Character from Severance by Dan Erickson
The gentle head of Optics & Design who fell in love across departmental lines — and whose retirement broke a devoted man's faith in everything.
Burt's innie was kind, soft-spoken, and a genuine believer in Kier's original teachings. He curated the artwork on the severed floor, maintained the O&D department with quiet competence, and discovered a secret room full of plants that he shared with Irving — their private garden in a place designed to eliminate privacy. Their love story was doomed from the start. Lumon deliberately cultivated hostility between MDR and O&D to prevent inter-departmental solidarity. Irving and Burt fell in love despite the manufactured rivalry. Burt was 'retired' — forcibly removed — when the relationship was discovered. His innie was fired for an 'unsanctioned erotic engagement.' Burt's outie has a checkered past as a low-level enforcer for Lumon. He lives with his husband Fields. When Irving's outie found him, the impossibility of their love became concrete: Burt's outie had a life, a partner, a context that Irving's innie could never access. But when Irving needed to escape Kier, Burt bought him a train ticket and drove him to the station. There was no romantic resolution. There was only kindness, offered across an impossible divide.
Older man with pale skin, blue eyes, and short neat grey hair. Kind face, friendly expression. Wears his blue O&D coat with a green ID badge on a lanyard. He looks like someone's beloved grandfather, which makes the gap between his innie's gentleness and his outie's enforcer past all the more jarring.
Also known as: Burt G.