Forgot to mention this when it comes to Griffith + Casca parallels (Guts leaves for a year/two years to pursue a dumb dream, abandoning someone who needs him, then he comes back, realizes he may have fucked up, and rescues them):
Im glad im not alone on this. Its so weird that casca was guts’s last chance to make the right choice but he still messed up in some way.
Ooh yk when you put it like that, what I find striking is that he did make the right choice, pre-Eclipse. He realized he shouldn’t’ve left and decided to stay with Griffith despite getting told multiple times to leave by Casca and Judeau.
It was Casca telling him to leave that fucked Griffith up lol, not Guts wanting to leave or being reluctant to stay.
Whereas with Casca he makes the same mistake again, and directly compares leaving Casca alone in a cave to leaving Griffith, but when he gets Casca back he’s his own worst enemy when it comes to sticking to his resolution to stay with her.
First he plans to leave her in the cave again anyway
and when it caves in he knows he’s not just gonna abandon her in a field somewhere but he’s reluctant af to postpone his revenge quest for her
and then when he decides taking her to Elfhelm is the thing to do he does it still fully intending to return to his revenge quest eventually. (Plus, yk, the fucked up Beast of Darkness shit that happens before he gathers some extra babysitters.)
I don’t really have a point other than Guts taking one step forward with Griffith and ending up like five steps back when the situation is repeated with Casca.
And I mean yeah a lot of shit went down in the interim and he has a pretty good reason to be obsessed with revenge, but the comparison between leaving Griffith and leaving Casca is made over and over by both Guts and the narrative so when you sit down and actually compare them it’s striking that Guts is still like, struggling to rise to the level of caring about someone over his “dream” (fighting stronger and stronger enemies/vengeful rampage) that he’d already reached once with Griffith right before the Eclipse.
I just noticed the parallel with Guts putting his cloak around both of them.
It’s so … quaint.
Also you’re absolutely right. While he sort of makes the decision to stay in both cases. In Griffith’s case it was a final decision he came to after going over his ‘this is where I belong after all’ and consciously admitting to himself that his dream side quest was stupid and unnecessary anyway. And he sticks by that realisation even after Judeau and Casca’s speeches. Casca telling him to leave wasn’t significant because it made Guts’ reconsider his decision, if I remember correctly we aren’t even shown Guts’ face in that panel- it’s significant for Griffith to hear and believe .
If anything Guts had already made the subconscious decision to stay waay before the raiders ran to him.
In the tent/wagon with Griffith he talks about the future once Griffith heals. “ We’ll be able to see that soon enough” he says we.WE.
Whereas with Casca his decision to stay always seems to be in lieu of there either being no other choice or in response to someone else’s prodding. Staying with Casca seems to be a means to an end where he can leave her in a safe and wholesome place and state and move on with a clear mind.
The only time there seems to be a real resolve behind his decision to stay is when he’s directly substituting the situation with already having failed at it with Griffith.
Even his “even if you put something back together piece by piece it may never be the same.” Dialogue ties in with this. He says this after his Griffith fueled Casca endeavor has sort of failed.
And yeah.
After Casca tells him “if you’re Griffith’s friend and equal… you have to. Even if it’s alone… you have to go” we get the “why do I always see these things… after they’re done and gone?” line. It seems p clear to me that that Guts is referring to his realization that he had his “dream” in the palm of his hand and threw it away by leaving to pursue it, ie he broke Griffith’s heart by leaving, though granted it’s not the plainest of statements.
But anyway yeah to me that sounds like Guts is absolutely unwavering in his resolve that he’s going to stay and he thinks leaving in the first place was a great big fuck up.
tbh I do wonder what Guts is thinking will happen when Casca gets her mind back, considering his brooding about the warnings he got. “She went to pieces because she can’t fully cope with it. What will she do if she does get her sanity back?” Like is he hoping she’ll join the trail of revenge with him? Is he planning to just play it by ear – take her with him if she wants to go, leave her in elfhelm if she wants to chill somewhere safe, etc? Cross his fingers and hope she doesn’t do something drastic?
I was kind of wondering if he’s hoping that getting her back the way she was will be enough motivation for him to take Godo’s advice and stay with the “irreplaceable things” instead of going back for revenge, but like I said, even on the ship he was still doing his “when this journey’s over, I’ll [not actually be able to finish this sentence]” thing, so I don’t think there’s much indication of that.
idk i’m just thinking outloud. it all comes back to griffith’s pull being like, the strongest force exerted on him lol, for both good and bad. devote himself to griffith, or leave to become griffith’s equal, or stay with griffith, or ditch casca to chase griffith, or stay with casca while comparing the situation to one with griffith, gritting his teeth, and anticipating being able to chase griffith again.
i wonder if it’s not so much that he’ll overcome the pull of griffith on him as the nature of it will shift again, from revenge to maybe realizing that his desire isn’t actually for revenge, but still to be griffith’s equal. maybe he’ll actually untangle some of his feelings at some point, considering things like “the instant I saw him… I forgot my urge to kill.”
In this post I’m going to discuss how Casca’s narrative role as a love interest overlaps with her narrative role as a substitute for Griffith, how those roles ultimately serve the main story that is the love/hate relationship between Guts and Griffith, and how Miura utilizes her an emotional/sexual conduit between the two while also conveniently no-homoing them. Plus some additional straightforward stuff on Guts and his crush on Griffith here and there.
Advance warning: this is long. Looooooong. Also be warned that I do touch on the hound and the Eclipse, but only in one section of this post.
I also want to make clear upfront that I love Casca but I dislike the Guts/Casca romance subplot, for many reasons including my general dislike of most het, Guts’ awful treatment of her, and the sense I get that she’s been inserted as a buffer between Guts and Griffith, but mostly because I think the romance was added almost entirely to set up the destruction of Casca as a character for the sake of Guts’ manpain.
So yeah going in you should be aware that this is Guts/Casca negative. I don’t consider their romantic feelings for each other a valuable part of Berserk, and I spend a lot of time calling the legitimacy of those feelings into question.
Ok that said, let’s get into it.
We’ll go back to the Golden Age eventually but I’m going to jump ahead first and start at chapter 130, during Guts’ night of self-reflection after he returns to Godo’s cave and finds Casca missing.
It took me a long time to actually read this because i read it in chunks determined by when i needed to take a break to wallow in feels for a little while.
because hell yes.
all of this.
I mean this is the perfectly worded summary of almost all the griffguts and casca thoughts i have ever had. As well as the hound and judeau (he’s fast becoming a pet peeve of mine tbh)
And those panel comparisons of the waterfall scene are brilliant. I’d never thought of that before. On My first time with that scene it had immediately struck me as odd that Guts sudden attraction to Casca seemed to stem after She had effectively taken Griffith’s role in the Hawks. But I hadn’t quite noticed the visual parallels and now my mind is blown and it all makes perfect sense.
Also like the one time after ‘getting together’ Guts seems to be admiring Casca for something beyond ‘wanna sex you thousand times’ (which honestly doesn’t qualify to me) is when she pulls together the hawks after being dragged to the other dimension. Very similar to how Griffith pulls them together when they first encounter Zodd.
“Keeping calm in a situation like this. She truly is amazing.”
Now remember Keeping- Calm- in- a- situation- like- this is pretty much asignature Griffith move, especially according to Guts. To the point that instances of non-calmness garner a comment from Guts
. “ Strange for a cool-headed guy like you.”
“No way he’d lose his cool over something like this.”
“He’s calm in the heat of battle, has perfect judgement and knows when to take decisive action, it really is amazing.”
Contrasted especially with the fact that Guts has in the past called out Casca for being Hot-headed and impulsive, has In fact, used that to spur her on and slightly manipulate her on occasion. All so in A period where it is decidedly emphasised that he is in no way attracted to Casca.
It’s almost like attraction is a result of the trait and not the individual.
There’s more on judeau coming up sometime. most probably. like dude was shippily watching griffguts when they were having that first water fight. Like okay so you like this girl who likes this other guy who is kind of involved in a fulfilling mutual relationship.
In this scenario which kinda fuckall logic do you use to decide the best course of action is to undermine said fullfilling relationship by convincing guy 2 to be with the girl YOU like?
Like the one arrangement which would take the most effort and would leave everyone involved hurt and heartbroken and/or confused as hell and unfulfilled? THAT’S what you decide to do?
Oh and that pause before heap of iron. Let’s go give him a hunk of….iron? You sure? Is that the first word that popped into everyone’s heads on reading these words?
Not a word which rhymes with seat and is euphemism for a certain body part?
I’m glad you read and enjoyed it despite it being a long haul 😀
Ooh good point about Guts seeming to like Casca more the more she resembles Griffith. ty for this addition, I didn’t really think of it like that. The leader of the Hawks thing sure, but not the way she leads similarly to Griffith. Nice.
re: Judeau it is totally convoluted.
tbh I was actually going to include a bit on Judeau’s crush as a
potential parallel for Guts’ feelings for Griffith but I cut it bc my point boiled down to “it’s probably meant to
be a parallel for Guts secretly having a crush on Casca while trying to
hook her up with Griffith, but fuck the author’s probable intentions it
kind of works the other way too” which is not very strong as arguments
go.
But since I got that ask about how he maybe feels unworthy of
her I’m feeling the potential gay parallel more. Guts feels unworthy of
Griffith, and before he leaves he encourages Casca to take the place she
wanted that she feels he stole out from under her, at Griffith’s side,
helping him achieve his dream. He feels she’s more worthy to be at
Griffith’s side because she has a dream.
Like yeah Guts says he wants to be like Griffith so he can be better for Casca but that came out of left field with zero prior evidence and tbh I reject it as either a conclusion that’s purposefully artificial bc Judeau led Guts there or just bad writing. Griffith is the one he’s been feeling unworthy of for 20 chapters.
“let’s give him
…
a heap of raw iron”
for real, i mean there are a lot of less suggestive ways to phrase that but here we are.
I couldn’t find the raws, so I turned to the new anime
What the Hound says is:
「この女は、グリフィスを渇望続けるための生贄さ。」
Kono onna wa Gurifisu wo kogare tsuzukeru tame no ikenie sa.
Now, I had to google this line to check which kanji was used because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing lol
The verb
焦がれる (kogareru) means “to yearn for; to be in love with”
But the kanji used here is 渇望, which is generally read as “katsubou”, and I’m not familiar with this other reading. Might be one of those things where mangaka use kanji and furigana to convey a complex meaning
And 渇望 (katsubou) … means “craving; longing; thirsting” so ……. yep
The new anime translated it as “pining,” which I also enjoyed
Well damn for all the flaws of the new anime de-gaying it definitely isn’t one of them, omg.
Thank you for checking this out and sharing the info this is fantastic! I don’t think there’s any doubt then that the romantic overtones are there.
Guts’ reaction to Casca being threatened is usually: Don’t do it, She’ll fucking kill ya.
And Guts’ reaction to Griffith being threatened is: DON’T YOU DARE FUCKING TOUCH HIM .I WILL CLEAVE YOU IN HALF.
not that Guts’ wouldn’t step in on Casca’s behalf but whenever he does there’s always this “why am I doing this?” “Do I like her” “Don’t pop a boner on my head” “Griffith what are you doing?” it’s almost a part of a whole different train of thought?
It doesn’t seem to be the tunnel visioned desperation which comes when Griffith is concerned.
i feel like guts’s feelings for casca are really poorly written, as you kinda mention. when judeau asks him about his feelings for casca, he says he sees her as a comrade more than anything, which is appropriate – but then with further prompting, he’s like “no… i’m just no good for her… as i am now…” because she’s caught up on griffith still and all that. because miura hadnt originally planned it, having FEELINGs for casca is an afterthought on everyone’s part. it really (to me at least) comes across as a “wait, im a dude, im supposed to be into girls and this is the one girl around”. he assists her multiple times, not real sure why, so hey, guts thinks, romance?? perhaps?? basically guts doesnt know fuck shit about girls but maybe he has a concept of compulsory het. thinking on this reminds me of how griffith also had to chase het – as is characteristic for griffith, it was thought out ahead of time and part of his plan (even if it his plan kinda went to shit). guts, on the other hand, relies not on thought but rather just on acting, often really impulsively, and thats where gutsca came from. unfortunately for the girls, what it al really comes back to is each other. everybody knows griffith has like 0 sincere feelings for charlotte and is eternally hung up on guts, but gutss is a bit more vague. hes the same way tho- the girl in his life is means to an end. i posted a few panels just recently that make this evident – even post-eclipse, when guts finds out casca js missing, he swears to rescue her By Himself (that falls thru) but if he runs into griffith, “then [he’ll]…” implying he’ll redirect his attentions there. chance of another type of eclipse, AND casca’s gonna be there in need of rescuing? how convenient. there are a lot more caps that point towards this that i think bthump has either mentioned or posted, but im on mobile and cant dig em up atm.
I was just thinking about that bit when Guts is about to leave where Judeau’s like, hey Casca’s single wink wink nudge nudge and Guts is like, I see her more as a comrade than anything, and Judeau’s like, are u sure??? and Guts is like, well anyway she’s into Griffith so if I was gonna d8 her I’d have to fulfill my dream of being Griffith’s equal first either way so bye.
And it’s framed as like burgeoning romance, Guts seriously wanting to become the kind of man Casca likes, but god it comes across as such an afterthought lol. Like he already wants to be Griffith’s equal for Griffith, this Casca thing is just added on and changes absolutely nothing about his goals or motivation. It’s like, off Guts goes because he desperately wants to be Griffith’s bff, btw here’s some heterosexuality just in case you’re uncomfortable with that, heterosexual male reader.
And more re: mmod’s original post, it’s just inarguable facts that every time Guts’ feelings for Casca and Griffith are compared, Casca comes up short. He decides to leave and take her with him until it turns out Griffith needs him. He goes on an animalistic rampage while rescuing Griffith whereas Casca gets told to fuck off bc she’s too naked and distracting after her attempted rape (which I’m sure is meant as a funny manly het moment and GOD IT’S BAD). He leaves her in a cave for two years to pursue Griffith. Hell when he thinks about the last thing he saw with his missing eye it goes Casca’s assault -> naked Casca -> Femto staring at him as the very last thing given the most significance. He decides he has to rescue her in the conviction arc but still plans to ditch her again afterwards now that Griffith is human-looking and in reach of his sword. He finally decides to stay with her and take her to Elfhelm when a) Griffith tells him he gives zero fucks and ditches him and b) the cave caves in and he can’t leave her there anymore. And he still treats it as a temporary sidequest.
I agree with all of the discussed above. I don’t really have much to add accept to say that Guts is doing a thing that is familiar to me as A Gay that is very femme and is often read as straight. His environment at this point hasn’t really given him any feedback that he is in any way deviating from traditional masculinity so, he has no reason really to assume his feelings are “queer.”
Obviously, it’s not that simple. I knew I was attracted to other girls in a sexual/romantic way but I also kind of always assumed that I somehow would become interested in men as I had been allowed into traditional straight girl/woman bonding experiences that are centered around the interest and pursuit of men. It took an embarrassing amount of time for me to untangle what I was feeling out of kind of social obligation and what I felt from an authentic place. Guts is very young, medium feral and I think in his heart of hearts wants something to be normal. It feels “easier” to project these feelings onto Casca than to look to hard at himself at this point.
Guts’ reaction to Casca being threatened is usually: Don’t do it, She’ll fucking kill ya.
And Guts’ reaction to Griffith being threatened is: DON’T YOU DARE FUCKING TOUCH HIM .I WILL CLEAVE YOU IN HALF.
not that Guts’ wouldn’t step in on Casca’s behalf but whenever he does there’s always this “why am I doing this?” “Do I like her” “Don’t pop a boner on my head” “Griffith what are you doing?” it’s almost a part of a whole different train of thought?
It doesn’t seem to be the tunnel visioned desperation which comes when Griffith is concerned.
i feel like guts’s feelings for casca are really poorly written, as you kinda mention. when judeau asks him about his feelings for casca, he says he sees her as a comrade more than anything, which is appropriate – but then with further prompting, he’s like “no… i’m just no good for her… as i am now…” because she’s caught up on griffith still and all that. because miura hadnt originally planned it, having FEELINGs for casca is an afterthought on everyone’s part. it really (to me at least) comes across as a “wait, im a dude, im supposed to be into girls and this is the one girl around”. he assists her multiple times, not real sure why, so hey, guts thinks, romance?? perhaps?? basically guts doesnt know fuck shit about girls but maybe he has a concept of compulsory het. thinking on this reminds me of how griffith also had to chase het – as is characteristic for griffith, it was thought out ahead of time and part of his plan (even if it his plan kinda went to shit). guts, on the other hand, relies not on thought but rather just on acting, often really impulsively, and thats where gutsca came from. unfortunately for the girls, what it al really comes back to is each other. everybody knows griffith has like 0 sincere feelings for charlotte and is eternally hung up on guts, but gutss is a bit more vague. hes the same way tho- the girl in his life is means to an end. i posted a few panels just recently that make this evident – even post-eclipse, when guts finds out casca js missing, he swears to rescue her By Himself (that falls thru) but if he runs into griffith, “then [he’ll]…” implying he’ll redirect his attentions there. chance of another type of eclipse, AND casca’s gonna be there in need of rescuing? how convenient. there are a lot more caps that point towards this that i think bthump has either mentioned or posted, but im on mobile and cant dig em up atm.
I was just thinking about that bit when Guts is about to leave where Judeau’s like, hey Casca’s single wink wink nudge nudge and Guts is like, I see her more as a comrade than anything, and Judeau’s like, are u sure??? and Guts is like, well anyway she’s into Griffith so if I was gonna d8 her I’d have to fulfill my dream of being Griffith’s equal first either way so bye.
And it’s framed as like burgeoning romance, Guts seriously wanting to become the kind of man Casca likes, but god it comes across as such an afterthought lol. Like he already wants to be Griffith’s equal for Griffith, this Casca thing is just added on and changes absolutely nothing about his goals or motivation. It’s like, off Guts goes because he desperately wants to be Griffith’s bff, btw here’s some heterosexuality just in case you’re uncomfortable with that, heterosexual male reader.
And more re: mmod’s original post, it’s just inarguable facts that every time Guts’ feelings for Casca and Griffith are compared, Casca comes up short. He decides to leave and take her with him until it turns out Griffith needs him. He goes on an animalistic rampage while rescuing Griffith whereas Casca gets told to fuck off bc she’s too naked and distracting after her attempted rape (which I’m sure is meant as a funny manly het moment and GOD IT’S BAD). He leaves her in a cave for two years to pursue Griffith. Hell when he thinks about the last thing he saw with his missing eye it goes Casca’s assault -> naked Casca -> Femto staring at him as the very last thing given the most significance. He decides he has to rescue her in the conviction arc but still plans to ditch her again afterwards now that Griffith is human-looking and in reach of his sword. He finally decides to stay with her and take her to Elfhelm when a) Griffith tells him he gives zero fucks and ditches him and b) the cave caves in and he can’t leave her there anymore. And he still treats it as a temporary sidequest.
Actually the most recent anime adaptation completely coloured how I viewed that scene for a while there because Griffith looked so hateful
I probably shouldn’t read too much into this bad CGI model but …… I mean come on holy shit
lol wow, i’ve only seen this episode in a really laggy stream so I never rly noticed this.
I feel like chalking this up to a bad adaptation needing to make it painfully obvious that this guy is Villainous and throwing nuance and subtlety to the wind.
But I still do think that in the manga he got a petty thrill from getting to be the one to ditch Guts this time.
And Guts kinda recognized it as payback too?
I definitely think Griffith was purposely being smug here actually, but I don’t know if he actually felt that way.
Because the “it’s fitting for us to reunite here as the Band of the Hawk” was just too markedly and boldly insensitive to be Griffith’s natural style imo?
I feel like he was testing out how they’d feel on his tongue. If saying them, to perhaps the person he’d primarily consciously shitted on would inspire any guilt.
I feel he was purposely trying to get a rise out of Guts to see if that reaction or Guts trying to angrily guilt trip him would actually lead to a guilt Trip.
Just a hole-y theory though.
It’s just obviously implied that Neo Griff knows something we don’t and i want to fucking know what it is.
Ooh interesting point. The Band of the Hawk assembling once more is like… a really ridiculously dickish thing to say lol, and testing himself that way, deliberately making Guts rage at him, does seem like something he’d do, and he declares that he’s free 2 pages later so yeah this works for me.
(tho when you say it’s implied that he knows something we don’t when/how do you mean? I mean I def feel like he does too but i’m wondering if you’re referencing a specific moment that’s slipping my mind)
@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.
Actually the most recent anime adaptation completely coloured how I viewed that scene for a while there because Griffith looked so hateful
I probably shouldn’t read too much into this bad CGI model but …… I mean come on holy shit
lol wow, i’ve only seen this episode in a really laggy stream so I never rly noticed this.
I feel like chalking this up to a bad adaptation needing to make it painfully obvious that this guy is Villainous and throwing nuance and subtlety to the wind.
But I still do think that in the manga he got a petty thrill from getting to be the one to ditch Guts this time.
@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)
@ Your tags, Gambino is actually sitting on that pile of corpses though, isn’t he? It seems too symbolic to just be a spook effect This can only marginally be related to Guts’ guilt ig since he was still a child here but I assumed those were the corpses of people Gambino or their band in general had killed
Yeah that does make sense, more than just atmospheric effect. I can’t really buy that Guts feels any guilt for being a mercinary and killing people in battle (he’s got a few particular deaths he feels guilty about but random soldiers aren’t them), but as symbolic of a life he was born/adopted into, surrounded by death and living for no reason other than to kill, it’s pretty fitting.
Will you always be left doubting me… when I lay down my life for you?
like i can’t believe the anime dub upgraded this from
“do i need a reason to take a risk for you?”
to
“i would die for you”
Oh yeah, if I remember correctly (from the 1997 anime, not manga raws) here he uses the expression 体を張る (karada wo haru), which means “to devote oneself wholeheartedly to; to sacrifice one’s health for; to risk one’s life,“ so I definitely think that translating this as “laying down his life” for Guts instead of just “taking a risk” is way more accurate.
(体 means “body,” so if he’s “taking a risk,” what he’s risking is … himself. And I don’t think that’s something that should be left out of the final translation.)
Ooh ty for the additional translation info!
“devote oneself wholeheartedly to” I love that so much. I wish I could find manga raws to check whether it’s the same there, bc if it is then yeah “lay down my life” sounds like a better translation than Dark Horse’s weaker “put myself in harm’s way.”
rickert meeting griffith for the first time in god knows how long and look at his face. what
right? like this art may be more detailed and take longer to draw but imo none of his art recently has even come close to feeling as emotional and complex as this expression here:
or feeling as immediate and gut-wrenching as expressions like these:
idk this
just engages me and hooks me into guts’ mindset more than this
and i’m not saying this panel is bad, it’s the best + most intense one i found after scouring 4 of the sea god chapters lol, and tbh i dig his eye here, but it still feels a little too polished to really make me feel what guts is feeling to the same extent
or here’s a direct comparison
vs longer shots with a similar level of detail from the actual scene
idk but i def feel like his older art was better at conveying a sense of motion and emotion. griffith’s leap looks less realistic but it feels quick and intense, whereas the new version obeys the laws of physics but looks staid in comparison to me.
While I’m looking for moments that demonstrate Guts’ attraction to Griffith I might as well post a few outtakes.
Like, what the fuck is this about?
I’m not including it bc Guts is wtfing at the behelit here, not (presumably) swooning over Griffith, but look at his collagen-injected lip, the forced contrast of his hair to shadowed skin, the shining eyes.
Like Griffith is supposed to be pretty, but Miura’s Golden Age art often makes certain images of him stand out as Extra compared to the rest in a scene, and when that image is from Guts’ point of view it’s a little eyebrow raising regardless of the context.
And it’s not just cause it’s a closeup either:
same scene, same distance from the ‘camera,’ same level of detail, v different vibe.
Nngh yeah. This.
I kinda noticed a little bit of a trend of Griffith looking kinda softer from Guts POV shots.
Even in the ‘inferno’ panel or that time after Guts leaves when he’s thinking of him. (The mobile app won’t let me attach pictures rn)
His features look rounder, softer. His hair is always extremely stylised, eyes exceptionally bright( bordering on the 70’s sparkly eye shoujo image) and looking away from Guts and lips are always darker, prominent and idk how else to say this but…juicier?
You mean these panels?
bc ia. I’m going thru the golden age now looking for this stuff specifically lol and tbh I’m skipping a lot that could be coincidence (like the outtake above) but in general it rly does look like Griffith gets some extra glamour when Guts is looking at him. It’s a little hard to separate bc he’s supposed to be really pretty but like, there are several scenes where the notably prettiest image of him is from Guts’ point of view.
Another thing which gets skipped over in all the animations.
Usually Griffith is shown just passively listening to the God hand as if he’s thinking about their offer and then Guts obliviously gets angry and screams at them.
Look at this panel though.
Look how fucking distressed Griffith looks. That isn’t a “wow, tell me more” face. He’s shaking. He’s terrified. He looks like He’s trying to protest their assertion that he’ll sacrifice everyone.
And THAT’S what pisses Guts of. It’s because Griffith can’t put his distress into words and has no way to verbally protest and Guts can see that.
He’s yelling on Griffith’s behalf .
Also which makes me think. Often I’ve read or maybe even said myself that if Griffith hadn’t been in the exact state he was at the start of the eclipse he may not have agreed to the terms. But EVEN in that state without manipulation he wasn’t up for it.
After that of course lol. What was fated happened and all. And everything got fucked. But I still go back to teeny details to hurt my heart.
I love this so much.
One of my favourite things about the Golden Age is that there’s such a sense that the tragedy is a house of cards that could’ve come tumbling down if anything happened differently. Of course, thanks to fate, everything worked out perfectly to lead to the sacrifice, but there’s so many missed opportunities, half-finished sentences, crossroads, coincidences, and little significant details that it always makes me think, what if X happened differently? Even up to the Eclipse.
What if Casca finished a sentence, what if the King hadn’t interrupted Guts and Griffith on the staircase, what if the maid hadn’t seen Griffith with Charlotte, what if Guts hadn’t let go of Griffith’s hand on the mountain of heads, what if Guts never told Griffith to do whatever he had to do for the sake of his dream so the Godhand couldn’t whip up that handy memory to convince him, etc etc.
Everything had to happen exactly right (or wrong) for Griffith to sacrifice Guts and the Band. That’s a big reason the moment is so narratively satisfying to me imo.
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.
@bthump Didn’t wanna do this on your post but this part caught my eyes … To be honest I’ve never thought of Griffith having sex with Charlotte as him trying to quickly seize his dream because, surely he must have known what the consequences would be? He didn’t do a good job sneaking in or sneaking out, he didn’t even try to make sure they’re not caught together. Had he impregnated her he probably would have had to marry her, but the king would still hate his guts, which goes against what he was initially trying to do, that is, charm his way into the royal family. When he was caught, he didn’t seem particularly perturbed. It almost seemed like an act of defiance because he got discovered so easily and didn’t even care. That led me to believe that the sex with Charlotte was more an act of self-harm and self-sabotage than anything else. Thoughts?
Oh yeah my thoughts on Griffith sleeping with Charlotte are that it’s way more complex than I went into here. But I do think that Griffith’s like, conscious intention is pursuing his dream. I definitely think he’s subconsciously self-sabotaging, but I think a lot of his surface-level motivation is like, he cares about 2 things in the world: Guts and becoming king, and Guts just abandoned him, so he’s throwing himself into the other like he’s trying to prove it’s more important to him.
Tho btw I went into mainly the self-sabotage/self-harm aspect pretty in depth here if you’re interested. obvious warning for het applies but there aren’t any pics at least lol. though i didn’t even really say anything about Griffith’s behaviour, it’s mostly drawing parallels, so good points about how careless he is, and his non-reaction to getting caught.
Also I’ve never actually thought about the possibility of Griffith impregnating her actually tbh, that’s an interesting thought. Idk what would happen realistically in a medieval setting but I feel like it would make sense if they found out Charlotte was pregnant without knowing who (assuming she didn’t say it was Griffith) the King might theoretically be more willing to marry her off to anyone who’d keep quiet about it and raise the kid as his own, giving Griffith an in. So I could maybe see that being a possibility in his mind going in.
Tbh that does make a lot of sense. The reason my mind never quite went there, though, is because even though in that scene Griffith is in no state of mind to be strategising, the fact that having sex with the princess is a bad idea should be simple enough to occur even to someone who’s going through what he is. So my line of thought was less along the lines of, Guts left so he’s trying to quickly seize the other thing he cares about, and more like, Guts left so he’s throwing everything into the fire. Because, I get Griffith is pretty cool in a pinch, and probably, you know, didn’t want to give those guards the satisfaction of seeing him break down or whatever, but like I mentioned his reaction to getting caught was so ……… almost nonexistent. In a way, it looked like he’d given up. And of course that can be explained quite well in your scenario, but I just can’t help but feel like, even though everything is crumbling around him, his reaction to his last chance of achieving his dream being crushed right in front of him should have been a tad more explosive. (And as I’m typing this I keep thinking, but he cares about Guts more so now that he’s gone who the fuck gives a shit, but that keeps bringing me back to my original theory of him destroying everything while he’s on a roll.)
Though, having read your post on Heterosexuality as the Main Villain of Berserk, I can’t stop thinking about this one thing you said along the lines of, “sex with Charlotte represents his dream.” This is where I feel my theory falls apart because, you’re so right about that, and with that fact in my mind him having sex with Charlotte to ruin the prospects of achieving his dream seems contradictory. Just in a writing sense.
But yeah, I haven’t read the post you linked me to yet (I’m about to), so I’m super sorry if you’ve answered some of my questions there.
Nah I’m like, almost completely on board with you. I think the only way I might see it differently is that I see Griffith as like… very intellectually detached from his own emotions? He feels emotions very strongly but I don’t think he’s very capable of identifying them, maybe bc he’s so emotionally repressed. So I think he absolutely is directly sabotaging himself, he just wouldn’t think to frame his actions that way, and instead hides behind a veneer of “this totally makes sense as a thing I should be doing” to himself, even though it’s a clear lie that wouldn’t hold up to a second of self-examination.
I often see Griffith as operating under like, a duality of lying to himself to justify emotional outbursts, thinking one thing and feeling another. Like when he ripped up his arms in the river, I don’t think he was only lying to Casca, I think he genuinely believed that he didn’t feel guilt and was instead acting on pure logic lol, and he genuinely believed he was totally fine when he forced himself back under control and put a hand on Casca’s shoulder. Or like, when he saved Guts from Zodd, I don’t think he was thinking at all, and because he had no possible logical justification he just refused to think about it, or come up with any answer better than “um no reason.”
So like eg if instead of guards he’d run into Casca the next morning, a la the morning after Gennon, she could say something like, “holy shit are you so fucked up that Guts left that you’re trying to get yourself killed?” and Griffith’s response would be, “um no winning Charlotte’s affection is part of the path to my dream, I don’t care at all that Guts left, the dead kid Guts leaving right before this was just a coincidence obviously, I’m fine nbd.” But at this point his justification is so weak it’s more along the lines of his “no reason” to Guts.
So I think like, his non reaction to the guards, plus the way he goaded the king into whipping him shortly after, is because emotionally he’s past the point of despair and this is what he wanted to happen, even if he didn’t consciously recognize it.
Idk I guess I just can’t rly see him admitting to himself, at least not until later when he’s doing some soul searching in that dungeon, that fucking Charlotte is self-destruction I guess, even if that’s clearly what it is. It strikes me as too self aware and honest for him lol.
But like, idk this is basically just my headcanon lol, not rly meta or anything, and I kinda just took the opportunity you provided to talk about it. I don’t think there’s any objectively right answer bc there’s no real way to know what he’s thinking, and based on his behaviour it does make sense for him to be aware of the consequences and accepting of them. So your take also makes sense and is also less convoluted than mine. I’m just rly into Griffith’s ability to deny shit to himself lol.
Well this originally started out as a jokey take on how compulsory 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:
I always thought that it’s interesting that he seems to be on the precipice between childhood and adolescence (10/11) when he revived the Egg of the King in the first place. Like you said, this is hardly a perfect metaphor but that would be around the time where he might start to notice that a) he had some kind of feelings for men b) be old enough to understand that they are not compatible with his goals/not accepted by the culture he lives it.
The situation for Guts, for example, is absolutely complicated by his experience as a CSA survivor in that I’m not sure he has a way to think of these kinds of things outside of acts of violence. The kind of implicit homophobia of this culture does nothing to dissuade him from this. Griffith has at least grown up in a similar environment and am;has probably “seen some shit”; if not suffered in a similar way by the time he has the Behelit, as well as his later experience with Gennon. What better pressure cooker to make someone utterly terrified of themselves and be willing to go to extreme lengths to repress those feelings?
I feel like there’s a really interesting character analysis waiting to happen w/ both Guts and Griffith and their relationships to same-sex desire (especially taking the official translation as a source, not one of the scanlations where Guts throws around homophobic slurs every other page. Which I mention bc those scanlations seem to be the reason a lot of Berserk fans think Guts is canonically a giant homophobe lmao).
It could be way more rooted in the actual text and authorial intention than this was bc the fact is that both Guts and Griff had non-consensual same-sex experiences at young ages that explicitly took a severe emotional toll on them, neither of them read as straight as far as I’m concerned, and you cannot tell me that it’s an accident that both of them were raped by men, they’re introduced to each other through Guts directly asking Griffith if he’s gay and wants to fuck him, and then the rest of the story is about their incredibly homoerotic relationship and how emotional repression ruins everything.
So anyway yeah you have some good points worth expanding on imo.
All of this was pretty damn excellent.
Thankyou for writing this.
I think the reading with being closeted is awfully fitting and tbh I feel that even if at age 20, Kentaro Miura wasn’t aware he was writing very gay-coded characters, after every single interviewer asked him about it and in the year 2017, he cannot still be unaware. And he’s made absolutely no tonal changes to accommodate for the fact? ( I think. Honestly i’ve been a little bummed out by the lack of griffguts feels in the most recent, post style- change chapters).
That’s just supposition though. Like I do feel that some of the inherent sexism has greatly improved over the years. And most of those issues which saw in Casca’s treatment have become slightly better with the newer characters. Just like giving credit where credit is due.
I mean it would be a greeeeat stretch to expect the same from the inherent homophobia. Like I don’t expect i AT ALL. But I think there may be at least some awareness about it.
But inspite of this the reading really makes sense.
Also you know -from how nightmarish that brief domestic dream felt, despite it seeming so superficially pleasant and ‘normal’. There was this deafening sense of -This in not you. This is not her. This is uncomfortable.
And actually for the longest time, I’d read a lot of theories about how the way Griffith saw Casca in his dream showed that he’d actually always viewed her as this hetero-normative, submissive, potential wife figure. But I don’t think so. I think the entire sequence was about how wrong it all felt. Inclusive of Casca.
It wasn’t a dream at all. I think it was always supposed to be a nightmare, his final attempt to revert from accepting his reality a la his undeniable love for Guts with what should have been the heteronormative ideal, and the knowledge that this wasn’t his reality which forced him back into a space where he had no option but acceptance.
And then being faced with the consequences he has had to face for that reality. His body, the broken arm.
And like there’s also the added fact that immediately post this realisation he attempts to commit suicide. which is sadly a pretty common consequence.
Oh nooo man I kind of glossed over a lot of stuff so that post is a bit disjointed and one of the things I glossed over was how the domestic nightmare vision actually fits into the whole narrative I plucked out beyond being disturbing and feeling relevant, but the way you have it framed here, as Griffith trying to deny his feelings for Guts and insinuate himself into the heternormative ideal (again: “this peace and quiet… isn’t so bad”), failing, and then trying to kill himself… ouch. That’s painful, but it works.
Especially with the fact that his godhand-summoning despair is brought on by Guts’ touch soon after.
also there’s at least one GriffGuts moment in recent chapters that I dug, even though it doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, which was that while Farnese and Schierke are checking out Casca’s memory of the cave with Guts Farnese says straight up that she senses “jealousy…?” I mean sure we already knew that but it’s nice to reiterate it.
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.
@bthump Didn’t wanna do this on your post but this part caught my eyes … To be honest I’ve never thought of Griffith having sex with Charlotte as him trying to quickly seize his dream because, surely he must have known what the consequences would be? He didn’t do a good job sneaking in or sneaking out, he didn’t even try to make sure they’re not caught together. Had he impregnated her he probably would have had to marry her, but the king would still hate his guts, which goes against what he was initially trying to do, that is, charm his way into the royal family. When he was caught, he didn’t seem particularly perturbed. It almost seemed like an act of defiance because he got discovered so easily and didn’t even care. That led me to believe that the sex with Charlotte was more an act of self-harm and self-sabotage than anything else. Thoughts?
Oh yeah my thoughts on Griffith sleeping with Charlotte are that it’s way more complex than I went into here. But I do think that Griffith’s like, conscious intention is pursuing his dream. I definitely think he’s subconsciously self-sabotaging, but I think a lot of his surface-level motivation is like, he cares about 2 things in the world: Guts and becoming king, and Guts just abandoned him, so he’s throwing himself into the other like he’s trying to prove it’s more important to him.
Tho btw I went into mainly the self-sabotage/self-harm aspect pretty in depth here if you’re interested. obvious warning for het applies but there aren’t any pics at least lol. though i didn’t even really say anything about Griffith’s behaviour, it’s mostly drawing parallels, so good points about how careless he is, and his non-reaction to getting caught.
Also I’ve never actually thought about the possibility of Griffith impregnating her actually tbh, that’s an interesting thought. Idk what would happen realistically in a medieval setting but I feel like it would make sense if they found out Charlotte was pregnant without knowing who (assuming she didn’t say it was Griffith) the King might theoretically be more willing to marry her off to anyone who’d keep quiet about it and raise the kid as his own, giving Griffith an in. So I could maybe see that being a possibility in his mind going in.
AU where Guts never overheard Griffith’s speech to Charlotte, nothing went wrong, Griffith eventually married Charlotte and became king, managed the whole famine and plague situation competently and is beloved, started hooking up with Guts on the side, Casca became the highest-ranked general in Midland, Gaston’s got his shop, everyone’s living their best lives
And then Ganeshka and his unstoppable demon army shows up, and regular old human king Griffith doesn’t have apostles on his side
So Griffith tries to stop Ganeshka but it’s unquestionably hopeless ofc
Anyway this is ultimately a What If Griffith became king and fulfilled his dream all according to plan but 3 years later had to flee his kingdom (or get knocked out and hauled away over Guts’ shoulder depending on how reluctant he is) as it’s about to be taken over by a demon emperor kinda thing. Or maybe he chooses to flee because Guts is determined to stay and die with him if he stays. Because I like the idea of Griffith being forced to pick Guts’ life over dying for his dream.
Either way bam suddenly he’s back to where he was when he was 12 with a group of rag tag friends roaming the countryside trying to survive and he’s gotta deal with that.
This is an excellent concept.
I really love this. Also seeing as Griffith’s and Guts relationship in this version has Been allowed to run it’s natural course and I’d really like to see how that would play out. I actually think, since Griffith and Guts hooked up, Griffith sometimes wishes he could just run away from the kingly stuff once in a while to be with Guts.
What if he isn’t actually averse to running away after the initial clashes against Vanishes prove that it’s futile. But I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t actually. Maybe because the guilt for his soldiers hasn’t quite gone yet and he rationalises that he can’t surrender something so much blood had once been spilled for, PLUS since Guts’ is known for his “finish what you started” attitude- Griffith feels that Guts will not respect him anymore if he runs away.
Guts for his part, thinks Griffiths decision is non negotiable, so he’s just determined to save him from as much damage as he can. Guts refuses to come in the way of what Griffith wants. And he reasons that’s well, it’s always been in his nature to fight rather than flee. And if he has to die, nothing better than now, when he’s found somebody who looks at him and CARES.
PLUS since Guts’ is known for his “finish what you started” attitude-
Griffith feels that Guts will not respect him anymore if he runs away.
oooh nice, gr8 point i didn’t consider at all.
also ironic if they both die bc they think that’s what the other wants lol, but that’s so them. maybe casca could intervene w/ some sense + save their asses as per usual.
Like with all the Casca thoughts which have been accumulating.
You Know this bit- “ Maybe Casca could intervene w/ some sense + save their asses as per usual.”
This is OUR version of Casca. This is our take on what she could have been if the narrative didn’t constantly screw up her characterisation. Because this action and characteristics makes sense to us, seems like a reasonable expectation and we or rather I (I’ll only speak for myself here for now) would like to believe it to be true- because I really want to like her.
And of course this is us talking about AUs anyway. So we will fill it with what seems reasonable.
But really I can’t help but think how cannon never explored this possibility. In canon Casca never saved their asses or talked sense into them. She made the connections. Yes. She had the information necessary to. Yes. She had the opportunity to. Also yes.
But canon didn’t care about making us like Casca as anything more than either a worthy (and projected as slightly annoying) rival or a love interest.
We’re never made to empathise with any particular or specific actions she takes or roles she plays. It seems like There’s no particularly thing Casca has done in the entire goddamn narrative which defines her. Like HER. Not someone else.
So when we say ‘as per usual’ we’re really just comparing with different versions we have been forced to create on our own.
There’s unfortunately no as per usual we can compare with in the source material.
Which is so frustrating.
Lol yeah this is true and I was kind of thinking when I wrote it that I should’ve said like she always tried to do, and might’ve done if anyone actually listened to her. (Like “just talk to each other!” can you imagine if judeau shut the hell up and they were like, actually yeah casca has a point let’s try words before swords). But I went with less accurate pithiness instead lol.
Also like… I do pretty much agree with you – the narrative is so bad about defining Casca in relation to the men in her life rather than as herself independently that I’ve come to hope it’s her central character flaw that will one day be explored as unlikely as that is lmao, but in fairness despite doing things for Griffith’s sake or for Guts’ sake, she does show a lot of character as she does them.
Taking command of the Hawks, leading the charge to infiltrate Doldrey, rallying the troops in dire situations, jealousy, pettiness, bravery, practicality (one moment I love for her, even if it is just to give Guts a moment of ‘wow she’s so cool’ (ugh), is when she tells the Hawks to stop freaking out at the start of the Eclipse because it’s not going to change the fact that shit just got really weird, so they might as well hold formation and stay calm), foolhardiness due to insecurity (going to battle on her period lol), perseverence even after almost giving up, loyalty ofc and her attempt to navigate between loyalty and what she feels is a betrayal of it albeit a timely and necessary one (even if the ‘betrayal’ is fucking guts, like, the feelings there are still complex despite the shitty plot imo), etc.
I hate almost all of Casca’s narrative and ofc it’s steeped in Miura’s misogyny, and she has a few character moments that are total offensive bs (acting cuter when she warms up to guts, maybe my place is at this man’s side, her non-reaction to Wyald’s attempted rape which just underscores that whole awful thing as pure shock value and titilation, etc) but there are also lots of moments she has that I think are revealing, endearing, and interesting. Like misogyny is one of Miura’s big flaws but shallow characterization sure isn’t and imo while his flaws are seriously on display in Casca’s character his strengths are still there.
So yeah like I don’t disagree with you bc her narrative absolutely sucks and I know that’s p much what you’re talking about, but your response did make me kind of want to talk up her likeability as a character a little lol. Like it’s not enough to make up for her awful narrative role, but it’s enough to make me want to explore her as a character and feel sympathy and empathy for her and relate to her in some ways, which is not a high bar but tbh it’s more than a lot of designated-love-interest-female-characters have.
It’s funny that while typing out the previous bit, I was wondering if I should add in the bits I did like about Casca which made me want more of her in the first place- and I was about to talk about her ‘ keep calm’ situation- but I decided against it because I was afraid i’d meander off course and forget to finish my point.
So yeah I do agree with you.
Looking back I think a lot of the fact of why these personally didn’t leave as much of an impact on me-and in a way i feel they weren’t even supposed to narratively-is because Casca’s contemporaries were Guts and Griffith who were both built to be larger than life. While Casca was supposed to be more realistic as an individual.
And most probably the fact that Casca was never intended as a main character to begin with has something to do with that as well. She just got a hike in the importance hierarchy when Miura realised he could use her for the drama amping during the Eclipse and to explain the demon baby he’d introduced in the black swordsman arc but now didn’t know what to do with. ( This is taken from his interview)
So really in comparision to the characters she was created to act as a contemporary to, Casca stands out remarkably actually. In a story starring Casca judeau, pippin, corkus and Rickert – Casca would definitely be the protagonist, the best fighter, the best leader, insightful- complete freaking boss.
So this isn’t something I could say is specific to only her Gender but rather, because of Miura’s decision to use her for manpain and thereby increase her importance (which IS specific to her gendered treatment)- so when you suddenly change the comparision from the B characters to the two A characters, who the author has spent a great deal of effort carefully crafting, ofcourse it wont be an even match.
And even if I realise this, as a reader Casca is still presented to me as an MC, so naturally I’ll tend to compare her with the other MC’s. And in that light somehow a few of the scenes I find the most impressive about her…seem almost like echoes.
Her leadership achievements almost seem like an echo of Griffith’s at times.
Hell even Guts aforementioned appreciation seems to allude to this.
“ Every element has been pre-calculated in his mind, even being outnumbered he’s calm and has perfect judgement. He is amazing. He really is.”
“ Even at a time like this she’s calm. She really is amazing.”
Infact okay, this isn’t really related but a lot of what Guts seems to find attractive in Casca apart from you know…seems to be characteristics she shares with Griffith.
Like you could say the interaction between Guts and Casca’s started for proper during the Bonfire of dreams part. Where Guts compliments her on having a dream and then proceeds to say. “Yeah. You’re pretty impressive. You and Griffith both.” Then when he says – “You sound like some refined princess.” Again remember who else speaks poetically about things that matter to them?
Then during the ball. Guts says he finds her strength and skill attractive. And then I remember- who else really awed Guts with their strength and skill.
And , we’ve talked about this before but he finally kissed Casca when she said she couldn’t live off dreams anymore and visibly needed someone’s presence- moments after Guts was left frozen and helpless when Casca told him that Griffith couldn’t live off only his dreams and he needed Guts there with him.
And I’m digressing again but I think this is also a point we made before?
How so many of my Griffguts arguments have the cost of further puppetfying Casca. And I don’t like it.
Yeah I think point was-IDK anymore,
So yeah I like Casca but I wish there was more.
I think another thing which has struck me is that I don’t have ANY of these issues with the newer female characters? Like I personally never felt this kind of dissapointment reading Farnese or Luca?
So did the misogyny get better or did I just get desensitised?
Oh damn that comparison between Casca and Griffith is so good. We’ve def talked about it before a bit and I probably will again but you really hit the nail on the head with those details. I didn’t even consider some of those comparisons you caught, nice.
And yeah like I totally agree with you, Casca’s story is so utterly disappointing and she gets the serious short end of the stick compared to Guts and Griffith. Like she is literally, textually, talked about in actual words-on-the-page as an emotional and physical connection between Guts and Griffith and there isn’t a thing in the story that contradicts that, and a whole lot that supports it. It’s a genuinely accurate statement on her narrative significance. Even if you take Guts’ journey to heal her at total face value she’s still reduced to a distraction from Griffith and mindless morality pet.
Which is super fucked up lol, and we’ve talked about that before too. Idk basically I don’t blame anyone for being uncomfortable as fuck with her or finding her character offputting because of how she’s constantly reduced.
For my part I want to like, transplant her into a different story lol. It’s like I can feel how much I’d love her if she was the protagonist of her own story. Like that “what if Casca became the Black Swordsman after the Eclipse” AU I was chatting w/ ppl about a while ago is The Ideal omg. Every time I remember that idea I swoon a little lol. So I stubbornly maintain my love for her in spite of how unfair the narrative is to her.
And yeah ia, no other woman’s narrative is even close to as awful. Even like, Nina, the annoying blonde in the conviction arc, had a better story arc lol. It still pisses me off that almost every female character in Berserk is in love with a dude and most of them are motivated by that love, but at least most of them also have other interests and roles and development outside of that, while Casca never did.
Here’s hoping that’ll change when she wakes up I guess.
AU where Guts never overheard Griffith’s speech to Charlotte, nothing went wrong, Griffith eventually married Charlotte and became king, managed the whole famine and plague situation competently and is beloved, started hooking up with Guts on the side, Casca became the highest-ranked general in Midland, Gaston’s got his shop, everyone’s living their best lives
And then Ganeshka and his unstoppable demon army shows up, and regular old human king Griffith doesn’t have apostles on his side
So Griffith tries to stop Ganeshka but it’s unquestionably hopeless ofc
Anyway this is ultimately a What If Griffith became king and fulfilled his dream all according to plan but 3 years later had to flee his kingdom (or get knocked out and hauled away over Guts’ shoulder depending on how reluctant he is) as it’s about to be taken over by a demon emperor kinda thing. Or maybe he chooses to flee because Guts is determined to stay and die with him if he stays. Because I like the idea of Griffith being forced to pick Guts’ life over dying for his dream.
Either way bam suddenly he’s back to where he was when he was 12 with a group of rag tag friends roaming the countryside trying to survive and he’s gotta deal with that.
This is an excellent concept.
I really love this. Also seeing as Griffith’s and Guts relationship in this version has Been allowed to run it’s natural course and I’d really like to see how that would play out. I actually think, since Griffith and Guts hooked up, Griffith sometimes wishes he could just run away from the kingly stuff once in a while to be with Guts.
What if he isn’t actually averse to running away after the initial clashes against Vanishes prove that it’s futile. But I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t actually. Maybe because the guilt for his soldiers hasn’t quite gone yet and he rationalises that he can’t surrender something so much blood had once been spilled for, PLUS since Guts’ is known for his “finish what you started” attitude- Griffith feels that Guts will not respect him anymore if he runs away.
Guts for his part, thinks Griffiths decision is non negotiable, so he’s just determined to save him from as much damage as he can. Guts refuses to come in the way of what Griffith wants. And he reasons that’s well, it’s always been in his nature to fight rather than flee. And if he has to die, nothing better than now, when he’s found somebody who looks at him and CARES.
PLUS since Guts’ is known for his “finish what you started” attitude-
Griffith feels that Guts will not respect him anymore if he runs away.
oooh nice, gr8 point i didn’t consider at all.
also ironic if they both die bc they think that’s what the other wants lol, but that’s so them. maybe casca could intervene w/ some sense + save their asses as per usual.
Like with all the Casca thoughts which have been accumulating.
You Know this bit- “ Maybe Casca could intervene w/ some sense + save their asses as per usual.”
This is OUR version of Casca. This is our take on what she could have been if the narrative didn’t constantly screw up her characterisation. Because this action and characteristics makes sense to us, seems like a reasonable expectation and we or rather I (I’ll only speak for myself here for now) would like to believe it to be true- because I really want to like her.
And of course this is us talking about AUs anyway. So we will fill it with what seems reasonable.
But really I can’t help but think how cannon never explored this possibility. In canon Casca never saved their asses or talked sense into them. She made the connections. Yes. She had the information necessary to. Yes. She had the opportunity to. Also yes.
But canon didn’t care about making us like Casca as anything more than either a worthy (and projected as slightly annoying) rival or a love interest.
We’re never made to empathise with any particular or specific actions she takes or roles she plays. It seems like There’s no particularly thing Casca has done in the entire goddamn narrative which defines her. Like HER. Not someone else.
So when we say ‘as per usual’ we’re really just comparing with different versions we have been forced to create on our own.
There’s unfortunately no as per usual we can compare with in the source material.
Which is so frustrating.
Lol yeah this is true and I was kind of thinking when I wrote it that I should’ve said like she always tried to do, and might’ve done if anyone actually listened to her. (Like “just talk to each other!” can you imagine if judeau shut the hell up and they were like, actually yeah casca has a point let’s try words before swords). But I went with less accurate pithiness instead lol.
Also like… I do pretty much agree with you – the narrative is so bad about defining Casca in relation to the men in her life rather than as herself independently that I’ve come to hope it’s her central character flaw that will one day be explored as unlikely as that is lmao, but in fairness despite doing things for Griffith’s sake or for Guts’ sake, she does show a lot of character as she does them.
Taking command of the Hawks, leading the charge to infiltrate Doldrey, rallying the troops in dire situations, jealousy, pettiness, bravery, practicality (one moment I love for her, even if it is just to give Guts a moment of ‘wow she’s so cool’ (ugh), is when she tells the Hawks to stop freaking out at the start of the Eclipse because it’s not going to change the fact that shit just got really weird, so they might as well hold formation and stay calm), foolhardiness due to insecurity (going to battle on her period lol), perseverence even after almost giving up, loyalty ofc and her attempt to navigate between loyalty and what she feels is a betrayal of it albeit a timely and necessary one (even if the ‘betrayal’ is fucking guts, like, the feelings there are still complex despite the shitty plot imo), etc.
I hate almost all of Casca’s narrative and ofc it’s steeped in Miura’s misogyny, and she has a few character moments that are total offensive bs (acting cuter when she warms up to guts, maybe my place is at this man’s side, her non-reaction to Wyald’s attempted rape which just underscores that whole awful thing as pure shock value and titilation, etc) but there are also lots of moments she has that I think are revealing, endearing, and interesting. Like misogyny is one of Miura’s big flaws but shallow characterization sure isn’t and imo while his flaws are seriously on display in Casca’s character his strengths are still there.
So yeah like I don’t disagree with you bc her narrative absolutely sucks and I know that’s p much what you’re talking about, but your response did make me kind of want to talk up her likeability as a character a little lol. Like it’s not enough to make up for her awful narrative role, but it’s enough to make me want to explore her as a character and feel sympathy and empathy for her and relate to her in some ways, which is not a high bar but tbh it’s more than a lot of designated-love-interest-female-characters have.
look how surprised griffith is by the hawks’ outpouring of emotion when they learn he’s not dead after all.
guts never asked him, he only thought it, but i think that it
wouldn’t’ve even crossed griffith’s mind that faking his own death is
cruel to the hawks. he’s worried about whether asking guts to kill people for him is cruel, not about whether keeping the hawks in the dark is.
this is after he succeeded, after he’s paved
their way, and when he’s no longer useful to them as a military leader. i
don’t think he ever thought they actually cared about him beyond that
enough to be distraught over his “death.”
Yeah I once talked about this in a conversation with someone here, where the other person held the argument that Griffith was an extremely self- entitled person who was aware of his influence and used it knowingly. And they actually made really good points. But then I brought up this incident in my mind.
And I’ve realised that there is a pattern regarding Griffith looking really surprised whenever someone does something for HIM.
There’s this. There’s how surprised he looks when Charlotte starts crying after he gets shot. When Charlotte takes the dart for him. When Guts defends him in front of the Godhand.
And it’s crazy. That for someone who says things like ‘thereby have I held so many lives in this hand’ he’s strangely unaware of the affect he has on others and mostly of the autonomous actions they may take, independent of him, for him.
As confident as Griffith is in his ability to manipulate situations and people, he has very low expectations of them.
Griffith never expects anyone to care. Hell he never even expected that anyone would ever rescue him from the tower. He didn’t expect Guts to come back.
I think Griffith has conditioned himself to not expect or hope for things which are beyond the things he knows he can Induce on his own.
Which is why even the simplest unpredicted kindness throws him so off balance.
Yeah ia!
And not to sound like someone who reduces Griffith down to sociopath tendencies lol but I think part of it is that people genuinely caring for him is beyond his ability to control?
Like when he thinks about how he’s always been different than other people, some ppl hate him and some ppl love him but no one can disregard him, etc, it boils down to what he can do for people or to them. It’s his charisma inspiring people or intimidating people, and it’s the way he’s a bug in the heavily structured class system that either gives people hope or makes people afraid of him bringing change.
Idk if I really noticed surprise when Charlotte freaked out over the arrow, but definitely when she took the dart for him I got the sense that he was very taken aback bc like… he’d crafted this perfect boyfriend image around her to make her fall for him, but she still loved him after that image fell apart and he was no longer able to appear perfect to her.
Which is also partly why Guts leaving destroyed him so hard – bc once again Guts was an exception who got to see more facets of Griffith, including the less likeable and realer ones, making his response to Griffith a genuine reflection of him and outside of his control.
Yk like if someone hates you because you’ve made yourself hatable to them deliberately (eg griffith climbing the social ladder) that’s nbd, but if someone hates you because they know you, that’s tough, and it’s worse for Griffith than most people because he doesn’t let anyone else know him. Of course Guts doesn’t hate him, but yk, Griff thinks he does.
And relatedly I think Griffith receiving affection and love post-torture would’ve been a huge game-changing deal for him (and probably really emotionally intense and difficult to take too) because of this attitude, but beyond a few moments here and there misunderstandings made shit go south before Guts had the chance to demonstrate his love (Guts defending Griff from the Godhand was a gr8 moment but by then it seemed like too little too late).
Like if someone loves you because you’ve made yourself a perfect wonderful leader to them, that’s nbd, if someone loves you when you’ve been totally broken physically and nearly broken mentally and emotionally that’s a lot more meaningful. Especially if it’s Guts, because again, Guts is the one who’s seen him at his least likeable.
Idk basically this is my take on Griffith being super emotionally defensive and guarded, part 2048392002
ooh also now that i’m contemplating this topic i think the scene in the river with Casca could be viewed as a choice for Griffith between letting her in and growing closer to her or keeping her at a distance. When he freezes up as she hugs him, then turns around and represses his feelings and comforts her instead, that’s him choosing to keep her at a distance rather than be vulnerable around her.
So really his speech to Charlotte about not having friends is a self-fulfilling prophecy. like Griffith could have a bunch of friends but that requires letting people see your imperfections. the way Griffith describes a friend – as an equal who also has a goal and would challenge and oppose him if need be – it’s like he wants someone to fight past his barriers and climb over his walls and make him their friend, because he’s unwilling to expose himself to the possibility of rejection while emotionally vulnerable.
Guts is the exception, the one person he actually tries to let in who keeps placing him at a distance. Asking him to kill Julius instead of ordering and Guts reinforcing the mercenary hierarchy instead; asking if Guts thinks he’s cruel and getting ‘who cares your dream is more important’ as an answer; doing irrational things for him because his brain takes a back seat when Guts is involved and Guts dismissing those moments as irrelevant compared to the overheard friendship speech; etc.
Which is another reason it’s tragic and ironic that Guts takes the friendship speech to heart, because he’s probably the only person in Griffith’s life who didn’t need to follow that advice to become his friend, he just needed to accept Griffith’s overtures of friendship instead of accidentally rebuffing him.
YES.
The problem is that Guts also needs someone to beat him over the head with friendship and Griffith, even at his most vulnerable wasn’t capable of doing that. And then there’s the whole “are we more than friends” can of worms to deal with.
true lol
tbh i think the commander/soldier power differential would’ve been the biggest barrier to overcome for guts, both for friendship and any potential sexual relationship. like the zodd debacle gets him understanding that griffith cares for him but he still wants to serve him (he dedicates his sword to him after that and that contributes to the julius assassination exchange imo) and ngl it would’ve been tough for these dudes to navigate that even without the friendship speech.
i think they could’ve done it, but yk, it would’ve been slowburn af.
Casca babe. I still don’t know why the fuck you would say that. It makes zero sense.
Tbh at this point I felt things were happening, only because they had to happen, even if it made no sense to anyone to act like this. Like Casca saying this, as if it still mattered what Griffith saw as a equal. Like Guts acting as if not realizing how severe Griffith’s injuries were and saying he will swing that sword again. Like the Band throwing a fucking tantrum how their future is ruined, while Griffith was 5 steps away and probably listening. Like even Guts and Casca having this talk there, as if he wasn’t sleeping nearby… the amount of moments, where everyone was being inconsiderate was so huge, that it felt kind of…. forced to me 😮 Either this or at this point they had all stopped seeing Griffith as a person already.
And tbh, there was no going back from there on in my opinion, even if he had never been offered to sacrifice them, even if he had accepted living in a broken body, he wouldn’t have accepted being their mascot.
Yeah, I completely agree actually.
Like of course at this point Miura was trying to take the plot to the eclipse so maybe everything doesn’t make sense from character consistency point of view.
But really if we leave that aside this arc really was evidence that both of what Wyald said and what we knew of Griffith’s apprehensions were almost completely justified.
Like it really just came across as if nobody actually gave a shit about griffith as a fucking human being. And it was upsetting because all this while, we were thinking how Griffith was wrong and being pessimistic and he should maybe stop distancing himself so much. But then griffith was absolutely right all along.
It really just seemed like everyone was waiting for griffith because of the usefulness he’d have to their lives. The moment it became clear that he wouldn’t be able to do that, they immediately ran to Guts to leave with him instead.
Like notice how no one else even tries to visit him after that, I mean yeah okay, you were throwing around words like love before, but okay.
yes , they most probably wouldn’t have abandoned him but that would most probably be because such a thing would be ‘distasteful’ rather than anything else. I mean you might be right about the fact that they’ve already stopped seeing him as a person at this point.
And honestly even with Casca, like this really rubbed me the wrong way- but she has this little bit of internal monologue where she says “Yes now it’s my turn to fulfill this duty. ” And that sense of duty is repeated when she tells Guts that she can’t leave with him. And wow. So it’s DUTY now ? Like a couple of chapters ago you were wondering why he’d chose Charlotte to bed instead of you and were being jealous of the fact. And now it’s only your sense of duty holding you back. Like honestly I thought you loved this person? Wow for consistency.
I mean I remember Griffith saying in the lake, while hurting himself that the only thing he can do for his men is to keep winning.
And really he was right.
That’s all they want from him and that’s all that he’s good for in their eyes.
tbh this never bothered me from a writing perspective because it felt very realistic to me
it’s not good and it doesn’t reflect well on the hawks, but it seems consistent because none of them ever gave a fuck about griffith as a person except guts and casca. judeau practically flat out said it during his first chat with guts, when he said everyone followed griffith for his charisma but he couldn’t really say what kind of a man he is.
and it’s partially griffith’s fault for distancing himself. you can’t expect people to care about you as a person if they only know you as a flawless leader. but it’s also definitely dickish of the hawks – but the kind of dickish that doesn’t seem out of place imo, especially in berserk’s shitty world where if you’re accepting that half the men casca runs into want to rape her, ableism doesn’t seem like a stretch.
also in fairness, only corkus made a scene when casca announced the news, and that’s pretty in character for him, and there was only like, maybe a couple hours between that and the eclipse, during most of which griffith was asleep, so there wasn’t much opportunity for people to visit him, or even sort out their feelings beyond abject disappointment that their hopes are dashed.
i actually love casca and judeau telling guts to leave while he’s trying to say he wants to stay, because they are treating griffith as an inevitable burden someone has to deal with, and guts is the only one who isn’t. judeau has his, i’ll take some hawks, start a thieves gang and take care of him, because it’s the least i could do for all he’s done for us. plus being ‘self sacrificing’ for casca’s sake lol.
casca’s feelings are more complex but they also work for me – because she wanted to leave with guts after rescuing griffith and try to move on from her feelings for griffith, and now he needs her, and she’s someone who wants to be needed, so it’s like just as she had hope that she could move on she’s back to square one. also tbh her attitude strikes me as more evidence that she never really loved Griffith, just admired him.
and they both expect guts to view him as a burden so they encourage him to leave – because according to those rules of the battlefield judeau likes to cite so much, he’s no longer a hawk so griffith isn’t his responsibility.
and guts partially wants to stay out of guilt probably, but based on his actions at the start of the eclipse it seems clear that he, more than anyone else in the hawks, still just genuinely likes griffith and wants to be with him in some capacity. he’s the one who speaks out when the godhand says griffith is one of them, he supports and holds him until they’re forcibly separated and then he climbs up to griffith to try to save him, and he refuses to believe griffith sacrificed everyone for quite a while.
idk basically it’s harsh and depressing but it works for me largely bc i never got the sense that anyone except guts genuinely liked griffith as a person, even casca. well charlotte i guess, but w/e. even she believed he’d recover when she wanted to stay with him.
Hmm yeah.
Of course it makes a lot of sense from the writing perspective. And from character perspectives. And everything makes sense with everything else because that’s just how Berserk is. It’s brilliant. And all that is precisely the reason I love it so much.
I don’t think my issue was with character consistency actually, like tbh I don’t have an issue at all, -that’s what makes for good story telling and that’s what I’m here for.
I have zero issues with the Hawks not giving a fuck about Griffith. Because it makes sense. And because realistically that’s how people are.
Same with Casca.
I think what I had a not very objective, reaction to^ up there was the fact that the fact that the Hawks or Casca may be didn’t give a fuck is very rarely recognised
Which makes for very one dimensional analysis. And THAT is frustrating.
The thing with Casca is I have very mixed feelings about her in general and that just spills onto every time I mention her so. Yeah.
And like hey I liked griffith so sometimes there’s an emotional ‘why you do this?’, but intellectually yes, makes sense, sign me the fuck up, sweet angst God yes.
Like the fact everyone is equal parts nice and low-key assholeish is amazing?
But sometimes people are not nice to someone you like (Even if that makes perfect sense to you )and you are like ‘hey!’
yeah i know what you mean. casca is such a difficult character in some ways for me bc i love her in theory but i feel like i’m constantly mentally compensating for the way miura writes her.
like eg i’d infinitely prefer if instead of casca switching gears bc now she loves guts instead of griffith, she was telling guts to leave because she believes she’s being self-sacrificing but deep down she wants griffith to herself and she still isn’t over her jealousy of guts. i don’t feel that’s the case, that’s not the vibe i get from this scene at all, but man i’d be into that, and i kind of headcanon it that way.
like i like petty jealous casca whose “love” for griffith is a flaw (and a defense mechanism she uses to avoid self-examination) she needs to overcome to come into her own as a person. i don’t like casca just switching from griffith to guts and this being treated by the narrative as a touching and significant development for her lol. same like, i like casca as a badass responsible and respected military leader, i don’t like casca as someone who “had to give up being a woman” (wtf does that even mean lol) and is conflicted about that, it sucks.
enjoying casca as a character to me is like navigating a minefield of miura’s shitty misogyny lol. there’s lots i love and it’s worth the effort of downplaying the shitty aspects of her writing imo, but man i wish i didn’t have to.
Casca babe. I still don’t know why the fuck you would say that. It makes zero sense.
Tbh at this point I felt things were happening, only because they had to happen, even if it made no sense to anyone to act like this. Like Casca saying this, as if it still mattered what Griffith saw as a equal. Like Guts acting as if not realizing how severe Griffith’s injuries were and saying he will swing that sword again. Like the Band throwing a fucking tantrum how their future is ruined, while Griffith was 5 steps away and probably listening. Like even Guts and Casca having this talk there, as if he wasn’t sleeping nearby… the amount of moments, where everyone was being inconsiderate was so huge, that it felt kind of…. forced to me 😮 Either this or at this point they had all stopped seeing Griffith as a person already.
And tbh, there was no going back from there on in my opinion, even if he had never been offered to sacrifice them, even if he had accepted living in a broken body, he wouldn’t have accepted being their mascot.
Yeah, I completely agree actually.
Like of course at this point Miura was trying to take the plot to the eclipse so maybe everything doesn’t make sense from character consistency point of view.
But really if we leave that aside this arc really was evidence that both of what Wyald said and what we knew of Griffith’s apprehensions were almost completely justified.
Like it really just came across as if nobody actually gave a shit about griffith as a fucking human being. And it was upsetting because all this while, we were thinking how Griffith was wrong and being pessimistic and he should maybe stop distancing himself so much. But then griffith was absolutely right all along.
It really just seemed like everyone was waiting for griffith because of the usefulness he’d have to their lives. The moment it became clear that he wouldn’t be able to do that, they immediately ran to Guts to leave with him instead.
Like notice how no one else even tries to visit him after that, I mean yeah okay, you were throwing around words like love before, but okay.
yes , they most probably wouldn’t have abandoned him but that would most probably be because such a thing would be ‘distasteful’ rather than anything else. I mean you might be right about the fact that they’ve already stopped seeing him as a person at this point.
And honestly even with Casca, like this really rubbed me the wrong way- but she has this little bit of internal monologue where she says “Yes now it’s my turn to fulfill this duty. ” And that sense of duty is repeated when she tells Guts that she can’t leave with him. And wow. So it’s DUTY now ? Like a couple of chapters ago you were wondering why he’d chose Charlotte to bed instead of you and were being jealous of the fact. And now it’s only your sense of duty holding you back. Like honestly I thought you loved this person? Wow for consistency.
I mean I remember Griffith saying in the lake, while hurting himself that the only thing he can do for his men is to keep winning.
And really he was right.
That’s all they want from him and that’s all that he’s good for in their eyes.
tbh this never bothered me from a writing perspective because it felt very realistic to me
it’s not good and it doesn’t reflect well on the hawks, but it seems consistent because none of them ever gave a fuck about griffith as a person except guts and casca. judeau practically flat out said it during his first chat with guts, when he said everyone followed griffith for his charisma but he couldn’t really say what kind of a man he is.
and it’s partially griffith’s fault for distancing himself. you can’t expect people to care about you as a person if they only know you as a flawless leader. but it’s also definitely dickish of the hawks – but the kind of dickish that doesn’t seem out of place imo, especially in berserk’s shitty world where if you’re accepting that half the men casca runs into want to rape her, ableism doesn’t seem like a stretch.
also in fairness, only corkus made a scene when casca announced the news, and that’s pretty in character for him, and there was only like, maybe a couple hours between that and the eclipse, during most of which griffith was asleep, so there wasn’t much opportunity for people to visit him, or even sort out their feelings beyond abject disappointment that their hopes are dashed.
i actually love casca and judeau telling guts to leave while he’s trying to say he wants to stay, because they are treating griffith as an inevitable burden someone has to deal with, and guts is the only one who isn’t. judeau has his, i’ll take some hawks, start a thieves gang and take care of him, because it’s the least i could do for all he’s done for us. plus being ‘self sacrificing’ for casca’s sake lol.
casca’s feelings are more complex but they also work for me – because she wanted to leave with guts after rescuing griffith and try to move on from her feelings for griffith, and now he needs her, and she’s someone who wants to be needed, so it’s like just as she had hope that she could move on she’s back to square one. also tbh her attitude strikes me as more evidence that she never really loved Griffith, just admired him.
and they both expect guts to view him as a burden so they encourage him to leave – because according to those rules of the battlefield judeau likes to cite so much, he’s no longer a hawk so griffith isn’t his responsibility.
and guts partially wants to stay out of guilt probably, but based on his actions at the start of the eclipse it seems clear that he, more than anyone else in the hawks, still just genuinely likes griffith and wants to be with him in some capacity. he’s the one who speaks out when the godhand says griffith is one of them, he supports and holds him until they’re forcibly separated and then he climbs up to griffith to try to save him, and he refuses to believe griffith sacrificed everyone for quite a while.
idk basically it’s harsh and depressing but it works for me largely bc i never got the sense that anyone except guts genuinely liked griffith as a person, even casca. well charlotte i guess, but w/e. even she believed he’d recover when she wanted to stay with him.
Personally, I understood the Hawks suddenly seeing him as a burden, shitty as it was, but even with your explanation Casca’s line seems OoC to me. Just a while ago she was yelling at him for having left, so what’s this now? Yeah, leaving again is sure gonna be fantastic for Griffith’s recovery.
yeah i see what you mean bc it’s such a shift for her. tbh it mostly works for me bc of how completely convicted guts was when he told casca he didn’t want to stay, back by the waterfall before the rescue mission. casca took him at face value, told him he was just like griffith (angrily), but seemed to think his conviction was noble and v genuine and v important to him. we know guts’ conviction is ultimately pointless and stupid, but casca doesn’t.
especially when she says ‘if you want to be his friend you have to go’ (paraphrasing) because she’s parroting back what guts told her, and it’s actually kind of a point in her favour that she doesn’t consider griffith’s condition to be a dealbreaker in guts’ pursuit of equality with him.
i think it boils down to an attempt to be self sacrificing on her part, because she believes guts truly wants to roam around fighting people and that’s the only thing that will fulfill him, because that’s what guts told her.
but like you make a good point about how sending guts away is bad for griffith and casca should know that so really like… this is evidence of how miura writes women tbh, ie badly, bc pre-sex with guts casca prioritized griffith which is why she attacked guts and screamed at him that it was his fault. post-sex with guts casca’s prioritizing guts and what she believes is important to him based on what he told her.
so yeah ia that it’s pretty much ooc bc it’s such a 180 in the span of 2 days, and it’s not super well written bc it’s all tied into miura’s misogynist writing of casca, but if you accept the stupid premise that her focus shifted from griffith to guts bc she got laid you can see where miura was coming from i guess lol.
Casca babe. I still don’t know why the fuck you would say that. It makes zero sense.
Tbh at this point I felt things were happening, only because they had to happen, even if it made no sense to anyone to act like this. Like Casca saying this, as if it still mattered what Griffith saw as a equal. Like Guts acting as if not realizing how severe Griffith’s injuries were and saying he will swing that sword again. Like the Band throwing a fucking tantrum how their future is ruined, while Griffith was 5 steps away and probably listening. Like even Guts and Casca having this talk there, as if he wasn’t sleeping nearby… the amount of moments, where everyone was being inconsiderate was so huge, that it felt kind of…. forced to me 😮 Either this or at this point they had all stopped seeing Griffith as a person already.
And tbh, there was no going back from there on in my opinion, even if he had never been offered to sacrifice them, even if he had accepted living in a broken body, he wouldn’t have accepted being their mascot.
Yeah, I completely agree actually.
Like of course at this point Miura was trying to take the plot to the eclipse so maybe everything doesn’t make sense from character consistency point of view.
But really if we leave that aside this arc really was evidence that both of what Wyald said and what we knew of Griffith’s apprehensions were almost completely justified.
Like it really just came across as if nobody actually gave a shit about griffith as a fucking human being. And it was upsetting because all this while, we were thinking how Griffith was wrong and being pessimistic and he should maybe stop distancing himself so much. But then griffith was absolutely right all along.
It really just seemed like everyone was waiting for griffith because of the usefulness he’d have to their lives. The moment it became clear that he wouldn’t be able to do that, they immediately ran to Guts to leave with him instead.
Like notice how no one else even tries to visit him after that, I mean yeah okay, you were throwing around words like love before, but okay.
yes , they most probably wouldn’t have abandoned him but that would most probably be because such a thing would be ‘distasteful’ rather than anything else. I mean you might be right about the fact that they’ve already stopped seeing him as a person at this point.
And honestly even with Casca, like this really rubbed me the wrong way- but she has this little bit of internal monologue where she says “Yes now it’s my turn to fulfill this duty. ” And that sense of duty is repeated when she tells Guts that she can’t leave with him. And wow. So it’s DUTY now ? Like a couple of chapters ago you were wondering why he’d chose Charlotte to bed instead of you and were being jealous of the fact. And now it’s only your sense of duty holding you back. Like honestly I thought you loved this person? Wow for consistency.
I mean I remember Griffith saying in the lake, while hurting himself that the only thing he can do for his men is to keep winning.
And really he was right.
That’s all they want from him and that’s all that he’s good for in their eyes.
tbh this never bothered me from a writing perspective because it felt very realistic to me
it’s not good and it doesn’t reflect well on the hawks, but it seems consistent because none of them ever gave a fuck about griffith as a person except guts and casca. judeau practically flat out said it during his first chat with guts, when he said everyone followed griffith for his charisma but he couldn’t really say what kind of a man he is.
and it’s partially griffith’s fault for distancing himself. you can’t expect people to care about you as a person if they only know you as a flawless leader. but it’s also definitely dickish of the hawks – but the kind of dickish that doesn’t seem out of place imo, especially in berserk’s shitty world where if you’re accepting that half the men casca runs into want to rape her, ableism doesn’t seem like a stretch.
also in fairness, only corkus made a scene when casca announced the news, and that’s pretty in character for him, and there was only like, maybe a couple hours between that and the eclipse, during most of which griffith was asleep, so there wasn’t much opportunity for people to visit him, or even sort out their feelings beyond abject disappointment that their hopes are dashed.
i actually love casca and judeau telling guts to leave while he’s trying to say he wants to stay, because they are treating griffith as an inevitable burden someone has to deal with, and guts is the only one who isn’t. judeau has his, i’ll take some hawks, start a thieves gang and take care of him, because it’s the least i could do for all he’s done for us. plus being ‘self sacrificing’ for casca’s sake lol.
casca’s feelings are more complex but they also work for me – because she wanted to leave with guts after rescuing griffith and try to move on from her feelings for griffith, and now he needs her, and she’s someone who wants to be needed, so it’s like just as she had hope that she could move on she’s back to square one. also tbh her attitude strikes me as more evidence that she never really loved Griffith, just admired him.
and they both expect guts to view him as a burden so they encourage him to leave – because according to those rules of the battlefield judeau likes to cite so much, he’s no longer a hawk so griffith isn’t his responsibility.
and guts partially wants to stay out of guilt probably, but based on his actions at the start of the eclipse it seems clear that he, more than anyone else in the hawks, still just genuinely likes griffith and wants to be with him in some capacity. he’s the one who speaks out when the godhand says griffith is one of them, he supports and holds him until they’re forcibly separated and then he climbs up to griffith to try to save him, and he refuses to believe griffith sacrificed everyone for quite a while.
idk basically it’s harsh and depressing but it works for me largely bc i never got the sense that anyone except guts genuinely liked griffith as a person, even casca. well charlotte i guess, but w/e. even she believed he’d recover when she wanted to stay with him.
@bthump I feel like almost every panel post I see now is completely consistent with what you mentioned about erotic imagery.
Even here Griffith’s definitely naked apart from the flame hair. Plus despite the skin tone and feature outlines being indistinct the mouth is quite prominent and kinda glossy?
Idk if I’m over thinking it though.
tbh i definitely count this panel as an example of guts sexifying griff in his mind. like dude. esp since like u said he’s a flat representation rather than a detailed drawing here, and all we get is: implied nakedness, flamey hair framing him, lined mascara’d looking eye and glossy lips.
i actually was pretty narrow in that post when i chose examples of griffith looking extra eroticized thru guts’ pov bc, well, griffith is supposed to be really pretty in general, so an image has to go a little above and beyond to make my point work lol. But I’m sure there are more examples than the few I pointed out.
tbh I kind of want to look at some charlotte and casca pov shots of him and compare sometime.
Also related to that last ask but my response was getting way too long so I’ll mention this separately:
I feel like part of my problem with the current lighter tone is that a lot of the darkness, specifically the emotional angst, of Berserk so far was based on the fact that all the main characters are traumatized and have shitty coping mechanisms. Guts Casca and Griffith sure, and also Farnese and Serpico (neglected throughout childhood and coped by burning people alive and terrorizing ppl, and abused by peers and Farnese + weird expectations from his mother and coped by becoming an unfeeling doormat). And none of them have really dealt with it?
Griff transformed into a monster so fine his story has a conclusion, and Casca’s is maybe coming to fruition soon, but Guts’ trauma just transferred from rape and abuse to feeling manpain about Casca’s trauma, which is a huge disservice to both characters if it’s never brought up again and dealt with.
And while Farnese is bettering herself we’ve never really seen her actual issues addressed, and her whole sadism burning ppl alive thing just kind of easily melted away in favour of a new helping someone philosophy. I wished for more internal conflict there, basically, and I hope it’s addressed in the future but for now it seems like a pretty abrupt change and a missed opportunity. And Serpico is still Serpico. He hasn’t changed a whole lot but his issues haven’t negatively impacted anything either.
In the Golden Age all the psychological baggage these characters had contributed to its absolute disaster of a climax. And I’d love, love to see that happen again, esp with Farnese and Serpico adding more shit to the pile, or I’d love to see their issues flare up but have them manage to overcome them now that they’ve grown in a happier, healthier contrast to the Golden Age.
But throughout the Millenium Empire arc all these issues the characters have never really affected them adversely. I’m hoping that now that we’re delving into Casca’s psyche things will start to snowball and we’ll see that these traumas haven’t just been forgotten but only put on hold for a while so this group can be happy and hopeful.
But for now I do miss reading about fucked up characters and the internal and external challenges posed by their issues.
The weird part is actually, that sometimes I think, objectively, the manga hasn’t become lighter since the Golden age. The Lost Children and Tower of Conviction arc were pretty fucked up and even now we’ve had troll rapes, the daka demons ripping out uterus es, people being eaten alive, a lot of really weird ass and perverted monstrosities.
But it’s simply that the fucked up Ness isn’t viscerally gripping anymore.
In the Golden age we we’re first introduced to characters, made to care about them by slowly revealing both their strengths and flaws and slowly, insidiously piling on the foreshadowing and layers of emotional as well as external fuckery.
It felt so dark because we cared about the people it was happening to.
In recent chapters the characters are introduced along with the ‘darkness’ bringing it forward as a part of their plotlines. Even Farnese was introduced as a sadistic pyromaniac first . Along with the horror which was the heretic related prosecution.
And only much later were we given a glimpse into the character and learnt to retroactively care about her.
I mean ultimately that worked as far as characterisation is concerned. As in I definitely care about Farnese now.
But it does reduce the emotional impact of the should have been traumatic scenes.
These are really good points. I totally agree about the grimdarkness – like I care when the protagonist has a traumatic backstory and it leads to him making unfortunate decisions, I’m less affected emotionally when random npcs are being tortured in two-page spreads for shock value.
+ tbh i don’t think it’s necessarily a mistake to introduce Farnese’s dark side first and then reveal her better nature, bc I do like when writers make you love a former antagonist and I love that about Farnese, but it definitely adds to the differing tones.
And I mean it does make sense to reverse the Golden Age format this way – now instead of beloved characters going dark, we can have dark characters learning to be better. But it really boils down for me to feeling like it’s been too easy I guess. Guts made new friends and now his hound is on a leash and now it’s the Berserk armour’s fault when he tries to murder everyone. Farnese dropped the pyromania and became a protector. And yeah for Farnese it’s been an ongoing journey as she gets braver and more competent and learns new things, and I love that journey, but since deciding to join Guts she’s never had second thoughts or felt sadistic or masochistic urges and more internal conflict for her would’ve been sweet.
But again, that’s assuming that this Guts and Friends story has all been a journey of personal growth and a brighter future, and not just the calm before the storm. So we’ll have to wait and see.
Oh yeah I completely agree with you about, the retroactive characterisation actually being pretty interesting.
That’s what, it works for characters .
But the setting seems to loosing the conflict which would make it more anticipatory and exciting. As you mentioned things seem to be happening too easily, too perfunctory. The high points seem expected and a foregone conclusion, and the obstacles too easily overcome.
There a vague sort of plot armor around the plot itself for every subplot involving Guts party members.
Griffith’s side of the story is still more interesting because of all the supposition we can do regarding the nature, relationships and back stories of the apostles and what falconia itself stands for AND the fact that there’s piling evidence that emotionless, divine doll Griffith may in fact be our beloved emotional-fuck Griffith afterall.
Like seriously I have no shame in admitting that in comparison I give zero fucks about Guts party or Elfhelm, beyond my investment into the follow-up of Casca and Farnese’s relationship.
I think a part of what I was trying to convey is that Berserk has always been a hugely character driven plot. As such ‘darkness’ of characters is linked to the ‘darkness’ of the plot.
So while the character writing is still quite enjoyable, introducing the character at their point of highest conflict and darkness and gradually resolving that, puts the plot and pacing in a perpetual cycle of falling action which Miura hasn’t yet broken.
Which is why I DO hope that this is actually just the calm before the storm.
Because unless there’s a change to rising action, we lose the excitement or anticipation or build up to any sort of satisfying climax.
Like that’s what the Golden Age did with perfection. It built on itself.
Deconstruction is something I really really enjoy actually but I think it’s being drawn out a little too much.
And Berserk though masterful in it’s quiet moments, has kind of made it’s rep for the drama.
Also related to that last ask but my response was getting way too long so I’ll mention this separately:
I feel like part of my problem with the current lighter tone is that a lot of the darkness, specifically the emotional angst, of Berserk so far was based on the fact that all the main characters are traumatized and have shitty coping mechanisms. Guts Casca and Griffith sure, and also Farnese and Serpico (neglected throughout childhood and coped by burning people alive and terrorizing ppl, and abused by peers and Farnese + weird expectations from his mother and coped by becoming an unfeeling doormat). And none of them have really dealt with it?
Griff transformed into a monster so fine his story has a conclusion, and Casca’s is maybe coming to fruition soon, but Guts’ trauma just transferred from rape and abuse to feeling manpain about Casca’s trauma, which is a huge disservice to both characters if it’s never brought up again and dealt with.
And while Farnese is bettering herself we’ve never really seen her actual issues addressed, and her whole sadism burning ppl alive thing just kind of easily melted away in favour of a new helping someone philosophy. I wished for more internal conflict there, basically, and I hope it’s addressed in the future but for now it seems like a pretty abrupt change and a missed opportunity. And Serpico is still Serpico. He hasn’t changed a whole lot but his issues haven’t negatively impacted anything either.
In the Golden Age all the psychological baggage these characters had contributed to its absolute disaster of a climax. And I’d love, love to see that happen again, esp with Farnese and Serpico adding more shit to the pile, or I’d love to see their issues flare up but have them manage to overcome them now that they’ve grown in a happier, healthier contrast to the Golden Age.
But throughout the Millenium Empire arc all these issues the characters have never really affected them adversely. I’m hoping that now that we’re delving into Casca’s psyche things will start to snowball and we’ll see that these traumas haven’t just been forgotten but only put on hold for a while so this group can be happy and hopeful.
But for now I do miss reading about fucked up characters and the internal and external challenges posed by their issues.
The weird part is actually, that sometimes I think, objectively, the manga hasn’t become lighter since the Golden age. The Lost Children and Tower of Conviction arc were pretty fucked up and even now we’ve had troll rapes, the daka demons ripping out uterus es, people being eaten alive, a lot of really weird ass and perverted monstrosities.
But it’s simply that the fucked up Ness isn’t viscerally gripping anymore.
In the Golden age we we’re first introduced to characters, made to care about them by slowly revealing both their strengths and flaws and slowly, insidiously piling on the foreshadowing and layers of emotional as well as external fuckery.
It felt so dark because we cared about the people it was happening to.
In recent chapters the characters are introduced along with the ‘darkness’ bringing it forward as a part of their plotlines. Even Farnese was introduced as a sadistic pyromaniac first . Along with the horror which was the heretic related prosecution.
And only much later were we given a glimpse into the character and learnt to retroactively care about her.
I mean ultimately that worked as far as characterisation is concerned. As in I definitely care about Farnese now.
But it does reduce the emotional impact of the should have been traumatic scenes.
These are really good points. I totally agree about the grimdarkness – like I care when the protagonist has a traumatic backstory and it leads to him making unfortunate decisions, I’m less affected emotionally when random npcs are being tortured in two-page spreads for shock value.
+ tbh i don’t think it’s necessarily a mistake to introduce Farnese’s dark side first and then reveal her better nature, bc I do like when writers make you love a former antagonist and I love that about Farnese, but it definitely adds to the differing tones.
And I mean it does make sense to reverse the Golden Age format this way – now instead of beloved characters going dark, we can have dark characters learning to be better. But it really boils down for me to feeling like it’s been too easy I guess. Guts made new friends and now his hound is on a leash and now it’s the Berserk armour’s fault when he tries to murder everyone. Farnese dropped the pyromania and became a protector. And yeah for Farnese it’s been an ongoing journey as she gets braver and more competent and learns new things, and I love that journey, but since deciding to join Guts she’s never had second thoughts or felt sadistic or masochistic urges and more internal conflict for her would’ve been sweet.
But again, that’s assuming that this Guts and Friends story has all been a journey of personal growth and a brighter future, and not just the calm before the storm. So we’ll have to wait and see.
Also grif orginal design was female and as the manga grows older we seem to be getting back to that lol
i’ve heard his design was based on oscar from rose of versailles, is that what you mean by his original design being female? bc yeah he def gets prettier and prettier as miura’s art shifts
Oh I think I was the one who brought the RoV thing up. But also in the fact that Griffith’s original design was literally female even within the Berserk universe.
In the Berserk prototype that is. At least I’m assuming that’s Griffith- because it’s the same character design. It’s only one chapter so finding character parallels is a bit more difficult. But I found some tbh.
oh yeah you mean the girl guts saves with griffith hair (and like, face, but that’s all of miura’s early feminine faces tbf)?
tbh i do have to wonder why miura was like, hmm i need a design for guts’ bff turned enemy… let’s just re-do this damsel in distress.
i think we might’ve actually chatted about parallels between them before, that’s ringing a bell. she does a self-sacrificial, i’ll be taken to the evil monster dude so no one else has to die, thing, which feels kind of like it could’ve been repurposed for Griff’s backstory. Throw more parallels at me if you have some plz.
I mentioned a while ago that the first time I feel we got a real visual* glimpse of Guts’ hound-esque inner darkness chronologically was during the rescue mission.
The way he cuts out the torturer’s tongue is very reminiscent of his tendency to torture apostles before killing them imo (which probably has its origins in the way he killed Donovan), and then he just rampages through the castle like a demonic one-man army, very black swordsman ish.
Look at this imagery like:
(i love Casca’s ‘holy shit dude’ expression)
Plus you got Charlotte saying he scares her, and the Wyald fight is when everyone starts comparing Guts to a monster and saying he’s inhuman.
So I was thinking – why? Why would we get this before the Eclipse, before he starts killing ghosts and infusing his sword with Essence of Darkness, before the brand + killing monsters make him literally superhuman? Why do we get our first look at monster slaying, revenge-obsessed, black swordsman Guts a day and only a day before the main event, the point of which is to make him revenge-obsessed, even takes place?
And I want to suggest that it’s because this is it – this is Guts’ revenge spree. It’s not one revenge spree that ends, followed immediately by another unrelated revenge spree. It’s the same rage. He killed the torturer like he kills apostles, then he fought an actual apostle to defend Griffith, then the Eclipse happened and he declared war.
It’s all intimately connected in Guts’ mind and emotions:
He started off on a vengeful rampage for Griffith in part as a way of externalizing his own feelings of guilt, and he continued on a vengeful rampage against Femto/NeoGriffith, also in part as a way of externalizing his own feelings of guilt.
We know this because as he’s running towards Griffith in the torture chamber Guts thinks about how it’s his fault that Griffith is there without actually coming to a proper conclusion (if that’s the case… then I –) – and he reaches that conclusion (was I the one who brought all this upon you?) right as he’s running towards Griffith at the site of the Eclipse. Guts’ guilt is strongly associated with his rage this way. Guilt followed by external target followed by lashing out.
Idk, there’s just such a through line to me from Casca telling him it’s his fault to the Eclipse. The most significant moments of Guts’ internal thoughts are given to him processing this information and finally concluding that he fucked up right before the Eclipse begins. The Eclipse didn’t then erase his feelings of guilt, it just let him continue to repress those feelings and gave him acceptable targets to lash out at instead of dealing with his feelings.
Now this is a bold statement, but I think that in a way, rampage part 1, kill half the soldiers of Midland, and rampage part 2, kill demons, are both about Guts avenging Griffith – the latter only in part ofc, because the rest of the Hawks need to be avenged too now.
Because the thing is, I think he still sees Griffith as a victim. After finally acknowledging that Griffith did sacrifice everyone, he still looks back at him wistfully. He thinks of Griffith while flashing back to the lost Hawks after the Eclipse. He tells Rickert that NeoGriffith isn’t the Griffith he knows (incidentally something Rickert repeats to NeoGriffith later, which NGriff acknowledges). He flashes back to Griffith in the snow a lot. To Guts, Griffith isn’t his friend who turned out to be a dick, Griffith is his friend who basically committed fantasy murder/suicide after being tortured for a year because Guts broke him by leaving.
His feelings towards Femto/NeoGriff are complicated and fucked up as all hell, but while his feelings for Griffith feed into his complicated feelings for Femto/NeoGriff, his hatred for F/NG doesn’t retroactively affect his feelings towards human Griffith. They’ve remained pretty solidly longing, guilt, love, regret. He’s not thinking of Griffith kneeling in the snow and feeling rage at what he would go on to do a year later, he’s thinking of Griffith kneeling in the snow and trying to find a way to atone for it. Griffith is still explicitly part of the “campfire from those days still [burning in his] chest.”
Idk basically I just wanted to say that a part of Guts’ fuel for his revenge rampage was feeling responsible for Griffith’s pain and not being able to save Griffith from it, both the first time against Midland and the second time against the Godhand, and I chose a very long drawn-out way to do that.
* I specify visual glimpse bc i think there’s a solid argument that it’s there when he kills Donovan, based on the way he taunts him and tortures him briefly first, but we don’t have any of the ragey demonic imagery associated with Guts’ darkness there – he just looks like a kid. So I feel like it works as a point of origin for a lot of Guts’ dark vengeful urges (Donovan is the first monster he killed), but he wasn’t anywhere close to losing himself to darkness then.
Honestly I don’t think there’s anything I have to add here which you haven’t already said. But I’ll just leave this here,
From Schierke’s trip into Guts Mindscape, where at the pit of the fire which drives Guts forward, There is a chant of Griffith’s name and a confused roil of affection and rage which comes with it. And though Friend and enemy overlap, they haven’t quite superimposed yet, they are still distinct entities.
And really you’ve said this before but I definitely agree that a part of his current motivation to fix things comes from his guilt of being unable to ‘fix’ what he had with Griffith. I’m not saying he wouldn’t have done it for Casca on her own too, but that Guttural fear, the panicked “Did I Do it AGAIN?!” that comes from a place of Guilt. A place quite firmly occupied by Griffith.
The “This time, I was the one left behind.” goes to show that Guts now wholeheartedly sees himself leaving the first time around as an act of abandonment, there’s no allusion to leaving to pursue his own dream because really even back then- :”Now I realise, this was what I’d been seeking this whole time.”
What I also like about this is that Guts seems to treat it as Griffith sort of “Paying him back’ for that offense. So he’s kind of subconsciously seeing Neo-Griffith as a very human, emotionally motivated figure with remnants of the ‘original’ Griffith’s emotional experiences and for once Guts might just really be on to something.
Also Interestingly, as mentioned before i guess, ever since the Eclipse all of Gut’s memories of Griffith have morphed into images of him standing with his back towards Guts or at a distance and the imagery is really interesting to me here. Because it could signify so much.
We know that the image of Griffith’s back, kneeling in the snow has sort of become a haunting image for Guts. What if the turned back everywhere else is an extension of this, the fact that all his memories are tinged with the same regret or guilt.
Secondly it could be simply a perceived distance and further unreachability, because the past is literally an unachievable objective. And specifically that shot he has of the entire original band during the ‘companions’ speech. Griffith is walking away in the background there, it’s almost as if Guts realises that even during what he considered his happiest memories he was already losing Griffith.
Oh and the “Campfire from those days still burns in my heart” spread?
First of all. Ahhem.
Second of all once again you compare in importance a woman you literally have an appendage of yours inside in that particular shot with this other guy who actually looms much larger. An more encompassing. With his presence literally symbolically wrapped around you for emotional warmth.
Also Under his cover but behind his back and I really wonder if that has significance too.
And then again maybe simply because he doesn’t know what face to give him. Is it the face of a friend, an enemy, something else all together? Guts doesn’t really know yet.
lol i was almost going to make my original post like twice as long by going on to guts’ decision to stick with casca this time and how it’s framed as him trying to make up for abandoning griffith etc. but then i was like, this is already rly long.
also good point about Guts interpreting Griffith rejection as payback – ia, i don’t think Guts is exactly wrong about that lol.
I’ve been reading Guts’ memories of Griffith’s back (bc yeah I noticed that too, he’s always facing away) as, I guess, recognition that that relationship has been destroyed. Whenever Guts remembers leaving Griffith he’s looking back at him kneeling in the snow, which tbh strikes me as symbolic rather than literal because Guts never looked back. It’s a visual representation of Guts’ acknowledgement that he left Griffith behind. And I think Guts’ other memories of Griffith with his back to him are similar – an acknowlegement that Guts ruined everything and now he’s back to chasing Griffith. I might say more on that in a separate post actually.
and lol the campfire from those days spread is so damn blatant in its acknowledgement of the fact that guts and casca hooked up not only while they were both in love with griffith but, tbh, because of it. at least that’s what i get when i look at a picture of 2 ppl fucking while wrapped in the symbolic flowing cape of the dude they were both acknowledgedly obsessed with plus like you said, it’s with griffith facing away. Which, to me, adds the sense of them trying to fill a hole left by his loss.
Which is why it makes perfect sense to show us this image at this point in the narrative while Guts is contemplating revenge and rescuing Casca because he’s shifting from trying to fill that hole by chasing Griffith/Femto down and “[giving] him a heap of raw iron” to trying to fill it with Casca again (tho he doesn’t actually solidify that choice until NeoGriffith ditches him).
And I think it’s going to be a mistake – we see that Guts leaving revenge behind is good, but his desperation to get Casca back is not so good and will probably have consequences. And I think we’re supposed to understand that he’s doing it for the wrong reasons – if he wanted Casca sane again for her sake he’d be giving her time and a safe place to recover, or just to live. He wants Casca sane again for his own sake bc a) he can’t let go of the past and she represents the Hawks, b) he’s trying to make up for leaving Griffith and c) he’s still trying to fill the Griffith-shaped hole in his heart.
And then again maybe simply because he doesn’t know what face to give
him. Is it the face of a friend, an enemy, something else all together?
Guts doesn’t really know yet.
@yesgabsstuff said:
Ditto for a conversation with Casca except that it ends with her taking the implement of self harm out of his hands and saying;
“You’re totally full of shit but I guess it’s time to put you to bed.”
awww. this is all
so perfect tbh. i’d seriously read 200k words of berserk as just a low key, realistic group of
traumatized and mentally ill people trying to support each other and get by and often failing and fucking up but
sometimes succeeding.
(i mean that’s basically what it is already but yk, take away the monsters and you’re still left with so much good character stuff and making it quietly realistic + modern adds a certain tone that agrees with me more than i would’ve expected. though i wouldn’t necessarily want to follow the plot of berserk to a tee lol. keep the themes, maybe explore different directions)
It’s weird. I think my age at this point has turned almost into optimism. What I mean is that Casca kind of barreling in and trying to get him to feel better and not knowing how because she can’t handle him being sad and Griffith kind of pulling it together in response to that is more realistic I think than what I just made up. It’s like I imagined what they would be with another five years under their belts and some solid self awareness. To her credit, Casca is the closest to being that person out of the three of them, but still. She’s always the Mom Friend regardless.
TO BE FAIR we are talking about an AU where they have some psychological knowledge and therapy experience, so it makes sense that they’d make better decisions occasionally haha.
in fact this really is the perfect setting to do like, a Berserk re-do where they’re all dealing with the exact same shit except actually learning coping methods and therefore not ruining everything all the time.
They can still ruin some things. just like, not irreversibly maybe.
That’s true. This is the setting where things could be made right for them even if the world still sucks.
Casca performs the bulk of the emotional labor but I also just thought about Griffith’s allergy to making other people uncomfortable. It’s interesting how his emotional labor is actually pretty similar to what Casca does? I don’t really know where to go from here.
That’s actually a rly good point that I didn’t think of. I guess Casca is more like, figuring out everyone’s shit for them and being stuck with the fallout of Griffith and Guts’ issues, but Griffith is really about hiding his own emotions so he can be the ideal leader everyone has perfect faith in.
Griffith’s is more typically masculine I’d say but it stands out since it’s acknowledged as a thing he does that’s also bad for his psyche in-text. Hey it’s a solid point for your “Berserk is about toxic masculinity” thesis statement you mentioned the other day 😀
you're the only one 