Hellsing Ultimate
Cdztattoo Barreto
So, this is probably not something you'd expect to see in a calcing boi's blog posts. Or generally the blog posts of anyone in this community. This won't feature any cosmologies, dimensions, or biggatons at all. Right now, I want to introduce something new, about writing, to this community where all you get to see is how much skill someone has and what their powers do, rather than what they're fighting and haxxing for. So, without further ado, let's do this, and perhaps open the floodgates for this stuff in the future, from perhaps even more than just me. I'm 99% sure I'll remake my Worm analysis for this sort of thing, but for now, let's just sit back and focus.
hellsing ultimate
Spoilers for Hellsing Ultimate, if you value the twists and turns it does carry up it's sleeve, along with a content warning, since there is some sexual assault that will be discussed. This series is about as edgy as it's premise sounds, so there are places it doesn't hold back in.
So, as apart of the thing I decided to make a thing last year, I binged nearly all of Hellsing Ultimate within the span of 9 hours of me sitting on a couch looking at a screen. It was interrupted just as the last episode started by my parents getting home and wanting the TV, but eh, such is life. Either way, I got the halloweeb spirit, and had a good time watching an edgy vampire do cool stuff.
Or at least, that's what I thought would happen. But, the thing about being a good writer is you start to look into the dialogue and what it really means, beyond just the basic comprehension that they're saying words. And... I honestly started laughing my rear end off at the sheer level of over the top edge that Hellsing immediately frontloads in the opening. Like, holy fork. Let me describe to you how the first episode opens up:
The dialogue, the setting, everything builds on an absurdly over the top level of edge that no one can convince me is unintentional, especially considering they're woven into the cartoonish comedy sections. Like, immediately after Seras has a hole blown out of her chest and she wakes up at Hellsing, she immediately checks under her shirt for the wound, just barely not showing any proper nudity, and she freaks out when she realizes she did that in the presence of Alucard, waving her arms above her head. There's just so much more character to this show once you realize it wants to be insane, not gritty.
Not to say it can't have a serious moment though: Inbetween Alucard, Anderson and The Major's mutual ravings of warfare, bloodshed and whatever else, there is a pretty good story being told, given with that very perspective of insanity. So, let's discuss.
The thing that Hellsing is all about is Duty. That's what drives basically everything in the plot forward: Alucard believes he should serve and die at the hands of mankind, Anderson believes that he should serve and die for God, The Major believes it's his duty to run the war machine that Hitler started and raise hell for hell's sake, Hellsing herself believes it is her duty to kill vampires and defend humanity, Pip thinks it's his family duty to be a mercenary, and Seras just wants to be a cop. All of these people have various levels of sanity and agency in their goals, and the last one is a special case: At the very beginning of the series, Seras' duty is immediately dashed and her life is flipped upside down, but we'll get to her later.
This duty makes 3 types of people: Dogs, Monsters, and Men. Dogs simply follow whatever their objective is, like the literal dog, The Captain, Walter C. Dornez, or Alexander Anderson. Monsters are kinda the same thing, but they take a personal duty to the extreme of inhumanity. Alucard became a monster as he felt abandoned by god and partook of blood to slay whatever was in his way, up till the point that the first hellsing drove a stake through his heart and told him he was no more. But Men are something different: they choose their duties and how to follow them. People like Integra, Pip and Seras all have their duties, because they believe it is the best for them to do, and thus, they carry it out with full understanding and lucidity.
As I already said, Seras starts off by being booted out of her duty. She wants to be a policewoman because that's simply where she thinks she can do the most with her life. In a flashback, it's already explained to her how she'd be hamstringing herself from various options, and she already knows exactly what sort of things being a police officer could do to her (Considering she saw her mom and dad get shot to death right before her eyes, before stabbing one of the killers with a fork straight to his eye and making him do that thing I gave a content warning about to the corpse of her mother), but she still just wants to help people, and dedicates her life to that. Now that she's dead and a vampire, she has to figure out what her new duty is.
One of the questions raised early in Hellsing's run is, why did Alucard turn Seras into a vampire? Even if it doesn't really make sense because it's unlikely Alucard would have any idea she'd resolve her arc the way she did from the way she acted in episode 1 (Tried to fight for her life to the best of her ability, captured anyways because her enemies were immortal and barely did anything to resist being sexually assaulted by the one vampire), I'd like to think that the reason is that he knew she classified as a Man. And indeed she does.
Even though she does eventually drink Pip and totally accepts her vampiric status, she still retains her humanity. Unlike Alucard, she didn't drink him just because she had absolutely nothing left and wanted to destroy the enemies in front of her, or did she want to live and be strong as a vampire, she did it so she could avenge him, and the best way to do that was to suck it up (literally) and hold onto her will as she rushed off to help Hellsing defeat Millennium. I'd like to think that, when she meets Dracula and he just headpats her and calls her Seras (when she's been Big tittied police girl the whole time), it's an acknowledgement of her growth as a person, as opposed to her status as a proper Vampire.
On the other hand, Alucard was weak. He turned into a monster after being stripped of everything, until the OG Hellsing showed up to stab him through the heart, which changed him into their Dog, simply living to SEARCH AND DESTROY for humanity until a proper Man kills him. He always makes sure to not do anything without Hellsing's orders to, considering her his countess Alucard supports Femdom, what a chad and he is entirely open to Anderson stepping up to bat and killing him for good
But then Anderson shows his own true nature: not really a monster of god, I'd consider the real monster of god to be Maxwell, considering he ultimately just started serving the power of god, and how that helped him feel strong, but regardless, Anderson became a Dog to God, willing to do no more than drive a nail into his heart and keep fighting past his limitations as a person. For him, he would have never minded to have been born an explosive, or as a raging typhoon, or any form of heartless destruction. All that mattered to him was that he served his master to the end.
Alucard reacts by totally freaking, telling Anderson desperately to not do it, but regardless, Anderson jams the nail into his heart. Alucard moves in for the kill, but it's not so easy, Anderson's new power allows him to get the upper hand and jam a bayonet inbetween Alucard's eyes, causing his entire army to start immolating. From then on, he just reflects on his life, for a moment, entering a pre-death phase until Seras cries out for him and reaches out to try and get Anderson off him, only to start burning as well to the wrath of his thorns. But, that was enough for Alucard to snap out of his funk, and go back to his duty. Since a Man wasn't killing him any time soon, his next best bet was to serve humanity, and not let himself die while Seras was trying to save him. So, he goes Level 1, rips out Anderson's heart out, leaving him on the ground.
After the fight ends Alucard laments how this all played out, and Anderson tells him to stop crying, ye devil, and wonders how long Alucard would live after this fight. Alucard just gives one response. That he would live on, until his past was outshined by his future. Another interpretation that doesn't really make sense considering the context this is said in and generally the surface level events of the story, but I'd like to think that his future is already outshining his past, and he did die over 500 years ago. Even in the insanity he has now, he's a lot happier than he once was, serving to his true purpose and really fighting for something worthwhile: the humans around him. A cause he dedicates himself to even when he literally gets thrown out of existence.
I've heard Mr. King say that Alucard surviving Schrodinger's cat was a pull of the rear end, but, for one: the rules of the supernatural in Hellsing are so all over the place and crazy that I'm not sure we can really feel cheated from one we only just explored a few minutes ago having it's rules broken or bent, and for two: it's kinda the only way I can imagine it playing out, with everything in mind. Alucard wasn't going to die to another Dog like The Major, who simply wanted to run the war machine and claim victory over Alucard no matter the cost, nor was he going to die to Walter wanting the same sort of thing so he can be remembered. He still had things to live for, his countess and his servant, so, he buckled up, and just slaughtered several millions of soldiers to get a rein in on things.
As a side note: I kinda feel like that parallels how Anderson squared up against his army to get to Alucard himself, facing off against innumerably bad odds just to do what they felt their master needed them to do.
If you're paying attention, you'll realize that these two things kinda contradict eachother. On one hand, Seras' arc ends by retaining her humanity, and carrying out her duty because she chooses to, not because she's insanely obsessed with the objective that no restraint would hold her, while Alucard ends his arc by retaining his obsession and serving his masters. What kind of message is this supposed to send? I didn't really have an answer to this, when I started the like 4 hour journey to write this monster out, but, now that we're at the end, I don't think it's really sending a message. I think it's more just a showcase, how people can be happy by both following their own will or giving themselves up to something else. So long as they're striving to do the right thing, any level of agency can work out for your happiness. It feels a bit half hearted to end on, but that's kinda just how it goes.
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