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Ian Grimm

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Ian Grimm (pronounced "Eye-an") is one of the main characters of the Apple TV+ streaming series Mythic Quest. He is the creator of the game Mythic Quest, and serves as the Creative Director of Mythic Quest Studios. Ian is portrayed by Rob McElhenney, first appearing in the episode "Pilot".

Ian is the confident, ego-driven creator of Mythic Quest. As the "genius" behind the game, he refuses to secede control and fixates on minute details to leave an unblemished legacy that he hopes will be remembered forever. Ian is often at odds with Executive Producer, David Brittlesbee, and Lead Engineer, Poppy Li, over wanting more time to make creative decisions or wanting to add something to the game at the last minute. Ian's need for control puts David in a difficult position as he is Ian's boss, as well as Poppy - as she wants more input in the creative process behind Mythic Quest.

Biography[]

Early Life[]

Ian was named after his father. However, his father was not a good man, and once burned Ian's arm when he did not turn the Nintendo off fast enough. Deciding that he didn't want to share his father's name, Ian took to pronouncing it as "Eye-an" instead of "Ee-an".[4]

By 2005, Ian was married to Shannon and they had a son, Brendan. By the time Brendan was four, Ian and Shannon's marriage was over and they divorced. Ian believed that he would never be a great dad, and by arrangement with Shannon he left his son's life. He made sure the house and school were paid for and provided for Brendan, but from the age of four, Ian was not in his life.[4]

Mythic Quest[]

Ian Grimm is the Creative Director of Mythic Quest Studios, with his vision creating the video game Mythic Quest.[2] He pitched the idea for the game to the same Montreal-backed Publisher that had made the hit Dark Quiet Death games.[5] He hired C.W. Longbottom as the game's head writer, hiring him after finding him running an award winning rotisserie chicken stand at a state fair.[2] In 2011, Ian hired nineteen-year old Poppy Li straight out of M.I.T.[4]

In 2013, Ian Grimm Snr sued Ian to take control of his company. Ian countersued, recording a deposition for Stewart, Mullen & Mullen Law Firm on November 14.[1] The same year, Mythic Quest Studios moved into the Harrison & Sons Textiles building. Ian found a carving on the pillar dedicated to Doc and Beans, the creators of Dark Quiet Death. Above them, he added his own name and the date.[3]

During the creation of the game, Ian and C.W. created the character of the Masked Man, promising to reveal his identity in upcoming content. However, as the years went on, Ian felt increasing pressure to reveal the character's identity and felt that any revelation would be underwhelming so kept delaying the long-promised revelation.[1] Mythic Quest is an immense hit, becoming the highest grossing MMORPG of all time, being played in twenty different countries across six continents with a revenue of 11.6 billion US dollars.[2]

Raven's Banquet launch[]

After two years of development, Raven's Banquet is almost ready for launch, but Ian believes that something is not quite perfect. He fixates on a new addition to the game, a shovel added by Poppy that can be used to dig and change the game terrain. While Poppy wants it to be left alone, Ian feels that it needs more and begins noodling with the concept. He tries to perfect it, believing that having a dual use as a weapon is the answer, but cannot nail it down before David orders a code lock to avoid the expansion from being postponed. Ian angrily storms off and continues working on it, eventually being aided by Poppy into making the shovel a dual purpose item that is a hit when the expansion launches.[2]

Shortly after the launch of Raven's Banquet, influential livestreamer Pootie Shoe began building pressure on Mythic Quest Studios to finally reveal the identity of the Masked Man. Ian and C.W. claimed to the rest of the team that they were not ready to reveal it yet, but privately they had no idea about his identity. The pair set out to create a story, eventually settling upon unmasking the Masked Man at the new Masked Man's Hall of Games and Chance casino that Ian agrees to put into the game as a way to smooth things over with Brad Bakshi, the Head of Monetization. They also plan to create a new character, the White Knight, who is the Masked Man's son. The story is noted as being similar to Star Wars, which Ian was hoping that David Brittlesbee would not notice.[1]

When Mythic Quest was revealed to have a guild of white supremacists active within the game, the Mythic Quest Studios team began efforts to address the problem. Ian hit upon the idea of drawing all of the white supremacists out by adding Nazi salute emotes and iconography to the game as a way to identify them. Publicly, they would say it was a glitch. The Nazis within the game were drawn out when they joined forces to attack a peaceful protest organized by Poppy using her new Dinner Party feature. With all of the accounts identified, Ian and Poppy put the accounts into their own isolated server where they couldn't bother anyone else.[6]

After Pootie Shoe announced his intention to not play Mythic Quest again, Ian and Brad attended StreamerCon in an effort to find a new streamer to play their game. They were unsuccessful, and Poppy suggested letting Dana Bryant, one of their testers who had a huge passion for the game, to be their new streamer. Ian and Brad were dismissive, but eventually came around to the idea once they believed that it had been their idea all along.[7]

In an effort to distract Ian from the Masked Man bugging out and giving a lot of free loot away, Poppy transferred one of her programmers, Paul, to the main office. An extremely tall man who had previously served in Iraq, Paul triggered Ian's own sense of masculine insecurity and he became determined to prove himself as the alpha male of Mythic Quest Studios.[8] Eventually, the Masked Man is revealed to have been hacked. In the middle of a huge data breach, Ian publicly challenges the hacker to a showdown at the Masked Man's Hall of Games and Chance. The only problem is that Ian sucks at playing the game. Under Poppy's tutelage, Ian trains for the fight and meets the Masked Man at the appointed time. After a tough fight, Ian wins and unmasks the Masked Man as Poppy was able to trace the user's IP address and activate his webcam, revealing that the hacker is Pootie Shoe.[9]

After winning the fight, Ian arranges to meet Brendan at a diner, taking along Poppy for emotional support, although he declines to tell her any specifics of the meeting and asks her to remain in the car. The meeting with Brendan does not go well; Ian admits that he did not know how to handle the situation when Brendan began streaming Mythic Quest. He defends his decision to leave, believing that Brendan made something of himself and says he would not have unmasked him had he known. Brendan calls him out on a lot of his issues, saying Ian makes everything about him. Saying he is done with his dad, Brendan leaves. Outside, Poppy has found out that Pootie is Ian's son from his ex-wife Shannon and lays into him with some home truths and the fact that she is planning to leave Mythic Quest Studios for a job at Cold Alliance Studios. Despondent and down, Ian mopes in the car ride back to the office.[4]

Poppy's job at Cold Alliance falls through, and Ian has his next big idea: Blood Ocean. He had no idea what it is, but expects Poppy to figure it out. While Ian attempts to get himself motivated again, the studio falls into disarray. The workers are attempting to unionize and David Brittlesbee is fired for not reigning in Ian over the entire duel with the Masked Man. Eventually, Ian calls Montreal and gets everything, including David's job, sorted out. Poppy reveals Blood Ocean to him; a communicable disease that can spread through the game. Ian and Poppy have a heart to heart which ends with Ian offering her the role of Co-Creative Director of Mythic Quest, which she accepts.[3]

This battle for control at Mythic Quest Studios is shown at StreamerCon, where Ian and Brad Bakshi attend and Poppy sneaks in disguised as the Masked Man.

Specifically with Poppy, it is shown that Ian values Poppy as emotional support as he did with Shannon when he was married. His need to keep things secret to cover up his tragic past in his eyes covers up truths from his colleagues, such as Pootie Shoe being his son.

Influenced by Poppy, Ian accepts her as Co-creative Director on Mythic Quest, but this positive relationship soon turns bitter from Season 2 Episode 3 onwards.

As the two move on to work together at GrimPop, their relationship continues to grow tense. Ian seems to be in control of everything in the office, mostly for pseudo-scientific reasons that Poppy cannot understand and dislikes - such as the blank white walls with no edges, the freezing temperature of the office, and his insistence to not give Poppy an office. In the Season 3 finale, Ian recognizes how valuable Poppy is to him, as neither of them can do their job without the other. Ian may have creative ideas, but without Poppy he has no way to implement them. Poppy can create an incredible world with her coding skills, but without Ian, no one will find the game fun. Ian acknowledges how he treats Poppy unfairly, and they are able to agree to continue working on their relationship, promising to "meet each other halfway".

Personality[]

Being the Creative Director of Mythic Quest, Ian is confident, egotistical, manipulative, prideful, and vain. While possessing good coding skills, he is however, nowhere near the level of Poppy Li, who graduated from MIT. However, he is a creative genius, which even Poppy can begrudgingly admit. This is seen in how he designed Blood Ocean into a disease and how he repurposed the shovel into a weapon and the design of the Masked Man. He was able to create a concept for turning a MMORPG into one of the most successful video games in the world which, at the start of the series, was at the beginning of releasing a major expansion.

Ian needs to be the alpha, as seen in the way that his office is place slightly above all of his employees so he can watch and rule over his proverbial kingdom. This is also seen in his relationship with equally ego-driven co-worker Poppy, who won't admit the fact that she has become more like Ian after having worked together for so long. Ian and Poppy bicker regularly over the game, Ian wanting to keep his game cool and fresh, and Poppy wanting to have a creative part in making the game. Their relationship is somewhat similar to a relationship older brother and younger sister, however this began evolving into a more husband and wife role from "YumYum" as Poppy became more used to being Ian's equal.

Ian is also the product of abuse, which might explain his vain and egotistical personality as a way to overcompensate for the way that his father treated him when he was younger. He recalls his father putting out cigarettes on his arm as punishment in "Brendan". This difficult relationship extended into adulthood, when his father tried to sue Ian into giving up control of his company over to him but failed, thus destroying any chance either had to salvage their relationship ("The Casino"). Ian's relationship with his father is so broken to the point he asked other people to pronounce his name Ian as "Eye-an," rather than "Ee-an" so that he could be less connected to his father, who he was named after. This relationship also mirrors the relationship he has with his son, Brendan (AKA Pootie_Shoe), with Ian was an emotionally and physically absent father, despite supporting him financially.

Despite these flaws, Ian is a good person deep down, and cares about his friends. This is seen in "Quarantine" when he noticed that Poppy wasn't showing her face on Zoom, realizing that she was in a state of incredible anxiety and depression over the pandemic, he visited her in person to give her a hug in order to calm her fears.

Appearances[]

Notes and references[]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 "The Casino"
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 "Pilot"
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Blood Ocean"
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 "Brendan"
  5. ↑ "A Dark Quiet Death"
  6. ↑ "Dinner Party"
  7. ↑ "The Convention"
  8. ↑ "Non-Player Character"
  9. ↑ "Permadeath"
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