| April Ryan | |
|---|---|
April in The Longest Journey and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey |
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| Series | The Longest Journey |
| First game | The Longest Journey |
| Created by | Ragnar Tørnquist |
| Voiced by | Sarah Hamilton |
April Ryan is a fictional character from the adventure game The Longest Journey (1999) and its sequel Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (2006). In the former, she is the protagonist, and in the latter, one of the three primary characters. In both games she is voiced by Sarah Hamilton. April has been praised as one of the most memorable female characters in the history of adventure games.[1][2]
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April Ryan is a human daughter of the White of the Draic Kin (Dragons), the Mother. It is unknown who her father is, or even if she has one. She is a painter and artist in the world of Stark.
Whether April was born in Arcadia or Stark is not known; but shortly after her birth in April 14, 2191 by Stark reckoning, she was adopted into a normal human family that lived somewhere in the continental USA. Her adoptive father was often inebriated and beat her as a child. His antipathy is later revealed that he dropped April on the floor when she was very little, severely handicapping her. To suppress his guilt, he started ignoring her henceforth; but as she slowly recovered, he felt that she was mocking him and began to blame her for his own misery.
Despite April's bad relationship with her father, she has always been on good terms with her adoptive mother and rarely had quarrels with her two brothers, Danny and Owen. After turning 18 April left her adoptive family forever, after having one last row with her father, wherein he was injured. Without a word of goodbye to her mother, April left for Newport, an industrial megapolis. At this point the events of The Longest Journey start.
At the beginning of The Longest Journey, as a resident of the technology-driven world, Stark, she discovers that she is a Shifter - a person with the power to move between worlds. Her journey begins when she unwittingly transports herself to the magical Arcadia. She is the daughter of the White Dragon, as she herself felt a connection between the two of them and it is confirmed by the White Dragon. Moreover, her Stark parents adopted her. April is prophesied from all four species holding the parts of the disc as being the savior who will restore the balance, only to finally break it.
April (described on the promotional posters with a tagline Rebel, Emissary, Chosen) returns as one of the three protagonists of Dreamfall. After her success in The Longest Journey, she was left without a purpose, and chose to join the effort to liberate the Northlands from the occupation by the Azadi (Persian: freedom) Empire. She has turned her back on her former world of Stark and considers herself a citizen of Arcadia now.
Writer of The Longest Journey Ragnar Tørnquist stated in an interview that he compared April in TLJ to "young inexperienced" Frodo Baggins, whereas in Dreamfall she developed into an "Aragorn type character".[3] Journalist Randy Sluganski describes her adventure in TLJ as "a rite of passage; a maturation from the indecisive, self-deprecating teenage years into a hesitant adulthood that is at first shunned and then gradually embraced".[4]
One of the traits that helped the player to identify and empathize with April Ryan - a much praised concept [5] - was that she kept a diary. Unlike Zoë Castillo's diary, April's diary contains more self-revelations and allows much deeper insight in its owner's character and background, allowing the player to trace her personal development.
Tørnquist stated that he didn't create April as a female protagonist to reach the female adventure gaming audience, but because a female lead was a better fit to a story where progress is as much about empathy and helping people out.[6]
Tørnquist, with his co-writer of Dreamfall Dag Sheve, commented that in terms of losing faith (a recurring theme in the game), April went further than the other two primary characters, resulting in her "actual death". Tørnquist, however, stressed the ambiguity of the term "actual death", refused to explicitly confirm her status, and added that "her influence isn't fully played out. It is her story, all the way through".[7]
April Ryan (sometimes, along with her Dreamfall counterpart Zoë Castillo) is considered one of the most memorable characters in the history of adventure games.[1][2] April placed 61st in the top 100 Best heroes of all time by UGO Networks.[8] Although she is represented with attributes of a feminized sex object, she is also part of a trend of strong, beautiful women in a variety of media that don't depend on men to achieve heroic deeds.[9] She has been compared to Tomb Raider's protagonist Lara Croft in that respect. April shows less prominent physical feminine attributes than Lara, but more feminine psychological traits as contrasted with Lara's masculine connotations like aggressiveness and force.[10]
The voice work for April in The Longest Journey and Dreamfall was portrayed by American actress Sarah Hamilton, for which she was contacted through a New York casting agency. The game included hours of recorded voice used to comment on the environment, provide information on how to solve puzzles, present dialogue between characters, and advance the plot. As a result, Hamilton spent approximately eighty hours over ten consecutive days recording voice work for the first game, including live dialogue sessions with the other actors so that they could develop a real rapport between their characters.[6]
Her performance has been praised as "superb" and capturing the "inflection nuances that allow us to believe in April's growth as a woman".[4]
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