The Painter

**The Painter** is the main character of *Layers of Fear*, controlled by the player. He is married to the Musician and father of the Daughter, both of whom are also never named in the game.

He explores a twisted environment that looks similar to his house, with the important rooms of his home featured at the end of every chapter, containing a piece of the Magnum Opus.

## History

He was a very well received upcoming artist who fell in love with a talented musician. They married, moved into the house in which the game takes place, and had a child. For a while, they lived happily.

The Painter was a bit of a strict man. He was loving towards his wife and daughter, yet in wanting the best for them, would sometimes result to extreme measures in order to do so. He went through a lot of servants because of his high standards. There is mention of the fact that ash is all over the home even though the fireplace isn't used that often. He also went through a number of nannies for his child due to not wanting to take risks. Yet to stimulate his daughter's intellect at 2 years old, he would attempt at some point to read her Nietzsche.

The Painter and his daughter played checkers a lot, and he bought her whatever she desired. When she chose to play with a toy he found disturbing, he noted that doing so put on display that she was not a happy child, which broke his heart to see.

In the meantime, the couple would hold exhibitions together, with her playing music that fit the paintings he had created on display.

Everything took a turn for the worse however, when his wife was caught in a fire on a department store. She was partially disfigured in the event, and lost the ability to play her instruments.
This accident devastated them both. He was determined to search for ways to fix her, but eventually she grew tired of a growing number of strangers seeing her in that condition, and refused further treatment (she believed it would result in being locked up).

After the incident, the wife became afraid of fire. This prompted the Painter to have electricity installed in the house, no matter the cost. However, he found the electric lamps 'so cold', and went back to using the fireplace and candles still. This angered his wife, as she felt that he hated her for doing so. He told her that humanity had lived without electricity for many years and he could do so too, and that he used the fireplace in his office because he was freezing. It seems that the lack of warmth from the electric light bothered the Painter enough to despise it, but fire's symbolism tied to his talent and work may have been another reason.

Since he kept using fire to light his parts of the house, the wife then resorted to locking him in those rooms to keep a distance between herself and said fire. This made him angry since she was blocking the means of escape if a fire did happen, and undermined him. It's shown that the Painter had to use a crowbar to free himself from the locked doors. In one note he writes "You put more and more locked doors between us, but it's my drinking that ruins the family?! This is childish!"

In the past, the Painter had bad habits with booze, but the recent stresses and events of trying to take care of his wife, his daughter, and run the house turned him back to the bottle. He would drink heavily, and would lock himself in his workshop for days to make another masterpiece.

With his sanity rapidly wasting away, he could no longer paint like before. His works were not well received by the critics anymore. Time and time again the newspapers disparaged his endeavors, cutting down his self worth and esteem.

Feeling abandoned by her husband and believing he was more in love with his paintings than her, the wife eventually committed suicide, and his daughter was taken by social services a few years later.

A lightbulb object tells us that the Painter actually tried to destroy all the lightbulbs in the house at some point. It is unknown if he did this before or after the Wife had passed, but it is likely after. In the flashback he says "cold, merciless light is still light." What this means is left vague, but a blowtorch item tells us he had to fight 'the darkness', which is left vague, but he intended to protect himself.

However, the Rat Queen says towards the end of the Painter's story: “To create is to reach into chaos. And chaos is darkness. Warm, soft, swarming. He understood it in the end.” This means that the Painter might have given in to the darkness at some point, but the details of that are left out.

After his wife's death, the Painter would lose further grip on his sanity. He would try many times to speak to her through a ouija board, believing that she wasn't truly gone, and that without her help, his Magnum Opus couldn't be finished. His agreement with an establishment (that is left unknown) is severed, barring him from the modern art scene. He became obsessed with the idea of 'finishing it', writing it over and over on notes. He became so unhinged he believed the work would never finish, as the world became his canvas. He even sends out an invite to his friends to a 'spectacle' by a 'half dead couple', to which one of his friends, Thomas Caldwell, rejects solemnly.

By the beginning of the game, he is left to wander the house in his constant attempts to finish the Magnum Opus. Yet even this is not left without additional, unsettling details. There are several notes by the Painter that he is aware that the maze that looks like his house is not normal. He writes that the world is breaking around him. He keeps going to stop the questions, wondering if this is truly his house, and what is behind the door, or worse yet, behind him. This goes to show that the strange maze he goes through every time is not something he intended, but perhaps created by the Rat Queen. At one point the Painter utters the words, "I can't escape, too." in a shaky voice. It could be that he was trapped, like the Writer, in his house, doomed to repeat this loop over and over until he got it right (if that is indeed what the quote indicates).

In the final chapter of the 2023 game, there is a choice to bring up paintings from a hole using a winch. Approaching and/or using it with more Family points seems to trigger the Painter to say "You...it's you who brought this chaos upon us!" which is likely him addressing the Rat Queen, who will comment with glee upon seeing his suffering throughout the game.

It is shown in the Final Note DLC that the area the Painter explores during his journey was on some level shared with his wife, the Musician. She walks towards an elevator while the room catches fire, and he can be seen traveling up inside of it. This perspective is seen in his story, where you pass the room on fire and the Wife's Ghost approaches the elevator as it goes by. This means that his loops began even before she died, and may be why he was locked in his workshop for days.

## Fate

In the **Loop Ending**, he fails at creating his Magnum Opus. After discarding the painting in a room full of them, he goes back to his workshop to begin it all over again. Due to the state of the house in the Inheritance DLC, this is likely the canon ending.

In the **Art Ending**, he paints himself. He fails to acknowledge his wrongdoings, believing that all of the suffering he went through was necessary for him to achieve true perfection in his art.

In the **Family Ending**, he paints his wife and daughter. He finally realizes it has all been for nothing, and that the painting will not bring his family back. Full of regret, he brings his last work to a room full of his wife's portraits and sets fire to them, burning his house and himself in the process.

Based on the DLC, Inheritance, we can deduce which of these endings turned out to be canon. The state of the house is in disarray, showing us he could not revive his artistic career, nor is the house entirely burned, so he did not try to destroy it all in despair over losing his family. This means that the **Loop Ending is canon**.

## Trivia

* The Painter suffered an injury resulting in him wearing a prosthetic leg. There are medals scattered all throughout the house, a few that display "1914" on them. This is an indication that he was a veteran of World War 1.
* The Painter and his Wife have no official name, not even nicknames. This was confirmed in a tweet by Bloober Team.

* The Painter suffers from late-onset schizophrenia.
* Some time after his wife's death, The Painter kidnapped his own daughter from a care center and was arrested. The game may begin just after he returns home from court.
* There is a suggestive portrait in the last segment of the 2016 game. The painting consists of an-almost naked man sitting on a chair. After the kitchen area shows up, enter it and turn left, then look down the tar tunnel to see it. While the man doesn't look like the Painter to qualify as a self-portrait, it does suggest the possibility that the Painter is bisexual. This would be another nod to the character's origins, as he was inspired by Dorian Gray.
* In Act 1 of "Layers of Fear 2", there is a room with an easel, paint brushes, & other painting materials. It also has an excessive amount of booze bottles in the closet. This a clear reference to the Painter.
* The Painter is voiced by two different actors. In the main game he is voiced by Erik Braa, and in the Inheritance DLC he is voiced by Chris Nichter.

## Gallery

The Painter's model used in the game.His portrait from Inheritance.The Painter's reflection in-game.A sequence involving the Painter in Inheritance.The self-portrait changing. Likely another reference to Dorian Gray.