I've had an idea percolating for a while now about Higgs that I've brought up a couple of places and not gotten much comment on. I'm liking it better as time goes by; but that could just be falling in love with my own ideas--I do that.
Higgs is an heir to the Storm King, specifically he's the reputed werewolf heir. Werewolves are usually presented as extremely hard to kill and fast healing. Often presented as quasi-immortal, which would account for his age. Tarvek would certainly recognize such a person, and may have more background information on him than most, given his own heirdom (though there's no saying they're from the same branch). Being a werewolf might have disqualified him from heirdom; but maybe it's just difficult to make one do something he doesn't want to do, and ambition does not seem one of his character traits.
He could have come to the attention of the Heterodynes in several ways, perhaps he is also a son of Euphrosynia, perhaps a friend of the family, perhaps a werewolf who figured running with the Jaegers was a good option for a while, perhaps when you have young sparks breaking through and going through puberty an armsmaster or male nanny that was nearly unkillable and very strong was useful and they hired him to watch/teach young Heterodynes. His unflappability would also be useful in dealing with wild young sparkly children, or jaegers for that matter. I could see him doing Mama Gkika a favor in any of these circumstances, and earning the right to be part of her jaeger bar.
It would also be interesting if he founded the Wulfenbachs, (stream of wolves) and perhaps he passed down some healing abilities to our Gil. It might account for his willingness to save Herr Baron and to keep an eye on Gil. He'd have to be a distant ancestor to be dating Zeetha though; and even then I'm not sure it works. That's the biggest problem I see with this part of the hypothesis.
Werewolves are traditionally controlled by the Moon, which is usually feminine in our culture. And I notice that he always seems to take the worst damage from women (or female geese). It might account for why Zeetha made him so nervous in the bar, other than just being her gorgeous self.
Regarding his initial introduction; perhaps there is a vitality associated with werewolf healing that got depleted when fighting those nasty monsters (remember they *melted* Dimo's arm under Sturmhalten) and so the broken limbs and bites didn't heal as quickly as the wounds in DK seem to. Or, he does most of his healing while knocked out, he doesn't seem to heal the wound Pinky gives him until after he wakes up on the floor; and he had no opportunity to sleep between rescuing Klaus and Bang and being taken to see Sun. Or rum could make the healing slower...
This hypothesis is still percolating, I'm rather a slow thinker, so I may come up with reasons it's silly.
My Higg's Hypothesis
Higgs is an heir to the Storm King, specifically he's the reputed werewolf heir. Werewolves are usually presented as extremely hard to kill and fast healing. Often presented as quasi-immortal, which would account for his age. Tarvek would certainly recognize such a person, and may have more background information on him than most, given his own heirdom (though there's no saying they're from the same branch). Being a werewolf might have disqualified him from heirdom; but maybe it's just difficult to make one do something he doesn't want to do, and ambition does not seem one of his character traits.
He could have come to the attention of the Heterodynes in several ways, perhaps he is also a son of Euphrosynia, perhaps a friend of the family, perhaps a werewolf who figured running with the Jaegers was a good option for a while, perhaps when you have young sparks breaking through and going through puberty an armsmaster or male nanny that was nearly unkillable and very strong was useful and they hired him to watch/teach young Heterodynes. His unflappability would also be useful in dealing with wild young sparkly children, or jaegers for that matter. I could see him doing Mama Gkika a favor in any of these circumstances, and earning the right to be part of her jaeger bar.
It would also be interesting if he founded the Wulfenbachs, (stream of wolves) and perhaps he passed down some healing abilities to our Gil. It might account for his willingness to save Herr Baron and to keep an eye on Gil. He'd have to be a distant ancestor to be dating Zeetha though; and even then I'm not sure it works. That's the biggest problem I see with this part of the hypothesis.
Werewolves are traditionally controlled by the Moon, which is usually feminine in our culture. And I notice that he always seems to take the worst damage from women (or female geese). It might account for why Zeetha made him so nervous in the bar, other than just being her gorgeous self.
Regarding his initial introduction; perhaps there is a vitality associated with werewolf healing that got depleted when fighting those nasty monsters (remember they *melted* Dimo's arm under Sturmhalten) and so the broken limbs and bites didn't heal as quickly as the wounds in DK seem to. Or, he does most of his healing while knocked out, he doesn't seem to heal the wound Pinky gives him until after he wakes up on the floor; and he had no opportunity to sleep between rescuing Klaus and Bang and being taken to see Sun. Or rum could make the healing slower...
This hypothesis is still percolating, I'm rather a slow thinker, so I may come up with reasons it's silly.