Restoring the Soul: The Manor's Tales, Chapter One, Special Features

Hooray! I have a chance to write up one of these posts. I hope you enjoy!

Chapter One

References:

* Most of the references I have already written about on Archive of Our Own, but one notable reference I will talk more about is important due to the context behind it: 

"Yeah right, for who, a team of ghost catchers?" - Sorry, Henry, the Ghostbusters can't help you there!

There will not be any Ghostbusters in this tale, but ghosts? Absolutely!  After all, we all have things that haunt us, especially from the past. 

General:

*There’s actually another reference that exists in the story that I forgot to mention in my endnotes for that chapter, but I feel it would fit more into this category because of the fairy tale theme that exists in this story. The reference: “...with one of them stretching a robotic limb out like the Wicked Witch of the East.”  An homage to the fairy tale,The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I feel that because the story is so well-known, this plot element - a character integral to the plot and killed at the beginning of a story (although it was an accident in this case) - would be one that people would know almost on instinct.

Reginald and the Right Hand Man are integral because those two were responsible for leading the mutiny against Henry and tossing Geoffrey and Thomas into the brig when the latter two dared to question the masses, and Henry didn’t really have a chance to explain himself for why he left Ellie behind in prison. Also, like TWWOZ or other fairy tales, the characters do need to respond when they encounter legendary or mystical characters and occurrences. 

After encountering the Wicked Witch of the West, Dorothy Gale acts by traveling to Oz with her new companions to try and get help from the Wizard of Oz. And while the Henry Stickmin series may not likely be seen as a candidate for a modern fairy tale, the series still features magical or fantastical elements. With Henry himself, he has the ability to stop time briefly and bring various options before him and select which is the right tool or enchantment to handle the situation. There is an organization in the game series that has the frightening task of controlling chaos throughout Henry’s world via time travel, mysterious agents or giant weapons of destruction. Heck, there are even characters in the games named the Leprechaun and the Witch!

*Adding onto the fairy tale theme is this chapter’s setup - Henry is indeed a dethroned king thanks to many of his subjects turning their backs on them. This mutiny, along with Reginald’s history as the former leader of the Toppats, will bring up an important problem that has to be solved amongst the clan. Add to the fact that Henry himself was, in a way, married into the Toppat Clan when he joined their ranks and became the king. 

*Henry having a flashback to the events leading up to that moment all play a purpose for another central theme. This theme will tie together the two properties because of a shared commonality. This commonality is one that the characters experience on a daily basis; sometimes it makes them happy, and sometimes it makes them sad. 

*It’s not proven in the games, but it is most widely believed among HS fans that like Aladdin, Henry needed to learn how to survive on his own when he was young and while he wandered the earth. It’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that besides his thieving and ‘choose-your-tool’ skills, he built up a natural inclination to adapt to his environment - although he is shown to display an aversion to humidity and seems to dislike the cold as shown during  “Fleeing the Complex" - and a sense of direction through both explored and unexplored areas.

*Just like Henry and his rebels, another character in the story is on her own path. But the key difference is that she has been down this path many times and all have proven fruitless. 

* Showing the transition from day to night was a step in writing how this day was not only a long one for everyone, but how the night will play an important role in the setting. 

*Regarding the choice to include in links to musical compositions or sound effects to add in painting a picture for this story, there’s not really much more to say about it other than I just thought it would make the story more magical and both properties display a love for music into some fashion. I added the track ‘Fractured’ from the Henry Stickmin Collection to pick up where the ’Toppat Civil Warfare’ ending left off as a means of transitioning into this expansion of the storyline.

*I should point out that among general consensus of the fanbase, this is the most despised ending of the games because of how it ended on a cliffhanger with Henry and Ellie - where in the other endings they got along swimmingly - now hated each other and wanted to kill one another. I’m not particularly upset about this ending myself, but I do think that this ending felt like it needed some more ironing out the wrinkles and lack of answers. One such question I have is that it seems odd that everyone in the clan - except for Thomas and Geoffrey - would blindly go along with the plan to overthrow Henry when Ellie is just a stranger to the Toppats in this ending; how would they know she wasn’t lying to them? Why not just ask Henry? And if possible, who else among the Toppats would secretly think that there’s something fishy about that encounter or Reginald’s uprising? If Thomas and Geoffrey could sense something was up, why not some of the other Toppats? 

This question I have about the Toppats’ mob mentality and many other inquiries about TCW will be explored in ways in this story, as I do believe that this ending has a lot of storytelling potential. Even if the creator of the games won’t come right out and state how it would have ended anytime soon, I like to think that tossing Henry and his rebels out into the desert where Henry’s career as a thief began, gives us a window to plot out the course for these characters on where they could go and how they would resolve this unexpected conflict (and tie us back into Henry’s origins of thieving). The desert is wide open with mystery and possibility - what matters now is to pick a direction and find out what lies that way. 

Random Facts:

*Just because Henry can stand the heat doesn’t mean he likes hot peppers! That classic gag was thrown in because I believe that a lot of Henry’s antics are similar to those of classic cartoons, like the Looney Tunes - unpredictable and sometimes painful, but interesting nonetheless! 

Wanderer out!