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| “ | You are a superb warrior. [...] But my mission lies ahead... for my master. As an apostle of the Hawk of Light... I shall finish you!!! | „ |
| ~ Grunbeld Arcbeast during his fight with Guts. |
Grunbeld Arcbeast, or commonly known only as Grunbeld or Arcbeast, is a major antagonist in Kentaro Miura's epic dark fantasy manga, Berserk.
Making his debut as a villainous apostle, a monstrous entity that often preys upon human flesh, he was not always this way. In Berserk spin-off novel called Berserk: Knight of the Flaming Dragon, in which Grunbeld features as the novel's protagonist, tells how the heroic Grunbeld forsook his humanity and became an apostle.
Guts once called him out on his supposed "ethics", stating that monsters like Grunbeld should not pretend to have human qualities such as a warrior's code or pride. Guts' accusation is all too logical; the fact that Grunbeld became an apostle means he has betrayed and sacrificed those who loved and trusted him, having done something that is unacceptable to any humans with morality. Even before that, above and all Grunbeld is an apostle, a powerful being that transcends humans. So asking for a duel 'with dignity of a warrior' at this point as if he is still a human would not make sense. Because how Grunbeld became an apostle remained a mystery prior to the novel published in January 2018, it was assumed that Grunbeld too, followed footsteps of other apostles before and after him: succumbed to his own despair, betraying his loved ones to become an entity that transcends his own humanity to escape his despair.
The truth was much more complicated than that.
Past: Knight of Flaming Dragon[]
Grunbeld was born in an island state known as the Great Principality of Grant. He belonged to the declined aristocratic clan called Arcbeast. He grew up without a father and was solely raised by a prideful and ferocious mother who always reminded who he is and instilled him only dying bravely in battle is he allowed to reach heaven called Gods' Manor in the afterlife so he must be brave.
Meeting Benedicte
Because he was bigger than average children, he ended up being picked on and was having constant brawls with other kids. One day he was ganged upon by multiple bullies, got beaten up badly and was left for dead. Due to great pain young Grunbeld was unable to move for a while. It was then he encountered a blind girl named Benedicte. Although Benedicte could not see, she could 'see' with 'mind's eyes' and through 'mind's eyes' she could see what others normally couldn't. She told Grunbeld that he is a fire dragon incarnate. Under her assistance and guidance he went to a well that had a healing property. Grunbeld immersed in the well and healed himself of his injuries. As he spent his time with Benedicte he felt his heart soothe and become comfortable. When he exited the forest, the forest and Benedicte were nowhere to be seen: it was revealed to be an interstice between the astral world and the regular one, just like the forest Manor of the Spirit Tree where Flora and Schierke resided in the main Berserk story.
Soon after, Grunbeld's village was invaded and occupied by military sent by the Chuder Empire. His servant was castrated and bled to death, and his mother lost her life fighting Chuder soldiers to the bitter end. When she died she was gang-raped, had all her teeth and nails pulled out forcibly, decapitated and finally having her tongue cut off. Grunbeld would later grow up (age 14) and avenge his mother by confronting his mother's murderer in a duel with a wooden weapon, killing him exactly the way he killed her.
Grunbeld and other village children were captured and held in Chuder's watchtower, where they received harsh conversion training from Chuder soldiers, commanded by a Chuder officer named Abecassis, to serve Chuder Empire. During this grueling period Grunbeld became friends with Edvard (a bastard son of Archduke Hokon, an influential aristocrat of Great Principality of Grant involved in sovereign affairs) and Sigur, a tomboy teen born from a noble family. Grunbeld became their leader and mental support to them. Abecassis continued his attempt to brainwash Grunbeld into becoming Chuder through a variety of abuses. But Abecassis ultimately realized that converting Grunbeld was impossible and decided to kill him. The malicious Chuder disciplinarian had Grunbeld, Sigur and Edvard in a cage fight against a tiger imported from the Kushan Empire. But thanks to cunning wisdom of Edvard the trio managed to buy some time until the night.
Grunbeld, Sigur and Edvard vs. the tiger.
Eventually night descended and the trio must fight a tiger in a caged arena. Armed only with wooden swords, the three teens, as planned, grabbed burning torches: it turns out they waited until night because they wanted to obtain torches, knowing that the tiger, being an animal, instinctively feared fire. Grunbeld fought the tiger, which was unusually big (3m long and weighing 500kg), heavy and ferocious, with a lamp. Grunbeld was struggling against the ravenous beast and Edvard ended up losing one of his eye.
Just when everyone was cornered and seemed to be in great danger, Grunbeld saw a warhammer hanging over the arena and in desperation, attempted to grab it. The warhammer, with a length of 130cm, was originally an artifact stolen from a Grant temple by Chuder. It was not meant for ordinary humans to wield so it was treated as nothing more than a mere votive object. The real reason this warhammer was put in the arena was sadistic and unsavory: to have contestants seeing it and attempting to pick it up, but unable to due to it being too heavy, then watching contestants wallow in despair. But Grunbeld, with his immense strength, picked up the warhammer and killed the tiger with it by smashing the beats's head with the weapon.
Abecassis, not willing to let the trio go, attempted to shoot them down with Chuder archers. But Kirsten, the supreme commander of Grant Army, crashed into the arena and rescued all surviving prisoners. After spending four years as Chuder captive Grunbeld was finally free. It was then that Grunbeld discovered a bizarre stone with distorted facial features (called a Beherit) that came out of the tiger's stomach. He obtained it and kept it as a keepsake.
General Kirsten adopted Grunbeld as his own son and cherished him dearly. Here it was revealed that Benedicte is a granddaughter of Kirsten. She lost her sight due to illness but gained intuition and became Grant's medium.
14 years later, Grunbeld had shaped himself to be the fierce defender of the Great Principality of Grant. Grunbeld was the commander of Grant guard and the leader of his own unit, known as the Grunbeld Brigade. So long as Grunbeld was breathing, Chuder Empire would not dare harassing Grant.
But the tragedy sowed from within.
Archduke Hokon of Grant was an extremely unstable and corrupt individual. When he was young, rival aristocrats and even his own sister tried to assassinate him. Traumatized by these events, he became violent, paranoid and distrustful of others. He relieved his stress by secretly kidnapping village's women and torturing them. He became jealous of Grunbeld's fame and support but his jealousy grew even worse when his wife, archduchess Fulda, expressed her wish to bear Grunbeld's child. One day he got a contact with Abecassis, and the two men plotted to eliminate Grunbeld. Abecassis offered the traitorous archduke a marriage to Chuder's royal family, and in return Hokon would sell out his country to Chuder Empire for annexation.
Hokon decided to exploit Edvard's jealousy born of insecurity towards Grunbeld, who while cherished Grunbeld as a friend, also yearned to be acknowledged as his equal and to escape from Grunbeld's shadow. To make matters worse for Edvard he suffered an unrequited love for Sigur, but Sigur loved Grunbeld (albeit secretly). Hokon's scheme was to psychologically corrupt his son by having Fulda, who happened to be Edvard's mother, married to Grunbeld and arrange Sigur's marriage, taking Sigur away from Edvard. When the news was made, people of Grant automatically assumed that Hokon would choose Grunbeld as his successor of archdukeship over his son, and this fanned Edvard's burning feeling of inferiority complex.
Meanwhile there was an assassination attempt on Benedicte's life thwarted by Sigur, which was engineered by archduchess Fulda in her bid to make Grunbeld solely for Fulda to possess. Fulda attempted to seduce Grunbeld but Grunbeld showed no interest. After Grunbeld left, Edvard, who had things to discuss with Grunbeld, came into the room to find his mother naked. Mentally shattered, Edvard accused his mother of exploiting his best friend for her own selfish agendas. Then Edvard murdered Fulda by strangling her. Hokon, never expecting his son to corrupt to this level, was impressed and acknowledged Edvard as his own. Hokon then instructed Edvard to succeed him by removing Grunbeld. Edvard had just crossed the point of no return.
vs. Chuder.
With Hokon and Edvard's schemes, combined with Chuder invasion led by Abecassis, proceeded to push Grunbeld into a corner. Tricked by a falsified information, Grunbeld led 1,000 men to a battle, where 20,000 Chuder troops laid in wait. But even in such odds, Grunbeld and his men managed to score a miraculous victory and routed the Chuder by wounding Abecassis. As Grunbeld was returning to his headquarters, he discovered Benedicte and Sigur were badly wounded: prior to going to battle, Grunbeld felt uneasy about leaving Benedicte unprotected in her temple so he entrusted Benedicte under Sigur. But Edvard's troops barged into Benedicte's temple, raping and butchering all maidens they saw. Benedicte and Sigur barely managed to escape and attempted to reach Grunbeld. But Edvard, at first trying to capture two women alive, suddenly changed his mind and ordered two women to be shot dead. Sigur and Benedicte were shot by arrows from Edvard's troops as they fled.
Just before the Invocation of Doom.
In the ensuing chaos Grunbeld was told of Edvard's treachery. In front of Grunbeld, Edvard, commanding 10,000 troops, displayed decapitated head of general Kiresten, who committed suicide rather than becoming a hostage and be a burden to his adopted son. Even worse, the Chuder troops that was routed previously by Grunbeld and his men, regrouped and returned to have a rematch. Grunbeld was surrounded by enemies. But even so, Grunbeld refused to give in and fought back ferociously, inflicting his enemies appalling losses. But Edvard's scheme, combined with handicap of having to protect injured Benedicte, severely limited Grunbeld's fighting capability and this handicap eventually began to take toll on the champion of Grant. The end of the road for Grunbeld came when he was subjected to cannon bombardment; although he withstood the first salvo, he was unable to endure the multiple following sorties. Grunbeld was still standing, but bloodied, broken, exhausted and unable to go on.
Seeing Grunbeld's life decreasing by the minute, Benedicte prophesied Grunbeld to survive by sacrificing her and Sigur, then look for the Hawk of Light. As situation seemed hopeless, Grunbeld's blood smeared onto his beherit which, after rearranging its face to proper form, proceeded to summon the God Hand, triggering an Invocation of Doom. The four 'angels': Void, Slan, Ubik and Conrad told Grunbeld to join the force that would be led by reincarnated Hawk of Light in the future. Grunbeld ponders of prophecy made by Benedicte which coincided with God Hand's testament.
Apostle Grunbeld about to kill Edvard for his treachery
Sigur was on the verge of death and about to be raped by now insane Edvard. Benedicte was also barely alive, and Grunbeld, realized that he too would die soon. Grunbeld then forcefully declared that he is a dragon, and would offer his most important people to God Hand. No sooner than he said this, the Brand of Sacrifice was engraved onto the bodies of Sigur, Benedicte and Edvard - even though Edvard betrayed everyone, he was still dear to Grunbeld, making the traitor more than sufficient as a sacrifice offering. Immediately after his rebirth as a fire dragon, Grunbeld devoured Edvard's body in half and killed his former friend for his treachery. Just before his life expired, Edvard regretted - way too late - all tragedies he caused.
Grunbeld then focused his attention to dying Benedicte and Sigur: Grunbeld proclaimed that he loves them too much to leave them to be violated at hands of their enemies and told them that they would live on inside him. Sigur and Benedicte, dying of their wounds and wishing Grunbeld to go on living, eagerly submitted to their fates and were consumed into flames made by Grunbeld.
Grunbeld, now an apostle, proceeded to annihilate Chuder's army, killing his most hated enemy Abecassis by torturing him slowly: chewing off his limbs piece by piece before burning him alive. Finally, Grunbeld headed to the capital of Grant and killed Hokon who was waiting for Edvard's return. Finally, Grunbeld destroyed every single of Chuder's military stations in Grant. After this Grunbeld has become a legend who saved Grant from the tyranny of Chuder Empire and was told among people of Grant for generation to come. But of course, no one in Grant knew savage and bloody truth behind the myth of their hero.
Few years after the bloody Invocation of Doom, Grunbeld was seen travelling through a Midland occupied by Kushan Empire. For all those who saw him, they singularly called him the Knight of Flaming Dragon.
The novel ends with Grunbeld pondering about his future.
"I was told... I was destined to serve the Hawk of Light." - In his past life, a word from someone he loved dearly is now his only diagram to his path in life.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Edvard, before losing his eye, desired to become famous by winning joust matches, but had to give up his dream after losing one eye. He then mentions Moonlight Knight Locus, a wandering knight who would also become an apostle and ends up being Grunbeld's comrade-in-arms in Griffith's New Band of Hawk. Locus was already a famed fighter, suggesting that Locus might be older than Grunbeld.
- Although Grunbeld's life had been stained with bloodshed, destruction, bereavement and tragedies just like his rival Guts, there are two decisive differences:
- Grunbeld embraced causality and became an apostle, whereas Guts rejects and defies causality and continues to maintain his humanity.
- Grunbeld's sacrifices voluntarily offered themselves to Grunbeld whereas the Band of Hawk did so unwillingly.
- Kentaro Miura and his helpers nicknamed Grunbeld "Fake/Pseudo Guts" - they both use arm cannons, similar hair styles, impressions, both are leaders of raiding units, share tragic pasts, are bigger and stronger than average people and share similar armor designs.
External Links[]
- Grunbeld Arcbeast on the Villains Wiki.
- Grunbeld Arcbeast on the Berserk Wiki.
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 Heroes
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