Henry IV and Big Question

I think this question could relate to Hal at the beginning of the play pretty well. It could be one of the reasons he chooses to spend his youth among Falstaff and the pub crawlers. He knows they are evil people and he must one day become king and break all ties with them; he says, "I know you all, and will awhile uphold/ the unyoked humor of your idleness./ Yet herein I will imitate the sun,/ Who doth permit the base contagious clouds/ To smother up his beauty from the world,/ That, when he please again to be himself,/ Being wanted, he may be more wondered at/ By breaking through the foul and ugly mists/Of vapors that did seem to strangle him" (Act I, scene 2, lines 202-210). Hal’s motivation for spending time with these wrongdoers is that once he does decide to be the “good son”, he will look all the more splendid when he triumphantly returns to his father. Perhaps he became tired of the boring life he lived in the royal court and wanted to spend some time having fun. It could have been solely to make his father appreciate him: a struggle for attention. Either way, Hal does seem to enjoy himself with Falstaff and crew.