No seriously, he’s amazing. He’s this tough mercenary guy but at the same time is like the chillest dude and a really nice person under all the gruffness.
He does some bad stuff to duel Judai at first because that’s his job, but realizes about halfway through that he’d rather fight Judai as equals and releases Shou. He’s not jaded by his profession at all, he’s the kind of guy that is willing to say no to an employer if something gets too heavy. Plus he turns out to be working for Pegasus anyway which is just really cool okay. If post-Duelist Kingdom Pegasus trusts him enough for these high stakes jobs he’s obviously a really, really cool person.
And just…he’s so cool. And human. Likehe’s understandable terrified of the Supreme King but inthe end, he decides to face him anyway and is willing to make the biggest sacrifice to save his friend Judai.
I also love that he’s so reluctant to take up a position of leadership among the people of Dark World, who want him to be their commander. He just doesn’t think that he’s strong enough or worthy enough, but in the end, he realizes that he does have the strength and ability to be what they need him to be.
tl:dr, O’Brien is this fantastic badass with human emotions and the strength to rise up and be the hero when he has to be, and I love him for it.
O’Brien is scared. And with good reason, because the Supreme King is a terrifying person. But O’Brien is a mercenary. He risks himself in life-or-death situations all the time and is completely calm as he sets out to do his mission. But not this time.
O’Brien has one of the most pissed off faces I’ve ever seen.
Like “I can’t believe this shit. First I don’t get paid by Cobra, then he traps me down in a pit, then I fall hundreds of feet down into an underground jungle only for a big building to collapse on top me, and now I’m stuck in another world and Judai won’t let me go to sleep.”