As the paradox developing from applying the 1st Law of Threesomes would cause a tear in space and time, creating a blackhole?
lmao
yk I could tilt my head and see Serpico/Irvine (tho there might be too much apathy there, neither would call the other and they’d just bone on occasion after running into each other), Serpico/Grunbeld (Serpico seems kind of into fairly honourable knight types and I bet Serpico looks kind of like Edward, Grunebeld’s Berserk-esque ex. Doubt they have similar personalities tho), and Serpico/Locus (that knight archetype, tho idk there might be too much weird loyalty to others there lol).
Not Serpico/Raksas or Serpico/Zodd tho.
I think the odds are better that the world will end tho. I mean it’s Berserk, if anything’s going to destroy that world it’s going to be a time paradox caused by a weird convoluted sexual scenario.
Also if one threesome somehow walked in on another, that would mean there are doubles involved. Which I’m pretty sure would just end with Griffith/Guts/Griffith/Guts and Serpico and the apostles watching the show.
he likes his slim hips and wide shoulders and thinks secretly to himself that griffith looks like one of those fancy greek young athlete statues he’s seen around the castle or whatever and is a little too intensely interested in said statues for reasons he doesn’t want to think about
also im obviously in
the fun club of guts is really into griffiths dick. no real clue why but
it’s so real he’s just really into it, wants to get his hand on it.
probably also greek athlete statue visuals here.
i wanna say griffith’s masculine
feminine beauty too, like he has a feminine face but he’s still a man ..
there’s still a bit of that masculine bone structure there, with
beautiful blue eyes and plump lips and soft skin and guts could stare at
him until he went blind
extremely legit contributions to this topic tbh and ia w/ both of you
omg i e talked about this before but do you have any specifics in mind as far as guts favorite masculine griff qualities are ��
lol yeah some of that was def inspired by conversations w/ you
shoulder and back muscles, i wanna say. what even are other typically “masculine” physical qualities griff has lol? maybe his narrow hips too, yk the upside down triangle body shape in general. the muscle definition in general. his dick. Like from the get go Guts would be into grinding against him and jerking him off tbh.
idk what else, what do you think?
by popular demand (ie 2 ppl asked for more lol), I’m doing the rest of the griff+guts+apostle threesomes.
Griffith/Guts/Grunbeld
The three Gs. Grunbeld and Guts might have some respect for each other, especially if they’ve interacted at all since fighting on Flora’s lawn. Grunbeld seems a little Guts-like himself based on my knowledge of his book, and I think they’d get along in a kind of low-key, nodding at each other as they pass kind of way. So they’d be like, fine, interaction-wise.
I feel like the interesting part is actually from Grunbeld’s point of view lol, bc he might see some parallels between Griffith and Guts and him and his ex bf from the novel, because again, based on my limited second hand knowledge, it sounds like Miura basically remixed griffguts for Grunbeld’s backstory lol. Unforch I can’t get specific until I read it, but still.
The fact that he’s like, stupidly huge even in human form might make things a little awkward but I could see Guts getting some visceral satisfaction out of watching a dude twice his size manhandling Griffith and making him look small in comparison. Or maybe some visceral possessiveness, but I’m trying not to be too repetitive lol. either way yk, there might be some potential for shallowly visual power dynamic-y stuff.
Griffith/Guts/Irvine
This combo would be the most chill. I can’t rly imagine Griffith and Guts being together and deciding to invite someone over to have a threesome with to spice up their sex life, but if they did, Irvine would be who they’d call. Irvine does not give a fuck, he’s here, he’s happy to have some sex with the dude he’s instinctively attracted to and afterwards he’d be happy to leave and do his own thing, he’s not gonna get emotionally invested or weird about it. He’d be distantly polite to Guts and Guts would respond in kind. Even if his hackles rose at first I don’t think he’d maintain too much outrage over Irvine’s chill presence. They’d get down to business fairly utilitarian-ly, have some p good sex, then Irvine would peace out and leave Guts and Griff to get emotionally wrapped up in each other.
Griffith/Guts/Raksas
This is obviously the go-to combo for getting dark and kinda fucked up + sadistic.
Guts would get beast of darkness-y in Raksas’ presence. What would happen is that Raksas would touch Griffith – with some violence, like a cut from a claw – and Guts would like, throw him across the room in a weird mix of practically instinctive protectiveness but also possessiveness in an “I’m the only one who can hurt him” kind of way. And Raksas would retreat a little but watch eagerly, and maybe if Guts lost control and stopped being all that aware of his surroundings, he’d eventually join in again.
Also I’m gonna say being hurt reminds NGriff of being human. This may or may not be a good thing, but it’s got potential for good emotional content either way, especially when it’s Guts doing it. Like that whole torture fallout thing I was going on about.
suddenly had the realization that we didn’t really get to see much of Griffith post-torture. Like yeah, he was there, we saw him, we got a great monologue about how in love with Guts he is, but what I mean is that like, all his trauma and all the pre-eclipse emotional devastation revolves around his permanent injuries rather than, yk like, ptsd.
We aren’t shown at all how the fact of being tortured constantly for a year might have traumatized him. Like everyone’s fucked up by the fact that he’s no longer physically capable of leading the Hawks, but like, even if he was, would he have been emotionally capable?
I mean a year of torture is huge, for any other character that would be the defining event of a narrative, whether he could physically recover or not. But Miura just kind of bypasses it entirely to focus on his physical dependency and his feelings for Guts. And I mean I love those feelings, I’m not complaining about the focus on that, but the lack of trauma wrt a year of experiencing extreme pain is kind of conspicuous.
Idk it feels like the torture was just kind of Miura’s convenient lead-in to the Eclipse and way to destroy Griffith’s dream, and it feels a little unfortunately shallow overall. Like he could’ve even just had a reference or two to how being tortured for a year might have affected him – like say Ubik using it to help convince him to make the sacrifice: doesn’t being an incorporeal being who can’t feel pain sound p tempting right now?
Also relatedly, consider this:
NeoGriffith isn’t just Golden Age Griffith transformed into a demon transformed into a mysterious wildcard. NeoGriffith is Golden Age Griffith + a year of torture transformed into a demon transformed into a wildcard. Like his “base” isn’t the Griffith we came to know and love over however many chapters of the Golden Age we got before Guts left, his base is, theoretically, an incredibly traumatized version of that Griffith we know.
Idk I just suddenly found myself wishing for more emotional/psychological exploration of the effects of that year of torture, and it made me wonder about NeoGriffith’s memories of being human. I feel like there’s potential there. I feel like there’s some thematic follow-through, along the lines of him being “beyond the reach of man” and Ganeshka’s empty threats, but some hints of emotional follow through would be v interesting.
honestly this is actually like a best of both words kind of thing because the canon switching focus to ptsd would have diminished some of the focus on his feelings for Guts, and I absolutely don’t want that lol, because that is seriously just, everything. “now he’s the sole sustenance keeping me alive” like holy fuck I wouldn’t trade a thing for that.
like keeping the narrative on his feelings for Guts vs the dream by focusing on how Griffith only thinks about Guts after losing both was the right choice for the story even if it might not be the most realistic possible reaction lol.
but it’s definitely something I kind of want to keep in mind when it comes to like, fic/headcanons/just thinking about characterization etc, bc the more realistic aspects of being tortured for a year are still worth exploring imo.
Anon who sent me the Griffith-hate ask, I accidentally deleted your second message while trying to delete a different one lol, sorry about that. Once again I hope you see this and sorry about the lack of notif again.
But basically what I wanted to say is that yeah sure that “warming a man is a woman’s duty” bit is misogynist (and I think you mentioned the Promrose Hall speech too? as another example the person you’re hatereading gave?), but yk, so is Judeau’s “she’s our woman and we want her back” statement while rescuing Casca, so is 90% of everything Guts says to her ever, and so is 90% of the narrative voice honestly.
Idk man this is another instance where I’d say if they’re going to judge other fans for liking something w/ offensive elements, they should probably just put down Berserk and find something else to enjoy.
not to mention how that particular statement coming from griffith smells suspiciously of like heteronormativity and intense repression moreso than i think it says anything about how griffith sees women
how griffith sees women is clear from the fact that he didn’t rescue casca, he gave her a sword to rescue herself, and then let her join his band of mercenaries. imo anyway
ia.
yk i was going to say something like, “in fairness I wouldn’t use it as an argument against ppl saying that line makes Griffith misogynist bc that’s giving Miura way too much credit” but lol I’m actually torn because it’s so easy to ascribe that line to repression, especially because, like you say, it contradicts what we’re later shown and told about what Griffith thinks women are capable of, and it’s at odds with his general existence in the GA narrative as the progressive dude who scares the conservatives lol.
So either it’s a deliberate contrast to show that Griffith has a particular blind spot when it comes to physical intimacy between people, which also fits in nicely with the fact that he has trauma related to same sex desire and Casca lays all that out at the same time she tells Guts that she admires Griffith because he threw her a sword and gave her a blanket and generally treated her with respect, and expresses her jealousy of Guts because of Griffith’s feelings for him. Like, basically Casca’s flashback ties everything together in a neat little repression bow.
OR it’s a mildly ooc moment because Miura needed some kind of plot contrivance to give Casca a reason to hate Guts and potentially to get her naked in bed with him for the sake of future sex, if he was thinking along those lines this early.
I still wouldn’t use it to try to shut someone down in an argument I guess lol, but I mean, I would say “okay fair enough but here’s how I take that line and why” and consider that a fairly strong interpretation.
ok true, it is still a shitty line and unfortunately like most berserk characters griffith has a sort of misogynist track record but yeah, i don’t get the feeling that those are his core beliefs as much as they are something he has internalised
and as much of a shitty misogynist miura continually proves himself to be, though, i still don’t think he’s a complete idiot and, in my eyes at least, this particular line was kiiind of criticised with casca’s raw reaction to it. like, i think miura does sympathise with his female characters, at least as much as he can as a man who’s been writing his finest piece of work for many decades now almost entirely with his dick
Huh now I’m actually curious if that speech is gender neutral in Japanese, because honestly the focus on men in that speech did seem like… pretty typical of Berserk in general lol. Like Miura really elevates same-gender relationships over opposite-sex relationships which are almost always romantic by default, and generally treated as lesser, or as stepping stones to that most important relationship (eg nina leaving with a dude so she can one day feel worthy of being luca’s friend) and the speech fits that pattern perfectly, so I always assumed it was deliberately gendered – not so much as a reflection on Griffith (tho again in the context of being repressed but desiring that all-important relationship with a man specifically… I’m still okay with it) but bc of Miura’s own biases.
But it’d be nice if it was actually gender neutral bc the focus on men men men, especially that first “but for a man he must first come upon one other precious thing” or w/e the line was, was pretty annoying.
sorry to bring bad news but that convo was anything but gender neutral. like, griffith started it by mentioning that charlotte asked him why /men/ love spilling blood so much so the men vs women divide was there from start to finish
actually the official translation was completely consistent with the original in terms of levels of gendering:
(男, otoko, officially translated as “man/men”)
(者, mono, officially translated as “one”)
(人, hito, officially translated as “people” and then 男, otoko, “man/men” again)
and then griffith ends the conversation like “sorry that must have been a boring topic for a lady (女性, josei)”
so like yeah japanese is a mostly gender neutral language in that its verbs and adjectives are not inflected by gender etc. but that doesn’t mean that all japanese conversations are completely gender neutral. far from it actually
Thank you! Yeah like I said, the way this convo is gendered fits the story to me and imo still reflects more on Miura than Griffith, but like, it doesn’t not fit Griffith imo. It still serves my interpretation of him so I’m cool w/ this.
Also yeah very good point about the abbreviation, ty for mentioning it. JP is definitely preferable if you’re going to shorten the word “japanese,” even if it’s just intended as shorthand and not a slur.
Sure! I mean, when it comes to headcanons none of these are hard and fast, I’m pretty changeable depending on circumstances and can roll with a lot of stuff in fic, eg. But here’s some ideas I tend to default to. Mild warning for one hc involving rape fantasies btw.
If Guts hadn’t overheard the Promrose Hall speech, they would’ve gotten together in Tombstone of Flame Part 2. Griffith being vulnerable and worried about Guts’ opinion of him as filthy and/or cruel = Guts kissing him. Dreams got in the way and ruined it.
Guts and Griffith would be extremely touchy feely in a relationship. Super cuddly, it would take constant effort to keep their hands off each other in public. They practically crave physical contact with each other, they’re magnetized.
Griffith is very into Guts’ physical strength and loves being manhandled by him. He’d be super into Guts holding him and fucking him against a wall, eg.
Guts has got a serious Thing for Griffith’s hair. He has a tendency to bury his face in it if he’s holding Griffith from behind, or smell it if he happens to be leaning in, or tuck it behind his ear for him on a windy day, etc.
They both have strong feelings about being protected by the other. Griffith saving Guts from Zodd, Guts planting himself between the bulk of Gennon’s army and Griffith (or later on, Guts killing the torturer and rampaging thru Midland), that kind of thing. Being able to trust the other to defend him is huge for them, and fulfills an emotional need neither really knew existed until it was filled.
Guts’ favourite part of having sex with Griffith would be making him lose his control over himself, knowing he’s the only one who can do that to Griffith, and the only one Griffith will allow to see him lose control.
Griffith has occasional rape/ravishment/kidnapping fantasies in which Guts is an enemy who defeats him in a fight and basically keeps him as a sex slave. The elements that appeal to him on a deep emotional level that he’s not entirely aware of is having his dream being forcibly taken away, having no power to attain it anymore and therefore no more responsibility to the dead. Like, being forced to live a simple, goal-less life where all that matters is Guts, without the self-betrayal of choosing it. He doesn’t think about these b8 fantasies on any deeper level than cliche sex scenario tho lol.
Relatedly, deep deep down I think Griffith hates his dream. It’s a trap of guilt and responsibility and power, and Guts was a potential escape from it/could still be at least emotionally in an AU where they’re together. Like Eggman’s speech about torches illuminating your disgustingly cruel self and hating those torches even while you can’t bring yourself to let go of them. Egg was talking about relationships, but in Griffith’s case it describes his relationship to his dream to a tee regardless of whatever Miura’s intent might’ve been. Basically Guts is a healthier alternative to the dream emotionally. Sorry I’m kinda digressing into meta here lmao. Back to headcanons.
Guts might initially frame his attraction to Griffith as an attraction to his androgyny, and he’d have to more slowly come to terms with accepting that he likes Griffith’s masculinity too.
He also similarly might hold Griffith separate from men in general because he thinks of him as just on another level. In a way this is handy bc it means Guts might find it easier to accept the idea of sex with Griffith without relating it to his csa trauma, at least not immediately drawing the association, bc Griffith is just in a special category of his own to him. Yk, it’s not ~sex with a man~, it’s sex with Griffith. But it’s also kind of pedestalizing him, and it’s something Guts will eventually have to overcome. Seeing Griffith as vulnerable and human would help that along.
Some of their best sex would actually be quick rough encounters, a while into their relationship when they’re pretty comfortable, when Guts allows himself to lose control a bit and express his desire through sort of base and needy fucking. No foreplay or build up, just a sense of desperate need between them. Appeals to both Griffith wanting Guts to want him and Guts wanting Griffith’s focus on him.
Guts has probably had some wet dreams in which sparring/wrestling with Griffith turns into grinding lol.
post-Eclipse, Guts absolutely has semi-regular sex dreams about Griffith. I’m pretty sure that’s legit implied by the text. Some are dark and involve Femto or NeoGriffith, some are wistful and take place in the past in a what-could-have-been kinda way, and Guts has crysturbated while remembering some of the latter.
Ok I’ll just stop there, this ended up getting longer than I thought it would lol. Guess I’ve gotten more used to talking about headcanons, which is kind of nice, I used to have a really hard time thinking of stuff like this. Then again a lot of this is cribbed from other conversations and some things I’ve maybe mentioned before lol so that helps too.
Anyway jsyk I also have a tag here for headcanons which is getting pretty long and has some good discussions w/ other people that you might enjoy. ty for the ask!
suddenly had the realization that we didn’t really get to see much of Griffith post-torture. Like yeah, he was there, we saw him, we got a great monologue about how in love with Guts he is, but what I mean is that like, all his trauma and all the pre-eclipse emotional devastation revolves around his permanent injuries rather than, yk like, ptsd.
We aren’t shown at all how the fact of being tortured constantly for a year might have traumatized him. Like everyone’s fucked up by the fact that he’s no longer physically capable of leading the Hawks, but like, even if he was, would he have been emotionally capable?
I mean a year of torture is huge, for any other character that would be the defining event of a narrative, whether he could physically recover or not. But Miura just kind of bypasses it entirely to focus on his physical dependency and his feelings for Guts. And I mean I love those feelings, I’m not complaining about the focus on that, but the lack of trauma wrt a year of experiencing extreme pain is kind of conspicuous.
Idk it feels like the torture was just kind of Miura’s convenient lead-in to the Eclipse and way to destroy Griffith’s dream, and it feels a little unfortunately shallow overall. Like he could’ve even just had a reference or two to how being tortured for a year might have affected him – like say Ubik using it to help convince him to make the sacrifice: doesn’t being an incorporeal being who can’t feel pain sound p tempting right now?
Also relatedly, consider this:
NeoGriffith isn’t just Golden Age Griffith transformed into a demon transformed into a mysterious wildcard. NeoGriffith is Golden Age Griffith + a year of torture transformed into a demon transformed into a wildcard. Like his “base” isn’t the Griffith we came to know and love over however many chapters of the Golden Age we got before Guts left, his base is, theoretically, an incredibly traumatized version of that Griffith we know.
Idk I just suddenly found myself wishing for more emotional/psychological exploration of the effects of that year of torture, and it made me wonder about NeoGriffith’s memories of being human. I feel like there’s potential there. I feel like there’s some thematic follow-through, along the lines of him being “beyond the reach of man” and Ganeshka’s empty threats, but some hints of emotional follow through would be v interesting.
I haven’t read it, tho now I’m kind of curious about the inaccuracies. Not sure if I’m curious enough to check out sk or reddit lol, but mb I’ll do some digging.
Huh now I’m actually curious if that speech is gender neutral in Japanese, because honestly the focus on men in that speech did seem like… pretty typical of Berserk in general lol. Like Miura really elevates same-gender relationships over opposite-sex relationships which are almost always romantic by default, and generally treated as lesser, or as stepping stones to that most important relationship (eg nina leaving with a dude so she can one day feel worthy of being luca’s friend) and the speech fits that pattern perfectly, so I always assumed it was deliberately gendered – not so much as a reflection on Griffith (tho again in the context of being repressed but desiring that all-important relationship with a man specifically… I’m still okay with it) but bc of Miura’s own biases.
But it’d be nice if it was actually gender neutral bc the focus on men men men, especially that first “but for a man he must first come upon one other precious thing” or w/e the line was, was pretty annoying.
Anon who sent me the Griffith-hate ask, I accidentally deleted your second message while trying to delete a different one lol, sorry about that. Once again I hope you see this and sorry about the lack of notif again.
But basically what I wanted to say is that yeah sure that “warming a man is a woman’s duty” bit is misogynist (and I think you mentioned the Promrose Hall speech too? as another example the person you’re hatereading gave?), but yk, so is Judeau’s “she’s our woman and we want her back” statement while rescuing Casca, so is 90% of everything Guts says to her ever, and so is 90% of the narrative voice honestly.
Idk man this is another instance where I’d say if they’re going to judge other fans for liking something w/ offensive elements, they should probably just put down Berserk and find something else to enjoy.
not to mention how that particular statement coming from griffith smells suspiciously of like heteronormativity and intense repression moreso than i think it says anything about how griffith sees women
how griffith sees women is clear from the fact that he didn’t rescue casca, he gave her a sword to rescue herself, and then let her join his band of mercenaries. imo anyway
ia.
yk i was going to say something like, “in fairness I wouldn’t use it as an argument against ppl saying that line makes Griffith misogynist bc that’s giving Miura way too much credit” but lol I’m actually torn because it’s so easy to ascribe that line to repression, especially because, like you say, it contradicts what we’re later shown and told about what Griffith thinks women are capable of, and it’s at odds with his general existence in the GA narrative as the progressive dude who scares the conservatives lol.
So either it’s a deliberate contrast to show that Griffith has a particular blind spot when it comes to physical intimacy between people, which also fits in nicely with the fact that he has trauma related to same sex desire and Casca lays all that out at the same time she tells Guts that she admires Griffith because he threw her a sword and gave her a blanket and generally treated her with respect, and expresses her jealousy of Guts because of Griffith’s feelings for him. Like, basically Casca’s flashback ties everything together in a neat little repression bow.
OR it’s a mildly ooc moment because Miura needed some kind of plot contrivance to give Casca a reason to hate Guts and potentially to get her naked in bed with him for the sake of future sex, if he was thinking along those lines this early.
I still wouldn’t use it to try to shut someone down in an argument I guess lol, but I mean, I would say “okay fair enough but here’s how I take that line and why” and consider that a fairly strong interpretation.
those memes about not being able to move out of fear of disturbing the cat are guts after griffith has been back rubbed into aforementioned puddle
griffith starting to doze off on guts’ lap while guts just spends 20 minutes staying v still while watching him and absently rubbing his back, w/ no idea how much time is passing
ugh this is such an adorable image lol
Anon who sent me the Griffith-hate ask, I accidentally deleted your second message while trying to delete a different one lol, sorry about that. Once again I hope you see this and sorry about the lack of notif again.
But basically what I wanted to say is that yeah sure that “warming a man is a woman’s duty” bit is misogynist (and I think you mentioned the Promrose Hall speech too? as another example the person you’re hatereading gave?), but yk, so is Judeau’s “she’s our woman and we want her back” statement while rescuing Casca, so is 90% of everything Guts says to her ever, and so is 90% of the narrative voice honestly.
Idk man this is another instance where I’d say if they’re going to judge other fans for liking something w/ offensive elements, they should probably just put down Berserk and find something else to enjoy.
I’m not really familiar enough w/ fandom in general to agree or disagree lol but I could believe this as a broad trend. I mean like tbf there are good reasons to dislike Corkus, he’s definitely a shithead and the jokey homophobia bugs me and is unnecessary. But Judeau is also a shithead in many ways like you describe, and imo overall they’re both good side characters who both make good and bad points at different times. And I’d say sometimes Corkus is absolutely right.
So I guess I kind of fit into this observation at least lol.
Like, this is a moment of Griffith’s inner darkness shining through. It’s perfect because it comes right after his long dream speech to Charlotte, as he’s learning that he’s achieved a particularly horrible step on the path to his dream. His dream just caused an innocent kid to be killed, and he’s smiling about it.
It’s a very strong way to equate dreams to darkness early on – and it’s great foreshadowing for Guts’ own descent too. This speech that ends with Griffith smiling over the death of a child – that causes that smile – is the very thing that inspires Guts to leave to pursue his own dream! Which ends up being the Black Swordsman arc.
Like compare Griffith’s evil smile to Black Swordsman Guts’ slasher smiles as he’s, yk, fighting “stronger and stronger opponents,” ie pursuing his own dream. Dreams are terrible all around for everyone and I love it.
This is also part of Griffith’s set up that’s very soon knocked down in a subversion of the reader’s expectations. Like I’ve talked about how Griffith’s narrative begins with an image and eventually peels that away to the truth – we start with Femto, then we get early larger-than-life knight in shining armour Griffith who would do anything for his dream, here w/ the assassination we get the darker aspects of that emphasized, and then only five chapters later we get our first full pull-back of the curtain style reveal of the real Griffith, in Casca’s flashback.
Compare Griffith smiling when a child dies on the path to his dream up there to:
and
It’s Griffith burying his guilt – getting much better at burying it through consistent practice lol – and demonstrating his willingness to do so in order to achieve his dream, which, ironically, he’s pursuing because of that guilt. It’s perfect.
I think I’ve phrased it before as like, after learning about Griffith’s dead child related guilt issues in Casca’s flashback shortly after, that smile when he finds out Adonis is dead can only mean one of two things:
either in the intervening years he’s changed so fundamentally that he no longer has those guilt issues, and therefore Casca’s flashback chapters are functionally meaningless and unnecessary to an almost comedic extent.
or it means he’s successfully buried his guilt so thoroughly in this moment as he’s pontificating to Charlotte about his dream that his reaction is pleased – he’s kind of like, becoming the mask, doing that good a job of convincing himself it’s all necessary for the sake of his dream.
And we see Griffith’s guilt issues crop up again in Tombstone of Flame
and again when Ubik’s convincing him to make the sacrifice, soooo we
know it’s not option one lol.
idk it’s a great example of the fucked up duality that comes from living in denial and eventually leads to choosing to become a monster because you already see yourself as one, basically, and it’s something I absolutely love about Griffith’s character.
Absolutely cosigning this. Also I wanna say that Guts is surprisingly good at giving massages. He thinks he’ll suck at it and initially protests when Griffith first crawls under his hands like a cat after a long day of fighting or w/e, but turns out he’s got a knack.
this is under a cut because i have an instinctive need to bury all mentions of rl politics. plus it’s discoursey and just generally kind of pointless lol. sorry anon that you won’t get a notification that this has been answered, but hopefully you’ll see it.
lol
god see this is why I avoid most of fandom. i’m gonna respond to these even tho i’m preaching to the choir bc you’ve awoken my argumentative side.
The canon age difference
between Griffith and Charlotte is about one year. Griffith’s around 18, Charlotte is 17. Even if you go by the
ova guidebook which ages Griffith up to 21, it blows my mind to say that makes liking Griffith problematic while calling yourself a fan of Miura or Berserk,
considering there’s like, fanservice featuring Schierkelater on. I mean man, drop the story entirely or don’t pretend you’re on a higher horse, one or the other.
Berserk
as a setting has completely normalized child soldiers so lol @ singling
out Griffith when he’s largely motivated specifically by not wanting
children to be exploited. Especially when we got a dude who makes a
habit of using children as hostages as a protagonist.
no idea
where they would’ve gotten genocide from, other than fandom’s absolute
love of diluting terms used to refer to devastating real life concepts and events into utter
meaninglessness. like I can only assume they don’t know what the word
genocide means. Or they’re considering either the Hawks or… witches, I
guess, to be a race of people? In which case Guts is also a genocidal
maniac for his war declaration against all apostles/demons/etc.
fascist seems
to be a result of a complete inability to reconcile the fact that
Griffith is explicitly the most politically progressive and generally
social justice-concerned person in canon with the fact that he turned
into an evil demon. that would be something to
criticize berserk/miura for if we’re gonna get into political analysis of the story. but
like, it’s just a canon fact that falconia is pointedly socially and
politically progressive lol, that’s literally its raison d’etre. there’s
nothing fascist about it, and it’s positioned as a contrast/answer to the
authoritarianism of the inquisition.
In a sense you could say it’s the ultimate democracy lol because Falconia was literally brought into existence and essentially given to Griffith by the magically augmented collective will of humanity.
white imperialist is plain
and simple giving Miura a ridiculous amount of credit for something he’s
not doing, or if he is doing, is doing extremely offensively.
Like
to be absolutely fair I guess one can argue that thru convenience of
magic Falconia is an imperialist power by default despite not expanding
thru invasion but thru taking in refugees, because it’s the only place
to live safely and the white-centric fantasy-christian holy see does
seem to have the most power there, compared to I guess the kushans who
are our only example of a non-white culture. But I mean look at how Miura portrayed that culture as an antagonistic force – yk, the scary demon emperor and his
unstoppable demon army (created thru the rape of imprisoned women) from
super stereotypical fantasy India.
He’s nuanced enough to show that Kushans aren’t a monolith, but he really went all out to establish Ganeshka and his army as the villains in this conflict, in some pretty racist ways.
And if they’re taking it as read that Miura is purposefully setting up Falconia as a fantasy parallel to white imperialism, that would make the story positioning Falconia/Fantasia as the utopia and Griffith as the saviour that “humanity” as a whole desires, and essentially willed into being, really fucked up. Also relatedly, the fact that Griffith destroying Ganeshka like, saved the world bc Ganeshka had transformed into a world-destroying monster.
It’s also worth addressing Miura’s choice to make a Kushan general the biggest advocate
of Falconia (Jarif). Or
his choice to portray Falconia as explicitly anti-racist and
multicultural, while not like, showing us any actually non-racist
alternative. Like, the alternative presented (thru Guts’ individualistic
“struggler” narrative) seems to be “fend for yourself in a shitty world
where the privileged exploit the vulnerable instead of trying to fix these
issues of power and exploitation on a cultural level.“ That seems like a message worth criticizing.
Like somewhere in this muddle Miura’s probably going for a critique of
catholicism/monotheism in general on Griffith’s side of the narrative, but if his intention is to make a
statement on how that intersects with white imperialism, he’s failed in
some p damn big ways lol. You can’t just say Griffith is a white imperialist without like, examining the actual story and its portrayal of Falconia.
Idk man I just can’t fathom
calling yourself a fan of Berserk while suggesting it’s problematic to
be a fan of Griffith in particular. Like my god, have you read this
manga? I’m genuinely more comfortable calling myself a Griffith fan than
a Berserk fan lol.
But I mean lbr people who say this kind of shit don’t actually consider the offensive implications or what these assertions suggest about the messages of the story itself, they’re just grasping for weapons to use against fans they don’t like.
Hello dear readers of Beserk, after so long in the end I could finish the review of Casca and Farnese, the truth was something difficult I had to read the manga several times but without focusing on the protagonist, only Casca solo, then Farnese alone and then together, without more to say let’s start … I’ll summarize it as much as I can.
Many fondly remember Casca as a strong warrior, although Miura actually wrote a character with many traumas and one of the solutions that Casca chose was to “adore” that “Angel” who came and gave him a blanket along with a sword, so much that she decided to follow him and was “in love” with him or that Guts thought when he heard his story, but of course I do not think Casca knew it was love and that is seen later …this reminds me a lot of Utena and the typical intentional “Cliches”.
In any manga you will find a similar situation, Casca is also one of the women that due to their childhood want to be “needed” to be “indispensable” for a person in general and that is what in the end marks their character.
After Guts appears, a love triangle develops between Guts-Griffith-Casca that eventually leads to eclipse, for 3 years Casca was jealous of Guts and it bothered him that he has become indispensable for Griffith, one of the things I’ve noticed is that Casca despite being tough, the complex of being “needed” dominates her a lot, but she also wants someone to protect her. It is one of her honest desires that she does not even want to admit, it is not offensive to say this because so many Characters have this complex that is incredible.
After having sex for compensation with Guts (because that was and there is no point in denying it, even my mother who saw it for the first time in the anime version, she told me) in the midst of her depression and stress, she decides that Guts Maybe that person is, after all in the eyes of Casca is Guts who always rescues her, protects her and in a certain way felt needed, unique and maybe she gave something to him, when Guts left after the duel Griffith she missed him a lot because she was already emotionally attached to him is normal.
Many said “oh it’s love” but when they recovered Griffith and throughout the mission they see aspects of her that actually show that it was not love, but the need to feel “irreplaceable” and clear replace her idealized person Griffith, but just Griffith really needs her (from the perspective of Casca certainly) she returns to be the same although it hurts, ironically there Griffith wanted Guts and I bet Casca realized.
Although Miura was forcing the eclipse there could be seen that Guts and Casca’s relationship did not start relatively “healthy” because it literally derives from 2 people (Griffith and Judou) and this in a way that inevitably was going to end because she has not yet faced her problems alone as it should be and from there Discover if you really love
As a curious and serious fact I do not want to offend any reader of Berserk, but in all the panels of Casca before she had sex with Guts, in none she showed “romantic” attraction to Guts and now that I review I can say that it is very strange, what you notice is the emotional attachment as I mentioned before … but that attraction that a teenager should feel, I just did not see her. That Miura has already represented this in other characters, but Casca just does not … that’s why every time I see the scene of “love” Guts and Casca, fits in that they are 2 friends who had sex to calm the pain that felt in those moments, that is more what represents that image was the culmination of emotional attachment, but it never became a romance as such, but even so many Berserk readers idealize that relationship.
Since I spoke a little about the Golden Age Casca, I will turn to the question in question:
yeah true. I’m not sure if this is a response to something I’ve said or just a statement you’re throwing out there lol, but yeah. Judeau suspected that Griffith (and quite likely Guts) assassinated the Queen
He had a reaction to Griffith reaching up to strangle Guts here
and from the beginning he was basically calling Griffith morally ambiguous while everyone else seemed to see him as pure hero:
though that last one is probably more narrative convenience than nuance of Judeaus’ characterization, he’s got some real authorial voice going on here. But this line fits Judeau more than it would any of the other Hawks.
So in general yeah he does seem less idealistic and more aware of the practical side of how a peasant would go about rising to the throne, and maybe more observant and able to see the less idealized sides of Griffith than most other people.
like you can and should criticize how casca is objectified and drawn in a very sexualized way in moments that should not be sexy because it’s offensive in misogynist and racist ways, but you can also criticize it because it’s like, bad writing/bad art. it’s tonally awkward.
imagining all these ending with like griffith and guts clinging and wrapped all intimately around each other and hoarsely whispering to the other after like frantic passionate sex and serpico just sort of sitting off to the side looking at his cuticles
like guts leaning over and pressed
against griffith post missionary while still inside him with his arms
wrapped around griffs back and cradling him and pressed into his neck…
griffith has his own arms wrapped around guts wide shoulders and his
legs hooked over his hips… serpico is reading like the bible from the
bedside table drawer lmao
this is so real and I can just picture it perfectly lol, i love it
yeah a bit lol, the heart hilt especially kind of bothers me. like where did she get that and why? was it custom made? would casca really want a sword with decorative hearts on it? (I could headcanon my own explanation, like maybe she stole it off a nobleman who kept it basically for decoration rather than actually using it, back when the Hawks were thieves. But yk I’m not giving Miura credit for that.)
tbh in general I find it kind of hard to criticize her golden age outfit in the context of like, 90% of fantasy female warriors’ outfits lol, bc in all fairness it’s p realistic and practical comparatively. her breastplate doesn’t have sculpted boobs, her boots don’t have heels any more than the dudes’ do (and to be fair I feel like i’ve heard that the thigh highs were an actual practical riding thing – tho ofc none of the dudes wear them, soooo enh), she doesn’t have half her chest exposed for the sake of cleavage (except of course for the many, many pages where her clothes are torn lol), and she like, wears pants.
but on the other hand it’s sad the bar is that low because lbr Casca wearing decent clothes doesn’t prevent Miura from drawing her ridiculously for the sake of fanservice anyway
like no it’s not technically an upskirt shot, but damn it’s hard to tell the difference with that long skirt-looking tunic and ultra tight pants. kind of unfortunately undermines the power angle imo.
and her pants get even tighter after she has sex with guts ime, there are a few panels like this one later on:
so yeah, i guess like, it is kind of nitpicky, but it’s the kind of nitpicky i agree with lol. I mean I wouldn’t write a big long post to criticize Casca’s outfit bc for the most part it’s much better than i’d expect, but it’s def not perfect.
you're the only one 