This feels very fitting in the sense that all of Casca, Guts, and Griffith’s struggles for their own autonomy are rendered useless by people that are willing to use their lives/bodies as pawns. That’s just my thought.
oh yeah i didn’t really think of it that way, but good point.
kinda ties into how fate works almost lol. i mean in a way isn’t the idea of evil the ultimate paternalistic figure, ultimately orchestrating guts, casca’s and griffith’s encounters with the people who use them?
and this theory i threw out is kind of based on how causality determines when the behelit opens, but theoretically people can use that for their own ends, so it’s like an intersection of both fate and people using others. tho i didn’t rly say anything about that there i guess.
The way I see it human Griffiths ambition to rule over a kingdom never truly came from him per say??? It derived from his destiny. It was his destiny, a fate he wasnt aware of, that was the driving force behind his every action, behind his every victory and the reason why it was possible for him to climb the rigid social ladder.
And I don’t think NeoGriffiths lack of humanity would be the cause behind Faconia’s fall(if it does fall)
As a human I dont
think Griffith wouldve been able to handle doing everything that
NeoGriffith did. Despite how strong Human Griffith was he was still
prone to stress, doubt and anxiety. As a human Griffith tried to be
everything that he managed to become as a godhand, perfect.
And him hiding behind his strength, charisma, and beauty did take its
toll on him as a human. Then add the stress of being the messiah to all
of humanity, old Griffith wouldnt be able to do it
tbh I never really saw fate as a reason in and of itself for any choices people make in Berserk. Everyone has their own reasons for doing whatever they do, those reasons just play perfectly into fate’s hands. At one point Flora equates fate and “encounters,” which I like because it’s basically like a perfect meld of fate and free will.
eg Guts was fated to be picked up off the side of the road by Gambino, which thoroughly shaped him as a person; Guts was fated to overhear Griffith’s Promrose Hall speech, and the reason he chose to leave was largely because of a bundle of issues Gambino left him with. So Guts and his choices make perfect sense with or without fate having a hand in his life, it just so happens that fate is there behind the scenes making sure he is shaped by the right people.
so for Griffith, God tells him that he basically shaped the entire world, and Griffith’s ancestry, in order to bring Griffith into the world with a perfect set of traits to become the next Godhand, but everything he thinks and feels and does still makes sense just as a person with his particular history. So I can’t really say he’s obsessed with his dream because it’s his destiny, he’s obsessed with his dream because he has a particularly obsessive personality and he happened to see it at the right time in his life or under the right circumstances to become fixated or w/e – because of destiny lol.
Idk it’s convoluted but you gave me an opening to explain my thoughts on fate in berserk and I took it lol.
anyway aside from that long fate tangent that’s barely related to what you said lol, ia that human Griffith wouldn’t be able to do what NeoGriffith does. For one thing he’d’ve been crushed by Ganeshka without his army of apostles. And even without that, even if he just became king of Midland the way he was planning, if Guts never left, ia that I could see a scenario where reality hits him square in the head, being king turns out to be not all its cracked up to be, he still finds his power too limited to do everything he wants to do, and he struggles a lot under the pressure.
like ok this visual reference doesn’t really bring anything new to the table since we already know that Casca’s heart is full of dark negativity but yk
i still like it
wish this obvious imagery got ppl to realise that evil is within all humans including their precious protagonist and that the only reason griffith is what he is now is the fact that his humanity was suppressed by magical means. it’s such a simple fucking point that miura hits you over the head with at every given opportunity and yet they still divide the characters into perfect cinnamon rolls and irredeemable evil scum
like ok this visual reference doesn’t really bring anything new to the table since we already know that Casca’s heart is full of dark negativity but yk
i still like it
also i’m still on my casca using the behelit bullshit ftr
I JUST SAW UR OTHER POST LOL FUCK!!!! IF THE FALLING AND SHATTERING ISN’T A DIRECT REFERENCE ILL SHIT… holy fuck. i never really got the “gave away too much of the plot too early” reasoning behind the removal of the chapter but like THAT COMPARISON really puts it in new light and makes me genuinely hopeful
I’m so torn between being like lol this would never happen miura is not that good to me and being like, but what if tho
I mean ok I don’t think a fix Griffith quest is likely, that would be a little too impossibly good a thing to happen for Berserk lol. And Casca was traumatized while Griffith was like, literally and willingly transformed by magic and evil so it probably doesn’t work exactly the same way. (Someone should write this fic though omg, anything’s technically possible since it’s all magic anyway.) But exploring Griffith’s mental landscape? mayhaps? and again, tiny Griffith? theoretical potential to fix Griffith giving Guts some devastating Hope™ and ruining his stop obsessing over Griffith resolution?
i’ve always assumed the ‘gave away too much of the plot too early’ thing referred to griffith being essentially the avatar of humanity, but honestly knowing that in advance only improves everything.
ALSO
like ok this visual reference doesn’t really bring anything new to the table since we already know that Casca’s heart is full of dark negativity but yk
Griffith: But if you look at it a different way, it might be proof that there’s some huge something beyond human understanding in this world. For instance … what are called Gods. Or something … Guts: Don’tcha mean Devils? Griffith: … Who knows? Aren’t they the same thing?
(chapter 6, page 24)
Puck: I’ll bet some big God or Devil or somethin’ is peeking through that hole.
(chapter 74, page 8)
Guts: Gods … no, are they … Demons?
(chapter 75, page 14)
Guts: This is a magic stone. A magic stone that summons Angels who grant power to weak little humans. Jill: Angels … Guts: They might just be Demons disguised … but something like that.
Enh, to be fair some warlock dude in Elfhelm kinda suggested this.
Though I definitely think this is just, like, his opinion, man.
I think we’re getting two sides to this whole Falconia thing, and we’re meant to draw our own conclusions. Like, yeah Griffith’s country is the only chill place now, which is shitty, but on the other hand it’s also 50x better than the world was even before he flooded it with monsters, and it seems that his plan is to keep expanding it into an inclusive empire.
It’s not that NeoGriff is a con man or w/e, forcing people to buy his world peace, it’s that flooding the world with monsters is the only way to make people stop being shitty and work together in a nice utopia that values equality over social status, and it’s up to the reader whether the ends justify the means or not.
Plus it’s worth noting that this is what humanity wants. The Conviction arc was largely dedicated to showing us how shitty the world is. Nobles torture and torment peasants, outcasts are miserable, the holy see sucks, the heathens suck, plague everywhere, people starving, pretty much everyone except the richies is unhappy. Griffith’s new world order is essentially a response to all the bullshit we see up close and personal in the Conviction arc, a world where outcasts are welcomed, people are valued for what they can do rather than what family they were born to, apostles no longer eat people, no inquisitions, no discrimination that we see – like it’s fitting that the prostitutes from the Conviction arc return in Falconia as tour guides/organizers.
Griffith, as “the desired” of humanity, presumably fulfills humanity’s desires. Of his own free will and for his own maybe shifty reasons, but free will and fate are not mutually exclusive in Berserk – people’s choices always play into fate’s hands. The Idea of Evil told him he’d either save or doom humanity by doing whatever the hell he wants. I kind of assume this means less saving/dooming the world and more a metaphysical Jesus-y saving/dooming people’s souls – or quite possibly saving humanity from themselves or dooming them to more of their own subconsciousness dicking with them. You know, either getting rid of the Idea of Evil by shaping humanity’s point of view, or dooming them to continue having their mass subconscious manifest in a malicious entity who controls fate.
That’s just a theory tho, we don’t really know what the Idea of Evil means afaik, and even if I’m right I have no idea if what NeoGriffith is doing is more likely to save or doom humanity lol. Or hell maybe he’s on the road to “dooming” humanity but, similar to how letting Guts go kicked off the series of events leading to his rebirth as NeoGriffith, something in his faulty, Guts-obsessed demon soul is going to cause him to do something unexpected and better/freeing for humanity. /more theorizing
ANYWAY all that said I actually fully expect Miura to come down more on Guts’ side, since he is the protagonist and all. Personally I’m into Falconia, I like the whole ‘can’t make a utopia without breaking a few eggs’ thing, but since Guts, on a more philosophical level, represents free will and raging against fate and struggling against your situation while Griffith more represents being saved by someone who comes along and makes your life easier (i think), and Berserk is all about The Struggle, I think there’s an undertone of it being better to suffer in an uncaring world than to have a happy easy life in a utopia.
I’m doing an essay in my Comp class and I chose to argue that people shouldn’t say “Griffith did nothing wrong”
I’d like to get a little survey done, so could you reply to this post saying “Griffith did everything wrong”, “Griffith did some things wrong”, or “Griffith did everything wrong”?
I won’t judge any answers and you don’t have to explain your viewpoint, just please help me out with this?
tl;dr: I need feedback to see how split the fandom is over Griffith and his actions for an essay
(please help, I’m begging you)
It’s a redundant topic since Berserk is about grey morality and Griffith definitely did wrong and bad things, so I guess my answer would be “Griffith did some things wrong”.
Griffith did some things wrong.
i feel like ‘griffith did nothing wrong’ is a purposefully inflammatory meme more than anyone’s earnest argument. like i hang out with a lot of griffith fans and i’ve personally never seen anyone genuinely argue that griffith did nothing wrong, even if you don’t include femto in that.
until now!
griffith did nothing wrong – because in the world of berserk he has divine right, his choices and actions have been predetermined by the world’s god, which fulfills humanity’s subconscious desires. griffith is the chosen saviour or doomer of humanity, chosen by humanity’s god, which is a manifestation of the collective will of humanity, and therefore everything griffith and femto and neogriffith does is humanity’s will.
nothing he can do is therefore wrong within the context of Berserk’s reality, because everything he does is what must happen according to God.
I mean from this perspective you can argue he did some things wrong from a moral standpoint bc he’s basically the avatar of humanity and humanity is kind of fucked up. but yk from a purely fictional theological standpoint, griffith/femto/neogriffith is doing everything exactly right.
(disclaimer: griffith did some things wrong, femto is an evil monster, and neogriffith is mysterious but also kind of a dick by any standard of logic or morality.
my 100% earnest answer for your survey is Griffith did some things wrong.)
Yeah I think Griffith + Femto is morally grey if you combine them into one entity (which… I guess is just saying Griffith is morally grey lol since Femto is his dark side unleashed or w/e). I’m v curious about how NeoGriff fits in. One theory I have is that if Femto is Griffith with all the “good” parts of his humanity stripped away, then maybe NeoGriff has the “evil” parts stripped away too, and all that’s left is like, a heart full of neutrality (and whatever feelings made him call off Zodd and save Casca from rocks), making him the perfect fulfiller of humanity’s desires.
bc you’re right, he hasn’t done anything malicious. He’s been darkly pragmatic in eg sending apostles after Flora, but that’s not really any different than Guts and Griffith assassinating the queen from his point of view.
Ofc NeoGriff could just be Femto in a human suit who’s gotten better at concealing his petty side, who knows?
Also wrt Femto negating Griffith’s good deeds, ia – I think especially the rape is meant to be a v direct contrast to Griffith saving her from attempted rape the first time. The movie even uses the same Casca point of view shot to make the connection painfully clear. Though I don’t necessarily think that’s deliberate on Femto’s part (tho it could be) so much as the narrative drawing a strong contrast between Griffith and Femto. Griffith was Casca’s saviour, Femto then destroyed her, that kind of thing. Femto was a part of Griffith, but always tempered by Griffith’s ideals and morals, so stripping that part of him away is shown by negating his good deeds.
There’s also the way he literally replaces the nobleman who tried to rape Casca – he says, “do you think you’re chosen by God?” to him when he saves her. Now it turns out Femto literally has been chosen by God. Coupled with Berserk’s cynical take on religion, God being the Idea of Evil, etc, you get the sense that divine right isn’t any better or more noble than the class system enabling predators.
But again NeoGriff is all about that divine right and he hasn’t done anything malicious yet so the ultimate message might end up being more complicated than that.
(also i just want to be clear that theorizing about why miura had femto rape casca during the eclipse isn’t me saying i think it was a good writing choice. it makes sense in context of berserk’s themes, but that’s bc casca’s character is defined by rape and rape attempts from beginning to end, which sucks)
Same, I actually really love that Berserk’s “god” + therefore fate is a manifestation of humanity’s subconscious. A+ concept imo.
idk man i just rly freaking love that shattering, fragmented image of griffith during the lost chapter
I’ve suggested before that NeoGriff and Casca are similar from Guts’ pov in that they’re both downgraded fascimiles of their old selves.
@godclaw mentioned recurring doll imagery to me and now I’m thinking yk what – if anything is making NeoGriff act without thought to save his former friends, i’m gonna suggest it could be a metaphorical tiny cute Griffith buried in his psyche that’s been… unfrozen or whatever now that his heart is bthumping. Casca’s was found in the doll’s chest right where her heart should be, and we’ve seen Casca’s fragment of her self take the wheel in a pinch and slaughter attempted rapists after all. Idk yk this broken doll imagery is real strong with both of them, I want to assume it’s purposeful.
Idt we’ll be getting magic therapy for NeoGriff lol, but I do think that the journey to the centre of Casca doesn’t just reveal Casca’s psyche but also shows us how people generally work in the spiritual world of Berserk. So if any part of regular old human Griffith remains after his heart froze, he went through a weird visual spiritual fragmentation and was pieced back together using the Power of Evil, and then was reborn as a flesh and blood messiah with a thawing heart, it stands to reason it might be similar to mini Casca.
I’ve been wondering Like is there people out there who like…don’t think of Griffith and femto as the same person you know like how some dipshits are like “oh no anakin didn’t slaughter the younglings that was darth Vader darth Vader killed anakin from a certain point of view actually” is there people who think Griffith didn’t rape casca and slaughter the entirety of the band of hawk?
That it was his fucking alter ego countess boochie flagrante
tbf unlike anakin griffith literally got an explicitly described evil injection (”a fissure in your heart will open into which evil will surge), a new body created out of the same negativity as the idea of evil, and was explicitly shown losing his capacity to feel as the Band died and he was transforming so like…
yeah i feel it’s pretty well-established canon that femto is different than griffith.
whether you’d say griffith’s dark side + extra evil + new name – ability to feel empathy and other positive emotions = technically a new person or not doesn’t really matter imo, he’s definitely shown to be magically transformed enough physically and mentally for me to be able to draw a pretty solid line between femto and griffith regardless.
you're the only one 