"I'm not afraid of you! You're just an overgrown lust for violence and destruction! Okay, that sounded scarier than I wanted it to, but you're actually a normal part of any human mind!"
As the Psychonauts video game series has Raz visit the minds of others, it is only natural that he would encounter many mental beings who represent some aspect of the mind. ALL SPOILERS ARE UNMARKED. BEWARE.
Psychonauts
- Censors are a manifestation of the human mind's natural defenses. On an individual level, they are similar to antibodies who seek out foreign bodies that threaten the mind they inhabit. This is both a good and a bad thing, as while they are hostile to things like manias, depressions and things that would cause psychosis, they are also hostile to anyone who astral projects into a person's mind, like Psychonauts who are there to help a troubled mind. The total absence of censors — like in Oleander's Basic Braining or The Milkman Conspiracy — should be Foreshadowing for the player that the mind they are going into is not well.
- Personal Demons are a species of monsters that embody pent up anger and stress, manifesting as impish little critters that self-destruct.
- Nightmares are an amorphous species of monster that embody recurring fears and trauma. A massive group of them appear in Milla Vodello's mind that embody the trauma of the orphanage she worked at burning down in a fire, the thoughts of the dying orphans bombarding her via Telepathy. Two Nightmares are found running free in Boyd's mind, Boyd being a Conspiracy Theorist riddled with delusions that the whole world is out to get him.
- The Lungfishopolis Freedom Fighters embody the last bit of Linda's mental defenses after Oleander and Loboto terraformed her mind to suit their ends.
- The G-Men from the Milkman Conspiracy embody both Boyd's preexisting paranoid delusions and the kind of natural defenses he had developed because of it. They are hostile to the Milkman and the Rainbow Squirts — both being invasive forces planted by Oleander as part of his Evil Plan — but they are unable to properly do anything about it without Raz's interference. Their incompetence at even gauging threats, like ignoring the Rainbow Squirts until the very end or being fooled by simple props as disguises, is a sign that even before Oleander's meddling, Boyd was not doing well.
- The Rainbow Squirts and their Den Mother are manifestations of Boyd's mother and step-sisters (according to Word of God) that were an underlying source of Boyd's psychosis, repurposed through Oleadner's tampering as mental guards to protect the personality he had planted in his mind. Since the Milkman is a foreign entity planted in Boyd's mind as a manifestation of Boyd's more destructive impulses, the Rainbow Squirts are a genuine threat to Boyd's mind, Boyd's mental defenses overlooking nightmares and manias in their efforts to find him.
- The Milkman is an alternate personality planted in Boyd's mind by Oleander to be activated in the later stages of their Evil Plan, set to burn down the asylum (and all evidence therein) with molotov cocktails. As the name of the level implies, The Milkman Conspiracy completely centers around him, as the G-Men (who are manifestations of his mental defenses) are tasked with finding him, Boyd aware of him but unaware of where or who he is.
- Becky Houndstooth is the stage director in Gloria's theater. Since the plays she directs are based off of Gloria's life, Becky's job is to let Gloria process her past so that she can get her life back on track, making her the embodiment of Gloria's superego.
- Bonita Soleil is the main actor in Gloria's Theater, embodying her muse and "inner-sunshine".
- Jasper Rolls embodies Gloria von Gouton's inner critic, manifesting as a literal critic judging the plays in the theater. The trauma that brought on Gloria's bipolar mood swings have caused him to bloat to gargantuan proportions, drowning out Becky and Bonita with his hurtful insults and justifying them as "essential" to the quality of the play. With the reveal that he is also the Phantom, the masked figure that has been actively sabotaging the play, he is marked as the source of Gloria's psychosis. When Raz defeats him, he is shrunken down to the point where he can't interfere any longer, allowing Bonita to finish the play and curing Gloria of her disorder.
- The Stage Actors in Gloria's Theater act out the autobiographical events of Gloria's life, metaphorically playing and replaying her memories, making them mental representations of Gloria's past self and the people in her life. They swap between benign and hostile depending on the mood lighting, reflecting on her highly subjective view of the world past and present.
- Napoleon Bonaparte in Fred's mind, while possibly a Genetic Memory of the real Napoleon (it's hard to really tell in this franchise), may instead be an alter ego created to combat Fred's learned-helplessness. He manifests after a particularly humiliating losing streak against Crispin at a Waterloo-themed board game, no doubt exacerbated by the high concentrations of psitanium in the area. He haunts Fred's every waking moment and traps him in a perpetual game of war — represented both in the Real World and the Mental World as the Waterloo board game — where Napoleon belittles and attacks Fred out of a desire to incur Fred's fighting spirit, a gambit that fails because of Fred's shattered confidence. Napoleon fights back when Raz helps Fred along, including just flat-out cheating, but he gracefully faces away, content that Fred has found his spine again.
- El Odio is a manifestation of Edgar Teglee. More specifically, he is his rage personified in the form of a bull (the animal he was themed after in his High School's wrestling team). El Odio makes traversal through the streets of Black Velvetopia nigh-impossible and scattering the other parts of his mind, keeping them from meeting, symbolic of how his anger keeps him from finding closure with his past.
- The Dog Painters could represent a number of things:
- His artistic muse. They are all painters whose paintings all come to life when hung, their art a necessary means of traversing the city without being flattened by El Odio, an apt metaphor for art therapy if there ever was one. When Edgar is cured of his psychosis, the first thing he does is paint the dogs in a poker game, something they do literally with him in his mind.
- Edgar's voice of reason. Each dog has a different account of Edgar's life story. While each account is inaccurate, they each have a nugget of the truth that Raz is able to piece together by the time he reaches his boss fight with El Odio and Dingo. Because of El Odio however, they are unable to cooperate with each other, leaving Edgar's state of mind confused and aimless.
- Tiger, Dragon, Eagle, and Cobra are all manifestations of Edgar's high school wrestling team. After his broken heart led to Edgar losing the championship for them, his friends became hostile to him, their mental counterparts becoming antagonists who obstruct progress on finding the truth via commandeering the queens in his card deck.
- Lampita Pasionado is a manifestation of Edgar's former high school girlfriend. In his mind, Edgar has romanticized her into an almost Mary-like figure that he feels like he needs to save from her tower. By the time Raz gets to her however, he realizes that all she does is enable Edgar's delusions and thus is one of the leading causes of his psychosis, literally cheering Dingo on as he tries killing Edgar.
- Dingo Inflagrante is a manifestation of the male cheerleader that stole his girlfriend. In his mind, he at first comes across as a narcissistic pretty boy (which he no-doubt viewed his real-life counterpart) romanticized into the part of a dashing Spanish hero figure. Since losing his girlfriend was a pivotal moment in his life, Dingo had since become a fixation of Edgar's to the point where he is unable to paint anything other than him bull-fighting, making him one of the contributing factors of his psychosis.
- The Butcher seen in the Meat Circus is a personal demon from Oleander's mind, being a representation of his father. With his father butchering his rabbits as a kid, he had scarred his son for life and thus his mental counterpart manifests as a towering Slasher Movie villain. When Raz kills him, Oleander is cured of all of his megalomaniacal impulses and turns over a new leaf.
- While the real Augustus Aquato was harsh, he was like that as a means of protecting Raz from things that threaten his family, his Training from Hell regiment being misinterpreted as attempts on Raz's life. Raz believed that he did such things out of hatred, so the mental version of him is an outright abusive Monster Clown who tries to kill him.
Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin
- First Mate Loboto is a manifestation of his sense of reason. When his moral compass goes missing, he is left adrift and at the mercy of a giant, monstrous version of Loboto.
- The giant Loboto in Dr. Loboto's mind is one of the contributing factors of his madness, having been created when his parents had him lobotomized. He is an embodiment of his Psychopathic Manchild tendencies, treating his attempts at destroy the ship as nothing more than a game. While slaying him makes Dr. Loboto less hostile to Raz and the others, since the damage was physical in nature, Loboto is only slightly less unhinged by the end.
- Doubts are a type of Blob Monster that embody the mind's conflicts with itself. Their default look is that of an accusatory glare and a dissatisfied frown and they leave behind a slime trail that literally slows you down.
- Regrets are an Airborne Mook that embodies repentant emotions, literally being weighed down by grief (appearing as a literal weight they drop on you).
- Bad Ideas represent negative impulses and thought patterns. They are covered in bright red Idea Bulbs that literally blow up in your face.
- Panic Attacks are a savage race of Boss in Mook Clothing, embodying stress associated with overstimulation and anxiety. They are wicked fast, hit like a truck, their bodies flash like a rave, they create multiples of themselves to distract you, and can be a serious headache to fight. The most effective method to fight them is to slow them down with Time Bubble, since the best way a person deals with panic attacks are by slowing down one's thoughts.
- Judges are the manifestation of personal judgements and the fear of judgement from others. It manifests as a Hanging Judge that acts incredibly hostile to those around them, either going after you with a mallet or throwing the book at you. As in an actual book.
- Enablers are impish cheerleaders that embody internal and external rationalizations for bad ideas and impulses, acting as Support Party Member that protects enemies from harm.
- Bad Moods are literal clouds of negative emotions, invincible to any hostility against it until the right time, whereupon Raz can use clairovoyance to see from its point of view, find the source of the bad mood and free the more positive thoughts (thus destroying the bad mood).
- The Lady Luctopus is a Bad Idea embodying gambling addiction that Raz accidentally planted into Hollis Forsythe's mind by connecting the concepts of "Money" and "Risk" together. Being a monumentally influential bad idea, she has a crown of explosive Idea Bulbs and her very presence warps Hollis's mind nearly beyond recognition, turning it from a relatively peaceful hospital into a chaotic casino full of corruption and faulty trains of thought.
- PSI-King's bandmates personify both the five senses and the other members of the Psychic Six, and the journey to reunite them is an allegory of restoring senses to a sense-deprived brain and restoring Helmut's bond with his friends. Vision embodies sight/Ford Cruller, Dr. Touch is touch/Otto Mentalis, Tasty is taste/Compton Boole, Sniffles is smell/Cassie O'Pea, and Audie-O is hearing/Bob Zanotto.
- The Gluttonous Goats in Compton's mind are manifestations of Ford Cruller, Otto Mentallis and Hollis Forsythe through the filter of Compton's anxiety and depression. With Compton's belief that everyone judges him, they appear as Caustic Critics who have a pre-established dislike for him, any attempt at pleasing them an exercise in futility. In addition, they take the form of sock puppets, and at the end of the battle, it's revealed that the hand controlling them is Compton's own, representing how he was his own worst judge the whole time.
- Tincan Zanotto personifies Truman as Compton sees him. While he isn't a judge like the other goats, he acts as the show host and a sort of instigator and enabler for his stressors.
- Each of Cassie O'Pia's Archetypes operate as different Jungian aspects of Cassie's personality, their separation and Civil War giving her an identity crisis that keeps her isolated in Green Needle Gulch.
- Writer Cassie embodies the aspect that wrote her book Mindswarm, manifesting from Cassie's need for raising money.
- Teacher Cassie acts as her base archetype, being the part of her capable of analyzing situations and imparting knowledge.
- Counterfeiter Cassie manifested after Cassie was abandoned by her parents. She represents her "tougher" side, representing her skeptical side who is willing to do questionable things for the sake of survival.
- The Librarian represents Cassie's ability to organize and compartmentalize. A mix of the Psychic Six's experiments and the trauma she had experienced with the fight against Maligula had drove the Librarian to take full control of Cassie's mind under the idea that her role in Cassie's mind is the only one required to keep her safe. Since she is an essential part of Cassie's mind, Raz doesn't destroy her, but rather she realizes that they are all aspects of a whole person, their reconciliation curing Cassie's crisis.
- The Moth in Bob's Bottles embodies his alcoholism. He first appears as what looks like a mask over a statue of Bob, obstructing Bob's eyes from the world around him. He routinely tries to keep seeds (which are placeholders for his memories) from being planted, saving Bob from whatever potential pain they would cause, but all he really does is keep Bob from confronting his problems and keeps him in a perpetual state of emotional numbness. Even when Bob starts rebelling against the Moth's "help", the Moth bounds, gags and even drags him around, hurting him under the delusion of trying to "protect" him from his problems. When Raz fights Truheltia Memonstria, the Moth tries to stop Raz from fighting them by dusting him and causing a confusion-esque Interface Screw.
- Truheltia Memonstria are a trio of Botanical Abominations who embody three people associated with painful memories in Bob's life; his mother Tia (whom Bob found dead in her greenhouse), his husband Helmut Fullbear (who was lost in the battle with Maligula) and his nephew Truman Zanotto (who fired Bob when his neurosis made him a working liability). They act as hazards that the Moth (who embodies alcoholism) actively try to keep buried. When Bob realizes that they are subjective thoughts and don't properly represent the people they reflect, they shrink back down and become harmless additions to his garden.
- Maligula Galochio is the manifestation of Lucrecia Mux's "fight" in her fight-or-flight response, having grown out of control and manifesting as a Superpowered Evil Side due to a mix of the Psychic Six's experiments, the Gzar's attempts on her life and accidentally murdering her sister Marona during the protests against him. Being a natural instinct of the human mind, it would be impossible to get rid of her for good, so the Astrolathe is needed to banish her back to the deepest part of Lucrecia's mind where she belongs.
