There's screaming, but it's friendly screaming.

I should start this essay off by mentioning that journeys through the five stages aren’t linear for everyone. The path to recovery from grief is unique for everyone, and can bounce between the five stages at any time. Denial doesn’t always mean the beginning of grief, and Acceptance doesn’t always mean the end. But, for the sake of keeping this in order, I will go in the order of Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Which starts us off on our first character,

Sunny. While some people would argue that some of Basil’s dialogue implies he is Denial, (”When Mari fell... you... you couldn't have done it. It was something behind you... wasn't it? You're a good person, SUNNY. I know you're a good person! A good person wouldn't do something like that... ”) It should also be mentioned that this dialogue, found in the SUNNY ROUTE, came from a Basil that was intensely stressed and seriously in danger of committing suicide. Carrying this guilt for about four years, Basil has finally cracked and is having an intense breakdown, leading to these actions. Back on topic, Sunny refuses to move on from Mari’s death. Not only by creating WHITE SPACE, but by other destructive behaviors: Malnourishment, refusal to exit his home, refusal to enter any area that has anything that could remind him of Mari. He not only refuses to accept Mari’s death, he actively avoids anything that would remind him of her death. While Sunny also displays signs of coming into the bargaining and depression phases, he mostly stayed in denial the entire time, struggling time and time again to face the truth of Mari’s death due to the guilt that came with it. Moving on, we have...

Aubrey. This one feels fairly obvious, after all, Aubrey spends most of the time in the FARAWAY TOWN segments actively antagonizing Sunny, Kel, and Basil, but the more time we spend in the SUNNY ROUTE, we understand why. Aubrey’s inability to move on has manifested as an anger at the other four, who seemed to be able to let life go on in their own respective ways.(With the possible exception of Sunny, who became a recluse soon after.) After seeing what Basil did to the photo album, Aubrey’s rage reaches a breaking point. She pushes everyone away, unable to rationalize the other four dealing with their trauma in their own ways, and hides her true feelings for the others by hiding it with a veil of rage. Moving on to Bargaining, our good friend...

Basil. Basil is the most ambiguous out of all of of them, but I think he very much so is Bargaining for one simple reason. because of how he reasons Sunny accidentally killing Mari as “Something behind him,” and how he tries deflecting blame away from Sunny. Basil doesn’t want to admit Sunny’s- and his- role in Mari’s death and the subsequent framing as a suicide, so he bargains with his grief by manifesting it as SOMETHING. He refuses to accept it because he doesn’t want to hurt Sunny. Much like Sunny himself, Basil is afraid that the other three will judge them for what happened and hate them forever. He only really moves forward in SECRET ENDING, where Sunny helps him let go of SOMETHING. I feel like this is about all I have for this segment, so moving on to Depression...

Hero. We know from a conversation with Kel that following Mari’s death, Hero “stopped caring about everything. He didn’t want to get out of bed for school or even eat… he stopped taking care of himself, stopped baking and cooking.” Hero lost something he loved dearly, and it hit him harder than anything he ever had to deal with. Especially as Hero believed that she killed herself, it hurt him more as he thought she didn’t trust him enough to confide her problems to him. This even led to Hero snapping at Kel as Kel was trying to help him through the grief. This violent reaction then led to Kel crying, snapping Hero out of his anger and his deep depression. According to Kel, Hero began to improve afterwards, he became far more reserved than he used to, and he still no longer cooks. The memory of Mari wanting him to become a professional chef hurts too much. We’ve reached the last stage of grief, Acceptance...

Kel. Kel has been mentioned by Hero and Aubrey both as the person who outwardly began to recover first. He joined into extracurriculars and sports, and made friends, but clearly, it’s still hit Kel hard. His hair has grown out, and he admits that the reason it didn’t immediately affect him was because he was so young and didn’t understand what was happening. Kel ended up becoming just as damaged, as he watched all his friends fall apart in their own ways. He became a surrogate to Mari’s old role in the group: a force of positivity to keep the group from falling apart. In my opinion, Kel is the reason everyone was reunited at the end.