Tag: arc: f

vague spoilers for the newest chapter, rambly not-really-theorizing

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I am just gonna pray that ‘for now’ is still in place and nothing’s been forgiven or forgotten and assuming things don’t proceed immediately to hell it’s gonna be Farnese supporting Casca emotionally rn while Guts stays tf out of it, and Farnese’s little statement about blowing Casca’s darkness away or whatever gives me hope for that.

ALSO

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I’m torn about this. Because on the one hand, I’d be inclined to guess that this is foreshadowing for a moment in which Guts will be under the threat of being consumed by the Beast of Darkness but will manage to overcome it because he’s grown as a person and his friends come through and save themselves or whatever. Potential for terrible things to happen, but with a different outcome this time.

But on the other hand Guts has never been properly taken over by the stupid Beast of Darkness and I feel like that’s something that has to happen at some point, and we’ve already had Eclipse-but-with-a-different-outcome-thanks-to-Guts’-companions back in the Conviction arc with Isidro saving Casca for him so either way it’s going to feel repetitive, so idfk.

I guess my biggest hope is that Casca’s trauma specifically re Guts and the Beast of Darkness isn’t forgotten, and the BoD remains a giant barrier between them preventing a happy romantic reunion, and I’m gonna cling to every scrap of ominous foreshadowing bc I need that hope.

(And ftr no I’m not hoping Casca is assaulted again or anything like that just in case anyone wants to read this in extremely bad faith, I’m hoping Casca resoundingly rejects him, or Guts like, doesn’t trust himself and leaves (in a way that doesn’t lead to this turning out to be a mistake w/ a tearful reunion near the end), or something else not completely terrible.)

Like I’m trying to think of what Miura would do with Casca, and the past g*tsca relationship knowing that the relationship wasn’t intended from the beginning and was never portrayed as a grand romance but rather just a hook up with potential and a reason for Guts to be angry, and Miura said he added it for the sake of Eclipse drama. Also knowing that Casca only survived the Eclipse so Guts would stay pissed off, and the whole Beast of Darkness issue. And then there’s that fetus too. So I honestly just don’t know, but I’m hoping it doesn’t add up to either a happily ever after for them, or the two of them resuming their relationship only for more tragedy to fuck them up, or a potential future relationship as a happily ever after reward hovering over my head for the rest of the fucking manga.

All I truly want is a nail in the guts/casca coffin asap, and then mb I can finally know peace.

I was really focused on some yikes parts of the fandom so through reading your metas I realized that Miura indeed isn’t trying to sell g*tsca, it’s obvious mutliple times like you’ve said that they are both substituting in GA, plus the sex chapter’s title is licking wounds (iirc? not that subtle). And even later on Guts is trying to make up for his past mistakes w Griffith (the snow scene). Anyway what do you think will happen after Elfheim? Will they remain in the same group or part ways?

I’m glad I made a convincing case lol, ty for reading 😀

Tbh I have a hard time coming up with a solid idea of what might happen. I guess I’m leaning towards the group, or most of the group depending on whether anyone dies or what Casca does when she wakes up, sticking together. It would feel too repetitive if everyone died again or left to do their own subplots and Guts was back to Black Swordsmaning alone imo. Like granted there’s a complication with the armour potentially taking over now, but even so there’s not a lot of drama or intrigue you can wring out of that. Guts is the Beast of Darkness, eventually someone brings him back to himself again, snore. Like unless that someone is Griffith i’m already bored by the idea bc we’ve seen it like 4 times already.

I could maybe see them parting ways temporarily for plot reasons, splitting up to accomplish different things, but I don’t think Farnese, Serpico, Casca, Schierke, Puck, or Isidro are going to be written out of the story anytime soon. I think they’re here til the end, or close to it.

I could easily see Magnifico, Roderick, the knight dude, and the mermaid dying or taking off though. They’ve all had way less development and time and energy spent on their narratives.

Though I also wouldn’t be surprised to be proven wrong, bc yk, anything
could happen when Casca gets her mind back and I’m prepared to be
surprised by whichever direction we end up going in.

Griffith marriage with Charlotte isn’t going to be a fairytale as he will like the other royals feel insulted him leading the Midland Royal army. There’s going to be fractions against Griffith maybe the Tudors, also Charlotte drying is possible isn’t he in a campaign who’s watching over Charlotte ? Charlotte might stand out and find out about Griffith she will notice Griffith changed personality he isn’t charming as he was before, and that guy that helped him kill the Queen might ruin his plans.

He’s not currently doing any campaigning, he defeated Ganeshka pretty easily and now all his work seems to be taking in refugees, expanding Falconia, performing miracles so ppl can say goodbye to their loved ones, and having tea with the pope or w/e.

I do wonder about people who would resent Griffith for not being noble – they might provide some conflict, though I doubt there’s much they could actually do. And tbh I think Foss is actually a genuine believer now, personally, and probably a somewhat terrified one, but he’d also be an interesting thread to pick up again. I really want to see more from the perspectives of people who knew original Griffith.

I feel like for most of them this is actually kind of a natural progression – we saw people talking back in the Golden Age about how he was like a painting, how he was like a fairytale hero, we saw admiring peasants, etc. He won the war despite all odds so to have him reappear and save Midland from Ganeshka’s army fits everyone’s preconceptions of him. But there could still be some interesting stuff to be explored.

Tbh I’d love for Charlotte to gradually start to realize how non-genuine Griffith’s affections are (though I don’t think that’s changed between being human and being a god lol) or maybe sense a certain coldness or emptiness from him. I doubt it would happen soon though, and it might not happen at all – Charlotte didn’t exactly know him very well as a human, she idealized him herself quite a bit and NeoGriffith’s image of perfection probably fits her expectations.

Idk what I’d love to see is like, suggestive conversations and little reminders that NeoGriffith isn’t quite the same as Original Griffith, and that he’s very singular and therefore very alone. We got Rickert, now I want more. Like let’s see Owen asking after Guts the way he asked Guts about Griffith. Or let’s see what Griffith does in his spare time, or what the nobles say about him and the rumours that he was a traitor a few years ago. I like outsider perspectives a lot and I think there’s a lot of good potential there.

I’ve been re-reading the last few chapters and I keep recalling Skull Knight’s words that Casca regaining her sanity might not be what she wishes. On the other hand we have a Guts who smiled, who enjoys having reliable comrades and has prioritized Casca over his revenge. Things are eerily calm in this group. The story’s focal point is Griffith/ Guts and the latter’s revenge, and seeing him calm rn makes me wonder what will occur to fuel his revenge. What do you think this event will be?

bthump:

Idk if this is a prediction or wishful thinking lol, but if I had to lay down a bet I think she’s going to wake up, have all the Eclipse related betrayal and despair and trauma hit her, and use the behelit, then go for revenge herself. I’ve been theorizing this for a while and tbh I haven’t come up with anything better yet so I’m still going with it.

My hopes for her getting a happy ending away from Guts are essentially zero, especially since reading in an interview that Miura only had her survive the Eclipse so Guts wouldn’t be able to fully move on.

And I’m assuming that Skull Knight’s warnings are going to come to something other than Casca being prickly for a while before hooking back up with Guts or w/e, then getting killed to make him want revenge again. Dramatic shudder.

So what I really want is for her to finally, finally react to what happened to her, and for that reaction to be epic as fuck.

 I also think it’s plausible because:

  • there’ve been a lot of ominous shots of the behelit recently
  • flora specifically suggested guts might be carrying it for someone else
  • guts revenge quest was bad for him partially because it wasn’t his right to avenge the hawks after abandoning them, but if anyone earned some vengeance it’s casca
  • griffith instinctively acted to save casca once, giving him a huge weakness against her
  • “What will she do if she does get her sanity back?” Just sounds so delightfully ominous and suggests Casca actively doing something Guts wouldn’t like.
  • guts’ revenge quest is played out imo, time for something new. also seeing casca decide to go full monster in her rage would probably fuck him up and wake up the beast of darkness, so it would still motivate him to do something
  • honestly there’s some great stuff with morality and apostles just waiting to be explored and seeing a beloved character turn into one would be really interesting
  • Casca’s strong, badass, and her anger manifests in violent lashing out making her a perfect candidate to take over the revenge stuff.
  • also more reasons i made a big list ages ago here

I think Guts hasn’t really given up on the idea of revenge yet – he was still fantasizing about going back after Griffith while on the boat – but it would be pretty anticlimatic if Casca just stuck around in Elfhelm to recover while Guts went “ok side quest over, back to the main quest now,” so I’m sure there’s going to be something more to it.

And I like the idea of Casca taking over the revenge quest and Guts maybe re-evaluating himself, his motives, etc, while fucked up once again because things went south and he did something with mostly good intentions and everything got all fucked up anyway.

Like tbh I think that the conflict as it’s set up now, ie revenge = bad, helping Casca = good, is much, much too simplistic for a story like Berserk. It’s boring lol, whether it ends up tragic and Guts backslides back into revenge, whether he continues doing the “right” thing and chooses Casca over it, it’s still black and white. In the Golden Age there were no easy right or wrong options – eg Guts thought he was doing the right thing by leaving, turned out to be a huge mistake that fucked everything up, and I really liked that. I think the current arc has the potential to be similar which would be great imo.

Guts isn’t helping Casca solely out of the goodness of his heart, he’s doing it because he wants the old Casca back despite misgivings and warnings that he might be going about it the wrong way – and he’s doing it to distract himself from revenge, and also from the fact that he’s not so gung-ho about revenge now that Griffith looks human again. Imo. It doesn’t have to be as simple as revenge = bad, magical therapy = good, and looking closely at Guts’ motivations makes me wonder and hope that, like the Golden Age, a seemingly positive choice could have negative consequences, and the secret actual right choice is dealing with your many issues, Guts, instead of running off for a dream, or revenge, or to “force” someone’s sanity back.

so if casca were to sacrifice someone with the Bad Egg who would it be???. farnese?.

@metalbutter​ that’s the going assumption but i have an extremely unlikely pipe dream that maybe she could sacrifice moonlight boy

it
would feel more symbolic of losing whatever romantic family potential
w/ guts there theoretically was, whereas sacrificing farnese just feels
like the only possible choice available and therefore not significant
enough on a narrative scale, since Guts can’t be sacrificed twice. plus
there’s this sequence of panels way back when:

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i mean that’s kind of ominous right?

plus apostles sacrifice some weird shit sometimes, like eggman sacrificing “the world.” a ghost kid doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch after that.

I saw Griffith haters saying that the whole world is in complete chaos because of the merging of the astral and physical worlds, forming Fantasia. What Griffith’s doing is essentially the equivalent to poisoning the water supply in people’s city and sold them clean water. He’s just “megalomaniac and faker”

Enh, to be fair some warlock dude in Elfhelm kinda suggested this.

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Though I definitely think this is just, like, his opinion, man.

I think we’re getting two sides to this whole Falconia thing, and we’re meant to draw our own conclusions. Like, yeah Griffith’s country is the only chill place now, which is shitty, but on the other hand it’s also 50x better than the world was even before he flooded it with monsters, and it seems that his plan is to keep expanding it into an inclusive empire.

It’s not that NeoGriff is a con man or w/e, forcing people to buy his world peace, it’s that flooding the world with monsters is the only way to make people stop being shitty and work together in a nice utopia that values equality over social status, and it’s up to the reader whether the ends justify the means or not.

Plus it’s worth noting that this is what humanity wants. The Conviction arc was largely dedicated to showing us how shitty the world is. Nobles torture and torment peasants, outcasts are miserable, the holy see sucks, the heathens suck, plague everywhere, people starving, pretty much everyone except the richies is unhappy. Griffith’s new world order is essentially a response to all the bullshit we see up close and personal in the Conviction arc, a world where outcasts are welcomed, people are valued for what they can do rather than what family they were born to, apostles no longer eat people, no inquisitions, no discrimination that we see – like it’s fitting that the prostitutes from the Conviction arc return in Falconia as tour guides/organizers.

Griffith, as “the desired” of humanity, presumably fulfills humanity’s desires. Of his own free will and for his own maybe shifty reasons, but free will and fate are not mutually exclusive in Berserk – people’s choices always play into fate’s hands. The Idea of Evil told him he’d either save or doom humanity by doing whatever the hell he wants. I kind of assume this means less saving/dooming the world and more a metaphysical Jesus-y saving/dooming people’s souls – or quite possibly saving humanity from themselves or dooming them to more of their own subconsciousness dicking with them. You know, either getting rid of the Idea of Evil by shaping humanity’s point of view, or dooming them to continue having their mass subconscious manifest in a malicious entity who controls fate.

That’s just a theory tho, we don’t really know what the Idea of Evil means afaik, and even if I’m right I have no idea if what NeoGriffith is doing is more likely to save or doom humanity lol. Or hell maybe he’s on the road to “dooming” humanity but, similar to how letting Guts go kicked off the series of events leading to his rebirth as NeoGriffith, something in his faulty, Guts-obsessed demon soul is going to cause him to do something unexpected and better/freeing for humanity. /more theorizing

ANYWAY all that said I actually fully expect Miura to come down more on Guts’ side, since he is the protagonist and all. Personally I’m into Falconia, I like the whole ‘can’t make a utopia without breaking a few eggs’ thing, but since Guts, on a more philosophical level, represents free will and raging against fate and struggling against your situation while Griffith more represents being saved by someone who comes along and makes your life easier (i think), and Berserk is all about The Struggle, I think there’s an undertone of it being better to suffer in an uncaring world than to have a happy easy life in a utopia.

Do you think there’s possibility for Miura to continue using Casca as a plot-device character between Guts and Griffith? I’m sure she will be healed but I’m not looking forward to the role she’s going to play. Miura seem to likes to pull more drama through Casca.

lol so this response is going to be kind of long because you made me want to talk about her story role and speculate a bit lol, so ty for sending this.

I think there’s a difference between having whatever Casca does when she gets her mind back further the relationship between Guts and Griffith, and having Casca function as solely a plot device for the sake of the Guts Griffith story.

By which I mean secondary characters should serve the central protagonist’s story, but they should do that while also having their own satisfying arcs that serve their own characters as well. So a well-written secondary character would have her own arc, her own issues, her own stuff to work through and her own reason and way of developing, and that could still shed light on the protagonist as a parallel, or foil, or simply by weaving their stories together and playing them off each other.

When Casca was an active character during the Golden Age, there were a lot of problems I had with her writing, but she did have her own story. It was a story about being obsessed with first one man and then another, and how much it sucks to be a woman surrounded by attempted rapists, and having emotional breakdowns, etc, so like, not a great story, but she had her own issues, she made mistakes based on those issues, she changed based on her experiences.

Eg when she and Guts slept together they were both using the other as a substitute for Griffith, so at least it wasn’t just Guts using Casca, they were using each other. (And I don’t mean using in a cruel way, just in a there’s-other-stuff-going-on-for-both-of-them-than-just-wanting-each-other kind of way.) That scene didn’t only further Guts’ internal story, it also furthered Casca’s. Ofc Guts’ story was furthered by working thru trauma and starting to recognize past mistakes while Casca’s was furthered by switching which dude she’s obsessed with, so like, still a shitty story for her, but c’est la berserk.

So yeah I don’t think her writing was that great during the Golden Age, but it cleared the bare minimum bar of giving her her own motivation and character arc at least, even though her own story was pretty weak compared her more blatant, main function of serving the relationship between Guts and Griffith.

Then after the Eclipse she became a complete plot device with absolutely no story of her own, only existing for Guts to play off of and project onto.

So I guess what I think is most likely to happen is that when Casca gets her mind back, she’s going to have her own motivations and goals again. She’s going to do something active, based on what she wants. But whatever it is she does is also going to further Guts and Griffith’s story, and lbr it’s still going to revolve around her relationships with the men. So hopefully she won’t be so much just a plot device, and her own choices, goals, actions, etc might even be stronger and more central to the plot than they were during the Golden Age, but Guts is still the protagonist so Casca’s story is sitll going to further his story and his relationship with Griffith.

My guess, based on where she was when she was traumatized to insanity, and where the story has gone since then, and where I think (hope lbr) the story goes, is that she’ll come back and be similar to where Guts was right after the Eclipse. In the last 200 or so chapters Guts grew, he worked at refocusing on his own emotional growth rather than revenge, he made friends, he chilled out, he’s in a much better place mentally than he was during the Black Swordsman arc.

But the story is still about the dark places trauma and desire for revenge take you. I think it would be interesting to shift the revenge theme to Casca. It would kick the plot into gear and make things happen because Casca would have a goal, this way we could bring Guts and Griffith’s narratives back together without having Guts’ development backslide into revenge obsession again, and it would make Casca an interesting foil to Guts – if she’s at the place he managed to work past, she’d be like a reflection of himself at his worst. Now Casca would be able to drive the plot, her goals would be the ones furthering the story, and Guts’ narrative would shift in focus from his own goals (revenge, fixing Casca) to reacting to Casca’s actions.

She would still serve the main story about Guts and Griffith by being the catalyst that brings them back together, by being a dark mirror to Guts, quite possibly by embodying the dark sexual undertone to revenge in a more blatant way than Guts did (bc lbr she’s always been the one to illuminate Guts’ desires by virtue of being a woman and making them hetero), and maybe by forcing Guts into making a choice between helping her and trying to stop her (either for her own sake or because he’s still ambivalent about killing Griffith or maybe both). But now she’d be serving the story by working towards her own goals based on her own experiences and her character, rather than by being a passive mindless object for Guts to interact with.

“What will she do if she does get her sanity back?” The fact that NeoGriffith instinctively saving her demonstrates a very strong disadvantage against her. The fact that the main characters all get to kill their own rapists/attempted rapists/abusers/etc. The way Guts decided he didn’t really have the right to avenge his comrades after abandoning the Band but you know who didn’t abandon the Band? The way revenge in Berserk isn’t always a bad thing, and it could be interesting to explore how it’s bad for Guts because he was basically using it as a form of self harm, but maybe for Casca it’s earned. The behelit which, if Casca is the one to use it, would open the door for more parallels between her and Griffith for Guts to play off of.

So I guess my overall answer to your question is that yeah, I think she’s still going to exist to further Guts’ story and relationship to Griffith, since that’s still the axel on which Berserk turns, but hopefully she’ll at least get to have some agency and motivation of her own while doing it, and if we’re really lucky her own internal story might be more important to the plot now than it was during the Golden Age.

But of course there’s always a horrifying chance that she’ll wake up and just be Guts’ love interest/narrative reward for moving beyond revenge, continuing to exist purely as an accessory to Guts rather than as herself, while something else moves the plot forward, but yk, prayer circle that that doesn’t happen. And like others have speculated with dread, there’s even a chance that she’ll join Griffith and make Guts return to rage and revenge in the worst possible way. I think it’s a tiny chance, like I really don’t expect that to happen, but you never know :/

(also the whole revenge speculation is just my preference bc i want casca to have the chance to get angry about what happened to her, and it seems plausible, but there are probably other routes for her story to go that would bring back her agency and have her affect the plot in satisfying ways.)

mastermistressofdesire:

bthump:

Also related to that last ask but my response was getting way too long so I’ll mention this separately:

I feel like part of my problem with the current lighter tone is that a lot of the darkness, specifically the emotional angst, of Berserk so far was based on the fact that all the main characters are traumatized and have shitty coping mechanisms. Guts Casca and Griffith sure, and also Farnese and Serpico (neglected throughout childhood and coped by burning people alive and terrorizing ppl, and abused by peers and Farnese + weird expectations from his mother and coped by becoming an unfeeling doormat). And none of them have really dealt with it?

Griff transformed into a monster so fine his story has a conclusion, and Casca’s is maybe coming to fruition soon, but Guts’ trauma just transferred from rape and abuse to feeling manpain about Casca’s trauma, which is a huge disservice to both characters if it’s never brought up again and dealt with.

And while Farnese is bettering herself we’ve never really seen her actual issues addressed, and her whole sadism burning ppl alive thing just kind of easily melted away in favour of a new helping someone philosophy. I wished for more internal conflict there, basically, and I hope it’s addressed in the future but for now it seems like a pretty abrupt change and a missed opportunity. And Serpico is still Serpico. He hasn’t changed a whole lot but his issues haven’t negatively impacted anything either.

In the Golden Age all the psychological baggage these characters had contributed to its absolute disaster of a climax. And I’d love, love to see that happen again, esp with Farnese and Serpico adding more shit to the pile, or I’d love to see their issues flare up but have them manage to overcome them now that they’ve grown in a happier, healthier contrast to the Golden Age.

But throughout the Millenium Empire arc all these issues the characters have never really affected them adversely. I’m hoping that now that we’re delving into Casca’s psyche things will start to snowball and we’ll see that these traumas haven’t just been forgotten but only put on hold for a while so this group can be happy and hopeful.

But for now I do miss reading about fucked up characters and the internal and external challenges posed by their issues.

The weird part is actually, that sometimes I think, objectively, the manga hasn’t become lighter since the Golden age. The Lost Children and Tower of Conviction arc were pretty fucked up and even now we’ve had troll rapes, the daka demons ripping out uterus es, people being eaten alive, a lot of really weird ass and perverted monstrosities.

But it’s simply that the fucked up Ness isn’t viscerally gripping anymore.

In the Golden age we we’re first introduced to characters, made to care about them by slowly revealing both their strengths and flaws and slowly, insidiously piling on the foreshadowing and layers of emotional as well as external fuckery.

It felt so dark because we cared about the people it was happening to.

In recent chapters the characters are introduced along with the ‘darkness’ bringing it forward as a part of their plotlines. Even Farnese was introduced as a sadistic pyromaniac first .
Along with the horror which was the heretic related prosecution.

And only much later were we given a glimpse into the character and learnt to retroactively care about her.

I mean ultimately that worked as far as characterisation is concerned. As in I definitely care about Farnese now.

But it does reduce the emotional impact of the should have been traumatic scenes.

These are really good points. I totally agree about the grimdarkness – like I care when the protagonist has a traumatic backstory and it leads to him making unfortunate decisions, I’m less affected emotionally when random npcs are being tortured in two-page spreads for shock value.

+ tbh i don’t think it’s necessarily a mistake to introduce Farnese’s dark side first and then reveal her better nature, bc I do like when writers make you love a former antagonist and I love that about Farnese, but it definitely adds to the differing tones.

And I mean it does make sense to reverse the Golden Age format this way – now instead of beloved characters going dark, we can have dark characters learning to be better. But it really boils down for me to feeling like it’s been too easy I guess. Guts made new friends and now his hound is on a leash and now it’s the Berserk armour’s fault when he tries to murder everyone. Farnese dropped the pyromania and became a protector. And yeah for Farnese it’s been an ongoing journey as she gets braver and more competent and learns new things, and I love that journey, but since deciding to join Guts she’s never had second thoughts or felt sadistic or masochistic urges and more internal conflict for her would’ve been sweet.

But again, that’s assuming that this Guts and Friends story has all been a journey of personal growth and a brighter future, and not just the calm before the storm. So we’ll have to wait and see.

Also related to that last ask but my response was getting way too long so I’ll mention this separately:

I feel like part of my problem with the current lighter tone is that a lot of the darkness, specifically the emotional angst, of Berserk so far was based on the fact that all the main characters are traumatized and have shitty coping mechanisms. Guts Casca and Griffith sure, and also Farnese and Serpico (neglected throughout childhood and coped by burning people alive and terrorizing ppl, and abused by peers and Farnese + weird expectations from his mother and coped by becoming an unfeeling doormat). And none of them have really dealt with it?

Griff transformed into a monster so fine his story has a conclusion, and Casca’s is maybe coming to fruition soon, but Guts’ trauma just transferred from rape and abuse to feeling manpain about Casca’s trauma, which is a huge disservice to both characters if it’s never brought up again and dealt with.

And while Farnese is bettering herself we’ve never really seen her actual issues addressed, and her whole sadism burning ppl alive thing just kind of easily melted away in favour of a new helping someone philosophy. I wished for more internal conflict there, basically, and I hope it’s addressed in the future but for now it seems like a pretty abrupt change and a missed opportunity. And Serpico is still Serpico. He hasn’t changed a whole lot but his issues haven’t negatively impacted anything either.

In the Golden Age all the psychological baggage these characters had contributed to its absolute disaster of a climax. And I’d love, love to see that happen again, esp with Farnese and Serpico adding more shit to the pile, or I’d love to see their issues flare up but have them manage to overcome them now that they’ve grown in a happier, healthier contrast to the Golden Age.

But throughout the Millenium Empire arc all these issues the characters have never really affected them adversely. I’m hoping that now that we’re delving into Casca’s psyche things will start to snowball and we’ll see that these traumas haven’t just been forgotten but only put on hold for a while so this group can be happy and hopeful.

But for now I do miss reading about fucked up characters and the internal and external challenges posed by their issues.

you think the torturers being outcasts collected by and devoted to mozgus is supposed to be a preview of neogriff’s apostles/war demons

tbh actually it makes sense bc it’s easy to view mozgus and neogriff as foils. like they both got that sinister angelic thing going on but their differences are more light-shedding than any similarities – the whole conviction rebirth arc was largely about outcasts and creating enemies out of other groups to strengthen your group (ie religion) while the point of falconia is to unite humanity with literal fantasy monsters as the enemy. mozgus’ outcasts tortured people, griffith’s save people. mozgus condemned most people, griffith accepts everyone. mozgus upheld the status quo and the way of the world (those with power trample those without) while griffith creates a world with a new status quo

and this is humanity’s deepest desire so it’s basically a direct response to mozgus and people like him dividing and conquering and demonizing outsiders and upholding nobility while making the lower classes suffer etc.

there’s a whole false god vs true saviour w/ divine right vibe i get from this comparison. and i mean the true saviour is still a largely cynical depiction since berserk is in part a criticism of religion, “god” included, but neogriff’s utopia is a lot less easy to denounce as fucked up and evil than mozgus’ inquisition thing.

Do you think Griffith felt offend when Rickert rejected him? Maybe a little shocked too. I think his desire to know Rickert motives of that slap because he wanted to understand *why*. But Rickert answer end up hurt his ego even more, I think. What’s your thoughts on that?

mastermistressofdesire:

I mean if this was human Griffith, Hell Yeah.

Neo-Griffith is honestly really hard for me to understand. Like what’s going on in that mind of his, it’s so difficult to tell.

I’m not really sure about offended because he didn’t seem angry to me just dissapointed and slightly deflated but I do think he was shocked, much like most of us didn’t see that slap coming.

However I don’t think that Rickert’s refusal came as a complete surprise to Griffith, he’d already considered the possibility, he’d already said “It’s possible you may hate me after knowing the truth…”

But it’s interesting that he didn’t say probable. That’s most probably Griffith’s personal desires warping the truth of the facts around him. Griffith wants to go back to that stage in his life when he had it all figured out, and the Band of the Hawk was by his side. He wants to think that Rickert may chose to join him because he Wants Rickert to join him. All his actions with the Neo Band of the Hawk reflect his desire. He’s trying to rebuild what he’s lost. But They are empty replacements, and so to have Rickert back , a real part of the past he’s trying to recreate is important to him.

It reminds me of two lines from the Manga which have been recurrent themes

“Don’t abandon what you can’t replace”

“Even if you painstakingly put something back together piece by piece it will never be the same.”

They were said with respect to Guts but I feel are highly applicable to Griffith right now too. And is I feel one of the many parallels between them that we get.

So in conclusion, yes the slap was definitely a harsh reality check for Griffith. Which is precisely why he’s playing it cool and saying it doesn’t matter. But yes he’s shaken and contemplative now.

When he first saw Rickert in Falconia, You could see the enthusiasm in Griffith’s body language. It was self delusional yes. But he dropped everything and practically ran to him. He’d obviously been looking forward to seeing him.

Also I think he’d taken it for granted that the fact that Rickert came at all meant he had already decided to accept. I mean most people don’t come all that way, braving monsters and climbing a million stairs just to deliver a well deserved slap.

He opens the conversation grandiosely,  many words and poetry. Exposition and greeting. He’s already expecting things to go up from here, they have been for sometime after all. Nothing has changed he wants to believe that. Then the refusal comes and all that comes out for the rest of the interaction is a muted ‘so it is’ because I think he’s coming to come to terms with the fact that truly? Everything has changed.


@bthump Because you always have the best neo-griffith thoughts. 🙂

oh my gooood i got to the bolded bit and started practically rubbing my hands together in glee at your insight. this whole answer is amazing.

The exploration of identity with NeoGriffith has the potential to be so so good. The way it does seem like he wants Rickert to join him because having a former Hawk accept the NeoBand would be a kind of validation that he needs on some level.

The way Rickert phrases his refusal is one of my favourite moments because of the emphasis he places on how it’s not his Band, and Griffith isn’t his Griffith, and the small differences between insignias matter. And all Griffith can do is passively agree. Now that you’ve drawn the comparison between the NeoBand and those significant lines about forcing back what was and abandoning irreplacable things I am dying to see where that leads even more.

Also it occurs to me that this is the first scene we see where NeoGriff is taken aback and not in control – the way Rickert slaps him, the way he has no response to Rickert’s speech – since the very first scene where his heart started beating and he saved Casca and went ‘wtf’ to himself. Add the fact that he apparently didn’t see the slap coming despite his magic powers of being essentially untouchable, and I think it’s a fair guess that his beating heart and surviving emotions are throwing him off his game again here. (Which incidentally is another solid sign that it’s not the fetus screwing with him bc i doubt very much the fetus gives a fuck about Rickert.)

ty for tagging me! I don’t think there was really much to add to your answer so this is mostly me nodding vigorously and flailing a little lol.

strangemonochromes:

Berserk (ベルセルク) // Kentaro Miura

lol i seriously love this

like a traditional narrative would have guts going on his fix casca sidequest, which is overall framed as A Good Thing, succeeding, and then getting a reward at the end in the form of a loving sane gf because he Did Good.

Berserk instead fills it with ominous foreshadowing because yeah Guts is growing as a person and trying to do good, but it’s not that simple. When he first chose Casca over Griffith he was a huge danger to her and he needed companions to mitigate that danger, and she’s still afraid of him. Guts’ motives are also in question – for one it’s suggested that he’s being selfish in trying to fix Casca because he’s not taking her needs into account (”That’s right, she went to pieces because she can’t fully cope with it. What will she do if she does get her sanity back?”), and for another, he was still planning to ditch Casca again right up until Griffith showed up and soundly rejected him, suggesting that part of his motivation for trying to move on from his obsession with Griffith is straight up spite.

Nothing in Berserk is ever simple and pure and uncomplicated. No motive, no goal, no relationship, no emotion.

Guts is overall doing a whole lot better than he was during the Black Swordsman revenge rampage fiasco. He’s made new friends, he’s subdued his inner beast for now, he’s maturing, etc. But the same was true of Guts during the Golden Age. I don’t think anything as bad as the Eclipse is going to go down, but the way Berserk rolls, you don’t get an A for Effort. Guts had a very noble goal when he chose to leave the Hawks, and it was still a mistake.

Guts has learned from his mistakes enough to recognize that friends are more important than stupid dreams and he’s embodying that lesson now, but I suspect there’s a new one waiting around the corner: not just ‘you can’t force back what was lost’ but ‘if you try anyway be prepared for the consequences.’