i’ll say this too, another reason people think griffith is the antichrist is because they have a feeling that his kingdom is dystopian and that he’s somehow tricking people, ergo leading them astray. but what would his motivations for that even be? what do you think griffith is trying to get out of all this? so far he hasn’t lied and hasn’t had a reason to. the only thing you could claim is a lie is his flawless appearance and manner, hiding his “monstrous” (femto) side. we’re bound to learn more about that soon but until then i just don’t see what kind of secret evil plan he could possibly have when he has already achieved his dream and is working on creating humanity’s desired, ideal world
the only thing that’s ever stirred his dream, person, i should say, was guts. i’m convinced that’s going to happen again, else this would be a pretty boring story, but that’s hardly something griffith could or would be planning right now. i don’t know, i’m so confused, what do people think griffith is trying to achieve
femto being the antichrist would actually be really interesting … the god hand executes the will of god, and the antichrist is someone who goes against the will of god
like i said we don’t know what makes femto & neo-griff different which makes things interesting, is it a duality or are his intentions the same no matter what?
either way if griffith turns out to be the antichrist at any point this would basically mean griffith turning against the god hand (highly theorised and anticipated) and Possibly also against god itself, and the only reason i could see him doing that is … well call me biased but, guts, again
ok last thing i’ll say. people want griffith to be the very manifestation of pure evil so bad that they’re deliberately miainterpreting the story to fit that view. but if griffith, as he is now, is a manifestation of anything, it’s humanity’s desires. if you have beef with griffith’s actions, take it up with god, created by humans themselves. take it up with fate and prophecy. if you have beef with stories that show how cruel and stupid humanity can be, take it up with miura. griffith has divine right and he is bringing humanity’s desires into existence
like are they stupid desires? quite possibly. does humanity actually want what they wished for? that remains to be seen. but right now it is what it is
tbh there’s one thing that bothers me about a lot of meta i see about berserk: i honestly think guts didn’t even actually want to be griffiths equal – he wanted griffiths affection and attention, but after hearing griffiths speech about dreams guts began to feel that for griffith to love him, they have to be equal. like i think a lot of ppl misinterpret guts leaving to find his own dream as wanting to separate himself from griffith, but honestly that couldn’t be further from the truth. he leaves in hopes that if he comes back with a purpose in life, griffith will love him more.
“Buried in his dream” makes it sound as if Guts can’t stand to be part of something, but that’s not it, he thrives on being part of the Hawks. His leaving is so deeply about him not feeling himself as Griffith’s focus or equal, and it hurts because holy shit Guts my dude, you may be the only one Griffith really looks at, at all.
guts is incapable of understanding how much anyone cares for him without it being explicitly and intensely spelled out (”you are mine” got through on some level, and that was intense as fuck) and anything he does understand is temporary and easily destroyed because his self-worth and life experience make a foundation of quicksand for anything emotional that affirms him having any kind of value as a person
and griffith is almost incapable of expressing true emotional vulnerability to anyone he actually cares deeply for, and emotionally stunted by his own desire and design, so that he can’t actually comprehend the need that guts has to be reassured (he also can’t read minds and of course, guts never actually expresses his confusion and hurt and resolution about the “I don’t have friends” speech) but more deeply can’t comprehend why he needs to reassure guts and keep him (to contemplate it on a human level would further crack the foundations of griffith’s life– his dream– that he’s already doing such intense repression of everything for. he especially can’t contemplate this in relation to guts, the only thing that has challenged his focus so deeply. anything that takes his focus away from the dream means the guilt of what he’s done so far would return).
so they have a fight in the snow and everything is ruined forever and I want to cry
what if the one who ends up using Dragonslayer (from Farnese’s dream) is not Farnese or Schierke or even Dog-Guts, but rather…
Casca herself?
Hear me out, the broken doll is only missing but a few fragments and this lil one here changes with every memory the girls retrieved (she spoke and expressed her desires when she couldn’t speak at all at first). If this keeps up, which is the whole point of this arc, Casca will slowly come back more and at some point, she’ll be able to confront her own past in order to fulfill her wishes and end this journey.
This might imply having to fight by herself the embodiment of her fears once we get to the final fragment…
otherwise she’ll never find her resolve in order to finally cope with everything that she went through.
Besides, it’d be a beautiful parallel considering that Dragonslayer is a big reason our Black Swordsman managed to fight and survive all this time, so much that the sword itself became stronger and more efficient against Apostles after killing so many of them.
Finally, it would also be an interesting nod back to why Casca once took a sword and learnt how to fight for herself…
…right after she was assaulted for the first time. Using Griffith’s initial advice to overcome what he did to her, wouldn’t it be awesome?
I’m looking forward to anyone who might use Dragonslayer in a future chapter, but I’ll be extra happy if this person turns out to be Casca, who’s finally ready to come back. 😀
Everyone in the Band of the Hawk knows that Casca loves Griffith. But
what if that was by design, to fight off the advances of her comrades? I
wouldn’t be surprised if Casca, having given up on the prospect
of being with Griffith, kept up the facade of this crush so other guys
wouldn’t hit on her. I find it had to believe no other guy in the Band
of the Hawk would have tried to get with her.
As other folks in the notes have pointed out I feel like she was absolutely respected by her men and by the rest of the band so I don’t necessarily see this as a way to de-sexualize herself to them. (She doesn’t have any illusions that she can escape from the attention from other men.)
I do see this as a way to keep herself from ever examining her feelings. Being emotionally tangled with Griffith alone and with Griffith through Guts is much safer than having to examine her own relationship with sexuality which is obviously very heavily informed by trauma.
Heterosexuality in Berserk honestly feels like the social structure all three of our main characters use to hide from trauma. (Homophobia and misogyny being the two bolstering structures of Heterosexism of course.)
It’s interesting that Griffith’s state is also described as a dream as well. In “Sword of the Berserk: Guts’ Rage” when Casca regains her sanity she briefly says ‘I was dreaming. A really bad dream’. That game came out in 1999 and had some input by Miura so he might’ve always intended for her dreamscape to be nightmarish.
Hey there! I’m always happy to get asks and I’m so glad you enjoy the blog :”)
** rape mentions below, obviously.
I think what you’re proposing is a really safe guess as for what the phallic monsters are supposed to represent. Her rape by Femto is definitely supposed to be the “capstone” to what lead to her regression, and so the phallic monsters being a reference to that experience is more than likely. However, I personally (am hoping, really) that it’s not such a narrow reason. There’s the obvious fact that she was raped by multiple apostles before Femto during the Eclipse, but there’s also how being treated as a sexual object by men has resulted in her molestation throughout her entire character arc.
I tried to compile a list of men who have tried/succeeded in assaulting her throughout Berserk off the top of my head, but I think I’m missing too many instances to even post it, LOL. I’d try to go through and do a definitive count, but that’s… so depressing. I don’t think I need to explicitly count and name every man to harm Casca for anyone who’s read Berserk to understand that Casca has endured endless abuse at their hands. Men have regularly viewed Casca as a sexual object, at whether she be young or old, mentally “there” or not, shitty background characters, villains, and protagonist alike. While the Eclipse is the most likely and perhaps largest contributor to these phallic visions that haunt her subconscious, it would be unfair to call that her only instance of major trauma. GOD would I love for a callback to wow, that one time when regressed!Casca killed three men who tried to assault her, just to be held down and touched (cough and bit cough) against her will by Guts? Her expressions once he “comes out of it” are genuinely heartbreaking.
Casca has been through a LOT of bullshit at the hands of specifically men* and so I really hope the dick monsters are representing that as a whole (and that said “coverage” is a topic broached in upcoming chapters). We’ll see whether or not Miura will take that route, or act like it never happened like he did with Guts’s CSA trauma post-Eclipse.
Disclaimer because admin isn’t cis: yeah a dick doesn’t determine manhood but I don’t expect anything woke from Berserk when we can’t even get basic feminism, so I’m leaving it on the assumption that all of the individuals depicted to have assaulted Casca thus far are cis men and have dicks
I’m not the most eloquent writer without half a dozen drafts first, so I’d like to direct this ask at @bthump as well, in case she has a different take or any extra input! ❤
I 100% agree and tbh this is probably a better, more thoughtful response than I would’ve given. Casca’s entire narrative existence is defined by rape, rape attempts, and rape threats, and honestly it’s kind of fucked up how utterly fitting the damn subconscious dick monsters are.
I would be very glad if they represent not just Femto’s attack, and not just the apostles during the Eclipse, but the way her entire life revolves around sexual violence, from her first kill to her current mental state to her fear of Guts. I mean the dick monsters are a helluva crass way of showing it, but this is Berserk. The most I hope for is acknowledgement lol, to ask that it be treated with care and respect is way too high a bar to clear lol.
And at the very least Miura definitely knowingly used Casca as his commentary on misogyny and how hard it is to be a woman surrounded by rapey men, so I don’t think it’s unlikely that all her other experiences with assault will be taken into account. I thought some of those phallic monsters might’ve been purposefully based on Wyald, eg.
Casca had her place at Griffith side, nursing her crush on Griffith, then Guts showed up and took that place with much greater success than Casca had. Then Guts overheard the dream speech, decided to vacate his place and hand it back to Casca, which he does by encouraging Casca and Griffith to get together romantically.
And idk this is just a good parallel to illustrate some of that.
Oh absolutely.
among the other parallels I sometimes visually compare how Guts and Casca keep exchanging positions as the series goes on.
For example in the panel when Griffith gets shot on the hunting trip, Casca immediately rushes to cradle Griffith (helpless expression) and Guts draws his sword and stands facing outward(looking protective) in front of them, looking for the source of the threat.
Later after griffith’s rescue from the tower when Wyald grabs and drops him, Guts is the one who rushes to cradle him (helpless expression) and Casca draws her sword and stands over them (looking protective).
And I love this.
The second scene is also one of my favorite moments of all three of them in general. Because Casca is in full lioness gaurding her Cubs mode. And Guts literally just let go of his sword in a threatening situation for the first time ever and it’s all just very significant to me.
I think this is a parallel of sorts, Griffith exhaling and acting freely and in the second inhaling and suppressing his feelings, probably. Somebody smart help me.
girlfriend: why don’t you take off that battle armor and slip into something a bit more…..comfortable
me: i am most comfortable when i am impervious to most physical forms of attack
Charlotte @NeoGriffith lmao
Honestly this also reminds me of the time when Guts asks Griffith if he’d be more comfortable without the helmet and Griffith asks for his whole set of armour instead.
Honestly that fact just made me teary. Even the way Guts’ says “It’s just me.” It’s so intimate. Also that Guts’ definitely realises WHY Griffith wouldn’t want to have it taken off before. He realises that he feels vulnerable and wants to hide but he’s also implying that he doesn’t have to. Not with Guts. There’s a touch of possessiveness and protectiveness here also but that’s for later.
But Griffith’s pretty much outright rejection of the offer by asking for the opposite of what was offered is also…so so sad. Because we know this is exactly what Griffith had always wanted in a way. But the wounds of the last time he’d let someone see his vulnerability are still too raw. In a way , in asking for the armour he’s trying to protect himself from an emotional intimacy he knows he won’t recover from this time around.
During the remainder of the scene despite their physical proximity and Guts’ tactility, Griffith markedly shrinks away from him and refuses to make eye contact.
Losing control over the physical distance makes his need for emotional distancing even greater.
Guts’ reaction to Casca being threatened is usually: Don’t do it, She’ll fucking kill ya.
And Guts’ reaction to Griffith being threatened is: DON’T YOU DARE FUCKING TOUCH HIM .I WILL CLEAVE YOU IN HALF.
not that Guts’ wouldn’t step in on Casca’s behalf but whenever he does there’s always this “why am I doing this?” “Do I like her” “Don’t pop a boner on my head” “Griffith what are you doing?” it’s almost a part of a whole different train of thought?
It doesn’t seem to be the tunnel visioned desperation which comes when Griffith is concerned.
i feel like guts’s feelings for casca are really poorly written, as you kinda mention. when judeau asks him about his feelings for casca, he says he sees her as a comrade more than anything, which is appropriate – but then with further prompting, he’s like “no… i’m just no good for her… as i am now…” because she’s caught up on griffith still and all that. because miura hadnt originally planned it, having FEELINGs for casca is an afterthought on everyone’s part. it really (to me at least) comes across as a “wait, im a dude, im supposed to be into girls and this is the one girl around”. he assists her multiple times, not real sure why, so hey, guts thinks, romance?? perhaps?? basically guts doesnt know fuck shit about girls but maybe he has a concept of compulsory het. thinking on this reminds me of how griffith also had to chase het – as is characteristic for griffith, it was thought out ahead of time and part of his plan (even if it his plan kinda went to shit). guts, on the other hand, relies not on thought but rather just on acting, often really impulsively, and thats where gutsca came from. unfortunately for the girls, what it al really comes back to is each other. everybody knows griffith has like 0 sincere feelings for charlotte and is eternally hung up on guts, but gutss is a bit more vague. hes the same way tho- the girl in his life is means to an end. i posted a few panels just recently that make this evident – even post-eclipse, when guts finds out casca js missing, he swears to rescue her By Himself (that falls thru) but if he runs into griffith, “then [he’ll]…” implying he’ll redirect his attentions there. chance of another type of eclipse, AND casca’s gonna be there in need of rescuing? how convenient. there are a lot more caps that point towards this that i think bthump has either mentioned or posted, but im on mobile and cant dig em up atm.
I was just thinking about that bit when Guts is about to leave where Judeau’s like, hey Casca’s single wink wink nudge nudge and Guts is like, I see her more as a comrade than anything, and Judeau’s like, are u sure??? and Guts is like, well anyway she’s into Griffith so if I was gonna d8 her I’d have to fulfill my dream of being Griffith’s equal first either way so bye.
And it’s framed as like burgeoning romance, Guts seriously wanting to become the kind of man Casca likes, but god it comes across as such an afterthought lol. Like he already wants to be Griffith’s equal for Griffith, this Casca thing is just added on and changes absolutely nothing about his goals or motivation. It’s like, off Guts goes because he desperately wants to be Griffith’s bff, btw here’s some heterosexuality just in case you’re uncomfortable with that, heterosexual male reader.
And more re: mmod’s original post, it’s just inarguable facts that every time Guts’ feelings for Casca and Griffith are compared, Casca comes up short. He decides to leave and take her with him until it turns out Griffith needs him. He goes on an animalistic rampage while rescuing Griffith whereas Casca gets told to fuck off bc she’s too naked and distracting after her attempted rape (which I’m sure is meant as a funny manly het moment and GOD IT’S BAD). He leaves her in a cave for two years to pursue Griffith. Hell when he thinks about the last thing he saw with his missing eye it goes Casca’s assault -> naked Casca -> Femto staring at him as the very last thing given the most significance. He decides he has to rescue her in the conviction arc but still plans to ditch her again afterwards now that Griffith is human-looking and in reach of his sword. He finally decides to stay with her and take her to Elfhelm when a) Griffith tells him he gives zero fucks and ditches him and b) the cave caves in and he can’t leave her there anymore. And he still treats it as a temporary sidequest.
Actually the most recent anime adaptation completely coloured how I viewed that scene for a while there because Griffith looked so hateful
I probably shouldn’t read too much into this bad CGI model but …… I mean come on holy shit
lol wow, i’ve only seen this episode in a really laggy stream so I never rly noticed this.
I feel like chalking this up to a bad adaptation needing to make it painfully obvious that this guy is Villainous and throwing nuance and subtlety to the wind.
But I still do think that in the manga he got a petty thrill from getting to be the one to ditch Guts this time.
And Guts kinda recognized it as payback too?
I definitely think Griffith was purposely being smug here actually, but I don’t know if he actually felt that way.
Because the “it’s fitting for us to reunite here as the Band of the Hawk” was just too markedly and boldly insensitive to be Griffith’s natural style imo?
I feel like he was testing out how they’d feel on his tongue. If saying them, to perhaps the person he’d primarily consciously shitted on would inspire any guilt.
I feel he was purposely trying to get a rise out of Guts to see if that reaction or Guts trying to angrily guilt trip him would actually lead to a guilt Trip.
Just a hole-y theory though.
It’s just obviously implied that Neo Griff knows something we don’t and i want to fucking know what it is.
Ooh interesting point. The Band of the Hawk assembling once more is like… a really ridiculously dickish thing to say lol, and testing himself that way, deliberately making Guts rage at him, does seem like something he’d do, and he declares that he’s free 2 pages later so yeah this works for me.
(tho when you say it’s implied that he knows something we don’t when/how do you mean? I mean I def feel like he does too but i’m wondering if you’re referencing a specific moment that’s slipping my mind)
I think it’s just how the IoE chapter ended. Like I feel like Griffith chose the the salvation option, and in some twisted way all the shitty things somehow tied in into a weird ‘greater good’ concept which we don’t know.
Like because if he chose the doom humanity response, where’s the surprise? That’s what most people would assume anyway, post Eclipse.
And I keep remembering how big a fan of starwars Kentaro Miura is. (Millennium Falcon :,) And i’m pretty sure Griffith has a lot of Anakin-Darth Vader parallels. And this is all air theory. But I think the ending is going to have some gray area partial redemption action going.
I feel Griffith is moving towards a goal way beyond the kingdom which we don’t know of.
I had always assumed that, anyway? Like, people seem to think that there’s a twist coming with Griffith’s eerie utopia, but I think the twist is that Berserk is an edgy manga and so the of questionable morality of Falconia and Griffith’s way of doing things is if not the right thing to do then just the way things are meant to go down (now, anyway)
A big theme of Berserk is “humanity’s desires,” both “good” and “bad,” and how they affect and shape the universe. Simply put, while I agree this can be annoying, the plot of Berserk is on a much larger scale than I think most people realise. Griffith literally spoke to “God.” Whatever he’s doing 1) he is right to do and 2) he isn’t going to get punished for it, imo. If he’s going to get punished for anything, it’ll be his emotional repression
the parallels that can be drawn between griffith and gambino as far as their effect on guts goes make me so uncomfy lmfao
i think its unfair to draw them in most instances because the way they treat him is so totally different but the most interesting case of such a parallel (also most blatant) is after gutsca have sex and doze off.
guts recalls how gambino brought him medicine for the cut on his nose and how he rubbed it in, his oversized sword beside him. i feel like this is supposed to be like, Sweet, Aw cus casca’s tended his wounds before and now casca’s being compared to Guts’s own sword rather than being griffiths. the like actual reality of it tho is that baby guts had endured serious physical and emotional abuse by his father figure and clung to this one instance of care. guts Couldn’t be good enough for gambino, which is a parallel to how he felt after overhearing Griffith’s friendship monologue. guts feels wounded by that instance and his taking comfort in casca is like his taking comfort in that medicine: Not A Real Solution To His Problem, Nor The Related Feelings. it also like, Literally objectifies casca which is so so unfair to her. guts doesnt feel safe/complete without a sword, but you know how he treats them? he wields them as hard as possible until they break and he picks up a new one.
after the eclipse, guts is forced to realize just how much damage was caused by his own leaving the hawks serving as a catalyst. after the eclipse guts thinks about griffith alongside the other hawks, as he was someone else guts lost, as if griffith died. the eclipse was like, Griffith Doing Bad Shit, just like gambino was originally the one attacking guts – but, once forced to relive the experience, guts doesn’t relive his abuse. gambino being the attacker doesnt give guts any solace, he still feels guilty for having killed gambino and wants his forgiveness. like, these are my totally unrefined thoughts so i hope my point is coming across here, but if parallels are going to be drawn between gambino and griffith, it just emphasizes how revenge + killing griffith will resolve nothing, because that’s not what guts really longs for.
griffith and guts are obviously supposed to be foils-but the “reversal” of the nature of their ambitions and quest is funny to me lol. ive seen people point out how selfish guts quest for revenge is in nature (and how it uh actually looks from a humanitarian perspective) and i know that a lot of this is dependent upon the lost chapter but bear with me.
guts is introduced as the struggler and the subordinate- he submits his will and puts the will of others over his own, at least for the most part, and at least in his dynamic with griffith. its sort of what makes him so appealing as contradictory to the hyper masculine power fantasy a lot of fans see him as, bc he is truly, truly powerless. as the protagonist, were inclined to associate him and his ideals with “right”, especially in a moral sense, but a lot of guts actions especially post eclipse are just flat out selfish and expose such a basic disregard for human life and suffering from his whole “humans are like ants” bullshit to his prioritization is his own wants and desires over like, say the “greater good”. i mean, this guy is point blank told that if he goes to the tower thousands will dies and a demon king will be reincarnated and yet he goes after casca (and actually griffith, imho) anyway. guts had always prioritized who he cares about and their opinions over giving a shit about what anyone else thinks, and it really exposes itself for the worst here and in so many other post eclipse scenes.
and griffith. who is consistently characterized as selfish and putting his ambition above the well being of others, but griffiths whole. thing really depends on the impressions and image he keeps up with others. its been discussed to hell and back that the griffith that presents himself to the world is a carefully produced facade, an image of “perfection” tailored to fit the needs and wants of whom hes trying to impress; its very elegant of him, to “take” things without brute force but by quite literally molding himself to the whims of others. the emotional toll of hiding your weakness and vulnerability, of constantly keeping up an image cannot not be dismissed, and it wears on him. neogriffith is a being free from that emotional turmoil, and the perfect incarnation of the image human griffith wanted so desperately to project and believe in, but (because uh humans have weakness and feelings and vulnerabilities) he couldnt be. neogriffith is the answer to Everything, he fulfills the needs and wants of Everyone; if we take this into account alongside the lost chapter, neogriffith is, in the same roundabout way guts is the individualistic incarnation of one mans desires, the ultimate martyr. griffiths supposed dream was to become a king, and neogriffith is perfectly fulfilling that wish, and to a greater extend, the unconscious whims and desires of humanity perfectly. its partially why i truly believe that griffiths “dream” “died” with him (human griffith, not a demon or demigod perfect martyr savior) with him during the eclipse. by choosing to pursue his dream to the highest extent, he ultimately forfeited his humanity: emotions, wants, needs, desires, and a true sense of human individualism that comes with the package. i guess this is partially why the whole semantics of “he became ‘more human’ not a ‘demon’” bother me bc idk its not an interesting take really lol
anyway yea i found this half done in my drafts and i probably lost my point along the way but take it
The potentially mammoth, post- torture mental state speculation for Griffith is finally (partly )here
Also since most of these panels were never animated in any form, they might be kinda insightful to a lot of people who either haven’t got around reading the manga or skimmed through it.
For me, as someone who was introduced to Berserk by the movie trilogy ( yeah yeah i know) there was this gap between Griffith putting his hand on Guts’ in the dungeon and Griffith asking (screaming at) him to stay away in the river-Right before the start of the Eclipse- which i was never quite able to bridge until I finally (after finishing the ‘97 anime) read the manga.
I went in with the belief that they were trying to go with a “so he was tortured and traumatised and is now emotionally unstable, erratic, and kind of unhinged” kinda explanation there but really-
It actually seems to have almost nothing to have to do with that.
The interesting thing here is that Griffith came out of the torture with a mostly sane mind.
It’s what came after that slowly, systematically and fundamentally broke every feature of his identity and emotional core.
This is one of my favorite pages of the manga. And honestly I don’t think one needs any explanation for what is going on, the art itself does a pretty amazing job of explaining and expressing everything.
But this is the start of my reason for naming this article “Change”
Because This is the stripping away of the First layer defense mechanism Griffith had built- The displaced Anger.
Ruminating about every unpleasant thing that had happened, was happening to Griffith during the year spent under the tower, Griffith’s reaction to having to acknowledge his pain was to displace his misery onto Guts and hold him responsible. It was a cognitive exercise, maybe one designed to keep him holding onto his sanity using the emotions he could still feel- pain and anger. Because as he himself says “ and now all those great many things I felt affection for, i feel…I am no more capable, it seems like a feeling which existed in a dream. I don’t feel it anymore.”
But of course actually meeting Guts strips that away. His tears blow Griffith’s cognitive exercise to smithereens.
He changes from “I hate you for doing this to me.” to
“How can I hate you?”
But there’s hidden hope there. There’s an implicit- how can I hate you when you cared enough to come back, when you look like you genuinely care.
There’s more of that continuing sentiment here. Guts is in Berserk mode over Griffith and Griffith can see that. Even though he does seem a little bit surprised and thoughtful about it.
“He does care. He did.”
“He cares. He cares. He care— Oh.”
I’m not saying anything, the expression in that single eye conveys everything. The vulnerability and confusion.
Griffith realises that in the time he was shut away things have happened that he is no more a part of, no more privy too. That there may be more to Guts motivations here too.
It’s the first glaring difference between who he used to be and who he is now.
(And no he isn’t happy about it, of course. But I don’t think this is the beginning of his ‘grudge’ against Casca or Guts. Because of later panels I will talk about)
I think this is the point he starts trying to shut off the emotional vulnerability window he’d kept open for a little while here.
Because now more than ever he wants desperately to feel like himself again. And the him he wants to be again was not vulnerable, was not left out, and most of all was….
…Useful.
Ok ill be honest, I cried a little at this smile. Griffith gets his opportunity to save the day again. Guts is looking at him again with awe and admiration. The way it was before. This is good. It’s not all different. He’s free now. He’s back!
Those other things don’t matter now.
He’s home.
The interesting thing here is that you never again see that expression of open confusion and hurt on his face again. Even in the successive instances of him witnessing Guts and Casca’s new intimacy, he looks on either dispassionately or with a hint of pensiveness. There’s no big reactions anymore.
He’s decided to not let it matter.
It’s like slowly slipping back into himself. A peasant girl giving her regards, an almost familiar feeling. He’s starting to feel like himself again. Its different of course. But not in all bad ways. There’s still hope. There’s love and he’s finally starting to learn how wonderful that is.
There’s that little content smile on his face. He’s happy.
He can’t walk or speak or move. But he’s truly happy to be here. To be able to trust . To at least finally be free to admit to himself that his dream had changed. And that he was with the very person the dream had changed to in whatever capacity.
Also he turns slightly towards Casca before smiling off into the distance. There’s no ill will there at all. He seems pretty content with her presence too actually.
It’s distant.
The pressure is off. It’s liberating.
And the peaceful moment doesn’t last. Once again people have started dying for him. Its’ the same cycle all over again. He looks as disgusted as everyone else when he sees wyalds macabre procession. But this time he can’t get up and fight it off.
Once again he notices Casca’s concern, but there’s no reaction there. Just pensiveness. I think the empty speech bubble means he wants to ask though.
He was wrong.
This doesn’t feel like home.
Lying on his side away from the battle instead of the vanguard. Useless. Damaged. Those are his men fighting. The familiar sound of battle, of horses. He wants to be out their in it’s midst. Bring them victory again.
Id also love to hear your interpretation of these panels. I kinda had to cut this much shorter than intended because I thought it was getting too long.
Totally agreed! I think it’s up in the air whether Griffith could’ve been okay if Wyald hadn’t put his helplessness into stark relief so quickly, or whether it was inevitable that the happiness from being rescued and out of the dungeon would wear off and he’d get miserable anyway, but I do think that Wyald showing up and fucking everyone’s morale up so soon after being rescued is a huge part of the reason he fell into behelit-summoning despair.
And personally I do think that his attitude that we can see before everything gets fucked up, his smiles, the way he basically says goodbye to his dream seemingly content to a degree, does mean that if it weren’t for fate and the behelit etc he could’ve eventually come to terms with being disabled and physically dependent, at least if Guts stuck around.
Another thing which gets skipped over in all the animations.
Usually Griffith is shown just passively listening to the God hand as if he’s thinking about their offer and then Guts obliviously gets angry and screams at them.
Look at this panel though.
Look how fucking distressed Griffith looks. That isn’t a “wow, tell me more” face. He’s shaking. He’s terrified. He looks like He’s trying to protest their assertion that he’ll sacrifice everyone.
And THAT’S what pisses Guts of. It’s because Griffith can’t put his distress into words and has no way to verbally protest and Guts can see that.
He’s yelling on Griffith’s behalf .
Also which makes me think. Often I’ve read or maybe even said myself that if Griffith hadn’t been in the exact state he was at the start of the eclipse he may not have agreed to the terms. But EVEN in that state without manipulation he wasn’t up for it.
After that of course lol. What was fated happened and all. And everything got fucked. But I still go back to teeny details to hurt my heart.
I love this so much.
One of my favourite things about the Golden Age is that there’s such a sense that the tragedy is a house of cards that could’ve come tumbling down if anything happened differently. Of course, thanks to fate, everything worked out perfectly to lead to the sacrifice, but there’s so many missed opportunities, half-finished sentences, crossroads, coincidences, and little significant details that it always makes me think, what if X happened differently? Even up to the Eclipse.
What if Casca finished a sentence, what if the King hadn’t interrupted Guts and Griffith on the staircase, what if the maid hadn’t seen Griffith with Charlotte, what if Guts hadn’t let go of Griffith’s hand on the mountain of heads, what if Guts never told Griffith to do whatever he had to do for the sake of his dream so the Godhand couldn’t whip up that handy memory to convince him, etc etc.
Everything had to happen exactly right (or wrong) for Griffith to sacrifice Guts and the Band. That’s a big reason the moment is so narratively satisfying to me imo.
tbh I barely know anything about astrology so I’d be pretty useless at sorting the characters, sorry.
I’m going to post this though bc I’m curious about anyone else’s thoughts, for anyone who sees this and has more sign knowledge than me. Including you, i’d love you hear your headcanons if you have any!
I’m a libra, and I just used one of those online chart calculators so apparently I’m an aries moon and cancer ascendant too. How about you?
I’ll preface this by saying that I don’t really know a lot about astrology either. I only know what I’ve read for fun and while building OCs. That said, I have some intuitive opinions, which I’m now putting under a read-more because this is going to be looooooooong and rant-y. I’m not good at writing comprehensive essays.
@bthump Please don’t feel obligated to read all of this, but if you do, I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.
Guts leaves because Griffith can’t express how he feels. Griffith has sex with Charlotte in an attempt to seize his dream, having lost Guts, (of course this act of striving for his dream is represented by heterosexual sex) and ends up trapped in a dungeon.
@bthump Didn’t wanna do this on your post but this part caught my eyes … To be honest I’ve never thought of Griffith having sex with Charlotte as him trying to quickly seize his dream because, surely he must have known what the consequences would be? He didn’t do a good job sneaking in or sneaking out, he didn’t even try to make sure they’re not caught together. Had he impregnated her he probably would have had to marry her, but the king would still hate his guts, which goes against what he was initially trying to do, that is, charm his way into the royal family. When he was caught, he didn’t seem particularly perturbed. It almost seemed like an act of defiance because he got discovered so easily and didn’t even care. That led me to believe that the sex with Charlotte was more an act of self-harm and self-sabotage than anything else. Thoughts?
Oh yeah my thoughts on Griffith sleeping with Charlotte are that it’s way more complex than I went into here. But I do think that Griffith’s like, conscious intention is pursuing his dream. I definitely think he’s subconsciously self-sabotaging, but I think a lot of his surface-level motivation is like, he cares about 2 things in the world: Guts and becoming king, and Guts just abandoned him, so he’s throwing himself into the other like he’s trying to prove it’s more important to him.
Tho btw I went into mainly the self-sabotage/self-harm aspect pretty in depth here if you’re interested. obvious warning for het applies but there aren’t any pics at least lol. though i didn’t even really say anything about Griffith’s behaviour, it’s mostly drawing parallels, so good points about how careless he is, and his non-reaction to getting caught.
Also I’ve never actually thought about the possibility of Griffith impregnating her actually tbh, that’s an interesting thought. Idk what would happen realistically in a medieval setting but I feel like it would make sense if they found out Charlotte was pregnant without knowing who (assuming she didn’t say it was Griffith) the King might theoretically be more willing to marry her off to anyone who’d keep quiet about it and raise the kid as his own, giving Griffith an in. So I could maybe see that being a possibility in his mind going in.
Tbh that does make a lot of sense. The reason my mind never quite went there, though, is because even though in that scene Griffith is in no state of mind to be strategising, the fact that having sex with the princess is a bad idea should be simple enough to occur even to someone who’s going through what he is. So my line of thought was less along the lines of, Guts left so he’s trying to quickly seize the other thing he cares about, and more like, Guts left so he’s throwing everything into the fire. Because, I get Griffith is pretty cool in a pinch, and probably, you know, didn’t want to give those guards the satisfaction of seeing him break down or whatever, but like I mentioned his reaction to getting caught was so ……… almost nonexistent. In a way, it looked like he’d given up. And of course that can be explained quite well in your scenario, but I just can’t help but feel like, even though everything is crumbling around him, his reaction to his last chance of achieving his dream being crushed right in front of him should have been a tad more explosive. (And as I’m typing this I keep thinking, but he cares about Guts more so now that he’s gone who the fuck gives a shit, but that keeps bringing me back to my original theory of him destroying everything while he’s on a roll.)
Though, having read your post on Heterosexuality as the Main Villain of Berserk, I can’t stop thinking about this one thing you said along the lines of, “sex with Charlotte represents his dream.” This is where I feel my theory falls apart because, you’re so right about that, and with that fact in my mind him having sex with Charlotte to ruin the prospects of achieving his dream seems contradictory. Just in a writing sense.
But yeah, I haven’t read the post you linked me to yet (I’m about to), so I’m super sorry if you’ve answered some of my questions there.
Nah I’m like, almost completely on board with you. I think the only way I might see it differently is that I see Griffith as like… very intellectually detached from his own emotions? He feels emotions very strongly but I don’t think he’s very capable of identifying them, maybe bc he’s so emotionally repressed. So I think he absolutely is directly sabotaging himself, he just wouldn’t think to frame his actions that way, and instead hides behind a veneer of “this totally makes sense as a thing I should be doing” to himself, even though it’s a clear lie that wouldn’t hold up to a second of self-examination.
I often see Griffith as operating under like, a duality of lying to himself to justify emotional outbursts, thinking one thing and feeling another. Like when he ripped up his arms in the river, I don’t think he was only lying to Casca, I think he genuinely believed that he didn’t feel guilt and was instead acting on pure logic lol, and he genuinely believed he was totally fine when he forced himself back under control and put a hand on Casca’s shoulder. Or like, when he saved Guts from Zodd, I don’t think he was thinking at all, and because he had no possible logical justification he just refused to think about it, or come up with any answer better than “um no reason.”
So like eg if instead of guards he’d run into Casca the next morning, a la the morning after Gennon, she could say something like, “holy shit are you so fucked up that Guts left that you’re trying to get yourself killed?” and Griffith’s response would be, “um no winning Charlotte’s affection is part of the path to my dream, I don’t care at all that Guts left, the dead kid Guts leaving right before this was just a coincidence obviously, I’m fine nbd.” But at this point his justification is so weak it’s more along the lines of his “no reason” to Guts.
So I think like, his non reaction to the guards, plus the way he goaded the king into whipping him shortly after, is because emotionally he’s past the point of despair and this is what he wanted to happen, even if he didn’t consciously recognize it.
Idk I guess I just can’t rly see him admitting to himself, at least not until later when he’s doing some soul searching in that dungeon, that fucking Charlotte is self-destruction I guess, even if that’s clearly what it is. It strikes me as too self aware and honest for him lol.
But like, idk this is basically just my headcanon lol, not rly meta or anything, and I kinda just took the opportunity you provided to talk about it. I don’t think there’s any objectively right answer bc there’s no real way to know what he’s thinking, and based on his behaviour it does make sense for him to be aware of the consequences and accepting of them. So your take also makes sense and is also less convoluted than mine. I’m just rly into Griffith’s ability to deny shit to himself lol.
Mmm…yeah I agree, it was a very sweet kind of irony that while Guts and Casca are the ones who are wondering if Griffith is alright, it’s Griffith who actually says the words.
It’s almost like Griffith read the words in Guts mind, but the object he applies to it is changed from his personal context, because his concern is for Guts.
And in a way it’s also about how exactly on page they are about each other. It’s almost a screaming depiction of how mutual their feelings are, imo.
But again it’s also a little about the kind of person Griffith is . He has this, in my opinion, incredible ability to put other’s (mostly just Guts and Casca as far as we have seen) emotional needs above his own in times of emotional turmoil. In honesty it could simply be a defense mechanism ( and i know repressing your pain isn’t healthy) but idk the fact that he can numb himself to his own pain while still being able to sense and respond to others’ is really really incredible to me.
Like I know I’ve at this point, written thousands of words about Griffith, discussing many many things. But I still think the one panel, that one thing about him which stood out to me , became my defining reference point for him and which i’ll never ever get over was this.
like dear god. DEAR FREAKING GOD.
“it’s nothing” while there’s literally blood gushing down your arms. When the comforting hand you put on her shoulder is stained with the blood you drew from yourself and there’s your own flesh under your fingernails.
Well this originally started out as a jokey take on how compulsory heterosexuality is the True Villain of Berserk, but then I was like, shit this actually works surprisingly well and is kind of depressing. So now I’m doing it more seriously. This isn’t meant to be some grand unifying theory of Berserk lol, it’s not even close to airtight or anything, the story just happens to lend itself weirdly well to this particular reading.
So here’s how Griffith’s narrative works as an almost certainly accidental, yet imo somewhat relatable, metaphor for being closeted and repressed:
I always thought that it’s interesting that he seems to be on the precipice between childhood and adolescence (10/11) when he revived the Egg of the King in the first place. Like you said, this is hardly a perfect metaphor but that would be around the time where he might start to notice that a) he had some kind of feelings for men b) be old enough to understand that they are not compatible with his goals/not accepted by the culture he lives it.
The situation for Guts, for example, is absolutely complicated by his experience as a CSA survivor in that I’m not sure he has a way to think of these kinds of things outside of acts of violence. The kind of implicit homophobia of this culture does nothing to dissuade him from this. Griffith has at least grown up in a similar environment and am;has probably “seen some shit”; if not suffered in a similar way by the time he has the Behelit, as well as his later experience with Gennon. What better pressure cooker to make someone utterly terrified of themselves and be willing to go to extreme lengths to repress those feelings?
I feel like there’s a really interesting character analysis waiting to happen w/ both Guts and Griffith and their relationships to same-sex desire (especially taking the official translation as a source, not one of the scanlations where Guts throws around homophobic slurs every other page. Which I mention bc those scanlations seem to be the reason a lot of Berserk fans think Guts is canonically a giant homophobe lmao).
It could be way more rooted in the actual text and authorial intention than this was bc the fact is that both Guts and Griff had non-consensual same-sex experiences at young ages that explicitly took a severe emotional toll on them, neither of them read as straight as far as I’m concerned, and you cannot tell me that it’s an accident that both of them were raped by men, they’re introduced to each other through Guts directly asking Griffith if he’s gay and wants to fuck him, and then the rest of the story is about their incredibly homoerotic relationship and how emotional repression ruins everything.
So anyway yeah you have some good points worth expanding on imo.
All of this was pretty damn excellent.
Thankyou for writing this.
I think the reading with being closeted is awfully fitting and tbh I feel that even if at age 20, Kentaro Miura wasn’t aware he was writing very gay-coded characters, after every single interviewer asked him about it and in the year 2017, he cannot still be unaware. And he’s made absolutely no tonal changes to accommodate for the fact? ( I think. Honestly i’ve been a little bummed out by the lack of griffguts feels in the most recent, post style- change chapters).
That’s just supposition though. Like I do feel that some of the inherent sexism has greatly improved over the years. And most of those issues which saw in Casca’s treatment have become slightly better with the newer characters. Just like giving credit where credit is due.
I mean it would be a greeeeat stretch to expect the same from the inherent homophobia. Like I don’t expect i AT ALL. But I think there may be at least some awareness about it.
But inspite of this the reading really makes sense.
Also you know -from how nightmarish that brief domestic dream felt, despite it seeming so superficially pleasant and ‘normal’. There was this deafening sense of -This in not you. This is not her. This is uncomfortable.
And actually for the longest time, I’d read a lot of theories about how the way Griffith saw Casca in his dream showed that he’d actually always viewed her as this hetero-normative, submissive, potential wife figure. But I don’t think so. I think the entire sequence was about how wrong it all felt. Inclusive of Casca.
It wasn’t a dream at all. I think it was always supposed to be a nightmare, his final attempt to revert from accepting his reality a la his undeniable love for Guts with what should have been the heteronormative ideal, and the knowledge that this wasn’t his reality which forced him back into a space where he had no option but acceptance.
And then being faced with the consequences he has had to face for that reality. His body, the broken arm.
And like there’s also the added fact that immediately post this realisation he attempts to commit suicide. which is sadly a pretty common consequence.
Oh nooo man I kind of glossed over a lot of stuff so that post is a bit disjointed and one of the things I glossed over was how the domestic nightmare vision actually fits into the whole narrative I plucked out beyond being disturbing and feeling relevant, but the way you have it framed here, as Griffith trying to deny his feelings for Guts and insinuate himself into the heternormative ideal (again: “this peace and quiet… isn’t so bad”), failing, and then trying to kill himself… ouch. That’s painful, but it works.
Especially with the fact that his godhand-summoning despair is brought on by Guts’ touch soon after.
also there’s at least one GriffGuts moment in recent chapters that I dug, even though it doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, which was that while Farnese and Schierke are checking out Casca’s memory of the cave with Guts Farnese says straight up that she senses “jealousy…?” I mean sure we already knew that but it’s nice to reiterate it.
AU where Guts never overheard Griffith’s speech to Charlotte, nothing went wrong, Griffith eventually married Charlotte and became king, managed the whole famine and plague situation competently and is beloved, started hooking up with Guts on the side, Casca became the highest-ranked general in Midland, Gaston’s got his shop, everyone’s living their best lives
And then Ganeshka and his unstoppable demon army shows up, and regular old human king Griffith doesn’t have apostles on his side
So Griffith tries to stop Ganeshka but it’s unquestionably hopeless ofc
Anyway this is ultimately a What If Griffith became king and fulfilled his dream all according to plan but 3 years later had to flee his kingdom (or get knocked out and hauled away over Guts’ shoulder depending on how reluctant he is) as it’s about to be taken over by a demon emperor kinda thing. Or maybe he chooses to flee because Guts is determined to stay and die with him if he stays. Because I like the idea of Griffith being forced to pick Guts’ life over dying for his dream.
Either way bam suddenly he’s back to where he was when he was 12 with a group of rag tag friends roaming the countryside trying to survive and he’s gotta deal with that.
This is an excellent concept.
I really love this. Also seeing as Griffith’s and Guts relationship in this version has Been allowed to run it’s natural course and I’d really like to see how that would play out. I actually think, since Griffith and Guts hooked up, Griffith sometimes wishes he could just run away from the kingly stuff once in a while to be with Guts.
What if he isn’t actually averse to running away after the initial clashes against Vanishes prove that it’s futile. But I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t actually. Maybe because the guilt for his soldiers hasn’t quite gone yet and he rationalises that he can’t surrender something so much blood had once been spilled for, PLUS since Guts’ is known for his “finish what you started” attitude- Griffith feels that Guts will not respect him anymore if he runs away.
Guts for his part, thinks Griffiths decision is non negotiable, so he’s just determined to save him from as much damage as he can. Guts refuses to come in the way of what Griffith wants. And he reasons that’s well, it’s always been in his nature to fight rather than flee. And if he has to die, nothing better than now, when he’s found somebody who looks at him and CARES.
PLUS since Guts’ is known for his “finish what you started” attitude-
Griffith feels that Guts will not respect him anymore if he runs away.
oooh nice, gr8 point i didn’t consider at all.
also ironic if they both die bc they think that’s what the other wants lol, but that’s so them. maybe casca could intervene w/ some sense + save their asses as per usual.
Like with all the Casca thoughts which have been accumulating.
You Know this bit- “ Maybe Casca could intervene w/ some sense + save their asses as per usual.”
This is OUR version of Casca. This is our take on what she could have been if the narrative didn’t constantly screw up her characterisation. Because this action and characteristics makes sense to us, seems like a reasonable expectation and we or rather I (I’ll only speak for myself here for now) would like to believe it to be true- because I really want to like her.
And of course this is us talking about AUs anyway. So we will fill it with what seems reasonable.
But really I can’t help but think how cannon never explored this possibility. In canon Casca never saved their asses or talked sense into them. She made the connections. Yes. She had the information necessary to. Yes. She had the opportunity to. Also yes.
But canon didn’t care about making us like Casca as anything more than either a worthy (and projected as slightly annoying) rival or a love interest.
We’re never made to empathise with any particular or specific actions she takes or roles she plays. It seems like There’s no particularly thing Casca has done in the entire goddamn narrative which defines her. Like HER. Not someone else.
So when we say ‘as per usual’ we’re really just comparing with different versions we have been forced to create on our own.
There’s unfortunately no as per usual we can compare with in the source material.
Which is so frustrating.
Lol yeah this is true and I was kind of thinking when I wrote it that I should’ve said like she always tried to do, and might’ve done if anyone actually listened to her. (Like “just talk to each other!” can you imagine if judeau shut the hell up and they were like, actually yeah casca has a point let’s try words before swords). But I went with less accurate pithiness instead lol.
Also like… I do pretty much agree with you – the narrative is so bad about defining Casca in relation to the men in her life rather than as herself independently that I’ve come to hope it’s her central character flaw that will one day be explored as unlikely as that is lmao, but in fairness despite doing things for Griffith’s sake or for Guts’ sake, she does show a lot of character as she does them.
Taking command of the Hawks, leading the charge to infiltrate Doldrey, rallying the troops in dire situations, jealousy, pettiness, bravery, practicality (one moment I love for her, even if it is just to give Guts a moment of ‘wow she’s so cool’ (ugh), is when she tells the Hawks to stop freaking out at the start of the Eclipse because it’s not going to change the fact that shit just got really weird, so they might as well hold formation and stay calm), foolhardiness due to insecurity (going to battle on her period lol), perseverence even after almost giving up, loyalty ofc and her attempt to navigate between loyalty and what she feels is a betrayal of it albeit a timely and necessary one (even if the ‘betrayal’ is fucking guts, like, the feelings there are still complex despite the shitty plot imo), etc.
I hate almost all of Casca’s narrative and ofc it’s steeped in Miura’s misogyny, and she has a few character moments that are total offensive bs (acting cuter when she warms up to guts, maybe my place is at this man’s side, her non-reaction to Wyald’s attempted rape which just underscores that whole awful thing as pure shock value and titilation, etc) but there are also lots of moments she has that I think are revealing, endearing, and interesting. Like misogyny is one of Miura’s big flaws but shallow characterization sure isn’t and imo while his flaws are seriously on display in Casca’s character his strengths are still there.
So yeah like I don’t disagree with you bc her narrative absolutely sucks and I know that’s p much what you’re talking about, but your response did make me kind of want to talk up her likeability as a character a little lol. Like it’s not enough to make up for her awful narrative role, but it’s enough to make me want to explore her as a character and feel sympathy and empathy for her and relate to her in some ways, which is not a high bar but tbh it’s more than a lot of designated-love-interest-female-characters have.
look how surprised griffith is by the hawks’ outpouring of emotion when they learn he’s not dead after all.
guts never asked him, he only thought it, but i think that it
wouldn’t’ve even crossed griffith’s mind that faking his own death is
cruel to the hawks. he’s worried about whether asking guts to kill people for him is cruel, not about whether keeping the hawks in the dark is.
this is after he succeeded, after he’s paved
their way, and when he’s no longer useful to them as a military leader. i
don’t think he ever thought they actually cared about him beyond that
enough to be distraught over his “death.”
Yeah I once talked about this in a conversation with someone here, where the other person held the argument that Griffith was an extremely self- entitled person who was aware of his influence and used it knowingly. And they actually made really good points. But then I brought up this incident in my mind.
And I’ve realised that there is a pattern regarding Griffith looking really surprised whenever someone does something for HIM.
There’s this. There’s how surprised he looks when Charlotte starts crying after he gets shot. When Charlotte takes the dart for him. When Guts defends him in front of the Godhand.
And it’s crazy. That for someone who says things like ‘thereby have I held so many lives in this hand’ he’s strangely unaware of the affect he has on others and mostly of the autonomous actions they may take, independent of him, for him.
As confident as Griffith is in his ability to manipulate situations and people, he has very low expectations of them.
Griffith never expects anyone to care. Hell he never even expected that anyone would ever rescue him from the tower. He didn’t expect Guts to come back.
I think Griffith has conditioned himself to not expect or hope for things which are beyond the things he knows he can Induce on his own.
Which is why even the simplest unpredicted kindness throws him so off balance.
Yeah ia!
And not to sound like someone who reduces Griffith down to sociopath tendencies lol but I think part of it is that people genuinely caring for him is beyond his ability to control?
Like when he thinks about how he’s always been different than other people, some ppl hate him and some ppl love him but no one can disregard him, etc, it boils down to what he can do for people or to them. It’s his charisma inspiring people or intimidating people, and it’s the way he’s a bug in the heavily structured class system that either gives people hope or makes people afraid of him bringing change.
Idk if I really noticed surprise when Charlotte freaked out over the arrow, but definitely when she took the dart for him I got the sense that he was very taken aback bc like… he’d crafted this perfect boyfriend image around her to make her fall for him, but she still loved him after that image fell apart and he was no longer able to appear perfect to her.
Which is also partly why Guts leaving destroyed him so hard – bc once again Guts was an exception who got to see more facets of Griffith, including the less likeable and realer ones, making his response to Griffith a genuine reflection of him and outside of his control.
Yk like if someone hates you because you’ve made yourself hatable to them deliberately (eg griffith climbing the social ladder) that’s nbd, but if someone hates you because they know you, that’s tough, and it’s worse for Griffith than most people because he doesn’t let anyone else know him. Of course Guts doesn’t hate him, but yk, Griff thinks he does.
And relatedly I think Griffith receiving affection and love post-torture would’ve been a huge game-changing deal for him (and probably really emotionally intense and difficult to take too) because of this attitude, but beyond a few moments here and there misunderstandings made shit go south before Guts had the chance to demonstrate his love (Guts defending Griff from the Godhand was a gr8 moment but by then it seemed like too little too late).
Like if someone loves you because you’ve made yourself a perfect wonderful leader to them, that’s nbd, if someone loves you when you’ve been totally broken physically and nearly broken mentally and emotionally that’s a lot more meaningful. Especially if it’s Guts, because again, Guts is the one who’s seen him at his least likeable.
Idk basically this is my take on Griffith being super emotionally defensive and guarded, part 2048392002
Casca babe. I still don’t know why the fuck you would say that. It makes zero sense.
Tbh at this point I felt things were happening, only because they had to happen, even if it made no sense to anyone to act like this. Like Casca saying this, as if it still mattered what Griffith saw as a equal. Like Guts acting as if not realizing how severe Griffith’s injuries were and saying he will swing that sword again. Like the Band throwing a fucking tantrum how their future is ruined, while Griffith was 5 steps away and probably listening. Like even Guts and Casca having this talk there, as if he wasn’t sleeping nearby… the amount of moments, where everyone was being inconsiderate was so huge, that it felt kind of…. forced to me 😮 Either this or at this point they had all stopped seeing Griffith as a person already.
And tbh, there was no going back from there on in my opinion, even if he had never been offered to sacrifice them, even if he had accepted living in a broken body, he wouldn’t have accepted being their mascot.
Yeah, I completely agree actually.
Like of course at this point Miura was trying to take the plot to the eclipse so maybe everything doesn’t make sense from character consistency point of view.
But really if we leave that aside this arc really was evidence that both of what Wyald said and what we knew of Griffith’s apprehensions were almost completely justified.
Like it really just came across as if nobody actually gave a shit about griffith as a fucking human being. And it was upsetting because all this while, we were thinking how Griffith was wrong and being pessimistic and he should maybe stop distancing himself so much. But then griffith was absolutely right all along.
It really just seemed like everyone was waiting for griffith because of the usefulness he’d have to their lives. The moment it became clear that he wouldn’t be able to do that, they immediately ran to Guts to leave with him instead.
Like notice how no one else even tries to visit him after that, I mean yeah okay, you were throwing around words like love before, but okay.
yes , they most probably wouldn’t have abandoned him but that would most probably be because such a thing would be ‘distasteful’ rather than anything else. I mean you might be right about the fact that they’ve already stopped seeing him as a person at this point.
And honestly even with Casca, like this really rubbed me the wrong way- but she has this little bit of internal monologue where she says “Yes now it’s my turn to fulfill this duty. ” And that sense of duty is repeated when she tells Guts that she can’t leave with him. And wow. So it’s DUTY now ? Like a couple of chapters ago you were wondering why he’d chose Charlotte to bed instead of you and were being jealous of the fact. And now it’s only your sense of duty holding you back. Like honestly I thought you loved this person? Wow for consistency.
I mean I remember Griffith saying in the lake, while hurting himself that the only thing he can do for his men is to keep winning.
And really he was right.
That’s all they want from him and that’s all that he’s good for in their eyes.
tbh this never bothered me from a writing perspective because it felt very realistic to me
it’s not good and it doesn’t reflect well on the hawks, but it seems consistent because none of them ever gave a fuck about griffith as a person except guts and casca. judeau practically flat out said it during his first chat with guts, when he said everyone followed griffith for his charisma but he couldn’t really say what kind of a man he is.
and it’s partially griffith’s fault for distancing himself. you can’t expect people to care about you as a person if they only know you as a flawless leader. but it’s also definitely dickish of the hawks – but the kind of dickish that doesn’t seem out of place imo, especially in berserk’s shitty world where if you’re accepting that half the men casca runs into want to rape her, ableism doesn’t seem like a stretch.
also in fairness, only corkus made a scene when casca announced the news, and that’s pretty in character for him, and there was only like, maybe a couple hours between that and the eclipse, during most of which griffith was asleep, so there wasn’t much opportunity for people to visit him, or even sort out their feelings beyond abject disappointment that their hopes are dashed.
i actually love casca and judeau telling guts to leave while he’s trying to say he wants to stay, because they are treating griffith as an inevitable burden someone has to deal with, and guts is the only one who isn’t. judeau has his, i’ll take some hawks, start a thieves gang and take care of him, because it’s the least i could do for all he’s done for us. plus being ‘self sacrificing’ for casca’s sake lol.
casca’s feelings are more complex but they also work for me – because she wanted to leave with guts after rescuing griffith and try to move on from her feelings for griffith, and now he needs her, and she’s someone who wants to be needed, so it’s like just as she had hope that she could move on she’s back to square one. also tbh her attitude strikes me as more evidence that she never really loved Griffith, just admired him.
and they both expect guts to view him as a burden so they encourage him to leave – because according to those rules of the battlefield judeau likes to cite so much, he’s no longer a hawk so griffith isn’t his responsibility.
and guts partially wants to stay out of guilt probably, but based on his actions at the start of the eclipse it seems clear that he, more than anyone else in the hawks, still just genuinely likes griffith and wants to be with him in some capacity. he’s the one who speaks out when the godhand says griffith is one of them, he supports and holds him until they’re forcibly separated and then he climbs up to griffith to try to save him, and he refuses to believe griffith sacrificed everyone for quite a while.
idk basically it’s harsh and depressing but it works for me largely bc i never got the sense that anyone except guts genuinely liked griffith as a person, even casca. well charlotte i guess, but w/e. even she believed he’d recover when she wanted to stay with him.
Hmm yeah.
Of course it makes a lot of sense from the writing perspective. And from character perspectives. And everything makes sense with everything else because that’s just how Berserk is. It’s brilliant. And all that is precisely the reason I love it so much.
I don’t think my issue was with character consistency actually, like tbh I don’t have an issue at all, -that’s what makes for good story telling and that’s what I’m here for.
I have zero issues with the Hawks not giving a fuck about Griffith. Because it makes sense. And because realistically that’s how people are.
Same with Casca.
I think what I had a not very objective, reaction to^ up there was the fact that the fact that the Hawks or Casca may be didn’t give a fuck is very rarely recognised
Which makes for very one dimensional analysis. And THAT is frustrating.
The thing with Casca is I have very mixed feelings about her in general and that just spills onto every time I mention her so. Yeah.
And like hey I liked griffith so sometimes there’s an emotional ‘why you do this?’, but intellectually yes, makes sense, sign me the fuck up, sweet angst God yes.
Like the fact everyone is equal parts nice and low-key assholeish is amazing?
But sometimes people are not nice to someone you like (Even if that makes perfect sense to you )and you are like ‘hey!’
yeah i know what you mean. casca is such a difficult character in some ways for me bc i love her in theory but i feel like i’m constantly mentally compensating for the way miura writes her.
like eg i’d infinitely prefer if instead of casca switching gears bc now she loves guts instead of griffith, she was telling guts to leave because she believes she’s being self-sacrificing but deep down she wants griffith to herself and she still isn’t over her jealousy of guts. i don’t feel that’s the case, that’s not the vibe i get from this scene at all, but man i’d be into that, and i kind of headcanon it that way.
like i like petty jealous casca whose “love” for griffith is a flaw (and a defense mechanism she uses to avoid self-examination) she needs to overcome to come into her own as a person. i don’t like casca just switching from griffith to guts and this being treated by the narrative as a touching and significant development for her lol. same like, i like casca as a badass responsible and respected military leader, i don’t like casca as someone who “had to give up being a woman” (wtf does that even mean lol) and is conflicted about that, it sucks.
enjoying casca as a character to me is like navigating a minefield of miura’s shitty misogyny lol. there’s lots i love and it’s worth the effort of downplaying the shitty aspects of her writing imo, but man i wish i didn’t have to.
But it has an extremely childish quality to it. It’s less that he thinks he thinks of himself as the most important thing in the world, but he does view most things around him in terms of how they relate to him.
There’s this thing called centrism which Children have. Where they are the object of every action that happens around them.
So a young child is more likely to say “the table hurt me” rather than “I bumped into the table” not in regards to vocabulary but in the pattern of thinking or ideation about the event.
It’s something they grow out of usually if their development is normal.
I don’t think Griffith did.
“You made me forget my dream” rather than “I forgot my dream”
It’s this view that the self is the object upon which everyone’s intents are carried out.
I find this interesting with regards to how often Griffith’s temperament is compared to a child’s in the narrative.
Omg yes!!!
Guts has a little bit of this too? He assumes that Griffith’s speech to Charlotte is in some way “about him” in the sense that little kids always assume that anything bad happening around them is their fault. Griffith’s guilt issues I also feel come from a similar place. I mean they’ve both been traumatized and had to deal with the bulk of it completely alone so I’m not surprised that these kinds of “childish” thoughts have stayed long past their developmental usefulness.
Casca babe. I still don’t know why the fuck you would say that. It makes zero sense.
Tbh at this point I felt things were happening, only because they had to happen, even if it made no sense to anyone to act like this. Like Casca saying this, as if it still mattered what Griffith saw as a equal. Like Guts acting as if not realizing how severe Griffith’s injuries were and saying he will swing that sword again. Like the Band throwing a fucking tantrum how their future is ruined, while Griffith was 5 steps away and probably listening. Like even Guts and Casca having this talk there, as if he wasn’t sleeping nearby… the amount of moments, where everyone was being inconsiderate was so huge, that it felt kind of…. forced to me 😮 Either this or at this point they had all stopped seeing Griffith as a person already.
And tbh, there was no going back from there on in my opinion, even if he had never been offered to sacrifice them, even if he had accepted living in a broken body, he wouldn’t have accepted being their mascot.
Yeah, I completely agree actually.
Like of course at this point Miura was trying to take the plot to the eclipse so maybe everything doesn’t make sense from character consistency point of view.
But really if we leave that aside this arc really was evidence that both of what Wyald said and what we knew of Griffith’s apprehensions were almost completely justified.
Like it really just came across as if nobody actually gave a shit about griffith as a fucking human being. And it was upsetting because all this while, we were thinking how Griffith was wrong and being pessimistic and he should maybe stop distancing himself so much. But then griffith was absolutely right all along.
It really just seemed like everyone was waiting for griffith because of the usefulness he’d have to their lives. The moment it became clear that he wouldn’t be able to do that, they immediately ran to Guts to leave with him instead.
Like notice how no one else even tries to visit him after that, I mean yeah okay, you were throwing around words like love before, but okay.
yes , they most probably wouldn’t have abandoned him but that would most probably be because such a thing would be ‘distasteful’ rather than anything else. I mean you might be right about the fact that they’ve already stopped seeing him as a person at this point.
And honestly even with Casca, like this really rubbed me the wrong way- but she has this little bit of internal monologue where she says “Yes now it’s my turn to fulfill this duty. ” And that sense of duty is repeated when she tells Guts that she can’t leave with him. And wow. So it’s DUTY now ? Like a couple of chapters ago you were wondering why he’d chose Charlotte to bed instead of you and were being jealous of the fact. And now it’s only your sense of duty holding you back. Like honestly I thought you loved this person? Wow for consistency.
I mean I remember Griffith saying in the lake, while hurting himself that the only thing he can do for his men is to keep winning.
And really he was right.
That’s all they want from him and that’s all that he’s good for in their eyes.
tbh this never bothered me from a writing perspective because it felt very realistic to me
it’s not good and it doesn’t reflect well on the hawks, but it seems consistent because none of them ever gave a fuck about griffith as a person except guts and casca. judeau practically flat out said it during his first chat with guts, when he said everyone followed griffith for his charisma but he couldn’t really say what kind of a man he is.
and it’s partially griffith’s fault for distancing himself. you can’t expect people to care about you as a person if they only know you as a flawless leader. but it’s also definitely dickish of the hawks – but the kind of dickish that doesn’t seem out of place imo, especially in berserk’s shitty world where if you’re accepting that half the men casca runs into want to rape her, ableism doesn’t seem like a stretch.
also in fairness, only corkus made a scene when casca announced the news, and that’s pretty in character for him, and there was only like, maybe a couple hours between that and the eclipse, during most of which griffith was asleep, so there wasn’t much opportunity for people to visit him, or even sort out their feelings beyond abject disappointment that their hopes are dashed.
i actually love casca and judeau telling guts to leave while he’s trying to say he wants to stay, because they are treating griffith as an inevitable burden someone has to deal with, and guts is the only one who isn’t. judeau has his, i’ll take some hawks, start a thieves gang and take care of him, because it’s the least i could do for all he’s done for us. plus being ‘self sacrificing’ for casca’s sake lol.
casca’s feelings are more complex but they also work for me – because she wanted to leave with guts after rescuing griffith and try to move on from her feelings for griffith, and now he needs her, and she’s someone who wants to be needed, so it’s like just as she had hope that she could move on she’s back to square one. also tbh her attitude strikes me as more evidence that she never really loved Griffith, just admired him.
and they both expect guts to view him as a burden so they encourage him to leave – because according to those rules of the battlefield judeau likes to cite so much, he’s no longer a hawk so griffith isn’t his responsibility.
and guts partially wants to stay out of guilt probably, but based on his actions at the start of the eclipse it seems clear that he, more than anyone else in the hawks, still just genuinely likes griffith and wants to be with him in some capacity. he’s the one who speaks out when the godhand says griffith is one of them, he supports and holds him until they’re forcibly separated and then he climbs up to griffith to try to save him, and he refuses to believe griffith sacrificed everyone for quite a while.
idk basically it’s harsh and depressing but it works for me largely bc i never got the sense that anyone except guts genuinely liked griffith as a person, even casca. well charlotte i guess, but w/e. even she believed he’d recover when she wanted to stay with him.
Also related to that last ask but my response was getting way too long so I’ll mention this separately:
I feel like part of my problem with the current lighter tone is that a lot of the darkness, specifically the emotional angst, of Berserk so far was based on the fact that all the main characters are traumatized and have shitty coping mechanisms. Guts Casca and Griffith sure, and also Farnese and Serpico (neglected throughout childhood and coped by burning people alive and terrorizing ppl, and abused by peers and Farnese + weird expectations from his mother and coped by becoming an unfeeling doormat). And none of them have really dealt with it?
Griff transformed into a monster so fine his story has a conclusion, and Casca’s is maybe coming to fruition soon, but Guts’ trauma just transferred from rape and abuse to feeling manpain about Casca’s trauma, which is a huge disservice to both characters if it’s never brought up again and dealt with.
And while Farnese is bettering herself we’ve never really seen her actual issues addressed, and her whole sadism burning ppl alive thing just kind of easily melted away in favour of a new helping someone philosophy. I wished for more internal conflict there, basically, and I hope it’s addressed in the future but for now it seems like a pretty abrupt change and a missed opportunity. And Serpico is still Serpico. He hasn’t changed a whole lot but his issues haven’t negatively impacted anything either.
In the Golden Age all the psychological baggage these characters had contributed to its absolute disaster of a climax. And I’d love, love to see that happen again, esp with Farnese and Serpico adding more shit to the pile, or I’d love to see their issues flare up but have them manage to overcome them now that they’ve grown in a happier, healthier contrast to the Golden Age.
But throughout the Millenium Empire arc all these issues the characters have never really affected them adversely. I’m hoping that now that we’re delving into Casca’s psyche things will start to snowball and we’ll see that these traumas haven’t just been forgotten but only put on hold for a while so this group can be happy and hopeful.
But for now I do miss reading about fucked up characters and the internal and external challenges posed by their issues.
The weird part is actually, that sometimes I think, objectively, the manga hasn’t become lighter since the Golden age. The Lost Children and Tower of Conviction arc were pretty fucked up and even now we’ve had troll rapes, the daka demons ripping out uterus es, people being eaten alive, a lot of really weird ass and perverted monstrosities.
But it’s simply that the fucked up Ness isn’t viscerally gripping anymore.
In the Golden age we we’re first introduced to characters, made to care about them by slowly revealing both their strengths and flaws and slowly, insidiously piling on the foreshadowing and layers of emotional as well as external fuckery.
It felt so dark because we cared about the people it was happening to.
In recent chapters the characters are introduced along with the ‘darkness’ bringing it forward as a part of their plotlines. Even Farnese was introduced as a sadistic pyromaniac first . Along with the horror which was the heretic related prosecution.
And only much later were we given a glimpse into the character and learnt to retroactively care about her.
I mean ultimately that worked as far as characterisation is concerned. As in I definitely care about Farnese now.
But it does reduce the emotional impact of the should have been traumatic scenes.
These are really good points. I totally agree about the grimdarkness – like I care when the protagonist has a traumatic backstory and it leads to him making unfortunate decisions, I’m less affected emotionally when random npcs are being tortured in two-page spreads for shock value.
+ tbh i don’t think it’s necessarily a mistake to introduce Farnese’s dark side first and then reveal her better nature, bc I do like when writers make you love a former antagonist and I love that about Farnese, but it definitely adds to the differing tones.
And I mean it does make sense to reverse the Golden Age format this way – now instead of beloved characters going dark, we can have dark characters learning to be better. But it really boils down for me to feeling like it’s been too easy I guess. Guts made new friends and now his hound is on a leash and now it’s the Berserk armour’s fault when he tries to murder everyone. Farnese dropped the pyromania and became a protector. And yeah for Farnese it’s been an ongoing journey as she gets braver and more competent and learns new things, and I love that journey, but since deciding to join Guts she’s never had second thoughts or felt sadistic or masochistic urges and more internal conflict for her would’ve been sweet.
But again, that’s assuming that this Guts and Friends story has all been a journey of personal growth and a brighter future, and not just the calm before the storm. So we’ll have to wait and see.
Oh yeah I completely agree with you about, the retroactive characterisation actually being pretty interesting.
That’s what, it works for characters .
But the setting seems to loosing the conflict which would make it more anticipatory and exciting. As you mentioned things seem to be happening too easily, too perfunctory. The high points seem expected and a foregone conclusion, and the obstacles too easily overcome.
There a vague sort of plot armor around the plot itself for every subplot involving Guts party members.
Griffith’s side of the story is still more interesting because of all the supposition we can do regarding the nature, relationships and back stories of the apostles and what falconia itself stands for AND the fact that there’s piling evidence that emotionless, divine doll Griffith may in fact be our beloved emotional-fuck Griffith afterall.
Like seriously I have no shame in admitting that in comparison I give zero fucks about Guts party or Elfhelm, beyond my investment into the follow-up of Casca and Farnese’s relationship.
I think a part of what I was trying to convey is that Berserk has always been a hugely character driven plot. As such ‘darkness’ of characters is linked to the ‘darkness’ of the plot.
So while the character writing is still quite enjoyable, introducing the character at their point of highest conflict and darkness and gradually resolving that, puts the plot and pacing in a perpetual cycle of falling action which Miura hasn’t yet broken.
Which is why I DO hope that this is actually just the calm before the storm.
Because unless there’s a change to rising action, we lose the excitement or anticipation or build up to any sort of satisfying climax.
Like that’s what the Golden Age did with perfection. It built on itself.
Deconstruction is something I really really enjoy actually but I think it’s being drawn out a little too much.
And Berserk though masterful in it’s quiet moments, has kind of made it’s rep for the drama.
I mentioned a while ago that the first time I feel we got a real visual* glimpse of Guts’ hound-esque inner darkness chronologically was during the rescue mission.
The way he cuts out the torturer’s tongue is very reminiscent of his tendency to torture apostles before killing them imo (which probably has its origins in the way he killed Donovan), and then he just rampages through the castle like a demonic one-man army, very black swordsman ish.
Look at this imagery like:
(i love Casca’s ‘holy shit dude’ expression)
Plus you got Charlotte saying he scares her, and the Wyald fight is when everyone starts comparing Guts to a monster and saying he’s inhuman.
So I was thinking – why? Why would we get this before the Eclipse, before he starts killing ghosts and infusing his sword with Essence of Darkness, before the brand + killing monsters make him literally superhuman? Why do we get our first look at monster slaying, revenge-obsessed, black swordsman Guts a day and only a day before the main event, the point of which is to make him revenge-obsessed, even takes place?
And I want to suggest that it’s because this is it – this is Guts’ revenge spree. It’s not one revenge spree that ends, followed immediately by another unrelated revenge spree. It’s the same rage. He killed the torturer like he kills apostles, then he fought an actual apostle to defend Griffith, then the Eclipse happened and he declared war.
It’s all intimately connected in Guts’ mind and emotions:
He started off on a vengeful rampage for Griffith in part as a way of externalizing his own feelings of guilt, and he continued on a vengeful rampage against Femto/NeoGriffith, also in part as a way of externalizing his own feelings of guilt.
We know this because as he’s running towards Griffith in the torture chamber Guts thinks about how it’s his fault that Griffith is there without actually coming to a proper conclusion (if that’s the case… then I –) – and he reaches that conclusion (was I the one who brought all this upon you?) right as he’s running towards Griffith at the site of the Eclipse. Guts’ guilt is strongly associated with his rage this way. Guilt followed by external target followed by lashing out.
Idk, there’s just such a through line to me from Casca telling him it’s his fault to the Eclipse. The most significant moments of Guts’ internal thoughts are given to him processing this information and finally concluding that he fucked up right before the Eclipse begins. The Eclipse didn’t then erase his feelings of guilt, it just let him continue to repress those feelings and gave him acceptable targets to lash out at instead of dealing with his feelings.
Now this is a bold statement, but I think that in a way, rampage part 1, kill half the soldiers of Midland, and rampage part 2, kill demons, are both about Guts avenging Griffith – the latter only in part ofc, because the rest of the Hawks need to be avenged too now.
Because the thing is, I think he still sees Griffith as a victim. After finally acknowledging that Griffith did sacrifice everyone, he still looks back at him wistfully. He thinks of Griffith while flashing back to the lost Hawks after the Eclipse. He tells Rickert that NeoGriffith isn’t the Griffith he knows (incidentally something Rickert repeats to NeoGriffith later, which NGriff acknowledges). He flashes back to Griffith in the snow a lot. To Guts, Griffith isn’t his friend who turned out to be a dick, Griffith is his friend who basically committed fantasy murder/suicide after being tortured for a year because Guts broke him by leaving.
His feelings towards Femto/NeoGriff are complicated and fucked up as all hell, but while his feelings for Griffith feed into his complicated feelings for Femto/NeoGriff, his hatred for F/NG doesn’t retroactively affect his feelings towards human Griffith. They’ve remained pretty solidly longing, guilt, love, regret. He’s not thinking of Griffith kneeling in the snow and feeling rage at what he would go on to do a year later, he’s thinking of Griffith kneeling in the snow and trying to find a way to atone for it. Griffith is still explicitly part of the “campfire from those days still [burning in his] chest.”
Idk basically I just wanted to say that a part of Guts’ fuel for his revenge rampage was feeling responsible for Griffith’s pain and not being able to save Griffith from it, both the first time against Midland and the second time against the Godhand, and I chose a very long drawn-out way to do that.
* I specify visual glimpse bc i think there’s a solid argument that it’s there when he kills Donovan, based on the way he taunts him and tortures him briefly first, but we don’t have any of the ragey demonic imagery associated with Guts’ darkness there – he just looks like a kid. So I feel like it works as a point of origin for a lot of Guts’ dark vengeful urges (Donovan is the first monster he killed), but he wasn’t anywhere close to losing himself to darkness then.
Honestly I don’t think there’s anything I have to add here which you haven’t already said. But I’ll just leave this here,
From Schierke’s trip into Guts Mindscape, where at the pit of the fire which drives Guts forward, There is a chant of Griffith’s name and a confused roil of affection and rage which comes with it. And though Friend and enemy overlap, they haven’t quite superimposed yet, they are still distinct entities.
And really you’ve said this before but I definitely agree that a part of his current motivation to fix things comes from his guilt of being unable to ‘fix’ what he had with Griffith. I’m not saying he wouldn’t have done it for Casca on her own too, but that Guttural fear, the panicked “Did I Do it AGAIN?!” that comes from a place of Guilt. A place quite firmly occupied by Griffith.
The “This time, I was the one left behind.” goes to show that Guts now wholeheartedly sees himself leaving the first time around as an act of abandonment, there’s no allusion to leaving to pursue his own dream because really even back then- :”Now I realise, this was what I’d been seeking this whole time.”
What I also like about this is that Guts seems to treat it as Griffith sort of “Paying him back’ for that offense. So he’s kind of subconsciously seeing Neo-Griffith as a very human, emotionally motivated figure with remnants of the ‘original’ Griffith’s emotional experiences and for once Guts might just really be on to something.
Also Interestingly, as mentioned before i guess, ever since the Eclipse all of Gut’s memories of Griffith have morphed into images of him standing with his back towards Guts or at a distance and the imagery is really interesting to me here. Because it could signify so much.
We know that the image of Griffith’s back, kneeling in the snow has sort of become a haunting image for Guts. What if the turned back everywhere else is an extension of this, the fact that all his memories are tinged with the same regret or guilt.
Secondly it could be simply a perceived distance and further unreachability, because the past is literally an unachievable objective. And specifically that shot he has of the entire original band during the ‘companions’ speech. Griffith is walking away in the background there, it’s almost as if Guts realises that even during what he considered his happiest memories he was already losing Griffith.
Oh and the “Campfire from those days still burns in my heart” spread?
First of all. Ahhem.
Second of all once again you compare in importance a woman you literally have an appendage of yours inside in that particular shot with this other guy who actually looms much larger. An more encompassing. With his presence literally symbolically wrapped around you for emotional warmth.
Also Under his cover but behind his back and I really wonder if that has significance too.
And then again maybe simply because he doesn’t know what face to give him. Is it the face of a friend, an enemy, something else all together? Guts doesn’t really know yet.
lol i was almost going to make my original post like twice as long by going on to guts’ decision to stick with casca this time and how it’s framed as him trying to make up for abandoning griffith etc. but then i was like, this is already rly long.
also good point about Guts interpreting Griffith rejection as payback – ia, i don’t think Guts is exactly wrong about that lol.
I’ve been reading Guts’ memories of Griffith’s back (bc yeah I noticed that too, he’s always facing away) as, I guess, recognition that that relationship has been destroyed. Whenever Guts remembers leaving Griffith he’s looking back at him kneeling in the snow, which tbh strikes me as symbolic rather than literal because Guts never looked back. It’s a visual representation of Guts’ acknowledgement that he left Griffith behind. And I think Guts’ other memories of Griffith with his back to him are similar – an acknowlegement that Guts ruined everything and now he’s back to chasing Griffith. I might say more on that in a separate post actually.
and lol the campfire from those days spread is so damn blatant in its acknowledgement of the fact that guts and casca hooked up not only while they were both in love with griffith but, tbh, because of it. at least that’s what i get when i look at a picture of 2 ppl fucking while wrapped in the symbolic flowing cape of the dude they were both acknowledgedly obsessed with plus like you said, it’s with griffith facing away. Which, to me, adds the sense of them trying to fill a hole left by his loss.
Which is why it makes perfect sense to show us this image at this point in the narrative while Guts is contemplating revenge and rescuing Casca because he’s shifting from trying to fill that hole by chasing Griffith/Femto down and “[giving] him a heap of raw iron” to trying to fill it with Casca again (tho he doesn’t actually solidify that choice until NeoGriffith ditches him).
And I think it’s going to be a mistake – we see that Guts leaving revenge behind is good, but his desperation to get Casca back is not so good and will probably have consequences. And I think we’re supposed to understand that he’s doing it for the wrong reasons – if he wanted Casca sane again for her sake he’d be giving her time and a safe place to recover, or just to live. He wants Casca sane again for his own sake bc a) he can’t let go of the past and she represents the Hawks, b) he’s trying to make up for leaving Griffith and c) he’s still trying to fill the Griffith-shaped hole in his heart.
And then again maybe simply because he doesn’t know what face to give
him. Is it the face of a friend, an enemy, something else all together?
Guts doesn’t really know yet.
you're the only one 