| Helmut Fullbear |
–Helmut
Helmut Fullbear is a member of the Psychic Six, who specializes in using his psychic abilities in stage performances, most notably his "Psychodyssey". He was widely believed to have died 20 years before the events of Psychonauts 2, in the Battle of Grulovia, however his brain is now stationed at the Motherlobe. He is the husband of Bob Zanotto.
Appearance[]
Before the Battle of Grulovia, Helmut was a tall and large man. He had ginger hair, pink skin, bushy eyebrows, and a mustache. He typically wore a viking helmet and a colorful outfit.
Personality[]
Helmut has a great love for life, color, and the beauty of the world around him, but above all, he loves to perform. He is a gentle, optimistic man who cares deeply for his friends, and especially for his husband Bob. Helmut believes in peace and the unity of all things in the universe.
After being without his body and outside contact for 20 years, Helmut's memories and sense of identity atrophied, and had almost completely forgotten his past life, but largely retained his curious and life-loving personality. He experiences sensory overload once his brain is put into a temporary body (exacerbated by his synesthesia), becoming prone to panic attacks as he readjusts. Eventually he regains his memories, only to remember that he'd seemingly been forgotten and abandoned for 20 years. He eventually comes to terms with the pain after realizing that no one had truly forgotten about him (aside from Ford, whose mind had shattered), and finally regains his composure and re-acclimates to the world.
Story[]
Background[]
Helmut was initially a traveling musician who performed a stage show called "Helmut's Psychodyssey", in which he used his psychic powers to project mental images while singing. Unfortunately, not many people came to see it, and the show was eventually cancelled. Luckily for Helmut, his show attracted Ford Cruller, who recruited him into a team of psychic researchers, which was later named the Psychic Six, becoming its seventh member. As he performed his stage show for the group, Bob Zanotto was instantly smitten. The two fell in love and eventually got married. 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, in order to broaden their consciousness and knowledge of how their minds worked.
Years later, tragedy stuck, 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. Helmut and his friends 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. Helmut attempted to appeal to her humanity with a heart-felt monologue about how important she was to them. This did snap Lucrecia out of her murderous persona, though only briefly. Maligula proceeded to attack Bob, but Helmut jumped in the way of the attack, causing him to get flung into a lake just as the Hyperhyglaciator, created by Otto Mentallis to render Maligula powerless, went off and froze all the water.
Before losing consciousness at the bottom of the freezing lake, Helmut took out a capsule of super sneezing powder he carried for emergencies, which caused his brain to shoot out of his body and out of the water, where it was discovered by Ford. Ford put Helmut's disembodied brain into a jar and took it home with him, but his attempts to use the Astralathe to cover up the truth of what happened resulted in his own mind being left fractured, which caused him to forget about the brain.
The other Psychonauts searched tirelessly for Helmut in the frozen lake, but could not find him. Unbeknownst to them, Helmut's brain remained in a jar at the Heptadome, causing his consciousness to atrophy and fall into darkness. The brain was eventually discovered many years later when his fellow founder, Otto Mentallis, wandered in by coincidence. Oblivious about its identity, Otto left it in his hall of brains as an unprocessed mind and labelled it as "Heptadome Harry".
Psychonauts[]
Helmut appears only in a carved portrait in the reception area at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp.
Psychonauts 2[]
Raz first meets Helmut when he looks for a "loaner brain" for Nick Johnsmith's brainless body, so he can gain access to the office inside the Mailroom. He picks out an anonymous unprocessed mind from Otto's Hall of Brains known only as "Heptadome Harry". When he uses his Psycho-Portal to enter the mind, he finds only total darkness and the Mote of Light, the remains of Helmut's sense-deprived consciousness. The Mote is happy to have a visitor after all of these years. Laughing with glee, it remembers words and the existence of other people beyond itself, and enthusiastically consents to being returned to a body.
Upon being inserted into Nick's body, Helmut immediately becomes overwhelmed by all the sensations he'd missed for so long, as he ecstatically runs around trying to experience his surroundings. Raz enters his mind again to help him get a grip on the situation.
Inside Helmut's Mind, colors and images of Nick are swirling all over, and Helmut experiences a Panic Attack that Raz tries to fight off—unsuccessfully, as the creature proves too fast to keep up with. The Mote of Light shouts at the universe to shut up, tuning everything out and leaving a dark void that now has a sense of space and some wispy silhouettes that represent long forgotten memories. Not long after, there's a knocking on the wall: Vision Quest, a representation of Helmut's sense of vision, shows up to grab the Mote of Light, who he refers to as "PSI King", and take him outside of the void, which turns out to be the inside of a Memory Vault. Raz follows them out into the newly formed Sensorium, a mental world that takes the form of a colorful music festival celebrating the senses.
In the Sensorium, Vision Quest faces a rowdy crowd that awaits a show called the Feast of the Senses. For this musical performance, all five of the missing band members that represent Helmut's senses and their instruments need to be tracked down. Raz and the Mote of Light first visit the Eye Shrine, a domain inside Vision's eye where his violin can be found. The crowd isn't satisfied with his violin solo, though, and so the group sets off in the Feel Mobile to find Audie O and Dr. Touch at the Campgrounds, and Tasty and Sniffles at the Concession Stands. While there, Raz and the Mote enter domains dedicated to hearing and touch, and taste and smell, respectively, to recover the other members' instruments as well. For each recovered instrument, the Mote of Light also transforms to add an eye, nose, ears, mouth, and nose to its form.
Finally, the group can properly perform. As the PSI King sings his song "Cosmic I/Smell the Universe", he regains his old identity and takes on his old body's form, until the show is rudely interrupted by a traumatic memory of Maligula. She reminds Helmut of the Battle of Grulovia, and of the 20 years of abandonment he suffered at the hands of his friends. This terrifies and overwhelms him so much he shuts everything out again, returning to being the Mote of Light in the darkness of the memory vault. One memory at a time, Raz helps him come to terms with the events of 20 years ago, and reminds him that his friends really did care about him all these years. This gives Helmut the strength to fight back, and he traps the mental Maligula in a time bubble so Raz can finish her off.
Back in the real world, Helmut has now gotten used to having a body again, but after opening the Mailroom for Raz, he decides he wants to lay low for now and talk to Bob before anybody else learns of his return.
Helmut returns after Raz completes Bob's Bottles, finally reuniting with his husband (though still in Nick's body). The two help Raz clear the Astralathe of vines and walk off to Helmut's old stage area to talk in private. They later meet up with the rest of the Psychic Six and work together to get the Astralathe up and running.
In the post-game, Helmut and Bob can be found in the Nerve Center at the Motherlobe, as they prepare to set off for Grulovia so Helmut can try to track down his body by sensing its location. Helmut has been removed from his borrowed body by this point, and now rolls around in a ball similar to Larry and Pam.
Etymology[]
"Helmut" is a German name. From old German, the first element deriving from either heil ("healthy") or hiltja ("battle"), and the second from muot ("spirit, mind, mood"). It also derives from the Germanic words for "mind" and "protection".
Psychic Powers[]
- Time Bubble: Helmut's specialty PSI-power is Time Bubble. He is depicted in a mural in the Motherlobe with time imagery.
- Projection: Helmut uses what may be a variant of this power to produce visuals to go along with his performances.
- Telepathy: Helmut uses telepathy to speak while in his brain ball.
- Telekinesis: Helmut uses telekinesis to move around his brain ball.
- Levitation: Helmut can be seen using levitation while in Nick's body.
Relationships[]
Bob Zanotto[]
Bob Zanotto is Helmut's colleague and husband. The two love each other dearly, and Bob was left a total wreck after Helmut's disappearance 20 years ago.
Even before fully remembering his own identity, Helmut's mind has no less than eight figments shaped like Bob, and one more shaped like his glasses. Both of their minds contain sets of figments that portray their wedding, with all of their friends in attendance, and Bob's Bottles has an entire area that represents their wedding cake, with a colossal statue of Helmut at the top. Audie O, the representation of Helmut's sense of hearing, takes on Bob's shape and voice.
Ford Cruller[]
Ford is a close friend of Helmut's, and was the man who recruited him into the Psychonauts. Though Helmut was deeply hurt by seemingly being abandoned by the Psychic Six, and especially by Ford, who recovered his brain only to leave it forgotten in the Heptadome, he knows deep down that they genuinely cared about him, and he does not blame them for what happened. Vision Quest, the representation of Helmut's sense of vision, takes on Ford's shape and voice.
Cassie O'Pia[]
Cassie is a close friend and colleague of Helmut's. Sniffles, the representation of Helmut's sense of smell, takes on Cassie's shape and voice.
Compton Boole[]
Compton is a close friend and colleague of Helmut's. Tasty, the representation of Helmut's sense of taste, takes on Compton's shape and voice.
Otto Mentallis[]
Otto is a close friend and colleague of Helmut's, as well as the one who found and recovered his lost brain. Dr. Touch, the representation of Helmut's sense of touch, takes on Otto's shape and voice.
Lucrecia Mux[]
Lucrecia and Helmut used to be close friends and colleagues. Despite the traumatic things Lucrecia has done in the past, Helmut was willing to reconcile with her when he met her again after all their years apart.
Razputin[]
Razputin is a friend of Helmut's who helped him reconnect with his senses and cope with the emotions that came with his restored memories, for which he is very grateful. Raz looks up to Helmut, as he does towards all of the members of the Psychic Six.
Trivia[]
- Helmut's stage name, "PSI King", is a pun on the words Psychic and Viking.
- In the mural at the Motherlobe that depicts the Psychic Six, he appears to be dancing in the air holding a comedy and tragedy mask, symbolizing his great love for the performing arts.
- Helmut's clothing—in particular his trademark viking helmet—seems to indicate that he has Scandinavian origins. The helmet is, however, repeatedly referred to as a stage prop, meaning it may only be a costume choice for the "Psychodyssey".
- The letters in Ford's Mind addressed to Helmut list his location as "Bottom of a Frozen Lake, Grulovia".
- An official Double Fine Discord Q&A explained that the brain in a jar is a synesthete[1]. Synesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory pathway. This phenomenon is observable in his mental world where his senses are often intertwined with each other, an example being how each sense is represented by a color and a different musical instrument.
- His voice actor, Jack Black, has a history of working with Double Fine, voicing Eddie Riggs (the protagonist of Brütal Legend) as well as Harm'ny Lightbeard in Broken Age. Jack Black is also a well-known movie actor and voice actor, notably voicing Po from DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda, and is one half of the comedy rock music duo Tenacious D alongside Kyle Gass.
- If Raz uses Clairvoyance on Helmut while he is still processing being reunited with his senses, he will see Raz as a wild burst of colors. If he uses Clairvoyance again afterwards, Helmut will see him dressed as a small Eddie Riggs, a roadie (which likely indicates that he sees Raz as a roadie to hang out with) and the main character of Double Fine's Brütal Legend. Just like Helmut, Eddie was voiced by Jack Black.
- In one interview with composer Peter McConnell, he revealed that Helmut was initially meant to more overtly be a classical opera singer, as his costume would imply. The decision to make him more 60s rock opera-themed was made before McConnell had to write any opera music.[2]