Elaine Marley

From Monkey Island wiki

Elaine Marley-Threepwood Elaine as she appears in The Curse of Monkey Island
Home Island	Mêlée Island
Species	Human
Gender	Female
Eye Color	Green
Hair Color	Brown
Relative(s)	Guybrush Threepwood (husband) Horatio Torquemeda Marley (grandfather)

Elaine Marley-Threepwood is the primary female-lead/damsel-in-distress in the Monkey Island series. Though she sometimes requires rescuing by the series' main character, Guybrush, she is depicted as a confident, charming, and tough woman. She is constantly pursued by the undead pirate LeChuck, who is obsessed with marrying her and has captured her four times throughout the series.

She is the governor of the Tri-Island Area, which is comprised of Mêlée Island, Booty Island, and Plunder Island (but in Escape from Monkey Island appears to consist of several others including Lucre Island, where her family lawyers live and work). Though she resigned from her governing duties on Mêlée temporarily (having dumped Guybrush) she apparently retained her position by The Curse of Monkey Island. Elaine has two mansions, one on Mêlée and one on Booty, and a fortress on Plunder. She also has an unorganized array of assistants and personal guards that seem incapable of protecting her from her various kidnappings.

Elaine's first name is a reference to the 1967 film The Graduate.^[1] In initial development on The Secret of Monkey Island she was known simply as The Governor.

1 Family
2 Governing positions
3 Role in games
4 Trivia
5 Pets
6 Bibliography
7 Appearances
8 Voice actors
9 Memorable quotes
10 References
11 External links

Family

Main article: Marley family

Most of Elaine's family has never been seen or heard of. Her father is briefly mentioned in the first game and both of her parents are mentioned again in the fourth game. Apparently H.T. Marley thought they were deadbeats and advised Elaine, in the event they would come begging for a hand-out, to tell them "to take a long walk" off a short gangplank.

Elaine's grandfather is Horatio Torquemeda Marley, a former governor and pirate captain who disappeared twenty years before the events of the games. It is revealed in Escape from Monkey Island that he is none other than Herman Toothrot, the hermit who lives on Monkey Island, although this contradicts some information from earlier games.

Governing positions

Note: This section contains speculation.

In the beginning of The Secret of Monkey Island there is a poster near the Scumm Bar. On the poster is written: "Re-elect Governor Marley. When there's only one candidate, there's only one choice." One could wonder why Governor Marley was the only candidate. A reference is made to this poster in Escape from Monkey Island, Elaine referring to its tag as an "old slogan".

Elaine says in the fourth game that the position of Governor of Mêlée Island is a life-time term. She, however, resigned from her duties as governor of Mêlée in the second game and in the first game there is a re-election, something that would not be possible if the governor's position would be for life.

It is possible that during the time between the second and third games Elaine somehow combined the governing duties of several islands and may very well have also affected the position of governor being made a lifetime term. Apart from the Governor's office the affairs are also seen to by a council of Town Elders (mentioned in the fourth game).

It's also possible that the "for life" provision might have been a new policy starting with Elaine's re-election. One final possibility (albeit remote) could be that Elaine's re-election poster could simply have been a joke put up by some smart-aleck pirate, making fun of her lifetime appointment.

The limits of Elaine's power seem very ambiguous from game to game. In the third game she is said to only rule over Mêlée, Booty and Plunder, but in the fourth game, Lucre Island is also counted as belonging to the Tri-Island area. Since Jambalaya Island also doesn't have a specified government (like Phatt Island or Scabb Island) it is also potentially a part of the Tri-Island area.

Role in games

The Secret of Monkey Island

Elaine as she appears in The Secret of Monkey Island

Elaine meets Guybrush when he attempts to steal the Idol of Many Hands from her mansion. Guybrush is apprehended by Sheriff Fester Shinetop but Elaine comes to his rescue when Fester attempts to drown him. After this she professes her love for Guybrush and urges him to complete his Three Trials of piratehood. Just when he finishes the last one, however, Elaine is kidnapped by the Ghost Pirate LeChuck. (If the player has completed the other two trials before stealing the Idol, there is a different scene where Guybrush confesses his love in Elaine's absence—very uncool.)

Though LeChuck attempts to marry Elaine she somehow manages to escape. She attempts to surprise LeChuck by dressing a pair of monkeys as the bride. This also comes as a shock to Guybrush who interrupts the ceremony in order to rescue Elaine. A (very) one-sided fight ensues between LeChuck and Guybrush which Guybrush nonetheless survives, dissolving LeChuck with a bottle of root beer. Elaine appears by his side while LeChuck is exploding against the night sky for a final exchange with Guybrush.

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge

In Monkey Island 2, Elaine has apparently dumped Guybrush, who proves a very different person when (thanks to his defeat of LeChuck) he is popular and boastful. She leaves her mansion on Mêlée and moves to Booty Island without telling Guybrush of her whereabouts. As she puts it when they meet later in the game, "We were a mistake!". She plays only a minor role as the game focuses more on her grandfather's connection to Big Whoop. Guybrush attends her Mardi Gras party where she captures him, but their hopes of reconciliation are crushed when Guybrush reveals that he only came to get her grandfather's map. Elaine throws the map out the window and kicks Guybrush out.

She does come to Guybrush's rescue when he breaks through the concrete over the underground pipes which run between Dinky Island and Monkey Island. Indeed, the whole game is told from Guybrush's point of view as he is hanging on for his dear life. When he finally finishes the story and asks Elaine to help him out his rope snaps and he falls down.

Elaine's last appearance in the game is over the pit, worrying over Guybrush's fate, suspecting that he may be under a spell. She apparently decides later that Guybrush is dead as she dejectedly tells LeChuck during his assault on her fort at Plunder Island that he took from her the only man she ever loved.

The Curse of Monkey Island

The third game opens to a scene of a battle off the coast of Plunder Island where LeChuck and Elaine are fighting. Guybrush drifts by in a bumper car and is captured by LeChuck. Guybrush's antics destroy LeChuck (albeit temporarily) and he comes to shore where Elaine is relieved to find him alive. Touched by Elaine's admission during the battle that she loves him, Guybrush proposes to her with a diamond ring he found aboard LeChuck's ship, and she accepts; just then, however, Wally comes by and notices the ring, which he points out is a cursed item from LeChuck's treasury. Elaine prepares to punch Guybrush for giving her the item but is turned into solid gold. She remains in this state for much of the game until Guybrush takes her to Blood Island and cures her with an uncursed diamond ring. Elaine completes her punch and knocks Guybrush over; just a moment later the two are captured, however, and Elaine is once again at a risk of being forced to marry LeChuck, who decides to go one step further and turn her undead as well.

She once again escapes and helps Guybrush fight LeChuck by re-routing the Roller-coaster of Death so that Guybrush doesn't fall into the lava pit. After Guybrush defeats LeChuck he and Elaine are finally married and sail off on their honeymoon.

Escape from Monkey Island

Upon their return in Escape from Monkey Island, Elaine learns that she has been declared dead, an election for a new governor of Mêlée has been announced, and a greedy Australian land developer has bought up most of the property on the island. Elaine focuses on getting back on the election trail, but on its eve it is revealed that her opponent Charles L. Charles is none other than LeChuck. She believes this knowledge will help her win, but is soon crushed to realise that no-one believes her. LeChuck sweeps the election with his "Good Times & Free Grog" campaign.

Elaine goes into hiding but is later captured by Pegnose Pete and unwittingly provides him with the remaining piece of the Ultimate Insult, the Gubernatorial Seal of Mêlée Island. She attempts to escape when Guybrush sabotages Ozzie's attempt to infect a host of islands with the Ultimate Insults power but is captured by LeChuck once again, who has now taken the form of a gigantic statue. LeChuck (under the Insult's influence) fights Guybrush, Jojo Jr. and Horatio Torquemeda Marley. During the battle Elaine manages to slip away as LeChuck is tricked into crushing Ozzie and the Insult, creating a blast of Voodoo energy that destroys them both.

Elaine formally resigns from her duties, with her grandfather taking over the office of Governor, and she and Guybrush are apparently now free "to go wherever they want and do whatever they want."

Tales of Monkey Island

This section needs expansion.

Trivia

Elaine's close-up in the first game was apparently modelled after Avril Harrison, one of the artists working at LucasArts at the time.^[2] She contributed artwork to the first two Monkey Island games.
One of the optional ending lines in the first game seemed to indicate that Elaine was already married prior to her meeting Guybrush. However, this was intended as a last-minute joke by the writing crew and later installments of the series (and the three other reactions) altogether ignore this "revelation".
Elaine has escaped of her own accord on almost all of the occasions where's she's been kidnapped, with a minor exception being MI4 where she receives partial assistance from Guybrush.
A song called "Plank of Love" was written and planned to be played over the ending of the third game, but due to time-constraints was not recorded or featured in the game. In this song Elaine and Guybrush would have shared a song.
Elaine is an accomplished author, having written at least eight romance novels under the pseudonym 'Melanie Leary'. She also wrote a non-fiction book of her breakup with Guybrush entitled Next to Nothing (see Bibliography below).
While she's generally the competent one and Guybrush is a bumbler, Elaine does screw up royally one one occasion, by inadvertently dropping the Gubernatorial Seal of Mêlée Island and giving Ozzie Mandrill the final component to the Ultimate Insult talisman.

Pets

Bibliography

A list of cheesy romance novels can be found at the Phatt City Library by an author called Melanie Leary. As Melanie Leary is an anagram for Elaine Marley it suggests that Elaine wrote these novels under a pseudonym to hide her identity. In an earlier demo of the game the books were filed under Elaine's name, but changed for the final version.^[3]

Amour's Agonizing Adieu
Desire's Distasteful Denouement
Fascination's Final Frenzy
Love's Lingering Lassitude
Passion's Persistent Presence
Romance's Wretched Residue
Sin's Sordid Swan Song
Yearning's Yellow Yesterdays

Elaine has also written a non-fiction novel about her relationship with Guybrush:

Next to Nothing

Appearances

The Secret of Monkey Island and Special Edition (first appearance)
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
The Curse of Monkey Island
Escape from Monkey Island
Tales of Monkey Island - "Launch of the Screaming Narwhal"
Tales of Monkey Island - "The Siege of Spinner Cay"

Voice actors

Actor	Games
Alexandra Boyd	The Curse of Monkey Island (1997) • Tales of Monkey Island (2009) • The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (2009)
Charity James	Escape from Monkey Island (2000)