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I don't care how I look. The warm fireplace, the waiting servants, I don't need them. It's alright if he can't speak. I'm sure even his wounds will heal. We'll be together.
– Charlotte
Charlotte Beatrix Marie Rhody Wyndham (シャルロット・ベアトリックス・マリー・ルホディ・ウインダム Sharurotto Beatorikkusu Marī Ruhodi Windamu?) is the princess of Midland.
Appearance
Charlotte is a brunette with a petite build, a pale complexion, and blue eyes. Her long, curly hair is usually tied into hairstyles befitting medieval royalty, though on rare occasions she has it loose. As the Queen of Midland, she usually dresses in very formal matter, such as wearing ornamental dresses.
Personality
Charlotte is a demure and socially distant princess who is soft-spoken and polite. She fell in love with Griffith at first sight and remained devoted to him after his brutal torture and resulting deformity, and she officially became his fiancée after his return.
Charlotte came to hate her father for his year-long imprisonment and brutal torture of Griffith after he discovered Charlotte slept with him. She ceased to consider him her father when he attempted to rape her which forced her to realize that he had sheltered her to become an object of his lust.
Abilities
Charlotte is highly skilled in the art of embroidery. She was able to fight off her father and landed blows that left him bloody. She was quick enough to spot and block a poisonous dart to protect Griffith. She does her best to run with the Band of the Hawk as they were escaping, but she ran out of breath.
Story
Golden Age Arc
Griffith breaks Charlotte's fall.
Charlotte met Griffith after her father met the young man while he was healing from his encounter with Nosferatu Zodd. While following after her father, Charlotte tripped and Griffith caught her by her waist to prevent her fall. Her uncle Julius, whose White Dragon Knights were replaced by the Band of the Falcon, struck Griffith for touching the princess. Later during the Autumn Hunt, Charlotte met him again, and he taught her how to use a leaf as a reed. When a wild boar sprung out from the nearby foliage, Charlotte's horse startled. Griffith gave chase and successfully caught up with her and calmed her horse. While seemingly alone, a poisoned bolt suddenly struck Griffith in the chest; however, the bolt impacts his Beherit leaving him unharmed. While this constituted an assassination attempt on Griffith engineered by Julius and his allies, everyone else present assumed that the unknown assassin targeted the princess.[2] When later Griffith attends the royal ball, he answers her earlier question that all men are driven by their dreams, and he tells her his ideals. The two are then interrupted and informed that the ball has been halted due the murder of Julius, which unbeknown to Charlotte, Griffith arranged.
Griffith seduces Charlotte.
Following the end of the Hundred-Year War with the Battle of Doldrey with the successful removal or turning of all of his political rivals, Griffith suffers a devastating blow to his ego when Guts easily defeats him in the presence the Band of the Falcon when he attempts to prevent Guts leaving them. His pride thus shattered, Griffith attempts to recover by coming to Charlotte's window. She allows him in.
It proves important to note for her character that while Griffith may think he seduces and takes Charlotte, she proves a willing participant. Her subsequent behavior suggests that she did not simply yield to his advances nor her own libido. Up to that point and through to current events, Griffith shows neither actual love nor regard for her beyond as another of many replaceable stepping-stones towards his dream. This even merely served as a way for him to repair his pride and bind her to him.
For her part, Charlotte, appears to love Griffith. Whether she loves him as a person or the ideal "Prince in Shining Armor" or even a way to take revenge upon her now dead father remains unknown; however, that she remained devoted to Griffith after fall and horrible tortures suggests she loves Griffith, though at that point he also represents a way for her to oppose her father. During their long separation she imagines him and depicts him in her needle-work as the ideal hero rather than as the broken wretch she last saw.
One of Charlotte's hand maidens peers through her bedrooms key hole and sees Griffith and Charlotte making love. This quickly leads to Griffith's arrest and imprisonment in the Tower of Rebirth. During his interrogation, Griffith deduces the king's lust for his daughter. The king orders his permanent imprisonment with torture.
Charlotte taking a Bakiraka dart meant for Griffith.
After a year later, with her loyal hand maiden Anna assisting her while learning where Griffith is held, Charlotte aids a group of Falcons consisting of Guts, Casca, Judeau, and Pippin to rescue Griffith. After being struck by a dart from the Bakiraka assassins hired by the king, Charlotte uses his guilt and threat to reveal his dark secret to convince him not to punish Anna. Charlotte also seemingly convinces her father to renounce his vendetta on Griffith, unaware that the king had no intent to keep his word.
Conviction and Falcon of the Millennium Empire Arc
For the almost three years between the last time she saw the broken Griffith and when the Kushan Empire conquers Wyndham, Charlotte isolated herself in her chambers prior. She refuses to see her father even when he dies. He had a dying vision of guards keeping him away from Charlotte and a flying hawk who becomes Griffith. Emperor Ganishka intended to marry and impregnate Charlotte, but his realization that she loves a significant Apostle alters his plans. She and Anna are spirited away by Griffith as his forces distracted Ganishka. Soon after, Charlotte accepted Griffith's marriage proposal and supported his right to lead Midland's army against the Kushan invaders.
Fantasia Arc
This section requires expansion.
Notes
- In the 1997 anime series, Charlotte stayed behind, instead of accompanying the Band of the Falcon to the Tower of Rebirth to rescue Griffith.
- She is the only surviving member of the Midland royal family.
References
- ^ a b c Shikaisha., Nakajima, R., Shimizu, Y., Mochizuki, M., Okada, M., Suzuki, M. (2016). "Berserk Official Guide Book". Tokyo: Young Animal Comics.
- ^ Berserk :: Volume 6, "Assassin (2)"