Evil Genius

that's not a bad idea at all

Personally, I have no problem viewing Sonia as the most useful individual in Griffith's arsenal (taken as a whole, the Apostles are more useful, of course) but to me, her telepathy is much more useful then even her prophesy. Not to downgrade her prophecy abilities, or anything, but in battle to be able to instantly and clearly transmit orders across the field to any part of an army would be a massive advantage in medieval warfare, and that's what she give Griffith. Of course, it's even cooler if she can do things like read the enemy general's plans, but we haven't seen any evidence of that yet, so it's still pure speculation.

Lets not make her powerful than she is before she shows an offensive power like reading minds or something.

Well yeah like others said, sonia does give griffith a great tactical advantage.
in war its just as important to have good tacticians as to have good soldiers,
so she's good counter-balance to the apostles.

One thing i've wondered about sonia, is that since she is psychic; does that mean she knows about shierke and gutts and the coming confrontation griffith?

azzydakiller, if you feel that your English ain't that great, feel free to use the spellcheck option. I know that English is not your native language, but it's a bit hard to read your post sometimes.

oops! didnt realize that there was a spellchecker... guess that shows my noobness

about the trolls, sorry i though that it was the same at the half-demons and they only produced only one troll per woman... but i guess that i was wrong.

But still, i think that the half demon are alot easier to produce than the apostles... Nonetheless you do make a good point about the actual strength of the half demons

about the elephants i guess we agree on it...
the question is about how are they produced? they probably are alot more
difficult to produce.
maybe ganishka has to personallly impragenate a female elephant to make them

and you probably are right about the old magician
but even if that magician had a couple of really good aprentices then they
might give the stronger apostles a good challenge.

wow. time for a breather.
So Many are trying to say so much in a single post. after a long day at work, trying to read all that gives me a headache

Personally i'm starting to think the story has become so Open Ended, that anything is possible right now. Trying to analyze and predict the next twist or turn has become futile. Miura has to give us the next puzzle piece.

Thread cleansed. Try not to have too much hate here, we have the Interstice for that.

And to be informative, Berserk is NOT going to be out on issue 20 of Young Animal, which is to be released on October 13th. So no luck there, it seems Miura is actually gone for the moment, and the next chapter is going to be delayed for over a month. We'll keep you informed about the release date.

As for Sonia, I think she has some empathy type powers too, to a lesser degree. She 'felt' the emotions of the soldiers in the battlefield and was able to pin-point the leader of the soldiers with that power. I might be wrong about this though, as I'm recalling this from my memory.

azzydakiller wrote:One thing i've wondered about sonia, is that since she is psychic; does that mean she knows about shierke and gutts and the coming confrontation griffith?

Possibly not, she has limited control of those powers, they (the foretelling) comes to her involuntarily. I don't think she has access to her powers to use it to predict certain events, like using it to find out the winning lotto numbers on Saturday. They come to her naturally, and not in her complete voluntary control.

azzydakiller wrote:the question is about how are they produced? they probably are alot more difficult to produce.

We don't know yet.

There's been little details to suggest how demonic exactly they are, they haven't walked on hind legs or anything, or look completely freaky like the demon crocodiles.

I would guess that both they and the tiger and crocodile monsters are produced the same way the half human one's are. By exposing a pregnant female of that species to the power of the captured Apostles. Of course, that would make coming up with new elephant and whale versions much more difficult then new human ones, but that would make sense given that there seem to be far fewer of them.

maybe you are right, dude

Gosh, why does eldo always come and clean up my poo poo, I like being a dog.

but seemingly not everyone appreciates your barking

FightClub has started to bore me. Ban?

Didn't Schierke said that whales and crocodiles were familiars? Animals implanted with a spirit? That means they are not produced as half-demons are. And elephants definitely fit the description of familiars. Now, did you notice that when Kushan controllers die (as well as we've seen when tigers die), they release some Ganishka-looking mist from their mouths. My guess is that Ganishka feeds some of his essence to controllers to give them magic powers, and to animals to turn them into familiars.
Remember the begging of Berserk? That duke and his daughter? The duke fed that comic-relief captain with some kind of a worm, and the captain goes all apostle-like. I think here is the same case.
What I wonder now, does the spirit-emplaning actually deprive Ganishka of some of his strenght?


On an old topic: Locus the Kushan. I reread The Wings of Light And Darkness, and though it is not explicitly said that Locus is the Kushan, it can be deduced from everything he talks about. Locus showed that he had much insight into the way the empire operates, ana mainly, this:

"... His exploits on uncountable battlefields, wether the emperor was attending..."

As the only emperor ever metnioned in Berserk is Ganishka, we can assume that Locus fought once on the side of the emperor, and thus is most probably a Kushan.
And didn't you noticed his dark tan?

Hey, guy, It seems to me that you are from Serbia. Which city? I am from Novi Sad.

Nice to meet another Berserk fan from my country.

Aeriel wrote:Didn't Schierke said that whales and crocodiles were familiars? Animals implanted with a spirit? That means they are not produced as half-demons are. And elephants definitely fit the description of familiars. Now, did you notice that when Kushan controllers die (as well as we've seen when tigers die), they release some Ganishka-looking mist from their mouths. My guess is that Ganishka feeds some of his essence to controllers to give them magic powers, and to animals to turn them into familiars.
Remember the begging of Berserk? That duke and his daughter? The duke fed that comic-relief captain with some kind of a worm, and the captain goes all apostle-like. I think here is the same case.
What I wonder now, does the spirit-emplaning actually deprive Ganishka of some of his strenght?

A good point there with the familiars. However, I'm not quite sure how the concept of familiars work though, so I can't rightfully apply any theories on that subject.

Also, a good catch on the mist part, I've never really paid much attention to the detail. Your theory might be right, although I'm not completely convinced with the familiars part. Maybe that's how the conjurers can use magic without really reciting the spell, since the Emperor gives them a bit of his power. A good analogy with the duke too.

42ndEndOfTheWorld wrote:Hey, guy, It seems to me that you are from Serbia. Which city? I am from Novi Sad.

Nice to meet another Berserk fan from my country.

Hey man! I'm from not-so-rotten Belgrade It's both nice and unexpected to find someone from vicinity here Good to meet you!

Eldo wrote:Your theory might be right, although I'm not completely convinced with the familiars part. Maybe that's how the conjurers can use magic without really reciting the spell, since the Emperor gives them a bit of his power.

Well, the only things we know about familiars is what Schierke told us:

"This was created implanting a spirit into a living animal. It's a type of a magical life-form. It is sometimes called a 'familiar'."

"Spirits that are wrapped in a physical body..."

"These familiars do not have a strong enough individual will to act alone."

This was all in volume 28. Then in chapter 240 Serpico decapitates bunch of Kushan controllers and the Ganishka-shaped mist part comes on page 96.
Now, after your comment (thanks for praise, by the way ) I paid closer attention on volume 30 chapter 262 (aftermath of the tiger attack), and I must say that you were right. Ever since the tigers, an ankle-leveled fog pervaded the whole city. Now I thought that the emperor manifested himself from the mist that evaporated from the corpses of the tigers, but it was from the fog. So my theory about Ganishka implanting piece of his essence into animals fall.


By the way, forgot to say in previous mail, great job EG! Thank you for scanlation!

Hmmm...I think your theories are partially correct...
I think the Kushan emperor works like this:
- He is extremely powerfull. But he alone can't kill all enemies. So...
- He "dilutes" himself, using part of his mist to confuse the enemies (the ankle-level fog), another part to infuse the animals with his power (creating some kind of army) and another part infusing some chosen ones with more mist, so to control the animals.

That's what I think he does, anyway...

Khelegond wrote:Hmmm...I think your theories are partially correct...
I think the Kushan emperor works like this:
- He is extremely powerfull. But he alone can't kill all enemies. So...
- He "dilutes" himself, using part of his mist to confuse the enemies (the ankle-level fog), another part to infuse the animals with his power (creating some kind of army) and another part infusing some chosen ones with more mist, so to control the animals.

That's what I think he does, anyway...

Well, that's what I meant. Though I concentrated only on animals

There is one more thing that I don't get. This battle seems pretty final, not another till next time event, which means that in the next several chapters , Emperor (or Griffith, although that is very improbable) will either die or be forced to totally retreat and regroup (probably just die). Which brings us to the obvious question, what will happen next? Guts and Co are on the boat and it'll probably take them like forever to reach that elf island so it leaves us only with Griffith, Skullknight and that child we don't know anything about.

Any ideas? I think that Miura will finaly be forced to bring in some serious puzzle pieces instead of keeping whole story on hold for like several volumes.

Nah i dont think this battle is finale, Ganeshka's hatred for Guts is foreshadowing that they will meet again.



Me i hope this battle is huge and not only about seeing neo hawks ruling the battlefield.

And don't forget one important thing - we have not yet seen Ganishka's apostle form! What we've seen was his ability to use magic - project his astral body and command elements, but we never saw him transform...

i want to see tons of action , and i hope that the hawks have some hard time beating Ganishka troops , Ganishka apostle form ? yeah he haven't shown that yet , it would be cool to see that .

Gattsblackfalcon wrote:i want to see tons of action

What, haven't had enough of it?? And you did read volume 30, right?

yes i have read all Berserk chapters , and yeah that was a great fight against Ganishka , but just seeing Ganishka's army i can imagine how the battle is going to be .

Ummm... Lots of blood?

Lots lots lots LOTS of blood?

Didn't Schierke said that whales and crocodiles were familiars? Animals implanted with a spirit? That means they are not produced as half-demons are. And elephants definitely fit the description of familiars. Now, did you notice that when Kushan controllers die (as well as we've seen when tigers die), they release some Ganishka-looking mist from their mouths. My guess is that Ganishka feeds some of his essence to controllers to give them magic powers, and to animals to turn them into familiars.

I actually think that the half-men are also familiars. Because they're also being controlled by other magicians, and they stop moving if you kill their controllers, as we saw in the escape from the city. I don't really see on the face of it why a half-human half-demon couldn't be used seen as a "living animal" in a way, and they really do seem identicle to all the other beasties the Kushan's have (except that they're a different species, obviously). As to the mist that rises from the dead magicians, while that could easily be the emperor giving them power, I wonder if it might also be the way that he controls them. I mean, he wouldn't want to risk them breaking away from him, so it wouldn't be surprising if he implanted a part of his power into them to make that impossible.

On a completely different note, I don't see any way that the coming battle wouldn't involve lots and lots of both action and blood.