mostly berserk meta. i'm into berserk mainly for griffguts and i'm a huge fan of griffith.
Tag: b
and yk what despite wishing casca’s adversary was more epic than fucking adon, i love this moment of triumph for her sfm it makes me a little teary. she’s the one who achieved their objective and won the war by capturing doldrey.
griffith’s face when guts’ sword breaks
goddamn guts and griffith spend this entire battle worrying about each other
good sequence of panels:
griffith eyeing gennon’s position across the battlefield
followed by gennon whining that they can’t reach him
followed by
tbh I love the way this fight is structured so that Casca’s appearance on the scene gives me chills
Like you’re with Boscogne as the audience, wondering what the fuck Griffith’s plan is and how he hopes to win a fight against 30,000 men or whatever. Throughout the first half of the fight you’re going, okay what the fuck is going on, how is Griffith gonna capture this fortress???
The main force regroups with their backs to the river to put their lives on the line in a straightforward fight against a hopeless number of enemies, and Griffith’s like, ok but if we don’t die we’ll win, and you’re like, ….? doesn’t seem like a gr8 plan man.
And then bam suddenly it’s revealed that Casca’s the hinge on which Griffith’s plan turns, as she leads her troops in a surprise infiltration, and idk basically the way it cuts from the hopeless battle to Casca making it work is just rly delightful to me.
While I’m looking for moments that demonstrate Guts’ attraction to Griffith I might as well post a few outtakes.
Like, what the fuck is this about?
I’m not including it bc Guts is wtfing at the behelit here, not (presumably) swooning over Griffith, but look at his collagen-injected lip, the forced contrast of his hair to shadowed skin, the shining eyes.
Like Griffith is supposed to be pretty, but Miura’s Golden Age art often makes certain images of him stand out as Extra compared to the rest in a scene, and when that image is from Guts’ point of view it’s a little eyebrow raising regardless of the context.
And it’s not just cause it’s a closeup either:
same scene, same distance from the ‘camera,’ same level of detail, v different vibe.
Guts has been thinking about how Griffith rode back to save his life
that first time and considering his answer inadequate for three years.
Another thing which gets skipped over in all the animations.
Usually Griffith is shown just passively listening to the God hand as if he’s thinking about their offer and then Guts obliviously gets angry and screams at them.
Look at this panel though.
Look how fucking distressed Griffith looks. That isn’t a “wow, tell me more” face. He’s shaking. He’s terrified. He looks like He’s trying to protest their assertion that he’ll sacrifice everyone.
And THAT’S what pisses Guts of. It’s because Griffith can’t put his distress into words and has no way to verbally protest and Guts can see that.
He’s yelling on Griffith’s behalf .
Also which makes me think. Often I’ve read or maybe even said myself that if Griffith hadn’t been in the exact state he was at the start of the eclipse he may not have agreed to the terms. But EVEN in that state without manipulation he wasn’t up for it.
After that of course lol. What was fated happened and all. And everything got fucked. But I still go back to teeny details to hurt my heart.
I love this so much.
One of my favourite things about the Golden Age is that there’s such a sense that the tragedy is a house of cards that could’ve come tumbling down if anything happened differently. Of course, thanks to fate, everything worked out perfectly to lead to the sacrifice, but there’s so many missed opportunities, half-finished sentences, crossroads, coincidences, and little significant details that it always makes me think, what if X happened differently? Even up to the Eclipse.
What if Casca finished a sentence, what if the King hadn’t interrupted Guts and Griffith on the staircase, what if the maid hadn’t seen Griffith with Charlotte, what if Guts hadn’t let go of Griffith’s hand on the mountain of heads, what if Guts never told Griffith to do whatever he had to do for the sake of his dream so the Godhand couldn’t whip up that handy memory to convince him, etc etc.
Everything had to happen exactly right (or wrong) for Griffith to sacrifice Guts and the Band. That’s a big reason the moment is so narratively satisfying to me imo.
I’m re-reading some of the golden age for finding instances of Guts’ attraction to Griffith reasons but man the way the story is structured it still floors me how strong the focus is on Guts and Griffith’s feelings for each other.
Chapter 1, the very first event we get to contextualize the previous three years which we skipped, where the characters are now and how they’re getting along, is Guts charging into battle against orders and Casca being pissy about it so Miura can show us the dynamic: Guts is Griffith’s fave and everyone knows it, Casca is resentful.
That’s the important info we need to establish going into the story. I love it.
(plus the first sight of Guts and Griffith unhelmeted after 3 years is the two of them staring at each other but the way it’s shown it’s more a part of the aforementioned ‘instances of guts’ attraction,’ coming soon)
I was just talking about this scene with a friend the other day, and I mentioned how I enjoy the translation in the version of the 1997 anime that I watched, which is:
Not that different, but I like the addition of the word ‘pet’ lol. So I got curious about the original Japanese line and went back and checked, and the word used is お気に入り (okiniiri), which indeed can either mean ‘favourite,’ or ‘pet’ as in like, the teacher’s pet, for example.
I’m re-reading some of the golden age for finding instances of Guts’ attraction to Griffith reasons but man the way the story is structured it still floors me how strong the focus is on Guts and Griffith’s feelings for each other.
Chapter 1, the very first event we get to contextualize the previous three years which we skipped, where the characters are now and how they’re getting along, is Guts charging into battle against orders and Casca being pissy about it so Miura can show us the dynamic: Guts is Griffith’s fave and everyone knows it, Casca is resentful.
That’s the important info we need to establish going into the story. I love it.
(plus the first sight of Guts and Griffith unhelmeted after 3 years is the two of them staring at each other but the way it’s shown it’s more a part of the aforementioned ‘instances of guts’ attraction,’ coming soon)
The background reactions are so pointless to me except as like, an additional reminder that Casca has a crush on Griffith.
I actually kind of wonder if like, idk, Miura was trying to tease the possibility here bc of Guts’ whole trying-to-be-a-good-bro-and-set-them-up thing? But that doesn’t really make sense to me bc that assumes the reader is an idiot who doesn’t know Griffith’s dedicated to his marry Charlotte plan and also in love with Guts, and one thing I’ll grant Miura as a writer is that he doesn’t treat his audience like idiots.
Like when Judeau spells Griffith’s practical need to marry the princess out to Guts a little later it shouldn’t come as a shock to the audience.
So idk maybe their slightly scandalized expressions are just a little joke at Casca’s expense.
But w/e aside from that one thing I do rly like about this scene is that Griffith’s compliment comes straight from Guts lol.
It’s kind of touching when you remove the possibility of het undertones and look at it as Guts’ influence helping Griffith come down to earth a little. It’s a nice full-circle moment starting from Guts thinking Griffith keeping the Hawks in the dark regarding his faking-his-death plan is “a little cruel” (something that doesn’t seem to occur to Griffith as an issue) and concluding with Guts and Griffith’s casual friendly interactions helping Griffith make up for it a little.
Femto has become more slender and sleek now.
I feel little everyone has lost a lot of weight in the recent chapters. Even neo Griffith seems to be thinner than Griffith was originally.
Same with Guts, Charlotte.
I think Casca’s lost a little bit of her muscle too
lol this is why i can’t figure out if we’re supposed to think guts has lost weight or if miura’s changing style is just making everyone thinner
like it would make sense for casca to lose her muscle definition and for guts to lose weight too due to the armour fucking him up but everyone’s so sleek now including like every rando npc soldier or sailor so idk
Man ia Guts’ love for Griffith is ignored way too much, but also yeah reducing Griffith’s love for Guts down to ~evil possessiveness~ is one of my pet peeves.
imo he’s possessive because he’s stunted emotionally (like most of Berserk’s cast lol), but that doesn’t mean he only loves Guts as an asset, it means he has v little ability to recognize and compartmentalize his emotions so he responds to extreme feelings generally pretty badly.
Like Guts is compared to Griffith’s dream a lot which to me is saying that when Griffith fell in love with Guts he’d never felt so strongly about anything else, other than his dream. (”I want you, Guts.” “Griffith’s never said a thing like that… not to anybody!”) And because his whole raison d’etre is seizing his dream, now that something else makes him feel the same amount of need and desire, he “must obtain” him. He has no other frame of reference for what he’s feeling lol.
But in actual action he’s not controlling. Guts does whatever the fuck he wants in battle and Griffith plans around it, eg. Griffith asks Guts to help him out with his assassinations, which the narrative specifically draws attention to, and Guts is the one who wants it to be an order. Griffith risks his life and dream for Guts multiple times and can never explain why. Griffith, according to Casca, doesn’t control Guts enough as a leader. Griffith self-consciously asks Guts if he thinks he’s cruel for asking him (or maybe ordering him after Guts’ response to Griffith phrasing it as a question for the first assassination) to help him with the bonfire assassinations. Griffith’s whole speech about friendship is about desiring an equal who he doesn’t own, and can’t control, and his monologue in the torture chamber is about realizing that Guts was that person.
I really love Griffith’s inner monologue during the second duel because it’s such a powerful emotional breakdown imo, and it feels so childish to me. It seems like he’s falling back on “you can’t leave, I own you” because he has nothing else, no other way to respond to the thought of being abandoned, no other way to contextualize what he’s feeling. He’s clinging to a sense of ownership bc it’s the only part of his relationship to/feelings for Guts he really understands, and it’s a defense against the uncontrollable messiness of his feelings – a way to repress his love and need and feelings of rejection and loss and self-loathing, and a way to repress his realization of “when did someone I was supposed to have in hand… instead gain such a strong hold over me?” – that ultimately fails.
It just feels so consistent with the childish aspects of Griffith’s character, and the part of him that represses his emotions until they seep out in horrifying ways (eg self harm, risky sex, thinking it’s better to risk killing Guts than to let him “reject” him, etc).
Idk basically I like Griffith’s possessiveness because it’s a flaw that rears its ugly head to fuck up his relationship with Guts, and is actually entirely counter-productive to the relationship he genuinely wants with Guts (equality). But it’s nowhere close to the be-all end-all of his feelings for him.
look at this guy
Will I ever be over Guts spending their last battle fondly thinking about how cool and in control Griffith is as he plans to leave, only to completely destroy him when he does? Signs point to no.
tbh I barely know anything about astrology so I’d be pretty useless at sorting the characters, sorry.
I’m going to post this though bc I’m curious about anyone else’s thoughts, for anyone who sees this and has more sign knowledge than me. Including you, i’d love you hear your headcanons if you have any!
I’m a libra, and I just used one of those online chart calculators so apparently I’m an aries moon and cancer ascendant too. How about you?
I’ll preface this by saying that I don’t really know a lot about astrology either. I only know what I’ve read for fun and while building OCs. That said, I have some intuitive opinions, which I’m now putting under a read-more because this is going to be looooooooong and rant-y. I’m not good at writing comprehensive essays.
@bthump Please don’t feel obligated to read all of this, but if you do, I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.
so like, if you could pick any post-golden age scene/chapter (including the black swordsman arc) and replace guts with casca, which would u want to see most?
I’m sorry if I’m very late for this! But
Tower of rebirth arc. Especially the part where she gets captured by still sadistic pyromaniac Farnese.
That’s a potentially interesting starting point for Farnesca for me.
tbh I barely know anything about astrology so I’d be pretty useless at sorting the characters, sorry.
I’m going to post this though bc I’m curious about anyone else’s thoughts, for anyone who sees this and has more sign knowledge than me. Including you, i’d love you hear your headcanons if you have any!
I’m a libra, and I just used one of those online chart calculators so apparently I’m an aries moon and cancer ascendant too. How about you?
In a canon scenario, I imagine Farnesca being kind of slow, but like, the feelings kind of exist off the bat. It’s slow coming to terms burn. I’d like to see a Casca that’s very solemn after being healed. Farnese and Schierke worry that they screwed something up, but the Flowerstorm King tells them to give it a while. Just give it a while. They’ll spend a bit on the island so Casca can acclimate.
After taking care of Casca for so long, it’s just Farnese’s instinct to tend to Casca- take her by the arm when it’s time to go to dinner or have a bath or something. Farnese defaults to that post-Casca return, too. She says to squad that she figures it’s time for a wash and reaches for Casca but stops halfway and everyone kinda looks between her and Casca. A beat of tension passes. Farnese is about to withdraw her hand when Casca takes it in her own.
Communication could be kind of hard for Casca. She’s been basically incapacitated for literal years. Maybe for a while she just doesn’t speak at all, but then one day in the middle of doing something Farnese hears her name in a voice that’s not entirely unfamiliar, and she turns to see Casca beckoning her.
Being around Casca is suddenly just a little different – even though it’s so commonplace and familiar and Farnese finds she prefers Casca around rather than the contrary, she also is so much more flustered before. This only increases when Casca opens up more to her and she learns more about the woman that’s been in her care all this time. I mean, having been up in her mind and reliving her memories, Farnese has a Pretty Good Idea of who Casca was before, but to hear about it from the source???? How intimate.
It’s little things like Casca taking her hand, Casca saying her name, whispering things into her ear, asking if she could get Serpico to train with her, SEEING HER TRAIN, her interactions with the kids (which I think are going to be a riot), doing day-to-day chores with her, her little mannerisms… Eventually, should a threat rear its head, how quick Casca is to take up arms and put herself between Farnese and whatever is looming. It’s these little things that all build up to one big flustered upset Farnese and I think that’s beautiful.
Casca is feeling the affection the whole time. It’d just take something pretty big and emotionally jarring to get her to do any confessing, probably. 💕
These are just my thoughts. I’d LOVE to know what other people think about their relationship! The ask box is always open~
HEY! CASCA FIGHTING ZODD BUT GUTS COMES UP TO SEE THE COMMOTION AND THEN ROCKS START TO FALL ON GUTS BUT GRIFFITH SAVES HIM AND GUTS LOKKS LIKE FOR A SECOND HE RECONNZIES HIM BUT NOPE! HE JUST GRABS AT GRIFFITH HAIR AND GIGGLES AND SAY”HEHEHEHE PRETTY…” BEFORE HE BENDS OVER IN PAIN CUS OF THE BRAND.
dragonslayer is like significantly larger than casca. poor casca stuck dragging thst shit
this keeps tripping me up when i think too hard about this au lol. like does casca just work out a lot more, does she graduate up to the dragonslayer when the brand imbues her with enough super-strength, does she have a different, just as awesome but less gigantic weapon instead ???
w/ guts he has his whole thing about using an overly large sword since he was like 4 yrs old. casca should get an equivalent cool weapon backstory.
dragonslayer is like significantly larger than casca. poor casca stuck dragging thst shit
this keeps tripping me up when i think too hard about this au lol. like does casca just work out a lot more, does she graduate up to the dragonslayer when the brand imbues her with enough super-strength, does she have a different, just as awesome but less gigantic weapon instead ???
w/ guts he has his whole thing about using an overly large sword since he was like 4 yrs old. casca should get an equivalent cool weapon backstory.
I think I pretty much agree – idk if I’ve really seen Griffith fans like this myself, but yk I’m sure they’re around.
tbh I feel like a lot of villain fans do this to avoid The Discourse about the ~evils of woobifying~ etc and I understand that. Fandom is fucking weird about moral purity rn and treating fictional characters as if they’re real people, and it’s hard in a lot of fandoms to talk about liking a villain without constantly putting a “BTW I’M NOT APOLOGIZING FOR THEM THEY’RE VERY EVIL AND BAD I JUST ENJOY VILLAINS” disclaimer up every time. So I sympathize w/ that urge. Fandom makes it hard to just enjoy characters without holding them up as either pure as the driven snow or irredeemably evil from birth.
But if they’re genuine about loving Griffith entirely because he’s oh so evil, then of all the antagonists to love Griffith makes v little sense to me bc before he becomes a demon he’s like… fine. He’s not a great person but he’s not a bad person, he has noble intentions, flaws and virtues, he’s a v good well-rounded character. I know a lot of people think Griffith was moustache-twirling evil all along but yk, they’re objectively wrong so lol.
Then after he becomes a demon he’s a petty evil dick for all of two appearances, one of which is a gratuitously depicted, grimdark-drama-for-the-sake-of-drama rape scene, and if that scene is what makes you love Griffith/Femto I’m definitely like gonna side-eye you. And I mean I don’t see anything wrong with liking Femto – I like Femto lol bc his pettiness mixed with inability to kill Guts is extremely amusing to me, plus his makeup is on point (and I love all gnc villains out of spite), but it’s very much despite the rape, not because of it.
And then as NeoGriff he comes back seemingly neutral, fulfilling the subconscious desires of humanity and committing no great acts of evil again. So yeah if you like super evil dark villains Griffith/Femto/NeoGriff is an odd choice to me.
Oh and as an aside I could kind of get liking him for his evil villainry if you liked him as Griffith and then felt personally betrayed when he sacrificed everyone. Like that was gr8 writing and feeling rly pissed off and then impressed by how mad you are, making you like him as a character bc of the emotional ride he took you on, makes sense to me. But I feel like that’s not really what you’re referring to.
So I guess tl;dr my answer boils down to it sounds p silly to me but I guess it depends on their exact reasons lol.
Yeah like I’m all about the badass Casca in this AU but regressed Guts has its own uniquely depressing vibe. I think we’re exchanging demon rape for mind-breaking psychic magic bc if the end result is an insane character with no agency it’s just a better method to get them there (I have a lot of issues with Casca’s story let me tell you but w/e) but there’s a lot of aspects to explore w/ Guts all fucked up instead of Casca.
(Like consider: NeoGriff moving involuntarily to save Guts from rocks and feeling uneasy about seeing him as an empty shell.)
Also check out the ask I’m about to post by @tfan2013 for more, she’s got you covered for sad details lol.
i’m rly feeling like warm and fuzzy and super appreciative of everyone who reads my blog, likes my posts, replies and chats w/ me about berserk and sends asks etc etc.
i suck at expressing affection lol but ilu all and it’s been good times here with u guys so ty for that <333
This is tough tbh. I was thinking Wyald at first bc he has so much screen time and all of it is gratuitously repulsive, but tbh his awfulness is so mundane in a grimdark fantasy way that I can’t go with him.
I think maybe Rosine and her army of “elf” children. There’s a lot of fucked up stuff going on there. And I’m kind of disturbed by her on two levels – there’s the fact that she’s meant to be on the cusp of adolescence/adulthood but her worldview and method of villainy is more childlike while she’s drawn in a sexualized way and makes overtures at Guts, which is a bit disturbing on a meta level. I like to think she’s around 16 but honestly who tf knows.
But despite that I think she’s still a really effective character in a more emotionally disturbing way – the fact that she was an abused kid and sacrificed her parents as a child, and then she tried to go home while on the verge of death, knowing despite everything that she was never an elf for real, and all her villainy was basically just playing pretend and like… in a way hiding from the cruelty of the world by turning it into a game – it genuinely makes me feel sad for her ngl.
Also she’s got that defensive army of corpses possessed by bugs and that’s disturbing to me as someone very grossed out by most insects lol.
ngl when it comes to replacing guts with casca i’m torn between something epic and badass like the first time guts puts on the armour and starts mowing apostles down like grass, or the ganeshka fight at the docks complete with bickering with zodd, or even the angel fight during the mock eclipse with cynical quips about religion and the crowd below terrified of her and farnese in horrified awe etc.
and like the scene with intestine-slan trying to get stabbed, or farnese possessed and grinding on her sword – ooh or the ridic opening scene: Casca fucking the female apostle with one hand while the other’s about to reveal a canon.
you're the only one 