Heinrix being a part of a tyrannical machine while also being a survivor with internalised self-hatred has made me feel so conflicted. All I've posted here about this game stemmed from this.
I've compared him to Dorian from Dragon Age Inquisition who said no to an oppressive system and overcame his bigotry that came with his background and went back to improve his home country.
I can also think of Tristan from The Outer Worlds 2 who can realise the fallacies of the propaganda through reason with the love and support of and for others.
But Heinrix’s case is so much greyer. He worked for/with Calcazar for decades. I was reading Ciaphas Cain: The Greater Good where he and Jurgen had been working for 6+ decades. After 6 decades they were practically family.
I also found out that few Inquisitorial Agents are given a rosette, and those who are of high enough importance are entrusted with basically a copy of their Inquisitor’s rosette - they don’t have the authority to get their own from the Inquisition - authorising them to invoke their Inquisitor’s power.
Which means Heinrix and Calcazar almost acted as a unit, and they must be in agreement on most things concerning their Inquisitorial work - that they let each other know of - for this to work.
I didn’t like two other romances available to a female rogue trader because I was irked by them being cops and how their romances evolved around that. I also resented Heinrix for the longest time because of the twisted ways he did his job diligently.
But a lot of his trauma responses and his internalised ableism, to put it in a modern term, just rang true to me. I could only feel empathetic to him when I learned some of the most horrible things I’ve read that had happened to him and realised that it had become the normality to him, even though he still held some hopes and desires that were human.
On the other hand, his learned helplessness regarding his/our situation infuriated me and pained me. To me if you truly have ideals and principles there’s always a way out no matter how hard. There’s no such thing as only having bad options and accepting that puts you onto a slippery slope. But I also deeply understand how scary and paralysing leaving a bad situation and the familiarity it offers you, and having to deal with all the potential consequences can be.
There is no easy answer, and I still struggle with it in my own life. But the thing is I can’t leave all my Warhammer models behind, so I’m still hanging on here xd.