Agatha Heterodyne
From Girl Genius
| Agatha Heterodyne | |
 | |
| Name | Agatha Clay, Agatha Heterodyne, Madame Olga, the Holy Child, Pix (she's had to hide a lot) |
| Age | 18 |
| Occupation | At different times: student, lab assistant, actress, fortune-teller, itinerant heroine |
| Residence | Currently in Mechanicsburg. |
| First Appearance | Outside the Kaja in Beetleburg. |
| Death | |
| Parents | William Heterodyne and Lucrezia Mongfish (born); Punch and Judy (raised) |
| Relatives | Barry Heterodyne (uncle), Theopholous DuMedd (cousin) |
| Children | |
| Marital Status | Single, much-pursued |
- "...ordinary."
- "Ordinary..."
- "SHOWTIME!"[1]
Agatha is the main character and eponymous Girl Genius. She's a strong Spark and the last known member of the famous Heterodyne family.
Contents |
[edit] Character Analysis
When she first appeared, Agatha was kind of scatterbrained and kind of a spaz, much of which was due to the effects of the Locket on her brain. When it was removed her spark began to once more assert itself, and she has become more confident and formidable ever since. Even when her spark was repressed, she was far from weak: witness her defense of herself against the brothers von Zinzer and - just after she has lost the locket - her determined attitude when cleaning Dr. Beetle's lab.[2] As the story progresses, Agatha becomes much less naive and quite tough, due to the circumstances of her life as both a spark and the last known Heterodyne, and also due to the teaching of her friends and allies. Krosp and Zeetha, in particular, give her much needed perspective. She is very sparky, and like most sparks, she has a tendency to lose a certain sense of perspective when she gets going.[3] Like her father, she has the "true heroic impulse," which leads her to head, without thinking, towards danger in an effort to help[4]. As in other areas, she has been learning that the thinking and planning stage is not to be overlooked. She has also realized the importance of having a position of strength so she cannot be used as a pawn.
Her recent life has been rather traumatic, as she has witnessed the deaths of her teacher, foster parents, and one of her friends. She has gone from being considered damaged to being considered too valuable to be allowed to roam free.[5] Both Gil and Othar tried to persuade her to team up with them for her own good, although they each meant "team up" in a very different way. She has instead consistently chosen the path of independence and self-reliance, even though it has entailed a rather steep learning curve.[6] Perhaps most life-changing for her so far, however, were the events in Sturmhalten, where she was possessed by the mind of The Other and caught between the machinations of at least three parties. Her latest piece of situational analysis shows how mature she has already become from the incident.
[edit] History
Agatha was apparently rescued from the Geisterdamen[7] by her uncle Barry, who gave her to Adam and Lilith Clay to be raised. As a young child she began to break through as a spark, so Barry devised (or repurposed) a Locket for her that suppressed her spark.
Agatha did not know that she was either a Spark or a Heterodyne for all of her early life. After her uncle disappeared when she was seven, Agatha lived in the town of Beetleburg, where she went to school at Transylvania Polygnostic University and worked under Doctor Tarsus Beetle.
When she was eighteen, she had an exceptionally bad day in which her locket was stolen, she was late for school, had to clean the main lab in a hurry, witnessed the accidental death of Dr. Beetle, and was kicked out of the university. That same day she built her first working clank, the Search Engine, in her sleep, which led to her being taken aboard Castle Wulfenbach.
Aboard the Castle Wulfenbach, Agatha reluctantly pretended to be Moloch's girlfriend, until he threatened to hurt her. After that she worked with the Baron's son, Gil, who suspected that she was a Spark. She got along well with him for the most part, but couldn't entirely reconcile a friendship with Gil with her distrust of his father.
She got along well with most of the other students aboard the Castle, especially her roommate Sleipnir O’Hara, and made friends with Krosp, a large white talking cat she found stealing food from her dinner tray. She surprised them all, however, by facing down the frightening construct nanny Von Pinn. To both Agatha and Von Pinn’s shock, when Agatha ordered Von Pinn to put her down, she did.
She also encountered Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer, who wanted her to be his plucky girl sidekick (she refused) and the three Jäger Generals, who seemed quite interested in her (they could smell she was a Heterodyne and thus knew it even before she did), and were curious as to what she thought about Master Gilgamesh.
When Agatha accidentally ordered sleeper revenant Mr. Rovainen to activate the Hive Engine, she had to help Gil fight off the resulting soldier wasps and kill the Queen. To do this she built a pair of Electric Foils, perhaps her first knowingly sparky inventions. Elated at having killed the Queen (although confused as to why the wasps got out of her way when she ordered them to), Agatha kissed Gil. He was instantly smitten and proposed marriage. Agatha refused, especially when Gil implied that she was incapable of surviving on her own.
Adam and Lilith tried to escape from the Castle with her, but ran into Klaus. Recognizing Adam and Lilith as the Heterodyne constructs Punch and Judy, Klaus (with the help of Von Pinn) deduced that Agatha was the child of Bill Heterodyne and Lucrezia Mongfish. Klaus would have kept Agatha and her foster parents prisoner, but they incapacitated the Baron and sent her on her way to safety, losing their own lives to an enraged Von Pinn in the process.
Aboard a stolen airship Agatha once more had an opportunity to join with Othar (or get killed by him, since he believes all Sparks must die). Not liking either option, she pushed him over the side. When the airship crashed, Agatha was essentially lost in the Wastelands until she encountered Master Payne's Circus of Adventure. The Circus was terrified of the possible consequences of helping a fugitive from the Baron, and sent her on her way. After Agatha helped save the circus from a rogue clank, however, they let her join, and helped trick Gil and Bang into thinking she had been killed.
Traveling with the circus, Agatha was given the role of Lucrezia Mongfish in the plays, which she performed well. In the town of Zumzum she rescued three Wild Jägers, who recognized her as a Heterodyne and stayed with her as bodyguards. After a crisis at Passholdt, where the circus was attacked by monsters and Agatha showed her naive sense of heroism, they came to the town of Sturmhalten.
After a command performance for the ruling prince, Agatha was invited to dinner with the royal family, who drugged her into confessing her lineage. She was then nearly subjected to one nefarious experiment[8], only to be saved for another.[9]
Agatha spent the better portion of the next day or so effectively unconscious, only able to gain control for an extended period of time once her music-making Dingbots were functional. She despaired of understanding the machine that had effected her, claiming that not only was she still little more than a student, Lucrezia was slowly winning the battle for control. She determined to do the only thing she felt she could under the circumstances: tell the world the identity of the Other, and give herself up to Baron Wulfenbach.
She built a holographic recorder/projector to display her message, but before it could be used she was betrayed by Tarvek, who wanted to make us of Agatha to establish himself as the Storm King. Lucrezia was once again in charge, and Agatha only permanently restored to herself when Lucrezia, having wasped the Baron, put on her locket.
Lars sacrificed himself to keep her from getting killed by a very angry Klaus, sending Agatha over the edge and deep into the madness place. She activated her Battle Circus and did serious damage to the Baron's forces before a calming pie and a trick of the Circus's allowed her to escape.
While the Circus went to England, Agatha went to Mechanicsburg as Lilith had instructed her, where she encountered a false heir, and the former seneschal, Master Heliotrope né Carson von Mekkhan. While Carson von Mekkhan was initially skeptical of her claim to the Heterodyne lineage, a sparky building session in a coffee shop and her standing up to the Castle helped persuade him.
She is currently inside Castle Heterodyne, pretending to be a prisoner. Her goal is to repair the links between the Castle subsystems and its main brain, once again allowing the Castle to defend her town. She has just (briefly) crossed paths with Zola "Heterodyne", who has sent the other prisoners after her to kill her[10]. Agatha herself is running towards the main library, with a bewildered Moloch von Zinzer (who claims that he's not her minion) in tow. She's also run into her old teacher, the (former) head of TPU, Silas Merlot[11].
[edit] Creations
- The Search Engine
- Dingbot Prime, and by extension all its subsequent generations
- An Othar-Rescuing Machine
- Electrified foils
- Several great big monster-killing guns
- The repurposed Silverodeon and a number of wagons-turned-weapons from Master Payne's Circus of Adventure
- A holographic recorder-projector
- An anti-alarm-clock fighting exo-skeleton.
- A Fashion Clank
[edit] Outside Information
Agatha's appearance is based on the way Phil used to draw Kaja Foglio. Kaja explains in this old Livejournal post how Agatha was initially designed and why her hair is such a vibrant red-blonde color.
Agatha's "heterodyning" -- the humming/singing noise she makes while thinking Sparky thoughts -- was partly inspired by Doc Savage's famous trill (in the works of Lester Dent). Doc would unconsciously produce the sound while thinking or fighting.
[edit] See also
Secret Blueprints: Agatha Clay/Agatha Heterodyne
[edit] References
- ↑ Agatha flips out (big fight).
- ↑ See her fight and clean.
- ↑ See her work on the Battle Circus and get enthusiastic below Castle Heterodyne.
- ↑ As she did with Rescuing Othar, in ZumZum and wanted to do for Passholdt
- ↑ Compare Klaus's attitude here and here.
- ↑ She gets key lectures from Krosp, Zeetha, and Master Payne.
- ↑ As told from the Geister's perspective on this page.
- ↑ Having Lucrezia downloaded into her brain. See this page.
- ↑ Having her voice copied. See this page.
- ↑ Zola promises freedom and gold to whoever kills Agatha, and more importantly, threatens to kill anyone who won't.
- ↑ "Is everyone I know in here, or is it just everyone who hates me?"
