Heero Yuy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
resultofwar) wrote2011-03-25 02:00 pm
resultofwar) wrote2011-03-25 02:00 pm
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1jobonthisship
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Other Characters:batmanschmatman, inhistorybooks, knowsthepeople
Character Name: Heero Yuy
Series: Mobile Suit Gundam Wing
Age: 15
From When?: During Episode Ten: Heero, Distracted by Defeat, after his self detonation.
Inmate/Warden: Inmate - While Heero is the protagonist, and ultimately doing the right thing, at this point in his canon he is committing what are basically acts of terrorism in the name of an (albeit good) cause he doesn't really believe in, ready and willing to throw away his own life without a moment's hesitation or consideration for the longer term goals he's supposed to be achieving. He is - at least on the surface - almost entirely apathetic about human life (including his own), has no idea what he's actually fighting for and does not allow himself to get emotionally involved in anything, creating a detached perfect soldier who doesn't have a personal connection to what he's fighting for, and as such is quick to throw in the towel and try to go down with the mission, rather then continuing to fight against the oppressive government he's supposed to be trying to take down. He sees everything as a mission and views emotions and personal connections to others as weakness, even when it comes to protecting people who are basically civilians.
Item: N/A
Abilities/Powers: From early childhood, Heero was trained to be a human weapon, the perfect solider, and he has not failed to live up to expectations. He is an incredibly skilled martial artist, has worked with basically any weapons that shoot a bullet or can hold an edge, not to mention being proficient in basic things like whacking someone over the head with a crowbar if the situation calls for it. He is an expert computer hacker - easily running through government satellites and changing important records as though it's as simple as checking your email - and is an incredibly talented pilot, having knowledge of how to fly and operate just about any air or space craft, as well as a variety of Mobile Suits. As a Gundam pilot, he is also intimately familiar with the make up and operations of these suits - although he will obviously not be bringing Wing on board with him - and is a skilled tactician and combatant on just about any battlefield.
Through experimental testing, his genes have been manipulated to make him slightly stronger, faster and more resistant to pain and injury then most humans (meaning, he can break his leg and walk on it almost immediately after resetting it and survive some relatively severe injuries without batting an eyelash about it afterward), but is no where near close to the strength or speed of an actual metahuman or vampire. He's still human, he doesn't regenerate or actually heal particularly quickly, he does have his breaking points of exhaustion and he can be shot and killed just like anyone else, even if it's slightly harder to get him to this point due to stubbornness and conditioning.
Personality:
At first appearances, Heero is incredibly stoic. There is really no way of getting around this, and it is probably his most easily and well defined trait, as it is behavior he exhibits with everyone and anyone, pretty much regardless of circumstance. He doesn't often communicate with others unless spoken to first, and even then tends to stick to short, blunt phrases rather then actual chatting or delivering long winded speeches. He is not one for small talk and when others try to engage, his signals are primarily pretty easy to read: Go away, I don't want to talk with you. While he won't act actively hostile with anyone, even particularly persistent people, unless he is attacked first, he will not visibly warm up to anyone easily, and in fact, unless you're particularly observant, it is pretty much impossible to determine if Heero actually likes you, just because he's so generally quiet and uninterested in conversing. In fact does have a lot of issues forming actual bonds with people, as having such a connection can be exploited on the battlefield, and as such, it is a risk he has been trained to avoid and does not want to take.
As such, he is certainly not a social creature, and is more likely to be off by himself quietly working and generally looking sort of unwilling to interact with his peers. In the past - specifically, when he attended Saint Gabriel Academy as a part of his cover identity before coming to the Barge - it has apparently given him a bad boy image that attracted the attention of Relena's vapid friends, something that he tended to firmly ignore rather than encourage or engage with. He can tolerate working with someone in the context of a mission, but is not a team player - as he shows up to missions that could have easily been coordinated between he and Duo to get the job done faster unannounced with limited communication between the two pilots, which Duo viewed as Heero trying to show him up - and even goes as far as to steal parts from Duo's Gundam when his own is damaged. Instead of thinking about how it would perhaps be more productive to ally himself with the other pilot, he barely tolerates his existence and generally is reluctant to work as a team unless there is literally no other choice, and even then is quick to try and separate and get the job done himself.
He takes his work seriously. Heero has done little else with his life other then train to be a solider, and since he was eight, has been training to be a Gundam pilot, and as such, he has had very little experience with things that normal fifteen year old boys should be interested in. Nothing is more important then getting the mission at hand accomplished, and whether that means committing suicide or otherwise injuring himself or damaging his Gundam, he doesn't really care so long as the task is completed. While this almost psychotic sense of devotion to the mission is useful and makes him good at what he does, he is only incredibly focused on completing and accomplishing smaller term goals - like a singular mission, blow up this base or disable this missile system - even at intense collateral damage to himself and his gear, specifically his Gundam. This can be somewhat detrimental to the actual cause he's supposed to be fighting for, as throwing his life away might help complete one mission, but won't ultimately be as useful to the overarching goal of the Gundam pilots if there's suddenly one less of them left fighting the good fight. He lacks the ability to take a step back and look at the big picture, and realize that there are more important things he could be doing with himself then taking the easy way out.
And perhaps that is where his biggest issues lie. Heero lacks a personal connection to the cause because he won't let himself have one, and as such is more or less just going through the motions: a dutiful solider and nothing more. He has little concept of the value of his own life, and is generally very apathetic about just about everything. He's given orders, he follows them, and if he has opportunity to die, well, it's going to happen eventually, so what if it happens now? He doesn't have anything to live for or believe in or value more then just what is happening in his life right at that second, and if he completes the mission he'd been assigned, that's good enough for him. Anything beyond that doesn't really matter, no matter how important it actually might be.
As such, his actions often come off as incredibly reckless. He has a relatively nonexistent sense of self preservation, and doesn't really know how to take it easy. He has been known to walk off pretty serious injuries instead of allowing himself any time to heal, and his first reaction to failure or perceived failure is to try and kill himself to prevent the situation from getting worse. Within the first few weeks of being on Earth, he has almost died - and didn't have to - at least three times, generally because he jumped into something and tried to take his own life at the end of it.
Heero, in reality, does actually have great sympathy for the victims of the conflict between Earth and the colonies, and is a fairly compassionate person. However, this part of him has become almost entirely smothered under the actual realities of the tasks he has been forced to commit, and the actual weight of the job has really crushed any visible displays of this softer side. To Heero, emotions on the battlefield equal weakness, and because in his mind, everything is a battlefield, he just can't allow himself to feel anything for anyone or anything, thus creating an intense disconnect from basically everything. Any perceived emotions or connections to other people are confusing and unwanted, and he forces them away as best he can, putting up further walls instead of letting anything in.
Despite all of his other crippling not normal teenager behaviors, he actually does sometimes display a sense of humor. It's generally dark, dry, and usually only brought up when he isn't on the job and is instead pretending to be a normal teenager, but can sometimes come out when interacting with others as well. These displays are very few and far between, although he can sometimes display casual or scathing humor when talking to himself or thinking about whatever situation he's landed himself into. It's perhaps one of the only more "normal" things about him, and one of the few hints into the person he might have been able to be if things were different.
As he's been training to do this basically since birth, Heero is incredibly talented at what he does, and it shows. He's very capable, and clearly quite intelligent, as he's been able to master things like hacking and tactics, and can get himself through almost any situation alive with a combination of planning and improvising. While he isn't necessarily perfect at blending into a crowd - as again, he's definitely not a normal teenager, something just always feels off about him to those watching because he doesn't really know how to play that part - he is still very adaptable, and can uproot himself and everything he's doing to a new environment without much issue, a situation in which having few personal attachments actually comes in handy for.
Path to Redemption:
Primarily, Heero needs to learn balance. He has a very unrealistic sense of what is and isn't important in life, and this needs to be centered to have any kind of progress. While he can see and more or less understand the value of human life - i.e., civilians or the odd politician who is promoting peace instead of war - he isn't necessarily too concerned by causalities because he won't let himself be, unless of course, the mission was to protect a specific person and he failed it. He also doesn't have any sense of his own value, and needs to learn that he needs to care about himself and his well being too if he really wants to make a lasting effect on the conflict, not to mention having a generally more healthy life after the war. While sacrificing everything in the name of the mission isn't a bad thing, it can't be his first reaction to every set back.
He needs to learn to focus on the big picture and stop being so singularly focused on one mission or goal, and needs to realize that he is important to these longer term effects, and can't just give up at the first sign that something has gone wrong. Pointing out that there are only a few people on earth and space who can do what he does and that he's been trained to do this since he was eight might make short term progress, but what is most important is to get him to start caring about the conflict personally, because oppressing the colonies is wrong, and that he's helping to build a better future. Without him, that task might not be able to be completed, and that task is more important then any singular mission he might be assigned.
He also needs to learn that emotions and having actual relationships are not bad things that must be smothered into nonexistence, which goes against some of his training as the "perfect human weapon". While a warden doesn't need to totally beat the soldier out of him, he still needs to know when it's appropriate to let his guard down a little and allow himself to actually feel things, as shutting himself off is by no means healthy and total apathy is actually worse then emoting in this situation. He needs to learn to work as a team player instead of being basically self involved, and could even do with some work towards what to do after this conflict is over, as he can't be a soldier forever in every single setting if they're really working towards peace.
Specifically, bringing up the advice of his father and mentor - that the only way to live a good life is to act on your emotions - and trying to get him to see the value in that statement is important. Relena and maybe even Duo will be sort of triggers for him, or at least central points to talk about personal relationships not being that bad, and getting him to come to terms with the death of the girl and her puppy, as well as Marshall Noventa would be helpful steps towards graduation. Get him to stop being self involved and start relying on other people a little bit more, and he'll make important progress.
History: Here is Heero's history specifically and a wiki of the series itself.
Heero - which is just an alias he has actually only been using since Operation Meteor, his real name has never been stated - was born through his mother - Aoi Clark's - affair with assassin and mercenary Odin Lowe. They had met while both were working for OZ, and Odin broke off the relationship after he assassinated the original Heero Yuy. Heero was raised by his mother and stepfather - Seis Clark - until they were both killed. Odin came back and took the boy in as his ward, and from that time began to train him and teach him to survive on his own in their increasingly unstable society.
Heero doesn't remember anything about his mother, stepfather or real name, and his earliest memories involve working with Odin. They did not exactly have a parent/child relationship, and were more partners, despite the significant age difference, and as such Heero didn't have much of a childhood. He grew up quickly, and by age eight, was already a dangerous and skilled assassin in his own right. He assisted Lowe in a hit on the Alliance's General Septum, going to aid the colonial rebels while Lowe handled the assassination himself, and when Heero completed his mission returned to find Lowe mortally wounded. Before he died, he told the boy to live by his emotions, because it takes only one foolish person to change the course of history.
Afterward, the boy wandered the colonies alone for a while, before catching the interest of Doctor J, one of the scientists who was planning Operation Meteor and developing what would be called the Wing Gundam. He offered Heero the chance to become a Gundam pilot, and he accepted.
In the years between AC 188 and AC 195 with the launch of Operation Meteor, Heero continued to train, running several missions against the hostile Earth government while training to pilot the new Mobile Suit. While most of these missions were fairly standard, in AC 194, he was assigned to blow up an Alliance base. Before completing the mission, he met and befriended a girl and her dog while relaxing in a nearby park, and that night, when he triggered the explosion, a Leo Mobile Suit was knocked into an apartment building, killing many of the residents including the girl and her puppy. The event shook Heero up greatly, and made the head of Operation Meteor instruct Dr. J to retrain Heero so that he wouldn't be troubled by feelings like remorse or kindness, as they would only get in the way of the mission. Whether this training was actually carried out is unclear, but Heero was changed by the accident, and this is likely one of the biggest roots to his issues with feeling personally connected to the cause or just about anything.
In AC 195, right before Operation Meteor, it was discovered that Vice Foreign Minister Darlian had found out about the plan to send the Gundams to Earth, and the Barton Foundation - the money and people behind the operation - sent a team to assassinate him. Doctor J gave Heero the option of doing the job himself, stopping the Barton Foundation's men, or ignoring it, and Heero chose to stop them. Right before Operation Meteor was to take place, Heero found out the true plans - which were basically genocidal, with an alarming death toll - and once again had the option to either do things his own way, go through with the plans, or walk away. He chose to carry out his own version of Operation Meteor and left with the Gundam and his new codename for Earth.
As soon as he'd entered the atmosphere, he encountered a shuttle with the Vice Foreign Minister and his daughter on board, and thought about destroying it. He was interrupted by the timely intervention of Zech Merquise, and the two engaged in a Mobile Suit battle in which Zech managed to basically disable and knock Heero's Gundam into the Pacific Ocean. Heero washed up on the beach and was discovered by Darlian's daughter Relena. Once he'd regained consciousness, he promptly tried to commit suicide, and - failing that - beat up some paramedics and stole the ambulance they'd brought for him. In a weird twist of fate, the school he enrolled in as part of his cover while on Earth turned out to be the same school Relena was attending, and he promised to kill the girl because she knew his secret. This didn't deter her from developing what seemed to be a crush on him, and the two often ran into each other, much to Heero's annoyance.
Specifically, while Heero was trying to destroy his sunken Gundam to prevent OZ from getting their hands on it, Relena ended up following him to the base and interrupted him. They were further interrupted by the pilot of a second Gundam - Duo Maxwell - who shot Heero twice when he didn't back down. Heero then attempted to destroy both his and Duo's suits, and landed face down in the water, bleeding and unconscious.
He was relocated to an Alliance hospital under heavy guard and with limited actual medical attention while the government tried to find out who he was. Duo broke in to the hospital to rescue him, and when the two boys jumped out a window to safety, Heero didn't release his parachute, trying to kill himself once and for all. Relena's scream snapped him out of it and he released his chute, breaking his fall a little even if he'd opened it too late. He survived, but broke his leg, and was helped away from the scene by Duo, who retrieved their two Gundams and began work on repairs. Heero soon joined him, and ended up cannibalizing some of Duo's systems for spare parts to go off on another mission.
After Relena's father was assassinated, she was rescued from being killed herself by Doctor J, who told her about Heero's mission. She confronted him about it, saying there was no reason for him to consider her an enemy, but the discussion was interrupted by an attack on the school that Heero went to get under control. During the attack, he not only drove off the other Mobile Suits, but he consciously saved Relena from certain death, a fact that totally confused him and sent him running off, viewing this as a weakness and failure on his part.
In a new mission to take out the OZ leaders at the New Edwards base in California, Heero and Duo met up with Quatre and Trowa, two other Gundam pilots, and through miscommunication and general stubbornness somehow ended up fighting each other as well as the defenses at the base. In a move orchestrated by Treize - the leader of OZ - the important Alliance political figures who were actually promoting peaceful resolution with the colonies - including the movement's leader, Field Marshall Noventa - were evacuated onto an OZ shuttle. Spotting the shuttle's markings, Heero destroyed it without question, and it wasn't until the arrival of the fifth and final Gundam pilot that he realized his mistake. Heero went into shock, and in the resulting firefight had to be defended by Duo and Quatre until he was snapped out of his stupor by Sally Po, who asked him to shut down the missile defense system and save everyone on the base. Heero completed the mission successfully, but continued to beat himself up over his mistake.
Heero's next mission was to stop the transport of OZ's newest Mobile Suits - the Taurus model - to their base in Siberia. There were two routes, and Duo asked Heero to take the air route while he took care of the land, both pilots knowing that one route was only a decoy. The air route turned out to be the real transport, and both Trowa and Heero arrived on the scene to destroy the Mobile Suits, only for Zechs to confront Heero in the newly remodeled Tallgeese. The two fought until Lady Une threatened to destroy a colony with the missile defense satellites OZ had commandeered when OZ overthrew the Alliance, saying she would give the orders unless the Gundam pilots surrendered and handed over their machines. Doctor J surrendered himself as the brains behind Operation Meteor and the Gundam's missions, but emphasized that he wasn't surrendering the Gundams. That choice was up to the pilots.
In response, Heero stepped out of the cockpit and self detonated the Wing Gundam. The resulting explosion basically destroyed the weapon, and Heero himself was thrown clear.
And the next thing he knew, he was on the Barge.
Sample Journal Entry:
[Heero has been doing his reading, and he is not all that impressed, Barge. Accepting that he's died comes easily enough - it's been a risk he's been well aware of and happy to accept for a long time - but the lack of structure and logic in this place doesn't sit well with him in the slightest.
His voice is almost entirely flat, almost disinterested, and maybe just a little annoyed.]
There's a space fortress called "Barge" where I came from. Somehow I doubt it has much in common with this place.
Since arriving on board, has anyone actually spoken with the Admiral personally? I have a few questions I'd prefer he answer himself.
Sample RP:
Heero had long grown accustomed to sitting quietly and waiting for something to happen. The stakeout was a key part of any mission, and it required patience, dedication, and training. It took work to stay awake and focused for long stretches of watching of a target, often in a small space or totally exposed on a rooftop somewhere, and Heero had been doing it for a very long time at this point. It was second nature. Anything that was important to the mission could be done and accomplished without argument or complaint, and so sitting around pretending to be an average student at Saint Gabriel's was not particularly out of his range of abilities.
Or, it shouldn't be, because sitting patiently waiting for classes to be over so he could go back to work was not difficult. He was intelligent, focused and could respond if called on, but generally, the teachers left him alone. All it took was some patience, and some half paying attention to whatever they were saying, and he could make it look like he was a dutiful if quiet student.
The harder part was dealing with the other students, who all seemed much too fascinated with the new arrival. It seemed on some days that he couldn't walk fifty feet without being swarmed or talked to or challenged by some boy who felt threatened by the attention he was receiving, and today was one of them. He navigated the grounds as carefully and quickly as he could, but he still found himself greeted by people he didn't recognize and didn't care about, and he passed by them without much of a second look. He couldn't tell how much of it was Relena's doing - Relena who always seemed to show up at exactly the wrong time to call attention to him, effectively blocking his attempts at getting the hell out of there to get back to his current assignment.
He really wasn't sure why he hadn't killed her yet.
And as if summoned by his even sparing a thought towards her, he found himself passing by yet another posse of giggling, wide eyed teenaged girls, who stared before whispering excitedly amongst themselves for a moment, blocking his path a little. He stopped, staring right back, brow furrowing almost imperceptibly. One of them had definitely said Relena's name in her excited whispering, and he allowed himself a slight scowl - not enough to really be impolite, but definitely conveying he was in a hurry and had no interest in them - before brushing right past.
"Excuse me."
There was work to be done.
Special Notes: First of all, I've only watched the dub, not the original or subbed versions (although I've watched subbed Endless Waltz, if that counts for anything), and therefore there might be inconsistencies between certain scenes as... stuff gets lost in translation and all that, so if there's anything I've missed due to original vs. dub, I'd like to apologize to those who've got a different interpretation because of language issues. The early history is new canon from Frozen Teardrop, and nothing has been altered or added.
I'm saying the self detonation killed him - because lol seriously how did it not :| - and sort of using his time on the Barge to explain why he has such like... a turn around of character from episode ten onwards. He goes from being sort of sociopathic and antisocial to cracking jokes and trying to play nice with the other kids, and I've never really bought that he had a near death experience and suddenly decided that he was going to not be... quite as crazy. So, smoothing over canon = good?
And here is more voice testing over at d_m, for further reference, specifically the threads with Arthas, David, Trowa and Wufei.
User LJ:
1jobonthisshipAIM/IM: girlwonder004 @ AIM
E-mail: isthereair@gmail.com
Other Characters:
batmanschmatman, inhistorybooks, knowsthepeopleCharacter Name: Heero Yuy
Series: Mobile Suit Gundam Wing
Age: 15
From When?: During Episode Ten: Heero, Distracted by Defeat, after his self detonation.
Inmate/Warden: Inmate - While Heero is the protagonist, and ultimately doing the right thing, at this point in his canon he is committing what are basically acts of terrorism in the name of an (albeit good) cause he doesn't really believe in, ready and willing to throw away his own life without a moment's hesitation or consideration for the longer term goals he's supposed to be achieving. He is - at least on the surface - almost entirely apathetic about human life (including his own), has no idea what he's actually fighting for and does not allow himself to get emotionally involved in anything, creating a detached perfect soldier who doesn't have a personal connection to what he's fighting for, and as such is quick to throw in the towel and try to go down with the mission, rather then continuing to fight against the oppressive government he's supposed to be trying to take down. He sees everything as a mission and views emotions and personal connections to others as weakness, even when it comes to protecting people who are basically civilians.
Item: N/A
Abilities/Powers: From early childhood, Heero was trained to be a human weapon, the perfect solider, and he has not failed to live up to expectations. He is an incredibly skilled martial artist, has worked with basically any weapons that shoot a bullet or can hold an edge, not to mention being proficient in basic things like whacking someone over the head with a crowbar if the situation calls for it. He is an expert computer hacker - easily running through government satellites and changing important records as though it's as simple as checking your email - and is an incredibly talented pilot, having knowledge of how to fly and operate just about any air or space craft, as well as a variety of Mobile Suits. As a Gundam pilot, he is also intimately familiar with the make up and operations of these suits - although he will obviously not be bringing Wing on board with him - and is a skilled tactician and combatant on just about any battlefield.
Through experimental testing, his genes have been manipulated to make him slightly stronger, faster and more resistant to pain and injury then most humans (meaning, he can break his leg and walk on it almost immediately after resetting it and survive some relatively severe injuries without batting an eyelash about it afterward), but is no where near close to the strength or speed of an actual metahuman or vampire. He's still human, he doesn't regenerate or actually heal particularly quickly, he does have his breaking points of exhaustion and he can be shot and killed just like anyone else, even if it's slightly harder to get him to this point due to stubbornness and conditioning.
Personality:
At first appearances, Heero is incredibly stoic. There is really no way of getting around this, and it is probably his most easily and well defined trait, as it is behavior he exhibits with everyone and anyone, pretty much regardless of circumstance. He doesn't often communicate with others unless spoken to first, and even then tends to stick to short, blunt phrases rather then actual chatting or delivering long winded speeches. He is not one for small talk and when others try to engage, his signals are primarily pretty easy to read: Go away, I don't want to talk with you. While he won't act actively hostile with anyone, even particularly persistent people, unless he is attacked first, he will not visibly warm up to anyone easily, and in fact, unless you're particularly observant, it is pretty much impossible to determine if Heero actually likes you, just because he's so generally quiet and uninterested in conversing. In fact does have a lot of issues forming actual bonds with people, as having such a connection can be exploited on the battlefield, and as such, it is a risk he has been trained to avoid and does not want to take.
As such, he is certainly not a social creature, and is more likely to be off by himself quietly working and generally looking sort of unwilling to interact with his peers. In the past - specifically, when he attended Saint Gabriel Academy as a part of his cover identity before coming to the Barge - it has apparently given him a bad boy image that attracted the attention of Relena's vapid friends, something that he tended to firmly ignore rather than encourage or engage with. He can tolerate working with someone in the context of a mission, but is not a team player - as he shows up to missions that could have easily been coordinated between he and Duo to get the job done faster unannounced with limited communication between the two pilots, which Duo viewed as Heero trying to show him up - and even goes as far as to steal parts from Duo's Gundam when his own is damaged. Instead of thinking about how it would perhaps be more productive to ally himself with the other pilot, he barely tolerates his existence and generally is reluctant to work as a team unless there is literally no other choice, and even then is quick to try and separate and get the job done himself.
He takes his work seriously. Heero has done little else with his life other then train to be a solider, and since he was eight, has been training to be a Gundam pilot, and as such, he has had very little experience with things that normal fifteen year old boys should be interested in. Nothing is more important then getting the mission at hand accomplished, and whether that means committing suicide or otherwise injuring himself or damaging his Gundam, he doesn't really care so long as the task is completed. While this almost psychotic sense of devotion to the mission is useful and makes him good at what he does, he is only incredibly focused on completing and accomplishing smaller term goals - like a singular mission, blow up this base or disable this missile system - even at intense collateral damage to himself and his gear, specifically his Gundam. This can be somewhat detrimental to the actual cause he's supposed to be fighting for, as throwing his life away might help complete one mission, but won't ultimately be as useful to the overarching goal of the Gundam pilots if there's suddenly one less of them left fighting the good fight. He lacks the ability to take a step back and look at the big picture, and realize that there are more important things he could be doing with himself then taking the easy way out.
And perhaps that is where his biggest issues lie. Heero lacks a personal connection to the cause because he won't let himself have one, and as such is more or less just going through the motions: a dutiful solider and nothing more. He has little concept of the value of his own life, and is generally very apathetic about just about everything. He's given orders, he follows them, and if he has opportunity to die, well, it's going to happen eventually, so what if it happens now? He doesn't have anything to live for or believe in or value more then just what is happening in his life right at that second, and if he completes the mission he'd been assigned, that's good enough for him. Anything beyond that doesn't really matter, no matter how important it actually might be.
As such, his actions often come off as incredibly reckless. He has a relatively nonexistent sense of self preservation, and doesn't really know how to take it easy. He has been known to walk off pretty serious injuries instead of allowing himself any time to heal, and his first reaction to failure or perceived failure is to try and kill himself to prevent the situation from getting worse. Within the first few weeks of being on Earth, he has almost died - and didn't have to - at least three times, generally because he jumped into something and tried to take his own life at the end of it.
Heero, in reality, does actually have great sympathy for the victims of the conflict between Earth and the colonies, and is a fairly compassionate person. However, this part of him has become almost entirely smothered under the actual realities of the tasks he has been forced to commit, and the actual weight of the job has really crushed any visible displays of this softer side. To Heero, emotions on the battlefield equal weakness, and because in his mind, everything is a battlefield, he just can't allow himself to feel anything for anyone or anything, thus creating an intense disconnect from basically everything. Any perceived emotions or connections to other people are confusing and unwanted, and he forces them away as best he can, putting up further walls instead of letting anything in.
Despite all of his other crippling not normal teenager behaviors, he actually does sometimes display a sense of humor. It's generally dark, dry, and usually only brought up when he isn't on the job and is instead pretending to be a normal teenager, but can sometimes come out when interacting with others as well. These displays are very few and far between, although he can sometimes display casual or scathing humor when talking to himself or thinking about whatever situation he's landed himself into. It's perhaps one of the only more "normal" things about him, and one of the few hints into the person he might have been able to be if things were different.
As he's been training to do this basically since birth, Heero is incredibly talented at what he does, and it shows. He's very capable, and clearly quite intelligent, as he's been able to master things like hacking and tactics, and can get himself through almost any situation alive with a combination of planning and improvising. While he isn't necessarily perfect at blending into a crowd - as again, he's definitely not a normal teenager, something just always feels off about him to those watching because he doesn't really know how to play that part - he is still very adaptable, and can uproot himself and everything he's doing to a new environment without much issue, a situation in which having few personal attachments actually comes in handy for.
Path to Redemption:
Primarily, Heero needs to learn balance. He has a very unrealistic sense of what is and isn't important in life, and this needs to be centered to have any kind of progress. While he can see and more or less understand the value of human life - i.e., civilians or the odd politician who is promoting peace instead of war - he isn't necessarily too concerned by causalities because he won't let himself be, unless of course, the mission was to protect a specific person and he failed it. He also doesn't have any sense of his own value, and needs to learn that he needs to care about himself and his well being too if he really wants to make a lasting effect on the conflict, not to mention having a generally more healthy life after the war. While sacrificing everything in the name of the mission isn't a bad thing, it can't be his first reaction to every set back.
He needs to learn to focus on the big picture and stop being so singularly focused on one mission or goal, and needs to realize that he is important to these longer term effects, and can't just give up at the first sign that something has gone wrong. Pointing out that there are only a few people on earth and space who can do what he does and that he's been trained to do this since he was eight might make short term progress, but what is most important is to get him to start caring about the conflict personally, because oppressing the colonies is wrong, and that he's helping to build a better future. Without him, that task might not be able to be completed, and that task is more important then any singular mission he might be assigned.
He also needs to learn that emotions and having actual relationships are not bad things that must be smothered into nonexistence, which goes against some of his training as the "perfect human weapon". While a warden doesn't need to totally beat the soldier out of him, he still needs to know when it's appropriate to let his guard down a little and allow himself to actually feel things, as shutting himself off is by no means healthy and total apathy is actually worse then emoting in this situation. He needs to learn to work as a team player instead of being basically self involved, and could even do with some work towards what to do after this conflict is over, as he can't be a soldier forever in every single setting if they're really working towards peace.
Specifically, bringing up the advice of his father and mentor - that the only way to live a good life is to act on your emotions - and trying to get him to see the value in that statement is important. Relena and maybe even Duo will be sort of triggers for him, or at least central points to talk about personal relationships not being that bad, and getting him to come to terms with the death of the girl and her puppy, as well as Marshall Noventa would be helpful steps towards graduation. Get him to stop being self involved and start relying on other people a little bit more, and he'll make important progress.
History: Here is Heero's history specifically and a wiki of the series itself.
Heero - which is just an alias he has actually only been using since Operation Meteor, his real name has never been stated - was born through his mother - Aoi Clark's - affair with assassin and mercenary Odin Lowe. They had met while both were working for OZ, and Odin broke off the relationship after he assassinated the original Heero Yuy. Heero was raised by his mother and stepfather - Seis Clark - until they were both killed. Odin came back and took the boy in as his ward, and from that time began to train him and teach him to survive on his own in their increasingly unstable society.
Heero doesn't remember anything about his mother, stepfather or real name, and his earliest memories involve working with Odin. They did not exactly have a parent/child relationship, and were more partners, despite the significant age difference, and as such Heero didn't have much of a childhood. He grew up quickly, and by age eight, was already a dangerous and skilled assassin in his own right. He assisted Lowe in a hit on the Alliance's General Septum, going to aid the colonial rebels while Lowe handled the assassination himself, and when Heero completed his mission returned to find Lowe mortally wounded. Before he died, he told the boy to live by his emotions, because it takes only one foolish person to change the course of history.
Afterward, the boy wandered the colonies alone for a while, before catching the interest of Doctor J, one of the scientists who was planning Operation Meteor and developing what would be called the Wing Gundam. He offered Heero the chance to become a Gundam pilot, and he accepted.
In the years between AC 188 and AC 195 with the launch of Operation Meteor, Heero continued to train, running several missions against the hostile Earth government while training to pilot the new Mobile Suit. While most of these missions were fairly standard, in AC 194, he was assigned to blow up an Alliance base. Before completing the mission, he met and befriended a girl and her dog while relaxing in a nearby park, and that night, when he triggered the explosion, a Leo Mobile Suit was knocked into an apartment building, killing many of the residents including the girl and her puppy. The event shook Heero up greatly, and made the head of Operation Meteor instruct Dr. J to retrain Heero so that he wouldn't be troubled by feelings like remorse or kindness, as they would only get in the way of the mission. Whether this training was actually carried out is unclear, but Heero was changed by the accident, and this is likely one of the biggest roots to his issues with feeling personally connected to the cause or just about anything.
In AC 195, right before Operation Meteor, it was discovered that Vice Foreign Minister Darlian had found out about the plan to send the Gundams to Earth, and the Barton Foundation - the money and people behind the operation - sent a team to assassinate him. Doctor J gave Heero the option of doing the job himself, stopping the Barton Foundation's men, or ignoring it, and Heero chose to stop them. Right before Operation Meteor was to take place, Heero found out the true plans - which were basically genocidal, with an alarming death toll - and once again had the option to either do things his own way, go through with the plans, or walk away. He chose to carry out his own version of Operation Meteor and left with the Gundam and his new codename for Earth.
As soon as he'd entered the atmosphere, he encountered a shuttle with the Vice Foreign Minister and his daughter on board, and thought about destroying it. He was interrupted by the timely intervention of Zech Merquise, and the two engaged in a Mobile Suit battle in which Zech managed to basically disable and knock Heero's Gundam into the Pacific Ocean. Heero washed up on the beach and was discovered by Darlian's daughter Relena. Once he'd regained consciousness, he promptly tried to commit suicide, and - failing that - beat up some paramedics and stole the ambulance they'd brought for him. In a weird twist of fate, the school he enrolled in as part of his cover while on Earth turned out to be the same school Relena was attending, and he promised to kill the girl because she knew his secret. This didn't deter her from developing what seemed to be a crush on him, and the two often ran into each other, much to Heero's annoyance.
Specifically, while Heero was trying to destroy his sunken Gundam to prevent OZ from getting their hands on it, Relena ended up following him to the base and interrupted him. They were further interrupted by the pilot of a second Gundam - Duo Maxwell - who shot Heero twice when he didn't back down. Heero then attempted to destroy both his and Duo's suits, and landed face down in the water, bleeding and unconscious.
He was relocated to an Alliance hospital under heavy guard and with limited actual medical attention while the government tried to find out who he was. Duo broke in to the hospital to rescue him, and when the two boys jumped out a window to safety, Heero didn't release his parachute, trying to kill himself once and for all. Relena's scream snapped him out of it and he released his chute, breaking his fall a little even if he'd opened it too late. He survived, but broke his leg, and was helped away from the scene by Duo, who retrieved their two Gundams and began work on repairs. Heero soon joined him, and ended up cannibalizing some of Duo's systems for spare parts to go off on another mission.
After Relena's father was assassinated, she was rescued from being killed herself by Doctor J, who told her about Heero's mission. She confronted him about it, saying there was no reason for him to consider her an enemy, but the discussion was interrupted by an attack on the school that Heero went to get under control. During the attack, he not only drove off the other Mobile Suits, but he consciously saved Relena from certain death, a fact that totally confused him and sent him running off, viewing this as a weakness and failure on his part.
In a new mission to take out the OZ leaders at the New Edwards base in California, Heero and Duo met up with Quatre and Trowa, two other Gundam pilots, and through miscommunication and general stubbornness somehow ended up fighting each other as well as the defenses at the base. In a move orchestrated by Treize - the leader of OZ - the important Alliance political figures who were actually promoting peaceful resolution with the colonies - including the movement's leader, Field Marshall Noventa - were evacuated onto an OZ shuttle. Spotting the shuttle's markings, Heero destroyed it without question, and it wasn't until the arrival of the fifth and final Gundam pilot that he realized his mistake. Heero went into shock, and in the resulting firefight had to be defended by Duo and Quatre until he was snapped out of his stupor by Sally Po, who asked him to shut down the missile defense system and save everyone on the base. Heero completed the mission successfully, but continued to beat himself up over his mistake.
Heero's next mission was to stop the transport of OZ's newest Mobile Suits - the Taurus model - to their base in Siberia. There were two routes, and Duo asked Heero to take the air route while he took care of the land, both pilots knowing that one route was only a decoy. The air route turned out to be the real transport, and both Trowa and Heero arrived on the scene to destroy the Mobile Suits, only for Zechs to confront Heero in the newly remodeled Tallgeese. The two fought until Lady Une threatened to destroy a colony with the missile defense satellites OZ had commandeered when OZ overthrew the Alliance, saying she would give the orders unless the Gundam pilots surrendered and handed over their machines. Doctor J surrendered himself as the brains behind Operation Meteor and the Gundam's missions, but emphasized that he wasn't surrendering the Gundams. That choice was up to the pilots.
In response, Heero stepped out of the cockpit and self detonated the Wing Gundam. The resulting explosion basically destroyed the weapon, and Heero himself was thrown clear.
And the next thing he knew, he was on the Barge.
Sample Journal Entry:
[Heero has been doing his reading, and he is not all that impressed, Barge. Accepting that he's died comes easily enough - it's been a risk he's been well aware of and happy to accept for a long time - but the lack of structure and logic in this place doesn't sit well with him in the slightest.
His voice is almost entirely flat, almost disinterested, and maybe just a little annoyed.]
There's a space fortress called "Barge" where I came from. Somehow I doubt it has much in common with this place.
Since arriving on board, has anyone actually spoken with the Admiral personally? I have a few questions I'd prefer he answer himself.
Sample RP:
Heero had long grown accustomed to sitting quietly and waiting for something to happen. The stakeout was a key part of any mission, and it required patience, dedication, and training. It took work to stay awake and focused for long stretches of watching of a target, often in a small space or totally exposed on a rooftop somewhere, and Heero had been doing it for a very long time at this point. It was second nature. Anything that was important to the mission could be done and accomplished without argument or complaint, and so sitting around pretending to be an average student at Saint Gabriel's was not particularly out of his range of abilities.
Or, it shouldn't be, because sitting patiently waiting for classes to be over so he could go back to work was not difficult. He was intelligent, focused and could respond if called on, but generally, the teachers left him alone. All it took was some patience, and some half paying attention to whatever they were saying, and he could make it look like he was a dutiful if quiet student.
The harder part was dealing with the other students, who all seemed much too fascinated with the new arrival. It seemed on some days that he couldn't walk fifty feet without being swarmed or talked to or challenged by some boy who felt threatened by the attention he was receiving, and today was one of them. He navigated the grounds as carefully and quickly as he could, but he still found himself greeted by people he didn't recognize and didn't care about, and he passed by them without much of a second look. He couldn't tell how much of it was Relena's doing - Relena who always seemed to show up at exactly the wrong time to call attention to him, effectively blocking his attempts at getting the hell out of there to get back to his current assignment.
He really wasn't sure why he hadn't killed her yet.
And as if summoned by his even sparing a thought towards her, he found himself passing by yet another posse of giggling, wide eyed teenaged girls, who stared before whispering excitedly amongst themselves for a moment, blocking his path a little. He stopped, staring right back, brow furrowing almost imperceptibly. One of them had definitely said Relena's name in her excited whispering, and he allowed himself a slight scowl - not enough to really be impolite, but definitely conveying he was in a hurry and had no interest in them - before brushing right past.
"Excuse me."
There was work to be done.
Special Notes: First of all, I've only watched the dub, not the original or subbed versions (although I've watched subbed Endless Waltz, if that counts for anything), and therefore there might be inconsistencies between certain scenes as... stuff gets lost in translation and all that, so if there's anything I've missed due to original vs. dub, I'd like to apologize to those who've got a different interpretation because of language issues. The early history is new canon from Frozen Teardrop, and nothing has been altered or added.
I'm saying the self detonation killed him - because lol seriously how did it not :| - and sort of using his time on the Barge to explain why he has such like... a turn around of character from episode ten onwards. He goes from being sort of sociopathic and antisocial to cracking jokes and trying to play nice with the other kids, and I've never really bought that he had a near death experience and suddenly decided that he was going to not be... quite as crazy. So, smoothing over canon = good?
And here is more voice testing over at d_m, for further reference, specifically the threads with Arthas, David, Trowa and Wufei.