Michel Bollinger

**Antonin Bollinger**
(father)

 **Didier Bollinger**
(brother)

 **Georges Bollinger**
(brother)

 **Aimée Joubert**
(sister-in-law)

Game developer
(Seventh Lair)

**Michel Bollinger** is the protagonist of *The House of Fata Morgana*. He is the youngest son of the aristocratic Bollinger family.

## Appearance

Michel is a tall, thin man with a noticeably frail body. He shares numerous aspects of albinism, such as striking pale skin, silver hair, and “vivid, all-consuming” red eyes. His hair is extremely long, reaching just above his knees. Although his hair is said to be pure white, most art and sprites show it to have slight greyish, blueish, and greenish accents.

Upon first hearing Michel's voice, Giselle notes that it is “emotionless, neither deep nor high.” She goes on to call him “a rather handsome man.” Michel is called both handsome and pretty by multiple people throughout the novel. In *Requiem for Innocence*, Michel’s neighbor describes him: “...he is the prettiest young man I have ever seen! I’m not sure how a man would take to being called pretty, but I’ll be darned if there’s a better word to describe him!”

Michel’s appearance and demeanor are often compared to that of an angel, especially Michel the archangel.

Michel is rather self-conscious about his frail body. As a child, he compared himself to his tall and muscular brother Didier and wished to look like him. He feels inadequate when Giselle voices her preferences for beefy and buff men, even noting to himself that he should begin working out. Nellie comments that Michel isn’t very masculine upon first impression.

Michel is known to have a very stoic demeanor. Jacopo notes that Michel looks very closed-off, even more so than himself. Yukimasa describes him as a “large, dour-looking man.” Most characters see Michel as unapproachable due to his appearance. Michel is also known to like obese rats.

In most modern-day iterations such as *Happily Ever ~After~* in T*he House of Fata Morgana: Requiem for Innocence*, Michel wears his hair in a low ponytail.

## Story

### The Fourth Door

Michel Bollinger is the master of the manor in the year 1099, whose story is told behind the fourth door. He lives alone in the immense property, isolated from any contact with the outside world, as much by the manor's distance from the neighboring towns as by its many closed windows. Michel spends his days in the dark, lighting himself only with a candle and not leaving his house. Moreover, a persistent rumor circulates about the manor, according to which it is cursed by a witch, which isolates him even more.

One day, Michel is visited by The White-Haired Girl, who has come to seek refuge in the manor, which she thought was abandoned, because she was threatened with death by villagers who thought she was a witch because of her physical appearance. Although Michel is not thrilled with the idea of welcoming another person into the manor, he agrees to take in The White-Haired Girl, sympathizing with her difficulties. Indeed, in addition to having a physical appearance quite similar to that of The White-Haired Girl, in particular by their hair and eye colors, Michel understands the discriminations which the young girl faces, being himself qualified as "cursed".

After some time together, Michel decides to reveal the nature of his curse to the White-Haired Girl: all the people who come in physical contact with him will perish. This is why he is isolated in this manor and why he fears the presence of someone living within the same walls as him, for fear of touching that person.

One day, both will receive the visit of a man in search of the witch. He will try to attack the White-Haired Girl, whom Michel will come to defend, using his curse to weaken the man to the point of death. Unfortunately, the man will keep enough vitality to go to the village to warn the inhabitants of Michel's presence in the manor, so that several days later, a great number of villagers will come to attack the manor to kill Michel, being frightened by his curse. Michel will die while trying to protect the White-Haired Girl in the manor's observation tower. His cursed blood spilling down the stairs will kill all the villagers who came to attack him.

This story of Michel behind door 4 is actually an illusion created by the witch to prevent Michel from remembering who he really is. Indeed, Michel is the amnesiac soul who found himself in the mansion discovering the stories behind the different doors, alongside The Maid.

### The Fifth Door

When Michel realizes that this story was created from scratch, he decides to recover his identity and visualize his true history through the 5th door, in order to recover all his memories, as well as to give back his own to The Handmaid, actually named Giselle, with whom he spent part of his life. He hopes that their relationship will return to the way it was when they were alive.

Behind this 5th door, Michel will rediscover the moments of his life that he spent with Giselle, since her arrival at the manor.

Their relationship will not start on the right foot, Michel not appreciating the sudden arrival of Giselle, nor her attitude which he will find out of place. In addition to that, he will doubt very strongly of her intentions, not understanding the reason of her presence at the manor. He will then think that he is dealing with someone who is trying to destroy the Bollinger family by trying to discover the secret he is hiding. Michel decides to write a letter to his mother, Lydie Bollinger, in order to gather information about Giselle. The answer, according to which Giselle would have slept with her father and would seek to use the family to make money, will not please Michel at all who will decide to confront her to hear all from Giselle. He will then threaten her, asking her to confess all her misdeeds, a knife in her hand. Giselle, traumatized, will then flee from the manor.

Michel will however cross the way of Giselle, when this one will return to the manor accompanied by villagers so that they plunder the manor. Indeed, they had forced her hand so that she brings them money or objects of value. Michel, not being aware of this history, will think that Giselle returns only for his personal profit, which will put him in a deep anger and he will then start to violently lecture her. However, Giselle, completely at her wits' end, will decide to spill her guts to him, revealing all that she underwent at the domain of the Bollinger family then in the village. Michel will be astonished, seeing all the pain that Giselle expresses with sincerity and will then decide to listen to her whole story, without questioning her words. He will ask her to tell him in detail what her father did to her at the domain.

After listening to Giselle, he will decide to believe her and accept her in the manor. They will get closer in one conversation than during the whole time of Giselle's first stay. The two begin to live together and gradually grow closer to each other. They will even develop feelings of love that they will find increasingly difficult to hide until they are revealed in the open. Michel will have difficulty accepting to formalize his relationship with Giselle, because of a great lack of confidence in him, especially related to his past.

### The Seventh Door

Indeed, Michel wants to hide at all costs a part of his past from Giselle, lest she reject him: he was born in an intersex body and was raised as a girl by his parents, receiving the name Michelle at birth. Not feeling like himself with this upbringing, preferring to spend time with his brothers Didier and Georges, and not tolerating the typical female hobbies of the time, Michel was subject to a deep inner malaise throughout his childhood. He found it very difficult to put into words what he really felt, but he was sure of one thing: he didn't feel anything but male.

However, his hell didn't really begin until puberty, after his body had normally evolved like a man's, except for the lower limb. His mother thought he was cursed and locked him in her room, while he was rejected by his entire family. He was also greatly mistreated by Aimée Joubert, George's fiancée, who took great pleasure in torturing him while treating him as a monstrous creature.

Michel is very afraid of being rejected by Giselle if she learns the truth and prefers to hide it from her.

Unfortunately, their happy life together will be quickly compromised, because shortly after the death of Michel's father, the manor will undergo an attack led by knights, serving the Church, seeking to kill Michel, because they say that he made a pact with the Demon.

In reality, the knights' attack on the manor follows the letter Michael sent to his mother, in which he said he wanted her to accept him as her son. The latter, not supporting the contents of the letter, decided to spill the beans about Michel's past with the Church. The attack will be led by Didier, which Michel will experience as a particularly painful betrayal. Moreover, after his death, his soul will remain attached to his body, and he will see his own crucifixion, during 3 days and 3 nights. During this period, his body will be the laughing stock of all the villagers and even his mother will come to visit him with only hatred in her eyes. She will disown having given birth to him one day and, in accordance with the rites, will set fire to his corpse. After having witnessed this scene, Michel's soul will be completely destroyed, almost reduced to nothing, so much so that it will take a thousand years before being able to reform, and only thanks to Giselle's voice that he will continue to hear.

After Michel's death during this attack, Giselle will be visited by the witch Morgana who will propose a pact to her to allow her to see Michel again: her reconstruction. This is how Michel's soul will eventually arrive at the manor, although amnesiac, and will find itself facing The Handmaid.

Michel was indeed quite close to Morgana, having heard her voice during his entire stay at the manor, without anyone noticing. After she decided that she would try to separate the two newly reunited lovers, he decided to speak more sincerely with her, asking her to tell him her story. She accepts his request, but in order to torment him, she will make him relive her painful past in exchange. Despite everything, Michel will not hold a grudge against her, and when he learns that their souls are in the mansion because Morgana is seeking revenge on three people, he will decide to help her overcome this hatred that she feels in order to free her from this situation. To do this, he will relive Morgana's last days, but this time as an actor and not as a spectator, unlike the other doors of the mansion.

### The Eighth Door

Behind this eighth and last door, Michel will thus find a physical appearance. He will be mentally accompanied by Giselle who supports him in his goal of freeing Morgana from the cycle of vengeance.

Michel's plan to allow Morgana to finally move on consists of freeing her from her three tormentors before she dies, but also of hearing the stories of each of these three people to prove to Morgana that they remain human despite everything.

This is how Michel will meet Mell, Yukimasa and Jacopo in person. Using the knowledge that he has learned from watching their previous lives through the doors of the mansion, Michel will try to convince them one by one. He will first approach Nellie in order to persuade Mell to help them, which will be done with some difficulty, the young boy being consumed by guilt but also by the fear of the two other men. Michel will then try to convince the nun Pauline to help him to reason Yukimasa, which will be an arduous task considering the blind confidence of this last one towards the swordsman. Finally, after having rallied the two other men to his cause and having obtained the support of Maria, Michel will force Jacopo to reveal his story to them, the last lock to finally free Morgana from her endless revenge.

Despite the fact that this reenactment of Morgana's last days is an illusion, Michel's actions will resonate with Morgana's soul, which will eventually be relieved of a burden, as well as with the souls of the three men who will decide to live their next lives more virtuously, in order to avoid putting their loved ones through such a tragedy again.

After coming out of this illusion, Michel learns that the White-Haired Girl is in fact a part of Morgana's soul that separated during her agony from the other part that will later become the witch. She will ask him to kill her, so that she can return to Morgana's body to form a complete soul. Michel is not enchanted by the idea, but, forced to accept, he ends up fulfilling the wish of the White-Haired Girl.

Afterwards, he will accompany Morgana to free one by one the souls of the three men trapped in the manor. He also decides to retrieve the soul of his brother George, also present in the mansion in the form of a painting. To his surprise, the soul of his other brother, Didier, was also in the mansion, and thanks to George's sacrifice, Michel succeeded in appeasing him from the suffering that tormented him. All the souls having thus been released, Michel will wait until the complete disappearance of the manor to be able to finally find Giselle. Although their souls were both weakened by the events, they will eventually be reborn while keeping their memories of that thousand years. They will find each other again and can finally live their lives together happily.

### Reincarnation

In Reincarnation, Michel and Giselle have moved into an apartment in a Parisian suburb. He works as an engineer and, thanks to his family's wealth, he will propose to Giselle to open a café on the first floor of their building. Later, he will also meet Morgana, who will become his neighbor, as well as Maria who will work in the café. Michel will also meet, although less frequently, the other people who have lived in the manor, but will not especially seek to establish relations with them, considering that they each live new lives and deciding to give less importance to their past lives.