InFAMOUS (series)/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Introduced in inFAMOUS

Cole MacGrath

The protagonist of inFAMOUS.

Cole in general

"Did you really think I was the Demon? The Demon of Empire City?"

Good Cole

Evil Cole

  • And Then John Was a Zombie
  • Anti-Hero: A Type V in the beginning, but ends up more like a Villain Protagonist near the end.
  • Dark Messiah: In the second game, Evil Cole ends up becoming one of these when the Beast transfers his power to him.
  • Evil Is Easy: The game is much easier if you don't care about collateral damage.
    • The end of game has you fighting alongside the final boss, just destroying things, and ends with three simple volt attacks against Zeke.
  • Evil Makes You Ugly: As Cole continues his trip down the Karma Meter, his clothes get dirtier and his skin becomes paler and covered in black smudges, and eventually, his eyes turn white. In the second game, this is played far subtler: though the pale, veiny skin remains, the main changes are in the color of his clothes and the layout of his tattoos.
  • A God Am I
  • Jerkass: Mainly in the first game; in the second game, he seems generally unconcerned with the consequences of his actions rather than actively malicious.
  • Physical God: After becoming The Beast.
  • Psycho Electro
  • Redemption Equals Death: Can choose not to let humanity die at the end of the second game, but at the cost of every Conduit's life, including his own. Of course, given that you have to be good to choose the good ending, this means that before you can do this, you're saddled with the job of turning your reputation around, assuming you still have enough opportunities to do so.
  • The Social Darwinist: The evil ending of the first game gives him this position. Not quite so in the second.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: He's closer to this in the second game.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Constantly.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity

Sasha

The leader of the Reapers, and a Conduit with the power to exude mind-controlling tar from her body.

Tropes

Why, Kessler? Why do you love her? I'll kill her, I swear it! I'll wear her skin like a robe!

Alden Tate

A powerful telekinetic and the leader of the Dustmen.

Tropes

Kessler

The main antagonist of InFAMOUS and the leader of the First Sons. His powers resemble Cole's, but are much more powerful. This is because he is actually Cole from the future, who has gone back in time as part of his plan to save the world from a destructive monster known as "The Beast".

Tropes

Trish Dailey

A doctor working hard to help the citizens of Empire City to recover from the catastrophe, and Cole's girlfriend. She leaves him early in the game, as she believes him to be responsible for the Blast, which cost the life of her sister Amy.

Tropes

Zeke Dunbar

Cole's best friend.

Tropes

Dallas a.k.a. The Voice of Survival

A government critical DJ who regularly hacks the TV broadcast in order to give news updates and survival tips to the citizens of Empire City. He blames Cole for the disaster, and tries to make all his actions look like crimes.

Tropes

Moya

A NSA agent whom Cole works for. It turns out that she is a DARPA agent, and Cole is nothing more than a pawn in her plans.

Tropes

John White

An undercover FBI agent within the First Sons and husband of Moya, who has recently gone silent. Cole is ordered by Moya to search for him. He later contacts Cole, and explains that he is in fact working for the NSA and that he has never been married. He then recruits Cole to recover and destroy the Ray Sphere. However, as Cole carries out the second part of the plan, John is absorbed by the blast and is seemingly killed. He returns in inFAMOUS 2, revealing himself as The Beast, having been empowered from the Ray Sphere at the same time it ripped his body apart atom by atom.

Tropes

The Beast

The immensely powerful conduit whom Cole was told to prepare to fight against in the next game by himself from the future. Kessler failed to defeat him in his timeline and his plan was to help Cole be able to fight him, though Empire City is destroyed completely right in the beginning of the second game.

Tropes

  • Affably Evil: Makes it clear that he bears humanity no ill will, and only turned to his unique method of activating conduits because he honestly thought it was the only way. He even apologises for attacking Cole once he's coherent enough to speak.
  • Amplifier Artifact: Acts as this for Cole during the evil ending; so long as Cole remains in the Beast's immediate vicinity, his battery cores are in a state of constant recharge and his static thrusters allow him to fly.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: His "armored" form.
  • Bald of Evil
  • Bigger Bad
  • Dark Messiah: For the conduits.
  • From a Single Cell: He was able to take a nuke to the face, and it only took him a few hours to regenerate fully.
  • Implacable Man
  • The Juggernaut
  • Magma Man: Invoked by his volcanic exterior.
  • Miles to Go Before I Sleep: In the Evil Ending, the Beast admits to being deeply tired of killing, and that he would have preferred to remain dead if he hadn't had a mission to complete; hence the reason why he transfers his power to Cole.
  • Mind Over Matter
  • Nigh Invulnerable: He can easily rebuild himself.
  • Passing the Torch: To Cole, in the evil ending.
  • Person of Mass Destruction
  • Physical God
  • Playing with Fire
  • Pulling Themselves Together: Most of the attempts at killing him result in these kind of moments. Also, this was actually how the Beast was first created: when the Ray Sphere accidentally disintegrated John White, he gradually put himself back together again, cell by cell... becoming the Beast in the process.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: In both his armored and "human" form.
  • Super Empowering: Comes in three flavours: #1 He can awaken the powers of potential conduits just like the Ray Sphere does. #2 He can supercharge the already existing powers of conduits. #3 He can transfer all of his own power to another conduit.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: His purpose is the creation of conduits in order to stop the spread of the plague, even if it results in normal humanity dying out.


Introduced in inFAMOUS 2

Lucy Kuo

An NSA agent who assists Cole in preparation for stopping the Beast.

Tropes

  • Adorkable
  • An Ice Person: Becomes an ice conduit (but not through a pleasant procedure).
  • Betty
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • The Dragon: To Cole in the evil ending.
  • Face Heel Turn: It turns out that she would rather join the Beast, letting millions die, than to sacrifice herself. You fight her in the middle of the final boss battle. Before the end, she admits this and encourages Cole to kill the Conduits, herself included.
  • Flight: One of her secondary powers.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Choosing Nix over her in the Power Exchange decision results in a particularly venomous rant about this.
  • Last-Name Basis: Of every single character in the game, only Wolfe refers to her first name, and that's only in the Dead Drops, where he'd be more or less required to. No one ever says it to her face, even Wolfe; this gets especially ridiculous, as Kuo herself calls him a "father figure".
  • Not So Stoic: She loses her cool if you make Cole decide to sacrifice all the Conduits. She doesn't take this lightly.
  • Power Incontinence: Early on, Kuo had difficulty restraining her powers: at one point accidentally freezing Cole's cheek with a touch.
  • Punny Name: Her last name is pronounced "quo", setting up jokes such as "status kuo" and the like.
  • Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Averted. She has an awkward, clipped way of speaking.
  • The Spock: To Cole's Ego and Nix's Id. As stated in the trailer and the game itself, Kuo is the voice of order among the three and provides arguments to do good deeds. This is averted crazily in the end.

Nix

A hyperactive Fire/Napalm Conduit with a grudge against Bertrand and a crush on Cole.

Tropes

  • The Beast Master: She manages to tame some of The Corrupted as her "babies".
  • Broken Bird
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Whenever someone else suggests achieving a goal by trying to help people and get them to fight by your side willingly, Nix doesn't just scoff at it, but acts like they're crazy for even thinking of it. From what she tells us of her childhood, she probably hasn't met too many nice people in her life.
  • Evil Is Burning Hot
  • Femme Fatalons
  • Flash Step
  • Heel Face Turn: She's willing to sacrifice herself to save millions, but only because she wants revenge on the Beast.
  • Heroic Sacrifice
  • The Id: To Cole's Ego and Kuo's Superego. She's generally a twisted sadist, but it's justified given her past and lifestyle. Unlike Kuo, this is only slightly averted in the end because her only reason for opposing the Beast is revenge for her "babies".
  • I Just Want to Be Special: One of the reasons why she sides with the humans instead of the conduits. She fears that when everybody has powers, her own powers won't be special anymore, and she will just be a nobody again.
  • Playing with Fire
  • Teleport Spam
  • Veronica

Joseph Bertrand III

The charismatic leader of The Militia and the self-appointed ruler of New Marais. He uses his army to hunt and kill Conduits, who he has labeled "deviants".

Tropes

  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Really, really wanted to be a powerful conduit. Wish granted.
  • Big Bad
  • Blessed with Suck: His Conduit talents manifest as turning into a gigantic abomination against God and man whenever his emotional or physical state overwhelms his will, and making people into smaller versions of said abomination. By the way, all the abominations are flesh-eating and close to completely uncontrollable.
  • Boomerang Bigot
  • Eldritch Abomination
  • Enemy Summoner
  • Fantastic Racism: He wants to commit genocide on Conduits, considering them to be monsters. How ironic.
  • Hollywood Exorcism: One mission towards the end of the game shows that he apparently has a habit of performing his own brand of exorcisms on Conduits. However, this exorcism is just his setup for transforming them into the Corrupted.
  • Hypocrite: He is literally and metaphorically the biggest monster in the series.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: So much so that he massacred hundreds of people including Nix's family to get superpowers. It worked.
  • Insane Troll Logic: Bertrand has a very well-concealed version of this: his stated reason for setting the Conduits up for genocide is that, as "creations of science", they don't fit into the divine plan. In reality, he was more than happy to be one until it turned out that the only power he'd gained was a hideous and uncontrollable transformation into a monster. So, in his reasoning, if he had become a monster by activating his powers, then all Conduits, active or otherwise, were monsters.
  • Karmic Transformation
  • Knight Templar
  • Large Ham
  • Lovecraftian Superpower: Both his ability to transform into an Eldritch Abomination and his ability to convert other people into the Corrupted count.
  • One-Winged Angel: But not at all in the way he wanted.
  • Personality Powers: The corrupt, over-the-top, self-aggrandising preacher who turns half the city into Cole's enemy has the power to transform into an Eldritch Abomination and convert other people into monsters.
  • Sinister Minister
  • Villainous Breakdown: During one of Wolf's dead drops, Bertrand has a full-blown temper-tantrum when he discovers the nature of his powers, complete with furious accusations, death threats, anguished pleas to God, broken glass, and a loud and angry shout of "I AM NOT HAPPY!".

Dr. Sebastian Wolf

A scientist who had worked with Kessler and the First Sons. Cole seeks him in New Marais for assistance in stopping the Beast.

Tropes

Rosco Laroche

Leader of the rebellion movement against Bertrand's militia.

Tropes


Introduced in Festival of Blood

Bloody Mary

The newly-resurrected leader of the New Marais vampires, Bloody Mary is the main villain of Festival of Blood and directly responsible for transforming Cole into a vampire. Taking advantage of Pyre Night to allow her coven to feed on the locals without repercussions, she's also hoping to mould Cole into her slave by the next sunrise...

  • Big Bad
  • Burn the Witch: After being captured by Father Ignatius during the backstory, she was burned at the stake.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Aguably the worst of her villainy started around the time Marco was killed.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Marco: one of the few people Mary actually gave a damn about after becoming a vampire, his death resulted in her ascending to new heights of villainy.
  • Evil Redhead
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Her backstory reveals that, prior to becoming a vampire, she used to be just a governess; dying of smallpox, she was cured and transformed by Marco, one of her admirers.
  • Fully-Embraced Fiend
  • Kick the Dog: Her teachings reveal that she's engaged in a lot of this over her long life.
  • Kill It with Fire: How she was killed off the first time. Thanks to Zeke and some white phosphorus, this is also how she dies in the ending of the game.
  • Lady in Red
  • Naked on Revival
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: During the backstory, Mary waged one of these against Father Ignatius for killing Marco.
  • Villain Teleportation
  • We Can Rule Together: Around the time Cole becomes too powerful for her to easily stop, she begins making offers along these lines; given that Cole had to spend the previous eight hours listening to her gloat over how she was going to dress him up in a pea coat once she had control over his mind, he wisely declines.

Father Ignatius

The priest responsible for killing Bloody Mary during her first rampage. Though he's only seen in flashbacks, he becomes vital to defeating the vampires, for the only weapon powerful enough to kill Bloody Mary once again is his legendary Barbed Cross.

  • The Atoner: After failing to save Mary from being transformed into a vampire on her deathbed, Ignatius dedicated himself to killing Marco and transforming Mary back into a human. Unfortunately because he failed to do so on Mary's first night, he ended up turning her into an even bigger menace than before, forcing Ignatius to atone for that too.
  • Badass Grandpa
  • Badass Moustache: Even Zeke notices it.
  • Church Militant
  • Posthumous Character
  • Tired of Running: On the recieving end of Mary's Roaring Rampage of Revenge for decades, Ignatius finally stopped running from her in New Marais, where he turned the tables on her with the Barbed Corss.

The Gangs

The Reapers

Prior to the Ray Sphere detonation, the Reapers were a very loose collection of drug dealers and petty criminals; however, after the quarantine was declared in Empire City, and Sasha became their leader, the gang quickly took over much of the Neon District.

Tropes

The Dustmen

A gang largely comprised of homeless people, the Dustmen rule the Warren district in the wake of the disaster in Empire City. Working to serve the desires of their leader Alden Tate, they have begun abducting engineers and construction workers to build a monument in his honor... and searching for the Ray Sphere.

Tropes

The First Sons

Not exactly a gang per se, the First Sons are actually a secret society of Conduits with a private army that's taken over Empire City's Historic District. With a history that can be traced all the way back to colonial Salem, branches all over America, and a heavy emphasis on the propagation and mastery of Conduit powers, they are also under Kessler's control, and directly responsible for the Blast.

Tropes

The Militia

Established and organised by Joseph Bertrand, the Militia has been in control of New Marais ever since the Corrupted began attacking the city. Ostensibly in place to restore and preserve order until government assistance can arrive, the Militia are extremely repressive towards the citizens... especially Conduits, who Bertrand has declared war on.

Tropes

The Corrupted

A race of monsters that emerged from the swamps following the hurricane, the Corrupted periodically attack the city in large packs. They are actually the victims of Bertrand's Conduit powers, used to fool the public into supporting him.

Tropes

Vermaak 88

A world-famous unit of South African mercenaries. Hired by Bertrand, they were given ice-based superpowers - extracted from Lucy Kuo - and put in stasis for later sale to dictators around the world; unfortunately, they were accidentally released by Cole, resulting in them taking over the flooded areas of New Marais.

Tropes

  • An Ice Person: All of them have ice powers to a certain extent: some of them can propel themselves across great distances by creating explosions of ice under them, while more advanced members tower over the battlefield on pillars of ice and freeze their enemies solid. The most powerful of the Vermaak protect themselves with giant suits of armour composed of solid ice... which eventually leads to them actually becoming ice.
  • Arc Words: "We Will Be Whole!"
  • Axe Crazy
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: The Crushers and the Titans.
  • Defector From Decadence: One shows up in Good missions to help Cole take out other members of Vermaak. He later shows up as a Titan.
  • Elite Mooks: The heavy infantry.
  • Private Military Contractors
  • Psycho for Hire: Averted: Wolf's dead-drops show that the Vermaak were perfectly stable prior to gaining superpowers; it took their transformation into Forced Conduits to bring them into the state of Blast Core-obsessed violence they're seen in.
  • Sanity Slippage: At least one of the mercenaries managed to retain his sanity, and even tried to aid Cole in stopping his former comrades. Sadly, as he grows more powerful, he also gets progressively more deranged, until he loses all control and has to be put down.
  • Vader Breath: At least one of the heavy infantry units spoke with this.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: As ordinary humans not physiologically equipped to handle Conduit powers, the Vermaak have been driven almost completely insane by their transformation into Forced Conduits.
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