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Ethan Mars

Revision as of 10:29, 21 April 2015 by Nixerix (Message Wall | contribs)
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Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.


“ You are the best thing that's ever happened to me in my life. I want you to know that whatever happens, I love you more than anything in the world.
—Ethan to his son, Shaun
 ”

Ethan Mars is one of the three main protagonists in Heavy Rain and is overall the central character of the game, and is also one of the four playable characters (the other three being Scott Shelby, Norman Jayden and Madison Paige). Up until 2009, Ethan lived an idyllic and happy life as a successful architect alongside his loving wife Grace Mars and his two sons, Jason and Shaun Mars. However, Ethan's life took the first of two tragic turns when his son Jason was killed. Heavy Rain, set two years later in 2011, focuses on Ethan during the kidnapping of his second son, Shaun Mars.

Ethan Mars is voiced by and modeled after Pascal Langdale.

Biography

Leading Up to Events of Heavy Rain

The main narrative of Heavy Rain picks up two years after Jason's death in The Mall. Ethan was in a coma for six months after the accident, and he is shown to be fully immersed in self-guilt and remorse over Jason's death. In fact, if Jason had been Ethan's only son, it is possible that Ethan would've committed suicide (as is evident when Ethan commits suicide if Shaun also dies). Also, the events of the mall have given Ethan agoraphobia (intense fear of crowds) and blackouts where he loses consciousness.

It is Shaun Mars's disappearance that causes Ethan's life to take a darker turn, and causes him to be sent into more worry. Fortunately, the kidnapper of Shaun -- the Origami Killer -- has not killed Shaun and is holding him captive. He is given Ethan a phone that has a hangman with various blank lines. These underlines are actually unknown letters; by completing Trials sent from the killer, Ethan will get a set number of letters. This is what shapes the game's central question, "How far are you prepared to go to save your son?" These trials become increasingly difficult and morally taxing, and Ethan logically reasons against all five of them in his thoughts.

Start of Game

A normal day of Ethan's life is shown in Prologue. Then, in The Mall, he and his family go shopping at a very crowded mall. When Grace and Shaun go into a shoe store, Jason runs off to a clown -- when Ethan finds him, The Clown sells him a balloon, but before Ethan can pay the $2 for it, Jason runs off. Wasting a considerable amount of time paying the clown, Ethan runs off incredibly worried about Jason. He and Jason eventually meet on opposite sides of the street; however, Jason runs off to Ethan without noticing the car coming up the street. Ethan rushes towards Jason and tries to push him out of the way; however, Ethan is too late, and Jason is seemingly hit by the car at full impact, whilst Ethan is also hit though unseen where, and is plunged into a 6-month coma.

Chapter Appearances

Endings

Ethan has the most possible endings, with 7, of any character. These are, from worst to best, all his endings. The first three endings are all the result of Ethan killing himself over Shaun's death.

  • Helpless - Ethan is imprisoned and accused to be the Origami Killer, and is completely devastated over Shaun's death. Filled with remorse and severely depressed, Ethan hangs himself in his cell.
  • Origami Blues - Ethan sits alone in his motel room, with neither Madison or Shaun at his side. Filled with grief over Shaun's death, he shoots himself in the forehead with the pistol from the shoebox.
  • Tears in the Rain - Ethan and Madison visit Shaun's grave. Madison begs Ethan to move on and start a new family with her and he asks her for a moment to say goodbye. Madison complies and goes off to wait in the car, but turns around just in time to see Ethan draw a pistol out of his pocket and shoot himself in the head. Unable to stop him, Madison cries hysterically over his body as the scene zooms out.
  • Ethan's Grave - Shaun and Grace mourn over Ethan's grave. If Scott and/or Madison are alive, they'll be seen separately in the background, quietly observing them.
  • Innocent - Ethan is released from prison after his name is cleared. Shaun and Grace greet him at the police station and it is implied that Ethan and Grace will try to re-establish their relationship.
  • A New Start - Ethan and Shaun move into a new apartment together and both look genuinely happy for the first time in years.
  • A New Life - Ethan, Shaun and Madison move into their new apartment. It is implied that Madison and Ethan are married. Madison tells Ethan that, with time, they'll learn to forget the horrible things that happened like they were just nightmares and that they've earned the right to be happy.

It should be noted that Ethan will always commit suicide if Shaun dies.

Trials

Main Article: Trials

During the game, Ethan must partake in five trials to obtain groups of letters of an address that will ultimately lead him to his son's location.

  • The Bear - Drive against traffic on the highway for five miles within five minutes.
  • The Butterfly - Crawl through a tunnel filled with broken glass, then go through a maze of electrical condensers.
  • The Lizard - Cut the last section of one of his fingers off in five minutes.
  • The Shark - Kill a man (who in Ethan's case, is Brad Silver).
  • The Rat - Drink a bottle of poison that will kill him in 60 minutes/one hour (the poison doesn't really kill him and is more a test of will from the Origami Killer to see if he is capable of making the sacrifice of himself to save Shaun).

Romance

Ethan can develop an intimate relationship with Madison Paige, and the player later has the option of consummating their relationship. If (forgiven) Madison and Ethan survive and Shaun is saved, Ethan will be married to Madison in the "A New Life" ending and purchase a home, the three of them living happily ever after.

Trivia

  • Ethan is similar to Lucas Kane from Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit: they both are survivors, have extraordinary experience, and found an important woman in their life to love. (Madison Paige is optional, but Carla Valenti is fated.)
  • Two years before Heavy Rain's release, Ethan's house was depicted as being much smaller.
  • "Father And Son"'s loading screen is different from any others that Ethan appears in.
  • Unlike Madison Paige, Scott Shelby, and Norman Jayden, Ethan fights less than the others. Being a family man, he is not a trained fighter.
  • Out of the four main characters, Ethan has the lowest number of deaths in the game, although he has the highest number of Epilogues (Helpless, Origami Blues and Tears in the Rain) in which he dies. The only chapter in which Ethan can die is The Old Warehouse.
  • The Old Warehouse is the only death that does not involve Ethan committing suicide; instead, he gets killed by the police if he goes alone or if Madison fails to warn him when all three characters go. On a related note, there is an ambiguity error with how the police do not arrive if it is just Ethan+Madison, Ethan+Norman, or Madison+Norman.
  • He is one of only two main characters (the other being Scott) who cannot die before The Old Warehouse. However, unlike Scott, he can end up skipping one chapter -- The Rat (if he is imprisoned). This leaves Scott Shelby as the only main character who cannot skip a chapter (not counting Goodbye Lauren).
  • Ethan crosses paths with Norman Jayden four times, Madison Paige numerous times, and Scott Shelby twice. Once in the mall (which is revealed in The Old Warehouse) and in The Old Warehouse, although the only time Ethan confronts Scott in person was in The Old Warehouse.
  • Ethan is 5'11" tall.
  • The only chapter where Ethan appears as a non-playable character is Under Arrest.
  • During the early stages of Heavy Rain, Ethan's blackouts were originally going to involve dreams, including him swimming underwater, trying to save Shaun, and seeing John Shepperd. These dreams were removed due to the lack of story progression.
  • The only scenes from Chapter 1 where Ethan does not appear are Sleazy Place, Crime Scene, and Hassan's Shop.
  • Ethan is the only main character to be playable in another character's chapter. He is playable during Norman's chapter, Welcome, Norman, and Madison's chapter, First Encounter, The Nurse, and Fugitive.
    • Scott is the only main character to not have Ethan either as playable or cameo.
  • Ethan was voted #11 on Game Informer's "30 Characters Who Defined A Decade."
  • Most of Ethan's deaths involve him getting shot; however, the only one where Ethan dies without being shot is Helpless, where he hangs himself with a rope.
  • Even though Ethan suspects himself of being a schizophrenic, the symptoms he describes are actually more typical of Disassociative Identity Disorder -- often wrongly associated with schizophrenia.
  • He appears in 21 chapters, more than the other 3 characters. The only one of which he cannot be played as is Under Arrest. He is also partly playable in The Old Warehouse if he gets to the warehouse.
  • Seven of the epilogues are based around him. He also appears in one of Madison's epilogues, Dead Heroine, in which he will be seen mourning near her grave if he is alive. This gives him the largest amount of endings, even though three of them all revolve around him committing suicide.
  • It is often believed that Ethan's storyline is the saddest, most depressing, and the most likely to induce crying. Some surveys have shown that 35% of women who played Heavy Rain cried at least once, and 10% of men.
  • Unlike Norman and Madison, Ethan is the only playable character who can't be killed by Scott Shelby.
  • Ethan shares his first name with a character from another game who loses a finger throughout the course of his game, Ethan Thomas from Condemned: Criminal Origins.
  • Ethan and Madison are the only playable characters who can take a shower in the game. Even though during one of Jayden's chapters, he resists his Triptocaine addiction by sitting in a running shower.
  • Ethan only murders two people, neither of whom he is required to kill. This makes him tied with Madison as the least murderous of all four characters.
  • Ethan's penis can be fully exposed through an unusual glitch during his shower scene.
  • Ethan is given a stainless Taurus PT92 by the Origami Killer to use in The Shark trial.

Quotes

  • "Everything I did, I did for love."
  • "JAAAASOOONN!!!!"
  • "SHAAAUUN!!!"
  • "I'm a father too... But I'm no killer."
  • "I'm a father too... But I have no choice."
  • "Where are you Shaun?"
  • "I gotta get out of here, I gotta save my son."
  • "I don't know what to say."
  • "I thought I meant something to you."
  • "You're a pretty good nurse for a fucking journalist!"
  • "You lied to me, Madison! All this time you fucking lied to me! I thought you wanted to help me, but you only thinking of writing a fucking book?
  • "To the last Origami figure, the last letters then I know where Shaun is."
  • "I'll find you Shaun, I'll figure out a way, and I'll come and get you."
  • "No one's gonna stop me from saving my son."
  • "All those murders, just to find a father capable of saving his son?"
  • "You got what you wanted. I finished your trials, now let us go."
  • "Shaun! Shaun, can you hear me? Daddy's here. I'm gonna get you out of there."
  • "I finished your damn trials, now give me back my son."
  • "Cut off a finger?! No way!"
  • "I kidnapped my son. But I can't remember what happened."

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