huehuehue

[swagu]

Name: Christy
Contact Info: swagu
Other Characters Played: Diva (madamemoiselle), Xerxes Break (madhatted), Merrill (sylvanwood)
Preferred Apartment: #3.004

Character Name: Mary
Canon: Ib
Canon Point: Post-Canon, "Promise of Reunion" ending
Background/History: Here
Personality:
When it comes down to it, Mary is an archetypal Pinnochio. She's the child that isn't, but who wants to be. Mary is a painting who has been ambiguously brought to life, and living in a gallery, has gotten to observe what it means to be human. So it's only natural that she'd want to become human herself. She's the painting that wants to be a real girl, and it's that existence that makes up her motivations as well as her unique personality.

When you meet her, Mary comes off as no more than a weird little girl. She's flighty and playful, often ignoring the scary parts of the gallery in favor of something more whimsical. We learn throughout the game that this is because that that scary place is her "home," but still, her reactions don't always match the situation. When she meets Garry and Ib, she instead tells them about her favorite colors rather than pay attention to Garry's warnings. While it's assumed that she's supposed to be about the same age as Ib (9), she's not nearly as mature, as would be obvious with her outburst about her favorite colors. She has the mindset of a child, so in many ways, she's very innocent and straightforward. She loves coloring, playing with dolls, and making friends, which are all the sort of model activities you'd expect from an innocent little girl.

Though, that innocence only seems to go so far. Mary is absolutely determined to escape the gallery, and as is made clear in some endings, it's at any cost. The "rule" of the gallery is that she would have to take someone's place in the real world, and she doesn't seem to have any moral qualm doing so. In some endings, she kills Garry by plucking off the petals of his rose (which are tied to his life), and she does so with whimsy. Or regardless, she'll threaten both Ib and Garry with a (apparently very sharp) palette knife, and clearly seems to have intentions to kill them when she's provoked to do so.

However, though these actions may appear malicious on the surface, they're not. They're actions that are born of a flawed understanding and of a very different and separate morality than what would be assumed. Though her actions can be violent and seem very cruel, I would argue that they're not, or at least not in the traditional sense. Mary has no understanding of right and wrong, because her world only consists of the gallery. If anyone else entered the gallery before Ib and Garry, they're not mentioned, so we can only assume that they're the first people that she's ever interacted with. As such, a sense of right and wrong would never have had a context to develop, and through certain things she says, it's clear that she's not deliberately misleading Garry and Ib. For example, when the pair first meets her, it's Garry that makes the assumption that she's another trapped patron, even though she's very honest in hindsight ("I... I was looking to see if there was anyone else too... I wanted to get out... So I..."). To Mary, her desire to escape the gallery and become a real girl and/or a friend of Ib is more important than anything else. It's certainly wrong, but it's a view that's shaped by an understanding of the world that's lacking, and by the naive view that any cost is worth the outcome. As such, Mary is innocent, not in her actions, but in her mindset.

This lack of development is of course important in the context of her actions in the game, but it's also important to understanding the more innocuous parts of her personality. After all, even though she's a young girl, and children can say some strange things, certainly, Mary is weird even by this standard. She's seemingly shy, and tends to trail off her sentences (especially around new people), but she seems to simply not understand things as well. She's awkward and sometimes blunt and bossy, and when topics turn to things she doesn't like, she'll change the subject quickly and obviously. She's bad at lying, and generally is just a strange little girl. But this, too, is born from the fact that she's been isolated, and what she knows of real people and the world outside her odd, scary gallery is from observation rather than interaction. She's able to fake being a little girl to some degree of competency, but at the same time, there's always the prevailing sense that something is "off" about her, and it doesn't take much to figure out her true nature.

When it comes down to it, Mary is just someone that deeply desires a life that she doesn't have. She wants to live the life that she's observed as a painting, which is a life of friendship, fun, and happiness. Her perception is skewed, because she's created an ideal version of what it means to be alive, so when faced with conflict, her temperament inevitably turns sour and sometimes violent. She's shy, but friendly and playful once she warms to someone, and values them to the point of a jealous possessiveness. She's curious about the life that real people live, and she wants it for herself. Unfortunately, this desire is so strong that she's willing to do anything to have, which is what leads to her eventual downfall.

Abilities/Powers:
Since Mary is not exactly human, it also means she has some not exactly human attributes. Most of these have no bearing on Haven whatsoever, since they revolve around her connection to an art gallery that she obviously won't be able to access. However, since Mary is a painting rather than a true person, I'm assuming she's a little more durable than your standard nine year old girl. Small injuries are likely to heal pretty quickly, but anything major is a bit more normal.

Items/Weapons: A yellow rose, a palette knife, and a doll
Sample Entry:
[ When the video turns on, it's not entirelly clear what's being shown at first. There's clearly something pressed up to the camera, but rather than it being black, like someone's fingers are over the camera, it's white. In fact... Looking closer, isn't that paper?

But after a moment or two of staring at the blank paper, the broadcaster pulls it back. It's a young girl, but she looks very unhappy, since her mouth is set into an upset, pouting little frown. ]

What's wrong with it...?

[ It's like she's not aware that the camera is on, with how she says that, but then she looks directly at the camera again, holding up some crayons. ]

Are they broken? Every time I try and draw, my pictures just go away! I've been drawing reaaaaally good ones too, so I don't know where they're going... It's not like I'm erasing them or anything... I thought they were really good crayons, but this is a really mean trick!

[ She makes a little upset noise, then slaps the paper on the ground, drawing a red crayon across it pretty vigorously before holding it back up to see. ]

So, watch! I'm not joking, so tell me how to make it stop. I'll draw you something pretty for it, okay?

[ ...Yeah, no one filled her in on the "no writing" rule, so she'll hold that paper up to the camera until the red mark fades away. At which point, she'll get more upset and ball the paper up, tossing it at the phone. The phone was clearly propped up somehow, since it falls back and shows the ceiling instead, and... continues to. She's not going to turn it off, since honestly, she's not really sure how. ]

Sample Entry Two:
It's hot.

It's hot, it's hot, it's hot, and all she can really think about is how much it hurts. It's not as if flames are searing her body, but she can feel how flames lick the painting as if it were the same. Her portrait is burning up, so she's burning too. She's going to...die. She watches the flames take over her face in the portrait, and even though Mary doesn't know much, she knows that she's going to die.

And it's scary.

It's so scary, and it makes her scream, because things weren't supposed to end like this. She was supposed to be able to live and be a real girl. She could go see all the things she'd observed from her painting. She could go color real things, and eat ice cream, and have a family. She could be a real girl. That was how things were supposed to be, but... She's just a painting.

A real little girl wouldn't brandish a knife, or think about pluck, pluck, plucking the rose petals off that stupid man's rose so that he would just disappear. No, a real little girl wouldn't do those things. Her last look to the girl she'd so desperately wanted to befriend is one of pleading fear, but it doesn't matter.

A real little girl wouldn't turn to ash, would she?