i love these kinds of questions! but please prepare yourself because this is going to be long and incoherent
so, to be perfectly honest, i know this is a cop out but all griffith scenes are my favourite scenes?
if i had to pick a few that stand out the most, however, i love griffith & guts’ first and last duels so much
these panels especially, but also:
i also LOVE:
this whole entire thing. all of it, every panel, every word, i love it.
then there’s the entire sequence starting with him overhearing casca telling guts to leave again and ending with him sacrificing everyone. love all of that, especially: his suicide attempt which breaks my heart whenever i re-read it, the moment when guts is approaching him and he’s thinking “stay away!!!” and his thoughts leading up to the sacrifice, about how guts outshone his dream.
this obvious parallel
also, needless to say, i have a complicated relationship with his nightmare wherein he is in a lifesucking heterosexual marriage with casca .. lol.
another big scene for me is, obviously, the bthump scene. i love it so much. i love how he came to guts to check if he still had feelings. very subtle. and then he was like “ok sweet i don’t have feelings bye” and then he had a feeling. I LOVE IT.
OH and allllllll of those femto + black swordsman interactions from the nonnumerical chapters. kisses fingers like a chef.
those are the first few scenes that come to mind, honestly. but there’s a lot of other gems too, like his and guts’ very first meeting when he tells guts that he wants him, that moment when he shows guts the behelit smiling like a little kid, that time he was talking to guts about their duel and how fun it was and just looked really fond, every time he risked his life for guts and every time he lied about his reasons, that time he gave julius a dangerous smile (and every time he talked shit about the nobles), when he asked guts to do him the favour of killing julius, these two scenes god
the scene with casca in the lake, that moment when guts’ sword broke in the middle of their important fight and he looked like … idk what that emotion even was, probably fear? that moment he told gennon he meant nothing to him, god that scene when he sets the room with the queen inside on fire and takes off the ribbon tying his hair …… all of his little smiles and glances @ guts. all of his little 😮 moments.
i’m not fond of the fuck scene with charlotte for obvious reasons, but i do like how he was thinking about guts and also afterwards when he just … curls in on himself and starts crying. that destroyed me.
this isn’t a scene people talk about a lot but i love when he tells charlotte’s gross father off? he just knows … exactly which buttons to push. and we didn’t even know he had all this dirt on the king until that scene, i just love it so much
i love that moment when they find him in the torture chamber and he wakes up and sees guts. puts his hand on his neck, but then guts starts crying, and his hand slides down to guts’ instead. fuck me.
AND ok you already know about this ‘cause we’ve talked about it but:
this moment of clear, undeniable jealousy. love.
obviously i love his little private moment with guts in the carriage. i love neo-griffith’s mind-numbingly boring tea parties, and his talk with rickert. … like i said, i love pretty much any scene where griffith showed up in the manga lol.
if you ask me why … i apologise ’cause this isn’t going to be anything profound, really, but i just love him as a character, literally everything about him. looking at this array, i seem to prefer scenes where he loses control and shows some kind of intense emotion, generally directed towards guts. but i also love the scenes of clear emotional repression, be it him telling guts he doesn’t really have a reason for risking his life to save him, or him telling himself and everyone else that he doesn’t feel guilty for all the lives that were lost for his cause. i love his messy emotions, whether he tries to hide them or they take over him completely and cause him to make his disastrous decisions. i love his impulsivity, i love his jealousy, i love his guilt. i just love him so much.
i feel like i already know a few of your favourite scenes but still wbu? feel free to ramble @ me like i just did @ you
Yesss, ngl I asked because I’ve been craving some pure certified organic griffith positivity and I read this post with just a big grin on my face lol. so ty for the long and awesome answer ❤
Like, other than going ^^^^all of the above^^^^ I guess right now I really want to ramble about like… the genuinely good stuff. I never shut up about Griffith’s flaws, his self loathing, his guilt, his emotional repression, the way he lashes out in interesting yet horrifying ways when he can’t just repress his feelings, the sacrifice, etc…
But yk what despite how fucked up he is as a person he has a lot of good aspects that always get downplayed for the sake of villainizing him, and I want to talk about those.
Like dude wanted to create a socialist, non-discriminatory paradise in the middle ages? His goal was literally to become king so he would have the power to carve out a place where people’s bodies and lives wouldn’t be bought and sold. I’d side-eye the shit out of Miura for making that the antagonist’s motivation if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s consistently portrayed as a good thing. Still keeping my side-eye on hold tho for when we find out exactly where Miura’s going with Falconia.
And he walked the walk in addition to talking the talk. His second in command was the only woman we ever see fighting in an army in Berserk, and she joined him because he saved her from a noble who bought her. Then he got her, and a bunch of other former peasants, knighted. If Griffith had become king the normal way rather than taking the magical god route, the… idk military command. Head General? Whatever, the commander of his armies would’ve been Casca.
Like yeah there’s some ye olde sexism in the mix but that comes from every dude we see, including beloved ones like Guts and Judeau (especially Guts, yeesh).
He was a beloved commander for a reason. His strategies aren’t just brilliant, they’re a way of minimizing casualties as much as possible. Despite always having to project an image of perfection, he was able to be personable too, making the Hawks feel valued. He partied with them after victories, all he said to Casca when she was full of guilt for going into battle with debilitating cramps was “welcome back,” he got Casca to rescue Corkus from Guts and then came over and rescued Casca when that wasn’t enough, he had a personal recollection of the kid who died in the flashback who Casca didn’t know anything about, remembering the way the kid looked at him.
He hides the dark underside of his rise to power not just because he doesn’t want anyone (except Guts) to see it and judge him for it, but also because he doesn’t want the Hawks to have to worry about it.
Guts thinks it’s cruel to not let them in on the plan, but Griffith thinks it’d be cruel to burden them with the knowledge of some of the fucked up things getting them those knighthoods.
The way he says, “But for hundreds, thousands of lives to hang in the balance and myself alone not to be unclean…” which completely fails to acknowledge that his life is on the line exactly the same as everyone else’s since he leads his army at the front, but he thinks that doesn’t count, he has to do something extra basically as penance.
And like, sorry but that extra thing is literally selling himself to a child rapist, as a child, to prevent as many soldiers from dying in battle as possible. I’m like, so done with watching fandom downplay that at every turn. Also while I’m listing good deeds, personally murdering that dude.
How being in love with Guts makes him automatically do things from little stuff like asking Guts to assassinate Julius instead of ordering him to, to huge things like basically straight up dying for him w/ Zodd. I mean, Zodd won, if it wasn’t for fate Griffith would’ve died right there while running to Guts to grab his hand.
And this is after ordering the rest of the Hawks to retreat and running in alone to try to rescue Guts.
Also not just doing good things, how about being awesome? Like taking five thousand people and winning a battle against thirty thousand. Like the way it’s set up with Casca thinking that Griffith might be being reckless by volunteering because his rapist is head of that army, but it turns out that he knew he could win entirely because of his history with Gennon, basically using his predatory lust against him. Like burning a bunch of murder-plotting conservative nobles alive while doing this:
Like going through at least two days of torture without making a sound. And coming out the other side after a full year still sane because his feelings for Guts kept him going. And then saving everyone during the escape attempt despite being helpless and voiceless. Wanting desperately to be able to grab a sword and help Guts fight a giant terrifying monster.
I just love him so much and I talk about his stupidity and self loathing and emotional fucked up ness and how he succumbs to his flaws all the time and have been especially focusing on it recently due to this thing i’m procrastinating on still writing, but he has a lot of genuine virtues too and sometimes u just wanna sit back and be a Griffith apologist.
u burn those nobles babe, you earned it
So here you’re thinking, aww Guts has noticed Griffith watching Charlotte leave and thinks this is the beginning of a romance and he’s happy for his friend. This is nice.
But then
Guts: holy shit you mean Griffith is planning to court Charlotte? You just blew my entire fucking mind. This is so out of left field. I have never before even considered this possibility.
I’m js, Guts was literally just staring at Griffith, then looking away and blushily smiling.
And yeah I could see this perspective pretty easily. Casca knows Guts wants to be Griffith’s friend and equal, but she doesn’t know how much of that comes from a deep and desperate need to be loved. On the surface it seems a lot like one of those typically masculine ‘I can’t stand feeling like someone is superior to me’ things, and that’s probably how Casca sees it because she didn’t witness Guts’ reaction to being told Griffith risked his life for him for no reason, or his “if a certain someone just looked at me (ie: loved me) my pointless life would feel worthwhile” speech to Judeau and Corkus.
Also Casca could be speaking from recent experience there too from that angle, because she’s just learned how hard it is to move on when you see the person you have feelings for again, what with all the jealousy during the rescue etc. So it kind of ties together that way.
and obviously the jealous of guts thing too, that’s pretty unsubtle
Also also I s2g literally the one and only thing Casca’s feelings for Griffith being romantic after all adds to Berserk is gay subtext
does it enrich her character in any way? no. does it make her relationship with griffith more interesting? no. does it make her relationship with guts more interesting? hell no.
all it does is provide a handy parallel for griffith and guts’ feelings for each other.
Also speaking of Casca and Griffith this is a great little underappreciated moment:
Casca moving defensively in front of Griffith and drawing her sword to protect him from Zodd, only for Griffith to tell her to run with everyone while he decides to personally be the one to leap directly into near certain death to try to save Guts.
I think it would depend. like imo pretty much any tiny change would lead to no Eclipse, but if say Casca and Judeau hooked up during the year Guts was gone, I could see that leading to either
the best case scenario for Griffith of Casca and Judeau taking off together and leaving Griffith with Guts
or the worst case scenario of Guts leaving Griffith with Casca and Judeau and taking off.
tho tbh I can’t see the latter happening if Guts still had his revelation that he broke Griffith’s heart, and he would’ve still had that revelation if Casca still attacked him and screamed it at him, which probably still would’ve happened, so yeah I think it’s more likely than not that the outcome would’ve been a lot better generally if Judeau and Casca got together.
Also if they did get together and the Eclipse still happened, a lot would probably change because they both would’ve died, and Guts’ probably would’ve too without a prolonged rape scene to waste time while Skull Knight fought Zodd. But like, assuming the events of the Eclipse somehow didn’t change, I don’t think Guts’ feelings towards mentally regressed Casca would be very different if they’d stayed platonic friends rather than hooking up. Their sexual relationship is mostly downplayed after the Eclipse (except when it comes to Guts assaulting her and I sure wouldn’t miss that) with Guts mostly thinking of her as a reminder of his time with the Hawks, and I think he’d feel about the same amount of regret and responsibility when it comes to her.
Overall I actually really like Casca’s relationship with Griffith, and I think if a) Berserk was a very different story and b) Miura didn’t make Casca’s life revolve around romantic pining, I’d really love them as a v interesting platonic brotp style relationship with lots of layers and depth.
Casca has a v unique perspective and insight on Griffith, with her combination of hero worship and the way she’s seen him at his worst (pre-torture).
She’s aware that he hides himself behind a veneer of perfection, that he feels immense guilt, that he buries his emotions. She watched him self harm in front of her after prostituting himself to a pedophile. She’s more aware of his vulnerable humanity than even Guts is.
And knowing that he’s human, seeing some of his darker and sadder flaws first hand, only makes her admiration grow. I love that. I think it’s sad for Griffith because he doesn’t know this and knowing it would’ve probably really helped with his self loathing issues, and I think it’s a little… messed up, the way Casca sees Griffith’s ability to suppress his feelings and be perfect for everyone as a strength, but it’s really interesting as a dynamic.
When it comes to Griffith’s point of view, I think it’s kind of a shame that he remained so closed off to her. Casca and Guts have very similar feelings towards Griffith, but where Casca is largely shut out after he turns and puts his hand on her shoulder in the river, Guts is let in. So Casca and Griffith feel kind of like a missed connection. Not in a romantic way, but in a “if things had been slightly different between them, they could’ve been great mutual support for each other” kind of way.
If the river scene had gone a little differently, like say if Casca had assured Griffith she didn’t think he was dirty instead of asking why he was with Gennon, or if Griffith had allowed himself to accept her comforting hug, I think Casca could’ve been solid, affirming emotional support for Griffith. If she knew about the assassinations, say, she’d’ve been fine with them. She probably would’ve been a better assassin than Guts, too, lol.
lbr, Griffith desperately needed someone to see all of him and tell him he wasn’t a monster, and Casca would’ve been great at that. For Casca’s part, she wanted someone to prioritize her and trust her enough to accept her emotional support (as we see pretty clearly in the scene where she and Guts fuck.) And I think getting this platonically would’ve been just as good or better for her than getting it with a side of sex.
But at the end of the day it was Guts who Griffith turned to (and tbqh the fact that Casca’s jealousy is explicitly because she’s in love with Griffith absolutely means that Griffith trusting Guts, prioritizing Guts, and wanting Guts to see all of him, ie exactly what Casca wanted to be to Griffith, all boils down to attraction and Griffith choosing Guts over Casca as essentially his emotional support because he’s in love with Guts and not Casca. But I digress) and Casca’s relationship with Griffith never met its full potential.
But despite that, they still have a really cute, generally fairly positive relationship before everything goes down. Griffith sends a search party not just for Guts but also specifies her when they fall off the cliff. When they get back Casca’s falling over herself apologizing and Griffith just smiles and welcomes her back. At Guts’ prompting he mentions her dress to her just to say something nice and slightly make up for letting her think he was dead. When he first saves her she becomes devoted not just because he threw her a sword, but because he helped calm her down after she killed the dude, seemed to empathize with her (”he just nodded, deeply and slowly,”) and gave her a blanket. After the rescue there’s a moment where he sees her crying near Judeau from afar and clearly wishes he was still able to comfort her.
Idk honestly their relationship isn’t perfect, it has some sadness, some missed opportunities, some dark moments (I’m talking pre-Eclipse, I’m not touching Femto bc as far as I can tell the Eclipse rape had nothing to do with Casca or Griffith’s overall relationship with her and everything to do with Guts), but overall I think it’s a sweet, mostly positive friendship.
Ok lol sorry about that essay that doesn’t even address most of your ask.
As for Casca trying to protect Griffith from getting hurt, I think it makes perfect sense from a character perspective, though I’m a little cynical when it comes to my thoughts on what Miura may have intended. Like, eg, I think Casca’s violent diatribe against Guts near the waterfall was meant to be a mix of genuine anger over the way he broke Griffith, partially projecting her own feelings of abandonment, and partially her feelings of jealousy getting involved too – why couldn’t Guts have stayed for her, and why couldn’t she affect Griffith the way Guts could? We see both issues come up shortly after – jealousy right before she tries to kill herself, and raging at Guts for (she thinks) wanting to leave her behind again after they have sex.
So I guess now I’m thinking Casca’s feelings when she tells Guts to leave are probably a complicated mixture of like, everything.
I think what you described plays a large part. She knows how Griffith feels about Guts, and that seeing her and Guts together every day would be torturous for him. Also lbr, a few days with another dude aren’t enough to erase anyone’s like, near decade of feelings for the first dude, and we see them come up again during the rescue mission, when jealousy starts creeping between Guts and Casca, so she’s not exactly over her feelings for Griffith, which includes wanting to protect him.
I think there’s also an element of Casca being self-sacrificing, telling Guts to leave to pursue his dream because she thinks Guts’ dream is the most important thing to him, and she believes Guts staying would be a sacrifice on his part.
I think Casca is aware enough of the weird love triangle between the three of them that she knows if they both stayed with Griffith things would get weird and fucked up real quick for everyone, probably especially Griffith. She’s jealous of Guts and Griffith, Griffith loves Guts and would be jealous of the relationship between him and Casca, plus he’s the most vulnerable, and I think there’s a strong indication that Guts would be caught in the middle, but probably would end up prioritizing Griffith.
AND THEN there’s another aspect to Casca pushing Guts away that I think could, at least in theory, be the strongest motivating factor, at least when it comes to my interpretation of Casca and my love of flawed female characters who make terrible choices just like the men do, which is that she’s been given an opportunity to take Guts’ role.
Now Griffith needs her. Now she’s the one who can comfort him and Griffith finally accepts her comfort. And sex is also maybe on the table which, taking the narrative at face value, is something Casca also wants.
There is a “yet,” there, ofc. I think Casca’s feelings are mixed. She genuinely wanted to leave with Guts, she was probably glad of the chance to get over her one-sided feelings for Griffith, but at the same time, she still has those feelings.
So like, ultimately, once she’s faced with the reality that Griffith desperately needs someone who loves him and she can’t just take off with Guts, there are three options available: her and Guts both stay, only Guts stays, only Casca stays.
Both her and Guts staying would be an unmitigated disaster of jealousy issues, only Guts staying would fucking suck for Casca (right now from her pov, in the long run lbr it would by far be the best option bc Casca needs to find herself away from dudes), but only Casca staying would give her something she used to desperately want, and still does want on some level.
So she tells herself Guts would be unhappy without his dream and he shouldn’t stay for his own sake, and tries to send him off, but the actual driving emotional reason is that only one of them can stay with Griffith and she wants it to be her.
(For the record I think this would’ve been a huge mistake for Casca even if the Eclipse didn’t happen. Despite Griffith’s nightmare vision I can’t imagine her being happy living a quiet domestic life with him. But what’s the point of a Berserk character if they’re not making huge mistakes?)
lol man this is a lot longer than I thought it would be, and I think a lot of this is a stretch and probably not what Miura intended, but it’s the explanation I want to land on.
Oh and finally, just to briefly hit the last two things, I’d say Casca can’t tell the difference between love and a feeling of obligation she gets when someone saves her. Both her feelings for Griffith and Guts started after being saved by them, and both manifest in wanting to comfort them and be their emotional support and give them something in return for what they’ve given her.
“Not just being given to… maybe I can give something as well.”
So while maybe Miura wanted us to believe Casca loved Guts, or could’ve fallen in love with Guts (tho idk maybe this is purposeful, I talk a lot about how I think he deliberately went a relatively non-romantic route with Guts and Casca’s hook up), I don’t think she genuinely loved him, or Griffith for that matter, in a romantic sense.
@poppy-moon because you asked a while back re: meta about casca and griffith and now I’ve written something lol. and the first half is more the positive kind of thing you were suggesting.
It was like she was betraying Griffith. She constantly drew the
conclusion that Griffith loved Guts throughout the manga. And by staying
she would be taking care of him, and I suppose her hope of sending Guts
away would be that she and Griffith could grieve together and Griffith
wouldn’t have to feel abandoned by them both or have to watch them be
together when he had literally destroyed himself over Guts.
Yeah I really like this idea. I think it def makes more sense with Casca’s character and her knowledge of Griffith’s feelings, it’s a lot better than just abruptly shifting from prioritizing Griffith and his dream to prioritizing Guts’ dream, which has been my interpretation of why she told Guts to leave.
Also man I’d love to see a missing scene right after Guts leaves and we see Casca and the Hawks react to Griffith’s breakdown.
oh these panels makes me think of that interview(?) with miura where he says that nagais expressive linework was a huge inspiration to him and it obviously informs how he incorporates emotion into his work
YEAH absolutely
lol this exchange is so timely, I was just re-reading part of the Eclipse last night and this page just leapt out at me as pure Nagai:
like moreso than any other pissed off Guts I can recall off the top of my head, it kind of slapped me in the face with devilman vibes.
I definitely do. While liveblogging it a while ago I kind of landed on this theory of Berserk’s afterlife which I got into here.
Basically if I was going to guess I’d say that since ethereal bodies gravitate towards other ethereal bodies of the same nature, hell is other people applies here. Hell is hell because you’re stuck in a swirly whirlpool becoming one with a bunch of horrible people like yourself. And heaven would be heaven because you’re in a nice swirly whirlpool becoming one with a bunch of nice people.
I also think it’s likely that Guts, other sacrifices, and even apostles aren’t by default automatically going to hell, despite what’s implied in the Black Swordsman arc. Going to hell just because you “got caught up with demonkind” meaning you hung out with a demon or were killed by or sacrificed by a demon seems stupid to me, and doesn’t make sense with things Flora says later on about Ods and stuff (she also says caring for Casca might be his protection from hellfire iirc). It’s absolutely suggested when Puck is all concerned that Guts being branded means he’s going to go to Hell, and Guts himself is clearly worried about that inevitability, but imo it makes more sense for “got caught up with demonkind” to be “acted like a demon/succumbed to one’s dark side” lol. ie Guts on his revenge rampage, Vargas consumed by revenge himself, etc.
It would be kind of a twist, in a way? Guts thinks he’s inevitably going to hell because he’s been sacrificed, but it’s actually because due to the sacrifice he’s consumed by revenge and being an asshole.
(This could also be Miura evolving the idea as he goes. Guts being inevitably bound for hell works in the whole early super grimdark Black Swordsman setting, but if he wants something less than a crushingly depressing ending that’s not gonna fly now.)
Oh also I think Femto mentions the vibrations of the Count’s soul carrying him closer to hell, implying he could also vibrate away from hell, even despite being an apostle. I’m too lazy to find the page and check the wording though.
tl;dr yeah I think there’s a heaven and I think anyone could theoretically go there.
you know i wonder if at least one part of griffith’s heart bthumping here is the fact that zodd and guts are dueling, as opposed to just the fact that guts is there
for one, their duels should be very significant to him both because he won guts with their first one (and guts won him over: “that fight was enjoyable. that’s how fights should be.”) and because he lost guts with their last one (and that destroyed him)
but also, and i’m aware this is a bit of a stretch, but though griffith always believed in guts’ fighting ability he also never stopped worrying about him
i’m not saying he’s worried about guts here necessarily but he’s watching him fight, duel, something he used to do with him, something he used to watch him do a lot. if he remembers everything (except, i assume, how it felt?) … you know.
I totally agree! imo Guts vs Zodd here could echo a lot of significant moments in their relationship. Like Griffith’s first intrigued sight of him when he dives into danger to kill Bazuso, the first time they met Zodd and Griffith risked his life for Guts and couldn’t rationalize it afterwards, Griffith worrying and watching Guts from a distance while he fights Boscogne, watching the Wyald fight while removed from it and feeling isolated from Guts.
Like yeah I don’t think he’s feeling any of those things directly, but if we’re going to see his heart beating while Guts is around this is a v appropriate situation that reflects a lot of their past and makes it feel extra significant.
Like stories about love uplifting people and making them nobler and better are all well and good, but a story about love utterly destroying someone to the point where they would rather become a monster than continue to experience it? sign me tf up.
And like! It’s not because the love itself is inherently bad, or the people involved are inherently bad, or wrong for each other, or w/e – in fact in other circumstances we’re shown that the love between Guts and Griffith is positive for both of them. Even after the torture, we’re teased with hope spots where it’s implied that having lost the dream and his voice and independence etc, just being with Guts would be enough for Griffith to live with some amount of happiness. Like, the smiles, Griffith symbolically letting go of his dream as he watches the castle disappear over the horizon, the way Guts choosing to stay was such a moment of significance because it was the right choice, it was just a moment too late.
(like ok realistically these two dudes are dramatic idiots in a very difficult situation and the future would not have been clear sailing even if there was no Eclipse, but the point of those moments is to show us that it’s possible, yk? like, when Griffith sees a horrific vision of his future, it’s not the absence of his dream that’s featured so heavily, it’s the absence of Guts.)
That’s what makes it so good – the potential between them is so strong and intense, but at the end of the day, after losing everything else, Griffith couldn’t take the pain of being in love with someone who he believes rejected him once and is about to do it again.
Sorry I totally just used your message as a jumping-off point to gush about this lol.
tbh that’s like my favourite thing about Berserk and one thing I think Miura did so well – showing exactly how Griffith could choose to sacrifice someone he genuinely, truly loves above all else, and not just despite that love, but largely because of it. It’s endlessly interesting to me, and I kind of feel bad for Berserk fans who don’t see it because they’re missing out on a seriously compelling story.
@prettykitten123 said: Am I the only one that thinks Guts is just a bit dense?
to this anon in my inbox that i’m gonna block soon:
(fair warning i discuss the eclipse rape p irreverently under the cut)
idk how you can say i dance around what “griffith” did when i’ve addressed it many times, and indeed, on my about page which is linked right there on the sidebar.
i don’t dance around femto raping casca during the eclipse, i just don’t gaf because it’s fiction, no people were actually harmed, it was lazy exploitative writing, and griffith magically turned into a demon first. like… no amount of anonymous whining is gonna make me care when the mangaka himself barely even cares beyond it being a handy plot point to piss guts off and remove casca from the story while grotesquely sexualizing her, with maybe some weird bs about a fetus thrown in.
but i have a feeling that you consider not starting every post about griffith i write with ‘btw i don’t condone his actions, i think turning into a demon and raping someone is morally wrong’ to be dancing around it lol.
like, again, it’s fiction. it’s a made up story. the only thing that actually matters to me about that story is what does or doesn’t entertain me. casca’s rape was badly written and her subsequent trauma was even more badly written and both are offensive rather than entertaining but guess what, i hate miura for that because he wrote it and femto, in fact, isn’t real.
also gotta say anon, it’s p misogynistic that you framed femto’s rape of casca as part of how “griffith took everything away from guts.” i mean granted, that’s how miura framed it, but that’s why it’s good to look at fiction with a critical eye instead of accepting everything at face value.
What’s interesting to me is that all the members of the god hand probably have a wounded core which is protected by their armor/transformation into a god hand
totally. Same with Apostles from everything we’ve seen, and Guts too – like it’s particularly fitting that his Beast of Darkness, which essentially is self-protection born out of trauma and betrayal, both in childhood and then the Eclipse, p much lives in a magic suit of armour now.
“You bled so much for me. These are wounds from the hundred man battle, right? Even the wound I gave you…”
“I too want a wound… that I can say you gave me.”
When it comes to Guts’ guilt issues surrounding Griffith’s tragic narrative, and the highly sexually charged nature of the scene where the Beast of Darkness suggests this, and the fact that the Guts and Casca sex scene is already chock full of references and parallels to Griffith, I’m feeling like this is a legit comparison, at least from Guts’ guilt-ridden and Griffith-obsessed point of view.
(brought to my attention by therainykitty here, ty! also s/o to this post)
that ask earlier and some other recent stuff has made me contemplate this lol but like tbh there’s something so bizarre and weird about how the rest of the fandom makes statements like this seem like wild theorizing and totally biased griffguts shipper opinions or whatever, when like, the page that u referenced exists:
and this goes for a bunch of other stuff too. berserk is so unsubtle about how much of its content revolves around the relationship between guts and griffith and yet acknowledging that fact is a niche opinion lol
idk i just wanted to briefly vent about it i guess
Wow this is so lovely to hear! I’m so glad I helped get you back into Berserk! You’re definitely not the only one who sees and loves the relationship between Guts and Griffith, but it can definitely seem that way in this particular fandom lol. Honestly I pretty much started this blog because I couldn’t find any other current griffguts shippers or people who saw Berserk the way I do at all, and since then I’ve found a lot of like-minded people, it’s great 🙂
Also wow yeah I’m feeling the vibes in that song. Making me think of both Guts deciding to leave and Griffith’s pov in the 2nd duel. Ty!
oh man but forreal the concept of farnese fully retaining all her experiences of casca’s life through casca’s perspective but casca waking up with very little or no memory of farnese at all…
like casca who’s always empathized with and defended and fought for and dedicated her life to others, who’s been used and hurt as a pawn by two people who have always cared more about each other than they care about her, finally being truly seen and understood and known and loved by someone who’s a virtual stranger to her
that is a really, really good starting place for an interesting romance js
today i was thinking a lot about farnese’s isolation and emotional distance from ppl all her life
like even serpico didn’t tell her she’s his half sister and she had to ask if he hates her and agh there’s still a big unbridged emotional gap there
and her journey through casca’s mind, seeing her life through her eyes and feeling her feelings, must’ve been so huge for her because of that
like farnesca is right there. casca is now the person farnese knows best and is most emotionally intimate with and with whom she has shared the most
also super interesting potential for development and growth, both painful/fucked up and happy and good, in that it’s one-sided. farnese has seen casca’s whole life through her eyes and heart, but casca has to learn about farnese the old fashioned way
I feel like the way he executed the heterosexual couplings in this manga is like the way Oscar Wilde did in his book Picture Of Dorian Gray. The straight couples have no substance whereas the undertones of homosexuality between two men had more depth and emotion.
With that being said I know there’s a whole debate on whether Griffith and Guts were homosexual or straight or this or that but to me honestly I don’t even think they knew about their sexuality.
one day i really should actually read podg. but honestly based on what i’ve heard and the sheer volume of subtext in berserk it seems like an apt comparison.
speaking for myself i headcanon both as gay and mostly in denial/ignorant of that fact. i mean guts i could see as bi as well pretty easily, like either works for me, but griffith is Gay imo.
when it comes to being more “”objectively”” analytical I can acknowledge that it’s all subtext and therefore their sexualities can’t technically be asserted as fact either way, but since i really dislike the assumption of straight as default i happily just take it as read that they’re fully in love and attracted to each other. even if it is just subtext, I consider it to be the like… occam’s razor of readings. it’s the simplest explanation for a lot of the content of the manga so why not roll with it, yk?
this is a pretty glaring omission. we saw zodd and the king’s griffith dreams but not guts’, our protagonist with a “profound connection” to him???
i’m not saying guts’ canonical dreams about griffith are too gay and revealing for berserk’s general readership but that’s exactly what i’m saying
But that’s the thing, Guts probably didn’t have prophetic dreams about neo!Griffith because Femto/n!Griff is not what he desired. Everyone who dreamed of The White Hawk desired him for the sake of absolution or social change or w/e, Guts just wants back the dork he had naked water fights with.
good point tbh. idk I was kind of just assuming everyone in the world had them regardless of their personal desire for a saviour bc the ~collective desire~ was that strong, but this makes sense too, and it’s nicely angsty so I’m into it.
There are two important parallels during the waterfall scene, when Guts and Casca fight, then fuck.
The first is this parallel to Guts and Griffith’s second duel.
Casca is the new leader of the Hawks, replacing Griffith’s role. She
challenges and fights Guts when he returns, in a mirror of Griffith
challenging and fighting him before he leaves. Then she falls to her
knees and has a self-destructive
breakdown. The last time the leader of the Hawks had a breakdown after
fighting him, Guts walked away. The scenario has presented itself again,
and this time Guts makes a different choice, one that might have
changed everything a year ago: he comforts her.
Sex with Casca is Guts subconsciously (from a character perspective) or symbolically (from a narrative perspective) trying to fix past mistakes, imo.
Throughout the fight by the waterfall, Casca is screaming at him that he broke Griffith by leaving, that it’s his fault. This scene is all about Griffith and their feelings towards him. For Guts, it’s the beginning of his eventual revelation that leaving was a mistake because Griffith didn’t look down on him after all – because Griffith’s “no good without” him.
The fact that Guts lets Casca stab him as she screams this tells us that her words hit home and he feels guilty, even as he denies it. It’s a pattern of behaviour for Guts that we’ve seen before and will see again, eg, when he let the zombie child stab him in the second chapter because he blamed himself for her death, and then denied feeling responsible to Puck afterwards (”If you’re always worried about crushing the ants beneath you… you won’t be able to walk.”)
He represses that guilt and doesn’t manage to acknowledge his mistake until about five minutes before the Eclipse, unfortunately, but this is how we know he feels it regardless, and this is how we know it’s informing his choices now – specifically, his choice to comfort, kiss, and have sex with Casca.
Guts’ denial of guilt while clearly feeling it is reminiscent of another character too:
This is the second parallel, to Casca finding Griffith in the river.
Casca eventually yanks her sword out of Guts, admits to him that she’s romantically in love with Griffith, proceeds to list all the ways Griffith is wholly unavailable (he needs to marry Charlotte, Guts took the place she wanted at Griffith’s side, and now he may not even be alive), bequeaths Griffith to Guts, and tries to kill herself. Griffith Griffith Griffith – the lead-in to sex revolves around him. Guts thinking about how he abandoned him in the snow, Casca thinking about how Griffith doesn’t need her, and Guts beginning to realize that Griffith needed him.
So Guts saves her from her suicide attempt, then comforts her through sex.
And Casca does the same in return:
She couldn’t comfort Griffith, she couldn’t be Griffith’s “woman,” she couldn’t be be something indispensable to Griffith’s dream, but she can comfort Guts, she can have sex with Guts, she can help Guts achieve his dream.
The situations requiring her comfort are even v similar – Guts has just had a flashback to his rape, and Griffith was calling himself “unclean” after selling himself to a pedophilic rapist. Griffith buries his feelings and refuses to be comforted, but Guts pours his heart out to Casca and lets her hold him.
My point is that Guts and Casca having sex is not about the other for either of them – it’s about their respective relationships to Griffith. Guts is presented with a similar scenario to the morning he left the Hawks, and after being told by Casca that he fucked up then and broke Griffith, he chooses a different course of action this time, and comforts and has sex with Casca. Casca is presented with a similar scenario to finding Griffith in the river after Gennon, but instead of being shut out she’s able to comfort the man in emotional turmoil this time.
tl;dr they’re both on the rebound from Griffith here, giving to each other what they didn’t or couldn’t give to him, and there are deliberate visual and situational parallels to illustrate this.
This is what I have thought for years. Casca and Guts whole “relationship” came about because they are in love with the same man. Griffith. Every time they are together conversation turns towards Griffith and lets face it they were both most likely thinking of Griffith during the sex.
Btw I want to say thank you for this post.
In a fandom as vitriol as most of Berserk’s western “fans” are they don’t allow for any kind of insight or discussion like this. But when I read things like this post it reminds me that I wasn’t just fucking seeing things because I swear certain types of people had me believing I was crazy.(I guess that is what those people wanted me to think).
It is posts like yours that make me want to get right back into everything that I love about Berserk.
Edit: Oh yeah I just remembered the all these talk about scars
and how the beast say that Guts basically only holding on to Casca because she is the scar Griffith give him.
Kind of like all the scars Guts indirectly gave Griffith due to his time in torture.
A nice reminder of how Guts subconscious won’t let him forget and how he really doesn’t want to let go of Griffith.
Also Guts looks fucking board after he and Casca had sex
Not to mention he out right lies here
Because
and with Griffith
There is no shoving away or telling him to not to touch him (like with Casca).
So Guts is really forgetful about whose touch it is he didn’t mind or unless you know he is projecting on to Casca that he is talking/being with someone else, a particular someone else.
Oh man I know what you mean. I’ve written so much about my interpretation of Berserk by now and sometimes the rest of the fandom still makes me wonder if I’m just seeing things or making things up. That’s one reason it’s important to find like-minded people imo, especially in a fandom that can be as hostile as this one.
Luckily I’ve managed to find a good place on tumblr where I don’t really have to deal with the majority of the fandom that hates griffith and griffguts lol.
And ty for the addition! That point about the scars and the Beast of Darkness referring to Casca as the wound Griffith left him, like damn I never thought of that but holy shit it’s perfect and fits into that scar discussion between Guts and Casca like a puzzle piece.
And lol yeah, I’m not sure whether that’s Guts fudging the details or Miura conveniently forgetting that moment with Griffith, but either way Guts’ statement that Casca was the only one who could touch him is demonstratably false.
@bthump Oh I agree, I think Guts’ dreams on Griffith after the eclipse would be a mix of longing,sorrow,mourning,regret, happiness,joy and dreaming of the good times as well as things he would have liked happen, anything romantic or otherwise.But I like to think Guts never gets a damn moment of rest without his dreams always going back to Griffith one way or the other.
lol poor guts, fighting ghosts all night, having confusing + painful dreams about griffith all morning and walking all afternoon, for months.
i’m fully on board with this concept.
Hehe No rest for the wicked 😉
Love Guts but sometimes I want to shake him by the shoulders and go “What were you thinking in leaving, you could have had it all”. Except it was because he wanted just that with Griffith,he left to try and get it. Silly Guts, Silly Griffith they really need to just hug it out and allow for each other to heal.
“They could’ve had it all” is a perfect summary of berserk lol. sigh.
you're the only one 