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Comic Books
RIP AND TEAR YOUR GUTS! YOU ARE HUUUUUGE! THAT MEANS YOU HAVE HUGE GUTS! RIP AND TEAR!
— Doomguy while under the influence of a Berserk Pack, Doom
The Red Ring on my fist chose me. It made me part of a team. We seek out injustice and we punch it in the teeth. And it feels good.
— Supergirl, Red Daughter of Krypton, Supergirl #30
Fan Works
"You have to find a way to make him mad. When he gets mad, he won't even try to hold it in."
"Shinji is on his bed, hands under his head, looking at the ceiling. He is thinking about... about how fierce Asuka was in her last battle. He can picture the rage on Asuka's face, as if she was possessed by some demon."
— The Child of Love, Chapter 4
<TearyoureyesoutandEATTHEM,> sent Satan Girl, not even conscious of her speech. <RipyouapartandseveryourINTESTINES.>
The way Emma's fighting style can currently be described here is simply unrestrained violence. She's fighting without limitations and without human dignity and considerations in mind. In reality, people don't jump right away to gouging out other people's eyeballs or ripping off bodyparts with their teeth. They can get to that point, but people hesitate before diving into that. It's a similar reason as to why it's easier — mentally — to kill someone with a gun as opposed to stabbing them to death with a knife or choking them.
— Quicken
Literature
"As his axe split a charging enemy from shoulder to hip, Grom Hellscream felt the joy and rage swirling within him, dulling his mind, charging his senses, threatening to sweep him away on a tide of raw exultation. He wanted to surrender himself, to give in to the song of combat, to lose himself in the thrill of death and destruction and victory."
His men rushed forwards without armour, were as mad as dogs or wolves, bit their shields, and were strong as bears or wild oxen, and killed people at a blow, but neither fire nor iron told upon them. This was called going berserk.
I'll ask of the berserks, you tasters of blood,
Those intrepid heroes, how are they treated,
Those who wade out into battle?
Wolf-skinned they are called. In battle
They bear bloody shields.
Red with blood are their spears when they come to fight.
They form a closed group.
The prince in his wisdom puts trust in such men
Who hack through enemy shields.
Those intrepid heroes, how are they treated,
Those who wade out into battle?
Wolf-skinned they are called. In battle
They bear bloody shields.
Red with blood are their spears when they come to fight.
They form a closed group.
The prince in his wisdom puts trust in such men
Who hack through enemy shields.
— Hrafnsmál
"He cleared the ship, helmless and shieldless and hewing about him with both hands..."
— The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
Bodvar Bjarki ploughed into them now, hacking two handed, his only thought to do as much damage as he could before he fell. And now they fall in heaps before him, one on top of another, and both his arms are bloodied to the shoulder, and he felled so many, the dead were stacked all about him. He stormed on as if he was insane.
"That happens sometimes. I snap in battle and forget things."
— Kirito, Sword Art Online
Some negative qualities can reach a pitch of perfection that changes their very nature, and Mr. Tulip had turned anger into an art.
It was not anger at anything. It was just pure, platonic anger from somewhere in the reptilian depths of the soul, a fountain of never-ending red-hot grudge; Mr. Tulip lived his life on that thin line most people occupy just before they haul off and hit someone repeatedly with a wrench. For Mr. Tulip, anger was the ground state of being. Pin had occasionally wondered what had happened to the man to make him as angry as that, but to Tulip the past was another country with very, very well guarded borders. Sometimes Mr. Pin heard him screaming at night.
It was not anger at anything. It was just pure, platonic anger from somewhere in the reptilian depths of the soul, a fountain of never-ending red-hot grudge; Mr. Tulip lived his life on that thin line most people occupy just before they haul off and hit someone repeatedly with a wrench. For Mr. Tulip, anger was the ground state of being. Pin had occasionally wondered what had happened to the man to make him as angry as that, but to Tulip the past was another country with very, very well guarded borders. Sometimes Mr. Pin heard him screaming at night.
The Blackshields did not attack in a line, but came in a howling mass. This was the Irish way of war, a terrifying assault of maddened men who came to the slaughter like lovers.
— The Warlord Chronicles describing an entire army of berserkers.
"Khorne!" they roared, invoking the sacred battle-name of Kharnath, the Blood God, Lord of Battles. "Khorne!" they howled until it seemed the walls must fall from the violence of their voices alone. "Khorne!" they shrieked as the gnashed their teeth and bit their shields.
— Wulfrik, Chapter 17
Music
Wake up I'm a bullet loosed
Into the heart of a wretched age
I breathe just to beat and bruise
the evolution of a burning rage
Gonna get mine, get outta my way
There's gonna be (gonna be)
Gonna be Hell to pay!
Berserk I'm a brutal fist
Yeah a lone wolf born and bred
I stand on the bones of titans
And my wrath is burning lead!
Gonna get mine, get outta my way
There's gonna be (gonna be)
Gonna be Hell to pay!
Click-click, boom-boom
Keep rushing and running, running
The drumming of the buckshot pumping
Got molten metal in my veins
Click-click, boom-boom
Keep rushing and running, running
A reckoning of lead is coming
I'm kicking in the gates of Hell again!
Bringer of Pain!
Into the heart of a wretched age
I breathe just to beat and bruise
the evolution of a burning rage
Gonna get mine, get outta my way
There's gonna be (gonna be)
Gonna be Hell to pay!
Berserk I'm a brutal fist
Yeah a lone wolf born and bred
I stand on the bones of titans
And my wrath is burning lead!
Gonna get mine, get outta my way
There's gonna be (gonna be)
Gonna be Hell to pay!
Click-click, boom-boom
Keep rushing and running, running
The drumming of the buckshot pumping
Got molten metal in my veins
Click-click, boom-boom
Keep rushing and running, running
A reckoning of lead is coming
I'm kicking in the gates of Hell again!
Bringer of Pain!
"If you see me comin', better step aside
A lotta men didn't, a lotta men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don't a-get you
Then the left one will"
A lotta men didn't, a lotta men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don't a-get you
Then the left one will"
— Tennessee Ernie Ford, "Sixteen Tons"
Don't call my name in battle—it's not wise.
Do not distract me when you see a new soul in these eyes.
For when the War God fills this flesh I wear,
I am no more your friend; I am the spirit of the bear.
Don't call my name in battle—stand away.
For I will never hear you, but another creature may.
It never sees a friend, but only foes—
Just count the bodies flying where this taken body goes.
Don't call my name in battle—wait the time,
Until I fall and rise again, with eyes you know are mine.
And then perhaps we'll rest and talk of home,
But you'll not be surprised to see how much I walk alone.
Do not distract me when you see a new soul in these eyes.
For when the War God fills this flesh I wear,
I am no more your friend; I am the spirit of the bear.
Don't call my name in battle—stand away.
For I will never hear you, but another creature may.
It never sees a friend, but only foes—
Just count the bodies flying where this taken body goes.
Don't call my name in battle—wait the time,
Until I fall and rise again, with eyes you know are mine.
And then perhaps we'll rest and talk of home,
But you'll not be surprised to see how much I walk alone.
— Heather Alexander, "Don't Call My Name in Battle"
Tabletop Games
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!"
— Khornate warcry, Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000
Murderlust is all that Operative Torq knows. Extensive surgical and cybernetic augmentation have raised his strength to impossible levels, his two hearts slamming double-time as they force hyperadrenaline compounds through iron-hard muscles. Behind his skull-helm, the Eversor's lips peel back in a rictus snarl, while his eyes bulge white and wild. What personality Torq possessed has been burned to ash by the white heat of his constant fury. His world has narrowed to a never-ending war in which he smashes, tears, and butchers constantly in the Emperor's name.
— Warhammer 40,000: Assassinorum - Execution Force
"Attack" is the only order worth remembering.
— Kharn the Betrayer, Warhammer 40,000
"KILL! MAIM! BURN! KILL! MAIM! BURN! KILL! MAIM! BURN!"
— Kharn the Betrayer, great guy, Warhammer 40,000
Video Games
"TIME TO COMPENSAAAAAAAAATE!"
"VIOLEEEEENCE!"
"SCREW YOU FREEEEEUUUUUUD!"
"BERSERKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRR!"'
"VIOLEEEEENCE!"
"SCREW YOU FREEEEEUUUUUUD!"
"BERSERKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRR!"'
— Salvador the Gunzerker, Borderlands 2
"They are rage, brutal, without mercy. But you... you will be worse. Rip and tear, until it is done."
Warden: Will you teach me about Berserkers?
Ogheren: What the sod is there to know? You get mad, you fly into battle, and things die. It's pretty simple. The hardest part is getting in touch with your rage. We all learn to hold that back. It's why we don't kill every duster who looks at us sideways. You need to shut that off. For some people, being in battle is enough. But others have to think about something. Violence, monsters, nobles, your wife, whatever.
Ogheren: What the sod is there to know? You get mad, you fly into battle, and things die. It's pretty simple. The hardest part is getting in touch with your rage. We all learn to hold that back. It's why we don't kill every duster who looks at us sideways. You need to shut that off. For some people, being in battle is enough. But others have to think about something. Violence, monsters, nobles, your wife, whatever.
Pelinal called out Haromir of Copper and Tea into a duel at the Tor, and ate his neck-veins while screaming praise to Reman, a name that no one knew yet. Gordhaur the Shaper's head was smashed upon the goat-faced altar of Ninendava. (...) Later that season, Pelinal slew Hadhuul on the granite steps of Ceya-Tar, the Fire King's spears knowing their first refute. (...) When Huna, whom Pelinal raised from grain-slave to hoplite and loved well, took death from an arrowhead made from the beak of Celethelel the Singer, the Whitestrake went on his first Madness. He wrought destruction from Narlemae all the way to Celediil, and erased those lands from the maps of Elves and Men, and all things in them, and Perrif was forced to make sacrifice to the Gods to keep them from leaving the world in their disgust....
—The Song of Pelinal: Volume 3, The Elder Scrolls
"The vast forests of our lands are said to be filled with the spirits of beasts. Sometimes, those beasts join us on the battlefield. Berserkers: wild, free and utterly without fear. They fight with twin axes, but their true weapon is their passion. There is an ancient riddle: what is stronger than steel? Blood is our answer. Blood, and fury."
"There are people in this world who go about demanding to be killed. You must have noticed them. They quarrel in gambling games. They jump out of their automobiles in a rage. They humiliate and bully people whose capabilities they do not know. These are people who wander through the world shouting, "kill me!" And there's always someone ready to oblige to them."
— Don Vito Corleone, The Godfather video game
"ALL SHALL BE LOST TO YOU!"
— Saix, Kingdom Hearts II
"Our long deathless winter has left us numb. Our wasted animal within, ugly and gaunt, hibernates beneath our shimmering beauty. Why do these Warframes stir us so? They burn with our lost desires, lost instincts. Tenno tamed, but only just. Cast and hunted as game. Trapped and tortured, yet they remain... animals."
"Less than their human seed, gnawing their limbs from the snare, devouring a banquet of suffering, obese with heat and acid... and rage."
"That is why they will destroy us."
"Less than their human seed, gnawing their limbs from the snare, devouring a banquet of suffering, obese with heat and acid... and rage."
"That is why they will destroy us."
— Valkyr Prime trailer, Warframe
"You're seeing red... Time to see more of it."
Web Video
"Let me paint a picture for ya: Take a viking, (a badass in his own right), now put an animal mantle on him and convince him that he has the primal power of a bear, wolf or boar. Now to help convince him of that, let's get him really hammered on alcohol or better yet, super high using herbal drugs; and you know what? For good measure, lets just strip him down almost naked alongside his self induced hysteria biting his shield and howling like an animal. With some discrepancies, that is a viking berserker. A warrior without fear, only rage, who's augmented bloodlust was so strong, that should he survive the fight, he would never be emotionally the same again."
"Heh heh... No, no no no no, none of this fancy 'plan' stuff. All we'll do is just run in headfirst, screaming. Works every time."
When faced with the evils of this world, happiness can give you the foundation to bear it, sadness gives you the wisdom to acknowledge it, and anger gives you the strength to oppose it! So rise, my friends, and be ANGRY!
