CONTENT WARNING: GTA 5 story mode spoilers, murder, drug dealing/use, and abuse. Message me if I should add any.
Trevor Phillips is the third main character of GTA 5. He is a wildly erratic and borderline sociopathic person, yet he cares very deeply for the people who he's close to. He is middle aged criminal who has managed to make an entire career of drug dealings, i.e his company Trevor Phillips Industries where he sells meth and performs various other illegal tasks; Along with the members of his company: Wade, Ron, and Chef. His base is set in Sandy Shores, San Andreas. He is also one of my favorite characters ever, but we'll get to that. For now here's some backstory.
Trevor's backstory mostly comes from his own word, so his early life is mostly shrouded in mystery. From what he's stated, it hasn't been pleasant for him by far. He's born Canadian but his early life was widely spent bouncing back and forth from home to home. He grew up without a stable father figure and with an emotinally abusive mother he can't help but love. His childhood was for a time was spent in juvie as well. From the time he was a child he's always had anger issues, for example when out of rage he sodomized his hockey coach. Another time, Trevor burned down a shopping mall his father had left him in out of retaliation. Due to his unstable childhood, he couldn't get a proper education and dropped out of school eventually. Despite these circumstances, Trevor had multiple talents. Such as playing golf and flying jets. Because of this talent for flying jets he attempted to enlist in the Canadian Air Force. In the end though, he was rejected for his history of unstable mental health. This puts the final nail in the coffin and leads him into the life of crime he lives in the present of the game. Before he had an entire company though, he started as a petty criminal doing crimes along the Canadian border. That was until he met Michael. Michael encountered Trevor by circumstance, when Michael was robbing the car of a potential employer of Trevor's. Trevor ended up shooting his employer in the eye with a flare gun and this lead the two to becoming well acquaintanced. The pair started comitting crimes together. Although this didn't start well since Trevor was robbing a place that cashed checks whose clerk recognized him. He ended up serving 4 of 6 months in jail and was straight back to commiting crimes with Michael. They eventually both met Brad Snider who they would also enact these acts out with. Not only Brad but Lester Crest, another criminal contact who kept away from the scene. As Michael would keep up his lifestyle of theft, he ended up meeting Amanda who would end up as his wife. He would then have two children with her. Trevor even swore if he saw anyone lay a hand on Tracey, Michael's daughter, he'd do unspeakable things with them. With Michael still being stuck on the run and with a habit of doing these crimes, he ended up making a deal with an FIB agent to assasinate Trevor during a robbery in North Yankton. With this deal, Michael would assume a new identity and move away from the border. During this robbery the assasination went wrong however, with Brad ending up in the crossfire of the agent's sniper rifle. Michael was also shot in an attempt to convince Trevor he had bled out. He even had a burial in a cemetery in North Yankton with his entire family there. The one being buried however was Brad. Trevor was none the wiser though, presuming Brad had just ended up in prison and Michael had passed after the incident. This caused Trevor to retreat to Sandy Shores. Over the years he developed a habit of consuming crystal meth and ended up making TPI. This is when he employed his current crew.
In modern day in the series, it is revealed that Michael is still alive. Sucks for him for having that habit of quoting Solomon Richard's movies, because as soon as the heist he pulled hit the news Trevor was aware he was still alive. This woke him from dormancy, immediately murdering the leader of a local bike/meth dealing game called The Lost MC. With this action, he took the entire gang out in one fell swoop. While Trevor is working on "growing" his buisness, he assigns Wade to find Michael and his family. After this, he eliminated more of his competion being Ortega of the Aztecas. AKA their leader. After this, Trevor attempted to make buisness with the Chinese Triads in pursuit of a meth monopoly. Wei Cheng sent his son and a translator to communicate with him. While he attempts to make this deal, the Aztecas come back to get revenge which leads to Trevor putting Wei's son and the translator in a freezer they happened to be near. After dealing with them, the two representing the Chinese Triads decide to go seperate ways with Trevor and instead pairing with the O'Niel brothers. The O'Niels are the last left in Trevor's way after this. With this block, he proceeds to eliminate the O'Niels as well. This successfully establishes his monopoly in Sandy Shores. While this is all going on, Wade was hard at work trying to find out Michael's new identity. He comes to Trevor after his rampage and tells him he found a "Michael DeSanta" in Los Santos. This being his new name. After finding this out Trevor was set on a trip to go get some closure. Trevor takes advantage of the fact that Wade has a cousin Floyd living in LS. Due to both Wade and Floyd being weaker than Trevor, he forces his way into Floyd's apartment with no say of Floyd or his girlfriend whatsoever. After stationing himself in Floyd's apartment, Trevor made his way to Michael's house and makes his way into the GTA 5 story mode. Im actually going to stop here, I implore you to play the story mode yourself. It is so so fucking good I swear to you. I'm not a mascuilinized video game person whatsoever, but it can be enjoyed way beyond the aspects that cater to men moreso. It has some really amazing drama and i absolutely love the character dynamics between all the characters who commonly appear in the story mode. PLEASE play it I beg of you. Even if not you can always watch clips on youtube of him and everyone else.
This part will get a little more personal, so bear with me please. And feel free to pass if youre not in the mental state to hear someone else's struggles at the moment. Spoiler warning as well.
It's very easy to look at Trevor and see someone mentally unstable and plagued by what's happened in his life. That's absolutely a burden he has to carry, no denying that. I feel like Rockstar and the audience of GTA5 at large reduces him down to these traits though unfortunately. Trevor is much more than the actions he carries out. This is in no way to excuse his actions at all, just to explore why and what person he is outside of them. The violence in his life was his fault entirely, but he had been taught it from the time he was a child. His dad physically abused him and his mom mentally/emotionally abused him. She even comes around again to take advantage of him once more in his adult years, but disappears as soon as she gets what she needs. Not only that, but she comes along after the largest heist Trevor has ever pulled off. Not alone of course but nonetheless she's taking advantage of him once he has that money from the heist. It's clear his parents gave him no care and never will unless it gives them an advantage. Long story short he has no stable parental figures. It's obvious to see the long term affects this has had. From murdering people when he was a child, ending up in juvie, and to sodomizing his hockey coach out of rage. Now i know