Characters / Dishonored - Corvo Attano

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Royal Protector Corvo Attano

^{Click here to see Corvo as he appears in the sequel.} 

Voiced by: N/A (Dishonored), Stephen Russell (Dishonored 2)

The Outsider: My dear Corvo. What a sad hand fate has dealt you. The beloved Empress dead and everyone thinks you're the killer.

The game's protagonist, Corvo Attano was the hand-chosen bodyguard of the beloved Empress Jessamine Kaldwin, given the position both for his skill and as a gesture of diplomacy - no foreigner had ever held the position before Corvo, who is from Serkonos, not Gristol. He is framed for her murder and is in prison awaiting execution when the Loyalists break him out. Soon after getting to their base, the Outsider appears in a dream and grants Corvo a mark that imbues him with supernatural abilities. Corvo sets out to find the Empress' young daughter and heir to the throne, as well as discover the answers behind Jessamine's murder and his own betrayal.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Played with if Corvo makes a pass at Callista. She mentions she would be happy to let him into her bed, it's just being surrounded by plague, murder, and so on isn't exactly something which puts her in the mood.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: His sword can decapitate people and remove limbs with little difficulty.
• Ambiguously Brown: His skin is notably tanned and he has Mediterranean features. He is also from Serkonos, the southernmost point of the empire.
• Anti-Hero: Even in the pacifist run, he sells people into slavery, kidnaps them and gives them to stalkers, and flat out resorts to torture and mutilation. Granted, a lot of them have it coming. He's a straight-up Villain Protagonist if the player really pushes for High Chaos - fulfilling those conditions requires, among other things, killing upwards of fifty percent of all NPCs that exist in the game.
• Badass and Child Duo: With Emily.
• Badass Back: Can appear to do this with clever uses of stopping time.
• Badass Family: Him and Emily, his daughter, now also a trained assassin empowered by the Outsider in the sequel.
• Badass in Distress: If Emily is chosen as the protagonist in the second game, he spends the entire game as a statue.
• Badass Longcoat: Badass enough that for some reason, he got to keep it while imprisoned. And he doesn't swap it out when he breaks out.
• Badass Normal: He started as an unstoppable force of protection for the Empress, thanks to his human combat skills alone. He becomes an Empowered Badass Normal when he meets the Outsider, who gives him superpowers. Potentially played straight in 2, where he can choose to stay depowered and be played without the Outsider's gifts.
• Badass Pacifist: He can be this, if the player chooses the more merciful options for dealing with targets, in which case Corvo will be committed to doing his duty but doing so without lethally neutralizing his targets. However, the second game shows that Corvo canonically killed a few guards here and there and has no problems killing the guards who sided with Delilah's coup.
• Berserk Button: Never insult or harm Jessamine or Emily as he will get revenge if anyone tries.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Corvo can get through the entire game without killing a single person - even his intended targets. That does not mean that what happens to them is by any means pleasant.
• Bodyguard Betrayal: Everyone assumes he killed the Empress he was supposed to guard but he was framed.
• Bodyguard Crush:
  • Corvo had a romance going with the Empress Jessamine. The hints run rampant and NPCs constantly speculate. Emily will ponder the ramifications of Corvo marrying the Empress and will make a point to note how sad and lonely her mother seemed with Corvo away. Sokolov will taunt Corvo in a way hinting that the Empress and Corvo were lovers. Certain insults take on entirely more disturbing connotations if viewed through the lens of a Corvo who was sexually involved with Jessamine. The Heart, implied to be that of Jessamine and containing her soul, is given to Corvo by the Outsider - ensuring that Corvo will keep her heart close and protected literally, a gruesome twist on the poetic symbolism of the heart in romantic love and his role as her protector. The whole opening narration by the Empress itself reads like Corvo is more than just her bodyguard. Lydia will consider asking Corvo outright if that was the case, but decides not to as it would be improper. At some point in the game, Emily will draw Corvo with the caption "Daddy". In the final level with High Chaos, Treavor Pendleton will outright say that "everyone knows [Corvo was] screwing the Empress". Whether this is actually true or just a desperate attempt at an insult is not clear. Havelock's journal in the final mission will speculate as well.
  • Dishonored 2 drops all pretenses and just outright says that Corvo is Emily's father, thus making all of the rumors and hints correct. It also adds many, many lines (if Corvo is the protagonist) about his and Jessamine's relationship and how in love they were before she was killed, in addition to lines about how painful her death was and still is for him fifteen years later. The ramifications of Empress Emily technically being an illegitimate ruler are brought up too.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: Potentially in Dishonored 2. If Emily was chosen as the Player Character, then the game can end with Badass Normal Corvo serving as the Royal Protector for an empress that now wields the power of the Void.
• Brought Down to Badass: Certain enemies or instruments have the ability to negate Corvo's 'gifts' from the Outsider. The problem is that he still was an in-universe Memetic Badass before he even got them. In Dishonored 2, he has his powers removed in the beginning and can choose to not have them restored by the Outsider, thus relying solely on his natural skills and equipment.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Despite being a grisly, gruff warrior, he will be openly doting and fatherly to Emily—playing hide and go seek with her in the intro, amongst other affectionate gestures throughout the game. In the sequel, he'll have kept Emily's 'Mummy' and 'Daddy' drawings fifteen years into the future and had them framed in his quarters.
• Cadre of Foreign Bodyguards: Corvo is from the island Serkonos, not Gristol. A book on the history of the position of Royal Protector notes that he is the first Royal Protector not to be from Gristol, and speculates that this might be related to his murder of the Empress. He's also of common birth, which didn't prevent him proving his merit in Serkonos but upset certain members of the aristocracy in Gristol.
• The Champion: Was one to the Empress, and then becomes one to Emily.
• Childhood Friend Romance: A book on the history of the office mentions that Jessamine would have chosen her Royal Protector when she was twelve. Corvo was 18 when they first met, mitigating this on his end. He became her Royal Protector at her father's behest a year later. Either way, five years later, Corvo and Jessamine become lovers in secret.
• Chick Magnet: He was romantically involved with Empress Jessamine and fathered Emily, and then there's Callista and Lydia who aren't opposed to the idea of hooking up with Corvo and get Ship Tease moments. Delilah Kaldwin also notes that he's quite good-looking even in his fifties.
• Cool Mask: His mask looks like a skull, and functions as a resistance against the Mystical Plague.
• Cool Old Guy: Corvo's 54 years old in Dishonored 2, yet can still kick ass with the best of them.
• Cool Sword: Collapsible, custom-made, feather-light and razor-sharp. Upgrading will replace its somewhat nicked steel blade with glistening black. A lot of attention was obviously paid to the animation of Corvo snapping it fully open, which is almost hypnotizing.
• Cruel Mercy: If Corvo doesn't kill you, he will make you wish he had. Averted in the case of Daud, when sparing him is an act of either genuine mercy or intimidation. Similarly, 'eliminating' the Crown Killer, Alexandria Hypatia, simply means destroying her psychopathic alter-ego and restoring her original kindly personality.
• Dark Horse Victory: Part of his backstory. Corvo came from humble origin, his father dying while he was young and with no military background in his family. As a teenager he won the Blade Verbena dueling tournament in Karnaca with his swordplay, despite his unlikely and humble origins, earning himself a junior officer posting in the Serkonan Grand Guard and earned the attention of the previous Duke.
• The Dreaded:
  • Notably, even before the game started, Corvo was known to be a One-Man Army capable of taking on multiple enemies at once and generally being infallible as the Royal Protector. And then the game starts, and you have the masked felon stalking through the night.
  • The original plan for Jessamine's assassination called for her to be killed before Corvo returned - the conspirators weren't sure that the deed could be done with him present despite hiring magical assassins. His return earlier than expected nearly foils the plan until Daud intervenes personally, and they capitalize on it by framing him for the murder. Daud himself regards Corvo this way, as Corvo manages to injure and kill some of his men during the assassination, and Daud sees some of himself in Corvo (a fellow lower class countryman whose skill with a blade offered him opportunity to rise in station). He understands that Corvo's inevitably going to come for him - something the Outsider outright confirms to him - and that there's no way he comes out on top of that confrontation. He literally has nightmares about Corvo coming for him.
• The Faceless: Played With; his face can be seen on several occasions: on some wanted posters throughout the game; the difficulty screen; as a secret drawing by Emily, which is unlocked if you're a pacifist; and during the endings.
• Failure Knight: While he is a fantastic assassin, The Outsider is not shy about pointing out his failures as a bodyguard. In Dishonored 1, he remarks that if Jessamine were as well protected as the current Lord Regent, then she might still be alive. At the start of Dishonored 2, if the player decides to play as Corvo, the Outsider notes that he has "lost another empress!".
• Frame-Up: The tutorial is his arriving home just in time to witness the Empress's murder. The game proper starts with him in prison and about to be executed for it. In the sequel, he's framed by Delilah's conspirators as "the Crown Killer", painting him as the loyal hatchet-man of the Empress to crush her critics.
• Fisher King
  • His actions will directly affect the world around him. Some consequences of a violent playthrough are more or less understandable, like tighter security and proliferating plague hatched from numerous dead bodies, but a freaking storm raging around the final level that wouldn't be there for the Low Chaos Corvo is pretty hard to explain otherwise, although it is said by Harvey Smith that "part of the Void is that it draws from your mind and that influences the environment".
  • His attitude also influences that of the Loyalist Conspirators, with violence making them more cynical and violent themselves, such as Martin losing his desire to see the Overseers reformed or Havelock using a more violent method when he kills Wallace.
  • Random citizens who've had no contact with Corvo are affected too. In the first mission, you'll find an infected Overseer who begs for death rather than infect others if chaos is low, but attempts to hide his condition if it's high.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Blink Assault in the second game allows Corvo to blink towards a foe and end the blink with a powerful kick, which combined with the momentum of the blink, sends the enemy flying.
• Good Is Not Soft: Depending on how you play. Corvo can be perfectly polite and helpful towards his allies, sweet and kind to Emily and go out of his way to rescue or aid complete strangers, while still ruthlessly eliminating every obstacle to overthrowing the Lord Regent. You could avoid killing guards, thugs and weepers, but still butcher your targets. Even if you choose not to kill your marks directly, you'll be forced to remove them by other, equally drastic methods, such as selling them into slavery or helping a stalker abduct them.
• The Grim Reaper: His skull-like mask combined with black coat and hood go a very long way to making Corvo look like a steampunk rendition of everyone's favorite Death Incarnate.
• The Heart: Surprisingly. In Low Chaos, where Corvo does not disrupt the city more than absolutely necessary and shows mercy at every turn, the Loyalists are much more cordial with each other and generally more upbeat, talking about working toward a better future. In High Chaos, where Corvo is generally a murdering psychopath, they're far darker, snapping at each other and showing no sympathy for the plights of others, even approving of harsh methods and blackmail. Not that being The Heart stops Corvo from being betrayed even in Low Chaos, but it's the thought that counts. That said, after they poison him in a Low Chaos ending, the Loyalists fall apart not because of infighting, but because they were consumed by their own shame and guilt.
• Heroic Mime: The game designers chose not to have Corvo speak so that the player can project themselves onto the character. However, it's something of a Double Subversion in practice. The options given in the game indicate that he is speaking when he communicates with someone else, and he doesn't nod or shake his head when in communication with others. However, the lines given have no voice actor associated with them. He does apparently talk at a few points, such as one encounter in which Corvo holds a conversation with a blindfolded man who assumes throughout the talk that Corvo is a woman. We still don't hear him, though. In the second game, he is fully voiced.
• Hitman with a Heart: Can be played as one by only killing his targets or in self-defense. Or better yet, not killing anybody at all.
• Hypocrite: Can be one. If finding Piero spy into the bathroom through the keyhole, he can make Piero apologize and leave, only to look through the keyhole himself.
• In the Hood: As an assassin he wears a hood to hide his face.
• Jack the Ripoff: In-Universe, Corvo is seen as this during the height of his activities. Depending on how the player plays him, some of this reputation can be quite justified.
  • The second game also has him accused of being this as the "Crown Killer", a serial killer targeting Emily's critics and political rivals. While he's innocent, his past actions make the accusations very easy to believe.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Corvo can steal a variety of items for cash to buy upgrades/supplies. This includes large paintings several times his size. The game even tells you exactly how much coins-worth of items you left behind.
• Living Legend: Guards will comment on Corvo's combat skills being legendary (even before he gets his super powers). As Royal Protector, Corvo was often seen sparring against entire squads alone and winning and apparently, his military record is amazing. Older guards will warn their younger comrades that trying to take on Corvo one-on-one is tantamount to suicide. One guard advises another that if he should encounter Corvo alone to make sure to "make a lot of noise as you die" to warn the rest of them.
  • In the sequel it's mentioned that Corvo won the Blade Verbena, an annual sword duel festival in Karnaca, which earned him an early officer ranking in the Grand Guard despite being the common-born son of a deceased tradesman at the age of 16, and that his military career started from there. Three years later he had impressed the Emperor enough that he was made the Royal Protector of Jessamine. Also in the sequel, Corvo's actions in the first game are now infamous.
• Long Haired Prettyboy: A bit more rugged than most , but Corvo had long hair in the first game. Notable in comparison to the other male characters (and some female), who are all either short-haired or completely bald.
• Malevolent Masked Men: Wears a horrifying skull-shaped mask and a dark hood, and stalks people in the night. For those who see him, he must look like the manifestation of Death itself.
  Samuel: Seems like I carry Death with me wherever I go.
• Mark of the Beast: The Abbey of the Everyman considers his Power Tattoo to be exactly this, and will react to it as one might expect from a Church Militant. Even Teague Martin can comment on this but given their mutual situation, chooses not to press the issue.
• Master Swordsman: Bordering on Implausible Fencing Powers in some of his special kill animations.
• Meaningful Name: Corvo is the Italian, Portuguese, and Galician name meaning crow. A corvo is also a specific type of knife native to Chile, and well-known for being used by the Chilean Special Forces. Oh, and crows are really well known for a) being smart, and b)keeping grudges.
• The Mentor: To Emily Kaldwin, he taught her everything he knows and she became as adept at combat and stealth as her old man. In the first game, his actions and brutality also directly influence her view on the world and its people. He does the same in the sequel, as Emily will frequently comment that she learned to be ruthless from Corvo.
• The Mourning After: In the sequel's opening scene when Corvo greets Emily at the anniversary of Jessamine's death, he admits that fifteen years haven't been enough to dull his grief or his guilt over her death. If you play as Corvo he refers to Jessamine several times and is heartbroken when the last of her soul leaves the Heart, seeing her as The Lost Lenore.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: He can take this view of things if the player so chooses.
• Old Soldier: He's 54 years old in the sequel, and age hasn't slowed this bodyguard down one bit.
• One-Man Army: Capable of cutting down swathes of watchmen armed with swords and guns, leaving piles of bodies in his wake.
• The One Who Made It Out: He was born poor in Karnaca's streets, learned street dueling, became a dark horse victor in the Blade Verbena grand tourney, rose up the ranks in the Grand Guard, came to the capital, fell in love with the previous Empress and fathered the next Empress, serving as her second-in-command. It's possible in both the Low and High Chaos endings of Dishonored 2 to end up as the new Duke of Karnaca. Indeed his mother Paloma Attano, as she notes in her diary, was heartbroken at Corvo leaving to Dunwall for better opportunities since she regretted the separation.
• Open Secret:
  • His affair with the Empress is supposedly a secret, but almost everyone seems to either know or suspect something was going on. The secrecy is additionally questionable once one considers the rumors that were sure to have erupted over Emily's parentage. In the sequel, the swiss-cheese secret is dispensed, and it's open knowledge that Corvo fathered Emily.
  • In the sequel, it's apparently known that he was the man with the infamous mask.
• Papa Wolf: His relationship with Emily is made very clear by his actions towards her, and hers towards him. In short: do not, under any circumstances, screw with that kid, especially since she is his daughter.
• Parental Substitute: Since the relationship wasn't made public in her youth, Corvo appeared as this to Emily, but their close relationship led to much speculation, among characters in-universe and by other fans. The sequel confirms openly that Emily is Corvo's daughter with Jessamine.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: An alternate interpretation of his Cruel Mercy may be that he hates his targets so much that personally killing them isn't enough.
• Perma-Stubble: Implied as despite never getting a chance to shave it seems like his facial hair doesn't grow fast enough to give him anything more than a slight shadow. It grows out into a beard by the second game.
• Power Tattoo: The source of Corvo's magical abilities, courtesy of the Outsider.
• Praetorian Guard: His former occupation. His official title is Royal Protector. If Emily survives, he gets his old job back.
• Professional Killer: Most likely, unless the player decides otherwise. Regardless, he becomes, or is regarded as, an assassin upon joining the Loyalists.
• The Protagonist: Of the first game, which is why so many of his actions here are up to player choice. He's also one of two choices in the second.
• Rags to Royalty: A potential wrinkle in Dishonored 2, both Low/High Chaos, has him end the game as the new Duke of Karnaca if Luca Abele was killed, while extremely High Chaos opens the door for him becoming Emperor Corvo the Black. Even beforehand, he was a presence in the Imperial Court directly associated with both Empresses Kaldwin, being the bodyguard and paramour to the former, and father and spymaster for the latter.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: The guy was once the Royal Protector, and even before he started getting all his weaponry and supernatural powers, his combat abilities were apparently something to be feared.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: It's the entire premise of the first game. He turns the government upside down in his vengeance and makes whoever wronged him pay and then some.
  • Corvo himself emphasizes it in the sequel:
  Everyone you love, everything you hold dear, I will destroy.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: In this◊ promotional image.
• Silver Fox: He's in his early 50s in the second game and still quite good-looking as even Delilah Kaldwin admits.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Towards Jessamine as the two are lovers which birthed Emily. After Jessamine was assassinated, Corvo doesn't try to find someone else.
• Spanner in the Works: The conspirators had planned to assassinate the Empress while Corvo was out of town, but he returned home two days earlier than expected. At first the Lord Regent figures it for a bonus, since it gave them a patsy, but ultimately this leads to Corvo becoming his most terrible enemy. Daud, meanwhile, was pissed that Corvo injured several of his men and doubled his fee to the Lord Regent.
• The Spymaster: By the time of the second game, he is both the Royal Protector and the Spymaster.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Once she's grown into an adult in the sequel, it's very easy to see the resemblance between Corvo and Emily. Most noticeable on the title screen, Corvo and Emily share the same nose and notably similar facial structures. Kirin Jindosh will even identify Emily by noting she has Corvo's eyes. Thankfully, the Open Secret of his and Jessamine's affair was already public knowledge.
• Suddenly Voiced: Corvo do not have any lines in the first against other than the occasional grunts. In the sequel Corvo is no longer a Heroic Mime and has actual voiced dialog.
• Superpower Lottery: Thanks to the Outsider, he won big time.
  • Aura Vision: The "Dark Vision" power grants Corvo this.
  • Blow You Away: The "Windblast" power lets Corvo blast people and objects back with a gust of wind.
  • Demonic Possession: Is capable of possessing animals and people with the "Possession" power.
  • Flash Step: Corvo can do this via the "Blink" power.
  • Healing Factor: Due to the "Vitality" passive power, Corvo possess this.
  • Summon Magic: Corvo is able to summon plague rats with the "Devouring Swarm" power.
  • Time Stands Still: The "Bend Time" power gives Corvo the ability to do this. In the second game, he can upgrade his Blink to stop time when he's standing still, similar to Daud.
• Sword and Gun: Although he always uses a sword in his right hand, his left hand can use a pistol, handheld crossbow, or one of his supernatural abilities.
• Taken for Granite: If the player chooses to play as Emily in 2, Corvo gets turned to stone by Delilah.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Corvo stands at 6'4", his long black hair is one of his most distinctive features and, over the course of the 2 games, many women, both civil and enemy, express a certain physical attraction towards him.
• Technical Pacifist: He can be played this way - never spilling a drop of blood by his own hand, but inflicting a diverse variety of awful fates on his enemies by other means. The only exception is when defending the Empress against assassins in the opening; while you can theoretically keep them alive, they don't count towards the kill count, and the Knife of Dunwall confirms that he injured at least one. The intro of the second game has him actively killing Delilah's henchmen.
• Time-Passage Beard: He grows a beard by the time of the second game.
• Tranquil Fury: Most of his behavior, whether going for low or high chaos, point to this. If you happen to be an enemy of his, especially one who has crossed the Moral Event Horizon or involved with The Empress' assassination, then when he catches you and kills you or sentences you to a Fate Worse than Death, he will do it without a single word and with calm, ruthless precision. Even when he's The Voiceless you can tell that he is very, very angry.
• Thou Shall Not Kill: Another interpretation of Corvo if he doesn't kill anyone throughout the entire game.
• Touched by Vorlons: The Outsider's abilities granted to him are a major game mechanic as it is difficult (but certainly not impossible) to get through the game without them.
• Uptown Girl: He's the Downtown Boy in this case. Jessamine is Empress and Corvo is the son of a tradesman, yet they fell in love and enjoyed a secret romance (albeit an Open Secret), and eventually she and Corvo had a child.
• Villain Protagonist: If you choose the most merciless route. You can also make a case that Corvo is this in the non-lethal route. Almost none of the people he "spares" meet pleasant fates. Perhaps Corvo simply thinks that death is too good for them.
• Walking Armory: Doesn't employ a Hyperspace Arsenal so much as he packs a very large amount of small weapons at once. A few bolts for his compact crossbow, a sword that folds up into something the size of a pocketknife, a pistol, maybe some grenades and small gadgets and that's it.
• What the Hell, Hero?: The Outsider points out in the sequel that, as bad as Duke Abele is, a big reason he was able to act as he did is that he had Dunwall's, and by extension Emily's and Corvo's, backing. Indeed, it seems that Dunwall didn't much care about the Karnacan peoples' plight as long as the silver kept flowing. He also points out that had Corvo bothered to talk to Daud, Daud would've told Corvo all about Delilah, and Corvo might've been able to avert her coup, since by Corvo's own words, he only ever focused on physical threats to Emily, not magical ones.
• Working-Class Hero: Corvo was born the son of a Serkonos tradesman and rose Up Through the Ranks to become Emily Kaldwin's bodyguard. His class is still an issue in Dishonored 2 where Mortimer Ramsey, the snobbish Guardsman, laments taking orders from someone so lowborn as he drags Corvo to captivity. Delilah also taunts Emily in a "Not So Different" Remark by reminding her that the latter is also a bastard child of a commoner and royalty, just like she is. It's possible in Dishonored 2 to visit his childhood home in the Dust District, a small apartment that is obviously far more modest than his present dwelling.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • Depending on the decisions of the player, he can kill characters that are no longer useful to him.
  • Is on the receiving end of this, when ordered to be poisoned by Havelock and Pendleton after he kills the Lord Regent. Thankfully, Samuel only gave him half.

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