I LOVE THIS SCENE, one of my favourites in KCD1, where the boys talk about their fathers. It's so easily missable during 'The Prey' but it's amazing.
This is so early in Hansry's history but they're already so open with each other. Henry's so hurt, screaming at Hans and Hans floundering and shouting back, showing depth we didn't know he has.
I adore KCD, but one of my favorite things about it is the cutscene you get when you are jailed in Skalitz.
I don't even think many people have seen it, barring completionists (you get an achievement), the curious and... dickheads, perhaps?
But it's absolutely devastating, even more so if you see it after having gotten to know Henry as a character, as opposed to right in the intro while new to the game.
Spoilers (+ gifs) under the cut for both this cutscene and some story beats in KCD II.
When I was recording this, the guard sent me to jail with the words "I hope you rot in there" and he did get his wish, but much like Henry wishing to see more of the world, in the most monkey's paw way possible.
I also know this was likely not an intended parallel, but the similarities between this cutscene and the scene where Hans is also in the dungeon, awaiting his death, make me go insane. They're even sitting in a similar way, except Henry's doom is more immediate and shocking. The look on his face when he realizes the inevitability of his death and the manner of it is gut-wrenching, and just like Hans he is unable to do anything about it.
It's also the solitude of it all that gets me, because while Henry has his actual family and friends, in that moment he is alone — just like Hans would be, if it weren't for Henry.
I can't even begin to wrap my head around the horror of it all, he dies not even knowing what was happening outside, and I wonder what his final thoughts were. Maybe by a small mercy he'd suffocate instead of burning alive.
Someone (I'm guessing his mother? Maybe Bianca? I unfortunately can't quite place the voice) yelling for him is the cherry on top of the suffering, they really maximized the damage for this.
VCSOURCE HALLOWEEN 2024 EVENT:Â DAY 2
↳ Favorite Relationship/Dynamic: Unholy Family
I betrayed him when I created him, that is the significant thing. Just as I betrayed Claudia. And I forgive the nonsense he wrote, because he told the truth about the eerie contentment he and Claudia and I shared and had no right to share in those long nineteenth-century decades ... I had what I wanted, what I had always wanted. I had them.
image 1: a scene from San Francisco 1973, Armand sitting on a chair in the dim light of the apartment, Daniel at his feet, Armand’s foot pressed between Daniel’s legs
image 2: a close up of a man’s laughing face on the tv screen
image 3: a close up of Daniel’s open mouth, blood dripping from his nose down his face and the light of a tv screen with a gleeful woman in the background