#echo echo echo chamber

the character I least understand

Crabbe and Goyle—er, plot-wise they pretty much count as one character, right? (Surely they couldn’t have been that fantastically dumb. There must have been some character development somewhere.)

interactions I enjoyed the most

Pretty much any scene with Buckbeak or Molly Weasley made me really happy (as far as I can remember). That scene at St. Mungo’s where Arthur is telling everyone he got stitches? Magnificent.

the character who scares me the most

Dumbledore. At least with Voldemort it’s damn clear he’s using you.

the character who is mostly like me

oh man oh man uhhhhhhh Nicolas Flamel! because if I was a magical scientist who discovered/created an amazing something of deadly potential I too would stick it in a mirror where almost no one would ever get it. I would also then give Dumbledore EXPLICIT INSTRUCTIONS to smash the damn thing if a homicidal megalomaniac went after it. I’m thorough like that.

hottest looks character

I admit I decided which characters were awesome upon their introduction based on the sounds of their names, so really this is a list of characters whose names made me happy:

Kingsley ShackleboltRowena RavenclawAragogMagorian (MARS IS BRIGHT TONIGHT. wee me thought that was a riot)Minerva McGonagallSilver Arrow (yes I know that’s a model of broomstick shut up)

also my first thought when I read the name “Viktor Krum” was that he was a very small rock.

one thing I dislike about my fave character

Narcissa Malfoy does have the whole wizard bigot thing working against her, I admit. 

one thing I like about my hated character

I honest to god do not like one thing about Snape, but he’s well-written, so there’s that.

a quote or scene that haunts me

God, the scene where Harry has to make Dumbledore drink the water from the zombie lake (????) when they’re fetching the locket. That was awful.

a death that left me indifferent

I really didn’t care when Voldemort died. Generally whenever there’s a prophecy of doom involving one outcome versus another I go kicking and screaming the whole way, like no! it can’t be that literal! why did you just give us the ending? where is the surprise!!! I was hoping for there to be some twist to it—some horrible pitfall or metaphysical fine print neither Voldemort nor Harry expected—but alas. 

On the other hand, Narcissa got her moment. So on the whole I’m happy.

a character I wish died but didn’t

Did Fenrir Greyback die? I hope someone turned him into a coat.

my ship that never sailed

the character I least understand

Hiram Burrows is the dumbest Spymaster I have ever heard of, and the fact that I have heard of him is not a compliment. You’d think Spymasters would at least use fake names or some nonsense to keep themselves safe. Just because everyone knows the position exists doesn’t mean they have to know who’s got it!

(To say nothing of his garbage plan to take over the Empire/get rid of Jessamine/what was the plan again? I have a fic planned somewhere that aims to patch as much of Burrows’ stupidity as possible, and it’s a real…challenge, to say the least. I’m trying to stay as true to his actions in-game as I can, but urgh. It’s difficult. It’s difficult.)

interactions I enjoyed the most

All the NPC background conversations, because I love getting little windows into other people’s lives. Piero and Sokolov being scientist buds was a gem; so was Lydia and Wallace being not-buddies. Anything that involved the various factions especially tickled my fancy: the gangs, the Whalers, the Overseers, the Brigmore Witches. I WANT TO WRITE FIC ABOUT ALL OF THEM.

We didn’t get a lot of it, but I really really liked what little was implied about Martin’s interactions with Emily. I have Thoughts about Martin and what role he’d have played in Emily’s empire. I have Many Many Thoughts. 

the character who scares me the most

Granny Rags. She’s a fantastic character and I love her dearly, but she’s at the bottom of my list for tea party buddies. 

the character who is mostly like me

Most of the time I’d say I’m Emily or Slackjaw. Other times I’d say Billie or Daud. 

hottest looks character

Lizzy Stride do you even have to ask

one thing I dislike about my fave character

I don’t have favorites in this game (I love this game too much) but the first thing I think of is “Teague Martin has ridiculous ears and I’m surprised the Overseer mask hasn’t lopped them off”

one thing I like about my hated character

I suppose I could forgive Burrows’ stupidity for how embarrassing his death was

a quote or scene that haunts me

It’s a toss-up between the whale in the Rothwild slaughterhouse and dearie, dreary…

Honorable mention: Why have you brought me here? Am I meant to forgive this man for what he did? 

a death that left me indifferent

Jessamine. I get the arguments for why she’s not a fridged character but…look, if you kill a female character in the literal first ten minutes of the game that sort of puts a giant dent in the whole “YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT THIS!!!” agenda. If you don’t want a character to be treated or viewed as disposable, don’t dispose of them in their introduction. All the backstory and repercussions of that death will not convince me to care about that death, because central to the story or not, the character still hella died before we even knew her. What we learn of Jessamine after the fact isn’t of the woman herself, but of her legacy and how people remember her. There are two ways to dehumanize a person, and one of them is to put them on a pedestal. 

If they wanted me to care, they could’ve started the game after Jessamine got assassinated, and tell her story through flashbacks or overheard conversation. That way the player learns about this strange ghost that haunts everything and everyone, and when we finally actually see her die it’s not a “HA YOU REALLY LIKED HER FOR THOSE TEN MINUTES DIDN’T YA” moment but a genuine, horrible loss, reflected in the idea that maybe Corvo can’t bring himself to remember that day and finally, mid-game, something pushes him to do it. 

(Maybe that something is seeing Emily again. Imagine that: the immeasurable joy of finding her is undercut by the grief of seeing Jessamine’s features in hers. And that’s when we see what Jessamine actually looked like. We finally put a face to this suffering.)

(Can you imagine how much worse the revelation of the Heart’s identity would be if we learned what her voice was like the same way? The entire game would be, in part, a narrative about Corvo finally bringing himself to confront that past. Tied into the Chaos mechanic, it would be about hope: losing, or seizing it. It would be about a loss so painful he can’t bear to think about it. It would be about trying to stay alive anyway. It would be about living.)

(There’s a way to kill characters I should care about, is what I’m saying.)

a character I wish died but didn’t

Seeing as you can kill or spare any of the baddies I suppose this doesn’t quite count, but on my Clean Hands run giving Lady Boyle to Brisby for the supposed mercy option gave me the utter heebie jeebies. I deleted that save as soon as I could. Yikes.

my ship that never sailed

I WOULD MURDER FOR A BILLIE/LADY!WHALER SHIP AND HOW THAT WENT POST-DLC (but it never happened, so I suppose Billie/Piece will do)