The True Meaning Behind Hellsing’s Bird of Hermes

the bird of Hermes is my name eating my wings to make me tame this quote stares at us in the face every single time the title screen appears in helling Ultimate yet it is only spoken once in the entire series of course once was more than enough given the circumstances around the phrase being uttered there was a reason that the quote appeared in every title card it was a warning these two lines were the only thing keep keeping the mortal world safe from the true horror that was alukard while these lines gave us one of

the most terrifying displays of power in anime there isn't much explanation or elaboration on the words being spoken in this video I want to break down the meaning of this line and explain why the creators of Hing ultimate felt that they were so crucial that they needed to accompany the title screen every single time these 14 words are not only a reflection of the vampire King's night marish power but they also summarize alucard's entire characterization and the greater themes of housing as a whole let's see if we can figure out why alukard calls himself the

bird of Hermes to understand this quote you must first understand where it originated these words were lifted from a 15th century piece of alchemical writing known as the Ripley scroll the most simplified explanation for this text is that it is a detailed list of of instructions on how to create something known as the philosopher stone yes that philosopher stone it is an item synonymous with countless magical qualities including the most relevant quality that we will dive into for this video immortality in fact the bird of Hermes itself is supposedly a phoenix a well-known symbol of

immortality within the Ripley scroll itself the bird of Hermes represents the literal Vapor that arises with and alchemic substances are mixed together however the vapor is represented symbolically as the Eternal Phoenix immortality is crucial to alak card's existence because it is extremely difficult to put a permanent end to him even if you follow steps 2 through 10 the Phoenix is also symbolic of rebirth and entering a new life which is certainly what Vlad tepus did when he became Count Dracula and what Dracula did when he became alukard each one of alucard's different personas can be

seen as another Phoenix likee rebirth into a different person complete with a different personality and accent what's really interesting about the Ripley scroll is that it portrays the philosopher stone as being composed of three different colored stones these colors represent the three stages of the alchemical process the black stone represents Gro which is a stage of decomposition or demise and white represents albo which is a stage of purification and red represents present rubo which is the final stage of the alchemical process and represents self-awareness and re-entry into the mortal world it should also be noted

that rubo is also represented in alchemic text using the symbol of the Phoenix because it represents returning to the world with a clear sense of self if you look at any of aloc card's multiple fors you'll see that black white and red make up his entire color palette and not only that but the ratio of colors used in each design gives us a glimpse into alak's mental state in each of his different forms his Count Dracula form is dressed in almost all black with the inner lining of his cape flashing some red and the only

white shown is on his ghostly pale skin black in the alchemical process represents death and it is Dracula's dominant color which makes a lot of sense not to mention right before becoming Dracula he was the infamous Vlad the Impaler so he was already sending people to meet their ancestors in waves this is not to say that modern-day aloc car doesn't do the same thing but if you consider how many Souls popped out of restraint level zero looking like they came from this era I think it's safe to say that he was taking way more walks

back when he was Dracula you'll also see that black is the dominant color whenever alukard releases his restrictions indicating that nothing in front of him is going to have a future sorry Luke Valentine but you didn't have to destroy his 70in plasma screen TV the next form that we see alukard take was as a little girl in the' 40s this form had a white suit with long black hair and a touch of red comes from his glowing Crimson eyes in this form white is the dominant color symbolizing aloc card's purification from the evil Count Dracula

into a more innocent looking form at least on the surface we can tell from the long black hair that he was still very good at taking walks however after being tamed by Abraham van Hing he was no longer acting on his wanting barbarism the Vampire Slayer domesticated Dracula and turned him into alukard he was an obedient pet to the helling organization and was a shell of the former great vampire King this is where we get the very little red in his design because at this point alukard has lost much of his sense of self after

his defeat this takes us to his modern-day look contemporary alukard likes to take a walk wearing a strike red suit and a hat that adorns his pitch black hair while covering his hands with bright white gloves it seems that the ratio of red to White in this modern outfit is an inverse of his 40s look now red is a dominant color and there is only a splash of white in his gloves the reversal in color shows that alukard has gained more self-awareness and no longer needs to be purified or tamed this form is where alukard

fully accepted his role as integras G dog he understands his limitations as an Unstoppable monster owned by a far less powerful master and he simply enjoys his existence the black of course still lingers around in his design because wherever alukard goes the Grim Reaper isn't far behind I also wanted to note that when Sarah self-actualized and ascended to being a true vampire her outfit also permanently stained red the more you think about the alchemical process the more that the bird of Hermes line makes sense but what if I told you that there was a deeper

meaning to Alo cart's connection with the philosopher stone than just his outfit choices if you think about it the three stages of developing a philosopher stone can also be used to map out aloc card's character Arc in the final battle of the story alukard Begins the Night by following integra's orders to release restraint level zero the bird of Hermes has arrived on the battlefield to begin its Resurrection process and the first first step in that process is always Annihilation alard also reverts back to his Count Dracula form and the billowing of his black cape signifies

that everyone there was about to meet their end as the night goes on alakar progresses to the next stage albo when he battles a deaged Walter C dornes alakar takes on his young girl form dressed in white signifying purification Walter also ages back to the form of a child and a battle devolves into a playground fight between two super powerful children their childlike forms symbolize Purity and innocence being tainted and corrupted by their evilness you would think that at this point alukard would eventually hit the final stage of retto and take on his red suited

appearance again however it seems that alukard bit off more than he could chew when he absorbed Schrodinger not much is known about how Schrodinger got his powers or where the major found an omnipresent catboy all we know about him is that as long as he is aware of his own existence and believes that he is there he can be anywhere everywhere and nowhere once alukard consumed shinger and gained his powers of omnipresence he also existed everywhere and nowhere simultaneously however since alucard's Soul contains the millions of other Souls that he has taken over his centuries

of existence it was difficult for him to hear through the noise and therefore he wasn't able to be fully self-aware enough to maintain his existence hence why he blinked out of reality the second he ate Schrodinger in the simplest terms to describe this Schrodinger has a single mind and the ability to exist everywhere as long as his single mind thinks it to be so when alukard eats him the millions of screaming Minds inside him makes it hard for him to to think properly about when and where he wants to exist so it soft loocks him

from reality for the next 30 Years alard in his Transcendent State Beyond reality eliminated every single soul existing inside him one by one 3,424 1867 Souls I did the math and alukard had to take out approximately 312 Souls a day or about 13 an hour after doing some spring cleaning on his soul alakar was able to regain self-awareness and recognized himself which allowed him to fully utilize schwinger's powers and return to existence upon his return we see him in his classic red suit arriving at the rubo stage he is fully realized reborn into a new

life once again and more powerful now than ever now that we've sufficiently broken down the first part of the rhyme and explained how alukard is the bird of Hermes let's talk about why he eats his own Wings it is interesting that the metaphorical bird in the poem is owned by Hermes in the Ripley scroll Hermes refers to Hermes Tris magistus the Greeks identify this figure as Hermes the god of Messengers while the Egyptians identified him as tho the god of knowledge the bottom line is that Hermes Tris magistus is seen as a Godly figure the

fact that his his bird has to constantly eat his wings for someone as powerful as a God to tame him tells us that the bird itself is tremendously more powerful than The God Who Lords over him two of hing's biggest themes are The Duality between man and monster and the relationship between master and servant the commonality between these relationships is that the servants are way more powerful than their human Masters alukard is a Monster who serves Integra Alexander Anderson is a Monster who serves Maxwell and the Monsters of Millennium all serve the major all of

these monsters despite being unbelievably powerful share the fact that none of them have Wills of their own they only exist to follow the orders of their masters especially in the case of alukard and Millennium Anderson disobeys Maxwell since his true Master is God so when Maxwell gives an order that he feels goes against God's will he will refuse to follow it Anderson himself even states that he wishes that he was born as a hurricane to deliver God's Will and that he wants nothing more than to be God's perfect monster on the other hand all that

alukard wants in his un life is to follow the orders of his master Integra despite her human body being weaker than that of a vampires her human Spirit descended from the very men who defeated him all of those years ago after Abraham van heling a mortal man and his band of other Mortal men defeated the Unstoppable monster Dracula decided to devote the rest of his existence to only serving Hing and his family therefore alukard put restrictions on his full vampiric Powers metaphorically eating his own Wings in order to be easily tamed by the hellings you

could also interpret alukard purging the souls from his body as another way that he as the bird of Hermes ate his own Wings To Be Tamed because right after he finished purifying himself he returned back to his master Integra fairbrooks wind gates Hing now that alukard has reached a state where he has fully realized who he is and has become the most powerful being ever the only thing keeping him from bringing Oblivion onto the world is integrity we find out that the end of the series that Integra has chosen to live out the rest of

her mortal life and not sire any heirs to carry on the Hing family Legacy one shutters to imagine what will happen once the bird of Hermes no longer needs to eat its own Wings thank you all so much for watching the video all the way to the end and hopefully you enjoyed this analysis on alukard and the bird of Hermes I've always loved that line and it it was really fun diving into the Ripley scroll and alchemic lore and I'm sure that the information I provided here isn't 100% correct so if anyone would like to

add to my ideas or correct any mistakes I might have made regarding Alchemy then please feel free to let me know in the comments down below and while you're there let me know your thoughts on alukard and helling ultimate as a whole it's one of my favorite anime series of all time and as always don't forget to like And subscribe and I'll catch you next time with more lukewarm takes [Music]