Thread:Mesektet/@comment-3581997-20160615160106/@comment-3581997-20160707044527

Don't have him wallow in his past. Have him be a jerk to anyone who gets in his way, without making him seek out people to be a jerk to. This will cement him to the audience as someone with issues without having him come off as a bully. Then after an appropriate time, when the subject comes up give the reveal.

Yuri Hyuga is a flippant ultra-violent jerk but he only rags on people who give him an excuse to rag on them. He is all for punching people in the face for so much laughing at him or others' pain. We however do not find out what his damage is til about what would be the third or fourth stage in the game, even then we only find out part of it and that is because it came up. Some evil old mystic notes he has the same powers and general appearance as his old arch-enemy and comes to the conclusion he is the guy's son, which brings up a whole bunch of issues not revealed til the audience before, like that he grew up for the later half of his life without parents after they were killed by the creep. Well his mom was killed by the creep, his dad was mercy killed by his friend.

By making Micheal ready for a fight but not looking for one, you give the audience something to invest in for finding out what is up with him. And by holding off a few chapters/levels/scenes in to reveal it you can make a lot of things suddenly click and add a sense of depth to him. This will give him issues, but ones he was already dealing and adapting to before the story started and thus he will not be a Woobie to the audiance.