Henry Stein (ink realm)
- This article refers to Henry Stein's ink clone. For other uses, see Henry (disambiguation).
"Alright, Joey. I'm here. Let's see if we can find what you wanted me to see." |
This version of Henry Stein is an ink replica of his real-world self created by Joey Drew to torture in the Cycle.
He was created with the belief that after having left his old workplace for 30 years, a letter from his old friend and ex-business partner, Joey Drew, takes Henry back to the studio around 1960 to discover "something special." It soon becomes clear that the technology Joey wanted to reveal, the Ink Machine, is no mere animation tool, but also works to bring cartoon characters to life with horrifying results. Now, Henry must use his wits to survive the cartoon horrors that stalk the halls of the abandoned studio and escape to the outside world in any way possible to free himself from their wrath and the other horrors of the abandoned studio.
History
Awakening the Ink Machine
Everything begins when Henry receives a letter from Joey Drew, asking him to visit the workshop. Upon entering, he quickly discovers that the power is still running and that references to the studio's creation, Bendy, the little devil, are strewn throughout the environment. It isn't long before he finds the Ink Machine and decides to activate it to see what it does.
During his exploration in the studio to find the six items necessary to turn the Machine on, Henry is shocked to discover the dissected corpse of Boris the Wolf, strapped to a table, and wonders what Joey could have been doing to do this. He restores the ink pressure in the theater, then returns to the break room and pulls a switch to turn the Ink Machine on. He goes back to the area where he previously found the Ink Machine, only to find that the entrance has been oddly blocked off from the outside. As he approaches, a twisted and deformed ink monster known as the Ink Demon suddenly appears and lunges for Henry to knock him down before vanishing. As the studio begins to flood with ink, Henry runs for the exit door but the floor beneath him breaks and he falls downward, trapping him in the studio's basement. Slowly draining the flood of ink as he ventures deeper, Henry uses an axe to break open a boarded door barring his path. Entering a strange room with a mysterious ritual symbol in the center, Henry is suddenly struck down with pain, seeing visions of strange images as the symbol begins to emit smoke. He collapses to the floor, unconscious.
Henry regains consciousness in the same room he passed out in. After he retrieves his axe that was propped against Grant Cohen's coffin, he heads down to Utility Shaft 9, remarking his surprise at the studio's size in his absence. He soon discovers evidence that he is not alone in the studio, finding graffiti and more diary cassettes from the former employees that speak about how the Ink Machine affected their daily working lives. While walking down a hall, Henry notices a strange ink-covered figure, passing by from the hall and whistling while carrying a Bendy cutout. As soon as he approaches where the figure went, Henry is baffled to find that the man has walked through the wall. He enters the Music Department's entrance shortly after, the entrance to the audio recording sections of the studios where music and voices were recorded for the Bendy cartoons. Finding that the exit to the department is blocked off by another ink flood, Henry focuses on trying to drain it. He is also attacked by Searchers numerous times, strange creatures made of ink that appear out of the puddles in the ground.
After activating the ink pump from Sammy's office to drain the flood, Henry is suddenly hit on the back of his head and knocked out by an unknown assailant. When he regains consciousness, he finds that he has been attacked and tied up by Sammy Lawrence, the former music director transformed into the same ink-covered figure he saw and driven into a religious devotion to the Ink Demon. Thinking that the Ink Demon will free him from the body he considers to be a prison and abyss, he decides to use Henry as a sacrifice to The Ink Demon. In the commotion, however, the Ink Demon turns on Sammy and attacks him, given Henry the distraction he needs to escape by undoing the ropes that are holding him.
After escaping the ritual room, the Ink Demon himself materializes before Henry can leave and chases him. As the walls once again begin to be corrupted with ink just from the Ink Demon's presence, Henry barely manages to escape and barricades the door behind him. As he turns away to proceed, Henry sees a can of Bacon Soup rolling in from around the corner. Henry demands whoever's there to come out and show themselves, only to find that it is Buddy Boris, seemingly alive and well.
Henry wakes up from sleep in the safehouse, somewhere that Buddy Boris has apparently been living and hiding from the Ink Demon in. Evidently, Henry has been hiding out with Buddy Boris for some unknown amount of time before deciding to finally find a way out. After giving Buddy Boris a bowl of Bacon Soup and retrieving the safehouse door's lever, Henry travels with Buddy Boris into the depths of the studio. Henry discovers the entrance to Heavenly Toys, a merchandising section of the studio that he has no memory of. Making his way through the machines and discarded plush toys, he stumbles into a room dedicated to displaying the shorts and toys of Alice Angel, one of the studio's characters. As Alice's signature theme song begins to play, Henry is startled by the appearance of an inky and half-deformed woman by the name of "Twisted Alice", screaming that her name is also "Alice Angel". After she questions whether Henry is fit to walk among the angels, Henry reunites with Buddy Boris and the two search for her after killing Piper, a disfigured member of the gruesomely mutilated Butcher Gang trio.
Entering Twisted Alice's massive room, Henry and Buddy Boris discover numerous corpses of other cartoons all over, many of them being copies of Boris with their hearts removed. Twisted Alice explains that she has been taking pieces from the other failed cartoon creations in order to make herself "perfect", and claims that she will help Henry escape if he does favors for her, she sends him out into the complex to find items for her. Along the way, Henry must avoid the Ink Demon, who frequently appears without warning whenever Henry makes too much noise running. Henry can only escape him by hiding inside the Little Miracle Stations scattered through the halls, or closing the gate after entering the elevator. He also discovers the fate of Norman Polk, the former projectionist of the studio who has now turned into his job role as an ink monster with a projector for a head.
After doing Twisted Alice's bidding and finding her required items, she allows Henry to enter the elevator and ascend to the surface. However, just before he reaches the top, Twisted Alice betrays him and sends the lift falling, screaming that she knows who Henry is and why he has come back to the studio. Yelling that the Boris traveling with him is "the most perfect" one she has seen and that she needs Buddy Boris in order to make herself perfect. Shortly after the elevator crashes on Level S, mainly the Accounting & Finance location, Buddy Boris starts trying to wake Henry up. Although Twisted Alice soon arrives from the hallway, then snatches Buddy Boris into the darkness by force and Henry is left unconscious in the broken remains of the elevator.
Henry later wakes up beside the wrecked elevator and begins exploring Level S, discovering the eventual madness and corruption of financial supervisor Grant Cohen. He gets into the nearby archives and finds a way through a door marked "private" by activating certain books on the shelves. After opening the door, Henry's vision distorts for a few seconds, then reverts back. Henry comes to a deep chasm, finds a cable-gondola system to cross it. He repairs the mechanism by using an ink maker to turn the scooped ink into a gear and crosses to the other side. He then enters a long hallway, where he has a vision of hundreds of inky arms reaching out of the walls. He arrives in a shaft where the Ink Machine had previously descended and hears Twisted Alice speaking to him as he climbs the stairs, taunting him about Buddy Boris.
At the top of the stairs and entering the lounge & hideout, Henry discovers the Lost Ones, a gathering of the humanized ink creatures. He leaves them to enter a vent, and as he crawls through he encounters The Ink Demon and a suicidal Lost One before emerging into a room where he discovers the plans for a Bendy themed amusement park: Bendy Land. Henry opens the door to Storage 9, which he discovers contains various components of Bendy Land, including game booths, various ride parts, freaky costumes, and a haunted house. Henry visits each department off of Bendy Land, finding switches to power up the haunted house and encountering the Butcher Gang, the Projectionist, the Ink Demon, and a monstrous version of Bertrum Piedmont, the park's chief architect. After powering the haunted house, Henry enters and begins to ride, while Twisted Alice begins monologuing. After arriving in the house's ballroom, Henry is confronted by Buddy Boris, who is now a twisted version of himself, and Henry is forced to battle him. Using another Ink Maker, Henry creates Gent Pipes out of Brute Boris' inky blood and uses them to end his former friend, much to Twisted Alice's anger. She then rushes at Henry in a fit of rage and a desperate attempt to kill him herself but is stabbed through the chest before she can do so. After watching her lifeless body collapse to the floor, Henry looks upon the individuals who saved him, who are Allison Angel and Tom.
Henry awakes in Allison Angel and Tom's safehouse, listening to a song that Allison was singing as she paints ink messages on the wall. Henry starts talking to her, then she says that she doesn't remember her name and that people call her "Alice", and she states that she is no angel. When Henry wakes up, he sees Tom being asked by Allison to keep an eye on Henry as she leaves. After that, he sits on a chair and begins to hit his robotic arm with an axe, silently threatening him. In the next scene, Allison gives Henry some Bacon Soup in a bowl after stating that is the only thing edible that she could find and that she thinks that Henry might be hungry. After she leaves, Tom breaks it by shoving it onto the floor and begins to publicly show his dislike for Henry. After that, Tom leaves to confront the Ink Demon, and then the next scene, Allison scolds Tom for his reckless actions, while Allison repairs his mechanical arm, stating that it's just a matter of time before the Ink Demon finds them. After that, he and Allison realize that the Ink Demon is right outside their base. Allison stated that they cannot just leave Henry there, but Tom refuses to listen, as he still does not trust Henry. Allison tries to break the wooden planks that Henry is trapped behind, but Tom places a gentle hand on Allison's shoulder, silently reassuring her that she did all she could and that they cannot free him before the Ink Demon arrives.
Henry then uses the device that Allison gave to him to find a secret room in the prison and finds a Gent Pipe that he uses to break the plates in the door. Henry then escapes his prison, traversing through a series of tunnels where he is attacked by multiple Searchers. Henry then witnesses Allison and Tom departing on a barge across the Inky River. Henry follows in pursuit and boards the second barge, forced to navigate his way through while avoiding the giant hand that emerges from the ink and chases him. Henry arrives at the Lost Ones' Village, where he encounters the now-insane Sammy Lawrence, who escaped The Ink Demon, and was violently attacked. After knocking off Sammy's mask, Henry is thrown to the ground by Sammy and was almost killed. Fortunately, Tom sneaks up behind Sammy and digs his axe into Sammy's head, killing him for good. He then gives Henry his axe, now finally trusting him. Henry, Tom and Allison then proceed to fight a horde of Searchers and Lost Ones. After an intense battle, Allison cuts down a door and the three continue on. Not long after, they come across an unstable-looking set of planks. Henry starts to cross them, but the plank breaks and falls down. He lands in the administration maze area and realizes he needs to obtain three pipes from the maze of offices and hallways. Within these halls, the Butcher Gang (having left Bendy Land) are lurking and searching for Henry, much to his dismay. He sneaks past them collecting the Ink and bringing it back to the Ink Maker where he constructs three pipe pieces. After he has fixed the ink circulation, Henry proceeds to the Vault.
As he enters the Vault, Allison and Tom arrive after descending the chasm, using Allison's trusty rope. Henry reveals that he is going to The Ink Demon's lair, which was where the Ink Machine was descending to, causing Allison to reluctantly agree. The three of them follow to the Ink Machine to a path that resembles the starting location from Chapter 1 (with Henry's old desk) and encounters The Ink Demon, who slowly walks by a hall with a wall made of glass. Henry is forced to enter the Ink Machine alone because of the ink river that surrounds the machine, which would cause Allison and Tom to die. Before parting ways, Henry admits to Allison that he has no idea why he is in this.
After entering the machine, Henry finds a throne room where Joey Drew's final audio log to him is located. During the log, Joey seemly communicates to Henry, saying that Henry is their last hope in stopping The Ink Demon and saving the lost souls. At the end of this, Joey reveals to Henry that although The Ink Demon saw the beginning of the Bendy show, he never saw how it ended. Henry takes a reel named "The End" and encounters The Ink Demon. He undergoes a gruesome transformation into a beast version of himself that attacks Henry. Henry then runs from this new form of The Ink Demon from all over the Ink Machine, turning on switches and breaking tubes where ink flows by. Henry returns to the throne room, where he places "The End" in a projection that makes all the screens change into the final, lost episode of the Bendy show. Beast Bendy is then caught by the reel and a strange and strong light coming from the projector, killing it once and for all.
Henry ends up in Joey Drew's apartment, where he talks to his old friend that says how Henry has a perfect family and he only has a ruined empire, how he ended up doing terrible things to his studio, his workers, and himself, and how Henry's acts finally convinced him to do the right thing. He states that Henry might see how the studio ended after all those years and Henry opens a door, where he reenters the studio, going back to Chapter 1 leading many players to the story of Bendy and The Ink Machine.
Imprisoned in the cage
Due to his full awareness of the Cycle and the "The End" reel, Henry was captured by the Keepers and imprisoned in their Gent building, effectively putting the events of the Cycle on hold indefinitely. He was sent to prison cell number 414.
He is later found by Audrey Drew, sitting in his cell with his back to the world, writing in his notebook. When Audrey asks for information, Henry chuckles and comments how he is the last person to ask. When Audrey asks for his name, he turns around and comments that he'd almost forgotten, before explaining how the Keepers will lock anyone away who is considered a "Cyclebreaker" or someone who has any knowledge of the Cycle and the "The End" reel, and instructs how to restart the Cycle. He wishes Audrey luck and goes back to writing.
During the climax, he somehow escapes his cell and helps Audrey by opening one of the doors leading her to a projector to restart the Cycle with.
Description
Physical appearance
He is shown to be an aged man with light-colored hair, wearing a jacket with the sleeves rolled up, with ink-stained jeans, a white shirt with a loose tie, and black shoes.
Joey Drew states that he would struggle to remember his face, implying that he is visually unremarkable to Joey.[1]
Personality
Henry is a rather calm, soft-spoken man, rarely expressing emotions stronger than minor shock and/or annoyance upon seeing the bizarre happenings around the Cycle, as well as sentimentality upon recording how much he misses his wife Linda.
It is highly implied that Henry eventually figured out he is an ink entity due to mentioning how he has not eaten in years.
Behind the scenes
Henry is the main protagonist who first appears throughout Bendy and the Ink Machine, and later appears in the fourth and fifth chapter of Bendy and the Dark Revival as one of the allies. He is voiced by the series' creator theMeatly.
Development
In Bendy and the Ink Machine, Henry does not have a model in the game files to view, most likely due to the game being played from his perspective. In addition, Henry does not cast shadows nor leave ink trails after walking in an ink pool, and strangely enough, Henry has no reflection in the mirror at the lavatory of the safehouse from Chapter 3. He was later given a full model and appearance in Bendy and the Dark Revival.
In the prototype demo of Bendy and the Ink Machine, Henry was more expressive when he lets out a gasp and then a relieving sigh upon encountering the Bendy cutout outside of the break room, and questions of who put the cutout in front of him occurs instantly. In the final version of the game, his startled sounds were removed but he would only question if he approached closely to the cutout. Henry also used to say "So this is the Ink Machine, huh? Wonder how you turn it on." upon entering the Ink Machine's room, and saying "I'm getting the hell out of here!" after encountering the Ink Demon.
Appearances
- Bendy and the Ink Machine
- Chapter 1: Moving Pictures (First appearance)
- Chapter 2: The Old Song
- Chapter 3: Rise and Fall
- Chapter 4: Colossal Wonders
- Chapter 5: The Last Reel
- Bendy and the Dark Revival
- Chapter 4: Factory of Horrors
- Chapter 5: The Dark Revival
- Bendy: The Cage
Dialogue
- Main article: Henry Stein (cycle-realm)/dialogue
Gallery
"Look pal, if you think I'm doing my job AND yours, I'm outta here!" - Wally Franks
References
- ↑ The Illusion of Living (Literature)