The Curator/True Nature

*You're going it alone. Independent. Admirable. Possibly foolish...**The content below contains spoilers from one or more of the games. Read at your own risk!*

## Overview

### Description

The Curator's behavior and abilities indicate his true origin, and he also likes to point at it, making subtle hints for the player.

### Personality

* The Curator prefers classical music. Sometimes various parts of Mozart's *Requiem* can be heard in the Repository. Every installment has a meeting with *Lacrimosa*, which is associated with mourning.
* The Curator has been recording stories of life and death for so long that he can't even remember when he started doing it or recall a time when he wasn't in the Repository.
* The Curator will be annoyed or upset, if there is an opportunity for a protagonist to kill themself, and the player interferes with it. He is likely to prefer such outcome for the character.
* The Curator takes a great delight in black jokes.
* The Curator is keen on collecting Obols.
	+ Charon's obol is the term for the coin placed in the mouth of a dead person before burial. This is the payment for ferryman Charon, who conveyed souls to the world of the dead across the river Styx.
* The Curator was on his own for a long time before meeting the player. It could possibly mean there are no other entities comparable to him.

### Behaviour

* During the intro The Curator looks directly at the camera during the lyrics, *"Well, I am Death"*.
* The Curator is seen observing the characters in the background of any scene, in which the protagonists are able to die.
* The Curator claims to have met centuries-old deceased authors, such as William Shakespeare, John Milton and Oscar Wilde.
	+ According to him, he met Oscar Wilde in Paris, which is where the playwright died.
* The Curator claims to meet everyone at least "once".
* The Curator refers to human characters as "souls" and "mortals" implying that he is not human himself.
* The Curator talks about events of the past as if he was a witness of these events (the tragedy aboard the SS Ourang Medan and the fire of the Clarke house).
* It's possible that The Curator obeys to an unknown entity or force, which is more powerful than him, as he always says that he can't act against the rules and prefers to give hints to the player carefully.

### Abilities

* The Curator is able to do some tricks like changing faces of the cards.
* The Curator is able to transform himself into a crow, as seen in *House of Ashes*, *The Devil in Me* and *Switchback VR*.
	+ There is a superstition that black crows represent death. It may stem from the fact that crows are scavengers and a group of crows is known as "murder".
	+ Bearings are represented as crows since *House of Ashes*.

### The Repository

* The Curator and the Repository have symbols, which show his true nature.
	+ The Curator has a pocket watch in his vest pocket. It represents transience of human life on earth.
		- The pocket watch is suitable item for the Curator. Some of death deities are associated and depicted with a hourglass.
	+ Human skull on his desk is a common symbolic representation of death and mortality.
	+ The globe near his desk represents the vast power of Death and it's dominion over the world.
	+ The Curator's massive desk in the middle of the empty space may represent the world and the universe.
* The Curator's Repository is located on the last floor of the Apostolic Palace, Vatican, where Pope resides.

## Season One

### Man of Medan

* The Curator is easily irritated by player's correct decisions and their success, and he is pleased when they fail. Although stated so, he also doesn't approve player's carelessness and criticize them for obvious mistakes.
* If the player managed to kill every protagonist, The Curator will hysterically laugh and ask, if they did it on purpose.
	+ Such outcome can be achieved only with the player's intention.

### Little Hope

* During the second meeting, The Curator holds *The American Notebooks* book, and the light falls on the text with the words ― "*[...] yet Death, like a great parent, comes and sweeps them all through one darksome portal, ― all his children.*"
* His cards have inscription on their backs ― "*NON OPES, NON AURUM NEC ARGENTUM NEC TERRAM*", which means "Neither wealths nor gold, neither silver nor land". This is a clear reference to the folk song "*O'Death*". It's almost not visible due to the blur. The Curator also says before showing his cards ― "*not by angels or [not] by demons... [not] Heaven or [not] Hell.*"
* In Creating the Curator Special Feature, the developers stated that they use level shots for The Curator. But sometimes, he looks at the player from above to emphasize his superiority over them ("Well, I am Death, **none can excel**"):
	+ When he says ― "So. Much. **Death**".
	+ When he reads short passage from Shakespeare's *Richard III* ― *"[...] With that **sour ferryman**... which poets write of, / Unto the kingdom of perpetual night".*
* The Curator shows his displeasure if the protagonists are not armed. His reaction to player's decision to get rid of the gun is much more intense, than if they just didn't find it. The reason for it is that Anthony can't kill himself without the gun.

### House of Ashes

* Although The Curator is more strict in this installment, he also starts to show his dark sense of humour.
* The lighting in the game emphasize features of The Curator's face, showing borders of his skull and making him more grim. It's especially noticeable with his bony orbits.
* At the end of the third meeting, when a flash of lightning appears outside the window, The Curator's face momentarily looks like a skull.

### The Devil in Me

* The Curator shows even more delight in dark humour, making cruel remarks.
* New collectible item was introduced in this installment — very old coins, which are called "Obols".
	+ The Curator was originally going to be able to revive characters for obols, tearing a page out of his book while doing so. This mechanic was cut from the game and was called a "Deal with Death." The Curator would have offered this deal only if Erin died in Blackout or Charlie died in Ignition.
		- The Curator was offering this idea to the player, because he wanted to big himself up, to be more important and powerful. In the meantime, he was stating that he shouldn't do this, because it'll land him in a predicament, if the player mentioned about it to anyone.
		- The Curator was emphasizing that obols are very valuable and getting upset, if the player didn't find enough of them. He was saying that he is a professional and can't lower his prices. The Curator also was explaining there are rules about obols and they can't be given as a gift, only exchanged.
		- The idea with tearing pages was later reused in the final meeting if Lake was the finale. This could mean that he brought Du'Met back to life.
	+ The developers also had an idea to make paid hints. The hint in the third meeting was supposed to be purchased for obols.

## Spin-offs

### Switchback VR

* The Curator appears in the train, moving closer and closer to the protagonist, indicating their fight for life.
	+ If the protagonist stays alive, the Curator will appear as a crow in the ending.
	+ If the protagonist doesn't manage to stay alive a little longer, the Curator will stand behind the fireman, watching as the player character dies.
* The Curator appears and stands very close to the player before the bus crash.

## References

1. ↑ BANDAI NAMCO Europe (October 31, 2018) "*First-look at the mysterious Curator in The Dark Pictures - Man of Medan*", Introduction of the Curator in Halloween trailer.