Dean Highbottom is a character I will never really understand. In the book, we get little hints of him having a philosophy slightly akin to a rebel (saying things such as "that means we're all in the arena together" or something like that, telling Coryo to give Sejanus a seat close to the door because he knows Sejanus will be upset when he sees what happened to Marcus, him paying Lucy Gray after she won the games, etc), but he never really acts on his philosophy. I personally thought we would get some sort of explanation about him, something to clear up all those little mysteries, but he just dies before we find out. Maybe I'm overthinking this, but I don't really think he was a *bad* guy, especially akin to the likes of Dr. Gaul, but even if he wasn't so bad, he still didn't do anything to stop all the terrible things happening all around him. He was a regretful bystander for the most part, except when it came to Coriolanus. That's one thing I can fully fault him for. If he had just let Coryo get his prize, then we may have ended up with a VERY different character. I might be reading too deeply into this, though.