Tag: character: casca

Also speaking of Griffith and Casca and transformations

Once you get down to it using the behelit and becoming an apostle or godhand is in part a magical fantasy metaphor for dealing badly with trauma, right? Within the confines of the fantasy story Griffith’s dark side emerged heightened by the power of evil and turned into a demi god, his heart was frozen, and he became a monster, but metaphorically u can say he’s lashing out and repeating patterns of abuse.

Idk whether Miura would put that in the same words but yk, it’s pretty explicit that you become a monster as a reaction to profound suffering in Berserk (+fate and a magic talisman), and then you turn into a giant dick and it’s basically letting your dark side reign free bc life fucked you and you’re mad about it. It’s not the most kind or sensitive of metaphors lol, especially when it comes to victims like Rosine (and Griffith imo) rather than say a dude who was just mad bc his wife was sleeping around with heathens, but that’s a berserk for u.

Guts is also struggling with the same thing but his magical fantasy metaphor is the berserker armour making him lose control in a rage, so he’s more caught in between, struggling to better himself but occasionally falling into abusive and violent patterns. There’s also the hound, but since he got the armour they’ve basically merged into one metaphor.

Casca is the only one who didn’t get a magical fantasy metaphor, she just broke. Which is partially why I want the behelit to be hers – I dislike the woman being the only “pure” one who passively internalizes pain rather than lashing out, yk?

I feel like I had more of a point with this… idk. Let Casca go on a rampage too, basically.

freewilllife:

bthump:

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?

mastermistressofdesire:

bthump:

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.

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.

image
image

dang i totally forgot that the forshadowing was laid out so explicitly like this

kinda rubbing my hands together gleefully rn. “what will she do” not how will she act or what will she think or feel, but what will she do?

(ngl tho this coming right after another showing of the moonlight kid makes me a little concerned that casca’s gonna do something in a rage but he’ll show up and soothe her spirit with maternal feelings or smthn like it keeps chilling guts’ inner beast out. OR maybe she’ll sacrifice it! holy shit i think i just discovered my ideal next volume! yk maybe lead the audience into thinking she’ll sacrifice farnese but surprise, moonlight kid was the soul of her own child and he’s a goner but farnese is gonna live forever. haha yes i just solved the puzzle of how to turn casca into an apostle without losing farny.)