my self-indulgent palace

isn’t perfect and does bad things because they’re human

internal issues which stop them from being themself, such as internalized transphobia and/or misogyny and/or etc

maintains a persona that you are meant to dissect as the audience

based on the trans author’s lived experiences

✅🎉 GOOD ✅🎉 trans representation :D

fully transitioned (what cis people expect)

always nice to everyone (we don’t want cis people to know we have emotions!!)

either no issues with being trans or mentions them like one time (explicitly diving into trans issues can make cis viewers uncomfortable :/)

And after all this, the light at the end of the tunnel? The glimmer of hope that shines through at last?

There is none. You're a dead man walking—Your time is limited by a stupid decision you made and now you know you're never going to see the mom and dad you love so much again. And even with what time you do have left, you're trapped in a Killing Game where everyone you cared for has died and you just don't get along with the group.

But here's the thing: You could go home to your Mom and Dad again. You could save your own skin and get the hell out of here. It would be so, so easy. Your death sentence is also your greatest weapon. You have a free kill, and once you use it, the crime will likely be impossible to trace back to you. The others will die and you'll get off scott-free.

Using it seems like the obvious option: All the people in here that you did strongly care about are gone, your family is outside and depending on you to come back and support them, and not doing this will quite literally mean your death. You'll be sacrificing yourself for people that have generally shunned you since the start.

But you—Damon—did not use it. He didn't take the free kill that could've gotten him out of the killing game even though it meant ending his own life.