Characters / Psychonauts: The Real World

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Thorney Towers Residents

Dr. Caligosto Loboto, D.D.S.

Voiced by: Nick Jameson

"When you're a dentist, you have to learn to have a sense of humor, you know. It helps to calm the patients down."

A Depraved Dentist, Evil Genius and Mad Scientist, Dr Caligosto Loboto is the administrator of Thorney Towers. While details on his past are scarce, he had apparently been hauled into another asylum for his depraved dentistry and escaped to the abandoned Thorney Towers, which he took over and used in a plot to build an army of psychic death tanks.

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• Abusive Parents:
  • As revealed at the end of the second game, he left his kid at Whispering Rock. Leaving his kid alone at camp isn't great parenting to begin with, but assuming he's referring to one of the campers from the first game, Loboto removed his own kid's brain and was going to put it in a psychic death tank. Going one further, his kid is implied to be Bobby Zilch, meaning his parenting is so awful his son is absolutely loaded with daddy issues.
  • His own parents were prejudiced against psychics, to the point of giving their son a lobotomy upon finding out that he was born with psychic powers.
• Affably Evil: Keeps a cheerful attitude and tone even as he's telling people the horrible things he's going to do to them.
• Artificial Limbs: His right arm has been replaced with a three-pronged claw. That doubles as a pepper grinder. Also, his eyes look like a pair of penlights.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Yes, his obsession with dentistry and his childish mindset aren't too intimidating at first, but he's deceptively cunning and has consistently kept Raz and the other agents on their toes.
• Body Horror: If the giant mental version of him from Rhombus of Ruin is any indication, then not only is his pepper grinder arm held on to his body with leather straps, but his shower cap is concealing his exposed brain. This pops up again for a brief moment in Psychonauts 2, while another copy of himself is cleaning out his dentist hat of Raz and Oleander.
• Brain Theft: His plan is to steal the brains of Psychic Children to create Psychic Death-Tanks and conquer the world.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: For all his eccentric behavior he's still someone who can de-brain people with a little dentistry knowledge and pepper. And his services are in demand enough for him to be moonlighting.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Albeit a dangerous one, bringing us such lines as "You have the insanity of a manatee!" Rhombus of Ruin reveals this is likely the result of the botched lobotomy his parents tried to remove his psychic abilities with. The second game has him holding a stronger grip on reality thanks to Raz's influence, though he's still not all there.
• Disney Villain Death: Even less than that. You don't fight him at all. Instead, Raz uses telekinesis to drop Sam/Mr Pokeylope's brain into the tank, which blasts Loboto off the top of Thorney Towers, presumably to his doom. However, The Rhombus of Ruin reveals he survived.
• Depraved Dentist: Amoral but cheerful at best and actively sadistic at worst. In The Rhombus of Ruin, Raz helps find his moral compass, so while he's still not all there, he at the least isn't going to commit any major acts of villainy anymore.
• The Dragon: His orderly, Crispin Whytehead. He's this himself to Coach Oleander. After the first game it's revealed he's also this to Gristol.
• Easily Forgiven: In 2, he's detained but welcomed back and given gifts to help him feel better. Considering he's a) a lobotomy survivor, courtesy of his parents no less, and b) under threat of a much more powerful, capable threat, the Psychonauts probably feel he needs care more than punishment. The only real problem he brings is the fact that he won't tell who his boss is, and even then he's been hypnotised to be terrified of fessing up about their plans so it's hardly his own fault.
• Employee of the Month: In the opening of 2, Sasha, Milla and Oleander declare him Psychonaut of the year, which comes with a goods package and a tropical vacation. It's all a ruse and a means to pry his boss' name out of him, and it all takes place in a mental construct built by Sasha to help interrogate him.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In the post-game for 2, he leaves Sasha's lab through Otto's transit system, telling Raz that he's genuinely reformed now, and that he has to hurry back to camp because he left his kid there.
  Raz: Dr. Loboto! Where do you think you're going?
  Loboto: The green man told me to wait in the Brain Bumbler.
  Raz: That's not the Brain Tumbler.
  Loboto: Oh. I guess I'm escaping, then. Bye! Please don't tell. You know I'm a reformed man. You were there! You saw me!
  Raz: Hmmm.
  Loboto: Plus, I need to get back to camp. I left my kid there!
  Raz: Wait, what?
• Evil Counterpart: It's easy to see him as Raz's Foil, being that their both psychics with very bad relationships with their families for being such. Main differences are that Loboto's parents did hate him and that Loboto worked with criminals.
• Evil Genius: He may or may not have had a role in developing the Brain Tanks and Linda's mutations, and managed to "proof" Crispin against use of psychic powers.
• Glasgow Grin: Maybe. He has what looks like a facial scar that makes him look like he's got a perpetual grin. Given the heavily stylized art of the series however, it might just be a quirk of his character design. His HD model from Rhombus of Ruin makes it much more visible and it noticeably doesn't open with the rest of his mouth when he talks, suggesting that it is a scar.
• The Heavy: Serves as this for Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin. He's the one who kidnapped Truman Zanotto, but he says he was hired by someone else who also wants' Raz' brain and keeps their identity secret.
• Heel–Face Turn: A downplayed example. After beating Monstroboto and finding his moral compass by exploring his past, he seems to have a moment of clarity and is told by Raz that he can set things right. He does this by stopping his experiments, freeing the Psychonauts and his minions, and gathering them all together so they can escape. However, just because he's had a change of heart doesn't mean he stopped being insane, so he triggers his base's self-destruct mechanism while everyone's still inside it. Granted, he's not really antagonizing them by doing this and tells them to flee. Also, there's the small matter of Loboto's client, which he would tell the Psychonauts about, but is literally incapable of doing so due to brainwashing.
• Hypocritical Humor: He tells Raz in confidence that he thinks Oleander's insane... despite the fact that he also has the "insanity of a manatee".
• Lean and Mean: He's skinny as a rail and a villain in the first game and in the Rhombus of Ruin.
• Mad Scientist: Hides out in a lab at the top of Thorney Towers, poking at brains.
• The Man Behind the Man: Coach Oleander is the one behind him in the first game. In Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin, he is reveals to have someone else behind him to kidnap Truman Zanotto and attempt to steal Raz' brain. The proper sequel reveals that someone else to be Gristol.
• Meaningful Name: Aside from the obvious reference to his role of removing the campers' brains in the first game, his name also serves as foreshadowing to the fact that part of his Freudian Excuse involves a botched lobotomy from his psychic-hating parents that (likely) made him go insane.
• The Mob Boss Is Scarier: In the second game, while he's resolved the trauma that made him Ax-Crazy, he is far, far too scared of Gristol to willingly reveal what Gristol paid him to do.
• Open Heart Dentistry: Provides the page quote.
  Dogen: What do you think's wrong with my brain, doctor?
  Dr. Loboto: How should I know? I'm a dentist! But here's what I do know: if the tooth is bad, we pull it!
  • More notably, his actions show him frequently working with biology to mutate fish into his minions (as he did with Linda and the fish guards in The Rhombus of Ruin) and safely remove people's brains rather than anything even remotely related to dentistry.
• Psycho for Hire: He's definitely psychotic, and he describes himself as a freelance agent in Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin, where he reveals he's "moonlighting" by working for someone else behind Oleander's back.
• Psychopathic Manchild: An example that's played somewhat tragically. Loboto is dangerous and insane, but he also has a stunted, child-like mentality, likely brought on by abuse by his parents and his botched lobotomy as a child. Once the Psychonauts learn his true history they can't help but pity him, with Milla in particular hoping to help him.
• Punch-Clock Villain: In the second game, where he's had his trauma fixed, but not his fear of Gristol, so he remains reluctantly loyal.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: In Rhombus of Ruin, Loboto's moral compass is returned and he decides to give up his experiments and let the Psychonauts go, but is still insane enough to trigger the Self-Destruct Mechanism before they've escaped.
• Tongue-Tied: In 2, while he would actually like to tell Sasha the identity of the true villain a combination of fear as well as hypnotic suggestion prevents him from doing so outright.
• Tragic Villain: Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin reveals that his insanity was caused by a botched lobotomy his parents had performed on him simply because he was born psychic. As a result, he has a childlike personality that is very easily manipulated with fear and validation, a trait that is chronically taken advantage of by much more mentally-sound people.
• Unreliable Narrator: The memory vault "Psychonauts Ruin Everything" shows how he viewed the events of Rhombus of Ruin: He sees Raz, Milla, Sasha, Oleander and Lili as punks who broke into his lab, assaulted his workers, interrupted his bath, destroyed his mental dollhouse and kidnapped him in their jet plane. It's possible that his insanity causes him to perceive them in such a manner.
• Unusual Euphemism: Aside from his famous "Insanity of a Manatee" quote, he's rather fond of using dentistry related terms even when they're not appropriate. In Rhombus of Ruin, he refers to Oleander as having "halitosis" while his hand gesture makes it clear he means "insanity".
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: In The Rhombus of Ruin, he sets off his base's self-destruct and manages to escape from the heroes...though he actually just stowed away on their jet, and Psychonauts 2 starts with his interrogation.
  • In Psychonauts 2, if the player goes back to Sasha's lab during the post-game, Loboto escapes captivity once again, fleeing through the hatch of the OttoBON.

Crispin Whytehead

Voiced by: Dwight Schultz

"My eyes may be half gone, but I would recognize the mad doctor anywhere!"

The Dragon to Dr. Loboto and the orderly of Thorney Towers. Was once an inmate under Fred's orderly station, but turned the tables by driving Fred mad by beating him at a game of Waterloo-O. He is half blind.

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• The Corrupter: He's the one who drove Fred insane by beating him again and again at a board game until he snapped. Given he seems pretty smug about it in Fred's Memory Vaults and seized the opportunity to take over Fred's Orderly position, it's very likely he enjoyed the process.
• Deadpan Snarker: He pretty much spends his time mocking Fred and snarking's pretty much his only defense. He crumples fairly quickly once Fred is able to assert authority once again.
• The Dragon: To Dr. Loboto.
• Dirty Coward: Once Fred is able to confront him, Crispin quickly cowers before him, even referring to him as Head Orderly Bonaparte.
• Evil Brit: He has the accent. It's only natural for the nemesis of the French-descended Fred Bonaparte.
• Exit, Pursued by a Bear: In this case, a newly freed and very angry Fred Bonaparte apparently fully intent on strangling him. This marks the last time Crispin is seen in the game.
• Forehead of Doom: He has a very large forehead, to the point where his facial features are squashed down to make room for it.
• Gonk: In a setting filled with bizarre-looking humans, Crispin seems to be deliberately designed to be particularly ugly.
• Oh, Crap!: His reaction to Fred no longer in his jacket.
  Fred: Inmate Whytehead.
  Crispin: Chief orderly Bonaparte... You're-
  Fred: Armed?
• No-Sell: Doctor Loboto has specifically shielded him from mental intrusion, meaning that Raz cannot enter his mind.
• Paper Tiger: While cocky and dismissive as a guard, the moment Fred asserts authority Crispin folds like a sheet of paper.
• Smarter Than You Look: Fred seemed to find so, anyway; Fred's memories show him drooling in the corner of his padded cell before baffling him with the first of many Waterloo-O wins against him, and Napoleon refers to him as an "invalid" while criticizing Fred for the whole thing.
• Uncertain Doom: Crispin disappears entirely from the game once Raz tricks him into letting him on the elevator, exiting pursued by an angry Fred Bonaparte. It's not certain if Fred simply chased him off or if he made good on his promise to strangle the clown.
• The Unfought: Raz simply needs to get a proper disguise to fool him (not difficult considering his terrible eyesight) into letting him into the upper levels of the asylum. This in turn means helping the three inmates' issues to get the parts.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Fred saw him alone and unhappy looking in his cell and offered to play a game with him. In return, Crispin beat Fred at the game over and over again until Fred went insane, took over his position as orderly, and mocks him as he walks around in a strait jacket.
• Vocal Dissonance: His voice is bored and monotonous, but his laugh is a wild, unhinged cackle.

Boyd Cooper

Voiced by: Alan Blumenfeld

"Hi Mom, look at me! I'm tangled in a web of deception!"

A Cloudcuckoolander Conspiracy Theorist who once had a job as a department store guard, but was fired, resulting in him going crazy, burning down the store and being taken into an asylum. Later, he's approached to become the Asylum's guard and hypnotically instilled with a split personality called "The Milkman" to potentially destroy the Asylum and eliminate all evidence.

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• Cheating with the Milkman: Inverted: According to the Li-Po document, Boyd's mother cheated on his father, who was a Milkman. These memories are likely why his vengeance fueled persona is represented by the Milkman.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Because of his paranoia, he is very detached from reality and goes on odd, bizzare tangents about conspiracies that barely connect with each other.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Is first seen outlining a massive conspiracy against him in chalk on the walls of the Asylum gates, and his house in his mental world is dedicated entirely towards unraveling the titular Milkman Conspiracy.
• Dissonant Serenity:
  • "I am the Milkman. My milk is delicious."
  • After he burns down the Asylum and the implants Coach Oleander put inside his head leave his mind, he cheerfully asks the other asylum patients if they'd like to split a cab... while the asylum burns behind him.
• Fighting from the Inside: Apart from his Censors, he has a network of spies who try to expose the Milkman, showing his resistance. They even fight the Rainbow Squirts and would have won if not for the Milkman himself.
• Going Postal: After he was fired, he burnt down his former workplace with molotov cocktails made out of milk bottles.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: Formally a department store guard who burned down the building as retaliation after being fired. He was later brought in to act as the guard of the asylum while being given his Milkman persona.
• The Jekyll Is a Jerk: Boyd Cooper is ultimately revealed to possess an Enemy Within just waiting to take him over. Known as the Milkman, he's a ruthless destroyer created by Coach Oleander in order to burn down the Asylum and destroy all evidence of Dr Loboto's activities. Worse still, Raz accidentally awakens the Milkman during his attempts to get into the Asylum. But as nasty as this other personality is, Boyd isn't exactly a nice guy himself: a delusional paranoiac and conspiracy theorist, he will endlessly ramble on about the covert groups he believes to be responsible for ruining his life, oblivious to Raz's growing exasperation. Plus, he was fired from his last job as a department store guard for randomly interrogating shoppers out of sheer paranoia - and retaliated against his dismissal by burning down the store.
• Mad Libs Dialogue: When left alone, Boyd talks aloud about his various conspiracies, which are bits of dialogue strung together at random.
• Manchurian Agent: His "Milkman" persona is psychically implanted. After he completes his task, figments of the Milkman, the Den Mother, a G-Man and a Rainbow Squirt float out of his head and he drops his creepy monotone.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: According to the Li-Po backstory document, he wound up the middle of fifteen kids after his mother married her lover. The resentment of no longer being an only child and the center of attention apparently contributed to his paranoid tendencies.
• Middle Child Syndrome: The Li-Po document reveals that going from an only child, doted upon by his parents; to becoming the absolute middle child of 15 siblings, and becoming anonymous in his own home, is what started his descent into madness and conspiracy.
• Milkman Conspiracy: The Trope Namer.
• Molotov Cocktail: Once Raz completes his mental world, he lights a Molotov and winds up to throw it at the Asylum to start his job of eliminating the evidence. He'll continue to hold that lit Cocktail there until the player saves Lili without it exploding in his hand somehow.
• Only-Child Syndrome: When his mother was married to his Milkman Father, he was their only child and was given all their attention. Being suddenly forced to transition from the center of attention to another face in a crowd of 15 upon his mother remarrying broke him.
• The Paranoiac: A massive conspiracy theorist who believes the world is out to get him, and burned down the department store he worked at when he was fired for, according to the Li-Po document, randomly detaining and interrogating mall-goers for no reason other than his own paranoid delusions.
• Pyromaniac: In his past, he burned down the department store he worked at after his boss fired him one day. Oleander creates the Milkman inside of him to repeat this act, but with Thorney Towers instead.
• Room Full of Crazy: What his room in his house in his mental world looks like, especially when Raz uses Clairvoyance on him.
• Stepford Suburbia: His mindscape is a literally twisted series of suburban streets where eyes peek from windows of empty houses and lawn decorations hide surveillance cameras.

• The Unfought: You might expect to fight the Milkman but actually you fight his Dragon, the Den Mother, instead. The Milkman part of his personality just stands in front of the asylum until he burns it down at the game's conclusion, then departs from Boyd, task completed.

Gloria von Gouten

Voiced by: Roberta Callahan

"Oh, you must be my new leading man!"

An aspiring musical starlet who was sent by her cruel mother to the Hagatha Home School For Girls, under an Evil Matriarch and numerous bullies who made her life miserable, making her all the more glad to leave the school and rise to her career. She snapped when she received news of her mother committing suicide by jumping off an apartment roof due to her own fame and success having eclipsed hers, developing a severe case of mood swings and landing her in Thorney Towers.

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• Boarding School of Horrors: Hagatha Home School for Girls.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Even after her mind's cleared up by Raz, she's absentminded and off in her own world enough to mistake a gas valve for a water one and turn it on so she can water the garden.
• Driven to Suicide: Her mother. See above.
• Evil Matriarch: Was taught by one, the unnamed headmistress of Hagatha Home. A scary old lady who was very strict and carried a whip constantly.
• Follow in My Footsteps: She followed in the footsteps of her mother and even managed to outshine her.
• Mood-Swinger: The theme of her mind along with her acting. It is not Played for Laughs, as she quickly changes from amicable loon to screaming madwoman, and she's got a lot of self-hatred at the core of her mind.
• Parent with New Paramour: One play has Gloria suspect her stepfather was responsible for sending her to Hagatha's.
• Straw Critic: Jasper Rolls, who represents her self-hatred and insecurity.
• Spell My Name With An S: Is it "von Gouten" or "von Gouton"?
• Tell Me About My Father: Implied by the "Knight of Joy" plays in her mind to have never known her father and to wonder if her life might never have gone off its rails if he'd been in it.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: When her mood swings if she catches Raz handling her trophy, it's heavily implied she thinks that she's talking to her mother.
  Gloria: Would you like me to tell you how I won that award? ...Or are you trying to take it from me, because you don't think I deserve it? I never asked to be famous — I just wanted you to love me!
• White-Dwarf Starlet: Her once-glamorous career crashed after her mother's suicide. Raz finds her performing to the plants in the Thorney Towers' garden.

Fred Bonaparte

Voiced by: André Sogliuzzo

"Okay, everybody who's still in my army, raise your hands. Unless you're dead."

A descendant of Napoléon Bonaparte, who, after repeatedly losing games of Waterloo-O to Crispin in his former job as an orderly, went insane and was possessed by the angry genetic memory of his ancestor, who forced him to become a great tactician (ironically in a mental game of Waterloo-O).

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• Character Development: As Raz helps him throughout the mental game of Waterloo-O, Fred gradually goes from a spineless doormat to a more confident and assertive individual.
• The Dog Bites Back: After Raz helps him gain a backbone, he proceeds to assert authority over Crispin and chase him down after Raz makes his way up to the upper levels of the Asylum.
• Epiphanic Prison: It's implied given a combination of contextual clues within his mental world and the revelation of some of his past failures that this is also partly to blame for why he's stuck like this after losing to Crispin. His apparent loss in the Pinewood Derby when he was younger, his subtle Sore Loser tendencies (or at least a desire to win despite his failures), combined with having a Famous Ancestor (with all the heirlooms that entailed) that he can never truly live up to, might have given him a secret inferiority complex that caused him to believe he was incapable of succeeding at anything. With that in mind, his severe losses to Crispin (who was a mental patient) at a board game might have been less the core cause of his current mental state and more the straw that broke the camel's back.
• Famous Ancestor: A given, of course. However, he has none of Napoleon's traits, particularly his competitiveness.
• General Failure: He's been a somewhat cowardly, underachieving defeatist at least ever since a mental patient was able to repeatedly hand him his ass at a strategy game and drive him bonkers during his days as an orderly. Even the game pieces acknowledge him as a terrible leader after they're inspired to fight for him.
• Genetic Memory: The Genetic Memory of Napoléon Bonaparte is what's possessing him. Maybe. It could also merely be a fragment of his mind that he modeled after Napoleon.
• Gentle Giant: He's probably the tallest character in the game, and he's pretty genial.
• Glory Seeker: What his ancestor wishes him to be. By the end, he's at least a lot more confident.
• Grew a Spine: His storyline is all about making him develop confidence and assertiveness, which he ultimately does to the point that he actively wants to win against Napoleon and gets back at Crispin.
• Hidden Depths: He apparently has a degree in calligraphy.
• Lovable Coward: Initially spineless, but a good person.
• The Napoleon: Inverted, actually, with Fred himself — he's really tall and has an inferiority complex. Of course, his Napoleon personality fits this better.
• Napoleon Delusion: Has a Split Personality between himself and Napoleon. Justified by two factors. Firstly, the Psitanium. Secondly, his Genetic Memory possessing him.
• Nice Guy: Aside from his spinelessness, he's actually quite nice for an orderly. In fact, he was originally trying to help Crispin come out of his shell by playing a board game with him, only for it to spiral out of control.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After being cured (and giving Crispin some payback), he leads the rest of the asylum's remaining patients out. "Relax, the asylum's closed. We can all go home."
• Sesquipedalian Smith: Inverted, befitting of a down-to-earth Nice Guy who's content considering himself to be pretty unassuming despite his impressive-sounding lineage.
• Sore Loser: It's implied that he was this given how poorly he took his loss to Crispin Whitehead that he created a Split Personality of Napoleon Bonaparte.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: "Stop killing my bridges! You're making me mad!"
• Took a Level in Badass: Later on in Waterloo World, he starts acting like the warrior his ancestor wants him to be.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Inverted. Fred's body is probably 70% leg but his torso is very small.
• Twitchy Eye: Even after he's cured. It's likely just a tic.
  Gloria: Leave? Here?
  Fred: Yeah, this place is for crazy people! And I don't know about you, but I ain't crazy no more! (eyetwitch)

Edgar Teglee

Voiced by: Jerry DeCapua

"In the end, Razputin, aren't we all just dogs playing poker?"

Aspiring artist and high school wrestling team captain left heartbroken after his love, Lana Panzoni, a cheerleader, rejected him in favor of the head of the cheerleading squad, Dean LaGrante. As a result, he didn't have it in him to complete the state semi-finals. At some point, he was inducted into Thorney Towers for his obsession with painting and bulls. He tries to paint masterpieces, but always ruins them at the last moment by going into a rage and painting a matador and bull over them.

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• All Guys Want Cheerleaders: Him and Lana.
• Animal Motifs: Generally steady and to-himself without being antisocial, with a bit of an expressively dramatic flair and explosive temper when provoked, he's pretty well-represented by the bull that keeps showing up in his paintings. Turns out the bull actually does represent him.
• Antiquated Linguistics: Has an evocative, semi-formal way of speaking.
• Author Avatar: The bullfight paintings are all fantasies of himself against the male cheerleader his girlfriend dumped him for. The self-insert is actually the bull.
• Bilingual Bonus: El Odio's name is Spanish for "the hatred." It represents Edgar's anger issues.
• Cool Old Guy: It's suggested that the Memory Reels depicting him as a high schooler take place in the fifties, which would put him somewhere around his late sixties.
  • It is worth mentioning, though, that it's never directly stated when the game takes place (sometime after the 80s if a bit of optional dialogue with Dogen is any indication, at any rate), so it's debatable how old he actually is.
• Fake Memories: A self-inflicted version as a result of his trauma. The false memories paint himself as a famous painter who lost his wife Lampita after she was seduced by the bullfighter Dingo, leaving him with a broken heart and his psychological problems. However, it soon becomes evident after speaking with the Dalmatian that his memories don't really add up, and it's revealed that he fabricated his romanticized memories as a means of trying to understand why his girlfriend Lana Panzoni had dumped him for her cheerleading captain. His fantasies were born out of a belief that he had done something wrong, or that Dean had stolen her away from him, while his true memories make it clear that Lana had left him out to dry of her own volition, and that his obsession with the two was the only thing keeping him from moving on. Edgar, once he's finally free, cannot help but feel embarassed that his problems stemmed from such a pathetic reason for all these years.
• Foreshadowing: His leather vest has the logos of each of the wrestlers Raz has to face. Justified in that those wrestlers were teammates of Edgar's.
• Gentle Giant: He seems to be one of the most pleasantly laid-back people Raz meets aside from Milla. Unless he's pissed off, of course.
• Mad Artist: He's a black velvet painter with a Hair-Trigger Temper and an obsession with bull-fighting that eventually led to his incarceration at the asylum. He's definitely one of the more benign examples of the trope, as he is fairly affable with Raz, and is simply haunted by his past.
• Masked Luchador: Himself and the four other members of his wrestling team in his high school days, Tiger, Dragon, Eagle and Cobra. The latter four end up as bosses in his mind. Teglee's wrestling persona himself ends up as El Odio.
• Meaningful Name: Everyone in his mind. See the above Bilingual Bonus, while Dingo In-Flagrante and Lampita Pasionado are more obvious. His own name is a Homage - anyone heard of Edgar Leeteg?
• No-Sell: Just try using Telekinesis on him in the real world.

Edgar: Nobody lifts Edgar Teglee!

• One-Track-Minded Artist: Edgar Teglee suffers from mental issues that give him a Hair-Trigger Temper and an odd obsession with painting bulls and bullfighters and nothing else. He is assigned by his "psychiatrist" Dr. Loboto to paint his portrait as a part of his treatment, but every time he tries, his condition gets in the way, leaving him literally chained to the floor of the abandoned asylum. When Raz uses Sasha's mind-portal to enter his mind (portrayed as a Mexican villa painted on black velvet), he discovers on the surface that it involves his wife Lampita ended up getting seduced by Dingo and ultimately left Edgar to be with him. Edgar was devastated by this and was driven mad with heartbreak, painting nothing but bullfights to symbolize his anguish. Or at least, that's the romanticized version, as what really happened was that his high school girlfriend was stolen away by a male cheerleader, breaking his fighting spirit and causing his friends on the wrestling team to abandon him, leaving him nowhere else to turn but the art lab; the connection between bullfights and the events is instead born out of him having had a bull-themed wrestling persona.
• Only Sane Man: It's not a very high bar to clear, but Edgar is easily the most well-adjusted of the Thorny Towers inmates. While his own issues are debilitating, he's still more mentally sound than a paranoid Conspiracy Theorist, a defeatist possessed by the Genetic Memory of his Famous Ancestor, and a delusional White-Dwarf Starlet prone to mood swings.
• Super-Strength: Edgar, after finishing his painting, decides it's time for him to leave. He proceeds to easily rip the chain bolted to the floor, the floor itself, and the gas line running underneath the floor out.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Edgar has a large upper body, but his legs are small and skinny.
• Unstoppable Rage: He's been unable to control it for the longest time. Which is why he always ends up painting a bull and a matador fighting each other.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Inside his mind, he transforms into El Odio whenever overcome with rage.

Sheegor

Voiced by: Tara Strong

"I made him his favorite chocolate cake, and he can't even come up to enjoy it."

A hunchbacked (young?) girl, Dr. Loboto's assistant — not willingly, as she despises what he's doing and yet has to help him, as not only is she terrified of him, he's holding her pet turtle Mr. Pokeylope hostage and will kill him if she doesn't cooperate.

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• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite her childlike behavior, she's apparently an expert at neurology, which is likely why Loboto has "hired" her.
• The Cameo: Appears as a figment in Loboto's mind in 2.
• Consulting Mister Puppet: She wants to get Mr. Pokeylope back from Dr. Loboto because "he always tells [her] what to do". Subverted when it's revealed that Mr. Pokeylope is more than capable of telling her what to do.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: She seems to be this, given that she (apparently) gets most of her answers and solutions to her problems from her pet turtle, Mr. Pokeylope. This is ultimately subverted, however, as it turns out that Mr. Pokeylope is both fully sentient and more than capable of giving solid advice.
• The Igor: She's the reluctant assistant to Dr. Loboto, hence her name.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Is being actively coerced by Loboto into doing his dirty work. Depending on whether Sasha's suggestion after she returns his and Milla's brains goes anywhere, she might just have a more respectable job and nicer boss ahead of her after the game ends.
• Reluctant Mad Scientist: She hates helping Loboto hurt people, but has to due to him threatening to eat Mr. Pokeylope.

Other Characters

Linda, the Hideous Hulking Lungfish of Lake Oblongata

Voiced by: David Kaye

"You have unchained my soul, and now I shall repay you, powerful human child!"

An enormous, mutated lungfish who lives in Lake Oblongata. She was a peaceful creature until she was kidnapped, mutated, and turned into an enormous beast. She collects children for Dr. Loboto's experiments until finally being liberated by Raz.

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• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Her Mental World, Lungfishopolis, turns Raz into one.
  Lungfish: GOGGALOOOOR!
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Raz frees her from the implant placed in her brain by destroying its manifestation in her mind, which takes the form of a giant transmission tower controlled by the Kochamara entity.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: She's actually a very nice sea creature when she's not being controlled.
• The Cameo: Appears as a drawing on one of the maps in Psychonauts 2.
• Climax Boss: She's been built up throughout the first half of the game, appears right after a major reveal and is one of only two boss fights in the real world so her fight is very a climactic way to end the first half of the game.
• Cowardly Boss: Once she eats up nails three times, she proceeds to move the air bubble to a new area, in an attempt to get Raz to drown.
• A Day in the Limelight: Around the time of the game's release, several animated "Sharts" were released as bumps for MTV2 and G4. Linda is featured most prominently in most of them.
• Female Monster Surprise: Unless you're familiar with Angler Fish Physiology, there's no indication at all that she's female until she gives Raz her name. And yes, we are reasonably sure she's a "she", given the secret 100% Completion ending video.
• Fighting from the Inside: The freedom fighters inside her mind seem to personify this.
• Gentle Giant: When not under the implant's control, she's very helpful and eloquent.
• Informed Species: While described as a Lungfish, she much more closely resembles a giant, bipedal female Angler Fish. The "Lungfish and Loboto" Memory Vault reveals that this is a product of the experiments performed on her, as prior to her mutation she was quite visibly a normal lungfish.
• Interspecies Romance: The game's 100% Completion bonus cutscene implies that she has "history" with Mr. Pokeylope, Sheegor's pet turtle.
• Ironic Name: "Linda" is Portuguese/Spanish for "beautiful".
• Larynx Dissonance: Possibly due to the size and the experimentation done on her, she has a very deep voice that sounds more male than female.
• Stealthy Colossus: Despite her size, she's surprisingly sneaky when she's going around the camp kidnapping the children. Even when Raz has a close, sightless encounter with her in the woods outside the GPC, all he can detect is her smell as she hides somewhere in the bushes.
• Stock Ness Monster: Follows the same basic tone of an urban legend among the campers talking about a monster that lives in the lake. Unlike most versions of this trope, though, Linda is a mutated fish instead of a dinosaur-esque creature.
• Tom the Dark Lord: A hideous, hulking lungfish with the relatively mundane name of Linda. She's not actually evil though, just brainwashed.

Mr. Sam Pokeylope

Voiced by: Nick Jameson

"That's right baby. Daddy's here. Everything's gonna be alllll right."

Sheegor's pet turtle, which Dr. Loboto holds hostage to force her to obey his orders. Raz has to save him from being cooked in order to gain Sheegor's trust.

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• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Wears a crown and boots.
• The Cameo: Appears as a plush toy and as a figment in Loboto's mind in 2.
• Formally-Named Pet: Mr. Pokeylope. Though according to the 100% Completion video, his first name is Sam.
• Interspecies Romance: The game's 100% Completion bonus cutscene implies that he has "history" with Linda the Lungfish.
• One-Steve Limit: The 100% Completion cutscene reveals his first name is Sam. Psychonauts 2 introduces the intern Sam Boole.
• Talking Animal: According to Sheegor. After rescuing him, it turns out he can indeed talk, and has a surprisingly deep voice at that.
• Undignified Death: According to ''Psychonauts 2'' Basic Braining Episode 7 - The Psychonauts, he was apparently sucked into the Psychonaut jet's engine as it was taking off. Though that may have just been a joke.
• Vocal Dissonance: A tiny, cute turtle with an incredibly deep voice.

Harold

A jacket-wearing rat that Raz and Lili befriend in Rhombus of Ruin while helping Lili snap out of a delusion. They decide to take him with them to the Motherlobe, leading to occasional appearances in 2.

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• Amplified Animal Aptitude: He's a rat, but he can tell that Raz needs a combination to get past a door lock, and needs to jump into his mind so he can lead him to where it is, and is later shown in a chess match with agent Boole in psychoisolation — and is handily beating the elderly Psychonaut to boot, judging by the number of pieces knocked over on Boole's side. It's implied being in the Rhombus of Ruin contributed to his higher-than-usual animal intelligence, even compared to other animals enhanced with psychoactive materials.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Wears a bomber jacket.
• Team Pet: Raz considers him one, addressing him politely when he needs help getting out of a locked supply closet, and refusing to use his psychic powers to intentionally harm him.
• Token Heroic Orc: In contrast to other rats and animals throughout the game, who see Raz as a bloodthirsty human, using clairvoyance on Harold shows Raz as himself dressed up in a Rat suit, showing how he understands Raz is a good kid, and basically the same as him.

Deluginists

A cult that's obsessed with Maligula despite her supposed death twenty years ago. According to Sasha, they've been attempting to research Necromancy in order to revive her.

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• Ambiguous Situation: By the end of the game, it is uncertain if all (potential) members of the Deluginists were simply people who wished to restore the Maliks to power or if some members of the group had different reasons for idolizing Maligula than Gristol did.
  • If the former interpretation is the case, were their apparent studies into necromancy a genuine past attempt to revive Maligula, or were they just a Red Herring used to throw off the Psychonauts to their true means of bringing back Maligula? It is worth noting that we never found out just how Theodore Malik found out Maligula was still alive.
• The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right: Sort of. Even though necromancy isn't real, their threat to revive Maligula is because Maligula isn't really dead; she was forcefully suppressed within Lucrecia and given amnesia, becoming Nona Aquato. All the Deluginists have to do is jog Nona's memories to bring her out.
• Punny Name: Their cult's name combines the words "deluge" (a severe flood), "delusion", and "illusionist". They're also referred to by Sasha at least once as Delugionaries, replacing the latter with "delusionary" (the adjective form, less common than "delusional") and "legionaries".
• Red Herring: They are discussed at the start of the game as a potential threat due to their idolization of Maligula and their apparent belief that necromancy can bring her back from the dead. When we meet Gristol, the mastermind behind everything, his plans are completely separate in methods and we as the audience can tell without question he's a child out of his depth and sense.

Dr. Jack Potts

Voiced by: Nick Tate

"Oh, uh, my intern? Why yes, yes, we did collaborate on that... a little."

Hollis' superior in her previous position at a hospital. After Hollis discovered a way to treat patients with her Mental Connection technique, he took all the credit, leading Hollis to get revenge... but accidentally messing him up so badly that the Psychonauts had to get involved.

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• Asshole Victim: Considering he rather unashamedly stole credit for Hollis' treatment method, the issue with her actions were more due to the inherent wrongness of forcibly tampering with other people's mind without consent than any concern over him personally.
• Driven to Madness: Hollis' misuse of Mental Connections to punish him turned him rabid and crazed, running around the hospital in nothing but his underwear. The damage to his mind was so severe it took Truman himself to reverse it.
• Plagiarism in Fiction: It's revealed that in the past, Hollis came up with a treatment method that she passed to him for review. He renamed, stole and took all the credit for it.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: In Hollis' second Memory Vault, right before she messes with Potts' mind as revenge, thought bubbles for "Women" and "Race" are floating around his head alongside "Plagiarism", "Bad", and "Golf".
• Punny Name: As noted by Hollis herself when entering her own mental version of the hospital, his surname bears a phonetic similarity to the word "putz", an idiot or a jerk, both of which he certainly is. Additionally, in Hollis' Hot Streak, he's addressed as Jack, making his full name sound like "Jackpot". Similarly, the names of his nurses are Bell, Barr, and Cherry, common symbols on a slot machine.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He's just some ass that stole Hollis's work, and if her memory is to go by, rather unconvincingly as well. But his actions shaped how Hollis thinks now as the Psychonauts Co-head, which leads to Raz both getting into trouble and subsequently helping her work out of her fixations.

Raz's Archetype

Voiced by: Rosearik Rikki Simons

"Aw, that's cute. My clone thinks he's real."

A doodle-like doppelganger of Raz made from his "Projection" ability gained within Cassie's Collection. Raz can have him open doors he is unable to.

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• Berserk Button: A minor case, but when he's killed, Raz will occasionally demand revenge.
• Casting Gag: Raz's archetype is voice by Rosearik Rikki Simons, who had previously played GIR from Invader Zim and shares many character traits; He too is a small, hyperactive loon with a high-pitched voice playing a sidekick role to a character voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz.
• Clone Angst: Parodied when he realizes that, in his words, he's a clone...of an ugly person! He also seem to think Raz is his clone rather than the other way around, and using Clairvoyance on him shows that he sees Raz as an Archetype.
• Cloudcuckoolander: When he doesn't have anything in particular to do, he wanders around spouting goofy banter and getting distracted by things.
• Draw Aggro: In combat, he'll draw enemies toward him to take some of the heat off of Raz.
• Expy: He's essentially GIR from Invader Zim, having the exact same voice and actor, while also sharing many personality traits, in that they're both small, cute, talkative and highly eccentric, and also being the sidekick to a Horvitz-voiced character.
• Friendly Fireproof: Averted, he can get hurt by Raz's attacks... you may want to be careful with Pyrokinesis.
• Literal Split Personality: He's an alternate persona Raz made, given form.
• Logical Weakness: He's made of paper. If you use Pyrokinesis on him, it'll do a lot of damage.
• Paper People: He's paper-thin, allowing him to go through closed doors or through bars or fold into an airplane to follow Raz across difficult jumps.
• Retraux: A pin can give him an 8-bit appearance.
• Servile Snarker: It can act like this to Raz, like responding to Raz complimenting their teamwork by saying "maybe we should see other people."
• Support Party Member: An upgrade gives him the ability to spawn mental energy when Raz is in need of some.
• Taking You with Me: A pin gives him the ability to explode on death. He'll even quote the trope sometimes.

Gzar Theodore Malik

Voiced by: Fred Tatasciore

"She's gone mad! She's flooded the capital! She'll destroy this country!"

The dictator of Grulovia twenty years ago. When Grulovia was threatened by an invasion, Gzar Theodore’s plea for help drew the hydrokinetic psychic and Grulovian expat Lucrecia Mux back to her homeland, where she was appointed the new minister of war. Lucrecia turned the tide, but when the Grulovian populace began protesting the war, Theodore set her on them as well, to lasting and far-reaching consequences.

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• 0% Approval Rating: According to Raz, the Maliks were hated by the populace of Grulovia and that the local elections were a sham where the people didn't actually have any real choice on the matter. The protests were very common and the Gzar silenced them using Maligula.
• Asshole Victim: When Maligula, the woman he turned into a monster, went on a murderous spree across Grulovia, she devastated most of the country, which gave the Grulovians the chance to make a coup d'état against the Maliks and forced them into exile. It's telling that even his own son hated him.
• Bullying a Dragon: One of his son's memory vaults shows he ordered Maligula executed after she put down protestors, only for her to drown the executioner. He then fled the country with his son.
• The Caligula: From what is known about him, he was a terrible and egotistical ruler who was despised by his own people. He also turned an innocent psychic into a murderous psychopath to keep himself in power.
• Cool Crown: As the Gzar, he wore a crown that was effectively a giant Faberge Egg larger than his entire body. It's a surprise that he didn't have neck or back problems while wearing it.
• Create Your Own Hero: The Gzar's actions ended up creating Maligula, who was then sealed away by Ford in Nona's subconsciousness. Nona's subconscious feeling that something was wrong with her led her to becoming the mysterious stranger who gave Raz the Whispering Rock pamphlet, culminating in Raz joining the Psychonauts and opposing the Gzar's son twenty years later.
• Dastardly Whiplash: He's got a lot of the archetype down, from being in a position of wealth and privilege, wearing an ornate costume, coming up with a complicated scheme that winds up horribly blowing up in his face, and possessing a long pointed mustache. Just in case you needed anymore convincing that he was a bad guy when he was alive.
• Deathbed Confession: A key part of his son's mental world shows him on his deathbed, telling said person that unlike what the rest of the world was led to believe, he realized Maligula was still alive. It's unclear if this is the truth of the matter though or a self-serving lie created by his son for the history books rather then admit to attempting to rob Maligula's grave.
• The Emperor: As his title of Gzar is based on the imperial rulers of Russia he would qualify as one.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He seems to have genuinely loved his son Gristol, rewarding Maligula with a powerful position for saving him and spoiling him as a child.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Severely downplayed but one of Gristol's Memory vaults shows that he was unnerved and anxious about Maligula's growing instability and immense destructive powers, mostly out of concern for his own life, rather than any remorse for the lives taken in her rampages. His method of dealing with her, however, merely turned Maligula's ire against the royal family and forced them to flee the country for their lives, allowing the peasantry to overthrow the government in their absence.
• Evil Overlord: By Raz's own words, he was a brutal dictator and a ruthless strongman who oppressed and exploited his own people so that his own family could live in luxury. Rather than do anything to solve them, he ended up having a psychic act as an enforcer to crush any uprisings.
• Gone Horribly Right: Theodore was very much successful in turning Maligula into his own personal weapon of populational suppression, but because Maligula was so much more powerful than him and kept growing more maniacal and oppressive, Theodore saw the writing on the wall regarding his own safety and tried to have her executed. Didn't work.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The actions he took against people protesting his leadership caused Maligula to exist, and the Big Bad is his son trying to retake the throne they lost.
• Hated by All: He had 0% Approval Rating from the citizens, Maligula despises him for what he put her through, and even his son Gristol sees him as a dope.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Maligula's madness led to him being removed from power by a coup d'état and forced him and his family into exile.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: He's based on Tsar Nicholas II.
• Posthumous Character: He died before the events of the game, and only seen in other people's flashbacks.
• Riddle for the Ages: It's unknown how he figured out that Maligula was still alive after her defeat at the hands of the Psychic 6, but presumably, his own attempt to take her life impressed upon him the immensity of the task, and he could never quite believe the 'official' tale— or was too scared of Maligula's retribution to fully trust the official version until he personally verified it. It's also a possibility that either he himself attempt to rob her grave only to find it empty or his son did so and invented the Deathbed Confession as a self-serving lie. Regardless, his claimed knowledge that she wasn't dead after the battle— though unaware of what exactly had happened to her— is the impetus for the plot of the game.
• Shoot the Dangerous Minion: Attempted by him when he realized that Maligula's destructive powers could threaten his life, thus sending an executioner after her. It ended with the executioner drowned in the Gzar's swimming pool.

The Delugionist Mastermind (Unmarked Spoilers)

Gristol "Nick Johnsmith" Malik, Gzesarevich of Grulovia

Voiced by: Elijah Wood, Darin De Paul (in Truman Zanotto's body)

"I'm going to restore a whole country to greatness. A country that your heroes the Psychonauts tore apart."

The Deluginist Mole, Kidnapper of Truman, and infiltrator of the Psychonauts' home base, known by his current identity as Nick Johnsmith, mailroom expert of the Motherlobe. He's actually the Gzesarevich Gristol Malik, son of Gzar Theodore of Grulovia, with designs on regaining his former glory and rising to prosperity with Maligula's power.

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• Absolute Xenophobe: Exaggerated; not only is he racist against anyone not from his native Grulovia, but he doesn't think much of his own countrymen either, dismissing the commoners protesting outside his family castle as stupid, whiny rabble and disdaining his fellow royals as too "weak" to keep the kingdom afloat.
• Almighty Janitor: The mailman who is actually a prince and one of the most fearsome villains of the series.
• Ambitious, but Lazy: His Evil Plan in a nutshell is to essentially have Maligula do the heavy lifting of retaking his kingdom so he can go back to being an Idle Rich
• Amusement Park of Doom: His mental world "Fatherland Follies" is basically "Journey to the Surface" with Grulovian propaganda, showing Maligula as a champion of the people and Ford as a homicidal maniac.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: His true personality is that of an entitled Royal Brat all grown up and turned bitter by the denial of what he feels is his rightful throne. He doesn't even bother to remember what the protestors Maligula killed were upset about - his memory vault depicts their protests signs as labelled "BLAH BLAH BLAH", "Problems" and "I'm dumb". There's a good reason why Raz told him the Grulovians hated his family.
• Avenging the Villain: A part of his motive is to avenge his father's defeat and humiliation. Though he does later decry his father for being weak, and admits to have hated him.
• Badass on Paper: He's a Manchild and a Paper Tiger, but you wouldn't have guessed that with all that he had accomplished before his Evil Plan was thwarted. Not only was he able to infiltrate an espionage organization completely undetected, but he was able to work at the Motherlobe for years completely undetected and cultivate a positive reputation (especially impressive for being one of the few non-psychics in a facility densely populated by well-trained, mind-reading spies), successfully brainwash the unstable Dr. Loboto (and, through him, carry out two separate world-domination conspiracies) and manipulate Raz into finding Maligula for him while impersonating Truman Zanotto.
• Bald of Evil: He's the most unambiguously evil character in the series and he has a receding hairline.
• Beneath Suspicion: As one of the few Psychonaut employees with no actual psychic power, who was beloved by everyone else, as well as seemingly being a victim of villainous debraining, nobody suspected his cover identity of misdeeds. The only person who he rubbed the wrong way was Truman Zanotto, and even Truman just thought of him as an insincere Yes-Man rather than anything truly malign. He was so good that Lori, his replacement in the mailroom, still considers replacing him as an honor even while acknowledging that he was evil.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Sure, Gristol may not be the most intimidating person on the outside... but he has an impressive control over his own mind, shown to be able to directly manipulate his mental world (to an extent as far as we see) and apparently could regain control of "his" body while under the effects of a Psycho-Portal. As a non-psychic, it's a real feat.
• Big Bad: He's ultimately the one behind the return of Maligula, after all. He believes that by reviving her, he can reclaim Grulovia and what he considers his rightful throne as the next Gzar. However...
• Big Bad Wannabe: ...he's ultimately playing with forces beyond his control. After Maligula is successfully resurrected, the first thing that she does is go on an indiscriminate rampage, showing zero interest in Gristol or his mission to restore himself to the throne of Grulovia. Not to mention that the overthrown regime led by Gristol's family was a much-hated tyranny that no one, aside from Gristol himself, remembers fondly. One way or another, Gristol's scheme was doomed to failure.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Everyone in the Motherlobe thinks his "Nick Johnsmith" identity is a Nice Guy. Not a single soul in the Motherlobe speaks badly about him, and the reaction to his debraining is either sympathy or horror depending on the person. He is not a nice person in reality.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Him being able to put up a Mask of Sanity isn't much of a perk in most cases, but it did allow him to infiltrate the Psychonauts through legal channels, and lay low for his long con to occur.
  • Also applies to his method of infiltration. He's just the mail guy, and gives a mask of being a Nice Guy. Not only do they keep him out of danger, they keep him invisible to any potential sabotage of his plan.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: He's a genuinely clever and calculating manipulator, but it's clear he did not want to put more thought into his plan than necessary for reviving Maligula, as he has every pretension of becoming a wealthy do-nothing after it's over. He just assumes Maligula will be on his side. His scheme is basically undone by him not bothering to put his body in a sturdy box, instead just mailing it to Truman in a flimsy cardboard one.
• Broken Pedestal: During the Postgame, one of the "lessons" he learned from the whole adventure is that you should never meet your heroes. He was disappointed that Maligula didn't do what he wanted, suffice it to say.
• The Caligula: From what we saw from his flashbacks as the Gzesarevich, and his current personality. He most likely would have been a bigger one than his father, had he succeeded in reclaiming his families throne.
• Chekhov's Gunman: His existence is briefly mentioned inside of Cruller's Correspondence, long before his current involvement in the story is revealed.
• The Chessmaster: Zigzagged, being thoroughly Subverted and Deconstructed. This trope often comes with the caveat that the mastermind in question has enough sense to use their manipulation skills efficiently, but Gristol isn't the wisest person around. Thus, Gristol shows what happens when a clever mind is paired with someone who has little to no common sense, with the result being a rather devious plan in the hands of a sheltered brat who has no idea what he's getting into. This stupidity arguably makes him more dangerous than if he was a fully sensible villain, because while Gristol doesn't want anybody dead (that'd mean fewer people to serve him), he plots to release the dangerous and indiscriminately murderous Maligula because he simply never considers that she might be Ax-Crazy and have her own agenda; he just assumes she's an especially powerful enforcer because that's what his dad used her for before she went nuts. To drive the point home, young Gristol can be seen delivering what looks like a lecture on economics or science to a crowd of intrigued nobleman onlookers while bored out of his mind in one of his memory vaults, showing he has a pretty high level of intelligence with none of the sense to comprehend what he's actually doing.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Oleander, the Big Bad of the first game. Oleander was driven to madness due to unresolved personal issues, but once his problems were dealt with, ultimately proved that he was a decent, if very gruff man. Even during his stint as the Big Bad, Oleander was also competent enough to fight his own battles and proved to be a challenging opponent directly, as well as being smart enough to use something easier to control for his Evil Plan via the brains of psychic children, as insane as it was. Gristol Malik's false identity as Nick Johnsmith is noted as being a Nice Guy and was loved by most of the Psychonauts, but the reveal shows that he is in truth a dangerously egotistical and narcissistic sociopath willing to do whatever it takes to revive Maligula for extremely selfish and petty reasons. While a skilled manipulator and planner, he's not a fighter and more or less intended on the revived Maligula to do the gruntwork for him, and severely lacks the wisdom to consider that he is trying to control what is essentially the psychic equivalent of a force of nature. Also, while Oleander fully reforms by the end of 1 and is given a relative slap on the wrist, Gristol remains unrepentant and is instead locked up where he'll probably spend his days as a test subject for Sasha.
• Conspicuous Consumption: He still has more than enough money to leave half-eaten cans of caviar around his suite like old pizzas, and used to eat it out of a bucket.
• Cool Crown: Say what you want about him, but his Gzar Crown is amazing. It looks like he's wearing an entire jeweled chandelier on his head.
• Dark Is Evil: The form he takes while in Loboto's mind is a mass of darkness shaped like him in Gzar garbs with glowing golden eyes, due to Loboto being so terrified of retribution that he obscures his appearance in his own memories.
• Deadly Euphemism: Tends to refer to a removed brain as an "egg", related to his obsession with the caviar and Fabergé Eggs of his wealthy upbringing.
• Did Not Think This Through: His biggest flaw; he's an incredibly good planner with the big picture and achieving his goals, and he knows how to hide his tracks well, but he is awful at contingencies. He believes that his end goal of bringing Maligula back would cause her to help him restore Grulovia's former glory, not realizing that she's far more likely to indiscriminately attack everyone including him.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: The Big Bad happens to be the mailroom guy. Justified because he more than likely took such a small-scale position to help him lay low.
• Draco in Leather Pants: In-universe, he sees Maligula as Grulovia's hero and Ford and the Psychonauts as the villains who destroyed it, while in reality her rampage destroyed the country and the Psychic Six were called in to stop her causing even more damage.
• The Dreaded: Loboto is terrified of Gristol due to his abuse of him.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Subverted twice.
  • Fatherland Follies shows that he actually got along quite well with his dad. Though he does later claim to have hated him and blamed him for both losing control of Grulovia and, allegedly, abandoning Maligula in her time of need.
  • A more downplayed example would be his relationship with Maligula who he seems to put on a pedestal due to her saving him from either foreign invaders or angry townsfolk when he was younger. With that being said, it's made clear that he ultimately sees Maligula as nothing more than a tool that he believes will help him reclaim what he believes to be rightfully his. When she turns against him and is subsequently brought under control by Raz instead, he later outright calls her a disappointment.
• Evil Counterpart: Like Raz, he's a descendant of Grulovia with family issues, is a runaway, has ties to Maligula, and joined the Psychonauts to fulfil his goals. That said, while Raz is common stock, had father issues that were resolved, ran away to fulfil his dreams, is related to Maligula by blood (and genuinely loves the relative that she's contained within), and joined the Psychonauts because he wanted to, Gristol is royalty, ran from Grulovia for safety due to his family being hunted, despises his father for perceived weakness, only wants to use Maligula to reclaim his throne to become an Idle Rich again, and only joined the Psychonauts in a long con to eventually destroy them, and reclaim his throne.
• Fat Bastard: His character design emphasis his notable potbelly, and it's shown that his underlying motivation for his schemes is simply to recreate an environment where he can do things like eat Caviar daily whenever he wants to.
• Foil: To Raz. Both are refugees/descended from refugees of Grulovia, both have relationship issues with their family, and both share a deep connection with Lucrecia/Maligula. Both of them work hard for their goals, even if they don't always think through the consequences of their plans. However, Raz is earnest, empathetic, and willing to accept the complicated histories of his family's past. By comparison, Gristol has wrapped himself in so much arrogance and entitlement that he's incapable of understanding the true weight of the crimes of his family. His narcissism prevents him from truly relating to others and even after the events of the game, he's refused to learn that the history he's told himself was a lie.
• Grand Theft Me: He's the one who stole Truman's brain and replaced it with his own.
• Hate Sink: This character was deliberately created to be hated. If the vain, shallow, It's A Small World ride doesn't say anything, the fact that his Memory Vaults showing his lack of care for his people (everyone's protest signs said things like "problems" and "blah blah blah") and that his thirst for power stems from him losing his valets and his caviar says A LOT.
• Heel–Face Turn: Defied. Unlike the other major antagonists such as Oleander, Loboto, and Maligula who all redeem themselves to a degree, Gristol refuses to show any regret or remorse for his actions, and is rightfully seen as an irredeemable scumbag by everyone.
• Idle Rich: Double Subverted. He wants to be this, waited on hand and foot by servants daily who attend to his every need, but after the royal family were exiled, their vast fortunes can no longer support quite as lavish as lifestyle as they once hand— though they were able to enjoy life in a 5-star luxury hotel, they can no longer spend ridiculous amounts of money on whatever they want, which is galling enough to Gristol that he embarks on his scheme solely so that he can have the rich and prosperous lifestyle he once had as a child. This even shows in how his Evil Plan boils down to finding Maligula and having her do the job of using her immense Psychic powers to rebuild Grulovia to prosperity for him, rather than put in the effort to reclaim his fortune and his country himself.
• Ignored Epiphany: Visiting his mind in the postgame, you can find Gristol musing over the revelations of the plot. He wonders why his father gave Maligula so much power, if she really was a monster, and why the people didn't rise up against him... and install Gristol as Gzar as he rightly deserved. Raz is understandably exasperated.
• I Reject Your Reality: While not mentally ill like many of the other minds Raz has explored, his entire worldview is built upon delusions of grandeur and a childish sense of entitlement that colors everything he does. He equates his own childhood luxury to Grulovia's prosperity, when really it was a dictatorship that was plagued with unrest from the peasantry, the ruling class responded by using Lucy as a one-woman attack-squad to silence them. He thinks of Maligula as his country's secret weapon and that the Psychonauts were a meddling foreign power jealous of their greatness, when really she was a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds who snapped under the stress his family put her through and that the Psychic Six were recruited by the rebel peasantry to prevent her from destroying the world. He believes his family lived homeless and in squalor, when really his family managed to escape their own country with their lives and fortune virtually unscathed, subsisting on caviar in a five-star luxury hotel. His entire end-goal is to find Maligula and revive her, thinking that she will remain loyal to his family, completely overlooking the fact that his own father tried to kill her when she grew out of control, that she might not be happy to see him and that her destructive power is about as discriminating as a nuclear bomb.
• It's All About Me: When Raz challenges him about Grulovia not being a great nation, his response is that of course it was, because he had ''a cotton candy machine in his bedroom''.
• Laborious Laziness: While he presumably has enough money to live a very comfortable (if not utterly lavish) lifestyle after his family's exile and (according to one Memory Vault) was highly educated to the point that he could have easily landed a cushy job, he refused to settle for anything less then his throne. He embarked on a scheme to infiltrate the Psychonauts via posing as a menial worker and revive Maligula, all in a bid to restore himself to a position where he can sit around eating caviar while Grulovia continues suffering.
• Lack of Empathy: His life of luxury made him oblivious to the reason why the people of Grulovia were unhappy with his family's tyranny. He notably saw the protesters as idiots who babbled "blah blah problems." He believes Lucrecia turning into Maligua was a way of changing her into a warrior and would enforce it again to have her restore his country.
• Large Ham: Double-subverted; for most of the game, he acts as a Ridiculously Average Guy who is completely Beneath Suspicion; then when the Mask of Sanity comes off and he's revealed as a Royal Brat with aspirations of global domination, his demeanor becomes far more unhinged to match.
• Laughably Evil: He may be the most horribly evil character in the series, but his arrogance, pettiness, immaturity, and refusal to accept reality combined with Elijah Wood's Large Ham performance make him pretty damn funny to watch.
• Loved by All: Only applies to his "Nick Johnsmith" identity. Hollis says that everyone loves him, and, while it may sound sarcastic, her reaction after seeing him debrained, along with Oleander's, suggests it's true. That being said, it's more like almost all, with Truman Zanotto not being the biggest fan of his. Even once his identity has been revealed in the post-game, some of the Motherlobe workers (like Lori) respect him even if he was evil. Ironically, wanting and expecting everyone to love him was part of what motivated his plan — if he was ever conscious he had that from the Psychonauts, he was too self-centered to notice.
• Manchild: His core motive? To return to his idealized childhood where he was a lazy, responsibility-less Royal Brat where he didn't have to worry about things like money issues. Keep in mind that, even in exile, he lives in a five-star hotel penthouse. His favorite food of caviar is also still in high supply and then there's his mental world "Fatherland Follies", a dark ride doubling as a Propaganda Machine.
• Manipulative Bastard: He views himself as a puppet-master, toying with a puppet version of Raz in his mental world for easily deceiving him into bringing Ford for a chance to being back Maligula. While he does successfully manipulate Raz into helping him "revive" Maligula, he was also dealing with an earnest 10 year old looking to prove himself, so not the biggest bar to clear.
• Mask of Sanity: While he's the most rational Psychonauts villain so far, his mental world quickly shows there's a massive gap between being rational and being sane - Fatherland Follies is a massive theme park ride dedicated to himself, there's essentially no depth to the mindscape at all, and his ego is shown regularly riding it to bask in his family's glories. He was able to hide this utter narcissism behind a Nice Guy facade for years.
• The Mole: He's the double-agent that everyone's trying to identify for most of the story.
• Mr. Smith: He went undercover under the name Nick Johnsmith, which, in retrospect, is being a bit over the top in the whole "generic male name for a pseudonym" idea.
• Muggles Do It Better: He's utterly lacking in psychic powers, but this didn't stop him from inflicting Mind Rape on Loboto through ordinary hypnotism well enough that Loboto physically can't tell the Psychonauts about his true identity, his very appearance being obscured under a cloud of darkness within Loboto's mind, and Sasha having to spend most of the game fighting an uphill battle to break through his mental conditioning, only succeeding just towards the end. It's especially poignant because the following two mental worlds after Loboto's are an exercise in how badly a mind can be affected by a Psychic messing around with it, yet Gristol was able to condition Loboto well enough that actual psychics can barely find out any information about him even after in-depth study of his Psyche. Additionally, despite having no psychic abilities, he's got good enough control over his mental world to easily subdue Raz and suspend him from the ceiling, totally helpless before him, his lack of mental issues apparently giving him better control over his mentality than most of the people Raz Mind-jumps into, and the only weakness being when he's not paying attention.
• Narcissist: He's completely focused on himself with no thought of anyone around him except as they relate to his plans. This is emphasized by his mental world, which is an empty black void outside of a theme park ride whose only purpose is to exposit at length on his self-serving version of history.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Keeping his Luctopus Luxury Suite keys on himself was a major mistake, as they discovered that Nick was actually wealthy, and at very least a Delugionnaire and in league with The Mole. Also, had he shipped himself in a sturdier box, Raz would have just delivered him to Truman, not knowing Nick had intended to re-swap his brain with Truman and complete his plot as intended. Instead, Raz has to find a brain to put in Nick's body (hello, Helmut!) and found the lost member of the Psychic Six.
• Non-Action Big Bad: He's a schemer, not a fighter. In fact, he's such a wimp that Lili's able to beat him up easily without her powers in his own mind.
• Non Sequitur, *Thud*: After Lili comes and beats him with a doll made in the form of her father, he tells her that the doll was actually made of real cotton, before he mumbles his words by telling that it was made with real metal in the case, after that, he drops out.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Claims he'll lead his country back to greatness... but it's pretty clear from the get-go that by 'his country' he means 'him specifically', and by 'greatness' he means lazing around and indulging himself while using Maligula to solve his problems.
• Overlord Jr.: He's the Gzesarevich of Grulovia, and wants very badly to take what he considers his birthright.
• Paper Tiger: The Chessmaster he may be, but he is personally unable to match the Psychonauts, hence why he keeps to the shadows. Best illustrated by Lili in his own mind. The girl sneaks into the controls through violence and beats him silly with a gift shop doll of Truman holding the metal case, all with no real resistance.
• People Puppet: After Raz frees Helmut's brain, it's placed into Nick's brainless body in order to deal with Mailman Ford.
• Pet the Dog: The version of him encountered in the mental version of the Luctopus Casino hotel room seems to be slightly nicer than the real thing. Using clairvoyance on him shows that instead of viewing Raz as a dirty peasant, he sees him dressed up in fancy regalia. He's happy to find out that Raz is of Grulovian descent and offers him some caviar as a toast to the Fatherland. Gristol in general also seems to have a soft spot in his heart for Maligula, though it's hard to say how much of that was simply because she helped his family run Grulovia with an iron fist.
• Phrase Catcher: Any mention of him after his de-braining are almost always accompanied by variations of "Not Nick!"
• Prematurely Bald: Despite being in his thirties at the latest, he's lost most of the hair on the top of his head.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He's racist against non-Grulovians, as shown when only Raz is allowed on the park ride that makes up his mental world. He also displays some classist elitism, implicitly dismissing the concerns of his countrymen as non-issues unworthy of his attention.
• Propaganda Machine: His mental world is a propaganda piece exalting him as future Gzar, praising Maligula, and demonizing Ford... taking the form of an "It's A Small World" knockoff.
• Psychopathic Manchild: For all his cunning, he also never really grew out of being a spoiled brat eating all the candy in the house and throwing tantrums whenever someone told him 'no'. His mental world is even structured like a children's ride.
• Purple Is Powerful: Subverted; he's purple, pure evil, and descended from royalty, but he's a non-psychic whose only real skill is manipulation and he cannot handle himself in a fight.
• Ridiculously Average Guy: What he was pretending to be in his role as Nick Johnsmith, which made it easier for him to be overlooked as a suspect during the investigation, helped by the fact his de-brained body was discovered by accident, making him appear to be a victim of the mole. In reality, he's a bit of a Large Ham.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons:
  • One of the books in his Room Full of Crazy is titled "Maligula Misunderstood". It's true that the person who would become Maligula is Not Evil, Just Misunderstood, but that doesn't mean her Maligula personality is something to be admired.
  • He correctly realized Ford was haunted by his own actions in the past, and that he's a shell of his former self when Gristol found him at Whispering Oaks. However, he believed it was due to him devastating Grulovia and forcing the Maliks into exile, not due to what he had to do to save Lucy (though devastating Grulovia probably didn't make Ford too happy either).
  • He correctly blames his father for the destruction of the nation, but attributes it to him being too soft and thus repeats his mistakes.
• Rightful King Returns: This is how he sees himself, and in all fairness he is the rightful heir to the throne. Subverted, in that he's an Overlord Jr. who would be very bad for Grulovia and the world in general if he got actual political power. He also refuses to consider that the Grulovians hated the Maliks.
• Royal Brat: When he was a child, being little more than an entitled cuss who snacked on caviar all day. He hasn't matured much.
• Sanity Has Advantages: Because he's in control of his mind and fully rational, he has a lot more fine control of his mental world than most people Raz enters in the game, able to set up ambushes and traps. He is also not haunted by a personal demon at all, and easily restrains Raz before Lili ambushes him. That said, it doesn't compensate for his utterly delusional and self-serving worldview, which ends up blowing up in his face spectacularly.
• Self-Serving Memory: Every memory he has paints him as either the good guy, the hero who saved the day, or the victim. Even his mental world, Fatherland Follies, is representative of his overinflated ego and his childish nature.
• Sinister Silhouettes: He first appears as a shadowy figure at the end of Loboto's Labyrinth.
• Smug Snake: As successful as he is at fulfilling his plans, he gloats a lot more than he can back up, especially with his narcissistic delusions and how vulnerable he is when directly confronted. That's not even going into how much his plan would backfire, assuming more control over Maligula than he could ever hope to have.
• Snooty Haute Cuisine: Caviar is his Trademark Favorite Food, representing his desire to be an Idle Rich. To him, not being able to have caviar every day is the same as living in squalor.
• The Sociopath: He pretends to be a friendly mailroom worker in order to infiltrate the Psychonauts,-and manipulates everyone like a puppet in his quest to revive Maligula. He also shows no remorse for his actions, feels nothing for those that suffered from his fathers tyrannical rule, and only cares about reviving his family's empire and reawakening Maligula in order to do it, that and caviar.
• Take Over the World: Implied by his mental world, in which he is pictured standing on a model of the earth.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: You wouldn't be able to tell Nick from the mailroom is actually exiled royalty, unless you saw him in his full Requisite Royal Regalia.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Caviar. There's expired containers of it in his room at the Lady Luctopus Casino, and one of his memory vaults shows he carried a bucket of the stuff with him, constantly, to snack on when he was a child. In fact, the entire reason for his Evil Plan to resurrect Maligula (as shown in a Memory Vault) was that, after the royal family were exiled, their (slightly) diminished fortunes that are still vast in comparison to most people's, were no longer enough to supply him with daily snacks of expensive caviar like he enjoyed when he was the crown prince... eventually running out of their supply, galvanizing Gristol to action when he was forced to face the reality that he could no longer get what he wanted on demand. In essence, rather than some genuine want to restore his country's prosperity for others, Gristol just wants to re-create an environment where he can have whatever he wants, whenever he wants, especially caviar.
• Trash of the Titans: His penthouse suite clearly suffered while he was away, with the piles upon piles of open cans of caviar going bad and smelling as ripe as you'd expect bad fish to smell. His memory of the suite as a kid is no better with a serving tray in the bathroom.
• Unknown Rival: He considers Ford to be his Arch-Enemy but Ford barely even knows Gristol exists and doesn't recognize him when they meet (albeit while Helmut is inhabiting Gristol's body).
• Un-Sorcerer: He's one of the few non-psychics in a facility densely populated by well-trained psychic spies, but has earned the respect of (nearly) all of his coworkers as the mole.
• Villainous Glutton: He had a habit of casually eating caviar.
• Villain Song: He starts singing about Grulovia in the last parts of his stage. He can also be heard singing it ceaselessly in the postgame while locked up in the Psychoisolation Chamber.
• Voice-Only Cameo: In-universe. It's implied that he was the one speaking to Sasha and Milla during The Rhombus of Ruin before ignoring their call asking for clues about Truman's kidnapping.
• Walking Spoiler: As seen above, it's hard to talk about his role in the story because of this.
• The Wrongful Heir to the Throne: He is the rightful prince of Grulovia who just wants to return to power. He is also a selfish, arrogant, delusional man who would become a tyrant if he succeeded.

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