Line #20 Fridge/Hellsing


1	[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]
2	* The [[PunnyName NAME]] of the damn series. The words 'Hellsing' and "[[Film/VanHelsing Helsing]]" sound quite similar, no? Appropriate for a series about vampires, vampire hunting, and vampire vampire hunters.
3	* Everyone who's heard the theme from the first ''Hellsing'' anime series, "World Without Logos," basically knows that the lyrics make no fricking sense, right? I took this for granted until I realized what the title meant: "Logos," as described by Aristotle, means "reasoned discourse." Well, the song actually is a good indication of a world without reasoned discourse. ~Eriyu
4	** Even better via Shine: Logos means also "word". And what does God use at the start of the Bible to make the world...?
5	* When Maxwell and his Crusaders are [[spoiler: slaughtering the innocent citizens of London]], he keeps referring to them as Protestant heathens who deserve to die terrible deaths. However, London is a very diverse city and has a significant minority of Catholics, with the exact number hovering around 10% for all of England. This means that tens of thousands of those killed in the London attacks weren't Protestant but ''Catholic'', which may also explain some of Anderson's anger and the Vatican's orders not to attack anyone except the Nazis.
6	* In the “Hellsing” world, it seems history repeats itself. Though Alucard is the only character taken straight from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” others seem to fill roles of characters from Stoker’s novel.
7	** Integra, of course, fills the role of Professor Van Helsing; a religious, sophisticated, educated, and badass leader.
8	** Seras Victoria, a young vampire yet to drink blood, is bound to obey her “master.” She is in the exact same situation that Renfield was, when Dracula/Alucard had him -- except of course that Seras is not insane.
9	*** In other ways, Seras resembles Lucy Westenra -- a young blonde who is sexualized and yet virginal, and who is turned by Dracula/Alucard, in contrast to "Sir Integra" as a genuinely "New Woman" version of Mina.
10	** Rugged Pip Bernadotte, with his cowboy hat, is not unlike Quincey Morris (both being the "outsiders" in a sense; Quincy was the only non-European (he was American) while Pip is implied to have French blood by the name.) He even sacrifices his life to save a woman he loves.
11	* Why did the Major reward Rip by not killing her, and then punish Zorin by not killing her? Because, [[spoiler:the Major knew that Alucard would devour Rip Van Winkle -- the reward, as it were, was to live inside of Alucard as one of his most powerful familiars (her magic bullet ability is incredibly useful for someone like Alucard). She would thus effectively live forever through Alucard. But Zorin... the Major knew that Seras would not drink her blood, would not take her soul within herself. When Zorin died, it would be a final death. A punishment befitting someone who failed, to have her blood rejected by Seras entirely so that she would not live on through Seras.]]
12	** [[spoiler: Zorin's chip activates and burns her in the Ultimate OVA after Seras mutilates her face.]]
13	* Walter states that there is only 1 SR-71 Blackbird in the world. In reality, there were 32 build (of which 20 survive, with 12 lost due to poor maintenance and pilot error). At first, this seems to be an inaccuracy. However, fridge brilliance kicks in because there is only one ''British'' Sr-71 Blackbird- [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blackbird_Sr71.jpg the one given to the Imperial War Museum]].
14	** The manga does not mention only one existing. This seems to be only in the OVA.
15	* How could the Valentines invade the mansion so easily? They had inside info given to them by... [[spoiler: Walter.]]
16	* Just a quick one but Seras being a virgin seems awfully convenient since it means Alucard could turn her. Until Zorin starts [[MindRape mind raping]] her. Then it's revealed that she [[spoiler: saw both her parents killed, got shot in the stomach, then had to watch as one of the thugs raped her mother's corpse.]] Hardly surprising that she was still a virgin despite being 19.
17	** In a similar vein, Sir Integra Hellsing herself is also stated to be a virgin, despite being even older than Seras. Given her position it's not too much of a stretch to imagine this as an excellent safeguard against becoming a mindless ghoul. Should she ever fall at the hands of a vampire she will either be killed outright or turned into a vampire and still mostly retain her state of mind, like Seras when she was turned.
18	* Alucard gains the memories of those he feeds on, so why doesn't him eating Luke Valentine blow Millennium's cover? Because it was his hound Baskerville that ate Luke, and familiars are considered "separate entities" to the vampire proper. Hence why Luke didn't emerge as a familiar in the London battle, instead being released when Baskerville died.
19	* Recall Jan shouting the KonamiCode during his rampage through Integra's mansion: "'''''Up up! Down down! Left right left right! B'''''ringing the motherfuckin' death by Konami! '''''A'''''hhhh~, I'm so fuckin' hard right now~..." He forgot the last part of the code: "Start". It's little wonder he died by the end of the episode.
20	* The Jackal's length and caliber as stated in the OVA nearly match those of the Mark XIX Desert Eagle, .50cal, 10-inch barrel, except that Jackal weighs a lot more (likely to control the gun's infamous recoil) and holds one less bullet. This means Alucard is killing Nazi vampires with an Israeli HandCannon.
21	* Seras refusing to drink blood, no matter how her superiors order or reason with her, makes sense after examining her past: [[spoiler: She witnessed her parents' murders, said murderers shot her in the stomach, she and her family lay in pools of their own blood, and she could only watch helplessly as one of them raped her mother's corpse]]. At first, it seems to explain her convenient VirginPower enabling her FirstEpisodeResurrection. However, given that vampirism symbolizes death and sex, her past also explains her hesitation to drink blood. She's not ready to fully embrace vampirism since it would mean fully embracing death ("It feels like something will have ended forever"), or take in blood because [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything it feels like taking in something else]]. (LecherousLicking with Integra, anyone? Pip's [[DoubleEntendre "Suck my blood, take me into yourself"]], anyone?) Both of which she spent years trying to overcome the trauma attached to it. She only gives in after [[spoiler: the man she loves offers]], and even then doesn't drink from anyone else that we know of for the whole series, leading to an almost IfItsYouItsOkay SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment\|s}}.
22	* First TV series ends with Alucard absorbing great amounts of blood from corpses in an AreaOfEffect fashion, resurrecting and winning. Near the end of manga we see the same exact move, only to find out that the blood has been poisoned, effectively destroying him.
23	* Alucard's insistence on only humans being able to destroy monsters, while he himself is [[HunterOfHisOwnKind slaughtering them en masse]], seems a bit far fetched, but then, he doesn't actually kill them, he absorbs them.
24	** Furthermore, he does see himself as like an attack dog and is seen by most as a secret "weapon", only to be wielded by those strong enough who could, a worthy human being.
25	** Alternatively, Alucard wants someone to prove him wrong for turning into a vampire. Up until he faced Professor Hellsing, he was completely undefeated as a vampire. In his mind, humans are the only ones strong enough to truly defeat him.
26	** It goes even deeper than that. His full reasoning is that if someone turns into a monster in order to kill another, the world now has an ''even stronger'' monster. And it's ''specially'' true when he (or any other true vampire, for that matter) is doing the monster-killing, as he absorbs his opponent's powers unto himself, and becomes even more powerful. Even when he kills weak monsters, the danger to the world at large only increases.
27	* The Flying Geese's [[spoiler: battle with the Nazi vampires invading the manor takes on more meaning when one remembers a part of the Major's speech. On the part of him referring to how his "old warriors" were equal to a thousand modern soldiers, yet they were annihilated by modern tactics by these mercernaries. It just adds another layer on how ''wrong'' the Major was in his so-called war.]]
28	** Really, the battle just showcases a prominent and improtant theme of the show: The past vs the present. [[spoiler: Despite the high-end tech of the Nazis with artificial vampires, powerful airships and the [[HumanoidAbomination quantum theory embodiment Schrodinger]], they heavily represent the past. They're the remnants of a defeated army who glorify the past; this is much like the Nazis in RealLife as they were ''embellished'' in Teutonic imagery, there were attempts at resurrecting some bastardized form of the Norse pagan religion, looked down on modern art and overall mythologized the German hertiage. This contrasts with the progressive and modern Hellsing; being led by a (heavily implied to be a mixed-race) woman and their new secret weapon being a woman as well, along with the superiority of modern tactics & weaponry the Flying Geese had on the Nazi vampires. In the end, most of the "old warriors" are dead and even Integra references the fate of the Hellsing Organization becoming a state-based program and the end of family organizations. Even the immortal Alucard became who he was due to the efforts of Arthur Hellsing turning their greatest threat into their secret weapon through occult sciences and by the end of ther series, traded in the colossal army of souls he had from past centuries (and from everyone in London) in exchange for the, bluntly speaking, soft science fiction-inspired, quantum mechanics-based immortality thanks to having the soul of Warrant Officer Schrodinger. Yes, he is no longer a OneManArmy, but he is now even more immortal than previously and furthermore,''timeless,'' not to mention his preference for firearms, despite being a capable swordsman. Ultimately, the show presents a positive tone on modernization, progress and moving forward rather than sticking to the past while Millennium's grand ambitions have failed for good. In fact, despite the Major's attempt at it being an endless war, the entire debacle was presented as a modern terroist attack, the Zepplin Incident and delgating them to the dustbin of history. ]]
29	* Jan [[DieLaughing Dies Laughing]] instead of [[VillainousBreakdown flipping out]] like [[InelegantBlubbering most other deaths]] in the series. Why is this? Because he didn't have to meet [[CreepyAwesome Alucard.]]
30	* The Major is said repeatedly to be insane and the intent was to clearly show him to be a lunitic beyond the pale. While it's most obvious in his actions and the death and horror caused by the battle of London, if you look at his actions on a subtle level, you can really see that he's crazy and delusional. He claims that Alucard is a monster and he is human yet his actions parallel Alucard's. He controls an undead army much like Alucard's familiars. He claims that he and his men were looking for a meaningful death in battle but he did, in fact, lose and was mortally wounded in World War II until the Doc turned him into a cyborg. While he refused to surrender his individuality by drinking blood, he still became something other than human to escape his fate. He claimed that it was his will to go on and continue was what made him human but in reality he was simply seeking an end to his life he found appropriate showing he lacked the will to live and find something to keep living for which is an essential trait of being human. The Major delusionally believed everything he was saying while acting in ways that were opposite to his words.
31	* One easy to miss detail about the Millenium - the way their shock troops' uniform is designed, they are not just the expies of ''some'' Waffen SS division, but of the notorious Dirlewanger Brigade, infamous for being considered the scum of the Earth even by the majority of other Nazis. Millenium's artificial vampires wear distinct cloth masks that in reality were used by Dirlewanger death squad members to avoid being recognized (as their RapePillageAndBurn atrocities somehow exceeded even the "normal" level of war crime tolerance in the Reich, which is to say a lot, and that's not to mention their history of losing against anyone remotely knowing how to fight). Hirano certainly did his homework on historically accurate weapons and uniforms, so this is likely no coincidence. Millenium's RagtagBunchOfMisfits cast of villains further evokes this comparison (as Dirlewanger penal troopers were recruited from all sorts of criminals, from poachers to rapists to even political prisoners), and Major himself doesn't even try to hide he's not there for any of the 'civilized' Nazi ideals - he starts on that, but is quickly carried away with his boner for mass murder. It's no coincidence either that the Millenium's attack on London is heavily disturbing when we see the vampires butchering civilian populace and lightly-armed police (to the point people unfamiliar with Hellsing commented on Youtube this scene reminds them of real life Nazi atrocities like the Khatyn massacre), but then they fail spectacularly against almost EVERY other foe - they are able to overcome the Wild Geese only with Zorin's help, they lose firefights to the Iscariots and the Crusaders (who are normal humans), and they don't stand a slightest chance against Anderson, Seras or Alucard despite supposedly having some vampiric strength. Hellsing does a surprisingly good job at carrying the message that imitating some of the most vile war criminals also has the drawback of being just as pathetically inefficient in real combat.
32	** Curiously, the zeppelin crew members (who are apparently normal humans) are portrayed in a slightly more sympathetic light - they are not shown to enjoy senseless violence, and openly oppose both Zorin's and Major's most crazy orders (not like that does them any good).
33	* In the same vein, there is a notable difference between the Iscariot assassins and the Crusaders. The Iscariots are modestly dressed Catholic priests (and one nun), whose ScaryShinyGlasses and BadassLongcoats are not something we don't see on good guys or reasonably mild antagonists. The Crusaders, on the other hand, take the cake with combining KnightTemplar armor and TheKlan hoods (yes, these are actually capirotes worn by Catholic priests in southern Europe, but the visual image is seemingly tainted forever by a certain American organization) - and they also ride Vietnam War era helicopter gunships, adding another layer of scary symbolism. And then we see the Crusaders being good mostly at shooting civilians (and, giving them that, fighting back the Millenium to some degree). When Alucard enters the fray, they are wiped out effortlessly. Contrasting that, Iscariot agents hold very well against Alucard's undead army, and in previous scenes they are shown to avoid needless murder and act professionally. The moral of the story? Same as above, for the most part.
34	* A GeniusBonus for anyone who's read the original ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'', Alucard's return to London on a ghost ship is very reminiscent of how Dracula originally arrived in England, with him being trapped on a ship at sea by the captain of the ship's dedication to preventing him from being able to arrive after the Count drove all his crewmen to insanity and killed them, with Hellsing's mirror of the captain being Rip Van Winkle.
35	* Alucard being Vlad the Impaler and the literal Dracula brings some intresting dynamics with his enemies:
36	** Vlad III would likely be considered slavic by the nazi race hierarchy, and original book's Dracula had an association with gypsies, both ethnic groups persecuted by the Nazis. [[ThoseWackyNazis And what Millenium is again ?]]
37	** Vlad spent most of his life as an Orthodox christian, adding another layer to Alucard's rivalry with Anderson.
38	[[AC:FridgeHorror]]
39	* At the beginning, a vampire infects an entire village and turns its inhabitants into ghouls. However, when a virgin is bitten and drained of blood, he or she will become another vampire instead of a ghoul. The village of course had its share of children, yet Alucard met only one vampire, the originator, during his purge. Meaning that the vampire either a) murdered the children without feeding on them, b) raped the children and then fed on them[[spoiler:, or as it is revealed c) Millennium is directly responsible for this ''test'' run of their artificial vampires whose victims they feed on, whether they were virgins or not, became ghouls. Just HOW MANY test runs they did before the organization attacks Hellsing is unknown, but for {{Muggles}} living there THAT'S FridgeHorror.]]
40	** This sort of FridgeHorror might be part of the reason why the first TV series dumped the idea of vampires only being able to turn opposite-sex virgins, instead making it a matter of "normal vampire vs. scientifically engineered vampire".
41	* When Alucard [[spoiler: vacuums the blood from all the bodies in London's ruins to restore the army of lives that act as "batteries" for him, both to restore himself and as a sort of middle finger to Walter,]] think about what that means. Many of the lives he now has in his possession are [[NightmareFuel the innocent people of London who were first painfully and horrifically murdered and now their very souls are stored inside a monster]] A [[AntiHero somewhat]] well-intentioned monster, but [[HorrifyingHero still a monster]].
42	** [[spoiler: And to add to that, less than half of the killed have their very souls sucked inside a "disappeared to limbo/who-knows-where" Alucard who then spends the next 30 years slaughtering the 3 million+ souls he managed to absorb (probably a relief for them afterwards but the experience was most likely horrible). So yeah, normal citizen, suddenly airships, bombs and terrible deaths, turned to ghouls, then soul siphoned into an abomination and then stuck inside him while he's in limbo where he then hunts you all down and "murders" you again over three decades. Does the after-life have trauma sessions for souls before entering Heaven?]]
43	* Seras is so cute and funny! It's adorable how embarrassed she gets when TallDarkAndHandsome Alucard asks if she's a virgin, how screaming angry and flustered she gets from the lecherous Pip Bernadotte and Wild Geese's "Sexual Harassment," how she... Wait a minute, Zorin opened up her memories and revealed that [[spoiler: her mother's corpse was raped after she was killed right in front of Seras on the night her entire family was slaughtered]]! No wonder she's so uncomfortable about it! ... Come to think of it, wasn't Seras ALSO [[AttemptedRape nearly raped]] by a vampire in the first episode/chapter? ... OMG! I'm so sorry Seras! I'll never laugh at your trauma triggers again!
44	** And there's the oft-glossed-over part where she was being groped by ghouls prior to going into a blood-rage in an early OVA...
45	** And there's also the part when Zorin Blitz maims Seras. She cuts out her eyes, stabs through her, and cuts off her arm which goes flying and later Zorin's army of vampire Nazi's show up who are huge cannibals. So the fate of Seras's arm is probably that it either rotted to the bone or one of the vampire Nazi's ate it. Not a pretty picture.
46	* One of Hellsing's themes - and Alucard's beliefs - is that there's a difference between those who threw away their humanity and part of themselves in order to turn into monsters and gain power and immortality (Alucard); and those who instead "earned" their immortality and managed to keep their own self and personality, despite technically turning into supernatural creatures (Seras). Why is this listed as Fridge '''Horror'''? [[spoiler:The Major is a cyborg, but claims that he still possesses his own will. If that's true, then not only it means that he was ''exactly'' this evil back when he was human; not only it means that [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans really are capable of this much evil]]; it means that the Major really did "earn" his own immortality]].
47	* Alucard wants nothing more than to die at the hands of a worthy human. [[spoiler: By absorbing Schrodinger's soul, he's become nigh-invincible and may be all but impossible to kill now.]]
48	** Although there might be a LogicalWeakness: [[spoiler: Schrodinger's powers rely on self-awareness - if he thinks he should still be alive, he ''will'' be still alive even after getting shot in the head. However, this can also work in reverse: if Alucard believes that a human rightfully "defeated" him, and that he should be dead as a result of said defeat, Alucard ''will'' die]].

Context Fridge / Hellsing