Henry Winter

Name: Henry Marchbanks Winter
Height: over 6'3"
Age: ~21
Enjoys: works by Homer, Lucky Strikes cigarettes, gardening, being full of shit, murder
Appearance: dark hair with a fringe that he styles to cover one eye (his bad eye), scar over said covered eye, tall, broad, built like a linebacker, often wearing clothing in styles reminiscent of men's 1950's formal fashion, sharp and set features, most likely a resting bitch face, stiff gait, chip in his front tooth, wireframe glasses

Welcome to my page about my babygirl, my good time gal, my right hand arm. man. my silly rabbit. my number one hot piece of ass murder psycho insanely mentally ill pookie bear sugar plum shmookums scammer manipulator girlboss and hunk. henry marchbanks winter.

This is my shrine dedicated to the fictional character Henry Winter from the novel The Secret History by Donna Tartt. TSH is (at least at this point in my life) my favourite book ever, it's opened my mind at an impressionable age at what history, language, education, facades, and reading as a whole can be. In my opinion it's a wonderful book and I fell particularly hard for one of the main characters, the main catalyst for conflict: Henry Winter. Henry as a character is genuinely one of the best characters I've ever had the pleasure of getting to know through fiction (and I argue I don't even understand him fully), his presence isn't only felt when he's in the room directly influencing the proceedings of the novel or the character's points of view, his power is arguably the entire mystique of the first half of the novel. As for the second half of the novel, he becomes far more interesting, where all the contradicting facets of his carefully constructed personhood clash in full effect, shattering in front of the readers' and the characters' eyes despite everyone involved desperately trying to scramble the pieces and force them back together.

My main attraction to Henry stems from the fact that he's a walking facade, he's this cool aloof nonchalant dude but in reality when you look at him he's just a kinda weird and reserved guy with no social skills. There's a few times throughout the novel where if you keep a keen eye you can notice he follows a conversation script with people he doesn't know all that well, he most likely uses stiff formality and politeness as a guide through situations he can't quite fully navigate himself, if you look closely at his deep friendship with Bunny you get the impression that Bunny was an extrovert who 'adopted' him, most likely because Bunny had fantastically developed social skills and probably noticed that Henry was rather isolated, if you try piecing together Henry's past he seems like kind of an engima shrouded in mystique but some have pieced together a theory of child abuse at the hands of his father (which I heavily subscribe to) that explains a vast majority of his development. Henry's described at the hands of Richard (POV character) as someone who very well could have been among the best minds of their generation, and of course there is no doubt as to Henry's above-average intelligence, but it is easy to assume that this excellence was something born out of a kid with a lot of free time, the luck to have access to the resources he needs to foster this (which we know Henry's family is unfathomably wealthy), and some unsatiated hunger to fill some kind of void in his young life with this pursuit of education only to be exarcebated by the only positive parental figure in his life fucking GROOMING HIM (yes Julian, I'm looking at you) to think he's destined for greatness and then abandoning him when the parental figure pushed him too far in hopes of living vicariously through his success.

TLDR, Henry Winter is complex, painfully stupid sometimes, shallow, obsessive, unfeeling, wildly depressed, manipulative, tragic, callous, and so much more. He's insuffrable, terrible, enchanting, calculating, I love him with all my heart, I condone absolutely none of what he's ever done, and I want to marry him so bad. I desire him, he has bewitched me body and soul and I love him.

Further reading on Henry