i think if the latter is the case then perhaps there will be a more light-hearted ending but… my preferences aside, from BS arc this manga’s theme is the quest for revenge, fighting against all odds etc. so i think that if this scenario occured then the manga will have kind of deviated..? not that it couldn’t be (objectively) a development, but still the ending would be all over the place instead of tackling the core elements, ie their relationship
yeah I totally agree. While I think you could argue that Guts forming strong relationships as a way of moving on from traumatic shit is in keeping with earlier themes, applying that to moving on from Griffith completely ignores the complexities of Guts and Griffith’s relationship, which is straight up what Berserk is about. Like yeah I’m super biased but I still think it would objectively be more narratively fulfilling to see their mutual obsession take centre stage again – it’s the difference between their intense relationship getting a proper climax and emotional catharsis versus being reduced to basically a bad break up that one dude couldn’t move on from.
It’s also a deviation in another way that I was considering tacking onto that post but didn’t, but now I want to talk about it.
But like imo if it is the case that Berserk is about Guts overcoming his obsession and moving on, then functionally Berserk is basically two different kinds of stories.
Everything from chapter one to chapter 129 is the story of a kind of fucked up dude with a lot of issues muddling his way through a very dark grey narrative and trying to do his best.
Everything from chapter 130 on is the story of a dude consistently Making The Right Choice.
Like, I kind of feel that those two stories are incompatible. In a narrative about a dude struggling with himself and trying and usually failing to make the right choices in a complex world where right and wrong barely even exist, which tbh is My Berserk, then it simply doesn’t work for the main character to then make the correct choice, ie focusing on Casca, and stick to it for two hundred and twenty chapters plus afterwards. If he eventually does make a genuinely good and correct and narratively rewarded choice, that should only happen at the end and it should be cathartic.
There are stories about protagonists doing the right thing the whole time even though it’s a struggle at times, and those can be fine stories, but it’s a giant downgrade from a story about a dude making a bunch of mistakes in a morally grey world, and an absolutely enormous tonal and thematic shift. It just doesn’t work as a complete story to me if that’s the case.
i mean i guess it’s always been the same question:
is this the prelude to a happy or tragic narrative shake up?
it’s just that now, thanks to how heavily romanticized that chapter was before the last couple pages, there’s imo v little doubt that happy = casca is soothed (whether it’s after a chapter or a volume) and romance ensues
and tragic = casca fucks shit up, romance does not ensue
if the former, the narrative is shaken up by guts’ party coming to a stand still and guts experiencing contentment and needing some outside motivation to continue doing anything relevant. maybe neogriff showing up, elfhelm in danger, something like that.
if the latter, the narrative is shaken up by casca taking the playing board and throwing it across the room, which, based on earlier beast-y foreshadowing, will likely lead to guts losing control of the beast of darkness, etc, whatever. Bad shit happens.
BUT there’s also another way of looking at it:
is berserk the story of two dudes who keep trying and failing to stop being obsessed with each other until some kind of climactic catharsis happens?
or is berserk the story of two dudes who were obsessed with each other, one of whom is ironically still obsessed despite going to extreme lengths to try to cut out his feelings, and the other of whom successfully lets go of his obsession and moves on?
(or, put another way, the story of one dude overcoming his obsession with another dude through the power of heterosexual love, while the other dude’s gay love is both what turned him evil and his only weakness.
And I swear to god if I
have to power thru guts’ hetero romance for the sake of griffith’s
doomed evil gay love i can’t think of something emphatic enough to
describe how i’ll feel.)
SO
Ultimately the question comes down to: is Guts’ focus going to return to Griffith, whether that’s through backsliding into revenge again or through re-examining his complex feelings and actually dealing with them instead of running away from them through the fix Casca sidequest?
or will Guts successfully overcome his obsession with Griffith, likely by saving Casca from herself through the power of love or w/e the way he failed to save Griffith before the Eclipse, leaving NGriff to drive the narrative and setting the stage for the final climax?
And if Casca fucks shit up and it turns out the fix Casca sidequest was kind of a terrible idea all along that leads to tragedy and darkness, the answer is the former. If Casca is talked down and love and companionship save the day, the answer is the latter.
So basically whatever happens is going to make or break Berserk for me lol. No pressure.
yk i think guts is supposed to seem chill and confident and generally changed in a positive way after his year long vacation but since every moment that emphasizes his cool chill attitude makes me want to punch him i’m not 100% certain lol
like i generally take as read that guts leaving the hawks is one of those things that’s overall bad but had some positive effects, like guts being more confident and cool, since yk the moments that indicate that are things the target audience of dudes would generally agree is cool, like calmly grabbing casca’s tit while she’s yelling at him and then saying, ‘come with me’ in a nonchalant non-commital way, or like telling casca she’s too naked and distracting during the wyald fight, or constantly being a smartass dick during the competition, that kinda thing.
but then again since i generally argue that leaving the hawks was a bad decision, maybe those moments are actually meant to be off-putting. like i don’t really think so, if i was a betting person i’d place money on miura thinking they make guts cooler, but i kind of want to believe.
I dont agree with this tbh. Guts leaving the hawks was a good thing. One of the most difficult and traumatic experiences is gaining independence and discovering your own way i life. The hawks were a home for guts but learning to leave to find his own way was special for me. I used to think that him leaving was sort of “cool” and used to set the whole tough lone wolf trope, but because of how guts felt inferior to his peers, and especially griffith, leaving the hawks was the most endearing action he couldve done. Its not played for a trope or for a demographic but rather to show the journey of a man who wants to be someone he can love. Ik ur a hige guts x griffith fan and i see the obvious undertones and interactions but when i see how guts feels when he seew his own journey next to griffiths i cant blame him for leaving.
I respect your opinion and I don’t mean to reblog this just to be like ‘nah you’re wrong’ because like, I do think Miura was trying to convey both good and bad effects of Guts leaving. Like I said, though I personally think that Guts’ more confident and independent attitude is shown in insufferable ways, I feel like Miura intended it to be a positive change for him.
And in general the idea of someone leaving a place to be more independent is a perfectly valuable and potentially a very positive narrative depending on the circumstances, and I don’t want to suggest that if you found Guts’ decision to leave the Hawks to be valuable then you’re wrong, there are plenty of reasons to appreciate it.
But, because this is one of those readings that tends to inform a lot of my other posts and meta etc, I just want to kind of explain where I’m coming from and what I mean by “mistake.”
It’s not a mistake you can blame Guts for at all, because his reasons for leaving are perfectly understandable and sympathetic, but it’s a decision Guts made based on misinformation (from Griffith’s stupid speech) and his own issues – largely desperately wanting to be loved and respected and believing all too easily that he isn’t thanks to his fucked up childhood.
And like this is also something Griffith shoulders blame for, for being an emotionally obtuse idiot who doesn’t recognize his own feelings until he’s spent a year in a dungeon. But again, like Guts’ issues, I find this sympathetic and understandable too.
(And like, while yeah I obviously ship them lol, this isn’t necessarily shippy, it’s kind of just a fact of Berserk that it, and the Golden Age especially, revolves around Guts and Griffith’s relationship, platonic or otherwise. Guts chose to leave because he wanted to be Griffith’s friend – before overhearing the speech he didn’t feel inadequate at all.)
Basically it’s not a mistake in the sense that Guts should’ve known better or that Guts choosing to leave was stupid and reflects badly on him, it’s a mistake because if Guts and Griffith were less terrible at communication Guts wouldn’t’ve wanted to leave in the first place, and once he realizes that he left because of misinformation he feels a lot of regret.
I think I’m going to write a full post on this soon because it would be nice to have something to link back to when I casually throw the idea that Guts leaving was a mistake out there, because I know it’s actually pretty controversial in fandom as a whole. So if you’re interested in my further thoughts with more like, textual evidence lol, I’ll get on that, and if not then no worries and I’m more than happy to agree to disagree 🙂
yk i think guts is supposed to seem chill and confident and generally changed in a positive way after his year long vacation but since every moment that emphasizes his cool chill attitude makes me want to punch him i’m not 100% certain lol
like i generally take as read that guts leaving the hawks is one of those things that’s overall bad but had some positive effects, like guts being more confident and cool, since yk the moments that indicate that are things the target audience of dudes would generally agree is cool, like calmly grabbing casca’s tit while she’s yelling at him and then saying, ‘come with me’ in a nonchalant non-commital way, or like telling casca she’s too naked and distracting during the wyald fight, or constantly being a smartass dick during the competition, that kinda thing.
but then again since i generally argue that leaving the hawks was a bad decision, maybe those moments are actually meant to be off-putting. like i don’t really think so, if i was a betting person i’d place money on miura thinking they make guts cooler, but i kind of want to believe.
also while i’m on chapter one
idk if this is a purposeful thing but this sequence makes me think of how both guts and griffith are used to isolation in different ways, guts as a loner, swinging his sword instead of showing up to the ceremony, and griffith surrounded by people but separate from them, rising above the rest of the hawks but looked down on by the whispering nobles in the audience.
and then i remembered that time miura said griffith draws out feelings of loneliness in (current) guts and the way they’re each others’ brightest things, how they both shine in each others’ eyes and hearts, and agh
there’s something just so good and satisfying about how these two lonely idiots found each other and their relationship with each other is the only thing that fully eases that loneliness. griffith as he opens up to guts and lets him see the real him, and guts as he begins to accept that he’s maybe genuinely found a home here with griffith, after griffith saves his life again for “no reason.”
and why guts overhearing the promrose speech had such a devastating effect on him, and why guts leaving had such a devastating effect on griffith
also it makes me think of how current guts is similar to griffith – he has friends and people he relies on, but he doesn’t fully open up to them. there was even a recent reminder that farnese’s feelings for guts are similar to casca’s for griffith.
this is under a cut because it’s long, rambly, and stupid, and doesn’t even answer the question.
lol this honestly just defeats me entirely. idk man idk, I spent forever writing out an explanation for why the subject of toxic masculinity in Berserk defeats me, ie largely due to Miura’s total incoherence when it comes to misogyny, yk, the fact that’s he’s a huge misogynist himself really muddies the waters when it comes to sussing out where his misogyny ends and the characters’ misogyny begins.
Like how can I analyze toxic masculinity in Berserk when Miura frames, eg, the protagonist grabbing a woman’s tit during an argument as a cute moment? It’s absolutely possible to write useful and interesting things on the subject (shoutout to @yesgabsstuff who often has good thoughts on it), so I’m totally not saying that you’re wrong about it being important to Guts and Griffith’s characters/relationship, but the way I approach meta, from a ‘here’s what the narrative has to say on this using things like symbolism and parallels etc’ perspective, just doesn’t feel compatible, and frankly I suck at looking at stories from any other perspective lol.
But then I was like, but why can’t I write about gender roles in Berserk when I won’t shut up about things like sexual repression, which surely can’t actually be a more coherent subject?
It’s like, sexuality and Berserk? Hell yeah I got things to say. Gender and Berserk? my brain melts. idk idk idk. Maybe it’s because Miura thinks he has things to say about misogyny and gender but sucks at it, whereas the sexuality stuff could conceivably be accidental lol, and in any case is more subtle and therefore has fewer chances to be self-contradictory. And, less cynically, I’m sure there’s a cultural gap too that affects my ability to suss out what Miura is going for wrt masculinity/gender roles/etc.
And like, I feel I could almost answer this re: heteronormativity specifically, but honestly that also has a significant gendered component that I don’t feel up to tackling. Griffith as a knight in shining armour to attract Princess Charlotte and become an idealized heterosexual couple as he represses his feelings for Guts? Ok. But then when it comes to gender roles/masculinity and Griffith’s attraction to Guts I fall apart again. Is there a sense that Griffith’s attraction to Guts is partially something to shy away from because it makes him less of a masculine ideal? IDK! How does Griffith sleeping with Gennon for the sake of his heteronormative dream fit in? IDK! Does Guts shy away from his attraction to Griffith due in part to insecurity in his own masculinity? IDK! Is insecurity in his masculinity a deliberate aspect of his trauma? IDK!
I feel like his trauma absolutely informs how he leaps into danger at any given opportunity and stands against every monster he sees, which is very typically masculine, like, mb I’ve got the seed of something there (Casca wishing he’d run away sometimes? His choice to stay with Griffith in chapter 71 as turning away from fighting his own battles to regain a relationship and a sense of emotional openness that helped him heal from trauma in a much healthier way, but tragically undone by Casca urging him towards his own masculine ideal? that masculine ideal in both guts and griffith’s cases leading to an unleashed rapey dark side, and in both cases as a tragic alternative to a fulfilling relationship with each other? hmmmm) but I’m not confident in my ability to carry that thread through with an emphasis on gender roles/masculinity.
But I mean, maybe I’m just overcomplicating it lol, it’s not like everything has to fit perfectly in order to be worthwhile as a reading, and I’m not exactly married to authorial intent. Idk I’ll probably end up pondering this further and if I come up with anything I’ll definitely write it out, but as for now this is going to have to go pretty much unanswered.
tl;dr I got nothin atm, sorry anon, and idek if anything I wrote here makes sense lol.
Personally I think you should write your take on how toxic masculinity and heteronormativity affects the
characters and their relationship and @ me or link me, because I’m
interested in seeing what you have to say.
And anyone else with Thoughts on the subject should feel free and encouraged to leap in too.
lol and this was after he was briefly possessed and strangled her which is why Puck is so quick to absolve him
like even Guts knows that he was able to be possessed in that moment because his… hmm, because his dominant desires were aligned with the darkness of the spirits around him, I guess I’d put it? Because he’s tempted. Because part of him does want to kill Casca.
a la
Like the night scene where he strangles her and then feels like he can’t blame it on the spirits, at least not entirely, because “you desire this,” is there to set up the subsequent sexual assault and contrast it, since it takes place in broad daylight and is visually distinct from the possession in that Guts is not transformed at all, to show that Guts has the potential to be just as dark as the monsters and ghosts he fights (not exactly a subtle theme lol) when he loses control.
griffith thinks he’s cruel for letting someone – guts – in and hence dragging him through the dirt with him; guts thinks he’s cruel for /only/ letting guts in… i don’t have a conclusion but hmmmm
that’s a really good observation tbh
my guess is that it highlights how much they see what griffith is doing as dirty? guts like, let’s be honest, doesn’t really at all. griffith asks him to kill a man and he’s like pshh just order me like you always do 😉 hey why don’t you tell the rest of our pals about this?? meanwhile griffith thinks he’s a filthy monster
Yeah it shows how non judgemental Guts is about it, and that he expects everyone else to be similarly non-judgemental. Maybe indicates that Guts thinks Griffith is only keeping them in the dark for… convenience or whatever, and subtly shows that he doesn’t realize it’s because of shame. Griffith explains afterwards, sort of, in his prevaricating way (”they need only feel as though they’re rising up”). Idk but it’s another sign of the gulf of misunderstanding between them for sure.
also i think guts’s sword fixation has a lot to do with how much he humanizes the sword and dehumanizes himself. iirc miura makes a point about guts using the sword to protect others instead of fighting for its own sake, at which the sword is no longer a meaningful subject in itself but a means of protecting bonds he’s forged. the unhealthy part of it is, again, the way he objectifies himself through it (and one of berserk’s themes is human objectification)
it’s sort of a coping mechanism
backfiring on him. the sword is just an object; the unhealthy aspect of
it is that guts has been using it as a means of self-actualization for
his entire life. part of his development in the golden age is to derive
meaning and significance from his relationships with others, but he
never really addressed his issues so once the eclipse happens and
casca’s mental state is revealed he almost instantly reverts back to
that coping mechansim
Hmmm I think I pretty much agree with you. By objectifies himself through his sword do you mean like, when the Berserk armour takes over, when he becomes monstrous and consumed by rage even without it, etc? Because I definitely think there’s a strong theme of Guts becoming dehumanized through his sword, and the way you put it in contrast to Guts humanizing his sword (like considering it an extension of himself I assume?) is something I’ve never really thought of but it makes a lot of sense to me.
(lol I guess dehumanization is actually kind of a loaded term in Berserk where everything from monsters to gods are expressions of aspects of humanity, but ikwym and it’s definitely a theme regardless of semantics.)
i want to like, write a longish meta about how guts’ “dream” ie his attachment to fighting/his sword is a coping mechanism to deal with his traumatic childhood and then every traumatic event since then but like
is that really something that requires an argument behind it
Could it be him maybe accepting that for NGriff, his old dream is taking priority over his previous love for guts, which guts was eventually aware of?
Not necessarily buying into NGriff’s hype himself, but not wanting to overcomplicate Griffith to his friends? His friends who didn’t even know he knew Griffith?
Yeah I definitely don’t think he’d start getting into all the complicated stuff wrt that relationship with his friends, but the line “he hasn’t changed” is just guts’ thoughts, not something he said outloud, suggesting Guts believes it:
and that’s a hell of a loaded statement for guts to be thinking to himself especially with the immediate visual reference to NeoGriffith’s look back at him as he says “nothing has changed.”
It could be that he’s just referring purely to what his dream entails, ie a kingdom, but then again, even then, human Griffith only said he wanted a kingdom, he didn’t say anything about taking over the world or building an empire, which is what they’re talking about now.
Guts echoes NeoGriffith’s “nothing has changed. This is the man I am.”
Has Guts come this far, letting go of his “obsession” with Griffith, by letting himself buy Griffith’s own hype?
Like I’m not sure about this but I don’t remember any moments where Guts reminisces about human Griffith after this:
Is there an underpinning of Guts letting himself forget and downplay how much Griffith loved him, in order to let go of his fruitless obsession?
Guts’ obsession with killing Griffith has ultimately been about wanting his attention, which Femto/NGriff has consistently refused to give him, at least overtly. (lbr the fact that he goes to see guts to test his capacity to feel, and the constant eye contact and needling taunting as femto belies the shit out of that)
Like to lay this out real quick, “you of all people,” is Griffith asserting that he was always a monster, and Guts knew it. Part of the reason Griffith was devastated when Guts left is because he saw it as a rejection of him, based on everything he hates about himself. He let Guts in to see those things he hates, and he thinks Guts left him because of it.
Of course we know that Guts left entirely because he loved and respected Griffith. He “shone before [him] as beautiful, noble, and larger than life.”
The last 30ish chapters before the Eclipse revolve around Guts slowly realizing that he already had Griffith’s love and respect, and therefore leaving was a mistake. Even he knew that Griffith ended up in that dungeon because of him.
Guts knew Griffith loved him.
But does he still know it, after being “deserted” by him? After NeoGriffith’s assertion that “it seems I am free,” “nothing has changed,” “this is the man I am,” “you of all people,”?
And if he’s let himself forget, what happens if Griffith finally does start paying attention to him again?
lol i didn’t even predict the fetus showing up in casca’s mind, idk.
i think it’s still possible that casca’s going to wake up and lose it? what with the whole thing about shoving her metaphorical heart in her metaphorical chest while it’s covered in metaphorical thorns. actually i’m pretty stoked about that because farnese had her line about wanting to help casca overcome her darkness the same way casca helped her, so either we’re going to get some good farnese and casca interaction or that’s going to turn out to be a pipe dream and casca’s going to do something dark, and either way i’m super intrigued.
whatever guts does would depend on what casca does, i figure. i’m thinking they’re not getting back together immediately, if at all. worst case scenario that i could easily see happening is that miura teases a reconciliation for most of the rest of the manga and i have to live with that sword of damocles hanging over my head indefinitely.
so like, if casca is chill and recovers with farnese’s help, the plot has to get going somehow. maybe we end guts’ narrative on a high note, farnese helping casca recover and guts having achieved a goal without ruining everything for once, return to griffith’s in a flash forward, and he’s about to attack elfhelm logically because it’s the last remaining threat to him but actually because he’s bored and misses guts. honestly i would mostly hate this scenario for many reasons, like guts’ narrative being passive and boring and ngriff having a more unambiguously villainous role, like it would just feel shallow thematically imo, but i could maybe see it happening. I’ve been mostly bored by Guts’ narrative for like 200 chapters now so it wouldn’t be out of place lol.
or something else entirely could kick start the plot. maybe the flower king encourages guts to go fight griffith and we start getting into skellig moral ambiguity. maybe magic deus ex machina happens. maybe casca learns of a way she can use magic to siphon her stupid kid out of griffith and that’s the new objective lol. I was gonna suggest that maybe guts takes off on his own for revenge spurred on by some unforseen event, but the fact that he’s on an island makes that unlikely I guess.
god tho i still think that the neatest and most efficient way to kick start things into gear, fulfill a lot of foreshadowy promises, re-motivate guts into doing something, and shake things up in an interesting way is for casca to use the behelit. this is the hill i’m going to die on, at least until it becomes impossible. and yk what, casca’s last remaining and most important piece of herself, her heart, being the kid could be solid set up for sacrificing it. “Someone so close to you it’s almost like they’re a part of you,” and “bury your human heart,” after all.
I mean the way we revisited the Eclipse and Casca’s trauma, ie, we didn’t, kinda makes me less inclined to think Miura’s going to do anything with it/make it a real motivation, but, yk. thorns and whatnot. ~i want to believe~
i just want something dark and permanent with real consequences to happen, guts’ story has been progressively lighter and happier for over 200 chapters by now, come on.
I think it would depend. like imo pretty much any tiny change would lead to no Eclipse, but if say Casca and Judeau hooked up during the year Guts was gone, I could see that leading to either
the best case scenario for Griffith of Casca and Judeau taking off together and leaving Griffith with Guts
or the worst case scenario of Guts leaving Griffith with Casca and Judeau and taking off.
tho tbh I can’t see the latter happening if Guts still had his revelation that he broke Griffith’s heart, and he would’ve still had that revelation if Casca still attacked him and screamed it at him, which probably still would’ve happened, so yeah I think it’s more likely than not that the outcome would’ve been a lot better generally if Judeau and Casca got together.
Also if they did get together and the Eclipse still happened, a lot would probably change because they both would’ve died, and Guts’ probably would’ve too without a prolonged rape scene to waste time while Skull Knight fought Zodd. But like, assuming the events of the Eclipse somehow didn’t change, I don’t think Guts’ feelings towards mentally regressed Casca would be very different if they’d stayed platonic friends rather than hooking up. Their sexual relationship is mostly downplayed after the Eclipse (except when it comes to Guts assaulting her and I sure wouldn’t miss that) with Guts mostly thinking of her as a reminder of his time with the Hawks, and I think he’d feel about the same amount of regret and responsibility when it comes to her.
You clash head-on with your own destiny. Compared to my cooled demeanor, that is a life similar to being scorched by hellfire itself.
i want to say something about serpico and how he and guts make a good compare/contrast as basically opposite reactions to an abusive childhood, but i don’t really know what to say so i’m just going to throw some stuff at the wall and see what sticks
serpico’s coping mechanism is emotional repression and calm acceptance, where he just takes absolutely everything thrown at him by his mother’s expectations and childhood bullies at first (learning quickly that fighting back led to worse) and then farnese, while guts fights back and struggles, killing donovan, defending himself against gambino’s attack, etc. i mean one was a mercenary and one was a servant, one was taught by his father figure to fight and the other was taught by his mother to bear everything, so yk it makes sense.
both killed a parent: serpico killed his mother bc he was pressured to by circumstances and did so when farnese told him to (imo farnese making it an order and holding the torch with him is what made him capable of doing it), basically just numbly doing what he’s directed to do, while guts killed his father in reactive self defense, and both are pretty messed up about it.
serpico lay down to die bc it was easier and was found by farnese who nursed him back to health; guts lay down to die bc it was easier and then got back up and fought wolves.
it feels easy to compare gambino and serpico’s mother in that both guts and serpico were their caregivers for a while. and i want to compare serpico’s mother telling him he’s noble vs gambino telling guts he’s cursed but i’m not sure where to go with that. both statements kinda fucked them up tho.
they both have tendencies to fight in a self-destructive way now that i think of it: guts throws himself into the fray and just tries to kill before he gets killed, serpico otoh lets himself be wounded in order to fight to a draw + avoid making trouble.
guts and serpico both found themselves nursed back to health and then kept by haughty insecure blond ppl, and both relationships were extremely intense and exclusive. only yk guts and griff were in love and farnese and serpico are gay bffs/siblings, and neither farnese nor serpico have epically fucked their relationship up yet.
in conclusion: i have no conclusion, idk. turns out everyone responds differently to abuse and berserk is largely about that? surprise surprise guts is active and serpico is passive? guts and serpico might have more stuff to talk about if they ever got 3am drunk together than you’d think?
lol sorry anon this got kind of long and meandering, hopefully it answers your questions though.
I guess I think that Guts isn’t really fully self-aware about the fact that he’s still trying to be Griffith’s equal. It’s not like a real goal for him the way it was when he left the Hawks, it’s just that he can’t help but crave Griffith’s attention. He needs Griffith to see and acknowledge him as someone who matters to him.
It’s why Femto’s dismissal back in the Black Swordsman arc was what spurred him to finally stand and walk up to him despite like a million broken bones, it’s why he refused to heed much sounder advice like stay and take care of the Hawks that are left, and insisted on his attention-getting revenge campaign instead, and it’s why NeoGriffith ditching him makes him do this:
Because becoming Griffith’s “equal” was only a means to an end in the first place – what Guts really wanted was to be Griffith’s friend, or, put in Guts’ own terms:
He wants to be Griffith’s number one priority. At the most genuine point of their relationship, when Griffith admitted he had no rational reason for risking his life for Guts, Guts like basically found personal fulfillment. That scene on the rooftop where Guts contemplates it and decides that this means his home (at least for now bc Guts sucks at committment) is with the Hawks, is probably the happiest moment of Guts’ life.
And when Griffith became an evil demon this core desire of Guts’ didn’t go away, I guess, Guts just started expressing it through attention-getting monster killing and wanting to personally murder Femto, to force him to look at him and value him, if not as a loved one then as an enemy.
Also, to address that last bit, I think it’s very telling that Guts doesn’t hate Griffith. It wasn’t sacrificing all his friends that made Guts’ love turn to rage and hate, it was Femto spitefully raping Casca, which is something Guts knows his Griffith wouldn’t’ve done. While Femto was born out of the darkness of Griffith, something Guts probably at least has some understanding of, he’s not the same as Griffith. He tells that to Rickert too on the Hill of Swords “That’s not the Griffith you know anymore.”
And I think a huge part of the reason he doesn’t hate or blame Griffith for making the sacrifice is because he blames himself for breaking Griffith’s heart and ruining his life.
Like Guts’ narrative from coming back after a year to this moment revolves around his slow realization that leaving was a huge fucking mistake lol. And he finally figured it out right before the Eclipse, so when he thinks of Griffith afterwards he’s associated with guilt and sadness and regret and love, rather than bitterness or hate or resentment.
Like I guess Guts’ feelings are kind of contradictory but in a way that makes sense to me. The situation is complicated af and while Guts is consumed by hate, that doesn’t conveniently erase his love. Separating Femto from Griffith is probably part of how he reconciles that, which is also why when NeoGriffith shows up looking like the old Griffith it was particularly confusing and painful for Guts to handle, and why he “forgot” he wanted to kill him lol.
And both Guts’ hate and his love lead to wanting Femto/Griffith’s attention, it just changes how he goes about trying to accomplish that.
ok so i went looking for those pages and when the beast of darkness bites casca’s neck while telling him to r*pe her to get closer to griffith
it says something which the official translation team translated as “you desire this”
but the old fan translation says:
it’d be interesting to see if the original japanese wording here is the same as the “what you wish for may not be what she wishes for” or w/e line
ooooh ngl it would be a p interesting twist if ‘your wishes may not be her wishes’ is ominious not necessarily because casca’s wishes are going to fuck shit up but because skull knight is referring to the fact that guts still wishes to be griffith’s friend/equal, and it’s guts who’s going to cut and run or go beast of darkness or w/e
like i’d still vastly prefer for casca to do something epic but i wouldn’t say no to guts leaving casca behind again and going griffith hunting. like honestly anything that separates guts and casca and gives them different or even clashing goals/motivations/narratives/etc is all right in my book
Guts: This time it’s by my own will. I will never entrust my sword to another again. From now on every battle will be my own.
Also Guts: *throws away his entire life and the found family he holds dear so he can fulfill Griffith’s friendship criteria down to the letter*
ALSO can I just say “I don’t know what’s ahead. Whether bein with you will get in the way of what I want to do… or the opposite… I can’t tell now.”
Well what Guts wants to do is fight stronger and stronger enemies, like Wyald. He’s been thinking about fighting monsters since he left and decided he was sore about losing to Zodd.
And then he does get to fight a monster, and this is what happens when Casca’s with him:
so like, you’re telling me they would’ve lived happily ever after pursuing Guts’ monster-fighting dream together if Griffith turned out to be fine and fit to lead the Hawks after all?
Bc this is directly telling me that Guts would see Casca as a liability to that dream and Casca would probably stop supporting it pretty quickly if Guts kept on going the way he’s going.
(same anon) on second thought maybe the nose treatment allusion after
sex could refer to him being comforted, but not wrt Griffith but his
childhood trauma? Like of course Casca can’t help him there but she
alleviated the pain for a bit. This still doesn’t let me glimpse at
Miura’s intentions. I truly agree w your meta I am just getting mixed
signals. No disrespect or anything, feel free to ignore/delete since I’m
basically rambling in your inbox!
no worries, i always love getting messages and I have no problem clarifying my thoughts!
lol
sorry this took a while to answer, first I almost wrote an essay in
response but then I decided to clean up a post I already had in my
drafts that addresses some of this instead.
But to address
your message in more detail than that post does, tbh I think it’s kind
of meant to be a little contradictory. Miura tends to write in a way
where he presents the positive and negative aspects of something and
trusts the audience to make up their own minds. The narrative could def
lean one way or the other, but that doesn’t mean a decision/an event/a
character/etc is wholly negative or wholly positive. It’s usually some of both.
When
it comes to Guts and Casca hooking up I think there are positive
aspects. Guts opening up and telling her about his past is a good thing.
Casca deciding to try to move on from her obsession with Griffith is a
good thing. Despite the violent flashback and the virginal fumbling both
of them consider sex together to be a positive experience.
But
despite that, I think the narrative itself depicts Guts and Casca
hooking up to be ultimately a mistake. Not a mistake you can blame Guts
or Casca for because they should’ve known better or smthn like that, but a mistake in the
sense that it lead to a lot more bad than good happening, the same way
Guts leaving the Hawks was ultimately the wrong call even though he had
the best of intentions and it arguably seemed to have a positive affect on him as an individual.
And like, tbh I don’t think Miura really
gives much of a fuck about Guts/Casca as a romantic relationship lol. I
think what happened is he went with it as a way to make the Eclipse more
dramatic/give Guts a stronger reason to want revenge bc frankly
Griffith just sacrificing the Band isn’t nearly enough to make Guts that
angry lol – but he’s actually a pretty good writer when he wants to be
so rather than pushing it as a more generic and pasted on True Love Ruined By Tragedy thing he
added it as a two people on the rebound thing and incorporated it into
part of the pile-up of bad decisions and things going wrong in the lead
in to the Eclipse.
It has to be a little sweet, a little positive,
the audience has to believe Guts genuinely cares for her and they had
potential in order for the Eclipse bullshit to have the effect he
wanted, but at the same time the main thing Guts and Casca’s short lived
relationship adds to the story, other than set-up for a prolonged rape
scene, is reinforcement of Guts’ stupid dream imo.
I think there’s a strong argument to be made that, rather than being
depicted as burgeoning true love ruined by the Eclipse for the
sake of extra tragedy, Guts and Casca getting together is depicted as a mistake from the start.
Let’s look at Guts’ conversation with Judeau, where he seems to consider the possibility of Casca as a romantic interest for the first time.
“The one who has her eye… is Griffith. That’s why… right now… I’m no good for her… like this.”
I see two possible ways of interpreting this statement. Either the narrative and Guts just reframed Guts entire raison d’etre, his whole motivation for leaving and the reason he wants to be Griffith’s equal, thanks to a few leading statements from Judeau, or Guts is framing a potential relationship with Casca as another step on the journey of becoming Griffith’s equal.
The former defies belief. We just spent 22 chapters knowing exactly why Guts wants to leave and become Griffith’s equal. There’s no mystery there, there’s no detail left to be uncovered. Suddenly doing a 180 and saying actually, he wants to leave so he can be worthy of Casca, even though he never considered Casca a romantic possibility until approximately 30 seconds earlier, would just be impossibly bad writing from an otherwise extremely solid story.
But the latter, well, that fits right in.
After they have sex, Casca symbolically becomes Guts’ sword instead of Griffith’s:
To Casca, Guts is a more open, emotionally available replacement for Griffith, as I’ve discussed in detail in this post. Guts is in fact coming closer to his goal of becoming Griffith’s equal by sleeping with Casca, because after this Casca begins to transfer her obsession with Griffith and his dream to him.
And Casca isn’t an endgame for Guts. She’s not the goal, she’s not the motivation – she’s an addition to his overarching desire to have Griffith see him as an equal. He still plans to leave to continue fighting stronger and stronger enemies after they hook up. He invites her along – just so long as she doesn’t get in the way of his more important dream:
Non-committally inviting her along mollifies her, but it doesn’t address her point lol – he’s still selfishly prioritizing his dream. She’s become support for that, just the way she supported Griffith’s dream as his “sword.” Eventually that is exactly what leads to everything crashing down around them – Casca telling Guts to leave, because his dream is all-important.
And while we then leave Guts and Casca on a sweet moment where they kiss, that very same page shifts to pure ominousness to end both the chapter and Guts and Casca’s newly changed relationship on:
Cue snake man walking around and the Behelit floating down a river on its way to a date with Griffith.
And then the next chapter returns us to Griffith, a year since the last time we saw him, and his monologue about how his feelings for Guts are so strong and bright they make even the dream fade into dullness.
Guts is trying to “unbind” himself from Griffith. In his dream speech to Casca he says he can’t stay with the Hawks because he refuses to ever swing his sword in service to another again. And Casca tells Guts that she can’t continue defending the almost broken dream of someone who may not even be alive. Both he and Casca are trying to move on from Griffith in their own ways, and they try to do this through a connection with each other.
But the thing is, if you’re writing the kind of relationship triangle where two people help each other get over a third, if you want it to really feel satisfying and right, wouldn’t you want to establish that they both should be getting over Griffith, and that a relationship with each other is a more positive step for them?
The problem is that Guts’ whole thing, his whole desire to leave to become Griffith’s equal, is motivated by wanting to be closer to Griffith lol. He wants to be someone Griffith can call a friend. And it’s based on a falsehood: he thinks Griffith looks down on him.
When this is how Griffith feels about him:
Guts trying to unbind himself from Griffith doesn’t feel satisfying when we’re immediately reminded through a passionate monologue that Griffith is just as bound to Guts as Guts is to him, and that Guts only wants to become independent of Griffith because he doesn’t know that.
As for Casca, her obsession with Griffith came at the expense of
herself. Spending a year fighting for Griffith’s dream
and leading the Hawks while he was in a dungeon drove her to the point
of suicide.
But her encounter here with Guts doesn’t solve any of
that, she just transfers her obsession and her dedication to someone
else’s dream to Guts, as we see clearly through that sword metaphor,
through the parallels I linked to earlier, and through Casca telling
Guts he has to leave because his dream is the most important thing.
Casca trying to get over Griffith and move on doesn’t feel satisfying when she immediately falls into the same self-destructive patterns with a new person at the centre of her obsession.
Guts and Casca’s romance has
its postive aspects – Guts opens up to her about his childhood trauma,
eg, and is comforted. But there’s
dissonance beneath the surface. They have sex right after Guts let Casca
stab him because a part of him realized she was right about Griffith needing him. Casca had just tried to kill herself after telling Guts that Griffith doesn’t need her, as though she can only live in relation to someone else. In
deciding to leave the Hawks together, Guts continues suppressing his
eventual revelation that leaving in the first place was a mistake.
And
Guts recalls
Gambino giving him medicine – the one act of kindness from him which
Guts latches onto to help him deny the rest of Gambino’s abuse – while Casca is compared to a sword, which to me seems like a strong, not all that positive statement on their relationship: it doesn’t fix their underlying issues, it doesn’t change anything, it just helps them live in denial of those issues – Casca’s lack of independence, Guts’ dream being a mistake*** – for a while longer.
Basically, rather than moving forward and truly healing with each other, they’re revisiting the past, repeating negative patterns, maintaining denial, and essentially, well, licking wounds.
And by trying to move on from
Griffith by taking solace in each other, they only add to Guts’ original
mistake, which is failing to realize that there was no reason for him to move on in the first
place. Guts couldn’t stand the thought of Griffith looking down on him,
but this is who he is to Griffith, as we are told immediately before and
after he has sex with Casca:
And this is when Guts finally acknowledges his mistake, about 10 seconds after Griffith overheard Casca telling him to leave:
We know that Miura didn’t
intend Guts and Casca to get together from the start, let alone for it
to be a grand true love style romance. He’s said that he hooked them up
for the sake of more Eclipse drama. And I think that the way he framed
their relationship, from its placement in the narrative to the details of the scene itself to the way it goes hand in hand with Guts’ dream, makes it feel like it’s contributing to the series of unfortunate fuck ups that lead to the Eclipse, rather than just being an incidental casualty of it.
It’s a mistake the
way Miura writes mistakes – not obviously so, with no ill intent or
obviously misguided motives behind it. Their relationship isn’t meant to
be unpleasant, it’s shown as sweet and maybe not epic, maybe not
lasting, but overall more positive than negative for them. But so was
Guts’ year long sabbatical, and we’ve seen how much he regrets that:
In Berserk characters can make the wrong decisions despite having the best of intentions, despite some good coming out of those decisions, despite doing the best they can based on what they know. And I think Guts and Casca’s relationship is shown to be one of them.
*** I think both Casca’s lack of independence and Guts’ focus on his own dream of fighting stronger and stronger enemies are at least in part poor coping mechanisms for their respective childhood traumas, which makes the sword and medicine metaphors even more apt. But to get fully into that would take its own post, and it’s not necessary to my point here, so this is just a minor aside lol.
This summarization of his dream to Casca:
then this flashback during the wyald fight:
Like lol once I said that Guts is technically fulfilling his dream by being the Black Swordsman and fighting stronger and stronger enemies in the form of monsters, which is ironic and proves how stupid his dream was, but i mean, he genuinely did want to go out and fight monsters the whole time, he was thinking about it even before Wyald.
Like I’m p sure the dream he chose and settled on pretty much boils down to challenge Zodd to a rematch and defeat him.
Still a stupid dream, just less ironic.
yk, i always think of guts as being the only member of the hawks who was recruited without a choice in the matter. the only one who didn’t choose to follow griffith but instead got won in a duel. i was even about to write some meta on it and what it says about griffith and how he forgets his dream when guts is involved (because it’s important to him that every one of the hawks chooses to follow him of their own volition, it’s how he maintains his denial of guilt). but i sat down to start writing it and i was like, wait a sec.
bc the thing is, the duel was all guts.
griffith said he wanted guts to join him, seemed taken aback when guts refused out of hand, and that’s it.
guts is the one who went hey i know let’s fight again and if i lose i’ll fight for you or we’ll fuck or whatever
like, i think griffith just leapt at the chance to keep guts around another way, i don’t think he would’ve made that suggestion himself, or kidnapped him if guts didn’t suggest it or w/e. guts probably could’ve just went ‘uh thanks for not letting me die i guess, see ya’ and griffith probably would’ve sighed and let him leave if more sweet talking didn’t work.
instead guts went ‘we’re enemies, i want to fight you again, here are the stakes,’ and griffith was like, ‘fuck yeah i’m in’
idek i’ve read this scene a million times idg why i always think of griffith as the instigator when he’s textually not. maybe bc once guts brings up the idea griffith is so hugely into it lol with his ‘i must obtain the things i desire’ and reiterating that guts belongs to him etc.
but guts did have a choice. he chose to fight griffith and he chose the stakes of the duel.
The way Miura wrote the story I’d say Guts is by far the stronger and more relatable character. Unfortunately Casca really gets the “the token chick” treatment where her whole story and all her issues and half her personality is about being a woman surrounded by men, and written by a dude, so yk, I don’t blame anyone for being unable to relate to her lol, and personal preference is whatever, so it’s not like you should have to like her just because you’re a girl.
And I definitely agree that Casca should develop on her own, away from Guts. The way she jumped straight from being overinvested in Griffith and his dream to being overinvested in Guts and his dream was pretty fucked up imo, and a sign that she needs to get independent.
But I’d have to disagree with you about their respective feelings, because while I think they both felt genuine affection for the other, neither of them felt genuine love, and I’d say even moreso than Casca did, Guts consistently prioritized/s Griffith over her.
cut for length
Rather than staying and supporting her he still wants to go out to become Griffith’s equal, and this is how he invites her along when Casca is outraged by his priorities:
which is pretty far from romantic or commital lol.
While Casca is jealous of Charlotte during the rescue, Guts’ reaction is basically, well that kinda sucks but lbr I got it even worse than she does so it’s not like I can blame her:
When they find Griffith this is the next thing he says to Casca:
During the Eclipse this is what Guts does when he sees the Band, including Casca, about to be eaten by monsters:
And of course after the Eclipse he dumps her in a cave for two years to pursue Griffith/continue pursuing his dream of fighting stronger and stronger opponents and therefore being Griffith’s friend/equal, once again prioritizing Griffith:
When he finally does end up sticking with her to take her to Elfhelm, this is how he makes that decision:
This is what he’s thinking about when he starts off on his journey:
and of course i’d be remiss if i didn’t mention how Griffith grabbing Guts’ attention away from rescuing Casca is framed:
AND then there’s the whole Beast of Darkness fiasco.
And even when they’re on the boat, he’s still planning to run back to Griffith once his sidequest with Casca is over:
Idk basically I would argue that Guts is by far shittier to Casca than Casca is to Guts, and neither are genuinely all that invested in their potential relationship. It’s a rebound for both, an attempt to get over Griffith that doesn’t work for either, but in fairness to Casca she tried, and even when she decided to stay with Griffith she told Guts to leave because she was prioritizing his stupid dream lol, while Guts’ investment in becoming worthy of being Griffith’s friend had him refusing to stay and suggesting Casca come with him only insofar as she doesn’t fuck up his dream from the very start.
And not to mention those moments that were cut were supposed to humanize Griffith and make him more relatable and fun. Anime and films made him look just cruel and cunning.
yeahhhh
tbh i feel like there are a lot of rly minor, seemingly insignificant tweaks that end up making the story feel much flatter overall. In the anime I mean, the movies just full on cut most of Griffith’s character out lol.
But like, little things like how he looks angry rather than regretful when Guts is about to kill the hired goons in tombstone of flame, or how we don’t see his face on “do you think I’m cruel?” or losing the moment where Guts remembers him asking him not to tell the Hawks about the assassinations, etc, all add up to less depth and less understanding and sympathy.
Also Guts tends to look way more dour imo, like his default expression is much pissier in the anime than the manga, which makes him seem low-key resentful constantly and kills a lot of the chemistry between Griffith and Guts in significant scenes. Also a bunch of his super fond wistful thinking-about-Griffith smiles are gone lol. I’m sure that helps contribute to the idea that anything between them is one-sided.
And then there are the filler scenes added just so Guts can do something useful and Casca can act like a tsundere, playing up Guts and Casca in a rly cliched way.
Also no flashback to Guts during sex with Charlotte, and his scratch marks are interpreted as a giant scar which doesn’t make any sense – there’s no reason for him to be clutching a mysterious scar and crying, but we’ve seen him self harm before so like, whoever made that call fucked up.
Ooh the torture – the scene that happens after Griffith has spent about one day in the dungeon in the manga instead happens right before Guts returns which really makes his suffering in the anime seem diminished in comparison.
Also Guts’ sparks speech to Casca is turned into half an episode of him chilling with Godo, which means that his dream of fighting people and swinging his sword forever is treated as completely noble and manly by the narrative, because we don’t get Casca’s immediate “you sound like a fucking asshole” counterpoint. Casca’s angry reaction is instead solely a reaction to Guts saying he’s leaving again, not to his whole “dream,” which also makes her look worse.
Idk this turned into a list bc I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently lol. The anime does a lot of things rly well too, but idk I definitely feel like I interpret the story pretty differently to whoever made it.
It’s… so confusing though, a close friend of mine watched the series based partially on my rec and him wanting to see it for ages and he misunderstood… basically… everything??? HOW DOES BERSERK FANDOM OUTSIDE TUMBLR FUNCTION???
honestly same, I really don’t get it. Like I can see general homophobia making ppl desperately want to downplay the gay vibes leading to as little emphasis on Guts and Griffith’s relationship, and especially Guts’ (extremely and wholly positive) feelings for Griffith as possible. Like describing Guts’ decision to leave the Hawks as “he does not want to be caught up in Griffith’s dream anymore” is technically accurate, and yet completely downplays the fact that the reason he doesn’t want to be caught up in Griffith’s dream is because Griffith is “dazzling” and he wants Griffith to “look at [him]” and he wants to feel like his equal and be regarded as a True Friend. In the terrible episode description it’s instead framed like Guts is pissed off about having to assassinate people lol.
And idk I think it might also be partially this weird desperate need to have a Hero and a Villain and have Guts prevail over the villain and ride off into the sunset with the Rescued Love Interest, because a lot of people are frankly boring and like boring stories and can’t conceive of good stories outside those basic parameters. So they twist the narrative in their head until it fits that shape, despite Guts and Casca not having anything like a traditional true love romance and Miura saying he only had Casca survive the Eclipse to keep Guts focused on revenge, despite Griffith not being a pure evil villain even after the Eclipse and certainly not before (like Miura’s directly talked about NGriff’s moral ambiguity and the way he’s not a traditional evil antagonist), despite the clearly complicated emotions that still exist between Guts and Griffith/Femto/NGriff, etc.
At my most generous I think part of the reason people choose to believe Griffith was evil all along is because Femto’s defining act is rape and people are uncomfortable seeing any good in a character who eventually becomes a rapist, tho personally the fact that he magically transforms into a demon first kind of mitigates that for me lol. (And, and I’ve ranted about this before but still, it’s also a double standard when so many of the same people go out of their way to excuse Guts when he sexually assaults Casca.)
But still idk it’s weird. Like, eg there’s so much you have to ignore to believe that Guts leaving the Hawks was fine and dandy and a good choice and Griffith was just a dick who overreacted. Pages and pages of Guts fretting about it, Casca yelling it at him, Guts regretting leaving, Guts realizing he was wrong in thinking Griffith looked down on him, Guts comparing abandoning Casca to abandoning Griffith multiple times, Guts determined not to make the same mistake again, etc etc. You can support Guts’ choice and blame Griffith all you want, but the narrative clearly does not, and it’s honestly baffling how ppl can ignore that when it’s not only discussed many times in direct words, but the whole story revolves around the fact that Guts made a mistake when he left.
Like what do you think the Golden Age is about if it’s not about a stupid misunderstanding between 2 dudes who both rly like each other and fail to realize their feelings are reciprocated and overreact and make dumb decisions because of that misunderstanding? I don’t understand what most Berserk fans see, it genuinely feels like we’re reading 2 different stories lol.
Browsing through the rebirth chapters and it just leaps out at me how utterly sexualized Griffith is, especially in comparison to Casca, who is (at least by Miura’s standards) totally desexualized.
Guts’ internal conflict is essentially desire vs responsibility, ie revenge vs escorting Casca to Elfhelm, ie Griffith vs Casca, and the visual depiction of that conflict is straight up, extremely loud and clear, naked sexy Griffith vs Casca all childlike in a shapeless cloak
yk what I was partly wrong here and over simplifying things
it’s not that Guts’ desire for revenge is sexualized through Griffith, it’s that Griffith’s sexualization is actually at odds with Guts’ desire to kill him. You can’t rly ignore “the instant I saw him… I’d forgotten my urge to kill.”
Revenge and sexual desire aren’t rly equated yet. Guts wants to kill faceless masked bird boy with great prejudice
he does not want to kill sexy naked Griffith.
Now that he’s actually reachable I’m having second thoughts oh no what the fuck.
So when the hound says he’s longing for Griffith and tells him to give him a heap of raw iron, what’s actually going on is less sexualization of revenge, and more… revengalization of sex, yk?
Sexual desire and violent stabby revenge are being equated by the hound to encourage Guts to pursue Griffith. Guts wants to stick something in him all right, and he should still want revenge, so it’s best if that something is a literal sword. As opposed to his desire for revenge becoming sexualized, the inherent sexualization of Guts’ desire for Griffith is what the hound seizes on and twists to lead Guts back to revenge.
Anyway basically Griffith’s desirability is still hardcore contrasted to Casca’s lack thereof, but honestly I think it’s less a metaphor for wanting revenge vs being stuck babysitting and more plain old straightforward gay subtext which is then utilized to give an added layer of complexity to Guts’ desire for revenge (and desire to desire revenge.)
ik this comes across as fake jokey analysis and/or giving the subtext too much weight so I can reach super hard, but tbh idk how to read this part without it. i mean you could just say that Guts fantasizing about Griffith’s pretty hair and ass and forgetting his urge to kill and whining about being stuck with Casca and Griffith abandoning him and the hound’s many innuendos are all unrelated or accidental but
l b r
consider: Berserk Armour vs Femto designs
versus
I just rly like how Femto’s exoskeleton can be drawn to either emphasize
Griffith’s face underneath the helmet or obscure it. It’s such a
good way to either depict Femto as a godlike otherworldly demon or a
petty asshole who can taunt Guts but can’t bring himself to kill him – or
like the bottom pic where after several epic godlike shots from
Ganeshka’s awed point of view, we see his face when he’s doing something
much more Griffith-esque: predicting what Skull Knight will do based on
logic and tactics rather than magic knowledge of fate.
Guts’
armour is more literal – when his face is hidden beneath the helmet,
he’s lost himself to his darkness. Femto’s is symbolic as his helmet
doesn’t change, only the angle we see him from changes, but imo it’s
really well-utilized to emphasize or de-emphasize whatever remains of
Griffith. And I think it’s definitely a trend – not 100% the case in
every panel, but overall when we see Femto’s whole face, it tends to be
in moments of weakness or pettiness, in moments where he’s demonstrating human feelings, however twisted they’ve become, and when either his eyes or his
mouth or both are obscured, it tends to emphasize his distance from
Guts, his godliness, his monstrosity.
Also, and tbf this I’m
less sure about bc I can’t remember every moment where Guts thinks about
Femto, but in general I think it holds true: Guts tends to picture
Femto with face partially or entirely obscured when he’s feeling the distance/difference between them and/or murderous rage
and face very visible in moments that emphasize Guts’ similarity to him, and danger of becoming him
idk i just think it’s neat
also i love how in the arrangement of this page femto is to griffith what griffith/femto is to guts
it’s not like it’s news that guts’ dark side is made up of rage and revenge and feelings of betrayal with a solid dose of longing but it’s a nice illustration of it
i love these moments because they all seem inspiring and badass but they all have those ominous undertones – guts’ rage stemming from fear that he is just like the ghosts who want revenge, the shot of the behelit, guts’ inability to let go of the prospect of revenge, and the way his “war declaration” puts him a step closer to being griffith’s equal.
it’s guts repeatedly refusing to acknowledge how very thin the line that divides him from ghosts and monsters and evil gods is imo
you're the only one 