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top 5 cutest griffith moments?
Tag: cw het//
There are two important parallels during the waterfall scene, when Guts and Casca fight, then fuck.
The first is this parallel to Guts and Griffith’s second duel.
Casca is the new leader of the Hawks, taking over Griffith’s role. She
challenges and fights Guts when he returns, in a mirror of Griffith
challenging and fighting him before he leaves. Then she falls to her
knees and has a self-destructive
breakdown. The last time the leader of the Hawks had a breakdown after
fighting him, Guts walked away. The scenario has presented itself again,
and this time Guts makes a different choice, one that might have
changed everything a year ago: he comforts her.
Sex with Casca is Guts subconsciously (from a character perspective) or symbolically (from a narrative perspective) trying to fix past mistakes, imo.
Throughout the fight by the waterfall, Casca is screaming at him that he broke Griffith by leaving, that it’s his fault. This scene is all about Griffith and their feelings towards him. For Guts, it’s the beginning of his eventual revelation that leaving was a mistake because Griffith didn’t look down on him after all – because Griffith’s “no good without” him.
The fact that Guts lets Casca stab him as she screams this tells us that her words hit home and he feels guilty, even as he denies it. It’s a pattern of behaviour for Guts that we’ve seen before and will see again, eg, when he let the zombie child stab him in the second chapter because he blamed himself for her death, and then denied feeling responsible to Puck afterwards (”If you’re always worried about crushing the ants beneath you… you won’t be able to walk.”)
He represses that guilt and doesn’t manage to acknowledge his mistake until about five minutes before the Eclipse, unfortunately, but this is how we know he feels it regardless, and this is how we know it’s informing his choices now – specifically, his choice to comfort, kiss, and have sex with Casca.
Guts’ denial of guilt while clearly feeling it is reminiscent of another character too:
This is the second parallel, to Casca finding Griffith in the river.
Casca eventually yanks her sword out of Guts, admits to him that she’s romantically in love with Griffith, proceeds to list all the ways Griffith is wholly unavailable (he needs to marry Charlotte, Guts took the place she wanted at Griffith’s side, and now he may not even be alive), bequeaths Griffith to Guts, and tries to kill herself. Griffith Griffith Griffith – the lead-in to sex revolves around him. Guts thinking about how he abandoned him in the snow, Casca thinking about how Griffith doesn’t need her, and Guts beginning to realize that Griffith needed him.
So Guts saves her from her suicide attempt, then comforts her through sex.
And Casca does the same in return:
She couldn’t comfort Griffith, she couldn’t be Griffith’s “woman,” she couldn’t be be something indispensable to Griffith’s dream, but she can comfort Guts, she can have sex with Guts, she can help Guts achieve his dream.
The situations requiring her comfort are even v similar – Guts has just had a flashback to his rape, and Griffith was calling himself “unclean” after selling himself to a pedophilic rapist. Griffith buries his feelings and refuses to be comforted, but Guts pours his heart out to Casca and lets her hold him.
My point is that Guts and Casca having sex is not about the other for either of them – it’s about their respective relationships to Griffith. Guts is presented with a similar scenario to the morning he left the Hawks, and after being told by Casca that he fucked up then and broke Griffith, he chooses a different course of action this time, and comforts and has sex with Casca. Casca is presented with a similar scenario to finding Griffith in the river after Gennon, but instead of being shut out she’s able to comfort the man in emotional turmoil this time.
tl;dr they’re both on the rebound from Griffith here, giving to each other what they didn’t or couldn’t give to him, and there are deliberate visual and situational parallels to illustrate this.
romantic:
“That’s also why you used to hate being touched by anyone, isn’t it?”
just guys bein dudes:
like lbr here the reason guts and casca hated each other for 3 years is they were fighting for griffith’s attention
they finally warm up to each other only when guts figures he lost and decides to leave, so he’s able to be magnanimous and throw casca at him
like casca is so obviously a substitution for himself while guts is doing his weird matchmaker thing. hey casca you have a dream, you’re worthy of griffith, so you should ask him to dance.
guts may not have consciously realized it like casca did, but they were such romantic rivals, that’s their dynamic
hell they hook up after casca goes over point by point the ways griffith isn’t available: first guts, but then princess charlotte, then in a dungeon, now may not even be alive. and as soon as griffith becomes maybe possibly available after all, the jealous rivalry starts mounting again.
like i’ve talked about how casca telling guts to leave in requiem of the wind is bc she’s prioritizing his dream now and telling him to fulfill it, and i think that’s still the case buuuuuuut i can definitely see an interpretation where she tells guts to leave because now charlotte’s out of the picture, now griffith is dependant, now she can give back to griffith and comfort him the way she always wanted to and never could, and she doesn’t want guts to get in the way.
that’s kind of what the scene between her and griffith in the wagon is about rly, come to think of it. afterwards she cries about how weak he is and how there’s no way she can leave him like that, and before she muses about how his strong hands used to comfort her but they’re so small in actuality. whatever griffith’s motivations for literally flinging himself at her, it’s casca’s reaction that’s most important, casca putting her hand on his shoulder and realizing he needs her.
say she tells herself and guts that he needs to leave because his
dream is just So Important but deep down it’s bc she knows they’re still
rivals, the three of them together would get fucked up and destructive real quick, and if she can’t leave griffith and try to move on with guts then she wants to be the one to stay with him.
like it’s not a flattering interpretation for casca but i don’t want flattering interpretations for casca, i like flaws and selfishness etc in my female characters, especially as opposed to casca being a stupid selfless martyr for guts’ dream bc she slept with him so now that’s what she cares about.
right before judeau dies, it’s heavily implied that he had feelings for casca from the start. some people think that judeau didn’t think he was worthy of pursuing casca, who he regarded very highly. that’s why he pushed casca and guts together, because he still wanted her to be happy. do you feel like there was any sub-textual evidence of that, or if miura just added this unrequited love at the last minute to create more drama?
Actually yeah I could see that. Judeau is self depricating at times (”If I couldn’t be the best at something, I’d fly in the wake of one who seems the best.”), and at the very end he compares himself unfavourably to Guts:
He might see Guts as more worthy because he is the best at something, ie swinging a sword. Kind of like, if Casca can’t have Griffith, she should get the second best dude in the Hawks, which isn’t Judeau (in Judeau’s opinion).
Also he seems to understand implicitly when Guts says, “the one who has her eye is Griffith. That’s why right now I’m no good for her like this.” So he gets feeling unworthy and considers it a good reason not to pursue someone.
So I mean I do think that Miura shoved a lot of last minute romance in lol, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he came up with Judeau’s thing around the same time he came up with G*tsca, so not exactly from the beginning but somewhere along the way. But there’s some evidence for your suggestion imo.
i was browsing thru all the pages i have saved looking for smthn to talk about and this one here hit me with the sudden thought:
what if those scratch marks aren’t from that day, but earlier?
idk the way we’re in the midst of the sex scene and then Griffith’s first startling, intruding memory isn’t Guts leaving but Guts saying “you believe that, don’t you?” back after the assassination, followed by the reveal of the marks on Griffith’s shoulder made me go hmm.
Last time I talked about those scratches I mentioned that Griffith showed up at Charlotte’s window in the same clothes he was wearing during the duel so if the marks came from that day you have to imagine him holing up in his room, taking his clothes off, self-harming, and then redressing – which is fine, but it’s an extra step you have to add yourself as a reader, and therefore a little counter-intuitive.
Whereas the placement of panels here feels like cause and effect to me.
Last time we saw Griffith self harming it was while talking about his “blood-soaked dream,” after doing something that makes him feel dirty for the sake of that dream. This time we see SI marks after a panel in which Guts reminds him about that dream and calls his resolve into question, after doing something that makes him feel dirty for the sake of the dream (the assassinations).
Why does Guts question his resolve? Because Griffith needed emotional reassurance from Guts – he needed Guts to tell him he wasn’t cruel for involving him, for “dirtying” Guts by proxy, essentially (”I involved you in this filthy scheme… and I didn’t even get my hands dirty.”) Like I think he needs reassurance that he isn’t dragging Guts down or making him feel dirty himself by virtue of being close to him, and involving him in the darker aspects of his rise to the top. And Guts’ response to that is only to remind him that it’s necessary.
So my point is that “do you think I’m cruel” is another version of “is it… too dirty?” Is he dirty, are people going to feel disgusting too if they get close to him, if they know about what he’s done?
So imagine: Guts tells Griffith, hey, w/e man all this fucked up shit is necessary for your dream. You believe that, don’t you? Griffith does this:
And then he thinks about Guts’ words while he’s getting ready for bed that night or bathing the next morning, thinks about what he’s done and what he’s had Guts do for the sake of his dream, thinks about Guts asking, “you believe that, don’t you?” and tears up his shoulder, convincing himself that he does believe it, the same way he tore up his arms in the river as he talked himself through how necessary it is to dirty himself for his “blood-smeared” dream.
(And it’s been a month since then but lbr if he’s scratching as deep as he did last time those marks would still be very visible here.)
And then Guts leaves. And Griffith thinks it’s because he feels dirty by proxy, because Griffith revealed too much of himself and Guts didn’t like what he saw, because of his dream.
Griffith remembers, “you believe that, don’t you?” and he remembers Guts walking away.
He’s remembering when he hurt himself and why, he’s telling himself, “yes I believe it, it’s necessary, even if it’s why you left my dream is worth it. This is the evidence.” He traces those marks but this time he doesn’t scratch himself.
He’s finally lost his conviction, because losing Guts isn’t worth it and there’s no way he can convince himself that it is.
(this is kind of built on a lot of stuff i wrote here lol, hopefully it makes sense without that but just in case there’s a pseudo part one.)
ps if griffith already had those self-inflicted marks on his shoulder when guts won the duel a hair’s breadth away from wounding griffith exactly on that spot… well griffith self harms as an expression of his feelings of guilt and to drive himself towards his dream. feels symbolic of guts obliterating that dream and being a stronger force than griffith’s guilt, at least for a while.
@chaoticgaygriffith said:
Actually, now that you mention it, I never really paid close attention
to how Casca and Guts acted around each other bc I didn’t care for it,
but if Casca really did get Griffith’s eroticised panels once she and
Guts started being a thing, then I have to laugh because that’s just
further proof (as if further proof was necessary) that she was Guts’
replacement for Griffith. As he was hers, although I don’t see her crush
on Griffith as genuine but more of a misidentified emotion of
admiration and gratitude.I’m just replying to this instead of reblogging bc that thread is long and full of pictures. feel free to skip this if you don’t feel like reading My Thoughts on Guts’ Attraction to Casca lol, tho it’s v negative.
ngl… after a brief check of some key scenes, ie the ball, the sex scene, guts feeling kind of jealous during the rescue mission, and the huddling in the cave scene, I can say that we got Guts leering at her once when he first sees her in the dress with a cutesy blushy pov shot of her from his perspective, and one (1) panel of her looking sexy from guts’ pov at the very end of the sex scene.
So she doesn’t get nearly the bombshell treatment Griffith does. When Guts looks at her when she’s naked she almost always looks small and vulnerable, rather than erotic. (And I mean unfortunately small and vulnerable can = eroticized, but these shots are mostly Guts empathizing with her so I don’t feel that’s the case). In normal circumstances I’d be like, ok fine gj Miura that’s not a bad thing, but unforch what Guts lacks in finding her a sexy object the “camera” more than makes up for, compartmentalizing her into tits and ass and thighs etc, objectifying her, etc, for the audience’s sake.
I mean I think the most eroticized moment of Guts looking at her, other than the one shot I mentioned from the sex scene, is when he’s picturing her with the hound biting her neck. Which is fucked up but tbh it fits right in with Casca’s narrative treatment. Like she’s more likely to be objectified and made “sexy” for the audience during a rape scene than any other time.
So I mean, I can’t say kudos to miura for not having Guts get a long lingering look at her being sexy, because the audience does all the damn time in absolutely awful circumstances. But I am gonna say that signs point to Guts being gay.
(I know there’s one scene much later where Guts remembers having sex with her and might picture her splayed out on display, but I didn’t have any pics from that saved bc why would I so I have no idea when it was to find it and check.)
(also totally agree about Casca’s crush on Griff not being genuine.)
The sex scene between Casca and Gut seemed to be a form of comforting each other. Strangely I think it has less to do with being sexually attracted.
Maybe Casca looking vurnerable was a necessity of being intimidate with her. She was not so dangerous for Guts like other people (especially men after his trauma), even if I agree that Guts really is at least bi, maybe entirely gay.
Bi…since I kind of had the impression that he thought of her as sexually attractive like you described above. But that doesn t necessarily equate to being in love.
And there was the case that both Casca and Guts perceived Griffith as somebody out of their reach, while Casca was far more present for Guts and vice versa.
Still I envision their being together more as a form of camaraderie and helping each other than just a pure romantic outcome.
Like you told above…Griffith plays a far to much predominant role in both minds.
yeah ia!
Guts and Casca hooking up never felt romantic to me, or like it was even about Guts and Casca. Casca had just tried to kill herself, Guts had just let Casca stab him as a reaction to learning Griffith was in love with him.
But to me it reads like Casca giving up on Griffith (giving him to Guts actually w/ that “I’m so tired… you do the rest” bit) and moving right to Guts bc she doesn’t know how to live for herself, and Guts repressing the revelation that he broke Griffith’s heart by refocusing on Casca.
Whether Miura intended for it to be mildly fucked up idk (I get the feeling that Casca moving from Griffith to Guts IS supposed to be her act of independence lol but if so it definitely doesn’t work for me) but yeah, either way there’s definitely more of a two ppl comforting each other vibe than a True Love vibe.
Really during the entire scene I could feel Griffith’s palpable presence between them.
It’s strange how everything that happens seems to have this hanging reference to Griffith in there.
And really they’re using each other as springboards in a way.
Infact the manga itself draws visual comparisons here.
I don’t think it is coincidental that the way Casca hugs Guts after hearing his story is exactly how she hugs Griffith in the lake all those chapters ago.Except Guts actually lets her comfort him. It’s like Casca’s second chance to do the one thing she’d desperately once wanted to do and had been unable to.
I think there’s a line somewhat like- “but for once I want to be able to give something too and not just receive, and maybe I can have that with this man”Similarly with Guts. He’s reeling from the shock of learning that he’d been unable to do anything about Griffith’s sense of identity and resolve crumbling, so he focuses on fixing Casca, another person whose sense of identity and resolve is crumbling, conveniently right in front of him and as an actual attainable end. Comforting Casca is a more accessible way of doing what he now wants to do.
See the thing about G*tsca, it seems to me, is that them getting together wasn’t about realising that they needed each other or suddenly realised that they were in love.
It was about them recognising their own emotional needs at that point and recognising that the other had a chance of being able to fullfill those needs at that moment.
The chapter name even is licking wounds. It’s literally about two very stressed out people, comforting each other. It isn’t about passion, and honestly I don’t think is portrayed to be so even in the canon.
Tbh whatever else I may have beef with Miura about, he isn’t actually guilty of projecting G*tsca as an OTP as far as I remember. He purposely draws parallels to each of their relationships to griffith during the scene, has Casca and Guts both secretly doubt their feelings and get all-around jealous less than 12 hours later, has them kiss or make out zero times after that. Has Guts repeatedly prioritise Griffith during post rescue as well as Eclipse chapters and once again kinda restructures up some of the Early Golden age dynamic between Guts and Griffith with Casca a little off the side once again immediatly post the rescue.
Good point about Casca hugging Guts from behind in an echo of Griffith in the river. It’s obvious imo that Guts is replacing Griffith to her (she p much says that lol) but that’s a gr8 visual parallel that adds to it.
And yeah same, like, it’s part of what keeps me reading Berserk – the fact that I don’t think G*tsca was ever or will ever be a grand true love romantic thing. It definitely feels downplayed to me – like Miura said, added for extra Eclipse drama but not intended from the beginning.
Idk basically i agree with you.
@chaoticgaygriffith said:
Actually, now that you mention it, I never really paid close attention
to how Casca and Guts acted around each other bc I didn’t care for it,
but if Casca really did get Griffith’s eroticised panels once she and
Guts started being a thing, then I have to laugh because that’s just
further proof (as if further proof was necessary) that she was Guts’
replacement for Griffith. As he was hers, although I don’t see her crush
on Griffith as genuine but more of a misidentified emotion of
admiration and gratitude.I’m just replying to this instead of reblogging bc that thread is long and full of pictures. feel free to skip this if you don’t feel like reading My Thoughts on Guts’ Attraction to Casca lol, tho it’s v negative.
ngl… after a brief check of some key scenes, ie the ball, the sex scene, guts feeling kind of jealous during the rescue mission, and the huddling in the cave scene, I can say that we got Guts leering at her once when he first sees her in the dress with a cutesy blushy pov shot of her from his perspective, and one (1) panel of her looking sexy from guts’ pov at the very end of the sex scene.
So she doesn’t get nearly the bombshell treatment Griffith does. When Guts looks at her when she’s naked she almost always looks small and vulnerable, rather than erotic. (And I mean unfortunately small and vulnerable can = eroticized, but these shots are mostly Guts empathizing with her so I don’t feel that’s the case). In normal circumstances I’d be like, ok fine gj Miura that’s not a bad thing, but unforch what Guts lacks in finding her a sexy object the “camera” more than makes up for, compartmentalizing her into tits and ass and thighs etc, objectifying her, etc, for the audience’s sake.
I mean I think the most eroticized moment of Guts looking at her, other than the one shot I mentioned from the sex scene, is when he’s picturing her with the hound biting her neck. Which is fucked up but tbh it fits right in with Casca’s narrative treatment. Like she’s more likely to be objectified and made “sexy” for the audience during a rape scene than any other time.
So I mean, I can’t say kudos to miura for not having Guts get a long lingering look at her being sexy, because the audience does all the damn time in absolutely awful circumstances. But I am gonna say that signs point to Guts being gay.
(I know there’s one scene much later where Guts remembers having sex with her and might picture her splayed out on display, but I didn’t have any pics from that saved bc why would I so I have no idea when it was to find it and check.)
(also totally agree about Casca’s crush on Griff not being genuine.)
The sex scene between Casca and Gut seemed to be a form of comforting each other. Strangely I think it has less to do with being sexually attracted.
Maybe Casca looking vurnerable was a necessity of being intimidate with her. She was not so dangerous for Guts like other people (especially men after his trauma), even if I agree that Guts really is at least bi, maybe entirely gay.
Bi…since I kind of had the impression that he thought of her as sexually attractive like you described above. But that doesn t necessarily equate to being in love.
And there was the case that both Casca and Guts perceived Griffith as somebody out of their reach, while Casca was far more present for Guts and vice versa.
Still I envision their being together more as a form of camaraderie and helping each other than just a pure romantic outcome.
Like you told above…Griffith plays a far to much predominant role in both minds.
yeah ia!
Guts and Casca hooking up never felt romantic to me, or like it was even about Guts and Casca. Casca had just tried to kill herself, Guts had just let Casca stab him as a reaction to learning Griffith was in love with him.
But to me it reads like Casca giving up on Griffith (giving him to Guts actually w/ that “I’m so tired… you do the rest” bit) and moving right to Guts bc she doesn’t know how to live for herself, and Guts repressing the revelation that he broke Griffith’s heart by refocusing on Casca.
Whether Miura intended for it to be mildly fucked up idk (I get the feeling that Casca moving from Griffith to Guts IS supposed to be her act of independence lol but if so it definitely doesn’t work for me) but yeah, either way there’s definitely more of a two ppl comforting each other vibe than a True Love vibe.
@chaoticgaygriffith said:
Actually, now that you mention it, I never really paid close attention
to how Casca and Guts acted around each other bc I didn’t care for it,
but if Casca really did get Griffith’s eroticised panels once she and
Guts started being a thing, then I have to laugh because that’s just
further proof (as if further proof was necessary) that she was Guts’
replacement for Griffith. As he was hers, although I don’t see her crush
on Griffith as genuine but more of a misidentified emotion of
admiration and gratitude.
I’m just replying to this instead of reblogging bc that thread is long and full of pictures. feel free to skip this if you don’t feel like reading My Thoughts on Guts’ Attraction to Casca lol, tho it’s v negative.
ngl… after a brief check of some key scenes, ie the ball, the sex scene, guts feeling kind of jealous during the rescue mission, and the huddling in the cave scene, I can say that we got Guts leering at her once when he first sees her in the dress with a cutesy blushy pov shot of her from his perspective, and one (1) panel of her looking sexy from guts’ pov at the very end of the sex scene.
So she doesn’t get nearly the bombshell treatment Griffith does. When Guts looks at her when she’s naked she almost always looks small and vulnerable, rather than erotic. (And I mean unfortunately small and vulnerable can = eroticized, but these shots are mostly Guts empathizing with her so I don’t feel that’s the case). In normal circumstances I’d be like, ok fine gj Miura that’s not a bad thing, but unforch what Guts lacks in finding her a sexy object the “camera” more than makes up for, compartmentalizing her into tits and ass and thighs etc, objectifying her, etc, for the audience’s sake.
I mean I think the most eroticized moment of Guts looking at her, other than the one shot I mentioned from the sex scene, is when he’s picturing her with the hound biting her neck. Which is fucked up but tbh it fits right in with Casca’s narrative treatment. Like she’s more likely to be objectified and made “sexy” for the audience during a rape scene than any other time.
So I mean, I can’t say kudos to miura for not having Guts get a long lingering look at her being sexy, because the audience does all the damn time in absolutely awful circumstances. But I am gonna say that signs point to Guts being gay.
(I know there’s one scene much later where Guts remembers having sex with her and might picture her splayed out on display, but I didn’t have any pics from that saved bc why would I so I have no idea when it was to find it and check.)
(also totally agree about Casca’s crush on Griff not being genuine.)
dude scoops up the person he secretly loves and tells them to shut the fuck up
~cinematic parallels~
You know what?
Not to lose my GriffGuts cred here;
But Charlotte coping with her life going directly into the toilet by obsessing like a lunatic on, on some level, the person who caused the problem in the first place, Resenting and Remembering the appropriate people, swallowing that rage without getting her hair out of place and making angry, but perfect embroidery; all of this together makes me think, maybe y’all should be together?Thoughts? @bthump @mastermistressofdesire
lmao i was about to write a long reply about how yeah it makes sense that charlotte’s obsessed with him, i buy it, before i re-read and went …oh lol i see what you did there
maybe guts has been carrying charlotte’s behelit all along lol. 3 years of repressing bullshit and fixating on someone only to find out he never gave a fuck and is in love with someone else might take a toll.
~parallels~
embroidery does seem like a healthier outlet than trying to maim your crush so he won’t leave you if we’re comparing them though lol so maybe she’s not apostle material.
but yk griffith ran away to repress his emotions forever in the form of turning into a demon, charlotte can be healthier and just run away with anna.
(will i ever talk about charlotte without pushing my charlotte/anna agenda? signs point to no)
you're the only one 