The Harlequin

The Harlequin (Rosa Syclus) is the portrayal of the Fear of Control in OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING.

She is an eldritch being resembling what used to be a human woman and encased in a wooden suit so as to resemble a marionette. She controls an army of Puppets and Pets, formerly normal humans. She represents the fear of the cycle of abuse and everything associated with it. She has taken an interest in Jordan and the rest of the protagonists, and her motives are rather ambiguous, though undoubtedly malevolent. The Harlequin is one of four characters who could possibly be "The Harlot" mentioned in prophecies.

The Harlequin initially ambushes Jordan in the lavatory space of an abandoned London building. She proceeds to impress him into her service, exploiting Jordan's inherently submissive nature. Under the Harlequin (or as he calls her, the Mistress), Jordan is essentially turned into a sex slave, as well as earning notoriety throughout Western Europe as the "White Jester" by eliminating a number of resistance leaders with his innate fighting skills. Her sadism is also apparent from her use of Donnie as a hostage to keep Jordan working, and her apparent acts of sexual abuse while he is away.

The Harlequin meets her apparent end in a trap laid by Jordan, in which he and Donnie attempt to incinerate her in a Brazilian-4000K oven and eventually succeed in locking her in a freezer. However, this proves to hardly be the end of the Harlequin, as her existence continues to loom over the party throughout their various escapades in the former United States, albeit in a much less aggressive manner.

The Harlequin was originally a Proxy of The Slender Man in her late teens prior to the events of Rapture. Instead of getting masks to hide her identity, Rosa got her famous wooden costume. In her proxy-trance, she grew delusional and believed the Slender Man loved her so she willingly killed for him and grew to be feared as a terrorist. When the apocalypse struck Rosa she became a Fear with the assistance of The Ecclesiarchway. With this new found strength, Rosa trapped the Slender Man within a Door, turning him into The Beast.