Huey Laforet

Huey Laforet (ヒューイ・ラフォレット) is the father of Chane Laforet and one of the first to gain immortality on the Advenna Avis, he is currently imprisoned by a government organization in Newfoundland. 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.

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Background
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 (of all days; lucky kid). 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.

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.

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, but that's a story for another time.

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. Someone whom one can tell is special. Someone seemingly impossible from whom to walk away. (And in at least one case, possibly a woman. But that is beside the point.)

The people that Huey deals with the most are his subordinates: the members of his various armed groups/cults/what have you, 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. Basically, the guy knows how to create armies and get people’s loyalty. And occasionally fanaticism. Though his interactions with many of them aren’t seen (as 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; it’s obvious that he’s the sort of person that just naturally…inspires this in others. Chane even was willing to give up her voice for him, without prompting—all because she believed it would make him happy. Likewise, when he meets Tim, Huey is able to convince him, rather quickly, that he can offer Tim what he wants; he’s the sort of person that is rather easy to believe when he speaks. It’s true, though, that he does have a rather confident air about him, and he seems not at all hesitant. (This might be because he honestly just seems, in some cases, that he’s talking as if there were no audience, so it comes naturally.)

Despite the fact that he tends to not let on the fact 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. Two of the groups that are shown in the novels, Larva and Lamia, both are stated to have conflicting goals; in one part, a member from one group is sent to get the incomplete elixir of immortality from Nebula’s laboratory; a member from another is sent to kill all the people in the building. His methods are often violent, such as blowing up said laboratory (which is where the “conflicting” part comes from), thus his arrest in 1931 for terrorism. However, his methods are less “outright violent” than they are simply designed to achieve what he wants with the least possible chance of failure, and isn’t exactly fond of his groups doing what they want without express orders; he knows what he wants to get done, and doesn’t want that threatened in any way.

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. However, his reaction to unknown factors is…well, not the norm. 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 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.) 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.

Immortality
Basically, he’ll go on living indefinitely, without physically aging at all; any injuries will basically heal themselves up by way of blood, etc. just returning to him. (This does, of course, except cases where whatever was lost is physically incapable of returning, such as if it’s kept in some sort of closed container.) (The only proper way to kill an immortal and make sure they stay dead has to be done by another immortal, who must place their right hand upon their head and think, ‘I wish to eat.’) Another ability of immortals is that of sharing information with anyone, immortal or not—by, again, placing their right hand on the recipient’s head, and simply wishing to transfer certain pieces of information.

Anime Voices

 * Japanese: Susumu Chiba
 * English: Eric Vale