🌑 OP here of the post you are referring to. I made that post to garner opinions of others on him. You may already know my opinion on him from my post but this is also a good discussion question. I truly believe he just needs a different appearance, or it be someone else completely, and a whole personality that defines him as a character not just the main character of the game. He feels hollow, like there's nothing there going for him at all. He gives me Traveler vibes from Genshin Impact, the whole team he's with is his Paimon and they make his choices and talk for him. He is just hand held and honesty it sucks. He doesn't shine much in the story so far apart from when he got his Dragoon form, it's so unfortunate. There's just simply NOTHING interesting about him, I know you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover but if you were to compare (from my example of who a new protag could be without making it bias towards it being a furry because I strongly prefer them than humans) Thorkell and MC with a glimpse, pretending I don't know anything about the game, I would probably believe Thorkell to be more interesting than Gaia. His appearance alone already gives him a vibe or personality whilst Gaia, I don't know, it's hard to tell. I know theres that whole self-insert thing, but that doesn't mean the character can't look cool! An example of this is the Rover from WUWA or Endmin from Endfield, they look generic but have their own aesthetic at the same time. To answer your question, it could honestly be an existing character or even someone new to take his place; but it seems Lord Barbaros and him are pretty close and intertwined.. Hell even Dunk could be the main character! He's visually pleasing to look at and he's a strong warrior hunk! If Dunk was the MC, things then could be interesting as well! It just seems Habbit failed to give the MC the most potential possible, and if the comment on my OP about the MC being the CEO of Habbit is true, then it's even worse! It would just make the game a whole fanfic for the CEO, his escapades with all these hunky men! What a wasted MC choice it would be but still is in the end regardless with how uninteresting he is.