fandom fixations and general life dump

Henry's guilt, a complicated tangle of survivor's guilt and moral guilt, is never on clearer display than when he dreams of his parents. This dream is the face of how Henry feels about himself and the sins, moral and divine and cultural, he has committed. It always troubles me when I see people yelling at Henry's parents as if they were really there... and not recognizing this is insight directly into how Henry feels about what happened in KCD2.

Notice that he is deeply caught up on theft and revenge/wrath (even when he argues with his father/i.e. himself in his own defense).

Notice, too, that he has no apology to make about Hans (if romanced). Of even greater interest from a character analysis standpoint, neither of his dream-parents (the voice of his internal guilt and misgivings) spare more than a moment's surprise on it. Henry's mother immediately scolds Henry's father when he expresses surprise; down to the marrow of his dreams, Henry does not seem to feel badly, guilty, or conflicted about romancing Hans at all.

Henry's aversion to touching the dead in kcd1 and kcd2 (particularly when someone he deeply cares about does it) is period-place-typical. It is fascinating how he rationalizes with himself in different contexts and how he justifies or does not justify this.

Henry usually gravitates toward social pariahs out of genuine curiosity first, compassion second; I find this point (blended with the above point) especially interesting in the context of his work with Executioner Hermann from KCD1!

Henry's anger is extraordinary, especially in KCD1, and whether or not Henry comes to understand his anger has immense echoes into the "voice" of his guilt.

Henry has a curiously spotty religious knowledge; this always delights me, as he's had a dash of monk's education and grew up in a town without a church. "Crimbo" is a hilarious line, but in other ways, it is also nicely representative of the half-formed grip he has on religious philosophy.

Henry's furious outbursts of "you call yourself a Christian?" are almost exclusively tied to his outbursts in defense of the defenseless, and this is used as a call to moral shame, especially against militant men. I always think first of his genuinely furious attempt to interject when Kuno deliberately uses civilian women as bait in KCD1.

Henry at times seems incredibly confident in his personal relationship with God. I adore the quest A Sinful Soul for how it showcases this. In a direct prayer the player has limited control over, Henry addresses God as informally as one might address a neighbor he has a minor grievance with. He essentially tells God, "Look, I know what you said about this issue, but I also know that YOU know I'm right this time, so I'm gonna do it my way, cause I know you didn't exactly mean it the way you said it there. Thanks in advance - knew you'd agree with me." Henry believes in a God who makes individual exceptions based on what is moral; he also differentiates what is moral from what is godly, and seems certain that God also draws this distinction for Himself.

Unique illustration of the Super Mario Bros. cast reimagined as a Zelda-like action game, used for a 1987 calendar in the Japanese Wanpakku magazine.

Source: its.a.me.scanio, historyofhyrule