therainykitty:

bthump:

There are two important parallels during the waterfall scene, when Guts and Casca fight, then fuck.

The first is this parallel to Guts and Griffith’s second duel.

Casca is the new leader of the Hawks, replacing Griffith’s role. She
challenges and fights Guts when he returns, in a mirror of Griffith
challenging and fighting him before he leaves. Then she falls to her
knees and has a self-destructive
breakdown. The last time the leader of the Hawks had a breakdown after
fighting him, Guts walked away. The scenario has presented itself again,
and this time Guts makes a different choice, one that might have
changed everything a year ago: he comforts her.

Sex with Casca is Guts subconsciously (from a character perspective) or symbolically (from a narrative perspective) trying to fix past mistakes, imo.

Throughout the fight by the waterfall, Casca is screaming at him that he broke Griffith by leaving, that it’s his fault. This scene is all about Griffith and their feelings towards him. For Guts, it’s the beginning of his eventual revelation that leaving was a mistake because Griffith didn’t look down on him after all – because Griffith’s “no good without” him.

The fact that Guts lets Casca stab him as she screams this tells us that her words hit home and he feels guilty, even as he denies it. It’s a pattern of behaviour for Guts that we’ve seen before and will see again, eg, when he let the zombie child stab him in the second chapter because he blamed himself for her death, and then denied feeling responsible to Puck afterwards (”If you’re always worried about crushing the ants beneath you… you won’t be able to walk.”)

He represses that guilt and doesn’t manage to acknowledge his mistake until about five minutes before the Eclipse, unfortunately, but this is how we know he feels it regardless, and this is how we know it’s informing his choices now – specifically, his choice to comfort, kiss, and have sex with Casca.

Guts’ denial of guilt while clearly feeling it is reminiscent of another character too:

This is the second parallel, to Casca finding Griffith in the river.

Casca eventually yanks her sword out of Guts, admits to him that she’s romantically in love with Griffith, proceeds to list all the ways Griffith is wholly unavailable (he needs to marry Charlotte, Guts took the place she wanted at Griffith’s side, and now he may not even be alive), bequeaths Griffith to Guts, and tries to kill herself. Griffith Griffith Griffith – the lead-in to sex revolves around him. Guts thinking about how he abandoned him in the snow, Casca thinking about how Griffith doesn’t need her, and Guts beginning to realize that Griffith needed him.

So Guts saves her from her suicide attempt, then comforts her through sex.

And Casca does the same in return:

She couldn’t comfort Griffith, she couldn’t be Griffith’s “woman,” she couldn’t be be something indispensable to Griffith’s dream, but she can comfort Guts, she can have sex with Guts, she can help Guts achieve his dream.

The situations requiring her comfort are even v similar – Guts has just had a flashback to his rape, and Griffith was calling himself “unclean” after selling himself to a pedophilic rapist. Griffith buries his feelings and refuses to be comforted, but Guts pours his heart out to Casca and lets her hold him.

My point is that Guts and Casca having sex is not about the other for either of them – it’s about their respective relationships to Griffith. Guts is presented with a similar scenario to the morning he left the Hawks, and after being told by Casca that he fucked up then and broke Griffith, he chooses a different course of action this time, and comforts and has sex with Casca. Casca is presented with a similar scenario to finding Griffith in the river after Gennon, but instead of being shut out she’s able to comfort the man in emotional turmoil this time.

tl;dr they’re both on the rebound from Griffith here, giving to each other what they didn’t or couldn’t give to him, and there are deliberate visual and situational parallels to illustrate this.

This is what I have thought for years. Casca and Guts whole “relationship” came about because they are in love with the same man. Griffith. Every time they are together conversation turns towards Griffith and lets face it they were both most likely thinking of Griffith during the sex.

Btw I want to say thank you for this post. 

In a fandom as vitriol as most of Berserk’s western “fans” are they don’t allow for any kind of insight or discussion like this. But when I read things like this post it reminds me that I wasn’t just fucking seeing things because I swear certain types of people had me believing I was crazy.(I guess that is what those people wanted me to think).

It is posts like yours that make me want to get right back into everything that I love about Berserk.

Edit: Oh yeah I just remembered the all these talk about scars

and how the beast say that Guts basically only holding on to Casca because she is the scar Griffith give him.

Kind of like all the scars Guts indirectly gave Griffith due to his time in torture.

A nice reminder of how Guts subconscious won’t let him forget and how he really doesn’t want to let go of Griffith.

Also Guts looks fucking board after he and Casca had sex

Not to mention he out right lies here

Because

and with Griffith

There is no shoving away or telling him to not to touch him (like with Casca).

So Guts is really forgetful about whose touch it is he didn’t mind or unless you know he is projecting on to Casca that he is talking/being with someone else, a particular someone else.

Oh man I know what you mean. I’ve written so much about my interpretation of Berserk by now and sometimes the rest of the fandom still makes me wonder if I’m just seeing things or making things up. That’s one reason it’s important to find like-minded people imo, especially in a fandom that can be as hostile as this one.

Luckily I’ve managed to find a good place on tumblr where I don’t really have to deal with the majority of the fandom that hates griffith and griffguts lol.

And ty for the addition! That point about the scars and the Beast of Darkness referring to Casca as the wound Griffith left him, like damn I never thought of that but holy shit it’s perfect and fits into that scar discussion between Guts and Casca like a puzzle piece.

And lol yeah, I’m not sure whether that’s Guts fudging the details or Miura conveniently forgetting that moment with Griffith, but either way Guts’ statement that Casca was the only one who could touch him is demonstratably false.