application

[credere]

User Name/Nick: Naomi
User DW: metonumia
AIM/IM: metonumia
E-mail: asyndeta@gmail.com
Other Characters: Harry Starks, Eggsy Unwin, Ashildr

Character Name: Credence Barebone
Series: Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them
Age: The script describes him as ‘an adult’ and Ezra Miller is 24. I’m going to say 22.
From When?: Towards the end of the movie, when he is seemingly destroyed by the Aurors. (In reality, a scene was cut from the end of the movie where he survives and is leaving New York but we'll see what happens in the sequel I guess.)

Inmate/Warden: Inmate. Although Credence is a product of his environment to a very great extent, a victim of lifelong abuse and repression, he has allowed his bitterness and pain to both literally and figuratively consume him. He is responsible for at least three deaths - probably more, given the destruction caused towards the end of the movie - and actively chose to give into the Obscurus.

Arrival: Brought in against his will.

Abilities/Powers: Although untaught, Credence has the magical potential of a Potterverse wizard, with all that that entails. In canon this is shown, briefly, as bursts of violent telekinetic-type ability.

Over and above this, he is an Obscurial - that is, host to an Obscurus, a parasitic force that possesses wizards who suppress their powers. It manifests as a black cloud-like entity which can kill instantly and cause massive material damage. Eventually, ordinarily, it kills the host. Credence has learnt to control it, and presumably did so as a young child - no other Obscurial has survived to the age of ten or so.

On the Barge, learning to use magic in a healthy way will be extremely important to his rehabilitation. I’d like him to keep the potential to use defensive and non-destructive spells - healing, levitation and transformation of small objects, etc. Nothing that would give him a real advantage over a competent Muggle.

I’d also like him to retain the Obscurus, albeit extremely depowered. It will have the same effect as a strong wind - pushing around small bits of furniture, maybe knocking someone off their feet if they’re not braced for it. If he isn’t talked down or disabled, the Obscurus will be exhausted after about half an hour; he will return to his normal shape and lose consciousness. (In the fullness of time, I’d like to play through him ridding himself of the Obscurus by coming to terms with his identity, or having it otherwise exorcised.)

Personality:

Outwardly, Credence is a quiet and nervous young man who is completely enthralled to his adoptive mother, the overbearing and outspoken Mary Lou Barebone. He calls her ‘Ma’ even though she acknowledges no maternal feelings toward him and - initially - he seems completely loyal to her. Without complaint, he follows her to every rally of the New Salem Preservation Society and hands out leaflets from street corners despite being consistently ignored or jeered. (By contrast, his little sister Modesty is rebellious, throwing away the leaflets she’s been given to hand out, and keeping a toy wand knowing it would infuriate their mother.). He rarely makes eye contact or even lifts his head when being spoken to; he does little, if anything, to assert himself. He dislikes crowds - the busy places Mary Lou seeks out for the rallies seem to scare him - and shows of anger from other people make him deeply uncomfortable.

This is likely because of his own suppressed anger. Being forced to conceal his own magic in a deeply anti-magical household, and being singled out for abuse by Mary Lou for probably most of his life, has given Credence an extremely deep well of pent-up rage and bitterness that has no healthy outlet. Given that the presence of the Obscurus is completely unknown-of until the start of the movie’s timeline, some time after he’s approached by Percival Graves, it’s likely that he’s successfully suppressed the Obscurus until this point. It’s when he’s placed under pressure by Graves to start seeking out an unknown ‘powerful child’ that he starts to manifest it. The earliest manifestations are probably accidental; the later killings of Senator Shaw and Mary Lou, and his attack after being betrayed by Graves, seem too focused to be anything but deliberate. By this point - as he says to Graves - he is choosing not to control himself, despite knowing the consequences.

A lifetime of abuse and emotional privation left him extremely easy to manipulate. Grindelwald - and possibly Graves himself, since the length of their relationship is unknown - very easily gained his trust and unquestioning service. By showing a small amount of affection, telling him he was ‘special’, Grindelwald was able to retain Credence’s loyalty even when he turned to hurting him out of frustration. When he turned on him - telling Credence that he was a Squib, ‘unteachable’, and casting him aside in the mistaken belief that his younger sister was the Obscurial - Credence willingly surrendered control of the Obscurus. In the future, he may have the opposite problem, rejecting all forms of kindness and generosity in the belief that he really is just worthless and anybody who’s affectionate towards him must want something from him.

He has been shown genuine kindness in the past, however, and it seems to have had a lasting effect on him. Tina Goldstein once attacked Mary Lou to protect Credence from her, losing her position as an Auror in the process; some time later, she was very nearly able to talk Credence out of his Obscurus form. The screenplay describes her as someone he’s dreamed about ever since she showed him this one true act of goodness, even though he was possibly forced to forget it after the fact. That she can still get through to him, even after his backlash against Grindelwald’s rejection, illustrates that he must still have some capacity to trust in others. He’s also capable of affection, having a seemingly close and mutually protective relationship with Modesty.

Beyond that relationship, he seems highly motivated by the idea of joining the wizarding world and claiming his identity as a wizard. Grindelwald promises him that, and tells him he can teach him to harness his magic, as part of the ‘pitch’ he makes to gain his trust. It would be easy for him to believe that this other world will claim him as one of their own, that the magical community will give him an escape from the abusive and hateful upbringing he’s had. While everything he was promised by Grindelwald will now be coloured by his betrayal, it’s very likely he will retain an interest in magic. However, he will have to reconcile that with his fear of the Obscurus, and the fear of being punished for expressing that interest.

A note on religion: God, Christianity, worship etc. are never explicitly mentioned in the film, which probably has more to do with studio decisions than narrative. Also, the Second Salemers seem more anti-witchcraft than pro....well, anything. However, they're based in a church and Mary Lou named her adoptees after traditionally Christian virtues; there's a clear parallel between the Society and its real-life Christian contemporaries such as the Anti-Saloon League. Mary Lou is described as dressing in a 'Puritan' fashion in the screenplay. It's not a leap to assume that Credence would have been brought up with some form of Calvinism, and that it - or his adoptive mother's interpretation thereof - has informed a lot of his worldview on what constitutes good and evil. Again, trying to work out how to reconcile this worldview with the knowledge that he is something judged to be inherently evil is something that he'll have been fighting with all his life, and will have to continue to do so.

Barge Reactions:

As noted above, in all likelihood Credence had a very conservative religious upbringing. And he's coming from 1926. Women barely had the vote and electric street lights were still a novelty. Coming to the Barge will represent a huge culture shock, and his initial coping strategy may be to retreat entirely into the persona he forced himself to fit into. He'll need some very proactive help, pretty quickly, just to know it's okay to do things like eat the food and use the water. He won't even be able to guess at the purpose of the communicators, never mind work out how to use one. It may not be until he gets a permanent warden who has his file that he'll be prepared to talk about his magic, or the Obscurus, or Graves. And even then he might find flat-out denial easier. Depending on how much conflict he runs into, it could alternatively be the case that he loses control of himself earlier on and has to confront who and what he is in this new environment.

The reality of, apparently, Magic Everywhere will be simultaneously terrifying and wonderful to him. He will be extremely troubled by the floods - someone who's spent his entire life fighting to suppress elements of himself won't enjoy anything that takes the decision away from him - but perversely, he might find them cathartic for the same reason. They'll give him the opportunity to be someone different or behave in a different way, without him having to take on the guilt and inner conflict of having chosen to do it.

Path to Redemption:

The first challenge for a successful warden will be to develop a relationship based on genuine mutual trust, given that Credence has never had one of those. Openness and honesty about their motivations and history will be very important. Eventually, Credence will have to learn to extend that trust to other people. The key to his redemption is to learn that he can outgrow his upbringing and learn to channel his gifts, rather than turn them into a pressure valve for his suppressed anger.

Learning to use his magic constructively will be vital. This doesn't have to come from his warden (it's not necessary that his warden have powers of any kind), but they would have to encourage him to take it up and support him through it, especially if anything goes wrong.

History: Wiki!

Sample Journal Entry:

there was a person here these last few days who looked like me, but it was not me.

i did not choose to do the things he did or say the things that he said. & i would not have chosen them. he was a selfish and wicked man.

[The flood made him - charismatic, confident, assertive, in a way that seems obscene in retrospect. Incomprehensible to look back at now.]

my warden told me that if i explained that i would be forgiven for the things that took place. i am sorry.

[Another foreign concept to him. His mother's teachings had a lot of sin and not very much redemption. And since he's been forced to appear on the network for the first time, he adds:]

my name is credence barebone.

Sample RP:

my name is credence barebone.

Words that took an eternity to learn how to pluck out on the little machine he's been given. His warden - a girl Chastity's age, not that Chastity would ever have walked around dressed like she does - has been encouraging him. He needs to get to know people, to make friends, and everyone has these devices. He doesn't even have to leave his bed to make -- friends. And isn't it easier, to approach someone from behind the relative safety of a telephone, than it is to meet them in the flesh?

Ma would hate it, he thinks. She'd say it was slothful, to do these things from his own room, without effort. Vain, too, to pronounce nothing but his own existence to the world. As if the world has any reason to care that he exists.

And even if he does it, if he just casts aside a lifetime's moral education, what then? He writes to them, they write back - maybe. Mister Graves made a friend of him in the flesh. Credence could look him in the eye and feel the touch of his hands and he was still ignorant of how he was being lied to. Used. How can he possibly trust what he's being told, when all he has are words to read?

(Maybe anyone else would have seen it immediately. Maybe he's just stupid. Stupid and disloyal and undeserving - )

The cold darkness bubbles up and he pushes it down, as familiar (if not as easy) as exchanging clean air for the waste in his lungs.

He shoves his communicator under his pillow.

Maybe another day.