Joe Davis


 * This section is still under construction. Important character and plot details are still needed.

Joe Davis (born June 15, 1969)note is a major character and the protagonist in Downfall. He is the husband to Ivy Davis, the brother of Robbie Davis, and the son of Mr. Davis and Mary Davis.

Personality
His default personality borders on dry and incredulous. However, there are two drastically different sides to Joe Davis, which tie into each other closely throughout the course of the game. He bounces between being an out of touch but loyal husband, and a verbally abusive and aggressive man. Because of the odd and unsettling circumstances he and his wife Ivy find themselves in, Joe sets out on a gritty mission to find her and bring her back.

Due to Joe's actions and interactions in the game, it's heavily suspected that Joe suffers from schizophrenia and/or dissociative identity disorder.

Biography
It's possible that, if John Wilson is supposed to be a representation of Joe—something supported by them both having common, generic first and last names—that Joe is indeed English and that he was born on June 15, 1969 in Plymouth. He may even be the Devonshire Axeman, something indicated by the fact that the corpse revived by Dr. Frank Zelmann using John Wilson's brain, which turned into a aggressive, murderous monster known as The Axeman, tears off its face to reveal Joe's underneath.

Downfall
There are many options to see the different sides of Joe as either a monotonous if not tired husband or as a controlling and verbally abusive man. However, when he hears of Ivy's disappearance, he dutifully strikes out to go find her. Even though he expresses some remorse in his actions, he does whatever it takes to recover his wife.

Dreams
The first dream that Joe has is the most simple and the most straightforward about more of Ivy's underlying issues. After his argument with Ivy, Joe falls asleep and dreams that Ivy is calling to him, asking for them to die together. The dream is merely text on a black background without any visuals.

After killing the young Sophie, Joe is overcome with a need to lie down. This is less of a dream and more of a flashback to his and Ivy's life back in London. It starts with a black screen, which soon gives way to him standing in a bathroom holding a heavy black bag next to a filled bathtub. Ivy calls off to him off screen, asking if he's in the bath before going to find him. She says that she can't find Lucifer, their black cat. She's concerned because it's time for him to eat and "he never misses his meal". Picking the top or bottom option redirects the conversation back to the topic at hand, and Joe tells Ivy that "there's been a little accident…" He ends up telling her that he swallowed a bunch of sewing needles from Ivy's bamboo sewing box and was curling in pain. Joe admits that he didn't want Ivy to see Lucifer suffering, so he put the cat in a black bag and drowned it in the bath. Ivy is horrified, but Joe pleads that he was being merciful. Unable to stand the sight of him, Ivy demands that he leave her alone.

After killing fat Sophie and Steve Harris, Joe has to go lie down. In his dream, he wakes up with Agnes at his side and exits his room. Two naked women (like two identical Sophies) are standing in front of the lift. As Joe questions what he's seeing, their heads flower open, and Joe is forced to head to the stairwell corridor. Here, he sees Ivy. He starts talking to her, but she's not responding. She turns around and violently splits in half with her parts falling in opposite directions. Joe is overcome by shock and horror. He collapses to the floor, and then he wakes up for real in his hotel room.

Unlike the other dreams, Joe never makes it back to his hotel room to have this dream. After killing young adult Sophie, he faints in the hallway. This dream sequence is yet another flashback, this time recounting what happened to younger brother Robbie when they were kids and why he's no longer around. Joe was told by another boy about a supposed black briefcase filled with money. The idea of treasure and the fact that it might belong to the mafia is enough to interest Joe and to convince him to bring his younger brother along. After knocking a drunken guard fully unconscious, the two boys cross to a large slab of concrete under where the treasure is supposedly hidden. As is the case, Joe moves the concrete aside with a crowbar and finds that there's no treasure at all. In fact, there's nothing but landmines, which is why the building site was shut down. Joe says that they should leave, but Robbie lags behind, saying that he didn't come all this way for nothing! He takes one of the landmines. Unfortunately, as he's heading back towards Joe, the landmine goes off and kills him instantly. Joe wakes up from this horrible memory. Inexplicably, the crowbar from his dream is also on him.

Robbie Davis
Robbie is Joe's younger brother who passed away under Joe's supervision.

Mr. Davis
Joe's relationship with his father prior to his brother's passing isn't very clear. However, it's safe to assume that it was distant and emotionally unfulfilling. After Robbie died, Mary Davis committed suicide, and Mr. Davis turns to alcohol. He falls into a cycle of verbally and physically abusing Joe, who he blames for the family's downfall.

Mary Davis
Not much is known about the relationship that Joe has with his mother. It's insinuated that she and Mr. Davis both favoured Robbie more. Evidence to this being that her grief over Robbie's passing was so great that she killed herself in the family bathroom.

Trivia

 * Joe is likely English, but may be an American who moved to England, evidence towards this being Joe's mannerisms and similarity to the protagonists of horror stories such as those of Stephen King - of whom Remigiusz Michalski is a fan of - who are typically American.
 * He states he usually doesn't even have breakfast.
 * Though in both original and remake it's stated that his brother Robbie was the favorite son, Joe seems to love and care about his brother deeply without being jealous about it.
 * In Downfall, Joe is the one who was told about the "mafia briefcase" while in the remake Downfall (2016), it was Robbie who heard about it and told Joe and Ivy. Also in this version, landmines were hidden underneath the slab of concrete. In the remake, it was a crate of grenades.