idt this is anything more than coincidence but that tree looks like the branches in the sky circa Falconia and combined with Griffith’s words it’s making me feel feelings
I re-read this chapter and tbh I’m still feeling this, and wondering if it might even be intentional considering the placement of the words
surely Miura had some future worldbuilding concepts in mind early on
I haven’t heard of him, but I’ll check him out when I get a chance, thanks for the rec. I’m about to head off to work but maybe when I get home I’ll watch smthn of his.
the thing with berserk is I’d love more fan content and there is stuff out there in the non-tumblr portion of the internet that’s mostly discussion, which would be great but I don’t think I could be more scared of cis-male opinions on berserk tbh
I’ve barely read any and but I feel like I can… picture it based on what little I’ve seen and I do not want. strongly.
this is the only thing that springs to mind as something from straight dude-centric berserk fandom that i mostly agreed with. it’s been a while since i watched it and i’m sure i’ve refined my own opinions since then so idk if i’d still be going ‘yeah you’re not wrong’ at most of his points, but it’s probably still worth a watch
but yeah in general i avoid everything outside my little tumblr circle, greater berserk fandom is the absolute worst
a) oh hell yeah, thank you! the title of that video is even interesting and it’s actually come up recommended on youtube for me a few times and is one of the ones I was scared to click on and
that’s the kind of thing I want to avoid but at the same time if it’s a downplaying or an alternate explanation I can live with it– I think the only thing I’d come close to accepting is that there’s something more “profound” that motivates him, or well. no accepting, but I can fully understand why people would take that view while also completely disagreeing? there’s at least justification for that in some ways. (although I think that view in itself is as you said, no homo-ish, but also accepts something the narrative pretty explicitly explains is a Bad Idea: making griffith into something “more than”, or someone on a pedestal, who is incomprehensible in nature, is one of the deepest reasons for griffith doing what he does imo).
and c) I’ve now had like my first ever unexpected negative anon (a transphobic one to boot! wow amazing) from this fandom. oh. dear.
(also just watching now and “the less you look at griffith, the worse he seems” is a pretty observation though. yes good).
but also accepts something the narrative pretty explicitly explains is a
Bad Idea: making griffith into something “more than”, or someone on a
pedestal, who is incomprehensible in nature, is one of the deepest
reasons for griffith doing what he does imo
yk this is a great point actually. part of the point of griffith’s narrative is that he’s only human. like, i do think his feelings are incomprehensible to him, at least until he spends a year doing nothing but being tortured and examining those feelings, but they’re not particularly grandiose or more-than.
I actually really dig that as a thematic thing now that you’ve brought it up – Griffith’s feelings for Guts should be plain old ordinary human love and sexuality, because Griffith is an ordinary human who just like… sucks at recognizing/accepting that he is, and sucks at being recognized as an ordinary human.
and the same goes for femto/neogriff since despite being a demigod demon in berserk all these monsters and gods originate in recognizable ordinary human feelings.
like damn that just neatly tied one of my favourite berserk themes to griffith and guts’ love, that’s perfect.
(also tbf I may be misrepresenting what he says about griffguts since I don’t remember the one i linked very well and I haven’t actually watched his video about it, I’m just going off a few comments on it that I read while trying to figure out if it was worth watching lol)
ps lol i went for a good like 8 months without getting any anon hate
despite regularly posting controversial opinions, but now there’s one
anon blowing up my inbox, and it’s def the same person who sent you
those messages lol. sorry about that, she probably found you thru me.
the thing with berserk is I’d love more fan content and there is stuff out there in the non-tumblr portion of the internet that’s mostly discussion, which would be great but I don’t think I could be more scared of cis-male opinions on berserk tbh
I’ve barely read any and but I feel like I can… picture it based on what little I’ve seen and I do not want. strongly.
this is the only thing that springs to mind as something from straight dude-centric berserk fandom that i mostly agreed with. it’s been a while since i watched it and i’m sure i’ve refined my own opinions since then so idk if i’d still be going ‘yeah you’re not wrong’ at most of his points, but it’s probably still worth a watch
but yeah in general i avoid everything outside my little tumblr circle, greater berserk fandom is the absolute worst
it’s exactly that, there’s like venn diagrams of what my friends are into and it doesn’t fully overlap with annnyone else I know irl except well me obvs. if it doesn’t put someone off because of the graphic and unpleasantly depicted rape, it’s the violence factor, or the anime factor, or the tragic “ending” factor, or the “hey this isn’t actually finished” factor ha.
yeah. it’s too bad because there’s so much to love about it, but like ngl if I’d heard about it and been warned about what happens I might’ve avoided it too so I can’t blame anyone for not wanting to get into it. i’m actually pretty glad i had a friend who got me to watch the anime without telling me anything about it first lol, tho I’d never spring it on anyone myself.
god every damn time i think of that wyald scene i see red, ugh
like, guts pauses while fighting wyald to crack wise, sexualize casca and then yell at her to go away, and then afterwards when the fighting is over and done it’s casca getting teary over guts’ wounds, rather than guts showing any compassion or empathy at all.
like this is a narrative problem, casca doesn’t even get a reaction to her own assault there, and when judeau comforts her it’s while she’s crying over guts fighting wyald, not what happened to her, so it’s hard to hate guts for this when it’s more of a miura problem, but still. it’s so so so bad.
(funny enough the closest thing we get to acknowledgement of casca’s assault was griffith trying desperately to tear himself away from the men holding him to somehow help her as soon as wyald starts stripping her. so like, incidentally, there’s another point to throw out there when people start going off on their griffith is a sociopath arguments lol)
actually that post reminded me of a quick thing i was gonna write a while ago and forgot about
so i’ve mentioned before a few times that Guts and Judeau’s conversation here is kind of weird because Guts swivels from ‘what the hell are you talking about’ to ‘actually yeah I should totally fuck Casca, I just need to become Griffith’s equal first’ within about a minute
In other posts I suggested that this was an awkwardly written way of bringing a romance with Casca to the forefront. This seems to reframe Guts’ motivation for leaving as at least in part to become worthy of Casca, despite this never occuring to Guts before.
Now I’m thinking that this scene isn’t actually about complicating Guts’ motivation for leaving at the last minute – I’m thinking it’s set up for Guts’ motivation for romancing Casca.
Meaning, he doesn’t want to become Griffith’s equal so he can feel worthy of Casca’s love, he wants to win Casca to feel like Griffith’s equal.
And I’m js, that reading fits with the way the Guts/Casca “romance” is written throughout the rest of the story, ie, as secondary and serving the relationship between Guts and Griffith, and often falling by the wayside next to it, rather than vice versa.
Like when Guts says he can accept the fact that Casca is still obsessed with Griffith because he’s even more obsessed. Like how (as I thoroughly explained in the post linked above) their sex scene revolves around their relationships to Griffith. Like how Wyald almost raping Casca is treated as an opportunity not for compassion or comfort but for one-liners by Guts (his reaction is to tell her to go away because she’s distracting with ripped clothes !!! like !!! fucking hell). Like how Guts is focused solely on Griffith during the Eclipse, up to and including a moment where he looks down, sees the Band being eaten by monsters, and goes right back to trying to hack Griffith’s egg open, without even sparing a thought for Casca. Like how he abandons her in a cave for two years while hunting Femto down. Like how he only realizes that was a bad decision when he compares it to leaving Griffith kneeling in the snow. Like everything the Hound says. Like Miura’s direct statement that Casca only survived the Eclipse to keep Guts pissed off about it. etc etc etc
Basically I’m not saying it’s better writing this way, but it’s bad in a different way. It’s not clunky so much as plain old misogynistic, but hey p much everything regarding Guts and Casca’s relationship is misogynistic either way, so at least if the romance with Casca was never an end in itself but rather a means to the end of being Griffith’s equal, it’s consistent. At least it means we’re not supposed to read this bullshit and think “aw true love,” yk?
@kissing-monsters lmao ikr Berserk is the kind of thing I’d rec like… only if someone was specifically looking for a gay shakespearean tragedy and doesn’t mind rly dark shit, and then only with about 500 caveats and warnings.
but man it really hits the spot if that’s what you’re after ngl
and ty! lol i think especially part 4 has kind of a ship manifesto feel to it so I get what you mean.
u ever think about how griffith was dangling from a broken arm at the start of the eclipse and frantically reached down so guts could catch his hand as he fell anyway
and guts was the one who let go bc griffith’s arm couldn’t take the strain
and all this after guts’ touch is what sent him into eclipse-causing despair 2 minutes earlier
I don’t really have much to say about Charlotte tbh, nothing about her character really grabs me, but if anything comes to mind or she gets more meaty content in the story eventually, I’ll def write something. Though I don’t really think Casca’s reaction to trauma should be used as a benchmark for how strong anyone else is lol, because her reaction was v unrealistic and pretty much just Miura’s convenient way of getting her out of the way and explaining why she wasn’t around during the Black Swordsman arc despite being alive. I don’t think it means she’s suffered more than anyone else (she may have, but it’s not relevant), or that she’s emotionally or mentally weaker than anyone else.
Charlotte is pretty resilient though, totally agree.
Yeah I’m assuming we’re not far from seeing some revealing emotional NeoGriffith moments, after his interaction with Rickert, but we’ll see I guess. I have my doubts that it has anything to do with the magic baby, but again, we’ll see.
Though speaking of, one thing I can say is that I don’t think it will be a tantrum because things aren’t going his way. We’ve never seen that from human Griffith – when things get bad for him, he’s serene about it. He deals with people plotting against him easily, he uses something that could be very distressing (facing Gennon at the most important battle of the war) and turns it to his advantage, he faces Zodd with calm battle tactics and determination even when the odds of him succeeding are nil, when he’s captured after fucking Charlotte he reaches for his sword and then peacefully gives up when he remembers he’s unarmed, he smugly taunts the king after losing everything and being whipped, and the torturer even comments on how quiet and non-responsive he is during torture, at least during the first day or two.
The only circumstances we saw that made him lose control emotionally were sex with Gennon/guilt + self-loathing, and Guts-related stuff (including Femto failing to kill him and NeoGriffith’s heart going off).
So when NeoGriff does eventually show some emotion, my bets are on it being because of Guts.
Yk I wonder if this is part of what motivates him to leave. Like maybe if he hadn’t heard this speech he would’ve given up, continued to fight for Griffith as a soldier but never felt up to potentially becoming his friend/equal. But, even if he doesn’t connect the dots that Griffith’s speech was stupid and he in fact is loved, this chapter must still reinforce the fact that Griffith is irrational around him, does seem to value him moreso than anyone else, etc.
So maybe this gives Guts the confidence that becoming Griffith’s friend is an actual achievable possibility for him and something he should work towards.
It’s like during the 2nd duel, when Guts was thinking, well I’m glad he wants to fight me, this tells me I’m still worth spilling blood over. He gets it, he just doesn’t get how gone Griffith is for him. And in fairness, neither does Griffith, so.
yo @ the anon now whining about heterophobia or w/e in my inbox, i’m not publishing any more of your messages bc i don’t feel like dignifying them with either an argument or an audience
so feel free to keep sending them to me but you’re not getting a platform for your shit here lol
i sometimes have creative streaks where i vid nonstop for a while and then never actually reach the point where i feel comfortable declaring it done, so they all end up 90% finished on my harddrive instead of posted anywhere.
but I’ve also gotten much better at participating in fandom in the last year or so so there’s a much higher chance now of maybe finishing something and posting it at some point in the future. and if I do it will probably be berserk related lol.
I would be so interested to see any vids you do finish! I’m big on vids in fandom and it doesn’t seem to be as common to find them anymore for whatever reason in live action stuff, but berserk just seems like it could be amazing for vids. (I guess also amv’s are a slightly different culture to live action vids, hrm– sidetracked sorry).
also please don’t be shy to share, this fandom needs all the guts/griffith content it can get and you have such an eye for their subtext(/text) that I feel like you must have something to say in a vid 🙂
hey thank you so much for the encouragement 🙂 ikwym i’ve also been a big fan of vidding and vids for most of my time in fandom but on tumblr the live action vid side at least seems less centralized and harder to find.
and ok full disclosure: i actually have a (very self indulgent and kind of ridic fair warning) berserk vid i’ve been working on for the last week or so and it’s just about done so i’ll probably post it in a few days. i didn’t want to say b4 bc i wasn’t sure i was going to finish it lol. but ngl this and @seisans reply kind of spurred me on a bit so ty both :))
fandom needs to give Casca more credit for her earnest, premeditated murder attempt here. Like Griffith’s was a split-second decision to make a move that had a risk of potentially killing Guts, while still aiming only to wound, and it’s taken as proof that he’s been evil all along. Casca’s straight up aiming to kill here, but no one takes her seriously.
Which is partly Miura’s fault for not taking Casca seriously as a threat to Guts, but the intent is here I’m js and I like it because it’s dark and fucked up and shows Casca’s very own interesting inner darkness. I don’t want to just condemn her for it bc I’m into Casca’s violent rage, but I hate how she gets infantalized both by Guts not even bothering to draw his sword and by fandom treating this less like a murder attempt and more like a cute hissy fit.
She went full force on him taking out all her anger on him because she EXPECTED him to dodge her attacks, and also EXPECTED not to hurt him as a result. And that’s also why she was so shook when she did:
I mean: If she REALLY had the SERIOUS intention to kill him she wouldn’t have cared about him getting hurt like this. I think she intended to use Guts more as a punching bag to let out her frustration on (Remember, she prevented Guts from drawing his sword)
She did hate him and the situation with the hawks made her frustration even worse. And part of that hate was because she cared so much about both Griffith and Guts.
She’s also the third best fighter in the Hawks who we’re told can take on ten men at a time. We’re certainly not shown it here, which is one of my issues with this scene, but her threat to Guts should be more significant and dangerous than any other non-monstrous threat, aside from Griffith and Boscogne.
Yes, she was shocked when she did stab him, but that doesn’t change the fact that she was actively trying to and from what we’re told about her skills she had a decent shot at it.
Guts’ running commentary tells us “she’s serious,” she’s really trying to kill him, so Guts at least, based on her fighting style, believes she’s aiming to kill, and I see no reason to doubt him. Her shock and the way she immediately ends the assault when she lands a hit tells us that obviously she’s not committed to killing Guts and she was just irrationally lashing out in anger, and it throws some freezing water on her rage, but nothing about her attack to that point was half-hearted or feigned.
And from what I could tell she didn’t prevent him from drawing his sword at all – she tells him to draw his sword twice, she aimed at his neck, and he barely deflected with his blade still partly in its hilt. He eventually does draw his sword to defend himself.
I’m not saying she’s evil lol, especially in the world of Berserk mercenaries where friends fighting each other seems to be par for the course, based on Judeau’s reaction to Guts and Griffith’s fight and also Casca’s knife-throwing when they’re in the cave being treated as comedy and not drama, but it’s still a very dark, very fucked up outlet for her rage that shocks and does endanger Guts, and it’s a disservice to Casca’s character that it’s not given any weight on either a narrative or a fan reaction level, imo.
So anyway I stand by semi-seriously describing it as a premeditated murder attempt even if she didn’t follow through, because Casca’s hardcore and her skills shouldn’t be dismissed, despite Miura’s writing often doing just that. It’s not a cold “I want you to die,” it’s an emotional “I am going to fucking kill you,” but it’s also not spur of the moment since she lead Guts to this clearing specifically to hack at him with a sword.
Also I’m not trying to say she hates Guts or anything? My point is only that her anger manifests in legit trying to kill people, and I love that as a dark and intense character note, but it’s unfortunately downplayed and brushed off which disappoints me.
Oh so it makes sense that Casca might be more comfortable with another woman given all she’s been through with men right?……..No? Is that not how it works?
funny how they never take that argument to its logical conclusion
i also got 2 v similarly worded and themed messages (tho way longer) like a month ago that i ended up ignoring bc i was on vacation and by the time i had a chance to respond they were 2 weeks old and i didn’t gaf
you’re right anon griffith did not enjoy his sexual contact with charlotte. because he is gay
unless you’re talking about gennon in which case you’re right he did not enjoy that. because it was rape
also i can’t believe this episode didn’t show griffith’s ‘do you think I’m cruel’ face. we see it like at least 3 times in the manga but in the anime it’s a voiceover 😡
“Stay away from me… if you touch me now… if you so much as touch my shoulder… I’ll never be able to… you and I will never be…”
you know how much i love that the moment of despair that opens the behelit is the moment guts touches him but man, preceeding it with “you and I will never be…” is one hell of a choice
like the manga translation of “I’ll never… I’ll never…!” is functionally meaningless as far as I can tell. Maybe I’ll never forgive you? But it’s not the point, the point is Guts’ touch sending Griffith into despair. Griffith’s words just draw attention to it. Despair + touch.
“You and I will never be…” on the other hand, like, that’s nothing but a statement on Griffith’s abject horror of being touched in that moment by a man he can’t have, right? How else can I interpret that? Add “I’ll never be able to” and all I’m getting is something along the lines of, “I’ll never be able to let you go but I’ll never have you either.”
anyway how do ppl interpret Griffith’s horror at being touched by Guts and subsequent despair, regardless of specifics of translation? I’ve always kind of wondered but I don’t think I’ve seen any meta or interpretations or anything about it at all.
I didn’t know the manga version was so different, that’s interesting. Maybe the reason the dub extrapolated to “I’ll never be able to…” is close to what the manga intended. “I’ll never be able to… have you again,” maybe?
I think you’re bang on with never be able to let you go/have you either, because that’s pretty clearly what happens. all of griffith’s despair is essentially that at that point, he can never keep guts and he wants to get away from everything he’s ruined but at the same time he’s clearly still got the same old horror of guts leaving/not being able to hold/own him anymore
I guess it also has a question of how much he instinctively knew what the behelit would do or not?
i can’t remember the original japanese phrasing so just based on the
manga translation i interpreted it as “i’ll never get over you” though
fully knowing that i’ll probably NEVER get to find out what he actually
meant. i mean, we can intuit the basic meaning, but still. god damn it
miura
Yeah regardless of how the sentence might’ve technically ended, I think the meaning of “I’ll never be able to get over you/let you go/that kinda sentiment” makes the most sense and is definitely my favourite interpretation lol.
And yeah since in that moment he believed Guts wanted to leave again, honestly I feel like a visceral emotional understanding of Griffith’s despair at being touched by him (which tbh is rare for me in fiction lol). Like as a response to these circumstances – he’s so consumed by love for this dude that he spent a year thinking about him while being tortured to stay sane, but he thinks this dude is going to leave him, and then Guts’ physical touch as like the final proof of how vulnerable Griffith is to this love and how he can be destroyed by it – the behelit screaming representing Griffith’s despair as Guts touches him just feels so damn right.
Also I tend to think Griffith doesn’t know anything about how the behelit functions, but imo it still works super well narratively with Griffith’s resulting decision to basically cut that love out of him by sacrificing Guts.
lol sorry I’m just so into this scene rn I had to go on another spiel about it.
“the only woman guts ever loved” as if guts has ever come within breathing room of any other woman since the only one he knows personally is on account of her being his coworker and thus forced to share space with his smelly b*tch ass….
lmao true
also luv that w/ het ships ppl can declare shit like this with utter conviction despite guts never speaking or thinking of casca in terms of love, and despite the writer saying that casca and guts hooked up for extra eclipse drama and casca’s only around now so guts can keep being bitter.
but anything gay? clearly fake and just reaching
so it’s been stated that casca didn’t die literally to fuel guts angst (which, let’s leave aside how disgusting THAT is for a second) and bitterness, which leads me to believe that basically
without casca there as a very heavy reminder
guts would have 100% just forgiven griffith pretty much asap after seeing him again? ha
lmao right?
I mean yeah if Casca died with the rest of the Band during the Eclipse then sure Guts absolutely 100% would forgive Griffith/Femto immediately because it’s pretty clear that he never blamed him for sacrificing everyone in the first place lol. He was sad, sure, but he wasn’t angry about Griffith choosing to make the sacrifice. If anything he’d’ve blamed himself. But if say Casca died during the Conviction Arc, should we assume Guts would’ve gone ‘ok w/e fuck it idc anymore’ and moved on?
Actually yk what considering his “forgot my urge to kill” moment and how sad he was about NeoGriff ditching him it’s actually not that hard of a sell.
But damn either way I wish Miura would do something with Casca’s character other than continue making her an accessory to Guts’ desire for revenge.
anime dub adventures continued
“Stay away from me… if you touch me now… if you so much as touch my shoulder… I’ll never be able to… you and I will never be…”
you know how much i love that the moment of despair that opens the behelit is the moment guts touches him but man, preceeding it with “you and I will never be…” is one hell of a choice
like the manga translation of “I’ll never… I’ll never…!” is functionally meaningless as far as I can tell. Maybe I’ll never forgive you? But it’s not the point, the point is Guts’ touch sending Griffith into despair. Griffith’s words just draw attention to it. Despair + touch.
“You and I will never be…” on the other hand, like, that’s nothing but a statement on Griffith’s abject horror of being touched in that moment by a man he can’t have, right? How else can I interpret that? Add “I’ll never be able to” and all I’m getting is something along the lines of, “I’ll never be able to let you go but I’ll never have you either.”
anyway how do ppl interpret Griffith’s horror at being touched by Guts and subsequent despair, regardless of specifics of translation? I’ve always kind of wondered but I don’t think I’ve seen any meta or interpretations or anything about it at all.
YUP 100% LOVE IT like if the (het) characters are weirdly forced together/put together obviously to add drama its fucking nuts that ppl can read it as True Love and like. bc griffith and guts dont outright say ‘we are gay and and love’ all the “’subtext”“ is ”’noncanonical’“ and therefore means nothing and is irrelevant i guess
ikr, and when it comes to canonicity like… it’s canonically ambiguous i guess bc yeah it’s only subtext but who cares when lbr we know it’s gay and they know it’s gay and everyone knows it
like come on if there was legit no overwhelming subtext and their relationship could be most easily interpreted as purely platonic, uncomfortable dudebro berserk fans wouldn’t feel compelled to disregard half the plot to the point of hamstringing the story for themselves
since i’m still watching scenes from the anime one more thing:
ten seconds of guts killing dudes with one arm and cradling griffith in his other arm is high quality content and beats 90% of the wyald chapters it replaced by a mile
“the only woman guts ever loved” as if guts has ever come within breathing room of any other woman since the only one he knows personally is on account of her being his coworker and thus forced to share space with his smelly b*tch ass….
lmao true
also luv that w/ het ships ppl can declare shit like this with utter conviction despite guts never speaking or thinking of casca in terms of love, and despite the writer saying that casca and guts hooked up for extra eclipse drama and casca’s only around now so guts can keep being bitter.
but anything gay? clearly fake and just reaching
psa to any of my followers potentially interested in making amvs or w/e other video editing may interest you:
i haven’t used it myself but yk, it’s highly recommended by a lot of ppl and the original price is like 400$ or smthn so i’d recommend snapping it up if there’s even a possibility that you might one day want to try it out
ALSO speaking of ppl trying to kill Guts
fandom needs to give Casca more credit for her earnest, premeditated murder attempt here. Like Griffith’s was a split-second decision to make a move that had a risk of potentially killing Guts, while still aiming only to wound, and it’s taken as proof that he’s been evil all along. Casca’s straight up aiming to kill here, but no one takes her seriously.
Which is partly Miura’s fault for not taking Casca seriously as a threat to Guts, but the intent is here I’m js and I like it because it’s dark and fucked up and shows Casca’s very own interesting inner darkness. I don’t want to just condemn her for it bc I’m into Casca’s violent rage, but I hate how she gets infantalized both by Guts not even bothering to draw his sword and by fandom treating this less like a murder attempt and more like a cute hissy fit.
i happened to watch this scene in the anime dub last night and man
“if he will not be mine his life is forefeit” just doesn’t have the same oomph as “if I can’t have him…!”
plus the dub dialogue just doesn’t encapsulate Griffith’s frantic back and forth with himself. It goes “I might really kill him… NO – if he will not be mine” etc. Comes across more cold and resolute than the manga where it’s more of a split-second decision to just go for it because fuck it.
SCREAM the wiki is cursed. they list casca as “the only woman guts ever loved” and describe her body as feminine and curvy but with masculine features bc she has muscle lol
lmao god
i’m not strong enough to go look at it, this is bad enough
you're the only one 