WARNING: All spoilers are unmarked. It's strongly suggested you finish the game before reading any further.
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Protagonists
Fran Bow
Fran Bow is an eleven-year-old girl. One night, she found the dismembered bodies of her parents. She was under the care of the Oswald Asylum with Dr. Deern as her doctor.
- Badass Adorable: Fran is a pretty sweet and rather cute girl, and she goes through hell all through her journey, but continues onward through everything she faces. (Assuming any of it is real).
- Break the Cutie: The poor girl needs a hug after everything she's been through.
- Constantly Curious: One of her most defining traits.
- Heroic BSoD: Has a short, but pretty intense case of it in Ithersta when, after being tormented with several visions including those of her killing her beloved cat, she breaks down crying and tells King Ziar that she's crazy. Thankfully, he helps her calm down pretty quickly.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: To highlight her childlike innocence.
- Innocent Inaccurate: Being only eleven years old, she tries to make sense of the crazy world around her, which is often the result of her naive and innocent mind.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: She's very loving and loves her cat, Mr. Midnight.
- Psychic Child: Maybe, maybe not. There are reasons to believe why she has some kind of power, as she finds out about Dr. Deern's Dark and Troubled Past from her hallucinations/the other world, but then again, due to the nature of the game...
- Self-Made Orphan: Remor shows Fran a vision of her killing her parents. Whether it's true or just him trying to manipulate her is debatable. Some players also believe that Remor possessed Fran to kill her parents, and so she's not really the murderer, but the vision itself is correct.
Mr. Midnight
Mr. Midnight is Fran Bow's cat. He starts calling out to her from Oswald's Asylum, encouraging her to come out and look for him. Despite this, most human characters of the game insist he's probably already dead or impossible to find.
- Dark Is Not Evil: He has black fur and is the Deuteragonist.
- Dead to Begin With: Possibly. Dr. Deern keeps telling Fran that Mr. Midnight is dead. When they dig up Fran's parents' graves, they even find a cat's skeleton in the third coffin. Given how...weird the metaphysics of the plot gets, it can be Mr. Midnight, an alternate Mr. Midnight, a hallucination, or not him at all.
- Formally-Named Pet: Fran named him Mr. Midnight.
- Imaginary Friend: If he actually is dead, then the Mr. Midnight encountered may just be a delusion. Another option is that he is a manifestation of Fran's memories of him and wish that he were alive, as the Ultrareality seems to respond to emotion at times.
- Talking Animal: He's a talking black cat. And he may have started talking only when Fran left the asylum. Played with in that he may not actually be one.
- Undying Loyalty: He’s quite loyal to Fran. He never gave up hope on reuniting with Fran when they were separated in the beginning. When Fran falls off the bridge in Chapter 2 Part 2, he chose to dive off the edge to follow her.
Itward
Itward is a tall skeleton with a top hat that is very sweet towards Fran. He helps her throughout her journey quite a bit near the end of the game.
- Big Damn Heroes: Itward saves Fran from Aunt Grace and Doctor Oswald alongside Palontras. He also wipes Dr. Deern's memory in order to keep him safe from Remor's influence.
- Dark Is Not Evil: A tall skeleton who initially seems untrustworthy. It isn't long before he proves he's unambiguously good and heroic.
- Friendly Skeleton: A tall skeleton and one of the kindest and most helpful characters in the game.
- Friend to All Children: He is implied to be friendly to all children that he encounters. According to the shadow puppet story, he wanted to help Clara and Mia get along and to accept themselves. He is also exceedingly kind to Fran and does everything he can to help her escape from danger.
- Imaginary Friend: The chapter where he first has a major role is even titled "My imaginary friend". Overlaps with Not-So-Imaginary Friend if he is indeed real.
- Lean and Mean: Itward is one of the tallest characters in the game. If you mess with Fran, you will most certainly regret it. The mean side of him is mostly averted however, as he is generally very sweet towards Fran and Mr. Midnight.
- Monster Clown: When Fran is under the effects of Duotine in Itward's flying machine, he appears as a robotic clown with sharp teeth. If Fran attempts to talk to him, Itward will laugh creepily, but will otherwise not say anything.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Played for Laughs. When Fran is exploring his flying machine, Itward mentions that there is a rabbit in a certain room that terrifies him, because it never moves and is always staring at him. Said rabbit turns out to be a stuffed bunny on a shelf. Subverted in that it was a ploy to trick Fran so that he and Mr. Midnight could prepare for Fran's birthday.
Oswald Asylum
Adelaida
- Mad Artist: Downplayed; her crayon drawings are part of her therapy and are confirmed to have helped Dr. Deern connect with her. Still, Adelaida draws to the point of excess and it's implied the only way to get her to stop drawing and go to sleep is to tie her down.
- Rape as Backstory: Her patient file states that she was sexually abused by someone and nearly killed in the process. Her Duotine-room heavily hints at this with red handprints showing up on her chest and lower body, as well as on her bed and her Kamala whispering in her ear about how her innocence was "devoured" and how nobody will believe her.
- Self-Harm: Unintentionally. Adelaida is obsessed with drawing, so the nurses have to tie her up to stop her from doing it. This leads to her fighting against the ropes and cutting her wrists in the process. She asks Fran to help find her something to stop the "red milk" from flowing, in exchange for a green crayon.
Annie
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: She's heavily implied to have ADHD, always walking aimlessly through the halls and seemingly unable to sit still for more than a few seconds. She gives Fran sleeping pills, suggesting she got them as part of her treatment.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: A dark blonde who is nothing but kind to Fran. Notably, she's the only inmate at Oswald who will give Fran an item without demanding anything in turn. Fran even says that she'll miss Annie once she leaves.
Damian
- Implied Rape: It's not as overt as with Adelaide, but there is a heavy implication that Damian was molested by a priest. The Kamala accompanying him talks about how a "holy man" took off his clothes and that his mother didn't believe him when he told her about it.
- Insistent Terminology: He refers to his walking cane as his sword.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He acts fairly rude and stand-offish at first, demanding Fran to bow before him and address him with honorifics. But when Fran does so, he turns out to actually be pretty kind and well-mannered.
- Large Ham: Speaks in a grand and boastful manner, which is only fitting for someone who thinks he's a king.
Victoria
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Downplayed. Her talk about Dr. Deern stealing thoughts and brains might be hinting at what the children in Oswald's basement are going through. Namely lobotomy.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: A pale girl with dark brown hair who does nothing but stand in the hallway and sway back and forth. Talking to her also reveals her as extremely paranoid and pessimistic, thinking that Dr. Deern will do terrible things to the other patients at Oswald's.
- The Paranoiac: Her interactions with Fran imply that she might suffer from paranoia. She's convinced that Dr. Deern ate her brain and her thoughts and that the same fate awaits all the children at the asylum.
Phil
- Ambiguously Evil: When Fran tries to exit Dr. Deern's office, he suddenly shows up with a frown on his face, spouts an ominous line about a girl who will die and then locks the door. However, the office has a vent through which Fran can escape rather easily and doing so even brings her closer to the exit. Fran wonders if Phil knew about the vent right after discovering it.
- And I Must Scream: His Duotine-version has his mouth stitched shut.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: A pallid boy with dark brown hair who spends his time muttering cryptic lines. He's also the only inmate other than Fran who has directly interacted with Remor and later on he locks Fran in Dr. Deern's office for no discernable reason.
- Expy: He has a lot of similarities with Cole Sear as a pale, slightly creepy brown-haired boy who claims to see supernatural things.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: His full name is Philmore, but Fran only ever calls him Phil.
Dr. Deern
Dr. Deern is Fran Bow's doctor at the Oswald Asylum.
- Dark and Troubled Past: When Fran is switching back and forth from the other realities, he reveals that he had an abusive father. He had tried telling his mother, but apparently, his father started abusing her as well.
- Pet the Dog:
- When Fran faints from trying a dosage of Duotine, he immediately tells the nurse to never let Fran take them again.
- After Fran escapes from the asylum, he's the only one bothering to look for her.
The Fifth Reality
Mother Mabuka
Mother Mabuka, widely feared ruler of the Fifth Realm, is "the end of light," a being of darkness representing and subsisting on anguish and despair.
- Brought to You by the Letter "S": Mabuka’s tiara-like accessory has the letter “M” in the center.
- Emotion Eater: Misery in her case.
- God of Evil: She's one by virtue of representing anguish and despair. She's a lot less aggressive than Remor, however.
- Tears of Blood: Has them on her mask.
Antagonists
Remor
Remor is the Big Bad of the game, (possibly) a giant Kamala and the one suspected of killing Fran's parents.
- Ambiguously Evil: While Remor is the main antagonist, he never does anything to kill Fran. He seems more focused on getting her to the Fifth Reality than on killing her.
- The Antichrist: If being the child of Mother Mabuka says anything towards that.
- Big Bad: From the moment the player starts the game they learn how Remor killed her parents and is actively trying to hunt down Fran.
- Emotion Eater: His entire reason for hunting down and torturing Fran - he describes her suffering as a delicious feast, and seems to be a kind of Kamala, who are noted to be this trope by other characters.
- God of Evil: Seems to play this trope straight until Mother Mabuka is added to the equation.
- Heroes Act, Villains Hinder: His role throughout most of the game. Especially compared to Dr. Oswald.
- Jerkass Gods: He's one of the most powerful characters in the game, along with Itward. He's also not very nice.
- Skull for a Head: His head is of a multi-horned goat skull.
Clara and Mia
Clara and Mia Buhalmet are a pair of Conjoined Twins, and are also witches with a deep grudge against Itward. They coerce Fran into helping them by holding Mr. Midnight hostage. They had also been inmates in the Oswald Asylum as well, and were victims of Dr. Oswald's experimentation on twins.
- Back from the Dead: In their backstory, they died shortly after having been sewn together, either from complications from an untried medical experiment, or accidentally killing one another while trying to kill Itward (whom they blamed for their predicament), or possibly both. Itward returned them to life to give them a second chance to make peace with each other, but they didn't seem to get the memo and are plotting revenge. It's likely that the two skeletons behind their mirror and the two ghosts wandering their home are theirs.
- Conjoined Twins: Joined along the torso to make them a two-headed person. They were born independent of each other, they were sewn together as an experiment by Dr. Oswald to see what would happen, in his ongoing experimentation with twins.
- Cute Witch: It's clear that they try to invoke this, but they pretty much go the other way.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Downplayed, in that one of their goals is to have separate bodies. Their long term plan is to kill Itward, though their magic somehow can't work properly as long as they're conjoined.
- Karmic Death: Fran switches out the spell they gave her with one to "purify" them, which left them as ash and a pair of swiftly evicted spirits. Fran was horrified at what had happened, but doesn't waste time mourning them.
- Lobotomy: Are seen in the Asylum in a padded room with scars on their foreheads. Notably, they're not conjoined.
- Numerological Motif: The Roman numeral for 2 (which is also the astrological symbol for Gemini) is dotted throughout their home.
- Trickster Twins: They aspire to kill Itward, and have let at least one other girl be killed in their pursuit, and are willing to expend Fran in the same way if she messes up the spell they give her, but they don't tell her that. They also mutually hate each other, and have mutually agreed that one or the other will probably be killed in getting their body back.
- True Blue Femininity: They wear a blue dress, and otherwise act seemingly quite feminine.
- Uncanny Village: Their home is a very girlish house on an island not much bigger than the house is. Of course their bedroom is decorated with eviscerated, bloody dolls, their living room has a putrefying corpse, and being familiar with these girls makes one know that they aren't sweet at all.
Dr. Oswald
A paralyzed and sociopathic old man who is partially responsible for all of the trauma in Fran's life. His existence is a Walking Spoiler.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Is stated to be working with Remor.
- Egopolis: Oswald Asylum is implied to be named after Dr. Oswald.
- Evil Old Folks: Dr. Oswald may look like an old man who simply is unable to walk, but that dude is about as insane as the asylum he's running.
- The Sociopath: Doesn't care about anything, but of what Fran Bow can do for him and his research. He's even willing to shoot a child and use what's left of her to further his experiments!
- Walking Spoiler: It's not until the very end of the game that people even know that he's a real person.
- Would Hurt a Child: Dr. Oswald shoots and almost kills Fran with a revolver when she starts strangling Aunt Grace. He also performed experiments on children, including the conjoined twins Clara and Mia.
