Hansel

Hansel is a major supporting character in North Park. He is a homeless kid who is not enrolled as a student at North Park Elementary, but attends classes illegally.

## Hansel

### Aliases

The homeless kid
Hansie (by Gretel)
Rat boy (by Ashley)

### Relatives

Rats
Gretel (sister)

## Background

Not much is known about Hansel's origins, only that he has been a homeless kid living in North Park his whole life. He can often be found hanging out in the back alleys hanging out in trash where he lives. He can sometimes be seen attending classes at North Park, although is not enrolled and just sneaks in to get an education, and more importantly lunch from the cafeteria.

## Appearance

Hansel is a young boy with brown spikey hair, blue eyes and pale skin. He is frequently seen wearing a tattered green coat and bucket hat, as well as a dark blue scarf. He is often accompanied by the presence of rats who seem to gravitate towards him. His teeth are worn and sharped over years of opening metal cans with just his teeth.

## Personality

Hansel often comes across as strange and erratic to people, who are often put off by his dishevelled appearance. Hansel is often in a state of trying to find food for him to eat throughout the day, as he lacks a family that would usually provide for him. This leads to him having an obsession with food to the point he will frequently try to steal it, or agree to do things for people in exchange for food. His lack of family and natural disconnect from most other children his age leads to him coming across as particularly naïve when it comes to socialisation. He may not understand certain concepts that come naturally to others, or misinterpret what people are trying to communicate to him. Despite not being the brightest socially, he is certainly not naïve when it comes to practical skills, surprising people with his ability to seemingly steal or break into or out of anything. Hansel himself initially takes a positive attitude when it comes to forming new relationships with people, lacking meaningful relationships growing up means he can easily become attached to someone if he thinks they are friends. Because of this he shows genuine interest in helping others out, hoping that being nice to others will allow him to become more accepted and appreciated. One of Hansel's favorite activities to do with his friends is sleepovers, mostly because it means he gets to sleep in a warm house for a night, and actually be given cooked meals without having to steal it.

## Family

#### Rats

Hansel never knew his real family, growing up alone on the streets. The closest thing to a family he ended up forming was the many rats who live in North Park. Hansel is shown to be able to communicate with the rats, who seem to have accepted him as one of their kind. They will often assist Hansel with various tasks, and help funnel him information that helps him survive on his own. Wherever Hansel goes, the rats are sure to soon follow.

#### Gretel

Hansel has a sister he did not originally know exists named Gretel. Her existence, including her appearance and personality was a mystery. After a discovery about an actual living family member, he sets on a journey across the globe to find his sister with 8 other friends. Hansel convinced her to come back to North Park after defeating the witch that kept her sister in for so long. Gretel now lives in homelessness with Hansel, who has to work twice as hard to provide for the girl who has no experience living on the streets.

Hansel cares very deeply for Gretel, and likely considers her to be the most important person in his life at the moment. He can however find her to be a lot to handle, struggling to control her emotional and violent outbursts, and having to take more responsibility in helping her adapt to her new life. He dislikes how Gretel tries to separate him from his other friendships out of jealousy, which causes occasional conflict in their relationship. Hansel himself is lacking in many social skills, struggling to understand societal conventions and how to fit in with the world, and these problems are just as bad if not worse for Gretel whose life up until this point has been sculpted into being a weapon. Hansel does his best to give her advice and guide her in her new life but is coming from a place of largely social ignorance himself, resulting in further complications.

## Relationships

#### Chaz

Hansel is often seen as a nuisance by Chaz, who like most finds his homelessness to be unappealing. However Chaz has shown that he is generally willing to spend time with Hansel, especially when he believes he can exploit Hansel's naivety and desire for food to get him to do things for him, mostly taking advantage of Hansel's uncanny abilities to sneak into places and steal things.

#### Cindy

Cindy is one of the people who is on genuinely good mutual terms with Hansel. She can relate to him also being partially raised by animals, with her being raised by her father who is a bear, and Hansel by rats. They both have an innate "feral" side making Hansel one of the people who Cindy feels can sympathise with her when she has those moments. Hansel got to know Cindy's feral side first hand when she was suffering from sleep walking, but during her sleep walking episodes she would act purely bear like. She ended up encountering Hansel one night in a back alley and tried taking his food from him, which lead to a scuffle. Hansel after learning about her sleepwalking, and bear hybrid nature became understanding and holds no grudge against her. This strengthened their friendship, and their mutual trust with each other.

#### Mute

Mute became trusting of Hansel after learning about him and Cindy's friendship. Hansel once assisted Mute get to Cindy's house after she was trapped in an alley during a sudden unexpected rain storm. Mute sees Hansel as a source of amusement, taking interest in his ability to turn random trash into musical instruments, and make rats dance. After his assistance during the rain storm she considers him someone she can trust. However she still does not talk to him much, mostly because Hansel can still understand what she means most of the time, after learning how to communicate with rats who also do not speak English.

#### Asimov

Hansel and Asimov became good friends after Asimov, being a robot never needs to eat the lunch he receives, regularly started giving his lunch to Hansel to eat. Hansel doesn't know why he is so generous, but greatly appreciates it and believes Asimov to be someone he can trust and rely on.

#### Ramón

Hansel and Ramón's relationship is a complicated one, after Hansel built up a reputation as someone who would regularly steal wieners from Ramón's stand. Ramón being a savvy businessman does not approve of his products being stolen, however does take some pity on Hansel being a homeless kid. They have a very "Cat and mouse" relationship with Hansel often trying to take food while Ramón tries to stop him, but won't ever push charges when Hansel does manage to escape with some food.

#### Teeny Steeve

Teeny Steeve is good friends with Hansel, and has taught him many secrets of the walls. Hansel seems to regard Steeve as he would any other friend, not realising that Steeve is considered very different from the rest of the residents of North Park. Hansel understands how to deal with him and not incur his wrath, and will often play a small tune for Steeve when they spend time together, which Steeve appreciates and will often reward with blessings or secrets.

#### Timothy Dull

Hansel is one of Dull's good friends, as Dull often lets him stay over at his house for sleepovers. Hansel does not seem to mind that Dull often smells like dead animals, and Dull is happy to have someone stay over who could maybe help ward off the insane people running around in the woods. Hansel seems to understand Dull at a base level, as he does with his rat companions and therefore has little trouble communicating with him, as other kids might struggle with.

#### Lisa Stanky

Hansel somewhat has a rivalry with Lisa, although it is largely one sided on the side of Lisa. Hansel being disconnected from the internet and having seemingly no past attached to him makes him practically immune to any of Lisa's online influence as a hacker and troll, meaning he can't be pushed around or blackmailed by her. This means that to Lisa, Hansel is a threat. Hansel doesn't grasp the idea of her Skankhunt69 persona, and thinks that whenever people call her that they are being mean. Hansel has been used by the other kids to foil her attempts at hacking and blackmailing others, although Hansel doesn't go out of his way to do so unless he is offered something in return, like lots of food or offering of a sleepover. Hansel has had to work with Lisa when they were both recruited by Nancy to solve a mystery together. Hansel has no idea how Lisa's hacking and skills with technology work, but came to appreciate Lisa's technological skills and thinks she is cool for understanding it all. He does however not understand why she stays in her room all day, while Hansel enjoys being able to move from place to place when he needs to and enjoys the outdoors. Hansel would love to be able to take Lisa out to see the world together to see if she would like it if she tried, but Lisa has never taken him up on that offer and finds him to be annoying for insisting it. Hansel is also one of the few people who don't mind Lisa's unkempt nature, reasoning that he also lives in garbage and compared to some of the things he has lived in, Lisa smells rather nice, which freaks her out.

#### Chef Sheffield

Hansel has a deep level of respect and admiration for Sheffield, idolising his ability to cook and serve food. Sheffield himself does not see Hansel as anything other than other student, however an incident with Melville revealing that Hansel was not actually enrolled lead to Sheffield not being allowed to serve Hansel food for a few weeks until he forgot about the incident, which made Hansel miserable if it were not for Asimov continuing to offer Hansel his lunch.

#### Ashley

Hansel cares a lot for Ashley, as he appreciates her taking on the role of sister for him when he was without one. Ashley's personality can sometimes be a lot to handle for Hansel, but he does his best to make her happy, even stealing things she wants for her. Ashley joins Hansel on a quest to find his long lost biological sister, Gretel, which Ashley initially mistakes as them going to play some kind of hide and seek game where they'd try to find her. After being reunited with his sister, Ashley feels sad feeling that Hansel will no longer consider her to be his sister, although Hansel ends up reassuring her that even though Gretel is his sister, he still considers Ashley to be one as well.

## Powers and abilities

Hansel has shown to have a variety of skills and abilities he likely gained from his life on the streets.

#### Rat communication

Hansel can communicate back and forth with rats.

#### Thief skills

Hansel possesses various skills as a thief. He has an uncanny ability to break into or out of any place or object, as well as taking things without being noticed.

#### Agility

Hansel has been shown to possess above average agility. Being skilled at climbing and parkour around North Park, as well as enough speed to regularly escape capture from people he steals from, as well as the North Park police. He has shown to be able to dodge the police's attempts at shooting him with firearms, a possible combination of his own speed, agility and small size.

#### Sharpened teeth

Hansel's teeth have been sharped over time from having to open various food containers, including metal cans. With most metal cans being made out of steel in the US, it can be inferred that Hansel possesses the jaw strength to puncture and rend steel.

The bite force required to break steel is at around 40,000psi, which puts Hansel's jaw strength at just under 11 times stronger than the saltwater crocodile at 3,700psi, which is the strongest currently known bite force in the animal kingdom, in turn making Hansel the animal with the strongest bite force.

#### Musical ability

Hansel has been shown to be a skilled player of the PVC pipe, and other trash based instruments. He can use his ability to play music to summon and control rats and other small creatures like the pied piper. Whether he can use this ability to control other kids like the piper from the story is currently unknown.

#### Mystical familiarity

Hansel has a level of familiarity with magical creatures, especially Teeny Steeve.

## Trivia

Hansel has pathed out most of the North Park underground sewer system, and set up camp in many different locations, usually temporarily. "The Rat Nest" is his largest and longest standing home to date, and still remains undiscovered.

## Gallery

Hansel's "room".origin of the first Demon Hansel.Demon Hansel.Hansel's design for the fantasy game.Hansel's design for the horror game.Hansel's design for the space game.Hansel shrouded in mystery.mmmmmm burgerHansel's "swimwear".Hansel in the background enjoying a snack.Future adult Hansel design.Hansel superhero costume design V1.Hansel wondering how he got himself in this situation.uh oh.Rosalind drew a picture of Hansel.Hansel as a kindergartener.AU where Hansel and Cindy grew up together as adoptive siblings.Concept art for Hansel's wall dimension counterpart.Genderbent HanselHansel superhero costume designs.Hansel as a teenager.Hansel's Ninja outfit and weapons.Hansel's Ninja anime version.Hansel's pirate costume and flag.