Norman Husbando

Norman is one of the deuteragonists of The Promised Neverland alongside Ray. Norman is a math prodigy and a model student at Grace Field House Plant 3, with intelligence that surpasses his peers and even adults. He is also known for being a genius strategist and planner, as well as unbeatable at the game of tag. Being the smartest orphan living in Grace Field House Plant 3, Norman is considered as one of the House's three "Premium quality goods" next to Emma and Ray. When he discovers the truth about the orphanage with Emma, he teams up with her and Ray to devise a plan to escape. Norman is, however, forced to be shipped before his 12th birthday, and he sacrifices himself and accepts his fate of inevitable death to let his family escape. In reality, Norman was transferred to an experimentation plantation called Λ7214. In February 2047, he managed to escape and destroy Λ7214 along with his new-found comrades. Witnessing the true horrors of the farm system, Norman hoped to completely annihilate all demons and create a sanctuary for all humans in the Demon World. Norman is a young boy with short, tidy white hair (platinum blonde in the start of the manga) that's worn parted to his left, a prominently longer piece curving upwards on the side of his head, resembling a horn of sorts, and narrow, inward-tilting blue eyes. The most distinctive physical trait of Norman is his thick eyebrows. He wore the standard Grace Field uniform- a plain white long sleeved button-up shirt and white pants along with brown boots. His Grace Field House identification number "22194" is tattooed across the left side of his neck. During his stay at Lambda 7214, Norman was made to wear a plain white long sleeved button-up shirt with ruffles on the chest underneath a white v-neck sweater vest and white pants along with black shoes. He also had the plantation's identifier tattooed onto the left side of his chest, with bruises surrounding the identifier. In the year 2047, now at the age of thirteen, Norman has grown to be the tallest among the trio. Standing at a height of around 170 cm, Norman towers over Emma and is slightly taller than Ray. Norman's hair has become slightly longer and noticeably messier. His current physical appearance mirrors that of the deceased William Minerva. Whenever Norman is outside of the Paradise Hideout, he wears a short hooded cape with lacy ends that has three vertically aligned diamond-shaped patterns on the back which he most likely acquired from Smee. When he is at the hideout, Norman dons a plain white long sleeved button-up dress shirt and a light blue waistcoat with a light blue tie, light blue pants and black dress shoes. Norman is a calm, level-headed, kind, and gentle boy who presents himself to have figured things out because he wants to appear as a reliable person to people around him. At the same time, Norman is a complex individual due to his conflicting morality. Like the rest of his siblings, he enjoys playing games such as tag and hide-and-seek. After being exposed to the truth behind the orphanage, Norman is revealed to be similar to Ray, as in being a realist and wanting to take a limited group of people along in the escape. However, he deems himself as being selfish due to worrying about his own life, as opposed to Emma who selflessly worries about others first before herself. Norman's love for Emma inspires him to follow her idealistic ideals, and as so he becomes determined to escape with all of his siblings despite it seeming impossible. To achieve this, Norman has shown to be manipulative, ruthless and extremely rational, having no issues agreeing to the plan to kill Krone and Isabella that Ray came up with in order to escape. Norman is the most intelligent child at Grace Field House Plant 3, consistently getting perfect scores during their daily exams. He likes to apply what he learns to his day-to-day activities, even in a simple game of tag. He is known to be strategic, analytical, rational, and possesses logical deductive skills. He is a planner who can see the entire situation and plan for it ahead of time. Additionally, Norman is very determined and doesn't let other budge him when he has firmly put his mind into a certain decision. He has a strong sense of self-confidence which stems from assuming everything will work out in his favor in the end if he plays his gambles right. He always relies on himself to come up with the answers, and even Norman himself states that he always managed to accomplish what he set out to do. However, he puts intense pressure on himself to achieve their goals, and he also harbors a crushing perfectionism where he is not allowed to lose or make mistakes. When he does make mistakes and suffers, he only blames himself and imagines that a perfect scenario exists out there, and if he only had envisioned and executed that plan, he would not be suffering. Being an extremely caring individual who is fiercely loyal and protective of his family and friend, he has a tendency to hide his true feelings of worry, fear, and hurt projecting instead of a calm and collected exterior to calm down and give emotional support to the people around him. For example, Norman assumes it’s logical that he should use himself, and be the only one hurting, rather than place any of that weight on his family. Additionally, after Norman’s shipping date, is announced, his first priority is to comfort Emma, even though he was the one whose life was on the line. But when faced with his impending death, he realizes how badly he still wants to live. An overall strong-willed character, he tends to disregard his own humanity and worth as a person if it means keeping everyone else safe and for the greater good. Due to being completely isolated and jailed within Lambda 7214— far away from Emma, Ray, and his family— as well as being treated as an experiment who was drugged and could at any time be shipped-off and die, Norman's psyche was heavily damaged. He grew increasingly afraid of the demons and the unknown human world. As a defense mechanism, Norman forced himself to forget that he was a child and continually told himself he needed to be strong. In addition, he eventually took upon the mantle of "William Minerva", and presented himself as a strong leader whom everyone could rely and depend on. However, this often caused him to neglect himself to the point of misery, but he deems this as a necessary step to find happiness for everyone, including himself. After running the Paradise Hideout for some time, Norman has turned into a shadow of his eleven-year-old self, and his bright and cheerful demeanor is replaced with a more serious one, as his usual smile is diminished into a frown. Although he has good intentions behind his actions, he has become very isolated and prefers to work alone without consulting anyone. Norman also developed the mentality that although kindness is valuable, it will never be able to bring victory into the world. As Barbara, Cislo and Vincent describes, they view the current Norman as a "serious", "emperor" and "winter" person, and the fact that they have never seen him smile before genuinely surprised them when they discovered how warm and cheerful Norman was during his reunion with Emma and the others. After witnessing the true horrors of the demons and the human farming, Norman became fully convinced that the only way to stop the demons is to kill them all, even adding that Emma's plan for a new promise that involves no bloodshed is too optimistic and naïve. He even admits to himself that he'd gladly become both a God or a Devil if it meant he could keep his family and friends safe. This is demonstrated further when he hears that Mujika is alive; he immediately suggests to kill her rather than ally with her; and he kills Ayshe's adoptive demon father despite their loving family life. This shows that he has abandoned all hopes and opportunities for peace between the humans and demons. However, Norman soon comes to acknowledge that he had been acting the way he did because he was scared. He chose the reliable path and only relied on himself because he was scared of making mistakes, which could potentially lead to the deaths of the people he cares. When Emma and Ray accept Norman for the person he is and reassures him that he is not alone anymore, and will walk alongside him facing the painful and scary things, he accepts their support. As he shows vulnerability and vows to never bear his burdens alone, he reverts back to his former self; Norman decides to do what he himself wants to do, not what others expect him to do. He allows himself to embrace friendship and discard solitude, and to show his desire to live on. Norman also realizes the pain he had inflicted on several people and feels guilty, but vows to atone for his mistakes.