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Ephraim Winslow
Ephraim Winslow/Young (Thomas Howard)
Played By: Robert Pattinson Other Languages
"Now look here! Ain't nothing wrong with a man startin' fresh, startin' new. Just looking to earn a living. Just like any man. Just want to settle quiet-like with some earnings."
A quiet man with a sordid past and many secrets, Ephraim Winslow is a newly appointed assistant wickie tasked with maintaining the lighthouse alongside his superior. He's an inexperienced and grudging figure who comes to the island looking to earn a quick salary after mysteriously changing careers from being a timber man. As his sanity erodes over the course of the film, his past comes back to haunt him until he reveals his current identity is stolen from his former foreman.
- Affably Evil: Winslow's an odd example because he doesn't really have "nice" qualities outside of being soft-spoken and avoidant of causing trouble. Despite joking with Wake a few times, he definitely dislikes his boss and becomes a lot more threatening towards him after a villainous breakdown.
- The Alcoholic: Due to Wake's influence, he progressively develops a similar dependence on alcohol. It gets to the point where he drinks heavily while working, and even drinks turpentine mixed with honey after their rum rations run out.
- Ambiguously Bi: Winslow has a sexual fixation with the mermaid scrimshaw, the only 'female figure' on the island, and hallucinates encounters with one at various times. When drunk, however, he slow dances with and nearly kisses Wake before pushing him away. This can be interpreted as situational sexuality.
- It's implied to possibly be more than situational. In the masturbating scene, he starts to imagine both Wake and the real Winslow, however becomes uncomfortable and is unable to suppress his thoughts. This plays into the theory that Winslow only killed his boss due to severe inner turmoil over being attracted to him.
- Ambiguously Christian: When Wake questions him about his beliefs, he described himself as "God-fearing," but we don't get much more context beyond that.
- Ambition Is Evil: Deconstructed. After constantly trying to prove how much he deserves entry into the lighthouse, Winslow only meets his goal by murdering Wake. It doesn't last long, however...
- And I Must Scream: It's implied that the last scene of the film where he is Eaten Alive by seagulls is either a Dying Dream or he is doomed for eternity being disemboweled and defecated on. Either way, he is alive and aware the entire time.
- The Atoner: Zigzagged. He speaks of wanting to start over when Wake asks why he chose the job, even saying that he's done things that he isn't proud of. In the scene where he spills the truth that he murdered the real Ephraim Winslow, he expresses some guilt over what he's done. However, despite his remorse and supposed desire to leave his sins behind, he still murders Wake in the end in similar fashion to Winslow.
- Ax-Crazy: Winslow hacks Wake to death with an axe after being attacked by him, and it's also possible he attempted to kill Wake earlier with one when he was trying to escape the island. When he killed his previous boss, he used a cant hook.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: In the beginning part of the film, he beats a seagull to death which seemingly brings down a storm on the pair and strands them for most of the film.
- Berserk Button: Both of his bosses met their demise because they kept referring to him as a dog.
- Berserker Tears: During his villainous breakdown, Winslow starts tearing up when Wake breaks him down to his lowest state.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: Despite Winslow's subdued and reserved personality, he's capable of angry fits of murder.
- Big "NO!": Has one when he assumes he's being toyed with again.Winslow: That's the trouble with you!
Wake: That's the trouble with ye!
Winslow: With you!
Wake: With ye!
Winslow: No! NOOO!!! - Butt-Monkey: Often subjected to Wake's gaslighting, borderline abusive work standards, and crude insults.
- Churchgoing Villain: While he admits that he doesn't pray that much, Winslow identifies as 'God-fearing.'
- Covert Pervert: Winslow masturbates to a mermaid trinket in private or during the night.
- Creepy Monotone: Sports one during the start of the movie. He loses it as he stays longer on the island and becomes a lot more unhinged.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: He dies after falling down the lighthouse stairs from being being burned and driven mad by the light. In the afterlife, Winslow has his insides eaten and defecated on by sea gulls for presumably all eternity, similar to Prometheus.
- Deadpan Snarker: Despite never being a wickie or sailor, he certainly has the dry wit of one. It's one of the only things Wake ever compliments him for.Wake: The only medicine is drink. Keeps them sailors happy, keeps them agreeable, keeps them calm, keeps them...
Winslow: Stupid.
[pause, then Wake starts to laugh]
Wake: Curse me! If there ain't an old tar spirit somewheres in ye, lad! - The Determinator: His obsession with the light drives him to do anything to either earn the entry or break in. Even kill his boss.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Winslow nearly kills himself doing dangerous tasks to maintain the station, only for Wake to recommend that Winslow not be compensated for any of the labor he's completed. He's understandably pissed off by this when he finds out.
- Does Not Like Spam: Tells Wake when drunk that he hates his cooking, specifically the lobster. Then again, he could've just been saying it to piss him off.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He mentions that he left his dad to go work.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Towards the end of the movie, Winslow condemns Wake for leaving his family behind to continue his work, implying that he left it for a worthless goal.
- Entitled Bastard: Wake calls him out for being one in his "Reason You Suck" Speech.Wake: ...Ye pretended to some mystery in yer quietudes, but there ain't no mystery, yer an open book. A picture, says I. A painted actress screaming in the footlights, a bitch what wants to be coveted for nothin' but being born, cryin' bout the silver spoon what should've been yers.
- Karmic Death: Beats a seagull to death. Eventually gets Eaten Alive by an entire flock of them.
- Laughing Mad: Has one moment after he breaks the mermaid scrimshaw. Believing that he's broken a curse Wake placed on it, Winslow celebrates by unnervingly laughing in his face to mock him.Winslow: He went mad? You made him mad with that charm! That scrimshaw trinket! But I broke it, see. See! Now I'm free... I'm free from yer designs!
[Winslow breaks off in a crazed laughing fit as Wake watches in shock and pity] - Last-Name Basis: Winslow's rarely referred to by his first name in the movie. He similarly calls Thomas Wake by his last name only.
- Nightmare Fetishist: The mermaid that washes up on the beach (if she's even real) has grotesquely shaped fins and even frightens Winslow with her eerie shrieking. Nonetheless, he still fantasizes about having sex with her.
- Pretty Boy: Despite sporting a disheveled appearance for most of the film, Wake pokes fun at Winslow through off-hand mentions that he finds him attractive.Wake: So, what brung such a one as you to this damned rock?
Winslow: Such as what?
Wake: Pretty as a picture.
[Wake laughs]
Wake: Only joshing, lad, only josh… - Psychopathic Manchild: Counts as one because he's driven mainly by greed and an inability to accept the truth.
- The Quiet One: Not really chatty or keen on talking about himself. It makes a lot of sense after he admits to a few things...
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He made a really long and crude one on the spot after he learned Wake was purposely misreporting his work to cut his pay, the speech doubling as a Rage Breaking Point. The quote below isn't even the full rant.Winslow: You think yer so damned high and mighty cause yer a goddamned lighthouse keeper? Well, you ain't a captain of no ship and you never was, you ain't no general, no copper, you ain't the president, and you ain't my father — and I'm sick of you actin' like you is! I'm sick of your laugh, your snoring, and your goddamned farts. Your damned goddamned farts. Goddamn yer farts! You smell like piss, you smell like jism, like rotten dick, like curdled foreskin, like hot onions fucked a farmyard shit-house. And I'm sick of yer smell. I'm sick of it! I'm sick of it, you goddamned drunk. You goddamned, no-account, drunken, son-of-a-bitch-bastard liar! That's what you are, you're a goddamned drunken horse-shitting — short — shit liar. A liar!
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The obvious blue to Wake's stormy and joking red.
- The Resenter: Winslow definitely resents Wake for his poor treatment of him, but also for his access and control of the light.
- Sanity Slippage: Winslow was probably already on the verge of one since he's in constant denial that he consciously killed someone. When cabin fever, alcoholism, vivid hallucinations, and mental abuse is added to the pile, he starts to lose all reason
. - Sentimental Drunk: It kinda confirms Wake's ideas on alcohol when it makes someone as mistrustful as Winslow more content and open to trust Wake more. They even share a drunken slow dance together and hold each other while Winslow admits to being an imposter.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Despite working beside a crude former sailor, Winslow swears the most out of the two men. This can be a justified example for age-appropriate immaturity.
- Sympathetic Murderer: Killing Wake off counts as this considering his mistreatment of Winslow beforehand.
- Undignified Death: In addition to the seagulls eating his intestines, they also defecate on him.
- Unreliable Narrator: Possibly; more than once, Wake contradicts what Winslow believes to have happened, regarding both Winslow's actions and the passage of time, though the movie never makes it clear whether it's the effect of Winslow slowly going insane or if Wake is deliberately gaslighting him. The film's setting doesn't help clear up matters.
- Villain Protagonist: The story follows the journey of a killer trying to hide from his past.
- Weirdness Magnet: Winslow is haunted by the lighthouse, mermaids, gulls assumed to be the souls of dead sailors, possibly Wake, and whatever other supernatural things that lie on the island. If the theory is correct that he already died and is a spirit traveling through purgatory, this would make Winslow "weird" as well.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Is implied with his relationship towards Wake, where he seems to secretly want his approval. In an interview with the cast about the movie's homoeroticism, Pattison describes Winslow as sort of wanting a daddy.
- Would Harm a Senior: At the end of the movie, he attacks and eventually kills his older boss, Wake.
Thomas Wake
Thomas Wake/Old
Played By: Willem Dafoe Other Languages
"Should pale death, with treble dread, make the ocean caves our bed, God who hear'st the surges roll, deign to save our suppliant soul."
An older sailor, Thomas Wake is a more seasoned wickie and mentors Winslow throughout the movie. Supposedly a former sea captain, he speaks in a nautical tongue and has the temperament of a gruff, unsound pirate. His possessiveness of the light makes one wonder if he knows more than he acts like he does...
- Affably Evil: Wake, while aggravating and superstitious, seems well-meaning towards the start of the film. We eventually see him openly gaslight and denigrate Winslow.
- The Alcoholic: His use of alcohol to fend off boredom has given him an awful drinking habit. Winslow calls him out for it several times.Winslow: You've been drunk since I first laid eyes on you.
- Ambiguously Bi: Similar to Winslow, both express attraction towards women early in the movie; Wake recalls previous encounters with pretty nuns and was originally married before he left to continue his work. Besides the obvious slow dance and near kiss scene, it can be noted that Wake sometimes describes Winslow as "pretty" or a "handsome lad."
- Ambiguously Christian: Seemingly worships and prays to the Christian God on multiple occasions, but his relationship to Christianity is made complicated by the near-pagan levels of superstition, culminating in a prayer to the Greek gods Triton and Neptune.
- Ambiguously Evil: He's certainly a Bad Boss and an unpleasant man in general, but the degree of Wake's villainy is ambiguous. In particular, did Wake murder his former assistant, or did the man die accidentally, as Wake claimed? Also, given Winslow's questionable sanity and repressed guilt, it's not entirely clear how much of Wake's antagonism is genuine or just Winslow imagining or even hallucinating it.
- Ambiguously Human: It's possible that Wake is a primordial guardian of the light, or even the very god of the sea. There's a consensus that Wake's character was modeled off of Proteus, a prophetic sea god from Greek mythology that would take the appearance of an old man.
- Ax-Crazy: Both Wake and Winslow take turns trying to kill each other with one.
- Bad Boss: Wake spends the movie denigrating and overworking Winslow, as well as threatening to dock his wages, gaslighting him, and planning to recommend that he not be paid for his work.
- Berserk Button: Insulting his cooking is a BIG no.
- Crusty Caretaker: The ill-tempered, salty keeper of the lighthouse.
- Dark Shepherd: Wake hypocritically discourages Winslow's faults and obsession with the light through either threats, verbal abuse, manipulation, and even trying to damn his soul. However, when he warns Winslow about what's really in the light, it can be interpreted as if he's actually trying to save him.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Wake goes on a long, extensive tirade, calling upon Poseidon to curse Winslow's soul. What motivated this? Winslow told Wake his cooking was terrible.
- Dirty Old Man: When he speaks of a young woman that once caught his eye, he mentions how his future relationships paled when he thought of her.Winslow: You feel shame when you lie with a woman?
Wake: I ain't shamed of nothing!
[they both laugh]- Similar to Winslow's sexual obsession with the mermaid carving, Wake has an unusual attraction for the light itself.Wake: Now. I'm a wickie and a wickie I is. And I'm damn well wedded to this here light and she's been a finer, truer, quieter wife than any live-blooded woman.
- Similar to Winslow's sexual obsession with the mermaid carving, Wake has an unusual attraction for the light itself.
- Eccentric Mentor: He's a drunken old sailor that believes in sea superstitions and attempts to curse his apprentice for disliking his food. Are you that surprised?
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Wake was married with children, however he estranged himself from his family by prioritizing his sea-life over them. He claims his wife never forgave him for it.
- In the original script, Wake's logbook held keepsakes of his children such as pictures and locks of their hair, indicating that he still loved them despite the estrangement that he caused.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The movie makes it hard to list this trope because we're never sure if Wake's even innocent for a crime that he condemns Winslow for.
- Father Neptune: Though he's a lighthouse keeper and not a sailor anymore, he ticks so many of the boxes for this trope that Winslow eventually complains that he "talks like a goddamn parody." It may actually be an act however - he gives conflicting stories about what happened to his bad leg, and at one point Winslow accuses him of being a total fraud who was never a sailor, which Wake doesn't really confirm or deny. Then again Winslow might have been projecting a little, as he himself is lying about his true identity.
- The Gadfly: Besides getting drunk and sleeping, he also likes to pass the time by getting on Winslow's nerves.
- Gaslighting: Wake repeatedly contradicts what Winslow (and the audience) believes to have happened, regarding both events and the passage of time, though it's left unclear if Wake is doing this deliberately or if Winslow is genuinely going insane (though the two aren't mutually exclusive).
- Gasshole: He commonly farts, most of them are implied to be on purpose.
- Hypocrite:
- He docks Winslow's pay for reasons such as 'working drunk,' 'habitual self-abuse' and attempting to harm his coworker. On any other day, Wake would be right to do this if he wasn't guilty of the same actions himself.
- Towards the end of the movie, Wake reviles Winslow for being a murderer. However, it's never settled if Winslow is incorrect about Wake killing his former worker.
- Jerkass: His abandonment of his family and manipulative tendencies towards Winslow make him a really unpleasant person.
- Large Ham: Dafoe is clearly enjoying himself playing the "crusty old seadog" to an almost comical extreme, and is prone to extremely grandiose turns of phrase, most notably during the "Hark!" scene when he goes on an utterly deranged two-minute rant, delivering a nightmarish nautical death curse damning Winslow's soul to hell and back in Purple Prose... for the crime of insulting his cooking.
- Last-Name Basis: Wake insists that he's called Wake instead of Thomas.
- Lethal Chef: Winslow describes Wake's cooking as "horse-shit," however he might have said that just to be rude.
- Married to the Job: Basically admitted by him at one point:Wake: I'm damn-well wedded to this here light, and she's been a finer, truer, quiter wife than any live-blooded woman.
- Mean Boss: Wake's an awful mix of this and a bad boss. Not only does he demean Winslow and overwork him, but he even attempts to kill him.
- Meaningful Name: Thomas Wake was the name of an actual 16th century pirate from the New England region.
- Multiple-Choice Past: Wake tells contradictory stories about how he wound up with a crippled leg, which Winslow calls him on. Wake claims that Winslow simply misheard, but it casts a lot of doubt on Wake's honesty.
- Sea Dog Beard: And a fantastic one at that.
- Shapeshifter Showoff Session: Occurs by way of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane in the final act; Wake abruptly appears to transform into the real Ephraim Winslow, the mermaid from Winslow's dreams, and a horrific tentacled version of himself (possibly his true form) after Thomas Howard attacks him.
- Signature Line: Anyone who's seen the trailer can probably guess it off the top of their head: "Why'd y'spill yer beans?"
- Superstitious Sailors: Whenever he's not getting sloshed, bossing Winslow around, or farting, Wake seems to always be spouting old-timey sailor gossip. He even has the audacity to slap Winslow after the young wickie mocks the notion that killing a seagull is bad luck.
- Talk Like a Pirate: He's not a pirate, but he has the accent and can barely go two words without throwing in some nautical slang.
- The Unblinking: Not for the whole movie, but during his long-winded rant at Winslow, he doesn't blink once, which only serves to make it even more unsettling.
