@yesgabsstuff yeah from an ignoring-Miura’s-authorial-intent pure character perspective I think I’d lean towards internalized homophobia as the strongest reason behind Griffith’s self-loathing there. (Also tbf this was before any torture actually started happening, besides the King whipping him.)

When you think about it, it’s likely that his only experience with attraction to and sex with men was w/ Gennon, the pedophilic rapist, and it would make perfect sense for me to see Griffith as horrified of his own attraction to Guts being similar in any way. And there’s a good chance he’d see same sex attraction as intrinsically predatory bc of his own personal history.

Also, this is slightly an aside but like wrt his feelings for Guts being pure or not like, I really don’t give a fuck personally about Griffith accepting the possibility of killing Guts and within Berserk I hardly feel like it’s even that terrible lol, both Casca and Serpico have gone a step further and actively tried to kill Guts and we’re supposed to like them just fine. “If I can’t have him,” does give it an extra layer of possessiveness, but part of the point of the torture chamber scene is that Griffith realizes that and knows it was a fucked up irrational reaction and not actually what he wants.