Characters / Figment

The cast of Figment and its sequel, Figment 2: Creed Valley. Beware spoilers, marked or unmarked.

---

Main duo

Dusty

The voice of the mind’s courage. Dusty hasn’t been needed for a long time and has been spending his time relaxing at his house with his scrapbook…that is until his book gets stolen which only begins his newest adventure.

• Allegorical Character: In Creed Valley, it becomes especially clear that Dusty represents the man whose mind the games take place in. They're both well-meaning, but very stubborn. They even share the same voice actor.
• Ambiguously Human: Dusty looks like a human wearing a deer onesie, but it could be that that is his actual body.
• Blood Knight: He's very eager to fight Nightmares because he sees them as Always Chaotic Evil, and he is usually frustrated whenever a Nightmare escapes before he can defeat it.
• Genius Bruiser: Although he likes fighting more than anything else, he is also great at solving puzzles when necessarily. Enforced because puzzles and combat are both big parts of the gameplay.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: He's the protagonist, and he always fights with a wooden sword.
• Heroic BSoD: In Creed Valley, Dusty completely loses his will to keep going after his repeated attempts at fighting and capturing the Jester fail, admitting to himself and Piper that he "makes everything worse".
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Angry and rude to everyone around him, especially in the first game, but he genuinely cares about The Mind and his friend Piper.
• No Song for the Wicked: Inverted. In the first game, Dusty, the protagonist, is the only major character who does not sing, while all the villains do. He finally gets a chance to shine in the sequel, and he's pretty good.
• Scrap Heap Hero: At the start of the first game, he's been out of work for so long he's out of shape and is fairly cynical; he gets better later.

Piper

Dusty's longtime companion, a cute birdlike creature.

• Allegorical Character: In Creed Valley, it's heavily implied that she represents the wife of the man whose mind we're in. She argues with Dusty when he's set in his ways, much like how the wife argues with the man, and she and the wife share the same voice actress.
• Determinator: When Dusty starts losing the will to go on, she’s the one usually trying to urge him on or find a solution herself.
• Keet: She's usually very cheerful and energetic.
• The Pollyanna: She's implied to be the voice of the Mind's optimism.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: When the Fear-Of-Loss is about to kill her and Dusty, Piper counters by singing a gentle, tender song about how life does have value and meaning to it, despite what the Fear-Of-Loss believes.

The Nightmares

In general:

• Always Chaotic Evil: All nightmares are evil creatures who relish in terrorizing the Mind.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: All the nightmares are embodiments of common phobias, although the Fear-Of-Loss embodies a deeper kind of fear and trauma.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The three nightmares in the first game are all trying to overrun the Mind with fear, but none are working together. The Thief is the overarching threat though.
• Color Motif: Each of the nightmares in the first game is primarily black along with another color. Each nightmare's color combination fits their personality:
  • The Plague: Black and Red. This fits his violent, temperamental personality.
  • The Spider Queen: Black and White. This fits her calmer, more menacing personality.
  • The Fear-Of-Loss: Black and Purple. This is fitting for how he's the most dangerous nightmare.
• Evil Is Angular: All three nightmares in the first game have long and pointy masks.
• Malevolent Masked Man: Each nightmare has a masklike face. When the Plague, the Spider Queen, and the Black Hog die, their masks are left behind, but the Fear-Of-Loss disappears entirely.

The Plague

The fear of disease.

• Creepy High-Pitched Voice: He has a screechy, sickly high-pitched voice to fit his comically villainous personality.
• Dance Battler: Downplayed with The Plague who tapdances while singing his villain song and throwing beakers of poison at you.
• Kill It with Water: The Plague is killed when Dusty dumps water on him.
• Laughably Evil: The Plague is the most humorous of the evil nightmares, between his over-the-top voice acting, constant anger, dancing to his own Villain Song, and more. He's also the source of the game's only Toilet Humor moments, if you're into that too.
• Mad Bomber: The Plague fights by throwing vials of disease everywhere.
• No Indoor Voice: The Plague never speaks below a shrill scream.
• Plague Doctor: Invoked. The Plague, a nightmare representing the fear of disease, has a face resembling a plague doctor mask.
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: The Plague does this in his song to avoid saying "shit".
  Your blood is boiling and your headache split
  You'll lose your lunch and smell like... eh, something nasty!
• Trrrilling Rrrs: The Plague trills his Rs a few times, fitting for how comically sinister he is:
  Drrrrenched in sweat, and with a scream / you wake up frrrom my fever dream!
• Unusual Euphemism: Done via a pun. At one point, the Plague says "What the health?!" It's a pun on "hell", and the word choice is fitting as something the embodiment of disease would hate.

The Spider Queen

The fear of spiders.

• Faux Affably Evil: She acts rather dignified and polite, but still has every intention of taking over the mind and killing the heroes.
• French Jerk: The Spider Queen is a villain with a French accent.
• Giant Spider: She's a spider who is much larger than Dusty and Piper.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: An evil spider queen.
• Spiders Are Scary: She's a sinister Giant Spider who represents the fear of spiders.

The Thief/Fear-Of-Loss

The fear of loss.

• Arch-Enemy: Although he's only one of three independent villains in the first game, he can be considered the "main" villain of the game due to Dusty's personal hatred of him, since he steals Dusty's beloved scrapbook at the beginning of the game, and also because he's the biggest threat. It's no wonder that he's also the Final Boss.
• Artifact Mook: He invokes Mooks from the previous bosses.
• Casting a Shadow: All of his attacks involve dark energy. This is fitting for someone who embodies loss and emptiness.
• Character Catchphrase: He sings these two particular lines from his song multiple times throughout the game:
  Throw up your hands in sadness
  And lose yourself in the madness! Dance!
• Defiant to the End: Even after a solid thrashing from Dusty, the Thief is still not willing to let him have the last word by threatening to drop his scrapbook into the clouds if killed. And among his last words, he claims that he always wins in the end.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Being what he is, he can't imagine anyone coping with losing something or someone they care about, such as Piper appreciating things while they last. His attempt at a Sadistic Choice after you win the final showdown fails because he doesn't expect Dusty to willingly sacrifice his scrapbook.
• Eviler than Thou: He considers himself superior to the Plague and the Spider Queen, because he represents a much deeper fear than they do.
  Piper: We beat the snot out of the other nightmares. You're next!
  Fear-Of-Loss: Ha! Stray, second-rate phobias. Mere fabrications of a much deeper trauma. I am the true meaning of fear!
• Final Boss: He's the final Nightmare faced at the end of Figment by Dusty and Piper.
• Harsh Vocals: During the final encounter with him, he sings in a much gravellier tone than usual, perfectly fitting the intense metal style of his song.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Four arms perfect for stealing whatever’s in reach.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His mask has angry red eyes, and he's the main antagonist of the first game.
• Rotten Rock & Roll: Fear-Of-Loss's Villain Song uses this genre, late in the game he uses the front bumper and signal lights from the crashed car in the Black Bug Room as a stage and special effects lightshow respectively and during the last part of his boss fight he metal screams instead of talking.
• Southern Gentleman: Zig-zagged. He has a strong Southern drawl most of the time, but while he is rather well-spoken, he's also an evil, sadistic monster who revels in the misery of others. Not exactly "gentleman" material.
• Straw Nihilist: The Fear-Of-Loss is a cackling maniac who believes that nothing in life matters, and he tries to get the protagonist, Dusty to give in to despair. Justified because the Fear-of-Loss is a nightmare in a man's Mental World, representing the fear and despair that the man feels from falling into a coma due to a car crash.
  Fear-Of-Loss: Your struggle is pointless. Everything is!

The Black Hog

The fear of the dark, who is battled in the opening of Creed Valley.

• Animalistic Abomination: A big, dark, twisted-looking hog who controls darkness.
• Casting a Shadow: He has the power to create clouds of darkness. Justified because he is the literal embodiment of the fear of the dark.
• Dark Is Evil: Justified, because he is an Anthropomorphic Personification of the fear of darkness. He has black fur, spreads darkness around the world, and hates light.
• Evil Is Bigger: He's an evil nightmare, and one of the biggest characters in the whole series (not counting the humans.)
• Evil Sounds Deep: He's an evil nightmare with a deep, growly voice.
• Fat Bastard: He's a giant, heavy hog who tries to kill Dusty.
• Full-Boar Action: A huge, frightening hog who is willing to charge at or trample his enemies.
• Paper Tiger: While he looks like a big monster, when light is shined on him, he reveals his true form: a small, defenseless pig.
• Rotten Rock & Roll: He sings a grungy rock song that is perfect for his deep, gravelly voice.
• Sinister Swine: A big, scary horned hog who represents the fear of the dark.
• Starter Villain: Of the sequel. He bears no importance beyond the beginning of game and represents the "everyday" threats Dusty deals with.
• Weakened by the Light: When light shines on him, he reverts to a small, weak form that is easily damaged.

Other inhabitants (WARNING! Contains Unmarked Spoilers!)

Other inhabitants of the mind.

Mayor Relic

The mayor of the town Dusty lives near.

• Reasonable Authority Figure: Relic is the benevolent leader of the mind.
• Rhymes on a Dime: He "speaks" by rapping, and his raps always rhyme.

The Jester

First mistaken for the fear of clowns, the Jester is truly the embodiment of the Mind's joy and childishness, long since abandoned.

• Ambiguous Gender: They are always referred to as a "they," due to their Multiple Head Case. Judging by their voices, it's possible that the round head is male, and the square head is female, but this isn't made specifically clear.
• Anti-Villain: The Jester ultimately bears no ill will to The Mind and just wants to fix the problems on their end. Unfortunately, due to them having been forgotten and the methods they use Mayor Relic and Dusty end up believing them to be Nightmares that originally caused the problems.
• Berserk Button: When Dusty locks them in a cage, they drop their joking personality, grow enormous, and chase down Dusty in a nightmarish Advancing Boss of Doom sequence.
• Beware the Silly Ones: The Jester initially seems like your typical, buffoonish Villainous Harlequin, but they become enraged and absolutely terrifying later on. But after their redemption, they go back to being fun and comical again.
• Big Bad: Of the second game, although they turn out to be not all that bad in the end.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: It's difficult to see during gameplay, but their black eye sockets have small white pupils in them. Subverted in that they're Good All Along.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Heavily contrasts the previous antagonists of Figment by not actually being a Nightmare, and not actually being evil - they just want to have fun again and not be ignored or locked away.
• Dance Battler: Downplayed. Much like the Plague in the first game, they're constantly dancing while they fight.
• Evil Brit: The Jester's square head has a strong British accent, and the Jester is initially believed to be the game's main antagonist. Subverted in that they're Good All Along.
• Final Boss: The last level involves Dusty confronting the Jester in the core of the Moral Compass. Although, in an unusual twist, you beat them by not fighting, even though they're trying to fight you.
• Good All Along: Dusty assumes that they're an evil Nightmare and becomes dead set on killing them (and later capturing them, when killing them doesn't work. Later on, Dusty discovers that the Jester actually is not a Nightmare, but a rightful resident of the Mind just like him.
• Monster Clown: Deconstructed. The Jester certainly looks creepy, and their love of chaos sounds sinister. Dusty and Piper believe the Jester to be a Nightmare that represents the fear of clowns... but they're way more than that. They're actually the embodiment of the Mind's sense of fun and play. They only become antagonistic once they realize that Dusty thinks they're evil.
• Multiple Head Case: Has two masked heads that each speak in a different voice and act like a comedy duo.
• Non-Ironic Clown: Although they initially seem like a Monster Clown, they actually represent the Mind's childish innocence, and they only became antagonistic because they were abandoned and treated like a monster.
• Resurrective Immortality: The Jester can come back even after being destroyed, Piper notes that it shouldn't be possible. This is because they're a part of the mind, like Dusty, and can't simply be destroyed.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: The Jester is good deep down. It's only when Dusty tries to lock them in a cage that the Jester realizes that Dusty thinks they're evil. This causes them to go berserk and try to destroy the Mind, no longer caring what anyone thinks of them. Dusty calms them down and helps them rejoin their place as important residents of the Mind.
• Villainous Harlequin: Appearance-wise, they're more harlequin than clown. It also helps that their name is literally The Jester.
• With Friends Like These...: Twice during the sequel, Dusty manages to get on the Jester's good side, unfortunately the Jester's idea of having fun with Dusty still involves summoning enemies and shooting fireworks everywhere regardless. Dusty even lampshades it during the finale.
  The way you celebrate is kinda killing me.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: They are absolutely heartbroken when they realize that Dusty thinks they're an evil Nightmare who deserves to be locked up. This makes them go berserk and chase Dusty down in a frightening sequence, and then later, they try to break the Mind and make him go insane. Dusty manages to make up for his mistakes and help reform them back to their original, kindhearted selves.

Opinions

Inhabitants of Creed Valley, who are heavily influenced by the mind shifting between Open and Closed.

Humans

The humans inhabiting the real world of the Figment series.

"The Mind"

The one whose mind the series takes place in. "The Mind" is a hardworking young man with a wife and a little daughter.

• Afraid of Clowns: Subverted. When the Jester first appears, Dusty assumes that the Mind has coulrophobia, and that the Jester is the Nightmare representing that fear. As it turns out, the Jester actually represents the Mind's sense of childhood innocence and fun. Because of this, it could be that the Mind actually likes clowns.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Everyone in the mind world refers to both him and their world as "The Mind." His real name is currently unknown.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: Downplayed. His desire to buy a house for his family turns him into The Workaholic, causing him to spend less time with a family, which in turn causes conflict with his wife. In the end of Creed Valley, he learns to loosen up and put his family first. He abandons the idea of buying the house altogether and has a happy night with his family.
• Good Parents: He works hard at his job because he cares for his family and wants them to have a happy life.
• Mental World: The series primarily takes place within his mind, hence his nickname.
• Quirky Ukulele: He used to play the ukulele when he was younger, but he dropped it when he became more serious and work-oriented. At the end of Creed Valley, he buys a new ukulele and plays music with his family to show how he has changed, and how he's willing to have fun once in a while.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: One of the unlockable memories in Creed Valley reveals the reason why the Mind wants to buy a house: Because when he was a kid, his father told him that he will only be a "real man" if he can buy a house for his future family. It's implied that, while his main goal is to provide for his family, he also feels the need to impress his own father.
• The Workaholic: In Creed Valley, he has been putting in extra hours at the office so he can afford the house he is determined to buy for his family. At the end, the Jester reminds him that life isn't just about work, and encourages him to have fun and spend time with his family.