Please welcome Lola Rayne to Books for Company.
Lola has written a great post for us about Berserkers which I really enjoyed reading, I hope you do too!
Lola is the author of The Monster Within, my review of which is coming this week.
If she'd been able to look into his eyes at that moment, they'd have been the purest of white without an iris or a pupil. The eyes of a berserker in a rage.”
If you’re familiar with the Norse, you probably already know about the legendary warriors who would work themselves into such a rage (known as berserkergang) during which they were impervious to pain and fear and all that other nasty shit that makes warriors less effective. While in this state they would often fight long past the point that any mortal being should be able to withstand. In those cases, when their rage abated and their battle lust was slaked they would collapse and die.
Ok, so the death thing might be less of a historical fact and more of a D&D rule…
It doesn’t really matter though, because I have long been obsessed with berserkers, no matter what the source material is. From the Hulk to Orson (Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight), I love them all. It doesn’t matter if they spent too long in a tanner (or whatever it was they’re saying caused the Hulk to be the Hulk these days) possessed by the spirit of anger, corrupted by magic or simply born that way, I’m drawn to them like moths to a flame.
The reason is simple. There’s something compelling about reading and/or writing a character that simply losses control and becomes an unstoppable force. I mean, just imagine the ability to switch from whatever perspective you’re writing in and being able to kick back, allowing the main character to watch the action as if he was having an out of body experience. You know, because he kind of is having an out of body experience. Or they might not even know what’s happening when they’re “in a tizzy” and simply wake up to find piles of broken and mangled bodies littering the floor. THE GORY HORRID POSSIBILITES ARE ENDLESS! *insane cackle*
Oh, uh, sorry… where was I?
Right! Berserkers! Another thing I find compelling about them is that, when you get right down to it, they’re very much like werewolves. I mean think about it. You have a human person with some more primitive entity lurking in the shadows of their minds. Given the appropriate stimulus, that other creature comes to the fore and they shift. Berserkers simply have the added bonus of not needing an extra long and painful transformation or the pesky need for more clothes or absurd explanations of why they still have their clothes/don’t transform… or that awkward moment where my brain goes “do they ever… you know… while in animal form?”
…
Actually, pretend I didn’t say that last thing. I never think about that at all. *shifty*On top of the whole “body being broken and rebuilt to run on four legs” and the “oops, I have no clothing, time for the ultimate walk of shame” things, they also have more room for growth as a character. I mean, I love werewolves probably more than I should but you’ve got to admit, they’re kind of a one trick pony. They shift into a wolf. Bam, that’s it. Sure sometimes they can throw in other powers or new abilities, but really they’re a man and then they’re a wolf. Berserkers though… oh think of the possibilities. Just using one of my all time favorites as an example (that I won’t name due to spoilers), they can break free of the berserker spirit, and have to come to terms with a reality where they aren’t an unstoppable killing machine. Where they feel other things, dangerous things, like love and fear. The sky is the limit!
My berserkers (well these berserkers, the Mounting Darkness berserkers) are pretty typical as far as supernatural berserkers go. When their switch gets flipped, they… well basically they Hulk out for lack of a better term. Their muscles go all wonky and bulgy and their skin becomes too tight for their body. It’s like going from an action star to a professional body builder. Arnold now to Arnold then, if you will. If that’s not enough of a visual clue, their eyes go milky white. Really it was because I thought it looked creepier when the person you were standing next to being all normal three seconds ago is now looking at you without looking at you. Can you imagine the breath hitching horror?
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a lot of chance to play around with them this time around, and I know that’s going to be a complaint. Hey, I’m not real happy about it either, but it just didn’t fit this time around. Perhaps in a latter book I’ll have the chance to throw one of my berserkers into a full on rage and see how they fare, or how all the furniture in their general vicinity fares at any rate. That or I’ll just write a little mini story with two of our fair berserkers engaged in fisticuffs. Because that’s how I roll.
Find Lola
Buy The Monster Within
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