Baron Klaus Wulfenbach

Resisting Lucrezia's mind-control (partially; as much as was possible) and her temptations of power (fully).

### Crimes

Violation of international law
"Brain coring" (removing the Spark from brains; aka lobotomy)
Hostage-taking
War crimes
Child abuse
Extortion
Brainwashing
Unethical experimentation
Attempted wrongful execution
Manslaughter

> I was away for a few years and I came back to a world in ruins. Death, destruction, chaos, the endless fighting—it was like the Heterodyne Boys had never existed. Things were worse than ever. So I stopped it. And I did it my way this time. No more negotiating. No more promises. No more second chances. And I did it alone. Because I had to. And it worked.
>
> Klaus explaining his rise to power (Vol. 3 pp. 97-98).

**Baron Klaus Wulfenbach** is a major antagonist in the print-and-web comic series *Girl Genius* by Phil & Kaja Foglio.

## His Moral Ranking

### Heroic Deeds

* He traveled with the Heterodyne Boys on their adventures, where they helped the innocent and thwarted evil-doers.
* After returning from exile, he devoted his life to ending the Long War and bringing stability to Europa. Nearly 200 years of slaughter was stopped by him.
* He's shown to honestly love and care for his son Gilgamesh. Early on, he saved Gil as a baby when people wanted him dead. He also worked to make Gil immune to various poisons and diseases.
* As dictator of Europa:
	+ He doesn't tyrannize the common people or take away their freedoms. His only real rule is to not do anything that disrupts the peace. He even lets the common people make fun of him in Heterodyne Shows.
	+ He prevents his hired hands like Captain DuPree from harming innocent civilians.
	+ He has a rule that if enemy soldiers are taken as POWs, they're given the choice between joining his army, or returning home in peace with a month's pay.
	+ He fights against evil Sparks and stops them from harming the innocent. Some of his enemies are noted to have carried out genocide (Dr. Vapnoople) and hunt peasants for sport (The Gilded Duke).
	+ He saved his harshest punishments only for the most dangerous criminals.
* He had Princess Zulenna's life saved when she was killed by DuPree, by taking Zulenna's body to a lab to be reanimated.
* He tried to be reasonable with Agatha in Sturmhalten. Even when he suspected she might be the Other, he tried to keep an open mind until meeting her again.
* He resisted Lucrezia's mind-control when hospitalized in Mechanicsburg. Klaus sent his son Gil a cryptic message about his situation in order to have the empire be saved from the Other's clutches.
* Before razing Mechanicsburg, he had his troops evacuate the civilians beforehand.
* He (via "Klaus-in-Gil") resisted Lucrezia's temptations of power and refused to harm his son.

### Villainous Deeds

* He repeatedly tried to kill Agatha Heterodyne, who is innocent. No matter how many understandable reasons he has to believe she's the Other, she simply is not.
* His empire's rule is based on brute military force. Unruly nobles are more or less kept in place via threats (such as taking hostages aboard his airship, though the hostages are treated well).
* Sometimes he resorts to cruel and unusual punishments for prisoners, most notably "brain coring" (aka, lobotomy) on some Sparks. Granted he only does this very rarely, but he does mention that he enjoys these "rare moments of research".
* He punishes some criminals with penal labor in the form of fixing Castle Heterodyne - which is full of deadly traps, is almost impossible to fix, and the sentence ends when all repairs are complete. It's more or less an elaborate death sentence (however it's mostly reserved for more dangerous criminals).
* He killed Lars. Though it was an accident, he isn't shown to have any qualms with it, as he ordered his troops to kill Agatha's other companions shortly after.
* He tried to level the city of Mechanicsburg to the ground along with it's Castle.

#### Ambiguous Agency

* He inflicted brainwashing on Gilgamesh Wulfenbach during the Siege of Mechanicsburg. However, in the novelization *Agatha H. and the Siege of Mechanicsburg*, it's highly implied he was under the mind control of Lucrezia Mongfish during this and so it wasn't his choice.

### What Balances Them Out?

* His villainous qualities and role as an antagonist are pretty much never out of malice, but instead come from a place of misguidedness; and this misguidedness is all from a reasonable misunderstanding rather than some fault of his own.
* His rule is actually good for his people. He's rarely paranoid, with the case of Agatha Heterodyne being an exception and not the rule.

## External Links

* Baron Klaus Wulfenbach on the *Girl Genius* Wiki.
* Baron Klaus Wulfenbach on the Heroes Wiki.
* Baron Klaus Wulfenbach on the Villains Wiki.
* Baron Klaus Wulfenbach on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki.
* Baron Klaus Wulfenbach on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki.

## Footnotes

1. ↑ This is in reference to the making of "Klaus-in-Gil". However the official novelization *Agatha H. and the Siege of Mechanicsburg* depicts Lucrezia-in-Anevka as twisting Klaus' hand (most likely via the Slaver wasp) to carry out the brainwashing on Gil. So Klaus wasn't fully culpable, or at least not in the novel adaptation.