Character analysis: Grunbeld

IgnusDei

mmh-hmm good.
Here are my thoughts on the character of grunbeld, based on what little we've seen.

Grunbeld is an extremely powerful foece to be reckoned with on the battlefield. In his human form, Grunbeld can easily withstand cannonfire with his shield and sweep up all opposition with his warhammer and cannon. This pretty much makes him untouchable by any human war devices, from the lowly soldier to the siege engine.
Because he has not faced any serious opposition in his "career", grunbeld fosters the same detached view on war as anyone who has never experienced it first hand. This leads him to believe himself as a true warrior, and see a battlefield as beautiful, rather than the carnage and stupidity that it really is.

Although, he may very well be aware of the fact that his embelished view and his status as a legend may be entirely the results of his demonic gifts, and reacts poorly when Guts taunts him "Demons shouldn't pretend to be warriors!"

Moreover, when faced with the overwhelming power of Guts' Dragonslayer and Berserker Armour, Grunbeld was unable to keep his cool and come up with a suitable counter in his human form, despite is oh so great battlefield experience. With this in mind, i can safely sum up Grunbeld as a big kid playing war.

of course, this is probably one facet of a potentially more complicated character. But from what i've seen, it looks like he's very immature.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Good analysis, although I have a few remarks:

IgnusDei said:
Because he has not faced any serious opposition in his "career", grunbeld fosters the same detached view on war as anyone who has never experienced it first hand. This leads him to believe himself as a true warrior, and see a battlefield as beautiful, rather than the carnage and stupidity that it really is.

What's the basis for this comment? Grunberd is said to have been fighting against Tudor in very difficult, nearly impossible conditions for 10 years in order to protect his kingdom... And his comment about the battlefield being a sacred place to warriors doesn't mean that he refutes the carnage and horror of war. The kind of philosophy he demonstrates is actually common to many "great" warriors.

IgnusDei said:
Guts taunts him "Demons shouldn't pretend to be warriors!"

Guts calls him a monster to be exact, a recurring word in Berserk. ;D

IgnusDei said:
when faced with the overwhelming power of Guts' Dragonslayer and Berserker Armour, Grunbeld was unable to keep his cool and come up with a suitable counter in his human form, despite is oh so great battlefield experience.

Well, I think it comes down to the number one apostle default: arrogance. Grunberd first fought a pitiful Guts, barely able to use his sword or block attacks. He was disappointed, but then Guts transformed into a formidable opponent, displaying astonishing strength and agility. It's only natural that Grunberd was surprised and caught short of action...

He reacted late to that change, and felicitated Guts for it. Even after his defeat in human form, he recognized Guts' incredible skill and called him victorious. However as he said, he was sent there to carry orders, and so he challenged him again, as "an apostle of the Falcon of Light" (click on the Schnoz in my signature to hear it 8)). He didn't have a lot of choices at that point anyway, without his weapon/shield and with a useless arm (and he didn't look so confident either, in spite of his anger).

All in all he seemed pretty upright in his actions, according to his own honor code. Once transformed he acted as the typical apostle (i.e. even more arrogant and blatant), but still showed some signs of dignity instead of just rampaging around like others would.

IgnusDei said:
With this in mind, i can safely sum up Grunbeld as a big kid playing war. [...] it looks like he's very immature.

It's true his character can be viewed as "immature", as if he was just using his powers to play around, but isn't this the case for a lot of apostles? Look at Wyald, the Count, the Snake Baron, or even Zodd, what did they spend their lives doing?

Take Locus, is he any better? Pretending to be sorry to some infantrymen he killed because they weren't part of the cavalry... That doesn't prevent him from slaying them by dozens in battle. Look also how easily he abandons his knight act with Ganishka, and gets pissed off when the emperor states that he won't be subjugated.

So to me, Grunberd isn't especially immature compared to other apostles or characters in Berserk.
 
I wonder if Guts would've been able to kill Grunbeld if he had stayed and fought. I mean, sure, his body was bleeding to death and all but he might've been able to do it.
 

IgnusDei

mmh-hmm good.
well, those conditions would be indeed impossible to overcome for a single human. For a greater apostle (of his size, to boot!), it'd be pretty easy.

While I do not deny that Grunbeld may have had a very long career indeed, his large frame, demonic strength and weaponry made said years of combat far TOO easy for him, particularily on the area of the risk of death. His personal life was never really in danger, hence he could not experience war the same way some vets like Guts did.

this is, of course, assuming that he was an apostle during the days of the 100 year war, and became one BEFORE he could enter the war as a combatant.

If not, then he is, just as you've pointed out, just another arrogant apostle.

As for the embelished view, i think he sorta displays this when he makes that "holy place" comment. The look of his eyes is kinda, hazy dream-ish...although that could very well be just envy.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Tell Me Why said:
I wonder if Guts would've been able to kill Grunbeld if he had stayed and fought. I mean, sure, his body was bleeding to death and all but he might've been able to do it.

We'll never know, Miura really didn't give us any element that would help guessing the result, and I'm sure he did it on purpose. So whether Grunberd would have been killed or not will remain a mystery, but what I have absolutely no doubt about is that if Guts had stayed and fought, he would have died.

IgnusDei said:
this is, of course, assuming that he was an apostle during the days of the 100 year war, and became one BEFORE he could enter the war as a combatant.

If not, then he is, just as you've pointed out, just another arrogant apostle.

Yeah, that was my point, we just don't know exactly when he became an apostle, in what conditions, and what he did before that. I personally would find it odd for an apostle to devote himself to the defense of a country for 10 years, it's just too altruistic in my eyes.

Plus, why would he fight for 10 long years against Tudor if he had been as strong as he is now? Tudor was at war against Midland already, and even if they had had thousands of warriors to spare and send against him, he would have had no trouble destroying their castles and killing their generals, scattering their troops like if they were nothing. A few months (at most) of battling against such a monster and they would have abandoned, just imagine the soldiers' morale when preparing to march against such a foe...

It'd be a lot more plausible to me if he had consented to sacrifice in the end, after ten painful years of war, because he finally lost and couldn't accept it.
 

SaiyajinNoOuji

I'm still better than you
Aazealh said:
It'd be a lot more plausible to me if he had consented to sacrifice in the end, after ten painful years of war, because he finally lost and couldn't accept it.
I could very well see that. Kinda like being the new kid and telling every one about all the cool stuff that you have done but it not really being true.
 
Wild speculation:
What if the ones who sacrificed were his men?
That would seem like Griffith's sacrifice of the hawks.

Perhaps this is what it takes to be one of the chief apostles. If that be true, it could also be that Zodd and Locus have sacrificed groups of people.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
xechnao said:
What if the ones who sacrificed were his men?
That would seem like Griffith's sacrifice of the hawks.

This is what first comes to one's mind given the context of course, but the reason I didn't even talk about it in my post is that it would be a bit much if he had sacrificed his supposed 3000 soldiers IMHO. Of course that wouldn't theorically be impossible, and maybe most of them were dead by the end of the war, but that's just too far into speculation to justify any guess to me.

xechnao said:
Perhaps this is what it takes to be one of the chief apostles. If that be true, it could also be that Zodd and Locus have sacrificed groups of people.

Yeah, perhaps. Yet I would be disappointed if all it took to be a stronger apostle was to sacrifice more people...

The story doesn't seem to be going that way either, with Rochine's minions for example, 2 of them being stronger and faster than the others because they were knights while still human. The only "big" sacrifices (involving large amounts of people) we know of were Griffith's rise as a God Hand member, but most of all Femto's later incarnation into a new Griffith and what happened a thousand years ago when Gaiseric's empire was brought down.

In the end I guess it could be a mix of several things, causality making it so that a very strong warrior would sacrifice more people in order to become a "superior" apostle... Wild speculation indeed.
 
On the topic of what makes a stronger apostle, I think it partially depends on what brought about the ritual in the first place and what the summoner wanted when summoning the godhand.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but when the Slug Count was sacrificing his wife, I believe Void stated they would give him a body to cope with the pains in his life by sacrificing his wife. Thus the Slug Count then gains a body with incredibly efficient regnerative properties as well as being able to survive massive amounts of damage (like getting his head chopped off). Of course I think they granted him this wish after what brought about the ritual, his inability to cope with what his wife had done to shatter his reality.
 

Kagami

Goo!
HawaiianStallion said:
On the topic of what makes a stronger apostle, I think it partially depends on what brought about the ritual in the first place and what the summoner wanted when summoning the godhand.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but when the Slug Count was sacrificing his wife, I believe Void stated they would give him a body to cope with the pains in his life by sacrificing his wife. Thus the Slug Count then gains a body with incredibly efficient regnerative properties as well as being able to survive massive amounts of damage (like getting his head chopped off). Of course I think they granted him this wish after what brought about the ritual, his inability to cope with what his wife had done to shatter his reality.

I think this one hit the nail on the head. Pretty impressive for only 5 posts so far!
 
R

-rob-

Guest
That was great when the teddy thing or whatever the hell it was in front of the witches house came after Grunbeld and he knocked that thing to pieces haha.
 
R

-rob-

Guest
Looking back now Guts vs Grunbeld was probably my favorite fight in Berserk. It was great how impressed Grunbeld was when guts shattered his shield, and how Skullknigt and Zodd were so impressed with the fight they even haulted there own duel just to watch them 2 go at it.
 
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