Huey Laforet

Huey Laforet (ヒューイ・ラフォレット Hyūi Rafōre) is the father of Chane Laforet and Leeza Laforet. He is also one of the first to gain immortality on the Advenna Avis, he is currently imprisoned by a government organization in Newfoundland. By 2001 he is mentioned as one of the surviving immortals.

He has an avid following who go to great lengths to free him, including taking an entire train hostage in exchange for their leader's freedom. Huey does not agree with their methods and is aware that some of his followers only wish for the secret of his immortality.

It is noteworthy that Huey is arguably the most complex character in the series being in a position of several defining character slots throughout the Baccano! Timelines. He is a major protagonist in the 1700s timeline, and an indirect antagonist in the Prohibition Era timeline. He is also involved in the Present Day Timeline as well, though not as much as the other two.

Appearance
Huey Laforet has the resemblance of many members of his family, Chane, Charon and Leeza all bear a striking resemblance to him period. Luchino B Campanella also looks a bit like him in terms of facial features. He has long black-hair that matches the hair-style of Chane's, and is a style he has had sense his youth in studying Alchemy at age 15. He has oddly yellow or amber eyes, a pointed chin and flowing locks.

Due to being incarcerated in the Prohibition Era he wore a simply white prison uniform with a few buttons undone. In his childhood he wore a more Italian styled get up (which makes sense because he was in Italy at that time) which consisted of a coloured vest, loose fitting pants and a shirt. His shoes were dark brown and possibly made of leather. During this time his facial features were less pointed (though only slightly so) and were more akin to Luchino B. Campanella's.

Personality
Generally speaking, Huey’s a rather complex sort of person, the type of person with many layers, only a select few that he shows to different people, so that no one really knows who he truly is. What most people do seem to believe in common when it comes to their experiences with him is that, despite a sort of “strangeness” to him, he’s someone that has a rather enthralling personality. The people that Huey deals with the most are his subordinates: the members of his various armed groups and or cult  and his interactions with them are pretty much what would define his public persona. These tend to be a mix of those he’s recruited or those who have decided to become followers, as well as those he’s created; two actual daughters, as well as multiple homunculi. Though his interactions with many of them aren’t seen (for he’s in jail at the start of the series), we do see how he acts towards his two daughters, Chane and Leeza, as well as a recruited subordinate, Tim/Tack Jefferson. Towards pretty much everybody, including them, he keeps a pleasant, rather polite façade, and in a lot of cases, does tell them what they want to hear when it involves his feelings towards them (namely, that they are actually important to him). Though there is the sense that he might not “love” his daughters, they are still willing to risk life and limb and do anything they ask.

Despite the fact that he tends to not let on that he truly does not care about people outside of their use to him, he is rather up front about his status and goals as a researcher. He makes it no secret that by observing people for a long enough amount of time, he’s pretty much figured out what they want and how they will act to get it. However, it’s also clear, even when he talks to others, that they are there to help him achieve what he wants. (It’s just that he doesn’t tell them that’s all they are, especially not his daughters, whom he thinks of as little more than guinea pigs, themselves, albeit useful ones.) Though he says that his goals are to find out as much as possible about humans (whom he refers to as “raw materials,” showing just how removed from people he is and how much more he thinks of himself in relation to them), it gets rather confusing when one tries to figure things out further than that.

Basically, all he thinks about when it comes down to it are his experiments and seeing how people act in various situations, as well as how useful they are to him. Judging people’s “worth” as raw materials is something he tends to do in a rather short amount of time, though he is, of course, not infallible. Things can actually surprise him. When things happen or people act in ways that surprise him, he honestly does not let on; he just takes it in stride and continues to plan and change existing plans, taking that into consideration. Even being stabbed in the back (killing him) and having his eye gouged out did not truly faze him; his reaction to this was to smile and reflect on the fact that now, because of the fact that the people who did that to him did something that he didn’t expect at all, he could basically resume his experimenting. Then again, he’s not all that fazed by his own death; his usual way of showing his potential followers that he’s “different” is to cut open his throat to prove that he’s immortal. So he’s not exactly all that pleasant of a guy, and he’s not exactly someone that’s easy to surprise or confuse in any way. The fact that he really only looks at people as guinea pigs and experimental subjects makes this more possible; because he observes people and figures out how they act in most situations, he has at least a rather decent understanding of people, which is rather helpful to furthering his goals. However he is not completely impervious to being shocked especially when someone does something completely outlandish to him personally, like when Claire Stanfield hugged him he was generally confused and stunned at the sudden act of kindness to someone he just met.

However, he honestly does seem to believe that his subordinates will remain loyal, at least in a sense, to him—mostly Chane and Leeza, and most likely would not expect them to turn on him if such a thing were to happen. When he’s around only a select few people, mainly those who know about his past (Elmer and Victor, as we’ve seen), he’s much more open; he’ll speak to them about his feelings, both on how he sees people, as well as his thoughts about the events that shaped him in the early 1700s. Elmer in particular is someone that Huey is close to, even considering him “human,” instead of mere experimental material. Because Elmer has been his friend for more than 200 years, and, as such, knows his feelings, it’s safe to say that there’s actually a level of trust there that Huey honestly has with no one else. Interestingly enough, the reason that the two of them are friends is because Huey felt actual compassion for Elmer, something that he honestly…doesn’t, for anyone else. (It might not sound like much for other people, but for him, that’s actually something huge, especially when he just doesn’t let anyone else in.) In more recent events in the Prohibition Era timeline he befriended Isaac Dian as well, and because Isaac reminded him of Elmer Huey has taken a shine to him as well.

Not only that, but since his mother was killed, as well as his wife (both events a few years apart), Huey has obviously held some level of guilt (made clear when he talks about it to Victor, saying that his mother was the one who was killed instead of him during the witch hunts, and that he was “unable to save” his wife) about both of their deaths, and hasn’t let that go in the 220 years since he’d become immortal. However, he also wonders, when speaking on this, if there is anything that can truly be a worse memory for him, and if there’s a concrete method to know this for sure. Even when thinking on his worst memories, he still has the personality of a researcher, or at least acts as though he thinks that way. After all, the whole world is fascinating and perfect for figuring out, at least to him, and in a sense, he’s not entirely an exception.

Back in his time of teenagerhood his personality was slightly less reckless in regards to obtaining information, he was more cautious but also more willing to take matters into his own hands, (perhaps because he was just starting out back than). He had a deep love for alchemy and knowledge wanting to learn all he can. He was not as callous, and even willing to open up to those around him who made a significant impression, even falling in love with Monica Campanella. Huey was also more inclined to express surprises during this time, such as when he found out about Monica's relation to Boronial Campanella. However Monica's premature death seems to have hardened him to the core and now the only person who Huey even has a remote bond with is Elmer who is still his best friend and their bond persists even to this day. Though more open with the other immortals not nearly to the extent of Elmer.

Childhood
Huey was raised primarily by his mother in a small mountain village (his father died rather early on), and, for the most part, had a pretty normal childhood. He and his mother were pretty happy as things were, and everything was fine for a while. That is, until the influence of the witch hunts ended up reaching that village; though Huey was capable of some alchemy, it was his mother who was taken away from their home, on his tenth birthday. And the next time he saw her, she had been rather badly injured by those interrogating her, as well as having been pronounced guilty of witchcraft. And at barely ten years old, Huey had to watch as his mother was killed; she died by drowning-- the practice of tying a supposed witch to stones and letting them sink. Her body was lost to the waters of the lake in that small village. Some timev later he found his way to Dalton and Renee's alchemy school and became a student, earning the affections of many females within his class of fifteen, and started a counterfitting operation.

1705 - The Ironic Light Orchestra & 1710 - Crack Flag
When his story picked up five years later, he lived at a vacant storehouse that belonged to someone who sort of acted as his adoptive father (but was only around a few days out of the year), and counterfeited money. Huey was also a student at a private school that primarily specialized in alchemy, in the town of Lotto Valentino, Italy. He was an extremely antisocial person, who basically hated everyone and the world in general, who honestly wanted to see the world destroyed; he was extremely intelligent, especially when it came to alchemy, and even counterfeited money in order to further his goals. Eventually, his life ended up changing greatly with the arrival of a new student at his school, Elmer C. Albatross, as well as his meeting with a classmate named Monica Campanella, who was basically, a mostly-typical fifteen-year-old girl with a crush on Huey. At this time, the town was threatened by the fear of falling victim to a serial killer, the "Masked Artisan," whom, as it turned out, was Monica. And they still got married, and had a kid. And things were good, and Huey actually wasn't unhappy at life in general! And then in 1710, Monica was fatally stabbed to death, and her body ended up being lost to sea when it slid from the ship she'd been killed on. And, as expected, Huey never...quite recovered.

Advenna Avis
In 1711, along with a group of other alchemists, Huey boarded the ship, Advenna Avis, where one of the men there, Maiza Avaro, summoned a demon in order to find the secret to immortality. Considered the most frightening of the alchemists on the ship by at least one person, it was clear that he'd changed quite a bit, even from the way he'd been in 1705. Now, he seemed to act without caring about danger or any of the issues involved with summoning a demon-- to him, it was all interesting, nothing more. This went along with the obvious disconnect between himself and the other alchemists on the ship; he tended to keep to his own then, and even disagree with them on certain things (such as sharing of the formula to the elixir of immortality; whereas Szilard Quates wished to have that knowledge become public, and the rest of the alchemists wanted to have it known only by Maiza, Huey basically just abstained from taking a definite stance on it, citing the fact that they all had plenty of time to decide as his reason. Though when Szilard actually began killing the other immortals on the ship, rather than get involved, Huey simply watched from a distance. That sort of thing, though strange for most, was just something that ended up being typical of him as time went on.

After the Advenna Avis incident, not much is known about what Huey got up to; however, it is known (or at least heavily speculated) that he had two daughters, Chane and Leeza, with his alchemy teacher from the 1700s (and fellow immortal), Renee Palmedes Branvillier. As far as we know from his somewhat questionable parenting techniques, Huey is pretty damn good at manipulating people-- children and other creations (such as homunculi) included-- into being absolutely loyal to him. It worked well, too, as he ended up in charge of multiple armed groups.

And then he got arrested for terrorism in December of 1931, from where he was kind of hiding out in Canada. He was taken to New York shortly after, and was kept in jail there to await his trial and sentencing; he was found guilty shortly after, and eventually ended up in Alcatraz.

Relationships
Chane Laforet- The older of Huey's daughters. Chane is extremely loyal to him and was even willing to give up her voice for him, without prompting—all because she believed it would make him happy.

Leeza Laforet- The younger of Huey's daughters and the host of the Homonculli Hilton. Just like her older sister, Leeza is completely loyal to her father and would extra revenge on anyone that threatens him and his honor.

Monica Campanella- Huey's lover in the 1700's. Monica had a crush on the aloof Huey ever since their student days in the alchemy academy in Lotto Valentino, Italy. The two gradually grew close, after they learned each others secrets and decided to merge Huey's conterfeiting operations with Monica's Mask Maker activity. Despite Huey's constant aversion from  Monica's public displays of affection. He eventually confesses his feelings to Monica during the events in the abandoned house. After realizing a play revealed Huey's past, Monica allows herself to be captured by Dormentaires for her crimes in order to save Huey's reputation. This causes Huey to frantically search for her but sadly his efforts are in vain. Once he found her on the Dormentaires' ship,  Monica is stabbed by Fermet and her body falls victim to the sea.

Elmer C. Albatross - Huey's friend since the 1700's; is the only person he considers a friend and a human being instead of a test subject. In the anime Elmer is scene making Huey actually smile a genuine smile. When they first met they were off to a bad start, Huey finding Elmer even weirder than he was, however after the events of the Mask Maker, the police's conspiracy and Nikki's kidnapping the two formed a solid bond of friendship that has arguably been Huey's most defining trait as an actual human being. Huey has a better concept and understanding of Elmer's character than most can actually see, and they are able to understand each other on an intellectual and emotional level. The sole reason that Huey does not lower his questionable actions to the point of being murderous and deadly to bystanders is because it may effect Elmer in someway and that miniscule possibility is enough to dissuade Huey from such actions, despite his preference to a direct and convenient approach.

Luchino B. Campanella- Huey and Monica's Decendent.

The Lamia and Lumeres- Huey serves as the over all head of two groups: the Lamia, a group of homonculi that he created and the Lumeres, a cult that worships him.

Claire Stanfield/ Felix Walken- Claire is his son in law. They met in 1935 - B Dr Feelgreed manga. Prior to this in the 1920s Huey sought him out to recruit into his ranks but he had fled with the circus by the time he reached New York. Initially Claire asked Huey if he was Chane's brother. But Huey calmly corrected Claire's error and introduced himself as Chane's father. Claire introduced himself as Felix Walken (as he changed his name to Felix Walken after the flying pussyfoot incident), Claire thanked Huey for bringing Chane into his world and revealed he was planning on marrying Chane. When Claire hugged Huey the latter showed a rare sign of surprise.

Abilities
Huey is one of the most intelligent characters in the series, at the meger age of fifteen he was able to learn the falsified alchemy that his alchemy teacher (Renee) taught on a whim, while still learning the real stuff without difficulty or mixing the two up. His skill were vouched for by Renee herself. By the Prohibition Era, Huey has sucessfully created no less than six homunculi (though while Szilard's had full immortality his only had longevity and not regeneration). Though some of Huey's more amazing accomplishments are mimicries of some of Szilard's endeavors, they are none-the-less impressive in their own right.

Huey has several organizations, sub-factions and atleast a single cult that work directly under him and he has complete authority over them all. These underlings include the all homunculi Lamia, Tock Jefferson, and powerful humans such as Chane Laforet and Goose of the Lemures. He is very charismatic and gets a lot of people to become devoted to him rather easily by making them hear what they want. Thus far only Rail and Spike seemed to be disloyal to him, the latter having a different agenda completely. Sham's loyalty to his creator is also questionable as he betrayed him and sold him out as well. Regardless Sham and Hilton's vast network give him access to prominent pieces of information and his intelligence network seems to include others as well sense he keeps an eye on all of his old friends the other immortals.

Huey was also the only immortal whom Szilard was weary of, and as such thought it best to avoid him completely rather than devour him. Silvie also noted that Huey was quite scary even before gaining immortality.

Huey is a brilliant tactician from the young ago of fifteen he set of a chain reaction of events for the sheer reason of escaping delinquents. In more modern times his ploys involve a more direct approach for efficiency reasons but are still brilliant non-the-less.

Huey also has some sort of telepathy ability to communicate with Chane from far distances away similar to Sham and Hilton's shared consciousness. He can appear inside Chane's head like a schizophrenic hallucination to give her gestures and advice in some instances or simply in-head verbal communication at others. It is unknown if this is limited to Chane or not as he does not use this to contact any other subordinates preferring Sham and/or Hilton's network instead.

Immortality
Though not exactly physically inclined or fit his immortality more than compensates this weakness as the only way for him to die would be to be devoured by another immortal. Otherwise he

Quotes
"We're a team, right? So even if you're broken, and even if your true face is revealed and the world turns against you, I'll make you a new mask." To Monica Campanella

Trivia

 * His first name: Huey is of Germanic origin meaning "Bright spirit (inspiration)" or "Heart,mind and spirit".  His last name "Laforet"  maybe derieved from the French phrase meaning "The Forest".