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Like those in “Character Inspirations Part I: The Bandit”, the following lists are meant to aid Players and Presenters in creating True Innocent characters for the Ghastly Affair RPG. Since the class is intended to portray the typical heroine of a classic Gothic novel, True Innocents tend to become central to any game of Ghastly Affair. Remember that a True Innocent can be as active and strong as any other character. They need not be just damsels (or lads) to be rescued. Here then are some examples from history, literature, and the media to help inspire your portrayals of True Innocents.
If you have any additions you’d like to share, just indicate them in the comments.
Some Historical True Innocents:
Lady Anne Isabella Byron (wife of Lord Byron)
Saint Joan of Arc
Virginie de Lafayette (daughter of the Marquis de Lafayette)
Juliette Récamier
Some Literary Inspirations:
Pamela Andrews (Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded – Samuel Richardson)
Antonia (The Monk: A Romance – Matthew Lewis)
Justine de Bertole (Justine; or, The Misfortunes of Virtue – de Sade)
Candide (Candide – Voltaire)
Gulchenrouz (Vathek – William Beckford)
Mina Harker (née Murray) (Dracula – Bram Stoker)
Clarissa Harlowe (Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady – Samuel Richardson)
Immalee / Isidore de Aliaga (Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Maturin)
Agnes de Medina (The Monk: A Romance – Matthew Lewis)
Catherine Morland (Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen)
Laura (Carmilla – Sheridan Le Fanu)
Matilda of Otranto (The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole)
Emily St. Aubert (The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe)
Charlotte Sophia (The Hapless Child – Edward Gorey)
Virginia de Villa-Franca (The Monk: A Romance – Matthew Lewis)
Isabella of Vicenza (The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole)
Cécile de Volanges (The Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos)
Some True Innocents from Movies and Television:
Edith Cushing (Crimson Peak)
Emma (The Vampire Lovers)
Letha Godfrey (Hemlock Grove)
Marianne de Morangias (Brotherhood of the Wolf)
Rosaleen (The Company of Wolves)
Katia Vajda (Black Sunday)
A Few Inspirational Songs:
Edge of the World – Faith No More
Enter Sandman – Metallica
Goody Two Shoes – Adam and the Ants
Little Sister – Siouxsie and the Banshees
Lullaby – The Cure
Rainbow in the Dark – Dio
Sister Christian – Night Ranger
Sweet Child O’ Mine – Guns N’ Roses
Tales of Innocence – Christian Death
You’re Lost, Little Girl – The Doors, covered by Siouxsie and the Banshees
Gallery of Images
The Engine of Oracles 
I fear I must quibble about the good Mrs Harker. While she was imperilled in a manner that would surely be familiar to any True Innocent, she was a modern woman of her era: familiar with modern sciences, worldly, and willing to use her connection with Dracula to aid her fellow hunters in tracking him. It seems to me that she should be an Everywoman.
Though having said that, should anyone be so foolhardy as to disregard your rule prohibiting True Innocents from multiclassing, then I grant Mrs Harker may prove an instructive model.
(Maybe I should comment here *before* catching up on Victoria Silverwolf’s AP).
I can see your point. I agree that if someone wanted to actually play Mina Harker as their character (perhaps in a Saga set after the events of Dracula) she could be Classed as an Everywoman (perhaps multi-classing into Demon Hunter to take her revenge). On the other hand, a Player can definitely use Mina as a Character Inspiration for their True Innocent PC. After all, Mina does show herself to be an “Inspiration of the Virtuous”, and to suffer from “The Misfortunes of Virtue”!
“Dracula” is in many ways a kind of “greatest hits” of the Gothic. Its got pretty much every trope from the hundred years of Gothic stories that precede it. It’s even written in the epistolary format popular in the 18th century. But of course, Gothic stories are famous for referencing each other. For example, in “Frankenstein” Mary Shelly alludes both to de Sade’s “Justine” and her father William Godwin’s “Caleb Williams”.
I’ve definitely noticed that what I read influences what I write. After reading a lot of 18th century writing, I have to consciously avoid writing in long run-on sentences with seemingly random capitalization and odd punctuation!
I take your point too.
Interesting. I actually used Mina Harker as the Character Inspiration for Lila Davenport, and it never occurred to me that she could be a True Innocent (or an Everywoman for that matter).
I think it all depends on what aspect of her you want to emphasize. Depicting her as a True Innocent emphasizes her connection to other victimized Gothic heroines. Everywoman emphasizes her education and status as a working woman. And it seems reasonable to me that she might become a Demon Hunter (perhaps working with Jonathan). After all, the ending does mention the Harkers going back to Transylvania!
Hm. Mixing our combined perspectives perhaps means that Mina is a good example for avoiding some of the usual stereotypes that attend different character types – not that stereotypes are out of keeping, but we don’t want them *all* the time. 🙂
As a Demon Hunter, she shows that Demon Hunters don’t have to be hardened. Her insistence that they should approach hunting Dracula in the same spirit as hunting Lucy, as essentially a rescue mission for his trapped soul. The way she inspires Renfield to turn against Dracula with her compassion.
As a True Innocent, she puts the lie to the idea that Gothic-style victimisation and weakness/passivity must go hand-in-hand.
As an Everywoman, she offers a model for how modernity and the Gothic can play into each other.
Very well said!
For awhile I’ve had a vague idea of making, or at least seeing the need, for an “Innocent” type character class in modern paranormal RPGs. This is opposed to “Lure”, “Victim” or “Final Girl” type classes. I never did anything with the idea so it’s nice you saved me the work. I’d like to give a shout-out to “Chauncey Gardiner” from the movie “Being There” (1980), starring Peter Sellers. It’s not a horror movie, so it probably doesn’t fit the criteria for the class but it’s an excellent movie and taking into consideration something at the end of the movie there’s definitely fodder for something..
Thank you! And remember, supernatural horror is only one of the modes of the Gothic. It can also be dark romance, crime drama, science fiction, medieval fantasy, and outright comedy. Many of the early Gothic novels include comedic situations and characters, for example. Some have poems interspersed in the text – essentially the literary equivalent of including song and dance numbers! So, inspirations for Gothic characters can come from anywhere.