Seras Victoria

Seras Victoria (セラス・ヴィクトリア,) is one of the three main protagonists of the Hellsing series created by Kohta Hirano, alongside Alucard and Sir Integra. In both adaptations of Hellsing, she is voiced by Fumiko Orikasa in the Japanese sub and K.T. Gray in the English dub.

Seras was turned into a vampire by Alucard to save her from a would-be fatal gunshot wound in the chest, that he also caused while shooting the Pastor. From that point, she assists the Hellsing Organisation against the increased vampire attacks. Seras is a Draculina, a term used to refer to the female members of the Dracul bloodline, since she has been turned into a vampire by Alucard.

Appearance
Seras is initially an attractive young woman with blonde hair cut into a flare cut and blue eyes. Occasionally, her eyes assumed a red hue in moments of extreme rage or vampiric bloodlust. She had a fairly broad-shouldered torso, yet maintained a very voluptuous and buxom figure, which was further accentuated by the fact that she is considerably shorter than virtually all of her allies. Before becoming a fully-fledged vampire, she usually wore a yellow Hellsing uniform with a matching mini skirt, long white stockings, ankle fold brown boots, and brown gloves. Occasionally, her eyes assumed a red hue in moments of extreme rage or vampiric bloodlust.

As a fully-fledged vampire, her hair lightened to an almost platinum blonde color, and her eyes became permanently red. She continued to wear a uniform of the exact same style as before, but colored burgundy red instead of a yellow. Due to her obtained immortality, she now remains in her looks back in 1999. Upon fully embracing vampirism, nothing changed about her overall figure with the notable exception of her left arm. After losing the original one to Zorin Blitz, it was replaced by a mass of writhing black and orange shadowy matter that initially manifested as a whip-like set of tendrils. Shortly after transforming, however, she learned how to mold the shadow matter into the shape of her original arm. While the inking in the black-and-white manga of Seras' outfit is dark, in illustrations, the color of Seras' outfit remains the same as it as before the transformation into a full-fledged vampire in the manga.

Personality
Seras is a strong-willed woman and apparently had always been since childhood which is confirmed through her flashbacks. Seras is often considered a tomboy; a very brave, strong, and heroic young woman who, while exhibiting a wild temperament, is not afraid to question the orders of her master if they cross with her personal beliefs. Her devotion to morals and integrity is rather unusual, considering her horrid past. However, she is a loyal and trustworthy soldier who will diligently follow the orders of her commander, provided said commander has proven his or her worth.

Her level of maturity in comparison to the other characters is somewhat questionable; she seems to be the child the others could not be, yet possessing a sort of worldly maturity and superficial intelligence that most other characters lack, as well as a sort of "nurture winning against nature" mentality, as opposed to most other characters. She's the "light that stands out from the darkness" (as stated by Kohta Hirano in an interview ). Her past also mentioned that she was in trouble for attacking multiple kids at an orphanage she lived in as a child, so her childish behavior was a bit unexpected.

While she chose to be a vampire on her own accord, she still clings on the very last bit of humanity still left inside of her; often times questioning what she's becoming. This goes so far that even multiple characters tried to remind her that she's now a vampire, not a human. Her struggles to drink blood before she became a full-fledged vampire were also integral to her development as a character. Because of Seras' stubbornness, Alucard was quite annoyed. It was not until Integra ordered her to do so that she finally gave in to drinking blood, but until Zorin Blitz's provocation Vernedead's death that she chose to finally drink a person's blood directly. In moments of hopelessness, Seras, in a fit of rage, goes into what is known as the "bloodlust mode," where her strength and capabilities as a servant vampire is shown.

As a direct result of past trauma of her childhood and the events of Cheddar, Seras has a fear of losing people she considers important, even if they are just her colleagues. When Jan Valentine turned almost all of the Hellsing Military soldiers into ghouls, Seras was stunned. She was later caught in the foot by the ghouls and surrounded by them. She soon lost control, killing all of the Hellsing members turned who turned into ghouls. She immediately felt regret after snapping out of it via Integra who embraced, and pleads for her to stop. Upset and angered that Zorin's army of vampiric Nazi soldiers were chewing the Wild Geese, which she considers her friends, she brutally kills them and then goes totally blind with anger which Zorin uses to her advantage.

After becoming a true vampire, she undergoes drastic change as a character. However, remains as cheerful and clumsy as ever despite being more "battle-hardened" and "serious."

Allies

 * Pip Vernedead: Seras and Vernedead first meet after Walter hires professional mercenaries to fill in for the soldiers that had been killed during the Valentine Brothers' attack. Seras takes great annoyance when Vernedead calls her a "freak" and with great ease, takes down the target with a rifle. Her victory is short-lived when Vernedead points out that she had killed the "innocents" as well as the targets with her shot. Shortly afterward, Seras bursts into Alucard and Walter's conversation, complaining that Vernedead and the other mercenaries were "sexually harassing" her by singing a dirty song. In majority of events leading up to the war arc, the two had gotten closer and closer with each other; especially in Rio where they could be seen talking and laughing with each other. By the time of Zorin's attack within the Manor, the two had gotten closer and closer.  However, when Vernedead died at the hands of Zorin, Seras bursts in tears. Not until Zorin belittled Vernedead was she so angered that she went into bloodlust, drinking Pip's blood as a mean of defeating them together.

After drinking Pip's blood, a part of Vernedead now resides in Seras and he acts as her familiar. As such, it is implied that the other characters can sense Pip's presence within her. The two remaining mercenaries of the Wild Geese salute Seras and address her as "Sir" before she leaves, and Integra realizes that Seras drank his blood without any knowledge as to what had happened at the mansion. In Seras' fight with The Captain, Seras was severely outclassed and beaten up. Not until Vernedead awakens when she got a boost of motivation and decides to not give up. Pip's encouragement heavily helps Seras' in her fight, especially near towards the end of the battle where she summoned Vernedead as a familiar to finish off The Captain. Within the time skip, Vernedead is referred to as Seras' shadow and has covered the Hellsing Manor as a watcher.


 * Alucard: Out of all the other characters, Seras is the most subtle but distinct foil to her master Alucard and they contrast perfectly. In life Alucard was a warlord that enforced order on his people and strove to destroy the enemies of that order. Seras was a peacekeeper serving the public and desired to protect the people. Both Alucard and Seras had hard early lives yet while Alucard was consumed with rage and selfishly used God as an excuse to take out that rage on others, while Seras resolved to help others not have to face the same hardships.

Seras demonstrates great loyalty for him that transcends the actions of a slave obeying and serving a master. While she does not partake in the slaughter of the human SWAT team, she aided Alucard in his combat with Tubalcain Alhambra and later attempts to fight Alexander Anderson (though her attack is comically cut short). As the series progresses, her shy and nervous behavior toward Alucard is quickly overcome once she becomes a full-fledged vampire and he addresses her by her full name. In the end, Seras was the only one who had unwavering faith that Alucard would return after his disappearance at the end of the war.


 * Sir Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing: The two main heroines interact very well. Seras expresses great loyalty towards Integra and the two form a friendship that transcends the master and slave relationship that Integra has with Alucard. Seras joins Arthur Hellsing and Sir Penwood as characters Integra can trust and openly show affection towards. Integra embraced Seras, pleading her to stop after she mercilessly attacked the Hellsing Military ghouls in a fit of rage rather than shouting at her head-on to stop. When Seras regains herself, she too is horrified by her actions. When Integra is ordered to kill the remaining ghouls, Seras expresses great sadness for her. Integra was also the reason why Seras grows more comfortable with her nature as a vampire.

Seras stays with Integra during the thirty years transitional period in the manga, where the two have grown even closer as companions. Seras teases Integra in a similar fashion that Alucard used to tease her, and Integra confesses some insecurities about her aging appearance. Still, once Seras senses that Integra is in danger, she was at her side in a moment's time. Her heroism is cut short when she realizes Alucard has returned.

Enemies

 * Zorin Blitz: Upon meeting face to face, Seras stood her ground against Zorin until Zorin used her powers to dredge up Seras's memories, costing Seras an arm and her eyes. After Zorin killed Pip Vernedead, she finally pushed Seras too far with her sadism, resulting in Seras drinking his blood and awakening as a full vampire before proceeding to decimate Zorin and all of her men in the fight that followed. Seras's hatred for Zorin is revealed by Seras's claim that she would not drink Zorin's blood even if her survival hinged on it.


 * Walter C. Dornez: Walter was highly respected by Seras and was also her mentor as an elder. Despite Walter becoming a traitor, Seras and Walter still genuinely care for each other and he was taken aback by her gratitude for him as the butler of Hellsing as they wished each other to take care in their final words of exchange despite officially being friends no longer. When Integra told Seras that Walter had passed away, Seras expressed sadness on her face.


 * The Captain: The Captain is Seras' silent, deadly adversary. Seras had a hard time facing The Captain but was encouraged by her familiar, Pip Vernedead, who finished The Captain off with the final blow for Seras. When The Captain dies with a smile, Vernedead shares his thought about him looking like "a child who'd just had a smashing dream," to which Seras agrees with.


 * Schrödinger: Seras has not interacted very much with Schrödinger at all, though she did seem rather embarrassed by Schrödinger greeting her during the meeting with the Queen. Mostly because he kept awkwardly staring at her.

True Vampire
After being fatally wounded by Zorin's scythe, Vernedead tells Seras, who was blinded and crippled, to drink his blood so they can win together. She drains him of his blood and becomes one of the "true undead." Her transformation was completed upon her truly embracing her vampiric nature and enhanced her abilities while giving her access to higher-level powers; subsequent souls would thus serve only to increase her overall power level and regenerative abilities without changing the nature of her powers. Her severed left arm is restored as the same type of shadow-matter that Alucard can manipulate, and all of her abilities skyrocketed.


 * Superhuman Strength: She was able to easily demolish an entire squad of Millennium vampires with her bare hands in mere seconds. She was also strong enough to punch off The Captain’s arms when their fists collided, although it blew off her arms as well.
 * Superhuman Speed: Her speed skyrocketed after drinking Pip’s blood. She could easily dodge automatic gunfire from artificial vampires in a narrow hallway, while at the same time ripping them apart before they could react. Even Zorin could not handle her speed. Later on, she could keep up with The Captain’s human form on equal footing.
 * Superhuman Endurance: Seras survived getting slammed by The Captain in his fully transformed werewolf form, and from crashing down head-first to the main hanger from the zeppelin’s upper floors. Despite all this damage, she was able to get back up to dodge The Captain’s kick before she even began regenerating.
 * Enhanced Regeneration: Like Alucard, Seras has shown that she possesses the ability to rapidly recover from serious injuries within moments of receiving them. Immediately after becoming a full vampire, Seras was able to completely regenerate her damaged eyeballs that were previously slashed by Zorin's scythe. Later, during a battle with the Captain, the two traded blows powerful enough to almost completely destroyed each other's limbs. After Seras emerged victorious, her limbs were shown to have completely recovered to their undamaged state almost instantaneously. Curiously, although she was able to immediately regenerate her damaged eyes after completing her transformation, she never regenerated her severed left arm, having it permanently replaced by the shape-shifting shadow matter. It has never been addressed whether Seras was incapable of restoring the limb to its original organic form, or if she simply chooses not to regenerate it.
 * Enhanced Third Eye: She was able to dispel Zorin's illusionary magic at point-blank with a thought. (Zorin saw a mixed series of memories, memories contained within the minds of both Vernedead and Seras before Seras grabbed her and subsequently killed her.)
 * Enhanced Vampiric Resistance: Like Alucard, Seras rid herself of some vampiric weaknesses. Prior to drinking Pip's blood, Seras could not walk in the sun without a hooded jacket and overcast skies. However, after she does, she is able to stand in the sunlight and has a shadow, as depicted in Chapter 73. She was also able to resist the Nail of Helena’s holy vines and flames for a short period of time, and healed from the damage they inflicted.
 * Familiar Control: Seras can manifest Pip's soul as a dark servant called a familiar, from which she can coordinate with Vernedead in combat, with the latter giving her tactical guidance. She can also materialize Vernedead into the physical world, such as when he appeared to give The Captain a fatal blow.
 * Dark Composition: Seras’ amputated arm becomes a limb made of shadow matter, which she can manipulate in a versatile manner. This shadow arm can be solidified in order for her to be able to wield two guns at once, and in Chapter 85 it is shown that she can turn them into normal shadows, which snake along the ground similar to Zorin Blitz's tattoos and form them into sharp spikes for lethal attacks, potent enough to pierce through The Captain when Walter’s wires couldn’t. She herself turned the shadowy matter after The Captain fired a few bullets into her head, rendering the attacks ineffective and forcing The Captain to back away with her spikes. She was also able to use it as a non-lethal weapon against Iscariot. This becomes Seras’s main weapon of choice. 30 years after the Millennium incident, she has such control over her shadow matter that she can mimic Alucard's entire outfit by transforming it. She also covered the entire mansion with her shadow, in some kind of makeshift surveillance system, although it was with Pip's sentience, complaining loudly when Makube demonstrated his presence by ripping the wallpaper.
 * Flight: After she kills Zorin, Seras uses her shadow arm to make a bat-like wing. allowing her to fly to London at high speed.  In addition, her wings do not flap. Instead, she soars much like a bullet. She also used this ability to escape the Hindenburg II as it was blowing up.

Concept and Creation
In creating Hellsing, Hirano thought about adding in a character that'll make the dark series "warmer," so he added in Seras Victoria who he described as the "light that stands out from the darkness." Hirano started the Hellsing storyline with Seras' point of view, before gradually moving to an all-out-war without focusing on any specific character. When the story had progressed about 1/3 as a whole, seeing that a combo between her and Alucard wouldn't be possible, he added in Pip Vernedead to serve as Seras' partner.

Trivia

 * A character similar to Seras was present in Hirano's earlier work, Hellsing: The Legends of a Vampire Hunter, called Yuri Kate, an employee of the Hellsing Organisation. She was assaulted and turned into a vampire by prototype versions Luke Valentine and Jan Valentine and rescued by a prototype of Alucard.
 * Seras' first name has many different variations, with "Ceres" being the most common one. However, there are some like "Celas" and "Selas". Also, "Ceres" is the Roman goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility, and motherly relationship. Furthermore, the Greek counterpart to Ceres is Demeter, the namesake of the Russian ship Dracula rides to Whitby in Bram Stoker's novel after he kills everyone on board. As he does with the Adler/HMS Eagle in the Thames, he jumps off the bow of the ship when it runs aground.
 * "Serás Victoria" in Spanish literally translates to "You will be victory."
 * Seras' name is similar to "Seraphim," a six winged angel associated with light and purity.
 * Fittingly, as Hellsing is set within the continuity of Dracula by Bram Stoker, Seras bares multiple similarities to the character of Lucy Westerna. Both are blonde, sweet-natured, virginal 19-year-old girls who lost their mothers under tragic circumstances before getting turned into vampires by Dracula himself. Seras’ psychic link to Alucard is also similar to the psychic link Mina Harker (Dracula’s other victim) has with the vampire.
 * Seras' signature weapons, Harkonnen and Harkonnen II, are named after the main antagonist of Frank Herbert's novel Dune, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. This is further reinforced by the appearance of the gun's "spirit" during dream sequences in the manga (and thus OVA) and episode previews in the anime, who bears a strong resemblance to Baron Harkonnen from David Lynch's film adaptation of the book.