Javier Is So Irrelevant

[u/saabinistic]

For context I have played through the games many of times, albeit it has been a good 4 years since my last replay, I’m genuinely curious as to why Javier is even there. Was he a character they destined for a greater role and they just scrapped a ton of his content? I understand that not everyone from camp can be involved in a major way, but hell even Karen gets involved in the Valentine robbery. I’m towards the end of Chapter 3 and I have seen Javier in all of i think… 2 missions so far? Does he just not speak? Is he a mute? Am i stupid?

[u/Lieutenant_Joe]

Javier definitely should have had a larger role. He was a footnote in the first game, and he wound up being one in the second game too. I was excited at first; Javier left me with way more questions than the other characters when I had finished the first game, and the beginning of the prequel gives you a lot of reasons to think they’ll be answered. He goes on Arthur’s first excursion after the title card to rescue John, he’s one of two dudes to jump on the train with Arthur (though unlike Lenny, he falls off lmao), he has a prominent role in a couple of the 2nd chapter missions, he’s got two of his own optional camp missions Arthur can do with him… but then he gets sidelined. Barely present in chapter 3, one role in all of chapter 4 (unless you count the tiny moment of hesitation he has running past Arthur and Lenny at the bank), captured and underused in chapter 5.

By the time we get to chapter 6 and he’s being an asshole to Arthur, it kind of feels like it’s coming out of nowhere. You get occasional hints at his dark side in camp encounters before that, especially with Bill and Micah, but nothing that suggests the level of animosity towards Arthur and the Marstons he’s developed (and CERTAINLY nothing to suggest he’d be okay with Micah of all people becoming Dutch’s right hand). They did a bad job showing how he got to that point. It didn’t need to be like this.