tbh that’s like my favourite thing about Berserk and one thing I think Miura did so well – showing exactly how Griffith could choose to sacrifice someone he genuinely, truly loves above all else, and not just despite that love, but largely because of it. It’s endlessly interesting to me, and I kind of feel bad for Berserk fans who don’t see it because they’re missing out on a seriously compelling story.
to this anon in my inbox that i’m gonna block soon:
(fair warning i discuss the eclipse rape p irreverently under the cut)
idk how you can say i dance around what “griffith” did when i’ve addressed it many times, and indeed, on my about page which is linked right there on the sidebar.
i don’t dance around femto raping casca during the eclipse, i just don’t gaf because it’s fiction, no people were actually harmed, it was lazy exploitative writing, and griffith magically turned into a demon first. like… no amount of anonymous whining is gonna make me care when the mangaka himself barely even cares beyond it being a handy plot point to piss guts off and remove casca from the story while grotesquely sexualizing her, with maybe some weird bs about a fetus thrown in.
but i have a feeling that you consider not starting every post about griffith i write with ‘btw i don’t condone his actions, i think turning into a demon and raping someone is morally wrong’ to be dancing around it lol.
like, again, it’s fiction. it’s a made up story. the only thing that actually matters to me about that story is what does or doesn’t entertain me. casca’s rape was badly written and her subsequent trauma was even more badly written and both are offensive rather than entertaining but guess what, i hate miura for that because he wrote it and femto, in fact, isn’t real.
also gotta say anon, it’s p misogynistic that you framed femto’s rape of casca as part of how “griffith took everything away from guts.” i mean granted, that’s how miura framed it, but that’s why it’s good to look at fiction with a critical eye instead of accepting everything at face value.
What’s interesting to me is that all the members of the god hand probably have a wounded core which is protected by their armor/transformation into a god hand
totally. Same with Apostles from everything we’ve seen, and Guts too – like it’s particularly fitting that his Beast of Darkness, which essentially is self-protection born out of trauma and betrayal, both in childhood and then the Eclipse, p much lives in a magic suit of armour now.
“You bled so much for me. These are wounds from the hundred man battle, right? Even the wound I gave you…”
“I too want a wound… that I can say you gave me.”
When it comes to Guts’ guilt issues surrounding Griffith’s tragic narrative, and the highly sexually charged nature of the scene where the Beast of Darkness suggests this, and the fact that the Guts and Casca sex scene is already chock full of references and parallels to Griffith, I’m feeling like this is a legit comparison, at least from Guts’ guilt-ridden and Griffith-obsessed point of view.
(brought to my attention by therainykitty here, ty! also s/o to this post)
Very nice and I think Guts wants to feel as hurt as Griffith does, with Guts trying to engage Griffith as an enemy. For Griffith to attack him, hurt him back anything to make Griffith feel towards him again.
But Griffith is burying his scars underneath that frozen heart (except Guts can still make it beat).
And for more scar comparisons because why not
Guts words to Casca “Nobody lies their way into a body with this many scars.”
Griffith buries his emotional pain pretending it doesn’t affect him but always still that sorrow and how he cares is shown with his scars
Guts leaving and the flashback to asking Guts is he a horrible person
Guts in danger and Griffith harming himself again (clenching his teeth so hard they bleed) because he can’t reach Guts to protect him
His suffering and the fracturing of his soul
And Femto the armor over Griffith’s scarred soul
Femto acts as the personification of Griffith’s suffering and the armor to protect Griffith’s wounded inner core.
So I guess it is Griffith’s body that express the scars in his soul but no one ever sees them. They are hidden from all but Casca (at least at first) and Guts.
griffith: you’re mine guts. you’re extremely special to me and i trust you with details about myself that i would never tell anyone else. i specifically consider you and your desires in all my plans and very obviously favour you over others. i would face certain death and risk my life to protect you.
guts: fuck!! based on one thing i heard griffith say im now convinced griffith doesn’t care about me and probably doesn’t even consider me a friend despite mounting evidence suggesting the contrary….. time to leave him with no explanation and go on a knight errant journey to prove that i’m worthy of his attention
“You bled so much for me. These are wounds from the hundred man battle, right? Even the wound I gave you…”
“I too want a wound… that I can say you gave me.”
When it comes to Guts’ guilt issues surrounding Griffith’s tragic narrative, and the highly sexually charged nature of the scene where the Beast of Darkness suggests this, and the fact that the Guts and Casca sex scene is already chock full of references and parallels to Griffith, I’m feeling like this is a legit comparison, at least from Guts’ guilt-ridden and Griffith-obsessed point of view.
(brought to my attention by therainykitty here, ty! also s/o to this post)
that ask earlier and some other recent stuff has made me contemplate this lol but like tbh there’s something so bizarre and weird about how the rest of the fandom makes statements like this seem like wild theorizing and totally biased griffguts shipper opinions or whatever, when like, the page that u referenced exists:
and this goes for a bunch of other stuff too. berserk is so unsubtle about how much of its content revolves around the relationship between guts and griffith and yet acknowledging that fact is a niche opinion lol
idk i just wanted to briefly vent about it i guess
Wow this is so lovely to hear! I’m so glad I helped get you back into Berserk! You’re definitely not the only one who sees and loves the relationship between Guts and Griffith, but it can definitely seem that way in this particular fandom lol. Honestly I pretty much started this blog because I couldn’t find any other current griffguts shippers or people who saw Berserk the way I do at all, and since then I’ve found a lot of like-minded people, it’s great 🙂
Also wow yeah I’m feeling the vibes in that song. Making me think of both Guts deciding to leave and Griffith’s pov in the 2nd duel. Ty!
i don’t wanna rb that post bc het sloppy makeouts but wrt guts not protesting to casca touching him
i mean, he does–until he wakes up and realises she’s a woman. that means her touch isn’t ~magical~ – it’s just that his trauma is specifically tied to men
so what’s more impressive than him not freaking out about a naked woman clinging to him is him not freaking out when griffith takes his head in his hands and brings his face intimately close to his own
he doesn’t protest, he doesn’t flinch away. he looks enchanted
“only your touch didn’t offend me” isn’t just a bullshit lie, it’s moot
why would her touch offend you? she’s a woman lol
tbh I feel like Miura started with one narrative before he had the idea of hooking Guts and Casca up and then tried to mildly retcon it to make it seem more romantic. But since he didn’t have future g*tsca in mind back then the only thing Guts’ nightmare and brief panic does is
a) remind us that he’s traumatized and it’s still affecting him
b) tell us that trauma is tied specifically to men
c) specifically highlight the way griffith totally bypasses it in the next chapter
like there’s no reason for that scene to exist except to make Griffith winning him in a duel with sexual stakes and then grabbing his face and saying, “now you belong to me” stand out as shockingly dazzling to guts instead of traumatic.
I honestly think Guts is kidding himself with Casca and denying his deeper feelings for Griffith. I find it hard to believe that a person he basically never got along with for years suddenly is his everything in a couple of months. Compared to Griffith whom after the three year time skip they seem joined at the hip. Things look to be going great until the fountain scene and Guts doesn’t feel good enough for Griffith (due to his own issues. Not Griffith’s).
Then you have Casca telling him about Gennon and the boy and Griffith self-harming and all that and is basically Griffith needs someone to be there for him, so cop on to yourself Guts (because for Guts, Griffith lets himself be vulnerable, he puts himself in danger for you). And through Casca, Guts figures out “hey Griffith does need someone to stand beside him like yeah I can be that person” but first I need a dream.
And when he returns to the Hawks a year after.Griffith is being tortured and for Guts everything crashes. Someone he loves, someone he cares for is going through hell and he can’t be with him. Guts can’t take Griffith out of that. He just settles for what little comfort Casca gives (and Casca settles for what comfort she can find in Guts). It must of been hell not only their own personal demons but just not being able to reach Griffith when he needed them the most. So they keep that comfort-seeking relationship going after Griffith gets out but well they are always testy around each other again.
Now after the eclipse Guts can’t reach Griffith in any way physically, spiritual,emotionally,nothing.(Just like he was powerless to reach him in torture and the eclipse)
And to me the whole healing Casca for Guts while great Casca gets her mind back, but it’s like I couldn’t save him, I couldn’t help Griffith get his mind back. Maybe I can save you.
Trying to assuage some guilt/remorse.
But again Guts continues to hurt the people around him.
Yeah! Have you ever noticed how every time Guts starts thinking of Casca as a romantic prospect it’s because Judeau is directly telling him to lol?
Also gr8 point – I’ve kind of wondered if Casca telling Guts all about Griffith’s vulnerabilities and how he needs him in the cave maybe partially inspired him to leave. Like, before hearing that he might’ve thought becoming Griffith’s friend was hopeless, but after hearing that he might’ve seen it as a distinct future possibility as long as he finds a dream first. You nicely put that into words!
farnese canonically has a hard time expressing herself in words n understanding emotions + thats central to her mother’s point about finding somewhere she belongs and now shes out here as the voice for cascas feelings n rlly experiencing it and ppl rlly dont get farnesca? 🤔
guts is the protagonist, not the hero, and that’s something I actually thoroughly enjoy about berserk
wish more people actually understood this lol. also that griffith being the antagonist doesn’t mean he’s the villain
that’s like a fundamental part of berserk as I read it, I’m actually concerned what’s happening in people’s heads if they don’t grasp that omg.
YEP lol for a manga about grey morality berserk sure has a lot of fans who think guts is their ideal feminist dudebro who always does everything right and deserves to bone casca & griffith is an eeeeeeevil ps*cho fag whom guts needs to kill in the most violent way possible
I noticed this twisted view a couple of years ago. Very frightening polarization.
Anyway about protagonist and whatnot. I feel Griffith and Guts are both the main protagonists.It is both their story. Berserk came about due to Kentaro Miura wanting to marry two different types of manga and that is through Guts and Griffith.
Also interview with Miura he said he is not creating Berserk with good and evil values. So it is not really that kind of story.
that’s a very good point imo
and yeah miura keeps saying it’s not that black and white but everyone conveniently ignores that. it even came up in guts & judeau’s conversation lol it’s literally in the manga
there is A Lot here, but a) “I can’t run…!!” smacks of both guts saying he can’t escape what happened even if he literally does run away but also the ptsd flashback of being held down while shit went down where he literally couldn’t move and that’s ow. and b):
“but I can never atone for this dark flame” is such an interesting wording because I feel like it means about five different things from guts feeling guilt over the eclipse to feeling guilt over his drive for revenge taking him away from caring for casca and rickert to his drive for revenge being a big old plaster over the fact that he still love griffith [yeah, that’s some personal interpretation and possibly a stretching of the text there, but it fits for me].
today i was thinking a lot about farnese’s isolation and emotional distance from ppl all her life
like even serpico didn’t tell her she’s his half sister and she had to ask if he hates her and agh there’s still a big unbridged emotional gap there
and her journey through casca’s mind, seeing her life through her eyes and feeling her feelings, must’ve been so huge for her because of that
like farnesca is right there. casca is now the person farnese knows best and is most emotionally intimate with and with whom she has shared the most
also super interesting potential for development and growth, both painful/fucked up and happy and good, in that it’s one-sided. farnese has seen casca’s whole life through her eyes and heart, but casca has to learn about farnese the old fashioned way
she does best weaponized and w her girlfriend at her side
oh man but forreal the concept of farnese fully retaining all her experiences of casca’s life through casca’s perspective but casca waking up with very little or no memory of farnese at all…
like casca who’s always empathized with and defended and fought for and dedicated her life to others, who’s been used and hurt as a pawn by two people who have always cared more about each other than they care about her, finally being truly seen and understood and known and loved by someone who’s a virtual stranger to her
that is a really, really good starting place for an interesting romance js
today i was thinking a lot about farnese’s isolation and emotional distance from ppl all her life
like even serpico didn’t tell her she’s his half sister and she had to ask if he hates her and agh there’s still a big unbridged emotional gap there
and her journey through casca’s mind, seeing her life through her eyes and feeling her feelings, must’ve been so huge for her because of that
like farnesca is right there. casca is now the person farnese knows best and is most emotionally intimate with and with whom she has shared the most
also super interesting potential for development and growth, both painful/fucked up and happy and good, in that it’s one-sided. farnese has seen casca’s whole life through her eyes and heart, but casca has to learn about farnese the old fashioned way
I feel like the way he executed the heterosexual couplings in this manga is like the way Oscar Wilde did in his book Picture Of Dorian Gray. The straight couples have no substance whereas the undertones of homosexuality between two men had more depth and emotion.
With that being said I know there’s a whole debate on whether Griffith and Guts were homosexual or straight or this or that but to me honestly I don’t even think they knew about their sexuality.
one day i really should actually read podg. but honestly based on what i’ve heard and the sheer volume of subtext in berserk it seems like an apt comparison.
speaking for myself i headcanon both as gay and mostly in denial/ignorant of that fact. i mean guts i could see as bi as well pretty easily, like either works for me, but griffith is Gay imo.
when it comes to being more “”objectively”” analytical I can acknowledge that it’s all subtext and therefore their sexualities can’t technically be asserted as fact either way, but since i really dislike the assumption of straight as default i happily just take it as read that they’re fully in love and attracted to each other. even if it is just subtext, I consider it to be the like… occam’s razor of readings. it’s the simplest explanation for a lot of the content of the manga so why not roll with it, yk?
you're the only one 