(born April 2, 1988)
Rooder
Chika Fujimura (Japanese)
| “ | DAMN YOU! You're not my grandfather, I don't know WHO you are anymore! But I know that I'm a Rooder. I'LL DESTROY YOU AND SAVE MY MOTHER!
|
” |
Alyssa Hamilton is the protagonist of Clock Tower 3. She is a seemingly ordinary schoolgirl, oblivious to the knowledge that her female ancestors have been defending humanity from evil for centuries. During the game, Alyssa is hunted by serial killers who want to take her heart from her corpse.
Appearance
Alyssa has bright turquoise-blue eyes. She has chin-length Venetian-blonde hair, layed around her face on the sides, with a straight-cut fringe that rests on her eyebrows.
Alyssa usually wears her green boarding school uniform, which consists of a green jacket and tartan patterned blue and orange skirt. She wears a white shirt beneath her jacket, with a small red neck-tie, white socks and mauve colored shoes with black soles.
Personality
Alyssa comforting Dorothy Rand.
Alyssa is a responsible, wise and intelligent girl. She is very polite and respectful of others and is shown to be caring and kind. Alyssa's compassion shows when she comforts May and Dorothy. A young Alyssa has been called lively, strong-willed, and wise beyond her years by her grandfather in Dick's Notes 1. These qualities make her a strong candidate for helping the tortured victims of serial killers as she risks her life for the chance they can be at peace.
Although she solves puzzles, she can be perceived a bit on the "illogical" side, as well as the "disobedient" side. For example, when her mother told her to go into hiding for a single day, her reaction is to immediately not do that and return home due to worry. She also does not call the police or try to get outside help when she begins discovering dangerous and supernatural things are occurring in her mansion, although this is done so the player would have a game to play. In addition, Alyssa knows that only a Rooder can vanquish a Subordinate, so she takes this role upon herself.
One of her weaknesses is that she tends to be very emotional and sensitive, and this shows when she is forced to see a series of extremely disturbing and violent imagery during the game. However, as the story progresses, she becomes stronger, more tenacious, more emotionally resilient and more independent throughout her experiences.
Similar to Jennifer Simpson, Alyssa also lost her father at a young age. She views her grandfather Dick as a paternal figure. She has significant character development when she gains the courage to confront her relative whom she once loved and respected, even yelling "damn you!" to his face. She reluctantly accepts the harsh truth about her grandfather, as well as the conditions and burdens surrounding her Rooder birth and existence. Clock Tower 3 is Alyssa's coming-of-age story, albeit a very dark and morbid one.
Interest-wise, Alyssa expresses interest in owning a computer, as seen upon examining her mother's desk. She also has a bookshelf with a lot of books in her room, implying an interest in reading.
Background
Nancy cradling Alyssa.
Alyssa was born to Nancy and Philip Hamilton, and is a descendant of the Burroughs Family. Alyssa is unaware of this, and since Alyssa's grandfather Dick Hamilton discovers this, it is unlikely Nancy knew.
Dick chose the name "Alyssa" for her. Nancy told baby Alyssa that one day, she would inherit a clover necklace - the four leaves symbolize love, friendship, hope, and courage.
Alyssa, Dick and Nancy.
When Alyssa was a baby, she lost her father after he was apparently killed with an axe in a freak accident; in actuality, Philip was murdered by her grandfather Dick. Alyssa was raised by her mother and grandfather.
When Alyssa was 12 years old, she was sent to boarding school away from her home for unknown reasons by Nancy, and was told not to return until she was at least 18 years old. Around this time, Dick goes "missing".
During the game, Alyssa is 14, almost 15, years old. A few days before her fifteenth birthday, Alyssa receives a letter from her mother, urgently telling her to go into hiding. However, Alyssa becomes homesick and defies her mother, and returns home.
Clock Tower 3
Alyssa analyzes a corpse in London 1942.
When Alyssa arrives, her mother is missing, and the only other living person in the house is a mysterious stranger, known as The Dark Gentleman. He offers Alyssa cryptic warnings and clues as to her mother's fate. Though frightened, Alyssa becomes determined to find her mother. She explores the house and finds a bottle of holy water, along with strange symbols on doors that only the sacred water can break. Eventually, her search leads her into her mother's room, where a piano begins to play Frédéric Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu wildly. Terrified, Alyssa dashes from the room and is transported back in time, to London, circa World War II, 1942, which Germany's Luftwaffe is bombing.
Alyssa evading Sledgehammer.
Her search leads her to a tailor shop, where she witnesses the gruesome murder of a young girl. The crime is perpetrated by a mysterious man wielding a sledgehammer; he notices Alyssa, and begins an obsessed search for her. As Alyssa evades him, she runs into other angry ghosts; by returning particular items to each spirit, she is able to placate them and lay them to rest. Eventually, Alyssa pieces together the mystery: May Norton, a 12-year-old piano-playing prodigy, was brutally murdered on Christmas Eve by a madman with a sledgehammer.
Alyssa comforting May's ghost.
While still exploring the tailor shop, Alyssa sees memories from the past; when May's father, William Norton, tells her that he is going to war, she gives him a Pocket Watch as a reminder of his wife and May. While in battle, he is hit by an explosion and lands on a row of barb wire, dying instantly. Alyssa decides to free May's spirit, which is trapped on earth, but on her way to do this, she is confronted by the killer. Her vial of holy water becomes a longbow, and she destroys the villain in a shower of golden light. Alyssa gives the pocket watch to May's spirit, who proceeds to play the piano once more. After a short while, May is reunited with her father, and the two thank Alyssa before ascending into the afterlife. At that moment, Alyssa faints.
She wakes up in her room, lying on the bed, believing it was a dream. Her childhood friend, Dennis Owen, knocks on the window while hanging on to the windowsill. An annoyed Alyssa helps him up, wondering why he would try to enter her residence through a window. Dennis reveals he contacted Nancy who told him to give Alyssa the key to her grandfather's room if Nancy was not back in time.
Alyssa reuniting with Dennis Owen.
While searching through the room, she learns about a surprising secret in her family. The girls in her lineage are known as "Rooders", young women with the supernatural ability to communicate with the dead. She also learns of a ferocious dark power-called an "Entity", which can infect certain humans and drive them to acts of crazed murder. The agony and despair of the souls of the murderer's victims feeds their dark power, and grants the villain - now known as a "Subordinate" - immortality. The Rooders are fated to find and free those tortured souls, breaking the Subordinate's magic and allowing them to be destroyed. These powers peak at the age of fifteen, and wane afterward; therefore, the women in Alyssa's family marry young and quickly bear a daughter. Alyssa realizes that she is a Rooder, and that Sledgehammer was a Subordinate, feeding off of young May's soul. With this new knowledge, she moves back in time again.
Dorothy and Albert are freed.
Alyssa enters a house with a blind elderly woman, Dorothy Rand, and her son, Albert Rand. After being blown away by a gust of wind, Alyssa looks at a memory where the man and his mother are murdered viciously with sulfuric acid. During the struggle, the shawl that the son made for his mother drops into a sewer. Files reveal that the murderer, known as Corroder, claimed to be a distant relative of the Rands - it is unknown if this is true. Alyssa finds the shawl and destroys Corroder, freeing the mother and her son.
Upon returning home, Alyssa begins to wonder why her mother wanted her to stay away. Soon, she realizes that the mysterious "Dark Gentleman" hopes to gain immortality by becoming an Entity himself, using the Ritual of Engagement. This dark ritual requires the "heart of a Rooder". When the Clock Tower begins to form, Alyssa is sent to the top of the tower to confront the Dark Gentlemen. He throws her down the tower to "Hell", which resembles an underground factory. Regaining consciousness, she confronts another Subordinate, Chopper.
Alyssa discovers the truth behind her father's death.
After temporarily escaping from him, Alyssa looks back at a memory from when she had just been born. Hearing a scream from the stair balcony, Alyssa runs to find her father struggling against her grandfather, Dick. Her father is thrown off the balcony onto an axe head, splitting his head in half. Alyssa denies that her grandfather truly meant to kill her father and engages into a battle with Chopper, but fails to kill him and is sent to a graveyard.
Once there, she meets the spirits of other Rooders who lost battles against the Subordinates. Alyssa fights the Chopper again and, with the help from the Rooder spirits, is able to vanquish him. After completing this mission, Alyssa is warped in time once more to the home of the mysterious Darcy Burroughs, who lived on the very land that Alyssa's house now resides upon. At this point in time it is the location of the titular Clock Tower.
Alyssa meets the Scissor Twins.
Burroughs, obsessed with the secrets of the Entities and Subordinates, hires the homicidal twins, Scissorman Ralph and Scissorwoman Jemima, to murder for him. Burroughs plotted to become an Entity himself; however, his daughter died on the eve of her fifteenth birthday, ruining his plan and driving him insane. He died crushed in the Clock Tower's gears, swearing revenge. Alyssa reunites with Dennis and he sees his sister Linda in a hospital, however, Linda transforms into Jemima and the Twins abduct Dennis and Alyssa sets out to save him. Eventually, with the help of Dennis, Alyssa overcomes the twins in Burroughs Castle.
Once Alyssa returns to the present day, she discovers that the villain behind her mother's disappearance is her own grandfather, who lived with the pair since Alyssa was a child, and performed extensive research on the Rooder powers. However, he was descended from Burroughs, and was eventually driven insane by the connections between his and his ancestor's situations, and allowed Burrough's evil spirit to fuse with him.
Alyssa unleashing her Rooder powers.
On the top of the clock tower, Alyssa encounters Dick who intends to complete the Ritual of Engagement. Upon Alyssa's refusal, Dick transforms into Burroughs, destroys a Nancy who was transformed into a statue, and plots to fulfill Burrough's plan with Alyssa's heart. Just before Alyssa is killed, she is rescued by Dennis who falls off the clock tower in a struggle. Alyssa proceeds to fight Burroughs.
Nancy and Alyssa embrace.
Nancy transfers what is left of her own Rooder power into Alyssa, granting her the strength to destroy her grandfather and Burroughs. After she defeats him, she immediately reunites with her revived mother. The tower then collapses and the evil spell of the Subordinates is permanently lifted. Alyssa awakens in a field of flowers. Clutching her clover necklace, she runs over to hug Dennis nearby. Smiling, she says, "Mum, we did it! We did it, Mum!"
Quotes
- "For Grampy: Today I read a book with pretty pictures. A wolf pretended to be Grandma, and ate up a girl. It was scary so I went to Grampy's room, because Grampy would save me. Grampy is really strong and he can kill a wolf. I love my Grampy. I'm going to stay with him for ever and ever!" (Alyssa's Drawings)
- "Hello, mum. Hello? Are you there? What's wrong. Answer me. Hello? Hello!? Mum!? Hello!? Mum!? Mum!? Answer me."
- "Why?! Why did you kill her?!"
- "May... your father is dead. There was an explosion... a shell. I'm so sorry! Please don't cry! I understand how you feel. I never even knew my father. I lost him soon after I was born, but I love my grandfather just the way you love your father. Keep this watch as a memento of your father, and continue to practice the piano as hard as you can. You know that would make him happy."
- "What do you think you're doing entering a lady's residence through a window?!"
- "Well, it looks like you've grown up too, Dennis."
- "A Rooder family... So, I am a Rooder. It's in my blood... Leave it to me, Grandpa. I have the same Rooder strain in my blood as my mother. I can save Dorothy and Albert. Then, and only then will I be able to leave this nightmare and see my mum again. I'm sure that's the way, isn't it?"
- "Rest in peace..."
- "You can't defeat me! I'll destroy you!"
- "A fish! ...It must be bored out of its tiny mind down here."
- "..........Wouldn't want to sleep in this bed." (examining Chopper's bed)
- "Dennis, you may be a man, but you're not a Rooder. I am!"
- "NO! Grandpa, please, come to your senses and give me my mom back!"
- Dick/Darcy: "Be a good girl and grab my hand. What's the matter, Alyssa? Don't you want to live happily with me for all eternity?"
Alyssa: "NEVER!" (swats hand away) - "Give up, Grandfather! I won't allow the ritual to happen!"
- "Mum... we did it! We did it, Mum!"
- "Get off!" (being stunned by a lunar moth)
Creator's comment
| “ | As the main character, Alyssa is thrown into situations where she must confront true fear head on. To make that reality stand out, she needed to have a resilient heart while being emotionally strong. But that alone wasn't enough. She needed to have a reason to keep going, to find the mental strength, over and over again, to keep fighting the fear. So we gave her a mystery, and made her tough-minded and determined enough to dredge up the courage and guts to solve it. | ” |
Trivia
Alyssa sitting.
Alyssa cowers when the save file is considering being deleted.
- An anime-styled Alyssa is the game's memory card icon. If the player considers deleting the save file, Alyssa looks away in fear.
- Alyssa is similar in many ways to Alyssa Hale, the protagonist of Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within. Both their names start with "Alyssa Ha," their uniforms also look somewhat alike (green jacket, short shirt, red tie); both have male characters that help them: Bates and Dennis; they return from school only to discover something insane, and both uncover their heritage being told so in their relatives' diaries. They also both have relatives named Philip.
- Alyssa shares two similar extra costumes with Fiona Belli, the protagonist of Haunting Ground: cowgirl and leather. She is the first protagonist to wear a revealing outfit. Note that this is only the case in the Western releases.
- There is a notable fan theory that Alyssa and Dennis are actually dead and that the clover field is actually some sort of afterlife, or that they may be ghosts, or the entire clover field scene (or perhaps the entire game) is Alyssa's dying hallucination. It would explain all the strange oddities and why Alyssa and Dennis can enter the realms. Dennis inexplicably "survives" from falling off the top of the castle, and Alyssa somehow "survives" the crumbling of the castle. The ultimate fates of Alyssa and Dennis are never revealed.
- If Alyssa and Dennis died during the course of the game, then they may not be able to recall their moments of deaths, and there is no way for sure of knowing when it happened. However, it is possible Alyssa may have been murdered by The Dark Gentleman in the dining room and replaced it with a false memory of her escaping him, or Alyssa died on her way to her mansion, perhaps hit by a car, as she was in a hurry due to her mother's phone call.
Minami Hinase, Alyssa's model.
- Alyssa has been humorously called "the most Japanese/Asian-looking British/English/Caucasian girl ever" by fans, making fans wonder if Nancy is of mixed ethnicity, or if this is simply an unintentional inconsistency. This is because during the high-quality cutscenes, Alyssa has a noticeable change in facial features, likely since her high-quality model is Minami Hinase. A similar thing occurs in Final Fantasy X (moreso in the PS2 version, as later versions tried to fix the jarringness), where the characters seem to switch ethnic features between certain cutscenes. If Alyssa is of mixed Asian/Caucasian ethnicity, then she is similar to Aya Brea and Ashley Mizuki Robbins, who are light-haired and mixed ethnicity. Alyssa and Ashley are also very similar in that they help ghosts throughout their games.
Gallery
Concept
Clock Tower 3
Costumes
