Friend

Friend Dr. Moreau made a wolf who didn't want to kill, and somehow she decided that was a failure. That probably tells you everything you need to know about her. Friend ended up being one of the characters I cared about most in Red Agent: Island of Dr. Moreau, even though he only gets a small piece of the story. He's one of Helena Moreau's animal-human hybrids, a gray wolf with a red scarf who serves at her table. She has a whole society organized around what she wants from her creations. The favorites get power. Others serve them. Anyone who steps outside the rules can be dragged in front of everyone and whipped. She calls these creatures her children while treating them like property, and she's perfectly comfortable making them watch each other suffer. Friend explains that serving wasn't originally supposed to be his role. Moreau expected a killer, and he didn't have that instinct. She was disappointed, so she made him a servant as punishment. I like that the story gives us that explanation before showing what he's actually willing to do. He can recognize cruelty, care about someone else, and decide that helping them matters more than obeying the woman who created him. He helps Britney and Avril escape while their collars are still suppressing their powers. He's familiar with the guards and knows they can be distracted with food. He also warns the women that Moreau intends to let her favorites hunt them. When Britney insists on knocking the guards out rather than killing them, because they're victims of Moreau too, he goes along with it. Then they get cornered near a cliff, and the escape stops being something they can handle without bloodshed. A bear hybrid attacks Avril. Friend jumps in and tears into its throat. Afterward, he apologizes and explains that the bear wasn't going to stop. Britney points out that he does have a killer instinct after all. His answer is that he does when he's protecting his friends. That moment could have been enough to establish him, but the story makes him follow through again under much worse circumstances. When Moreau catches up, the three of them jump off the cliff into the ocean. Friend can't swim. He tells Britney that before they jump, and when she asks whether he trusts her, he says yes. Britney tries to keep him afloat while Moreau sends shark hybrids after them. The women are already struggling, and Friend is in water he doesn't know how to survive in. When a shark goes after Britney, he still dives down and claws its face. He gets bitten terribly in the process. They make it to shore with him, but they can't save him. His last conversation with Britney is about his name. If he were going to choose one, he says he'd still want to be called Friend. That's the name he chooses to leave them with, after giving them every reason to remember it. His death also matters beyond that beach. The leopard servant who later helps the women says Friend would want her to help them. She becomes part of the uprising that breaks Moreau's control, and the surviving hybrids finally get a chance to live without her deciding what they're worth. Friend never gets to see that freedom. That bothered me, honestly. He spends his life being punished for having the very qualities that help make it possible. Moreau wanted something she could turn loose on command. He had enough of a mind of his own to choose who deserved his loyalty, and he kept choosing those people right up to the end. Spoilers for Red Agent: Island of Dr. Moreau #1–5.