#*character thesis

okay so, if you're familiar with huntress (1989) and huntress: cry for blood as well the movie old boy, then you'll likely understand what i'm trying to go for here better, this is something i've been working over quietly for months, since the beginning of when i first started to write helena, and i have been trying to consider the implications of it in the grand scheme of things of who she is.

because the main point is that the massacre of the bertinelli is the breaking point, not the first blow.

"did they look like daddy, honey?" that line was seriously disturbing to me considering they were just asking if some "big bad men" "hurt" helena. i am sure there's a different way to interpret that question, but then i read cry for blood and:

so in my portrayal, i essentially combined these two major plots into one even more damning thing, and the way i imagine things went down is:

helena was victimised by a rival don at age six; being used as a pawn to teach her father a lesson;

her family is killed off when she's eight;

she comes back to gotham at nineteen years to begin her revenge arc;

two years later, she's near the end of her revenge arc; at twenty one, her entire world turns upside down. her horrible, selfish, conservative father chose to unconditionally love and raise helena as his own daughter even though he knew she wasn't his, biologically? her mother wasn't a good person or a victim, she was a cheater and a liar. and the very predator who haunted her was someone who was supposed to be her goddamn dad, who should've been her protector, not the reason she needs protecting.

her existence is a mistake. and he's not just projecting his sins on her. he makes it real by desecrating her and stealing her girlhood from her, making sure she'll never feel like a person, that she'll always pay the price for taking his real love - her mom, maria - away from him.

when helena says she's given up delusions of sainthood a long time ago, a part of what that means is how i imagine this:

“I’m sorry, child. Our order can only accept those who enter intact in body and spirit.”

helena being denied entry into nunhood in her personal circumstances, because of her not being a virgin due to having been raped. maybe they would've been more understanding if she went into the gritty details, but at that point, fuck it, what is the goddamn point if she has to fight for acceptance? if she has to bare her soul again and again just to be believed? she does not want people's sympathy, fuck them. you hate her, you hate her, and you stick to it. don't sympathise with her only after learning the scary crossbow lady has a sad past!

helena's memory of this incident is warped; even to revisit it feels like she's commiting violation, because she views her child self as a different person.

but there is freedom, however, through all of this; she's free from feeling indebted and loyal to her family. she does love them and miss them, they were her people, but she's free from their ideology, from "blood is thicker than water", from "blood cries for more blood".

because being related by blood means SHIT.

she overcomes her need for avenging her family through bloodshed, and instead, weaponises her lethality and training to devote herself to another causes, something that required no priestly approval or debt to the mafia, just her own choice: vigilantism and teaching.

bare bones!

hiii friend, so good to see you again!! thank you for sending this ask <3

my answer for this is that i think the point is that helena does NOT want to leave a mark on other people; that is, i believe, is the point of everything she does, as huntress and as a teacher.

she won't say this out loud, but helena does want to live in a world where vigilantes and superheroes become obsolete -- in the sense that every person, every civilian has the resources, the empowerment to fight for themselves and their people in the face of all adversaries; where the justice system, legal enforcement, and other supportive groups are able to be competent, well-funded, accountable, and stay on track all with the ultimate goal to helping people; not funds, not namesake, but helping the common people these services and systems were created in the first place to help out. helena understands that vigilantism is a response to the insufficiency of the current legal system we do have, among other things; vigilantism is not a solution, it is a workaround, a band-aid -- but the wound itself must heal, civilians shouldn't routinely have to feel they have to take the law in their own hand. not because helena cares about caring about the law, but because the law as it is now is not sufficient at all and requires longterm reform in a lot of ways until every level of population is helped out and accounted for. vigilantism is a symptom of a broken system in her eyes, and that's one of the reasons why she also volunteers, participates in her neighbourhood, and teaches.

as a teacher, helena wants all of her students to leave the sort of skills or lessons or memories or anything that helps them to spread out their wings. she will always be there for her kids, but she doesn't want them to be indebted to her or be reliant on her forever; she wants them to internalise the life lessons and skills she teaches them during their time in highschool, so that they can then learn to navigate adulthood with a stabler sense of self, some form of critical thinking and the ability to research find information, and of course, the emotional strength of knowing when to ask for help -- so her students then, in turn, can learn to help other people and pass on the similar strengths and compassion.

bare bones!

A VERY GOOD AND THEMATICALLY STRONG QUESTION FOR MISS HUNTRESS THANK YOU LAUREL <3

agency is a core part of helena's story and characterisation overall; she essentially was born without a spine when she was born into one of the most powerful mafia families in gotham, because she fundamentally was put into the difficult spots of:

reconciling with having family members who hurt people on purpose;

the incomprehensible greed and privilege all around that would make anybody inside this ecosystem not have a sense of normalcy, because they are so out of touch and distant from the average life, the average values, the average hardships, and so on;

being both the victim and the oppressor herself, carrying on the same generational footprints as her mother, her foremothers, and so on; being the good wife, so to speak, because the women wouldn't be considered to be the next don, for worse and for better;

that's just the foundation set up by the circumstances of her birth and her last name, even before we get into her actual backstory, her traumas (cyclically occurring from her childhood to now, always reaffirming the same fears, the same wounds, the same beliefs no matter the circumstance, no matter how older, stronger, faster she is), her religion, and all that factor...

having a backbone is what saves her, it is what helped her escape the harrowing, prevalent darkness of the underground. because before you become their soldier or their beneficiary or their victim, you first have to let them tell you what to think.

and that absolutely is why helena refuses to never not think for herself, never not question authority and everything that is said to her, never not critically think of information and mediums and people, never not investigate, educate, read, reflect, dig for 'primary sources' in every part of her life. the moment she doesn't have a backbone, her survival pact ceases right away.