It all started after you came here... It's all because of you.
– Theresia to Guts[1]
Theresia is the young daughter of the Count.[2]
Appearance[]
Theresia is a teenage girl with long, wavy black hair framing her face. She has large eyes and a small nose and mouth, and a thin appearance.[2] It is noted by Puck that she looks nothing like her father (before or after his transformation), with sober eyes that are unlike a child's.[3]
Personality[]
Theresia is a meek girl with a kind disposition. Since her father, the Count, became an apostle, she has lived a very sheltered existence and yearns for freedom from her father's overprotective nature.
She is also very fearful of her father as well, reacting against his touch and believing there is something different about his character, unknowing that her father had in fact become an apostle and was the one who killed her mother.[2]
After the Count's death, Theresia's innocence is lost from the events she had gone through during the summoning of the God Hand. She attempts to kill herself initially, but after having a change of heart, Theresia quickly becomes vindictive toward Guts, blaming him for all the horrible things that occurred that night and vows to kill him for all the pain he had caused her.
Story[]
Black Swordsman Arc[]
Theresia is introduced as the Count's daughter, much to Puck's shock, as the elf is given to her as a gift. She appears stiff and apathetic around her father, but recoils when he attempts to touch her. Despite Puck's fear of her, she quickly assures him she won't harm him and that she knows what it's like to live in a cage, before opening up to him about her life. Describing the change her father went through seven years ago, she states that her mother was killed by a band of heretics, inspiring her father to frantically hunt down heretics. Theresia wonders if he's no longer human.[2]
Theresia and Puck share words on how flying is like, which makes Puck realise she hasn't left the room since her mother's death, something she confirms. Her father won't let her do it, as he claims that heretics are lurking around the city. Therefore, he won’t let anyone from the city near the girl. Later on, Puck has to leave in order to help Guts, but assures her that he will come back and take her outside of the room. However, before Puck can fulfill this promise, Theresia leaves her room on her own once the bedroom door breaks open during the fight between Guts and the Count, inspired by Puck's own freedom,[2] and walks in on Guts' battle with her father, now in apostle form. Terrified, Theresia runs away, but is taken hostage by Guts, who uses the opening presented to blast the Count's face apart and cleave off his head. Theresia cries while Guts torments her father viciously.
Theresia is reduced to hysterics as the God Hand arrive, being suggested and pushed as a sacrifice while Ubik shows her and everyone present the truth of how her mother died: the Count's wife was discovered in a pagan orgy of her own accord while he was gone, and unable to kill her, he sacrificed her to the God Hand to escape his sorrow and become an apostle. Theresia is nearly sacrificed, but the Count cannot bring himself to do it, and she witnesses him dragged off the to Abyss and, as the real world rematerializes around her, sobs over the human corpse of her father.
Theresia considers suicide and attempts it after being goaded by a dispassionate Guts, only for Puck to intervene. Nearly falling off the cliff, she is given a foothold by Guts, who brings her back onto the ledge. Regardless, she angrily blames him for killing her father and ruining her life, and swears she will have revenge on him one day. Guts cockily takes this in stride, reminding her that she now has a reason to continue living, though deep down he is saddened.
References[]
- ^ Berserk :: Volume 3, "Guardian Angels of Desire (6)"
- ^ a b c d e Berserk :: Volume 2, "Guardian Angels of Desire (3)"
- ^ Berserk :: Volume 2, "Guardian Angels of Desire (2)"