Paula

Overview

Paula is Garcia Hotspur's girlfriend and the reason why he dives head first into hell. Garcia chases her through hell during the entirety of the game, often to no avail.

Role in Shadows of the Damned

Little is known about Paula prior to the game. She was found by Garcia in a dumpster behind a supermarket. He brought her home but she did not speak for a long length of time. One day, the phone rang and she broke her silence to tell him not to answer it. When Garcia picked up the phone anyway, she snapped and ripped the phone off the wall. The ending suggests that Paula is actually The Unbreakable Huntress, the first female demon hunter to challenge and be defeated by Fleming.

The game starts with her being hanged by the minions of Fleming, who then arrives in person to kidnap her soul and taunt her boyfriend with sexual innuendo. During the entire game, Garcia runs after her, trying to get her back. He often calls her his Angel (pronounced the Spanish way, ahn-hel) and tells anecdotes about her, like how he first came to meet her or how once he jokingly told her how he was married after having sex with her and she chased him around with a knife because of it.

Her biggest role in Shadows of the Damned however is dying. Fleming promised Garcia that he would kill Paula before resuscitating her and killing her again and that is exactly what he does. From the very beginning, Fleming comes out of Paula's back, turning her into a lifeless shell before making her live again and putting her inside his body. Later on, demonic duplicates of Paula are seen, often leading Hotspur into traps. It is sometimes difficult to tell whether or not the Paula seen is the real deal, or another copy. At one point she is dragged through a lake and horribly drowned. At another point, she is decapitated and continues talking to Garcia even though her head has been severed from her body, telling Garcia in how much pain she is and that she wants to give up and die for real. Occasionally, solely to anger Garcia, demons will disguise themselves as Paula before bursting out of her in some grotesque fashion. At one point, Paula and Garcia share a kiss. After several seconds, it's revealed that Paula's tongue is in fact a giant tentacle that is choking Garcia.

Paula is used in the underworld to torment Garcia. Despite the fact that Johnson warns him each and every time that what he is seeing may not be the real Paula, Hotspur can't resist the urge to follow her even if it means falling in a trap. But killing Paula a thousand times isn't the only way the demons haunt Hotspur. During the strip tease level entitled "Big Boner", Paula is seen topless and Garcia is forced to climb on her breasts and butt while watching multiple Paulas pole dance.

The game ends with her being freed from Fleming by Garcia. However, she is possessed and Garcia is forced to fight her. In the end, Hotspur manages to get her out of hell. The couple is seen preparing a vacation to Mexico but it's revealed that Fleming has in fact survived, and that he will never give up his pursuit of her. Garcia swears an oath to himself that he'll slay every demon in the world if need be, until she is his alone.