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Character Information
Name: Henry
Canon: Fire Emblem Awakening
Canon Point: Post-game, but before characters take their Epilogues; all possible A-supports obtained
Age: ??? Good-for-nothing Fire Emblem doesn't clarify most characters' ages, but Henry's at least 16. Characters refer to him as though he's young ("kiddo/junior", being a peer of Ricken's, seeming to associate in Lissa's age group...), but that could be due to his childish demeanor. I'm settling with 18.
History: Henry's wiki page. Henry is a side character to an otherwise lengthier plot.
As the wiki notes, a detail of Henry's backstory differs between the localized and original versions of FE13. I will be playing Henry with his original backstory, meaning that instead of a "mage camp" or "wizard school," Henry was sent to a Plegian institution/orphanage. This is an easy alteration to make, as it's within the realm of Henry's character to dismiss or make light of such a terrible place as "wizard school." I'll be playing him with his localized cadence, however.
Here is a brief summary of Henry's pre-game history with the alteration from the original version emphasized in italics. In fact, if it's not a quote, hover over any italicized passages for expanded details.
Henry spent his youth in the company of forest animals due to the neglect of his parents. Dearest to him was a forest wolf with whom he socialized with most. One day, the wolf came to visit Henry, but was killed by villagers. Filled with rage, Henry unleashed potent magical power, killing all of the villages due to the anguish of losing his friend. Henry's parents surrendered him to a Plegian institution, where Henry faced torturous punishment routinely – enough so that his ability to feel pain is dulled. In retrospect, Henry claims that his eternal cheerfulness and magical abilities were enhanced due to the suffering he weathered.
As a military nation, Henry next found himself as part of the Plegian military after enduring the harshness of the orphanage. Henry was renowned by Plegians as a fearsome silver-haired sorcerer surrounded by ravens. During the campaign launched by Plegia to assassinate Exalt Emmeryn, Henry was responsible for notifying Panne the taguel of Plegia's plan. Henry claims his treacherous behavior was to prolong the war, since it wouldn't be any fun if it were to end. In the end, notifying Ylisse of Plegia's plan didn't secure Emmeryn's safety, and she was killed. Chrom rose to the throne as the next Exalt. Under Chrom's command, Ylisse incapacitated Plegian King Gangrel, winning the war and achieving peace for Ylisse. It can be assumed that during the time skip between chapters 12 and 13, Henry was fending for himself in the outskirts of Plegia, as he was certainly branded a traitor but remained in Plegia anyhow.
Two years later, the new Plegian king Validar met with Chrom during a parley to discuss their mutual threat, Valm. Validar refused to offer any manpower, but offered generous funding and supplies. Validar was still clearly hostile toward Ylisse: during Chrom's march, a group of strangely coordinated Risen attacked. It was during this time that Henry offered to join Chrom's army while alerting them to Validar's trap. He cited his love for killing as motivation to join the Ylissean forces. With some hesitance, Chrom welcomed Henry to the army.
This is where the remainder of the plot takes place until the resurrection and subsequent defeat of the Fell Dragon Grima. Plegia as a nation is defeated, and peace once again is returned to Ylisse.
Personality:
Most characters will notice that there's something off about Henry. Unabashedly macabre, first impressions of Henry might be the ease at which he discusses the inappropriate, chatting about war-torn landscapes and gory bloodshed with a singsong intonation. Henry is chipper and cheerful, always smiling and optimistic even in the most gruesome and trying of situations. It becomes evident that he finds no problem with death, dying, killing, or war: Henry lacks moral direction. He isn't readily able to sympathize with the graveness of death and war. Henry's amorality is the center of a lot of his supports, where characters are saddened, fascinated, frightened, or angered by his lack of humanity. He's not what most expect out of a dark mage: he describes himself as "hale and hearty", but what disarms those who meet him is his honesty and sincerity coupling with his peppy cheer.
Henry has a dark sense of humor. He jokes about death and demise and speaks easily about blood and rancor. Such subjects are normalized to him and it's not all talk. Henry's willing to kill off those who suffer and even has a curse prepared for the event that one needs a painless, quick death. To him, something as dark as death is just a part of life. He's eccentric and people who don't know him will find him difficult to predict, but he winds up surprisingly straightforward once his oddities are taken account of. Henry says what he means past the jokes, but moreover, his actions speak louder than his words do.
Growing up alongside animals more than humans, Henry is a social misfit. He gets along better with animals than he does humans, noted during his supports with Cherche when he becomes fast friends with her wyvern before bothering to befriend Cherche herself. Henry has difficulty getting in touch with his own emotions and doesn't digest them or express them easily. This isn't to say he's heartless – Henry is fully capable of feeling strongly and even passionately, but he puts on a smiling mask to disguise the range of negative emotions even he might not notice at first. However, it's difficult to get under his skin: in supports with Sully, Henry demonstrates humility, incredible willpower, and an "unusually upbeat attitude", making him a formidable dark mage due to how unshakeable he is. Henry says that the orphanage he was sent to as a child is responsible for his eternal smile: that he learned to smile through the pain, that the burden of negativity toward his senseless punishment would do nobody any good, much less himself.
For all of his lack of humanity, Henry is eager to please. Though quick to defect from the Plegian army, Henry's loyalty to the Shepherds runs deeper than joining just for the thrills/kills of it. Once Henry finds somewhere to belong, his willingness to do whatever it takes to be helpful is unmatched. He'll offer up most anything if a new friend asks for it: a killing curse, a human pillow, your library perfectly organized, a willing test subject, or a good shopping trip (or fifty), Henry will do anything if it would please others, ranging from the benign to the lethal. When he's an ally, he'll follow almost any order obediently and without question, even if he doesn't fully understand it. His naivety could be easily taken advantage of in the wrong hands. One of the first things Henry offers up in gratitude during many of his supports is to kill somebody his companion doesn't like, and he's misguided and twisted enough to follow through if asked to.
Henry demonstrates that he's capable of learning and improving, morally speaking. Through various support conversations in the game, Henry learns what it means to have a conscience. In his support with the Avatar, they remind him that killing just anyone isn't good, and that he has to ensure that innocent lives aren't sacrificed. Though Henry dismisses this thought process as "arbitrary", he is praised later on for keeping in mind what the Avatar said by protecting a nearby village. Prior to meeting the Shepherds, Henry wasn't bothered by the deaths of his Plegian comrades, but when faced with the (potential and real) deaths of his Ylissean friends, Henry demonstrates anger and fear at losing them in conversations with Ricken and Olivia. Slowly but surely, Henry made connections that are meaningful enough that he can understand the pain in losing his friends, even if comprehending that pain isn't as easy to do when death's not knocking on the door.
In making meaningful connections, Henry demonstrates another major trait of his: clinginess. Henry holds fast to any important person to him. This ties into his undying loyalty: if he can be useful to those he cares for, they won't have any need to see him as burdensome. Failing that, Henry will make it known that he doesn't want to be abandoned with pleads to stay by their side. In the company of those he cares for, he's affectionate and talkative. There's very little Henry won't vocalize. No matter what reaction he gets to the things he says, Henry rarely falters; however, when given disapproval from somebody he wishes to get close to, Henry searches for ways to alter his behavior to their liking or looks for a way to garner favor. When Lissa expressed disapproval after learning that Henry used birds as a sacrifice to help Lissa sleep with a curse, Henry immediately quit and sought another way he could help her sleep without causing her distress.
Henry is self-deprecating and lacks much personhood. In the same vein as being obedient and humble outlined above, Henry discredits his own capability for emotional capacity on various occasions. When he expressed worry after Olivia was cursed and when the Avatar praises him for his consideration of the innocent, Henry brushes it off as nothing. Henry has an aversion to being recognized as feeling and caring; he'd rather be thought of as indiscriminately cheerful and nothing more. Moreover, he dislikes being thought of as emotionally troubled: he asserts that there's nothing wrong with him in Olivia's support conversations when she learns of his history. "Troubled" is a good word for Henry, but the time spent with the Shepherds has helped him understand what it means to mutually care about another person.
Henry's personality is very malleable depending on his company. Evidence of this is in the Future Past DLC chapters where, depending on his spouse, Henry speaks to his child with personality elements adopted from his wife: if married to Miriel, Henry reminds Laurent to remain logical in trying times, while if married to Olivia, he reminds Inigo that it's okay to express his feelings. Henry grows depending on the company he keeps, suggesting that he studies and learns from the behavior of others.
Henry would say that war and killing are what motivates him. The battlefield is his element. If left unmarried with nowhere to go at the end of the game, Henry is said to have disappeared once peace fell upon the land after spending most of his life content with wartime. But there's more that motivates him than that: the wishes of those close to him. Henry's loyalty to those he cares for trumps his own desires. Speaking to Libra, Henry describes himself as a selfish "egoist" in contrast to Libra's altruism, but Libra perceives him differently and makes note of his willingness to sacrifice himself for the sake of friend and innocent alike. Henry has spent a lot of his life aimless after exacting revenge on his childhood friend, but he's a passionate ally to have who would give it all for the sake of those who are close to him.
Abilities & Skills:» Magic attacks: {magic} Henry is a sorcerer. He can cast dark magic and anima magic with the aid of magical tomes.
» Curses & hexes: {magic} Related to the study of dark magic, Henry can cast spells, curses and hexes. He has demonstrated the ability to reverse physical time, swap bodies with others, inflict fatal conditions, inflict illness, create illusions, and facilitate conversations remotely and telepathically across distances, among other things. The creation of life or permanent resurrection of life (beyond the suggestion of resurrecting the deceased as a zombie) is one of the few things curses can't do. Curses and the like usually require an exchange – such as a sacrifice or offering – in order to be cast. For example, to help Lissa sleep soundly, Henry sacrificed a bird's body. Hair, toenails, dragon scales, or other objects may be used to perform a curse, and the more involved or obscure it is, the more preparation may be necessary.
» Dispelling: {magic} Henry is impeccable at dispelling curses, too. For every curse that requires two skilled dark mages to dispel, Henry can do it with very little trouble at all. He can even return curses to the sender. Dispelling curses doesn't seem to require any material exchange when Henry demonstrates it in canon.
» Divination: {magic} Limited divination. Seems to be related to the study of dark magic. Such examples would include locating people remotely and peering in on their lives, or foreseeing a dangerous event. This foresight is spotty or vague, and fate can be altered once the prediction is made.
» Channeling: {magic} Though this is demonstrated only by another dark mage in canon, it can be assumed that Henry can channel the dead with intense preparation and energy.
» Animal communication: Henry claims that he can talk to, and understand, living creatures. He cannot talk to dirt, but he can talk to flowers and animals. This is not a magical talent: the other magic users in the game don't possess this ability.
» Pain tolerance: Henry proves resilient to some pain due to injury. In a support conversation with Olivia, she notes that Henry has an axe-sized gouge in his side that is pouring with blood and Henry doesn't even notice, aside from feeling a little light-headed. Whenever Henry is wounded and fails to notice, he explains that he's sustained nerve damage enough to dull his sense of pain. This doesn't completely obliterate his ability to feel pain, as Henry also states that he doesn't enjoy feeling pain and dislikes that most of all about battle and death. The short of it: Henry doesn't feel pain until it reaches a certain point of severity. A point which exceeds having an axe cleave through his side, apparently.
Inventory/Companions:» Ruin tome
» Concoction
» Some gold
» His clothes
» A collection of small bones, nail trimmings, hair, and most importantly, bird's feathers. Weird kid.
Choice: Witch.
Reason: I felt it would be more suitable for Henry to become a monster, given his enthusiasm for beasts and all things non-human as well as his inhuman tendencies as a character. Hell, he'd even enjoy the transformation! That's precisely why I didn't want to make him a monster: it permits him to continue being the wolf in sheep's clothing, so to speak. He appears human, but lacks the same moral compass humans deem socially appropriate. In addition to this, I thought it would be great for him to continue relating to monster-like characters as outcasts while not even being one himself. He'll gravitate toward characters who demonstrate non-human characteristics.
Besides... I think he'd really, really like to try dabbling in some of the more forbidden magicks, once he learns the ropes.
Sample: Top-level on Aefenglom's TDM
Name: Henry
Canon: Fire Emblem Awakening
Canon Point: Post-game, but before characters take their Epilogues; all possible A-supports obtained
Age: ??? Good-for-nothing Fire Emblem doesn't clarify most characters' ages, but Henry's at least 16. Characters refer to him as though he's young ("kiddo/junior", being a peer of Ricken's, seeming to associate in Lissa's age group...), but that could be due to his childish demeanor. I'm settling with 18.
History: Henry's wiki page. Henry is a side character to an otherwise lengthier plot.
As the wiki notes, a detail of Henry's backstory differs between the localized and original versions of FE13. I will be playing Henry with his original backstory, meaning that instead of a "mage camp" or "wizard school," Henry was sent to a Plegian institution/orphanage. This is an easy alteration to make, as it's within the realm of Henry's character to dismiss or make light of such a terrible place as "wizard school." I'll be playing him with his localized cadence, however.
Here is a brief summary of Henry's pre-game history with the alteration from the original version emphasized in italics. In fact, if it's not a quote, hover over any italicized passages for expanded details.
Henry spent his youth in the company of forest animals due to the neglect of his parents. Dearest to him was a forest wolf with whom he socialized with most. One day, the wolf came to visit Henry, but was killed by villagers. Filled with rage, Henry unleashed potent magical power, killing all of the villages due to the anguish of losing his friend. Henry's parents surrendered him to a Plegian institution, where Henry faced torturous punishment routinely – enough so that his ability to feel pain is dulled. In retrospect, Henry claims that his eternal cheerfulness and magical abilities were enhanced due to the suffering he weathered.
As a military nation, Henry next found himself as part of the Plegian military after enduring the harshness of the orphanage. Henry was renowned by Plegians as a fearsome silver-haired sorcerer surrounded by ravens. During the campaign launched by Plegia to assassinate Exalt Emmeryn, Henry was responsible for notifying Panne the taguel of Plegia's plan. Henry claims his treacherous behavior was to prolong the war, since it wouldn't be any fun if it were to end. In the end, notifying Ylisse of Plegia's plan didn't secure Emmeryn's safety, and she was killed. Chrom rose to the throne as the next Exalt. Under Chrom's command, Ylisse incapacitated Plegian King Gangrel, winning the war and achieving peace for Ylisse. It can be assumed that during the time skip between chapters 12 and 13, Henry was fending for himself in the outskirts of Plegia, as he was certainly branded a traitor but remained in Plegia anyhow.
Two years later, the new Plegian king Validar met with Chrom during a parley to discuss their mutual threat, Valm. Validar refused to offer any manpower, but offered generous funding and supplies. Validar was still clearly hostile toward Ylisse: during Chrom's march, a group of strangely coordinated Risen attacked. It was during this time that Henry offered to join Chrom's army while alerting them to Validar's trap. He cited his love for killing as motivation to join the Ylissean forces. With some hesitance, Chrom welcomed Henry to the army.
This is where the remainder of the plot takes place until the resurrection and subsequent defeat of the Fell Dragon Grima. Plegia as a nation is defeated, and peace once again is returned to Ylisse.
Personality:
"You are a child tearing wings from flies, and nothing more." —Panne
Most characters will notice that there's something off about Henry. Unabashedly macabre, first impressions of Henry might be the ease at which he discusses the inappropriate, chatting about war-torn landscapes and gory bloodshed with a singsong intonation. Henry is chipper and cheerful, always smiling and optimistic even in the most gruesome and trying of situations. It becomes evident that he finds no problem with death, dying, killing, or war: Henry lacks moral direction. He isn't readily able to sympathize with the graveness of death and war. Henry's amorality is the center of a lot of his supports, where characters are saddened, fascinated, frightened, or angered by his lack of humanity. He's not what most expect out of a dark mage: he describes himself as "hale and hearty", but what disarms those who meet him is his honesty and sincerity coupling with his peppy cheer.
Henry has a dark sense of humor. He jokes about death and demise and speaks easily about blood and rancor. Such subjects are normalized to him and it's not all talk. Henry's willing to kill off those who suffer and even has a curse prepared for the event that one needs a painless, quick death. To him, something as dark as death is just a part of life. He's eccentric and people who don't know him will find him difficult to predict, but he winds up surprisingly straightforward once his oddities are taken account of. Henry says what he means past the jokes, but moreover, his actions speak louder than his words do.
"I find your heart difficult to read. It seems devoid of human emotion." —Tharja
Growing up alongside animals more than humans, Henry is a social misfit. He gets along better with animals than he does humans, noted during his supports with Cherche when he becomes fast friends with her wyvern before bothering to befriend Cherche herself. Henry has difficulty getting in touch with his own emotions and doesn't digest them or express them easily. This isn't to say he's heartless – Henry is fully capable of feeling strongly and even passionately, but he puts on a smiling mask to disguise the range of negative emotions even he might not notice at first. However, it's difficult to get under his skin: in supports with Sully, Henry demonstrates humility, incredible willpower, and an "unusually upbeat attitude", making him a formidable dark mage due to how unshakeable he is. Henry says that the orphanage he was sent to as a child is responsible for his eternal smile: that he learned to smile through the pain, that the burden of negativity toward his senseless punishment would do nobody any good, much less himself.
"I can go back and forth all day if that's what it takes!" —Henry
For all of his lack of humanity, Henry is eager to please. Though quick to defect from the Plegian army, Henry's loyalty to the Shepherds runs deeper than joining just for the thrills/kills of it. Once Henry finds somewhere to belong, his willingness to do whatever it takes to be helpful is unmatched. He'll offer up most anything if a new friend asks for it: a killing curse, a human pillow, your library perfectly organized, a willing test subject, or a good shopping trip (or fifty), Henry will do anything if it would please others, ranging from the benign to the lethal. When he's an ally, he'll follow almost any order obediently and without question, even if he doesn't fully understand it. His naivety could be easily taken advantage of in the wrong hands. One of the first things Henry offers up in gratitude during many of his supports is to kill somebody his companion doesn't like, and he's misguided and twisted enough to follow through if asked to.
Henry demonstrates that he's capable of learning and improving, morally speaking. Through various support conversations in the game, Henry learns what it means to have a conscience. In his support with the Avatar, they remind him that killing just anyone isn't good, and that he has to ensure that innocent lives aren't sacrificed. Though Henry dismisses this thought process as "arbitrary", he is praised later on for keeping in mind what the Avatar said by protecting a nearby village. Prior to meeting the Shepherds, Henry wasn't bothered by the deaths of his Plegian comrades, but when faced with the (potential and real) deaths of his Ylissean friends, Henry demonstrates anger and fear at losing them in conversations with Ricken and Olivia. Slowly but surely, Henry made connections that are meaningful enough that he can understand the pain in losing his friends, even if comprehending that pain isn't as easy to do when death's not knocking on the door.
"I don't ever want to be alone again, but I need a promise. So, um, please?" —Henry
In making meaningful connections, Henry demonstrates another major trait of his: clinginess. Henry holds fast to any important person to him. This ties into his undying loyalty: if he can be useful to those he cares for, they won't have any need to see him as burdensome. Failing that, Henry will make it known that he doesn't want to be abandoned with pleads to stay by their side. In the company of those he cares for, he's affectionate and talkative. There's very little Henry won't vocalize. No matter what reaction he gets to the things he says, Henry rarely falters; however, when given disapproval from somebody he wishes to get close to, Henry searches for ways to alter his behavior to their liking or looks for a way to garner favor. When Lissa expressed disapproval after learning that Henry used birds as a sacrifice to help Lissa sleep with a curse, Henry immediately quit and sought another way he could help her sleep without causing her distress.
Henry is self-deprecating and lacks much personhood. In the same vein as being obedient and humble outlined above, Henry discredits his own capability for emotional capacity on various occasions. When he expressed worry after Olivia was cursed and when the Avatar praises him for his consideration of the innocent, Henry brushes it off as nothing. Henry has an aversion to being recognized as feeling and caring; he'd rather be thought of as indiscriminately cheerful and nothing more. Moreover, he dislikes being thought of as emotionally troubled: he asserts that there's nothing wrong with him in Olivia's support conversations when she learns of his history. "Troubled" is a good word for Henry, but the time spent with the Shepherds has helped him understand what it means to mutually care about another person.
Henry's personality is very malleable depending on his company. Evidence of this is in the Future Past DLC chapters where, depending on his spouse, Henry speaks to his child with personality elements adopted from his wife: if married to Miriel, Henry reminds Laurent to remain logical in trying times, while if married to Olivia, he reminds Inigo that it's okay to express his feelings. Henry grows depending on the company he keeps, suggesting that he studies and learns from the behavior of others.
"You can say that it's because you love fighting or because it's all just a game. But I know the truth, Henry. You're deliberately saving lives." —Libra
Henry would say that war and killing are what motivates him. The battlefield is his element. If left unmarried with nowhere to go at the end of the game, Henry is said to have disappeared once peace fell upon the land after spending most of his life content with wartime. But there's more that motivates him than that: the wishes of those close to him. Henry's loyalty to those he cares for trumps his own desires. Speaking to Libra, Henry describes himself as a selfish "egoist" in contrast to Libra's altruism, but Libra perceives him differently and makes note of his willingness to sacrifice himself for the sake of friend and innocent alike. Henry has spent a lot of his life aimless after exacting revenge on his childhood friend, but he's a passionate ally to have who would give it all for the sake of those who are close to him.
Abilities & Skills:
» Curses & hexes: {magic} Related to the study of dark magic, Henry can cast spells, curses and hexes. He has demonstrated the ability to reverse physical time, swap bodies with others, inflict fatal conditions, inflict illness, create illusions, and facilitate conversations remotely and telepathically across distances, among other things. The creation of life or permanent resurrection of life (beyond the suggestion of resurrecting the deceased as a zombie) is one of the few things curses can't do. Curses and the like usually require an exchange – such as a sacrifice or offering – in order to be cast. For example, to help Lissa sleep soundly, Henry sacrificed a bird's body. Hair, toenails, dragon scales, or other objects may be used to perform a curse, and the more involved or obscure it is, the more preparation may be necessary.
» Dispelling: {magic} Henry is impeccable at dispelling curses, too. For every curse that requires two skilled dark mages to dispel, Henry can do it with very little trouble at all. He can even return curses to the sender. Dispelling curses doesn't seem to require any material exchange when Henry demonstrates it in canon.
» Divination: {magic} Limited divination. Seems to be related to the study of dark magic. Such examples would include locating people remotely and peering in on their lives, or foreseeing a dangerous event. This foresight is spotty or vague, and fate can be altered once the prediction is made.
» Channeling: {magic} Though this is demonstrated only by another dark mage in canon, it can be assumed that Henry can channel the dead with intense preparation and energy.
» Animal communication: Henry claims that he can talk to, and understand, living creatures. He cannot talk to dirt, but he can talk to flowers and animals. This is not a magical talent: the other magic users in the game don't possess this ability.
» Pain tolerance: Henry proves resilient to some pain due to injury. In a support conversation with Olivia, she notes that Henry has an axe-sized gouge in his side that is pouring with blood and Henry doesn't even notice, aside from feeling a little light-headed. Whenever Henry is wounded and fails to notice, he explains that he's sustained nerve damage enough to dull his sense of pain. This doesn't completely obliterate his ability to feel pain, as Henry also states that he doesn't enjoy feeling pain and dislikes that most of all about battle and death. The short of it: Henry doesn't feel pain until it reaches a certain point of severity. A point which exceeds having an axe cleave through his side, apparently.
Inventory/Companions:
» Concoction
» Some gold
» His clothes
» A collection of small bones, nail trimmings, hair, and most importantly, bird's feathers. Weird kid.
Choice: Witch.
Reason: I felt it would be more suitable for Henry to become a monster, given his enthusiasm for beasts and all things non-human as well as his inhuman tendencies as a character. Hell, he'd even enjoy the transformation! That's precisely why I didn't want to make him a monster: it permits him to continue being the wolf in sheep's clothing, so to speak. He appears human, but lacks the same moral compass humans deem socially appropriate. In addition to this, I thought it would be great for him to continue relating to monster-like characters as outcasts while not even being one himself. He'll gravitate toward characters who demonstrate non-human characteristics.
Besides... I think he'd really, really like to try dabbling in some of the more forbidden magicks, once he learns the ropes.
Sample: Top-level on Aefenglom's TDM
memories
2. the plegian turncoat and the masked swordsman
3. any of his support conversations, just let me know which character/level you'd like!