freemind... He starts the series as a very abrasive but harmless guy. Only experience with guns being watching Top Gun repeatedly. People don't react to his threats, so he makes them often and they don't mean a thing. He's late to work very often. People act like he isn't very good at his job. He goofs off at work.
This character stays pretty consistent for the majority of the first half of the series. Until the chapter Apprehension ends, he takes a while to stop thinking about the fact that he's killing people and that this is the first time he's ever interacted with guns. He's hungry all the time. He considers curling up in a vent and waiting to die and only doesn't because being hungry would be worse.
Then the ambush happens and he goes through the following chapters not really remembering what happened to him, fully willing to kill anyone and everyone he meets the moment he realizes that's adjacent to what he was doing before the ambush, and he's unbothered by the idea of mass murder. Violence ceases to phase him at all.
He is also an incredibly silly person throughout and. Probably has echolalia. He makes goofy noises, meows, beeps (especially when something has just beeped at him), jumps for joy on two occasions, garbles words horribly, likes repeating words until they blend together and barely sound like the originals, that sort of thing. Interestingly, that takes place primarily before the ambush. He's still silly afterwards, but. Different.
He is also horribly /tired./ I can see, as the series goes on, him slipping up and making more stupid mistakes just because he isn't able to think straight. He almost walks into a tripmine because he hasn't slept in two-three days. The last time he was awake for four days in a row, he thought frog people were invading his house.
There's a lot to love about him. I think about him a lot these days.
I have personal ideas that line up with what you said about the echolalia and noises. One of the parts I'm focusing on is the Apprehension/post-Apprehension change, because it's so interesting, especially in ways of coping mechanisms. I have some of my own little theories I'm going to write about (such as- I think he's physically fit but also may have a physically disability/some type of chronic pain. Purely because of his eye loss and drug use history. It's in my brain all the time as a human with chronic pain, but cannon is sorta different, so we'll see if it comes up).
He's my choice because of how interesting and complex he is as a person. His family relationships, his reactions (lack-there-of), the pirate episode (so important), and speech patterns/ how he talks to/ about others. It's all so. . . In my mind. All day. Your notes specifically get him more in brain, because they're so good and helpful because I don't have to time to watch every episode again for this (but I'm watching it congruently).
This is such a good view overall. The hunger part is something I brought up in a short answer I wrote for this same class a week~ish ago. I get to go crazy and this just provides me more food-for-thought. Yaay thank you.
