.137370

…huh

idk if i’m curious or scared lmao

sometimes i feel like people forget that guts griffith and casca were teens during the golden age. so when i see people condemn griffith for his pretentious speech to charlotte or guts for being over-sensitive and doubting about it or casca for being ~hormonal~ or w/e i’m just like “bro this is realistic. this is exactly how teens are”

lmao true, like they were all 18 or so when everything went down, it’s really no wonder that they’re so overdramatic

What do you think of ppl who say griffith has a god complex?

I think they don’t understand Griffith at all and probably willfully ignore a huge amount of his story.

A god complex is an unshakable belief characterized by consistently inflated feelings of personal ability, privilege, or infallibility.

I mean I’ve talked about my take on Griffith enough that I could collect it all into a book at this point lmao, but in essence no he is full of self loathing and guilt and exists by living in denial and trying to bury it.

He portrays an image of utter confidence and security, maintains it well enough that he buys his own con to an extent, but even that confident self-assured image isn’t god-complexy. His assessment of his own abilities is realistic. He knows he’s good, he has confidence in his abilities, but he also knows when he’s outclassed.

He doesn’t think by default he’s one of the people he believes are fated to change the world, he just hopes he is. He wants to see how far he can go, and not for the sake of being important, but in service to a greater goal which is fueled by disgust at the state of the world and his own sense of guilt.

He doesn’t have a falsely inflated perception of himself, if anything his self-image is much more negative than it should be.

You see any other mercenaries in Berserk who feel guilty for the enemy soldiers their underlings kill?

And like, eg, Griffith feels ashamed about assassinating people while Guts thinks he should be telling the rest of the Hawks all about it and has absolutely zero problem with burning a room full of nobles and royalty alive.

And as Casca lays out here

his confidence isn’t an ingrained personality trait, it’s something he manufactured and wears like armour, which is why sometimes it shatters and reveals the exact opposite – the guilt, the self-loathing, the insecurity – underneath.

Idk it seems like the same type of Berserk fan who calls Griffith a sociopath or a narcissist or a control freak or whatever. Like… no. That’s a wild misreading of his character, and honestly the story isn’t exactly subtle about his giant heap of issues that drive him so idk why so many people refuse to see it.

Like, re-read chapter 17 and this time look at the pictures of him self-harming too, bc that adds a little necessary context to statements like:

Like, this is so far from subtle that people just choose not to understand it lol.

(This isn’t directed at you anon, just yk, the fans you’re talking about.)

If absolutely everything flows in the currents of causality, then what’s the point in those who reside “outside of the story”? It’s true that the mock Eclipse literally mirrors the actual one, and also Skull Knight was awaited above Ganishka twice reincarnated, but then why would Griffith have ordained to kill Flora? Or why wouldn’t he ordain to kill Guts, who is trying (or was trying) to hunt down the God Hand? Or what’s the point in him surviving the Eclipse in the first place?

I feel like it’s true that Flora and other witches, and people with brands, and probably Skull Knight, can do things that causality/fate/whatever doesn’t like… expect. So not absolutely everything flows in the currents of causality, and they do still have the power to harm NGriff, so he took the offensive and killed a bunch first. But despite that most of their actions do still flow within causality, like they maybe have a small ability to defy fate, but it’s probably v rare that they do.

Cause I feel like we haven’t seen anyone defy fate yet.

Idk, maybe I’m overthinking it lol, but we know Guts and Casca were fated to survive the Eclipse, because they were instrumental in NGriff’s reincarnation into the world.

Flora and Skull Knight imply that Guts and co are still fating along, and meeting up with the rpg group and taking Casca to Elfhelm together is all part of it. Flora was probably playing into fate’s hands when she handed the Berserker armour to Guts. She has the ability to defy fate, but imo probably most things she does are still ordained by causality. Like I don’t think she’s tried to change anything.

The fact that they have a behelit also indicates that they’re within causality, because behelits work thru fate or whatever. They’re fated to have it right now, and the person who’s fated to use it is going to have it when it’s time.

Consequently, this also suggests that NGriff was fated to save Casca from falling rocks back at the Hill of Swords. Which suggests that his feelings are fated to exist, or at least the Casca-related, potentially fetus-driven ones lol. Jury’s out on his feelings for Guts. Tho if those feelings are still there because Guts survived the Eclipse, and Guts was fated to survive, then it stands to reason that they’re part of causality too.

The way I see it, everyone p much has free will, but everyone is shaped and moulded by circumstance (”encounters”) which is causality’s domain.

So, eg, Guts could’ve chosen not to leave the Hawks in theory. But causality ensured he was picked up by Shizu on the side of the road, that the nature of his childhood shaped him into a certain person, and that he overheard Griffith’s speech. And the person Guts’ childhood shaped him into is gonna decide to leave the Hawks under those circumstances.

So yk, everyone makes their choices based on organic real feelings and life circumstance, but fate’s still there pulling strings.

So Guts is still walking the road of causality leading somewhere quite possibly behelit-related, therefore Griffith couldn’t kill him. But the reason Griffith hasn’t killed him is Griffith’s feelings. His “commandment” from God was still “do what thou wilt.” He didn’t feel like killing Guts, and whatever Griffith feels like doing or not doing is the correct fate-ordained choice.

Like after all this shit about Guts being a step outside causality, I fully expect him to actually defy fate at some point. Or Casca, or maybe Schierke. Probably not Skull Knight, not because he can’t but bc I don’t feel like that’s his role in the story lol. Defying fate seems like it should be a significant moment for a protagonist, not a mysterious tertiary character.

Maybe even NGriff, tho idk. I feel like he might actually be like, extra beholden to fate.

Does this even make sense? lol this subject wrinkles my brain.

But yeah tl;dr I think that like, it’s not that witches, skull knight, and branded ppl are living their lives totally outside of causality and able to do whatever they want, it’s more that they maybe have a small ability to nudge things in a different direction, and we just haven’t seen that happen yet.

Ajsakshksj ok, so I’ve never watched the 2016 anime, just a few bits here and there, but I just found this gif -> zamasu(.)tumblr(.)com/post/146764760943 and I’m. Losing my goddamn mind at that crazed expression tortured griffith makes. It reminds me of that other one neo griffith makes in the 2nd op. Now I just want to watch the anime to see this if there are other instances of him acting like going light yagami

lmao what the hell, let’s add that gif to the ever growing list of reasons i’m glad i never bothered to watch the new anime.

it’s been years since i read berserk, so i don’t remember a lot of things, but uhm doesn’t guts sacrifice like 100 innocent people to save casca during the conviction arc??

ennnnnnnnnnnnh arguably like a city’s worth of people iirc lol. like, tens of thousands. of refugees.

it’s a bit of a stretch to say Guts sacrificed them, but essentially yeah if either he or Casca had died then all those tortured souls wouldn’t’ve been drawn out of the ether by their two brands, which is what destroyed everyone and allowed Griffith to resurrect himself into the world

Mozgus and the townspeople were trying to kill Guts and Casca during the climactic fight, not because they knew the ins and outs of how the brands worked but because they were like, blaming them for all the ghosty shit going on and trying to pacify god or whatever. Ironically they were completely on the right track, if for the wrong reasons, bc killing either of them would’ve saved everyone.

To be fair to Guts he didn’t know this. Puck kept this shit to himself.

On the other hand, his attitude when Mozgus is like, don’t you care that you’re trading thousands of lives for the life of one witch isn’t “I don’t believe you” but rather “i don’t give a shit, those people suck anyway” lmao

What’s kind of fucked up is that this is the narrative’s attitude too lol, like it 100% backs up Guts here. Luca even got her little statement at the end that
everyone who acted out of faith in a higher power died, while everyone who acted out of self-preservation managed to survive. Like the
narrative really did not give a shit about these people.

Forty Hawks? The most tragic of tragedies. Tens of thousands of refugees? Fuck em, they deserve it, they are the faceless violent masses. Nothin fucked up about that. (Even though both groups end up dying because they clung too hard to their faith in someone, so by Berserk’s own ridiculously cynical logic it serves everyone right.)

It is kind of weird tho, like I wouldn’t expect Guts to give a shit
about thousands of innocent people, but I would expect him to feel some
kind of way about his part in resurrecting Griffith. But the narrative
kind of just ignores that.

Also Skull Knight’s prophecy kind of muddies the waters a bit, because he says that man cannot divert the course of the festival or w/e, but like… if Guts had jumped off that tower and killed himself, festival over. If he was like, yeah good point, and broke Casca’s neck, festival over. Femto stuck in the astral plane. Thousands of people don’t die. So idk what that’s about. Maybe it’s meant to be ironic.

After all, the mock Eclipse is a reflection of the regular Eclipse. Guts and Casca both survived the regular Eclipse, and they’re meant to survive the mock Eclipse, because their presences there is what causes it. But Guts seems to believe that he’s defying fate by surviving, and it feels like the narrative is pushing that, even though logically it’s simply not the case.

Like, the mock Eclipse follows the actual Eclipse exactly even while we’re repeating the words “it doesn’t mean it will be exactly the same” and “maybe you’re like a fish breaching the water’s surface” over Isidro saving Casca and then Guts winning against Mozgus the first time (before he levels up with rocks). Guts is still on top of a giant hand focused on Griffith while someone else is saving Casca lmao. Guts and Casca both survive, just like they survived the first time. I have no idea what the story is going for here because everything played out perfectly to imitate the first Eclipse and resurrect Griffith.

So idk maybe the point is that Guts is a stubborn dumbass who is ironically playing into actual God’s (and Griffith’s) hands by defying Mozgus and maybe eventually we’ll revisit this?

Or maybe the conviction arc is so convoluted and weird that even Miura couldn’t keep track of what he was trying to say with it lol.

this probably won’t lead anywhere deep but do you have any thoughts on griffiths reaction when guts asks him if he’s gay?

this is absolutely me projecting my own interp of griff but i feel like this reaction is an “i get asked this way too often and it bothers me bc i don’t want to have to answer it/bc i’m p sure i know the answer and i’m trying not to think about it”

tho to be more fun I could also see “shit was i that obvious?”

or “oh no, he’s straight.” (luckily he’s wrong)

also his reaction in the ova is more along the lines of “yes, dumbass.” or actually i think guts’ q there was ‘in what way’ so it could also be like, giggling when the hot person asks if you like them but playing it off bc you don’t want them to know you like them. I mean they are basically awkward teenagers lol.

and i guess on a more meta level i can say that the fact that griffith doesn’t answer is like, so telling. i have no idea what miura wanted me to think here if he didn’t want me to think griffith was gay. he could’ve easily had griffith say something like ‘no’ or ‘don’t be ridiculous i’m talking about your fighting’ or whatever. or, yknow, not brought up the question at all lol.

Like ok in response to that one ask yesterday I talked about how Guts is projecting his trauma here a bit, so in theory that’s why it’s brought up and why Griff couldn’t immediately shut him down, but honestly – it’s immensely unnecessary. Guts changes his tune immediately after losing lol and they become mutually pining bffs like a week later. As set-up to make Griffith seem more threatening before switching to portraying him as a good guy, it’s unnecessary bc we’ve already seen femto, he’s already imbued with a lingering senese of threat from the bs arc. Plus, yk, it’s homophobic and annoying, playing into that predatory gay shit.

There’s got to be more to it than that, or it’s like, plain old shitty writing. So that’s why it’s also an early indicator of the true nature of their relationship, and neatly foreshadows how trauma makes it impossible for them to see it. Because that takes it from bad writing to good, layered writing.

idk what miura intended but i like Good Berserk so idc.

idk if you’re interested in getting into anything new, but i feel like you’d really like this show called Black Sails. It’s basically a period drama about pirates, and since you like complex, morally grey characters (which black sails is chock full of), you might dig it.

You’re very correct, I’ve actually seen Black Sails and I loved it. Flint is probably one of my favourite protags ngl. spoilers bc i kind of just want to gush about it now lol.

It was so refreshing to see someone declare violent bloody war on the oppressive system and be portrayed as p much morally correct lol. “This ends when I grant them my forgiveness, not the other way around,” is like, one of my favourite lines. The ending was a little disappointing but it was also portrayed as bittersweet rather than happy – like we were meant to be sad that Madi didn’t get her war! it was great! so I was pretty satisfied with it overall.

Also solid ship content. Max/Anne and Max/Eleanor are both great, v interesting and complex ships, and both Flint/Thomas and Flint/Silver have their appeal. (Also Flint/Vane. You can’t tell me they weren’t enemies with benefits.)

And you just can’t beat setting up a protagonist as a mysterious dude, seriously driven by something but teasing the audience about what exactly motivates him to be so hardcore and incredibly awesome, only for the surprise reveal to be that he’s gay and motivated entirely by the loss of his relationship w/ a dude (which then turns out to be surprise endgame! truly unkillable gays and unbury your gays are the best tropes).

I mean the first half of season 3 had me a little with the focus on Miranda, but then season 4 got back on track w/ revolving around Thomas and I was ok w/ it.

Plus a lot of awesome also complex and interesting secondary characters, and a fast paced engaging plot, and a fun real world/treasure island mashup, that whole monster vs man theme which i always love w/ flint vs mcgraw (team flint tho, like one of my favourite moments of the series was the end of season 2 when he leveled that town), 2/3 endgame ships being gay, idk it was just solidly enjoyable. ty for bringing it up!

Taking a break from the relatively serious questions to ask if there’s just something so funny imagining the Serpico/Apostle thing playing out in an AU? Like just visualize Guts rubbing this new blonde pretty boy twink who can fight, cook, and clean in Griffith’s face while Griffith’s trying to show off like freaking two Shreks, a dementor from Harry Potter, Tommy Wiseau, and Irvine.

lmao irl

idk if this is funnier in actual berserk or a modern au but either way i’m dying. poor griffith. he’s lucky guts has low self esteem and would be incredibly jealous anyway

I remember you being asked if you read ASOIAF/watch GOT since the series has some similarities to Berserk, and you saying no, and honestly I’m curious to know who your favorite characters/relationships would be if you got into it (I’m reading books again, that’s why I’m sending this)

I’m sorry but I really don’t have much of a clue lol, I’m very out of the ASOIAF loop. Maybe Brienne and Arya? They’re the sword women (well Arya’s a kid but w/e) right? Also idr any specifics beyond somewhat villainous with interesting fatal flaws of some sort lol, but I have this vague idea that I’d like Cersei maybe.

But yeah all I have to go on is tiny bits of fandom osmosis lol. It’s not likely I’ll ever actually get into it, but in the off chance I do I’ll revisit this. Ty for your interest anyway even tho I have to disappoint.

Anyway now I’m curious, who are your favourite characters/relationships in the series?

Thank you for answering and yeah by cruelty I did mean the eclipse rape. Apart from that I actually love that little we’ve seen of femto tbh. And yeah you totally have a point about miura using sexual violence as part of people inner’s darkness in general not just with griffith. Which makes me wonder why fandom fixates on him in particular but always excuses guts’ sexually assaulting casca and daydreaming about raping and killing her, drools over slan and possessed farnese coming on to guts 1/2

costantly jokes about the eclipse rape itself potato casca donovan rape
horse and all the other sexual violence in the manga dismisses
griffith’s own sexual trauma and generally refuse to hold miura
accountable for its depiction of sexual violence on women. Smh 2/2

np thanks for the ask! And yeah I completely agree. So many people in this fandom will say, call Griffith fans rape apologists in one breath and then turn around and make rape jokes or sing Miura’s praises or excuse Guts or insist Griffith wasn’t victimized by Gennon or etc etc in the next and it’s very telling ngl. It’s really not that they (the fans who tend to make rape jokes and excuse other instances of assault specifically) give a fuck about the Eclipse rape, it’s that they were itching for their hatred of Griffith to be justified lbr.

what do you think of the rapey undertones in griffith and guts’ first duel, griffith’s sketchy sex scene with charlotte, and griffith throwing himself on casca in that wagon, as a whole? i mean, do you think they’re hints of the eclipse rape and griffith having issues with the concept of consent in general?

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:

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?

And here’s an explanation of the wagon scene.

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.

I just finished rereading the golden age and man I still have trouble reconciling griffith with femto. Bc like yeah femto is obv not the same as griffith he’s griffith filled with evilness but he still displays human emotions. Like his obsession and anger towards guts his jealousy towards casca seemingly residual tender feelings for guts what with him not killing guts at the end of the eclipse and more. He’s like griffith’s dark side personified and I have a hard time believing that griffith 2/2

2/2 could harbor such cruelty inside. It makes me question my reading of his character sometimes tbh

lol finally got it, ty for trying again!

and yeah I think I get what you mean.

Partly what I do is just kind of like… take the rape as read? Like fine, Miura is of the belief that people’s inner darkness comes out through sexual violence 90% of the time. We see that in Griff, Guts, most apostles, Slan, and even Farnese. It’s something he wants to like… “explore” is a very generous word lol, but let’s go with that, explore as a more generalized statement on humanity, rather than as an individual judgement on any of these characters.

I don’t want to go through the scene and find the panel lol, but Slan even gets that line during the Eclipse rape, “this is what it means to be evil. This is what it means to be human.” Or something along those lines. Miura just like, chose rape as his central illustration of the worst aspects of humanity. So it’s not really the particular cruelty Griffith harbours in him, but rather the cruelty all of humanity does.

So I just kind of nod along lol, even while I think it’s gratuitous and poorly done most of the time. It’s sort of built into the fabric of the story unfortunately.

On a characterization level… enh.

I guess I can sort of reconcile it as long as I have that authorially-provided nudge of “evil = rape by default” lol. If I just accept that and go along with it, then yeah ok, Griffith turns into a demon filled with all of humanity’s evil, and expresses his negative emotions by spitefully raping Casca. Fine, whatever. That’s what humans in Miura’s Berserk do when they become monsters.

And I mean I do think that Griffith has some cruelty in him, so there may also be a difference in how we see his character too. It’s not really a big stretch for me to believe that an evil demon version of Griffith would want to spitefully lash out at Guts and even Casca, because human Griffith’s feelings towards them were pretty complicated – well complicated wrt Guts, we didn’t really get any insight into his feelings towards Casca other than a sense of fondness + protectiveness and some jealousy at the end, and maybe some resentment at the thought of her taking care of him.

Like, it’s enough for me to believe that the evil demon version would want them to suffer.

I could definitely see a part of Griffith enjoying the fuck out of being able to say this to Guts. The part that resented him for how much he loved him, that tried to strangle him in the torture chamber. Even just the part of him that frowned for a second when Guts asked why he risked his life to save him from Zodd. It’s just that as a human that part is swallowed up by overwhelming love and yk, generally being an actually good person who doesn’t want to hurt people, but ends up doing it a lot anyway and burying the guilt.

(And I will argue forever that human Griffith is pretty much the most morally upstanding character in Berserk by most standards lmao, which is part of what makes his narrative through “I sacrifice” so good.)

Anyway yeah, idk basically I think I get what you’re saying and I half agree but also I find it fairly easy to just kind of roll with it because Berserk’s gonna Berserk lol. Like, take Griffith, magically enhance this part of him:

remove/freeze this part:

and have him written by a dude who thinks rape is the best way to illustrate the darkness of humanity, and I can see how Griffith could become Femto. His lingering feelings for Guts could be enough to make him hesitate to kill him, but not so much that he doesn’t want him to suffer. Also I kind of assume that Femto retains some feelings for Guts because Guts survived the sacrifice, but that doesn’t mean he has lingering morals or anything like that. So I can kind of reconcile him wanting to hurt Guts in his Evil Demon In Berserk way, but also failing to follow through and kill him.

Like imo it’s Griffith’s Guts related irrationality coming back to fuck him up lol, rather than guilt or morality.

Idk does this make sense/address what you’re saying? I focused mainly on the eclipse rape because that’s what I jump to when talking about Griffith as a human vs Femto’s evil lol, hopefully that’s also what you meant.

I resent you the first part hope you got it!!

damn, I didn’t 😦

there must be something in it that makes tumblr refuse to send it. like a link maybe? or ellipses apparently may also prevent it from sending lmao because tumblr is ridic. or emoticons or special characters or no spaces between sentences.

2/2 could harbor such cruelty inside. It makes me question my reading of his character sometimes tbh

oh no, I didn’t get the first part of this ask. Is there any way you can resend it?

eta also i just checked reasons an ask might not send bc honestly i’m curious about why tumblr sucks lol, and it says this as reasons an ask might’ve not sent:

The ask included links, paragraph breaks, special characters, emoticons, or ellipses, or didn’t have spaces between sentences.

which sounds like a ridic set of restrictions to me but there you go, maybe one of those is why i didn’t get it.

What are the scenes in the manga that you hate the most?

i was kind of sitting on this waiting for the next time i felt the urge to complain lol, but honestly i’ve been pretty chill recently and not in the mood to dwell on negativity so this is more just a list rather than the long rant it could’ve been

so idk, the usual suspects mostly. the eclipse rape, casca’s half of the hundred man fight scene (both bc the rape attempt and bc it takes up so much fucking time in the anime), the wyald rape attempt, the possessed horse rape attempt, guts assaulting casca (with the caveat that while the eclipse rape exists i actually prefer to have that scene as well, bc it’s like, fine okay everyone’s evil inner darkness is rapey, whatever. its existence makes it extra easy to roll my eyes at the writing as a whole, basically, and i appreciate that)

then you have the boring category of scenes, like the overlong troll fight, the overlong beach fight, and the sea god dear lord. your annoying comedy scenes like every scene featuring any combination of isidro, puck, ivalera, and/or magnifico (Puck is exempted when it’s just him and Guts, otherwise he’s on thin ice). every appearance of the moonlight boy saving guts from himself, but especially the first one with the family imagery. basically any g*tsca teasing especially since guts assaulted her. I think it’s going to end in tragedy, but regardless the story should not be encouraging the reader to want them to get back together, it’s awful, but there you go.

finally there’s your occasional worryingly fanservice-y moments featuring underaged characters, which are my most hated because they are the only scenes that make me question whether i should be hyping this story from a moral standpoint. but i p much just split the difference by not spending any money on the franchise and otherwise try not to think about it, frankly.

I’m not asking you because I disagree with you rather you have a good point that fans from both sides(you know which “sides” I’m talking about) belive it to be true. Just what is it about the Berserk manga that makes it necessarily “unadaptable”? Is it the subtext that producers consistently dodge? Is it the themes that didn’t age well with the times(like rape every goddamn panel). Or is it something else?

Hm I’m not sure what post you’re referring to, but I do think that like… idk if Berserk is entirely unadaptable (did I say that somewhere? genuine q because I very well may have but I don’t remember lol), but each adaption definitely does a good job of fucking up certain aspects, and any adaption I’d like is probably an adaption most fans would hate lol, I think it would be impossible to please everyone.

Also like, a straight adaption is only going to be as good as the source, so you’d be stuck with pretty immense flaws – like the Eclipse rape is a major one. You can maybe improve it slightly

(eg I think the 3rd ova added a nice touch when they gave Casca a perspective shot of Femto that called back to her flashback of being sexually assaulted by the nobleman. It was a good way of grounding the audience in Casca’s point of view for a moment instead of purely objectifying her and illustrating what the assault means for Casca in a way the manga entirely failed to do. Then of course the ova immediately ruined that by making the scene super long, objectifying Casca anyway, and adding that ridiculous soundtrack, but welp)

but ultimately you’re still stuck with the worst example of fridging a female character for the sake of manpain I’ve ever seen. You can’t get rid of that fridging either because like half of Berserk is about Guts rescuing Casca and taking her to Elfhelm. Casca being a non-entity is fundamental to the plot.

But if you do start really changing the story you’re going to piss fans off.

Also yeah I think that like… the subtext makes adapting the story extra difficult, and I don’t just mean the gay subtext (to be fair the ovas embraced it to an extent) though that’s def part of it, but the fact that Berserk is actually a pretty subtle story in a lot of ways. Like the reason I was able to write 15k words basically just explaining my understanding of Griffith’s narrative lol is because 90% of his story is actually subtext, and again not just gay subtext. The fact that he’s driven by guilt is technically subtext, the reason he becomes emotionally dependent on Guts is subtext, the reason he’s obsessed with his dream is subtext, how he wants to change the world is subtext, the reason he has a breakdown when Guts leaves is subtext, his self-loathing is subtext, the reason he makes the sacrifice is subtext, etc etc.

It makes for a very engaging and rich story and it’s the reason I’ve had so much fun picking it apart for ages, but it also means there are going to be differing interpretations of it, even when the subtext is really really obvious. Like it’s very clear to me that the people who adapted the 97 anime didn’t really understand some of the story lol, even while they were adapting it nearly shot for shot most of the time, and you can see that lack of understanding in mistakes like turning Griffith’s scratch marks into a giant scar in the scene after he sleeps with Charlotte. They went with what the image looks like at first glance in the manga without giving any thought to whether it actually makes sense or means anything.

so differing interpretations of the story are def going to mean that an adaption can’t please everyone because like… even if you’re as true to the source material as humanly possible, you have to make choices when you’re filming it, from directing voice actors to music cues to how long to linger on a shot to the tone evoked by a colour palette, to just interpreting what we’re seeing in a panel, etc. Your own understanding of the source is always going to shine through.

another good example is the way the anime adds guts’ theme to the scene where he asks casca to leave with him. the manga’s tone was surprisingly casual and bordered on ominous with the way it immediately transitioned to snake man and the behelit making their ways to the scene of the eclipse. but the anime’s music choice turns it into a signficant moment of character growth and uncomplicated romance. But then if I adapted it and added the underlying sense of ominousness and highlighted Guts’ non-committal phrasing and his general attitude as negative, that would frustrate a lot of fans.

Anyway all that said, I don’t think it’s unadaptable because ngl I can envision an adaption I’d personally love, but it’s definitely impossible to make an adaption that every fan would agree is great, probably moreso for Berserk than most stories. The 97 anime comes closest, but even the acclaim it gets is hardly universal.

ok but imagine Black Swordsman Casca AU with possessed Farnese trying to seduce her

oh believe me I have

(god black swordsman casca/farnese is peak. farnese all fucked up by religion and weird sadomasochistic self-loathing and black and white thinking and casca super cynical and instantly done with farnese’s spoiled rich kid thing. their meet-cute is farnese capturing casca followed by this possession scene. like ugh it could be so good and complex and hot.)

also check out the best edit ever:

https://farnesca.tumblr.com/post/165907944023/remember-that-casca-as-protagonist-au-i-sure-do

are your going to read the flame dragon knight novel translation that dark horse is going to release? also i read that they’re going to announce a new berserk project on the same day volume 40 comes out (28th september), what do you think it’s going to be?

yeah i plan to. everything i’ve heard about it makes it actually sound pretty good tbh, like it seems like it incorporates a lot of the kinds of things i enjoy in berserk. and making an apostle the protagonist of a spinoff story is an a+ concept in general.

but i haven’t heard anything about that announcement so i have no idea. I don’t really keep up with berserk related news lol, but hey if anyone else has an idea plz chime in.

yo anon who just sent that ask 10 minutes ago, send it unanon and i’ll answer privately but honestly the last thing i want is to host a discussion on the subject so i’d rather not answer publically

I feel like the reason y Miura refuses 2 verbally acknowledge the shounen ai elements in Berserk is because he knew he wouldn’t reach the same audience he did by ignoring his mangas gayness. I just hope he would at least make it canon in the final chapter. By then he would have nothing to lose. The manga would be done, he already made money off of it, so y not just acknowledge it. Even if it turns out it was platonic it would still count as a shounen ai for the intense bromance feelings going on

yeah like people like to believe that if there are no official rules or laws in place re: censorship then it doesn’t happen, but that’s an incredibly stupid assumption lol, and i’m constantly surprised by how often i see it in arguments about subtext, queerbaiting, etc. behind the scenes of the publishing (or film or tv) industry, everywhere, there are a ton of forces at work that make it more difficult for gay content to exist than straight content.

like gay subtext is a time honoured tradition that straight people are more than practiced at ignoring, gay text is another story entirely. ihni what miura’s actual intent is, but it’s like, certainly possible that he intended for the subtext to be picked up on and incorporated into ppl’s readings of the relationship, but will never acknowledge it, at least not til the story’s long over, bc to do so would be a risk. It would hardly be the first time in media history that’s happened lol.

i mean honestly i’d never bet on griffguts becoming textually canon, even when the story’s about to end, and miura certainly hasn’t earned any benefit of the doubt from me, like i’m not going to believe he’s behind the scenes arguing with his publishers to include non-predatory gay text lmao. but hey it seems like it might be getting to be a little easier to canonize subtext these days at least, and you never know what the future will bring. maybe it’s enough to keep a little spark of hope alive.

at the very least i could easily see the strong subtext coming back with a vengeance the next time their narratives intersect.

hey. have you ever read/watched devilman? I’ve watched devilman crybaby recently and I couldn’t stop thinking about berserk. probably because berserk was inspired by devilman. and I couldn’t stop thinking about griffith and guts and their relationship so I searched and I found your tumblr and your amazing meta. and I’m starting to ship griff and guts. I really can’t stop imagining griffith confessing to guts in the end of berserk like ryo confessing to akira in the last episode of deviman.

Yeah I like Devilman a lot tbh, I’ve seen the first two ovas, crybaby, and read the manga, the sequel, and a few spinoffs. You can definitely see a lot of inspiration for griffguts in ryokira lol, and I love both ships so it’s cool to see ppl checking out one because of the other.

Also yeah honestly a devilmanesque ending for berserk (yk with the whole passionate breakdown) would be so good, I’m with you there.

Yk it’s kinda funny how much guts fanboys hate griffith. You can’t even mention him in a casual/joking manner or post a nice picture of him that they have to comment how much they hate him. There’s something desperate in the way they try to paint him as an utterly evil psycopath and guts has having nothing but hatred for him despite all evidence to the contrary. Also they seem to get off the idea of guts killing griffith (smth they have in common w/ guts at least lmao). Theyre just stupid funny

Honestly I really don’t get it. When I hate a character I just like, don’t reblog stuff about them just to say ‘i want them to die’ or w/e. You’ll notice there’s not a whole lot of isidro content on my blog for instance lol. like I don’t reblog pics of him to say he sucks, and the urge other people have to do that w/ Griffith is honestly bizarre to me. I mean if you hate him because of the Eclipse rape, then… why do you want pictures and fanart of him on your blog.

I feel like for some people at least it’s due to fear that other people are going to treat them the way they treat Griffith fans lol and call them out if they don’t pre-emptively mention how much they really truly hate him every time his name comes up.

Also maybe sometimes there’s an aspect of like, genuine concern over how Miura has been depicting him as the protagonist of his own narrative rather than a flat-out antagonist, and depicting Guts’ residual mixed feelings and “longing” for him, etc, and they’re overcompensating because they feel like the canon isn’t condemning him hard enough.

But idk I’m sure there are a hundred varied reasons people have for doing what they do lol, and idk I don’t want to blanket judge. Like I always say that there are good reasons to have a visceral dislike of him lol. But I wish they’d keep it to their own original posts instead of reblogging other people’s stuff just to be negative, like ngl it’s the number one reason why I rarely post Griffith related things in the Berserk tag.

hey! i was marvelling at your guts meta again, because your metas are incredibly well-written. i wanted to ask, do you think guts is aware of his attraction to griffith? like not only saying ‘he’s beautiful’ but seeing him sexually — both in the past and present. because even after everything, the beast of darkness is taunting him with sexually charged words and i can’t help but wonder whether guts realizes that he is doing that or not. maybe he represses this? idk i’d love to hear ur thoughts!

That is so nice to hear, thank you, I’m glad you think so!

This is more headcanon territory than meta but here’s what I think:

tbh…
pre-NeoGriffith, I’d say no. I think Guts had pretty thoroughly
repressed his attraction to Griffith during the Golden Age. He’s got
sexual hangups in general, and with men in particular, and if he thinks
about Griffith naked more often than the average dude then it’s just
because he’s remembering how awesome and awe-inspiring he is, ofc. His
heart’s getting fluttery cause Griffith’s just so cool and dazzling. He
wants Griffith to look at him because he just wants totally platonic
attention.

I
mean lbr during the Golden Age Guts has been doing this for three
years, yk, the crush thing where he’s staring at him from afar, or
watching the door every time he’s in a room where other Hawks may be as
well, hoping Griffith shows up and comes to sit by him. but because of
heteronormativity and his sexual trauma he’s unable to translate
those feelings into attraction.

like to get a little graphically
detailed for a sec, I tend to imagine that when Guts jerks off during
this period his mind is generally blank or he’s just thinking about
mundane things and focusing mainly on the physical sensation. if naked
Griffith shows up now and then, it’s just cause his mind’s wandering
aimlessly, nothing to worry about.

I think if he had another
couple days with post-torture Griffith he would’ve started to re-examine
this period of his life and realize what they could’ve had. He got
through the revelations that Griffith isn’t a god, and Griffith has
extremely intense life-destroying feelings for him. Like, recognizing
the nature of his own feelings was the next logical step there.

You could maybe even argue that having sex with Casca might’ve helped
that along, giving him a positive association with sex to draw on, like a
stepping stone.

And I am definitely reading into things here, but yk, that’s what I do lol, so consider:

You
are having a breakdown because you overheard Casca tell me to leave. It
has finally really truly hit me that I broke your heart when I left.
This is an extreme example of the emotions between us. How do I act on
those emotions? It’ll come to me… come on… there’s got to be some way to
translate these intense emotions into a positive course of action here…

But yk instead the Eclipse happened.

So he spends the next 2 years thinking of Griffith either like this:

or like this

And sexual attraction is pretty much out of his mind for a while.

But then NeoGriffith shows up and Guts practically has a sexual awakening.

(i will never in my life get tired of posting this page)

After
the Hill of Swords, it’s honestly really really easy for me to read
between the lines and basically assume that Guts is jerking off to
Griffith after waking up from sex dreams about him semi-regularly, then
killing ghosts with extra vehemence bc he’s feeling weird and guilty and
lonely.

I mean

You’re
right, the Beast of Darkness gets really, really suggestive. It’s hard
at this point to argue that Guts would be completely unaware of his
feelings.

His subconscious is here calling Griffith more precious
than Casca, mocking him for “longing” for him, using very loaded romantic phrasing, etc etc, and Guts is
having a conversation with that part of himself, so he’s got to be
aware.

But what I could see is Guts associating that
attraction with his ~inner darkness~ and trying to ignore it.
Considering that “forgot my urge to kill” bit (and yk the whole Golden
Age) I’d ofc argue that his attraction is far from intrinsic to his
inner darkness, but yk, the BoD is using it to tempt him to go chase
down and kill Griffith here, and it’s probably safe to assume that some
if not all of his fantasies are violent, considering. He’d probably
prefer those too, because non-violent fantasies make him sad and
regretful and lonely when he much prefers to feel rage.

So
like basically he’s twisting his sexual feelings into violence to make
them easier to deal with the way he does with all his other feelings,
lumps them in with revenge as his bad “obsession” he’s trying to let go
of, and tries to ignore them.

But it’s never going to completely
work because the core of those feelings is still real love and longing
for human Griffith. That true light he wants to crush.

Ooh
also you can say that this is another reason he’s so determined to force
Casca’s sanity back – surely if he’s got a girlfriend those
inconvenient feelings will go away. (After all, he managed to distract
himself from Griffith by having sex with her last time.)

ANYWAY
like I said this is all headcanon lol. I think it fits with what we see
in the story, but yk, it’s just one possibility of where Guts’ mind
might be at.

In regards to the wagon scene: I personally have always seen Casca as being a trans dude, and Griffith, a gay man, knowing about that on some level. So when I look at the wagon scene, I see Griffith weaponizing his sexual orientation and basically trying to give Casca the validation they want in order to make them want to stay. If Casca is a cis woman it still holds up as crush validation. Opinions?

As a cis woman my opinion is not all that valuable here lol, and it’s under a cut because reading that opinion should probably be an opt-in experience and easy to scroll past

Basically I think that’s a legit and interesting take, though maybe not entirely compatible with canon. Not because Casca couldn’t be trans – I could definitely see that and I think it’s a logical reading of the character – but more because like, if Griffith knew and acted on that knowledge it would change the subsequent nightmare sequence w/ Casca as a housewife.

Also like if there’s an aspect there of Griffith knowing on some level
that Casca’s a man but deliberately withholding that “validation” until
this point when he needs something from him (idk if that was what you
meant to imply but the word ‘weaponizing’ makes me wonder) then I do
disagree with that.

But there’s no reason to assume Griffith was deliberately misgendering him either if his knowledge is subconscious and/or more recently acquired.

(And to be clear on that by misgendering I’m not talking about like Griffith using she/her pronouns bc if this isn’t an AU then Casca has obviously not socially transitioned. I’m more talking about ordering him to sleep with Guts four years ago, or complimenting the dress, things like that.)

Also funnily enough your take is basically the exact opposite of mine in that I emphasize the sense of oppressive heteronormativity and Griffith’s repression in this scene, while you go in the opposite direction with a sense of both characters’ gender and sexuality being validated. But it’s not like my preferred interpretation has anything to do with authorial intent lol, so yours is just as legit and worth consideration.

Plus a nice side effect of losing that undertone of repression is that it makes Griffith’s horror re: a life with Casca even more thoroughly centred around Guts’ absence. Also adds another layer to Casca’s decision not to leave with Guts but to stay with Griffith, if there’s an implicit understanding that he can be himself with Griffith while Guts still regards him as a woman.

Hmm idk if I have much else to say, especially since I’m like, trying to avoid a lot of the inevitable problematic implications inherent to Casca’s narrative, Berserk being what it is. Idk just like reading Griffith as a gay man is rife with issues, reading Casca as a trans man opens up another can of worms, one that I don’t think anyone needs my pov on. But ty for your interest in my thoughts, hope this was the kind of response you were looking for.

what do you think about casca getting her memories back? I like the idea of her joining griffith somehow but that’s probably not going to happen. I just don’t like her to be on guts side without any conflicts.

As far as I’m concerned the only thing worse than Casca like, having healing sex with Guts and being his narrative reward would be Casca joining Griffith, so I’m very much not on board with you there.

But I do agree that I would absolutely love it if Casca ended up as like, a secondary antagonist to Guts. That’s probably my ideal development for her tbh, and I don’t think she needs to join Griffith to conflict with him. They could conflict if Casca wants revenge and Guts has mixed feelings about that for a multitude of reasons, they could conflict if Casca just lashes tf out because it’s time for her to express some serious narrative-shaking rage, they could conflict if Casca goes apostle, they could conflict if Casca wants revenge against Guts too for how he treated her (ok unlikely, but god I wish lol), they could conflict if Casca kills or sacrifices someone in the rpg group or the moonlight boy maybe, etc etc etc.

So basically a big giant NO to Casca joining Griffith, but a big giant YES to Casca and Guts becoming enemies.

Serpico and even at times Farnese treats Casca as Farnese confidence booster. Like she gives Farnese purpose or doesn’t make her feel useless. Do you think we should be more critical about their behavior or am I overreacting?

I doubt very much Miura intended for the reader to be critical of their behaviour, but honestly so much surrounding post-Eclipse Casca skeeves me out wrt ableism and the way she’s so infantalized and objectified (like literally, treated as an unthinking object to be protected rather than a person), both by other characters and by the narrative itself, that I def don’t think you’re overreacting.

It’s something I blame Miura for more than Farnese bc I really don’t think we’re intended to see her as insensitive. and imo Farnese comes across better than anyone else when it comes to treating Casca as a person with feelings. like eg the scene where she loses her temper and then apologizes to her directly – as opposed to say, Guts, who yelled at her all the time back when he interacted with her but never apologized to her. Or as opposed to the rest of the rpg group who tend to treat her like a prop or an extension of Guts or Farnese imo.

But yeah imo there are still a lot of instances of people, including Farnese, talking about Casca and thinking about Casca as if her only value is to motivate Farnese, and the narrative doesn’t really condemn that line of thinking, it’s just part of the general portrayal of post-Eclipse Casca, and it sucks.

miura himself in an interview: there are no 100% good or evil characters/allies or enemies in berserk. from griffith and his followers’ pov guts is the villain griffith is attractive and the world order he offers is the ideal. classic berserk fans™: crickets griffith fans: say more or less the same thing classic berserk fans™: HOW DARE YOU, YOU DIRTY RAPE APOLOGISTS. HOW DARE YOU SAY GRIFFITH DID NOTHING WRONG. FUCK YOU. proceed to make up lame excuses for every bad thing guts has done

lol i wonder if ppl twist the statement that he’s writing Berserk without including the values of good and evil/clearly defined ally and enemy characters to just mean the same thing as the typical “griffith looks nice but he’s pure evil and his allies are fooled by him, guts looks mean but he’s secretly a hero” bs

or they think Miura was just talking about like, silat lol.

If in the story of Berserk swords are a metaphor for phallus and Guts biting Griffith’s sword is suppose to be bery suggestive….what’s to be taken out of Guts straight up grasping Serpico’s sword and snapping it in half?

Avoid handjobs from Guts at all costs.

but on the off-chance you wanted a somewhat serious answer, i’d say the swords = dicks thing is p dependant on context, and in this instance it’s less a direct sexual metaphor and more a demonstration of Guts big dick energy lol. The same way Guts’ sword always breaks other dudes’ swords, it’s a masculine power thing that shows how outclassed Serpico is in terms of raw force

and to veer a bit more freudian, just for fun, it may tie in a little to how he’s somewhat emasculated by Farnese. Particularly in comparison to Guts’ main relationship with a woman in which he is (currently trying to be) the big strong manly protector. mb made a little more plausible in that i think this is right after farnese took off with casca, which could encourage a reader to compare the two relationships.

for the is berserk homophobic thing. a saw someone describe griffiths storyline as ‘it makes the readers unable to sympathize with the gay-coded character who experiences every pain a human being can experience’

I actually never considered it quite like that before but ia, that’s also a big problem and another reason the Eclipse rape is a failure of writing. Especially considering how Femto’s particular villainy emphasizes/is an expression of some of that gay-coding. And a result of it too for that matter – he makes the sacrifice because of his feelings for Guts. And yeah you can interpret that as “he should’ve embraced those feelings and not tried to escape them,” but the fact remains that his extremely homoerotic feelings basically drove him to evil lol.

So yeah as well as readers not being able to sympathize with him, it makes his feelings for Guts kind of forboding. Which tbh is the kind of thing that wouldn’t bother me at all if there was like, any positive + textually gay content to mitigate it lol, like I’m not going to pretend I don’t fucking love that Griffith makes the sacrifice to escape his feelings and talk about how amazing his narrative is every day, but yk, in the context of the rest of the predatory gay content of the story it’s not something I’d praise from this particular angle.