Huey Laforet

Huey Laforet is a major antagonist in the light novel and anime series Baccano!. He is a sociopathic alchemist who views everyone as an experiment and one of the original Immortals. He is the lifelong best friend of Elmer C. Albatross, the father of Chane Laforet and the father-in-law of Claire Stanfield.

He is voiced by Susumu Chiba in the Japanese version of the anime and Eric Vale in the English version.

Appearance
Huey Laforet has black hair and amber eyes. Many of his descendants bear a striking resemblance to him and have his eyes, including Chané, Liza, and Charon Walken. Elmer C. Albatross notes that even Luchino B. Campanella looks a bit like Huey in terms of facial features.

In the 1710s, Huey wears a blue vest over a white shirt and black pants, and ties his long hair with a red ribbon. During his incarceration in the early 1930s, he wears a simple white prison uniform, with his hair trimmed.

Personality
In general, Huey keeps a pleasant, rather polite façade when interacting with others. In many cases, he does tell people what they want to hear when it involves his feelings towards them (namely, that they are actually important to him). Though Huey does not truly “love” his daughters, they are still willing to risk life and limb and will do anything he asks.

Despite the fact that Huey tends to not let on that he truly does not care about people outside of their use to him, he is rather up front about his status and goals as a researcher. He makes it no secret that by observing people for a long enough amount of time, he’s can figure out what they want and how they will act to get it. However, it’s also clear, even when he talks to others, that they are there to help him achieve what he wants. (It’s just that he doesn’t tell them that’s all they are, especially not his daughters, whom he thinks of as little more than guinea pigs themselves, albeit useful ones.) Though he says that his goals are to find out as much as possible about humans (whom he refers to as “raw materials,” showing just how removed from people he is and how much more he thinks of himself in relation to them), Huey's underlying motivation involves finding a way to "meet" the deceased Monica Campanella again.

In order to achieve this, Huey's main concerns are his experiments and seeing how people act in various situations, as well as how useful they are to him. Judging people’s “worth” as raw materials is something he tends to do in a rather short amount of time, though he is, of course, not infallible. When things happen or people act in ways that surprise him, he honestly does not let on; he takes these in stride and continues to plan and change existing plans, taking them into consideration. Even being stabbed in the back (thereby killing him) and having his eye gouged out does not truly faze him; his reaction to these are to smile and reflect that he could resume his experimenting, because of the fact that the people who did these things to him acted in ways he did not expect.

However, Huey does seem to believe that his subordinates will remain loyal, at least in a sense, to him—mostly Chané and Liza. When he’s around only a select few people, mainly those who know about his past (such as Elmer and Victor Talbot), he’s much more open; he’ll speak to them about his feelings, both on how he sees people, as well as his thoughts about the events that shaped him in the early 1700s. Elmer in particular is someone that Huey is close to, even considering him “human” instead of mere experimental material. Because Elmer has been his friend for more than 200 years, and, as such, knows his feelings, it’s safe to say that there’s actually a level of trust there that Huey has with no one else. Interestingly enough, the reason that the two of them are friends is because Huey felt actual compassion for Elmer, something that he honestly doesn’t, for anyone else. In more recent events, in the Prohibition Era timeline, he befriends Isaac Dian as well, because Isaac reminded him of Elmer.

Since his mother and later, his lover Monica Campanella were killed, Huey has held some level of guilt (made clear when he speaks to Victor in 1931, saying that his mother was the one who was killed instead of him during the witch hunts, and that he was “unable to save” his wife) about both of their deaths, letting neither go in the 220 years since he’s become immortal. However, he also wonders, when speaking on this, if there is anything that can truly be a worse memory for him, and if there’s a concrete method to know this for sure. Even when thinking on his worst memories, he still has the personality of a researcher, or at least acts as though he thinks that way.

Back in his teenage years, his personality was slightly less reckless in regards to obtaining information. He was more cautious, but also more willing to take matters into his own hands. He had a deep love for alchemy and knowledge, wanting to learn all he could. He was not as callous, and was even willing to open up to those around him who made a significant impression, even falling in love with Monica. Huey was also more inclined to express surprise during this time, such as when he found out about Monica's relation to Boronial Campanella. However, Monica's premature death seems to have hardened him to the core and now the only person who Huey even has a remote bond with is Elmer, who remains his friend into the 2000s. Though he is more open with the other immortals, it is not nearly to the extent of his openness with Elmer.