Abigail often dresses up as various characters during her videos, usually as a way of demonstrating the point she's trying to make. While not many of them have had more than one appearance, a few recurring roles have been featured.
Beware of untagged spoilers!
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2018–2020
Ian N. Drivel
First Appearance: Is Philosophy Just White Guys Jerking Off?
"Smash that like button if you want more drivel!"
An Australian Fortnite streamer and comic book fan who also does internet callouts and dabbles in philosophy. Has an extremely unfortunate taste in shirts.- Australian Accent: Speaks with an intentionally overblown Australian accent, which Abigail subsequently apologizes for in Ian's introductory video.
- Deliberately Bad Example: Ian's arguments are intentionally designed to demonstrate the point Abigail is not trying to make: They're completely fallacious, and in his introduction, he tries to get a response to a youtube call-out out of Immanuel Kant (Immanuel Kant died in 1804 and is very unlikely to do so.)
- Hypocritical Humour: Calls out Immanuel Kant for using the N-word in his writings by invoking Think of the Children!, all while wearing an extremely NSFW shirt and swearing constantly.
- The Immodest Orgasm: His shirt is this in visual form.
- Impossibly Tacky Clothes: Abigail described his shirt as "the single worst piece of clothing I have ever allowed to touch my body" in the comment section of his introductory video.
- Never Bareheaded: Wears a Deadpool hat in all his appearances.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: About a third of his vocabulary consists of bleeping. Though, given he's Australian, it kind of fits.
- Strawman Has a Point: Invoked Trope. Ian isn't presented to be 'wrong' in his viewpoints per se, he just makes absolutely terrible arguments to support them.
D. S. Ellis
First Appearance: Youtube: Art or Reality?
"Will you shut your face, sweetheart? I'm trying to have a Socratic dialogue."
A closeted gay Detective Sergeant turned club bouncer with a tendency towards aggression.- The Bad Guys Are Cops: In Youtube: Art or Reality? he and Strucci make a point about police officers beating the shit out of anyone who threatens capitalism.
- Censored for Comedy: Defied. His reaction to being bleeped out in editing is just hilarious.
- Cool Shades: Always wears sunglasses, including indoors and at night.
-
Fake Scot: Abigail (who is from Northern England) plays him with a Scottish accent. - Good Cop/Bad Cop: The Bad Cop to Inspector Strucci's Good Cop.
- Ignorance Is Bliss: His tense monologue at the end of Data is the most insight we've gotten into Ellis' emotional and moral code so far, and a perfect example of the desire for individual tranquility many working-class people develop in response to the constant feeling of powerlessness under capitalism."Nobody is in control of their own life. Just go in and have a pint."
- Manly Gay: Tall, muscular, wears a leather biker jacket and aviator shades, and works as a cop and bouncer. Data implies he left the police mainly for their institutionalised homophobia.
- Meaningful Name: Is named after Lindsay Ellis, who, prior to Abigail's video on Youtube authenticity, made a video about the same topic delving into the subject of emotional labor, which Ellis uses in his argumentation to call Abigail out on her privilege as a cis white man (video was published prior to her transition) with a public platform.
- Precision F-Strike: When he realizes Abigail is censoring him."Don't you f***ing censor me, you fuck!"
- Punch-Clock Villain: He just wants to do the job and go home without having to think about the implications of it.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Loves the music of Kim Petras, a trans female electropop singer, and calls a hypopthetical man who goes to Magic Mike events and her concerts "a pure braw legend".
- Redemption Rejection: The final disarming argument by P.note in the Data video reveals that Ellis clearly has a lot of baggage that he'd rather keep repressing.P.: What kind of person does it make you, that you stand here, inflicting unwelcome surveillance on people every Friday night for 13 quid an hour?!Ellis: You're makin' me think about myself.P.: ... All right?Ellis: I don't want to think about myself.
- Violent Glaswegian: He has a pronounced Glaswegian accent, a short temper and violent impulses.
- You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Explains that he really needs to put in a lot of effort into keeping his anger in check during Abigail's interrogation, which ties into arguments about emotional labor.
The Traveling Salesman / The Arsonist / Ivan Schmitz
First Appearance: Steve Bannon
"I say... you wouldn't, by any chance, happen to have... a match?"
A mild-mannered traveling salesman. A huge fan of classical music, and gravely concerned with a recent string of arson attacks.
- Berserk Button: The Arsonists' mask is already pretty flimsy but it'll slip off in a hurry when you get on the subject of his family. He immediately drops his polite demeanor when the whereabouts of his wife is inquired to. Later, when discussing his son, he's visibly distressed and emotional about the subject, even referring to him with male pronouns before catching himself and having to pull a Verbal Backspace to misgender him.
- Catchphrase: Whenever he addresses the audience directly, he'll end the monologue by finding some way to ask the audience if they have a match (such as putting a cigarette between his lips and then patting his own pockets in confusion.) This is the hint that, no matter how persuasive or dangerous he seems, he can't actually start any fires unless someone actually enables him to do it by giving him the means to do so.
- Consummate Liar: Introduces himself as a travelling salesman, as a lecturer at London St. University, as having had a poor upbringing without any privileges, ... Luckily he's smart enough to keep all of his stories together, and of course perfectly feign shock and sadness over the unfortunate fires that took place everywhere he went.
- Devil in Plain Sight: Inverted. The entire point of the character is to gradually show the viewer how fascist talking points can be hidden in plain sight while slowly gaining the trust of its target audience.
- Disappointed in You: He reacts as such when Tom enforces his bodily autonomy over the violinist's right to life, thereby abandoning his right-wing principles on abortion."I can't begin to tell you how disappointed I am in you, Tom."
- Divorce Requires Death: Burned his wife and the entire clinic she was in to death after she got an abortion without his approval.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He will occasionally express disdain for more extreme figures such as Steve Bannon and their rhetoric or methods while still expressing basically the same sentiments, reflecting how many conservative pundits will express contempt for open racism and bigotry of other right-wing figures while still arguing for policies and views that have that same mentality, just expressed in a more diplomatic manner.
- Evil Sounds Deep: The voice Abigail gave him was slightly deeper than Abigail's normal presenting voice at the time.
- Expy: Based on Schmitz and Eisenring, the titular arsonists from the Max Frisch play The Arsonists. They also posed as traveling salesmen, and they also used their charm and wit to get people to join them. His surname is later revealed to be Schmitz as a Shout-Out to the play.
- Faux Affably Evil: He's unfailingly polite with a gentle demeanor, and never raises his voice. However, it slowly becomes clear that this is little more than a way for him to trick others into accepting his poisonous ideals, by draping them in a garb of reasonability. Beyond this, he is also a unrepentant serial arsonist and murderer.
- In "Abortion and Ben Shapiro," he kidnaps Tom Gently and proceeds to connect him to a master violinist with kidney damage, so that the violinist can use Tom's kidneys to clean his blood. When Tom (understandably) objects to this, he holds up a scalpel to silence him, and makes a couple of unsubtle threats against his family, never losing his affable demeanor. It's also Double Subverted at the end of the video, when he gladly, if reluctantly, honors Tom's request to be unhooked from the violinist in contradiction with his previous stance on abortion... but not before threatening his family again, and forcing Tom to admit on video that he was wrong. Possibly triply subverted if you watch Abigail's Steve Bannon video after this one, where the arsonist remarks on a man, wife and two little girls dying in a fire.
- In his third appearance in the Climate Grief episode he's largely dropped the pretext, going on full anti-immigrant and anti-indiginous rant (casually dropping the Neo-Nazi "fourteen words" in the middle of it) with a lame disclaimer that that's what other people think tacked on at the end.
- Foil: To Abigail herself. While Abigail writes her show around informing viewers, encouraging them to think of things in new ways and understand their own insecurities, the salesman butters up the audience, works with misinformation, and pushes the audience to agree with his worldview.
- Foreshadowing: When he first addresses the audience, he casually mentions a distrust for journalists, and then tries to flatter the audience with positive horoscopes.
- Freudian Slip: In Charles Darwin vs Karl Marx, he makes a point of talking about his "daughter," but occasionally slips up and refers to him as his son. It makes him even more loathsome, as it shows he's actively misgendering his son just to adhere to his beliefs.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Was just a married man planning to start a family, but by the time we meet him, he's a dangerously effective serial arsonist.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Averted with his former wife, who had an abortion behind his back when he tried pressuring her into starting a family.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Abigail smoked when she was younger, but stopped at 17 when she saw what a smoker's lungs looked like in person. Meanwhile, the Arsonist is a proud smoker, and each video featuring him has him pull out a cigarette by the end while asking the audience for a match.
- Jordan Peterson's Ideology also demonstrates how useful this is to his cover: he always smells like smoke, which some people (like Adelaide) write off as being due to his smoking habit.
- Hate Sink: He's a Serial Killer that hides his regressively Fascistic views on immigrants, refugees, minorities, women's rights and basic individual autonomy under a faux-populist layer of charm that even the sleaziest used car salesman would call foul on.
- Heteronormative Crusader: Of course he is, as a fascist. When referring to his “daughter” he treats his identity as a harmful aberration, and worse tries to tie it into his arguments for eugenics.
- Implied Death Threat: When Tom questions his "backup plan", he pulls out a scalpel. He also makes subtle ones towards Tom's family.
- Kill It with Fire: His wife, a radio host and his family, former employers, and likely more.
- Lack of Empathy: None at all for Tom Gently, despite being a huge fan of him, as well as Tom's show being partially responsible for his radicalization.
- Leitmotif: Tends to be associated with Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat major
, which always tends to get distorted the longer he's allowed to speak. - Multiple-Choice Past: Claims to have been a waiter, then a lecturer at a London College, all before becoming a traveling salesman. Word of God in the credits of Abortion and Ben Shapiro says that he's a lot like the Joker, and that even his wife backstory could be a lie.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: His political views are explicitly based on those of Steve Bannon, although he's considerably different from Bannon in appearance, personality and background.
- Offing the Offspring: The subtitles at least mention it in one appearance. There’s “Chopin lingers on the precipice, like a man planning to murder his own son” and “Chopin relaxes, like a man realizing that he’s killed before after all, so how different will it be this time?” It remains to be seen as to whether he will actually do this.
- Put on a Bus: Sort of. He's started a mayoral campaign and is still starting fires (both literal and figurative) but hasn't appeared on-screen since Abigail made her transition public. Instead he's had his sister Ada serving as a mouthpiece.
- The Bus Came Back: In "Women, Money and the Nation", he returns as played by Abigail in drag, using her pre-transition voice.
- Pyromaniac: He's the serial arsonist mentioned in the newspapers, but never openly admits it.
- Self-Made Man: He often claims to be this, spinning tales of having worked humble, low-paying jobs in his youth, possibly as a way to endear himself to the audience, but his posh, well-educated manner of speaking and behaving tells another story.
- Shout-Out: The premise of an arsonist disguised as a salesman is ripped wholesale from Max Frisch's The Fire Raisers. Jordan Peterson's Ideology confirms his last name is Schmitz as another nod to the play.
- His first name is Ivan, which can be shortened to Van. In conjunction with his sister's name ("Adelaide" to "Ada"), this makes them a reference to Ada, or Ardor by Vladamir Nabokov. It also serves as Foreshadowing for their Villainous Incest.
- Soft-Spoken Sadist: Especially in his second appearance.
- Start of Darkness: According to him, his wife getting an abortion without telling him pushed him down a rabbit hole of right-wing ideology.
- Straw Political: He is portrayed as embodying everything wrong with modern-day ultraconservative worldviews, as well as representing a cautionary tale of how vulnerable people are towards far-right and fascist ideas, and how you wouldn't notice most of them. In Steve Bannon, the Arsonist is used by Abigail to highlight how the far-right uses superficial charm and exploits down-to-earth rhetoric to turn people against anti-racist and anti-fascist activists and light matches(a metaphor for committing hate crimes) with the arsonist. Further videos such as Abortion & Ben Shapiro and Climate Grief reveal that the Arsonist was responsible for burning his wife to death when she had an abortion and that the Arsonist believes that draconian forms of population control directed against immigrants and refugees are totally justifiable means of fighting climate change. There is room to discuss whether or not what the Arsonist does as his plotline progresses are related to the Overton window shifts that push more far right ideas into the standard right.
- Team Killer: He seems perfectly fine with killing those that are on his side ideologically, but are not completely committed to their right-wing beliefs. Such is the case with Tom Gently.
- Traveling Salesman: Of course. Though it is a while before it is explained that he sells, quite naturally, petrol.
- Unreliable Narrator: It is ultimately hard to decipher how much truth there is to his tales of his past, and it is frequently made clear that he has no qualms about lying to his audience.
- Villain with Good Publicity: As far as anyone else is concerned, he's a friendly traveling salesman, president of the Society of Music Lovers, and London mayoral candidate.
- Villainous Incest: Not only is he a murderer, but he's revealed to have a sexual relationship with his sister Adelaide at the end of Jordan Peterson's Ideology.
- Walking Spoiler: There's no way to really discuss him without mentioning that he was the Arsonist in Steve Bannon.
- Why Couldn't You Be Different?: In Charles Darwin vs Karl Marx he reveals he has a transgender child (who he goes out of his way to misgender) who became the heroic firefighter. The topic makes him ramble about the need for eugenics.
- Wicked Cultured: Sharply dressed, has a taste for classical music, and incredibly dangerous.
Niel Contentmakker
First Appearance: How to Fix the Housing Crisis
A comic book review YouTuber who is definitely only talking about comic books. Pontius Pilate
First Appearance: Elon Musk
A Steve Jobs-type professional yet casual tech CEO with plenty of blood on his hands.- Biblical Bad Guy: Based on Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea who ordered for Jesus Christ to be crucified, and who washed his hands in innocence. This allegory is used to contrast the slick and charming presentation of capitalists with the horrible crimes they commit by exploiting the working class, colonizing the planet, stealing resources and maintaining that oppressive hierarchy.
- Bloody Hands: Used as visual shorthand to signify that this guy is nowhere near as innocent as he presents himself.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Tries to sell crucifixions as social gatherings for the community to come together, and customizable badges and hoods for "execution assistants" as a way for communities to express their unique individuality. "#Squad Goals!"
- Dark Is Evil/Evil Wears Black: Wears a black turtleneck and gets an especially sinister black backdrop with red lighting in The Trouble With The Video Game Industry.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Spoke about how he recruited more women and minorities for his execution squads and how they wore the rainbow flag during Pride Month.
- Faux Affably Evil: His central trait is that he uses a warm, approachable, Silicon Valley rising-star persona to sell imperialism, exploitation, and literal murder through being the face of slick public relations campaigns.
-
Magnificent Bastard: Has perfected a comforting and casual way of adressing the audience and dismantling their concerns with cleverly worded half-truths about his insidious company. - MegaCorp: He's the COO of Empyre, a "content delivery platform for a more connected world" that buys up entire cities, states and countries and effectively becomes The Government, with security officers on every street corner."We are Empyre. And we're always right behind you!"
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: A parody of Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, Elon Musk and various tech entrepreneurs alike.
- Villain with Good Publicity: While he did face media backlash after his decision to crucify Jesus of Nazareth, he's managed to regain public approval, not least because his outward appearance and communication is calculated and fabricated in every way. He has meanwhile also managed to use various corporate-controlled media outlets to smear Jesus as a preacher of "dangerous" and "radical" ideologies and a reckless terrorist and rebellion leader who's only goal was attempting to upset the public law and order, and who therefore deserved his fate.
Lucifer
Appears in: Jordan Peterson & The Meaning of Life
Thinkest thou that Hell is but a fable?
Aye, think so still, till experience change thy mind!
Why, this is Hell, nor are we out of it.
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib'd
In one self place; for where I am is Hell
And where Hell is, there must I ever be...
Aye, think so still, till experience change thy mind!
Why, this is Hell, nor are we out of it.
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib'd
In one self place; for where I am is Hell
And where Hell is, there must I ever be...
A man who needs no introduction. Lord of Hell, Regent of the Damned, the Devil, the Adversary, the Morning Star, and the only true Jordan Peterson fan in the entire world.
- Affably Evil: His politeness seems genuine, and despite being a little sarcastic he never does much worse than sassing against God.
- Card-Carrying Villain: The devil makes no bones about concealing his nature.
- Creepy Cute: The two snakes - a python named Tigger around his shoulders, and a tiny black snake named Yoshi wrapped around his fingers are adorable. He makes a point about snakes getting a bad reputation, but actually being quite sweet.
- Deadpan Snarker: Almost constantly sarcastic.
- Feather Boa Constrictor: Courtesy of a pair of (very real) snakes. The Hilarious Outtakes have a lot of examples of them making Abigail break character.
- The Hedonist: A downplayed example; his core thesis is that Hedonism (or seeking to enjoy yourself) can be a valid meaning to search for in life and that seeking to maximize your pleasure on a lifetime basis (instead of in the short term) can work out for you if not taken too far.
- Leitmotif: Much of his video is underscored with "Danse Macabre" by Camille Saint-Saëns.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Courtesy of contact lenses and highlighted by the lighting.
- Take That!: Just the fact that Satan is a fan of Jordan Peterson qualifies as one towards Jordan Peterson.
- Vulgar Humor: Jokes about masturbation, pussy worship, and infidelity galore.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Oh lordy lordy, is he ever. Would go into Full-Frontal Assault territory if the camera went any lower.
- Wicked Cultured: Discusses Brecht and regularly quotes Goethe and Milton.
- Winged Humanoid: Black feather wings.
Tom Gently
Appears in: Abortion & Ben Shapiro
"Well hey there! Tonight we're gonna talk about abortion, the Democrats' attempts to subvert American politics, and why the Leftist discourse has gotten so toxic online. I'm Tom Gently; this is the Tom Gently show."
The fast-talking host of the right-wing radio show The Daily Fire.
- Alas, Poor Villain: While Tom's beliefs and persona are painted in a highly unsympathetic light, Abigail concedes that she doesn't believe Tom deserves to be punished in the way that he was.
- Brutal Honesty: He discusses many abortion-related topics that he accuses leftists of not wanting to have an "honest conversation" about. This is, of course, deconstructed since Abigail then goes on to do exactly that.
- Fatal Flaw: His Pride. When the Arsonist offers to let him go if he admits on camera that he was wrong, he can't bring himself to speak.
- Foil: Serves as this to Abigail. Both make videos on moral, philosophical and political issues - Abigail from the left and Tom from the right - but while Abigail presents her videos as springboards to ask larger questions, rewarding the viewer’s curiosity, Tom presents the issues as arguments and debates with clear answers, allowing his audience “the fun of intellectual victory”. This is further illustrated by how both use the same metaphor involving a chain:
- Abigail presents the chain as a series of increasingly radical beliefs that appear to be linked together until examined closely, with Shapiro slickly moving the viewer from link to link.
- Tom presents it as a slippery slope - if you believe one link in the chain (the right to choose abortion), then you’ll next believe in “abortion on demand”, then “gender ideology”, etc. until you reach socialism/Communism.
- To a lesser extent, he’s this to Ian N. Drivel. Both make cheap spurious arguments built around spotting “contradictions” and trying to crush the other guy. Reflected in their outfits: Tom dresses in a conservative suit, while Ian wears brash and frankly obscene t-shirts and onesies.
- Hypocrite: He won't live up to the same moral standards that he demands pregnant people do. He similarly expresses disdain for leftists not being willing to engage in good faith with opposing views but regularly shows a complete disinterest in the idea of any other views besides his own being worthy of serious consideration.
- Kubrick Stare: His default expression, which gives him a bit of an imposing air. He loses this trait during his kidnapping, both due to the previous hit in the head and blood loss and due to the camera angles not allowing him to do so properly, showing his vulnerability.
- Motor Mouth: During his radio show, at least. It's purely performative, as he loses it during his kidnapping.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: A blatant parody of Ben Shapiro.
- Posthumous Character: He and his family are the ones mentioned having died in the arson attack at the beginning of the Steve Bannon video.
- Relative Button: The Arsonist knows the names of his daughters, as well as his home address. This shakes Tom into compliance at first, and pleading for his freedom later.
- Straw Character: Tom represents far-right pundits, most notably Ben Shaphiro, whose aggressive bluster, self-image of unemotional logic and focus only on what they see as hard realities and demands for civil discourse are a cover for their views lacking much credibility and their disinterest in any views or facts but those which align with their worldview. Tom also represents their hypocrisy and inability to live by the same principles they demand oppressed groups do and which they frame as moral absolutes, breaking down in tears and demanding to be freed from his capture, even knowing it will lead to another person's death.
- Villainous Breakdown: His kidnapping and forced pseudo-pregnancy with the violinist completely breaks down his demeanor and worldview.
Mademoiselle Y
Appears in: Antisemitism: An Analysis
"Every night before I go to sleep in my bunker, I read a chapter of The Communist Manifesto, I moisturize my face, and I bludgeon a policeman to death with a baguette."
A French member of the French Resistance dressed as a beatnik.
- Author Avatar: Similar to the Doctor in some videos in ContraPoints, Mademoiselle Y mostly functions as the presenter of the video essay.
- Baguette Beatdown: Implied via Badass Boast (see character quote above.)
- Gratuitous French: She often speaks random French phrases despite speaking mostly in English.
- La Résistance: Is a part of it, and references the Trope Namer in occupied France.
- Recursive Crossdressing: Abigail was already mid transition during the filming of this episode, making her a woman, portraying herself as a man, and then dressing up as a woman again.
- Stealth Pun: Word of God stated in the Post Mortem stream that the Y is there because she has a Y chromosome.
The Firefighter
Appears in: Steve Bannon
"I fight fires, I hate fire. You might say I'm anti-fire."
A fireman who is implied to be The Arsonist’s “daughter” that he frets about in Charles Darwin vs Karl Marx.
- Arch Nemesis Dad: It’s implied and confirmed that the Arsonist is his dad, and that somehow he ran away and became a fireman to work against him.
- Author Avatar: Was at first just a costume for Abigail to put on...
- Bread Milk Eggs Squick:"A fire always starts with some combustible material, which we might call fuel. It could be wood, paper, charcoal, the society in which we live, anything really, everything potentially."
- Cassandra Truth: Jordan Peterson's Ideology confirms he has put two and two together that his dad is the Arsonist. Unfortunately, when he brings this up to his aunt Adelaide and tells her to cut contact for her safety, she dismisses his concerns as "cancel culture" and remains in verbal denial of the possibility, despite acknowledging the evidence stacked against her brother and pausing to reflect on how suspicious her excuses sound. With Ivan running for London mayor and Adelaide endorsing him, it seems the public doesn't accept or acknowledge the evidence either.
- Hero of Another Story: While his father and aunt talk about him like he's delusional for putting out fires and transitioning, he's saving lives by putting out his family's fires.
- Mysterious Past: We know nothing about him except that he somehow escaped his fascist family to be himself. Adelaide also mentions his "marriage [fell] apart" before he joined the fire department.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: His first (and so far only) on-camera appearance had him wearing nothing over his torso besides the suspenders for his pants.
- White Sheep: The trans son of a transphobic fascist that's both a serial killer and serial arsonist, with an Aunt who enables and hides all of his father's worst qualities and lets him follow his viewpoints to their logical conclusion. Despite that, he's somehow wound up a heroic and badass firefighter who stands against their actions in more ways than one.
Sir Nigel Piss, Historian
Appears in: Confucius (or What to Do When Elites Break the Rules)
"The Chinese never had a secular enlightenment, which is why they are bound by obsolete traditions and an obsession with the past, unlike Great Britain, where if you say anything bad about Churchill, I'll f**king have you!"
Ostensibly a historian studying Chinese philosophy, in reality a monarchist nationalist capitalist imperialist who distorts Confucius' teachings for his own means.
- Catchphrase: "The (Insert Non-Western-Culture Here) never had a secular enlightenment...", almost uniformly followed by an inaccurate slam against them.
- Hypocrite: His whole raison d'etre in the video he appears in; he will condemn pre-modernization China for having a brutal empire despite being British, sings praises about the British people for embracing freedom and rejecting tyranny despite both admitting to and tacitly endorsing the House of Lords' unelected status, and claims China is obsessed with the past and obsolete traditions while threatening violence on anyone who criticizes Churchill. Doubles as a Straw Hypocrite, and is naturally Played for Laughs.
- Straw Character: Of an Upper-Class Twit with Conservative Party leanings.
- Upper-Class Twit: The received-pronunciation accent, monocle, pipe, and royal décor tell you everything you need to know.
The Vampire Economist
First Appearance: The Trouble with the Video Games Industry
"Maybe you could start by taking out a nice... big... loan."
A vampire who's an economist, a big proponent of neoliberal economics, who argues that allowing wealth and influence to be concentrated in an ever-smaller number of hands leads to a more economically prosperous (and therefore "better") society.
- Affably Evil: He'll make slick arguments in favor of further entrenching the interests of the very wealthy... while his appearance doesn't let the viewer forget that he's doing it to suck the less fortunate dry.
- Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Friendly to his patrons who keep his lifestyle furnished, and friendly to the less well off... whom he takes advantage of.
- Knowledge Broker: In the video for Work, he acts as this for both a Chinese investment fund and the United States. For the former, he tries to persuade Cuba to build an international hotel to attract wealthy visitors which will only benefit the investors through a shell company; for the latter, when Cuba refuses to play ball, he calls the Vice-President of the US and proposes a war to make them agree.
- Man of Wealth and Taste: He's always seen drinking something expensive while wearing an impeccable suit and making his arguments.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: The character first appeared after Abigail was cast in the lead role of a production of Dracula, requiring her to get used to wearing fangs. Indeed, the subtitles catch one or two times where she slurs her words.
- Straw Character: He represents the economically-conservative "think-tank" class of experts, making arguments in favor of letting the wealthy do as they please, even if the results for the non-wealthy are horrible.
2021–present
Adelaide Sweetley-Schmitz
First Appearance: Jordan Peterson's Ideology
"This week is the one-month anniversary of the Lewisham Arson Attack: one month since an unknown arsonist savagely took the lives of five people and a homeless man."
A newspaper columnist and political commentator who rails against the anti-fire brigade and thinks wokeness has gone too far.
- Affably Evil / Faux Affably Evil: She's sweet and milquetoast when it comes to her bigotry. She wrings her hands about how yes, arson is bad, but does everyone have to be so mean and divisive about better enforcing fire safety? She repeatedly misgenders the Firefighter, and is more upset about people being wary of fire during an arson spree than the fires themselves. It's unclear whether she's genuinely doesn't realize the harm because of her Big Brother Worship or if this is an act to make him more appealing. At the end of the video, she lights the Arsonist's cigarette, perhaps symbolizing that either way, she's complicit in his violence.
- Analogy Backfire: Adelaide says her friend Baroness Plantation Warrcrimes had stones thrown at her... metaphorically. In actuality, some people just called her out on Twitter for liking an anti-firefighter tweet.
- Ambiguous Situation: Is she fully conscious that she's in cahoots with the Arsonist, is she recklessly repressing her doubts like she is her incestuous feelings for her brother, or is she just that clueless? When she gives in to her incestuous attraction, is she admitting to herself that she's collaborating with a fascist... or is it a sign that she's overcome all her doubts about her brother and is fully committed to her delusion?
- Because You Were Nice to Me: She's madly in "love" with her brother because he always took care of her.
- Big Brother Worship: "He's always taken care of me..."
- Brother–Sister Incest: The Arsonist is her older brother, and she's clearly in love with him. They kiss at the end of the video.
- Dirty Coward: She shifts the focus away from arson attacks and to the "Stalinist fire safety regulations" either because she's a complacent liberal who will not tolerate criticism and fears the "woke cancel mob"... or because she's appealing to exactly that sort of audience, pretending to be one of them in order to steer them toward fascism. If it's the former, her cowardice and victim complex definitely fit with her adoration of a protective older brother who took care of her always.
- Ignored Epiphany: There's a Running Gag that she visibly realizes just how damning the evidence against her brother is after she says it out loud to dismiss it, but then shakes it off and carries on like nothing happened.
- Informed Poverty: Adelaide laments in Violence & Protest that her brother almost had to sell his second home due to his "business" being affected by anti-arson regulations.
- Innocent Bigot / Innocently Insensitive: YMMV. She's clearly not ... fine about her nephew being a trans man, but YMMV on how much she's conscious of her bigotry and how much she's trying to be supportive. On the one hand, she exploits their relationship as evidence she's not bigoted and her comments hurt the Firefighter, who rightfully claps back. On the other hand, the Firefighter, a metaphorical expert antifascist, keeps contact with her and hopes she'll cut ties with the Arsonist if given the right information—is it misguided hope because he wants someone in his family to be good, or does he really have something to hang onto there? It's also a trope her comments about the arson killing five people and a homeless man show how completely oblivious she is to the humanity of houseless people and how comfortable she is in her position. It's sad social commentary on how her disrespect has probably gone unchallenged all her life. Her second segment is also juxtaposed with Abigail's assertion that if you don't think about your ideology, someone else will do the thinking for you, the implication being that Adelaide's letting the Arsonist do that to her. Her passivity is just as dangerous as his actions.
- Loving a Shadow: It's ambiguous, but she might have no idea that her brother is actually guilty for the arson attacks. There are clear instances of her pausing mid-defence of him, realising just how strange she sounds defending a man who enters people's homes with cans of flamable liquid during an arson crisis, but whether this leads her to realise his guilt is left ambiguous. Either way it's clearly...
- Mad Love: She's a successful columnist ready to risk her credibility because she's a spineless Dirty Coward but also because she's in love with her brother, the Arsonist.
- Mouth of Sauron: Parrots all of her brother's talking points and praises his ideology by making him look good in the press. Her brother hasn't been seen proper in the show for some time, presumably due to the difficulty portraying him since Abigail transitioned, but her column informs the public, and the audience, that he's still a danger.
- Mythology Gag: "Adelaide" is a name Abigail considered for herself before settling on Abigail. Appropriately she's the first new character introduced since she came out.
- News Parody / Brand X: The Dailygraph is clearly a composite of The Daily Telegraph and The Times.
- Patriotic Fervor: She says she was raised to believe Britain was the greatest country in the world, including its history.
- In praising Britain and the Royal Family, Adelaide implements the generalised wording Abigail explains the press use to imply people who hold differing opinions, such as not caring for the monarchy, are not really part of the nation.
"I LOVE Britain. I love the values that bind us ALL together." - Punny Name: Her column is called "Ms. Information" (like misinformation).
- No Social Skills: She may be a master manipulator... but then why is she constantly blurting out unnecessary details of her attraction to her brother?
- Obliviously Evil: Either really commited to her frail, sickly sweet act, willfully self-deluded or the smoothest tool in the shed. The subtitles while her theme plays imply her ignorance, willful or otherwise.
- Shout-Out: Her first name is Adelaide, which can be shortened to Ada. In conjunction with her brother's name ("Ivan" to "Van"), this makes them a reference to Ada, or Ardor by Vladamir Nabokov. It also serves as Foreshadowing for their Villainous Incest.
- Skewed Priorities: She calls people on social media cruel and heartless for not caring about a Union Jack getting slightly singed in an arson attack on an orphanage near Buckingham Palace.
- Straw Political: She represents ostensible liberals who are really more concerned with not having to change anything or be inconvenienced in any way than with really helping people, and will be actively unhelpful if threatened. (If you read the subtitles over the credits, Abigail describes her as a liberal in bed with a fascist.) She also has strong shades of TERFnote ideology, with her fixation on uteruses as a sign of womanhood and her co-opting feminist language to make the Fireman out to be sexist for not wanting to be misgendered. The TERF symbolism loses all subtlety in Violence & Protest where she directly lifts talking points from anti-trans groups (with a few words changed to make it anti-fire safety) and finally outright makes the comparison herself.
- Too Much Information: We don't want to know how handsome your brother is. We don't want to know about his smell of cigarettes. Stop it, Adelaide. Stop. It.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: She might be pretending to be a scared, helpless and peace-loving person while intentionally furtherin her brother's fascist agenda (her offhand mention of the mayoral election in the second segment of the video in Jordan Peterson's ideology before she endorses him as a candidate and lights his cigarette in the third segment certainly seems to support that interpretation) but then again, her general clulessness and TMI-ness cast doubt on that interpretation too.
Kelly Slaughter
First Appearance: Food, Beauty, Mind
''"Apart from work, what are you passionate about?"
"... Uh... what do you mean?"''
American Girlboss: Silicon Valley's Hottest New Millionaire. She is the founder and CEO of FinTech startup Fierce as well as Siopi.
- Family Versus Career: Kelly went back to work the day after her second daughter was born.
- Hypocrite: Claims to be a feminist, but made one of her employees work during maternity leave.
- Informed Poverty: She seems to think graduating from Stanford with $180 thousand in the bank and a job at her mother's law firm is starting "from the bottom", and that she is successful solely from working hard.
- Meaningless Villain Victory: As discussed in the ending notes, for all her wealth and success made at the expense of trapping the vulnerable in inescapable debt? She's utterly miserable. Trapped by her own rigid standards with no personal life, no inner life, and no meaningful relationships. When asked what's in her life other than work, she can't even comprehend the question, never mind answer it.
- Mockumentary: We are introduced to her through a (fake) New York Times interview.
- New Job as the Plot Demands: She's always a CEO in tech, but she founds a different company every time, from payday loans to facial recognition software, to a corporatised mental health app designed to bust unions.
- Obliviously Evil: Kelly doesn't seem to even realize that she effectively created a payday loan company pushing people into massive debts, or that she makes her employees' lives miserable by holding them to her own workaholic standards. In her second appearance, she cheerfully describes an utterly dystopic facial-recognition program and seems to honestly believe that it's feminist because she's recruiting all women to work on it.
- Self-Made Man: Spoofed. Kelly mentions that she had to work hard for where she is now, but mentions that she graduated from Stanford with 180k in her bank account and got a job in her mom's law firm. She also acts like a "does-it-all" woman who is a mother and a businesswoman but often lets it slip that she actually has a lot of hired help other women with less means would have no way of affording. In her second appearance, she also lets it slip that her facial recognition program depends almost entirely on Amazon hardware and Mechanical Turk gig workers to perform even its most base functions.
- Straw Political: Of Girlboss Feminist executives and CEO's who use progressive rhetoric to cover up that they are just as mercenary and unethical as their male counterparts and represent diversity that doesn't actually help anyone outside of a high earning demographic and just allows consumers to overlook shady practices and inventions by believing they are supporting women or other minorities.
- Workaholic: It becomes increasingly apparent that Kelly has little to no life outside her career.Kelly, describing the birth of her first child: I thought, I'm in labor, but I'm not working.
- The mise-en-scène in her shots often depict her as trapped by her job. In her first appearance, there are bars outside the window in the background. In her third appearance, she's framed against a glass display of taxidermy, with the animals looking out away from her, suggesting she's an exhibit in a zoo.
Natasha Mikailovna Orchidectomy
Appears in: Islamophobia
A Russian spy embedded in Britain, who has found her life of international spying significantly less interesting than she thought it would be with the end of the Cold War.
- At Least I Admit It: She says she might be a secret Leftist infiltrator, but at least she's an honest one.
- Expy: Natasha is the kind of femme fatale who wouldn't be out of place in a Bond movie (Russian, classy and wears a lot of black, foiled by her handsome British counterpart). Her problem is that she isn't in one.
- Mythology Gag: Abigail is part of the podcast Kill James Bond!, where she has a running gag of being distracted by some of the sexier Bond girls, starting with Russian agent Tatiana Romanova
- Punny Name: "Orchidectomy" note is not a real Russian last name. It is, however, the word for testicle removal surgery.
- Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Laughs at the idea that people might be safe from arrest and prosecution just because they haven't done anything wrong.You decadent Westerners... you think you have nothing to fear just because you didn't do anything wrong? Oh, no, my friends! If you don't commit a crime, we can simply build the crime around you!
Trixie Mephistopheles
First Appearance: The Hidden Rules of Modern Society
A demon lawyer from the firm Beelzebub, Beelzebub & Jones.
- Deal with the Devil: Trixie says she gave Devin from LegalEagle "seven years of fame, fortune, and dashing good looks, and he gave me his soul".
- Love Theme: Acoustic music plays when she talks about marriage, and the camera pans to a portrait of her presumed love interest beside the fireplace.
