Pip Vernedead

Pip Bernadotte (ピップ・ベルナドット, Pippu Berunadotto) is the leader of the group of mercenaries known as the Wild Geese. He is an ally of Hellsing and takes a particular interest in Seras Victoria. His Japanese voice actor in the anime and OVA is Hiroaki Hirata and his boyhood is voiced by Hiromi Igarashi. His English voice actor in the OVA (he doesn't make an appearance, nor is he mentioned in the anime) is Yuri Lowenthal. Like many of Kouta Hirano's characters, Pip's character design was recycled from one of Hirano's old hentai works called Coyote.

Appearance
Pip is an average-heighted man with brown hair (blonde in the manga) with grey eyes. He speaks with a French accent and is therefore widely considered to be French, although it is never exclusively disclosed. However, Hirano confirms him to be French in the back of volume 6's tankoubon, where it is stated that he is "French and loves boobs". Hirano also mentioned in a recent filler-chapter that he was of Swedish ancestry.

The Royal House of Bernadotte is the current royal house of Sweden, founded by one of Napoleon's marshals: Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte. One can assume that Pip was a Frenchman with Swedish connections, or vice-versa. An interesting fact is that the current Crown Princess of Sweden is named Victoria of Bernadotte.

Perhaps his most notable features are his eye patch and long braid. He usually wears a cowboy-style hat with the left side flap folded up; it has what appears to be an emblem of a Griffin on the front. Pip is also a compulsive smoker, and, even in death, is shown with a cigarette hanging in his mouth. Pip also sports a band-aid on the bridge of his nose.

History
The Wild Geese were hired by Walter Dornez at the end of Volume 2 as replacements for the soldiers killed during the Valentine Brothers' invasion of Hellsing Manor. Pip was largely unimpressed by the arrangement, and openly skeptical when Integra explained that their job was to fight vampires, ghouls, and other supernatural monsters. When Integra introduced Seras Victoria as an example of a vampire, Pip laughed her off, mockingly claiming to be "Frankenstein's Monster" as he advanced on the former policewoman.

He quickly regretted his skepticism when Seras nearly broke his neck by flicking him in the face with her index finger, also demonstrating supernatural speed while delivering several follow-up flicks. The demonstration was further enhanced when Seras' master, Alucard, entered the room by phasing through the wall. Now fully convinced of the existence of vampires, Pip and the rest of the Wild Geese began training with Seras at the shooting range outside Hellsing Manor.

Shortly after the Wild Geese began working at Hellsing Manor, Pip joined Alucard and Seras in travelling to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in order to find leads on the mysterious Millennium organization. Alucard and Seras are later attacked by BOPE units of the Brazilian military police after being declared in public as international terrorists, a ruse perpetrated by Brazilian officials in exchange for immortality promised by Millennium. While Alucard slaughtered the BOPE unit invading his hotel, Pip snuck into the Brazilian officials' camp and killed them with a bomb. While Seras and Alucard fought and killed Tubalcain Alhambra, the local Millennium officer, Pip hijacked a helicopter to help them escape.

Pip later returned to England with Alucard and Seras, joining them at the emergency conference of Iscariot, Hellsing, and The Convention of Twelve to discuss Alucard's findings about Millenium. When Schrodinger appeared, Pip joined several others in training his gun on the interloper, and subesequently bore witness to the Major's declaration of war against them.

During Millennium's invasion of London (Operation Seelöwe 2), Pip, Seras, and the Wild Geese were tasked with defending Hellsing Manor. When First Lieutenant Zorin Blitz attacked Hellsing Manor with roughly one third of the Letztes Bataillon, Pip coordinated his allies' defence of the manor. As Seras Victoria shot down incoming missiles with the Harkonnen II's AA cannons, Pip admitted that he was no longer concerned about payment for his services. Although not particularly fond of London or its people, he believed that they did not deserve the horrors of war Millennium was bringing upon them. To that end, Pip ordered Seras to make the vampiric Nazis pay for every life they took, and Seras readily agreed.

After Seras shot down Zorin's zeppelin, Pip directed his Wild Geese to lay down suppressing fire on the advancing vampires, forcing them into a field of claymore mines the Geese had set up earlier. He explained that vampires, unlike humans, would not think of retreat - thus, their best hope was to whittle the Millennium forces down from afar. Unfortunately, Zorin used an illusion to distract the defenders, including Pip himself. By the time Seras managed to dispel the illusion, Zorin's forces had bypassed the minefield (by throwing a line of knives into the ground and hopping across their hilts) and breached Hellsing Manor.

Realizing that his mercenaries were vastly outclassed by the vampires in direct combat, Pip changed his strategy; the Wild Geese would try to stall the vampires while Seras ambushed and killed them. Before they split up, Pip almost tricked Seras into letting him kiss her, but honestly bid her luck as she set off. When Seras was gone, Pip gave his men a heartening speech about dying with honor for the sake of "a fine woman" before dispatching them to their posts.

The resulting battle went poorly for the Wild Geese - most of them were killed by Zorin and her minions. Pip found himself barricaded in the conference room with a few of his men, spending most of his time fortifying their position and bolstering their faltering morale in the face of overwhelming odds and low ammunition. When Zorin's troops attacked the Wild Geese's barricade with a bazooka, Pip was wounded by wooden shrapnel that hit him in the stomach. Luckily, Seras arrived to destroy Zorin's troops before they could finish off the few surviving mercenaries, prompting Pip to confidently declare that the tide had turned back in their favor.



However, Zorin Blitz had other plans; she used her illusions to incapacitate Seras before inflicting numerous brutal wounds with her scythe. Before the First Lieutenant could finish Seras off, Pip struck her with the butt of his rifle before shooting her with his last silver bullets. With Zorin temporarily out of commission, Pip tried to carry Seras to safety under the cover of smoke grenades. As he struggled down the hall and shot down Seras' pleas to leave her behind, the Captain was shot repeatedly by a vampire that managed to survive Seras' attack. While his remaining men finished off the vampire, Pip continued to slowly retreat, again refusing to leave Seras to die.

Before Pip could get to safety, he was impaled through the stomach by Zorin's thrown scythe, finally forcing him to drop Seras as he slumped against a wall. Lighting a cigarette as the wounded Seras blindly reached for him, he playfully called her an "idiot" for needing saving while trying to save the Wild Geese. When Seras managed to climb over his dying body, Pip took the opportunity to kiss her, cheerfully laughing that he finally caught her off-guard. After asking Seras to drink his blood and defeat Millennium, Pip finally expired with a smile on his face.

As Zorin mocked Pip as "a gnat" and summoned reinforcements, Seras honored the captain's last wish and drank his blood. In doing so, she unlocked her true vampiric powers, giving her the strength to effortlessly destroy Zorin's soldiers and overpower the First Lieutenant. When Zorin attempted to trap Seras in another illusion, she discovered that Pip's memories had been added to Seras', preventing her from influencing the latter's mind. After killing Zorin, Seras set out for London, citing her earlier promise to Pip that she would "get" the Nazis. The two survivors of the Wild Geese realized that their captain lived on within Seras herself, and thus saluted her before she left.

Pip made a reappearance as Seras' familiar in Volume 9, encouraging her during her battle with the Captain in the Deus Ex Machina. He realized that the room they were battling in was filled with relics from World War II, including treasures stolen from the innocent people the Nazis killed. At that moment, the Captain threw Seras a silver tooth (or a tooth with a silver filing), which Pip interpreted as a desire for Seras to kill him. When Seras immobilized the Captain by grabbing his leg with her teeth, Pip manifested from her shadowy left arm and drove the silver tooth into the Captain's heart, killing him.



It is unclear if Pip continued to exist by the final chapter of Hellsing: Volume 10. Although Seras does use her shadows to create a barrier around Hellsing Manor after the 30 year timeskip, Pip makes no actual appearance to indicate that he is still within Seras. It is possible that his soul was destroyed in a battle, that his identity was lost amid other souls Seras absorbed, or even that his consciousness disappeared after so long within Seras' body, but nothing can be conclusively proven either way.

Background
Pip seems to be of french origin, having a french name; Bernadotte. However, this is also the name of the current Swedish royal family. Hirano has mentioned in interviews that Pip is of swedish/french origin. Seras states that Pip only hates Germans because he's French. Pip's family has had at least one member serving in the Wild Geese for six generations. His grandfather, for example, was a mercenary, and raised him for much of his childhood. His father was killed in combat, while gathering money for Pip's delivery. It's unknown what rank Pip's other family members had in the mercenary group before they died or retired. Pip (along with the rest of the Wild Geese) primarily uses an AK-74 assault rifle as well as a Colt Single Action Army Revolver. Although having no supernatural powers, he does have experience from warfare and skills with firearms and military tactics.

Trivia

 * It should be noted that between Pip's first appearance and the expedition to Brazil, Pip did not have an eyepatch, but instead had his left eye bandaged, though this is not reflected in the OVA.
 * Pip being blonde is maybe a reference to his supposed Swedish origin since only about 30-40 % of the ethnical french population is blonde, while about 50-60 % of the ethnical Swedish is due to the lack of sunlight in Sweden during winter thus creating a need for less pigmentation to make up for lack of sun light.
 * The name of his group, The Wild Geese, is believed to be derived from a movie during the seventies that shared the name and was about a group of mercenaries in Africa. This is incorrect, and is a reference instead to The Wild Geese, the Irish who left Ireland following the Treaty of Limerick. Pip possibly being French, it could an homage, since it was the Wild Geese serving France who finally broke the back of the English army at the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745, (according to some accounts taking the colors of England's Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards). (Which would place their entry after the dissolution of the 'official' French Irish units. However, many organizations of predominately Irish mercenaries are known to refer to themselves as the 'Wild Geese', particularly those dating back to the 18th and 19th century.)
 * Unlike most mercenaries who prefer automatic pistols as their sidearm, Pip wields a revolver (presumably a Colt Single Action Army Revolver ).
 * Bernadotte is never refered to as "Pip" in the manga, but is credited as "Pip Bernadotte" in the credits of the OVA.
 * Bernadotte is the name of the current royal house of Sweden