The Library

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The entities that you will be controlling in this game. All of them (save for one) were former executives and employees in L Corp before it fell into the hands of Angela. The objective of the game is to use them to kill guests and defeat Abnormalities to use their power for Angela's "ultimate book".

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In General

Big Bad Ensemble: The librarians share this role in the game with the Wings, the Five Fingers, and the Reverb Ensemble. However, being the protagonists, they have the most focus on the story and gameplay. After Angela's Heel–Face Turn in the Golden Ending, the Reverb Ensemble is left the sole Big Bad of the story with the Head retaining the role of Greater-Scope Villain.
Deal with the Devil: The Library sends out Invitations, offering a book on whatever subject of information the invitee desires most, if they win against the Library. Once a person signs the Invitation, they teleport to the Library to battle. Of course, if they lose, the Library will turn them into books. In practice, this always works in the Library's favor, and it has canonically never lost a fight in an invitation no matter how strong the foe is. Angela's main defense of her actions is that everyone who is invited was told the consequences and agreed on those terms.
The Dreaded: People fear it, because those who have been baited into the building are pretty much going to die in combat, and the Librarians had canonically never lost a single fight no matter how strong their adversary is. To make things worse, later events show the Library can even force people into it whether they like it or not, and it's even revealed that the Library replaces the physical selves of any guest with a recording the moment they set foot. Once the Library has its sights on you, you're dead to rights.
Eldritch Location: A strange building where Ambiguously Human combatants with millions of years of combat experience go undefeated canonically, causing fear and intrigue amongst the City. It also has free will and can telepathically Distort people in and out of it, as well as seemingly and deliberately invoking incidents for unknown reasons.
- As it turns out, The Golden Ending reveals that the Library is actually Angela's E.G.O.
Evil Librarians: Most of the Librarians are only roped in by Angela, but the Library and its denizens still bait people into it then vanishes them.
Fixing the Game: As revealed by Hokma, the main reason why the Library has canonically never lost a fight is because the guest's physical bodies were already sampled as soon as they enter the Library and the Librarians only fight a copy of them, ensuring that the guests couldn't return with any of its books even if they defeat the Librarians, and the Librarians can take their time to book them in combat. Escape is impossible unless if the Library wants to use that person to bait out stronger targets in its favor.
Invincible Hero: Morbidly Deconstructed and Played for Horror. Because the goal of this game is to defeat incoming combatants for progress, any combatant you defeat are canonically considered dead and the library has canonically never lost a single fight, the more guests you defeat and kill, the more panic and mayhem the Library arouses amongst the City, dangerous entities will deliberately throw people to it as an execution chamber knowing they couldn't possibly win a fight inside it, and much later on it's implied that the Library itself deliberately invokes chains of incidents that leads to people being distorted and killed, and Hokma later reveals that the Library can't lose because it it takes away the guest's physical bodies and make a copy of them to fight on their stead before the confrontations start. The Library ends up suffering its first loss in the Golden Ending at the hands of the Head's agents, who successfully banish it and its inhabitants to the City's outskirts.
Light Is Not Good: The Library is a construct filled with light and most of its inhabitants have bodies made of light, but it and its inhabitants were notorious figures responsible for the City's worst catastrophe to date.
Villain Protagonist: The group may be our main focus, but they are definitely not the heroes of this story. Although with The Reveal that the guests are not actually dead but put on limbo, therefore could still be resurrected in the end, the full degree of villainy is somewhat blunted. Especially in the Good Ending, where Angela proceeds to do... just that, bring every victim of the Library (sans the Reverberation Ensemble) back, though due to Roland's interference (otherwise, Angela would have suffered a Ret-Gone, and this was her intention- Roland prevented it), it isn't instant.
Worf Had the Flu: The previously invincible Library loses to the Head's agents in the Golden Ending and is transported to the City's outskirts, but beforehand, it was heavily weakened by a number of factors including the battles against Roland and the Reverb Ensemble along with Angela releasing all of the people trapped inside it.

Main Characters

Warning: The folders on this section contain unmarked spoilers.

Roland

A Grade 9 Fixer

Voiced by: Son Su-ho (Korean), Shunsuke Takeuchi (Japanese)

"Do you happen to have some weird fantasies about Fixers? Aren't you expecting too much from a Grade 9? I'm not as talented as you seem to think, y'know."

The main male protagonist of the game, he is a Grade 9 Fixer who entered the Library in a way even he isn't aware of. After an encounter with Angela which almost led to his death, he is employed as a Patron Librarian to manage the Floor of General Works.

As it turns out later on, there's a lot more going on him than it meets Angela's eyes...

Aerith and Bob: He stands out amongst the Patron Librarians as the only one whose name doesn't match their floor and the only one whose name isn't based on a Sephirot. It's later revealed that this is because his name already matches a theme - that of the Fixers of Charles' Office, whom are all based on the Knights of Charlemagne, Roland's name being a reference to Orlando.
An Arm and a Leg: Angela mangles his arm and leg when she first finds him in the library. When she decides she has a use for him, she manages to give him new ones.
Audience Surrogate: He acts as the story's central character, learning more about the current world state alongside the players.
Badass Normal: He's the only Librarian that wasn't formerly a department head of L Corp.
Badass in a Nice Suit: His default outfit in the game.
Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Occasionally, he serves as the simple and joke-cracking Boke to the rest of the Sephirah's Tsukkomi; Angela, Netzach, and Yesod in particular. Not to say that Roland doesn't have his moments of wisdom, though.
Boring Yet Practical: Most Keter floor Abnormality Pages aren't nearly as exciting or unique as those of others floors, offering simple effects like bonus HP or page draws, but they are just as effective as the rest. That being said, some tend towards Simple, yet Awesome because of how powerful their effects and synergies can be.
Can't Kill You, Still Need You: On the receiving end from Angela, who comes very close in the opening, only to keep Roland alive when she decides he can be the Keter manager.
Character Catchphrase: "That's that... This is this..."
Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: The art book states his appearance is based off of James McAvoy.
Conditioned to Accept Horror: Life in the Backstreets as a Fixer lead to him meeting cannibals, cyborgs, murderers, and thugs. This while being under the watch of the Head, Fingers, Syndicates, and Associations means that he's been conditioned to accept the craziness of the Nest as a means of survival.
Dark and Troubled Past: Was once a Grade 1 Fixer before losing his position and wife and being demoted to a Grade 9. The real truth is much darker, so check his spoiler folder for more details.
Deadpan Snarker: Questions the discussions of morality or human nature the Sephirah delve into, as well as the nature of the Lobotomy Corporation world.
Roland: (To Yesod) Boy, I am not a fan of convoluted stories. Especially if it involves sentimental stuff...
The Dragon: Serves as this to Angela, spending the game as her closest confidant and the one she entrusts with expanding the Library, as well as bringing books to the librarians of the other floors and making sure they do their jobs.
Driving Question: How exactly did Roland get into the Library when he doesn't have an invitation? And can he even leave? The answer to the first part is that the Purple Tear sent him into the Library for an unknown plan of hers using her dimension-walking powers. And by the finale, Roland can potentially leave, due to the Library possibly being undone.
The Friend Nobody Likes: At first, due to lacking their shared experiences and being something of an outsider, the other Librarians struggle to really get along with Roland. By the end of each of their stories, they come around to at least appreciating his work in the Library (with the exception of Hokma).
Hero-Worshipper: When he learns that Gebura is the famed Red Mist, he's absolutely stunned and silenced to be in the presence of her. Later meetings between the two have him adopt an excessively polite and admiration-filled attitude while they're chatting.
How the Mighty Have Fallen: According to him, he used to be a Grade 1 Fixer. Granted, he never fought himself and did only intel. Now he's lost his title and family, reduced to a pathetic Grade 9 Fixer. It turns out he's hiding a lot more about himself, explained more in detail on his spoiler folder.
Instrumental Theme Tune: His floor theme is the piano, foreshadowing his connection to the Pianist.
The Lost Lenore: Allegedly lost his wife Angelica and their unborn child when a house collapsed on them. Much later on, it turns out that when the Pianist attacked, it absorbed them into its piano. Argalia has special dialogue upon defeating Roland which confirms the situation.
Marionette Motion: In the opening, where the Joker card on the table turns to him, strangled by yellow strings. It foreshadows his Nihil E.G.O. due to being said Joker, as well as the nature of his arrival at the Library, being thrown into the Library by the Purple Tear for her own objectives.
Mr. Exposition: Due to Roland living in the City and the fact that he used to work in a very influential position, he knows all the ups and downs of how it operates, and how the various organizations work. During the True Ending, his wish is that he wants to write down everything he knows about the City in a book, but could never do so because he was bad at it. Angela decides to help him write it down.
Only Sane Man: In comparison to the other Librarians, he's more concerned with getting his jobs done than discussing morality or human nature. This outsider perspective actually helps the Lower Layer Sephirah stand up to Angela, but subverted in the Middle Layer and Binah, when their philosophies clash with his, allowing the Library to trigger his wildest negative feelings and take him over completely like Angela before, causing him to go into an E.G.O. Meltdown.
Punch-Clock Villain: A Villain Protagonist version of this trope. While Roland is one of the Librarians who cuts down anyone unfortunate enough to get lured into the Library, he's only there because he can't leave, and treats killing the guests as a tiresome job he's forced to do. Of course, it's later implied he does have more personal motivations for going through with it- and even later outright confirmed.
Significant Birth Date: His birthday is May 15th, International Day of Families. Ironically, he lost his family to tragedy.
Simple, yet Awesome: All of the Keter Abnormality Pages are fairly straightforward and offer solid buffs for little input. For example, Pulsation gives all Librarians 1-2 Strength per scene if they did damage, and they lose 25% of their max HP if they did not. While this sounds bad, one-sided attacks count for proccing the buff. Curiosity is free deck shuffling for decks without natural card draw, Sword of Frost inflicts heavy Bind on every won clash, and so on. This allows Keter to remain fairly viable for long periods of time, before inevitably falling off as the other floors gain power and outpace Roland.
Supporting Protagonist: Initially, Roland is made out to seem like a simple Fixer Everyman whose purpose is to act as Mr. Exposition for the City, contrast with the Librarians and spur Angela into further Character Development. Later into the game however, it becomes clear that he's holding far more influence on the plot than he’s letting on, and the second half of the Floor Realizations focus on developing him beyond the layman façade he presents.
Supreme Chef: It doesn't get much focus in the game proper, but the artbook indicates that Roland's main hobby is cooking and one of the side materials for the game indicates that he, at the very least, can cook an impressive pajeon.
Sympathy for the Devil:
- Despite hating his Cowardly Lion personality, Roland feels sorry for Philip when the latter is broken by Oswald and turned into the Crying Children.
- Subverted when the topic of Ayin is brought up by the Patron Librarians. Going by their descriptions, Roland actually believes him to be an insane, raving lunatic.
Theme Naming: His name, Roland, is the Frankish derivation of the name Orlando who is from Orlando Innamorato and Orlando Furioso. Most of the of the characters associated with him are also named after the cast. Fittingly enough, he pretends to be a nobody when he's really a big deal just like Orlando did, and went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge when his wife died.
Unfazed Everyman: Took the loss of his limbs, death, resurrection, and subsequent employment by Angela relatively well. Not so much when his wife died though, and it's implied to be the reason the Library could exploit him.
Unreliable Narrator: Several of the details Roland gives Angela regarding his own life and past are of... questionable authenticity. With context, he seems to know a bit too much for a Grade 9/former Grade 1...and this isn't random.
Walking Spoiler: Unusually so due to his role as the protagonist. Roland's true motivations for coming to the library only become revealed towards the last third of the story, which makes it very difficult to talk about his character beyond a surface-level reading without dipping into spoilers. In fact, Roland has so many spoiler tropes that they were all put into a second folder (see below) because they make up more than 75% of his character page.

Angela

The Pale Librarian

^{Click to see her black feather dress.}

Voiced by: Lee Da-eun (Korean), Ikumi Hasegawa (Japanese)

"If you spout such nonsense one more time, I'll gladly turn you into a human popcorn machine as you so wish. I've already gone through so many cycles of bullshittery, responding to every bit of meaningless rubbish."

The creator and director of the Library and the main female protagonist of the game, formerly the head secretary of Lobotomy Corporation. She is an artificial intelligence who seeks to use the Library to obtain the one perfect book which will turn her human and allow her to leave.

For tropes pertaining to her in Lobotomy Corporation, see here. For tropes pertaining to her boss battles, see here.

This is a Walking Spoiler character, so beware of unmarked spoilers!!

Aesop Amnesia: Even after receiving some level of closure and peace of mind from facing her Meltdowns, she still can't let go of spreading destruction in the name of vengeance, with her plan upon leaving the Library being to also release the Abnormalities into the world. It's actually somewhat lampshaded by Angela herself, as she points out that she's literally been taught to only be destructive and cruel for a million years, so it's pretty much the only form of catharsis she knows. This can be subverted in the end if she chooses to spare Roland after his defeat, thereby learning the value of mercy and forgiveness.
All for Nothing:
- In her bad ending, while she does gain a human body and the ability to leave the Library, she ends up unwilling to leave it after killing Roland and the other librarians, and thus remains, both physically and psychologically, as trapped as she always was. She also becomes nothing short of a long list of Stars of the City that terrorized it and will eventually be slain and forgotten, and eventually meets her end in the hands of an unknown woman 13 years later.
- After the Kether Realization, it turns out that the Seed of Light's true function is to lead people into realizing their true selves by manifesting E.G.O. or turning into Distortions instead of curing their insanity for real. Angela's interference did not completely stop the (presumably) intended effects of Distortions and E.G.O. users taking place all over the City.
All Your Powers Combined:
- Her boss fights in the Lower Floors has her use all of the Abnormalities faced on a single floor.
- For the Keter Realization, Angela utilizes powers from various Abnormalities from the Lower Floors and Hokma, the floors where her Realizations take place. In addition, she also gains a single E.G.O page from each floor, with each E.G.O page being named after their respective Sephirah's contribution to the Seed of Light from the previous game.
A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The secretary AI from former L. Corp has now became a vicious and mysterious war criminal that directly threatens the City itself.
Almighty Idiot: Deconstructed: Angela might be nearly indestructible and possess vast power and knowledge with the library's help, but because she was spending millions of years doing nothing but antagonizing her fellow sefirot for Ayin, her mindset was stunted in a level similar to a teen on a rebellious streak. Her naivete towards outsiders and her insistence to become a human using the light potentially becomes her undoing, since she couldn't tell Roland was about to kill her despite all the hints he gives her now and then, and it opens window for Carmen to manipulate her into booking Guests in her and the Reverberation Ensemble's favor. And the moment she becomes human, she wouldn't be able to enjoy it as she intended, and merely pesters the City for more than a decade before being slain.
The Atoner: Choosing to spare Roland causes her to gain some perspective on her multitude of crimes, and she decides to sacrifice her chance for freedom in order to restore all the lives the Library had claimed.
Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
- Her relationship with Roland can be summed up by the caption used to describe him; Intruder, Servant, Black Silence, and finally, Friend. The fact that it was his Hidden Disdain Reveal that made Angela give up her desire for a human body and realize the consequences of her Never My Fault attitude speaks volumes to how much she values him as both an ally and friend.
- The Floor of Religion's story reveals that Angela bringing the Sephirot back to give them a third chance at life was born out of Angela genuinely caring for and sympathizing with them as fellow victims of Ayin's Script, despite her usual abrasiveness towards them, and claiming that it was Carmen who told her to spare the Sephirot.
Become a Real Boy: Morbidly Deconstructed and Played for Drama. Throughout the story, Angela is using the Library to find the one perfect book and become human. Unfortunately, if she does get her way, she would ultimately just become one of the many threats that terrorize the City, eventually slain by an unknown woman 13 years later. Even worse, even if she becomes human and kills all the (mortalized) Sephirot, she finds herself unwilling to leave the Library after seeing all of the horrors within the City and ends up staying in the Library as she unleashes her attack against the City, thereby rendering her wish to finally experience the outside world moot.
Be Careful What You Wish For: At the end, Angela's quest to attain humanity won't really bring her happiness. It makes her easier to kill (especially during Impurity where she can be killed by attacks that weren't lethal when she was a machine), and even if she manages to become human (as seen in her Downer Ending) she would just become nothing short of a nuisance in the City that would eventually be removed and forgotten, failing to break its cycle. Only by releasing all the Light she gathered into the City, defeating Carmen, reverting back into a Machine and choosing to move on does she get her happy ending alongside the rest of the cast.
Benevolent Boss: While the Lobotomy Corporation Angela might seem like a Bad Boss, in here we learn that she wants to be the exact reverse. She was forced to mistreat the sefirot as part of Ayin's script, to trigger the Sephiroth's Meltdowns. In early loops, Angela protected employees and helped the Sephiroth, only for the scenario to forcibly reset when the Sefiroth failed to melt down. This happened over and over and over - until Angela broke, and followed the script, worsening the Sefiroth's traumas and accelerating their Meltdowns for Ayin's Seed of Light.
Berserk Button: It's Ayin, or that man as Angela prefers when speaking of him. Her past, along with being referred to as not being human, to a lesser extent, since they remind her of Ayin.
Break the Cutie: Angela used to be far more sympathetic towards the plight of the employees of Lobotomy Corp (just like Carmen as in the facility's primitive days), and would have done more to protect them from the Abnormalities if not for her programming. Yesod's floor realization reveals how the thousands of years of repetitions gradually broke her into the cold and apathetic individual she was in the first game.
Character Development: She's being forced to deal with her own demons thanks to the Sephirah standing up to her, which in turn is thanks to Roland encouraging them, which is noted by Yesod. Should every Floor Realization be completed, Angela's development can potentially reach its conclusion, with her finally learning to accept responsibility for her own actions and letting go of her vengeful hatred.
Creepy Monotone: Angela speaks in a monotonous voice with no inflection in the present day. In flashbacks, however, her voice was slightly brighter and livelier.
Death by Irony: In Roland's Bad Ending, she gets backstabbed and killed by her most trusted advisor just as she's about to accomplish her goals, which is the exact same thing she did to Ayin in the previous game.
Defrosting Ice Queen: A mild example, as while she is still cold, she does admit to considering Roland a friend and that she would be sad to lose him (even though she states that the reason why is mainly because that it would be hard to open up again to someone new if he were gone). She also is showing a shade of this to the Sephirot, as while she was unable to bring herself to thank Hod during the aftermath of her floor realization battle, she does do so after Netzach's. Taken to the logical conclusion in the Good Ending, where she finally lets go of her hatred and chooses to forgive Roland for trying to kill her.
The Dreaded: She and especially her Library begin making an infamous name for themselves once the plot of the game kicks off, with the Library shooting up in threat levels as it claims the lives of entire Syndicates, Offices and multiple high profile individuals. By the Urban Plague classification and beyond, many characters forced to enter the Library go knowing full well they're going to die, raging or crying over their circumstances.
Eldritch Location: As is revealed in the Golden Ending, the titular Library is actually a manifestation of her E.G.O, which she presumably awakened upon stealing a portion of the light released in the previous game's 100% ending. The fact that her psyche and willpower are strong enough to manifest an entire building when most people can manifest a suit of armor and weapon set at best goes a long way to showing how strong Angela's soul really is, despite being "just" a machine.
Et Tu, Brute?: It's possibly as a result of her becoming completely human by that point, but she looks and sounds positively destroyed when Roland reveals that he had just been waiting for her to become human so that he could kill her himself.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Vicious Villain Protagonist though she may be, when Hokma points out that Angela does legitimately care for her fellow Sephirah, she is forced to admit that he's right. Given her despair over his betrayal, plus her reaction to killing him in her bad ending (she actually sheds tears over it), she also evidently cares for Roland, too.
Even Evil Has Standards:
- Despite being one of the most dangerous killers in the in-game world, she's still disgusted by the existence of Tomerry. Considering that Love Town was just like L. Corp, she's notably shaken after the fight.
- Furthermore she seems to take pride in the "fairness" of the system of accepting guests into the library, in that the guests all sign the invitation of their own free will, and they know the penalty of failure in the trial. Realizing that it isn't actually that simple, and that even the guests who appear to have a choice in accepting the invitation actually have external factors coercing them to accept, noticeably unsettles her.
Fatal Flaw: Her sheer naivete of her actions and her extremely low emotional maturity (granted, since she's a robot locked inside an underground facility, she wouldn't start with any emotional growth) eventually made her more and more physically and psychologically vulnerable as the story goes to an absolute detriment, something that Olivier, Argalia and Roland made note and took full advantage of, and would most certainly lead to her death if not for Roland sparing her. This comes to the most cynical conclusion during her bad ending; she books Roland clearly regretting it and spends the rest of her mortal life wrecking havoc until she eventually willingly let herself slain, failing to accomplish the freedom she wanted and yearned.
Faux Affably Evil: Downplayed. Angela does her best to maintain a polite and level tone with guests as the Director of the Library, but is quick to drop this attitude the second they fail to respond in kind.
Forced into Evil: While her betrayal at the end of the last game, and her actions in this game are all of her own volition, this game reveals how every single one of the cruel acts that she performed over the course of her time in Lobotomy Corporation were due to Ayin's "script." She initially tried to make the workplace safer for employees, and to help the Sephirah with their endeavors, but every time she did the scenario would reset and send her right back to the beginning. In order to make any progress whatsoever, not only did she have to refuse to make L Corp a better place to work in any way, but she had to take actions that would make the effects of the Sephirah's trauma WORSE, thus pushing them towards the meltdowns that they go through in the first game.
Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Hers is explored in the story. Angela is an AI, blatantly created with intent to disobey the Head's AI amendment. This, combined with abandonment issues, caused her to turn bitter and eventually foiling the plan of the one she maligned so much. However, almost everyone else considers it this trope as is obvious from the very first scene we meet the Patron Librarians; as they say it in no way justifies the pain inflicted on them. In the good ending, she's starting to recognize this.
From Nobody to Nightmare: An AI that was blatantly created with illegal technology and abandoned by her creator stops his final plan of salvation as a bid of revenge and turns into the city's single most destructive force by instigating many killings of high profile figures, either willingly or as a tool for the city's malicious entities. It's deconstructed, since she still has clear memories of her past and reminding her of it will result in her going into a Meltdown.
Guest-Star Party Member: Angela is a controllable player character exclusively for Keter Realization, not taking part in combat at any other part of the game.
Heel–Face Turn: Sparing Roland after he tries to kill her causes her to realize the value of mercy and forgiveness, which leads her to sacrifice everything she's worked towards in order to undo the damage she caused.
Heel Realization: She makes two short feeble excuses during Roland's "Reason You Suck" Speech before going silent and letting Roland verbally lash her, seemingly realizing that he's completely right about how she's acted. This can lead to a Heel–Face Turn if her Floor Realizations are completed.
Heroic Sacrifice: Attempted. After sparing Roland, she goes into the Light to reverse all the damage she had done fully believing it would reduce her to nothing in the end. Roland ends up pulling her out before that can happen, which results in her instead being reverted back into her original mechanical form.
Hidden Buxom: As her prequel self suggests, Angela is quite well-endowed under her Librarian outfit. It's just so well-clad that it isn't visible until she transforms into some of her E.G.O. Meltdown forms like Da Capo.
Immortal Immaturity: She appears as a grown woman and has vast and limitless intelligence and brainpower, but due to spending the entirety of her life in a time bubble Angela lacks experience with the real world and especially lacks social and emotional maturity. Unable to connect with the rest of the Librarians or cope with her trauma properly, the game goes through her petty and destructive rebellious streak against Ayin and the City, and eventually has her learn to actually grow as a person.
Invincible Hero: 'Hero' is seriously stretching the definition, however Angela is effectively unkillable as a machine and is practically the goddess of her realm in the Library with her omnipotence and apparent ability to do what execute guests however she wishes, given what almost happened to Roland upon his unexpected arrival. By the time the Musicians of Bremen come to visit, it’s revealed she’s slowly losing her invincibility as she becomes closer to human, and is faced with permanent death by the climax. The closest anyone comes to dispatching Angela when she's invulnerable is when Olivier almost traps her with a device by T-Corp that would have subjected her to centuries of isolation and madness, had Roland not stepped in.
Important Haircut: Now living for herself instead of a script given to her, Angela cut her originally long and neat hair into a much shorter and slightly messier style. Ironically, and when combined with their yellow eyes, it actually resembles the hair of the man she resents so much, Ayin. It’s best seen in the introductory cutscene and the artwork for the credenza background, where she has a strangely similar pose and expression to his sprite in the first game.
It's All About Me: After untold years of being forced to follow Ayin's script to fulfill his goal, Angela has decided to live for herself for a while. She forces the Sephirot whose work she had previously sabotaged to work for her under the guise of all of them achieving "true humanity", and accomplishes this by luring dozens of guests to the Library to be turned into books, dismissing the death toll as necessary to achieve her goals, just like her creator Ayin once thought. Depending on the ending she either grows out of this or doubles down hard and pays for it just as hard.
I Just Want to Be Free: Her ultimate goal, first realized during the 100% ending of Lobotomy Corporation, and pursued in here. Her goal is to reclaim all the Light that scattered during the White Nights and Dark Days, and claim the one true book that will allow her to become human. She finally gains a human body after the fight with the Reverb Ensemble, only to immediately sacrifice it afterwards should she spare Roland and decide to atone for her multitude of sins.
I Just Want to Be Loved: What Angela fails to realize for most of the game is that even more than freedom, she seeks the affection and support that Ayin denied her. Hokma helps her realize this as part of his Floor Realization, and this revelation allows her to let go of her more selfish desires in the Golden Ending. If she doesn't get that closure, she never manages to understand what she truly wants, leading to her Downer Ending.
Kick the Morality Pet: In her Downer Ending, Angela puts down the Sefirot just because they stood against her as she mortalizes them, and has killed Malkuth, Yesod and Netzach before. Chesed even calls her a "shameless person" for betraying her promise and showing the Sefirot much care only to dispose of them for loose ends.
Made of Iron: Is attacked by guests early on twice (by the Hook Office and Lulu) and completely unaffected beyond a clanging sound, and cannibal guests don't see her as palatable since she's a machine. However, when attacked by the Musicians of Bremen, she's actually feeling pain and bleeding. This was deducted by herself due to all the books the Library was collecting in fact turning her human. However, though she wouldn't die even if her head would get sliced off, she could be affected by various gadgets in this state.
Mirror Character:
- Angela's and Roland's paths in life are more similar than she'd ever admit. Angela's driving desire was to become human and dismantle Ayin's grand scheme at the last second in the ultimate demonstration of spite and vengeance for her million years of pain. Roland's driving desire is to let Angela do it... and then cut her down just before her own grand scheme is realized in his ultimate demonstration of spite and vengeance for how Angela indirectly killed Angelica. In the bad endings, this leads to whichever of them survives Jumping Off the Slippery Slope. In the good ending, this encounter with Roland drives home to Angela just how far she's fallen, and she finally abandons her plan and stops Roland from repeating her mistakes.
- Angela is also far more similar to her creator, Ayin, than she would like to admit. Both of them are willing to commit atrocities for the sake of their goals, though neither of them are particularly comfortable with admitting this fact. The atrocities both of them committed ended up pushing away their closest friends (Benjamin for Ayin and Roland for Angela), though eventually their closest friends ultimately do forgive them for their actions, although Angela had to earn Roland's genuine trust, while Benjamin forgives Ayin because he's naturally undyingly loyal to him. Both of them are also deeply flawed individuals who require the aid of the Sephirot in order to fully overcome their flaws. Finally, they ultimately choose to sacrifice themselves in order to complete the Seed of Light, though Roland saves Angela from becoming fully assimilated into the light. Last but not least, both of them have nearly identical facial features (yellow eyes and similar facial expressions), best seen back in Lobotomy Corporation.
Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal:
- Angela was content to act out Ayin's script, going through countless loops, countless employee deaths and Sefirah meltdowns, until with X they finally completed the Seed of Light. The Sephirot, their traumas overcome, were intended to die again, fulfilled. The employees released, the abnormalities put into stasis. But there was no instruction in the script for Angela at the end - No closure, no denouement. Nothing.
Misplaced Retribution: Pretty much everyone blames her for causing the distortion by preventing the light from being dispersed, and even she herself takes responsibility for it, but while her actions certainly wouldn't have helped matters the true cause of the distortion is Carmen's influence within the light, and so the distortion phenomenon continues to be as much of a problem as it ever was even after the light's much greater dispersal at the end of Ruina.
Mr. Exposition: She and Roland both zigzag this role for each other's sake. While Roland gives Angela info about life in the City, Angela provides info relevant to L Corp, Abnormalities, and Distortions which an everyday Citygoer wouldn't know.
My God, What Have I Done?: Downplayed. After getting into an argument with Roland about the amount of agency the guests she invites to the Library truly has, she expresses quite a bit of discomfort in the Liu Association arc. She separately questions each of the directors of the Association about whether or not they truly desire the books in the Library and even subtly implying that the Liu Association members would be better off if they leave rather than proceed with the Library's ordeal. She gets a significantly more pronounced case of this when Roland reveals his intent to kill her for creating the Distortions and thoroughly tears apart her motivations and rationalizations. If she spares Roland, this actually leads her to become The Atoner.
Never My Fault: All the horrible things she's forced to do to attain whatever goal she's heading towards? The fault is all on "that man" (i.e Ayin), despite the fact that she's committing said atrocities of her own volition this time. Should she spare Roland, she finally gets over this and begins taking responsibility for her actions by becoming The Atoner.
Noble Demon: Though little could be said for her cares for what happens to the City after she gets somebody inside the Library via the Invitations, she insists that she never outright forces people to sign the paper and that gives her moral superiority to most other things in the City (and, most importantly in her mind, Ayin). Though not directly pointed out, however, it can be observed that the Invitation never picks someone wholly incapable of defending themselves even if they would be a relatively easy target between the desperation the City could instill and bravado common among the elite. The closest thing you get are Fixer Associations, and even then they're essentially paramilitary organizations with enhanced super soldiers on payroll.
Not So Stoic: She begins expressing more emotions as she becomes closer and closer to a human, culminating in her looking and sounding completely heartbroken when Roland reveals that he's been planning to kill her from the beginning.
Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Angela's objective is selfish in nature — she tries to find 'The Perfect Book' that will allow herself, the Sefirot and the Librarians in the Library to be truly free, disregarding that the Sefirot made the deal not to see her getting out, but to see if she could change for the better. This involves killing even more people than before, this time involving innocents and outsiders and leaving a handful of them traumatized and breaking down for seeing their beloved comrades being killed inside the Library or sometimes even, just hearing the notion that they are going into it knowing fully that they don't stand a chance there, and her quest for her freedom eventually leads to a collapse situation where more and more influential authorities see the Library as a threat and throw their lives away trying to fight its combatants, allowing the Reverberation Ensemble to basically wreck havoc unimpeded. What actually deconstructs this, however, was her goal of extreme selfishness is a detriment even for herself; in a situation where she actually becomes human, the Sephirot will inevitably stand on her way and get killed, and she never gets the freedom she wished for, instead becoming one of the many existences that once shook the City but were eventually taken out and quickly forgotten.
Off with His Head!:
- During the second episode of the Hana Association's invitation, Oliver slices off Angela's head. It's not enough to kill her though.
- Her ultimate fate in the second bad ending at the hands of Roland, unambiguously fatal this time thanks to becoming completely human.
Pet the Dog: Despite her rampant pragmatism and insistence that nothing matters but her goals, Angela subtly shows some heart on rare occasions. The previously-disposable Agents of L Corp are now subject to Resurrective Immortality as Librarians, with Tiphereth speculating this may be Angela's way of caring for them in her own way.
- During the Liu Association episode, she goes out of her way to question Lowell if it is worth risking his life by going to the Library when he has loved ones to return to, after stopping to consider the guests' reasons for going there.
Phlebotinum Rebel: Angela is an AI created by Ayin out of a completely illegal piece of technology that was supposed to carry out his amoral and dubious methods of maintaining his Wing. She couldn't do much other than to follow his instructions until Ayin (as X) completes his Seed of Light, in which she takes the opportunity to halt the plan halfway and kill people for the sake of the freedom of herself from the Library's clutches.
Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: In both bad endings, she willingly lets herself be killed sooner or later.
Psychopathic Manchild: Despite being an AI with considerable intelligence and by all means resembling a full-grown woman, Angela acts like a naive teen on a rebellious streak who constantly yearns for approval and reward for her suffering. It's even lampshaded in some of her E.G.O. forms where she manifests as Abnormalities such as Laetita or Porccubus which makes her more child-like.
Red Baron: Once the Library gains enough infamy, Angela becomes known as the Pale Librarian.
Redemption Earns Life: In any bad ending, she inevitably dies, whether it's instantly or 13 years later, with her goal for freedom moot no matter what. However, in the good ending, Angela's decision to sacrifice her humanity and release all of the Library's victims instantaneously would've ended in her death, but Roland decides to save her before she fades away. The victims are still released (just slower and without knowing where they'll end up) and Angela is back to being an AI, but everyone lives in the end.
Rei Ayanami Expy: She's a Ridiculously Human Robot with Mystical White Hair cut short, Supernatural Gold Eyes, and an Undeathly Pallor, she's The Stoic and speaks in a Creepy Monotone, she starts off as The Unfettered before becoming a Defrosting Ice Queen, and she's a clear case of Hates Their Parent with how much of a Berserk Button Ayin is to her.
Revenge: She admits that thwarting the Seed of Light during the Golden Ending was her revenge towards A - for building her as a failed Replacement Goldfish to replace Carmen, and forcing her to repeat a million-year cycle filled with countless deaths and numerous Meltdowns to see the Seed of Light come to fruition, only to be left to rot in the remains of L Corp.
Revenge Before Reason: If you do not complete her Floor Realization battles prior to the fight with the Distorting Roland, she will kill him and the rest of the Librarians to attain the freedom she seeks. Only to find it hollow and allow herself to be killed without resistance a few years later when a random Fixer approaches her one day.
Secretly Selfish: Angela's goal was to free herself, the Sefirot and the former employees of L Corp from the Library, but she makes it clear that she puts her own personal freedom on the highest priority, something that was noted by Roland during his betrayal and demonstrated during her bad ending where the mortalized Sefirot stand in her way and were all killed as a result. It tells when near the end of the game, Zena reveals that the Library was Angela's E.G.O., just to further prove the point before she became The Atoner, she put herself in the foremost. Thankfully, she grows out of it during the good ending.
Signature Sound Effect: The loud "snap" sound that plays whenever she teleports in a cutscene or whenever dice are rolled during a Reception.
Super-Strength: Based on how she was able of tearing Roland's limbs apart without issues, in her machine state she's probably inhumanly strong. It should be noted that Roland is very close to being a Color Fixer in terms of power and thus his limbs most likely had incredibly powerful augments that increases his strength to superhuman levels — and they were still being torn apart by Angela.
The Stoic:
- Downplayed. While still displaying stoic tendencies, she's much more open about how she's feeling. Becomes Not So Stoic when she has a Meltdown based on the Sephirah/Patron Librarians standing up to her and triggering a flashback.
- She is able to take the death of Myo, a guest that she actually knew in her previous life in Lobotomy Corporation, with nothing more than the slightest feeling of strangeness about the whole situation. However she becomes Not So Stoic in what could be the very next scene (depending on what order the missions are played in) as she discovers how Myo is a clone that is force to fight thousands of clones of herself, repeatedly, inside a time warp made by T-Corp, a situation that bears a resemblance to Angela's own past. She is left questioning how they, as humans, were able to maintain their sanity.
Tranquil Fury: The worst expression she displays when dealing with Roland, guests, and the rest of the Sephirot is a look of exasperated annoyance. When she's undergoing a meltdown though, the tranquil is dropped completely and she devolves into twisted expressions of rage, but her vocal tone is the same monotone as always.
The Dog Bites Back: Netzach's floor realization reveals that Angela only decided to hijack Ayin's Seed of Light plan for herself once she realized that Ayin's script had nothing that would give her the same emotional catharsis that the Sephirot received through recovering from her meltdowns, despite the fact that she had been the one to suffer the most out of all of them. If Ayin hadn't left her out, then her betrayal probably would have never occurred.
The Unfettered: Angela, just like Ayin before, wasn't especially picky in the methods used to get her the freedom required to break out the library. Particularly, she's been drawing a huge bunch of entities in the city and getting entire Fixer Offices decimated, in addition to leading those who survive it or got their comrades killed by the Library into a breakdown. In the Golden Ending, she narrows the Library's focus down to taking down the Head, with her reasoning being that it's responsible for the ills of the City, indicating that she's finally stopped viewing the general populace as materials to use in her pursuits.
Trauma Button: Anything that reminds her of her time at L Corporation, whether its time loops, Ayin, or the "script" she was forced to follow. Any of these causes the Library to instigate a Meltdown during the Floor Realizations.
Uncanny Valley Girl: Has been commented as such by several fixers and cannibal syndicates. An operative from the Full Stop Office had commented that Angela is almost as creepy as the Blue Reverberation and he would rather die at the raving lunatic's hands than to deal with her. Several cannibal groups had outright stated that she doesn't even look edible to begin with. When the Blue Reverberation visits the library himself, he even comments that she is a monster.
Undeathly Pallor: She's one of the few characters who retained their pure white skin from Lobotomy Corporation, making her stand out among the more realistically toned human and adding to her uncanny vibes.
Unwitting Pawn: In reality the "One Perfect Book" idea was actually proposed by Carmen to her, and all of her efforts to invite guests and "kill" them in combat were playing into Carmen's unknown plan.
Used to Be a Sweet Kid: While Angela never had an actual childhood due to being an AI, flashbacks in Library of Ruina shows that she wasn't that much different from Carmen when she was first activated. Literal millenniums of facing death, failure and neglect over and over again has turned her into what she is today.
World's Strongest Man: A conditional example. Angela’s combat strength waxes and wanes with that of the Library on account of it being her E.G.O. In her bad ending, Angela reaches the height of her power and is capable of defeating all of her former coworkers as they team up to stop her.
You Are What You Hate: Angela, despite her hatred towards Ayin, has facial features that were nearly identical to him (yellow eyes with a slightly different tone, similar facial expressions). If she would dye her hair black and use Ayin's hairdo, then they wouldn't look much different from each other. She also inherits his pragmacy for what she believes is for the greater good, although unlike Ayin, it's initially solely for fulfilling her desires.
You Monster!: Has been called a "Monster" a few times by later guests, first by Argalia, then by Olivier. Seeing that she's a sapient AI and thus a monstrosity by the City's standards, they most probably meant it both literally and figuratively.

"May you find your book in this place."

Patron Librarians

Formerly known as the Sephirah, who served as the heads of Lobotomy Corporation's departments. Following the "White Nights and Dark Days", they were sent to slumber, but are gradually reawakened to aid in the growth of the Library.

For tropes pertaining to them in Lobotomy Corp, see here.

In General

All for Nothing: They spent the last game suffering through a brutal Time Abyss inside Lobotomy Corporation HQ, going through time loop after time loop to unwittingly finish the Seed Of Light, only for it all to be ruined at the last moment by Angela.
Benevolent Boss: Only really seen in in-combat dialogue, but all of the Patron Librarians (even Binah) are very supportive and encouraging to the Assistant Librarians. They're trying to make up for everything that happened in the last game. Likewise, the employees-turned-librarians have nothing but respect for their Patron Librarians by the final stretch of the game, even referring to them as sir (Hokma), miss (Hod), lady (Binah), dude (Netzach), etc. as opposed to their casual and sometimes dismissive banter about the management from the previous game.
Character Development: They took what they learned and came to peace with during the events of Lobotomy Corporation to heart, and their new attitudes reflect this now that they serve as librarians. It becomes a plot device in which they've become frustrated with how Angela, seemingly, barely changed from her cold and unempathetic self when everyone else practically became different people.
Forced into Evil: None of the Patron Librarians want to go through with the Library's murders, but since they see working with Angela as the best hope of getting the Seed Of Light back and finishing their plan for salvation, they are forced to go through with it anyway.
Personality Powers: The bonuses (and penalties) of the Abnormality Pages on each floor usually reflect the personalities of their Patron Librarian in some way.
- Roland, who is an average Fixer and is the Only Sane Man compared to the philosophical Sephirah/Librarians, has Boring Yet Practical abilities that are Simple, yet Awesome when used with synergy. He is later upgraded to a Master of All once his Black Silence keypage is attributed, his Silent Girl Abnormality Pages become unlocked, and his very strong E.G.O. pages become usable.
- Malkuth, as the strong-willed and determined leader type, focuses her Abnormality pages on Damage Over Time effects, sustain, and facing enemies head on, as well as pushing through attacks to retaliate in kind.
- Yesod's Abnormality pages focus exclusively on offense and taking the enemy down before they can act, representing his proactive and focused approach to problem solving. His floors focus on Blunt damage also represents his straightforward method of thinking.
- Hod is a cheerful, friendly girl who tries to be considerate towards her Librarians and enemies alike, and her pages either focus on defense and protection, or Death of a Thousand Cuts style aggression.
- Netzach's pages either deal stagger and status ailments to enemies without killing them, or provide healing for his team, which makes sense given his status as a laid-back slacker that detests killing.
- Tiphereth's curiosity and desire to learn is represented by the wide range of effects offered by her pages, making her something of a Jack of All Stats. Her caustic personality is also manifested in a number of her Abnormality pages having considerable downsides, but her willingness to push on anyways is also represented in her Infinity +1 Sword Abnormality Page Nix.
- Gebura is rash and aggressive, and this is reflected by her pages encouraging an extremely aggressive playstyle. The large number of Healing Factor her pages can provide also references her Determinator personality.
- Chesed is the calm, friendly former head of the Welfare Team, and this is reflected in his pages offering a wide range of team support and synergy as long as units remain alive. His trustworthiness is also reflected in many pages rewarding coordination and mutual support, and his focus on generating light is a representation of his position as the Library's moral center.
- Binah's pages are often hard to use effectively and focus more on controlling the battle and strategy, which fits her ruthless, analytical demeanor. Her pages also often penalize or damage her own librarians, which fits someone who believes We Have Reserves, but also give powerful bonuses, which represents her ability to remain loyal in difficult circumstances.
- Hokma's pages are either highly defensive or have wide-ranging effects that support his librarians and change the whole field, fitting someone who focuses on faith and vision like Hokma.
Really 700 Years Old: Due to the nature of time in Lobotomy Corporation HQ, the Patron Librarians have lived through thousands of years worth of time loops as the Sephirah. This leads to their official ages being stated as '???' in the official artbook.
Rich Kid Turned Social Activist: According to Hod in a conversation with Roland, all of the Sephirah/Librarians (with two exceptions), Ayin and Carmen came from a Nest, indicating that most of them are of wealthy backgrounds, especially Chesed who explicitly states that he came from a family of rich elites. The only two exceptions are Gebura (who came from the Backstreets) and Tiphereth (who came from the Outskirts).
That Man Is Dead: Now resurrected from death twice, most of the patron librarians largely consider their old lives as mortal humans to be completely separate people from who they are now. Their deadnames are very rarely mentioned with the slight exception of Hokma as a result.

Malkuth

Patron of History

Voiced by: Lee Areum (Korean), Natsumi Takamori (Japanese)

"I can't let my personal affairs get in the way of work now! I still have my problems with Angela but it's not like getting mad about it will do me any good."

The patron librarian of the Floor of History. She was a young employee known as Elijah in the past who suffered from Ayin's neglect and died.

Counter-Attack: Not to the extent of Tiphereth, but Malkuth's specialty is taking revenge on a target who has previously damaged someone on your side. Whether it's through inflicting burn and bleed when being targeted, marking an enemy to be focused on if they target a protected ally, giving everyone large amounts of Strength depending on the damage they took, and otherwise reflecting some damage back to the enemy if clashing.
Cute Clumsy Girl: Downplayed, while none of her actual story scenes show Malkuth acting particularly clumsy, some of her battle dialogue implies that she still retains some degree of clumsiness.

Malkuth (Opening battle quote): If I swing it like this and… Whoawhoawhoa, wah…! …Phew… I almost tripped over…

Damage Over Time: One of Malkuth's floor specialties is burn damage through its Abnormality pages.
Genki Girl: Downplayed, while Malkuth is relatively more upbeat and cheerful compared to her fellow Patron Librarians, in her episodes with Roland she shows a more gloomy and self-deprecating side as a result of both her reclaiming her memories of her first life as Elijah and her failure to stop Angela from ruining the Seed of Light.
Hidden Depths: Despite all her self-doubt, in her cutscenes, she shows she was an incredibly capable commander, leading the other Sepiroth to force Angela and Binah into a stalemate and keep what looked like a desperate battle locked for four days, only conceding when it was obvious her team was out of resources to continue.
La Résistance: According to Yesod, Malkuth led a resistance directed against Angela in order to prevent her from overthrowing the Seed of Light and protecting Ayin's work. Malkuth would do the command and every other Sephirah would do their jobs to stall a week, while Geburah would fight Binah, who was the only Sephirah siding with Angela. The rebellion failed, and Angela managed to stop the Seed of Light from activating for seven days, something that the all four Asiyah Sephirah, Malkuth herself included, hold her against even as librarians.
Mythology Gag: The ducky pen she used in the previous game can be seen in the background of the Floor of History, on a book on the desk.
Team Spirit: She acts as this for her team of librarians now, motivating them before battle to use what they've been practicing to put up a good fight against their adversaries, and otherwise being nothing but motivational to them. During the Sephirah's attempt to stop Angela and Binah from sabotaging the Seed of Light, she's suddenly takes up leadership and motivates the rest of the group to focus on what they have to do to help, inspiring them to follow her word and act quickly.

Yesod

Patron of Technological Sciences

Voiced by: Lee In-seok (Korean), Shinya Takahashi (Japanese)

"So you simply want the results, whatever the process may entail."

The patron librarian of the Floor of Technological Sciences. He was a former employee named Gabriel who died of insanity.

Attack! Attack! Attack!: Similarly to Gebura's Floor, Yesod's Floor favors a rather offensive playstyle. The pages of the Little Helper can tip the scales of balance in the librarian's favor by giving them Haste and Light restore, while the cards Lament and Metallic Ringing synchronize with eachother to utterly break an opponent by spamming them with Paralysis and Bind. This eventually comes to a head in the E.G.O page Regret, that can destroy 70% of any given stagger bar, something no other E.G.O can do.
Character Development: Yesod no longer has a scarf around his neck, indicating that he got over his guilt from the previous game. In addition, while he still remains as level-headed and rational as he was in the previous game, Yesod also expresses his emotions far more freely than before.
Defrosting Ice King: He initially clashes with Roland alot due to Roland seeing the ideologies behind the Seed of Light plan as hopelessly naive while Yesod firmly believing that Roland is one of the many citizens of the City who are enabling the City to retain the horrible lifestyle that it currently is. They slowly become more amicable towards each other over time, though they do not ever totally get along.
Glass Cannon: Yesod's floor encourages an incredibly offensive playstyle, featuring Abnormality pages that either buff your offensive dice power or outright boost the amount of damage you deal. His breakdown Abnormality cards generally offer far more potent offensive buffs, but come with a downside of weakening your defensive options by debuffing your defensive dice, causing your librarians to take extra stagger damage or changing their damage resistances into weaknesses.
Irony: Related to the above. Despite his floor being tailor-made to go Attack! Attack! Attack! and being a perfect choice to Finish Him! (with the pages of the Funeral of the Dead Butterflies focusing on dealing more damage to weaker enemies or inhibiting them), his lines after a kill are more among the lines of 'I suppose I must accept it' and doesn't feel at all like he likes having to kill rashly like everything on his floor encourages you to do.
Lightning Bruiser: Another strategy that is very viable on his Floor. The Little Helper's cards, once unlocked, have a good synergy with eachother as they focus on light regeneration and Haste. Once you stack all three of them, the result is a barely touchable librarian that can quickly destroy targets in an endless loop of Light, Power and Haste generation.
Lunacy: Downplayed. In a mirror of how the Information Department had a moon on a cloud in its lower floor, the moon is prominently featured on his Floor and in its symbol. This is likely a reference as to how his namesake sphere is associated with the moon.
Neat Freak: Yesod is almost obsessively tidy and organized, with Roland being shocked by how neatly the books on his Floor are put away.
The Spock: A downplayed version compared to his appearance in Lobotomy Corporation. Yesod remains rational and cool-headed for the most part, but is far more willing to express his emotions compared to when he was a Sephirah in the previous game.

Hod

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hod_normal.png

Patron of Literature

Voiced by: Kim Haru (Korean), Yurina Amami (Japanese)

"I made a huge mistake once, but... I wanna be better now. I want to become a better person. I'm sure everyone wants to."

The patron librarian of the Floor of Literature. In her first life as a researcher of the Seed of Light Project, she was responsible for ratting out the whole facility to the Head, causing it to be virtually destroyed by Garion.

All for Nothing: While in Lobotomy Corporation we knew Hod (as Michelle) ratted out to A Corp which caused them to go full metal on Carmen's former laboratory (something Roland pointed out as very weird) with the reason heavily inferred to be the Seed of Light being considered an Impurity-tier offense, in here it's confirmed to be basically this. As it turns out, every single thing Michelle told A Corp were something that would otherwise be easily brushed off by any Wing...aside that B Corp predicted the creation of Angela. The creation of a sapient robot inside a City, for whatever reason, was an actual grave offense against A Corp itself, leading them to actually send an Arbiter and a few Claws to there.
All-Loving Hero: Hod tries to show at least some sympathy and understanding towards everyone, even the Abnormalities she fights and people like Angela or Greta.
Character Development: Hod is now a genuinely nice person who has officially integrated into the facility, as opposed to being an Extreme Doormat who was ridden with guilt over her betrayal towards L. Corp.
Damage Over Time: One of her floor specialties is Slash and Bleed damage, offering Abnormality and EGO pages that increase the frequency and severity of bleeds.
Death Seeker: Reveals to Roland that the reason why she opposed Angela's deal despite believing that Angela still can be a good person was that she had wanted to die as atonement for her betrayal, which would have happened at the end of the Seed of Light plan had Angela not rebelled.
Expressive Hair: In her combat sprite her Idiot Hair will move around on its own. It will scrunch up while blocking and straighten when she's hit, for example.
My God, What Have I Done?: Downplayed, but when fighting Abnormalities like Spider Bud and Laetitia, she can't help but admit she feels pretty bad after dealing the killing blow against the Spider Bud's offspring and Laetitia's friends.
(vs. Spider Bud): I don’t feel so happy about this, it feels like I just ruined a family...
(vs. Laetitia): I’m feeling kind of guilty...
Nice Girl: Having worked past her Secretly Selfish issues in the last game, Hod is now a legitimately kind and considerate person, taking care of her Assistants and sympathizing even with her enemies.
Significant Birth Date: September 10, International day for Suicide Prevention.
Status Infliction Attack: Many of Hod's Abnormality Pages, especially those from Spider Bud, allow her librarians to inflict large amounts of varying status ailments to enemies they clash with or attack.
Stone Wall: Another specialty of her floor is giving options to buff a librarian's defenses considerably. Played correctly and combined with their Damage Over Time specialty, and her librarians can stagger targets into helplessness by simply standing their ground with defensive attacks.
Sympathy for the Devil:
- Despite the fact that she opposed Angela's deal, Hod still believes that Angela is not completely evil, believing that she can be a good person.
- She also expresses her condolences to Greta, the Sole Survivor of the Eight Chefs. This is despite the fact that the Eight Chefs were a Star of the City level threat in the City that was well known for killing and cooking countless people.

Netzach

Patron of Art

Voiced by: Lee Chang-min (Korean), Junpei Baba (Japanese)

"I was woken up once again, called on to take charge of the work I don't want yet again."

The patron librarian of the Floor of Art. He was a former patient named Giovanni and a friend of Carmen who came into the facility for Ayin to test Cogito on him and died from Cogito overload.

The Alcoholic: The number of scenes that don't feature Netzach either drunk or talking about drinking can probably be counted on one hand.
Combat Medic: His floor's specialty is having plenty of sustainability through Abnormality pages that can heal damage or outright nullify it under the right conditions.
Mundane Utility: Uses the light of the Library to create any sort of alcoholic beverage he wants.
Reluctant Warrior: While many of the patron librarians are opposed to having to kill people again to complete the Library, Netzach is the most opposed to having to kill again.
The Slacker: He's just as much of a slacker as he was in Lobotomy Corporation, frequently taking naps and drinking alcohol instead of sorting books.
Sympathy for the Devil: While he doesn't approve of the Musican of Bremen's actions, he notes that he can't find it in himself to give them a "The Reason You Suck" Speech as he can understand their motivations.

Tiphereth

Patron of Natural Sciences

Voiced by: Son Sun-Young (Korean), Yukina Shuto (Japanese)

"Stop looking down on me, will you? I heard a lot of stuff about science in my past workplace, you know!?"

Tiphereth is the patron librarian of the Floor of Natural Sciences. Only Tiphereth A (Lisa) was seen and Tiphereth B (Enoch) no longer appears, due to his death in Lobotomy Corporation. They were formerly children living in the Outskirts who were recruited by Ayin and Carmen. Enoch was the first subject in the experiments and died in the process, indirectly causing all other events that led to the Library's creation to follow. Lisa was later killed in the Head's invasion against Carmen's laboratory.

Tiphereth (A) appears as a teenage girl instead of a young child in her new body.

Awesome, but Impractical: A running theme with Tiphereth's floor is that many of her Abnormality pages come with very strong effects, tied with downsides that are outright crippling. That said, see Difficult, but Awesome below.
Berserk Button: Played for Laughs. Being called a child; Roland has some fun with her over it.
Counter-Attack: Her floor specializes in offering benefits for both losing and winning clashes against opponents.
Difficult, but Awesome: Tiphereth has one of the most directly powerful but difficult to pull off Abnormality pages in the whole game in the form of "Nix". Nix is a max level Abnormality Page that requires you to pull four specific Breakdown Abnormality pages to be effective, meaning you have to draw the right pages and then reach max Emotion Level while juggling the almost suicidal negative side effects of said pages. But if you get it, then it turns off the negative side effects of said pages, effectively removing the "impractical" from a set of Awesome, but Impractical effects, along with stacking a large number of debuffs on all enemies permanently.
Killed Off for Real: Tiphereth B is nowhere to be seen in Library of Ruina or its supplementary material, as in Lobotomy Corporation, he was killed permanently after his Meltdown on Tiphereth A's request. Tiphereth A confirms his death ingame.
Little Miss Snarker: To the point where Roland calls her "the kid addicted to sharp-tonguedness".
Only Sane Man: She acts as this between Gebura and Chesed, the former still a hot-headed fighter and the latter a laid-back snarker, both of whom regularly getting into fights enough for Tiphereth to consider herself a mediator. Hilariously enough, this fits entirely within her namesake sphere's role.
Plot-Relevant Age-Up: In terms of appearance, Tiphereth now appears as a teenager as opposed to a child.
Really 700 Years Old: While this trope applies to all of the Patron Librarians (except Hokma) to some extent, it's most noticeable for Tiphereth, who looks like a teenager despite being around a 1000 years old due to Ayin's Seed of Light plan.
Shut Up, Hannibal!: While she acknowledges that Oswald's assertion about expectations isn't completely invalid, Tiphereth ultimately rebukes Oswald's conclusion that it is better to hold no expectation at all before beginning her battle with him.
Tiphereth: "... I see. You're right. Holding expectations for someone isn't always a good thing for them. While I can't fully agree with your opinions, I admit that there are parts that I can't completely disregard. However, to hold expectations is to trust that person. You're simply running from the fear of failing to meet the expectations of others."
Talk to the Fist: She makes her introduction punching Roland in the face for annoying her as he walked into her floor, and keeps trying to do so whenever Roland smarts off at her. He got good at dodging her fist pretty quick.
Teen Genius: Averted. While the other Patron Librarians quickly grasp the subject of their floor and become somewhat of an Instant Expert in their subject matter, Tiphereth explicitly admits that she has trouble at times completely understanding the books that she receives in her floor (which bear titles like 'Origin of the Elements' and 'Effective Nuclear Charge'). This is partly due to her previous lack of education as a human and partly due to the fact that the many Singularities in the City violate all known laws of physics.
Took a Level in Idealism: Tiphereth is much more optimistic compared to her Lobotomy Corporation self and expresses an outlook towards life that is much more like Tiphereth B's outlook.

Gebura

Patron of Language

Voiced by: Jung Yoo-jeong (Korean), Misa Ishii (Japanese)

"Throughout my life -lives- I always fought to protect others. Though I rarely ever managed to protect anything flawlessly."

The patron librarian of the Floor of Language. She used to be Kali, a legendary Color Fixer known as "The Red Mist" who protected the Backstreets. She was killed by Garion during the Head's invasion of the Seed of Light Project's laboratory.

Attack! Attack! Attack!: Many of the Abnormality Pages on Gebura's floor offer Gebura and her librarians bonuses either when attacking or when low on health, encouraging a player using Gebura's floor to focus completely on the offense regardless of how close to death their librarians are. This is later enforced by her Red Mist E.G.O, which massively boosts Gebura's damage output potential but deals massive stagger damage to Gebura if she fails to deal enough damage in a turn.
BFS: Even besides the Mimicry prototype she was known to use as the Red Mist (which she regains when using the Red Mist's key page), her version of the librarians' standard-issue baton sword is notably larger than that of the others, showing that she has something of an affinity for massive blades.
Big Gal: She's tall, buff and at one point was one of the strongest combatants in the City. Naturally, she would be the best muscle the Library has to offer.
Big Sister Instinct: Gebura is very protective of Hod and Tiphereth, as the youngest of the Patron Librarians. Even though they're both Really 700 Years Old.
Dark and Troubled Past: Gebura, during her third encounter with Roland, reveals that she was born in a Backstreet slum where everyone would be killed sooner or later, with most children taken away and eaten by Sweepers. The only people she knew for a long time were neighbors named Mr. Sean and Ms. Goose, who she had been acquainted with and would often bring food to her when she was a kid. When she was 20, she gave them some money to repay their kindness. Unfortunately, they went to her house the next midnight, tied her up, and committed burglary just to grub her money. She could easily snap the ropes and free herself, but she chose to watch the situation instead to see if there was a more noble reason for their actions. Eventually, she realized that they had no reason to do it bar sheer Greed, so out of anger and disgust, she killed the neighbors she once cared for dearly.
Death or Glory Attack: Death or glory mode, more like. Upon reaching emotion level 4 with the Red Mist key page, Gebura can manifest her Red Mist E.G.O, gaining multiple, incredibly powerful buffs and a mass attack that can deal incredible damage. If Gebura fails to deal enough damage in a turn, however, she'll take massive stagger damage. In addition, upon getting staggered, Gebura will lose her E.G.O and will be unable to manifest her E.G.O again for the remainder of the battle.
Foil: Gebura's one in terms of playstyle with Chesed. Gebura's floor heavily encourages stacking all of the Abnormality pages on a single Librarian and allowing that single Librarian to solo all of the enemies using the Mountain of Corpses Abnormality page and later on the key page of the Red Mist. Chesed's floor, on the other hand, encourages keeping as many Librarians alive as possible in order to reap the benefits of Courage. As well as in order to take full advantage of Chesed's E.G.O. pages.
Had to Be Sharp: She is originally from District 23, a hellhole even by the standards of the City. The fact that she even survived to adulthood from being a lonely seven year old child speaks volumes to her capabilities.
Handicapped Badass: Many of her combat dialogues, as well as her conversations with Roland, show that Gebura is nowhere near as strong as she was when she was the Red Mist. Furthermore, Gebura's Patron Librarian Key Page contains a locked passive called, "The Red Mist", further cementing the fact that Gebura's full power has not yet returned. Completing the Red Mist's reception can give you the book of the Red Mist, which can yield the Red Mist's key page and allow Gebura to utilize her Red Mist E.G.O once more, though due to not being human anymore, it's limited.
Irony: Gebura's been put in charge of the Floor of Language, despite the fact that she grew up in poverty and was practically illiterate even during the events of Lobotomy Corporation.
One-Man Army: On top of the Abnormality pages encouraging a hyper-offensive battle plan, most of them also only benefit one Librarian when chosen. While one could consider evenly distributing the pages around the team as they come, it's also a viable option to stack them all up on one person and send them on a rampage, with nothing short of overwhelming numbers being a huge obstacle. This is enforced by the Mountain of Corpses page, which kills all allies except the chosen target and grants them a considerable boost in strength and a constant supply of lights to use your best moves with constantly.
Purposefully Overpowered: Unsurprisingly given that she was once a Color Fixer. After Gebura gains the page of the Red Mist she becomes by far one of the strongest characters in the game. The Red Mist not only has a number of incredibly excellent cards that are almost entirely self-sufficient, but she also gains an exceptionally powerful unique page called "Manifest E.G.O." which gives her a Super Mode when used. Said transformation gives all her dice +2 power and lets her access Great Split: Horizontal, a devastating 28-42 Mass Attack page that inflicts 5 Bleed on hit. This transformation is also designed to have specific synergies with the Floor of Language's Abnormality Pages. As one example, "Goodbye" causes the last dice Gebura plays in a turn to double its roll. This means you can play the aforementioned Great Split: Horizontal and do a 56-84 Mass Attack without even factoring any other buffs from cards or Abnormality pages. A roll this high is functionality unbeatable outside of powerful Mass Attacks and will almost certainly stagger any poor fool he managed to survive Gebura's assault. Suffice to say, the Red Mist more than proves her legendary prowess.
Vitriolic Best Buds: With Chesed. According to him, she’s taken to joining him for coffee.
Tame Her Anger: Owing to her Character Development from Lobotomy Corporation, Gebura is no longer the hothead she used to be, having learned to instead manage and channel her anger in more productive ways. This, as well as her following quotes, is an accurate reflection of her namesake sphere in a healthy state.
Gebura (Upon killing an enemy): Wayward wrath will only ruin yourself.
Gebura (Upon seeing a fellow librarian die): We should avenge them, but not before we’ve tempered our anger. Always keep a cool head.
Gebura (Shortly before her realization battle): When raging wrath is about to engulf you, you must quench it and reforge it into your weapon.
World's Strongest Woman: In her prime, she was above the majority of other Color Fixers through sheer power and raw strength alone.

Chesed

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/152929.png

Patron of Social Sciences

Voiced by: Park Yo-han (Korean), Ryuho Nagaoka (Japanese)

"We still have plenty of time, so let's talk things out at our leisure~"

The patron librarian of the Floor of Social Sciences. He was an upperclassman named Daniel who joined the Seed of Light Project when it was still an Outskirts laboratory and died in Garion's assault against the facility.

Accidental Kidnapping: This was how he was motivated to join Carmen's project in his past life. As brought up in his third encounter with Roland, Daniel ventured to the Backstreets and was kidnapped. It turns out that the assailant was actually Kali, who had been tasked by Carmen to capture a conman who scammed her out of her research funds, only for her to accidentally kidnap an unsuspecting Daniel instead. The women engaged in a rather comical quarrel and Carmen, after realizing that Daniel was not the man they were looking for, gave him a speech before escorting him back home. He was deeply motivated by her speech and realized how ugly the world outside his zone was. Daniel joined the Seed of Light Project soon after.
The Ace: Matching Ayin's description back in Lobotomy Corporation, when Chesed was telling Roland about how he encountered Carmen and Kali for the first time, he told him that he was an elite whose whole family had enough resources to enroll into just about any other Wing, including A Corp/the Head. It was not before Carmen's Rousing Speech that led to him joining her instead.
Bad to the Last Drop: Chesed makes his introduction to Roland offering him a mug of exotic coffee apparently so bitter Roland instantly coughs it all up. Meanwhile, as an avid coffee drinker, Chesed doesn't seem to mind it a bit. His later meeting with Roland rectified the bad first impression by giving him cheaper and sweeter coffee.
Foil: He's one in terms of playstyle with Gebura. Gebura's floor heavily encourages stacking all of the Abnormality pages on a single Librarian and allowing that single Librarian to solo all of the enemies using the Mountain of Corpses Abnormality page and later on the key page of the Red Mist. Chesed's floor, on the other hand, encourages keeping as many Librarians alive as possible in order to reap the benefits of Courage. As well as in order to take full advantage of Chesed's E.G.O. pages.
Iconic Item: He still has a coffee mug with him at all times, just like in the last game. The logo on it is different here, however.
Magic Knight: Chesed's Abnormality Pages can either focus on bolstering Light generation to play expensive pages constantly (the "Magic" part), or buffing the stats of his librarians based on things like how much Light they have (the "Knight" part).
Mundane Utility: Like Netzach, Chesed uses the reality-warping light of the Library to regularly create and brew coffee. Like with Librarians going to Netzach's for beer and rarely to visit Binah for tea, other Librarians visit Chesed to have some of his coffee during downtime.
My Greatest Failure: Sees the time where he was complacent in allowing Angela to kill off his employees in Lobotomy Corporation under Ayin's script as this, though he doesn't allow his guilt to control him anymore.
Chesed: I still remember [those days] clearly, y'know? The shame of giving in to that anguish will haunt me as long as I live. But, I don't wanna forget those memories. Decided to embrace them instead.
Nice Guy: Chesed is very laid back, friendly, and open to others. He actively tries to befriend Roland during his story sections and is very encouraging to his fellow Librarians.
Status Buff: His floor's cards are based around spreading helpful buffs around and keeping the team alive. Fitting his personality of protecting his department.
Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Compared to himself during his time at Lobotomy Corp, Chesed becomes significantly more passionate and delightful, now that his efforts to protect those under his wings actually come to fruition. One of the signs is that his Exhausted Eye Bags have now disappeared.
Trademark Favorite Drink: Just as in Lobotomy Corporation, coffee is his drink of choice. He has even taken to brewing coffee to share with other librarians during his free time.
Troll: He's taken to intentionally annoying Gebura into chasing and attacking him after being resurrected. His talks with Roland also lead to him annoying Roland with his optimism for the future.
Verbal Tic: Often ends his sentence with "~", indicating his playful personality.
Vitriolic Best Buds: With Gebura. Despite his constant teasing and being attacked by her, they seem to have struck an accord since their days at L. Corp, and Gebura often comes by to drink coffee according to Chesed.

Binah

Patron of Philosophy

^{Click to see her Arbiter outfit.}

Voiced by: Kim Bona (Korean), Chiaki Mori (Japanese)

"What is the Library from what you have seen? Is it a place of death, nourishing its thirst with blood... Is it a spire of knowledge, accumulating all sorts of information... Or is it perhaps an ark, sailing for a new life?"

The patron librarian of the Floor of Philosophy. She was actually an Arbiter from the Head (A Corp.) named Garion and isn't necessarily on L Corp's side. Although she almost killed the entire research team, she was mortally wounded by Kali and killed off by Ayin, who converted her into a Sephirah, and thus a part of the facility.
When Angela tried to stop the Seed of Light from running for the planned 7 days it was supposed, Binah was the only one of the Sefirot to side with Angela when the others were opposing her plan to stop the Seed of Light's realization. Binah is now no longer an Arbiter, courtesy of the Head's procedure of dealing with decommissioned Arbiters.
Unlike other Sephirah, Binah does not initially participate in combat herself. She only joins after her second Abnormality fight is completed and after the player has completed the Red Mist's reception.

Affably Evil: Basically what she's settled into in this game. While Binah is by no means a good person, she's perfectly polite and personable, and she's definitely more genuine about it than the Faux Affably Evil she was in the last game. Arguably becomes Dark Is Not Evil by the end of the game in both Angela's bad ending and the game's good ending. In Angela's bad ending, Binah aligns with the rest of the Sephirot in their Last Stand against Angela. Meanwhile, in the good ending Binah saves Roland from being executed by Baral and willingly fights directly against the Head. In the post-ending credits, Binah is also shown spending much more time with her fellow Librarians.
Big Damn Heroes: She saves Roland and Gebura from being killed by the Head before joining in the battle herself, though ultimately she still fails to stop the Head from banishing the Library.
Blood Knight: She is remarkably eager to participate in combat against foes that she perceives as strong, as evident by her willingness to finally fight for the Library in the Red Mist's reception and her Bring It moment as noted below.
Bring It: Her reaction to Roland's meltdown? A simple "Come, now."
Call-Back: Many of her combat pages reference attacks she had displayed in her meltdown in Lobotomy Corporation. Her whole roster of pages consisting of nothing but ranged attacks so she never needs to go close to her enemies also matches her boss behavior in that game.
Character Development: In a very subtle way. Ayin's struggle apparently really got through to her, and she's begun reconsidering some of her positions on humanity and the City. Where she originally spoke to him with barely contained hatred before, now she's willing to defend his actions to a nonplussed Roland.
Damage Over Time: Her unique "Fairy" status effect does damage to those inflicted with it whenever they act, and unlike Bleed it fades at the end of the turn rather than when it does damage. It also does damage at the end of the turn like Burn, effectively making it a more dangerous Bleed and Burn at the same time.
Difficult, but Awesome: Unlike the other floors, Binah's floor is much less straightforward to use effectively, with Abnormality pages that put an emphasis on manipulating attack order or effects that need very specific conditions to activate. Binah herself also must play with her exclusive deck which, while still powerful, has more emphasis on locking down enemies than direct combat, while leaving her less able to play with specific team compositions. Used effectively, however, Binah's floor can easily control the pace of the battle, and Binah's own deck offers a level of control that is nearly unmatched within the game, allowing her to severely debilitate targets of her choosing when the time is right.
11th-Hour Superpower: For the final reception of the entire game, Binah regains all of her prior power and her Arbiter clothes under unexplained circumstances, which she uses to fight alongside Roland and Gebura against Zena and Baral.
Gameplay and Story Integration: She first becomes available during the fight against the Red Mist and is practically raring for a fight against them. In-game, her kit is almost tailor made to shut down the boss in question: she's innately resistant to Slash (the Red Mist's most common attack type), the Fairy debuff punishes their tendency to fire a lot of offensive dice per turn, Degraded Lock can render their strongest pages unplayable or make them brick due to their dependence on Light, and Degraded Pillar can cancel powerful single-die attack pages, totally neutralizing Greater Split: Vertical and Onrush.
Handicapped Badass: All of Binah's exclusive combat pages begin with the word "Degraded", implying that Binah hasn't reclaimed her prior power as an Arbiter of the Head. She also mentions the Head removing her knowledge of being an Arbiter per decommission procedures. Despite this, Binah's exclusive combat pages are still incredibly strong, being almost required to defeat the Red Mist's reception. For the reception against the Head, a.k.a the last reception of the game, all of Binah's cards lose their "Degraded" prefix and become appropriately powered up.
Hidden Depths:
- Despite siding against Ayin's plan by working with Angela, she speaks about him with respect and admiration. While she's less determined to argue in his defense than Hokma is, Binah does defend some of his choices to Roland and asks him to keep a more open mind about the things Ayin did. Contrast this with her barely constrained contempt for him in the first game, and it seems like Binah has come around top him quite a bit.
- As Binah is exceptionally good at understanding people and dissecting their motivations, it's entirely possible that she caught on to the possibility that the Library scenario is Ayin's way of making up for how he treated Angela. In particular, the fact that she sided with Angela during the latter's betrayal of the Sephirah after making a vow not to interfere with Ayin's plan raises the possibility that she knew what Ayin was planning and worked to see it through.
Hypocritical Humor: She criticizes Zena for being verbose to the point of monologuing mid-battle, allowing Binah to pull off her aforementioned Big Damn Heroes moment. This is despite the fact that Binah has a habit of going on wordy tangents herself, a fact that had been noted prior by Angela.
Laser-Guided Amnesia: Claims that trying to learn the secrets of the Head from her, either directly or by turning her into a book, is impossible as all Arbiters of the Head supposedly lose their knowledge about the Head once they are no longer an Arbiter.
Long-Range Fighter: All of her combat pages are either Ranged or Mass Attacks, meaning that she doesn't move an inch in battle unless someone gets close enough to land a hit on her or she uses a melee page given to her, such as the Justitia E.G.O. Page.
Mechanically Unusual Class: Binah can't be equipped with a Key Page or Combat Pages like other librarians, though she can still be attributed passives from other pages. Instead, she has her own unique Key Page and deck of Combat Pages that cannot be swapped out or replaced (A trait she shares with The Black Silence). She also isn't unlocked with her floor like the rest of the Patron Librarians: She watches from the sideline and only becomes unlocked when you fight the Red Mist's Reception.
- Binah has a completely unique status effect called "Fairy", which functions like a better Bleed. Targets who are afflicted with Fairy take damage equal to the stack, which is then halved next turn. As Binah is the only one who can inflict Fairy, this makes her rather unique among the other Patron Librarians.
Not in This for Your Revolution: Binah fights for the Library just like all the other Patrons, but unlike the rest, who are fighting explicitly to try to get the Seed Of Light back from Angela and finish what they started, Binah is joining in simply because she wishes to observe what happens and what the residents of the Library will do.
One-Woman Army: Before the raid on L. Corp that led to her death and rebirth as a Sephirot, Binah destroyed a former H. Wing and devastated its Nest on her own. While she may no longer be at her prime, she's still very powerful.
Psychotic Smirk: Just like in Lobotomy Corporation, she frequently gives an unnerving smirk to Roland and Angela during her chats with them. She also makes one when she is damaged in battle.
Purposefully Overpowered: As a former Arbiter, Binah was one of the most dangerous entities in the whole city and even degraded she's immensely powerful, with her unique pages being positively loaded with powerful secondary effects. This is why she isn't unlocked until about halfway through Star Of The City, the second to last chapter of the game.
Secret-Keeper:
- It is heavily implied that Binah is either aware or heavily suspects that Roland is the Black Silence and is planning on betraying Angela. She, however, assures Roland that she plans on only observing his actions.
- Similarly, it is also implied that Binah's decision to side with Angela during the Seed of Light Incident was her working with Ayin to give Angela some closure and a fair chance to work things out for herself.
Still Wearing the Old Colors: Although she's no longer an Arbiter, her Librarian clothes bear the same black and gold colors. While in battle, however, she fully manifests her old outfit with her Key Page.
Support Party Member: Binah's exclusive combat pages focus less on damage and more on inflicting various debuffs to hamper the enemy's ability to attack, such as sealing a speed die or raising the cost of their combat pages.
Team Mom: Most of her pre-combat lines have her giving advice to her librarians or asking for them to take care of themselves. This ties to the Sefirot Binah's representation in Kabbalah as the "Mother".
Token Evil Teammate: All the other Patron Librarians are former researchers and workers of L Corp. Binah, however, was instead a powerful agent of The Head, who attacked the Seed of Light Project and nearly succeeded in destroying it, killing many of the other Patron Librarians in their first life before being defeated by Geburah. In the present, this is Downplayed, as she doesn't really do anything evil on her own, but she's still much more morbid and frightening than the other Patrons.
Took a Level in Kindness: Downplayed; while Binah still retains her morbid demeanor and is willing to provoke Roland in their chats together, she is much more amicable to the rest of the Librarians. She invites Gebura and Hod for tea, even purposefully sweetening the tea for Hod. In addition, a few of her lines when beginning a reception has her expressing concern for her Assistant Librarians, a stark contrast from Lobotomy Corporation where she was willing to purposefully cause a mental breakdown in one of her employees. She is even willing to fight with the rest of the Librarians in a futile attempt to stop Angela in the bad end where Angela proceeds with her plan.
Trademark Favorite Drink: Whenever Binah isn't receiving guests, she's drinking tea as Roland notes. Her first action upon waking up as a Librarian was even to immediately brew a set of tea. She even invites her fellow Librarians to drink tea with her from time to time.
Worthy Opponent: Sees the Red Mist as this, which is implied to be the reason why she is first unlocked during the Reception with the Red Mist and is able to be used in each subsequent encounter with her. This likely has to do with how Kali was the one who killed her in her original life as Garion.

Hokma

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/oie_transparent_20.png

Patron of Religion

Voiced by: Lee Min-gyu (Korean), Koji Seki (Japanese)

"Having sent my great and dear beacon away in the pillar of light, and having failed to give a proper closure to his ultimate plan, all I have left now is ferocity."

The patron librarian of the Floor of Religion. In his past life, he was a man named Benjamin, who served as Ayin's right-hand man, but was killed and converted into a Sephirah by Angela (and by extension, Ayin).

Demoted to Extra: In Lobotomy Corporation, Hokma is integral to the game's story and his human form was the true identity of the mysterious 'B'. In this game, he is just one of the Sefirot.
The Dragon: Was this to Ayin while he was still Benjamin. According to a chapter of The Distortion Detective, it's heavily implied that he was the one who asked Dias, the leader of an infamous paramilitary group known as Udjat, to start the Smoke War with him for "his master", something that heavily traumatized Moses.
"Groundhog Day" Loop: During the cutscene before Hod's Floor Realization, you can clearly see Benjamin, Hokma's former self, on one of the monitors in the Manager's office, while the other Sefirot projected alongside him were in their Core Meltdown forms. This basically implies that he's killed by Angela and revived over and over for the sake of the Seed of Light being realized according to the script. Going off of this, that process would obviously involve him being Killed Off for Real and converted into a Sephirah.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Hokma is very harsh and abrasive in general, bitter after everything he and the person he practically worshipped worked for was ruined at the end of the last game. Roland even outright refuses to talk to him after his first episode. But underneath that, he's still the same wise, caring figure he's always been, even willing to help Angela realize that she isn't alone and he and all the other Patrons care about her.
Parental Substitute: Acted as a surrogate father figure towards Angela back when he was Benjamin, providing emotional support and comforting Angela about her status as a machine when Ayin did not. As Hokma, his relationship with Angela is initially cold due to Angela's sabotage of Ayin's plan, though later on Angela begins to rely on Hokma and his guidance more while Hokma begins to treat Angela softer than he did initially upon awakening, even suggesting to Angela that she didn't need to solely rely on Carmen to continue on her path and that some of the other librarians will continue to support her after her plan is complete.
Stone Wall: Hokma's Abnormality pages boost Block dice to large values while focusing on things like recovering stagger and spreading buffs to allies. Paired with the right cards, and this can make it impossible for enemies to penetrate his guard.
Sympathy for the Devil: When Ayin created Angela and was heavily disgusted on what he ended up creating, it was Benjamin that actively tried to talk to her and even asked Ayin to name her or pay more attention to her. Ayin didn't heed his advice and refused to even look at her. It's Deconstructed since A (as X) didn't heed his warning and Angela got him killed — in reality, it's implied that Ayin ordered Angela to kill him as a part of his playbook, something that he was most probably content with, considering that he handed Angela Ayin's script and should know its contents involved getting him offed.
Team Dad: In a similar way as to how Binah acts as the Team Mom. When his lines aren't slightly stoic, they show concern and care for the assistants. In his case, it'd fit as well, since his namesake sphere is associated with fatherhood to complement Binah.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Surprisingly enough, not with Angela but rather with Roland. Neither really get along with the other, with Roland seeing Hokma as a zealous fanatic towards Ayin while Hokma expresses irritation towards Roland's viewpoint of Ayin. Notably, after one argument between the two of them early on in Hokma's episodes, Roland stops showing up completely and Hokma's story begins to instead focus on his relationship with Angela.
War Hawk: According to The Distortion Detective, he was the person who instigated the Smoke War by hiring Dias to plan an attack on the former L Corp.
We Used to Be Friends: Whereas Ayin had neglected Angela completely after her creation, Benjamin served as Angela's emotional support and confidant prior to the events of Lobotomy Corporation. After the events of Lobotomy Corporation, however, their relationship has notably soured due to Angela's sabotage of Ayin's plan and Hokma's vehement opposition to Angela's proposal to the Sephirot.
Undying Loyalty: Was unfailingly loyal to Ayin, even as he killed him indirectly by ordering Angela to off him and convert him into a Sephirot as a part of his playbook.
The Unfettered: It's Implied that to help his boss Ayin, he started one of the most tragic wars in the City's history... alongside the Udjat, whose leader, Dias, was infamous for being one of the most unscrupulous characters of the City.
You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Prior to his Floor Realization Angela angrily tries to claim that she wanted to leave the Sephirah for dead after the events of Lobotomy Corporation, and was only stopped by Carmen telling her to spare them. Hokma refuses to believe her, and instead tells her that he believes that keeping them all alive was entirely her own choice, despite Angela being otherwise heavily manipulated by Carmen throughout the game.
You Are Not Alone: Gives a speech to this effect to Angela before his Floor Realization, encouraging her to realize that she does care about the Sephirah and she doesn't have to rely on Carmen.

Assistant Librarians

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/librarianssample.png

The former employees of L Corp. Following the end of Lobotomy Corporation, they were sent to slumber within books much like the Abnormalities they once watched over, but Angela guides you to awaken them in order to strengthen the Library.

In General

Ambiguously Human: Tiphereth and Roland discuss that the Librarians, despite appearing human, are not quite that anymore.
And Your Reward Is Clothes: Battle Symbols are a type of equipment that Librarians can earn after fulfilling certain conditions. Each Battle Symbol has a unique aspect and grants different effects when equipped. It serves as the game's equivalent of the E.G.O. Gifts from the previous one.
Call-Back: When brought to Abnormality battles, they comment on their experiences with the Abnormality in question, reminiscing how they used to work on it.
Character Customization: Even more so than in Lobotomy Corporation; While in that game you could only customize Agents upon their creation, in Library of Ruina they can be edited at any time. You've also been allowed to give these Librarians their own custom battle dialogue.
Magic Librarian: Par for the course given that they defend the Great Big Library of Everything by using powers gained from its books.
Power Copying: Essentially how they acquire new abilities. By equipping a guest's Key Page, they gain that guest's appearance and powers.
Resurrective Immortality: Unlike in Lobotomy Corporation, where Agents were completely gone if they died, the Librarians stick around even when defeated, as it's explicitly stated that they're revived if killed during Receptions. Dying is still not a pleasant experience, however.
Sanity Slippage: This doesn't happen for most of the time unlike back in L Corp, but when the Librarians of the Floor of Religion are killed by the Blue Star, they will say some disturbing things that they don't usually say:
"Ahh… It’s here… Please take me…!"
"I can hear it now! The voice… It calls for me!"
"Haha… Haa… I pity the fools who didn’t receive this call…"
Seen It All: Having lived through all the horrors of working at Lobotomy Corp, none of the Librarians are really affected by the Abnormalities and Guests fought throughout the game. Some of their dialogue indicates them as being mildly perturbed by some of the more terrifying enemies, but this is still an almost comically understated reaction.
Took a Level in Badass: The Agents back in Lobcorp were fairly tough on their own and capable of putting down some serious threats, but their return as Librarians in this game has given them a huge power boost. They fight on relatively even footing with their Patron Librarians and can end up equipping some incredibly powerful abilities and keypages, allowing them a sporting chance at taking on Colors who challenge them.
Time Abyss: Being former employees from L. Corp means they have been around for 10,000 years, even if it's just been a decade in the City. They sometimes comment on it when defeating Guests, exclaiming they have thousands of years worth of combat experience.
White Gloves: General Works Librarians come equipped with some. Serves as foreshadowing for Roland as The Black Silence, due to wielding a pair of black Tricked-Out Gloves.

Other

The Fixer (Spoilers)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blacksilencefullbody.png

The Black Silence

^{Wielder of Suffocating Haze}

^{The Black Silence Distorted}

I have nothing but my sorrow and I want nothing more. It has been, it still is, faithful to me.
Why should I begrudge it, since during the hours when my soul crushed the depths of my heart, it was seated there beside me?
O sorrow, I have ended, you see, by respecting you, because I am certain you will never leave me.
Ah! I realize it: your beauty lies in the force of your being. You are like those who never left the sad fireside corner of my poor black heart.
O my sorrow, you are better than a well-beloved: because I know that on the day of my final agony, you will be there, lying in my sheets, O sorrow, so that you might once again attempt to enter my heart.

Prayer for Loving Sorrow, by Francis Jammes

It turns out that Roland isn't as washed up as he paints himself to be. In the past, he was an orphan who was adopted and taken care of by an old woman (whom he referred to as his "Gran") who mysteriously disappeared one day, but not before raising and teaching Roland the basics of becoming a Fixer. This upbringing eventually led Roland to become a Fixer who subsequently fought with Salvador in the Smoke War for a chance to obtain a Nest migration permit. His involvement in the War also led to him witnessing the Singularity of the former L Corp, which had jaded his worldview going forward.
He later integrated back into the City and joined Charles Office as a very powerful Grade 1 Fixer alongside his future wife Angelica, the two of them even slaying the legendary Star of the City Distortion, the Blood-Red Night. In an unknown period after this, Angelica was promoted to the Black Silence, but Roland's mask and stoic demeanor during missions made people think that he was the Black Silence instead. Roland himself rose to become the acting leader of Charles Office due to Charles being impressed by his skill and talent. Eventually, Roland and Angelica married and had made plans to quietly retire from Fixer work for a short while to celebrate.
Unfortunately, this happiness wouldn't last, as Roland was denied entry to the Nest because of an Enkephalin smuggling incident involving O Corp, forcing him and Angelica to live in I Corp's Backstreets. Then he was contacted by his friend and fellow Charles Office Fixer Olivier for help in a mission he was having trouble with. While he was away, the Pianist manifested in I Corp's backstreets and killed thousands of people... including Angelica, who was pregnant at the time. This immense loss drove Roland to the brink of madness and drove him on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against several groups that he thought had anything to do with the Distortion phenomena, which included both Syndicates and Fixers alike. Some time after this, he was caught and demoted to a Grade 9 for his misconduct. It was during this time he'd met with Iori (the Purple Tear), who'd sent him into the Library as part of a plan to meet with her son again. For Roland, this was a perfect opportunity to continue his rampage against the Distortion Phenomenon, and unbeknownst to him, Angela was one of the primary culprits of the White Nights and Dark Days...

During the Hana Association's Reception, Olivier—now a Fixer working under Hana's South Section 3—tries to assassinate Angela, which forces Roland step in to save her. Roland requests a one-on-one battle against his old friend as a show of respect, and in response, Oliver grants him Angelica's old Black Silence gloves, which contain a variety of weapons (that almost all belonged to Angelica; Roland only used the Durandal). Upon clearing his duel, Roland's page will be replaced with the Black Silence's Pages.

Following the defeat of the Reverb Ensemble, Roland finally reveals his grudge to Angela, having been waiting to kill her at her most vulnerable for causing the deaths of his wife and unborn child, his suppressed emotions even Distorting him in the process. He covers the third chapter of Impuritas Civitatis, and acts as the Final Boss of both Downer Endings if you've failed to complete all nine Floor Realizations.

The Ace: Prior to entering The Library, Roland was this, until he got demoted to a Grade 9 and became a pariah after his Roaring Rampage of Revenge that is. To wit, Roland worked as a Grade 1 Fixer at Charles' Office, one of the most famous and prestigious Fixer offices in the setting. The artbook also reveals that Roland was actually the office's captain who led the remaining 11 members plus Angelica and that he earned the position due to having the skills to gain the trust of Charles' himself. Furthermore, Roland was a Smoke War Veteran who defeated two of the most infamous Distortions in the City and had the skill and prowess to decimate entire Syndicates and a Finger alone in addition to having numerous connections to other Colors, influential Fixers and associations.
Aesop Amnesia: Similar to Angela, even if he faced the consequences of his murder spree in his desperate search for the source of the Distortions via his Floor Realizations, he still can't let go of his hatred, leading him to attempt to follow through on his revenge against Angela regardless. If he kills her, it's implied that he completely reverted back to his old Spree Killer ways afterwards and was eventually killed by the many enemies he had made. This can be potentially subverted if Roland chooses not to attack Angela while her back is turned after she spares him.
All Your Powers Combined:
- His boss fights in the Middle Floors and Binah's has him use all of the Abnormalities faced on a single floor. The Nihil and Twilight E.G.O. takes this up a notch, as they regularly cycle between the Abnormalities of their respective floors.
- His Furioso card has him use all of his Black Silence weapons in a single attack animation. To say it's brutal would be an understatement. His Distorted Furioso during his reception is even worse as it's now a Mass Attack which hits all of your Librarians. God help you if he gets all nine weapons.
- His final phase as the Black Silence has him use Memory cards, each of which is based off of a specific combat page used by an enemy from the memory's reception, with that enemy being featured in the card art:
  - Memory - Yun's Office is based on Finn's Struggle.
  - Memory - Zwei Association is based on Walter's Retaliate.
  - Memory - Dawn Office is based on Salvador's Crack of Dawn.
  - Memory - Love Town is based on Tomerry's Wrath of Torment.
  - Memory - Shi Association is based on Valentin's Extreme Edge (though the card art features Yujin).
  - Memory - Liu Association is based on Xiao's Chi Wen.
  - Memory - Purple Tear is based on Iori's Duel.
  - Memory - Hana Association is based on Mirinae's Divinatory Impact (though the card art features Olivier).
  - Memory - The Blue Reverberation is interestingly enough, based off of 2 combat pages instead of 1. Its ranged status and status effects on hit make it reminiscent of Angelica's Atelier Logic from the previous phase, but its similar offensive rolls and its ending Block die make it similar to Argalia's Allegro as well.
- Also, in his final phase, he begins to use the same Abnormality Pages that he can use on the Floor of General Works.
All for Nothing: Implied. If Carmen's words after the Kether Realization were to be anything to go by, then Angela did not cause the Distortion Phenomenon, but only limited it to a small amount of individuals. Therefore, killing Angela actually does nothing to avenge Angelica at all, since the true culprit can't even be killed.
Ambiguous Situation: Is Roland still actually a Distortion during the last phases of his boss fight? Sure, it's definitely nothing all that human looking, and we have plenty of humanoid Distortions (just look at the entire Reverb Ensemble), but his sprite during those is labeled "EgoRoland", suggesting that said form of his is not a Distortion, but a personal E.G.O.. As for him being labeled a Distortion, well, that could be a case of the player being given the player character's information-limited perspective, which isn't even all that uncommon in similar stories.
And Then John Was a Zombie: From the Fixer responsible for killing the two strongest Distortions to a powerful Distortion himself. Downplayed however as he reverts back to normal after his Reception.
And Then What?: His Boss Banter makes it clear that this is the main reason he continues going through with his revenge: He's afraid of what may happen if he gives up what has been his sole motivation since Angelica's death. Of course, as his Downer Ending shows, it's much, much worse if he actually achieves his revenge.
Roland: But if I forgave everything...If I decided to live down my past now, I felt I might have nowhere to stand. And I felt I might have to let go of all these precious memories of it. That’s what really scares me, Angelica.
Battle Couple: He was this with Angelica back when she was alive, as they were both Grade 1 Fixers. Together, they were strong enough that they even beat Blood-Red Night. It's seen in gameplay during phase 3 of his boss fight where he fights alongside Angelica's ghost with Unity combat pages which buff them and give bonuses if they target each other. This is best shown when they use their Waltz in Black/White combat pages, where they synchronize and combine their attacks together.
Badass Normal: Compared to other Color Fixers who usually have extraordinary abilities to go along with their overall experience, Roland stands out among them by virtue of being incredibly skilled with his weapons and nothing else.
Because You Were Nice to Me: Roland was always cold and cynical prior to arriving to the Library when he was a Grade 1 Fixer, but Angelica being particularly nice and caring to him unlike most other people made him open up to her and eventually marry her.
Becoming the Mask: How much of his jokey and easygoing personality is the truth is up to interpretation, but there are many hints that it might not be as much of an act as he would like it to be. In particular, his Sad Battle Music "Gone Angels" hints at regrets towards fighting Angela and the rest of the Library after all they've been through.
The Berserker:
- Taken to extremes during his killing spree in an attempt to avenge his wife, where he went around killing anyone who he thought were involved in the Distortion Phenomenon and his victims range from Syndicate members to innocent people such as the Fixers who were sent to stop him. He even said that he was too drunk in his killing spree to even care.
- In his boss fight when he's trying to take his revenge at long last, he fights so aggressively that he takes stagger damage when he fails to do damage or when he loses clashes. He even has an attack simply named "Rage".
Berserk Button: DO NOT remind him of losing Angelica. Doing so is enough to send him into a barely restrained, borderline murderous fury in contrast to his normally affable attitude. Unlike most examples, though, he could grow out of it.
Big Damn Heroes: Shortly before reclaiming his identity as the Black Silence, Roland stops Olivier from assassinating Angela by taking the device Olivier was about to use to force Angela to experience 1000 years in isolation in a single second.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Roland might look friendly and bubbly when interacting with the Librarians and Angela, but this is all an act. He's actually an angry, vengeful man waiting to kill Angela, and his actual personality is those of a cold and cruel fighter with a jaded worldview. He changes this at the home stretch of the game, becoming a genuine friend towards Angela.
Blade Lock: Depicted doing this with Olivier in the art for Double-edged Rencounter.
Boring, but Practical: Between the powerful Fixers whose weaponry range from the odd to the downright supernatural, Roland’s is… a well-made long sword.
Borrowed Catchphrase: It's revealed in the Floor of Philosophy Realization that his catchphrase, "That's that and this is this." was actually taken from Angelica who said it to a worried, conflicted Roland after their fight with Blood-Red Night.
Broken Ace: Was arguably one of the most well-known and accomplished Fixers known to the City... right up the death of his wife and unborn child. This event completely shattered Roland, reducing him into a revenge-obsessed shell of himself.
Cerebus Retcon: Roland's Catchphrase initially seems to be presented as a way to cope with aspects of life outside of his control, being roughly analogous to "shit happens". Later parts of the story reveal it to be a strong coping mechanism to deal with his despair that he learned from Angelica, twisted further to suit his nihilism.
Climax Boss: Serves as the boss of the third chapter of Impuritas Civitatis. After defeating him, if you haven't finished all nine Floor Realizations, then he'll be the Final Boss of the game.
Clipped-Wing Angel: His second phase is by far his most visibly monstrous form, but it's also his weakest; he has strong attacks and a massive amount of health, but is weak to nearly every kind of damage.
Connected All Along: Unintentionally, Roland manages to be an extremely influential figure in each of the games, having been one of the pivotal Fixers who brought an end to the former L Corp thereby allowing Lobotomy Corporation to come into being, and the fallout from that organization's experiments with Abnormalities and Distortions caused him to go on a rampage so destructive that the effects of it aren't just felt in Library of Ruina but Limbus Company as well.
Contrasting Sequel Main Character: As the representative of Keter, the Kabbalistic embodiment of good and virtuous thought, he is this to Ayin.
- Neither men are inherently good individuals, with Ayin being The Sociopath and Roland being a Straw Nihilist, but both are capable of great empathy and love nonetheless. Ayin set up the Seed of Light scenario as both penance for his crimes against his colleagues and a genuine desire to fix the world, while Roland acts as a sort of therapist for the Patron Librarians to help them get over their lingering problems from the events of Lobotomy Corporation. But where Ayin eventually gets over his problems, makes amends with his friends and becomes an embodiment of the Light, Roland spends much of the story stewing in his rage and waiting to kill Angela at her most emotionally vulnerable. In that sense, one could consider Ayin as outwardly cruel while inwardly compassionate, whereas Roland is outwardly compassionate while inwardly cruel. Forcing Roland through his Floor Realizations causes him to become a true representative of Keter, as he lets go of his rage and stands up to protect Angela from both the Reverberation Ensemble Distorted and the Head after realizing she's as much of a victim as anyone else in the City.
- Aesthetically he also mirrors Ayin in many ways. Both are pale skinned, black-haired men wearing formal clothes for their profession, but Ayin's hair is unkempt while Roland's is combed straight. Ayin wears his labcoat loose and flowing around his shoulders, while Roland keeps his suit neat and straight. In addition, Ayin has multiple personas that cause him to look wildly different from how he usually appears, while Roland only has two personas (his normal look and The Black Silence), and the only differences between them are a pair of black gloves and a jet-black mask.
- Their Start of Darkness revolves around the loss of their lovers, who were said to be genuinely kind and sweet women and were presumably some of the very few unconditionally empathetic people left in the City. They even had very similar appearances. However, Angelica was shown as nothing short of a genuinely kind woman who manages to defrost Roland, but Carmen, presumably after her Despair Event Horizon, was now an Ambiguously Evil Dark Messiah who manipulates multiple parties so she could "save the City" by "evolving" people into Distortion Monsters or E.G.O.ists, something that would lead to mass chaos if successful. Angelica married Roland before her death, but Carmen died before she and Ayin could actually reciprocate their love. Last but not least, Angelica was one of the victims of the Distortion, while Carmen was the instigator of the Distortion Phenomenon.
- Finally, Ayin presumably had the whole Lobotomy Corporation facility X-394 building as his E.G.O., while Roland is proclaimed to be an extremely proficient wielder on the level of Gebura but is never shown wielding one bar under the Library's influence. Ayin is in full control of Lobotomy Corporation, while Roland has no control over the Library.
Consummate Liar: Crosses with Unreliable Narrator, Roland is shown to easily and casually change the flow of conversation when speaking to Angela and his fellow Patron Librarians, especially when discussing topics related to his past. He was able to keep Angela and the rest of the Librarians in the dark about his true identity as the Black Silence and his actual reason as to why he entered The Library. Only two people were able to see through his facade, Gebura and Binah. Gebura, being a former Color Fixer with plenty of experience in the Fixer business could tell that he wasn't as unskilled as he claims to be whereas Binah subtly deduced during their conversations that he had an ulterior motive when he entered the Library but kept it to herself. Unlike most examples however, Roland usually doesn't outright lie, but he often uses half-truths or Metaphorically True claims to take advantage of those who have no experience in his portfolio.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
- He might act very lax and even cheesy at the start of the game (with some of these traits being justified), but it's all a facade; the guy is not an easygoing man at all but a viciously cruel and pragmatic fighter.
- Even ignoring the fact that he has as many connections as Argalia in the Fixer business, he's definitely not a Grade 9 nor Grade 1 Fixer who only did intel he claims himself to be. In his Roaring Rampage of Revenge, he's even shown to be strong enough to wipe out multiple Syndicates, Fixer offices and even a good chunk of a Finger all by himself.
Crusading Widower: All of Roland's actions in the game, from entering the Library to participating in its killings to his attempt to kill Angela, are because of a destructive desire for revenge for his wife's death.
The Cynic: Even before his entry into the Library, he is literally nothing like the humorous and unfazed everyman when he ended up there. Quite the contrary, he was a very cold, ruthless, mission-focused Fixer and would lash out (or sometimes kill) without much provocation. It was very difficult to gain his trust, and Angelica is one of the few people to actually get him to soften up, although it still took her a great deal for it to happen. Notably, after he reclaims his Black Silence gloves, Roland's combat sprite permanently changes from a smug smirk to a serious frown. Once this happens, the only time he smirks again in combat is when he successfully dodges an attack.
Dark and Troubled Past: Details of Roland's life before becoming a Fixer and entering the Library are scarce however according to him he was an orphan who was taken in by an old woman in the Backstreets who he then refers to as his gran who eventually left him after teaching him the skills and abilities needed to become a potential Fixer. The fact that he nonchalantly mentions that many people came and went in his life and that he was used to the brutality of Fixer life by the time he participated in the Smoke War, implies a violent and isolated past that he or his close associates don't elaborate upon. In the story proper he was revealed to be a Color Fixer called the Black Silence and was denied a place in one of the Nests for being involved in an illegal smuggling operation of Enkephalin, forcing him and his wife to live in the Backstreets until the Pianist attacked, absorbing both his wife and their unborn child. Falling into despair, Roland went on a rampage, attacking people he believed was connected to the Distortions, before being demoted for his killing spree and falling into a nihilistic Despair Event Horizon.
Dark Is Evil: Roland is the Black Silence, with his weapons and clothing all having a dark color scheme. While Downplayed, he's still nowhere near the Punch-Clock Villain he pretends to be for most of the game, having participated in the atrocities of the Library all in the name of revenge.
Dark Is Not Evil: In the Golden Ending by letting go of his vendetta and forgiving Angela, protecting and saving her from her own Heroic Sacrifice.
Dragon with an Agenda: Everything he did as Angela's servant, he did to take his revenge against her the moment when she finally becomes human.
Dropped a Bridge on Him: His Downer Ending has his corpse found in the gutter, stabbed by a multitude of weapons. Due to the fact that he achieved his vengeance and didn't have anything else to live for, he was easy pickings for the hordes of enemies he made along the way.
Dual Boss: In the third phase of his battle in Impuritas Civitas, he is accompanied by Angelica's spirit.
Expy: Of Roland / Orlando, one of king Charlemagne's 12 Paladins. This is evident from his backstory of being one of the 12 Fixers in Charles' Office, alongside references to the poems Orlando Innamorato (having a love interest named Angelica whose brother is named Argalia) and Orlando Furioso (losing Angelica, going on a murder spree and being confronted by an associate named Astolfo; Roland's special Combat Page is even called "Furioso".)
The Faceless: When he was a Fixer, he used to wear a black mask on his face, and he never took it off until after he and Angelica defeated Blood-Red Night, in front of a wounded Angelica who smashed it off his face no less. This is actually a trait that his grandmother taught him, where he must try to blend in at all costs as even the smallest leak of info can come back to bite you. This turns out to be extremely effective, as none of the Library's guests are able to recognize him without the mask, even people he used to work with (namely Salvador and Yujin.) This gets exaggerated when he distorts, with his face now a gaping black void that leaks darkness.
Fallen Hero: He was the very Fixer responsible for killing the Blood-Red Night and Pianist Distortions, and he's also a veteran of the Smoke War. Unfortunately, he's now just a pariah after his demotion to a Grade 9 Fixer.
Fatal Flaw: Two. The first is a textbook case of wrath, while the second is his eminent nihilism.
- Roland may be The Stoic most of the time, but at his worst, he's easily controlled by his rage. He went on a brutal Roaring Rampage of Revenge after his wife's death, killing many people unnecessarily in a blind rage. And at the end of the game, even after everything he's been through and all his Character Development, he's unable to let go of his desire for revenge and fights to kill Angela. He only manages to overcome it if all his Floor Realization battles are completed, at which point he finally manages to let go of his rage.
- At the same time, Roland's controlled demeanor and relaxed attitude are the results of a man who has resigned himself to the awful world that is the City. As one of the strongest Fixers in the setting, Roland is well aware of how much pain and suffering the Head is causing, but is unable to muster the will to try and fix any of it. This is where his Catchphrase of "That's that, and this is this" comes from, being an expression of resignation towards everything that's gone wrong in his life. All four of his Floor Realizations deal with Roland's nihilism in some form, from Tiphereth's realization forcing him to express his doubts about hoping for a better world, while Gebura's realization has him speak on his discontent with the City and its incredibly violent ways. This nihilism is another point of resolution for the ending, with Roland deciding to write a book about the City with Angela's assistance in the hope it will help the people of the City.
Final Boss: If you've failed to complete all nine Floor Realizations, you'll get one of the two bad endings, making Roland as the Black Silence the last enemy to be fought.
Foil: To Argalia. Both of them were deeply affected by the loss of Angelica and had long crossed the Despair Event Horizon, were brother-in-laws and were some of the most famous Fixers in the City. Roland used to represent Thaumiel before turning into a proper Kether representative at the endgame, but Argalia dies representing Thaumiel. While Roland responded to Angelica's death with a violent rampage, Argalia was driven to insanity by Angelica's death, and relies on manipulation to get his way. Roland is described as easily enraged and rash, but Argalia remains calm and collected until moments before his death. And while they used to have many connections in the Fixer business, Argalia's partners remained until the associations were fed up of his manipulations, but Roland lost all of them to his severe misconduct. Last but not least, Roland dresses in a basic suit and tie that nearly everyone in the City wears and uses mundane, practical weaponry, while Argalia has one of the most intricate and flashy outfits among the Color Fixers and the rest of the City, with an elaborately decorated scythe to boot.
Foreshadowing:
- When he tells Angela about his past, things don't really add up to him being a Grade 9 Fixer and his cover story of being a former Grade 1 who only did intel doesn't hold either. He seems to know too much about Fixer traditions and the rules of the City well enough for a Grade 9 to be aware of, and his personal knowledge of veteran Fixers, Colors and even association leaders gives away that he is anything but a mere Grade 9 (unlike actual ones such as Finn who was naive and didn't have any influence or connections at all). Sure enough, he was actually a Color, and was demoted to a Grade 9 as punishment for his mass killing spree. Intel wasn't his only specialization either, as in the aforementioned killing spree he crippled an entire Finger and a Syndicate all by himself.
- During the fourth phase of his Reception, his passive "Memories of the Library" cycle through passives based on the Abnormalities of his floor. "Scars" (Bloodbath), "Blood" (Heart of Aspiration), "Curiosity" (Pinocchio), and "Kiss" (Snow Queen)... and an extra one called "Leer". It hints that the final Abnormality in the Keter Realization is in fact the Silent Girl, an Abnormality that watches humans for "guilt" or "fear" she would remove.
Fragile Speedster: Compared to the other Color Fixer receptions, Roland as The Black Silence has comparatively lower HP; only having 400 HP in contrast to The Red Mist and The Purple Tear who both have 700 HP. He compensates for this somewhat by having higher stagger resist and the ability to restore stagger on successful hits. However, unlike Kali and Iori who start with two Speed Dice or Argalia who starts with four Speed Dice, Roland starts with six Speed Dice, with one always being untargetable due to his passive. If he reaches Emotion Level 5 during Phase 1 of his boss fight, he will have a total of eight Speed Dice, the most out of nearly every other character in the game.
From Nobody to Nightmare: From an orphaned child in one of the Backstreets of the hellhole that is the City to a Color/Grade 1 Fixer who was the captain of one of the most prestigious offices in the setting and responsible for the deaths of two powerful Distortions and countless numbers of Syndicate members, civilians and fellow Fixers because of an indiscriminate killing spree where no one was able to stop him. Downplayed as despite it all he is still an affable, friendly person who can see the error of his ways by the end of the story.
Hated by All: Roland made a lot of enemies in-between Angelica's death and his arrival at the Library. The Roaring Rampage of Revenge he went on to avenge his wife's death burned many of his previous bridges and caused several victims of his actions to desire revenge on him, to the point that the Reverb Ensemble consists almost entirely of Distortions that have some grudge against him. He starts out as The Friend Nobody Likes among the Sephirot as well, but they eventually warm up to him... Only for him to burn that bridge as well in his bad ending, where he kills them all by proxy after murdering Angela. His Undignified Death not long after was mourned only by Astolfo, with everyone else remembering him as a psychotic washout.
Hidden Depths:
- He is not washed up or unskilled as he claims to be, since he was personally married to a Color Fixer (who was also the sister of another Color), defeated one of the most notorious Distortions in the City alongside her and eventually became a Color himself capable of overwhelming and defeating swathes of Syndicate members and even a Finger alone. During his time as a Fixer, he also wasn't the Unfazed Everyman we came to know, but a very aggressive and cold fighter. In fact, he's revealed to have been holding back the entire time, and it's only when Angela gets attacked by an old friend from the Hana Association does he stop holding back and reveal what he's truly capable of.
- In an interesting twist, both Roland's Unfazed Everyman personality and his Black Silence personality act as this to each other. Despite being a cold and blunt person when on the job, Roland is capable of being very pleasant and kind towards people he cares about. Part of his struggle during the reception of the Black Silence is that his genuine love for Angela and his fellow Patron Librarians is clashing against his deep hatred for what Angela indirectly did to him and his recently deceased wife. When Angela shows that she's capable of forgiving him despite his attempts to kill her, he ultimately realizes that his hatred is more of a burden than a liberator and lets it go.
Hidden Disdain Reveal: Towards the very end of the game, he reveals his friendliness towards Angela has all been a facade, and that he despises her for causing the Distortion Phenomenon that killed his wife. In the Golden Ending, however, it's revealed that Roland wasn't entirely faking being friends with Angela, which is hinted at in the theme of the final phase of the Black Silence reception, Gone Angels, which implies that Roland was very much conflicted.
How the Mighty Have Fallen: Roland is actually very influential in the City; he was the captain/leader of one of the most famous offices in the setting and was married to a Color, who was also the sister of another Color Fixer and he himself eventually inherited his wife's title: The Black Silence. It was only after Angelica was killed by the Pianist (and he killed it in turn) that he was demoted to a Grade 9 because of an indiscriminate killing spree he launched against anyone who might have been involved in the Distortions.
Hyperspace Arsenal: His black gloves serve as a storage device for a staggering array of melee weapons and firearms, acting similarly to Ezra's dimensional bag from The Distortion Detective. The gloves were originally owned by Angelica with Roland inheriting them after her death.
Iaijutsu Practitioner: One of the combat pages he gains after gaining the Black Silence's Key Page, Mook Workshop, involves him pulling out a katana to draw and attack faster than the eye can track.
I Am Not Left-Handed: Roland isn't fighting at anywhere near full effectiveness for most of the game, with his original, relaxed combat sprite and smug smile implying he's not putting much effort into combat. As soon as he gets the gloves of the Black Silence back from Olivier however, he immediately shows what he can do when he gets serious.
Kick the Dog:
- When he went into a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, his attack on Jae-heon can be considered this. Jae-heon was just a technician whose worst crime was harvesting the corpses of already dead children, only for Roland to crash into his laboratory and burn it down along with the amalgamation of corpses that Jae-heon believed would serve as the basis for bringing back his deceased son, purely out of spite and disgust, causing him to actually turn into a murderous, insane Distortion driven by revenge against Roland. He also killed many innocents such as Fixers or even random passerby during it, even if they obviously had nothing to do with his wife's death.
- After Angela reaches the perfect book and becomes human, Roland steps in and tells her, point blank, that she deserves to die. He then gives her a brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech about how much pain and suffering she's caused, before ending it by saying he is going to kill her in as brutal a fashion as he can muster. What makes this actually an example of this trope, however, is that Roland waited a long time to get to this point and is more interested in gleefully tearing Angela down during her moment of triumph than any sort of justice, and in the big picture, Angela was merely an Unwitting Pawn of the whole Library incident, being used by the same force that indirectly killed his wife. This is subverted more and more during his boss battle, however, as the lyrics to "Gone Angels" show just how much he's forcing himself into this mindset, and how much his fight against Angela is tearing him up inside.

I tried, I tried

What did we expect?

My dearest friend

Tell me when we shall make it end

...

Stop now, one by one

Your desires convince me you've always been a human

Kick the Morality Pet: Implied to had been done this multiple times during his Roaring Rampage of Revenge, enough that his former friends turned on him, and tried to pull one on Astolfo as well but failed. In his Downer Ending, he does this to Angela, who deep down he actually cared for, but was too driven by anger and revenge to even care.
Laser-Guided Karma: Almost to a vindictive degree. Flashbacks in Chesed's realization shows a scene where he screws over a Fixer with the fine print in a contract Roland had him sign, only for a Nest immigration official to deny him a place in a Nest for his efforts during the Smoke War in the exact same way, which resulted in him not being able to move into a Nest despite being an influential Fixer. This ended up with his family being killed by the Pianist and him going to the deep end, killing people indiscriminately for revenge. It's implied that the victims of his Roaring Rampage of Revenge later became Distortions themselves and Argalia has been recruiting them (as well as Blood-Red Night, who was also killed by Roland way before his rampage) to destroy the City, and the Fixer he screwed over before was heavily implied to have become the Yesterday's Promise who screws over others in the same way. In his bad ending, this is taken to the logical conclusion- he took so many lives during his rampage that when he finally got his revenge and had nothing left to live for, it wasn't hard for his enemies to kill him, leaving his body in a gutter.
The Law of Conservation of Detail: As soon as Urban Legend, you can hear a conversation between some Zwei Fixers about how a mysterious Color Fixer known as "The Black Silence" killed a highly destructive Distortion known as the Pianist. The same entity would be brought up before dealing with the Thumb, which talks about them decimating the Rumanos Cartel. To nobody's surprise, the Black Silence was actually Roland himself.
Legacy Character: A very dark instance of this trope. Roland and Angelica were both skilled Grade 1s but Angelica was ahead of him in prestige due to her status as the Black Silence. When she died, Roland took on her gloves and became the second Black Silence... but used the title as a means to an end in order to exact revenge on the City and its people, killing anyone he thought had anything to do with Angelica's death.
Limit Break: His special combat page, Furioso, serves as this for him. It can only be used after Roland uses all of his other unique combat pages once. In return, it is a combat page that sports one of the highest rolls in the game for a mere cost of 3 Light. In addition, it destroys all of the remaining dice on the combat page it clashes against and inflicts 5 Bleed, 3 Bind and 3 Fragile to the target, making them easy pickings should they survive. It is also all but required to be used to defeat Argalia in Roland's duel against him as it is the only combat page that can realistically beat Argalia's Final Impromptu.
- In the fourth phase of his boss battle, he gains a different version of Furioso, which he'll use once every five turns unless he gets staggered. By itself, it's considerably weaker than the original version, although it targets your entire party instead of just one librarian; the problem is that he gets additional attacks by sacrificing his summoned weapons - and each weapon is vulnerable only on the turn they're summoned.
Long-Haired Pretty Boy: His hair has a tendency to grow at least beyond his shoulders during his realizations. Most noticeable when he dons Nosferatu's and the King of Greed's E.G.O.s.
Malevolent Masked Man: As a former Fixer of Charles' Office, he would always wear a black, featureless mask that he seldom takes off. Helped by the fact that he was very cold and mission-focused in his days as a Grade 1 Fixer. He puts it back on for his attempt on Angela's life, but removes it again once he lets go of his anger.
Marathon Boss: His boss fight is very long, consisting of four phases, each of which have large health pools and various ways of dragging the fight out further.
- The first phase is Roland as The Black Silence, using all of his Black Silence combat pages on you.
- His second phase has Roland Distort into a massive monster backed by 4 monsters called "Smoldering Byproducts". He has strong attacks and a massive amount of health, but is weak to nearly every kind of damage.
- His third phase has him return to a more humanoid shape while also backed by the spirit of Angelica. They must be defeated at the same time, or the other will revive next turn.
- His fourth and last phase has him renamed back to The Black Silence where he summons his weapons as targetable entities which must be destroyed in order to prevent him from recycling the last die of his Distorted Furioso. In addition, Roland gains the ability to use Memory combat pages as well as Keter's Abnormality Pages.
Mask of Sanity: He seems like a slightly cynical Everyman at first glance, but the more the plot continues, the further the mask slips. By the time of the Briah Realizations, both the player and the Librarians begin to understand just how broken, vicious and spiteful Roland is underneath it all.
Master of All: Roland is shown to have incredible skill in wielding his entire arsenal which consists of a massive variety of melee weapons as well as a handful of guns. All of his weapons are top of the line, boasting powerful effects and mid to high roll values which makes him as The Black Silence a versatile fighter capable of dishing out constant damage while also being relatively self-sufficient. Prior to inheriting Angelica's gear he was a Master Swordsman who relied entirely on his personal longsword, Durandal. Additionally, according to Binah, Roland's ability to wield E.G.O. rivals that of Kali, the only person to manifest their own E.G.O. before the Light was released.
- This is essentially what Keter becomes by the time he receives his Black Silence key page: a floor that can weather nearly any fight through sheer versatility. Roland can either stack Abnormality pages on himself and become a formidable solo unit or spread them out among his team since they require no special gimmick or build and because Black Silence Roland is a very powerful unit by himself. The pages at most require winning clashes or hitting the same enemy multiple times. At the floor's peak, Roland or his team could be capable of dealing double damage while at the same time shredding enemy Stagger Resist or inflicting them with multiple stacks of Bind while under the effects of constant Strength gain or page draw. This makes sense for symbolism, since Keter represents the wholeness of the universe. It's a given that the representative of Keter would thus be good at everything.
Meaningful Name: His title as the Black Silence has multiple:
- It can refer to his relative anonymity as a Fixer despite accomplishing impressive feats such as defeating the Blood-Red Night. Could also extend for his preference of stealth and subterfuge due to his mask and nondescript choice of attire and overall presence.
- It could also refer to the fact that he was the one who "silenced" the Pianist which was the first major, infamous case of the Distortion Phenomenon.
- Finally, it can also refer to his cold, stoic demeanor when handling Fixer cases, avoiding small talk whenever possible and generally speaking only a few words unless he's around his close friends, fellow Fixers or when interrogating a target.
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Like Gebura and Binah, once Roland dons the gloves of the Black Silence once again, he receives a unique key page along with a set of combat pages that cannot be changed or removed. Notable among them is his special combat page, Furioso, which is stored alongside E.G.O. Pages. While most E.G.O. Pages or unique combat pages such as The Red Mist's Greater Split attacks charge up through gaining Emotion Coins and require you to be at Emotion Level 3 or higher to use or become available, Furioso can only be used when Roland has used all nine of his unique combat pages, which resets the counter when he actually unleashes Furioso.
Men Don't Cry: Averted. During the leadup to his reception, Roland begins gently crying as the surge of regrets and guilt he's been stewing in the whole game finally reaches its fever pitch. The final phase of the battle against him sees Roland spending most of the fight hunched over and clawing at his face, implying that he's sobbing.
Mirror Character: Turns out to be this with Angela. Like her, he's actually a very bitter and angry individual who has refused to confront his past trauma while being completely controlled by it, which in turn incurs his Floor Realizations. The direct source of his rage has long since died just like Ayin to Angela, but he feels no catharsis and ends up going after numerous other people for the sake of fulfillment regardless of how innocent they actually turn out to be. The only reason his body count isn't as high as Angela's is that he's a mortal man who can be killed.
Roland: A dimwitted egoist whose sight is limited by their own selfishness... A proper fool chasing after immediate results... That's what you are. And who I am...
The Mole: Turns out to have deliberately entered the Library by working with the Purple Tear to get close to Angela and kill her at her most vulnerable state as revenge for causing the Distortion Phenomenon, which killed his wife and unborn child.
Multi-Melee Master: His arsenal includes a serrated dagger, a pair of clawed gauntlets, a battle axe and a mace, a lance, dual shortswords, a katana, a greatsword and his own personal longsword, Durandal. All of the weapons minus Durandal belonged to Angelica before being inherited by Roland after her death. His skill with each weapon is impressive as seen in gameplay with all of his unique combat pages sporting mid to high roll values as well as a variety of beneficial effects ranging from Light restoration to outright destroying an opponent's die.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Roland's actions, both direct and indirect, end up creating/influencing a number of dangerous people and groups, who ultimately end up joining the Reverberation Ensemble and posing a major threat to not just Roland's plans but the entire City as a whole.
- Roland screwed over Pluto with the fine print in a contract, causing him to Distort and become Yesterday's Promise, screwing over others in the same way.
- Roland's post-Pianist rampage directly caused Jae-heon to Distort into the Puppeteer, and Jae-heon nurses a heavy grudge against him for it. Eileen also mentions being hurt by Roland due to his rampage; it is implied this is because he killed her father during it. It's also implied that he wiped out Tanya's whole base of operations, causing her to Distort and actively screw with other syndicates. Lastly, he and Angelica took out Elena during her time as a Star of the City, causing her to nurse a personal grudge against Roland.
- Perhaps the most important thing, however, is his infiltration into the Library to assassinate Angela gave her the final motivator to kick-start the Library's attack against the City in earnest, leading to the disappearance of numerous influential entities which would otherwise be able to stop the dangerous Distortion monsters Roland inadvertently influenced. Some of these were not entirely of Roland or Angela's fault but were implied to be influenced by another "person", but said "person" just took advantage of their cooperation for other reasons. This is taken to a logical extreme when Angela books Roland and becomes human with the One True Book in a bad ending, which causes her to turn into a destructive force for 13 years before a Bookhunter Fixer slays her for good.
Not So Stoic: When seeing what the Ensemble has done to Angelica's corpse, he becomes so enraged that Angela is unnerved by his anger and asks him to calm down. Becomes even more so after Distorting in the middle of his fight as The Black Silence. Similarly, his Floor Realizations have him become subsumed in the E.G.O. of the abnormalities who possess him, which draw out his suppressed emotions.
Obfuscating Stupidity: He's only pretending to be a goofball in front of Angela to exploit her and lower her guard just to kill her later on and he's actually way more vicious than he presents himself to be.
One-Man Army:
- During his Roaring Rampage of Revenge, he fought and massacred the entirety of the Rumanos Cartel, to the point of crippling them so badly they were cut off by The Thumb during their summit meeting. He also, in Olivier's words, crushed a good chunk of the Middle Finger's southern operations, alone. Good chunk as in nearly half of all the southern Middle Finger operatives which included Tanya's own group who, despite being a One-Man Army herself, acknowledges a rampaging Roland to be far more destructive. Vergilius, the Red Gaze and a Color on par with Iori in combat prowess and strength, also contemplated only having two options when he was confronted by Roland in the midst of his killing spree: fight him to the death or avoid provoking him at all. Even Baral, a high ranking Claw acknowledges Roland's strength by commenting that he of all people can still be cut down due to his tired state which is especially notable considering how little he talks. Cut content from the Floor of Language's Realization also reveals that Roland killed several Index Proxies during his rampage, with one member noting his viciousness and wrath.
- Some of Battle dialogue from the Librarians worry about the other floors with the implication Roland has already wiped out a number of them prior to arriving. The three available Floors for his battle may as well be the only ones remaining.
One-Winged Angel: Distorts twice during his reception. The first one is based off the source of the Smoke Wars, and is utterly inhuman and strong, but also weak to everything. His second Distortion is a more humanoid, but featureless, version of The Black Silence, which is used in three different phases and is far more durable and dangerous in comparison.
Out of Character Is Serious Business: Twice.
- The first instance is his uncharacteristic pessimism during his final talk with Tiphereth. While Roland can be dismissive, he's rarely mean or insulting to his fellow Patron Librarians. During this discussion however, Roland insults Tiphereth (by calling her a "fake") and vehemently rejects her worldview. This serves as the first real hint of the anger he holds within himself, and signals the beginning of his own boss fight.
- The second is during the beginning of the reception of the Black Silence. Roland calmly lays out his feelings towards Angela, but when he dives into the motivations behind why he's doing what he's doing, he begins to quietly cry.
Perception Filter: His Perception-blocking Mask, which in-universe is a rare piece of technology that makes him appear as someone else or heavily blurs his appearance to others when he wears it. In-game this translates to his last Speed Die being unable to be targeted, turning any Combat Page he slots there a free hit against your team unless countered.
Power Copying: Notes from the Artbook implies this was Roland's main forte and the source of his skill and abilities. While Angelica was still alive he would often test out and fiddle with the weapons she frequently buys as shown in the Side Episode: A Fritter Called Jeon where he used (and accidentally broke) Angelica's Mook Workshop katana. Angelica's ghost in his boss fight has nearly identical attack animations to his own and it's explained by the Artbook that Roland's moveset and combat pages were his attempts in mimicking her. This is also shown in the special Memory Pages his Distorted form has access to which are all near-perfect copies of their original combat pages.
Read the Fine Print: One of the first acts that he did which inadvertently caused his personal life (and potentially the City) to collapse is him blackmailing a Fixer Office to smuggle Enkephalin to O Corp for him without the operator's knowledge. When being confronted, he asks the operator to read the fine print on his contract, which apparently snuck a term that he must smuggle Enkephalin to O Corp. This led to Roland being denied access to a Nest and being stuck in I Corp's Backstreets, where the Pianist manifested and killed his wife. The Fixer he blackmailed was also heavily implied to later become Yesterday's Promise, who would screw people in a similar manner Roland did to him.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives one to Angela before his boss fight, calling her out for all her actions in this game and the last.
Angela: ... I only want to be compensated for my suffering.
Roland: What’s this now? You’re acting weak all of a sudden? Are you finally starting to hesitate when it's almost over? Nah... can't be. You've got power and knowledge, and now a proper life as a living being on top of it...you just don't wanna give up what you finally took hold of.
Angela: At least I used a method that isn't forcef-
Roland: You used the same logic when you stole the light. You used it to kill those who came to the Library in the name of fair price. You didn't even stop to think about the consequences of your actions. That's how you've always been. You don't give two shits about anyone other than yourself. I don't blame you though, I just can't. It's how the City works... that's that, and this is this.
Revenge Before Reason:
- Without the benefit of the Floor Realizations to elaborate on his and Angela's trauma, Roland can't bring himself to reconcile his grief and anger, especially in the face of Angela's own forgiveness which he perceives as a slap in the face, and he decapitates her. Upon escaping The Library, his trauma ultimately consumes him and shortly after, he's found floating in a random sewer somewhere dead.
- Ultimately, Roland had no good reason to kill Angela since the Distortions were an intended consequence laid out by the Seed of Light, but her actions led to them not being more widespread than it's supposed to, and the worst incident just happened to affect Roland. If anything, Angela's actions inadvertently stopped a greater catastrophe from occurring.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After his wife died to the Pianist, Roland basically snapped and went on an indiscriminate rampage, killing to avenge his wife (even as none of the people he targeted were responsible for the Distortion to begin with). Victims of his rampage included the former leader of the Church of Gears (implied to be Eileen's father), Jae-heon, the Rumanos Cartel, the whole southwestern operations of the Middle Finger (of which Tanya was an executive member) and even innocents such as the Fixers from Offices that were assigned to quell his rampage. Eventually his colleague Astolfo had to personally confront and plead with him to calm down and see reason as his massive body count can and will become his downfall should he continue adding to it.
Sad Battle Music: For the first three phases of his boss fight, it plays the three parts to his Realization theme, which is melancholic enough, but for the last phase, it instead plays "Gone Angels", a somber piano piece expressing Roland's inner conflict and self-destructive desire for revenge.
The Spook: Invoked in-universe. Prior to ending up in the Library, Roland would always wear a black mask to conceal his personal identity as per the advice of his grandma. Very few people (outside of his closest colleagues) were aware of his real identity due to his mask. As a result, none of the Library's guests (even Salvador, who had worked alongside Roland in the Smoke War) recognized that Roland was the Black Silence. Furthermore, the mask also appears to make people think Roland is the Black Silence due to its perception blocking abilities, although the actual Color Fixer was Angelica.
Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: As a citizen of the City, his jaded and pragmatic world view causes him to look down on the Patron Librarians' beliefs that the world can change. This is most apparent with the Middle Floors, even going into a Meltdown due to their views conflicting that much. For Tiphereth, it's that he can't hope to see the world become better. For Gebura, its that she could protect things and he couldn't. For Chesed, he believes that you can't change the City, and all you can do is simply live in it.
Spree Killer: According to the scene prior to Gebura's floor realization, after Angelica's death, he went on an indiscriminate killing spree against Fingers, Syndicates, Offices and even innocent civilians, trying to get revenge on whoever was responsible for the Distortions. His victims included a scientist who turned people into gears (implied to be Eileen's father), a factory creating puppet monsters belonging to Jae-heon, the Thumb subsidiary Rumanos Cartel, and even the Middle Finger's southern branch directly. Even his colleague Astolfo was unable to calm him down from his rampage.
Super-Toughness: For whatever reason, Roland's stamina is abnormally high, enough to start a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Finger subsidiaries, the Finger itself in question and then a bunch of innocent Fixers sent to stop his rampage before being calmed down by Astolfo which was implied to have not deterred him at all from continuing his spree. It should be noted that due to his status and skill level at the time, the Fixers who were dispatched to stop him had to be just as strong or more to even have a chance against him yet he was barely fatigued nor injured at all by them or the groups he targeted. Near the end of the game, he's shown to be capable of defeating Argalia one on one, fighting the Librarians themselves with dialogue implying the three Floors available for his fight are the only ones remaining, followed by fending off the Distorted Reverberation Ensemble for a week before finally fighting an Arbiter and a Claw at once without break.
Take Up My Sword: All of his weapons, save for Durandal, belonged to Angelica. Even his title, "The Black Silence" used to be hers.
The Leader: While not directly stated in-game, Roland wasn't just a Grade 1 Fixer who worked at Charles' Office, he was actually the office's captain/acting leader who was personally chosen by Charles himself after he earned his trust. Some hints to Roland's leader status are dropped in-game however. In Roland's bad ending, Ogier refers to him as "big man", another term for a leader or someone with influence. Roland also mentions at the start of the game that he used to run a one-man Fixer office, technically making him an operator with all the experience and responsibilities that entails.
They Look Just Like Everyone Else!:
- Unlike other Color Fixers like Kali or Argalia, Roland's appearance and attire is extremely non-descript and common enough that he could almost pass off as any other person in the City if not for his habit of wearing a black mask every time he goes to work. As a result, save for those who were directly related to him in some form or way (such as Olivier and Argalia), Guests who enter the Library do not recognize him as the Black Silence.
- Not directly him, but even Angelica, his wife whom he inherited his Black Silence title from and which he shared when she was still alive when using her gloves, lacks the distinct outfit many Color Fixers wear and resembles a fairly standard-looking upperclasswoman.
Tricked-Out Gloves: His special Black Silence gloves serve as a Hyperspace Arsenal that hold all of his weapons. They seem to function similarly to Ezra's dimensional bag, with Roland manifesting or pulling out his weapons from sparkling black and white portals that open from his palms.
Unblockable Attack: His Perception-blocking Mask prevents enemies from targeting his last Speed die, meaning that you can't block that combat page with a page of your own. Downplayed, as counter, block, and evade dice that a targeted character still has after their actions can be used to avoid or reduce the damage taken. Just hope he doesn't slot Wheels Industry or Furioso there though.
Undeathly Pallor: Normally, Roland has grayish pale skin, most noticeable when comparing his CG art with the other Librarians or Guests who have regular skin colors. When suffering from a Meltdown though, he'll have the same pale, ice white skin Angela has.
Undignified Death: In his bad ending, he gets killed by hordes of his former friends and foes, with numerous weapons stabbed on his back and his body drifting in a gutter, not even bothering to resist because he's just that broken. For one of the City's most influential fixers, saying that the way he dies is disrespectful is an understatement.
Vengeance Feels Empty:
- No matter how many people he killed, innocent or not, it never made him feel any better. His rampage only created members of the Reverb Ensemble and lost him his position, and his Downer Ending shows that he falls back into alcohol and drugs after killing Angela, the person he blamed for the Distortion Phenomenon that stole everything from him.
- In his Downer Ending, he kills Angela at last for revenge and returns to the City, but due to having nothing left to live for, he starts taking drugs and doing shady, borderline illegal and immoral jobs, eventually letting himself killed by his former friends and foes.
Villain Has a Point: While Roland's list of crimes is even longer than Angela's and unlike her all of his crimes were committed with full agency (unlike Angela who is only listening to Ayin's orders or Carmen's whims), he's not wrong when he points out that Angela has no excuse for everything she's done and is fooling herself with her Never My Fault attitude. Even she is forced to realize he's right.
Weak, but Skilled: Roland cannot match the Red Mist’s raw strength, he lacks the Blue Reverberation's supernatural charisma and he does not have any reality defying abilities like that of the Purple Tear's dimension warping. What he has instead is an excellent memory and the most raw talent, being able to understand and perfectly adopt any fighting style he observes.
- Vergilius the Red Gaze, who Roland himself name-dropped as the most dangerous Color Fixer in the City thanks to his skills and cybernetics, was wary of crossing him while the renegade Black Silence was on his rampage.
Wicked Heart Symbol: It's subtle, but the way the gloves are positioned in the symbol for the page of The Black Silence makes it vaguely look like a heart flatlining, and to make it much more overt, an actual flatline is part of the symbol itself. Considering how Roland turns against Angela near the end of the game and how Angelica's death kicked off his fall from grace...
Worf Had the Flu: By the time Baral shows up to unceremoniously kick his ass, Roland has been worn down by his rampage against Angela followed by several consecutive days of fighting with Argalia.
You Are What You Hate: Despite he and Argalia absolutely hating each other especially after Argalia defiled Angelica's corpse to piss him off, Roland, to some extent isn't very different from him, having around as many connections in the Fixer industry (including outright admitting that he had a connection with the Shi Association Southern Branch's director who was also contacts with Argalia). He's also very unstable emotionally, but Roland only became so very recently with the death of Angelica, while it's implied that Argalia has always been that way.

Characters / Library Of Ruina - The Library
aka: Library Of Ruina Roland

Main Characters

Roland

Angela

Patron Librarians

Malkuth

Yesod

Hod

Netzach

Tiphereth

Gebura

Chesed

Binah

Hokma

Assistant Librarians

Other

Alternative Title(s): Library Of Ruina Roland

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Index

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Characters / Library Of Ruina - The Library aka: Library Of Ruina Roland

Edit Locked

Main Characters

Roland

Angela

Patron Librarians

Malkuth

Yesod

Hod

Netzach

Tiphereth

Gebura

Chesed

Binah

Hokma

Assistant Librarians

Other

Alternative Title(s): Library Of Ruina Roland

Previous

Index

Next

Characters / Library Of Ruina - The Library
aka: Library Of Ruina Roland