History VideoGame / Psychonauts

** Milla used to work at an [[OrphanageOfLove orphanage]]. One day, [[spoiler:she came home from grocery shopping only to [[AdultFear find the place in flames]]. To this day, [[TearJerker the childrens' dying screams still haunt her nightmares]]]].

* AdultFear:
** [[spoiler: Your child running away from home out of resentment and fear of being indirectly murdered by you.]]
** Or, in Sasha's case, [[spoiler:your child running away from home ''for seemingly no reason at all''.]]
** Dying and leaving your spouse and newborn child behind.
** The children in your care dying a fiery death whilst you're out grocery shopping.
** Your parent committing suicide, possibly out of being shadowed by your own success.
** [[spoiler: Looking into your child's mind, and finding out they see you as a monster.]]
** Regardless of how [[spoiler:misguided it ends up being]], Raz's personal hell inside the Meat Circus is still undeniably horrifying: being forced to perform a nightmarishly painful and difficult task which ''will'' kill you if you fail, while [[spoiler:your own father]] mocks and berates you the entire way, trying to trip you up in the hopes that you will die.

* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler:The disembodied brains are still fully conscious, as shown in the pre-Meat Circus scene]]. Though if [[spoiler:Sasha and Milla]]'s dialogue is any indication, the stuff they're in kind of sedates you so you don't realize that.

* GameplayAndStoryIntegration:
** Raz is actually the ideal protagonist for a platformer, since, as an acrobat, he's actually trained for this kind of platforming.
** The SuperDrowningSkills mechanic ties into Raz's backstory. His family was {{curse}}d to die in water.
** Edgar will only be let go from the asylum if he can paint a normal portrait, but every time he gets close to doing so he paints a bullfight over it because he can't let go of his past. In Black Velvetopia, the wild bull El Odio will send Raz back to the last area he was in, causing the player to have to repeat parts of the level.
** Boyd is a paranoiac in addition to being a conspiracy theorist. This is reflected in the level design with flamingos and fire hydrants taking pictures of Raz and mailboxes sneaking up on him while his back is turned.
** Censors are stated to be an integral part of every mind, responsible for stamping out thoughts that don't belong inside someone's head. The levels that lack Censors as regular enemies act as visual storytelling about that character's mental state.
*** Boyd is a conspiracy theorist with a loose grasp on reality. With no Censors around to stamp out the inane conspiracies, Boyd's mind has become a pseudo-suburban conspiracy-ridden level. [[spoiler:When the Milkman is freed from his chambers, however, a car full of Censors pulls up to take him out, indicating Boyd realizes on a subconcious level that the Milkman is a mental threat to his head.]]
*** [[spoiler:Coach Oleander has dreams of conquering the world with tanks powered by the brains of the campers, so he's not exactly sane.]]

* MilkmanConspiracy: In the level that [[TropeNamers named the trope]], the conspiracy is actually ''about'' a milkman, but ''of'' eight-year-old girls.

* SomethingNauts: An organization of international psychic do-gooders.

* HistoricalInJoke: Razputin is a psychic whose cursed to die in water. In real life, [[UsefulNotes/RasputinTheMadMonk Grigori Rasputin]] was an adviser to the Russian royal family who claimed to be psychic and [[DatedHistory supposedly]] died by drowning. Coincidence?

* ThePinIsMightierThanTheSword: Hypothetically, the merit badges celebrate Raz's mastery of various techniques. In practice, though, he seems to attain mastery of the techniques by earning the badges.

* PointOfNoReturn: [[spoiler: Once you free Lili]], you start the penultimate boss fight, and then are immediately thrown in the last level. You can still aceess the mental levels, but you can't explore the real world anymore. The game automatically creates a new autosave slot for this specific point, making it a '''Strict''' example.

* SeekerWhiteBloodCells: Although it's not a physical example, Censors are a mental equivalent. Censors roam the psyche and censor out anything that doesn't belong, including hallucinations, paranoias... and visiting Psychonauts. In fact, one of the first signs that Boyd's mind isn't safe at all is that ''there are no Censors whatsoever in there.''

* AvoidTheDreadedGRating: Most of the game is actually pretty clean, just subversive, creepy, and/or dealing with extremely mature topics. A lot of its weirdness and can't really be "rated against," but actually making it look like it ''was'' for younger kids (when it skews more towards teenagers) would have been... bad. As such, it features a few shoehorned usages of "ass" and a few instances of blood, seemingly to bump the rating.

* SlidingScaleOfParentShamingInFiction: [[spoiler:Raz's father]] is a solid Type II. His ''actions'' are completely justified in the context that the game is in, it's just the fact that he [[PoorCommunicationKills failed so badly at communicating his intentions]] that caused so many problems between him and his son. The consequences of this are shown loud and clear in the game's final level, and while it isn't outright stated, it's not a stretch at all to assume he felt remorse for his mistake. [[spoiler:Giving his boy a [[EleventhHourSuperpower power boost]] right before the FinalBoss]] certainly helped a lot too.

* WhoEvenNeedsABrain: A case of Type I when Dr. Loboto forces all the campers to [[spoiler:literally sneeze their brains out as part of an evil plan]]. They can be put right back in with no ill effects.

-->[[spoiler:'''Dogen''']]: [[SpotOfTea T]]Series/{{V|1983}}?

** [[RuleOfThree Also in the opening cutscene,]] Oleander mentions how he has big plans for Raz's mind. [[spoiler:That's not some turn of phrase. He intended to use Raz's brain to pilot a psychic death tank.]]

* EasterEgg: The original protagonist, D'Artagan, who was replaced with Raz [[strike:for being ''really hard'' to render]] because his [[NiceHat hat]] was ''too awesome'' for the engine to render, shows up briefly in the ending. Briefly, as in a one-second appearance. [[spoiler: For those who can't find him - at the beginning of the final cutscene, peeking from the outhouse, as Raz is running after Lili.]]

* RomanticTwoGirlFriendship: Frankie and Kitty, [[AmbiguouslyGay probably]]. They hold hands and spend every second of screen time together, to the point where Raz [[spoiler:[[ItMakesSenseInContext promises Frankie's stolen brain]] he'll be sure they're not apart long]], but the likelihood is they're just an example of this.

* ActionBomb: Both the personal demons and those danged rats in the tower.

* AdvancingBossOfDoom: The lungfish.

* AffablyEvil: Doctor Loboto. Even offhandedly commenting to a hostage that he uses his little jokes to put his "patients" at ease. Combine his "jovial family mad doctor" routine with his hideously menacing appearance and the fact that his idea of humor includes stuff that goes way beyond "tickle torture," and you get some of the purest nightmares in a game already loaded with them.
* AgentMulder: Boyd Cooper. He's completely insane, though.

* AllCheeringAllTheTime: Crystal and Clem, who deliver pretty much all their lines in cheer form.
* AllGuysWantCheerleaders: Edgar's ex-girlfriend was a cheerleader.
** Oddly enough inverted with Edgar's girlfriend as well, who dumped the large and manly Edgar to go out with the MALE cheerleader captain.

* AlphaBitch: Elka Doom.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Raz try to tell Lili and Milla that Dogen's brain was literally stolen, only for both of them to say that he's "just like that."

* ArcWords: Eggs are a metaphor for "brains" in both ''1'' and ''2''.

%% * AxCrazy: [[spoiler:The Milkman]] Administrivia/ZeroContextExample
%% ** [[spoiler:Coach Oleander]]
* BadassAdorable: Lili has obtained all psychic badges by the time Raz's shows up, and [[http://psychonauts.wikia.com/wiki/Lili_Zanotto she is really cute]]. At least by the game's standards.
* BadBadActing: The 'Actors' in Gloria Van Gouten's mind, ''so'' much.

* BearsAreBadNews: Especially when they're ''telekinetic'' bears.

* BigBad: [[spoiler: Coach Oleander]]

* BlackBugRoom: Many of them. The most noteworthy example would probably be the one hidden in [[spoiler:Milla's mind]], as she's [[HiddenDepths probably the only character you]] ''[[HiddenDepths wouldn't]]'' [[HiddenDepths expect to have one]], and its [[NightmareFuel among]] [[TearJerker the]] [[AdultFear worst]]. WordOfGod is that this is how a ''healthy'' mind is meant to work, compartmentalizing and managing tragic experiences rather than letting them taint everything.
** The Meat Circus is basically a Frankenstein mishmash of two different character's [[BlackBugRoom Black Bug Rooms]]. Needless to say, [[NightmareFuel it's a pretty unpleasant place]].

* BrainWashed: Fred Bonaparte was originally Thorney Tower's orderly, and probably the most sane person in the entire asylum. Then [[TheCorruptor Crispin Whytehead]] started playing Waterloo-O with him. Crispin played against Fred and won so much that his self doubts resulted in his self-loathing manifesting as the genetic memory of his great great great grandpa, Napoleon Bonaparte himself. This was all so Crispin could steal his position as orderly.

* BrokenBird: Most characters to some extent, but especially [[DiscoDan Milla Vordello.]]

* TheBully: Bobby Zilch, and his friend Benny. They're not the sharpest knives in the box, though...
** Because of Raz being a skilled beginner, they want to give him a "special beating", but they never get the chance to do so.

* ButtMonkey: Dogen just can't catch a break, can he? Sasha has it pretty rough too.

* CanadaEh: Chops, originally from Canada, pulls out a few Canadianisms, such as dropping a "What's this all about, eh?" If Raz reads his mind through Clairvoyance, he sees Raz as a hockey player.

* CardCarryingVillain: Augustus Aquato, Raz's dad. [[spoiler: Or at least, the version of him in Raz's mind.]]
-->'''Augustus:''' Man, do I hate psychics...and seeing my son happy!
* CausticCritic: Jasper Rolls from Gloria's Theatre heckles the ongoing show from his box seat, driving her to despair.

* CheerfulChild: Subverted with Clem and Crystal, the cloyingly enthusiastic self-appointed cheerleaders of the camp who no one else can stand. Subverted even further when it turns out they're actually suicidal.

* DiscoDan: Milla.

* WhamLine: [[spoiler:Once you telekinetically throw Raz's brain into the tank's open hatch with Oleander's brain, they circle each other, the screen goes back, and then a boy you've never seen approaches and says "Oh, hi! My name is Morceau Oleander. But you can call me Morry. Or Oly."]]

** [[spoiler:Raz and Oleander's problems are mainly because of DaddyIssues (although Oleander's NapoleonComplex was arguably a contributing factor).]]

** Played straight with [[spoiler: Oleander]], who was driven to madness by Psitanium poisoning. He gets better.

* AndTheAdventureContinues: The game ends with Raz [[spoiler: being recruited by the Psychonauts.]]

* ParentalAbandonment: Subverted. Despite being the [[MissingMom main]] [[DisappearedDad character]] [[DoomedHometown of]] [[LongLostSibling a video]] [[ConvenientlyAnOrphan game]], [[AllThereInTheManual both of Raz's parents are around, and he even has an assortment of brothers and sisters he lives with]].
** Played straight with [[spoiler:Gloria]], whose mother abandoned her so she could follow her own career.

*** Boyd is a conspiracy theorist with a loose grasp on reality. With no Censors around to stamp out the inane conspiracies, Boyd's mind has become a pseudo-suburban conspiracy-ridden level.

* FreudianExcuse: And since the game takes place in peoples' minds, you get to ''fight'' those. They hit like a mofo too, especially in the final level.

* GameplayAndStoryIntegration: Raz is actually the ideal protagonist for a platformer, since, as an acrobat, he's actually trained for this kind of platforming.

* CorridorCubbyholeRun: Most of Black Velvetopia. Curse you, [[ALoadOfBull El Odio]]!

* ALoadOfBull: El Odio, a creature who is seen tormenting the mental landscapes of an artist named Edgar Teglee (and, incidentally, [[CorridorCubbyholeRun the player]]), is definitely a unique example. He's a gigantic, neon-pink bull with a strangely human face and boots on his hooves, and is apparently completely invincible unless you face him in a bullfight. As it turns out, [[spoiler:[[TomatoSurprise the bull actually ''is'' Edgar]], and his constant rampaging represents the anger he refuses to let go of after a tragic series of events back in high school]]. Naturally, Raz has to help him.

* GravityScrew

* HairRaisingHare: MEAT GRINDER BUNNIES. To be more specific, bunnies thrown into a meat grinder, torn to pieces, then reassembled into...hideous, loping ''things''.
* HarshWordImpact: [[spoiler:The Phantom/Critic]] uses this as a weapon.