Yeah I definitely think we just got to the beginning of the last third of the story… hopefully not the halfway point
lol imagine if we’re only halfway through now… tho ngl that would be nice for my impossible “Casca levels up and becomes a secondary antagonist making Griffith, Guts, and Casca three enemies with their own intwined but opposing goals” hope.
It’s actually pretty crazy for how many
people HATE Griffith like he’s the most evil villain ever when all he’s
done was for the “greater good” for the rest of humanity (and monsters
too I guess.)
Though the only absolutely evil thing he did was rape Casca, which was
actually completely pointless and horrible. The story would’ve been
better if it never happened tbh
this is one reason I have such a problem, from like, a story construction standpoint (never mind the pile of other problems I have with it), with the Eclipse rape. It’s sooooooo irrelevant to the rest of Griffith’s narrative. Obviously I understand why it makes people hate him, regardless of the magical fantasy logistics of transforming into an evil demon first, or how badly written it is, or its significance (or lackthereof) to his narrative as a whole, yk, whatever, it’s reasonable to have a strong negative emotional response to it regardless.
But it has nothing to do with his dream, with NeoGriffith’s entire narrative, it was not necessary to create Falconia, it amounts to nothing more than a v shallow show of evil that does nothing to complicate the moral quandaries of Griffith’s dream/Falconia because it was entirely unnecessary and gratuitous. It doesn’t even tell us anything about NeoGriffith as an individual running a utopia because he transformed again and we don’t know how similar or different he is to Femto lol. Miura completely downplays it to the point where I kinda suspect he knows he completely hamstrung his attempt to write an interesting morally grey villain as soon as it left the gate, and now it’s like he’s doing a weird juggling act where the Eclipse rape is Guts’ whole motivation but also it simultaneously has zero bearing on the framing of NeoGriffith’s story.
Like I’ve mentioned this before but how fucking weird and awkward is it that we as readers have no idea whether Rickert even knows about the Eclipse rape, when the whole narrative point of his digression to Falconia was his choice to judge and reject NeoGriffith. Rickert delivers his judgement – essentially as an audience stand-in – and the Eclipse rape doesn’t factor into it at all. That’s the definition of gratuitous lol. And that’s just one example of Miura turning it into this awkward elephant in the room.
And then guts have sex wt casca and that stops. Now hes just a strong
character,never defeated, afraid only of himself bc ooh theres a scary
monster inside him teehee,like every shonen.He wants to defeat his evil
former bff with lingering sentiments (naruto?). His vulnerabilities, his
dependance on smo else opinion,his loneliness and lack of meaning of
his existence,which were rare traits in protag?disappeared. GA was how
life conditions impacted real ppl,now bersek is just a shonen wt rape
2/2
Yeaaaaah I agree with a lot of this. I’ve ranted about it before but I can always go on more about how much it bugs me that Guts’ personal trauma is basically ignored during and after the Eclipse in favour of switching to being angry about someone else’s trauma (someone who didn’t even get her own reaction to it, at least not for 20 years).
Cause yeah like ia, Guts’ trauma – and not just the csa trauma but also the more overarching abuse from Gambino as he was growing up – is so vital to his entire character in the first two arcs. It informs everything about him from his insecurities, to the way he fights, to the reason he stayed with the Hawks and the reason he left the Hawks, etc. In the Black Swordsman arc, the reason he’s so angry is because Griffith sacrificing him wasn’t just a betrayal, but a replay of that childhood trauma. The ghosts haunting him and claiming him are an echo of Gambino calling him cursed and selling him to someone else. It all fits together perfectly and it’s so good.
And it is a relatively unique backstory when it comes to badass manly man action hero protagonists. I mean to be nitpicky Berserk is a seinen, not a shonen, but the csa backstories seem to be more inspired by classic shojo, based on some of the influences Miura cites (like Kaze to Ki no Uta), and combining those elements with typical seinen action stuff, especially since imo Miura did it very thoughtfully and very well up til the end of the Golden Age, does create a unique and v interesting story.
And then during and after the Eclipse Guts’ trauma is basically dropped, and he does feel more generic to me – more typically cool and badass, much less interestingly vulnerable. Like eg, his very personal, actual fear-for-himself during the Black Swordsman arc was a really compelling element! And the only post-Eclipse instance I can think of where he was shown to be genuinely afraid for his own life and well-being, rather than afraid of his own potential to do harm or afraid for the people he’s trying to protect, is when Slan shows up in the troll cave. And because there was a sexualized threat there I do think that was a deliberate reference to Guts’ own trauma. But it was one scene over a hundred chapters ago that didn’t really have any emotional resonance (unlike, say, the early Golden Age Zodd encounter which changed everything, or the Wyald encounter which imo shed a lot of light on Guts’ dream), and was far from overt.
So like I unfortunately also get the impression that Miura has largely dropped Guts’ personal trauma as a significant factor of his character and story in favour of the far more common and boring fridged girlfriend backstory.
But! I also still have hope that that’s not the case. I feel like Guts’ post Eclipse monster hunting rampage was largely a way to avoid dealing with his complicated feelings, and I feel the same way about Guts’ fix Casca quest. Like, maybe it’s not Miura dropping Guts’ personal trauma to focus on manpain – maybe it’s Guts deliberately cultivating rage to avoid confronting his more difficult feelings like fear and loneliness and longing etc.
Avoidance is kind of his thing, after all.
This may be (is probably) wishful thinking, but it does give me hope
that if the fix Casca quest goes pear shaped (eg Casca uses the behelit,
or something), Guts’ issues – his childhood, guilt, all his mixed feelings regarding Griffith, etc – will come back front and centre. We
have all the ominous foreshadowing about the Beast of Darkness and the
armour,
and if something makes him go wild and succumb to it it would be nice if it wasn’t just like a one-off bad event but rather a cumulation of everything he’s (I hope) been spending the last 3 years trying to distract himself from.
And then at some point after that he can be pulled back from the armour and yk, actually grow as a person by confronting his issues rather than hitting stuff with a sword, now armed with the knowledge that avoiding stuff just makes them fuck you up harder when your avoidance strategies fail you.
ofc that said, even if that is the case I think Miura’s fucked up w/ pacing. It’s been 250 chapters since the Eclipse, there’s a reason I feel like this is a vain hope even if it does make perfect sense to me as an explanation lol. Plus like… some details do seem to not be pointing in that direction. Like:
Are we meant to regard his choice to take Casca to Elfhelm to be immersing himself in sorrow? Because that is absolutely not the vibe I’m getting, but the dichotemy between chase Griffith for revenge = avoidance vs stick with Casca = positive healing is so explicitly drawn here that maybe Miura’s just half-assing the positive healing to the point where it looks like avoidance lmao. Like that is my genuine fear, is that everything from chapter 130 on is actually meant to be seen as Guts dealing with his shit lol.
But idk like there are still intriguing elements that may be evocative of Guts’ deeper issues, back even to his childhood, that pop up now and then, that I can point to as evidence that they may still be actually dealt with in the future. Like the aforementioned Slan scene, the way he’s still drawn to Griffith as his “true light,” the fact that the Beast of Darkness is personified as a dog
uhhh the self-destructiveness of the armour (the way he doesn’t feel pain and it knits his broken bones together etc) as a metaphor for the way fighting is basically a form of self-harm for him… idk like none of these things are addressed, but they’re there to be picked up on and therefore will hopefully cumulate in something more interesting eventually.
though actually while i’m on this subject, I do kind of have a big issue with how this frames griffith.
cut bc this probably doesn’t really make sense lol, i’m rambling and i’m not entirely sure how to explain my thought process lol
like, if pre-eclipse griffith was a symbol of guts’ potential to have fulfilling relationships and find a place where he belongs, that guts then totally fucked up by “abandoning,” and post-eclipse neogriffith is a symbol of guts throwing away his potential to have fulfilling relationships by pursuing a stupid self-destructive dream, then there’s a bit of an awkward contradiction:
during the golden age, guts distancing himself from griffith was a bad thing that caused all his problems. after the eclipse, guts distancing himself from griffith is the narratively correct choice. this makes technical plot sense because in between griffith transformed into a demon lol, but thematically i think it’s unsatisfying.
griffith has essentially been replaced with guts’ protective relationship with casca. he fucked up and abandoned her, just like he fucked up and abandoned griffith, but now he’s making up for it by sticking around and protecting her – something he never got a chance to do w/ griffith. like, there was no magical cure to heal griffith, no long journey of personal growth, nada.
ignoring who could be
blamed for what if berserk happened in real life, bc this has nothing to do with morals or literal interpersonal responsibilities, from a fictional
storytelling perspective guts destroyed griffith when he made the wrong
choice by leaving. griffith’s year of torture and then eclipse causing
despair is the direct consequence of guts’ narrative mistake, and femto/ngriff
is an antagonist of guts’ own making.
so to then say that the right
thing for guts to do is to try to forget about him rubs me the wrong
way. it’d be one thing if griffith was dead and there was nothing guts
could do except try to avoid repeating his mistakes, but he’s alive and
currently acting on the world in a capacity that is, at least by some
standards, negative lol. the way stories work, that’s guts’ problem to
fix.
so if the thematic takeaway is that guts should just ignore
neogriffith and move on, and if he goes back to obsessing over him
that’s bad, then… i’m not satisfied with that lol.
also like, if the manga
decided to draw a very clear and explicit dividing line between human
griffith and neogriffith, essentially declaring everything human
griffith represented to guts as dead, that would also be one thing, but miura deliberately muddies the waters both by teasing the audience about
his beating heart and by guts’ emotional conflict a la “the instant I saw him I’d forgotten my
urge to kill,” and “longing,” and by continuing to utilize the light/dark imagery for their relationship, and having guts reminisce about original griffith after seeing him, etc.
so there’s this sense to me that neogriffith is simultaneously a symbol of guts’ self destructive dream (revenge, fighting stronger and stronger enemies, becoming griffith’s equal) and a symbol of guts’ mistake in pursuing that dream the first time – a symbol of what he threw away by leaving – and to me it feels unsatisfyingly contradictory.
and then on a purely emotional level lol it frustrates me that if the moral of the story really is that guts needs to move on and forget about the past and griffith and focus on the relationships he does have, then that means griffith was essentially a casualty of guts’ one step forward two steps back style character development. a character, from the perspective of his relationship to guts, who existed to be a consequence of guts’ mistake and teach guts a lesson through his destruction. and that just strikes me as unfair lol. idt guts should get to move on when griffith never had the opportunity – OR when griffith did take his opportunity ie the sacrifice, if we’re counting that, because then griffith moving on is evil but guts moving on is good.
and yeah maybe it’s a statement about moving on by suppressing your emotions vs moving on by forming new relationships, but griffith was railroaded by the narrative lol, he never got the chance to move on by forming new relationships, he was irreparably fucked the day after guts left. so if that’s the case then it’s weak.
but idk maybe i’m looking at this from entirely the wrong perspective. idk i’m just thinking outloud again rly. and until we find out what happens when casca has her mind back, it’s too early to draw any real conclusions anyway.
idk tho in say an au where like, guts never overheard the promrose hall speech and they made it to tombstone of flame i could see griffith reaching a point where he’d be able to accept his own feelings
“do you think that i’m cruel” is just so like, emotionally vulnerable. he was totally getting there, to like, yk, being more honest w/ himself
and then you have him crying after charlotte which is also an emotional admittance
so it’s not like i exaggerate his ability to deny shit to himself (well maybe i do but i love that so fuck it) but i may not give him enough credit for occasional moments of honestly
then again that’s short term. it’s one thing to say griffith could throw care to the wind in the heat of the moment and have emotionally intense sex, it’s another thing to think he could live with himself knowing he’d rather have guts + love than charlotte + dream
on the other hand there’s no reason he has to think of it that way since there’s no reason he can’t have both. like… in theory there’s a perfectly legit berserk au where griffith and guts hooked up and griffith still became king, successfully having his cake and eating it too
so idk maybe if he got with guts it wouldn’t be so much denying that he values guts more than his dream as just dismissing that as irrelevant bc he’ll just get both
i agree that the moment she wakes up is rushed, things are too cordial and NICE. Tbh I almost expected her to wake up screaming. but the last few panels of the update suggest some dark shit is coming?? So maybe something is UP
@seisans said:
yeah i thought he was like fake, maybe danann knows more than she lets on and is trying to get casca to realise some things? idk
here’s hoping. i mean when you put it that way with danann pushing the romance but it turns out this is just like, magical therapy part 2, maybe the point is that g*tsca is a terrible idea and casca has to realize that lol
Their idea of a morally gray character is a rapist who plans to dominate humanity by making life inhospitable everywhere except under his domain- I’m sorry, his “paradise”, Falconia.
Not only that, but everything he’s done Post-Eclipse was purely to continue his own selfish desires, and not helping Casca like Guts has.
You know, the guy who’s spent almost the last two thirds of the Manga trying to heal Casca’s mind, entrusted his life and more importantly HER life to new friends, and is currently waiting on the sides for Casca to return because he has faith they well succeed.
Remember, raping an innocent woman and driving her insane = morally gray, but trying to help that innocent woman does NOT equal morally gray, it’s horrible that Guts has trauma and couldn’t escape it and in a fit of madness attacked Casca because it boiled to the surface and he’s spent almost every chapter since brooding over what happened.
Again: Rape = a morally gray act, especially when it’s done with the sole intent to emotionally damage your friend who’s in a relationship with the victim.
The gray morality part was NOT in the context of the rape, but the general character writing and especially Guts, because you say “griffguts shippers paint him black”. We don’t. We paint him grey, because he is written that way and unlike people like yourself, Miura has NEVER seemed to be apologetic about him to me, just like he has never been apologetic about Griffith. But he has also never painted any of them black. He stated himself he does NOT imply good vs. bad logic to Berserk – author’s intention is to tell a story people like you simply dismiss for the sake of their favourites never being criticised. You dismiss the humanity of his characters and their tendencies to do evil things, while NOT being completely evil themselves. I mean if you can’t grasp even this much, read something else, honestly. And if you can’t accept Guts NOT being a good person, but rather gray on the good vs. bad scale, then you are the last person on Earth to defend him, you only make those who like him seem like a mindless mob, who can’t handle actual plot facts being pointed out, lmao.
I have YET to see a Griffith “defender” rant in the main tags, because one single person wrote a meta simply stating Casca hates him for raping her.
And when you say “we never talk about Griffith, who did this and that” we do lol, to every post criticising Guts, there are 5000 posts shitting on Griffith, so what the fucking hell are you talking about? Can’t stand some balance in this fandom? Are people supposed to ONLY ever talked about the Eclipse, because your sensitive ass might hurt if you saw anything even vaguely negative about Guts?
Nope.
i h8 getting involved in this shit but here it is in the author’s own words op:
I still can’t understand how people could see this scene and literally seconds later be like- “well so it seems like griffith doesn’t actually care about the lives of all his people because he says he’ll do anything to win and doesn’t regret it.”
Did you completely miss this moment? Would someone who doesn’t care about his people, fucking suck it all in and focus on comforting another person just because, ‘one of his soldiers’ was upset?
Would someone who didn’t care actually even consider doing what he did because “the more battles we fight, the more people we lose.”
Griffith has nothing to lose by simply fighting those additional battles. He knows he’ll survive. And he’s not exactly set a time goal for himself.
Its because He doesn’t WANT to have nothing to lose. it a misguided act of sentimentality and solidarity but it is still an act of sentimentality and solidarity.
“sentimentality and solidarity” is a nice way of putting it tbh. yk it’s funny that some people don’t get that you can have no regrets and still care, they’re not mutually exclusive things. Like by his logic if he allowed himself to regret leading people to their deaths their deaths would become pointless so he moves forward with no regrets because he cares lol.
also the line “but for hundreds, thousands of lives to hang in the balance and myself alone not to be unclean… // what I want… won’t enter my grasp so easily as that” in particular always struck me as strongly suggestive of Griffith’s guilt-fueled solidarity (rly love that btw) the way it’s divided into 2 speech bubbles
first half emphasizing the risked and lost lives for his dream and admonishing the idea of remaining above and untouched by it himself, 2nd half justifying it “logically” (won’t enter my grasp so easily as that) though the logic doesn’t hold up because, as you said, he could just fight those battles. That was his plan before the kid died, and was a perfectly good plan to him then.
also sidenote: it doesn’t occur to him that he’s in the same position as his soldiers anyway, risking his life every battle as well since he always leads at the front. He has to go above and beyond putting his own life on the line with them.
you're the only one 