Johan Novak is the main villain of the game "It's Just A Prank" by Bober Bros. He is a kid whose pranks, which start out harmless, end badly.
History[]
Johan, Philip and Agatha are friends and love pranks. Among this trio, Johan stands out, who during the game slips a fart pillow to his classmate, makes another boy vomit, and pours soda on Agatha. For the previous pranks, the class teacher calls Agatha's father Boris. Agatha keeps silent about Philip, who blames Johan as the instigator, but Philip, frightened by the aggressive man and not wanting to give up his close friend, puts all the blame on Agatha. The latter is beaten by her father.
However, Agatha's father takes it out on his daughter and destroys Johan's window with a stone. Johan gently accuses his friend of turning him in, but ultimately creates the appearance that he has forgiven him. Johan's jokes become more aggressive and he throws a dead rat at Agatha, and also encourages his friend to throw paper at the class teacher, which leads to a nervous breakdown in the latter.
Johan invites the boys to play hide and seek in the forest, while simultaneously telling them about his desire to run away to his father in the city and his readiness to "take his friends with him". A misfortune happens in the forest - Agatha dies because of the shoelaces tied by Johan, Philip runs to the teacher for help, but she does not believe him and leaves him at school for the night.
Philip can't find either Agatha or Johan, but when he goes home he hears from his mother that Johan is also in his room. At that moment Johan watches his friend from the closet. When Philip opens the cabinet, he sees an Agatha inhaler.
At school, Philip gets a wound from a nail, apparently a "gift" from Johan, which causes him to stay at school for a long time again. In the finale, Philip runs home from school while an unknown figure chases him through the bushes.
At home, he talks through the door to Johan, who came to him, tries to explain why he couldn't go back to Johan in the forest after school and breaks off his friendship with his best friend. Johan says that Agatha is with him and she will go to the toilet and join them while he feeds his friend some muffins. The main character opens the door, and then the box, where he looks at Agatha's head in horror, while Johan approaches from behind with a smile.
Personality[]
Johan suffers from antisocial personality disorder or psychopathy. He doesn't care about the suffering of others, he doesn't show empathy, demonstrating all the qualities of a future serial killer. He is cruel, revels in the suffering of others, always considers himself right in everything and blames his victims for his own pranks. He loves only his father, however, even this could be either a deception or simply a profitable option for his future, because living with his mother is disgusting to him. He also doesn’t trust anyone at all and doesn’t forgive people not only for real offenses, but also for imaginary ones, demonstrating his narcissism. Those who, in his opinion, let him down/set him up/betrayed him should suffer, or better yet, die, which is what is happening to his friends.
Trivia[]
- The game features characters from The Hole. However, Agatha is killed by Johan here, while in The Hole it is her own perverted father who kills her. What is the canonical death of Agatha remains a mystery.
- Johan is so possessive that he is passionate about taxidermy. There is a hypothesis that after killing his friends, he will stuff them in one form or another and it is these stuffed animals that he will take to his father. This is particularly evidenced by his words about making a stuffed rat and wanting to kill a beaver in order to skin it. His appearance in a beaver hat, bought or made from the unfortunate animal, foreshadowed his inclinations towards his friends.
- His father's reaction is unknown if his son really does return to his father and brings some of his "trophies" with him. However, if we take into account that his father himself may be an asocial maniac, as evidenced by both the strange gift to his son - a stuffed beaver, and the divorce and move.
- In order to deceive and kill his friend, Johan recorded Agatha's voice on a tape recorder, which he demonstrated at the very beginning of the game.
- It is not yet known whether Johan will be able to frame his friend as Agatha's killer, but given the careless attitude of all the adults in the game towards children, it may well be possible.