User blog:Sirin of the Void/PE Proposal - Audrey Redheart (Archived)


 * Original: https://villains.fandom.com/f/p/3179493162221867268

Ever since I made this page, I've been waiting to effortpost this character from the recently released indie game, Wandersong. This is a very different type of character than the usual pure evil type, but I believe they count all the same... and it is not due to hate-sink bias. BTW this post has spoilers and this game is rly good so if you dont wanna be spoiled dont read it.

What's the Work?
Wandersong is a musical-adventure video game released in September. In it, you play as a bard who learns that every "epoch", the world is destroyed and a new one is sung into existence by the goddess Eya. To destroy the current world, Eya chooses a hero to kill off the seven Overseers, the dieties holding the world together, so she can start it over. The natural order of things. The Bard is not this hero, rather, he wants to save this world by learning the Earthsong, a song that, when sung by the whole world in harmony, can get through to Eya and stop her from resetting the universe? Problem is? It's never worked. Here's where she comes in.

Who is Audrey Redheart and what does she do?
Audrey is the "hero" chosen by Eya to kill off the Overseers this time. She first appears at the end of the third act of the game, killing off an Overseer before you can even meet it, and incapacitating you briefly. Audrey initially appears to be a genuinely noble hero, but as she continues offing Overseers, it becomes apparent she's only in so  she  can be a hero, rather than that she can be a  hero , if you know what I mean. She continues murdering Overseers, even when it's revealed to her what she's doing is going to end the world by Eya's messenger, she's more concerned about why she was never told than the fact that everything's gonna die, saying she was "just curious". What elevates her from jerkish hero to pure evil, to me, is her lies and manipulation. Throughout the latter half of the game, the Bard continually tries to redeem her - at one point, they get stuck in a mountain landslide together, and they appear to bond, as well as Audrey seemingly promise to never kill another Overseer. But when she gets out with the Bard, as soon as she can, she kills an Overseer, bluntly telling him that she lied. This is the exact same point where it's revealed that the Overseers, who were getting more corrupted due to the world ending, still have parts of their personality and are sentient beings, in particular, this one was frightened of what was happening. Audrey offed it anyway. Her second offence is at the very end of the game, when in a neat role reversal, you have to protect the final corrupted Overseer, who had been running from her, in what Audrey considers a "final boss battle", kind of showing how little she really thinks of all of this. The Overseer fights her off with you, and you nearly win. The Bard tries to give Audrey another speech on how she's actually a good person, and she doesn't need to do this, but Audrey ignores him and kills the final Overseer, triggering the start of the end of the world. All she says is "that's not enough". Before this, she goes on a rant about how this was her story and hers alone, further showing that SHE wants to be the hero, not a genuine saviour. Audrey does have very slight moments of levity, notably when she isn't fighting. But even in these moments, she's still being a jerk, just a slightly less serious one. These moments are few and far between and never detract from what she does. For the tv tropes lads, she's basically a Knight Templar. Audrey also has a lot of smaller evil acts; she incapacitates your partner, and there are some trolls very, very early on in the game with one cursed, frozen, unable to vocalize or move but still aware of their surroundings. It's later revealed Audrey was responsible for that, for... no apparent reason. She also lies to the Bard about their messenger, who she claims lied to both of them, telling them different things about the world ending quest. This is a lie: the messenger did tell her, just later, and Audrey plays it off as cool. Some people have theorized that Audrey was hurt by the messenger telling a lowly bard about the end of the world before her, but that's not really sympathetic. In the same scene where she lies about not killing overseers, she claims she's "nothing without her sword" and insecure, which is sort of true, but still doesn't make her sympathetic, just because she's weak without her sword. And it's totally possible this is a lie too.

Verdict?
Like I said, she's different than a typical Pure Evil baddie. But overall I think she counts. edit: the Italics did not work but you get what my point is lad