The Absolute Chad: Hope Hiro

Hope is a character I consider somewhat polarizing. His existence is both a boon and a bane upon Cryopod. A lot of people don't like seeing clones of the main character in stories, and funnily enough, that includes me.

Hope is a clone Jason makes toward the end of Chapter 1 in Cryopod Refresh. In Cryopod Classic, the timing was closer to Chapter 2, but I decided to change the timing for a variety of reasons.

A movie I occasionally recommend, even if it's a bit old and the humor is definitely somewhat outdated, is Multiplicity. The original cloning system from Cryopod Classic almost beat for beat used Multiplicity's cloning system. Simply put, when the main character clones himself, the clone he makes is slightly... off. Something isn't quite right. If the clone clones himself too, the second generation clones will be even weirder. The degeneration happens no matter what, so it results in each generation being more insane, idiotic, or otherwise demented.

Of course, Cryopod Classic was kind of more of a comedy than Refresh. In Classic, the clones are exactly half as powerful as the person who cloned them, in addition to their mental tics differing dramatically. In Refresh, I decided to set this idea aside.

Now, there's a new system in place. As of Part 205, I cannot say exactly what is happening with the clones, but I can say it's extremely important to each one's character development. Will we have multiple clones, or just Jason and Hope?

Hmm.

Returning our attention to Hope, we know surprisingly little about the guy. Aside from him and Jason sharing the exact same life up until Hope's moment of cloning, we also know they took a huge divergence at that point. 

Jason had Phoebe, his status as the Hero of humanity, and a legion of soldiers willing to die for him.

Hope had none of that. He was just 'the clone of that guy.'

I personally think that while it is natural for some enmity to form, Hope's turn was greatly accelerated when he fell into Neil's clutches. Neil was not the polite, well-spoken man he pretended to be. He was actually a cunning fox, someone who craved power for himself to meet his own ends. He turned Hope against Jason, using Hope's dumbfoundedness and loss to his advantage. While Hope was at his weakest, Neil used soft words and alcohol to twist the young man's thoughts to his side.

We need to also remember, of course, that Hope and Jason were both 18 at the moment of Hope's creation. 18 year old guys are not exactly the most stable people in the world. I know; I was 18 once. I was not even remotely stable. Had you placed me inside a situation where I was humanity's last hope (heh), where I had to fight Satan the fucking Devil by myself, and eventually had to inadvertently kill someone I liked, then you immediately stole away the stability I was just starting to enjoy, I would probably snap, too.

Neil's influence came at the perfect time, turning Hope into his dependent, and allowing him to seize control of the Core.

Readers must now ask themselves, how will Hope and Jason reconcile their differences in the future?

Or... will they at all?

...

That's all I'll say. The next character drawing will be for Jason, once again based on the current Patreon banner.

Which reminds me, since I'll probably change the banner at some point. This is the current banner featuring Hope and Jason from Chapter 3.

 Thanks for reading!