Razputin Aquato

Razputin Aquato
Razputin Aquato, as depicted in The Wiki Camp S1E2: Horvitzed!
Full name	Razputin Aquato
Nicknames	Raz
Pronouns	he/him
First appearance	S1E1: Psychonauts
Latest appearance	The Wiki Camp S2E2: Horvitzed!
Portrayed by	Richard Horvitz

Razputin Aquato is a little clown boy with psychic superpowers who appears in the television show Psychonauts. He is characterized by his joy and love for the world, and especially for the titular Psychonauts. He is an avid reader of the in-universe comic series True Psychic Tales. He is ten years old, and currently serves as an intern for the Psychonauts 2. While early appearances occasionally have him acting callous and sarcastic, his first fully canonical appearance in S1E5: The Rhombus of Ruin solidified his ongoing characterization. He is commonly regarded as one of the greatest boys of all time, and frequently places atop popularity polls. He is the poster boy for transgender swag.

Character

Creation

Razputin Aquato was created by Erik Wolpaw, creator of the Psychonauts television show. Wolpaw, who wanted to pivot from writing science-fiction games into a new market, was attempting to create a character who would be magical and completely unscientific. Wolpaw describes the moment of Raz's creation as such:

"It was never really me creating him. He sort of created himself. You know how it is with characters like him. I closed my eyes, took a sip of coffee, and just let whatever happened happen. I was seized with an unmistakable force and my hand began furiously scribbling. The process took hours. I thought it would never end. I couldn't leave. I couldn't open my eyes. Honest to god, it was hell. (He laughs.) How young I was, back then. 'Course, the result turned out pretty great, yeah? And then when it was time to look for a voice actor, well, it was never even a question. Rich had already found his way into my studio."

Animators and concept artists for Psychonauts found a similar process existed for drawing Razputin. It was simply impossible to depict him voluntarily. Instead, they created the show by animating an environment for him. Upon waking up, they would often find that, seemingly asleep, several of the animators had broken into the studio and added Razputin to several of the animation cels, seemingly at random. His appearances became longer and more consistent as the series progressed, however.

Portrayal

Razputin is voiced by Richard Horvitz, who famously played Zim in Invader Zim and Kaos in everything else.

Abilities

Raz is a very talented psychic, especially for his young age. Over the course of Psychonauts, he is shown to have control over a range of psychic abilities including Clairvoyance, Telekinesis, Levitation, Pyrokinesis and Transhet Swag. He is also a practiced acrobat, having grown up in a family of performing circus acrobats. He does a backflip every day of his life. Other than that, Raz is a skilled artist, and likes to draw pictures of himself and the people he loves.

Appearances in Psychonauts

Season 1

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Original air date	Details of appearance
1	1	Psychonauts	April 19, 2005	The self-titled pilot of Psychonauts, mostly empty background shots and dialogueless characters waiting for Razputin to arrive, contains one scene with Razputin. One of the characters designed to entice Razputin, a comic store owner handing out free copies of True Psychic Tales, disappears from the episode at timestamp 1:14:22 and is momentarily replaced with Razputin. Razputin opens one of the comic books, reads a page, and gasps with delight. He then knocks over a glass of water on a nearby table and is replaced with the comic store owner at timestamp 1:14:25. He does not otherwise appear in this episode.
2	2	Revenge of the Psychonauts	April 26, 2005	Razputin appears in the background of a crowd shot at timestamp 00:05:30. He bumps into another background character, frowning at them, and then walks out of view behind another background character. He is later seen at timestamp 00:09:01 exiting a store, holding someone's hand and looking much happier.
3	3	Legacy of the Psychonauts	May 3, 2005	This is the first episode where Razputin has a speaking role. He appears at timestamp 00:02:50, sitting on an armchair facing towards the audience. Horvitz, as Razputin, begins talking directly to the viewer about the previous episodes, listing plot occurrences and asking for the viewer to call in with their own opinions on them. At timestamp 00:15:02, the topic changes, and Razputin begins excitedly telling the viewer about True Psychic Tales, before sighing and calling them "just a bunch of stupid comics for babies." The bulk of his dialogue comes when the topic changes for a second and final time, and Razputin begins talking about the Bush administration at length. (See Controversies for more information.)
4	4	Four Days Out	May 10, 2005	While Razputin does not appear in this episode, Razputin is mentioned by Walter White during his brief appearance as an alternate-universe Psychonaut. Bryan Cranston was not available for filming, so Horvitz played Walter.
5	5	The Rhombus of Ruin	May 17, 2005	Razputin appears throughout the entirety of the forty-minute episode. He does not break the fourth wall in this episode, nor does he backpedal out of any of his excited outbursts of love for his comics. He gains the ability Clairvoyance in this episode, which he keeps throughout the remainder of the show.
6	14	Ozymandias	September 15, 2013	Razputin begins the episode by apologizing to the viewer for the long delay between episodes. He claims that Horvitz had gotten ill, preventing the two of them from filming together, and muses about the possibility of Wolpaw poisoning him to stop the episode from coming out. He then laughs this idea off. While muffled audio of Albuquerque plays, Razputin meticulously unboxes every existing True Psychic Tales item of merchandise, commenting at length on how much he loves each one. Each time the name True Psychic Tales is mentioned, stock sounds of applause play.

Appearances outside Psychonauts

To date, Razputin has only appeared in two pieces of media: Psychonauts and The Wiki Camp: Season 2. Razputin Aquato's page appeared during Horvitzed!, the second episode of the season. So far, it has not disappeared. Throughout the episode, an increasing number of vocal performances have been attributed to Richard Horvitz. The accuracy of these categorizations is unknown, because it is impossible to know if Horvitz is really good at mimicry or not.

Controversies

Legacy of the Psychonauts rant

Razputin's comments about proper bush administration earned Wolpaw the ire of the Jimmy Breakfast Gardening Society, who believed that Wolpaw was spreading dangerous misinformation about hedge care. Razputin's advice included "just [taking] a chainsaw to the damn thing every once in a while," as well as "[kicking] its ass to show it you're the boss of the garden" and "never, ever, ever [watering] it." Horvitz issued a public apology for voicing these sentiments, which were repeated verbatim by Walter White in Four Days Out.