Richard Hsieh is the protagonist of the sixteenth book in the Goosebumps SlappyWorld book series, Slappy in Dreamland.
History[]
Richard Hsieh is a kid who doesn't have many friends due to mostly being shy. He starts the book having gotten Slappy the Dummy recently on his birthday. His father runs a hardware store while his mother is a dream doctor, studying the dreams of people in her lab. When Richard is brought to Mrs. Hsieh's lab, he hooks Slappy up to the dream machine and both he and his mother are surprised to see brain patterns from the dummy, but chalk it up to a glitch in the system.
Richard's cousin Willow stays over, which bothers Richard given she's gotten him in trouble many times before. But more troublesome for Richard is that he's been getting strange nightmares, all involving Slappy. And every time he wakes up, it seems like the effects of those dreams are actually coming true. Soon Richard finds himself being controlled by Slappy in his dreams, at one point managing to hypnotize other kids at a birthday party, allowing him to destroy the cake and presents.
Despite all this, Richard is still skeptical, but as things escalate, it appears that Slappy is somehow controlling the minds of kids in the dream world, leading to an encounter at an overnight at the zoo where Slappy tries to lead the sleepwalking kids into a tiger cage, but Richard stops Slappy in time. Richard then has an idea how to stop Slappy. He asks his mom to take him back to the lab and hook himself up with Slappy, planning to use the magic words to put the dummy back to sleep. However, when Richard wakes up, he sees that Slappy is in his body and Richard is now in Slappy's.
General information[]
Personality[]
Richard Hsieh is a shy kid who enjoys working on jigsaw puzzles and learning about zoos. After receiving Slappy, he becomes a bit more talkative, often treating Slappy like his friend which, despite his father's concerns, his mom thinks is perfectly fine. He can also be extremely skeptical, especially when it comes to Slappy being alive, thinking that it's impossible at first. He also has issues with his cousin Willow, given her past actions in getting Richard in trouble for no good reason.