It's very difficult to take the burden of a situation like this all by herself. She could talk about it with some of her friends looking for advice (Jo for example).
She definitely can't talk about it with Jo. It was already established at the swim meet that Jo is also best friends with Danny, and that she reacts very strongly to the thought of Lisa cheating. Lisa can't sit down with Jo and talk about the bad situation she's in because she cheated on Danny with a woman.
She could bring the situation to Viv's attention and see if they could join forces to overcome Paul.
Maybe this is what will happen. The fact that it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean that it won't. Or perhaps Lisa will find another way. We have to wait and see.
One of your chief points seems to be that you think that Lisa would find a solution quickly, and I simply don't find your arguments on that point to be convincing.
Then there's the "fellony" possibility that we were talked about. Theo and the others like Lisa and they would commit for something like this in order to protect her, especially against two kids.
I'm not sure why you would think that the fact that they would be assaulting 18 and/or 19 year olds would somehow make it better. The law protects 18 year olds to the same extent as 30 year olds.
Also, you say that Theo and others like Lisa, and they would therefore be willing to commit a felony in order to protect her. This is a very large leap to what seems to be a very shaky conclusion. How much does Theo like her, really? He's interacted with her just once, on the night when she first met Aoife. He gave her a ride home and warned her to stay away from his family. Yes, he treated her in a friendly way, but why would we assume that he's now ready to go to prison for her? I think that Theo is probably wild enough to risk prison for someone he really loves, like Josh/Aoife, for example. But why on earth would he risk losing his business and his freedom to help a new employee who shared a single bike ride with him?
And the same would hold true for the others, I think. You seem to find it very hard to believe that Lisa could be blackmailed by Paul, but very easy to believe that people she has known for a week or two would commit crimes for her. To me, the reverse seems far more likely.
I'm sorry but I think we're going out of topic a little. As a psychologist which I actually am I would gladly discuss sociopathic or psychopatic behaviour and what causes it with you. For the sake of the discussion however it seems to me that the focus should be how to extend Paul's character to make him more believable.
We didn't go off topic. You say that the focus should be how to extend Paul's character in order to make him more believable. Well, we were talking about that, though I don't accept that this should be the only focus, or that either one of us should be able to define the conversation in such a way as to limit its scope. As long as we are talking about this in the context of the game and the characters in the game, then we are on topic for this thread.
Sure, he could be a sociopath with no particular trauma in his life (again, I don't think this is utterly plausible but I'm following your train of thoughts..) but creating him as a character who do what he does cause he has some motivation against Lisa would be more intriguing and unique.
As someone who also has a background in psychology, I assure you that it is plausible. Furthermore, I don't think that it's either necessary or important for PaleGrass to try to provide us with a backstory for Paul which explains why he is a sociopath. This story is about Lisa, not Paul. Perhaps Paul does have trauma in his past. Perhaps he was simply overindulged, overprotected, had no close friendships, and is now an example of the banality of evil. It really is sufficient for PaleGrass to say "Paul is a sociopath", which tells us what to expect from him in the story. We don't need to know what happened to Paul when he was 5 years old. We only need to know whether or not his actions are in keeping with his character. That is what makes for believability in storytelling.
We do, however, need some motive for Paul to blackmail Lisa, and some motive for Lisa to submit to blackmail. Lisa undeniably has motives already in the game for submitting, but I think that they need to be strengthened and better explained.
As for Paul having a motivation to victimize Lisa, I think that he does have one. I don't think that it's been made sufficiently clear in the game, and it's even possible that I'm reading too much between the lines and am therefore completely wrong about this, but I think that the subtext of the game so far is telling us that Paul has had a longtime crush on Lisa, which he has expressed for years now in the form of harassing behavior, which is fairly common for immature males.
Now, if I'm correct about Paul having a crush on Lisa, then the fact that she clearly dislikes him, and takes every opportunity to express that dislike to his face, is a rejection which he well may resent. And, having walked in on Lisa and Danny fucking in the living room, he may be more tempted than ever to regard her as a sexual object, and perhaps to think of her as slutty, and also to resent her apparently healthy and loving relationship with another man.
If Paul is a sociopath, and if I'm correct about the above being part of the subtext of the game, then he has all of the motivation needed to prompt him to blackmail Lisa. This just needs to be better explained in the game. And, now that he has his motive, all he needs is opportunity and leverage, which he very luckily stumbles upon (lucky for him, unlucky for Lisa).
I see what you did there.
