Horatio was formerly the pet hollowgast of H. When H died, he allowed Horatio to consume his eyes, which transformed Horatio into a wight.
History[]
Pre-Series[]
In his previous life, Horatio was a peculiar who became radicalized and joined the Claywings, eventually rising to become Caul's right hand man.[1] After Caul found out about the loop collapse formula from one of his guards, Horatio would help with planning and executing the Experiment of 1908. Because of the failure of the experiment, he would become a hollow.
Eventually an American hollow hunter and Librarian, Harold Fraker King (also known as H), tamed him in the 1970's.[2] Since it was the time the hollow hunters were still active, Horatio probably accompanied H on missions. While under H's control, he came to regret his past actions and would switch sides.
A Map of Days[]
After getting contact from Jacob Portman, H agrees to meet him at Mel-O-Dee and brings Horatio with him. In order to see if Jacob was ready to continue H's and Abraham Portman's work, H has Horatio attack Jacob in a mock fight, and only stops it to prevent Jacob from killing the hollow. After Jacob and Emma Bloom are given a trial mission, Horatio leaves with H.
After rescuing Noor Pradesh from Leo Burnham, he watches over a critically wounded H. After H tells Jacob what he needs to do, H lets Horatio eat his eyes and, when H dies, Horatio starts to turn into a wight. When the transformation is nearly complete, he jumps out the window.
The Desolations of the Devil's Acre[]
After somehow surviving his jump from the building, Horatio spent a few days in the sewers completing his transformation before killing another wight and had a skin tailor, Ellsworth Ellsworth, sew the other wight's face onto him and infiltrated their ranks to find and protect Noor.
He, another wight, and a hollow get into Griselda Tern's loop with a mission of killing Jacob, Noor and their friends. However, Horatio betrays the other wight by shooting him in the throat. Being able to speak the enhanced hollows' language, he sends away the hollow that had come with them, and joins the group.
While escaping from Caul, they run into a hollow, and Horatio helps fight it in the train yard. Though he severs two of its tongues, the other two pull him into its jaws and bites down. Horatio does not die, however, and pulls himself out, forcing the hollow's body down to the train track and causing it to get killed by a passing train. Horatio's injuries include his arm being severed at the elbow.
Relationships[]
H[]
Horatio has been H's companion for forty years, and H likens them to an old married couple. During these years, Horatio developed genuine affection for H and became loyal to him. As H lies dying, Horatio cries for him and then brings him water, with Jacob "marveling at the strange tenderness of it." A long time before the events of A Map of Days, H promised to let Horatio consume his peculiar soul, which Horatio does by eating H's eyes right before his death. While eating, Horatio makes a noise that seems "caught between agony and ecstasy," and turns away in shame after finishing.[2] As a wight, Horatio refers to H as his master.
Trivia[]
- Horatio is the first hollowgast in the series shown turning into a wight.
- Horatio ate the eyes of H instead of the whole body, which is what the hollowgasts do in the books, whereas in the movie, they eat the eyes of the peculiars. While the hollows do sometimes eat the whole body they can and will eat just the eyes, as seen with Abe, when Jacob found him dead in the first book. Eating only the eyes may also be something they do only with peculiars, given the peculiar soul is what they most crave to consume.
References[]
- ↑ The Desolations of Devil's Acre (Chapter 13)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 A Map of Days (Chapter 19): "Been together forty years."