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lighthouseborn · 6 months

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Have you tweaked the character from canon? If so, what did you tweak? 😈

Canon Questionnaire

You've done this on purpose. I'll kill you (affectionate).

Hmmmmmmmmm. Okay so just so we're all on the same page about whether or not I can explain in detail the truly unhinged amount of yapping I've done in this field without writing so many words this text box implodes, here is the current word count on the document where I have most* of my headcanons for Henry backed up:

*I think I'm a few hc posts behind? But nothing major. The HC dumping ground does not include the 16 page google doc.

It's a lot.

A vast vast vast majority of it comes from altering his canon history + expanding on it. Which is to say I've given him a history, as the movie gives like four (4) total facts about how Henry was raised, with a fifth sitting in an expanded scene that was very specifically cut out of the movie (i.e. They left his history very vague on purpose. I'm not exactly sure why? But if they're smart it's because they wanted to let people fill in their own blanks. It's very much a shame most people filled in those blanks with bad faith.) The facts as the movie gives them are:

Henry's childhood home is a lighthouse, which -if you're quick at processing visual information or pause the movie to see- is back in Port Royal, according to a map he's drawn.

He sank himself to the bottom of the ocean to talk with his father, who did not break from the Dutchman's Curse after 10 years whether you want to take that one interview as word of god canon or not. (It's. A whole thing that I will talk about if you would like to know, but not here. That it's own beast.)

Henry has been sailing with the British Navy long enough to have been kicked off at least one other ship that isn't the HMS Monarch. This could be in a matter of days, weeks, or months - notably the crew still refer to him as a "landsman" so probably not months.

Elizabeth (and Will) discouraged Henry from talking about/idolizing Jack.

The scene on the Dying Gull in which Henry confronts Jack for saying Will is "unsaveable", Henry says "I may not be a pirate", however this is the line that has been very carefully cut out of this scene; the scene itself is still in the movie, but with this line and the direct reply to it cut out. Again: I cannot definitively say why, but I do think it would be smart if they were trying to avoid making too many assertions while already sort of soft-rebooting a bunch of things.

So. All in all there really isn't... a canon history, exactly. There's a sort of canon handful of details, with room for inferences, and assumptions, and soooooo much space for inventing. But not a whole lot of concrete Fact. And even then I've still shuffled a good bit of it. So the things I've tweaked/changed goes like:

Henry's childhood home is a lighthouse, agreed — but it's on Shipwreck Island, not in Port Royal.

No arguments from me. -> Again, we can talk about the "word-of-god about the curse" thing on a different post if you're curious, but my only beef is actually just that I think Will wouldn't be all deep-sea'ified, nor that his crew would be any threat to himself or Henry. But the actually sinking himself, that definitely happened.

Sure, why not. -> "Why would he sail with the British Navy if he was raised pirate?" I personally maintain that, if you are the son of the pirate king, and you feel compelled to strike out on a dangerous journey by yourself, which your intensely protective and highly connected mother will not like, you are going to have to sneak away. And to sneak away on a ship and sail for answers without immediately having word get back to her before you can even leave port, you are going to have to sail with her enemies. It's the only way to be out of her reach by the time word gets back that you've vanished. And some things just have to be done. -> "Why would Elizabeth not want him to go? Doesn't she want Will back?" Of course she wants Will back! Nobody said she didn't! (Nobody said anything about her at all!) But the thing Henry's chasing is a literal myth that has not been proven even remotely real, and they don't even know for a fact it has the power to break the curse — or that "breaking" the curse which spared Will's life won't just kill him. Henry's entire journey is gambits on gambits, and guaranteed to be very dangerous even if none of it proves true or pans out. The potential of the reward is not promised enough for the level of risk, to anyone with a shred of sanity (i.e. who isn't an 18 year old obsessed with righting this 'wrong' in particular.) The trident is a wonderful, but fanciful bedtime story. There isn't actually any reason to believe it can be found, or that finding it will Magically fix the world, or even this specific problem. (And if it is real, and it is that powerful, unearthing it could be incredibly dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands or if the goddess who is still living takes issue with your attempts to play god. (Calypso has to favor him or else she strikes him down immediately for having this much fuckin audacity.))

ABSOLUTELY NOT. Well, maybe discouraged the idolization. But I simply do not believe that Elizabeth and Jack would part ways permanently. And I think Jack absolute cannot remain a static character, if he is to be involved in this story, and has to have at least vaguely moved away from his pretending-to-be-perfectly-detached ways. And in fact I think Liz and Jack have been playing relationship chicken the whole time, and at this point even Henry is like "jesus will you just kiss already"--- but anyway Jack's family. Almost everything about DMTNT Jack is changed.

A nonpoint to me. I don't need to negate it, it's not even actually in the movie; I am, technically, not canon divergent in asserting Henry as a pirate. His role in society is a nonfact (and in fact his introductory scene has an exchange in which Will says "You have to stop acting like-" and Henry interjects to say "A pirate? I won't." So. The intention was there at some point, yes, but they quite literally changed their minds and cut it out, and I am free to ignore it and not consider that being divergent, because it's not in the fucking movie.

[... I have been harassed about point 5 in the past I apologize ;slkdjfg;lkdsjfg]

In the end most of who Henry is, in the movie, hinges around his motivations and his interactions with others, and when it comes to his actual characterization, I don't feel that I have strayed exceptionally far? At least I haven't aimed to stray very far. Hannah!Henry's a little more ... involved? He is a catalyst in the movie but aside from key moments he ends up on the backseat for a decent stretch of the movie's middle, because they cut scenes where his skillset came into play and otherwise focused on Carina (who I love, but the balancing of characters in this movie is. poorly juggled.) I take him a little more seriously that the movie does. And most of my rearranging for the rewrite has put things back into Henry & Carina's hands, as opposed to them just being dragged along by the fact they're protagonists in an action-adventure movie. In fact I'm very afraid I've backed myself into a corner where I'm going to have to invent the puzzles they have solve in order to show them solving them, which is making me scream and cry and throw up, but. I digress.

I really do think he's more or less consistent with himself, movie!canon to Hannah!canon, personality wise. There's... a open door where you could make him sheltered, if you really wanted to? And not be completely Wrong, but I think it takes away from him, rather than adds anything, and have leaned more towards the parts of him that seem experienced and clever and resourceful. He's an effective, if not very precise, fighter – that had to come from somewhere. I've emphasized the "I've spent my life studying the myths of the sea" thing and the mention of multiple languages (the Latin is technically the only other directly named by anything (the novelization)), and he's become a storyteller and all-around people person in a way that ... isn't negated? But isn't necessarily present, either. But the earnest boy who believes in others and brings people around to his cause is canon, and the impulsive, impatient, prickly bits of him are canon, and the a-bit-of-a-know-it-all-sometimes is SO canon, and the way he just will never ever give up or let go is! canon!!

He's so good, dude, like.

Despite my ability to list and list and list flaws in this movie, the ultimate crux of the situation is that I love Henry Turn.er to bits and pieces. I think the team who made the movie very much landed in very nearly the perfect place, with him, the way he is, all those indisputable parts of him. He's such a beautiful little thing trapped in a modern blockbuster to me, it's insane. I love him canon, I love him Hannah!canon, I love him in fics I've read that do something similar but different to what I've done where they completely change his background but keep the core tenants of who he is. It's true I tend to ignore the parts of him that feel like they were written exclusively for the bit, but I'm not sure those really count as characterization anyway. (The "I saw her ankles" line can die a thousand horrible deaths and it doesn't really change anything about him.) He is who he is. I wouldn't be writing him if I changed those things! I've just given him a home and a best friend and history and people and a landing place. A world to live in.

Because he's so good and I think he deserves one.

And he deserves to get his dad back.

And to keep living after that, not a fade to black but on and on into more stories.

#i would rather break the world than lose you ( character study. )

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