As much as I love this saga, the title is just ridiculous. ‘Falcon of the Millennium Empire.’ It’s an amazing title, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. So, from henceforth, we’re gonna abbreviate it to FotME.
Because that’s such a dramatic improvement…
Today, we’re covering the following FotME chapters:
- Fierce Kushan Attack
- War Cry of the Wind 1 – 2
- Of Snow and Flame, First & Final Act
With their only safe haven being destroyed, Guts, Casca, and Puck leave Rickert and Erica behind to begin their long journey towards Elfhelm. Marching through the snow, Guts reflects on that day so many years ago when he left the Hawks behind. Back then, it had been he who had deserted Griffith. Now, the shoe is on the other foot. Painful as this is for him, it only further steels the Black Swordsman’s resolve to protect Casca. It’s a deeply tragic and beautiful scene.
Hope you liked it, because we’re not gonna see Guts, Casca, or Puck again any time soon.
Like I said in the last one: Conviction was the first arc where Berserk began to grow from one man’s story to a full-blown fantasy epic. It got the ball rolling. Now FotME is gonna take that ball, stick it into a cannon, and launch it straight into orbit!
Shet, Western Midland. The Kushan army lays siege to the people of Midland. It’s absolutely brutal. Men are lined up against walls and riddled with arrows, thrown into a pit and burned alive, and the women are stripped and locked in chains for family friendly reasons. Yet awful as all of this is, one of the girls in line doesn’t seem too concerned. She just looks up at the sky, claiming that the Hawk of Light is coming.
Eh, I’m sure that’s nothing. Look! Silat and the Bakiraka are here! And they’re not exactly popular among the other Kushans. Although they are far and away the most badass force there, as we see when they absolutely demolish a Midlander ambush with their bare hands, the others treat them like slaves.
Oh hey, look! It’s Griffith!
Oh god, fuck, it’s Griffith!
This is one of the coldest entrances I’ve ever seen. Griffith literally appears out of nowhere, trots up to the Kushan general, and stabs him in the face! Everyone is too stunned to move! When they do finally strike, their attacks are completely ineffective, without one arrow even coming close to the Hawk of Light.
Then Zodd shows up and the carnage really gets started. I love how the Immortal is framed in this sequence. He’s like a blend of Guts back in the Golden Age and the Guts of today, only he’s far more savage than either one ever was. Griffith’s new Raider’s Captain makes quite the entrance, even by Zodd’s already high standards.
He’s not the only one. This section also introduces us to a whole plethora of new Apostles. Locus, the seemingly polite and noble knight, Raksas, a creepy exile of the Bakiraka, and a yet unnamed massive dragon knight. Each one has an incredible and unique design, and their personalities are immediately distinctive and interesting. To top it all off: they’re just plain cool!
If you can ignore that all three have sacrificed someone they love to demons.
Oh, and remember that one girl who foresaw Griffith’s coming? She chews out of her ropes and goes to join him. See, she’s got some weird supernatural stuff going on, but we’ll cover that when later. But her reaction to Griffith is discomfortingly reminiscent of how Casca reacted to him back in her flashback back in the Golden Age.
Motherfucker is so evil he even replaced the woman he sexually assaulted. Miura truly made the most loathsome villain in fictional history.
The Kushans and the Bakiraka try to rid us of this evil, but the Hawk of Light and his new Apostles drive them off fairly easily. By which I mean brutally. We’re already well aware of how dangerous the average Apostle is thanks to Guts’ years hunting them; he nearly died, like, eight times per arc before he could kill even one. But seeing them march through an entire army without breaking a sweat serves as a grim reminder of just how overwhelming the odds against our protagonists truly is.
Speaking of protagonists: a new face watches all of this go down through the eyes of a bird. A little witch girl resting against a tree, accompanied by an elf. Unlike the rest of Midland, this girl, Schierke, knows that Griffith is not the Hawk of Light, but of Darkness. In short: things are about to get very, very bad.
God, I wish I could start ranting about Schierke. But we’ve still got a few chapters to go before she becomes a major player. Apologies, my favorite witch, but you must wait. Just a bit longer.
For now, we need to catch up with two of our dear friends from Conviction: Farnese and Serpico. Still searching for Guts, the two have taken shelter from the snow in a ruined old home. They get to talking about home, and how Farnese no longer feels she has a place there.
Here, we get a flashback revealing Serpico’s backstory. Growing up poor, he had a difficult childhood in the Holy City, dealing with bullies and caring for his sick, dying mother. Once, she was a maid for a powerful lord, and Serpico is said lord’s bastard son. Now, she’s just an old, withering, dying woman.
Right away, I want to talk about the most chilling detail of this flashback: the background. Or more specifically, the lack thereof. The Holy City and the Vandimion mansion are drawn almost entirely in black silhouettes, giving us only dark voids or the general shapes. It gives the flashback a surreal, dream-like quality, while also giving an interesting insight into how Serpico viewed these places. For a noble mansion and a supposedly ‘holy’ city, he saw very little life and hope in any of it.
All except for Farnese. Whenever his thoughts turn to her, the background becomes much brighter and more detailed. It feels more vivid and warm, a clever visual indicator for how Serpico holds her in his memory.
Speaking of…
One day, after being beaten by bullies and left to die in the snow, Serpico was picked up and saved by a young aristocrat: Farnese. Though ‘saved’ might be a stretch. She basically just makes him her new pet. But at least Serpico now had a paying job, food, and clothes, so that’s a plus.
Farnese, little pyromaniac that she was, was about as kind a master as you might expect. Despite the blatant and often brutal abuse, Serpico put up with the little tyrant. In fact, he grew to empathize with her. Just as he felt alone with his sick mother, so too does she feel alone with her neglectful father.
One night, a powerful storm rocks the Vandimion estate. Terrified, Farnese tries to command Serpico to get rid of it. When he failed to fulfill her impossible request, she ran outside in a fit of madness, taking a large stick and smashing marble busts with it. In an effort to overcome her fear of the storm, Farnese tried to become a storm.
As we learned in Farnese’s flashback, the girl was obsessed with fire. But through Serpico’s eyes, we learn just how far that went. If something rejected her, made her unhappy, or disappointed her in any way, she would burn it. Even something as precious as her old bunny doll, a gift from her father she held very dear; the moment her father tells her to throw it out, she tries to object, but in the end, she burns it just like everything else.
Oh, and remember that noble lord who banged Serpico’s mom when she was a maid? Turns out, that lord was none other than Lord Vandimion, Farnese’s father. Which makes Serpico her half-brother. A fact that both father and son agreed to keep secret from Farnese.
Time passed. Serpico and Farnese grew up together. Soon, he became just about the only person she could stand, though she still abused him in progressively more brutal and sexual ways. Even Serpico realizes that his half-sister’s feelings may be growing out of hand.
Being a woman grown in a powerful household, Farnese’s father tells her it’s time to find a husband. Farnese, being Farnese, doesn’t want to do that. So she lured Serpico into the woods, stripped naked, and tried to seduce him. Thankfully, Serpico is not your average anime brother, so he declined her advances.
In response, she did the only natural thing to do and set the mansion on fire.
But at least she gave up on pursuing Serpico, so… that’s one positive.
Finally reaching the end of his rope, her father sent her and Serpico off to the church. We know the rest. They became the leaders of the Holy Iron Chain Knights, Farnese got off to burning more people at the stake, and Serpico tried not to think about the fact that all the people they arrested were just poor folks who could not pay the church’s tithe.
Until one dark, terrible day, when it was not a stranger, but his own mother tied to the cross. The poor lady was so old and sick that her wits had utterly evaporated. Worse, if the church officials deemed Serpico a heretic as well, he’d be quick to burn with her.
This is one of the only times in the whole series we see Serpico well and truly distressed. He’d grown to hate his mother for so many reasons. Yet she was still his family, and the poor woman was out of her mind. He stood before her, frozen, normally slanted eyes wide with horror.
Then Farnese pressed the torch into his hands. Despite everything, although he rejected her, she still cares for her servant like a brother, even though she doesn’t know that he is. Holding him, the two burned the old woman together. It’s grim and horrific, a scene straight out of a nightmare. But the two shoulder through it together.
And together, they carry on their search for the Black Swordsman.
When I first read this flashback, it instantly made Serpico one of my favorite Berserk characters. His relationship with Farnese is so dark and twisted, yet their affection for one another feels genuine. It’s incredibly powerful and interesting.
Speaking of messed up but loving relationships: let’s get back to Guts and Casca.
Next time. I think we’ve all had our fill of heavy shit for the day. And if not… just go read the manga. It’s Berserk, dude, you’ll get plenty of that just about every page.
As we will soon see…
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