Tag: character: neogriffith

Hate to disagree with you NeoGriffith isn’t charismatic probably Charlotte later will notice and maybe Julius theyre the only ones that knew him in the Golden age. I was excited that NeoGriffith was rescuing Charlotte but it was boring you would’ve thought he would be spontaneous but he wasn’t every encounter he made it fun for Charlotte hopefully she’ll notice those small gesture. Using magic to make folks adore is what NeoGriffith is doing unlike before he got what he wanted at any cost.

Well we don’t know how much of his life and general existence utilizes fate/magic/whatever so that’s fair. 

Also I may not have phrased my response very well, because I def don’t think he’s acting just like an unchanged Griffith. And I totally agree that NeoGriff is super boring in comparison to Griffith in a way, because everything is easy to him.

But idk I think that NeoGriff is charismatic – like eg saying “i must ask, once again, your pardon, princess charlotte” when he rescues her is a ridiculously good line. His response to her army camp baking is exactly what she would’ve wanted to hear, he’s super pleasant and likeable, and we see the ways he makes himself that way with what he says and how he acts.

I guess the real question is whether he magically knows exactly what to say or do to get the response he wants, or whether it’s a mix of that and actual social skill, or whether it’s just skill but now that he’s an inhuman god who can’t be harmed he’s able to make full use of it without human weaknesses holding him back.

And it could be any of those options, so I don’t think you’re wrong, it definitely could be that he’s using god magic to do everything perfectly. I just prefer to think it’s 2 or 3 because it’s more interesting to me. If everything NeoGriff does is just going with the flow of fate and being able to see the future or whatever then I’d be disappointed because that’s super boring. But we know that he needs the help of his psychic to see the flow of battle, so he can’t be completely all-knowing, right?

Femto’s appearance Griffith before the eclipsed was so fragile and handicapped meanwhile his new form is muscular the opposite of what he was. Did he model himself after Guts because Guts is muscular and of course strong. They’re the Godhand supposed to look and be different than their human form. Femto lacks charisma which the old Griffith had he needs some magic to attract people it’s kinda sad if you think about it. Do you think Neo Griffith in his human form can transform into Femto?

I’m gonna answer this backwards.

I don’t think he can transform into Femto, but I think Ganeshka saw him as Femto because he’d ascended into a higher plane of existence, in which he could see NeoGriffith for what he truly was.

So when we saw him as Femto during the scene where he killed Ganeshka and broke the world, it was because that’s what Ganeshka (and probs Skull Knight) saw. Like his true spiritual form, kinda thing.

Femto is a dick, yes, but tbf NeoGriffith has a ton of charisma. The way I see it, Femto didn’t need to be charismatic because he was a god on another playing field whose only peers were other completely dickish and shitty gods lol, like, when you only have Slan, Conrad, Ubik, and Void to hang out with, there’s no point in being charismatic. But as NeoGriffith he has a reason to be charming. I’m sure magic/fate/whatever also plays a part, but I also think part of it is just his natural Griffith-ness coming back to the fore. NeoGriffith is like what Griffith wished he was – perfectly charismatic, the absolute perfect image of a perfect king. Human Griffith did pretty well in that arena, so it stands to reason that NeoGriffith retained that charisma, and is making use of it again, with the added perfection that comes from being a god incarnate.

I never really thought about Femto being modeled after Guts. In the Black Swordsman arc he’s swole as fuck lol but I think that’s just the art before Miura really figured out the vibe he wanted. Everyone was huge in the Black Swordsman arc lol. During the Eclipse he’s slimmed down a bit, and then moreso in our glimpse of him with Ganeshka. I think it’s an interesting explanation though, and I dig it as a headcanon.

And as a contrast to his fragile helpless human body when he made the sacrifice it def makes sense for him to be reborn as a much more powerful, physically intimidating figure.

Is Griffith feelings represed ? Like not sexual, but it’s obvious I meant emotional. He always crabs my attention I can’t figure him out quiet well, in all honesty. It’s quiet absurd to assume something about him yet he always does something that throws you off guard and make you speculate something different than what you thought you knew about him. Love him or hate him he’s one of kind, I truly want to see his bubble burst and see he’s emotions again he lost his magnetism and charisma as Femto

Pardon my bad writing English isn’t my language I’m not fluent, cheers from Ukraine.

Yes! At least that’s absolutely how I understand his character, and it’s like my favourite thing about him.

I get what you mean about Griffith being suprising, like if you assume something about him a later action will contradict it. I feel like to me he makes perfect sense, but only after reading the manga twice in a row and spending way too much time thinking about his narrative lol.

At face value he seems very contradictory because he tends to lie to himself, and the way he gets more complicated as the story goes on also tends to throw people off. Yk like we start out with this impression of him as a powerful charismatic leader driven towards a goal and willing to kill to get there, distant and above everyone else, but the more we learn about him – about his past and his insecurities and guilt and self loathing and feelings for Guts etc etc – the more layers we uncover, and the more we see that first impression is… not wrong exactly, but there’s a LOT more going on beneath the surface, and most of it is pretty depressing.

And like, he’s an unreliable narrator about himself, which can also make him hard to figure out. Imo Miura did a great job writing a character who doesn’t even understand his own motivations and emotions and making him understandable to the audience, but it’s still really easy to miss a lot of the complexities.

Also same! I really feel like we’re heading towards a big emotional reveal for NeoGriffith and I can’t wait.

tbh I’m thinking I might write a much more thorough meta post about his narrative/character soon. I want to talk about this more lol it’s like my favourite Berserk related topic. And it’s been a while since I got in-depth about something here, so keep an eye open if you’re interested!

Please make an analysis on Princess Charlotte she’s a crazy bitch she must be insane, after everything that she’s been through and she didn’t go all loco like poor Casca damn she can endure. Griffith fake facade about not feeling crap will eventually soon end by Guts son or him being pissed off things don’t go he’s way idk. I don’t like Charlotte x Griffith but it’s kinda cute lol, I’m such a masochist when it comes to Griffith ;(.. I just wanna see Neo Griffith interacting with Charlotte..

I don’t really have much to say about Charlotte tbh, nothing about her character really grabs me, but if anything comes to mind or she gets more meaty content in the story eventually, I’ll def write something. Though I don’t really think Casca’s reaction to trauma should be used as a benchmark for how strong anyone else is lol, because her reaction was v unrealistic and pretty much just Miura’s convenient way of getting her out of the way and explaining why she wasn’t around during the Black Swordsman arc despite being alive. I don’t think it means she’s suffered more than anyone else (she may have, but it’s not relevant), or that she’s emotionally or mentally weaker than anyone else.

Charlotte is pretty resilient though, totally agree.

Yeah I’m assuming we’re not far from seeing some revealing emotional NeoGriffith moments, after his interaction with Rickert, but we’ll see I guess. I have my doubts that it has anything to do with the magic baby, but again, we’ll see.

Though speaking of, one thing I can say is that I don’t think it will be a tantrum because things aren’t going his way. We’ve never seen that from human Griffith – when things get bad for him, he’s serene about it. He deals with people plotting against him easily, he uses something that could be very distressing (facing Gennon at the most important battle of the war) and turns it to his advantage, he faces Zodd with calm battle tactics and determination even when the odds of him succeeding are nil, when he’s captured after fucking Charlotte he reaches for his sword and then peacefully gives up when he remembers he’s unarmed, he smugly taunts the king after losing everything and being whipped, and the torturer even comments on how quiet and non-responsive he is during torture, at least during the first day or two.

The only circumstances we saw that made him lose control emotionally were sex with Gennon/guilt + self-loathing, and Guts-related stuff (including Femto failing to kill him and NeoGriffith’s heart going off).

So when NeoGriff does eventually show some emotion, my bets are on it being because of Guts.

I saw Griffith haters saying that the whole world is in complete chaos because of the merging of the astral and physical worlds, forming Fantasia. What Griffith’s doing is essentially the equivalent to poisoning the water supply in people’s city and sold them clean water. He’s just “megalomaniac and faker”

Enh, to be fair some warlock dude in Elfhelm kinda suggested this.

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Though I definitely think this is just, like, his opinion, man.

I think we’re getting two sides to this whole Falconia thing, and we’re meant to draw our own conclusions. Like, yeah Griffith’s country is the only chill place now, which is shitty, but on the other hand it’s also 50x better than the world was even before he flooded it with monsters, and it seems that his plan is to keep expanding it into an inclusive empire.

It’s not that NeoGriff is a con man or w/e, forcing people to buy his world peace, it’s that flooding the world with monsters is the only way to make people stop being shitty and work together in a nice utopia that values equality over social status, and it’s up to the reader whether the ends justify the means or not.

Plus it’s worth noting that this is what humanity wants. The Conviction arc was largely dedicated to showing us how shitty the world is. Nobles torture and torment peasants, outcasts are miserable, the holy see sucks, the heathens suck, plague everywhere, people starving, pretty much everyone except the richies is unhappy. Griffith’s new world order is essentially a response to all the bullshit we see up close and personal in the Conviction arc, a world where outcasts are welcomed, people are valued for what they can do rather than what family they were born to, apostles no longer eat people, no inquisitions, no discrimination that we see – like it’s fitting that the prostitutes from the Conviction arc return in Falconia as tour guides/organizers.

Griffith, as “the desired” of humanity, presumably fulfills humanity’s desires. Of his own free will and for his own maybe shifty reasons, but free will and fate are not mutually exclusive in Berserk – people’s choices always play into fate’s hands. The Idea of Evil told him he’d either save or doom humanity by doing whatever the hell he wants. I kind of assume this means less saving/dooming the world and more a metaphysical Jesus-y saving/dooming people’s souls – or quite possibly saving humanity from themselves or dooming them to more of their own subconsciousness dicking with them. You know, either getting rid of the Idea of Evil by shaping humanity’s point of view, or dooming them to continue having their mass subconscious manifest in a malicious entity who controls fate.

That’s just a theory tho, we don’t really know what the Idea of Evil means afaik, and even if I’m right I have no idea if what NeoGriffith is doing is more likely to save or doom humanity lol. Or hell maybe he’s on the road to “dooming” humanity but, similar to how letting Guts go kicked off the series of events leading to his rebirth as NeoGriffith, something in his faulty, Guts-obsessed demon soul is going to cause him to do something unexpected and better/freeing for humanity. /more theorizing

ANYWAY all that said I actually fully expect Miura to come down more on Guts’ side, since he is the protagonist and all. Personally I’m into Falconia, I like the whole ‘can’t make a utopia without breaking a few eggs’ thing, but since Guts, on a more philosophical level, represents free will and raging against fate and struggling against your situation while Griffith more represents being saved by someone who comes along and makes your life easier (i think), and Berserk is all about The Struggle, I think there’s an undertone of it being better to suffer in an uncaring world than to have a happy easy life in a utopia.

yesgabsstuff:

phydia63:

kabutots:

Berserk Fandom

guys, I need your help with something

I’m doing an essay in my Comp class and I chose to argue that people shouldn’t say “Griffith did nothing wrong”

I’d like to get a little survey done, so could you reply to this post saying “Griffith did everything wrong”, “Griffith did some things wrong”, or “Griffith did everything wrong”?

I won’t judge any answers and you don’t have to explain your viewpoint, just please help me out with this?

tl;dr: I need feedback to see how split the fandom is over Griffith and his actions for an essay

(please help, I’m begging you)

It’s a redundant topic since Berserk is about grey morality and Griffith definitely did wrong and bad things, so I guess my answer would be “Griffith did some things wrong”.

Griffith did some things wrong.

i feel like ‘griffith did nothing wrong’ is a purposefully inflammatory meme more than anyone’s earnest argument. like i hang out with a lot of griffith fans and i’ve personally never seen anyone genuinely argue that griffith did nothing wrong, even if you don’t include femto in that.

until now!

griffith did nothing wrong – because in the world of berserk he has divine right, his choices and actions have been predetermined by the world’s god, which fulfills humanity’s subconscious desires. griffith is the chosen saviour or doomer of humanity, chosen by humanity’s god, which is a manifestation of the collective will of humanity, and therefore everything griffith and femto and neogriffith does is humanity’s will.

nothing he can do is therefore wrong within the context of Berserk’s reality, because everything he does is what must happen according to God.

I mean from this perspective you can argue he did some things wrong from a moral standpoint bc he’s basically the avatar of humanity and humanity is kind of fucked up. but yk from a purely fictional theological standpoint, griffith/femto/neogriffith is doing everything exactly right.

(disclaimer: griffith did some things wrong, femto is an evil monster, and neogriffith is mysterious but also kind of a dick by any standard of logic or morality.

my 100% earnest answer for your survey is Griffith did some things wrong.)

Oh yeah, Griffith being dead will effectively kill his potential redemption, pun maybe intended, and I’ll be really sad and disappointed.

I feel like it’s a pretty sure bet that at least his feelings for Guts survived the various transitions, but yeah I’m still waiting to find out how much of a relation NeoGriffith has to human Griffith. I don’t really think he’ll be technically redeemed either way, especially since his narrative seems kind of outside conventional morality what with Berserk’s take on God and religion and Griffith being the saviour of humanity etc etc, but the more of human Griffith, his feelings and character etc that remains, the better and more cathartic an emotional climax to the Guts and Griffith story is going to be, so yeah. I need that.

Like if he’s totally inhuman and all human Griffith’s feelings are dead and buried and it’s just fetus feelings left, the emotional catharsis can only be one-sided on Guts’ side, and meh. I’m seriously invested in NeoGriffith revealing some remaining emotional depth, and if he does it’s going to be amazing.

But lines like “my blood should have been frozen” and “this is the crystalization of your last tear shed” seem to hint at Griffith’s lingering emotions with the potential to be reawoken imo, so I’m assuming eventually that’ll get some good payoff.

madchen
replied to your post “madchen
replied to your post “ok the chapter where neogriffith’s…”

i see people actually insist that like “nooo griffith made it clear it was the fetus making him feel stuff sweetie :)” and its just. i get the writing and irony or whatever behind thinking that but its sloppy and easy and not emotionally satisfying. or maybe it is for freaks who hate griffith idk.

i’ve seen people insist that griffith made it clear he doesn’t feel guilty lol, so many berserk fans have like negative reading comprehension

like with the fetus idk, maybe i could see an argument that it’s ironic? like lol griffith thought he’d escaped feelings but now something else’s feelings, which he’s responsible for creating during the eclipse, are fucking him over again, serves him right. maybe the idea of evil is punking him or smthn. but yeah it would still be sloppy, emotionally pointless writing lol.

tbh even if the fetus is only forcing him to save casca i feel like… it’s unnecessary. one of my major writing pet peeves is when you could explain something thru organic characterization and development you’ve already established, and instead you decide to explain it through artificial means like magic/brainwashing/physical changes to their mind/whatever.

if neogriffith’s blood is unfrozen, well, we don’t know what that means exactly, but one thing it could mean is that he’s reverting back to human griffith in mind. because he’s on another plane of godlike awareness he’s never going to be entirely human griffith again, but if miura tells me that human griffith’s emotions are unfrozen or w/e then I would absolutely believe it would fuck him up and make him do irrational things without thinking, like save casca from rocks. and i’d believe that griffith would deny it to himself and continue acting cold and aloof, bc lol it’s griffith, now re-dedicated to his dream with godlike powers and memories of being a monster and choosing to sacrifice everyone he loves, obviously he’s going to deny and repress whatever he’s feeling.

you don’t need the additional step of magic baby possession to justify it, it just takes away from all that excellent character work we already have.

like ok i’ll take the baby possession when it comes to his reaction to casca if it ends up being true, fine, but i absolutely refuse when it comes to his feelings for guts. that just crosses a line.

ok the chapter where neogriffith’s heart starts going off

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visible exhale of breath as the fight begins

eventually guts kicks a sword through zodd and gets thrown back

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this is rickert’s commentary, but it reminds me a lot of this

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and immediately following that panel ngriff’s heart starts making itself known

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denial followed immediately by one of the best pages in the manga, as though in counterpoint

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the composition of those final 2 panels is interesting

ngriff on one side, fetus or guts on the other. who’s to blame? well, the first is neogriffith’s thoughts, the second is neogriffith’s reality.

whether the fetus is responsible for neogriffith impulsively saving casca for no reason is whatever. it seems entirely possible to me that we can blame the fetus for that. neogriffith thinks the fetus is fucking with him, and maybe he’s partially right.

but when it comes to blaming the fetus for making his heart stir here instead of blaming his very own feelings for guts, the visuals just don’t support it.

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speaking of great moments

the view of griffith from behind and cut off at the eyes – his feelings hidden from guts, the audience, himself

contrasted to guts’ feelings at the forefront on display – guts’ ‘gh’ like the words, the apparent acknowledgement are a physical blow. ntm the way he holds himself back until griffith confirms – twice – that he feels nothing. hope is painful, and even worse when it’s given and then ripped away in like 30 seconds

if griffith remained serene i’d suggest that his face is largely hidden for the impact of ‘i am free’ and i think that’s part of it, but since his heart starts beating as he watches guts fight (in an echo of the very first time he saw guts in that courtyard js) i def think that this is a nice visual set up for neogriffith’s emotional ambiguity. we’re on the outside looking at a mysterious blank page, even when we’re in neogriffith’s thoughts – because griffith himself doesn’t understand his own heart.

today i was at work and thinkin bout how good the potential inherent in guts and neogriffith’s hero/villain relationship is tbh. like the tiny glimpses we’ve seen so far (ngriff’s heart beating, guts’ complicated feelings, eg) + the foundation of the golden age backstory = solid fucking gold in theory

complicated angsty hero/villain anger and rage + regret and desire and loneliness, and w/ neogriffith his godliness + potential latent humanity

like these are all things i adore to pieces. singular godlike figures brought down by human feelings (love lbr). vengeful rage complicated by love. destructive, life-destroying love and obsession. ppl incapable of understanding their extremely powerful feelings. regret for lost potential and the mistakes that led to ruin. prominent shifting power dynamics – the whole basis of their relationship being a desire to be equals, each feeling at points inferior to the other, then one of them becomes a literal demigod but the need for equality (and thus, friendship) is still there, like, fuck that’s good stuff.

one obsessed and one who cut out his obsession, sloooowly switching places as guts semi-successfully attempts to move on and griffith starts succumbing to his beating heart. ofc guts can’t truly move on or there’s no story, but the opposing character trajectories are perf.

ooh and then you got the whole thing where one has fully succumbed to his inner darkness and is essentially a monster, but with glimmers of humanity, and the other is a human being pulled under by his inner darkness and struggling with it. complete with fun shining beautiful saviour/near-monstrous warrior imagery.

and the fact that at first it was his feelings for guts that lead to griffith succumbing to the darkness, and guts’ feelings for griffith that uplifted him, in turn giving him a home and then spurring him on to better himself. and now it’s potentially his feelings for guts that lead to neogriffith evidencing signs of humanity, beating heart etc (”he was the reason i’ve been thrown into darkness, and now he’s the sole sustenance keeping me alive” anyone?), and guts’ feelings for griffith that pull him towards monstrosity.

like just imagine the two of them finally brought together again with all this build-up behind them, fueling their confrontation. imagine all these teasing glimpses of mutually complex, contradictory, intensely powerful feelings really coming to fruition.

the set-up is dead on for an absolutely ideal hero/villain dynamic, and you know miura theoretically has the character and storytelling skills to make it amazing bc we all read the golden age.

Why do you think Neo-Griffith trying to deny the Eclipse? He even replaced each Hawk member with people similar to the old one in the Band of the Hawks. Neo-Griffith claimed that he’s “free”, but his actions speak otherwise. Is he afraid that he will feel guilty if he didn’t live in denial? Rickret’s slap surly force reality on him, and snap him out of his denial. But why Neo-Griffith pre-Rickret’s slap, trying to deny the Eclipse and perhaps his wrongdoings in it well?

@mastermistressofdesire had a post about this that I loved (i think in answer to an ask) but I can’t find it now bc I suck at tag organization 😦

But basically I agree with most of what you’re saying, I feel like NeoGriff’s half of the story with the Neo Band of the Hawk and Rickert calling him out is perfect set-up for a reveal that he has more emotions than we can see. Idk if I’d say he’s denying the Eclipse by rebuilding the Band, but I could see it being a denial of him having changed – “You of all people should have known – this is the man I am. Nothing has changed.”

mmod in her post on the subject mentioned that NGriff forming a new Band of the Hawk and inviting Rickert along seems like an indication that he wants approval/vindication from the last remaining member of the Hawks. And Rickert pointing out the differences in the insignias and saying Griffith was his leader, not the “Falcon of Light,” while NeoGriffith’s only response is to quietly agree, seems really important.

Like it’s the only time we’ve seen NGriff at a loss for words and at a disadvantage. And it’s when Rickert says he’s not his Griffith. I could easily see NGriff having some identity issues after this scene. (Especially after seeing Ganeshka ascend to a higher plane and totally lose his sense of identity.)

I do kind of wonder about NGriff’s capacity for guilt. It’s all in question bc we’ve seen his heart beating but since then we haven’t had any insight into his internal thoughts, so he’s feeling something but we don’t know what. Whether part of it is regret or guilt, idk. Guilt was such an important aspect of original Griff’s character that it wouldn’t surprise me if that returned in some form, if his emotions in general have.

(Also while searching for that post by mmod I found a different conversation with her that’s p relevant to this ask too, if you’re interested.)

Same anon, different question. A friend pointed this out to me: everything Femto did negated everything good Griffith did, saving Casca -> raping her, forming band of the hawk -> destroying it etc. He didn’t do anything reprehensible and outright evil after coming back (yet). I don’t really know what that means tbh since it’s really vague, but it paints him morally grey rather than pitch black in my eyes.

Yeah I think Griffith + Femto is morally grey if you combine them into one entity (which… I guess is just saying Griffith is morally grey lol since Femto is his dark side unleashed or w/e). I’m v curious about how NeoGriff fits in. One theory I have is that if Femto is Griffith with all the “good” parts of his humanity stripped away, then maybe NeoGriff has the “evil” parts stripped away too, and all that’s left is like, a heart full of neutrality (and whatever feelings made him call off Zodd and save Casca from rocks), making him the perfect fulfiller of humanity’s desires.

bc you’re right, he hasn’t done anything malicious. He’s been darkly pragmatic in eg sending apostles after Flora, but that’s not really any different than Guts and Griffith assassinating the queen from his point of view.

Ofc NeoGriff could just be Femto in a human suit who’s gotten better at concealing his petty side, who knows?

Also wrt Femto negating Griffith’s good deeds, ia – I think especially the rape is meant to be a v direct contrast to Griffith saving her from attempted rape the first time. The movie even uses the same Casca point of view shot to make the connection painfully clear. Though I don’t necessarily think that’s deliberate on Femto’s part (tho it could be) so much as the narrative drawing a strong contrast between Griffith and Femto. Griffith was Casca’s saviour, Femto then destroyed her, that kind of thing. Femto was a part of Griffith, but always tempered by Griffith’s ideals and morals, so stripping that part of him away is shown by negating his good deeds.

There’s also the way he literally replaces the nobleman who tried to rape Casca – he says, “do you think you’re chosen by God?” to him when he saves her. Now it turns out Femto literally has been chosen by God. Coupled with Berserk’s cynical take on religion, God being the Idea of Evil, etc, you get the sense that divine right isn’t any better or more noble than the class system enabling predators.

But again NeoGriff is all about that divine right and he hasn’t done anything malicious yet so the ultimate message might end up being more complicated than that.

(also i just want to be clear that theorizing about why miura had femto rape casca during the eclipse isn’t me saying i think it was a good writing choice. it makes sense in context of berserk’s themes, but that’s bc casca’s character is defined by rape and rape attempts from beginning to end, which sucks)

How big do you think the timeskip will be after Guts and the others leave Skellig? It’ll probably happen since time flows differently there, but it can’t be too big. Maybe just enough for Falconia to get even bigger or something. Rickert could start a resistance movement? What do you think?

Yeah ia a time skip seems really likely. If I had to guess I’d say maybe 10-15 years?

If it’s like, a century then Guts would come back to Griffith running an empire as an immortal god-king, all the characters we know like Rickert and Charlotte and Silat etc would probably be dead, and I think it would change the tone of the story too much. Like yeah it’s an epic story, but at its core it’s about relatable characters, and if you start kiling those characters off for no reason other than to add to the epic-ness then it throws the balance off.

I could maybe see 50ish years, making Rickert an old wise mentor like Godo lol, and maybe aging Sonia so that she reminds Schierke of Flora? Could be interesting. But overall I’d probably prefer less time, that still seems like too much.

10-15 years gives Griffith some time to start acquiring his Gaiseric-esque empire, it’s enough time for the new fantasy reality of the world to change how things work and function, it’s enough time to Rickert to grow up and do whatever he’s doing up in the mountains with Silat and co (resistance movement sounds good tbh), enough time to make everyone sad (like say if Farnese’s parents died in the interim or something, or Isidro had a family waiting but not anymore), but it’s not so much time that the world Guts returns to is unrecognizable and without familiar touchstones.

Also just to be self indulgent for a sec, several decades is too long for NeoGriff to be chill and serene and doing his thing without Guts despite his unfrozen heart imo. It makes the whole beating heart that he blames on the fetus thing seem irrelevant if he can easily function for that long regardless. But a decade or so sounds like a perfect range of time for NGriff to start out serene, throwing himself into his empire etc and pretending he doesn’t care at all about Guts, only for the cracks to begin showing just as Guts is set to return.

Of course if he is able to put Guts out of his mind for 50 years until he’s standing in front of him, unaged, and then he has an emotional response, I’d still be okay with that. It’s just a little less fun to me.

chaoticgaygriffith:

bthump:

chaoticgaygriffith:

#griffith’s expressions here are so good omg #the way he looks fond and then tender but not really bc the coldness is conveyed loud and clear #not even like the expressions look fake just like there’s no emotion behind them #i mean maybe it’s a kuleshov effect kind of thing and i’m projecting bc i know neogriff is cold but idk man

@bthump OK I’m so glad you mentioned Griffith’s expressions here because I just love any excuse to talk about them

I actually saw some of them, especially the second one in that very post, as somehow … enjoying the pain he’s causing Guts? Relishing in the fact that he IS emotionless now, just like he wanted? (I mean, he isn’t, but he briefly thought he was.) That’s reminiscent of how Femto seems to treat and feel about Guts, but FA pointed out to me that he was surprised by his heartbeat too so him having come here not just to confirm if the freezing of his heart succeeded but also to taunt Guts doesn’t really fit?? And I’m always careful with reading too much into drawn expressions bc maybe the artist just didn’t manage to convey what they were trying to (or, more likely, I’m really bad at reading faces)

Thoughts??

Yeah I could see that – in the 4th panel on that post I was thinking that his eyes look like they should be conveying tenderness but the overall effect comes across as smug. In the 2nd pic I could def see it as him relishing the moment. Tbh even if NGriff didn’t consciously come to act like a smug dick in front of Guts and brush him off, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was a subconsicous part of his motivation.

I like to assume NGriff has about the same emotional self-awareness and ability to delude himself as regular Griffith lol, so even if he thinks he’s emotionless up til he actually notices his heart going off that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s true, especially since we can be pretty sure that Femto had emotions. (Tho how much of a difference there is between Femto and NeoGriff is still a mystery to me, so Femto’s emotional capacity might not be relevant? idk)

(ikwym about not reading too much into drawn expressions, I tend to avoid including stuff like that in analysis unless it’s super obvious because interpreting art and facial expression is so subjective both for the reader and the artist. But yk it’s still fun to speculate about lol, and Miura’s are often so good that it’s hard not to gush about them)

“I like to assume NGriff has about the same emotional self-awareness and ability to delude himself as regular Griffith“ LMAO that’s so true

Come to think of it this was mine and FA’s final conclusion too, I just completely forgot bc my brain is garbage. But yeah, while I do think the interpretation of Griffith’s emotions and motivations here is up for debate, I’m not so willing to let go of my “Deep down he wanted to hurt Guts (or at least enjoyed doing it)” way of seeing it bc I like the idea of Griffith caring way more than he’d like to admit, and especially caring way more than he even realises

Man I can’t wait to find out what’s been going on in NGriff’s head, because I genuinely do think we’re setting up for some level of ‘why tf can’t I just forget him’ emotionally compromised kind of thing. I mean maybe that’s just because it’s the #1 thing I want to see, but come on, the groundwork’s been layed so perfectly from their extremely epic past relationship in the Golden Age to the reveal that NGriff isn’t as serene as he’d like to be to how ambiguous and inscruitable he’s been since. I want the payoff so bad.

also I kind of want to re-watch that scene in the 2017 anime now bc it is surprisingly
satisfying to see NGriff actually looking like he hates Guts’ guts
instead of just the grating chill serenity.

Maybe this sound weird but what do you think of the people who say “I love Griffith because he’s super evil >:)” ?? Like I get why people hate Griffith but I think those Griffith “fans” miss out the whole point..

I think I pretty much agree – idk if I’ve really seen Griffith fans like this myself, but yk I’m sure they’re around.

tbh I feel like a lot of villain fans do this to avoid The Discourse about the ~evils of woobifying~ etc and I understand that. Fandom is fucking weird about moral purity rn and treating fictional characters as if they’re real people, and it’s hard in a lot of fandoms to talk about liking a villain without constantly putting a “BTW I’M NOT APOLOGIZING FOR THEM THEY’RE VERY EVIL AND BAD I JUST ENJOY VILLAINS” disclaimer up every time. So I sympathize w/ that urge. Fandom makes it hard to just enjoy characters without holding them up as either pure as the driven snow or irredeemably evil from birth.

But if they’re genuine about loving Griffith entirely because he’s oh so evil, then of all the antagonists to love Griffith makes v little sense to me bc before he becomes a demon he’s like… fine. He’s not a great person but he’s not a bad person, he has noble intentions, flaws and virtues, he’s a v good well-rounded character. I know a lot of people think Griffith was moustache-twirling evil all along but yk, they’re objectively wrong so lol.

Then after he becomes a demon he’s a petty evil dick for all of two appearances, one of which is a gratuitously depicted, grimdark-drama-for-the-sake-of-drama rape scene, and if that scene is what makes you love Griffith/Femto I’m definitely like gonna side-eye you. And I mean I don’t see anything wrong with liking Femto – I like Femto lol bc his pettiness mixed with inability to kill Guts is extremely amusing to me, plus his makeup is on point (and I love all gnc villains out of spite), but it’s very much despite the rape, not because of it.

And then as NeoGriff he comes back seemingly neutral, fulfilling the subconscious desires of humanity and committing no great acts of evil again. So yeah if you like super evil dark villains Griffith/Femto/NeoGriff is an odd choice to me.

Oh and as an aside I could kind of get liking him for his evil villainry if you liked him as Griffith and then felt personally betrayed when he sacrificed everyone. Like that was gr8 writing and feeling rly pissed off and then impressed by how mad you are, making you like him as a character bc of the emotional ride he took you on, makes sense to me. But I feel like that’s not really what you’re referring to.

So I guess tl;dr my answer boils down to it sounds p silly to me but I guess it depends on their exact reasons lol.

Well this originally started out as a jokey take on how heterosexuality is the True Villain of Berserk, but then I was like, shit this actually works surprisingly well and is kind of depressing. So now I’m doing it more seriously. This isn’t meant to be some grand unifying theory of Berserk lol, it’s not even close to airtight or anything, the story just happens to lend itself weirdly well to this particular reading.

So here’s how Griffith’s narrative works as an almost certainly accidental, yet imo somewhat relatable, metaphor for being closeted and repressed:

The only way for him to realize his dream is to marry the princess. War, battles, glory, promotions, even the Eclipse, those are all stepping stones that enable him to one day marry Charlotte. Marriage is the only door to his dream. Even when he becomes saviour of the world, he’s still gotta marry a woman to make it official.

Griffith’s all-encompassing, all-important dream is embodied by heterosexual marriage.

Set up in perfect opposition to that dream, the only one who makes him forget about it, and the one he has to sacrifice to attain his dream, is Guts, the man he’s in love with.

So it should be pretty apparent how that central conflict lends itself to a closeted gay man torn between obligation and desire kinda reading, right?

The details don’t do much to counter it either. It’s Charlotte’s presence that creates the rift between Guts and Griffith – she’s there, refocusing Griffith’s attention from Guts to his heteronormative goal during their significant, romanticized staircase conversation when Guts asked why Griffith would risk his life for him and Griffith failed to give him a reason. And she’s the one Griffith directs the speech to, inadvertantly convincing Guts that he doesn’t care about him and making Guts decide to leave.

The dream is also defined by emotional repression. To achieve it Griffith has to project a perfect image of himself to everyone – the nobles, Charlotte, the hawks, everyone. When Casca catches him in a moment of vulnerability and watches him injure himself in a river he snaps out of it, represses, and acts like nothing happened afterwards. Guts is the only person he willingly allows to see him less than perfect – when he’s conducting assassinations, for instance. He opens up to him in emotional vulnerability when he asks “do you think I’m cruel?” In that moment, Guts suggests that Griffith’s emotional expression of vulnerability is incompatible with achieving his dream – “Ain’t this part of the path to your dream? You believe that, don’t you?”

Guts is able to walk away and abandon Griffith because Griffith can’t tell him how he feels, he can’t tell Guts why he risked his life for him and he can’t tell him that he wants him to stay. Casca even points out that they should stop and talk things out, and we the reader know that their rift is based entirely on a misunderstanding that could be cleared up so talking things through would actually achieve something – but she’s dismissed, and they duel instead.

So a dichotemy is set up between the dream/Charlotte/heteronormativity, and emotional repression vs Guts the man Griffith loves, and expressing his feelings for him.

The tragedy of Berserk is that repression wins.

Guts leaves because Griffith can’t express how he feels. Griffith has sex with Charlotte in an attempt to seize his dream, having lost Guts, (of course this act of striving for his dream is represented by heterosexual sex) and ends up trapped in a dungeon. There he both finally admits to himself that Guts is more important to him than his dream and fittingly loses the ability to communicate at all. He’s also, to top it off, locked away behind a mask modeled after the helmet he wore while pursuing his dream. After losing Guts and having sex with Charlotte he’s not just choosing not to express his emotions, he’s forced to remain silent and hidden.

After he’s rescued the mask stays on and words remain unspoken. A lot of shit happens and eventually he has a breakdown. And interestingly, it’s not just the prospect of Guts leaving again that causes him to finally break from reality. It’s also the thought of Casca staying.

After overhearing Guts and Casca he envisions himself chasing his dream again (and isn’t it fitting that it’s described as playing? ie not real, a make-believe expression of himself), and then he sees himself – and here it gets really depressing – seemingly married to Casca. He’s still helpless and unable to communicate, as though he’s caged inside of himself. In his vision Casca wears a dress, has hung up her sword, and is raising a son with him, named after the man Griffith is in love with. Griffith is dressed up and attractive again. It’s terribly picturesque in a idealistic heternormative way. Casca leans down to kiss him and then spoonfeeds him, all the while he’s silent and motionless and seems lost as all he thinks to himself is that the peace and quiet isn’t so bad.

Tbh if you’re reading Griffith as a gay man this dream comes across as a nightmarish metaphor for being trapped in repression, trapped in a heterosexual marriage and societal expectations, his voice, body, and even his own mind lost. It’s disturbing.

And in the soup made by Casca is the behelit.

The thing is that the behelit isn’t the escape from that nightmarish vision it seems to be at first – it’s an embodiment of it. What happens when Griffith summons the Godhand, sacrifices the Band and most notably Guts, and becomes a demon?

His heart is frozen. He’s later reborn with the sole purpose of becoming a wholly emotionless, utterly perfect image of himself – the image he’d tried to project as a human: a perfect saviour, a perfect leader, and a perfect fiancee, straight out of a fairytale. One half of a perfect heterosexual couple, ruling a perfect kingdom.

Femto’s new body incorporates the mask he was forced to wear in the torture chamber. The transformation doesn’t fix the problem caused by his broken body or his lost tongue, it doesn’t return his ability to express his feelings to him, it rips them out from the source – it destroys his emotions so he has nothing left to express. “This peace and quiet… isn’t so bad.”

When Griffith chose to sacrifice Guts he didn’t choose freedom or personal empowerment – he chose to remain a voiceless, tortured man in a locked cell, he just removed his ability to feel pain or long for more.

(Or tried to at least. Time will tell how his newly bthumping heart figures into everything.)

Disclaimer: I don’t think this works as like… a great, sensitive and thoughtful depiction of the effects of internalized homophobia on a gay man lol. Berserk is offensive and homophobic af and choosing to read it like this doesn’t fix that problem at all. I just kind of dodged some of the worse stuff but yk, there’s no way around the fact that griffith/femto/ngriff is a gay-coded antagonist and most of his villainy revolves around that coding.

Also I’m mostly closeted myself so there’s definitely some projection going on here. That’s partially the point of this. I don’t relate fully to this narrative but some aspects of what I wrote do hit home, and hopefully that comes across and this doesn’t feel exploitative.

@yesgabsstuff @mastermistressofdesire I’ve mentioned this essay b4 and I believe you’ve both expressed interest in a complete version so voila.

“You should have known. This is the man I am. You of all people.”

NeoGriffith’s “you of all people” imo is a reference to “ain’t this part of the path to your dream? You believe that, don’t you?” The moment the Godhand shows Griffith to convince him to make the sacrifice, because Guts was prioritizing his dream more than Griffith was and telling him to do whatever’s necessary to achieve it. And the moment that made Griffith believe that Guts saw how dirty/cruel/etc he was and decided to leave him because of it.

That’s what Griffith thinks. NeoGriffith seems a little bitter about it, probably thanks to that beating heart making him less unemotional than he’d like.

Guts doesn’t actually think that. To him the kind of man Griffith was was someone who cared about people, who did some fucked up shit for his dream but felt bad about it and needed reassurance, and who was driven to a point of desperation where he’d sacrifice his friends bc Guts left him and he was tortured for a year (”[Was I] the one who drove you…? Was I the one who brought all this upon you?”)

I find it rly curious that “You of all people,” leads directly, on the same page even, to Guts thinking about NeoGriffith saving Casca, and looking like he’s wondering about it.

It’s obvious that Guts still sees NeoGriff as a monster, given how pissed off he was about his ‘lol idgaf’ attitude towards the Eclipse and the fact that it’s still a struggle not to slip back into revenge mode. But he did watch NeoGriff save Casca from falling rocks for no apparent reason, and now he’s thinking about it while thinking about NeoGriffith saying he should’ve known what kind of man he is.

I mean if you go along with my explanation that part of why Griffith was so devastated when Guts left is bc he was convinced that Guts saw him the way he saw himself,
as a cruel and filthy monster climbing over corpses to get to a castle,

then what Griffith did when he made the sacrifice is choose to transform into and fully embody that version of himself, wiping away everything about him that belies it (or trying to). “You should have known. This is the man I am. You of all people.”

tl;dr Guts left because he admired and loved Griffith, Griffith thought he left because he was disgusted by him, and NGriff is referencing his belief here.

In that final page I think Guts dismisses the issue and decides to focus his attention on Casca – after this as far as I remember he doesn’t think about NGriff’s weird contradictory behaviour again. But I have to wonder if it’s going to come back with a vengeance, alongside the fact that Guts and Griffith both have very different perceptions of what kind of man Griffith was.

you think the torturers being outcasts collected by and devoted to mozgus is supposed to be a preview of neogriff’s apostles/war demons

tbh actually it makes sense bc it’s easy to view mozgus and neogriff as foils. like they both got that sinister angelic thing going on but their differences are more light-shedding than any similarities – the whole conviction rebirth arc was largely about outcasts and creating enemies out of other groups to strengthen your group (ie religion) while the point of falconia is to unite humanity with literal fantasy monsters as the enemy. mozgus’ outcasts tortured people, griffith’s save people. mozgus condemned most people, griffith accepts everyone. mozgus upheld the status quo and the way of the world (those with power trample those without) while griffith creates a world with a new status quo

and this is humanity’s deepest desire so it’s basically a direct response to mozgus and people like him dividing and conquering and demonizing outsiders and upholding nobility while making the lower classes suffer etc.

there’s a whole false god vs true saviour w/ divine right vibe i get from this comparison. and i mean the true saviour is still a largely cynical depiction since berserk is in part a criticism of religion, “god” included, but neogriff’s utopia is a lot less easy to denounce as fucked up and evil than mozgus’ inquisition thing.

Do you think Griffith felt offend when Rickert rejected him? Maybe a little shocked too. I think his desire to know Rickert motives of that slap because he wanted to understand *why*. But Rickert answer end up hurt his ego even more, I think. What’s your thoughts on that?

mastermistressofdesire:

I mean if this was human Griffith, Hell Yeah.

Neo-Griffith is honestly really hard for me to understand. Like what’s going on in that mind of his, it’s so difficult to tell.

I’m not really sure about offended because he didn’t seem angry to me just dissapointed and slightly deflated but I do think he was shocked, much like most of us didn’t see that slap coming.

However I don’t think that Rickert’s refusal came as a complete surprise to Griffith, he’d already considered the possibility, he’d already said “It’s possible you may hate me after knowing the truth…”

But it’s interesting that he didn’t say probable. That’s most probably Griffith’s personal desires warping the truth of the facts around him. Griffith wants to go back to that stage in his life when he had it all figured out, and the Band of the Hawk was by his side. He wants to think that Rickert may chose to join him because he Wants Rickert to join him. All his actions with the Neo Band of the Hawk reflect his desire. He’s trying to rebuild what he’s lost. But They are empty replacements, and so to have Rickert back , a real part of the past he’s trying to recreate is important to him.

It reminds me of two lines from the Manga which have been recurrent themes

“Don’t abandon what you can’t replace”

“Even if you painstakingly put something back together piece by piece it will never be the same.”

They were said with respect to Guts but I feel are highly applicable to Griffith right now too. And is I feel one of the many parallels between them that we get.

So in conclusion, yes the slap was definitely a harsh reality check for Griffith. Which is precisely why he’s playing it cool and saying it doesn’t matter. But yes he’s shaken and contemplative now.

When he first saw Rickert in Falconia, You could see the enthusiasm in Griffith’s body language. It was self delusional yes. But he dropped everything and practically ran to him. He’d obviously been looking forward to seeing him.

Also I think he’d taken it for granted that the fact that Rickert came at all meant he had already decided to accept. I mean most people don’t come all that way, braving monsters and climbing a million stairs just to deliver a well deserved slap.

He opens the conversation grandiosely,  many words and poetry. Exposition and greeting. He’s already expecting things to go up from here, they have been for sometime after all. Nothing has changed he wants to believe that. Then the refusal comes and all that comes out for the rest of the interaction is a muted ‘so it is’ because I think he’s coming to come to terms with the fact that truly? Everything has changed.


@bthump Because you always have the best neo-griffith thoughts. 🙂

oh my gooood i got to the bolded bit and started practically rubbing my hands together in glee at your insight. this whole answer is amazing.

The exploration of identity with NeoGriffith has the potential to be so so good. The way it does seem like he wants Rickert to join him because having a former Hawk accept the NeoBand would be a kind of validation that he needs on some level.

The way Rickert phrases his refusal is one of my favourite moments because of the emphasis he places on how it’s not his Band, and Griffith isn’t his Griffith, and the small differences between insignias matter. And all Griffith can do is passively agree. Now that you’ve drawn the comparison between the NeoBand and those significant lines about forcing back what was and abandoning irreplacable things I am dying to see where that leads even more.

Also it occurs to me that this is the first scene we see where NeoGriff is taken aback and not in control – the way Rickert slaps him, the way he has no response to Rickert’s speech – since the very first scene where his heart started beating and he saved Casca and went ‘wtf’ to himself. Add the fact that he apparently didn’t see the slap coming despite his magic powers of being essentially untouchable, and I think it’s a fair guess that his beating heart and surviving emotions are throwing him off his game again here. (Which incidentally is another solid sign that it’s not the fetus screwing with him bc i doubt very much the fetus gives a fuck about Rickert.)

ty for tagging me! I don’t think there was really much to add to your answer so this is mostly me nodding vigorously and flailing a little lol.

i’m in an attaching whatever shit i think of while looking at something to the post instead of keeping to the tags mood rn so

this has to come full circle at some point, right? this is one of the most important themes of berserk it can’t just be left dangling with no resolution

so there are 2 ways (imo) for it to come full circle – Guts finally becomes Griffith’s equal (either they’re equalized in some way that makes the whole absolute god incarnate thing irrelevant, eg focusing on emotions rather than power, or Guts becomes a god, or Griffith loses godhood)

or the fact that Griffith is now absolute and therefore totally alone and Guts is achieving his new-found goal of not caring anymore gains significance

i’m expecting the latter tbh. bc i mean like… this can’t just never come up again, how unsatisfying would that be? it’s the driving force behind the wedge between Guts and Griff and was replayed when Guts was seeking revenge after the Eclipse, and there’s no conclusion to that thread yet.

yesgabsstuff:

bthump:

Well I had the urge to talk about Griffith’s motivation to be king again. tbh I’ve said a lot of this stuff in various scattered posts and conversations, but I want to have it all laid out nicely in one place. And I’m using a meme question as a springboard.

Does your character have a story goal and a believable motivation to achieve that goal?

For
human Griffith I actually find his motivation for wanting to become
king one of the most interesting aspects of his story. One thing I really dig about
the way fate works in Berserk is that despite it sitting there and
pulling strings to manipulate everything, characterization and character
decisions never feel arbitrary to me.

To be honest it can kind of seem
like Griffith has no real motivation for wanting to be king and it’s
just an urge placed there by fate, but I think everything the reader
needs to know is right here:

image

It’s
not really that he has no original motivation, it’s that his original
motivation is fucking stupid lol. It started out as an extremely
childish “I want that” desire, possibly with a side of contrariness since he was a commoner, and because he was a child, and tenacious,
he decided to go out and get it.

Then, before he had a chance to
re-evaluate his baby dream and whether it’s a worthwhile goal, he started getting people killed for it and his resulting
(repressed) guilt lead to him doubling down on his dream, hard.

At least since
the dead kid and Gennon I’d say his motivation has been 90% “I have to
achieve this to justify the fact that a bunch of people are dead because
of it.“

image
image

This
is more of an extrapolation, but imo Griffith’s mind is working
backwards to how you’d expect – it’s not that he wants to achieve the
dream because it’s some great, all-important and shining thing in his
mind. The dream becomes great, all-important and shining because
building it up in his head is partly how he justifies all the awful
guilt-inducing shit he does to achieve it. All these people died for his
dream, therefore his dream must be special and important and worth dying for.

He says he wants to know his place in the grand scheme of things, whether he’s one of the “keys” that move the world. And to me, in conjunction with what we know of his motivation (childish ambition, followed by mounting guilt spurring him onwards), that sounds like a desperate desire to know whether all those deaths were worth it. If his destiny is to become king, then he’s justified and doesn’t need to feel guilty and can continue suppressing his guilt. If it isn’t, then it was all a waste and he has to actually deal with his inner “reality” of being a child on top of a pointless mountain of bodies.

It’s rly lucky for him that it turns out it is his destiny lmao.

I generally agree with this; particularly on the point of how he makes decisions. I see him as someone who makes an emotional decision and then his considerable intellect steps in to cover his ass so that the choice isn’t as destructive as it could be. I think however, that while his initial desire is born out of a childish desire for something out of his reach, that he earnestly believed that he could make things better as a king due to his common birth.

He has this very real emotional need it would seem to be special and to be the person to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” in contrast to uninspired others. This could be covering up any number of emotional wounds inside him, and I think that this is as close as we get to Griffith articulating the same emotional emptiness that Guts does.

All of that pathology aside I think his natural distaste for injustice and his intelligence took these emotional needs and made them into a desire to be the philosopher King; better than a blood noble could ever be because he could actually understand people’s struggle and he would deserve to be there. I think his problem comes is that he’s using the master’s tools to take down the master’s house. He must use violence, he must look at himself as superior to others, he must cut off his human feelings in order to achieve this goal. It is literally divine right rather than what his idea of “merit” that has put him on that throne next to Charlotte. It’s terribly sad.

I totally agree! tbh I avoided going into this bc i wanted to keep the focus on guilt and childishness, but, especially in NeoGriffith’s chapters, there’s a lot of stuff about overturning the “natural order” of inequality and oppression and war etc.

Ooh plus Casca’s line while she’s telling Guts her story about how when the nobleman attacked her she thought it was just the natural order of things, until Griffith threw her a sword and rearranged her world.

And then the Eclipse is basically a mirror of that flashback scene with Femto taking the nobleman’s place and finishing what he started, so it’s a visceral, grotesque and symbolic depiction of becoming a manifestation of that “order” in his attempt to overturn it. Including the fact that he actually is chosen by God lol like he accused the nobleman of believing.

Ofc now that you’ve mentioned the master’s house quote I kinda want to wonder if it’s all eventually going to come crashing down because Griffith became what he was trying to overturn. idk.

idk the point is I solidly agree with your addition and i want it on my blog lol.

ALSO


I think that this is as close as we get to Griffith articulating the same emotional emptiness that Guts does. 

wonderful point, nothing to add but I love this.