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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.
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PLEASE NOTE: I am one of those people who believes the “real” Griffith died in The Eclipse and Neo-Griffith is an entirely different variety of asshole entity. Click here to read the ATF meme for Griffith.
Thanks for tagging me, this was an interesting read and a pretty cool meme!
I pretty much agree with most of this. NeoGriff, compared to human Griffith, comes across as really flat and boring.
I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing though… I get the sense that all the dull serenity is going to build up to an interesting emotional revelation, thanks to his bthumping unfrozen heart getting such a signficant moment early on before being completely ignored by the narrative, and only hinted at through implication afterwards. Idk there’s a lot of ambiguity around him that I think, or strongly hope at least lol, is leading to something interesting.
And if it does then in hindsight I think the annoying serenity would work really well as a contrast. But as it is at the moment, I’m also pretty bored by it.
white-hawk said: mangabrog.wordpress.com… read the comments, the translator was asked about it, since they couldn’t translate the whole intetview
ty! lol i’ve read that before i just never thought to read the comments.
divinesong said: I doubt anyone will be shedding any tears for those sorts of criminals though.
this is true and tbf they are explicitly given a moment before Guts kills them when they’re like “cool now we can blackmail Griffith ho ho ho we’re so awful” so Guts and Griffith look less dickish for casually betraying and killing them. But that always kind of annoyed me lol. They could’ve been Robin Hoodish criminals with hearts of gold and they still would’ve been killed there, so functionally it doesn’t make any difference. Making them extra off-putting conniving assholes just feels like a cheap way of keeping the audience on Guts’ side. It’s a minor complaint, but still.
white-hawk said:
{{ I think the
interviewer didn’t ask about romantic undertones, but UST, to which
Miura has said something along the lines how men can have passionate
feelings for each other without them being like this. But, c’mon,
honestly. I think he doesn’t believe this himself. }}
I want to find this interview now. I mean to be fair PR-wise I don’t think Miura would admit it was gay even if he was 100% purposeful in laying the overtones on, so a public denial doesn’t really mean much to me and my interpretation lol.
Scrolling thru my blog past this art and suddenly hit by a huge amount of love for Casca. If I could rescue one character from their shitty writing (in anything, not just Berserk) it would be her.
The more I think about it the more appealing the thought of her waking up and absolutely wrecking everything is. Like I know this doesn’t make sense because the same dude is still the writer, but there’s something viscerally satisfying to imagining her getting her mind back, gaining some impressive amount of power (Behelit, elf powerup, whatever), and metaphorically flipping the table and completely changing the trajectory of the plot as a pseudo-meta response to being locked away as a non-entity for 2 decades, and playing support for two dudes before that. I want her to cause something to happen that’s as epic and active and hardcore as her being a childlike waif for so long is passive and shitty and awful.
Idk I guess I’m mad about it so I want to see Casca angry – effectively angry.
Like all this thematic stuff about inner beasts becoming literal beasts ft Griffith and Guts, and the character I most want to see lose themselves to rage is Casca. Even if it’s depicted as a negative I would be fistpumping.
Those years of being locked away in your own head need to count for something. I’m a little sick of Casca’s romantic ‘feminisation’ arc which took place simultaneously to the Gatsca mini arc.
It’s almost as if, by virtue of realising her feminity and ‘gentleness’ Casca suddenly started getting more positive attention and began to be written as more likeable.
Like as long as she was the head strong commander who called Guts out on his shit and kept everyone in line she was the ‘salty bitch’ and suddenly she’s trembling and blushing and holding onto Guts’ cape and she’s everyone’s ‘waifu’ .
I don’t have a problem with the softness. I have a problem with how this is treated differently in the narrative than how she originally was portrayed. And one is positive and the other was rather unflattering.
omg strong agree
it was like as soon as casca became a love interest she started fretting about whether her muscles weren’t womanly, judeau talks about how she had to give up being a woman (lol jesus) as a mercinary, when she takes the healing powder to guts he also fondly thinks about how she’s “showing a soft side,” and then during the sex scene you have her getting self conscious of her scars and guts having to tell her he thinks she’s womanly enough.
like it’s run of the mill sexist stuff but still so annoying and unnecessary. i wouldn’t even dislike casca being self conscious when sex enters the picture because like, fine, she’s inexperienced, she’s different than most women in that she’s a strong mercinary, i could understand that affecting her self-image, but combined with the running commentary from judeau, plus like how you said, the way she seems to get consistently weaker and clingier and blushier, just doesn’t sit well with me.
(which isn’t to say she doesn’t still have some great moments after getting love interested up, but it’s like she has to be damseled extra hard to compensate.)
plus just in general what I love most about her seems to be more her informed attributes and a few moments of awesomeness (punching a wounded man in the stomach because she doesn’t like him, terrifying corkus, wholly commanding the respect and adoration of the Hawks, being called the 3rd best fighter in the Band who can take on ten strong men at once even if we never get to see that in action, taking command and leading the Hawks when Midland turns on them and at the start of the Eclipse, etc) so when she returns as a full character I’d just, really love to see that badass side in full epic action finally, without being weakened by her period or a drug or exhaustion, or up against an extra powerful enemy Guts needs to save her from, etc etc.
I literally reblogged these hoping for the people seeing it giving me a couple of lines of their personal opinions on these scenes. Hi lovely followers, *wink wink*
griffith is a stupid baby and i love him
also he shouldn’t’ve become a mercinary because he’s not great at dealing with having killed a bunch of people, but c’est la vie
(also more seriously: love how guts contrasts with griffith because guts doesn’t give a shit about killing people and reassures griff that it’s nbd. and the godhand uses his image and attitude to convince griff to kill more people. like i just love that the protag is the one who reassures the (future) antag that murder is fine.)
tbh I have to go with the tragedy of Guts and Griffith’s relationship throughout the Golden Age. I genuinely love so much about Berserk, after the Golden Age too, and the other characters, but honestly that arc is the best, most personally appealing tragedy I’ve ever read. Like ‘dude who’s got his life planned out perfectly and then falls in love with another dude and fucks it all up’ is my absolute favourite plot already, but then add Griffith’s guilt issues, his total divorce from his own emotions, the misunderstanding that’s built up so well on a strong foundation of character, Guts’ own complex issues, the way it’s a tragedy built on miscommunication that actually works and doesn’t feel cheap, etc.
But most of all I love how well Guts and Griffith suit and complement each other before everything goes to hell. Reading the Golden Age is like watching 2 dudes walking together down a road full of turns and forks, and there’s a hundred possible paths they could take that lead to happy destinations, but they keep choosing the turns that lead to the pit full of tigers. And you know exactly why they choose the paths they choose, it makes perfect sense based on what you know about them, which just makes the inevitable tragic end that much better. There is nothing I find more entertaining in fiction than watching characters make mistakes and understanding perfectly why they’re making those mistakes.
Like “I sacrifice” is an emotional climax so satisfying that it makes me want a cigarette.
least favourite:
the rampant misogyny tbh, among all the other shit that offends me. But if I had to pick one more specific thing as my least favourite, it would be the way Casca is sexually assaulted multiple times because Guts and Griffith want to fuck each other but can’t bc the writer won’t let them so they both assault her instead while staring directly at/thinking about how they want to be closer to the other. There are other aspects of Berserk that I’d say are more offensive, but this particular one wins because it’s so integral to the characters, the relationships between them, and the plot in general that you can’t just go ‘welp that was awful’ and then pretend it didn’t happen.
The second thing is kind of my main beef with the series too. And in a way it sometimes ruins my favorite parts as well. Because while contemplating certain parts of Guts and Griffith’s dynamic you can’t ignore the fact that their primary expression of that dynamic is through holding Casca between them as an incidental proxy and that leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
There’s some serious internalised homophobia in the narrative to be completely honest and it comes out in the scariest ways. I wonder if over the years the author has become aware of it or if it is still subconscious.
Because some of the wording used is very suggestive but the narrative always shies away from spelling it out at the last moment.
If there wasn’t a level of this restraint, we may have had a kiss or two during Golden Age, who knows? The atmosphere certainly built up to it.
But mostly particularly I am talking about the way the hound talks about Griffith. It’s very very suggestive.
Speaking of this, in that old Kentaro Miura interview, I think there’s a point where the interviewer asks if there’s romantic undertones to their relationship or something along those lines (and the translator notes that Kentaro Miura looks slightly uncomfortable and uncertain here) and Miura replies- I don’t think so, it’s not necessarily like that between boys. The intensity is normal.
I mean sure. Yes. Completely normal level of intensity that.
lmfao @ the interviewer specifically noting that miura looks uncomfortable while answering bc like
dude… dude. how do you accidentally write something this gay. sure it’s possible but on some level you have to know what you’ve done, right?
maybe it’s like the old hollywood rule where if you want 2 friends to have engaging chemistry together you gotta play them like they’re in love. miura like, hmmm i need to really sell guts and griffith as a strong friendship. better add 50 romantic tropes to make sure it’s believable.
Because in that case I had a really wacked out head cannons. So in the human world/mixed world, Griffith and Charlotte’s wedding is due in 2 weeks. Guts’ party has already been here a few days. What if there’s a huge difference in timelines and by the time they reach back Midland with or without Casca (depending on how that goes down) it’s been several years since the wedding and Griffith’s officially king.
And anyway Guts breaks into Falconia and stumbles across Griffith-, or what he thinks is Griffith at first glance but couldn’t possibly be because it is a child. And the child is instantly taken with him. And Guts realises it must be Griffith and Charlotte’s.
And it’s the sweetest little thing.
Because Charlotte’s brought up a complete cutie okay. But also painfully reminds him of every happy memory he has with Griffith.
And there’s moonlight boy too. And anyway like I’ve mentioned in all my ending theories.
Griffith dies because of his Guts related irrationality. Guts keeps the kids.
Theresia makes an appearance and kills the Kid.
Fuck ze prophecy.
Charlotte rules sadly ever after.
Finally started watching berserk (1997) last night
CUUUTE!
@gatsca said: Granted it’s been a
bit since I read the series of events leading up to this scene in
whole, but I have read it a number of times + just reread the chapter
directly before and I personally never actually read Griffith being ISO
comfort in this scene. Like, this is coming from my #BPD ass self, but I
always took it as Griffith being keenly aware that the dynamic between
Guts and Casca had changed fundamentally + seeking to “fix” that.
They had something
entirely their own going on all of the sudden and that change was, to
Griffith, absolutely agonizing. The move on Casca is a bit of a power
play + sexual in nature (“Casca wanted someone to be close to her, she’s
obviously upset now, I’ll give her what I never did before to snap her
back to reality”, reality being one where griff is central to guts n
casc’s relationship as their leader) b/c what better way to go about
recapturing Casca’s attention
I always read it as a
desperate grasp at restoring what once was – Casca fixated on Griffith
without time for other guys, so that said Guys could have their own
thing going lmao…… not griff directly seeking comfort, but seeking to
realign things, which would then bring him relief. sorry this is so
jumbled lmfao i hope it comes across how I mean!!
This makes total sense and tbh seems so plausible and in-character that I feel silly for not thinking of it lol. A desperate irrational doomed-to-failure attempt to reassert the status quo between them, I’m v down with this explanation. ty for the input!
question for anyone who has an idea:
what do you think is going on here?
is it
a)
Griffith notices Casca fumbling with his bandages due to her shaking
hands and tries to comfort her. It’s super awkward because he can barely
move, Casca interprets it as sexual before realizing what he’s doing, holding him, and
then having a breakdown because he’s so helpless. Casca’s opening thoughts on how Griffith used to be able to comfort her with just a hand on her shoulder may suggest this, as well as Griffith overhearing her say “I just wanted someone to be near me.”
b) Griffith tries to come on to
her to regain some sense of power and control by utilizing the crush he knows she had on him, fails horribly because he can barely move, it’s awkward. Casca reflecting on how weak he is and that now it’s her turn to comfort him, pointing out his lack of power, may suggest this.
c) Griffith needs comfort himself, it’s
super awkward because he can barely move, Casca interprets it as sexual
before realizing and holding him. The second to last page up there where Casca tries to shove him away before noticing he’s shaking and then wraps an arm around him may suggest this.
d) Griffith tries to come on to her when he notices she’s starting to shake and getting increasingly awkwardly chipper to try to entice her to stay with him, offering something he thinks she wants. His vision of a future later, where he’s dressed up but immobile and Casca seems to have a sexual relationship with him (as
she leans in to kiss him)
may suggest this, as well as Griffith overhearing Casca say “I just wanted someone to be near me.”
e) Griffith tries to come on to her jealously/to break up her relationship with Guts. The fact that he just saw her embracing Guts may suggest this.
f) some other option I haven’t thought of.
also this is just before the eclipse. so yk, that’s also relevant. for (b), eg, the eclipse serves as a strong contrast on the axis of power, and possibly also a statement on griffith feeling emasculated and seizing that power back when he goes evil.
but like (a), eg, serves as a strong contrast on the axis of morality, as well as ominous foreshadowing due to casca misinterpreting it as an advance and pushing him away at first.
i literally can’t settle on one option lol, the first four at least all make sense to me. like i lean towards (b) when i remember that miura is a dude, but i lean towards (c.) when i’m looking at that specific page bc it seems so clear that griffith needs comforting badly, and i lean towards (a) when i read the whole chapter because of casca’s fumbling and reflections on his formerly comforting hands and i lean towards (d) when i think about griffith’s role as a character – and how that also works as an interesting contrast to the eclipse. yk griffith offering himself to casca in helpless desperation vs raping her as an evil demigod, which is the same contrast i see between human griffith being vulnerable to others’ desires and neogriffith being invulnerable to them, being the one who takes rather than the one who is taken from.
idk man, maybe the reason it’s ambiguous is bc all of them work. schrodinger’s come on.
Scrolling thru my blog past this art and suddenly hit by a huge amount of love for Casca. If I could rescue one character from their shitty writing (in anything, not just Berserk) it would be her.
The more I think about it the more appealing the thought of her waking up and absolutely wrecking everything is. Like I know this doesn’t make sense because the same dude is still the writer, but there’s something viscerally satisfying to imagining her getting her mind back, gaining some impressive amount of power (Behelit, elf powerup, whatever), and metaphorically flipping the table and completely changing the trajectory of the plot as a pseudo-meta response to being locked away as a non-entity for 2 decades, and playing support for two dudes before that. I want her to cause something to happen that’s as epic and active and hardcore as her being a childlike waif for so long is passive and shitty and awful.
Idk I guess I’m mad about it so I want to see Casca angry – effectively angry.
Like all this thematic stuff about inner beasts becoming literal beasts ft Griffith and Guts, and the character I most want to see lose themselves to rage is Casca. Even if it’s depicted as a negative I would be fistpumping.
Yk aside from Cowboy Bebop and Death Note (and Berserk ofc) most of the other anime and manga I’ve gotten into has been really really recent (like, since Yuri On Ice lol) so I’m not much of a connoiseur and my knowledge of what’s out there is v limited. So here, have p much everything lol.
I’m partway thru and rly enjoying: Tiger and Bunny, Utena, Michiko & Hatchin, and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (manga)
Seen or read and enjoyed: Devilman (and a few of the spinoffs/sequels, but couldn’t get thru Devilman Lady for obvious reasons), Yuri on Ice, Samurai Flamenco, Petshop of Horrors, Doukyuusei, Gunjou
p much i’ve been looking for stuff that’s gay or gayish, about adults, and with art that doesn’t put me off (ie not overly cutesy i guess), and some of those points are negotiable.
@mastermistressofdesire said: That would be amazing . I feel like mine
would be of a similar composition there’s just so much to say about our
bird man.
Well I did it, and turns out the balance is a bit more reasonable after all. Though ofc Griffith still wins.
2. i like that they’re paired with Griffith-haired griffins
i was thinking of making a page linking the meta i’ve written for easy access and organizing it by category and so far it’s like, 90% griffith, 2 entries for guts, and a few miscellaneous
tbh I have to go with the tragedy of Guts and Griffith’s relationship throughout the Golden Age. I genuinely love so much about Berserk, after the Golden Age too, and the other characters, but honestly that arc is the best, most personally appealing tragedy I’ve ever read. Like ‘dude who’s got his life planned out perfectly and then falls in love with another dude and fucks it all up’ is my absolute favourite plot already, but then add Griffith’s guilt issues, his total divorce from his own emotions, the misunderstanding that’s built up so well on a strong foundation of character, Guts’ own complex issues, the way it’s a tragedy built on miscommunication that actually works and doesn’t feel cheap, etc.
But most of all I love how well Guts and Griffith suit and complement each other before everything goes to hell. Reading the Golden Age is like watching 2 dudes walking together down a road full of turns and forks, and there’s a hundred possible paths they could take that lead to happy destinations, but they keep choosing the turns that lead to the pit full of tigers. And you know exactly why they choose the paths they choose, it makes perfect sense based on what you know about them, which just makes the inevitable tragic end that much better. There is nothing I find more entertaining in fiction than watching characters make mistakes and understanding perfectly why they’re making those mistakes.
Like “I sacrifice” is an emotional climax so satisfying that it makes me want a cigarette.
least favourite:
the rampant misogyny tbh, among all the other shit that offends me. But if I had to pick one more specific thing as my least favourite, it would be the way Casca is sexually assaulted multiple times because Guts and Griffith want to fuck each other but can’t bc the writer won’t let them so they both assault her instead while staring directly at/thinking about how they want to be closer to the other. There are other aspects of Berserk that I’d say are more offensive, but this particular one wins because it’s so integral to the characters, the relationships between them, and the plot in general that you can’t just go ‘welp that was awful’ and then pretend it didn’t happen.
I think you have mentioned a few times how you would like to see people exploring NeoGriffith’s mind in a similar manner to Casca’s. And I would like to add, maybe this is the reason why he is said to dread a witch more than a whole army (or something similar).
The first thing he does after being reborn is to make sure he doesn’t feel any emotions any longer – especially towards Guts. And even if he believes the reason why his heart was bthumping was the demon kid, we already saw him hesitating to harm Guts during the Eclipse – even though he was bereft of any humanity, a physical body and his heart was frozen. Or at least this is how I saw the scene.
Because this is certainty to me:
While this is hesitation:
This scene was even better in the movies.
Anyway, what I was trying to get at – while trying to tell himself he is free, he must have had a reason – doubt – to visit Guts and prove it, which only proved the opposite.
And I think, what if the reason he seems to dread witches is, that he is aware he has a weakness, after all – somewhere deep inside, spot, a place, a feeling or a memory, which once brought back to life might mean his downfall – and only magical beings like them can enter his subconscious and trigger such a change.
And another meta about this so called “Age of Darkness“, which is related to this post – what if actually making him weak again is what would cause it – similar to the Eclipse. Because we all know how he handles, when being hurt and desperate.
I want this so much.
Gr8 point about how he was specifically going after Flora – and you know, the fact that Flora got killed but her protege got away has got to lead to Schierke doing something that Griffith feared Flora would do, right?
And we’ve seen Schierke do a lot of psychic exploration, with Guts and now Casca. So I’m down with this theory.
Plus like, the concept of someone getting inside NeoGriffith’s head and altering him again – unlocking latent emotions properly, or whatever – is so good. Dude’s been through weird magic processes that alter his mind twice now, so third time’s a charm.
Also interesting thought about the Age of Darkness – I’ve been assuming it’s the whole high fantasy thing, but we really don’t know for sure, do we?
Semi-relatedly, I’ve had a thought before that while NeoGriff is the messiah/saviour of humanity/dude who grants humanity’s subconscious desires and has the power to save or damn everyone according to the lost chapter, etc, does that hold completely true if the theory that he’s incomplete (because 2 of his sacrifices escaped) is true?
Like is there a scenario where he goes against what humanity wants deep down because his remaining emotions get the better of him once again? Idk this feels like it would fit well with your (rly cool tbh) idea of a weakened/hurt NeoGriff lashing out irrationally and starting an actual Age of Darkness, so I thought I’d throw it in.
Thanks for tagging me in this!
Also interesting thought about the Age of Darkness – I’ve been assuming
it’s the whole high fantasy thing, but we really don’t know for sure, do
we?
I think it is made to seem this way – the Age of Darkness being the new world he created, because even if Falconia is a paradise, the rest of the world isn’t.
But he is also said (like you mentioned) to fulfil humanity’s deepest desires and this new fantasy world is hinted to be what they have always longed for (hinted or straight away said to be like this, I really need to reread the manga.) And to me it seems (in case the Lost Chapter is still relevant), that if he was given the choice to either save or damn humanity, he headed towards “save“, which is why Falconia is the way it is – an utopia.
But if he was to be weakened or hurt again, he might as well change his mind and wreck everything or something equally sinister. If he can unleash people’s deepest desires, I think unleashing their deepest fears/nightmares should be possible too. And that he is incomplete might play the most important role in his change of heart. Hell, that he is incomplete might even be a part of the plan for all we know.
We know the Godhand is manipulative – we saw the games they played with him during the Eclipse, so maybe his reincarnation is an incomplete messiah, who believes to have himself fully in control, while actually not, might be actually planned. Maybe not even by them, but by the IoE itself.
What I mean to say is, while Skully and the others like to believe they exist outside of the Law of causality, this belief might as well be a part of the ultimate plan – so things like the crack in the world can happen, so Guts believes he is determining his fate, while actually moving the way he is supposed to with a Behelit in his freaking purse.
I mean those are only theories, but if the Age of Darkness is such a huge “event”, they it might as well be unavoidable. If someone can influence everything so much, that Griffith is born the way he is supposed to be, they can as well make sure Femto is reborn incomplete, if that’s needed.
man fate in berserk gives me a headache. But this is another point that I’ve been thinking about actually – the fact that Femto is totally beholden to fate, not outside of it or controlling it or even necessarily entirely aware of his role in it.
Because it was totally fate’s plan (or however tf you’d phrase it) that Casca and Guts survive the eclipse. SK even points it out – Rickert just happens to show up after they escape with a bag of magical healing elf dust and Guts just happens to know the dude who lives in the elf cave where he dumps Casca and it just so happens that 2 surviving sacrifices were needed to trigger the mock eclipse that brought Griffith back into the mortal realm etc.
But Femto’s not in on it lol. That panel up there proves it. If Miura wanted to show us that Femto chose to let them survive so the demon fetus could crawl out of Casca and go on its merry way before getting eaten by an egg and turning into Griffith or whatever the fuck, then we would’ve seen a close-up of Casca from Femto’s point of view before he lowered his hand. (Also he wouldn’t’ve raised his hand in the first place if he wanted them to escape, but w/e.) But Miura wanted to show us that Griffith’s Guts-related irrationality is acting up, so ofc we get a close-up of Guts.
So yeah basically I think you’re right about how fate/the IoE/whatever has plans and Femto/NeoGriff is another pawn.
Guts has always been so hungry for love and somehow, I think this has always been his dream from the start – to have someone want HIM, not necessarily his fighting skill whatsoever, but someone to appreciate him as a person, to trust him, to care for him, to watch his back, to just give a damn. I think Guts too had to make himself strong (just like Griffith), so he could survive in a world, where nobody gave horse shit for a young unfortunate boy. He sought love and attention in Gambino, he so much longed for the affection of his so called father, but he only ever got the opposite. Once Gambino died, Guts sort of lost himself, he belonged nowhere, so he would fight his way through the lands of the world and live day for day.
But then Griffith came along – a boy who knew nothing of Guts, yet was ready to fight to make him his. And even if Guts was irritated by it (and in his ears, none of what Griffith said probably made sense), I think in the end, we wanted to feel as if he actually belonged somewhere – and Griffith became this ‘somewhere’. Hell, it took one gesture to render Guts speechless and make him ‘obey’ (because I can’t believe he would have stayed, only cuz he lost a duel if he hated the idea of it)- it was a chance to finally get, what he wanted the most in the world – someone, who actually cared for him.
And after the Zodd encounter, we see him watch the moon, remember Griffith saying he has put himself in harm’s way for his sake and he is pondering if this is the answer he has been looking for all along. And the question is stated few chapters back, when we see the little Guts lie on the ground, after having killed Gambino – where is he going if the world has nothing good to offer? But maybe Griffith’s care and affection is this ‘good’ he longs for.
So he eventually leaves – because he wants to EARN his place by Griffith’s side – he isn’t simply aiming for a home, for warmth, he wants more – just like Griffith. Guts’s dream is, in a way, to stand by Griffith’s side and to be worthy of the care and affection Griffith has given him and not be eventually ‘left behind’ by the hawk, who always aims so high. Because by Griffith’s side is where he wants to be the most.
Another thing I would like to add is, that I don’t think Guts was unaware of Griffith’s feelings, I think in a way, he always knew. Which is I think he is rather shown to feel guilty, whenever Casca confronts him about it, than actually deny it. I think he felt guilty to be a special person to Griffith, even though he didn’t do anything to deserve it, while Casca made this her dream and fought for it. And when she told him about her life and how she came to fight for Griffith, the realisation hit even harder. He didn’t feel as if he would lose Griffith’s affection if he stayed, I think he believed he had already lost it and had to gain it back by becoming his equal.
This is amazing meta and actually makes perfect sense.
The point you bring up about guilt seems so fitting. It would explain why when Guts was leaving, he was trying so hard to convince himself that Griffith would recover from it, that it was nothing more than a stumbling stone, and imo the heightened emphasis on that really made it seem like he was convincing himself rather addressing his internal monologue to Griffith.
Also the reason why Guts refuses to look at Griffith after defeating him. (and okay from Griffith’s point of view that must have hurt like hell) I think it is because he already knew what kind of expression Griffith might be making. He just didn’t want to look at the hurt and trauma he at least subconsciously knew must be there because he knew that if he did turn around and see the slightest bit of genuine vulnerability in Griffith’s face he’d never be able to leave.
And leaving was necessary for his bigger goal of having Griffith ” look at him”.
In my opinion Guts at this point wasn’t just looking for affection anymore. As unworthy as he might have believed himself to be of it at that point, Guts knew that his friends cared about him, he knew Griffith cared too. He acknowledges as much when he says “Atleast this confirms that to you I’m still worth spilling blood for.”
I think Guts was looking for admiration here. Infact very specifically admiration from Griffith.His words along the lines of “I’m tired of always looking up at him….I want him to look at me too.” The words ‘look up at me’ are not said but at least to me they seemed heavily implied.
Somehow I got the vibe that Guts desired to have some sort of power over Griffith here. “Make him look’ ‘compelled to’ these are power words. Guts isn’t just trying to improve his chances here, he’s trying to initiate a shift in power dynamics.
Griffith effectively said that he wants to have someone who can stand up to him or put him down and Guts fully intends to be that guy. There’s actually also a shift in Guts character from this point.
It’s an arc we don’t pay as much attention to but the one year after Guts leaves, his behavior has shifted. It seems more traditionally ‘masculine’ . He seems more confident, nearly complacent , powerful, calm almost playful.
…Almost a little like the Griffith we were introduced to in the beginning of Golden Age.
And this is fairly interesting to me.
iirc the official translation goes for more of an equals feeling with Guts saying that he’s sick of looking up at Griffith from within his dream and he wants to stand beside him by achieving something of his own.
But I still get the same vibe you do tbh despite that. And I think it’s because Berserk’s take on equality, at least between Guts and Griff, isn’t that neither has power over the other, but that they both have an equal amount of power over the other. Because for them, emotional attachment is power. (”When did someone I was supposed to have in hand… instead gain such a strong hold over me?” eg).
I totally think Guts wants Griffith to love him/admire him/etc and that comes with an implicit understanding that it gives Guts power over Griffith, the same power Griffith already has over him.
Like look at this page right after Guts leaves.
“I got this idea in my head from hearing Griffith’s words. If I hadn’t… so… can I say I’ve set out by my own will?”
I rly get the sense that Guts’ immense sense of admiration for Griffith is something he desperately wants returned because it makes him feel insignificant. Contrast this to the post-Zodd scene where he pledges his sword to Griffith after the reveal that Griffith saved his life “for his sake” – there Guts is holding his sword up, looking up at the sky, open body language, determined expression and monologue, meeting Griffith’s imaginary gaze, powerful. Here Guts is curled in on himself, no sword, second-guessing himself, looking down and away from imaginary Griffith, and Griffith dwarfs him.
He needs to return to the point in time where he believed (knew) Griffith had strong feelings for him and it made him feel powerful and limitless.
Add the way he keeps himself detached from the Band when he gets back and still plans to leave right up until they rescue Griffith, and I feel like his aloofness is both a) totally very similar to Griffith, parallels which delightfully continue for the rest of the manga, and b) defensive because he wants to prove that he’s not dependent on Griffith’s feelings towards him. Well, defensive is a strong word. But I do think he’s keeping himself detached on purpose because he’s cautious against Griffith’s “hold” over him, his own (he believes unrequited) emotional attachment to Griffith, yk?
And one step further, I feel like Griffith post-torture could’ve been kind of a wake up call that this line of thinking is a little silly. That Griffith was just a person, and Guts was just a person, and they wanted an emotional connection, and all these thoughts of Griffith looking down on Guts and Guts wanting to stand by his side as an equal and believing that he wasn’t there yet etc just got in the way.
The fact is that Guts went out to become Griffith’s equal and when he got back, by any metric these two dudes employ to measure power and equality, Griffith was no longer even on the playing field. And Guts was just realizing that he threw everything away for a dream that ended up not even mattering in the end… when everything went to hell, Griffith leveled up by becoming a demi god, and they ended up back at square one playing the sequel game, mortal enemy edition.
you're the only one 