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Originally Posted by hchuang
One of the more interesting character in this series is Henrietta. It is difficult to pin down just exactly who she is. She's portrayed as powerless and naive, working in earnest to avoid war best she can. On the other hand, she can be quite vengeful against her "enemies" and "traitors" and seems to understand very well the real power politic at play. To that end she sprung a trap to lure out her opponents and dealt with them swiftly and mercilessly. The war against Albion is in large part to exact revenge for the death of Wales.
All these might well be overlooked in the story if it doesn't directly affect the way Henrietta interacts with Louise and Saito.
Henrietta is at first very powerless as Queen. She has few allies in the court and the nobles do not take her seriously. Even Louise's family can openly defies her and refuse to contribute to the war effort. Therefore she needs her own power base and enlisted the service of Agnes, a commoner with no magic and no tie to the nobility.
Aside from the musketeers, Henrietta builds up her power base in the magic academy, outside the influence of other nobles. It is not surprising that Henreitta places for her most important assets, Louise and Tiffania, to remain in the protection of her other instrument, the Water Spirit Knights(?), which recruits from the students at the academy. The academy is very much her own personal "turf."
Early on, Louise is perhaps most distinctly important to Henrietta's claim to power. Louise has demonstrated firsthand the awesome power of void magic and is viewed as crucial to the war against Albion. It's not so much important if Louise can actually use her power, but she is useful as a tool to impress and suppress other nobles. To have Louise openly demonstrate her unswervingly loyal to the Henrietta would be a dramatic boost to the Queen's stature.
Henrietta certainly capitalizes heavily on the relationship by bestowing upon Louise the Queen's attention. Although Henrietta's always telling Louise how much she wishes for peace and never to use Louise as a tool of war, she has nevertheless sent Louise on very many dangerous missions. Louise is of course all too happy to volunteer her service to her best childhood friend, returning Henrietta's affection ten-fold.
In volume 14, we once again sees the same thing play out, Henrietta is once again "wishing for peace" and telling Louise and Tiffania that she doesn't wish to use them for war but yet again "things turn out differently." Also notice how Henrietta is trying to get close to Tiffania very much by playing the fact that they are cousins. Tiffania is of course hopelessly naive as well.
Louise loyalty to Henrietta has a problem and that is Saito. Saito is very skeptical about war and has a totally differently sensibility towards the "duty of nobility." And Saito, unlike Louise, has many practical Gandalfr skills and is much more reliable in actually completing missions. Louise as void user is useless without Saito.
Therefore Henrietta very much needs Saito on her side and she "worked" him over either by seduction or title of nobility. The effect: Saito certainly sympathizes with the "plight of the poor Queen" and fights in part for her sake. It is only when Saito is willing to remain by Louise's side did Henrietta finally stop seducing Saito.
All these points to Henrietta having a very manipulative side with her agenda and has a strong possibility of being the "last boss" of ZnT, in my opinion. After all the big fighting and stuff are over with, I have a feeling that Henrietta is somehow going to be the final obstacle towards the ending.
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i'm interested about what you said about henrietta power base:did she made the water spirit knight for saito or did they exist before(did she fire their previous captain so she could replace him with Saito?)?And i know saito(and maybe louise)did give up his title so he could save tabitha;so what is saito current position now-can he be considered a noble or just a knight again?
And one last question,i'm very interested about vindalf personnality:is he better than the pope and what does he think of saito?Why did he give louise back to tristain army in vol.8(wasn't his mission to cupturse her or at less to take her ring)?He tought saito was about to die so he has no reason to keep his promise;that's why i think of him as a better guy than the pope-conflicted loyalty?-am i wrong?