I enjoyed how Griffith has been portrayed as a very lead from the front kind of a leader.
It’s kind of a contrast from most characters who fall under the Genuis-strategist trope.
Characters like Reinhard from Legend of the Galactic heroes or more recently Lelouch from Code Geass are (both) also genius military commanders but they always command from a distance, preferring to maintain their vantage point so that they can have the best view of the battlefield, they also almost never take advice from or consult anyone else and micromanage the actions of their subordinates with strict orders. We are made to understand the this distance is necessary not only because of the nature of the two characters but also to maintain objectivity and performance while giving commands. Their men in turn follow them because they consistently get results and are known to be ruthless to their enemies.
Griffith by contrast is always right on the frontline, infact his preferred formation is the arrowhead formation where he is the tip of the arrow and is actually the first one to engage with the enemy, this formation relies on the one in front to create an opening through which the rest can push through. Griffith very literally, leads by example.
He also holds meetings and consults with the other commanders on most occasions (atleast in the beginning), and by the time the battle starts most people are already in on the plan, he delegates important tasks and has an amount of trust in his people to then follow through, Griffith lays out the broad plans and then simply trusts everyone to do their best, there’s almost never any sudden mid-battle changes in instructions.
From a pure strategic view. This is actually not the ideal situation, the commander is the heart of any military campaign and should always be in a position to improvise and stay safe if possible.
But the crazy thing is what he may lack in terms of Genius, he more than makes up for in terms of pure heart something which does wonders for morale and garners a kind of loyalty that cannot be beaten by only calculations.
And I really really loved that in a world as cynical and dark as berserk’s, the most successful commander was someone who ruled through love and not fear, and dared to oppose the machiavellinism we’ve almost learnt to accept as fact.
She seems cheerful and kind… even the woman in me got a good impression
you think the torturers being outcasts collected by and devoted to mozgus is supposed to be a preview of neogriff’s apostles/war demons
tbh actually it makes sense bc it’s easy to view mozgus and neogriff as foils. like they both got that sinister angelic thing going on but their differences are more light-shedding than any similarities – the whole conviction rebirth arc was largely about outcasts and creating enemies out of other groups to strengthen your group (ie religion) while the point of falconia is to unite humanity with literal fantasy monsters as the enemy. mozgus’ outcasts tortured people, griffith’s save people. mozgus condemned most people, griffith accepts everyone. mozgus upheld the status quo and the way of the world (those with power trample those without) while griffith creates a world with a new status quo
and this is humanity’s deepest desire so it’s basically a direct response to mozgus and people like him dividing and conquering and demonizing outsiders and upholding nobility while making the lower classes suffer etc.
there’s a whole false god vs true saviour w/ divine right vibe i get from this comparison. and i mean the true saviour is still a largely cynical depiction since berserk is in part a criticism of religion, “god” included, but neogriff’s utopia is a lot less easy to denounce as fucked up and evil than mozgus’ inquisition thing.
a partial list of berserk characters whose narratives are propeled by love for a guy:
casca farnese schierke charlotte sonia mule griffith guts every single currently living apostle
@mastermistressofdesire said:
oh I was going to say
something about how the convincing and cajoling about piling bodies was
seemed mostly intended towards convincing him to sacrifice the non-guts
parts of the band of the hawk. The seeds for wanting Guts gone had
already been planted during the year of torture. It’s just that actually
being surrounded by the real Guts after that kinda made it apparent
that his emotions hadn’t quite caught up to that line of thinking, he
can’t help that being
with Guts again is currently blocking all that out because of simply how amazing and comforting and warm and fluffy it feels
Also I was going to write about some
panels from the post-torture arc which I realised I should actually
complement with pictures so that post is kind of in the works.
lol so i totally missed this response from however long ago. i wonder if it was when the tumblr activity page was buggy and refusing to load all the way.
but now that i’ve coincidentally happened to see it i just wanted to say yeah! i was actually thinking of adding another paragraph about how it would make sense symbolically that griffith has 2 separate motivations for the sacrifice, one for the band and one for guts, bc it underlines that guts (as several characters kept harping on about) wasn’t even part of the band at that point, and that he’d never actually been a volunteer to die for Griffith’s dream in the first place – his loyalty was won in a duel.
also if you’re still planning on making that post torture post i’d love to read it!
That post is STILL in the works ( damn I have that sort of analytical-block thing you mentioned)
But there was this one thing from that I kind of feel like mentioning.
So that point when right at the beginning of the Eclipse , the existing Godhand are kind of laying out what is to come. Starting there.
So since the moment Guts grabbed Griffith’s shoulder till this point, Griffith’s been kind of listless. He was already past the point of despair when it started and he hasn’t really responded to much since then. The shock is almost like a carryover from his reaction to Guts touching him rather than fresh shock from exclusively the eclipse stuff. In any case his eyes are unfocused, he doesn’t give any reaction to the people shouting, casca barking orders or Guts asking him if he’s alright.
Then Slan basically tells them all that Griffith’s going to become a demon and they are all going to die and Griffith looks up in shock . He tries to reply for a moment, no sound comes out and then everyone behind them starts whispering and getting scared and he shuts down and goes back to staring at the ground.
This is just what I personally thought but to me, it seemed like he was trying to protest her assertion, but trying to speak simply reminded him of his condition and coupled with the fact that the men (according to him) already believed it, he just sort of gave up thinking ‘what’s the use anyway.’
BUT BUT. Then Guts gets pissed and starts yelling. And screams at the GOdhand for even daring to suggest such a thing. And I looked at Griffith’s face in that panel, he’s looking at Guts with such a wonderstruck and shocked expression.
Let alone that situation, I wonder if Griffith’s ever had someone stand up for him or defend him before. Griffith’s always been about fighting his own battles and standing up for his beliefs and dreams. Whatever he’s needed, he’s done himself.
I honestly think this was the first time anyone had ever openly tried to defend him. You can see it in his face. And you can see it later when the alter is raised and he’s trying to hold on to it, hold on to Guts when he slips.
I think it’s so wonderfully tragic how a single tear, a single sentence from Guts can make Griffith rewrite everything he’s felt till that point.
And even after everything, the fact that he looks shocked at that and just quietly accepting once Guts lets go -breaks my heart.
tbh I don’t really have any solid detailed ideas here. I can say that if I was reading it I’d want this au to still have a misunderstanding and stupid “breakup” and I think my preference would be for Griffith to downward spiral somehow (not like a torture chamber, but idk risky behaviour, stupid decisions, dropping out of uni, that kinda thing) after Guts leaves to find himself, and for them to get together after Guts comes back and finds him miserable and self destructive. Like, re-do the Golden Age but fate isn’t a thing and gods aren’t a thing and Griffith still has a tongue so Guts has his revelation that he shouldn’t’ve left and instead of summoning gods they figure their shit out and then make out.
Also I’m gonna tag @yesgabsstuff and @mastermistressofdesire and also if anyone else wants to get in on this plz do bc frankly I am not creative enough to contribute much to entertaining au ideas lol. My style is like, ok well here’s what happened in canon so let’s do the exact same thing but slightly different bc of circumstances.
I mean usually I really like keeping things as close to cannon as possible but somehow a lot of these possibilities are simply shameless self-indulgence in my head.
I mean maybe they even get together, in the manner of normal people. Like just hanging out together somewhere and the atmosphere is right and … hey actually this can happen in cannon too. That balcony conversation? the ‘do I need a reason every time I risk myself for your sake’ one? That. Except no king interruption.. So like Zodd’s like this big violent gang dude who is a part of a big gang in the nearest big city. He just comes to their town, looking for fights and beating people up. Guts gets into a fight with him after zodd beats up some of the people he was mentoring in his group and Griffith kinda comes and saves his ass. And they later have this conversation.
Except this time when Guts says “No, there’s just something I want to tell you…” he GETS TO SAY IT. And he very awkwardly tries to convey that he has these feelings. And Griffith doesn’t turn around for the longest time and Guts panics and he’s like- I’m sorry, why would you wanna hear that- I just ran my mouth like an idiot, I’ll just leave. And he starts to leave, Griffith doesn’t react. He climbs down the stairs. Stops for a moment. Then says ‘Fuck it” and runs up again and Griffith’s still standing frozen in the exact same position.
At which point Guts worried smart ass self says “Wtf did I break you?”
And Griffith turns to him and says “Maybe.”
Guts walks up really cautiously because he’s half expecting this to be one of Griffith’s elaborate jokes. So they stand around awkwardly for a little while. Then Griffith smooches him without warning. And then there’s a moment of standing-off where they just stare at each other. And then there’s like a flurry of activity and it turns out into like a replay of the water fight. Except they’re being giggling idiots about who gets to give the most disgusting wet smooch.
And this was already self-indulgent enough and had minimum to do with the au in question and I’m so so sorry but idk I want them to be happy little kids sometimes and though I have more canon- appropriate situations which might make more sense for these two ( i might add those later actually, if anyone is interested) I want this interaction to end with Griffith pointing to his crutch and making a comment about already limping and Guts choking. Like this would never happen it’s a 100% crack but it makes me laugh in this dark and dreary age.
awww.
ok but honestly one of the gr8 things about berserk is i feel like it’s actually an ideal canon for fluff? partially because i personally love to read fluffy shit in dark canons when there’s always that ominous forboding underneath (in canon-compliant missing-scene stuff) or the knowledge that it could be so much worse (in au stuff), but also partially because Guts and Griffith do have moments like this, like – it’s in character for them to goof around and act like kids and be cute together! And I love that as a contrast to their epic tragedy tbh.
I know the movie changed this scene like hell, but it made a lot more sense to me like this? I just like having them all in the same frame and that “Yo!” and eye-softening exchange was very in-character and precious.
yeah i missed the “Griffith took off during important meetings bc he heard you were back” thing but I can see why they skipped it and Griffith coming to save them personally w/ the soft endearing smiles is a perfect replacement
I mentioned a while ago that the first time I feel we got a real visual* glimpse of Guts’ hound-esque inner darkness chronologically was during the rescue mission.
The way he cuts out the torturer’s tongue is very reminiscent of his tendency to torture apostles before killing them imo (which probably has its origins in the way he killed Donovan), and then he just rampages through the castle like a demonic one-man army, very black swordsman ish.
Look at this imagery like:
(i love Casca’s ‘holy shit dude’ expression)
Plus you got Charlotte saying he scares her, and the Wyald fight is when everyone starts comparing Guts to a monster and saying he’s inhuman.
So I was thinking – why? Why would we get this before the Eclipse, before he starts killing ghosts and infusing his sword with Essence of Darkness, before the brand + killing monsters make him literally superhuman? Why do we get our first look at monster slaying, revenge-obsessed, black swordsman Guts a day and only a day before the main event, the point of which is to make him revenge-obsessed, even takes place?
And I want to suggest that it’s because this is it – this is Guts’ revenge spree. It’s not one revenge spree that ends, followed immediately by another unrelated revenge spree. It’s the same rage. He killed the torturer like he kills apostles, then he fought an actual apostle to defend Griffith, then the Eclipse happened and he declared war.
It’s all intimately connected in Guts’ mind and emotions:
He started off on a vengeful rampage for Griffith in part as a way of externalizing his own feelings of guilt, and he continued on a vengeful rampage against Femto/NeoGriffith, also in part as a way of externalizing his own feelings of guilt.
We know this because as he’s running towards Griffith in the torture chamber Guts thinks about how it’s his fault that Griffith is there without actually coming to a proper conclusion (if that’s the case… then I –) – and he reaches that conclusion (was I the one who brought all this upon you?) right as he’s running towards Griffith at the site of the Eclipse. Guts’ guilt is strongly associated with his rage this way. Guilt followed by external target followed by lashing out.
Idk, there’s just such a through line to me from Casca telling him it’s his fault to the Eclipse. The most significant moments of Guts’ internal thoughts are given to him processing this information and finally concluding that he fucked up right before the Eclipse begins. The Eclipse didn’t then erase his feelings of guilt, it just let him continue to repress those feelings and gave him acceptable targets to lash out at instead of dealing with his feelings.
Now this is a bold statement, but I think that in a way, rampage part 1, kill half the soldiers of Midland, and rampage part 2, kill demons, are both about Guts avenging Griffith – the latter only in part ofc, because the rest of the Hawks need to be avenged too now.
Because the thing is, I think he still sees Griffith as a victim. After finally acknowledging that Griffith did sacrifice everyone, he still looks back at him wistfully. He thinks of Griffith while flashing back to the lost Hawks after the Eclipse. He tells Rickert that NeoGriffith isn’t the Griffith he knows (incidentally something Rickert repeats to NeoGriffith later, which NGriff acknowledges). He flashes back to Griffith in the snow a lot. To Guts, Griffith isn’t his friend who turned out to be a dick, Griffith is his friend who basically committed fantasy murder/suicide after being tortured for a year because Guts broke him by leaving.
His feelings towards Femto/NeoGriff are complicated and fucked up as all hell, but while his feelings for Griffith feed into his complicated feelings for Femto/NeoGriff, his hatred for F/NG doesn’t retroactively affect his feelings towards human Griffith. They’ve remained pretty solidly longing, guilt, love, regret. He’s not thinking of Griffith kneeling in the snow and feeling rage at what he would go on to do a year later, he’s thinking of Griffith kneeling in the snow and trying to find a way to atone for it. Griffith is still explicitly part of the “campfire from those days still [burning in his] chest.”
Idk basically I just wanted to say that a part of Guts’ fuel for his revenge rampage was feeling responsible for Griffith’s pain and not being able to save Griffith from it, both the first time against Midland and the second time against the Godhand, and I chose a very long drawn-out way to do that.
* I specify visual glimpse bc i think there’s a solid argument that it’s there when he kills Donovan, based on the way he taunts him and tortures him briefly first, but we don’t have any of the ragey demonic imagery associated with Guts’ darkness there – he just looks like a kid. So I feel like it works as a point of origin for a lot of Guts’ dark vengeful urges (Donovan is the first monster he killed), but he wasn’t anywhere close to losing himself to darkness then.
yall can u. reblog this and tag it with the number of posts in your drafts? i wanna know for science
437
lmao i’m looking at my immediate reactions when i first re-read berserk last year when it was all surprising and i remembered almost nothing and this is what i wrote right b4 the hill of swords scene:
little blacksmith girl: let’s all live together here! guts: remembers griffith and his pretty hair interesting to think of guts as a parallel to pre-eclipse griffith when griffith IS his ambition. i hope that doesn’t make casca his weakness. i feel like she’s a wild card that could make shit interesting and different when she gets her mind back or could ruin any potential fun guts/griffith emotional shit. i want his hate for griffith to be his ambition and his love/hope for him/his former self to be his weakness. that’s how i’d do it anyway
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT THE NEXT FUCKING PAGE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA “just as I got her back… no in the middle of swinging my sword to get her back… I… saw him… The way he appeared before me… he wasn’t a demon. He looked so human. As if he’d been stolen from the past, the way he used to be. The instant I saw him… I’d forgotten my urge to kill.” AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
like gj me, i somehow managed to make that page even more satisfying than it is already
also guts’ revenge being his ambition and his remaining love for griffith being his weakness in a parallel to golden age griffith is still a good idea tbh. the whole sidequest thing is casca-centric sure which lends itself to the thought that casca is the ~key~ to guts dropping his ambition (the way guts was griffith’s key but unfortunately fate) – but yk what a huge part of why guts is going on his casca sidequest is to atone for leaving griffith in the snow lol. it always comes back to griffith.
yk it’s fun how the first 3 apostles guts kills reflect the tone + our deepening understanding of the story and guts in particular
1. snakeman. pure evil. no redeeming value here lol, he’s just a mean snake who eats people and gloats about it. guts is a badass angry man who wants to kill monsters grr
2. count slug. real big dick. but he he loves his daughter and can’t sacrifice her and also his wife cheated on him. guts is a badass angry man who wants revenge on some god but he cries sometimes and has a complicated history with the god in question
3. rosine. real sympathetic, in love with her bff jill, guts has a hard time landing a killing blow bc he feels sorry for her, abusive parents, etc. we now know guts’ backstory and understand him and his complex feelings and his trauma and the fact that he was in love with his bff and vice versa etc
eggman doesn’t count bc guts didn’t kill him, and anyway that whole thing was more about religion than guts
bonus #4 tho: griffith kills ganeshka who reflects griffith:
wants to rule the world bc of his weakness (fear) vs griffith wanting to rule the world bc of his weakness (guilt). ascends to a higher plane vs ascending to a higher plane. has a breakdown bc he’s alone and confused and doesn’t know who he is vs guess we’ll wait and see
Oh boy, what a good question! I, personally, will be Fucking Pissed if Casca doesn’t remember her experiences post-Eclipse and pre-healing. That would just be way too much of an easy out. The Eclipse was obviously the Pinnacle Of Trauma or whatever, but Casca’s been through so, so much since then. I’m working on the assumption that she does remember given the number of phallic monsters compared to the number of times men have tried assaulting her post-Eclipse. That and tiny Casca – imagery from these dream chapters has made it pretty apparent that tiny Casca represents Casca’s heart, and tiny Casca’s been there the whole time. She’s just been quiiite weak. There’s also the chapter where Casca kills a couple men even in her regressed state pretty early on, which showed that Casca is Still In There, Somewhere. Of course this could just be my “wishful” (praying for some decent writing) thinking, but, hey. Fingers crossed. I’m hopeful.
This is going to be long, so here’s a cut. This kind of ended up being a Casca post-healing character development answer more than anything, but there’s plenty of Farnesca conceptualizing in it. ;D
I still can’t understand how people could see this scene and literally seconds later be like- “well so it seems like griffith doesn’t actually care about the lives of all his people because he says he’ll do anything to win and doesn’t regret it.”
Did you completely miss this moment? Would someone who doesn’t care about his people, fucking suck it all in and focus on comforting another person just because, ‘one of his soldiers’ was upset?
Would someone who didn’t care actually even consider doing what he did because “the more battles we fight, the more people we lose.”
Griffith has nothing to lose by simply fighting those additional battles. He knows he’ll survive. And he’s not exactly set a time goal for himself.
Its because He doesn’t WANT to have nothing to lose. it a misguided act of sentimentality and solidarity but it is still an act of sentimentality and solidarity.
“sentimentality and solidarity” is a nice way of putting it tbh. yk it’s funny that some people don’t get that you can have no regrets and still care, they’re not mutually exclusive things. Like by his logic if he allowed himself to regret leading people to their deaths their deaths would become pointless so he moves forward with no regrets because he cares lol.
also the line “but for hundreds, thousands of lives to hang in the balance and myself alone not to be unclean… // what I want… won’t enter my grasp so easily as that” in particular always struck me as strongly suggestive of Griffith’s guilt-fueled solidarity (rly love that btw) the way it’s divided into 2 speech bubbles
first half emphasizing the risked and lost lives for his dream and admonishing the idea of remaining above and untouched by it himself, 2nd half justifying it “logically” (won’t enter my grasp so easily as that) though the logic doesn’t hold up because, as you said, he could just fight those battles. That was his plan before the kid died, and was a perfectly good plan to him then.
also sidenote: it doesn’t occur to him that he’s in the same position as his soldiers anyway, risking his life every battle as well since he always leads at the front. He has to go above and beyond putting his own life on the line with them.
@mastermistressofdesire said:
oh I was going to say
something about how the convincing and cajoling about piling bodies was
seemed mostly intended towards convincing him to sacrifice the non-guts
parts of the band of the hawk. The seeds for wanting Guts gone had
already been planted during the year of torture. It’s just that actually
being surrounded by the real Guts after that kinda made it apparent
that his emotions hadn’t quite caught up to that line of thinking, he
can’t help that being
with Guts again is currently blocking all that out because of simply how amazing and comforting and warm and fluffy it feels
Also I was going to write about some
panels from the post-torture arc which I realised I should actually
complement with pictures so that post is kind of in the works.
lol so i totally missed this response from however long ago. i wonder if it was when the tumblr activity page was buggy and refusing to load all the way.
but now that i’ve coincidentally happened to see it i just wanted to say yeah! i was actually thinking of adding another paragraph about how it would make sense symbolically that griffith has 2 separate motivations for the sacrifice, one for the band and one for guts, bc it underlines that guts (as several characters kept harping on about) wasn’t even part of the band at that point, and that he’d never actually been a volunteer to die for Griffith’s dream in the first place – his loyalty was won in a duel.
also if you’re still planning on making that post torture post i’d love to read it!
tbh I don’t really have any solid detailed ideas here. I can say that if I was reading it I’d want this au to still have a misunderstanding and stupid “breakup” and I think my preference would be for Griffith to downward spiral somehow (not like a torture chamber, but idk risky behaviour, stupid decisions, dropping out of uni, that kinda thing) after Guts leaves to find himself, and for them to get together after Guts comes back and finds him miserable and self destructive. Like, re-do the Golden Age but fate isn’t a thing and gods aren’t a thing and Griffith still has a tongue so Guts has his revelation that he shouldn’t’ve left and instead of summoning gods they figure their shit out and then make out.
Also I’m gonna tag @yesgabsstuff and @mastermistressofdesire and also if anyone else wants to get in on this plz do bc frankly I am not creative enough to contribute much to entertaining au ideas lol. My style is like, ok well here’s what happened in canon so let’s do the exact same thing but slightly different bc of circumstances.
While Miura does her one of the greatest disservices ever done to a female character in the history of fiction, fuck me if I am not forever and deeply moved by everything to do with Caska.
She is all that stands between her comrades and her family and an ugly, ignoble death. Her pillars are gone. Her reasons for who she is and what she fights for are dwindling by the minute, and her reserves are at their lowest point, but she does exactly what she needs to do to keep the Hawks alive. She steps into the role that was never meant for her and she fulfills her duty to the utmost. She dragged herself out of death’s door and five arrow wounds to keep them safe, and she does. She keeps her men together and organized for an entire year in the absolute worst of conditions, and that is more than Guts or Griffith combined could have done. No matter what happens to her after this; that fact remains. She has nothing to live for and nothing to look forward to, but the Hawks are her duty and she will see it through.
Oh gosh, yes to all the above. We need more appreciation for Casca as a leader and for the back-breaking work she put into keeping the Hawks alive and organised during this year. Because honestly, while she may not have Griffith’s innate charm and ability to read others, I think she’s every bit as good and strong and capable a leader as he was. It’s so overlooked, but she assumed power at a moment of huge disadvantage and chaos, and went through debilitating amounts of stress in harsh conditions and still she fought on and stuck with the Hawks – her family, the people she’d grown to adulthood amongst – and kept them alive, kept them together, and kept them a fighting force to be reckoned with.
And what gets me most about Casca when contrasting her to Griffith and Guts is that she too suffers from a lost or broken dream as much as either of them, but unlike Guts and Griffith her response is never to deal with it by abandoning her friends.
I remember reading the Berserk TV tropes page and raging when they outright said in the page that Casca was weak during the time she lead the Hawks, really? Weak? Are we even reading the same manga?
It’s a no-win scenario – if Casca was written as totally stress-free and confident and super-capable during this part, people would criticise her for being unrealistic or too perfect, or see it as proof of her as some cliched wish-fulfilment fantasy token. But to write her as having flaws and failings invites people to view her as “weak” just for being portrayed as human and for having an understandably hard time with the situation.
I think it might come down to comparing her to Guts and Griffith (which is understandable considering she’s the tritagonist) rather than the Band of the Hawk, which is where I think she should stand as the character who most strongly represents and embodies the Hawks imho. I really don’t think she’s meant to be measured against Guts and Griffith because both of them were near-superhuman (and are now literally superhuman or relying on superhuman aid) in terms of skill and Casca always has been and always will be so utterly human in her endeavours and accomplishments. We’re meant to measure her against the Hawks – because she belongs among them and with them, walking on the ground and doing her finest, and still being valuable and irreplaceable despite her normality and her limits – and among them, she shines. And she’s the leader they chose too. No-one questioned her taking command after she near-singlehandedly got them out of the Midland ambush.
And it makes me rage so much too, because the point here is that she’s being strong. This is how I define strength, not in being impervious. She’s been suffering from an incredible amount of pressure and stress – and physical exhaustion – for a year. And that year began with her taking five arrow wounds – and it probably took a long time to completely heal from nearly dying, but I don’t doubt she still kept issuing orders from her sickbed. Her state here is completely realistic and understandable and I loved that she was given these moments, that a soldier’s anxiety and depression and exhaustion were so sympathetically presented, that she was so much more than the typical flawless action girl whose perfection gets measured in how much like a man she is. Casca was frail, Casca was wounded, Casca was overworked, Casca’s nerves were shot, Casca couldn’t eat or sleep from anxiety, Casca was struggling more and more to hold onto her sense of self, Casca bore responsibility for every life under her and for her soldiers’ morale too, Casca was running on nothing but hope – but she still kept going. Her reasons for doing this and putting herself through all this are gone, but it’s still the only thing that makes sense to her and gives meaning to her life, and if she quits and puts herself and her own well-being first then there’s no-one left to ensure the survival of the others.
I do have some issues with the presentation of her character too because I do feel like she’s set up to fail multiple times, I’m genuinely not sure if some of the sexism she faces is Watsonian or Doylist, and it’s also frustrating not to have more focus on her triumphs (that’s why I loved the 2nd movie for prioritising her rematch with Adon and for showing her taking command of the Hawks; both awesome scenes) over the times when she needs rescuing, or focusing on only when Casca runs into trouble rather than other characters. But her character is what makes up for that to me because so much of her pre-Eclipse arc is so beautiful and her persona – especially her flaws and vulnerabilities – is just so rounded and humane and incredibly rich and realistic, and so many of her feelings and achievements are just so moving to me.
Her treatment as a character following the Eclipse devastates me though. But I think everyone agrees with that.
@yesgabsstuff said:
I actually was
thinking about something you said in passing a while ago. We were
talking about how he learned how to behave around nobles and you called
it the “miss manners stuff.” I realized that we don’t really have an
equivalent expression for men and that got me thinking about about how
being polite and showing the “correct” deference to your betters is kind
of inherently feminized labor in a way? I also was thinking about how
that instinct for self protection, which is really what
I think it is at this point for him
extended his polite behavior to his own rape. I don’t really know where
I’m going with this but I had thoughts.
That doesn’t really undo the effects of toxic masculinity but rather adds a different dimension of his character for me?
Ooh yeah I see what you mean. lol it really is – I remember reading some studies about that in like a sociology class years ago or something, how a lot of behaviour coded as feminine is the same deferential behaviour eg men show to their bosses.
tbh idk I’d mostly separate the way Griffith behaves among nobility (deferential, always polite, always uses proper address/titles/etc, keenly aware of his place as an outsider and mitigating it with the shows of submission – smiling and apologizing when Julius slaps him is a gr8 example – etc) vs the way he behaves among the Hawks as their grand soaring leader.
BUT that said ia it is all tied to self-protection, and tbh you’re right – there isn’t a whole lot of difference between Griffith smiling when Julius slaps him, lip bleeding, and Griffith smiling when Casca hugs him, arms bleeding. I think he might tell himself that he’s trying to reverse the dynamic and comfort Casca instead of allowing her to comfort him because he has to be a strong leader and can’t show weakness, but I could definitely see a huge part of it being fear of his own vulnerability.
Idk I just really dig your point and tbh I think it would be really interesting to compare/contrast Griffith among the Hawks and Griffith among the nobles. Both masks stemming from the same place of vulnerability, yk?
@yesgabsstuff said:
Ditto for a conversation with Casca except that it ends with her taking the implement of self harm out of his hands and saying;
“You’re totally full of shit but I guess it’s time to put you to bed.”
awww. this is all
so perfect tbh. i’d seriously read 200k words of berserk as just a low key, realistic group of
traumatized and mentally ill people trying to support each other and get by and often failing and fucking up but
sometimes succeeding.
(i mean that’s basically what it is already but yk, take away the monsters and you’re still left with so much good character stuff and making it quietly realistic + modern adds a certain tone that agrees with me more than i would’ve expected. though i wouldn’t necessarily want to follow the plot of berserk to a tee lol. keep the themes, maybe explore different directions)
It’s weird. I think my age at this point has turned almost into optimism. What I mean is that Casca kind of barreling in and trying to get him to feel better and not knowing how because she can’t handle him being sad and Griffith kind of pulling it together in response to that is more realistic I think than what I just made up. It’s like I imagined what they would be with another five years under their belts and some solid self awareness. To her credit, Casca is the closest to being that person out of the three of them, but still. She’s always the Mom Friend regardless.
TO BE FAIR we are talking about an AU where they have some psychological knowledge and therapy experience, so it makes sense that they’d make better decisions occasionally haha.
in fact this really is the perfect setting to do like, a Berserk re-do where they’re all dealing with the exact same shit except actually learning coping methods and therefore not ruining everything all the time.
They can still ruin some things. just like, not irreversibly maybe.
That’s true. This is the setting where things could be made right for them even if the world still sucks.
Casca performs the bulk of the emotional labor but I also just thought about Griffith’s allergy to making other people uncomfortable. It’s interesting how his emotional labor is actually pretty similar to what Casca does? I don’t really know where to go from here.
That’s actually a rly good point that I didn’t think of. I guess Casca is more like, figuring out everyone’s shit for them and being stuck with the fallout of Griffith and Guts’ issues, but Griffith is really about hiding his own emotions so he can be the ideal leader everyone has perfect faith in.
Griffith’s is more typically masculine I’d say but it stands out since it’s acknowledged as a thing he does that’s also bad for his psyche in-text. Hey it’s a solid point for your “Berserk is about toxic masculinity” thesis statement you mentioned the other day 😀
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