Games Untold

Jameson Hawthorne is another of the collection’s primary characters and Avery’s love interest. He appears in the stories, “That Night in Prague,” “Five Times Xander Tackled Someone (& One Time He Didn’t),” “One Hawthorne Night,” “$3CR3T $@NT@,” “What Happens in the Tree House,” and “Pain at the Right Gun.” 

Jameson is one of Tobias Hawthorne’s grandsons. In the narrative present he is 19 years old and has “grown up in a glittering, elite world where nothing was out of reach” and “spent his childhood birthdays” receiving “ten thousand dollars to invest, a challenge to fulfill, and the opportunity to pick any talent or skill in the world to cultivate, no expense spared” (14). Because of his privileged background, the world is his proverbial playground. Jameson is always on the move, using his money for exploration and adventure. Because of this, when he discovers that Avery donated a large sum of her inheritance, he sees her as a saint. He is moved and inspired by her generosity, which makes him love her even more. Jameson’s character and the contrast with Avery’s perspective on their wealth highlights the Impact of Wealth and Legacy on Identity.

Jameson is a serious character, but he makes room for fun whenever he can. He enjoys games, puzzles, and thrills and perpetually seeks out new experiences. At the same time, much of Jameson’s gallivanting is inspired by his family legacy. He often tries to uncover his grandfather’s secrets and solve the riddles the late Tobias left behind. This is why he often disappears from Avery’s side and why he’s later ensnared by his grandmother Alice Hawthorne. He is a loyal character who loves deeply. Despite his interest in decoding the past, Jameson is also determined to invest in his relationships with Avery and his brothers.

Tobias Hawthorne is the patriarch of the Hawthorne family and Jameson, Nash, Xander, and Grayson’s grandfather. He is a protagonist in “The Same Backward as Forward” and appears in the margins of the surrounding stories. Because he is the Hawthorne boys’ grandfather and Avery and Libby’s benefactor, references to Tobias are scattered throughout the collection. The characters often allude to their fraught relationships with Tobias and their desire to live beyond the confines of his complicated legacy. However, in “The Same Back as Forward,” Jennifer Lynn Barnes offers insight into his character and past, illustrating the Complexity of Family Dynamics.

Tobias’s story also illustrates the impact of wealth and legacy on identity. Like the other Hawthornes, Tobias has a fraught relationship with his family. When he discovers that his father is not his real father and is responsible for killing his biological dad, William Blake, Tobias seeks revenge. He burns down the mansion on Hawthorne Island to punish his adoptive dad, accidentally killing his brothers and Hannah’s sister Kaylie. In the aftermath of the accident, Tobias experiences amnesia. While he’s recovering from his burn wounds at Jackson’s shack, he embodies the alias, Harry. The name effectively separates him from his family legacy and grants him a new start, allowing him to leave a painful past behind and consider a future with Hannah.

When Hannah first meets Tobias, she dislikes him because of his pompous attitude. He speaks with “the air of a person to whom everything was a very dark joke” and doesn’t try “to mask the way [his eyes] rove over [Hannah’s] body” (97). Despite his elitist attitude, Tobias is physically attractive to Hannah. His hair is “a dark, almost reddish brown” and he has dark green eyes that “shin[e] with the light of bad ideas and worse ones” (97). When she spends time with him at Jackson’s, she starts to notice that Tobias’s eyes also carry secrets. She initially hates and tries to kill him for killing Kaylie, but ultimately falls in love with him. Her feelings change because she’s able to see his humanity and empathize with his fraught familial situation and longing for freedom. Although the two have a love affair while at Jackson’s, Tobias refuses to make a life with Hannah as he doesn’t want to hold her back. He is a three-dimensional character whose internal complexities create conflict that resonates through the future generations of his family.

Nash Hawthorne is Libby’s love interest. He primarily features in the story “The Cowboy and the Goth,” but also appears in the stories “Five Times Xander Tackled Someone (& One Time He Didn’t),” “One Hawthorne Night,” “$3CR3T $@NT@,” and “What Happens in the Tree House.”

Nash is another of the Hawthorne boys who was raised by his grandfather Tobias. He is often referred to as a cowboy, speaks with a drawl, and wears a traditional cowboy hat. When Libby falls in love with him, she also notes that he is “steady and gentle and good” (286). He takes care of Libby from the start of their relationship and falls in love with her over time. He has a rough, outdoorsy exterior, but a soft heart and empathetic spirit, illustrated by how he invests in his relationship with Libby, supports Avery, and shows up for his brothers. After he and Libby get engaged, for example, Nash promises his brothers in “What Happens in the Tree House” that their relationship won’t change just because he’s getting married. This story also captures Nash’s determination to be a better person than Tobias, to follow his heart, and to love passionately.

Libby Grambs is the protagonist and first-person narrator of the story “The Cowboy and the Goth.” She is Nash’s girlfriend and Avery’s adoptive sister. Libby has never been formally adopted into Avery’s family but always felt loved and seen by Avery and her mother Hannah. She regards Avery as her sister and does everything she can to love and protect her.

Libby is a fragile, sensitive character who often doubts her self-worth because of her past experiences. Her character arc involves coming to recognize her value and see herself as someone worth loving. She didn’t have the same family structure as the other characters and has been in abusive relationships. When she starts seeing Nash, she doubts that he would want to be with her. Over time, however, Nash’s devotion helps Libby to understand that she’s worthy of love. By the end of “The Cowboy and the Goth,” she’s not only embraced a relationship with Nash but also agreed to marry and have a child with him. Her romance with Nash changes her over the course of the collection, illustrated by her confident and assured manner in “$3CR3T $@NT@.”