YMMV / Fran Bow

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Given that entire game runs on Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane this was inevitable. Especially as the game progresses and makes a Genre Shift from horror to fantasy and facts become increasingly ambiguous.
  • Fran Bow herself. Is she just an innocent girl who got swept up in a conspiracy way too big for her to understand, or a murderous psychopath with a disassociation disorder coked up on meds that obscure her reality?
  • Mr. Midnight, specifically the Talking Animal version. Are they the real Mr. Midnight, or has the original Mr. Midnight been long dead/kept by Aunt Grace and the version Fran is seeing is a hallucination? The scene in the graveyard and the finale both make it extremely ambiguous, especially if one interprets what Fran says at the ending to be Mr. Midnight "talking to her."
  • Remor. While Dr. Oswald directly states to be working with Remor, it's possible Fran has taken so much Duotine that she can't distinguish her hallucinations from reality. Not helping matters is how Remor acts, while he's very antagonistic he never takes any action to kill Fran even when he has her right in front of him, and the finale shows that Remor wasn't the one to kill Fran's parents, but characters in the scene immediately afterwards claim he did. Of course, being Remor, it's hard to know what's the truth with him.
• Complete Monster: Remor, the Terrible Black, is a sadomasochist and tormentor of all things good. He leads the Kamalas, feeding on pain and suffering of humans and waging wars on places that know no evil. After being hired by Dr. Oswald Harrison to capture and contain ten-year-old Fran Bow Dagenhart, Remor goes beyond the call of duty by possessing her to murder her own parents and mentally and physically torment her. When she manages to escape him, he relentlessly pursues her with several attempts on her life, even trying to convince her to kill herself just to delight himself on her pain.
• Creepy Cute: Fran herself. Despite making the occasional odd or unsettling comment, and being seemly unfazed by a number of the horrors along her journey, she's still a polite, innocent and curious little girl.
• Friendly Fandoms: With Sally Face.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Aunt Grace crosses this for many players when she throws Mr. Midnight(?) into the void during the finale.
  • Dr. Oswald does it earlier, just moments after beginning to speak.
• Nightmare Retardant: The casual way that Fran interacts with the unsettling and creepy elements of the world, especially on the Fifth Dimension. There's such a semblance of normalcy that barring some phobias, they stop being spooky.
• Tear Jerker: Kicking off with the murder of Fran's parents, Fran Bow's journey is a nightmare of feelings from start to finish. A noteworthy moment is when Fran has to force herself to cry "tears from true sorrow." After saying that doing so would be a piece of cake, Fran recounts every single bad thing that's ever happened to her and falls to her knees sobbing.
• That One Level: Chapter 3, especially the Great Wizard's quests. "Quests," because there are Fetch Quests INSIDE OF Fetch Quests, many of which can easily end up Guide Dang It! for some players, and while that's no stranger to the Point and Click genre it can end up making the player feel like they're not making any progress very quickly. It doesn't help that Chapter 3 is easily the longest of all of the game's Chapters.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: On top of the mountain in Ithersta, Fran sees what appears to be a black dragon being attacked by the Kamalas, and then crash landing. When she finds the place where the creature crashed, it shifts back into a badly injured Palontras, who then flies off, leaving behind a feather. Palontras' alternate form is never mentioned again, and when he is seen again, he is fully healed.
• The Woobie: If you believe the alternate interpretations of the story and the characters are true, then Fran definitely qualifies. The girl saw her parents dead in their bedroom and has been haunted by Remor for years. Her new medication (and possibly her other prescriptions) makes her see nightmarish imagery everywhere she goes. She has no one aside from her cat to comfort her and she doesn't know if everything she's seeing is real or in her head. Things only get worse if you believe that Fran's aunt is responsible for her sister and brother-in-law's deaths, her attempted murder of Mr. Midnight to make Fran easier to control, and Dr. Oswald is an evil scientist who experimented on children and has made Fran his next project.

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