| Cassie O'Pia |
–Blurb from a Cassie O'Pia poster
Cassie O'Pia is a member of the Psychic Six. She wrote the popular self-help book, Mindswarm.
Appearance[]
Cassie is a tall, thin woman with chartreuse skin and graying black hair styled up on her narrow head. Her ears, nose, and mouth are very small. Long twigs, honey blobs, a honey dipper, and thorns adorn her hair. She normally wears a long, blue wool dress, brown wool shawl, and a three-ringed necklace with interjoining beads. Her beekeeper suit that she dons on top has filled honeycombs with pine needles, twigs and leaves sticking out of it, and she also wears a brown face mask with bee-like eyes.
Personality[]
Cassie is shown to be generally kind to others, especially her fans. Of the members of the Psychic Six that Raz encounters, she is the only one of them who is immediately willing to help him, eager to be useful again. However, like most of the other members of the Psychic Six, she is debilitated by her emotional issues after their confrontation with Maligula, leading to her powers being out of control. In her case, the loss of purpose following the battle and regrets over what happened have led to aspects of her personality be at war with each other, which prevent her from leaving her home.
Cassie, who has had to take on many different roles in her life, shows a belief that a person's "true self" is actually made up of the various personas and behaviors they exhibit. She herself has four such personas based on past events of her life: An arrogant writer, a disciplinarian librarian, a motherly teacher, and a shifty counterfeiter. As such, she is at times: creative and somewhat egotistical, strict and controlling, nurturing and kind, and shrewd and resilient. Additionally, the mental constructs of her friends suggest that Cassie has a sardonic side.
Cassie's mind also suggests that she is very well-read, is environmentally conscious (due to her dislike of hydraulic mining), has an affinity for animals (particularly her bees), and resents being ignored by her colleagues. She is also not a fan of snitches and regrets having been one herself.
Story[]
Background[]
In her youth, Cassie worked for a printing press in Shanghai, China, having been "dumped there" by her parents, where her boss, Fannie Flats, forced her to make counterfeit money. Eventually, Cassie was arrested and interrogated by the police, where she felt trapped, as she couldn't bear to see the consequences of keeping her mouth shut or snitching on her boss.
She eventually found the courage to snitch on Fannie, only to find out that the reason why the police wanted the information was to blackmail Fannie into giving them money, instead of arresting her. With the police practically leaving Cassie to fend for herself, she became increasingly worried that Fannie would eventually find out that she was the one who snitched. In order to create a way out, Cassie wrote a self-help book called "Mindswarm," which she surreptitiously self-published via the printing press at her job. The book became a hit, and she used some of the profits to buy a boat ticket and fled the country.
Once she had escaped, Cassie eventually joined a group of psychic researchers that would later be known as the Psychic Six. There she would befriend a man named Compton Boole, and the two of them would spend their time studying their shared ability to control bees and would bond over their shared love of bowling and beekeeping. Eventually, the group began experimenting with their psychic abilities, sometimes going so far as to experiment on themselves using a device called the Astralathe, a device designed to alter a person's psyche, which they used to broaden their consciousness and knowledge of how their minds worked.
Years later, tragedy struck as one of their former members, Lucrecia Mux, was warped by the war in her homeland of Grulovia into a genocidal monster known as Maligula. Cassie and the other members of the Psychic Six were summoned by the international community to deal with her before she caused any more damage, in what would become the first mission for the organization that was later named the Psychonauts. However, the group refused to harm their former friend, and instead tried to reason with her. After Helmut Fullbear preformed a heart-felt monologue that briefly brought Lucrecia out of her persona, Cassie then tried to encourage Lucrecia with a motivational speech from Mindswarm, but Maligula just threw water in her face.
Eventually, Maligula was defeated. After the remaining members mourned Helmut, who had seemingly perished in the conflict, the Psychonauts were given their own base, known as the Motherlobe, located near their old base in Green Needle Gulch, over the Psitanium mines the group had mined in the past. However, Cassie struggled to find her place in the organization, as Otto Mentallis and Compton took up most of the spotlight. Cassie tried to reach out to her friend, Ford Cruller, but he had his psyche shattered after the battle and didn't even recognize her.
Cassie tried her best to fit in, by going bowling with Compton, but the feelings of uselessness eventually got to her, and she retreated into Green Needle Gulch to continue her studies with her bees, in case Ford ever came back to his senses and decided to continue their work. But this loss of purpose, sense of identity, and overwhelming regrets festered over time, and caused Cassie to slowly lose control of her powers, and she subconsciously started controlling the bees to become cluster soldiers to protect her, while also preventing her from leaving.
As Cassie continued her work, Cassie started wearing a beekeeping suit covered in honeycomb, which caused pine needles, leaves, and twigs to stick to her. As result, whenever someone saw her, they would think she was some sort of monster, which spawned an urban legend that she was the "Green Needle Witch", a witch that would hug children to death. Hearing this, Cassie started to lean into to legend, in order to protect the area from people who would harm it.
Psychonauts[]
Cassie appears on a carved portrait in the Reception Area at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp.
Psychonauts 2[]
Cassie first appears when Raz ventures into the Forgotten Forest to gather some bees for Compton Boole, while she was under the guise of the Green Needle Witch (really her bee-keeping suit with pine needles stuck to it), a ghost story said to kill children by impaling them on her spikes. Raz runs into disguised Cassie and runs away when her bees chase after him. Raz manages to catch three bees for Compton however, allowing the man to eventually start seeking out Cassie, after overcoming his anxiety.
Raz eventually encounters Cassie again when he ventures into Green Needle Gulch and seeks to use the Astralathe, now covered in vines and swarming angry bees. Raz finds Cassie in her home, covered in honey and swarming with bees. When Raz asks for her help with the bees, she is initially very willing to help him, eager to be of use again after two decades. However, the bees prevent her from leaving, and Cassie states that she won't let her leave. Raz, concerned for her, enters her mind.
After Raz helps reconcile the different aspects of her mind, Cassie appears before Raz. Raz asks the reunited Cassie if she is the true Cassie, and she responds that she isn't sure, but her 'true self' is likely in there somewhere. With her mental problems conquered, Cassie follows Raz back to the Astralathe, where she tries to settle the bees swarming around the machine, only to find that she's unable to handle them on her own. Suddenly, she sees Compton Boole (who had been tracking Cassie down) come up to her, and the two friends reunite and take on the bees together, finally allowing Raz to access it.
Once Raz activates the Astralathe for Ford Cruller, Cassie and Compton arrive, and the two reunite with the now once again put-together Ford and Otto. They are then met with Bob Zanotto, standing next to Helmut Fullbear (in a borrowed body), who was thought to be deceased. The Psychic Six happily reunite after 20 long years, although they express their regret over how their former friend Lucrecia Mux couldn't be with them. This sentiment is interrupted by the arrival of Raz's Nona, who had been Lucrecia/Maligula all along (although she herself was unaware).
Ford and Raz bring the others up to speed: that Ford had shut Maligula away in Lucrecia's mind with the Astralathe after their climactic Battle in Grulovia, altering her and Augustus Zanotto's memories in the process and shattered his own psyche with the machine: all drastic measures to prevent Maligula from reemerging and keep Lucrecia safe. However, the alterations in Lucrecia's mind have weakened over time, and Maligula was certain to return if they didn't intervene soon.
With Cassie, Compton, Helmut, Bob, and Otto powering the Astralathe, Ford and Raz enter Lucrecia's mind to open mental chasm in Lucrecia's mind, and push Maligula in so she may never reemerge again. However, despite their efforts, Maligula awakens nonetheless due to outside interference. Cassie and the other members of the Psychic Six, as well as the current Psychonauts and Grisol Malik, are all swept up in the evil psychic's water maelstrom, leaving Raz to face Maligula. Raz, alongside his fellow Psychic Interns, emerges triumphant against Lucrecia's deranged alter-ego, and Maligula is finally sent into the deepest depths of Lucrecia's mind.
After Maligula is defeated, Cassie and Compton are found in Green Needle Gulch, having taken up beekeeping together again. They invite Raz over later for dinner.
Relationships[]
Ford Cruller[]
Cassie is shown to have had a strong admiration of Ford and was greatly dismayed when his mind broke. She left the Psychonauts partly to tend to their old base in hopes for his eventual return.
Compton Boole[]
Compton was Cassie's best friend. Her mind shows that she understands that Boole greatly relied on her and misses her. The two reunite thanks to Raz, and the two of them resume beekeeping together.
Otto Mentallis[]
Not much is known about Cassie's relationship with Otto, although Cassie thought that Otto wasn't as smart as he tried to be, as we see a version of Otto saying so in Cassie's mind. She was also frustrated that Otto and Lucrecia were using hydraulic mining to mine for psitanium due to the environmental cost of that method, but was ultimately ignored.
Lucrecia Mux[]
Not much is known about Cassie's relationship with Lucrecia, except that Cassie tried to be her friend, but she was too busy making "goo-goo eyes" at Ford, according to a version of Lucrecia in Cassie's mind. This version of Lucrecia also shows that Cassie thought of her as a truly nice person, and is somewhat at a loss over how she of all people could have turned into Maligula. Cassie seems to remember Lucrecia mostly as the person she once was, and not as Maligula.
Bob Zanotto[]
Although they were colleagues, Cassie and Bob were apparently not very close to one another, as she is shown to only vaguely remember his affinity to plants.
Helmut Fullbear[]
Not much is known of their relationship, but Cassie's mental image of Helmut suggests that she thought of him as flamboyant, theatrical and somewhat removed from reality at times. She affectionately refers to him as "Big Bear."
Psychic Powers[]
- Mental Projection: Cassie's special PSI power is Mental Projection.
- Time Bubble: Sniffles, a mental figure representing Cassie, can use Time Bubble.
- Zoolingualism: Similar to her colleague, Compton Boole, Cassie is able to communicate with animals. She is associated with bees in particular.
- Astral Projection: Cassie can use the Astralathe to enter minds.
- Levitation: Cassie is shown using levitation while sitting near the Astralathe machine.
Cassie's Mind[]
Main article: Cassie's Collection
Cassie's mind is a giant library.
Etymology[]
Cassie O'Pia is a homophone of Cassiopeia, a queen in ancient Greek mythology. Cassie is also short for Cassandra, a Greek name meaning "prophetess".
Trivia[]
- Cassie underwent a significant redesign for Psychonauts 2 compared to the image of her that appears at Whispering Rock and continued to be used in early development footage of the sequel.
- While not mentioned in-game, one of the track titles from the Psychonauts 2 soundtrack, "Cassie's Library and Shanghai Memories", confirms Cassie's hometown to be Shanghai, China.
- Cassie wears lifts so she can reach her upper hives.