GTA V: I am slowly liking Trevor more and more

[Something Amyss]

micheal an trevor are 2 sides of the same coin, the only difference is that trevor accepts who he is and micheal hides behind the facade of his big house in the hills

But you see, that's what scares[footnote]slightly hyperbolic here, but it makes my point, I think[/footnote] me.

People identify Trevor as crazy, psychotic, and dangerous. They identify with Michael, who is (in your words) the other side of the same coin.

 

[shootthebandit]

micheal an trevor are 2 sides of the same coin, the only difference is that trevor accepts who he is and micheal hides behind the facade of his big house in the hills

But you see, that's what scares[footnote]slightly hyperbolic here, but it makes my point, I think[/footnote] me.

People identify Trevor as crazy, psychotic, and dangerous. They identify with Michael, who is (in your words) the other side of the same coin.

I was consolidating your point. Trevors redeeming quality is that he is a self-confessed sociopath, he doesnt make any excuses for himself whereas micheal uses ever excuse under the sun. Hes a bit like a racing driver if he makes a mistake he will blame anything else but himself.

If you are going to relate with anyone it should be franklin (if in doubt empathize with the black guy) joking aside franklin is the one stuck in a dead end job for a lousy boss getting paid very little for a lot of risk. He just wants to make something of himself and escape "the hood" which his friends and family keep trying to drag him back in to but the only way he knows to get out of it is through crime. Its kind of a vicious circle for franklin

another interesting point about franklin is that he is the most sensible and mature of the trio despite being vastly younger than the others

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Trevor is hilarious. Also he has morals, kinda. Like with that lady. With that guy he takes to airport. Like he has with Michael. An the mother.

No spoilers, but only those that played will know which may make others confused. Granted his morals only count when they effect him only as he is a sociopath. I think he is the most intriguing character.

 

[EHKOS]

I switched to him, he woke up lying on the retaining wall of a bridge completely drunk and wearing nothing but a pair of dirty underwear. I performed side quests and visited friends without changing for hours. I was actually pretty pissed when I did a mission and he put clothes on.

I love Trevor, best character hands down.

I switched to him and he was on top of a mountain out in Bufu Egypt wearing a dress.
Then later I switched to him again and he was in a cow pen with three cows and said "Where's my moocow." There was no question mark in the subtitles, and he said it like a statement.
Oh yeah, and the last time I switched to him, he was driving with a 2-star wanted level yelling "It was self-defense!"

OT: Trevor is awesome, and he has a part in the after game that's insanely emotional.
Also every car I customize for him has the Dukes of Hazzard horn sound. It makes driving like, ten times more awesome.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

think that scene was intended to spark controversy to show how people can be totally OK with killing hundreds or thousands of virtual people, running over pedestrians, stealing cars, ruining lives in numerous ways, but that people would most likely throw a fit over a torture scene.

People rooted for Jack Bauer when he did it in 24. Zero Dark Thirty was an award winning movie.quote]

The Jack Bauer thing was true. Jack gets tortured in every series, nobody says anything because its a bad guy doing it. As soon as Jack does it to find a bomb. People complain. So why is it seemingly ok for a bad guy to do it but not a good guy?

Anyway, i like how in the game he did the torture and then the aftermath played out. Tells alot about Trevor as a character, he may kill and cause harm but its never personal. Unless it is. If that makes sense.

 

[omega 616]

snip

Hey planned to kill the lost but the thing that kicked him off was the boyfriend of the girl he was doing, like with the rampages... One little thing, like his accent, kicks him off into a bloodthirsty rage.

He meets wades cousin by booting a door into his face he doesn't get a chance to know him, he meets people with just extreme aggression. His character is "what is the most violent way to deal with this situation?". Then what does he do when they stand up to Trevor? (can't do spoilers but you know)

He doesn't do anything to Franklin 'cos the story demands it... Like with the strangers and freaks, he goes into polite talking behind there backs.

I know why he puts them in the ice box but instead of "hey, hide here", he traps them.

Michael didn't get Brad killed! Brad got sniped by the guy at the farm, the farmer then shot Micheal. Trevor should blame Dave for the Brad thing, it was dates idea and was the one talking as Brad in the letters. I know why Trevor should feel betrayed but instead of flying off the handle once or twice, he goes on about it for ages.

Trevor does stuff to better his position but think of it like the heists, Micheal and Franklin go the smarter route but Trevor goes in guns blazing. The waking up in random places in weird dress is more irritating than entertaining 'cos you have to deal with the drunk controls.

As for anybody undervaluing any part of Trevor, are you joking? Have you read this thread? People love him and are making him out to be the best character in gaming at the moment

 

[Something Amyss]

If you are going to relate with anyone it should be franklin (if in doubt empathize with the black guy) joking aside franklin is the one stuck in a dead end job for a lousy boss getting paid very little for a lot of risk. He just wants to make something of himself and escape "the hood" which his friends and family keep trying to drag him back in to but the only way he knows to get out of it is through crime. Its kind of a vicious circle for franklin

another interesting point about franklin is that he is the most sensible and mature of the trio despite being vastly younger than the others

And Franklin's still not a great guy, but his position is definitely more relatable. Would I start a life of crime over it? Not really, but as far as relatability, the guy's got it leaps and bounds over the other two.

But I wonder what it says about gamers as a whole that so many find Michael so relatable.

 

[Compatriot Block]

If you are going to relate with anyone it should be franklin (if in doubt empathize with the black guy) joking aside franklin is the one stuck in a dead end job for a lousy boss getting paid very little for a lot of risk. He just wants to make something of himself and escape "the hood" which his friends and family keep trying to drag him back in to but the only way he knows to get out of it is through crime. Its kind of a vicious circle for franklin

another interesting point about franklin is that he is the most sensible and mature of the trio despite being vastly younger than the others

And Franklin's still not a great guy, but his position is definitely more relatable. Would I start a life of crime over it? Not really, but as far as relatability, the guy's got it leaps and bounds over the other two.

But I wonder what it says about gamers as a whole that so many find Michael so relatable.

Maybe because even though he lives a lazy life of comfort, he's deeply unhappy with both what he is accomplishing and some of his social relationships.

I can see a lot of gamers relating to those two ideas.

 

[Kenbo Slice]

The only thing wrong with Trevor is that they didn't get Walton Goggins to be his voice actor. That would've been the utterly perfect cherry on top of the cake of great writing.

Not that the actual voice actor isn't great, but all I can hear and see is Goggins whenever Trevor appears on screen. It's the same with how Michael is straight up Michael Madson. I can't not hear it.

Walter Goggins? I picture Bill Moseley myself.

OT: Trevor is the best character hands down, and for most of the same reasons stated above.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

Trevor is definitely the character I pilot when I want to cause mayhem and not feel guilty about it. The only real problem I had with GTA IV is that Niko was such a solid, well written character who truly seemed to WANT to be a good person, I felt guilty every time I accidentally ran over a pedestrian, let alone fired off an RPG in the middle of Times Square.

I'd feel the same way about Michael or Franklin - neither of them seem like they completely lack morals, just that they're not afraid to get their hands dirty.

Then you have Trevor... a man who understands that the world is a terrible place full of terrible people and refusing to become terrible only means you become the victim. I don't feel bad no matter WHAT I do as Trevor.

As far as the torture scene... I think there was a lot of subtext there, besides the blatantly obvious of course.

I think that scene was intended to spark controversy to show how people can be totally OK with killing hundreds or thousands of virtual people, running over pedestrians, stealing cars, ruining lives in numerous ways, but that people would most likely throw a fit over a torture scene.

People rooted for Jack Bauer when he did it in 24. Zero Dark Thirty was an award winning movie.

But in GTA V, it's wrong. Right? I think Rockstar knew the reaction they'd get... and they're just waiting for someone to point out the double standard.

This post right here makes me happy to know that people got what that scene was all about .

 

[MammothBlade]

So I'm not the only one who sees Trevor as a *good* guy. He only gives shit to those who deserve it, and he hates hypocrites as much as I do. He's deep down, honest and straightforward as you can get. Sure, the guy loves torture, but isn't that just plain fun?

 

[XMark]

I think the three characters of GTA 5 are kind of a commentary on the nature of previous GTA protagonists and how their actions are judged through both gameplay and storyline.

Michael is an ironic example of ludonarrative dissonance (hey, I love that term, don't judge me!) He's obviously showing a different side of himself in the cutscenes as compared to the gameplay, but the difference between him and, say, Niko Bellic, is that EVERYONE realizes that Michael is a murderous psychopath, but Michael is only partially aware of the fact himself. Franklin is kind of like your typical crime sandbox character who starts way at the bottom of the ladder and climbs up through the rankings, but the difference is that Franklin actually realizes how ridiculous everything is as it's happening.

So that leaves Trevor - Trevor IS the player. The player that Rockstar knows you're going to be - the guy that goes on rampages and police chases just for the fun of it. The guy who knows it's all just a game and goes nuts unapolagetically.

So basically:
Trevor/Franklin/Michael
=
Ludo/Narrative/Dissonance

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I think part of the appeal of the multi-protagonist mechanic is the fact that it enables Rockstar to appeal to differing fan bases at the same time.

Michael is the "Niko" of the game. He's lost in the American Dream and is trying to get a sense of connection, to make his privileged situation mean something. He's got the trappings of success, but not the feelings associated to it. He's yearning for closure in the same way Niko was yearning for closure.

Franklin is the requisite "CJ". A lot like Michael, he starts off as an ordinary guy who's forced to commit mildly unsavory things in order to survive and pay the bills. In his case, what starts as insurance scams ends as full-blown heists. He's pulled in the criminal underworld the very same way CJ is pulled back into crime after returning home from the East Coast. He's got aspirations of normalcy, but his thuggish roots are more obvious - just as they were with CJ.

Then you've got Trevor, the "Claude" expy. His cynical sociopathy and general psychopathy allows him to more or less hearken back to the days where GTA used to be about setting up crazy-insane set pieces and seeing what would stick. He's tailor-made for those instances where you might want to fly off the handle and ignore the plot for a while and just rack up an immense amount of police notoriety for shits and giggles. At the same time, he's rooted in GTA's more recent sense of satire, in that he revels in the hypocrisy of the game's vision of America or of Western civilization as a whole.

Trevor structurally operates like Claude, but there's some intellectualism to the proceedings, as opposed to the blank, Carte Blanche approach for GTA III's protagonist. Push a little more, and you veer into the territory occupied by Saints Row IV's Boss.

Snip!

Blast it! Ninja'd again!

 

[XMark]

Addendum to my last post... ending spoilers below:

Spoiler

It just occured to me that Franklin's choice at the end mirrors that of a game developer.

Do you sacrifice gameplay to serve the storyline? Do you sacrifice the storyline in service of the gameplay? Or do you take the hard route and try to find a way for them both to work together acceptably?

I totally get it now! Franklin is the game developer, Michael is the storyline, and Trevor is the player.

 

[Vic 2.0]

Trevor's both the worst protagonist and the worst idea in general in the GTA series.

And I don't just say that because I view him as a pathetic, amoral loser with no self-control (so he cannot possibly qualify as a badass, in my book), nor is it just because he's fugly! I can't stand him because I hate the idea that the protagonist's personality in cutscenes must match the typical GTA gamer's sporadically violent behavior (mowing down pedestrians on the sidewalk, shooting them down just for kicks, etc.) for the game to "make sense". There is a bit of that mindset going on with the other characters too, but the argument is primarily made to explain Trevor.

Not only is this an entirely made up out of the blue ideal in this genre and in the GTA series, but it seems as though Rockstar couldn't just make Trevor's personality adhere to this in-sandbox behavior on the part of the player; they also had to make it so the player's in-sandbox behavior adhered to the protagonists' personalities. Two examples of that being the fact that what radio stations you can listen to depend in part on whether you're playing as Trevor, and the fact that (according to gameinformer), they chose not to put dating in GTA 5 specifically because of "the nature of the characters".

F*** "the nature of the characters"! I AM the character when we're in the open world in between missions! If I wanna listen to the rap station while playing as Trevor, I should be able to! If I wanna date, I should be able to do that also. Nothing is worth taking away the player's freedom while just roaming about. Nothing. If a particular character seems to demand that the player isn't allowed to do x, that character needs to be changed or removed. Rockstar owes a lot to the concept of freedom in the open world (namely the success of the entire GTA series). For them to turn their back on it now is truly despicable.

/rant.

 

[Tom_green_day]

I liked the characters. Franklin was obviously the player surrogate, without much of a personality save the fact he's trying to stay anchored the the ground as the rest of the world tries blowing him away.
Michael is someone who's anchored to the ground as time tries to change everything around him and he hasn't got used to that fact yet, he isn't sure if he should deal with it or do something about it.
Trevor is someone who's dealing with the trouble of change by attacking it. A good attack is the best defence. I thought the way they played his insanity was good, not doing the JRPG thing of 'oh so quirky and cool' but he's grounded and has got a real element of humanity that's been corrupted instead of just 'crazy!'
I love the game because it's British people taking the piss out of Americans, but most of the American audience don't realise some of the more subtle jokes and insults.

 

[omega 616]

I think I am in the very small minority that isn't that fond of him. I by no means hate him but I think he by far the weakest one.

It's like for every situation the writers all got that silly kind of drunk and wrote his scenes, "like, wouldn't it be funny if he was just banging a nasty looking slut, then the sluts BF walks in and stands up to Trevor but Trevor just stomps him?", "yeah, that sounds awesome!".

Everything is just so "hey, this is sooo wacky!" that I just find it dull, like watching the Marine 3 ... all the things to be considered wacky are there are they are just going through the motions.

 

[Alduin Silas]

Having finished the main story thread, I really haven't shifted my original position on any of the characters. Michael remains my favourite by far, very much the Atoner and definitely the most relatable to my way of gameplay. Franklin, well, he's got a cool head to him and remains one of the most diplomatic, what with all his rationality and logic(No examples, some people haven't gotten as far as me). Trevor I will desperately try to avoid playing as unless completely necessary. There's nothing about him that I like personality wise. From the start with his violence and abuse to other characters, I knew I wasn't going to like him. He's about as morally bankrupt as a lawyer.

Addendum: If you're the kind of person who likes causing chaos and doing crazy stuff in GTA, by all means go nuts with him. I'm not saying he's a bad player character in the sense he's not fleshed out, because he's got a lot to him, I'm just saying he does not gel with me.

Karmic rebalancing: Finding an Infernus driving down the street after going past THREE I couldn't touch during a truck mission. Guess who unlocked the Los Santos Customs achievement sinking 100k into modding it up?