#yeah i could’ve downplayed the slipper slope but

[300iqprower]

Hot Take: BERSAKA is in the Jalter camp of canon being conflated with fanon and his FGO portrayal as an utterly mindless being, an ACTUAL “Chaotic-Insane” personality (or rather lackthereof one), is more accurate to his original concept than a lot of his portrayal in the later Heaven’s Feel movies.

Much like how in fanworks and general discussions Avenger Jalter is often just portrayed/thought of as an angrier version of her Chuuni Berserker swimsuit alt (a version that was intended for a comedic non-canon spinoff event thatvwas explicitly poking fun at the idea she’s actually just an edgelord tsun) in fan works Heracles pretty much has his Strange Fake mindset/values (one of coherent thought and strong silence rather than roaring rampage) imposed on his berserker self. It’s even to the point where, like with Jalter, Nasu/DW started to canonically merge the two and cater to fanboys rather than stand their ground for fucking once, having a direct indication that they always WERE one and the same in the third Heaven’s Feel movie, in a shoutout that was very much not even remotely in the original.

I started thinking about this when i saw a complaint that in FGO Bersaka is less a character and more a living hazard, which is absolutely accurate with his own interlude describing him in similar terms as a “Walking Natural Disaster” or something like that. The conflation is essentially that everyone expects Heracles to be this “Protector” because of Carnival Phantasm Ilya memes and his Strange Fake self. Rather than being thought of as this utter demigod, NEAR IMMORTAL monster who is only kept from exerting hinself to death from the moment he’s summoned because this absolute freak of nature with hundreds to thousands of command seals is his master, he’s pretty much by default just seen as this protective dad who can only communicate through screaming.

So in summary what we’re left with is, like with Jalter, a part of the tragedy of the character being left behind. I was never big on Bersaka but I loved his concept of how it portrayed the overflowing power trope. I loved the idea that in a cruelly ironic fate, the incarnation of this universally iconic mythical hero who attained godlihood, must now take a form that is utterly lacking in humanity because of the power granted by that godhood. Like Jalter its not been entirely lost, but you can see it’s gonna keep fading if it keeps going down that path.