@yesgabsstuff said: I totally
agree that this is a child’s idea and I guess that’s what makes it so
upsetting to me? That its emotionally stupid and an intellectual
failure? Idk man.
tbh the idea that griffith stumbled into his dream and worked backwards to justify it feels a little absurdist to me, which i love, especially in conjunction with Berserk’s take on fate/meaning, ie, humans literally create it out of a desperate need and it fucks them over.
but yeah there is something inherently upsetting in the idea that everything that went down in berserk is ultimately because of something stupid and childish. it’s the kind of upsetting i dig though haha.
tho now that I think about it wrt his higher aspirations (equality, nobles suck, etc) we know he had them before the kid died because of how he saved Casca, so I do think those were always part of his motivation for becoming king, but… I tend to think they’re a little childish at heart too, for Griffith. More born out of obstinacy, with actual philosophy and reasoning applied later.
Yeah, I mean there was no way I think that he could back down from how he was feeling. The idea that there would be an intellectual framework to hang his feelings on, even if it was contradictory and self aggrandizing must have felt like a relief.
Oh hell yeah.
I think that’s what fills everyone around him with that sense of wonder. The fact that it isn’t a well thought out dream. The fact that anyone who would sit down and analyse the ‘i want a kingdom’ statement with respect to where Griffith started from would find it absurd.
But that analysis would come from maturity belying cynicism – from knowing that the world is an unfair place filled with unfair people. And Griffith’s dream existing despite that seems to undermine this belief. Because a dream like that could only exist in a fair world with fair people and it retroactively gives the people who hear about it, and hear Griffith’s absolute conviction to make it a reality, a sense of hope. A sense that the world will change around that dream to contain it, create a warp of the fair world in the unfair world and hard past each of them is trying to escape from.
And honestly I think that’s what drew them to him. It wasn’t just Griffith being a manipulative person or exceptionally charismatic. Though obviously that is there.
It’s because Griffith gives them hope.
And bleaker the world is, the harder we cling to what gives us hope.
And I always personally thought that Griffith’s whole point about ‘giving back’ to those who gathered around him was a little backwards. In his mind, they were drawn to him for an inexplicable reason and fought his wars for him and now he has to ‘pay them back’ by giving them victory.
Where as it seems more like they joined him for the hope he gave them. Stayed and fought to continue to cling to that hope and gave back in terms of their loyalty to him.
@bthump
this is perfect and i have nothing i can add so i’m just gonna underline it with manga panels
oh wait i lied i do have something to add, wrt your last two paragraphs:
Well I had the urge to talk about Griffith’s motivation to be king again. tbh I’ve said a lot of this stuff in various scattered posts and conversations, but I want to have it all laid out nicely in one place. And I’m using a meme question as a springboard.
Does your character have a story goal and a believable motivation to achieve that goal?
For
human Griffith I actually find his motivation for wanting to become
king one of the most interesting aspects of his story. One thing I really dig about
the way fate works in Berserk is that despite it sitting there and
pulling strings to manipulate everything, characterization and character
decisions never feel arbitrary to me.
To be honest it can kind of seem
like Griffith has no real motivation for wanting to be king and it’s
just an urge placed there by fate, but I think everything the reader
needs to know is right here:
It’s
not really that he has no original motivation, it’s that his original
motivation is fucking stupid lol. It started out as an extremely
childish “I want that” desire, possibly with a side of contrariness since he was a commoner, and because he was a child, and tenacious,
he decided to go out and get it.
Then, before he had a chance to
re-evaluate his baby dream and whether it’s a worthwhile goal, he started getting people killed for it and his resulting
(repressed) guilt lead to him doubling down on his dream, hard.
At least since
the dead kid and Gennon I’d say his motivation has been 90% “I have to
achieve this to justify the fact that a bunch of people are dead because
of it.“
This
is more of an extrapolation, but imo Griffith’s mind is working
backwards to how you’d expect – it’s not that he wants to achieve the
dream because it’s some great, all-important and shining thing in his
mind. The dream becomes great, all-important and shining because
building it up in his head is partly how he justifies all the awful
guilt-inducing shit he does to achieve it. All these people died for his
dream, therefore his dream must be special and important and worth dying for.
He says he wants to know his place in the grand scheme of things, whether he’s one of the “keys” that move the world. And to me, in conjunction with what we know of his motivation (childish ambition, followed by mounting guilt spurring him onwards), that sounds like a desperate desire to know whether all those deaths were worth it. If his destiny is to become king, then he’s justified and doesn’t need to feel guilty and can continue suppressing his guilt. If it isn’t, then it was all a waste and he has to actually deal with his inner “reality” of being a child on top of a pointless mountain of bodies.
It’s rly lucky for him that it turns out it is his destiny lmao.
I generally agree with this; particularly on the point of how he makes decisions. I see him as someone who makes an emotional decision and then his considerable intellect steps in to cover his ass so that the choice isn’t as destructive as it could be. I think however, that while his initial desire is born out of a childish desire for something out of his reach, that he earnestly believed that he could make things better as a king due to his common birth.
He has this very real emotional need it would seem to be special and to be the person to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” in contrast to uninspired others. This could be covering up any number of emotional wounds inside him, and I think that this is as close as we get to Griffith articulating the same emotional emptiness that Guts does.
All of that pathology aside I think his natural distaste for injustice and his intelligence took these emotional needs and made them into a desire to be the philosopher King; better than a blood noble could ever be because he could actually understand people’s struggle and he would deserve to be there. I think his problem comes is that he’s using the master’s tools to take down the master’s house. He must use violence, he must look at himself as superior to others, he must cut off his human feelings in order to achieve this goal. It is literally divine right rather than what his idea of “merit” that has put him on that throne next to Charlotte. It’s terribly sad.
I totally agree! tbh I avoided going into this bc i wanted to keep the focus on guilt and childishness, but, especially in NeoGriffith’s chapters, there’s a lot of stuff about overturning the “natural order” of inequality and oppression and war etc.
Ooh plus Casca’s line while she’s telling Guts her story about how when the nobleman attacked her she thought it was just the natural order of things, until Griffith threw her a sword and rearranged her world.
And then the Eclipse is basically a mirror of that flashback scene with Femto taking the nobleman’s place and finishing what he started, so it’s a visceral, grotesque and symbolic depiction of becoming a manifestation of that “order” in his attempt to overturn it. Including the fact that he actually is chosen by God lol like he accused the nobleman of believing.
Ofc now that you’ve mentioned the master’s house quote I kinda want to wonder if it’s all eventually going to come crashing down because Griffith became what he was trying to overturn. idk.
idk the point is I solidly agree with your addition and i want it on my blog lol.
ALSO
I think that this is as close as we get to Griffith articulating the same emotional emptiness that Guts does.
wonderful point, nothing to add but I love this.
You know regarding the origins of his dream, I’m kind of wondering if Griffith was a child who grew up with books?
Like we definitely get to know that he loves reading and we also know that there most probably wasn’t a strong parental or mentoring influence in his early life yet he has all these lofty ideals and philosophies sorted out at a very young age.
And as someone who sort of grew up with books, i feel there may be a possibility that that might tie into the I want kingdom dream.
Griffith always struck me as a romantic stuck between the cogwheels of pragmatism. And that’s the thing about books, they make you dream big, think of things bigger than yourself, philosophies, emphasize the importance of having a goal and going on an adventure. The only lives worth living it seems are those you’d like to hear a story about. All these rags to riches fairy tales.
And inevitably the protagonists are kings and princes, wizards and knights, extra ordinary people who own extraordinary things.
And I wonder if he didn’t just want to be the most extraordinary person he could be possessing the most extraordinary thing he had seen till then.
To Griffith s dream: It was definitely a childish decision at first. I mean he was around 10 years…I think it would feel more unreal to me if he had fleshed out, what he wanted to do.
But it was also a fist step to overcome the “old system”. For him a commoner it would have been impossible to fulfill his wish…to have that kind of dream and to strife to attain it…That was pretty strange for most people.
Later he really added like @yesgabsstuff mentioned “social justice” to his dream. It s like creating a paint. You append more and more layers to the picture.
Guilt was also a layer…a reason to reach his goal, but I don t think it was 90 % of it. At least not when Guts met him. He was so excited of his dream, his fate ect…when he helped him up, that I can t think of it as main cause at first.
Later…when he used more and more underhanded methods…that most likely changed. I think that was also a reason why his dream disappeared, when Guts left. To deal with the whole guilt all alone…That was surely a reason why he broke.
@mastermistressofdesire this makes a lot of sense to me tbh. A lot of people compare Griffith to a fairytale or storybook hero, but he does it himself too when talking about how the kid who died admired him. Logistically he had to learn to read at some point, most likely while he was still a kid.
@freewilllife love your painting comparison. & tbh I do emphasize Griffith’s guilt A Lot, maybe more than makes sense for him as a realistic character, but since it’s what gets centre stage during the most revealing explorations of Griffith’s psyche (the river with Casca and the Godhand’s exploration of his conscious realm) I tend to view it as like… foundational, underlying just about every other aspect of Griffith’s pursuit of his dream. Plus I just dig the idea that it’s a huge emotional burden Griffith got stuck with through his own childlike stupidity and painted over to look like this spectacular shining thing, able to convince himself of its grandiosity because it’s easier than facing his own guilt. But that definitely edges into projecting my own interests onto the narrative.
Oh and also speaking of facing his own guilt good point about how that’s likely part of the reason he broke, i totally agree! I wrote a long ass thing a while ago about how Griffith took Guts leaving him as a rejection and condemnation of all the aspects of himself that make him feel guilty and insecure, which is imo part of the reason his reaction was so self-destructive.
@madchen said:
GOD please no healing
dick of the man she loves bullshit miura please dont make this story any
more misogynistic and vaguely lesbophobic than it already is
@tfan2013 said:
yeah it pretty obv she
is not really gonna jump back on guts dick cus that’s unrealistic (but
most berserk fans think they gonna make love as soon as she gets back
and i’m like no..just no @yesgabsstuff
especially after this chapter i can’t think of a worse writing choice than healing dick but like… that doesn’t necessarily rule it out i guess lmao 😦
still though i feel like the odds are pretty low at least. keeping hope alive til winter
@yesgabsstuff said: I totally
agree that this is a child’s idea and I guess that’s what makes it so
upsetting to me? That its emotionally stupid and an intellectual
failure? Idk man.
tbh the idea that griffith stumbled into his dream and worked backwards to justify it feels a little absurdist to me, which i love, especially in conjunction with Berserk’s take on fate/meaning, ie, humans literally create it out of a desperate need and it fucks them over.
but yeah there is something inherently upsetting in the idea that everything that went down in berserk is ultimately because of something stupid and childish. it’s the kind of upsetting i dig though haha.
tho now that I think about it wrt his higher aspirations (equality, nobles suck, etc) we know he had them before the kid died because of how he saved Casca, so I do think those were always part of his motivation for becoming king, but… I tend to think they’re a little childish at heart too, for Griffith. More born out of obstinacy, with actual philosophy and reasoning applied later.
Well I had the urge to talk about Griffith’s motivation to be king again. tbh I’ve said a lot of this stuff in various scattered posts and conversations, but I want to have it all laid out nicely in one place. And I’m using a meme question as a springboard.
Does your character have a story goal and a believable motivation to achieve that goal?
For
human Griffith I actually find his motivation for wanting to become
king one of the most interesting aspects of his story. One thing I really dig about
the way fate works in Berserk is that despite it sitting there and
pulling strings to manipulate everything, characterization and character
decisions never feel arbitrary to me.
To be honest it can kind of seem
like Griffith has no real motivation for wanting to be king and it’s
just an urge placed there by fate, but I think everything the reader
needs to know is right here:
It’s
not really that he has no original motivation, it’s that his original
motivation is fucking stupid lol. It started out as an extremely
childish “I want that” desire, possibly with a side of contrariness since he was a commoner, and because he was a child, and tenacious,
he decided to go out and get it.
Then, before he had a chance to
re-evaluate his baby dream and whether it’s a worthwhile goal, he started getting people killed for it and his resulting
(repressed) guilt lead to him doubling down on his dream, hard.
At least since
the dead kid and Gennon I’d say his motivation has been 90% “I have to
achieve this to justify the fact that a bunch of people are dead because
of it.“
This
is more of an extrapolation, but imo Griffith’s mind is working
backwards to how you’d expect – it’s not that he wants to achieve the
dream because it’s some great, all-important and shining thing in his
mind. The dream becomes great, all-important and shining because
building it up in his head is partly how he justifies all the awful
guilt-inducing shit he does to achieve it. All these people died for his
dream, therefore his dream must be special and important and worth dying for.
He says he wants to know his place in the grand scheme of things, whether he’s one of the “keys” that move the world. And to me, in conjunction with what we know of his motivation (childish ambition, followed by mounting guilt spurring him onwards), that sounds like a desperate desire to know whether all those deaths were worth it. If his destiny is to become king, then he’s justified and doesn’t need to feel guilty and can continue suppressing his guilt. If it isn’t, then it was all a waste and he has to actually deal with his inner “reality” of being a child on top of a pointless mountain of bodies.
It’s rly lucky for him that it turns out it is his destiny lmao.
I generally agree with this; particularly on the point of how he makes decisions. I see him as someone who makes an emotional decision and then his considerable intellect steps in to cover his ass so that the choice isn’t as destructive as it could be. I think however, that while his initial desire is born out of a childish desire for something out of his reach, that he earnestly believed that he could make things better as a king due to his common birth.
He has this very real emotional need it would seem to be special and to be the person to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” in contrast to uninspired others. This could be covering up any number of emotional wounds inside him, and I think that this is as close as we get to Griffith articulating the same emotional emptiness that Guts does.
All of that pathology aside I think his natural distaste for injustice and his intelligence took these emotional needs and made them into a desire to be the philosopher King; better than a blood noble could ever be because he could actually understand people’s struggle and he would deserve to be there. I think his problem comes is that he’s using the master’s tools to take down the master’s house. He must use violence, he must look at himself as superior to others, he must cut off his human feelings in order to achieve this goal. It is literally divine right rather than what his idea of “merit” that has put him on that throne next to Charlotte. It’s terribly sad.
I totally agree! tbh I avoided going into this bc i wanted to keep the focus on guilt and childishness, but, especially in NeoGriffith’s chapters, there’s a lot of stuff about overturning the “natural order” of inequality and oppression and war etc.
Ooh plus Casca’s line while she’s telling Guts her story about how when the nobleman attacked her she thought it was just the natural order of things, until Griffith threw her a sword and rearranged her world.
And then the Eclipse is basically a mirror of that flashback scene with Femto taking the nobleman’s place and finishing what he started, so it’s a visceral, grotesque and symbolic depiction of becoming a manifestation of that “order” in his attempt to overturn it. Including the fact that he actually is chosen by God lol like he accused the nobleman of believing.
Ofc now that you’ve mentioned the master’s house quote I kinda want to wonder if it’s all eventually going to come crashing down because Griffith became what he was trying to overturn. idk.
idk the point is I solidly agree with your addition and i want it on my blog lol.
ALSO
I think that this is as close as we get to Griffith articulating the same emotional emptiness that Guts does.
wonderful point, nothing to add but I love this.
too many dicks
Well I had the urge to talk about Griffith’s motivation to be king again. tbh I’ve said a lot of this stuff in various scattered posts and conversations, but I want to have it all laid out nicely in one place. And I’m using a meme question as a springboard.
Does your character have a story goal and a believable motivation to achieve that goal?
For
human Griffith I actually find his motivation for wanting to become
king one of the most interesting aspects of his story. One thing I really dig about
the way fate works in Berserk is that despite it sitting there and
pulling strings to manipulate everything, characterization and character
decisions never feel arbitrary to me.
To be honest it can kind of seem
like Griffith has no real motivation for wanting to be king and it’s
just an urge placed there by fate, but I think everything the reader
needs to know is right here:
It’s
not really that he has no original motivation, it’s that his original
motivation is fucking stupid lol. It started out as an extremely
childish “I want that” desire, possibly with a side of contrariness since he was a commoner, and because he was a child, and tenacious,
he decided to go out and get it.
Then, before he had a chance to
re-evaluate his baby dream and whether it’s a worthwhile goal, he started getting people killed for it and his resulting
(repressed) guilt lead to him doubling down on his dream, hard.
At least since
the dead kid and Gennon I’d say his motivation has been 90% “I have to
achieve this to justify the fact that a bunch of people are dead because
of it.“
This
is more of an extrapolation, but imo Griffith’s mind is working
backwards to how you’d expect – it’s not that he wants to achieve the
dream because it’s some great, all-important and shining thing in his
mind. The dream becomes great, all-important and shining because
building it up in his head is partly how he justifies all the awful
guilt-inducing shit he does to achieve it. All these people died for his
dream, therefore his dream must be special and important and worth dying for.
He says he wants to know his place in the grand scheme of things, whether he’s one of the “keys” that move the world. And to me, in conjunction with what we know of his motivation (childish ambition, followed by mounting guilt spurring him onwards), that sounds like a desperate desire to know whether all those deaths were worth it. If his destiny is to become king, then he’s justified and doesn’t need to feel guilty and can continue suppressing his guilt. If it isn’t, then it was all a waste and he has to actually deal with his inner “reality” of being a child on top of a pointless mountain of bodies.
It’s rly lucky for him that it turns out it is his destiny lmao.
The fact that Guts decides to pursue an equal
relationship with Griffith after hearing the speech is what singles his
relationship with Griffith out as unique. Everyone else in Griffith’s life is content to
either look up at or down on him.
Even the Princess, his future wife,
just marvels at the speech while literally looking up at him, rather than showing any desire to find a
dream herself and become “worthy” of calling herself his equal.
Because Guts is the only one who wants to genuinely connect with
Griffith – who wants to stand beside him by achieving something of his own – Guts is Griffith’s only “true” relationship, the only
relationship he has based on real affection and genuine desire for the
person, and not just what he represents, either as a symbol of hope and achievement (for the Hawks), a symbol of security and happiness (for Charlotte) or a symbol of corruption and loss of power (for those plotting against him).
Which just makes it so wonderfully ironic that Guts is the only one who made Griffith forget his dream.
Yes. Though we have to add that Guts perceives Griffith still as someone “different from a normal human being”.
His perplexed reaction that Griffith has weaknesses, when he comes back…or that he could be the reason for that.
I think it is more like…Guts wasn t aware that he didn t had to climb the mountain, but maybe just had to look at Griffith differently.
tbh i spent a good chunk of my golden age re-read pondering how guts and casca relate to griffith in different, opposing ways, and never coming to any proper conclusions
but i find it interesting that guts does see griffith as different, and godlike, and perfect (at least after overhearing the speech) while casca sees him as a vulnerable, real person with insecurities and issues of his own, and keeps trying to tell guts that.
and yet casca is the one who showers him with worship while guts treats him with irreverence, disobeying his orders, insisting they go and hang out with him after casca muses over how “distant” he is after a battle, questioning him, letting loose and acting playful around him, deliberately placing himself to protect griffith at the battle of doldrey, “he’s the only person i can’t stand looking down on me,” etc.
i have a vague idea that the discrepency between how guts thinks of him vs how guts treats him is at least partially bc guts planned to uproot his life and abandon his friends to get on griffith’s level, which lbr is a bad decision to make if you don’t believe griffith is on a level somewhere way above you, so he subconsciously ignores and deflects all indications that griffith is just a flawed person in his singleminded focus on his own “dream.”
which is similar to what i perceive griffith does wrt his own dream. like, if the castle is what shines in griffith’s mind, then griffith is what shines in guts’ mind. and i feel like griffith also has to subconsciously convince himself that his dream is worth pursuing despite the negative consequences. ~parallels
and omg yes @ your last sentence. i rly think the golden age was all about false perceptions, yk?
The fact that Guts decides to pursue an equal
relationship with Griffith after hearing the speech is what singles his
relationship with Griffith out as unique. Everyone else in Griffith’s life is content to
either look up at or down on him.
Even the Princess, his future wife,
just marvels at the speech while literally looking up at him, rather than showing any desire to find a
dream herself and become “worthy” of calling herself his equal.
Because Guts is the only one who wants to genuinely connect with
Griffith – who wants to stand beside him by achieving something of his own – Guts is Griffith’s only “true” relationship, the only
relationship he has based on real affection and genuine desire for the
person, and not just what he represents, either as a symbol of hope and achievement (for the Hawks), a symbol of security and happiness (for Charlotte) or a symbol of corruption and loss of power (for those plotting against him).
Which just makes it so wonderfully ironic that Guts is the only one who made Griffith forget his dream.
white-hawk said: mangabrog.wordpress.com… read the comments, the translator was asked about it, since they couldn’t translate the whole intetview
ty! lol i’ve read that before i just never thought to read the comments.
divinesong said: I doubt anyone will be shedding any tears for those sorts of criminals though.
this is true and tbf they are explicitly given a moment before Guts kills them when they’re like “cool now we can blackmail Griffith ho ho ho we’re so awful” so Guts and Griffith look less dickish for casually betraying and killing them. But that always kind of annoyed me lol. They could’ve been Robin Hoodish criminals with hearts of gold and they still would’ve been killed there, so functionally it doesn’t make any difference. Making them extra off-putting conniving assholes just feels like a cheap way of keeping the audience on Guts’ side. It’s a minor complaint, but still.
white-hawk said:
{{ I think the
interviewer didn’t ask about romantic undertones, but UST, to which
Miura has said something along the lines how men can have passionate
feelings for each other without them being like this. But, c’mon,
honestly. I think he doesn’t believe this himself. }}
I want to find this interview now. I mean to be fair PR-wise I don’t think Miura would admit it was gay even if he was 100% purposeful in laying the overtones on, so a public denial doesn’t really mean much to me and my interpretation lol.
Scrolling thru my blog past this art and suddenly hit by a huge amount of love for Casca. If I could rescue one character from their shitty writing (in anything, not just Berserk) it would be her.
The more I think about it the more appealing the thought of her waking up and absolutely wrecking everything is. Like I know this doesn’t make sense because the same dude is still the writer, but there’s something viscerally satisfying to imagining her getting her mind back, gaining some impressive amount of power (Behelit, elf powerup, whatever), and metaphorically flipping the table and completely changing the trajectory of the plot as a pseudo-meta response to being locked away as a non-entity for 2 decades, and playing support for two dudes before that. I want her to cause something to happen that’s as epic and active and hardcore as her being a childlike waif for so long is passive and shitty and awful.
Idk I guess I’m mad about it so I want to see Casca angry – effectively angry.
Like all this thematic stuff about inner beasts becoming literal beasts ft Griffith and Guts, and the character I most want to see lose themselves to rage is Casca. Even if it’s depicted as a negative I would be fistpumping.
Those years of being locked away in your own head need to count for something. I’m a little sick of Casca’s romantic ‘feminisation’ arc which took place simultaneously to the Gatsca mini arc.
It’s almost as if, by virtue of realising her feminity and ‘gentleness’ Casca suddenly started getting more positive attention and began to be written as more likeable.
Like as long as she was the head strong commander who called Guts out on his shit and kept everyone in line she was the ‘salty bitch’ and suddenly she’s trembling and blushing and holding onto Guts’ cape and she’s everyone’s ‘waifu’ .
I don’t have a problem with the softness. I have a problem with how this is treated differently in the narrative than how she originally was portrayed. And one is positive and the other was rather unflattering.
omg strong agree
it was like as soon as casca became a love interest she started fretting about whether her muscles weren’t womanly, judeau talks about how she had to give up being a woman (lol jesus) as a mercinary, when she takes the healing powder to guts he also fondly thinks about how she’s “showing a soft side,” and then during the sex scene you have her getting self conscious of her scars and guts having to tell her he thinks she’s womanly enough.
like it’s run of the mill sexist stuff but still so annoying and unnecessary. i wouldn’t even dislike casca being self conscious when sex enters the picture because like, fine, she’s inexperienced, she’s different than most women in that she’s a strong mercinary, i could understand that affecting her self-image, but combined with the running commentary from judeau, plus like how you said, the way she seems to get consistently weaker and clingier and blushier, just doesn’t sit well with me.
(which isn’t to say she doesn’t still have some great moments after getting love interested up, but it’s like she has to be damseled extra hard to compensate.)
plus just in general what I love most about her seems to be more her informed attributes and a few moments of awesomeness (punching a wounded man in the stomach because she doesn’t like him, terrifying corkus, wholly commanding the respect and adoration of the Hawks, being called the 3rd best fighter in the Band who can take on ten strong men at once even if we never get to see that in action, taking command and leading the Hawks when Midland turns on them and at the start of the Eclipse, etc) so when she returns as a full character I’d just, really love to see that badass side in full epic action finally, without being weakened by her period or a drug or exhaustion, or up against an extra powerful enemy Guts needs to save her from, etc etc.
tbh I have to go with the tragedy of Guts and Griffith’s relationship throughout the Golden Age. I genuinely love so much about Berserk, after the Golden Age too, and the other characters, but honestly that arc is the best, most personally appealing tragedy I’ve ever read. Like ‘dude who’s got his life planned out perfectly and then falls in love with another dude and fucks it all up’ is my absolute favourite plot already, but then add Griffith’s guilt issues, his total divorce from his own emotions, the misunderstanding that’s built up so well on a strong foundation of character, Guts’ own complex issues, the way it’s a tragedy built on miscommunication that actually works and doesn’t feel cheap, etc.
But most of all I love how well Guts and Griffith suit and complement each other before everything goes to hell. Reading the Golden Age is like watching 2 dudes walking together down a road full of turns and forks, and there’s a hundred possible paths they could take that lead to happy destinations, but they keep choosing the turns that lead to the pit full of tigers. And you know exactly why they choose the paths they choose, it makes perfect sense based on what you know about them, which just makes the inevitable tragic end that much better. There is nothing I find more entertaining in fiction than watching characters make mistakes and understanding perfectly why they’re making those mistakes.
Like “I sacrifice” is an emotional climax so satisfying that it makes me want a cigarette.
least favourite:
the rampant misogyny tbh, among all the other shit that offends me. But if I had to pick one more specific thing as my least favourite, it would be the way Casca is sexually assaulted multiple times because Guts and Griffith want to fuck each other but can’t bc the writer won’t let them so they both assault her instead while staring directly at/thinking about how they want to be closer to the other. There are other aspects of Berserk that I’d say are more offensive, but this particular one wins because it’s so integral to the characters, the relationships between them, and the plot in general that you can’t just go ‘welp that was awful’ and then pretend it didn’t happen.
The second thing is kind of my main beef with the series too. And in a way it sometimes ruins my favorite parts as well. Because while contemplating certain parts of Guts and Griffith’s dynamic you can’t ignore the fact that their primary expression of that dynamic is through holding Casca between them as an incidental proxy and that leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
There’s some serious internalised homophobia in the narrative to be completely honest and it comes out in the scariest ways. I wonder if over the years the author has become aware of it or if it is still subconscious.
Because some of the wording used is very suggestive but the narrative always shies away from spelling it out at the last moment.
If there wasn’t a level of this restraint, we may have had a kiss or two during Golden Age, who knows? The atmosphere certainly built up to it.
But mostly particularly I am talking about the way the hound talks about Griffith. It’s very very suggestive.
Speaking of this, in that old Kentaro Miura interview, I think there’s a point where the interviewer asks if there’s romantic undertones to their relationship or something along those lines (and the translator notes that Kentaro Miura looks slightly uncomfortable and uncertain here) and Miura replies- I don’t think so, it’s not necessarily like that between boys. The intensity is normal.
I mean sure. Yes. Completely normal level of intensity that.
lmfao @ the interviewer specifically noting that miura looks uncomfortable while answering bc like
dude… dude. how do you accidentally write something this gay. sure it’s possible but on some level you have to know what you’ve done, right?
maybe it’s like the old hollywood rule where if you want 2 friends to have engaging chemistry together you gotta play them like they’re in love. miura like, hmmm i need to really sell guts and griffith as a strong friendship. better add 50 romantic tropes to make sure it’s believable.
@gatsca said: Granted it’s been a
bit since I read the series of events leading up to this scene in
whole, but I have read it a number of times + just reread the chapter
directly before and I personally never actually read Griffith being ISO
comfort in this scene. Like, this is coming from my #BPD ass self, but I
always took it as Griffith being keenly aware that the dynamic between
Guts and Casca had changed fundamentally + seeking to “fix” that.
They had something
entirely their own going on all of the sudden and that change was, to
Griffith, absolutely agonizing. The move on Casca is a bit of a power
play + sexual in nature (“Casca wanted someone to be close to her, she’s
obviously upset now, I’ll give her what I never did before to snap her
back to reality”, reality being one where griff is central to guts n
casc’s relationship as their leader) b/c what better way to go about
recapturing Casca’s attention
I always read it as a
desperate grasp at restoring what once was – Casca fixated on Griffith
without time for other guys, so that said Guys could have their own
thing going lmao…… not griff directly seeking comfort, but seeking to
realign things, which would then bring him relief. sorry this is so
jumbled lmfao i hope it comes across how I mean!!
This makes total sense and tbh seems so plausible and in-character that I feel silly for not thinking of it lol. A desperate irrational doomed-to-failure attempt to reassert the status quo between them, I’m v down with this explanation. ty for the input!
question for anyone who has an idea:
what do you think is going on here?
is it
a)
Griffith notices Casca fumbling with his bandages due to her shaking
hands and tries to comfort her. It’s super awkward because he can barely
move, Casca interprets it as sexual before realizing what he’s doing, holding him, and
then having a breakdown because he’s so helpless. Casca’s opening thoughts on how Griffith used to be able to comfort her with just a hand on her shoulder may suggest this, as well as Griffith overhearing her say “I just wanted someone to be near me.”
b) Griffith tries to come on to
her to regain some sense of power and control by utilizing the crush he knows she had on him, fails horribly because he can barely move, it’s awkward. Casca reflecting on how weak he is and that now it’s her turn to comfort him, pointing out his lack of power, may suggest this.
c) Griffith needs comfort himself, it’s
super awkward because he can barely move, Casca interprets it as sexual
before realizing and holding him. The second to last page up there where Casca tries to shove him away before noticing he’s shaking and then wraps an arm around him may suggest this.
d) Griffith tries to come on to her when he notices she’s starting to shake and getting increasingly awkwardly chipper to try to entice her to stay with him, offering something he thinks she wants. His vision of a future later, where he’s dressed up but immobile and Casca seems to have a sexual relationship with him (as
she leans in to kiss him)
may suggest this, as well as Griffith overhearing Casca say “I just wanted someone to be near me.”
e) Griffith tries to come on to her jealously/to break up her relationship with Guts. The fact that he just saw her embracing Guts may suggest this.
f) some other option I haven’t thought of.
also this is just before the eclipse. so yk, that’s also relevant. for (b), eg, the eclipse serves as a strong contrast on the axis of power, and possibly also a statement on griffith feeling emasculated and seizing that power back when he goes evil.
but like (a), eg, serves as a strong contrast on the axis of morality, as well as ominous foreshadowing due to casca misinterpreting it as an advance and pushing him away at first.
i literally can’t settle on one option lol, the first four at least all make sense to me. like i lean towards (b) when i remember that miura is a dude, but i lean towards (c.) when i’m looking at that specific page bc it seems so clear that griffith needs comforting badly, and i lean towards (a) when i read the whole chapter because of casca’s fumbling and reflections on his formerly comforting hands and i lean towards (d) when i think about griffith’s role as a character – and how that also works as an interesting contrast to the eclipse. yk griffith offering himself to casca in helpless desperation vs raping her as an evil demigod, which is the same contrast i see between human griffith being vulnerable to others’ desires and neogriffith being invulnerable to them, being the one who takes rather than the one who is taken from.
idk man, maybe the reason it’s ambiguous is bc all of them work. schrodinger’s come on.
Scrolling thru my blog past this art and suddenly hit by a huge amount of love for Casca. If I could rescue one character from their shitty writing (in anything, not just Berserk) it would be her.
The more I think about it the more appealing the thought of her waking up and absolutely wrecking everything is. Like I know this doesn’t make sense because the same dude is still the writer, but there’s something viscerally satisfying to imagining her getting her mind back, gaining some impressive amount of power (Behelit, elf powerup, whatever), and metaphorically flipping the table and completely changing the trajectory of the plot as a pseudo-meta response to being locked away as a non-entity for 2 decades, and playing support for two dudes before that. I want her to cause something to happen that’s as epic and active and hardcore as her being a childlike waif for so long is passive and shitty and awful.
Idk I guess I’m mad about it so I want to see Casca angry – effectively angry.
Like all this thematic stuff about inner beasts becoming literal beasts ft Griffith and Guts, and the character I most want to see lose themselves to rage is Casca. Even if it’s depicted as a negative I would be fistpumping.
Yk aside from Cowboy Bebop and Death Note (and Berserk ofc) most of the other anime and manga I’ve gotten into has been really really recent (like, since Yuri On Ice lol) so I’m not much of a connoiseur and my knowledge of what’s out there is v limited. So here, have p much everything lol.
I’m partway thru and rly enjoying: Tiger and Bunny, Utena, Michiko & Hatchin, and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (manga)
Seen or read and enjoyed: Devilman (and a few of the spinoffs/sequels, but couldn’t get thru Devilman Lady for obvious reasons), Yuri on Ice, Samurai Flamenco, Petshop of Horrors, Doukyuusei, Gunjou
p much i’ve been looking for stuff that’s gay or gayish, about adults, and with art that doesn’t put me off (ie not overly cutesy i guess), and some of those points are negotiable.
@mastermistressofdesire said: That would be amazing . I feel like mine
would be of a similar composition there’s just so much to say about our
bird man.
Well I did it, and turns out the balance is a bit more reasonable after all. Though ofc Griffith still wins.
2. i like that they’re paired with Griffith-haired griffins
i was thinking of making a page linking the meta i’ve written for easy access and organizing it by category and so far it’s like, 90% griffith, 2 entries for guts, and a few miscellaneous
tbh I have to go with the tragedy of Guts and Griffith’s relationship throughout the Golden Age. I genuinely love so much about Berserk, after the Golden Age too, and the other characters, but honestly that arc is the best, most personally appealing tragedy I’ve ever read. Like ‘dude who’s got his life planned out perfectly and then falls in love with another dude and fucks it all up’ is my absolute favourite plot already, but then add Griffith’s guilt issues, his total divorce from his own emotions, the misunderstanding that’s built up so well on a strong foundation of character, Guts’ own complex issues, the way it’s a tragedy built on miscommunication that actually works and doesn’t feel cheap, etc.
But most of all I love how well Guts and Griffith suit and complement each other before everything goes to hell. Reading the Golden Age is like watching 2 dudes walking together down a road full of turns and forks, and there’s a hundred possible paths they could take that lead to happy destinations, but they keep choosing the turns that lead to the pit full of tigers. And you know exactly why they choose the paths they choose, it makes perfect sense based on what you know about them, which just makes the inevitable tragic end that much better. There is nothing I find more entertaining in fiction than watching characters make mistakes and understanding perfectly why they’re making those mistakes.
Like “I sacrifice” is an emotional climax so satisfying that it makes me want a cigarette.
least favourite:
the rampant misogyny tbh, among all the other shit that offends me. But if I had to pick one more specific thing as my least favourite, it would be the way Casca is sexually assaulted multiple times because Guts and Griffith want to fuck each other but can’t bc the writer won’t let them so they both assault her instead while staring directly at/thinking about how they want to be closer to the other. There are other aspects of Berserk that I’d say are more offensive, but this particular one wins because it’s so integral to the characters, the relationships between them, and the plot in general that you can’t just go ‘welp that was awful’ and then pretend it didn’t happen.
I think you have mentioned a few times how you would like to see people exploring NeoGriffith’s mind in a similar manner to Casca’s. And I would like to add, maybe this is the reason why he is said to dread a witch more than a whole army (or something similar).
The first thing he does after being reborn is to make sure he doesn’t feel any emotions any longer – especially towards Guts. And even if he believes the reason why his heart was bthumping was the demon kid, we already saw him hesitating to harm Guts during the Eclipse – even though he was bereft of any humanity, a physical body and his heart was frozen. Or at least this is how I saw the scene.
Because this is certainty to me:
While this is hesitation:
This scene was even better in the movies.
Anyway, what I was trying to get at – while trying to tell himself he is free, he must have had a reason – doubt – to visit Guts and prove it, which only proved the opposite.
And I think, what if the reason he seems to dread witches is, that he is aware he has a weakness, after all – somewhere deep inside, spot, a place, a feeling or a memory, which once brought back to life might mean his downfall – and only magical beings like them can enter his subconscious and trigger such a change.
And another meta about this so called “Age of Darkness“, which is related to this post – what if actually making him weak again is what would cause it – similar to the Eclipse. Because we all know how he handles, when being hurt and desperate.
I want this so much.
Gr8 point about how he was specifically going after Flora – and you know, the fact that Flora got killed but her protege got away has got to lead to Schierke doing something that Griffith feared Flora would do, right?
And we’ve seen Schierke do a lot of psychic exploration, with Guts and now Casca. So I’m down with this theory.
Plus like, the concept of someone getting inside NeoGriffith’s head and altering him again – unlocking latent emotions properly, or whatever – is so good. Dude’s been through weird magic processes that alter his mind twice now, so third time’s a charm.
Also interesting thought about the Age of Darkness – I’ve been assuming it’s the whole high fantasy thing, but we really don’t know for sure, do we?
Semi-relatedly, I’ve had a thought before that while NeoGriff is the messiah/saviour of humanity/dude who grants humanity’s subconscious desires and has the power to save or damn everyone according to the lost chapter, etc, does that hold completely true if the theory that he’s incomplete (because 2 of his sacrifices escaped) is true?
Like is there a scenario where he goes against what humanity wants deep down because his remaining emotions get the better of him once again? Idk this feels like it would fit well with your (rly cool tbh) idea of a weakened/hurt NeoGriff lashing out irrationally and starting an actual Age of Darkness, so I thought I’d throw it in.
Thanks for tagging me in this!
Also interesting thought about the Age of Darkness – I’ve been assuming
it’s the whole high fantasy thing, but we really don’t know for sure, do
we?
I think it is made to seem this way – the Age of Darkness being the new world he created, because even if Falconia is a paradise, the rest of the world isn’t.
But he is also said (like you mentioned) to fulfil humanity’s deepest desires and this new fantasy world is hinted to be what they have always longed for (hinted or straight away said to be like this, I really need to reread the manga.) And to me it seems (in case the Lost Chapter is still relevant), that if he was given the choice to either save or damn humanity, he headed towards “save“, which is why Falconia is the way it is – an utopia.
But if he was to be weakened or hurt again, he might as well change his mind and wreck everything or something equally sinister. If he can unleash people’s deepest desires, I think unleashing their deepest fears/nightmares should be possible too. And that he is incomplete might play the most important role in his change of heart. Hell, that he is incomplete might even be a part of the plan for all we know.
We know the Godhand is manipulative – we saw the games they played with him during the Eclipse, so maybe his reincarnation is an incomplete messiah, who believes to have himself fully in control, while actually not, might be actually planned. Maybe not even by them, but by the IoE itself.
What I mean to say is, while Skully and the others like to believe they exist outside of the Law of causality, this belief might as well be a part of the ultimate plan – so things like the crack in the world can happen, so Guts believes he is determining his fate, while actually moving the way he is supposed to with a Behelit in his freaking purse.
I mean those are only theories, but if the Age of Darkness is such a huge “event”, they it might as well be unavoidable. If someone can influence everything so much, that Griffith is born the way he is supposed to be, they can as well make sure Femto is reborn incomplete, if that’s needed.
man fate in berserk gives me a headache. But this is another point that I’ve been thinking about actually – the fact that Femto is totally beholden to fate, not outside of it or controlling it or even necessarily entirely aware of his role in it.
Because it was totally fate’s plan (or however tf you’d phrase it) that Casca and Guts survive the eclipse. SK even points it out – Rickert just happens to show up after they escape with a bag of magical healing elf dust and Guts just happens to know the dude who lives in the elf cave where he dumps Casca and it just so happens that 2 surviving sacrifices were needed to trigger the mock eclipse that brought Griffith back into the mortal realm etc.
But Femto’s not in on it lol. That panel up there proves it. If Miura wanted to show us that Femto chose to let them survive so the demon fetus could crawl out of Casca and go on its merry way before getting eaten by an egg and turning into Griffith or whatever the fuck, then we would’ve seen a close-up of Casca from Femto’s point of view before he lowered his hand. (Also he wouldn’t’ve raised his hand in the first place if he wanted them to escape, but w/e.) But Miura wanted to show us that Griffith’s Guts-related irrationality is acting up, so ofc we get a close-up of Guts.
So yeah basically I think you’re right about how fate/the IoE/whatever has plans and Femto/NeoGriff is another pawn.
Guts has always been so hungry for love and somehow, I think this has always been his dream from the start – to have someone want HIM, not necessarily his fighting skill whatsoever, but someone to appreciate him as a person, to trust him, to care for him, to watch his back, to just give a damn. I think Guts too had to make himself strong (just like Griffith), so he could survive in a world, where nobody gave horse shit for a young unfortunate boy. He sought love and attention in Gambino, he so much longed for the affection of his so called father, but he only ever got the opposite. Once Gambino died, Guts sort of lost himself, he belonged nowhere, so he would fight his way through the lands of the world and live day for day.
But then Griffith came along – a boy who knew nothing of Guts, yet was ready to fight to make him his. And even if Guts was irritated by it (and in his ears, none of what Griffith said probably made sense), I think in the end, we wanted to feel as if he actually belonged somewhere – and Griffith became this ‘somewhere’. Hell, it took one gesture to render Guts speechless and make him ‘obey’ (because I can’t believe he would have stayed, only cuz he lost a duel if he hated the idea of it)- it was a chance to finally get, what he wanted the most in the world – someone, who actually cared for him.
And after the Zodd encounter, we see him watch the moon, remember Griffith saying he has put himself in harm’s way for his sake and he is pondering if this is the answer he has been looking for all along. And the question is stated few chapters back, when we see the little Guts lie on the ground, after having killed Gambino – where is he going if the world has nothing good to offer? But maybe Griffith’s care and affection is this ‘good’ he longs for.
So he eventually leaves – because he wants to EARN his place by Griffith’s side – he isn’t simply aiming for a home, for warmth, he wants more – just like Griffith. Guts’s dream is, in a way, to stand by Griffith’s side and to be worthy of the care and affection Griffith has given him and not be eventually ‘left behind’ by the hawk, who always aims so high. Because by Griffith’s side is where he wants to be the most.
Another thing I would like to add is, that I don’t think Guts was unaware of Griffith’s feelings, I think in a way, he always knew. Which is I think he is rather shown to feel guilty, whenever Casca confronts him about it, than actually deny it. I think he felt guilty to be a special person to Griffith, even though he didn’t do anything to deserve it, while Casca made this her dream and fought for it. And when she told him about her life and how she came to fight for Griffith, the realisation hit even harder. He didn’t feel as if he would lose Griffith’s affection if he stayed, I think he believed he had already lost it and had to gain it back by becoming his equal.
This is amazing meta and actually makes perfect sense.
The point you bring up about guilt seems so fitting. It would explain why when Guts was leaving, he was trying so hard to convince himself that Griffith would recover from it, that it was nothing more than a stumbling stone, and imo the heightened emphasis on that really made it seem like he was convincing himself rather addressing his internal monologue to Griffith.
Also the reason why Guts refuses to look at Griffith after defeating him. (and okay from Griffith’s point of view that must have hurt like hell) I think it is because he already knew what kind of expression Griffith might be making. He just didn’t want to look at the hurt and trauma he at least subconsciously knew must be there because he knew that if he did turn around and see the slightest bit of genuine vulnerability in Griffith’s face he’d never be able to leave.
And leaving was necessary for his bigger goal of having Griffith ” look at him”.
In my opinion Guts at this point wasn’t just looking for affection anymore. As unworthy as he might have believed himself to be of it at that point, Guts knew that his friends cared about him, he knew Griffith cared too. He acknowledges as much when he says “Atleast this confirms that to you I’m still worth spilling blood for.”
I think Guts was looking for admiration here. Infact very specifically admiration from Griffith.His words along the lines of “I’m tired of always looking up at him….I want him to look at me too.” The words ‘look up at me’ are not said but at least to me they seemed heavily implied.
Somehow I got the vibe that Guts desired to have some sort of power over Griffith here. “Make him look’ ‘compelled to’ these are power words. Guts isn’t just trying to improve his chances here, he’s trying to initiate a shift in power dynamics.
Griffith effectively said that he wants to have someone who can stand up to him or put him down and Guts fully intends to be that guy. There’s actually also a shift in Guts character from this point.
It’s an arc we don’t pay as much attention to but the one year after Guts leaves, his behavior has shifted. It seems more traditionally ‘masculine’ . He seems more confident, nearly complacent , powerful, calm almost playful.
…Almost a little like the Griffith we were introduced to in the beginning of Golden Age.
And this is fairly interesting to me.
iirc the official translation goes for more of an equals feeling with Guts saying that he’s sick of looking up at Griffith from within his dream and he wants to stand beside him by achieving something of his own.
But I still get the same vibe you do tbh despite that. And I think it’s because Berserk’s take on equality, at least between Guts and Griff, isn’t that neither has power over the other, but that they both have an equal amount of power over the other. Because for them, emotional attachment is power. (”When did someone I was supposed to have in hand… instead gain such a strong hold over me?” eg).
I totally think Guts wants Griffith to love him/admire him/etc and that comes with an implicit understanding that it gives Guts power over Griffith, the same power Griffith already has over him.
Like look at this page right after Guts leaves.
“I got this idea in my head from hearing Griffith’s words. If I hadn’t… so… can I say I’ve set out by my own will?”
I rly get the sense that Guts’ immense sense of admiration for Griffith is something he desperately wants returned because it makes him feel insignificant. Contrast this to the post-Zodd scene where he pledges his sword to Griffith after the reveal that Griffith saved his life “for his sake” – there Guts is holding his sword up, looking up at the sky, open body language, determined expression and monologue, meeting Griffith’s imaginary gaze, powerful. Here Guts is curled in on himself, no sword, second-guessing himself, looking down and away from imaginary Griffith, and Griffith dwarfs him.
He needs to return to the point in time where he believed (knew) Griffith had strong feelings for him and it made him feel powerful and limitless.
Add the way he keeps himself detached from the Band when he gets back and still plans to leave right up until they rescue Griffith, and I feel like his aloofness is both a) totally very similar to Griffith, parallels which delightfully continue for the rest of the manga, and b) defensive because he wants to prove that he’s not dependent on Griffith’s feelings towards him. Well, defensive is a strong word. But I do think he’s keeping himself detached on purpose because he’s cautious against Griffith’s “hold” over him, his own (he believes unrequited) emotional attachment to Griffith, yk?
And one step further, I feel like Griffith post-torture could’ve been kind of a wake up call that this line of thinking is a little silly. That Griffith was just a person, and Guts was just a person, and they wanted an emotional connection, and all these thoughts of Griffith looking down on Guts and Guts wanting to stand by his side as an equal and believing that he wasn’t there yet etc just got in the way.
The fact is that Guts went out to become Griffith’s equal and when he got back, by any metric these two dudes employ to measure power and equality, Griffith was no longer even on the playing field. And Guts was just realizing that he threw everything away for a dream that ended up not even mattering in the end… when everything went to hell, Griffith leveled up by becoming a demi god, and they ended up back at square one playing the sequel game, mortal enemy edition.
I think you have mentioned a few times how you would like to see people exploring NeoGriffith’s mind in a similar manner to Casca’s. And I would like to add, maybe this is the reason why he is said to dread a witch more than a whole army (or something similar).
The first thing he does after being reborn is to make sure he doesn’t feel any emotions any longer – especially towards Guts. And even if he believes the reason why his heart was bthumping was the demon kid, we already saw him hesitating to harm Guts during the Eclipse – even though he was bereft of any humanity, a physical body and his heart was frozen. Or at least this is how I saw the scene.
Because this is certainty to me:
While this is hesitation:
This scene was even better in the movies.
Anyway, what I was trying to get at – while trying to tell himself he is free, he must have had a reason – doubt – to visit Guts and prove it, which only proved the opposite.
And I think, what if the reason he seems to dread witches is, that he is aware he has a weakness, after all – somewhere deep inside, spot, a place, a feeling or a memory, which once brought back to life might mean his downfall – and only magical beings like them can enter his subconscious and trigger such a change.
And another meta about this so called “Age of Darkness“, which is related to this post – what if actually making him weak again is what would cause it – similar to the Eclipse. Because we all know how he handles, when being hurt and desperate.
I want this so much.
Gr8 point about how he was specifically going after Flora – and you know, the fact that Flora got killed but her protege got away has got to lead to Schierke doing something that Griffith feared Flora would do, right?
And we’ve seen Schierke do a lot of psychic exploration, with Guts and now Casca. So I’m down with this theory.
Plus like, the concept of someone getting inside NeoGriffith’s head and altering him again – unlocking latent emotions properly, or whatever – is so good. Dude’s been through weird magic processes that alter his mind twice now, so third time’s a charm.
Also interesting thought about the Age of Darkness – I’ve been assuming it’s the whole high fantasy thing, but we really don’t know for sure, do we?
Semi-relatedly, I’ve had a thought before that while NeoGriff is the messiah/saviour of humanity/dude who grants humanity’s subconscious desires and has the power to save or damn everyone according to the lost chapter, etc, does that hold completely true if the theory that he’s incomplete (because 2 of his sacrifices escaped) is true?
Like is there a scenario where he goes against what humanity wants deep down because his remaining emotions get the better of him once again? Idk this feels like it would fit well with your (rly cool tbh) idea of a weakened/hurt NeoGriff lashing out irrationally and starting an actual Age of Darkness, so I thought I’d throw it in.
I pretty much hate it all around lol. I don’t think her crush is taken that seriously – Schierke takes it seriously but the narrative mostly plays it for laughs or mild sympathy – but it really irritates me how every female character in Berserk has a crush on Guts, it’s unnecessary and it just plain sucks.
Plus yeah I totally agree that it gets creepy af a few times. Like, I avoid this topic because I don’t want to get into a conversation about the epidemic of normalized pedo pandering in manga and anime and how Berserk plays into it bc I’m just not equipped for it. But I’ll just say that I can think of a few creepy pages in the manga, like the one you mentioned, that are up there at the top of the giant pile of things I hate about Berserk.
@yesgabsstuff :- I think a part of the reason it hit him as hard as it did was because he had just returned from a situation that had badly triggered thoughts of his father and himself when he was younger. His fear of being abandoned and lied to where at the forefront of his mind at the time.
Yeah definitely. I also find it so beautifully heartbreaking to consider that his reaction to having his unpleasant memories with Gambino triggered was to immediately seek out Griffith for what I think was some form of comfort. (I feel this may tie into @bthump ‘s parallels between Gambino and Griffith ) His fear of being abandoned and lied to were at the forefront of his mind so he decided to go to the one person who he thought wouldn’t abandon or lie to him, at least for the time-being.
And what he Got was a huge slap in the face, based on what he took away from the speech.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Casca hadn’t stopped Guts at the bottom of the stairs, what if Guts had just barged up there anyway. I’m pretty sure Griffith would have taken one look at Guts, apologised to Charlotte and left with Guts.
I’d actually love to see minific of that possible interaction.
But imagine, no fountain speech.
I would looove to see that AU. I never thought of it before but I totally agree that Griffith would’ve absolutely abandoned Charlotte for Guts. When Guts or his needs are immediately in front of him it’s like Griffith can’t not choose him over the dream (which is one reason why I think the scene during the Eclipse where Guts lets go of Griffith’s hand is so significant, but I digress).
And I love the way you tied Guts seeking Griffith out back to his Gambino issues. That makes so much sense to me.
fun fact guts has always had a dream and it’s not “fight tough dudes at exhibitions” or “fight monsters” or “avenge the hawks” or “be the best at the sword”
griffith’s dream:
guts’ dream:
guts’ dream:
guts’ dream:
guts’ dream:
which is why this is so utterly cutting:
and why this just left guts totally dejected and made him give up that dream:
and why if guts finds out that griffith’s heart is bthumping for him that’s going to be either a serious game-changer, or a serious test of guts’ resolve in moving on from his dream.
Guts’ dream was to be looked at, to be recognized, to be loved for what and how he is… Yes, it IS a childish dream because children need these kind of confirmations the most and if they don’t get them, they grow up into dysfunctional adults seeking the very same things they were deprived of, albeit in twisted ways, without the straightforwardness of kids. It’s actually so sad, because in the end Guts was Griffith’s most valuable person, someone Griffith cared about deeply and whose opinion was fundamental. Fate came across like a storm, placing Guts at the bottom of the Primrose palace, when Griffith was trying to convince himself that noting had changed in his life. That overheard conversation was devastating for Guts, it shattered his dream. He didn’t realized it completely, he thought he didn’t have any dream at all, because everything he desired was always so far away and he obviously didn’t think to deserve any kind of affection. Gambino left the deepest scar on his soul. The hawks could’ve healed it, but the logic of the world wants something else for Guts. He needs to be THE struggler, an aching existence searching for meaning and love. Guts’ affection for Caska is perfectly on tone with all this setting, because Caska is a beautiful strong woman and Guts started from respecting her to love her deeply. And what happened when Guts finally started to feel a real connection with another person? This person got destroyed, mentally and also physically. Griffith became an enemy, the most hated man of Guts’ life, folling from the heavens of respect and love to the hellish form of a demon reincarnated. So what about Guts’ dream now? He’s trying to save caska, to have her back, but maybe he’s fighting for something too far away once again. Even if caska finally recovers, we can’t be sure about what she desires for herself, guts and Griffith all along. I want to go a bit further… admitting that Caska is going to be fine and also madly in love with Guts, Guts himself could never see her in the same old way. Caska would always be a walking reminder of Griffith’s change. Guts needs to chase after Griffith and yes, he probably still secretly wants to get from him that validation he craved so much.
YES I’m a sucker for this kind of soulmatey hero/villain tragedy that leads to them dying together, I’d love that.
Also I want to see both their swords added to the Hill of Swords. I would cry and it would be beautiful and cathartic.
I really want Berserk’s ending to be able to make me cry.
Honestly Guts finding out that Griffith has been bthump-ing for him this whole time is kind of almost a requirement.
I had this headcanon where through some shierke/ sonia trying something Guts gets a chance to get inside Griffith’s mindscape. And Guts meets baby Griffith from the earlier flashbacks and the child is curled up shut in a small room and he’s too afraid to go out because it’s all just a dark chasm outside the room and it’s scary and painful. And here we have Guts trying to deal with his mixed feeling and trying to hunt down the bits of Griffith from the void of femto. And Griffith himself panicking and trying to get him to get out. But Guts reaches all those memories and he’s freaking out to now because he realises the enormity of their initial misunderstanding.
It’a a pretty long thing.
In the end Griffith dies because his bthumping causes him to once again act irrationally for Guts sake. And Guts is left holding the remains and knowing he’s never ever going to get over this.
I want psychic mindscape fuckery so bad you have no idea. so bad omg.
you're the only one 