Berserk/Nightmare Fuel: Difference between revisions

[[File:300px-Eclipse2_1553Eclipse2 1553.jpg|frame|Dinnertime for the LEGIONS OF HELL ITSELF!!]]

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* No page on ''[[Berserk]]'''s [[Nightmare Fuel]] can begin without mention of the way that Apostles are made. It starts when somebody that possesses a [[Artifact of Doom|Behelit]] hits a [[Despair Event Horizon|moment of absolute despair, where he would do absolutely anything to escape his situation]]. When this happens, the Behelit, a creepy little [[Egg MacGuffin|egglike thing]] that has human facial features scattered randomly all over its surface, rearranges those features into a human face. Which then proceeds to [[Tears of Blood|bleed from the eyes]] and start screaming. Then the angles in whichever area this happened start changing and the Godhand, the [[Big Bad|Big Bads]]s of the series, show up to [[Deal with the Devil|make the Apostle-to-be an offer]]. The offer involves sacrificing whoever the Apostle-to-be loves most in order to be reborn as a demon, which is a way of having the Apostle open himself or herself up to evil. Since Behelits invariably activate at the Apostle-to-be's lowest point, that means that this offer sounds very much attractive, particularly if the friend or loved one to be sacrificed was the cause of the [[Despair Event Horizon]] in the first place. If the Apostle-to-be accepts the offer, the Godhand mark the person with the Brand of Sacrifice and what happens next is often a truly horrific death as the other Apostles eat him or her alive. And if that wasn't bad ''enough'', it's also mentioned that anyone sacrificed in the creation of an Apostle, in addition to suffering a [[Cruel and Unusual Death]], also has their soul condemned to Hell for all eternity, making this a true crossing of the [[Moral Event Horizon]].

** And things only get worse when it comes time for a new Godhand to be born, which happens once every 216 years during what is known as the Great Eclipse. A very special Behelit makes its way into the hands of a very special individual. This individual, a charismatic leader of men, achieves great things during his lifetime, but then things start going straight to hell for him, culminating on the day of the Eclipse when he loses all hope and activates his Behelit. When a Behelit of the Godhand activates, the bearer and everyone currently present with him is transported to the Nexus, a nightmarishly surreal place that to mortal eyes is a scene right out of hell itself. Instead of just one or two victims like is the case with Apostles, the Godhand demand that everyone the Godhand-to-be has led be marked for sacrifice in order to become one of their own -- andown—and instead of just a good number of monsters, ''every'' Apostle in the entire ''Berserk'' universe has gathered for the feast, and comes out of the woodwork to eat everyone alive once everyone is marked for sacrifice.

** And that's not the only incident of torture by far. We have Vargas from the third major manga story, who was horrifically disfigured as a result of torture by the Count -- andCount—and this was ''after'' he was made to watch his wife and son tortured and then eaten alive right before his eyes.

** Speaking of Femto - well, there's Femto. Where {{spoiler|Griffith}} in [[Humanoid Abomination|human form]] just makes me feel [[Nausea Fuel|nauseated]] whenever I see him - straight into the [[Uncanny Valley]] - in [[Eldritch Abomination|demon form]] he scares the living shit out me whenever I see him (so much so that I can't even look at a picture of him directly, he scares me that much). It's not entirely in the [[Memetic Rapist]] kind of way either, but you just get hit with this huge [[The Dreaded|wave of dread]] whenever he appears that just tells you, "oh no. He's going to ruin someone else's life now, isn't he?" Unlike the other [[Complete Monster|Complete Monsters]]s, the dread is especially potent with Femto, perhaps because deep in our hearts, we secretly have this feeling that {{spoiler|[[Karma Houdini|he's going to get away with everything that he's done.]]}}

* Guts's childhood from ''[[Berserk]]'' is singularly horrific. His mother was hanged presumably as he was being born (yeah, we don't get it either), and he was adopted by a mercenary named Gambino, who trained him as a [[Child Soldiers|child soldier]]. During his time in Gambino's band, Guts had to endure some seriously [[Harmful to Minors]] stuff of both the horrific violence and the sex varieties -- hevarieties—he was even raped at one point in the manga when Gambino sold him to a pederast soldier in his band as a child prostitute. It all came to a head when Gambino, his leg having been blown off by a cannonball and thus making him unfit for combat, got drunk one night and tried to kill Guts because he blamed the kid for the death of his lover from the plague. Guts had to kill Gambino in self defense and then get away from the camp to escape the wrath of the other mercenaries. [[Nightmare Fuel|And that's just peaches compared to the stuff that comes afterwards.]]

** Casca's past isn't much better -- shebetter—she lost her village at an early age and was sold to a noble who wanted a new serving girl, only for it to transpire that he wanted her for sex. Just as he's about to rape her, though, Griffith shows up. Instead of killing her would-be rapist, however, he makes her do it instead ("If you have something you wish to protect, take up that sword."). She has a relatively easy life afterward, until the Eclipse goes down and she suffers a ''horrific'' ordeal that ends with her being driven insane.

** [[media:Guts_slasher_smile_7502Guts slasher smile 7502.jpg|This one in particular is pretty unnerving.]]