stephanie

I felt like Travis was the more sociopathic one. To me, his happy carefree attitude showed true absence of care for other human beings, as I understand sociopathy to be. (I could be totally wrong about this, of course. XP) The end didn't really fit into that persona though, so I'm not sure. *Spoilers ahead! Analysis of the ending!*

Per my assumptions he would have shot Ryan, not himself, as the concept of friendship and therefore Ryan's life would have meant nothing to him. Oh, someone just pointed out to me, we could assume -Ryan- somehow manages to shoot Travis with the gun instead, that would be more in line with my take. He certainly didn't shoot himself because of their "suicide pact", that only applied if they were caught. The plan was to NOT get caught and to live out their lives as normal people. Travis actually mentions he expects to die of old age. He said he would rather die than go to jail but he didn't seem in imminent danger of that to me, merely of having to choose between letting Kayla go or silencing Ryan, by any means necessary.

I did think he was one of the most frightening villains ever. Such a charming, happy go lucky, attractive, charismatic guy. You may hear about serial killers and the like being this way but I for one just don't imagine such danger to stem from such a source. He was in a fraternity for goodness' sake.

Stephanie on the other hand I just saw as totally shut down. She's so closed off she feels numb, and thus, also lacking in empathy, but in a way that seemed like she could come out of it with a lot of therapy, working at it, and love that she obviously hasn't felt in a long time the way a person needs emotionally. Really, she seemed portrayed as someone who truly wanted to die themselves, but for whatever reason (Travis' influence? natural fear of dying?) had diverted this emotion into the plan to kill someone else. Thereby learning about the actual act firsthand. You'll note how she desperately wants Kayla to tell her what it feels like, to be in the box. Both literally as to her fears and feelings as her life slips away and easily led out into a metaphor for death itself, when one's corpse lies in their coffin. As well as her answer when questioned about what she thinks happens after death - "I hope there's nothing." To me, hoping for nothingness is just crying to escape from whatever of kind of pain she was in. The whole suicidal notion of ceasing to be, and therefore to feel, being better than feeling the way you do for one more moment.

I do agree that she came on really, perhaps too strongly with her "I'm such a dour little sociopath" persona though. After her third or fourth line in a row of answering a question with a negative question that doesn't prove the answer even I, who was already reading all this into her character, kind of wanted to smack her a bit and tell her to THINK about what she was saying. That fact that his questions even got to her so much should have tipped her off in itself that maybe, that really wasn't how she felt about the matter. If it was so unimportant, why get offended by being asked to elaborate on your position?

Luckily, she improved, and her actions in the ending I saw as well as in the previous scene where Travis threatened Ryan with the gun seemed well in-line with my analysis, as if she truly didn't care it wouldn't matter to her whether Ryan or Travis lived or died. But they were her best friends, and whether she admitted it to herself or even consciously understood it she needed them. They were her main connection to the world and presumably the people who seemed to care the most about her, however little they may have or been acknowledged by her for doing so.