Heartbound: Of Binder and loneliness
Binder is a character who appears early in Heartbound.
Quick summary: After Baron, Lore’s best friend (respectively the main character’s dog and the main character) has been kidnapped, Lore flies to his rescue. He then arrives face to face with a monstruous being, which starts attacking him. But when all hope seems lost against this powerful creature, a strange old man comes to the rescue, and teleports himself and Lore away.
The both of them then arrive in a library and the strange old man reassures Lore about the fact he is not an enemy and introduces himself as Binder. Up to this point, after Lore visits his library and can learn about Guardians (beings like Binder) and Darksiders (beings like the one which attacked him), Binder directs him toward the Artifact, an entity which might help Lore find Baron. Afterwards, Lore’s journey can begin.
With the several updates Heartbound’s fandom has been able to have, specifically the fandom’s Wiki’s, I have this headcanon I could summarize as: Binder is a lonely character and potentially hasn’t been able to reach for other Guardians for a long time.
While visiting Binder’s library, the player can discover several objects here and there:
A serie of books Binder qualifies as a “family” (uncle, aunt, father, mother, big brother, etc.).
A stick (or a phasma, but probably a stick) named “Agnes”. There are several other sticks in vivariums in the library. We can’t tell yet if the way Binder treats these objects has a meaning or not.
More books which appear as behaving in strange ways. Binder sometimes describe them with their own small personnality (one of them is shy, for example).
An apple the player can make Lore steal, and Binder describe it as “private”, so probably something important for him
A small dog figurine Lore automatically will borrow with Binder’s blessing when the player interacts with it.
More importantly, we are able to gather several informations about the Guardians while interacting with the bookshelves:
The duty of the Guardians is to see every page (=places, probably, either parts of the world or different worlds) simultaneously and write the events they see there down. This duty is described as something potentially “overwhelming”.
If there is nothing in a page that needs to be changed, Guardians tend to travel through the pages “unnoticed”. They also are described as “living as ghosts”.
Anomalies can manifest into a page and severely change the inhabitants of said page
The Darksiders are the result of modified inhabitants of a page
When the player interact with the three pages you can see next to the purple book on this screenshot, a strange text appears in an unknown language, the same one Binder uses in the first screenshot of this post. On the Heartbound wiki, there is a translation table of the Guardians’ glyphs (as well as the Darksiders’). When translated, the message reads "Where are the others am I really alone here I need more pages"
Now now, this might be my interpretation (and affection for Binder’s character) that makes me think this way, but doesn’t this translation change quite a bit about the discoveries into Binder’s library?
While several things might be thought as an old magician’s objects, destined to create an amusing lore for the game (for example the carrot protecting from goblins), the elements I’ve been listing give, to me, a different meaning to Binder’s character after the translation of this page.
The books and sticks, even if they are indeed animated and/or alive, are given names or human-like behaviors (the piles of books described as a family, for example, or Agnes having her own name). This suggests a certain affection from Binder towards them. There is also the apple, described as “private”, so again, something he is emotionnally attached to.
The whole description of the Guardians is also very interesting, because the reading of the books in the bookshelves describe “a Guardian”, not “the Guardian”, which clearly suggests there is supposed to be more than just one Guardian at once. The translation of Binder’s note also goes in the same direction, since he writes about “the others”, suggesting “the other Guardians”. However, if there are other Guardians in Heartbound, they are nowhere to be seen or not presented as Guardians; reinforcing the supposition that Binder is currently the only Guardian.
This leads, to me, to two facts:
Binder haven’t seen other Guardians for a long time.
Binder is the only Guardian who has to fulfill the responsibilities of the Guardians, aka to protect and record all the pages.
And these two facts lead themselves to two potential conclusions:
Either Binder is feeling lonely and sad because the other Guardians could have been friends of him who have gone missing, without him knowing how or why. Futhermore, in that case, Binder would be unable to reach for a living being outside of Guardians, since Guardians can’t interact with inhabitants of the page if the page hasn’t been corrupted (see my previous note, “If there is nothing in a page that needs to be changed, Guardians tend to travel through the pages “unnoticed”. They also are described as “living as ghosts”.”)
Either Binder only saw them as colleagues, but is still feeling lonely because a Guardian’s job gets probably easier when there are more than one of them and so, they can all take care of different pages.
My final point is about an element i purposely left unanalyze until now: the dog’s figurine. When the player interacts with it, Lore feels sad, because naturally, the object reminds him of Baron. However, Lore only says “Hey, Binder?”, and Binder immediately understands that he wants to take the object with him. This might be overanalyzing, but the fact Binder is able to immediately perceive Lore’s loneliness and need for company, even an object’s one, might be another hint that Binder can understand what it feels like to be alone and to need a comfort friend, even if it’s only an object.
So my conclusion is that Binder could be a lonely character, wishing to find the other Guardians who disappeared. He’s unable to befriend or interact more than necessary with the inhabitants of the pages, so he finds comfort in his library and the objects he treats as some kind of company.
This was all I had to say, I’m curious to see if my theory will be verifier later on the game. I really find Binder interesting as a character, and I can’t wait to see what the game has to offer next!
