Lol I’m glad he doesn’t hate Griffith, it always sucks when your friends hate the characters you like. But yeah I definitely agree that his theory doesn’t really make sense. Though at the moment I only have manga related reasons because I haven’t watched the entire anime in years and years.
tbh the main thing I’d want to say in response is that if Griffith was evil all along and secretly planning to sacrifice his friends from the start then Berserk is a really boring story.
Like in what way is a story about a sinister dude manipulating his friends for power more interesting than a story about a dude with good intentions being driven to the point where he feels like sacrificing his friends is the correct moral choice?
Or how is a story about a dude whose bff turned out to be a lying dick all along better than a story about two dudes who love each other (platonically if he doesn’t ship it) accidentally ruining their relationship through a complex character-based misunderstanding and being torn apart in an epic way?
Berserk is great because its characters are complex and interesting and have a ton of layers, and interpreting Griffith as evil all along just makes it shallow and boring.
Though if you want concrete evidence that Griffith isn’t evil I’d point out stuff like Griffith asking Guts “do you think I’m cruel?” and Guts being the one to reassure him that killing people is nbd and his dream is worth it. And Griffith risking his life (and, consequently, his dream) for no reason to save Guts from Zodd. I mean I guess if you think Griffith somehow knows what the behelit is you could argue that he knew he’d survive, but lol.
There’s Griffith ignoring the nobles to rescue Guts and Casca, which is also a risk to his dream because he’s supposed to be sucking up to them.
There’s Griffith self harming while denying his feelings of guilt, which is the most obvious indication that he has extreme feelings of guilt I’ve ever seen (especially in combination with the aforementioned “do you think I’m cruel?”)
There’s Griffith reaching to grab Guts as he falls during the first few minutes of the Eclipse, even despite Guts being the source of his despair.
tbh the problem is that if his premise is “Griffith knew he needed sacrifices so he valued his friends lives only so he could sacrifice them later,” those examples still might not convince him. You could show him this bit from the manga (idk if it’s repeated at all in the anime):
Griffith’s sacrifice canonically wouldn’t work if he didn’t feel genuine love for them, and if he’s been planning to sacrifice them the whole time then he obviously doesn’t really love them. For him to be able to sacrifice Guts and Casca etc he has to care about them so much it’s like they’re part of him.
Also there’s always the fact that the Godhand had to take him on a guilt trip and convince him that he has to sacrifice his friends for the sake of thousands of people who already died for his dream, which would hardly be necessary if he already knew how the behelit worked and wanted to sacrifice everyone anyway.
(oh and btw if he’s thinking Griffith’s “I will choose the place where you die” line is an indication that he’s evil and knows about the sacrifice, the better explanation for that is that it’s a reference to Griffith’s guilt for leading people, like that one kid, to their deaths. he’s owning that fact, because as a mercenary leader it’s p much true – people die in the battles he fights on the road to his dream. by stating it up front he’s denying and repressing his feelings of guilt. It also sets up the mentality that leads to him making the choice to sacrifice, and it’s foreshadowing. But it doesn’t mean Griffith literally knows he’s going to sacrifice Guts in a magic ritual – it means he’s already mentally prepared to sacrifice his followers in battle for his dream.
Mental preparation that, as we saw in flashback, came with a dose of self-harm and sacrificing himself as well in a way by sleeping with a predatory pedophile, so, hardly an indication of evil.)
Okay, onto the Golden Age. This part is going to go up to Promrose Hall, because that’s when Guts’ image of Griffith shifts dramatically. But from their first meeting til then, Guts’ sexual attraction to Griffith is like, painfully clear to me.
This is largely focused on visual chemistry and eroticized shots of Griffith specifically from Guts’ point of view, because there’s a lot in these first few chapters – it’s the main lens through which we’re introduced to their relationship and chemistry up close, rather than through the vague implication of their dynamic and how it ended which we saw last arc. I’ve limited myself to contextually relevant moments and really blatant shots that go above and beyond just showing that Griffith is objectively attractive, to showing that Guts feels the attraction. If I took every image of Griffith looking pretty while Guts looks at him I’d be posting half the Golden Age here.
There’s also going to be some step by step analysis of Guts’ giant boner for Griffith and how their relationship screams romance, but (hopefully) less overly detailed than chapter 7 was.
So, Guts kills Basuzo while Griffith watches intently. We know immediately that he’s the god we saw a few chapters ago because of his helmet, so we’re primed to be excited to find out how they’re going to meet and become close. We can already see that Griffith is interested in Guts, so how will Guts feel back?
It’s a bit anticlimactic actually – Guts kills Corkus’ crew, then Guts fights Casca, and finally Griffith, bored, shows up and perfunctorily stabs him.
But then Griffith takes off his helmet and Guts is treated to two and a half pages worth of sexy hair reveal, complete with two panels of tantalizing teasing first:
Note that this isn’t to tease a reveal, say, that he’s the same demon Guts was
really pissed off at in the Black Swordsman arc, and it’s not to tease his human appearance for the sake of the audience – we already know exactly who he is thanks to the helmet that keeps getting centre stage in panels, and people calling him “Griffith,” and we’ve already seen his face and hair in Guts’ flashback and while he’s lounging in the grass. This slow, sensual reveal is for Guts and only Guts. It illustrates and sets the tone for his first glimpse of Griffith, not ours.
And lbr everything about this screams love interest. The tantalizingly slow reveal, complete with long hair blowing in the wind, and two full pages worth of Guts looking at him. Guts’ first sight of Griffith illustrates exactly what he told us: he’s beautiful, noble, and larger than life. And there’s no skimping on the beauty part of that.
Then when Guts wakes up three days later and remembers he’s been stabbed the image of Griffith he first flashes to isn’t a helmeted soldier stabbing him, it’s Griffith letting his hair down.
This is what made the biggest impression on him. The sexy hair blowing in the wind.
The look on Guts’ face is a lot more complicated than “grr I’m mad bc I got stabbed.” He looks like Griffith blew his mind a little. Look how bright Griffith is too compared to the shadows over Guts’ hair and face, look at the light reflected in Guts’ eyes – it’s a nice visual set up for Guts’ later admiration of him, but right now Guts has nothing to go on but the fact that Griffith stabbed him and is also hot, so the fact that he’s shining in his mind already is more than a little suggestive.
Now comes the first duel, and man. Let’s just take a moment to look at the way the characters draw attention to the fact that things are getting pretty gay. “Because I want you, Guts.” “Are you a homo?” [gay silence.]
I can think of three reasons to have your characters come out and say, “hey that sounds gay. Are you gay?” when your story isn’t textually a gay romance. One is to follow it up with reassurance that nah it’s ok, they’re totally straight and we’re just acknowledging that yk we can see why you may think it’s gay, dear reader, and shutting that down. Two is ‘ha ha gay jokes are funny.’ And three is to plant the idea in the reader’s head and help contextualize what we’re seeing without actually confirming one way or the other.
This isn’t a one. It’s not shut down, it’s left hanging. And while it’s a lightly humourous moment due to the awkwardness, it’s not really a joke, especially because this is likely meant to reference Guts’ rape trauma, and all the gay content in the manga is played for drama, not comedy, both text and subtext. This feels like a very solid three to me.
And look at how Griffith is looking at him right before Guts asks if he’s gay. Like, no wonder the question is brought up. This is top tier visual chemistry right here. So it’s certainly worth noting that the homoeroticism inherent in intense, sultry gazes like this is acknowledged and commented on right from the start, because we’re going to be seeing a lot of intense, sultry gazes.
And speaking of Guts’ trauma, at the start of this chapter Guts wakes up from a nightmare about it, implied to be caused by the fact that there’s a naked person lying on top of him (in that his monstrous attacker melds into the form of the person on top of him as he wakes up). His panic subsides when he realizes that person is a woman, and therefore doesn’t feel like a threat to him.
Later on when he has sex with Casca he references this moment, saying to her, “When you first saved my life. For some reason… at that time… [your touch] was fine. But only with you.” I assume this is meant to be taken as romantic, an early sign that they’re ~right for each other. But it’s a re-write of what actually happened, which is that Guts was on the verge of panicking until he realized she wasn’t a man. “A woman…?”
“Only with you” is also factually incorrect.
Guts and Griffith’s exchange here before they start fighting is loaded with both sexual innuendo and direct statements. “I want you, Guts.” “Are you a homo?” “You can have what you want, my sword or my ass.”*** “I don’t dislike doing things by force.”
The duel is full of visual innuendo, and tbh I was going to avoid getting into sword imagery because while phallic symbols are an extremely well-worn literary device they’re still the lowest common denominator of gay subtext, but the stage is set so perfectly, through sexually charged dialogue and intense gazes from Griffith, for us to read the duel as a substitute for sex that the innuendo is lent a lot of extra weight for this scene.
Behold:
To summarize: Griffith gives Guts bedroom eyes, says he wants him, Guts awkwardly asks if he’s gay, Griffith doesn’t answer, Guts says Griffith can fuck him if he wins, there’s rapey undertones to the whole thing given Guts’ offer of like sex slavery and Griffith’s “doing things by force” line, the duel involves Guts neutralizing Griffith’s threatening sword by biting it, Griffith wins by dislocating Guts’ arm ie destroying his site of phallic physical power ie symbolic unmanning (and like I said, normally I wouldn’t pull out the freudian analysis but this scene fucking begs for it) which fits right in with the sexual stakes of the duel, and then Griffith does this:
And Guts is fucking dazzled. Guts looks like Griffith just swept him off his feet. That’s not disgust, or fear, or rage, or hate, or bitterness, or resentment, or humiliation, that is the Guts who describes Griffith as “beautiful, noble, and larger-than-life.”
Like what I’m saying is that, if Casca being able to touch Guts this early without him freaking out is considered romantic, what’s Griffith being able to grab Guts like this and declare that he belongs to him after literally winning his ass in a homoerotic fight considered?
Ok that’s that on the fucking gay duel. Moving on.
Imo the first really blatant instance of Guts feeling sexual attraction to Griffith as conveyed through visuals is here:
It’s not just Guts’ pov shot of Griffith’s ass – that’s pretty neutral by itself – it’s the over-the-shoulder wet and sensual look beside it, background fading to black as Griffith takes his full attention. It’s totally unnecessary and conveys zero information other than that Griffith is wet and sexy and Guts needs to take a second to focus on that fact.
For reference, there’s another very similar depiction of Griffith later on (combining the nakedness and the over the shoulder profile into one image) from another character’s point of view:
I’m not comparing Guts to Gennon at all, but I am saying that Miura is consistent in using this type of image of Griffith to portray someone’s sexual attraction to him.
Here have one more particularly iconic instance of naked back, ass, and sensual over the shoulder profile:
There is nothing not blatantly eroticized about this. And remember: this isn’t even Guts looking at NeoGriffith and NeoGriffith looking seductive, this is Guts remembering seeing a glimpse of him after he hatched on a distant hill lmao, this is Guts’ goddamn imagination, and it’s almost identical to Gennon’s memory (naked Griff with flowy hair, light, left, dude imagining him, dark, right) except that Griffith’s blushing sex face is given much more erotic detail in a second panel. Like, I can’t. This page is a QED by itself.
Plus Guts’ awkward sweat drop in the panel immediately after the naked ass shot lol.
Notice these are p much the same expressions we saw when he asked if Griffith was gay.
Which
a) tells us the homoerotic vibe here is almost certainly intentional, as if that
wasn’t obvious and b) makes it really, really easy to read this as
repression at work. Guts looks at Griffith’s naked body, zeroes in on
how hot he is, then gets uncomfortable.
And, as another aside, I just want to note that there’s no reason for their first playful and friendly bonding experience to happen while Griffith is naked. It tells us nothing about him except that he’s not self conscious (unless you think he’s trying to seduce Guts), it adds nothing thematically or symbolically or tonally beyond the homoeroticism. His nakedness doesn’t do any of the things nakedness usually does in a story like make him seem vulnerable, it doesn’t make him seem particularly human or down-to-earth (hell his most dazzling moment yet has him naked with the sun at his back telling Guts he’s gonna get his own kingdom while Guts looks up at him in awe).
The most Griffith’s nakedness here accomplishes is the above image of Guts springing an awkward boner while walking in on him, and making a bunch of Guts’ flashbacks to Griffith = Guts picturing him naked.
Thanks for that, Miura.
So now we flash forward to our first sight of them three years later:
Griffith during the battle:
Griffith as the other army retreats:
Our first look at older Griffith, unhelmeted is at the bottom of a page. The pose he’s in, drawing his helmet up, gives off cutie pulling hair behind their ears vibes, at least imho. He’s even got that under-eye blush for extra appeal here. It’s very pointedly at-odds with the helmeted conqueror of a battlefield we just saw; his beauty is deliberately emphasized in juxtaposition to his role as the leader of the “grim reapers of the battlefield.”
The next page reveals:
It’s Guts’ view of him. Our first glimpse of Griffith after three years have passed is intended to emphasize his surprisingly un-grim-reaper-like prettiness with a reveal that it’s from Guts’ perspective as he quietly watches him. After this we abruptly shift to a victory procession a few minutes later, making this brief moment stand out a little bit more. (And correspondingly our first glimpse of Guts’ face after three years is while he’s focused on Griffith.)
Then later this chapter we have Griffith looking ridiculously hot when he interrupts Guts and Casca’s argument.
Knowing what we learn later about Casca feeling jealous of Guts and the whole love triangle scenario, showing him here with that extra sensual lighting as they both turn to look at him – Guts and Casca in shadow, Griffith in the light – handily serves as a visual set-up for the concept of Guts and Casca as romantic rivals for Griffith. He’s shown here as an object of desire to them to an almost ridiculous extent, like, look at that picture.
Now I’m skipping ahead to the post-Zodd staircase scene, aka the most romantic goddamn moment in the manga.
“Tell me… do I need a reason each time… I put myself in harm’s way… for your sake?”
In that one panel where we see Griffith from Guts’ shocked point of view, Griffith is drawn more beautifully than any of the surrounding pages in the chapter. Sultry eyes, gentle breeze blowing a few leaves around and his hair back with a few sexy strands in his face, background faded away again. Hell, I’d say it’s the prettiest image of a person Miura’s drawn so far lol, including all the women. It’s not just indicative of Griffith’s attraction to Guts (yk the bedroom eyes), it’s indicative of Guts’ perspective, how he sees him, especially considering Guts’ taken-aback, dazzled expression in the panel following.
This is what Guts sees when, pressed for an explanation for his “hot-headed”ness from Guts, Griffith declares that he risked his life for him for no reason at all.
This moment is pretty objectively romantic.
To compare, here’s Charlotte looking at him in the next chapter when Griffith approaches to charm her and add to her burgeoning crush during the hunt:
Clearly showing us Charlotte’s attraction, still with the romantic floating leaves in the breeze, plain background, and extra pretty, sensual eyes. It’s romanticized using the same visual tools, but this is less sexually charged, by far. It’s bland in comparison.
And I mean later on Guts places that image in the damn moon in a moment of contemplation right before he dedicates himself to him in return:
(btw if you need a citation for “himself” rather than “his sword,” Guts’ sword is an extension of himself and his life, this is explicitly stated in chapter 48 but it’s also an obvious metaphor throughout the story. Not that it rly matters, the meaning is clear imo, but yk I’m trying to be as thorough as I can and cover all my bases.)
Ok that’s about it for part 2. We’ve gone through the particularly relevant moments that signify sexual attraction with a clear contextual reason to do so, up to around Promrose Hall. You’re gonna have to buckle in for the next part because it’s looooooong and it’s largely about how Casca and the hetero subplot figure into this.
But I’m going to play you out with a few shots of Griffith from Guts’ perspective that I couldn’t find room for and are much less contextually relevant, and yet still ott attractive, because it’s fun, and like I said, this kind of point of view image does actually stop appearing after Promrose Hall, so I think it’s worth depicting how Guts sees Griffith before and after he becomes a distant figure to him. Enjoy the sultry gazes:
But after accidentally killing a kid during an overenthusiastic assassination and then overhearing the Promrose Hall speech, Guts sees himself like this:
And views Griffith like this:
And subsequent images of him from Guts point of view just look less deliberately eroticized now that Guts has placed Griffith on a pedestal high above him, rather than seeing him as someone within reach:
He’s still beautiful, but these images convey other information first and foremost – Griffith’s pride, his delight, his vulnerability, his rage. There’s a distinct lack of the sultry vibe we used to see all the time.
This is of course just the largely subjective impression I got while re-reading from (the first) chapter 12 to the second duel, but hopefully others see it too.
*** This is the one translation I’m using that isn’t the Dark Horse version bc I’ve heard on the grapevine that it’s more literally accurate and also it’s just so good lbr.
Thesis statement of this goddamn thesis: Guts is sexually attracted to Griffith.
Now, this is long. This is the shortest part of a four-part series, and this isn’t a short post. And basically my intention is to show why I find it so incredibly easy to read Guts as attracted to Griffith, and explain how this reading adds layers of meaning that fit neatly within Berserk’s themes and enrich the story. I’m not going to speculate on Miura’s motives for adding a ton of gay subtext, like, it could be anything from trying to be as gay as possible without pissing off his publishers to it all being totally coincidental and meaningless with an alternate explanation for every point I have, or anywhere in between.
My point is only that Berserk readily lends itself to gay readings, with a focus on Guts’ sexual attraction to Griffith (as I feel like it tends to be neglected in favour of interpretations that Griffith has a one-sided crush.)
Part one covers the Black Swordsman stuff and the way Guts and Griffith’s relationship is revealed to the audience, part two covers the first several chapters of the Golden Age with a focus on visuals and how Guts sees Griffith, part three tackles Casca’s role in the story, and part four is more of an overview on why I think reading Berserk through a gay lens works so well.
So here we go.
Part One – Our Introduction to the Concept of Guts and Griffith
We’re introduced to Guts and Griffith’s relationship near the end of the Black Swordsman arc. Before the appearance of the Godhand we know that Guts is really fucking angry, we know he’s monster slaying because he’s out for revenge, we know he’s looking for a group called “the Godhand,” and thanks to Puck spelling some stuff out we know that he’s also sad and deeply afraid that he’s fighting a losing battle.
The comparison to Vargas hints that maybe he lost some loved ones, plus an eye and a limb to an apostle which is close enough to the truth to be decent foreshadowing.
But it’s not until the Godhand show up as the Count’s about to die that we learn what’s really going on with Guts. The information is given to us surprisingly straightforwardly, and the way the information is revealed to us is pretty telling.
The first six chapters have been teasing the mystery of what happened to Guts to piss him off so much, from the way we kick off in media res, to hints about his issues and trauma (eg the aforementioned Vargas comparison, the way he lets the possessed corpse of the kid stab him, etc), to Puck directly asking what the hell happened to him outloud for the benefit of the audience. We start to get our answer in chapter 7.
i cant believe that when miura said gutsca happened “for the drama” he rlly meant that jt would more directly parallel theresia’s mom cheating on her dad + being sacrificed
Thesis statement of this goddamn thesis: Guts is sexually attracted to Griffith.
Now, this is long. This is the shortest part of a four-part series, and this isn’t a short post. And basically my intention is to show why I find it so incredibly easy to read Guts as attracted to Griffith, and explain how this reading adds layers of meaning that fit neatly within Berserk’s themes and enrich the story. I’m not going to speculate on Miura’s motives for adding a ton of gay subtext, like, it could be anything from trying to be as gay as possible without pissing off his publishers to it all being totally coincidental and meaningless with an alternate explanation for every point I have, or anywhere in between.
My point is only that Berserk readily lends itself to gay readings, with a focus on Guts’ sexual attraction to Griffith (as I feel like it tends to be neglected in favour of interpretations that Griffith has a one-sided crush.)
Part one covers the Black Swordsman stuff and the way Guts and Griffith’s relationship is revealed to the audience, part two covers the first several chapters of the Golden Age with a focus on visuals and how Guts sees Griffith, part three tackles Casca’s role in the story, and part four is more of an overview on why I think reading Berserk through a gay lens works so well.
So here we go.
Part One – Our Introduction to the Concept of Guts and Griffith
We’re introduced to Guts and Griffith’s relationship near the end of the Black Swordsman arc. Before the appearance of the Godhand we know that Guts is really fucking angry, we know he’s monster slaying because he’s out for revenge, we know he’s looking for a group called “the Godhand,” and thanks to Puck spelling some stuff out we know that he’s also sad and deeply afraid that he’s fighting a losing battle.
The comparison to Vargas hints that maybe he lost some loved ones, plus an eye and a limb to an apostle which is close enough to the truth to be decent foreshadowing.
But it’s not until the Godhand show up as the Count’s about to die that we learn what’s really going on with Guts. The information is given to us surprisingly straightforwardly, and the way the information is revealed to us is pretty telling.
The first six chapters have been teasing the mystery of what happened to Guts to piss him off so much, from the way we kick off in media res, to hints about his issues and trauma (eg the aforementioned Vargas comparison, the way he lets the possessed corpse of the kid stab him, etc), to Puck directly asking what the hell happened to him outloud for the benefit of the audience. We start to get our answer in chapter 7.
The Godhand that Guts has been searching for shows up, Femto front and centre, and Guts’ rage is directed right at him. When Guts screams “Griffith!” at him we see Puck asking “Griffith? Who’s Griffith?”
My point with this is just to emphasize that the driving hook of the Black Swordsman arc is the build-up of the mystery and what makes Guts tick, the tension pretty much entirely coming from the audience wondering why Guts is so obsessed with revenge, and the reveal of the sacrifice is the climax of this arc.
And our example of a sacrifice, which we are explicitly told is also what happened between Guts and Griffith? A husband and wife.
In fact, the sacrifice that serves the main purpose of setting us up for Guts’ story is the only sacrifice of a romantic partner we ever see – the rest are all parent/child, weirdly abstract a la Eggman sacrificing “the world,” and ofc Guts and Griffith’s undefined, suggestive thing.
The details of this sequence make the parallels stand out even more.
First of all, before we learn much of anything, we see Guts’ reaction to Griffith/Femto. The rage we expect:
Guts taken aback and offended, which is less expected:
And then begging for attention when Femto turns away from him to address the matter at hand, which should definitely come as a surprise for a first time reader:
The audience is expecting rage and violence, and what we get is neediness. Guts, more than anything, wants Femto’s attention.
Guts is finally spurred into action when Femto directly says he doesn’t give a fuck:
(Something, btw, that Guts is still brooding about a chapter later lmao:
like, this arc couldn’t be more blatant about Guts wanting Griffith/Femto’s attention.)
But even now the focus is on the potential for more revealed backstory, not on Guts’ attempt at turning talk into action.
Throughout this arc the audience is lead to expect a dramatic, action-packed, and revealing confrontation between Guts and the object of his ire. By the time we get to the climax, Guts can barely stand, we discover the guy he’s mad at is a god he can’t even touch, and his feelings are a lot more complex and vulnerable than just rage and fear of failure. The focus is taken away from possible action and given to hints of backstory. When Guts is standing with sword in hand, advancing on Femto, these are the moments that pique our interest:
Guts makes a very impressive stand considering how fucked up his body is but he can’t even touch Femto before getting telekinesised against a wall. A fight is out of the question – Guts’ willpower, and what spurs him on and makes him fight through the pain, are what the audience is meant to be interested in.
After Guts is magically thrown against a wall we get more hints. The Count tries to offer Guts as an offering. Slan tells him, The boy is merely your enemy. As a sacrificial offering for the Invocation of Doom, not just any lump of flesh and blood will do. It must be someone important to you, part of your soul… someone so close to you that it’s almost like giving up a part of you.
Femto points at Theresia.
That should be more than enough, right? We’ve learned like, everything we need to know. Griffith/Femto is responsible for the brand of sacrifice on Guts’ neck, therefore he sacrificed Guts at some point, therefore they were close friends or maybe related, but Griffith betrayed Guts for demonic power, now Guts is real mad and Griffith has become a monster, as you do.
But we don’t stop there.
Now, in fairness, this does pad out the chapter and give us more build-up to the Count’s decision wrt Theresia. Miura obviously needed something to make the pacing work. And hey Ubik likes to fuck with potential sacrificers and make them feel like shit, so it makes sense for him to start telling everyone the Count’s backstory for funsies. But it’s here that the implications really ramp up, which tells us what the real point of this sad backstory is.
It’s during this story that Guts wakes up:
We get some pissed off reaction shots from him as they all watch the drama:
On the image of monster Count eating his wife:
And in the panels immediately following:
Here’s when Femto is most explicitly compared to the Count. That thoughtful over-the-shoulder look in reaction to Ubik’s words – The life of the person you loved the most and hated the most! – tells us everything we need to know. Especially since Femto’s been absent for the last few pages of Godhand reactions and this is our first image of him (aside from one long shot of the back of his head) since Ubik started telling the story, despite getting several reaction shots from the rest of the Godhand. This panel feels significant, and it exists to tell us that Ubik’s words fully apply to him as well.
And, while this is pretty obvious I’ll note it just in case, it’s only after Ubik’s story is over that Guts is like, “oh yeah,” and asks Puck to heal him so he can hold a sword, so those reaction shots are all about Guts reliving painful memories and not about his injuries or getting Puck’s attention.
Basically, the Count being told to sacrifice Theresia tells us what a sacrifice is and who it applies to, but the Count and his wife are our window into Guts and Griffith’s turbulent past, as we can clearly see by how they react to it, and how the narrative and visuals frame the story in relation to them.
And, if you already know the plot of Berserk, you should also be able to see some parallels here – “a family, the very picture of happiness.”
When it comes to infidelity, I actually don’t think that jealousy was Griffith’s main source of despair, but boy do these many panels of Griffith watching Guts and Casca and looking upset between the rescue and the Eclipse demonstrate that it was a factor. Eg:
Part of the point of the Count’s backstory is to show that it’s not lust for power that leads to someone making a sacrifice, or at least, not necessarily – the Count wanted to bury his human heart. He felt betrayed; his wife was the direct cause of his suicidal despair, and he was desperate to escape that despair.
As Guts was the direct cause of Griffith’s despair. The behelit only opens when Guts touches Griffith again – not after losing his dream, not after losing the use of his limbs or his tongue, not even after believing he was losing Guts again too – but the touch of Guts’ hand.
Guts eventually recognizes how Griffith’s feelings for him caused his despair as well.
All things considered, the Count’s sacrifice is certainly closer to Guts’ story than any other sacrifice we’ve seen, making it pretty fitting as our first introduction to Guts and Griffith’s epic love/hate relationship.
Plus as a bonus:
Griffith has been described as half of Guts as well in the same sacrificial context:
Just fyi.
This whole first arc has been building up to a climactic reveal about Guts’ past and the reason for his revenge quest, from pacing and emphasis to Puck, the audience expy, straightforwardly asking, “what happened between those two?” And the answer we’re given is that something similar to the Count’s backstory happened.
So now the apparent answer to Puck’s question is, “oh, well, I guess they were like in love, but then some shit went down, maybe Guts betrayed Griffith? Idk, Guts must’ve done something that made Griffith fall into pure despair and decide to sacrifice him to become a demon. So Guts is pissed off because Griffith branded him and now he has to fight ghosts all the time. Cool.“
And really, does anything in the following 344 chapters disabuse you of that notion? Sure it’s a lot more complex, there’s a lot of additional factors, but that’s the bare bones of it in a nutshell.
So then the next chapter opens on our very first glimpse of Guts and original flavour Griffith together. Early days, Guts is his 15 year old self pre 3 year flash forward. Still sullen lol. Griffith gives his keys that set the world in motion speech which, while illuminating thematically, is paced to set up this particular, emotionally revealing moment:
With the additional context of the parallel we’ve just seen between the Count and his wife, how does this come across? I mean come on, from Griffith’s side we have the statement that Guts stands alone as closer to him than anyone else has ever been, already – he’s the first and only person Griffith has ever felt comfortable voicing his internal thoughts to, his deep desire to know who he is at his core and what he’s capable of.
From Guts side we have “At that time he shone before me as something beautiful, noble, and larger than life.”
This reads as the beginning of a romance as far as I’m concerned, and not a one-sided one. Griffith’s quote tells us they have a uniquely close and emotionally intimate relationship, Guts’ quote tells us it’s a relationship that encompasses admiration/awe and thinking about how “beautiful” the other is.
The best illustration Miura came up with to introduce us to the nature of their epic love/hate relationship is a happy marriage broken by betrayal. And it’s not just because Griffith is in love with Guts (which hopefully we can all agree is fairly obvious), because, even beyond Guts’ neediness when confronted by Femto and the many suggestions of his complex not-just-rage emotions, I mean the first thing we see after 20 pages worth of that married couple parallel is Guts calling Griffith beautiful.
And boy do the first seventeen chapters of their relationship demonstrate that Guts is calling him beautiful for a reason.
Reference: [x] Please do not edit or repost. Thank you.
without you i’m nothing suddenly popped into my head for no reason and shit it’s such a good griffguts song
I’m unclean, a libertine And every time you vent your spleen I seem to lose the power of speech You’re slipping slowly from my reach You grow me like an evergreen You’ve never seen the lonely me at all I… Take the plan, spin it sideways. I… Fall. Without you, I’m nothing. Without you, I’m nothing. Without you, I’m nothing. Take the plan, spin it sideways. Without you, I’m nothing at all.
welp i’ve written almost 10k words about guts being gay for griffith and i still have one more part to write
this is Too Much
idt this is anything more than coincidence but that tree looks like the branches in the sky circa Falconia and combined with Griffith’s words it’s making me feel feelings
college farnesca meet cute… softball lesbian and extremely closted president of the catholic students league get accidently locked in a locker room together for a few hours…
the ideal canon au where they somehow learn how to communicate like normal human beings and express emotions… griff and guts just like. run away together. fuck the dream and the sword, what they really want and need is each other. they can go from town to town or whatever just doing odd job work and figuring out who they outside of the Bullshit they thought they were supposed to be. bonus if they sleep together in inns and no one blinks an eye bc griffith got smart and is wearing a dress. idiot.
this is how medival guts learns that griffiths thighs look good in a skirt
Griffith and Guts have a relaxed night at home until an uncomfortable topic is broached, GriffGuts modern grad school AU. Mentions of self harm but not graphic. Again, special thanks to @madchen for the prompt.
Griffith had been waiting with everything ready for about
ten minutes before Guts came home.
“Up for a movie tonight?” said Griffith.
“Taking a break?”
“I didn’t take any of my readings home.” Griffith
said. He took a sip of his wine. Guts sighed.
“I’m not going to help you procrastinate.”
“I’m not. ” said Griffith. Guts looked at him.
“I made popcorn and everything.” Griffith took the
second glass of wine and held it out to Guts.
Guts rolled his eyes and put his bag on one of the dining
chairs before grabbing the bowls and settling in on the couch. He took a sip of
the wine. Griffith put Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind up
on the queue. Guts groaned.
“We’re not watching the Charlie Kaufman bullshit. It’s
pretentious.”
“Fuck off. It’s beautiful.“Griffith said , his
brows furrowing.
"I don’t like watching people scream at each other like
that.” Guts said with a frown.
Griffith patted his hand.
“How about this one?” he said, shifting over to Guardians of the Galaxy.
“No need to go that low brow for me.” Guts crossed his arms over his chest.
Griffith stiffened a little bit.
“I’m kidding, Griffith.”
Griffith clicked on the movie and picked at his popcorn. Medusa
took her spot draped across Guts’ shoulders. She buried her face in the crook
of his neck. In the two weeks since the Wrestling Incident, as Griffith had
taken to calling it, they always started a tactful distance from each other.
One of them would eventually cave and make the first contact. He felt Guts’
hand on the small of his back. He sighed and soon Griffith found himself
wrapped in his arms, with his back on Gut’s chest. They rested content until
the film’s climax.
“No! You don’t monologue. You just put the fucking
staff on the ground! Oh my god.” Griffith pointed at the television. Guts started laughing. Griffith felt the
vibration from his chest.
“What?” said Griffith.
“You think that you would make a good villain?”
“Well yeah. Before I even started on my master plan I would
be honest with myself about what I actually want. This fucko doesn’t know what
he wants. If he wants them to cower and suffer in his presence you enslave them
or something. If you want them to cease to be, you don’t announce yourself and monologue;
you just get it done. It’s not hard.”
Guts tickled him while Griffith did his best squirm out of
his arms.
“Stop! Guts I mean it!”
“I don’t see it.”
“Fuck you.” Griffith said with mild irritation.
“I’m not saying you’re not smart enough to do it. I just
can’t imagine you being so consumed with something that you forget other
people.” said Guts, soothing Griffith’s sides with smooth strokes.
“You haven’t
seen me when I have nothing left to lose.” said Griffith staring hard
ahead of him.
Guts had only seen
this look in passing flashes before; Like the time that some idiot at a party
had made a comment about how the value of a college education lessening in
direct relation to the number of Pell Grants given out. It’s barely controlled violence always surprised
him.
“Is that a threat?” said Guts. He wrapped his arms
more tightly around Griffith’s waist. He tucked his chin onto Griffith’s
shoulder. He noticed, not for the first time the raised scar tissue on
Griffith’s upper arms.
“Maybe.” Griffith smiled a little. He squeezed
Gut’s hand. He looked at him and
considered him for a moment.
“I think you could do.” said Griffith.
“Be a super villain?”
“Yeah. By the time you got to your goal it would be too
late for anyone to stop you.”
“Thank you.” said Guts.
They finished the movie in silence. Guts felt his attention
turn to the scars again once the credits had rolled. Their size suggested a
deep scratch. He gently brushed his fingers over the four parallel scars.
Griffith pulled away and covered his arm with his hand. He looked at him with
horror.
“I’m sorry.” said Guts.
Griffith had made himself into a little ball at the end of
couch and Guts reached towards him, helpless against his own panic.
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you're the only one 