We've all known so many guys like Hank that we think we know him too. The golden boy, the class president, the fellow voted Most Likely to Succeed. To be sure, though, there are a lot of blanks that never get filled in.

For example, we know exactly nothing about Hank's life before the Realm. The rest of the group get to drop little tidbits of information, but not Hank. It's all got to be inferred from the little that he says and does that refers to himself.

We know that we can't refer back to the persona of Hank's voice, Willie Aames. Like Don Most, Aames has had a career in television, usually doing second banana roles. Eight is Enough was the calling-card that got him this role, but he can also be seen opposite Scott Baio in Charles in Charge, and in a variety of adolescent sex movies. Since then, he's left Hollywood to do religious videos. Still, as of 1998, Hank is probably the best role he's ever had, and, while it didn't require the kind of comic timing he‘s so good at, he brought the role to life.

Hank seems to have become leader of the group by consensus. Probably the oldest, the character projects authority, self-discipline, fun without overstepping the bounds. In a word, he seems mature.

"Seems" is the operative word, though. Hank makes a few mistakes that reveal a bit of who's behind the blonde hair and good looks:

--He plays along with Venger, and pays for it, in "Traitor". Believing Bobby to be helpless, he lets compassion override his good sense.

--He almost lets his fear of failure get to him in the Tower of the Celestial Knights. He's afraid that the bottom will drop out from under him, which we can take as a symbol that he worries that the consensus that made him leader can be taken away, or that he somehow didn't earn the others' respect in the first place.

--He makes the mistake of trusting Eric not to open the Box of Balefire in "Dungeon at the Heart of Dawn". In fact, Eric asks, Hank blows him off, and Eric proceeds to set some dire wheels in motion. Is Hank guilty of giving Eric too much credit, or of just not wanting to be bothered with every little detail?

--Worst of all, Hank loses it in "The Dragons' Graveyard" and decides, against all of DungeonMaster's teaching and warnings, that the only way out of the Realm will be to kill Venger.

Look at Hank's eyebrows when he makes the decision early in the episode; you can see his eyebrows get twice as wide. I call this "samurai eyebrows" and it's a bit of Japanese animation body-language meant to reinforce the viewer's perception of the character's firm resolve and determination. It's the wrong decision, and even he knows it, but he feels he has to put the welfare of the others above his own moral compass.

Hank's longbow is the most obvious weapon of the group. Although unstrung, it can fire bursts of pure energy as directed by the intent of the archer. Hank gets pretty creative with the longbow: the best example is in "The Box". When the gang is attacked by giant wasps, he launches bolts that clip the wasps' wings. So his problem-solving abilities do not always involve the most obvious uses of power.

Of the indications that he and Sheila have feelings for each other, Sheila is the demonstrative one of the two. Studying Hank would yield fewer clues. Even when Hank disappears in "Winds of Darkness", we know more about it from Sheila than from Hank.

The exception may be Rahmoud, in "City at the Edge of Midnight". Hank seems to relish being considered this man's son. This tells us exactly nothing about Hank's homelife, since the others feel the same way, but it's one of his more demonstrative shows of affection for a resident of the Realm.

The main aspect of Hank's character, if he could be said to have a single main aspect, is that he leads but does not order or command. He makes decisions the others can trust, and for the most part they work out. He doesn't bully or cajole; he doesn't have to. That he can pull this off in such a disorienting environment as the Realm speaks highly of him. Sometimes it seems hard enough to make decisions in this world; it's much harder to make decisions while battling dragons and Orcs.