Weiss Kreuz: Abyssal

Estet...Este...Eszet...SZ...SS...oh, bugger it

So who the hell are all these people? And what do they want? We have very few cues to go on, but these are my best guesses. If you want the lowdown on their name, ß, pronounced Ess-tzet, check the details page.

First off, let me say that I'm not convinced that any significant number of influential Nazis were actually particularly steeped in occultism. If you want a good rundown of genuinely well-researched sources as well as nimnoes in print who examine just what place mysticism did likely have in Nazi-ism, check this site. It's delightfully snide.

What I am convinced of is that the tale of the darkly occult Nazis has made such a good story that it has found its way firmly into popular consciousness and was almost certainly used to give Weiß Kreuz a good batch of villains. Thus, I am evaluating the textual clues both in light of the story's appeal and with an eye to what the surviving historical record seems to actually indicate.

ß does rather look like some survival of the Nazi occult types, however fringe or central you think they were. We first see the three geezers who appear to be in charge of the organization in some mountains somewhere, and the castle-like building they're in does have a rather Alpine feeling to it. As opposed to, for instance, to someplace in Tibet or the Rockys. The dog herding sheep is a fairly cliché scene setter (16).

They talk about having come to Japan once before, some time back. More specifically, during their ritual they talk about achieving the empire they didn't manage to fifty years ago. If we allow that the show takes place more or less at the time it was written, that would be round about WWII.

They also talk about meeting a man with green gloves. This is, I believe, a reference to an alleged group of Tibetan monks (speaking of clichés), the Adepts of Agarthi or the Society of Green Men, contacted by the Nazis, who supposedly agreed to relocate to Germany and teach undefined secrets. The head of this order was supposed to be called the Monk with Green Gloves (or Hands). The fact that our WK threesome talk about meeting green-glove boy in Japan, rather than Tibet, may be an alternative version of this rumor or a deliberate rewriting so as to add local color to an identifiable reference. At any rate, it's the solidest indication we get of who these three oldsters are supposed to be. (You will find references to this supposed society in several of the books that Dr. Dyson pans most nastily at the link above.)

This, of course, is where Schwarz diverges from ß. ß wants to call one person into Aya-chan's body, Schwarz wants to call a different one. Schwarz says up front that they want to raise elemental chaos--more or less because they can, as far as I can tell. The old geezers want to raise a person who died, though we never get a name and they only refer to this individual as "the one", adding only in the last episode that he was "conscientious" and "cautious" in sending parties searching for the "tablet of regeneration" they intend to use for their ritual.

Both these goals certainly ring alongside Nazi occult sentiments (such as Himmler promulgated in order to sway the gullible) such as you find in the essays posted at this (informative, not political, and totally undocumented) site. Due to Crawford's comments about ß wanting to raise the short term past (fifty years ago) I think they may be trying to call Hitler into Aya-chan.

This possibility had me laughing rather hysterically when it occurred to me. Think about it for a moment: call the original Nazi into the body of an Asian girl. If it weren't such a gruesome idea I would call it cosmic justice.

Schwarz, on the other hand, seems to want something a little closer to the original occult goals of the yo-yos in question: to raise an incarnation of utter destructiveness and/or enlightenment, depending on which version they're fishing for, and bring about the end (and possibly rebirth) of the world in chaos. (Note that the page linked above is on an archive rather given to arm-waving, but this summary of the supposed occult influences on Nazi philosophy does accurately portray the mythos in question.) The fact that Schwarz expects to survive this chaos smacks of the whole super-man idea; apparently Crawford considers his team übermenschen. This would explain his abrupt u-turns in apparent loyalty. They guard Takatori for ß until the man has produced sufficient chaos to make ß happy, then drop him like a hot potato. They play along with ß until they are set up to take advantage of the Sakura/Aya-chan mix-up and, presumably, the power generated by the deaths of ß in order to meet their own goals. But Crawford isn't committed to anyone but his own team, because, if I'm reading this right, he considers everyone else inferior beings. The idea that Schwarz has been playing a long game with ß is supported by the final confrontation between them and the bearded geezer, wherein Schuldig says that they will wake Aya-chan (prophetic statement from the telepath), the geezer says they don't have enough power, Nagi calls him ridiculous, Geezer tries to blow them away and finds that he can't. At which point Crawford tells him that Schwarz is not what ß thought they were. The man's got discipline, you've got to admit, considering that he (apparently) let the bearded geezer give him the start of a heart attack when they speak about having the host ready.

Oh, yes, that reminds me. Schwarz's actions during the second half of the series do also fit into the mold of occultism of the type in question. The concept that usable, if immaterial, power is given off as a result of human pain and death was something people like Aleister Crowley held forth on with what I can only call sick glee. Thus Schwarz's assignments to cause death and disruption make internal sense. This is, at least, the best explanaition I can come up with for Crawford's comment that "The goals don't concern us, only the process" (17) when Nagi asks whether a new world/age/dawn can really be brought about by a bunch of nutcases spraying young adults with extremely flammable chemicals. The fact that they connive at ß's deaths makes even more internal sense, since one of the associated ideas in the danker and ranker corners of occult belief is that the pain and death of an occultist generates even more power than usual.

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Who's in?

So now we have the question of just who is a part of ß. The three oldsters are obviously the executive board. Schwarz is, supposedly, working for them all the way along, given that Takatori senior says he knew all along that they were keeping an eye on him at ß's behest. In the last third of the series, Schreiend may also have joined up. At their first group re-appearence, when Omi asks if they are with ß, Tot merely respones "Who cares, anyway?" (19). Yet, Crawford suggests two episodes later that Schreiend and Schwarz are allies, all part of the same happy family...well, almost. The fact that ß has just ordered Schwarz to take Aya-chan away from Schreiend, and Crawford is setting them up to distract Weiß with their deaths rather detracts from that.

But recruiting and/or reorganization has, after all, allegedly gone on. In Episode 16 the geezers say that the Japanese branch needs reinforcing, and the she-geezer says that she has appointed (or possibly sent in) people who should be strong enough to run the show better than Reiji. Just who she means is never quite made clear. That episode features the trio of masked occult-looking types who kidnap pretty girls to crucify and burn. They are identified with ß. If it was them the geezeress meant, I don't think they do very well. She may mean Schwarz. After all, the mad composer is also identified with ß, and Crawford seems to be his handler rather as Schuldig is the interface with the YMCA types gone round the twist (17). The slimy lawyer does get a call directly from the geezers, but he seems to be a utility for Schwarz's good rather than the other way around; Crawford sure doesn't bother to have him protected.

I do note that there appear to also be other branches in the organization. When the three geezers arrive in Japan and are shown through their concert hall cum cathedral, their flunky mentions that the "other executive divisions" think the ritual has gotten too glitzy. The bearded geezer promptly gives the flunky a heart attack. Whether ß is an organization that the three geezers are only in charge of one branch of, or whether ß itself is part of a larger group is unclear at this point, but a bit later Crawford refers to the geezers as the leaders of ß. This rather makes me think that ß is part of a larger organization, though we should keep in mind that it could just be Crawford doing a little CYA brown-nosing.

Weiss Kreuz: Devils and Details

A number of sites on WK will explain things like what the German words mean, but it's never documented. I don't trust undocumented info, so I went looking for stuff myself. This is the page that attests to my obsession for details--things like what make are all those cars, and what color are Schuldig's eyes, and just how does one spell the German words. So here we go.

Schuldig's eyes, by the way, are blue. Youji is the only character with green eyes, unless you want to count Manx. Click here for a montage of WK eyes.

Cars

Somewhat to my surprise there is actually genuine evidence that Aya's car is a Porche. If you take a close look at the view of Aya peeling out of the hospital parking lot in Episode 10 you will see on the back of his car the legend 928 GTS. For a look at a Porche 928 GTS, nip over here; nice little car. Though I still say it's severe poetic liscence to imagine that Aya, Youji and Ken would all fit inside one. I mean, take a look at the car measurements.

Shuldig's car, I couldn't find any identifiable marks on. It looks, to me, very much like some model of Mustang. Check out these pictures of Mustangs, and you may see it too. On the other hand, if you ask me why a German boy would be caught dead in a Ford product, I'll have to say I haven't the foggiest idea. (Despite my own long-time liking for Mustangs of all models, they're only a few notches lower on my hell-for-maitenance list than Pontiacs aka Lemons R Us.) Like Aya's car, Shuldig's is obviously a US import; note the driver-on-the-left arrangement.

So is Shuldig's green jeep that we see in Episode 18; looks remarkably like Army surplus.

Crawford's car is likewise un-marked. Based on the square-mesh grille across the front I suppose it might be a Buick Park Avenue (older model, at least) or a Cadillac Seville. A BMW is possible, but the recent models of those seem to have split grilles. Looks like some kind of GM make to me, at any rate. I'm really of the opinion that Crawford must have been a Midwest boy.

I have seen it suggested that Youji's little white and green racing number is a Carterham 7, a British sportscar. I have to admit, it's a very close likeness, even if I haven't been able to spot any specifically identifying marks; look at the photo gallery of 7s here.

Everyone seems to go for the imports in a big way.

Oh, and is it just me, or does the little pink number Birman drives in Episode 24 look remarkably like Schreiend's wheels?

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Names

Thanks to the lovely online German-English dictionary Quickdic, I can tell you that "schuld" is the German word for blame, debt or guilt (feminine, singular, if you're interested in linguistic details). "Schuldig" means blamable or guilty and "Schuldige" means culprit (male and/or female, singular). Schuldich does not appear to be a word, nor does schurdig or -dich. "Schurke" does mean desperado, knave, rouge, scoundrel, villain, etc., I was entertained to note, but aside from "schur"--shearing--that was the only place I found the schur- word beginning. Schulderich is also not a word; the only place I found -derich at all was "Weiderich", which means loosestrife. I was, however, also entertained to note that "schluderig" means slapdash.

I could not find any actual German names that begin with schul- let alone schuld-. Nor any Yiddish names, which I also checked just on the off chance. Derich is a name, and a part of names, but I have to say, I can't hear -derich in the way our red-headed villain's name is pronounced. It sounds like Shuldig with the terminal g aspirated (causing audially alert fans to spell it with the -ch ending). I believe, though I am not sure about this, that aspirating the g is correct pronunciation for the -g spelling here. If any native German speakers happen though here I would greatly appreciate knowing.

For my money, if you're concerned with preserving the meaning while spelling with the Roman alphabet, spell it Schuldig.

For the rest of the German, "kreuz" (pr. kroytz) does mean cross (which leads to it being part of words meaning hybridizing) and also apparently cruise. I believe, though I'm not sure, that the prounciation differs, that latter being pronounced without the dipthong (oy for eu), more like kray-ootz (trying to phonetisize without the diacritical characters makes these look really weird). I have an aunt who declined to change her name when she married a man named Kroes, another version of the same word. Her name is Gay; she teaches fourth grade. You get the picture?

Weiss (pr. vice), is of course our net-spelling for a word that uses the sharp s character (capital B looking thing), "weiß", which means both white and knows. I'm not sure that it's really correct to spell it that way, but like the variable Roman alphabet phoneticizations of Japanese it's one of the common alternatives. The double ss is, at any rate, also its own independent character set; weissag-, for instance, is the root for the various forms of words meaning foreseeing and prophecy. There is actually a nice selection of words that mean white in German; "blass" seems to be the most common after "weiß".

Schwarz (pr. shvartz more or less) is the simplest of these, meaning only black.

Lessee. On to "Schreiend", which means screaming ("aufschrei" meaning scream, "aufschreie" or "schreit" meaning screams, and "schreien" to scream). "Hell" means bright, light or lucid--suitable for a scientist. "Schön", which you will see spelled schoen by those bereft of umlauts, means beautiful, fine, goodly and pulchritudinous (though she's too thin for that last to apply). "Neu" (pr. noy same as the eu in kreuz) indicates new or again (re- as in to rewarm--neu aufwärmen)...reborn perhaps, though the word for that is "wiedergeboren". "Tot" means both dead and gone to glory; interesting choice for the character who's a few bricks short of a load. In the cases of both Schreiend and Tot I should note that these words can be spelt with either -d or -t at the end, though I am unsure of the rules governing this switch; or even if there are any.

"Kritiker", depending on how you use it, means censors, critic(s) or reviewer.

The organization that Schwarz is working for (allegedly) is the hardest of these. They sound like Estet. This is not a word in German, not in any variation of the spelling I was been able to imagine, so it took me a long time to nail down just how the name of that group is supposed to be spelled and what it means. I am indebted to Jongleur for doing the research on this, check out her pages on German. The whole thing is a sort of sideways pun. Estet is a simplified version of the name of the character ß, which, as the sharp s, is named with the characters sz--that is, ess-tzet. However, since another common rendering is ss the character ß can also be considered equivalent to SS. That is, Schutzstaffel (protection squad; ah, euphemisms. This one is right up there with Robespierre's Committee of Public Safety). For myself, I chose to stick with the character itself: ß, pronounced Esstzet.

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Count the Assassins

An awful lot of people like to refer to both Schwarz and Schreiend as assassins. I'm not sure this is the right terminology, though. Weiß, now, they're clearly assassins, that is "one who murders by surprise attack, especially one who carries out a plot to kill a prominent person" (American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd ed.). Schreiend does not fit this description. They act primarily as bodyguards for Masafumi, estate guards as we see in Episodes 8 and 9. That is how they explicitly identify themselves. Hell also looks to be a lab assistant, but the other three seem pretty straightforward protect-the-boss sort of aides. Nagi suggests, in fact, that Masafumi gathered Schreiend around him in imitation of his father's deal to have Schwarz protect Reiji. Schreiend are fighters, and they do act as a sort of clean-up crew for escaped experimental subjects, but that does not automatically make them assassins.

Schwarz is, I think, even harder to pin down with a one-word description. They certainly do murder by surprise attack, but they are not targetting prominent people. Quite the reverse. For the first two thirds of the series they act solely as bodyguards for Takatori senior, barring the occasions when Schuldig goes off to play on his own time. For the last third, during the time they are explicitly carrying out their orders from ß, Schwarz pursues a policy of maximum chaos and death for minimum effort: "influencing", as Schuldig puts it, a few minds, patronizing a nutty composer, supporting a sleazeball lawyer. Assassination carries the connotation of a certain personal touch, which these projects of mass murder don't quite fit. Schwarz are more broad-band agents, I would say.

So, we have four assassins, four guards and four agents of chaos.

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Who killed Ouka?

This is one you have to watch really closely for, in the first run by. Episode 12 shows the gun firing, Ouka and Omi respectively dying and shocked, and then about half a second of the gun in Farfarello's hand as he brings it down. You can also make the gun out as he turns to follow Schuldig away from the scene. We see the gun a lot more clearly in Episode 18, when Omi recognizes Farfarello in the mission tape. Why Farfarello, to all appearances, grabbed Schuldig's gun to kill Ouka instead of sticking with his knives is never explained in any way. That's the only time in the entire series that we see him with a gun.

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Talents

The following is a cannon issue, which fic authors are, of course, free to wholly ignore, but I wanted to include it for anyone who might happen to wonder. Clairvoyant is not the same as precognitive. Precognition comes from Latin roots meaning "fore knowledge". Clairvoyance comes from French (which, admittedly is Latin if you go far enough back) for "clear sight". Brad Crawford is not, canonically, clairvoyant, he is precognitive. Clairvoyance is a catch-all term applied to everything from psychological insight into personal motivations (which would cover, say, Aya) to seeing ghosts. It was most often applied, in relatively recent history, to the 19th C psychic types (real or delusional, take your pick) who could communicate with human and non-human spiritual beings and/or identify other disturbances in the non-material landscape. Crawford sees the future; the terms that apply to this are precognition, prophecy (though that has religious connotations), foresight/foreknowing, prognostication and prediction (which have less mystical implications), and titles like seer and oracle (though those also tend to have religious overtones).

Telepath and telekinetic are simple, and fortunately uncontested, terms. Greek roots, this time, "tele" indicates distance. "Path" indicates feeling (pathos, pathetic, empathy, sympathy), thus telepathy literally breaks down to feeling at a distance. It is more often glossed as communication at a distance, and that is the manner in which it gets used today. "Kinesis" or "kinetic" indicate movement (kinetic energy: the energy of motion); telekinesis: moving at a distance. More specifically, telekinesis is moving something at a sufficient distance that you aren't touching it physically.

And then there's Farfarello. Is he psychic or just on a constant adrenaline high? We have no cannon assurance one way or another. It is certainly possible to suppress pain, boost strength and ignore whatever drugs Omi might put on his darts without any psychic explanations needed; those things are, in fact, often associated with the kind of psychological disturbances that go along with memory alteration/suppression and rage, both of which Farfarello demonstrates. On the other hand, my personal explanaition, totally unsupported by any internal evidence I should note, is that Farfarello is a healer. It explains why he can block pain, wash out the effects of drugs, and most of all why he's still alive and hasn't died of blood loss. Just a thought.

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Peeves

My personal pet peeve with this show: they way the artists leave characters with their mouths hanging open. It makes them look really dumb.