The Crooked Man

	"Mature Content"
	This character or verse has mature themes and concepts, thus those of young age are ill-advised to look through these.

“	...Can't you tell...? I'm saying so long to this miserable life. ...My life was just empty... So I'm ending it by my own hand. Well... ...There must have been good things... ...There had to be... But... when there's so much sadness and pain, it makes you forget there was anything good... So... I have no other choice. ...Aren't you the same way? ...But it's different now? ...Why do you say that?... ...Leave... You're wrong. ...This... this isn't out of despair... ...Just... I didn't want you here yet... ...I didn't think you should come... So... Aren't there people... waiting for you? You should... just leave... Thank you for coming... ...For me... ...that's enough.	„
	~ Duke McGahan's talk with David Hoover in the 2nd Play Ending

Background

Duke McGahan is the tenant David Hoover has been looking for throughout the whole game. He committed suicide years ago and is the true identity of The Crooked Man.

Sissi, D, and Fluffy are fragments of his troubled past. As the Crooked Man, he generally goes after David Hoover, but if Sissi, D, or Fluffy are around, he prefers going after them and trying to kill them, much to David's confusion. After it is revealed that the three of them are facets of Duke, it makes perfect sense. Sissi has regrets over lost love, D has regrets over failed dreams, and Fluffy has been abandoned by his mother. These are all the aspects of Duke (and David, as they were both so similar) that ultimately led to his eventual suicide.

Sissi, D, and Fluffy are facets of his own past life, so their backgrounds told during the course of the story were actually his.

When he was young, he was "abandoned" by his mother. The facts about it are ambiguous, but she apparently died in a hospital when Duke was a kid, leaving him with bitterness and feelings of abandonment. Years later, he decided to become a lawyer, but no matter how much he tried, he never passed the final exam. The last straw for him was that his beloved girlfriend, whom he loved very much to the point of making her gifts and taking her to their "special place" in a hotel, eventually abandoned him. This left him very depressed.

Unable to take it any longer, he left the apartment he lived in and went to his mother’s abandoned house, where he committed suicide by hanging himself. He became a vengeful spirit some time after that.

This dropdown contains the synopsis of Crooked Man’s story. Read at your own risk as you may be spoiled otherwise!

After David moves to the apartment, David deduces the house’s malfunctions when they have something to do with the former tenant and decides to look for him. Duke, as the Crooked Man, starts following David everywhere on his journey to find Duke, and every time tries to kill him. He is also very resistant to David’s attacks, as during the game he gets shoved into a pit, set on fire, stabbed, locked into a room and shot and still follows David around. In the Bad End 1 "What a sissy", if David tells Sissi not to cry over her lost love, she decides to give up on her quest to keep fond memories alive and drops the precious box her boyfriend gave her. Because of the time Sissi took to talk, the Crooked Man had enough time to revive. As she is about to leave, she is attacked and brutally killed off-screen by the Crooked Man, who then kills David. In the Bad End 2 "Never, never give up", if David tells D not to give up on his failed dreams to become a lawyer, D is angered, claims David cannot understand him and stabs him to death. He is later killed by the Crooked Man. The Crooked Man then slowly walks over to David, speaks briefly, then walks away as the screen fades. After Paul saves David, he goes to the abandoned house of the former tenant, which actually belonged to Duke's mother, who abandoned him. When looking in the belongings, he finds out the tenant’s real name. Then The Crooked Man cries and realizes that David is watching him and screams. After shooting him enough times, David tells him to disappear, since he won’t take the same path as him. With these words, the creature disappears. David later enters the attic of the house, where he finds Duke's hanged corpse. David realizes that all the situations Duke put him in were in order to help him move on with his life and he thanks him before leaving. Duke's corpse is later retrieved and put to rest in a cemetery, presumably by David. In the final scene of the game, David visits Duke's grave, puts some Marlboro cigarettes next to the grave and he says that they would see each other again. In the second replay, when David enters to the attic, he has a conversation with Duke's spirit (who is recalling the moment he is about to commit suicide) before Duke passes on. His spirit is later seen after David and Shirley are back into their relationship, so it is implied he will continue looking after David.

General Information

Name: The Crooked Man, Duke McGahan

Origin: The Crooked Man

Sex: Male

Age: Unknown

Classification: Crooked Man, Vengeful Spirit

Species: Unknown

Occupation: None

Status: Deceased (Was ultimately killed by David Hoover after he tells him to disappear and that he will never become him)

Alignment: Chaotic Evil (The Crooked Man is a vengeful spirit that is out to kill David Hoover, though from David's perspective it's almost in a way that the Crooked Man was a warning for him to not go down his path, irregardless, the Crooked Man always attempts to kill David)

Codex Statistics

Grade: S

Tier: At least 9-C

Cardinality: Finite

Dimensionality: 3-D

Attack Potency: At least Bone level (Can one-shot David Hoover, who can tear down a wall while carrying D, weakened, and poisoned, this should also make him superior to Sophie Grundler)

Durability: At least Bone level

Striking Strength: At least Bone Class

Lifting Strength: Unknown

Travel Speed: Superhuman (Can cross distances in a short amount of time)

Attack Speed: Superhuman (Can tag David, who is comparable to Keith Baring, avoided a crossbow)

Reaction Speed: Superhuman

Stamina: Unknown

Range: Standard Melee, Unknown with abilities (Unknown how far away he was when he used his various abilities on David, though it is implied his true self is in his house while doing all of this and watching David)

Intelligence: Unknown (Seemingly mindless but is implied by David and Paul to want help from David and has sent him various messages, from implication of D he has trained and studied to be a lawyer but it seemed that ended in failure)

---

Powers and Techniques

Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Reliance (On True Form & On Concept; The Crooked Man is already dead, the form that appears before David is merely an avatar used to get David to become like him, reliant on David's misery), Incorporeality, Avatar Creation (Crooked Man is likely an avatar of Duke as his real self is a dead hanging skeleton), Supernatural Resilience (His natural form is a man with his neck all the way bent), Regeneration (Low-Mid; Can regenerate from knife stabs, bat wounds, and bullet wounds), Illusion Creation ("Real" Illusions; Created Sissi, D, and Fluffy, who are illusionary creations that can kill people like David), Sound Manipulation (Made a sound loud enough to make David think it was one of his neighbors), Teleportation (Can break faucets and leave without David noticing him), possible Telekinesis (Seemed to have moved a chair without any showing that he was in the room), Technological Manipulation (Messed with David's TV), Limited Water Manipulation (Seemed to control the coffee to say "help me"), Limited Blood Manipulation (Caused blood to appear on David's wall saying "I'm waiting for you"), Possession (Possessed David turning him into Dark David), Mind Manipulation (Made David think his mom was present, had knowledge of David's past), Pain Manipulation (Could cause pain in David when bringing his past memories up), possible Clairvoyance (Throughout the game The Crooked Man is aware of where David is and where he will go next), Darkness Manipulation (Upon David defeating the Crooked Man once and for all the darkness goes away and light shines)

---

Equipment

None notable

---

Other

Standard Tactics: Crooked Man likes to mess with his opponent and lead them into becoming just like him, a crooked man. He will in the process show them past memories causing them pain and attack them in the process, eventually possessing the person.

Weaknesses: If one believes that they will not fall to despair the Crooked Man will disappear.

Battle Records

None.

None.

None.