please look at guts facial expressions as he fights then thinks of griffith waugh
lmao can i just say i love that in the black swordsman arc miura was obviously thinking: well guts is pissed off about being sacrificed and stuck fighting ghosts and causing ppl’s deaths just by hanging out with them. that’s a reasonable reason to want revenge
and by the end of the golden age he was like ‘lol that’s not even close to enough to make guts hate griffith. all his friends dying horribly? nope. griffith offering him up for sacrifice and making his life an unmitigated hell? nope. better go above and beyond in the worst way possible for this one.
and guts still doesn’t hate griffith lmao. he hates femto and wants revenge but every time he thinks about human griffith he still just feels regret and sadness lol.
also the way guts acts through the entire eclipse is insane– he can’t hate griffith, at first he won’t let himself comprehend what griffith has done and when he DOES he STILL looks like this towards him. it’s just sadness and regret. there’s no hate there.
also speaking of the worst way possible: boy did I not quite realise just HOW long the rape portion of the eclipse went for. wow.
oh good!
and lol god ikr it’s like you could find that scene in the dictionary next to the word gratuitous
please look at guts facial expressions as he fights then thinks of griffith waugh
lmao can i just say i love that in the black swordsman arc miura was obviously thinking: well guts is pissed off about being sacrificed and stuck fighting ghosts and causing ppl’s deaths just by hanging out with them. that’s a reasonable reason to want revenge
and by the end of the golden age he was like ‘lol that’s not even close to enough to make guts hate griffith. all his friends dying horribly? nope. griffith offering him up for sacrifice and making his life an unmitigated hell? nope. better go above and beyond in the worst way possible for this one.
and guts still doesn’t hate griffith lmao. he hates femto and wants revenge but every time he thinks about human griffith he still just feels regret and sadness lol.
there’s a lot in this scene and tbh it’s one of the things in the story I have trouble with– why does griffith do this? is he grasping like he was with charlotte when guts left? that’s my best interpretation, but there is A Lot here, including some pretty grim foreshadowing.
i can think of like so many possible explanations for this depending on what u want to be emphasized, it’s frustrating lol
eg
griffith seeing sex as transactional + emphasizing his vulnerability/fear of being tossed aside = trying to get casca to stay with him by offering her something he knows she wanted at one time
emphasizing griffith’s desperation and irrationality = trying to return to the status quo by returning casca’s attention to him
griffith overhearing casca saying to guts ‘i just wanted someone to be near me’ + casca reflecting on how griffith used to be able to comfort her at the start of this scene + casca clumsy and shaking + casca comforting griffith at the end = griffith trying to physically comfort casca, emphasizing his patheticness when he’s the one who needs to be comforted and held instead
or maybe it’s a combination of everything, idk. i think the eclipse foreshadowing works best as a contrast – here he’s helpless and weak and maybe offering himself in desperation or unable to even comfort or entice casca or whatever, w/e it is it’s humiliating, whereas when he becomes femto he establishes his power and control thru rape.
there’s a thread through everything that connects griffith and guts: even as griffith sacrifices them all he looks at guts and smiles like he almost knows he’s giving him something too, because guts wanted to fight and he gets what he wanted.
also: this is second choice for both of them, but it’s all that’s left. griffith wanted guts more than the castle, and guts wanted griffith/the band of the hawk more than to swing his sword.
HMMM it’s hard for me to recommend skipping around since I personally am a stickler for chronologically going through everything lol, and no matter what you’ll probably feel like you’re missing some stuff since there are always flashbacks, plot points leading to more plot points, character development, etc. But if you can live with that here’s what I’d recommend.
The Lost Children arc comes next and I’d recommend it. It’s fairly well paced, starts getting into Guts’ darkness interestingly, and there’s some good potential for griffguts parallels with Jill and Rosine. But I think you can skip it without missing too much plot relevant stuff, and it’s fairly disturbing with csa triggers too, if that affects whether you’d like to check it out or not.
If you skip it I’d recommend reading chapter 118 (The Beast of Darkness). It comes right after Guts fights Rosine and right before Guts gets caught by Farnese and her knights who’ve been tracking him due to prophecy shit blah blah blah.
The rest of the Conviction arc can get draggy and tonally it’s kind of weird and campy lol. I think you could probably get away with skipping it, all you really need to know is that the world sucks, nobles are dicks using religious persecution to terrify the masses, and Farnese starts out as an apparent sadist using religion as an excuse to burn people alive while Serpico is her doormat. Guts escapes Farnese fairly quickly and shakes her faith a little. You get their backstories and more depth for them later so I don’t think it’s super important to see their introduction. Oh also Guts meets Isidro who helps him rescue Casca.
In this arc I’d still recommend reading chapters 126 (Revelations Part 1) – 130 (A Feeble Flame) because that gets into NeoGriff foreshadowing and thematic stuff and Guts’ internal conflicts when he returns to Godo’s cave to discover Casca missing.
You can probably skip a bunch of chapters here. You might want to check out 142 (Spirit Road, Part 2) because while it’s mostly foreshadowing for plot stuff you’ll be skipping, there’s some good shit w/ Guts’ feelings on Femto.
I’d pick the story back up after the big fight and Casca rescue etc, and read 174 (Daybreak) onwards,since this has Guts and NeoGriffith’s turbulent reunion.
I’d actually probably recommend reading the entire Millenium Falcon/Hawk of the Millenium Empire arc, because while Guts’ side can get draggy with like a troll sidequest and long fights etc, Griffith’s is more interesting imo, and a lot of plot stuff happens in both. Plus Guts has a lot of character development and internal conflict, there are lots of new characters introduced and you get Farnese and Serpico’s full stories, and despite some overlong fight scenes on Guts’ side there are quite a few engaging hooks, and the art is pretty gorgeous.
If you DO get bored during the troll fight stuff, which is overlong and annoying, you can probably skip it while only missing some stuff about how magic works, which gets repeated later on I think. I’d recommend skipping it starting on chapter 207 (Magic Sword) and picking it back up on chapter 219 (Vicinity of the Netherworld).
So assuming you read the rest of the Millenium arc, the next things you’d want to skip are the fucking boat fights in the Fantasia arc. Read NeoGriffith’s storyline, skip Guts’, is my recommendation. Well specifically my rec is to read up to the end of 307 (Falconia), then skip to chapter 329 (Flowers of Distant Days), which is a little Guts flashback interlude, and read the rest from there. You literally don’t miss anything you haven’t already seen during the Millenium arc, except Farnese doing some helpful magic.
I think that’s about it. lmk if you have any questions or want a better summary of the Conviction arc lol. And if you really don’t want to read the whole 130 chapters of Millenium Empire I’d be happy to write a summary of that too while pointing out the really relevant chapters for you to read, but let me know in advance because that would probably take a while lol.
dude rescues the person he’s low-key in love with by scooping them up onto a horse and then tells them to stfu
idk whether it’s a purposeful parallel (tbf those 2 panels w/ judeau and casca are pretty far apart) but it’s still cute and the circumstances are pretty similar after all.
EXACTLY… also like i feel like. its Too sugary. and the most infantilized cascas ever textually been i think maybe? CASCAS LIKE… OLDER THAN FARNESE BY A GOOD HANDFUL OF YEARS… of course serpico knows very little about her and her past but still. Like. �� mister miura this better be a game and it best be coming to a close. im getting sick of playing
like tbh there is a ton of talk about Farnese growing thru taking care of Casca and Casca’s trust in Farnese and how Casca is the person Farnese misses most when she leaves temporarily and how no one else can take care of Casca like she can and now Farnese being the best candidate to help her get her mind back, yadda yadda yadda that summing up their relationship in an overly sweet way as child/caretaker-y siblings-esque right before Casca gets her mind back and that dynamic inevitably ends seems like a good way to segue into something more complex and interesting
like i don’t think miura’s gonna go full gay but he’s damn good at writing complex friendships full of gay subtext i’m js
it was in the more recent “guts rod and serp have boys night whilr the girls are doing business” chapter.
he talks about how much stronger fsrnese is now… becausr she has something to Protect…….. her silly little sister haha (:
ohhh lol i just went to double check and yeah, ugh.
oh well like that’s gonna stop me from hoping for vibes and subtext when casca wakes up 😛
HMMM it’s hard for me to recommend skipping around since I personally am a stickler for chronologically going through everything lol, and no matter what you’ll probably feel like you’re missing some stuff since there are always flashbacks, plot points leading to more plot points, character development, etc. But if you can live with that here’s what I’d recommend.
The Lost Children arc comes next and I’d recommend it. It’s fairly well paced, starts getting into Guts’ darkness interestingly, and there’s some good potential for griffguts parallels with Jill and Rosine. But I think you can skip it without missing too much plot relevant stuff, and it’s fairly disturbing with csa triggers too, if that affects whether you’d like to check it out or not.
If you skip it I’d recommend reading chapter 118 (The Beast of Darkness). It comes right after Guts fights Rosine and right before Guts gets caught by Farnese and her knights who’ve been tracking him due to prophecy shit blah blah blah.
The rest of the Conviction arc can get draggy and tonally it’s kind of weird and campy lol. I think you could probably get away with skipping it, all you really need to know is that the world sucks, nobles are dicks using religious persecution to terrify the masses, and Farnese starts out as an apparent sadist using religion as an excuse to burn people alive while Serpico is her doormat. Guts escapes Farnese fairly quickly and shakes her faith a little. You get their backstories and more depth for them later so I don’t think it’s super important to see their introduction. Oh also Guts meets Isidro who helps him rescue Casca.
In this arc I’d still recommend reading chapters 126 (Revelations Part 1) – 130 (A Feeble Flame) because that gets into NeoGriff foreshadowing and thematic stuff and Guts’ internal conflicts when he returns to Godo’s cave to discover Casca missing.
You can probably skip a bunch of chapters here. You might want to check out 142 (Spirit Road, Part 2) because while it’s mostly foreshadowing for plot stuff you’ll be skipping, there’s some good shit w/ Guts’ feelings on Femto.
I’d pick the story back up after the big fight and Casca rescue etc, and read 174 (Daybreak) onwards,since this has Guts and NeoGriffith’s turbulent reunion.
I’d actually probably recommend reading the entire Millenium Falcon/Hawk of the Millenium Empire arc, because while Guts’ side can get draggy with like a troll sidequest and long fights etc, Griffith’s is more interesting imo, and a lot of plot stuff happens in both. Plus Guts has a lot of character development and internal conflict, there are lots of new characters introduced and you get Farnese and Serpico’s full stories, and despite some overlong fight scenes on Guts’ side there are quite a few engaging hooks, and the art is pretty gorgeous.
If you DO get bored during the troll fight stuff, which is overlong and annoying, you can probably skip it while only missing some stuff about how magic works, which gets repeated later on I think. I’d recommend skipping it starting on chapter 207 (Magic Sword) and picking it back up on chapter 219 (Vicinity of the Netherworld).
So assuming you read the rest of the Millenium arc, the next things you’d want to skip are the fucking boat fights in the Fantasia arc. Read NeoGriffith’s storyline, skip Guts’, is my recommendation. Well specifically my rec is to read up to the end of 307 (Falconia), then skip to chapter 329 (Flowers of Distant Days), which is a little Guts flashback interlude, and read the rest from there. You literally don’t miss anything you haven’t already seen during the Millenium arc, except Farnese doing some helpful magic.
I think that’s about it. lmk if you have any questions or want a better summary of the Conviction arc lol. And if you really don’t want to read the whole 130 chapters of Millenium Empire I’d be happy to write a summary of that too while pointing out the really relevant chapters for you to read, but let me know in advance because that would probably take a while lol.
And lol yeah, I remember when I re-read Berserk after 8 years of forgetting it existed I was so surprised over and over again by how blatant the subtext was and how consistently like straightforward dialogue beats you over the head with their feelings for each other, and how thoroughly the whole plot revolves around Guts and Griffith’s relationship lol.
I don’t think I could find a panel where she seems attracted to Guts, partially because I agree with you and partially because my memory of the het interactions in Berserk is not the greatest lol.
But yeah I think part of the reason I find her relationship with Guts so unconvincing, and part of why I find it really easy to hc her as gay, is because her relationships to men are based around wanting to be needed, rather than her own desire.
With Griffith she wants to be something indispensible to his dream, a “sword” he can’t do without. Later on we get Judeau saying, “If she loves him… shouldn’t she want to be held by him?” And Casca saying, “Griffith’s not a god… and I am a woman.” And it’s like, if you’re going to describe a woman’s attraction to a man in terms of falling into the natural hetero order of things, it makes it easier to see it as internalized homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality lol. Casca like, hmmm my feelings for Griffith are extremely strong, he’s a man I’m a woman, this must be attraction? Without realizing there are other possibilities.
I’m sure Miura didn’t mean it that way, but that’s why it’s a headcanon.
And anyway it’s the same with Guts – it’s all about Casca’s desire to be needed, to be able to comfort someone and feel necessary to them. And I think partly it’s an obligation to her, pay back for being rescued, by Griffith, by Guts in the 100 man fight. She notices Guts’ scars from that fight before they have sex and says she wishes for a wound from Guts. And it’s what she thinks about while they have sex: “not just being given to… maybe I can give something as well.”
I think that’s purposeful on Miura’s part. That’s a consistent part of Casca’s characterization that seems to stem from her childhood trauma and being rescued by Griffith, and it’s what informs her two major relationships. She only started warming up to Guts after he rescued her. Miura wants us to see it as attraction, but he didn’t really show us any actual desire from Casca, it’s something the characters, and the audience, take as read just based on the fact that she’s a woman and they’re men lol, and since I don’t agree that woman + man = automatic sexual attraction it’s pretty easy to take another route imo.
see i told yall … it’s always like this, they use gay subtext to ~deepen the story~ lol
i missed this yesterday, but yeah lol. like idt it even matters what miura’s intentions are, if the gay subtext is only there to make the story feel deeper and more intense then it’s still there to be picked up on and enjoyed.
I would add to this added to the story to deepen it, as opposed to what? that’s what all story elements of any kind are for. so what he essentially said it “yea, it gay as fuck.” tbh.
not to be disappointing lol but miura didn’t actually acknowledge the gay subtext at any point afaik, this is just speculation on why it’s there
see i told yall … it’s always like this, they use gay subtext to ~deepen the story~ lol
i missed this yesterday, but yeah lol. like idt it even matters what miura’s intentions are, if the gay subtext is only there to make the story feel deeper and more intense then it’s still there to be picked up on and enjoyed.
yeah, like idk if miura ever cited devilman directly as an influence but i know he cited go nagai and let’s be real, guts/griffith is extremely akira/ryo
and yeah even if he never admits it the narrative absolutely supports it and imo completely encourages it as a reading. to the point where i think it’s the most straightforward reading of their relationship – like to argue there’s no attraction between them you have to ignore or explain away a lot of suggestive moments.
(ngl tho speaking of one summer day i feel kind of ripped off not getting griffith’s jealous face haunting guts and casca
I think there’s a strong argument to be made that, rather than being
depicted as burgeoning true love ruined by the Eclipse for the
sake of extra tragedy, Guts and Casca getting together is depicted as a mistake from the start.
I love a lot about this post but especially thanks for putting the panels of guts saying he can’t stand griffith looking down on him next to the panel of how griffith pictures guts in his own mind’s eye. aaaahhhhhhhh!
like doesn’t that just say it all?
ALSO can I just say “I don’t know what’s ahead. Whether bein with you will get in the way of what I want to do… or the opposite… I can’t tell now.”
Well what Guts wants to do is fight stronger and stronger enemies, like Wyald. He’s been thinking about fighting monsters since he left and decided he was sore about losing to Zodd.
And then he does get to fight a monster, and this is what happens when Casca’s with him:
so like, you’re telling me they would’ve lived happily ever after pursuing Guts’ monster-fighting dream together if Griffith turned out to be fine and fit to lead the Hawks after all?
Bc this is directly telling me that Guts would see Casca as a liability to that dream and Casca would probably stop supporting it pretty quickly if Guts kept on going the way he’s going.
Yeah I think I’ve read that interview, or one like it lol.
honestly… yeah lol. everything else aside, we know the subtext is purposeful because the characters talk about it in one of their first interactions. even without that scene, the idea that it’s totally accidental seems completely impossible to me, no one is that clueless about their own writing.
I guess the question is whether the subtext is only there to add more depth, chemistry and ~passion~ or w/e to their totally platonic relationship, or whether it’s something readers can and should incorporate into their interpretations of the characters. and if miura only intended the former, whatever (tho i have my doubts), but he can’t stop me from doing the latter. like if your method of making it clear that the characters have a strong relationship is heaping on the gay subtext, you can’t be surprised when people take that and run with it.
okay so I found this note re: griffith on my phone:
griffith’s “o blessed king of longing” thing is interesting, because it was guts’s hand on his shoulder that caused his despair to be deep enough to be able to use the behelit. it’s not pride, which I imagine some people read that as (particularly people who don’t subscribe to the griffguts subtext/text), but really, the thing that brings him lowest is, essentially, his longing for guts. so his rebirth/godly curse/irony/benefit even, is now everyone longs for him (even more than before, as people have longed for him through his life anyway) in whatever way, and after the eclipse, he doesn’t have to FEEL it anymore, feel for them or long for anyone else himself: so how absolutely painful is it that guts made his heart beat even as neogriffith. he can’t escape it. king of longing indeed.
guts is the person he could never truly own, which brings great discomfort for a natural manipulator like griffith
you're the only one 