ok so in my defense i hadn’t read this full scene in ages, i only referred back to the saved pages i had which didn’t include the context, which is why i didn’t realize until now exactly why the beast of darkness phrased it as “true light” here
but now i have read the full scene again and i have the context and i’m fucking dying lol
griffith is the true light in comparison to the warm lights that are his current companions, like, fuck me that’s good.
that’s so so good
like yeah i already knew light often refers to companionship and love in berserk but to have that explicitly laid out right before griffith is called guts’ “true light” is so fucking satisfying i can’t handle it.
like there you go, griffith is still the bar by which all other relationships are not just measured but found wanting. as much as guts talks about “letting go” of his obsession the longing is always there.
and like “the true light that burns us,” is literally saying that guts still loves griffith, still “longs for” griffith, and that hurts now, and that’s his motivation for wanting to lash out and kill him. it’s a bit of a repeat of what the bod told him after the hill of swords, but more direct.
lmao i may be a little overenthusiastic about this but reading the full scene literally just made me go from fear that guts is genuinely just going to move on and that will be his happy ending, to feeling like there’s no way we’re not getting a cathartic emotional climax that involves guts finally forced to confront his conflicting feelings.
LIKE!! if it was just “true light” I’d be willing to entertain the idea that it’s just revenge, framed as a dream, in opposition to his companions, the way Griffith’s castle was also a source of light to him. but “true light that burns us”? That’s Guts’ lingering, now intensely painful feelings. That’s love. That’s something he’s gonna have to deal with at some point.
wow take this with a grain of salt but total reworked au where its a broken griffith and guts travelling an incresingly bleak awful world together post eclipse bc it was casca who ended up triggering the crimson behelit somehow and her suffereing is validated and amplified and tears everything apart
i’ve literally been thinking about this au for months now lol, it’s like my ultimate self indulgent concept. i’m never gonna actually properly write it all out but man it’s good stuff.
asia i was JUST linking a friend of mine ur meta on this and i just wanted to say that ur so fucking good at this
omg ty this is so nice! and ty for sharing it ❤
just for a brief moment i’m gonna be as self-indulgent as possible, fuck plausibility
chapter 328 ends with guts’ ominous contemplations in the following order:
brooding over the possibility of losing his humanity to the armour, reflecting on skull knight’s warning
what will she do if she does get her sanity back???, reflecting on skull knight’s warning
when this journey’s over i’ll *thinks about griffith on the hill*
so how about casca goes monster and consequently guts goes full berserker, goes to find griffith – is possibly like, aimed at griffith by danann and skull knight as a weapon – and then instead of the power of friendship bringing his consciousness back it’s
learning griffith failed his own test on the hill of swords
“The instant I saw him… I forgot my urge to kill” x1000
maybe schierke finds out and yells it into his subconscious, so you get some of the power of friendship angle too
This is like, the fucking plan. Skull Knight and Danann are conspiring to have the behelit open in Elfhelm, by Danann’s spirit tree, summoning the Godhand, so Skull Knight can do his thing, quite probably aided by Elfhelm tree magic, and entomb them in the vortex. Probably alongside Guts and Casca and everyone else watching the show.
Also something genuinely bad and dark has to happen because of this, like say, Casca becoming an apostle, because Guts needs to feel the full weight of betrayal by SK and succumb to the armour. And this will be a heavy painful betrayal because it’s gonna remind Guts of Griffith, because of the way Skull Knight has rescued him in the past and earned his trust. (tbh more on this whenever I get off my ass and write a long meta post about Guts and what his relationship to Griffith means to him.)
But also the power of friendship is going to prevent Guts from going full Beast of Darkness forever the way it’s been suggested that Skull Knight lost his humanity to the armour. Just, god willing, hopefully not before g*tsca is laid to rest.
So. Still think Guts and Casca are pawns, still think the tree and Dragon’s Road thing are relevant, definitely think the behelit’s relevant, and I’m actually pretty confident that the Godhand are coming to Elfhelm and Danann and Skull Knight have this trap waiting for them.
Whether Danann and Skull Knight’s plan is successful is another story entirely. Whether defeating and trapping the Godhand away in the vortex is even a good idea is also another story entirely. And idk whether NeoGriff figures into this at all lol.
Oh also I know the behelit only opens when the laws of causality like, make it happen, but, a) Skull Knight referred to that in that ominous scene where Flora suggests he might be using Guts and it’s not stopping him from maneuvering things into place it’s just giving him a handy excuse b) fate works thru people’s encounters and choices and Danann and Skull Knight and Guts etc are people c) they’re high level magic users a step outside causality maybe they can tell when the behelit’s likely to open and are facilitating that for their own ends or smthn.
Also I know Miura has said he writes on the fly and doesn’t have a plan, but he must have some idea of where things are headed because he has actively been throwing foreshadowing down for 150 chapters. Maybe the details are vague in his mind but I’m quite sure he knows the broadstrokes of the story. Like after all he wrote the entire golden age knowing exactly where it would end up, give or take a few details. I’m willing to bet he’s been planning some Skull Knight shit since Flora’s appearance.
Anyway this is my theory now. I may go about it backwards, ie having a destination I absolutely want and then finding evidence for it, but yk what i want to live in hope until the next chapter so screw it.
Ok so to summarize, my theory is that Casca’s despair is going to open the behelit, this was deliberately arranged by Danann and Skull Knight so they can trap the Godhand in the vortex, and the fall-out of this is going to be Guts going full Berserker for some period of time, most likely (though I am a little less confident about this aspect than the rest of it) because Casca opts for monsterism.
So anyway I was re-reading chapter 328, another one of those chapters that basically exists to be crammed full of foreshadowing, and this jumped out at me
Hey Schierke, quick question for you:
what the hell does deciphering “fates that transcend time” have to do with the elf king showing up as a child to stalk your rpg group?
Nothing. That’s just completely unrelated infodumping that happens to fully support my theory that Danann and Skull Knight are conspiring to have Casca open the behelit.
Up there I wrote
“they’re high level magic users a step outside causality maybe they can
tell when the behelit’s likely to open and are facilitating that for
their own ends or smthn” and basically I’m just giving myself a pat on the back because that’s absolutely correct, as Schierke tells us here.
Incidentally I’m also now contemplating the possibility that Schierke is right and moon kid is Danann in disguise, but I have nothing conclusive to say about that, other than it would be another extra hilarious example of Danann playing up g*tsca for the sake of betraying them and tearing them apart for her own ends.
bad way for guts to figure out he really wants griffith to suck him off
i dont think its out
of the park to say griffith would assume his feminine looks make it
easier for guts to pretend hes a woman or something equally as crude,
like its self depreciating in the internalized homophobia way enough to
meet his standards. or just like any other slew of possibilities that
use his beauty as an excuse for gayness
hhhgh tine to be sad
about griffith online lads. i want a situation where guts freaks out and
says refuses and theres a whole hysterical conversation ending in guts
saying hell stay. cue introspective few day gap and griffith visits guts
in his quarters/tent or whatever at night and they have jilted awkward
conversation until griffith says “… would you /want/ me to suck you
off?” and guts doesnt stop him when he slowly kneels down between his
open legs etc etc
i want an excuse to write/talk about
porn with some angst and mixed feelings ig lmao. throw some alcohol in
there idgaf
oh man i’d read tf out of this
there’s like something weirdly compelling about a scenario where they upgrade their relationship to sexual but like, in a terrible way with both of them hating themselves, but then eventually gets better
idk like their lives revolve around each other, i could also see an ill advised sexual encounter not so much driving them apart bc nothing really can drive them apart – even when guts left it was all for the sake of his relationship w/ griffith, and even after the eclipse they’re both still obsessed with each other – as just being kind of toxic and miserable until they manage to work their issues out.
idk if what you’re describing would be that angsty, but either way the situation u describe, where guts decides to stay after griffith probably like reveals how vulnerable he is and how emotionally dependant on guts he is – more clearly than just falling into the snow in a daze, in a way guts can’t deny – and then they’re still drawn back to each other a few days later despite guts refusing the first sexual encounter, idk it yk just feels like a good illustration of the pull between them.
you're the only one 