Mr. Bronson

Mr. Bronson is a character in Echo. He is the father of Sydney Bronson who appears in flashbacks across certain routes.

## Appearance

Mr. Bronson is a middle-aged river otter with blue eyes and brown fur with a cream-colored pattern covering his snout and front. Like other members of his species, he has a large and thick tail. He has white stubble on his chin and forearms.

Mr. Bronson wears a camouflage-print army shirt and a tight-fitting hunting cap as well as a black t-shirt and gray cargo pants held up by a brown belt. He habitually chews on a toothpick.

## Personality

Mr. Bronson is stern and religious, and tries to strictly control his son Sydney’s behavior and interests. In public he is friendly and cheerful, but according to Flynn this part of his personality is completely fake.

## Story

### Prior to 2015

Before he was a father, Mr. Bronson was in a romantic relationship with Janice Adler, a waitress in Echo. At some point during the 1970s, Mr. Bronson was driving with Janice in his passenger seat when his van suddenly struck an elderly Samuel Ayers, who was walking in the middle of the road. Mr. Bronson and Janice tried to lift the car off of Sam, but failed and watched as his head was crushed beneath it. Mr. Bronson then buried the body on the side of the road. For the rest of his life Mr. Bronson was deeply troubled by Sam’s death, as well as haunted by a manifestation of Sam’s spirit that possessed him after the accident.

At some point, Mr. Bronson met and fell in love with a woman named Eliza. It is implied by a flashback in Flynn’s route that Mr. Bronson sought solace and redemption in his Mormon faith after Sam’s death, and moved away from Echo for some amount of time to escape the memory of his crime. However, Eliza eventually urged him to move back to Echo with her, and returning to the town renewed his sense of guilt.

Mr. Bronson and Eliza had Sydney and at least two other sons and raised them in the Mormon faith. The family attended the same church as Flynn’s family, in a place called Prior Valley, but Mr. Bronson strongly disapproved of the friendship that developed between Sydney and Flynn.

On a hunting trip with Sydney sometime around 2008, Mr. Bronson encountered a van in the forest that reminded him of the night he killed Samuel Ayers and had a breakdown, wracked by despair to such a degree that he contemplated suicide. Mr. Bronson ultimately killed himself with his rifle in front of the van, either intentionally or through the inadvertent intervention of Sydney, who may have pulled the trigger while trying to wrest it from his father’s grip. When Mr. Bronson died, Samuel Ayers' spirit left him and moved into Sydney. A traumatized Sydney sought out Flynn, and Flynn buried Mr. Bronson’s body.

Shortly after, a rumor spread among some of the adults in Echo that Sydney killed his father on purpose and blamed it on a hunting accident. Chase heard this rumor and repeated it to his friends. This rumor, combined with Sydney's increasingly erratic behavior as a result of his possession by Sam, badly strained the relationship between Sydney and most of the main cast in the months after Mr. Bronson's death.

### Flynn's route

On Saturday, a flashback from Sydney’s perspective shows the events leading up to Mr. Bronson’s death.

Mr. Bronson intends to take Sydney hunting but is disgusted when he catches Sydney watching a wrestling match instead of preparing for their trip, and expresses distaste for his son’s affinity for TV and video games. He threatens to send Sydney ‘up north’ to live with an uncle for misbehaving, and after they start their hunt he is extremely impatient whenever Sydney shows reluctance or hesitation. After Sydney curses at him in frustration, Mr. Bronson slaps him hard across the face and then tells him he deserves it. He calls his son sick and laments that his prayers have not been able to change Sydney’s behavior.

After Sydney tells his father that he hates him and runs off, a furious Mr. Bronson chases him and stumbles across a van in the woods. He mutters that it can't be the same van but immediately goes from angry to despondent, and Sydney remarks that he looks empty and sad. As Sydney watches in a panic, Mr. Bronson puts the barrel of his rifle to his chin and laments feeling like his life is going in circles. Sydney later recounts to Flynn that Mr. Bronson said he wanted his son to 'watch him do it.' The gun discharges while Sydney is holding his father's paw to pull his fingers off the trigger, and Mr. Bronson dies.

Later in the route, another flashback from Flynn's perspective shows the immediate effect of Mr. Bronson's death on Sydney, and follows Flynn as he buries the body.

### Jenna's route

On Friday night, Chase has a dream that shows the events of Samuel Ayers' death in full detail from the perspective of Mr. Bronson. Chase's knowledge of Mr. Bronson's crime allows him to recognize the van that killed Sam when it mysteriously reappears, and later helps him to recover Sam's remains from the side of the road where he died.

## Relationships

### Sydney

Mr. Bronson and Sydney have a strained and volatile relationship. Mr. Bronson considers Sydney to have fallen victim to immoral influences, calling him 'sick' and mentioning during Flynn's route that he and his wife have prayed for Sydney's behavior to improve. Mr. Bronson is willing to slap his son to reprimand him, and based on Sydney's desperation to get his father to stop threatening and hitting him, this is part of a pattern of violence.

### Flynn

Mr. Bronson expresses disgust at Flynn’s homosexuality and considers Flynn a negative, vulgar influence on Sydney. Flynn dislikes Mr. Bronson for his fake cheerfulness, and for the way he treats Sydney.

## Trivia

* Mr. Bronson is a relative of Todd Bronson from The Smoke Room.