What Happens
Devil Dogs, Chapters 1-4
The Black Dog Knights were created during the war, when a shortage of troops forced the King to draw on the able-bodied criminals of the kingdom. Their prowess was equal to the Hawks, but they were notorious for butchery and plunder regardless of which side their victims were on, tolerated only out of need and sent to remote battlefields. Worst of all is their leader Wyald, and the King believes he isn’t even human.
A family of farmers is more than happy to help the hero Griffith by giving the Hawks a place to rest and lending them a cart, but after they leave the Black Dogs show up, killing the family but raping the women first. As they pursue the Hawks Guts breaks away to buy the others time, meaning to do it alone but offering no objection when Pippin joins him. But no matter how many they kill the Black Dogs keep coming, and Guts realizes it’s because they’re afraid of Wyald, who steps up to fight Guts and stops his sword bare-handed. Guts realizes Wyald’s giving off the same feeling he got from Zodd and the Skull Knight.
Breaking away from the fight, Guts and Pippin make it over the nearby bridge just as Casca sets off the barrels of gunpowder they planted underneath. Many of the Black Dogs are killed, and the others are reluctant to follow directly when the rest of the road is likely booby-trapped as well, but the thrill-seeking Wyald scares them into action, exulting as he plows through every trap the Hawks have set.
They reach Corkus and the rest of the rescue team, and Guts challenges Wyald while the others fight his men. Wyald mentions hearing about Guts from Zodd, which confirms the latter’s suspicions. It takes everything Guts has to stand against him, yet he’s fighting by pure reflex.
Roar of the Wild Beast
The Hawks rout the Black Dog Knights, but Wyald isn’t finished and decides to take things to the next level, transforming into a giant, ape-like creature with three eyes in his chest and a large mouth in his stomach. Using a tree as a club, he easily swats Guts aside, and a volley of crossbow bolts only serves to annoy him.
Forest of Tragedy
Wyald rampages through the Hawks, who flee in disarray as Casca desperately tries to wake an unconscious Guts. Wyald seizes her and attempts to rape her with the giant, barbed penis in his stomach-mouth, but Guts cuts it in two and severs his left arm, freeing Casca.
Mortal Combat, Chapters 1-2
Guts cuts up Wyald everywhere he can, but the giant simply can’t be stopped. Kicked away into the forest, Guts finally manages to get the jump on him using a dead Black Dog and a falling log as decoys. He repeatedly stabs Wyald in the face, and the giant finally collapses, seemingly dead.
Armor to the Heart
Princess Charlotte awakens in her bedroom. Hearing that there is no word of Griffith’s capture, she believes the King kept his promise and recalls that Griffith said something to her before they parted, and is certain it was a promise he’d return.
Back with the Hawks, Casca complains to Guts about how he still insists on going off on his own, and insists there’s no shame in running if an opponent’s too strong, but Guts disagrees and complains about her “lecture.” Upset, Casca leaves and asks Judeau for his assessment of Griffith’s wounds. He says Griffith’s tendons are ruined; holding a sword, let alone walking, are impossible. Casca tries to keep a brave face by ordering the others to get ready to move out, but Judeau doubts the Band’s future.
Guts and Griffith are resting in the back of a wagon as the Hawks make for the border. Guts sees that Griffith wants to put his armor on and helps. Behind them, Wyald slowly crawls after them.
The Flying One
At the new campsite, Griffith tries unsuccessfully to draw his sword, but Guts reassures him he’ll be able to soon. Wyald bursts into the camp, crying out that he doesn’t want to die and seizing Griffith from the wreckage of the wagon. Knowing he can’t hold out much longer, he begs Griffith to summon the Godhand, but as he taunts the Hawks by showing them Griffith’s crippled body he realizes the Behelit is missing. Then Zodd swoops down from the sky.
The Immortal Once Again
Zodd impales Wyald on his horns, and the latter tries to intimidate him into backing off by threatening to kill Griffith. “Do what thou wilt” is the only commandment of the Apostles after all, so nothing’s stopping him, even if Griffith is “the fifth one,” he believes Griffith isn’t because he doesn’t have the Behelit. Zodd reminds Wyald this applies to him as well as he rips the latter in two.
Zodd reassures Griffith that the Behelit will return to him in time. Guts tries to ask him what the Eclipse is, and if Wyald was the “death he cannot escape.” Zodd only says Guts will understand soon as he flies away. A mass of writhing spirits appears and consumes Wyald from the inside out. They leave behind his true body, that of a withered old man.
Commentary
As violent as this series is, it hardly glorifies war and violence, and the Black Dog Knights are a case in point, especially Wyald. He’s a monster even before he transforms, and it says a lot about how unpleasant and desperate war can get when tolerating someone like him loose is essential. Even the King, who set him free in the first place, doesn’t see it as anything but a matter of pressing need. After seeing what Wyald did to that other prisoner who challenged him for leadership, his first instinct was probably to have him thrown into the pit in the Tower of Rebirth. Everyone would probably have been better off for it.
But Wyald’s also indicative of other things, such as how being Casca sucks. Seriously, in the past year-and-a-half she’s dealt with chauvinistic knights, when she’s not at her peak and makes him seem right no less, her love interest leaving, the man she admires more than anyone falling apart, tryed to hold everything he worked for together in his name, discovered that he’s been broken beyond all hope of recovery, realized said love interest hasn’t really learned to think of others after all this time, and almost gotten raped by an Apostle. A disproportionate amount of suffering and hardship seems to be inflicted on her, and it’s one of the things I find a bit problematic in the series. Someone like Sir Adon not accepting a woman on the battlefield is plausible and establishes her unique situation, while the “OX∆” incident (whatever that is, I don’t want to know!) characterizes just how sick Wyald’s is, but a lot of the strain and stress she goes through is caused by Guts and Griffith. She isn’t exactly unique in Griffith’s case – he uses everyone; with Guts his disregard for her feelings here makes his earlier offer to take her with him look like something done because of he’s attracted to her, rather than out of recognition that they have a mutual affection for each other.
The latter issue is nevertheless a key part of the story since it ties into one of its main themes – that relentless, single-minded pursuit of personal ambition is destructive and harmful to those around you. Casca is close to both Guts and Griffith, so it makes sense they would affect her as they have. What’s more, Guts and Casca are fellow outcasts who’ve had to make a life for themselves after losing everything they’d known, bad as it was, early on, so it’s not a stretch for them to fall in love. In turn, Griffith is responsible for giving her something to care about, and would be someone more than worthy of the respect she accords him if he wasn’t a sociopath underneath, so her feelings for him are also believable. Really, all of these examples serve some purpose in the story. It’s just frustrating to see them all piled one on the other when so much fiction, including fantasy, makes the main female character dependant on the male hero and centers her entire life around him. It’s even worse when it’s someone like Casca, who’s capable with a sword, respected by her fellow soldiers, obviously has some capabilities as a commander even if she’s not Griffith, and has had a life with enough hardships that you’d expect her to be better able to cope and take care of herself. In the end, it seems to mean I care about her and what she’s going through, which is probably the whole point.
On another note, remember when this was a story about demons causing pain and suffering in the mortal world? Wyald is also the biggest indication that that’s coming back. Sure, there was Zodd, but things went back to medieval fantasy after he left; he was more of a reminder that darker forces are working behind the scenes. It’s stuff like the Skull Knight’s warning, Griffith’s prison cell vision of the Godhand, and the massacre of Rickert’s group, and now Wyald, all in quick succession, that make it clear the story is shifting back to its original emphasis. What makes Wyald the strongest foreshadowing of that is how his actions touch everyone. He’s Guts’s toughest opponent yet (other than Zodd, but he ended their fight early once he saw Griffith’s Behelit; Guts’s odds didn’t look good otherwise), and while he may not realize it yet (if only this was the “death he cannot escape”) but more of this is what’s in store for him, as the reader well knows.
The revelation of Wyald’s true form also has me wondering about just what sort of person he was before he became an Apostle. If the Count (remember him?) is any indication Apostles tend to reflect their personalities from when they were still human, so I doubt he was much better than he is now, or rather was. It does suggest that he was weak and vulnerable, not unlike how Griffith is now, when he made his covenant with the Godhand. And since Griffith puts on his armor and tries to draw his sword, he obviously hasn’t come to terms with his situation yet and therefore is probably vulnerable to offerings of power like those of the Godhand. That’s hardly a surprise, but along with multiple hints that the Godhand’s return is imminent, it’s clear he’s about to join their ranks soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment