i see people actually insist that like “nooo griffith made it clear it was the fetus making him feel stuff sweetie :)” and its just. i get the writing and irony or whatever behind thinking that but its sloppy and easy and not emotionally satisfying. or maybe it is for freaks who hate griffith idk.
i’ve seen people insist that griffith made it clear he doesn’t feel guilty lol, so many berserk fans have like negative reading comprehension
like with the fetus idk, maybe i could see an argument that it’s ironic? like lol griffith thought he’d escaped feelings but now something else’s feelings, which he’s responsible for creating during the eclipse, are fucking him over again, serves him right. maybe the idea of evil is punking him or smthn. but yeah it would still be sloppy, emotionally pointless writing lol.
tbh even if the fetus is only forcing him to save casca i feel like… it’s unnecessary. one of my major writing pet peeves is when you could explain something thru organic characterization and development you’ve already established, and instead you decide to explain it through artificial means like magic/brainwashing/physical changes to their mind/whatever.
if neogriffith’s blood is unfrozen, well, we don’t know what that means exactly, but one thing it could mean is that he’s reverting back to human griffith in mind. because he’s on another plane of godlike awareness he’s never going to be entirely human griffith again, but if miura tells me that human griffith’s emotions are unfrozen or w/e then I would absolutely believe it would fuck him up and make him do irrational things without thinking, like save casca from rocks. and i’d believe that griffith would deny it to himself and continue acting cold and aloof, bc lol it’s griffith, now re-dedicated to his dream with godlike powers and memories of being a monster and choosing to sacrifice everyone he loves, obviously he’s going to deny and repress whatever he’s feeling.
you don’t need the additional step of magic baby possession to justify it, it just takes away from all that excellent character work we already have.
like ok i’ll take the baby possession when it comes to his reaction to casca if it ends up being true, fine, but i absolutely refuse when it comes to his feelings for guts. that just crosses a line.
yes im so confused by people who insist that it has to be the fetus bc we were told point blank like… are we reading the same character driven story? do you like interesting stories? how dumb would it be if the irony behind the cold evil villain was actually just a magic baby and not his own feelings bc lol he was a one dimensional evil sociopath all along like snoreeeee
omg right?
i seriously can’t wrap my mind around the concept of a writer spending about 70 chapters establishing the intense emotional connection between guts and griffith, showing us that griffith’s feelings for guts are even more powerful than his ridiculously epic dream, and then bringing griffith back as an antagonist while hinting that his feelings are still there in some form, the feelings that drove the plot of a huge important narrative arc that is basically the character foundation for everything that comes after…
only for those feelings to actually be fake now and coincidentally just the feelings of a fetus he absorbed one time.
like why would anyone want to either write or read that lmao
ok the chapter where neogriffith’s heart starts going off
visible exhale of breath as the fight begins
eventually guts kicks a sword through zodd and gets thrown back
this is rickert’s commentary, but it reminds me a lot of this
and immediately following that panel ngriff’s heart starts making itself known
denial followed immediately by one of the best pages in the manga, as though in counterpoint
the composition of those final 2 panels is interesting
ngriff on one side, fetus or guts on the other. who’s to blame? well, the first is neogriffith’s thoughts, the second is neogriffith’s reality.
whether the fetus is responsible for neogriffith impulsively saving casca for no reason is whatever. it seems entirely possible to me that we can blame the fetus for that. neogriffith thinks the fetus is fucking with him, and maybe he’s partially right.
but when it comes to blaming the fetus for making his heart stir here instead of blaming his very own feelings for guts, the visuals just don’t support it.
speaking of great moments
the view of griffith from behind and cut off at the eyes – his feelings hidden from guts, the audience, himself
contrasted to guts’ feelings at the forefront on display – guts’ ‘gh’ like the words, the apparent acknowledgement are a physical blow. ntm the way he holds himself back until griffith confirms – twice – that he feels nothing. hope is painful, and even worse when it’s given and then ripped away in like 30 seconds
if griffith remained serene i’d suggest that his face is largely hidden for the impact of ‘i am free’ and i think that’s part of it, but since his heart starts beating as he watches guts fight (in an echo of the very first time he saw guts in that courtyard js) i def think that this is a nice visual set up for neogriffith’s emotional ambiguity. we’re on the outside looking at a mysterious blank page, even when we’re in neogriffith’s thoughts – because griffith himself doesn’t understand his own heart.
So, Guts can unfreeze it by the true love’s kiss, right?!
i will never be over how ideal this moment is
femto reaching out -> closeup of guts -> closeup of femto -> femto failing to act -> guts + co escaping -> femto watching them disappear with a lowered hand, shown from a high angle -> a panel depicting femto from far above as a tiny dark smudge, alone and distant, singular, surrounded only by monsters
@bthump tbh i generally try to forget almost all scenes with griffith and charlotte but this one is permanently burned into my retinas bc of griffith’s fucky lips
yeah same! idk i’ve always kind of disliked stories that make blood relations something extra special, and i also rly like that berserk has a very negative take on things like noble blood and being born into your place in society.
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i was thinking about griffith’s parents earlier, what they might’ve been like, what happened to them, etc. and i thought about griffith’s mother and nearly burst into tears
I’ve thought about this too like.
Damn who was that lady.
Also i had this dream like she was a single lady and stuff and then she got sick and she had these really assholish lovers and thats were griffith gets his….
And griffith saw her getting murdered or something and ran away proper.
I always assumed he was some kind of out of wedlock birth and that his mother was very young. I kinda feel like she had some kind of job that was “respectable” before getting pregnant and after that had to hustle for her money either by prostitution or thieving. (Probably some combination of the two.)
I mean what would be more distracting and seemingly harmless than a very pretty young woman with a baby? She could pick a lot of pockets that way. I feel like he ended up wanting to help in some way when he got older but I feel like she didn’t let him get too involved in the worst of it. She had some holdovers from her old life, maybe even a book or two and she tried to cobble together some education for him. (This may have led to her putting her trust in people she shouldn’t have and Griffith suffered for it. He never wanted to see her sad so he never told her.)
I feel like she used to get into self destructive moods too but never let herself take it as far as Griffith would grow to. Despite her best efforts to hide these feelings, Griffith still internalized the idea that it was his job to keep her happy.
He gets his looks from her. She died young. I feel she probably died from disease rather than violence because I think that really solidified his desire to never live in poverty again. She always told Griffith that his father was someone important (which might go a long way to explaining his absence regardless of what kind of person his father actually was.)
I could see his father being anyone really. A part of me wonders if his father actually was wealthy or possibly even noble because it would be easier for someone like that to abandon their child. I could also see him equally being a product of love or of violence. It’s like this huge blank slate.
Also who were Guts’ biological parents? It always makes me sad to think that but for fate he could have been raised by someone who loved him.
i have few ideas of my own but i love all these. esp griffith’s mom being a part time thief, i really dig that for some reason.
i guess one thing i can add is that i really dig the idea of griffith’s parents having been in love, and both common, before dying young
it’s a good contrast to griffith’s dream of a marriage of convenience with charlotte. and maybe his mother waxing poetic about his dead father griffith never knew, hearing about love but only ever seeing the sad aftermath, is part of why he’s kind of disconnected from the concept
I totally agree about the blankness there making them both more mythic. The romantic in me wonders if Griffith’s father died in the war? Like his parents intended to marry but he was conscripted before they could and she found out she was pregnant after he died. I wonder if his father was actually someone like Guts.
i kind of like the idea of his father being guts-like, at least in a born soldier (or some other trade), happy just doing his thing kind of way. it wouldn’t really make a difference to griffith as a character necessarily or inform his relationship w/ guts in any way as he never knew him, but it adds a level to griffith’s choice between guts + dream, and how by choosing his dream he throws away part of his humanity and changes into something else.
relatedly i was thinking about griffith’s mother being a dreamer who longed for more, but what if she was actually relatively content? at least before dad dying. idk i’m liking the idea of his parents being symbolic of what griffith throws away in pursuit of his dream.
i was thinking about griffith’s parents earlier, what they might’ve been like, what happened to them, etc. and i thought about griffith’s mother and nearly burst into tears
I’ve thought about this too like.
Damn who was that lady.
Also i had this dream like she was a single lady and stuff and then she got sick and she had these really assholish lovers and thats were griffith gets his….
And griffith saw her getting murdered or something and ran away proper.
I always assumed he was some kind of out of wedlock birth and that his mother was very young. I kinda feel like she had some kind of job that was “respectable” before getting pregnant and after that had to hustle for her money either by prostitution or thieving. (Probably some combination of the two.)
I mean what would be more distracting and seemingly harmless than a very pretty young woman with a baby? She could pick a lot of pockets that way. I feel like he ended up wanting to help in some way when he got older but I feel like she didn’t let him get too involved in the worst of it. She had some holdovers from her old life, maybe even a book or two and she tried to cobble together some education for him. (This may have led to her putting her trust in people she shouldn’t have and Griffith suffered for it. He never wanted to see her sad so he never told her.)
I feel like she used to get into self destructive moods too but never let herself take it as far as Griffith would grow to. Despite her best efforts to hide these feelings, Griffith still internalized the idea that it was his job to keep her happy.
He gets his looks from her. She died young. I feel she probably died from disease rather than violence because I think that really solidified his desire to never live in poverty again. She always told Griffith that his father was someone important (which might go a long way to explaining his absence regardless of what kind of person his father actually was.)
I could see his father being anyone really. A part of me wonders if his father actually was wealthy or possibly even noble because it would be easier for someone like that to abandon their child. I could also see him equally being a product of love or of violence. It’s like this huge blank slate.
Also who were Guts’ biological parents? It always makes me sad to think that but for fate he could have been raised by someone who loved him.
i have few ideas of my own but i love all these. esp griffith’s mom being a part time thief, i really dig that for some reason.
i guess one thing i can add is that i really dig the idea of griffith’s parents having been in love, and both common, before dying young
it’s a good contrast to griffith’s dream of a marriage of convenience with charlotte. and maybe his mother waxing poetic about his dead father griffith never knew, hearing about love but only ever seeing the sad aftermath, is part of why he’s kind of disconnected from the concept
today i was at work and thinkin bout how good the potential inherent in guts and neogriffith’s hero/villain relationship is tbh. like the tiny glimpses we’ve seen so far (ngriff’s heart beating, guts’ complicated feelings, eg) + the foundation of the golden age backstory = solid fucking gold in theory
complicated angsty hero/villain anger and rage + regret and desire and loneliness, and w/ neogriffith his godliness + potential latent humanity
like these are all things i adore to pieces. singular godlike figures brought down by human feelings (love lbr). vengeful rage complicated by love. destructive, life-destroying love and obsession. ppl incapable of understanding their extremely powerful feelings. regret for lost potential and the mistakes that led to ruin. prominent shifting power dynamics – the whole basis of their relationship being a desire to be equals, each feeling at points inferior to the other, then one of them becomes a literal demigod but the need for equality (and thus, friendship) is still there, like, fuck that’s good stuff.
one obsessed and one who cut out his obsession, sloooowly switching places as guts semi-successfully attempts to move on and griffith starts succumbing to his beating heart. ofc guts can’t truly move on or there’s no story, but the opposing character trajectories are perf.
ooh and then you got the whole thing where one has fully succumbed to his inner darkness and is essentially a monster, but with glimmers of humanity, and the other is a human being pulled under by his inner darkness and struggling with it. complete with fun shining beautiful saviour/near-monstrous warrior imagery.
and the fact that at first it was his feelings for guts that lead to griffith succumbing to the darkness, and guts’ feelings for griffith that uplifted him, in turn giving him a home and then spurring him on to better himself. and now it’s potentially his feelings for guts that lead to neogriffith evidencing signs of humanity, beating heart etc (”he was the reason i’ve been thrown into darkness, and now he’s the sole sustenance keeping me alive” anyone?), and guts’ feelings for griffith that pull him towards monstrosity.
like just imagine the two of them finally brought together again with all this build-up behind them, fueling their confrontation. imagine all these teasing glimpses of mutually complex, contradictory, intensely powerful feelings really coming to fruition.
the set-up is dead on for an absolutely ideal hero/villain dynamic, and you know miura theoretically has the character and storytelling skills to make it amazing bc we all read the golden age.
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man I’m pretty into this as a concept. Like I personally think Griffith is still his most important person, and it feels appropriately cyclical to me. Guts’ vengeful obsession with Griffith finally turning him into a monster and equalizing them. (well it wouldn’t really be equals if guts just became an apostle, but symbolically it could work? or hell maybe the elfhelm timeskip is 200 some years and he comes back just in time for the next eclipse lol)
I don’t rly know how likely it is, since it seems like way more of a downer ending than Miura might like based on what he’s said in at least one interview. Especially since Guts would have to fall into despair first which probably means bye bye Guts’ rpg group. Plus it’s maybe a little too neat and on the nose? but on a v personal level I’d enjoy the hell out of Guts sacrificing NeoGriff.
First, he talks about how to get ideas.As examples for getting ideas by combining elements he uses “Girls&Panzer”(Tanks+Club activities), “KanColle”(Pretty girls+morphing into battleships) and “Restaurant to Another World”(Food+fantasy).
Then he goes on to explain to keep the advantages and disadvantages of your genre in mind, using isekai as example.
In regards to Berserk’s Guts, Griffith is a character who draws out impatience, fighting spirit and loneliness, Puck is “relaxation, laughter and a “seriousness crusher”“, the current Casca is “a character who draws out feelings of guilt, uneasiness and pity”.
By arranging the characters with the intention to pull a certain something about Guts to the surface, he becomes a multifaceted protagonist.
He finishes with stating to keep a balance between using established molds and coming up with original stuff, as original doesn’t necessary mean good.
you're the only one 