History Characters / WhatRemainsOfEdithFinch

* {{Foreshadowing}}: [[spoiler:If the player moves the camera downward far enough, they'll notice Edith's belly sticking out. There can only be two reasons for this: either she is overweight or she is pregnant. During the roof climbing part in the game, the player finds out from Edith that it's the latter.]]

* TheHeavy: Her love of sharing stories, obsession with her family curse, and desire to have everyone live in the same house together caused almost every single death in her family.

* TheStoryteller: She had a passion for telling stories to everyone, whether that meant regaling her grandchildren and great-grandchildren with tales from her youth or [[{{Troll}} telling the media about a supposed mole man beneath her land]].

* LastOfHisKind / SoleSurvivor: [[spoiler: He is the last of the Finch family, and indeed never knew any other Finches. The journal is likely the only contact he has ever had with any of his relatives. He might be related to Monroe via Milton, but that's still on the wall.]]

* DiedOnTheirBirthday: Born on October 31, 1944 and [[DangerousSixteenthBirthday died on her 16th birthday]] -- October 31, 1960 -- after she gets killed by her own "fans."

!!Edith Finch (1999-[[spoiler:2017]])

* TheComicallySerious: The game juxtaposes Edith's wistful, portentous meditations on the inevitability of mortality with her doing dangerous things like holding her arm out of a moving car window or [[spoiler: climbing trees while 22 weeks pregnant.]]
* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler: Her narration is posthumously being read from her journal by her son, though her journey to her home really happens as it appears.]]

* DeathByChildbirth: [[spoiler: Dies giving birth to her son.]]
* {{Foreshadowing}}: [[spoiler:If the player moves the camera downward far enough, they'll notice Edith's belly sticking out. There can only be two reasons for this: 1. She is overweight. 2. She is pregnant. During the roof climbing part in the game, the player finds out from Edith that it's the latter.]]
* PosthumousCharacter: [[spoiler: She's actually dead the entirety of the game, and everything we see is her son's perception of her experiences from reading her journal.]] She's still the protagonist of the game despite this.

* TeenPregnancy: [[spoiler: She is 17 years old and 22 weeks along at the time of the story.]]

* WiseBeyondTheirYears: Many full-grown adults have a harder time understanding and accepting death than a seventeen-year-old [[spoiler: pregnant girl burdened with the knowledge that she [[DeathByChildbirth may not live to see her own son]]]].

!!Milton Finch (1992-[[spoiler:2003?]])
!!!'''Voiced by:''' [[spoiler: '''Creator/TerryGilliam''', as "The King" in ''VideoGame/TheUnfinishedSwan'']]

The younger of Edith's brothers, and Dawn's second child. He's got quite a sense of imagination. [[spoiler:There are hints that he might be the King from ''The Unfinished Swan''.]]

* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler: Maybe.]]

* ChildProdigy: His paintings are phenomenal for his age, and [[spoiler: the flipbook teasing his fate]] is exceptionally well-drawn.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: His disappearance. [[spoiler: Did he disappear into his own painted world, or simply run away from home for reasons unknown?]]

* NeverFoundTheBody: He went missing without a trace shortly after his tenth birthday. [[spoiler: By the end, his fate is still uncertain.]]

* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: After coming to terms with the fact that the Lewis he wants to be is only attainable in his head. Though given his [[SanitySlippage complete detachment from reality]], it's possible he wasn't even aware that his head was in the chopper.]]

* {{Foil}}: The way his death is portrayed paints him as one to Walter. [[spoiler: Both were people who escaped the world around them, but for Walter this was physically escaping after the trauma he went through. Meanwhile, Lewis retreated into a mental world after the mundane life he had caught up to him. How they both die is even an example, as Walter died escaping his world, while Lewis died by embracing his world.]]
** May also be one to his brother Milton as well. [[spoiler: Both created an entire world to escape into, which they both eventually ended up ruling over. These worlds end up taking both of them away from their family, though in different ways. However, while Lewis' world is entirely in his imagination and is out of reach for him, Milton is able to create his world physically. Lewis' world ends up being his demise, falling victim to the family curse, while Milton's world allows him to eventually break the curse and survive by having a child and a nephew at the same time.]]

* TheStoner: His room is decorated with "LEGALIZE MARIJUANA" posters, and a large hookah is positioned prominently in the middle of it. Edith casually mentions that it smells familiar. [[spoiler: It gets less funny when the psychiatrist's letter reveals that he was using drugs to cope with the tragedies in his life, and when he ran out, he started retreating into his fantasies.]]

* {{Curse}}: Comes to believe that the curse on her family is real, and that Edie keeping the stories of their ancestors is making things worse. Following Milton's [[NeverFoundTheBody disappearance and presumed death]], she tries to stop the curse from getting to anyone else by sealing all of the rooms; after Lewis's death shortly thereafter, [[spoiler: she gives up and forces Edith to leave with her]].

* HopeSpot: After she and Edith have left the home, [[spoiler: she develops cancer, but it goes into remission in a seeming subversion of the {{Curse}}... only to return in full force later and kill her.]]

* PeacefulInDeath: [[spoiler: Peacefully succumbs to cancer with Edith by her side, no longer having to worry about the supposed {{Curse}} on her family.]]

* WellIntentionedExtremist: Her rash actions like sealing the rooms and [[spoiler: surprising Edie with the news that she and Edith will leave the house]] come from her grief and desperation to somehow stop the {{Curse}} on her family.

* NiceGuy: A common fan interpretation. He ''did'' work on disaster relief efforts, and the one photo of him we can see is of the family all smiling.

* SurprisinglySuddenDeath: [[spoiler: He's bucked off the cliff in the time it takes for his camera to flash.]]

* EmoTeen: Not usually, but he briefly became one when his father divorced Kay and remarried another woman, getting so depressed, isolated, and angry that he acted out at the wedding and refused to come into the tent even when a storm picked up. [[spoiler: Which led him to be killed by debris in the wind, mere feet away from his father and the partygoers.]]
* EmpathicEnvironment: As he stays outside of the wedding, the weather shifts to match his mood: DramaticWind kicks up, and [[GraveClouds the sky darkens]] as a storm approaches. [[spoiler: The wind ends up getting so strong that it blows his father's tent off the ground and smashes it into him, instantly killing him.]]
* FlatCharacter: The only thing that's known about him is that he angrily disapproved of his father remarrying, and he liked to fly kites.

* BathsAreFun: Gregory, being a baby, has a lot of fun in the bath playing with his toys and imagining colorful seascapes. [[spoiler: He drowned when his tub overfilled, but Sam chooses to believe he died happily, and the last FantasySequence in his dying moments certainly paints this picture.]]
* DeadlyBath: [[spoiler: Drowned in the tub due to Kay being distracted.]]

* ParentalNeglect: [[spoiler: A brief lapse in his mother's attention [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom due to Sam's phone call]] resulted in his death.]]

* ParentalNeglect: Stepped away from her one-year-old son Gregory in the bath to have a phone conversation with Sam. [[spoiler: What happened next handily demonstrated why one should '''never do that, ever'''--Gregory accidentally turned the faucet on and drowned while she was distracted.]] Contrary to Sam's reassurance to her, Gregory's death was entirely her fault.
* SmallRoleBigImpact: Is Dawn's mother and Edith's grandmother, but barely gets any mention besides being Sam's first wife (although she is on the Finch family tree). [[ParentalNeglect Considering her OTHER impact,]] there's probably a reason she's the only non-Finch parent in the family whose status at the time of the game isn't stated.
** Edith jokingly [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this by mentioning the pink carpet in the bathroom that Kay put in the bathroom being the only thing left from her.

* TraumaCongaLine: [[OutlivingOnesOffspring She outlives every single one of her descendants]] with the exceptions of Dawn and Edith, but somehow manages to keep going. [[spoiler: Then Dawn springs on her that she and Edith will be leaving the house and putting her in a nursing home, and she finally crosses the DespairEventHorizon.]]
* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler: It's not clear exactly how she dies, as Edith only says that she's "gone". Though just before the big argument that drives Dawn and Edith from the house, it's made clear that she's mixing her pills with alcohol, implying that she killed herself after Dawn and Edith left.]]
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Her sending Molly to bed without supper is the reason Molly's hungry enough in her flashback to eat gerbil food, toothpaste, and holly berries. [[spoiler: If you believe the mundane explanation of Molly's story, this caused her death by food poisoning]]. On a more general level, she is responsible for almost all the deaths in her family, directly or indirectly.

* FaceDeathWithDignity: [[spoiler: He busts out of his bunker when he grows tired of waiting in fear for the {{Curse}} to get him, and leaves a letter about being unafraid of the idea that he could die any day, as long as he can experience one new day. Tragically, [[RailroadTracksOfDoom he breaks through the wall onto some railroad tracks]].]]
* GroundhogDayLoop: He enforces one, living out every day in the bunker in the same routine as he's terrorized by a mysterious shaking, which he fears is the [[{{Curse}} dark]] [[EldritchAbomination entity]] that killed his siblings. [[spoiler: It's actually the rumblings of the train tunnel right next to the bunker, which he ends up breaking into.]]

* RailroadTracksOfDoom: [[spoiler: Wandered out onto some train tracks [[LookBothWays just as a train happened to be coming up behind him]].]]

* TraumaCongaLine: He lost all of his siblings in rather quick succession, [[spoiler: Barbara even dying a few rooms over from him while he [[DirtyCoward hid under the bed]]]], which caused his SanitySlippage and retreat from the surface world.

* CallOfTheWildBlueYonder: [[spoiler: Died when he tried to loop his swing all the way around and the branch snapped, sending him over the cliff. Sam comforts himself by telling himself that Calvin finally got to fly like he always wanted.]] And in a sad twist of {{Irony}}, [[spoiler: Sam himself would end up dying [[HistoryRepeats in much the same way decades later]].]]

* DevouredByTheHorde: [[spoiler: What the story posits her fate was, at the hands of [[MalevolentMaskedMen masked fans]] who [[NotAMask turned out to be real monsters]]. However, it's easily inferred that she was really just murdered by either her boyfriend or a SerialKiller.]]
* DiedOnTheirBirthday: Born on October 31, 1944 and [[DangerousSixteenthBirthday died on her 16th birthday]]--October 31, 1960--after she gets killed by her own "fans."

* NeverFoundTheBody: [[spoiler: All the police ever found of her was [[FingerInTheMail her ear, stuffed inside the music box Sven made for her]]. Unlike with Milton's disappearance, though, it's pretty clear that she died.]]
* TheScream: Her claim to fame as a little girl was her iconic scream. Going through puberty put a damper on that, leading to [[FormerChildStar the end of her career]]. At the start of her story, her boyfriend is trying to help her recapture it so that she can perform it at a fan convention, [[spoiler: but [[DramaticIrony she only succeeds]] at the [[DeathWail moment of her death]]]].
* SerialKiller: [[spoiler: Suspected to be behind her death and Rick's disappearance, if Rick didn't kill her himself.]]

** Calvin died [[spoiler: falling off of a cliff, after he decided to loop around the tree branch on the swing and accidentally fell off. This, occurring only a year after Barbara's death, came as a result of Calvin and Sam swearing to never be afraid again at her funeral.]]
** Sam, as a result of both the agreement he made with Calvin at Barbara's funeral, and Calvin's death, decided to be prepared for anything, dedicating himself to learning survival skills, which he tried to pass on to his children. [[spoiler: On his hunting trip with Dawn where he was attempting to teach her, he ended up being killed by a deer.]]
** Walter was the most directly affected by Barbara's death, [[spoiler: becoming afraid of the world locking himself up in a bunker underneath the house for almost 50 years as a result. Eventually, he decided to leave the bunker, breaking down a wall to the outside, only for it to be in the direct path of a train.]]

* AmbiguousSituation: The circumstances of her death are unclear by the end. [[spoiler: Was she telling the truth about having an out-of-body experience, and did she really get SwallowedWhole by a SeaMonster at the end? Or was the story simply [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane her hallucinations as she slowly died from eating things she shouldn't have?]]]]

* OneTrackMindedHunger: Due to being [[DeniedFoodAsPunishment sent up to her room without any supper]]. She eats a gerbil's carrot, a tube of toothpaste, and some holly berries. [[spoiler: This may have been what killed her- food poisoning causing her to hallucinate and die]]. In her experience becoming various animals, she eats a bird (as a cat), two rabbits (as an owl), a seal (as a shark), and the passengers and crew of a ship (as a sea monster). [[spoiler: She may have been killed by her sea monster self, as she writes that it is [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight waiting under her bed for her to go to sleep]], but won't wait much longer.]]

* SeaMonster: [[spoiler: The last thing she apparently turns into, and what might have [[EatenAlive eaten her]] in the end.]]
* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: Presented throughout her flashback. [[spoiler: She seems not to have any remorse for the animals she kills and eats, and only vaguely wants to stop when she becomes a [[GiantSquid squid]] [[SeaMonster monster]] and starts killing people. When she suspects the same monster is [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight hiding under her bed]], her last words are that she knows she will be delicious.]] Whether this is representative of her real personality, or just [[spoiler: the rambling of a child dying from food poisoning]], is left up to interpretation, though it's notable that, [[spoiler: before her transformations even begin, she considers eating her pet goldfish.]]

* AmbiguouslyEvil: [[spoiler: He disappeared after Barbara's [[NeverFoundTheBody apparent murder]], the implications being that he was either killed by the SerialKiller, [[DirtyCoward fled out of fear]], or killed her himself.]]

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Downplayed, but it's clear that she harbors serious regrets over [[spoiler: not being able to see the warning signs of Lewis's suicidal urges until it was too late]].
* TheStoic: As expected of a professional, she's very monotone and detached while describing [[spoiler: Lewis's SanitySlippage and eventual suicide]], despite her clear sympathies.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: [[spoiler: Turns out that her allowing and encouraging Lewis to sink into his fantasy world was what led to him [[DrivenToSuicide killing himself at work]].]]

* {{Jerkass}}: He doesn't exactly show sympathy toward Barbara [[spoiler: for being brutally murdered]] or Walter [[spoiler: for witnessing the event and being [[DespairEventHorizon sent into lifelong despair]]]]. Then again, he's a fictional character InUniverse, so this more applies to the author of his comic.

* MusicalNod: [[spoiler:His theme is based on the main track of ''The Unfinished Swan'', leaning towards the idea that he's the King from said game.]]

* AliceAllusion: A lot of things relating to Lewis seem to reference ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'': like the title character, he's a MrImagination; the game console in his room is called "Wonderland"; the hookah in his room seems to be a reference to The Caterpillar; and even his name may be a reference to Creator/LewisCarroll.

* DangerousSixteenthBirthday: [[spoiler:A pretty bad time on [[UsefulNotes/AllHallowsEve Halloween]], the day of her sixteenth birthday: after mistakenly hitting her boyfriend who pretended to be a monster in the basement, and fighting off a serial killer, she gets a (deadly) birthday surprise when she gets killed by her so-called "masked" fans... at least in the comic book.]]

* OutlivingOnesOffspring: Several of the Finches see their children die before them. Odin outlives his infant son Johann. Edie outlives all five of her children, and Sven manages to outlive three of them (Sam and Walter are still alive by the time he dies). Sam and Kay outlive both of their sons, leaving only Dawn, who outlives her elder son and is alive when her younger son runs away, but dies before her daughter. The only two people in the family with children to not outlive any of them are Edith (who dies while giving birth to her son), and Milton (who is still alive and whose son is still alive). Edie also outlives all but one of her grandchildren, as well as one of her great-grandchildren.

* DarkSkinnedBlonde: Though judging by pictures of him as a child, it's most likely dyed.

* TeenagePregnancy: [[spoiler: She is 17 years old and 22 weeks along at the time of the story.]]

* CoolBigBro: To Edith, especially since he is the only family member she can remember who wasn't their parents, as Milton disappeared when Edith was 4 and she never knew about Walter.

* CreatorCameo: Voiced by a software engineer for the game.

* CreatorCameo: He's voiced by Ian Dallas, the game's director.

* DeathOfAChild: In addition to several onscreen and {{ambiguous|Situation}} child deaths, one of the flashbacks shows Gregory, a one-year-old baby, [[spoiler: drowning in his bath when his mother steps away to argue with Sam on the phone.]]

* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: Presented throughout her flashback. [[spoiler: She seems not to have any remorse for the animals she kills and eats, and only vaguely wants to stop when she becomes a [[GiantSquid squid]] [[SeaMonster monster]] and starts killing people. When she suspects the same monster is [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight hiding under her bed]], her last words are that she knows she will be delicious.]] Whether this is representative of her real personality, or just [[spoiler: the rambling of a child dying from food poisoning]], is left up to interpretation.

* TraumaCongaLine: Lost his twin brother and other siblings, then went to join the military at a young age. When he came back to start a family, he wound up [[AdultFear losing both of his sons]] and getting divorced, before finally finding peace with his new wife and Dawn.

* TraumaCongaLine: [[AdultFear She outlives every single one of her descendants]] with the exceptions of Dawn and Edith, but somehow manages to keep going. [[spoiler: Then Dawn springs on her that she and Edith will be leaving the house and putting her in a nursing home, and she finally crosses the DespairEventHorizon.]]

* PartingWordsRegret: During his narration of Calvin’s level, he mentions that one of the last things he said to his brother was that swinging all the way around was impossible, which implies that he partly blames himself for what happened to him.
-->''"I told him going around [the tree branch the swing was hanging on] was impossible. Maybe if I hadn’t said that… or maybe if the wind hadn’t picked up… then maybe he’d still be here, but I doubt it."''

* PosthumousCharacter: Everyone in the Finch family except Edith. The point of the game is exploring the house to find out how they died. [[spoiler: And then Edith dies in childbirth, leaving her son (the one reading the story in the first place) as the SoleSurvivor.]]

* UnreliableNarrator: Everyone. There is not a single moment in this game when you are 100 percent certain that what you are seeing represents the actual events as they occurred. For starters, many of the scenes feature the deaths of family members from their individual perspectives, but are narrated by others who have their own takes on what happened, and in many cases, weren't even there. In several cases it isn't made clear how the family member died, or even if he or she died at all. Even Edith herself doubts her own perspective on numerous occasions, and since that is the perspective from which the entire game is told, you doubt every event she recounts.

* AmbiguouslyEvil: One interpretation of her is that she was a twisted old woman subtly poisoning the lives of three generations of her descendants by encouraging their tendency towards brooding self-destruction, or at the very least, encouraged her family to believe in a curse so as to justify their mistakes and losses. Adding to the interpretation, Edie herself has been responsible for many of the situations where the people died, such as Molly and Walter, and her reaction to Dawn wanting to leave with Edith is extremely hostile. It's hinted that Dawn came to believe in this trope, which sparked her desire to leave the house.

Edie's second daughter, a child star of 40s and 50s horror movies.

* SatelliteCharacter: His wife, Ingeborge and his son, Johann; who both died in Norway (Ingeborge died birthing Johann, who was stillborn).

* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Finches are a varied lot, but they all seem to be prone to artistic temperaments, vivid and slightly morbid imaginations, a tendancy towards flighty, impulsive and impetuous behaviour, and an acceptance of their own mortality that borders uncomfortably on [[DeathSeeker relishing it.]] Their relationships with each other have often been fraught as a result.

* SingleLineOfDescent: A dark example. Edith is the only descendant of Odin Finch, even though each of the intervening generations held multiple siblings - because ''only one member of each lived long enough to breed'', while the rest died in freak accidents as children or teenagers.

* UnreliableNarrator: Everyone. There is not a single moment in this game when you are 100 percent certain that what you are seeing represents the actual events as they occurred. For starters, many of the scenes feature the deaths of family members from their individual perspectives, but are narrated by others who have their own takes on what happened and in many cases, weren't even there. In several cases it isn't made clear how the family member died, or even if he or she died at all. Even Edith herself doubts her own perspective on numerous occasions, and since that is the perspective from which the entire game is told, so you doubt every event she recounts.

* NoNameGiven: We never learn his name within the context of the game. [[WordOfGod Creative Director Ian Dallas does reveal it in an interview, however.]]

* ATrueStoryInMyUniverse: Edith reads her story to him, while recounting the tales of her family in their voices.
* VagueAge: It's unknown how old he is, though he looks around the same age as Calvin and Milton when they died, which could put him around 10 - 13 years old.

The younger of Edith's brothers, and Dawn's second child. He's got quite a sense of imagination. [[spoiler:There are hints that he might be The King from ''The Unfinished Swan''.]]

* CanonCharacterAllAlong: Possibly. [[spoiler:It is heavily implied that Milton is the same character as The King from ''VideoGame/TheUnfinishedSwan'', and that his disappearance is a result of him painting himself a door into the world depicted in that game.]]

* MusicalNod: [[spoiler:His theme is based on the main track of ''The Unfinished Swan'', leaning towards the idea that he's The King from said game.]]

* MrImagination: He was dreaming up a [[FantasySequence fantasy world]] to help him get through his mundane life which eventually blurs into the real one and leads him to [[DrivenToSuicide kill himself]].

* GenerationXerox: Like her father, she watched her siblings die, had her sons die before her, before finally dying in front of her daughter.

* TurnToReligion: She had turned to religion to cope with the loss of her sons.

* NiceGuy: A common fan interpretation. He ''did'' work on disaster relief efforts and the one photo of him we can see is of the family smiling.

* DisneyVillainDeath / DeathByIrony: [[spoiler: He died in the exact same manner as his twin brother: falling off a cliff. In this case, however, it was right in front of Dawn and there's no way of saying that he died happy. For added {{Irony}}, he was thrown over the edge by the NotQuiteDead buck [[ChildrenForcedToKill he encouraged Dawn to shoot]], which reduced her to tears. Further, Sam doesn't like getting his picture taken despite being a camera fiend. When he tries to take a picture of ''himself''--which he wouldn't have done had he not loved Dawn so much and wanted to commemorate the moment with her--he dies.]]

* FlatCharacter: The only thing that's known about him is that he angrily disapproved of his father remarrying and he liked to fly kites.

%% x* WeHardlyKnewYe

* AmbiguousSituation: Since the curse doesn't spare spouses, we'd guess she died at some point, however, Edith's family tree has her leaf attached, while Ingeborg and Sanjay's leaves aren't, so maybe she was spared?

* CurseEscapeClause: As proven by Ingeborg, Sven and Sanjay, the Finch curse does ''not'' spare spouses, yet nothing is said about Kay's later life (or death). It's possible that divorcing Sam has freed her from the family's unfortunate fate.

* SmallRoleBigImpact: Is Dawn's mother and Edith's grandmother, but barely gets any mention besides being Sam's first wife (although she is on the Finch family tree). [[ParentalNeglect Considering her OTHER impact]] there's probably a reason she's the only non-Finch parent in the family whose status at the time of the game isn't stated.

* FormerChildStar: She used to be a starlet of old monster movies, but as she aged, her career dried up.

** Calvin died [[spoiler: falling off of a cliff, after he decided to go all around the tree branch on the swing and accidentally fell off. This, only occurring a year after Barbara's death, came as a result of Calvin and Sam swearing to never be afraid again at her funeral.]]

* {{Fingore}}: Shortly before Barbara's death, he slipped into a table saw and grievously injured his hand, having to be rushed to the emergency room. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero This left Barbara alone in the house that night.]]
* TheGhost: One of the only members of the family we never see a flashback of. The only glimpse we get of him is a blurry one through a window in Molly's flashback, and we see later see caricatures of him in a pop-up book and Barbara's death comic.

* GenreSavvy: Might be of the right of the [[WrongGenreSavvy wrong]] type, he [[InvokedTrope invokes]] horror tropes in an attempt to get a genuine scream out of Barbara. He also [[LampshadeHanging comments on]] how "great scream" Sven made when he cut himself with the table saw, and Barbara's comment on the strange noise coming from the basement.

* FingerlessGloves: She wears a pair, both in the present day and in the flashback. Apparently, Edie used to knit them for her.

* AmbigousSituation: Since the curse doesn't spare spouses, we'd guess she died at some point, however, Edith's family tree has her leaf attached, while Ingeborg and Sanjay's leaves aren't, so maybe she was spared?

Lewis Finch's regretful therapist.