Woah this literally made me see gutsca from a different point of view, idk if I can say I like them anymore, especially since I always felt something else between Guts and Griffith. I still believe she deserves better tho smh. Great job!
thank you for your kind words ❤ ia Casca definitely deserves better than what she got from the narrative and Guts, I hope she gets it eventually.
Omg they are all so clueless and awkward and it’s painful. To be fair I wouldn’t really know what to say if I saw someone actively self-destructing in front of me, especially as a teenager/early twenties person.
yeah i mean it’s absolutely one of those things where you can’t blame guts or casca lol, no one’s actually at fault (except maybe fate). the situations just kind of suck all around and the characters happen to help that along for understandable reasons. which lbr p much sums up the golden age lol. can’t blame anyone for what they did or said (for the most part), it all makes sense for their characters based on the information they have, but it still sucks.
It’s something I’ve said to them/myself
more often the more I’ve meditated on it. Corkus was too sane and
cranky for this world.
tbh when Corkus basically tells Guts he’s an ungrateful idiot when Guts explains why he wants to leave I pretty much want to high five him. Like I understand Guts’ motivation, but man Corkus Was Right. he’s wrong about some things (like thinking Griffith dgaf about Guts) but he’s spot on about other things.
anyway speaking of moments where Griffith desperately needs someone to reassure him.
also now i’m doubling down on my theory that Griffith’s scratch marks here came shortly after “do you think I’m cruel?” rather than the day of Guts’ departure.
I spend months talking about this damn manga and Griffith and his need for validation and self loathing etc etc and I only just fucking noticed that Casca doesn’t actually say no here. She starts to say “no” automatically, then cuts herself off and asks what he was doing with Gennon. Like damn that’s actually a pretty clear “yes.”
Not that I think Casca meant it that way ofc, her heart’s in the right place and she’s a kid who’s totally out of her depth, but still, ouch. That’s like, “no! wait were you sleeping with him? bc actually my answer is dependant on your answer to that question.”
Like add this to the list of reasons Griffith sucks at opening up to people.
I kinda debated writing a long response to this and just going ‘yeah i p much agree’ and tbh I’m going with the latter bc to really dig into morality and how morality is reflected in fiction and how fiction reflects or affects reality etc etc takes a lot of effort and nuance, plus I know v little about actual psychology lol so I can’t say anything useful about psychopathy either as a myth or as a misleading synonym for antisocial personality disorder.
Plus I don’t want to accidentally metamorph into a discourse blog lol
But yeah like I said, I pretty much agree. Any theory of morality that includes the idea that some people are just evil is stupid af and mainly serves to shift responsibility away from society, making it antithetical to progressivity. When it comes to fiction, in general (tho certainly with exceptions) I find pure evil villains pretty offputting.
I really like charismatic villains with relatable qualities and have ruthless yet affective morality. I find their dark sides quite fantasting for me to explore, and discover more potential and good sides to them while still enjoying their whole characterization.
but seeing people throw around terms
like “seicopath”, “psychopath”, “pure evil”, “born evil” and tons of
hate, really pisses me off and make feel insecure. They made many great
antagonists seem nothing more than an irredeemable insane piece of shit
the moment they were born who’s just danger and deserve to die.
yeah same, most of my favourite characters have done terrible things lol, and if they’re my faves it’s usually because I find their motives or their thought processes when they do those things sympathetic and/or understandable. Part of the point of fiction is that you can explore dark stuff you can’t explore in real life. There is no safer space to engage w/ some of the darker aspects of the world/humanity because it’s not real, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with sympathizing with people who’ve done terrible things in fiction, because it’s fiction and no one was actually harmed.
It sucks that people make you feel insecure about it when there’s nothing wrong with that, and most of these villains are meant to be complex and interesting and compelling and even likeable. The ppl who flatten those characters are the ones misinterpreting the story, usually.
further thoughts/clarification under cut bc I feel like leaving this reply on “it’s fiction so who cares” opens me up to discourse I might as well nip in the bud
People like to argue this point by saying that fiction can affect reality and perpetuate harmful concepts and ideas. And this is true.
fiction can be harmful when it replicates damaging tropes and when it pushes problematic messages either accidentally or purposefully, and frankly fiction that pushes the message that some people are born irredeemably evil and some people are born good and can do no wrong is imo much more harmful than fiction that explores, say, what would drive a sympathetic person to sacrifice a bunch of his friends. (not that Berserk has no harmful tropes/messages lol, but imo the exploration of morality in Griffith’s narrative isn’t one of them)
like, to use a very well-known and v blatant example lol, harry potter with its kind of badly written black and white morality and oppression metaphors is probably more damaging than a lot of stories with moral greys.
harry potter has its offensive werewolf aids metaphor ft a metaphorical pedophile who deliberately infects children (thx jk), its pure evil villain who is evil because his mother didn’t love him enough to die for him, its magical fantasy racism parallels used to make death eaters irredeemable but also used as a source of cute humour when, eg, it comes to Arthur Weasley’s patronizing attitude towards the fictional oppressed class, its house elf slavery thing that is just weird as fuck, its pure good protagonist who can use the same “unforgiveable” torture curse as the villains and get a shoulder pat for it, etc etc.
People who uncritically sympathize with the good characters in Harry Potter and uncritically hate the bad guys and expect everyone else to do the same are buying into these offensive aspects of the story and not even realizing it.
And basically I think a lot of people just find it easier to say that sympathizing with villains is bad because they do bad things, and to flatten their characters in an attempt to ignore any complexity that leads to sympathy/relatability/empathy/etc, than it is to actually analyze fiction and figure out where the actual problematic messages are coming from.
Like this is how you get people saying Griffith fans are rape apologists in the same breath they use to excuse Guts sexually assaulting Casca. It’s easier to say the problem lies with the fans who sympathize with the antagonist, rather than the story itself, or their own flat conceptions of the characters that don’t allow for sympathy when it comes to Griffith and, conversely and kind of disturbingly, condemnation when it comes to Guts.
Boiling it down to the idea that bad people sympathize with Voldemort or Draco or Griffith or whoever and good people sympathize with Harry or Guts is idiotic. “Bad” people (this is a uselessly vague phrase but w/e) are just as capable of sympathizing with the protagonists, and in fact I think are probably much more likely to relate to the hero rather than the villain because they’d tend to lack the self awareness necessary to see themselves as the villain.
Yeah I’ve seen that reading and based on what little I know about BPD it makes sense to me. I tend to avoid adding it to my own Griffith meta etc just because I don’t know a whole lot about psychology and I don’t really have any personal experience with borderline personality disorder so I feel like I’d get stuff wrong if I started factoring it in to my conception of Griffith and drawing conclusions from that, but it seems to be a much more accurate assessment than psychopathy.
tbh there’s a really good takedown of this argument here, by alovelyburn. I’m no psychologist and I’m too lazy to do my research when someone else has been so thorough already. It’s a good read!
In addition to that post though, I also want to add that I have a feeling anyone applying the psychopath label to Griffith probably willfully ignores/downplays the moments where he sacrifices himself for Guts, where he prostitutes himself to save some of his soldiers, where he saves a random stranger from a rapist, where he ditches an important meeting just to see Guts and Casca, where his internal self is a child on a mountain of corpses screaming apologies, etc.
tho i am curious where they got the idea that Griffith has a poor sense of others’ emotions. His own, for sure, but he’s really good at reading people, and there are plenty of examples of things like eg putting a hand on Casca’s shoulder when she seems quietly upset.
I think on a character level it was wishful thinking on Griffith’s part. He saw that Charlotte was still enamoured of him when she took that poison dart for him, and he seized on that fact p desperately, but deep down he knew his plan to be king was fucked and he probably wasn’t going to see her again. It’s perfectly consistent with Griffith’s characterization, he fuckin loves his denial.
Plus it tells us that he hasn’t given up. He’s still him. That moment comes right before he saves them all from an explosion by pointing out the thin wall to Pippin, and it works with that to show us that Griffith is still tenacious, still smart and ambitious and sane, and he still wants to be king even if it’s an impossible dream now. And it also sets us up for his later desperation and despair after Wyald makes his helplessness impossible to deny.
On a narrative level it’s v useful foreshadowing.
In no way does it make sense that he was planning the Hawk’s sacrifice lol, he didn’t even have the behelit at that point, even if some people for some reason believe that he knew how it worked and intended to use it.
Like… I’ve seen people take a lot of little character moments like that and twist them into “proof” that Griffith is diabolically planning to make the sacrifice, and none of them ever make sense because the idea that Griffith has been planning to sacrifice them at any point before he says “I sacrifice” undermines the entire emotional thrust of the story.
Plus it contradicts many, many stated facts, like eg you can only sacrifice people you love so much it’s like they’re a part of you, the Godhand’s explanation to Griffith, Griffith prioritizing Guts over his dream several times, Griffith’s confusion when he starts seeing demons and Eclipse references, the fact that the behelit only opens in a moment of pure despair (why would he feel despair if he knew he was about to become a God), the fact that he tried to kill himself immediately prior to the Eclipse, Griffith desperately trying to catch Guts as he falls from the big hand, and Griffith’s clearly explained motivation for making the sacrifice – like the entire sequence leading up to the sacrifice where the Godhand are talking to bb Griffith in his head makes no sense if he’s been planning it all along. How do people manage to ignore that????
Anyway tl;dr that theory’s dumb, hope this helped lol.
Of the current core cast of apostles I think he’d be fairly indifferent to Grunbeld, Locus and Irvine. They’re honourable killer types just doing their thing. He’d hate them only as much as he hates any given apostle, and less than most I think.
Raksas I think he’d hate a bit more, because Raksas is a gleeful dick who likes to fuck with people before killing them and if Guts had to fight him I think he’d get annoyed with his hiding in the shadows being creepy thing. Also if he ever found out somehow that Raksas promised to kill Griffith he’d hate him more because I think Guts would feel proprietary towards Griffith’s death lol. I can see Guts as the type of in-love-deep-down-enemy who’s like, “the only one allowed to kill you is me.” Maybe not at this point in the narrative while he’s trying to shake those feelings, but if he ever backslid, yk.
I think Zodd wins though because they have a history. I actually think he respects Zodd as an enemy, but Zodd’s gotten between him and NeoGriff a few times and is the apostle Guts has seen carrying him around, and Zodd gave him the cryptic Eclipse prophecy multiple times, and Zodd saved his ass a few times too so that he’d be around for the Eclipse and I could see Guts resenting that. Plus they’re sort of designated counterparts and Zodd is his NeoBand replacement which I could also see him resenting. Especially if he sees his own potential to become a monster reflected in Zodd.
Though the bantering familiarity they kinda sorta had when they fought Ganeshka is a point against that actually…
So idk, either Zodd or Raksas I guess lol.
lmao i was going back and doing some tag organizing and realized i read this question from 3 months ago backwards
this is actually a very easy question and the answer is locus. a mortal enemy of griffith’s who has a mutually obsessive love/hate relationship with him sounds like his actual worst nightmare.
chapters 175 to 182 were written for me, specifically
miura thought to himself, hmm ok who is my target audience here? oh this one individual fan in the future who is very fond of complicated friends to enemies relationships full of gay subtext. that’s my target audience.
That panel with Griffith and his beautiful hair always reminds me of the “l’oreal you’re worth it” commercials lol
Browsing through the rebirth chapters and it just leaps out at me how utterly sexualized Griffith is, especially in comparison to Casca, who is (at least by Miura’s standards) totally desexualized.
Guts’ internal conflict is essentially desire vs responsibility, ie revenge vs escorting Casca to Elfhelm, ie Griffith vs Casca, and the visual depiction of that conflict is straight up, extremely loud and clear, naked sexy Griffith vs Casca all childlike in a shapeless cloak
Like to a rather extreme degree Guts is seeing Casca as someone who needs to be taken care of, at this point, and fairly reluctantly at that. She is a responsibility, not a reward.
Contrast that to Griffith. Guts sees Griffith as an object of desire. From his sexy rebirth to Guts thinking about how he wants to pursue him to stick a sword in him to pleading for acknowledgement, Griffith is the individual Guts wants. Casca is who he kind of ends up stuck with.
And let’s return to the best page of the manga to really illustrate this dichotemy between the way Guts views Griffith and Casca right now:
Casca is a child here, directly mirroring Erika, and Griffith is absurdly beautiful and desireable.
We can also compare sexy naked Griffith above to:
Which comes right after Guts accidentally sees her tit and averts his eyes.
“he/you used to be” – Guts imagines Casca in full armour leading a charge, and imagines Griffith Like That.
Casca reminds Guts of all those days with the Hawks, Griffith reminds Guts of Griffith.
When Casca is sexualized, that sexualization manifests as a desire to
rape and kill her to be closer to and then pursue Griffith. It’s both
depicted as a very bad thing and as his desire for Griffith fighting
back, essentially. (”She’s a sacrifice so you can continue longing for
Griffith.” “If you just do this you’ll get closer and closer to
Griffith.”)
When Guts is being responsible, he’s thinking of Casca as a charge, a child-like person he has to take care of, while Guts’ temptation to pursue Griffith is sexualized, both through Casca and directly with how Griffith is depicted.
u should learn to trust ur instincts guts, you literally figured this out the night after you left:
@phydia63 I agree that Casca would be sex repulsed. I don’t want her to have sex again either, that wouldn’t be right. I’m just saying that she wouldn’t be terrified of men, and that she would be happy to see Guts again. If she ever tries to have sex again, Miura should do what he’s been doing for her and what he did for Guts: Have her freak out at the bad memories and stop the act from happening.
Edit: If Casca was going to be afraid of men, she wouldn’t have had sex with Guts in the first place after the multiple times people try to rape her in the Golden Age.
The Beast of Darkness is a part of Guts, but you have to keep in mind that Guts was already unstable. And by that I mean up until he met Griffith, Casca, and the others, he was a violent person and couldn’t trust others for a lot of good reasons. So being betrayed by someone he thought he could trust, AGAIN (referencing Gambino here), losing the girl he loved, then fighting and losing to Griffith on the Hill of Swords gives a very good reason for the Beast of Darkness to exist.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not to trying to apologize for Guts biting Casca, but my point is that he was already fucked up and getting possessed after failing to kill Griffith creates more forgivable circumstances than if Guts had just seen Casca naked and attempted to rape her.
That’s the main issue I have when people cite Guts “assaulting” Casca as a reason they shouldn’t be together/try to argue that Guts is a terrible person. They twist it into something its not and fail to grasp the deeper meaning of the situation.
“Griffguts shippers are nasty and trivialize rape but heres a bunch of paragraphs why guts and casca NEED TO FUCK even tho he assaulted her twice. He wasnt in his right mind so its forgivable, much unlike when griffith was physically and mentally tortured for a solid year and then psychically manipulated by the devil”
Literally the second line is me saying they should haven’t sex
right right, sorry i used vague wording. in my friendgroup “fuck” is a word that refers to any kind of romantic or sexual attachment between people. what you really said is that casca should be happy to see a man who pinned her down and forced himself on her twice when she was at the weakest shed ever been. if casca doesnt enjoy the company of a man who abandoned her in a cave for two years and then tied her up and dragged her around like a dog when he did return it just wont make senze
I just got done arguing with someone that he doesn’t pin her down and attempt (emphasis on attempt) to rape her because Guts is a rapist.
Guts was under the influence of the Beast, which was brought about by him getting possessed by Demons. Read the whole argument here.
And as far as the cave goes, what was he supposed to do? Casca was insane and branded, and the Skull Knight told him that as long as the sun was down, Demons would be coming for them. The only logical thing to do was put her in a safe place where she wouldn’t get attacked by demons while she couldn’t defend herself.
I don’t know why I’m arguing with you. You’re yet another one of those people who thinks that Guts almost (emphasis on almost) raping Casca while he’s inner beast goads him for failing to kill Griffith and immediately feeling guilt for almost (emphasis on almost) forcing himself on her is the same thing as him sadistically raping her for the sheer pleasure of it.
Getting real tired of waking up to see people trying to start shit on my dash.
Guts sexually assaulted Casca. Say it’s not as bad as Femto sexually assaulting her all you want, create a big scale of totally-excusable to horrific incidences of fictional rape if you want, the fact remains that Guts sexually assaulted her and now she’s afraid of him, and that’s the case regardless of what Femto did, so I don’t know why you insist on comparing them to try to justify Guts’ actions.
Also what Guts was “supposed to do,” which was pointed out to him by Godo and Erica and Rickert, was stay with Casca in the cave and turn it into a home, and deal with his feelings instead of going on a pointless rampage of revenge.
I’m glad you linked that post you wrote because I don’t want to reblog it to refute it, since I don’t put images of sexual assault on my blog without a readmore. So, refution for the linked post:
You are wrong. Between Guts’ brief possession when he strangles Casca and the sexual assault, time has passed. There’s a montage and everything while he drags Casca around from fight to fight.
When Guts does assault Casca, it’s broad daylight, not a ghost in sight, and he is not possessed by a damn thing.
The
brief possession is not a prelude to another possession, the purpose it serves is to show us how weak Guts
is growing in willpower and resolve (Puck is pretty much narrating this
fact for us), which leads to him giving in to his own worst instincts
later on. Additionally, Guts himself questions whether he was really compelled to do something he didn’t want to do.
The visuals indicate that he was possessed, but his own doubt indicates
that he doubts himself, that he thinks he himself is capable of harming
Casca regardless – which fits nicely with the flash of the Beast we see in the
possession scene. It’s a perfect, straight forward set-up for Guts’ own internal weakness and
inability to keep his own darkness at bay during the assault scene in the following chapter.
I see you’ve acknowledged that the Beast of Darkness is part of Guts in other posts, so I’m not sure why you keep insisting that being under its influence absolves Guts lol – it literally means he’s giving in to his own worst instincts. You posted the picture of Guts-as-the-Beast assaulting her like it means it wasn’t Guts, while acknowledging elsewhere that the Beast IS part of Guts, so what do you think that image proves exactly? It’s symbolic of what’s going on in Guts’ mind as he pins Casca down, forcibly kisses her (right after a gangrape attempt), and bites her tit.
Also
lmao at phrasing it as “Guts is trying to rescue her from insanity.”
The narrative ominously foreshadows that it’s less a rescue and more
Guts forcing her to confront trauma before she’s ready, knowing
full-well that he’s doing what he himself wants, not necessarily what
she wants:
So consider that before asserting that Guts is a clear cut white knight only doing what’s best for Casca.
(incidentally
pointing out that Guts isn’t constantly trying to rape her and even
averted his eyes from her tits and therefore he never could assault her
is the most bizarre logic I’ve ever seen, and if you take that to its
logical conclusion then Griffith/Femto couldn’t possibly rape Casca bc he saved her
from rape once. So maybe check your own ridiculous arguments before
throwing out insults next time.)
@phydia63 bc you tagged me in the first post that got drama attached to it and this is in part a response to some of it lol. and there wasn’t really much i could add to your first response anyway 🙂
The whole point of this post and the one I linked was refuting people who say “Guts raped Casca”. That didn’t happen. The only reason the Beast of Darkness was able to influence his thoughts more than usual is because of the Incubis in this scene:
Giving him nightmares of killing Casca. Then he immediately refuses the thought:
Yes, you are correct that when he assaults her there aren’t any demons in sight and it’s midday, but an external demon isn’t always the source of turmoil. The Beast of Darkness, from as early on as the Lost Children arc, before Farnese captures Guts, is trying to convince Guts to go rabbid and kill everyone and everything in an an attempt to get to Griffith.
Maybe you thought I mean a demon was possessing him during the day, but that’s not what I meant. Guts has had trouble with the Beast influencing him for a very long time, and after the fight with Griffith and the hill of swords encounter, it’s more understandable to see why Guts acts the way he does.
That’s not the same as defending him. Obviously he needs to come clean with Casca if she can’t remember what happened. But it’s hard to see the Beast as a part of Guts when Guts is adamantly horrified by what he almost (emphasis on almost because most people think that he did rape her) did. I’m pretty sure I brought this up before, but the Beast is a direct result of the events of the eclipse. It’s a symptom of Guts’ trauma, the violent, angry part of him that has always existed given form by demons and encouraging him to become demon himself.
Yes, you are also right when citing Godo telling Guts to have saved Casca by staying with her and making it a home instead of leaving her behind. I will admit that what I said was wrong, at least in part.
But Guts has also been very emotional and hasn’t ever thought things through. He left the original Band of the Hawk because he didn’t want to be trapped in Griffith’s dream, even though he was content and happy there. He calls himself stupid for doing so, in fact.
He’s not a genius, and he’s never had a real family or anyone to show him how to help others. He did what he did best, which was leave and kill things. It’s kind of stupid to assume that Guts would do the smart thing when he’s consistently done dumb things over the course of the manga. After all, in battle he’s not some master tactician, he just goes in with brute strength and a large sword, trading blows with the demons.
THE WHOLE POINT OF THESE POSTS IS THIS:
People are taking what happened, massively oversimplifying it and turning it into a situation that just simply didn’t happen, and then trying to insist that they are right when they are getting the events of the story wrong. I didn’t say anywhere that Guts was a white knight (more than once in this thread I’ve been bringing up Guts’ flaws).
I’m sick of people, especially shippers, try and take the events that happened, ignore what happens in canon, then pretend that Guts is some evil serial rapist when that’s just not the case, at all.
I’m glad to finally meet someone who’s actually read the manga and had an intelligent argument.
The others you responded to have also read the manga, are very intelligent, and are probably just fatigued as fuck by this repetitive argument we see all the time in fandom and have no more energy to grace you with a decent argument when you’re the one picking fights.
I’m not fatigued because I usually manage to avoid these arguments lol, so here’s the thing: I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and rather than going back to evidence of this vs evidence of that in the manga, I’m just going to explain my perspective, in the hopes that you’ll understand where I (and possibly, though I can’t speak for them, others you’ve responded to) am coming from. But I have to go to work soon so this is probably going to be the end of my part in this conversation, just a heads up.
Guts has committed sexual assault twice. That’s just a fact. Note that sexual assault is not just penetrative rape, but also includes rape attempts and non-consensual non-penetrative sexual contact. To many of us it’s still extremely abhorrent, unsympathetic, and unforgiveable, and splitting hairs between penetrative rape and “pinned her down and forcibly kissed her right after she was sexually assaulted and bit her breast” is unnecessary, because in either case we don’t care to excuse the perpetrator’s actions.
Were Guts’ actions as bad as Femto’s, or any number of other characters who have committed sexual assault? I honestly don’t really give a fuck, I still hold Guts responsible for his actions (as the Beast of Darkness is part of him and essentially a metaphor for Guts lashing out due to trauma), and consider him a non-viable romantic partner for Casca because of them, and that is a perfectly reasonable opinion as far as I’m concerned. No one is obligated to forgive anyone, let alone a fictional character lol, and he doesn’t need anyone to go to bat for him when people express disgust with some of the events in Berserk, because he’s not real.
My point here is to say who cares if people are simplifying it. Guts committed sexual assault, and no one is obligated to split hairs and try to justify it, excuse it, or sympathize with his regret.
The main reason I myself can still enjoy Berserk despite Miura’s unfortunate tendency to depict the darkness of humanity through sexual assault 9 times out of 10 is because I compartmentalize. I write it off as Miura’s big flaw, and therefore I’m fully capable of still enjoying Guts, and Griffith, as characters. I love Guts, flaws, idiocy, heroism, darkness and light and all, and I love the same in Griffith. But any potential romance between Guts and Casca now is something I would find immensely uncomfortable and would certainly detract from my enjoyment of Berserk, and that is also a perfectly reasonable opinion based on what we’re shown in the manga.
Incidentally this would also be the case if I thought a romance between NeoGriffith and Casca was at all a possibility. I feel like that should go without saying, but as you condemn people for liking Griffith yet not excusing Guts, I feel like it’s worth mentioning. I don’t excuse either of Casca’s assailants, I don’t ship her with either of them, but I still like them both as characters, because they are still both interesting and mostly well-written characters, and there’s no contradiction there. I don’t have to excuse or justify Guts’ actions or Griffith’s actions to continue to enjoy them as characters, because they are fictional.
It seems clear to me that we’re coming at this from very different perspectives and ways of relating to media, reasons for liking characters, and particularly the way rape/assault is depicted in media, and we’re probably not going to come to an agreement here.
But I’d like to ask you to consider that everyone has their own perspectives on fiction, how they read and relate to it, and there’s nothing contradictory about not shipping G/C because of sexual assault yet still enjoying Guts as a character, or Guts and Griffith as characters or even as a ship. It’s fiction, we take what we can enjoy from it and leave the rest. If fictional sexual assault was an automatic deal-breaker for enjoying characters most of us wouldn’t be Berserk fans at all – we don’t need to forgive Guts’ actions, we can just enjoy the elements of the story we like despite them.
Finally, I just want to point out that ime most non Guts/Casca fans wouldn’t ship G/C anyway due to a number of factors, but tend to point out the sexual assault when others call them immoral, or rape apologists, etc for liking Griffith or shipping Guts/Griffith. G/C shippers don’t have a higher horse here, is the point, and splitting hairs to argue that Guts’ actions should be forgiven while saying that anyone who likes Griffith is a rape apologist is somewhat hypocritical.
(ps I do want to make clear that wrt Guts’ possession, the fact that you brought it up as a partial reason for his later assault on Casca made me assume you meant he was at least somewhat possessed in both instances (the second time by the Beast), and I have seen lots of other people argue that, so my bad there. Though I do think the possession was a symptom of his lack of resolve and inability to control his own inner darkness, not a cause of it.)
anyway i’m glad i avoid the berserk tag like the plague
“how dare you defend (read: like) a character who is a rapist you rape apologists”
“no you see what guts did isn’t that bad, i mean at least he didn’t go all the way, why shouldn’t casca get back together with him, at least he’s not as bad as griffith, how dare you suggest he’s not a great person who deserves casca’s love”
@phydia63 I agree that Casca would be sex repulsed. I don’t want her to have sex again either, that wouldn’t be right. I’m just saying that she wouldn’t be terrified of men, and that she would be happy to see Guts again. If she ever tries to have sex again, Miura should do what he’s been doing for her and what he did for Guts: Have her freak out at the bad memories and stop the act from happening.
Edit: If Casca was going to be afraid of men, she wouldn’t have had sex with Guts in the first place after the multiple times people try to rape her in the Golden Age.
The Beast of Darkness is a part of Guts, but you have to keep in mind that Guts was already unstable. And by that I mean up until he met Griffith, Casca, and the others, he was a violent person and couldn’t trust others for a lot of good reasons. So being betrayed by someone he thought he could trust, AGAIN (referencing Gambino here), losing the girl he loved, then fighting and losing to Griffith on the Hill of Swords gives a very good reason for the Beast of Darkness to exist.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not to trying to apologize for Guts biting Casca, but my point is that he was already fucked up and getting possessed after failing to kill Griffith creates more forgivable circumstances than if Guts had just seen Casca naked and attempted to rape her.
That’s the main issue I have when people cite Guts “assaulting” Casca as a reason they shouldn’t be together/try to argue that Guts is a terrible person. They twist it into something its not and fail to grasp the deeper meaning of the situation.
“Griffguts shippers are nasty and trivialize rape but heres a bunch of paragraphs why guts and casca NEED TO FUCK even tho he assaulted her twice. He wasnt in his right mind so its forgivable, much unlike when griffith was physically and mentally tortured for a solid year and then psychically manipulated by the devil”
Literally the second line is me saying they should haven’t sex
right right, sorry i used vague wording. in my friendgroup “fuck” is a word that refers to any kind of romantic or sexual attachment between people. what you really said is that casca should be happy to see a man who pinned her down and forced himself on her twice when she was at the weakest shed ever been. if casca doesnt enjoy the company of a man who abandoned her in a cave for two years and then tied her up and dragged her around like a dog when he did return it just wont make senze
I just got done arguing with someone that he doesn’t pin her down and attempt (emphasis on attempt) to rape her because Guts is a rapist.
Guts was under the influence of the Beast, which was brought about by him getting possessed by Demons. Read the whole argument here.
And as far as the cave goes, what was he supposed to do? Casca was insane and branded, and the Skull Knight told him that as long as the sun was down, Demons would be coming for them. The only logical thing to do was put her in a safe place where she wouldn’t get attacked by demons while she couldn’t defend herself.
I don’t know why I’m arguing with you. You’re yet another one of those people who thinks that Guts almost (emphasis on almost) raping Casca while he’s inner beast goads him for failing to kill Griffith and immediately feeling guilt for almost (emphasis on almost) forcing himself on her is the same thing as him sadistically raping her for the sheer pleasure of it.
Getting real tired of waking up to see people trying to start shit on my dash.
Guts sexually assaulted Casca. Say it’s not as bad as Femto sexually assaulting her all you want, create a big scale of totally-excusable to horrific incidences of fictional rape if you want, the fact remains that Guts sexually assaulted her and now she’s afraid of him, and that’s the case regardless of what Femto did, so I don’t know why you insist on comparing them to try to justify Guts’ actions.
Also what Guts was “supposed to do,” which was pointed out to him by Godo and Erica and Rickert, was stay with Casca in the cave and turn it into a home, and deal with his feelings instead of going on a pointless rampage of revenge.
I’m glad you linked that post you wrote because I don’t want to reblog it to refute it, since I don’t put images of sexual assault on my blog without a readmore. So, refution for the linked post:
You are wrong. Between Guts’ brief possession when he strangles Casca and the sexual assault, time has passed. There’s a montage and everything while he drags Casca around from fight to fight.
When Guts does assault Casca, it’s broad daylight, not a ghost in sight, and he is not possessed by a damn thing.
The
brief possession is not a prelude to another possession, the purpose it serves is to show us how weak Guts
is growing in willpower and resolve (Puck is pretty much narrating this
fact for us), which leads to him giving in to his own worst instincts
later on. Additionally, Guts himself questions whether he was really compelled to do something he didn’t want to do.
The visuals indicate that he was possessed, but his own doubt indicates
that he doubts himself, that he thinks he himself is capable of harming
Casca regardless – which fits nicely with the flash of the Beast we see in the
possession scene. It’s a perfect, straight forward set-up for Guts’ own internal weakness and
inability to keep his own darkness at bay during the assault scene in the following chapter.
I see you’ve acknowledged that the Beast of Darkness is part of Guts in other posts, so I’m not sure why you keep insisting that being under its influence absolves Guts lol – it literally means he’s giving in to his own worst instincts. You posted the picture of Guts-as-the-Beast assaulting her like it means it wasn’t Guts, while acknowledging elsewhere that the Beast IS part of Guts, so what do you think that image proves exactly? It’s symbolic of what’s going on in Guts’ mind as he pins Casca down, forcibly kisses her (right after a gangrape attempt), and bites her tit.
Also
lmao at phrasing it as “Guts is trying to rescue her from insanity.”
The narrative ominously foreshadows that it’s less a rescue and more
Guts forcing her to confront trauma before she’s ready, knowing
full-well that he’s doing what he himself wants, not necessarily what
she wants:
So consider that before asserting that Guts is a clear cut white knight only doing what’s best for Casca.
(incidentally
pointing out that Guts isn’t constantly trying to rape her and even
averted his eyes from her tits and therefore he never could assault her
is the most bizarre logic I’ve ever seen, and if you take that to its
logical conclusion then Griffith/Femto couldn’t possibly rape Casca bc he saved her
from rape once. So maybe check your own ridiculous arguments before
throwing out insults next time.)
@phydia63 bc you tagged me in the first post that got drama attached to it and this is in part a response to some of it lol. and there wasn’t really much i could add to your first response anyway 🙂
remember how guts left griffith in the snow one morning and the next day griffith went from totally going to be king to being tortured for treason
have you ever noticed that the seemingly random patches of grey and white here perfectly highlight griffith’s ass
Can you believe that Guts/Griffith is so powerful the damn mangaka had to have a random character go out of his way to try to shut down the gay vibes and spend most of his screen time in the latter-half of the Golden Age steering Guts towards Casca instead?
like you know you wrote a gay romance instead of a straight romance when you need to have a side character blatantly intervene in the story to make sure the dude sleeps with a woman.
i’m js that griffith is ‘the desired’ of humanity, and guts is our protagonist and representative of humanity, which makes berserk gay af right down to its core themes, and this sequence of pages sure doesn’t hide that fact
So how about Griffith’s self loathing and his need to change the world to basically prove himself worthy of being a leader, or even just worthy of living with death on his conscience?
I also like with how much respect he treats guts, like he keeps calling him chief, commander or general even though guts told him he doesn’t have to. And I feel like he’s the only one who’s genuinely interested in his real underlying motives like why he even fights for Casca and what his feelings for her are
Yeah he seems to genuinely like and respect Guts, which is nice, and tbh I found it kind of strange but endearing that he’s the only one who asked Guts about Casca and seemed to get an answer (tho we didn’t see it). Plus he got the Elfhelm drinking conversation going between him and Guts and Serpico. he’s a good facilitator of heart to hearts lol.
It would suck imo if Roderick turns out to be a dick just like every male character in berserk ever.
If he is a nice guy like it seems rn, I can see him going with the flow when Farnese breaks off the engagement
yeah, there sure aren’t many non-dickish dudes in Berserk. Maybe Serpico? But with him it’s less that he genuinely wants to be a decent guy and more like he can’t be assed to be a dick bc it’s more of a hassle lol. so far roderick is fairly refreshing.
I was really pleasantly surprised by Roderick, I expected him to be a slimy man since he is friends with Magnifico lol But he was so chill, also he’s cool on a ship xD I’d like if he and Farny become nice friends
same! the way he was introduced as Farnese’s surprise fiancee set up by her scheming brother definitely made me expect the worst but so far he’s been a surprisingly good dude. i’d love to see Farnese break off the engagement and Roderick take it in stride and remain friends with her. i mean I guess there’s some ulterior motive to them getting married (due to that whispery ball conversation between roderick and magnifico), so that might not be how it goes, but it would be nice and I could definitely see Roderick being amiable about it.
THANK YOUUUUUUU. This in-depth analysis is perfect. My brother made me watch Berserk with him and started ne off saying, “you’ll probably like Griffith because, but you shouldn’t. You should like Guts.” I do like Guts; however, I adore Griffith because of his complexity and I enjoy his parallel with Guts’ narrative. I am so glad that someone else has pointed out how each character is similar, yet different. ������
thank you for your kind words ❤
glad you didn’t end up agreeing with your brother, I find berserk is just a richer, better story when you can appreciate and enjoy Griffith’s complex character and narrative. both guts and griffith are important to berserk and why only like one when you can enjoy both, right?
THANK YOU i think in particular the part abt the sacrificed person being who you most love *and* hate in that moment gets ignored, like the fact that in the canon examples the person(s) you love the most has betrayed you or ruined your life etc etc is glossed over??
it’s very easy to say
“well, *i* wouldnt do it” and pat your back smugly for being a good and
moral person if you can’t imagine ever facing that level of betrayal
from your loved ones
yeah it’s an important part of the whole equation. maybe it’s not the case in every single sacrifice, but it seems to generally hold true and it makes sense because in Berserk fate basically arranges circumstances for the highest possibility of someone saying “yes.” Except with Theresia, the sacrifice is always the reason for the behelit owner’s despair. It’s, ‘cut this out of your life and you will never feel despair like this again.’
idk I guess it’s less obvious with Guts and Griffith because Guts like, didn’t just try to kill him or anything, the betrayal Griffith perceives from him is a lot more subtle and blameless. More of a, I destroyed my dream because I’m in love with you and you’re going to leave me again, kind of thing. He says, “you’re the only one who made me forget my dream,” like an accusation. But I mean Guts himself acknowledges that he’s the one who drove Griffith to despair while he’s riding after him, so Guts being the source of Griffith’s pain is pretty explicitly part of the Eclipse.
So like yeah, even if you wouldn’t sacrifice someone you love who is totally innocent under any circumstances, let’s be real most of the people who say they’d never sacrifice someone aren’t thinking of a cheating spouse, or a son who just tried to kill them, or someone they love whose perceived rejection lead to a year of torture.
in a canon divergent au where they hooked up, i’m gonna say yes. like okay, fine, they’re both bad at sex tbh so it would take a while for the idea to occur to them, but eventually they’d get there. they might need to re-read the kama sutra again and adapt some of the concepts in it first, but yk. i believe in them.
you're the only one 