Boris the Wolf

**Boris the Wolf** is a cartoon character created by Joey Drew Studios from the *Bendy* series. Much like other cartoon characters such as Bendy and Alice Angel, Boris starred in a series of popular Bendy cartoon shorts thirty years before the events of the game.

In *Bendy and the Ink Machine*, Boris' existence is first hinted at in the "*Sheep Songs!*" posters and one of his deceased clones seen in *Chapter 1*, but he makes a full physical appearance at the end of *Chapter 2* briefly, and *Chapter 3* and *4* as a major character.

## General Description

### Physical Appearance

Boris is a tall anthropomorphic wolf wearing white overalls and black shoes. A button fastens the two straps to his waist and they appear to have numerous pockets on them. From both of his knees, one each was sewn with a patch. Boris also wears a pair of blank white gloves.

Boris is easily the tallest of the studio's creations. He sports rosy cheeks, freckle-dots on his muzzle, and long ears that point upwards. Similar to other cartoon characters, Boris has pie eyes. Unlike a real-life wolf, he does not have a tail. Seen in the animated shorts, Boris appears to have four pointy fangs and will have a full set of sharp teeth when angered.

### Personality

In both cartoons and reality, Boris has a great love of food. Boris has a mostly simple-minded attitude and does not seem to care much for those around him. He has moments of being clumsy and will get cross when he is disturbed by his activities. In "*Haunted Hijinx*", Boris seems to be a bit of a trickster and can outsmart most characters, as seen when Boris wears a ghost costume to scare Bendy off, and then proceeds to take his trick-or-treat candy basket. Boris seems to have an interest in playing the clarinet, seen in his "*Sheep Songs!*" poster and the episode of the same name. From the "*Snow Sillies*" cartoon, Boris is shown to be an opportunist, as seen when he snatches the carrot that Bendy used for a nose when the latter's snowman melted. Boris' description in *Bendy in Nightmare Run* implies that he can be a faithful friend as long as he isn't distracted by food.

In his physical appearance of *Chapter 2* and *3*, Boris is completely mute, since he never spoke or made any kind of noise. As he and Henry explore the studio together, he is shown to be timid in nature whenever an enemy lurks nearby, most often seen when Ink Bendy prowls the halls. He is also shown to have a fear of darkness (likewise known as "nyctophobia"), which is seen if Henry walks too far away from him inside the dark hallways. However, Boris is far from mean-spirited, giving Henry a safe place to recover in the safehouse and helping him navigate the lower floors.

## In-Game Appearances

### *Bendy and the Ink Machine*

#### *Chapter 1: Moving Pictures*

Boris is first shown when he appears on the numerous posters for the "*Sheep Songs!*" cartoon. Henry also discovers a corpse of the imperfect Boris clone, strapped to the table with his chest cut open with a wrench in it.

#### *Chapter 2: The Old Song*

Boris makes his first physical appearance at the end of the chapter, but only for a brief moment. After narrowly escaping from Ink Bendy just after escaping Sammy's clutches, Henry enters the S3 vault and notices a can of Bacon Soup roll from around the corner out of view. As he demands that whoever is there should show themselves, he is shocked to discover a seemingly living Boris walking up to meet him.

#### *Chapter 3: Rise and Fall*

Sometime after the conclusion of *Chapter 2*, Boris takes Henry to a safe house where he has apparently been living to escape Ink Bendy. After waking up, Henry makes Boris a bowl of bacon soup in exchange for the lever to open the main door, and the pair of them venture out into the studio.

Entering the dark corridors, Henry calmly tells Boris not to be afraid while having the flashlight near him. Henry must keep close to Boris, otherwise Boris will shiver in dread if Henry walks far away from him. As they navigate the hallway, Boris became puzzled while both himself and Henry heard running steps from someone. Finally reaching at the end of the dark hallway, Boris crawls to the air vent for opening the gate to the Heavenly Toys area after borrowing a flashlight from Henry. Subsequently, they are briefly separated until Henry reaches the small area where the door leading to the toy storage is found after the "demon path" or "angel path" room.

Reuniting, at last, Henry slightly said that he was scared to death when he thought he would lose Boris during their separation and then ask if there is any way for defending themselves with if danger comes before taking the Gent pipe.

After passing the toy storage, Henry tells Boris to pull the lever from one hall next to Bendy's statue while Henry himself activates the other lever in order to open the door leading to Level K's main area including the elevator. Finally in the elevator, after Henry kills the first Butcher Gang enemy Piper and then pulling the other lever along with Boris activating the first one for opening the gate, Boris accompanies Henry to Physical Alice inner sanctum on Level 9.

On Level 9, when the pair enters the flooded warehouse, Boris discovers a nearly identical copy of himself near the entrance, strapped down to a table and cut open, just like the one Henry found in the main studio. The warehouse has many of the Boris clones, along with dead members of the Butcher Gang. As Boris stares at "himself", Physical Alice reveals that she used the clones of Boris to make herself "beautiful", using their insides to try and repair her broken state. The corpses left behind were simply the remains of anything she did not need. The nature of the death of all these clones with their insides torn out also hint at the one responsible for the death of the Boris on the upper floors.

For the rest of the chapter, Boris waits for Henry inside of the elevator as he travels to the various floors to do tasks for Physical Alice. Whenever Ink Bendy or any other aggravated enemies appear within a certain radius, Boris cowers in fear until they are defeated or disappear, or moving to a different floor with the elevator to flee from the enemies.

At the end of the chapter, Physical Alice double crosses Henry after promising to let him escape, causing the elevator to plummet downwards. She screams that she wants Boris' insides to make herself beautiful, claiming that he is "the most perfect" one she's come across. The elevator crashes on Level S and knocks Henry out. As he comes to, Boris tries desperately to wake him up as Physical Alice approaches from behind. Boris is then dragged into the darkness by Physical Alice.

#### *Chapter 4: Colossal Wonders*

Boris was captured by Physical Alice and it was up to Henry to make his way and save him.

Once reaching the entrance to the spiral stairway, Physical Alice's voice remarks Henry about looking for Boris to rescue then told Henry deviously to hurry, because Boris was having "trouble staying in one piece".

After accomplishing the first minigame, Physical Alice's voice assures Henry that Boris does not mind waiting for his rescue to arrive while Henry was focusing on playing minigames.
Henry has now successfully activated all of the switches to open the entrance to the Haunted House. Unfortunately, at the chapter's end within the ballroom, Henry's mission of saving Boris' life was ultimately in vain, as Boris, now appearing as a massively monstrous version of himself named "Brute Boris", comes out of the darkness and throws the roller cart Henry was using away from him. Henry is forced to confront the monstrous Boris in a boss battle before finishing him. After defeating Brute Boris, the enraged Physical Alice tried to lunge towards Henry, but was quickly impaled at the back by Allison Angel, the alternate form of her along with another alternate form of Boris, Tom making their appearance at the end.

#### *Chapter 5: The Last Reel*

Besides Tom taking the role, the original Boris is only seen in numerous cameos at this time, such as cartoon posters and even few animation clips seen towards the chapter's end. In the after-credits scene he appeared in a picture holding hands with Bendy and Alice. The picture is signed by Henry Stein.

## Spin-Off Appearances

### *Bendy in Nightmare Run*

 File:3DBINRBoris.png

**"***Boris is a simple-minded cartoon wolf with usually only one thing on his mind... food. He can be a faithful friend, but only if his next meal doesn't get in the way!***"**
— **Character description**

* **Cost:** 7,500 Bacon Soup
* **Default HP:** 12
* **Advantages:** Weapons spawn more often
* **Disadvantages:** Receives additional damage

Boris appears as one of the main playable characters in *Nightmare Run*, available after purchasing 7,500 Bacon Soup cans. Upon selected, Boris will have a huge chance to cause weapons spawning more frequently, but receives additional damage from both bosses and enemies.

## Cartoon Appearances

Seen in-game of *Bendy and the Ink Machine*, Boris appears in "*Sheep Songs!*", "*Hell in a Hand Basket*", "*Showbiz Bendy*", "*All Washed Up!*", and "*Construction Corruption*" cartoon as hinted in posters.

### "*Tombstone Picnic*"

Boris makes a minor appearance in the "*Tombstone Picnic*" cartoon short, where he is eating a sandwich from the picnic basket in a graveyard. He ignores Bendy and is comedically blasted by a soda pop bottle causing his own picnic basket to fly up, then gets briefly angry at Bendy for the prank before he runs away. The picnic basket fell onto his head (with raining several sandwiches) and quickly returns to eat his sandwich.

### "*Haunted Hijinx*"

At the start of the cartoon, Boris is seen taking a nap in the living room of his house as Bendy rings the door bell for candy. Bendy is frustrated and attempts to scare Boris by wearing a ghost costume while waiting for the door to open. Boris suddenly opens the front door also wearing a ghost costume, scaring Bendy away and then takes his trick-or-treat basket.

### "*Snow Sillies*"

Boris is shown walking while eating his carrots with one of them fell to the ground and used by Bendy for Mr. Snowman's nose. Boris later picks the carrot up shortly after Mr. Snowman melts by the sun.

### "*Cookie Cookin*"

Boris somehow takes and eat the Gingerbread Man, shortly after Bendy takes the Gingerbread Man out of the oven.

### "*Tasty Trio Troubles*"

Boris is shown briefly near the end of the episode where he picks up the hamburger that was thrown out of the restaurant's window and eats it.

## Trivia

### General Facts

* Boris was originally named "Papa" during the starting development of *Bendy and the Ink Machine*'s first chapter.
* Boris' name actually comes from the Turkic name "Bogoris", meaning "wolf" which also referenced Boris' species.
	+ Boris' name is also the Dutch and Indonesian name of the Disney character Pete.
* Mike Mood, one of the main creators of *Bendy and the Ink Machine*, chose Boris to be his favorite character of all time.
* Boris' gluttonous nature is a reference to real life wolves, which are capable of eating copious amounts of food in one sitting.
* Boris never speaks in the game, or even in cartoons where he can only make growls or grunting sounds. However, the only times he is heard speaking are from the "*Haunted Hijinx*" cartoon short, where he shouts "*BOO!*" in a silly deep voice to scare Bendy with his ghost costume, and in ."*Tombstone Picnic* ", when he is heard yelling "HEY!" in a low, growling voice, in response to Bendy disturbing him with a soda bottle. As of now, it is unknown who voiced Boris.
* Boris' overall appearance seems to be an expy of a multitude of cartoon characters, the most notable of which are the Disney characters Goofy and Pluto. He also bears a slight resemblance to the Big Bad Wolf, a character from one of Disney's Silly Symphony shorts *Three Little Pigs*.
	+ Considering the time period Boris is implied to have hailed from, he could also be inspired by Dippy Dawg, an early "prototype" of what became Goofy.
	+ The fact that Boris plays the clarinet shown from his "*Sheep Songs!*" poster may be a reminiscent to Goofy in the Mickey Mouse short "*The Band Concert*" where he is also seen playing the clarinet.

### In-Game Facts

* Bendy and the Ink Machine
* Bendy in Nightmare Run

General

* The current quality of Boris' official rigged model is unofficially released onto Steam's Source Filmmaker Workshop and included in the first SFM pack along with Ink Bendy's and Sammy's models.
* When comparing Boris himself in the "*Sheep Songs!*" poster to Bendy's cutout, Boris' hand which holds the clarinet turns out to be reused from Bendy's actual hands, only with lacking buttons.
* Boris is the first cartoon character to be seen in a "perfect" physical form in the game.
* From the description of Boris' poster merchandise on the official store website, the words "*Do we have **a wolf in sheep's clothing**...?*" is a reference to Matthew 7:15 from the Bible, warning about false prophets appearing as wolves in sheep's clothing:

"*Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.*" - **Matthew 7:15 (KJV)**

* From the first Q&A video, theMeatly had a final question which asked if Boris is a good guy before *Chapter 3's* release. theMeatly began to answer the question before getting interrupted with the ending titles.
	+ On Twitter, theMeatly attempted to finish explaining the answer to the question, but couldn't because of the Twitter character limit.
* Matt Goles, the game programmer of *Bendy and the Ink Machine*, tweeted his joke claim that he wanted to add a new character to *Chapter 3's* update for *Chapter 4's* release but theMeatly decline this idea because he thought it was too "radical". Furthermore, he introduces "Borkis" who turns out to be exactly Boris with his head rotated upside down, described as the "chillest dude and was afraid of nothing".
	+ The name "Borkis" seems to be a reference to the game's fanbase community where they use the term "bork" for Boris.

 File:Ztyj58lnqb821.jpg
* There's a hidden picture in mobile port of *Bendy and the Ink Machine* which shows three distorted Borises in *Chapter 1*`s background with text "BORIS COMES FOR THE SOUL", the image never appears in-game and seems to be an easter egg.

*Chapter 2: The Old Song*

* During the after credits image from *Chapter 2's* pre-update showing Sammy's remains, the outer edge of the image appears to show Boris' lower legs and shoes at the top right. This image was removed upon *Chapter 3's* release and it can be still found within the game files.
* The walking animation for Boris when he reveals himself was initially very basic in earlier versions of *Chapter 2*. With the release of the *Chapter 3* update, the animation was changed to be more detailed and to match the new animations used throughout *Chapter 3*.
	+ In addition to *Chapter 2's* pre-update, Boris' eyes are facing in opposite directions as if cross-eyed before they were changed upon *Chapter 3's* release.
* On Twitter, theMeatly wonders what Boris has been doing before encountering Henry.

*Chapter 3: Rise and Fall*

* In *Chapter 3's* first teaser image, Boris is seen holding a wrench, though he never does in game.
* In the dark hallway after hearing the sound of someone running, when Henry ask Boris "*Did you hear that?*" before saying "*Yeah. Me either.*", Boris does not seem to nod to show the sign of responding with yes as he is entirely mute, happening to be an oversight during development. This can be noticed when Henry turns around to look at Boris.
* Next to the chest in the safehouse, there is a bone. Henry can pick up this bone and give it to Boris, which will cause Boris to walk around with the bone in his mouth.
* In the safehouse at the beginning of the chapter, Boris' laundry is seen hanging out to dry and reveals that he wears polka-dotted boxer shorts, something often depicted in various old cartoons. This also reveals that Boris's clothes are not physically attached to his body, unlike the other ink monsters.
* Before *Chapter 4's* release, from the after credits image, if the player chose the "*Path of the Angel*", Boris is seen tied up against a board as the shadow of Physical Alice looms on a nearby wall.
* If striking Boris with any weapons, he will receive "ink splat effects" similar when fighting monsters. However, neither of these weapons can necessarily kill Boris.
	+ This is not possible in the first release of *Chapter 3* until the update upon *Chapter 4's* release.
* Boris does not feel afraid in darkness from the dark corridors in *Chapter 3's* first release before *Chapter 4* comes out.
* If interacting the phonograph to turn the music off in the safehouse, this slows Boris' "dance to the music" movement speed down.

*Chapter 4: Colossal Wonders*

* In *Chapter 4's* announcement trailer, if one looks real carefully at the bottom side of the video behind Physical Alice, there is what appears to be Boris laying on the floor.
* The "Buddy Boris Railway" ride, one of the mentioned rides for Bendy Land, is named after Boris.

- Boris' model appearance in the game bears a heavy connection to some of his merchandise products (such as hangers and collectible figure packs), which obviously explains PhatMojo's logo seen in the mobile's beginning screen before the starting menu.

- In his sprite for defeating Chester from Bendy Walks the Plank level, there is an error where Boris' freckles noticeably disappeared.

- If Boris is running in the center while beating each act stages in different levels, after the boss leaves, a bug shows Boris' muzzle clipping through the screen as he suppose to run off-screen.

## Audio

File:FOL Footsteps Boris Wood 03.ogg
File:FOL Footsteps Boris Wood 04.ogg
File:FOL Footsteps Boris Wood 05.ogg
File:FOL Footsteps Boris Wood 06.ogg
File:FOL Footsteps Boris Wood 07.ogg
File:FOL Footsteps Boris Wood 08.ogg
File:FOL Footsteps Boris Wood 09.ogg
File:FOL Footsteps Boris Wood 10.ogg

## References

1. ↑ Con Safos Magazine - Ink Demons & the Indie Canadian Game Scene: An Interview with ‘Bendy and the Ink Machine’ Programmer, Mike Mood
2. ↑ "QUESTIONS ANSWERED #1! | Bendy and the Ink Machine" - 5:08
3. ↑ "*Now the important thing to know about Boris in "Chapter 3" is... Oops!! Sorry! Out of Twitter characters for this post! Maybe next time!! :P*" - theMeatly. July 12, 2017. Twitter.
4. ↑ "*So I wanted to add a new character to #BATIM, but @themeatly thought he was too "radical". SO here he is for all of you! This is Borkis, he's the chillest dude and ain't afraid of nothin!*" - Matt Goles. May 3, 2018. Twitter.
5. ↑ *Hmm... I wonder what Boris was doing the whole time before Henry showed up?*" - theMeatly. December 2, 2017. Twitter

Template:Characters
ru:Борис
pl:Boris
pt-br:Boris o Lobo