History Characters / Devotion

* AbusiveParents: To cope with the failure of his own career, Feng Yu began to live vicariously

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* IllGirl: Mei Shin was sickly as a child, with an entire section of the game devoted to her stay in a hospital. [[spoiler: It's later revealed that she has an anxiety disorder]].

** The entire game is the [[UpToEleven logical extreme]] of this trope PlayedForDrama. Feng Yu would rather walk through Buddhist hell than admit that he's killed his own child.

* AbusiveParents: As the story goes on, it becomes readily apparent that 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. 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.

The protagonist of the game, a screenwriter on hard times who wants to save his daughter.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Feng Yu loves his wife and daughter. However, he doesn't approve of [[StayInTheKitchen Li Fang going back to work]] to have an income again after his career began failing and expects her to be a housewife, which leads to the two of them frequently fighting and eventually Li Fang leaving the family. He also pressures his daughter to be the best, causing her to develop an anxiety disorder. When she's recommended to a psychiatrist, Feng Yu's reaction is to angrily tear up the paper shouting [[InsaneEqualsViolent "my daughter is not a lunatic!"]]
* DomesticAbuse: Between him and Li Fang. 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 be 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.

* EyeScream: The VisionQuest near the end involves him pulling his own eyeball out as an offering to Cigu Guanyin in a first-person perspective. [[SubvertedTrope Luckily]], this is only [[RuleOfSymbolism symbolic]] as he never actually did it.
* FatalFlaw: Feng Yu [[ControlFreak wants things done his way]]. He really does love his wife and daughter, but his inability to step back and let others handle situations causes tension between them. It's implied that he pressured Gong Li Fang to give up her successful career as an actress because he couldn't accept someone else being the family's breadwinner, even as his own formerly promising career dried up and Li Fang returning to work was the only way to make ends meet. He refused to believe that Cigu Guanyin was a scam partially because it promised to allow ''him'' to cure Mei Shin, rather than admitting that she had a mental disorder and needed psychiatric treatment that he couldn't provide.
* GreenEyedMonster: 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 be a traditional wife.
* GiftedlyBad: 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 keeps writing scripts, enough that when Mei Shin starts turning them into origami, she has enough to fill the whole room with paper flowers.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Out of 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 ultimately and directly cause the death of his beloved daughter, Mei Shin.

* IRejectYourReality: 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, Mei Shin is suffering from anxiety and needs psychiatric help, and Cigu Guanyin is a scam that led to him killing Mei Shin.

** He accuses Li Fang of overspending, but ''he's'' the one who buys things like the Arowana fish, and he's the one offering most of their money to [[PhonyPsychic Mentor Heuh]]. When she [[LampshadeHanging rightfully]] calls him out on this accusation, he only asks her if she's done in an annoyed tone.
** This gets more [[UpToEleven ridiculous]] and [[PlayedForDrama tragic]] as the events of the whole game are [[spoiler:literally him [[IRejectYourReality denying the reality that his life was ruined by his own hand and that everything worked out in the end]] as he mindlessly watches his broken TV in a catatonia-like state]].

* SanitySlippage: As his financial situation continues to deteriorate along with his familial relationships, it's clear he's losing it.
* StarvingArtist: Feng Yu is a screenwriter, but after a slew of critical darlings in his youth, he was either unable to move on with the times or lost his talent, leading to the family's finances — and his relationship with his wife — suffering.
* StayInTheKitchen: Feng Yu got his successful singer wife to give up show business because he thought that it was the man's job to be the breadwinner, and he only presses further on this the more obvious it becomes that his own career is going nowhere and Li Fang ''has'' to go back to work for the family to pay their bills.
* TongueTrauma: The ritual he undergoes that's supposed to restore Mei Shin's health involves ''pulling out his own tongue'', at least within his dream world.
* TragicVillain: Though he is guilty of domestic abuse and child homicide, he was once an ordinary family man and formerly successful scriptwriter whose life and mental state was completely broken beyond his control. His wife left him because staying would mean financial ruin, while his well-meaning attempts to cure his mentally ill daughter would ultimately result in her death. Not to mention, Mentor Heuh's cult took advantage of his grief and despair over his deteriorating situation and suckered him out of his money in exchange for useless and dangerous advice that got his daughter killed in the first place.
* VillainProtagonist: The player gradually learns that he is the reason that Mei Shin is "missing", as he, in his blind faith to his religion, made her partake in a dangerous religious ritual that led to her death to cure her "illness". Since you spend the whole game trying to get to the "flawless present" by looking back through Feng Yu's memories, it can be interpreted that the game is his attempt at staying in denial about this fact and convincing himself that his mistakes saved their daughter and kept Li Fang from leaving him.

* WriteWhatYouKnow: An in-universe deconstructed example. Feng Yu's screenplays are very clearly meant to be about an idealized depiction of his own family, which he increasingly emphasizes as his situation deteriorates. This is implied to be why studios eventually grow sick of him, and consequently what causes the financial troubles for the family.

* BrutalHonesty: After her mother tries to get her to not talk about her domestic issues publicly, Li Fang refuses and instead tells the truth about Feng Yu's violent behavior and blind devotion to Mentor Heuh's cult in an interview. [[EveryoneHasStandards Even the host asks her if it was harsh for her to say such things]].
* CassandraTruth: One point of contention between her and Feng Yu was his devotion to Cigu Guanyin while she was skeptical and insisted that Mentor Heuh was untrustworthy. The events of the game show that she was completely right; Mentor Heuh was a scam artist whose teachings were a way to sucker the desperate into giving her money.
* DomesticAbuse: Between her and Feng Yu. 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 be 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.
* FamilyVersusCareer: After marrying Feng Yu, Li Fang retreated from show business in order 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 would ultimately drive Li Fang into leaving him.

* ScrewThisImOutOfHere: Li Fang ends up leaving her husband to restart her acting career, intending to take her daughter away as well as soon as she has the money. Unfortunately, Mei Shin dies before that happens.
* SlaveToPR: At one point, after things start getting really bad, you find a letter to Li Fang from her mother, where she implores her that she stay with her — at this point, definitely [[DomesticAbuse abusive]] — husband, claiming that leaving will be bad for her career.

** 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.

* DiscOneFinalBoss: She seeks 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.

* HeroAntagonist: One could interpret her existence to be an attempt from Feng Yu's mind to confront his own denials, 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.
* MentalMonster: This ghost is all in Feng Yu's head. The reason it looks like Li Fang is because Feng Yu believed her wife was actually possessed by something evil.

** 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 in truth, the real Li Fang is fine.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Feng Yu loves his wife and daughter. But [[StayInTheKitchen does not take lightly of the idea of Li Fang going back to work]] to have an income again after his career began failing and expects her to be a house wife, which leads to the two of them frequently fighting and even Li Fang leaving the family. He also pressures his daughter to be the best, but doing so causes her to develop an anxiety disorder. And when she's recommended to go see a psychiatrist, Feng Yu's reaction is to angrily tear up the paper shouting [[InsaneEqualsViolent "my daughter is not a lunatic!"]]

* GreenEyedMonster: It's implied throughout the game that Feng Yu was jealous of Gong Li Fang's success as a film star after they were married and guilt-tripped her into giving it up to be a traditional wife, something she willfully did until things started to go wrong.

* ItsAllAboutMe: He constantly spends like his family is still wealthy, [[DomesticAbuse abuses his wife]] out of egotism, 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.
* LethallyStupid: PlayedForDrama. Locking someone in 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.

** He accuses Li Fang of overspending, but ''he's'' the one who buys things like the Arowana fish, and he's the one offering most of their money to [[PhonyPsychic Mentor Heuh]]. When she [[LampshadeHanging rightfully]] calls him out on this accusation, he only annoying replies if "[she's] done?".
** This gets more [[UpToEleven ridiculous]] and [[PlayedForDrama tragic]] as the events of the whole game are [[spoiler:literally him [[IRejectYourReality denying the reality that his life was ruined by his own hand and that everything worked out in the end]] as he mindlessly watches his broken TV in a catatonic-like state]].

* SanitySlippage: As his financial situation continues to deteriorate along with his familial relationships, it's clear he's losing it in the head.
* StarvingArtist: Feng Yu is a screenwriter, but it seems that after a slew of critical darlings in his youth, he was either unable to move on with the times or lost his talent, leading to the family's finances — and his relationship with his wife — suffering.
* StayInTheKitchen: Feng Yu got his successful actress wife to give up show business because he thought that it was the man's job to be the breadwinner, and he only presses further on this the more obvious it becomes that his own career is going nowhere and Li Fang ''has'' to go back to work for the family to pay their bills.

* IllGirl: Mei Shin was sickly as a child, with an entire section of the game devoted to her stay in a hospital. [[spoiler: It's later revealed that the reason why she's so sick is to an anxiety disorder]].

* GracefulLoser: It's subtle, but one can see the ghost briefly resignating 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.

* TooDumbToLive: At the very least, locking a seven-year-old in the bathroom without food for seven days is obviously a ''horrendously'' stupid idea. Tragically, Feng Yu is too foolish for ''someone else'' to live, as his actions killed his child.