Abijah Fowler

"No one makes a better blade than your people... No one invents better ways to *kill* people, than *mine."* -Abijah Fowler

**Abijah Fowler** is a character in the Netflix series, *Blue Eye Samurai*, who is voiced by Kenneth Branagh. An Irish gun and opium smuggler and influential trader with a lust for violence, he leads a plot against the Shogunate with Heiiji Shindo and their co-conspirators, Lord Tokunobu Daiichi and the Shogun's advisor, Chiba. He is also possibly the biological father of Mizu. Fowler serves as the overall main antagonist of Season One.

## Biography

As a child, Fowler was orphaned during the Tudor conquest of Ireland, when the O'Neill Clan's supporters had their lands pillaged and burned by the English. He and his younger sister were forced to live off rats during the famine; Fowler kept her alive for two weeks by feeding her his own blood, but she ultimately perished. After her death, to stay alive, Fowler cut out and ate her kidneys before burying her; he bitterly refers to this as "the last thing I ever did, because I *had* to." Since that moment, Fowler is determined to control every aspect of his fate (and, by extension, the world around him) that he can, to ensure he is never reduced to such desperation again- no matter how much horror comes in the process.

It is implied he set himself up as a seafaring merchant to make his fortune, enabling him to set up influential contacts across the world; one of these eventually brought him to Japan around 1637, along with his partners Violet, Skeffington and Routley. Despite the Shogun's official policy to keep Japan completely closed to the outside world (except for an isolated Dutch trading post- Deijima- on a artificial island adjacent to Nagasaki, and a similar trading post reserved for the Chinese) Fowler and his partners were secretly allowed to stay, confined within secretly-built, lavish and fortified castles, as long as they continued to ferry valuable trade to the Japanese government. They are only allowed to venture to Edo to discuss business once a year (under great secrecy), during the Spring Matsuri Festival, and are not allowed to meet the Shogun himself, only his advisor. Fowler and his partners- all four of whom, it is implied, indulge heavily in prostitutes- were the only four Westerners present in Japan both before and at the time Mizu was born, though Skeffington and Routley since sailed back to England. This makes it certain that one of these four men, is her biological father.

## History/Synopsis

#### Episode 1

In "Hammerscale", Fowler is briefly glimpsed in his fortress on Tanabe Island (decorated with a curious mixture of Western and Japanese furniture and architecture), where he is co-hosted by his business partner (Heiji Shindo) and guarded by samurai of the Genken Clan. When Heiji's brother Lord Shindo warns him of the mysterious blue-eyed samurai seeking him, Fowler (eating a plum on a nearby sofa) boredly suggests Heiji hire the Four Fangs to hunt their unknown enemy down, saying, "Double their price, and be *done* with it."

#### Episode 2

In "An Unexpected Element", Fowler is working on an ink-painting of a man being eviscerated by a bull- using a severed bull's head and a *real* eviscerated corpse, as his models. When Heiji remarks that they still haven't received confirmation of the Four Fangs eliminating their target, Fowler scornfully replies that "you pay money for a job you don't want to think about, so you don't *have* to think about it; it's the whole *point* of money." Heiji counters that not everyone can be relied on, to which Fowler snaps that he's familiar with that premise.

Ignoring Heiji's promises of the sexual 'delights beyond imagination' he will be showered with on their yearly journey to Edo, Fowler impatiently claims his imagination has grown in his years of confinement, as the Spring *Matsuri* is the one time he is allowed to leave "this *fucking* island". Heiji reassures him their 'surprise' for the Shogun is almost ready, and that afterwards Fowler may go wherever and whenever he pleases. Finishing his painting, Fowler promptly destroys it, remarking that he's grown to hate all the Japanese fine arts he's spent years perfecting, as he only did so to wile away the long, empty days isolated on Tanabe Island. He ominously remarks that the Shogun only lets their illegal trade operate, so long as he can officially deny Fowler exists, but that he won't have that luxury much longer. Near the end of the episode, Fowler and Heiji stare out across the frozen bay, noting that no fire has been lit at the dock, indicating the unknown samurai isn't dead yet.

#### Episode 3

In "A Fixed Number of Paths" Fowler and Heiji are informed by a messenger that all of the Four Fangs are dead; Fowler reacts by fatally smashing open the messenger's face on the back of a chair, then slicing the dining table in half with a *katana.* Picking up a flower he perfectly cleft from its' vase, Fowler tells Heiji to solve the problem. When Heiji retorts "Is that an *order*?" Fowler rants that he's waited ten years for the moment when they will take control the Shogunate (examining a map of Edo's castle town and schematics of flintlock muskets as he does so) only for Heiji to divert his attention to some "malformed half-breed who's handy with a sword" (he assumes at this point that their enemy is specifically looking for Heiji). Knocking the cup from his partner's hand and leaning close, Fowler sarcastically labels Heiji with as many friend-and-equal titles as he can, before pinning the flower to the front of Heiji's kimono and urging him to "spare a cup of concern towards our purpose... and do it your fucking *self*."

At the end of the episode, Fowler enters the dining hall of his castle to find Heiji waiting, shaken and missing the lower half of his right arm. The merchant claims the unknown samurai hunting Fowler is no man but an unstoppable demon, with "eyes like *yours*" and that "he'll come, he'll stand right here, and he will open your throat." Unnerved, Fowler demands to know everything there is to know about this "demon". Heiji only knows 'his' name, Mizu, but claims they have someone who knows more: his thug Okiyama managed to capture the samurai they encountered with Mizu, Taigen.

#### Episode 4

In "Peculiarities", Fowler observes boredly as Heiji interrogates Taigen, even as it becomes clear Taigen is unwilling to tell them anything after being tortured; he comments that his boredom over *watching* other people being tortured, is why he hasn't come down to the dungeons in a decade. When Heiji rebuffs him, Fowler leaves, mockingly remarking that he won't be waiting for Heiji for supper.

Making his way past a small Christian chapel in the castle's passages, Fowler decides to enter. Idly observing a spider crawling over his hand, he begins conversing with the carved figure of Christ, remarking that he never requested the chapel to be built; the Japanese simply assumed "the white man required a chapel, and put it by the dungeon." Fowler makes it clear he has never had either faith or regard for God, and believes that if God *does* exist, he would likely be as indifferent to Fowler as Fowler is to him. However, he does see potential association with God as something that could benefit both him *and* Christ. Reasoning that God must have been displeased by the execution and exile of all Christians and converts in Japan by its' greedy 'heathen' leaders (after the Shogunate closed its' borders and forced most Westerners out) Fowler offers to strike a bargain with God: if his upcoming plot against the Shogunate should succeed, he will take it as a sign of God's favor, and preach and financially support Christian institutions throughout Japan as a demonstration of his new faith. Releasing the spider, he remarks as he leaves: "My *thanks*, if you see fit... it's no matter to *me*, either way. I've got no use for souls"

## Personality

Fowler is a powerful man who enjoys brutalizing others for his entertainment. His crass, direct personality and ever-growing appetite for women, wealth and extreme violence repulses even the ruthless men who secretly court his goods and services. While he acknowledges the merit of, and has grown proficient in, the fine arts of Japan, he treats them with contempt. Eternally impatient, he grows bored without something to dominate, whether through commerce, sex or conquest. Any time spent idle, to him is time wasted, and his mercurial temperment can go from amused calm to wild rage, and back again on a moment's notice; this most likely has not been helped by twenty years of near-total confinement within a dark, isolated fortress. Despite this contempt for non-white culture, he utilizes Japanese-taught combat skills and weapons on several occasions- though often combining them with his bulk and additional Western weaponry. He contributed to some parts of the gauntlet of torture traps and dangers lining the various levels of his castle.

His sexual sadism is demonstrated frequently in his language, comparing his oncoming conquest of the Shogunate to a woman waiting for him in bed, and when he is beating and bear-hugging Mizu to the point that he cracks her ribs, remarks that "your bones break like a woman's" indicating that he has done this to some of the prostitutes sent to him before. As the only women he ever sees in his isolation have been prostitutes Shindo brings to him, he admits his appetite and 'imagination' for cruelty have only grown over the years. He particularly enjoys inflicting pain *personally,* shown by his indifference during Taigen's torture by Heiji's man in contrast to his savage amusement when pummeling Taigen and Mizu with his own hands.

While boistrous, impatient and exceedingly arrogant (which has cost him on a number of occasions) Fowler is surprisingly shrewd and cunning, able to accurately anticipate most betrayals by his opponents or co-conspirators, and outmaneuver them accordingly (especially in how he smuggles illegal materials). This stems from his extensive study of Japanese culture to understand potential enemys' mindsets, combined with his longtime determination to be entirely self-sufficient, and a well-established paranoia, since as a white foreigner he is automatically mistrusted by all Japanese, even those willing to profit through association with him. However, he seems to make new enemies as often as he defeats previous ones, leaving him unable to truly ever relax. While he has extremely keen instincts- quickly and correctly guessing Mizu's motivation for hunting him, and later exactly what to say to make her spare him- his larger plans are not always well-thought out, and despite its' initial success his coup against the Ito Shogunate collapses in relatively short order.

Despite his hatred for the English over the colonization of his native Ireland and his general pride in his Irish roots, Fowler has alligned himself with the British Empire, seeing it as the easiest path to personal wealth, power and control. In this, he is similar to his cohort Heiji Shindo, who personally despises him but finds him vital for his own agenda. Fowler refers to himself as one of the British when speaking to the Japanese, and speaks admiringly of British technology, strategies and conquests. He justifies his intended conquest and Western colonization of Japan (which he acknowledges as beautiful, but outdated) simply based on social and technological Darwinism, despite having been on the receiving end of English colonialism himself.

Fowler has fathered many children with various Japanese prostitutes brought to service him over the years, but refers to them as "bastards" and "half-breeds", and has either ordered them and their mothers killed or done the job himself, showing that despite his childhood closeness to his sister, he has no qualms about murdering children now. When infiltrating his castle, Mizu sees their bones lining the entrance tunnel, something Fowler later brags to her about. He doesn't deny that Mizu might be his daughter, but claims (based on her height and eye color) that she was more likely fathered by one of his remaining fellow white traders, Skeffington and Rowley. However, given she has overpowered him and is holding a knife to his throat at the time, he may be saying whatever is needed to make her keep him alive.

Fowler appears to be afraid of fire. Despite usually being calm and collected in almost any situation, he grows visibly unnerved and flees from Mizu when she sets Edo Castle keep alight around them during their final duel, referring to her as "crazy" as he runs. This fear may stem from his earlier reference, to the Tudors burning the O'Neill lands where he lived as a child. He is equally unnerved (but also, in a twisted way, impressed) by Mizu herself, commenting that she inadvertently burned down the world's largest city (Edo) just to get her chance at vengeance against him, and wondering aloud if, based on her sheer ruthlessness, she might actually *be* his daughter.