My thoughts very much line up with yours. I tend to think being raised in an environment that was probably physically dangerous as well as living through periods of involuntary starvation probably cultivated his detachment. Also I’m not sure he thought of himself as attractive? Like he might see his looks as a vulnerability since the folks that have given him attention for it have hurt him.
yeah ia with this.
i’m sure he knows he’s attractive and probably cultivates it since yk he’s trying to marry a princess, but i don’t think it’s something he’d like, be proud of or that would feed his ego or anything. i think he’d deliberately try to see it in a utilitarian way rather than having any feelings about his looks, positive or negative, bc the less rational feelings he does have would probably be negative – beauty is an asset to achieving his dream (not just in marrying charlotte but also looking the part of the hero of midland and gaining general acceptance), but it’s also something he associates with being preyed on by gennon, so he focuses on the first part.
No idea, and tbh I kind of like the fact that we never see them. It gives Griffith kind of a force of nature feel, where his actions and personality are based more in themes than in like, a more down to earth kind of characterization – all we really know is that he’s a street kid with a childish dream who never let that dream go.
I know I’ve had some fun conversations about who Griffith’s parents might’ve been and how they might’ve affected him for whatever amount of his childhood they were there for, and I think there are a lot of great headcanons and stuff. The one I generally default to is that he never knew his dad and his mother was a prostitute, because I feel like that kind of backstory could inform how he feels about sex as a transaction and bodies/lives being bought and sold, which is something his dream is kind of based on changing.
But ultimately I’m glad that canon never gives us an answer lol.
huh, this isn’t rly something I’ve ever thought about, interesting question.
I’d say that in general he’d think about it in a utilitarian way – he knows what he’s capable of with it and he’d work to keep it that way. that includes fighting and being able to seduce a princess, or whoever else may be necessary. it’s a tool.
you could probably make a good argument for him having some issues with it/detachment from it though, that could feed into him thinking about his body as a tool rather than a part of him. like, looking at the way griffith said he seduced gennon eg, it seems like a way of removing himself from what actually took place – rather than thinking of it as gennon using him, griffith used a tool (his body) to get what he wanted, that kind of thing. a way of granting himself a sense of autonomy and detaching himself from the body which he’s washing in the river and thinking of as dirty now.
plus i feel like that attitude would make for some interesting character study-ish thought processes during his torture, with both the pain inarguably tying his body to him (also possibly related – his self harming habit?), and the torturer’s fetishization of his physical beauty, and afterwards when his body is no longer useful as a tool and he’s grown so used to the pain he feels numb and “like [his body is] floating in mid air.”
and ngl neogriffith’s feelings towards his body could also be interesting. femto was like, on the astral plane, his body was arguably not even real, but then neogriffith incarnates in flesh and blood again. he’s probably more concerned about his feelings lol, but he’d likely be like, super detached from his physical form, due to having lived on another plane of existence and being a pseudo god or w/e, and also literally untouchable. now it truly is nothing more than a tool, and one that can’t be broken or forcibly tied to him because no one can even inflict pain on him.
and therefore his thought processes could be extremely interesting if/when he is touched. though for me interesting is basically griffith lying badly to himself about not caring/not feeling/etc.
true answer: miura is a misogynist hack who doesn’t really gaf about casca, and needed to get rid of her for a while because he hadn’t invented her yet while writing the black swordsman arc, and is less than concerned about whether guts even comes across as someone who genuinely cares for her.
meta answer:
whyever Miura decided to go that route, Guts’ actions after the Eclipse seem like a pretty strong indication that he wasn’t as angry on behalf of Casca as he was about Griffith transforming into a monster and destroying everything he values. Casca became a symbol of everything he lost – the good old days with the Hawks and Griffith – rather than seeing her as a person in her own right.
And to take that a step further, remember, Guts’ pre-Eclipse revelation was that he broke Griffith’s heart when he left, and therefore he already had what he tried attaining by leaving. The Eclipse wipes that away. Whatever Griffith has become does not (apparently) love or value Guts, and is not Guts’ equal or friend.
and this fucks Guts up
Femto raping Casca was proof that he has fundamentally changed into a monster who looks down on Guts, and Guts does drastic things when someone he loves looks down on him, thanks to his giant collection of daddy issues. Like leaving the woman he supposedly cares for in a cave and going on a self-destructive monster hunting spree.
hohoho
so i did what i said i was going to do, re-read most of the elfhelm chapters to see if i could figure anything out.
and idk how solid this is, especially considering how biased in favour of it i am lol, but i came up with this theory last night
So in 345 they’re all sitting around a table having a nice chat about important spirit realm shit.
The world tree is a “dragon’s road.”
The behelit also creates a dragon’s road.
Just want to point out the little specification of “at your side” and the shot of the behelit in Guts’ pouch vs the way Guts’ cloak billows to give us a view of that pouch as he walks towards Casca.
SO dragon roads.
Schierke pipes up with a question absolutely no reader was ever curious about and is therefore probably very relevant:
With me so far? These spirit woods are lands associated with spirit trees, like Flora’s. These trees feed off the world tree like parasites, keeping it pruned to manageable levels until Griffith destroyed a bunch of them to make way for his high fantasy genre shift.
The world tree is a dragon’s road – it’s not a real tree, it’s a fissure between realms:
Again, the same kind of thing the behelit creates.
Eventually they head on over to Danann’s palace, which turns out to be a giant cherry tree:
It’s a really impressive spirit tree, maybe the last surviving one, or one of the last at least. Elfhelm is probably its associated spirit woods.
Danann specifies that Guts and Casca’s first meeting will take place right by her spirit tree.
And check out the last image of the most recent chapter:
Quite an ominous shot of that tree.
Bear in mind that Danann sensed that Casca was afraid of Guts and refused to let him join Schierke and Farnese in her dreams because of this. It seems a bit strange that as soon as Casca wakes up she’s sending her straight to Guts then, doesn’t it?
Also bear in mind that Skull Knight, who reminds Puck of the elves and is implied to be the Elf King’s oracle, is the one who both told Guts the Elf King could heal Casca, and warned him that “there’s no guarantee your wish will be her wish.”
Schierke thinks the oracle is the Moonlight Boy, because she doesn’t know it’s Skull Knight. But this is how we know that “oracle” is connected to the Elf King. And this is how we know it’s Skull Knight:
And check out this vaguely ominous thread that hasn’t been picked back up yet. Is someone using Guts…? Skull Knight, or the person Skull Knight is playing messenger for – the Elf King? (tbh it looks like he’s justifying it to himself by saying whether he interferes or not causality has the final say anyway. calling Guts “a factor.” A factor in what? What is being facilitated, and by whom? Maybe someone who understands the flow of causality, who is using it for their own ends?)
I also want to note that I had zero memory of Flora asking if Skull Knight is using Guts lmao, the only reason I went back to this part was to prove that SK is the Elf King’s oracle. But I am super stoked that it fits my theory perfectly.
SO yeah the Elf King’s oracle is the one telling Guts this. Seems probable that Danann has been planning to try healing Casca’s mind since long before they showed up on her doorstep asking her to.
Also of note in this scene with Skull Knight on the beach:
This is the explanation for why NeoGriffith had Flora killed.
To
confront him, one must also exist outside the story. Who exists outside
the story to some extent that we know of? Skull Knight, the branded, and witches.
AND one more thing of note in this scene is Skull Knight warning Guts about the armour:
All this foreshadowing is thrown into the same chapter, and I think it could be all tied together.
So, my theory:
Danann is using Casca and Guts, for two possible reasons, maybe both:
1. By healing Casca’s mind and sending her to meet Guts right beside her spirit tree, she knows or hopes that Casca’s memories will send her into despair right there, with the behelit at hand, thereby opening a dragon’s road right beside her powerful spiritual tree thing which feeds on dragon’s roads. Maybe giving Danann and Elfhelm a boost of energy/spiritual power for something.
2. Weapons.
If Casca becomes an apostle, she will be branded, ergo a step outside the reason of the world and able to harm Griffith. She will be powerful. And Griffith will have a weakness against her – that whole wacky fetus thing that made him save her life. It’s entirely possible that Danann knows this, as she has scryers checking things out.
(Granted Casca would also have her own weakness against him, that demon instinct which recognizes NeoGriffith as a messiah, buuut I’m js Ganeshka’s reaction to him was rather similar to Casca’s old feelings, which she’s had several years of experience dealing with and ignoring. Plus he’s responsible for destroying her life and everything that traumatized her into insanity, and Danann has a lot of magic. That potential weakness isn’t the be all end all, is what I’m saying.)
There’s also the foreboding foreshadowing regarding Guts succumbing to the armour. Skull Knight’s warning back there, the Beast of Darkness taunting him here
and this scene
which directly connects Casca regaining her sanity and ~doing something~ ominous to the Beast of Darkness lying in wait. And I feel like Casca choosing to make a sacrifice like Griffith did and become a monster would be a pretty solid incentive for Guts to succumb to his inner beast.
And I’m js Beast of Darkness Guts, with his own foot outside the reason of the world thanks to the brand, and lbr Femto/NGriff’s own host of issues that led to him letting Guts go three times so far, would also be a powerful weapon.
It’s also worth noting that we’ve been warned time and again about the dangers of Guts succumbing to the armour, losing his humanity, etc, and he’s been saved every single time he reaches a danger point by Schierke, or the Astral Kid, or whatever. At some point he has to actually succumb properly, at least for a while, for long enough to shake up the narrative and have Consequences, or there’s no point to all this ominous foreshadowing.
Elfhelm is opposed to NeoGriffith and Falconia and the whole merging of planes thing, it’s suggested that Guts is being used by Skull Knight, who seems to be allied with/working for the Elf King, and all these little ominous moments fit together very well.
Plus let’s be real here – Skellig is obviously too good to be true.
Like, I don’t think there’s a dark underbelly to Skellig, any more than I think there’s a dark underbelly to Falconia. I don’t think they’re secretly killing children or Danann’s going to transform into a cackling demon or that the cloying wholesomeness is all a performance to trick Guts and co lol. But I do think that despite the cutesy elf antics and unicorns and sentencing Magnifico to dishwashing duty etc, they would be very capable of ruthlessness. This is Berserk, after all.
tbh I’m really feeling the behelit dragon’s road thing, all those expository details in the recent chapters add up v neatly.
And I think the weaponizing Cacsa and/or Guts theory is a little more of a stretch, more of a “well it would logically follow” rather than having directly suggestive evidence of its own, but still fits nicely imo. And boy, would that not twist the whole revenge theme in an interesting way? If there’s another secondary antagonist who wants Guts and/or Casca to go and kill NeoGriff for their own reasons? Maybe even for the greater good – but at the expense of our protagonists?
holy fuck this just hit me like a brick. the way “do you think i’m cruel” is slightly separate from the other two memories, coming after Guts stops denying it and begins thinking “is this…”
“do you think that I’m cruel?”
“is this… what you wanted?”
it’s the moment griffith has least wanted this.
guts’ answer is what the godhand use to convince him to agree. it’s the moment that could’ve changed what happened here, if griffith had gotten a different answer.
oh im just banking on the ominous ruse awakening i think were in for no matter the context. but the romanticization was just weirdddd no matter what like i know its been a while but casca never really felt that way about guts pre eclipse either like. what.
to me it felt like either fanservice for the sole sake of subverting expectations, or miura buying into everything g*tsca shippers think without re-reading his own story first
and i’m definitely fearing it’s the latter what with the indication that she’s been wanting to see(/meet whatever the line is) guts this whole time while stuck in a dream, the teary look when his name is mentioned, the expectation of romance and casca immediately going along with it, etc.
like who is this and what have you done with casca
sure miura feminized her a lot when she started crushing on guts in the golden age but it was never this bad, and there has never been a true love vibe between them
so like yeah even if there is a twist it’s hard to explain away the characterization here
yeah, it’s just like. regressed casca even had that moment when she was trying to touch neo griff but couldn’t, plus like the stupid fetus, and idk how the gremlin man (miura) thinks so i’m assuming the worst. but yeah you’re probably right
there is a shit ton of stuff that can and should be taken into account tbh, and that post was rly just a v distant overview. i think… idk there’s probably enough evidence to make a case for either scenario happening – guts moving on vs guts failing to move on. and like the fetus eg could figure into either of those scenarios, by maybe being a source of conflict between casca and guts, or maybe uniting them.
i think there’s also enough evidence to argue that guts failing to move on isn’t necessarily a negative/tragic thing either, tho i kind of framed it as one. like there’s a scenario where guts trying to “let go of his obsession” is essentially guts kidding himself and just burying and refusing to acknowledge his mixed feelings instead of confronting them, using casca as an escape
that’s my #1 hope rly.
but yeah at the end of the day this all kind of rests on the premise that when berserk is over it will overall be a good solid comprehensive story lol, and that’s based on what I’m picking up on as important themes, which is kind of itself a distant hope.
i think if the latter is the case then perhaps there will be a more light-hearted ending but… my preferences aside, from BS arc this manga’s theme is the quest for revenge, fighting against all odds etc. so i think that if this scenario occured then the manga will have kind of deviated..? not that it couldn’t be (objectively) a development, but still the ending would be all over the place instead of tackling the core elements, ie their relationship
yeah I totally agree. While I think you could argue that Guts forming strong relationships as a way of moving on from traumatic shit is in keeping with earlier themes, applying that to moving on from Griffith completely ignores the complexities of Guts and Griffith’s relationship, which is straight up what Berserk is about. Like yeah I’m super biased but I still think it would objectively be more narratively fulfilling to see their mutual obsession take centre stage again – it’s the difference between their intense relationship getting a proper climax and emotional catharsis versus being reduced to basically a bad break up that one dude couldn’t move on from.
It’s also a deviation in another way that I was considering tacking onto that post but didn’t, but now I want to talk about it.
But like imo if it is the case that Berserk is about Guts overcoming his obsession and moving on, then functionally Berserk is basically two different kinds of stories.
Everything from chapter one to chapter 129 is the story of a kind of fucked up dude with a lot of issues muddling his way through a very dark grey narrative and trying to do his best.
Everything from chapter 130 on is the story of a dude consistently Making The Right Choice.
Like, I kind of feel that those two stories are incompatible. In a narrative about a dude struggling with himself and trying and usually failing to make the right choices in a complex world where right and wrong barely even exist, which tbh is My Berserk, then it simply doesn’t work for the main character to then make the correct choice, ie focusing on Casca, and stick to it for two hundred and twenty chapters plus afterwards. If he eventually does make a genuinely good and correct and narratively rewarded choice, that should only happen at the end and it should be cathartic.
There are stories about protagonists doing the right thing the whole time even though it’s a struggle at times, and those can be fine stories, but it’s a giant downgrade from a story about a dude making a bunch of mistakes in a morally grey world, and an absolutely enormous tonal and thematic shift. It just doesn’t work as a complete story to me if that’s the case.
i mean i guess it’s always been the same question:
is this the prelude to a happy or tragic narrative shake up?
it’s just that now, thanks to how heavily romanticized that chapter was before the last couple pages, there’s imo v little doubt that happy = casca is soothed (whether it’s after a chapter or a volume) and romance ensues
and tragic = casca fucks shit up, romance does not ensue
if the former, the narrative is shaken up by guts’ party coming to a stand still and guts experiencing contentment and needing some outside motivation to continue doing anything relevant. maybe neogriff showing up, elfhelm in danger, something like that.
if the latter, the narrative is shaken up by casca taking the playing board and throwing it across the room, which, based on earlier beast-y foreshadowing, will likely lead to guts losing control of the beast of darkness, etc, whatever. Bad shit happens.
BUT there’s also another way of looking at it:
is berserk the story of two dudes who keep trying and failing to stop being obsessed with each other until some kind of climactic catharsis happens?
or is berserk the story of two dudes who were obsessed with each other, one of whom is ironically still obsessed despite going to extreme lengths to try to cut out his feelings, and the other of whom successfully lets go of his obsession and moves on?
(or, put another way, the story of one dude overcoming his obsession with another dude through the power of heterosexual love, while the other dude’s gay love is both what turned him evil and his only weakness.
And I swear to god if I
have to power thru guts’ hetero romance for the sake of griffith’s
doomed evil gay love i can’t think of something emphatic enough to
describe how i’ll feel.)
SO
Ultimately the question comes down to: is Guts’ focus going to return to Griffith, whether that’s through backsliding into revenge again or through re-examining his complex feelings and actually dealing with them instead of running away from them through the fix Casca sidequest?
or will Guts successfully overcome his obsession with Griffith, likely by saving Casca from herself through the power of love or w/e the way he failed to save Griffith before the Eclipse, leaving NGriff to drive the narrative and setting the stage for the final climax?
And if Casca fucks shit up and it turns out the fix Casca sidequest was kind of a terrible idea all along that leads to tragedy and darkness, the answer is the former. If Casca is talked down and love and companionship save the day, the answer is the latter.
So basically whatever happens is going to make or break Berserk for me lol. No pressure.
i haven’t looked at the new chapter, just the pics y’all posted & linked to, but with the feathers and casca wanting to see someone and “your wish may not be her wish” like i could see her using the behelit and joining neo-griff ….. but ………….. idk, has she remembered the eclipse yet? if not she’s bound to and that’s not gonna be pretty. also idk what the point of her joining griffith would be wrt guts …… like i hate the idea of his own desire
to see griffith getting mixed with his “feelings” for casca you know
what i mean?
anyway if i remember
correctly i think your “casca uses the behelit” theory involved her
having her own revenge journey or something like that but yeah what if
this instead. i’m thinking no thank you mr miura
haha i would straight up murder miura if casca joined neogriffith. my, like, unlikely ideal is the three of them with their own individual power ups (incarnated god, apostle mb along the lines of ganeshka wrt power, berserk armour) all kind of opposing each other to some degree. eg ngriff wants his empire and also wants guts in some capacity that he doesn’t understand so maybe tries to kill him, casca wants to kill ngriff but guts wants to be the one to kill ngriff but also he doesn’t want to kill ngriff, etc
I think the feathers are probably more a reminder of her past as a Hawk than necessarily to do with NGriff. That’s what I was thinking anyway, but like, with the addition that that past is traumatic and they’re a reminder of Griffith who is the source of her trauma and therefore it’s ~ominous~
The backgrounds and details are very nice but the characters seems too cutesy for my personal taste. Even the monsters in Casca’s dream world lacked a visceral feeling besides being dick monsters. I am glad we didn’t see any rape but at the same time I think the drawings could of been rougher. I also wasn’t a fan of Casca’s magical girl dress. But maybe the translation will help… *Goes back to read Golden Age Arc*
@laraskadi said:
indeeeeeeeeeeeeeed I
feel this so much! I NEED her to look like Casca and act like Casca,
otherwise it just looks like a random person…? And in that dress no
less… Put her in some armor with a normal face and I’ll cry my eyes out
(putting this in one post bc it’s all about art)
Yeah mte. Like I won’t deny that Miura’s always drawn women with exaggerated eyes and tiny mouths, but she seemed so much more expressive before and idk, the exaggerated faces seemed less jarring with the flatter/cartoonier style of the golden age, as opposed to the current mix of hugely exaggerated features and realistic details? Plus the shape of her eyes makes a difference, she’s so feminized now the dress is just the cherry on top of that really unpleasant sundae tbh.
And more for the first reply:
Yeah the art is a lot like, heavier and darker, thicker lines (more lines holy fuck) but it lacks the fluid visceralness we saw during, eg, the actual eclipse, in moments like this:
and like the sheer business of the art now means we don’t get evocative and terrifying contrasts like this:
And yeah the style in general seems less suited to monsters now. compare above to
like man I want to see the monsters, not just suggestions of them.
also the helix in the necklace a la brand of sacrifice that i just noticed?
like i’m not saying danann dressed her in this to be secretly evil, but i’m thinking it’s subtle visual hinting re: the source of her trauma, hawks/sacrifice/griffith, and purposefully suggestive as a little added layer of ominousness
i mean i’d take it as coincidence considering it’s mostly petals in the dress, but those hairpieces, man
ch 355, more random musing
i s2g it’s like this chapter was especially designed to fuck me personally up and leave me fretting for however long until the next one comes out, it has no chill it’s either my personal worst or best case scenario and i have no way of knowing which. mb this is premature since we don’t even have a full translation yet, but still. i’m stressed lol
and seeing all the skullknight fans pretty much just assuming that there’s going to be an emotional chapter followed by guts and casca hugging it out has me torn between thinking that’s a good sign bc it means miura isn’t using the ominousness as a fake-out, since it seems your typical berserk fan doesn’t think anything too bad is going to happen – the ominiousness is just plain ominiousness and if things go truly wrong it will still take people by surprise and be dramatically effective. but also what if it’s a bad sign because they’re just better at predicting berserk than me and more on miura’s current wavelength? 😦
also i’m eyeing that last image of the tree and how it looks similar to the falconia branches and various hearts of darkness
i’ve got my eye on you skellig
also eyeing the feathers in casca’s dress design tbqh
also guts looking scary and intimidating in that spread of him in the berserk armour w/ the eclipse scene behind him is good, and the more i look at the last few pages, eclipse flashback + guts -> tortured griffith -> ominous looking tree the more i’m like, hmmmmmm
as soon as we get a translation i’m re-reading the entirety of the skellig stuff so far to see if i feel like it all fits together in some way
all this time and i’m still in hope for the best, prepare for the worst mode, agh this is so frustrating
(lol @ reusing a bunch of images from casca’s life we’ve already seen
in our journey thru her mind. also my god i hate the art so much rn
lol. casca’s face deserves better.)
and idk how to feel about
downplaying the fetus/moonlight boy now lol, with way more memories
alotted to guts, since apparently “there’s someone i want to meet” is
repeated towards the end here, and the one saving grace of that fetus
was the hope that casca wanted to meet it, instead of guts (or griffith
for that matter).
also danann calling guts to show up psychically which then proceeds to trigger casca seems weird and fishy to me? but idk maybe it reads as less weird in context, plus i don’t trust elfhelm so.
and i’m extremely wary about guts triggering her because he reminds her of the eclipse, rather than because he assaulted her himself. those dreamy half-remembered memories sure are convenient
on the other hand they’re also convenient for this delayed reaction happening just in time for guts’ arrival. meaning there’s a reason guts had to show up first before casca remembered the eclipse.
this chapter seems to be playing up g*tsca for the sake of sweeping the rug out from under the readers at the end when casca sees him and shit starts going down, but is that leading to actual Shit Going Down or is that leading to, idk, farnese jumping in and calming her down before nobly stepping aside so they can have a tearful reunion, or guts like, saving the day by Being There For Her For Once??
i s2g miura knows exactly what the best case and worse case scenarios are (tho he probably thinks they’re reversed) and he’s taunting me personally. like i’m sorry but ivalera joking that schierke woke up the “final boss”? just plain and simple teasing about schierke’s crush on guts or also ominous foreshadowing? casca’s last clear memory is rescuing griffith, which explains why tortured griffith is one of the final images, but why make that her last clear memory, why give that a full page at the end of the chapter right before the picture of the tree that looks visually similar to the darkness in her heart unless perhaps… a parallel?
But even if that’s the case is Casca going to use the behelit in Guts’ pouch or is Guts going to get another chance to Not Fuck It Up This Time?
I’m feeling like the odds are getting higher that after a moment of emotional peril Guts comforts her, promises to stay with her, and they live happily ever after until NeoGriffith arrives to fuck shit up versus shit actually going down and Casca graduating into a secondary antagonist role. And the odds of anything in between happening, like eg Casca rejecting Guts romantically and healing while becoming close friends with Farnese, are feeling extremely slim after this. Like, imo we’re in for either g*tsca or the “tragic” opposite of g*tsca after how it’s been played up here, not “let’s just be friends.”
Also there’s a strong chance I’m just in the denial stage rn. But like I’ve been salivating over the idea of all three Golden Age protags being enemies with their own clashing goals by the end of the series for a while now and as long as that’s still a possibility I’m going to continue to keep hope alive.
that last ask took me a while to answer because i digressed into a rant about the depiction of the rape scene in the middle of it and then decided that an answer to an ask was not rly the place for that
but yk what it deserves to be ranted about so here’s a new place for it, tw graphic descriptions of rape
I re-read the Eclipse fairly recently without
skipping or skimming the rape scene for the first time in ages, and jesus everything about it makes me feel
like Miura drew it with one hand and very little intellectual effort or
subtlety, and it makes me very reluctant to give him credit for any
nuance of characterization there lol.
Like I am admittedly very biased
because the way he depicted it visually makes me want to throw up on
him, but like if he wanted me to give it as much analytical consideration as I
give most of the rest of Berserk he shouldn’t’ve drawn it like he was
tracing porn (some of the fucking angles holy shit), he shouldn’t’ve emphasized Casca’s physical arousal as much as, and
as graphically as, and as pornographically as possible for absolutely
no reason other than presumably to make Guts feel worse and to turn on
his readers/himself, since the emotional/psychological ramifications of a
victim becoming aroused during rape sure as fuck weren’t explored, thoughtfully or otherwise, and he shouldn’t’ve made it all about Guts’ feelings of rage and betrayal while
destroying Casca’s character for 20 real life years.
Literally her last
words from what, 1997ish til 2017 were to tell Guts not to watch her have an orgasm, and
it was all from Guts’ perspective and all about his feelings, not Casca’s feelings at all. Frankly every
reference to the rape and depiction of Casca’s trauma from now until
the end of Berserk could be careful and thoughtful and extremely
well-written and considerate and it wouldn’t even begin to make up for the actual scene itself.
Like I can’t read this digression into what frankly reads like cuckold fetish rape porn and treat it like it’s worthy of deep thought lol. If other people read it and have interesting takes and readings I’m all for it, but for myself I’m just incapable of seeing anything deeper than “this is what it means to be evil. This is what it means to be human,” which frankly isn’t that deep, Miura, and definitely wasn’t worth subjecting me to this shit.
ngl while my “official” take is that the dream started out as a stupid kid’s fantasy and snowballed horrifically and gained deeper significance as a coping mechanism/escape after the kid’s death and gennon (i’m pretty sure we’ve had some conversations about this ages ago lol), every time I read the scene where he saves Casca I’m like, nope there’s gotta be something else going on there.
He just lays everything out so plainly (”does being born of the nobility mean you’ve been chosen by god?” “if you have something to protect, take up that sword,” “you know how to fight already, don’t you?” “you might die you know,”) that it’s like, there’s no way the kid’s death and gennon was his wake-up call to how shitty the world is, everything’s already in place right here.
Like I guess it can’t be more than headcanon because if there was more to his story I’m sure Ubik would’ve said something while he was fucking with him to make the sacrifice, but chapter 16 like, establishes all of Griffith’s motivations/attitude towards nobility/making sure everyone follows him of their own choice/etc, which really seems to indicate that the kid’s death and gennon wasn’t the beginning of his bitterness re: people’s lives being bought and sold by nobles and his guilt re: ppl dying for his dream. It’s just like, an example.
yk i think guts is supposed to seem chill and confident and generally changed in a positive way after his year long vacation but since every moment that emphasizes his cool chill attitude makes me want to punch him i’m not 100% certain lol
like i generally take as read that guts leaving the hawks is one of those things that’s overall bad but had some positive effects, like guts being more confident and cool, since yk the moments that indicate that are things the target audience of dudes would generally agree is cool, like calmly grabbing casca’s tit while she’s yelling at him and then saying, ‘come with me’ in a nonchalant non-commital way, or like telling casca she’s too naked and distracting during the wyald fight, or constantly being a smartass dick during the competition, that kinda thing.
but then again since i generally argue that leaving the hawks was a bad decision, maybe those moments are actually meant to be off-putting. like i don’t really think so, if i was a betting person i’d place money on miura thinking they make guts cooler, but i kind of want to believe.
I dont agree with this tbh. Guts leaving the hawks was a good thing. One of the most difficult and traumatic experiences is gaining independence and discovering your own way i life. The hawks were a home for guts but learning to leave to find his own way was special for me. I used to think that him leaving was sort of “cool” and used to set the whole tough lone wolf trope, but because of how guts felt inferior to his peers, and especially griffith, leaving the hawks was the most endearing action he couldve done. Its not played for a trope or for a demographic but rather to show the journey of a man who wants to be someone he can love. Ik ur a hige guts x griffith fan and i see the obvious undertones and interactions but when i see how guts feels when he seew his own journey next to griffiths i cant blame him for leaving.
I respect your opinion and I don’t mean to reblog this just to be like ‘nah you’re wrong’ because like, I do think Miura was trying to convey both good and bad effects of Guts leaving. Like I said, though I personally think that Guts’ more confident and independent attitude is shown in insufferable ways, I feel like Miura intended it to be a positive change for him.
And in general the idea of someone leaving a place to be more independent is a perfectly valuable and potentially a very positive narrative depending on the circumstances, and I don’t want to suggest that if you found Guts’ decision to leave the Hawks to be valuable then you’re wrong, there are plenty of reasons to appreciate it.
But, because this is one of those readings that tends to inform a lot of my other posts and meta etc, I just want to kind of explain where I’m coming from and what I mean by “mistake.”
It’s not a mistake you can blame Guts for at all, because his reasons for leaving are perfectly understandable and sympathetic, but it’s a decision Guts made based on misinformation (from Griffith’s stupid speech) and his own issues – largely desperately wanting to be loved and respected and believing all too easily that he isn’t thanks to his fucked up childhood.
And like this is also something Griffith shoulders blame for, for being an emotionally obtuse idiot who doesn’t recognize his own feelings until he’s spent a year in a dungeon. But again, like Guts’ issues, I find this sympathetic and understandable too.
(And like, while yeah I obviously ship them lol, this isn’t necessarily shippy, it’s kind of just a fact of Berserk that it, and the Golden Age especially, revolves around Guts and Griffith’s relationship, platonic or otherwise. Guts chose to leave because he wanted to be Griffith’s friend – before overhearing the speech he didn’t feel inadequate at all.)
Basically it’s not a mistake in the sense that Guts should’ve known better or that Guts choosing to leave was stupid and reflects badly on him, it’s a mistake because if Guts and Griffith were less terrible at communication Guts wouldn’t’ve wanted to leave in the first place, and once he realizes that he left because of misinformation he feels a lot of regret.
I think I’m going to write a full post on this soon because it would be nice to have something to link back to when I casually throw the idea that Guts leaving was a mistake out there, because I know it’s actually pretty controversial in fandom as a whole. So if you’re interested in my further thoughts with more like, textual evidence lol, I’ll get on that, and if not then no worries and I’m more than happy to agree to disagree 🙂
oh same they feel posturing to me but who knows what miura meant
this is the problem with berserk there are so many thing that cpuld be interpreted as valid through through a certain critical lens but its absolutely up in the air or no way it was deliberate on his part. casca reliance on men for her sense of self and integrity as a woman is a good example, but miura probably hust doesnt know that women can exist outside of men. lol.
yeah exactly. idk berserk is such a weird combination of Actually That Deep and just Miura being a shitty dude that it can be rly hard to figure out where to draw the line
Like with Guts’ behaviour, it would make sense if it was supposed to be seen as negative because, like, part of the point of Berserk is establishing that Guts swinging his sword by himself instead of being with people affects him negatively, but that’s just not the vibe I get from those moments lol. Your Casca example is perfect too, like her narrative would make more sense and fit the whole vibe of the pre-Eclipse sequence if latching onto Guts in place of Griffith was meant to be seen as a mistake, but yeah I don’t think that’s purposeful.
I’d love to believe Miura’s just subtle and it’s all purposeful, but lol nothing about how he writes women and men and women interacting makes me want to give him the benefit of the doubt.
honestly if i trusted miura half an inch i would be so interested to see casca’s reaction to falconia and neogriffith having achieved the dream she wholeheartedly devoted her life to but only after betraying her, becoming one of the monsters who prey on the weak that she fought against, and traumatizing her into insanity
oh damn this is a really good connection and i am actually really pissed off at myself for not noticing it. not even just the chapter 72 bit – like I swear to god I have a total blind spot when it comes to this fucking scene because first while I was writing that Griffith meta like 75% of the point was “Griffith’s dream is a coping mechanism” and it wasn’t until I was almost finished writing all four parts that I realized “what do you fear in this place” and then vision Griff pointing to the castle was basically Berserk stating that fact directly.
AND NOW you’ve pointed out that vision Griff throws down a sword and I’m like !!! what the fuck I’ve been thinking about swords as coping mechanisms in Berserk for ages now how did I miss this too???? even after connecting this very page to Griffith retreating into his dream as a coping mechanism???
like look at this
So thank you for sending this ask lol.
Wrt defying vs succumbing to fate, I think you have an interesting point there. While Casca isn’t technically defying her fate, knowing how fate works in Berserk, she is defying the “natural way of things,” ie strong prey upon the weak, as is Griffith. It turns out that Griffith’s fate all along is to overturn the natural way of things. But with the way later Berserk kind of sets up Guts defying fate vs Griffith succumbing to it, it’s ironic that in order to fulfill his (and Casca’s) dream and change the world Griffith essentially accepts fate’s mastery over his life and in doing so becomes the strong who preys upon the weak first, essentially taking the nobleman’s place here.
I don’t rly know where to go with that rn, but it’s something to think about.
For my part, I want to take this parallel as another indication of how swords and dreams are emotional defense mechanisms in Berserk (as you may have guessed from how I opened this response lol).
When Griffith throws the sword to Casca the straightforward reading is that he’s telling her to defend herself.
Which he is. But there’s another level where she’s protecting not just her body but her heart. With the sword she does defy what seems to be her fate, and switches from meekly accepting that this is just how the world works to fighting back.
And that’s what Griffith represents to her, which is the big reason I think she’s so uttery devoted. He represents that defiance, and that potential to change the world. And her dream to be Griffith’s “sword” after taking up the sword he threw her is basically her way of coping with the general shittiness of the world and how it’s fucked her over throughout her childhood by fighting back.
idk at some point I’m going to have to sit down and hammer all this out.
yk i think guts is supposed to seem chill and confident and generally changed in a positive way after his year long vacation but since every moment that emphasizes his cool chill attitude makes me want to punch him i’m not 100% certain lol
like i generally take as read that guts leaving the hawks is one of those things that’s overall bad but had some positive effects, like guts being more confident and cool, since yk the moments that indicate that are things the target audience of dudes would generally agree is cool, like calmly grabbing casca’s tit while she’s yelling at him and then saying, ‘come with me’ in a nonchalant non-commital way, or like telling casca she’s too naked and distracting during the wyald fight, or constantly being a smartass dick during the competition, that kinda thing.
but then again since i generally argue that leaving the hawks was a bad decision, maybe those moments are actually meant to be off-putting. like i don’t really think so, if i was a betting person i’d place money on miura thinking they make guts cooler, but i kind of want to believe.
also while i’m on chapter one
idk if this is a purposeful thing but this sequence makes me think of how both guts and griffith are used to isolation in different ways, guts as a loner, swinging his sword instead of showing up to the ceremony, and griffith surrounded by people but separate from them, rising above the rest of the hawks but looked down on by the whispering nobles in the audience.
and then i remembered that time miura said griffith draws out feelings of loneliness in (current) guts and the way they’re each others’ brightest things, how they both shine in each others’ eyes and hearts, and agh
there’s something just so good and satisfying about how these two lonely idiots found each other and their relationship with each other is the only thing that fully eases that loneliness. griffith as he opens up to guts and lets him see the real him, and guts as he begins to accept that he’s maybe genuinely found a home here with griffith, after griffith saves his life again for “no reason.”
and why guts overhearing the promrose speech had such a devastating effect on him, and why guts leaving had such a devastating effect on griffith
also it makes me think of how current guts is similar to griffith – he has friends and people he relies on, but he doesn’t fully open up to them. there was even a recent reminder that farnese’s feelings for guts are similar to casca’s for griffith.
Chapter One serves to re-establish the characters’ relationships with each other after three years fighting together and foreshadow their future conflicts as their relationships change. This is especially evident during the last scene of the chapter.
The interspersing of Guts’ rote sword exercise with Griffith’s knighting as
he reaches a significant milestone on the path to his dream subtly
illustrates the eventual conflict between Griffith’s dream and his
relationship with Guts by contrasting Guts’ aimlessness with Griffith’s
ambition, ie the source of Guts’ eventual inner conflict that leads to him leaving the Hawks.
And these directly subsequent panels in particular invite a visual
comparison between Guts’ sword and the sword that represents Griffith’s dream, hinting at the way Griffith is torn between Guts and his dream.
Finally, the clear phallic imagery indicates that they want to bone the fuck down.
this is under a cut because it’s long, rambly, and stupid, and doesn’t even answer the question.
lol this honestly just defeats me entirely. idk man idk, I spent forever writing out an explanation for why the subject of toxic masculinity in Berserk defeats me, ie largely due to Miura’s total incoherence when it comes to misogyny, yk, the fact that’s he’s a huge misogynist himself really muddies the waters when it comes to sussing out where his misogyny ends and the characters’ misogyny begins.
Like how can I analyze toxic masculinity in Berserk when Miura frames, eg, the protagonist grabbing a woman’s tit during an argument as a cute moment? It’s absolutely possible to write useful and interesting things on the subject (shoutout to @yesgabsstuff who often has good thoughts on it), so I’m totally not saying that you’re wrong about it being important to Guts and Griffith’s characters/relationship, but the way I approach meta, from a ‘here’s what the narrative has to say on this using things like symbolism and parallels etc’ perspective, just doesn’t feel compatible, and frankly I suck at looking at stories from any other perspective lol.
But then I was like, but why can’t I write about gender roles in Berserk when I won’t shut up about things like sexual repression, which surely can’t actually be a more coherent subject?
It’s like, sexuality and Berserk? Hell yeah I got things to say. Gender and Berserk? my brain melts. idk idk idk. Maybe it’s because Miura thinks he has things to say about misogyny and gender but sucks at it, whereas the sexuality stuff could conceivably be accidental lol, and in any case is more subtle and therefore has fewer chances to be self-contradictory. And, less cynically, I’m sure there’s a cultural gap too that affects my ability to suss out what Miura is going for wrt masculinity/gender roles/etc.
And like, I feel I could almost answer this re: heteronormativity specifically, but honestly that also has a significant gendered component that I don’t feel up to tackling. Griffith as a knight in shining armour to attract Princess Charlotte and become an idealized heterosexual couple as he represses his feelings for Guts? Ok. But then when it comes to gender roles/masculinity and Griffith’s attraction to Guts I fall apart again. Is there a sense that Griffith’s attraction to Guts is partially something to shy away from because it makes him less of a masculine ideal? IDK! How does Griffith sleeping with Gennon for the sake of his heteronormative dream fit in? IDK! Does Guts shy away from his attraction to Griffith due in part to insecurity in his own masculinity? IDK! Is insecurity in his masculinity a deliberate aspect of his trauma? IDK!
I feel like his trauma absolutely informs how he leaps into danger at any given opportunity and stands against every monster he sees, which is very typically masculine, like, mb I’ve got the seed of something there (Casca wishing he’d run away sometimes? His choice to stay with Griffith in chapter 71 as turning away from fighting his own battles to regain a relationship and a sense of emotional openness that helped him heal from trauma in a much healthier way, but tragically undone by Casca urging him towards his own masculine ideal? that masculine ideal in both guts and griffith’s cases leading to an unleashed rapey dark side, and in both cases as a tragic alternative to a fulfilling relationship with each other? hmmmm) but I’m not confident in my ability to carry that thread through with an emphasis on gender roles/masculinity.
But I mean, maybe I’m just overcomplicating it lol, it’s not like everything has to fit perfectly in order to be worthwhile as a reading, and I’m not exactly married to authorial intent. Idk I’ll probably end up pondering this further and if I come up with anything I’ll definitely write it out, but as for now this is going to have to go pretty much unanswered.
tl;dr I got nothin atm, sorry anon, and idek if anything I wrote here makes sense lol.
Personally I think you should write your take on how toxic masculinity and heteronormativity affects the
characters and their relationship and @ me or link me, because I’m
interested in seeing what you have to say.
And anyone else with Thoughts on the subject should feel free and encouraged to leap in too.
The way I see it human Griffiths ambition to rule over a kingdom never truly came from him per say??? It derived from his destiny. It was his destiny, a fate he wasnt aware of, that was the driving force behind his every action, behind his every victory and the reason why it was possible for him to climb the rigid social ladder.
And I don’t think NeoGriffiths lack of humanity would be the cause behind Faconia’s fall(if it does fall)
As a human I dont
think Griffith wouldve been able to handle doing everything that
NeoGriffith did. Despite how strong Human Griffith was he was still
prone to stress, doubt and anxiety. As a human Griffith tried to be
everything that he managed to become as a godhand, perfect.
And him hiding behind his strength, charisma, and beauty did take its
toll on him as a human. Then add the stress of being the messiah to all
of humanity, old Griffith wouldnt be able to do it
tbh I never really saw fate as a reason in and of itself for any choices people make in Berserk. Everyone has their own reasons for doing whatever they do, those reasons just play perfectly into fate’s hands. At one point Flora equates fate and “encounters,” which I like because it’s basically like a perfect meld of fate and free will.
eg Guts was fated to be picked up off the side of the road by Gambino, which thoroughly shaped him as a person; Guts was fated to overhear Griffith’s Promrose Hall speech, and the reason he chose to leave was largely because of a bundle of issues Gambino left him with. So Guts and his choices make perfect sense with or without fate having a hand in his life, it just so happens that fate is there behind the scenes making sure he is shaped by the right people.
so for Griffith, God tells him that he basically shaped the entire world, and Griffith’s ancestry, in order to bring Griffith into the world with a perfect set of traits to become the next Godhand, but everything he thinks and feels and does still makes sense just as a person with his particular history. So I can’t really say he’s obsessed with his dream because it’s his destiny, he’s obsessed with his dream because he has a particularly obsessive personality and he happened to see it at the right time in his life or under the right circumstances to become fixated or w/e – because of destiny lol.
Idk it’s convoluted but you gave me an opening to explain my thoughts on fate in berserk and I took it lol.
anyway aside from that long fate tangent that’s barely related to what you said lol, ia that human Griffith wouldn’t be able to do what NeoGriffith does. For one thing he’d’ve been crushed by Ganeshka without his army of apostles. And even without that, even if he just became king of Midland the way he was planning, if Guts never left, ia that I could see a scenario where reality hits him square in the head, being king turns out to be not all its cracked up to be, he still finds his power too limited to do everything he wants to do, and he struggles a lot under the pressure.
that makes perfect sense. he has low self-esteem so he projects his feelings onto guts and kinda living the relationship vicariously.. i don’t think this was in any way good because he completely disregarded both guts and casca’s feelings tbh (and griffith’s). guts did the same thing, like you said, but i don’t think he did that to such a detrimental degree iirc. i still don’t see why cishets love him so much tbh. thanks for the detailed reply!
lol i’ll take any excuse to go on and on about something, ty for your reply + giving me an opening 🙂
Yeah I have a lot of mixed feelings about Judeau. I’m still fond of him and I kind of like that he fits the “tertiary friend who gives the protag wise advice” slot except that a lot of his advice is terrible and makes things worse because he has his own issues too. it gives him a nice little bit of dimension. But lol I still resent him a bit for being the resident het cheerleader, and he’s far from the super good bro who gives great advice that a lot of Berserk fandom treats him as.
Yea…but if he had been a wise, old guy knowing basically everything and explaining “the truth” to our characters it would have been less exciting since this guy would have been right.
Even though Judeau knew a great bunch of things, he was completely unaware of some things and was one of the main drivers for the eclipse. I am not sure if Guts would have started a relationship with Casca…and that the two people important to him were a “thing” played a significant role in Griffith s deeds….
Yeah absolutely. lol imo one great thing about the golden age was that no one had all the answers, no one was “right,” at least not consistently. Even Godo’s brief flashback appearance where he helped inspire Guts’ sword swinging dream by being a blacksmith was not shown as totally right, and he’s the archetypal wise old dude.
lol and this was after he was briefly possessed and strangled her which is why Puck is so quick to absolve him
like even Guts knows that he was able to be possessed in that moment because his… hmm, because his dominant desires were aligned with the darkness of the spirits around him, I guess I’d put it? Because he’s tempted. Because part of him does want to kill Casca.
a la
Like the night scene where he strangles her and then feels like he can’t blame it on the spirits, at least not entirely, because “you desire this,” is there to set up the subsequent sexual assault and contrast it, since it takes place in broad daylight and is visually distinct from the possession in that Guts is not transformed at all, to show that Guts has the potential to be just as dark as the monsters and ghosts he fights (not exactly a subtle theme lol) when he loses control.
Yeah I think his heart was in the right place, it seems like he genuinely just wanted what was best for everyone even if his methods were a little… underhanded and dishonest. Like towards the end eg, he probably thought Griffith would be better off with him and his thieves than with Guts and Casca as well as vice versa (and if Guts and Casca stayed together while taking care of Griffith he might’ve even been right, bc lbr that would’ve been a shitshow lol.) He’s likeable, and fun, and he has some great moments, like telling Guts he’s sure he’ll find what he’s looking for with the Hawks. Ngl his death scene always makes me cry lol, I do def like him overall, in part because he makes mistakes too.
Also I wonder if there isn’t a subtle indication from Miura that Judeau and Casca should’ve gotten together instead of Guts and Casca, and it’s its own little sub-tragedy based on stupid self-esteem issues that they didn’t. The way during the Eclipse Judeau does his best to save her and defends her with his own life while Guts is up on the hand still trying to “save” Griffith lol feels kind of starkly telling. I don’t ship them myself, I like their friendship and I kind of wish Judeau hadn’t had a crush the whole time lol, but it fits into the whole missed opportunity vibe of the Golden Age.
It is kind of a shame that the Golden Age side characters got way less backstory and development than the current RPG group, but the current group has so much more time. Like 200+ chapters vs 70. I did love the little enriching hints we got about the Hawks though, like Judeau feeling inadequate as a jack of all trades, the hints that Corkus is bitter about his own lost dreams. I’d say ‘etc’ but actually that’s about it really. Wish we got more on Pippin too.
Holy moly, what have we even been doing for the last 200+ chapters?? As much as I love the rpg group, nothing beats the original Hawks for me.
I definitely think that the Golden Age was all about people missing what was right in front of them, and losing their chances, or screwing them up on purpose. I mean, it can’t just be Guts and Griffith in this crapsack world that do it.
You mentioned how during the eclipse Guts was focusing of Griffith while Judeau was focused on Casca. Got me thinking about how his final acts were to be a literal shield over her body, and how he fell from her arm as he died. I don’t have the scans, but it reminded me of how Guts and Casca always compare themselves to swords. A sword and shield go mighty well together.
Lmao right? It really puts it into perspective when you realize the Golden Age was less than 100 chapters and we’re on 354 now.
Yeah that really sums up the Golden Age in a nutshell lol. And Judeau’s thoughts at the end do include, “I missed my chance to say it,” which fits.
tbh good call with the sword/shield imagery. Like yeah he does literally use himself as a human shield against that one weird apostle, and then Casca leaps up and kills it with her sword. I could def see that being purposeful. Also like… Judeau is Casca’s last real human interaction with someone before she’s driven insane. I’d love to see that acknowledged when she wakes up tbh.
You found the image I was talking about! I already put it on the post itself, but the way he fell off her arm reminds me of how shields are worn on the arm and get dropped when they’re broken!
This chapter was pure badassery on so many levels. I really hate that basically every female character is subjected to assault tho. All of them. (Sadly, I guess it’s not so different from the world we live in.)
On a GriffGuts note, I wonder if the reason Guts focuses so much on casca’s assault is because it drives home for him what Griffith has become. Griffith being his singular focus and all.
Whereas in the last chapter that got released, Casca’s memories encapsulate the whole Eclipse.
Yeah it’s genuinely fantastic, badass and touching and emotional and then it ends… like that
tbh ia. It’s like the way Guts wasn’t angry at Griffith, just sad and regretful, even while all his friends were dying and he was being attacked by a hoard of monsters, up until the rape scene. In a way it makes sense for Guts to focus on that since it’s like, the source of his violent rage that keeps him going and keeps him wanting to kill Griffith/Femto, as opposed to the rest of the Eclipse which is probably more a source of guilt (”was I the one who drove you…?”)
the beast of darkness pretty much suggests that this is why Guts was keeping Casca with him, basically so he could brood. (As did Miura in one interview :/)
Idk I wish it wasn’t so utterly manpain-y, with Guts being so focused on something that didn’t even happen to him, to the detriment of the person it actually did happen to, just so he can stay angry. You’d think his missing arm would be enough of a reminder. But it is what it is, and at least it’s not really portrayed in a positive light I guess.
Ye, the manpain is rlly intense. Muira basically fridged her and Farnesca is my only solace. And the hope that she gets badass again and bitchslaps N.Griffith and Guts tbh.
Personally the way I read it is that Guts put Griffith above acts like that, and what he did to Casca is a display of how corrupted Femto is compared to HIS Griffith. Guts would have gladly given an arm for Griffith under any circumstances, but to see him attack Casca was unthinkable from original Griffith in Guts’ mind.
I definitely don’t agree with the fact that it happened in the narrative, and even less with how she was treated as a character afterwards. (I feel like I’d be more ok with her insanity if the assault had been left out.) But considering I don’t buy the idea that Guts and Casca were “meant to be together”, my only conclusion in terms of Guts’ character is that it demonstrated how far the Godhand had perverted the man he loved. I’m really crossing my fingers that the upcoming chapters don’t focus too much on that part of her narrative.
yeah pretty much agreed on all counts.
While Guts accepted that Griffith made the sacrifice and even seemed to understand to an extent, raping Casca was like a harsh dividing line, and I’m sure that was the whole point from a writing perspective. Griffith saved her from rape, Femto destroys her through it, contrasts, yadda yadda yadda.
tbh it’s very telling that while Guts’ feelings towards Femto/NeoGriff are “tainted” by his love for human Griffith – eg still wanting his attention, still can’t stand to be looked down on by him, forgets his urge to kill when NGriff sheds the evil exoskeleton, acts like he got dumped when NGriff flies away on Zodd, etc – his feelings towards human Griffith haven’t changed. He doesn’t think back on him and hate him, he only feels longing/regret/loneliness/guilt/love/friendship/etc when he thinks of him.
Like it really does seem to show that Guts hates Femto/NGriff because he’s not his Griffith. When he reminds him of his Griffith, ie, when NeoGriff shows up, he suddenly finds it a lot harder to hate him.
the dress is just the cherry on top of that really unpleasant sundae tbh.
you're the only one 