I remember years ago after I first watched Raintree Country, the compelling drama by Edward Dmytryk, one specific frame stuck in my memory and I would always recall it every time I thought about that film: the one where Susanna (Elizabeth Taylor) is sitting on her bed with an array of porcelaine dolls hanging above her. The fact that Susanna was an adult married woman made the presence of those dolls in her room look particularly creepy; because she didn't have them there as a collection or even a reminder of her childhood, but viewed them as a projection of herself and had them placed above her head as if they were her guardians.

Although dolls, and toys in general, are items that most grown up people tend to view with tenderness and affection, they are mainly associated with childhood and past memories. Probably we all have a vintage doll, a teddy bear or an action figure in our home; but things become more complicated when adult people keep dozens of dolls or toys in their private space, to the point where they dominate the place where they are - like in the case of Susanna's dolls. This usually indicates a persistent denial to accept that they have grown up and a sentimental attachment to their childhood.

Due to its numerous dark and twisted side-effects, this condition is being used quite often in video games, connected mostly to characters of villains. Sometimes, dolls and toys appear as symbols or objects of a specific significance. Other times, while they look like they are just part of the scenery, they may still serve a plot point or indicate something important. In this article, I will focus on the presence of dolls and toys in Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Dark Fall: Lost Souls, Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea 2, Resident Evil: Revelations 2, Resident Evil 7 and The Evil Within 2, as in each of them the items in question have a unique role, indicative of their most frequently used symbolisms and connotations.

In Resident Evil: Code Veronica, a minor villain but a rather persistent lunatic is Alfred Ashford, the commander of Rockfort Island who likes to torture his victims with extreme and sadistic ways. Alfred can be seen in the main building of his mansion's grounds, but he also frequents his private palace, a tower constructed in gothic style that is heavily guarded by zombies and lies well-hidden from the rest of the world.

In the rather unfriendly entrance hall of the tower, there is a glass case with several vintage porcelain dolls kept in there in perfect condition. This whole set comes in striking contrast with a giant doll that is hanging from the ceiling with its disjointed limbs making it look more like a puppet.

The dolls are barely visible in the darkness, and this makes them more creepy

On the upper floor, yet one more doll is waiting to welcome the accidental guests; it is quite big and in good shape, but if we notice how it stands in the corridor, obviously in no connection to the rest of the place, we will undoubtedly receive the most unpleasant vibes. It is as if it is a guardian, placed there to watch who comes in and who gets out. I wouldn't be surprised if it could actually become alive and attack.

The huge doll in the corridor assumes the role of a guardian

In one of the bedrooms that we have to explore, there is again a glass case full of vintage porcelain dolls, and once we gain access to the hidden attic, we discover there a room full of toys with an elaborate carousel in the middle of it.

Alexia's room hosts more vintage dolls

Alfred is a scizophrenic sociopath, who passes his days contemplating the long past time spent with his beloved twin sister, Alexia. Apparently, after Alexia's demise, he fortified the palace which used to be his family home and kept almost everything in there just as it was; which is why the childhood tokens - namely, the dolls and toys - dominate in the rooms, giving the palace the disturbing look of an oversized dollhouse. Pretty much like Miss Havisham in Dickens' Great Expectations, who masochistically remains dressed in her wedding gown, supposedly waiting for the groom who never showed up on their wedding day but in fact refusing to accept her new reality and move on because she is unable to take control of her own life - likewise Alfred is content with looking at Alexia's giant portrait and talking to her while imagining she is there, incessantly bringing to his memory their common past and the happy times they spent together. But he does not limit himself to these moderate expressions of adoration. He goes as far as to wear Alexia's clothes and a blonde wig - an outfit that makes him look almost identical to her.

Alfred's attic is the inner sanctum where he keeps his childhood memories

Whether in good or bad shape, the dolls in Alfred's private palace are a strong indication of his madness and his attachment to the past and Alexia. The vintage dolls obviously belonged to her, and he keeps them in the cases, just like Alexia's body is kept in a capsule after her supposed death. When Alfred wears his sister's dress, he is not simply cross-dressing - he becomes one of her dolls. Just like dolls can be dressed with different outfits, Alfred changes his and for a limited time he identifies himself with Alexia. In that sense, the dolls are a medium with which he communicates with her. The giant disjointed doll that is hanging from the ceiling is a tangible manifestation of his own deranged psyche and mind. Why he had it placed there is not very clear, but it is likely that he did it so as to intimidate potential intruders, warning them that if they proceed any further they will share its fate.

The hanging doll is a creepy feature of the palace

Moreover, taking a closer look at that doll, we will see that it resembles Alexia; while its condition - beheaded, with missing limbs and covered in blood - symbolizes her death. The doll, although hanging from the ceiling, also looks like it is flying, bringing to mind Alexia's final mutation, which is a dragonfly.

The polysemous significance of dolls is further explored in Resident Evil: Revelations 2. Although their presence in that game is limited to just a couple of areas, both their appearance and their symbolism are so dominant and chilling that they are rather hard to forget.

One of the secondary but extremely important characters in the game is Natalia Corda, the little girl that Barry Burton meets moments after he arrives at the mysterious island looking for his daughter. Natalia is being pursued by Alex Wesker, the game's arch-villain, who wants to use her as a host in order to be reborn with absolute power since Natalia was the perfect candidate for her personal experiment. After Natalia fleed away in a desperate attempt to avoid all this, she teamed up with Barry and they traveled around the island in search both of Moira and a way out. When they first arrive close to Alex's hideout, they discover a ruined building with a disturbing decoration: there are little dolls everywhere, set up in the most terrifying installations.

The grotesque installation aim at freaking out the visitors

Later on, as they approach the Spencer mansion replica where Alex is lurking, they go through a cave where similar dolls can be seen around them, together with ceremonial candles. The word 'voodoo' comes directly to mind as we notice the way the dolls have been treated, while at some point Natalia spots her beloved teddy bear, Lottie, dismembered and nailed on a board.

It looks as if Alex was carrying out voodoo ceremonies

The dolls here are used by the game's villain as a means to threaten and terrify her victim directly. Natalia is very young, so Alex is using little dolls that will undoubtedly appeal to Natalia and, on a second level, she maybe identifies herself with them. The fact that Alex treats the dolls in such a violent and sadistic manner shows not only that she can resort to all kinds of means to do what she wants, but also that she will not hesitate to act towards Natalia just like she did towards the dolls.

As Lottie is a doll that belongs to Natalia, by 'punishing' it the way she did, Alex shows Natalia that this will be her own fate as well because of her disobedience.

Alex used Lottie to give a threatening warning to Natalia

The dolls are used in a similar way in Dark Fall: Lost Souls. In the compelling metaphysical thriller by Jonathan Boakes, Amy Haven, the cunning and sadistic ghost that haunts the Station and the Hotel in Dowertown, has three dolls which she calls her 'sisters'. Each doll represents one of three missing girls who died in different ways. The Inspector, the game's protagonist, has to find the dolls, place them in their coffins and match them with their missing eyes. This process, which is nothing less than black magic, gives him the means to overtake the demonic force that guards the Hotel's upper floor, where the solution of the mystery lies.

The colorful eyes of the dolls are their most creepy feature

Amy's dolls have a dual role: they serve as magical objects through which first Amy is able to keep the whole place under her control and later the Inspector breaks the spell that binds the Station and the Hotel, but they also are a hurtful symbol of Amy's destroyed childhood. Amy is a tormented ghost but she is also malignant. Instead of playing normally with regular dolls, she uses people as her toys and pretends that the voodoo dolls are her sisters.

In Resident Evil 7, the dolls and toys are as creepy as one would expect them to be in a horror story.  Eveline, the evil force that masquerades as a little girl in order to take over everyone and everything, uses dolls as baits and threats. There is a doll that resembles her and another one that resembles Mia, the wife of the protagonist, Ethan Winters. Eveline manipulates Mia trying to trick her into believing that she is a sad little girl who needs affection, and hates Ethan because his arrival means that she is close to be exposed and exterminated.

The Eveline doll (left) and the Mia doll (right) are used as enigmatic baits

Ethan discovers both dolls while looking for Mia in the Baker house, while close to the end of the story he comes across a giant version of the Eveline doll in the kitchen of the guest house.

The giant Eveline doll is one of the creepiest things in the game

Eveline is a demonic entity and as such is able to use animate and inanimate objects to serve her purposes. A little girl playing with dolls is something trivial, but a little girl using dolls to threaten people is not. Moreso since Eveline is not actually a little girl; this is just one of her forms, the most convenient in order to invade the Baker family home and infect its members.

The theme of distorted childhood can be traced again in the old room of Lucas and Zoe; it is a space full of toys some of which have a rather ominous and foreshadowing significance: the stuffed crocodile prepares the ground for the presence of the actual crocodiles that lurk in the bayou outside the farm house.

There is nothing cozy about the old kids' room of the Baker house

Similarly, the dollhouse that Ethan sees, among several other toys, in the kids' room of the old house symbolizes the Baker home which itself became a toy in Eveline's hands.

The toy house looks like a miniature of the Baker home

The expected voodoo dolls can be seen in a few places in the grounds of the old house, intensifying the atmosphere of evil and horror. Although they are there just for decorative purposes, they are still extremely creepy, and their aim is to terrify the potential intruders.

In Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea 2, the story begins with Elizabeth, the deuteragonist of the main Bioshock Infinite game, waking up in an abandoned toy factory with Booker DeWitt lying dead by her side. One of the first things that she sees is the head of a doll.

The doll head is like a reminder for Elizabeth

The doll once belonged to Sally, one of the girls who involuntarily took part in Frank Fontaine's brutal experiment, and its head appears crafted and painted in vintage style, as Sally originally lived decades ago. It also looks a lot like Elizabeth.

In the overall haunting and nightmarish atmosphere of the episode, the doll head in Elizabeth's hand becomes a rather ominous symbol of her own fate, as well as serving as a guide which will eventually lead her to Sally. When the episode starts, Elizabeth is in a bad shape but the discovery that she is bound to make is even worse: she sees her own self impaled to death in a dark corner of the toy factory.

In another reality, Elizabeth was a young girl locked in a golden tower, living in absolute safety but completely alone - almost like a doll. That was the state in which Booker found her in the main Bioshock Infinite game. In the Burial at Sea 2 episode, she may be living in a new reality, as an older version of herself in another time and place, but she still carries the consequences of the actions of her other, younger self. Regardless, as it turns out she is still a puppet in someone else's hands, as Atlas, the heartless villain of the story, orders her to carry out certain dangerous missions on his behalf promising that he will then let her go, but in the end he brutally kills her anyway. In the final scene, as Elizabeth dies, Sally shows up holding her doll. As she approaches Elizabeth, the doll's head disappears from the rest of her body and appears in Elizabeth's hand. While Sally goes nearer to comfort Elizabeth, the doll head slips from her hand, signifying both the fact that she finally found and saved Sally and that she herself sacrificed her own life to do this.

As Elizabeth dies, the doll head slips away from her hand

The dolls have a similar role and significance in The Evil Within 2. There are three recurring dolls in the game: one depicting Sebastian, the protagonist, one of Myra, his missing wife, and another one that has the form of Lily, his daughter.We get to see two of these dolls, the Lily doll and the Sebastian doll, very early in the game, in one of Sebastian's memories, where their presence is realistic and they are simply Lily's toys, made by her mother.

In Sebastian's memory, Lily is playing with her dolls

It is not until Sebastian enters the virtual world of Union and starts investigating the place that the dolls begin to have a more complex and symbolic role. While searching for Lily, Sebastian searches a warehouse and there, in one upper room, he finds the Myra doll in a pool of blood.

Sebastian finds the Myra doll in the warehouse

Still in Union, but getting closer to discovering a valuable clue about his daughter's whereabouts, he finds the Lily doll, again in a pool of blood, in the backroom of the cafeteria of a gas station.

The Lily doll is first found in the Pit Stop back room

Both of these dolls act as baits for Sebastian, as they have been strategically placed where he found them by Stefano, the villain who dominates the first part of the game. Stefano, who wants to take advantage of the potential of Lily's brain, wants to lure Sebastian towards him so that he can realize his evil and twisted plans that will supposedly bring his photographic art to another level.

However even after Stefano is exterminated, Sebastian finds one more Lily doll in the dark void. The doll lies on the bloody floor of the bottomless pit below the Marrow Laboratories, in a space that looks like a simulation of Lily's actual room.

The second appearance of the Lily doll is the Bottomless Pit

This time, it is Theodore, the game's main villain, who placed the doll there, in an attempt to bring Sebastian closer to him, to make him feel guilty for Lily's fate and persuade him to help him get rid of Myra and join his cult.

It is characteristic that Sebastian won't come across his own doll anywhere in Union, and the only instance where it appears is close to the end, when he finds Lily sleeping peacefully in her room, in the safe space previously guarded by Myra. The Sebastian doll can be seen sitting on Lily's bed, as Sebastian is taking his daughter away.

The Sebastian doll on Lily's bed is like her guardian angel

The dolls go back to their original, realistic role in the end, when all is over and Sebastian leaves with Lily. Before waving them goodbye, Juli gives Lily the Myra doll, as a token of her mother.

Lily takes the Myra doll as a reminder of her mother

The dolls in The Evil Within 2 illustrate the state of the characters they depict. The Sebastian doll, as it appears sitting passively in Lily's bedroom, represents Sebastian's status: Sebastian is sedated in a STEM tub while his virtual self, or his mind's self, is taking action in Union. On the other hand, Sebastian comes across the Myra doll and the Lily doll and finds them lying down, as if dead. This hints at their actual state, because although they are not dead, they are trapped inside STEM and the only way for them to get out is by Sebastian's intervention. Sebastian has to defeat the Matriarch, Myra's monstrous self, so as to allow the real Myra take control. Subsequently he is the only one who is able to take Lily out of Union, and once Myra destroys the system from inside, he is the one to bring his daughter out of the Core capsule. In the end, the only doll that appears is the one depicting Myra, as she voluntarily stayed behind and presumably perished with all the STEM system. 

The Monsters Of Stefano Valentini

Unlike Ruben Victoriano's monsters in The Evil Within, which were direct manifestations of his psyche and memories, the monsters that are associated with Stefano Valentini in The Evil Within 2 are carriers of much more complicated connotations and symbolisms.

The Guardian, the first monster that attacks Sebastian in Stefano's domain seconds after the twisted photographer appears unexpectedly behind a closed door to capture him in a shot, is a pile of murder victims, as their various body parts can be seen tied around or hanging from her body. Her most prominent characteristic is the upper part of the body which consists of a multitude of heads, all of which are expressionless as if dead, with the exception of the central one which has glowing red eyes and a chilling smile that never leaves her face. The Guardian has the creepy and terrifying habit of giggling like mad as she runs about, while being extremely fast in doing this, and in her right arm she permanently carries a huge circular buzz saw which she uses against her victims.

Stefano is able to summon the Guardian at will, as we can see in the second chapter and later in Chapter 5 outside the City Hall. In the first case, she appears behind a mirror, while just seconds earlier Sebastian catches a glimpse of what looks like her human form in the glass reflection. The human-like Guardian is a dark-haired woman with the same creepy smile stuck on her face.

The "human" Guardian is nearly as creepy as her monster form

In the second case, Stefano first alters the appearance of the City Hall, making it appear as if its roof is missing and covering parts of its interior walls with blue curtains, and then causing the creation of yet one more Guardian who tries to prevent Sebastian from getting inside the building. What is interesting about the Guardian is that although her standard monstrous form seems to be made of female body parts, if we notice how she is actually formed, we will see that she is in fact an amalgam of dead body parts independently of gender.

Sebastian watches as the Guardian emerges from a pile of corpses

Stefano used to be a war photographer, but after the traumatic event that cost him his eye and was partly responsible for his transformation into a vicious and sadistic man, he became a fashion photographer. During that period, his clients and models were mostly women. Subsequently, as his paranoia kicked in and his gruesome concept of capturing the moment of death began to take form, his most obvious victims were those girls who had the bad luck to work with him. It is not that he was a killer of women who purposely chose his victims according to their sex; as a fashion photographer, the girls that he collaborated with were his easiest and most direct prey. This is something that is quite clear in the game's story, as there are also several men among his victims: the first one that Sebastian finds is Mobius lead operative William Baker, and minutes later he becomes a witness as Stefano stabs a young man in the chest; not to mention the soldiers that he kills in Union, and of course Sebastian himself whom Stefano chases with such ardour.

The Guardian's attacks are fast and horrific

The Guardian morbidly illustrates the process that Stefano followed, having the models pose for him and eventually killing them, while on a second level, she is actually the host of all those girls' ghosts. It is as if their ghosts are hovering over Union, looking for a way to take a tangible form. Wherever there are piles of corpses, a Guardian is likely to appear, gathering body parts so as to give herself a palpable - and terrifying - existence. This is pretty similar to how Laura Victoriano would occasionally appear in the first Evil Within: she would emerge from random corpses. The Guardian's mischievous grin relates to how Stefano ordered his models and future victims to smile for him during photoshoots, as this was quite possibly - in most cases, at least - the last thing that the girls were able to do before Stefano killed them or tortured them to death.

Stefano invites Sebastian to smile for him just like he did with his models - victims

Related to the Guardian, but more directly connected to Stefano himself, the terrifying Obscura consists of female body parts and an old-fashioned camera in the place of her head. We can actually see Stefano in the process of making his Obscura, via two disturbing visions in the secret area that lies behind his "art" at the back of Devil's Own Taproom, the bar in the Business District. Obscura, whose name is taken from the photographic term "camera obscura", seems to be an embodiment of a camera, seeing how she has three legs, like the tripod - and a camera lens on top of her body.

Obscura is the incarnation of Stefano's camera

Obscura can be seen having ballet shoes on her three legs, which relates to Stefano's obsession with Tchaikovsky, as the Russian maestro had written music for ballet (although it is known from his biographies that he in fact despised both ballet and opera). For his part, Stefano seems to be very proud of his creation, and up to the point when he makes the most gruesome installation in the theater, Obscura obviously is what he considers to be his greatest work. Something that was going to change, though, as soon after he claims that what he is planning to do with Sebastian is going to be his masterpiece. Thankfully, he doesn't live to realize his last - and undoubtedly perverse - concept.

What makes Obscura more special than his other creations is the fact that she is a creature with which it is possible to interact; she is not a framed work of art which Stefano can gaze at, admiring his own genius. She is, in a very vague and metaphorical sense, alive; she can sort of act on his behalf, and she is as vicious and aggressive as he is. Not only she represents Stefano's twisted concept of art, but she also appears as a live and literal depiction of the obsessive way with which he hunts and captures (both literally and metaphorically) his victims. That said, given that we only see her chase and attack Sebastian, it would be safe to say that her presence acts as some sort of foreshadowing, considering the frantic and manic way with which Stefano chases him later in the theater.

Stefano uses his camera like Obscura uses hers: as a weapon

Although we can see the Lament in various places around Union, and it is not clear whether or not she is a direct product of Stefano's sick experimenting with art, she is a monster that stands out among the rest, and there are certain characteristics that could connect her to him. First of all, the way her body is made, which is similar to the Guardian's: she is comprised of an array of body parts, stuck randomly together, and has long strands of black hair. Secondly, just like the Guardian likes to giggle, the Lament likes to weep - which is, also, the reason why she has that name, as her distinctive sound is a cry-like shrieking voice.

The Lament is as terrifying as she is pathetic

The Lament may be yet one more failed experiment of Mobius, but given that Stefano had Union under his control for quite a while, chasing and murdering people without hesitation and messing with STEM's function, she could very well be another manifestation of his own mentality. Visually, the Lament vaguely resembles a demon from the greek mythology and folklore, the Lamia, who, in some of her depictions, is an extremely ugly woman with contorted facial features, keen on hunting down and devouring little kids or young men and condemned to cry eternally for the loss of her children - just like the Lament roams about and weeps constantly. The Lamia is usually described as giving out a horrible stench, just like the Lament walks in a toxic green cloud and is able to spit acid on Sebastian causing him a lot of damage or even killing him. In that sense, she could be Stefano's inner demon, his ugly soul underneath the impeccable surface, as well as the misery that he is actually going through deep down, which he masterfully hides, even from himself, with adopting the persona of the flamboyant, arrogant artist.

When surrounded by the blue aura, Stefano resembles the Lament with the acid cloud around her

Wandering around Union as pitiful, lonely monsters, the Hysterics are, in fact, extremely interesting creatures. Their appearance is that of a skinny, pale woman, with a bald head from which hang thin strands of white hair. They are wearing ragged white gowns and they can be seen slowly walking or standing in place with their head down, holding a long sharp knife in their hand. When they see Sebastian, they scream hysterically (therefore their name) and they run towards him in full speed, most of the times succeeding in stabbing him nearly to death.

The Hysterics have bloody red hands just like Stefano wears red gloves

If the above description sounds somewhat familiar, it is because it can easily be used in relation to Stefano and the manner with which he expresses his extreme aggression and violence. On the outside he is the exact opposite of the Hysterics: he is male while they are female, he has healthy complexion and black hair while they are pale with white hair, he is dressed in bright, dark colors while their clothes are ragged and faded. Their only visible common elements are that both Stefano and the Hysterics are tall and lean and that both he and them are holding knives - although Stefano's knife is stylish and elaborate while those of the Hysterics are like the tools of a butcher. Other than that, the Hysterics are, essentially, like Stefano's negative version. And not only negative, but also deformed and disfigured.

When the Hysteric attacks in such a way, it is difficult to escape her hit

On the inside, however, they are strikingly similar; something that becomes more than obvious if you notice the way that Stefano rushes towards Sebastian wielding his knife during the second part of the boss fight in Chapter 8. Just like the Hysterics when they see Sebastian, Stefano too is frequently possessed by hysteria during the fight and, in a way very similar to theirs, he runs to catch Sebastian and very little can be done to stop him at that point. The way that he grabs and stabs Sebastian during those sequences is not only extremely vicious, but also particularly suggestive, considering the sexual connotations that the knife, as an object, carries.

Stefano's manic attacks are like those of the Hysterics, albeit with much more style

Combining all these clues, we could say that the Hysterics are a manifestation of Stefano's inner hysteria, which he generally manages to control in his attempt to retain the image of the cool, distinguished artist. However deep down he is constantly in rage and mania, and he eventually reaches a crucial point when he is no longer able to hide behind his stylized self. That point is when he finally finds himself face to face with Sebastian, to whom he is clearly attracted in several conscious and subconscious ways. It is then that he unleashes his inner hysteria, and it is then that his attacks become so similar to those of the Hysterics.

Portrait Of The Artist As A Serial Killer

"I am Stefano... And now you are my art."

Stefano Valentini is a major villain and the main antagonist for the first half of The Evil Within 2, sequel of The Evil Within. He is a deranged photographer and serial killer with a very dark and twisted psyche, and is quite possibly one of the most intriguing and complicated villains in video game history so far. His role in the story is completed in the 8th of the 17 chapters of the game, however his emblematic presence and personality as a villain offer material for plenty of analysis, both about himself alone, as well as concerning his relationship with the protagonist of the game, detective Sebasian Castellanos.

The plot of the game is centered around Sebastian's daughter, Lily, who was announced dead after a fire that burned her family home, something that was known already from the first game. In The Evil Within 2, however, Sebastian finds out that Lily is very much alive, and is in fact held in STEM by Mobius, the secret organization that stole Ruben Victoriano's research and developed it so as to create the necessary means for universal mind control. As the STEM system needed a central unit, a core, to operate (Ruben's brain had this 'role' in the first game), Mobius tested several people for this, narrowing the candidates down eventually to children, whose pure brain would be a perfect 'blank sheet' for the process to progress smoothly. Lily was chosen as the ideal candidate because she was an intuitive girl with an innocent heart, and was subsequently kidnapped so as to take her place in the main STEM unit. When Sebastian's wife, Myra, found out about this, she became a member of Mobius, planning a way to take her daughter out and destroy the organization from the inside afterwards. Something went wrong however when Lily disappeared completely and the system became destabilized.

Sebastian is called to enter STEM and go to Union, a virtual environment that simulates a town and which was created by Mobius for its test subjects, to look for his daughter, as well as for the members of the search team that was sent to find her but went missing too. Sebastian finds out that one of the people who was supposedly helping Myra with her plan secretly wanted to keep Lily for himself so as to gain personal power using her potential, and for this he sent Stefano Valentini to kidnap her for his own benefit. However Stefano found out about Lily's 'power' and he decided against handing her over, thinking that, with taking advantage of her abilities, he would achieve great works of art.

Although Stefano is clearly identified and defined as a psychopathic and sadistic serial killer who has developed an appalling concept about what great art is, his connection to Sebastian and how this affects his attitude as the story progresses presents great interest. But this cannot be examined separately from his works of  'art' - photographs and installations - that can be seen in several places, and their evolution.

Stefano's installations take gore to a whole new level of creepiness

First of all we should focus a bit on an important fact about his past life. Stefano used to be a war photographer, and given that he is 31 at the time of the game's events, we can easily deduct that he had been on such missions while at a very young age. This fact alone should be enough to explain part of his paranoia, as it is more than obvious that, as a war photographer, he had witnessed and captured with his camera numerous horrible scenes. What made the biggest difference in his case however and practically altered his psyche was an incident where while photographing a war scene, he captured the moment when a man died, hit by an explosion; the same explosion that caused the loss of his own right eye. The fact that he managed to capture the exact moment of death fascinated him and after getting back home, he became a fashion photographer using this activity as a cover, planning to put to practice the twisted artistic projects that started occupying his mind.

There are several recurring elements and themes in his older photographs and installations, which can be seen in various rooms in the City Hall, the most characteristic being the red roses and the violet blue color (which also resembles the color of the suit he is wearing). These photographs and installations all depict women, albeit their head is always missing or is replaced by the flowers. What Stefano did to create his 'art' was to kill his victims and set up installations with the corpses which he then shot with the camera and edited accordingly to create a misleading artistic effect (that is, he edited the photos to make them look as if he had created all the gruesome effects with photographic or computer tricks, but in fact they were 100% real).

Some of Stefano's photos may look artistic from a distance, until you notice the morbid details

Soon his concepts became more specific, as he focused on capturing the moment of death, somehow reviving again and again that first random capture in the battlefield; and to achieve this, he had his camera ready and hit the button just as he was stabbing or shooting his models with a gun. Although one such photo can be seen in the City Hall and it shows a woman, it is quite interesting that almost all the others of this kind that Sebastian comes across depict men who, moreover, are soldiers - except the young man  in the white shirt near the start.

Being exposed to the horrors of war at such a young age, Stefano was inevitably traumatized, something that took irreversible monstrous dimensions after the event with the explosion that turned on his psychopathic switch. Clearly the paranoia that he showed afterwards was connected to the war in every way, but initially he would express it in more indirect ways, which is why his victims were female fashion models and he obviously devoted a lot more time in staging and editing his photos. As soon as his most crucial memory settled itself in his mind, his photos started being more specific. He started killing soldiers, seen now as direct symbols of war, and photographing the moment of their death; and the captured result showed exactly that, with no extra additions or effects. He went even further than that though, by creating some kind of live installations with his victims, framing them in a real-time camera shot which would loop eternally, repeating the captured moment of death again and again.

In these installations, these frozen displays, as they are called in the game, it is as if time has stopped; the moment of the victim's death plays over and over in slow motion, the scene is bathed in a gloomy and sick blue light, while in the background is heard a distorted version of Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, Op 48, I.

Sebastian watches the frozen display of a young man whom Stefano stabbed moments before

This ingenious music segment seems to match Stefano's art from a technical aspect: Tchaikovsky creates harmony through dissonance and makes unconventional use of accords, still the resulting piece sounds immaculate. Similarly, Stefano's photos look artistic, albeit creepy, on the exterior, but in fact they are made of dead bodies and body parts. Of course Tchaikovsky uses disharmonies to create something beautiful, while Stefano's 'art' is literally a murder pile.

The most raw manifestation of this is the Guardian, a hideous monster made of severed limbs and cut heads stitched together, which runs around with a creepy smile stuck on its main head, yielding a huge buzz saw that is attached on its arm, while letting out a chilling, hysterical laughter. The Guardian represents all of Stefano's victims who died violently and is some sort of evil spirit that seeks revenge. Its smile and laughter are a constant reminder of the moment that they were caught in Stefano's trap when he ordered them to smile for the camera, and from that moment and on, their nightmare began.

The Guardian is one of the most hideous monsters you've ever seen

Near the closure of his role in the game, Stefano conceives and realizes a most bloodcurdling frozen display which involves several people - both men and women - who are all dressed in white and are sitting in the seats of a theater, with their hands and legs tied with duct tape and sacks covering their heads. Having attached explosive mechanisms on each one's head, he sets them all off at the same time, causing a series of explosions which create a visual effect that defies any description.

This mini-war that he creates himself in the theater brings him back to the start of his madness, to the explosion that marked his life both literally and metaphorically in the battlefield; only this time he has the illusion that he is the one in control of everything and everyone around him.

Sebastian watches in shock as Stefano realizes his latest concept

Stefano is, from many aspects, a fascinating villain. His appearance is stylish, classy, and marginally eccentric, with a toned-down flamboyant elegance. He is a young and handsome man, but his soul and his mind are of the worst kind of evil. His Italian descent gives him an air of charm and beauty that is the exact opposite of his real self. In that sense, he is more or less like his photographs. Art as a concept takes a distorted form in his head and is realized in the most disturbing ways. His missing eye has been replaced with a camera lens, which makes him see everything around him as photographic stills, even before he actually takes a photo.

Disappointed from what he considers to be a shallow approach of his work, he has created an alternate reality within the virtual reality of Union. He is able to alter the environment around him and transform it the way that he pleases, and thus he has turned several places of the town into his own personal artistic domain. The Grand Theater and the City Hall in particular are like some kind of Museums of Horror, where he has his artworks set around so that he is able to admire them as much as he wants and preserve them for eternity.

Stefano's domain is a place full of nightmarish displays of all kinds

His chemistry with Sebastian is extremely intense and dominates everything else for the whole first half of the story. Sebastian is as clear and pure as Stefano is dark and perverted. This contrast becomes even more powerful when taking into consideration that Stefano is almost a decade younger than Sebastian, as it intensifies the fact that Sebastian has maintained his unadulterated heart despite the nightmares he's been through and the evil he has encountered, while Stefano not only succumbed to his dark side when he met the horror and evilness of war and embraced it, but moreover found pleasure in it.

Sebastian and Stefano have an intense hero/villain chemistry

Sebastian enters Stefano's twisted world rather unexpectedly at the very beginning of the game, when he finds himself in an empty and tall dark room, decorated with long, red curtains that swing slightly as if moved by a ghostly wind. The whole place looks like a dismantled theatrical stage.

The entrance to the artist's domain looks like the scenery of a nightmare

A bit further, he goes through a door and he enters a smaller room where there is a photo of a door on one wall and an identical real door on another. By looking at the photo of the door, Sebastian is able to open the real door behind him and proceed. It is as if the photo became reality; or maybe reality manifested itself as a photo so as to drag him in? Nothing is clear inside STEM, and most importantly, nothing is friendly. As Sebastian goes along a corridor, Tchaikovsky's music is heard from a distance, and soon Sebastian comes across a frozen display, featuring William Baker, the leader of the Mobius search team that went missing. The same room also hosts several photos on the walls, associated with other victims, that will reappear later on.

Sebastian watches one of Stefano's frozen displays, featuring William Baker

By revealing a secret passage nearby, Sebastian enters a bizarre and disturbing building with long corridors, red curtains and gory photos on the walls, which seems to be Stefano's private place as he can be seen walking around, teleporting himself from one place to another, changing the layout of the rooms, making doors appear or disappear. A woman that you see crying for help behind a glass door disappears seconds after, and it is just Stefano and Sebastian alone in the artist's domain.

Sebastian is not just one more random victim for Stefano. This becomes very clear from the start, from the first time that the two of them cross paths. In the room where Sebastian sees Stefano for the first time, where Stefano stabs a young man then shoots him with his camera, Sebastian hides behind a couch after witnessing the scene. As Stefano passes by him, he stops for a moment, throws a look sideways to the direction where Sebastian is crouching and literally smells him, letting out a lustful groan.

Stefano's senses are enhanced whenever Sebastian is closeby

Moving on, Sebastian goes down to the basement where there is a storage room full of hanging corpses. This very interesting room is in fact a stripped down version of the vicious circle in which Stefano has willingly trapped himself. And the word vicious in his case is rather literal. When you first enter the room, it has several corpses covered with sheets, hanging from the ceiling. As you approach the back wall, you can see a mural depicting a huge artistic eye, made with what looks like red paint but is probably human blood.

Just as you get closer, a noise makes you turn towards the opposite direction. You see then that the entrance from where you came in has disappeared and instead there is a solid wall there, and a mounted camera standing in front of it. A new noise makes you move to the back of the room again, and now a door has magically appeared where the eye initially was. As Sebastian opens the door, Stefano appears in front of him and shoots him with his camera. Turning towards the opposite direction again, Sebastian sees that the hanging corpses have been replaced with piles of stuff covered with cloth, and now there is a mirror on the wall where the mounted camera was minutes before; and on the mirror Sebastian finds the photo of himself that Stefano shot a few seconds before.

Stefano's deadliest weapon is his camera

The corpses, the mounted camera, Stefano with his own camera in hand, and a new victim, Sebastian: this scenery not only sums up Stefano's repeated activities in Union but moreover describes perfectly the confusion and derangement of his mind.

As soon as Sebastian takes his photo from the mirror, he catches a glimpse of a black-haired woman dressed in red behind him. She disappears immediately and at the same time the Guardian shows up from behind the glass, shatters the mirror and prepares to attack Sebastian, whose only rescue is the passage behind the mirror. So Sebastian runs through the looking glass, with the Guardian breathing (rather, laughing) down his neck, but this is definitely no Wonderland he is seeing. Suddenly Stefano appears from the opposite direction and throws a knife at him, hitting him on the shoulder. The key in this scene is the fact that, with stabbing Sebastian, Stefano is actually offering him a knife. In other words, he gives him an item that is vital for surviving for the rest of the adventure. It is as if he wants Sebastian to follow him, and as he is luring him into his world, he is making sure that he has at least the basic means to defend himself.

A bit later in Union, while following a signal on his communicator in his search for two missing soldiers, Sebastian enters a basement room where he has a vision in which Stefano has captured Ryan Turner, one of the soldiers, whom he soon kills and photographs, creating yet one more frozen display. As Sebastian is leaving this room, Stefano shows up again in the opened door and takes one more photo of him, then disappears. Before getting back outside, Sebastian enters a creepy dark room where there is a photo of the frozen display he just saw, showing Ryan at the moment of his murder.

Soldier Ryan's photograph (right) is an unedited capture of his frozen display (left)

It looks like Stefano treated Ryan a bit differently than his rest of his victims, as there are a few details that hint to that: he tied Ryan down and kept him like this for a while before killing him, instead of just taking him by surprise or chasing him then shooting him, like he did with the others. Additionally, he obviously took the time to observe and study his victim, both before and after the murder: along the walls of the corridor that connects the room where Ryan's frozen display is and the last room where his photo is hanging on the wall, are several other photos focusing on details like his eye and his hands, his head at the moment of death from various angles, as well as others showing parts of his severed body; in one of those, Stefano has added a butterfly. Moreover, the photo that captured his death is large and framed, as if Stefano wanted it to stand out from the rest.

There is no specific hint that could explain why Stefano would have this different behaviour towards Ryan; besides, we only have the chance to know very few things about him. From the visions triggered by the resonances in Sebastian's communicator, we can see that he was a tall and slender young man, and that he was somewhat ruthless since he was the one who planned to proceed in the Alpha One emergency plan. We could assume that Stefano, in his attempt to create 'his greatest work yet', considered some victims to be more fitting for this than the others, for whatever sick reason; and Ryan was one of them. 

Some time later, and after following Lily's voice via a signal, Sebastian enters a huge warehouse where his daughter sought refuge while being chased by Stefano. Once inside and in an upper room, Sebastian has a vision of Stefano searching for Lily and eventually finding her and dragging her out of her hiding place. While heading back outside, he sees Stefano again and runs after him. Seconds later, the words 'Smile For Me' appear on a wall at the end of a corridor and just at the exit, Stefano turns to the side and smells Sebastian the same way as before.

Stefano says this to most of his victims, but with Sebastian he outdoes himself

This is the point when Stefano decides to show Sebastian that he is very aware of his presence and that he wants to lead him somewhere. Before he disappears from that place, he activates the Aperture, a huge eye that covers Union's skyline, that has a camera lens in the place of the iris. With it, Stefano is able to watch Sebastian's movements all around Union, turning this into one more means to keep him on a tight leash.

Following a lead, Sebastian reaches the City Hall, which is isloated now that Union is slowly falling apart. The place looks and feels ominous, as if it is dominated by a dark presence - which indeed it is. As Sebastian approaches the main gate, Tchaikovsky's music piece starts playing again, this time through his communicator. The whole area is instantly overwhelmed by the familiar by now gloomy blue light and Stefano appears in the distance, luring Sebastian in his lair. As soon as he shows up, he stops for a second and turns towards his back, to make sure that Sebastian is following him.

Stefano wants to be sure that Sebastian is still after him

Just at the entrance, Sebastian finds another photo of himself taken from a distance, with the words 'Waiting For You' written on it. Stefano wants to make it very clear to him that he is not only one step ahead constantly, but he is also watching him wherever he goes; therefore there is no way Sebastian can get away.

The interior of the City Hall is just as empty and haunting as the exterior was. Large, deserted rooms with photos on the walls, yet one more frozen display in one hall featuring a soldier falling from an upper floor, and just behind a bright blue curtain, a puzzle awaits. Sebastian has to recreate a photo that is hanging on a wall; this photo is, like Ryan's, large and framed, and it shows a girl wearing a blue dress and an emerald necklace round her neck, posing next to a vase with roses. What makes this photo even more interesting is that it does not feature a dead body for a change.

A rare occasion where the model is alive in the shot

Still, it is no less creepy; the face of the girl is rubbed out, and the contrast of her bright blue dress and the red roses with the dusted dark background creates a chilling atmosphere that is transmitted to the room around. When the task is completed, a new section opens up; a long corridor with more framed photos on the walls left and right, and the phrase 'Appreciate The Art' written with blood on the far wall, closed in an empty frame. Sebastian also finds a newspaper clipping with an article about the case of a woman, Emily Lewis, who was found dead while her body had been decapitated. Emily was a model and actress, and a long-time friend of Stefano who was also her photographer.

Emily is obviously the girl in the blue dress, and the long corridor that opens up beyond the room where her photo is hanging, is dedicated to her. Stefano took a proper photo of her at first while she was alive (the one in the hall) and then killed her; and all the framed photos in the corridor are showing parts of her body during and after her murder.

Stefano is as imaginative as he is disturbing

Emily is yet another victim who, like Ryan, was treated differently from the others; although in this case there is an explanation: Emily was Stefano's friend before, unlike his other victims who were random people he didn't know. And not only that; with her short dark hair and her bright blue dress, Emily looks like a mirrored female version of Stefano. The pale blue eyes in her severed head are like his too, while she had brown eyes when she was alive. Stefano identifies with Emily in a rather twisted way, as he seems to both love and hate her. This, in extension, hints that he may have embraced his female side but at the same time he hates it, which again is quite complicated in itself, because Emily and subsequently his female side symbolize his art. In his slumber while in STEM, Stefano has gone back to his roots as an artist, where Emily represents the Muse who gives him inspiration; but because meanwhile he has moved far beyond the stage where he needs a muse in the classic sense, for this reason he wants to destroy Emily and all that, in his eyes, she stands for. The corridor in the City Hall is not the only room dedicated to her; there are also several photos showing parts of her dead body in the foyer of the theater where Sebastian will go later, and in one of them, that is focusing on her black hair, Stefano has added a butterfly.

Although this detail seems minor, it could be a clue that, with adding the butterfly, Stefano put some sort of mark on the victims that he considered unique. Emily was even 'honored' with a photo where she is shown to have butterfly wings - until you look more closely and realize what those wings really are.

This means that, since Sebastian is a unique victim too, he should have his butterfly. And indeed he has; his butterfly is actually Lily. Butterflies are associated with Lily in several ways, the most obvious and direct one having to do with something as simple and humble as the decoration of her room. But it goes even further and deeper than that. While Sebastian is investigating the case of the missing soldiers in the town, and just before going down to the basement where Ryan is held captive, a cryptic message appears on a wall, as if written with fire, warning him to not go there. Next to the words, there is a butterfly, which has a binary role: it serves as a bait for Sebastian, but also carries all the symbolism associated with Stefano's victims.

Stefano is the master or sick tricks

This long and twisted ritual that Stefano has prepared for Sebastian shows that the evil photographer sees our hero as his most unique victim for whom he has reserved a very special treatment before reaching the point of murder. He could very well capture Sebastian, kill him and photograph him just like he did with his previous victims, but instead he has set up a whole series of trials and tricks, until he decides it is time to introduce himself. Sebastian seems to be his only victim of whom he takes so many photos while still alive; and in these photos Stefano sadistically captures Sebastian's fear and anxiety. Nothing less than an extreme form of stalking; and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Stefano is more than likely obsessed with Sebastian on a sublevel; something that partly lies in the fact that Sebastian is Lily's father. Stefano may be a disturbed psychopath, but the intelligence that he had in his sane days is still there, so he is able to discern Sebastian's qualities that are very similar to Lily's - the high perception and guileless heart - which are exactly those responsible for her being chosen as the perfect core of STEM. Maybe subconsciously, he senses that Sebastian is like a grown-up version of Lily, so he may even go as far as to consider that if he were to use Sebastian somehow in the way that he plans to use Lily, he could create even greater things; but of course greatness is something very altered in Stefano's world.

The moment when Sebastian has Stefano within reach for the first time while in another room of the City Hall, is just when the latter shoots him with the camera, capturing him in a frozen display. Unlike Stefano's previous victims, Sebastian is still alive during the process, and Stefano decides that this is the perfect chance to introduce himself and declare Sebastian 'his art'.

Stefano exposes his twisted plans to Sebastian

Stefano's speech can have many interpretations at that point, one being literal and another conveying something more complex and twisted. He devotes time to examine Sebastian's frozen display, cuts his cheek with a dagger and seems to enjoy his agony too much, and in a way that goes a lot deeper than his standard sadism as a disturbed serial killer.

By capturing Sebastian in a frozen display, Stefano has a momentary victory and a few minutes' control over him. By cutting Sebastian's cheek, he puts his signature on his victim and marks him as 'his art'. All this makes the whole process look even more like a ritual and turns what would be a standard 'cat and mouse' chase into a twisted and sadistic game, that gets more and more complex and disturbing.

Stefano is marking Sebastian as his next work of art

Later on, Stefano locks himself up in the town's Grand Theater, in another part of Union, but when Sebastian arrives there, he sees that the gate that leads inside is blocked by barbed wire and guarded by two framed photos. Following the advice of the team's psychologist, he sets on to locate the actual place where the photos are and destroy them, so as to make the barrier outside the theater disappear.

This sequence is extremely interesting and revealing, as it puts both Sebastian and us in the essence of Stefano's 'work'. The two photos are of course as creepy as one would expect, but there is something rather artistic about them. To destroy them, Sebastian has to literally get in their interior, where he sees what they are really made of: corpse parts stitched together and combined with more corpse parts.

Stefano's art as it looks on the outside (left) and what it really is made from (right)

The inevitable battle between Stefano and Sebastian comes soon after Stefano has Sebastian witness the realization of his gruesome concept in the theater. He teleports away and makes sure that the path leading to him crumbles down, but still it is relatively easy for Sebastian to reach him; because Stefano wants Sebastian to get to him, but he also wants to have the upper hand in this sadistic game until the last minute.

As Sebastian gets closer to him, Stefano can be heard mumbling stuff about creating something great, for which he also needs an audience to make it complete. His speech is inconsistent and vague, and somewhat misleading; he clearly isn't planning to create his next piece with Lily in the role of the victim, as this means he would need to kill her, and therefore miss all the supernatural powers that he has gained so far thanks to her; moments before, he declared that with the power of the Core (Lily) he would create his art forever, implying that he intended to keep her with him so as to be able to accomplish his sick artistic plans. Taking into consideration all the extremes to which he has gone so far in his twisted game with Sebastian, it more likely means that has conceived a way to make use of Lily's full potential, so as to create a work of art featuring Sebastian, since he has already reserved a room especially for him.

When Sebastian arrives outside the room where Stefano awaits, it is revealed that is is a place he has seen before: when he first entered Stefano's domain, right after finding William Baker's frozen display, the entrance to that room was in a corridor, behind a locked metal gate, with a plaque on a pedestal standing at the front. Sebastian could see it through the bars but could not make out the details nor what was written on the plaque, but now he can see that it has his name engraved on it.

Sebastian's dedicated room was ready long before he arrived there

Stefano has plaques with the names of all of his victims placed outside the rooms that host their frozen displays or directly in front of them, but in all the other cases he obviously does this after killing them and having the displays ready, as his victims are chosen randomly or at least without any special preparations from his part. In Sebastian's case, however, he had already both the room and the plaque ready before Sebastian even had the chance to see him or know about him.

Sebastian's room is a large hall which looks like a gallery. This room, apart from resembling a lot the gallery room in Max's nightmare in Life Is Strange, where Mr Jefferson is chasing her, has yet one more peculiarity: almost all the photos in it show close ups of eyes and mouths. We could say that the eyes stand for Stefano's missing eye which now is a camera, and the mouths represent the screams of his victims that he so enjoyed hearing. During the boss fight, you may have the chance to notice that the photos are moving; sometimes the eyes turn upside down, other times the mouths become bloody; they are all constantly changing.

Yet another twisted exhibition by the unstoppable Stefano

Stefano uses his teleporting power to make things tough for Sebastian, while attempting to shoot him with his camera and capture him in an ideal frame. Every time he succeeds, he feels proud for his 'work' and praises himself, never failing to also praise Sebastian for being so perfectly frozen in time; and if Sebastian doesn't manage to move away from the frozen frame, Stefano rushes to him and stabs him with a fury that resembles lust too much, informing Sebastian that his death will be his 'masterpiece', leading even more to the confirmation that it is Sebastian whom he plans to make his 'greatest work yet'.

Stefano has a rather perverted view of what an artistic masterpiece is

Eventually Sebastian defeats him, and as Stefano falls down, he says with a tone of admiration in his voice, that Sebastian turned him into a masterpiece and grabs his camera for 'one last photo'. Being so obsessed with the idea of capturing the moment of death, one would imagine that he wants to take a photo of himself while dying, so as to capture his own such moment for eternity. Surprisingly enough, he doesn't do this, but attempts to take a shot of Sebastian instead, before Sebastian shoots him through the camera with his gun at just the last minute.

Before that, and while he is dying, we have the chance to look at Sebastian through Stefano's camera eye for a moment, and see how Stefano views the world around him: it is like everything has a red filter on, which makes his surroundings resemble constantly a dark room. It is as if the photographer absorbed the man and his whole being is a camera.

Stefano sees Sebastian in a dark room through his camera eye

In the first Evil Within, in chapter 4 (The Patient), Sebastian gets inside a house with Dr Martinez, looking for Leslie. It is a house like all the others in the village, and it also has several framed photographs on the walls. Those photographs have a vintage look and they seem to have a concept, like they portray the life in the countryside. One of them is of a girl who looks strikingly like Lily.

Although dressed in vintage style, the girl in the photo resembles Lily a lot

Things get creepier though when Sebastian and the doctor get down to the basement, where Leslie is hiding in an isolated room. That room, which seems totally unrelated with the place around it, is a photographer's dark room with several photos hanging from the ceiling to dry, and there is also one wall that is almost covered with photographs. If you look closely, you will see that nearly all of those photos are shots of Sebastian.

Either Sebastian is more famous than he knows or he has a creepy stalker

When Sebastian enters Stefano's domain at the start of The Evil Within 2, the door leading to the room of his final fight with Stefano can be seen through the metal gate, and it already has the plaque with his name engraved on it at the front. And in the next hall, as Sebastian heads towards the stairs leading up, a phone rings; when Sebastian answers it, Stefano can be heard laughing maliciously from the other end of the line.

Additonally, the room in the City Hall where the stable field emitter is (where Sebastian comes face to face with Stefano for the first time) is bathed in red light when Sebastian first finds it. It has a photography umbrella on the one side and lots of smudged photos on the walls, bringing that bizarre room from the first game to mind. This one here is like a mock dark room and it is as if it is set up for a photoshoot. Then Stefano enters and captures Sebastian in a frozen display, and moments later he summons the Obscura (a monster that is made of body parts and an old-time camera) to attack Sebastian.

All these details, as well as the fact that Stefano was a citizen of Krimson City before entering STEM, could be hints that Stefano knew about Sebastian before the events in The Evil Within 2; and in fact it wouldn't come as a surprise if he was really stalking Sebastian all this time, from Krimson City already, both in the real world and inside STEM.

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• Emily's Gallery
• Ryan's Gallery
• Sebastian's Gallery
• Stefano's Other Art
• Stefano's Domain

  

• Thanks to afterdarkmysweet for helping with the musical terminology