YMMV / Love, Sam

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Did Brian truly love Sam, as the journal outright says, or was Kyle right about Brian simply amusing himself with a naive girl who went along with whatever he did? For good measure, no mention is ever made about Brian's reaction to Sam's death, making it seem like he saw her as easily replaceable. However, since the journal is written from Kyle's perspective, it's likely that Brian did have a heart-wrenched reaction to her death, but Kyle simply did not want to acknowledge any strong feelings that his crush had for another person.
• Moral Event Horizon: Kyle crosses it when he kills Sam (even if it was an accident) simply for being "in the way" of his affection for her boyfriend, Brian. He goes even further by stealing Sam's bag to destroy evidence while she was dying from her wounds.
• Player Punch: Discovering that Sam was innocent all along, who ends up being murdered by Kyle, the real monster of the story.
• Spiritual Successor: Interestingly to Dear Mariko, with The Reveal being a I Am Not Shazam coming in play.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The more you play the game and learn more about the characters in the story, the less you feel any sympathy towards anybody excluding Sam and perhaps Brian.
• The Woobie: Even before the game, Sam's father was outed as a child molester. So not only does she have to deal with losing her father and realizing he's a monster, but the bullying from her classmates (some of which include "kill yourself") gets so bad she has to move. And when she gets there, she gets her hopes up when she befriends a perfect boy who understands her, only for her whole life to be ruined once more by a crazy, jealous stalker. Then, after psychologically ruining her, the stalker kills her by breaking her neck and letting her choke on her own blood while he steals her bag to destroys evidence of his involvement of her murder.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • While Kyle is a self-loathing closeted gay guy in love with a straight man who is about to move away, and the haunting of Sam's ghost is implied to be a manifestation of his guilt of killing her, it doesn't change the fact that he murdered an innocent girl for the crime of being the girlfriend of his crush. In his "Confession" ending, his line "It won't fix what I've done, but at least I finally got the closure I deserve" would only make Kyle appear more self-absorbed and make his supposed guilt in Sam's murder ring hollow.
  • Stacy as well for assisting Kyle in ruining Sam's life only to later turn on Kyle and ruin his life too (he deserved it but still). She receives no punishment for her part of Sam's despair and eventual murder and gets away with it.

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