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“ | You fool, who rebels against God! You shall pay for this sin with your blood!!! | „ |
~ Bishop Mozgus |
Mozgus is a major antagonist of the manga series Berserk, serving as the main antagonist of the Conviction Arc.
He is one of the Chief Inquisitors of the Holy See, traveling the world with his group of torturers, sent to root out a violent cult of heretics in the city of St. Albion. He would hinder, with his excessive religious zeal, Guts' efforts in saving Casca. His symbol was four torture wheels, embodying his willingness to use torture as a way to cleanse people from evil and disregarding Gods message.
He was voiced by Rikiya Koyama in both the 2016 Berserk anime and Berserk Musou video game.
Appearance[]
Mozgus was a tall, muscular, and strong man, his most distinguishing feature was his smooth, almost flat face. During his prayers, and whenever he was angry, his face became swollen with bulging veins and he took on a much more intimidating appearance.
After the Egg of the Perfect World transforms him into a pseudo-apostle, he gains large, white-feathered wings that he is able to use in his human form; a reflection of his religious ideals. In his transformed state, his feathers turn grey and hardened, resembling closed fists. His body becomes completely encased in the hardened feathers, giving him an armored, scaly appearance.
Personality[]
Mozgus was an extremely devout man, completely dedicated to the Holy See and an ardent follower of "God", whose faith is at the point of extreme fanaticism. He is incredibly sensitive towards those he deems to have “claimed” God’s will, killing a villager for saying he would be punished by God for his arbitrary acts for example. Mozgus believes he is the only one who carried Gods message in Albion and that he was destined to share it to others. He greatly emphasized his religion in everything he did and acted with great zeal in his quest to purge the world of "heretics". Mozgus was also somewhat sadistic and cruel, as he greatly enjoyed torturing others and reveling in their pain for the sake of "purifying" their beings. This act of purification however went on for amounts of time that ended up killing the victims in brutal ways. His extreme hatred of heretics has led him to use interrogation and torture techniques against hundreds he has judged to be heretics.
He genuinely cares for his disciples, raising them as his own children and taking them under his wing. Even though he turned them into torturous monsters by teaching them his ways and ideologies, Mozgus truly loves them as his own children. Due to his sympathy for the misshaped and deformed, he taught his disciples that God needed people with their unusual appearances and hearts filled with hatred. He even cries tears of blood after seeing them die and vows to avenge them.
Despite fully being aware of appearing sadistic and vicious, Mozgus acknowledges the pain and suffering that enforcing God's strict laws entails. And he is capable of showing a kinder side, however, towards the impoverished, sick, and poor. An example is when he genuinely listens to a woman's plea for why she has stolen bread from a village carriage and he gives food to her starving child. Even though he brings the woman to face an inquiry and brutal torture afterwards, he believed it would make her faith stronger. Regardless of all of this, he feels no guilt or remorse for his actions and countless acts of torture and murder.
Mozgus is an extremely fearless individual, demonstrating extreme valor and a lack of fear towards death, particularly when he and his torturers are cornered by the physical malice in the Tower of Conviction. And upon being killed by Guts he shows no sense of fear, instead feeling immense joy in being able to be with God.
Powers and Abilities[]
Pain Tolerance: As a result of his years of daily prostration, slamming his face into the floor 1000 times at morning and night, Mozgus has a high tolerance for pain. Despite this, he has greatly damaged his knees to the point where can barely run or walk.
Immense Strength: Mozgus displays a large amount of strength even in his human form, being able to kill one of his would-be assassins out of anger using only his scripture’s tome. After his transformation into a Pseudo-Apostle, Mozgus’ strength increases to an extreme level, able to easily topple Guts in his fight against him.
God’s Armour: In his monstrous Pseudo-Apostle form, Mozgus gains an extremely durable stone-hard scale hide and armour that covers his body, making him impervious to all weapons, even Guts‘ extremely powerful Dragon Slayer sword.
God’s Breathe: Mozgus is capable of breathing powerful fires, which is able to burn and incinerate anything that is within its vicinity.
Angelic Wings: Additionally Mozgus also gains a set of large, white angelic wings allowing him to fly in the air. These angelic wings also incited a crowd of refugees in his favour, maki g them believe his wings are a gift from God. In his monstrous, second transformation, Mozgus can transform his wings into second set of extremely tough and powerful arms to perform devastating attacks, which include:
- God's Thousand-Strike Cannon: Mozgus’ powerful fists rapidly pulverise his enemies many times.
- God’s Pressure: Mozgus crushes his enemies with his fists.
History[]
Prior to the events told in the Conviction Arc, Mozgus was a zealous Inquisitor, acting on behalf of the Holy See. There, he recruited a small group of marginalized, disfigured individuals, comforting them by reading parts of the Holy See Doctrine, meant to reassure them that even their disfigurements were meant to be worn with pride as a gift from God, and training them in his particular brand of torture, vicious and rarely leading its survivors to walk away without serious wounds.
He is then sent to St. Albion to root out heretics on the behalf of the Holy See, requesting the Holy Iron Chain Knights as his personal guard. Albeit a true heretical group is brewing in the mountains surrounding St. Albion, based on orgiastic rituals, Mozgus himself apparently does little to stop them, managing to capture many of them only by Farnese's intervention. Instead, he sets every bit of his attention towards smothering in blood and torture the rebellions of the poor and starving population of St. Albion against the tyrannical rule of the Holy See. Mozgus sees such acts of defiance against himself as defiance against God, whose rule he's meant to embody.
Physically tall and strong, harsh and demanding with everyone, even himself, he impresses Farnese by smothering several rebellions with threat of death and torture, sparing only a young mother asking more food for her starving child. Though Mozgus does give the child food and medical attention, he sentences the woman to torture with a tearful prayer that she survive the "test" that God has prepared for her, and attempting to use the encounter as a lesson to Farnese about the harshness of God's doctrine.
Upon capturing Casca, who is mistaken as a witch by the local heretics and priests alike, he realizes how the recent accounts of the Black Swordsman may be related to the mute, amnesiac brand girl, so, as usual, tries to torture her as a way to get some more information. Instead, he merely triggers the appearance of a huge band of demons, attracted by the Tower itself, which had been chosen for the Incarnation Ceremony, and the presence of the Brand. Mozgus doesn't flinch at all, instead closing himself in the chapel of the Tower of Rebirth, where the Egg-Shaped Apostle uses his venom to turn Mozgus and his servants into Apostle Spawns with angelic features, as a way to hasten the Incarnation Ceremony.
Without ever knowing what befell him, Mozgus believes that his angelic wings, his increased stamina, and the growing of a scaly hide able to withstand blows from the Dragonslayer and Guts' arm cannon were gifts from God, and decides, as a way to stop the Ceremony and quell the population's fears, to burn Casca at the stake, forcing Guts to come out.
After an heated battle against his mutated servants, Guts himself is almost defeated by Mozgus, until he manages to drive his sword into the only weak spot in Mozgus's hide: a small, weaker plate with the Holy See insignia, a representation of the Holy Book he always brings with him. Shortly after his death, the Incarnation Ceremony is completed, with Griffith's rebirth and the total destruction of St. Albion.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Mozgus is the only main antagonist of Berserk that is a pseudo-apostle.
- Miura drew heavy inspiration for Mozgus and the Conviction Arc after viewing the Italian film "Il nome della rosa" (translated as "The Name of the Rose") which features historical inquisitor Bernardo Gui, of whom Mozgus was based upon.