CHARACTER ANALYSIS OF THE DISTORTIONIST
(CW: I TRY MY BEST TO STAY AS CANON AS POSSIBLE, BUT THE STORY HAS SO LITTLE INFO, SO PLS TAKE EVERYTHING WITH A GRAIN OF SALT)
Good evening everybody! Welcome back to another episode of Luce talking about their hyperfixation on The Distortionist and trying to milk as much information as possible related to a fucking almost 6 minute MV made by a vocaloid producer which most likely doesn’t care about the characters anymore (which is honestly ok, PLEASE don’t attack Ghost in any way for not giving more content, as they don’t owe us anything)
To understand a character as complex yet as unknown as Christopher, we have to try dechiper his actions and every minuscule thing he did, both in the MV and the small rants Ghost has made years ago about this character. (I wanted to write about more characters, but there is barely any lore about the antagonist, which ofc makes every other character’s lore even more impossible to understand or learn). As even a character has the name “Actions Speak Louder Than Words” which is very true in this context, as the way people act, even when pretending, always present their true colours, no matter if it’s all a lie or not. (WARNING! I know Ghost made Christopher for the haha funnies, but these were 3AM rambles cuz I had a vision and decided to analyze this guy like an English Teacher analyzing why the carpet is red even though it has no symbolism yet they always find ONE SINGLE MEANING TO EVERYTHING)
Christopher is, just as you’ve seen in the MV, a metaphor for a manipulative person who always gaslights his way out of things (ex: how he broke the mirrors, which we’ll talk about that in more detail on the next heading), which obviously makes him a very awful person, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Most don’t think about this, but people aren’t born awful, they learn in life to be like that, whether it’s from people they trust, trying to fit in, or as a defence mechanism. In the rant, it is explained that Christopher tries to trick Lilia (MC of The Distortionist game) into remaining in his manor. From what I understood, Christopher isn’t an awful person because he finds joy in that, he’s neither a grumpy, evil villain who wants to ruin others’ joy, nor a sadistic ‘yandere’, but he is an insecure teenage boy who finds the only way in ‘winning’ life is to be selfish. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he doesn’t care about anybody, from what I remember from an old tumblr post by Ghost that I tried to find desperately for this analysis (but couldn’t find), I remember somebody asked them what the difference about Ray from Communications case 1 and Christopher is, and Ghost said that Christopher can feel care and even love for another person (PLEASE TAKE THIS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT SINCE I’M NOT SURE IF MY MIND INVENTED IT OR IF IT IS TRUE, So please don’t take my info as canon). I believe Christopher learned the hard way how to keep others ‘close’ to him (probably due to childhood trauma idk), which is the reason why he’s manipulative and has a habit of gaslighting. He’s also seen as being very emotionally immature, blaming everything and everyone on things he’s done, which is most likely given by both his age, status and decade he was alive in. (Him being a young man, not even an adult ; living in a mansion which most likely means he’s rich, and we all know that people who get fed with a golden spoon without caring where the golden spoon came from act ; he’s most likely from the late 19th-early 20th century, and because of how close minded people were back then, he most likely believed how he was acting was ‘alright’, and even if he knew that he was harming others by how he was acting, he still felt ‘entitled’/too insecure to stop it. Overall, he’s not a good person, but he has a reason for the way he acts. He’s not pure evil as the fandom makes him look, but he’s still a VERY awful tough cookie.
Mirrors and Symbolisms (MV)
This is only my opinion, as there’s no canon reason for the music video and what happened there. Christopher looks more ‘charming’ and has a more ‘appealing’ character design compared to other characters for a very clever reason (i think this is the only canon thing IDK THO). His face, even if it has a cheshire cat smile, looks relatively “handsome” to most (personally I don’t find him handsome, but by the way everyone in the fandom had at least a crush on him once in their lifetime, I could probably safely say he’s handsome, or charming), with his ‘rosy’ (charred black) cheeks and his big eyelashes, as well as his fluffy hair, and much more, for the reason that he’s supposed to gain other people’s trust more easily, and in psychology, everyone (even animals) are more attracted to people/things we deem ‘beautiful’, since they don’t appear as hostile as others. Christopher is meant to appear like a nice chap who would salute you everyday, but only to have an ugly side, which is his charred version which we can see at the end of the mv). The twisted spine the fandom always jokes about is not scoliosis, but is a metaphor of how he twists his words to make him appear like the victim/innocent one in the situation. The mirrors, although unlikely to be canon, is a metaphor for the people who see past his ‘gentlemanly’ facade, and trying to show his true self (which is the charred version of him I mentioned earlier). The end of the mv is more quiet as a way to symbolise that the mc aka the viewer doesn’t believe his words anymore, and as a final grip to try and get the viewer back, he chants the same words that the viewer got used to as being lies, and we finally leave him to ‘rot’ in misery (unless you keep listening/watching the mv lol)
The character is still very vague, so don’t be ashamed to create as many versions of him as possible, it’s quite amazing to imagine a character that’s morally grey (like Christopher) as either a chaotic boy who only wants to have fun or a grumpy old man. The sky is the limit! And I have to admit, Christopher is probably mischaracterised here too, as I’m not his creator, Ghost is, and they know better than me about this guy.
On a final note, Subscribe to ChrissyPie so we can defeat T Frances
~This is Kaleidomoony signing out
