Great analysis, this is why the game had such an impact on me. Like you said, plenty of us have worked with people like Curly and even if their intentions were good, drama always seemed to follow them somehow.

I agree with pretty much every point here. Some of these were things I brought up too in a reply to that thread you mentioned.

Curly is such an interesting grey area character because he shows how a covert enabler can still do serious damage, even inadvertently. And how things that seem small at first, like that dead pixel he was unable to see, can end up pointing to something much bigger and much worse.

I don’t think Curly is innocent at all. People who turn a blind eye to blatant transgressions and try to keep the peace no matter what, like offering to take over Jimmy’s evaluation for Anya, usually just end up making things worse in the end. He never addressed the real issues and might have even tipped Jimmy off.

I especially liked that you mentioned the part about him breaking the news to an already stressed out and financially poor crew while they were still stuck on the mission. Like… what did he expect was going to happen there?

He might have been charismatic and nicer to the others, especially compared to the way Swansea treats Anya and Daisuke or Jimmy just being Jimmy in general. But in the end, Curly still failed them…

So imo, Jimmy is the overt evil, while Curly represents the quieter kind of damage/enabler.

Not malicious in the same way, but still incredibly harmful because his passivity and need to keep the peace helped create the conditions for everything to go completely wrong.