The Teacher is the second antagonist encountered in Little Nightmares II. She is the main antagonist of The School chapter.
Descriptions
Twitter Description
An educator with an unusual ability to detect troublemakers. Her class is full of well - behaved children.
Website Description
Misbehavior will not be tolerated in The Teacher's classroom, and nothing escapes her cold, twisted gaze. In her domain, children should be seen and not heard, and if one should be heard, they will never be seen again.
Appearance
The Teacher is an elderly, slim woman who dresses similar to school teachers from the 1910s, with a gray skirt, a beige buttoned-up shirt, white socks, and black Mary Janes. The Teacher is a relatively large monster, with a height of about four times that of Mono and Six's. Her head is massive compared to the rest of her body, with baggy eyes, graying black hair, and a wrinkled mouth stuck in a permanent smug grin. Her most striking trait, however, is her neck- when she spots troublemakers from afar, The Teacher can stretch her neck by several meters, able to bend and flex it like a snake to move around obstacles and reach faraway targets. The Teacher also appears to have a very strong skull so tough that it can bend down metals, as demonstrated when she chases Mono in the vents.
Personality
Like the other characters in the franchise, the Teacher does not talk and her personality is shown through her actions. The sadistic Teacher, as her alias implies, loves inflicting fear in her underlings and imposing that she demands constant obedience. She is extremely faithful to her work, teaching the class of Bullies (despite them apparently neither learning nor caring about what she teaches), punishing anyone who disturbs the environment of the School, and preparing biology presentations. The Teacher seems to be well aware that her presence unnerves children and acts in a deliberately unsettling way to put them on edge, as seen with the Fat Kid. The Teacher is perceptive and can not be fooled for long, as shown in the rafters scene and with the capture of the Fat Kid.
When she is truly idle, however, aspects of the Teacher seem almost human. She appears to be quite lazy, taking heavy, lumbering steps and quickly assuming that a noise was a coincidence, even if it is clearly not the case. She also slightly bobs her head left and right when she walks. In the last scene of the Teacher, she is shown to have a passion for piano music, playing the piano beautifully and even twisting her neck to a particular note.
Strategy
The Teacher has the uncanny ability to extend her neck to great lengths to look at areas out of her reach. If Mono makes a noise, the Teacher will be instantly alerted and investigate the area where the noise came from or from what caused it. The Teacher does not seem to have good vision as Mono can easily hide from her in open dark crates. If Mono were to be spotted by the Teacher with Bullies in the area, she will command the Bullies to attack him. She can also use her neck to lunge at Mono if he is ever seen and out of reach. If she gets close enough, she will grab Mono with her mouth and proceed to take him back to her body. She can also grab Mono with her hand if he is too close.
Little Nightmares Comics
The Teacher appears in the fourth episode of Little Nightmares Comics, noticing and starting to chase the Fat Kid, who had previously managed to deal with several Bullies. The boy tries to hide from her in one of the school lockers, but the Teacher quickly finds him and opens the locker door. The further fate of the child remains unknown.
Little Nightmares II
Once Mono and Six find a hole in the wall that was hidden by a painting, ironically of the Teacher herself, they find themselves going through some vents. The children will then soon find the silhouette of the Teacher retracting her neck before the door closes.
After escaping a locker pushed on top of him and with Six being taken hostage by a group of Bullies, Mono encounters the Teacher in a classroom he must pass by to get a key to the elevator, where she is teaching the Bullies at their desk. She will turn to look at the chalkboard as she writes things down from her notebook, then she will look back to turn the pages, forcing the protagonist to sneak behind the desks when she isn't looking. After getting to the next room, Mono indirectly causes a bookshelf to fall over while trying to get the key, causing the Teacher to search the area by extending her neck. After surveying the room, she returns to her classroom and begins disciplining the Bullies. Mono escapes the classroom and goes into the elevator.
After passing the room with dunce caps and traversing through the vents, Mono will encounter the Teacher smacking something with her ruler. As he exits the vents, Mono accidentally knocks some glass bottles down from above due to the loosened wooden board, alerting the Teacher. The Teacher will search for Mono by extending her neck. After Mono climbs up some sheet rope, he has to push a wooden board to cross the gap, alerting the Teacher once again. Mono will escape and enter the library, where the Teacher proceeds to enter. While traversing the library, Mono knocks down some book which alerts the Teacher. She extends her neck, bursting through a bookshelf and chases Mono before he escapes under another bookshelf. Soon after, Mono starts climbing some large columns of books and knocks down some more books, causing the Teacher to extend her neck and look for him. Fortunately, Mono is able to avoid her gaze. The Teacher proceeds to exit the library.
Mono encounters the Teacher again in what appears to be a science lab area of the School. The Teacher is seen working in the lab, as Mono sneaks under tables and behind jars to avoid her gaze.
Mono does not meet the Teacher again until after he rescues Six from the Bullies. Mono and Six find the Teacher playing piano and writing down what she plays. While the Teacher is playing, Mono lowers down a platform above and meets up with Six to open a vent. However, the Teacher becomes aware of the duo's presence and chases them by extending her neck and pushing her head through the narrow ventilation. Mono and Six are able to escape, landing in a dumpster, out of the Teacher's line of sight. She leaves after she is unable to find the duo.
Powers and Abilities
- Neck stretching: The Teacher is able to stretch her neck within a great length to find intruders in an unreachable area. This also helps her to capture an intruder easily with her mouth rather than having the need to chase them. This ability also allows her to turn her head 360°.
Trivia
- In The Residence DLC, one of the portraits on the wall depicts The Teacher (see gallery).
- Her ability to extend her neck resembles the Rokurokubi, a Japanese yōkai.[3]
- One of the inspirations for the Teacher's appearance is from Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.[3]
- The Teacher is the only major antagonist in the game who is not killed or weakened by Mono.
- The Teacher shares some similarities to the Twin Chefs and the Butler. All four of them are the second bosses encountered in their respective games and are not actually killed by the protagonist, and the main protagonist narrowly escapes them.
- There is a glitch where the player is supposed to grab Six's hand in the vent, but if they jump right before the Teacher goes out of the opening, she will go through her animation and stop, allowing the player to explore the demented vents.
- The Teacher never writes a recognizable word on her chalkboard. As she writes on the classroom chalkboard and the science room chalkboard, she will mainly draw squiggles, lines, and possibly even images of eyes while simultaneously continuing with her teaching duties.
- In the classroom area, when the Teacher commands the bullies to catch Mono before Mono causes the shelf to fall, the Teacher herself will not participate in the pursuit. Instead she stands still and observes Mono, to the extent of not even reaching her hand to grab him when Mono is in range.
- In the room where Mono has to traverse through the ceiling while avoiding the Teacher's gaze, a strange sound can be heard as the Teachers ruler is heard hitting something, The sound is similar to the bully's, which some may deduce that the Teacher is beating a bully. However, when exploring out of bounds, only the Teacher is present within the room, hitting herself with a ruler.
- The room the Teacher can be found hitting herself, through out of bounds, is the same room where Mono obtained the key to unlock the elevator.
- The mechanism of the Teacher's neck, when she has to catch Mono, is questionable. On most occasions she can only plunge her head forward and is unable to change its direction. However, when the Teacher spots Mono as he traverses through the ceiling, the Teacher is able to direct her head towards him at striking speeds.
- When Mono has to traverse through the school's laboratory, where you must hide behind jars while the teacher occasionally turns around to write on a chalkboard, there is a heart that lies on the lab table directly in front of the teacher. When she turns around, Mono can grab the heart and hide behind the jars once again. As long as the teacher does not spot Mono when she turns back around, she will look underneath the table to try and find the heart which Mono took.
- When questioned about the teachers motivations, Dave Mervick states, "All of the residents of Little Nightmares... they don't really have motivations, it's like id - it's the base instinct of people, so we take this base instinct and pull it in different directions. So the Hunter is just bloodthirsty, he has the blood sport impulse I guess, just reduce people and animals to nothing or trophies on the wall, just pure naked aggression. They don't have a goal in life, that they want to achieve, it's just this urge -"[4]
References
- ↑ https://en.bandainamcoent.eu/little-nightmares/little-nightmares-ii
- ↑ Creaks, clacks and clicks: Making the scary sounds of ‘Little Nightmares 2’
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5bapw/inside-the-creation-of-the-terrifying-teacher-from-little-nightmares-2
- ↑ https://www.eurogamer.net/little-nightmares-2-interview?utm_source=social_sharing&utm_medium=CopyLink&utm_campaign=social_sharing