Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Characters from the mind-screw of a game that is Ghost Trick. Note that the very existence of certain characters is itself a spoiler, so tread lightly.


Protagonists

Sissel

The character you play as. Basically, you wake up dead and have to figure out who you are before sunrise, because as Ray says, once dawn comes you will cease to exist. But he lied.

  • Anime Hair: His head bears a resemblance to the blue souls of the game's departed.
  • The Call Knows Where You Live: Being dead is an ignominious way to start an adventure.
  • Cats Are Mean: He starts out only interested in figuring out his identity, and originally refused to help Missile-prime save Lynne and Kamila. The second time around, Missile-prime manipulated this self-interest by giving him an artificial deadline which led to the game's Sissel developing a genuine interest in saving the people he meets—and in doing so, he has fun tormenting a few mice using his ghost tricks!
  • Cats Are Snarkers: He's a cat and a Deadpan Snarker.
  • Cool Cat: He's the hero of the story and actually a cat.
  • Cool Shades: He even keeps them when rejecting his self-concept and reverting to a Ghost Light appearance in Chapter 17.
  • Deadpan Snarker: He takes nothing seriously, including some aspects of his own death, from the very first scene.
  • Dead Person Impersonation: Unbeknown to him.
  • Dead to Begin With: Duh. He's a frickin' ghost.
  • The Determinator: Shows more and more shades of this as the game goes on.
  • Expy: Has an uncanny resemblance to Rocketbilly Redcadillac of Gungrave.
  • Gender Blender Name: Sissel is always a female name in real life—although it's uncommon enough that some people might not realize it is a real name, let alone a gendered one. This is actually a hint as to the true origins of Sissel - the name originally came from Yomiel, who named his pet cat after his dead fiancée.
  • Ghost Amnesia: He can't even remember simple concepts like 'science' or 'kidnapping'. Also, he can't read. Because he is a cat.
  • Ghostly Goals: Type A, and only because it's foisted upon him.
  • Guile Hero: When you can't move more than a few pounds, you kind of have to be one.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: His personality is similar to a stereotype of a cat: aloof and uncaring/unconcerned but also affectionate and friendly once a bond is made.
  • Law of Chromatic Superiority: His hair and suit.
  • Living Forever Is Awesome: His eventual fate.
  • Meaningful Name: "Shiseru" means "dead" in Japanese. "Sissel" is a variation of the name "Cecil", which means "without sight". Now take a look at those shades...
    • It may also reference his desire to be "looked at" and noticed in his backstory, where effectively everyone is "without sight" regarding him. On top of that, "Sissel" is similar to "Sisal", which is a type of rope commonly used in cat scratchers. It's also a gender neutral version of "Cecil"... or "Cecille", as Sissel is also the name of Yomiel's fiancee.
  • Occult Detective: Of a sort.
  • Replacement Goldfish: A mild case. Yomiel adopted him as a cat and named him after his dead fiancee.
  • Right-Hand-Cat and Morality Pet: He is one, to Yomiel.
  • Samaritan Syndrome: Even though Sissel repeatedly claims that he's only helping to find out who he is, he's usually all too willing to jump in and save people regardless.
  • Sharp-Dressed Man: Wears a suit in perfect condition at all times.
  • Spanner in the Works: His very existence, in the game timeline.
  • Sunglasses at Night: His sunglasses are an iconic part of his style (to the point where even his spirit form wears sunglasses), and most of the game takes place at night.
  • Supporting Protagonist: He is the player character, but Ray is the real hero who saves the day with his plan.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: He's not the blond-haired man in the red suit. In fact he's not human at all. Sissel only assumed he was due to Yomiel's body blocking his view of his real corpse inside a box. In reality, he was a black cat adopted by the Big Bad and brought along to be used as 'transport' for Yomiel's soul after Lynne shot his body. The only true thing Sissel really knew was his name, and only because Yomiel was using it as an alias.
  • Weak but Skilled: Sissel is much weaker than a living person and can only move by jumping between objects no more than two or three feet away, but he uses what he can do to great effect.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Sissel's reaction to his own actions in Missile-prime's timeline, where he refused to help Lynne and everyone died. Likely also the player's reaction.
  • Who Dunnit to Me?: His original goal.

Lynne

A detective, and the first person you save. Apparently she's the key to figuring out who you really are...

  • Anime Hair: Her hairdo consists of a bunch of locks squished by a hairband on top of her head. A rooster's comb, in a nutshell. The whole thing is about as big as her head!
  • Big Eater: Lynne manages to eat a whole chicken by herself.

Sissel: Look at her just... attacking that thing...

Ray

A possessed desk lamp who teaches Sissel the ropes of the spirit world. He seems to know more than he's letting on, though. He's Missile from an alternate timeline where Sissel didn't stick around to help Lynne and none of Yomiel's plans were stopped. Missile went back to the day of Yomiel's death (as Sissel would later do) and then waited ten years for the day of Sissel's death to come around again so he could manipulate him into helping Lynne.

Missile

Lynne's loyal but excitable Pomeranian. Becomes a valuable assistant after he dies (again) and acquires the power to swap similarly-shaped objects.

  • Badass Adorable
  • Badass Boast: "I'm a top Pomeranian, you know!"
  • Big Good: And how!
  • Cute but Cacophonic: He's prone to speaking in VERY LARGE TEXT!!! and drives the woman next door nuts with his barking.
  • The Determinator: Seriously, you will never cross a small dog again. In fact, you will befriend and attempt to win the undying loyalty of every single one you meet. You want them on your side.
  • Good Is Dumb: Missile declares he will "make [his] own path". Cue Missile attempting to escape the apartment he's in by repeatedly smashing into the door. As incredibly dumb as it seems, his actual goal was to jump to the doorknob, an endeavor in which he eventually succeeds.
  • Heroic Dog
  • Hidden Depths: He may act profoundly dumb at times, but you have to admire the fact that unlike Sissel who needed Ray to explain it all to him, Missile was able to somehow figure out his ability to go back in time and his ghost swap ability, to the point where he was able to save Kamila all by himself. Not only that, but in the original timeline, he managed to get all the way to Yomiel's body in the detached control room in the ocean. By himself. Without the ability to travel through phone lines! Considering everything you have to do to get that far, that's pretty impressive.
  • Hot-Blooded: He's very excitable about everything in life.
  • Loyal Animal Companion: His only motivation for the entire game? Saving his masters.
  • Mister Muffykins: The most Badass one you will ever meet.
  • No Indoor Voice: My name is Missile!

WELCOME!

    • Justified, of course—what else would you expect from a "talking" Pomeranian?
  • Perspective Magic: His ghost trick is to swap similarly shaped objects. If you rotate an object to change its silhouette, you can then swap it with other objects that have that new silhouette.
  • The Pollyanna: to an absurdly humorous degree.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: He's a very energetic and protective Pomeranian, so that comes into territory.
  • Serious Business: What being a dog is, according to Missile.

The only thing I'm good at is BARKING! There really isn't much more in life!

  • Talking Animal: Though other people can only understand him in spirit form.
  • Took a Level in Badass: After his second death he gains ghost tricks that allow him the ability to swap items and a longer ghost-reach than Sissel. Oh, and he can catch bullets in midair.
  • Undying Loyalty: Okay, so he does die. He just doesn't let it stop him. He declares his intention to save Lynne and Kamila even beyond the grave. Even doomed timelines aren't enough to stop him.
  • Unskilled but Strong: Missile's ghost trick doesn't allow him to manipulate objects like Sissel can, but he has a much longer range when jumping between objects, and can move incredibly heavy things as long as he swaps them with something with the same shape.


Supporting Characters

Kamila

A young girl who lives with Lynne. Also Jowd's daughter. She accidentally killed her mother with a Rube Goldburg birthday contraption that Yomiel manipulated to fire a gun.

Inspector Cabanela

A flamboyant detective who dances wherever he goes. He's an ambitious ladder-climber and wears a white coat to illustrate his spotless record. Secretly working to find evidence of a 'manipulator' possessing other people, and to clear Detective Jowd's name.

  • The Ace: The swag! The stride! The moves! Watch out, crime.
  • Agent Mulder: See The Determinator below.
  • Ambition Is Evil: Subverted. He initially appears to be a greasy pole climber, willing to sacrifice his friends for the sake of his reputation - at one point it even briefly looks as though he's actually turned evil - but this is all part of a plan to get access to the information required to clear Jowd's name.
  • Badass Longcoat: A symbol of his character and his motivation: the path of the perfect, unstained white coat.
  • Bunny Ears Lawyer: Even though Inspector Cabanela speaks strangely, picks favorites, and dances constantly to the point where he tap dances through crime scenes, he's kept his job because he has a "natural genius for investigating." His colleagues are spotted practicing his Fred Astaire dance on a staircase, hoping to somehow absorb his power.
  • Create Your Own Villain: Yomiel.
  • The Dandy
  • The Determinator: He is stated in-game to be this. He spends five years doing whatever it took to gain power as the head of the Special Investigation Unit, and therefore to be able to direct all aspects of investigations as he sees fit. His record means more to him than his own life, and he's worked hard to keep it absolutely spotless. He's hell-bent on keeping his position and his spotless reputation no matter what. Why? Because he absolutely refused to believe that Jowd killed his own wife, even though it was proven that there was no possible way (so far as a realist would be concerned) that anyone else could have done it. Most people would probably have reluctantly resigned themselves to the belief that maybe they hadn't known their friend as well as they thought they had. Cabanela accepted it as fact that there was no possible way that anyone else could have done it by conventional means... so he started looking for supernatural sources instead. Most people would think that was insane. Cabanela, on the other hand, hunted relentlessly until he found out about The Manipulator and the meteor, had a Eureka Moment, and kept on trucking.

Sissel: What incredible determination...!
[New dialogue option: "[Cabanela's determination"]

  • Fat and Skinny: Detective Jowd and himself.
  • Friendly Enemy: To Detective Jowd.
  • Genre Savvy: After losing Yomiel twice (first, by letting him escape from the interrogation room, and then, when his body disappeared from the morgue,) what is the first thing Cabanela does when he meets him the third time? He shoots a tracing device into him to avoid losing him again. And Cabanela knew he'd meet Yomiel again, because he'd already seen him in the junkyard's security tape.
  • Good All Along: He's always going after Lynne and Jowd to ensure they're arrested... and even brings them before the Justice Minister. He's said to be escalating through the rankings because he's got a great ambition, and he wears a white coat to represent a perfectly clean history. However, there's a good explanation for that: Lynne and Jowd got into trouble by exceeding the limits of the law (even for a good end), so Cabanela didn't think it would do him any good to do the same by letting them run around on the loose. And his history? He wanted a high rank so he could be able to investigate the case of The Manipulator with first-hand intel and conduct it accordingly. All that to help prove Jowd's innocence. He was even cooperating with the Pigeon Man, who was studying the source of The Manipulator's powers!
  • The Gunslinger: Characteristically, he puts a lot more showmanship into drawing his weapon than other people.
  • Hammerspace: His appearance in the ending cutscene. Where did that bouquet come from?
  • Lean and Mean: In his prosecutory zeal, he sometimes comes across at this.
  • Made of Iron: An explosion breaks enough bones to keep him from standing, leaving him in intense pain even before Yomiel forces his body to walk back up a flight of stairs and use the phone. And he still has enough presence of mind to pull his gun and expertly shoot Yomiel with the radio tracer bullet--even spinning the gun before firing it, for added flair.
  • Man in White: Except his red scarf.
  • My Greatest Failure: Letting Yomiel escape with his gun.
  • Scarf of Asskicking: And a rather long one.
  • Shout-Out: Some of his dances are based on Michael Jackson's.
  • Silly Walk: Half-walks, half-dances to places.
  • Skunk Stripe
  • Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: Subverted; He later turns out to have been shielding Jowd the entire time.
  • Verbal Tic: Tends to draw out his voooowels, baby.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Jowd laments that Cabanela has chosen "the path of the white coat," and now cares about his career above all else. Cabanela is aware of this and accepts Jowd and Lynne's disappointment in him, knowing that they'll forgive him in the end.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Pretty much everything Cabanela does. Even eating.

Pigeon-Headed Man

The junkyard superintendent. Has a pigeon which sits constantly on his head. He was the medical examiner who discovered that Yomiel's body remained suspended at the moment of his death. After Yomiel possessed his own body and walked off with it the coroner quit his job to discover the truth about the mysterious corpse.

  • Almighty Janitor: Formerly a police coroner and now studies radiation from space rocks in his spare time. That's pretty smart.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Being paired with somebody like Cabanela gives him a lot of room for snarking at his antics.
  • Head Pet: He has a pigeon perching on his head.
  • No Name Given: We never get to know his real name, be it the given one or the surname.
  • The Professor

Jowd

A bearded prisoner at the Special Prison who paints faces to remember them. Despite his circumstances he's relatively jovial and accommodating. Formerly a detective. He hunted down and nearly shot Yomiel after his escape. Five years ago he took the fall for his wife's murder to protect Kamila, though by now he almost believes he did it himself.

  • Acrofatic: Can navigate an air duct better than Harry Houdini.
  • Badass Beard: Doubling as a Beard of Sorrow.
  • Badass Longcoat: After regaining it.
  • Big Fun
  • Clear My Name
  • Deadpan Snarker: Especially as Sissel attempts to reverse his death. Being a Death Seeker, he freely offers any snide comment and sarcastic quip he can.
  • Death Seeker: When you first meet him. He's more than willing to be executed, feeling guilty over the deaths of Alma and Yomiel, and not wanting Kamila to suffer from the guilt of killing Alma with her birthday contraption. But then Sissel saves him from execution, and he suddenly has a newfound reason to live.
  • Dude in Distress: Sissel has to save him from being executed.
  • Guilt Complex
  • Institutional Apparel: Under a pink artist's smock.
  • My Greatest Failure: Even though he never shot Yomiel, he would have if the meteorite hadn't hit, and he still blames himself for that death.
  • My Significance Sense Is Tingling: His trusty "Detective sense".
  • Older Sidekick
  • Real Men Wear Pink: He wears a pink artist's smock over his prison uniform. Though, arguably, when you're in jail for murdering your wife, your manly reputation is probably not such a big deal.
  • Taking the Heat: For the death of his wife, which he originally believed to be accidentally caused by Kamila, later revealed to be the work of Yomiel.


Antagonists

Near-Sighted Jeego and One-Step-Ahead Tengo

A pair of blue-skinned assassins sent to kill Lynne. Jeego's perfect shot range grows shorter every year, while Tengo is always one step ahead of both his target and his boss.

Commander Sith

A short but apparently wealthy blue gentleman. His motivations are unknown but he seems to have ill intent towards Lynne and a deep interest in Sissel.

Yomiel a.k.a. "The Manipulator"

The mysterious Big Bad of the game. Became immortal after being struck by a shard of the Temsik meteorite. He was the one who took Lynne hostage in the park, and who orchestrated the events leading to Kamila's mother's death, Jowd's imprisonment, Lynne's murder accusation, and (accidentally) Sissel's death. Years of being separated from the rest of humanity, as well as his own undead status and his fiancee's suicide, drove him to seek revenge on the people who put him in that position. He has the power to control other living things, as well as manipulate inanimate objects like Sissel. At the end of the game Sissel turns back time to save him from the meteorite, and ghost!Yomiel controls the body of past!Yomiel to save Lynne from being crushed, redeeming himself just as he's given a second chance at life.

  • Acquitted Too Late: Yomiel in the original time-line.
  • The Atoner: After his Heel Face Turn.
  • Best Served Cold: His basic motivation is vengeance on all those connected to the Temsik Meteor.
  • Blessed with Suck: Can possess objects just as easily as Sissel can, and even manipulate living people.... but he can't rewind time, the only ability which matters.
  • Blond Guys Are Evil
  • The Chessmaster: He's not called a 'manipulator' for nothing. Gently manipulated a birthday contraption built by Kamilla to murder her mother, had Jowd take the fall to protect his daughter, let him spend five years in jail before controlling the justice minister to make him sign Jowd's execution order, and manipulated Lynne into appearing to murder Yomiel's shell, then made a deal with a foreign government just to make sure he had help for anything he'd missed.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He went off the deep end when his fiancée died. He named his cat, Sissel, after her, and the cat served as his only companion for years.
  • Evil Counterpart: To Sissel.
    • Evil Twin: Inverted. As a ghost, Sissel took the form of his beloved master. Since he couldn't see his own corpse, he assumed he looked like Yomiel's shell.
  • Face Death with Dignity: Even if, in the end, Everybody Lives.
  • Feel No Pain: Makes a point to Cabanela by slamming his fist on a sizzling hot stove.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: A lowly programmer who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
  • Go Mad From the Isolation: And how!
  • Hidden in Plain Sight: Appears in the very first chapter, under the guise of a black cat.
  • Hidden Villain: However, he doesn't show up in his true form until Chapter 15. Unless you count his shell when he's not in it, in which case he's been there since the start.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Subverted: he survives it.
  • Kindhearted Cat Lover: The man's not above murder or kidnapping, but clearly loved his pet cat and only friend for ten years, Sissel.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: His ultimate fate: serving out a ten-year stretch in Jowd's old jail cell. He's even wearing the same pink smock.
  • Lean and Mean
  • Love Makes You Evil
  • Made of Iron: Even after averting his immortality-inducing death, he survives having a giant concrete rock fall on his legs without losing them, or even consciousness.
    • After being stabbed in the back with a large stone spike, no less.
  • Meaningful Name: "Yomiel" comes from the Japanese word "yomigaeru", which means "to be revived".
  • Monster Sob Story
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Lynne is able to resist his control to a degree, and fires a wayward shot at Sissel—setting the game's events in motion.
    • Being killed in proximity to the meteor fragment in Yomiel's body is what caused both Sissel and Missle (and in the first timeline, Ray/Missile-Prime) to gain ghost tricks.
    • Hitting the Superintendent's stove with his fist also counts. It scared the bejeezus out of Cabanela, true, but it also knocked the kettle to the floor, allowing Sissel to blaze upward from the basement.
  • People Puppets: His ability.
  • Phlebotinum Battery: The meteor fragment.
  • Pinocchio Syndrome: He doesn't just want revenge, he wants to live a normal life and die a natural death... even if that life is artificial.
  • Slasher Smile: Which can be a little disturbing, since, at the time, he looks just like Sissel. Or rather, Sissel looks like him.
  • Start of Darkness: Was driven to escape custody and hold Lynne hostage following a harsh interrogation from Inspector Cabanela. While facing down Detective Jowd in Temsik Park, he was struck and killed by a meteor shard that put his body in a Schrodinger's life/death state. Upon finding that his fiancee had committed suicide to join him in the afterlife shortly after getting his body back, with no way to rewind time and prevent it, he was left with a burning desire to make everyone involved suffer precisely as he did.
  • Thanatos Gambit: Possessing Lynne in the junkyard and making her shoot him in plain view of cameras.
  • The Villain Makes the Plot
  • Waking Up At the Morgue
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Yeah, he has a basically immortal body that allows him to live forever. He also has no reason to live that long.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: In spades.

Beauty and Dandy

A black-hearted blue-skinned pair, most likely from the same county as Commander Sith and the assassins. Beauty is a standoffish Ice Queen who can sense the presence of ghosts, while Dandy is a gentleman and only slightly kinder than his cohort. Dandy has a major crush on Beauty, despite her constant verbal abuse. They kidnap Kamila, assuming she's Amelie, in order to force the justice minister to carry through with the execution order.

  • Affably Evil: Dandy sure is a chivalrous guy, even when kidnapping someone.

Beauty: What's with the fun book and juice?
Dandy: Like I said, "Always keep a smile on a lady's face."

Minor Characters

Justice Minister

An old, neurotic wreck of a man. His wife took his daughter Amelie, and left him after he signed an order to execute Detective Jowd. He only signed it due to Yomiel's manipulation, but is too scared to tell anyone about it.

Emma

A large, passionate woman who lives next door to Lynne and Kamila. She writes torrid romance novels. The separated wife of the justice minister, who left him after he issued Jowd's death order.

Amelie

Emma's daughter, who is bedridden with a fever. She hates her mother because Emma refuses to let her talk to her father.

  • Daddy's Girl: Despite being ill, she still sneaks out of her room to buy a lighter as a birthday present for her father.
  • Hair of Gold
  • Ill Girl: This little Tsundere spends the entire game in bed with a high fever.
  • Mega Twintails: Especially big in her cut-in portraits.
  • Mouthy Kid: Not an easy literary critic to have so closely at hand.

Blue-Suited Prison Guards

A pair of bored prison guards at the Special Prison. One is named Bailey and is mildly neurotic. When trouble hits he does 'The Panic Dance', which was apparently handed down in his family for generations. The other is never given a name and generally plays the straight man to his partner's shenanigans. He likes to build card towers.

Rockin' Jailbird

A rock star inmate at the special prison, who sung national secrets during a worldwide broadcast. Yomiel controlled him into doing so, to show off his powers to the foreign government.

Sausage Head

An oval-headed inmate at the special prison who took the police commissioner hostage, with his only request being for curry. Yomiel again. Does not seem very bright.

Guardian of the Park

A round-haired man who has made it his mission to defend Temsik Park and the 'rock of the gods' (the Temsik meteorite) from housing developers. This involves mostly dancing around barefoot and distributing leaflets. Not an undercover agent.

  • Anime Hair: It's larger than his head.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Though he seems to straighten up a bit once he finds out that it was a little dog that killed him, and not the gods, but not by much. At the very least, he tries to be helpful when Sissel has to avert his fate once Missile shows up. It's good advice too (stop him from running, at least for a little bit, and knock the rugby ball out of the tree).
  • New Age Retro Hippie
  • No Name Given: He may have even forgotten his own name. It's never made clear whether this was a side effect of dying or if he really doesn't remember.

Alma

Jowd's wife and Kamila's mother. Yomiel murdered her using Kamila's birthday contraption. The removal of Yomiel's death from the timeline also removes her death, and she is seen at the end of the game serving dinner to her friends and family.

Chicken Kitchen Chef

A orange-nosed chef who works at (and possibly manages) the Chicken Kitchen. He enjoys singing.

Memry

An "odd girl" who works at the Chicken Kitchen. She's not very attentive to her job. Probably because she's an undercover cop.

  • Fan Service with a Smile: And proud.
  • Nice Hat: It's a roast chicken.
  • Retirony: It's her last day as a waitress and she's nearly killed by a van.
    • She would have been killed by the van, if you hadn't saved Lynne earlier (since Lynne pushed her out of the way). Made worse by the fact that she plants the bug that causes the whole event. So she was almost responsible for her own death.
    • But wasn't the van moving only because Lynne was spotted in the restaurant?
  • Rollerblade Good: Is amazing at using her rollerblades.
  • Service Sector Stereotypes: She wears roller blades as if she's working at a retro drive-in, and yet the Chicken Kitchen is posh enough to have its own bar and elevator.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: In her case, sea green.

Yomiel's Fiancee

Sissel's namesake. Yomiel gave him the name after finding that she'd committed suicide, assuming him to be dead. This was part of what drove him first to despair and then to revenge. She's the only character in the game who we never directly see, but she apparently waited ten years in the new timeline for Yomiel to get out of jail.

  • Driven to Suicide: Unfortunately, Yomiel was still around.
  • The Ghost: The trope, not an actual ghost.
  • I Will Wait for You: Ten years of her fiance in jail for taking a child hostage, and she's still there when he gets out. Not surprising, given that last time around she committed suicide just to be with him.
  • The Lost Lenore: Her death is probably the biggest reason for Yomiel's Face Heel Turn.
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