YMMV / Orwell

• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • Raban Vhart from Ignorance Is Strength isn't exactly a shining paragon of virtue, but he has a rather tragic backstory that does explain why he has such a hatred for The Nation. And depending on your actions in the game, you could not only destroy his credibility but his personal life as well.
  • From the first game, Nina could be read this way. Her death while trying to escape The Nation with her son (assuming things play out that way) is portrayed as tragic and pointless.
• Magnificent Bitch: Juliet Kerrington is a member of the activist group, Thought, and the true mastermind behind the bombings throughout Bonton. Finding out about Orwell through Abraham Goldfels, the deceased leader of Thought, Juliet plots to shut down the program. While impersonating Goldfels, Juliet convinces Nina to plant bombs throughout Bonton. Later, she sends the investigator and Symes on a goose chase by making them believe that Goldfels is the mastermind behind the bombings before later leading them to find out that Goldfels died months prior to the bombings, letting them know that Orwell leads the government to make rash decisions before getting the full story. On the final day, Juliet argues to the investigator about how flawed a system Orwell is as it easily leads to innocent people being wrongly convicted, pointing out how the investigator saw its flaws first hand. Depending on player choices, Juliet potentially succeeds in convincing the investigator to lead to Orwell being shut down, leading Thought to be promoted to a major political party within The Nation.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The multiple profile images you can select for your targets and the CCTV footage in the beginning led some players to believe that they would have look for them in cam footage. This doesn't show up.
• The Woobie: Pretty much every character, though some are more of the Jerkass variety. This is also invoked in the endgame, where Juliet demonstrates that she intentionally set up the others to have their lives ruined by Orwell/the investigator, in order to demonstrate to the investigator how easily Orwell could be mishandled and how easily it can cause innocent people to suffer for no reason.
  • Cassandra has a lot of bratty teen qualities, and episode one reveals in no uncertain terms that she assaulted a policeman. However, she is clearly traumatized by that incident and harbors a lot of guilt over it, and Juliet offers the interpretation that Cassie was only protecting Juliet from the cop. She's also the only character who WILL get arrested over the bombings, due to some remarkably circumstantial evidence, and it's clear that Orwell will never let her move on from her criminal history, even if she was acquitted from it.
  • Goldfels has had it pretty rough, especially since his move to The Nation. He formed Thought to encourage civil discourse and peaceful protests, only for it to stumble off course thanks to Harrison and Nina's more violent and dramatic methods. He worked on Orwell as an ethics advisor, to try and dampen Orwell's more dangerous aspects, but his efforts were ultimately overridden and he abandoned the project in disgust. He fell sick with inoperable cancer, giving him little time to fix any of the negative consequences of his efforts. And as he was dying, he asked Juliet to destroy his backup data - but after his death, she used that data to achieve perhaps his greatest fear of all...
  • For a more Jerkass Woobie version, we have Nina. She initially comes across as a violent, abrasive nutcase who is clearly a fan of fear-mongering, and is ultimately revealed to be the bomber. However, during your investigation you may learn that she was a once-decorated soldier who was wounded on duty, is implied to suffer from PTSD, lost her boyfriend in the line of duty, and was dishonorably discharged, leaving her unemployable except for menial temp work to provide for her son thanks to the Safety Law. This litany of misfortune at the hands of the government makes her anger and despair much more understandable - and unfortunately made it all too easy for someone to manipulate her for their own goals...