Harvey/Main

**Harvey** is a character in *Octopath Traveler II*. He is the main antagonist and final boss of Osvald's story.

A scholar of magic on par with Osvald, he betrayed his former colleague by murdering his family and stole his research for his own gain. He then continued his studies into the "One True Magic", which differs from the six known elements of fire, ice, lightning, wind, light, and darkness.

## Profile

### Appearance

Harvey wears a large black cloak with a long cape. He has a goatee and a red combover drooping down one side of his face.

### Personality

When he first met Osvald, he presented himself as an intelligent, cultured scholar eager to debate ideas regarding magic with him. In reality, he is a brutal and narcissistic man, having no qualms with manipulating and killing innocent people for his own gain. He is also quite sadistic, taking immense joy in taunting Osvald during their final battle along with Ori mentioning in her notes that he gleefully tortured the animal that became the Darkling.

His main motivation is a sheer, unquenchable inferiority complex towards Osvald. As the only man who was able to stand as an equal to him in the pursuit of the One True Magic, Harvey became obsessed with surpassing him to prove his superiority. He is willing to go to any lengths just to beat him, ranging from murdering an innocent woman and child to trick Osvald into thinking his family had been killed to even bribing the judge responsible for Osvald's trial to change his sentence to life imprisonment instead of death just so Osvald could witness him mastering the One True Magic before he could.

## Story

### Prior to Story

Harvey is a professor in Montwise who long studied Gratton's Hypothesis to uncover the "One True Magic”, his research involved studying monsters for their ability to use innate magic. One day, he was commissioned by Oboro of the Moonshade Order to recreate the Book of Demons for them. He also acted on the Moonshade Order's demands to experiment on a captured Toto'haha animal that Ochette didn’t choose as her companion and mutate it into the Darkling of the Sorrowful Moon.

Five years prior to the events of the story, Harvey was holding a lecture in Montwise before he met Osvald V. Vanstein and, amazed by his own research into the "One True Magic”, decided to form a partnership with him. However, it was a cover as Harvey was really after Osvald's wife Rita Lumina, one of the surviving members of the Lumina bloodline, and their daughter Elena, due to their blood being key to his research. After killing two people matching their general appearance, Harvey abducted Osvald's family and burned the latter's home to the ground, making it look like Osvald committed the deed. As he taunted Osvald over the supposed deaths of his wife and daughter, Captain Stenvar comes to arrest Osvald as a murderer, having been bribed by Harvey to do so. He also bribed the judge that oversaw Osvald’s trial into giving him a life sentence on Frigit Isle instead of the death penalty, as he was counting on Osvald ultimately escaping the prison so that the vengeful man could live to see the results of Harvey’s studies.

During the following five years, Harvey used Osvald's research notes to deduce that the monsters' innate magic is derived from their blood, and he began to create chimeras in secret. He killed Rita after using her blood to create the Grieving Golem, though he deemed the creature a failure despite it manifesting a bit of the Shadow magic he sought. Harvey also brainwashed Elena into believing he is her father so that she is more compliant to his whims.

### Story

Five years later, Osvald eventually escaped prison as Harvey counted on, and was confronted by the man once he arrived his underground laboratory under the library in Montwise. Harvey taunted Osvald about his stolen research and made it his own, only to be amused when Osvald demanded to know why he took his family from him. Harvey then told Osvald to he should be able to figure it out as he called the Grieving Golem, which horrified Osvald with the truth that he his family's deaths were faked and Rita was used in one of Harvey's experiments to create the monster. Osvald is then forced to kill the Grieving Golem, after which Harvey admitted he killed Rita to use her blood to create the monster and that, as a member of the Lumina family, her blood is essential to obtain the what he considers to be the One True Magic: Shadow. Harvey further tormented Osvald by telling him that he placed Elena, who is revealed to still be alive, under a memory-modifying spell and that he intended to sacrifice her to fully harness Shadow magic before both Elena and Harvey departed for Gravell.

Once in Gravell, he gave black crystals to random people near the Duskruin Shrine to mind-control them and serve as a distraction for Osvald. Harvey then desecrated the resting place of D’arqest within the shrine to complete the Book of Demons before beginning a ritual to transfer Elena's blood into the book, stabbing Elena moments after Osvald arrived to gain the ability to harness Shadow magic through the tome. Harvey used this moment to admit that he long envied Osvald as he unleashed a blast of Shadow magic in a display of power. But Osvald's resolve to protect the still-living Elena combined with his photographic memory of his research notes allowed him to manifest the actual One True Magic and defeat Harvey on equal footing. Despite his defeat, Harvey refused to surrender the book as he attempted to draw more power in a final attempt to destroy Osvald, only to be seemingly consumed by the shadow magic itself.

However, later on, in one of Ori's journal fragments found in Fellsun Ruins, it was revealed that Harvey somehow survived and escaped after his battle with Osvald.