence.
- Sacrificial Lion: Sean’s death is the biggest clue that there’s still a bad guy around.
Ian Brown
- The Dragon: To the Coalescence.
- False Friend: To Carrie, Sean, and Melissa.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Tries to explain to Melissa how “Humans Are the Real Monsters”, and he just wants the Coalescence to Restart the World. She calls him on it.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Ian claims he wants the Coalescence to fix the world because Humans Are the Real Monsters.
- Walking Spoiler: It’s hard to be a Traitor To The Human Race and be spoiler free.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Ian fakes a twisted ankle as an excuse to not interact with the Coalescence.
Doctor Lakshmi Gowda
- Big Damn Heroes: She and Doctor Giacomi save Melissa from Forester.
- High-Voltage Death: Courtesy of the Coalescence after Doctor Giacomi stuns her.
- She Knows Too Much: The Coalescence may have killed her to keep her quiet, but given what Coalescence!Lakshmi says to Melissa in Never Let Me Die, it may also have been because she’d rather protect Adam than rejoin the Coalescence.
- Motherly Scientist: Not only is she a Parental Substitute to Adam, but when Doctor Dudetsky upsets the teenagers during one of the tests, she comes in to smooth things over.
- Parental Substitute: To Adam after Doctor Vandermeek left.
- Sacrificial Lion: Her death tells us that the Coalescence can and will kill people as it leaves them.
Doctor Aaron Dudetsky
- Asshole Victim: Ian tells Melissa that Dudetsky was killed specifically because he was an asshole.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Dudette
- Heroic Sacrifice: He dies pulling a You Shall Not Pass! on the Coalescence.
- Insufferable Genius: He’s a cold, vicious, narcissist, but he is a very skilled scientist or else he wouldn’t be at the PAR lab.
- Jerkass: He sees the teenagers as test subjects and gets vicious with anyone who doesn’t submit to his authority.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While he doesn’t seem to understand Sean’s Claustrophobia, he is right that the group shouldn’t spilt up.
Doctor Sadie Giacomi
- Apologetic Attacker: to Lakshmi before stunning her.
- Badass Bookworm: Out of all the Doctors, she is given the least characterization coming across as little more than a coolly observant psychiatrist. Then Lockdown starts, and she proceeds to be one of the bigger thorns in the Coalescence’s side.
- Big Damn Heroes: She and Lakshami save Melissa from Forester.
- Combat Medic: Although she is much less forth coming than David about where she got her skills.
- Good Is Not Nice: She murders Jolene Lake without any loss of sleep.
- Hidden Depths: While they are never truly explored, something somewhere has made her into a strategic fighter and given her “other resources”.
- The Shrink: She is an observant psychiatrist who is good at her job and appears to have multiple layers of Hidden Depths.
Jolene Lake
- Ambiguously Evil: Melissa and Doctor Giacomi seems to believe Jolene was a traitor but given that the Coalescence is a Puppeteer Parasite and Jolene has an internal defibrillator that keeps restarting her heart, it may well be that she is just another victim.
- Bystander Syndrome: When the teens are facing off against Doctor Dudetsky, Jolene stands idly by watching, until Doctor Dudetsky snaps at her.
- Disability Superpower: Jolene survives an attack from the Coalescence because of her internal defibrillator.
- High-Voltage Death: Doctor Giacomi murders her with a stun gun.
- Magical Defibrillator: Jolene has an internal defibrillator that restarts her heart.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Out of all the medical staff, Doctor Dudetsky, Doctor Lakshmi, Doctor Giacomi, Jolene gets the least amount of character development. Although it’s worth noting that when she's not with one of the doctors, she pretty much alternates between being unconscious, and being infected by the Coalescence.
Joe Chambers
- Personal Effects Reveal: When Melissa looks for his Key Card she finds a photo of woman holding a baby.
- Plot-Triggering Death: While the exact order of events is unknown, Joe Chamber is stabbed, initializes a Lockdown and pulls the plug on the computer to secure the Lockdown, rendering everyone incapable of escaping.
- Posthumous Character: His body is found by the teenagers and Doctor Dudetsky short after the Lockdown starts.
- Small Role, Big Impact: After being stabbed, Joe pulls the plug on computer system to start a Lockdown so the Coalescence can’t escape.
Patrick Forester
- We Hardly Knew Ye: He was possessed by the Coalescence near the beginning of the Lockdown, and dies less than two pages after his introduction.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Coalescence has him reveal himself to Melissa by attacking her, and then killed him with Doctor Lakshmi.
The Coalescence
- Glamour Failure: The sparks of electricity on its victims.
- Meaningful Name: Discussed. The Coalescence, it’s what they are, a Puppeteer Parasite Hive Mind.
- Puppeteer Parasite: How the Coalescence operates.
- Shock and Awe: The Coalescence uses electricity based attacks when it doesn’t have a host.