Girge's character analysis (Break Blade)

The first thing that needs to be said about Girge is that he’s a character of expectations. Expectations are what defines him as a character. Not just our expectations for him, as the reader, but the expectations that most of the other characters have for him as well. What does Girge do in the face of expectations? In the purest sense, he defies them.

Let’s start from page one, shall we. As we all know, Girge is the son of General Bard who is an incredibly famous and important general in Krishna’s military. General Bard was the only parental figure Girge really had in his young life, for his mother died early on when he was just a baby. The problem here is that Girge didn’t know General Bard very well; in fact neither of them had much of an understanding of one another. All Girge knew about his father is from what people had told him: that he was a great General.

Girge had always been expected to live up to the marks that General Bard made, and perhaps become something even greater and bigger than his father. During the small flashback we have of General Bard and Girge together, he says to his father that at school everyone always mindlessly compliments him and praises him “As expected of General Bard’s son!” and he says this makes him uncomfortable. This is because young!Girge is being told to live up to some grand figure that he doesn’t know anything about. Girge is not being seen as himself, he’s being seen as a ‘thing’ with great potential. He’s expected to fill the huge boots his father has left, and while he understands the implication of that, he doesn’t know anything about the man filling the boots (since Girge and Bard spent no time together). So being expected to fill that lofty role was a bit too much for him, but he just went along with it because he hadn’t yet reached the point where he decided to defy that role.

The next event is the scene shown to us in the flashback. This scene definitely has a lot of significance even if that’s not clear to us at first. I believe that it was something that changed Girge’s mentality drastically and influenced many of his radical decisions in the future.

The first thing is when General Bard shot Girge in the leg to distract his captive and save him. Girge doesn’t hold anything against General Bard for doing this, because he does admit it was the only logical way in the heat of the moment to save his life. But I believe Girge realizes something important here, and that is that his father is not some infallible, perfect figure that he’s been told by everyone for all his life up until now. His father is human as well, he makes mistakes, he has weakness, there are moments where he can’t make a perfect decision and that breaks the perfect image of his father that he had. It humanizes Bard for him (not necessarily in a good way. I believe Girge has great indifference toward his father for the entirety of his life after he got older. I’m sure that he cares about his father in some form, but realizes he’s rather weak or below him because Bard doesn’t have the ruthlessness and killing intent that is needed for the strong to survive, which Girge uses). So Bard has fallen from the pedestal in Girge’s eyes, and the second important thing in this flashback is his adoption of the mentality that the weak are useless and if you don’t become ruthless you can’t survive.

This is partially because of Bard shooting him in the leg and being unable to actually kill his son so he wouldn’t get captured (Putting his son’s safety first which isn’t what Girge expected because of what he’d been lead to believe of what his father is like) and the weak villagers which were just dominated by the bandits who invaded. Also Girge’s carelessness in calling out his father’s name, when he was held captive, was a sign of weakness he showed that escalated events.

After this flashback child!Girge has realized Bard is not perfect. Before this he was always made to believe his father was great and infallible and was constantly groomed and forced into that role by everyone around him. Now he sees that the people around him are clueless and don’t have his best interests at heart at all. They don’t see him for who he is. After a long time I think the constant expectations for him start grinding on him and his nerves really hard.  So what does he decide to do? He decides to crush those expectations absolutely.

And that is exactly what he does when he turns and attacks his training squad. As stated, I don’t believe Girge had any intentions of killing them. And while it’s not stated, I don’t necessarily think he did it just for the lulz. Even though he’s pretty psychotic, I think something set him off, a final straw which pushed him over the edge. For all we know his fellow soldiers in that squad were huge ass kissers and were mindlessly praising him for everything he did.

>Shoot a target
“Amazing! As expected of General Bard’s son!”
>Move the golem a step further
“Amazing! As expected of the son of great General Bard!”
>Yawn
“Amazing! You really are General Bard’s son after all!”

This is what I like to believe even though the cause of what set Girge off to attack them is never stated. Remember he is a bit mentally unsound so there’s just as much chance that he attacked them with literally no provocation. However, I do think he had no intentions to kill any of them. As we know, Girge purposefully avoided the vitals of all the other soldiers and only one of them ended up dying in this incident. I believe it was the one Girge used as a shield while he went around and attacked the others. I also like to think that Girge didn’t kill this human shield right away, and that he instead disarmed them and used their limbless golem torso as the shield, while the pilot inside eventually died from friendly fire as the squad members tried to stop Girge. This was never stated, but seems incredibly likely considering he took care into not brutally killing the other members.

This was Girge’s first step in defying expectations. With this, he went against EVERYTHING that he was meant and expected to be by all the characters around him. He was expected to be a great and valiant general like his father, but instead just turns on his fellow squad members for no reason in a training mission, and destroys them. If that’s not furthest from the ideal then I’m not sure what is.
Girge is not evil at heart. At this point he’s simply fed up with the role he’s been forced into all his life, and has decided to go against it. Him not explaining his motives to Bard, later when he came to his cell in question, is very in character for Girge. I also like to think he didn’t say anything because he relished at his father being the clueless and adrift one for a change.

I don’t believe Girge minded being put in prison. At least there he wasn’t surrounded by people forcing him toward a lofty goal. He could be himself for a while (if he even knows what being himself even is).

Later on Girge is released because he’s a pilot with massive potential and is one of the trump cards in the upcoming fight with General Borcuse. Up until that fight begins Girge acts his normal self: unpredictable.

One of the first things we see him do is appear out of nowhere and attack Rygart unprovoked which instantly establishes him as being a looney bird and being spontaneous and wild. Not much happens up till the Borcuse fight begins but I want to mention the beginnings of his relationship with Rygart.

Girge takes an immediate interest in Rygart for quite a few reasons. One being is that he’s another pilot with massive talent and potential, also piloting a strange new Golem that no one else can use (so that makes him take interest in him in almost a childish way). And the other is that (when Girge’s sees them talking before Bard’s forces move out with General True) Rygart knows Bard and is perhaps on a kind of level of friendship with the General. Girge doesn’t really know what to think of this when he sees it. Mostly, he’s indifferent to it because he doesn’t much care about his father or what his father does. Also, since he doesn’t know anything about Rygart, Girge likens him to a foolish novice soldier captivated by Bard’s knowledge and air of experience. Girge doesn’t see Rygart filling his expected role yet, but he sees the beginnings of it. (And of course he hears Bard telling Rygart he should kill Girge if he does anything suspicious (because Bard doesn’t understand Girge at all, even more so after that incident where he attacked his squad members) and Girge leaves before he hears Rygart refuse this order. Since he doesn’t hear that, Rygart hasn’t become exceptional in his eyes yet. Rygart is still another, albeit interesting, soldier to him.)

What happens next of course is the battle with Borcuse. After the small training arc before it, we, the reader, already expect great things from Girge. We don’t know much about him aside from him being an amazing talent and that he’s volatile and unpredictable. If you’ve watched mecha you will be familiar with characters like this because insane, battle crazy fighters are a troupe all on their own. So, what do we expect? We expect for Girge to put that unparalleled crazy combat action to the test! We expect to see him tear through Borcuse’s forces like a mad man, and blow our minds with his piloting skills.

But he doesn’t. Before Narvi and co can rush into battle, Girge has a mental breakdown/panic attack because he says he’s too scared to go into a real battle. This is the exact opposite of the expectations that we’ve had for him up until now. Simultaneously, this is also contrary to Narvi and everyone else’s expectations.  Of course he’s faking but we don’t know that until a little while later. Narvi and company disregard him (which is what Girge predicted/hoped she would do) since they had no time to wait around for him while he has a breakdown. Once she goes, he uses this opportunity to do exactly what he wants, and that is to launch a direct attack against the big boss himself: Borcuse.

Girge isn’t here to follow orders and be obedient (which is what he’s done for a lot of his life and he’s fed up with that by now) he’s here to have fun. And for this first time in his life, do what HE wants.
Next we see of Girge he’s tearing into Borcuse’s forces, defying our expectations once again now that we were lead to believe he was all bark and no bite with his previous “fake mental break down scene”. Now we are seeing for real the kind of monster he is and he does it with gusto.

However, this will not be the last time Girge goes against our expectations.

Before his last main big moments as a character, there’s one small scene after he went off on his own to fight Borcuse, and is being scolded by Narvi. She says to him, “I don’t like you, but you are General Bard’s son, and everyone expects great things from you.” Everyone being the key word here. That is pressure.

Even now, after all the volatile things he’s done, people still expect him to be a great soldier like General Bard. This doesn’t upset him or make him angry, if anything it amuses him because he sees it as being incredibly ironic.

To this he replies, “I wouldn’t call it expectations. Didn’t everyone just want a live sacrifice?”

Later on he watches from a distance as Rygart and General Bard talk to one another again and he sees them getting closer (Rygart comforts Bard after what’s-her-face dies). Girge doesn’t understand the full implications of this yet, but seeing another person effortlessly starting to fill a role he was meant to walk all his life fills him with feelings of animosity. At this point he definitely wants to find out what makes Rygart tick.

Which leads us to Girge throwing everything aside (their mission and their team mates, in the middle of hostile territory) to challenge Rygart to entirely unnecessary one on one battle.

Now let’s talk about Rygart and his thoughts about Girge. Rygart, of course, is willing to give anyone a chance. He doesn’t just take things at face value and realizes there’s a reason for everything, and a deeper meaning behind most things. When people tell him Girge is bad news, should be watched, not trusted, and avoided, that makes Rygart curious. He’s aware Girge has a few screws loose but thinks that he can still be understood, and a relationship can be built with him.

Under normal circumstances Rygart would have readily agreed to single combat with Girge. Why he is reluctant at first is because they’re in the middle of hostile territory and their unit is scattered and some members are MIA. He would not have agreed to combat if Girge didn’t threaten Narvi’s life and start egging him on. That might cause you to wonder if Girge really did have any intentions of killing Narvi, or if he was just bluffing. There is no answer to this, but let’s bring up a few things we know. Remembering the training incident, Girge went out of his way to avoid killing his fellow squad members, and the only one that died might have been accidental. Before his fight with Rygart he incapacitates Logen instead of killing him (though perhaps spared his life because of the consequences he’d forseen he would suffer after his fight with Rygart) but he’d never taken the life of a fellow soldier before then. I like to think he had no intentions of killing Narvi but we may never know.

So during this battle Girge and Rygart end up understanding a bit more about each other during their fight. In this fight, however, Rygart is the one who goes against Girge’s expectations. Girge understands Rygart on some level and isn’t stupid. He’s pieced together that Rygart cares about Sigyn and appeals to his dark side and offers to assist him in charging back to the capital and spiriting her away. Why? Well Girge just likes unpredictability and fun. As Rygart says, he just wants to fuck around. Rygart denies his offer, which doesn’t surprise Girge much. During battle they discuss things for a while and are able to come to a more mutual understanding. Rygart wants to understand Girge.

The biggest milestone of this battle is a line Rygart shouts to Girge. He says, “Become great! Become an even greater general than your father!”

Girge has never heard these kinds of words before. He is both shocked because someone is actually believing in him, believing in his own power, not seeing him simply as “the next general bard”, and because these are the last words he expected from someone like Rygart.
Even after all he's done someone still believes in him and thinks he can become something great. In a twist, it's Rygart going against his expectations here.

After Rygart says these words Girge’s outer demeanor changes drastically. We’re still not sure to the extent these words effected him, but now there is no longer a malicious glint in his eye or a sadistic smirk on his face. His expression becomes completely passive (almost detached and indifferent) and he simply reacts to the situations thrown in front of him, no longer playing around like a dumb kid or putting his emotions into his actions.

What Rygart has said has hit him deeply and he doesn’t have much of a chance to think it over, but he’s clearly changed in his expression and the way he acts.

Either way Rygart and Girge have clearly reached a level of mutual understanding and at the very least Rygart is comfortable around Girge and cares a lot for his life. Girge understands what kind of person Rygart is now, and is comfortable with the idea of using his power to help Rygart attain that goal. We, the reader, expect that to be a finality.

After their one on one the Spartans attack and Girge continues to be the most bad ass thing this side of Krishna. (In a way, in this scene he is also defying expectations by continuing to fight on and defeat the enemy despite how much damage his golem has taken (and how much energy it lost in his duel with Rygart) and still surviving and beating any enemy even if his golem his crushed. We end up believing he’s invincible and nothing can take him down).

And then Borcuse arrives. We all know what happens next.

At this moment, during this scene, the reader now has high expectations for Girge. As a character, there’re so many things we want to see him do. There’re so many places he could go. We want to see him become a more friendly person with his fellow soldiers. We want to see him continue to be a bad ass and style all over the enemy with amazing skill. We want to see his friendship with Rygart develop, and see Girge use his skills to help Rygart reach his goal, and for Girge to take things seriously and try to become something great (as they agreed). We want to see Girge reach better terms with his father and reach a level of mutual understanding with him.

But, for the very last time, Girge goes against our expectations. He doesn’t go out in a blaze of glory. He doesn’t die killing Borcuse in his golem. He doesn’t go mad and turn on his fellow soldiers again, only to be killed by them. No one comes to save them even though Bard is on the way.
He dies trying to save someone else’s life.

This is the end of Girge’s journey, but there is one more important thing to mention. And that is his final words to Rygart.

His final words to Rygart are “There’s something you can do that I’ll never be able to do no matter how much I try. And that is to become a good son.”
For some reason we may never know, Girge couldn’t or just wouldn’t have been able to ever achieve that goal, of living up to General Bard and filling those boots. Girge knows that Rygart can, not just in combat skills, but also in an emotional way. Rygart can fill the emotional role of being a son to General Bard, which was already happening around the time Girge showed up.
Afterwards Girge effects Rygart in many ways but his role as an independent character is over.