Sir Gerrik

**Sir Gerrik** was the son of Cirinist leader Cirin.

## History

* He was a friend to Astoria...sort of. He married Astoria in a private ceremony against Cirin's wishes.
* Weisshaupt once asked Countess Michelle Detin, "How is Sir Gerrik? Dangerous as usual? Just mentioning him seems to have the most extraordinary effect on people's hearing..."

## Appearances

* *Swords of Cerebus Volume Three* - backup story, "What Happened Between Issues Twenty & Twenty-One"
* *Cerebus*
	+ No. 54 - mention
	+ No. 163 - mention
	+ No. 300 - cameo

## Astoria on Sir Gerrik

"Cirin's own son, Gerrick told me that he did not spend a full day in his mother's company until he was nearly sixteen; and then it was merely to observe her working day so that he might have a fuller appreciation of the complexities of governing Upper Felda.", *Kevillist Origins*

## Dave Sim on Sir Gerrik

* **Q:** What is Gerrik's true lineage? Is he the biological son of the human Cirin, the aardvark Serna, or some other woman? Also, in the letters page, you state "I should be getting to the Gerrik stuff (is he the natural son of Cirin or adopted, etc.) in an issue or two, unless it fits in better somewhere else." So was there a plot thread that you decided not to include - and if so, can you give us a brief description of what it might have been?

**DAVE:** Mm. Not really. He was either the natural son of Cirin (actually Serna) and consequently a demonstration of the reality cited above: aardvarks are aberrational spontaneous mutations by that point or the adopted son of Cirin (actually Serna). As seems to me the nature of most parents I don’t think Cirin (actually Serna) could cope with the idea that she hadn’t produced an imperfect replica of herself which is what made her so compulsive about cracking the mysteries of genetics. She was an aardvark and she had to produce a little aardvark or die trying.
I ended up being about as interested in Gerrik as Cirin (actually Serna) was. That is, not very. He was not an aardvark and that’s really all that could be said about him.
* **Q4.** Cirin reveals she wants to keep Cerebus alive (i152). We learn later that the reason for this is she hopes to create more aardvarks through Cerebus' hermaphroditic nature. Is she incapable of giving birth, and if not does this mean that Sir Gerrik is her real son and therefore her proof that she cannot produce an Aardvark?

**DAVE:** Cirin was infuriated by the fact that she couldn't give birth to another aardvark largely as an element of her overwhelming maternal vanity, the same maternal vanity that keeps mothers from seeing their axe-murderer sons as anything but misunderstood little darlings. It's all a matter of your reaction to being exceptional. As I say, Po's reaction was: if I'm that profoundly different from everyone else, what business do I have interfering? Cirin's reaction was: I'm that much better than everyone else so it's up to me to produce more like me in order to run everything properly because everyone else has made a mess of everything. Even among the exceptional she was exceptional. She knew that aardvarks were spontaneous mutations and that there were few if any instances of aardvarks even passing on limited aspects to their human offspring (i.e. Shep Shep's three toes). She could accept that about others but not about herself. She had to be the Mother of All Aardvarks. The fact that her son was human was a personal affront to her. There hadn't been a lot of female aardvarks if you read between the lines of the story and you don't need much exposure to Cirin to understand why that is. . . If Cerebus was going to beat her in the baby aardvark sweepstakes, maybe she could beat him on the inside rail down the home stretch by learning how to grow aardvarks from scratch like plants.
## References

 1. ↑ *Church & State I*, page 59
2. ↑ *Church & State I*, page 213
3. ↑ *Church & State I*, page 60
4. ↑ *Cerebus No. 163*, page 18
5. ↑ *Minds*, Questions
6. ↑ *Flight*, Questions