The characters of Devotion.
Spoilers are unmarked.
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Du Feng Yu
The protagonist of the game, a screenwriter who's fallen on hard times. He's looking for his daughter, Mei Shin, in the family apartment building.
- Abusive Parents: To cope with the failure of his own career, Feng Yu began to live vicariously through Mei Shin. Even before his ultimately fatal obsession with the cult of Cigu Guanyin, he was shown to put too much pressure on his daughter to become famous like her parents. He became more unhinged as the years went by and his career went nowhere, culminating in locking his young daughter up in the bathroom for seven days to soak in snake wine as a religious ritual, which leads to her death.
- Accidental Murder: He tried to save Mei Shin from her sickness by putting her through a dangerous ritual that ultimately kills her.
- Blood Bath: He enters the Hub Level by climbing out of a bath filled with suspicious red liquid. Given the revelations at the end, it might actually be snake wine.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Feng Yu loves his wife and daughter. However, he's adamant that Li Fang stay at home even though he can no longer support the family with his writing. The constant financial strain and violent arguments force Li Fang to leave Feng Yu and find work so she can support Mei Shin as a single mother. For years before Li Fang leaves, however, Feng Yu slowly pins all of his hopes and dreams on Mei Shin's singing, pressuring the girl to the point of developing an anxiety disorder. When she's recommended to a psychiatrist after an extensive battery of tests prove there's nothing physically wrong with her, Feng Yu's reaction is to angrily tear up the paper shouting "my daughter is not a lunatic!"
- Domestic Abuse: As Feng Yu's career fell into shambles and he became more dependent on Mentor Hueh's cult, he became resentful of Li Fang's attempts to become the breadwinner and her distrust of the cult. Snippets of the game show them arguing, him eavesdropping on a phone call to her mother, and it's implied that he stole and ripped up her iconic dress from when she was a star. He even accuses her of being possessed by something malicious, contributing to his view of her as a hostile phantom in-game.
- Education Papa: Feng Yu pushes Mei Shin hard to have a career in show business like her parents, eventually denying her school trips so that she can focus on practice. This did not help her anxiety issues.
- Eye Scream: The dream Vision Quest near the end involves him pulling his own eyeball out as an offering to Cigu Guanyin. Luckily, this is only a symbolic gesture.
- Fatal Flaw: Feng Yu wants things done his way. He really does love his family, but his inability to step back and let others take the reigns leads to him killing his daughter. It's implied that he pressured Li Fang to give up her successful career as an actress because he couldn't accept her becoming the family breadwinner, even as his own career came to an end. He refuses to believe that Mentor Heuh is a grifter partially because she promises to allow him to cure Mei Shin, rather than admitting that she needs psychiatric care.
- Green-Eyed Monster: It's implied throughout the game that Feng Yu was jealous of Gong Li Fang's success as a star after they were married and guilt-tripped her into giving it up to become a housewife.
- Giftedly Bad: Feng Yu is a zig-zagged case. On one hand, the family has a shelf of screenwriting trophies when they move in, suggesting that he used to be really good. However, by the time(s) we explore the house, there's a letter from his friend saying that six directors refused his script, and the one film that did get made was critically panned. Nonetheless, he continues writing, so many pages that when Mei Shin starts turning them into origami, she has enough to fill the whole room with paper flowers.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Between the two women in his life, Feng Yu trusted Mentor Heuh more than he did his own wife, who loved him and was devoted to him. His obsession with Heuh's scam cult would become part of the reason why Li Fang left him, and directly causes the death of his beloved daughter, Mei Shin.
- Hypocrite: At one point, Feng Yu angrily asks his wife who's going to take care of the household while she's away at work, completely ignoring that, as he's jobless, he could take up the housework himself.
- Insane Equals Violent: Subverted. Despite his mental issues, it is made clear that he was once a loving and gentle man, and that it was the manipulation and exploitation of his mental state by Mentor Heuh that turned him into a violent abuser.
- I Reject Your Reality: His 'Flawless Present' is actually this, being the culmination of Feng Yu's refusal to accept that his wife left him because he was driving their family into the ground, that Mei Shin has and needs psychiatric help, and that that Mentor Heuh is a scam artist who's made him murder his own daughter.
- It's All About Me: Out of egotism, he constantly spends like his family is still wealthy, abuses his wife, and kills his daughter with a fake miracle cure instead of taking her to the doctor after her diagnosis is not what he wants to hear.
- Lethally Stupid: Played for Drama. Locking someone in a bathtub full of alcohol for a week is an extremely foolish thing to do. His blind faith and willful ignorance of his daughter’s condition directly leads to her death.
- Never My Fault:
- He accuses Li Fang of overspending, but he's the one who buys things like The Arowana Fish (an albino arowana sold for $300,000 in 2016), and he's the one offering most of their money to Mentor Heuh. When she rightfully calls him out on his hypocrisy, he can only ask her if she's done in an annoyed tone.
- The entire game is the logical extreme of this trope Played for Drama. Feng Yu would rather walk through Buddhist hell than admit that he's killed his own child.
- Parents as People: He loves his family dearly, but his own ambitions to keep everything up is what causes him to lose his fortune, his wife, and most importantly, his daughter, whom he wanted to save from her mental illness.
- Psychological Projection: Towards Li Fang.
- He at one point accuses her of wasting money, but she's the one worried about making ends meet while he gives most of their income as donations to Mentor Heuh.
- He imagines her as a Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl who attacks him and tries to stop him from reaching the Flawless Present, but it's pretty clear that he was abusive to her, and he's the one who turned into a monster who destroyed his own family.
- Sanity Slippage: Feng Yu starts out as a successful screenwriter with a beautiful wife and daughter, but his pride and controlling tendencies take over him. By the end of the game, we see him sitting on the couch in the wrecked apartment watching TV static, his wife gone and his daughter dead in the bathtub.
- Starving Artist: Feng Yu is a screenwriter, but can't recreate his early successes, leading to the family's finances — and his relationship with Li Fang — suffering.
- Stay in the Kitchen: Feng Yu forced Li Fang to give up her successful career as a singer because he believes the husband should be the sole provider. He doubles down when it becomes clear that his own career is going nowhere and Li Fang has to go back to work for the family to pay their bills.
- Tongue Trauma: During the ritual to restore Mei Shin's health he pulls out his own tongue, at least within his dream world.
- Tragic Villain: Feng Yu abuses his wife and murders his daughter, but he was once a family man and successful screenwriter. The decline of his career creates financial strain that eventually destroys his marriage, and leads him to fall victim to the predatory Mentor Heuh, who exploits his desperate desire to save Mei Shin from her illness.
- Villain Protagonist: The player gradually learns that he's the reason that Mei Shin is "missing", as he, in his blind faith to Mentor Heuh and the Cigu Guanyin cult, submerged her in snake wine and locked the bathroom door for a week. Feng Yu spends the game in denial of what he's done, searching through his memories to construct a narrative ("the flawless present") that allows him to believe his actions saved his child and his marriage.
- Vision Quest: The game's penultimate sequence has Feng Yu undertake a ritual to find Mei Shin's soul and fix it by making offerings to Cigu Guanyin, which takes him through Buddhist Hell.
- Write What You Know: An in-universe deconstructed example. Feng Yu's screenplays are very clearly meant to be about an idealized version of his own family, and they're as boring as you'd expect. This is implied to be the reason his scripts keep getting rejected. Ironically, if Feng Yu had played this trope straight and written about his actual homelife, his career might have picked up again.
Gong Li Fang
A retired songstress and the wife of Du Feng Yu.
- Brutal Honesty: When her mother tries to convince her to stay quiet about the domestic abuse she's suffered, Li Fang refuses and later tells the truth about Feng Yu's violent behavior and blind devotion to Mentor Heuh's cult in a radio interview. Even the host asks her if it might have been harsh for her to be so blunt.
- Cassandra Truth: She's skeptical of Cigu Guanyin cult at first, while Feng Yu is enamored. She eventually becomes so alarmed that she begs her husband to cut contact with Mentor Heuh, but he only digs his heels in further. The game proves her suspicions entirely correct: Mentor Heuh is scamming Feng Yu out of their money and she gets Mei Shin killed.
- Domestic Abuse: Feng Yu becomes abusive towards Li Fang as the family's financial situation worsens, and he depends more and more on Mentor Heuh's cult. He's openly resentful of Li Fang's attempts to become the breadwinner and her distrust of the cult. Snippets of the game show them arguing, him listening in on her phone call, and it's implied that he stole and ripped up her iconic dress from when she was a star. He even accuses her of being possessed by something malicious, contributing to his view of her as a hostile phantom in-game.
- Family Versus Career: After marrying Feng Yu, Li Fang retreated from show business to take care of her family. Unfortunately, this is where the troubles began.
- Housewife: What Feng Yu wants her to be, despite the fact that his career is in shambles and her returning to work is the only way they could possibly make ends meet. This ultimately drives Li Fang into leaving him.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: She is named Gong Li Fang, and was a famous Taiwanese actress and singer. There is a real-life Chinese actress superstar of the 80s and 90s named Gong Li with a similar name, though Gong Li Fang in the game looks different than the real-life actress.
- Only Sane Woman: Li Fang is the only one to realize that Mentor Heuh is completely untrustworthy, but she cannot convince her husband or her daughter of it.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Li Fang ends up leaving her husband to return to show business, intending to take her daughter away as well as soon as she has the money. Unfortunately, Mei Shin dies before that happens.
- Slave to PR: At one point, after things start getting really bad, you find a letter to Li Fang from her mother, imploring her to stay with her — at this point, definitely abusive — husband, because it would be bad for her future career prospects.
Du Mei Shin
The daughter of Du Feng Yu and Gong Li Fang.
- Afraid of Needles: A variant. As seen through her doll form, there were three of them jabbed into her in order to treat her illness and her painful cries are made very apparent to the player. Considering how thick the needles were in the 1980s, any fear of them going inside you is justified.
- Broken Ace: As shown throughout the game, she was both an excellent student in academics while also a talented, upcoming singer. However, the pressure and expectations to succeed place on her by her father cause her to developed bad anxiety.
- Creepy Doll: She is represented by one in Feng Yu's nightmare world.
- Daddy's Girl: Mei Shin is much closer to her father than her mother. Played for Drama, as her love and devotion to her father, made her willing to follow a Scam Religion in order to cure her medical condition, implied to be an anxiety disorder. Even when she discovered a much safer and more positive way to help deal with her constant panic attacks, she didn't inform her father about this because Mentor Heuh and her "religion" was extremely important to him. This ultimately and tragically leads to her death via drowning in the bathtub after she took part in a useless and extremely dangerous ritual. This would psychologically break her father to the point where he tries to convince himself that he saved Mei Shin and keep himself in denial that he actually killed her.
- Flower Motif: Tulips. They represent unconditional and deep love, which Mei Shin has for her dad, even if he's dangerously devoted to a religious cult that would eventually lead to her death.
- Follow in My Footsteps: Feng Yu and Li Fang groom Mei Shin to become a singer — an ambition that she, fortunately, shares.
- I Miss Mom: Mei Shin says this after Li Fang leaves her husband to return to work.
- Insane Equals Violent: Discussed, and ultimately subverted. Mei Shin is a scared little girl, but because of the social stigma associated with mental illness, her father gets furious when the hospital refers her to a psychiatrist, screaming that his daughter "is not a lunatic" and tearing her medical report into shreds. This has tragic consequences.
- Kill the Cutie: After all of the attempts made to relieve Mei Shin's anxiety and panic disorder, she dies at the hands of her father.
- Nervous Wreck: Played for Drama. Her parent's constant arguments caused Mei Shin to develop what's most likely panic disorder
. - No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: She goes along with the Cigu Guanyin ritual in order to make her father feel better, because she knows how important his faith is to him. Cigu Guanyin turned out to be a scam and Mentor Heuh betrayed Feng Yu by giving him a "ritual" that was complete nonsense and dangerous to undergo.
- No Medication for Me: Played for Drama. At one point, Mei Shin grows so tired of the pills doctors prescribe her, she throws them all into the fish tank, killing the Arowana. Later, Feng Yu decides that he'll no longer take her to doctors after a diagnosis recommends Mei Shin psychiatrist treatment, leading to her death shortly thereafter as he tries out a fake "religious" ritual instead.
- Poor Communication Kills: Mei Shin is able to find a healthy coping mechanism to calm down her panic attacks via folding origami tulips, but does not tell Feng Yu about it and instead goes along with his ritual because she understands how important Mentor Heuh's cult is to him. She ends up dying from the said ritual.
- Shrinking Violet: Mei Shin is very shy and has severe anxiety issues, which is why the singing career her parents push on her causes her panic attacks.
- Soap Opera Disease: Mei Shin is ill with something that causes her to feel chest tightness and have difficulties breathing, but the doctors are unable to find anything wrong with her. Subverted, as it's because her issues are psychological — she's suffering from anxiety and panic attacks, something that does get her recommendation to psychiatrist treatment. Unfortunately, with mental disorders being a huge taboo in the culture at the time, she doesn't receive proper treatment.
Mentor Heuh
The leader of a religious sect that worships the god Cigu Guanyin, of which Du Feng Yu is a member.
- Big Bad: As the leader of the Cigu Guanyin cult, she suckered Feng Yu into her cult and gave him dangerous fake rituals to use in place of real medical treatment, making her responsible for the death of Mei Shin that drives the plot.
- Blatant Lies: When Feng Yu expresses concern about her ritual and whether he should let Mei Shin out of the bathtub so she does not drown, Heuh tells him that the ritual can sometimes take up to a week and so he should leave her there. By this point, it should be clear that Heuh does not care for the safety of Mei Shin, but Feng Yu believes every word of it.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Li Fang mentions a mentor in the opening scene, but only later do we learn who that is and how she figures into the story.
- Con Artist: She establishes an entire cult that serves mainly as a means for her to get money in exchange for bogus rituals and faith healing.
- Faux Affably Evil: She behaves as a kind mentor to her devotees, but she only cares for their money.
- Greed: Her motive in establishing her cult is to trick gullible people into handing over their money, and she is willing to lead people to their deaths for that purpose.
- Hate Sink: A leader of a Scam Religion who's Only in It for the Money. Even if she acts like she cares for Feng Yu and his situation with Mei Shin, it's only to get his money, the safety of his daughter be damned.
- Manipulative Bitch: As a cult leader and scam artist, her modus operandi is to find uncertain and vulnerable people and convince them to join her cult, where she tells them what they want to hear in order to make them devoted to her and to give her donations. She once managed to get a cancer patient to forego chemotherapy in favor of faith healing, leading to his death. In the main story, she gets her hooks into Du Feng Yu by preying on his Control Freak and Never My Fault tendencies, splitting him from his family by convincing him that his wife was possessed by evil spirits (instead of being alienated by his increasingly abusive behavior), and telling him that Mei Shin's 'illness' could be completely cured by Cigu Guanyin's rituals, instead of needing to get her psychiatric help.
- Phony Psychic: Feng Yu looks to her for guidance when searching for a cure to Mei Shin's "curse". Late in the game, when Feng Yu puts a tape in a tape recorder, it's revealed that she's conned several people before him, with the last recording being between her and a furious man whose father has refused chemotherapy because of her and died from cancer as a result. Heuh also told Feng Yu to put his daughter in a bathtub filled with snake wine for a week, leading to her death.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: A sequence in her building after the blindfolded hallucination shows her property in general disarray, with furnishings tossed about and doors left wide open, with recorded conversations of incensed prior victims looking for retribution. All this coupled with the method she instructed Feng Yu that absolutely would kill his daughter suggests she packed out and got out of dodge before the heat came down on her.
- Sinister Minister: She is the leader of the Cigu Guanyin cult and a Manipulative Bitch who extorts donations from her followers by using abusive tactics to keep them obedient to her.
- The Sociopath: She manipulates people into blind devotion to her cult and is willing to drive Feng Yu into Domestic Abuse, ritual Self-Harm, and killing his own child to secure his devotion, all so he can keep donating money to her.
- The Voice: We never see her, but we do hear her speak to Feng Yu, and we hear her in a few recordings she left.
- Walking Spoiler: Her role in the game is possibly its biggest spoiler.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We never do find out her ultimate fate. Her last appearance in the story is not picking up a call, leaving why she didn't respond up in the air. It's generally thought to be one of two things: either she got arrested for her advice leading directly to multiple deaths, including that of Mei Shin, or she knew that people were beginning to realize that what she did was a sham, and skipped town with her ill-gotten gains.
- Would Hurt a Child: She winds up killing Mei Shin with her dangerous ritual and goes out of her way to dissuade Feng Yu from saving her.
The Arowana Fish
The pet of the Du Family.
- A Boy and His X: Mei Shin forms this sort of dynamic with the Arowana Fish, seeing as they're both trapped in a tight space with nowhere to go.
- Animal Motifs: The Arowana Fish serves two meanings:
- It's a large fish locked in a tiny tank that leaves it no room to move, much like Mei Shin is locked in the apartment on the account of her illness.
- In real life, arowanas were fairly expensive at the time, and often associated with gambling houses, showing Feng Yu's poor financial sense and spending habits.
- "Not So Different" Remark: As said by Mei Shin, they're both trapped in a small space with nowhere to go.
- Only Friend: While's unknown if Mei Shin has other friends, the Arowana Fish serves as her only confidant and company as she stays at home due to her illness.
The Ghost
An apparition that haunts Feng Yu through most of the game. For more information about the character she's based off, see Gong Li Fang.
- Climax Boss: The chase sequence in the maze before the flawless present.
- Disc-One Final Boss: She seems to be the one responsible for the disappearance of Mei Shin. In truth, she is a figment of Feng Yu's imagination. The true culprits are Mentor Heuh and Feng Yu himself, who (accidentally, on Feng Yu's part) killed her in a ritual.
- Graceful Loser: It's subtle, but one can see the ghost briefly resigning itself from further chasing Feng Yu once he makes his way into the elevator for the flawless present. The subsequent visage of Li Fang leaving her husband also pulls the double duty of symbolically showing the ghost calmly leaving Feng Yu's mind once and for all.
- Hero Antagonist: One could interpret her existence to be an attempt from Feng Yu's mind to confront his own denial, taking the shape of his ex-wife because she was the only other character that constantly confronted him for his choices. Also, she's implied to be the one that releases Feng Yu from his "Flawless Present" the first time and actively attempts to block his path when he tries to return.
- Mental Monster: This ghost is all in Feng Yu's head. The reason it looks like Li Fang is because Feng Yu believed his wife was actually possessed by something evil.
- Red Herring:
- The game initially implies that she might be responsible for Mei Shin's supposed disappearance, but as you progress further, it becomes obvious that she's far less important to the narrative than first thought.
- It's also one regarding Li Fang's fate. A player who figures out the ghost's identity before the hallway chase may naturally assume that Li Fang died somehow, but the real Li Fang is fine.
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Once you get a good look at her at the "portrait drowning" scene.
- Taking the Kids: Another interpretation of the ghost is that Feng Yu, knowing that Li Fang wants to take Mei Shin away from him, is visualizing his ex-wife as a monster personification of this trope.
