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* HateSink: While there's a number of detestable people running Elan, Christy's cruelty gets a lot of attention. She's one of the heads of the house that Joe is in, and she directly causes much of the hardship that Joe endures, while characters like Cirri and other higher-ups are so far away that Joe only really understands the depths of their cruelty after the fact. Christy's actions are contrasted with Ron's -- Ron is a man who's much more directly vicious, but who Joe ends up [[EnemyMine befriending]]; and even though Joe still hates him, he admits that Ron shows him more respect than Christy ever did. It's ultimately Christy who extends Joe's stay at the school, which Ron objects to because Christy had became reliant Joe to do her dirty work. At the end of his time at Elan, Joe is allowed to invite staff members to speak at his graduation; he invites Ron, whilst Christy invites herself.
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* HateSink: While there's a number of detestable people running Elan, Christy's cruelty gets a lot of attention. She's one of the heads of the house that Joe is in, and she directly causes much of the hardship that Joe endures, while characters like Cirri and other higher-ups are so far away that Joe only really understands the depths of their cruelty after the fact. Christy's actions are contrasted with Ron's -- Ron is a man who's much more directly vicious, but who Joe ends up [[EnemyMine befriending]]; and even though Joe still hates him, he admits that Ron shows him more respect than Christy ever did. It's ultimately Christy who extends Joe's stay at the school, which Ron objects to because Christy had became reliant on Joe to do her dirty work. At the end of his time at Elan, Joe is allowed to invite staff members to speak at his graduation; he invites Ron, whilst Christy invites herself.
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* AssholeVictim: Downplayed; Joe says he feels bad for macing Peter, but he also says, "I'm not saying I'm glad it was him, just that I would have felt a lot worse doing it to most of the other kids that I was in the house with. Peter was cold, petty, manipulative, and a bully."
* PayEvilUntoEvil: Downplayed; Joe says he feels bad for macing Peter, but he also says, "I'm not saying I'm glad it was him, just that I would have felt a lot worse doing it to most of the other kids that I was in the house with. Peter was cold, petty, manipulative, and a bully."
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* AssholeVictim: A downplayed example. Darren had spent years bullying Joe before Elan, then gets decked by Joe after Joe's return. That said, the act of punching Darren [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone still gives Joe pause]].
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* PayEvilUntoEvil: A downplayed example. Darren had spent years bullying Joe before Elan, then gets decked by Joe after Joe's return. That said, the act of punching Darren [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone still gives Joe pause]].
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* TookALevelinBadass: Somewhat deconstructed. Before Elan, Joe was a quiet kid who avoided conflict, but still got bullied by Darren. After Elan, Joe stoically punches Darren for [[EnemyEatsYourLunch stealing the beer]] that Joe himself had stolen. It seems triumphant, but the act of doing so [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone horrifies]] Joe.
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* AssholeVictim: Downplayed; Joe says he feels bad for macing Peter, but he also says, "I'm not saying I'm glad it was him, just that I would have felt a lot worse doing it to most of the other kids that I was in the house with. Peter was cold, petty, manipulative, and a bully."
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* AssholeVictim: A downplayed example. Darren had spent years bullying Joe before Elan, then gets decked by Joe after Joe's return. That said, the act of punching Darren [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone still gives Joe pause]].
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P is one of the two best friends who Joe gets arrested with, prompting Joe being sent to Elan. Joe later reunites with him shortly after leaving Elan.
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P is one of the Joe's two childhood best friends from before Elan, who Joe gets was arrested with, prompting for drug trafficking the same time as Joe being sent -- the event which ultimately sends Joe to Elan. Joe later eventually reunites with him P shortly after leaving Elan.
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B is one of the two best friends who Joe gets arrested with, prompting Joe being sent to Elan. Joe later reunites with him while in college.
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B is one of the other of Joe's two childhood best friends from before Elan, who Joe gets was arrested with, prompting the same night as Joe being sent to Elan. and P. Joe later reunites with him B while in college.
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* RageBreakingPoint: Being shot down and hogtied for his role in the Elan 8 riot, and for getting Gina pregnant, sends John into a blind fury. John's rage is so intense that every high strength in the house is afraid to monitor him, let alone untie him.
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* CharacterNarrator: Averted since this is an {{autobiography}}. We never see the "modern day" Joe on screen (we just read his narration). Occasionally the narration will take the story into young Joe's head to show what his train of thought was at the time, but the young Joe depicted in the comic never breaks the fourth wall.
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* {{Narrator}}: In the [[{{autobiography}} autobiographical]] sense, in that present-day Joe is telling his story as it happened in the past.
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The main character of the comic. At age 16 he's sent to Elan School, where he is abused for three years, and spends the rest of his life dealing with the post-traumatic stress.
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The main character and narrator of the comic. At age 16 he's sent to Elan School, where he is abused for three years, and spends the rest of his life dealing with the post-traumatic stress.
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* GreaterScopeVillain: Cirri is this for most of the story, and Joe goes over why in Chapters 46 and 47. Cirri started out as a petty thug and addict, learned abusive "therapies" from the Synanon-inspired Daybreak Village in the Sixties, then founded Elan School based off of these "therapies." By the time of the story has spent over twenty years bilking parents and state governments out of millions while convincing them that problematic children ''need'' his school. He's so intimidating, and has so much clout, that a highway trooper turns a blind eye to Joe's second kidnapping upon hearing Cirri's name. That said, three weeks from graduation, Joe finally meets Cirri while doing manual labor on his estate, only to find that the man has dementia, is little more than an EmptyShell, and is very visibly sick -- although Joe grimly notes that Cirri is still surrounded by a very evil air.
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* EmptyShell: Three weeks from graduation, Joe finally meets Cirri while doing manual labor on his estate, only to find that the man has dementia and is very visibly sick -- although Joe grimly notes that Cirri is still surrounded by a very evil air.
* GreaterScopeVillain: Cirri is this for most of the story, and Joe goes over why in Chapters 46 and 47. Cirri started out as a petty thug and addict, learned abusive "therapies" from the Synanon-inspired Daybreak Village in the Sixties, then founded Elan School based off of these "therapies." By the time of the story has spent over twenty years bilking parents and state governments out of millions while convincing them that problematic children ''need'' his school. He's so intimidating, and has so much clout, that a highway trooper turns a blind eye to Joe's second kidnapping upon hearing Cirri's name. That said, three weeks from graduation, Joe finally meets Cirri while doing manual labor on his estate, only to find that the man has dementia, is little more than an EmptyShell, and is very visibly sick -- although Joe grimly notes that Cirri is still surrounded by a very evil air.
* GreaterScopeVillain: Cirri is this for most of the story, and Joe goes over why in Chapters 46 and 47. Cirri started out as a petty thug and addict, learned abusive "therapies" from the Synanon-inspired Daybreak Village in the Sixties, then founded Elan School based off of these "therapies." By the time of the story has spent over twenty years bilking parents and state governments out of millions while convincing them that problematic children ''need'' his school. He's so intimidating, and has so much clout, that a highway trooper turns a blind eye to Joe's second kidnapping upon hearing Cirri's name.
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* OneSteveLimit: {{Averted|Trope}}; this Gino is actually the second Gino named in the story. The first is a one-off minor character, one of the two goons that recaptures Joe.
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* OneSteveLimit: {{Averted|Trope}}; this Gino is actually the second Gino person named Gino who appears in the story. The first is a one-off minor character, one of the two goons that recaptures Joe.
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* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: When Joe's parents come to visit him in Elan, as soon as they leave the room, Ron makes some snide homophobic and sexist remarks about them.
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* RelationshipUpgrade: Eva's relationship with Joe goes from being drug buddies to sexual at some point in between Chapters 68 and 69.
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* InnocenceLost:Joe gets hauled to Elan at 16 and loses three years of his teenage life there; when he gets out at age 19, he realizes that [[StrangerInAFamiliarLand his friends have moved on with their lives normally]], and that he missed out on experiences -- like socializing or talking to girls -- that a normal teenager would've and should've experienced. It also causes him to lose faith in the United States justice system, as he comes to discover that it is ignorant of, complicit in, or powerless against the systems in place that allow hellholes like Elan to operate.
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* InnocenceLost:Joe InnocenceLost: Joe gets hauled to Elan at 16 and loses three years of his teenage life there; when he gets out at age 19, he realizes that [[StrangerInAFamiliarLand his friends have moved on with their lives normally]], and that he missed out on experiences -- like socializing or talking to girls -- that a normal teenager would've and should've experienced. It also causes him to lose faith in the United States justice system, as he comes to discover that it is ignorant of, complicit in, or powerless against the systems in place that allow hellholes like Elan to operate.
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* DrunkWithPower: Joe says that many of the Elan staff -- usually ex-students with no teaching or psychology certifications of any kind -- got off on abusing the inmates.
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* SadistTeacher: Joe says that many of the Elan staff -- usually ex-students with no teaching or psychology certifications of any kind -- got off on abusing the inmates.
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* CreepyBlueEyes: Gino is seen in Chapter 59 with blue eyes as he gives Joe "the weirdest fucking stare ever. It was...''unsettling''."
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* IcyBlueEyes: Gino is depicted with icy blue eyes; his moral ambiguity becomes a plot point several times during the story. Specifically, Gino is seen in Chapter 59 with blue eyes as he gives Joe "the weirdest fucking stare ever. It was...''[[CreepyBlueEyes unsettling]]''."
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* IcyBlueEyes: Gino is depicted with icy blue eyes; his moral ambiguity becomes a plot point several times during the story. Specifically, Gino is seen in Chapter 59 with blue eyes as he gives Joe "the weirdest fucking stare ever. It was...''[[CreepyBlueEyes unsettling]]''."
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* {{Bookworm}}: Books become a source of escape for Joe in Elan after he earns the privilege of getting to read books. The books he reads include ''Literature/IKnowWhyTheCagedBirdSings'', ''The Autobiography of UsefulNotes/MalcolmX'', ''Literature/TheDiaryOfAYoungGirl'', ''Literature/TuesdaysWithMorrie'', ''Literature/AngelasAshes'', ''Literature/InvisibleMan'', ''ComicBook/{{Maus}}'', and Elie Wiesel's trilogy of ''Literature/{{Night}}, ''Dawn'', and ''Day''.
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* {{Bookworm}}: Books become a source of escape for Joe in Elan after he earns the privilege of getting to read books. The books he reads include ''Literature/IKnowWhyTheCagedBirdSings'', ''The Autobiography of UsefulNotes/MalcolmX'', ''Literature/TheDiaryOfAYoungGirl'', ''Literature/TuesdaysWithMorrie'', ''Literature/AngelasAshes'', ''Literature/InvisibleMan'', ''ComicBook/{{Maus}}'', and Elie Wiesel's trilogy of ''Literature/{{Night}}, ''Literature/{{Night}}'', ''Dawn'', and ''Day''.
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* RememberTheNewGuy: Chapter 68 introduces Randall, a level-headed former Elan classmate of Joe's, who Joe regarded fondly while in Elan, but was never mentioned during the Elan chapters.
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* RememberTheNewGuy: Randall is first introduced in Chapter 68 introduces Randall, 68, and he's described as a level-headed former Elan classmate of Joe's, Joe's who Joe regarded fondly while in Elan, but was never mentioned during the Elan chapters.
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* IcyBlueEyes: Eva, a drug addict who Joe says initially started off "for sure just using me" and later sleeps around with other guys after telling Joe about her pregnancy, has icy blue eyes as well.
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* IcyBlueEyes: Eva, Eva is a drug addict who Joe says initially started off "for sure just using me" and later sleeps around with other guys after telling Joe about her pregnancy, has and is depicted with icy blue eyes as well.eyes.
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* OrphansOrdeal: Of the worst kind. Julian was given up for adoption as a baby, and spent his life as a ward of the state, constantly running away from abusive group homes and foster homes. As a last resort, he was sent to Elan School.
* TheRunaway: Julian was this before Elan, often running away from abusive situations. This is ultimately what gets him sent to Elan.
* TheRunaway: Julian was this before Elan, often running away from abusive situations. This is ultimately what gets him sent to Elan.
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Gino is a snarky teen from Staten Island, just a few months younger than Joe, who is first introduced in Chapter 54 as a new student. Shortly after the Elan 8 riot, Joe later makes friends with Gino, breaking one of Elan's cardinal rules about "contracts" between inmates.
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Gino is a snarky teen from Staten Island, just a few months younger than Joe, who is first introduced in Chapter 54 as a new student. Shortly after the Elan 8 riot, Joe later makes friends with Gino, breaking one of Elan's cardinal rules about "contracts" between inmates.
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* BecauseISaidSo: They refuse to explain themselves when Joe calls them out for leaving him at Elan School for 3 extra years after the drug trafficking charges were dropped, and for forcing him to stay there past his 18th birthday.
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* DoesntKnowTheirOwnChild: Their relationship with Joe gets strained by the drug trafficking charge, but their sending him to Elan School for three years -- combined with completely blowing off his pleas for help during the parental outing, his staph infection from Elan, and his Elan horror stories after the fact -- only widens this gap. It doesn't help that P, by comparison, very quickly picks up on the fact that something very ''wrong'' happened to Joe at Elan School.
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* GreaterScopeVillain: For most of the story, Elan's founder Jay Cirri, and Joe goes over why in Chapters 46 and 47. Cirri started out as a petty thug and addict, learned abusive "therapies" from the Synanon-inspired Daybreak Village in the Sixties, then founded Elan School based off of these "therapies." By the time of the story has spent over twenty years bilking parents and state governments out of millions while convincing them that problematic children ''need'' his school. He's so intimidating, and has so much clout, that a highway trooper turns a blind eye to Joe's second kidnapping upon hearing Cirri's name. That said, three weeks from graduation, Joe finally meets Cirri while doing manual labor on his estate, only to find that the man has dementia, is little more than an EmptyShell, and is very visibly sick -- although Joe grimly notes that Cirri is still surrounded by a very evil air.
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* GreaterScopeVillain: For Cirri is this for most of the story, Elan's founder Jay Cirri, and Joe goes over why in Chapters 46 and 47. Cirri started out as a petty thug and addict, learned abusive "therapies" from the Synanon-inspired Daybreak Village in the Sixties, then founded Elan School based off of these "therapies." By the time of the story has spent over twenty years bilking parents and state governments out of millions while convincing them that problematic children ''need'' his school. He's so intimidating, and has so much clout, that a highway trooper turns a blind eye to Joe's second kidnapping upon hearing Cirri's name. That said, three weeks from graduation, Joe finally meets Cirri while doing manual labor on his estate, only to find that the man has dementia, is little more than an EmptyShell, and is very visibly sick -- although Joe grimly notes that Cirri is still surrounded by a very evil air.
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* HigherUnderstandingThroughDrugs: The day before he moves out of their dorm, Ezra decides to try weed. He gets super high, then books it back to their dorm to write down all the ideas that are filling his head. He later tells Joe that he's not interested in using drugs again, saying that once was more than enough for him to reevaluate his life.
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* CoDragons: Senior directors Meredith, Caesar, and Larry, former Elan inmates who are second only to Jay Cirri.
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* CoDragons: Senior The three are senior directors Meredith, Caesar, and Larry, former at Elan inmates who are second only to Jay Cirri.
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* RememberTheNewGuy: In one of the last chapters before his "graduation," Joe talks briefly about some sadistic staff named Meredith, Caesar, and Larry, who'd apparently been around for a while.
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* RememberTheNewGuy: In one of the last chapters before his "graduation," "graduation" from Elan, Joe talks briefly about some sadistic staff named Meredith, Caesar, and Larry, these three, who'd apparently been around for a while.while but hadn't been mentioned in the story before then.
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* TheVietnamVet: He was drafted for UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar and saw horrible things during his time there.
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Three higher-ups at Elan, who Joe admits he's still terrified of to this day.
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Meredith, Caesar, and Larry are three high-ranking staff members at Elan, who Joe admits he's still terrified of to this day.
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Joe's cross-country running coach at Elan.
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Billy Crowe is Joe's cross-country running coach at Elan.
Billy Crowe is Joe's cross-country running coach at Elan.
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!!Joe
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!!The Nobody Family
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''Webcomic/JoeVsElanSchool'' has a large rotating cast of characters, who frequently come and go from Joe's life for various reasons. Because of this, expect '''MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD'''.
----
[[foldercontrol]]
!!Joe
[[folder:Joe Nobody]]
The main character of the comic. At age 16 he's sent to Elan School, where he is abused for three years, and spends the rest of his life dealing with the post-traumatic stress.
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* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: Joe notices the stigma of Elan has followed him when he's at a neighborhood get-together and several of the neighborhood fathers don't mask their quiet dislike for him. Also happens later on in college, where Joe's lack of social skills turn him into a pariah.
* AloneInACrowd: Joe at the end of Chapter 63, when he's at the party with his sister; he says that observing the other partygoers makes him feel like he's observing aliens. He makes small talk with a girl outside the party but doesn't hear anything she says; in a moment of bravado he excuses himself, goes inside, and immediately gets overwhelmed by everything going on. Then the Elan conditioning seeps into his brain and causes him to start judging the partygoers based on what Elan called "image."
* BadJobWorseUniform: As part of his initiation into Elan, and again after his first escape attempt, Joe is forced to wear yellow T-shirts and pink shorts.
* BecomingTheMask: Joe says in Chapter 57 that Elan has effectively institutionalized his mind and he's come to rely on their twisted moral compass. He says that the scariest part of his Elan experience was when he realized that wasn't that he was no longer pretending to be one of them -- "I ''was'' one of them."
* {{Bookworm}}: Books become a source of escape for Joe in Elan after he earns the privilege of getting to read books. The books he reads include ''Literature/IKnowWhyTheCagedBirdSings'', ''The Autobiography of UsefulNotes/MalcolmX'', ''Literature/TheDiaryOfAYoungGirl'', ''Literature/TuesdaysWithMorrie'', ''Literature/AngelasAshes'', ''Literature/InvisibleMan'', ''ComicBook/{{Maus}}'', and Elie Wiesel's trilogy of ''Literature/{{Night}}, ''Dawn'', and ''Day''.
* CallingTheOldManOut: Joe finally does this to his mother in Chapter 66 when she threatens him with an Elan support call; he yells at her and berates her Elan-style, but it doesn't work since to an outsider it sounds like nonsensical rantings (likely [[RefugeInAudacity by design]]).
* CannotTalkToWomen: Joe as of Chapter 64. He sees a girl his age at the library and realizes that his Elan conditioning is causing him to be scared of girls his age. As he says, "And really, I don't mean 'normal scared', I mean post-traumatic-stress-disorder, shaking, scared." This comes back to bite him two chapters later, where he horrifies a girl at his college with small talk about "the Ring."
* CassandraTruth: When Joe has his first outing with his parents and an Elan student named Peter (who is the "Support Person" there to monitor him), Joe steals his mom's pepper spray, sprays Peter, and then tries to tell his parents about the abuse. But they refuse to listen and only berate him for being "out of control."
* CigaretteOfAnxiety: As recounted in Chapter 66, Joe takes up chain smoking in college, and says that smoking is one of the things that helps bring him peace.
* CrazyJealousGuy: Joe to Eva, due to not having any sense of how adult relationships should work.
* DeliveryNotDesired: In Chapter 70, Joe takes to drafting letters to his parents about Elan, but never sends them. He does note that just simply writing them makes him feel a little better.
* DespairEventHorizon: Because of Elan's cruelty, Joe has to overcome Despair Event Horizons over and over and over and over and ''over'' again. He hits a major point of despair when he's recaptured and abused after his escape. He despairs yet again when his parents fully buy into Elan's lie that Joe needs to stay past age 18 to "complete" the program.
* DrunkDriver: Joe later becomes one in college. He admits that this is a terrible idea, though, and regrets doing it.
* DudeWheresMyReward: When Joe becomes a re-entry student, Elan gives him a part-time job doing manual labor around the campus, and tells him that they're putting his pay into a bank account. When he graduates, he doesn't get access to this account at all, if it even existed, meaning he essentially did unpaid labor for the school.
* FatalAttractor: Joe's narration lampshades this in Chapter 68 when he examines why he's so attracted to his drug-addicted college classmate Eva, saying that Elan's brainwashing may have subconsciously caused him to seek out {{Broken Bird}}s so he can [[ChronicHeroSyndrome "save" them]].
* GainingTheWillToKill:
** When Ron drags Gino in front of a general meeting to name other people's guilt, Joe readies himself to harm as many people as he can in case Gino names Joe. Gino names another kid instead and Joe gets a reprieve, but Joe notes how painful and horrifying it is that he even got to the point where he was willing to harm innocent people in order to turn himself into a liability for Elan.
** After Joe returns home, before he goes to bed each evening, he starts keeping a baseball bat within arm's reach, as well as a lighter and a can of hairspray. As he says, "I didn't want to burn someone to death, but murder was definitely on the table if anyone ever, EVER [[NeverGoingBackToPrison tried to take me against my will again]]."
* GoMadFromTheIsolation: Joe experiences this firsthand when he's forced into "the Corner," and he later watches it happen to other inmates as well. He notes that it's a torture he wouldn't wish on his worst enemy, including his torturers at Elan, and that it's much worse than standard solitary confinement because anyone put in "the Corner" isn't allowed to even move.
* HeroicBSOD:
** Joe's first experiences with Elan-induced PTSD occur when he's on the run in Brooklyn. He finds that he can't sit on the inside of a restaurant booth surrounded by people without panicking. He also has a panic attack when he's in the park and makes eye contact with a young person holding a clipboard like an Elan coordinator; the person turns out to be a volunteer taking names for a petition.
** Joe gets into a series of BSOD's after his recapture. He spends weeks in the corner, guarded by another Elan inmate, induces hallucinations through oxygen deprivation, and has a series of existential crises that cause him to go slowly mad. He also breaks down and blanks out on his 17th birthday, and receives heavy verbal abuse from Christy when he doesn't respond to her.
** After leaving Elan, Joe's sister takes him to a house party. Joe gets overwhelmed by the noise and the partygoers, and swiftly runs out of the house and hides behind a parked car for three hours.
* HotForTeacher: In Chapter 49, as he's being berated by a female staffer from Elan 7, Joe can't help but notice how sexy she is. His narration then concedes that it's such an odd thought to have, but it only happened because he was a hormonal teenager without free access to girls or any media in Elan, much less pornography.
* HiddenInPlainSight: Joe relies on this when he's laying low in New York City. Since the city is so big, he thinks that he'll be able to blend in with the crowd. It's then frighteningly subverted when Joe is recaptured on his second day in the city (and third day on the run). To this day he still doesn't know how this was even possible, although he speculates that a bounty was issued, and that Jay Cirri had enough connections to pull it off.
* HigherUnderstandingThroughDrugs: Joe drops acid in Chapter 67, and has revelations about life, death, and the relationships between life-defining moments and how daily decisions affect the course of one's life.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Joe describes himself as such in Chapter 58, although not proudly. During Ron's absence, Joe has fallen so far into BecomingTheMask that he's not only ruling Elan 8 with an iron fist, he's actively screwing over other kids in order to maintain his rank. He's doing this while concurrently befriending Gino, explaining that Gino's friendship is the only "real" thing in his life and it's like a drug, knowing full well that this kind of "contract" is explicitly against Elan's rules.
* ImproperlyParanoid: Joe after graduating from Elan. On his way home, he barricades his hotel room's door, and is extremely leery of a group of middle-aged adults in the hotel's breakfast area. After he gets home, he can't bring himself to go out, and he begins sleeping with the door locked, a desk in front of the door, and with improvised weapons within arm's reach. When he drums up enough courage to walk down the street one day, he gets extremely nervous about a van pulling up close to him; he nearly goes into fight-or-flight mode until it turns out to be his close friend Chloe from before Elan.
* INeedAFreakingDrink: Joe's frustration with his parents, combined with his frustration at the world's seeming indifference to the suffering and PTSD caused by Elan, leads Joe to steal a beer from a neighborhood party and buy a six pack from a convenience store.
* InnocenceLost:Joe gets hauled to Elan at 16 and loses three years of his teenage life there; when he gets out at age 19, he realizes that [[StrangerInAFamiliarLand his friends have moved on with their lives normally]], and that he missed out on experiences -- like socializing or talking to girls -- that a normal teenager would've and should've experienced. It also causes him to lose faith in the United States justice system, as he comes to discover that it is ignorant of, complicit in, or powerless against the systems in place that allow hellholes like Elan to operate.
* InterclassFriendship: Joe and his college friend Quiet Bill. Joe comes from an ostensibly middle class family in the American Midwest, and Bill is the son of a Los Angeles multi-millionaire. Joe finds out about Bill's background when he accompanies Bill on a trip to Los Angeles during Spring Break.
* LawOfInverseFertility: At the end of Chapter 69, Joe moves out of his freshman dorm and into a new apartment; it's essentially a slum, but to him it represents freedom. He's also fully expecting to break up with Eva since her hometown is four hours away. Then he learns from Eva that she's pregnant.
* LoveMakesYouDumb: Eva offers Joe a "private party" at her dorm; Joe is so infatuated with Eva that he gladly takes the 12 pills that she gives him to help him "party" (despite not knowing what they actually ''are''). What's worse, he gets in the car with her to drive around and smoke weed while waiting for the pills to kick in. He does have enough common sense to call off the "party," take her back to her dorm, and force himself to vomit up the pills, but then the next day he calls Eva back up to go out smoking weed again. Joe's narration doesn't hesitate to point out how stupid he's acting, and he says that episode would be typical of their relationship.
* MaddenIntoMisanthropy: Shortly after returning home, Joe gets overwhelmed by the other young people at a house party wearing flashy clothes and having a good time. His Elan conditioning causes him to start to judge and hate everyone there based on their "image", and he comes to the (incorrect) conclusion that inmates at Elan were much more "real" without "image." A chapter later, when P comes to visit and brings some marijuana, Joe gets internally furious when his Elan conditioning goes up against a seemingly carefree world.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: A downplayed example. After returning from Elan, Joe punches out his childhood bully Darren for stealing his beer and making fun of him. Joe describes it as a "humble-brag" since it only took one punch and [[AssholeVictim Darren arguably had it coming]], but Joe also immediately internalizes the effect this has on him personally.
-->'''Joe:''' ''[narrating]'' This moment really scared me...of ''myself''. I'd told myself to punch him if his lips touched the bottle, and that was it, it was programmed. Written in stone. Consequences be damned.
* NeverGoingBackToPrison: Or "Never Going Back to Elan School." This is what drives Joe's successful (but temporary) escape during his parental outing. After Joe "graduates," he sleeps with his door barricaded and with makeshift weapons within reach. When someone shows up banging on Joe's college dorm door while yelling about hauling Joe back to Maine, Joe grabs a baseball bat, asks his roommate Ezra to help him fight, and prepares to do battle. Elan's ''that'' bad.
* NoSocialSkills: This is presented almost to the point of [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruction]] after Joe leaves Elan.
** Joe has a nervous breakdown at the party his sister takes him to, which causes the party guests to laugh at him, and he finds that he's unable to talk to or be around girls his own age. His narration even explicitly mentions that Elan robbed him of "the most formative years of high school and relationships" and skewered anything he already knew.
** Further deconstructed during Joe’s college years; his idea of trying to connect with girls is to dump his trauma onto them and apply Elan’s lessons to them, leaving them utterly terrified and/or disgusted of him. The aggression he learned at Elan, coupled with his drug habits, makes him look like a violent jerk to the guys. Both of these facts together make almost ''nobody'' wanting anything to do with Joe, isolating Joe from anyone that could have helped him deal with his baggage.
* NotUsedToFreedom: After Joe is finally released, he spends most of his time in his room, partly because he's afraid of everything outside and partly because he's completely unused to deciding for himself what he wants to do.
* ProperlyParanoid: Joe learns to distrust any students that speak of rebellion. Peter showing up back in his life also raises his hackles, considering their bad blood when they last interacted.
* RomanAClef: Joe has changed all the names in the story, including his own.
* SayingTooMuch: In Chapter 66, Joe goes to a freshman mixer after going off to college. He's approached by a nice-looking girl who initiates small talk; without thinking Joe eventually spirals into a conversation about Elan and "the Ring." The girl is horrified by Joe, backs away carefully, and very pointedly rushes away from him whenever she sees him on campus afterward.
* StalkerWithACrush: Deconstructed. Joe is elated to hear about Eva's pregnancy, because his barometer for what constitutes a healthy relationship is so skewed, and he makes plans to get a ring and propose. She gradually starts ending his calls and getting harder for him to reach, so he presses on, and a couple of times drives four hours and parks outside her house.
* StepfordSmiler: Joe specifically mentions times where he'd be forced to give tours of Elan School to prospective parents, and pretend that Elan had "helped" him, and how guilty he felt about perpetuating the lie and causing further abuse, noting that it was done out of pure survival instinct.
* TheStoic: Joe learns how to be this while at Elan, as students are penalized for showing even a wisp of emotion.
* StrangerInAFamiliarLand: Joe returns home to find that all his friends got to finish high school and live their lives normally.
* ThenLetMeBeEvil: A downplayed and arguably deconstructed example. Right after returning from Elan, Joe finds pretty much no sympathy or comfort from his parents or law enforcement, so he starts smoking weed and [[INeedAFreakingDrink drinking]], because why not. Barely a year out of Elan and Joe has taken up [[CigaretteOfAnxiety chain smoking]], alcohol, drugs, and tattoos as coping mechanisms to deal with the social stigmas and PTSD he's enduring. Effectively, the abuse, indifference, and lack of sympathy has caused Joe to fully embrace self-destructive vices; Joe's narration even points out that a year earlier he ''never'' would have imagined himself going down this path.
* TooMuchInformation: PlayedForDrama. After Joe goes to college, his inability to talk to women leads to him talking about his time in Elan in great detail. This invariably freaks out the woman he’s talking to, and ultimately gets him labeled as a creepy lunatic pariah among the female campus.
* YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: Ron escorts Joe to Elan 7 and forces him to fight another student in "the Ring," and Joe not only does it, he detaches himself and flips into full survival mode. He then ''annihilates'' the poor kid, while feeling like he'd regained control over his life. Seeing a random girl's look of disapproval and pity snaps him out of his fervor. A day later, he's promoted to a "Coordinator" position at Elan, putting him in charge of other students, turning him into one of Ron's right-hand men and making his misery ''worse''.
[[/folder]]
!!The Nobody Family
[[folder:Joe's parents]]
Mr. and Mrs. Nobody, Joe's parents, who agree to send Joe to Elan School over a drug trafficking charge, then leave him there for three years after the state drops the charge.
----
* TheAtoner: Not during the story, but in a post on Patreon, Joe comments that as of March/April 2020, his mother finally apologized, implicitly for sending him to Elan and for not believing him when he told them what happened. However, this comes after 20+ years of disbelieving him and the mountains of evidence and testimony, during which Joe made several failed attempts to cut his parents out of his life entirely, and it's unclear even to Joe how much she believes of what everyone is saying. No mention is made of Joe's father apologizing or regretting anything, though.
* BegoneBribe: In Chapter 66, Joe's narration glumly says that his parents buy him a used car for college, "...surely as some kind of 'this will shut him up!' bribe."
* DisproportionateRetribution: It's ultimately played with; Joe admits that he probably ''did'' need some kind of intervention with structured therapy as a teen, but he didn't need or deserve anything close to Elan's abuse. What happens is that Joe's parents are completely ''beside'' themselves when the police catch Joe and his friends crossing state lines with marijuana, because they're concerned with what the neighbors think. They heavily berate him, then a social worker convinces them to send him to Elan in lieu of a supposedly assured prison sentence. Then, after his charges are dropped three months into his stay, they keep him there for an extra three years to punish and "reform" him further. Joe later confronts his parents about it:
-->'''Joe's Dad:''' Well, the charges were irrelevant.\\
'''Joe:''' [[BigWhat What]]? Dad?\\
'''Joe's Mom:''' Joe, you were out of control and everyone just agreed that since you were already at Elan getting help...actually, [[BecauseISaidSo we don't need to explain ourselves]]. Let the past be past.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Joe's parents thought sending him to Elan School would reform him and make him more docile; instead, it effectively [[InnocenceLost ends his childhood]], deprives him of a normal coming-of-age, causes emotional difficulties, and causes such severe PTSD that he gets heavy into drinking, drugs, and cigarettes to cope (the very things they were hoping to avoid).
* ItsAllAboutMe: After his and his friends' arrests, Joe's parents are more concerned with their own public images than even trying to get him a plea deal like his friends P and B got, or listening to stories of his abuses at the hands of Elan's staff; as it turns out, they're more than willing to keep Joe in Elan even after his charges are dropped because the criminal charges are utterly irrelevant to them. It's ''very'' telling that whenever Joe's parents berate him, they keep saying, "WHAT WILL THE NEIGHBORS THINK?"
* KnightTemplarParent: Joe's parents berate him, throw away his music, complain about what the neighbors will think, call him a disgrace, and say "IHaveNoSon". Then, after all that sturm-und-drang, they have him kidnapped and sent to Elan, and get talked into forcing him to stay at Elan past his 18th birthday lest he be formally abandoned and disowned. Then after Joe leaves Elan, he finds out that drug trafficking charges were dropped only ''three months'' into his Elan stay, meaning that his parents kept him there for three extra years to punish him further. And THEN they refuse to believe him about Elan's abuses.
* ParentalObliviousness: For Joe's parents in particular, it's almost as if they ''want'' to remain ignorant of the abuse, even as everyone else sees how badly messed up Joe is, since they shut down any talk of Joe's time at the school. Joe mentions that his mother's reaction to a staph infection he brought home isn't a reasonable, "What kind of hellhole would leave my child's staph infection untreated?", but rather, "Joe, you need to get out of the house and go to a neighborhood get-together." It's so bad that he mentioned in his Reddit AMA that his parents ''still'' think he's exaggerating.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Joe's sister]]
Joe's kind older sister, who he regards as one of his best friends and confidants.
----
* TheConfidant: Joe regards his older sister as one. She's the only person he talks to on the phone when he escapes Elan, and she seems to be sympathetic to his situation. It's one of the major reasons Elan forbids Joe from talking to her. When he finally graduates Elan, it takes him over a year to finally write a letter describing to her what happened to him there.
* CoolBigSis: Joe's older sister, who he feels like is his protector and confidante. His affection for her is weaponized by Elan; they forbid him from talking about her, forbid him from talking to her during one of his rare phone calls home, destroy all the letters she writes him, and don't invite her to his "graduation." The one time he's able to communicate with her during his ordeal is when he's on the run, when she tells him that P and B got a plea deal. She also keeps this up after he graduates Elan; she makes frequent visits from college, doesn't press him for details about what happened in Maine, and gently pushes him to go to a party so he can get back to being social.
* NoNameGiven: She isn't given a name in the story; Joe only ever refers to her as "my sister."
[[/folder]]
!!Elan School staff
[[folder:In General]]
* DrunkWithPower: Joe says that many of the Elan staff -- usually ex-students with no teaching or psychology certifications of any kind -- got off on abusing the inmates.
* EvilTeacher: Zig-zagged. The school's administrators know ''exactly'' what they're doing perpetuating abuse and torture, but they don't care. Any hired staff from outside Elan (like tutors) either don't know the full extent of the abuse, know about it and do what they can to help the kids, or are fired after raising objections.
* EvilVersusEvil: The infighting between Ron and Christy gets a lot of attention. Ron is maybe ''slightly'' better in that he's somewhat less sadistic and slightly more reasonable than Christy, but he still directly participates in most of the abuse at Elan.
* HotForStudent: Many of the staff are ex-students who are just barely older than the current students; Joe mentions several rumors of male staffers having inappropriate relationships with female students, and one rumor of a female staffer having an inappropriate relationship with a male student.
* HotTeacher: Joe can't help but notice that one of the Elan 7 staffers berating him during the three-house general meeting is pretty hot. He chalks it up to teenage hormones and his complete lack of access to media.
* JustGivingOrders: Discussed in Chapter 56. Joe mentions that Elan's staff usually ordered kids to brutalize each other, and never directly manhandled students, in order to maintain plausible deniability.
* ThereAreNoTherapists: All of Elan's "therapies" are handled by students and staff who have no professional qualifications of any kind. Chapter 11 explicitly mentions that the attack therapy wasn't overseen by any licensed professionals.
* WardensAreEvil:
** Ron and Christy stand out as the most abusive to Joe during his time at Elan 8.
** During the three-house general meeting in Chapter 49, Joe gets berated by the adult staff from Elan 3 and Elan 7.
** Joe also talks about senior staff members named Meredith, Caesar, and Larry, all of whom he admits he's still terrified of to this day.
** At the very top is Jay Cirri, who runs the school but is more TheManBehindTheMan.
* WeirdnessCensor: PlayedForDrama and {{lampshade}}d in Chapter 60, when Joe's narration notes that Elan's maintenance men, nurse, gym teacher, schoolteachers, and head cook are all completely oblivious to the school's abuses.
* WorstAid: Elan's staff ''refuse'' to give any of its inmates any proper medical care.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ron]]
Ron is an Elan staff member, one of Elan's first graduates in TheSeventies, and one of Jay Cirri's unofficial right-hand men. He oversees Elan 8, Joe's house, with an iron fist.
----
* AffablyEvil: Ron is a particularly dark example. He psychologically tortures kids under the twisted belief that he's helping them and happily crushes them when they step out of line. In spite of that, Joe notes that he can be surprisingly personable and friendly so long as you play his game; and he's able to charm unsuspecting parents with ease. Joe even compares him to a charismatic cult leader whose larger than life presence helps keep the operation running smoothly.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Joe lists several of Ron's abuses, and says he's a complete psychopath, "...but when that man was on your side you really felt something special." During Joe's parents' first visit he's amicable and personable to Joe's parents, but when they leave the room, Ron smugly tells Joe that he thinks Joe's dad is a closet homosexual and that his mother is a slut. The final irony is Ron's giving a speech at Joe's "graduation" that Joe's mother finds ''so'' touching that it sends her into dramatic hysterics; and his last words to Joe are a hollow, "You are enough."
* TheBusCameBack: Ron leaves Elan for an extended period of time, and newer residents of Elan 8 come to think of him as some kind of ghost story. Then Ron returns to Elan, clean-shaven and strung out, and tries to get Joe to leave with him. After a shouting match with Christy, Christy tells Joe that he's "graduating."
* TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: A major part of Elan's "therapy" is the constant reminder that if you don't complete the program, you'll end up as a drug addict. Yet Ron, a graduate of Elan in the 1970s, shows up to quell the Elan 8 riot with fresh track marks on his arms; Joe surmises that Ron had been shooting up when the call about the riot came in.
* CoDragons: Joe mentions that Ron is the unofficial fourth member of the group of former Elan inmates who administer the school, second only to Jay Cirri.
* ColorCodedEyes: In a comic that is primarily DeliberatelyMonochrome, Ron's eyes are consistently brown.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: During one of Joe's {{Heroic BSOD}}s, he's completely blanked out and doesn't respond to Christy yelling at him. She immediately orders to other kids to hog-tie Joe and call a general meeting; Ron then intervenes, calls them off, and sends Joe back to the corner instead to cope.
* HeelFaceTurn: Ron, seemingly. Towards the end of the story, a strung-out Ron shows back up at Elan after having been missing for months, and attempts to get Joe to escape with him. However, Joe doesn't buy it for a second -- he has plenty of bad history with Ron, and knows that Ron is a ManipulativeBastard who could be "testing" him, and knows how Elan ''loves'' to move the goalposts with regard to a "graduation" date to continue conning parents out of money -- so Joe refuses. Ron then storms into Christy's office and gets into a shouting match about how Joe should be allowed to leave.
* JustGivingOrders: Subverted when Ron directly manhandles a student during the Elan 8 riot, and says that it makes no sense, "...like the Mafia godfather with a gun in his hand, robbing a little corner store."
* KnightTemplar: What makes Ron so dangerous is that not only is he a graduate of Elan like the kids (and has more insight into their mindset) but he also sincerely believes in the program. Even as he rakes in cash from their misery he's completely convinced that he's building them up to succeed.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Christy]]
Christy is a cruel Elan staffer who oversees Joe at Elan 8, and Joe utterly despises her.
----
* BitchInSheepsClothing: On Joe's graduation day, Christy berates and threatens him an about an hour before giving an impassioned speech about how Joe is a "hero" and a "shining example."
* GreenAndMean: Christy is usually seen with green eyes.
* HateSink: While there's a number of detestable people running Elan, Christy's cruelty gets a lot of attention. She's one of the heads of the house that Joe is in, and she directly causes much of the hardship that Joe endures, while characters like Cirri and other higher-ups are so far away that Joe only really understands the depths of their cruelty after the fact. Christy's actions are contrasted with Ron's -- Ron is a man who's much more directly vicious, but who Joe ends up [[EnemyMine befriending]]; and even though Joe still hates him, he admits that Ron shows him more respect than Christy ever did. It's ultimately Christy who extends Joe's stay at the school, which Ron objects to because Christy had became reliant Joe to do her dirty work. At the end of his time at Elan, Joe is allowed to invite staff members to speak at his graduation; he invites Ron, whilst Christy invites herself.
* ShameIfSomethingHappened: Christy tells Joe about his graduation in three weeks, then immediately reminds him, "''Anything'' can happen in Elan, don't forget who is in charge. I'll have my eye on you." She then continues these veiled threats every single day up to his graduation date, and Joe knows the implications.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Jay Cirri]]
The owner of Elan School, a former hoodlum turned businessman who made his multi-million dollar fortune off of decades of child abuse at Elan.
----
* GreaterScopeVillain: For most of the story, Elan's founder Jay Cirri, and Joe goes over why in Chapters 46 and 47. Cirri started out as a petty thug and addict, learned abusive "therapies" from the Synanon-inspired Daybreak Village in the Sixties, then founded Elan School based off of these "therapies." By the time of the story has spent over twenty years bilking parents and state governments out of millions while convincing them that problematic children ''need'' his school. He's so intimidating, and has so much clout, that a highway trooper turns a blind eye to Joe's second kidnapping upon hearing Cirri's name. That said, three weeks from graduation, Joe finally meets Cirri while doing manual labor on his estate, only to find that the man has dementia, is little more than an EmptyShell, and is very visibly sick -- although Joe grimly notes that Cirri is still surrounded by a very evil air.
* HateSink: Joe has absolutely no problem vilifying Cirri. Cirri started out as a petty thug, got roped into the Synanon-inspired Daybreak Village in the Sixties, and walks away with it with enough knowledge of its methodology to co-found Elan School. From Elan, Cirri rakes in ''millions'' of dollars in tuition fees at the expense of the children's well-being, and personally oversaw its earliest punishment methods, which included horrors like dumping buckets of human waste on its residents. Joe alleges that Cirri burned down several buildings he owned at Elan and at his racetrack to collect the insurance money, drove his wife to a breakdown that required a hospital stay, and has enough clout in the Maine political scene to [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections keep law enforcement at bay]].
* IcyBlueEyes: Jay Cirri is depicted with icy blue eyes in flashbacks to his past. However, when Joe meets him later on, Cirri's eyes are colorless and lifeless to reflect that he's become an EmptyShell.
* TheManBehindTheMan: Jay is at the top of the Elan totem pole, profiting off of child abuse.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: A variation; as part of the RomanAClef nature of the comic, Joe has renamed him. But the comic doesn't exactly try to hide that "Cirri" is supposed to be the real-life Elan owner Joseph Ricci.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: Joe goes into detail about this in Chapter 46, quoting a former Maine parole officer who was told to keep quiet about Elan. Joe also quotes a passage from the book ''Duck in a Raincoat'' that describes how Cirri got out of insurance fraud charges when buildings he owned mysteriously burned down right after he'd taken out insurance policies.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Peter tells Joe that Cirri pretty much owns Poland, Maine, "...cops and everything."
* TheSvengali: Implied; in a flashback to TheSeventies, Joe depicts Cirri as offering a young Ron -- one of Elan's first inmates, under Cirri's direct tutelage -- riches in exchange for becoming one of his Elan mooks.
* TomatoSurprise: Towards the end of his stay at Elan, Joe is forced to do manual labor at Jay Cirri's estate, and eventually comes face-to-face with the GreaterScopeVillain himself. Despite spending the entire story thinking that Cirri is pulling the strings behind the scenes, Joe instead finds that Cirri is instead a very sickly EmptyShell with dementia.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: He's seen as a pillar of the state for his "good work" with Elan School, and he's well-known enough to warrant a run for Maine state governor, although he loses the primary.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Jerry]]
Jerry is a former teacher at Elan, who Joe regarded fondly, but was fired for being "too nice." Joe and Gino meet up with him about year after Joe graduates.
----
* IShouldHaveBeenBetter: Jerry tearfully apologizes to Joe and Gino, saying that he was fully aware that Elan School was "a horror show," and that he'd been sucked in and forced to go along with the abuse just like everyone else.
* RememberTheNewGuy: Jerry was never mentioned during the Elan chapters; he's only introduced during Chapter 69 when Joe and Gino drive up to Poland, Maine.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Meredith, Caesar, and Larry]]
Three higher-ups at Elan, who Joe admits he's still terrified of to this day.
----
* TheAnnouncer: Elan higher-up Caesar is, in Joe's words, a "whole other level of creepy" example of this. He'd show up for Ring events and gleefully act as the announcer. In case it's not clear, Caesar would make special to attend and participate in the events where the kids beat each other up.
* CoDragons: Senior directors Meredith, Caesar, and Larry, former Elan inmates who are second only to Jay Cirri.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Joe describes Larry as giving off this vibe. More specifically, Larry's vibe was described as "sociopathic Wall Street trader who'd slit his mother's throat to get ahead."
* TheManBehindTheMan: Ron is outranked by Meredith, a senior director and former Elan resident who Joe thinks is angling for Jay Cirri's role as head honcho.
* RememberTheNewGuy: In one of the last chapters before his "graduation," Joe talks briefly about some sadistic staff named Meredith, Caesar, and Larry, who'd apparently been around for a while.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Billy Crowe]]
Joe's cross-country running coach at Elan.
----
* DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster: Crowe acts like he's a gangster from the South Bronx, and that rival schools' teams are rival gangs. Joe points out that Crowe was actually born and raised in Maine.
* TrainingFromHell: Crowe knows how strict Elan is by controlling its students' compliance and access to the outside world, and uses that to his advantage, regularly pushing the kids in his charge past their breaking points knowing full well that ''they don't have a choice''. Joe even links to a ''Runner's World'' [[https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a18751357/eminem-lose-yourself-running-anthem/ article]] written by a female Elan survivor who was brutalized by Crowe's methods.
[[/folder]]
!!Elan School inmates
[[folder:In General]]
* ExpelledFromEveryOtherSchool: Many of the inmates at Elan School were kicked out of other programs for being too unruly.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: When Joe is dragged before a three house Ring, he and the other students hear the horrified screams from a girl who had just arrived at Elan that very day. He imagines how absolutely awful it must've been for her to be kidnapped, stripped and deloused, then thrown into watching this general meeting with no context to see a person get berated and beaten to a bloody pulp.
* MoralMyopia: Discussed at length. In order to survive, Elan inmates -- Joe included -- adopt a general strategy of watching out for themselves first. This involves perpetuating the abuse to keep themselves out of trouble; Joe mentions on multiple occasions that his coordinator role required him to abuse other students. He doesn't state any of this proudly, though, and explains his immense guilt at being forced to take part in this cycle.
* ProperlyParanoid: All Elan really does is convince anyone that rebellion is met with extreme punishment, including a full demotion of any "status" that was achieved. To that end, no one trusts anyone.
* SadisticChoice: Every day for the inmates. Typically the choice is between "help brutalize your peers" or "get severely dehumanized."
* TheStoic: Even the tiniest wisp of emotion is penalized at Elan, and one of the first things that Joe notices about the other inmates is how "blank" many of their faces are.
* TeensAreMonsters: Enforced by Elan; for most students it becomes a survival mechanism, but a handful had already done monstrous deeds before being sent there.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Gino]]
Gino is a snarky teen from Staten Island, just a few months younger than Joe, who is first introduced in Chapter 54 as a new student. Shortly after the Elan 8 riot, Joe later makes friends with Gino, breaking one of Elan's cardinal rules about "contracts" between inmates.
----
* AxesAtSchool: The reason Gino is sent to Elan is because he was caught carrying a gun to scare some bullies who had robbed him.
* BigApplesauce: Gino hails from Staten Island.
* TheBusCameBack: Gino shows up at Joe's dorm at the end of Chapter 68, and they go back to Maine together in the following chapter.
* TheConfidant: Against Joe's better judgement, Gino -- who openly sees through and rejects Elan's bullshit -- becomes Joe's confidant. Joe acknowledges that his need for Gino's confidence is almost like an addiction, as it's one of the only "real" friendships he makes in Elan. This almost comes back to bite Joe when Gino starts naming people who'd confided in him, although Gino ultimately doesn't name Joe.
* DrunkDriver: When Joe and Gino reunite after leaving Elan and drive up to Maine, Gino drives and throws back beer like it's nothing. Gino eventually picks up on how uncomfortable it makes Joe, and lets Joe take over driving.
* FireForgedFriends: Geno and Joe after Elan.
* {{Foil}}: Gino for Joe, when Gino is first introduced. He's a few months younger than Joe, and because he's forced into Elan to get out of a supposedly worse sentence, he's arguably in a similar predicament that Joe was in at the beginning of the story. By the time Gino shows up, though, Joe has been in Elan for a few years. Gino openly ridicules many of the things about Elan that Joe himself ridiculed at the beginning of the story, and this serves as a brutal contrast to what Joe has become.
* HighSchoolHustler: Gino, both before and during Elan. Joe describes Gino's backstory getting rich from "pretty much every hustle that was around and available to a kid in New York City," and talks about the ways Gino uses his smarts to turn Elan's rules against other inmates.
* IcyBlueEyes: Gino is depicted with icy blue eyes; his moral ambiguity becomes a plot point several times during the story. Specifically, Gino is seen in Chapter 59 with blue eyes as he gives Joe "the weirdest fucking stare ever. It was...''[[CreepyBlueEyes unsettling]]''."
* KirkSummation: Gino delivers a pretty heavy one to Joe in Chapter 57.
* OneSteveLimit: {{Averted|Trope}}; this Gino is actually the second Gino named in the story. The first is a one-off minor character, one of the two goons that recaptures Joe.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Peter]]
Peter is the Elan student who serves as Joe's "Support Person" (i.e. chaperone) during Joe's parental outing, there to make sure that Joe doesn't spill the beans about Elan's abuse or try to escape.
----
* TheBusCameBack: At the end of Chapter 64, Peter calls Joe and says he's in Joe's neighborhood and wants to visit.
* ChekhovsGunman: Peter is introduced in Chapter 28 as the house's chief expeditor.
* DefeatAsBackstory: Peter is assigned as Joe's "S.P." and gets Maced for his trouble, and upon returning to Elan is further shot down for "allowing" Joe to escape. This makes it ever the more chilling at the end of Chapter 64, when Peter drives six hours to Joe's street and calls Joe up specifically to tell him and set up a meeting.
* FalseFriend: Joe is GenreSavvy enough to recognize this when Peter calls him, pretends to be chummy, and claims to be in Joe's hometown to have a friendly chit-chat. Joe picks it apart in his mind: here is an individual who had a reputation in Elan for being cold and petty, had an acrimonious history with Joe, won't identify themselves (but Joe recognized their voice anyway), somehow knew Joe was out of Elan, [[TheVillainKnowsWhereYouLive tracked down Joe's address and phone number]], drove 500 miles to specifically see Joe, and very likely didn't come alone. The major tell is when Peter gets agitated and desperate when Joe makes excuses.
* NothingPersonal: When Peter is assigned as "Support Person" for Joe's parental outing, he tells Joe not to act up, and says that it's nothing personal, but ''he'' wants to get out of Elan ASAP too and is more than willing to do literally ''anything'' to Joe to achieve that end.
* TheVillainKnowsWhereYouLive: He drives several hours to Joe's hometown and claims to be on Joe's block. Joe has no idea where Peter got this information.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:John]]
John is an 18-year-old high-strength coordinator at Elan, who had been secretly meeting up with and statutory raping Gina, which gets revealed during the Elan 8 riot.
----
* SequelHook: Joe notes in Chapter 57 that "...unlike Gina, I did hear about John again later in my life...but...you'll hear about that."
* {{Unperson}}: John disappears from Elan after his statutory rape of Gina comes to light. Elan being Elan, the unspoken rule is that the other inmates can't speak of them ever again, although Joe notes that he eventually ''does'' hear about John again after leaving Elan.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Gina]]
Gina is a high-strength coordinator at Elan, who was statutory raped by a coordinator named John, and the resulting pregnancy gets revealed during the Elan 8 riot.
----
* SurprisePregnancy: Completely a surprise since boys and girls are forbidden from even ''looking'' at each other.
* {{Unperson}}: After her pregnancy is revealed, Gina quietly disappears from Elan. Elan being Elan, the unspoken rule is that the other inmates can't speak of her again, and Joe says that he never finds out what happens to her.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Julian]]
One of Elan's younger inmates, a 14-year-old Canadian boy who had been given up for adoption as a baby, later dumped into the school as a last resort.
----
* DrivenToSuicide: Elan is so horrible that Julian attempts to take his own life by impaling himself with a Bic pen. It doesn't work, though.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Matt]]
Matt is one of Joe's classmates at Elan, who Joe faces in "the Ring."
----
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Matt shows Joe mercy by refusing orders to jump into the Ring to finish off an already beaten and bloodied Joe; this is met with a general meeting, where everyone is forced to scream at Matt -- Joe included.
* InnocentBlueEyes: Matt, who mercifully refuses to fight an already beat-up Joe during Joe's first Ring, is depicted with blue eyes.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Randall]]
A former Elan "classmate" of Joe's, who Joe liked. After leaving Elan, Joe takes a road trip to visit Randall in college.
----
* DisproportionateRetribution: Randall seeks out, attacks, and ''hospitalizes'' another college student over harassing a girl.
* FireForgedFriends: Joe describes seeing Randall again as "like seeing an old war buddy."
* RationalizingTheOverkill: When Joe asks Randall why the hell Randall straight-up attacked another kid at a dorm party, Randall simply says, "That guy was harassing this girl I know."
* RememberTheNewGuy: Chapter 68 introduces Randall, a level-headed former Elan classmate of Joe's, who Joe regarded fondly while in Elan, but was never mentioned during the Elan chapters.
[[/folder]]
!!People from Joe's hometown
[[folder:P]]
P is one of the two best friends who Joe gets arrested with, prompting Joe being sent to Elan. Joe later reunites with him shortly after leaving Elan.
----
* {{Foil}}: P is for Joe's parents after Joe returns home. P very clearly sees from Joe's behavior that whatever happened to Joe during the three years was very traumatic, and asks him about it. Joe's parents, on the other hand, either [[DoesntKnowTheirOwnChild can't tell or are actively ignoring that anything's amiss with their own son]], and callously brush off Joe when he brings up their leaving him at Elan.
* PleaBargain: P's parents are amused that P got caught by cops and indifferent to his marijuana use; they lawyer up and get him a plea bargain to get out of the drug trafficking charge in exchange for some community service.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:B]]
B is one of the two best friends who Joe gets arrested with, prompting Joe being sent to Elan. Joe later reunites with him while in college.
----
* AddledAddict: He tries to get Joe to smoke meth with him, and he later shows up at Joe's doorstep practically salivating for money.
* {{Foil}}: As it turns out, B is one for P. After Joe's return, P comes to visit Joe, brings him some weed, and shows some genuine concern for his well-being. The years were less kind to B, as he shows up a few chapters later looking ''far'' worse for wear, gives Joe some LSD, and offers Joe some crystal meth. Unlike with P, Joe says that the "'spark' of friendship wasn't there and that sucked."
* PleaBargain: Just like P, B's parents lawyer up and get him a plea deal to get out of the drug trafficking charge in exchange for community service.
* PutOnABus: Lampshaded; B shows up at Joe's house in Chapter 70, looking drugged out and desperate for money, offering Joe a carrying case of CD's as collateral. Joe gives B $80, and never hears from him again.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: Joe notices that his reunion with B didn't have the same "spark" that his reunion with P had. Later on, a strung-out B shows up at Joe's house begging for money; Joe gives B $80, and never hears from him again. Even worse, B is still alive and refuses to talk to Joe for unknown reasons; Joe's narration talks about how Joe finds B on a Facebook business page years later. Joe sends a Facebook message to B's wife, who agrees to pass along a message, but then promptly ghosts Joe without another word.
-->'''Joe:''' ''[narrating]'' If by some crazy twist-of-fate you ever read this B, I'm not still mad about what happened, it was a long, long time ago and there is no reason to hide from it. We all go through shit in life and do things we regret. Really man, I just want to say hi to my old friend, even just over the phone...
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Chloe]]
Joe's close friend from before Elan, who he reunites with shortly after returning home.
----
* GirlNextDoor: Joe's narration says she was literally this.
* RememberTheNewGuy: Chloe is introduced in Chapter 63 as Joe's childhood friend, saying that they'd "done almost everything together up until the day Elan took me." She hadn't been mentioned at all in the story up to this point.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Darren]]
Joe's childhood bully, who Joe runs into about a month after returning from Elan.
----
* BullyingADragon: After lifting a bottle of beer from a neighborhood get-together shortly after returning from Elan, Joe runs into his childhood bully Darren hanging out with some other kids. Darren steals Joe's beer and mocks him, and Joe coolly tells him, "If your mouth touches my beer, I'm going to punch it." Darren laughs it off and starts to drink it, and Joe lays him out in one punch.
* EnemyEatsYourLunch: Subverted. Darren swipes a beer from Joe, and Joe decks him when Darren goes to take a sip.
[[/folder]]
!!People from Joe's college
[[folder:Eva]]
Eva is a girl who Joe meets in college, who he starts a toxic relationship with.
----
* AbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder: Eva when she goes home for the summer, but it's almost a subversion since Eva's flaky, it's unclear whether they're ''really'' "together", and Joe is getting [[StalkerWithACrush stalkery]] because he assumes that they're going to live HappilyEverAfter after she gets pregnant. Except when he drives to her hometown to see her, he gets there early and sees her arriving home in a taxi with an overnight bag in tow. Later on, during a phone call, he hears an older man in the background calling her "baby" and telling her to hang up on Joe.
* AsYouKnow: Eva calls Joe up to remind him about the condom that broke while they were having sex. Before this there was no indication that Eva's relationship with Joe had become sexual.
* BrokenBird: Heavily implied; she's certainly got several problems that have led to her heavy drug use.
* ButWeUsedACondom: Subverted; Joe and Eva knew the condom broke.
* IcyBlueEyes: Eva, a drug addict who Joe says initially started off "for sure just using me" and later sleeps around with other guys after telling Joe about her pregnancy, has icy blue eyes as well.
* ImmuneToDrugs: Eva pops 18 pills at once for recreational usage, saying that she's so used to the drug that she has to take that many to feel any effect. This comes after telling Joe to take 12.
* LoveInterest: Joe certainly sees her as one -- he thinks she's really pretty and does pretty much everything he can to get into her good graces and her pants -- but it's unclear whether she thinks of herself as one, or only as his "friend with benefits."
* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Eva is a deconstruction in the same manner as [[Film/FightClub Marla Singer]]. At the time of the story, Joe is head over heels about her, but his narration notes that, in hindsight, "She was actually completely crazy, a ''real'' drug addict, and obsessed with getting into very serious and dangerous situations." It's also unclear whether she sees her relationship with Joe as non-exclusive "friends with benefits," or if she actually becomes his girlfriend but two-times him on the regular.
* SurprisePregnancy: Eva notifies Joe of one. Joe apparently didn't think much of a condom breaking, and Joe was expecting to break up with her anyway, but he's elated to hear the news.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Quiet Bill]]
Quiet Bill is a social outcast who Joe makes an effort to befriend in college.
----
* TheConfidant: Bill becomes another confidant, quietly listening to Joe's stories about Elan, and asking him the kinds of questions that indicate he's genuinely interested.
* InterclassFriendship: Quiet Bill and Joe. Joe comes from an ostensibly middle class family in the American Midwest, and Bill is the son of a Los Angeles multi-millionaire. Joe finds out about Bill's background when he accompanies Bill on a trip to Los Angeles during Spring Break.
* WellDoneSonGuy: Quiet Bill idolizes his rich and important father, who keeps blowing him off for dinner during his and Joe's Spring Break in Los Angeles. The one time Bill's father actually shows up to go to dinner, he completely ignores his own son and spends the entire evening talking to other dinner guests.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ezra]]
Ezra is a football player who becomes Joe's college roommate.
----
* {{Cult}}: Ezra was raised in a religious cult. Joe helps break him out of the cult's spell.
* ChekhovsGunman: Lampshaded when Joe explains that there's a super important reason he's introducing Ezra to the story.
* MirrorCharacter: Ezra, for Joe. Just like Joe, Ezra is very secretive, socially awkward, and seems to be going through the same inner struggles with college life and daily functioning that Joe is experiencing. Joe can't help but pick up on the similarities. It eventually turns out that Ezra had been raised in a religious cult, with a "Book of Decency" meant to punish sins much like Elan's "guilt" system.
* SequelHook: When Joe talks about how he got his college roommate Ezra, he explains that there's a [[ChekhovsGunman super important reason he's introducing Ezra]] ("A truly mind-bending reason, one I couldn't possibly have known when I let him move in that night."), but he doesn't yet say what it is.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:"Slick Rick"]]
A marijuana dealer who lives in Joe's freshman dorm.
----
* TheAggressiveDrugDealer: Inverted; while Rick is the dorm hall's weed connection, it's ''Joe'' who gets needlessly aggressive with Rick.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: He's called "Slick Rick" because he dressed up as Music/SlickRick one Halloween.
[[/folder]]
!!Others
[[folder:The Great Energy]]
A concept of the universe that Joe develops in Elan, that gives him the drive to survive his ordeal.
----
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Joe says that he doesn't think that the Great Energy is necessarily aware of or loves him, or has human emotional intelligence, but he also says that he fully believes that it wants life over death.
* FateDrivesUsTogether: Joe attributes his becoming college roommates with Ezra to the Great Energy, as he's able to understand what Ezra went through as another victim of a cult, and helps break him out of it.
* GodOfGood: Though he doesn't describe it in godlike terms, Joe describes the Great Energy as the universe wanting things to live, to survive. He uses giraffes as an analogy: the Great Energy wanted them to survive and live, so it allowed them to evolve longer necks to reach high branches in the trees.
* HeroicSafeMode: During an extreme punishment at Elan, Joe turns inward and develops a concept of the "Great Energy," which gives him drive and determination to play along with Elan's cruel game and gives him the drive to survive.
* JesusTaboo: Lampshaded; Joe says that he doesn't want to call it "God" because he thinks that it has too many man-made connotations.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:"Casey Jones"]]
"Casey Jones" is a Vietnam veteran who picks up Joe hitchhiking, after Joe escapes from Elan.
----
* BackstoryHorror: Casey saw awful things in Vietnam, and tells Joe a story about how the the Viet Cong snuck into his platoon's camp one night and quietly slit half the throats of his fellow soldiers.
* DontSaySuchStupidThings: After Joe listens to Casey's Vietnam War story, Joe quietly says that it made his experiences at Elan seem like nothing by comparison. Casey calls him out on this, and is probably the first person to ever tell Joe that Elan's abuse was unequivocally wrong.
-->'''Casey:''' HEY! Bullshit. You stop with that! Stop with that bull. Listen boy! And you listen good! Don't you never let nobody tell you that you can't be sad 'cause some bonehead somewhere else has been sadder. That's stupid. That's dumb as saying you can't be happy 'cause someone, somewhere else has been more happy. It ain't no contest, Joe, and don't you never forget that. Never. I heard your story and you were '''wronged''', boy. And them feelings you feel, they ain't wrong, okay? They ain't wrong.
* DrunkDriver: Casey picks up Joe after Joe escapes from his parents and Peter. He constantly drinks from a 40 of Olde English malt liquor, and at one point takes a hit from a marijuana pipe. They ultimately don't get into a wreck, and Casey is able to safely drop Joe off in Brooklyn.
* HeroOfAnotherStory: Although calling him a "hero" is a stretch since he's clearly up to something shady with the snippets of his covert activities that Joe witnesses in Boston and Brooklyn. But he's nice enough to give Joe a ride, listen to his story, and give him some cash.
* MirrorCharacter: Casey, for Joe. Just like Joe, Casey had a happy, carefree youth before being whisked away to a hellish environment. And Casey's PTSD years later -- abated by alcohol and long road trips -- is not at all unlike what Joe will later experience in the post-Elan chapters.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: When Joe asks him his name, he tells Joe just to call him "[[Music/TheGratefulDead Casey Jones]]".
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Mikey, Nate, and Sam]]
Mikey, Nate, and Sam are teens that Joe meets in Brooklyn after running away from Elan. Nate provides Joe with shelter in his apartment overnight.
----
* BigApplesauce: They live in Brooklyn, and chide Joe for not knowing that Hell's Kitchen isn't in Brooklyn.
[[/folder]]
----
[[foldercontrol]]
!!Joe
[[folder:Joe Nobody]]
The main character of the comic. At age 16 he's sent to Elan School, where he is abused for three years, and spends the rest of his life dealing with the post-traumatic stress.
----
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: Joe notices the stigma of Elan has followed him when he's at a neighborhood get-together and several of the neighborhood fathers don't mask their quiet dislike for him. Also happens later on in college, where Joe's lack of social skills turn him into a pariah.
* AloneInACrowd: Joe at the end of Chapter 63, when he's at the party with his sister; he says that observing the other partygoers makes him feel like he's observing aliens. He makes small talk with a girl outside the party but doesn't hear anything she says; in a moment of bravado he excuses himself, goes inside, and immediately gets overwhelmed by everything going on. Then the Elan conditioning seeps into his brain and causes him to start judging the partygoers based on what Elan called "image."
* BadJobWorseUniform: As part of his initiation into Elan, and again after his first escape attempt, Joe is forced to wear yellow T-shirts and pink shorts.
* BecomingTheMask: Joe says in Chapter 57 that Elan has effectively institutionalized his mind and he's come to rely on their twisted moral compass. He says that the scariest part of his Elan experience was when he realized that wasn't that he was no longer pretending to be one of them -- "I ''was'' one of them."
* {{Bookworm}}: Books become a source of escape for Joe in Elan after he earns the privilege of getting to read books. The books he reads include ''Literature/IKnowWhyTheCagedBirdSings'', ''The Autobiography of UsefulNotes/MalcolmX'', ''Literature/TheDiaryOfAYoungGirl'', ''Literature/TuesdaysWithMorrie'', ''Literature/AngelasAshes'', ''Literature/InvisibleMan'', ''ComicBook/{{Maus}}'', and Elie Wiesel's trilogy of ''Literature/{{Night}}, ''Dawn'', and ''Day''.
* CallingTheOldManOut: Joe finally does this to his mother in Chapter 66 when she threatens him with an Elan support call; he yells at her and berates her Elan-style, but it doesn't work since to an outsider it sounds like nonsensical rantings (likely [[RefugeInAudacity by design]]).
* CannotTalkToWomen: Joe as of Chapter 64. He sees a girl his age at the library and realizes that his Elan conditioning is causing him to be scared of girls his age. As he says, "And really, I don't mean 'normal scared', I mean post-traumatic-stress-disorder, shaking, scared." This comes back to bite him two chapters later, where he horrifies a girl at his college with small talk about "the Ring."
* CassandraTruth: When Joe has his first outing with his parents and an Elan student named Peter (who is the "Support Person" there to monitor him), Joe steals his mom's pepper spray, sprays Peter, and then tries to tell his parents about the abuse. But they refuse to listen and only berate him for being "out of control."
* CigaretteOfAnxiety: As recounted in Chapter 66, Joe takes up chain smoking in college, and says that smoking is one of the things that helps bring him peace.
* CrazyJealousGuy: Joe to Eva, due to not having any sense of how adult relationships should work.
* DeliveryNotDesired: In Chapter 70, Joe takes to drafting letters to his parents about Elan, but never sends them. He does note that just simply writing them makes him feel a little better.
* DespairEventHorizon: Because of Elan's cruelty, Joe has to overcome Despair Event Horizons over and over and over and over and ''over'' again. He hits a major point of despair when he's recaptured and abused after his escape. He despairs yet again when his parents fully buy into Elan's lie that Joe needs to stay past age 18 to "complete" the program.
* DrunkDriver: Joe later becomes one in college. He admits that this is a terrible idea, though, and regrets doing it.
* DudeWheresMyReward: When Joe becomes a re-entry student, Elan gives him a part-time job doing manual labor around the campus, and tells him that they're putting his pay into a bank account. When he graduates, he doesn't get access to this account at all, if it even existed, meaning he essentially did unpaid labor for the school.
* FatalAttractor: Joe's narration lampshades this in Chapter 68 when he examines why he's so attracted to his drug-addicted college classmate Eva, saying that Elan's brainwashing may have subconsciously caused him to seek out {{Broken Bird}}s so he can [[ChronicHeroSyndrome "save" them]].
* GainingTheWillToKill:
** When Ron drags Gino in front of a general meeting to name other people's guilt, Joe readies himself to harm as many people as he can in case Gino names Joe. Gino names another kid instead and Joe gets a reprieve, but Joe notes how painful and horrifying it is that he even got to the point where he was willing to harm innocent people in order to turn himself into a liability for Elan.
** After Joe returns home, before he goes to bed each evening, he starts keeping a baseball bat within arm's reach, as well as a lighter and a can of hairspray. As he says, "I didn't want to burn someone to death, but murder was definitely on the table if anyone ever, EVER [[NeverGoingBackToPrison tried to take me against my will again]]."
* GoMadFromTheIsolation: Joe experiences this firsthand when he's forced into "the Corner," and he later watches it happen to other inmates as well. He notes that it's a torture he wouldn't wish on his worst enemy, including his torturers at Elan, and that it's much worse than standard solitary confinement because anyone put in "the Corner" isn't allowed to even move.
* HeroicBSOD:
** Joe's first experiences with Elan-induced PTSD occur when he's on the run in Brooklyn. He finds that he can't sit on the inside of a restaurant booth surrounded by people without panicking. He also has a panic attack when he's in the park and makes eye contact with a young person holding a clipboard like an Elan coordinator; the person turns out to be a volunteer taking names for a petition.
** Joe gets into a series of BSOD's after his recapture. He spends weeks in the corner, guarded by another Elan inmate, induces hallucinations through oxygen deprivation, and has a series of existential crises that cause him to go slowly mad. He also breaks down and blanks out on his 17th birthday, and receives heavy verbal abuse from Christy when he doesn't respond to her.
** After leaving Elan, Joe's sister takes him to a house party. Joe gets overwhelmed by the noise and the partygoers, and swiftly runs out of the house and hides behind a parked car for three hours.
* HotForTeacher: In Chapter 49, as he's being berated by a female staffer from Elan 7, Joe can't help but notice how sexy she is. His narration then concedes that it's such an odd thought to have, but it only happened because he was a hormonal teenager without free access to girls or any media in Elan, much less pornography.
* HiddenInPlainSight: Joe relies on this when he's laying low in New York City. Since the city is so big, he thinks that he'll be able to blend in with the crowd. It's then frighteningly subverted when Joe is recaptured on his second day in the city (and third day on the run). To this day he still doesn't know how this was even possible, although he speculates that a bounty was issued, and that Jay Cirri had enough connections to pull it off.
* HigherUnderstandingThroughDrugs: Joe drops acid in Chapter 67, and has revelations about life, death, and the relationships between life-defining moments and how daily decisions affect the course of one's life.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Joe describes himself as such in Chapter 58, although not proudly. During Ron's absence, Joe has fallen so far into BecomingTheMask that he's not only ruling Elan 8 with an iron fist, he's actively screwing over other kids in order to maintain his rank. He's doing this while concurrently befriending Gino, explaining that Gino's friendship is the only "real" thing in his life and it's like a drug, knowing full well that this kind of "contract" is explicitly against Elan's rules.
* ImproperlyParanoid: Joe after graduating from Elan. On his way home, he barricades his hotel room's door, and is extremely leery of a group of middle-aged adults in the hotel's breakfast area. After he gets home, he can't bring himself to go out, and he begins sleeping with the door locked, a desk in front of the door, and with improvised weapons within arm's reach. When he drums up enough courage to walk down the street one day, he gets extremely nervous about a van pulling up close to him; he nearly goes into fight-or-flight mode until it turns out to be his close friend Chloe from before Elan.
* INeedAFreakingDrink: Joe's frustration with his parents, combined with his frustration at the world's seeming indifference to the suffering and PTSD caused by Elan, leads Joe to steal a beer from a neighborhood party and buy a six pack from a convenience store.
* InnocenceLost:Joe gets hauled to Elan at 16 and loses three years of his teenage life there; when he gets out at age 19, he realizes that [[StrangerInAFamiliarLand his friends have moved on with their lives normally]], and that he missed out on experiences -- like socializing or talking to girls -- that a normal teenager would've and should've experienced. It also causes him to lose faith in the United States justice system, as he comes to discover that it is ignorant of, complicit in, or powerless against the systems in place that allow hellholes like Elan to operate.
* InterclassFriendship: Joe and his college friend Quiet Bill. Joe comes from an ostensibly middle class family in the American Midwest, and Bill is the son of a Los Angeles multi-millionaire. Joe finds out about Bill's background when he accompanies Bill on a trip to Los Angeles during Spring Break.
* LawOfInverseFertility: At the end of Chapter 69, Joe moves out of his freshman dorm and into a new apartment; it's essentially a slum, but to him it represents freedom. He's also fully expecting to break up with Eva since her hometown is four hours away. Then he learns from Eva that she's pregnant.
* LoveMakesYouDumb: Eva offers Joe a "private party" at her dorm; Joe is so infatuated with Eva that he gladly takes the 12 pills that she gives him to help him "party" (despite not knowing what they actually ''are''). What's worse, he gets in the car with her to drive around and smoke weed while waiting for the pills to kick in. He does have enough common sense to call off the "party," take her back to her dorm, and force himself to vomit up the pills, but then the next day he calls Eva back up to go out smoking weed again. Joe's narration doesn't hesitate to point out how stupid he's acting, and he says that episode would be typical of their relationship.
* MaddenIntoMisanthropy: Shortly after returning home, Joe gets overwhelmed by the other young people at a house party wearing flashy clothes and having a good time. His Elan conditioning causes him to start to judge and hate everyone there based on their "image", and he comes to the (incorrect) conclusion that inmates at Elan were much more "real" without "image." A chapter later, when P comes to visit and brings some marijuana, Joe gets internally furious when his Elan conditioning goes up against a seemingly carefree world.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: A downplayed example. After returning from Elan, Joe punches out his childhood bully Darren for stealing his beer and making fun of him. Joe describes it as a "humble-brag" since it only took one punch and [[AssholeVictim Darren arguably had it coming]], but Joe also immediately internalizes the effect this has on him personally.
-->'''Joe:''' ''[narrating]'' This moment really scared me...of ''myself''. I'd told myself to punch him if his lips touched the bottle, and that was it, it was programmed. Written in stone. Consequences be damned.
* NeverGoingBackToPrison: Or "Never Going Back to Elan School." This is what drives Joe's successful (but temporary) escape during his parental outing. After Joe "graduates," he sleeps with his door barricaded and with makeshift weapons within reach. When someone shows up banging on Joe's college dorm door while yelling about hauling Joe back to Maine, Joe grabs a baseball bat, asks his roommate Ezra to help him fight, and prepares to do battle. Elan's ''that'' bad.
* NoSocialSkills: This is presented almost to the point of [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruction]] after Joe leaves Elan.
** Joe has a nervous breakdown at the party his sister takes him to, which causes the party guests to laugh at him, and he finds that he's unable to talk to or be around girls his own age. His narration even explicitly mentions that Elan robbed him of "the most formative years of high school and relationships" and skewered anything he already knew.
** Further deconstructed during Joe’s college years; his idea of trying to connect with girls is to dump his trauma onto them and apply Elan’s lessons to them, leaving them utterly terrified and/or disgusted of him. The aggression he learned at Elan, coupled with his drug habits, makes him look like a violent jerk to the guys. Both of these facts together make almost ''nobody'' wanting anything to do with Joe, isolating Joe from anyone that could have helped him deal with his baggage.
* NotUsedToFreedom: After Joe is finally released, he spends most of his time in his room, partly because he's afraid of everything outside and partly because he's completely unused to deciding for himself what he wants to do.
* ProperlyParanoid: Joe learns to distrust any students that speak of rebellion. Peter showing up back in his life also raises his hackles, considering their bad blood when they last interacted.
* RomanAClef: Joe has changed all the names in the story, including his own.
* SayingTooMuch: In Chapter 66, Joe goes to a freshman mixer after going off to college. He's approached by a nice-looking girl who initiates small talk; without thinking Joe eventually spirals into a conversation about Elan and "the Ring." The girl is horrified by Joe, backs away carefully, and very pointedly rushes away from him whenever she sees him on campus afterward.
* StalkerWithACrush: Deconstructed. Joe is elated to hear about Eva's pregnancy, because his barometer for what constitutes a healthy relationship is so skewed, and he makes plans to get a ring and propose. She gradually starts ending his calls and getting harder for him to reach, so he presses on, and a couple of times drives four hours and parks outside her house.
* StepfordSmiler: Joe specifically mentions times where he'd be forced to give tours of Elan School to prospective parents, and pretend that Elan had "helped" him, and how guilty he felt about perpetuating the lie and causing further abuse, noting that it was done out of pure survival instinct.
* TheStoic: Joe learns how to be this while at Elan, as students are penalized for showing even a wisp of emotion.
* StrangerInAFamiliarLand: Joe returns home to find that all his friends got to finish high school and live their lives normally.
* ThenLetMeBeEvil: A downplayed and arguably deconstructed example. Right after returning from Elan, Joe finds pretty much no sympathy or comfort from his parents or law enforcement, so he starts smoking weed and [[INeedAFreakingDrink drinking]], because why not. Barely a year out of Elan and Joe has taken up [[CigaretteOfAnxiety chain smoking]], alcohol, drugs, and tattoos as coping mechanisms to deal with the social stigmas and PTSD he's enduring. Effectively, the abuse, indifference, and lack of sympathy has caused Joe to fully embrace self-destructive vices; Joe's narration even points out that a year earlier he ''never'' would have imagined himself going down this path.
* TooMuchInformation: PlayedForDrama. After Joe goes to college, his inability to talk to women leads to him talking about his time in Elan in great detail. This invariably freaks out the woman he’s talking to, and ultimately gets him labeled as a creepy lunatic pariah among the female campus.
* YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: Ron escorts Joe to Elan 7 and forces him to fight another student in "the Ring," and Joe not only does it, he detaches himself and flips into full survival mode. He then ''annihilates'' the poor kid, while feeling like he'd regained control over his life. Seeing a random girl's look of disapproval and pity snaps him out of his fervor. A day later, he's promoted to a "Coordinator" position at Elan, putting him in charge of other students, turning him into one of Ron's right-hand men and making his misery ''worse''.
[[/folder]]
!!The Nobody Family
[[folder:Joe's parents]]
Mr. and Mrs. Nobody, Joe's parents, who agree to send Joe to Elan School over a drug trafficking charge, then leave him there for three years after the state drops the charge.
----
* TheAtoner: Not during the story, but in a post on Patreon, Joe comments that as of March/April 2020, his mother finally apologized, implicitly for sending him to Elan and for not believing him when he told them what happened. However, this comes after 20+ years of disbelieving him and the mountains of evidence and testimony, during which Joe made several failed attempts to cut his parents out of his life entirely, and it's unclear even to Joe how much she believes of what everyone is saying. No mention is made of Joe's father apologizing or regretting anything, though.
* BegoneBribe: In Chapter 66, Joe's narration glumly says that his parents buy him a used car for college, "...surely as some kind of 'this will shut him up!' bribe."
* DisproportionateRetribution: It's ultimately played with; Joe admits that he probably ''did'' need some kind of intervention with structured therapy as a teen, but he didn't need or deserve anything close to Elan's abuse. What happens is that Joe's parents are completely ''beside'' themselves when the police catch Joe and his friends crossing state lines with marijuana, because they're concerned with what the neighbors think. They heavily berate him, then a social worker convinces them to send him to Elan in lieu of a supposedly assured prison sentence. Then, after his charges are dropped three months into his stay, they keep him there for an extra three years to punish and "reform" him further. Joe later confronts his parents about it:
-->'''Joe's Dad:''' Well, the charges were irrelevant.\\
'''Joe:''' [[BigWhat What]]? Dad?\\
'''Joe's Mom:''' Joe, you were out of control and everyone just agreed that since you were already at Elan getting help...actually, [[BecauseISaidSo we don't need to explain ourselves]]. Let the past be past.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Joe's parents thought sending him to Elan School would reform him and make him more docile; instead, it effectively [[InnocenceLost ends his childhood]], deprives him of a normal coming-of-age, causes emotional difficulties, and causes such severe PTSD that he gets heavy into drinking, drugs, and cigarettes to cope (the very things they were hoping to avoid).
* ItsAllAboutMe: After his and his friends' arrests, Joe's parents are more concerned with their own public images than even trying to get him a plea deal like his friends P and B got, or listening to stories of his abuses at the hands of Elan's staff; as it turns out, they're more than willing to keep Joe in Elan even after his charges are dropped because the criminal charges are utterly irrelevant to them. It's ''very'' telling that whenever Joe's parents berate him, they keep saying, "WHAT WILL THE NEIGHBORS THINK?"
* KnightTemplarParent: Joe's parents berate him, throw away his music, complain about what the neighbors will think, call him a disgrace, and say "IHaveNoSon". Then, after all that sturm-und-drang, they have him kidnapped and sent to Elan, and get talked into forcing him to stay at Elan past his 18th birthday lest he be formally abandoned and disowned. Then after Joe leaves Elan, he finds out that drug trafficking charges were dropped only ''three months'' into his Elan stay, meaning that his parents kept him there for three extra years to punish him further. And THEN they refuse to believe him about Elan's abuses.
* ParentalObliviousness: For Joe's parents in particular, it's almost as if they ''want'' to remain ignorant of the abuse, even as everyone else sees how badly messed up Joe is, since they shut down any talk of Joe's time at the school. Joe mentions that his mother's reaction to a staph infection he brought home isn't a reasonable, "What kind of hellhole would leave my child's staph infection untreated?", but rather, "Joe, you need to get out of the house and go to a neighborhood get-together." It's so bad that he mentioned in his Reddit AMA that his parents ''still'' think he's exaggerating.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Joe's sister]]
Joe's kind older sister, who he regards as one of his best friends and confidants.
----
* TheConfidant: Joe regards his older sister as one. She's the only person he talks to on the phone when he escapes Elan, and she seems to be sympathetic to his situation. It's one of the major reasons Elan forbids Joe from talking to her. When he finally graduates Elan, it takes him over a year to finally write a letter describing to her what happened to him there.
* CoolBigSis: Joe's older sister, who he feels like is his protector and confidante. His affection for her is weaponized by Elan; they forbid him from talking about her, forbid him from talking to her during one of his rare phone calls home, destroy all the letters she writes him, and don't invite her to his "graduation." The one time he's able to communicate with her during his ordeal is when he's on the run, when she tells him that P and B got a plea deal. She also keeps this up after he graduates Elan; she makes frequent visits from college, doesn't press him for details about what happened in Maine, and gently pushes him to go to a party so he can get back to being social.
* NoNameGiven: She isn't given a name in the story; Joe only ever refers to her as "my sister."
[[/folder]]
!!Elan School staff
[[folder:In General]]
* DrunkWithPower: Joe says that many of the Elan staff -- usually ex-students with no teaching or psychology certifications of any kind -- got off on abusing the inmates.
* EvilTeacher: Zig-zagged. The school's administrators know ''exactly'' what they're doing perpetuating abuse and torture, but they don't care. Any hired staff from outside Elan (like tutors) either don't know the full extent of the abuse, know about it and do what they can to help the kids, or are fired after raising objections.
* EvilVersusEvil: The infighting between Ron and Christy gets a lot of attention. Ron is maybe ''slightly'' better in that he's somewhat less sadistic and slightly more reasonable than Christy, but he still directly participates in most of the abuse at Elan.
* HotForStudent: Many of the staff are ex-students who are just barely older than the current students; Joe mentions several rumors of male staffers having inappropriate relationships with female students, and one rumor of a female staffer having an inappropriate relationship with a male student.
* HotTeacher: Joe can't help but notice that one of the Elan 7 staffers berating him during the three-house general meeting is pretty hot. He chalks it up to teenage hormones and his complete lack of access to media.
* JustGivingOrders: Discussed in Chapter 56. Joe mentions that Elan's staff usually ordered kids to brutalize each other, and never directly manhandled students, in order to maintain plausible deniability.
* ThereAreNoTherapists: All of Elan's "therapies" are handled by students and staff who have no professional qualifications of any kind. Chapter 11 explicitly mentions that the attack therapy wasn't overseen by any licensed professionals.
* WardensAreEvil:
** Ron and Christy stand out as the most abusive to Joe during his time at Elan 8.
** During the three-house general meeting in Chapter 49, Joe gets berated by the adult staff from Elan 3 and Elan 7.
** Joe also talks about senior staff members named Meredith, Caesar, and Larry, all of whom he admits he's still terrified of to this day.
** At the very top is Jay Cirri, who runs the school but is more TheManBehindTheMan.
* WeirdnessCensor: PlayedForDrama and {{lampshade}}d in Chapter 60, when Joe's narration notes that Elan's maintenance men, nurse, gym teacher, schoolteachers, and head cook are all completely oblivious to the school's abuses.
* WorstAid: Elan's staff ''refuse'' to give any of its inmates any proper medical care.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ron]]
Ron is an Elan staff member, one of Elan's first graduates in TheSeventies, and one of Jay Cirri's unofficial right-hand men. He oversees Elan 8, Joe's house, with an iron fist.
----
* AffablyEvil: Ron is a particularly dark example. He psychologically tortures kids under the twisted belief that he's helping them and happily crushes them when they step out of line. In spite of that, Joe notes that he can be surprisingly personable and friendly so long as you play his game; and he's able to charm unsuspecting parents with ease. Joe even compares him to a charismatic cult leader whose larger than life presence helps keep the operation running smoothly.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Joe lists several of Ron's abuses, and says he's a complete psychopath, "...but when that man was on your side you really felt something special." During Joe's parents' first visit he's amicable and personable to Joe's parents, but when they leave the room, Ron smugly tells Joe that he thinks Joe's dad is a closet homosexual and that his mother is a slut. The final irony is Ron's giving a speech at Joe's "graduation" that Joe's mother finds ''so'' touching that it sends her into dramatic hysterics; and his last words to Joe are a hollow, "You are enough."
* TheBusCameBack: Ron leaves Elan for an extended period of time, and newer residents of Elan 8 come to think of him as some kind of ghost story. Then Ron returns to Elan, clean-shaven and strung out, and tries to get Joe to leave with him. After a shouting match with Christy, Christy tells Joe that he's "graduating."
* TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: A major part of Elan's "therapy" is the constant reminder that if you don't complete the program, you'll end up as a drug addict. Yet Ron, a graduate of Elan in the 1970s, shows up to quell the Elan 8 riot with fresh track marks on his arms; Joe surmises that Ron had been shooting up when the call about the riot came in.
* CoDragons: Joe mentions that Ron is the unofficial fourth member of the group of former Elan inmates who administer the school, second only to Jay Cirri.
* ColorCodedEyes: In a comic that is primarily DeliberatelyMonochrome, Ron's eyes are consistently brown.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: During one of Joe's {{Heroic BSOD}}s, he's completely blanked out and doesn't respond to Christy yelling at him. She immediately orders to other kids to hog-tie Joe and call a general meeting; Ron then intervenes, calls them off, and sends Joe back to the corner instead to cope.
* HeelFaceTurn: Ron, seemingly. Towards the end of the story, a strung-out Ron shows back up at Elan after having been missing for months, and attempts to get Joe to escape with him. However, Joe doesn't buy it for a second -- he has plenty of bad history with Ron, and knows that Ron is a ManipulativeBastard who could be "testing" him, and knows how Elan ''loves'' to move the goalposts with regard to a "graduation" date to continue conning parents out of money -- so Joe refuses. Ron then storms into Christy's office and gets into a shouting match about how Joe should be allowed to leave.
* JustGivingOrders: Subverted when Ron directly manhandles a student during the Elan 8 riot, and says that it makes no sense, "...like the Mafia godfather with a gun in his hand, robbing a little corner store."
* KnightTemplar: What makes Ron so dangerous is that not only is he a graduate of Elan like the kids (and has more insight into their mindset) but he also sincerely believes in the program. Even as he rakes in cash from their misery he's completely convinced that he's building them up to succeed.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Christy]]
Christy is a cruel Elan staffer who oversees Joe at Elan 8, and Joe utterly despises her.
----
* BitchInSheepsClothing: On Joe's graduation day, Christy berates and threatens him an about an hour before giving an impassioned speech about how Joe is a "hero" and a "shining example."
* GreenAndMean: Christy is usually seen with green eyes.
* HateSink: While there's a number of detestable people running Elan, Christy's cruelty gets a lot of attention. She's one of the heads of the house that Joe is in, and she directly causes much of the hardship that Joe endures, while characters like Cirri and other higher-ups are so far away that Joe only really understands the depths of their cruelty after the fact. Christy's actions are contrasted with Ron's -- Ron is a man who's much more directly vicious, but who Joe ends up [[EnemyMine befriending]]; and even though Joe still hates him, he admits that Ron shows him more respect than Christy ever did. It's ultimately Christy who extends Joe's stay at the school, which Ron objects to because Christy had became reliant Joe to do her dirty work. At the end of his time at Elan, Joe is allowed to invite staff members to speak at his graduation; he invites Ron, whilst Christy invites herself.
* ShameIfSomethingHappened: Christy tells Joe about his graduation in three weeks, then immediately reminds him, "''Anything'' can happen in Elan, don't forget who is in charge. I'll have my eye on you." She then continues these veiled threats every single day up to his graduation date, and Joe knows the implications.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Jay Cirri]]
The owner of Elan School, a former hoodlum turned businessman who made his multi-million dollar fortune off of decades of child abuse at Elan.
----
* GreaterScopeVillain: For most of the story, Elan's founder Jay Cirri, and Joe goes over why in Chapters 46 and 47. Cirri started out as a petty thug and addict, learned abusive "therapies" from the Synanon-inspired Daybreak Village in the Sixties, then founded Elan School based off of these "therapies." By the time of the story has spent over twenty years bilking parents and state governments out of millions while convincing them that problematic children ''need'' his school. He's so intimidating, and has so much clout, that a highway trooper turns a blind eye to Joe's second kidnapping upon hearing Cirri's name. That said, three weeks from graduation, Joe finally meets Cirri while doing manual labor on his estate, only to find that the man has dementia, is little more than an EmptyShell, and is very visibly sick -- although Joe grimly notes that Cirri is still surrounded by a very evil air.
* HateSink: Joe has absolutely no problem vilifying Cirri. Cirri started out as a petty thug, got roped into the Synanon-inspired Daybreak Village in the Sixties, and walks away with it with enough knowledge of its methodology to co-found Elan School. From Elan, Cirri rakes in ''millions'' of dollars in tuition fees at the expense of the children's well-being, and personally oversaw its earliest punishment methods, which included horrors like dumping buckets of human waste on its residents. Joe alleges that Cirri burned down several buildings he owned at Elan and at his racetrack to collect the insurance money, drove his wife to a breakdown that required a hospital stay, and has enough clout in the Maine political scene to [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections keep law enforcement at bay]].
* IcyBlueEyes: Jay Cirri is depicted with icy blue eyes in flashbacks to his past. However, when Joe meets him later on, Cirri's eyes are colorless and lifeless to reflect that he's become an EmptyShell.
* TheManBehindTheMan: Jay is at the top of the Elan totem pole, profiting off of child abuse.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: A variation; as part of the RomanAClef nature of the comic, Joe has renamed him. But the comic doesn't exactly try to hide that "Cirri" is supposed to be the real-life Elan owner Joseph Ricci.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: Joe goes into detail about this in Chapter 46, quoting a former Maine parole officer who was told to keep quiet about Elan. Joe also quotes a passage from the book ''Duck in a Raincoat'' that describes how Cirri got out of insurance fraud charges when buildings he owned mysteriously burned down right after he'd taken out insurance policies.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Peter tells Joe that Cirri pretty much owns Poland, Maine, "...cops and everything."
* TheSvengali: Implied; in a flashback to TheSeventies, Joe depicts Cirri as offering a young Ron -- one of Elan's first inmates, under Cirri's direct tutelage -- riches in exchange for becoming one of his Elan mooks.
* TomatoSurprise: Towards the end of his stay at Elan, Joe is forced to do manual labor at Jay Cirri's estate, and eventually comes face-to-face with the GreaterScopeVillain himself. Despite spending the entire story thinking that Cirri is pulling the strings behind the scenes, Joe instead finds that Cirri is instead a very sickly EmptyShell with dementia.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: He's seen as a pillar of the state for his "good work" with Elan School, and he's well-known enough to warrant a run for Maine state governor, although he loses the primary.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Jerry]]
Jerry is a former teacher at Elan, who Joe regarded fondly, but was fired for being "too nice." Joe and Gino meet up with him about year after Joe graduates.
----
* IShouldHaveBeenBetter: Jerry tearfully apologizes to Joe and Gino, saying that he was fully aware that Elan School was "a horror show," and that he'd been sucked in and forced to go along with the abuse just like everyone else.
* RememberTheNewGuy: Jerry was never mentioned during the Elan chapters; he's only introduced during Chapter 69 when Joe and Gino drive up to Poland, Maine.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Meredith, Caesar, and Larry]]
Three higher-ups at Elan, who Joe admits he's still terrified of to this day.
----
* TheAnnouncer: Elan higher-up Caesar is, in Joe's words, a "whole other level of creepy" example of this. He'd show up for Ring events and gleefully act as the announcer. In case it's not clear, Caesar would make special to attend and participate in the events where the kids beat each other up.
* CoDragons: Senior directors Meredith, Caesar, and Larry, former Elan inmates who are second only to Jay Cirri.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Joe describes Larry as giving off this vibe. More specifically, Larry's vibe was described as "sociopathic Wall Street trader who'd slit his mother's throat to get ahead."
* TheManBehindTheMan: Ron is outranked by Meredith, a senior director and former Elan resident who Joe thinks is angling for Jay Cirri's role as head honcho.
* RememberTheNewGuy: In one of the last chapters before his "graduation," Joe talks briefly about some sadistic staff named Meredith, Caesar, and Larry, who'd apparently been around for a while.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Billy Crowe]]
Joe's cross-country running coach at Elan.
----
* DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster: Crowe acts like he's a gangster from the South Bronx, and that rival schools' teams are rival gangs. Joe points out that Crowe was actually born and raised in Maine.
* TrainingFromHell: Crowe knows how strict Elan is by controlling its students' compliance and access to the outside world, and uses that to his advantage, regularly pushing the kids in his charge past their breaking points knowing full well that ''they don't have a choice''. Joe even links to a ''Runner's World'' [[https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a18751357/eminem-lose-yourself-running-anthem/ article]] written by a female Elan survivor who was brutalized by Crowe's methods.
[[/folder]]
!!Elan School inmates
[[folder:In General]]
* ExpelledFromEveryOtherSchool: Many of the inmates at Elan School were kicked out of other programs for being too unruly.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: When Joe is dragged before a three house Ring, he and the other students hear the horrified screams from a girl who had just arrived at Elan that very day. He imagines how absolutely awful it must've been for her to be kidnapped, stripped and deloused, then thrown into watching this general meeting with no context to see a person get berated and beaten to a bloody pulp.
* MoralMyopia: Discussed at length. In order to survive, Elan inmates -- Joe included -- adopt a general strategy of watching out for themselves first. This involves perpetuating the abuse to keep themselves out of trouble; Joe mentions on multiple occasions that his coordinator role required him to abuse other students. He doesn't state any of this proudly, though, and explains his immense guilt at being forced to take part in this cycle.
* ProperlyParanoid: All Elan really does is convince anyone that rebellion is met with extreme punishment, including a full demotion of any "status" that was achieved. To that end, no one trusts anyone.
* SadisticChoice: Every day for the inmates. Typically the choice is between "help brutalize your peers" or "get severely dehumanized."
* TheStoic: Even the tiniest wisp of emotion is penalized at Elan, and one of the first things that Joe notices about the other inmates is how "blank" many of their faces are.
* TeensAreMonsters: Enforced by Elan; for most students it becomes a survival mechanism, but a handful had already done monstrous deeds before being sent there.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Gino]]
Gino is a snarky teen from Staten Island, just a few months younger than Joe, who is first introduced in Chapter 54 as a new student. Shortly after the Elan 8 riot, Joe later makes friends with Gino, breaking one of Elan's cardinal rules about "contracts" between inmates.
----
* AxesAtSchool: The reason Gino is sent to Elan is because he was caught carrying a gun to scare some bullies who had robbed him.
* BigApplesauce: Gino hails from Staten Island.
* TheBusCameBack: Gino shows up at Joe's dorm at the end of Chapter 68, and they go back to Maine together in the following chapter.
* TheConfidant: Against Joe's better judgement, Gino -- who openly sees through and rejects Elan's bullshit -- becomes Joe's confidant. Joe acknowledges that his need for Gino's confidence is almost like an addiction, as it's one of the only "real" friendships he makes in Elan. This almost comes back to bite Joe when Gino starts naming people who'd confided in him, although Gino ultimately doesn't name Joe.
* DrunkDriver: When Joe and Gino reunite after leaving Elan and drive up to Maine, Gino drives and throws back beer like it's nothing. Gino eventually picks up on how uncomfortable it makes Joe, and lets Joe take over driving.
* FireForgedFriends: Geno and Joe after Elan.
* {{Foil}}: Gino for Joe, when Gino is first introduced. He's a few months younger than Joe, and because he's forced into Elan to get out of a supposedly worse sentence, he's arguably in a similar predicament that Joe was in at the beginning of the story. By the time Gino shows up, though, Joe has been in Elan for a few years. Gino openly ridicules many of the things about Elan that Joe himself ridiculed at the beginning of the story, and this serves as a brutal contrast to what Joe has become.
* HighSchoolHustler: Gino, both before and during Elan. Joe describes Gino's backstory getting rich from "pretty much every hustle that was around and available to a kid in New York City," and talks about the ways Gino uses his smarts to turn Elan's rules against other inmates.
* IcyBlueEyes: Gino is depicted with icy blue eyes; his moral ambiguity becomes a plot point several times during the story. Specifically, Gino is seen in Chapter 59 with blue eyes as he gives Joe "the weirdest fucking stare ever. It was...''[[CreepyBlueEyes unsettling]]''."
* KirkSummation: Gino delivers a pretty heavy one to Joe in Chapter 57.
* OneSteveLimit: {{Averted|Trope}}; this Gino is actually the second Gino named in the story. The first is a one-off minor character, one of the two goons that recaptures Joe.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Peter]]
Peter is the Elan student who serves as Joe's "Support Person" (i.e. chaperone) during Joe's parental outing, there to make sure that Joe doesn't spill the beans about Elan's abuse or try to escape.
----
* TheBusCameBack: At the end of Chapter 64, Peter calls Joe and says he's in Joe's neighborhood and wants to visit.
* ChekhovsGunman: Peter is introduced in Chapter 28 as the house's chief expeditor.
* DefeatAsBackstory: Peter is assigned as Joe's "S.P." and gets Maced for his trouble, and upon returning to Elan is further shot down for "allowing" Joe to escape. This makes it ever the more chilling at the end of Chapter 64, when Peter drives six hours to Joe's street and calls Joe up specifically to tell him and set up a meeting.
* FalseFriend: Joe is GenreSavvy enough to recognize this when Peter calls him, pretends to be chummy, and claims to be in Joe's hometown to have a friendly chit-chat. Joe picks it apart in his mind: here is an individual who had a reputation in Elan for being cold and petty, had an acrimonious history with Joe, won't identify themselves (but Joe recognized their voice anyway), somehow knew Joe was out of Elan, [[TheVillainKnowsWhereYouLive tracked down Joe's address and phone number]], drove 500 miles to specifically see Joe, and very likely didn't come alone. The major tell is when Peter gets agitated and desperate when Joe makes excuses.
* NothingPersonal: When Peter is assigned as "Support Person" for Joe's parental outing, he tells Joe not to act up, and says that it's nothing personal, but ''he'' wants to get out of Elan ASAP too and is more than willing to do literally ''anything'' to Joe to achieve that end.
* TheVillainKnowsWhereYouLive: He drives several hours to Joe's hometown and claims to be on Joe's block. Joe has no idea where Peter got this information.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:John]]
John is an 18-year-old high-strength coordinator at Elan, who had been secretly meeting up with and statutory raping Gina, which gets revealed during the Elan 8 riot.
----
* SequelHook: Joe notes in Chapter 57 that "...unlike Gina, I did hear about John again later in my life...but...you'll hear about that."
* {{Unperson}}: John disappears from Elan after his statutory rape of Gina comes to light. Elan being Elan, the unspoken rule is that the other inmates can't speak of them ever again, although Joe notes that he eventually ''does'' hear about John again after leaving Elan.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Gina]]
Gina is a high-strength coordinator at Elan, who was statutory raped by a coordinator named John, and the resulting pregnancy gets revealed during the Elan 8 riot.
----
* SurprisePregnancy: Completely a surprise since boys and girls are forbidden from even ''looking'' at each other.
* {{Unperson}}: After her pregnancy is revealed, Gina quietly disappears from Elan. Elan being Elan, the unspoken rule is that the other inmates can't speak of her again, and Joe says that he never finds out what happens to her.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Julian]]
One of Elan's younger inmates, a 14-year-old Canadian boy who had been given up for adoption as a baby, later dumped into the school as a last resort.
----
* DrivenToSuicide: Elan is so horrible that Julian attempts to take his own life by impaling himself with a Bic pen. It doesn't work, though.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Matt]]
Matt is one of Joe's classmates at Elan, who Joe faces in "the Ring."
----
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Matt shows Joe mercy by refusing orders to jump into the Ring to finish off an already beaten and bloodied Joe; this is met with a general meeting, where everyone is forced to scream at Matt -- Joe included.
* InnocentBlueEyes: Matt, who mercifully refuses to fight an already beat-up Joe during Joe's first Ring, is depicted with blue eyes.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Randall]]
A former Elan "classmate" of Joe's, who Joe liked. After leaving Elan, Joe takes a road trip to visit Randall in college.
----
* DisproportionateRetribution: Randall seeks out, attacks, and ''hospitalizes'' another college student over harassing a girl.
* FireForgedFriends: Joe describes seeing Randall again as "like seeing an old war buddy."
* RationalizingTheOverkill: When Joe asks Randall why the hell Randall straight-up attacked another kid at a dorm party, Randall simply says, "That guy was harassing this girl I know."
* RememberTheNewGuy: Chapter 68 introduces Randall, a level-headed former Elan classmate of Joe's, who Joe regarded fondly while in Elan, but was never mentioned during the Elan chapters.
[[/folder]]
!!People from Joe's hometown
[[folder:P]]
P is one of the two best friends who Joe gets arrested with, prompting Joe being sent to Elan. Joe later reunites with him shortly after leaving Elan.
----
* {{Foil}}: P is for Joe's parents after Joe returns home. P very clearly sees from Joe's behavior that whatever happened to Joe during the three years was very traumatic, and asks him about it. Joe's parents, on the other hand, either [[DoesntKnowTheirOwnChild can't tell or are actively ignoring that anything's amiss with their own son]], and callously brush off Joe when he brings up their leaving him at Elan.
* PleaBargain: P's parents are amused that P got caught by cops and indifferent to his marijuana use; they lawyer up and get him a plea bargain to get out of the drug trafficking charge in exchange for some community service.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:B]]
B is one of the two best friends who Joe gets arrested with, prompting Joe being sent to Elan. Joe later reunites with him while in college.
----
* AddledAddict: He tries to get Joe to smoke meth with him, and he later shows up at Joe's doorstep practically salivating for money.
* {{Foil}}: As it turns out, B is one for P. After Joe's return, P comes to visit Joe, brings him some weed, and shows some genuine concern for his well-being. The years were less kind to B, as he shows up a few chapters later looking ''far'' worse for wear, gives Joe some LSD, and offers Joe some crystal meth. Unlike with P, Joe says that the "'spark' of friendship wasn't there and that sucked."
* PleaBargain: Just like P, B's parents lawyer up and get him a plea deal to get out of the drug trafficking charge in exchange for community service.
* PutOnABus: Lampshaded; B shows up at Joe's house in Chapter 70, looking drugged out and desperate for money, offering Joe a carrying case of CD's as collateral. Joe gives B $80, and never hears from him again.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: Joe notices that his reunion with B didn't have the same "spark" that his reunion with P had. Later on, a strung-out B shows up at Joe's house begging for money; Joe gives B $80, and never hears from him again. Even worse, B is still alive and refuses to talk to Joe for unknown reasons; Joe's narration talks about how Joe finds B on a Facebook business page years later. Joe sends a Facebook message to B's wife, who agrees to pass along a message, but then promptly ghosts Joe without another word.
-->'''Joe:''' ''[narrating]'' If by some crazy twist-of-fate you ever read this B, I'm not still mad about what happened, it was a long, long time ago and there is no reason to hide from it. We all go through shit in life and do things we regret. Really man, I just want to say hi to my old friend, even just over the phone...
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Chloe]]
Joe's close friend from before Elan, who he reunites with shortly after returning home.
----
* GirlNextDoor: Joe's narration says she was literally this.
* RememberTheNewGuy: Chloe is introduced in Chapter 63 as Joe's childhood friend, saying that they'd "done almost everything together up until the day Elan took me." She hadn't been mentioned at all in the story up to this point.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Darren]]
Joe's childhood bully, who Joe runs into about a month after returning from Elan.
----
* BullyingADragon: After lifting a bottle of beer from a neighborhood get-together shortly after returning from Elan, Joe runs into his childhood bully Darren hanging out with some other kids. Darren steals Joe's beer and mocks him, and Joe coolly tells him, "If your mouth touches my beer, I'm going to punch it." Darren laughs it off and starts to drink it, and Joe lays him out in one punch.
* EnemyEatsYourLunch: Subverted. Darren swipes a beer from Joe, and Joe decks him when Darren goes to take a sip.
[[/folder]]
!!People from Joe's college
[[folder:Eva]]
Eva is a girl who Joe meets in college, who he starts a toxic relationship with.
----
* AbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder: Eva when she goes home for the summer, but it's almost a subversion since Eva's flaky, it's unclear whether they're ''really'' "together", and Joe is getting [[StalkerWithACrush stalkery]] because he assumes that they're going to live HappilyEverAfter after she gets pregnant. Except when he drives to her hometown to see her, he gets there early and sees her arriving home in a taxi with an overnight bag in tow. Later on, during a phone call, he hears an older man in the background calling her "baby" and telling her to hang up on Joe.
* AsYouKnow: Eva calls Joe up to remind him about the condom that broke while they were having sex. Before this there was no indication that Eva's relationship with Joe had become sexual.
* BrokenBird: Heavily implied; she's certainly got several problems that have led to her heavy drug use.
* ButWeUsedACondom: Subverted; Joe and Eva knew the condom broke.
* IcyBlueEyes: Eva, a drug addict who Joe says initially started off "for sure just using me" and later sleeps around with other guys after telling Joe about her pregnancy, has icy blue eyes as well.
* ImmuneToDrugs: Eva pops 18 pills at once for recreational usage, saying that she's so used to the drug that she has to take that many to feel any effect. This comes after telling Joe to take 12.
* LoveInterest: Joe certainly sees her as one -- he thinks she's really pretty and does pretty much everything he can to get into her good graces and her pants -- but it's unclear whether she thinks of herself as one, or only as his "friend with benefits."
* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Eva is a deconstruction in the same manner as [[Film/FightClub Marla Singer]]. At the time of the story, Joe is head over heels about her, but his narration notes that, in hindsight, "She was actually completely crazy, a ''real'' drug addict, and obsessed with getting into very serious and dangerous situations." It's also unclear whether she sees her relationship with Joe as non-exclusive "friends with benefits," or if she actually becomes his girlfriend but two-times him on the regular.
* SurprisePregnancy: Eva notifies Joe of one. Joe apparently didn't think much of a condom breaking, and Joe was expecting to break up with her anyway, but he's elated to hear the news.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Quiet Bill]]
Quiet Bill is a social outcast who Joe makes an effort to befriend in college.
----
* TheConfidant: Bill becomes another confidant, quietly listening to Joe's stories about Elan, and asking him the kinds of questions that indicate he's genuinely interested.
* InterclassFriendship: Quiet Bill and Joe. Joe comes from an ostensibly middle class family in the American Midwest, and Bill is the son of a Los Angeles multi-millionaire. Joe finds out about Bill's background when he accompanies Bill on a trip to Los Angeles during Spring Break.
* WellDoneSonGuy: Quiet Bill idolizes his rich and important father, who keeps blowing him off for dinner during his and Joe's Spring Break in Los Angeles. The one time Bill's father actually shows up to go to dinner, he completely ignores his own son and spends the entire evening talking to other dinner guests.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ezra]]
Ezra is a football player who becomes Joe's college roommate.
----
* {{Cult}}: Ezra was raised in a religious cult. Joe helps break him out of the cult's spell.
* ChekhovsGunman: Lampshaded when Joe explains that there's a super important reason he's introducing Ezra to the story.
* MirrorCharacter: Ezra, for Joe. Just like Joe, Ezra is very secretive, socially awkward, and seems to be going through the same inner struggles with college life and daily functioning that Joe is experiencing. Joe can't help but pick up on the similarities. It eventually turns out that Ezra had been raised in a religious cult, with a "Book of Decency" meant to punish sins much like Elan's "guilt" system.
* SequelHook: When Joe talks about how he got his college roommate Ezra, he explains that there's a [[ChekhovsGunman super important reason he's introducing Ezra]] ("A truly mind-bending reason, one I couldn't possibly have known when I let him move in that night."), but he doesn't yet say what it is.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:"Slick Rick"]]
A marijuana dealer who lives in Joe's freshman dorm.
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* TheAggressiveDrugDealer: Inverted; while Rick is the dorm hall's weed connection, it's ''Joe'' who gets needlessly aggressive with Rick.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: He's called "Slick Rick" because he dressed up as Music/SlickRick one Halloween.
[[/folder]]
!!Others
[[folder:The Great Energy]]
A concept of the universe that Joe develops in Elan, that gives him the drive to survive his ordeal.
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* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Joe says that he doesn't think that the Great Energy is necessarily aware of or loves him, or has human emotional intelligence, but he also says that he fully believes that it wants life over death.
* FateDrivesUsTogether: Joe attributes his becoming college roommates with Ezra to the Great Energy, as he's able to understand what Ezra went through as another victim of a cult, and helps break him out of it.
* GodOfGood: Though he doesn't describe it in godlike terms, Joe describes the Great Energy as the universe wanting things to live, to survive. He uses giraffes as an analogy: the Great Energy wanted them to survive and live, so it allowed them to evolve longer necks to reach high branches in the trees.
* HeroicSafeMode: During an extreme punishment at Elan, Joe turns inward and develops a concept of the "Great Energy," which gives him drive and determination to play along with Elan's cruel game and gives him the drive to survive.
* JesusTaboo: Lampshaded; Joe says that he doesn't want to call it "God" because he thinks that it has too many man-made connotations.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:"Casey Jones"]]
"Casey Jones" is a Vietnam veteran who picks up Joe hitchhiking, after Joe escapes from Elan.
----
* BackstoryHorror: Casey saw awful things in Vietnam, and tells Joe a story about how the the Viet Cong snuck into his platoon's camp one night and quietly slit half the throats of his fellow soldiers.
* DontSaySuchStupidThings: After Joe listens to Casey's Vietnam War story, Joe quietly says that it made his experiences at Elan seem like nothing by comparison. Casey calls him out on this, and is probably the first person to ever tell Joe that Elan's abuse was unequivocally wrong.
-->'''Casey:''' HEY! Bullshit. You stop with that! Stop with that bull. Listen boy! And you listen good! Don't you never let nobody tell you that you can't be sad 'cause some bonehead somewhere else has been sadder. That's stupid. That's dumb as saying you can't be happy 'cause someone, somewhere else has been more happy. It ain't no contest, Joe, and don't you never forget that. Never. I heard your story and you were '''wronged''', boy. And them feelings you feel, they ain't wrong, okay? They ain't wrong.
* DrunkDriver: Casey picks up Joe after Joe escapes from his parents and Peter. He constantly drinks from a 40 of Olde English malt liquor, and at one point takes a hit from a marijuana pipe. They ultimately don't get into a wreck, and Casey is able to safely drop Joe off in Brooklyn.
* HeroOfAnotherStory: Although calling him a "hero" is a stretch since he's clearly up to something shady with the snippets of his covert activities that Joe witnesses in Boston and Brooklyn. But he's nice enough to give Joe a ride, listen to his story, and give him some cash.
* MirrorCharacter: Casey, for Joe. Just like Joe, Casey had a happy, carefree youth before being whisked away to a hellish environment. And Casey's PTSD years later -- abated by alcohol and long road trips -- is not at all unlike what Joe will later experience in the post-Elan chapters.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: When Joe asks him his name, he tells Joe just to call him "[[Music/TheGratefulDead Casey Jones]]".
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Mikey, Nate, and Sam]]
Mikey, Nate, and Sam are teens that Joe meets in Brooklyn after running away from Elan. Nate provides Joe with shelter in his apartment overnight.
----
* BigApplesauce: They live in Brooklyn, and chide Joe for not knowing that Hell's Kitchen isn't in Brooklyn.
[[/folder]]
