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The only one who's nice from the get go (without even reputation) is Jezzy. Maybe Manny a bit.
Also, you gotta remember that these are anti-social bikers and ex-soldiers with PTSD.
I think you nailed it. He's broken and detached ... because he knows anyone or anything he gets too close to will be destroyed.
He's a guilt-ridden, violent drifter who mumbles to himself because he is so mentally isolated. He's not supposed to be like that chick from Horizon Zero Dawn. He's not an inspiring, empowering hero.
It gets better.
It isn't in the slightest bit surprising that he isn't the, 'life and soul of the party', type of guy that everyone loves. Would you be?
Then Boozer, and Deacon, have been surviving in a post apocalyptic hell for 2 years, and that's where the game starts. Almost straight away, you learn how much they can rely on their nearest 'friends'. Ie, they'll take your bike, strip it and sell the parts, as salvage. Even though they know it's your bike, how much it means to you, and how much you'll need it.
You can make any argument or read too much into the game to justify characters' personalities if you enjoyed the game. It's PTSD, or it's because they're veterans, it's the zombie apocalypse that made them that way... But I think we agree that they're mostly a-holes, right? I'd go as far as to say that they're flat out unlikeable and poorly written but I understand why nobody who likes the game would agree on this.
Now, examples of bitter/mean/broken people who are very likeable and very well written without needing to be like any of the DG characters is portrayed:
- Tom Cruise in Collateral. He's a professional assassin. He has seen a lot of people die. He's portrayed as a person almost completely disconnected from human emotions except when he needs to manipulate somebody. But he has great introspection, he's arguably more liked than Jamie Fox's character even if he's kinder and the hero of the movie. That's because he's not needlessly mean, he has charisma.
- Denzel Washington in The Manchurian Candidate. A character with ACTUAL and explicitly mentioned PTSD. Not only that, he's been brainwashed and traumatized beyond what most humans would handle. He's very likeable. Again, he's not unnecessarily an a-hole and only goes awry when he has to. Great character, great dialogs, great backstory to present you the struggles of the character.
- Fairuza Balk in The Craft. She's the antagonist of the story and I'm sure most people liked her more than the protagonist. She's a troubled teenager and, even if she's an a-hole to people too, she's very well written and consistent. She's rude but to the audience she's likeable and maybe, to a point, relatable (in the sense that her character feels organic, not in the sense that people would want to summon a divine entity to kill their exes).
You don't have that level of writing in DG because it's a formulaic game that takes notes from formulaic Tv Shows to stretch the story. Deacon in particular is very inconsistent and nonsensical.
And there's two strong examples for this:
- He doesn't shoot unarmed women. Why? This is not explained in the game, the character himself doesn't know how to respond when confronted with the absurdity of this behaviour. And you're presented with this trait when a woman, who's been trying to kill Deacon 2 minutes ago, runs out of bullets. "Ah! Haha! Now I can't kill you, you see?" and lets her go even though she was hanging with a gang of murderers and thieves and a lot of things he himself mutters while wiping them out.
- When he meets Sara, finally, he acts like a total a-hole. He's cold, mean, spiteful... She's the same way. There's also a lot of secretism for no reason. Why hide that you're looking for her? This is never explained (well, a bit later you can figure but that's not very well conveyed to the player). You just have to assume that you have to be quiet about it. But both just act really weird. Like he thought he lost the love of his life, now she's alive after mourning her for so long and then acts like that? And her too?
That's just some things I happen to remember from the story but there's plenty of things that threw me off. I understand that for people who liked the game there's explanations for everything, like I mentioned earlier, but I think there's better ways to write characters even if you want to make them rude or broken.
I agree with you on the whole, they aren't nice characters. But I don't see Deacon as inconsistent. His 'Code' about not shooting unarmed women, I'd assume there is more to this code than that, is probably a throwback to his time in the army. The Geneva Convention forbids the killing of unarmed civilians. If you are about to be deployed into an armed conflict, the Geneva Convention is drilled into you. Deacon takes it to extremes. But the woman who was trying to kill him 5 minutes ago has run out of bullets, she didn't pick up something else and try to kill him with that, he would have struck back and killed her without troubling his conscience or code if she had. She has therefore transitioned to an unarmed civilian. His code says he has to let her go. He can't take her prisoner and take her away, he can't tie her up and leave her, what else can he do?
Your spoiler has been redacted, or you redacted it. So I'll try not to present any more spoilers.
Deacon already knows there is something very wrong, so hides the reason he's come South. At the initial meeting, he's about to react as you'd expect, but checks himself when he doesn't see the reaction he'd expect. He doesn't see that reaction because that reaction is also almost immediately covered up too. He knows army rules, The Colonels rules are known also, and what could be the outcome. So he covers himself up with what you see. They both act in an odd way, because you can't show favouritism, so they are putting on an act. It's not easy being an actor when your life can depend on it. They both know it's an act. She already has a reputation, as The Witch Of Witch Mountain, and has fallen back on that act. They do that mission together, their first safely private moment together, then go straight back into the act after it.
I've been a biker for over 40 years, not in an MC. I read, a lot, so I pick-up a lot, especially in things I'm interested in, like bikes and bikers. I was a British soldier for 12 years, from 79 to 91. What we were, was the first line of defence against an invasion of the West, by Russian Forces. We were told that if the Russians came, we couldn't expect to survive 24 hours. We had to just do our best to slow them down. That was it. We didn't expect them to come at any second, there would probably be some warning. On top of that, we had the conflict in Ireland, which wasn't entirely kept in Ireland. The German wife of a British soldier was killed, in Germany, by an IRA bomb planted in their car. So our partners and children were also put at direct risk, by us being soldiers. We know it was the IRA, they said so, and there was an established protocol for proof.
I've also been a truck driver for over 30 years, both UK and European work. I've met A LOT of people. I've met all the characters you meet in this game, some of them have been even worse. Mostly I've only met them once, for a short time. Some I've met several times, they get better as you get to know them, usually. A few I've even worked for, but not for long.
I'm old, I've done stuff, and I know stuff. I'm still here, I'm still smiling
Regarding the code, I can understand the unarmed civilian stuff but the thing is... At the very beginning of the game you kill an unarmed civilian (as Deacon I mean). Yeah he shot your friend, your bike and yourself but you had him cornered and disarmed. Yet you literally executed the guy.
Now, like I said earlier, you can read further into the game/story and excuse him because maybe it's some personal code, maybe it's because he thinks one might be Sara, whatever. But you yourself claim it as an assumption. In other words: it's not properly conveyed in the game. And thus it's incoherent, it's not solid ground to build the character. And the worst part is that they had hours of story telling to do so. Anything better than picking lavender by the river.
The whole military camp plot line feels very off. I understand it's not difficult to fill some gaps but if you don't have the will, because you haven't enjoyed the previous 50h-60h of story, you're not going to start now.
Also, the game does something which is implied time lapses. Basically, in gameplay terms, you just arrived to the camp but when you go out on your first mission (or one of the firsts) the person you're rescuing (who if I'm not mistaken was missing before your arrival) recognizes you and calls you by either your fake name or your rank (I don't remember) as if you knew each other for a while. You as a player has no connection to that character but the game stablished it for you off screen. Once again, no biggie if you're enjoying the game.
Regardless, that's just me. I don't have any specific beef with that particular character, all I'm saying is that the kind of a-holery of most of the characters in the game doesn't feel like it stems from an attempt to reflect the despair of a zombie apocalypse or the effects of PTSD or whatever it's just that I'm that part of the audience that can't find the characters compelling.
Everyone ... except Sarah (IMHO), in fact (spoiler alert):
1) The woman has tattooed arms, 1) The woman has tattooed arms, so she doesn't really look like an upper-class lady. This reduces the fact that theirs is a completely "crazy" love that breaks down social barriers.
2) When Deacon meets her on Wizad Island, Sarah's goddess isn't justified enough. She suddenly becomes obnoxious and that's it.
It was enough, for example, to say that in the meantime she had an abortion
However Day's gone remains a wonderful game that leaves something inside.
I was a soldier for quite a while, how soldiers think is a part of me. I've been a trucker for even longer, and met these types of characters in real life. I've been a biker for as long as both of these, and still am. I know how some people react to others they see as 'lower in the pecking order', than they are. Most people don't have a reaction to it at all, some people very much do. These are the characters you see in this game. It's a bit exaggerated, but not by much. And the a-holes I've met don't even have the 'excuse' of living through an apocalypse, it just comes naturally to them.
I'm, obviously, one of the people who has really enjoyed this game. I've made assumptions, based on my experiences and knowledge, about the characters in the game. Some are probably right, some are probably wrong. Does it matter? Not really, it's a game.
Spoilers ahead ... I think even those two points are pretty nit-picky, especially if you consider the whole plot. She indirectly caused the outbreak, so of course she is screwed up as a result. Guilt and trauma is a huge theme in this story. She should rightfully be borderline suidical, and she kind of does come across that way. Also, tattoos are incredibly common. Every sorority chick has one nowadays.
More spoilers ahead ... I agree, those two points are nit-picky. 1) When she meets Deacon, with her broken down car, I don't think she has any tattoos. But she falls for Deacon in a big way. Shes educated, in a responsible job, but she falls for a biker. She becomes a 'bikers chick', and biker chicks have tattoos. Even then, she has light, pale coloured ink, not the thick, strong lines of ink that most bikers tatts are. She can also cover them if she wants to. And besides, 'every sorority chick has (tattoos) nowadays'. 2) She was indirectly involved in the bio-engineering of the virus which 'killed' the World. She also expects Deacon, the love of her life, to be dead. She already has the reputation as 'The Witch of Wizard Mountain', so she doesn't suddenly become obnoxious, she's known for it. She also knows how the Colonel will react to 'fraternising'. Deacon is already suspicious of the south. Captain Kouri is wearing his custom made, one off ring, the one he gives to his wife. How did that come about? When they meet, he's ready to greet her as you might expect, but he's ready to follow her lead as well, because of his suspicions. She sees him, then we see her hesitate for a moment and fall back into her 'Witch' act. Deacon just plays along. That's the way I read it anyway.