I have this fear that Farnese is going to die in part to motivate Serpico so I’d prefer this to that ngl, tho I want both to live.
And it’s possible I guess, Serpico’s had less development than Farnese overall so he might be more expendable, and it would be kind of ironic if after Serpico being p much entirely motivated by wanting to protect Farnese, he was the one who got killed.
I wouldn’t really bet on it though, mostly bc at this point in Farnese’s narrative, I feel like it wouldn’t further her story much – she’s no longer as attached to Serpico as she had been, or dependent on him in any way, so all it would really do is make her angry or sad.
Tho actually now that I think about it what if things go wrong with Casca’s return and she ends up killing Serpico? (Uses behelit, sacrifices Farnese, apostles kill their sacrifices themselves from the looks of it so monster!Casca tries but Serpico leaps in to save Farny and dies instead, then Skull Knight bursts in like the kool aid man, does his thing w/ sealing the Godhand away, and everyone else manages to escape and survive. w/e) Like i’m js farnesca/griffguts parallels would be super fun.
Or yk it would still be kind of fitting if he died in some other circumstance by sacrificing himself for Farnese, but I think that would be pretty boring unless Casca killed him.
omg Guts would just be so tender and gentle with him.
I have this image of Guts sleeping beside Griffith on like the first night and holding him in his sleep, and he’s careful with him even while unconscious because he used to fall asleep cradling his sword sometimes.
Also gentle caretaker Guts is so good in contrast to >:| sword swinging Guts, and it’s like canon. Guts wants to be there for people, he wants to support people, the very first thing we ever see Guts do (chronologically) is hold Shizu’s hand while she dies. Guts cutting himself off from people who need his support (Casca, and I’d argue Griffith during Guts’ year long dream journey too) goes against his own instincts and is associated with his growing inner darkness, it’s a betrayal of himself/his own values.
So yk, I think Guts would kind of be in his element in a way taking care of Griffith. He’d be good at it overall – not treating Griffith all that differently, but taking his physical needs and disabilities into account, taking things like dressing him, helping him wash, helping him eat, etc in stride to minimize Griffith potentially feeling humiliated (tho tbh after a year of torture I don’t really think Griffith would be all that self-conscious).
Like, imo Guts kind of fucks up when he awkwardly pretends that Griffith could still recover as he’s dressing him in his armour, but before that, when he’s reminiscing about Zodd and asking Griffith to take the mask off since it’s just the two of them, etc, that’s the typical attitude Guts would adopt with Griffith once they both fully accept Griffith’s limits. Matter-of-fact and companionable, both verbally and physically.
Also I think Guts would touch Griffith a lot, like casual pats on the shoulder, steadying hands, helping him stand even when not super necessary, etc, just based on what we see in canon. I could see an argument that Guts might second guess himself, thinking maybe he shouldn’t touch Griffith except when necessary because after a year of torture he’s probably traumatized as shit and Guts remembers not wanting to be touched himself, but in canon Guts’ first instinct around him keeps being to touch him, so yeah.
Plus we see Griffith feeling dissociated from his body and Guts could be a grounding influence that way, helping Griffith reassociate his body with something positive. And I don’t mean sexually, though hey eventually maybe, but just yk, touch being proof of Guts’ physical presence. And I think Griffith would reach out a lot too, physically, he would crave the physical closeness. Like in contrast to Guts taking care of Gambino and getting nothing but neglect and abuse back, Guts would be Griffith’s central focus, I mean Griffith stayed sane during torture by obsessing over him lol, and Guts would love the attention. He’d feel watched whenever he walked into the room, Griffith would gravitate towards him, lean into him, etc, and he’d like it.
This would be after a while together, not like immediately, since in the day’s worth of post-torture Griffith we saw he ran pretty hot and cold. But I feel like eventually things would even out.
And to digress for a sec, I think they’d manage communication just fine too after a while, with body language, lip reading, and Guts asking leading questions. Plus while I think Griffith might be more self-conscious about this and might avoid trying to talk with a severe impediment, with some practice you can be fairly intelligible without a tongue afaik (mb depending on the language, but ik in English you can be understood). So yk it’s not like physical touch would replace actual communication or anything, it wouldn’t have to get weird and objectifying w/ only one-sided conversations etc like we saw in Griffith’s nightmare.
Oh also incidentally I’m imagining Griffith w/ wounds for a while after the rescue that
eventually heal, because uh the missing patches of skin thing is stupid
as fuck and Griffith would be dead of infection long before Guts ever
showed up. So yk Guts can touch Griffith without worrying that he’s
directly prodding exposed muscle (not that that stopped him in canon for
some reason, seriously Miura what the hell).
Anyway ty for asking this was fun to ramble about, and if you want lmk your thoughts too, if you have anything to add or a different opinion or w/e!
hmmm as far as terminology goes I’d assume they’d just default to “lover” if they ever like, had to label their relationship. Or when it comes to internal thoughts, I could see both Guts and Griffith just thinking of the other as “mine” lol. “He’s my… mine.”
But like, when it comes to relationship discussions and stuff, lol i have such a hard time imagining them actually talking about it. I feel like it would follow the trajectory of the canon discussions of their relationship, in which Guts asks and Griffith prevaricates. like Guts: So what are we now? Griffith: the same as always but now we have sex :))) Guts: ten minutes ago you were crying and saying you loved me Griffith: :)))))))))))))
Assuming they got together in a relatively low-key way.
If it was like, after some hugely revelatory event in which eg Griffith threw away his dream for Guts, or Guts nearly died, or something, then I think they could have a v emotionally charged discussion w/ confessions of love, Griffith making Guts promise he’ll never leave, “you’re the only one” “it’s always just been you,” all those fun + v griffguts cliches.
Or even if they got together in an emotionally vulnerable moment, like say Tombstone of Flame but Guts isn’t planning to leave so he actually says the right thing and also kisses him. I could see love confessions then too. Things like “I need you.”
Like if their relationship just evolved naturally I feel like Griffith would avoid examining it as much as possible, but if it happened in a charged, emotionally intense moment then Griffith might be forced to confront his feelings. Like I still think that Griffith genuinely believed what he said when he told Charlotte he had no friends lol, so I feel like the contradiction between seeing none of the Hawks as equals while being wildly in love with Guts is something he’d continue to avoid as long as possible.
He might never even have to confront it if this was a scenario where he did attain his dream and become king etc while in a down low relationship with Guts. He’d just naturally shift to thinking of Guts as the most important thing/an equal despite social status, while letting go of his beliefs about what constitutes equality lol. Since he’s obtained his dream, his obsession is no longer necessary and he automatically drops a lot of the associated bullshit, kinda thing.
I don’t ever really see them sitting down and having a talk about relationship expectations or that kind of thing though lol, I figure they’d deal with stuff as it comes, and probably badly. Like, eg, I think Guts would default to monogamy without them ever having to talk about it, like he wouldn’t be interested in anyone else while fucking Griffith anyway, but if Griffith ever thought he was then… well imo Griffith wouldn’t say anything outright but he’d get sulky and weird and passive aggressive until Guts either forced the issue and made Griffith admit what his problem was or figured it out himself, and then they’d have the talk about exclusivity. After Guts teased him about being jealous.
Idk I always think of Guts as the more emotionally mature one who would actually be able to have adult discussions while Griffith is avoidant, and Guts is mostly fine w/ that bc he’s a go with the flow kinda guy so they generally would leave things unsaid but when it’s immediately important Guts would be able to force the conversation.
Tho that said this is only the case when it’s something bothering Griffith, or something that’s objectively an issue that needs to be resolved, like, idk, Guts asking where he fits in when Griffith gets engaged to Charlotte or w/e. But if Guts was personally bothered by something, feeling neglected, jealous, insecure, whatever, he’d never say anything, at least not to Griffith. Maybe being friends with Casca would come in handy here lol.
I feel like this was v meandering and only kind of actually addressed what you asked lol. But w/e close enough. What do you think?
oh no lol I think this got cut off. i have another message sent right after but it’s only the letter “S” so I think something went wrong/tumblr glitched and it would be great if you could resend your second question, because I’d love to answer it!
But as for the first part (and idk maybe I’ll end up accidentally answering the rest too) I think it would almost certainly change things.
And imo it wouldn’t be so much because of what Griffith would say than because of what Guts would say knowing Griffith can actually have a conversation.
Like, even despite having the relevation that he loves Guts so much his dream is dull in comparison, I find it so hard to picture Griffith actually saying anything like that outloud to Guts lol. He might, and I think that like, if someone was writing a fic eg, it’s possible to make it feel in character, so yk maybe having a tongue would fix everything because Griffith would finally be at the point where he knows what he feels and has nothing to lose by telling Guts.
But I think it’s more likely that what would actually change things is Guts starting the conversation. In canon he had that slow creeping realization that he fucked everything up, Griffith isn’t a god, Griffith needed Guts, and by leaving Guts threw away what he actually wanted. With Griffith actually available for comment, I could see Guts bringing this up.
Not like, “hey so are you in love with me or what?” lol, but more like just asking Griffith why, the way he always does when Griffith demonstrates feelings for him. He can’t come at it from an assumption that Griffith does love him, because Guts defaults to assuming he doesn’t, hence why it took him 3 days to finally accept Casca directly telling him he broke Griffith. He wouldn’t say, “is it my fault you ended up in a dungeon?”
But he might say, how did it all go so wrong? Some of the Hawks think it’s bc I left. I told them that was ridic but… then he sees the telling look on griffith’s face or something. THEN maybe the truth would smack Guts across the face and he’d tell Griffith why he left.
Conversely I could see Guts avoiding this conversation and Griffith absolutely not talking about his feelings unprompted until the Eclipse happens anyway lol. Or yk if they still got to the point where Griffith snapped and ended up in a shallow pond with a broken arm trying to kill himself, he would have screamed “stay away!” to Guts outloud, and everything would’ve come flooding out then. Considering his thoughts at that point (”I’ll never – never again with you”) I could see him just finally confessing everything he feels if he was able to, because he’s pretty far past self-restraint in that scene.
Idk if there’s anything Guts could say to avert the Eclipse tho, because at that point I think Griffith’s despair comes not so much from Guts maybe leaving again as the fact that because of how he feels Guts is fully capable of destroying him with a word. Buuut on the other hand Guts like falling to his knees in front of him and telling him he’s sorry and having his own mini guilt breakdown might assuage Griffith enough to pull him back from the brink of despair, and then they can start dealing with their shit.
I mean to be fair there’s a narrative reason Griffith had to lose his tongue, and it’s because they could theoretically talk everything out. So if Griffith could talk I think the Eclipse would be averted, though it might be a last minute thing lol bc they’re both still dumb and avoidant.
Oh yeah true, and tbf I don’t know exactly what he said in interviews either, since I’ve never even seen any direct translations, just paraphrases. But yeah lol regardless that last bit p much sums it up
Based on like, plot set up stuff in the last few chapters, my guess is that there’s going to be a time skip when everyone leaves Elfhelm. Rickert will have spent the last 10 or however many years in the Bakiraka village, he’ll be a cool warrior/inventor, he’ll give everyone weapon upgrades lol, and yk, village full of super intense assassins who do nothing but train + a wizard = handy canon fodder allies.
Now ofc I’m hoping really really hard that doesn’t mean we’re just going a rote route of Guts and co leaving Elfhelm to attack Falconia/Griffith and hitting up the Bakiraka and Rickert along the way for allies and power ups lol. I mean god could you imagine anything more boring?
Guts is due to go Beast of Darkness, so another possibility is that whichever of his friends survive whatever goes down trail him on his way to kill Griffith, stop at the village along the way, swap Guts stories with Rickert, get power ups and allies, and then go kick Guts’ ass and try to bring him to his senses.
Then there’s my Void (probably but hell maybe Elfhelm, I got some vague hopes there) is the actual big bad theory and Rickert and co could end up being part of an enemies teaming up to fight the worse dude plot.
Anyway I guess regardless of the circumstances my answer boils down to Rickert probably being the archetypal helpful ally who
provides weapons, maybe helps fight, and knows more about Guts and Griffith than just
about everyone else (pending Casca’s narrative future) and so can potentially provide ~wise insight~ wrt how the past could inform the future.
And also since he visited Falconia and met NeoGriffith there he could also tell Guts what happened, though I didn’t get the impression that he discovered anything particularly insightful. Unless the fact that he was able to slap Griffith goes somewhere interesting.
I have heard second hand info that he’s been asked about the homoeroticism in interviews b4 and does the “two dudes can have an intense connection without it being sexual” song and dance.
Which doesn’t really make an ounce of difference to me lol. He added the gay subtext on purpose so whether he has to downplay it bc of industry/publisher concerns,
whether it’s something he regrets,
whether he just added it to make sure G+G have chemistry without anticipating that obviously many fans were going to take that and run with it, whether he added the subtext to highlight the fact that G+G never act on it and portray their relationship as “pure” in comparison to their histories of sexual assault (which imo would be the worst, most offensive option, and it doesn’t explain everything, but it’s a possibility I’ve been wondering about), etc, it doesn’t change the story he wrote, which is very very gay.
Well there’s no proof, in the sense of like a definitive statement, because I think the point of NeoGriffith’s narrative right now is that it’s ambiguous. We’re being teased with the possibility, but Griffith is using the fetus as a scapegoat and excuse to ignore his feelings, and it’s technically left up in the air as to whether that’s true or whether Griffith is in denial. The reader is meant to be uncertain right now.
That said, I’m gonna give two reasons I’m 110% certain NGriff’s feelings are legit:
the first is straight up the entirety of Berserk lmao. Guts and Griffith’s feelings for each other are the core of the story, the driving thrust of every aspect of the narrative, from the Black Swordsman arc’s climactic reveal of those feelings, to the Golden Age’s exploration of them, to the Millenium Falcon arc’s tension as Guts tries to let go of those feelings and NeoGriffith’s feelings are left very pointedly ambiguous.
Like, even when Guts chooses Casca in the MF arc, his choice to stick with Casca is framed as the alternative to his feelings for Griffith. Those feelings drive Guts, whether it’s in feeling like he’s found the place where he belongs, striving to feel like he’s earned Griffith’s friendship, striving to hunt him down and kill him, or striving to escape his feelings.
You cannot write a story about those feelings, make Griffith’s choice to escape those feelings the epic climax of his narrative, then tease that those feelings may still exist only to go ‘psyche it’s actually just the unrelated feelings of a fetus.’ You can use the fetus to keep things ambiguous until the big reveal, but you can’t have the fetus be the reveal. it would be comedically absurd.
But the second reason is the visual details of two scenes:
Femto, completely pre-fetus, letting Guts go. These are Griffith’s feelings, maybe not entirely wiped away because Guts managed to survive the sacrifice, but for whatever reason, they’re there, and they’re still making him do irrational stupid shit for Guts.
We know Femto didn’t let Guts escape because he needed two people w/ brands of sacrifice and a fetus as part of a grand plan to resurrect himself three years later because we see that he has intent to kill. He tried to kill Skull Knight who narrowly dodged the telekinetic attack, and he’s raised his hand to attack again here, only to lower it after a close up specifically of Guts, the dude Griffith does stupid irrational shit for.
Then we close this moment with a distant shot of Femto from a high angle (used to make the subject appear weak/small/vulnerable) as a smear on the background, surrounded by monsters, perfectly evoking a feeling of isolation. This is what Griffith is left with after purposefully destroying his relationship with Guts – nothing but his own monstrousness.
This moment is followed through subtlely but consistently throughout NGriff’s narrative, in the way he’s portrayed as unknowable, distant, singular. He’s the absolute, without equal, and, in the context of Berserk’s themes, that’s just a grandiose way of saying he’s alone after sacrificing Guts.
The other of the two scenes is:
NeoGriffith has come to see Guts specifically to test whether anything can shake his heart. “It seems I am free,” he declares smugly. Then he watches Guts fight (and it’s v worth noting that his very first entranced glimpse of Guts back in chapter 12 was while observing another fight against a bigger stronger opponent, Guts throwing himself into danger then struggling his way out), and feels his heart start to stir after all.
“uhhhh that’s gotta be that fetus” thinks Griffith. Next page:
Like, everything about this says Griffith is lying to himself, at least where Guts is concerned. This is the page that inspired my url for a reason lol.
The positioning – Griffith left, fetus vs Guts right. Fetus is Griffith’s thoughts/hope, Guts is what’s right in front of him in reality.
The fact that this is the final page of the chapter, so it has a feeling of conclusiveness to it. Griffith is a champ at denial, but reality is still reality.
the “……..” “bthump,” that practically reads like a taunt.
The fact that Griffith deliberately came to face Guts to test himself, then his heart went off! Like I said at the start, there’s no way you make these dudes’ feelings the core of Berserk, have Griffith fail his own test of whether he successfully got rid of his, then say “lol it’s not really his feelings though.”
Liiiiike from a pure storytelling perspective, this scene is emotionally pointless if it ends up being the fetus after all.It may be significant to the plot eventually – I wouldn’t be surprised if it is to blame for Griffith saving Casca, even if I think that’s dumb as fuck lol – but the emotional purpose of this scene is to tease the audience.
Guts is unaware of Griffith’s heart doing anything so it’s meaningless to his emotional state and decisions.
It’s only meaningful to the audience, and only because we are invested in Griffith’s feelings after the Golden Age – we want Griffith to fail his test. “I am free” is disappointing, “my blood should have been frozen” is intriguing.
Griffith has dismissed his feelings by blaming them on the fetus, and if he’s right, then this scene is meaningless to him.
And if it turns out to be the fetus after all, it’s meaningless to us too.
Also I feel ridic doing this lol but I have such a huge backlog of posts by now that it almost seems like a waste not to link some when relevant, so for ~further reading~ lmao:
Yeah it’s really unfortunate that a large majority of the fandom is totally steeped in homophobia bc honestly the most compelling aspect of Berserk (imo but also lbr objectively) is Griffith and Guts’ extremely charged relationship, and I think the fact that so much of fandom tries hard to downplay it is kind of itself proof of how super gay it is lol. Like they can insist it’s just platonic but the fact that they feel compelled to ignore huge important plot points like eg the fact that Guts’ sole motivation for leaving the Hawks was to become Griffith’s friend, or the fact that Griffith textually valued Guts over his dream, etc, is pretty telling. Would they need to ignore so much if they really believed they were only platonic bros?
(lol sorry think I just had to get that out of my system and you gave me an opening.)
But anyway wrt your question, I think it would depend why Guts chose to stay (did Griffith win their second duel? did some action of Griffith’s convince him that despite the speech Griffith does value him ridiculously highly? or did Guts never hear the Promrose Hall speech in the first place?), but regardless of the exact reason Guts stays, I imagine that Berserk would end up being pretty much a really compelling story about medieval politics and relationship drama lol.
Like, take the tone of Tombstone of Flame Part 2, and that would be Berserk. Cool political scheming and complicated yet intense character relationships. Actually I say “relationships” but really it’s just Guts and Griffith’s that gets the real intensity and complexity lol.
Tho speaking of, I don’t really know where Miura could’ve taken their relationship in this alternate version of Berserk. Like, I can only see them eventually getting together if the Eclipse doesn’t happen ngl. But idk I guess this version of Berserk would be shorter, and maybe Guts and Griffith would have some conflict (eg if Guts lost the duel, maybe Guts’ feelings of inadequacy vs Griffith’s feelings of rejection) that eventually gets resolved. Ooh yk the logical happy ending for them in this kind of AU would be Griffith forced to choose between his dream and Guts and choosing Guts.
So yeah how about that? Political scheming, Griffith’s rise to the throne, both Guts and Griffith filled with self-loathing and their relationship totally tanked because Griffith thinks Guts wanted to leave and he forced him to stay, and Guts thinks he’ll never be someone worthy of respect in Griffith’s eyes, neither of them acknowledging this and Guts maybe continuing to help him but beneath the surface their closeness is gone, but then plot happens, Griffith demonstrates how he really feels once again but rly decisively this time by prioritizing Guts over his dream again, and they both start to figure their shit out.
As for a no Eclipse AU, I think it’s actually the perfect scenario to force Guts, Griffith, and Casca to actually deal with their issues. Like, in canon the Eclipse is basically a giant distraction. For Griffith it’s an escape, for Guts it’s an excuse to bury all of his emotions except rage and swing his sword at monsters for 3 years (and that’s his own escape and outlet: “when I’m swinging this sword… I don’t have to think about anything”), for Casca it drives her insane and puts her entire character on hold.
Without it what you have is Griffith with no dream, his emotional dependency on Guts mirrored by his physical dependency, and no escape from either his feelings for Guts or his feelings of failure and self-loathing. You have Guts who has just realized how hard he fucked up, who blames himself for ruining everyone’s lives but especially Griffith’s, and who has just figured out how much he actually means to Griffith. And you have Casca who… idk I think maybe her biggest issue now is with Guts and Griffith both losing/giving up their “dreams” and gravitating towards each other, she’s lost her motivation. She switched from supporting Griffith’s dream to supporting Guts’ dream and she has to let both go and support herself instead of dudes imho. And okay, maybe Miura wouldn’t go that direction with her character, but idc.
But I’m going to stay vague on how these issues could be resolved and lead to a low key happy ending because I’ve had this as a fic idea on the backburner for ages and someday I might actually finish it lol.
hill of swords sets up the ideal climactic griffguts drama so perfectly that it’s ridic
Guts: conflicted because he desperately misses Griffith, the way he was back when all Guts wanted was for Griffith to look at him (value him, love him). He maintains his rage by separating Griffith now from Griffith then, and NeoGriffith’s existence makes it that much harder.
That same beating heart?
Griffith: has failed to completely eradicate his past self.
Like, that’s the two important emotional points this scene sets up: Guts conflicted about killing NeoGriffith because he’s reminded of human Griffith, and NeoGriffith evidencing human Griffith’s emotions.
You can’t write this without intending to pay it off by forcing Guts to square with the fact that there’s still some of his Griffith remaining in NeoGriffith. This absolutely requires a future moment where Guts and NeoGriffith confront each other and Guts realizes that NGriff is still in love with him.
Ofc this could lead to like, a final test of Guts’ obsession with Griffith which he then passes by killing him anyway or something like that. But if the narrative turns back to Guts and Griffith focused on each other rather than Guts and Griffith steadfastly focused on their goals in their mutual attempt to get over each other it could lead to some excellently hightened, resonant emotions during their final confrontation.
Plus it’s worth noting that Guts’ obsession with Griffith which he’s trying to drop is an obsession with killing him – that’s what leads him to darkness – while this conflict between Griffith now and Griffith then makes Guts forget his urge to kill. So yk, if Miura’s theoretical not super bleak ending involves Guts not succumbing to his inner darkness and urge to kill, this conflict might actually facilitate that happyish ending.
Or maybe this is irrelevant and it’s all the fetus anyway and NGriff is fully removed from human Griffith’s emotions so Guts can kill him completely sans internal conflict and then ride off into the sunset lol. Or maybe the perfectly on point emotional content is an accidental side-effect of just establishing NGriff’s plot-point weakness.
This is inaccurate
lol care to elaborate on which aspect of this post is contradicted by canon or is this the entirety of your valuable contribution
hill of swords sets up the ideal climactic griffguts drama so perfectly that it’s ridic
Guts: conflicted because he desperately misses Griffith, the way he was back when all Guts wanted was for Griffith to look at him (value him, love him). He maintains his rage by separating Griffith now from Griffith then, and NeoGriffith’s existence makes it that much harder.
That same beating heart?
Griffith: has failed to completely eradicate his past self.
Like, that’s the two important emotional points this scene sets up: Guts conflicted about killing NeoGriffith because he’s reminded of human Griffith, and NeoGriffith evidencing human Griffith’s emotions.
You can’t write this without intending to pay it off by forcing Guts to square with the fact that there’s still some of his Griffith remaining in NeoGriffith. This absolutely requires a future moment where Guts and NeoGriffith confront each other and Guts realizes that NGriff is still in love with him.
Ofc this could lead to like, a final test of Guts’ obsession with Griffith which he then passes by killing him anyway or something like that. But if the narrative turns back to Guts and Griffith focused on each other rather than Guts and Griffith steadfastly focused on their goals in their mutual attempt to get over each other it could lead to some excellently hightened, resonant emotions during their final confrontation.
Plus it’s worth noting that Guts’ obsession with Griffith which he’s trying to drop is an obsession with killing him – that’s what leads him to darkness – while this conflict between Griffith now and Griffith then makes Guts forget his urge to kill. So yk, if Miura’s theoretical not super bleak ending involves Guts not succumbing to his inner darkness and urge to kill, this conflict might actually facilitate that happyish ending.
Or maybe this is irrelevant and it’s all the fetus anyway and NGriff is fully removed from human Griffith’s emotions so Guts can kill him completely sans internal conflict and then ride off into the sunset lol. Or maybe the perfectly on point emotional content is an accidental side-effect of just establishing NGriff’s plot-point weakness.
i like how it’s implied that the Hawks throw a party and get drunk after every successful venture, from battles to minor raids
you can’t tell me it wasn’t a v predictable routine for guts and griffith to hit their sixth or seventh drink and leave the main action together to find a quiet place to hang out and bask in each others’ company
also imagine how many times they’ve passed out on each other like these guys
ngl I’ve wondered this a lot. What would make Guts fall into despair and choose to make a sacrifice?
pre-Eclipse, I don’t think there’s anything that could make him sacrifice Griffith, and Griffith is his most important person. Like, Griffith is his sole motivation for everything he does up til like chapter 130, so there’s nothing else that’s important enough to Guts to make him fall into despair imo. Griffith could make him fall into despair, but he’s not the sacrifice-the-person-you-love-to-kill-the-pain type.
However, that said, I think in like, an AU where the crimson behelit was Guts’ instead of Griffith’s, I could maybe see a scenario where Guts sacrifices the rest of the Hawks. Guts leaving the Hawks to go on his dream journey is kind of… paralleled to the Eclipse, in the sense that the Eclipse is a much more fucked up, dark, and emotionally intense version of prioritizing a dream (an escape from your feelings) over your friends – like in both scenarios the Hawks get screwed over because of someone’s willingness to prioritize their dream over their relationships to make themselves feel better.
So it stands to reason that if you jack up the emotional intensity, Guts’ reaction would similarly get darker and more intense until you reach his Eclipse.
Sooooooooooo idk I’m thinking maybe if Griffith successfully committed suicide after the rescue mission? Guts doesn’t reach him in time but is close enough to see it happen, blames everyone but especially himself… but idk I think if his despair was enough to open the behelit, what Guts would actually do instead of making a sacrifice is attack all the monsters until one killed him lol.
The problem I have is that Guts does have a need to escape his pain, he does it by killing stuff, but a calculated “yeah I sacrifice” doesn’t suit him. Like if he had the armour and this happened I could see him personally killing all his friends himself, but I can’t see him verbally agreeing to let demons eat them.
Maybe if he was the one who ended up tortured for a year and physically helpless. Take away his ability to lash out and he has no choice. Something else would still have to seal the deal tho, something involving Griffith. Being physically helpless would reinforce the idea of Griffith looking down on him which is what led to him leaving the Hawks in canon, so there’s something there…
OOH okay what if Guts ended up… idk getting blamed for the Queen’s assassination or something, maybe he was seen and recognized, whatever. Ends up in the torture chamber. Griffith sabotages his dream to rescue him. They save him but end up fleeing Midland, now Griffith is a traitor. So now Guts is physically helpless, can’t do the only thing he’s ever been able to do ie swing a sword, sees Griffith as insurmountably his superior now, they’ll never be equals, plus he blames himself for destroying Griffith’s dream, and has no outlet for anything he’s feeling.
agh tho would he sacrifice Griffith?
Ok more details: tensions are running high among the rescuers because it was meant to be a secret operation, but they were found out – and now every other Hawk still in Midland is in danger because if Griffith is a traitor they all are, and they could’ve been killed by now. So there’s blame being thrown around, esp at Griffith for gambling everything for Guts and losing. And while he knew it was a possibility, Griffith wasn’t intending to throw his kingdom away for Guts, so he’s like in shock right now at how fucked everything suddenly is. Meanwhile Guts is convincing himself that Griffith must be filled with regret and hating him…
lol idk can I just separate Griffith and have Guts sacrifice everyone else? I mean his dream, what he values above all else, is the idea of being Griffith’s equal (Griffith’s attention, respect, and love), it’s what he’d make a sacrifice for, so he can’t sacrifice Griffith to do it. Like Griffith’s dream and Guts are separate so he can sacrifice one for the other, Guts can’t sacrifice Griffith for his dream bc Griffith is his dream.
So idk I give up on the pre-eclipse scenario. All of the above but Griffith takes off before the Eclipse to find Rickert and the second unit or something and misses it lol. (Also I mean maybe Griffith losing his dream to save Guts would actually make Guts feel better, but idk I could def see him just feeling worse about that. So w/e.)
POST ECLIPSE tho is so much easier because now Guts can sacrifice Griffith. So after NGriff ditches him and Guts leaves with Casca, he kills Casca himself, behelit opens, Guts sacrifices Griff, Beast of Darknesses it up, and just lives for no reason but to kill, like he’s 14 again. And NGriff has to be a viable sacrifice bc there’s no one else so close to Guts they’re like a part of his soul, and even if you argue Casca is, she can’t be sacrificed twice. And I’m making this all up anyway so Guts can sacrifice NeoGriff bc I say so.
Anyway killing Casca is my automatic answer bc she represents his humanity and it was presented as a very real danger that could’ve happened if Guts didn’t meet his babysitters. Plus Guts would choose to make a sacrifice and go full monster rather than, say, committing suicide by apostle army, because he still has his dream which is now centred around killing Griffith.
Anyway ty for the question anon, this was fun to ramble about.
(sry this took a while to answer bc i had to think about it lol)
tbh i could see so many different possibilities being in character, esp depending on the details of the au. But like, assuming this AU is as close to canon as possible while still being set in the present w/ current identity politics and a gay community etc, yk both still have traumatic histories, griffith still has a dream that requires marrying a woman, etc etc, I can maybe throw out a few ideas. tho again like, nothing set in stone.
I guess ultimately I really want them to be each others’ realizations.
I like the idea of Guts’ being a slow realization that kind of sneaks up on him, where first he realizes that he would absolutely be dtf Griffith and it’s not til after that realization that he figures out that makes him gay. Like I mean he’d fall into that “it’s not guys, it’s just you” cliche but he eventually realizes that no, actually it is men.
He might try experimenting too – like surely it’s just because Griffith looks androgynous, so being with a woman would be better – but nope, doesn’t work.
Might be worth mentioning here (tho i’m sure u already know this) that I hc Guts as gay rather than bi bc Miura did a great job of making his interest in Casca feel super inauthentic to me lol.
Also I think it’s fair to assume that his csa trauma would lead to some discomfort here, but at the same time I don’t think he’d consciously like assume all gay people are predatory or even assume his rapist was gay and not just a pedophile. He might be uncomfortable being checked out in bars at first, and I feel like he’d be prone to worrying that his sexuality makes him specifically more likely to hurt someone bc feeling like a monster is kind of a canon issue he has, but he’s smart and fairly self aware and wouldn’t make it anyone else’s problem for the most part, barring like flashbacks during sex or smthn.
Also he’s tough enough that he’d never really feel like he’s in physical danger with anyone else. So assuming he’s in a good place in his personal life (ie not in a walking disaster “don’t touch me” phase) I don’t think he’d show any discomfort. (And I mean in canon the first time we ever saw him relaxed and happy was while having a water fight with a naked dude who he thought came onto him when they first met a few days earlier. I really don’t think it would be a huge issue.)
And overall I think he’d be fairly low-key about it. He’s gay but it’s just a description to him rather than an identity to build his life around. He wouldn’t be closeted but he wouldn’t be out to everyone in his life like, idk coworkers or w/e. Tho eventually I think everyone would realize because I think he’d kind of want to show Griffith off lol.
Griffith I could see like, simultaneously knowing he’s gay all his life and refusing to fully acknowledge it. He’s gotta achieve a goal which requires a certain image which requires heterosexuality. Maybe he’s not actually attracted to women, whatever, but that doesn’t actually matter as far as he’s concerned.
So with Guts being his realization, what that means is that Guts is the breaking point where Griffith realizes he’d rather have Guts than the dream. Yk, like in canon, but with a) no torture chamber, and b) the addition of this realization leading to the larger realization that he can live as his authentic self and be happy.
Like I’ve mentioned before that in Berserk you have this dichotemy of the dream/het marriage/emotional repression vs guts/emotional expression and yk in a modern AU you can add coming out to emotional expression.
Like we’ve talked about this b4 but I’m saying it again bc I love this idea where Griffith realizing he’s in love with Guts and would rather be in a relationship with him than achieve whatever his modern AU dream is is like a catalyst for dropping the image of respectability and ~finding~ himself. He’d make a bunch of gay friends, start experimenting with more gnc looks, volunteer at pride, go to protests, etc.
Though if his motivations for achieving his dream are similar to canon (mb not the whole for the sake of the dead thing, but yk guilt, to assuage a feeling of inherent worthlessness, to justify things he did to achieve it that he’s ashamed of, w/e) there’s also plenty of room for some angst and drama in between that realization that he wants to give it all up for Guts and embracing a new life. Some “am I selfish/terrible for choosing Guts” soul searching or w/e.
ALSO I feel like modern au griffith could’ve been fairly gnc as a child – wanting to play with girls’ toys, singing along to britney spears, saying he wants to marry the disney princes when he grows up, wanting his hair long, playing dress up in dresses, etc – with some kind of catalyst that hammers home this idea that to get the thing he wants he has to police his behaviour and be like everyone else. this is self indulgent but i just like this concept of like, knowing what you’re about as a kid and then having to unlearn everything you’ve internalized since then. it’s an appealing narrative to me.
And like I could see Griffith’s trauma with Gennon actually affecting him and his opinions wrt sexuality/internalized homophobia more than Guts’ trauma affects Guts, mostly because Gennon was such a goddamn evil gay stereotype in canon, plus Griffith’s own self-loathing compounded w/ the idea that he’s always sort of known he was gay = a secondary motivation for trying to embody the image of a heteronormative ideal, to distance himself from the idea that he’s anything like Gennon. Like Griffith’s trauma comes with a side of effeminate stereotypes and ostentatious homoerotic castle decor, etc. But I don’t think it’s necessary either, like it’s not something I’m super interested in exploring and hey maybe modern AU Gennon is less of an offensive stereotype. and/or Griffith is v socially aware and capable of recognizing that Gennon isn’t representative. w/e, kind of a take it or leave it thing I guess.
Also I’m not really envisioning these 2 concepts (guts and griffith) in the same story lol. Maybe they could fit together but I didn’t really think about it.
And again like, I’m just throwing stuff at the wall lol, not saying this is my Official Take on Sexuality and Characterization or w/e.
I have a few years of film studies under my belt which def informs some of what I talk about here, like you can see it when I keep accidentally calling panels “shots” lol. But I dropped out before I got even a bachelors so I’m no expert or anything.
i actually kinda like how unconcerned griffith is. he’s just like, welp what can you do casca, naked man + naked woman = acceptable, naked man + naked man = bad, that’s just the natural way of things and I got way too much internalized homophobia to fight it. (“warming a man is a woman’s duty, he said.”)
lol i seriously cannot read griffith’s narrative as anything but dream/heteronormativity vs guts/living ur gay truth.
like i’ve seen this scene described as just tone-setting casual ye olde sexism, but it feels too significant for that. it just fits their whole messed up love triangle dynamic so perfectly, it’s like, an ideal establishing action that just sums it all up.
I was actually a bit pissed when I found that out, but it’s one of those things that’s infuriating at first and then it makes sense later. It had nothing to do with sexism and everything to do with knowing that people would want Guts killed. No one would dare do anything to Guts while Casca was there. Griffith doing it himself would cause a lot of raised eyebrows for sure and he was shrewd enough to know that.
She’s right to be angry though, but Griffith doing it himself/leaving Guts alone would have been a bad idea.
this explanation has never occured to me but it does make a lot of sense logically.
but then i have to ask, why wouldn’t griffith/miura give that as the explanation then? there’s no in-story or out of story reason to keep it secret that i can think of, and it would make more sense for griffith to use that as his reasoning since it would presumably piss casca off less. plus i guess in the same vein griffith could’ve theoretically asked some dude to cuddle with guts while casca stood guard, but it had to be casca herself.
so tbh while it works as an explanation, I don’t think this is what Miura was intending. I def think it’s supposed to be basically an introduction to the way Casca’s narrative is all about misogyny and being a woman.
(I don’t think Miura necessarily intended the internalized homophobia thing btw, it just fits so well and reading it that way improves the story imho, and I can’t help but see it everywhere throughout lol)
i actually kinda like how unconcerned griffith is. he’s just like, welp what can you do casca, naked man + naked woman = acceptable, naked man + naked man = bad, that’s just the natural way of things and I got way too much internalized homophobia to fight it. (“warming a man is a woman’s duty, he said.”)
lol i seriously cannot read griffith’s narrative as anything but dream/heteronormativity vs guts/living ur gay truth.
like i’ve seen this scene described as just tone-setting casual ye olde sexism, but it feels too significant for that. it just fits their whole messed up love triangle dynamic so perfectly, it’s like, an ideal establishing action that just sums it all up.
the top row of panels are actually A Lot for some reason
like their interaction and the reason why casca is pissed off, which makes griffith’s commiserating hand on her shoulder a ridiculously shallow and assholish gesture
or like casca’s awful skin tight pants lol
actually ugh now that i think about it it rly sucks how casca starts out violently objecting to this shit – punching guts in his stab wound here after being ordered to keep him alive bc another man can’t nakedly share body heat with him, and then throwing a knife at guts when she wakes up naked next to him again in the cave – and eventually ends up fucking guts. i’m sure miura was going for more of a cutesy forced-contact-leading-to-more bullshit vibe but doing it like this makes it feel more like she’s being worn down into her societally-assigned place (”in this man’s heart”)
idek i’m just tired and rambly. i hate romance tropes they’re all like this.
tfw your morning sex is interrupted by weird drama just outside your tent
Guts’ slow realization that
he had Griffith on a completely unrealistic pedestal and
destroyed him because of his belief that Griffith is distant and untouchable and above him is perfectly mirrored, foreshadowed, and summed up by this statement of Casca’s:
Except yk Guts never gets that moment of realization that his feelings have a sexual component.
And it’s just so easy to read this as a statement on that lol, on how if Guts did have that realization maybe the fact that Griffith isn’t a god would’ve followed. Or if he’d had another few minutes between this
and the Eclipse.
Like I’m js you equate removing Griffith from his pedestal and seeing him as a fallible human to recognizing your buried attraction to him w/ one character, I’m obviously going to follow that thread through to the other character and his paralleled feelings towards Griffith.
Maybe it’s a bit much to equate Guts swinging his sword several hundred times until his hand is covered in blisters to Griffith scratching himself, but hey both are forms of self-harm associated with their dreams. (Plus the blisters work as a solid symbol of Guts’ typical self-destructive way of fighting, letting monsters stab him so he can shoot them, that kinda thing).
Anyway I just noticed that Guts’ hand was bandaged the morning he left the Hawks despite it having been a month since he had to kill anyone, and was like, hmm.
I mean maybe in theory dude Casca would have his own very different subplot and character arc, but I have no idea what it could be bc there’s nothing really to base it on. It’d basically be inventing a whole new character.
This is actually my biggest issue with imagining AUs lol, and why I’m kind of terrible at it.
I mean I think it’s easier for some people to see characters, their personality traits, and transpose them onto another setting, either with different reasons for those personality traits existing, or tweaking those reasons to fit a new setting (eg Guts could’ve still grown up in an abusive home in a modern AU, with a lot of the same issues). I think it takes a certain kind of talent to be able to like, know what to emphasize and what to downplay to make it work and make the characters feel IC in different settings while discouraging the readers from asking too many questions lol. But it’s a talent I absolutely don’t have.
Like if I was writing a griffguts f/f au fic (to take inspiration from that last ask), I have no idea what I’d do. I’d have to spend forever carefully figuring out exactly how to change their backgrounds to make sense and keep them in character. Like you could maybe argue that if Guts showed a willingness to fight/kill at a young age and a talent for it Gambino might still keep her around and teach her to use a sword bc he doesn’t really give a fuck as long as she can help him make money. Idk how believable that is, but it’s like, theoretically possible. If Casca can lead the Hawks Griffith could lead the Hawks as a woman, but ascending to the throne within the system just wouldn’t work in Berserk’s setting, she’d have to go full on Xena-esque warlord and forcibly take a kingdom. Which would still change her character significantly bc she’d be way darker. Her focus would be 100% military rather than focused on political machinations.
She could still be driven by a combination of childish determination and guilt tho at least? Idk my point is that there are a million things to consider in AUs and my problem is that I feel like I have to consider all of them bc I have a nitpicky analytical brain lol, I’d get stuck on all the details, while other people are good at just pinpointing the important stuff and focusing on that and making it work. So I’m basically with you lol, and when ppl ask me about stuff like AU ideas and whatever my answers tend to be kind of shallow bc of this.
Also this is why my favourite AUs to think about tend to be canon AUs/for want of a nail stuff where it’s the same as canon but a character made a different choice or something didn’t happen or whatever. It’s so much simpler.
you're the only one 