A Comprehensive Enough History of one ‘Blue’ Betty Lynch
Betty Lynch lived as a young mouse in Curdsville, a small gothic looking village squeezed between the booming metropolis of Mouseburg and the Wetlands. The earliest point in her life that can be found is (what is presumably) her childhood home; a second place acting award pinned to the wall. A newspaper in the level *Cheeseball Sub* claims that young Betty had a string of unfortunate events throughout her life, and posits that these events “sharpened her acting skills, or if maybe her talent brought the hardships on in the first place.” It should be noted though that Jack is uncertain on how factual the newspaper itself is. It’s likely that Betty’s life did have some misfortune, but the writer of the article played it up for a good story, thus giving the up-and-comer the moniker of ‘Blue Betty’. The picture it paints is a young actress from a tiny town that was always a hair away from greatness, which could be the explanation for her later behavior.
At some point after moving to Mouseburg, she meets war hero Steve Bandel and seemingly begins a romance with him. I bring up the war hero status because this is the first instance of Betty making friends with celebrities, trying to build a network of connections. Her relationship with Steve seemed to last for a while, judging by the notes that Steve left strewn around his manor in *The House of the Empty Mouse*. After Steve was arrested for money laundering and let off with a warning by then rookie cop Jack Pepper, Steve gets ideas to go legit by starting a magician act, with the lovely Betty Lynch as his assistant. Now called Steve “the Magnificent” Bandel, the pair became the talk of vaudeville and attracted a large crowd of admirers. These admirers seemed to encourage Steve’s vices though as he became consumed by fondue addiction and blue cheese abuse. Betty told him off for his behavior and threatened to leave him, though the magician didn’t take her seriously…until she did.
Betty Lynch leaves Steve Bandel and vaudeville and begins working for the Tinsel Bros. film studio, presumably thanks to some friends she made from the parties that Steve threw. The details of this point in her life are hazy, since several years pass by with no incident. According to the Pyrotechnist, Betty was a little strange but generally “[a] good gal - like a pint-sized TNT crate. And sweet, too. Always brought me sparkling water.” No one else in Tinsel Avenue says anything about Betty, aside from talking about her unfortunate death. It was during these early years and parties at Tinsel Bros. that Betty met one Vivian McCarthy, who seemed to take an instant liking to Betty and refer to her as darling. Now it could be inferred that Vivian had romantic feelings for Betty, but she also seems to be a sultry flirt as her default setting, so it’s tough to say. Ultimately Vivian left Tinsel’s before Betty was killed. Vivian cited the abhorrent work environment (this is confirmed by countless examples), though according to the reporter Wanda Fuller, Vivian was fired after spiking her director’s drink with blue cheese, which we know Vivian has done before thanks to the events at the Secret Show.
Vivian kept up with Betty after she left Tinsels, though it’s unclear if Betty did the same in return. Betty Lynch was quickly climbing the ladder of stardom and Vivian saw her as this pure beacon of artistry in a toxic industry. Then Betty made one connection she shouldn’t have, the Big Mouse Party. The BMP’s spokesperson, Miles Curd, hosted lavish parties for celebrities to attract supporters for the party, and Betty Lynch attended several of these events. She became very close with BMP’s mayoral candidate Milford Soyer, who would frequently visit Betty for discreet meetings in her trailer and even brought her to exclusive meetings with BMP allies. Miles Curd, however, was not as enamored with Betty Lynch as Soyer was. He saw her as a “small time celeb…hoping to ride [Soyer’s] coattails,” and always “circling our parties like some fame-hungry hawk!” He denies that Betty and Soyer were close in any way to Jack and then shuts down any further discussion on the matter. As an aside, Miles Curd’s family is the namesake for Curdsville, and Miles owns a fancy estate that overlooks the village to boot. While it could be nothing, it’s intriguing that Betty was seemingly raised in the same town as Miles, who seemingly wants minimal connections with the town.
What happened next was clear yet vague; someone in the BMP put a hit on Betty through MouseTrap Inc, a mob run “cleaner service” that specializes in assassinations. Not long after, Betty was found dead, seemingly overdosed on some illicit substance. The cops, who are thoroughly in the BMP’s pockets, declared her death a tragic accident. The Mouseburg Herald, also on BMP’s payroll, printed a minuscule article on the starlet’s death on the last page of their paper. That was that. Betty was dead and her story swept under the rug. We don’t know who exactly in BMP put the hit on her. It could be Miles Curd; he might not have killed her directly, but he still could have ordered her death. Alternatively it might have been Milford Soyer. During Soyer’s ‘revealing my involvement with everything’ speech, he mentioned “…deal with the magician’s inheritance” which could be referring to Betty. It’s not unlikely that Steve Bandel still included her in his will, but that’s all just speculation.
With the full(ish) story here, I need to talk about an issue I’ve been dancing around. Put simply, there is not a lot about Betty Lynch in this game. She exists in the past tense, solely from second hand accounts. No spoken dialogue, attributed quotes, or even a letter written by her. So we’re left to piece together the puzzle of who was Betty Lynch through only what other people thought of her. Jack Pepper’s take is a rather blunt one; “Betty was the type to show up at every party, sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. Thought she could play all sides and not get burned.” He sees Betty Lynch as innocent, but deeply corrupt.
For as much as I’ve fixated on this dead mouse woman, I honestly don’t know what my thoughts are on her. It feels almost wrong to form an opinion of a murdered person (fictional or not) when you don’t have any examples of what they were like while alive. Betty made seemingly few friends, but plenty of enemies that wanted her dead, yet she doesn’t feel abrasive or malicious. The only solid opinion I think I can say is that it’s truly tragic how a woman who was seemingly defined by misfortune and never quite making it to success, is now only remembered because she’s dead.
