ia i think something’s going to go south once casca gets her mind back, miura’s been throwing “your wishes may not be her wishes” at us over and over for a reason after all.
tbh before the most recent chapter i would’ve guessed casca being forced to confront her trauma = despair = behelit
now i’m high key worried that it’s going to be something more along the lines of manufactured drama featuring casca cockblocking guts’ revenge quest because neogriffith grew out of the stupid fetus
i mean it could still be the first thing, or something else entirely, i’m not super pessimistic. on the boat guts did refer to casca falling to pieces because she couldn’t cope with what happened, so what will happen if she does get her sanity back, which does give me hope that miura isn’t just going to sweep her trauma under the rug so he can focus on weird fetus drama. we’ll see i guess.
tbh that’s a good point, given the choice between the fetus being who she wants to see vs guts or griffith, yeah i’ll take the fetus too. actually not gonna lie I completely forgot about “i want to see that person” or w/e the line was.
i was also kinda thinking that it’s going to mean casca isn’t going to want revenge and will cockblock guts’ revenge quest because ngriff absorbed the fetus. “your wishes may not be her wishes,” if guts’ wish is revenge. i’d find that immensely disappointing though because i want casca to go out and get herself some revenge really bad
plus as a conflict it’s like… bad. guts is already conflicted about revenge, adding another reason for him not to go out and get it is completely unnecessary
but hey who knows, nothing’s set in stone and i could still be pleasantly surprised.
yeah v true. and considering our most recent foray into neogriffith’s storyline involved him teasingly having potential feelings related to rickert/his old life/his identity, none of which the fetus should gaf about, i still feel fairly safe assuming that we’re not going to venture down the darkest timeline where neogriffith actually is totally emotionless after all and it’s just that a magical fetus sometimes takes the wheel.
on the other hand seeing the fetus there does not exactly fill me with hope for casca’s storyline. god knows i fucking hate precious fictional children, i hate maternal/paternal feelings, so personally i’m probably going to be highly annoyed unless miura does something spectacularly unexpected like the theory i just posted of having casca sacrifice it lol.
(and i am also filled with fear that certain horrifying theories will prove to be true, ie casca leaves and joins neogriffith because of the fetus connection or something. i’d like to believe miura won’t go there, but is there anything he won’t do to ruin casca’s story? puts ‘your wishes may not be her wishes’ in a very chilling light.)
HMMM it’s hard for me to recommend skipping around since I personally am a stickler for chronologically going through everything lol, and no matter what you’ll probably feel like you’re missing some stuff since there are always flashbacks, plot points leading to more plot points, character development, etc. But if you can live with that here’s what I’d recommend.
The Lost Children arc comes next and I’d recommend it. It’s fairly well paced, starts getting into Guts’ darkness interestingly, and there’s some good potential for griffguts parallels with Jill and Rosine. But I think you can skip it without missing too much plot relevant stuff, and it’s fairly disturbing with csa triggers too, if that affects whether you’d like to check it out or not.
If you skip it I’d recommend reading chapter 118 (The Beast of Darkness). It comes right after Guts fights Rosine and right before Guts gets caught by Farnese and her knights who’ve been tracking him due to prophecy shit blah blah blah.
The rest of the Conviction arc can get draggy and tonally it’s kind of weird and campy lol. I think you could probably get away with skipping it, all you really need to know is that the world sucks, nobles are dicks using religious persecution to terrify the masses, and Farnese starts out as an apparent sadist using religion as an excuse to burn people alive while Serpico is her doormat. Guts escapes Farnese fairly quickly and shakes her faith a little. You get their backstories and more depth for them later so I don’t think it’s super important to see their introduction. Oh also Guts meets Isidro who helps him rescue Casca.
In this arc I’d still recommend reading chapters 126 (Revelations Part 1) – 130 (A Feeble Flame) because that gets into NeoGriff foreshadowing and thematic stuff and Guts’ internal conflicts when he returns to Godo’s cave to discover Casca missing.
You can probably skip a bunch of chapters here. You might want to check out 142 (Spirit Road, Part 2) because while it’s mostly foreshadowing for plot stuff you’ll be skipping, there’s some good shit w/ Guts’ feelings on Femto.
I’d pick the story back up after the big fight and Casca rescue etc, and read 174 (Daybreak) onwards,since this has Guts and NeoGriffith’s turbulent reunion.
I’d actually probably recommend reading the entire Millenium Falcon/Hawk of the Millenium Empire arc, because while Guts’ side can get draggy with like a troll sidequest and long fights etc, Griffith’s is more interesting imo, and a lot of plot stuff happens in both. Plus Guts has a lot of character development and internal conflict, there are lots of new characters introduced and you get Farnese and Serpico’s full stories, and despite some overlong fight scenes on Guts’ side there are quite a few engaging hooks, and the art is pretty gorgeous.
If you DO get bored during the troll fight stuff, which is overlong and annoying, you can probably skip it while only missing some stuff about how magic works, which gets repeated later on I think. I’d recommend skipping it starting on chapter 207 (Magic Sword) and picking it back up on chapter 219 (Vicinity of the Netherworld).
So assuming you read the rest of the Millenium arc, the next things you’d want to skip are the fucking boat fights in the Fantasia arc. Read NeoGriffith’s storyline, skip Guts’, is my recommendation. Well specifically my rec is to read up to the end of 307 (Falconia), then skip to chapter 329 (Flowers of Distant Days), which is a little Guts flashback interlude, and read the rest from there. You literally don’t miss anything you haven’t already seen during the Millenium arc, except Farnese doing some helpful magic.
I think that’s about it. lmk if you have any questions or want a better summary of the Conviction arc lol. And if you really don’t want to read the whole 130 chapters of Millenium Empire I’d be happy to write a summary of that too while pointing out the really relevant chapters for you to read, but let me know in advance because that would probably take a while lol.
dude rescues the person he’s low-key in love with by scooping them up onto a horse and then tells them to stfu
idk whether it’s a purposeful parallel (tbf those 2 panels w/ judeau and casca are pretty far apart) but it’s still cute and the circumstances are pretty similar after all.
HMMM it’s hard for me to recommend skipping around since I personally am a stickler for chronologically going through everything lol, and no matter what you’ll probably feel like you’re missing some stuff since there are always flashbacks, plot points leading to more plot points, character development, etc. But if you can live with that here’s what I’d recommend.
The Lost Children arc comes next and I’d recommend it. It’s fairly well paced, starts getting into Guts’ darkness interestingly, and there’s some good potential for griffguts parallels with Jill and Rosine. But I think you can skip it without missing too much plot relevant stuff, and it’s fairly disturbing with csa triggers too, if that affects whether you’d like to check it out or not.
If you skip it I’d recommend reading chapter 118 (The Beast of Darkness). It comes right after Guts fights Rosine and right before Guts gets caught by Farnese and her knights who’ve been tracking him due to prophecy shit blah blah blah.
The rest of the Conviction arc can get draggy and tonally it’s kind of weird and campy lol. I think you could probably get away with skipping it, all you really need to know is that the world sucks, nobles are dicks using religious persecution to terrify the masses, and Farnese starts out as an apparent sadist using religion as an excuse to burn people alive while Serpico is her doormat. Guts escapes Farnese fairly quickly and shakes her faith a little. You get their backstories and more depth for them later so I don’t think it’s super important to see their introduction. Oh also Guts meets Isidro who helps him rescue Casca.
In this arc I’d still recommend reading chapters 126 (Revelations Part 1) – 130 (A Feeble Flame) because that gets into NeoGriff foreshadowing and thematic stuff and Guts’ internal conflicts when he returns to Godo’s cave to discover Casca missing.
You can probably skip a bunch of chapters here. You might want to check out 142 (Spirit Road, Part 2) because while it’s mostly foreshadowing for plot stuff you’ll be skipping, there’s some good shit w/ Guts’ feelings on Femto.
I’d pick the story back up after the big fight and Casca rescue etc, and read 174 (Daybreak) onwards,since this has Guts and NeoGriffith’s turbulent reunion.
I’d actually probably recommend reading the entire Millenium Falcon/Hawk of the Millenium Empire arc, because while Guts’ side can get draggy with like a troll sidequest and long fights etc, Griffith’s is more interesting imo, and a lot of plot stuff happens in both. Plus Guts has a lot of character development and internal conflict, there are lots of new characters introduced and you get Farnese and Serpico’s full stories, and despite some overlong fight scenes on Guts’ side there are quite a few engaging hooks, and the art is pretty gorgeous.
If you DO get bored during the troll fight stuff, which is overlong and annoying, you can probably skip it while only missing some stuff about how magic works, which gets repeated later on I think. I’d recommend skipping it starting on chapter 207 (Magic Sword) and picking it back up on chapter 219 (Vicinity of the Netherworld).
So assuming you read the rest of the Millenium arc, the next things you’d want to skip are the fucking boat fights in the Fantasia arc. Read NeoGriffith’s storyline, skip Guts’, is my recommendation. Well specifically my rec is to read up to the end of 307 (Falconia), then skip to chapter 329 (Flowers of Distant Days), which is a little Guts flashback interlude, and read the rest from there. You literally don’t miss anything you haven’t already seen during the Millenium arc, except Farnese doing some helpful magic.
I think that’s about it. lmk if you have any questions or want a better summary of the Conviction arc lol. And if you really don’t want to read the whole 130 chapters of Millenium Empire I’d be happy to write a summary of that too while pointing out the really relevant chapters for you to read, but let me know in advance because that would probably take a while lol.
I don’t think I could find a panel where she seems attracted to Guts, partially because I agree with you and partially because my memory of the het interactions in Berserk is not the greatest lol.
But yeah I think part of the reason I find her relationship with Guts so unconvincing, and part of why I find it really easy to hc her as gay, is because her relationships to men are based around wanting to be needed, rather than her own desire.
With Griffith she wants to be something indispensible to his dream, a “sword” he can’t do without. Later on we get Judeau saying, “If she loves him… shouldn’t she want to be held by him?” And Casca saying, “Griffith’s not a god… and I am a woman.” And it’s like, if you’re going to describe a woman’s attraction to a man in terms of falling into the natural hetero order of things, it makes it easier to see it as internalized homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality lol. Casca like, hmmm my feelings for Griffith are extremely strong, he’s a man I’m a woman, this must be attraction? Without realizing there are other possibilities.
I’m sure Miura didn’t mean it that way, but that’s why it’s a headcanon.
And anyway it’s the same with Guts – it’s all about Casca’s desire to be needed, to be able to comfort someone and feel necessary to them. And I think partly it’s an obligation to her, pay back for being rescued, by Griffith, by Guts in the 100 man fight. She notices Guts’ scars from that fight before they have sex and says she wishes for a wound from Guts. And it’s what she thinks about while they have sex: “not just being given to… maybe I can give something as well.”
I think that’s purposeful on Miura’s part. That’s a consistent part of Casca’s characterization that seems to stem from her childhood trauma and being rescued by Griffith, and it’s what informs her two major relationships. She only started warming up to Guts after he rescued her. Miura wants us to see it as attraction, but he didn’t really show us any actual desire from Casca, it’s something the characters, and the audience, take as read just based on the fact that she’s a woman and they’re men lol, and since I don’t agree that woman + man = automatic sexual attraction it’s pretty easy to take another route imo.
yeah, like idk if miura ever cited devilman directly as an influence but i know he cited go nagai and let’s be real, guts/griffith is extremely akira/ryo
and yeah even if he never admits it the narrative absolutely supports it and imo completely encourages it as a reading. to the point where i think it’s the most straightforward reading of their relationship – like to argue there’s no attraction between them you have to ignore or explain away a lot of suggestive moments.
(ngl tho speaking of one summer day i feel kind of ripped off not getting griffith’s jealous face haunting guts and casca
Yeah I think I’ve read that interview, or one like it lol.
honestly… yeah lol. everything else aside, we know the subtext is purposeful because the characters talk about it in one of their first interactions. even without that scene, the idea that it’s totally accidental seems completely impossible to me, no one is that clueless about their own writing.
I guess the question is whether the subtext is only there to add more depth, chemistry and ~passion~ or w/e to their totally platonic relationship, or whether it’s something readers can and should incorporate into their interpretations of the characters. and if miura only intended the former, whatever (tho i have my doubts), but he can’t stop me from doing the latter. like if your method of making it clear that the characters have a strong relationship is heaping on the gay subtext, you can’t be surprised when people take that and run with it.
(same anon) on second thought maybe the nose treatment allusion after
sex could refer to him being comforted, but not wrt Griffith but his
childhood trauma? Like of course Casca can’t help him there but she
alleviated the pain for a bit. This still doesn’t let me glimpse at
Miura’s intentions. I truly agree w your meta I am just getting mixed
signals. No disrespect or anything, feel free to ignore/delete since I’m
basically rambling in your inbox!
no worries, i always love getting messages and I have no problem clarifying my thoughts!
lol
sorry this took a while to answer, first I almost wrote an essay in
response but then I decided to clean up a post I already had in my
drafts that addresses some of this instead.
But to address
your message in more detail than that post does, tbh I think it’s kind
of meant to be a little contradictory. Miura tends to write in a way
where he presents the positive and negative aspects of something and
trusts the audience to make up their own minds. The narrative could def
lean one way or the other, but that doesn’t mean a decision/an event/a
character/etc is wholly negative or wholly positive. It’s usually some of both.
When
it comes to Guts and Casca hooking up I think there are positive
aspects. Guts opening up and telling her about his past is a good thing.
Casca deciding to try to move on from her obsession with Griffith is a
good thing. Despite the violent flashback and the virginal fumbling both
of them consider sex together to be a positive experience.
But
despite that, I think the narrative itself depicts Guts and Casca
hooking up to be ultimately a mistake. Not a mistake you can blame Guts
or Casca for because they should’ve known better or smthn like that, but a mistake in the
sense that it lead to a lot more bad than good happening, the same way
Guts leaving the Hawks was ultimately the wrong call even though he had
the best of intentions and it arguably seemed to have a positive affect on him as an individual.
And like, tbh I don’t think Miura really
gives much of a fuck about Guts/Casca as a romantic relationship lol. I
think what happened is he went with it as a way to make the Eclipse more
dramatic/give Guts a stronger reason to want revenge bc frankly
Griffith just sacrificing the Band isn’t nearly enough to make Guts that
angry lol – but he’s actually a pretty good writer when he wants to be
so rather than pushing it as a more generic and pasted on True Love Ruined By Tragedy thing he
added it as a two people on the rebound thing and incorporated it into
part of the pile-up of bad decisions and things going wrong in the lead
in to the Eclipse.
It has to be a little sweet, a little positive,
the audience has to believe Guts genuinely cares for her and they had
potential in order for the Eclipse bullshit to have the effect he
wanted, but at the same time the main thing Guts and Casca’s short lived
relationship adds to the story, other than set-up for a prolonged rape
scene, is reinforcement of Guts’ stupid dream imo.
So I think that he is trying to push those two together because he is
projecting his feelings on Casca. He wants to get them together because
he can’t insert himself in that situation. Casca is possibly a stand-in
for himself without him realizing it. That’s why he wouldn’t feel
jealous too imo. What do you think and what’s your take?
My probably-gayer-than-Miura-intended take is basically the same as yours, with the addition of Guts thinking that Casca is worthier of Griffith than he is.
From his silent and sullen reaction shots to Casca talking about him in the cave that definitely strike me as identifying with Casca’s feelings
to Casca directly telling him she’s jealous of him
to Guts feeling like all he’s good for is swinging his sword while insisting Casca has to live for something more important
to
this all seems like set-up for Guts throwing Casca at Griffith. He starts doing it after he decides to leave like he’s setting Casca up to take the place she wants, his place, at Griffith’s side, but Casca gets the addition of romance that Guts can’t begin to envision for himself thanks to repression and heteronormativity.
Also, good point about the bit where they’re both looking at him from a distance and Guts decides to take Casca down to bridge that gap for her, while he plans to leave. ia that seems like another moment of identification.
Idk basically yeah I totally agree, I think Guts is hardcore projecting, and the fact that the way he sets Casca up to take his place as Griffith’s confidante and “sword” involves shoving her into his arms, telling her to ask him to dance, telling Griffith she’s quite a sight in her dress, etc, is pretty telling.
Idk if it’s purposeful on Miura’s part, but it’s a really solid reading imo.
Oh yeah I see what you mean. And you could probably argue that Guts is doing the same thing with Casca right now too, idealizing the concept of her as healed and exactly the way she was before as a Hawk commander.
Also yeah while I’d say Utena was mostly about examining misogyny and patriarchy, I think you could apply a lot of the same conceptual stuff to homophobia and heteronormativity. Like ngl I only watched Utena for the first time fairly recently and I know this would be p much blasphemy to a lot of fans lol, but afterwards I immediately wanted to compare Griffith’s castle dream to the floating upside-down castle. I mean Griffith’s dream is kind of intwined with an ideal heteronormative relationship with Charlotte, noble storybook knight and princess, which is at odds with his genuine love for Guts, except he ends up choosing the dream.
I tend to err on the side of thinking that it’s not purposeful on Miura’s part, and being able to read Griffith’s narrative as about internalized homophobia and heternormativity is just a side effect of him being emotionally repressed, in love with Guts, and needing to marry a princess, but it’s still fun to think about, and imo it’s really not much of a stretch.
I’m sorry anon I’m having a hard time parsing this so apologies if I read your point wrong.
Like do you mean is Berserk a subversion of traditional romance similarly to Utena? bc I wouldn’t really say that, though I do think Miura is definitely not aiming for a traditional romance anywhere in Berserk, I don’t think he’s really deconstructing the concept of hetero romance either. But yeah I do think that regardless of whether it can be compared to Utena, Miura is still very unlikely to write a straightforward happy romantic ending between Guts and Casca.
So I got an ask that’s your basic typical how dare you call g*tsca unhealthy when you ship griffguts, and I’m not gonna publish it because I’m done giving these people a platform lol, but I do want to make something abundantly clear to that anon, and to anyone else who might care:
I honestly don’t give a single solitary shit whether a ship is healthy or not. I like ships that entertain me and I hate ships that bore me and g*tsca bores the fuck out of me. That is the axis on which I judge it.
They could have the most healthy, positive, completely non-rapey
relationship ever and I’d still hate it because every time they interact
romantically it diminishes both characters and sucks the entertainment
value out of the story.
So like, if I bring up the fact that it’s an unhealthy, not very romantic relationship, it’s not because that’s why it’s sucks, it’s because that’s an aspect of the story I feel like talking about.
Technically with cut tendons he shouldn’t be able to curl his fingers at all, but Miura seemed to just make his grip extremely weak and useless. Anyway it wasn’t a calculated attempt to strangle Guts, it was an emotional reaction so it doesn’t really matter whether he was physically capable of killing him, it just shows us how he’s feeling.
Yeah we didn’t get a close up of him when Charlotte was throwing herself on him so idt his reaction really mattered and probably wasn’t anything special. Though when Charlotte took the dart we got a few close ups of Griffith looking v intent and shocked so I wouldn’t say he didn’t care. I don’t think he cared for her sake, but I think the idea that she would take a dart for him even after he was unable to present himself as a perfect fiancee for her was a surprise.
Plus he’s not super rational and he tells her he’ll come back for her, so I think he may have taken it as a sign that his dream was still a possibility, Charlotte could still marry him, even though if he stopped and thought about it for half a second (and he does later) he’d realize that no his dream is dead and buried. It’s gr8 foreshadowing though.
Continue- My reasoning for insinuating that Griffith is trying to fit in
and erase the old fedora is because he changed the Band of the Hawks
name to Falcon since he’s marrying into high society, uh the dude will
wake into a rude awakening Charlotte might even dislike Griffith if he
starts changing. The tea compliment what’s next, it’ll get annoying he’s
so fake trying to delete the past yet they don’t see him as their equal
even though he’s worked hard at least when he was human.
Anon
I respect your opinion but I’m running out of ways to say I don’t think
that he’s going to do anything particularly evil or cruel to Charlotte
or the rest of Falconia. I feel like I’ve explained my perspective
pretty thoroughly by now and I can’t think of much else to say on the
topic, so we’re going to have to agree to disagree.
Tho I will say that Hawk -> Falcon is a translation discrepency, the word is the same in Japanese.
You grabbed my curiosity expand your reply about Charlotte not being one
to avoid being a causality to Fem/NeoGriff ? I know that term applies
to Guts and he has his own will but Griffith has fate on his side. Very
confusing, and people undermine Charlotte a lot maybe their dislike is
because she has a thing for Griffith but it was him who suduced her not
the other way around. She’ll bail Miura will create drama he slept with
her next day lmao, I believe Charlotte has bad luck ouch.
I’m too lazy to find the panels rn but I’m
referring to I think Skull Knight (or possibly Flora) describing
Griffith as untouchable as an author is to the characters in a book. He
exists on a different level, and the reason he went out of his way to
have Flora killed was because she’s one of the few people in the world
capable of potentially moving against him, as a witch who also exists on
a higher level.
My point is just that very few people can do a
thing to impede Griffith’s plans because he’s a god. Guts and Casca may
be able to due to the effect of their brands, maybe Schierke and maybe
even Farnese due to being witches, probably Skull Knight could, but
Charlotte and/or various nobles undoubtedly can’t.
Finally, I just
want to say that I’m occasionally finding it difficult to respond to
your messages since they mostly seem to be more along the lines of lists
of your opinions rather than an attempt to start a dialogue, and I
often have very little to add. I don’t want to discourage anon
messages, I like getting them and I welcome them from everyone, but I
just want to warn you in advance that from now on I might not publish
every one I get if I find I have little to say in response.
Huh that’s really weird and random sounding. I don’t really go to youtube or reddit for fandom stuff so yeah never seen that myself.
I don’t think Griffith cares enough about Charlotte to really gaf if she leaves tbh. I’m pretty sure once they’re married he’s king no matter what, so if she suddenly disappeared it wouldn’t really affect his ability to rule, and unless something v surprising happens I doubt she’s going to suddenly change her mind and leave before the wedding.
And anyway NeoGriffith’s got fate on his side and only ppl outside causality can do anything to affect his ability to fulfill humanity’s desires, presumably, and Charlotte isn’t one of those people, so I don’t think he has anything to worry about there. + ia she’s not stupid but she also has no reason to doubt or dislike him right now.
I’m glad I made a convincing case lol, ty for reading 😀
Tbh I have a hard time coming up with a solid idea of what might happen. I guess I’m leaning towards the group, or most of the group depending on whether anyone dies or what Casca does when she wakes up, sticking together. It would feel too repetitive if everyone died again or left to do their own subplots and Guts was back to Black Swordsmaning alone imo. Like granted there’s a complication with the armour potentially taking over now, but even so there’s not a lot of drama or intrigue you can wring out of that. Guts is the Beast of Darkness, eventually someone brings him back to himself again, snore. Like unless that someone is Griffith i’m already bored by the idea bc we’ve seen it like 4 times already.
I could maybe see them parting ways temporarily for plot reasons, splitting up to accomplish different things, but I don’t think Farnese, Serpico, Casca, Schierke, Puck, or Isidro are going to be written out of the story anytime soon. I think they’re here til the end, or close to it.
I could easily see Magnifico, Roderick, the knight dude, and the mermaid dying or taking off though. They’ve all had way less development and time and energy spent on their narratives.
Though I also wouldn’t be surprised to be proven wrong, bc yk, anything
could happen when Casca gets her mind back and I’m prepared to be
surprised by whichever direction we end up going in.
lol the majority of fandom thinks he and femto are exactly the same, i’m pretty sure this corner of tumblr is in the minority.
and yes femto is obviously created from a part of griffith, I don’t think anyone thinks he’s a wholly new character created out of thin air, it’s just a question of where you draw the line. i differentiate between them because they have different personalities and different dominant drives and different motivations (like I don’t think Femto/NeoGriff is motivated by guilt anymore). griffith contained femto, just as guts contains the beast of darkness, but the rest of griffith is gone, or frozen now (give or take a few suggestive bthumpy hints that a part of him still remains buried in femto/neogriffith.)
Also I should let you know that I personally believe blaming the fetus was just NeoGriffith’s way of continuing to deny his actual feelings. I don’t think the fetus actually has much of anything to do with NeoGriffith’s current emotional state, and while I may be proven wrong, I would be very disappointed if I am. So we’re unlikely to agree on that point.
(here are two posts about the neogriffith fetus issue, if you’re interested in more of an explanation)
And I think NeoGriffith is going to keep being a genial, very likeable king tbh. He’ll keep expanding Falconia, welcoming all people to live as equals there, and the majority of Midland and wherever else he expands to are probably going to love him. Any political backlash would be pretty easily quelled – the nobles don’t really have a leg to stand on, they’re vastly outnumbered, and Griff has been declared a saint or w/e and is going to be crowned by the head of the holy see, plus he can’t be harmed by ordinary humans, so I don’t think there’s much they can do even if they resent him.
I’d like to see them sowing some seeds of emotional turmoil for NeoGriffith by reminding him of his life before the Eclipse, maybe moreso now that Rickert has kind of pointed some shit out to him that he couldn’t deny, but I can’t see them affecting the plot much at this point. I mean, maybe if Guts shows up and they help him, but that would be kind of weird lol, and I don’t really see that happening.
Yeah, I’d say whether Femto is a different person from Griffith comes down to semantics and what someone considers personhood, but to me undergoing a magical transformation that augments the “evil” in your heart (which, in Berserk, exists in the hearts of all people) and removes the “goodness” or w/e, as visually depicted by literally losing fragments of himself:
makes you different enough that I have no problem mentally separating human Griffith and Femto, and definitely don’t hate Griffith for Femto’s actions, same way I don’t hate Guts for trying to murder his friends when the armour takes over.
If you (general you) wanna hate Griffith for agreeing to sacrifice his friends, or challenging Guts when he left, or w/e, I’ll disagree but I think that’s fair game. But hating him for Femto’s actions after we’re taken step by step through his magical transformation into an entity made out of evil really doesn’t make sense to me.
Also, do you mean Griffith would’ve taken Guts back if he’d returned, say, a year after the duel, like in canon, but Griffith hadn’t gotten caught fucking Charlotte and therefore hadn’t spent that year in a dungeon?
I think Griffith probably would take him back, because he’s desperate and needy and irrational and in love, but I could see an argument where the duel is a big wake-up call to how emotionally compromised he is by his love for Guts, which could make him view Guts as a huge threat lol, and he might refuse to let him return to try to protect himself from his own destructive, dream-endangering feelings.
Though I think it’s also likely that Griffith isn’t that self aware even after the duel, and would still manage to deny his feelings. Like Guts would come back and Griffith would somehow logic himself into returning to their close relationship without admitting to himself that he just really needs Guts in his life. Like, “it’s not because I desperately want him back at my side, it’s because he knows I assassinated the queen and co and therefore I need him as my ally and not my enemy.” Or something along those lines. Though of course his feelings would be that much harder to deny now, and eventually something would have to give.
Or he could be aware of his feelings now, but too far gone to refuse Guts, a la “if I can’t have him, I don’t care!” Like, “ok Guts’ existence could clearly ruin me, but fuck it, he came back and I’ll be damned if I’m letting him leave me again ever.” Which would open its own associated emotional can of worms lol.
lol sorry I love thinking about Griffith’s stupid feelings and how he deals or doesn’t deal with them.
(And now I’m wondering what if Guts turned around and walked back two minutes after leaving Griffith in the snow. I feel like if that was the case Griffith would be incapable of anything but genuine emotional expression, either in the form of being overwhelmed with relief that Guts came back and immediately taking him back, or rage followed by a sobbing breakdown or smthn.
Honestly I would enjoy more political scheming, Griffith assassinating everyone was one of my favourite parts of the Golden Age. Though NeoGriffith is too invulnerable to make it fun for the same reasons now probably.
Can’t agree with you there, sorry. As far as I’m aware Guts doesn’t even know there’s a connection between the demon fetus and NeoGriffith, and he never really gave much of a fuck about the fetus anyway iirc beyond being like, personally disturbed by its existence.
And we get a lot of information about Guts’ motivation for pursuing Griffith and it’s all about rage and betrayal and longing and emotional repression (and I would argue guilt), nothing there about the fetus.
Casca, maybe, who knows. She had more of a connection to the thing. She might be motivated by it. It’s as good a prediction as any.
Plz feel free to explain more about how Griffith is like Lucifer and not Satan and how they’re different, because all my knowledge of Christianity tells me they’re the same dude, so I can’t really respond to that assertion.
He’s not currently doing any campaigning, he defeated Ganeshka pretty easily and now all his work seems to be taking in refugees, expanding Falconia, performing miracles so ppl can say goodbye to their loved ones, and having tea with the pope or w/e.
I do wonder about people who would resent Griffith for not being noble – they might provide some conflict, though I doubt there’s much they could actually do. And tbh I think Foss is actually a genuine believer now, personally, and probably a somewhat terrified one, but he’d also be an interesting thread to pick up again. I really want to see more from the perspectives of people who knew original Griffith.
I feel like for most of them this is actually kind of a natural progression – we saw people talking back in the Golden Age about how he was like a painting, how he was like a fairytale hero, we saw admiring peasants, etc. He won the war despite all odds so to have him reappear and save Midland from Ganeshka’s army fits everyone’s preconceptions of him. But there could still be some interesting stuff to be explored.
Tbh I’d love for Charlotte to gradually start to realize how non-genuine Griffith’s affections are (though I don’t think that’s changed between being human and being a god lol) or maybe sense a certain coldness or emptiness from him. I doubt it would happen soon though, and it might not happen at all – Charlotte didn’t exactly know him very well as a human, she idealized him herself quite a bit and NeoGriffith’s image of perfection probably fits her expectations.
Idk what I’d love to see is like, suggestive conversations and little reminders that NeoGriffith isn’t quite the same as Original Griffith, and that he’s very singular and therefore very alone. We got Rickert, now I want more. Like let’s see Owen asking after Guts the way he asked Guts about Griffith. Or let’s see what Griffith does in his spare time, or what the nobles say about him and the rumours that he was a traitor a few years ago. I like outsider perspectives a lot and I think there’s a lot of good potential there.
lol I actually theorize that he was a former Godhand, though without any real evidence other than the timeline we’re given. (I think he somehow made his reality warping sword by eating behelits lol.) My theory is that he was the last incarnated Godhand member pre-Griffith, since one supposedly incarnates once every thousand years and Gaiseric’s Falconia 1.0 empire was a thing 1000 years ago. Plus Guts comparing him to Griffith was a solid “hmmm” moment, and the fact that he’s also compared to Guts now (witch friend, possible revenge quest, armour) is more interesting to me if he was the world’s previous “Griffith.”
Never heard those speculations, why 200 years? And like Zodd how? Monstrous, or roaming battle fields, or bloodlusty, or what? Seems like an odd theory since Zodd is just an apostle and Griffith is a god. (Unless you mean become like Skull Knight, in which case I could get behind that theory.)
And I’m not gonna lie, I’m 100% a Griffith fan and I’ll absolutely argue that he wasn’t at all evil pre-rebirth into Femto. Like, the Godhand ultimately convinced him to make the sacrifice not through offers of power or rejuvenation but by guilt-tripping him about all the people who died for his dream. Human Griff ain’t evil, he’s just got stupid (tho imo v understandable) priorities.
After he became Femto, I’d say he’s like, literally evil, in that he’s literally described as being made up of the same evil/dark/negative aspects of humanity that the Idea of Evil is. And NeoGriffith is a mysterious wildcard as far as I can tell, I have no idea if he’s yet another aspect of humanity brought to the forefront, the way Griffith was all human and Femto was humanity’s darkness, or if he’s just Femto with a flesh suit on, or what, so I’m just waiting on more reveals before making up my mind on him.
But I don’t think he’s Satan, or an anti-christ. I think he’s a Christ figure in a world whose God is a manifestation of humanity’s dark side. Yk, if that’s a difference worth distinguishing lol.
I feel like I remember seeing confirmation that Miura was inspired by Hellraiser, tho it could’ve just been speculation I guess, but either way yeah big similarities there lol.
tbh I think we’re supposed to think the possibility exists for Guts to become an apostle, but not a Godhand, since a new member only joins up once every 200 something years. But I personally don’t think it’s going to happen.
But Femto/NeoGriff opposing the rest of the Godhand, now that’s something I think is a possibility. Void is sketchy as fuck, he seems to know more than the rest of the Godhand, and he’s got ultimate big bad written all over him. Plus Miura hinted that he’s going to be really relevant. Add in the fact that theoretically there must’ve been 5 other Godhand members 1000 years ago (since one of them can only incarnate every 1000 years, and this must’ve happened more than once to be a recognized cycle) so Godhands don’t last forever, and ngl I do wonder if there’s going to be a conflict between NeoGriff and the Godhand.
And that’s not a stupid question. Like, I don’t think Femto and NeoGriff are in conflict, but I absolutely wonder if NeoGriff has some inner conflict going on with his reawakened emotions, whatever they are. So if that’s the case I wouldn’t really describe that as NeoGriffith vs Femto so much as the last vestiges of human Griffith vs Femto/NeoGriff, but hey that’s just semantics, no one knows wtf is going on with NeoGriff internally or whether he’s distinct from Femto, etc. So I guess “maybe” is my actual answer to that, haha.
Thanks for the ask, idk there’s lots to think and wonder about. I can’t wait til Miura starts actually like, revealing stuff and getting the plot going again lol.
The way Miura wrote the story I’d say Guts is by far the stronger and more relatable character. Unfortunately Casca really gets the “the token chick” treatment where her whole story and all her issues and half her personality is about being a woman surrounded by men, and written by a dude, so yk, I don’t blame anyone for being unable to relate to her lol, and personal preference is whatever, so it’s not like you should have to like her just because you’re a girl.
And I definitely agree that Casca should develop on her own, away from Guts. The way she jumped straight from being overinvested in Griffith and his dream to being overinvested in Guts and his dream was pretty fucked up imo, and a sign that she needs to get independent.
But I’d have to disagree with you about their respective feelings, because while I think they both felt genuine affection for the other, neither of them felt genuine love, and I’d say even moreso than Casca did, Guts consistently prioritized/s Griffith over her.
cut for length
Rather than staying and supporting her he still wants to go out to become Griffith’s equal, and this is how he invites her along when Casca is outraged by his priorities:
which is pretty far from romantic or commital lol.
While Casca is jealous of Charlotte during the rescue, Guts’ reaction is basically, well that kinda sucks but lbr I got it even worse than she does so it’s not like I can blame her:
When they find Griffith this is the next thing he says to Casca:
During the Eclipse this is what Guts does when he sees the Band, including Casca, about to be eaten by monsters:
And of course after the Eclipse he dumps her in a cave for two years to pursue Griffith/continue pursuing his dream of fighting stronger and stronger opponents and therefore being Griffith’s friend/equal, once again prioritizing Griffith:
When he finally does end up sticking with her to take her to Elfhelm, this is how he makes that decision:
This is what he’s thinking about when he starts off on his journey:
and of course i’d be remiss if i didn’t mention how Griffith grabbing Guts’ attention away from rescuing Casca is framed:
AND then there’s the whole Beast of Darkness fiasco.
And even when they’re on the boat, he’s still planning to run back to Griffith once his sidequest with Casca is over:
Idk basically I would argue that Guts is by far shittier to Casca than Casca is to Guts, and neither are genuinely all that invested in their potential relationship. It’s a rebound for both, an attempt to get over Griffith that doesn’t work for either, but in fairness to Casca she tried, and even when she decided to stay with Griffith she told Guts to leave because she was prioritizing his stupid dream lol, while Guts’ investment in becoming worthy of being Griffith’s friend had him refusing to stay and suggesting Casca come with him only insofar as she doesn’t fuck up his dream from the very start.
2/2 So I’m a bit puzzled and I am wondering about your
interpretation, if you’ve already written a meta about that scene. What I
think is that Guts definitely sees Griffith romantically so he was
doubly heartbroken after hearing that he doesn’t see him as a friend or
equal, so he wanted to leave in order to make him care about him
seriously. But Griffith already loves Guts and respects him, so his
speech is a bit contradictory. Sorry for the long ask btw I love your
blog 🙂
Hi there 🙂 Yk, I don’t think I actually have really talked about this scene in much depth.
My general default reading of Guts and Griffith’s relationship is that they are both romantically in love with each other but neither of them actually realize that they are. (Well, I don’t think Guts has ever quite realized it, at least not consciously, but I do think that Griffith figured it out during his year of torture.)
So in my opinion, Griffith meant his friendship speech.
I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that the conversation that comes right before the assassination attempt and then Griffith’s speech in the narrative included this exchange:
Griffith asking Guts to assassinate Julius was, in a way, a gesture of friendship. It was a request for Guts to do this for him, as a favour for a friend rather than an order from a superior, and Guts picked up on Griffith’s careful phrasing and accidentally rebuffed him. I think Guts meant this as a lighthearted joke, but while we don’t get to see Griffith’s reaction to it, I’m willing to bet he took it as a rejection.
Maybe not even a purposeful rejection – but certainly a sign that Guts doesn’t see him as a friend, but sees him as a superior first. I think this leads directly to Griffith’s speech to Charlotte where he proclaims that he has no equals. Like, it’s completely accurate, whether or not it’s arrogant as well – people either look up at him as a saviour or symbol of their ability to rise in the world, or look down on him as a symbol of corruption in the system.
I also think there’s another important aspect to his speech.
What he describes to Charlotte as a friend is someone who has his own dream, separate from Griffith’s, and would pursue it even if it meant clashing with him.
To Griffith, whose life revolves around his dream and who frames things like that because it’s how he sees the world, what this translates to is that a friend is someone who won’t die in service to his dream.
I think he tries to keep an emotional distance between himself and his Hawks because, frankly, they tend to die in battle, and it fucks him up (as we see in Casca’s flashback to the dead kid and the morning after Gennon.)
So he says the Hawks aren’t his friends because he can’t think of them that way. They see him as a perfect leader, he sees them as people who he will one day send to their deaths, simply by ordering them into whichever battle eventually kills them.
So when Guts re-establishes that he sees Griffith as a leader and tells him to order him to do things instead of requesting favours, it’s a reminder to Griffith to distance himself.
Of course, it doesn’t actually work. He can’t turn off his feelings for Guts even if he tries to ignore and downplay them (also see: I had no reason at all for risking my life for you. He can acknowledge that yeah, he did do that, but he can’t acknowledge why – because he loves him – not even to himself.) Guts is still the only person who Griffith allows to see and participate in the shady shit he does to rise to the top, the stuff that makes him feel dirty. He still risks his life for Guts. He still sends a search party after Guts and Casca despite going against the wishes of the nobles he’s supposed to be sucking up to, and then ditches an important meeting to see them in person. He still expresses concern for Guts’ safety before the Battle of Doldrey. And he crashes and burns harder than anyone has ever crashed and burned after Guts leaves lol.
(Now there is an obvious contradiction in that Griffith wants to be Guts friend and equal rather than the superior who will send him to his death eventually, but also won’t let him leave the Hawks, but that’s plain old fear of rejection imo, and not understanding Guts’ reasons for leaving, and an irrational emotional implosion lol.)
AND I think there’s a third aspect that ought to be explored: Griffith can only call an equal who would fight for his own dream a friend because this definition allows him to continue prioritizing his dream. To save Guts’ life at the risk to his own, rather than let Guts be killed for his dream, is, at its core, a betrayal of his dream, and the thousands of people who’ve died for it. But if his “friend” was an “equal” with his own obsessive dream, then in theory he’d never have to choose between his friend and his dream – it would be understood that their respective dreams would be prioritized. Another reason for the “and should anyone trample that dream he would oppose him body and soul… even if that threat were me myself” clause.
At the end of the day Griffith already loves and respects Guts, of course – he has from day one – but he can’t admit that yet, not even to himself, imo, because it’s a serious, serious threat to everything he’s built his life around.
Tbh I feel like there’s a lot more to say on this topic, especially how and why Griffith represses and denies his feelings for Guts, and what his dream means to him, etc, but I think I’m definitely going to end up writing a long ass analytical post about him soon because I’m really feeling all this nitty gritty Griffith stuff at the moment lol. But yeah when it comes to Promrose Hall I think this is pretty much my thoughts on what Griffith’s speech is about.
Anyway, thanks for the message, I love talking about this kinda stuff 🙂 And ty I’m glad you enjoy my blog.
I think you’ve got it backwards – Eggman with the brand on his tongue swallowed the fetus which became Griffith’s new corporeal body.
Since Eggman sacrificed the world to become an apostle, I think the brand appears on him because he’s the vehicle that creates the new world (Griffith), and he’s destroyed in the process – in a way he sacrificed himself.
But the brand isn’t on Griffith, I don’t think, unless Eggman also became a part of him. But I think he’s just the egg that hatched him, lol. Idk it’s weird so this is just my educated guess, I don’t really get what even happened haha.
Really? Like, I feel like that’s inarguably canon.
It’s directly and unambiguously what causes him to break from reality and hallucinate the whole dream chasing thing, then try to kill himself when he imagines a future with neither dream, nor Guts.
(Also like, how much do I love and want to cry about the way that brief vision of a future with Casca revolves around Guts’ absence? “I wonder if he’s still swinging his sword around somewhere.” Naming her kid Guts. “WIth you and the boy… Just the three of us,” as she seemingly leans in to kiss him. It’s heartbreaking tbh.)
Anyway ty, I’m all about loving Griffith on this blog lol, he’s one of my favourite characters in general so no judgement here 🙂
you're the only one 