Drew that thing I was thinking about- now, what is this about Mae and Gregg and Cold and Contrarian parallels? (Looking at you very politely)
Him melting aomsksjdxkdoke. so cute <3 Augh. Thank you so much for the contrahero, I’m love them T^T
Now– onto the Gregg&Mae and Contra&Cold parallels– *cracks knuckles* (warning: long ramble ahead)
The most obvious similarities is how dismissive all these characters are of danger and death. One of the first things Mae does when she comes back to town is climb to the wire lines so that she can go over a fence. And before that, she almost got crushed by some tree trunks and this is her reaction:
And on your first encounter (and Mae’s reencounter) with Gregg, those two easily fall back into a familiar bit: listing off horrible things that could’ve happened to the other one, seemingly trying to one-up each other in tragedy levels (that ‘too bad…’ game). To these two, danger, risk of death and injury, it’s all entertainment. Something fun to do with your closest friend. Each of Gregg’s hang out is a dangerous and illegal activity that Mae is happy to go along with (smashing lightbulbs with bats, firing a crossbow on a statue or birds, the knife fight, stealing an animatronic, etc, etc, etc).
Just from this, you can already see where the parallels start. Much like Mae and Gregg, Cold and Contrarian also don’t really care for danger, not really believing consequences are a thing, and going along with whatever would be the most fun.
There’s a very crucial difference though, and it’s that Mae and Gregg are actual people that grew up in a community full of other people; and I think looking into their character arcs more thoroughly could really help to see how Contra and Cold could develop in the real world, or even the kinda people they could be if they were always humans.
First, Gregg:
When you first meet him in Snack Falcon, he’s incredibly energetic and excited to see Mae, happy stimming, screaming, and immediately deciding they need to do a band practice. Those are the first things we learn about Gregg: energetic, impulsive, has a bit of a morbid humor, and really missed Mae. And after meeting with the rest of the band, Bea and Angus, he’s apparently the only one there who missed Mae; both Angus and Bea seem more bemused than enthusiastic, and Casey (someone both Mae and Gregg mention fondly) is nowhere to be found.
That immediately presents Gregg as Mae’s main support, besides her parents, back in Possum Springs, since everyone in town seems to dislike and distrust her for one thing or another she did in the past, but Gregg never seem to care. He’s on the same wavelength as Mae, and because of that, Mae thinks fondly of him. In the midst of all the mess that was dropping out of college and going back home, hanging out with Gregg, doing stupid and illegal shit is a reliable, and maybe even cathartic, source of comfort.
At least– that’s what Mae was hoping for. But Gregg is planning to move out with his boyfriend, Angus, sometime in the future.
And when you think about it– that’s perfectly fair. Gregg is a queer man, heavily implied to be neurodivergent (bipolar is mentioned at one point in the game), living in a conservative small town; of course he’d want to leave as soon as he could. And it’s not like it’s easy for him either, he knows what kind struggles they’ll run it, Possum Springs may suck, but it’s familiar and where everyone he knows is. But he HAS to go, it’s the only way he can grow. (Let’s shelf this for later for now).
And not only that, but much like Mae, Gregg’s also dealing with his own mental issues.
With some more prodding from Mae, we learn that Gregg and Angus have been arguing, and it’s really heaving on Gregg, making him feel like he’s not good enough. Paraphrasing his own words– “Maybe I’m inconsiderate. Maybe I’m not good. I’m just parking lot trash. I’ve known it all along; I’ve got no future if it was just me.”
And that’s what he’s scared of. Being with Angus gave him hope and a future to look forward to, when before, he was most likely just trudging along and whatever happens, happens, much like Mae is doing for the entire game. But now, he has a future, and someone he cares for. And he’s terrified of screwing it up, of losting the one thing, failing the one person he so badly wants to do right by (*gestures vaguely towards ContraHero*).
And Mae doesn’t really understand. She doesn’t know what it is like to have something to worry about, or a future to prepare for. She went to college, yes, but her heart was never in it, she only went along with what her parents wanted and as soon as it got too bad for her to handle, she dipped and went back to Possum Springs, where everythings more simple. Except, it isn’t anymore. Bea hates her, her parents are disappointed in hee, Gregg will be moving out soon, and everyone remembers what she did to that kid in the softball game.
Speaking of–
Let’s talk about Mae’s reputation in the town.
(sounds familiar........ 🤔)
We immediately catch up that Mae was a troublemaker in town by how everyone talks to her. Her aunt mall cop already sounds exhausted (if unsurprised) after seeing that Mae jumped over the fence instead of going the longer way around to the town’s entrance. Mae is known for stealing, vandalizing, causing trouble to the elders, and, more predominantly, of sending a kid to the hospital back in high school (where the ‘killer’ nickname came from). That last one is treated as one of the main mysteries from Mae’s past, together with the reason she dropped out of college. No one in town, and we, the player, really know why she did that, and Lori M (the rat girl up there^) mention their mothers warning kids to stay away from her in case she snaps again.
Mae, for the most part, acts unaffected by this, and seems to embrace her troublemaker status; in a confrontation with an old man that was directly affected by Mae’s behavior in the past, you have the option to double down and insult him back, basically confirming his statement about how Mae hasn’t changed, and is still just the same kid that’s always searching for trouble.
And, yeah, during the day, with other people around, Mae acts like it doesn’t affect her, says she enjoys being seen as a miscreant, and plays into what everyone expects of her. But alone? There’s this very poignant scene where Mae is standing in front of a mirror, preparing for a party, where all her insecurities and self-consciousness comes to light:
(note: the other option you can choose in the second pic is: “You don’t like people. Clearly.”)
We see that not only is Mae self-conscious about her appearance, she DOES care about what people think. She craves connection and a community, that’s why she came back to Possum Springs, but for some reason, it seems like she just can’t hold on to a relationship for long before fucking up.
She’s impulsive, doesn’t have much of a filter, and struggles to understand other people’s perspectives. We see that clearly with Bea. It was Bea’s dream to go to college, but because of personal issues, she can’t; and Mae, someone who GOT that chance, simply threw it all away and dismissed it as ‘college just wasn’t for me’ upon coming back, and expects everything to be as it always was.
Mae isn’t an understanding person. She tries, and she really wants to help the people around her, but she just isn’t very good at understanding people, and will often run her mouth at the worst moments. Bea’s hangouts has some of the best (or worst, ig) examples of that. I’m not gonna get too deep into what happens, but, uhm. It gets BAD, and those moments can make you really unsympathetic towards Mae; but you gotta respect this game for not pulling its punches when showing off its protagonist’s worst traits (and honestly, it made me love Mae all the more, she’s so beautifully flawed).
You can see the familiarities to Cold? Struggle with understanding others, impulsive decisions made with the main goal of entertaining yourself, no sense of danger, disregard of own life, no filter– the main difference is that Mae is much more emotional and prone to snapping, but I feel like their core struggles are very similar.
I could go more into how Mae’s derealization is also very similar to how Cold views the world, but while Cold embraces that feeling as a reason to why you can disregard pain and consequences, that thought terrifies Mae and the kind of person that makes her (it doesn’t make her a bad person, btw, she’s mentally ill and traumatized, but ‘bad person’ is what she internalizes after being told so for so long), but anyway aaaaaaaaahhhhhh this got so long and pretty rambly akaksjsmsjd)djsjdj. Hopefully it made sense though? This has been turning around in my head for days now, glad to finally put it out.
