i don't have the energy to add picture evidence on this post so this will mostly just be a ramble! also not proofreading and i just got done an overnight so idk if it'll be entirely coherent.
sandy as a character comes off very... bland, if you aren't paying attention. her insecurities and issues are subtle. so i feel like she tends to be whittled down to just her role in the comic, when there's actually been a lot of insight into her character. "eternal flame" was definitely what tied it all together, and it is also the chapter that has made me love her.
sandy has a lot of expectations on her shoulders. from her mother, her peers, her work, her schooling, maybe most importantly herself. she conducts herself in a very specific way and holds morals that seem naive or immature, but that's a very no-nuance way of describing sandy. she, of course, IS naive. she is immature. she lives in a "me me me" world, her actions are driven by what i percieve as a need to be self serving. it has to go sandy's way. she has to be the one on top. so, in a sense, she is incredibly selfish too.
from my understanding, this selfishness is actually a coverup for a deeply, deeply insecure and identity-less girl. she is a model before anything else, and judging by how the characters react to her beauty, i'm sure she is also beautiful before she is a person. her appearance and how she conducts herself are very important, she cannot slack on these things. it's her main focus to the point where she does not have time for anything else, much less her own emotional needs.
she lashes out, in "to the top" and several times in "model girlfriend". when she lashes out, it's out of frustration, namely lacking skill or feeling inadequate. if she's so perfect, then why would those specific things be such a trigger? why does she get so upset in situations where she isn't good at something?
because despite the confidence, despite the self-assured attitude she has, despite how much she loves her job, sandy has a deep-rooted fear that's extended and only possibly grown since childhood that she is not good enough. she sees herself as someone who doesn't do enough which extends to the belief that she is a bad person, as she hinted at in "witch hunt" and (in the case of her being a bad person) said in "eternal flame". sandy isn't selfish because she's entitled, she's selfish as a defense for how insecure she is. imo she has everything but feels like she herself is nothing.
I feel the reason that fans tend to look at Sandy mostly by her role in the comic is because that’s how she’s characterized; she’s mostly a vehicle for other character’s arcs. It’s not that she’s poorly characterized, it’s a matter of perspective; there just isn’t a lot of focus on how she feels versus how she makes other characters, especially Mike, feel. So her characterization tends to come from audience speculation.
Despite it’s nature as a “day in the life” story for Sandy, what always struck me about “To the Top” was how little I felt I actually learned about Sandy. The biggest revelation about her in that chapter seemed to be that there is no big revelation. She’s clearly upset about something in the chapter, but the reason she’s upset? That’s a question for audience speculation. Contrast that with Mike or Lucy or Paulo or whoever, where in any given chapter you can get a pretty clear idea why they’re upset, what their motivations are, etc.
This isn’t a flaw, in fact it’s probably a deliberate writing choice. Because not knowing what’s going on in Sandy’s head apart from guesswork helps us get into the headset of Mike, who has no idea what’s going on in Sandy’s head apart from guesswork, because sometimes getting into a character’s head is also about what they don’t know instead of just what they do know. That’s pretty much the entire point of “Model Girlfriend”: Even when Sandy’s there, Mike is never completely sure where he stands with her, and we’re right there with him. This is also why she ends “Model Girlfriend” inexplicably breaking into tears and telling Mike that “he’s so nice” and why in her conversation with Mike in “Witch Hunt” she tells him that “she hasn’t been nice to him at all”, neither time giving us much indication as to why she did or said such things. To make it as much a mystery to us as it is to the audience.
And that’s why “Eternal Flame” feels like such a big deal to me in regards to Sandy’s character. It feels like the first time we’ve really had a clear picture in regards to Sandy’s character, what she wants, what she’s conflicted about, namely she’s attracted to someone else, but she already has a boyfriend and so she’s reluctant to act on those feelings or break-up with said boyfriend because she feels that would be wrong.
Now would I like for Sandy to get more characterization than this? On a subjective level, yes, if only for two reasons.
Sandy’s characterization in the love triangle between her Mike and Lucy is basically “has no idea she’s in a love triangle and barely knows the other girl exists”, which I feel is something different from other love triangles (I might be wrong), but in the context of the entire soap opera that is Mike and Lucy’s relationship I just kind of want to see her reaction to all of that, because I honestly feel that’s the most interesting thing you can do with Sandy. “Hey, Sandy, the boyfriend you’ve been neglecting almost drove someone to suicide!”.
And apart from that, I feel that this whole gag:
Mike/Character: Do you remember (this person/me)?
Sandy: . . .
Sandy: Who?
was never really all that funny to begin with, and I’ve only grown more tired of it.
But on an objective level, I don’t think the level of characterization she has is fine, for the reasons I’ve already given. So that’s my meta-analysis of Sandy’s character.
