A) Guts and Griffith (considered together because obviously in any case these would be linked)
– Both dying: 70% chance
– Griffith dies, Guts lives: 20% chance
– Guts dies, Griffith lives: 10% chance
B) Casca
– Honestly I don’t think she has any chance of dying. But just to be on the safe side
– 2% chance of dying.
C) Farnese
– 15% chance of dying
– 70% chance of being seriously injured or seemingly mortally wounded.
D) Serpico
– 75% chance of dying
E) Shierke
– 0% chance of dying
F) Charlotte
– 30% chance of dying
G) Locus
– 70% chance of dying
F) Skull knight, Zodd, Void (again considered together because their hypothetical deaths will most probably be linked if they happened)
– Any two out of three will die 60% chance
– 20% chance only one out of the three will die.
Everyone else I think will either live or I don’t care about them enough to be concerned about their deaths.
also more of griffith’s reactions from the fight scene that i absolutely love:
casca gets grabbed and griffith tries to tear himself away from the men propping him up, looking like he’s planning to crawl his way over to try to help her
and then this when he thinks guts might be dead
and when he sees casca crying near judeau and can’t comfort her
griffith is seriously the highlight of the wyald chapters
Even in the cool air of an autumn evening, the little velveteen box burns a hole through her pocket. Her fingertips brush it when she reaches into her coat to fish out her wallet and her chest tightens painfully.
Casca sighs an anxious laugh, smiles at, looks right through, and pays the man behind the register, and walks out of the gas station. She tosses him a “thanks” over her shoulder, but only the wind catches it.
With her hands shoved into her jacket pockets she jogs back to her truck, a rusty red thing with a white stripe down the side that’s dappled with mud. In her rickety chariot the princess awaits with mascara running down her face. She tries blots at her cheeks lightly with the Subway napkins she’d pulled from the glove compartment, her forehead pressed against the fogged-up window.
Casca hops into the driver’s seat and pulls the door closed behind her. The radio’s gone half-static, but through the fuzz comes the melancholy tinkling of some depressing piano composition. Farnese sniffles and rubs helplessly at her eyes.
“Here,” Casca passes the pack of cigarettes to Farnese. “I got ‘em.”
Farnese takes the pack and immediately cracks it open, shoving the plastic wrapping into a cup holder to reside with god knows how much in loose change and the plastic wrapping from her last 5 packs. She takes one between her pointer and middle finger shakily and gropes around the center console for a lighter.
“I grabbed these when I heard your voice over the phone.” Casca slides a match book into her palm.
Farnese groans and shoots a look of relief at her girlfriend in the driver’s seat. “Oh, I love you.” Cigarette on her lip, she lights a match.
“Mhmmm.” Casca shifts the truck into gear and head back out into the asphalt.
The sad piano notes continue to tinkle around in the cab of the truck and cut holes in any warmth between them. Farnese rolls down her window a crack while Casca hits the “SCAN” button. After a few rounds of static, the radio lands on an 80′s-to-today station that they’d listened to on all of the sunniest summer days. The crisp air seems to still for just a moment and it’s enough.
…
After a while of listening to bouncy music and the whipping of the wind against the truck, Casca pulls off the blazed trail onto a dirt road. Farnese has turned the soiled napkins in her lap into a pile of shredded bits of paper with her nails and is now trying to work a hole through the fabric of her dress by the looks of it. Casca’s eyes flick from Farnese’s hand to the road and back again. She knows they’re nearing their destination, so, after a deep inhale, she goes for it.
Casca takes Farnese’s hand in her own, grip just tight enough. Farnese, who’d been on autopilot, doing little more than tapping her cig on the rim of the window when need be with her head pressed against the cool of the glass for quite some time, perked up and was quick to take notice of the woods grown up on either side of them.
“I thought we were just gonna cruise th, the highway for a while- where are we headed?”
Casca squeezes her hand and rubs it with her thumb. “Farnese, I know I don’t say it near as much as I think it, but y’know how much I love you, right?”
Farnese sits quiet for a moment. “Of course I do. You get me better’n anybody these days,” she blubbers a bit, sniffles and laughs and rubs her nose. “I don’t think anybody else would think to bring a sad girl matches to perk her up.”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, Farnese. You know I’ll always be there when you need out of that god-forsaken mansion of yours, right? An’ I’m not complaining about being there for you when I say I hate having t’do it.”
Farnese nods and nods and takes a drag. The woods around them are starting to thin and the road opens up ahead.
“I have really been thinking about that a lot, n’ I…”
Casca pulls off the edge of the road and puts the truck in park. Directly ahead of them the forest falls away into a large clearing that rolls down in a hillside. Even through the mussed windshield the sky free of clouds and full to bursting with stars. Farnese gasps. Casca holds the velveteen box in one palm and Farnese’s hand in the other. Farnese’s eyes, shining, look between them and then rise to meet hers.
“I think I’ve had to save you from the same tower a few too many times, Princess. I want you to come live with me in mine.”
A beat passes with a lip quiver that smothers just about every ounce of confidence Casca has in her. She breaks the eye contact and scratches the back of her neck with the ring box still in hand, absolutely floundering: “I mean, I’m not some white knight with a beaut of a gray horse, and I don’t have an even bigger ivory castle or anything, and I- I mean, cut the shit, I haven’t got a lot to offer you besides well, myself, I guess… and that’s not much, but-”
Casca’s gaze flicks up just long enough to notice the torrent of tears streaming down Farnese’s face and Casca’s hold on her hand goes totally slack.
She’s solemn in an instant. “I’m so, so sorry Farnese. I didn’t mean t… I din-”
“Oh shut up, Casca,” Farnese sobs. “I’m s- I didn’t think this is how I’d get engaged, in a fucking, ancient night dress with- my face- covered- in shit like this-”
“Ooohh nooo, oh no Farny, please, please-” Casca scrabbles for words and the rising beat on the radio catches her attention. A relieved laugh escapes her. “Listen, listen-
“C-come on Farnese, at this moment, you mean every-thi-ing…”
Farnese rubs vigorously at her eyes with her coat sleeve and looks up at Casca quizzically. Nerves have lead Casca to shed her reserved mask and in its place is the silliest smile Farnese has ever seen from her. Casca keeps singing along.
“W-ith you in that dress, lord I’ve got to confess, my thoughts verge, on,” she laughs, “dirty!”
oh come on, Eileen…
Farnese lightly slaps Casca’s hand and snorts. Confidence bandaged, Casca brings the velveteen box back into view and flips it open, revealing a ring that’s as celestial in shine as the stars outside the cab of the truck.
Casca’s laughter settles and warmth fills her chest. She sighs and clears her throat, moving out her her silly grin and back into a gentle smile. “I mean it. I know your dad treats you like shit whenever he does take a second to stop and acknowledge you, and your brothers arent much better. I’m not a business type, so I can’t imagine that any of’m will be, uh, happy about this, but. Fuck them, right? But I mean it. What d’you think? Of marrying me?”
Farnese says nothing for a bit. She tosses the butt of her cig out of the truck window and holds Casca’s hands in her own.
These people ‘round here Wear beat down eyes sunk in smoke dried faces They’re resigned to what their fate is But not us, (no never) no not us (no never) We are far to young and clever Remember Too ra loo ra too ra loo rye aye
“I think… fuck them, definitely. And I think that, if you’re okay with marrying this, raccoon-eyed bitch in a cigarette-burnt dress, that we’ll get on just… just fine.”
Casca’s heart absolutely drops into her stomach and her silly grin surfaces again. Farnese’s hand comes up to cup her cheek and she closes the distance between them. Their lips meet, and when they part Farnese whispers into the space between them:
tbh the art thing reminds me of classic simpsons vs new simpsons animation debates, to a much, MUCH lesser degree (I would never compare Berserk to recent Simpsons, god I couldn’t be that cruel).
but yk classic simpsons animation was often off-model, occasionally quite rough looking even after season 1, lots of deformities between key frames during motion, but man they killed at physical comedy and often at selling emotion too, and that lack of polish was an asset they utilized to exaggerate motion and convey comedy or feeling. new simpsons is polished and always looks on model, but i can’t look at a screen cap or a clip without cringing at how dull and placid it is, it’s unbearable.
rickert meeting griffith for the first time in god knows how long and look at his face. what
right? like this art may be more detailed and take longer to draw but imo none of his art recently has even come close to feeling as emotional and complex as this expression here:
or feeling as immediate and gut-wrenching as expressions like these:
idk this
just engages me and hooks me into guts’ mindset more than this
and i’m not saying this panel is bad, it’s the best + most intense one i found after scouring 4 of the sea god chapters lol, and tbh i dig his eye here, but it still feels a little too polished to really make me feel what guts is feeling to the same extent
or here’s a direct comparison
vs longer shots with a similar level of detail from the actual scene
idk but i def feel like his older art was better at conveying a sense of motion and emotion. griffith’s leap looks less realistic but it feels quick and intense, whereas the new version obeys the laws of physics but looks staid in comparison to me.
Guts: lying on the floor, almost immobile, many broken bones, pathetic “wait-!” as Femto turns his attention to Count Slug
genuine question @bthump why do you think guts and griffith have elf ears
genuine answer if i had to guess i’d say guts had them from the start to make him that little bit more monstrous and demonic while fighting apostles. griffith bc they’re elegant and slightly otherworldly looking. coincidence of useful character design.
(or maybe their fathers are both apostles and it was all subtle foreshadowing that they’ve been superhuman/destined for evil respectively all along~~~)
yeah ia, it’s not actually that ooc when you think about it, just, like you said, seems out of place when you consider the rest of the story
yeah, tonally it’s way off lol. tbh i think of at least the first two arcs as a bit of a deconstruction of the 80s masculine antihero type (miura did say he was partially inspired by 80s action movies + i think he mentioned rutger hauer by name at some point) and it fits right in with establishing the archetype and then feels rly weird when you start tearing it down and getting to know guts. so i like the additional explanation to make it work a bit on both levels.
it’s clear that miura also wanted to hook his straight male audience but it’s also kind of clever bc it’s ironic and i hate it
yeah true, i have a tendency to forget the majority straight dude audience lol.
tbh it’s kind of hilarious that guts has had sex a grand total of twice and one time was an edgy opening scene with a monster. it’s so comparatively out of place as a character-establishing moment i can’t help but like it.
(otoh i’ve seen a p convincing argument that it’s actually more ic for guts than you’d think. in the sense that the way he tends to kill apostles is to let them attack him until he’s in a position to blow them up. in this case the apostle sexes victims up so yk, i can actually see it from that point of view. not cause guts is cool and hardcore, but bc guts is self destructive. ~layers~)
out of 29480239840923859 comparisons between guts and monsters, this is one of my faves
i was gonna post something that’s like, “anyone who thinks guts killing griffith and riding off into the sunset would be a happy ending needs to re-read chapter 4, because Berserk’s got something to say about the nature of revenge and it’s not subtle”
but in fairness one thing i actually really like and appreciate about berserk is that it’s not 100% anti revenge. i tend to hate narratives that are just like, revenge is bad, the end. i’m a fan of revenge lol.
guts killing donovan is not condemned. neither is griffith perfunctorily killing gennon after he’s already been defeated, neither is julius getting assassinated after trying to kill griffith (adonis is a different can of worms). even setting the queen on fire is depicted as badass and awesome, not overly fucked up. things start to get a little dicey when we get to guts slicing out a dude’s tongue before killing him, eg, and we get to see the horrified expressions of onlookers, but it’s not really condemned either – it’s dark, a little fucked up, but understandable, and the audience is probably meant to be torn between going ‘shit, dude’ and cheering him on.
what IS condemned is “living for revenge” or obsessing over the past to the detriment of your future. Guts’ revenge quest is condemned not because killing bad people who deliberately hurt you is Wrong, but because it’s actively fucking him up psychologically, harming his current salvageable relationships, preventing him from healing his own emotional wounds, forcing him to bury his vulnerabilities under a shell of darkness (the hound), and is basically a glorified years-long act of self harm.
and idk i appreciate the nuance. it’s like the best of both worlds – guts stalking around seeking revenge against griffith/femto is bad bc of the circumstances of what he’s doing and what he has to become to do it, so the final epic confrontation between them will probably be a lot more complex than guts killing him and riding off into the sunset. which is great. but it’s also great that in this story guts can kill his rapist by shooting him in the back and stabbing him through the mouth and the main reaction the audience is meant to have is “good for him.”
(incidentally this makes me wonder what the moral of the story would be if casca wakes up and ends up with the revenge torch passed to her. because i would really dislike it if she wanted revenge and got the same ‘living for revenge is bad’ message guts got, but at the same time all my good revenge examples are from the golden age and the moral of the revenge story has been pretty consistent since, so idk.)
While I’m looking for moments that demonstrate Guts’ attraction to Griffith I might as well post a few outtakes.
Like, what the fuck is this about?
I’m not including it bc Guts is wtfing at the behelit here, not (presumably) swooning over Griffith, but look at his collagen-injected lip, the forced contrast of his hair to shadowed skin, the shining eyes.
Like Griffith is supposed to be pretty, but Miura’s Golden Age art often makes certain images of him stand out as Extra compared to the rest in a scene, and when that image is from Guts’ point of view it’s a little eyebrow raising regardless of the context.
And it’s not just cause it’s a closeup either:
same scene, same distance from the ‘camera,’ same level of detail, v different vibe.
Nngh yeah. This.
I kinda noticed a little bit of a trend of Griffith looking kinda softer from Guts POV shots.
Even in the ‘inferno’ panel or that time after Guts leaves when he’s thinking of him. (The mobile app won’t let me attach pictures rn)
His features look rounder, softer. His hair is always extremely stylised, eyes exceptionally bright( bordering on the 70’s sparkly eye shoujo image) and looking away from Guts and lips are always darker, prominent and idk how else to say this but…juicier?
You mean these panels?
bc ia. I’m going thru the golden age now looking for this stuff specifically lol and tbh I’m skipping a lot that could be coincidence (like the outtake above) but in general it rly does look like Griffith gets some extra glamour when Guts is looking at him. It’s a little hard to separate bc he’s supposed to be really pretty but like, there are several scenes where the notably prettiest image of him is from Guts’ point of view.
tbh i used to think that it was a stupid out of place and out of character way to kick the story off but i’ve grown kind of fond of it
like the way it sets you up to think wow this is a super manly badass story about a big angry dude who bangs women and kills monsters sometimes even at the same time.
and then the rest of the black swordsman arc just tears that idea down piece by piece. i dig it.
yk what miura should’ve never explained this thing. i like it the way is here, completely sans origin story – a rando demon kinda haunting guts that happens to look enough like vargas to be interchangeable for him in a dream (iirc), so we can establish the thematic connection between seeking revenge and being a demon/sullying your soul/etc early on
right now this thing represents guts destroying himself through his revenge quest, and t b q h that’s way better than it being guts’ corrupted demon kid occasionally showing up to say hi, protecting casca, and then eventually being used to become neo griffith.
you're the only one 