That is so nice to hear, thank you, I’m glad you think so!
This is more headcanon territory than meta but here’s what I think:
tbh…
pre-NeoGriffith, I’d say no. I think Guts had pretty thoroughly
repressed his attraction to Griffith during the Golden Age. He’s got
sexual hangups in general, and with men in particular, and if he thinks
about Griffith naked more often than the average dude then it’s just
because he’s remembering how awesome and awe-inspiring he is, ofc. His
heart’s getting fluttery cause Griffith’s just so cool and dazzling. He
wants Griffith to look at him because he just wants totally platonic
attention.
I
mean lbr during the Golden Age Guts has been doing this for three
years, yk, the crush thing where he’s staring at him from afar, or
watching the door every time he’s in a room where other Hawks may be as
well, hoping Griffith shows up and comes to sit by him. but because of
heteronormativity and his sexual trauma he’s unable to translate
those feelings into attraction.
like to get a little graphically
detailed for a sec, I tend to imagine that when Guts jerks off during
this period his mind is generally blank or he’s just thinking about
mundane things and focusing mainly on the physical sensation. if naked
Griffith shows up now and then, it’s just cause his mind’s wandering
aimlessly, nothing to worry about.
I think if he had another
couple days with post-torture Griffith he would’ve started to re-examine
this period of his life and realize what they could’ve had. He got
through the revelations that Griffith isn’t a god, and Griffith has
extremely intense life-destroying feelings for him. Like, recognizing
the nature of his own feelings was the next logical step there.
You could maybe even argue that having sex with Casca might’ve helped
that along, giving him a positive association with sex to draw on, like a
stepping stone.
And I am definitely reading into things here, but yk, that’s what I do lol, so consider:
You
are having a breakdown because you overheard Casca tell me to leave. It
has finally really truly hit me that I broke your heart when I left.
This is an extreme example of the emotions between us. How do I act on
those emotions? It’ll come to me… come on… there’s got to be some way to
translate these intense emotions into a positive course of action here…
But yk instead the Eclipse happened.
So he spends the next 2 years thinking of Griffith either like this:
or like this
And sexual attraction is pretty much out of his mind for a while.
But then NeoGriffith shows up and Guts practically has a sexual awakening.
(i will never in my life get tired of posting this page)
After
the Hill of Swords, it’s honestly really really easy for me to read
between the lines and basically assume that Guts is jerking off to
Griffith after waking up from sex dreams about him semi-regularly, then
killing ghosts with extra vehemence bc he’s feeling weird and guilty and
lonely.
I mean
You’re
right, the Beast of Darkness gets really, really suggestive. It’s hard
at this point to argue that Guts would be completely unaware of his
feelings.
His subconscious is here calling Griffith more precious
than Casca, mocking him for “longing” for him, using very loaded romantic phrasing, etc etc, and Guts is
having a conversation with that part of himself, so he’s got to be
aware.
But what I could see is Guts associating that
attraction with his ~inner darkness~ and trying to ignore it.
Considering that “forgot my urge to kill” bit (and yk the whole Golden
Age) I’d ofc argue that his attraction is far from intrinsic to his
inner darkness, but yk, the BoD is using it to tempt him to go chase
down and kill Griffith here, and it’s probably safe to assume that some
if not all of his fantasies are violent, considering. He’d probably
prefer those too, because non-violent fantasies make him sad and
regretful and lonely when he much prefers to feel rage.
So
like basically he’s twisting his sexual feelings into violence to make
them easier to deal with the way he does with all his other feelings,
lumps them in with revenge as his bad “obsession” he’s trying to let go
of, and tries to ignore them.
But it’s never going to completely
work because the core of those feelings is still real love and longing
for human Griffith. That true light he wants to crush.
Ooh
also you can say that this is another reason he’s so determined to force
Casca’s sanity back – surely if he’s got a girlfriend those
inconvenient feelings will go away. (After all, he managed to distract
himself from Griffith by having sex with her last time.)
ANYWAY
like I said this is all headcanon lol. I think it fits with what we see
in the story, but yk, it’s just one possibility of where Guts’ mind
might be at.
damn guts sure is contemplating on that phrase pretty intensely, it’s almost as if … as if … there’s something deeper here than subtext.
this is likely the first time anyone’s ever said they did deadass anything specifically for guts as far as we’re concerned, and it hits him pretty hard. for that alone i’m gonna venture a ‘yes it’s definitely a first for him’. he wouldn’t be musing melancholy alone on a fucking roof talking to the moon if this hadn’t shook him. in return, guts vows his sword–the only way he knows how to show he cares–his incredible talent, to griffith’s honor. it’s probably the only thing he’s ever found any self-worth in because he knows he’s great at it. this is significant imo because so many times we’ve seen him spit at anyone trying to reel him in or make him theirs … guts gives his allegiance to nobody. it’s a shame this vow was silent. if griffith had known this at all? berserk probably wouldn’t exist lmao.
furthering this significance is that he could’ve left the band of the hawk at anytime he wanted, had he chosen to (and wayyy before griffith became hopelessly dependent on him within that ~3 year period).
before griffith grabbed his damn face and told him he was wanted (implying that he was necessary, worthwhile, valuable–another first in his life, and all guts has ever wanted in his life … some kind of validation and kindness, a sign that he wasn’t completely fucking worthless), where previously guts never let anyone at all touch him.
it’s fascinating, heartfelt, and fucking sad.
These lines are only 4 pages apart.
I’ve been thinking of running away as like… something Berserk contextualizes as immature and negative. Rosine running away to her land of the elves and eventually regretting it when she flies home to die. Guts running away so his malice could burn inside him. This dude:
Griffith’s sacrifice:
yadda yadda yadda.
And I’ve been kind of reluctantly expecting Falconia to follow suit as an immature, ultimately negative escape from the realities of the world.
But, in addition to Godo’s first statement up there, there are also lines like Casca’s as Guts fights Wyald:
“Why does he… always have to fight…? It’s alright… to just run away sometimes…”
So there’s a distinction to be made between running away so you can fuck shit up and express your anger (Guts’ revenge campaign, apostles making a sacrifice in despair and turning into monsters) vs running away from war and hatred and violence. Maybe running to a peaceful place where the monsters help humanity.
Like, maybe it is an important distinction that Rosine’s land of the elves was essentially a place where she could reenact the violence done to her on other people and call it a game, while Falconia is… just a sweet place to live lol. A kingdom where the violence suffered and perpetuated by its more monstrous inhabitants has no place anymore.
As a cis woman my opinion is not all that valuable here lol, and it’s under a cut because reading that opinion should probably be an opt-in experience and easy to scroll past
Basically I think that’s a legit and interesting take, though maybe not entirely compatible with canon. Not because Casca couldn’t be trans – I could definitely see that and I think it’s a logical reading of the character – but more because like, if Griffith knew and acted on that knowledge it would change the subsequent nightmare sequence w/ Casca as a housewife.
Also like if there’s an aspect there of Griffith knowing on some level
that Casca’s a man but deliberately withholding that “validation” until
this point when he needs something from him (idk if that was what you
meant to imply but the word ‘weaponizing’ makes me wonder) then I do
disagree with that.
But there’s no reason to assume Griffith was deliberately misgendering him either if his knowledge is subconscious and/or more recently acquired.
(And to be clear on that by misgendering I’m not talking about like Griffith using she/her pronouns bc if this isn’t an AU then Casca has obviously not socially transitioned. I’m more talking about ordering him to sleep with Guts four years ago, or complimenting the dress, things like that.)
Also funnily enough your take is basically the exact opposite of mine in that I emphasize the sense of oppressive heteronormativity and Griffith’s repression in this scene, while you go in the opposite direction with a sense of both characters’ gender and sexuality being validated. But it’s not like my preferred interpretation has anything to do with authorial intent lol, so yours is just as legit and worth consideration.
Plus a nice side effect of losing that undertone of repression is that it makes Griffith’s horror re: a life with Casca even more thoroughly centred around Guts’ absence. Also adds another layer to Casca’s decision not to leave with Guts but to stay with Griffith, if there’s an implicit understanding that he can be himself with Griffith while Guts still regards him as a woman.
Hmm idk if I have much else to say, especially since I’m like, trying to avoid a lot of the inevitable problematic implications inherent to Casca’s narrative, Berserk being what it is. Idk just like reading Griffith as a gay man is rife with issues, reading Casca as a trans man opens up another can of worms, one that I don’t think anyone needs my pov on. But ty for your interest in my thoughts, hope this was the kind of response you were looking for.
As far as I’m concerned the only thing worse than Casca like, having healing sex with Guts and being his narrative reward would be Casca joining Griffith, so I’m very much not on board with you there.
But I do agree that I would absolutely love it if Casca ended up as like, a secondary antagonist to Guts. That’s probably my ideal development for her tbh, and I don’t think she needs to join Griffith to conflict with him. They could conflict if Casca wants revenge and Guts has mixed feelings about that for a multitude of reasons, they could conflict if Casca just lashes tf out because it’s time for her to express some serious narrative-shaking rage, they could conflict if Casca goes apostle, they could conflict if Casca wants revenge against Guts too for how he treated her (ok unlikely, but god I wish lol), they could conflict if Casca kills or sacrifices someone in the rpg group or the moonlight boy maybe, etc etc etc.
So basically a big giant NO to Casca joining Griffith, but a big giant YES to Casca and Guts becoming enemies.
I doubt very much Miura intended for the reader to be critical of their behaviour, but honestly so much surrounding post-Eclipse Casca skeeves me out wrt ableism and the way she’s so infantalized and objectified (like literally, treated as an unthinking object to be protected rather than a person), both by other characters and by the narrative itself, that I def don’t think you’re overreacting.
It’s something I blame Miura for more than Farnese bc I really don’t think we’re intended to see her as insensitive. and imo Farnese comes across better than anyone else when it comes to treating Casca as a person with feelings. like eg the scene where she loses her temper and then apologizes to her directly – as opposed to say, Guts, who yelled at her all the time back when he interacted with her but never apologized to her. Or as opposed to the rest of the rpg group who tend to treat her like a prop or an extension of Guts or Farnese imo.
But yeah imo there are still a lot of instances of people, including Farnese, talking about Casca and thinking about Casca as if her only value is to motivate Farnese, and the narrative doesn’t really condemn that line of thinking, it’s just part of the general portrayal of post-Eclipse Casca, and it sucks.
lol i wonder if ppl twist the statement that he’s writing Berserk without including the values of good and evil/clearly defined ally and enemy characters to just mean the same thing as the typical “griffith looks nice but he’s pure evil and his allies are fooled by him, guts looks mean but he’s secretly a hero” bs
or they think Miura was just talking about like, silat lol.
but on the off-chance you wanted a somewhat serious answer, i’d say the swords = dicks thing is p dependant on context, and in this instance it’s less a direct sexual metaphor and more a demonstration of Guts big dick energy lol. The same way Guts’ sword always breaks other dudes’ swords, it’s a masculine power thing that shows how outclassed Serpico is in terms of raw force
and to veer a bit more freudian, just for fun, it may tie in a little to how he’s somewhat emasculated by Farnese. Particularly in comparison to Guts’ main relationship with a woman in which he is (currently trying to be) the big strong manly protector. mb made a little more plausible in that i think this is right after farnese took off with casca, which could encourage a reader to compare the two relationships.
I actually never considered it quite like that before but ia, that’s also a big problem and another reason the Eclipse rape is a failure of writing. Especially considering how Femto’s particular villainy emphasizes/is an expression of some of that gay-coding. And a result of it too for that matter – he makes the sacrifice because of his feelings for Guts. And yeah you can interpret that as “he should’ve embraced those feelings and not tried to escape them,” but the fact remains that his extremely homoerotic feelings basically drove him to evil lol.
So yeah as well as readers not being able to sympathize with him, it makes his feelings for Guts kind of forboding. Which tbh is the kind of thing that wouldn’t bother me at all if there was like, any positive + textually gay content to mitigate it lol, like I’m not going to pretend I don’t fucking love that Griffith makes the sacrifice to escape his feelings and talk about how amazing his narrative is every day, but yk, in the context of the rest of the predatory gay content of the story it’s not something I’d praise from this particular angle.
guts and griffith: kissing passionately, flowers bordering the frame of the shot, griffiths hand is up guts shirt
berserk fans: ok see this is CLEARLY a reference to the way ancient roman soldiers were told to use physical intimacy to strengthen the Brotherly Bond among comrades. this is actually some pretty smart stuff miura is doing he’s using the historical allusion to suggest that like rome griffiths kingdom will fall after he’s killed by his former ally guts (an allusion to caesar). genius
yeah absolutely. ignoring every ounce of subtext, the only characters who demonstrate textual same sex attraction are child predators and groups of heretics having hedonistic and like fuckin baby eating orgies before dying horribly.
As for the subtext, I like to interpret it in as positive a way as possible (ie Guts and Griffith’s relationship and lives are totally fucked up because they fail to recognize and act on the attraction between them, largely because of their past traumas), but as much as I think it fits the story perfectly and is the neatest and most resonant reading of Guts and Griffith’s relationship, it’s still only subtext, and possibly accidental, so that doesn’t really mitigate any of the actual homophobia inherent to the story.
And then ofc you have the evil gay subtext, yk like Femto staring at Guts during the Eclipse rape and the Beast of Darkness talking about Guts’ longing for Griffith and Guts assaulting Casca to feel closer to him. Hard to defend that lmao. I mean I can still read it as inoffensively as possible (the negative part comes when they redirect their feelings from each other to a heterosexual outlet, eg) but yk, that’s just me wanting to enjoy the story, that’s not a nuance I’m gonna give Miura credit for.
And also because this is all subtext it’s very nebulous and v open to interpretation.
Like for instance, another less forgiving interpretation of the subtext might be that Miura intended for Griffith and Guts’ relationship to be positive inasmuch as it is platonic, and for the implications of sexual attraction to be something negative that should have been overcome. I feel like that’s a much less valid interpretation, because it’s pretty contradictory overall, but yk there are still some pretty fucked up implications you can pick up in the subtext, and the context of all textual same-sex attraction being evil doesn’t exactly help that.
Oh also I suppose one can argue that in Berserk every expression of sexual desire is negative whether it’s hetero or not, give or take the second half of the gtsca sex scene (and i can still argue it’s negative), and therefore the fact that all textual same-sex desire is evil is more neutral in berserk than it would be in other stories. but we live in a world where predatory heterosexual desire isn’t a damaging stereotype in and of itself but predatory same-sex desire is, so it’s not actually neutral regardless, bc of real world context.
Tho that fact does make Berserk more fun for me to read at least.
At the end of the day basically I choose to read the subtext in as
positive a way as possible and it works for me and entertains me a whole
lot, but that doesn’t make the homophobic implications go away. but enh
I’ve kind of made my peace with enjoying a very offensive work lol.
oh boy lol. these aren’t in any particular order because i couldn’t ever choose an absolute fave (but if i had to it would probably be 5 or 1) theres some other good ones I didn’t put on here just because I feel like they’re more basic standard moments (ie. “do I need a reason?” and “do you think im cruel?”) bc i wanted to make this list semi interesting lol
1. right after I say I don’t wanna be basic i immediately put in the holy grail of griffguts lmao but i gotta include it bc its the most canonical point of griffguts ever. i can’t say much about it because it’s so straightforwardly gay. griffith, after a year of torture and hopelessness and clinging to the image of guts to help keep him sane, admits that after all, guts was more important to him than his dream. like pack it up and go home y’all we can analyze the relationship all we want but this is it
2. the whole hill of swords scene but especially these two moments
3. the sudden tonal shift between when griffith gives guts the karma sutra as a joke, guts sits down and they exist in the same comfortable silence a few moments, then griffiths face gets drawn and the symbol of new noble power (the stamp) is emphasized before they look at each other, and griffiths focus is forced away from the moment and moves into the next step in securing his dream. a moment that could have been just some quiet alone time turns into a strategy meeting. griffiths dream is, quite literally, getting in the way of him and guts.
4. cascas face says it all here. griffith tells her to make everyone withdraw, she gasps and then looks to see griffith anxiously peering out at injured guts, sword drawn, and knows she’s powerless to stop him. at this moment griffith probably knows he wont be able to beat zodd. he just wants to keep guts alive, or perhaps at the very least, die with him.
5. ok. imagine you’ve been mutilated, robbed of any free will and independence even just to move or speak, doomed to live a life dependent on other people that can’t even be cut short by suicide, because life or death is a choice you’ve been robbed of, too. and the guy who put you in this position, who you love and hate for making you love him, comes rushing towards you at your moment of greatest shame and despair. the guy who made you ruin your own life. the guy who you spent a year thinking of just to stay sane, who rescued you from the same hell he threw you into, who you tried to kill but couldn’t (during the choking in the tower), then tried to save (outstretched hand as guts falls during the eclipse), then tried to kill again but also couldn’t (reaching to kill him then stopping as skull knight carries him away). and after everything when all you want to do is not feel or care any longer, this guy who you were ready to die for comes after you again. and you can’t even move to get away or tell him how you feel, because your tendons are severed and your tongue is cut. this scene literally kills me
1. guts name is such a stereotypical 80s dark manga protags name it’s ridiculous, yet somehow it works. i think it’s because names like this aren’t commonplace in the world of berserk, we understand guts upbringing and that the man who would have most likely named him was a cruel mercenary who revelled in violence, and the oddness of his name is never really commented on or dwelled upon (to my memory). the names of characters in berserk are really unique – guts gets the most stereotypical edgy anime name, but im not mad about it because it’s dealt with well.
2. you can’t accurately gauge guts and griffith morally against each other because griffiths story is defined by a lack of choice. guts was never mutilated or rendered physically helpless like griffith was before the eclipse. he’s always had the opportunity to defend himself and fight. i plan on talking more about this in the future so I’ll leave it at that
3. the berserker armour looks stupid. im sorry lol it just does. like when it’s in it’s original skeletal shape or when the helm is closed off it’s fine, but at that point where it’s half-transformed into the beasts shape it just looks goofy.
4. guts isn’t a good person. he isn’t a hero, and he only fights for selfish reasons, not for a greater good. he kills children gleefully, tells a young girl to kill herself after torturing her father in front of her, treats casca like shit, and told another young girl to go back to her abusive family and town instead of doing the obviously more helpful thing and bringing her to godos house to stay with rickert and erica. guts is given wayyyyy too much credit in the fandom lol and he’s much more interesting as a morally grey damaged bitch than a hero.
5. guts doesn’t deserve casca. he doesn’t deserve a woman as a romantic prize for having suffered during his life. he’s sexually assaulted her and objectified her both in golden age and post eclipse, he’s lecherous and misogynistic toward her, and even now he doesn’t seem to care much about her actual feelings beyond using her as a reminder of the band of the hawk and a method of guilty self flagellating.
6. the beast of darkness isn’t some separate entity – it IS guts. it’s the manifestation of his deepest and darkest pain and the violent lash out against that trauma.
7. people tend to say guts is a great protagonist because he isn’t special, but i disagree. he blatantly is a very special person. he thwarts causality as the god hand know it, exists stuck between the astral and physical realm, wields a sword cursed with the blood of demons, has a special suit of armour, is bizarrely strong, is close to a being that’s an angel, god, demon overlord or what have you, etc etc. even in golden age guts was special because he was a renowned warrior and very obviously favoured by an extremely important figure, griffith. people say guts doesn’t have the “chosen one” narrative, but he does – he was chosen for sacrifice, which makes him special. he has a physical MARK on his body that makes him special. like idk where ppl seem to get it from that he’s not by any means a super strange and special guy lol
8. guts has distracted himself from his main quest of killing griffith using his new travelling party and casca because when he saw griffith on the hill of swords, he began to doubt whether he could really have it in him to kill griffith. just like when he left the band of the hawk for a year, his current quest to kill griffith is, under the surface, about getting griffith to look at him and acknowledge him again.
9. black swordsman arc guts is the best guts.
10. the tone of berserk isn’t nihilistic, and guts proves that. even at birth he struggled against the odds and managed to survive. he rejects the notion that life is meaningless because he knows much of it is preordained, and then fights against these preordained events to give his life meaning.
If Miura ever did draw that art, the probability of a bunch of fans reacting with immediate denial is 100%. like, the gay things i’ve seen people twist themselves into knots to deny, man they could have graphic sex on page and I’d still be able to find a bunch of people calling it platonic, or explaining that they were just trying to out manipulate each other or it was gay chicken gone too far or something lmao.
Wish i could say the probability of Miura drawing it is higher tho 😡 come on Miura you clearly love homoeroticism, go back to your naked waterfight and sexually suggestive duel roots
Yeah that’s a good point tbh. maybe the most fundamental fandom divide comes down to whether you blame griffith or miura for the eclipse rape lol. or yk, more expansively, whether you’re the type of person who responds to fiction as though the characters are real people with agency or as though they’re constructs
and that’s not meant to be judgemental, there’s nothing wrong with engaging w/ fiction the first way, it’s fun and lends itself well to fandom pursuits like fanfic. it just doesn’t lend itself to analysis or critique, so things can get awk when they criticize a character for doing offensive things but don’t really engage with how those offensive things are presented by the narrative.
(and this is a v common thing in fandom in general ime, not just berserk fandom)
like, is griffith problematic because he magically turned into a demon and raped casca, or is berserk problematic because he’s a gay coded lipstick wearing sexually predatory antagonist whose motivation for raping casca is strongly implied to be at least partly jealousy
i never check the reddit unless i’m linked there (usually for raws/translations) and i try not to read the comments when i do visit. and skull knight just has a generally like, stuffy and unpleasant atmosphere lol. i’ve been known to go there to check translation info, but yeah i have no interest in even lurking to read discussions let alone participating
in general when it comes to fandoms, especially fandoms with tension between different interpretations or ships or whatever, i tend to just find a niche i like and stay there
you're the only one 