Forgive the extremely crunchy quality, it was provided to me by my little bird and this was the best they could offer.
An analysis of Percy's portrait, what it implies, and it what it could mean. Given Percy's dubious canonicity this will be very short and irritated.
The Clues
A stormy night, eerily reminiscent of the one years ago when the monster "rose from the dead."
The faint stitches on his body are proof of the "patchwork slabs" mentioned in the deal.
Sparks where the wires meet recall the pain sensitivity tests run on the "subject" just days ago.
The traces of dirt on his clothes hit that the "subject" was once buried deep among graves.
The notebook logs the "subject's" behavioral data, a meticulous record of the resurrection experiment.
Clue one refers to Percy's Character Video, where he was killed by his own creation, made from the corpse of his close companion Mikhail. Mikhail and Percy killed each other. Percy is a very simplistic "pop culture" Frankenstein figure, in contrast to Marcus Throne, Luca Balsa, and the Cat Cult, which attempt to engage with the novel and its themes of responsibility and justice.
Clue two refers to Percy and Mikhail's dealings with Andrew Kreiss to sell them corpses for their experiments. While dubious canon, Percy's Second Letter was one of the first confirmations Andrew was a Manor Staff member, so it is charming to see that.
Clues three, four, and five refer to Percy's Fourth Letter, which details Burke and the Manor Staff's attempts to experiment on Percy. There, he was deemed a failure and put into stasis. Maybe. The letter itself is very... out of character for multiple characters, most notably Burke and Orpheus, turning both into cartoonish mad scientists. It seemed more an effort to remove Percy from the narrative so he stopped causing characterization problems than an attempt to resolve his narrative
Fun fact, Percy's Fourth Letter, dubious canon as it is, is one of the confirmations Orpheus is Baron DeRoss. Alongside Enchanted Forest, Alice's Concept Video and, the most important confirmation, a COA highlights reel when Aka (a Nightmare player) used Nightmare in a match. What even is IDV.
A Message
"In the laboratory, the revived Percy is reconnecting severed wires, just as the man he once truly was. He yearns to use science to grant new life to the dead, yet at the far edge of the unknown, he loses himself between creator and creation, and becomes the final specimen on his own operating table."
More questions than answers are given in Percy's portrait, since, unlike some other portraits, it is more a restatement of his previous lore than implications as to what happened to him.
As a result, the portrait does nothing to resolve Percy's dubious canonicity. The closest we can say is the mention of "patchwork slabs," referring to Andrew Kreiss' First Letter, where he works with Percy's assistant to get corpses (slabs) for Percy. But until we get a mention of Percy in another character's lore, he still seems to be a ghost only acknowledged when he has to.
Wondering why? Percy's place as being dubious canon is the result of his unusual circumstances, being a collaboration with Ashley Wood. Unlike previous "competition-collaboration" characters, there was little effort to write Percy's story to integrate into IDV's story. As a result, we have Burke, usually a morose, withdrawn man who deeply mourns lost loved ones, gleefully experimenting on his own former student and putting him into stasis.
Combined with Ashely Wood's controversially creating an objectified statue of Michiko for the Wood-IDV collaboration angering fans and seemingly the developers themselves, Percy's poorly-balanced (and divisive) slug-based kit, and general lack of... anything, Percy was thrown into canon limbo. Even today, he barely gets skins, items, or emotes, with the dubious honor of being more neglected than other oft-neglected characters like Nightmare. Percy is just there.
I must admit, I'm surprised there was no effort to confirm Percy's canonicity once and for all, since there has been more collaboration between Netease and Ashley Wood for the upcoming Sea of Remnants. Considering the immensely disappointing character designs in the game, I'm not surprised.
I was also disappointed we saw little clues towards Percy's greatest contribution to lore, if he canonically exists, which is Count Barriere invited him to the Royal Society. This implied Barriere had interest in medicine, not just profit and the supernatural, which would explained why he participated in the Mediterranean Deal and keeping the DeRosses on a leash for the sake of Delphi. If it's even canon, that is.
The message seems to go back and forth as to whether Percy is aware after his resurrection, which is also left unclear in his Fourth Letter, where Percy initially seems unaware of his surroundings, only to recall his expertise in biology to modify his own body. The clues imply he is the same person who died, while the message implies differently.
I'm disappointed, but am not surprised. Percy is, from a lore perspective, a mess. Why was it expected his Portrait would change that?
