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Wulfenbach Empire

Officials, personnel and other members of the Wulfenbach empire.

The Baron Wulfenbach

See Protagonists for Gilgamesh.

Klaus Wulfenbach

Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, (Reluctant) Lord of the Pax Transylvania

"I swear, it's like running a kindergarten."

A former friend and traveling companion to the Heterodyne Boys, Klaus disappeared shortly before Agatha's parents married and returned several years later to find Europa in utter chaos. He restored order to the continent, not by negotiating and being nice like his vanished friends, but by imposing his Iron Will on an ever increasing area of the globe.

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• Actually Pretty Funny: His concealed reaction to Theo's story about The Other being a robot dragon from Mars who turned Lucrezia Mongfish into Von Pinn, as well as to his own less-than-flattering portrayal in the current round of Heterodyne stage-plays. It's implied in the comic and stated outright in the second novel that the reason Klaus lets the latter go on is because he likes the Heterodyne stories, and finds Story!Klaus hilarious. More importantly, he knows that the stories are being spread simply because his enemies can't do anything to challenge him save mudslinging.
  • Theo provokes another small smile upon announcing that he's avoiding grease-trap cleaning duty to work on his automatic grease-trap cleaning device.
  • When Trelawney Thorpe responds to his talk of what Agatha could do if she snapped by using the example of exactly what he did to found the Empire, he actually chuckles and it even makes him decide that she would be the perfect consort for Gil who isn't Agatha.
• Almighty Janitor: He could easily declare himself Emperor of Europa, but he hates games of nobility so much that he refuses to accept or acknowledge any title other than the low ranking one he inherited from his family.
• Ambiguously Evil: Tyrannical emperor-scientist? Sure. But he has many Noble Demon qualities, and takes no joy in his supremacy. He loved his adventures with the Heterodyne Boys and was appalled when he returned to find Europe in ruins. So his response was a brutal, no holds barred conquest of the continent.
  Klaus: The Heterodyne Boys were gone, so I did it my way.
• Ambiguous Situation: His reasoning for brainwashing Gil is never made clear. There are a few options: 1. he did it because he truly believed Gil was wasped, 2. he did it because Lucrezia ordered him to, 3. he didn't trust Gil to run the Empire despite not having been wasped because he was afraid of Agatha/Lucrezia influencing him, 4. he wanted Lucrezia to think Gil was under enough control that she would hold off wasping him so that he could inoculate himself against the same type of slaver wasps that got him, or 5. some other possible reason. The overlay claims that it was installed to keep Gil interacting with Agatha, whether Agatha herself or the Lucrezia in her head. However, both Tarvek and the Klaus overlay admit that the overlay isn't a representation of the real Klaus. The overlay itself may be unaware of the true Klaus's motivations or perhaps just incorrect about them. It's also unclear if Klaus wanted Gil to remove the overlay eventually, he was hoping to do it himself when the time freeze was reversed, or he wanted it to be permanent. Likewise, it's unclear if Klaus WANTS the time freeze reversed in order to cure him of his slaver infection or if he hoped to be frozen in time forever, but it's also ALSO unclear if he knew that extra dimensional beings would be pissed about him freezing time. The only thing we can say for relative certainty is that he probably wanted Agatha/Lucrezia frozen in time. Until such time Klaus is released, his motivations will be unknown especially since the Klaus overlay has been purged from Gil before it could give any clear answers besides saying that it didn't want Agatha and Gil to be married regardless of if the Lucrezia copy was purged from her mind.
  • At least one of those questions was answered by the novels: The overlay was Clank!Lucrezia's idea, because she knew Klaus would hate doing it, and because while she didn't have access to another Spark-controlling wasp, the overlay would prevent Gil from reuniting with Agatha as an ally. She also believed it would allow her to bring Gil under her permanent control later, not knowing that Bang had already fed him the innoculation draught, and that the overlay would support using the draught to start curing the Empire's personnel of wasp infection at the first opportunity.
• Anti-Villain: He may have used military might to bring Europa under his iron-fisted rule, but when you consider the alternative...
  • It's also "iron-fisted" only in the sense that he doesn't let the nobility and assorted Sparks do whatever they want (and his treatment of other Sparks is pretty permissive; no re-arranging the landscape, no human experiments, no screwing with Other technology — as long as they follow those rules, he'll keep them in parts, tools, minions and cheese). Generally, he leaves people to live their lives, works to scour the worst threats in the wilderness, and permits popular entertainments to mock him as a coward, traitor and/or usurper. The general public doesn't seem to notice not only the discrepancy, but the fact that he lets these defamations persist unedited.
  • After the time-skip, his reign is described as "[seeming] like some lost golden age"... after just two and a half years.
• Artificial Human: The three sons of the Wulfenbach family were involved in a lab accident, so Klaus was stitched together out of them all and reanimated. It's not clear if this is supposed to be a secret; he doesn't seem to care.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Provoking him is not recommended, not least because he's a big believer in making an example of those who violate his rules by employing overwhelming force.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: Klaus Wulfenbach appears to be one of the most capable fighters in the series as well as being the ruler of the Empire. According to in-universe memes, he's even stronger than Gilgamesh, though he hasn't been seen in personal combat as often.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: How his Spark manifests itself. The most obvious use is the ability to dismantle and improve the designs of other Sparks. But it also lets him "find the right monster for the right job." He can also figure out what secretive things his vassals are doing to try and undermine him or break the rules, such as figuring out Professor Beetle was fiddling with a Hive Engine just by the logistics involved, and how he "always finds out" when a noble dabbles in resurrection in violation of the bylaws of aristocracy against it (which Klaus cares nothing about anyway).
• Bad Boss:
  • Even though we never see direct evidence for this, there is this little exchange after Gilgamesh beats the shit out of Captain Vole:
    Gilgamesh: My father once wrote a monograph on how to communicate in the workplace.
    Dimo: ... iz dat so?
    Gilgamesh: All seven popes ordered it burned.
    • The novels reveal that the monograph was entitled "Don't Make Me Come Over There."
  • He's probably not a bad boss compared to the average Spark... but that's an incredibly low threshold. He is well known for kidnapping people into his employ, and then sending them into almost certain death if they fail him. But by the same token he also works to keep his best people alive. And he's shown that he's very good at finding a genuinely productive use for a wide variety of horrific monsters. (See Bangladesh DuPree.)
• Badass Longcoat: A staple of his wardrobe.
• Battle Couple: Can be safely inferred to have formed one with Queen Zantabraxas of Skifander.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Klaus DESPISES ruling Europa, and is only doing it because all the alternative candidates are crazy and/or evil. He wistfully remembers the "good old days" when he was The Lancer of the Heterodyne Brothers as they traveled and explored — and especially the occasional fight. However, the current state of affairs — "No more negotiating. No more promises. No more second chances." — is entirely his design.
• Benevolent Dictator: His de facto regime is built out of brute force, yes, but his rule is actually very moderate. Europa's people enjoy a surprising amount of freedom under him, and his laws effectively amount to "don't do anything that violates the peace". Keep in mind that democracy isn't the norm in the setting and that the continent before Klaus was stuck in constant brutal warfare.
• Blood Knight: He hates politicking, so enjoys the opportunity for a good straight-forward fight.
• The Casanova: Much to his son's disbelief, he has left this reputation in the English court, rumored to have romanced Albia herself at some point before returning to the mainland.
• The Chains of Commanding: Ruling (large portions of) the world is not as fun as it sounds.
  Othar: What, tyrant? Does your empire give you no pleasure?!
  Klaus: No. It gives me no pleasure.
• Clothing Damage: He has some after fighting Othar for a while.
• Cool Old Guy: When he's not trying to put you down to preserve order.
• Covered in Scars: He is implied to be a construct made out of three Sparks. However, if the stories about the Heterodyne Boys have any truth to them, he may have acquired them simply by accompanying them on their adventures (though a mix of both is the most likely explanation). This is supported by the fact that other heroes in the webcomic, such as Othar Trygavassen and Hoffman tend to find danger and adventure wherever they go.
• Cowardly Sidekick: Klaus is depicted this way in many of the Heterodyne plays/stories; see above under Actually Pretty Funny.
• Dark Messiah: He found the European continent in chaos. In order to fix it, he led a grand violent conquest and used his power to keep order in every town. Step out of the line he drew and you will face his wrath. The crazy part? It worked.
• Deadpan Snarker: Not normally, but he gets some really good lines when he's completely Surrounded by Idiots.
• Disappeared Dad:
  • Gil grew up not knowing who his father really is. Klaus did this to keep his son alive.
  • Evidence suggests that he may also be this to Zeetha.
• Divine Date: In England he's known for, among other things, a romance with Albia.
• The Dreaded:
  • Even Jägers are afraid when he takes the field personally.
    Gkika: Attack mit everything!!
  • Upon seeing Gil cutting through an enemy army like a hot knife through butter, an onlooker had this to say:
    Councilor: Hmph. His father would have hit the wall and started another sweep by now.
  • Very much an Invoked Trope. Klaus is extremely formidable but plays up his reputation even more, in order to reduce the amount of actual bloodletting he has to do. He's so formidable that even Bang will not cross him.
    Klaus: Dupree, if you come in here, I will kill you—with the power of my mind.
    DuPree I... I'm pretty sure he can't really do that.
  • The novels play this up as well. There are several epigraphs at the start of chapters that show folk tales about him after he built his empire; they mostly resemble traditional fairy tales like The Farmer and the Viper that go in a different direction than the original because Klaus is too badass to be beaten IE, he'll give anyone a single chance to go straight, but he takes precautions — and if you abuse his trust, you're research material. He's gotten fewer and fewer chances to do research...
  • Early on in the novels, it is noted how people gave it even odds on who would win if his empire and Albia's went to war. Once we reach England, we learn just how terrifying she is, having had thousands of years to establish a reputation for invincibility. It only took him a few years in comparison to do the same.
• Emperor Scientist: Klaus actually laments having to become a dictator, since it leaves him with so little time for his research.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: More like "cynicism cannot comprehend good," but still. His only flaw. Given the world he lives in, "good" and "evil" are relative terms, and years dealing with Realpolitik and the pit of vipers that are Europa's noble houses he simply can't help but search for an ulterior, if not necessarily sinister motive in everything everyone does. When his troops are allowed to withdraw from Mechanicsburg, he just assumes this is either some kind of strategic maneuver or else part of some elaborate sadistic game the Heterodyne is playing. He rejects out-of-hand the possibility that this is an actual act of mercy. The possibility that Agatha is nowhere near as evil and sadistic as her ancestors is something that doesn't even occur to him at all. He has a point, too — Lucrezia is exerting more influence over Agatha than even she herself is comfortable with, and through her has made a damn-near successful attempt at enslaving him. It doesn't help that the information he has at the moment does point to Agatha being evil, or that his relationship with her mother had such a bitter ending. In the end, Agatha did let them go out of mercy, but the Castle only let it happen to mess with Zeetha and Higgs. There was an ulterior motive but not by the entity he thought.
  • In all fairness, nothing the audience or the characters have seen thus far contradicts his statement that "nothing [in Mechanicsburg] is at it seems and everything is a cruel joke."
  • However, his cynicism is truly shown when it's revealed that even if Agatha is without Lucrezia, he would still distrust her and not have her near Gil because he believes her families' malevolence is inherited or at least does not want to take that chance. Enough to where he's willing to further interfere in the relationship. Although that overlay is not the true Klaus, and upon actually meeting Agatha acknowledges it has assumptions built into it.
• Evil Only Has to Win Once: Klaus was able to maintain his Peace for nineteen years — but the very day word gets out that Agatha Heterodyne squished him with a chicken house, all hell broke loose — EVERYWHERE AT ONCE.
• Exact Words: When Klaus decides to go into Mechanicsburg alone, one of his advisors claims that if he gets killed, the Empire will fall without his leadership. Klaus then claims that he won't be killed but fails to mention that he's going in there to freeze time. Indeed, once he is removed from the political scene due to the time freeze, his Empire crumbles apart. Doubles as False Reassurance.
• The Extremist Was Right: The former Trope Namer, back when it was called "And It Worked", because he's just that badass. Yes, Klaus conquered his empire by naked force. On the other hand, Europa was being torn apart by constant war, and his reign is second only to that of the Heterodyne Boys for general quality of life, especially for the common man. He builds up the infrastructure of his subject regions, and about the only things he actually bans are war and messing with Other technology. After the time-skip, his reign is described as "like some lost Golden Age out of antiquity" — after only two and a half years.
• Fallen Hero: Downplayed as he isn't exactly evil. He was originally a Lancer to Bill & Barry in their heroic adventures, but after returning from exile he brought peace his way: military force. He also finds himself pitted against Agatha, seeing her mostly as Lucrezia's daughter, even though it's more accurate to call her Bill's daughter.
• Feeling Their Age: When he belatedly realizes that Agatha was the Spark in Beetleburg and not Moloch, he mutters that he must be getting old.
• Four-Star Badass: His knack for finding the right monster for the job meshes neatly with planning battles. At multiple points during the battle for Mechanicsburg the heroes are suspicious of how they've been able to hold out as long as they've have against him. Klaus deploying a massive army against them is viewed with equal suspicion, as they know he simply doesn't need that much manpower to defeat them.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: The leader of a small noble house, which was destroyed in the Other War, and sidekick to the Heterodyne Boys to the conqueror and absolute ruler of all Europa.
• Genius Bruiser: Klaus is both a highly intelligent man and very strong — he can, for example, punch out Jägers. This probably has to do with the fact that he is a construct.
• Genre Savvy: The Baron has left standing orders that if he ever disappears for any length of time, Gil would be appointed as Baron immediately. This is presumably to limit the damage the Other can do if he gets... subverted.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: His body is covered in Morally Ambiguous Scars. (The worst of them likely from the reassembly job which created him from the remains of three brothers.)
• Happily Married: Implied. While he does mention that Spark women are troublesome, when he laments being in charge of an empire, the first thing he mentions was not having seen his wife in years. She's actually the Queen of Skifander.
• The Heavy: For much of "Act 1" of the comic, especially the Siege of Mechanicsburg (Vols. XII-XIII), Klaus is the one standing in Agatha's way. The Other is too trapped with Agatha's locket to do much directly against the heroes in Act 1 — though if you asked Klaus, he'd say the Other is completely active and that her name is Agatha.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Played with. People love to mock him, because he lets them get away with it, and he gets a lot of crap flung at him by the current generation's Heterodyne stories. However, Master Payne (one of the purveyors of such stories) respects the hell out of him for everything he's done for Europa, and it's likely that he's not alone.
• Hero Antagonist: He has some very good reasons not to want Agatha running around free, and is otherwise a Reasonable Authority Figure.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Traps Mechanicsburg in a temporal stasis field with himself inside it, attempting to neutralize Agatha as a threat while preventing the Other from using him as a slave. Sadly, it turns out it was a Nice Job Breaking It, Heroic Sacrifice; even the Heterodynes — well known for their Unfettered thirst for power — not only refused to meddle with time, but made a treaty with the Saintly Church to keep others from doing it. Reason? Clock Roaches.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Over the course of the comic his actions and responses have gotten darker, and they were not exactly light to begin with. Also present in his backstory, as keeping the peace in Europa has made him a very cynical person. He long ago decided that he'd be lawful rather than good, and cross the Godzilla Threshold whenever necessary — but those decisions were trapping him in a cycle of increasingly reflexive and despicable acts.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: He's been depicted pretty badly in most of the Heterodyne stories (at least since he started conquering stuff), ranging from a cowardly comic relief to a flat-out traitor to the Heterodynes. Fortunately for those who put on these plays, Klaus isn't a Slave to PR and doesn't care what they say. Though he's well aware of this. (Again, see Actually Pretty Funny.)
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • He left Silas Merlot in charge of Beetlesburg as a punishment for selling out Dr. Beetle, threatening to send him to Castle Heterodyne at his first mistake. He likely thought that Silas would muck up in some minor way or just spend the rest of his life keeping his head down, unaware of how truly unhinged and desperate he was. When Silas discovered Beetle's journals about Agatha being the last Heterodyne, he immediately panicked, burning Beetle's Hall of Records to the ground and murdering the Baron's cryptography team to keep it under wraps. Had Klaus just killed or ignored him then he likely would have known about Agatha's true origins long before it became an issue.
  • He made a deal with the damaged Castle Heterodyne for it to act as his prison, sending it a steady supply of dangerous Sparks and criminals to repair it. This gave the Baron his greatest threat to use against those who go out of line, being able to send them to be slave labor in an insane, death trap filled castle that will kill for fun. However, this ends up biting him in the backside when Agatha manages to fix the castle during his attempt to destroy Mechanicsburg. The repaired Castle cuts off all ties with him and frees its prisoners, leaving Agatha with an army of Sparks and minions to use against him. What's more, it was Sparks who had been making repairs on the Castle for almost 15 years, making it even more dangerous when it's finally fully restored.
  • He transferred a copy of his mind into his son to "protect" him from Agatha due to believing his son to be making the same mistake he made with Agatha's mother, falling in love with a manipulative monster. He set it up to automatically override and take control of Gil whenever in her presence, and the copy cannot stop this even if he wants to. Since Tarvek and Agatha's plan to free Gil of his control requires him to be in charge of Gil's body when it happens, that means they can force him to do so by maneuvering Gil where they need him while Agatha is out of the room, then having her return once he's in position.
• I Did What I Had to Do: His basic justification for just about any of his actions. Sadly, he's right; everyone knows he's right, even Agatha herself has admitted he's right a few times. He doesn't have the charisma the Heterodyne Boys did and thus can't use their methods, meaning he has to resort to threat of force to prevent Europa from sinking back into war. That doesn't mean anyone — himself included — likes the situation or thinks it makes him any less a Jerkass. Over the course of the comic, he resorts to increasingly extreme measures due to increasingly worsening events.
• Inspector Javert: More or less the only reason he's an antagonist is that he has very good reason to not want an "untried Heterodyne heir" running amok through Europe. He also believes her to be The Other, given that the last time he met Agatha she was possessed by the Other who outright confessed to being the Other.
• It's Personal: Klaus was not happy when he learned of Agatha's existence, and not just because she was a political time bomb. It's heavily implied he was legitimately hurt and angry his friends did not tell him about her. Granted, later revelations show they had good reasons to hide her from him, mostly due to Agatha's mother being his old flame Lucrezia. However, later revelations note that even without Lucrezia, he still views her as a threat. His reasoning seems to be that the malcious natures associated with both the Heterodyne and Mongfish lines to be in their blood along with how life can drive someone mad. This ironically means that he did not trust his own friends' goodness nor Agatha's raising, so the Bros had a good point.
• Just the First Citizen: He's running most of Europe. He's a baron. For those unfamiliar with nobility rankings in Europe, that would be like having your own army and calling yourself a Lieutenant (literally the lowest officer's rank possible). To put it into perspective, the only nobility lower than a Baron are unlanded knights, and a Baron's fief is typically about as much land as one can see from the top of their castle (though this may be an Exact Words twist, as one can see most of Europa from the top of "Castle" Wulfenbach), and they always answer to higher nobility like Counts. Yet Klaus is ruling more land than freaking Charlemagne and his empire in its heyday. Martellus claims this was a mistake on Klaus' part. If he had declared himself Emperor, Martellus believes the nobles would have gladly sworn loyalty to him. By refusing the title, Klaus refused to "play the game." That was an insult the nobility couldn't forgive. However, the revelation that Gil has the title of "highness" due to his mother being the Queen of Skifander (due to Gil refusing to take on the title of "Baron" when his father was presumed dead, so Boris had orders to use one of his other legitimate titles instead) was actually enough to cause several houses to immediately become supporters of the Wulfenbach regime due to Gil's claim to an actual legitimate royal title they can get behind.
• Knight Templar Parent: He can approach this at times. Refusing to see any difference between Agatha and her insane (possessed?) mother, he is willing to use Mind Manipulation on his own son to make absolute certain Gil cannot come near her without being overridden by a copy of Klaus's own personality. And when Lucrezia threatens his son's life, he coldly informs her that he will break the Corbettite law of sanctuary and kill everyone there if necessary.
• Large and in Charge: He's tall, broad shouldered, and rules most of a continent.
• Loophole Abuse: It's never explicitly spelled out, but being hit by a slaver wasp that can infect Sparks has left him forced to do this regarding whatever commands Lucrezia has given him. But he's damned good at it.
• Love-Obstructing Parents: Towards Gil regarding Agatha, due to fearing that the evil on both sides of her ancestry is inherited. It really doesn't help that he is absolutely convinced that his son is repeating the exact mistake he himself made with Agatha's mother. However, while he does recognize Agatha as not being Lucrezia, he still does not want her near Gil.
• Made of Iron: Despite being bedridden and with severe injuries across his entire body after getting crushed, the man's response to the injury report is "hmph. I've had worse."
• Mix-and-Match Man: The circumstances leading to Klaus's reassembly have not been revealed at this time, but what is known is that the late Baron and Baroness Wulfenbach (re)created their heir from their three sons in typical Frankenstein fashion.
  Phil and Kaja: Yes, he's a construct. Yes, he is really made from three brothers.
  Phil: He was assembled and revived by his parents.'
• Moral Myopia: Klaus might be the only person maintaining the peace of Europa but that doesn't mean he's a pillar of morality, with him not being opposed to using similar tactics as the evil nobility he despises. He openly hates the hassles of diplomacy and being a big believer in using force and fear to keep people in line.
• Mr. Fanservice: The Klaus Defense League was founded to counter all the 'The Baron is AN EVIL BRAIN-CORER!' talk; the Wulfenbach Estrogen Brigade overlaps considerably, but is not perfectly congruent, and seem to operate more in guerrilla mode. So there are those who love him for his mind, and those who love him for his body...
• My Greatest Failure: He spent decades obsessing over his last night with Lucrezia, wondering what he could have done differently in to not get drugged and sent away so that he would be able to stop her plan. Eventually, he decides his mistake was entering into a relationship with her in the first place.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Wulfenbach" has wolf in it, "Klaus" starts with K, and his title is "Baron." He's just as formidable as the name makes him sound.
• Necessarily Evil: Yes, it really is necessary, and he doesn't like it one bit. As put by Master Payne:
  Payne: Could you burn down people — women and children — even if you knew they had become monsters?
  Agatha: I... no... I don't know.
  Payne: The Baron can. The Baron has. I respect him for that, but I don't want to be him. No sane man would.
• Non-Answer: In Gil's words, he has a habit of explaining things without explaining anything.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Subverted. Like Lucrezia, he also downloaded a copy of himself into his child's brain. When Lucrezia in Agatha points this out, he retorts that he hasn't taken full control and continues to leave his son in charge most of the time. He also resorted to this out of desperation to "protect" his son from Agatha, whom he believes to be a manipulative monster like her mother, whereas Lucrezia uses it as her basic modus operandi and would have complete control of her daughter's body if Agatha's locket wasn't suppressing her.
    • The funny thing is, according to the novels, the copy/overlay wasn't Klaus' idea, it was Lucrezia's, specifically Clank!Lucrezia, who ordered him to do it just because Klaus would hate doing it.
  • Played straight, but in a retroactive sort of way with his son. After Gil snaps from Vole's taunting, he rants on how everyone underestimates him just because he tries to be nice and reasonable. He comes to the conclusion that if he has to act like a stage villain to get people to take him seriously, then he'll show them what kind of mad-boy they're dealing with, all while beating up the Jäger. He suddenly stops and comes to the conclusion that this is how his father feels all the time. In short, Gil seems to be how Klaus is underneath and just shows how years of Realpolitik and The Chains of Commanding can wear someone down a lot.
• Noodle Incident:
  • The details of how he went from being the long lost ruler of a ransacked stretch of land to conquering most, if not all, of Europa within seemingly a decade of his return hasn't been revealed. Although we've now learned that he had two Dreen helping him right from the start.
  • The four years that the Baron spent living in Skifander has yet to be shown.
• Papa Wolf:
  • For all of the morally ambiguous things he does in regards to Gil, he does it all because he truly loves and cares for his son. As such, threatening his well-being will bring a blatant reminder on why this man singlehandledy conquered Europa.
  • Perhaps the crowning example of this is when the implanted personality he put in his son awoke and Lucrezia has temporary hijacked Agatha. When Lucrezia attempts to convince Klaus to sacrifice the lives of their children so they can establish an empire together, Klaus snaps at her before pinning her down. Granted, both are knocked out a moment later by the sedative-laced cake, but it was still awesome.
    Klaus: Sanctuary or no — I will burn this fortress and every soul in it — before I allow you or anyone else to harm my son.
  • It is strongly implied that the reason Klaus fled Skifander and created the Empire was to protect his son. When he worries that Zeetha has come to Europa in order to kill Gil, and when Gil asks him in exasperation what Klaus did to warrant this reaction, his father grimly but proudly says that "I kept you alive," and since Word of God is that A) Skifandrian culture doesn't like twins and B) Gil and Zeetha are fraternal twins, someone clearly tried to eliminate Gil and Klaus escaped with his infant son. While it is said early in the story that Klaus would dismantle Gil and make a better son if he failed Klaus's tests, it's pretty clear that Klaus has done everything to make Gil as sharp as possible. Klaus has made many improvements to Gil, give him immunities to as many poisons and diseases that he could, taught Gil everything that he knows, gave him the best education besides, allowed him to experience hardships on his own without coddling him, and encouraged free thinking and innovation. The part where he fails is that he is so overbearing and controlling that Gil has developed a slight inferiority complex and all encompassing rage and obsession when he reaches his mental limit to the point that he was rebellious enough to want to elope with a Heterodyne at the drop of a hat (though, to be fair, Gil didn't know she was a Heterodyne, but that didn't change his mind much when he did learn about that).
• The Patient Has Left the Building: When Dr. Sun says Klaus is a terrible patient, he's not remotely kidding. Klaus' control freak nature means he refuses to stay in bed and just heal, even when his injuries are so bad he can't even smile without hurting himself, because only he can properly manage his empire. No matter what happens or what the situation is, Klaus tries to get out of sitting around healing by any means necessary. The novels mention his chief medical officer has had to deal with this so much, she's made it the law that Klaus be sedated and/or restrained if he suffers so much as a paper cut, just so he'll let the damn thing heal. His reaction to this development was to invent cutless paper so that she'd stop drugging him and let him work.
• Pay Evil unto Evil:
  • According to the novels, when dealing with some of the more crazy Sparks, if he doesn't send them to a lab he can get particularly... creative with their punishments.
  • One of the sources of friction between him and the Heterodyne boys was that he had no objections to giving unrepentant maniacs a taste of their own medicine, while Bill and Barry hated killing anyone. See also Dr. Vapnoople. Which his brain-coring of the man is pretty monstrous, once the man's intelligence is restored it becomes extremely clear why Klaus inflicted such a fate on him.
• Perpetual Frowner: Klaus has a range of facial expressions ranging from disdain to fury. He knows how to smile, but he usually doesn't have much reason to:
  • He does take amusement in his son's confusion over why he's in trouble. He also objects to Bang protecting him... until learning her jaw is wired up. He has an almost child-like expression of glee on his face.
  • He was proud to see Gilgamesh wipe out some of the Empire's enemies when he was out of commission.
  • Lampshaded by Gil, who is baffled by the suggestion his father was a dashing romantic in his youth, and seeks clarification by exaggeratedly pulling his lips down and saying "Klaus Wulfenbach. His mouth does this all the time."
• Pet the Dog: Klaus may be a tyrant, but he's not a bad person, and there are several moments where he shows this.
  • What does he do after his minions kill someone for opposing him? Resurrect them!.
  • Prisoners of war can join the Wulfenbach army, or go home with a month's pay!
  • Complete the project he assigned you and he will cover the cost of hiring laborers. Fail through stupidity or stubbornness, and he'll put someone else in charge and ''make you one of the laborers''.
  • During the Jägers' time with the Baron, he actually threw them a massive party around the holiday season as a way to make up for the lost Jägerstomp tradition back in Mechanicsberg.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: He's stated in-universe, repeatedly, to be a ruthless, brutal, iron-fisted dictator who has conquered massive stretches of Europe (as seen here) with naked force and holds his empire together through terrifying intimidation. The funny thing is that he doesn't run death camps, capture damsels, loot and/or destroy homes, control travel, tax people into poverty, or even confiscate weapons unless they're the kind that make craters (and even that has wiggle room — if you want to test superweapons, come work for him and he'll pay you to do it). He doesn't even punish people for calling him a mass-murdering monster. The most reasonable dictator you've ever heard of. Justified as his enemies are always trying to make him look bad. He doesn't help his case, however, by punishing failures. Moloch, for example, was sent to Castle Heterodyne for pretending to be a spark. As soon as Moloch started working for Agatha, he turned out to be a brilliant mechanic who could've served Klaus very well. Two and a half years after his empire collapsed, people are begging for the stability he provided to come back.
• Properly Paranoid: Klaus withheld the truth of Gil's origins from him for years to protect him. The novel reveal that shortly after he revealed Gil to the world as his son and heir, there were multiple assassination attempts on his life.
• Put on a Bus:
  • This was Lucrezia's intent, anyway. But he came back before the main series even started. Word of God states that the place he was sent was Skifander.
  • Later, he puts himself and entire Mechanicsburg in temporal stasis with Take-Five Bomb. That being said, his overlay surfaces every so often via Gil, and everyone seems to treat it as if it is the Baron himself.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: For all he's called a dictator, his rule brought an end to the long war and established the Pax Transylvania that after his removal from power and the deterioration of his empire is described as a lost golden age. He really only seems to have two rules, no making war and no playing with Sealed Evil in a Can. A spark that rebels against him (and not for the first time) is shocked Klaus is no longer offering chances to surrender.
• Revealing Skill: One of the Baron's unique talents is noticing Revealing Skills. Every Spark has a distinct style to their creations, much like an artist. Klaus' ability to notice these styles gave him some very good leads as to the identity of the Other (though the fact that styles can run in families threw him off a bit).
• Scars Are Forever: Assuming that the stitches covering his torso are from his resurrection as a construct (which they almost certainly are, since the different 'pieces' of his body clearly have different skin tones) they're several decades old and yet have never faded.
• Science-Related Memetic Disorder: Notable for being the only Spark in the series to be (mostly) immune to its effects. When it does pop up, it seems to manifest in smaller, more contained ways like an occasional bout of dorkiness and (according to Gil) a surprising love for waffles.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: In a sense. He has a distaste for the Fifty Families' power games, and disregards the "rules" of it whenever they're in the way.
• Self-Deprecation: Gil is certainly likable. Klaus fondly says he got it from his mother.
• Serious Business: According to the novels, sports. He once had a goalie executed for taking a bribe.
• Shipper on Deck: His overlay offers to help Trelawney Thorpe win Gil's heart, mainly because he wants to keep Gil away from Agatha at all costs, believing that the Heterodyne and Mongfish families have evil blood and he sees Agatha as dangerous if she snaps.
• Shirtless Scene: That Naughty Flashback Scene, among others.
• Sibling Fusion: One lab accident led to the grieving parents stitching the remains of their three dead sons into one substitute child. Given his success as an adventurer and ruler of Europa, it's hard to argue with the results.
• Sickbed Slaying: When he was hospitalized at the Hospital of Mechanicsburg following the Battle of Sturmhalten, numerous assassins tried pulling this trope on him, starting with one posing as a nurse. By the time Bangladesh DuPree was assigned to his room to guard him, there was a sizable pile of would-be assassins on the floor.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: The persistently bitter Klaus is a man who hates his job, misses his wife and hasn't seen his friends in years.
• So Proud of You: He doesn't say it directly to Gil, but when the latter single-handedly faces down an army of war clanks, Klaus makes no bones about the way he feels.
  Klaus: Anything—being paralyzed for life—would be an acceptable price for seeing what I have seen my son do today.
• Super-Intelligence: Even by Spark standards, according to the RPG his parents grafted bits of his brothers' brains to what they could recover of his own and it allows him unparalleled parallel processing ability one of the reasons he can resist the Spark Wasp.
• Super-Strength: Apparently Klaus can effectively handle guns normally hoisted by his tall imposing Battle Clanks... Guns that even kick a trio of Jägers back with the recoil.
• Too Clever by Half: The seemingly infallible Klaus has made multiple mistakes throughout his life. Every one of them demolished his life like a monster caught in a burning windmill.
  • One was sleeping with Lucrezia Mongfish; this got him drugged and shipped to Skifander.
  • Another was failing to notice Agatha's semi-suppressed Spark; this resulted in his empire being shaken to its core and he himself getting squished by a chicken house.
  • The one that gets him frozen in time and his empire toppled completely is failing to realize that the two previous mistakes are only partially related — that though Agatha kind of is Lucrezia at the moment, Agatha wants her crazy mother out of her head by any means necessary.
• Trademark Favorite Food: He really likes waffles.
• Übermensch: He doesn't care about the rules of aristocracy, the conventions of rulership or petty things like legitimacy. He does what he knows are right, regardless of the views of others.
• The Unfettered: In his own words, "I did it alone. Because I had to. And it worked."
• Vetinari Job Security: He's indisputably the best ruler that Europa's had in two hundred years, if not ever. You'd need to be mad to want to overthrow him. Unfortunately, most of the major movers and shakers in Europa are Sparks. Worse, the Fifty Families — the rest of said movers and shakers — are old-school royalty who despise how Klaus has reduced their power and fondly remember Ye Goode Olde Days when they gave the orders. You can guess where this is going.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Seen sympathetically, for once. Klaus is struggling to make the world better, and keeps being presented with one Sadistic Choice after another. He's had to cross a lot of moral lines as well as a Godzilla Threshold or three. He's abandoned 'building a better world' — aside from trying to prepare Gil for that task.
• When He Smiles:
  • It's like the world bows. However it's usually out of abject terror, in the comic's run, he's only smiled three times; a Psychotic Smirk when he realizes that his most competent underling (and he has a lot of damned good ones) underestimates his son, a boyish smile of childish glee and probably the most innocent we've seen him when he learns that same underling's jaw has been wired shut, and a Cheshire Cat Grin when his son finally crawls out of his dorky shell and kicks some ass.
  • The one time he smiles out of actual amusement is still indicative of his badassitude and love thereof — see Actually Pretty Funny.
  • In the novelization he nearly busts a gut laughing(due to his wounds, literally) when Gil reveals that Bang's jaw isn't broken; he (and Doctor Sun, who actually performed the procedure) just wanted to shut her up for the foreseeable future.^note Though in the original comic it was in fact broken, by Airman Higgs after she deliriously attacked him.
  • He smiles twice when discussing the matter of having his son and Trelawney Thorpe marry.
• Wild Hair: Gil has it too.
• World's Best Warrior: Since the disappearance of the Heterodyne Boys, Klaus has been the most powerful warrior in Europa. He's significantly better than his son (according to Carson) and his daughter (according to their fight), both of whom are among the best. Even the Jägers fear his strength.
• You Can Always Tell a Liar: There is a thing he does whenever Lucrezia catches him at something that Lucrezia has learned to recognize.

Wulfenbach Personnel

As a whole

• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Among other things, Monster Hunter Grantz's massive eyebrows don't help identifying her as female, at all.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Sergeant Nak gets quickly jealous of anyone who seems close with Grantz, with the added bonus of a Visual Pun.
• Mauve Shirt: Sergeant Scorp of the Baron's Vespiary Squad survives a surprising number of appearances. Also an unquestionably Cool Old Guy, right down to the superb facial hair.
• My Brain Is Big: Kleegon the Battlemaster, a project of the defeated Spark the Count of the Iron Ski who now works for the Baron, has had the top of his head removed and replaced with a foot tall cask to make room for his extra grey matter. His eyes were part of the lost bit and have been replaced by a single centered red one.

Bangladesh DuPree

Bangladesh DuPree, Wulfenbach Airship Captain

"Oh yeah! Klaus always knows where the party is!"

A pirate queen in the pay of the Baron, though even he finds her taste for violence and random slaughter distasteful. Nevertheless he keeps her about as she is a very skilled warrior and hunter and sometimes, you need a butcher.

---

• Affably Evil: She's made of fun. Always. Even while skewering someone.
• All for Nothing: Bang's mother was deposed in a coup, in response to which Bang built up a massive bloodthirsty fleet of pirates. Just as she was ready to go home and take her throne back by force, someone killed pretty much all her pirates, destroyed her fleet and burnt down her castle. Unable to figure out who the son of a chump^note Actually the literal daughter of a Chump that did this was, Bangladesh swore to find them and get revenge.
• Ax-Crazy: Her defining character trait even before we knew her name. She's usually the first suspect when anything is demolished.
  Baron Wulfenbach: DuPree... When I say the words "alive and unharmed"... do any neurons actually fire in that brain of yours?
  Bangladesh DuPree: Um... No sir!
  Baron Wulfenbach: I thought not.
  Bangladesh DuPree: But I can't take credit for this one...
• Badass Normal: She doesn't have a Spark and generally avoids using advanced technology, but she's still capable of holding her own against fighters like Von Pinn and Gilgamesh.
• Big Sister Bully: Yep, Bang is like a big sister to Gil. A nasty, spiteful, teasing, irritating, bossy, troublemaking big sister. Who will utterly wail on anybody who tries taking over her right to beat him upside the head for being an idiot. Heaven help them if they actually have a chance at hurting him: a wild Bang is a scary one.
• Blood Knight: Subverted. She gives off this impression, but her love of fighting is really just an extension of her desire to hurt people and destroy things. When against an opponent that actually has the advantage, she comments it is "no longer fun."
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: One might forget she is an airship captain, what with being such a ditzy-acting Blood Knight... until a probably wasped airship captain nearly leads our heroes into the enemy's time trap where they could kill the heroes at their leisure. Bang thwarts the rogue captain, takes charge and averts catastrophe with deft and decisive orders (with the crew quickly and wisely complying when realizing her infamy), all while still catering to her nature as a pirate at heart.
• Calling the Old Man Out: When she finally reunites with her father, who is rather unexpectedly the apathetic airship captain, she gives him a lot of crap for leaving her and her mother ten years prior.
• Color-Coded Characters: She wears white and red.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Say what you want about The Baron's pet psychopath... she is big fun.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Klaus is explaining to Bang that Agatha is still alive despite Bang having supposedly returned with her charred corpse (actually that of the late Madame Olga), Bang comments "Wow. She sure looked dead."
• Connected All Along: Remember those pirates from Zeetha's backstory that she wiped out while searching for answers on how to get back to Skifander? Turns out Bang was their captain.
• Dark Action Girl: One of the best hand-to-hand fighters in the comic, not least because she fights dirtier.
• The Dragon: Even if you don't consider Klaus a villain, she's his "wet work" specialist — the person you send when you want wreckage and corpses to result.
• Disappeared Dad: It turns out she has one, which... frankly explains a lot about her bratty childish mannerisms and genuine loyalty to Klaus, a stern but deeply responsible father figure in her life.
• Dramatic Irony: Bangladesh, per the novels, is only working for Klaus while he finds the person who killed all of Bang's pirates and wrecked her family's lovely castle, with the agreement that Bang gets to kill them when she does. The problem? Said person is Zeetha, Klaus' own daughter. Just for added irony, when Bang and said person do meet... they actually have a civil conversation over tea (during which Zeetha observes that Bang is "going to be so fun to fight!"). And then when she finally finds her quarry, leaves the Wulfenbach Fleet, and sets out to give chase... she gets headed off by Agatha discreetly threatening to go Old Heterodyne on her if she hurts any of Agatha's friends.
• Emotional Bruiser: Sort of. Turns out she really had developed an attachment to good ol' Klaus.
• Enemy Mine: Her attempt to get close to Zeetha to enact revenge for her wiping out her fleet is torpedoed by Agatha, forcing her to help the team retrieve Prende's Lantern.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Et tu, DuPree? It just took some time to find the perfect match.
  • She also genuinely cares for Klaus and Gil, breaking down in tears when she believes the Baron was killed (though threatening to kill Gil for making her cry later), and her relationship with Gil is very much Like Brother and Sister. In fact, she sets her hostility aside when meeting with Zeetha and Agatha after the timeskip, and expresses her hope they can fix whatever Klaus did to him.
  • She also takes Tarvek aside and asks him as well. She's really asking just about anyone she thinks she can trust.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Turns out that she really objects to mind control, and is not at all impressed when she finds out what Klaus did to Gil... She eventually explains that the objection is due to her disliking fighting against people who didn't choose to be in the position in which they have to fight her. If anything, it takes all the fun out of the fight in her eyes.
  • She's also quite honest. Why lie when you're proud of what you do? By the same token, she does not react well when she's lied to.
• Evil Counterpart: To Zeetha. Both are Action Girls who follow a Spark, extremely competent fighters, and each one is a Boisterous Bruiser, but Bang is a Psycho for Hire while Zeetha is a Spirited Competitor (who granted, does border on Blood Knight at times). And both are eagerly awaiting the time when a fight between them is justified.
• Freaky Is Cool: Upon seeing Vole's new body, she just lights up in delight. She even describes his monstrous new form as "gorgeous".
• Friendly Enemy: Is cultivating such a relationship with Zeetha in the aftermath of the Beast of the Rails arc. Both are eagerly anticipating testing each other's mettle in a fight (but can't at that time due to Sanctuary rules at the Corbettite depot). Bang is also hopeful that Agatha and Tarvek can fix whatever is wrong with Gil. Still seems to have this attitude after finding out that Zeetha was the one who destroyed her headquarters and fleet and killed most of her crew. She seems more excited to have a cool battle to the death with her than angry at her, despite the fact that finding out who destroyed her base was the only reason she served the Baron in the first place. Really, they're practically friends. They even help each other come up with new combat moves and counters to enemy attacks!
• The Friend Nobody Likes: If her encounter with Grantz is any indication, Bang's not particularly popular among the Baron's forces.
• Genki Girl: A big lighthearted kid, even if she is the Ax-Crazy sort that would torture a rat just to hear it squeal.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: The Pirate Queen, that is.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Tends to play this with Gil. She's Bad Cop. And she isn't acting.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: The first word is debatable, the last two really aren't.
• Hidden Depths: Appears to truly be distraught over failing to rescue the Baron from the destruction of the hospital.
• Horrifying the Horror: As terrible as she can be... even she knows not to invoke the wrath of a Heterodyne, as her demeanor before and after this page exhibits.
• Improbable Weapon User: When using a Rebus Bubble to ask Gil what means she was allowed to use to kill anyone besides Gil or Sun that came in, cheese was one of her suggestions.
• In Love with Your Carnage: She has it hard for Captain Vole. Especially when he gets transformed into a huge, hulking beast who is barely kept under control.
• The Insomniac: After the time skip, when Gil stops sleeping, Bang tries to keep up with him. Unfortunately she doesn't have his training, so she can't just do a few mental exercises and be good for a few days.
• Insult Backfire: Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess mentions that Gil said her captain's quarters had a "Debauched Barbarian Princess" look. Once she learned what the word "debauched" meant, Bang took it as a compliment.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Bang's reasoning on why the Baron can't be the Other is... unique: The Other would never leave a minion free to do anything against orders. However, Bang still has the free will to constantly ignore Klaus's orders not to kill people, therefore she hasn't been wasped and mind-controlled, therefore Klaus can't be the Other. He finds this a less than comforting chain of reasoning, but can't really counter it.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Bang spends most of the series giddily committing acts of murder and violence with everyone treating it like a funny quirk of hers or begrudgingly allowing her to get away with it. However, after stabbing Tarvek as a joke Agatha had one of her dingbots secretly inject her with a paralyzing serum and she quietly tells her that she never understood why Gil keeps her around and that she'll kill her if she ever touches one her people again.
• Kill It with Fire: The third novel gives a glimpse into Bang's mentality, where she thinks everything would look ever-so better if she were to set it on fire. On seeing Gil's handiwork disposing of Klaus' would-be assassins, she's forced to review how easy it'd be to set Gil on fire.
• Like Brother and Sister: With Gil, to the horror of Klaus. After the time skip, Gil finds nothing odd about waking up with Bang in bed with him. There's also a case to be made that she sees Klaus as a sort of surrogate father-figure. Considering what her actual father is like, Klaus being a father figure to her is probably for the best.
• Moral Myopia: Bang is one of the more vicious and bloodthirsty characters in the comic, happily engaging in murder and torture on a regular basis. Despite this, Klaus and Gil have a friendly, almost familial relationship with her and they give her a lot more leeway with her violent activities than they do other maniacs they encounter.
• More Despicable Minion: She can barely be contained by the Well-Intentioned Extremist Baron Wulfenbach or his son, and loves violence.
  DuPree: Isn't that always the way? Management thinking it knows what works in the field? Why, if I were here alone — and you people were still standing around — half of you'd be dead!
• Mundane Solution: Upon hearing how the monstrous new Vole is at risk of killing himself if they don't subdue him before he rips out all of his water and nutrient feeds, Bang asks why they don't just let him pull out a few first to weaken him so that they can subdue him. Bang laughs at the fact that Sparks are so smart they fail to find simple solutions. Then she thinks she's Spotted an Imposter and forcefully asks where the REAL Gil is.
• Noodle Implements: We never find out what she planned, but one of her methods of killing people involves cheese.
• Not Me This Time: She's a default suspect for any cases of death and destruction around her, for an obvious reason. Bang doesn't even see it as a problem.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Zeetha suggests that Bang might be doing this. See Smarter Than You Look.
• Perky Female Minion: Perky, gleefully sociopathic, and prone to acts of butchery.
• Pirate Girl: Ex-pirate queen.
• Psycho Electro: In the first arc, she gets her hand mangled and ends with a medical device meant to facilitate faster healing. By the time of her next appearance, she has modified it to electrocute people Joker-style.
• Psycho for Hire: Herr Baron understands that sometimes you need butchers. In the novelization Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess, he also mentally commends her as an "easly-refuted public voice of unreason."
• Rebus Bubble: During the time that she has her jaw wired shut. She's quite fluent.
• Resignations Not Accepted: Klaus hopes to avoid this, but he's prepared to deal with Bang if she ever decides to go back to piracy. Ultimately averted. Gil does accept her quitting without trying to kill her. And then later she resumes her Wulfenbach officer's commission due to the overarching threat of The Other.
• Revenge: She agreed to work for the Baron in return for his assistance in identifying the person that destroyed her pirate fortress. Upon learning that it was Zeetha, she goes in for the hunt, despite fully expecting to be the one killed.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: "Pirate Queen" isn't just a title; she is a genuine blue-blooded member of the Fifty Families, forced to piracy due to failing fortunes. The rest of the families consider her an embarrassment... not because she's a pirate, but because she does work (though given how much she enjoys her job, it's hard to call it "work").
• Sky Pirate: That was her career before running afoul of the Baron. He decided to hire her on as one of his tools in his cabinet of necessary evils.
• Slasher Smile: Good Lord...
• Smarter Than You Look: She comes across as and is a very violent goof, but she occasionally demonstrates a surprising degree of intelligence when motivated. Re-purposing one of Gil's medical devices into an electrocution weapon, for example, though her crowning moment was when Vole was out of control after being removed from the time field — Gil didn't want him to rip out his life support cables, but Bang points out that letting him pull out some of them will weaken him and let them get him under control. This becomes especially prominent after the Time Skip, where circumstances frequently force her to set aside her playful attitude and take matters seriously.
• Stay in the Kitchen: The second novel states she's sometimes on the receiving end from some people. Klaus is aware of this, but does little to actively discourage it, mainly because the people who end up replacing these incredibly stupid people are obviously going to be smarter (and as a bonus, much more polite toward Bang, in gratitude for the promotion).
• Strawman: An Invoked Trope in-universe — Klaus notes to himself that Bang's over the top "let's just kill everything and burn down the town for good measure" arguments are easy to refute, and make him look far more reasonable by comparison. Not that Bang is intending to make him look good; she just honestly doesn't understand why he doesn't let her kill everyone.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Bang exasperates Tweedle's personal assassin, Jaron, so much during their duel that he ends up begging/yelling in annoyance for her to kill him or shut up already.
• Token Evil Teammate: While's it arguable whether the Wulfenbach Empire is good or evil, Bang's high ranking presence among them is probably the best argument one can make if they want to say they're the latter. Although at the very least, Klaus is able to at least point her in the general direction of even worse people, thus keeping her on something of a leash.
• Too Much Information: Oh, Bang! That's so cute!
• Torture Technician: She shows her interest right during her introduction.
  Bangladesh: Do I come into your lab and tell you how to torture rats?
  Gil: Frequently.
  Bangladesh: Exactly! So I know what I'm doing!
• Undying Loyalty:
  • To Baron Klaus Wulfenbach. If the Baron tells her to do something, even if she thinks it's stupid, she does it. End of story.
  • And also to Gil, it seems, post Time Skip. She acts as a buffer against Bohrlaika for Gil.
  • And to the cause of fighting The Other as well. When a British Navy airship captain tries to serve Agatha and company up to Lucrezia-In-Anevka and her company on a mysterious island near England, Bang quickly dispatches the traitorous captain and commandeers the ship to avert the catastrophe. She works closely with everyone in Agatha's entourage during the Secret Island arc, with the British troops and crew under the command she helped herself to readily following her orders. She even put her vendetta against Zeetha on hold because she's another opponent of The Other. Bang explains it as such: she will gleefully kill anyone who chooses to be in her way. The Other's Mind Control machinations remove such agency to any potential victim of hers, and she's not okay with that because then it becomes a chore in her eyes.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Bang does this twice.
  • She set the entire plot in motion by attacking Moloch's unit, which would later end up with his brother encountering Agatha, which would lead to her locket getting stolen, which would then lead to her being outed as Bill's daughter, which later ended up with her escaping, meeting Master Payne's Circus, her getting trapped in Sturmhalten and getting her mother's mind downloaded into her body.
  • Then when Agatha set her projection to play the Heterodyning frequency to keep herself in control, Bang destroys THAT, allowing Lucrezia to attempt to escape, which later led to Klaus getting wasped because Agatha still had the Spark Wasp Engine with her. In fairness, she had no way of knowing that the machine was keeping the Other contained, and it appeared to be forcing mind-controlled people to attack her boss. Still, she should have sent in a device team so that the Baron could study it (she even suggests this before revealing she was just joking).
• Villainous Crush: She seems to have a sadistic obsession with Tarvek, having previously captured and tortured him during his time in Paris. She calls him her "proud beauty" and tries to peek on him in the bath, though befitting her personality she's most interested in the scars she gave him in their first encounter.
• Wham Line:
  Bangladesh: Sure, sure. But this can't wait, Herr Baron. My term of service to the empire is over. I quit.
• Wild Card: Her childish psychopathy and bungling is what kicked the plot off. Now that she's off the Empire's leash and nominally after Zeetha, Agatha's best friend and teacher and Gil's long lost sister, it's even worse. Only the threat of Agatha to herself and the threat of the Other to Europa are keeping her contained and working with the heroes.

Boris Dolokhov

Boris Vasily Konstantin Andrei Myshkin-Dolokhov, Chief Aide to Baron Klaus Wulfenbach

"That means I'll have to run things. And I hate running things."

The head of The Baron's administrative staff, Boris is a microcosm of how the Baron operates, and why it may be preferable to the previous system.

Originally a librarian with an eidetic memory serving a Spark (far from a calm profession in and of itself) his master decided to add an extra pair of arms, strength, speed, balance... and turn him into the ultimate juggler. When the Baron took down his former master, he was given a far less demeaning job. He is now the Baron's right hand man and chief administrative secretary.

This is a job that he has excelled in. His brilliant and utterly humorless mind and enhanced physical abilities make him exactly the sort of person that a man like the Baron would need at his side, showing the Baron's talent for getting the right monster for the right job.

He and the Jägers have a love/hate relationship, as in: They love to pick on him, he hates their attitude.

---

• Badass Bookworm: All the modifications intended to make him a juggler are extremely useful in combat. Boris is perfectly capable of beating the tar out of a Jäger, especially if he wants information. Fights alongside the Baron on the frontlines against Slaver Wasps, and comes out largely unscathed.
• Battle Butler: To the Baron.
• Blessed with Suck / Cursed with Awesome: His modifications could be seen as either or both. Boris himself hasn't been seen to complain about it, though, at least not since the Baron freed him from his original Spark. He does regret being essentially the only construct of his king going about.
• Cincinnatus: He's put in command of the empire when the Baron is out of commission and Gil is missing and hates it.
• The Comically Serious: Utterly humorless but often at the heart of very funny moments..
• Dual Wielding: Make that quadruple.
• Enigmatic Minion: When last seen before the two-and-a-half year time-skip, he's sneaking around asking provocative questions of the captured Lord Selnikov regarding Sparks and slaver wasps. And when he turns up again (see below) it's not at all clear in how official a capacity he's acting.
• Famous-Named Foreigner: Shares last names with the main characters from The Idiot and War and Peace, respectively.
• Friendless Background: It's All There in the Manual that part of his hostility to the Jägers comes from envy of their camaraderie, while he himself is a one-off construct with no one else quite like him. (The rest, of course, is straight-up personality clash.)
• Get It Over With: When Wooster reveals to the Jägergenerals the Baron's plan to destroy Mechanicsburg and kill Agatha, something that Boris expects to instantly drive them into a murderous rage, he stoically tells them to just hurry up and do it quickly rather than beg for his life. To his surprise, they're actually more interested in his protest that Agatha is The Other and want to hear him out.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: Following the Time Skip, he's (possibly) left Wulfenbach employ and is now working for or with the Immortal Library under Paris. What exactly that means for his personal morality is left ambiguous.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Not by choice. His former master wanted him to be able to juggle.
• Mundane Utility: Extra hands are very useful for preparing one's tea.
• Number Two: He takes on certain duties in the event of the Baron's absence or incapacity.
• Overly Long Name: Six of them.
• Photographic Memory: It helped when he was a Spark's assistant and even more when he helps to run the empire.
• Put on a Bus: Shortly after concluding his boss has been Wasped, Boris is conspicuously absent from the Wulfenbach halls of power following the timeskip, to the point of suffering from a case of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome. He ends up making a rather impressive entrance helping out Agatha and her companions in (or rather under) Paris. And this is after Füst the bear shows up again after being absent for even more time than him. Paris must have a rather nice bus stop.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: When hearing the situation from Dimo in the company of the Jäger Generals, Boris pretty much sees no difference between Agatha and the Lucrezia copy in her head, despite the detail of the Heterodyne Locket and the idealistic faith and Undying Loyalty the Jägers have for their Lady Heterodyne.
• Spotting the Thread: When Klaus is accusing his son of being Wasped, Boris realises a critical flaw which undermines the entire argument, one which he knows his boss should have caught as well. He also catches a hint of how the Baron is intentionally trying to convey this, and immediately it is really Klaus who has been Wasped.
• What the Hell, Hero?: When Wooster clues the generals in on his plans to destroy Mechanicsburg. "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE?!"

Dr. Dim Vapnoople

Doctor Dimitri Vapnoople, Soundly Defeated Spark

Pictured - one of Europa's most deadly maniacs.

^{Click here to see Dr. Dim with a Spark (SPOILERS)}

One of Baron Klaus's experiments in "pacifying" particularly mad/stupid/dangerous/annoying Sparks, reduced to a janitorial role aboard Castle Wulfenbach. At some point he created Krosp.

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• The Beastmaster: Vapnoople's specialty as a Spark was creating and modifying biological life, his last creation being Krosp. Far from being a minor threat, the backstory heavily implies he was incredibly powerful in his prime, capable of going against Sparks of the caliber of Baron Wulfenbach and Queen Albia and posing a serious threat. He gets better and doesn't dissappoint. His beastmaster abilities are such that he controlled monsters from other dimensions!
• Beware the Silly Ones: A guy who tinkers with animals, For Science!, he obviously can't be dangerous, right? Wrong. Even without those bears, the first novelization mentions he managed to hold out against the Baron for a good long while. Plus the fact that he was subjected to the Baron's "only the worst of the worst" brain-coring experiments. Within seconds of getting fixed, his actions make Agatha realize why he was subject to those experiments.
• Canis Major: The Sparkwolves employed by Tweedle in the present were originally his creation. That original incarnation formed a Badass Army so dangerous Klaus had to wage a months-long war and wipe them out to nearly the last man to defeat it, and what remains are still the Red Shirt-slaughtering Elite Mooks of the Knights of Jove.
• Chekhov's Gunman: In this case, one that took a decade of real-world time to fire: Vapnoople was introduced in an early chapter in December, 2003, where he's shown to have a penchant for making bears, and is distraught due to all the others being "taken away." In March 2004 it is revealed that having created Krosp, he was skilled in creating intelligent animal constructs. In hindsight, the appearance of an army of intelligent bears that were waiting for Krosp to show up and lead them as he had promised was probably inevitable.
• Combat Pragmatist: Rather than allowing his foes to slink off in terror of his victory, only to return later to seek revenge, Vapnoople finds that a permanent solution is superior. It's all but stated that this pragmatism, especially when compared to the Stupid Evil characterizing most other malevolent Sparks, is what makes him so dangerous.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Once his intelligence is restored he and Agatha deliver one to Lord Snackleford despite the latter having achieved Second Breakthrough. He doesn't even break a sweat. He just as effortlessly subdues Agatha afterwards, requiring Krosp, Kjarl, and Tarvek to intervene before he can drag her to another dimension.
• The Dreaded: According to Wooster, he is the only modern Spark that Queen Albia actually feared.
• Dumb Is Good: He committed many crimes as a Spark (to the point that Albia is ready to go into a violent rage upon seeing him), but is friendly and almost child-like after his brain-coring. This is subverted in the print novel, however; he no longer has the intelligence, but still has the mindset of a Spark, with bouts of megalomania and an obsession with revenge. And when he gets better... it's confirmed that he was definitely evil when smart.
• The Extremist Was Right: So it turns out that the Baron had a very good reason to neuter the man's Spark, because with it Dimitri is every bit the villain that deserves to be lobotomized.
• Fate Worse than Death: Baron Klaus experimented on his brain, effectively lobotomizing him and leaving him an imbecile who can no longer use his Spark. The novelization makes it worse - he still has the mindset of a Spark, and therefore treats being complimented on menial tasks as the highest accomplishment possible.
• Greater-Scope Villain: A downplayed case. Martellus von Blitzengaard is his apprentice, and it's repeatedly implied that Martellus is only as dangerous as he is because of Vapnoople having been his teacher. The Sparkhounds he even created would later go on to serve as the Elite Mooks for the Knights of Jove. Furthermore, Vapnoople was a severe threat to not just the Wulfenbach Empire (Vapnoople's forces held out for six months against the Baron directly, and went into successful hiding afterwards for well over two decades afterward), but also to Queen Albia of England herself, having managed to brainwash several of the Great Cetaceans into attacking Londinium until a grisly ceasefire could be arranged. It's worth noting that he was also a close friend of the Mongfishes and that he knew Lucrezia Mongfish was the Other the whole time.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Albia is stunned to find the terrifying Spark who once managed to brainwash several of the Great Cetaceans (an ancient race of massive civilization-bearing whales who live in the depths of the ocean and who are even implied to be the cetacean counterparts to human Sparks who have achieved Second Breakthrough) into attacking England is now a friendly and innocent janitor whose brilliant mind has been, in her own words, "disassembled."
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Inverted. "Dimitri Vapnoople" is a rather silly name, but once his Spark is restored, he's a deranged, extremely intelligent and highly dangerous maniac.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: When Kjarl restores his Spark, we see precisely why Baron Wulfenbach selected him for his brain-coring Spark investigative experiments: he is an inveterate and legitimately terrifying Social Darwinist madboy just as malignant as his old reputation suggests, who believes that monsters will winnow the weak, and acts to the fullest extent of his abilities to that end. A shock to everyone who was used to sweet dimwitted "Dr. Dim".
• One Degree of Separation: He was apparently a fraternity brother to Saturnus Heterodyne, Agatha's grandfather. At the same time, (according to Tweedle) he was an old friend of the Mongfish family. And, of course, he was Tweedle's teacher and Wulfenbach's janitor.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: He was paid unto by Baron Wulfenbach. Deliberately inflicting psychologically degrading brain damage in the pursuit of understanding the physiological nature of the Spark sounds pretty heinous, enough for even another enemy of Vapnoodle to take pity on him afterwards... but then the Londinium arc shows that Vapnoodle was not at all undeserving of such a fate after his malignant intellect and top-class Spark were restored, and further backstory on his misdeeds are revealed.
• Pet the Dog: Possibly with his relationship with his creation Krosp, but again the whole timeline of events has not been made clear. If Vapnoople created Krosp before the bears, then created the bears to serve his failed experiment, yes, it was a very nice thing to do. On the other hand, if the bears were made first, then Krosp was probably just a cog in Vapnoople's master plan, with the "cat king" thing being some sort of cover story. The print-novels make Vapnoople's motives a lot less ambiguous and less pleasant: he specifically says that the bears were bred to wreak bloody revenge on Baron Wulfenbach, and that he deliberately bred near-slavish loyalty into his creations. Plus there's the fact that his favorite apprentice was Martellus.
• Pragmatic Villainy: He comments to his new "apprentice" Agatha that you should never be afraid to admit you may have made a mistake.
• Put on a Bus: He deliberately steps though a portal into a monster-filled higher dimension, though his attempt to take his new "apprentice" Agatha with him is thwarted. He vows to return and get his revenge on both Agatha and Krosp.
• Scars Are Forever: His head is covered in a crosswork patching of scars from Baron Klaus' experiments.
• Stout Strength: He's very strong, able to effortlessly throw people around with one arm when he wants to.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Queen Albia of England has every reason in the world to hate and resent Dr. Vapnoodle for what he did to her country. Indeed, when Krosp comes to her seeking asylum for Dr. Dim, she's ready to reject him outright... until she sees what Klaus Wulfenbach did to him.
• The Social Darwinist: Turns out to have been a big one. After his mind is restored, he immediately goes into a Motive Rant explaining that his monsters will "scour the land" and "cull the herd", leaving the "remains of humanity" stronger and sharper than ever. Basically, he believed that the principles of antimicrobial resistance ("that which does not kill everything makes the survivors stronger") can and should be applied to human civilization.
• Uplifted Animal: It seems that he specialized in making these, given his creation of Krosp. And Krosp's army of uplifted bears.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In the first print novel, when Agatha and Krosp flee Castle Wulfenbach, Krosp tries to take Vapnoople with them, but fails due to the man's damaged mind making him refuse to leave. We don't know what happened to him after that until much later when Krosp and his bears take him to Londinium after rescuing him from Castle Wulfenbach.

Higgs

Airman 3/c Axel "The Unstoppable" Higgs

"Let me tell you about Airman Higgs."

Higgs is first introduced as a lowlevel crewman who happened to be on the medical airship assigned to transport the wounded Baron to Mechanicsburg. Over time, it's become clear that this was a cover identity. After much prolonged hinting and implications about his true nature and identity, he finally explicitly confirms the truth to Agatha in person. (See various spoilers below.)

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• Almighty Janitor:
  • Higgs has a very wide range of skills. In particular he seems very good at winning. After the time skip, he seems to hold a position more in line with his talents, both as Gil's personal attendant and as Agatha's spymaster and the missing Jäger general.
  • Tarvek guesses that he actually plays this role for half the armies of Europa, taking innocuous and low-level roles that let him coverly infiltrate various militaries as needed.
• Amazon Chaser: Chasing a literal Amazon, Zeetha, and she chases back.
• Ambiguously Human: Looks normal enough, but is capable of feats of strength and stamina that would be virtually impossible for a normal human, even with the Rule of Cool-driven physics of this series. He's also frequently implied to be much older than he looks, particularly by the Castle. It's eventually revealed that he's actually a Jäger, specifically their long-hidden 7th general. He is a curiousity amongst the Jägerkin, having acquired the durability, exertive capacity, and long life, but he never turned monstrous-looking like all the others. This peculiarity lends itself to his role as the Heterodynes' Spymaster.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: It takes frustration enough to make him blow his top, plus Agatha to finally repair Castle Heterodyne and take control of the town, but he finally admits to his feelings towards Zeetha here.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Downplayed, but still present Higgs is the only know Jäger to not exhibit any of the monsterous charactaristics they're famous for. He's more (or was) self-concious about this than you might expect, as it made him the odd-one-out amongst his brothers.
• Beneath Notice: Higgs infiltrates the target's armies by signing up as some sort of low-ranking private and acting as a inocuous, bored grunt.
• Berserk Button:
  • Messing with Zeetha is a really easy way to set him off, as Zola finds out the hard way.
  • The Castle suggests that revealing anything about his Mysterious Past without his consent is another major button. Higgs later confirms it when Tarvek privately outs him as the seventh Jäger general. The only reason Higgs didn't kill him on the spot is because Tarvek is still useful to Agatha.
• Bishōnen Line: He's the seventh Jäger General and he's virtually indistinguishable from a normal human being, while most of the other generals became more monstrous as they got older. He later confirms that he never gained any typical Jäger appearance traits when he drank the Jägerdraught in the first place. He did get the ones that counted: Super-Strength, Super-Toughness, and effective immortality.You know, only the boring Jager traits.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: He's become one for Gil over the course of the Time Skip, as evidenced here.
• Cosmic Plaything: The tale originally told about his rescue from the Baron definitely counts (he gets attacked by, among other things, a concussed pirate captain and a nesting goose) More recently it seems like he's been drawn into the events swirling around Agatha and Gil without any real desire to be. Exactly how he prefers it to be interpreted.
• Covered in Scars: His arms and torso are dotted with criss-crossing marks from old wounds. He's not stitched together like Klaus, but that's probably just because he's harder to tear apart in the first place.
• Death Glare:
  • When Zola stabs Zeetha. "I vas starting to like her."
  • Later on, when Tarvek figures out he's a Jäger General, he gives Tarvek one of these while nearly choking him to death, before deciding to let him live because of how useful he is.
• Determinator: It is this which wins him his epithet. He's not as "invulnerable" as some cast members, but no matter how much you damage him, he will keep coming. The fact that he's a Jägermonster helps, of course.
• Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: After the Time Skip both sides believes that he is a Double Agent working for them, and nothing has been seen to determine which side his allegiance is with. He's eventually confirmed to be the Secret Jäger General, and ultimately serves Agatha and the Heterodyne family as The Spymaster.
• Extreme Mêlée Revenge: Once Zola pissed him off, things (including Zola) got ugly.
• Feel No Pain: He gets stabbed through the lungs and takes several seconds to remember that it should hurt him. In hindsight, this is yet another hint to his true nature.
• Freakiness Shame: Inverted. Despite how useful it is for his duties as Agatha's Spymaster, it's implied that Higgs has a slight complex about not having any of the usual physical traits of a Jäger, particularly the teeth.
• Game Face: A subtle version, but in the comic where he confronts Tarvek about uncovering his Secret Identity, you can see his grin becoming almost unnaturally wide and his teeth seem suspiciously sharp, the only obvious physical signs we've seen that he is, in fact, a Jäger.
• Genuine Imposter: He's forced into a Jäger costume after having been confirmed to be one.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: In close quarters, he won't bother using a weapon. He really doesn't need one, either, seeing as how he can tear through anything up to and including Sparkhounds (which are tough enough to shrug off conventional blades and bullets like pebbles against a brick wall) without visible effort.
• He Knows Too Much: He doesn't mind if you are suspicious and act with Selective Obliviousness, but if you actually know his secret or start stating it outright, there is a high chance he will kill you, even if you are his girlfriend. The castle almost told Zeetha his secret because it thought that would be funny. Higgs himself starts threatening Tarvek when Tarvek alludes to his secret in open.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Gil, strangely enough. He gives Gil relationship advice, shoots down Gil's ideas of a sparky Grand Romantic Gesture, assists him in the restoration of Mechanicsburg and only reacts with mild annoyance when he learns Gil knew he was really a Jäger. Only Bang has comparable status with Gil following the Time Skip.
• Her Boyfriend's Jacket: He's the "boyfriend" in question; Zeetha possesses his jacket. He in turn was gifted her little face charm thingy that mimics her facial expression. Since it does so regardless of distance, it's a way for him to know if she's okay or not.
• I'd Tell You, but Then I'd Have to Kill You: The Castle states that if it told Zeetha exactly what his deal is, he'd do this. Since they like each other, it decides not to.
  Zeetha: Aw. But.. Couldn't you just tell me something? I mean, maybe just enough to that he'd only have try and wound me a little?
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: While he doesn't use the stock phrase, this definitely seems to be what Higgs is hinting at here — he makes it clear that he can quite quickly and easily kill Tarvek, but he holds off because he's helping Agatha. He's very clearly making the implication (and Tarvek clearly understands) that Higgs is not going to hold back if Tarvek even thinks about hurting Agatha.
• Implacable Man: Fans came to love him from his impossibly badass introduction, told by Doctor Sun. In the Castle, it is made clear that Sun's story was vastly understating his capabilities.
• Kubrick Stare: In the rare cases where he gets angry, he delivers one of these to his victim.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: For the most part, he stays in the background and doesn't get actively involved. When he does get involved, he proves to be one of the most dangerous characters in the entire comic. You don't become a Jäger General by inserting yourself into fights needlessly, but you also don't by not being extraordinary deadly when you do.
• Lightning Bruiser: His absurd durability is the very first thing readers learn about him. He's also, properly motivated, capable of throwing around car-sized monsters like sacks of flour and moving so fast a trained Smoke Knight can't react in time. It's because he's actually a Jägermonster who curiously and sadly missed out on the whole monster-ization effect of the Jägerdraught.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Despite being a general, he apparently wasn't told about Robur Heterodyne's encounter with the Dreen, since he's as surprised as Gil to hear the Castle mention it.
• The Magnificent: The Unstoppable Higgs.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Post Time Skip him and Zeetha are official, and while we may not know much about him before the story, much less his age, what we do know is that he is definitely older than her 20-something. He outright tells Tarvek that he's seen many generations of the Stormvoraus family line come and go, indicating he is much, much older than any human.
  • With regard to the problem of their relative lifespans, they really don't know. It's possible that the efforts Mamma Gkika went through to save Zeetha's life, including Jägerdraught, have rendered her similarly long lived. Or not, because it wasn't the full Jäger process either. They'll have to find out like anyone else.
• Meaningful Rename: When asked the question of whether "Axel Higgs" is his real name, he states that it wasn't his original name, but he considers it his real name now.
• Minion Shipping: He has an immediate soft spot for Zeetha, which eventually passes from a Bash Buddies stage to an actual (if informal) relationship. Becomes even more pronounced when it becomes apparent that he's a Jäger; they're both Agatha's minions.
• More than Meets the Eye: There have been a lot of hints that Higgs is the Hero of Another Story. Let's put the bits and pieces in a spoiler: The Castle knows him well, and for apparently longer than one human lifetime, and appears to have in interest in preserving his secret so vested that it notes it'd have to kill Zeetha if it told her. He requests permission to leave his post, but it's not clear whether he asked Gil or Agatha. He's actually seen Igneous Heterodynes (who clearly predated Bill and Barry) drink from the Dyne - he compared that reaction to Agatha's. He knows the secret passages of Castle Heterodyne. The fight with Zola reveals distinctly superhuman strength, speed, and resilience to injury, and when upset he seems to have a trace of a Jäger (or at least East European) accent. The Jägers seem to be in on his secret, at least partly, since Dimo covers for him when Gil's asking awkward questions. Mamma Gkika seems to know him quite well and refers to his 'tricks' (a word also mentioned in reference to the mysterious, hidden seventh Jäger General.) Most recently, these three strips hint that Higgs is, or at least was, a Jäger General. Note Higgs' reactions to what Gil says in the second strip and his use of "All" in the third. And here, Tarvek outright calls him a "general." In the next strip, Higgs does everything short of outright confirming to Tarvek that he is a General, complete with his face deforming like a Jäger's and saying that Tarvek will serve "the lady" quite well. He eventually outs himself to Agatha once Lucrezia is removed from her head.
• Not So Stoic: He has facial expressions: he just doesn't use them much, thanks to his Seen It All life.
• Older Than They Look: References old Heterodynes like he was there. "How time does fly". he also tells Tarvek that he's seen many generations of the Stormvaus line pass. Being a Jäger, he may very well have. He later reveals that he received the Jägerdraught, from Vlad the Blasphemous, who originally brewed it; he's among the oldest Jägers.
• Only a Flesh Wound: Higgs seems to function normally even when the wounds he took should be debilitating or lethal, much like all of the other Jägers we've seen.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Or showing. When Zeetha is stabbed he shows a trace of what seems to be a Jäger accent. Muddying the issue is that some Mechanicsburg citizens have the accent as well, having maintained it through the generations as a matter of pride.
• Punny Name: Higgs is an Airman, 3rd class. A Seaman, 3rd class is a Bosun — so he's Higgs, Bosun. The mysterious missing particle. (Still don't get it? Ask a physicist.)
• Put on a Bus: Suffers a relatively short-term case of this, when he and Vole set out for Paris upon learning that Zeetha has been injured. He finally turns up serving in uniform on board a British submarine, with Vole nowhere to be seen.
• Really 700 Years Old: It's implied by a number of characters that he's actually much older than his appearance would suggest. Eventually confirmed with his reveal as a Jäger, of whom even the youngest are a couple centuries old.
• Sailor's Ponytail: Complete with a bow at the end.
• Scars Are Forever: Has such an epic map of scars on his chest that it can be mistaken for hair at first glance.
• Seen It All: He always looks rather bored, no matter what is going on. Being a Jäger General, he really has seen the worst possible in Europa.
  • Only one thing has really ever unnerved him and that's falling in love with Zeetha. He never grew close to anyone like that before and the new experience almost scares him.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: He and Zeetha went through this stage.
  Higgs: Uh—she—she ain't my Miss Zeetha, sir.
  Tarvek: Oh, heaven forbid. I'm sure you'd desert your post and hare off to save any green-haired amazon.
• Shipper on Deck: He favors Agatha/Gil, even going so far as to give Gil relationship advice.
• Signature Headgear: Apparently he's a crewman of the ship Rozen Maiden. Later, after the Time Skip, he has a similar hat, but with "Wulfenbach" labeled instead, signifying that he's moved up to a post on Castle Wulfenbach. His tendencies toward such apparel is because he is a Jäger.
• Slasher Smile: The only smile he has to offer is one of these while choking Tarvek one-handed. Both meant to intimidate and clue him (and the readers) in that he's right about Higgs being a Jäger General, perhaps more right than he'd want: a mouth and teeth like that could only belong to a Jäger.
• Smoking Is Cool: That is one badass pipe.
• The Spymaster: Higgs is the missing seventh Jäger General, and announces himself as Agatha's spymaster.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Quite possibly one of the most awesome examples of this trope ever, where Higgs calls out Gil (and apparently a lot of other male Sparks Higgs has known) for doing utterly ridiculous things to try and communicate with a girl they have a crush on instead of just writing a letter, as seen here.
  Higgs: Now. Write. Use the pen. On the paper. Tell her what you want to say.
  Gil: [Beat] I could build a machine that would project a simulacrum of myself that could explain—
  Higgs: Why I smacked you?
  Gil: Or... I could... just write...
• The Stoic: Which makes the few rare times he loses his temper all the more terrifying.
• Super-Toughness: He's repeatedly shown suffering Amusing Injuries that fit the cartoony art style but would definitely have damaged most of the cast. In the case of the fight with Zola, the injuries are no longer amusing... but he's still fighting. In fact, he's getting faster. Being a Jäger helps.
• Token Human: Downplayed. He hardly looks out of place in Agatha's group. That said, he is, to date, the only Jäger to partake of the drought, and survive with all the abilities it gives, but none of the physical transformations. At the very least, he regrets not getting the teeth.
• Tranquil Fury: The rare moments where Higgs gets angry are moments where he still remains absolutely calm... but also absolutely dedicated to destroying whatever has pissed him off.
• Undying Loyalty: As a Jäger, literally, to Agatha, seeing how she's the only known living Heterodyne.
  • He also seems to have this towards Gil to a lesser extent; even putting aside the fact that it ultimately helps Agatha, he was still more than willing to accompany Gil on the first expedition into the time-frozen Mechanicsburg. Possibly he sees no contradiction between serving both Agatha and Gil.
• Unfazed Everyman: He seems this at first, but as we see him more and more, it's obvious that his durability was not just there for a gag as originally depicted. He's still unfazed by a lot of stuff, though. Ultimately Averted by the reveal that he's the hidden 7th Jäger General; he remains entirely unfazed, but he's definitely no everyman, he simply plays the role of one.
• Unreliable Narrator: The story that initially earned him the fans' love and respect was related by him to the group of soldiers that found him. It hasn't quite... meshed with what we've seen of him. It turns out he's more badass, not less. Considering what we've seen him go through in order to reduce him to "walking wounded", what Higgs went through to get the injuries Dr. Sun mentioned has to have been far, far worse than what he reported.
• Zen Survivor: He seems tranquil, or apathetic, or slightly bored most of the time. Most of the time. It's implied later on that this is due to his long lifespan and the countless things he has seen. If his comments to Vole about how "we all did" horrible things and then growing up, he may have done some stuff he grew to not be proud of as he got Older and Wiser.

Oglavia Spudna

Madam Oglavia Spudna, Wulfenbach Spymaster

Gil's spymaster after the Time Skip. She is unnervingly good at her job.

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• Card-Carrying Villain: Reason she became spy? She likes spying on people.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Her most usual facial expression is this.
• The Dreaded: She's able to get a spy to spill the beans just by being alive and in the same room.
• Evil Counterpart: She has a similar hairstyle and build to Violetta, is Gil's spymaster
• Ignored Epiphany: She listened a lecture from Othar that almost, almost made her reconsider her calling in life. And then she realised this wouldn't let her spy on people. "So nuts to that!"
• Oh, Crap! : When a captured librarian realized who she was, the librarian were freaked out and eager to talk.
• Opaque Lenses: Never seen without goggles of this type. Combined with her smile, they make her look very creepy.
• Psycho Psychologist: It'd appear that she specializes in human psychology, and happens to be impressed by the Other's use of Mind Control.
  Spüdna: If she has indeed achieved the mass mental takeover of an entire population... Such a feat... So impressive...
  Gil: Wrong lesson, Spüdna.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Based on rumors stated by a captured librarian.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: She can perform these as befitting of a spy. When Gil gave his permit to meet him, Spudna appeared with these and surprised the Battle Butler.
• Token Evil Teammate: She takes this role among Gil's forces from Bang, suggesting that she has her people steal Agatha's Wasp Eater (the same Wasp Eater she needs to live without Martellus's "Touch of the King") to accelerate production of their own and brushes off Gil's refusal by saying she could just frame Martellus for it.
• Torture Technician: And even wrote a book about Cold-Blooded Torture in her youth.

Ruxala

Ruxala, Vespiary Squad Weasel Wrangler

Protecting people from them is my job.

One of the Wulfenbach Vepiary Squad members who survived being hunted down after the Baron was wasped.

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• Badass Normal: Her job (aside of rounding up revenants) is fighting slaver wasp warriors, which is a challenge even for superhumanly strong constructs. Observe a Ruxala outnumbered by these things and "distraught". Very efficient, too.
• Berserker Tears: Ruxala sat in tears until Slaver Wasp Warriors claw-stab her captain and walk in... carnage ensues.
  Tarvek: Ah—I'm... I'm sorry, you just seemed rather... distraught—
  Ruxala: Of course I'm distraught! (still weeping, brains her third bug in a row, not even looking at it) They hurt my weasels!
• Determinator: Despite being badly wounded Ruxala continues to carry out her job, even if that means using a walking stick and making her way around a notoriously dangerous city while heavily bandaged.
• Offhand Backhand: Ruxala offhand-headshots a warrior wasp behind her back while crying.
• Put on a Bus: Ruxala and most of her weasels were caught up in the Take-Five bomb and are stuck in the Red Cathedral. One weasel made it through the Queen's Mirror with Agatha.

Von Pinn

Mistress Von Pinn AKA Otilia, the Muse of Protection

When first encountered Von Pinn seemed to just be another of the many monsters given jobs by the Baron. It eventually emerged, however, that she was the nursemaid at Castle Heterodyne when Agatha was born and this has made things rather interesting. Pursued by many Jägers as the height of womanhood and absolutely terrifying, Von Pinn seems to hate Agatha, fear what she is to become (whatever that is) and want to protect her.

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• Action Girl: Punches in the same weight class as Jägers, or a little above.
• Big Damn Heroes: At least once.
• Bullet Catch: She's fast enough to catch rivets thrown at bullet-like velocity and deflect a further handful of rivets at super-speed.
• Combat Sadomasochist:
  • Oh, yes.
  • Her attitude improved a lot the moment she was transferred into a body without pain sensitivity.
• Compelling Voice: She can do this when in her mechanical muse body, it isn't very effective in the other bodies she's worn.
• Dark Action Girl: If the way she looks isn't enough her response to getting stabbed in the hand is to run her hand down the blade to grab the hilt.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Dark, vicious, aggressive, but not evil.
• Enigmatic Minion: Has a complex agenda that we now know some of the details of, but not the whole story.
• Femme Fatalons: Her primary weapons.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Otilia's original body is smashed in half at the waist by Higgs, just before the Castle fragment in her body can identify him. Higgs then claims it was worn out due to old age.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Just look at her!
• High-Class Glass: Not your average monocle.
• Horrifying the Horror: The Other, or perhaps Lucrezia, is terrified of her, even after having shoved her mind into a body she could control. With good reason. It only intensifies after Von Pinn reveals she's found ways to circumvent Lucrezia's hold on her.
• It's Personal:
  • Things between Agatha and Von Pinn didn't get off to a great start, but then she killed Punch and Judy. The next time they met, Agatha was not in a forgiving mood.
  • On the other end, she is quite furious with Lucrezia, what with Lucrezia robbing her of her original body and all.
• Large and in Charge: Von Pinn is incredibly tall. As Otilia, she was a full three metres.
• Magical Nanny: Well, SCIENCE! nanny, but yes. Of the "stern but fair"-variety.
• Mama Bear:
  • DO NOT endanger the children under her protection. Even if you're one of them.
  • She's apparently the most protective of Gil. Had Agatha not been able to force Von Pinn to let her go, things would probably have gotten much worse before they got better, thanks to Agatha making a remark about really not liking Gil after first meeting him.
  • And it turns out the kids return her loyalty.
• Mega Neko: Otilia's gone from a human(ish) body to that of an enormous mechanical cat. She likes being a cat clank better, even if it's not as good as her original, Van Rijn built body.
• Noodle Incident: A few details about her are as yet unclear. Lucrezia found her Muse body chained up behind a wall, but it's anyone's guess how that happened.
• No-Sell: By the time she fights Lucrezia in the latter's old lab in Castle Heterodyne, she has managed to nullify the effect of Lucrezia's Compelling Voice on her.
  Von Pinn: Sssss- That will no longer work, you filthy thief of souls. It was not easy, but I have found ways to break your hold.
• Not Quite Dead: Seriously, someone like Von Pinn is a threat as long as they can move a finger.
• Parental Substitute: Yes, kids on Castle Wulfenbach had a vicious guardian construct in loco parentis and were rather attached to her.
• Really 700 Years Old: Von Pinn was originally the Van Rijn muse Otilia, built centuries ago for the Storm King.
• Restraining Bolt: Lucrezia designed her construct body to be unable to resist a direct command from her. When Agatha's sufficiently fired up, she can do the same.
• Sanity Slippage: When her charge Klaus Barry Heterodyne was killed, she went completely insane and had to be locked up until the Baron found a use for her.
• Sinister Suffocation: Threatens to kill Lucrezia by strangling her unless she lets Agatha retake control of her body. And it works.
  Von Pinn: Heh. Your mother was always a coward at heart.
• Super-Soldier: Well, the programming of a legendary combat robot downloaded into a construct body of notable resilience. Works out the same.
• Took a Level in Badass: As Otilia, while her design was for protection, she apparently wasn't much of a fighter, according to Tarvek. Von Pinn is most definitely a fighter. She takes another level once transferred into one of the Castle's "Mobile Fun Dispensers."
• Wetware Body:
  • It now appears that she is the Muse Otilia, transferred into a construct body as part of Lucrezia's experimentation. Why she did this, where the body's original mind, if any, ended up, and what this will mean is still up in the air.
  • She has since had her mind transferred out of her organic body, since it was dying, and transferred into a giant cat clank (with improvements) until her original Muse body is repaired. She seems happy with it.
• What the Hell, Hero?: When Agatha drops her down a bottomless pit. "TRULY YOU ARE YOUR MOTHER'S CHILD!"
• Winged Humanoid: As Otilia, Muse of Protection, she was unique among her sisters for coming with a pair of wings. By the time Agatha finds her, the wings have become pretty ragged.

The Lackya

Formerly the construct servants of the Duke D'Omas, aka the Gilded Duke, a year prior to the events of the comic, they entered the Baron's service after he toppled the Duke.

Only one of them, Katz, has been named so far.

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• Badass in a Nice Suit: They all wear fine footmans' uniforms with long coats...which they keep wearing even in battle.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: All of them have a monobrow the same color as their hair.
• Character Tic: According to the novels they have a hand-scrubbing motion they engage in when nervous.
• Clone Army: Thus far all the Lackya we've seen but one have all been male, Caucasian-appearing, silver-haired individuals with little facial variation, and even the one with different hair may have been a coloring error. Considering they're a race of constructs, this may not be too surprising.
• Glamour Failure: Although they look pretty human, in the novel Agatha notes something odd about their gait.
• Interservice Rivalry: The Lackya and Jagerkin do not get along, with the Jagerkin seeing the former as "useless ponces" and "nancy boys".
• Lightning Bruiser: Described as moving like lightning with elegant precision in the novel, and in the comic, we can see one punching straight through a warrior wasp's head.
• One-Gender Race: As yet, all the ones we've seen are or appear to be male.
• Servant Race: Like the Jagers, the Lackya have a need to serve someone, so the Baron uses them as footmen once he takes out their master. After the Jagers leave the Baron's service, the Lackya are mentioned (in the novels) to have taken over many of their duties.
• Stronger Than You Look: In the novel, one twists his hand free from a Jager's grip, and smirks at the Jager's startlement.
• Technicolor Eyes: Solid green with slit pupils.
• Uplifted Animal: According to the Jager who Agatha meets on the airship, Lackya are "zuper-engineered sqvirrels or zumting". Of course, squirrels don't have eyes like theirs, or sharp fangs, nor do they hiss when angry, so they may actually be feline in nature, or some mix of creatures. Or he could be wrong and they're something else entirely.
• Yes-Man: Thus far the only one we've seen even questioning Baron Wulfenbach did so out of concern for him—namely that resurrecting Princess Zulenna would bring reprisal from the Fifty Families. In the novel, this single expressed opinion is enough for the Baron to note that the Lackya are getting argumentative.

Castle Wulfenbach Students

Castle Wulfenbach Students as a whole

Sleipnir O'Hara, Theopholous DuMedd and Zaemae Yahyae Ahmad ibn Sulimaen al-Sinhaejae

A mixed bag of Sparks, nobles, and young people with connections to both, kept on Castle Wulfenbach to be schooled... and to discourage stupid behavior in their families.

Many of them remain as of yet un-named but two, Sleipnir O'Hara and Theopholous DuMedd, re-entered the story in Mecanicsburg. Three in particular have more characterization than the rest: Zulenna Luzhakna, Theopholous DuMedd, and Sleipnir O'Hara.

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Tropes associated with the Castle Wulfenbach Students in general:

• Arranged Marriage: Sleipnir had a political marriage waiting for her back home before she ran off with Theo. There are hints other students may be in a similar situation.
• Blue Blood/Science-Related Memetic Disorder: Anyone without at least one of the two is at the bottom of the social heap. Sleipnir also notes that Sparks matter more than lineage, though.
• Gilded Cage: They're happy, healthy, and well treated, but it's also true that they are hostages. At least one of them regretted having to leave, though he may have had other reasons. As Tarvek put it, Castle Wulfenbach is the place to be — especially for an ascending Spark.
• Gone Horribly Right: According to the novels, the Baron mainly started up the program to keep the kids of various troublesome nobles and Sparks from getting underfoot. Ushering in a renaissance of intelligent and decent future rulers hadn't really been part of the plan at all.
• The Mole: Tarvek got kicked from Castle Wulfenbach because of this reason and he countered with basically "Who isn't?". The students not only being hostage, they are also spying on Wulfenbach from inside his base of operation. (Or at least, sending the information the Baron wants them to have to their families.)
• Political Hostage: In the manner of old-fashioned royalty, to keep their families in line, they're largely okay with it though.

Zulenna

Princess Zulenna Luzhakna

A royal without the Spark, but with a strong sense of noble pride, as well as unshakable faith in the Baron. She starts out strongly antagonistic towards Agatha for a large number of reasons. However, she changes her tune when Agatha's heritage is revealed. The Heterodyne Boys personally designed her family's defenses, and thus she stays behind to buy Agatha and the others time to escape. She is killed by DuPree, but Klaus orders her put in the cold room to be revived later.

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• Alpha Bitch: Zulenna is the main enforcer of the pecking order amongst the students.
• Freudian Excuse: Sparks matter more than lineage. So, as non-Sparky Princess, her standing was not the highest and she became an Alpha Bitch to compensate for what she lacks.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When Agatha escapes, Zulenna stays behind and stands up to Von Pinn. Then Bang subverts that to hell a page later. Then Von Pinn double-subvert it and the ensuing squabble gives Agatha the time she needs to escape. And Klaus orders her brought back to life.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: In the comics, she tries to seduce a guardsman, which fails for reasons undisclosed and requires application of a wrench to the head to get past. The novel explains that a short time prior she'd upbraided that very guard for a minor offense, and so if she was suddenly being all nice to him when there was a Slaver Wasp infection going on, why he'd have to be an idiot not to be suspicious.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: Revealed with her Heroic Sacrifice; she may look down on anyone of lower station, but she gives her life to repay a family debt. Also in Tarvek's own words, she was always very nice to him, which is why he arranged things behind the scenes for her to even be on Castle Wulfenbach.
• Team Mom: Though Von Pinn is the official nanny, Zulenna does help mind the younger students; admonishing them to not believe everything in a story, and keeping them kempt at the dinner table.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: She is killed by Bang after Von Pinn is unable to overcome her programming when Zulenna pulled a You Shall Not Pass!, but the Baron intends to revivify her against the social by-laws about resurrecting aristocratic family members. And then... nothing (so far).
  • No mention is made of Zulenna, though there has been talk of her homeland, Holfung-Borzoi, which has forged a new alliance with a former enemy, being overseen by Zola/the Queen of the Dawn. But as discussed in Othar's Twitter account, it's very likely Zulenna is leading a covert revolt in the area under the name "Steel Strike".
  • She's later revealed to be a cousin to Tarvek and the only reason she was on Castle Wulfenbach was because he pulled strings in order to keep her safe. He thinks she's dead dead, though, and beats himself up for it.
• White Sheep: She's a cousin of Tarvek's (exact connection beyond that unclear), but unlike the rest of Tarvek's family, who are pretty much all lying, murderous, duplicitous, evil, insane and any combination thereof, she's comparatively alright, if incredibly smug.

Theo

Theopholous "Theo" DuMedd, Head Boy of the Wulfenbach Academy Dormitory

A friendly Sparky boy, mostly in charge of wrangling the younger students. His mother was one of the Mongfish sisters, making him Agatha's cousin - a fact he is quite pleased to discover, considering she's the first family member he's had who's not dead, missing, or a head in a jar.

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• Actually Pretty Funny: The Baron actually smirks on hearing Theo's story about The Other being a robot dragon. And flashes another small smile hearing that Theo is avoiding grease-trap cleaning duty to work on building an automatic grease-trap cleaning device.
• Big Man on Campus: As the Head Boy of the group. He's got both Blue Blood and the Spark, so he may technically be even higher in the pecking order than Zulenna.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: His parents died several years ago, apparently fighting pirates.
• Gargle Blaster: A specialty of Theo's. Just one is enough to even knock out Gil! Note that he somehow managed to make a 200 proof beverage that contains something other than alcohol, which is chemically impossible (A 200 proof drink is 100% ethyl alcohol by definition).
• Genre Savvy:
  Theo: Well, we're in a Heterodyne story now. These things happen.
• Get a Room!: After Theo starts to really Spark out near fan-of-science Sleipnir, their resulting... chemistry leaves the other present characters very eager to leave and give them the room.
• Long-Lost Relative: Theo's mother was Lucrezia's sister, Serpentina, which makes Agatha his first cousin. Unlike the rest of the Mongfish family relationships, the one between Theo and Agatha is far more cordial and friendly. The Mongfish connection may explain why Theo doesn't have any living duMedd relatives, either. He's also related to Zola the same way, as her mother was a third Mongfish sister. This has not been mentioned directly in any fashion
• Meaningful Name: DuMedd was originally "doomed", until the Foglios got attached. His name is also "the awfulest dumb-head".
• Put on a Bus: After fleeing Castle Wulfenbach, he is mentioned in passing as the source of how Othar found out who Agatha really is, but that was it until the Mechanicsburg arc. He's back on the really huge double-decker bus along with a lot of other characters caught in the fan-named Take-Five time-freeze bomb that was the cause of the Time Skip.
• Relationship Reveal: He and Sleipnir are revealed to be more than just traveling companions, when she starts getting turned on by Theo sparking out in Lucrezia's secret lab.
• Science-Related Memetic Disorder: He has the Spark.
• Sins of the Father: Lucrezia initially pretends to be overjoyed to see "Little Theo" again... until it turns out she remembers the time Theo's dad left her for dead in an exploding lab. And she didn't get along with her sister Serpentia either...
  Theo: (choking) Really?
  Lucrezia: Really.
• The Storyteller: Well-known enough that Klaus is able to realize he was the one behind the break-in at his lab when the kid they caught mentioned a story.
• White Sheep / Token Good Teammate / Only Sane Man: Not For Wulfenbach students, but for Mongfish family, along with Agatha. His grandfather Lucifer Mongfish was a long-time enemy of the Heterodyne boys, his aunt Lucrezia was the Other, and his other cousin is Zola. We can only imagine how bad the rest of the Mongfishes were. (It's implied that his late mother was also one of these.)

Sleipnir

Sleipnir O'Hara

A highly intelligent mechanic (not a Spark) who quickly befriends Agatha onboard the Castle.

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• Adrenaline Makeover: Between the adventure in Castle Wulfenbach and her re-appearance in Mechanicsburg, she gets her hair cut short, trades in her frumpy jumpsuit for a revealing halter-top, and very... "fitted" bodice and pants.
• Deadpan Snarker: When questioned about whether Von Pin will have psychological problems adapting to having her mind transferred from the body she's used for decades into "a giant tiger clank with steel claws", Sleipnir responds that "given the similarities, I think it quite likely that she won't notice any difference at all."
• Get a Room!: See this entry for Theo.
• Meaningful Name: Sleipnir was introduced as Agatha's roommate on Castle Wulfenbach - someone to "sleep near." This is lost in the novels where Agatha's roommate is Zulenna.
• Put on a Bus: Similar to Theo, and The Bus Came Back in Mechanicsburg at the same time Theo did, and left again just like Theo with the Take-Five bomb.
• Redhead In Green: Sleipnir spends much of the comic during her stay on Castle Wulfenbach in a green jumpsuit. Once in Mechanicsburg, she trades it for a haltertop - still green.
• Relationship Reveal: See Theo's entry.
• Runaway Fiancé: When Agatha met her on Castle Wulfenbach, she had an arranged marriage waiting for her back home, but by the time she met up with Agatha again in Castle Heterodyne, she'd run off with Theo.
• Science-Related Memetic Disorder: She doesn't have the Spark, but she still has some similar tendencies. In addition to becoming his lover, she's also starting to become Theo's personal minion.
• Wrench Wench: She's introduced wearing a jumpsuit after a duty shift doing mechanical work, and is handy as a Spark's minion.

Itto

Itto Wheelwright

One of the younger students on Castle Wulfenbach who likes Theo's Heterodyne Boys stories and is eager to have some adventure himself and to hang out with the older kids.

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• It's All My Fault: Itto tries to invoke this when he realizes the Baron isn't buying his story of sneaking into the labs alone, though he still doesn't give up any names of other students.
• The Load: No one gets mad at him since they did pass up an opportunity to take him back to the dorms, but once they get into the Baron's lab he gets startled and freaks out, yelling and running away, alerting the Baron to the presence of the students and he is the only one that gets caught since he goes the wrong way. He does refuse to give up the older students, though the Baron is able to figure out Theo's involvement from things Itto says and just knowing Theo.
• Most Definitely Not Accompanying Us: When the older Castle Wulfenbach Students decide to sneak into the Baron's lab so they can see what a wasp engine looks like Itto tries to invite himself along and is quickly told by Theo that there is no way they are taking him with them due to his age. He manages to follow them for a while before they catch him and Zulenna decides to allow him along, but not before stressing how dangerous the engine is and scaring him to the point that he no longer really wants to.
• Tagalong Kid: He's starting to try and join the older students when they try to sneak into forbidden parts of the castle.