"You have now been marked with the Brand of Sacrifice. The lives of those who bear the Brand, from the last drop of blood, to the last moment of your agonizing deaths, will feed life to the new Child of Darkness."
— Void to the Band of the Hawk, Chapter 79—"Feast"
Berserk takes place in a Crapsack World, and Guts, Casca, and their allies have faced all manner of villains. Even so, a select few manage to stand out.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Griffith/Femto
- Original manga: Griffith began life as a young man desiring his own kingdom. Willing to do anything to that end, Griffith displays a ruthless narcissism in how he utilizes his followers, stating he will decide the place of their deaths, sending Guts to commit multiple political assassinations and eliminating any rivals. After his fall from grace, Griffith succumbs to ultimate despair and summons the Godhand. In order to become the Fifth Angel of the Godhand, Femto, Griffith sacrifices the entire company, having his comrades butchered by demons during the Eclipse and damning their souls eternally as he feasts on their life force to emerge as a black-winged god of demons. With his newfound power, Griffith, as Femto, rapes Casca while forcing Guts to watch, her Brand of Sacrifice causing her so much pain from his action that she is driven comatose. Happily adopting a position among the Godhand to continue the sacrifices to demonkind, Femto displays no remorse for his deeds until he manipulates causality with his fellows to sacrifice every refugee at the city of Albion. Emerging as the supposed messiah of light as Griffith once again, he assembles a new Band of the Hawk to challenge the monstrous Ganishka and the Kushan empire, only to utilize Ganishka's death to initiate the Great Roar of the Astral World, fusing the material with the supernatural. This unleashes countless monsters into the world to slaughter and destroy at will while Griffith claims his kingdom Falconia, only to seek ever more to feed his insatiable ego. When given a chance to finally see Guts again and the memorial to the people he sacrificed, Griffith declares he feels no regret or remorse, stating his only loyalty is to himself and his dream and views any goodness as weakness that he is now free of.
- 1997 series: Griffith is the charismatic and ambitious leader of the Band of the Hawk whose beauty hides his utter depravity. Once a common boy looking at the castle, Griffith rose to lead the Band of the Hawk on countless campaigns, uncaring how many enemies he has to slay or allies to lose to attain glory. He rises as a hero in a war between Midland and Tudor while setting his sights on marrying Princess Charlotte to attain the throne of Midland. When the King's envious younger brother tries to kill him, Griffith has Guts kill the man and shows no emotion upon learning his scheming got the man's young son killed. When the Queen and a group of nobles try to poison him, Griffith has the daughter of the scheming Minister Foss kidnapped to force her father to assist him in burning other conspirators alive. When Griffith learns that Guts plans to leave the Band of the Hawk, Griffith tries to kill him in a duel before forcing himself on Charlotte to regain the feeling of control. Captured and tortured for a year, when what is left of the Band of the Hawk, Griffith tries to strangle Guts and force himself on the second-in-command Casca. Griffith eventually summons the Godhand and sacrifices all his companions to be eaten by demons and their souls condemned to eternal agony. Reborn as Femto and becoming a new member of the Godhand, Griffith spitefully rapes Casca while the helpless Guts is unable to do anything but watch.
- The Golden Age Arc trilogy: Griffith is a power-hungry warrior whose physical beauty masks a monstrous inner self. Believing himself destined to reign over a land of his own, Griffith leads his Band of the Hawk in countless bloody, successful campaigns to serve his ambitions, and goes so far as to dispatch Guts as an assassin against political rivals, uncaring when a child is caught up in the crossfire. After forcefully seducing Princess Charlotte in a failed attempt to marry into power, Griffith is subjected to crippling torture by her horrified father; Griffith's only real concern is that he can no longer exert power and respect on those around him, and so when the opportunity arises, Griffith eagerly allies with the Godhand. To complete his ascension to their monstrous ranks, Griffith condemns his entire Band to horrific deaths that damn their souls, while he personally rapes and tortures the most loyal Casca and forces her lover Guts to watch and be mutilated, out of nothing but spite at them for having independence from Griffith's control. Griffith openly proclaims he feels nothing for his supposed friends and the fates he bestows upon them, valuing his own godhood above all else.
- 2016 series: Griffith, the Hawk of Light, was once the ambitious leader of the mercenary Band of the Hawk, obsessed with gaining a kingdom, and was Guts's best friend. Griffith sacrificed the whole Band of the Hawk to the demonic Godhand to join their ranks, with the only survivors being Guts and his lover Casca, whom Griffith has raped to the point of insanity. Griffith and the rest of the Godhand manipulate a long-suffering man into becoming their servant and sacrificing the entire city of St. Albion so Griffith can be reborn on a material plane and usher in the Age of Darkness. The newly revived Griffith presents himself as a messiah to the invaded kingdom of Midland, gathering an army of humans and demonic Apostles to lead them to war against the Kushan Empire while sending his Apostle minions to kill the kindly witch Flora. When Griffith confronts Guts at the resting place of their fallen comrades, Griffith makes it clear that they mean nothing to him.
Canon works
- Original manga:
- The Godhand are the ultimate pinnacle of evil in Midland:
- Void is the eldest of the Godhand and first among equals, having ascended over a thousand years ago via a great and terrible sacrifice. Forever hated by Guts's aloof ally the Skull Knight, Void has spent centuries sewing discord across Midland through his Apostle minions and presumably lulled the other members of the Godhand to commit their own mass sacrifices to join him as gods amongst the demons. The chief representative of the eldritch Idea of Evil, Void acts out its will upon the world and is also responsible for producing the Brand of Sacrifice, which transforms humans into Apostles and marks their chosen sacrifices to be killed and taken to hell as victims of Demonkind.
- Ubik is perhaps the most talkative of the Godhand and the member of the group who acts as The Corrupter. Ubik is most responsible for convincing others to forsake humanity, using their lowest points against them and guiding them through their lives. Selectively revealing and editing the truth, Ubik breaks every single Apostle before convincing them to embrace their monstrosity as a demon, whether he is attempting to convince the Apostle Count to sacrifice his young daughter Theresia or persuade Griffith to join the Godhand and discard the Band of the Falcon.
- Slan is the only female member of the Godhand and the one most concerned with dark carnality. Finding arousal in agony and rape, Slan is worshiped by heretic cults and the "Goddess of the Flame" groups. Influencing Apostles and men alike to be the worst they can, Slan promotes twisted orgies marked by mass cannibalism and blood sacrifice and corrupts a forest to become Qliphoth, a twisted, deadly place home to demons she may manifest in. With her attachment to Guts for his capacity for violence, Slan attempts to molest him upon her manifestation and even offers him the chance to become an Apostle himself, using the promise of allowing him to kill Griffith should he sacrifice his companions to her.
- Conrad, the most silent and seldom-seen of the Godhand, is no less vile than his companions. Of all of them, Conrad's influence extends the most to the material plane, and his manifestations bear with them plague-carrying rats that ravage Midland in addition to his normal duties as a demon god. Conrad ensures the spread of the plague to drive refugees across to the city of Albion for the mass sacrifice and the manifestation of Femto into the material plane, with Conrad and the other Godhand watching with interest.
- Golden Age Arc: Wyald is one of the first Apostles encountered and one of the nastiest pieces of work that Guts and company meet before the Eclipse goes down. A depraved hedonist, he works for the King of Midland and leads a band of mercenaries made up of the worst murderers, rapists and all around scum that Midland has to offer—and even they are terrified of him. His motto is "Enjoyment and Excitement!", which translates to raping and murdering dozens, including children. He demonstrates an utter disregard for his men's lives, frequently triggering traps and getting them killed, solely so that he can laugh at their deaths. Taking his true, massive, monstrous form, Wyald states his abhorrent intent to brutally rape Casca to death.
- Falcon of the Millennium Empire Arc: Emperor Ganishka of the Kushan Empire became insanely paranoid when his mother tried to poison him for his younger brother to become the heir, prompting him to kill them both. Waging many wars in a quest to reign supreme over the world, Ganishka's paranoia made his own son so terrified that he tried to kill his own father out of fear he would see his son as a threat. Accepting the Godhand's offer and letting his son be devoured, Ganishka used his power to become the most feared tyrant across the world, invading Midland and massacring thousands of innocent people, decorating the entire city with their corpses and body parts, feeding helpless women to his crocodile monsters and having his General Daiba create "Man-Made Beherit", the womb-like construction made out of hundreds of Apostles, who are kept alive and in a state of constant suffering, while he has his men throw hundreds of thousands of pregnant women there, where their unborn children are filled with an evil essence that turn them into feral demons, who then tear apart the bodies of their mothers. Upon being easily defeated by Griffith, Ganishka turned himself into Shiva, gruesomely killing thousands of his own men and unleashing his monsters to devour everyone they see, endangering the whole world with his power.
- The Godhand are the ultimate pinnacle of evil in Midland:
- The Flame Dragon Knight: General Abecassis of Tudor is the man in charge of Tudor's horrific loyalty programs. After having led the attack on Grant which sees innocents tortured, raped, and killed, Abecassis murders a little boy just to prove a point to the prisoners, along with subjecting them to horrible conditions and training. Over 100 children die thanks to Abecassis, with girls who cannot handle the conditions raped, tortured, and killed. When Grunbeld defies Abecassis, the general has his friend Sigur raped and tortured in his stead. As years pass, Abecassis decides to arrange a new attack on Grant to have it invaded and ravaged by Tudor.
Adaptations & Other Works
- 2016 series: Slan is the only female member of the Godhand and specialises in carnal evil. While working with the rest of the Godhand to reincarnate Griffith, she creates a twisted orgy cult that promotes rape and mass cannibalism. Slan corrupts a forest into Qliphoth, a dark and depraved place from which monsters who slaughter villages and take women as sex slaves are created. Intrigued by Guts and his potential for violence, Slan manifests in front of him before molesting him and attempting to make him give in to his worst impulses.
- The Prototype: Vlad Tepes is a monstrous tyrant who, during a war with a neighboring country, was ruthless enough to capture and impale 500 prisoners on stakes and leave their corpses to rot on the borders as a gruesome warning. After the war, Vlad decided to satiate his bloodlust on his own people by taking young girls as maidservants, only to slaughter them mercilessly. When Guts infiltrates Vlad's castle in order to rescue Fricka, Vlad is revealed to be a grotesque, gluttonous Apostle who offered his humanity in exchange for inhuman powers, and then attempts to kill both Guts and Fricka, bragging about how a "mere human" is no match for him.
