I have heard second hand info that he’s been asked about the homoeroticism in interviews b4 and does the “two dudes can have an intense connection without it being sexual” song and dance.
Which doesn’t really make an ounce of difference to me lol. He added the gay subtext on purpose so whether he has to downplay it bc of industry/publisher concerns,
whether it’s something he regrets,
whether he just added it to make sure G+G have chemistry without anticipating that obviously many fans were going to take that and run with it, whether he added the subtext to highlight the fact that G+G never act on it and portray their relationship as “pure” in comparison to their histories of sexual assault (which imo would be the worst, most offensive option, and it doesn’t explain everything, but it’s a possibility I’ve been wondering about), etc, it doesn’t change the story he wrote, which is very very gay.
Well there’s no proof, in the sense of like a definitive statement, because I think the point of NeoGriffith’s narrative right now is that it’s ambiguous. We’re being teased with the possibility, but Griffith is using the fetus as a scapegoat and excuse to ignore his feelings, and it’s technically left up in the air as to whether that’s true or whether Griffith is in denial. The reader is meant to be uncertain right now.
That said, I’m gonna give two reasons I’m 110% certain NGriff’s feelings are legit:
the first is straight up the entirety of Berserk lmao. Guts and Griffith’s feelings for each other are the core of the story, the driving thrust of every aspect of the narrative, from the Black Swordsman arc’s climactic reveal of those feelings, to the Golden Age’s exploration of them, to the Millenium Falcon arc’s tension as Guts tries to let go of those feelings and NeoGriffith’s feelings are left very pointedly ambiguous.
Like, even when Guts chooses Casca in the MF arc, his choice to stick with Casca is framed as the alternative to his feelings for Griffith. Those feelings drive Guts, whether it’s in feeling like he’s found the place where he belongs, striving to feel like he’s earned Griffith’s friendship, striving to hunt him down and kill him, or striving to escape his feelings.
You cannot write a story about those feelings, make Griffith’s choice to escape those feelings the epic climax of his narrative, then tease that those feelings may still exist only to go ‘psyche it’s actually just the unrelated feelings of a fetus.’ You can use the fetus to keep things ambiguous until the big reveal, but you can’t have the fetus be the reveal. it would be comedically absurd.
But the second reason is the visual details of two scenes:
Femto, completely pre-fetus, letting Guts go. These are Griffith’s feelings, maybe not entirely wiped away because Guts managed to survive the sacrifice, but for whatever reason, they’re there, and they’re still making him do irrational stupid shit for Guts.
We know Femto didn’t let Guts escape because he needed two people w/ brands of sacrifice and a fetus as part of a grand plan to resurrect himself three years later because we see that he has intent to kill. He tried to kill Skull Knight who narrowly dodged the telekinetic attack, and he’s raised his hand to attack again here, only to lower it after a close up specifically of Guts, the dude Griffith does stupid irrational shit for.
Then we close this moment with a distant shot of Femto from a high angle (used to make the subject appear weak/small/vulnerable) as a smear on the background, surrounded by monsters, perfectly evoking a feeling of isolation. This is what Griffith is left with after purposefully destroying his relationship with Guts – nothing but his own monstrousness.
This moment is followed through subtlely but consistently throughout NGriff’s narrative, in the way he’s portrayed as unknowable, distant, singular. He’s the absolute, without equal, and, in the context of Berserk’s themes, that’s just a grandiose way of saying he’s alone after sacrificing Guts.
The other of the two scenes is:
NeoGriffith has come to see Guts specifically to test whether anything can shake his heart. “It seems I am free,” he declares smugly. Then he watches Guts fight (and it’s v worth noting that his very first entranced glimpse of Guts back in chapter 12 was while observing another fight against a bigger stronger opponent, Guts throwing himself into danger then struggling his way out), and feels his heart start to stir after all.
“uhhhh that’s gotta be that fetus” thinks Griffith. Next page:
Like, everything about this says Griffith is lying to himself, at least where Guts is concerned. This is the page that inspired my url for a reason lol.
The positioning – Griffith left, fetus vs Guts right. Fetus is Griffith’s thoughts/hope, Guts is what’s right in front of him in reality.
The fact that this is the final page of the chapter, so it has a feeling of conclusiveness to it. Griffith is a champ at denial, but reality is still reality.
the “……..” “bthump,” that practically reads like a taunt.
The fact that Griffith deliberately came to face Guts to test himself, then his heart went off! Like I said at the start, there’s no way you make these dudes’ feelings the core of Berserk, have Griffith fail his own test of whether he successfully got rid of his, then say “lol it’s not really his feelings though.”
Liiiiike from a pure storytelling perspective, this scene is emotionally pointless if it ends up being the fetus after all.It may be significant to the plot eventually – I wouldn’t be surprised if it is to blame for Griffith saving Casca, even if I think that’s dumb as fuck lol – but the emotional purpose of this scene is to tease the audience.
Guts is unaware of Griffith’s heart doing anything so it’s meaningless to his emotional state and decisions.
It’s only meaningful to the audience, and only because we are invested in Griffith’s feelings after the Golden Age – we want Griffith to fail his test. “I am free” is disappointing, “my blood should have been frozen” is intriguing.
Griffith has dismissed his feelings by blaming them on the fetus, and if he’s right, then this scene is meaningless to him.
And if it turns out to be the fetus after all, it’s meaningless to us too.
Also I feel ridic doing this lol but I have such a huge backlog of posts by now that it almost seems like a waste not to link some when relevant, so for ~further reading~ lmao:
ngl I’ve wondered this a lot. What would make Guts fall into despair and choose to make a sacrifice?
pre-Eclipse, I don’t think there’s anything that could make him sacrifice Griffith, and Griffith is his most important person. Like, Griffith is his sole motivation for everything he does up til like chapter 130, so there’s nothing else that’s important enough to Guts to make him fall into despair imo. Griffith could make him fall into despair, but he’s not the sacrifice-the-person-you-love-to-kill-the-pain type.
However, that said, I think in like, an AU where the crimson behelit was Guts’ instead of Griffith’s, I could maybe see a scenario where Guts sacrifices the rest of the Hawks. Guts leaving the Hawks to go on his dream journey is kind of… paralleled to the Eclipse, in the sense that the Eclipse is a much more fucked up, dark, and emotionally intense version of prioritizing a dream (an escape from your feelings) over your friends – like in both scenarios the Hawks get screwed over because of someone’s willingness to prioritize their dream over their relationships to make themselves feel better.
So it stands to reason that if you jack up the emotional intensity, Guts’ reaction would similarly get darker and more intense until you reach his Eclipse.
Sooooooooooo idk I’m thinking maybe if Griffith successfully committed suicide after the rescue mission? Guts doesn’t reach him in time but is close enough to see it happen, blames everyone but especially himself… but idk I think if his despair was enough to open the behelit, what Guts would actually do instead of making a sacrifice is attack all the monsters until one killed him lol.
The problem I have is that Guts does have a need to escape his pain, he does it by killing stuff, but a calculated “yeah I sacrifice” doesn’t suit him. Like if he had the armour and this happened I could see him personally killing all his friends himself, but I can’t see him verbally agreeing to let demons eat them.
Maybe if he was the one who ended up tortured for a year and physically helpless. Take away his ability to lash out and he has no choice. Something else would still have to seal the deal tho, something involving Griffith. Being physically helpless would reinforce the idea of Griffith looking down on him which is what led to him leaving the Hawks in canon, so there’s something there…
OOH okay what if Guts ended up… idk getting blamed for the Queen’s assassination or something, maybe he was seen and recognized, whatever. Ends up in the torture chamber. Griffith sabotages his dream to rescue him. They save him but end up fleeing Midland, now Griffith is a traitor. So now Guts is physically helpless, can’t do the only thing he’s ever been able to do ie swing a sword, sees Griffith as insurmountably his superior now, they’ll never be equals, plus he blames himself for destroying Griffith’s dream, and has no outlet for anything he’s feeling.
agh tho would he sacrifice Griffith?
Ok more details: tensions are running high among the rescuers because it was meant to be a secret operation, but they were found out – and now every other Hawk still in Midland is in danger because if Griffith is a traitor they all are, and they could’ve been killed by now. So there’s blame being thrown around, esp at Griffith for gambling everything for Guts and losing. And while he knew it was a possibility, Griffith wasn’t intending to throw his kingdom away for Guts, so he’s like in shock right now at how fucked everything suddenly is. Meanwhile Guts is convincing himself that Griffith must be filled with regret and hating him…
lol idk can I just separate Griffith and have Guts sacrifice everyone else? I mean his dream, what he values above all else, is the idea of being Griffith’s equal (Griffith’s attention, respect, and love), it’s what he’d make a sacrifice for, so he can’t sacrifice Griffith to do it. Like Griffith’s dream and Guts are separate so he can sacrifice one for the other, Guts can’t sacrifice Griffith for his dream bc Griffith is his dream.
So idk I give up on the pre-eclipse scenario. All of the above but Griffith takes off before the Eclipse to find Rickert and the second unit or something and misses it lol. (Also I mean maybe Griffith losing his dream to save Guts would actually make Guts feel better, but idk I could def see him just feeling worse about that. So w/e.)
POST ECLIPSE tho is so much easier because now Guts can sacrifice Griffith. So after NGriff ditches him and Guts leaves with Casca, he kills Casca himself, behelit opens, Guts sacrifices Griff, Beast of Darknesses it up, and just lives for no reason but to kill, like he’s 14 again. And NGriff has to be a viable sacrifice bc there’s no one else so close to Guts they’re like a part of his soul, and even if you argue Casca is, she can’t be sacrificed twice. And I’m making this all up anyway so Guts can sacrifice NeoGriff bc I say so.
Anyway killing Casca is my automatic answer bc she represents his humanity and it was presented as a very real danger that could’ve happened if Guts didn’t meet his babysitters. Plus Guts would choose to make a sacrifice and go full monster rather than, say, committing suicide by apostle army, because he still has his dream which is now centred around killing Griffith.
Anyway ty for the question anon, this was fun to ramble about.
I have a few years of film studies under my belt which def informs some of what I talk about here, like you can see it when I keep accidentally calling panels “shots” lol. But I dropped out before I got even a bachelors so I’m no expert or anything.
I mean maybe in theory dude Casca would have his own very different subplot and character arc, but I have no idea what it could be bc there’s nothing really to base it on. It’d basically be inventing a whole new character.
Speaking just for myself and my own priorities, bc I don’t want to sound holier than thou lol, it’s basically bc gender dynamics are v important to me and strongly affect how I feel about stories/characters/etc.
A man ruining his life because he fell in love with a man has very different connotations than a woman ruining her life because she fell in love with a man. The latter fits into a lot of gender stereotypes, irrational emotional women, women prioritizing relationships/love over careers, women as intrinsically unsuited to having power because we’re too emotional, yadda yadda yadda. A central narrative for a woman revolving around the conflict between her ambition and her heart where her heart wins and she realizes her life goal pales in comparison to a man is always gonna bug me bc of this.
Like, Griffith’s narrative as is plays with a lot of gender stereotypes, which I will always find more enjoyable than playing into them.
Also the other, simpler answer is because I just prefer reading about/watching gay relationships over straight relationships lol.
and wrt that last bit, tbh idk how I’d feel about Casca if Casca was a dude. It’s hard for me to imagine because 90% of her narrative is about being a woman, idek what would be left without it.
This is actually my biggest issue with imagining AUs lol, and why I’m kind of terrible at it.
I mean I think it’s easier for some people to see characters, their personality traits, and transpose them onto another setting, either with different reasons for those personality traits existing, or tweaking those reasons to fit a new setting (eg Guts could’ve still grown up in an abusive home in a modern AU, with a lot of the same issues). I think it takes a certain kind of talent to be able to like, know what to emphasize and what to downplay to make it work and make the characters feel IC in different settings while discouraging the readers from asking too many questions lol. But it’s a talent I absolutely don’t have.
Like if I was writing a griffguts f/f au fic (to take inspiration from that last ask), I have no idea what I’d do. I’d have to spend forever carefully figuring out exactly how to change their backgrounds to make sense and keep them in character. Like you could maybe argue that if Guts showed a willingness to fight/kill at a young age and a talent for it Gambino might still keep her around and teach her to use a sword bc he doesn’t really give a fuck as long as she can help him make money. Idk how believable that is, but it’s like, theoretically possible. If Casca can lead the Hawks Griffith could lead the Hawks as a woman, but ascending to the throne within the system just wouldn’t work in Berserk’s setting, she’d have to go full on Xena-esque warlord and forcibly take a kingdom. Which would still change her character significantly bc she’d be way darker. Her focus would be 100% military rather than focused on political machinations.
She could still be driven by a combination of childish determination and guilt tho at least? Idk my point is that there are a million things to consider in AUs and my problem is that I feel like I have to consider all of them bc I have a nitpicky analytical brain lol, I’d get stuck on all the details, while other people are good at just pinpointing the important stuff and focusing on that and making it work. So I’m basically with you lol, and when ppl ask me about stuff like AU ideas and whatever my answers tend to be kind of shallow bc of this.
Also this is why my favourite AUs to think about tend to be canon AUs/for want of a nail stuff where it’s the same as canon but a character made a different choice or something didn’t happen or whatever. It’s so much simpler.
Well Griffith trying to ascend to the throne thru military feats and heroism would ruin Miura’s ye olde sexism vibe, so he’d either have to boil Griffith’s whole narrative down to just seducing a prince thereby changing the entire plot, or go full (less campy) xena-esque historical fantasy where misogyny just isn’t really a problem. Which would actually be awesome, and if Guts was a woman too that would be the ideal story lol.
Also obviously Guts/Griffith would be considered canon. Like even if it was the exact same level of subtext as the actual story, Berserk would be known first and foremost as a tragic dark romance, and the fact that it’s full of blood and action would be considered secondary. No one in the world would read it and think Guts and Griffith were just platonic friends. I mean, I guess if I were reading it I’d deliberately choose to see them as platonic friends lol, but even I’d know they’re supposed to be in love.
I mean like, if this scene was hetero it would instantly seal the deal on their inevitable romance lbr, you’d be called delusional if you didn’t acknowledge it:
And it’s just one moment out of so many lol.
Bringing Casca into the picture, Miura would go just as hard or harder on the Guts vs Casca as romantic rivals vibe. They probably wouldn’t have a bonding moment followed by burgeoning friendship tho, and obviously they wouldn’t hook up. I figure they’d remain standoffish and surly until the Eclipse, at which point something else would drive Casca insane and Guts could still eventually grow as a person by choosing to take him to Elfhelm bc he’s all that remains of the Hawks or w/e. Or more likely he’d die and something else would drive Guts’ Millenium Falcon narrative.
I don’t think there’d be much subtext between Guts and Casca in this theoretical version of Berserk, bc if Casca can’t be Guts’ actual love interest and no homo bridge between Guts and Griffith, what would his role in the story even be, other than the dude who brings Guts’ insecurities out (ie Casca’s pre-romance role). The story’s all about Guts and Griffith, making it het just cuts out the middle man.
On the other hand, if Guts and Casca did still eventually become friends and eventually Casca became the symbol of Guts’ humanity and way of distracting himself from Griffith, I might ship it lol. I can’t lie, I’d actually hate griffguts if it was het, especially if Griffith was a woman, and I’d be searching for an alternative. The narrative about destroying yourself and your ambition because you fell in love would be extremely not my thing if it was a woman falling for a dude, Griffith sacrificing Guts for her dream in this case would probably make me cheer lol, and I’d be first in line to suggest that NeoGriffith’s feelings aren’t real.
So idk I guess my answer to your question is that it would probably still be love triangle-y, but instead of Guts and Casca getting together the focus would stay on Guts and Griffith, probably with Casca as a more minor character. And the plot wouldn’t necessarily have to change, but the setting would to an extent, if we accept that a woman could become a war hero as part of a rise to power.
Also a lot of details would almost certainly change, like Casca’s backstory of being rescued by Griffith and hero worshipping her. I imagine Miura would be more likely to emphasize the protective aspect, and have Casca fall in love after seeing Griffith vulnerable, after joining the Hawks just because. Griffith saving Guts and Guts feeling like he’s found his home could be the same, but if Griffith is a woman I wonder if Guts’ backstory would change a bit to emphasize his mother – maybe instead of dying she’d take off. Yk, that kind of change.
My preference would be to change very little just on principle tbh, but I’m trying to think of what Miura would do lol. Anyway idk, this is getting long so I’ll end my answer here.
Second part of college AU I don’t think they’d actually get deeply
romantically and sexually interested (at least Guts) until their junior
or senior year. Griffith is shameless often showing Guts off to family
and friends and just everybody in 5 mike radius. I still think they’re
relationship would be complicated and maybe even toxic. I feel like
Griffith would still be really fearful of Guts leaving him and always
needs confirmation. While also being jealous and obsessive a lot of the
time.
lol I’d have to imagine this set this in a country with free higher education bc I can’t see Guts either going on scholarships or digging himself into debt just for the hell of it. But yk what they’re in medieval Europe in canon, so why not put them in modern day idk, denmark or whatever?
That aside, they’d both totally be into each other at first sight. w/ modern aus I feel like there’s a lot more freedom to have them actually recognize and act on their attraction a lot quicker than in canon, but they could both still have trauma complicating things.
Though without an all-consuming dream I think Griffith would be a lot more forthcoming about his own feelings. The dream is the source of like 90% of his canon stupidity lol, his inability to understand his feelings because he refuses to acknowledge he has any because he has to be the perfect leader because of the dream, eg. Though I think he’d still have elements of self-loathing without the dream, esp if he still has csa trauma in his past, so there’s a basis for a fear of rejection.
Also I could see Griffith being obsessive/possessive – that just seems like a part of Griffith’s childishness and something inherently him – but I don’t think he’d demonstrate it day-to-day. In canon he’s very chill 99% of the time, so in a modern au I think you’d only be able to tell how intense his feelings actually are in really significant moments. Otherwise it would manifest in just like, wanting to drag Guts out on pseudo coffee dates all the time or something lol. Little things that Guts would respond really well to because he rly wants that feeling of being wanted.
And they both have serious issues with perceived rejection which could fuck things up for them in a modern AU too. But again, I don’t think it’s constant, I think it’s something that comes out in bigger moments. Guts, say, telling Griffith he’s too busy to hang out today wouldn’t bother Griffith, but eg Guts deciding to get his own apartment would freak Griffith tf out. And likewise, Griffith having a social life that doesn’t involve Guts wouldn’t bother Guts, but Griffith eg ditching Guts bc he has to network would make him extremely broody and insecure.
Also I think either of them dating someone else before they’re officially together would send the other into a tailspin of seething jealousy. imo moreso in a modern AU than in canon because the two of them getting together is a more easily recognized possibility than in canon. Also if Griffith knows he’s gay in a modern AU and dates another dude before Guts, that might be a good catalyst for Guts realizing he’s super jealous bc he’s in love with Griffith.
Idk I just wanted to like muse aloud based on your asks lol, ty for sharing your ideas!
I feel this, tho I think the biggest story progression is happening on Guts’ side of the narrative rn so switching to Griffith’s side feels like a way to slow it down I’ll be thrilled if something actually important happens w/ him tho. i mean he got falconia, it’s time to introduce an actual conflict to bring us into endgame *cough feelings cough*
And like, on the one hand I just want to find out what’s going down w/ Casca, like, rip the band-aid off already Miura the nervous anticipation is killing me.
On the other hand there’s a decent chance that I’m gonna hate whatever happens so maybe it’s better to have some extra time to live in hope lol.
I gotta admit, I got nothin lol. This is like so different from canon my limited imagination can’t even begin to conceive of it. Like, in a world w/out heteronormativity where guts and griffith both have families w/ some amount of power (or idk have peasants ever done arranged marriages? i always think of it as an upper class thing), I’m already totally lost at sea.
If you want to throw some more ideas for this at me plz do tho, I’m intrigued, just not really capable of coming up wtih anything myself lol.
yk I don’t rly know, I don’t have any genres I’m particularly into, I just tend to hear a song and look for more by the same person, and find music that way. And I don’t listen to the radio or use apps like idk spotify or w/e that rec u stuff so my method is just stumbling across it for the most part. I used to get most of my music from fanmixes lol.
And speaking of I’ve never heard of Billie Eillish either but I like these, ty! Especially My Boy tbh. And yeah I’m getting the same vibes.
ty! never heard either of these before but I like them. tbh from 505 I kinda get a Guts leaving Griffith to become his friend vibe tho fairly abstract lol, and Muddy Waters is very right before the Eclipse.
ty! lol this kind of music is so different than what I usually listen to, it makes for a nice + interesting change. Also while they’re both rly abstract wrt lyrics, I’m feeling them for griffguts vibes. First feels like Guts pov post-Eclipse to me, and 2nd feels like Griffith pov from the duel to the Eclipse.
omg yeah this really works, like starting w/ Farnese in Casca’s mind to the aftermath, and “you bring me back to life” is extra good from Farnese’s pov bc she literally brought Casca back but Casca metaphorically did the same in return. I’m in2 it, ty!
i think they might be referring to the video game series?? which is what the anime is based off of. the game series is like on par with dark souls almost in terms of levels of berserk vibes lol
oh if that’s the case then I’m only technically familiar with the series in that I know it exists and I vaguely recall watching my brother play one on nes when I was like 6 lol.
ihni what the later games are like tho now i’m kinda curious since I’ve heard a lot about how Dark Souls is extremely Berserk-y.
The netflix one? Yeah I watched it, and it was good, but it didn’t really grab me tbh. The animation and voice acting were good, and it was engaging enough that I watched it in one sitting, and the characters were fun, but idk if I have much else to say about it other than that. I’ll probably watch season 2 when it comes out, and probably ship Trevor/Alucard until the inevitable het takes over lol.
(Also tbf it’s slightly Berserk related since I remember reading that Berserk was an inspiration for elements of the show, tho I forget what. But either way I don’t mind getting non Berserk-related asks lol)
Yeah I kinda feel the same. I love the character designs to pieces tbh, I feel like they totally nailed everyone’s look, evoking Miura’s late Golden Age art, aka his best art imo, without copying it completely.
And I really liked some of the adaptation choices, like obviously the deliberate emphasis on the griffguts subtext was a lot of fun. Loved every change they made to the scene where Griffith shows up at Charlotte’s window – the way he’s completely out of it and nearly collapses on her, going ‘wait what the hell am I doing I should leave’ and having Charlotte ask him to stay, etc. Liked how they streamlined it to Griffith showing up personally after the 100 man fight. I really liked how they moved “the crystalization of your last tear shed” to after Guts’ post-Eclipse breakdown, and the whole violent history of humanity sequence during Griffith’s transformation was p great too. And in general I liked how they depicted everything they didn’t change from the manga, at least in the first two movies. There were a lot of good subtleties, it looked good aesthetically give or take some cgi, etc.
But I will never not be salty about losing Griffith’s backstory + Tombstone of Flame, and therefore like his entire motivation and character in general. I mean come on, Griffith’s self-harmy rant to Casca and “do you think that I’m cruel?” are absolutely necessary.
Instead they went for more of a Griffith is a shallow ambitious asshole who happened to fall in love with his bff, ruined his life because of it, and then decided not to make the same mistake twice angle. Like, the appearance of the pile of corpses in Griffith’s mind when Ubik’s convincing him to make the sacrifice doesn’t even work in the movies, it’s too little too late to show us his guilt issues now, especially without an actual focal point like the dead kid, or any visceral demonstration of how he feels, like the prostitution or the self harm. It all just comes across as shallow. They might as well have cut it out and had Griffith agree to make the sacrifice as soon as Void mentioned giving him wings and his dream back lol.
In general I actually feel like they did a fairly good job keeping the basic themes of Berserk intact while cutting out a ton of it lol. eg they lost 90% of Guts decision to leave, but Casca got a line towards the end about how people are weak so they cling to dreams and other people. So like, despite the fact that they cut out a huge amount of important stuff about Guts and Griffith’s dreams, I know they got the basic point and managed to convey it.
Tho ofc a lot of those scenes they lost are necessary not just bc of the information they convey but because of the emotional impact, so eg cutting Guts’ post-Zodd rooftop scene was still a terrible decision even if technically it doesn’t tell us anything absolutely necessary that we couldn’t’ve figured out from Guts angrily thinking about Casca calling him a mad dog followed by Griffith saying he had no reason to risk his life for him. It’s still a ~moment~ and it’s important to the impact of the Promrose Hall speech.
Also the third movie especially is kind of a mess imo. The rape scene was practically comedic w/ the music they added and way too long, the pacing was overall awful, they had Griffith overhear Guts wanting to stay for some reason which really muddies his whole subsequent breakdown, and they completely butchered the best and most important moment in the story:
Like, this is coming from someone who thinks that like, half of Griffith’s motivation for making the sacrifice was just to get rid of Guts lol, I have no problem with him feeling spiteful here, but my god, this is cartoonish. Look at the original:
Even the anime caught more nuance of feeling and it was never that great at conveying subtle emotions thru expression:
Idk this is long and disorganized lol.
tl;dr I also have mixed feelings. I enjoy the experience of watching the movies, and I feel like the people who made them probably have a lot of the same takes on Berserk that I do, which can make a lot of details they included fairly rewarding (eg one I often cite is showing how Griffith lies about not feeling emotion by having him back his horse away from Gennon after claiming he doesn’t gaf), but overall I disagree with a lot of their adaptational decisions and it’s fairly frustrating lol.
between berserk and cp it’s pretty shallow, between griffith and laurent it’s like. there’s not a whole not of overlap but if you finished cp and i told you the writer was a fan of berserk and griffith in particular, you’d be like OHHH ….
tbh that’s it besides some quirks with laurent and his history him and griffith are pretty different imho. damien and guts are way different besides being big and more physical
like imho damen has his shit together way more than guts lol
ty, yeah I didn’t really see any personality similarities between damen and guts. i don’t know anything about laurent yet tho so i can’t judge there, but I’m not really expecting serial-numbers-filed-off-berserk-fanfiction I guess lol.
I only just started reading it so not yet, but sure when I finish the first one I’ll make a post and tag it anonymous for you. might not be for a while, I don’t read every day lol.
Tho I can say that so far the only similarity seems to be blond/brunet gay + political scheming in a made up historical kingdom lol, but again, I’m only a couple chapters in.
If I was gonna place a bet, I’d say that we’re probably going to learn Void and Skull Knight’s backstory, but probably not the rest of the Godhand.
Skull Knight’s got a lot of parallels going on with Guts and Griffith, and there have been hints that Guts is in danger of repeating the past by doing the same thing he did – succumbing to the armour/revenge probably – so it seems likely that we’ll learn more of that past to shed light on the present.
I mean idk maybe we’ve already learned everything we need to know through hints and hearsay, but it wouldn’t surprise me if we do eventually get a fuller backstory on Void and Skull Knight and Gaiseric’s empire etc. But I think the rest of the Godhand’s backstories are gonna be left to our imaginations, because it just doesn’t seem too likely that they’ll be relevant.
lol despite this being a gr8 essay prompt I’m just going to brainstorm and list a bunch of stuff.
parallels:
larger-than-life figures often compared to storybook characters.
self-harming
while denying feeling responsible about people’s deaths. (Guts does
this a couple times in the Black Swordsman arc lol)
obsessions/dreams (castle vs revenge/becoming griffith’s equal/killing a bunch of stuff)
in
both cases dreams are defense mechanisms/escapes from the pain of the
world. “what do you fear in this place?” *points at castle* vs “when I’m
swinging this sword I don’t have to think about anything.”
personified inner darknesses (maybe you can become a real monster, like your friend)
guts deserting griffith vs neogriffith deserting guts, complete with maudlin comparison from guts
guts picking up the behelit in the black swordsman arc
farnese’s feelings for guts vs casca’s feelings for griffith
guts
similarly gathering followers with the phrase, “do what you want,”
maybe even things like griffith’s “blazing inferno” vs say serpico
musing on being affected by guts’ heat.
ok it’s a stretch but possibly both of them currently doing their damndest to forget the other?
denying feelings of guilt by rambling about their dreams in front of
Casca while dripping blood as Casca screams at them to stop hurting
themselves.
nightmares/visions of being children screaming apologies to corpses? i mean you could sum this up with “guilt issues” I guess lol:
ooh I’d argue the way both their dreams are based in childhood desires, a la:
this
this
(re: dude’s son who died in battle)
this
this
this
Contrasts:
Well there’s the surrendering to fate vs defying fate thing. Griffith embracing destiny by making the sacrifice. Relatedly ofc, defying God vs becoming the messiah.
I
have a post here that kind of boils down to saying that Griffith’s
narrative is about succumbing to evil in pursuit of the good, while
Guts’ narrative is about balancing the good and evil within himself. In a
way you could maybe say that Griffith is about harsh contrasts while
Guts is about shades of grey.
Guts allowing Casca to comfort him vs Griffith shutting her out.
Potentially the way Guts deliberately attempts to “let go” of his obsession with Griffith vs Griffith choosing his obsession,if
Guts’ revenge quest is meant to parallel Griffith’s kingdom. imo the
waters get muddy thanks to Guts’ dream sabotaging his relationship with
Griffith in the Golden Age vs Guts dream being the remnants of his
relationship with Griffith and sabotaging his “relationship” with Casca
post-Eclipse. Like, you could at the same time argue it’s a parallel in that they both try to let go of their obsession with the other by fixating on a goal (kingdom/fix casca). I mean the former is more likely, but fuck it I prefer the latter lol. (Hey Guts didn’t get the ominous armour of inner darkness until choosing Casca and since then his warnings about losing himself to it have gone hand in hand with warnings about Casca’s wishes not being Guts’ wishes. So in a way sticking with Casca is actually subtly tied to his inner darkness even if it is telling him to chase down Griffith. Hey you never know.)
Their Golden Age narratives parallel each other but in opposite directions which makes for a contrast: Griffith shifts from his dream as the most important thing to his relationship with Guts as the most important thing, while Guts shifts from his relationship with Griffith as the most important thing to his dream as the most important thing.
I guess there’s the obvious black vs white colour scheme thing lol. Which goes hand in hand with Griffith’s image as a knight in shining armour vs Guts’ scary black swordsman image. Tho I think it’s an oversimplification to say that eg NeoGriffith is evil with a good image and Guts is the opposite, which I’ve seen a lot lol.
Guts as a human struggling with his inner monster, NeoGriffith as a monster struggling with his inner human?
both struggle with loneliness and isolation but Griffith is social and Guts is a loner.
strategy vs… instinct? not quite the right word, but yk Griffith’s way of fighting is more intellectual and strategic and while Guts utilizes strategy a lot it’s more subconscious – like when he caught Silat’s chakrams because he didn’t overthink their trajectories.
Hmm I’m probably missing some obvious ones ngl, but I have to stop at some point and I feel like I’ve started scraping the bottom of the barrel lol.
Honestly I like most of them lol, Berserk has a lot of fun and enjoyable tertiary characters.
If I had to list a few faves, maybe: Anna, Zodd, Theresia, Silat, Rosine, Irvine, Raksas, Gaston, Luca, tbh I liked Nina too for being a ridiculous walking disaster, Gambino actually – not as a person obviously but I think he’s p well-written as an abusive parent, can I count ascended Ganeshka lol?, and I’ll stop there.
Yeah assuming Casca both opens the behelit and then does actually make a sacrifice, I’m bracing for it to be Farnese even though that would be really disappointing and the last thing Berserk needs is fewer female characters going forward lol. But she does seem like the obvious candidate.
On the other hand my alternate theory is that she could sacrifice whatever entity counts as her fetus, whether it’s the demon fetus incorporated into NGriff or the Moonlight Boy or both or whatever. Most sacrifices we’ve seen have been parent/child, and we just saw the fetus as Casca’s metaphorical heart during the quest to put her back together. The fragile heart being what you bury when you sacrifice someone who is “part of your soul.” Plus it would have the added benefit of totally crushing that burgeoning hope for a family vibe and making Guts extra sad. Yk, it wouldn’t just be sacrificing the fetus, it would be sacrificing the concept of a happily ever after in a way.
Idk that’s probably wishful thinking, lbr it would be too perfect for me to ever happen lol. But I really want it.
Also I dig the idea of someone sacrificing Griffith (idk whether it would be possible but it should be) but if Casca’s gonna open the behelit it’s probably going to happen like, right now, and if she sacrifices Griffith then Berserk is over and I feel like that would be a really sudden ending lol.
lol tbh I’ve been overthinking this question which is why it took me a while to answer. Like, weighing pros and cons, does the Eclipse rape count as bad character writing for Griffith/Femto/NGriff or does it at least make sense as long as you accept Miura’s premise that people’s inner darknesses are gonna be rapists 99% of the time, or is it a mistake that reflects on the character writing because of the weird tonal issues it raises with NGriff’s narrative? Like, is it a flaw more because it disaligns the way the author wants to portray Griffith vs the way the audience responds to Griffith? How is that weighted against Guts losing so much of what made him interesting through sometimes good, sometimes poor character development? If it’s believable character development is becoming less interesting still a flaw or just like, my opinion man?
And honestly fuck all that, idc. Griffith is the best written character because his highs are higher and more consistent and I find his lows easier to ignore bc they’re wrapped up in other bad writing, and there’s no way to give an objective answer to this anyway so I might as well let my opinions fly and gush for a while.
I just love his narrative.
From his first appearance as Femto taunting Guts by saying he’s beneath his notice to the hints that he certainly didn’t always feel that way to the first flashback of Griffith telling Guts he’s “the first person I’ve ever spoken to like this,” he’s introduced in such an interesting, intriguing way. Then in the Golden Age the way his apparent easy superiority and confidence eventually gives way to the reveal that he’s a giant mess of insecurities and guilt – and the way this reveal sheds so much interesting light on everything that came before, like his dream speech to Charlotte, his “I will choose the place where you die” speech to Guts, risking his life to save Guts, asking Guts to assassinate Julius, etc.
And the way all these apparent contradictions manage to come together to perfectly depict a man who hides behind an image so well that he believes the act himself, except in occasional moments of vulnerability when the truth seeps out.
Like there are so many interesting subtleties to dig into and so many contradictions to navigate but at the same time this one page tells you everything you really need to know to understand him:
This is a dude who will prostitute himself to a pedophile to prevent as many deaths as possible and then the next morning claim he doesn’t feel responsible for those deaths.
He will bury his guilt so hard that his reaction to a kid’s convenient death is triumphant delight, and then fret about killing hired goons and ask if Guts thinks he’s cruel, because Charlotte/his dream reinforces his image – his conviction – and Guts/love unravels it.
Also like, in general it’s fantastic how our impression of Griffith begins with the impression he leaves on everyone:
and then that is like, turned over and examined in the way Miura does, by showing how fucked up you have to be to embody a cool fictional archetype. (Incidentally I love how he does this with Guts’ antiheroism too. Like, hey turns out you gotta have a pretty fucked up life to become a cool monster fighting badass. tho even so Griffith’s is a little better imo because we spend more time with the image before revealing what’s underneath, whereas Guts didn’t even get a full chapter of tricking the audience into thinking he’s just a surly badass b4 the cracks started appearing.)
THEN his feelings for Guts come into it and complicate everything and we’re shown that there’s an internal war in Griffith between Guts and the dream that Griffith himself doesn’t even seem to realize until it’s too late. Which is just delightful bc god knows my favourite literary device is dramatic irony and idk if knowing more about Griffith’s inner conflicts than Griffith himself understands counts but damn it’s fun. And the moment when he does finally acknowledge it (”as he shines so glaring within me… the junk grows dull.”) is just intensely satisfying because we’ve been waiting for it since at least Casca’s “it’s as if… as if…” in chapter 18.
And the way everything cumulates so utterly perfectly in the sacrifice. Everything we see, everything in Griffith’s narrative, every moment leads directly to “I sacrifice,” and it all fits together immaculately. The dream as a defense mechanism, guilt, shame, emotional denial, “take all the frightening and sad things and cast them into the fire,” his desperate search for like, absolution, the way in the build up to the eclipse he’s stripped of everything he ever relied on as a defense, fucking love as the determining factor
the fact that he’s not sacrificing guts because he values the dream more, he’s sacrificing guts because he values guts more. like that’s just so fucking good, come on.
Honestly, Femto and NeoGriffith are both great as symbols too – Femto as everything Griffith was ashamed of but without the shame; NGriff as pure conviction, as the perfect image with none of the driving guilt. I can’t exactly say they’re great characters since the whole point of them is that they’re not fleshed out or relatable or understandable as humans one can empathize with, but they’re great conceptually. It’s cool to see the fully fleshed out, contradictory Griffith and then see him divided and carved up into representational aspects of himself.
Also the few hints of more are super satisfying with the full weight of Griffith’s human narrative behind them – Femto letting Guts escape, the unfrozen heartbeat, you know what I’m about.
And idk at the end of the day with Griffith Miura successfully (IMO) depicted a dude who would choose to sacrifice a group of people I really liked and become a demon for the greater good, for petty reasons, and out of fear of his own feelings, all at the same time, and make me empathize with that decision, and that seems like it would be hard to do. I mean granted, I’m in the minority when it comes to empathizing with him, but idk I can only answer this from my perspective lol.
Anyway to wrap this up I’m plugging this thing again because really could I have ever given any answer other than “the dude whose character arc I wrote over fifteen thousand words about”?
I’ll be thrilled if something actually important happens w/ him tho. i mean he got falconia, it’s time to introduce an actual conflict to bring us into endgame *cough feelings cough*
you're the only one 