History Characters / TheBindingOfIsaacMainCast

* BalanceBuff: And what a bunch of buffs it was! ''Afterbirth'' allowed The Lost to start with spectral tears (allowing it to shoot enemies with safety behind obstacles) by default. Blowing up 30 arcade machines unlocks the D4 for it to use, and donating 879 coins to the Greed machine also lets it start with the Holy Mantle, allowing one hit per room before dying. ''Repentance'' pushes it further by making the Holy Mantle effect intrinsic to The Lost so it can't be rerolled. However, this did come with some {{Nerf}}s to Holy Mantle's MercyInvincibility.

* MagikarpPower:
** Lilith doesn't start naturally with Cambion Conception, and it has to be unlocked by defeating ??? in the Chest. Once done, however, it'll be available in the Devil Rooms and as a starting item for her.
** If you can pick up more familiars or find a way to spawn at least one more with Cambion Conception without dying, Box of Friends' effectiveness begins to multiply. Gaining boosts to spacebar charge rate such as 9 Volt and AAA Battery increases how often she can double her army of minions, and BFFS! just makes everything stronger.

* DifficultButAwesome: He plays ''nothing'' like any other character in the game, and you have to master being able to switch between the skeleton and its Soul when the situation best calls for it, which isn't easy considering that both the skeleton and the soul use different forms of health, and because of how they work, you can never have more than six bone hearts or six soul hearts. However, his melee attack is very powerful, and while the Soul is active, you can use the inactive skeleton to shield yourself from bullets without taking damage. The Soul also has flight and spectral tears, enabling him to fly over obstacles, pick up items, and fire through rocks just like the Lost, but without being a OneHitPointWonder. Additionally, the bone hearts are not counted as red health unless you completely break a bone heart, so you won't lose a chance at a devil deal just from taking damage as long as you can heal up. However, Devil Deals can only be taken by the Soul, so you have to have enough Soul/Black Hearts to survive it.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: Active items are of course exempt from the 8 item limit, but unique items that are required to access special areas and bosses (The Polaroid for The Chest, The Negative for Dark Room, the Key Pieces for Mega Satan, the Knife Pieces for the Corpse, and Dad's Note for the Ascent) also have this exception. This way, even if Isaac has hit the 8 item limit, he still is allowed a chance to get to those areas. Also, trinkets that get permanently applied via items like Marbles or Smelter don't count toward the limit, either. Finally, the built-in limitation only applies to passive items; Tainted Isaac can still build up his stats through means such as pills or items as often as he can find the resources to do so.

* VillainyFreeVillain: With the added context given in ''Repentance". [[spoiler: The new endings point to her being less of KnightTemplar hellbent on making her son as miserable as possible until she gets the divine command to kill him, and more so a realistically fundamentalist mother who is strict to the point of being abusive. That being said, despite partially being the cause of Isaac's severe self loathing and indirectly leading to him dying, neither were her actual intention and she is genuinely distraught over his death.

* {{Irony}}: Most of her unlocks are for angel rooms, but her actual playstyle (namely her high starting HP) encourages taking devil deals.

* TheMentallyDisturbed: With all said and done about the new endings in ''Rebirth'' and its expansions, there comes the spine-chilling conclusion that, [[spoiler:by experiencing losses too grave for his age, together with the outcast status forcefully pinned by other children, this whole game can be interpreted as Isaac's slow descent into schizophrenia. Small wonder that the game seems to run on BlackComedy and surrealism now, huh...?

* BalanceBuff: ''Repentance'' gave Keeper changes to greatly improve his survivability. His speed and tears were slightly increased, he's now able to have three coin hearts (with his Hush unlock now allowing him to start with that amount), the health down pill doesn't spawn when you play as him, and he now spends coins instead of health in devil deals.

* BornLucky: Cain's starting item gives him increased luck in certain situations.[[note]]Pills will never have negative effects (in the original), RewardingVandalism is more likely to happen, the odds of winning the Skull game increases from one-third to one-half, and gold chests are more likely to give items (as opposed to pickups).[[/note]]

* BullfightBoss: Esau acts as one, attempting to charge at Jacob constantly.
** Interestingly, his behavior is similar to that of [[Characters/TheBindingOfIsaacBosses Mother's Shadow]], so knowing one can prove to be effective for dealing with the other.

* DifficultButAwesome: Using Dark Esau as a weapon. If used properly, Esau can be ''incredibly'' powerful, as his charge can destroy most enemies and can cause some serious damage to bosses; potentially killing earlier ones in a [[OneHitKill single charge]]. However, this makes it easier for Esau to ram into Jacob, turning him into his ghostly form. Additionally, using Anima Sola to "aim" Esau means that the player must wait 15 seconds between attacks (barring room clears), on top of having no way to stop Esau if in a situation where the charge is nigh-unavoidable.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Mom's idea of "removing all that is evil" from Isaac's life in the intro involves taking away his toys and his clothes. When the Voice tells her that he needs to be cut off from all the evil of the world, she responds by locking Isaac in his room. And that's ''before'' she is asked to kill him.