Anna Angel

Pathologic 2=

Anna Angel (Анна Ангел) is a young woman living in The Willows, on the eastern side of town. She is deeply agoraphobic and has a mysterious past.

Description
"A former circus performer from the infamous traveling troupe known as the Ace of Diamonds Caravan. ... Anna is a rather shallow person, and entirely devoid of morals, but the paradoxical thing is, everybody likes her! Men, women and children all become irrationally fond of Anna from the first time they see her, which then grows into blind trust, attachment, even love—despite her not deserving even a small fraction of those feelings. Anna is happy to use this love to her advantage; what's more, her need to feel loved is bordering on addiction at this point. She wants to be adored. This thirst for adoration has a remarkable consequence: Anna is afraid, to the point of panic, of townspeople finding out who she is—yet she can’t resist occasionally showing her performing talents: singing, juggling, doing acrobatics. She takes this risk for the sake of a minute of rapt attention. Sometimes she slips up and does one of her “numbers” without meaning to (much to the delight of those present), only to spend the next few nights trembling in fear at having given away who she is."

- From the game design's documents

As a former circus performer Anna Angel appears as though she is acting at all times. She lies often and it becomes difficult to believe anything she says. Anna has many things to hide and is reluctant to share even the basest of information with people. She appears to trust very few people in her life.

Background
Prior to her arrival in The Town, Anna Angel was a part of the Ace of Diamonds Caravan: a famous roaming circus troupe. The Caravan was dismantled after it was discovered that they were trafficking children. While in the Caravan, Anna would steal children on the Caravan's behalf. It is implied that she regrets her time in the Caravan and wished to atone for her actions. This, however, could just be another one of Anna's many performances.

After arriving in the Town, Anna takes refuge with the Willows family in their mansion. Later, the Willows family all dies. It is unclear what happened to them, but many suspect that Anna had a hand in their deaths.

Haruspex Route
"My path was called "The Angel of Death." I'm not sure, myself, why I was in the Caravan... forgive me, please! I promise I'll be good!"

On the night following the murder of Isidor Burakh, Anna Angel goes to Isidor Burakh's House to observe the commotion and presumably pay her respects.

After the outbreak of the Sand Plague, Anna Angel, who is mysophobic, becomes terrified of venturing outside and paranoid about people bringing the disease into her home. On the request of Peter Stamatin, the Haruspex visits her to offer her medical assistance.

In the early days of the epidemic, the Town Hall puts out a call to anyone who is able to return a healthy baby taken from an infected family. They offer a large sum of money for any children given and promise that any individual who returns a healthy child will have their name cleared of any past misdoings.

At first it seems as though Anna, who carries a number of sins and has a questionable reputation in the Town, immediately jumps on the opportunity. Despite her fears, she enters infected homes to take their healthy children from the dying families. While doing so she is intercepted by the Haruspex. She begs him to allow her to return the child. The Haruspex is able to either return the child under Anna's name or return the child to the Town Hall himself, robbing Anna of the opportunity.

Later, she is stopped by a Kinswoman doing the same thing she is. She is attempting to clear the name of her husband who mistakenly killed a woman he believed to be a Shabnak-adyr earlier in the week. Anna and her argue over who the child should belong to and only reach a resolution should the Haruspex decide on it.

The Haruspex later learns that Anna Angel was not taking the children to the Town Hall, but instead to a group of people whom she claims are "good people" who do something with the children that results in a drug to fight the Sand Plague.

Following the arrival of the Inquisitor, Anna Angel becomes cursed by a false steppe haruspex, who she went to in an attempt to learn about her future, though she refuses to disclose the reasons to the Haruspex, Artemy Burakh. As the steppe haruspex was not allowed to cut open bodies, his client Anna Angel becomes cursed to always carry a beating heart with her. She attempts to bury it, drown it in both the Gullet and the Guzzle, and attempts to simply throw it away, but it always comes back. The Haruspex advises her that the only way to break her curse is to trade it away for an item specific to the individual - in Anna's case, a Spindle.

In the Diurnal Ending, Anna Angel is found in the Broken Heart, near the Bachelor, Yulia Lyuricheva, Peter Stamatin, and Andrey Stamatin. She continues to tell the Haruspex that she had nothing to do with the Caravan, nor their involvement in trafficking children.

In the Nocturnal Ending, Anna Angel flees the Town alongside many of the Utopians and Humbles.

The Marble Nest
Anna Angel is still alive during the events of The Marble Nest. The Bachelor's map hover text over the Willows states that he is positive she still resides there.

Spoken Dialogue

 * → See Anna Angel/Spoken Dialogue

Description
Anna is a singer—however, no one has ever heard her sing. Rumor has it, Anna's past is closely linked with a terrible caravan called the Ace of Diamonds. However, many believe that this rumor is too obvious and that she must be covering some other secret.

She does not trust anyone, especially children, calling them "the cause of all ills." She sees almost everyone as a threat.

Character Concept
"Appearance: A tall pale girl with copper red ginger hair coiled in massive curls. Her eyes have a golden tint to them, fair and bright. She has an agile neck. Anna wears a fine golden necklace and a pendant with the letter “Tau” engraved on it. She has a habit of biting her lips. Doesn’t use makeup. She doesn’t wipe tears or blood off her face and lips. Instead she lets it dry

Pose: Like Alyonushka from Vasnetsov’s painting.

Personality: Talented and dazzling. She has a rich voice. Those who weren’t exasperated by her would worship her, perhaps undeservedly. All her virtues considered (such as commitment and terrific fitness to work), Anna is too persistent in her demand to be admired, which brings her many good qualities to nought.

She is an actual angel, but one from the Old Testament: prideful and entranced in the awareness of own omnipotence. However, Anna isn’t wealthy, which means she can’t shine like Maria or Victoria and compete in influence over townsfolk with them. The paradox of the “well-earned pride” leads Anna to her tragedy. When the epidemic begins Anna is accused of letting the disease in through the mirror. The accusation is insane, but that makes it even more feasible. Anna refusing to explain herself on principle made the situation worse. It’s likely she will die in the end persecuted by Oglimsky.

Anna sees the Town and its beauty intertwined with her own beauty as a tragedy. Subconsciously, she thinks that the epidemic is an act of justice for everything that happened to her."

- From original Pathologic character concepts 

The Caravan
Anna has not been proven to have associated with the Caravan, but everyone assumes that she was.

The "family of the Ace of Diamonds" was the living nightmare of the entire country for years before the Second Outbreak. It was a traveling circus made up of highly talented actors. The Caravan would arrive in a city and arrange a show: one during the day, for children, and one at night, for adults. During the day the Caravan sought out beautiful and talented kids and later, when they were sleeping, they were stolen to join the Caravan and be trained as gymnasts, jugglers, sex workers, singers and acrobats... and in the morning the parents found their children replaced by the circus freaks they had watched at night.

The caravan evaded arrest for a long time, but was finally caught near Orv. Many actors were killed during the interrogation, and all the survivors were sentenced to death. Since then, much time has passed, and the caravan has become the subject of many horrible rumors and legends.

The Willows
Six years prior to the start of the events of the game, Anna found a safe haven in the Town-on-Gorkhon. She was taken in by the Willow family, claiming to be a political exile. A few years later, the inhabitants of the house began to die off mysteriously—while their daughter, Willow, simply disappeared.

Only Anna remained, now the sole resident of the house, wearing the clothes, hair, and voice of Willow.

Portrait Quotes
"The poor thing has lost her voice. I sympathize with her because she keeps her chin up, and I hate whiners. I am thoroughly convinced that she's paying the price for someone else's sin; a haunting visitor eager to rip out her soul is coming after her any day now. At least that's what she thinks. A lesser person wouldn't have managed to endure such torture."

- Peter Stamatin's take on her "Anna affects to be suffering, but her hypocrisy is all to easy to see through. If she was genuinely wanted—for her involvement with the February Riots, or that Caravan of kidnappers—she would have been found years ago. She is able to trick her destiny for now, but her luck will run dry soon enough. The Ace of Diamonds Caravan has left a ghastly imprint on her, the way it did with everything it was linked to... yet the nature of the link between the caravan and Anna remains a mystery."

- Yulia Lyuricheva's take on her

Spoken Dialogue

 * → See Anna Angel/Spoken Dialogue