| “ | I recalled the rhyme of the crooked man. All he could do was live in a crooked house, with a cat and mouse just as crooked. I was the same way. Everything I wished for ended up crooked. My dreams, my love, even my family. | ” |
— Duke | ||
Duke McGahan (デゥーク・マクガーン Dukku Makugaan) is the tenant David Hoover has been looking for throughout the whole game. He committed suicide about a month prior to the events of the game and is the true identity of the Crooked Man.
Sissi, D, and Fluffy are fragments of his troubled past.
Appearance[]
As the Crooked Man, his neck is crooked and hangs down, and his mouth makes a creepy smile as if torn wide open, emiting repulsive laughs and moans. All around his mouth and the front of his body is blood, as if he'd vomited it out. He has no eyes, only pitch black eye sockets.
Background[]
Sissi, D, and Fluffy are facets of his own past life, so their backgrounds told during the course of the story were actually representations of his.
Ever since he was a kid, he had wanted to become a Lawyer, but no matter how much he tried, he never passed the final exam, leading him to finally forget about chasing his dreams altogether.
Years later, his mother was hospitalized after being diagnosed with a brain illness, and subsequently passed away as a result, leading him to feel extremely guilty over the fact he had essentially abandoned her in the hospital to be cared entirely by the doctors. His mother's own resentment over being abandoned by her son manifests itself in the personality of Fluffy, but in a reverse and twisted manner.
Sometime after his mother's passing, his beloved girlfriend, whom he loved very much to the point of making her gifts and taking her to their "special place" in a hotel, decided to leave him due to his perceived lack of personality, as well as him being a "sissy". This left him feeling very depressed.
Unable to take it any longer, he left the apartment he lived in and went to his mother’s abandoned house, where he committed suicide by hanging himself. He became a vengeful spirit some time after that.
Role[]
The Crooked Man[]
The Crooked Man is an archetypal and abstract entity who symbolizes depression, and who was also pursuing Duke prior to his passing, leading him to become the next abstract incarnation of this entity.
As the Crooked Man, he generally goes after David Hoover, but if Sissi, D, or Fluffy are around, he prefers going after them and trying to kill them, much to David's confusion. It is later revealed that the three of them are facets of Duke, Sissi having regrets over lost love, D having regrets over failed dreams, and Fluffy resenting being abandoned in the hospital by his family. These are all the aspects of Duke (and David, as they were both so similar) that ultimately led to his eventual suicide.
At the end of the second playthrough, instead of Duke's corpse, David finds an alive Duke at the attic, standing in front of a noose. Duke explains that he's ending his empty life by his own hand, but David questions if his life was really empty. Duke responds that he must've had good things in his life, but his depression doesn't let him see them, and calls David out for being the same. David explains that he had also felt like that ever since he tried to kill his mother, but now he feels better because he met Duke and was able to sympathize with him.
Duke demands David to leave, saying that he didn't want David to be there just yet. As David turns around to leave, Duke thanks him for coming, and he hangs himself. David responds by saying he wishes he could've known Duke sooner, and leaves. After Shirley Webber and David get back together, Duke's ghost can be seen still watching over David.
The Boogie Man[]
The Crooked Man is only referenced in a conversation between David and Keith Baring, where Keith confesses he was suspicious of David after he reported finding Duke's corpse. Keith's police department was involved in trying to determine Duke's identity, and he questions David on how did he manage to track down Duke without knowing his name or appearance. David says he was led to Duke's house by the notes that he left, but once David was asked to show these notes, they had disappeared. Keith also questions David's testimony of shooting someone at Duke's house, to which David responds that he did shoot someone, but he wasn't sure if it was a person.The Crooked Man's Fragments[]
- Sissi - Sissi is the first of Duke's fragments. Sissi represents his breakup with his girlfriend, and is modeled after her in terms of appearance, as well.
- D - D is the second of Duke's fragments. D represents his dream to become a lawyer but failure in bar exams. His appearance is modeled after Duke's best friend, as revealed by the easter egg in the second playthrough for the Steam Version of the game.
- Fluffy - Fluffy is the last of Duke's fragments. Fluffy represents the feeling of abandonment his mother experienced towards him prior to her passing. His appearance is similar to a younger Duke, but with different hair and eye colors, resembling David more than Duke.
Gallery[]
See : Crooked Man's Gallery
Trivia[]
- The Crooked Man represents Duke's resentment and despair. However, during Stage 3 there is a note from an otherwise-unrelated man who killed himself in order to get away from something. David also says that he's been hearing "voices" in his head, long before the Crooked Man started coming for him. The Crooked Man in the game is Duke's, but David apparently had one of his own for some time, which is part of the reason Duke decided to step in. It's even possible that the creature who tries to make David shoot himself in Stage 4 was David's own Crooked Man, and not Duke's.
- David affirms that Duke was beaten by the Crooked Man, which seems to imply he had his own version of the 'monster' to deal with.
- The Crooked Man's immensely bent neck was a result of his neck snapping after he hanged himself.
- It is stated in Uri's official twitter account that Duke's eyes are green. If you look closely on the scene where David shoots himself, his eyes become green.
- It was also stated in Uri's blog that Duke supposedly used Camel cigarettes, despite the fact that David gave him a pack of Marlboro.
- If you look closely on the Treasure Hunt puzzle on Hotel Ruhenheim, the kid who drew it looks similar to a young Duke due to his black hair.
- The official databook of the series spells his last name as McGahan, but it is spelled as MacGahan in-game.
References[]
- ↑ Featured in Bad End 2. Credited in the Special Thanks section of the credits.