This isn’t really relevant to this blog so feel free to ignore it buuut favorite ships besides Griffguts?

Everything about Berserk is relevant here 😀

Casca/Farnese is the main one tbh, I genuinely think based on their feelings now, when Casca comes back properly (assuming Bad Shit doesn’t happen which is a huge impossible assumption but still) they could easily transition into a tentative, positive relationship. lbr right now Farnese is the only person who’s earned Casca’s trust and affection, and helping Casca has helped Farnese grow as a person so it would feel fitting if Casca continued helping Farnese grow except maybe by like, teaching her the sword or something once she doesn’t need a babysitter. Also this which is too damn real.

Also I semi-seriously ship a lot of minor characters.

  • Jill/Rosine because duh. Also they have some teenage f/f version of guts/griff vibes.
  • Charlotte/Anna bc lbr here Anna is the only person who genuinely loves her
  • Jill/Theresia by virtue of being two kids with close relationships to apostles that Guts hung out with and traumatized, they have a lot they could bond over
  • Schierke/Sonia bc they’re the same and clearly mutually crushing based on their one afternoon together and also another solid potential Guts/Griff parallel
  • @jyuanka suggested Serpico/Silat to me once and I hopped completely on board because Serpico desperately needs a boyfriend and I feel like his chill go-with-the-flow thing would actually really complement Silat’s prideful obsessiveness, plus they’re both like, intelligent and practical and cautious about things and idk I just think they’d click.

now if we’re talking sexy encounters and one night stands rather than actual relationship potential i want to add:

  • slan/farnese. slan taunting farnese about her sadistic tendencies. farnese driving her silver dagger into her and slan calling it foreplay. okay honestly slan/any woman ever. honestly, slan. give me the lesbian fanservice miura.
  • guts/serpico. serpico needs to get laid, serpico has interesting mixed feelings towards guts, serpico thinks about how guts’ intensity (heat) has affected him, serpico feeling a little lost while farnese is so busy with others, serpico’s obviously into manly soldier types, and guts needs to have sex with a slim blond dude he keeps dueling and then feel maudlin and weird about it.

okay i’ll stop here lol. ty for the question this was fun.

@yoikami said: What if neogriffith has a child. Idk why I picture a lot on my head an evil child from NeoGriffith and Charlotte ’-‘

seems like a plausible thing to happen tbh, esp if there’s a time skip. personally i’m p neutral to the idea bc i don’t really like fictional children but imo it could be an interesting way to shed some light on what griffith even is right now, like can he pass on whatever godlike powers he has? would the kid be another vessel for his consciousness if his body isn’t immortal? would the kid be an ordinary human? would he care about it? that kinda thing.

freewilllife:

bthump:

freewilllife:

bthump:

The fact that Guts decides to pursue an equal
relationship with Griffith after hearing the speech is what singles his
relationship with Griffith out as unique. Everyone else in Griffith’s life is content to
either look up at or down on him.

Even the Princess, his future wife,
just marvels at the speech while literally looking up at him, rather than showing any desire to find a
dream herself and become “worthy” of calling herself his equal.
Because Guts is the only one who wants to genuinely connect with
Griffith – who wants to stand beside him by achieving something of his own – Guts is Griffith’s only “true” relationship, the only
relationship he has based on real affection and genuine desire for the
person, and not just what he represents, either as a symbol of hope and achievement (for the Hawks), a symbol of security and happiness (for Charlotte) or a symbol of corruption and loss of power (for those plotting against him).

Which just makes it so wonderfully ironic that Guts is the only one who made Griffith forget his dream.

Yes. Though we have to add that Guts perceives Griffith still as someone “different from a normal human being”.

His perplexed reaction that Griffith has weaknesses, when he comes back…or that he could be the reason for that.

I think it is more like…Guts  wasn t aware that he didn t had to climb the mountain, but maybe just had to look at Griffith differently.

tbh i spent a good chunk of my golden age re-read pondering how guts and casca relate to griffith in different, opposing ways, and never coming to any proper conclusions

but i find it interesting that guts does see griffith as different, and godlike, and perfect (at least after overhearing the speech) while casca sees him as a vulnerable, real person with insecurities and issues of his own, and keeps trying to tell guts that.

and yet casca is the one who showers him with worship while guts treats him with irreverence, disobeying his orders, insisting they go and hang out with him after casca muses over how “distant” he is after a battle, questioning him, letting loose and acting playful around him, deliberately placing himself to protect griffith at the battle of doldrey, “he’s the only person i can’t stand looking down on me,” etc.

i have a vague idea that the discrepency between how guts thinks of him vs how guts treats him is at least partially bc guts planned to uproot his life and abandon his friends to get on griffith’s level, which lbr is a bad decision to make if you don’t believe griffith is on a level somewhere way above you, so he subconsciously ignores and deflects all indications that griffith is just a flawed person in his singleminded focus on his own “dream.”

which is similar to what i perceive griffith does wrt his own dream. like, if the castle is what shines in griffith’s mind, then griffith is what shines in guts’ mind. and i feel like griffith also has to subconsciously convince himself that his dream is worth pursuing despite the negative consequences. ~parallels

and omg yes @ your last sentence. i rly think the golden age was all about false perceptions, yk?

“i have a vague idea that the discrepency between how guts thinks of him
vs how guts treats him is at least partially bc guts planned to uproot
his life and abandon his friends to get on griffith’s level, which lbr
is a bad decision to make if you don’t believe griffith is on a level
somewhere way above you, so he subconsciously ignores and deflects all
indications that griffith is just a flawed person in his singleminded
focus on his own “dream.”

“

Especially that paragraph adresses what I thought about this three.

Guts

Yes, Guts had an interest that Griffith was really “someone above him”, since his own inferiority complex towards people like Griffith prevented him from actually considering him as a mere human being.

Because that is “something he can fix” by actually accomplishing to find his own dream. I mean what would he have done, if he had acknowledged Griffith being a mere human being like him? Guts thought that Griffith didn t really perceive him as his equal.

Griffith

And he was right. People consider Griffith as being above them or under them. There was maybe never someone that looked him straight in the eyes. (Except for Guts).

Griffith most likely felt drawn to him for that reason, but he didn t understand his own feelings. The higher he climbed the more isolated he became, the more deeds that didn t fit in the image of “the glorious hero” he had to commit.

Griffith was excited to reach his dream, but he had to swallow much “evil deeds” in order to attain it. He isolated himself voluntarily in order to be ruthless enough for his dream.

The stress must have been pretty much, Guts was the only person he could depend on, since he at least acted as if there was no much difference between them. And then this person left (in order to have a closer relationship).

But Griffith is an emotionally weak human being…I think he had to think that he “owned” Guts in that moment, when he was about to leave…Since a free human being can leave…And that directly after Griffith opened up at least a tiny bit.

Guts

I think Gut actually wished to have a purpose in his life. So finding the dream may have been not just for Griffith…Still leaving was not the best idea.

Casca

While Guts is a “fighter” in order to get what he wants, Casca more or less gave up.

Casca was interested in that thought that Griffith was a human being, because that allowed her to look at him as a man. She wished to be near him, but she never reached her goal. Griffith never let too much of his guard down…maybe she had a chance, when she saw him in the lake. But he noticed that she refused such a deed. So it is still argueable if this possibility really existed.

By the way I think it was normal that Casca was shocked.

The “fountain scene”- after that scene she drifted more torwards Guts. Guts decided to fight, while Casca gave up.

Still she was the person, who was the emotionally strongest out of the three mains.She was able to express her feelings properly towards Guts, even if she failed with Griffith.

mastermistressofdesire:

yesgabsstuff:

bthump:

@yesgabsstuff said: I totally
agree that this is a child’s idea and I guess that’s what makes it so
upsetting to me? That its emotionally stupid and an intellectual
failure? Idk man.

tbh the idea that griffith stumbled into his dream and worked backwards to justify it feels a little absurdist to me, which i love, especially in conjunction with Berserk’s take on fate/meaning, ie, humans literally create it out of a desperate need and it fucks them over.

but yeah there is something inherently upsetting in the idea that everything that went down in berserk is ultimately because of something stupid and childish. it’s the kind of upsetting i dig though haha.

tho now that I think about it wrt his higher aspirations (equality, nobles suck, etc) we know he had them before the kid died because of how he saved Casca, so I do think those were always part of his motivation for becoming king, but… I tend to think they’re a little childish at heart too, for Griffith. More born out of obstinacy, with actual philosophy and reasoning applied later.

Yeah, I mean there was no way I think that he could back down from how he was feeling. The idea that there would be an intellectual framework to hang his feelings on, even if it was contradictory and self aggrandizing must have felt like a relief.

Oh hell yeah.

I think that’s what fills everyone around him with that sense of wonder. The fact that it isn’t a well thought out dream. The fact that anyone who would sit down and analyse the ‘i want a kingdom’ statement with respect to where Griffith started from would find it absurd.

But that analysis would come from maturity belying cynicism – from knowing that the world is an unfair place filled with unfair people. And Griffith’s dream existing despite that seems to undermine this belief. Because a dream like that could only exist in a fair world with fair people and it retroactively gives the people who hear about it, and hear Griffith’s absolute conviction to make it  a reality, a sense of hope. A sense that the world will change around that dream to contain it, create a warp of the fair world in the unfair world and hard past each of them is trying to escape from.

And honestly I think that’s what drew them to him. It wasn’t just Griffith being a manipulative person or exceptionally charismatic. Though obviously that is there.

It’s because Griffith gives them hope.

And bleaker the world is, the harder we cling to what gives us hope.

And I always personally thought that Griffith’s whole point about ‘giving back’ to those who gathered around him was a little backwards. In his mind, they were drawn to him for an inexplicable reason and fought his wars for him and now he has to ‘pay them back’ by giving them victory.

Where as it seems more like they joined him for the hope he gave them. Stayed and fought to continue to cling to that hope and gave back in terms of their loyalty to him.

@bthump

this is perfect and i have nothing i can add so i’m just gonna underline it with manga panels

oh wait i lied i do have something to add, wrt your last two paragraphs:

ouch.

freewilllife:

mastermistressofdesire:

bthump:

yesgabsstuff:

bthump:

Well I had the urge to talk about Griffith’s motivation to be king again. tbh I’ve said a lot of this stuff in various scattered posts and conversations, but I want to have it all laid out nicely in one place. And I’m using a meme question as a springboard.

Does your character have a story goal and a believable motivation to achieve that goal?

For
human Griffith I actually find his motivation for wanting to become
king one of the most interesting aspects of his story. One thing I really dig about
the way fate works in Berserk is that despite it sitting there and
pulling strings to manipulate everything, characterization and character
decisions never feel arbitrary to me.

To be honest it can kind of seem
like Griffith has no real motivation for wanting to be king and it’s
just an urge placed there by fate, but I think everything the reader
needs to know is right here:

image

It’s
not really that he has no original motivation, it’s that his original
motivation is fucking stupid lol. It started out as an extremely
childish “I want that” desire, possibly with a side of contrariness since he was a commoner, and because he was a child, and tenacious,
he decided to go out and get it.

Then, before he had a chance to
re-evaluate his baby dream and whether it’s a worthwhile goal, he started getting people killed for it and his resulting
(repressed) guilt lead to him doubling down on his dream, hard.

At least since
the dead kid and Gennon I’d say his motivation has been 90% “I have to
achieve this to justify the fact that a bunch of people are dead because
of it.“

image
image

This
is more of an extrapolation, but imo Griffith’s mind is working
backwards to how you’d expect – it’s not that he wants to achieve the
dream because it’s some great, all-important and shining thing in his
mind. The dream becomes great, all-important and shining because
building it up in his head is partly how he justifies all the awful
guilt-inducing shit he does to achieve it. All these people died for his
dream, therefore his dream must be special and important and worth dying for.

He says he wants to know his place in the grand scheme of things, whether he’s one of the “keys” that move the world. And to me, in conjunction with what we know of his motivation (childish ambition, followed by mounting guilt spurring him onwards), that sounds like a desperate desire to know whether all those deaths were worth it. If his destiny is to become king, then he’s justified and doesn’t need to feel guilty and can continue suppressing his guilt. If it isn’t, then it was all a waste and he has to actually deal with his inner “reality” of being a child on top of a pointless mountain of bodies.

It’s rly lucky for him that it turns out it is his destiny lmao.

I generally agree with this; particularly on the point of how he makes decisions. I see him as someone who makes an emotional decision and then his considerable intellect steps in to cover his ass so that the choice isn’t as destructive as it could be. I think however, that while his initial desire is born out of a childish desire for something out of his reach, that he earnestly believed that he could make things better as a king due to his common birth.

He has this very real emotional need it would seem to be special and to be the person to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” in contrast to uninspired others. This could be covering up any number of emotional wounds inside him, and I think that this is as close as we get to Griffith articulating the same emotional emptiness that Guts does.

All of that pathology aside I think his natural distaste for injustice and his intelligence took these emotional needs and made them into a desire to be the philosopher King; better than a blood noble could ever be because he could actually understand people’s struggle and he would deserve to be there. I think his problem comes is that he’s using the master’s tools to take down the master’s house. He must use violence, he must look at himself as superior to others, he must cut off his human feelings in order to achieve this goal. It is literally divine right rather than what his idea of “merit” that has put him on that throne next to Charlotte. It’s terribly sad.

I totally agree! tbh I avoided going into this bc i wanted to keep the focus on guilt and childishness, but, especially in NeoGriffith’s chapters, there’s a lot of stuff about overturning the “natural order” of inequality and oppression and war etc.

Ooh plus Casca’s line while she’s telling Guts her story about how when the nobleman attacked her she thought it was just the natural order of things, until Griffith threw her a sword and rearranged her world.

And then the Eclipse is basically a mirror of that flashback scene with Femto taking the nobleman’s place and finishing what he started, so it’s a visceral, grotesque and symbolic depiction of becoming a manifestation of that “order” in his attempt to overturn it. Including the fact that he actually is chosen by God lol like he accused the nobleman of believing.

Ofc now that you’ve mentioned the master’s house quote I kinda want to wonder if it’s all eventually going to come crashing down because Griffith became what he was trying to overturn. idk.

idk the point is I solidly agree with your addition and i want it on my blog lol.

ALSO


I think that this is as close as we get to Griffith articulating the same emotional emptiness that Guts does. 

wonderful point, nothing to add but I love this.

You know regarding the origins of his dream, I’m kind of wondering if Griffith was a child who grew up with books?

Like we definitely get to know that he loves reading and we also know that there most probably wasn’t a strong parental or mentoring influence in his early life yet he has all these lofty ideals and philosophies sorted out at a very young age.

And as someone who sort of grew up with books, i feel there may be a possibility that that might tie into the I want  kingdom dream.

Griffith always struck me as a romantic stuck between the cogwheels of pragmatism. And that’s the thing about books, they make you dream big, think of things bigger than yourself, philosophies, emphasize the importance of having a goal and going on an adventure. The only lives worth living it seems are those you’d like to hear a story about. All these rags to riches fairy tales.

And inevitably the protagonists are kings and princes, wizards and knights, extra ordinary people who own extraordinary things.

And I wonder if he didn’t just want to be the most extraordinary person he could be possessing the most extraordinary thing he had seen till then.

To Griffith s dream: It was definitely a childish decision at first. I mean he was around 10 years…I think it would feel more unreal to me if he had fleshed out, what he wanted to do.

But it was also a fist step to overcome the “old system”. For him a commoner it would have been impossible to fulfill his wish…to have that kind of dream and to strife to attain it…That was pretty strange for most people.

Later he really added like @yesgabsstuff mentioned “social justice” to his dream. It s like creating a paint. You append more and more layers to the picture.

Guilt was also a layer…a reason to reach his goal, but I don t think it was 90 % of it. At least not when Guts met him. He was so excited of his dream, his fate ect…when he helped him up, that I can t think of it as main cause at first.

Later…when he used more and more underhanded methods…that most likely changed. I think that was also a reason why his dream disappeared, when Guts left. To deal with the whole guilt all alone…That was surely a reason why he broke.

@mastermistressofdesire this makes a lot of sense to me tbh. A lot of people compare Griffith to a fairytale or storybook hero, but he does it himself too when talking about how the kid who died admired him. Logistically he had to learn to read at some point, most likely while he was still a kid.

@freewilllife love your painting comparison. & tbh I do emphasize Griffith’s guilt A Lot, maybe more than makes sense for him as a realistic character, but since it’s what gets centre stage during the most revealing explorations of Griffith’s psyche (the river with Casca and the Godhand’s exploration of his conscious realm) I tend to view it as like… foundational, underlying just about every other aspect of Griffith’s pursuit of his dream. Plus I just dig the idea that it’s a huge emotional burden Griffith got stuck with through his own childlike stupidity and painted over to look like this spectacular shining thing, able to convince himself of its grandiosity because it’s easier than facing his own guilt. But that definitely edges into projecting my own interests onto the narrative.

Oh and also speaking of facing his own guilt good point about how that’s likely part of the reason he broke, i totally agree! I wrote a long ass thing a while ago about how Griffith took Guts leaving him as a rejection and condemnation of all the aspects of himself that make him feel guilty and insecure, which is imo part of the reason his reaction was so self-destructive.

mastermistressofdesire:

nakamatoo:

Days of Past.

She could feel the sweat dripping down her neck under the occasional press of the warmed metal of her helmet. 

It was hot, too hot. She suspected a growing fever as she slowly became hyper aware of the stumbling rhythm of her heart, bringing the pulsating waves of nervous heat with every beat.

She forced herself to keep riding. She’d already fallen behind the vanguard. 

As she swept past her men, the sudden realisation of the cause of her distress dawned over her. She looked around herself at the thousands of comrades who’d never have to worry about such a thing  before a decisive battle . She suddenly felt small, the chasm she’d been trying to close all these years opening all around her and stranding her in the middle of what she so desperately wanted to be home.

And it was home. It really was. That’s why she fought for it.

That and…

She looked to the front of their lines. Griffith was riding almost exactly in the middle of the line, a few steps ahead of the rest- Back straight and hair blowing loosely in the dusty wind , helmet still clutched against his side.

Casca wondered if she should sit back for this battle. She could already imagine the confused looks her men would exchange, could imagine it slowly giving way to a look of pitying understanding on some faces. Oh woman problems. It made a heavy feeling settle in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t want that but… but this wasn’t just about her, she could be putting others in danger, the Hawks, Griffith’s dream– The heavy feeling turned to lead.

She could imagine that too. There wouldn’t be any admonishing, no stern words, no words at all, simply a look of disappointment or worse understanding. A glancing touch on her shoulder even as he turned to face the one standing next to him- 

Casca almost laughed as reality mirrored the image in her mind. She was glad she stopped herself, the sound would have been slightly broken.

Guts had ridden up to Griffith’s side.

Even from the distance, she could sense the smile on Griffith’s face. His tensed shoulders had lowered slightly, body turning- almost leaning into the other man’s presence.

She looked down. Closed her eyes for a long moment.

When she opened them again, she was closer than she had been, they must have slowed down.

Guts was saying something, tapping on his helmet and then pointing at Griffith’s.

Griffith turned his head to answer him and Casca could see the smile now. She felt the corner of her own mouth lift slightly upward in painful mimicry.

She wished she were closer, wished she had stepped up earlier. She remembered wishing the same thing seven years ago when she had held him in the river, feeling the last tremble slowly leave his body as he forced himself to be still.

It still hurt, just in a different way. Maybe the way the pain from an open wound differs from the phantom pain of a lost limb you’ve started to learn to live without.

Griffith twisted his hair upward as he put on the helmet with the other hand, tucking in the mass of curls. A single lock escaped, continuing its lonely dance in the wind. He didn’t seem to notice.

It inexplicably aggravated her.

She spurred her horse forward, knowing in the back of her mind that once she reached her destination, she would have nothing to say. It was really such a silly thing. All of it. 

Silly Girl! Where will you run to?

She shook her head, steeling herself. Guts reached out and tugged on the stray lock, not too gently. Griffith jerked slightly, batted his hand away and tucked the hair back inside.

Casca stopped. 

She steered her horse sharply to the left, riding to the front of her party.

“FORMATIONS!”

There was a patter of hooves as the men fell back into line. The shout had caused Griffith and Guts to turn back to look at her. She looked resolutely ahead, not meeting their gaze.

Her battle was raging on.

@bthump I don’t think this is exactly what you were looking for but hey.

holy shit i love this

@madchen said:
GOD please no healing
dick of the man she loves bullshit miura please dont make this story any
more misogynistic and vaguely lesbophobic than it already is

@tfan2013 said:
yeah it pretty obv she
is not really gonna jump back on guts dick cus that’s unrealistic (but
most berserk fans think they gonna make love as soon as she gets back
and i’m like no..just no
@yesgabsstuff

especially after this chapter i can’t think of a worse writing choice than healing dick but like… that doesn’t necessarily rule it out i guess lmao 😦

still though i feel like the odds are pretty low at least. keeping hope alive til winter

@yesgabsstuff said: I totally
agree that this is a child’s idea and I guess that’s what makes it so
upsetting to me? That its emotionally stupid and an intellectual
failure? Idk man.

tbh the idea that griffith stumbled into his dream and worked backwards to justify it feels a little absurdist to me, which i love, especially in conjunction with Berserk’s take on fate/meaning, ie, humans literally create it out of a desperate need and it fucks them over.

but yeah there is something inherently upsetting in the idea that everything that went down in berserk is ultimately because of something stupid and childish. it’s the kind of upsetting i dig though haha.

tho now that I think about it wrt his higher aspirations (equality, nobles suck, etc) we know he had them before the kid died because of how he saved Casca, so I do think those were always part of his motivation for becoming king, but… I tend to think they’re a little childish at heart too, for Griffith. More born out of obstinacy, with actual philosophy and reasoning applied later.

bthump:

too many dicks

additional thought:

if miura is gonna choose to make an aspect of casca’s trauma a very clearly depicted dick phobia, g*tsca better be dead in the water

like i’m not saying that someone with rape trauma is automatically going to be dick-avoidant, but miura sure is visually showing me that casca is

yesgabsstuff:

bthump:

Well I had the urge to talk about Griffith’s motivation to be king again. tbh I’ve said a lot of this stuff in various scattered posts and conversations, but I want to have it all laid out nicely in one place. And I’m using a meme question as a springboard.

Does your character have a story goal and a believable motivation to achieve that goal?

For
human Griffith I actually find his motivation for wanting to become
king one of the most interesting aspects of his story. One thing I really dig about
the way fate works in Berserk is that despite it sitting there and
pulling strings to manipulate everything, characterization and character
decisions never feel arbitrary to me.

To be honest it can kind of seem
like Griffith has no real motivation for wanting to be king and it’s
just an urge placed there by fate, but I think everything the reader
needs to know is right here:

image

It’s
not really that he has no original motivation, it’s that his original
motivation is fucking stupid lol. It started out as an extremely
childish “I want that” desire, possibly with a side of contrariness since he was a commoner, and because he was a child, and tenacious,
he decided to go out and get it.

Then, before he had a chance to
re-evaluate his baby dream and whether it’s a worthwhile goal, he started getting people killed for it and his resulting
(repressed) guilt lead to him doubling down on his dream, hard.

At least since
the dead kid and Gennon I’d say his motivation has been 90% “I have to
achieve this to justify the fact that a bunch of people are dead because
of it.“

image
image

This
is more of an extrapolation, but imo Griffith’s mind is working
backwards to how you’d expect – it’s not that he wants to achieve the
dream because it’s some great, all-important and shining thing in his
mind. The dream becomes great, all-important and shining because
building it up in his head is partly how he justifies all the awful
guilt-inducing shit he does to achieve it. All these people died for his
dream, therefore his dream must be special and important and worth dying for.

He says he wants to know his place in the grand scheme of things, whether he’s one of the “keys” that move the world. And to me, in conjunction with what we know of his motivation (childish ambition, followed by mounting guilt spurring him onwards), that sounds like a desperate desire to know whether all those deaths were worth it. If his destiny is to become king, then he’s justified and doesn’t need to feel guilty and can continue suppressing his guilt. If it isn’t, then it was all a waste and he has to actually deal with his inner “reality” of being a child on top of a pointless mountain of bodies.

It’s rly lucky for him that it turns out it is his destiny lmao.

I generally agree with this; particularly on the point of how he makes decisions. I see him as someone who makes an emotional decision and then his considerable intellect steps in to cover his ass so that the choice isn’t as destructive as it could be. I think however, that while his initial desire is born out of a childish desire for something out of his reach, that he earnestly believed that he could make things better as a king due to his common birth.

He has this very real emotional need it would seem to be special and to be the person to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” in contrast to uninspired others. This could be covering up any number of emotional wounds inside him, and I think that this is as close as we get to Griffith articulating the same emotional emptiness that Guts does.

All of that pathology aside I think his natural distaste for injustice and his intelligence took these emotional needs and made them into a desire to be the philosopher King; better than a blood noble could ever be because he could actually understand people’s struggle and he would deserve to be there. I think his problem comes is that he’s using the master’s tools to take down the master’s house. He must use violence, he must look at himself as superior to others, he must cut off his human feelings in order to achieve this goal. It is literally divine right rather than what his idea of “merit” that has put him on that throne next to Charlotte. It’s terribly sad.

I totally agree! tbh I avoided going into this bc i wanted to keep the focus on guilt and childishness, but, especially in NeoGriffith’s chapters, there’s a lot of stuff about overturning the “natural order” of inequality and oppression and war etc.

Ooh plus Casca’s line while she’s telling Guts her story about how when the nobleman attacked her she thought it was just the natural order of things, until Griffith threw her a sword and rearranged her world.

And then the Eclipse is basically a mirror of that flashback scene with Femto taking the nobleman’s place and finishing what he started, so it’s a visceral, grotesque and symbolic depiction of becoming a manifestation of that “order” in his attempt to overturn it. Including the fact that he actually is chosen by God lol like he accused the nobleman of believing.

Ofc now that you’ve mentioned the master’s house quote I kinda want to wonder if it’s all eventually going to come crashing down because Griffith became what he was trying to overturn. idk.

idk the point is I solidly agree with your addition and i want it on my blog lol.

ALSO


I think that this is as close as we get to Griffith articulating the same emotional emptiness that Guts does. 

wonderful point, nothing to add but I love this.

Well I had the urge to talk about Griffith’s motivation to be king again. tbh I’ve said a lot of this stuff in various scattered posts and conversations, but I want to have it all laid out nicely in one place. And I’m using a meme question as a springboard.

Does your character have a story goal and a believable motivation to achieve that goal?

For
human Griffith I actually find his motivation for wanting to become
king one of the most interesting aspects of his story. One thing I really dig about
the way fate works in Berserk is that despite it sitting there and
pulling strings to manipulate everything, characterization and character
decisions never feel arbitrary to me.

To be honest it can kind of seem
like Griffith has no real motivation for wanting to be king and it’s
just an urge placed there by fate, but I think everything the reader
needs to know is right here:

image

It’s
not really that he has no original motivation, it’s that his original
motivation is fucking stupid lol. It started out as an extremely
childish “I want that” desire, possibly with a side of contrariness since he was a commoner, and because he was a child, and tenacious,
he decided to go out and get it.

Then, before he had a chance to
re-evaluate his baby dream and whether it’s a worthwhile goal, he started getting people killed for it and his resulting
(repressed) guilt lead to him doubling down on his dream, hard.

At least since
the dead kid and Gennon I’d say his motivation has been 90% “I have to
achieve this to justify the fact that a bunch of people are dead because
of it.“

image
image

This
is more of an extrapolation, but imo Griffith’s mind is working
backwards to how you’d expect – it’s not that he wants to achieve the
dream because it’s some great, all-important and shining thing in his
mind. The dream becomes great, all-important and shining because
building it up in his head is partly how he justifies all the awful
guilt-inducing shit he does to achieve it. All these people died for his
dream, therefore his dream must be special and important and worth dying for.

He says he wants to know his place in the grand scheme of things, whether he’s one of the “keys” that move the world. And to me, in conjunction with what we know of his motivation (childish ambition, followed by mounting guilt spurring him onwards), that sounds like a desperate desire to know whether all those deaths were worth it. If his destiny is to become king, then he’s justified and doesn’t need to feel guilty and can continue suppressing his guilt. If it isn’t, then it was all a waste and he has to actually deal with his inner “reality” of being a child on top of a pointless mountain of bodies.

It’s rly lucky for him that it turns out it is his destiny lmao.

freewilllife:

bthump:

The fact that Guts decides to pursue an equal
relationship with Griffith after hearing the speech is what singles his
relationship with Griffith out as unique. Everyone else in Griffith’s life is content to
either look up at or down on him.

Even the Princess, his future wife,
just marvels at the speech while literally looking up at him, rather than showing any desire to find a
dream herself and become “worthy” of calling herself his equal.
Because Guts is the only one who wants to genuinely connect with
Griffith – who wants to stand beside him by achieving something of his own – Guts is Griffith’s only “true” relationship, the only
relationship he has based on real affection and genuine desire for the
person, and not just what he represents, either as a symbol of hope and achievement (for the Hawks), a symbol of security and happiness (for Charlotte) or a symbol of corruption and loss of power (for those plotting against him).

Which just makes it so wonderfully ironic that Guts is the only one who made Griffith forget his dream.

Yes. Though we have to add that Guts perceives Griffith still as someone “different from a normal human being”.

His perplexed reaction that Griffith has weaknesses, when he comes back…or that he could be the reason for that.

I think it is more like…Guts  wasn t aware that he didn t had to climb the mountain, but maybe just had to look at Griffith differently.

tbh i spent a good chunk of my golden age re-read pondering how guts and casca relate to griffith in different, opposing ways, and never coming to any proper conclusions

but i find it interesting that guts does see griffith as different, and godlike, and perfect (at least after overhearing the speech) while casca sees him as a vulnerable, real person with insecurities and issues of his own, and keeps trying to tell guts that.

and yet casca is the one who showers him with worship while guts treats him with irreverence, disobeying his orders, insisting they go and hang out with him after casca muses over how “distant” he is after a battle, questioning him, letting loose and acting playful around him, deliberately placing himself to protect griffith at the battle of doldrey, “he’s the only person i can’t stand looking down on me,” etc.

i have a vague idea that the discrepency between how guts thinks of him vs how guts treats him is at least partially bc guts planned to uproot his life and abandon his friends to get on griffith’s level, which lbr is a bad decision to make if you don’t believe griffith is on a level somewhere way above you, so he subconsciously ignores and deflects all indications that griffith is just a flawed person in his singleminded focus on his own “dream.”

which is similar to what i perceive griffith does wrt his own dream. like, if the castle is what shines in griffith’s mind, then griffith is what shines in guts’ mind. and i feel like griffith also has to subconsciously convince himself that his dream is worth pursuing despite the negative consequences. ~parallels

and omg yes @ your last sentence. i rly think the golden age was all about false perceptions, yk?