Atrus
From D'ni - The Myst Wiki
Atrus is the main character of the Myst series (though not the character that you control) as well as the book series. He is, and has always been, played by Rand Miller.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early Years
Atrus was born to Gehn and Keta in 1755 and therefore was only 1/4 D'ni. However, his mother died while giving birth to him and Gehn abandoned him with his grandmother, Anna, shortly after his birth. Atrus stayed with Anna, living in a cleft in the side of a volcano in the desert, until he was thirteen years old. Anna taught him much during his brief stay, including the D'ni language, D'ni stories, and how to look at The Whole.
[edit] Teen Years
Gehn came back to the cleft when Atrus was fourteen and took the boy from his grandmother. He led Atrus down into the underground D'ni capital, living on the island of K'veer. Here he taught Atrus to Write. By the end of his teen years, Atrus came to realize that Gehn was a madman.
On Riven he met Katran, whose name he consistently mispronounced as Catherine. Catherine was a student of Gehn, and Gehn intended to marry her against her will. Secretly, Catherine, together with Anna who had, without him knowing, followed her grandson, wrote the Age of Myst Island, and planned to trap Gehn on Riven by destroying every Linking Book in the Age.
[edit] Family
Atrus fathered Sirrus and Achenar on the Myst (island), but never taught them to Write. However he tried to teach them the principles of Age writing, and created J'nanin to train them and also sent them to Narayan, one of the most balanced Ages he wrote.
However the boys seeing all the rich worlds Atrus wrote, just waiting to be exploited, grew greedy, plundering the Ages, tormenting their inhabitants and burning some books their father wrote. Eventually they fooled their parents, sent Katran back to Riven, then ripped off a page from Atrus' Myst linking book and sent him to D'ni where he was trapped.
Eventually the boys trapped themselves in their own greed by linking to Atrus' prison Ages. Achenar was trapped in Haven, blue cover Age, and Sirrus was traped in Spire, red cover Age.
[edit] Tomahna and Yeesha
Perhaps because Myst was becoming unlivable, perhaps because of the trouble of his sons, Atrus wrote another Age, Tomahna, to be their home. Here he fathered his daughter, Yeesha, and taught her to Write. It was from Tomahna that Atrus wrote Releeshahn to be D'ni's new home.
[edit] Later Years
Atrus lived out his old age and finally came to his death on Releeshahn.
[edit] In Games
- The first game begins with Atrus imprisoned in D'ni. He has left a message for his wife, Catherine, telling her of the destruction of his Library by their sons, Sirrus and Achenar. He is released if the player brings him the final page of the Linking Book he can use to escape.
- In Riven, he instructs the player to link to Riven in order to save Catherine from his father, Gehn.
- In Myst III: Exile Atrus invites you to his home in Tomahna to join him to view the Releeshahn Age that he has written for the future home of the D'ni, leaving you present when an intruder, Saavedro, breaks in to Atrus' home, stealing the Releeshahn book. Exile then leads you through five Ages written by Atrus to teach his sons about the way different elements in nature to prepare them for the Art of writing Ages.
- In Myst IV: Revelation Atrus once again invites you to Tomahna, this time to help him with a dillema involving his sons, Sirrus and Achenar, still trapped in their prison books from the original Myst game.
- Atrus does not appear in Uru: The Ages Beyond Myst, though he does provide the opening narration.
- Atrus makes a brief cameo at the end of Myst V: End of Ages.
[edit] In Books
- Atrus plays the central character in the Book of Atrus, the prequel to the original Myst game. This book shows Atrus growing up, first in the Cleft with his grandmother, then as he learns to write Ages with his father.
- He makes no appearance in the second book, the Book of Ti'ana, a prequel to Myst: The Book of Atrus, which takes place before Atrus is born. (Atrus, son of Gehn, is not to be confused with Aitrus, father of Gehn.)
- Again, he plays the central role in the Book of D'ni as he sets forth in an attempt to rebuild D'ni. In the course of doing so, the D'ni come across a vast Age with ancient connections to the D'ni.
