Strengths and weakness in each tig-tgg charecters
Avery
Strengths : she has a good balance between logic and emotions, her arc wasn't reduced to the love triangle and she still feels like she has an identity outside of her romantic relationships.
Weakest: she's extremely, extremely safe, it feels like JLB was trying her hardest to make sure Avery could do no wrong but that ends up hurting her characterization because she rarely makes genuinely questionable choices or creates meaningful consequences. Unfortunately, that makes her pretty forgettable when she's not being mentioned.
Jameson
Strengths : He has a nice storyline and an interesting foundation as a character.
Weakest: He went from having his own personality, trauma, and struggles to essentially having his personality become "Avery's boyfriend'' there's barely any meaningful character development, he got POV for two books and I'm still looking for that character development.
Grayson
Strengths : hands down one of JLB's most individualistic characters, he has his own personality, trauma, motivations and emotional struggles, he actually feels like a character who exists independently of everyone else.
Weakest: he's the series punching bag, so much of the emotional weight gets dumped onto Grayson that he ends up carrying the emotional burden of the entire series. Ironically this makes him overshadow the rest of the characters.
Nash
Strengths : unfortunately I don't really have one.
Weakest: he feels like a background character, that's why it's difficult to give him a genuine strength, there simply isn't enough characterization there to work with.
Xander
Strengths : he's extremely helpful but more importantly, he has his own struggles that could have been explored much more, especially his experiences with racism.
Weakest: he got SIDED, the narrative had interesting material for him but barely gave it the attention it deserved and his only significant struggle seems to be racism, which is frustrating because POC characters should be allowed to have problems, flaws, ambitions, insecurities and conflicts that aren't exclusively connected to their race.
I'm so DONE of white authors reducing POC characters struggles to "they experience racism" and treating that as sufficient characterization, racism can absolutely be an important part of a character's experience but it shouldn't become their entire identity or the only meaningful conflict they're allowed to have. Xander had the potential to be much more than that.
Libby
Strengths : her backstory works really well with her characterization, she's a victim of parental abuse and domestic violence but she's not written as a perfect victim, her emotions and actions contradict each other which makes her feel much more human.
Weakest: her story should have highlighted her backstory much more, unfortunately so much of her characterization eventually gets reduced to her romance with Nash instead of exploring what made her who she is in the first place.
Alisa
Strengths : she has a genuinely good backstory, she's a girl who was essentially stripped of her own identity and molded into something she wasn't, there's a LOT of potential in that.
Weakest: her backstory isn't explored nearly enough, her presence gets reduced to Nash and the narrative gives importance and power to other characters when Alisa is the one who was holding the power and doing the job..... in short, she's underappreciated by the narrative.
Lyra
Strengths : she has good characteristics, she's emotional, intuitive and her initial storyline is interesting.
Weakest: JLB seems to struggle with writing her because Lyra doesn't fit the FMC archetype Jen usually writes, her characteristics don't naturally fit the way Jennifer approaches her female protagonists, and instead of leaning into that difference, the narrative seems to reduce her storyline, eventually, her story becomes largely about her romance with Grayson, when she had the potential to be much more than that and her plot unfortunately got...... I don't know what to say, wasted potential.
Gigi
Strengths : she's a strong character and surprisingly self reflective.
Weakest: lazy writing, she doesn't really have a substantial storyline, she has the personality to be interesting but the narrative doesn't give her enough of a plot to actually do anything with it.
Rohan
Strengths : probably one of the most interesting characters in the series, he has this great combination of chaos and order, which gives him a very distinctive personality.
Weakest: and once again, his storyline gets reduced to romance.... seriously what's wrong with JLB and reducing everything to romance lately ? Rohan had enough characterization to carry a storyline of his own but the narrative chooses to center him around a romantic relationship instead.
Savannah
Strengths : rage, her anger gives her presence and makes her feel more emotionally charged than some of the other characters.
Weakest: she falls into the stereotypical girl boss archetype, instead of developing that anger into an actual character arc or giving her a meaningful storyline, the narrative eventually leaves her with almost no plot at all, her characterization had potential but her plot became basically nonexistent.
Eve
Strengths : she has almost no narrative protection, which makes her one of the freest and most human characters in the series, she's morally gray, flawed, unpredictable and actually has an impact on the story.
Weakest: the narrative eventually reduces her to a villain which feels incredibly lazy considering she's much more an antihero, her arc shouldn't be about simply deciding whether Eve is "good" or "bad'' she's an antihero, and yes we said she's a well written character but where is her actual story?
Slate
Strengths : his mysterious and aloof personality, there's something inherently intriguing about him, and his relationship with Eve was... Let's say the best duo, it had a dynamic that could've been explored much more.
Weakness: WASTED POTENTIAL. That's genuinely the biggest problem with him, the narrative barely does anything with that potential.
Toby
Strengths : he's difficult to form a simple opinion about, which is interesting in itself, he has a good backstory and genuinely questionable aspects to his character.
Weakest: his entire story and arc eventually become about romance specifically his undying love for Hannah, despite having a solid backstory and an interesting foundation, he gets reduced to his relationship, he's also heavily protected by the narrative and unlike Avery, Toby actually does questionable things, so the constant justifications for his behavior sometimes go way too far, the narrative seems determined to make sure everyone understands why Toby should still be loved, regardless of what he does. Eventually he gets milked so much that he becomes boring and outside of Hannah it feels like he barely has a personality.
Hannah
Strengths : her family lore is genuinely interesting and gives her character a fascinating background.
Weakest: unfortunately her family lore ends up overshadowing Hannah herself, she's difficult to read not because she's inherently complicated but because it's hard to understand who she is outside of the mythology surrounding her, then she gets reduced to the ultimate dead wife and like Toby she gets milked for the emotional impact of her romance rather than being allowed to exist as a complete character in her own right.
Tobias
Strengths : he haunts the narrative in a genuinely unique way, he's morally gray and his presence continues to affect the story even when he's not directly involved.
Weakest: honestly I struggle to find one, if anything, I think the narrative is sometimes afraid to fully acknowledge Tobias as a villain, it wants to preserve his moral complexity, which is fine but sometimes it feels like it's unwilling to actually confront what his actions make him, still, compared to most of the characters, his moral ambiguity is one of the things that actually works.
Nora
SHE CAN STEP ON ME, RUIN ME, BOMB ME AND I'LL THANK HER 🤭😝😝😝
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