One of the most underrated villains of all time. He does such a good job of justifying himself and rationalizing his many crimes, he seems like a real person. John Keston is a great actor.
Always loved how John Keston channels a colonial governor starting to go off the rails defending his handling of a long-running insurgency to a Foreign & Colonial Office Under-secretary freshly arrived from London to see if he needs replacement.
" It's late and I can't sleep. I've lost so much in my life, my home, my people, my son. And you, Rieta my darling wife. You were the only true kindness that I have ever known. Watching you flicker there in the imager; I sometimes wonder if you were real. If I could restore your life with my pen I would do so in an instant. And leave the rest of the world to it's own wretched fate". - Gehns Journal
What's great is how layered the speech is. He's a master manipulator, and uses the appearance of self-awareness to disarm the player and gain trust. Some of the regret might be genuine, but he was still throwing whark parties to "keep the islanders in line" until that very moment, and the first thing he does if you fail to trap him is run over to the link site and gun down Atrus. He's both a sympathetic/tragic character and also a stone-cold sociopath.
It's not shown here, but I remember that if you don't use the linking book the second time Gehn shows it to you, he straight up murders you with his cattle prod thing (game over!). Reallllly freaked me out as a kid.
@@therabidscorpion indeed. he enslaved a race to build him more materials and then acted as god punishing them by feeding them alive to giant wharks. probably the only redeeming thing he did was sire atrus edit: i guess he did write riven. although in his warped mind he thought he created it rather than linking to another existing world
Atrus stared back at him, silent now, the fissure behind him dark and cold, glistening with stars, the Myst book edged by that strange blue light. Gehn studied his son a moment, taking in the situation, then took a step toward him, putting out a hand. "Please, Atrus. There is still a chance for us." "No, Father. Whatever linked us once has been destroyed. You burned it with those books you burned. You erased it along with those phrases in my book. Little by little you destroyed it. Don't you see that? Well, now you've got the justice you deserve. You can stay here in the little haven you've created for yourself, in your tiny island universe, and play god with your 'creations'." A scene in the Myst Reader right before Atrus left Gehn for good.
I knew he though he had justification but for me any sympathy died when I found the burnt Books. From my understanding at the time and certainly as he understood it he was literally killing worlds.
@@alexanderjakubsen2198 Yeah, he’s so good in his role that at some point I believed that the biggest main story of Myst lies here in Riven hahaha😂❤️. So much is at stake. You literally need to save yourself, as well as everyone and Catherine, including Atrus (again). John Keston’s portrayal of Gehn is so authentic that he’s like the best main antagonist of the entire series❤️❤️❤️. I’ve never felt so nervous in a video game just because of him and his allies (add the atmosphere of the music). I got chills just trying to imagine he might catch me from anywhere in Riven. Goodness, I love the worlds of Myst, especially this. I’ve never felt so engaged and excited to play these puzzle games (I admit this is the hardest Myst game I’ve played so far, still trying to finish Revelation up to End of Ages), the story is so good and complex😭❤️.
I remember I was like 10 years old when I met him for the first time. I was so anxious (the music surely did help) also my english wasn't so good, I had to make out the speech with half the words.
Beeing stuck just starring out of a book like this forever is so much darkly cool than the newer version of prison books in the latter games where they are just a link to a baron age. How would sceans like this even work if that was the case?
They wouldn't, which is why I loathed that retcon. Especially because it was so easily avoidable; prison books trap you half-way between worlds in an incomplete link, so all they had to do to make the newer games fully compatible with the lore of the older games was have Atrus, at some point after the events of Myst, modify the original trap books to finish the incomplete link they had been trapped in and dump the brothers in the ages they appeared to link to all along.
Have u read the myst series.... spoiler when gehns wife gave birth and died he told his mother to bury atrus along side of his mother . Thank goodness gehns mother wasnt so cold
@@crypastesomemore8348 British isn't a race, and even if it was the comment wouldn't be racist. They are making an observation that when someone is evil a lot of the time they are English and are old, it's literally a trope at this point.
Was Ghen singing in Italian? I wasn't aware the D'ni people were capable of hearing stuff going on above ground. (I haven't read through all the books so I could just be ignorant) Then again, their name "Dunny" could abstractly imply they're somewhere under Australia, so maybe someone flushed a music CD or something
Gehn himself is half-D'ni. His mother was Ti'ana (previously Anna), a human woman who discovered D'ni through a natural cave network in the southwestern USA. The song is an easter egg, but there's basis for him to have learned it - Anna was heavily implied to have Italian heritage.
I mean... Ghen doesn't write ages in a considered normal way... That's why the age of riven is so fucked up, so if he doesn't know any better, he wouldn't even have that thought crossing through his mind because he doesn't know better
Yep, as Hugarada pointed out, Gehn was actually really unskilled and sloppy in The Art. He likely didn't have the right knowledge to fully understand that the book was a trap, and from his skimmings recognized enough of the coding to think that it could be real.
He still suspects a trap, that's why he sends the player through first. He'd have to know not only that trap books exist (Atrus' notes make clear that he probably doesn't), but also the specific detail that each can only hold one person at a time.
Atrus's notes specifically say that Atrus discovered about trap books on D'ni on his own but hid that fact from his father, who had the habit of confiscating his findings. The notes also say that the choice of words to write a trap book (whatever that means) are so subtle that someone who doesn't know about them would be essentially unable to tell. Ghen isn't unskilled at bookwriting at all, and he isn't foolish either -- his notes, that you find in the 233rd age after trapping him, say that he finds it it suspicious that Atrus would have sent someone with a linking book. But of course, after 30 years of thinking about it, he would be desparate to link back to D'ni.
Oh, if there was a real opportunity, I would betray Atrus, because it is the coward who uses me as a slave, and at least the Gehn does not arouse my suspicions.
