Tag: Anonymous

I like how Muria did everything in his power to prove that Griffith is not some kind of “evil heartless monster” antagonist type, but people end up misinterpreted him anyway. What a shame! Do you know why?

Yeah it’s really unfortunate bc he’s such an interesting complex character and I wish more people appreciated that. Tho I have a few ideas on why so many Berserk fans ignore most of the text and write Griffith off as evil from the start.

I mean obviously the biggest one is that Femto’s defining act of evil is rape. And tbh I put the blame pretty squrely on Miura for that one lol, like, I can’t actually blame anyone for being unable to feel sympathy for or enjoy the complexities of a character who later turns into a monster and rapes another major character.

Like the problem with using sexual assault as your major illustrative example of the ~darkness in the hearts of men~ or whatever is that it’s pretty damn common for people to have experienced it themselves, or know someone who has, and therefore reactions to a depiction of rape are inevitably a lot more visceral than reactions to say, murder or torture. Even if Griffith is depicted as a sympathetic, three dimensional, very interesting character throughout the Golden Age, I can’t blame anyone for not giving a fuck and just hating him anyway because his evil alter ego’s first act was rape. People ignoring your good writing is a price you pay as a creator for using rape as shock value and cheap drama.

(Plus when you add his badly written night with Charlotte to the mix, like, again, I can’t blame anyone for going “fuck this guy” and not caring about his depth of character. Like I don’t think the night with Charlotte is meant to be read as rape because there are zero indications that we’re supposed to think it’s skeevy or even potentially morally dubious once Charlotte gets into it – to me it reads like a badly written bodice-ripper type scene where the woman just has to get turned on and then she forgets propriety and enjoys herself – but again, that’s on Miura and his sometimes shitty writing.)

However, that said, from what I’ve seen the vast majority of Griffith haters still love Guts, who also sexually assaults the very same character (except Guts hadn’t even just been magically transformed first, and the first time he sexually assaulted her was long before the hound ever made an appearance), so like, when so many people condemn one character and excuse another for the same thing, there’s obviously something else at work.

So putting aside the rape, I think there are a lot of other factors as to why Griffith is so hated while very few of his haters extend that ire to Guts as well.

Like, for starters, Griffith is gay, or at the very least, gay coded and feminine in appearance and clearly in love with the protagonist, which definitely makes a lot of straight cis dude fans uncomfortable and a lot less likely to be able to empathize with him, judging by the offensive nicknames they tend to use for him.

But then there’s also just the way Griffith lies to himself, which, if you tend to take things at face value in a story, is going to give you a serious misunderstanding of his character. Eg, a lot of fans think that when he tells Casca he doesn’t feel guilty for the deaths of the people who follow him he’s being genuinely truthful and sociopathic lol, ignoring the fact that he’s self-harming grotesquely during that conversation, among other hints that he’s deluding himself. Lots of people take character dialogue as ultimate truth, missing other context clues that are often more revealing.

And then there’s the fact that he ends up betraying the protagonist and becoming an antagonist, and a lot of people just aren’t interested in moral grey stories so they project black and white values onto it. So since Griffith/Femto/NeoGriff is the antagonist, everything he’s done must have been evil and he must’ve been solely motivated by selfish desire for power, and they’ll twist the story to find support for that. Like I’ve seen people who take Griffith’s “I will choose the place that you die” as evidence that he’s been planning to sacrifice everyone for power from the very start lol, even though that makes zero sense, just because they need Griffith to have been villainous all along or the story doesn’t fit their moral framework.

Like, while Berserk takes a general moral stance that a person’s actions shape them, a lot of people believe that a person’s actions reveal their true, innate nature deep down. So, to them, Griffith sacrificing the Band isn’t an act that turns him into a monster, it’s an act that reveals he’s always been a monster and now the veneer of humanity has been removed. Yk, the kind of fans who say that if Griffith was a good person he wouldn’t’ve sacrificed his friends, because no good person would ever do that, as though Good and Evil are qualities a person is born with. Which I consider to be an extremely boring way of looking at fiction, and a troubling way of viewing morality, and totally at odds with what Miura’s attempting to say, but people will always bring their own philosophy to the table.

Similarly I think that, at least for some people, this is why Guts’ frankly evil actions get totally downplayed or written off – because he’s the protagonist so he has to be A Good Person. Therefore he had to have been possessed by an evil spirit when he assaulted Casca (despite the fact that the first time was in Godo’s spirit-repelling cave and most people forget that even happened, and the second time was in broad daylight without a ghost in sight or any visual indication that Guts was anything other than himself.) Or they say it’s okay because Guts stopped before actually penetrating her, and he’s had a hard life, and cut him a little slack and let him get back together with Casca bc he’s a good person and he deserves to be happy blah blah horrifying blah.

idk I’m definitely not accusing everyone who hates Griffith and flattens his character of being a hypocrite lol, like I said, there are plenty of possible reasons to view him as evil, and some are totally reasonable. But yk there is kind of a double standard at work when people love Guts and hate Griffith and I think it’s worth looking at why that might be.

Speaking of Void and Skull Knight, I kind of remembered how during the griff eclipse the brands stuck to different parts of the bodies, but the ones in the ruines under Midland all have the brand on their foreheads. That screams intentional ritual sacrifice to me and I think Void as the “prophet” did it to beat Gaiseric/Skull Knight or something similar. Or I could be totally wrong lmao maybe those are the ones Gaiseric offered when/if he became godhand, but doesn’t make sense to me.

I wonder if the brand discrepency is just because a few skulls with the same brand is a more ominious image than just one. It’s a bit of a jarring difference tho. But either way ia that Void was most likely the sage in the tower and the sacrifices at the bottom of the tower of rebirth are his.

I’ve heard the theory that Gaiseric was an escaped sacrifice of Void’s like Guts, though since Gaiseric is also paralleled to Griffith I like the idea that he’s the incarnated Godhand member from the previous cycle. Maybe he’s both lol, who says you can’t sacrifice a reborn Godhand saviour dude.

Your answers are all so cool tho :D “Void’s a silent wildcard, but I personally think his suggetive silent closeup is an indication that he’s seen something like this happen before.” Now I’m imagining some steamy Void/Skull Knight romance haha. Other than that, do you think Void is pulling all the strings, because it sure as hell seems that way (aside from the Idea of Evil of course)?

Ty I’m glad you think so 😀 and lmao you and me both, Void/Skull Knight is legit.

I think Void is definitely going to play a big role in the endgame of Berserk – I’m p sure MIura’s said he’ll be important and he’s got shifty fuck written all over him. I think he absolutely knows more than he’s letting on and if I were to guess I’d say he has plans of his own that will become relevant. Also I think he’s using the rest of the Godhand, including NGriff, as pawns. I don’t have any real reason for this other than his caginess and the fact that he seems to know more than them, but I still like the idea.

Also I have a whole theory in the first half of this post about how he could affect the plot but that’s mostly just wild guessing and hopeful theorizing lol.

Thank you! I feel like I’m bothering you with all these questions and you’re so nice! Casca getting attacked so many times really is bad writing on Miura’s part :/ She deserves better tbh. If there is any indication that Femto/NeoGriff has a “soul” or smth it’s the fact that he could’ve killed both Guts and Casca during the eclipse but chose not to do so. It could be that he was already “plotting” to use the demon baby for resurrection, but idk if he can predict the future??

Not bothering me at all, I love talking about this stuff! (As may be a little obvious considering how long I ramble on in response to your asks lol.) And yeah, Casca needs to be saved from Berserk tbh.

yk I’ve seen that theory but I think it’s really, really unlikely that Femto let them go because he knew about the demon baby and the whole resurrection thing, unless Miura plans to retcon stuff.

Like first of all his actions during the Eclipse indicated that he fully wanted Guts and Casca dead. He attacked Skull Knight when he showed up to save them, and Guts was so mutilated what with his missing limb etc that without Puck’s healing powder he probably would’ve died anyway.

Then you have Femto nearly killing Guts in the Black Swordsman arc and apparently believing he did when he slammed him against a wall (”it seems i have unintentionally granted your wish, count”). Guts was necessary for the mock Eclipse (two sacrifices needed to pull all the spirit residue together into a malicious destructive force) so if he could predict the future he wouldn’t try to kill him.

I mean granted Miura writes on the fly so i’m sure he wasn’t thinking about details re Griffith’s resurrection that early, but still.

I mean just look at the scene where Femto lets them go:

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Reach followed by Guts closeup followed by … followed by escape followed by Femto awkwardly lowering his hand lol.

Like if it was a Casca closeup I could maybe see an argument that Femto got a message from God telling him to let them go, or something, because of the fetus, but it’s Guts he looks at before hesitating. The dude he does stupid self destructive, impulsive shit for.

Plus the other Godhand didn’t predict this. Void’s a silent wildcard, but I personally think his suggetive silent closeup

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is an indication that he’s seen something like this happen before.

I definitely think Guts and Casca’s survival was fated to happen (lotta weird coincidences that all add up to them facilitating NeoGriffith’s resurrection), but I don’t think Femto is in on the plan.

I think this basically sums up how fate works in Berserk:

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Femto can do whatever he wants and it’s going to make whatever is meant to happen, happen.

So imo Femto let them go for personal (Guts related) reasons.

Same anon, different question. A friend pointed this out to me: everything Femto did negated everything good Griffith did, saving Casca -> raping her, forming band of the hawk -> destroying it etc. He didn’t do anything reprehensible and outright evil after coming back (yet). I don’t really know what that means tbh since it’s really vague, but it paints him morally grey rather than pitch black in my eyes.

Yeah I think Griffith + Femto is morally grey if you combine them into one entity (which… I guess is just saying Griffith is morally grey lol since Femto is his dark side unleashed or w/e). I’m v curious about how NeoGriff fits in. One theory I have is that if Femto is Griffith with all the “good” parts of his humanity stripped away, then maybe NeoGriff has the “evil” parts stripped away too, and all that’s left is like, a heart full of neutrality (and whatever feelings made him call off Zodd and save Casca from rocks), making him the perfect fulfiller of humanity’s desires.

bc you’re right, he hasn’t done anything malicious. He’s been darkly pragmatic in eg sending apostles after Flora, but that’s not really any different than Guts and Griffith assassinating the queen from his point of view.

Ofc NeoGriff could just be Femto in a human suit who’s gotten better at concealing his petty side, who knows?

Also wrt Femto negating Griffith’s good deeds, ia – I think especially the rape is meant to be a v direct contrast to Griffith saving her from attempted rape the first time. The movie even uses the same Casca point of view shot to make the connection painfully clear. Though I don’t necessarily think that’s deliberate on Femto’s part (tho it could be) so much as the narrative drawing a strong contrast between Griffith and Femto. Griffith was Casca’s saviour, Femto then destroyed her, that kind of thing. Femto was a part of Griffith, but always tempered by Griffith’s ideals and morals, so stripping that part of him away is shown by negating his good deeds.

There’s also the way he literally replaces the nobleman who tried to rape Casca – he says, “do you think you’re chosen by God?” to him when he saves her. Now it turns out Femto literally has been chosen by God. Coupled with Berserk’s cynical take on religion, God being the Idea of Evil, etc, you get the sense that divine right isn’t any better or more noble than the class system enabling predators.

But again NeoGriff is all about that divine right and he hasn’t done anything malicious yet so the ultimate message might end up being more complicated than that.

(also i just want to be clear that theorizing about why miura had femto rape casca during the eclipse isn’t me saying i think it was a good writing choice. it makes sense in context of berserk’s themes, but that’s bc casca’s character is defined by rape and rape attempts from beginning to end, which sucks)

My Big Gay Berserk Analysis 3

mastermistressofdesire:

bthump:

Casca’s Role

Part 1
Part 2

In this post I’m going to discuss how Casca’s narrative role as a love interest overlaps with her narrative role as a substitute for Griffith, how those roles ultimately serve the main story that is the love/hate relationship between Guts and Griffith, and how Miura utilizes her an emotional/sexual conduit between the two while also conveniently no-homoing them. Plus some additional straightforward stuff on Guts and his crush on Griffith here and there.

Advance warning: this is long. Looooooong. Also be warned that I do touch on the hound and the Eclipse, but only in one section of this post.

I also want to make clear upfront that I love Casca but I dislike the Guts/Casca romance subplot, for many reasons including my general dislike of most het, Guts’ awful treatment of her, and the sense I get that she’s been inserted as a buffer between Guts and Griffith, but mostly because I think the romance was added almost entirely to set up the destruction of Casca as a character for the sake of Guts’ manpain.

So yeah going in you should be aware that this is Guts/Casca negative. I don’t consider their romantic feelings for each other a valuable part of Berserk, and I spend a lot of time calling the legitimacy of those feelings into question.

Ok that said, let’s get into it.

We’ll go back to the Golden Age eventually but I’m going to jump ahead first and start at chapter 130, during Guts’ night of self-reflection after he returns to Godo’s cave and finds Casca missing.

Keep reading

It took me a long time to actually read this because i read it in chunks determined by when i needed to take a break to wallow in feels for a little while.

because hell yes.

all of this.

I mean this is the perfectly worded summary of almost all the griffguts and casca thoughts i have ever had. As well as the hound and judeau (he’s fast becoming a pet peeve of mine tbh)

And those panel comparisons of the waterfall scene are brilliant. I’d never thought of that before. On My first time with that scene it had immediately struck me as odd that Guts sudden attraction to Casca seemed to stem after She had effectively taken Griffith’s role in the Hawks. But I hadn’t quite noticed the visual parallels and now my mind is blown and it all makes perfect sense.

Also like the one time after ‘getting together’ Guts seems to be admiring Casca for something beyond ‘wanna sex you thousand times’ (which honestly doesn’t qualify to me) is when she pulls together the hawks after being dragged to the other dimension. Very similar to how Griffith pulls them together when they first encounter Zodd. 

“Keeping calm in a situation like this. She truly is amazing.”

Now remember Keeping- Calm- in- a- situation- like- this is pretty much asignature Griffith move, especially according to Guts. To the point that instances of non-calmness garner a comment from Guts

. “ Strange for a cool-headed guy like you.”

 “No way he’d lose his cool over something like this.”

 “He’s calm in the heat of battle, has perfect judgement and knows when to take decisive action, it really is amazing.”

Contrasted especially with the fact that Guts has in the past called out Casca for being Hot-headed and impulsive, has In fact, used that to spur her on and slightly manipulate her on occasion. All so in A period where it is decidedly emphasised that he is in no way attracted to Casca.

It’s almost like attraction is a result of the trait and not the individual. 

There’s more on judeau coming up sometime. most probably. like dude was shippily watching griffguts when they were having that first water fight. Like okay so you like this girl who likes this other guy who is kind of involved in a fulfilling mutual relationship.

In this scenario which kinda fuckall logic do you use to decide the best course of action is to undermine said fullfilling relationship by convincing guy 2 to be with the girl YOU like? 

Like the one arrangement which would take the most effort and would leave everyone involved hurt and heartbroken and/or confused as hell and unfulfilled? THAT’S what you decide to do?

Oh and that pause before heap of iron. Let’s go give him a hunk of….iron? You sure? Is that the first word that popped into everyone’s heads on reading these words?

Not a word which rhymes with seat and is euphemism for a certain body part?

I’m glad you read and enjoyed it despite it being a long haul 😀

Ooh good point about Guts seeming to like Casca more the more she resembles Griffith. ty for this addition, I didn’t really think of it like that. The leader of the Hawks thing sure, but not the way she leads similarly to Griffith. Nice.

re: Judeau it is totally convoluted.

tbh I was actually going to include a bit on Judeau’s crush as a
potential parallel for Guts’ feelings for Griffith but I cut it bc my point boiled down to “it’s probably meant to
be a parallel for Guts secretly having a crush on Casca while trying to
hook her up with Griffith, but fuck the author’s probable intentions it
kind of works the other way too” which is not very strong as arguments
go.

But since I got that ask about how he maybe feels unworthy of
her I’m feeling the potential gay parallel more. Guts feels unworthy of
Griffith, and before he leaves he encourages Casca to take the place she
wanted that she feels he stole out from under her, at Griffith’s side,
helping him achieve his dream. He feels she’s more worthy to be at
Griffith’s side because she has a dream.

Like yeah Guts says he wants to be like Griffith so he can be better for Casca but that came out of left field with zero prior evidence and tbh I reject it as either a conclusion that’s purposefully artificial bc Judeau led Guts there or just bad writing. Griffith is the one he’s been feeling unworthy of for 20 chapters.

“let’s give him

…

a heap of raw iron”

for real, i mean there are a lot of less suggestive ways to phrase that but here we are.

right before judeau dies, it’s heavily implied that he had feelings for casca from the start. some people think that judeau didn’t think he was worthy of pursuing casca, who he regarded very highly. that’s why he pushed casca and guts together, because he still wanted her to be happy. do you feel like there was any sub-textual evidence of that, or if miura just added this unrequited love at the last minute to create more drama?

Actually yeah I could see that. Judeau is self depricating at times (”If I couldn’t be the best at something, I’d fly in the wake of one who seems the best.”), and at the very end he compares himself unfavourably to Guts:

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He might see Guts as more worthy because he is the best at something, ie swinging a sword. Kind of like, if Casca can’t have Griffith, she should get the second best dude in the Hawks, which isn’t Judeau (in Judeau’s opinion).

Also he seems to understand implicitly when Guts says, “the one who has her eye is Griffith. That’s why right now I’m no good for her like this.” So he gets feeling unworthy and considers it a good reason not to pursue someone.

So I mean I do think that Miura shoved a lot of last minute romance in lol, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he came up with Judeau’s thing around the same time he came up with G*tsca, so not exactly from the beginning but somewhere along the way. But there’s some evidence for your suggestion imo.

*it’s not griffguts tho I LOVE your thoughts and meta ❤* Do you think the little white spirit that helps Guts out while in berserk armor is Griffith/part of griff’s soul and not his child? I remember a line of dialoge “you’re like a frolicking child” Guts used that I think was also used on Griffith in the Golden Age arc and that seems to me like a strange coincidence?

Thank you so much Anon I’m glad you’re enjoying this whole… thing lol. ❤

In the DH translation he says “You’re like… some playful kid.” Which IS similar to how he described Griffith early on (”he is tough to read… but probably just a kid…” and “that innocent grin… ear to ear like some little kid…”) but not really exact enough for me to think it’s much more than a coincidence.

Though the fact that the spirit kid thing does seem to be directly connected to the Moonlight Boy, like his astral projection or w/e, and the fact that a lot of ppl theorize that the Moonlight Boy is the soul of the fetus that NeoGriff grew out of (which seems like a reasonable theory), I mean it doesn’t seem farfetched after that to suggest that there could be some of Griffith’s unfrozen soul/heart/whatever in there too.

Tbh idk if thinking the soul of his ex is in there makes the Moonlight Boy better or worse lol. Kinda makes shipping awkward, but I’m also very not into the MB as the soul of Guts and Casca’s kid making a happy picturesque family.

what are ur favorite traits/moments/characteristics of ur fav berserk characters? (or all of them? whatever u want :)

Guts: tbh… his tenacity – his
attitude that you have to see things through to the end, and how in most
stories this would be shown to be a virtue, but in Berserk while it is
often shown as admirable, it’s also one of his biggest flaws at times.
It’s there in touching moments, like when teenage Guts risks his life to
take a flower to a hill, and it’s also there when he vows revenge and
abandons Casca and Rickert to go off on a two-year monster hunting
spree. It’s there when he insists on getting Casca magically healed
despite Skull Knight’s warnings and his own musing that things could
turn out very bad if her sanity is forced back. It’s there when he
becomes obsessed with becoming Griffith’s equal, explicitly ignoring all
evidence that Griffith already cares for him. It’s there every time he
refuses to die.

The closest Guts came to abandoning a course
of action once he’d decided on it is when he switched from his “dream”
to realizing he wants to stay with Griffith, right before the Eclipse,
and that would’ve been the best thing Guts could’ve done, if he’d had
the chance. Switching from revenge to helping Casca is close too (and
pretty explicitly paralleled to leaving Griff vs returning and staying),
but he’s doing it with the thought in his head that it’s temporary
(”when this journey ends, I’ll…” [pictures Griffith]), and his
tenacity is still there in how he’s not letting doubts and warnings
deter him from fixing Casca, so it’s a bit of a double-edged sword.

Idk man I love Guts’ doggedness, both as a virtue and a flaw.

My
favourite Guts moment though, now that’s difficult. I’ll go with one of
the best early moments, during the Black Swordsman arc, for the sake of
making things easy. It’s my first favourite moment, at least:

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Like
half his bones are broken, he couldn’t do more than crawl on his
stomach and beg for attention before this when faced with the object of
his revenge obsession, but he stands up and marches up the stairs with
his sword when Femto says he’s beneath his notice. I love him.

Griffith:
Griffith is one of my all-time favourite characters period so narrowing
it down to one thing is hard, but I think if I had to settle on one it
would be his emotional repression? The way he doesn’t realize he’s in
love with Guts until it’s too late, the way he refuses to acknowledge
his feelings of guilt and self-loathing, the way he comes so close to
getting more emotionally healthy and open with Guts at his side but then
Guts leaves without a word and everything falls to pieces, the way he
falls back on the fact that he “won” Guts in a duel and fights for him
again because he can’t articulate why he can’t stand the thought
of Guts leaving, the way he self-sabotages himself into a dungeon
because he’s so unfamiliar with his own emotions that he can’t deal with
his feelings after Guts leaves, etc.

Funnily enough, in contrast
to that, I think my favourite Griffith moment (lbr my favourite Berserk
moment) is probably his moment of greatest self-awareness:

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But like the reason this monologue is so effective is because
he’s so emotionally repressed, and it took him a year of nothing but
torture and self reflection for him to recognize his feelings. It makes
this moment really, really shine.

Casca: I love that
she genuinely commands respect among the Hawks. It’s one of the few
really satisfying aspects of her character role and her treatment by
other characters to me – from Corkus getting scared and apologizing when
she threatens him, to Griffith giving her the most important job in his
capture Doldrey ploy, to the Hawks stepping back so she can take out
Adon herself and cheering her on, to being able to rally the Hawks as
their leader in the most panic-inducing circumstances, etc etc.

I think my all-time favourite Casca moment is this:

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God she deserves this moment of glory.

Farnese: I love
her “you just have to become a storm yourself” thing. The way her
reaction to fear is to join the thing that frightens her and become the
frightening thing. I loved it when it lead to her doing terrible things
like burning people alive and I loved it when it lead to her doing great
things like joining Guts and learning to defend herself and Casca and
becoming a witch.

My favourite Farnese moment is a pretty obvious one but what can I say it’s so good:

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Fighting
off a demon tiger taking out whole crowds with a swipe of its paw, with
a candlestick, at a fancy ball, man, how can you not love her?

Serpico:
I like the contrast between his chill and diplomatic
go-with-the-flow-ness vs how solid and immovable he is when it comes to
protecting the people he loves, and how what ties those contrasts
together is a willingness to be hurt for their sakes, from dueling
people to a draw to avoid feelings of resentment towards Farnese, to
standing between her and Berserker Guts.

My favourite Serpico moment is:

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Putting
himself in danger while defusing a tense situation with that chill
diplomacy. And not even for Farnese, but for Guts this time.

i forgot ALL of berserk EVER started with guts balls deep in some demon lady.. naughty boy!!

lmao ikr

tbh i used to think that it was a stupid out of place and out of character way to kick the story off but i’ve grown kind of fond of it

like the way it sets you up to think wow this is a super manly badass story about a big angry dude who bangs women and kills monsters sometimes even at the same time.

and then the rest of the black swordsman arc just tears that idea down piece by piece. i dig it.

i usually think abt guts love for griffith bc its so ignored, but ngl griffiths love for guts is super interesting too, bc its often reduced down to possessiveness/him being evil?idk love them

Man ia Guts’ love for Griffith is ignored way too much, but also yeah reducing Griffith’s love for Guts down to ~evil possessiveness~ is one of my pet peeves.

imo he’s possessive because he’s stunted emotionally (like most of Berserk’s cast lol), but that doesn’t mean he only loves Guts as an asset, it means he has v little ability to recognize and compartmentalize his emotions so he responds to extreme feelings generally pretty badly.

Like Guts is compared to Griffith’s dream a lot which to me is saying that when Griffith fell in love with Guts he’d never felt so strongly about anything else, other than his dream. (”I want you, Guts.” “Griffith’s never said a thing like that… not to anybody!”) And because his whole raison d’etre is seizing his dream, now that something else makes him feel the same amount of need and desire, he “must obtain” him. He has no other frame of reference for what he’s feeling lol.

But in actual action he’s not controlling. Guts does whatever the fuck he wants in battle and Griffith plans around it, eg. Griffith asks Guts to help him out with his assassinations, which the narrative specifically draws attention to, and Guts is the one who wants it to be an order. Griffith risks his life and dream for Guts multiple times and can never explain why. Griffith, according to Casca, doesn’t control Guts enough as a leader. Griffith self-consciously asks Guts if he thinks he’s cruel for asking him (or maybe ordering him after Guts’ response to Griffith phrasing it as a question for the first assassination) to help him with the bonfire assassinations. Griffith’s whole speech about friendship is about desiring an equal who he doesn’t own, and can’t control, and his monologue in the torture chamber is about realizing that Guts was that person.

I really love Griffith’s inner monologue during the second duel because it’s such a powerful emotional breakdown imo, and it feels so childish to me. It seems like he’s falling back on “you can’t leave, I own you” because he has nothing else, no other way to respond to the thought of being abandoned, no other way to contextualize what he’s feeling. He’s clinging to a sense of ownership bc it’s the only part of his relationship to/feelings for Guts he really understands, and it’s a defense against the uncontrollable messiness of his feelings – a way to repress his love and need and feelings of rejection and loss and self-loathing, and a way to repress his realization of “when did someone I was supposed to have in hand… instead gain such a strong hold over me?” – that ultimately fails.

It just feels so consistent with the childish aspects of Griffith’s character, and the part of him that represses his emotions until they seep out in horrifying ways (eg self harm, risky sex, thinking it’s better to risk killing Guts than to let him “reject” him, etc).

Idk basically I like Griffith’s possessiveness because it’s a flaw that rears its ugly head to fuck up his relationship with Guts, and is actually entirely counter-productive to the relationship he genuinely wants with Guts (equality). But it’s nowhere close to the be-all end-all of his feelings for him.

mmmm the idea of guts getting so fucked up by the eclipse (in casca is the berserker au) hes out of it is… like a)interesting and b)horrible and heartwrenching and :(.. also i love this au w badass casca

Yeah like I’m all about the badass Casca in this AU but regressed Guts has its own uniquely depressing vibe. I think we’re exchanging demon rape for mind-breaking psychic magic bc if the end result is an insane character with no agency it’s just a better method to get them there (I have a lot of issues with Casca’s story let me tell you but w/e) but there’s a lot of aspects to explore w/ Guts all fucked up instead of Casca.

(Like consider: NeoGriff moving involuntarily to save Guts from rocks and feeling uneasy about seeing him as an empty shell.)

Also check out the ask I’m about to post by @tfan2013 for more, she’s got you covered for sad details lol.

How do you think that guts’ new party would react if they knew he sexually assaulted casca?

I actually don’t know lol. It’s a tough question because I’m not sure how much Miura thinks we should condemn Guts for it – on one hand he’s getting consequences for his actions in the form of Casca hating him and I don’t think it’s likely that she’ll forgive and forget and everything will go swimmingly. On the other I think we’re supposed to feel like he should get a pat on the back for stopping, and we’re definitely not supposed to hate him for it, we’re probably more meant to empathize with him and his loss of control and his regret, and admire the steps he’s taken to protect her from himself by travelling with people, and his willpower in keeping the hound on a leash.

So I guess ideally I’d like their idealized and infatuated images of Guts to be shattered as they realize that he’s capable of some fucked up shit even without the armour. Farnese could get protective of Casca and take off with her and Serpico and whoever in the party wants to follow, quite possibly all of them, give or take Puck and Isidro. Because she’d definitely choose Casca over Guts and that would be nice to see.

But I think it’s more likely that some of them, like Farnese and Serpico, would maybe get a bit warier of him and he might lose some of his shine in Farnese’s eyes, but overall consider it a past mistake he’s overcome and atoned for, and just another signifier of how much of a struggle it is to be Guts akin to how they feel about how Guts + Berserker armour = trying to murder them all. Yk like it makes Serpico anxious but no one blames him for it even though it’s his own inability to control his rage that leads to the armour taking over without magical hand-holding to save everyone from him.

Idk that’s at my most cynical. Don’t get me wrong I love Guts and his narrative for the most part, I just think aspects of it and the magical fantasy metaphor of the Berserk armour, hound, etc aren’t handled as well as they could be lol.

Anyway it’d probably be something between those two extremes tbf.

the fact that the most important sex scene in berserk (griffith and charlotte’s) is het and yet is actually the fucking gayest thing ever gives me life

lol same.

I mean one thing I def like about Berserk is that het sex scenes are extremely few and far between (not counting rape scenes here ofc :/) and in like, 1.5 out of 3 the point is Guts and Griff’s feelings for each other.

(the 3 i’m thinking of are opening scene w/ guts fucking the apostle, griffith and charlotte, and guts and casca, which gets the 0.5. I… literally can’t think of any other sex scenes in berserk lmao.

oh no wait, there’s also two orgies – nina’s pagan bash and the count’s wife’s cheating escapade. and yk what, one of those was about guts/griff too, in the form of an emotional parallel, so l m a o)

which apostle would hate guts the most?

this is actually a p tough question, hmmm

Of the current core cast of apostles I think he’d be fairly indifferent to Grunbeld, Locus and Irvine. They’re honourable killer types just doing their thing. He’d hate them only as much as he hates any given apostle, and less than most I think.

Raksas I think he’d hate a bit more, because Raksas is a gleeful dick who likes to fuck with people before killing them and if Guts had to fight him I think he’d get annoyed with his hiding in the shadows being creepy thing. Also if he ever found out somehow that Raksas promised to kill Griffith he’d hate him more because I think Guts would feel proprietary towards Griffith’s death lol. I can see Guts as the type of in-love-deep-down-enemy who’s like, “the only one allowed to kill you is me.” Maybe not at this point in the narrative while he’s trying to shake those feelings, but if he ever backslid, yk.

I think Zodd wins though because they have a history. I actually think he respects Zodd as an enemy, but Zodd’s gotten between him and NeoGriff a few times and is the apostle Guts has seen carrying him around, and Zodd gave him the cryptic Eclipse prophecy multiple times, and Zodd saved his ass a few times too so that he’d be around for the Eclipse and I could see Guts resenting that. Plus they’re sort of designated counterparts and Zodd is his NeoBand replacement which I could also see him resenting. Especially if he sees his own potential to become a monster reflected in Zodd.

Though the bantering familiarity they kinda sorta had when they fought Ganeshka is a point against that actually…

So idk, either Zodd or Raksas I guess lol.

am i the only one who thinks when griff became femto that he didnt lose his humanity, but rather succumbed to the darker side of it? like berserk is all about how evil and negative emotions are so Natural that god itself is the manifestation of the collective subconscious pain of humanity. i think ppl dont kno what being apathetic means bc femto is petty, spiteful(black swords arc)& reps the worst of griff’s emotions like how the beast is for guts. -“fate just happens” nonnie

Nah I’ve talked w/ ppl about this plenty and tbh it hink it’s pretty straightforwardly said in canon so I definitely agree with you.

I do think there’s a bit of… idk semantic confusion bc in Berserk becoming a godhand/apostle is literally described as burying your human heart and tbf I know sometimes I word it as losing his humanity or trading it in bc the official translation also sometimes does.

But within context it’s pretty obviously less about literally losing your humanity and more about giving in to your ~dark side~ which is very human. I mean like you said, everything about the spirit world in Berserk and magic etc is driven by humanity’s subconscious will, there’s nothing actually inhuman anywhere.

We can see this coming through loud and clear as early as like, volume 3 when Puck taunts the Count about being extremely human even as an apostle.

So yeah I pretty much interpret Femto as the darkest part of Griffith that was like, given magic powers, cool wings and free reign while the rest of his personality was burned away and/or frozen. And yeah exactly, same with the hound and Guts, totally agree.

Also lol do ppl call Femto apathetic? Dude is anything but, he’s sooo petty lol, to the point where it’s genuinely hilarious to me in the Black Swordsman arc. Tho tbf if they’re referring to NeoGriffith more i could see that, he seems different from Femto in that he’s way more chill and serene.

Another thing that has dampened my enthusiasm for the series is that i feel like miura spoiled his own universe a bit too much? Like he tried to repair the damage by not publishing the idea of evil chapter but at this point most people have read it and we know gods plan,even its nature,why griffith was chosen etc. we have seen gods and all fantasy creatures and at this point theres isnt much left to explore/explain. Earlier berserk had a sense of mystery and looming darkness to it that (cont’d)

i really loved and now its p much gone. the only thing i really look
forward to anymore is an emotional resolve/final confrontation between
griffith and guts and just to see how they’ll both end up (basically the
ending) and it looks like that will take god knows how many years to
get to.

Yeah that’s fair.

tbh I never really considered how Berserk would feel without the Idea of Evil chapter, but you have a good point. Though I feel like either way, that sense of looming darkness is kind of canceled out by learning so much about the positive/good aspects of like, the spirit world – good witches, guardian spirits, Elfhelm, etc. And ia I do miss that aspect of earlier Berserk. Mystery and looming darkness is a really good way of describing it. I can’t say I regret having the IoE chapter out there myself because I’m greedy for spoilers lol, but I can see how it diminishes the sense of intrigue we’d otherwise have about Griffith’s narrative and the Godhand.

I’m still invested in enough of the characters that I’m definitely hooked – Casca coming back, whatever Rickert and Silat are doing, Griffith’s emotional ambiguity, Guts’ hound trying to break free, hopefully some interesting conflict for Farnese and/or Serpico that doesn’t involve Farnese dying, Schierke and Sonia meeting again, and ofc the GriffGuts confrontation… but yeah it’s like, less about the atmospheric and emotionally intense journey now and more about waiting for something to happen lol.

every time i read or rewatch berserk i always i have the same realization over again which is: griffith was like .. in love with guts. and vice versa. like its right there in text

god ikr. i always remember it as more subtle than it is lol. but i mean i feel i can write a Serious Analysis that includes the phrase “this is Guts repressing the realization that Griffith is in love with him” for example and it’s just like, yeah, true, that’s not reachy or wishful thinking at all.

Your posts are really perfect the way they are, don’t you dare listen to haters!

Ty Anon this is super nice ❤ No worries, fandomy arguments don’t really faze me much.

tbh it does kind of suck that Berserk is so utterly polarizing that it makes it hard to like, lightly talk about it without 50 disclaimers and clarifications, but c’est la vie. I’ve done pretty well by staying out of tags and being upfront about what I’m about lol, so it’s not a big deal to me. tbh I blame Miura for making it super extra edgy more than fans who have a strong negative reaction to Griffith bc of the Eclipse, though I do wish ppl could chill at fans who have different reactions to a flawed story and redirect that ire at the writer.

Also tbf tone is hard on the internet so my op probably came across as more serious than intended. I’m used to preaching to the choir so I didn’t expect anyone to take it as a serious complaint or accusation tbh, though that was probably naive of me.