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My mother has killed me, My father is eating me,
My brothers and sisters sit under the table, picking up my bones,
they will bury them, under the cold marble stones.
✗ APPEARANCE
Hansel and Gretel are an identical pair of twins, meaning they look virtually the same- except not exactly. They are distinctive due to being of different genders, but essentially look like opposite-sex versions of each other, which, in a way, they are. Both have white hair, pale skin, and large violet eyes that may be gray depending on the exact shot. They are small children, probably about nine years old in appearance. And I have a theory that they are a few years older than that for certain reasons, but that's just wild mass guessing and fanon. They dress in dark, gothic clothing- Gretel's dress is in the style Gothic Lolita, but their clothes have some resemblance to traditional Eastern European clothes, hinting at their Romanian origin. The twin who adapts the "Gretel" personality wears a long-haired wig, and both twins actually have the same short hair that is Hansel's hairstyle, making it easy for them to switch.
✗ BACKGROUND
In 1966 in Romania, a certain dictator - Nicolae Ceauşescu - banned abortion. Born during his regime were a pair of twins to one of the many families who were too poor to raise their children and were abandoned in a state-run orphanage, but after the government was overthrown the orphanages shut down, and those two twins were sold to the black market to become playthings for various pedophiles and perverts where rape, torture, and abuse was a part of their daily routine. They were forced to participate in child pornography and snuff films, used as toys. To quote the female twin, "Gretel", while she describes it; "When we were taken from Sicily all we saw was blood and darkness. They would beat us and kick us so hard that some nights we couldn't stop peeing blood." The pornographers also forced them to kill and beat other children for entertainment, and they desperately learned to kill and to murder night after night, to ensure their survival. This brutal upbringing utterly destroyed their minds, to the point where they could not comprehend the very idea of surviving without having to kill others, and gradually accepted it and learned to enjoy it, mending them into the people they are now.
These twins are known only as "Hansel" and "Gretel", the names that were most probably their screen names during the snuff films. They became professional assassins, probably garnered a small reputation, and the two were brought into the fictional city of Roanapur because they hired to kill Balalaika, the leader of Hotel Moscow- a branch of the Russian Mafia. They more or less terrorized Roanapur, killing dozens and dozens of people- two of whom were Balalaika's men and among them, the very Italian mob boss and his subordinates that hired them in the first place. The entire city went on a hunt after them, with a high price on their heads. They were eventually killed by Balalaika herself as revenge, who lured Hansel and had him shot in a sunny park in Roanapur, while Gretel escaped and boarded the Black Lagoon, a boat of a delivery company. There she met Rock, the main character of the series, and took a liking to him, due him being the first person who was so kind to her. However, just as she disembarked the Black Lagoon, she was shot by the getaway man who was bribed by Hotel Moscow.
✗ PERSONALITY
On first impression, Hansel and Gretel are a pair of friendly neighborhood little children. Not many have known them for a long period of time, and have gotten anywhere beyond that. They are cute, sweet, and cheerful, and act perfectly nice and polite to others, like any good pair of little children should be. They can still be creepy, however, and are known to have been compared to the twins from The Shining, even when acting as normal children. This somewhat unsettling aura they have hints at their true colors, so to speak.
Underneath their harmless appearance, Hansel and Gretel are mentally unstable, extremely sadistic, bloodthirsty, demented, cold-blooded and murderous. A true product of their upbringing, they take delight in killing, torture, and all forms of bloody violence. They kill continuously, for several reasons- because they want to, because they enjoy it, and will happily slaughter everyone in their sight in various ways, or even drag off a survivor for later torture, just for their own amusement. Another reason that they kill is because their upbringing caused them to be unable to comprehend the idea of surviving without having to kill, and believe that the world operates on it. Or, to quote Gretel: "The world keeps turning because people keep being killed, so that must be why we're here. People kill, get killed, and kill again. This is the thread that ties everyone together." They see killing as a way to prolong their lives, and because they killed probably thousands and thousands of people in their life, they are utterly and entirely convinced that they are immortal.
Essentially, Hansel and Gretel, while deeply mentally disturbed and psychotic, are still children. Their speech and manners are both very childlike, referring to killing and torturing people as 'playing' with them (“Hey there, mister. Would you like to play with us? Come on, mister. Let’s play." right before Hansel uses his axe to wound the person spoken to) and frequently giggle as they casually and cheerfully slaughter dozens of people. They are the masters of the Dissonant Serenity trope, and never, ever lose their calm, and are self-controlled to the point that they’re impossible to faze. The two stay cheerful and serene while talking of horrible, violent things (in addition to that, while they are being yelled at or threatened by adults or when they are fighting, shooting, torturing, killing or wounding people). For example, in one scene, after Hansel and Gretel finished torturing a man they killed and dragged back with them by driving nails into his head, they tell to the men who came to check on them (while the men stare at the corpse in horror and throw up), "It's fun, you should try it! Every time you hammer a nail into his head, he twitches, just like a fish!", in a very amused tone of voice, like a little child talking about something entirely harmlessly funny. Hansel and Gretel also have a very calm and casual conversation about their worldview and what a horrible, deeply unpleasant and violent place the world is in their eyes, and why they are allowed to keep killing. Then Hansel says offhandedly, "Come on, let's keep on killing."
Another example of their childish behavior would be when Gretel is also shown pouting and sighing "No fair..." when she finds out that she has to stay inside while boarding the Black Lagoon and can't go outside her cabin due to rules. They are a bit naive at times, and their mind function almost like one of a child's- one very intelligent child. They frequently tell people that they're funny whenever they say or suggest something that goes against their logic or worldview, as they seem to believe that theirs is the obvious and that naturally, everyone must share it- Gretel, when asked why she and Hansel continue killing, laughs loudly as she says, "Why? Why, you're asking! That's so funny!", and they almost never outright criticize anyone's opinions or statements, and are instead easily amused by them, in particular, by anything said that they can't comprehend due to their own view on the world.
They share an extremely close relationship, heavily implied to be incestuous. They use the pronoun ‘we’ nearly all the time, even when only one of them is speaking, finish each other’s sentences and say parts of them for each other, functioning and speaking like one person. It is clear that they always close and tight together, except for some very, very rare cases, something that only happened in the series once and ended with them dying. Along with that, "Hansel" and "Gretel" are actually fake personalities adopted by them. They have a Dissociative Identity Disorder and switch their identities, and with it, clothes, weapons, and voices, essentially becoming each other when they switch. ("Here you go, Brother. You be Sister now.") The fact that their personalities are essentially identical contributes to the ease that they switch at. It is unknown if they are actually male and female or really of the same gender. When switched, Hansel and Gretel will act male and female, respectively, regardless of what their true gender is. They also switch personalities at other moments at ease. Example: when Rock, talking to Gretel, asks her if she is sad her brother died because of how she claims that the world works, Gretel suddenly takes off her wig (they both actually have the same hairstyle, to make the switching easier, I presume) and speaks in Hansel's voice, changing to her “Hansel” personality, and "he" tells Rock that they're always together, or, depending on the exact translation, that "he" is "right here, always with Sister".
It is unknown if the same can be said for Hansel, but as a result of her and Hansel’s upbringing as an underage porn star, Gretel also appears to have no qualms at all about using sex as a weapon and offering herself to people she likes, as demonstrated by two scenes: in the first, she gropes and feels up a woman twice to convince the woman to get information out of her, which she seemed to enjoy, and when she, after a conversation with Rock (whom she takes a liking to due to him being unusually kind) takes off her tights and lifts up her skirts, exposing her genitals and telling Rock it is her ‘gift’ to him out of gratitude for his kindness, much to Rock's disgust. In this situation, Gretel, so touched by Rock’s kindness towards her - she even blushed when he hugged her!- tried to repay him, and did so the only way she knew to- by offering him sex. To say that Hansel and Gretel are corrupt would be putting it nicely. They are heavily implied, though not directly confirmed but very probable, to have developed fetishes for violence- the same as the adults that abused them and forced them to kill other children for entertainment, affected by them. (Gretel:"...When we had to beat another child repeatedly with a a bat. The adults were all laughing. Eventually, Brother and I were laughing.", Hansel sounding almost aroused when saying, "Everyone is going to come and kill us... Sister, I can't wait." as well as it being outright stated that Hansel and Gretel in the series eventually learned to enjoy the adult's abuse.)
In a world filled with heavily armed, mentally unstable, hyper-violent, dirty-mouthed, heartless sociopaths, Hansel and Gretel stand out strongly as the most sadistic and closest thing to outright evil characters, yet at the same time most pitiful, and considering what kind of series Black Lagoon is, that’s saying something. They also, unlike pretty much all the villainous characters (which is the type of character the series is mostly composed of), are entirely oblivious to just how horrible the things they commit are, because in their view of the world, it’s perfectly fine and natural. Their love for blood and the macabre has earned them the nickname of “The Vampire Twins”.
✗ SKILLS & ABILITIES
Hansel and Gretel are skilled in battle and have sharp instincts. Gretel carries a pretty big gun- a Browning Automatic Rifle that weighs in at about 20 pounds - and fires it from the hip, and Hansel carries two battle axes under his coat with he easily carries around and throws, so they must be pretty strong. They also can switch their voices in an utterly flawless fashion, if that counts? But it has more to do with their disorder and crossdressing/role-and-identity-switching. They’re also pretty cunning, sneaky and intelligent, and can use their innocent, wholesome appearance to deceive people.
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"We're not going to die. Because... we killed so many people...many, many, many, many people... it means that we get to live on for that much longer... we will increase our lives so we're never going to die...that's right, we are eternal."
Someday I want to run away
To the world of midnight
Where the darkness fills the air
Where it's icy cold
Where nobody has a name
Where living is not a game
There, I'll hide my broken heart
Dying to survive
There, no one can see me cry
tears of my lonely soul
I'll find peace of mind
In the dark and cold world of midnight