Tag: scene: eclipse

farneseapologist
replied to your post “griffith represents the realistic reaction. a lot of people who read…”

THANK YOU i think in particular the part abt the sacrificed person being who you most love *and* hate in that moment gets ignored, like the fact that in the canon examples the person(s) you love the most has betrayed you or ruined your life etc etc is glossed over??
it’s very easy to say
“well, *i* wouldnt do it” and pat your back smugly for being a good and
moral person if you can’t imagine ever facing that level of betrayal
from your loved ones

yeah it’s an important part of the whole equation. maybe it’s not the case in every single sacrifice, but it seems to generally hold true and it makes sense because in Berserk fate basically arranges circumstances for the highest possibility of someone saying “yes.” Except with Theresia, the sacrifice is always the reason for the behelit owner’s despair. It’s, ‘cut this out of your life and you will never feel despair like this again.’

idk I guess it’s less obvious with Guts and Griffith because Guts like, didn’t just try to kill him or anything, the betrayal Griffith perceives from him is a lot more subtle and blameless. More of a, I destroyed my dream because I’m in love with you and you’re going to leave me again, kind of thing. He says, “you’re the only one who made me forget my dream,” like an accusation. But I mean Guts himself acknowledges that he’s the one who drove Griffith to despair while he’s riding after him, so Guts being the source of Griffith’s pain is pretty explicitly part of the Eclipse.

So like yeah, even if you wouldn’t sacrifice someone you love who is totally innocent under any circumstances, let’s be real most of the people who say they’d never sacrifice someone aren’t thinking of a cheating spouse, or a son who just tried to kill them, or someone they love whose perceived rejection lead to a year of torture.

griffith represents the realistic reaction. a lot of people who read berserk dont want to admit it, but most if not all of us wouldn’t be able to struggle. we would give in to what we were led to believe was our fate. people like to believe they’re special, and if you’re coerced in your darkest hour to think so- a lot of us would do anything. that’s also along w/ many reasons why ppl hate griffith. bc characters reflect the uncomfortable reality of what people will commonly do

Yeah I pretty much agree with you. Whenever I see someone who’s like, “I would never ever sacrifice someone I cared about no matter what,” I’m like, well that seems like a v high and untested opinion of yourself.

Idk maybe they’re just a lot more idealistic than me and believe the majority of people wouldn’t choose to sacrifice someone in a moment of pure despair, or maybe they genuinely are that self-sacrificing lol, but I’m with you – I’d say most people would. Especially in the world of Berserk, where behelits generally end up with people who have extremely strong values/desires/drives that make them more likely to sacrifice one thing for the sake of another thing. Add the fact that every apostle we see (except Count Slug’s second attempt) sacrificed someone/thing they both loved and hated in that moment, and the fact that moments of despair are tailored by fate to each individual – to be their worst moment, playing on their specific fears and insecurities etc, and yeah, I’d say just about everyone would make the sacrifice under those conditions.

And tbh one thing I love about Griffith’s narrative is that I actually find it really relatable/understandable. I think Miura did an amazing job of showing us what Griffith values, what he prioritizes, what he believes, what he feels, and how his life has driven him to the point of the Eclipse. When he says, “I sacrifice,” it’s so good because it’s been completely built up to. We got to really see all the elements that come together at that moment to make him choose the sacrifice, and it’s absolutely a realistic decision for his particular character. And personally one of my favourite things about fiction is that feeling of understanding why someone does something terrible, or evil, or stupid, or self-destructive, etc etc. I find it very cathartic, and Berserk is perfect for that.

Like it’s fair if ppl find the same thing uncomfortable or off-putting. A story about relatable/realistic people making bad choices for understandable reasons is definitely not for everyone, but that’s absolutely what Berserk is, at least the Golden Age, and misreading it as the story of an evil dude doing evil things because he’s evil doesn’t change that.

You mentioned something before about Muria’s “shit writing sometimes” what do you mean by that?

Under a cut because I don’t like to be rly critical of Berserk out in the open lol.

iirc the context of me using that specific phrase was both the Eclipse rape and Griffith’s night with Charlotte.

I think the Eclipse rape was absolutely terrible writing (well, storytelling, let’s say, because a lot of what’s bad about it is in the art) for several reasons:

1. destroys Casca as a character to make Guts feel bad and motivate him.

2. objectifies and eroticizes Casca during the rape (v sexualized angles, lots of t+a, overlong and overly graphic, etc), either to titilate the straight dude audience or bc Miura doesn’t know how else to depict the sexual assault of women.

3. totally overwrites Guts’ own childhood trauma – now his worst memories, the stuff that makes him feel the “worst he ever feels” is something that happened to someone else, who doesn’t even get a reaction to her own pain because her mind is basically wiped. I find this really unfortunate because I liked that Guts had actual personal trauma instead of the more typical for dude protagonists trauma-by-proxy. And it’s not realistic that he would get over it after one flashback and confession to Casca, but that is what we’re shown happened – because after that his childhood trauma is never referred to again, except in one flashback chapter featuring teenager Guts. It’s lazy writing imo, and it ruins an interesting and personal traumatic backstory that manly dude protagonists almost never get by replacing it with a dime-a-dozen misogynist fridged girlfriend backstory.

4. tbh it is really jarring and fucked up how you spend 2 emotional chapters with Casca, in her head from her point of view, as she fights and runs with Judeau, and then the 2nd chapter ends with a bunch of tentacles ripping her clothes off and suddenly you’re back with Guts and you never get Casca’s perspective again. tonally it’s a mess – heartfelt tragedy to pornographic objectification within a page – and it’s just so emblematic of how Miura treats Casca as a character. Her main function in the story is to be objectified and assaulted and saved by men, and when she gets good, relatable and empathetic character moments they’re short-lived before she becomes a damsel again.

4.5. and speaking of perspective, it’s fucked up that this horrible experience that breaks Casca’s mind is shown from Guts’ perspective. We’re meant to be relating to his horror at seeing his former best friend raping his girlfriend, we’re not meant to be relating to Casca in this moment. During her previous rape attempts we at least got her perspective on it, we were shown her fear, we heard her thoughts. But not here – here she’s just a violated body existing to traumatize Guts.

5. Based on Miura saying he had Guts and Casca get together just to make the Eclipse more dramatic it strongly suggests to me that not only was her rape solely there to make Guts feel bad and give Femto something to do to make everyone hate him, he wrote her out as a character afterwards because he didn’t know what to do with her – she wasn’t around during the Black Swordsman arc so he had to throw her away for a while, then turn her into nothing more than a symbol of Guts’ humanity, with no character of her own. (Actually tbh Miura didn’t even need to say he threw Guts and Casca together for drama, that comes across pretty clear to me in the writing lol. When I read that my reaction was pretty much just a sense of validation.)

6. Also regressing into a walking infant is not a realistic reaction to trauma, it’s just storytelling convenience, and Casca’s current character as basically a child with an often still sexualized adult body skeeves me out.

Okay that’s enough about the Eclipse rape. I really, really hate it tbh lol.

I also mentioned the scene where Griffith and Charlotte fuck, and more briefly I think that’s bad writing because Miura literally wrote a rape scene – Charlotte said “no” – and then he treated it as consensual sex narratively because Charlotte got into it partway through. Which is very typical male writer bad writing, it’s something you see a LOT – prim virgin has to protest to show that she’s pure and proper, but the dude is good at sex so she soon realizes how great it is and everything’s okay – and it’s really misogynist and fucked up. It’s offensive writing, and it’s just plain bad writing because what we see depicted (rape) isn’t what we’re told happened (consensual sex that Charlotte enjoyed and has no misgivings about and the negative part is that Griffith is a self-destructive idiot who seduced her too soon and ended up in a dungeon for it, not that she said no).

If there was even a hint that Miura recognizes it as rape, some context showing that Charlotte’s feelings about it are complicated, anything like that, I’d be more okay with it, but there’s really nothing. Charlotte adores him to pieces afterwards and the king is angry because he’s a rapist creep, not because he’s protective or anything. Tbh I wholeheartedly approved of the film version’s choice to give Charlotte more agency and have her ask Griffith to stay and move his hand to her chest herself. It seems more in keeping with the spirit of the scene and Charlotte’s feelings about it.

In a more general sense, basically I think Miura as a storyteller has a lot of strengths, but he also has a lot of flaws. Like overall I find Miura’s strengths as a writer are enough to keep me going through the bad stuff, but sometimes it’s a struggle lol and I like to complain about it occasionally. Not all his flaws revolve around rape or offensive writing choices (like eg I think he walks a fine line with tone and sometimes his lighthearted moments come across as jarring, interrupting the flow of action, or awkward), but those are the ones that really stand out and that I’m most likely to describe as shitty writing lol.

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i will never be over how ideal this moment is

femto reaching out -> closeup of guts -> closeup of femto -> femto failing to act -> guts + co escaping -> femto watching them disappear with a lowered hand, shown from a high angle -> a panel depicting femto from far above as a tiny dark smudge, alone and distant, singular, surrounded only by monsters

I think Femto refused to kill Guts in the eclipse because he probably wanted him to live with this memory. Femto’s eyes are scarily cold and emotionless, but even then Griffith is way too complex character in any form he in. Being Griffith, Neo-Griffith or Femto don’t make him less complex. What do you think of the part I mentioned above? Is Femto wanted Guts to live with this memory or was “emotionally hesitated” or mix of both?

I think that’s a legit interpretation. I kind of like the emotionally hesitated idea a bit more because I’m a sap and I love antagonists who can’t bring themselves to actually kill their enemy lol. But yeah considering how petty and spiteful Femto is I think your interpretation def makes sense, or it could be a mix of both. Maybe Femto couldn’t bring himself to kill Guts and allowed himself to let him go by telling himself it’d be worse for him if he survived. That’s a pretty Griffith-esque type of denial.

Thank you! I feel like I’m bothering you with all these questions and you’re so nice! Casca getting attacked so many times really is bad writing on Miura’s part :/ She deserves better tbh. If there is any indication that Femto/NeoGriff has a “soul” or smth it’s the fact that he could’ve killed both Guts and Casca during the eclipse but chose not to do so. It could be that he was already “plotting” to use the demon baby for resurrection, but idk if he can predict the future??

Not bothering me at all, I love talking about this stuff! (As may be a little obvious considering how long I ramble on in response to your asks lol.) And yeah, Casca needs to be saved from Berserk tbh.

yk I’ve seen that theory but I think it’s really, really unlikely that Femto let them go because he knew about the demon baby and the whole resurrection thing, unless Miura plans to retcon stuff.

Like first of all his actions during the Eclipse indicated that he fully wanted Guts and Casca dead. He attacked Skull Knight when he showed up to save them, and Guts was so mutilated what with his missing limb etc that without Puck’s healing powder he probably would’ve died anyway.

Then you have Femto nearly killing Guts in the Black Swordsman arc and apparently believing he did when he slammed him against a wall (”it seems i have unintentionally granted your wish, count”). Guts was necessary for the mock Eclipse (two sacrifices needed to pull all the spirit residue together into a malicious destructive force) so if he could predict the future he wouldn’t try to kill him.

I mean granted Miura writes on the fly so i’m sure he wasn’t thinking about details re Griffith’s resurrection that early, but still.

I mean just look at the scene where Femto lets them go:

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Reach followed by Guts closeup followed by … followed by escape followed by Femto awkwardly lowering his hand lol.

Like if it was a Casca closeup I could maybe see an argument that Femto got a message from God telling him to let them go, or something, because of the fetus, but it’s Guts he looks at before hesitating. The dude he does stupid self destructive, impulsive shit for.

Plus the other Godhand didn’t predict this. Void’s a silent wildcard, but I personally think his suggetive silent closeup

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is an indication that he’s seen something like this happen before.

I definitely think Guts and Casca’s survival was fated to happen (lotta weird coincidences that all add up to them facilitating NeoGriffith’s resurrection), but I don’t think Femto is in on the plan.

I think this basically sums up how fate works in Berserk:

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Femto can do whatever he wants and it’s going to make whatever is meant to happen, happen.

So imo Femto let them go for personal (Guts related) reasons.

Same anon, different question. A friend pointed this out to me: everything Femto did negated everything good Griffith did, saving Casca -> raping her, forming band of the hawk -> destroying it etc. He didn’t do anything reprehensible and outright evil after coming back (yet). I don’t really know what that means tbh since it’s really vague, but it paints him morally grey rather than pitch black in my eyes.

Yeah I think Griffith + Femto is morally grey if you combine them into one entity (which… I guess is just saying Griffith is morally grey lol since Femto is his dark side unleashed or w/e). I’m v curious about how NeoGriff fits in. One theory I have is that if Femto is Griffith with all the “good” parts of his humanity stripped away, then maybe NeoGriff has the “evil” parts stripped away too, and all that’s left is like, a heart full of neutrality (and whatever feelings made him call off Zodd and save Casca from rocks), making him the perfect fulfiller of humanity’s desires.

bc you’re right, he hasn’t done anything malicious. He’s been darkly pragmatic in eg sending apostles after Flora, but that’s not really any different than Guts and Griffith assassinating the queen from his point of view.

Ofc NeoGriff could just be Femto in a human suit who’s gotten better at concealing his petty side, who knows?

Also wrt Femto negating Griffith’s good deeds, ia – I think especially the rape is meant to be a v direct contrast to Griffith saving her from attempted rape the first time. The movie even uses the same Casca point of view shot to make the connection painfully clear. Though I don’t necessarily think that’s deliberate on Femto’s part (tho it could be) so much as the narrative drawing a strong contrast between Griffith and Femto. Griffith was Casca’s saviour, Femto then destroyed her, that kind of thing. Femto was a part of Griffith, but always tempered by Griffith’s ideals and morals, so stripping that part of him away is shown by negating his good deeds.

There’s also the way he literally replaces the nobleman who tried to rape Casca – he says, “do you think you’re chosen by God?” to him when he saves her. Now it turns out Femto literally has been chosen by God. Coupled with Berserk’s cynical take on religion, God being the Idea of Evil, etc, you get the sense that divine right isn’t any better or more noble than the class system enabling predators.

But again NeoGriff is all about that divine right and he hasn’t done anything malicious yet so the ultimate message might end up being more complicated than that.

(also i just want to be clear that theorizing about why miura had femto rape casca during the eclipse isn’t me saying i think it was a good writing choice. it makes sense in context of berserk’s themes, but that’s bc casca’s character is defined by rape and rape attempts from beginning to end, which sucks)

i feel like the fact that guts sees the band down there, including his pseudo girlfriend, dying horribly and turns away to continue trying to save griffith long after it’s too late should be a bigger thing, both in fandom and in canon

re-reading a few eclipse chapters and it feels so striking to me that casca is down there with judeau and the hawks facing an army of demons while guts is up there with griffith, neither sparing a thought for the other. it feels like a short, rougher and more intense version of casca leading the hawks as outlaws while griffith is being tortured and guts is off trying to become his equal.

except it comes after guts and casca have slept together and seem to be having a thing, which makes it very… stark in the way it completely doesn’t fit into a romantic narrative.

plus you’d think that while guts is bemoaning his own shittiness in abandoning casca for two years and comparing it to leaving griffith in the snow he could spare a thought for that time he left her to fight a hoarde of rapey monsters because he was wrapped up in futilely trying to help griffith.

speaking of the eclipse, griffith is shown this to convince him to sacrifice everyone

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and this is what guts thinks of when he’s reluctantly coming to accept that griffith just agreed to sacrifice them

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Guts remembers Griffith’s willingness to do underhanded shit despite feeling guilty about it, and Griffith remembers Guts telling him to do whatever’s necessary.

and while I think Guts feels guilty for driving Griffith to the point of desperation by leaving him, I don’t think he ever realized the effect his words here had on him. That thread’s probably been dropped by now but man I’d love for him to somehow realize what Griffith’s reaction was.

chaoticgaygriffith:

mastermistressofdesire:

Boy that didn’t work out.

YEAH lol

But this really reminded me of something either bthump or you said (or maybe it was a convo between the two of you? Bad memory sorry) about Guts’ feelings towards Neo-Griffith being complicated bc he still sees old Griffith as a victim of what happened here & still bears (badly repressed) guilt for leaving him.

Yeah I remember we talked about it a bit here, and oh man ia this moment in the movie is so good and rly does get that sense that Griffith is a victim across.

Like idt Guts wanting to save him, even after the sacrifice, means he’s naive. When Guts finally stops hacking away at the egg after remembering Griffith talking about his dream, and thinks “is this what you wanted?” he looks like he’s had the wind taken out of his sails but this is how he pulls away to fight monsters:

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and

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He doesn’t condemn Griffith for choosing his dream over the Hawks. He doesn’t even look angry (except at the Godhand) – he just looks sad.

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Like tbh I can see why Miura had to have Femto go above and beyond in a horrific way (not saying the rape is narratively justified, like torture or some brutal hands-on murder would’ve sufficed but he definitely had to do something cruel) because Guts straight up isn’t mad about the sacrifice, and I for sure think it’s because he feels largely responsible for driving Griffith to that point.

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mastermistressofdesire:

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.

Maybe this sound weird but what do you think of the people who say “I love Griffith because he’s super evil >:)” ?? Like I get why people hate Griffith but I think those Griffith “fans” miss out the whole point..

I think I pretty much agree – idk if I’ve really seen Griffith fans like this myself, but yk I’m sure they’re around.

tbh I feel like a lot of villain fans do this to avoid The Discourse about the ~evils of woobifying~ etc and I understand that. Fandom is fucking weird about moral purity rn and treating fictional characters as if they’re real people, and it’s hard in a lot of fandoms to talk about liking a villain without constantly putting a “BTW I’M NOT APOLOGIZING FOR THEM THEY’RE VERY EVIL AND BAD I JUST ENJOY VILLAINS” disclaimer up every time. So I sympathize w/ that urge. Fandom makes it hard to just enjoy characters without holding them up as either pure as the driven snow or irredeemably evil from birth.

But if they’re genuine about loving Griffith entirely because he’s oh so evil, then of all the antagonists to love Griffith makes v little sense to me bc before he becomes a demon he’s like… fine. He’s not a great person but he’s not a bad person, he has noble intentions, flaws and virtues, he’s a v good well-rounded character. I know a lot of people think Griffith was moustache-twirling evil all along but yk, they’re objectively wrong so lol.

Then after he becomes a demon he’s a petty evil dick for all of two appearances, one of which is a gratuitously depicted, grimdark-drama-for-the-sake-of-drama rape scene, and if that scene is what makes you love Griffith/Femto I’m definitely like gonna side-eye you. And I mean I don’t see anything wrong with liking Femto – I like Femto lol bc his pettiness mixed with inability to kill Guts is extremely amusing to me, plus his makeup is on point (and I love all gnc villains out of spite), but it’s very much despite the rape, not because of it.

And then as NeoGriff he comes back seemingly neutral, fulfilling the subconscious desires of humanity and committing no great acts of evil again. So yeah if you like super evil dark villains Griffith/Femto/NeoGriff is an odd choice to me.

Oh and as an aside I could kind of get liking him for his evil villainry if you liked him as Griffith and then felt personally betrayed when he sacrificed everyone. Like that was gr8 writing and feeling rly pissed off and then impressed by how mad you are, making you like him as a character bc of the emotional ride he took you on, makes sense to me. But I feel like that’s not really what you’re referring to.

So I guess tl;dr my answer boils down to it sounds p silly to me but I guess it depends on their exact reasons lol.

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I think a part of Griffith’s motivation for making the sacrifice is actually Guts’ death tbh.

It’s mostly the guilt trip, but I do think getting to sacrifice Guts along with the rest is a feature, not a bug for him.

Here’s the thing: Griffith is ridiculously in love with Guts. Before the year of torture he was willing to risk his life (and all-consuming dream) for him, Guts made him irrational, Guts leaving him drove him to self-destructive despair, Guts was the only one he shared the dark underbelly of his dream with, etc etc. Like by all metrics, Griffith’s love for Guts was already pretty epic.

Then add a year of torture during which Guts is the only thought that occupies his mind and keeps him sane. Guts is like lightning in his mind and now the dream, which had driven every aspect of his life previously, is dull. Many of his thoughts towards Guts are negative (”sorrow,” and “malice” are some of the words he associates with him eg,) and when he first sees Guts again his immediate reaction is to strangle him.

But all it takes to move his hand from Guts’ throat to Guts’ hand is Guts expressing emotion towards him by crying over him. Like, Guts takes him on a seriously extreme emotional roller coaster.

The moment that finally unlocks the behelit and calls the Godhand down isn’t when he lets go of his dream and it’s not when he thinks Guts is going to leave him again and it’s not when he tries to kill himself. It’s when Guts touches him again after all that. “Never again with you.”

I’ve talked about how I love that before but I’ve never rly said why, and really it’s because I think it shows that what finally truly sends Griffith into despair is knowing how utterly emotionally fucked up he is for Guts. To split hairs, it’s not because he thought Guts would leave him, it’s because he knew that if Guts left it would destroy him. It’s because of how Guts gained “such a strong hold over [him].”

Because he’s irrational, because he’s weak, because Guts overtook the dream by a mile in the last year of torture, because if Guts leaves him Griffith will basically become an empty shell (as we could surmise from Griffith’s vision/dream/hallucination of a future with Casca), because Griffith is so wholly and utterly emotionally dependent on Guts, because even after Guts’ touch makes him feel so much despair the Godhand shows up he reaches to save Guts from falling – that’s what made Guts the person Griffith “loved and hated the most,” to quote the Godhand on a parallel situation.

In that last glimpse Guts sees of Griffith, he’s smiling. I interpret his expression as tender – I’d say there’s love in his eyes – but not regretful or agonized or horrified at himself or the circumstances that caused him to make a choice like this. This is me taking this concept and running with it but I think if it was anyone else in the Band he’d laid eyes on in that moment, he wouldn’t be smiling. He’d probably be unable to look them in the eye, he’d feel ashamed, he’d feel, if not regret, then at least inner conflict and emotional turmoil. But when he sees Guts, he looks serene in his choice.

And I think this is because, like the other sacrifices we see (Count’s wife, Rosine’s abusive parents, Eggman’s world that shunned him, Ganeshka’s assassinating son) Griffith sacrificed Guts because at least part of him wanted Guts gone. Guts was the source of the final nail in the coffin of despair, and Griffith was at the point where a part of him hated Guts because, ironically, he loved Guts so much.

So yeah I don’t think Griffith chose to sacrifice Guts out of malice or jealousy/possessiveness or betrayal exactly, but because he loved him to the point where he couldn’t function without him, and I think he resented (to put it mildly) that dependence. Believing Guts would leave him was his final wake-up call to how lost he was without Guts. So when the Godhand offered him an escape from his despair and a way to cut it off at the source, he agreed.

(Which is not to diminish the driving force of guilt behind his choice, but I don’t think his complicated yet overwhelmingly powerful feelings towards Guts can be disregarded either.)