Casca is kinda crap. I’m curious to see if you have any input on this? Or do you disagree?

As a rough pattern it probably holds true, though I know plenty of exceptions, and there are a lot of women who like gtsca ime. there might even be more women into gtsca than there are griffguts fans, though i’m v sure there’s a higher concentration of women on the griffguts side of things.

i feel like there are a million thinkpieces on the internet about why women are into THIS part of fandom while men are into THIS part of fandom lol, and idk if I have any valuable input myself on that. yk, like women are into transformative fandom (fic) while men are into the collecting side of fandom (which includes facts and stats and stuff not just collectibles), or like women are into slash because of [insert one of a million different explanations i’ve seen], yadda yadda yadda.

it’s always worth exploring possibilities, but i also kind of dislike theorizing that tries to explain demographic splits in fandom with one or two neat little theories lol, like all people into X fictional thing have Y trait but all people into this other fictional thing have Z trait.

I mean whatever demographic split there is could be nothing more than the fact that most men into berserk are straight and therefore less likely to enjoy the very gay elements of the story, while women may be more evenly divided between the two ships because of differing taste/ship preferences/dedication to explicit canon/irl politics lol/whether the Eclipse ruined Griffith as a character for them/ability and desire to pick up on subtext/ability and desire to compartmentalize away misogyny/etc etc etc.

So idk I guess basically I don’t disagree but I also don’t think I have anything worth adding.

10 Unpopular Griffith Opinions?

griff-guts:

1. he’s not a sociopath. i won’t get into it here because it will turn into a fucking thesis but it’s literally impossible for him to be a sociopath. his choice to sacrifice himself to gennon out of guilt and so that less people will die for him is one of many things that prove that.

2. yeah he’s like supernaturally beautiful but the best griff panels are the ones where he looks goofy

3. the fact that griffiths design is ripped from a female character in the prototype who’s set up as a platonic damsel for guts is very telling lol

4. griffith has a sense of humour, though he really only shares it with guts, and that’s super cute. when he uses this sense of humour with others as neogriffith and it comes off as strange and dissonant, it’s a very effective way of noting the change in how griffith is now perceived not only by the characters in his world but also us as an audience

5. griffith still has feelings, feelings that really only seem to manifest when it comes to guts, despite his heart being frozen over. from femto taunting guts to get a rise out of him during black swordsman arc to ngriffs heart beating, somewhere deep deep down the old griffith is peeking thru the cracks

6. imo ngriff is kind of boring lol. without us being able to see the internal conflict he had in golden age, the only real way to make him interesting is through interpretation and playing fast and loose w the story which im def guilty of if you’ve ever read my fanfic

7. some people like to focus a lot on where griffith came from and who his parents are. personally i don’t think it matters. heritage and family isn’t a huge value in berserk (in fact in most cases it’s treated as a negative) and the fact that both guts and griffith have mysterious origins is refreshing compared to the way most manga give their main characters these huge grand backgrounds. i feel the same about headcanons with zodd being guts dad or similar variations – why does it matter?

8. griffith cares about charlotte on some level. like he doesn’t love her obviously and she is just a method of class mobility for him but i don’t think he would do much to outright hurt her at this point. the way he mouthed “ill be back” after he’s rescued and they must run away, and the gentle way he’s treated her since the eclipse makes me think there’s not a whole lot of malicious intent going on. i don’t think he’ll turn on her like some ppl theorize

9. speaking of malicious intent: i don’t really think neogriff has done anything super horrible since being reborn? i could see falconia crumbling in a sort of tower of babel way or neogriff becoming restless and bored and somehow ruining it for himself but idk man. neogriff seems to be doing alright so far. guts has been more directly harmful to the world than griffith since the eclipse

10. sorry all these points are just building on what i said previously bc i can’t organize my thoughts for shit but… i think griffiths “king of longing” title goes two ways. most obviously i think ofc he longs after guts and to have his old life back, but also i think he will continue to use his dream to fill the void in himself (created by loneliness or self loathing or wanting to prove himself or whatever) to the point of self destruction. once griffith gets married and has the kingdom, what then? do you think he’ll be happy to just live a nice domestic life in the castle? i seriously doubt it. i think if it even gets to that point griffith will start trying to acquire more and more and it will be his emotional downfall

hi I really like your blog and I find your analysis interesting even though I don’t ship griffith and guts but you have made me see their relationship in a different way. I have a question. what do you think of the demon child within griffith? do you think he is the reason why griffith still has feeling for guts(and casca?)or is griffith trying to blame the child for his feelings like the time with charlotte when he denied his friendship with guts?also what do you think about moonchild?

Thank you! I’m glad you found something to enjoy in my meta despite different ship preferences, esp since I like to think a lot of what I have to say about them is applicable even if you go the platonic friends route in your interpretation.

When it comes to NGriff’s unfrozen heart, I definitely go with option B. I completely believe Griffith was lying to himself about his feelings, as he is wont to do lol, like you said – definitely related to his “take all the sad and frightening things and cast them into the fire” method of dealing with his feelings, ie pretending they don’t exist.

I’m going to link a previous post on this topic bc I feel like I said most of what I have to say about it already. But in short I definitely don’t think the fetus is responsible for Griffith’s heart beating while he watches Guts fight Zodd, though it may be responsible for Griffith saving Casca from falling rocks.

As for the moonlight kid, I’m not sure what to make of him. It’s suggested he’s the soul of Guts and Casca’s kid, what with the family imagery in that one chapter. Conversely it’s suggested he might be associated with Dannan, and therefore possibly taking the form of what that child would look like for the sake of… well I want to suggest manipulating them, bc I have high hopes that Danann is gonna turn out to be shady and using them for her own ends.

I do have a hard time with the popular theory that Moonlight Kid is part of NeoGriffith and like, escapes during the full moon to hang out with the rpg group bc the idea sounds very silly to me.

And on a personal level I hate him lmao. I just… I hate most cutesy fictional children, I vastly prefer Black Swordsman Guts to family man Guts lol, I don’t like that the kid’s role is to prevent Guts from succumbing to the armour because I want Guts to succumb to the armour, at least for long enough to shake things up and have consequences. I don’t like that Casca has strong maternal feelings for him despite not even having a personality right now, bc it’s so gender essentialist. Not in a surprising way, just in an annoying way. I don’t like the way he’s used to tease the audience about the possibility of Guts eventually settling down with a family. And I don’t like the implication that he briefly like, possessed NeoGriffith to make him save Casca lol, because again, it strikes me as really silly.

My biggest hope and dream involving Moonlight Boy is that he’s either a) secretly bad news because he’s a trick of Danann’s, or b) going to be what Casca sacrifices to become an apostle if she opens the behelit.

I remember reading Berserk for the first time and being totally unimpressed with Guts n Casca’s relationship. Then I really entered the fandom and it turns out a lot of people really like them together??? I thought “Did you guys read the same manga as me?” Lmao. I’m never gonna forgive Miura for forcing that shit into the story

I don’t think you’re the same person but I’m combining these asks into one post because it’s basically the same subject and sentiment lol

honestly yeah the relationship really just brings out the worst in both characters imo (rampant misogyny and general laddish unlikeability in Guts; dependency, victimization, and narrative passivity in Casca), and it seems so, so unnecessary to me.

Like they are the epitome of pasted on romance. The relationship that drives the narrative, provides the most tension and intrigue and character development is Guts and Griffith’s. Guts and Casca’s romance drives nothing, develops nothing, and the intrigue and tension comes from… how Griffith figures into it (eg as the person they’re both rebounding from, as the object of their early rivalry, as the person Guts is trying to get over post-Eclipse by focusing on Casca. like literally every single one of their scenes where they grow closer is a conversation about Griffith lol).

Plus Guts rescuing her and then escorting her to Elfhelm is not dependent on his romantic relationship with her at all – he’d do the same for any of his former comrades. She could be replaced with Gaston and absolutely zero things would change except Guts probably wouldn’t’ve sexually assaulted him.

The romance brings nothing unique to the characters, it adds nothing, all it does is diminish everyone involved, extremely literally in the case of Miura adding it so he could write Casca out of half the story in the most grotesque way possible and give Guts motivation he absolutely didn’t need and which diminishes his actual personal trauma which is what should’ve been motivating him.

It’s so frustrating! I swear I could write another 4 part essay about all the ways Guts and Casca’s romance actively makes Berserk objectively (yes i’m saying objectively, idgaf some things are universally bad regardless of personal taste, like most things to do with the Eclipse) worse lmao

And the thought of an AU where Casca also survived the Eclipse without the bullshit and got her own plot-driving complementary storyline as an active character with a goal is so depressing because it could’ve been amazing.

xiyyh
replied to your post “xiyyh
replied to your post “miura is really good at drawing facial…”

UGH i hate how entirely plausible this all is because it makes everything that’s already terrible even more tragic 😦 … and running with it being a possibility, it’d give guts a really bad association with his very thoroughly thwarted near-attempt at being purposefully affectionate towards griffith, possssibly even an acceptance of his own gayness. i know this is all just wild speculation but, jesus. ughhhhhhhhh it hurts.

oh man i kinda want to explore that now

like i always say the eclipse puts everyone’s potential character development on hold/cuts it down in its tracks, imagine if it also slammed the door shut on guts’ potential realization that he’s not straight

i mean it’s all there – the parallels to casca realizing she was in love with griffith when she stopped seeing him as a god, the realization that he fucked up because griffith was in love with him, guts taking this away from griffith’s sacrifice:

Like ending up burying a burgeoning realization about himself and his feelings fits right in here

(idt i ever posted it but i remember thinking once that guts’ post-eclipse character development would work so well if there was an element of him coming to terms with his sexuality. i think i was thinking about a hypothetical “what would change about the story of Berserk if all the subtext was intentional and going somewhere” angle lol. i bet that half baked thought is in my drafts somewhere.)

How do you think the overall fan base would react if Miura decided to just say “fuck it” and make Guts x Griffith canon lmao do you think there’d be an uproar?

a whooooooole lot of ragequitting and calling miura a sjw-pandering hack/evil fetishizing homophobe/rape apologist on one side of the fandom, wild celebration on the other side

might depend how it goes canon too lol. like, guts and neogriffith improbably living happily ever after somehow? definitely the above

guts and griffith admitting to themselves and/or each other that they were/are still in love before one or both die in the final confrontation? i could see the majority of the berserk fandom hmphing and going “ugh fine” (or insisting it’s still platonic love or that he still loved casca more) instead of ragequitting or hating miura.

and probably a combination of the two if there was a kiss or something to demonstrate the non-platonicness of it lol

murdersounds:

lmao

As a flashback after the grim Black Swordsman arc, the Golden Age is a devastating combination of vain hope and inevitable tragedy. Guts and Griffith’s narratives centre around the conflict between their dreams and their relationship with each other: their dreams are self-destructive ways of coping with deep-seated issues while their relationship has the potential to heal and emotionally strengthen them. The bleakness of the first arc is brought about because neither man recognizes the significance of their relationship until it is too late – they turn to their dreams instead of each other, which leads them directly to the Eclipse.

This is the intro to my essay for the Berserk fanzine Memory Fragments, about the conflict between Guts and Griffith’s relationship and their dreams.

The zine can be pre-ordered here until September 24, and it’s very worth checking out, both for the writing and the gorgeous art.

murdersounds:

♡

i have some more asks but i’m about to leave for work so i’ll answer them tomorrow. just a heads up

i love that regular old human griffith is an absolutely horrible, cruel, borderline evil person according to griffith’s standards, and according to guts’ standards he’s never done anything wrong in his life ever except keep assassinations a secret from the rest of the hawks

and according to my standards for fictional characters human griffith is basically a saint lol

griff and guts sleeping/cuddling position headcanons? guts is a little spoon and griffith sleeps on top of guts huge chest…

legit. guts sleeping on his back and griffith clinging and using his chest as a pillow is perf.

i think they’d also naturally fall into sleeping on their sides w/ guts as the big spoon (and griffith holding onto his arm like a stuffed animal), and falling asleep facing each other a lot too tbh, complete with holding hands.

swordswind:

Berserk (1997-98)

Episode 2: “Band of the Hawk”

chaoticgaygriffith:

bthump:

xiyyh
replied to your post “miura is really good at drawing facial expressions and there’s this…”

i’ve always thought it looked like guts wanted to kiss him here too lmao … and like … ha i know it’s completely impossible but look at griffs face tho. he’s like “NOW?? now guts? really?” then the behelit opens cause griffs just “OH /NOW/ YOU’RE GAY?”

hmm lol it’s likely total crap but it’s quite an interesting thing to ponder. cause imo miura is/was preettttyyy clear in his portrayal of expressional intent�� i don’t want to allow myself to believe this but to me it rly looks like that lmao
this is hot on the heels of guts fully
accepting his role in griffith’s (insert everything here) … i can only
imagine what would’ve happened if guts had an opportunity to say
something to him. he is probably at a loss for words, and all that
emotional buildup is trying to escape through his eyes lol .. god, griff
has no idea why guts is so emotional right here now that i think of it
🤔🤔🤔 guts showing emotions for him during this breakdown is a very
plausible thing to push him over the edge 😮

i like it lol i think i’ll keep it

good content

ok for real the way i see griffith’s moment of despair being guts’ touch is that it’s griffith’s final moment of understanding that he is never gonna get unfucked by his feelings. he desperately, desperately needs guts and there’s no possibility of living without him anymore. if guts left, griffith would mentally waste away like in his nightmare, if guts stayed griffith would exist entirely for his presence.

so like the way griffith shifted from wanting to strangle guts to holding his hand in the torture chamber when guts started crying for him, when guts touches him with that emotion on his face griffith is like, fuck i can’t hate him, i can’t separate myself, and the behelit opens.

i mean more powerfully than i’ve written lol, but that’s like, the gist imo.

so basically i completely agree.

ALSO wrt the possibility of Guts wanting to kiss him, I’m just gonna say:

idk Guts what did you do last time someone attempted suicide in front of you?

parallels everywhere.

i’m just gonna say recently when i was collecting panels of guts looking at griffith for my stupid joke post i thought about that exact panel and how it looks really fucking weird and how guts is way too close to griffith’s face and how i didn’t understand why or what he was even planning to do at that point

the thought of a kiss never occurred to me somehow but you know what? tbh.

alternatively THIS was the moment where guts was going to stop pretending that he wasn’t the reason all this happened to griffith and start apologising for it like he should have long ago. but unfortunately before that could happen griffith had his breakdown and, well, you know

press his forehead against the hawk mask and break down and cry while throwing out vague but heartfelt apologies

is the image that popped into my head

also wonder if guts would’ve transitioned to ‘i’m sorry’s if the torturer hadn’t interrupted them while they were holding hands and provided a handy distraction from his burgeoning guilt.

xiyyh
replied to your post “I just wanna say, there are 2 possible reasons Guts wants to keep…”

i was just about to say basically the same thing @chaoticgaygriffith did here lol … he needs that constant reminder of why he SHOULD hate griffith because he’s still so emotionally invested in him and it’s too easy for him to slide into pining and sadness over him. and guts has never seen the griffith /he/ knew do anything awful, so i imagine he has a really hard time accepting that femto=griffith, but lbr so do i, griffith was not cruel and miura is an asshole

yeah i mean considering neogriffith’s effect on him:

I feel like it’s pretty heavily suggested that part of why Guts is able to drop the revenge quest to take Casca to Elfhelm is because NeoGriffith showing up all hot and non demonic threw a bucket of cold water onto his rage boner and replaced it with a regular boner.

Like I will never, ever, ever get over how fucking sad Guts is about NeoGriffith ditching him lmfao, idk how anyone can look at that panel and think Guts feels nothing but hate for him now.

And yeah like Guts also separates human Griffith from Femto in his mind, like when he tells Rickert “that’s not the Griffith you know anymore” while remembering Femto. Which is another reason NGriff’s human appearance fucks him up, because it makes it harder for Guts to separate NGriff from human Griff.

@xiyyh said:
all of this! i agree.
guts saying/doing ANYTHING at this moment could’ve pushed him over the
edge imo. also just, ugh, griffith conversely loving and hating him
because of his dependence on guts for stability. not only stability tho
he’s fucking in love with him lol. so yeah griffith coming to terms with
his absolute need for guts (whether he likes it or not, & he does
not) during the same moment of guts realizing how bad he fucked up,
re-igniting griffith’s value in his own mind, hhhhhhh
and these parallels! my god. somehow berserk is constantly mirroring itself, it’s endlessly fascinating and infuriating

ALSO WRT your tags; lol i agree and i
don’t understand how anyone could read it any other way if i’m being
completely fucking honest

ty! it’s so good isn’t it, like the fact that griffith’s moment of pure despair was guts touching him is beyond amazing and so fun to think about. i just want to second what you said here.

The fact that ppl view gtsca as this epic love story truly baffles me. Nvmd that he’s treated her like shit, miura admittedly shoehorned it into the story to give guts more manpain. It has like 3 chapters of forced build-up (judeau lit had to push them together) and it’s implied that they’re both using e/o as an alternative to griffith. And indeed, as soon he reenters the picture, it starts to fall apart. And it lasted like, what, one week? But sure, they’re totally the loves of e/o’s lives lol

four days actually lol

but yeah, strong agree here. I do kind of wonder what Miura wanted to portray – like I definitely think it very much comes across in the story that he added their relationship entirely for the sake of fridging Casca to motivate Guts more (the fact that he admitted it is icing on the cake lol). But he also didn’t shove it in as a badly written last-minute true love story, he was very deliberate in showing that there were flaws there from the start, like Judeau pulling the strings, both rebounding from Griffith, both using sex as a distraction from their negative feelings, the jealousy during the rescue mission, Griffith still taking priority to Guts (and this holds true until after the Hill of Swords confrontation), Casca becoming Guts’ “sword,” their hookup helping enable Guts’ denial so he doesn’t realize he shouldn’t’ve left the Hawks until it’s too late, etc.

So idk bc to elicit the correct reaction from his readers during the Eclipse he had to make them invested in their relationship and Guts’ feelings for Casca, but he also doesn’t do a damn thing to make Guts feelings for Casca matter or affect his decisions or anything. So imo it ends up feeling awkwardly pasted on when we’re supposed to believe they have strong feelings for each other, and the rest of the time it feels deliberately portrayed as negative.

(Like I’ve pointed out before, but a good example of this is the way Guts decides he screwed up before and wants to stay with Griffith this time while talking with Judeau, before consulting with Casca. It would’ve been so easy to have him decide while talking to Casca, showing that what she chooses to do also affects his decision, but nope. Too bad for Casca if she really wanted to leave with Guts, Guts is sticking with Griffith now.)

Re: griffith’s torture chamber monologue do you happen to know what’s the original japanese word they translated as “hunger”? I wonder if it has any particular connotation in japanese

chaoticgaygriffith:

bthump:

I do not, but this is a good question and one I’m also curious about. I can say that the anime replaced it with “love” (whether the word itself changed or the translation, idk) so it wouldn’t surprise me if it sounds just as suggestive in japanese as in english, or more so.

@chaoticgaygriffith no pressure to answer this, but do you have any insight on the word? (i’m sure you know exactly the page we’re talking about but just in case, chapter 49)

And actually while I’m wondering about this I’ve always been curious, is it the same word Ganeshka uses on this page? (chapter 282)

the word used is 飢餓感 (きがかん／kigakan) which can mean either hunger literally or hunger as in a strong desire/wish for something

and seeing as how griffith was listing emotions here, moreso than physical sensations (although some emotions–like pain, or you could say even all of them ig–are at the same time physical sensations), i would argue that he meant the latter

though it’s probably unclear on purpose, or it’s like clever wordplay of sorts since he’s literally in pain and starved and also additionally emotionally in pain and starved

and no sadly it’s not the same word ganishka used (he used 飢え渇く／うえかわく／uekawaku) but i don’t think that means there’s no parallel to be drawn here

tyvm for the response! sounds like it basically has the same connotation of saying you feel hunger while thinking about someone in english.

i def don’t think he meant literal hunger since he’s listing feelings specifically for guts, but i like the idea that it could be deliberate wordplay (along with pain) to yk compare the torture to being without guts/his feelings for guts. which would be very fitting imo.

requiemofthegods:

when you feel so blue

xiyyh
replied to your post “miura is really good at drawing facial expressions and there’s this…”

i’ve always thought it looked like guts wanted to kiss him here too lmao … and like … ha i know it’s completely impossible but look at griffs face tho. he’s like “NOW?? now guts? really?” then the behelit opens cause griffs just “OH /NOW/ YOU’RE GAY?”

hmm lol it’s likely total crap but it’s quite an interesting thing to ponder. cause imo miura is/was preettttyyy clear in his portrayal of expressional intent�� i don’t want to allow myself to believe this but to me it rly looks like that lmao
this is hot on the heels of guts fully
accepting his role in griffith’s (insert everything here) … i can only
imagine what would’ve happened if guts had an opportunity to say
something to him. he is probably at a loss for words, and all that
emotional buildup is trying to escape through his eyes lol .. god, griff
has no idea why guts is so emotional right here now that i think of it
🤔🤔🤔 guts showing emotions for him during this breakdown is a very
plausible thing to push him over the edge 😮

i like it lol i think i’ll keep it

good content

ok for real the way i see griffith’s moment of despair being guts’ touch is that it’s griffith’s final moment of understanding that he is never gonna get unfucked by his feelings. he desperately, desperately needs guts and there’s no possibility of living without him anymore. if guts left, griffith would mentally waste away like in his nightmare, if guts stayed griffith would exist entirely for his presence.

so like the way griffith shifted from wanting to strangle guts to holding his hand in the torture chamber when guts started crying for him, when guts touches him with that emotion on his face griffith is like, fuck i can’t hate him, i can’t separate myself, and the behelit opens.

i mean more powerfully than i’ve written lol, but that’s like, the gist imo.

so basically i completely agree.

ALSO wrt the possibility of Guts wanting to kiss him, I’m just gonna say:

idk Guts what did you do last time someone attempted suicide in front of you?

parallels everywhere.

just finished the movies and bc i love your meta i just wanna say icb they made the waterfall scene to just be guts and casca calmly have sex. the movies only really work to prove how if you leave the entire character development and depth of guts out the series itself changes significantly

thank you! and yeah ikwym, it makes me wonder what people who got into the movies first take away from them characterization-wise.

like obviously griffith is completely different lol, transformed into a two dimensional conniving ambitious dude who happens to be in love with Guts. But also like you mention, how does guts and casca’s relationship come across? I feel like it’d be even more boring, like i consider guts’ flashback to be like the lone highlight of their interactions together, and without that it’s just… so rote. Same w/ the anime on that point actually.

idk i think the ovas are a pretty decent hook to get people into the story, but anyone who stops there instead of reading the manga is seriously missing out.

berserk is just: no confronting or talking about our feelings we repress them like men (until they literally cause the apocalypse)

lol p much. like i’ll argue forever that dreams in berserk are ways to avoid dealing with your feelings and the whole story is about repression due to trauma.

not even in a guts and griffith are attracted to each other but can’t figure it out way, tho it’s so easy to read that as part of it, but repression due to trauma also describes guts’ whole monster hunting campaign post eclipse, the way behelits and turning into monsters work, and imo like 90% of guts, griffith, and casca’s characters in general. and farnese, at least pre-guts. and serpico.

cascaslament
replied to your post “Agree on Black Swordsman Guts, he’s my favorite too. Also speaking of…”

guts leaving casca doesn’t show that he isn’t loyal- it shows that he could not think and wanted to keep her out of pain and wanted to take matters into his own hands. he only had sex with that apostle so he could lure her out and kill her. i’m not even sure if it really counts as sex. you have to remember that guts’s intension wasn’t to leave casca to rot, but to keep her safe, even if it was the wrong thing to do. i’m not sure that you understand the importance of casca to guts…

just because I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean I don’t understand. I’ve tackled this subject like, a lot, so I’m not going to fully repeat myself here, but suffice to say I’ve read Berserk multiple times and, whatever Miura’s intent is, absolutely nothing has convinced me, or even strongly suggested to me that Casca is all that important to Guts beyond being a symbol of his humanity he’s clinging to.

And I can think of so many examples of Guts treating her like garbage, up to and including sexual assault (twice! treated as a joke during the Golden Age, and treated seriously as drama later on), that it baffles me that other people find their relationship like, positive lol, let alone endearing or something that reflects well on Guts.

anyway here’s the scene where Guts ditches her:

Rickert: dude, I think you should stay with your girlfriend in this magic safe cave instead of hunting monsters for no reason.

Guts: mmmmm no, I’d rather hunt monsters.

He had at least a month at Godo’s to decide on his course of action, and he’s perfectly calm and controlled here. If her safety was his first concern, he’d stay with her instead of leaving her for two children and an old man to (fail entirely to) protect. To say he left her because he couldn’t think and he wanted her to be safe is an extremely forgiving interpretation which isn’t backed up by the text of the story.

He’s not even considering her a person in her own right at this point, with his casual “nah” when Rickert suggests like, saying goodbye lmao. She’s basically just a representation of the Hawks to him here. Like imo the kindest interpretation to Guts is that he’s deliberately avoiding her because she reminds him too much of everything he lost/threw away, and that’s still pretty fucked up.

On the off chance you’re interested in a more in-depth look at how I think Guts actually feels (and yeah I know that’s not particularly likely lol, but I like linking stuff) here are some other posts I’ve written on the topic:

https://bthump.tumblr.com/post/175552652716/ok-yk-what-if-half-of-the-gtsca-sex-scene-is

https://bthump.tumblr.com/post/177852466736/i-ship-guts-and-griffith-and-ive-always-thought