Characters / Harvester

Steve Mason

He always was a kidder.

Portrayed by: Kurt Kistler

An amnesiac young man who finds himself thrust into the bizarre situation of needing to gain entry into the town's lodge before the big blood drive. Unfortunately, the means of gaining membership are not at all reasonable. Or morally sound for that matter.

• Amnesiac Hero: Game begins with Steve waking up with amnesia.
• Audience Surrogate: Like the player, he has no idea who he or anyone else is at the beginning of the game, having a case of amnesia. This makes it easier to place yourself in his shoes.

• Break the Cutie: Is a healthy, sane person at the beginning of the game but Harvest being a screwed up town, his mentality goes along with it, at least in the bad ending.

• Earn Your Happy Ending: Downplayed in the good ending. He and Stephanie are trapped in the simulation with no way out and The Harvesters are going to kill them both, but thanks to time passing much slower in simulation, they get married, have a baby, and live as long as they would have on the outside, so at least they live full happy lives together. And considering everything Steve is put though, that is worth something.

• The Everyman: Starts out as one - no real personality besides wondering what the hell is going on. So, like the player.

• Fish out of Temporal Water: Doesn't seem to remember much about The '50s, despite supposedly having been raised during then. In fact, he seems to remember TV sets being in color and having this thing called a "remote control."
• Limited Wardrobe: Wears the same flannel shirt every day and his closet has a whole bunch of the exact same outfit.

• Phrase Catcher: "You always were a kidder, Steve!" He even lampshades it at one point.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: Subverted in the good ending. Played straight in the bad ending.

• Shirtless Scene: There is an FMV of him taking off his shirt every time he goes to bed each night.

Stephanie Pottsdam

Portrayed by: Lisa Cangelosi

Possibly the only other half-sane person in the entire town. She and Steve become pretty close over the course of the game. Which makes the ending even sadder.

• Deep South: Has a slight Southern accent.

• Fish out of Temporal Water: Shares this with Steve. Her choice in sentence structure and slang indicates she's from the 90's — which is when this game was released — yet everyone else in Harvest sounds like they came from the early 50's, which is when the game "takes place."
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She gets really upset at Steve for pulling pranks on the people in Harvester, despite not being on their side.

Steve's Mom

Portrayed by: Mary Allen

Steve's mom. Spends most of the game baking huge batches of cookies for the upcoming bake sale, and then throwing them away because it's too far away and they'll go bad.

• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Seems cheerful and nice, but you quickly find out that she's actually pretty terrible. She sexually assaults Marv regularly, is glad when Mr. Pastorelli accidentally dies, and gets mad at Steve if he saves Karin. If Steve is executed in jail or at the "blood drive," she seems awful happy about it.
• Bondage Is Bad: She keeps her husband locked in a bedroom full of bondage equipment, where she regularly physically and sexually abuses him. If Steve were to accidentally walk in on her, she'll shoot him in the face.
• Parental Incest: Will briefly consider it with Steve if you type "FUCK" into the prompter.
• Stepford Smiler: She remains cheerful, even while talking about disturbing things.
• You ALL Look Familiar: Both her and Ms. Pottsdam look almost exactly the same, and are played by the same actress.

Marv

Steve's dad. Has apparently been sick for a week in his room (which Steve can't get into).

• Bandage Mummy: He's been clumsily bandaged up to cover his wounds.

• Extreme Doormat: Doesn't seem to enjoy what Steve's Mom does to him, but puts up with it anyway.
• Walking Spoiler: He's not sick, but actually serves as proof that Steve's Mom is twisted.

Hank Mason

Portrayed by: Ben Morgan

Steve's younger brother. He spends most of his time glued to the TV watching Range Ryder's Cowboy Roundup, an ultraviolent western kid's show.

• Creepy Child: The more you talk to him, the more apparent it is that something is clearly not right with him.
• I Take Offense to That Last One:
  Steve: "Shut up you little shit!"
  Hank: "Mom! Steve called me a bad name!"
  Mom: "You stop right now, Steve! You know Hank is sensitive about his size!"
• Lazy Bum: He does hardly anything besides sit on his ass and watch TV.
• Morality Pet: Inverted. He's among the most disturbing and nastiest citizens of Harvest, but he's one of the only characters that the player can't kill.
• Sanity Slippage: When the TV station is burnt down, Hank continues to sit and stare at a blank TV.
• Skipping School: He stays home all week to watch TV. Claims to have the flu, though he's not even bothering with Playing Sick.
• The Sociopath: When he hears about Karin's disappearance, he goes over to Edna's house to torment and take advantage of her.
• The Stool Pigeon: He threatens to tell on Steve to his mom about any and every perceived slight.

Colonel Buster Monroe

Portrayed by: Graham Teschke

A slightly unhinged WWII veteran who lost his legs and lower body. He's in charge of a military operation in Harvest.

• Big Red Button: He's got one that launches nuclear missiles strapped to where his lower body used to be, in a perfect position to be accidentally leaned on if he shoots and kills you (and even without that, he's the absolutely last person you'd want with something like that.)
• Determinator: He got sheared in half during World War II by machinegun fire, but managed to crawl all the way from Germany to English territories through sheer force of will alone, occasionally stopping to wind his guts back in along the way.
• General Ripper: At his worst, but he's also a...
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: ...when he's on his best behavior.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: A non-fatal example.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Surprisingly, in regards to the Lodge. He doesn't trust the Lodge in the least, and the only reason he'd want Steve to join the lodge is to infiltrate it.
• Nuke 'em: Talking to him too long results in him shooting Steve and setting off the nuclear missiles.
• Red Scare: He really hates him some Dirty Communists. Implying Steve is one results in an automatic Game Over.

Principal Herril

The principal of Gein Memorial School. He takes pride in preparing the younger generations for the world, but there's something noticeably wrong in how he conducts himself...

• Dirty Old Man: Do you get the heeby-jeebies when he draws out the words "quality time"? Though it's anybody's guess what he actually means by that...

Miss Whaley

Portrayed by: Karen Sexton

The most notable teacher at Gein Memorial. She doesn't buy into that 'corporal punishment' nonsense... "Spare the rod, spoil the child." A rod's too thin. But a baseball bat...

• Ax-Crazy: Disciplining children by hitting them with a baseball bat sounds nothing sort of sane.

• Sadist Teacher: She doesn't believe in "Spare the rod, spoil the child." because it's not harsh enough.

Sheriff Duane Dwayne

Portrayed by: Nelson Knight

A sheriff whose badge seems to just be for show. He rarely fights crime, and instead seems to berate his subordinate Loomis.

• Dirty Cop: He's blackmailing Postmaster Boyle for burning down the Sentinel Newspaper building, and as it turns out he's one of two shareholders of the WHAR TV Station.
• Faux Affably Evil: While he appears friendly at first to Steve and might also be sane, he is quickly revealed to be about as crazy as everyone else in Harvest.
• Jabba Table Manners: To quote a YouTube comment:
  "Yup, that raht thar'z a spahnal cowrd." *Award-winning pie-eating noise*
• Police Are Useless: He doesn't do anything to investigate the series of murders, deaths and other crimes occurring throughout Harvest. If you kill McKnight, you can admit it directly to his face and he'll let you go, since killing McKnight just means he's now the sole shareholder of the TV Station.
  • None of this immunity bleeds over to Steve without blackmail or his get out of jail free card. Getting caught will get you thrown in jail or worse, and killing a vital character is an instant game over.
  • Of course, this all makes sense when its revealed that the only goal of Harvest is to train Steve to be a good serial killer. His incompetence is to ease Steve into a state of security.
• Repetitive Name: Duane DWayne. both his names also have the same sound.
• The Snack Is More Interesting: Played with. He is clearly heartbroken over the deaths of Edna and Karin. It's just that his heartbreak happens to be as big as his appetite for pie as he cries his eyes out next to their hanged bodies while munching away.
• Unknown Rival: Mr. Johnson secretly despises him due to his friendship with Edna, however the Sheriff himself has not the foggiest idea and isn't romantically interested in her anyway.

Deputy Loomis

Portrayed by: Pieter Van Der Vliet

Doesn't seem too popular with anybody in Harvest. Think of him as the Barney Fife to Dwayne's Andy Griffith.

• Butt-Monkey: Takes the butt end of several mean-spirited comments from the locals. And when he gets caught masturbating in a cell...
• Dirty Old Man: "Sure would be nice to have one'a them girly pi'cher books..."
• Henpecked Husband: To the extreme. His wife beats him bloody with a broomstick if he's caught with girly mags (or even asking about girly mags.)
• Lovable Sex Maniac: He loves looking at girly mags and gets excited over several women in Harvest, but he's otherwise friendly and doesn't harass other people.

Mr. Pottsdam

Portrayed by: Travis Miller

A rather lazy man who claims to be Stephanie's father. His biggest driving force in life is to join the Lodge so he can have access to all the meat he can eat.

• Fat Bastard: Very portly and definitely not a pleasant person to be around. If his rants about red meat and his peephole into Stephanie's room didn't tip you off that he's a creep, his subsequent kidnapping, molestation, and burying of Karin will.
• Large Ham: Appropriately enough MEEEEEAAAAAAAT!
• Parental Incest: Again, he masturbates to his daughter. Although she isn't really his daughter, seeing as he doesn't actually exist.
• Pervert Dad: Doesn't get much worse than jerking it to his own daughter.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: He molests Karin.

• Would Hurt a Child: He kidnaps the 8-year old Karin, molests her, and buries her alive.

Mr. Moynahan

Portrayed by: G.P. Austin

Harvest's go-to mortician. He also runs a hotel for transients. Strangely, all the transients who wander into Harvest turn up dead long after...

• Serial Killer: It's heavily implied that the reason so many homeless people mysteriously drop dead in Harvest is because he's been killing them.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Easily has the best fashion sense of anyone in Harvest.

Mr. Johnson

Portrayed by: Robert F. Cawley

An old gentleman who has an obvious crush on Edna, although calling it a crush is much too innocent.

• Compensating for Something: All but confirmed after his Tucker gets scratched. In his rage, he calls himself a "limp-dick fat boy."
• Dirty Old Man: "What she really needs is a good, hard penis."
• Entitled to Have You: Feels this way about Edna to the point where he resents Karin's existence. You find out from Edna that he regularly bothers her.
• Green-Eyed Monster: He's deeply jealous of Sheriff Dwayne due to his friendship with Edna, whom he irrationally and incorrectly suspects is also lusting after her as much as he is.

• Meaningful Name: The perennially-horny Dirty Old Man who constantly talks about sex is named Mr. Johnson.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Thinks that Edna shouldn't be raising Karin by herself that that she needs a man in her life.

Tetsua Crumb

Portrayed by: Persis Forster

AKA The Wasp Woman. A very strange old woman who lives in a run-down house full of wasp nests.

• Nightmare Fetishist: Again, she really likes wasps.

Edna Fitzpatrick

Portrayed by: Roxanne Lovseth

Owner of Edna's Diner (not "DNA's Diner" as everyone likes to call it,) who raises her daughter Karin by herself.

• Break the Cutie: When Karin gets kidnapped, and even moreso when her diner is burnt down.
• Driven to Suicide: After the diner is burnt down, and she takes Karin with her.
• Good Parents: Seems to genuinely care about Karin, and is worried to pieces until she's found... Until her diner is burnt down, and she potentially hangs Karin alongside her.
• Offing the Offspring: Hangs Karin along with herself after you burn down her diner.
• Only Sane Woman: Easily the nicest and most reasonable resident of Harvest that's not a main character, alongside Karin.

Karin Fitzpatrick

Portrayed by: Rheagan Wallace

The 8-year old daughter of Edna.

• Buried Alive: By Mr. Pottsdam. It can be fatal if Steve doesn't find her in time
• The Cutie: She's absolutely adorable!
• Kill the Cutie: She either dies from being Buried Alive or is hung by her mother after the diner burns down
• Only Sane Woman: The only normal kid you meet in Harvester.

Jimmy James

Portrayed by: Christopher Reagen Ammons

Harvest's resident paperboy. Since the Sentinel burnt down, he's decided to keep the business going by collecting people's papers instead, and making damn sure to let them know that they better have a newspaper for him every morning or something... unfortunate might happen.

• Damage-Sponge Boss: He takes a lot of damage for a little kid.
• Gosh Dangit To Heck: Subverted. He uses all kinds of inoffensive 50's sitcom language... until you piss him off, at which point he'll start breaking out actual cuss words.
• Street Urchin: Possibly. He mentions not having parents, but it's unclear if he has a home or not. It's implied that he picks up the papers to keep busy because he's afraid that the town (or at least Mr. Moynahan) will kill him if he doesn't keep busy.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: What kind of little kid goes around packing heat and threatening full-grown adults?

The Firemen

A trio of extremely flaming firemen, who spend much of their time painting naked pictures of the same male model in provocative poses over and over.

• Beware the Silly Ones: Their Camp Gay tendencies make them some of the more comedic characters in Harvester. However if you go back to the fire station at night after you've stolen their bolt of cloth (you can't go back during the day), you'll find that they've killed the male model that they always draw, apparently because they thought he stole it.
• Camp Gay: Oh hell yes.
• Epic Fail: Somehow they let the Sentinel building burn down when it's right next to the fire station, and is nearby three fire hydrants.
• It's Not Porn, It's Art: They're very insistent on this.

Range Ryder

Portrayed by: Charlie Latch

The host of Range Ryder's Cowboy Roundup, a very violent kid's show that just seems to consist of him killing Indigenous people in violent and gory ways.

• Bad "Bad Acting": He's got a game show announcer voice that he never breaks out of, even when he's got his foot stuck in an Indigenous people's torso.
• Depraved Kids' Show Host: He brutally slaughters Indigenous people in the bloodiest way possible, and regularly curses a lot.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: The show is full of graphic violence and (like many old westerns) racism against Native Americans, but what is seen and heard of it, it looks just like any cheesy kid's show, with bright colors and goofy music and sound effects.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: After the TV station burns down, he's covered in horrible burn scars.
• A Real Man Is a Killer: Is very much a proponent of graphic violence and murder, especially of Indigenous people.
• The Savage Indian: Ryder paints them all like this. Even the real life ones.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: If Steve calls him out on how violent his show is, he counters that the US was built on violence, and wouldn't be where it is today without the mass slaughter of Native Americans.
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: He seems to get at least some of his responses to Steve's questions off of cue cards, which even include Steve's name on them.

Mr. McKnight

Portrayed by: Lee Jacobson

The executive who owns WHAR, the TV station hosting Range Ryder's Cowboy Roundup

• No Celebrities Were Harmed: He's suspiciously similar to Donald Trump.

Mrs. Phelps

Portrayed by: Doris McClellan

The woman who runs the general store.

• The Stool Pigeon: She rats on Loomis to his wife whenever Loomis tries to buy girlie mags from the store.

Mr. Pastorelli

Portrayed by: Colonel Mason

The owner of the barbershop.

• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Pastorelli is electrocuted to death off-screen after his barber pole is stolen when the loose wires landed in a puddle of water that just happened to be where he was standing when he turns the power back on.
• The Quiet One: It helps that he doesn't speak English. In-game files indicate that he was originally supposed to speak, as he has portraits like the rest of the characters. His speaking parts were cut from the game to avoid spoiling key plot points for any Italian-speaking players.

Pete Swell

Portrayed by: Richard Raski

Former aluminum siding salesman. Since the bottom dropped out on the aluminum market in Harvest, he's since switched to being the town plumber.

• Miniature Senior Citizens: He's tiny.

Clem Parson

A farmer who hangs out with Pete. Apparently hunts aliens in his spare time.

• Deep South: He looks and talks like a stereotypical southern hick.

Pat O'Reilly

Portrayed by: Zeb Cash Lane

A worker at the Mason's Meat Plant.

• Mystery Meat: A lot of the meat's apparently gotten from cats.

The Sergeant-At-Arms

Portrayed by: R. Kevin Obregon

The face of The Lodge, who gives Steve his daily tasks in order to become a member.

• Big Bad: The closest thing the game has to one. Of course, he's serving the Harvesters that programmed him.

• Evil Sounds Deep: He communicates through telepathy, but sounds like Dr. Claw.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: His voice is heavily distorted.

• Lack of Empathy: Doesn't seem to particularity care about the residents of Harvest.
• Mission Control: He's the one giving Steve his missions.
• Pet the Dog: He didn't have to give Steve and Stephanie the option to have a relatively normal life and marriage in the simulation, but the fact that he did makes him better than the Harvesters who programmed him.

• Villain with Good Publicity: Everyone in Harvest sure does want to join the Lodge after all.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Delivers this to Steve, if he chooses not to kill Stephanie.

The Harvesters

The true villains of Harvester, who designed Harvest as a VR simulation for making serial killers.

• Cold-Blooded Torture: Mainly to Stephanie, but also to Steve to an extent.
• For the Evulz: There is no indication they are trying to pursue any kind of agenda through creating serial killers.
• Human Sacrifice: They require one in order to create a serial killer, where the subject kills a real person, thus requiring them to kidnap both Steve and Stephanie; Stephanie is only there to be the final sacrifice into turning Steve evil.
• Karma Houdini: The closest thing they get to a comeuppance is if Steve decides to not kill Stephanie. They'll deem the VR simulation a failure, but they still get away with what they did, and will keep on trying to make serial killers.
• Mad Scientist: They're behind a program to churn out Serial Killers.
• The Man Behind the Man: They're the reason for everything in the game.
• Politically Incorrect Villains: Doesn't get much worse than manufacturing Serial Killers en masse.
• Walking Spoiler: Knowing about them spoils the whole twist.

Steve's Real Mom

• Good Parent: She obviously criticizes the game Steve plays because she's worried about its bad influence on him.
• Moral Guardians: Criticizes Steve for playing Harvester at the end of the game, saying it will make him violent.
• Walking Spoiler: The fact that Steve's mom isn't an abusive, potentially incestuous murderous rapist clues the player in that Harvester is a game in universe too.

Mother (Mystery of Motherly Love)

Portrayed by: Roxanne Lovseth

• And I Must Scream: The mother is just lying there being devoured by her children and she is still alive through it.
• Evil Sounds Deep: After Steve criticized her deprecation of her motherly love to her children, she chuckles and her voice drops a few octaves as she deprecates herself and Steve just before her children attack him.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: It's implied for some reason that she cannot end her suffering after her cannibal children are defeated, so Steve has to end her suffering before proceeding to the next level.

The Children (Mystery of Motherly Love)

The Children

Portrayed by: Ben Morgan

• Creepy Child: Three children are shown eating their mother and showing no remorse for it.
• I'm a Humanitarian: The children are devouring their mother, taking bites out of her legs before attempting to eat Steve too.

---