I think the point of gut’s changing his ideals and stating them against Mozgus is to show that he is on the path of becoming a less damaged human being. Even comparing his goals in the conviction arc to the blackswordsman arc, he started changing especially when he realized he wanted to regain casca as opposed to him wanting to hunt down neo griffith. I don’t think it’s inconsistent writing on mirua’s behalf but i think its supposed to show the beginning of gut’s growth.
Sorry, I think I wasn’t super clear because that post was kind of rambly and off-the-cuff lol, but my point is actually that it isn’t a change for Guts at all, it’s the exact same attitude – it’s just the narrative framing of that attitude has changed.
Guts saying the dude and his daughter were too weak to survive so they don’t matter is no different than Guts saying that the ten thousand refugees about to die deserve it because they’d rather bow down to a god than fight to survive or w/e
It’s just that now that’s shown to be badass rather than a fairly pathetic denial of guilt.
Consider:
vs
It’s like the Conviction arc takes these super cynical lines from Guts which, in the Black Swordsman arc, are clearly meant to show how fucked up he is and not something we’re meant to agree with, and pretties them up or makes them sound badass and legitimizes them.
I mean it’s even the same essential circumstances: Guts’ brand calls up spirits that kill innocent people. In the Black Swordsman arc Guts feels immense guilt and covers it up with cynical bravado. In the Conviction arc, Guts and Luca both blame the dead for failing to survive.
And idk if that’s a sign if we’re maybe supposed to take the themes of the Conviction arc with a grain of salt, or if Miura’s opinions just 180ed somewhere along the way.
Like do
people deserve to die for not being strong or resourceful enough to survive
against a force stronger than them or not, Miura?
In fairness this could very well be purposeful – showing like, both the negative side and the more palatable side of Guts’ survival of the fittest thing. Similar to how we get the positive side of Griffith’s utopia where the weak are protected from harm and exploitation (which come to think of it is also partly shown to us by Luca, hmm) and the negative side (it may be great but it’s the only peaceful place to live).
But also incidentally, if you’re on Guts’ side of this whole thing, yk you gotta be strong to survive and if you’re not it’s your own problem – you can’t really have an issue with Griffith filling the world with monsters lol. The world outside of Falconia right now pretty much illustrates Guts’ philosophy to a tee.
I could see this coming up again along those lines actually. Doesn’t someone actually say that now everyone has to deal with what Guts deals with, directly comparing brand-life to Fantasia? So there you go, you got Griffith’s world (Falconia) and you got Guts’ world (Fantasia), pick one.
tbh I actually love it in the Black Swordsman arc bc I don’t think it was meant to be anything particularly significant, like, plot-wise (tho lmao i wish, but it’s probably only a coincidence that it looked kind of like a fetus lol)
I think it was just supposed to be a recurring demon that represents like, the self destructiveness and futility of Guts’ revenge rampage. like a proto beast of darkness but instead of being scary and cool it’s just sad and pathetic. the twisted remains of yourself after you’ve been consumed by revenge.
which i say mainly because of that one image where guts sees it with vargas’ face. but also if you re-read its early appearances with that in mind it fits very nicely with the rest of the black swordsman arc’s themes and the way it unnerves guts more than anything else he sees, and the way it appears when he’s feeling self-doubt and fear of failure, makes a lot of sense.
also his chapter 2 nightmare where it chases him works super well with that in mind. This nightmare is later echoed by his chapter 13 nightmare where it’s a monstrous representation of donovan chasing him, which is echoed again after Guts kills Adonis and sees himself as that monster. It’s very neatly cyclical – chronologically, it goes Guts’ own personal monster followed by Guts’ fear of becoming a monster followed by Guts well on his way to becoming that monster. And I just love that the fetus thing isn’t a cool monster, it’s just pathetic, which is perfect in the Black Swordsman arc where Guts is paralleled to Vargas.
relatedly it’s really off-putting to re-read the scenes where it appears after miura retconned it into being his weird demon kid lol. Totally fucks up that interpretation. Like you can maybe read it as a reminder of Guts abandoning Casca/his repressed guilt over it, but I have no idea how that’s supposed to work with the nightmare, or the direct comparison to Vargas, etc.
Maybe it still kind of works as a symbol of Guts becoming a monster in that the fetus is is all demony because it was corrupted by Femto or w/e, but like… considering all its later appearances are helpful and protective rather than sinister, it really doesn’t work for me. It’s a big mess.
Can I just say all of chapter 2? I was tempted to go with the end of chapter one as a character establishing moment, yk Guts looking scarier than snake man as he gleefully tortures him, but honestly chapter 2 is where it’s at when it comes to Black Swordsman Guts.
4.
Guts finally, somberly realizing he shouldn’t’ve left, telling Judeau and Casca he’ll stay with Griffith, both of them telling him to leave because he did such a thorough job of proclaiming he’s got a nobler goal and separating himself, just hammering home how it was a mistake.
3.
This is a double feature because I couldn’t decide between these two scenes and they essentially say the same thing anyway:
and
Guts haunted by the fear and temptation of becoming a monster. I love the sewer nightmare, especially coming right before Promrose Hall. The way it conflates Zodd, Donovan, and Guts after he kills Adonis. Guts’ self-loathing here informing why he reacts so badly to the overheard speech too.
And then after Rosine and a fun child-killing spree, these ghosts voicing his inner thoughts. The self-loathing, muddied by the temptation of giving in and following in Griffith’s footsteps, ironically the same choice he made after Promrose Hall. Griffith’s dream made him a monster, and Guts’ dream is doing the same – and the Black Swordsman content is absolutely Guts pursuing his own dream, to fight stronger and stronger opponents.
2.
Guts channeling all his painful feelings into rage here. I can’t really say the whole rampage through Midland lol, there are moments I like less, but definitely the start of it, the reunion in the depths, killing the torturer, one man army-ing up the stairs and out the door. It’s just so good. Exactly how Guts avoids dealing with his feelings, really awesome to watch, nice sense of protectiveness, and excellently illustrative of how devastated he is to find Griffith after a year of torture.
1.
Guts finally, finally beginning to accept that he’s found a new home, the place where he belongs, here with the Hawks and Griffith, after Griffith risked his life to save him from a monster (in a particularly meaningful contrast to his childhood). Finally beginning to move on and heal a bit. This is the moment of greatest potential for Guts and p much the pinnacle of his life and it’s so effective at putting the reader and Guts at like, a height from which to fall.
Bonus 6:
This only gets a bonus spot bc I’ve mentioned it a few times before as one of my favourite Guts moments and I don’t want to be too predictable lol, but it’s so good. This whole scene. Guts ostensibly wanting to fight Femto but more than anything wanting his attention and only being spurred on to even stand up when Femto says that.
honestly no, or at least, not in the way you probably mean. and this isn’t me being a griffith apologist and reaching to make excuses for him lol, this is me looking at each scene and getting a very different conclusion from them. like i really just don’t think they logically add up to griffith turning into a rapist demon when you examine each scene you mention, even though it’s admittedly a really really easy connection to draw at a surface level and I can see why people do draw that conclusion.
tho i guess the first duel is actually kind of a “sort of,” to be fair.
at this point the golden age stuff is really hardcore calling back to the black swordsman stuff in an excellent way, and making some v overt comparisons between Griffith and Femto, largely for the sake of… well, for the sake of establishing both similarities and eventual differences.
Griffith’s narrative is a gradual tearing down of our (and Guts’) expectations about him – we start with this larger than life mythical sort of figure who we already know eventually betrays Guts and becomes a demon, so we begin with showing his ambition, his drive, the deference his followers show him, his ability to take out Guts with one parry, etc.
He literally starts out as basically the same antagonist we saw a few chapters ago, at least in Guts’ eyes:
Like, this is meant to show the singleminded obsession that we’re led to believe is why he betrayed Guts to become a demon.
But it’s also a set up for a later revealing subversion of expectations:
In all fairness to Griffith, Guts is the one who gave him the chance to win his loyalty in a fight. Griffith didn’t demand he fight for his freedom or anything lol, he just asked Guts to join, was taken aback when Guts refused, and then leapt at the chance Guts provided to win him in a fight. He even offered to wait a while until Guts had healed more. That’s like, consent right there.
But by taking Guts up on his ridic offer he is definitely kind of pushing the limits of this whole need he has for people to freely choose to follow him, which is also an early sign that Guts is extra special.
Anyway the more overt rapey overtones to this fight, ie Guts basically offering sex slavery if he loses, say more about Guts from a characterization standpoint than they do about Griffith. Griffith is like, lol sure, clearly having no actual intention of taking him up on the sex offer.
But coming after a) the Black Swordsman arc, and b) Guts’ childhood, what this exchange does is draw a comparison between Griffith and the men who abused Guts as a child, both to the reader and in Guts’ mind. (I would argue that this is why Guts insists on fighting him – after Griffith one hitted him Guts is actually scared of him, and his rape trauma informs how he interprets and responds to fear. But I digress)
And again, this is both subverted and played straight. We should’ve already been able to draw comparisons between Femto and Gambino. We’re told about the sacrifice, told Griffith sacrificed Guts, then shown a flashback to Guts’ childhood in which his trusted father figure sold him to Donovan. That’s our explanation for Guts’ vendetta against Griffith/Femto. The sacrifice was a replay of his childhood trauma, and it fucked him up. And our introduction to Griffith here, with Guts projecting his trauma at him, plays off that.
The subversion is in the fact that Guts basically falls in love with Griffith, or insert some platonic phrase meaning essentially the same thing here, because I’m trying to be as objective as possible here lmao. It’s not another Gambino situation where Guts loved him because he was his father and the only family Guts knew, Griffith earns Guts’ love. Griffith is loveable, frankly. He risks his life to save Guts after a week, he‘s put together a merc group that behaves more like one big happy family than like a bunch of hired killers, and Guts spends the three happiest years of his life with him.
We also have Casca’s running commentary helpfully informing us that Griffith’s feelings for Guts are genuine because he’s acting very out of character around him already.
Like to bring this home, Griffith’s narrative is:
to
One reason it was so brilliant to start with the Black Swordsman arc is because it reverses the expected narrative – instead of being shocked when a character we love decides to sacrifice Guts to become a demon, we’re surprised over and over again when a character we were introduced to as a villain turns out to be motivated almost entirely by his intense, very human, very vulnerable, very sympathetic, love for Guts, rather than the expected sociopathic ambition. (And even that ambition has a very human, very vulnerable, very sympathetic source, ie, guilt.)
And, basically, the first duel starts this narrative off by emphasizing the qualities we expect to see in Griffith while simultaneously sowing the seeds of the qualities we end up surprised by. Hence the exchange that emphasizes Guts’ rape trauma – because it also foreshadows/calls back to the sacrifice.
tl;dr the first duel is rapey as part of a comparison between Guts’ childhood trauma and being sacrificed eventually, and it serves as a starting point on which Miura builds a shitload of complexity and basically immediately begins tearing down the image of Griffith as a haughty evil sociopath. Plus at this point idek if Miura had the Eclipse rape in mind – he’s mentioned he decided to have Guts and Casca get together for the sake of more Eclipse drama partway through, and this is pretty early on.
Okay, that’s one out of three. Now, as for scene #2
no I’m kidding, I’ve already written a lot about the other two scenes so I’m not going to reiterate it all here esp since my first answer was already way too long lol.
So I got a more thorough explanation here, but basically the narrative treats the night with Charlotte as consensual sex despite her “no,” and therefore I do too in my reading of the narrative, it’s shitty but so is Miura, the end. Like, I consider this scene the equivalent of Guts grabbing Casca’s tit during an argument. Yk, was that foreshadowing for Guts sexually assaulting her (again but in a dramatic scene next time), or was it Miura being a dumbass?
The super short version of that is that Griffith does have issues with consent – his own – and if you tilt your head a bit you can argue that it might inform the Eclipse rape as a reversal of power dynamics. But it’s not a preview of it, it’s a contrast.
One thing I’ll finish with, though, is that there is a scene that I think can arguably foreshadow the Eclipse rape better than any scene you mentioned, and it’s chapter 39.
This is my very very thorough explanation of it (in like the last 3rd or so of that post), but long story short everything Griffith calls the king out on is something he hates/fears about himself, and I would definitely argue that this scene shows the guilt + self-loathing Griffith feels after trying to keep Guts at his side by force, through a really unsavoury parallel to the King’s predatory lust for Charlotte, as well as the parallel between how their respective “rejections” destroy them.
So yeah, if there’s any scene that I think foreshadows Griffith’s inner darkness being rapey, it’s Griffith comparing himself to the King in a fit of self-loathing. But there’s a reason my explanation is like a million words long lol, it’s pretty subtle, and therefore kind of hard to state definitively.
Okay, and one very last thing to throw out there as a conclusion to this mess:
The Eclipse rape only has the shock value Miura wanted it to have if it’s a contrast. It’s there to demonstrate that new Evil Demon Griffith is a bad dude who does horrible things Our Griffith wouldn’t do, and draw a hard line between regular human Griffith and Femto, which is also what enables Guts to express his feelings thru murderous rage.
This is lost on a lot of fans because people are really, really eager to see Griffith as Pure Evil The Whole Time, but straight up, objectively, that is what the text is going for – the Eclipse rape is a defining character moment for Femto because it’s a harsh contrast to the Griffith we, and Guts, have come to know and love. It’s meant to shock the reader and make them – or remind them to – hate Femto lol, it’s not meant to give them a pat on the back and tell them they were right about Griffith being an evil predatory gay all along. That’s just a very unfortunate side effect.
Whether by accident or design (since yk from the sounds of it Miura wrote the first chapter or two before really figuring out where he wanted to go with the story) I actually consider the opening few pages to be very in character lol, which might be an unpopular opinion, idk.
Consider: it fits perfectly into Guts pattern of self-destructively doing whatever it takes to get close enough to his enemy to blow their head off. He’s deliberately let monsters throw him around, break bones, shove him through walls, eat him, and stab him just so he can maneuver himself into position to take them out. This is an apostle that likes to fuck her victims, ergo.
It also like… actually I’d never thought about this before so bear with me bc this is going to get rambly, but damn it’s actually perfect, because it also makes the connection between Guts’ sex related issues and his stupid monster fighting rampage very direct on page one.
Like if that’s not purposeful then Miura accidentally hit it out of the park with our intro to Guts. But actually it’s gotta be purposeful. Even if it’s just to equate Guts’ particularly phallic violence (big sword, shoving his fist into the monster’s mouth mid-sex and blowing her head off) to sex right off the bat because Miura wants to like… well I think it’s part of what Miura wanted to kind of examine. Swords are dicks in Berserk, just like they’re dicks in a lot of action stories. But what does that mean – why? What’s the connection between violence and sex that makes that imagery fit?
And the answer here is Guts’ rape trauma. Liiiiike ok I completely think that Guts lashes out at enemies, particularly enemies that are bigger and stronger than him, particularly monsters once he learns they exist, because of that trauma. He is very driven to destroy anything that scares him, and that’s the root of it. Monsters scare Guts, we see this very viscerally during the first Zodd encounter and the Wyald encounter, and (particularly after he abandons his emotional support in the snow) Guts is driven to destroy them.
So like on one level Guts fucking the apostle is like, a hook for the dudes and a surface image for Miura to unravel: cool manly action hero bangs chicks and kills monsters, sometimes at the same time! On a character level, it’s a self-destructive strategy to get close enough to kill her because Guts absolutely isn’t the kind of cool hero who regularly bangs chicks, he’s the kind of dumbass who would do anything to kill a monster. And potentially on a thematic level it’s a story opening that primes the audience to equate sex and sex related issues to Guts’ monster killing revenge rampage, ie set up for an undertone of Guts lashing out not because he’s righteously angry or a hero who protects the innocent and kills evildoers, but because he’s traumatized and killing monsters makes him feel better.
(god that panel is gr8 shorthand for everything i want to say lol)
Or idk maybe it’s not that deep. But damn it now I’m definitely going to include this scene in the next big meta post I write about Guts, his dream, trauma, and his relationship with Griffith.
Anyway I definitely 100% believe the first bit I said, about it being in character for Guts because it’s a self destructive ploy to kill her. The trauma theme stuff is more of a stretch but it’s worth thinking about.
(Also lol @ Guts being faithful to Casca when he left her to rot in a cave for two years. I mean they had sex once and the last significant interaction they had before the Eclipse was Casca essentially breaking off whatever form of relationship they’d begun.
I feel like people reach for that bc they need an explanation for why cool badass protagonist Guts is basically celibate and has never expressed attraction to a woman other than casca (and tbqh casca’s debatable), but honestly it’s cause he’s gay.)
Honestly, Black Swordsman Guts, especially in the Black Swordsman arc (tho he’s also p good in the Lost Children arc). The way he starts out as the epitome of the asshole antihero out for revenge and that image almost immediately starts crumbling until you’re shown that he’s terrified and pathetic and not a whole lot better than the monsters he’s fighting and really sad about a bad breakup.
The way he opens the story by banging an apostle on page one and eventually you realize that is one of a grand total of two occasions on which he’s had consensual sex. The way he ends the first arc crying after a kid swears vengeance against him. The end of the first chapter when he tortures the snake apostle and the art and tone shift to make Guts the villain and the monster the pitiable victim. Encouraging children to kill themselves because he’s upset. Refusing to admit how monstrous he’s getting when he gets temporarily possessed. Letting a zombie kid stab him.
The driving mystery of why Guts is so obsessed with revenge followed by the reveal that it’s because he had a relationship comparable to marriage with the dude he wants to kill and Griffith didn’t just betray him, they betrayed each other and like half of Guts’ motivation is guilt/distracting himself from guilt.
The way his current situation, haunted by monsters claiming ownership of him after being given to them by someone he loves reflects his childhood so effectively.
I mean yeah part of what makes Black Swordsman Guts great is what the Golden Age reveals about him too, but I’ll still take Black Swordsman over the happy Golden Age version.
For one thing, when Black Swordsman Guts is a dick, the narrative is very clear on that being a negative thing. While when Golden Age Guts is a dick (eg most of his scenes with Casca) it feels like we’re supposed to find that at least somewhat endearing. And also like… I just really, really love the way Miura starts Guts out as strong badass archetype and then immediately sets about complicating it by answering the question of: what would make a real human person this fucking over the top and ridiculous? What’s actually underneath the cool image?
Like Guts goes from badass mccool 80s action hero send up to being directly compared to Vargas in terms of how sad and pathetic he is within a couple chapters, and it’s So. Good.
Answer to your second question under the cut
This question… is actually a very tough call lol. Like yeah okay the smart money’s on the character whose introduction didn’t include a gratuitious rape scene, but I genuinely love Femto regardless? Mostly because I disregard that choice of intro since it was um Badly Written lol, and Femto had me at
And I just love dark inner monsters as a concept in general despite the author’s reliance on rape as his primary illustration of evil.
On potential alone I’d go with NeoGriffith, because boy he is full of potential to be amazing depending on where those hints about his feelings, isolation of being a singular god, etc go. But what we actually see from him is like… so bland 99% of the time. Like yeah that’s purposeful, that’s a big part of the point, but still. He does feel like a shell of the old Griffith, literally – the outside with v little of the depth (so far).
I can headcanon and theorize a bunch to make him interesting to me, and I do, but idk if that counts lol.
So as for what we’ve got on the page and how seeing him makes me feel, I’m actually going to pick Femto. Like, the same way I inwardly cheered when we saw Guts’ slasher smile at Godo’s after he killed the pig apostle, because it was such a “he’s baaaaaack” moment, I cheered when we saw Femto confront Ganeshka. I love his stupid offensive camp villain makeup, I love his stupid exoskeleton, I love what a petty asshole he is, I love how silent and scary he was when he first appeared and I love how awkward and pathetic he was when he lowered his hand and let Guts escape, I love that he expresses emotions, I love that Void had to basically tell him to shut up during his petty back and forth with Guts in his first scene, and I love him partially out of spite because Miura tried to make me hate him in the shittiest way possible.
Like yeah okay put your super gay character in vampy makeup and make him a rapist to piss off the manly protag while writing out the woman you have no idea what to do with, fuck you I love him anyway.
I have a tendency to love the characters the narrative goes above and beyond to try to get me to hate, because I don’t like being told what to do lol, and if I feel like the narrative is pushing me to feel something without properly selling it/while poorly and/or offensively illustrating it I get contrary. Like basically the Eclipse rape only made me feel hate for Miura. If I hated Femto for it, then I feel like I’d be validating Miura’s bad and offensive writing.
Which is not to say I don’t fully understand and respect people who do respond to the Eclipse by hating Femto. This is just how I personally respond to fiction lol.
My ideal ending is Femto dying in worst way possible or getting trapped in some endless loop of suffering and misery. “If Guts does happily kill NGriff without hesitation, that’ll be a v dark ending that indicates he’s lost his humanity, imo.” I like how some fans keep idealizing Guts like some sort of a righteous shounen hero… Dude is literally a savage. Look at how he treats his enemies or the apostles who have done way less shit in compare with Griffith.
I’m responding mainly to this part so I’m not c/ping the other messages (also i think your last message got cut off btw) but like, yeah Guts is a very dark character, but again that’s framed as a bad thing. We’re supposed to think he’s a huge dick during the Black Swordsman arc, eg. We’re meant to see his darkness as a sign that he’s close to becoming exactly the same as, or even worse than, the monsters he fights. He sexually assaulted Casca in part to feel “closer to” Griffith lol.
Like, my favourite Guts is when he’s at his most dark, but that would suck if the story was totally unselfaware and we were meant to cheer him on. In the first chapter when he tortures the snake dude, it’s a reversal of expectation, because we’re meant to find Guts frightening and to nearly pity the monster in that moment. Similarly when he tortures the Count in front of his daughter – except that is also much clearer in showing that Guts is pretty pathetic at that point, eg:
I think Miura kind of lost that sense of patheticness (another good example is the blatant comparisons to Vargas) after the Eclipse, which is a shame imo. But while his dark side gets a bit cooler (the Beast of Darkness, the armour), it’s still like… unambiguously negative. We’re not supposed to root for the part of him that wants to kill his friends.
Guts’ growth as a character is associated with making friends and not seeking revenge, Guts’ monstrousness is associated with going on a revenge rampage.
Anyway basically I think Berserk is more complex than a simple good vs evil revenge story. I think it’s very likely that Guts is going to backslide into revenge mode, losing himself to the armour and going after Griffith after some bad thing happens in Elfhelm, that’s like my major prediction for the future lol, but I don’t think it’s going to end with Guts self-assuredly “punishing” Griffith and living happily ever after.
Oh also there’s this:
Part of his decision to save Casca instead of keep seeking revenge is realizing he doesn’t really deserve revenge.
Like, I argue his whole Black Swordsman campaign was way less “righteously avenge the hawks and casca” and way more “I am upset so I am going to kill every monster I can find until I reach Griffith because swinging my sword makes me feel better.” And it’s an attitude he needs to grow out of.
Anyway aside from all that if anyone gets revenge and kills Griffith it should be Casca imo.
i’d like your thoughts on this please! i’d forgotten about this singular instance of guts clawing at his skin in the black swordsman arc. i have my own ideas, but i don’t have time to thoroughly analyze them right now with all the packing and moving—but basically—(and tumblr somehow didn’t save my previous wall of text about this) i’m assuming, that this is guts either/or/a bit of both;
1. guts dealing with his internalized grieving and rage, coupled with sleep deprivation, and even more sleep deprivation and rage driven by survivors guilt. not to mention all the tough guy posturing and denial of his true nature, he needs to stay angry. he wants to keep that anger burning at 1000% because anything less, i don’t think he’d be able to justify. his guilt is overwhelming. griffith does this for much the same reasons imo (compounded by his other awful reasons of course) … guilt over the fallen, while he/they remain/s “clean”/alive. lots of other parallels and reasons i’m sure too. maybe the physical pain feels better than the mental anguish, which guts clearly isn’t able to parse yet.
2. is it this particular scar though? the ellipses are definitely suggesting that looking at that scar triggers something within him. does anyone know what scar this is from, in particular? or could it just be a memory of seeing griffith’s own self-harm scars, giving him this idea even? miura might not have even written griffith’s self mutilation into the story yet though, who knows. maybe this is his way of showing characters dealing with trauma and ptsd in terrible ways.
if i weren’t in the middle of moving i’d look into it myself, but alas, i’m out of time. this scene is very intriguing, though. and please take my half baked analyses with a grain of salt, i often miss very basic stuff because i tend to hyper-focus on details rather than broad ideas … but i didn’t want to forget this.
Totally agree with #1. I think it’s partly guilt over the Eclipse (or whatever Miura was imagining this far back, but as early as Guts blatantly comparing himself to Vargas we know he lost loved ones), but also guilt over the people he gets killed just existing around them while ghosts show up to fuck with him every night lol, which we see in the 2nd chapter when he tells himself he doesn’t care what happens to the people he travels with, then they die and he’s sad.
Yk, he tells himself other people don’t matter because they’re weak (”If someone can’t live their life the way they please… they might as well die.”) but the self-harm is a v quick way of showing the audience that Guts doesn’t actually believe that, and he kinda hates himself for trying to convince himself of it.
Just like Griffith saying “I don’t feel responsible for my comrades who’ve lost their lives under my command. I guess… because they chose to fight. It’s just the way I am.” while he’s simultaneously tearing his arms open lol.
I think #2 is really interesting and something I never noticed actually. ihni where Guts got that scar, and since Miura never drew Griffith with si scars on his arm I doubt it’s actually a memory of Griffith, tho that concept is amazing and I’m about to just adopt it as headcanon regardless.
One thing that just occurred to me wrt that scar is that Guts looking at it before self harming over it ties Guts’ self harm to, yk, swinging his sword at giant monsters and groups of a hundred men. Miura maybe suggesting it’s all variations of self-harm? And foreshadowing Guts’ particular style of fighting, ie leap into danger, get his ass kicked, and maneuver himself close enough to exploit a big monster’s weakness.
Yeah I really feel like the Eclipse just, hugely cheapened just about everything that was interesting about Guts in the Black Swordsman arc by putting all the focus on a) how someone else’s pain affects Guts and b) like you said, the suggested emasculation of Guts watching someone else give his girlfriend an orgasm. And that might be seen as an uncharitable take on the scene lol but Casca’s arousal seriously is the central visual focus, and it’s what the rape scene builds up to, and it remains all about Guts’ feelings, and it’s so simultaneously offensive and just… cheap and boring.
It straight up mystifies me how Miura decided to add g*tsca for more Eclipse drama (ie the rape scene) and somehow didn’t realize that not only does the Eclipse not require any additional drama, but it overwrites the actual drama the Eclipse should’ve had as a personally traumatizing event to Guts. It’s just so frustrating lmao.
Wrt the fetus you can kind of tilt your head and still see it as a symbol for the futility of revenge – in hindsight now it’s more like a haunting reminder of Guts abandoning Casca – but it doesn’t work nearly as well because in the BS arc it’s visually depicted as a representation of like, Guts’ own inner demon – the pathetic monstrousness left when revenge consumes the rest of you.
So you have things like Guts’ nightmare where it’s chasing him which is echoed in his chapter 13 nightmare where it’s Donovan chasing him, and then echoed again in his vision after killing Adonis where it’s Zodd/Donovan/himself. How’s that supposed to work thematically if the fetus is a symbol of a relationship/his humanity lmao? Or the vision Guts had of the fetus with Vargas’ face?
And I mean I love the Beast of Darkness bc i’m easy for evil dark sides lol, but honestly the vibe the fetus had in the BS arc was better, because of that patheticness. It wasn’t cool, it wasn’t powerful, it was just sad, like the Vargas parallels.
Anyway ty for this ask and giving me an opportunity to complain some more, I’m glad you agree.
There are few things I love more than how the early chapters of the Golden Age reflect, build on, deepen, inform, and contrast the Black Swordsman arc.
yk what this is what Berserk is about. Like if I had to pick one image to encapsulate Berserk, this is what I’d go with.
The Black Swordsman arc builds up to a reveal that Guts’ revenge-y feelings are a giant mishmash that confuses tf out of Puck because this is how he used to feel about Griffith, and his original feelings for Griffith are still tangled up in his current feelings.
Like, kind of the point of the Black Swordsman arc is to start with this one dimensional portrayal of rage and then unravel and unravel that until all of Guts’ various issues are laid out.
These mixed feelings are the big reveal of the first arc. Our look into Guts’ childhood right after deepens our understanding of these mixed feelings, but it’s his feelings towards Griffith that wholly drive the plot, not his feelings towards Gambino. Then the entire Golden Age continues to deepen our understanding of Guts’ mixed feelings. Like pretty much the whole point of the story up until we pick back up with Guts in the Lost Children Arc is to illuminate the complexity of Guts’ feelings towards Griffith (and vice versa) now that they’re enemies. It’s to build that foundation.
And anyway I guess my point is that with all this attention and time devoted to these painfully mixed feelings, if the ultimate resolution of the story is Guts straight up dropping/moving on from those feelings rather than finally untangling and examining them, that will essentially be a deeply unsatisfying betrayal of the first hundred or so chapters.
But hey the ominous foreshadowing’s got my back at least.
yk what as much as i absolutely adore guts’ total lack of rage here, i feel like this is a huge writing mistake.
and not only because miura basically used guts’ resignation upon being sacrificed to try to narratively justify the eclipse rape as a way of actually pissing him off, but also because, frankly,griffith sacrificing him should send guts into a giant tailspin of rage and hurt.
it’s a very clear replay of his childhood trauma.
like while i think it’s not necessarily ooc for guts to feel sad and wistful after griffith makes the sacrifice, rather than heartbroken and rageful, I think a) it would be just as in character for the sacrifice itself to send Guts into Black Swordsman mode, esp with watching all his friends die horribly and b) it would be thematically tighter and fit with what we see of the Black Swordsman arc better if that had been the case.
As of like, chapter 12, we know everything we need to know to understand Guts during the Black Swordsman arc. He’s a walking bundle of trauma because someone he loved essentially handed him over to a hoard of monsters and ghosts, and that reminds Guts of Gambino both calling him a cursed child who should’ve died and selling him to Donovan.
And having Guts be not really all that upset over the sacrifice, but more upset over Femto’s petty demonstration of evil afterwards completely shifts the focus from Guts’ personal trauma and feelings of betrayal to manpain over his girlfriend’s trauma.
like this?
Is extremely good shit, especially after we see his childhood later.
Guts’ frantic denial after Griffith does make the sacrifice, as he’s trying to “save” him, is also perfect set up for this in the way it echoes Guts denying Donovan’s assertion that Gambino sold him. But then instead of giving way to rage and betrayal, Guts just… resigns himself.
The rage and betrayal could’ve even be put on hold until Femto appears. All we’d need to see to justify Guts shifting from regret and dull sadness to pure unadultrated rage and pain would be something akin to what we saw in the Black Swordsman arc – Femto coldly telling Guts he should be dead/he’s nothing but a sacrifice/he belongs to the apostles/something along those lines. Ie an echo of Gambino telling Guts he sold him before trying to kill him.
(and we could have femto sic the apostles on guts + guts survive just long enough for skull knight to show up. we don’t even have to lose femto failing to kill him as he escapes.)
Imo the sense that Guts is personally very fucked up by the fact that he’s once again been traded away by someone he loves, respects, and admires is lost after the Golden Age in favour of the sense that Guts is fucked up by losing someone he loves and gaining an evil demon antagonist in his place, with a side of being mad about Casca.
On the plus side we get the sense that part of his rage comes from just missing Griffith, and I can’t deny that I absolutely enjoy the fact that Guts isn’t angry at human Griffith, but is only angry at demon Griffith. The way Guts separates the different versions of Griffith in his mind and still feels love and regret and guilt and fondness etc for human Griffith is good shit and it’s hard for me to say I’d give that up for anything lol.
But I think it would still be better writing if he was directly angry about the sacrifice, and if his feelings of love and regret and guilt were all mixed together with rage and betrayal and all aimed at all three versions of Griffith. And despite everything I would ultimately rather have that + no Eclipse rape than what we got.
I love the Golden Age as a continuation of the Black Swordsman arc so much. Guts taken aback by Griffith’s interest in him when they first meet vs Guts absolutely fuming from Femto professing a lack of interest.
1. This is another one of my favourite expresions in Berserk tbh
2. I’m not saying this is deliberate, I’m not sure it would even be in character, but I can’t help but imagine this as Guts taunting Femto/Griffith about the fact that he was in love with him, his life was destroyed because of him, Guts drove him to make the sacrifice by leaving him, and Guts knows it.
Like yeah logically it’s just Guts being pissed off over the fact that Griffith sacrificed him to become a demon, especially with the follow up “thanks to me who’s fighting an army of the dead because of you,” but man, I’m js that knowing how the Golden Age goes gives this line potential Layers. You’re where you are now because this petty existence had all that power over you.
On the other hand this whole scene exists to set up Griffith making the sacrifice to bury his fragile heart bc of whatever went down w/ Guts, so like, it could be that deep?
Plus Femto’s response:
Just gonna reiterate that you mean absolutely nothing to me.
Whether that’s what Guts meant to say or not, I’m pretty sure he’s well aware of the irony of Femto emphasising his insignificance now, considering everything that went down between them. He might even stubbornly refuse to go back to post-Speech-to-Charlotte Guts, clinging to the fact that, no, I meant something to you and you meant something to me, and we both know that.
But then he would also have to know that it’s his fault that Griffith went this far. Which we know that he does, but idk, whenever I re-read the manga I feel like we should get to see more guilt from him.
Anyway, I don’t think Miura was fully taking all this into consideration while writing these first few chapters, but in retrospect you have to think about all the layers of meaning behind nearly every word Femto & Guts exchange. Like, this is off topic, but it’s in these chapters that Guts first finds out what sacrificing someone really means, and he doesn’t really react in any significant way, when realistically he should.
To be fair he’s unconscious when the Godhand actually explain the sacrifice and tell the Count that a sacrifice has to be someone you love so much it’s like they’re part of you. Which imo is kind of a hmmmm in and of itself, like there’s no reason Guts had to be unconscious at any point at all since he could barely move anyway, except to miss the explanation of who can be sacrificed. When he does wake up he just lies there and listens to the Count’s backstory before finally telling Puck to heal him. So I feel like it kind of suggests that Guts knowing that info might affect some things.
But otherwise yeah ia. I’m actually kind of rly into the idea of Guts stubbornly clinging to the knowledge that he was important to Griffith, hard earned as it was, now that you mention that. At least between the Eclipse and Griffith’s rebirth.
It’s like… idk I think there’s an argument that he left the Hawks because he knew he did mean something to Griffith, and that gave him the confidence to believe he could truly become his bff4ever if he changed his whole life lol. Whereas if he thought Griffith genuinely couldn’t give a shit about him he wouldn’t even try.
And then I think a similar way of thinking could be informing his behaviour during the Black Swordsman stuff. Like, I know I meant something to you, deny it all you want, I’m going to find you and force you to acknowledge me.
But after NGriff ditches him I think he kind of gives that up? Which is why he’s able to put his revenge thing on hold – it starts to feel futile when he genuinely believes NGriff feels nothing at all towards him. (Which is why that beating heart is a game changer in waiting js.)
idk lol I’m just thinking outloud.
And yeah like, it’s textual that he feels guilty for Griffith’s breakdown, from letting Casca stab him to:
But I do wish we saw more of that post-Eclipse other than the recurring moments when he thinks about Griffith kneeling in the snow and mopes lol. It kind of makes sense to me that we don’t see Guts feeling guilty after the Eclipse because I feel like the point of the Eclipse rape was to piss Guts off enough that he’d basically channel his guilt into rage, but I feel like we should still see more inner conflict. Not that we don’t see any, but yk, I always want more.
Ohhh, man, I remembered he got knocked out but I thought we didn’t get to see the exact moment when he came to … so I thought, you know, we don’t know exactly how much he’s heard?
But I went to check and this is him twitching awake after all the juicy details have been laid out:
Which is honestly even better than him hearing all that and not reacting.
He does get to hear these parts though:
I honestly like to interpret his expression here as loathing directed specifically @ the God Hand sans Griffith/Femto, for waltzing in and ruining everything lol.
And I agree with everything else you brought up! Like, Guts can actually be pretty confident and even cocky, so it’s not like he’s constantly putting himself down. He’s just a little naive, bless his heart.
I can’t WAIT for Neo-Griff to finally snap lol
It’s gotta happen. Even if Guts’ storyline is wall-to-wall disappointment I know in my soul NGriff’s is going somewhere good.
And yeah I’m sure the parallels aren’t lost on Guts lol, but i guess it’s not quite as direct as essentially saying ‘being able to sacrifice someone is proof that you love them.’ Also yeah I’m into that interpretation of his anger there, like imo he hates Femto on a personal level for being an evil version of the dude he loves, but he def hates the rest of the Godhand for facilitating it. His reaction when seeing Slan in the troll cave was even more overwhelmingly rage-y than when he saw NGriff on the Hill of Swords, eg.
so this is p much guts being terrified that he’s going to die because his ambition of getting revenge is too great, but i kind of also want to choose to read it as a behelit/griffith reference, calling the sacrifice a form of self destruction too. he did pick up the behelit before this and knowing his other major frame of reference for great ambition I feel like it works as at least an accidental reference to the Eclipse.
Thesis statement of this goddamn thesis: Guts is sexually attracted to Griffith.
Now, this is long. This is the shortest part of a four-part series, and this isn’t a short post. And basically my intention is to show why I find it so incredibly easy to read Guts as attracted to Griffith, and explain how this reading adds layers of meaning that fit neatly within Berserk’s themes and enrich the story. I’m not going to speculate on Miura’s motives for adding a ton of gay subtext, like, it could be anything from trying to be as gay as possible without pissing off his publishers to it all being totally coincidental and meaningless with an alternate explanation for every point I have, or anywhere in between.
My point is only that Berserk readily lends itself to gay readings, with a focus on Guts’ sexual attraction to Griffith (as I feel like it tends to be neglected in favour of interpretations that Griffith has a one-sided crush.)
Part one covers the Black Swordsman stuff and the way Guts and Griffith’s relationship is revealed to the audience, part two covers the first several chapters of the Golden Age with a focus on visuals and how Guts sees Griffith, part three tackles Casca’s role in the story, and part four is more of an overview on why I think reading Berserk through a gay lens works so well.
So here we go.
Part One – Our Introduction to the Concept of Guts and Griffith
We’re introduced to Guts and Griffith’s relationship near the end of the Black Swordsman arc. Before the appearance of the Godhand we know that Guts is really fucking angry, we know he’s monster slaying because he’s out for revenge, we know he’s looking for a group called “the Godhand,” and thanks to Puck spelling some stuff out we know that he’s also sad and deeply afraid that he’s fighting a losing battle.
The comparison to Vargas hints that maybe he lost some loved ones, plus an eye and a limb to an apostle which is close enough to the truth to be decent foreshadowing.
But it’s not until the Godhand show up as the Count’s about to die that we learn what’s really going on with Guts. The information is given to us surprisingly straightforwardly, and the way the information is revealed to us is pretty telling.
The first six chapters have been teasing the mystery of what happened to Guts to piss him off so much, from the way we kick off in media res, to hints about his issues and trauma (eg the aforementioned Vargas comparison, the way he lets the possessed corpse of the kid stab him, etc), to Puck directly asking what the hell happened to him outloud for the benefit of the audience. We start to get our answer in chapter 7.
The Godhand that Guts has been searching for shows up, Femto front and centre, and Guts’ rage is directed right at him. When Guts screams “Griffith!” at him we see Puck asking “Griffith? Who’s Griffith?”
My point with this is just to emphasize that the driving hook of the Black Swordsman arc is the build-up of the mystery and what makes Guts tick, the tension pretty much entirely coming from the audience wondering why Guts is so obsessed with revenge, and the reveal of the sacrifice is the climax of this arc.
And our example of a sacrifice, which we are explicitly told is also what happened between Guts and Griffith? A husband and wife.
In fact, the sacrifice that serves the main purpose of setting us up for Guts’ story is the only sacrifice of a romantic partner we ever see – the rest are all parent/child, weirdly abstract a la Eggman sacrificing “the world,” and ofc Guts and Griffith’s undefined, suggestive thing.
The details of this sequence make the parallels stand out even more.
First of all, before we learn much of anything, we see Guts’ reaction to Griffith/Femto. The rage we expect:
Guts taken aback and offended, which is less expected:
And then begging for attention when Femto turns away from him to address the matter at hand, which should definitely come as a surprise for a first time reader:
The audience is expecting rage and violence, and what we get is neediness. Guts, more than anything, wants Femto’s attention.
Guts is finally spurred into action when Femto directly says he doesn’t give a fuck:
(Something, btw, that Guts is still brooding about a chapter later lmao:
like, this arc couldn’t be more blatant about Guts wanting Griffith/Femto’s attention.)
But even now the focus is on the potential for more revealed backstory, not on Guts’ attempt at turning talk into action.
Throughout this arc the audience is lead to expect a dramatic, action-packed, and revealing confrontation between Guts and the object of his ire. By the time we get to the climax, Guts can barely stand, we discover the guy he’s mad at is a god he can’t even touch, and his feelings are a lot more complex and vulnerable than just rage and fear of failure. The focus is taken away from possible action and given to hints of backstory. When Guts is standing with sword in hand, advancing on Femto, these are the moments that pique our interest:
Guts makes a very impressive stand considering how fucked up his body is but he can’t even touch Femto before getting telekinesised against a wall. A fight is out of the question – Guts’ willpower, and what spurs him on and makes him fight through the pain, are what the audience is meant to be interested in.
After Guts is magically thrown against a wall we get more hints. The Count tries to offer Guts as an offering. Slan tells him, The boy is merely your enemy. As a sacrificial offering for the Invocation of Doom, not just any lump of flesh and blood will do. It must be someone important to you, part of your soul… someone so close to you that it’s almost like giving up a part of you.
Femto points at Theresia.
That should be more than enough, right? We’ve learned like, everything we need to know. Griffith/Femto is responsible for the brand of sacrifice on Guts’ neck, therefore he sacrificed Guts at some point, therefore they were close friends or maybe related, but Griffith betrayed Guts for demonic power, now Guts is real mad and Griffith has become a monster, as you do.
But we don’t stop there.
Now, in fairness, this does pad out the chapter and give us more build-up to the Count’s decision wrt Theresia. Miura obviously needed something to make the pacing work. And hey Ubik likes to fuck with potential sacrificers and make them feel like shit, so it makes sense for him to start telling everyone the Count’s backstory for funsies. But it’s here that the implications really ramp up, which tells us what the real point of this sad backstory is.
It’s during this story that Guts wakes up:
We get some pissed off reaction shots from him as they all watch the drama:
On the image of monster Count eating his wife:
And in the panels immediately following:
Here’s when Femto is most explicitly compared to the Count. That thoughtful over-the-shoulder look in reaction to Ubik’s words – The life of the person you loved the most and hated the most! – tells us everything we need to know. Especially since Femto’s been absent for the last few pages of Godhand reactions and this is our first image of him (aside from one long shot of the back of his head) since Ubik started telling the story, despite getting several reaction shots from the rest of the Godhand. This panel feels significant, and it exists to tell us that Ubik’s words fully apply to him as well.
And, while this is pretty obvious I’ll note it just in case, it’s only after Ubik’s story is over that Guts is like, “oh yeah,” and asks Puck to heal him so he can hold a sword, so those reaction shots are all about Guts reliving painful memories and not about his injuries or getting Puck’s attention.
Basically, the Count being told to sacrifice Theresia tells us what a sacrifice is and who it applies to, but the Count and his wife are our window into Guts and Griffith’s turbulent past, as we can clearly see by how they react to it, and how the narrative and visuals frame the story in relation to them.
And, if you already know the plot of Berserk, you should also be able to see some parallels here – “a family, the very picture of happiness.”
When it comes to infidelity, I actually don’t think that jealousy was Griffith’s main source of despair, but boy do these many panels of Griffith watching Guts and Casca and looking upset between the rescue and the Eclipse demonstrate that it was a factor. Eg:
Part of the point of the Count’s backstory is to show that it’s not lust for power that leads to someone making a sacrifice, or at least, not necessarily – the Count wanted to bury his human heart. He felt betrayed; his wife was the direct cause of his suicidal despair, and he was desperate to escape that despair.
As Guts was the direct cause of Griffith’s despair. The behelit only opens when Guts touches Griffith again – not after losing his dream, not after losing the use of his limbs or his tongue, not even after believing he was losing Guts again too – but the touch of Guts’ hand.
Guts eventually recognizes how Griffith’s feelings for him caused his despair as well.
All things considered, the Count’s sacrifice is certainly closer to Guts’ story than any other sacrifice we’ve seen, making it pretty fitting as our first introduction to Guts and Griffith’s epic love/hate relationship.
Plus as a bonus:
Griffith has been described as half of Guts as well in the same sacrificial context:
Just fyi.
This whole first arc has been building up to a climactic reveal about Guts’ past and the reason for his revenge quest, from pacing and emphasis to Puck, the audience expy, straightforwardly asking, “what happened between those two?” And the answer we’re given is that something similar to the Count’s backstory happened.
So now the apparent answer to Puck’s question is, “oh, well, I guess they were like in love, but then some shit went down, maybe Guts betrayed Griffith? Idk, Guts must’ve done something that made Griffith fall into pure despair and decide to sacrifice him to become a demon. So Guts is pissed off because Griffith branded him and now he has to fight ghosts all the time. Cool.“
And really, does anything in the following 344 chapters disabuse you of that notion? Sure it’s a lot more complex, there’s a lot of additional factors, but that’s the bare bones of it in a nutshell.
So then the next chapter opens on our very first glimpse of Guts and original flavour Griffith together. Early days, Guts is his 15 year old self pre 3 year flash forward. Still sullen lol. Griffith gives his keys that set the world in motion speech which, while illuminating thematically, is paced to set up this particular, emotionally revealing moment:
With the additional context of the parallel we’ve just seen between the Count and his wife, how does this come across? I mean come on, from Griffith’s side we have the statement that Guts stands alone as closer to him than anyone else has ever been, already – he’s the first and only person Griffith has ever felt comfortable voicing his internal thoughts to, his deep desire to know who he is at his core and what he’s capable of.
From Guts side we have “At that time he shone before me as something beautiful, noble, and larger than life.”
This reads as the beginning of a romance as far as I’m concerned, and not a one-sided one. Griffith’s quote tells us they have a uniquely close and emotionally intimate relationship, Guts’ quote tells us it’s a relationship that encompasses admiration/awe and thinking about how “beautiful” the other is.
The best illustration Miura came up with to introduce us to the nature of their epic love/hate relationship is a happy marriage broken by betrayal. And it’s not just because Griffith is in love with Guts (which hopefully we can all agree is fairly obvious), because, even beyond Guts’ neediness when confronted by Femto and the many suggestions of his complex not-just-rage emotions, I mean the first thing we see after 20 pages worth of that married couple parallel is Guts calling Griffith beautiful.
And boy do the first seventeen chapters of their relationship demonstrate that Guts is calling him beautiful for a reason.
This is interesting though. Since every major person in Guts life has at some point been ‘weak’ and in need of care which Guts has in reality always offered with enthusiasm.
Whether with Gambino, Shisu, Griffith or Casca
I seriously love this about Guts during the Black Swordsman and Conviction arcs, bc like, he is actually a natural caretaker and… yk offerer of comfort and help. It’s the very first act that defines him when he’s 3 years old and steps up to take Shizu’s hand. He genuinely has a pressing urge to help people in need, from overworked suicidal people to tortured ex bfs to parental figures to like, flowers.
And from the start Miura wasn’t trying to show a dude just letting his inner asshole shine through bc he’s had a bad time, he’s depicting a dude actively suppressing his own caring nature partly because anyone who gets close to him is probably going to die thanks to the brand, partly because it’s a distraction from his goal of revenge, and partly because he has some serious issues revolving around betrayal that got reawakened recently and he’s guarding his heart.
Like the second chapter when he decides whatever he’ll let this priest and this kid give him a ride and who gives a fuck what happens to them feels like a deliberate attempt on his part to Not Care About Them that totally fails.
And it’s why it’s so fitting that the very last thing he does in the Black Swordsman arc is instinctively save Theresia even after telling her to kill herself, and then cry about the fact that he just ruined this kid’s life and turned her into a proto-him.
Ooh actually to take that a step further, the hound is basically something he actively created himself, out of the darkest parts of his nature, as a form of self-protection. So it’s like, super fitting that it got transplanted into a living suit of armour.
yk i mentioned b4 that the first two arcs, black swordsman and golden age, feel like a complete story
big angry dude has serious issues, then we learn what caused those issues. if the story had ended after guts declared war on all demons or after he’d suited up to go a monster huntin, well, i would’ve desperately wanted more, but tbh i think it would’ve worked
the black swordsman arc shows us guts mirroring griffith in like a million ways: self harming, walking over people on his way to his goal and justifying it to himself, feeling guilty about that, being described as someone out of a story, being obsessed with a dream, being larger than life, and of course, he picks up a behelit.
the conclusion would’ve been foregone – guts would eventually use the behelit just like griffith did, and the whole story would basically be a depressing cycle effectively told out of order.
(to make it really work it could use some editing ofc. delete the random fetus, have casca die during the eclipse rather than be raped into insanity as a dangling plot point. get rid of the godhand saying guts isn’t ordained by fate and therefore can’t become one of them. add a significant shot of the behelit at the end of the black swordsman arc. but yk in broadstrokes this is a solid tragic narrative.)
Time to finally lay out my thoughts on these parallels and contrasts between Gambino, Griffith and Femto/NeoGriff.
Ok so starting with Human Golden Age 100% Certified Organic Griffith, even tho the parallels start off strong in the Black Swordsman arc, whatever, we’ll go chronologically.
Griffith is everything Gambino never was, but that Guts needed him to be. Dude has daddy issues, let’s be real here, and Griffith was a bigger, better, brighter Gambino who actually loved him. Who risked his life to save him and didn’t even have a reason. To Gambino he was p much only worth the money he brought in, but to Griffith he was worth risking his life for, for no reason or reward at all. Griffith in turn is similar to Gambino in that he’s a mercinary leader with a hold over Guts, but he’s otherwise superior in every way. More noble than Gambino in that he’s driven by ideals rather than money, has greater ambitions, greater skill, better manners, better morals, etc.
He was another person Guts respected, admired, and looked up to, and another person who Guts desperately wanted to have look at him, with some v explicit comparisons drawn by the manga:
After the Zodd debacle but before the Promrose Hall speech is a period of just about limitless potential for them. Guts accepts that Griffith loves him, or at least feels some kind of strong emotions for him – he recognizes the significance of the words “for your sake” here – and returns the sentiment by pledging his sword to him.
I don’t know if this is the answer I was searching for or not… but for now… For now I’ll wield my sword. For his sake.
Look at that – recalling the night he killed Gambino just before he pledges his sword to Griffith. Replacing one man with a new, vastly improved version.
This is also why the Promrose Hall speech hits him so hard, imo. Because for a brief period here Guts knew some extent of Griffith’s feelings, and the speech ripped that knowledge away and made him feel insignificant in Griffith’s eyes. We the audience know perfectly well that Griffith is head over heels regardless of the speech, but all Guts knows is he isn’t seen as Griffith’s friend/equal and he desperately wants to be. Because he needs him to be that better version of Gambino who actually loves him, not Gambino all over again.
Of course unlike Gambino, Guts’ perception of Griffith is based on a misconception, likely fueled and heightened by his own issues. Guts doesn’t get to see Griffith crash and burn when he leaves and then contemplate how brightly he shines within him, even compared to his castle, but we do.
Anyway so Guts inadvertantly breaks everything, fast forward a year and Griffith, like Gambino was for a time, is now disabled and dependant and really fucked up about it. Like Gambino he blames Guts, though unlike Gambino he still loves and almost immediately forgives Guts, and also unlike Gambino Griffith’s state actually is in part because of Guts (ofc you can’t blame Guts for Griffith’s own shitty decision-making, but you also can’t dismiss the fact that Guts leaving without explanation caused Griffith to have a breakdown lol). And, finally, like Gambino, this culminates in lashing out at Guts.
Gambino irrationally blames Guts for the death of his lover and all his bad luck since, Griffith blames Guts for making him fall in love with him (”only you made me forget my dream.”). Very different reasons, very similar result.
Now, and this isn’t a direct parallel imo but it’s one that I feel may be somewhat suggested, Guts blames himself for both Gambino’s death, and Griffith’s “death.”
Gambino was a terrible person who Guts killed accidentally in self defense, and he still has serious guilt issues because of it. When he has a flashback his panicky explanation to Casca ends with him crying and saying, “I’m sorry Gambino. Father…” Guts acknowledges and understands that Gambino betrayed him but that doesn’t make his feelings about him simple, and it doesn’t lessen his guilt.
I think this is also a large part of the reason Guts takes ages to stop hacking at Femto’s egg and trying to save Griffith after “I sacrifice.” Because he does blame himself. And even after he admits to himself that Griffith did betray him, this is how he looks back before leaving and fighting more monsters:
Anyway this brings me to Femto I guess.
In a way the Black Swordsman arc is a version of Guts’ missing years between Gambino and the Hawks: cursed and a bad omen, but now very literally because he draws evil spirits who kill people who get too close. “You should have died eleven years ago beneath your mother’s corpse!” = you should’ve died when you were sacrificed during the Eclipse.
Routine fighting to survive vs literally fighting every night to survive thanks to the brand.
Continuing on after killing Gambino vs continuing on after Griffith becomes Femto, with hints of survivor’s guilt all around, and strong visual comparisons:
But the real parallels are in how he responds to Femto.
Guts still craves acknowledgement.
His first reaction isn’t raaaagh I’ll kill you, that’s what he does after Femto dismisses him to focus on the issue at hand. His first reaction is hurt followed by, straight up, a need to be acknowledged. This scene starts with Guts basically fighting for attention, powering through his attack on Femto while the rest of the Godhand cheers him on until Femto knocks him into a wall and they move on to the Count’s backstory. Void even tries to get them back on track and then has his ‘…okay ANYWAY’ moment lmao (Enough of the sideshow.)
Same thing happens when he meets NeoGriff for the first time. His initial reaction isn’t to swing his sword at him, it’s to let Rickert hold him back while he pleads for him to acknowledge his betrayal (which, as this post points out, is similar to his morning confrontation with Gambino).
In fact, there’s a pretty interesting contrast drawn just in the Gambino
chapters – when Gambino lashes out and gives him the scar on the bridge
of Guts’ nose, he admits he might’ve been a dick and gives Guts
medicine for it. “Perhaps it was for no other reason than to soothe his
guilty conscience.” When Gambino sells him to Donovan, he doesn’t even acknowledge what he did let alone regret it, and even throws it in Guts’ face to hurt him a couple years later.
But this comes back after Guts’ flashback.
Despite just violently reliving the worst thing Gambino did to him, the last thing he thinks of is his seemingly contradictory mild kindness.
NeoGriffith never gives him the regret he wants him to feel either. But despite that:
My point is that Guts’ feelings are just as complex towards Femto/NeoGriffith as they are towards Gambino. He feels betrayal and rage, but also inadequacy, guilt, and a continuing desire to be looked at and acknowledged. He’s still driven by a v basic need to make Gambino proud – it transferred to Griffith during the Golden Age, and now it’s still there, complicating his hatred.
Which ties into the larger themes of Berserk, the good and evil in the heart of humanity. Gambino demonstrates this subtly – he’s a dick who shows just enough complexity and v mild compassion for Guts to crave more kindness from him. He’s very human in a very negative way. Griffith is the larger-than-life fantasy equivalent, who starts out as a positive version of Gambino – loves and is interested in Guts, behaves selflessly for him, is admirable in a fantasy-hero kind of way, etc – and literally transforms into a personification of evil, becoming a more heightened version of all the negative humanity in Gambino.
re-reading black swordsman stuff for my gambino/griffith comparison post and i just want to point this out with visuals this time. the sheer number of guts/griff parallels during this arc is ridic but this is my fave.
you're the only one 