Tag: a

Imo berserk stopped being interesting when guts trauma stopped being adressed. For mb the first time in a dark shonen,its shown sexual abuse can happen even to the machoman protag, and how sexual trauma affects him and his relationships.how it makes him weak, afraid,desperate to form a deep bond wt smo and vulnerable to guenine demonstration of luv. Its so rare to have this characterisation in média,more so with a viril protag! 1/2

And then guts have sex wt casca and that stops. Now hes just a strong
character,never defeated, afraid only of himself bc ooh theres a scary
monster inside him teehee,like every shonen.He wants to defeat his evil
former bff with lingering sentiments (naruto?). His vulnerabilities, his
dependance on smo else opinion,his loneliness and lack of meaning of
his existence,which were rare traits in protag?disappeared. GA was how
life conditions impacted real ppl,now  bersek is just a shonen wt rape
2/2

Yeaaaaah I agree with a lot of this. I’ve ranted about it before but I can always go on more about how much it bugs me that Guts’ personal trauma is basically ignored during and after the Eclipse in favour of switching to being angry about someone else’s trauma (someone who didn’t even get her own reaction to it, at least not for 20 years).

Cause yeah like ia, Guts’ trauma – and not just the csa trauma but also the more overarching abuse from Gambino as he was growing up – is so vital to his entire character in the first two arcs. It informs everything about him from his insecurities, to the way he fights, to the reason he stayed with the Hawks and the reason he left the Hawks, etc. In the Black Swordsman arc, the reason he’s so angry is because Griffith sacrificing him wasn’t just a betrayal, but a replay of that childhood trauma. The ghosts haunting him and claiming him are an echo of Gambino calling him cursed and selling him to someone else. It all fits together perfectly and it’s so good.

And it is a relatively unique backstory when it comes to badass manly man action hero protagonists. I mean to be nitpicky Berserk is a seinen, not a shonen, but the csa backstories seem to be more inspired by classic shojo, based on some of the influences Miura cites (like Kaze to Ki no Uta), and combining those elements with typical seinen action stuff, especially since imo Miura did it very thoughtfully and very well up til the end of the Golden Age, does create a unique and v interesting story.

And then during and after the Eclipse Guts’ trauma is basically dropped, and he does feel more generic to me – more typically cool and badass, much less interestingly vulnerable. Like eg, his very personal, actual fear-for-himself during the Black Swordsman arc was a really compelling element! And the only post-Eclipse instance I can think of where he was shown to be genuinely afraid for his own life and well-being, rather than afraid of his own potential to do harm or afraid for the people he’s trying to protect, is when Slan shows up in the troll cave. And because there was a sexualized threat there I do think that was a deliberate reference to Guts’ own trauma. But it was one scene over a hundred chapters ago that didn’t really have any emotional resonance (unlike, say, the early Golden Age Zodd encounter which changed everything, or the Wyald encounter which imo shed a lot of light on Guts’ dream), and was far from overt.

So like I unfortunately also get the impression that Miura has largely dropped Guts’ personal trauma as a significant factor of his character and story in favour of the far more common and boring fridged girlfriend backstory.

But! I also still have hope that that’s not the case. I feel like Guts’ post Eclipse monster hunting rampage was largely a way to avoid dealing with his complicated feelings, and I feel the same way about Guts’ fix Casca quest. Like, maybe it’s not Miura dropping Guts’ personal trauma to focus on manpain – maybe it’s Guts deliberately cultivating rage to avoid confronting his more difficult feelings like fear and loneliness and longing etc.

Avoidance is kind of his thing, after all.

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This may be (is probably) wishful thinking, but it does give me hope
that if the fix Casca quest goes pear shaped (eg Casca uses the behelit,
or something), Guts’ issues – his childhood, guilt, all his mixed feelings regarding Griffith, etc – will come back front and centre. We
have all the ominous foreshadowing about the Beast of Darkness and the
armour,

and if something makes him go wild and succumb to it it would be nice if it wasn’t just like a one-off bad event but rather a cumulation of everything he’s (I hope) been spending the last 3 years trying to distract himself from.

And then at some point after that he can be pulled back from the armour and yk, actually grow as a person by confronting his issues rather than hitting stuff with a sword, now armed with the knowledge that avoiding stuff just makes them fuck you up harder when your avoidance strategies fail you.

ofc that said, even if that is the case I think Miura’s fucked up w/ pacing. It’s been 250 chapters since the Eclipse, there’s a reason I feel like this is a vain hope even if it does make perfect sense to me as an explanation lol. Plus like… some details do seem to not be pointing in that direction. Like:

Are we meant to regard his choice to take Casca to Elfhelm to be immersing himself in sorrow? Because that is absolutely not the vibe I’m getting, but the dichotemy between chase Griffith for revenge = avoidance vs stick with Casca = positive healing is so explicitly drawn here that maybe Miura’s just half-assing the positive healing to the point where it looks like avoidance lmao. Like that is my genuine fear, is that everything from chapter 130 on is actually meant to be seen as Guts dealing with his shit lol.

But idk like there are still intriguing elements that may be evocative of Guts’ deeper issues, back even to his childhood, that pop up now and then, that I can point to as evidence that they may still be actually dealt with in the future. Like the aforementioned Slan scene, the way he’s still drawn to Griffith as his “true light,” the fact that the Beast of Darkness is personified as a dog

uhhh the self-destructiveness of the armour (the way he doesn’t feel pain and it knits his broken bones together etc) as a metaphor for the way fighting is basically a form of self-harm for him… idk like none of these things are addressed, but they’re there to be picked up on and therefore will hopefully cumulate in something more interesting eventually.

izonis
replied to your post “It’d actually be pretty cool if we got more moments between Guts and…”

I like this analysis. I agree that this potential is unfortunately most likely not going to get explored, at least not any time soon – especially the way the manga is heading right now. But who knows, I’ve been wrong about predictions before… guess we still have fanfiction though if anything.

thank you!

Yeah my hopes aren’t high but I think there’s a chance Miura might explore some aspects once we get back to Guts’ side of the narrative. After all we’re at the culmination of his journey of the last 150ish chapters, so it’s the perfect time to bring those themes home and make a statement about Guts’ relationships etc. Like, if things go wrong w/ Casca’s mind coming back (thinking of omnious foreshadowing featuring the berserk armour and behelit), will his new friendships help prevent the worst from happening? Or will Guts’ emotional distance from them have negative consequences? That kinda thing.

But yeah it could also be that we’re just supposed to take it at face value that they’re a happy found family and it won’t really be examined in more depth than that. But I have my fingers crossed at least.

Hey,what if it femto raped guts instead during the eclipse ? I think it would be more in character for femto (embodiment of grif self-loathing aka his fear of being a monster taking what it wants wtv it takes +nice parralel of grif interior monologue during his fight wt guts aka having guts wtv it takes),and more wise story-like (echo of guts past trauma+eclipse being bout him and not casca+the following chapter wld rly be bout guts+etc).And it wld have been depicted respectfully lol

this is a dicey topic so I’m putting it under a cut, cw for somewhat casual discussion of rape

tbh yeah it probably would’ve been more tastefully depicted, both the scene and the aftermath/trauma (not that that’s a hard bar to clear, but Miura does care more about realistic depictions of men with trauma than women with trauma lbr). I mean obviously it would’ve been extra fucked up and offensive w/ that predatory gay villain shit, but it’s not like the canon version is great on that score either. And you’re right that at least the misogynist fridging of a female character + subsequent manpain wouldn’t be a factor. Idk it’s a hypothetical so it doesn’t really matter whether it’d be more or less or the same amount of offensive anyway, and it’s all subjective when it comes to comparing misogyny vs homophobia lol.

and honestly I kinda asked myself the same thing while writing my long Griffith meta, particularly the third part where, yk, I got into parallels w/ the King and his feelings for Charlotte and Griffith’s self-loathing and potentially seeing his feelings as intrinsically predatory wrt the second duel, yadda yadda yadda. Like, I could see it as an alternate version of the Eclipse. I don’t think it would necessarily be ooc for a potential personification of Griffith’s inner evil.

It would be ooc for the Femto we got though imo. Bc Femto and NeoGriffith re-enforce Griffith’s denial, they’re all about denying that they give a single fuck. If raping Guts = Femto taking what he wants, then he’s admitting to himself that he wants him, and one of his main reasons for making the sacrifice was to stop wanting him. Like while I doubt this was Miura’s reasoning lol, I do think it makes sense for him to assault Casca rather than Guts (yk assuming an Eclipse rape has to happen). It fits the pattern of how they both use her as an intermediary to repress their feelings for each other.

And I mean obviously we can talk about how rape isn’t about sex or sexual desire but rather about power and degradation, but wrt a fictional depiction where the evil version of a dude who was in love with the protag sexually assaults him, you can’t really divorce that from the human version’s feelings. Tho I suppose it could be framed as like a version of the Hill of Swords scene, ie Femto testing himself in a grotesque way, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be an admittance of lingering, now twisted and evil feelings from his pov. Idk, whatever.

Anyway it would’ve wildly changed everything post Eclipse. tbh I think it would totally destroy Guts – not like drive him insane like Casca bc honestly that’s just Miura’s cop-out to avoid writing a realistically traumatized woman, but I mean like… it’s the opposite of what his deal is now, in a way.

If post-Eclipse Guts was largely motivated by this continued need for Griffith/Femto’s attention, that connection between them, to be hated as an enemy if he couldn’t be loved as a friend, etc, and I definitely think that’s the case, then like, sexual assault during the Eclipse is a way of hurting him while giving him that attention. A corrupted + weaponized aspect of something he wants.

Like idk I can’t even rly picture what his reaction would be if suddenly Femto’s attention/that “true light” bond between them was a terrifying source of trauma rather than something to pursue. Maybe he would still try to lash out and kill him, but less a genuine attempt and more suicide by monster? Like with how much more powerful Femto is, Guts would know he’s not actually a match for him, but he’s also so driven to kill as his number one reaction to everything that scares him. I feel like he’d have much less self-preservation (and BS Guts did not have much in the first place lbr) bc he doesn’t genuinely want to find and face Femto again in this version of events, and he’d be dead 1 or 2 apostles into his revenge spree.

I suppose there’s also room to explore more complicated feelings, like how would Guts feel about human Griffith in this circumstance – still regret and guilt, or would that be overwritten? Would this reach back and ruin his memories of the old days? Basically, does he still miss human Griffith? Is there any part of him that still wants Griffith’s attention despite everything? I mean you have canon lines like “is she not precious because she’s the wound Griffith left, because you want to keep feeling the pain he caused you,” after all. Like, what would the Beast of Darkness say to him now? If this AU version of the Eclipse rape was yk, the same as canon with the same focus on unwilling arousal + orgasm, how does that aspect fuck Guts up? etc etc.

But lbr those are questions more suited to darkfic than meta.

since it’s been on topic a bit lately, ya got any possessive guts hcs and general meta thoughtz asia

On the more headcanony side I think that like, Guts would be possessive but he wouldn’t really think of it as possessiveness – it’d feel like a natural extention of their v exclusive, v intense relationship. Griffith would be possessive in turn ofc.

And it wouldn’t manifest in like, being jealous of Charlotte if Griffith still plans to marry her for power. I figure they’d talk about that and Guts would understand it’s business lol, he wouldn’t be threatened by Charlotte. But at the same time he would demand Griffith’s attention and time. Maybe not literally demand lol, but he’s really emotionally needy lbr and I think he’d get sulky if he didn’t get enough time with Griffith bc he’s busy being a king or w/e. We see that in canon even, when he tries to visit him after Zodd but can’t bc of the nobles.

But then like in canon Griffith would reassure him and go out of his way to give him that time and attention because well, he’s also needy and they’re both obsessed with each other and neither wants to spend time apart.

So things like Griffith putting off some king stuff to laze around in bed with Guts would be perfect for Guts. Or things like having sex on the throne at three am when the room’s empty lol, or leaving tea with Charlotte early because the Raider Captain has something important to “discuss” with him. Guts would want to make his claim on Griffith, and have Griffith show that he’s the most important.

But again like, he wouldn’t express that, and Griffith (unless something drastic has gone down) wouldn’t admit to himself that Guts is the most important aspect of his life. But it would still show through in little moments and Guts would notice them (yk assuming no Promrose Hall speech colouring his perception etc etc).

Sexually you got leaving marks under clothes, fucking him hard enough that he still feels it the next day, teasing and drawing it out as a way of focusing Griffith’s attention wholly on him. Like, considering how needy they both are when it comes to wanting the others’ attention and regard and desire, sex could get ridiculously intense lol. We’ve talked about this before a bit but yk it holds true. They just both want to be wanted by the other so badly lol.

On the more meta-y side, I’d argue that their relationship comes with a side of possessiveness from both – again, as a kind of natural byproduct of the singular intensity of it. They are each others’ only one, and they both want to be each others’ only one. I don’t think there’s a lot of like, canon elements that demonstrate Guts being possessive to the same explicit extent of eg Griffith’s “if I can’t have him, I don’t care,” but imo it’s there under the surface.

Guts wants to make Griffith look at him. At first that’s the whole quest for a dream thing, but after the Eclipse it’s his revenge quest. He wants to kill him because, more than anything else, he wants acknowledgement that he matters to him.

This hold on Griffith is exactly what Guts wanted, and still wants.

It doesn’t manifest as jealousy, like we see him trying to set Griffith and Casca up for a while, but it’s more like, yk, that need for attention. He’s possessive of Griffith’s priorities. The reason I think he’s ok with setting Griffith and Casca up is because lover isn’t a category he can see himself fitting into, and moreover, true friend and equal trumps lover anyway as far as he’s concerned. His competition is Griffith’s dream, not Griffith’s other relationships.

I mean you can split hairs on the definition of possessiveness and whether Guts’ feelings count if it’s less jealousy and more wanting to be the most important person to Griffith, but yk I think it’s an element.

My ideal ending is Femto dying in worst way possible or getting trapped in some endless loop of suffering and misery. “If Guts does happily kill NGriff without hesitation, that’ll be a v dark ending that indicates he’s lost his humanity, imo.” I like how some fans keep idealizing Guts like some sort of a righteous shounen hero… Dude is literally a savage. Look at how he treats his enemies or the apostles who have done way less shit in compare with Griffith.

I’m responding mainly to this part so I’m not c/ping the other messages (also i think your last message got cut off btw) but like, yeah Guts is a very dark character, but again that’s framed as a bad thing. We’re supposed to think he’s a huge dick during the Black Swordsman arc, eg. We’re meant to see his darkness as a sign that he’s close to becoming exactly the same as, or even worse than, the monsters he fights. He sexually assaulted Casca in part to feel “closer to” Griffith lol.

Like, my favourite Guts is when he’s at his most dark, but that would suck if the story was totally unselfaware and we were meant to cheer him on. In the first chapter when he tortures the snake dude, it’s a reversal of expectation, because we’re meant to find Guts frightening and to nearly pity the monster in that moment. Similarly when he tortures the Count in front of his daughter – except that is also much clearer in showing that Guts is pretty pathetic at that point, eg:

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I think Miura kind of lost that sense of patheticness (another good example is the blatant comparisons to Vargas) after the Eclipse, which is a shame imo. But while his dark side gets a bit cooler (the Beast of Darkness, the armour), it’s still like… unambiguously negative. We’re not supposed to root for the part of him that wants to kill his friends.

Guts’ growth as a character is associated with making friends and not seeking revenge, Guts’ monstrousness is associated with going on a revenge rampage.

Anyway basically I think Berserk is more complex than a simple good vs evil revenge story. I think it’s very likely that Guts is going to backslide into revenge mode, losing himself to the armour and going after Griffith after some bad thing happens in Elfhelm, that’s like my major prediction for the future lol, but I don’t think it’s going to end with Guts self-assuredly “punishing” Griffith and living happily ever after.

Oh also there’s this:

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Part of his decision to save Casca instead of keep seeking revenge is realizing he doesn’t really deserve revenge.

Like, I argue his whole Black Swordsman campaign was way less “righteously avenge the hawks and casca” and way more “I am upset so I am going to kill every monster I can find until I reach Griffith because swinging my sword makes me feel better.” And it’s an attitude he needs to grow out of.

Anyway aside from all that if anyone gets revenge and kills Griffith it should be Casca imo.

about guts being possessive with griffith in the dungeon while selfish is an interesting developement after casca told him that “griffith was no good without him right before being stabbed

Like, Guts feeling possessive of
Griffith as a response to Casca telling him that Griffith was
emotionally dependent on him? yk the knowledge that Griffith ended up
in a torture chamber because of him, whether he’s ready to acknowledge
that or not, basically making him feel like he’s allowed to express that
possessiveness bc Griffith has ott feelings for him back? Because if so I could def see that.

We see Guts musing on this fact in the tunnels on the way to Griffith too. I definitely think it’s informing a lot of his behaviour here, and in the lead-up to the Eclipse, maybe not consciously since he keeps trying to bury that realization (because guilt), but definitely subconsciously.

I also think it’s the main source of the rage that fuels his rampage through Midland, killing hundreds of soldiers and a monster. It’s a way of ignoring his guilt by turning the feeling outward onto acceptable targets. You could maybe also add that it’s why he snaps at Casca – he already has the urge to lash out at something, and a minute later the torturer shows up and then he’s able to fully express his feelings lol.

Also plz feel free to explain further if I missed something, I want to know your thoughts and idk if I interpreted what you mean right.

I was hoping you would make another post to respond to that ahaha.
Well what I actually meant is for Guts to kill Femto. Because Neo Griffith is apparently closer to a temporal illusionary image that appears in this world, just like.. Well, Neo. To actually kill him you should be able to go beyond the matrix, or as it was described in this case, go “outside” the story of the physical world. So even if NGriff is killed (which I doubt he would even mind) he would be still
existing as Femto in
the astral dimension. In order to bring the story to its ultimate
conclusion, Guts would prpbably need to face Femto in his true form. I
just can’t wait to see what happens from that point on… I hope Guts is
able to realize his revenge.

I think this makes sense as a theory but we don’t really have enough information right now about how the metaphysical world works in Berserk to confidently say what would happen if NeoGriffith was killed.

Like eg I’ve seen a lot of people who think that NGriff can change into Femto and that’s what he did when he killed Ganeshka, but imo we only saw him as Femto then because that’s how Ganeshka saw him, because he could see his “true” or “spiritual” or whatever form, because they were both ascended beings. But yk it’s all up in the air still.

I feel like Guts vs Femto on the astral plane would work in a different story with a greater focus on action, but Berserk is driven by complex emotions and relationships moreso than straightforward action so I feel v confident that the climax between them is going to have a strong emotional component. NeoGriffith has his inconveniently unfrozen heart, while Guts has his inconvenient mixed feelings, and I think both of those aspects are going to inform the climax.

I kinda figure that the big action sequence part of the climax is going to be Guts vs Zodd actually. I’d be surprised if we saw any actual physical fighting between Guts and Griffith/Femto/NeoGriffith, at least beyond a v emotionally-driven third duel kinda thing, along the lines of the second duel where the victor is decided by who’s less emotionally compromised.

Thank you for this post. (lol I meant to say “Why you SEE it in that way” sorry).
I always saw it in that was as if he didn’t want other people to view and be shocked at what was done to his face.
Either way current Guts wouldn’t hesitate to deform Griffith’s face in an even worse way… I’d fucking love to look at what he does with him when he has the power.

If that’s the impression you get from the manga then fair enough, but that reading never occurred to me until I watched the 3rd ova lol.

And tbh I definitely think Guts would hesitate

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Also letting Rickert hold him back on the Hill of Swords, deliberately trying to let go of his desire for revenge for the sake of the Elfhelm trip, and the way he really sucks at finishing this sentence:

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The way he separates Griffith from Femto, and usually pictures Femto as an empty faceless exoskeleton.

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And only ever expresses longing and regret towards original Griffith:

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And NeoGriffith looking “as if he’d been stolen from the past, the way he used to be” throws him completely off because it makes it harder to separate the different versions of him.

Basically imo his feelings towards NeoGriffith are far from simple, and I don’t think he’d find it emotionally easy to kill him.

And moreover his desire to kill is what gives the Beast of Darkness strength, so it’s framed as a negative thing in the story.

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If Guts does happily kill NGriff without hesitation, that’ll be a v dark ending that indicates he’s lost his humanity, imo.

ninjabelle:

bthump:

Oh actually I do have one thing I can add about NeoGriffith, that I’ve been kind of thinking for a while but haven’t posted because it’s potentially controversial lol

But I think you could make an argument that NeoGriffith is… Griffith. As though transforming from Femto back into a flesh and blood body returned his whole range of emotions as well, basically if NGriff has the same emotional and psychological make-up of human Griffith.

Like, imo he is exactly what Griffith would be if:

  • he talked to god and god told him he’s not responsible for anything and everything he chooses to do is the correct fate-sanctioned thing to happen and he’s basically just a pawn
  • he spent a few years as a demonic embodiment of the dark side of himself and humanity, with the rest of his humanity stripped away
  • while he was that demon, he committed an unforgiveable and unjustifiable act of evil for no reason but spite
  • he is removed from the rest of humanity because he has another level of awareness/partially exists on another metaphysical plane
  • he made the choice to sacrifice everyone he loves both to achieve his dream and to cut out his heart because his feelings for guts ruined his life and sent him into suicidal despair

Like, basically NeoGriffith as Griffith in deep, deep, deep denial lmao, and finding it really easy to stay in denial because god gave him a thumbs up and he’s extra detached from his human emotions due to being a godlike entity with intimate knowledge of fate/the astral plane/his place in the world/etc.

I say this as someone who genuinely believes that human Griffith was more or less a good person. But I still think it would absolutely be in character for a Griffith who remembers being Femto to tell Guts he regrets nothing and then leave to do his thing.

So in this way you could say that NeoGriffith is the extreme fantasy story version of a dude who deliberately detaches himself from his own emotions for the sake of achieving a goal.

But to be clear I don’t think this is actually the case in canon.

I think NGriff probably actually has magically dampened emotions due to the sacrifice, and due to having magically transformed a few times most of human Griffith is genuinely lost, like we see him losing pieces of himself, and I don’t think he got those pieces back.

But like, I think NGriff kind of works on another level as not just the embodiment of the image Griffith portrayed, but how he maintained it, ie, by denying all his feelings. And I find the idea of NGriff as Griffith-in-extreme-denial really like… interesting and fun lol, in a headcanon way.

@kanade1111

@bthump whew it’s been a while since ive talked berserk w/you but i had to reply cause this. this is so much more than a hc to me because i’ve always felt it HAD to be (at least semi) canon that neogriff HAS feeling but that he chooses to bury/ignore them instead.

‘it seems i’m finally free’ MY ASS.

femto was the emotionally distant one, or at least the ‘complete monster’ version of griffith that (could) truly rise above his mortal feelings and he still was acting out of spite over guts and casca and all that hurt he had to endure (partly/MOSTLY over them) when he was still human.

it blows my mind when people argue griffith now has no feelings when the whole driving force of the entire golden age and after when everything went to shit was because of the sheer depth of his emotions for guts because let’s be real that’s all we’re here for) and the fact that he tried (in vain) to bury them- which then caused them to come out later in uglier ways.

(there’s that quote by Freud right…)

“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”
     

AKA berserk: a summary.

I agree 100% with neogriff being in denial tho, like wouldn’t he love it to be free of his obsession with guts? wouldn’t the old griffith who had his heart more or less cut to pieces over his doomed love for guts give anything to be free of those feeling so he could pursue that dream of his that killed thousands? OF COURSE HE WOULD. but that’s not the reality of it. not even now that he’s gained this new body and his new kingdom.

like there is no doubt in my mind that consciously or subconsciously everything neogriff does or will do plot-wise is not going to at some point be overshadowed by his eternal longing for guts.

and anyone who disagrees can fight me.

If he did lose parts of himself that’s only right, like a dark reflection of guts who continuously tries to rid himself of whatever’s left of his love for griffith that could stand in the way of him absolutely destroying him. (i mean- counting the parts before the happy boat trip from hell. like- when things were still, yknow, good.)

and yeah maybe there is ancient demon magic sealing griff’s heart from unwanted emotions that could stand in the way of HIM achieving HIS goals but like- didn’t it throb tho- bthump– when he saw guts again? even if it’s at 0.01% capacity I’LL TAKE IT. It’s enough, even if it’s a sorry remnant of everything there used to be i’m sure eventually it’ll be enough to fuck up all his plans, i mean with his invulnerability now honestly what else could cripple neogriff now other than his heart itself? SO POETIC.

(also i remember when ppl used to send you song recs?? they were so good man i made an entire playlist. here’s another one: say it right by nelly furtado ‘oh you don’t mean nothing at all to me’ ugh so perfect for this little piece of meta, i listened to it on repeat typing this lmao)

Oh yeah I mean like, I 100% believe that NeoGriffith still has some emotion lol, I’d be willing to bet real money that we’re headed straight to a reveal that he’s not nearly as over Guts as he wants to be. But I think that canonically he’s somewhere between “Griffith in turbo denial mode” and “totally emotionless shell.”

Like, dude is going to do something irrational when Guts shows up again. That’s just how narratives work man, it’s gotta happen. I’ll join you in that fight lol. So I completely agree with you.

Also ty for the rec, it totally works for me. and lol ikwym the recs ppl sent me made my berserk playlist like twice as long, it’s gr8.

Oh actually I do have one thing I can add about NeoGriffith, that I’ve been kind of thinking for a while but haven’t posted because it’s potentially controversial lol

But I think you could make an argument that NeoGriffith is… Griffith. As though transforming from Femto back into a flesh and blood body returned his whole range of emotions as well, basically if NGriff has the same emotional and psychological make-up of human Griffith.

Like, imo he is exactly what Griffith would be if:

  • he talked to god and god told him he’s not responsible for anything and everything he chooses to do is the correct fate-sanctioned thing to happen and he’s basically just a pawn
  • he spent a few years as a demonic embodiment of the dark side of himself and humanity, with the rest of his humanity stripped away
  • while he was that demon, he committed an unforgiveable and unjustifiable act of evil for no reason but spite
  • he is removed from the rest of humanity because he has another level of awareness/partially exists on another metaphysical plane
  • he made the choice to sacrifice everyone he loves both to achieve his dream and to cut out his heart because his feelings for guts ruined his life and sent him into suicidal despair

Like, basically NeoGriffith as Griffith in deep, deep, deep denial lmao, and finding it really easy to stay in denial because god gave him a thumbs up and he’s extra detached from his human emotions due to being a godlike entity with intimate knowledge of fate/the astral plane/his place in the world/etc.

I say this as someone who genuinely believes that human Griffith was more or less a good person. But I still think it would absolutely be in character for a Griffith who remembers being Femto to tell Guts he regrets nothing and then leave to do his thing.

So in this way you could say that NeoGriffith is the extreme fantasy story version of a dude who deliberately detaches himself from his own emotions for the sake of achieving a goal.

But to be clear I don’t think this is actually the case in canon.

I think NGriff probably actually has magically dampened emotions due to the sacrifice, and due to having magically transformed a few times most of human Griffith is genuinely lost, like we see him losing pieces of himself, and I don’t think he got those pieces back.

But like, I think NGriff kind of works on another level as not just the embodiment of the image Griffith portrayed, but how he maintained it, ie, by denying all his feelings. And I find the idea of NGriff as Griffith-in-extreme-denial really like… interesting and fun lol, in a headcanon way.

said:
What are your thoughts about the current Griffith? In my eyes he has
become like the Snow Queen – Beautiful, yet cold and empty. Practically
unable to experience emotion and lacking in any humanity. A pretty
doll. A shell. A walking facade. What do you think? 

My answer to this ties into the other thing you asked me to expand on, re: Griffith and contrasts, so I guess I’m just kind of doing both answers at once.

Basically I agree, but I think there’s more to NeoGriffith (ie post Femto, resurrected, godlike Griffith) than that.

Griffith as a human is so interesting to me in part because he’s full of contrasts, which is one of those hooks that really get me interested in a character. And those contrasts mostly stem from this attitude right here:

image

He hides away all of his weaknesses, his negative thoughts, the truth of what actually drives him on (guilt), his self-loathing, even from himself. He smiles and portrays an image of perfection so well that he essentially believes it himself most of the time.

So you have things like the Promrose Hall speech, where he’s fully embodying that image of himself:

image

vs Casca’s flashback, which is a glimpse of his darker, much more fucked up self underneath, and directly contradicts the above:

image

So you have the contrast between the perfect leader, the guy who can take down an army of 30,000 with 5,000, the guy who waxes poetic about how great dreams are, the guy who is this fucking cool while burning a queen alive:

image

And the guy who self-harms after prostituting himself to a pedophile to prevent as many deaths of his followers as possible despite claiming he doesn’t feel responsible for them, the guy who falls to pieces and destroys his own life when Guts leaves, the guy who hates himself and desperately wants to be told he’s not a monster:

image

And both are Griffith. Griffith isn’t just faking his confidence, he genuinely is that confident. He genuinely believes that his dream is a worthwhile pursuit in and of itself, and he can’t call any of his followers friends because they’re clinging to his dream rather than finding their own dreams.

He’s portrayed that image so fully that it’s a real part of him. But at the same time, sometimes it shatters and reveals the exact opposite underneath: the self loathing, the fear, the fact that he’s in love with Guts and has nearly lost his dream because of that love multiple times (ie nearly dying while trying to save him from Zodd, burning his own life down after Guts leaves, even going back and rescuing him personally that first week).

And that brings me to NeoGriffith, because what NeoGriffith is, is that image, and only that image, with none of the very human weaknesses behind it.

image

He’s described as a painting, as untouchable, etc, like fifty million times.

image

He’s basically become the impression he used to leave people with.

If Griffith contradicted himself – confidence vs insecurity, conviction vs self loathing, unwaveringly pursuing his dream vs Guts making him forget his dream, etc – then NeoGriffith is one side minus the other. Confidence, no insecurity, conviction, no self-loathing, the dream, no Guts.

And it’s uncanny too. He’s pursuing the dream, but he’s no longer motivated by his very human feelings of guilt (and also fear/insecurity, which we’re shown here:

image
image

I got this whole argument about dreams in Berserk being essentially shitty coping mechanisms lol, which I won’t get into now but is worth mentioning as another aspect of human Griffith that NeoGriffith lacks)

He’s lost his human flaws, and that makes him kind of disturbing imo, because those human flaws drove him, and now he’s driven by nothing, he just is.

And, just as a side note, it’s also worth noting that Femto is the other side imo – the self-loathing, the insecurity – in the sense that Femto is the embodiment of the monster Griffith believed himself to be deep down, the monster he believed Guts saw him as too, after this exchange (and then Guts leaving):

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I mean it’s ultimately the final puzzle piece that makes him agree to the sacrifice:

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And I 100% believe that NeoGriffith is referencing that here with his “you, of all people”:

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So like, tl;dr Griffith is a land of contradictions, and that’s embodied in 2 magical fantasy transformations that make those disparate elements of him literal personifications.

NeoGriffith is the side of himself that he showed the world as a human, stripped of his humanity, and Femto is basically a personification of his own self-loathing, in which he became everything he feared himself to be, everything Guts failed to tell him he wasn’t.

But this is just like, the thematic take lol. This is what I think NeoGriffith essentially represents. But it’s also more complicated than that, because

image

But when it comes to like, NeoGriffith as a character, rather than a construct, who potentially still has emotions and ties to his previous life, I guess I’ll leave you with links because I don’t really have much new to say:

https://bthump.tumblr.com/post/173364837891/ninjabelle-god-i-was-in-physical-pain-reading

https://bthump.tumblr.com/post/160721048701/so-like-this-is-one-of-my-favourite-non-golden-age

https://bthump.tumblr.com/post/162388988876/mastermistressofdesire-bthump-well-so-far

https://bthump.tumblr.com/post/176251529761/im-lightweight-confused-about-the-whole-neogriff

Basically I think there’s plenty of indication that Griffith failed to entirely purge himself of emotion and isn’t quite the serene image of perfection he seems.

murdersounds:

guts’ nightmare of being a hypocritical monster despite his own traumas and ptsd involving real monsters and abusers (zodd/gambino) just after assassinating julius & adonis.

he’s wanting comfort after this event so badly after doing this atrocious deed for his friend, (he really seeks him out for comfort too—look how wrecked and upset he is—) but ultimately gets the equivalent of salty boiling water thrown on him after hearing griffith’s hot air speech.

man guts has been through some shit and a lot of it’s so subtle it worries me that ppl who haven’t known abuse in any form can’t understand berserk or really sympathize with … well … any of the characters tbh, unless they’re fantastically empathetic? but most fans seem to be macho fanboys and seem to miss the point entirely lmao

I see Guts overhearing the Promrose Speech and Griffith asking “do you think I’m cruel” as basically the exact same moment for each dude, and it’s so fucking depressing.

Like, AU where they got that reassurance from each other instead of getting shut down and turning to stupid dreams plz.

xiyyh
mentioned you on a post “i’d like your thoughts on this please! i’d forgotten about this…”

@bthump my sincere apologies for not seeing this earlier—that week was hectic af! but i love your thoughts here, thank you! very intriguing analysis as usual. i hadn’t thought of what you said about guts recklessness being a form of self harm but it very much is.

INTERESTINGLY though, as i’m rewatching some berserk ‘97 … it seems to be the place he got an arrow wound after julius’ assassination, just before hearing griffith’s speech that was the catalyst for everything falling apart ��

!!!

nice, might switch my headcanon to that. it works perfectly really, as the point where everything leading to the black swordsman arc began, not just because he overheard the speech but also because of the state of mind he was in when he overheard it having just killed a kid, ie

image

so yk, it ties the whole becoming the monstery asshole he was already afraid of being back then thing together. full circle. or something.

flooracle
replied to your post “flooracle
replied to your post “flooracle
replied to your post …”

Yes that would be great!! Tbh I hope the next few chapters will have some hawks interactions and not just battle stuff

Right on! The faceoff against Gennon was def more satisfying considering everything, then the millennium arc ending is good imo but almost feels too big, if not for an emotional part like that..

Of course! Idk if links embed here in the replies (like for preventing bots) so I could send them w the message function or w/e works best for you!

i think it’s only asks that won’t let you send links, either replying or messaging should work.

yeah if we’re going back to Griffith’s narrative I’d love to see more relationships and emotional stuff than just monster fights, and more revealing glimpses into the apostles lives would be fantastic.

and ikwym, I think the final confrontation between griffith and ascended ganeshka was interesting, but mostly in like a metaphorical way and because it made me really interested in the possibility of getting into what it means for NGriff to be “the absolute, without equal,” ie, the inherent isolation and loneliness that we saw with Ganeshka. I don’t actually care all that much about like… the actual literal breaking the world open plot stuff lol.

flooracle
replied to your post “flooracle
replied to your post “Why do you feel Grunbeld would turn…”

100% agreed on the new hawks! Tbh I like their parts of the arc most.. ch194 where Mule is introduced to most of em and Grunbeld saves the kids from being eaten, 250 when Sonia and Irvine talk, 277 where Grunbeld & Locus go for a walk and wish luck to Zodd before he goes to battle AND Sonia gives advice and calls him Mr Black Lion, details like Mule squiring for Locus later etc.. lov that they develop their relationships, just wish there were more bits like these :’)
The part abt Ganishka
and Gennon is brilliant tbh!! First thing I thought after is how they
both see Griffith as much more important than he sees them.. like for
ex. When it happens, Griffith & Ganishka don’t meet as emperor vs
emperor but as godhand and apostle… Their own parallels are rly
interesting, so I like all the au variants a lot, thank you!!

Also I have some summaries for the Grunbeld novel that tell the basic
plot & stuff. I hope it gets an English ver soon

yeah I love all those moments. plus the way the apostles are given so much relatable humanity gives me a lot of hope for where the narrative is going, both because it def makes it less likely we’re headed for a plain old guts + co vs griffith + co, and because giving Griffith’s monster side of the narrative all the humanity makes me hope we’re going to get some more monstrousness out of Guts’ human side of the narrative to balance it out.

ty! and yeah that’s a good point – both G+G are obsessed with Griffith, but to Griffith they’re obstacles. I mean I think Gennon did have a huge affect on him, but he had his (really satisfying) moment of triumph when he looked down on him and told him he didn’t matter. Then with Ganeshka he follows that through, because he’s an untouchable god compared to him, but also reverses it, because at the end right before Griffith destroys him, they have a moment of connection.

btw would you happen to have a link to the Grunbeld novel summaries?

flooracle
replied to your post “Why do you feel Grunbeld would turn Griffith down? Are they all human…”

Definitely agree tbh there was sth very off about him saying he wanted to prove his loyalty (at Floras) when he’s been serving NG for.. years(??).. Rly feels like performing duty as you said, and feeling like hes not performing it well enough.

Ive only read summaries of the novel and some chapter bits (and he’s great tbh!!) this all fits, while what the new band of the hawk does fits w his ethos, idt he has it in him to dedicate himself to a leader anymore.
Also re: the novel…
the circumstances that led him to seek the falcon of light (besides
being apostle) kinda puts Griffith secondary, or at least it comes off
like that. But unlike seeking a leader (not) hes been looking for
friends and seems to be rly close to many other hawks.

Wrt the modern au: great!! Au Irvine is such a specific presence fhdhhdh
I can almost see him and his acoustic guitar. Also what are Ganishka
and Griffith to each other here? :“)

thanks for the extra info about grunbeld, this is p interesting. at some point i need to find what i can of his story and check it out.

i love that bit about grunbeld being close to the other hawks. it’s so interesting to have a band of the hawk 2.0 that isn’t just like, an evil twisted monster version of the former, but actually has the same sense of forged bonds and camraderie and the fact that they’re also monsters is like, neither here nor there lol.

but i love everything to do with giving the apostles more character depth and humanity.

also wrt Ganeshka, yk I think it depends what you want to emphasize. tbh my immediate thought was maybe merging his character with Gennon in a modern au. I feel like Ganeshka is meant to be kind of similar in part to highlight NGriff’s invulnerability. He’s got the magic apostle lust for him thing going on, he threatens him in a similar “i won’t kill you, i’ll capture you” with creepy insinuations, he has the unbeatable army – but unlike Gennon he’s never actually a threat.

So you could turn the ganeshka storyline into more of a power fantasy revenge story in a modern au, if you’re keeping the whole idea of a conflict.

But then (especially for this particular idea in which Griffith is stupid and sad after a stupid break up with Guts) it might be better to emphasize the way Griffith and Ganeshka are parallels – loneliness and isolation, feeling apart from the rest of humanity, anger and monstrousness stemming from fear, etc. In which case maybe you’d skip straight to ascended Ganeshka in a modern au and make it a one-off, weirdly revealing encounter with a stranger or something. Or make him a fictional person in something Griffith is watching/reading that makes him do some projecting.

chaoticgaygriffith:

bthump:

@raseng0th I erred on the side of not reblogging your post just because I don’t want a giant unblockable slur on my blog lol, but yeah ia with the other commenters, I’ve seen that translation referred to a lot, mainly in the context of translators adding slurs which aren’t there in the original, so I assume the homophobia is a fan addition.

Here’s the official translation if you’re interested and don’t have it handy:

image

in the original he says てめェらバケモン共 which basically means “you (fucking) monsters,” 

てめェら being the male, vulgar plural version of “you,” and バケモン共 being the plural of “monster”

lmao seriously? i was at least kind of assuming the word used might be one that’s sometimes aimed derisively at lgbt people in particular (yk kind of the way “freaks” is in english, where it doesn’t automatically have that connotation but maybe moreso than something super generic like “asshole” would) so yk it’d be an offensive reach-y translation but not completely invented.

guess not, yikes

(i wonder if the context of ganeshka just having asked if guts is one of griffith’s captains has anything to do with that. like an attempt to cram in a no-homo)

@raseng0th there’s a solid answer for you

bscully:

Volume 16:

12 volumes later:

We yet have to see keeping his own promise to himself:

I think that is fulfilling his promise to himself. I always saw that statement of Guts’ as ominous, especially considering the pointed shot of the behelit in the full thing.

image

He is what he is, and what he is is a dude getting a little too monstrous for comfort. His inner beast is part of who he is, and Guts reasserting his revenge quest “I will make my way to him” strengthens it.

very similar to this from the black swordsman arc:

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“You and I got nothin in common” is blatant denial, immediately undercut by Guts continuing on his monstrous revenge quest. He’ll do it with his own flesh and blood, but that doesn’t actually make him much different than the revenge-obsessed ghosts trying to possess him.

chaoticgaygriffith:

chaoticgaygriffith:

there’s something to be said about how this turns into a “men vs women” type of conversation where griffith takes men’s side with his bullshit dream spiel and pretends like it’s this profound thing women will never understand

and by that i mean that it comes off as trying too hard, the same way him talking about what a ‘friend’ is to him comes off as trying too hard. before i was a little hesitant to believe that griffith feels forced into masculine roles rather than choosing to take them bc it’s the fastest way to achieving what he’s trying to achieve, but after re-examining this scene i think i feel a little differently about that

#other ppl’s meta #totally it’s posturing – more for himself than charlotte too #the image that goes with the dream which is (how does this always fit so perfectly) an attempt at a heteronormative masculine ideal #the men are like this stuff fits that so well as does charlotte suggesting ‘family or a sweetheart’ which ofc sums up what griffith #is torn between (‘family’ if you don’t want to be saccharine and include the rest of the hawks he sacrifices) and what guts ends up #abandoning for /his/ dream

@bthump what you said here, “more for himself than charlotte,” that’s exactly what i mean, somehow it didn’t register to me, until today, that the part of this where he puts up a masculine facade is ALSO for himself, and not just for charlotte. you know, when i think @yesgabsstuff and i talked about how griffith would be more feminine without all this bullshit weighing on him, i said i didn’t think his choice to present and act more masculine was one he made out of fear. and i still think that, to an extent, but there’s no denying that he felt forced into that masculine role bc …………… it’s so tightly woven together with his dream. and since it’s something he has to do for the sake of his dream, then fear also has to be involved, even if in a sort of roundabout way. that is to say, i don’t think griffith is afraid of like, getting punched or called a faggot if he wears a dress or w/e. but i think there’s no denying that he is afraid of letting this image falter, and that’s what this is really about

I feel this tbh, like imo Griffith wouldn’t really have a visceral fear for his physical safety, he’s been the best w/ a sword since he was like 10 from all appearances lol, and honestly I feel like as a peasant mercenary with the force of personality he has he would in theory be able to get away with some gnc presentation and attraction to men if all he wanted was to fight and make money. Same way Casca could lead the Hawks even though she’s a woman in the world of Berserk lol.

but his fear of failure is a major aspect – he needs the correct image while climbing higher in society, to achieve his dream.

and also i think he needs the dream to justify hiding behind the image, which is partly what i get out of that speech to charlotte. it reads to me like he’s justifying his dream to himself as worthwhile in and of itself, in a contrast to how he justifies it to himself in the river w/ casca a few chapters later, as something he owes the dead.

idk it all goes into how his dream is a defense mechanism from his self loathing and a way to justify his existence, but he doesn’t think of it that way 99% of the time, he has to see it as inherently worthwhile to avoid acknowledging the actual reason (self-loathing) he’s pursuing it.

and some of that self loathing is guilt, some is a belief of his inherent worthlessness, but some is also connected to his sexuality, both in his traumatic experience with Gennon after which he called himself dirty, and his love for Guts, which is especially shown through how Guts is pitted against his dream and how Guts “made him weak” and his feelings for him led to him losing everything. Griffith’s feelings for Guts are connected to his belief of his inherent worthlessness, because they exist in opposition to his dream. (this is thematic moreso than literal)

So part of his reason for pursing the dream is to bury those parts of himself – like it goes both ways, basically, imo. He has to be a heteronormative masculine ideal for the sake of the dream, but he obsesses over the dream partly as a way to bury the parts of himself that aren’t that ideal?

um i feel like this doesn’t really make sense lol sorry. it’s hard to explain how my brain makes connections sometimes.

does guts ever refer to anyone in the current rpg group as a friend

i re-read my reply to that ask and it kind of struck me that guts distancing himself from them emotionally because he’s afraid of losing them/killing them could be similar to griffith distancing himself from the hawks. promrose hall speech.

i mean this is based on 2 extrapolations lol (guts distances himself from current group, griffith distanced himself bc he leads them to their deaths a lot) so it’s tenuous and i wouldn’t be surprised if i was wrong and we do see guts calling them his friends and i’ve just forgotten

or maybe ‘companions’ which i know he calls them is close enough to count anyway

but i do wonder if he kind of kept his raised standards for friendship after hearing that speech lol, and eventually for v similar reasons

I’m always gonna be pissed at Miura for making Isidro an annoying sidekick for Guts. I wish Miura would have went for a more father/son type of bond with them (although I feel that’s actually what he might have been going for in the beginning, but at this point it’s totally gone imo). There was a lot of potential there but now Isidro is really just so pointless in my eyes and it makes me kinda sad. I just feel like Miura could do so much more with his characters :/

yeah, big mood. I’ve kind of got some mixed feelings because I hate Isidro and I don’t want him to have more importance lol, and I dislike parenthood narratives in general, but it’s still so true that Guts could’ve had much more meaningful relationships with everyone in the rpg group, and it’s kind of glaring to me that he doesn’t.

idk I keep wondering if it’s just because I’m biased towards the golden age lol, if I’m willfully downplaying significant moments between Guts and his new group, or if the interesting aspects are there but subtle and I’m just failing to appreciate it, but idk I mean I’ve read the latter stuff twice or more recently and Guts’ new relationships leave me cold. imo the most interesting relationships in Guts’ narrative are between Farnese and Casca, Farnese and Serpico, and Schierke and Farnese. The one relationship Guts has to anyone that I feel any emotion about is Guts and Puck’s friendship, and that’s been almost dropped completely lol.

Like, I feel more genuine warmth and love between Guts and various random background raiders than Guts and anyone in the rpg group lol.

And I think it does actually make sense for that to be the case from a character standpoint – Guts deliberately keeping them at a distance because he’s been burned before when he lost people he cares about, because he doesn’t trust himself not to turn on them, because he still intends to drop them eventually and return to his revenge quest, etc – but if it is purposeful then I wish I could be shown that from Guts’ perspective. And not just through the Beast taunting him while he’s unconscious (eg ”make them precious to you, it’s all the more to lose”).

I want more moments of self-reflection and telling emotion from Guts, basically. Like, I would’ve loved to see, say, Guts starting to push Isidro too hard during swordfight training and then realizing what he’s doing with a bit of horror and ending it early. Or maybe Guts himself drawing a comparison between Farnese wanting to be useful and Casca wanting to be Griffith’s sword and being a little perturbed. Or in a positive direction, maybe include a scene on the boat where Guts thanks Serpico for stopping him from challenging Zodd with some similar language to the old staircase conversation. Or a million other possible examples of showing what Guts’ current relationships mean to him that I just feel we don’t really get.

yk what’s great about berserk

it’s not just the story of two dudes obsessed with each other and trying to deal w/ that obsession in various stupid ways

it’s the story about a dude whose every plot relevant decision is based on how he thinks another dude feels about him

joining the hawks? dedicating his sword to him and feeling at home? deciding to leave the hawks? deciding to stay again but too late? war declaration followed by a three year monster murder spree? deciding to try really hard to get over his obsession and take casca to elfhelm?

like, when it comes right down to it, griffith’s feelings are the really important ones. they’re the feelings that drive the plot, because guts’ every fucking decision is made based on what he thinks those feelings are. that’s why the golden age revolved around them, and that’s why the current big mystery is “how does neogriffith really feel?”

from back in the black swordsman arc:

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to the current decision he’s still on:

image

and that’s another reason I think NGriff’s beating heart is going to become very relevant to Guts eventually. it’s what berserk is about.

like the ~academic~ way of putting this is that
Berserk is the story of a man’s desire for interpersonal connection due to his abusive childhood, but that keeps coming back to Griffith. He’s the connection Guts wants and later doesn’t want to want. The true light every other light is measured up to.

So yk Berserk is a story about a dude whose motivation is almost solely based around another guy’s apparent feelings or lack thereof for him.

do 97 anime guts comes off as less interesting to you? idk if its cuz of cutting his childhood trauma or anime not being good about expressions lol. maybe im being too harsh about the anime but anime guts is maybe closer to the dudebro interpretation.

yeah i feel this tbh. I haven’t watched the anime in its entirety for years but just from checking out a few scenes and episodes here and there i def get this impression, and I think it’s largely because of the character design/animation? like yeah cutting his rape trauma prob doesn’t help but I’m aware of that so it doesn’t affect my take on the character, but i’m still way less fond of anime guts than manga guts.

idk he just comes across as angrier, even when he has no real reason to be during the golden age, yk the happiest time of his life. his default expressions strike me as kind of dour and he doesn’t have that warmth i get in the manga ime.

like just to illustrate this w/ a minor example i picked at random (i was actually gonna look at the rooftop scene from the scene after but i didn’t actually mind the vibe guts gave off there):

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doesn’t really have the same vibe, yk?

and i mean yeah you can cherry pick examples, like i mentioned there are scenes in the anime that i think they depicted pretty well, but this does seem to be a recurring problem i have w/ guts in particular, as far as I’ve seen.

i’ve pointed this one out b4 but

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idk maybe it’s the angle of the eyebrows more than anything lol. he always just looks low key pissed off.

griff-guts:

it’s so much more interesting for skull knight to be essentially using guts for his own means and only allying with him because they share a common enemy and guts has a sort of “in” to the god hand through griffith than for him to help guts because he likes him on any personal level lol why do people want skull knight to be a total “good guy” with no ulterior motives. like would someone who truly cares about guts well being would let guts have the berserker armour?? nah sis he needs guts to be as strong as possible to serve his own goals like it isn’t rocket science

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gimme the payoff miura

It’d actually be pretty cool if we got more moments between Guts and Serpico. It kinda surprises me that there haven’t been more tbh, they’re the closest in age rn in the new squad, and there are some similarities between Serpico and Griffith. Also Serpico’s personality balances out well with Guts’ personality imo. Maybe we’ll get some development in the future?

ia, I think Guts and Serpico have a lot of potential for an interesting relationship dynamic, parallels, contrasts, both wrt their relationships and each other as individuals. Yk in the conviction arc serpico and farnese had some griffguts vibes (well everyone in the conviction arc did lol), they both have abusive childhoods that involved taking care of a parent and eventually killing them, they’re actually both relatively chill people but guts has a force of personality and a drive that serpico doesn’t have, idk there’s a lot of interesting comparisons to make imo.

tbh their relationship feels way shallower than it could, but honestly I feel the same way about most aspects of guts’ narrative from the millenium falcon arc on. so I’d love to see more development, but I’m not like counting on it lol.

(maybe it’s purposefully shallow to show that Guts isn’t really fully connecting with anyone in his new group. like guts and serpico dueled but… guts doesn’t really give a fuck. serpico saved guts from zodd but guts doesn’t really reflect on that or care. anything interesting between them is from serpico’s point of view, eg reflecting on how being around guts has changed him. guts just gets his bland little ‘hey thanks for the help you guys’ moment in elfhelm and that’s about it.

i’d like to think that’s a purposeful contrast to guts’ actual meaningful relationships of the golden age lol, buuuuuuut yeah right lol, that’s wishful thinking. miura’s just halfassing it.

it’s like guts going to get farnese back from her family. it’s nice, it makes me happy that guts values farnese, but what does that mean for guts? how does his relationship with farnese, or serpico, or schierke, or isidro, etc, make him feel? he likes them, he wants to protect them, but how do they fit in to his complex inner life? i can come up with a million ways griffith and the hawks reflected and refracted guts’ childhood for instance, but not the rpg group.

maybe the difference is that guts is now fulfilling gambino/griffith’s role. he’s switched from needer of attention to distant giver of attention. there are parallels there in theory, yk farnese’s admiration, teaching isidro to fight, casca/shizu similarities potentially, serpico comparing guts to fire/blazing inferno that is griffith, blah blah blah. but they also… don’t seem to emotionally affect guts much. like damn imagine if guts himself was making a comparison between himself and gambino and fearing his own potential to be a shitty abusive life ruiner. instead that all gets channeled into the beast of darkness stuff, easily blamed on a magic suit of armour, without a hint of awareness on guts’ part of the potential parallels there.

uhhhh i went off on a weird tangent, sorry lol.)

murdersounds:

i’d like your thoughts on this please! i’d forgotten about this singular instance of guts clawing at his skin in the black swordsman arc. i have my own ideas, but i don’t have time to thoroughly analyze them right now with all the packing and moving—but basically—(and tumblr somehow didn’t save my previous wall of text about this) i’m assuming, that this is guts either/or/a bit of both;

1. guts dealing with his internalized grieving and rage, coupled with sleep deprivation, and even more sleep deprivation and rage driven by survivors guilt. not to mention all the tough guy posturing and denial of his true nature, he needs to stay angry. he wants to keep that anger burning at 1000% because anything less, i don’t think he’d be able to justify. his guilt is overwhelming. griffith does this for much the same reasons imo (compounded by his other awful reasons of course) … guilt over the fallen, while he/they remain/s “clean”/alive. lots of other parallels and reasons i’m sure too. maybe the physical pain feels better than the mental anguish, which guts clearly isn’t able to parse yet.

2. is it this particular scar though? the ellipses are definitely suggesting that looking at that scar triggers something within him. does anyone know what scar this is from, in particular? or could it just be a memory of seeing griffith’s own self-harm scars, giving him this idea even? miura might not have even written griffith’s self mutilation into the story yet though, who knows. maybe this is his way of showing characters dealing with trauma and ptsd in terrible ways.

if i weren’t in the middle of moving i’d look into it myself, but alas, i’m out of time. this scene is very intriguing, though. and please take my half baked analyses with a grain of salt, i often miss very basic stuff because i tend to hyper-focus on details rather than broad ideas … but i didn’t want to forget this.

Totally agree with #1. I think it’s partly guilt over the Eclipse (or whatever Miura was imagining this far back, but as early as Guts blatantly comparing himself to Vargas we know he lost loved ones), but also guilt over the people he gets killed just existing around them while ghosts show up to fuck with him every night lol, which we see in the 2nd chapter when he tells himself he doesn’t care what happens to the people he travels with, then they die and he’s sad.

Yk, he tells himself other people don’t matter because they’re weak (”If someone can’t live their life the way they please… they might as well die.”) but the self-harm is a v quick way of showing the audience that Guts doesn’t actually believe that, and he kinda hates himself for trying to convince himself of it.

Just like Griffith saying “I don’t feel responsible for my comrades who’ve lost their lives under my command. I guess… because they chose to fight. It’s just the way I am.” while he’s simultaneously tearing his arms open lol.

I think #2 is really interesting and something I never noticed actually. ihni where Guts got that scar, and since Miura never drew Griffith with si scars on his arm I doubt it’s actually a memory of Griffith, tho that concept is amazing and I’m about to just adopt it as headcanon regardless.

One thing that just occurred to me wrt that scar is that Guts looking at it before self harming over it ties Guts’ self harm to, yk, swinging his sword at giant monsters and groups of a hundred men. Miura maybe suggesting it’s all variations of self-harm? And foreshadowing Guts’ particular style of fighting, ie leap into danger, get his ass kicked, and maneuver himself close enough to exploit a big monster’s weakness.

prettykitten123
replied to your post

“I was just thinking that, during Griffith and Guts’ fight when…”

If I was Casca I would’ve just said “he’s leaving because of what you said at the Promrose hall. Goddamn. Now can you two please talk it out because there have obviously been some miscommunication”

Like Casca understands those two perfect and knew why Guts was leaving
When she went to get
Griffith she could’ve literally told him “Guts is leaving. He’s going
because of what you said at the Promrose hall, may be you should pull
him aside and talk to him privately”

Knowing Casca that’s probably something that she did say but Griffith didn’t act upon it because of emotions. Damn emotions

mercenaries gonna mercenary i guess

to be fair I think Casca telling Griffith why Guts wanted to leave would be kind of a betrayal of trust. Guts’ reasons are pretty personal. (ON THE OTHER HAND she had no problem telling Guts all about Griffith’s incredibly personal issues, so lmao that’s kind of an inadequate excuse.)

And tbh I feel like she got Griffith to show up to keep Guts from leaving because she thought they’d be able to talk it out. Honestly I think you’re basically right lol, it’s kind of just plot convenience that she doesn’t tell Griffith why Guts was planning to leave. There’s no real reason for her to hold back.

I definitely don’t think she told Griffith though, based on his inner monologue before the duel and like… idk just from everything I feel I understand about Griffith’s narrative and inner conflicts it makes the most sense for him to take Guts leaving as a rejection. If he knew Guts was leaving because he admired him his reaction would still probably be negative, he might even still just default to challenging Guts to another duel to avoid examining how he actually feels lmao, but I think his thoughts would be very different and I don’t think he’d have a huge breakdown after if that was the case.

I was just thinking that, during Griffith and Guts’ fight when Griffith was trying to keep Guts from leaving, he literallly couldn’t asked to speak with him in private. Just like how Judeau and the others pulled him aside for a chat, Griffith could’ve done the same. I’m sure Casca was internally screaming why they were being such idiots the entire time, especially knowing how close they were and knowing that one little word could keep Guts from going

ikr, like

Casca:

image

Guts, and Griffith, and Judeau, and Pippin, and Corkus:

image
image
image
image

Because it’s true lol, this is genuinely a conflict they could’ve theoretically fixed by talking it out.

Tho I do think the story really effectively shows us why neither of them are going to talk it out, so it doesn’t feel like… stupidly frustrating the way dumb miscommunication does in fiction. It’s rooted deeply in character – Griffith can’t explain why he needs Guts to stay bc he doesn’t really know, Guts can’t explain why he wants to leave because that defeats the whole purpose, ie:

image

Like, I’m rearranging my entire life to be your friend based on some weirdly specific criteria you have that I happened to overhear, criteria which explicitly precludes basing your life around another person, so it’s kind of awkward to fully explain.

So even if they did try to talk I could easily see it going nowhere because neither is quite able to explain themselves without additional motivation/understanding/etc. But yk, if they had that motivation and an opportunity to hash it out I could also see them figuring their stuff out, and then their lives would’ve been a lot happier lol.

Like if Casca had resorted to the old “lock them in a room together” sitcom plot lmao.

How do you think Griffith and Guts would start dating? Would Griffith be the one to confess first or? What about PDA??

imo when it comes to fic and stuff like that like that I can go along with just about anything as long as it’s written well, so yk I have no hard and fast opinions on this

but i do have some sort of default concepts I keep coming back to. So like I think the easiest and most convenient way for Griffith and Guts to get together is to make it an AU where Guts never overheard the Promrose Hall speech. Everything just falls into place that way imo.

I mean you can’t tell me he wouldn’t’ve got a clue when Casca said, “It’s as if… as if…”  if he didn’t have that whole overheard speech blocking the path to understanding Griffith’s feelings. (That) + (Griffith expressing his fear that Guts has a negative opinion of him in Tombstone of Flame) – (Guts convincing himself that Griffith looks down on him) = kiss.

And along with that, I tend to assume Guts would make the first move in most scenarios.

Partially because my thinking is, well Griffith has his “I must obtain the things I desire” mentality, so if he was going to make the first move surely he would’ve done it by now. But he hasn’t, so there must be something preventing him. And I mean I generally believe that Griffith doesn’t realize he’s in love with Guts, and may not even be in a place to recognize his physical attraction to him. Or if he does know he’s attracted, at least, it’s something he dismisses as irrelevant. So what’s preventing him imo is his inability to acknowledge/understand his own feelings.

Guts conversely is the more emotionally open one, imo. He’s the one who wants to know how Griffith feels about him, he wants to know why Griffith saved him so he directly asks him every time. He reflects on his own feelings and acts on them. So I could see Guts realizing he wants to kiss Griffith and then doing it without thinking too much about possible reasons he shouldn’t. Especially if he has reason to believe Griffith might also want that (eg Casca coming this close to telling him so in the cave).

And I don’t think his trauma would necessarily have to factor in or make him hesitant (tho it could), because Griffith is Griffith, he kind of exists as a special category of person in Guts head imo lol, so I don’t think Guts’ brain would necessarily automatically leap from sex with Griffith = sex with a man = emotionally dangerous territory. So basically if you want to bypass Guts’ trauma as a giant factor keeping them apart, or delay it for a while so they can happily make out/have some kinds of sex without Guts flashbacking or w/e, I think it’s totally reasonable (tho mb something worth examining wrt Guts’ internalized homophobia).

But also I could see Griffith confessing his feelings first in an “I need you,” way, and Guts making the leap to romance. OR potentially if Griffith becomes aware or believes that Guts wants him sexually, he might make the first move while framing it to himself as just bros letting off steam together or something lol, because he wants it but can’t admit to himself how desperately he wants it. Or a million other scenarios.

But that’s just my take on Griffith and Guts. If like a fic characterized Griffith as a little more self aware of his feelings but needing a catalyst to act on them, or something like that, it wouldn’t break my suspension of disbelief or anything.

Also wrt PDA I feel like they’d be extremely touchy-feely, but the Berserk setting being what it is would prevent any blatant displays of it. Like they could spend hours cuddling in private, but in public they’d probably both be too aware to even casually touch much. Their casual touches in public might stop happening entirely because they’d second guess them.

Though ngl I could also see them forgetting themselves, letting their hands linger over each other, Guts brushing Griffith’s hair away from his face, sitting pressed together and leaning into each other while drinking around the fire, etc. Like they’d go from getting together to open secret among the Hawk commanders at least within a week. I guess if this was a fic for me it would depend on the tone. This might feel weird in a dark and v close to canon feeling fic, but it would be great in something fluffier and more fun.

Also if it was like a modern AU they would absolutely be that couple that third wheels everyone around them, sits in each others’ laps, etc.