Frederica Bernkastel

Personality

Lady Bernkastel, the Witch of Miracles is a character from the visual novel, anime, and manga series Umineko no Naku Koro ni. A powerful witch, senator, and wanderer through stories, Bernkastel is considered the main villain of the series. Her name is a reference to the German town that produces the wine that Rika Furude loved so much that she even named herself after it. Bernkastel is a playable character in the fighting game Ougon Musou Kyoku. Bernkastel appears as a teenage girl; she appears to be 12-15 years old, although she is actually over 1000 years old. She has long blue hair and expressionless violet eyes.The Cruel Witch. Berne wears a black and white gothic lolita dress, black shoes, white socks, and a purple ribbon on her chest. She can also take the form of a black cat with a purple bow on her tail. Interestingly, she even has a tail in her human form. Another, more abstract form of Bernkastel as a cosmic entity is an entire universe with many galaxies, an inner spiritual world, a personal game board, part of which are also the child-figures, represented in the form of ten quadrillion black cats. In addition, Bernkastel wields a large black scythe, but uses it quite rarely. In her first appearance, Bernkastel claims to be the cruelest witch in the world, but she helps the protagonist Battler, gives him hints and even encourages him. However, this does not mean that she is lying. Bernkastel is capable of committing the most immoral, monstrous and inhumane acts if it allows her to dispel her boredom even a little. People can count stars when they can't sleep, but Bernkastel smashes universes. Unlike Lambdadelta, Bernkastel does not act like a child. She is cold, emotionless and reserved. She has a deep, calm voice. However, controlling her emotions is considered to be Bern's weakness. Sometimes she displays truly insane grimaces and takes undisguised sadistic pleasure in watching others suffer. Like other higher beings, human lives mean nothing to Bernkastel. However, she values ​​human destinies highly, but only in an aesthetic sense. She likes to observe them, and sometimes she interferes. Many people pray to angels, expecting a miracle, but the entity that controls miracles is in no hurry to fulfill anything, and if she does, then in a very peculiar way. She has no friends, except for Fezarin Augustus Aurora and Lambdadelta. But Fezarin is her mistress, guardian and, perhaps, mother in a sense. With Lambda, they form a couple who love each other with a very strange love, in which, apparently, the desire to dismember or eat each other is considered normal. Bernkastel also has a "daughter" Erica. In fact, she is a "piece" created only as a representative of Bern on the Beatrice game board. The relationship of the "relatives" can hardly be called good: Bernkastel despises Erica, can mock and humiliate her, severely punishes her for failures. Nevertheless, Erica sincerely loves and respects her mistress, and is ready to forgive her anything for rare moments of favor. Bernkastel was once a human and went through a nightmarish time loop. Countless times she watched as all her friends went crazy and started killing each other. Soon she herself was brutally murdered. But Bernkastel, or rather Rika (Bernkastel was part of her personality), replayed the scenario over and over again, hoping that someday she would be able to escape the nightmare. She could be compared to a cat tied to a typewriter, which was supposed to randomly type the word "miracle". And the miracle happened, but there was no talk of maintaining mental health. Overall, the character of the Witch of Miracles is very complex. She is changeable like a cat, but stubborn like a human at the same time. Bern is known for her arrogant and proud nature. Although she knows her place and, for example, will never interfere with Fezarin (who can be considered a God) during her work. At the same time, Bernkastel always tries to save face and generally behave "like a boss". She will not miss an opportunity to mangle her mistress's name and do something "to spite that bitch", but still they remain friends. Bernkastel loves spicy food, plum tea, and wine (her addiction to alcohol is a holdover from her human days). She hates boredom and people who don't study. It is quite possible that Bernkastel actually retains a number of positive traits and even shows, albeit very specific, but care, even for his main opponents. More about this is written in another profile.Role in history It is known that at some point in the past, Bernkastel defeated Lambdadelta, wiped the floor with her hair, and took the title of the strongest witch. During her first actual appearance in the plot, Bernkastel assists the protagonist Battler, giving him hints and encouraging him. Initially, she set out to defeat the witch Beatrice, who was the main villain at the time, at any cost. Having lost faith in Battler, Bernkastel brings his sister Ange from the future, making her her "figure". Bernkastel convinced Ange that it was Aunt Eva, who remained Ange's guardian, who killed everyone after a mysterious incident that took the lives of all the steel members of the family. Ange had no right to tell Battler that she was his sister. Violating this rule led to her being torn alive into small pieces by red-hot tongs, which happened under the indifferent gaze of Lambdadelta and Bernkastel. However, Ange's sacrifice helped Battler defeat Beatrice, which led to Bern becoming the main villain. At the beginning of episode 5, Bernkastel threatens Battler that Ange's fate will be repeated in an infinite number of worlds if he does not continue the game. Together with Lambda, they say that both he and Beatrice were mere pieces whose purpose in existence was only to entertain the great witches. Bernkastel places Erica on the "game board" as a piece that will represent her and act as a detective. Lambdadelta becomes the new game master. While Battler is deciding whose side he is on now, the witches have already built a story in which Erica blames Battler's aunt for the murders, and Beatrice's existence is disproved. At the end of the episode, the hero tries to defend Beatrice, but he is unable to oppose Bernkastel and his pawn. Battler was killed, as was Beatrice, and all her servants were to be executed one per day and in the most brutal ways, in order to stretch Bernkastel's pleasure for a couple of weeks. Erica was awarded the title of witch by "Mama" and a bit of warmth, which was replaced by contempt and hatred when Battler returned and challenged her theory. Apparently, somewhere between episodes 5 and 6, the Witch of Miracles writes a friendly letter to her dead creator Ferarin (the state of death means even less to her than to ordinary witches who are not subject to this concept) asking her to return. In Episode 6, Bernkastel gave Erica another chance. And the newly-minted witch managed to drive Battler, who became the host of the game, into a "logical error", depriving his highest form of will. Taking advantage of the situation, Bernkastel decided to become the hero's mother-in-law, marrying Erica to him. But the wedding ceremony was disrupted by the returning Beatrice, and Erica was defeated in a duel. Wounded by a conceptual weapon, she could have returned to life if she had promised permission to do so, but the insulted Bernkastel left the moment she realized that Erica was losing the duel. She wandered into a certain place where she met Fezarin, her former host, who is the embodiment of the almighty Creator. Out of old friendship, Bernkastel agrees to take part in another game. In the 7th episode, Bernkastel connects several parallel worlds connected to the story of Beatrice in order to understand its essence. In this, the witch is forced to help the retired inquisitor and excellent detective Willard Wright, whom the witch refused to release until he solved all the mysteries. Willard is assisted by Lyon, a being of indeterminate gender, who is Beatrice from a parallel world. The investigation did not take long, and immediately after it, the trio went to the theater of the witches, where they saw Beatrice's human past and met Claire, who was the narrator of the story for Bernkastel. Willard finds out that Claire was another version of Beatrice and dispels her story. At this point, the trio part ways. Bernkastel turns to the sky, mentioning Fezarin and declaring that she is tired of playing the role of a villain. However, the Witch of Miracles soon returns to Lyon, also bringing Ange with him/her. She shows them a world where the murderers of the relatives are Battler's parents and Ange, telling the latter that this is the truth she was looking for. After this, Ange returns to mincemeat again. The Witch of Miracles then explains to Lyon that his/her universe exists with a probability of 1 in 2578917, and in all the others, Beatrice exists and the massacre of relatives occurs. Bernkastel takes out the scythe that separates miracles from reality and cuts down Claire, and then moves Lyon to the future of another world, where he/she shows his/her corpse, explaining that even in those worlds with an insignificant probability where there will be no massacre, Lyon will still be killed by his/her aunt Kyrie, Ange's mother. Bern returns Lyon to his/her world, a moment before the murder and disappears. But Lyon is saved by the appearance of Willard, who destroys the world with a wave of his sword and pulls Lyon to a higher plane, where the Witch of Miracles appears before them, guaranteeing that the miracle will not happen. Willard tells Lyon to flee across the Sea of ​​Shards (an abstract representation of the multiverse in the higher world), staying to fight Bernkastel, who throws away her scythe and declares that she does not need it against someone like him. The Inquisitor is unable to even touch the powerful witch, and is attacked by an army of her black cats. Soon, the wounded Willard, who has lost his arm, catches up with Lyon, but 10 quadrillion cats rush to send them both into oblivion. At the end of the episode, Bernkastel drops two pieces on the board and announces the beginning of the final game, guaranteeing with words of absolute truth that this story will not have a happy ending.