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.
Is it possible also that on one level he’s smiling specifically because Guts killed a child for him? Because he can take that as pretty strong evidence that Guts is loyal to him and more importantly won’t turn away from Griffith’s dark side or judge him for his darker actions? Like, on top of everything else that’s happening in his fluffy head in that moment.
Huh, interesting idea, I never thought of it that way before.
I’ve gotta give this a solid maybe, because I could see an argument either way. Like, I guess I don’t think it would be an intended reading on Miura’s part, mostly because of how completely sinister and creepy that smile is lol. Like I feel that if Miura wanted to convey a sense of Griffith being relieved in a way by Guts going the extra mile and killing a kid, his smile might seem more like… emotionally complex? Kind of tender?
I’m feeling a little deprived now because I’m imagining Griffith smiling in a more fond way rather than an evil villain way after hearing the news and I’m really loving that idea lol.
Anyway regardless of potential authorial intent, I really like this suggestion, in part because of how emotionally vulnerable and insecure he is in Tombstone of Flame, after another round of comparatively justified assassinations. I like the idea of Griffith maybe wanting to believe that Guts killing Adonis means he’s ride or die for him and won’t judge him for what he does to get to the throne, maybe letting that knowledge make him a little more secure in his relationship with Guts between Promrose and Tombstone, but still being terrified that it’s like, a really fucked-up example of Griffith dragging Guts down with him, and something that makes Guts want to run.
It adds another little layer to the rug being pulled out from under him when Guts does leave. Another action to add to his own self-loathing – it’s not that Guts killed a kid for Griffith, maybe indicating that they share a certain darkness, it’s that Griffith caused him to kill a kid, Griffith dragged him into the darkness, and Guts presumably hates him for it.
(Also there is something absolutely delightful about Guts hating himself after killing Adonis and seeing himself as a monster and unworthy of Griffith’s friendship, even as it makes Griffith feel more secure, more able to open up to Guts, and then later makes Griffith feel more like a monster dragging Guts down. Like, it fits right into the rest of their giant misunderstanding, and it’s the kind of fucked up scenario I live for.)
I’m pretty sure there’s nothing that ever indicates he can read, and I def headcanon him as illiterate. Like, unless Griffith gave him lessons I don’t see where he would’ve learned.
On the other hand we’ve seen Casca reading and she didn’t have much more opportunity for formal education than Guts. And there’s no indication of where back alley peasant kid Griffith learned to read and write either. So who knows?
I’d say that argument is directly and unambiguously contradicted over and over again in the story, including by Griffith himself.
And like, literally the last thing Griffith thinks before sacrificing Guts is that Guts is more important than his dream. That’s why he’s sacrificing him. “You’re the only one who made me forget my dream.”
The main point of the Golden Age is to hammer home the concept that Guts is more important to Griffith than the dream, and it does it over and over and over lol. Everything revolves around that fact. And the sacrifice is a really clever (imo) culmination of that theme, not a weird last-minute contradiction of it.
Also I might try to add a quick explanation of my reading of the dream, ie it’s a defense mechanism/way for Griffith to escape his feelings, both guilt and the feelings for Guts that make him vulnerable and essentially destroyed his life, “the life of the person you loved the most and hated the most! you gave it to us so that you could bury your fragile human heart!” all that jazz. Which explains why Griffith chooses his dream over Guts even though he cares about Guts more (because he cares about him more). But idk if I could manage that without writing an essay, or more likely, linking one I’ve already written lol.
Wrt the second bit, idk what the fact that he had to sacrifice the other Hawks too has to do with it, it’s pretty clear to me that Godhand sacrifices are bigger and more epic than apostle sacrifices, but Guts still gets the spotlight even though there’s 30-40 others in the group. He’s the one Griffith’s last thoughts are directed to, he’s the one Slan singles out as a particularly excellent sacrifice, he’s the one Zodd directed his “prophecy” to and even makes sure to save so he can be sacrificed later (when he threw him a sword during the battle of Doldrey), while Rosine and the Count and Wyald killed a bunch of Hawks before the Eclipse without causing any issues. He’s the one Skull Knight singles out to give a warning to.
I like that the rest of the Hawks are included because it proves that Griffith does in fact care very much about all of them. I mean Casca’s flashback already proved that, but yk, it never hurts to underline Griffith’s capacity for caring about others, because Griffith himself downplays it as much as possible lol, to say nothing about the fandom. But I don’t think it detracts from Guts as the most important sacrifice either. He’s still above and beyond. He’s the one who caused Griffith’s behelit-opening despair, and he’s the one Griffith sacrifices to escape that despair.
Idk man, the sacrifice is like half the reason I ship griffguts, so I definitely don’t think it downplays or diminishes Griffith’s feelings for Guts in any way, imo it emphasizes how they’re front and centre as Griffith’s number one priority and central motivation in an immensely satisfying way.
it’s been a while since i read any of the lost children arc but i looked over some of it the other day and lol, there goes my assumption that Guts doesn’t actually know that a sacrifice has to be someone’s most important person/people.
and tbh I like this way more than Guts being in the dark and regarding the sacrifice as maybe a sign he wasn’t as important to Griffith as his dream after all. It fits Guts’ attitude towards Griffith better post-Eclipse, like the way he still knows that he was as important to Griffith as he wanted to be.
And his pretty significant devastation when NeoGriffith claimed he didn’t feel anything anymore.
And while he was unconscious while the Godhand were discussing it during the Black Swordsman arc, and they didn’t really say anything that revealing that everyone could hear during the Eclipse iirc, it still makes sense for me to assume that Guts could put 2 and 2 together re: the sacrifice requirements based on what he does know. Like he missed “it must be someone important to you, part of your soul” but he heard “the life of the person you loved the most and hated the most” so, that’s still pretty indicative.
Plus it really adds a certain something to Guts’ revenge campaign.
Like with the sacrifice as active proof of his importance to Griffith, it makes me wonder about what kind of complicated feelings that, say, the brand hurting in the presence of monsters might invoke.
Yeah. I mean to be nitpicky I think that whole vision before the sacrifice was Griffith’s own like, perception of himself that the Godhand utilized, not exaclty something they created themselves, but regardless either way I definitely agree, it’s v telling.
Like, idk it seems so perfectly illustrative of Griffith’s… like, mindset. Towards his dream and Guts too even. Like, it belies how calculated he can be, because underneath all that he’s ultimately motivated by feeling like being an overwhelmed kid on a pile of corpses, and that’s the feeling underlying the sacrifice. It adds a certain undertone of innocence to the scene that’s just so fitting imo.
yeah that is such a huge issue i have with like, everything post eclipse.
i mean i feel like, idk there are a few moments that suggest that rather than just fixing guts’ trauma and then immediately replacing it with eclipse trauma, it’s more that the eclipse echoed his childhood trauma and compounded it. i feel like that might’ve been miura’s intent even. eg:
And it absolutely was his clear intent during the Black Swordsman arc. But I feel like Miura let this just kind of, like, fall to the wayside, and totally failed to follow through on this idea through actual characterization, instead deciding to completely downplay Guts’ actual personal trauma.
Like there are so many moments that by rights should’ve referenced Guts’ csa trauma that glaringly ignored it. A big one I’m thinking of is when Guts assaults Casca. Like come on, he had a violent flashback during consensual sex with her and you’re telling me it’s not even on his mind after nearly raping her? Or maybe yk at some point during that arc right after the Eclipse that was all about child abuse and Guts becoming a monster. Or maybe during the actual Eclipse itself. At least show us that paralyzing fear that was strongly implied during the Black Swordsman arc instead of boring one dimensional outrage.
ty for asking, i’m just gonna write a few long lists lol
97 anime likes:
the animation, including the like, yk the more detailed stills they pan over in place of action or to punctuate important moments, i love it
the gorgeous backgrounds
most of the colour choices. red eclipse, femto’s blue eyes, casca’s skintone, griffith’s mauve clothes, etc.
how close it is to the manga. like, it’s a solid adaption just by virtue of making very few changes.
so like, most of it really, because i like the manga
special mention to the entire lead up to the eclipse from griffith’s reality break to the sacrifice tho, because i think that was all pretty damn perfect. it’s the most important scene and they did it right.
actually also shout out to casca’s flashback to griffith and the dead kid, gennon, the river scene, all that. another difficult v emotional sequence that they nailed imo.
griffith thinking about how he “loves” guts during the monologue
skipped most of the griffith/charlotte sex scene iirc which i approve of
the glimpse of black swordsman guts in ep 1. it’s not perfect but it’s way better than the ovas starting w/ 15 yr old guts
the opening and closing themes. fucking love both songs ngl
also the opening monologue. never get tired of hearing it
the score
the portrayal of griffith was honestly pretty solid imo. i have very few issues there. and lbr that’s important lol
97 anime dislikes:
not a big fan of griffith or guts’ character designs.
just about everything that isn’t identical to the manga is a change for the worse
turned griffith’s scratch marks into that giant unexplained scar
adding extra scenes where casca is secretly impressed with guts’ skills in battle in an attempt to build up their relationship better, which instead just made casca look unfair for still being a dick to him for 3 years and made guts stupidly gary stu-ish
obviously the straightforwardly romantic portrayal of guts and casca’s relationship
through several seemingly minor changes (eg, skipping guts’ night of self-doubt after he leaves, giving guts’ stay with godo its own half-episode, making guts inviting casca along super romantic rather than the incredibly casual and assholish way he does it in the manga, etc) it makes Guts’ dream seem legitimately noble and worthwhile, with none of the like… implicit critique the manga has. like honestly it completely fucks up what i consider one of the central themes of the story lol
the pre eclipse stuff also fails to sell guts’ sense of regret – through things like playing guts’ theme while judeau is telling guts to leave, not repeating guts’ statement of regret after casca tells him to leave again, the tone remains consistently in favour of guts’ dream. wrong and bad.
like it really reads like the suggested tragedy is that guts doesn’t get the chance to ditch griffith with judeau and take off with casca and the raiders lol
also fucks it up by never directly mentioning guts’ csa trauma
also fucks it up by losing guts’ self-destructive single-minded urge to fight monsters that we saw thru the wyald stuff. i’m not gonna say that losing wyald was a bad decision, but they should’ve at least moved erika suggesting that guts just wants to fight zodd again to the fucking waterfall scene in question, which they portrayed completely sans zodd discussion, completely sans implication of the self-destructiveness of guts’ dream
like in the manga he nearly gets killed by the falling logs and just laughs it off like a dumbass while erika is concerned and suggests that guts is driven by something irrational and not actually a ~noble~ dream, ie, wanting to fight zodd again (ie, going deeper, his csa trauma), while in the anime we get a 2nd scene where he successfully slices through the logs as a super basic symbol of growth and a narrative pat on guts’ back that shouldn’t be there!
honestly just fucking everything about the portrayal of guts’ dream lol it just takes it at face value in a way the manga consistently never did and always undermined and critiqued, and it bugs the hell out of me.
guts is just drawn in a way that makes him look angry way too often and he often feels ooc to me bc of it. like he lacks a lot of the warmth he has in the manga imo
showing that griffith is awake when guts says “i’ll stay too” even tho in the manga those words are placed over a panel of him asleep for a reason like, ffs
lots of other random nitpicky details that only i give a fuck about because my opinions and feelings about the story are too strong lol. like not showing griffith’s face when he asks if guts thinks he’s cruel
oh huge one: moving the scene where the torturer rips off griffith’s behelit from about a day after he was imprisoned to right before his rescue. completely trivializes griffith’s torture because it still looks like he’s been in there for a day at most
why on earth did it end where it ended????????????? who’s bright idea was that? the perfect ending is skull knight riding tf out with guts and casca and femto not killing them, but then they also cut out skull knight’s first appearance so idfk man.
oh some downplaying of griffguts, like i can’t complain too much about this because it was still p homoerotic, but things like omitting guts assuming griffith wants to fuck him right before their first duel. boo.
ultimately at the end of the day as much as i do genuinely like the anime, it’s not telling quite the same story the manga was – the story it’s telling is more boring and basic. but because it sticks so close to the manga the good story still shines through? it just means there’s inconsistent tone choices and stuff, like the aforementioned grievances.
it’s like, they kept casca’s diatribe at guts line for line while she’s screaming that griffith needed him and a man can’t live on dreams alone, but they don’t extend that train of thought to guts going off to pursue his dream, while the manga does.
anyway despite that giant list of dislikes i still think the anime is pretty fantastic overall. i just also like, blame it for a lot of wrong fandom takes lol.
movie likes:
character designs! honestly imo everyone looked pretty great.
they played up the homoeroticism and i appreciate that
illustrating griffith being torn between guts and his dream through that lovely moment when he catches guts when he nearly falls off the stairs right before he catches charlotte, and in a more romantically suggestive way
the whole scene where griffith shows up at charlotte’s window thoroughly improved on the manga, so hats off there. loved how completely out of it he was to the point where he barely realized where he was and immediately turned to leave when charlotte was like ‘woah dude wtf,’ love that charlotte was the one to ask him to stay and then physically move his hand back to her tit, love how emphatically griffith was thinking about guts during that sex scene, etc. like it’s still not perfect, but it is a vast improvement.
griffith showing up in person after the hundred man fight was a nice touch
it was cool that they got a lot of the same english vas from the anime dub back, and they all did a gr8 job. like it’s a pretty good dub imo.
i liked that they moved ‘the crystalization of your last tear shed’ to after guts’ post-eclipse breakdown
compared to the anime at least gtsca was more low-key and chill rather than dramatically romantic. still don’t want it there, and still not as… unromantic as the manga, but i’ll take what i can get
the animation during griffith’s transformation into femto, yk that whole sequence, was cool
slan’s english voice was super sexy
ummmmm i feel like they conveyed the whole dreams are stupid theme, and guts’ decision to leave being a mistake, better than the anime? like i got the sense that the ova ppl recognized that was a theme, at least. i’d have to watch them again to really be sure of that tho
movie dislikes:
GRIFFITH’S. NARRATIVE.
like holy fuck they completely destroyed his character lmao
i cannot believe
no backstory! no tombstone of flame! no ‘do you think i’m cruel?’ THAT WAS THE REASON HE MADE THE SACRIFICE FFS HOW DO YOU SKIP IT????
no dead kid angst, gennon only in vague implication, no self harm – oh no wait we saw self inflicted scratches, they were just completely contextless and meaningless to the point where we could assume charlotte’s nails made them
no torture chamber monologue
no guts monologue in the tavern either for that matter
no rooftop scene
again barely the implication of guts’ childhood trauma, both the sexual abuse and the general parental abuse. one vague flashbacky nightmare doesn’t cut it, it’s the cornerstone of the story
like i get it, it’s a movie trilogy, you have to cut some things, but goddamn, cut out gtsca. trim the hundred man fight. add 20 minutes to the first ova and take the insanely long rape scene out of the third. trim down the whole eclipse sequence. don’t cut out like… the story. like they cut out SO MANY emotionally relevant scenes and kept so many much less relevant scenes, idek.
and like let’s be real here, they turned griffith from an immensely interesting and complex character into a 1 dimensional dude who is torn between a vaguely evil ambition and being in vaguely evil love with guts, just for the sake of streamlining the least interesting aspects of the story
they don’t even try to pretend otherwise lol, look at his fucking hilarious evil smile here
also while i’m looking at it, in general i think they failed at the whole eclipse sequence. looks, lighting, colour, build up of tension… there are a few minor improvements here and there (eg casca’s point of view shot of femto, femto telekinesising guts back a la the black swordsman arc which emphasizes his failure to act when he escapes), but overall it doesn’t work for me at all. like imo the anime has the exact same highs and lows as the manga, but while the ova avoids some lows it never reaches those highs.
they also had griffith overhear guts saying he wants to stay. i really don’t get why this happened twice lol, like… ok his face is kind of shadowed here but he’s still very clearly asleep? this is an important detail, guts’ interrupted words are even on that very panel, so why would you go out of your way to show that he’s awake and listening at that point.
the pacing sucked. 3rd movie was too long, 1st was too short, and they skipped waaaaaay too many significant scenes that should’ve been there as emotional beats
honestly the movies are pretty, they’re nicely fanservicey in ways, they capture some good subtleties and nuances at times, but they’re a husk of the story
oh did i mention the music during the eclipse rape? incredible.
also i am actually generally positive about the movies too despite what it seems like here lmao. i’ve watched them all like, 3 or more times and i find them v enjoyable.
i just have a way easier time listing nitpicky flaws than positives honestly. the flaws stand out to me, the virtues pass me by because i’m just enjoying them and not dwelling on them
and lbr here at the end of the day no adaption will ever really satisfy me unless i somehow find several million dollars lying around and make my own lol. and that would probably be a flop anyway.
It is kind of an additional little suggestion that Black Swordsman Guts is in fact pursuing his dream, and is still motivated by his desire to be Griffith’s friend and equal, and have his attention on him (in yk kind of a fucked up way Guts doesn’t really acknowledge to himself). He does go off alone to fight stronger and stronger enemies, leaving Casca behind, and in the Lost Children arc especially the risk of Guts becoming a monster himself and joining Griffith again that way comes to the forefront.
And in general it fits nicely with the sense that Guts leaving people and doing his own thing is bad shit, and Guts staying with people who need him is positive and good. Casca’s encouragement is misguided, leads to the Eclipse, and ironically fits Guts’ dumb actions post-Eclipse.
So yeah I’d call it forshadowing for Guts leaving Casca behind in the cave to pursue a version of his dream.
true… i feel like modern au griffith would be more of a drama queen or like, channel it through. healthier? outlets like social media. or being a groomzilla.
yeah i think depending on the au i could see a way more emotionally open griffith. like one thing about his general… mr calm and composed attitude to everything is that it’s not intrinsic and it doesn’t necessarily come naturally to him, he’s just forced himself to be very self-controlled throughout his life.
tbh I don’t think I should’ve said i can’t imagine griffith completely losing self-control, because i can imagine it under some circumstances, and i mean we’ve seen him attempt suicide (and he’s not in full control over himself when he’s self harming, eg, like he didn’t even seem aware he was doing it in Casca’s flashback, etc).
But yk to me drama queen suggests like, ott and melodramatic/overexaggerated emotional responses. imo Griffith’s most extreme emotional responses are pretty justified as reactions to extreme circumstances. Even Guts leaving was imo demonstrated to be genuinely significant to him, so his reaction didn’t feel overly extreme to me, and because we got his internal monologue we saw how much of his feelings he still kept hidden.
So it’s less that I can’t imagine him losing self control, and more that I can’t imagine him throwing a hissy fit, or screaming at someone in outrage, and generally blowing things out of proportion. that kind of thing.
But yeah like modern au Griffith, in different circumstances without a dream his life revolves around that forces him into a perfect self-controlled leader image, I could see him, yk, expressing his feelings before they started seeping out in self-destructive ways like unconscious self harm. Engaging in arguments, crying a bit more easily, etc. idk if I could really imagine him as an actual drama queen even then, but he could definitely be less cool and calm and composed in general.
But also like… bear in mind that this is me in unfun, contemplating the nuances of Griffith’s characterization mode. I want to respond to this with like a fun modern au groomzilla griffith scenario, I’m just bad at having fun and thinking of stuff like that, and your response made me ponder more about how canon Griffith expresses emotions lol.
I feel like Griffith is the expected answer, and I almost said Griffith automatically, but no it is definitely Guts, and Griffith is really like, the opposite of a drama queen. He’s cool and collected to a fault. Even during the second duel – we saw his frantic thoughts, but he didn’t express them. He was cold, and rational enough that everyone there except Rickert and Casca thought his challenge was reasonable (including Guts). His reaction when Guts walked away was to slump into the snow and silently repress really hard. He was hallucinating and breaking from reality when he finally broke down over his post-torture situation – before that he was shockingly calm and chill about it, even at the moment he silently let his dream go. Fucking Charlotte was a terrible decision but it was a method of repression, and he was pretty calm and composed during, even making cute jokes.
He smiled calmly when he made the sacrifice.
His breakdown in the river in front of Casca was spoken calmly and he stopped and put on a fake smile the instant he realized how badly his mask had slipped. He casually referred to being taken advantage of by a child predator as “seducing an old man.” He was completely cold + polite + perfunctory when he killed Gennon. “Do you think I’m cruel?” was one of his more emotional moments and it was v quietly so. His replies to Guts asking why he risked his life for him were all v chill, either rationalizations or calm admittances of irrationality. His most emotional, unconsidered moment (other than like, the suicide attempt) was probably lifting his hand to strangle Guts in the torture chamber, and that came after a year of torture and brooding over Guts, and he immediately switched to holding his hand when Guts started crying lol. yk, etc etc etc.
I honestly can’t really imagine Griffith completely losing his self-control and throwing a drama queen type fit. He’s understated.
Guts on the other hand makes a big production out of everything. Guts loses control and declares wars to get a demon’s attention. Guts screams at ghosts, Guts threatens dudes by throwing severed heads at them, Guts cracks wise when he’s fighting people whether it’s in fun tournaments or in life or death situations, Guts loses control and strangles people, Guts lets people stab him when he’s upset, Guts cries a lot, Guts screams a lot, Guts makes dramatic bitter speeches a lot, Guts, let’s be honest, throws tantrums and lashes out at whoever happens to be nearby when he’s upset. He tells kids to kill themselves, tortures apostles when he’s extra mad, fights a hundred men because he just wants to swing his sword, exaggeratedly pouts when Casca is mean to him, rushes into battle before everyone else, and is honestly really, really self-centred in general imo. (Which, to be clear, is something I love about him. Guts’ brand of self-centredness is a gr8 flaw.)
Plus like canonically his central motivation for just about everything he does is wanting attention, specifically Griffith’s attention.
So yeah I would say Guts is by far way more of a drama queen than Griffith. Griffith completely downplays everything that affects him as much as humanly possible, while Guts thrives on melodrama and big emotional responses.
(tbh I wouldn’t exactly call Guts a drama queen either lol, he’s also p chill and understated about a lot of things, but compared to Griffith he totally is.)
I’m gonna go in order from least to most likely I guess lol.
10. Guts has a sex dream about Griffith, fully canonizing his attraction.
9. Guts and Griffith admit they were and still are in love with each other, at least to themselves, and realize how hard they both fucked up their potential, and die together in mutual regret after a dramatic kiss and stab.
8. Guts kills Isidro in a berserk armour rage. Also like, Magnifico,
mermaid girl, Roderick, and also I’d add Schierke and her elf too. Maybe even Puck just to hammer home the point lol, just like, off half the
rpg group. Mini eclipse starring Guts going past his point of no return. And since this is already v implausible, it leads to an ending where Guts and Griffith do the not-so-different thing and get back together.
7. Guts doesn’t go Beast of Darkness due to Casca – not her dying (god forbid), not her going apostle, not her rejecting him, Casca just doesn’t figure into Guts losing himself to darkness regardless of what she does. Instead, Griffith comes to Elfhelm, and Guts goes Beast of Darkness during some kind of emotional confrontation with him.
6. Guts and Griffith drag each other to hell upon their deaths where they ~become one~ like lbr they’ve always wanted. also as an ironic call-back to their equality thing.
5. Schierke’s guardian spirit elemental beings and the Godhand are connected + aspects of the same shit, good and evil are two sides of the same human coin, and the Idea of Evil is not evil in and of itself, it’s simply fulfilling humanity’s wishes. Yk there’s no good spirit world vs evil spirit world, it’s all the same stuff it just looks good or evil depending on what you’re calling on them for and your perspective, because humanity contains multitudes.
4. The behelit opens, Casca makes a sacrifice, goes apostle, and gets to drive the narrative. Relatedly, there are griffguts parallels between apostle Casca and Farnese. Similarly to Rosine/Jill.
3. Danann, and Skull Knight, are using Guts and Casca in a plot against the Godhand, turn out to be giant dicks and Elfhelm in general becomes an antagonist. Also Moonlight Boy was a manipulation on Danann’s part. (And less plausible but along with that, when Griffith shows up at Elfhelm it’s right at the point where the audience, and Guts, wants to see someone fuck Elfhelm up, cleverly complicating the whole protagonist/antagonist scenario.)
2. Casca kills NGriff, probably while NGriff is having a breakdown after killing Guts.
1. Griffith does something stupid and irrational for Guts’ sake once again.
Bonus 0: the fetus is at least mostly a red herring and had nothing to do with Griffith’s heart beating when he watched Guts fight Zodd.
From what I’ve seen myself in interviews I’ve read, Go Nagai (probably Devilman in particular wrt plot and characters, maybe Violence Jack too which I’ve seen other people cite specifically, and I’d suggest his art style in general), Rose of Versailles, Fist of the North Star, Guin Saga, Kaze to Ki no Uta, 80s Rutger Hauer films (lots of fans figure Ladyhawke in particular tho idk if he ever specified, there are a lot of similarities tho afaik), Disney movies (Puck = Jimminy Cricket lol).
Also I’ve seen ppl mention Pygmalio, Star Wars (which seems p obvious considering the Millenium Falcon shout out), Hellraiser, and Cho Aniki (referenced in the names Adon and Samson according to the dh translator lol. apparently there are a lot of little references like that even beyond like, puck’s obvious jokey refs, most of which i’m sure i’ll never know.)
There’s more on his tv tropes page and most seem legit, but ofc take it with a grain of salt bc it’s tv tropes.
Anyway saying half his inspirations were gay was a humorous exaggeration but there is a p significant chunk of gay and/or griffguts-y material there.
I read like the first few chapters before the site i was using fucked up and i didn’t go back to it, but mb i should. i’ve heard it’s only partially translated or smthn, which is why i just gave up, tho i could be wrong about that or it could be outdated info.
anyway yeah i can definitely see how it may have partly inspired berserk. i didn’t see enough of the protags’ relationship to really judge similarities there (though wouldn’t surprise me at all if there are some), but the whole concept of csa trauma influencing your life and fucking up your relationships is a p big thing in Berserk, and it seems like the main point of ktknu.
and lol i swear like half the stuff miura cites as an influence is textually gay. just one more reason i can’t believe the homoerotic overtones aren’t deliberate.
legit. even innuendos aside, the uniqueness of the fight is a good reflection of the uniqueness of yk the circumstances, the relationship, it’s such a gr8 scene in general. and i do love those innuendos.
i think it was probably meant as a shock value thing more than anything, like yes the idea was to feel the anger and betrayal guts was feeling, but imo it wasn’t meant to make us hate griffith the character as a whole from that point onward. because the way miura presents his story after the eclipse is very generous
like it was a shoking turning point that
was supposed to 1) give guts revenge motivation but also 2) really
drive home the ~morally ambiguous~ thing he’s trying to go with, which
might have been the worst fail ever because not only is rape generally
tied to pure evil villainy but also miura /kinda/ made that connection
too. i mean he was actually trying to make that “there’s evil in the
world bc everyone has a dark core” point
and also maybe
something about ultimate freedom (which is why it’s the apostles that
rape like almost every time) but he just failed so hard on that front bc
everyone saw the eclipse rape scene and was like, oh ok so we’re
supposed to hate griffith then. and instead of making their view of the
story more ambiguous and open, it made it completely black and white.
the literal opposite of what miura was imo going for
one thing that i think
the eclipse rape does do is drive home the hatred griffith felt for
guts when he was at his lowest, because those are the feelings that come
to surface when he’s stripped down to only his “evil core.” however the
counter-argument there is that it absolutely didn’t have to be rape,
like you mentioned in another post. it could have been torture or
whatever else. and i’m so pissed off that he went with rape in the end
bc it just cheapened everything
Hm yeah it’s meant to illustrate Femto as an entity made out of evil and Griffith’s inner darkness, make us hate him specifically and empathize with Guts’ desire for revenge. I def agree that it’s not meant to make us retroactively hate Griffith, it’s pretty clear that human Griffith is still meant to be very sympathetic and not Femto-lite or anything like that lmao, I mean look at how Guts remembers him.
NeoGriffith, idfk. It seems clear that we’re not meant to hate him, considering how he’s framed as the hero of his own story with his own loathsome antagonists and a cause we’re meant to generally consider good, and allies we’re meant to like, etc. But we’re probably still supposed to be wary of him, and uncertain about him? His whole thing is ambiguity. So idk, maybe Miura intended for it to be obvious that NGriff isn’t the exact same as Femto just like regular Griffith isn’t, so distancing the Eclipse rape from his narrative doesn’t feel awkward as fuck to him lol.
And yeah in addition to illustrating his evil it does illustrate his negative feelings towards Guts, also necessary, but yeah, choosing rape as that illustration was bad, and the particular way Miura went about it was even worse.
so ……… berserk is red pill vs blue pill
not sure if this is a matrix ref or a reddit ref lol. both kinda make sense…
i’m hoping miura
doesn’t rush this. bc it’s still not entirely clear what he’s really
going for, and i’d kind of like it to be, by the end
depends, if it’s gonna suck i just want the band aid ripped off, but if he’s going to surprise me and it’s gonna be good i want to savour it. and also yeah, understanding it would be nice too lmao, but I feel like that’ll be more clear after whatever happens w/ casca happens. that’s the make or break for me.
honestly the concept
of falconia is so sexy, starting with the ripped statues outside and
ending with its literally lusted after angelic beautiful leader like
come on. props to him, griffith haters need to give credit where credit
is due
when one of your literal superpowers is magic sex appeal you don’t have to go the extra mile, but he did. what an icon
Hi, I ended up here because you linked the post recently. So, about Charlotte. It’s not a thing I like or totally understand the cultural reasons for, but you see a lot of women/bottoms saying “no/don’t” in Japanese porn that’s framed as consensual. I gather it’s a “good girls always say no” thing? It’s still really uncomfortable and problematic, but the scene with Charlotte reads like it’s complying to an established (although ugly and misogynist) standard to me.
I agree about all the ways the trio’s
characters were gutted by the eclipse though. I don’t even really
disagree about Charlotte, I just think Miura was riding the wheel, not
inventing it.
Yeah I have like, a vague awareness of that as a cliche inJapanese porn/erotica, tho it crops up in more than its fair share of english media too, and I feel like that no means yes trope is an unfortunately p universal form of misogyny/rape culture. And yeah def agree that it’s what’s informing that scene.
Yeah, the backstories
were what made me hopeful that there was a more cohesive idea being
explored. Now I mostly hope he just leaves it alone and doesn’t go
there.
The book was was Blade of Tyshalle by Matthew Stover. It’s:
-the second book in a series
-a masterful culmination of themes explored in the first book
-maybe my favorite book ever?
-choke-full of things that should not work but do
-seriously dark and violent, but worth reading if you can stomach it
I looked it up and ngl the premise of that series sounds pretty intriguing. idk if I’ll check it out but it’s going on a list of books to maybe look into next time I’m bored, so ty.
And yeah ikwym, I feel like in a different story the Golden Age narrative culminating in Griffith transforming into a version of himself that embodies his inner darkness and that being shown through rape could’ve worked like, thematically. It just like, would’ve had to be different in almost every way lol. like about Casca’s trauma rather than Guts’, and half the narrative could not centre NGriff as a protagonist afterwards, and Casca should be a full character and have at least as much narrative significance as Guts, and the depiction would actually have to be tasteful and centred in Casca’s pov since the theme in question is trauma and the rapists throughout the Golden Age are all one dimensional caricatures – like they’re not the focus, the victims are.
But idk this is the mess we got, and I’m with you, at this point I’m just hoping Miura doesn’t make it worse.
Well, not like I can argue that sexual violence is handled well in Berserk. Tangential, but I once read a book where shit was a motif. Like, literally shit. And that sounds super gross but the author knew what he was doing and it served a very intentional literary purpose. I would have (quietly) been okay if Miura was doing something similar, but it really does seem like he just breaks out the rape card whenever he needs to up the stakes.
imo the really annoying thing about rape in berserk is that sometimes it actually is well done but most of the time it’s… just not lol. Like I think Guts and Griffith and Casca’s (with a few caveats) backstories all work really well, depicted in varying degrees of graphic but for the most part effectively so, they inform the characters and their current values and motivations, and thematically their backstories potentially inform like, the entire story.
Which imo just makes it worse that so much of the rape we see in Berserk is so badly done and gratuitous. Like as a theme I think it could’ve been strong and effective, and like, sometimes it is, but overall there’s way more bad than good. So yeah I p much completely agree with you.
and lol I’m kinda curious now, what book was that?
I guess I’ve always assumed the Eclipse rape was there to give us a reason to hate Griffith. Like, in another setting committing murder would be “crossing the line” into villainy. In a story where all the dewy-eyed still-innocent major characters are also hired killers, escalation is bound to get awkward. Given how sympathetic Griffith’s storyline otherwise is, it feels like a effort to say “no really, this is supposed to be morally complicated, stop rooting for him.”
Yeah I don’t think you’re wrong about that. Though more than anything I think it’s meant to give Guts specifically a reason to hate him lol, because the way Miura wrote the sacrifice and Guts’ reaction to it
sacrificing him wasn’t nearly enough.
I mean personally I think the sacrifice could’ve still worked fine on its own if Guts had actually like, demonstrated some extreme feelings of betrayal, which I feel like he should’ve, because the sacrifice is meant to be an echo of his childhood trauma of being sold imo, and I feel like Miura kind of dropped that in favour of the more immediate shock value.
Like it wouldn’t’ve been enough to get me to hate him, but I’m kind of an exception lol, I feel like Guts expressing heartbreak and betrayal that echoes like, the scene where Gambino told him he sold him to Donovan, probably would’ve worked okay for most fans to make them at least very angry at Griffith/Femto.
Buuuuut you’re right that like, he is really sympathetic otherwise and Guts wanting to chase him down and kill him while he’s orchestrating world peace and ruling a utopia might make Guts seem less sympathetic without that visceral show of evil during the Eclipse to “justify” it. But then the Eclipse rape goes so far in the other direction that it completely fucks up the balance too. So idk.
I guess if I was writing it and I felt like the Eclipse needed something extra to prove that Femto is evil, which is fair since he’s supposed to be Griffith’s inner darkness with an additional boost of humanity’s evil in general, and you probably do want to demonstrate some of that, I’d opt for like, torture + maybe some magical mind torture or something if Casca needs to be driven insane, because that’s the kind of ott fantasy evil that none of the Berserk readership will have personally experienced. Rape as a gratuitous demonstration of evil has a whoooole lot of baggage that makes writing that character as a morally ambiguous antagonist later on extremely terrible imo.
tl;dr basically ia, I think the purpose was to immediately show how evil Femto is and make the readers and Guts hate him, and I mean it worked I guess lol, but I still think it was a bad decision and Miura should’ve done something else.
Yeah I definitely think we just got to the beginning of the last third of the story… hopefully not the halfway point
lol imagine if we’re only halfway through now… tho ngl that would be nice for my impossible “Casca levels up and becomes a secondary antagonist making Griffith, Guts, and Casca three enemies with their own intwined but opposing goals” hope.
It’s actually pretty crazy for how many
people HATE Griffith like he’s the most evil villain ever when all he’s
done was for the “greater good” for the rest of humanity (and monsters
too I guess.)
Though the only absolutely evil thing he did was rape Casca, which was
actually completely pointless and horrible. The story would’ve been
better if it never happened tbh
this is one reason I have such a problem, from like, a story construction standpoint (never mind the pile of other problems I have with it), with the Eclipse rape. It’s sooooooo irrelevant to the rest of Griffith’s narrative. Obviously I understand why it makes people hate him, regardless of the magical fantasy logistics of transforming into an evil demon first, or how badly written it is, or its significance (or lackthereof) to his narrative as a whole, yk, whatever, it’s reasonable to have a strong negative emotional response to it regardless.
But it has nothing to do with his dream, with NeoGriffith’s entire narrative, it was not necessary to create Falconia, it amounts to nothing more than a v shallow show of evil that does nothing to complicate the moral quandaries of Griffith’s dream/Falconia because it was entirely unnecessary and gratuitous. It doesn’t even tell us anything about NeoGriffith as an individual running a utopia because he transformed again and we don’t know how similar or different he is to Femto lol. Miura completely downplays it to the point where I kinda suspect he knows he completely hamstrung his attempt to write an interesting morally grey villain as soon as it left the gate, and now it’s like he’s doing a weird juggling act where the Eclipse rape is Guts’ whole motivation but also it simultaneously has zero bearing on the framing of NeoGriffith’s story.
Like I’ve mentioned this before but how fucking weird and awkward is it that we as readers have no idea whether Rickert even knows about the Eclipse rape, when the whole narrative point of his digression to Falconia was his choice to judge and reject NeoGriffith. Rickert delivers his judgement – essentially as an audience stand-in – and the Eclipse rape doesn’t factor into it at all. That’s the definition of gratuitous lol. And that’s just one example of Miura turning it into this awkward elephant in the room.
I think the point of gut’s changing his ideals and stating them against Mozgus is to show that he is on the path of becoming a less damaged human being. Even comparing his goals in the conviction arc to the blackswordsman arc, he started changing especially when he realized he wanted to regain casca as opposed to him wanting to hunt down neo griffith. I don’t think it’s inconsistent writing on mirua’s behalf but i think its supposed to show the beginning of gut’s growth.
Sorry, I think I wasn’t super clear because that post was kind of rambly and off-the-cuff lol, but my point is actually that it isn’t a change for Guts at all, it’s the exact same attitude – it’s just the narrative framing of that attitude has changed.
Guts saying the dude and his daughter were too weak to survive so they don’t matter is no different than Guts saying that the ten thousand refugees about to die deserve it because they’d rather bow down to a god than fight to survive or w/e
It’s just that now that’s shown to be badass rather than a fairly pathetic denial of guilt.
Consider:
vs
It’s like the Conviction arc takes these super cynical lines from Guts which, in the Black Swordsman arc, are clearly meant to show how fucked up he is and not something we’re meant to agree with, and pretties them up or makes them sound badass and legitimizes them.
I mean it’s even the same essential circumstances: Guts’ brand calls up spirits that kill innocent people. In the Black Swordsman arc Guts feels immense guilt and covers it up with cynical bravado. In the Conviction arc, Guts and Luca both blame the dead for failing to survive.
And idk if that’s a sign if we’re maybe supposed to take the themes of the Conviction arc with a grain of salt, or if Miura’s opinions just 180ed somewhere along the way.
Like do
people deserve to die for not being strong or resourceful enough to survive
against a force stronger than them or not, Miura?
In fairness this could very well be purposeful – showing like, both the negative side and the more palatable side of Guts’ survival of the fittest thing. Similar to how we get the positive side of Griffith’s utopia where the weak are protected from harm and exploitation (which come to think of it is also partly shown to us by Luca, hmm) and the negative side (it may be great but it’s the only peaceful place to live).
But also incidentally, if you’re on Guts’ side of this whole thing, yk you gotta be strong to survive and if you’re not it’s your own problem – you can’t really have an issue with Griffith filling the world with monsters lol. The world outside of Falconia right now pretty much illustrates Guts’ philosophy to a tee.
I could see this coming up again along those lines actually. Doesn’t someone actually say that now everyone has to deal with what Guts deals with, directly comparing brand-life to Fantasia? So there you go, you got Griffith’s world (Falconia) and you got Guts’ world (Fantasia), pick one.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I also really liked their relationship tbh. I would’ve been happier about it if Casca hadn’t been secrely in love with him all along, but otoh that does add a metric ton of gay subtext thanks to the parallels so I can’t be too annoyed about that lol.
I talk about them quite a bit in this post (the first part is about their relationship in general, then it goes into the pre-eclipse stuff in more detail) if you’re interested in a more detailed take.
But yeah in general I think they have a pretty sweet relationship that’s kind of a sad missed opportunity, not for romance but for a more emotionally fulfilling friendship. I love how they’re both protective of each other, physically – like Casca stepping in front of Griffith, sword out, when they encounter Zodd, or like Griffith trying despite his complete inability to do something to help Casca when Wyald grabs her – and emotionally, with Casca trying to comfort Griffith in her flashback and Griffith stamping down his own feelings so he can be a strong comforting presence for Casca many times.
And overall I think they’re pretty dysfunctional lol but in an interesting and engaging way that shows they genuinely care about each other and just kind of suck as people. Yk like most relationships in Berserk.
(And yeah ia, that flashback is v touching and sad.)
This is of course all pre-eclipse, Femto is neither here nor there where their relationship is concerned lol.
you're the only one 