Working out Henry's backstory

[amielleon]

IN DEFENSE OF MY HONOR I do have Deep Thoughts^TM about the main storyline and stuff, I just feel like it would be supremely lonesome to meta about them right now while only like two of you have finished the game, so here, have something marginally pointless instead.

Warnings for mild worldbuilding spoilers up to Ch 6, mild obvious plot spoilers up to Ch 13, and non-graphic talk of child abuse.



1. Parents?

Okay, so canon says at least three times that Henry's parents were neglectful, but were they cruel beyond that? I'm inclined to say "no" on two counts:

First, that's consistently his only gripe. When Olivia presses him more about why his parents didn't bail him out of a place that delivered extreme corporal punishment, his response wasn't like "naw they beat me too" or anything, his response is "naw they didn't give a shit."

Second, it fits eerily well with his own form of craziness. I want to point out that Henry is never actively sadistic, in the sense that every example of his cruelty (and there are plenty) is ostensibly for someone else's benefit. He thinks death is best for the dog¹, he thinks summoning Risen is best for the army, he thinks killing tiny birds will help Liz get shut-eye, and he volunteers to wipe out a large portion of humanity on Panne's behalf. His cruelty isn't that he particularly enjoys darkness and the suffering of others, but that he really really doesn't give a shit about strangers. And I need both "really"s there, because this goes beyond Soren's level of not giving a shit (which is like "I don't care if I have to throw you under a bus for Ike's sake"), this is more like "your life is worth so little to me that it's a non-factor if I decide that it's marginally convenient for someone I'm faintly fond of".

He really, really doesn't give a shit. He's even aware of how little he cares. (He remarks on Lissa's compassion in his supports with her, after discovering that she cares about the lives of enemies and little birds.)

So, I think his parents really, really not giving a shit is probably the most appropriate idea here.

(¹ The dog example shows a different side to his morality, but I think it was still well-intended. Though I think the implications on how easily he gives up on a life is pretty startling. Considering that he considered a wolf family and appears to retain his valuation of fuzzy mammals (Panne supports), and yet wouldn't by himself consider it worthwhile to use army supplies to save a dog's life -- well!)

2. "Institution"?

The word itself in Japanese is pretty vague. It means institution/establishment and he never really clarifies, beyond implying that it was full of kids. The earlier fan translation translated this word as "orphanage" but that's not strictly canon.

Though I'm a little loath to admit it, the idea that it was some manner of "Wizard School" actually makes a great deal of sense. Unlike Soren who I need to stop comparing him to because the two of them are extremely different he has no given backstory reason to be as good at dark magic as he is. And according to several support branches (but probably most notably Tharja A) he's preeetty damn good.

Mind you, I don't think it was a wacky elite Harry Potter place with fiery hijinks. I'm thinking more like, "Plegian Reformatory School that channels directly into the military." I mean, it seems like 1) things have sucked in Plegia for awhile, and 2) Plegia has been militaristic for awhile, so I think a very natural thing for them to do is start picking up unwanted kids and training them for the army. IRL in Ye Olden Days, orphanages used to funnel into unwanted jobs -- it was where chimney sweepers and the like got their apprentices. Then along came the industrial revolution, and they got sucked into operating dangerous machinery instead. Etc etc Oliver Twist stuff.

Except since this one hypothetically funnels into the army (Henry's described as "Gangrel's underling" in his C support with Ricken, rather than a mercenary working for him or whatever -- and he was certainly there long enough to get to know a shitton of different people in the army) I'm inclined to think it's an institution controlled by the state, rather than being some generic orphanage where one picks up cheap laborers. It's more efficient this way too, since you can start training them in militaristic obedience and the like immediately. And obedience does seem to be Part Of The Point there. Orphanages in general certainly paddled kids plenty when they couldn't stand them, but I get a very systematic vibe from Henry's support -- "kids who wouldn't listen," not "kids who were annoying" or anything like that.

As for whether it was specifically a "wizard" military school, I have my doubts. Plegia's The Dark Mage Place, but I think the general vibe remains in Ylisse that magic is still in part an inherent talent -- they probably screened their kids for various military occupations and then trained them to be as useful as possible. In Henry's case the prestige of dark magehood probably made him pretty useful, which actually might also explain his apparent closeness to various military commanders.

(Unless midbosses just ramble about their mom's knitting at random dark mage grunts, which honestly, given Awakening's general trends, is not entirely unthinkable. But then Mustafa personally gave him pastries every time they met and "treated him like a son". Was Henry in their troops? Considering that you fought both these guys' armies and Henry's not dead, I think that's unlikely, though it's worth noting that Mustafa did plea for you to spare the rest of his troop. Still, the possibility remains that Henry was of no mean rank in the army.)

3. Place in the army?

So that last bit got me thinking. More than just being useful because he's a dark mage, he seems to have some rank. That would be interesting, since it implies Plegia hands out rank regardless of loyalty². More Ashnard vibes!

² (The guy switches to your side because he "likes war".... Granted, Ylisse and Plegia are allies in name at this time, but um, you'd think he would be more bitter about the fact that you guys slaughtered everyone he knew, which he is quite aware of. Henry's just like "naw holding a grudge doesn't do anyone any good so whatever :D")

4. Btw I hate Henry/Tharja.

I'm assuming that the father-child supports are roughly the same regardless of who the father is. If that's so, Noire's father canonically makes weak attempts to get Tharja to stop practicing hexes on her child -- and usually stops after getting hexed himself.

In Henry's case that implies a phenomenal lack of giving a shit (sound familiar?) considering that he canonically 1) is a strong enough dark mage to overcome Tharja's dark magic, and 2) "specializes" in counterhexes. Noire's other daddies have the excuse of being powerless against Tharja's hexes. Henry really, really doesn't.

Abuse is a cycle and all but that position's a little too -- explicit.

(Doubtlessly this means I will fic it a thousand times.)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, this is great writeup on Henry! He's one of my favorite characters too, and definitely one of the most interesting ones to puzzle out. Do you mind if I add some thoughts too?

His cruelty isn't that he particularly enjoys darkness and the suffering of others, but that he really really doesn't give a shit about strangers.

Actually, I'd argue that Henry's Japanese support with Sumia and his A support with Tharja do show evidence of a sadistic/malicious side: with Sumia, when he talks about how the time reversal hex can be used to torture people by healing and then hurting them again and again, he sounds kind of gleeful about it. With Tharja, he regrets that he can't be there to see what his reflected curse is doing to its caster, which again, implies that he's getting jollies off the idea of someone else's pain.

I'd add however that Henry would probably restrict his sadism to humans only, due to his past trauma with them, and not to animals.

One thing that I've noticed too from Henry's supports which ties into him trying to please people with really horrifying suggestions that he thinks will benefit them: whenever he's making one of his nastier suggestions it's always after the person has made a request of/done something for Henry first: he doesn't offer to do things like that out of the blue. He needs only a very slight pretext, but once he sees evidence of a bond, no matter how slight, then he'll do anything.

Miriel: said that she wanted to study curses: Henry offers to kill some of the army to demonstrate.

Cordelia: offered Henry the scarf she was making for you-know-who since it might not look right for her to give to him since he's married: Henry (in the English support anyway) asked Cordelia if she wants the wife dead so she can have the guy instead.

Lissa: asked Henry for help with her insomnia.

Avatar: was worried about Henry when she thought he might be sick.

Panne: doesn't make any requests or really do anything for him, but it's safe to say that she gets a free pass from Henry because of his background with the fuzzy animals. Also, talks about how much she hates humans, so Henry might have taken that as an implicit request to do something about it.

Tharja: is the one exception, but Henry also doesn't seem to...cater..? to her as much as his other romantic supports (when she says that she's going to curse him, he immediately says he'll just reflect it right back at her, instead of going "sure! great! like he'd probably do with all his other supports). Henry, unlike his other supports, also waits until his S rank with her to start whipping out the disturbing stuff: the others all have it much earlier in the support.

Considering that he considered a wolf family and appears to retain his valuation of fuzzy mammals (Panne supports), and yet wouldn't by himself consider it worthwhile to use army supplies to save a dog's life -- well!)

The way I spin it is that Henry truly thought that the dog was unsaveable no matter what, and when Olivia interceded, he backed off not so much because he truly believed that she could save the dog, but because it's what Olivia wanted and she thought she could. Like with all his other supports, if that's what Olivia wants, well then she's going to get it, regardless what Henry truly wants or believes. (see also Tharja and the flowers).

Though I'm a little loath to admit it, the idea that it was some manner of "Wizard School" actually makes a great deal of sense.

Mind you, I don't think it was a wacky elite Harry Potter place with fiery hijinks. I'm thinking more like, "Plegian Reformatory School that channels directly into the military.


Nice to see that I'm not the only one thinking this. The really interesting thing about the whole institution thing though is if you read between the lines:

Henry's parents tried to abandon him in the woods, presumably hoping he'd die. When he lashed out and blew up the villagers who killed his wolf, it apparently raised enough notice that his parents were found, apparently forced to take him back, and then they sent him to the institution (he specifically says that his parents sent him there "after that incident"). I'm wondering if perhaps a word wasn't dropped in his parents' ears about where they should send their talented and very unwanted child.

Another thing is that Henry definitely seems to have seriously repressed guilt about the whole blowing up the villagers thing: he claims that he doesn't remember what happened very well in one support, states that he might have killed 100 people but it's not very clear in another, (which is obviously a reference to him blowing them up), and says that his parents must have thought he was a burden after that incident, which is why they sent him to the institution. (Sweetheart, your parents left you to die in the first place, but he's so repressed guilty about the villagers he immediately assumes the reason his parents abandoned him for good in such an awful place is because "of the incident". Not because they were massively shitty parents who left him to die.)

Still, the possibility remains that Henry was of no mean rank in the army.

Yup, that's what I also think. Unlike Tharja, he's not wearing the generic dark mage uniform, and his outfit could easily be seen as the mark of an elite rank. Since Tharja states that he was renowned as the mysterious but immensely powerful dark mage, he was probably fairly high up.


4. Btw I hate Henry/Tharja.

Yeah, Henry/Tharja really doesn't work for me, not only because Henry's stronger than Tharja curse-wise, but also because canonically, Henry is a very good father and I can't see him allowing her to screw Noire up like that (unless the game implies somewhere that Henry died much earlier than Tharja, leaving her unchecked).

Although, you could make the argument that Henry, due to his apparent desire to submit himself completely to whatever his beloved wants, would back off and let Tharja curse Noire because hey, that's what Tharja wants and what Tharja wants, Tharja gets. But again, canonically good father.

[amielleon]

This post is way outdated, anon. It was made after I'd quickly read through most of his supports. I have since read almost every bit of script for him in the Japanese. I have more recent thoughts which you can find (though I've since changed my mind on some of those bits too). I'll reply at length in the morning because I don't want to get out of bed right now nor make a huge response on my phone.

[amielleon]

Maliciousness:

I've come around to agree that he has something of a sadistic side, but it's complex. With his quote to Sumia, I think he has a "scientific" gleefulness about it, like you see with his enthusiasm for the Risen arm, like "hey isn't this cool?!" or as Miriel might say to a thousand inappropriate things, "Fascinating!" (Besides, he's gleeful about ... everything.) Agreed on Tharja's count, though. But what really made me find him sadistic is his line to Ricken in Summer of Bonds, where he mentions -- after saying that the upside of using dark magic is the ~nice feeling~ -- that "even the feeling of killing your opponent is completely different". It seems to me that he enjoys that...

However, I think this is complex because there are many places where he shows sympathy for (quasi-)human enemies in pain and tells them that he'll give them a painless death -- for example, the Risen in the Gold DLC as well as The Border between Life and Death. He also tells Roro ("Legion") in the Leaf DLC that he's different from Roro because he doesn't obey orders that "aren't good". (This was localized to him saying he has a moral code, which is roughly the right interpretation I think.) So he has his own ethics about this and, considering how often he represents himself as a pure-hearted guy and whatever, I think his instances of sadism fall within acceptable territory to his own morality.

I definitely agree that Henry makes horrifying suggestions for a purpose. He's a puppy and he just wants to be useful to the people he likes! And I think Panne is good evidence that it's not necessarily reciprocal, but based off how much Henry wants to be close to them, with prior niceness being a factor in that.

Regarding Tharja's curse, her purpose in casting the curse is to test how strong Henry is, so in keeping with her intentions he says he'll reflect it. To do otherwise would be to up-end her goals, right?

The puppy:

Henry's immediate argument against saving it is, "Eh? But staves and medicine are precious things, right? Is it all right to use them on a dog~?" (The SF translation has it down as "would it work on a dog?" but I'm like 99% sure that he's asking if it's okay to waste them.) So it doesn't seem to me that he thinks it's impossible, he just doesn't think it's worthwhile.

Henry's parents tried to abandon him in the woods, presumably hoping he'd die.:

Actually, they didn't abandon him in the woods. That's something the localizers (mis)interpreted.

That line from his Panne support is:

【ヘンリー】 Henry
僕、小さい頃は When I was little,
両親に放ったらかしにされてたから、my parents neglected me so
近くの森にいた、仲良しの獣に
育てられたようなものなんだよね～。 I was sorta raised by my beast friend in the nearby forest.

This is pretty ambiguous, but the clincher for me is the related description from the Olivia support:

ん～、両親は僕のこと
どうでもよかったみたいだよ～。 Nah~ my parents didn't seem to care about what happened to me~
物心ついたときから From my first moment of awareness
放ったらかしにされて育ったし～、I was raised with neglect~

His choice of words here implies that his parents did "raise" him, ie, they played a role in his life but while they did "raise" him they were incredibly negligent in their duties. Hence it fell upon the wolf to actually nurture him. This, intriguingly, mirrors a real life case of the only confirmed "wolf child" -- Olana Malaya, whose alcoholic parents failed to notice she went missing and was living among the dogs they kept. (Long story; you can google it if you're interested, though I warn you that there's a lot of sensationalism about it. She's likely more rehabilitated than the videos would like to make her look.)

Another thing is that Henry definitely seems to have seriously repressed guilt about the whole blowing up the villagers thing: he claims that he doesn't remember what happened very well in one support, states that he might have killed 100 people but it's not very clear in another, (which is obviously a reference to him blowing them up), and says that his parents must have thought he was a burden after that incident, which is why they sent him to the institution.

He does say that his parents thought he was a burden, and he also talks about himself as a burdenin his confession to Robin, both of which I think are a result of internalizing his childhood neglect. However, I think it's a stretch to say that it's guilt over the villagers. In fact, when he may-have-been-referencing it in Miriel C (that's the "I even killed 100 people once!" support) he seems to be bragging about it. And when he talks about the incident in his Cherche support, he says,

そのときは頭が真っ白になったよ～。 At that time my mind went blank~
周りの人たちにも当り散らして…。 and I took out my anger on the people nearby...

Judging from his presentation, I think his going blank was actually going mad with grief and messing up his ability to form memories of the incident in the first place. More importantly, he doesn't speak about taking his anger out as if he's something he regrets. Japanese actually has a verb you attach onto other things to mark accidents/regrets/etc ((~て)しまう, often contracted to ちゃう) -- and native speakers use it automatically to convey that mood, it's not like out of their way or deliberate or anything -- and he doesn't use it here.

However, I do agree that killing the villagers was the impetus for his parents to send him off.

But at this point I don't think it was a military reformatory so much as it was a Grimleal ~child sacrifice~ temple. What makes me think that is his quote in The Border between Life and Death, because seriously, impaling your kids on spikes? This is the middle ages! (Or at least, before modern medicine.) Chances are, those wounds are going to fester and they are going to die.

I contemplated a number of possibilities why this would be so (Maybe it's actually a school for torturers and the kids are the subjects? But actual torture involved single spikes or clamps with spikes, not spiked floors/pits -- the Iron Maiden was fabricated. The only spike pits you ever see IRL are used in guerilla warfare.) and ultimately settled, not entirely to my satisfaction, on the idea of ritual trial. In real life, at one point, witches were tried by having to hold a burning iron bar in their hand. And if the wound healed clean, they were judged to be innocent. So I thought, hey, how appropriate yet fucked up would it be if Grimleal also used this trial as a sign from their god? (This also mirrors the Bed of Nails thing, which is a symbolic cleansing thing in some eastern spiritualities, though actual bed of nails have enough nails that physics makes sure you're not actually hurt.)

This seems especially plausible to me in light of an obscure bit of script from Thracia 776 (Ch 4):

Yurius:
"Ishtar, I think there's a misunderstanding. I am not telling them to kill the children. I just want to educate them to be fitting citizens for my empire. Those who withstand the training will earn high posts and rule over the other inferior citizens. In other words, they will become new nobles, Ishtar. I'm giving them a chance to grasp their happiness."

So it seems to me that their little private pit of hell was hellish for a reason -- those who survived both the (presumed) training in dark magic as well as the spiritual trials (the punishments) would be deserving of prestige.

Prestige in the army:
He also says to Ricken that he was "Gangrel's subordinate" (ギャンレルの手下) and while that could strictly be said of everyone in the army, it seems pointed to me that he'd refer to himself like that instead of, oh, I don't know, a member of the army like every other normal person? So yeah I think all evidence points to him having had rank.

Noire:
So I actually checked Henry/Noire supports to see if they added in an excuse to Henry, and they did. Henry says "I don't know how to return such a delicate curse." (こんな微妙な呪いは返し方がわかんないんだよね～。) Sounds like a bullshit excuse to me (even if I like the idea of delicacy/complexity vs power of hexes) but eh at least they remember that much. Anyway, Noire's daddy supports say that her dad always ended up taking the curse for himself, though obviously it does mean she got cursed first.

Your theory of Henry dying first is an interesting one and I ran off to check the Doomed Timeline DLC convo just in case it said something, but alas, it doesn't. (For what it's worth, Henry principally raised Severa and she's totally daddy's little girl. It's adorbs.)

[(Anonymous)]

Hello again! Sorry for not answering back sooner: I have a thesis draft due in a couple of days and I've been pretty busy.


Maliciousness:

RE: the time-reversing hex and using it to curse people: I read your post about Plegia possibly being up to the same child-sacrificing as the Lopt sect, and then thought about it a little more, and then the idea that maybe the reason Henry knows about that particular curse is not because he's personally used it (though he might have) but it was used on him popped into my head. :O:O:O I can see it happening.


But what really made me find him sadistic is his line to Ricken in Summer of Bonds, where he mentions -- after saying that the upside of using dark magic is the ~nice feeling~ -- that "even the feeling of killing your opponent is completely different". It seems to me that he enjoys that...

Yup, Henry's definitely sounding like a bit of an addict there. Hmm, but you'd think he'd be using dark magic to kill at least sometimes, so using it gives a completely separate pleasure from the one he gets from killing an opponent? Hmmmm.


So he has his own ethics about this and, considering how often he represents himself as a pure-hearted guy and whatever, I think his instances of sadism fall within acceptable territory to his own morality.

Yeah, I think it ties back into what I said about Henry probably confining any sadism on his end to humans. It doesn't seem like he would get any pleasure out of harming animals and non-sentient beings and he tries to be merciful in his way: maybe he feels a bond with small helpless things?

Something else that came up while I was thinking about this: Henry's said fairly often (I think in the Japanese supports as well) that he loves to kill "bad guys"...except that, well, what's his criteria for a "bad guy"? Dude ran around with the Plegia army for untold years, has a sadistic streak and all that jazz and deliberately tried to prolong a war (the fact that it ended up working out for the best doesn't really exonerate that) yet he's got his own weird sense of honor and morals and attaches like a limpet to any woman willing to talk to him because he really wants love. And is a good daddy.

damnit Henry stop being so weird and fascinating

(Thought: did Henry go to warn Panne about the assassination attempt in Lucina's original timeline?)

Actually, they didn't abandon him in the woods. That's something the localizers (mis)interpreted.

Huh, I could swear that I saw a translation of the Japanese support that said he was abandoned, but either I was mixing it up with the English support or the other translator had it wrong. Thanks for the correction. I'm actually using the interpretation I floated for a fic of mine (when writing him I usually end up with a mix of English Henry and Japanese Henry) but it's good to know the canon.

Still massively shitty parents though.


Re: Henry and sex (from your tumblr)

I actually didn't know about your tumblr until I stumbled across the Ylissean morality chart when I was doing a FE tag search (and I laughed forever at Henry petting that damn baby duck because IT'S TRUE and then he sacrificed it to help Lissa sleep) and since I don't have a tumblr myself because I'm hopelessly uncool, I'm adding it here:

I pretty much agree with everything you said about Henry's position on the kink/sex chart, though I slightly disagree about his possible sex drive (but that's all personal headcanon on my end, so I won't bore you with it). I'll point out that English Henry very much does know what sex is (his crack about the mommy and daddy zombies when he first shows up in Chapter 13 and some of his comments during supports that I'm too lazy to go look up right now) but again, English Henry.

However, even though Japanese Henry doesn't seem to have a concept of sex as you pointed out, I've noticed from tooling around Pixiv looking for fanart that the Japanese fandom apparently very much thinks that Henry does have a sex drive *and* he's always the one initiating in any pairing that I've seen for him so far. (Henry to Robin in one art: "Don't you think we should make Morgan now :D:D:D:D?") However, I'm pretty sure that has less to do with a true reading of Henry's character versus the artists being uncomfortable having women be sexually aggressive, so Henry ends up being the aggressor by default. Even though, as you pointed out, he's a complete submissive normally. yeah, chalk me up as another person who's spent waaaay too much time thinking about this for fic

[(Anonymous)]

SA:

Just wanted to add that I saw your recent posts about Maribelle on your tumblr and YES YES YES SHE IS THE BEST and my favorite. She won my heart the moment she said was going to become Ylisse's first female magistrate. She is solidified awesome.

(And I ship her and Henry because I find them weirdly alike in several ways and because the idea of Henry becoming Duke of Themis and having to navigate court and the nobility and them having to deal with him is hilarious to me.*)

*actually, he just stays home with Brady a lot.

[amielleon]

Yeah, I think it ties back into what I said about Henry probably confining any sadism on his end to humans. It doesn't seem like he would get any pleasure out of harming animals and non-sentient beings and he tries to be merciful in his way: maybe he feels a bond with small helpless things?

I don't know if he's truly sadistic in the sense that he likes inflicting pain. Although he says some sketchy things, I can't think of any example where he actually delights in anyone or anything being in pain. (As you say, I think the flashback curse was probably used on him.) If anything I think he has a certain nonchalance about death (as seen in his Maribelle support) and then combine that with the fact that he gets jollies out of killing, well.

(Thought: did Henry go to warn Panne about the assassination attempt in Lucina's original timeline?)

Yes. Lucina recognizes Panne's appearance in Ch 6 and says she's supposed to be there and is on their side, so I think so.

Re: Sex drive -- Yeah, it occurred to me like three days after that post that hey, there's concrete evidence in the English that Henry knows about sex.

Pixiv is divided on it, though -- for example, this comic has Henry going "oh, so all you need to do to make babies is put on a ring 8D". I definitely agree that it has to do with expecting men to be the initiator.

Also, anon-who-doesn't-have-dw-or-tumblr, you should tell me how to get in contact with you because I want to talk to you more. :(

[amielleon]

Oh yeah, while we're attaching addendums, I'd like to say that the difference between E!Henry and J!Henry is large enough to me that, unlike with Soren, I've pretty much decided to treat them as separate characters.

I like them both and E!Henry did a good job of getting me interested, but J!Henry is my favorite.

[(Anonymous)]

Done with thesis draft, woohoooo.

Also, anon-who-doesn't-have-dw-or-tumblr, you should tell me how to get in contact with you because I want to talk to you more. :(


I like talking to you too. :) TBH, I was thinking about making a dreamwidth account once I actually finish one of my fics, but ahahahahaahaha, who I am kidding, I have a thesis due in a month. No fic until after that's in.

I could get a tumblr? I've never really wanted one, because I usually lurk and don't have much to say, but I guess I could talk about my ongoing search for the sparkliest nailpolish and how awesome Maribelle is and why isn't there more fanart of her. And Henry, of course.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, tumblr made: endlessravens.tumblr.com The real posting will start later, because I really should be in bed.