ooh yeah this is one I’ve already got on my berserk playlist lol, it’s got that perfect blend of tender, tragic, and ominous. very immediately pre-eclipse to me.
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.
lol I honestly can’t speak on this because I haven’t read or seen Rose of Versailles yet, though I plan to soon (it’s open in a tab as we speak lol).
But idk if it’s true that Griffith is directly inspired by/based on Oscar, and that’s not just a common assumption based on similar appearances and Miura being partly inspired by Rose of Versailles in general, then yeesh, I’d probably add that to the long list of reasons the Eclipse rape was bad and offensive writing.
Haha, sorry anon but you’ve gone where I can’t follow. I don’t see Serpico’s feelings towards Farnese as sexual (he was the one who turned down her unknowingly-incestuous advances after all), though the rest is all fair I suppose. Maybe not really necessarily anything more than coincidence, and I’m not sure what meaning could be imparted by paralleling the two characters, but if you have an idea I’m curious.
I mean I guess if you do see Serpico’s feelings for Farnese as sexual you could argue that he fights Guts that one time out of misplaced jealousy or possessiveness rather than genuine protectiveness, but I can’t say I see it myself.
omg I didn’t even think of this possible connection, nice!
I remember a little while ago I discussed scars and wounds etc with @therainykitty as a somewhat sexual thing with comparing the Casca scene to a few things including “the wound Griffith left, because you want to keep feeling that pain he caused you,” here, but this is another potential application of that, and tbh it makes a lot of sense to me.
uggggh god I hate berserk fans, the people you’re referencing are so gross and offensive re Casca.
But I mean they are worse than literally every other non-antagonist character who has ever interacted with Casca, aside from Guts, so when you say “why wouldn’t other people in the Berserk universe not see her like that?” my answer I guess is, well, surprisingly Berserk characters are less shitty in some respects than Berserk fans lol.
Farnese lost her patience once and then immediately and respectfully apologized, and everyone else just kind of casually accepts her presence and helps protect her. Guts is clearly the worst to her, and not just the sexual assault but also dragging her around on a leash and viewing her as a lesser version of her old self and a reminder of the old days moreso than a person in her own right, but once he got a caretaker he removed himself from the situation as much as possible at least.
Though I don’t get the impression that Miura is going to condemn Guts for anything more than the sexual assault, and I even have some doubts about that :////
As for how Casca thinks of herself and her time regressed, tbh idk if I’d want Miura to explore this because I don’t think he’s capable of enough nuance and thoughtfulness to write Casca feeling ashamed of being traumatized/regressed and not fuck it up lol. That’s like a minefield of ableism and I’d prefer it if Miura just bypassed it entirely. I could see it being in character, she is prideful and she does have a complicated relationship with needing to be rescued, but I could also see Casca being angry that they healed her prematurely too, or any number of other reactions. I’d like to see her angry at Guts for treating her so belittlingly tbh, but after seeing dog guts in her mind idk that seems like a vain hope.
And re: your last bit, idk I don’t really see who in the rpg group would
have a hard time accepting her now that she’s healed. Everyone’s been consistently all in favour of the Elfhelm
heal Casca journey. I could see the group having to adjust to the change, and/or I could see Casca herself starting some conflict,
depending on her reaction to her trauma now that she’s awake (i mean if
she ended up anything like say post-Eclipse Guts, she could be really
dark and interesting and sow lots of intriguing discord), but I wouldn’t
describe that as people not accepting her as someone who isn’t broken
so much as Casca maybe being some degree of difficult to deal with as a
traumatized person in Berserk where reactions to trauma tend to be on a scale from dark to apocalyptic.
omg right??? ty for pointing this out, like, what the hell is he doing having tea in full armour lol
but yk symbolically it does make perfect sense. the armour is such a strong metaphor for like, repression/denial/etc. like there’s even a chapter named after that metaphor (armor to the heart). it’s to the point where i feel seeing neogriffith wearing anything else would be a big indication that shit’s getting real for him.
interestingly the only time we see him without the armour as far as i remember is when he’s naked. or idk maybe it’s not interesting, maybe that was just a plot necessity since he’d just hatched out of an egg apostle lol, but it is kind of a strong contrast.
Yeah I think it’s possible, but it would depend on like… what NGriff’s emotions even are I guess. If like you suggest he has residual feelings for Guts because they were so life-alteringly strong when he was a human and Guts survived the sacrifice, then his capacity to care enough about anyone else to feel remorse is probably long gone. similarly if it’s just the fetus fucking with him then guilt and remorse is probably totally out of the picture.
I’m really into the idea of NGriff having a full range of unfrozen emotions and just completely repressing them tho. like, if human griffith justified his dirty/cruel actions to himself by telling himself that it would be worth it and he’ll be validated by fate when he achieves his goal (which i think he did but i’m not going to get into it rn bc that’s an upcoming post), then neogriffith can double down on that because he has achieved his goal now and has basically had his entire life and all his actions validated directly by god lol
so even if part of himself has woken up or w/e and is there with his beating heart feeling actual emotions and being horrified at what he’s become, it’d be really easy for him to deny/ignore those feelings because he has divine right, his life was/is dictated by fate and god itself told him everything he does is exactly what’s meant to happen, and therefore he has no reason to feel guilty for anything ever
which has the potential to be a really interesting internal struggle in theory. in practice the fact that the guilt-worthy subject is rape really like, sours it for me lbr, i can only cringe at the prospect of Miura addressing it in the future, but welcome to berserk i guess.
Also if I was going to make a guess about what’s most likely to happen in actual canon, I’d say that NGriff is probably never going to express actual remorse for anything though there may be subtle hints of inner conflict. give or take how much or how little of his feelings end up genuinely being attributed to the patron saint of lazy writing, the fetus.
my take is yes, but neogriffith wouldn’t think so.
Like on one hand it’s very ambiguous and up in the air because we get absolutely nothing from his perspective after that one contemplative ‘why am i feeling things?’ moment, but on the other hand 99% of Femto’s screen time was dedicated to being resentfully petty and while NeoGriff might’ve hoped to genuinely have no feelings, that beating heart tells us otherwise, so I can only assume that some of those feelings are resentment.
Like I basically think his feelings now are probably a big unexamined tangle of
that he is absolutely not going to acknowledge to himself until he’s forced to.
And possibly his emotions are dulled depending on whether NGriff only has some capacity for
emotion but not as much as he did as a human, but tbh I like to think he
feels just as much now and is just a lot better at ignoring/dismissing
it due to being a godly thing on another plane of awareness. And like, the wonderful symbolism of becoming the mask fits too – like his perfect leader image was partly how he buried and denied his emotions as a human (eg see his “it’s nothing,” to Casca in the river), so now that he’s an embodiment of that perfection it just works for me to think that he’s better at denying/repressing his feelings, but they’re still there.
Also I like to think that he got a petty kick out of being the one to leave Guts behind this time, after the Hill of Swords reunion.
lol lana del rey is another singer i’ve heard almost nothing by, but i actually ended up associating her version of once upon a dream with the reunion on the hill of swords lol
i’m also feeling this song tbh, it’s good and v griffith, so ty!
This is true and lol I did love that moment in the story, it was such a bitter ex thing to think
Also love that their relationship is so epic random warlocks on an island in the middle of nowhere know about their “profound connection” lol.
And yeah I’m really not expecting a happy reunion between Guts and Casca. It just seems like it would be out of place not just considering how emphasized Casca’s mistrust of him has been (even in Casca’s dream a chapter ago Farnese and Schierke were worried about dog Guts destroying the casket himself while in beast mode lol), but also considering the ominious build up.
And like, in general, Miura just does not seem like the type to go a straightforward happy romance route. That wasn’t their relationship back pre-Eclipse, and there are so many complicating factors that it would make no sense for it to be their relationship now.
tbh if they did have a happy reunion where Casca forgives him and then they make out or w/e that would be the biggest sign that she’s about to die for real or something lbr, which would just be the cherry on top of the suck sundae.
Anyway yeah I’m cautiously optimistic overall I guess, like you. Ty for this ask!
Yet more music I hadn’t heard that I dig, tyvm! And also v Griffith esp with the video – the costume with the white feathers ofc, and the last dress immediately made me think of the torture tbh, it had an eerie body horror vibe.
ngl my taste is pretty basic and there are like a million classic things i haven’t seen or read but here’s some of what I’ve enjoyed:
manga:
claymore – recently read it and thoroughly loved it. even the terrible het was so downplayed i wouldn’t’ve known it was there if it wasn’t for one (1) terrible line. probably my second favourite manga after berserk.
gunjo – dark, fucked up f/f, which i always need more of
devilman – everyone’s reading it now thanks to the anime but i beat the rush. anyway i’d rec the original manga and v little else in the universe lol, unless you have a v high tolerance for a range of bad writing from offensive to ridic.
pet shop of horrors – i mean i p much read it just so i could read fic lol, but it was pretty delightful despite the kind of shitty tokyopop translation. luv a ship that smoothly transitions from investigating someone for murder to co-parenting a child together.
anime:
utena – I can see why it’s a classic and I got really into it. also juri/shiori is one of v v v few f/f ships i’ve seen that perfectly hits my specific power dynamic buttons lol
samurai flamenco – came for the gay, stayed for how endearing it was. it kind of toes the line between text and subtext and the whole genre bending thing was v weird but v fun when you get into it imo
yuri on ice – obviously lol, everyone’s watched it
devilman crybaby – also obviously, tho i wouldn’t really rec it unless you have a v high tolerance for gratuitous everything and even then I’d only consider like the last 4 episodes genuinely great.
honestly everything else i’ve seen are also things everyone has seen like death note and cowboy bebop
and stuff I haven’t finished and therefore can’t rec but am enjoying so far:
lol i didn’t even predict the fetus showing up in casca’s mind, idk.
i think it’s still possible that casca’s going to wake up and lose it? what with the whole thing about shoving her metaphorical heart in her metaphorical chest while it’s covered in metaphorical thorns. actually i’m pretty stoked about that because farnese had her line about wanting to help casca overcome her darkness the same way casca helped her, so either we’re going to get some good farnese and casca interaction or that’s going to turn out to be a pipe dream and casca’s going to do something dark, and either way i’m super intrigued.
whatever guts does would depend on what casca does, i figure. i’m thinking they’re not getting back together immediately, if at all. worst case scenario that i could easily see happening is that miura teases a reconciliation for most of the rest of the manga and i have to live with that sword of damocles hanging over my head indefinitely.
so like, if casca is chill and recovers with farnese’s help, the plot has to get going somehow. maybe we end guts’ narrative on a high note, farnese helping casca recover and guts having achieved a goal without ruining everything for once, return to griffith’s in a flash forward, and he’s about to attack elfhelm logically because it’s the last remaining threat to him but actually because he’s bored and misses guts. honestly i would mostly hate this scenario for many reasons, like guts’ narrative being passive and boring and ngriff having a more unambiguously villainous role, like it would just feel shallow thematically imo, but i could maybe see it happening. I’ve been mostly bored by Guts’ narrative for like 200 chapters now so it wouldn’t be out of place lol.
or something else entirely could kick start the plot. maybe the flower king encourages guts to go fight griffith and we start getting into skellig moral ambiguity. maybe magic deus ex machina happens. maybe casca learns of a way she can use magic to siphon her stupid kid out of griffith and that’s the new objective lol. I was gonna suggest that maybe guts takes off on his own for revenge spurred on by some unforseen event, but the fact that he’s on an island makes that unlikely I guess.
god tho i still think that the neatest and most efficient way to kick start things into gear, fulfill a lot of foreshadowy promises, re-motivate guts into doing something, and shake things up in an interesting way is for casca to use the behelit. this is the hill i’m going to die on, at least until it becomes impossible. and yk what, casca’s last remaining and most important piece of herself, her heart, being the kid could be solid set up for sacrificing it. “Someone so close to you it’s almost like they’re a part of you,” and “bury your human heart,” after all.
I mean the way we revisited the Eclipse and Casca’s trauma, ie, we didn’t, kinda makes me less inclined to think Miura’s going to do anything with it/make it a real motivation, but, yk. thorns and whatnot. ~i want to believe~
i just want something dark and permanent with real consequences to happen, guts’ story has been progressively lighter and happier for over 200 chapters by now, come on.
I wish I could understand an iota of what Miura is going for with the fetus tbh.
Idk, idk if it’s so much that the fetus being the last piece means the whole demonization thing was what drove her insane, the vibe I got was more like, it’s the most important part of her and everything around it “guarding” it (the monsters, the femto-pterodactyl) was what drove her insane. Which at least fits with the fact that she’s immensely traumatized.
This is a bit of an optimistic take tho, because I could absolutely believe Miura writing that it was the corruption of the fetus that mostly drove her insane and she just innately sensed it or something.
The fetus was always looking out for Guts and Casca, so I interpreted it as her subconscious placing the demon child as a final defender of her heart against the demons.
This seems as reasonable an interpretation as any and makes sense to me.
I wish I could understand an iota of what Miura is going for with the fetus tbh.
Idk, idk if it’s so much that the fetus being the last piece means the whole demonization thing was what drove her insane, the vibe I got was more like, it’s the most important part of her and everything around it “guarding” it (the monsters, the femto-pterodactyl) was what drove her insane. Which at least fits with the fact that she’s immensely traumatized.
This is a bit of an optimistic take tho, because I could absolutely believe Miura writing that it was the corruption of the fetus that mostly drove her insane and she just innately sensed it or something.
Yep I totally said that and I’m still working on it (I finished part 3 of 4 last night). It’s slow going because I procrastinate for days/weeks between occasional evenings spent chipping away at it lol, and don’t get too excited because a lot of it is comprised of stuff I’ve talked about before just kind of tied together under an overarching theme of exploring the dream vs Griffith’s feelings for Guts (though there’s new stuff too so hopefully it won’t be a total boring slog for any of my followers who may actually want to read over 10k words about Griffith.)
I think it would depend. like imo pretty much any tiny change would lead to no Eclipse, but if say Casca and Judeau hooked up during the year Guts was gone, I could see that leading to either
the best case scenario for Griffith of Casca and Judeau taking off together and leaving Griffith with Guts
or the worst case scenario of Guts leaving Griffith with Casca and Judeau and taking off.
tho tbh I can’t see the latter happening if Guts still had his revelation that he broke Griffith’s heart, and he would’ve still had that revelation if Casca still attacked him and screamed it at him, which probably still would’ve happened, so yeah I think it’s more likely than not that the outcome would’ve been a lot better generally if Judeau and Casca got together.
Also if they did get together and the Eclipse still happened, a lot would probably change because they both would’ve died, and Guts’ probably would’ve too without a prolonged rape scene to waste time while Skull Knight fought Zodd. But like, assuming the events of the Eclipse somehow didn’t change, I don’t think Guts’ feelings towards mentally regressed Casca would be very different if they’d stayed platonic friends rather than hooking up. Their sexual relationship is mostly downplayed after the Eclipse (except when it comes to Guts assaulting her and I sure wouldn’t miss that) with Guts mostly thinking of her as a reminder of his time with the Hawks, and I think he’d feel about the same amount of regret and responsibility when it comes to her.
to this anon in my inbox that i’m gonna block soon:
(fair warning i discuss the eclipse rape p irreverently under the cut)
idk how you can say i dance around what “griffith” did when i’ve addressed it many times, and indeed, on my about page which is linked right there on the sidebar.
i don’t dance around femto raping casca during the eclipse, i just don’t gaf because it’s fiction, no people were actually harmed, it was lazy exploitative writing, and griffith magically turned into a demon first. like… no amount of anonymous whining is gonna make me care when the mangaka himself barely even cares beyond it being a handy plot point to piss guts off and remove casca from the story while grotesquely sexualizing her, with maybe some weird bs about a fetus thrown in.
but i have a feeling that you consider not starting every post about griffith i write with ‘btw i don’t condone his actions, i think turning into a demon and raping someone is morally wrong’ to be dancing around it lol.
like, again, it’s fiction. it’s a made up story. the only thing that actually matters to me about that story is what does or doesn’t entertain me. casca’s rape was badly written and her subsequent trauma was even more badly written and both are offensive rather than entertaining but guess what, i hate miura for that because he wrote it and femto, in fact, isn’t real.
also gotta say anon, it’s p misogynistic that you framed femto’s rape of casca as part of how “griffith took everything away from guts.” i mean granted, that’s how miura framed it, but that’s why it’s good to look at fiction with a critical eye instead of accepting everything at face value.
and like a chapter and a half of build up to this moment of griffith’s incarnation is about everyone in the world crying out with desire for griffith/a new world, the voices all resonating and affecting reality to climactically bring this about, and everyone being able to sense it. so like he can sense griffith, “the desired,” hatching and this is his reaction.
lol sorry anon this got kind of long and meandering, hopefully it answers your questions though.
I guess I think that Guts isn’t really fully self-aware about the fact that he’s still trying to be Griffith’s equal. It’s not like a real goal for him the way it was when he left the Hawks, it’s just that he can’t help but crave Griffith’s attention. He needs Griffith to see and acknowledge him as someone who matters to him.
It’s why Femto’s dismissal back in the Black Swordsman arc was what spurred him to finally stand and walk up to him despite like a million broken bones, it’s why he refused to heed much sounder advice like stay and take care of the Hawks that are left, and insisted on his attention-getting revenge campaign instead, and it’s why NeoGriffith ditching him makes him do this:
Because becoming Griffith’s “equal” was only a means to an end in the first place – what Guts really wanted was to be Griffith’s friend, or, put in Guts’ own terms:
He wants to be Griffith’s number one priority. At the most genuine point of their relationship, when Griffith admitted he had no rational reason for risking his life for Guts, Guts like basically found personal fulfillment. That scene on the rooftop where Guts contemplates it and decides that this means his home (at least for now bc Guts sucks at committment) is with the Hawks, is probably the happiest moment of Guts’ life.
And when Griffith became an evil demon this core desire of Guts’ didn’t go away, I guess, Guts just started expressing it through attention-getting monster killing and wanting to personally murder Femto, to force him to look at him and value him, if not as a loved one then as an enemy.
Also, to address that last bit, I think it’s very telling that Guts doesn’t hate Griffith. It wasn’t sacrificing all his friends that made Guts’ love turn to rage and hate, it was Femto spitefully raping Casca, which is something Guts knows his Griffith wouldn’t’ve done. While Femto was born out of the darkness of Griffith, something Guts probably at least has some understanding of, he’s not the same as Griffith. He tells that to Rickert too on the Hill of Swords “That’s not the Griffith you know anymore.”
And I think a huge part of the reason he doesn’t hate or blame Griffith for making the sacrifice is because he blames himself for breaking Griffith’s heart and ruining his life.
Like Guts’ narrative from coming back after a year to this moment revolves around his slow realization that leaving was a huge fucking mistake lol. And he finally figured it out right before the Eclipse, so when he thinks of Griffith afterwards he’s associated with guilt and sadness and regret and love, rather than bitterness or hate or resentment.
Like I guess Guts’ feelings are kind of contradictory but in a way that makes sense to me. The situation is complicated af and while Guts is consumed by hate, that doesn’t conveniently erase his love. Separating Femto from Griffith is probably part of how he reconciles that, which is also why when NeoGriffith shows up looking like the old Griffith it was particularly confusing and painful for Guts to handle, and why he “forgot” he wanted to kill him lol.
And both Guts’ hate and his love lead to wanting Femto/Griffith’s attention, it just changes how he goes about trying to accomplish that.
Q-2. Griffith has a record I feel screwing things up what if all this
time ruling a kingdom wasn’t what he truely wanted now he’s just not
going to mess himself and the neo band of the hawk but millions of
people. Another sacrifice he’s petty asf.
I like to think NeoGriffith is bored (if he’s even capable of feeling boredom) though not because he particularly enjoys and misses battles. imo as a human Griffith would’ve seen them as part of his path to his dream but I doubt he took particular enjoyment in fighting so much as seeing it as a necessary evil, considering things he did specifically to avoid fighting more than absolutely necessary.
Though now that you mention it, the fact that he reminisced about how great his fight with Guts was is interesting in this context. What was great about that (other than Guts in general and the way it wasn’t a fight to the death) is probs the fact that they were nearly equally matched. So yk if he’s bored I’d say it’s more because he’s essentially alone and without equals.
tbh tho I feel like we have very different views of Griffith. he didn’t make the first sacrifice out of pettiness and I’m not sure what you mean by sacrificing millions of people? That seems very unlikely to me. Also I don’t think Zodd is likely to turn on him, he has an established thing about being loyal to the strongest person around, and even before the Eclipse he was acting like a fate enforcer by taking out Wyald when he was threatening Griffith. Like idk maybe he’d betray ngriff, he has his own reasons for doing stuff, but something would have to change for that to happen I think.
you're the only one 