Characters from the 2013 Environmental Narrative Game Gone Home.
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Major
Katie Greenbriar
Kaitlin "Katie" Greenbriar
- Voiced by: Sarah Elmaleh
The protagonist of Gone Home, Kaitlin is a 21-year-old college student who returns to her family home after a year abroad in the middle of a stormy night to find the house empty, apparently ransacked, and filled with mysterious notes from her younger sister. The game details Katie's investigation of the house and what happened to her family in the year she's been gone.
- Cool Big Sis: How Sam sees her. It's implied she already knew about her being a lesbian from one of Sam's journal entries and way more accepting than their parents wound up being.
- Decoy Protagonist: The story begins with the impression it's about her returning home, immediately it becomes clear she's not the real star.
- Flat Character: Although Katie is clearly accomplished and writes happy postcards to her family, we don't learn anything about her.
- The Generic Girl: While we get a few glimpses of her personality through postcards and such, she's basically a cipher.
- Only Sane Woman: Seems to be the only member of her family who isn't screwed up in one way or another.
- Plucky Girl: The impression one gets of her from her phone call to her parents and the various postcards found around the house. We don't get to know Katie as well as Sam, but from what we can tell she's certainly more socially outgoing and confident than Sam, as well as adventurous and responsible, but with a slight goofy streak.
Sam Greenbriar
Samantha "Sam" Greenbriar
- Voiced by: Sarah Grayson
Katie's 17-year-old sister. Unlike the apparently more popular and conventional Katie, Sam's always been a bit of a loner and an outcast. Much of the story revolves around Sam's struggles in the year Katie was away, as revealed in the many journal entries Katie finds throughout the house.
- Character Development: Her relationship with Lonnie inspires her to increasingly come of her shell and take more risks, culminating in her running off with Lonnie.
- Gender-Blender Name: Although called Samantha, she's almost always known as Sam.
- Non P.O.V. Protagonist: While the player plays as Katie, the story itself is really about Sam's life over the last year.
- The Snark Knight: Perhaps the best example being the health class assignment of hers you can find, which reads like a spot on pastiche of the glimpses we get of things the former trope namer wrote in the show (cf. the Melody Powers stories).
- Sibling Yin-Yang: With Katie. She is introverted, shy, and has a hard time making friends, where Katie is extroverted, confident, and gets along well with other people.
- Straight Gay: Characterized as being bookish and socially withdrawn, Sam doesn't fit traditional lesbian stereotypes as much as the tough, army-focused Lonnie.
- The Unfavorite: One of the very first things you see in exploring the house is Kaitlin's prominently displayed trophies in the foyer, on the flip side Sam seems to be frequently marginalized and her interests/feelings ignored. One possible reason for this is that she takes after her father more, and he doesn't like himself much.
Terrence Greenbriar
Terrence "Terry" Greenbriar
Katie and Sam's father, a failed author who now writes mindless reviews of hi-fi equipment for a magazine.
- The Alcoholic: Irish Whiskey and Vodka being his preferred methods of self-medication.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After struggling with his novels selling poorly for years, frequently driving him to the brink of depression and entirely giving up on writing, his move to a new publisher leads to a breakthrough in sales, and the newfound demand even inspires him to write a sequel.
- Endearingly Dorky: Lonnie notices how he was rather awkward during the Thanksgiving Dinner she visited Sam for, and she actually found it rather funny and endearing.
- Parental Obliviousness: Like Jan, he is clueless for a long time about Sam's sexuality and the fact that she is in love with Lonnie. Though judging from their reaction when they do find out, it is hinted that an element of Selective Obliviousness is also in play.
- Rape as Backstory: One possibly interpretation of Oscar's "transgression".
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: On the receiving end of two regarding his writing. His father believes that his work is only good for readers of his chosen genre. His editor has long since lost patience with his going over the word limit with irrelevant ruminations about his childhood, and would have fired him if not for him being friends with the editor's boss.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: A lot of his issues seem to stem from his author father's decided lack of approval or respect for his son as a writer. Interestingly, this seems to carry on to his relationship with Sam with whom he shares a distant relationship despite having a great deal in common with her.
Janice Greenbriar
Janice "Jan" Greenbriar
Katie and Sam's mother, an ecologist struggling with an unhappy marriage and a daughter she doesn't understand.
- Love Makes You Dumb: Gets seduced by an attractive male subordinate into recommending him for a promotion only to find out he was doing it so he could afford to marry his girlfriend and start a family.
- Loving a Shadow: It's clear that Jan didn't know the guy who worked for her and seems to have mostly gotten carried away with the fantasy of it until she comes back down to earth.
- Parental Obliviousness: Like Terry, she is clueless for a long time about Sam's sexuality and the fact that she is in love with Lonnie. Though judging from their reaction when they do find out, it is hinted that an element of Selective Obliviousness is also in play.
Richard Greenbriar
Richard Greenbriar
Terry's father, an English teacher, philosopher and published author.
- Abusive Parents: If the notes he wrote to Terry are anything to go by, Richard was a distant and dismissive father at best.
- Honor Thy Abuser: One possible interpretation of the implication that he really does love his son and is trying to help him, although in a very misguided way.
- Insufferable Genius: Richard is a pompous dick with a high opinion of himself and a low opinion of his son.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: It's ultimately shown that Richard does want the best for his son — he's just not very good at expressing it.
- Sci Fi Ghetto: In-universe, what he thinks of Terry's time-travel novels, as expressed by his condescending remark (which is is clearly aiming at Damned by Faint Praise) that "readers of (his) chosen genre will lap up copies hungrily," implying that sci-fi readers do not possess discerning tastes.
- Stealth Insult: "I certainly recognized my son in the subject matter," comes off this way, although "You can do better" makes Richard's disapproval obvious.
Primary
Lonnie DeSoto
Yolanda "Lonnie" DeSoto
A girl at Sam's new school, Lonnie is a social misfit and punk and Sam finds herself captivated by her.
- Butch Lesbian: A member of the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps, an organization for youths who wish to train to join the army before they are of legal age.
- Gender-Blender Name: Although a nickname for Yolanda in the game, "Lonnie" is most commonly a boys' name.
- Military Brat: Her father was apparently a soldier and she desires to follow in his footsteps.
- Riot Grrrl: Introduces Sam (and a goodly portion of the audience) to the joys of Bratmobile.
- Rule-Abiding Rebel: As pointed out In-Universe by Sam through one of her journal entries, her career choice clashes pretty badly with everything else about her.
- Wrench Wench: Works on motorcycles with her dad and her desired MOS is tank mechanic.
Oscar Masan
Oscar Masan
Terry's recently-deceased uncle who willed him the mansion in which the Greenbriar family newly resides. His mysterious reputation in Boon County has caused the mansion to be labeled "The Psycho House".
- The Atoner: It's implied that leaving his sprawling house to Terry after his death is a belated attempt to atone for his sexual abuse of Terry when he was twelve years old.
- Big Bad: Most of the bad stuff that happens in the game can be laid directly at his feet, though it takes some digging to figure out exactly why.
- Cool Uncle: Subverted In-Universe. As Terry's father, Richard, was a rather cold and demanding parent, he found it much easier to bond with Oscar and was evidently very fond of him, paying him frequent visits through his childhood, until Oscar made "the transgression" on him.
- Creepy Uncle: Everyone in town thought he was creepy. Along with all the secret passageways in his home, the alleged ghost sightings in the house, and the dark implications of his actions, he seems downright sinister. And that's not even mentioning what he did to Terry when he was twelve years old.
- The Hermit: Closed his business in 1965, and there's no evidence he even left his house between 1972 and 1993 (when he died).
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Sam and Lonnie believe his ghost is haunting the house and claim to have seen some weird stuff going on, but it's just as likely that the house's screwy electrical systems are to blame.
