ok pls pls pls tell me more about what this is all about I need to know (breakdown)
Believe it or not this is actually an extremely literal image yes this all happens to him and oh yes it hurts! Read more for actual narrative context, which is naturally tentative and a little vague.
There are a ridiculous number of totally divergent plot threads happening in OPNERO. We can call this the “blood of the martyrs -> beast of the earth -> antichrist -> miracles” thread.
These three guys (Otho, Ulysses, Slush puppie) are the primary agents, but Rajiva, Danny, and Colonel Masters are tangentially involved.
None of them have bios atm because i need to finish ainsley’s first. They’re also side characters technically and wont have as detailed ones. Maybe. Idk.
Ulysses’s bio on toyhouse reads:
Ulysses is an Australian volcanologist who was initially contracted by the USAEC to live on-site at Amchitka to monitor tectonic fallout from their various testing programs. His research has consistently been forwarded to Greenpeace, in order to soothe their concerns about Amchitka being located atop a fault line. Ulysses has been consistently ignored, dismissed, harassed and pressured into fudging data. He is not allowed to leave the island, but he isn't supposed to know that.
He has a pretty fragile and hostile relationship with the USAEC hogs, who have never liked having him there because he is a “meddling hippy fuck” and nonwhite foreign national (shock, horror.)
He is already reaching his absolute limit when March Hare kicks off Armageddon (which he honestly didn’t expect but still feels vindicated by) and every single event after just chips at his mental state further. It doesn’t help that he has the actual readings that indicate something was probably wrong prior to MH and could hypothetically leak them to global press, or the UN or some stupid humanitarian group like Greenpeace, the people he has been forwarding his work to and are currently monitoring the island from Otho’s boat “Virtue”.
Ulysses gets consistently harassed by Rajiva (who wants him to shut up) and Colonel Masters (who wants to shut him up) and has become increasingly paranoid that he is going to be assassinated and disappeared. He gathers enough information from Jan to understand the biblical context of MH and latches onto the vague idea of a second coming and ultimate salvation. He is on the verge of (or he does, idk) trying to communicate with Greenpeace in an attempt to get a higher authority than the USGOV involved in unraveling Amchitka when the protesters are sold out by Otho Macgregor, then kidnapped and extrajudicially executed by the Amchitka Security Forces.
He doesn’t know this happens until Danny tips him off to where they’re storing their corpses, either as paranoid confession or an attempt to intimidate him. This sends him towards full mental breakdown, combined with his tendency towards insomnia (he stops taking his meds because he doesn’t want to sleep too hard) eventually just puts him into psychosis.
OLD ASF PAINTING I KNOW THATS RIGHT!!!
Ulysses develops some genuine protestant religious psychosis and fosters a sincere belief that he has a greater purpose on this island, partially as a power fantasy.
Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man; and every living creature in the sea died.
Revelation 16:3
When that ^ happens, “Slush Puppie” a nearly catatonic greek man with zero foreign language skills and global amnesia (from the massive head wound) hits the beach and is discovered by our special friend. Being one of two people on Amchitka who can speak greek, albeit badly. (Red is the other one, fun fact.) he of course takes this as a sign he was fated to meet this boy and therefore he holds some significance as well. This culminates in Ulysses propping up slush puppie as a second coming of christ (making him the antichrist as described in revelation, the beast of the sea) and asserts himself as a sort of disciple, or prophet (the false prophet, or beast of the earth). I won’t get too biblical here, just know that this creates a whole host of other funny issues.
Otho returns to the image when he is thrown from his boat which is destroyed during the bowls, scraped across the sea floor and washed ashore alive and intact but horrifically injured. This is the perfect opportunity for a Miracle according to Ulysses, who starts caring for him just as he’s started caring for SP, and finds various ways to fold him into his saviors miracles in an effort to prove his divinity. Otho is paralyzed from the waist down, extremely anemic, sick and maimed. He is barely mentally present and in constant, blinding pain. He’s also partially blind. This is how Ulysses ends up treating him when he refuses to be healed, wrapping him up in burial shrouding and putting him in a tomb (dark room). He’s essentially reduced to a prop for his propensity towards cruelty. As he knowingly sent those protesters to their deaths (ok maybe nit deaths but he lowkey wouldn’t care if he did know.)
Anyways, Ulysses does this to him and its nasty, but he’s trying to be compassionate. I think.
OH MY GOD EDIT, BECAUSE I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT THE ACTUAL SYMBOLISM. Its pretty straightforward. Referencing Lazarus of Bethany, Christ’s friend whom he raises from the dead.
He and slush puppie aren’t really friends. SP is very scared and confused by him and doesn’t like being made to touch him and hang out with him. But we’re working with what we got. Lazarus is a canonized saint :) congrats to Otho. He’s still going to hell.
Please give us an Ulysses bio he's like my favorite I need to know what the hell his deal is
Heres a Truncated overview of his Deal. I have to decide how “side character" bios will look but I hope this is satisfying in the meantime!
Ulysses Efthimiadis (Often just referred to as his first name or Docky (Dr. E)) is an Australian volcanologist who was initially contracted by the USAEC to live on-site at Amchitka to monitor tectonic fallout from their various testing programs. His research has consistently been forwarded to Greenpeace, in order to soothe their concerns about Amchitka being located atop a fault line. He is Greek and mixed-race aboriginal Orthodox Catholic and is frequently travelling across the pacific ring of fire (Honestly, he spends most of his time in Hawaii). He is admittedly in the pocket of climate action groups as most of his education has been paid for via scholarships and grants, but he is a responsible person who doesn't WANT to lie. Amchitka authority has consistently bullied him into fudging data about their tests, and he doesn't particularly like anyone on the island.
Ulysses is a chronic insomniac who cannot sleep well or often at all without sedatives, he is a naturally anxious person. He is rendered temporarily deaf during one of the explosions following the detonation of March Hare and notes fairly early that there is a supernatural element at play (He's also relatively superstitious) once he recovers he is a fairly loud advocate for going fully and immediately public with information about the accident before being threatened into silence again. His paranoia levels out at a constant high and he is generally avoidant of all other authority that enters the base, refuses to be seen with diplomats out of fear he could be accused of snitching, and is constantly sending in requests to be transferred out (which are denied). Once the greenpeace protesters are assassinated, Ulysses is tipped off that he is no longer too much of a liability to get rid of and flees the base. He can't be found!
When he resurfaces later, he is unshakably psychotic from prolonged sleep deprivation and actively self harming but otherwise pretty calm and lucid. He has acquired some interesting friends!
OTHO MACGREGOR:
who is little more than an intermittently animated piece of meat, Ulysses mostly ignores him, or treats him like a prop. He is pretty convinced he knows what's best for him. He holds zero resentment for Otho, actually he has no idea who he was before he washed up on the shore. He doesn't intend to cause him pain.
"SLUSH PUPPIE":
a mostly catatonic young foreign man with global amnesia from an actively bleeding head injury. Occasionally he responds to something Ulysses has relayed to him (in greek) but even when translated it rarely makes sense. He believes whatever he is told for approximately five minutes, and then needs to be told it again. Ulysses positions him as the actual second coming of christ and in an effort to make everyone else believe that too, does all sorts of christlike things with him. S.P. is also a prop. He has a real name i just don't know if i should tell you it. He's just called slush puppie because of his shirt, and he has very little agency. Ulysses is very kind to him and is his doting caretaker because slush puppie is unable to take care of himself beyond the most basic of capacities, but makes a big show of questioning his judgement sometimes to indicate the savior is not infallible. ignore the image above where he's ostensibly driven nail pegs through his hands, that was a necessary evil. the side wound too, was a necessary evil.
(ISNT HE SO CUTE? my little orange)
His main concern is salvation, offering salvation (slightly spitefully) to people who hurt him and getting to go to heaven at the end of this. He tries not to do anything damnable but… it is what it is.
