mastermistressofdesire:

abyssalsunshine:

mastermistressofdesire:

bthump:

abyssalsunshine:

bthump:

bersrrk:

bthump:

bersrrk:

I’ve been wondering Like is there people out there who like…don’t think of Griffith and femto as the same person you know like how some dipshits are like “oh no anakin didn’t slaughter the younglings that was darth Vader darth Vader killed anakin from a certain point of view actually” is there people who think Griffith didn’t rape casca and slaughter the entirety of the band of hawk?
That it was his fucking alter ego countess boochie flagrante

tbf unlike anakin griffith literally got an explicitly described evil injection (”a fissure in your heart will open into which evil will surge), a new body created out of the same negativity as the idea of evil, and was explicitly shown losing his capacity to feel as the Band died and he was transforming so like…

yeah i feel it’s pretty well-established canon that femto is different than griffith.

whether you’d say griffith’s dark side + extra evil + new name – ability to feel empathy and other positive emotions = technically a new person or not doesn’t really matter imo, he’s definitely shown to be magically transformed enough physically and mentally for me to be able to draw a pretty solid line between femto and griffith regardless.

I mean they don’t put it down to magic but anakin DOES actually change when he becomes a sith it’s actually shown through out the series that being apart of the dark side does change a person at least physically (I think anyway maybe that was just a theory I read..)

I know there’s a big difference between pre and post eclipse Griffith my main point here is that it was /still/ Griffith who did those things regardless of how much he changed unlike some ppl may say

I used darth Vader as a comparison mainly because I assumed it would be the most well known case

I can actually think of two characters who would probably make a better comparison for numerous reasons but since their from a series of Irish children’s novels I assumed no one would have any idea wtf I was talking about

if that’s the case than fair enough, i’ve only seen the prequels once. i guess he did get yellow eyes somehow come to think of it lol.

I mean I guess this makes this a case of semantics then? As far as I’m concerned once a character goes through a magical fantasy transformation that includes changing the way he thinks it just makes more sense for me to consider them basically different people. If that’s stated somewhere in the movies to be the case between Anakin and Darth Vader and I’ve just forgotten then I’d consider them different too.

to me saying that it was still Griffith who did those things despite changing is like saying Guts tried to slaughter his friends while wearing the berserker armour imo. Sure, it’s technically accurate, but does that mean I should hate Guts because a magical element let the part of him that wants to indiscriminately slaughter innocent people reign free? We’re shown and told in both instances that these magical fantasy processes change the way a character feels and thinks and reacts, the only difference is that Griffith was entirely subsumed by his magic evil alter ego while Guts keeps coming back bc he has a witch and a magic kid on his side. but both Femto and the Berserk armour are manifestations of a character’s dark-side augmented by magic and suppressing their light-side/humanity, so they seem pretty comparable to me.

So what do you mean when you say Griffith still did those things regardless of how much he changed? If you agree that he changed first then we’re pretty much on the same page as far as I can tell. But when that change involves an irreversible physical transformation including new name change and literal “rebirth” as he hatches from an egg, I can understand why lots of people frame that change as a new person.

Like at the core we’re talking about fantasy situations that are not applicable to real life so it really just boils down to what you make of them I guess.

To me, the answer is yes and no. In a sense, Femto is Griffith. But not quite. I’d like to think that both Femto and Neo-Griffith are a part of Griffith that makes Griffith *Griffith* (if that makes sense) and vice versa. After all, whatever Femto and Neo-Griffith did is the result of Griffith’s actions and ambition (and that causality thing when you look at it in bigger perspective). It’s like, faces—masks. The best comparison I can think of is how ancient pantheons have many facades of themselves that manifest into different forms altogether. Take Parvati, a Hindu goddess, for example. Shes a benevolent goddess who is known for her nurturing personality, but she can turn into Durga, the Goddess of death and destruction when she is consumed by dark wrath (which is why she is associated with Guts by Dhaiva in the manga). Is she still the same Goddess? Well, yes and no. And I think that kinda answer is also fitting when talking about whether Griffith/Femto is the same person/creature or not. Especially given his current godlike status IMHO.

I love this goddess comparison! Makes perfect sense to me.

And yeah I pretty much agree with you – imo Femto is Griffith’s dark side stripped of all… positivity and light, yk, and given god-like power.

So Griffith always contained Femto within him but mediated and restrained by humanity and his own conscience and love and guilt etc etc. And according to the world of Berserk this is pretty much true of everyone – everyone’s got their inner darkness. The fantasy world magic just allows it to come out and overwhelm everything else.

Guts has his hellhound which is explicitly compared to Femto in one chapter while he’s being taunted by demons, apostles become apostles by giving themselves over to their dark sides, etc.

eta: anyway yeah tl;dr to sum up I don’t think I or anyone really considers Femto an entirely separate person, like the godhand just killed Griffith and replaced him with someone entirely different and totally unrelated. I think it just comes down to what you think constitutes “a different person” in a fantasy world where rebirth is a feature.

Oh wow . The mention of Parvati and Durga kind of reminded me of
a couple of other things in Hindu mythology which may make decent parallels.

Also one slight correction maybe, I might be wrong- it’s been a
long time since I last heard these stories but Durga isn’t the goddess of Death
and Destruction, that would be Kali. Durga is the Goddess of Strength and
Righteous Fury.

All of them are what we call ‘avatar’s of Parvati. And
there’s a total of Twelve of them. And each is undoubtedly the same deity but
also noticeably different. The basic train of thought therein is that we
require different weapons and personas to win different battles. Some can be
won by care and nurturing, some can be won by educating, some can be won by
battling and some evil is so great that one must be forced to destroy
everything known to you- both loved and hated and once again create it all
anew.( Basically what Goddess Kali stands for. Kali also literally translates
to ‘the dark one’ )

And idk but now I think of it this may be relevant to some
aspects of even Golden age Griffith? And the theme of Destruction before
creation may relate a little bit to the Eclipse.

Oh and also so basically the avatars of Vishnu are fascinating
from the Idea of Evil perspective. 

So there’s 9 of them one for every age. And each avatar adapts
to what is the desire and need of the living beings and humanity in the age in
which they take divine birth as messiah. The first Avatar was a Merman as most
of the living world was then underwater, other were kings, warriors, holy men
basically whatever was the desire of humanity from the Gods. and that sounds a
little like the whole ‘created from HUmanities desire’ thing happening
about now in the series.

Also side note: the ninth avatar hasn’t taken Birth yet so it’s
like a little bit of hopeful folklore passed down to kids. So if things ever
get real bad in the future, there’s a messiah whose already scheduled to come
around. Also it’s really cool how ancient pictures draw mystery guy with
futuristic looking armour.

Ok I’m totally getting carried away here but one last thing.

The concept of duality is pretty prevalent in Hindu scriptures.
Good and Evil are two sides of the same coin. The God’s Create and Destroy,
They bring joy and suffering. The Gods can be petty and selfish and the demons
be virtuous and devoted. Masculine and feminine are maleable. One arises from
the other. There’s plenty of mythological characters who change their sex and
gender.

And the heroes of the Epics are always fatally, frustratingly
flawed. 

And it;s all very Berserkian to me on some levels.

I am so sorry I got really really carried away here. Most of
this isn’t relevant.

Oh except
Kali totally was pulled out of her ‘Eclipse mode’ when she accidentally
stepped on her Husband,Shiva who had purposely decided to lie down in the path
of her destructive rampage. And she went from- “Kill kill kill kill kill kill...” to 

“OMG Honey, I’m so sorry, are you OKay?”

And Shiva’s like. “Yeah. Let’s just go home babe.”

And they calmly walk away leaving the other Gods to clean up the
mess.

Oooh right!! She is Kali or Mahakali when she is in that mode. But Kali is also another aspect of Durga if I’m not mistaken, Parvati became Durga when she had to defeat the demon Durg, activating this avatar. Thanks for the correction and adding more interesting points to the discussion!! Ikr, I always thought that Berserkian universe follows a lot of fascinating aspects from actual mythology in our world, I love it

Yeah in a way Parvati is the base model and Durga, Kali, Sherawali etc. Are all like battle upgraded versions. 🙂

Yeah I agree. I like the allusions to and subversions of real life mythology in Berserk.