Gerde Hull

Gerde Hull is the maid of Schloss Ritter; the Schattenjäger ancestral home.

Background
Born in 1971, when she was 18 she came to the service of Wolfgang Ritter. She frequents in Rittersberg where she shops and sees her friends. She has never been outside Germany, she learned about the wider world by Wolfgang, who also taught her English.

Sins of the Fathers
Before Wolfgang leaves, he appeared to her as sure that he is not going to come back, and tells her that everything belongs to his nephew now.

When Gabriel Knight first meets her she appears as an anxious, enthusiastic, and misguidedly optimistic young woman. Her overwhelming concern and eagerness to help Gabriel find his great uncle Wolfgang Ritter is indicative of her love for him. She is mostly seen peeling potatoes. She scares Gabriel with the noise of her vacuum cleaner when he is performing his own initiation ceremony. At first he believes it is a divine sign.

The next morning a key appears mysteriously on a table for Gabe, which opens the door to the Ritter library, but Gerde claims that she hasn't seen it before. However, it really was Gerde that left the key to the library for Gabriel. She wanted him to get into the library and hopefully discover something that could help her beloved Wolfgang.

Later she arranges for Gabriel a trip to People's Republic of Benin.

The Beast Within
Following Wolfgang's death in Sins of the Fathers, she agrees to stay on to help Gabriel out of loyalty to his memory. Still grieving, she presents a marked sadness in the second game, yet a rebellious resilience to Grace's hostile attempts to supplant her as Gabriel's research assistance due to feeling as if she was treated as an object by Gabriel rather than an actual asset.When Grace realises that Gerde was in fact in love with Wolfgang an not Gabriel after finding her at the mausoleum of St.Georg's Cathedral she starts her relationship with Gerde anew as a friend and Gerde gives Grace a map of the locations of the Herrnechiemesee and Neuschwanstein Castle Museums and agrees to allow Grace the use of Wolfgang's silver heart to aid her in her efforts to cure Gabriel of the werewolf curse knowing that Wolfgang would understand.

Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Grace and Gerde organize the Schattenjäger Library and the castle. Grace digitizes the library and connects it to other internet libraries via a computer program called SIDNEY to help Gabriel in the field.

Gerdie continued to keep the castle clean. She had to clean and replace many towels, as Gabriel could go through two or three in a single day. It is said that Grace, and Gerdie or both would kill Gabriel if he left the castle in a mess.

The Temptation
Gerde left at some point for marriage and to become a mother. She no longer had any ties or loyalty to Gabrial Knight, but her new family instead.

Character and traits
Gerde is young and attractive, German country girl. When Gabriel first met her, Gerde was wearing very traditional German dress. Somewhere between traditional 1800s Frauleinm French maid, and school student. She appears to be fairly naïve, and innocent in her romance to Wolfgang. Her naivety of the world also appears to extend to Gabriel, as she is easily and willing to use Mosely's stolen credit card, to arrange a ticket for Gabriel to Benin. While she is broke, and knows the castle is broke, she is more than willing to charge for it, as if credit cards are endless sources of money.

She is involved with much of the cleaning, maintenance, and meal making at the castle. Including her famous and ample frustuck breakfasts.

The mistress of Schloss Ritter, she assists Gabriel, much to Grace's annoyance.

After Wolfgang's death she became the mistress of the castle.

Behind the scenes
Gerde's age in Gabriel Knight 1 is suggested to be about 22, but as she dresses as a young maiden she doesn't appear to be much older than that. This also seems to be reflected in her youthful personality.

In the novels and GK2 she appears to be in her mid thirties, and is said to be 35 in the novel (born around 1958). In the 20th anniversary edition all the lines that made her appear younger have been modifed to make her seem older (the reference to 18 is removed entirely, and the she is described as 'fresh-faced' rather than 'young').

As Gerde maintains her position as the caretaker of the castle, she does not appear in the third game, which takes place entirely in France. She is mentioned in a few offhand lines in the game that imply she is still active caretaker. However, The Temptation suggests she may have actually stopped being the caretaker at some point after GK2.