i mean i guess to be fair the scene w/ casca and griffith in the wagon confuses everyone, and if you add that to the (absolutely nightmarish) dream sequence i could… maybe kinda sorta see how some people come away not knowing what else to think if they’re the kind of person who defaults to man+woman=attraction lol.
But I mean come on even if you can’t make sense of some of it it’s so clearly about Griffith’s helplessness and powerlessness. Like, the nightmare of living with Casca while Guts is off doing his thing is his worst case scenario and he tries to kill himself right after! How do you read that and think, ah yes clearly Casca is the person Griffith wants.
I mean I’d say a solid potential throughline from Griffith and Casca in the wagon to that nightmare is Griffith grasping at straws for some kind of life, since he’s dependant now and has no choice but to rely on someone else to take care of him (which Wyald helpfully made absolutely clear a chapter earlier), and then realizing that he’d rather kill himself than live that life if Guts is absent from it.
I mean there are romantic feelings there, but they sure aren’t directed at Casca.
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Huh, I’ve never rly seen that opinion tbh, maybe we hang out in different parts of fandom. Well, I’ve seen a few people expressing worry that Casca might forgive Griffith, but honestly if Miura writes that I will like, personally fly across the ocean to salt his garden. And I definitely don’t think it’s likely.
As for Guts… hm I’m just going to go all out and explain my take on Guts’ reaction to NGriff bc you gave me an opening lol.
I don’t think forgiveness for the Eclipse rape is on the table. But I definitely think his feelings towards NeoGriffith are very complex and he’s absolutely emotionally conflicted towards him, not just surprised by his appearance.
But yeah I don’t think his emotional conflict stems from wanting to forgive Griffith. What he wants is for Griffith to be or contain the version of himself that like, doesn’t require forgiving, because the only thing human Griffith did that hurt Guts was sacrifice the Band – and Guts never seemed to really blame him for that anyway.
Like when we’re talking about a dude who has undergone two (2) magical transformations and basically exists as three versions of himself, each with apparently very different internal emotional lives, it’s hard not to be conflicted about him.
Guts differentiates between human Griffith and Femto, and Guts does not hate human Griffith. We never ever not once see Guts direct an iota of rage towards Griffith as a human. Not even during the Eclipse, after he sacrificed everyone.
Very consistently, every time Guts thinks about human Griffith it’s with regret, sadness, a sense of loss. He regretfully thinks about Griffith kneeling in the snow like a million times, and never expresses anger about how Griffith sacrificed everyone and turned into an evil demon a year later. He thinks about Griffith among the dead Hawks during his run through memory lane, right after the Eclipse, and cries. Griffith is the most prominent shining light Schierke sees in his subconscious. Griffith is a part of the “campfire from those days” that still burns in his chest, and prevents him from being fully consumed by hate. etc etc.
He thinks about demonic-looking Femto when he’s feeling rage and hate, never human Griffith.
And I’m going to suggest that there are three main, related reasons that Guts feels emotional conflict in regards to NeoGriffith.
One is that it’s another change. Guts doesn’t know what exactly to expect from this third version of Griffith, who looks human again rather than demonic. He knows that he’s not “his” Griffith, because Skull Knight told him the fifth Godhand would incarnate, because he flew away from the Tower of Conviction on Zodd, and because the brand bleeds around him, but there’s a reason Guts rather desperately searches for a hint that NeoGriffith has regrets or feels remorse. Deep down he’s hoping that he’s closer to human Griffith than to Femto, basically, or that more of human Griffith is in there and reachable, or however you want to phrase it.
He lets Rickert hold him back from attacking until NeoGriffith directly says he’s free from his emotions, and then doesn’t actually try to strike until NGriff reiterates that sentiment with “I’ll not betray my dream. That is all.”
If NeoGriffith had feelings, if he felt regret, if he was no longer a malevolent demon, then Femto could be considered an anomaly that would carry sole blame for the Eclipse rape. Like, when we’re talking magical transformations that affect your mind as well as your body, the concept of blame is kind of nebulous. If NeoGriffith basically had all of human Griffith’s emotions and was horrified by his actions as Femto, and wanted to regain his relationship with Guts, then tbqh Guts would probably be able to go “oh well it wasn’t really you anyway.”
Yk, kinda like a Berserk fan who doesn’t consider Guts to be responsible for “the beast of darkness” assaulting Casca, but with the handy addition of a literal transformation. You can argue fictional moral philosophy wrt the morality of magically transforming into a monster and back again lol, but I definitely think Guts would seize the opportunity to write Femto off.
So, to split hairs, it’s less about potentially forgiving him, and more about potentially not holding him responsible. But yk, unfortunately for Guts NGriff turns out to be an apparently emotionless asshole who still won’t give him the time of day and says straight up that he regrets nothing, so that’s not an option for him.
The second reason is that, well, he looks like the dude that Guts felt such ridiculously intense feelings for that he rearranged his entire life and abandoned the people he considered his family just to feel like he was worthy of being his friend.
It’s a whole lot easier to feel rage against an aspect of someone you’re p much in love with when they look like a bona fide monster, rather than exactly like the person you love. You’ll even notice that, except in moments that emphasize the potential Guts has of following in his footsteps, Griffith’s face tends to be obscured or completely nonexistent when Guts thinks about Femto.
And the third reason is that he was already very emotionally conflicted over Femto. Femto raping Casca did not make him retroactively hate human Griffith, but his love for the man Griffith once was absolutely complicates his feelings with regards to Femto.
We see this in the way becoming a rage-fueled monster is framed as a temptation because he still wants to be his friend and equal, as per Griffith’s Promrose speech.
It’s also there in how Guts blatantly wants his attention and regard after everything.
He “threw away” Griffith’s love, so if he can’t have that then he wants Femto’s hate. He wants to be seen and acknowledged, even as a threat, so when Femto says that Guts doesn’t even register to him as an enemy, it pisses him off so much it gives him the strength to climb a flight of stairs with like half his bones broken and potentially-fatal pain in his brand, and swing his giant sword at him.
And we see it when he still thinks of him as a shining light in the darkness, despite everything.
Basically, on some emotional, irrational level, he still wants this:
Like, to reiterate, imo Guts’ emotional conflict isn’t about whether he can forgive Femto/NeoGriffith. It’s about the fact that Femto and NeoGriffith are both aspects of a dude that Guts had incredibly intense feelings for. They are distinct from Griffith but also inseparable from him, and that’s really, really hard to reconcile emotionally.
Hence, eg, a bunch of this maudlin shit:
Idk basically no I don’t think Guts is going to forgive NeoGriffith, but I do think that he is still very conflicted about him. He wants to want to kill him lol, but just as much, he wants to be seen by him, he wants his attention, he wants his love, he wants to be his equal, and he also wants to completely move on and just forget all his painfully fucked up and conflicting feelings towards him.
And I guess time will tell whether he achieves any of that.
Yes… Amongst the thousands of comrades… and the tens of thousands of enemies… there was only one man… you were the only one… who ever made me forget my dream
WHOHOOOOO! got my nsfw Farnesca commission done by the lovely @curantodraws please support them if you can! they are a extremely talented F/F artist and tbh that needs more love!
i only care about griffiths mother tbh lol but alovelyburn has a good fic on a03 that details parts of Griffiths childhood/mother that i like as personal canon
i need to read the rest of her fic tbh, i think i’ve only read the painted stage
oh damn the official translation went with “extraordinary obsession” over “uncommon tenacity” when locus is telling rickert about how apostles come into existence.
uncommon tenacity was better.
like i can’t believe every single apostle is obsessed with something specific
but the thing they have in common is a willingness to sacrifice something/one incredibly important to them in exchange for a continued/better existence
the first time we see a behelit open was the count not wanting to die, in a pretty strong parallel to guts’ refusal to die imho
(idk mb i should stop clinging to black swordsman stuff)
oh damn the official translation went with “extraordinary obsession” over “uncommon tenacity” when locus is telling rickert about how apostles come into existence.
@bthump lol, dont worry back then being the illegitament child makes you an outsider. Very much like Jon Snow from Game Of Thrones, since he was a bastard he had no rights or titles to any. The same for King Roberts 100 bastards who were all poor. But yeah Idk I kinda like the idea of his birth being a ‘scandalous’ thing but that’s just me. Him being 100% commoner is equally as interesting. I just wish we got a little bit more details about his past in canon
yeah true. that’s kind of the handy thing about Griffith’s past being such a blank slate at least, you can kind of go with whatever you want. it’d be nice to know more in canon but it’s nice to have the space to make stuff up too lol.
What if his father was an aristocrat? Since his mother could’ve been a prostitute its very likely that some of her customers would be men of noble status.
oh yeah I mean it’s totally possible, there’s no details of canon that contradict it, but just personally I prefer thinking of Griffith as 100% a commoner bc I feel like, part of the point of his narrative is that he’s a total outsider breaking into this private club (royalty/nobility) through sheer force of will for the sake of fucking it up and changing the rules, and I love that, and if secretly it’s actually his birthright it kind of ruins it for me, just on a thematic level.
i mean that’s kind of a silly distinction i guess because yk, griffith was chosen by god and all lol, destiny is definitely a major part of the narrative of berserk, but just taking the class themes on their own i still prefer griffith’s narrative as an upstarter rather than as like, a lost scion, kinda thing.
(also like, obviously as a headcanon and especially as just a random fact that no one, not even griffith, even knows, it doesn’t actually make a single iota of an actual difference, except to me lol, bc this is just how I like… do media. basically i’m just being weird and nitpicky, not saying this is a universal thing or something anyone w/ this headcanon or using it for fic or w/e should even bother to take my thoughts on the themes of griffith’s narrative into consideration lol.
plus i mean that’s not getting into the way his ascention to royalty isn’t portrayed as wholly positive in the canon, to say the least lmfao, so theoretically you could say griffith being julius’ secret kid or smthn is actually symbolic of him becoming the thing he wants to overturn, but like… idc. team falconia. i don’t think that’s actually the point of griffith’s narrative despite what a giant mess it is at times.)
I think Griffith’s story works best imo if he’s completely common, so I’d say his parents were nobody important. Can’t rly judge nobility vs commoners by looks anyway, inbreeding notwithstanding lol.
I guess technically the in story reason he’s so beautiful is because he needed to be to fulfill his destiny – he incarnates as humanity’s “desired” after all and has to look the part, plus yk it’s a big factor in almost all of the shit that fucked him up to the point of making the sacrifice, from Gennon and the torturer obsessing over him to being seen more as a symbol than a person to being a huge asset in his ability to rise up the ladder of nobility – so god made sure his genetics were exactly right for looks as well as personality or w/e.
I generally hc that both his parents died when he was young, or maybe he just never knew his father, and I tend to just go with the idea that his mother was a prostitute bc it’s a headcanon I’ve seen other ppl have that makes sense to me/could inform some of his attitude towards sex and commodified bodies etc. But either way, I’d say he was orphaned at a young age.
Idk about any other headcanons about Griffith’s childhood tbh. My mind kind of goes blank when I’m asked stuff like this lol, if you had a specific question I could probably come up with something, but when it comes to just any headcanons in general, idk lol.
Oh wait one I have, which I’m v fond of, is that Griffith had no particular affinity for hawks or birds or whatever. Someone else suggested the name Band of the Hawk and he went with it bc it sounded good and gave the impression of rising up. Everything hawk related that came after, like Falconia, the whole armour look, the Hawk of Light, etc, is because of the Band of the Hawk, rather than the Band being just one of several hawk-related things in Griffith’s life.
That’s kind of childhood related at least.
these are like 2 of the most character-defining griffith moments to me and they happen in the same chapter in what feels like a deliberate + v stark contrast
oh i agree with all of this griffith is a ball of anxiety about it imho. in my modern au they actually make up after a messy bad break up (the consequences of which are not even near the scale of dire as canon’s lmao) so i think griffith would always have that seed of doubt in the back of his head even when he tries his best to tell guts at least a little bit of what hes thinking now.
i think like guts would try and propose
first and have like the flowers and wine and candles and everything and
then griffith says “yes” before guts even has his first word out and
starts cry-laughing which obviously confuses guts until griffith pulls
the plain thick silver band out if his pocket that hes been carrying
around since like a few weeks after they got back together.
lol ngl i’m so into a modern au equivalent (tho yeah obviously not nearly as life/world destroying) of their canon breakup, i’d love to see your take on it someday
yesss i love this, it’s so sweet and perfect. and so fitting for guts to be the one to go for it first but then hey griffith has the ring on him at all times so he can reciprocate immediately. ugh i love them.
like i think the reason i love griffith so much is that he’s made up entirely of huge contrasts lol, because his whole thing is denying his weaknesses and pretending to be perfect so hard that he basically convinces himself, except in occasional moments where all his insecurity and guilt and self loathing comes seeping out.
“It’s not that he’s strong. Griffitih had to make himself strong.” Like this line is in reference to this
and it’s such a perfect summarization of Griffith’s character.
So idk like when it comes to pondering Griffith’s characterization in AUs and stuff, or even not in AUs, just in general, I basically think that like 90% of what we see is essentially a facade… but complicated by the fact that it’s a facade Griffith himself buys into most of the time.
So idk it’s a weird line because you can’t say he isn’t, eg, confident, because he walks the walk as well as talking the talk – this is a dude who defeated an army of 30,000 with 5000, who went from street kid to nearly becoming the next king of Midland through sheer force of will – but it’s like, manufactured confidence that can be shattered, yk? That occasionally cracks and reveals the exact opposite underneath.
I could see either of them proposing tbh. I could see Guts saving up to buy something way too expensive and trying to plan the perfect grand gesture that Griffith would love. I mean this a dude who went on a knight errant quest to win Griffith’s favour basically, lol.
And I could see Griffith like, hmmmm, buying a ring and carrying it around for six months waiting for the perfect opportunity? I feel like he’d be pro-active enough to buy the ring and then second guess himself every time he thinks about proposing bc it has to be perfect to guarantee that Guts says yes, even tho nothing can possibly guarantee it.
And then finally he’d break and just pull it out one night while they’re sitting around watching a movie and eating leftovers.
Idk like, I can see Griffith being confident in their relationship, especially if unlike canon Guts has never abandoned him in a modern au lol, but idk I think there’d always be this seed of self-doubt and insecurity. like his confidence and total self-assurance is his way of covering that up, but something as high-stakes and outside of his control as proposing to the dude he loves would bring it out.
you're the only one 