kissing-monsters:

bthump:

kissing-monsters:

okay further on this point which is also in the blurb on the back of this volume, “brought to his knees by his first defeat” isn’t saying he’s so wounded that guts physically won their duel– I give griffith more credit for knowing guts strength– the defeat is guts leaving and griffith being unable to stop that/not having planned for it at all

right like this is one line out of like 20 of casca and others saying griffith was fucked up because guts left – this just underscores that Guts leaving was a defeat. Yk, like he’s defeated emotionally by this turn of events, not that he’s devasted just because he lost a duel lol. Guts leaving happens along with his first ‘defeat in battle’ to emphasize the emotional significance of Guts leaving and how unprecedented Griffith’s feelings here are, it doesn’t contradict the million other times ppl described him as totally gone to pieces because Guts abandoned him

but berserk fans always take this one line out of context and ignore everything else 😡

it’s even in the official summaries because if you take ALL the other lines, and don’t ignore them it changes the meaning of this one line and people are apparently TERRIFIED in any official berserk summaries (as well as a significant chunk of the fandom) to admit a) griffith has any feelings for humans and b) that he’s IN LOVE WITH GUTS jesus chrimmeny it’s practically textual. the barest critical reading of the kind you need to actually comprehend fiction shows that.

it’s sad how the official stuff can’t even be vague about something being a bit gay?

That’s so ridic, like you’d think they can say “Griffith was devastated by Guts’ decision to leave,” or something, after all the manga says it over and over again in unambiguous words lol. tbh the fact that even official summaries dance around that just means it’s obvious how gay the story is I guess. Don’t want to accidentally turn away the dudebros reading for the big sword by suggesting there might be some heavy + suggestive emotional content inside.

yesgabsstuff:

bthump:

Password: Enough

Happy New Year everyone, I’m ringing it in by finally posting the fruits of me getting way too into a vid that was only supposed to be a fun evening of playing around on Premiere.

It’s set to an Avril Lavigne song and it’s earnest about it. Enjoy!

This hurt my feelings. Thank you for making it.

thank you! i’m glad it succeeded in its intended purpose lol

(Source: https://player.vimeo.com/)

kissing-monsters:

okay further on this point which is also in the blurb on the back of this volume, “brought to his knees by his first defeat” isn’t saying he’s so wounded that guts physically won their duel– I give griffith more credit for knowing guts strength– the defeat is guts leaving and griffith being unable to stop that/not having planned for it at all

right like this is one line out of like 20 of casca and others saying griffith was fucked up because guts left – this just underscores that Guts leaving was a defeat. Yk, like he’s defeated emotionally by this turn of events, not that he’s devasted just because he lost a duel lol. Guts leaving happens along with his first ‘defeat in battle’ to emphasize the emotional significance of Guts leaving and how unprecedented Griffith’s feelings here are, it doesn’t contradict the million other times ppl described him as totally gone to pieces because Guts abandoned him

but berserk fans always take this one line out of context and ignore everything else 😡

Femto’s appearance Griffith before the eclipsed was so fragile and handicapped meanwhile his new form is muscular the opposite of what he was. Did he model himself after Guts because Guts is muscular and of course strong. They’re the Godhand supposed to look and be different than their human form. Femto lacks charisma which the old Griffith had he needs some magic to attract people it’s kinda sad if you think about it. Do you think Neo Griffith in his human form can transform into Femto?

I’m gonna answer this backwards.

I don’t think he can transform into Femto, but I think Ganeshka saw him as Femto because he’d ascended into a higher plane of existence, in which he could see NeoGriffith for what he truly was.

So when we saw him as Femto during the scene where he killed Ganeshka and broke the world, it was because that’s what Ganeshka (and probs Skull Knight) saw. Like his true spiritual form, kinda thing.

Femto is a dick, yes, but tbf NeoGriffith has a ton of charisma. The way I see it, Femto didn’t need to be charismatic because he was a god on another playing field whose only peers were other completely dickish and shitty gods lol, like, when you only have Slan, Conrad, Ubik, and Void to hang out with, there’s no point in being charismatic. But as NeoGriffith he has a reason to be charming. I’m sure magic/fate/whatever also plays a part, but I also think part of it is just his natural Griffith-ness coming back to the fore. NeoGriffith is like what Griffith wished he was – perfectly charismatic, the absolute perfect image of a perfect king. Human Griffith did pretty well in that arena, so it stands to reason that NeoGriffith retained that charisma, and is making use of it again, with the added perfection that comes from being a god incarnate.

I never really thought about Femto being modeled after Guts. In the Black Swordsman arc he’s swole as fuck lol but I think that’s just the art before Miura really figured out the vibe he wanted. Everyone was huge in the Black Swordsman arc lol. During the Eclipse he’s slimmed down a bit, and then moreso in our glimpse of him with Ganeshka. I think it’s an interesting explanation though, and I dig it as a headcanon.

And as a contrast to his fragile helpless human body when he made the sacrifice it def makes sense for him to be reborn as a much more powerful, physically intimidating figure.

Casca cannot use the Behelit nooo. She has the mark se can’t use it, and who’s she sacrificing Guts because she don’t love him is obvious she doesn’t. She was already suicidal before Griffith was saved and then she decided to stay with him and take care of him while telling Guts to leave that’s when Griffith had enough. I feel like she triggered him telling Guts to leave again.

Someone with the brand of sacrifice can’t be sacrificed again, but there’s nothing saying they can’t use a behelit. And since the implication is that Guts might use the behelit at some point – Flora says it could be his – it follows that Casca could also potentially use it.

She wouldn’t be able to sacrifice Guts, because in the Black Swordsman Arc the Godhand said that you can’t sacrifice someone who’s already been sacrificed, but she could sacrifice Farnese (which would suck) or I’ve suggested maybe the Moonlight Boy (which imo would be awesome but I never rly liked that kid lol).

And yeah I totally agree that Casca telling Guts to leave totally fucked Griffith up and was like, the last straw that lead to his break from reality and then suicide attempt.

I mean come on, right? Guts leaving lead directly to Griffith essentially burning down his life by sleeping with Charlotte (whether that was intentional and conscious or whether it was subconscious is up to interpretation, but either way it wasn’t an accident), then he hung onto his sanity by a thread through a year of torture solely by thinking about Guts and his feelings for him, then he was rescued by Guts who cut a bloody swathe through Midland to avenge him and killed a literal monster to defend him, and finally he was lead to believe that Guts was about to leave him again, while he was totally helpless and had absolutely nothing else in his life.

And then finally Guts’ touch caused him to feel the kind of despair that makes you to want to destroy the person causing it and become a monster just so you won’t feel it again.

Like, that’s a hell of an emotional roller coaster revolving around one person.

Goddamn don’t you just love this fucking story? God.

griff-guts:

tbh there’s one thing that bothers me about a lot of meta i see about berserk: i honestly think guts didn’t even actually want to be griffiths equal – he wanted griffiths affection and attention, but after hearing griffiths speech about dreams guts began to feel that for griffith to love him, they have to be equal. like i think a lot of ppl misinterpret guts leaving to find his own dream as wanting to separate himself from griffith, but honestly that couldn’t be further from the truth. he leaves in hopes that if he comes back with a purpose in life, griffith will love him more.

kissing-monsters:

“Buried in his dream” makes it sound as if Guts can’t stand to be part of something, but that’s not it, he thrives on being part of the Hawks. His leaving is so deeply about him not feeling himself as Griffith’s focus or equal, and it hurts because holy shit Guts my dude, you may be the only one Griffith really looks at, at all.

kissing-monsters:

guts is incapable of understanding how much anyone cares for him without it being explicitly and intensely spelled out (”you are mine” got through on some level, and that was intense as fuck) and anything he does understand is temporary and easily destroyed because his self-worth and life experience make a foundation of quicksand for anything emotional that affirms him having any kind of value as a person

and griffith is almost incapable of expressing true emotional vulnerability to anyone he actually cares deeply for, and emotionally stunted by his own desire and design, so that he can’t actually comprehend the need that guts has to be reassured (he also can’t read minds and of course, guts never actually expresses his confusion and hurt and resolution about the “I don’t have friends” speech) but more deeply can’t comprehend why he needs to reassure guts and keep him (to contemplate it on a human level would further crack the foundations of griffith’s life– his dream– that he’s already doing such intense repression of everything for. he especially can’t contemplate this in relation to guts, the only thing that has challenged his focus so deeply. anything that takes his focus away from the dream means the guilt of what he’s done so far would return).

so they have a fight in the snow and everything is ruined forever and I want to cry

seisans
replied to your post “phydia63
replied to your post “phydia63
replied to your post “yk…”

with complex characters like these there’s always that risk that the anime staff is going to try to assign them a trope. i think that happened with guts and casca

oops i missed this the other day. but yeah it def feels like that’s what happened. and ngl I also kind of wonder if they thought G*tsca was too sudden in the manga lol, and felt it needed more build up.

yoikami
replied to your post “u ever think about how griffith was dangling from a broken arm at the…”

It was the last time Griffith decided to keep what’s most precious and preventing him from reaching his goals.

oh man, you know especially considering the godhand had already pretty much explained everything (you’ll sacrifice everyone here and become a god, cool huh?) this really is like, the last time Griffith chose him over his dream.

brb crying

I’ve been re-reading the last few chapters and I keep recalling Skull Knight’s words that Casca regaining her sanity might not be what she wishes. On the other hand we have a Guts who smiled, who enjoys having reliable comrades and has prioritized Casca over his revenge. Things are eerily calm in this group. The story’s focal point is Griffith/ Guts and the latter’s revenge, and seeing him calm rn makes me wonder what will occur to fuel his revenge. What do you think this event will be?

bthump:

Idk if this is a prediction or wishful thinking lol, but if I had to lay down a bet I think she’s going to wake up, have all the Eclipse related betrayal and despair and trauma hit her, and use the behelit, then go for revenge herself. I’ve been theorizing this for a while and tbh I haven’t come up with anything better yet so I’m still going with it.

My hopes for her getting a happy ending away from Guts are essentially zero, especially since reading in an interview that Miura only had her survive the Eclipse so Guts wouldn’t be able to fully move on.

And I’m assuming that Skull Knight’s warnings are going to come to something other than Casca being prickly for a while before hooking back up with Guts or w/e, then getting killed to make him want revenge again. Dramatic shudder.

So what I really want is for her to finally, finally react to what happened to her, and for that reaction to be epic as fuck.

 I also think it’s plausible because:

  • there’ve been a lot of ominous shots of the behelit recently
  • flora specifically suggested guts might be carrying it for someone else
  • guts revenge quest was bad for him partially because it wasn’t his right to avenge the hawks after abandoning them, but if anyone earned some vengeance it’s casca
  • griffith instinctively acted to save casca once, giving him a huge weakness against her
  • “What will she do if she does get her sanity back?” Just sounds so delightfully ominous and suggests Casca actively doing something Guts wouldn’t like.
  • guts’ revenge quest is played out imo, time for something new. also seeing casca decide to go full monster in her rage would probably fuck him up and wake up the beast of darkness, so it would still motivate him to do something
  • honestly there’s some great stuff with morality and apostles just waiting to be explored and seeing a beloved character turn into one would be really interesting
  • Casca’s strong, badass, and her anger manifests in violent lashing out making her a perfect candidate to take over the revenge stuff.
  • also more reasons i made a big list ages ago here

I think Guts hasn’t really given up on the idea of revenge yet – he was still fantasizing about going back after Griffith while on the boat – but it would be pretty anticlimatic if Casca just stuck around in Elfhelm to recover while Guts went “ok side quest over, back to the main quest now,” so I’m sure there’s going to be something more to it.

And I like the idea of Casca taking over the revenge quest and Guts maybe re-evaluating himself, his motives, etc, while fucked up once again because things went south and he did something with mostly good intentions and everything got all fucked up anyway.

Like tbh I think that the conflict as it’s set up now, ie revenge = bad, helping Casca = good, is much, much too simplistic for a story like Berserk. It’s boring lol, whether it ends up tragic and Guts backslides back into revenge, whether he continues doing the “right” thing and chooses Casca over it, it’s still black and white. In the Golden Age there were no easy right or wrong options – eg Guts thought he was doing the right thing by leaving, turned out to be a huge mistake that fucked everything up, and I really liked that. I think the current arc has the potential to be similar which would be great imo.

Guts isn’t helping Casca solely out of the goodness of his heart, he’s doing it because he wants the old Casca back despite misgivings and warnings that he might be going about it the wrong way – and he’s doing it to distract himself from revenge, and also from the fact that he’s not so gung-ho about revenge now that Griffith looks human again. Imo. It doesn’t have to be as simple as revenge = bad, magical therapy = good, and looking closely at Guts’ motivations makes me wonder and hope that, like the Golden Age, a seemingly positive choice could have negative consequences, and the secret actual right choice is dealing with your many issues, Guts, instead of running off for a dream, or revenge, or to “force” someone’s sanity back.

so if casca were to sacrifice someone with the Bad Egg who would it be???. farnese?.

@metalbutter​ that’s the going assumption but i have an extremely unlikely pipe dream that maybe she could sacrifice moonlight boy

it
would feel more symbolic of losing whatever romantic family potential
w/ guts there theoretically was, whereas sacrificing farnese just feels
like the only possible choice available and therefore not significant
enough on a narrative scale, since Guts can’t be sacrificed twice. plus
there’s this sequence of panels way back when:

image

i mean that’s kind of ominous right?

plus apostles sacrifice some weird shit sometimes, like eggman sacrificing “the world.” a ghost kid doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch after that.

I’ve been re-reading the last few chapters and I keep recalling Skull Knight’s words that Casca regaining her sanity might not be what she wishes. On the other hand we have a Guts who smiled, who enjoys having reliable comrades and has prioritized Casca over his revenge. Things are eerily calm in this group. The story’s focal point is Griffith/ Guts and the latter’s revenge, and seeing him calm rn makes me wonder what will occur to fuel his revenge. What do you think this event will be?

Idk if this is a prediction or wishful thinking lol, but if I had to lay down a bet I think she’s going to wake up, have all the Eclipse related betrayal and despair and trauma hit her, and use the behelit, then go for revenge herself. I’ve been theorizing this for a while and tbh I haven’t come up with anything better yet so I’m still going with it.

My hopes for her getting a happy ending away from Guts are essentially zero, especially since reading in an interview that Miura only had her survive the Eclipse so Guts wouldn’t be able to fully move on.

And I’m assuming that Skull Knight’s warnings are going to come to something other than Casca being prickly for a while before hooking back up with Guts or w/e, then getting killed to make him want revenge again. Dramatic shudder.

So what I really want is for her to finally, finally react to what happened to her, and for that reaction to be epic as fuck.

 I also think it’s plausible because:

  • there’ve been a lot of ominous shots of the behelit recently
  • flora specifically suggested guts might be carrying it for someone else
  • guts revenge quest was bad for him partially because it wasn’t his right to avenge the hawks after abandoning them, but if anyone earned some vengeance it’s casca
  • griffith instinctively acted to save casca once, giving him a huge weakness against her
  • “What will she do if she does get her sanity back?” Just sounds so delightfully ominous and suggests Casca actively doing something Guts wouldn’t like.
  • guts’ revenge quest is played out imo, time for something new. also seeing casca decide to go full monster in her rage would probably fuck him up and wake up the beast of darkness, so it would still motivate him to do something
  • honestly there’s some great stuff with morality and apostles just waiting to be explored and seeing a beloved character turn into one would be really interesting
  • Casca’s strong, badass, and her anger manifests in violent lashing out making her a perfect candidate to take over the revenge stuff.
  • also more reasons i made a big list ages ago here

I think Guts hasn’t really given up on the idea of revenge yet – he was still fantasizing about going back after Griffith while on the boat – but it would be pretty anticlimatic if Casca just stuck around in Elfhelm to recover while Guts went “ok side quest over, back to the main quest now,” so I’m sure there’s going to be something more to it.

And I like the idea of Casca taking over the revenge quest and Guts maybe re-evaluating himself, his motives, etc, while fucked up once again because things went south and he did something with mostly good intentions and everything got all fucked up anyway.

Like tbh I think that the conflict as it’s set up now, ie revenge = bad, helping Casca = good, is much, much too simplistic for a story like Berserk. It’s boring lol, whether it ends up tragic and Guts backslides back into revenge, whether he continues doing the “right” thing and chooses Casca over it, it’s still black and white. In the Golden Age there were no easy right or wrong options – eg Guts thought he was doing the right thing by leaving, turned out to be a huge mistake that fucked everything up, and I really liked that. I think the current arc has the potential to be similar which would be great imo.

Guts isn’t helping Casca solely out of the goodness of his heart, he’s doing it because he wants the old Casca back despite misgivings and warnings that he might be going about it the wrong way – and he’s doing it to distract himself from revenge, and also from the fact that he’s not so gung-ho about revenge now that Griffith looks human again. Imo. It doesn’t have to be as simple as revenge = bad, magical therapy = good, and looking closely at Guts’ motivations makes me wonder and hope that, like the Golden Age, a seemingly positive choice could have negative consequences, and the secret actual right choice is dealing with your many issues, Guts, instead of running off for a dream, or revenge, or to “force” someone’s sanity back.

Is Griffith feelings represed ? Like not sexual, but it’s obvious I meant emotional. He always crabs my attention I can’t figure him out quiet well, in all honesty. It’s quiet absurd to assume something about him yet he always does something that throws you off guard and make you speculate something different than what you thought you knew about him. Love him or hate him he’s one of kind, I truly want to see his bubble burst and see he’s emotions again he lost his magnetism and charisma as Femto

Pardon my bad writing English isn’t my language I’m not fluent, cheers from Ukraine.

Yes! At least that’s absolutely how I understand his character, and it’s like my favourite thing about him.

I get what you mean about Griffith being suprising, like if you assume something about him a later action will contradict it. I feel like to me he makes perfect sense, but only after reading the manga twice in a row and spending way too much time thinking about his narrative lol.

At face value he seems very contradictory because he tends to lie to himself, and the way he gets more complicated as the story goes on also tends to throw people off. Yk like we start out with this impression of him as a powerful charismatic leader driven towards a goal and willing to kill to get there, distant and above everyone else, but the more we learn about him – about his past and his insecurities and guilt and self loathing and feelings for Guts etc etc – the more layers we uncover, and the more we see that first impression is… not wrong exactly, but there’s a LOT more going on beneath the surface, and most of it is pretty depressing.

And like, he’s an unreliable narrator about himself, which can also make him hard to figure out. Imo Miura did a great job writing a character who doesn’t even understand his own motivations and emotions and making him understandable to the audience, but it’s still really easy to miss a lot of the complexities.

Also same! I really feel like we’re heading towards a big emotional reveal for NeoGriffith and I can’t wait.

tbh I’m thinking I might write a much more thorough meta post about his narrative/character soon. I want to talk about this more lol it’s like my favourite Berserk related topic. And it’s been a while since I got in-depth about something here, so keep an eye open if you’re interested!

phydia63
replied to your post

“phydia63
replied to your post “yk the anime is a good guide to how…”

And not to mention those moments that were cut were supposed to humanize Griffith and make him more relatable and fun. Anime and films made him look just cruel and cunning.

yeahhhh

tbh i feel like there are a lot of rly minor, seemingly insignificant tweaks that end up making the story feel much flatter overall. In the anime I mean, the movies just full on cut most of Griffith’s character out lol.

But like, little things like how he looks angry rather than regretful when Guts is about to kill the hired goons in tombstone of flame, or how we don’t see his face on “do you think I’m cruel?” or losing the moment where Guts remembers him asking him not to tell the Hawks about the assassinations, etc, all add up to less depth and less understanding and sympathy.

Also Guts tends to look way more dour imo, like his default expression is much pissier in the anime than the manga, which makes him seem low-key resentful constantly and kills a lot of the chemistry between Griffith and Guts in significant scenes. Also a bunch of his super fond wistful thinking-about-Griffith smiles are gone lol. I’m sure that helps contribute to the idea that anything between them is one-sided.

And then there are the filler scenes added just so Guts can do something useful and Casca can act like a tsundere, playing up Guts and Casca in a rly cliched way.

Also no flashback to Guts during sex with Charlotte, and his scratch marks are interpreted as a giant scar which doesn’t make any sense – there’s no reason for him to be clutching a mysterious scar and crying, but we’ve seen him self harm before so like, whoever made that call fucked up.

Ooh the torture – the scene that happens after Griffith has spent about one day in the dungeon in the manga instead happens right before Guts returns which really makes his suffering in the anime seem diminished in comparison.

Also Guts’ sparks speech to Casca is turned into half an episode of him chilling with Godo, which means that his dream of fighting people and swinging his sword forever is treated as completely noble and manly by the narrative, because we don’t get Casca’s immediate “you sound like a fucking asshole” counterpoint. Casca’s angry reaction is instead solely a reaction to Guts saying he’s leaving again, not to his whole “dream,” which also makes her look worse.

Idk this turned into a list bc I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently lol. The anime does a lot of things rly well too, but idk I definitely feel like I interpret the story pretty differently to whoever made it.

kissing-monsters:

firstly, useful reaction image

secondly, is it just me or does griffith do this a lot? decides the people that hurt him no longer have emotional significance to him. he does it with gennon (which is satisfying) and he harps on guts insignificance when he’s femto. and part of what he accepts by his sacrifice (and rebirth) in general is the removal of his feelings (and in all cases it’s not true, he never escapes his feelings, really).