Vyn Richter Character Analysis (Tears of Themis)

Our first impression of Vyn is that he’s scheming, and possibly dangerous to be around based on Artem's reaction to us being with Vyn for so long. Over the phone in the main story 2 division 2, he tells Artem,

“She is like a rare rose, and if kept in a petri dish in your laboratory, under good conditions, she may bloom brightly and beautifully. But without the baptism of wind and rain, she would never have a fresh and tough soul and would be closer to an artificial flower made of silk. Don’t forget, you are lawyers."

Let me dissect this. He reveals his tendency for control point blank, and references “keeping” the MC/Player so that she blooms “brightly and beautifully”. But this is less about manipulation and keeping her to himself and rather more about wanting to help her succeed. He directs her through her meeting with the PUA member in his personal story, and during chapter 2 of the main story, he lets her do everything she can handle on her own that relates to the case. He will constantly involve the MC in dangerous and/or difficult parts of the investigations to help her grow, hence the “Don’t forget, you are lawyers.” part of his statement. Though, it does also go to show that he will have her back closely in these situations as well. This happenstance also seems like it holds a certain significance, as during the scene, it mentions that he tends to the roses on his windowsill as he talks, and coincidentally also tends to call the Player “my rose”.

This raises the question, if he likes to be in control, will he ever manipulate you? No, at least not intentionally. I know Vyn is widely regarded as the “Red Flag” character. However, after reading into the main story, personal story, and some card stories, Vyn has trauma red flags, not toxic red flags.

In Vyn’s personal story, chapter 3, Vyn is being framed for being the PUA leader and the story makes him seem as shady as possible. They try to paint him in a skeptical light, with him hiding his actions from the MC and him challenging her as to if she thought he was the PUA leader or not. You question what his motives are here, wondering if he’s trying to protect the Player by doing this and then being resigned to the fact she’ll hate him when the media post of outing Vyn being a “PUA” came out. However, it is not until the end we learn his true intentions: he planned and orchestrated this whole case to challenge and test her. The purpose was to see how she would act in the face of accusations against him, a friend, someone she cared about deeply. Would she act emotionally? Would she act with logic? Would she hesitate? Would she be conflicted? He wanted to see all these actions from her.

And then we can make a vague reference to his “False Tears” card where he “manipulates” the MC into giving him attention, and he just generally looks shady. When all put together like this, Vyn sounds pretty toxic, right? To which I say, “it depends.” If this was ALL there was, then yeah, I’d agree, but it’s not. There’s a lot more to it than that.

In Vyn’s Chapter 3 division 15, we see him talking with Captain Morgan about the Player. The two are discussing whether she should be more protected or not. Captain Morgan is not wrong to think this, making sure the plan stays out of the dark parts of society. It’s thoughtful of him. Whereas Vyn on the other hand, launches into a seemingly sketchy metaphor about breaking her wings so she can learn to fly despite the pain. He’s not wanting to purposefully cause her pain. He’s wanting her to face those dark sides so she isn’t ignorant of a darkness that is seemingly foreign to a very bright young lady like the MC so that she can grow in understanding. None of it is done to harm her but rather because he cares enough to want to see her grow.

To me, this feels like a very “post-trauma” way of thinking. Trauma survivors who are at least part-way through healing begin to understand that the darkness is not a fun place to be, but at the same point, the learning curve of it has shaped their minds in a far different way than someone who grew up in a healthy family. They are jaded and skeptical, and they end up pulling from both the darkness and the light for their survival.

From what I have gleaned, Vyn grew up in a very broken home. The abuse wasn’t the physical kind, it was the mental and emotional kind. People with money and power tend to want to get their way, so manipulation is big and so automatic they don’t even realize what they’re doing. And sadly, I would say that some genuinely do this behavior out of love not realizing that it’s toxic and damaging.

Worse yet, I feel this kind of abuse is more subtle because it’s not that “obviously wrong” of being beaten or substance abuse. And most of the time, it doesn’t even seem wrong on the surface such as blatantly threatening or harassing. Instead, it’s an underlying factor that’s always there. The adults in control want to keep that control, whether it’s through money or power. And it tends to be in subtle steps up in intensity that you don’t notice until it’s too late. So life becomes a mind game to navigate. Whom are you talking to? What’s their limit? How bad will their abuse/manipulation get? How can you avoid it while also not caving? Considering the way I believe Vyn perceives and interacts with the world, this abuse theory already begins to check out.

Taking a slight detour to his “False Tears” card, this already begins to further confirm that he was subjected to emotional abuse. Because if he grew up in a place where emotional outbursts got him in trouble, then his emotions get suppressed and logic becomes his best ally. You subconsciously teach yourself that emotional outbursts are irrational, and you begin to get upset with yourself for having these emotional outbursts. When you heal, you begin to walk this fine line of “emotional outbursts are okay in certain situations, but you’re tough and can take a lot so it has to be bad.” So when Vyn “acted out” to get the Player’s sympathy, I feel like he was walking that line. He was hurting and so he “made a show” of being broken because he felt like he could get away with it, trying to convince himself in his mind that an emotional outburst at this time is rational and justified.

The sad thing is that the situation was already justified. Vyn didn’t need to act out to garner the MC’s sympathy as she was very willing to help and support him from the beginning. His “false tears” were him allowing himself a moment of weakness to garner sympathy NOT in a toxic manipulative way. He wasn’t trying to get the Player to feel sorry for him. Rather, I feel like his actions were more akin to a timid child saying “Mom, this situation really really hurts, so this means I’m allowed to have a hug now, right? Please say yes.” rather than a haughty, "Yes, I want you to feel sorry for me. You’re dancing in my hand now.”

The other card I’d like to bring up is his "Mended Heart” card, where it’s referenced that he throws out broken things. This is also referenced in chapter 3 division 12 where Westley is trying to break Vyn down by saying he can’t stand broken things. Everything has to be perfect. I think Vyn grew up in a rich, perfectionistic household. This is where he gets his “broken things are useless” mentality. I feel like this is both subconsciously learned and taught manipulatively. When you have money, things are easily replaceable, and since rich people (particularly royalty, as seems to be Vyn’s case) can be among the most judgemental, broken things are useless. You have money. Why save the broken thing when you can get a thing that isn’t broken? This is how Vyn subconsciously learned this.

The second way, of it being taught through manipulation, is the “standard” how parents expect perfection, punish a child for anything less than that, and since a child is desperate for their parents’ attention and perfection is the only way they get it, they learn to become perfect. And if Vyn was punished as opposed to being ignored for not being perfect, then that would further take an effect on him. Henceforth, he has learned to put on a front of being perfect because it has become so ingrained in him that not presenting as perfect will get him in trouble or looked down upon. He is desperate to prove he has value. Multiple times he has rubbed his two doctorate degrees in Artem’s face. “I have two doctorates. I hold more value than you do.”

On that same note, in Vyn’s chapter 3 division 12, when Westley called him out on his “low self-esteem”, I think he was partly on the mark because growing up in abuse like that does a number on you. As such, I think that Vyn’s startled reaction was somewhat genuine. However, once you’ve been through abuse, you are determined to never let it happen again. And when you’ve been through the pain and know how to play the game, you play it right back. Whether Westley was right, wrong, or somewhere in between, Vyn would never let that man know and instead twist out of his situation by pricking his weak spots. Never let an abuser get an upper hand on you, after all. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, you’ll live to regret it. And Vyn doesn’t take shame in the first place.

So with this, I feel it’s safe to assume Vyn was subjected to this mental manipulation and emotional abuse, which then begins to shed a different light on all these seemingly sketchy situations. Starting with what he wants for the MC.

He sees the Player as a highly competent attorney with potential if she is allowed to grow. But as witnessed in the main story 2 division 2, he tells Artem that the MC won’t truly grow if she’s just kept out of the dark and protected like some house plant. He wants to make her strong, and in his mind, strength is not only facing the light but tackling the dark.

So, back to chapter 3 division 15, this is what he means by his eagle analogy. He wants her to face the dark even if it hurts her. But at the same time, he’s not so heartless or cruel to throw her out to the sharks without a lifeboat. He’s fully intending on holding her hand and guiding her in there, allowing her to face it, encouraging her to bear it before pulling her back out into the light again. He’s a psychiatrist, he’ll be there to track her mental state and do his best to control the environments she is in. He’ll protect her from any real danger, but he’ll let her face the garbage to let her learn.

Vyn values true growth even in the hardest of conditions, and while he doesn’t necessarily want to put the Player through it, he knows she’ll only shine brighter for it and wants the best for her.

So when put like this, I’m not saying all his toxicity disappears in a snap. I think that abuse survivors tend to be pretty edgy and may walk a finer line between love, tough love, and abuse than what most people are used to. And depending on where in the healing process an abuse survivor is, they may think they’re walking a line when they’re actually in one camp or another and don’t realize it. Henceforth, I won’t deny that people with trauma can have/exhibit toxic traits, but they tend to become fewer with healing and time. Furthermore, they are not toxic necessarily for being purposefully toxic but rather because it’s a residual from trauma and they don’t realize they’re doing it.

The best example of this is Captain Morgan warning Vyn about limits. Because I have a hypothesis that people like Vyn who grew up in trauma have no idea what a “limit” is. We push ourselves hard, we want others to do the same, and we don’t recognize where the limit lies until it’s too late. Then we say “okay, I won’t do that again”, but we do, again and again, and again because we get frustrated we can’t go further. We’ve been through stuff, we’re tougher than that, right? We bore pain that didn’t stop even when we hit our limit, we hid it, so since nothing could be as bad as that, I don’t think we know where our limits lie. And at times, I don’t think we know the word “limit” exists. So that might be a toxic “red flag” for Vyn, but it is not a malicious one, it might not even be one he’s conscious of, but rather something brought about by trauma.

After all this, I still think it’s fair to say Vyn is still the “sketchiest” of all the others. People with trauma do tend to walk a lot of lines and will cross them without realizing it because their normal is not a “normal” normal. Sometimes, we need reminders of “You crossed that line, don’t go there.” and we have to go, “Oh, yeah, right. Society norms.”

So my hopes for Vyn and the MC are a beautiful counterbalance. I’m all for Vyn allowing her to face the dark and get exposed to the cruelty as long as the Player speaks up when he goes too far as well as being a safe space for him to express his true emotions and continue healing. Which I think might be the case here. Specifically referring to Vyn’s Chapter 3 division 14, when Vyn asks the MC about what would happen if she saw her lover’s ugliest side. He seems surprised that she’d stick by his side and “weather the storm”. I feel like he fully expected her to abandon him if he showed her his ugliest side, his dark secrets, and his trauma because “broken things are replaced”, right? So you pretend to be perfect; you pretend to have it all together. But that’s not how it works. Vyn knows he has an ugly side, no matter how much he wants to deny it. (One that we caught a glimpse of in “False Tears”.) So I think one of his biggest fears is being abandoned if anyone found out he was “imperfect”.

So when the Player said, “I won’t give up my life for him, but I’m not gonna leave him alone,” Vyn is surprised as if this is the first time he’s felt such genuine warmth from a human being he has a non-work related connection with. If this was all he’d ever known, either abandonment or loss, then it would be surprising for someone to dump this kind of selfless love on him. Which when put this way, really shows how fragile Vyn is under his seemingly indomitable exterior. I feel he puts on a show of strength when in reality, He’s just a couple of carefully placed hits away from shattering. Just as long as the MC is there to pick up the pieces and put them back, he will heal.