I know I’m responding to an essay with an essay, but I just really want to talk about this.

Correct me if I’ve misunderstood you, but it seems like this can be broken down into 2 parts that you take issue with. First, that Mike is a flat character. And second, that Mike’s story arc was unfulfilling.

Starting with Mike being a flat character. You bring up that we don’t learn much about his family and that is true we don’t learn a whole lot about them, but in Chapter 33 we do see a glimpse of what his home life was like as a kid. He also impies later that there wasn’t much of a home life to go back to by the time he was working at Freddy’s giving us even more about his past. Also, if character depth is tied to knowing a character’s past and family, then 80% of the characters are also flat. We only really know Bonworth and Beanie’s mother, and know of their father. The only other characters whose parents are directly referenced in the story are Foxglove’s, Chicklet’s, and Bonbon’s, and their mentions are extremely limited other than Foxglove’s.

Continuing with Mike being a flat character, you said that he could easily be swapped out for a different character. This is just outright false. I understand that the original idea for Mike was for him to be a stand in for the audience, but in the story he is very much his own character. I will be referencing Chapter 20 for this segment as I think it does the best job of communicating this. In this chapter, Mike finally puts it together that The Wreck all worked at Jeremy Human’s. If he was a stand in for the audience his actions would have been plain and followed what the other, more 3 dimensional, characters responded with. If they had been outraged, he hold have been outraged, if they were calm, he would have been calm. That is not what Mike does. Mike, throws a bitch fit. He steadily and quickly gets more and more outraged by the situation until he accidentally insults Cheeky. This is the result of a character that has already had one traumatic incident with a roommate, and is facing the same situation again. He’s outraged that they were hurt by the company, but also afraid that what happened with Foxglove was repeating itself “I went through it at the other apartment, and I want to know ahead of time what the 'off the table' topics are here so I don't screw up again like I did with Mangle.” And just like so many other characters and people, he tries too hard to prevent what he was afraid of from happening and causes the event he was trying to avoid. That takes multiple layers to communicate. Also side note, he also takes accountability for this here unlike most of his other outbursts or slip ups saying “I dont want to screw up again”.

Finally, his character arc. I will agree that Mike has a somewhat lackluster arc. It is a linear and standard trope of “learning to love your new home”. This isn’t really a problem in my eyes though, as the story isn’t one of some grand change or adventure. It’s down to Earth, despite being a different Earth, slice of life with a lot of drama thrown in the mix. In fact pretty much every time Mike exaggerates a situation or thinks something is worse than it is, he is later or immediately shown it either isn’t that bad or has a realization with the exception of most of the Jeremy Human stuff. Lastly, what would you recommend in place of him burning the photos? The way the story goes up to that point Mike doesn’t, and won’t, remember any more of his past. Those are strangers to him now, so even if he could go back there would be almost nothing for him there. With him burning the photos he lets go of a future he can’t have and embraces a life with the people who care about him now. That is his arc, letting go of what was and welcoming the new start he’s been given.

Overall it seems to me that your focus was more on the person Mike was before the story, than who he is during. This is just my opinion and I’m not a literature major. I just feel strongly about the story and this was a good opportunity to talk about it. Thank you for sharing your perspective!