| Fran Bow Dagenhart | |
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| Other names: | N/A |
| Born: | December 17th, 1934 |
| Species: | Human |
| Reality: | Third |
| Occupation: | Keeper of the Key |
| Relationships: | Martin Bow (Father) Lucia Dagenhart (Mother) Grace Dagenhart (Aunt) Mr. Midnight (Pet) Itward (Friend) Palontras (Friend) Dr. Deern (Psychiatrist) Alice Liddell (Friend) |
Fran Bow Dagenhart is the protagonist of Fran Bow. She has a cat named Mr. Midnight, her closest companion. Fran was chosen by the Great Valokas of Primeve to be the Keeper of the Key.
History[]
At the beginning of the game, we see Fran Bow living a happy life with her mother and father as an ordinary little girl. They give her a black cat which she then names Mr. Midnight and shortly after this her Aunt Grace arrives for dinner. Later in the week, her aunt babysits her, and Fran describes the experience as fun and shows a liking to her Aunt Grace. After a few days, she is disturbed by an ominous figure in the window of her room when playing with Mr. Midnight. Shortly after this she hears a scream from her parents' room and goes to investigate.
Upon entering her parent's room, she comes face to face with a gruesome scene: her parents have been murdered and dismembered, and their bodies are strewn about the bedroom. Terrified, Fran flees into the forest with Mr. Midnight and faints. Though her cat seems to want to stay and comfort her, two figures approach and he reluctantly flees. Fran is then picked up by a hooded figure. After this Dr. Deern wakes Fran up, revealing this to all be a recollection of said events. Fran and Dr. Deern then talk for a bit, Fran demands to be released and Dr. Deern adamantly refuses.
Fran receives her mother's old purse with a note from Aunt Grace inside. A nurse is then called in to give Fran a new medicine called Duotine; Fran is not allowed to leave the room until she takes it. Upon doing so she states that she is not feeling well and has a vision of blood, gore, and her parents' heads raining into the room, after which she quickly passes out. While unconscious she dreams of Mr. Midnight, who encourages her to come to find him, saying the pills will help her do so. He says he is waiting for her in the forest and that he loves her, and with these final words the player fades into the First Chapter.
Tree Fran[]
Fran as a tree
When Fran falls to Ithersta, she takes on the form of a tree and is picked up by two Itherstanise. She is taken to the King Ziar, who takes the fruit of knowledge from her to learn about her and gives her a fruit to help her understand his people's language (although she remains unable to read it). King Ziar explains to Fran that he knows why she is a tree but is not the right person to tell her why. He then sends her to a high cliff to meet Palontras.
Palontras takes Fran to a floating island where she is submerged into a pool of a pink water under a waterfall, where he casts a spell to provide Fran with arms and legs after explaining to her that she turned herself into a tree in order to keep herself alive. Palontras confesses that he has never seen a human use a tree as a chrysalis before, and soon after returns her to King Ziar, who is petting Mr. Midnight.
The Other Fran[]
A picture drawn by Second Fran of her otherworldly friends.
During Chapter 5, Fran comes into contact with another, younger version of herself living in the Asylum. This Fran likes to dress up extravagantly and put on dancing shows for her menagerie of toys. She has a key collection and likely was the one to take the house key and leave a note under the potted plants towards the end of Chapter 4.
Though they both own the same yellow dress, the second Fran is not wearing it, instead donning a blue robe, pearls, and heels all likely inherited from her mother or Aunt Grace.
This Fran is very in tune with the Ultrareality phenomenon and has met Itward, Palontras, and even León Castillo. The other Fran does not have a pet cat, and this difference is implied to be that which separates their timelines.
Appearance[]
Fran Bow is a very curious ten-year old girl with bobbed brown hair, straight across bangs and large blue eyes. She typically wears a yellow dress with a small blue/green bow tie paired with brown boots with black-and-white striped stockings.
Personality[]
Fran is an inquisitive young girl, who likes to examine her surroundings, scrutinize materials and combine them. She also thinks very vividly. To her social environment, she is a nice, polite (but sometimes persistent and annoying) little girl. She's also quite smart, yet gullible at some points; sometimes clearly sensing danger, whereas other times lets her curiosity get the better of her. Fran loves animals above all things and particularly Mr. Midnight. She is quite anxious and jumpy, but also courageous. She longs for her home, and to be with Mr. Midnight and her Aunt Grace.
Whether or not Fran truly suffers from some sort of psychosis is never revealed; it depends on whether the abnormal things she experiences (such as Itward, Mr. Midnight talking and all the twisted visuals) actually do happen in reality, or just inside of her head, and this is left for the player to deduce[1].
If the things were real, then Fran was never psychotic, to begin with; her family's tragedy only happened because of Remor's decision to toy with her, which led her to be possessed by him. However, if they were, in fact, not real and only hallucinations, then it's likely just a result of her brain being tampered with through overdoses of Duotine by Dr. Oswald, affecting her mentality. In that case, Remor could be seen as an avatar of Fran's own psychosis, her Kamala, materialized by people experimenting on her. It also could've been a result of trauma of her parents dying.
Trivia[]
- In the final chapter of the game, in Fran's wardrobe, after she's been freed, you can find a reference to Alice from Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland, whom Fran calls a close friend of hers. Fran's appearance is similar to the appearance of the real-life Alice Liddell, who died on November 16, 1934, just one month and one day before Fran was born.
- If you mess around with the asylum's TV while under the effects of Duotine, you can see Fran's silhouette with bloody eyes flashing on and off on the screen in the static.
- Fran, despite dealing with excessive amounts of gore and violence throughout the game, mentions that she does, in fact, have a fear of dolls. There is one in the Attic of the Twins Clara and Mia and one in her room at Aunt Grace's house, and she even tells the doll in her wardrobe that they had a deal for the doll to stay in the wardrobe until Fran grows up and is no longer scared of dolls.
- Fran cameos as a doll in The Sorrowvirus, a game made by Faceless where you play as Wyatt Heyll (voiced by Ryan, aka "8-BitRyan").
- Fran's dress is seen in Little Misfortune at the beginning of the game in misfortune's closet, most likely because the creators are the same.
- As of the release of Little Misfortune, which goes into further detail of the shared world of Fran Bow, such as Itward, the Ultrareality and the F.R.E.E, it's now heavily implied that Fran and Leon's adventures were actually quite real, and that Misfortune is also "One of The Thousand" which are intimately connected to these alternate universes.
Gallery[]
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