i think it was probably meant as a shock value thing more than anything, like yes the idea was to feel the anger and betrayal guts was feeling, but imo it wasn’t meant to make us hate griffith the character as a whole from that point onward. because the way miura presents his story after the eclipse is very generous
like it was a shoking turning point that
was supposed to 1) give guts revenge motivation but also 2) really
drive home the ~morally ambiguous~ thing he’s trying to go with, which
might have been the worst fail ever because not only is rape generally
tied to pure evil villainy but also miura /kinda/ made that connection
too. i mean he was actually trying to make that “there’s evil in the
world bc everyone has a dark core” point
and also maybe
something about ultimate freedom (which is why it’s the apostles that
rape like almost every time) but he just failed so hard on that front bc
everyone saw the eclipse rape scene and was like, oh ok so we’re
supposed to hate griffith then. and instead of making their view of the
story more ambiguous and open, it made it completely black and white.
the literal opposite of what miura was imo going for
one thing that i think
the eclipse rape does do is drive home the hatred griffith felt for
guts when he was at his lowest, because those are the feelings that come
to surface when he’s stripped down to only his “evil core.” however the
counter-argument there is that it absolutely didn’t have to be rape,
like you mentioned in another post. it could have been torture or
whatever else. and i’m so pissed off that he went with rape in the end
bc it just cheapened everything
Hm yeah it’s meant to illustrate Femto as an entity made out of evil and Griffith’s inner darkness, make us hate him specifically and empathize with Guts’ desire for revenge. I def agree that it’s not meant to make us retroactively hate Griffith, it’s pretty clear that human Griffith is still meant to be very sympathetic and not Femto-lite or anything like that lmao, I mean look at how Guts remembers him.
NeoGriffith, idfk. It seems clear that we’re not meant to hate him, considering how he’s framed as the hero of his own story with his own loathsome antagonists and a cause we’re meant to generally consider good, and allies we’re meant to like, etc. But we’re probably still supposed to be wary of him, and uncertain about him? His whole thing is ambiguity. So idk, maybe Miura intended for it to be obvious that NGriff isn’t the exact same as Femto just like regular Griffith isn’t, so distancing the Eclipse rape from his narrative doesn’t feel awkward as fuck to him lol.
And yeah in addition to illustrating his evil it does illustrate his negative feelings towards Guts, also necessary, but yeah, choosing rape as that illustration was bad, and the particular way Miura went about it was even worse.
so ……… berserk is red pill vs blue pill
not sure if this is a matrix ref or a reddit ref lol. both kinda make sense…
i’m hoping miura
doesn’t rush this. bc it’s still not entirely clear what he’s really
going for, and i’d kind of like it to be, by the end
depends, if it’s gonna suck i just want the band aid ripped off, but if he’s going to surprise me and it’s gonna be good i want to savour it. and also yeah, understanding it would be nice too lmao, but I feel like that’ll be more clear after whatever happens w/ casca happens. that’s the make or break for me.
honestly the concept
of falconia is so sexy, starting with the ripped statues outside and
ending with its literally lusted after angelic beautiful leader like
come on. props to him, griffith haters need to give credit where credit
is due
when one of your literal superpowers is magic sex appeal you don’t have to go the extra mile, but he did. what an icon
I guess I’ve always assumed the Eclipse rape was there to give us a reason to hate Griffith. Like, in another setting committing murder would be “crossing the line” into villainy. In a story where all the dewy-eyed still-innocent major characters are also hired killers, escalation is bound to get awkward. Given how sympathetic Griffith’s storyline otherwise is, it feels like a effort to say “no really, this is supposed to be morally complicated, stop rooting for him.”
Yeah I don’t think you’re wrong about that. Though more than anything I think it’s meant to give Guts specifically a reason to hate him lol, because the way Miura wrote the sacrifice and Guts’ reaction to it
sacrificing him wasn’t nearly enough.
I mean personally I think the sacrifice could’ve still worked fine on its own if Guts had actually like, demonstrated some extreme feelings of betrayal, which I feel like he should’ve, because the sacrifice is meant to be an echo of his childhood trauma of being sold imo, and I feel like Miura kind of dropped that in favour of the more immediate shock value.
Like it wouldn’t’ve been enough to get me to hate him, but I’m kind of an exception lol, I feel like Guts expressing heartbreak and betrayal that echoes like, the scene where Gambino told him he sold him to Donovan, probably would’ve worked okay for most fans to make them at least very angry at Griffith/Femto.
Buuuuut you’re right that like, he is really sympathetic otherwise and Guts wanting to chase him down and kill him while he’s orchestrating world peace and ruling a utopia might make Guts seem less sympathetic without that visceral show of evil during the Eclipse to “justify” it. But then the Eclipse rape goes so far in the other direction that it completely fucks up the balance too. So idk.
I guess if I was writing it and I felt like the Eclipse needed something extra to prove that Femto is evil, which is fair since he’s supposed to be Griffith’s inner darkness with an additional boost of humanity’s evil in general, and you probably do want to demonstrate some of that, I’d opt for like, torture + maybe some magical mind torture or something if Casca needs to be driven insane, because that’s the kind of ott fantasy evil that none of the Berserk readership will have personally experienced. Rape as a gratuitous demonstration of evil has a whoooole lot of baggage that makes writing that character as a morally ambiguous antagonist later on extremely terrible imo.
tl;dr basically ia, I think the purpose was to immediately show how evil Femto is and make the readers and Guts hate him, and I mean it worked I guess lol, but I still think it was a bad decision and Miura should’ve done something else.
Yeah I definitely think we just got to the beginning of the last third of the story… hopefully not the halfway point
lol imagine if we’re only halfway through now… tho ngl that would be nice for my impossible “Casca levels up and becomes a secondary antagonist making Griffith, Guts, and Casca three enemies with their own intwined but opposing goals” hope.
It’s actually pretty crazy for how many
people HATE Griffith like he’s the most evil villain ever when all he’s
done was for the “greater good” for the rest of humanity (and monsters
too I guess.)
Though the only absolutely evil thing he did was rape Casca, which was
actually completely pointless and horrible. The story would’ve been
better if it never happened tbh
this is one reason I have such a problem, from like, a story construction standpoint (never mind the pile of other problems I have with it), with the Eclipse rape. It’s sooooooo irrelevant to the rest of Griffith’s narrative. Obviously I understand why it makes people hate him, regardless of the magical fantasy logistics of transforming into an evil demon first, or how badly written it is, or its significance (or lackthereof) to his narrative as a whole, yk, whatever, it’s reasonable to have a strong negative emotional response to it regardless.
But it has nothing to do with his dream, with NeoGriffith’s entire narrative, it was not necessary to create Falconia, it amounts to nothing more than a v shallow show of evil that does nothing to complicate the moral quandaries of Griffith’s dream/Falconia because it was entirely unnecessary and gratuitous. It doesn’t even tell us anything about NeoGriffith as an individual running a utopia because he transformed again and we don’t know how similar or different he is to Femto lol. Miura completely downplays it to the point where I kinda suspect he knows he completely hamstrung his attempt to write an interesting morally grey villain as soon as it left the gate, and now it’s like he’s doing a weird juggling act where the Eclipse rape is Guts’ whole motivation but also it simultaneously has zero bearing on the framing of NeoGriffith’s story.
Like I’ve mentioned this before but how fucking weird and awkward is it that we as readers have no idea whether Rickert even knows about the Eclipse rape, when the whole narrative point of his digression to Falconia was his choice to judge and reject NeoGriffith. Rickert delivers his judgement – essentially as an audience stand-in – and the Eclipse rape doesn’t factor into it at all. That’s the definition of gratuitous lol. And that’s just one example of Miura turning it into this awkward elephant in the room.
I really don’t think Miura is taking the straightforward villain route with Griffith. He hasn’t been so far, what with framing him as the protagonist of his own story. He’s an antagonist to Guts, but yeah I don’t think villain is the word for him.
I’d classify Femto as a villain, tbf, but then I’d also classify the Beast of Darkness as a villain. I think that’s kind of the point of Berserk, that everyone has that dark villainous side and everyone has a heroic side, and some are more one than the other, whether they’re monsters or regular humans. And the key isn’t even to overcome that dark side, but to find a balance.
p much I think the conflict of Berserk is going to come down to the light vs the dark within the individual characters and within humanity as a whole, and NGriff as an individual is probably literally representative of humanity as a whole.
Also I think we’re meant to like them which I find v interesting and hopeful lol. Like from Raksas who is a huge dick but also very entertaining and fun to Grunbeld who has a whole backstory novel in which he’s 100% sympathetic protagonist from everything I’ve heard about it, they’re made to be likeable characters. Which is great because it makes it less likely we’re headed for some kind of boring Guts’ side vs Griffith’s side, Good vs Evil story lol.
Not that I’m too worried about any conflict between them being framed as simplistically as good vs evil, but still.
My ideal plotline is probably Guts’ side and Griffith’s side teaming up against a greater antagonist, like those few chapters where Guts rode Zodd into battle against Ganeshka writ large, and the fact that Griffith’s side of the story isn’t framed as evil or even antagonistic but as protagonists of their own narrative makes that seem more possible.
Failing that, just like I love Guts getting monstrous without literally becoming a monster I love seeing apostles that are sympathetic and humane. Moreso than say, Rosine who is sympathetic but also yk, pretty damn fucked up regardless, apostles like eg Locus are just chill. Locus is like a famous knight who apparently exorcised his apostle bloodlusty urges by competing in tournaments before he joined Griffith, and since joining Griffith has been pretty dedicated to fostering peace between humans and between humans and apostles. Give or take possibly sending Raksas after Rickert (or possibly not, we don’t know yet) he hasn’t done a single negative thing that we know of. Same with Irvine, who seems to hunt animals, rather than people, and Grunbeld who has the aforementioned novel where he’s p much portrayed as heroic as far as I can tell, and Zodd who is compared to Guts the most when it comes to the whole man vs monster thing.
So yk even if they do ultimately end up fighting Guts, I feel like it’s not going to be a simple conflict where we’re meant to root for one side or the other. Tonally the fact that there’s a conflict at all would probably be depicted as negative.
as an aside, imo the biggest argument against that hope tbh is the new fast travel system which feels like nothing but set up for an eventual attack on Elfhelm, but yk what, I’ve also been arguing that Eflhelm is going to end up being manipulative assholes, so maybe it’ll all work out in my favour anyway. Like maybe they’ll show up just as the readers suddenly realize we want someone to kick Elfhelm’s ass.
Like Miura has talked about writing Griffith as a protagonist of his own story, and you don’t spend a hundred chapters on a narrative that follows those protagonist/heroic story beats just to suddenly make them evil no good antagonists again lol.
I feel like Guts and Griffith’s stories are going to end up being basically morally equivalent from different angles. Man vs inner monster; monster vs inner man lol. Human volition, monstrous strength, yadda yadda yadda.
Like this is one of the strongest themes of the story lol, one brief scene where they team up cannot be the sole payoff, come on. Especially when it’s Guts and Griffith in conflict, rather than Guts and Zodd who don’t have that whole history of being ridiculously in love with each other.
Anyway like, the two sides don’t necessarily need to team up again, but conflict between Guts and Griffith’s narratives falls soundly on the monster side and it’s gonna be depicted as such, and therefore negative. like guts will be consumed by the armour when that happens and he’ll probably have killed or will kill one or more of his friends as well, that kind of negative.
When it comes to Charlotte though, I really have no idea lol. If I have any guess at all, it’s that she’s probably not going to do anything particularly significant. Like, thematically she’s got nothing going on that I can think of, she’s just kind of there being in love with Griffith and enabling his power grab, so I can’t really theorize about how she’ll fit into any future conflict.
I know a lot of people want her to learn about Femto/the Eclipse in the hopes that the rose coloured glasses break, because in a way i think she’s kind of representative of buying Griffith’s perfect image, but I doubt it. Even if she does like, see him transform into Femto or something lol, even if all of Falconia sees it, I don’t think it’ll change anything. They’ve seen him lead an army of monsters and speculated about whether he’s even human already, showing off a black outfit and bat wings is probably not going to make or break anything for him relationship or publicity-wise at this point.
I guess my biggest hope wrt Charlotte is just that she’ll get some screen time acting in some capacity as a leader. She’s got some inner strength at least, as we saw like, during the Griffith rescue mission a million years ago, let’s see her use it in some way as queen.
tbh I lean towards assuming Locus sent Raksas after Rickert, but I’d also be pretty ok with it turning out to be Griffith after all. bc like, if it’s Griffith then that’s got some intrigue because it seems like a reaction driven by emotion rather than logic – Rickert isn’t a threat in any way. He’s a kid and he was planning to leave on his own. And it’s a plan that spectacularly failed, while all NGriff’s plans succeed because he has fate on his side. Therefore, if NGriff sent Raksas, then it was probably a stupid decision driven by an emotional need to, idk, erase that rejection from someone from his past.
I think it’s a lot more likely that Locus sent Raksas on his own initiative though. Partly bc it’s kind of a hard sell that NGriff would fuck something up that bad lol, but also because, like… sending an assassin after Rickert, even if I can argue some emotional complexity out of it, crosses the line into villainous for the sake of villainous that I don’t think NGriff is actually going to cross.
Tho again like, if he does cross that line it better be in a way that I can argue demonstrates interesting emotions. I’d rather it involve Guts than Rickert tho.
major thought: it’s a sign that griffith is emotionally compromised. not just the slap but also the way griffith did not have a single thing to say in response to rickert other than acknowledgement that the hawk emblem has changed, ie that he’s not the same person rickert was loyal to
his silence suggests that this is troubling to him. that rickert’s rejection is meaningful to him as a rejection of his identity, and therefore that acceptance from the last remaining member of the old band (who is sane and hasn’t declared war on him) would have been meaningful to him.
which suggests that this
said by Guts to Rickert shortly before this lol:
applies to griffith.
basically i think that scene is a strong indication that it’s not just his dream ngriff’s longing for.
oh also I hope there’s also potential for ngriff to have a bit of an identity crisis a la ascended ganeshka after rickert’s refusal to accept him as the same person and ngriff’s acknowledgement – especially w/ his “nothing has changed” statement being repeated.
like there’s room for irony in both directions there, ykwim? “nothing has changed” = lol ngriff still has feelings for guts, he was right but not in the way he thought. and “nothing has changed” = a denial which he’s forced to confront eventually
oh and one more thing along those lines – you could suggest he’s doing the same thing guts is doing right now
Thank you! I’m glad you found something to enjoy in my meta despite different ship preferences, esp since I like to think a lot of what I have to say about them is applicable even if you go the platonic friends route in your interpretation.
When it comes to NGriff’s unfrozen heart, I definitely go with option B. I completely believe Griffith was lying to himself about his feelings, as he is wont to do lol, like you said – definitely related to his “take all the sad and frightening things and cast them into the fire” method of dealing with his feelings, ie pretending they don’t exist.
I’m going to link a previous post on this topic bc I feel like I said most of what I have to say about it already. But in short I definitely don’t think the fetus is responsible for Griffith’s heart beating while he watches Guts fight Zodd, though it may be responsible for Griffith saving Casca from falling rocks.
As for the moonlight kid, I’m not sure what to make of him. It’s suggested he’s the soul of Guts and Casca’s kid, what with the family imagery in that one chapter. Conversely it’s suggested he might be associated with Dannan, and therefore possibly taking the form of what that child would look like for the sake of… well I want to suggest manipulating them, bc I have high hopes that Danann is gonna turn out to be shady and using them for her own ends.
I do have a hard time with the popular theory that Moonlight Kid is part of NeoGriffith and like, escapes during the full moon to hang out with the rpg group bc the idea sounds very silly to me.
And on a personal level I hate him lmao. I just… I hate most cutesy fictional children, I vastly prefer Black Swordsman Guts to family man Guts lol, I don’t like that the kid’s role is to prevent Guts from succumbing to the armour because I want Guts to succumb to the armour, at least for long enough to shake things up and have consequences. I don’t like that Casca has strong maternal feelings for him despite not even having a personality right now, bc it’s so gender essentialist. Not in a surprising way, just in an annoying way. I don’t like the way he’s used to tease the audience about the possibility of Guts eventually settling down with a family. And I don’t like the implication that he briefly like, possessed NeoGriffith to make him save Casca lol, because again, it strikes me as really silly.
My biggest hope and dream involving Moonlight Boy is that he’s either a) secretly bad news because he’s a trick of Danann’s, or b) going to be what Casca sacrifices to become an apostle if she opens the behelit.
i was just about to say basically the same thing @chaoticgaygriffith did here lol … he needs that constant reminder of why he SHOULD hate griffith because he’s still so emotionally invested in him and it’s too easy for him to slide into pining and sadness over him. and guts has never seen the griffith /he/ knew do anything awful, so i imagine he has a really hard time accepting that femto=griffith, but lbr so do i, griffith was not cruel and miura is an asshole
yeah i mean considering neogriffith’s effect on him:
I feel like it’s pretty heavily suggested that part of why Guts is able to drop the revenge quest to take Casca to Elfhelm is because NeoGriffith showing up all hot and non demonic threw a bucket of cold water onto his rage boner and replaced it with a regular boner.
Like I will never, ever, ever get over how fucking sad Guts is about NeoGriffith ditching him lmfao, idk how anyone can look at that panel and think Guts feels nothing but hate for him now.
And yeah like Guts also separates human Griffith from Femto in his mind, like when he tells Rickert “that’s not the Griffith you know anymore” while remembering Femto. Which is another reason NGriff’s human appearance fucks him up, because it makes it harder for Guts to separate NGriff from human Griff.
@xiyyh said:
all of this! i agree.
guts saying/doing ANYTHING at this moment could’ve pushed him over the
edge imo. also just, ugh, griffith conversely loving and hating him
because of his dependence on guts for stability. not only stability tho
he’s fucking in love with him lol. so yeah griffith coming to terms with
his absolute need for guts (whether he likes it or not, & he does
not) during the same moment of guts realizing how bad he fucked up,
re-igniting griffith’s value in his own mind, hhhhhhh
and these parallels! my god. somehow berserk is constantly mirroring itself, it’s endlessly fascinating and infuriating
ALSO WRT your tags; lol i agree and i
don’t understand how anyone could read it any other way if i’m being
completely fucking honest
ty! it’s so good isn’t it, like the fact that griffith’s moment of pure despair was guts touching him is beyond amazing and so fun to think about. i just want to second what you said here.
Honestly, Black Swordsman Guts, especially in the Black Swordsman arc (tho he’s also p good in the Lost Children arc). The way he starts out as the epitome of the asshole antihero out for revenge and that image almost immediately starts crumbling until you’re shown that he’s terrified and pathetic and not a whole lot better than the monsters he’s fighting and really sad about a bad breakup.
The way he opens the story by banging an apostle on page one and eventually you realize that is one of a grand total of two occasions on which he’s had consensual sex. The way he ends the first arc crying after a kid swears vengeance against him. The end of the first chapter when he tortures the snake apostle and the art and tone shift to make Guts the villain and the monster the pitiable victim. Encouraging children to kill themselves because he’s upset. Refusing to admit how monstrous he’s getting when he gets temporarily possessed. Letting a zombie kid stab him.
The driving mystery of why Guts is so obsessed with revenge followed by the reveal that it’s because he had a relationship comparable to marriage with the dude he wants to kill and Griffith didn’t just betray him, they betrayed each other and like half of Guts’ motivation is guilt/distracting himself from guilt.
The way his current situation, haunted by monsters claiming ownership of him after being given to them by someone he loves reflects his childhood so effectively.
I mean yeah part of what makes Black Swordsman Guts great is what the Golden Age reveals about him too, but I’ll still take Black Swordsman over the happy Golden Age version.
For one thing, when Black Swordsman Guts is a dick, the narrative is very clear on that being a negative thing. While when Golden Age Guts is a dick (eg most of his scenes with Casca) it feels like we’re supposed to find that at least somewhat endearing. And also like… I just really, really love the way Miura starts Guts out as strong badass archetype and then immediately sets about complicating it by answering the question of: what would make a real human person this fucking over the top and ridiculous? What’s actually underneath the cool image?
Like Guts goes from badass mccool 80s action hero send up to being directly compared to Vargas in terms of how sad and pathetic he is within a couple chapters, and it’s So. Good.
Answer to your second question under the cut
This question… is actually a very tough call lol. Like yeah okay the smart money’s on the character whose introduction didn’t include a gratuitious rape scene, but I genuinely love Femto regardless? Mostly because I disregard that choice of intro since it was um Badly Written lol, and Femto had me at
And I just love dark inner monsters as a concept in general despite the author’s reliance on rape as his primary illustration of evil.
On potential alone I’d go with NeoGriffith, because boy he is full of potential to be amazing depending on where those hints about his feelings, isolation of being a singular god, etc go. But what we actually see from him is like… so bland 99% of the time. Like yeah that’s purposeful, that’s a big part of the point, but still. He does feel like a shell of the old Griffith, literally – the outside with v little of the depth (so far).
I can headcanon and theorize a bunch to make him interesting to me, and I do, but idk if that counts lol.
So as for what we’ve got on the page and how seeing him makes me feel, I’m actually going to pick Femto. Like, the same way I inwardly cheered when we saw Guts’ slasher smile at Godo’s after he killed the pig apostle, because it was such a “he’s baaaaaack” moment, I cheered when we saw Femto confront Ganeshka. I love his stupid offensive camp villain makeup, I love his stupid exoskeleton, I love what a petty asshole he is, I love how silent and scary he was when he first appeared and I love how awkward and pathetic he was when he lowered his hand and let Guts escape, I love that he expresses emotions, I love that Void had to basically tell him to shut up during his petty back and forth with Guts in his first scene, and I love him partially out of spite because Miura tried to make me hate him in the shittiest way possible.
Like yeah okay put your super gay character in vampy makeup and make him a rapist to piss off the manly protag while writing out the woman you have no idea what to do with, fuck you I love him anyway.
I have a tendency to love the characters the narrative goes above and beyond to try to get me to hate, because I don’t like being told what to do lol, and if I feel like the narrative is pushing me to feel something without properly selling it/while poorly and/or offensively illustrating it I get contrary. Like basically the Eclipse rape only made me feel hate for Miura. If I hated Femto for it, then I feel like I’d be validating Miura’s bad and offensive writing.
Which is not to say I don’t fully understand and respect people who do respond to the Eclipse by hating Femto. This is just how I personally respond to fiction lol.
This is a topic and a half lol. Ok, I have many many thoughts, and I’ll try laying some out.
To start, I’ve seen the heacanon that his mother was a prostitute a few times and tbh it makes a lot of sense to me and seems v plausible.
But also I don’t really get any indication that he views sex as a way to control/own others, at least not pre-Femto. I’d actually argue the exact opposite, that throughout the Golden Age sex for Griffith is indicative of his own powerlessness relative to others. Sex, to Griffith, is something that he can trade to people more powerful than him for something in return – or something people take from him.
(I mean you can argue that seduction and trading sex for power/security/etc is a way to control people, but everyone Griffith does this with has more societal power than him and Griffith never pursues sex with them for its own sake, so to me the dynamic comes across as less rakish rogue using sex to get what he wants and more csa victim with a warped view of sex as something to trade for the things he needs.)
under a cut for length and yk the whole topic
Gennon was straightforward prostitution, plus Griffith was a literal child whose guilt was taken advantage of by a pedophile. And as Griffith’s first sexual encounter we see, it certainly sets a tone and establishes the beginning of a pattern.
Later, as a villain, Gennon’s goal is literally just to rape Griffith, and Griffith is very aware of this, since he incorporates it into his battle plan. There’s also some indication that he’s been overtly getting his creep on for years on end, possibly explaining how Griffith knew Gennon would shoot himself in the foot just to get to him:
So Gennon is both a sexual threat and someone with power who gives Griffith something in exchange for sex.
Charlotte is a princess he has to seduce to realize his dream.
And when he does have sex with her I’d argue that it’s basically an attempt to escape from his feelings (rejection, need, self-loathing, being in love with Guts) through refocusing on his dream (which is consistently his alternative to and escape from Guts), essentially irrationally trying to prematurely seal the deal on the “transaction.”
It’s the sex version of this:
And it also negates every scrap of power he clawed his way up to and lands him in a dungeon.
Next you have the torturer and his incredibly creepy suggestiveness, which makes Griffith’s sexual victimization here technically subtext, but I mean, “we were like husband and wife,” the Gennon-like fixation on Griffith’s beauty, the tongue thing, the uh speculum he was holding in his introduction… it’s not subtle subtext.
Then when Griffith makes a move on Casca in the wagon he’s offering himself to her because he’s entirely out of options and kind of desperately grasping at something, now sunk from trading sex for a kingdom to trading sex for a caretaker, painfully highlighting his complete and total lack of power at this point in his life, and the future he envisions should she take him up on that offer makes him suicidal.
So like, four out of four sexual encounters we’re aware of pre-Eclipse focus on his vulnerability and powerlessness, then he turns into an evil demon and expresses his newfound power and invulnerability(/frozen heart) thru rape. So yk, there’s a thread there to pick up theoretically.
I mean I honestly have a really difficult time ascribing any meaning
to the Eclipse rape beyond assuming Miura wanted a cheap + shocking way
to piss Guts off, write out Casca, and presumably get himself off
judging by how he drew it, but yk… take the rest of the Golden Age and
the general concept of Griffith’s inner darkness raping Casca, the last person he felt that sexualized powerlessness to, while
ignoring the depiction of the actual scene, and you can read some amount of depth/cycle of abuse stuff into it. That was probably at least part of the point, if I’m being generous to Miura and his writing.
(Really given the amount of content in Berserk that
revolves around sexual violence you can read a million things into the
Eclipse rape. But yk if Miura wanted me to do that, he shouldn’t’ve
treated it like a sudden detour into actual porn. Ok mini rant over.)
(Oh I should probably add that obviously Casca was in no way complicit in Griffith feeling vulnerable to her there lol and I’m not suggesting she bears any responsibility at all. Griffith in the wagon and his subsequent dream was basically him projecting a bunch of issues on her. I feel like that goes without saying but I want to cover my bases.)
Then you get NeoGriffith with his magically heightened literally untouchable, beyond the reach of man vs an army of monsters is basically in love with him stuff.
There is approximately 0 chance the placement of that “hunger and thirst” panel is accidental js.
But now Griffith has all the power. His beauty and magical sex appeal can be used as a tool without Griffith ever having to make himself vulnerable.
(Also speaking of using sex to control others… like I don’t think it fits human Griffith based on what we see in canon, but imo there’s plenty of room to explore that with NGriff.)
This isn’t a real threat, Griffith can just go “lol” and completely destroy him without breaking a sweat. Now Griffith has switched from he who is taken from to he who takes.
Like, the stakes of the Battle of Doldrey, for instance, was the threat of Griffith being captured as a sex slave. Some of the tension came from Casca’s suggestion that Griffith volunteering for the battle may not have been a rational decision, because his rapist is the commander of that army. We don’t learn Griffith’s full plan until partway through, there are cliffhanger moments during the battle chapters where Our Heroes look like they might lose, and the sequence is tense and nervewracking as a result.
The war against Ganeshka has absolutely no tension at all. There isn’t even a moment where the outcome is not absolutely certain. And that’s a strong way of showing that NeoGriffith may face the same threats he did as human Griffith, but he’s no longer vulnerable to them.
Uh I guess my point is basically that NeoGriffith’s kind of sexualized untouchability feels like a narrative response to human Griffith’s particularly sexualized vulnerability. Enemies and monsters still go on and on about how hot he is, but they can’t act on that now.
But there’s still Charlotte. Like, despite all this godly distance and inability to be harmed and pointed contrast to human Griffith experiencing sex solely as a bargaining chip or a weapon, he’s still gotta marry her to make his dream official.
I feel like it’s unlikely that Miura intends me to read their relationship like this, so it’s not gonna be addressed, but ngl it’s something I find theoretically interesting. Like I see a lot of people assume that NeoGriffith is going to like, murder Charlotte after they get married, and tbqh I think that’s generally stupid, but if there’s one angle you can look at the story from and conclude “yeah NGriff may just off Charlotte with extreme prejudice as soon as possible” it’s this imo. Not to prove how pointlessly maliciously evil he is lol, but because she still has a form of sexualized power over him.
But I think it’s more likely that NGriff doesn’t give a fuck anymore, or if he does he won’t admit it to himself, because he carved out most of his emotions and it’s gonna take more than that to get him to admit it didn’t completely work.
Also speaking of Charlotte there’s the whole like, heteronormativity and repression aspect while we’re talking Griffith and his relationship to sex. The related fact that he deliberately performs a certain image/makes himself a symbol. And I barely even mentioned Guts. Agh actually there is a ton more to say about Griffith + sex, but I don’t want this to be even longer lol.
So ok, those are my thoughts on Griffith + sex + power specifically.
I’ll just link you other stuff I’ve written which kind of covers a wider variety of topics re: Griffith and sex, if you’re interested.
Kind of a pretentious meta-y reason lol, this is one of my fave post golden age chapters because I feel like Sonia’s thoughts on loneliness are extremely relevant to NeoGriffith and whatever residual feelings for Guts he has, based on how Miura frames him here, and like, the themes of Berserk in general.
Yk, Sonia is lonely because she’s different from everyone else, she briefly bonds with her Guts’ narrative counterpart and misses her, we get a conversation with Irvine about how relationships humanize and isolation dehumanizes, we get our usual light = companionship, darkness = isolation imagery, and then Sonia dreams of her and Schierke in the moonlight. Followed by the page of NeoGriffith surrounded by darkness, alone under that moon.
So “A dream of a kite and an owl playing in a moonlit forest” is roundaboutly griffguts related as far as I’m concerned bc Sonia and Schierke seem like a v strong parallel to me, and I like being needlessly subtle w/ my references sometimes lol.
charlotte was a convenient plot point that allowed Griffith a quick trip to the throne via marriage, which would allow him to cruise on into being king without disrupting the royal structure or starting a revolution. Imo she doesnt have a firm characterization bc 1) miura sucks at writing compelling women and 2) her wishy-washy-ness and the fake superficial nature of her relationship with griff is a stark contrast to guts and griffs relationship – which id like 2 think is purposeful but lmao that was a stupid and long reply but
basically charlotte is a cloaking example of how ppl view the image
griffith projected, and now neogriffith – thru rose coloured glasses and
as an idea or concept rather than a real person. to charlotte he’s her
knight in shining armour, to the falconians he’s a saviour, to the old
band of the hawk he was a way to a better life etc etc
also charlotte has a
habit of ignoring or running away from the bad things in life. if she
were to find out about the truth with griffith, would she even care?
what’s her other option? locking herself up in a tower like she did with
her father? I doubt learning griff is a “monster” would change much
about him in her eyes, she already knows he kills ppl and when he talked
about it in his friendship speech she was basically like “oh griffith
that’s so disturbing” and then got over it lol
Yeah I agree w/ most of this (I mean tbf I find some of the women Miura writes compelling, despite giant writing flaws, but Charlotte is not one of them lol)
Charlotte really is like the ur-example of how other people see Griffith without really knowing him. I suppose that’s probably why people want to see the scales fall from her eyes lol. Even back during the Golden Age, he was assassinating her family left and right and she had no idea. Personally I’d find it much more potentially interesting for Charlotte to learn that he killed her uncle, cousin, and stepmother, but I think that ship’s kind of sailed.
And yeah by now like… she’s happily accepted that Griffith hangs out with an army of monsters. I’m pretty sure she could learn exactly what happened during the Eclipse, and if NGriff gave a fuck about keeping her on as an ally/queen at that point he could like, literally just straightforwardly tell her what happened and Charlotte would be like, oh okay. ie: yeah I sacrificed my friends and became an evil demon for a while but now I’m back to human, yk like how the apostles used to eat people but now they help humanity. You know how it is with personified inner darknesses.
lol I feel like I have more to say on this subject wrt Charlotte being the epitome of seeing the image but not the person beneath vs what happens if she finds out, yk like thematically, but I’m about to go to work so I’ll end this here and maybe write more about it later if I think of something worthwhile.
But, when Golden Age ended, Griffith’s character became too prominent
and I wanted him to fight with Guts in his usual form.
Storytelling-wise, if he was in his normal, unchanged form, and then
changed into his powered-up form, the opposition would be easier to
understand. Also, setting-wise, as Femto, the dimension on which he
operates becomes more distant.
ok so I hate this, I’ve argued against reading the appearance of Femto at the end of the Millenium Falcon arc as an actual transformation a few times because I think it just straight up sounds stupid
buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut I’m willing to admit that despite framing Femto as a ~final form~ being silly to me, it actually works better for my purposes if it is a literal transformation. because it’s more easily comparable to the Beast of Darkness.
Like reading the appearance of Femto as just the way ascended Ganeshka sees him seems more natural and cool imo, but it also equates NeoGriffith and Femto in a way I’m meh about, and that was always the downside. If it’s a transformation, then Femto is like NGriff’s Beast of Darkness – a personified inner darkness made into a weapon that he can call up and use. Making Femto and NGriff kind of distinct, and backing up my idea that NeoGriffith is more like human Griffith rather than just Femto in a nicer outfit lol.
lmao fuck I really do vastly prefer this idea when you downplay the whole powered up form aspect and emphasize the comparison to Guts’ armour. Like, the Beast of Darkness is Guts’ Femto, that’s not subtle. If Guts loses himself to the armour, there’s gonna be more comparisons, and this could be a great part of that.
I mean lbr the only difference is that the armour doesn’t require a sacrifice to use and also it’s probs not as powerful as yk being a demon demi god. But it’s essentially a magical artifact created so that someone can use the power of their own dark side, the way apostles and the godhand in a more epic way can, without having to trade away a loved one first (/be ordained by causality). And the story has been very very clear about Guts’ dark side being v comparable to Griffith’s lol.
Like… the more I think about it the more I’m actually into this concept. Depending on how it plays out. I mean it still could just be as shallow and stupid as an upgrade for a fight. But yk, it has potential as part of a pattern of man vs inner monster, human volition vs bestial rage, etc, that we’ve been seeing a lot with Guts and various apostles, as well as hitting that equals theme.
Still can’t think of much worse than a drawn-out fight scene tho lol. I want to have faith in Miura’s ability to make things much better than they sound on paper, but there isn’t enough faith in the world for that.
I was hoping you would make another post to respond to that ahaha.
Well what I actually meant is for Guts to kill Femto. Because Neo Griffith is apparently closer to a temporal illusionary image that appears in this world, just like.. Well, Neo. To actually kill him you should be able to go beyond the matrix, or as it was described in this case, go “outside” the story of the physical world. So even if NGriff is killed (which I doubt he would even mind) he would be still
existing as Femto in
the astral dimension. In order to bring the story to its ultimate
conclusion, Guts would prpbably need to face Femto in his true form. I
just can’t wait to see what happens from that point on… I hope Guts is
able to realize his revenge.
I think this makes sense as a theory but we don’t really have enough information right now about how the metaphysical world works in Berserk to confidently say what would happen if NeoGriffith was killed.
Like eg I’ve seen a lot of people who think that NGriff can change into Femto and that’s what he did when he killed Ganeshka, but imo we only saw him as Femto then because that’s how Ganeshka saw him, because he could see his “true” or “spiritual” or whatever form, because they were both ascended beings. But yk it’s all up in the air still.
I feel like Guts vs Femto on the astral plane would work in a different story with a greater focus on action, but Berserk is driven by complex emotions and relationships moreso than straightforward action so I feel v confident that the climax between them is going to have a strong emotional component. NeoGriffith has his inconveniently unfrozen heart, while Guts has his inconvenient mixed feelings, and I think both of those aspects are going to inform the climax.
I kinda figure that the big action sequence part of the climax is going to be Guts vs Zodd actually. I’d be surprised if we saw any actual physical fighting between Guts and Griffith/Femto/NeoGriffith, at least beyond a v emotionally-driven third duel kinda thing, along the lines of the second duel where the victor is decided by who’s less emotionally compromised.
Oh actually I do have one thing I can add about NeoGriffith, that I’ve been kind of thinking for a while but haven’t posted because it’s potentially controversial lol
But I think you could make an argument that NeoGriffith is… Griffith. As though transforming from Femto back into a flesh and blood body returned his whole range of emotions as well, basically if NGriff has the same emotional and psychological make-up of human Griffith.
Like, imo he is exactly what Griffith would be if:
he talked to god and god told him he’s not responsible for anything and everything he chooses to do is the correct fate-sanctioned thing to happen and he’s basically just a pawn
he spent a few years as a demonic embodiment of the dark side of himself and humanity, with the rest of his humanity stripped away
while he was that demon, he committed an unforgiveable and unjustifiable act of evil for no reason but spite
he is removed from the rest of humanity because he has another level of awareness/partially exists on another metaphysical plane
he made the choice to sacrifice everyone he loves both to achieve his dream and to cut out his heart because his feelings for guts ruined his life and sent him into suicidal despair
Like, basically NeoGriffith as Griffith in deep, deep, deep denial lmao, and finding it really easy to stay in denial because god gave him a thumbs up and he’s extra detached from his human emotions due to being a godlike entity with intimate knowledge of fate/the astral plane/his place in the world/etc.
I say this as someone who genuinely believes that human Griffith was more or less a good person. But I still think it would absolutely be in character for a Griffith who remembers being Femto to tell Guts he regrets nothing and then leave to do his thing.
So in this way you could say that NeoGriffith is the extreme fantasy story version of a dude who deliberately detaches himself from his own emotions for the sake of achieving a goal.
But to be clear I don’t think this is actually the case in canon.
I think NGriff probably actually has magically dampened emotions due to the sacrifice, and due to having magically transformed a few times most of human Griffith is genuinely lost, like we see him losing pieces of himself, and I don’t think he got those pieces back.
But like, I think NGriff kind of works on another level as not just the embodiment of the image Griffith portrayed, but how he maintained it, ie, by denying all his feelings. And I find the idea of NGriff as Griffith-in-extreme-denial really like… interesting and fun lol, in a headcanon way.
@bthump whew it’s been a while since ive talked berserk w/you but i had to reply cause this. this is so much more than a hc to me because i’ve always felt it HAD to be (at least semi) canon that neogriff HAS feeling but that he chooses to bury/ignore them instead.
‘it seems i’m finally free’ MY ASS.
femto was the emotionally distant one, or at least the ‘complete monster’ version of griffith that (could) truly rise above his mortal feelings and he still was acting out of spite over guts and casca and all that hurt he had to endure (partly/MOSTLY over them) when he was still human.
it blows my mind when people argue griffith now has no feelings when the whole driving force of the entire golden age and after when everything went to shit was because of the sheer depth of his emotions for guts because let’s be real that’s all we’re here for) and the fact that he tried (in vain) to bury them- which then caused them to come out later in uglier ways.
(there’s that quote by Freud right…)
“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”
AKA berserk: a summary.
I agree 100% with neogriff being in denial tho, like wouldn’t he love it to be free of his obsession with guts? wouldn’t the old griffith who had his heart more or less cut to pieces over his doomed love for guts give anything to be free of those feeling so he could pursue that dream of his that killed thousands? OF COURSE HE WOULD. but that’s not the reality of it. not even now that he’s gained this new body and his new kingdom.
like there is no doubt in my mind that consciously or subconsciously everything neogriff does or will do plot-wise is not going to at some point be overshadowed by his eternal longing for guts.
and anyone who disagrees can fight me.
If he did lose parts of himself that’s only right, like a dark reflection of guts who continuously tries to rid himself of whatever’s left of his love for griffith that could stand in the way of him absolutely destroying him. (i mean- counting the parts before the happy boat trip from hell. like- when things were still, yknow, good.)
and yeah maybe there is ancient demon magic sealing griff’s heart from unwanted emotions that could stand in the way of HIM achieving HIS goals but like- didn’t it throb tho- bthump– when he saw guts again? even if it’s at 0.01% capacity I’LL TAKE IT. It’s enough, even if it’s a sorry remnant of everything there used to be i’m sure eventually it’ll be enough to fuck up all his plans, i mean with his invulnerability now honestly what else could cripple neogriff now other than his heart itself? SO POETIC.
(also i remember when ppl used to send you song recs?? they were so good man i made an entire playlist. here’s another one: say it right by nelly furtado ‘oh you don’t mean nothing at all to me’ ugh so perfect for this little piece of meta, i listened to it on repeat typing this lmao)
Oh yeah I mean like, I 100% believe that NeoGriffith still has some emotion lol, I’d be willing to bet real money that we’re headed straight to a reveal that he’s not nearly as over Guts as he wants to be. But I think that canonically he’s somewhere between “Griffith in turbo denial mode” and “totally emotionless shell.”
Like, dude is going to do something irrational when Guts shows up again. That’s just how narratives work man, it’s gotta happen. I’ll join you in that fight lol. So I completely agree with you.
Also ty for the rec, it totally works for me. and lol ikwym the recs ppl sent me made my berserk playlist like twice as long, it’s gr8.
Oh actually I do have one thing I can add about NeoGriffith, that I’ve been kind of thinking for a while but haven’t posted because it’s potentially controversial lol
But I think you could make an argument that NeoGriffith is… Griffith. As though transforming from Femto back into a flesh and blood body returned his whole range of emotions as well, basically if NGriff has the same emotional and psychological make-up of human Griffith.
Like, imo he is exactly what Griffith would be if:
he talked to god and god told him he’s not responsible for anything and everything he chooses to do is the correct fate-sanctioned thing to happen and he’s basically just a pawn
he spent a few years as a demonic embodiment of the dark side of himself and humanity, with the rest of his humanity stripped away
while he was that demon, he committed an unforgiveable and unjustifiable act of evil for no reason but spite
he is removed from the rest of humanity because he has another level of awareness/partially exists on another metaphysical plane
he made the choice to sacrifice everyone he loves both to achieve his dream and to cut out his heart because his feelings for guts ruined his life and sent him into suicidal despair
Like, basically NeoGriffith as Griffith in deep, deep, deep denial lmao, and finding it really easy to stay in denial because god gave him a thumbs up and he’s extra detached from his human emotions due to being a godlike entity with intimate knowledge of fate/the astral plane/his place in the world/etc.
I say this as someone who genuinely believes that human Griffith was more or less a good person. But I still think it would absolutely be in character for a Griffith who remembers being Femto to tell Guts he regrets nothing and then leave to do his thing.
So in this way you could say that NeoGriffith is the extreme fantasy story version of a dude who deliberately detaches himself from his own emotions for the sake of achieving a goal.
But to be clear I don’t think this is actually the case in canon.
I think NGriff probably actually has magically dampened emotions due to the sacrifice, and due to having magically transformed a few times most of human Griffith is genuinely lost, like we see him losing pieces of himself, and I don’t think he got those pieces back.
But like, I think NGriff kind of works on another level as not just the embodiment of the image Griffith portrayed, but how he maintained it, ie, by denying all his feelings. And I find the idea of NGriff as Griffith-in-extreme-denial really like… interesting and fun lol, in a headcanon way.
said:
What are your thoughts about the current Griffith? In my eyes he has
become like the Snow Queen – Beautiful, yet cold and empty. Practically
unable to experience emotion and lacking in any humanity. A pretty
doll. A shell. A walking facade. What do you think?
My answer to this ties into the other thing you asked me to expand on, re: Griffith and contrasts, so I guess I’m just kind of doing both answers at once.
Basically I agree, but I think there’s more to NeoGriffith (ie post Femto, resurrected, godlike Griffith) than that.
Griffith as a human is so interesting to me in part because he’s full of contrasts, which is one of those hooks that really get me interested in a character. And those contrasts mostly stem from this attitude right here:
He hides away all of his weaknesses, his negative thoughts, the truth of what actually drives him on (guilt), his self-loathing, even from himself. He smiles and portrays an image of perfection so well that he essentially believes it himself most of the time.
So you have things like the Promrose Hall speech, where he’s fully embodying that image of himself:
vs Casca’s flashback, which is a glimpse of his darker, much more fucked up self underneath, and directly contradicts the above:
So you have the contrast between the perfect leader, the guy who can take down an army of 30,000 with 5,000, the guy who waxes poetic about how great dreams are, the guy who is this fucking cool while burning a queen alive:
And the guy who self-harms after prostituting himself to a pedophile to prevent as many deaths of his followers as possible despite claiming he doesn’t feel responsible for them, the guy who falls to pieces and destroys his own life when Guts leaves, the guy who hates himself and desperately wants to be told he’s not a monster:
And both are Griffith. Griffith isn’t just faking his confidence, he genuinely is that confident. He genuinely believes that his dream is a worthwhile pursuit in and of itself, and he can’t call any of his followers friends because they’re clinging to his dream rather than finding their own dreams.
He’s portrayed that image so fully that it’s a real part of him. But at the same time, sometimes it shatters and reveals the exact opposite underneath: the self loathing, the fear, the fact that he’s in love with Guts and has nearly lost his dream because of that love multiple times (ie nearly dying while trying to save him from Zodd, burning his own life down after Guts leaves, even going back and rescuing him personally that first week).
And that brings me to NeoGriffith, because what NeoGriffith is, is that image, and only that image, with none of the very human weaknesses behind it.
He’s described as a painting, as untouchable, etc, like fifty million times.
He’s basically become the impression he used to leave people with.
If Griffith contradicted himself – confidence vs insecurity, conviction vs self loathing, unwaveringly pursuing his dream vs Guts making him forget his dream, etc – then NeoGriffith is one side minus the other. Confidence, no insecurity, conviction, no self-loathing, the dream, no Guts.
And it’s uncanny too. He’s pursuing the dream, but he’s no longer motivated by his very human feelings of guilt (and also fear/insecurity, which we’re shown here:
I got this whole argument about dreams in Berserk being essentially shitty coping mechanisms lol, which I won’t get into now but is worth mentioning as another aspect of human Griffith that NeoGriffith lacks)
He’s lost his human flaws, and that makes him kind of disturbing imo, because those human flaws drove him, and now he’s driven by nothing, he just is.
And, just as a side note, it’s also worth noting that Femto is the other side imo – the self-loathing, the insecurity – in the sense that Femto is the embodiment of the monster Griffith believed himself to be deep down, the monster he believed Guts saw him as too, after this exchange (and then Guts leaving):
I mean it’s ultimately the final puzzle piece that makes him agree to the sacrifice:
And I 100% believe that NeoGriffith is referencing that here with his “you, of all people”:
So like, tl;dr Griffith is a land of contradictions, and that’s embodied in 2 magical fantasy transformations that make those disparate elements of him literal personifications.
NeoGriffith is the side of himself that he showed the world as a human, stripped of his humanity, and Femto is basically a personification of his own self-loathing, in which he became everything he feared himself to be, everything Guts failed to tell him he wasn’t.
But this is just like, the thematic take lol. This is what I think NeoGriffith essentially represents. But it’s also more complicated than that, because
But when it comes to like, NeoGriffith as a character, rather than a construct, who potentially still has emotions and ties to his previous life, I guess I’ll leave you with links because I don’t really have much new to say:
Basically I think there’s plenty of indication that Griffith failed to entirely purge himself of emotion and isn’t quite the serene image of perfection he seems.
Yes that would be great!! Tbh I hope the next few chapters will have some hawks interactions and not just battle stuff
Right on! The faceoff against Gennon was def more satisfying considering everything, then the millennium arc ending is good imo but almost feels too big, if not for an emotional part like that..
Of course! Idk if links embed here in the replies (like for preventing bots) so I could send them w the message function or w/e works best for you!
i think it’s only asks that won’t let you send links, either replying or messaging should work.
yeah if we’re going back to Griffith’s narrative I’d love to see more relationships and emotional stuff than just monster fights, and more revealing glimpses into the apostles lives would be fantastic.
and ikwym, I think the final confrontation between griffith and ascended ganeshka was interesting, but mostly in like a metaphorical way and because it made me really interested in the possibility of getting into what it means for NGriff to be “the absolute, without equal,” ie, the inherent isolation and loneliness that we saw with Ganeshka. I don’t actually care all that much about like… the actual literal breaking the world open plot stuff lol.
100% agreed on the new hawks! Tbh I like their parts of the arc most.. ch194 where Mule is introduced to most of em and Grunbeld saves the kids from being eaten, 250 when Sonia and Irvine talk, 277 where Grunbeld & Locus go for a walk and wish luck to Zodd before he goes to battle AND Sonia gives advice and calls him Mr Black Lion, details like Mule squiring for Locus later etc.. lov that they develop their relationships, just wish there were more bits like these :’)
The part abt Ganishka
and Gennon is brilliant tbh!! First thing I thought after is how they
both see Griffith as much more important than he sees them.. like for
ex. When it happens, Griffith & Ganishka don’t meet as emperor vs
emperor but as godhand and apostle… Their own parallels are rly
interesting, so I like all the au variants a lot, thank you!!
Also I have some summaries for the Grunbeld novel that tell the basic
plot & stuff. I hope it gets an English ver soon
yeah I love all those moments. plus the way the apostles are given so much relatable humanity gives me a lot of hope for where the narrative is going, both because it def makes it less likely we’re headed for a plain old guts + co vs griffith + co, and because giving Griffith’s monster side of the narrative all the humanity makes me hope we’re going to get some more monstrousness out of Guts’ human side of the narrative to balance it out.
ty! and yeah that’s a good point – both G+G are obsessed with Griffith, but to Griffith they’re obstacles. I mean I think Gennon did have a huge affect on him, but he had his (really satisfying) moment of triumph when he looked down on him and told him he didn’t matter. Then with Ganeshka he follows that through, because he’s an untouchable god compared to him, but also reverses it, because at the end right before Griffith destroys him, they have a moment of connection.
btw would you happen to have a link to the Grunbeld novel summaries?
yk what’s great about berserk
it’s not just the story of two dudes obsessed with each other and trying to deal w/ that obsession in various stupid ways
it’s the story about a dude whose every plot relevant decision is based on how he thinks another dude feels about him
joining the hawks? dedicating his sword to him and feeling at home? deciding to leave the hawks? deciding to stay again but too late? war declaration followed by a three year monster murder spree? deciding to try really hard to get over his obsession and take casca to elfhelm?
like, when it comes right down to it, griffith’s feelings are the really important ones. they’re the feelings that drive the plot, because guts’ every fucking decision is made based on what he thinks those feelings are. that’s why the golden age revolved around them, and that’s why the current big mystery is “how does neogriffith really feel?”
from back in the black swordsman arc:
to the current decision he’s still on:
and that’s another reason I think NGriff’s beating heart is going to become very relevant to Guts eventually. it’s what berserk is about.
like the ~academic~ way of putting this is that
Berserk is the story of a man’s desire for interpersonal connection due to his abusive childhood, but that keeps coming back to Griffith. He’s the connection Guts wants and later doesn’t want to want. The true light every other light is measured up to.
So yk Berserk is a story about a dude whose motivation is almost solely based around another guy’s apparent feelings or lack thereof for him.
Well there’s no proof, in the sense of like a definitive statement, because I think the point of NeoGriffith’s narrative right now is that it’s ambiguous. We’re being teased with the possibility, but Griffith is using the fetus as a scapegoat and excuse to ignore his feelings, and it’s technically left up in the air as to whether that’s true or whether Griffith is in denial. The reader is meant to be uncertain right now.
That said, I’m gonna give two reasons I’m 110% certain NGriff’s feelings are legit:
the first is straight up the entirety of Berserk lmao. Guts and Griffith’s feelings for each other are the core of the story, the driving thrust of every aspect of the narrative, from the Black Swordsman arc’s climactic reveal of those feelings, to the Golden Age’s exploration of them, to the Millenium Falcon arc’s tension as Guts tries to let go of those feelings and NeoGriffith’s feelings are left very pointedly ambiguous.
Like, even when Guts chooses Casca in the MF arc, his choice to stick with Casca is framed as the alternative to his feelings for Griffith. Those feelings drive Guts, whether it’s in feeling like he’s found the place where he belongs, striving to feel like he’s earned Griffith’s friendship, striving to hunt him down and kill him, or striving to escape his feelings.
You cannot write a story about those feelings, make Griffith’s choice to escape those feelings the epic climax of his narrative, then tease that those feelings may still exist only to go ‘psyche it’s actually just the unrelated feelings of a fetus.’ You can use the fetus to keep things ambiguous until the big reveal, but you can’t have the fetus be the reveal. it would be comedically absurd.
But the second reason is the visual details of two scenes:
Femto, completely pre-fetus, letting Guts go. These are Griffith’s feelings, maybe not entirely wiped away because Guts managed to survive the sacrifice, but for whatever reason, they’re there, and they’re still making him do irrational stupid shit for Guts.
We know Femto didn’t let Guts escape because he needed two people w/ brands of sacrifice and a fetus as part of a grand plan to resurrect himself three years later because we see that he has intent to kill. He tried to kill Skull Knight who narrowly dodged the telekinetic attack, and he’s raised his hand to attack again here, only to lower it after a close up specifically of Guts, the dude Griffith does stupid irrational shit for.
Then we close this moment with a distant shot of Femto from a high angle (used to make the subject appear weak/small/vulnerable) as a smear on the background, surrounded by monsters, perfectly evoking a feeling of isolation. This is what Griffith is left with after purposefully destroying his relationship with Guts – nothing but his own monstrousness.
This moment is followed through subtlely but consistently throughout NGriff’s narrative, in the way he’s portrayed as unknowable, distant, singular. He’s the absolute, without equal, and, in the context of Berserk’s themes, that’s just a grandiose way of saying he’s alone after sacrificing Guts.
The other of the two scenes is:
NeoGriffith has come to see Guts specifically to test whether anything can shake his heart. “It seems I am free,” he declares smugly. Then he watches Guts fight (and it’s v worth noting that his very first entranced glimpse of Guts back in chapter 12 was while observing another fight against a bigger stronger opponent, Guts throwing himself into danger then struggling his way out), and feels his heart start to stir after all.
“uhhhh that’s gotta be that fetus” thinks Griffith. Next page:
Like, everything about this says Griffith is lying to himself, at least where Guts is concerned. This is the page that inspired my url for a reason lol.
The positioning – Griffith left, fetus vs Guts right. Fetus is Griffith’s thoughts/hope, Guts is what’s right in front of him in reality.
The fact that this is the final page of the chapter, so it has a feeling of conclusiveness to it. Griffith is a champ at denial, but reality is still reality.
the “……..” “bthump,” that practically reads like a taunt.
The fact that Griffith deliberately came to face Guts to test himself, then his heart went off! Like I said at the start, there’s no way you make these dudes’ feelings the core of Berserk, have Griffith fail his own test of whether he successfully got rid of his, then say “lol it’s not really his feelings though.”
Liiiiike from a pure storytelling perspective, this scene is emotionally pointless if it ends up being the fetus after all.It may be significant to the plot eventually – I wouldn’t be surprised if it is to blame for Griffith saving Casca, even if I think that’s dumb as fuck lol – but the emotional purpose of this scene is to tease the audience.
Guts is unaware of Griffith’s heart doing anything so it’s meaningless to his emotional state and decisions.
It’s only meaningful to the audience, and only because we are invested in Griffith’s feelings after the Golden Age – we want Griffith to fail his test. “I am free” is disappointing, “my blood should have been frozen” is intriguing.
Griffith has dismissed his feelings by blaming them on the fetus, and if he’s right, then this scene is meaningless to him.
And if it turns out to be the fetus after all, it’s meaningless to us too.
Also I feel ridic doing this lol but I have such a huge backlog of posts by now that it almost seems like a waste not to link some when relevant, so for ~further reading~ lmao:
hill of swords sets up the ideal climactic griffguts drama so perfectly that it’s ridic
Guts: conflicted because he desperately misses Griffith, the way he was back when all Guts wanted was for Griffith to look at him (value him, love him). He maintains his rage by separating Griffith now from Griffith then, and NeoGriffith’s existence makes it that much harder.
That same beating heart?
Griffith: has failed to completely eradicate his past self.
Like, that’s the two important emotional points this scene sets up: Guts conflicted about killing NeoGriffith because he’s reminded of human Griffith, and NeoGriffith evidencing human Griffith’s emotions.
You can’t write this without intending to pay it off by forcing Guts to square with the fact that there’s still some of his Griffith remaining in NeoGriffith. This absolutely requires a future moment where Guts and NeoGriffith confront each other and Guts realizes that NGriff is still in love with him.
Ofc this could lead to like, a final test of Guts’ obsession with Griffith which he then passes by killing him anyway or something like that. But if the narrative turns back to Guts and Griffith focused on each other rather than Guts and Griffith steadfastly focused on their goals in their mutual attempt to get over each other it could lead to some excellently hightened, resonant emotions during their final confrontation.
Plus it’s worth noting that Guts’ obsession with Griffith which he’s trying to drop is an obsession with killing him – that’s what leads him to darkness – while this conflict between Griffith now and Griffith then makes Guts forget his urge to kill. So yk, if Miura’s theoretical not super bleak ending involves Guts not succumbing to his inner darkness and urge to kill, this conflict might actually facilitate that happyish ending.
Or maybe this is irrelevant and it’s all the fetus anyway and NGriff is fully removed from human Griffith’s emotions so Guts can kill him completely sans internal conflict and then ride off into the sunset lol. Or maybe the perfectly on point emotional content is an accidental side-effect of just establishing NGriff’s plot-point weakness.
oh man. ok i’m sorry this is honestly a terrible answer, i got really carried away when it came to griffith lol.
i have a more thoughtful, meta-y answer to a similar question here and i’m linking it to sort of compensate for just answering this with a picspam lol.
under a cut bc it’s long.
Guts:
standing up w/ like 50 broken bones and marching up a staircase with his giant sword to try to kill his ex bc he said he’s beneath his notice:
this one might actually be my favourite guts character moment:
Guts finally getting close to moving on and recovering:
sums it tf up:
i wanted one moment that shows guts’ like, tender, caretaker side, and this is the most painful:
a purely self-indulgent choice bc i love that “he’s back” feeling so much lol:
and how could I not include this:
Casca
love the concept of casca being invested in the dream:
her proud smile here:
physically lashing out with her sword in a rage:
in a good au casca went on to lead the still-undefeated band of the hawks:
sure it’s ruined two pages later, but man i love her attempt at a last stand:
Farnese
i love her early black and white thinking tbh:
this is my favourite character establishing moment for farnese:
stabbing a demon tiger in the eye is probably my fave farnese moment overall:
Serpico
I love this early moment where he tells a dude he doesn’t even know his tragic life story while vaguely hitting on him and makes him uncomfortable:
like he’s a weird but enjoyable combination of diplomatic and offputting:
preventing guts from getting himself killed the same night he tried to kill him himself:
And finally a more dramatic, serious moment because the first three moments there rly don’t do him justice and I love his backstory:
Griffith (I will try to show restraint but I could spam almost every panel he’s in honestly)
I’m including Femto and NGriff:
what an introduction:
getting himself killed for guts:
somehow simultaneously maintaining denial while essentially confessing his feelings:
this:
but especially when paired with this:
there’s a lot to love about this scene but this is the best moment imo:
every single second of chapter 17 but let’s sum it up with this:
this whole exchange but especially this first panel here:
he just heard that he’s achieved one of the most important steps on the way to his dream and this is what he fucking does:
sorry but this is the coolest moment in anything ever:
again literally all of tombstone of flame really but let’s go with this moment in particular:
all of the second duel as well:
of course:
obviously the whole monologue but it always comes back to this:
fuckin ripping my heart out:
and again:
and again:
i’m gonna keep going like this:
The Moment Of Despair Is The Touch Of Guts’ Hand:
and then:
i’m sorry i really did mean to be more restrained than this lmao:
the entire moment of the sacrifice but i’m picking this panel to illustrate it:
can you believe:
OBVIOUSLY but this also includes Griffith blaming it on the fetus because that is so in character:
you, of all people:
aaaaaand let’s call it a day w/ this:
i fucked up. why did i stop at the golden age??? both those posts are clearly perfect set ups for this:
Seems like a fair take. I mean becoming Femto was very much shown as a rebirth – you could definitely say he was reborn into a new family, the godhand, to begin a new life. I always particularly loved this panel as an illustration for this ngl:
the very image of a newly hatched (evil) baby bird right there.
But yeah like, the chapter where the hand begins to unfold to reveal Femto is called “quickening” and the next chapter is “birth.” There’s no doubt it’s def a monstrous gestation thing.
Makes me wonder about NeoGriffith’s similar birth tbh. It gets a series of chapters titled “birth ceremony,” he hatches from an egg there too, rapidly grows from fetus to adult, etc.
Though we don’t know enough about NeoGriffith to conclude whether it means there’s significant differences between him and Femto/it’s another new start in a way. But I mean the parallels and contrasts between the Eclipse and the Conviction Arc’s shadow Eclipse were hammered through the reader’s head for a reason right? There’s got to be something to it.
vs
of only 10 chapters previous
I think it’s really cool that Berserk is basically taking this theme of darkness/light, isolation/connection, and portraying it on both an interpersonal scale and a like, grandiose cosmic scale.
With Ganeshka and Griffith the darkness is the isolation of being singular, unknowable even to oneself, and the light is another being existing on the same plane as you, seeing the world the same way as you, seeing you as you truly are. This sense of cosmic understanding.
With Guts and Griffith there’s nothing objectively grandiose or cosmic about it, it’s just a relationship between two dudes that fell apart and still haunts both of them. But their connection is meaningful enough to them that existing without the other is comparable to being a solitary eldrich abomination who can barely even perceive others.
Griffith’s existence as a monster “beyond the reach of man” is basically a symbol of choosing to isolate yourself rather than surrendering to the vulnerability of loving and being loved, and that’s underscored at the climax of the Millenium Falcon arc just as he achieves his dream (both through that moment of connection up there and through Ganeshka’s backstory of paranoia feeding into isolation which is placed right before that moment).
Like for real, all this untouchable, unknowable, eldrich abomination jesus figure stuff is essentially a metaphor for Guts and Griffith breaking up.
And like, I always get a huge kick out of this concept of playing with scales when it comes to interpersonal connection. This isn’t a groundbreaking thing, this is a relatively common fantasy friendship/romance trope – yk the world only gets saved after the couple confesses their feelings, love is the key to achieving X goal, a single person can’t do the magic thing but when their friends join/support them they can do it, Spock running away from his feelings for Kirk is a parallel to a godlike machine’s inability to understand emotion, etc etc etc.
And Griffith and Guts’ moments of connection are like finding the one being you can see and understand in a world of isolation, and losing that is like becoming a monster in a sea of darkness. See also: the Black Swordsman arc and the Berserk armour for a slightly more down-to-earth fantasy metaphor.
Huh, I’ve never rly seen that opinion tbh, maybe we hang out in different parts of fandom. Well, I’ve seen a few people expressing worry that Casca might forgive Griffith, but honestly if Miura writes that I will like, personally fly across the ocean to salt his garden. And I definitely don’t think it’s likely.
As for Guts… hm I’m just going to go all out and explain my take on Guts’ reaction to NGriff bc you gave me an opening lol.
I don’t think forgiveness for the Eclipse rape is on the table. But I definitely think his feelings towards NeoGriffith are very complex and he’s absolutely emotionally conflicted towards him, not just surprised by his appearance.
But yeah I don’t think his emotional conflict stems from wanting to forgive Griffith. What he wants is for Griffith to be or contain the version of himself that like, doesn’t require forgiving, because the only thing human Griffith did that hurt Guts was sacrifice the Band – and Guts never seemed to really blame him for that anyway.
Like when we’re talking about a dude who has undergone two (2) magical transformations and basically exists as three versions of himself, each with apparently very different internal emotional lives, it’s hard not to be conflicted about him.
Guts differentiates between human Griffith and Femto, and Guts does not hate human Griffith. We never ever not once see Guts direct an iota of rage towards Griffith as a human. Not even during the Eclipse, after he sacrificed everyone.
Very consistently, every time Guts thinks about human Griffith it’s with regret, sadness, a sense of loss. He regretfully thinks about Griffith kneeling in the snow like a million times, and never expresses anger about how Griffith sacrificed everyone and turned into an evil demon a year later. He thinks about Griffith among the dead Hawks during his run through memory lane, right after the Eclipse, and cries. Griffith is the most prominent shining light Schierke sees in his subconscious. Griffith is a part of the “campfire from those days” that still burns in his chest, and prevents him from being fully consumed by hate. etc etc.
He thinks about demonic-looking Femto when he’s feeling rage and hate, never human Griffith.
And I’m going to suggest that there are three main, related reasons that Guts feels emotional conflict in regards to NeoGriffith.
One is that it’s another change. Guts doesn’t know what exactly to expect from this third version of Griffith, who looks human again rather than demonic. He knows that he’s not “his” Griffith, because Skull Knight told him the fifth Godhand would incarnate, because he flew away from the Tower of Conviction on Zodd, and because the brand bleeds around him, but there’s a reason Guts rather desperately searches for a hint that NeoGriffith has regrets or feels remorse. Deep down he’s hoping that he’s closer to human Griffith than to Femto, basically, or that more of human Griffith is in there and reachable, or however you want to phrase it.
He lets Rickert hold him back from attacking until NeoGriffith directly says he’s free from his emotions, and then doesn’t actually try to strike until NGriff reiterates that sentiment with “I’ll not betray my dream. That is all.”
If NeoGriffith had feelings, if he felt regret, if he was no longer a malevolent demon, then Femto could be considered an anomaly that would carry sole blame for the Eclipse rape. Like, when we’re talking magical transformations that affect your mind as well as your body, the concept of blame is kind of nebulous. If NeoGriffith basically had all of human Griffith’s emotions and was horrified by his actions as Femto, and wanted to regain his relationship with Guts, then tbqh Guts would probably be able to go “oh well it wasn’t really you anyway.”
Yk, kinda like a Berserk fan who doesn’t consider Guts to be responsible for “the beast of darkness” assaulting Casca, but with the handy addition of a literal transformation. You can argue fictional moral philosophy wrt the morality of magically transforming into a monster and back again lol, but I definitely think Guts would seize the opportunity to write Femto off.
So, to split hairs, it’s less about potentially forgiving him, and more about potentially not holding him responsible. But yk, unfortunately for Guts NGriff turns out to be an apparently emotionless asshole who still won’t give him the time of day and says straight up that he regrets nothing, so that’s not an option for him.
The second reason is that, well, he looks like the dude that Guts felt such ridiculously intense feelings for that he rearranged his entire life and abandoned the people he considered his family just to feel like he was worthy of being his friend.
It’s a whole lot easier to feel rage against an aspect of someone you’re p much in love with when they look like a bona fide monster, rather than exactly like the person you love. You’ll even notice that, except in moments that emphasize the potential Guts has of following in his footsteps, Griffith’s face tends to be obscured or completely nonexistent when Guts thinks about Femto.
And the third reason is that he was already very emotionally conflicted over Femto. Femto raping Casca did not make him retroactively hate human Griffith, but his love for the man Griffith once was absolutely complicates his feelings with regards to Femto.
We see this in the way becoming a rage-fueled monster is framed as a temptation because he still wants to be his friend and equal, as per Griffith’s Promrose speech.
It’s also there in how Guts blatantly wants his attention and regard after everything.
He “threw away” Griffith’s love, so if he can’t have that then he wants Femto’s hate. He wants to be seen and acknowledged, even as a threat, so when Femto says that Guts doesn’t even register to him as an enemy, it pisses him off so much it gives him the strength to climb a flight of stairs with like half his bones broken and potentially-fatal pain in his brand, and swing his giant sword at him.
And we see it when he still thinks of him as a shining light in the darkness, despite everything.
Basically, on some emotional, irrational level, he still wants this:
Like, to reiterate, imo Guts’ emotional conflict isn’t about whether he can forgive Femto/NeoGriffith. It’s about the fact that Femto and NeoGriffith are both aspects of a dude that Guts had incredibly intense feelings for. They are distinct from Griffith but also inseparable from him, and that’s really, really hard to reconcile emotionally.
Hence, eg, a bunch of this maudlin shit:
Idk basically no I don’t think Guts is going to forgive NeoGriffith, but I do think that he is still very conflicted about him. He wants to want to kill him lol, but just as much, he wants to be seen by him, he wants his attention, he wants his love, he wants to be his equal, and he also wants to completely move on and just forget all his painfully fucked up and conflicting feelings towards him.
And I guess time will tell whether he achieves any of that.
tbh I don’t really think it’s a matter of NeoGriffith transforming into a more powerful Femto form. We saw him as Femto once, when he killed Ganeshka’s ascended form, and I’m pretty sure that we only saw him as Femto because we were seeing him from Ganeshka’s point of view. I don’t think he literally transformed, I think it’s like, his ~ethereal~ form that only other godlike beings can see. Maybe Skull Knight can see it too, idk.
Miura uses a very deliberate point of view shot to reveal NGriff-as-Femto for the first time, which is why I’m thinking it’s not a literal transformation.
But like, when it comes to power levels, idk. It’s all down to whatever Miura makes up, right? If Guts needs to defeat NGriff/Femto who has Femto’s telekinetic powers etc, Miura will make it possible by revealing magic Elf deus ex machina power up thing or something.
My hope though is that it doesn’t come down to a physical might against might thing, but rather, an emotional confrontation.
At the end of the day, even if NGriff is as powerful as Femto and Guts is no physical match for him, he still has the same weakness that resulted in Femto finding himself unable to kill Guts, and letting him go after the Eclipse. And NGriff calling off Zodd while his heart was unexpectedly beating. And Guts has his own, “the instant I saw him I’d forgotten my urge to kill,” thing.
Like this is a protag/antag relationship where both are conflicted and reluctant to kill the other, and have therefore been avoiding each other for like 200 chapters lol, and when you think of it like that I don’t think power levels are going to factor in much.
So to actually answer your question, the scenario I see to defeat NGriff/Femto, assuming he is defeated/killed eventually, is that Griffith fucks himself over once again because of the resurgence of his irrational, life-ruining emotions for Guts, fails to kill Guts when he should or fails to defend himself when he should or possibly does kill Guts and then has a breakdown at which point Casca can freely kill him.
you're the only one 