sorry I’m not sure if you’ve answered this before or not but I have to ask you. I was lurking reddit the other day and I found this post about guts choosing casca over his revenge on griffith. what do you think?

I genuinely think the authorially intended reading of Guts’ decision is that it’s complicated and there are multiple reasons Guts is choosing to take Casca to Elfhelm over revenge right now. It’s not a simple matter of Casca straightforwardly being more important to him or just choosing Casca over Griffith.

Hopefully this is the kind of answer you’re looking for, idk the subject is a little broad. I’ve kind of said this in some other posts too but I think it’d be handy to have a nice and orderly list to link to so I’m just throwing it all out in response to you.

So here are the various complicated reasons I think Guts has for going on his take Casca to Elfhelm quest:

1. He gives a fuck about Casca. He gave a fuck about her and saved her life even back when he hated her, because she was his comrade, and I’d certainly hope he cares about her now.

2. Elf cave is gone, and he’s not so shitty a person that he’s just going to abandon her in a field for ghosts to eat.

3. He is aware that revenging made him a worse person and he wants to be better. Guts at his best is someone who does not abandon his friends and family but rather stands by them in their hours of need, and he wants to be that person again.

Good Guts:

Bad Guts:

Good Guts:

Bad Guts:

Like, yk, abandoning people or staying with them is kind of Guts’ major thing throughout the story.

4. He is longing for a piece of his lost past, and Casca represents the Hawks.

Additionally suggested by how every time he pictures her from the past, after that last pic, it’s as a Hawk commander.

And statements like this:

And the general fact that he’s trying to “force” her sanity back despite forboding warnings and actually contemplating on page how awful it might be for Casca, suggesting that it’s less for Casca’s own sake and more Guts’ selfish need to regain some of his happy past.

5. Griffith looking human and sexy makes him forget his urge to kill, lessening the temptation of revenge and probably making Guts doubt his ability to follow through.

nuff said

6. Guts’ whole revenge campaign was less about revenge and more about making himself feel better and getting Griffith’s attention. Last time he saw Griffith the dude declared that he was completely free of his feelings for him and then “deserted” him in the snow lol. This has also lessened the temptation of revenge – now pursuing Griffith feels extra fruitless, because Griffith (claims he) doesn’t give a fuck.

quick illustration:

swinging his sword making him feel better

guts wanting attention

also i have this much longer post here where i talk a lot about guts’ attitude towards revenge and femto and neogriffith etc for a more thorough explanation

7. He feels guilty for abandoning Griffith back in the Golden Age and refusing to abandon Casca (this time) is a way to make up for that mistake.

8. Like the Beast of Darkness says, Casca reminds him of “the wound Griffith left” because he wants to keep feeling the pain he caused him. Both because it helps simplify his conflicting and confusing feelings into rage, and because, harkening back to point 6, imho it’s a masochistic reminder that he meant enough to Griffith for him to be worth lashing out at.

I mean consider the context of some discussions of wounds in berserk. “I too want a wound… that I can say you gave me.”

Or Griffith tracing his shoulder where Guts’ sword failed to touch him, maybe:

Anyway regardless of how suggestively that statement can be taken in the greater context of Berserk and wounds, there’s definitely some truth to it because it’s what Miura gave as the reason he didn’t kill Casca:

“The only point I was cautious about was not to completely stop the
story’s flow with the Eclipse. I kept Casca alive precisely for that
reason. That’s because even if she died, and if the series continued for
a long time, Guts’ reason to seek revenge would become a thing of the
past and if Guts formed new relationships with people, his motivation
would weaken. It’s a cold, calculating move and it might feel
unpleasant, but it’s exactly because Guts has Casca at his side that he
can never forget about the Eclipse.”

9. He’s still planning to return his focus to Griffith eventually. He hasn’t so much given up his revenge quest as put it on hold. It’s probably easier to say “not now” to himself than to say “never.”

10. Narrative convenience keeps him on the straight and narrow. eg:

cue Guts literally passing right out ten seconds later. it’s pretty easy to decide to get on a boat instead of get revenge when you can barely stand and going for revenge would be literal suicide. and even then Guts needed Serpico to step in and tell him not to be a dumbass.

Soooo yeah I think that about covers the various reasons Guts has for putting aside his revenge quest to take Casca to Elfhelm, which add up to smthn a lot more complicated than choosing Casca over revenge. I contemplated adding another section that’s like… a giant list of Guts utterly failing to prioritize Casca or demonstrate that she’s “more precious than Griffith” lol, but I might just do that in a separate post next time I’m feeling salty.

synthetic-synapses:

“I’ll let you borrow it.”

King of denial.

um guts u sure you’re not projecting a little

like casca’s not the only one who got all self destructive while thinking about griffith my dude

anyway i don’t think we’re meant to take guts’ statement up there without a hefty grain of salt considering guts immediately proceeds to have a flashback and talking about his dead father figure makes him feel better, and also considering that in a few days guts embraces the exact opposite point of view when he decides to stay and take care of griffith despite judeau basically repeating this sentiment to him

and also it’s callous as shit and pretty much tells us that guts is in full denial mode here while fucking casca

in fact it’s kind of similar to

oh holy shit and look at this, which i hadn’t even noticed til rn:

like we all accept and understand that Griffith is projecting when he tells Charlotte to ignore the sad shit, but SO IS GUTS!

and ACTUALLY yeah i’ll do this whole thing right now: Griffith fucking Charlotte and Guts fucking Casca are both attempts to deny their feelings for each other after being made painfully aware of those feelings

Griffith being left in the snow by Guts, and Guts learning about Griffith’s consequent crashing and burning – and specifically being stabbed by Casca while she screams that he broke Griffith

Both deny their feelings in like, a self harming manner. Sex with Charlotte is itself an act of self-destruction, while Guts just lets himself be stabbed first while denying any guilt in a disturbingly detached way

And additionally both these sexual encounters revolve around their respective dreams. Charlotte is a clear representation of Griffith’s dream and fucking her is his way of attaining it, just very badly timed due to being completely emotionally fucked up.

And Guts’ brief relationship with Casca represents his dream to an extent as we see when he compares her to his sword in his inner monologue after sex, when she’s the one he directs his whole promrose hall-y dream monologue to, when he invites her along with the caveat that she doesn’t get in the way of his dream, and when she tells him to leave to pursue his dream at the worst possible moment.

Griffith couldn’t manage to deny his feelings for very long, breaking down after Charlotte falls asleep, while Guts manages to hold out for a few days, and I’d say finally fully stops denying his feelings when he conclusively realizes he shouldn’t’ve left. “Why do I always see these things after they’re done and gone?”

basically i think guts and
griffith have parallel arcs wrt coming to terms with their particular
relationship and realizing they both value that relationship more than
their respective dreams, and both those arcs involve trying to use het
sex as a distraction before facing the music.

prettykitten123
replied to your post “prettykitten123
replied to your post “chaoticgaygriffith:

…”

I think Griffith is gay, even though I feel like he doesn’t know it(maybe after a while he came to realize it, especially after Guts left him) as for Guts his sexuality is a mystery to me. I know he definitely likes men(even though he probably definitely doesnt understand that or acknowledge it) attraction to women is debatable.
The way I see it we
cant really pinpoint what Guts’ sexuality is or his thoughts on women.
Griffith was the first to give Guts something that he never had and I
feel like his affection for Griffith is dominantly based on this. No one
else in the manga, both men and women, have yet to give Guts what
Griffith gave him thus why no one has yet to win over his affections.

ia tbh

for me I think Griffith is variable, like i could see him being either super repressed about being gay thanks to a) his dream revolving around marrying a woman and b) gennon being the only textually gay dude in berserk (thx miura) and griffith being taken advantage of at probably the age where he’d be just starting to realize he had feelings of attraction to men, like, that seems extremely likely to fuck him up.

But I could also see him accepting that he’s attracted to men – I mean he reads a lot, he seems fairly worldly, maybe gennon isn’t his only exposure to same-sex attraction, etc – but also not thinking it’s important because it’s incompatible with his dream.

Either way though I definitely can’t see him as anything but gay.

Wrt Guts I see him as gay too. He could be bi easily enough, but it’s just so easy for me to see his short-lived relationship with Casca as repression at work lol. Like saying she was the only person who could touch him back in the day, which was textually because she’s a woman (and also wrong bc Griffith also could) feels really suggestive of this to me. And of course the way their relationship screams rebound from their feelings for Griffith for both of them. And post eclipse, the only times he thinks of Casca sexually are when Griffith is also somehow involved, a la

And of course the entire Beast of Darkness debacle.

But yeah sexualities aside, since I mean it still could go either way from gay to bi, so w/e, that’s a really good point about Griffith being the only person in the manga who’s given Guts what he’s so desperately wanted – ie affection and attention and respect from someone Guts respects. It’s Griffith who he wants to look at him. Not Casca, not any of his rpg group or any of the other Hawks, just Griffith. It’s Griffith whose respect he feels like he needs to earn, no one else’s. It’s Griffith who he needs to feel equal to, no one else. It’s Griffith who he’s been obsessed with, no one else.

It’s why their relationship is still so extra lol, it’s shown as singular in the story, whether Miura meant that to be sexual or not.

So yeah idk, good comment basically, I just wanted to ramble on the subject lol.

cherryandsisters:

berserk is the source of all my sadness

soft breeze, check. leaves, check. casca gets a starry/campfire-y background while griffith gets the intense bedroom eyes and general beautification, which i feel is a fair trade.

casca gets this romanticized shot right before treating guts’ wounds; griffith gets this romanticized shot right after not having an excuse for risking his life for guts.

anyway lol this is a prime example of casca getting some of the romance cues griffith used to get once a) guts decides griffith is unreachable at the moment and b) miura decided the eclipse needed more ~drama~

Casca’s dress has wings and feathers that looks like Griffith. They pair of wings in the middle looks like the white hawk. She is dressed in White. I don’t think it means anything, but still…

tbh I think it might be a visual nod to how Casca was the leader of the Hawks. There was a strong emphasis on her role as the leader during the Eclipse, when Judeau was determined to save her, and to Guts she largely represents his three years of happiness with the Hawks now. She’s kind of set up as the representative of the Band 1.0, and the dress fits that.

This is a thread I like so maybe I’m overemphasizing it, but imo it would be nice if it was picked up again, and now’s the time to do it.

(or yk maybe it’s bc Danann genuinely wants to set her and Guts up and she knows Guts has a thing for ethereal figures dressed in white with wing motifs lmao.)

Saw your Judaeu posts; wanted to weigh in a lil cuz I love him. I’m always sad we never got to know much about him (rpg group gets so much backstory!) I always felt like ye, his advice was misguided but that he was trying to help make people happy. Like Casca, who maybe could be happy with Guts if she couldn’t have Griffith, since HE never felt good enough for her. Also, that maybe he didn’t see a point in hooking Guts and Griffith up if he figured the dream and princess still took priority?

Yeah I think his heart was in the right place, it seems like he genuinely just wanted what was best for everyone even if his methods were a little… underhanded and dishonest. Like towards the end eg, he probably thought Griffith would be better off with him and his thieves than with Guts and Casca as well as vice versa (and if Guts and Casca stayed together while taking care of Griffith he might’ve even been right, bc lbr that would’ve been a shitshow lol.) He’s likeable, and fun, and he has some great moments, like telling Guts he’s sure he’ll find what he’s looking for with the Hawks. Ngl his death scene always makes me cry lol, I do def like him overall, in part because he makes mistakes too.

Also I wonder if there isn’t a subtle indication from Miura that Judeau and Casca should’ve gotten together instead of Guts and Casca, and it’s its own little sub-tragedy based on stupid self-esteem issues that they didn’t. The way during the Eclipse Judeau does his best to save her and defends her with his own life while Guts is up on the hand still trying to “save” Griffith lol feels kind of starkly telling. I don’t ship them myself, I like their friendship and I kind of wish Judeau hadn’t had a crush the whole time lol, but it fits into the whole missed opportunity vibe of the Golden Age.

It is kind of a shame that the Golden Age side characters got way less backstory and development than the current RPG group, but the current group has so much more time. Like 200+ chapters vs 70. I did love the little enriching hints we got about the Hawks though, like Judeau feeling inadequate as a jack of all trades, the hints that Corkus is bitter about his own lost dreams. I’d say ‘etc’ but actually that’s about it really. Wish we got more on Pippin too.

dendromancer
replied to your post “i will never be over how damn suggestive it is that judeau, the…”

still wondering what’s judeau’s agenda tbh. like did he want guts to take casca away for her to be safe? this is completely true tho and one of the reasons why i dislike judeau is that he’s a gtsca shipper lol

There’s that hint before he dies that he’s in love with her, and there’s an indication that he has like… self-worth issues lol, with his “if I couldn’t be the best I’d fly in the wake of someone who was” reasoning for following Griffith, and comparing himself to Guts negatively when they were running from monsters in the Eclipse. I think it’s basically Judeau thinking he isn’t good enough for Casca and Guts would be, and seeing how hard leading the Hawks while they’re being hunted has been on her and wanting her to get away from that responsibility.

Which tbh is another indication that gtsca was a misguided mistake from the start, since Judeau’s reasoning for arranging their hookup in the first place is stupid and based on low self esteem.

There’s also shades of a parallel between Judeau trying to get Guts and Casca together and Guts trying to get Casca and Griffith together, and I will personally argue forever that Guts throwing Casca at Griffith was because he didn’t feel like he was good enough for Griffith, rather than not good enough for Casca. I mean, that is his entire reasoning behind his decision making at that point in the story, after all.

Thinking he’ll be worthy of Casca when he’s Griffith’s equal is a random quick aside spurred on by Judeau right before he leaves and imo framed as though Casca being in love with him would be a sign that he’s made it as Griffith’s friend and equal, rather than wanting to be Griffith’s friend and equal to get with Casca lol, which has never been a factor.

It’s crazy. But I find the similarities between the King of Midland and Serpico eerily similiar. They both had noble blood, both had incestuous feelings for a family member, both are secretly jealous of someone , both had women in their lives that died in a fire, the king went insane, Serpico’s mother went insane too. They both appear laidback, but repress their emotions. The king didn’t have a close relationship with the rest of his family and neither does Serpico.

Haha, sorry anon but you’ve gone where I can’t follow. I don’t see Serpico’s feelings towards Farnese as sexual (he was the one who turned down her unknowingly-incestuous advances after all), though the rest is all fair I suppose. Maybe not really necessarily anything more than coincidence, and I’m not sure what meaning could be imparted by paralleling the two characters, but if you have an idea I’m curious.

I mean I guess if you do see Serpico’s feelings for Farnese as sexual you could argue that he fights Guts that one time out of misplaced jealousy or possessiveness rather than genuine protectiveness, but I can’t say I see it myself.

that whole dazzling thing, illustrated

(Ok so NeoGriffith’s eyes always do that to be fair, but idc let me have this moment.)

bonus, the night after Guts leaves:

Different anon, another Casca question. During the eclipse, and a few times before that, it’s implied that Judeau had feelings for Casca. While this obvs isn’t a very dominating ship, I’m curious about your thoughts. Do you think those two exploring a closer relationship would have altered the outcome of the events leading up to the eclipse, and her dynamic with Guys and Griffith? Do you suppose anything post-eclipse would be different?

I think it would depend. like imo pretty much any tiny change would lead to no Eclipse, but if say Casca and Judeau hooked up during the year Guts was gone, I could see that leading to either

the best case scenario for Griffith of Casca and Judeau taking off together and leaving Griffith with Guts

or the worst case scenario of Guts leaving Griffith with Casca and Judeau and taking off.

tho tbh I can’t see the latter happening if Guts still had his revelation that he broke Griffith’s heart, and he would’ve still had that revelation if Casca still attacked him and screamed it at him, which probably still would’ve happened, so yeah I think it’s more likely than not that the outcome would’ve been a lot better generally if Judeau and Casca got together.

Also if they did get together and the Eclipse still happened, a lot would probably change because they both would’ve died, and Guts’ probably would’ve too without a prolonged rape scene to waste time while Skull Knight fought Zodd. But like, assuming the events of the Eclipse somehow didn’t change, I don’t think Guts’ feelings towards mentally regressed Casca would be very different if they’d stayed platonic friends rather than hooking up. Their sexual relationship is mostly downplayed after the Eclipse (except when it comes to Guts assaulting her and I sure wouldn’t miss that) with Guts mostly thinking of her as a reminder of his time with the Hawks, and I think he’d feel about the same amount of regret and responsibility when it comes to her.

kissing-monsters:

kissing-monsters:

literally though griffith being in this spread of pages gives me Life

for maximum pain please look at how they are both pictured in gut’s mind sheltered by griffith’s cloak

therainykitty:

bthump:

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, replacing 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.

This is what I have thought for years. Casca and Guts whole “relationship” came about because they are in love with the same man. Griffith. Every time they are together conversation turns towards Griffith and lets face it they were both most likely thinking of Griffith during the sex.

Btw I want to say thank you for this post.

In a fandom as vitriol as most of Berserk’s western “fans” are they don’t allow for any kind of insight or discussion like this. But when I read things like this post it reminds me that I wasn’t just fucking seeing things because I swear certain types of people had me believing I was crazy.(I guess that is what those people wanted me to think).

It is posts like yours that make me want to get right back into everything that I love about Berserk.

Edit: Oh yeah I just remembered the all these talk about scars

and how the beast say that Guts basically only holding on to Casca because she is the scar Griffith give him.

Kind of like all the scars Guts indirectly gave Griffith due to his time in torture.

A nice reminder of how Guts subconscious won’t let him forget and how he really doesn’t want to let go of Griffith.

Also Guts looks fucking board after he and Casca had sex

Not to mention he out right lies here

Because

and with Griffith

There is no shoving away or telling him to not to touch him (like with Casca).

So Guts is really forgetful about whose touch it is he didn’t mind or unless you know he is projecting on to Casca that he is talking/being with someone else, a particular someone else.

Oh man I know what you mean. I’ve written so much about my interpretation of Berserk by now and sometimes the rest of the fandom still makes me wonder if I’m just seeing things or making things up. That’s one reason it’s important to find like-minded people imo, especially in a fandom that can be as hostile as this one.

Luckily I’ve managed to find a good place on tumblr where I don’t really have to deal with the majority of the fandom that hates griffith and griffguts lol.

And ty for the addition! That point about the scars and the Beast of Darkness referring to Casca as the wound Griffith left him, like damn I never thought of that but holy shit it’s perfect and fits into that scar discussion between Guts and Casca like a puzzle piece.

And lol yeah, I’m not sure whether that’s Guts fudging the details or Miura conveniently forgetting that moment with Griffith, but either way Guts’ statement that Casca was the only one who could touch him is demonstratably false.

prettykitten123:

Just sharing a message I sent to a friend. Since she enjoyed the theory I wanted to see what the rest of the fandom thought.

I believe there was a time that Griffith appreciated and valued Casca. She was the only one from the looks of it that knew Griffith’s secrets and the saccrifices he would make for the good of the band of hawks. She also was the first to accept Griffith for the person he truly was.

But of course the years past and he began to distance himself from everyone, even her but Casca was okay with that. She understood why he was doing that. I feel that was all the more reason for her to get pissed off over Guts.

Griffith opened up to a complete stranger, a person who didn’t even know him the way Casca knew him.

But changing the subject a little from Casca/Griffith to Casca/Guts, I feel like maybe (if I’m not reading too deeply into this which I probably am) they saw pieces of Griffith in each other. Casca’s a strong leader, she’s determined, and strategic just like Griffith.

As for Guts, Casca probably admired Guts’ desire to find his own purpose in the world and to better himself, which are things that she liked about Griffith. When you think about it they both had qualities that Griffith lost after the year of being tortured. Casca became the beloved leader and Guts became the admired swordsman with a developing purpose in life, he even gained the admiration of Casca. And after Eclispe Griffith took all of that power and qualities back from them.

You know something I’ve always found very curious, in Guts and Casca’s relationship I never saw Casca being sexually attracted to Guts, I saw an emotional attachment, feeling “needed” by someone and sometimes being protected … but that sexual attraction I did not see her, what do you think of that? if there is a panel where you see that I would like to see it, since even Farnese I have seen physically attracted to Guts on some occasions but Casca does not

I don’t think I could find a panel where she seems attracted to Guts, partially because I agree with you and partially because my memory of the het interactions in Berserk is not the greatest lol.

But yeah I think part of the reason I find her relationship with Guts so unconvincing, and part of why I find it really easy to hc her as gay, is because her relationships to men are based around wanting to be needed, rather than her own desire.

With Griffith she wants to be something indispensible to his dream, a “sword” he can’t do without. Later on we get Judeau saying, “If she loves him… shouldn’t she want to be held by him?” And Casca saying, “Griffith’s not a god… and I am a woman.” And it’s like, if you’re going to describe a woman’s attraction to a man in terms of falling into the natural hetero order of things, it makes it easier to see it as internalized homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality lol. Casca like, hmmm my feelings for Griffith are extremely strong, he’s a man I’m a woman, this must be attraction? Without realizing there are other possibilities.

I’m sure Miura didn’t mean it that way, but that’s why it’s a headcanon.

And anyway it’s the same with Guts – it’s all about Casca’s desire to be needed, to be able to comfort someone and feel necessary to them. And I think partly it’s an obligation to her, pay back for being rescued, by Griffith, by Guts in the 100 man fight. She notices Guts’ scars from that fight before they have sex and says she wishes for a wound from Guts. And it’s what she thinks about while they have sex: “not just being given to… maybe I can give something as well.”

I think that’s purposeful on Miura’s part. That’s a consistent part of Casca’s characterization that seems to stem from her childhood trauma and being rescued by Griffith, and it’s what informs her two major relationships. She only started warming up to Guts after he rescued her. Miura wants us to see it as attraction, but he didn’t really show us any actual desire from Casca, it’s something the characters, and the audience, take as read just based on the fact that she’s a woman and they’re men lol, and since I don’t agree that woman + man = automatic sexual attraction it’s pretty easy to take another route imo.

I think there’s a strong argument to be made that, rather than being
depicted as burgeoning true love ruined by the Eclipse for the
sake of extra tragedy, Guts and Casca getting together is depicted as a mistake from the start.

Let’s look at Guts’ conversation with Judeau, where he seems to consider the possibility of Casca as a romantic interest for the first time.

“The one who has her eye… is Griffith. That’s why… right now… I’m no good for her… like this.”

I see two possible ways of interpreting this statement. Either the narrative and Guts just reframed Guts entire raison d’etre, his whole motivation for leaving and the reason he wants to be Griffith’s equal, thanks to a few leading statements from Judeau, or Guts is framing a potential relationship with Casca as another step on the journey of becoming Griffith’s equal.

The former defies belief. We just spent 22 chapters knowing exactly why Guts wants to leave and become Griffith’s equal. There’s no mystery there, there’s no detail left to be uncovered. Suddenly doing a 180 and saying actually, he wants to leave so he can be worthy of Casca, even though he never considered Casca a romantic possibility until approximately 30 seconds earlier, would just be impossibly bad writing from an otherwise extremely solid story.

But the latter, well, that fits right in.

After they have sex, Casca symbolically becomes Guts’ sword instead of Griffith’s:

To Casca, Guts is a more open, emotionally available replacement for Griffith, as I’ve discussed in detail in this post. Guts is in fact coming closer to his goal of becoming Griffith’s equal by sleeping with Casca, because after this Casca begins to transfer her obsession with Griffith and his dream to him.

And Casca isn’t an endgame for Guts. She’s not the goal, she’s not the motivation – she’s an addition to his overarching desire to have Griffith see him as an equal. He still plans to leave to continue fighting stronger and stronger enemies after they hook up. He invites her along – just so long as she doesn’t get in the way of his more important dream:

Non-committally inviting her along mollifies her, but it doesn’t address her point lol – he’s still selfishly prioritizing his dream. She’s become support for that, just the way she supported Griffith’s dream as his “sword.” Eventually that is exactly what leads to everything crashing down around them – Casca telling Guts to leave, because his dream is all-important.

And while we then leave Guts and Casca on a sweet moment where they kiss, that very same page shifts to pure ominousness to end both the chapter and Guts and Casca’s newly changed relationship on:

Cue snake man walking around and the Behelit floating down a river on its way to a date with Griffith.

And then the next chapter returns us to Griffith, a year since the last time we saw him, and his monologue about how his feelings for Guts are so strong and bright they make even the dream fade into dullness.

Guts is trying to “unbind” himself from Griffith. In his dream speech to Casca he says he can’t stay with the Hawks because he refuses to ever swing his sword in service to another again. And Casca tells Guts that she can’t continue defending the almost broken dream of someone who may not even be alive. Both he and Casca are trying to move on from Griffith in their own ways, and they try to do this through a connection with each other.

But the thing is, if you’re writing the kind of relationship triangle where two people help each other get over a third, if you want it to really feel satisfying and right, wouldn’t you want to establish that they both should be getting over Griffith, and that a relationship with each other is a more positive step for them?

The problem is that Guts’ whole thing, his whole desire to leave to become Griffith’s equal, is motivated by wanting to be closer to Griffith lol. He wants to be someone Griffith can call a friend. And it’s based on a falsehood: he thinks Griffith looks down on him.

When this is how Griffith feels about him:

Guts trying to unbind himself from Griffith doesn’t feel satisfying when we’re immediately reminded through a passionate monologue that Griffith is just as bound to Guts as Guts is to him, and that Guts only wants to become independent of Griffith because he doesn’t know that.

As for Casca, her obsession with Griffith came at the expense of
herself. Spending a year fighting for Griffith’s dream
and leading the Hawks while he was in a dungeon drove her to the point
of suicide.

But her encounter here with Guts doesn’t solve any of
that, she just transfers her obsession and her dedication to someone
else’s dream to Guts, as we see clearly through that sword metaphor,
through the parallels I linked to earlier, and through Casca telling
Guts he has to leave because his dream is the most important thing.

Casca trying to get over Griffith and move on doesn’t feel satisfying when she immediately falls into the same self-destructive patterns with a new person at the centre of her obsession.

Guts and Casca’s romance has
its postive aspects – Guts opens up to her about his childhood trauma,
eg, and is comforted. But there’s
dissonance beneath the surface. They have sex right after Guts let Casca
stab him because a part of him realized she was right about Griffith needing him. Casca had just tried to kill herself after telling Guts that Griffith doesn’t need her, as though she can only live in relation to someone else. In
deciding to leave the Hawks together, Guts continues suppressing his
eventual revelation that leaving in the first place was a mistake.

And
Guts recalls
Gambino giving him medicine – the one act of kindness from him which
Guts latches onto to help him deny the rest of Gambino’s abuse – while Casca is compared to a sword, which to me seems like a strong, not all that positive statement on their relationship: it doesn’t fix their underlying issues, it doesn’t change anything, it just helps them live in denial of those issues – Casca’s lack of independence, Guts’ dream being a mistake*** – for a while longer.

Basically, rather than moving forward and truly healing with each other, they’re revisiting the past, repeating negative patterns, maintaining denial, and essentially, well, licking wounds.

And by trying to move on from
Griffith by taking solace in each other, they only add to Guts’ original
mistake, which is failing to realize that there was no reason for him to move on in the first
place. Guts couldn’t stand the thought of Griffith looking down on him,
but this is who he is to Griffith, as we are told immediately before and
after he has sex with Casca:

And this is when Guts finally acknowledges his mistake, about 10 seconds after Griffith overheard Casca telling him to leave:

We know that Miura didn’t
intend Guts and Casca to get together from the start, let alone for it
to be a grand true love style romance. He’s said that he hooked them up
for the sake of more Eclipse drama. And I think that the way he framed
their relationship, from its placement in the narrative to the details of the scene itself to the way it goes hand in hand with Guts’ dream, makes it feel like it’s contributing to the series of unfortunate fuck ups that lead to the Eclipse, rather than just being an incidental casualty of it.

It’s a mistake the
way Miura writes mistakes – not obviously so, with no ill intent or
obviously misguided motives behind it. Their relationship isn’t meant to
be unpleasant, it’s shown as sweet and maybe not epic, maybe not
lasting, but overall more positive than negative for them. But so was
Guts’ year long sabbatical, and we’ve seen how much he regrets that:

In Berserk characters can make the wrong decisions despite having the best of intentions, despite some good coming out of those decisions, despite doing the best they can based on what they know. And I think Guts and Casca’s relationship is shown to be one of them.

*** I think both Casca’s lack of independence and Guts’ focus on his own dream of fighting stronger and stronger enemies are at least in part poor coping mechanisms for their respective childhood traumas, which makes the sword and medicine metaphors even more apt. But to get fully into that would take its own post, and it’s not necessary to my point here, so this is just a minor aside lol.