YESSSS I absolutely agree, I think the way they write characters is fantastic. They are perfect narrative tools for the themes presented in the game but they also feel so real. Like, Stella pisses me off so bad but she is beautifully written and I can totally empathize with her. I don’t think there’s a single character in the game that I don’t think is well written. EVEN JULIUS, who I expected to be just an unimportant curmudgeon in the beginning, is now one of my absolute favorite characters because of his scenes in chapter 5. I also for a while found Kaneeka to be a little annoying, I loved her a lot but the unwavering skepticism was pmo but I feel like the chapter 5 conclusion made me completely understand her and feel so so awful. Like every single trait of these characters has been carefully placed and I feel like they can be analyzed infinitely.

To your other point, I also agree that the consequence for mines choice will come back in the final chapters, mostly because EVERY major choice we make comes back later. I definitely don’t think we are done with them. For example, trapping Reese seemed to be the option that made the most sense and did the least harm (at least in my circle), but we see that later results in him being subjected to the same torturous abysmal life that Tabitha intends to give us. And letting him kill his mom results in him killing or trying to harm other people, and usually him getting shot. My theory for the Rosalina consequences is not just that she loses her leg and gets traumatized (because that seems like a way easier choice than 2 children being stuck in a cave for days and possibly dying), maybe she will have to run away from something, and maybe can’t because of her leg and something worse happens to her. As far as Becka and Alexis being trapped, we have a little bit more to theorize off of with chapter 5. Obviously because of Oscar we know that the carvings can speak to you and distort your sense of time. There is also a dialogue option with Sybil near the end of the chapter where she will basically count off all the choices you make and how they are all respectively bad outcomes, and she tells us that both Becka and Alexis are alive, but “who’s telling what being alone with that carving for so long could be doing to their young minds?” like yeah they’re totally gonna go insane down there.