PLAYER INFO. ✖ Handle: Xy ✖ Contact:first_quadrant ✖ Are You Over 16: Y ✖ Other Characters Played in Consignment: N/A CHARACTER INFO. ✖ Character Name: Lehnsherr, Erik ✖ Canon: X-Men (movies), specifically X-Men: First Class. Night before the Cuban Missile Crisis. ✖ Character Appearance:
Significant markings include a tattoo on his inner left arm that reads "214782".
✖ Character Age: 31 (almost 32) ✖ Pick A Number: 414, 523
✖ Canon Setting: CAUTION! The rest of this app contains references to and spoilers for X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Erik is from a modified version of 1960s Earth where mutants exist. Mutants are a group of people who have mutated "X-Genes" and those mutations manifest in a full gamut from useless physical attributes to highly developed superpowers. In the context of the universe, mutant powers are the only way people obtain "super" powers and excepting rare cases, mutants keep themselves hidden and try to present as human. Mutants have been part of the evolutionary fabric of humans for a long time, according to the Days of Future Past end credit scene. In this scene, a mutant is shown manipulating the pyramids, circa bc 3000. Very little is known about mutants thus far between then and the 40s. Because of this, something not revealed happened where in modern society, they are not known by the general public to exist. In fact, one of the characters (Shaw) believes that lots of mutants started cropping up because of nuclear warfare, most notably including the atom bomb.
X-Men was originally an allegory related to the civil rights movement, with mutant rights being civil rights. As a modern interpretation, the X-Men movies are often analogous to lgbt struggles. When asking one character why he never revealed himself as a mutant, he replies: "You didn’t ask, I didn’t tell." There's also a coming out scene in X2. A departure from Erik's Earth to ours, and from the treatment of mutants to modern human rights movements, is that the humans are extreme in X-Men. There is usually some plot to exterminate all mutants with heavy overtures to a mutant-human war that is realized after Erik's current point in canon. Being a mutant and a holocaust survivor, Erik draws parallels from his childhood to mutant struggles and acts in the best interests of mutants in hopes of preventing a similar catastrophe.
It's important to note that while Magneto is touted as an extremist and a terrorist, most if what he does is reactionary and almost always equal in an eye for an eye standard. For instance when he aims missiles towards the two Navies, it's because they launched them towards the mutants. Essentially while Erik is a megalomaniac supervillain, in the context of his world, he's also not wrong about humans being unable to accept mutants.
Hitler's rise to power, World War II, and the holocaust all happened in Erik's canon the way it happened in real life, except obviously he and his family are fictional and some of the Nazi characters are fictional. Erik also bears a numbered tattoo like many holocaust victims, but the writers reasonably did not want to give him a real number so his is higher than it is in real life. This suggests there were more victims of the canon holocaust. While this result is not purposeful, it does underline that the population of Erik's world is a little bit more violent than ours.
The current timeline he's from is the night before the fictionalized Cuban Missile Crisis, which has a different interpretation in the movie than in real life. In the movie, Shaw attempts manipulate the Soviets and USA into starting World War III to create even more mutants, since he believes more nukes = more mutants. It is unclear whether he believes that mutants are inherently equipped to survive such conditions, or whether he thinks he will be the lone survivor but create peace through a new, post-apocalyptic population of mostly mutants. Either way, he is stopped later and the presence of mutants and Erik's involvement with the CMC is for the most part covered up until later, rendering that whole section of history "normal" in relation to Earth history.
Shaw accomplishes this manipulation by coercing Hendry (fictional American colonel) to support the movement of American nukes into Turkey. Then he does the same in Russia, coercing a Russian leader to do the same with Cuba.
Shaw's attempt to goad the US and the USSR to war is a reinterpretation that is very typical of the newer X-Men movie trilogy where Erik is from. The writers have taken liberties with unsolved mysteries like the pyramids as mentioned above, and also in Days of Future Past have an explanation for JFK's assassination that relates to the mutant rights movement. Again, with the exception of a few characters, these "truths" in history are OOC knowledge only. Up until after this point, nothing about Earth history and X-Men movie Earth history would differ in a text book.
✖ Character History:Here. Anything after the "Cuban Missile Crisis" section and anything in retconned history I'll still use to help explain Erik's full personality and motivations, where appropriate. I'll be sure to label any examples from either with "Days of Future Past"/"future canon" and "retconned canon," respectively. The two articles are identical up until the section "Magneto."
✖ Character Personality: Erik is, over all else, an angry and cynical individual. He's been dealt a shit lot in life, and he acts on it. He also believes that his actions help prevent those things from happening again. Though he thinks he is doing the right thing, he understands there will be sacrifices and losses with his methods, and he considers himself almost like a necessary evil. For instance, he thinks the humans will try to kill all the mutants, but when he is on the beach with two navies, he doesn't want to kill any of them until they decide to draw their weapons. He knows he "shouldn't" kill them, but he levies the lives of those men against the lives they are (and will be) ordered to take, and decides the best course of action is for them to die.
He harbors a lot of hatred and resentment and is not above acting on personal vendetta. Some of his first scenes involve killing Nazis who have escaped punishment for their war crimes. Though there is plenty to convict Shaw in any jurisdiction, Shaw killed Erik's mother and therefore, Erik wants him dead.
Erik has a grey sense of morality when it comes to laws as outlined and governed by people. He defies rules imposed on him by CIA and he does a bit of breaking and entering onto private property, and stealing lots of money. Not to mention that whole serial killer thing. Sometimes his own morals are played fast and loose, causing him to do things like abandon his friends. This also gives him a certain degree of unpredictability, contradiction, and hypocrisy.
He is a good manipulator and he's perceptive. He has a good understanding of the people around him, even though sometimes people think he is disingenuous. For instance, he compliments a character named Beast who is having some self-image issues, only to have Beast think he is being sarcastic. He uses this to his advantage to convince a character named Mystique to join with him. In later canon, he attempts to manipulate her feelings for him and her rocky relationship with her brother Charles to have her come with him.
A lot of people don't know when Erik is telling the truth or not, because mostly he has a flat effect which can make him seem uptight or disapproving (like the time he cockblocked some of the characters with a deadpan "kinky," embarrassing them out of their private moment.) He can be stoic, often hiding his emotions or emoting Resting Asshole FaceTM. He's a little distrustful, often preferring to do things by himself. Even when Charles professes to know him and imply acceptance, he is reluctant and verbally brushes Charles off.
Erik is also a bit of a loose cannon in a lot of ways, acting on impulse and adrenaline. He gets a rush out of asking Charles to shoot him point-blank, because he knows he can stop the bullet. He waves around said gun in a room full of children while watching a presidential address. He sneaks onto a ship to kill Shaw and then makes himself known by walking right up to him. He most definitely has a negatively skewed view towards violence and death, which at times make it seem like inflicting pain upon others is very easy for him. In both First Class and Days of Future Past, he casually throws people backwards into the air without giving it a second thought; there's definitely a threshold where he considers people background or unimportant and his attitude towards humans suggest most fall into this category.
He has a tendency to be dramatic, like in the aforementioned ship confrontation, and also generally because he has an us-versus-them mentality where he constantly equates the mutant rights struggle to full out war. His flair for dramatics is much more well-developed in later canon, so he has plenty of room to grow into that trait.
Erik's determination is, at one point of retconned canon (it's complicated) enough to almost cause a mass genocide of the entire human population. So it's safe to say that he is very determined, and extremely driven. He devotes his entire life into fighting for mutants, though it is in direct conflict with his desire to "settle down." In his mind, he's taking the course of action to get the best results, so if he thought there was a better course of action, then he would probably take it. And in retconned canon, he has this to say: "Charles Xavier did more for mutant rights than you will ever know. My only regret is that he had to die for our dream to live." In Days of Future Past, he expresses regret at wasting time fighting with Charles when they should have been working together. During most of First Class, Erik and Charles lead a team of young mutants and become mentors and role models. If not for the fact that he thinks there is an imminent war, and if not for a catalyst proving him right, he would most likely stay at Charles's mansion and continue to rescue and nurture a lot of lost, confused youth.
Erik is also a hard worker, seeming to not rest at all on his hunt for Shaw. He's organized: he did decades' worth of research, he traveled the globe, and he learned many languages. He's also a quick study, which is important to note because he is not well-educated by accepted standards. In the timeline, he was either completing middle school or in his first year of high school when he was taken to a concentration camp, and it's very unlikely that he finished his education afterwards.
He can be very empathetic - a lot of his earlier bonding with the students is wholly genuine and he honestly wants them to feel better about themselves. In fact, his entire fight is, at some point, rather selfless. He has an "invisible mutation," meaning that he can present as human very easily. However, he doesn't believe anyone should have to hide. It's not wholly selfless because he does let some of his subordinates do his dirty work, but the thought is there (sort of.)
Erik also has a dark sense of humor, as evinced when he tells Charles he looks like a lab rat and then quips that he was one, so he knows, referencing his time being a human experiment in the camps. This also speaks volumes about his comfortableness with Charles, who will later be his arch nemesis but who he currently considers his best friend. Later, despite being worst enemies, Erik would probably still consider Charles his bff, so you can imagine how weird his interpersonal relationships are. Honestly, a lot of similar clashing things apply to Erik: his stoic drama, his premeditated impulse, his hate stemming from love.
He's very much a believer in the means justify the goal, and everything he does is in that pursuit of a utopia for mutants. This includes forgiving former enemies and teaming up with them, putting aside differences for the sake of the bigger picture. This often leads to some ill-advised short-term solutions, better explored in Days of Future Past, such as trying to kill Mystique.
Erik is very self-sufficient and resourceful, often moving from place to place with little on his personage, and will make life-altering decisions on a dime. Yet he manages to be a chameleon, to fit the mold of whatever he needs to be (a friendly face at the bar, a sleazy businessman at a strip club, a rich man looking to stow away some dirty money) with very little to work with.
He's articulate and direct and doesn't mince his words. He's growing into his shoes as an orator, and he's brutally honest. Though he may word things to fit his bill, he prides himself on not lying in Days of Future Past.
Erik is a survivor. He's tough, and very little scares or frightens or "moves" him. He's able to remain calm under duress and a teammate's death is a call to action for him. That's not to say he's unfeeling, but he does a good job of channeling that anger, and of keeping himself focused and ready.
Then there's Magneto. Magneto is Erik's codename and is a mantle he literally takes up at the end of First Class, after the canon-point I'm taking him from. At the same time that Erik and Magneto are the same person and Magneto is not an alter-ego, they are a little bit separate. For instance, characters will refer to him with the name Magneto, but will often attempt to reason with him by addressing him as "Erik." Beast does this in Days of Future Past when Erik nearly causes a plane crash, Charles does this in retconned canon all the time.
There are a few relationships which have helped shape Erik.
The first and what he considers the most important is his mother. She is the good in him. She was used as a bargaining chip for him to demonstrate his powers, and executed when he failed to do so. The last thing she said to him was that "all was good" to try and assuage him. The loss made him so angry that he killed the two men who had brought her in - for years afterward, he thought his power was attached to his rage and he tried to foster that rage and make something good come out of it. He still carries the pain of her murder with him, seventeen years later.
There is Shaw, who is the man who killed his mother. He is a Nazi agent and the movie's Big Bad, trying to coax two nations into war. Erik believes Shaw's ideology but hates him. Yet, Shaw wins because in a way, Erik will carry on his legacy of mutant superiority. Shaw was the one who experimented on Erik, and who calls him "little Erik Lehnsherr." He's kind of a huge asshole and he's the reason for Erik's pain. As demonstrated with Erik's involvement with the kids, he's capable of moving on past his mother's death-- if not for Shaw still being alive. Still, it's not until he kills Shaw that he takes on the Magneto persona.
The person who will continue to be the most important part of his life is Charles Xavier. Some of Charles's first words to Erik were that he wasn't alone. They became fast friends, though Charles is a pacifist and Erik doesn't believe that's an option. Charles is possibly the person Erik most considers his equal - and his opposite. Yet Charles is Erik's first choice as his right hand, and respects him. It's Charles who gets Erik to stop running and to stop working alone, who puts belief in him that there are more of them worth protecting. However, he disagrees fundamentally with Charles on human nature. Charles believes that humans are inherently good and can be reasoned with to accept mutants. Erik believes the opposite, that humans are inherently selfish and will see mutants as a threat and try to extinguish them. He has already believed this for a long time, yet at the point I'm taking him from in canon, he's still able to work with humans and tolerate them. Until they prove him right and do try to exterminate them for existing, there is still hope for Charles to be right and a sliver of a chance for Erik to be amenable to peace, or at least, non-animosity.
Raven will (very soon) be his lieutenant. He'll impart on her everything he knows. She's Charles's sister, and she desperately wants to be her own person. Erik recognizes that and encourages her to be strong and independent of him, and of her love interest. She seeks Erik's approval instead, and he repeats that she should accept herself. In her he finds a partner, though through more retconned future canon, and the way he treats her in Days of Future Past, it's clear that he doesn't consider her an equal the way he considers Charles. He thinks she's too young for him, and that she has more growing to do.
Though he doesn't know it, Erik's also a father. His relationship with his son Peter, which is explicitly stated by Erik's actor in the last video in this interview, and his relationship with Peter's mother are not yet well-established in the movies, although they are very important to Erik in the comics (Magda is particularly important) so this may be subject to change in later installments of the films.
✖ Character Powers & Skills:Abilities (Mutant): I'm going to preface this section by saying that the movie writers didn't do too much research so there are some contradictions. There are two ways to interpret Erik's powers, which are 1. that he has control over ferromagnetism and 2. that he has powers over electromagnetism, which encompasses ferromagnetism. In the films, it is IC knowledge that he is limited to ferromagnetic powers (things you would typically associate with magnets, like attracting "magnetic" metals), however there are conflicting actions to this claim. For instance, Erik can deflect all bullets and his opponents generally switch to fully plastic weaponry. Lead, which is what most bullets are made of, is not ferromagnetic, so they could easily just buy bullets without jackets. He also seems to be able to float, yet is not "held up" by his belt or another metallic harness. For a real life example, this is a frog that is being levitated by a strong magnetic field and demonstrates strong diamagnetism, which is a property every material on Earth has. For example, the coin Erik carries with him is historically 90% silver and 10% copper (I believe it is copper anyway, the only source I could find said it was most similar in composition to the pre-Kennedy US silver dollar which is 90 Silver/10 Copper) and both of those metals exhibit diamagnetic properties. Therefore, it's my opinion that he has control over electromagnetism, but that it's an OOC and IC canon misunderstanding that his control is limited to ferromagnetism.
Anyway, this whole explanation was just to encompass that, accidental or given the knowledge, Erik would be able to move all metals, including ones typically referred to as non-magnetic, and that he potentially has the ability to coax some other really cool things!
Shown: Includes sensing, moving, reshaping, tearing, etc. He also seems to be able to temper metal at will to "recolor" his armor. From his current point in time, he has difficulty raising a submarine (~20,000 tons) and in Days of Future Past, he can easily lift a stadium (guesstimate of ~100,000 tons.) By X3 he can lift the Golden Gate Bridge (~800,000 tons.) Since he will probably not be with the CDC for 10+ years, I think capping at ~100,000 tons should more than suffice. And again, he can levitate things with some ease.
Potential: Should someone give him a physics lesson and he train for it, he should be able to send and reroute electric signals, deflect solar winds, amplify sound, flip magnetic poles, and locate himself on a planet (he won't be able to do this one at all because it doesn't follow the half-of-New-York clause), or other things because electromagnetism is a fundamental force of nature. If anything is brought up that hasn't been explicitly covered by canon but should be scientifically possible, I'll have him train a lot and have weak and unstable control over the specific power.
Abilities (Human): Native knowledge of: German, Yiddish, Polish (possibly); fluent knowledge of: English (US/UK), French; conversational+ knowledge of: Spanish. These are the only ones demonstrated, but it is heavily implied that he either taught Mystique (Raven) Vietnamese or taught her how he learns languages, so he should learn new ones with ease. In First Class he also demonstrates some drawing skill, displaying a decent-looking drawing of Kevin Bacon that he did from memory. In Days of Future Past he exhibits a high pain tolerance by giving himself stitches and also being physically fine after having been woken up from passing out because he was shot in the neck.
Strengths: Resolve, leading, tactical skills, self-taught espionage skills, and is a fast learner who readily assimilates knowledge.
CHARACTER SAMPLES. ✖ First Person POV:undeux (at the end)
✖ Third Person POV: It's a chilly night for October, but Erik is feeling a little warm under his turtleneck after a frustrating conversation over an unfinished game of chess. He wants to be wrong about the humans; he wants to believe that they could, one day, live in peace together. Yet Erik has seen time and time again, that men hate each other over the most insignificant differences. How could they begin to welcome the onset of mutants? How could they begin to tolerate mutants, when they hardly tolerate each other?
He's halfway to his room when he stops in his tracks, alert.
Something-- someone-- must have teleported onto the premises. He feels a belt buckle, shoes, zippers, and tallies a mental inventory. He thinks: the red one. Azazel. No, whoever this is is shorter, and has a slighter frame.
When he rounds the corner, he finds he's right. There's a woman in a sharp-pressed suit, and before he started working with the CIA, he would have assumed that she was one of them. There's an odd, purposeful look about her, and he draws the conclusion that she's working for Shaw. She's a teleporter who, by no coincidence, popped into the living room, so naturally he's suspicious.
"What do you want?" he asks, hand at his side. He feels a little naked without a gun, but the silver tray in the curio cabinet will do just fine, should it come to that.
The woman looks positively startled as she whips around, breaking her attention away from some sort of odd piece of machinery. Her smile is wide and full of comically tall teeth, and she holds out a hand for him. "Mr. Lehnsherr, I'm here with the CDC and I'd like to speak to you for a moment. It's very important."
That throws him off, but not for very long. "I'm not interested," he grits, trying to place the acronym CDC in his head and processing that she doesn't, in fact, seem to be working for Shaw. He can't tell if she's friend or foe, but as far as he's concerned, at least she's not under his thumb. He should apologize for being brusque, but he settles for dropping the frown and picking up an incredulous look. "And next time, try the door."
"Sorry about that," she replies, standing up straight, brushing herself off and having the decency to look a bit embarrassed. "But really, your mutants need you. It's very urgent; I'll explain on the way."
He readies to rebuff her one more time but his interest is piqued at her mention of cause. And so he stands, unmoved, arms crossed over his chest, weight shifting humorlessly from one foot to the other. "You'll explain now."
"Very well," she starts. "Your planet-- Earth-- is one of many. Not all the planets that exist are, mm, desirable. That's where we come in: the CDC's job is to do a little bit of galactic cleanup! Earth is near the end of a short docket of worlds to be eliminated, and there's time to review its case. Come with me right now, and I'll see to it personally that it not be destroyed."
"And you expect me to believe that? Come back tomorrow, with proof." He tries to move past her, but she seems to be one step ahead and block his way. He's not used to that and it's positively annoying.
"Like I said, Mr. Lehnsherr, I'm afraid we just do not have the time. Come now, please! You do want to help your fellow mutants, don't you?" she asks, subtly leaning forward with a wide, hopeful look.
"Of course I do," he replies solidly after a second's consideration. She deflates slightly, her expression a little strained, and he thinks she must notice his confusion. "But I can't just take you for your word."
"Mr. Lehnsherr, please. I don't think you understand the severity of the situation. Your world is in real danger and you won't save anything for long by staying on it. You will lose everything. Your art, your technology, your evolution. You have a lot to gain by joining me-- how do you think people will react to a mutant who single-handedly rescues the entire planet? That is what you want, yes?"
To her credit, he gives it some thought. He doesn't believe her, still, since this is all a little bit absurd to him. He has many questions, some under the assumption that what she's saying is true and some not. Why did she choose him? Why did she choose now? Why can't she plead for Earth without him? What's her name? Who's she really working for?
The easiest thing about her speech is her question. It isn't debatable that he'd put the well being of his brothers and sisters at the forefront of his interests, above all else. It's his pride, and his life, and his hubris.
"Yes," he says, with finality. He opens his mouth to speak more, to add a "but" or an "and" or something, but he doesn't get a chance. The last thing that registers is a gleeful, unsettling smile that reminds him of a crocodile.
CHARACTER ITEMS. ✖ Pick a Team: Green: his power set is one that allows for large-scale attacks and he proves in later canon timeline that he is fully capable of leading groups into war. Red: He spends the first length of the movie as Erik Lehnsherr: Nazi Hunter, doing his own covert ops trying to track down Shaw. He spends most of the movie working with the CIA and runs a few missions for them.
✖ Reason for Joining the CDC: He believes he's saving the world. Also he will want to resurrect his folks and eventually save up for a planet for mutants to live. ✖ Mission Freebie: Resurrection of his mother, Edie Lehnsherr. ✖ Personal Item or Weapon: 1 pistol, fully loaded.
✖ Character Inventory:
Clothes: 1 x turtleneck 1 x tan pants 1 x underpants 1 x pair of chelsea-cut black leather shoes 1 x pair of black socks
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