Robert Witterel was an English sailor who served as captain of the Obra Dinn during her final voyage in 1802, attended by steward Fillip Dahl. He was married to Abigail Hoscut Witterel, a passenger aboard the Obra Dinn, and her brother William Hoscut served as the ship's First Mate.
Witterel committed suicide with a pistol as the last person alive on board prior to the ship's rediscovery in 1807.
Story[]
Witterel was first seen sentencing Hok-Seng Lau to death by firing line for the murder of Nunzio Pasqua, unaware that his own Second Mate, Edward Nichols, was the true culprit.[1]
Following a botched attempt at mutiny, Nichols tried to board the ship with three captured mermaids, only for Chioh Tan to shoot him dead with a stolen musket.[2] Witterel, with topman Huang Li acting as translator and Hamadou Diom restraining Tan, questioned him and demanded answers about why he had tried to stop the chest from being brought onboard. Before Tan could say anything more than that a "shell" must be protected, both he and Diom were fatally impaled by the spikes of a Beast.[3]
Witterel later had Dahl arrested for attacking seaman John Naples and fatally wounding him. When Dahl stated that the mermaids carry a curse and urged him to throw them back into the sea, Witterel declared him insane but spared his life by having him locked up in the lazarette rather than trying him for murder.[4]
Sometime later, a Kraken attacked the ship. Witteral ordered his Chief Gunner, Christian Wolff, to kill the creature, but the cannons were destroyed and Wolff was killed. Witterel then grabbed a hunting lance, went below deck, and stabbed two mermaids to death, with the third finally ordering the Kraken to leave.[5] He then possibly threw the surviving mermaid and the shells overboard,[6] and in doing so saved the Obra Dinn from certain destruction.
Witterel's wife Abigail was fatally injured by falling debris, and he ordered that she be put in his bed and allowed to die in peace. He also apparently authorized surgeon Henry Evans to take passengers Jane Bird and Emily Jackson, and stewards Paul Moss and Davey James into one of the ship's lifeboats so they could at least try to make it to shore. He attempted to intervene on their behalf when topman Leonid Volkov attempted to prevent them from escaping; Paul was killed before Jackson grabbed a loaded gun and shot him dead.[7]
After the deaths or departures of all other crew members, First Mate Hoscut, topman Lewis Walker, and seaman Henry Brennan discovered a half-naked Witterel barricaded inside his cabin. They demanded that Witterel give up the shells they believed he still possessed and threatened his life. Even though Witterel claimed that he had thrown the shells back into the ocean, the crew attacked him anyway; Hoscut was shot, Brennan was stabbed, and Walker was fatally bludgeoned.[8] Overcome with grief, Witterel sat beside the body of his wife, asking for forgiveness, before shooting himself with a spare pistol he had hidden earlier.[9]
It seems that Witterel and Hoscut were close friends, as Witterel referred to Hoscut as such while lamenting his death.
The East India Company insurance assessment on the Obra Dinn incident finds Witterel guilty of murdering four crew members. His estate is seized in full as punishment for committing suicide.[10]
Identification[]
Witterel is the first person who can be definitively identified in game. He is clearly addressed as "captain" in the very first death memory, The End, part 1 .
Appearances[]
Witterel appears in fifteen memories, making him one of the most-frequently seen characters. Chronologically, he first appears in Murder, part 2. He perishes in The End, part 4. He is first introduced to the player in The End, part 1, which is the first memory in the game. His corpse is among those still on the ship when she drifts back into Falmouth.
References[]
- ↑ In Murder, part 2
- ↑ The mutiny spans chapters III and IV, shooting takes place in The Calling, part 6.
- ↑ In Unholy Captives, part 1.
- ↑ In Unholy Captives, part 4.
- ↑ In Bargain, part 2 and part 3.
- ↑ He claims the shells are at bottom of the ocean in The End, part 2 but seaman Henry Brennan does not believe Witterel. Given that shells have driven people mad on board earlier and Brennan along with two other crew members incited a mutiny without any other explanation, it is possible, although not confirmed in the narrative, that the shells are still on board.
- ↑ In Escape, part 2.
- ↑ In The End, part 1, The End, part 2, and The End, part 3
- ↑ In The End, part 4.
- ↑ Stated in the insurance assessment book in the epilogue if Witterel's fate is deduced correctly.