Characters
Samson Masur
Samson Masur, also known as Sam and by his gaming nickname, Mazer, is a talented game developer who studied mathematics at Harvard on a scholarship. A tragic car accident left him with a leg injury and led to the death of his mother. "Raised by Korean immigrant grandparents in Koreatown, Los Angeles," Sam is known for his honesty, bluntness, and intelligence.
Sam’s closest friends include Sadie, whom he met at the age of 12, and Marx, his roommate at Harvard. Together, they later establish a successful gaming company while surviving their early twenties.
Despite growing to like and, eventually, love Sadie, Sam struggles with low self-esteem and has a desperate fear of rejection, which often prevents him from expressing his feelings. He views himself as unattractive due to his roundish face, light-colored eyes, and mixture of white and Asian features. His emotional expressions are unclear, even to himself, and his internal monologue leaves readers uncertain about his true nature and motivations, unsure whether he is genuinely selfless or potentially selfish.
Sam tends to vilify others, as evident in his lashing out at Marx and Sadie when they become a couple. This behavior stems from jealousy and a sense of undesirability. Perhaps his jealousy is not rooted in the fact that Sadie is not romantically involved with him. Instead, he envies the romantic love his closest friends share, a sentiment he feels he is missing out on. He "takes comfort in numbers" and likes to calculate things to better understand them—sometimes, human emotions feel foreign to him.
Fortunately, over time, he matures. He gains fame when he becomes known as Mazer and gradually learns to accept his disability, which he previously saw as a "basic error in programming." Most importantly, he becomes better at expressing his emotions. The deaths of his mother, Marx, and finally, his grandfather deeply affect him, motivating him to work hard to maintain his company and improve his mental and emotional well-being.
For most of his life, Sam had found it difficult to say I love you. It was superior, he believed, to show love to those one loved. But now, it seemed like one of the easiest things in the world Sam could do. Why wouldn’t you tell someone you loved them? Once you loved someone, you repeated it until they were tired of hearing it. You said it until it ceased to have meaning.
In the end, Sam realizes his friendship with Sadie holds more value than any potential romantic feelings between them. The story’s conclusion implies their continued success as business partners.
Sadie Miranda Green
Sadie is a highly intelligent and affluent woman with a background in computer science at MIT. She later teaches advanced courses at MIT and leads a successful game development company.
She possesses striking features, including a pretty face with olive skin, mahogany wavy hair, kind brown eyes with golden specs, and a gap between her middle teeth. She comes from a wealthy family, and her grandmother, Freda, is a Los Angeles real estate tycoon. Her parents are Steven Green and Sharyn Friedman-Green, both of Jewish descent.
Throughout her life, she has loved three men: Sam, cherished as a true friend; Dov, with whom she had a complicated relationship but stayed friends; and Marx, initially a business partner who transforms into a close friend, then romantic companion, and ultimately, the father of her child.
Aware of her occasional selfishness and insecurity, Sadie battles with depression, experiencing a severe bout during her student years after she underwent an abortion. The loss of Marx intensifies her struggle with depression, and...
(This entire section contains 1226 words.)
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she faces postpartum depression after giving birth to her daughter, Naomi.
Sadie believes "marriage is an antiquated institution that oppresses women" and perceives herself as an "unnatural mother." Unlike other parents who view their children as fully formed from the moment they appear, Sadie sees Naomi as "a pencil sketch of a person who, at some point, would be a fully 3D character."
As a woman in STEM and a brilliant game developer, Sadie faces sexism regularly and has learned to always maintain control of her emotions. Yet, with Sam and Marx, she feels unafraid to reveal her true self.
Marx Watanabe
Marx is the son of wealthy Japanese businessman Ryu and Korean-American textile designer and professor AeRan Lee Watanabe (Anna). He is Sam's roommate, and because his mother and Sam's mom share the same name, he considers Sam a brother and is protective of him.
So, he protected Sam, and he made the world a little easier for Sam, and it cost him next to nothing to do so. Marx’s life had been filled with such abundance that he was one of those people who found it natural to care for those around him.
Marx starts studying English at Harvard as it is close to the theater but later switches to economics. Despite participating in college theater, Marx does not aspire to be an actor. He possesses the looks of an actor, described as "six feet tall, wide shoulders, slim waist and hips that looked elegant in clothes, strong jaw and voice, good posture and skin, a glorious pompadour of thick, black hair." However, his true fascination lies in the production aspect of theater.
Eventually, Marx begins to work as a producer at Unfair Games, handling "the practical business of running the company." Sam sees him as "the most fortunate person" ever, as he has luck in all aspects of life. Sam also compares him to Hector in the Iliad, a character Marx admires even though he is neither a god nor a king, and describes Marx as the "tamer of horses."
"Because it’s perfect," Marx said. "'Tamer of horses' is an honest profession. The lines mean that one doesn’t have to be a god or a king for your life to have meaning."
Marx is a profoundly wise people person, a good businessman, and most importantly, a good man. Though he tends to date frequently, he eventually falls in love with Sadie. He dies at the age of 31, murdered callously by homophobic shooters, before meeting his unborn daughter, Naomi.
Dov Mizrah
Dov, a successful game developer teaching at MIT, openly shares with his students the realities of success in the industry. Originally from Israel, he is married to Batia, with whom he shares a rocky marriage and a young son.
Fascinated by Sadie's intelligence, he engages in a romantic relationship with her; together, they often explore the concept of S&M. However, realizing the importance of his family, Dov decides to end things with Sadie, leaving her depressed. The situation suggests that the child Sadie chose to abort might have been Dov's.
Although Dov openly acknowledges his love for Sadie, he is someone who does not fully understand himself or his emotions. He continues to date younger women, most of whom are often his students. He divorces Batia and marries one of his students, though he later divorces her as well due to his struggle with commitment and reconciling himself with his romantic relationships.
Sadie does not necessarily love Dov, but she values him as both a mentor and a friend. She appreciates "how willing he had always been to share his knowledge and his time, for what a good teacher he had been, if nothing else."