David Martinez

Herein lies the boy who only wished to fulfill other's dreams. The one who was special, who was built different. David Martinez is the main character of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, a heart-wrenching show that concisely covers the effects of oppression and love in a corporatist world. This is a sad show, but so beautifully sad, that even if tragedies or saddening themes are not for you I still recommend watching it because it truly is a masterpiece. I could rave about the story for days but I will save that for the story analysis that is coming shortly after this character analysis.

I will run David through the Character Pipeline framework that I've discussed on this page before and then I will talk about the unique aspects that make his character that much better. In other words, the bare bones writing essentials and then the creative twists and effects that make up this character as a whole.

Without further ado let's discuss the boy who could, David Martinez.

Starting with the backstory which is quite a bit shorter than the other characters I've covered so far which is nice for brevity's sake. We know very little about David's life before episode one but it is quite fair to assume that it was similar to how he lives now. We know nothing about his father but he lives with a single mother who puts her life on the line every day to provide for him. She works as a first responder and makes extra money on the side selling salvaged cyberware, which is the crux of the issue that arises in episode one. I think it is fair to consider episode one part of David's backstory so I will use that for this section. Episode one is an absolute rollercoaster and I am amazed looking back on it how much story they fit into the twenty-four-minute fourteen-second runtime. After the opening sequence that explains where Gloria – David's mother – got the Sandevistan that leads David along the path that he follows for the rest of the show.

After a discussion with his mother about funds for necessary school equipment, David heads off to school at Arasaka (an extremely powerful megacorporation) Academy. He then gets into a verbal spat with Katsuo Tanaka, the son of a rich Arasaka executive about David being poor and having outdated tech. They get into class and David's patchwork version of the required tech ruins the meditation session. The next scene sees Gloria and David in the principal's office who calls for David to drop out because they don't have the funds to keep him up to date and enrolled but Gloria insists against the sentiment. On their way home, they get into an argument about the meeting in which David says that he doesn't see the value of going to the Academy anymore. Gloria gets frustrated and saddened because David fails to see the work that she puts in for him to attend. She wishes for him to climb the ranks of Arasaka because that is one of the few ways out of the hell hole that the poor live in Night City.

Amidst this argument a gang vehicle pulls up next to them on the freeway and opens fire, they can't stop the car from hitting someone else's and they crash. In the next scene, we see Trauma Team pass by them because they don't have coverage and David's mom has to wait for a normal ambulance to come get her. She died the next day and the low-quality surgeon who did the work attributed her inability to recover to her overworked body and mind. David can't afford for her to be buried so he is forced to cremate her and we see the guilt on his face as everything he once took for granted is taken away from him because no one is providing for him anymore. This is not even all of episode one but I will end the back story here because I think this is where the real story starts. (I said this would be short lol)

Next are the flaws, limitations, and handicaps of which David has many, both in and out of his control. One of his limitations is that he didn't grow up with a father figure which causes a lack of some life skills and an understanding of the world from the male perspective. You could argue that he barely has a mother figure as well because of the amount of work she has to do but it feels like she does care for him extensively and he recognizes the benefits of that. A major limitation that he has is that he and his mother are poor and upon losing her, that becomes abundantly clear to him although he already knew it. Stemming from his being poor comes two flaws that are initially out of his control. As some unfortunately may be familiar with, oppression and poverty have a way of making you feel like you are worth nothing, this is true in David's case as well. This fact is evident in the way he is treated by the rich people he is surrounded by at school. Additionally, his being poor makes him feel like his actions are pointless or valueless. This will come back around in full force in just a minute. David recognizes these things or at the least allows them to permeate his understanding of the world which leads to him having very little will to live and practically no personal goals, two more flaws.

From this, we can gather the somewhat surprising motivations. He has two core motivations throughout the story and one you may not even consider his own. The first that is undoubtedly his own is that he wants to become a legend by having a death fitting of one. With the lack of recognition and worth that comes with being oppressed or poor, there is also desperation to be remembered for something, which causes extreme action. That is what permeates all of edgerunner culture as well which is another thing I will get to in the story analysis. This whole idea of living so that you can die is fully embodied by this quote from Maine: "You're not remembered for how you live, but for how you die." The other motivation is debatable in whether you could call it his but it is to fulfill other people's dreams. We see this with his mother, Maine, and Lucy, all of whom he works to either provide for or continue their dreams after their death. For his mother, it is to become someone in Night City which is initially intended to mean climbing the corporate ladder but nonetheless, he does make a name for himself, evidenced by the presence of a drink named after him in the Afterlife bar. For Maine, he continues the same goal that he does for his mother, making Maine feel like a father figure in that he mirrors Gloria in what he wants to see from David. For Lucy, it is slightly different seeing as she is the love interest and not a parental figure. With Lucy he gives everything he has, even his own life, to give her her dream of going to the moon which is in and of itself misconstrued.

Now we begin the loop of decisions, of which I will stick to the key ones that drive character development over driving the plot. There are four main decisions I want to discuss. First is to install his first major implant, the Sandevistan, which becomes a defining part of his identity as an edgerunner and allows him to achieve so much more than he could have originally imagined. The second is to rescue Lucy from Tanaka which kickstarts his desire to protect her and give her everything she could ever want. The third is what occurs in the time skip between episodes six and seven where he chooses, disregarding all advice against and witnessing Maine's death, to double down on his use of cyberware. This shows his deepening lack of value for his own life and his growing attachment to fulfilling other people's dreams. The last is when he chooses to sacrifice himself to save Lucy from Faraday. At this point it was an event we all saw coming but that creeping tragedy almost made it worse than if it had been a surprise. I intend to keep each of these short let's see how I do.

Installing his first major implant is where we see David fully commit to the lifestyle, or what some might call a trap, that many poor people in Night City end up falling into. He first uses it to beat Katsuo Tanaka and never looks back, using it extensively for the rest of the show's timeline. We see him overuse it by many people's standards but he remains standing with, most of the time, minimal effects. Once he hears that this is unusual, he starts believing that he is special, a shred of self-worth shining through. He soon finds out that the Sandy, as they call it, was originally meant for Maine which leads him to join Maine's crew to pay off what he stole. All of this leads to a shift in purpose for David. With his mother passing away and no one to guide him, he is left to decide to become an edge runner on his own, once again giving him some level of purpose and worth.

Coming a bit later, he decides to rescue Lucy during the mission where they capture Tanaka. This decision came when a lot of the crew were putting the mission's success over Lucy's safety. This fact meant that David saving Lucy would likely turn the mission into a failure which in hindsight was true because Maine sacrificed himself to save them (You could argue that the cyberpsychosis would have got him, but still). They did get all of the information that they needed and Lucy found something more about David that she never shared with anyone. This decision, alongside Lucy's choices, marks the biggest progression in the couple's relationship and pushes David toward taking over her dreams even faster. You would think that David would allow Lucy's love for him to heal his lack of self-worth but this is a concept related to oppression that I will, once again, cover in the story analysis.

We don't see the events of the next decision but we do, unfortunately, see the effects of it. His decision to double down on his cyberware and carry on Maine's dream of becoming a top edgerunner is where we also see him double down on being a screen that people simply project themselves onto. There are so many other ways to interpret what Maine has taught him and what he's learned but the world that they live in is unforgiving and pigeonholes him into one ending. This point in the time skip is the point of no return for David, he has fully committed himself to making his legacy by how he dies instead of how he lives, making Lucy's dream come true in the process (not that he has much of a choice).

Lastly, he consciously chooses to sacrifice himself for Lucy after he rescues her from Faraday. His interaction with the Cyberskeleton leads him to cyberpsychosis, something that he thought he was nearly immune to previously. He hangs for as long as necessary to allow Lucy to escape. With the Cyberskeleton he challenges Adam Smasher, the most unkillable man (if you could call him that) in all of Night City. He knows he's outmatched and even if he wins, he'll die from cyberpsychosis, but he does it anyway because he values Lucy's dreams and protecting other people more than he values his own life (a theme with him if you couldn't tell). This does not represent a shift in his identity but it affirms it to the fullest extent one possibly can, bookending the tragedy we all knew was coming, especially for those familiar with the world of Cyberpunk.

In his totality, David is a rather static character (which feels weird to say looking back on it). He starts and remains headstrong, loyal, without self-worth, and lacking a concept of life before death throughout the whole story. His identity only becomes more affirmed by his actions in the story (much to the others' dismay) and it is what gets him killed.

Now for the unique parts of David Martinez and how the world affects his character. Something that both Edgerunners and 2077 do so well is integrate the world into the characters who feel so human by our modern standards. This is a sign of excellent character writing because it represents that the human condition is eternal and that we all do and will always go through these things no matter what.

For David specifically, we see, as I've said multiple times already, the effects of poverty on someone's self-image. In lots, if not all, of media that I've consumed I have never seen this idea so accurately portrayed. What better place to do this than in Night City, though, where the class divide is ten times worse than it is today (an unfortunate exaggeration on my part)? The lack of self-worth, goals, beliefs, personal motivation, and everything in between shine through in David's tragedy as he forces everyone's goals onto himself. This, somewhat, creates a paradox though. In doing all of the things that he does and leaving his mark on the people around him, he is proving his worth. He becomes the leader of Maine's crew ahead of Kiwi and Rebecca who many, in the world, would argue are better suited. Paradoxes are quite common in the Cyberpunk universe and something that I will touch on in the story analyses. This paradox in particular is born out of the poverty that I mentioned before. He has been so conditioned through his developmental years that anything he does will never be enough and that he is not worth life. That conditioning is what makes his actions understandable and tragic because we know that it's not his fault.

At his heart, David is loyal and we see that through his dedication to Lucy and fulfilling (his perception of) her dream. She tells him in episode two that her dream is to go to the moon, a common literary symbol for freedom. He takes this literally and remembers it throughout their relationship. When it comes time to fulfill her dreams he still sees it as material, not that she wishes for freedom. He is that freedom, but he can't understand that because he has no self-worth and thinks that he could never be that for someone. He becomes blinded by his own dreams (ironically to die) and others, causing them to fog his perception of his one and only escape mechanism, love. These dreams are defined by the pursuit of power, both societally and culturally. His mother's dream for him is to become a powerful corpo which would give him societal power and free him from the chains of oppression. Maine's dream which he takes over after Maine's death is to become a powerful edgerunner/mercenary, cultural power. His dream is to become a Night City legend, cultural power. All of these lead to losing your life, literally or metaphorically. Becoming a corpo would strip you of your cultural identity and make you a sellout and a puppet. Becoming a legend, both Maine's and his own dream, would cause you to lose your life because "You aren't remembered for how you lived but for how you die." This pursuit of power is masked by calling it a pursuit of a dream but in Night City all dreams lead to power, and power corrupts.

Overall, David's story is a tragic one about the effects of oppression on your identity, the power of love as an escape mechanism from a cruel world, and how chasing your dreams, especially in a corporatist world, will take your identity or life away from you. All of these themes are embodied in the final episode where we see David reach the top of Arasaka Tower, albeit by unconventional means, and sacrifice himself because of both a lack of self-worth and love.