Characters / South of Midnight

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Hazel Flood

Voiced by: Adriyan Rae

The protagonist, a spunky young woman living in the Deep South town of Prospero on a mission to find her mother after losing her in a hurricane. She ends up finding much more than that...

• Action Girl: Hazel is adept at using her hooks to fight Haints.
• Affectionate Nickname: Lacey calls Hazel "Bug", along with variations like "Little Bug" or "Baby Bug".
• Apologetic Attacker: When fighting the Rougarou, due to her having learnt about Laurent's troubled past.
• Braids of Action: Both variants, starting out with two braids on each side, and later forming one braid after visiting Bunny in Chapter 6.
• Character Development: Hazel starts out an overall good kid but self-centered and impatient. Becoming a weaver and seeing others' trauma up close turns her into an All-Loving Hero who knows how to slow down and listen.
• Character Narrator: Takes over narration duties from Chapter 10.
• The Chosen One: She's a Weaver, a sorceress chosen by the land itself to mend knots and tears within the Grand Tapestry.
• Forced Dance Partner: Near the end of the game, Hazel enters a dreamland and ventures into Kooshma's Cabaret. Inside the venue, Roux manipulates her to walk onto the stage and dance a jazzy number with him.
• Justified Extra Lives: Her occupation as a weaver seems to give her some advantage on avoiding death and danger, so whenever she falls into water or off a ledge, she's teleported to the nearest save point, which is something she acknowledges when chasing her house down the river.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: Hazel starts out wearing her everyday tank, jeans and sneakers, representing her inexperience. Bunny gives her granddaughter fancier clothes before sending her in the direction she wants. Roux changes this outfit into a more glamorous style that is still sporty enough to suit Hazel's tastes, representing how she has matured over the course of her adventure.
• Sympathy for the Devil: As a weaver, she often glimpses the pasts of those who are troubled. Even when they're causing a lot of trouble themselves, she feels bad for them. Despite everything that Bunny has done to her, her loved ones and the people and creatures of the land, Hazel can't help but genuinely feel bad for her losing both her children.

Lacey Flood

Voiced by: Cynthia McWilliams

Hazel's mother, a social worker.

• Parents as People: She's a loving mother to Hazel who works hard to provide for her, including new running shoes for her track and field, but her secretive nature about her job and its long hours has strained their relationship to the point Hazel questions if Lacey cares more about foster kids than her.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Lacey's commitment to helping children and frustration with red tape drive her to bring her charges to Huggin' Molly, which is really outside of a normal social worker's options.

Crouton

Voiced by: N/A

A beloved ragdoll of Hazel's that she unexpectedly ends up giving sentience to with her Weaver powers. From that point on, he can be controlled to enter spaces that she can't in order to solve puzzles and access collectibles.

• Badass Adorable: Crouton is a plump living doll which accompanies Hazel. At the start of chapter 10, he takes one of her hooks to defend her unconscious body.
• Compact Infiltrator: Crouton's main use is squeezing into spaces too small for Hazel to solve puzzles and gain certain collectable items.
• Living Toys: Thanks to Hazel, who unintentionally brings him to life with her Weaver powers.

Bunny Flood

Voiced by: Debra Cardona

• Abusive Parents: One to Hazel's father Trey. She significantly favoured her daughter Cherie over him, angrily yelling at him when the latter got her dress dirty. She never forgave him for accidentally causing her death, and outright tells Hazel that she considers him a "mistake".
• It's All About Me: Bunny never ever compromises when it comes to getting what she wants, going so far as to butcher innocent creatures and try to bring her daughter back to life.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Hazel remarks how beautiful Bunny looked when she was young when looking at pictures of her with her husband and on her wedding day.
• Manipulative Bastard: When Hazel goes to the Flood mansion at the start of the game, after she tells Bunny that she can see strands, Bunny locks her up in a room and Hazel has to sneak out. When Hazel encounters Bunny in her weekend mansion, Bunny manipulates her into going after Huggin' Molly, letting her believe that Molly is an evil child-stealing creature. By the time Hazel realizes her mistake, Bunny has come to Molly's lair to cut out her heart.
• Old Money: The Floods are shown to own several of the factories in the Prospero area.
• Outliving One's Offspring: She's outlived both of her children by the present day.
• Parental Favoritism: Deconstructed to hell and back. The stigma around Bunny's weekend home shows that Bunny was always more partial to Cherie than Trey: the house has many more pictures of her with Cherie than with Trey, and memories show her often pulling Trey up for not paying attention to Cherie (when she wasn't herself) and for dirtying her dress. She never forgave Trey for causing Cherie to accidentally drown.
• Rich Bitch: The wealthiest person in town who carries herself with an air of arrogance and entitled attitude.

Trey Flood

Voiced by: Jim Conroy

• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Hazel was still a child when Trey died and she maintains a place in her heart for him, often talking about how she misses him.
• Posthumous Character: Trey is long dead by the start of the game, but put much of the story in motion by accidentally causing Cherie's death, spurring Bunny on to resurrect her, and revealing the existence of Huggin' Molly to Lacey, who would work with the creature to rescue abused kids.
• Uptown Girl: Trey, whose family owns most of Prospero, married working-class Lacey. Bunny disowned him for this, but Trey was happier with Lacey and little Hazel than he ever was with his mother.

Cherie Flood

• Death of a Child: And a Plot-Triggering Death at that. See, to keep their mother from yelling at him (again), Trey tried to rinse her clothes off in the lake but he lost his grip on her and she drowned, causing Bunny to seal her in a tree and search for means to resurrect her.

The Catfish

Voiced by: Walt Roberts

• Character Narrator: Narrates Hazel's story in the intra-chapter storybook segments and plays a vital role in her quest to find and save her mother. He also narrates the memories Hazel sees.
• A Dog Named "Dog": He's only referred to as Catfish and there's no indication that he has another name.
• Fiendish Fish: Subverted. He might have the appearance and size of one, but he's nothing short of friendly and helpful to Hazel.

Benjy

• Cain and Abel: The Abel to Rhubarb's Cain. Rhubarb, resentful for how accommodating Benjy had taken up so much of his life, lured his brother into a hollow tree, then nailed him inside and left him to die.
• Gentle Giant: He's a skyscraper of a tree that yields peaches the size of cars.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: He's described as childlike and living in his own little world, and flashbacks imply he didn't have a grasp of social nuance, all implying Benjy had some kind of developmental disorder. Despite the bullying he suffered for being different, Benjy stayed friendly and innocent.
• Was Once a Man: Taking pity on him after he was trapped inside the tree, the land bonded him with his prison, turning him into the peach tree. He's at peace just existing as part of nature.
• The Unfought: One of the first supernatural beings Hazel reweaves and heals the pain and trauma of his past, he does nothing to stop her and even assists in helping to reach where she needs to reach in order to perform the healing. Justified as he's a Gentle Giant.

Two-Toed Tom

Voiced by: N/A

• Belly of the Boss: Two-Toed Tom swallows Hazel, which allows her to cleanse the corrupted hunger inside it.
• Extreme Omnivore: Two-Toed Tom got gigantic by eating everything, whether it be a pig or a washing machine or a whole house. He's got a Freudian Excuse for it though. Since he spent most of his life starving, he never knows where his next meal is coming from, so he gorges himself on everything even when he's full.
• Named After the Injury: Looking closely at Two-Toed Tom shows that he's missing two toes on his left foreleg.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: Especially if the croc (or alligator in this case) is supernaturally huge with a small island on its back and a missing upper jaw.
• Puzzle Boss: Hazel needs to ring a bell to get Tom to expose his Wound.
• Turtle Island: Or "Gator Island" in Two-Toed Tom's case, but he still counts nonetheless.

Laurent Baptiste

Voiced by: Joel Steingold (adult), Cayden Williams (child)

• It's Not You, It's Me: When Hazel confronts Laurent at the Juke, she is angry at him for having walked out on her and Lacey without so much as an explanation, and Laurent insists that it was for their own sake. His real fear was that he would hurt them as a Rougarou, though after Hazel finds out she says that Lacey may have understood.
• Maybe Ever After: After Hazel heals Laurent following his boss fight as the Rougarou, she understands that the reason he left them was because he was afraid of hurting them in his Rougarou form. After she tells him that Lacey misses him and would accept him even knowing of his condition, he seems to reconsider his belief. The Stinger shows Hazel leaving the Benjy tree to visit Lacey and Laurent for dinner, implying that they have gotten back together.
• Older Than He Looks: Laurent looks maybe slightly older than Lacey (who seems to be in her early 40s), but is revealed to have been a child during the early 20th century. It seems that turning into a Rougarou made him Long-Lived, if not outright immortal.

Huggin' Molly

• Benevolent Abomination: Molly is a towering spider woman with blank cloudy eyes, grey skin, never speaks (or lacks the ability), and has an infamous reputation for kidnapping children leaving only red string behind like some sort of Serial Killer. This reputation is completely unfounded as while she does take children, Molly is a compassionate being who is only protecting the kids of Abusive Parents and giving them a home. Also the red string she uses isn't for binding or kidnapping anyone, but to heal who is wrapped in it.
• Big Good: Molly is the only supernatural creature whose nature is tied to helping others, as the others are either neutral such as Catfish and Benjy or malevolent such as Roux and Kooshma.
• Good All Along: Molly's true nature is that of a Benevolent Abomination who protects children and gives sanctuary from their Abusive Parents. Or in the case of Hazel's mother Lacey, who share her dedication to the same mission.
• Master of Threads: Her signature red yarn. When Hazel finds her mother missing and only red yarn in its place, Catfish immediately pegs Molly as the one to have likely taken her though is confused as to why, as Molly only takes children. The reason is because Lacey (Hazel's mom) was friends with Molly and working together to help children that Lacey encountered in her work but unable to help as a Social Worker. The red yarn is also used for healing, not binding or capturing people, as the stories imply.

Honey Island Swamp Monster

Altamaha-ha

Shakin' Bones

• The Ferryman: Shakin' Bones rows a small boat that crosses between the planes of reality. At the end of chapter 11, Hazel buys a ride to Kooshma's Cabaret from him.

Roux

Voiced by: Ahmed Best

• Affably Evil: Roux is Kooshma's right hand man and the main supplier of its victims, but he's very jovial and polite. He even gives Hazel the means to save her mother in return for Bunny, a deal everyone benefits from and he never reneges on.
• The Dragon: Roux plays this role for Kooshma, by using his power over dreams to feed people's nightmares to the latter.
• Hidden Depths: Various things about Roux suggest he, as someone who himself was desperate, sympathizes with some of his victims who are trapped in the Town on the Tapestry and recognize not all of them deserve to be there to sate Kooshma's hunger, such as how he words some of his notes about a few of them. In fact the reason he acts as Hazels Guide is because Bunny is messing with things she shouldn't as a "Dark Weaver", and that this, mixed with her inability to move on, make her not just a perfect Asshole Victim, but also a permanent solution to Kooshma's hunger going forward. Even his villain song has him explaining what Kooshma does to people who are at their lowest quite openly.
• Red Right Hand: Roux is shaped like a normal man, but his towering height and his glowing golden right eye mark him as something other than human.
• Satanic Archetype: Roux is a lean and menacing figure who tempts people into a dream realm by claiming they can escape their sorrows, only to trap them in a phantom existence where they lose their sanity and identity endlessly experiencing what they tried to escape from in the first place. However, he doesn't have any particular ill will towards Hazel specifically, and the two of them eventually strike a mutually beneficial agreement.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Roux has a golden right eye, and he is very adept at magic.
• Villain Song: "Roux" A ragtime swing-number where Roux sing about his past and praises Kooshma's powers. It almost comes across as a kind of warning, as despite the bombastic nature Roux lays out how people stay forever and that Kooshma preyed on him when he had hit his lowest.

Kooshma

• Advancing Boss of Doom: For most of the game, Kooshma doesn't directly attack Hazel, instead chasing her through his realm as she rushes to reach the bottle tree and heal the Stigmas. It's only the final battle where the two fight, and even then it most consists of Hazel fighting Haints with unraveling them dealing damage to him somehow and him throwing in the occasional environmental attack.
• Evil Overlord: Kooshma is not just a supernatural being but the King of Dreams and Nightmares with a big emphasis on the latter, being the Greater-Scope Villain of the setting and everyone straight up terrified of him.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Kooshma is the Big Bad of the South of Midnight universe not only a threat to the people of Prospero but the world, but is never a direct threat to Hazel outside of when she is attempting to heal the Stigmas. Even then he only chases Hazel as she runs to the bottle trees.

Voiced by: Ashley Spillers

• Abusive Parents: Her father used to sic his gator, Two-Toed Tom, on people and even threatened her with Tom, after she moved out.
• The Atoner: She killed her own father by releasing Two-Toed Tom, and carried that guilt for years. In another moment, she decides to dedicate the rest of her life in charitable endeavors and "let the good lord decide".

Portrayed By: Brad Grusnick

An old man who knows about Huggin' Molly. He was "only schoolboy she ain't never took."(his words)

• Abusive Parents: His dad used to beat him to vent his frustrations about working in the factory.
• Ambiguous Situation: Did Huggin' Molly actually kill his dad or was her supposed calling card just a coincidence?
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: See, Huggin' Molly probably didn't take him because he alerted the mob to where she was, causing her to leave the town and spirit kids away. Related to this, he's a reason why those kidnapping rumors started.

Voiced by: Tamika Simpkins

• Underground Railroad: A one-woman version, Mahalia is shown helping people escape slavery. She is shown to lead a family of slaves to safety, and is later shown to have saved Ayotunde's baby from the slavers chasing her.

Rhubarb

• My God, What Have I Done?: Rhubarb was consumed with guilt for "killing" his brother Benjy, which seems to be why he's afraid of monsters coming to get him.