The Binding of Isaac/Characters

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A list of characters who appear in The Binding of Isaac. Currently under construction, please contribute!

Isaac/Other Playable Characters

A little boy who gets thrown in the basement by his mother and has to fight for his life. Variations with different stats and starting items can be unlocked by gaining various achievements.

Shared Tropes

• Acrofatic: Several items make your character fatter. Combine these with items that increase your speed and you have this trope.
• Body Horror: With the right items Isaac can have this.
  • Borderlines with Lovecraftian Superpower in some cases.
• Break the Cutie: It's right in the title screen!
• Bullet Hell: For once the player can actually cause this with the right items.
• Collision Damage: Isaac cannot touch most of the enemies. There's an item which hurts the enemies as well when they touch Isaac.
• Deal with the Devil: It's possible.
• Detachment Combat: When using The Shears.
  • The Peeper pops out one of your eyes which bounces around the room, hurting everything it touches.
• Did You Just Punch Out Satan?
• Driven to Suicide: In at least one ending.
• Eye Scream: Some items cause this.
• Faustian Rebellion: The items Satan sells you at the cost of your maximum health often end up making beating him a lot easier.
• Flash of Pain
• Full-Frontal Assault
• Hammerspace: It's not specified where can Isaac hold all the coins, keys and bombs he has collected.
• He Who Fights Monsters
• Ironic Name: "Isaac" means "he laughed" or "he who laughs." Not much laughing occurs.
  • Although it was based off the biblical story. See Meaningful Name below.
• Item Get: Holds up new items - even in battle.
• Meaningful Name: The Binding Of Isaac.
  • Foreshadowing: Right down to God preventing the murder/sacrifice at the very last second in at least one ending.
• Only One Name: Or no name at all in ???'s case.
• Swiss Army Tears: As a weapon!
  • Berserker Tears
  • Improbable Weapon User
  • Tears of Fear
  • Tears of Blood: Except this time it isn't a bad thing.
  • Ocular Gushers
  • Onion Tears: Once you find the Sad Onion powerup.
• Throw Down the Bomblet
  • Cartoon Bomb
• Took a Level In Badass: Start the game as a crying child and end it as a flying demon that can shoot lasers from their face.
• Troubled Fetal Position
• Urine Trouble: The aptly named Number One upgrade replaces his tears for a urine attack instead. It does seem to make him happier.
• Wall of Weapons: Potentially.
• Winged Humanoid: Possible with certain items.
  • Good Wings, Evil Wings: Both are possible.

Isaac

Isaac without any special accessories. The only character playable from the start. After beating It Lives with ??? Isaac starts with the D6: an activated item capable of transmuting any collection related item(s) into other random item(s).

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• Jack of All Stats
• Luck Manipulation Mechanic: The all-mighty D6 dice! An activated item capable of transmuting any collection related item(s) into other random item(s).
  • Magikarp Power
• True Final Boss: Of Wrath of the Lamb. More precisely, he is an alternate True Final Boss that can be fought instead of Satan. More details below.

Magdalene

Isaac with a blonde wig and a red bow. Maggy starts with the Yum Heart: an activated item that restores one heart upon use.

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• Combat Medic: Called "the cleric" in the art booklet.
• Cross Dresser
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Usually referred to as Maggy.
• Stone Wall: Starts with low speed and 4 hearts, the highest starting amount possible, and an healing item.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics

Cain

Isaac with an eye patch. Starts the game with the Luck Foot: a passive item that improves random events in various ways.

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• Born Lucky: Cain's starting item gives him increased luck in certain situations.
• Eyepatch of Power
• Fragile Speedster / Glass Cannon: Starts with great speed and attack and an average rate of fire but suffers from low range and health. Outright called "the thief" by the art booklet.

Eve

Isaac with a wig and eye shadow. Starts with The Whore of Babylon and the Dead Bird.

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• Attack Animal: The Dead Bird.
• Cast From Hit Points: The Dead Bird is activated by taking damage in a room and works as a faster level three Meat Boy for the room in which it activates.
• Critical Status Buff: When she's down to half a heart, her Whore of Babylon powerup grants her greatly increased attack.
• Cross Dresser
• Cursed with Awesome: The "curse" that Eve starts the game with. It gives her a super form when she's reduced to half a heart of health.
• Fragile Speedster: High speed, low attack, low health.
• Looks Like Cesare
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics

Judas

Isaac with a fez. He starts the game with the Book of Belial, an activated item that increases attack power for one room.

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• Nice Hat
• Glass Cannon: More so then Cain. Starts with average rate of fire, range, speed and high attack power, further bolstered by his Book of Belial. In exchange, he starts with only 1 heart.

Samson

Isaac with long brown-hair and Big Ol' Eyebrows. He also starts with a red headband called Blood Lust, which grants him a temporary (last a whole room) but substantial attack-power boost for each enemy he kills. Introduced in Wrath of the Lamb.

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• Badass Long Hair
• Blood Knight: His trademark power-up is called Blood Lust, after all!
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Invoked Trope by his special hair-band. The more enemies you face in a room, the more powerful you'll get! But single target rooms won't trigger any attack-boost.
• Glass Cannon: With just 1 starting heart container, he's as fragile as (and under some circumstances, even more than) Judas. However, his special gear makes him extremely effective against large groups of enemies and/or mook makers.
• Martial Arts Headband

???

A shout-out to Edmund McMillen's Newgrounds account (specifically his "Dead Baby Dressup" game). Starts with The Poop, which creates a pile of dung once per room.

Possibly Isaac who decided to hide/went to in golden chest and suffocated there.

• Amazing Technicolor Population: Justified: he's dead.
• Back From the Dead
• Joke Character
  • Lethal Joke Character: Exists purely on soul hearts, leading to a few potential Game Breaker combos.
• Joke Item: The Poop.
• The Mario
  • Toilet Humor
• Wingding Eyes: Crossed-out eyes.
• Undead Child

Flies

• Big Creepy-Crawlies

Black Fly/Red Fly/Moter

• * Asteroids Monster: Moter

Boom Fly/Red Boom Fly

• Action Bomb: Black variation.

Humanoid

Gaper/Pacer/Gusher/Horfs

• Elite Mooks: Gaper have a second variety which are faster, have more health, and have no eyes.
• Eyeless Face: Gapers (See above) and Horfs
• High-Pressure Blood: Gusher
• Tears of Blood: Gapers and Horfs
• Overdrawn At the Blood Bank: Gushers, as the name implies, have a constant stream of blood flowing from their necks.

Hopper/Fire Hopper/Leaper

• Bullet Hell: See below.
• Demonic Spider: Leapers jump off the top of the screen and come down, spraying shots in 4 directions. They're also very quick. Good luck fighting a room with 3 or 4 of them!
• Elite Mooks: See above
• Infernal Retaliation: Hoppers move twice as fast, jump twice as far, and inflict more damage when they're on fire.

Maws/Mr. Maw

• Detachment Combat: Mr. Maw

Mulligan/Hive

• Body Horror
• Incurable Cough of Death
• Mook Maker: Occasionally coughs up flies and spits them at you.

Globin

• Elite Mooks: has a second variety which are faster, have more health, and (unlike Gapers) has 1 eye. As well when they are turned into a meat pile they try to run away from the player until reforming.

Knights

• Attack Its Weak Point: The front of them is solid bone or petrified flesh. The only way to actually damage it is to hit it in the back of its head, the exposed brain.
• Elite Mooks: Its second variety chases the player instead of wandering aimless. They have a crying Isaac face instead of a brain on their back.

Vis

• Body Horror
• Bloody Murder: Fires what appears to be blood in a wide beam across the room it's in.
• Elite Mooks: As of the Wrath of the Lamb DLC, Vis has a second form which shoots a beam in both directions.
• High-Pressure Blood

Baby

• Body Horror
• Elite Mooks: Has an angelic form that shoots a three spread instead of one bullet.
• Fetus Terrible
• Teleport Spam

Dople

• Elite Mooks: Instead of looking like a meat puppet. It looks like a demon that can: fly, shoot a three spread, and do more damage. Good things is that its bullets travel slower giving you time to dodge and shoot.
• Enemy Without: They mirror the player's movements, including shooting, but most rooms come with a mechanism with which to destroy them. There are also bombs, and praying that whipped shots will work.

Maggots

• Big Creepy-Crawlies

Spiders

Added with Wrath of the Lamb. A faster alternative to the flies, though they're land-bound.

• Big Creepy-Crawlies
• Demonic Spiders: Obviously YMMV, but they're far faster than the flies, and occur en masse in the Alternate levels.
• Shout-Out: One of the types of spider is a head on four legs, with a heavy-lidded eye in the center. In other words, a tektite.

Other

Clot

• Blob Monster

Clotty

• Blob Monster
• Bullet Hell: They tend to shoot haphazardly, and very often, in every direction.

Host

• Attack Its Weak Point: Only in the grey variation. To hit them you must wait for it to expose the flesh under the skull.
• The Cameo: From a multiplayer player flash game with the same name.
• No Sell: Grey Hosts are protected by their skull when they aren't firing. Trying to hit them does nothing. Trying to bomb them just annoys them.

Brain and MemBrain/Mom Brain

• Asteroids Monster: MemBrain splits into two Brains when killed.

Guts

• Asteroids Monster: An example similar to Mom Brain (Mom Guts?) was added in Wrath of the Lamb.
• Body Horror

Boil

• Elite Mooks: As of Wrath of the Lamb there is a second version which shoots green bombs, much like Sloth. As well as mobile versions of each.
  • Mook Maker: There's also a version made of spider silk, which spits out spiders.

Eye

• Elite Mooks: A second version which looks like a white eyeball and nothing else. It shoots blood beams instead of electrical beams.
• Eye Scream
• Faceless Eye
• High-Pressure Blood

Leech

• Elite Mooks: A second version that has an eyeball and explodes when killed.
  • Palette Swap: There's an alternate version of that that's angelic white. Not just tinted that way, either, but a separate enemy.

The Basement/The Cellar

Monstro

• Body Horror
• Degraded Boss: After the game is beaten 6 times.
• The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: One spacebar item, Monstro's Tooth, calls in the aforementioned boss to body-slam enemies. Guess which boss you can't use it against.

The Duke of Flies

• Body Horror
• Degraded Boss: After the game is beaten 6 times.
• Flunky Boss

Gemini/Steven

• Bullfight Boss: The big one can tire out after a few moments of running. If the big is killed first then the small will turn red, give chase and never tire out.
• The Cameo / Mythology Gag: Steven is from Time Fcuk.
• Dual Boss: One big version that charges the player and one small version that shoots bullets.
• Turns Red: Again, what the small one does when the big one dies.

Larry Jr.

• Asteroids Monster: Not so much as other bosses but if the middle section is killed first in a 5 body one, it will split into two more versions with just two segments.
• The Cameo / Mythology Gag: A smaller version of Larrie's Lament.
• Degraded Boss: The most common boss enemy to find in The Womb.
• King Mook: As of Wrath of the Lamb, similar enemies (Larry III?) appear.

Widow

• Flunky Boss: Not only does she spawn spiders directly, but she can also spawn Mook Maker spider silk Boils!
• King Mook: To the spiders.
• Rush Boss

Pin

• Degraded Boss: Odd variation: Pin is introduced in the new expansion as a weaker version of Scolex. Despite this, it's still a boss in its own right.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: Is not immune to it's green exploding projectiles, and due to a quirk in hit detection can actually damage itself with them when it begins to bury underground.

The Caves/The Catacombs

Fistula

• Asteroids Monster
• Body Horror
• Degraded Boss: Most of the time though it will already be broken down to its second stage.

Gurdy

• Body Horror
• Damage Sponge Boss
• Degraded Boss: Interestingly, the weaker version attacks very differently, charging and firing circular waves of bullets. Contrast with the other bosses made into minibosses, who are more or less identical to their original version, but weaker.
• Flunky Boss
• Stationary Boss

Peep

• Eye Scream: It detaches its eyeballs when its HP starts getting low. They block your shots and will inflict Collision Damage on you if you touch them... Oh! And they're indestructible until you kill their original owner.
• Meaningful Name: Pronounce the second p as though you were saying the letter "p".
  • There's also the fact that "peep" can mean to look at something, and he attacks you with his eyes.
• Toilet Humor: Attacks with urine.

Chub/C.H.A.D

• Bullfight Boss
• The Cameo / Mythology Gag: C.H.A.D. is a boss from Super Meat Boy.
• Degraded Boss: Another common boss enemy to find in The Depths and The Womb
• Feed It a Bomb: Has the exact same weakness as Dodongo of The Legend of Zelda fame, though he can also be beaten by regular attacks.
• Flunky Boss
• King Mook: To the maggots.

Blighted Ovum

• Back From the Dead: Gemini is now a zombie, and is accompanied by his conjoined brother's ghost.
  • The image appears to be more of a sperm and an egg.That wouldn't discredit this trope, it would just be a different set that came back, because at least the large one is undeniably dead no matter what perspective you look at it from.

The Hollow

• Back From the Dead: Larry Jr. devoid of blood.

Queen of Carrion

• Back From the Dead: A mostly-skeletal Chub.

The Husk

• Back From the Dead: The Duke of Flies' rotted corpse.
• Flunky Boss
• Rush Boss

The Depths/Necropolis

Loki

• Flunky Boss
• Tactical Suicide Boss: The boom flies it spawns will often explode on him, given how powerful you should be by the time you fight him.
• Teleport Spam

Monstro II

• Back From the Dead
• Body Horror
• Damage Sponge Boss
• Degraded Boss: In Sheol
• Flunky Boss
• High-Pressure Blood

Gish

• Blob Monster
• The Cameo / Mythology Gag: From a game with the same name, Gish.
• Flunky Boss
• King Mook

Mask of Infamy

• Attack Its Weak Point: The mask is invincible until you destroy it's heart. Even after that, you need to hit it from behind.
• King Mook: A beefed-up version of a standard enemy also added in Wrath of the Lamb.
• Shout-Out: Inspired by Carmillia's mask in Castlevania.

Daddy Long Legs/Triachnid

• Dummied Out: As hinted here, there was an alternate version this boss that was cut before the game was released. It wasn't removed entirely however. Due to a glitch, it originally would replace the Cathedral's True Final Boss. This was eventually corrected.
  • The Cameo / Mythology Gag: The alternate is a reference another one to another of Edmund's games. Namely, Triachnid.
  • Ascended Glitch: It is hinted that a future update will reflect this glitch somehow.
• King Mook: A giant spider, same as Widow.

Mom

Isaac's mother. In a fit rage/insanity/devoutness/whatever you think it is she attempted to take up a knife against Isaac and forced him to flee to the basement to live.

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• Abusive Parent
• Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever: Her boss fight.
• Ax Crazy
• Big Bad
• Boss Banter
• Climax Boss: In the first playthrough.
• Death by Irony: Crushed by her own bible!
  • Gameplay and Story Integration
  • Hoist by His Own Petard
  • The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: Using the Bible instantly kills Mom.
• Disc One Final Boss: Demoted to this on your second playthrough and beyond.
• Evil Is Visceral
• Evil Laugh
• Fan Disservice: When Isaac uses the Mom's Bra item, a picture of his mother's shirtless torso flashes on the screen. A very unflattering picture of his mother's less-than-fit shirtless torso.
• Fat Bastard
• Final Boss: In your first playthrough, anyway.
• Flunky Boss
• The Fundamentalist
• Gonk
• Gross Up Close-Up
• Knife Nut
• Mook Maker
• Mother of a Thousand Young
• No Name Given
• Offing the Offspring
• One Bad Mother
• Say My Name: ISAAC!
• Strawman Political
• Tactical Suicide Boss: It's not actually mandatory, but making her stomp herself is possible, and deals lots of damage.
• True Final Boss: Her Heart's alternate form, It Lives, in the original version. After the Halloween Update, it becomes the Disc Three Final Boss.
• Womb Level
  • Disc One Final Dungeon
• Your Size May Vary: Just how big is she? In the cutscenes, she's a normal-sized human being, but her underwear is the right size to be worn by a child visibly smaller than her, in the boss fight her leg is the length of the screen, and then her womb is big enough to have two entire levels in it, with her heart being larger than Isaac.

The Womb/Utero

Scolex

• Attack Its Weak Point: You can only damage it by hitting it in the very back segment.
• Fragile Speedster: It has the lowest health of any boss in the game, but it makes up for this with its speed and hard to hit weakness.

Blastocyst

• Asteroids Monster
• Blob Monster
• Degraded Boss: Very odd type. Can be found in earlier levels as a Zero Effort Boss. But later can be found in its full form.

The Bloat

• Back From the Dead: What remains of Peep's bones are broken, and his eyes swollen.
• Eye Scream
• High-Pressure Blood

Teratoma

• Asteroids Monster
• Back From the Dead: The Fistula has shrivled up and now shelters spiders.

Lokii

• Back From the Dead: Loki has been split in two, but both halves live on.
• Dual Boss
• Flunky Boss
• Half the Man He Used To Be
• Teleport Spam
• Visual Pun: The last two "i"s of his name have a line crossed through them on the bottom, making them resemble part of the Roman numeral II.

Mom's Heart/It Lives

• Boss Banter: Same as Mom
• Boss Rush: When it summons mooks, it also summons weaker bosses (Monstro, Larry Jr. Chub, ETC.)
• Damage Sponge Boss
• Disc Two Final Boss: Mom's Heart after the ninth playthrough
  • Disc Three Final Boss: It Lives after the Halloween update.
• The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: Using the Bible instantly kills Mom's Heart/It Lives.
• Fetus Terrible: It Lives.
• Flunky Boss: It Lives can also make Degraded Bosses.
• True Final Boss: Mom's Heart from the second through ninth playthroughs; It Lives then replaced it until the Halloween update.
• Say My Name: Same as Mom
• Word of God: It Lives is a fetus/embryo of Isaac

Sheol

Satan

• Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever: His final form
• Black Speech: During the fight with him, he sounds somewhat like this. They are actually Mom's quotes, played backwards and in a much lower tone.
• Deal with the Devil: He offers them.
• Evil Laugh
• Flunky Boss
• The Man Behind the Man: Implied
• No Sell/ Press X to Die Just try using The Bible on him.
• One-Winged Angel
• Satan
• Say My Name: Satan's battle cry when you defeat The Fallen is actually Mom calling your name, only lower pitched and in reverse.
  • Hell Is That Noise
• Sequential Boss
• Tactical Suicide Boss: Those exploding enemies he spawns don't just hurt Isaac...
• True Final Boss: One of them, as of Wrath Of The Lamb.

The Cathedral

Isaac

• Bolt of Divine Retribution: Like Conquest, can summon several pillars of light.
• Bullet Hell
• Counter Attack: In addition to the projectiles he fires periodically, he also fires at you whenever you damage him.
• Damage Sponge Boss: As of recent updates.
• Disc Four Final Boss: After being beaten while your character is holding the Polarioid, Isaac will be replaced by ??? in all subsequent runs.
• Enemy Without: Well, maybe.
• Good Counterpart: To Satan. He appears in Heaven instead of Sheol, summons angels instead of demons, and is, you know, THE PROTAGONIST.
  • May also qualify as an Evil Counterpart for the playable Isaac.
• Flunky Boss
• Holy Hand Grenade
• Messianic Archetype: Boss Isaac's One-Winged Angel
• Mirror Match
• Purposefully Overpowered: You know how almost all the items added to Wrath of the Lamb are much more powerful than the ones in the base game? There's a reason for that.
• Sequential Boss
• True Final Boss: Alongside Satan. Until Isaac is replaced by ???
• Walking Spoiler: Given that he's the boss of the secretest (and most difficult) area of the game, yeah.

???

As of version 1.15, Blue Baby replaces Isaac after Isaac is defeated when a character is holding the Polaroid.

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• Missing Secret: Previously, he would be replaced by Triachnid, due to a glitch.
• True Final Boss

The Seven Deadly Sins

Envy/Super Envy

• Asteroids Monster

Gluttony/Super Gluttony

• High-Pressure Blood
• King Mook: He's basically a Vis with a head.

Greed/Super Greed

• Chest Monster
• Flunky Boss
• Mook Promotion: Given that he is the same size as all the other Greed mooks and item holders, Greed as a mini-boss could be this.
  • King Mook: Super Greed, however, is bigger and can spawn more Greed heads.
• The Scrappy: Given how he can replace shops and secret rooms, can knock out your money when he hits you, and can be fought multiple times in one run, players usually don't enjoy finding him.
• Shop Keeper

Lust/Super Lust

• Bullfight Boss

Sloth/Super Sloth

• Palette Swap: Of the Globin. See below.
• Stealth Pun: Unlike the other sins, Sloth is a Palette Swap of an existing enemy. Sloth has a lazy character design.

Wrath/Super Wrath

• Cartoon Bomb
• Expy: Of Bomberman.

Harbingers

• Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Famine

• Degraded Boss: In later stages.

Pestilence

• Degraded Boss: In later stages.

War

• Bullfight Boss: After losing his horse.
• Degraded Boss: In later stages.

Death

• Degraded Boss: In later stages.
• Shout-Out: One of his attacks is very similar to one that a certain other Death you may know of uses.
• Sinister Scythe

Headless Horseman

• Degraded Boss: In later stages. Usually found as two or three copies of its head in the same room.
• Dual Boss: The boss is split into: his head, that charges and shoots small bullets, and his body, which shoots large bombs and leaves trails of blood.
• Headless Horseman: Well yeah.

Conquest

• Bolt of Divine Retribution: One of only two bosses in the game to summon beams of light from on high.
• Doppelganger Attack
• Blindfold Of Power
• Holy Hand Grenade

Other

The Fallen

• Asteroids Monster: After about 75% of his health his gone he splits into two versions of himself.
• Bullfight Boss: Does this when he isn't shooting. After his charging sequence he'll shoot blood in every direction.
• Degraded Boss: In later stages.
• The Dragon: To Satan
• High-Pressure Blood

Krampus

• Bad Santa: Drops a Lump of Coal.
• Chest Monster: Randomly appears in Devil Rooms.
• High-Pressure Blood
• The Krampus
• Palette Swap: Of The Fallen.

The Wretched

• Degraded Boss: Currently the only way he appears. He himself is a Degraded Boss of Gurdy.
• Dummied Out / Missing Secret: Clearly intended to be a boss; however he never appears as one.