i love these kinds of questions! but please prepare yourself because this is going to be long and incoherent
so, to be perfectly honest, i know this is a cop out but all griffith scenes are my favourite scenes?
if i had to pick a few that stand out the most, however, i love griffith & guts’ first and last duels so much
these panels especially, but also:
i also LOVE:
this whole entire thing. all of it, every panel, every word, i love it.
then there’s the entire sequence starting with him overhearing casca telling guts to leave again and ending with him sacrificing everyone. love all of that, especially: his suicide attempt which breaks my heart whenever i re-read it, the moment when guts is approaching him and he’s thinking “stay away!!!” and his thoughts leading up to the sacrifice, about how guts outshone his dream.
this obvious parallel
also, needless to say, i have a complicated relationship with his nightmare wherein he is in a lifesucking heterosexual marriage with casca .. lol.
another big scene for me is, obviously, the bthump scene. i love it so much. i love how he came to guts to check if he still had feelings. very subtle. and then he was like “ok sweet i don’t have feelings bye” and then he had a feeling. I LOVE IT.
OH and allllllll of those femto + black swordsman interactions from the nonnumerical chapters. kisses fingers like a chef.
those are the first few scenes that come to mind, honestly. but there’s a lot of other gems too, like his and guts’ very first meeting when he tells guts that he wants him, that moment when he shows guts the behelit smiling like a little kid, that time he was talking to guts about their duel and how fun it was and just looked really fond, every time he risked his life for guts and every time he lied about his reasons, that time he gave julius a dangerous smile (and every time he talked shit about the nobles), when he asked guts to do him the favour of killing julius, these two scenes god
the scene with casca in the lake, that moment when guts’ sword broke in the middle of their important fight and he looked like … idk what that emotion even was, probably fear? that moment he told gennon he meant nothing to him, god that scene when he sets the room with the queen inside on fire and takes off the ribbon tying his hair …… all of his little smiles and glances @ guts. all of his little 😮 moments.
i’m not fond of the fuck scene with charlotte for obvious reasons, but i do like how he was thinking about guts and also afterwards when he just … curls in on himself and starts crying. that destroyed me.
this isn’t a scene people talk about a lot but i love when he tells charlotte’s gross father off? he just knows … exactly which buttons to push. and we didn’t even know he had all this dirt on the king until that scene, i just love it so much
i love that moment when they find him in the torture chamber and he wakes up and sees guts. puts his hand on his neck, but then guts starts crying, and his hand slides down to guts’ instead. fuck me.
AND ok you already know about this ‘cause we’ve talked about it but:
this moment of clear, undeniable jealousy. love.
obviously i love his little private moment with guts in the carriage. i love neo-griffith’s mind-numbingly boring tea parties, and his talk with rickert. … like i said, i love pretty much any scene where griffith showed up in the manga lol.
if you ask me why … i apologise ’cause this isn’t going to be anything profound, really, but i just love him as a character, literally everything about him. looking at this array, i seem to prefer scenes where he loses control and shows some kind of intense emotion, generally directed towards guts. but i also love the scenes of clear emotional repression, be it him telling guts he doesn’t really have a reason for risking his life to save him, or him telling himself and everyone else that he doesn’t feel guilty for all the lives that were lost for his cause. i love his messy emotions, whether he tries to hide them or they take over him completely and cause him to make his disastrous decisions. i love his impulsivity, i love his jealousy, i love his guilt. i just love him so much.
i feel like i already know a few of your favourite scenes but still wbu? feel free to ramble @ me like i just did @ you
I drafted this for when I’m less busy, hoping I would have a reply that isn’t just “yes @ everything you said,” but I have all the time in the world now and I’m still like … yep that’s pretty much it, I have nothing good to add.
The tragedy of Griffith (or one of, I guess, lol) was that he had to be selfish in order to achieve his completely selfless dream (though, like you pointed out, he still tried to make it as fair as possible by pulling his own weight and more), and people misinterpret his character and his motives (sometimes intentionally) to make it easier to make sense of his actions … at least for themselves lol. The problem is not only does that do him injustice, but it also does the story of Berserk injustice, making it boring and one-dimensional.
I’m genuinely hoping that Miura isn’t going with Falconia where everyone but a handful of us seems to think he’s going. For me personally, that would kill nearly everything that I think makes Berserk interesting and unique. But I guess we’ll see.
I wish I could understand an iota of what Miura is going for with the fetus tbh.
Idk, idk if it’s so much that the fetus being the last piece means the whole demonization thing was what drove her insane, the vibe I got was more like, it’s the most important part of her and everything around it “guarding” it (the monsters, the femto-pterodactyl) was what drove her insane. Which at least fits with the fact that she’s immensely traumatized.
This is a bit of an optimistic take tho, because I could absolutely believe Miura writing that it was the corruption of the fetus that mostly drove her insane and she just innately sensed it or something.
The fetus was always looking out for Guts and Casca, so I interpreted it as her subconscious placing the demon child as a final defender of her heart against the demons.
This seems as reasonable an interpretation as any and makes sense to me.
i love these kinds of questions! but please prepare yourself because this is going to be long and incoherent
so, to be perfectly honest, i know this is a cop out but all griffith scenes are my favourite scenes?
if i had to pick a few that stand out the most, however, i love griffith & guts’ first and last duels so much
these panels especially, but also:
i also LOVE:
this whole entire thing. all of it, every panel, every word, i love it.
then there’s the entire sequence starting with him overhearing casca telling guts to leave again and ending with him sacrificing everyone. love all of that, especially: his suicide attempt which breaks my heart whenever i re-read it, the moment when guts is approaching him and he’s thinking “stay away!!!” and his thoughts leading up to the sacrifice, about how guts outshone his dream.
this obvious parallel
also, needless to say, i have a complicated relationship with his nightmare wherein he is in a lifesucking heterosexual marriage with casca .. lol.
another big scene for me is, obviously, the bthump scene. i love it so much. i love how he came to guts to check if he still had feelings. very subtle. and then he was like “ok sweet i don’t have feelings bye” and then he had a feeling. I LOVE IT.
OH and allllllll of those femto + black swordsman interactions from the nonnumerical chapters. kisses fingers like a chef.
those are the first few scenes that come to mind, honestly. but there’s a lot of other gems too, like his and guts’ very first meeting when he tells guts that he wants him, that moment when he shows guts the behelit smiling like a little kid, that time he was talking to guts about their duel and how fun it was and just looked really fond, every time he risked his life for guts and every time he lied about his reasons, that time he gave julius a dangerous smile (and every time he talked shit about the nobles), when he asked guts to do him the favour of killing julius, these two scenes god
the scene with casca in the lake, that moment when guts’ sword broke in the middle of their important fight and he looked like … idk what that emotion even was, probably fear? that moment he told gennon he meant nothing to him, god that scene when he sets the room with the queen inside on fire and takes off the ribbon tying his hair …… all of his little smiles and glances @ guts. all of his little 😮 moments.
i’m not fond of the fuck scene with charlotte for obvious reasons, but i do like how he was thinking about guts and also afterwards when he just … curls in on himself and starts crying. that destroyed me.
this isn’t a scene people talk about a lot but i love when he tells charlotte’s gross father off? he just knows … exactly which buttons to push. and we didn’t even know he had all this dirt on the king until that scene, i just love it so much
i love that moment when they find him in the torture chamber and he wakes up and sees guts. puts his hand on his neck, but then guts starts crying, and his hand slides down to guts’ instead. fuck me.
AND ok you already know about this ‘cause we’ve talked about it but:
this moment of clear, undeniable jealousy. love.
obviously i love his little private moment with guts in the carriage. i love neo-griffith’s mind-numbingly boring tea parties, and his talk with rickert. … like i said, i love pretty much any scene where griffith showed up in the manga lol.
if you ask me why … i apologise ’cause this isn’t going to be anything profound, really, but i just love him as a character, literally everything about him. looking at this array, i seem to prefer scenes where he loses control and shows some kind of intense emotion, generally directed towards guts. but i also love the scenes of clear emotional repression, be it him telling guts he doesn’t really have a reason for risking his life to save him, or him telling himself and everyone else that he doesn’t feel guilty for all the lives that were lost for his cause. i love his messy emotions, whether he tries to hide them or they take over him completely and cause him to make his disastrous decisions. i love his impulsivity, i love his jealousy, i love his guilt. i just love him so much.
i feel like i already know a few of your favourite scenes but still wbu? feel free to ramble @ me like i just did @ you
Yesss, ngl I asked because I’ve been craving some pure certified organic griffith positivity and I read this post with just a big grin on my face lol. so ty for the long and awesome answer ❤
Like, other than going ^^^^all of the above^^^^ I guess right now I really want to ramble about like… the genuinely good stuff. I never shut up about Griffith’s flaws, his self loathing, his guilt, his emotional repression, the way he lashes out in interesting yet horrifying ways when he can’t just repress his feelings, the sacrifice, etc…
But yk what despite how fucked up he is as a person he has a lot of good aspects that always get downplayed for the sake of villainizing him, and I want to talk about those.
Like dude wanted to create a socialist, non-discriminatory paradise in the middle ages? His goal was literally to become king so he would have the power to carve out a place where people’s bodies and lives wouldn’t be bought and sold. I’d side-eye the shit out of Miura for making that the antagonist’s motivation if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s consistently portrayed as a good thing. Still keeping my side-eye on hold tho for when we find out exactly where Miura’s going with Falconia.
And he walked the walk in addition to talking the talk. His second in command was the only woman we ever see fighting in an army in Berserk, and she joined him because he saved her from a noble who bought her. Then he got her, and a bunch of other former peasants, knighted. If Griffith had become king the normal way rather than taking the magical god route, the… idk military command. Head General? Whatever, the commander of his armies would’ve been Casca.
Like yeah there’s some ye olde sexism in the mix but that comes from every dude we see, including beloved ones like Guts and Judeau (especially Guts, yeesh).
He was a beloved commander for a reason. His strategies aren’t just brilliant, they’re a way of minimizing casualties as much as possible. Despite always having to project an image of perfection, he was able to be personable too, making the Hawks feel valued. He partied with them after victories, all he said to Casca when she was full of guilt for going into battle with debilitating cramps was “welcome back,” he got Casca to rescue Corkus from Guts and then came over and rescued Casca when that wasn’t enough, he had a personal recollection of the kid who died in the flashback who Casca didn’t know anything about, remembering the way the kid looked at him.
He hides the dark underside of his rise to power not just because he doesn’t want anyone (except Guts) to see it and judge him for it, but also because he doesn’t want the Hawks to have to worry about it.
Guts thinks it’s cruel to not let them in on the plan, but Griffith thinks it’d be cruel to burden them with the knowledge of some of the fucked up things getting them those knighthoods.
The way he says, “But for hundreds, thousands of lives to hang in the balance and myself alone not to be unclean…” which completely fails to acknowledge that his life is on the line exactly the same as everyone else’s since he leads his army at the front, but he thinks that doesn’t count, he has to do something extra basically as penance.
And like, sorry but that extra thing is literally selling himself to a child rapist, as a child, to prevent as many soldiers from dying in battle as possible. I’m like, so done with watching fandom downplay that at every turn. Also while I’m listing good deeds, personally murdering that dude.
How being in love with Guts makes him automatically do things from little stuff like asking Guts to assassinate Julius instead of ordering him to, to huge things like basically straight up dying for him w/ Zodd. I mean, Zodd won, if it wasn’t for fate Griffith would’ve died right there while running to Guts to grab his hand.
And this is after ordering the rest of the Hawks to retreat and running in alone to try to rescue Guts.
Also not just doing good things, how about being awesome? Like taking five thousand people and winning a battle against thirty thousand. Like the way it’s set up with Casca thinking that Griffith might be being reckless by volunteering because his rapist is head of that army, but it turns out that he knew he could win entirely because of his history with Gennon, basically using his predatory lust against him. Like burning a bunch of murder-plotting conservative nobles alive while doing this:
Like going through at least two days of torture without making a sound. And coming out the other side after a full year still sane because his feelings for Guts kept him going. And then saving everyone during the escape attempt despite being helpless and voiceless. Wanting desperately to be able to grab a sword and help Guts fight a giant terrifying monster.
I just love him so much and I talk about his stupidity and self loathing and emotional fucked up ness and how he succumbs to his flaws all the time and have been especially focusing on it recently due to this thing i’m procrastinating on still writing, but he has a lot of genuine virtues too and sometimes u just wanna sit back and be a Griffith apologist.
griffguts works bc they’re both very lonely and have compatible wants/needs. guts wants griffith to give him the attention he’s been so deprived of all his life and think of him as someone he can trust. griffith wants guts to be *his* and to confide his secrets in him. it’s called chemistry babes.
It was like she was betraying Griffith. She constantly drew the
conclusion that Griffith loved Guts throughout the manga. And by staying
she would be taking care of him, and I suppose her hope of sending Guts
away would be that she and Griffith could grieve together and Griffith
wouldn’t have to feel abandoned by them both or have to watch them be
together when he had literally destroyed himself over Guts.
Yeah I really like this idea. I think it def makes more sense with Casca’s character and her knowledge of Griffith’s feelings, it’s a lot better than just abruptly shifting from prioritizing Griffith and his dream to prioritizing Guts’ dream, which has been my interpretation of why she told Guts to leave.
Also man I’d love to see a missing scene right after Guts leaves and we see Casca and the Hawks react to Griffith’s breakdown.
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.
you know i wonder if at least one part of griffith’s heart bthumping here is the fact that zodd and guts are dueling, as opposed to just the fact that guts is there
for one, their duels should be very significant to him both because he won guts with their first one (and guts won him over: “that fight was enjoyable. that’s how fights should be.”) and because he lost guts with their last one (and that destroyed him)
but also, and i’m aware this is a bit of a stretch, but though griffith always believed in guts’ fighting ability he also never stopped worrying about him
i’m not saying he’s worried about guts here necessarily but he’s watching him fight, duel, something he used to do with him, something he used to watch him do a lot. if he remembers everything (except, i assume, how it felt?) … you know.
I totally agree! imo Guts vs Zodd here could echo a lot of significant moments in their relationship. Like Griffith’s first intrigued sight of him when he dives into danger to kill Bazuso, the first time they met Zodd and Griffith risked his life for Guts and couldn’t rationalize it afterwards, Griffith worrying and watching Guts from a distance while he fights Boscogne, watching the Wyald fight while removed from it and feeling isolated from Guts.
Like yeah I don’t think he’s feeling any of those things directly, but if we’re going to see his heart beating while Guts is around this is a v appropriate situation that reflects a lot of their past and makes it feel extra significant.
“You bled so much for me. These are wounds from the hundred man battle, right? Even the wound I gave you…”
“I too want a wound… that I can say you gave me.”
When it comes to Guts’ guilt issues surrounding Griffith’s tragic narrative, and the highly sexually charged nature of the scene where the Beast of Darkness suggests this, and the fact that the Guts and Casca sex scene is already chock full of references and parallels to Griffith, I’m feeling like this is a legit comparison, at least from Guts’ guilt-ridden and Griffith-obsessed point of view.
(brought to my attention by therainykitty here, ty! also s/o to this post)
Very nice and I think Guts wants to feel as hurt as Griffith does, with Guts trying to engage Griffith as an enemy. For Griffith to attack him, hurt him back anything to make Griffith feel towards him again.
But Griffith is burying his scars underneath that frozen heart (except Guts can still make it beat).
And for more scar comparisons because why not
Guts words to Casca “Nobody lies their way into a body with this many scars.”
Griffith buries his emotional pain pretending it doesn’t affect him but always still that sorrow and how he cares is shown with his scars
Guts leaving and the flashback to asking Guts is he a horrible person
Guts in danger and Griffith harming himself again (clenching his teeth so hard they bleed) because he can’t reach Guts to protect him
His suffering and the fracturing of his soul
And Femto the armor over Griffith’s scarred soul
Femto acts as the personification of Griffith’s suffering and the armor to protect Griffith’s wounded inner core.
So I guess it is Griffith’s body that express the scars in his soul but no one ever sees them. They are hidden from all but Casca (at least at first) and Guts.
i don’t wanna rb that post bc het sloppy makeouts but wrt guts not protesting to casca touching him
i mean, he does–until he wakes up and realises she’s a woman. that means her touch isn’t ~magical~ – it’s just that his trauma is specifically tied to men
so what’s more impressive than him not freaking out about a naked woman clinging to him is him not freaking out when griffith takes his head in his hands and brings his face intimately close to his own
he doesn’t protest, he doesn’t flinch away. he looks enchanted
“only your touch didn’t offend me” isn’t just a bullshit lie, it’s moot
why would her touch offend you? she’s a woman lol
tbh I feel like Miura started with one narrative before he had the idea of hooking Guts and Casca up and then tried to mildly retcon it to make it seem more romantic. But since he didn’t have future g*tsca in mind back then the only thing Guts’ nightmare and brief panic does is
a) remind us that he’s traumatized and it’s still affecting him
b) tell us that trauma is tied specifically to men
c) specifically highlight the way griffith totally bypasses it in the next chapter
like there’s no reason for that scene to exist except to make Griffith winning him in a duel with sexual stakes and then grabbing his face and saying, “now you belong to me” stand out as shockingly dazzling to guts instead of traumatic.
I honestly think Guts is kidding himself with Casca and denying his deeper feelings for Griffith. I find it hard to believe that a person he basically never got along with for years suddenly is his everything in a couple of months. Compared to Griffith whom after the three year time skip they seem joined at the hip. Things look to be going great until the fountain scene and Guts doesn’t feel good enough for Griffith (due to his own issues. Not Griffith’s).
Then you have Casca telling him about Gennon and the boy and Griffith self-harming and all that and is basically Griffith needs someone to be there for him, so cop on to yourself Guts (because for Guts, Griffith lets himself be vulnerable, he puts himself in danger for you). And through Casca, Guts figures out “hey Griffith does need someone to stand beside him like yeah I can be that person” but first I need a dream.
And when he returns to the Hawks a year after.Griffith is being tortured and for Guts everything crashes. Someone he loves, someone he cares for is going through hell and he can’t be with him. Guts can’t take Griffith out of that. He just settles for what little comfort Casca gives (and Casca settles for what comfort she can find in Guts). It must of been hell not only their own personal demons but just not being able to reach Griffith when he needed them the most. So they keep that comfort-seeking relationship going after Griffith gets out but well they are always testy around each other again.
Now after the eclipse Guts can’t reach Griffith in any way physically, spiritual,emotionally,nothing.(Just like he was powerless to reach him in torture and the eclipse)
And to me the whole healing Casca for Guts while great Casca gets her mind back, but it’s like I couldn’t save him, I couldn’t help Griffith get his mind back. Maybe I can save you.
Trying to assuage some guilt/remorse.
But again Guts continues to hurt the people around him.
Yeah! Have you ever noticed how every time Guts starts thinking of Casca as a romantic prospect it’s because Judeau is directly telling him to lol?
Also gr8 point – I’ve kind of wondered if Casca telling Guts all about Griffith’s vulnerabilities and how he needs him in the cave maybe partially inspired him to leave. Like, before hearing that he might’ve thought becoming Griffith’s friend was hopeless, but after hearing that he might’ve seen it as a distinct future possibility as long as he finds a dream first. You nicely put that into words!
guts is the protagonist, not the hero, and that’s something I actually thoroughly enjoy about berserk
wish more people actually understood this lol. also that griffith being the antagonist doesn’t mean he’s the villain
that’s like a fundamental part of berserk as I read it, I’m actually concerned what’s happening in people’s heads if they don’t grasp that omg.
YEP lol for a manga about grey morality berserk sure has a lot of fans who think guts is their ideal feminist dudebro who always does everything right and deserves to bone casca & griffith is an eeeeeeevil ps*cho fag whom guts needs to kill in the most violent way possible
I noticed this twisted view a couple of years ago. Very frightening polarization.
Anyway about protagonist and whatnot. I feel Griffith and Guts are both the main protagonists.It is both their story. Berserk came about due to Kentaro Miura wanting to marry two different types of manga and that is through Guts and Griffith.
Also interview with Miura he said he is not creating Berserk with good and evil values. So it is not really that kind of story.
that’s a very good point imo
and yeah miura keeps saying it’s not that black and white but everyone conveniently ignores that. it even came up in guts & judeau’s conversation lol it’s literally in the manga
there is A Lot here, but a) “I can’t run…!!” smacks of both guts saying he can’t escape what happened even if he literally does run away but also the ptsd flashback of being held down while shit went down where he literally couldn’t move and that’s ow. and b):
“but I can never atone for this dark flame” is such an interesting wording because I feel like it means about five different things from guts feeling guilt over the eclipse to feeling guilt over his drive for revenge taking him away from caring for casca and rickert to his drive for revenge being a big old plaster over the fact that he still love griffith [yeah, that’s some personal interpretation and possibly a stretching of the text there, but it fits for me].
i don’t wanna rb that post bc het sloppy makeouts but wrt guts not protesting to casca touching him
i mean, he does–until he wakes up and realises she’s a woman. that means her touch isn’t ~magical~ – it’s just that his trauma is specifically tied to men
so what’s more impressive than him not freaking out about a naked woman clinging to him is him not freaking out when griffith takes his head in his hands and brings his face intimately close to his own
he doesn’t protest, he doesn’t flinch away. he looks enchanted
“only your touch didn’t offend me” isn’t just a bullshit lie, it’s moot
why would her touch offend you? she’s a woman lol
tbh I feel like Miura started with one narrative before he had the idea of hooking Guts and Casca up and then tried to mildly retcon it to make it seem more romantic. But since he didn’t have future g*tsca in mind back then the only thing Guts’ nightmare and brief panic does is
a) remind us that he’s traumatized and it’s still affecting him
b) tell us that trauma is tied specifically to men
c) specifically highlight the way griffith totally bypasses it in the next chapter
like there’s no reason for that scene to exist except to make Griffith winning him in a duel with sexual stakes and then grabbing his face and saying, “now you belong to me” stand out as shockingly dazzling to guts instead of traumatic.
basically, except i’m a little more optimistic and i think that miura purposely had guts lie there
not super intentionally of course, i don’t think guts’ inner monologue was “let me conveniently blur the gay truth so i can sound romantic” or anything like that. but yeah. miura’s a really good writer and though he has introduced stupid plot elements like a forced heterosexual romance into berserk plenty of times, he has imo always managed to make it make some sort of sense, whether intentionally or not ig. and since i enjoy coming up with excuses as to why whatever we’re talking about was “totally his intention all along,” i see that lie there as fitting considering it happens during a scene where guts is using casca as a substitute for griffith
in a way, it makes their romance seem like a parody. which i enjoy
i don’t wanna rb that post bc het sloppy makeouts but wrt guts not protesting to casca touching him
i mean, he does–until he wakes up and realises she’s a woman. that means her touch isn’t ~magical~ – it’s just that his trauma is specifically tied to men
so what’s more impressive than him not freaking out about a naked woman clinging to him is him not freaking out when griffith takes his head in his hands and brings his face intimately close to his own
he doesn’t protest, he doesn’t flinch away. he looks enchanted
“only your touch didn’t offend me” isn’t just a bullshit lie, it’s moot
why would her touch offend you? she’s a woman lol
tbh I feel like Miura started with one narrative before he had the idea of hooking Guts and Casca up and then tried to mildly retcon it to make it seem more romantic. But since he didn’t have future g*tsca in mind back then the only thing Guts’ nightmare and brief panic does is
a) remind us that he’s traumatized and it’s still affecting him
b) tell us that trauma is tied specifically to men
c) specifically highlight the way griffith totally bypasses it in the next chapter
like there’s no reason for that scene to exist except to make Griffith winning him in a duel with sexual stakes and then grabbing his face and saying, “now you belong to me” stand out as shockingly dazzling to guts instead of traumatic.
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.
lol sorry anon this got kind of long and meandering, hopefully it answers your questions though.
I guess I think that Guts isn’t really fully self-aware about the fact that he’s still trying to be Griffith’s equal. It’s not like a real goal for him the way it was when he left the Hawks, it’s just that he can’t help but crave Griffith’s attention. He needs Griffith to see and acknowledge him as someone who matters to him.
It’s why Femto’s dismissal back in the Black Swordsman arc was what spurred him to finally stand and walk up to him despite like a million broken bones, it’s why he refused to heed much sounder advice like stay and take care of the Hawks that are left, and insisted on his attention-getting revenge campaign instead, and it’s why NeoGriffith ditching him makes him do this:
Because becoming Griffith’s “equal” was only a means to an end in the first place – what Guts really wanted was to be Griffith’s friend, or, put in Guts’ own terms:
He wants to be Griffith’s number one priority. At the most genuine point of their relationship, when Griffith admitted he had no rational reason for risking his life for Guts, Guts like basically found personal fulfillment. That scene on the rooftop where Guts contemplates it and decides that this means his home (at least for now bc Guts sucks at committment) is with the Hawks, is probably the happiest moment of Guts’ life.
And when Griffith became an evil demon this core desire of Guts’ didn’t go away, I guess, Guts just started expressing it through attention-getting monster killing and wanting to personally murder Femto, to force him to look at him and value him, if not as a loved one then as an enemy.
Also, to address that last bit, I think it’s very telling that Guts doesn’t hate Griffith. It wasn’t sacrificing all his friends that made Guts’ love turn to rage and hate, it was Femto spitefully raping Casca, which is something Guts knows his Griffith wouldn’t’ve done. While Femto was born out of the darkness of Griffith, something Guts probably at least has some understanding of, he’s not the same as Griffith. He tells that to Rickert too on the Hill of Swords “That’s not the Griffith you know anymore.”
And I think a huge part of the reason he doesn’t hate or blame Griffith for making the sacrifice is because he blames himself for breaking Griffith’s heart and ruining his life.
Like Guts’ narrative from coming back after a year to this moment revolves around his slow realization that leaving was a huge fucking mistake lol. And he finally figured it out right before the Eclipse, so when he thinks of Griffith afterwards he’s associated with guilt and sadness and regret and love, rather than bitterness or hate or resentment.
Like I guess Guts’ feelings are kind of contradictory but in a way that makes sense to me. The situation is complicated af and while Guts is consumed by hate, that doesn’t conveniently erase his love. Separating Femto from Griffith is probably part of how he reconciles that, which is also why when NeoGriffith shows up looking like the old Griffith it was particularly confusing and painful for Guts to handle, and why he “forgot” he wanted to kill him lol.
And both Guts’ hate and his love lead to wanting Femto/Griffith’s attention, it just changes how he goes about trying to accomplish that.
I have to agree. Also people very rarely if ever have one motivation for things they do or their feelings inside. Humans are contradictory by nature. The heart never just wants one thing. Griffith pushing people away to protect himself but really wanting someone to be close to (someone he won’t easily lose to harshness of war). Also seen with Guts and Schierke where Guts’ calls Griffith his friend and enemy.
I think people forget at the eclipse with Casca as Guts was being held down. He also witnessed Femto killing Griffith before his eyes in that moment. This thing was not his Griffith.
Guts wanting revenge is also him wanting revenge on the Godhand and Femto for taking and destroying Griffith.
a little post about Rosine, the “villain” of the arch of lost children and its parallels with Griffith, a little introduction about Rosine
Rosine is basically Peter Pan with all its dark nuances in the world of Berserk since it has all the qualities and of course that part of the story is about the escape of reality:
Rosine goes out; frees and kidnaps other children, and gets each of them to buy in their dream and vision of what the world really is like, see her as the Queen of the Elves, and accept the total freedom that she offers them (which validates her own choice ). But his new themes do not make sense to his friends. There is no true sense of attachment. All are disposable and replaceable, because you can use them and create more when you want, because there will always be a lot of desperate children, as I said before, it is a satire to the original “lost children” who look for the charismatic figure of Peter Pan to take them to a world but of course in Berserk there is no such thing
In this case, Jill is like the “Wendy” in this story
That’s why I’m not surprised that Rosine’s interactions have a romantic middle tone with Jilll after all is very consisten
I miss quite a lot because Miura gave this apostle to make the parallel with Griffith in so many ways.
The kingdom of the elves of Rosine and the kingdom of Griffith Falconia are both fantasies that help people escape from their cruelt realities
Its initial shape is beautiful and attracts anyone
Repressed feelings
Refusing to face reality and falling into despair and using the Behelit
What I want to mention is that NeoGriffith supposedly no longer has feelings for Guts
But then Rosine comes to mind, despite being Apostol, her feelings for Jill were remarkable and the worst thing is that not only did she keep them, now that Jill grew up they became half romantic and of course I think it is clear that Jill was the only one In part, he forgot that horrible reality of abuse and clear his dream of living with the elves, how ironic was Jill’s single essence that destroyed all his escapist fantasy because Rosine really loved her friend more than her “kingdom of elves ”
which makes me ask “Griffith in I seriously abandon everything I felt for Guts?
Since I’m focusing on Casca for the review, right now I can not even speculate only that it left me thinking, Rosine’s death when her humanity had returned to her was a sad thing..
Although like Wendy our dear Jill grew a lot thanks to this experience and now can face reality.
All this makes me wonder what will happen to Guts after the final encounter with Griffith?
There is much more to say about the parallels of Griffith and Rosine but those are enough since I just wanted to make a small comment and I think it came out very long, I hope you liked it until next time.
ok so i went looking for those pages and when the beast of darkness bites casca’s neck while telling him to r*pe her to get closer to griffith
it says something which the official translation team translated as “you desire this”
but the old fan translation says:
it’d be interesting to see if the original japanese wording here is the same as the “what you wish for may not be what she wishes for” or w/e line
ooooh ngl it would be a p interesting twist if ‘your wishes may not be her wishes’ is ominious not necessarily because casca’s wishes are going to fuck shit up but because skull knight is referring to the fact that guts still wishes to be griffith’s friend/equal, and it’s guts who’s going to cut and run or go beast of darkness or w/e
like i’d still vastly prefer for casca to do something epic but i wouldn’t say no to guts leaving casca behind again and going griffith hunting. like honestly anything that separates guts and casca and gives them different or even clashing goals/motivations/narratives/etc is all right in my book
i keep trying to read this chapter while keeping at the forefront of my mind that this is casca’s dreamscape. so like. assuming mr miura wants to write with that perspective, things should play out like how casca’s internalized it, right?
which means what it comes down to is griffith/femto and guts, both having hurt her so deeply, are still entirely caught up in each other before they give a shit about her
like you’d think otherwise birdy femto would like easily be able to destroy the casket. but like. once dogguts was freed and the chain binding him to it was broken, it was all bird vs hound. sure u can take this as guts occupying him while farny and schierke get down to business, but lets be real here.
casca’s ultimately being saved (hopefully) by FARNESE (and schierke) and that feels Good
but also the emphasis in this chapter on dog guts being in berserker mode now makes me nervous, because if this IS all written from casca’s internalization, that puts casca, farnese, and schierke at risk. from like, GUTS. thats making me nervous.
after reading the translation there was more of an emphasis on guts just fucking off to fight femto while being a potential danger to the coffin in berserk mode than i was expecting, while schierke and farnese do the actual important shit
tbh i’m glad the risk guts poses is being acknowledged bc imo it’s infinitely better than casca’s dreamscape just portraying him as the noble protector, which i was worried about
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.
there’s a thread through everything that connects griffith and guts: even as griffith sacrifices them all he looks at guts and smiles like he almost knows he’s giving him something too, because guts wanted to fight and he gets what he wanted.
also: this is second choice for both of them, but it’s all that’s left. griffith wanted guts more than the castle, and guts wanted griffith/the band of the hawk more than to swing his sword.
okay so I found this note re: griffith on my phone:
griffith’s “o blessed king of longing” thing is interesting, because it was guts’s hand on his shoulder that caused his despair to be deep enough to be able to use the behelit. it’s not pride, which I imagine some people read that as (particularly people who don’t subscribe to the griffguts subtext/text), but really, the thing that brings him lowest is, essentially, his longing for guts. so his rebirth/godly curse/irony/benefit even, is now everyone longs for him (even more than before, as people have longed for him through his life anyway) in whatever way, and after the eclipse, he doesn’t have to FEEL it anymore, feel for them or long for anyone else himself: so how absolutely painful is it that guts made his heart beat even as neogriffith. he can’t escape it. king of longing indeed.
man fa (now gsw, also known as b) and i were talking about this just a few days ago wrt the original japanese, because the anime sub team translated it as .. i can’t remember the exact words, i think it was “the long awaited” …? but basically the blessed king who is /longed for/, and the official manga translation translated it as the blessed king of longing, so, /the one who longs/. but really he’s both, and the flip from being the one who desires to the one who is desired is such an interesting plot point or whatever you might call it and i’m so glad someone brought it up
okay so I found this note re: griffith on my phone:
griffith’s “o blessed king of longing” thing is interesting, because it was guts’s hand on his shoulder that caused his despair to be deep enough to be able to use the behelit. it’s not pride, which I imagine some people read that as (particularly people who don’t subscribe to the griffguts subtext/text), but really, the thing that brings him lowest is, essentially, his longing for guts. so his rebirth/godly curse/irony/benefit even, is now everyone longs for him (even more than before, as people have longed for him through his life anyway) in whatever way, and after the eclipse, he doesn’t have to FEEL it anymore, feel for them or long for anyone else himself: so how absolutely painful is it that guts made his heart beat even as neogriffith. he can’t escape it. king of longing indeed.
yknow …………………… the fact that ‘castle’ is used SO many times in place of ‘kingdom’ or even ‘king’ and the fact that griffith is often shown imagining the castle, running towards it, and especially as a child
says a bunch of things that i can’t quite articulate about the dream being abstract, symbolic, a childish desire that grew into an actual goal almost by accident
Idk how it could happen or what kind of AU would lead to this but this is a v depressing concept, I approve lol. Idk what to add but I think I can safely say that Guts wouldn’t leave him in a cave for 2 years tho.
(relatedly, Casca as Godhand? I mean there’s no way to reverse their roles without changing literally everything about the story but still, Casca as a (scary, not naked and slan-y) demon god…)
Hmm Casca as a Godhand. The only thing I can think of that might make her become one is something like: she snapped and thought “I’ll follow my own dream/live for myself, because everyone I love uses and abandons me or puts their own dreams before me” but I honestly can’t see her making a sacrifice.
fa and i were talking the other day about certain people who (imo) misinterpret griffith’s character to be all about power & control … i think that’s a very stupid but also very interesting character analysis and i think i understand where it comes from lol
what baffles me is how people miss all the not so subtle hints that griffith actually cares. but i guess when you’ve already adopted a point of view, your brain shifts reality to fit it. no one’s exempt from that, really
so griffith is the commander (? idk these titles, sorry if i got it wrong, i’m gay) of the band of the hawk, clearly likes being in control, i won’t deny that. ‘claimed’ guts at least partially due to his strength and fighting ability, schemed behind the scenes a lot, eventually when guts tried to leave he wouldn’t let him, all true. but did he break because he wasn’t in control anymore? well, in a way, i guess, i say with my voice going really high. the real conflict of his character was the contest between his dream, motivated by childish desires and guilt, and guts, the only man who made him forget all about it. guts made him lose his reason, lose control, and he fell apart completely. his raw feelings for guts made him feel so weak and vulnerable it was unbearable.
but even so, what griffith really wanted was guts. the problem was it was already too late. too many people had died. too much time had been wasted. on top of that, guts was no longer a certain and stable presence in his life. he could leave at any moment, again, and griffith wouldn’t be able to stop him, and would have to go through another emotional breakdown.
i don’t know, like. if what you get from that is “griffith is a control freak who throws a fit when he can’t puppet master everyone around him” then i applaud you because that’s an
inconceivable
perspective for me. to me, griffith’s character is about guilt, repression, and an unspeakable love, so strong it made him lose sight of everything else, so intense it shattered him into a million pieces. griffith claims he does things for Logical Reasons, but do you really buy that? when he sold his body to a paedophile, do you really think it was because he just wanted more money? when he decided to throw away his humanity, to bury his fragile heart, do you really think he was doing it strategically? i don’t know, must be nice to not care about anything that truly makes griffith compelling as a character, i bet reading berserk is way less painful then
also a couple of points:
as someone has pointed out already, griffith didn’t force guts to join the band of the hawk. he invited him, guts refused, griffith was surprised but didn’t really say anything. and then guts was like, we’ll duel for it, and griffith saw his opportunity and accepted
this one’s important: griffith ….. didn’t want to become a king so he could have power and money lol. he wanted to create his own society, where things like class, race, and gender wouldn’t matter, just like they didn’t to the hawks. and that’s clearly the type of kingdom falconia is now.
SAME I feel like the aspect of control and whether Griffith has it or not is completely incidental to his character. I don’t think having control is a priority for him, I don’t think it’s a source of anything or a motivation, I think at most it’s a side effect of the enormity of his dream and the fact that to achieve it he has to be a leader.
Like, he is a leader, he sends people to his death and he owns that fact (partially in a denial of his guilt over that fact imho), he wants to be king, and he has a breakdown when Guts leaves that involves claiming ownership of him, but none of those stem from a place of control-freakiness.
When it comes to Guts Casca gets angry because Griffith doesn’t control him as much as he should as a leader and lets him basically do whatever the hell he wants and plans around it. Griffith is the one who tries to ask Guts to help him as a friend by killing a guy rather than ordering him as a soldier, and Guts is the one who wants it to be an order. Griffith makes a point of letting his Hawks choose to follow him because it’s another way he can deny his guilt for their deaths. (”I guess it’s because… they themselves chose to fight.”) Casca follows him after Griffith tells her “do what you wish” (do whatever tf you want is practically a griffith motto, he says it to corkus in the beginning, p much says it to guts wrt battle tactics, etc.)
Idk I don’t get any sense of needing to be in control from Griffith’s personality, I almost see the opposite in the way he denies responsibility for the Hawks’ deaths, his calm interest when discussing the fact that monsters exist even though Zodd almost killed them, his belief in – and more than that, his strong desire to believe in – fate, etc. “We are all at the mercy of a great tide, fate or whatever you want to call it.”
Refusing to let Guts leave came from emotional desperation and falling back on a previously established dynamic that Guts himself suggested and reinforced because he couldn’t communicate his feelings any other way. Imo.
Oh and also like +1 I think Guts fucked him up partially bc to achieve his dream he has to remain in control of himself and when Guts is involved he totally loses it, but I don’t think he really allowed himself to accept the fact that Guts makes him irrational until the torture chamber. I could see an argument that his emotional repression/denial is a way to remain in control of his feelings, but again I don’t think he lives in denial and repression because he’s a control freak, I think it’s because his dream necessitates it.
“Griffith had to make himself strong.” He doesn’t intrinsically desire to be in control of himself or others, he forces himself to be to achieve his dream, which itself is motivated by guilt.
#i never rly think about griffith overhearing this bit but sometimes i wonder if connecting guts wanting to leave to his speech changed anything #it’s not rly brought up after this but hmm
@bthump i was thinking about that too because it feels like it should change something but i think all it probably did was dissipate the last bit of griffith’s anger (though he had already forgiven guts at that point). and, this is just speculation on my part, but i think it may have reminded him of his current condition, considering the fact that had he wanted to explain himself to guts … he’d have no way. no tongue, can’t say it, no use of hands, can’t write it. he’s completely dependent on guts, physically and emotionally, and can’t stop him from leaving. and, in his mind, why would guts want to stay with him when he’s useless like this anyway.
consider: guts, a teenager (? how old was he at this point in canon? young anyway) just killed a man in cold blood and accidentally killed a child (not a thing he does in either case, at this point) for griffith, then is wounded and hits his head
… this is somehow the first time I noticed he hits his head that hard and probably has a concussion at this point…
has just hallucinated his childhood traumas with himself in a villain roll, staggers in and asks immediately for griffith
at this point he must be delirious to some extent and he’s just focussed on finding griffith to report, but I think also for comfort? to be told he did the right thing, he did well, it’s all okay
(and what happens is he overhears that stupid conversation while still fucking concussed and oh my god berserk is PAIN)
yeah this was one of the worst sequences in the entire manga lol at the end all this he was just so needy and just wanted to talk to griffith so bad. like the first thing he did was he went looking for him and he completely ignored casca when she started asking him questions
and then he sees finds griffith but he’s with charlotte and guts fucking. makes this expression
and just proceeds up the stairs. when casca stops him he flinches and again look at his face
then griffith delivers his speech and:
like. highkey fucking hate this chapter and my only consolation is that griffith knows this is where he hurt guts because:
would griffith actually know what they were talking about, though? his reaction suggests something like that, but it could also suggest him thinking something else was happening between guts and casca that night, or that guts had told casca what he’d done for griffith? then again I haven’t gotten to this chapter in the manga yet ha
but holy shit yes this is one of the most painful things in the manga and the way guts has this semi-concussed expression the whole time jada’dad’adjlk’’ ow
oh! sorry for the spoilers then fdkjsdf
but, after that casca says
so i think if griffith remembers his own speech he should know what they’re talking about, though it is possible that he doesn’t
Casca makes fun of Guts for being protective of her, assures she can still watch his back.
Charlotte appears. Casca is reminded of her feelings for Griffith and says they’re the same, still.
Casca immediately clings to Guts, to sublimate her feelings of jealously and longing for Griffith. She has Guts, at least, in this way she can’t have Griffith. It’s the same for Guts, when he runs ahead after realising how vulnerable Griffith has been with him and literally leaves Casca behind.
They cling to each other while looking for Griffith because he is what they are both ultimately focussed on.
you're the only one 