Like, Guts feeling possessive of
Griffith as a response to Casca telling him that Griffith was
emotionally dependent on him? yk the knowledge that Griffith ended up
in a torture chamber because of him, whether he’s ready to acknowledge
that or not, basically making him feel like he’s allowed to express that
possessiveness bc Griffith has ott feelings for him back? Because if so I could def see that.
We see Guts musing on this fact in the tunnels on the way to Griffith too. I definitely think it’s informing a lot of his behaviour here, and in the lead-up to the Eclipse, maybe not consciously since he keeps trying to bury that realization (because guilt), but definitely subconsciously.
I also think it’s the main source of the rage that fuels his rampage through Midland, killing hundreds of soldiers and a monster. It’s a way of ignoring his guilt by turning the feeling outward onto acceptable targets. You could maybe also add that it’s why he snaps at Casca – he already has the urge to lash out at something, and a minute later the torturer shows up and then he’s able to fully express his feelings lol.
Also plz feel free to explain further if I missed something, I want to know your thoughts and idk if I interpreted what you mean right.
Thank you for this post. (lol I meant to say “Why you SEE it in that way” sorry).
I always saw it in that was as if he didn’t want other people to view and be shocked at what was done to his face.
Either way current Guts wouldn’t hesitate to deform Griffith’s face in an even worse way… I’d fucking love to look at what he does with him when he has the power.
If that’s the impression you get from the manga then fair enough, but that reading never occurred to me until I watched the 3rd ova lol.
And tbh I definitely think Guts would hesitate
Also letting Rickert hold him back on the Hill of Swords, deliberately trying to let go of his desire for revenge for the sake of the Elfhelm trip, and the way he really sucks at finishing this sentence:
The way he separates Griffith from Femto, and usually pictures Femto as an empty faceless exoskeleton.
And only ever expresses longing and regret towards original Griffith:
And NeoGriffith looking “as if he’d been stolen from the past, the way he used to be” throws him completely off because it makes it harder to separate the different versions of him.
Basically imo his feelings towards NeoGriffith are far from simple, and I don’t think he’d find it emotionally easy to kill him.
And moreover his desire to kill is what gives the Beast of Darkness strength, so it’s framed as a negative thing in the story.
If Guts does happily kill NGriff without hesitation, that’ll be a v dark ending that indicates he’s lost his humanity, imo.
there’s something to be said about how this turns into a “men vs women” type of conversation where griffith takes men’s side with his bullshit dream spiel and pretends like it’s this profound thing women will never understand
and by that i mean that it comes off as trying too hard, the same way him talking about what a ‘friend’ is to him comes off as trying too hard. before i was a little hesitant to believe that griffith feels forced into masculine roles rather than choosing to take them bc it’s the fastest way to achieving what he’s trying to achieve, but after re-examining this scene i think i feel a little differently about that
#other ppl’s meta #totally it’s posturing – more for himself than charlotte too #the image that goes with the dream which is (how does this always fit so perfectly) an attempt at a heteronormative masculine ideal #the men are like this stuff fits that so well as does charlotte suggesting ‘family or a sweetheart’ which ofc sums up what griffith #is torn between (‘family’ if you don’t want to be saccharine and include the rest of the hawks he sacrifices) and what guts ends up #abandoning for /his/ dream
@bthump what you said here, “more for himself than charlotte,” that’s exactly what i mean, somehow it didn’t register to me, until today, that the part of this where he puts up a masculine facade is ALSO for himself, and not just for charlotte. you know, when i think @yesgabsstuff and i talked about how griffith would be more feminine without all this bullshit weighing on him, i said i didn’t think his choice to present and act more masculine was one he made out of fear. and i still think that, to an extent, but there’s no denying that he felt forced into that masculine role bc …………… it’s so tightly woven together with his dream. and since it’s something he has to do for the sake of his dream, then fear also has to be involved, even if in a sort of roundabout way. that is to say, i don’t think griffith is afraid of like, getting punched or called a faggot if he wears a dress or w/e. but i think there’s no denying that he is afraid of letting this image falter, and that’s what this is really about
I feel this tbh, like imo Griffith wouldn’t really have a visceral fear for his physical safety, he’s been the best w/ a sword since he was like 10 from all appearances lol, and honestly I feel like as a peasant mercenary with the force of personality he has he would in theory be able to get away with some gnc presentation and attraction to men if all he wanted was to fight and make money. Same way Casca could lead the Hawks even though she’s a woman in the world of Berserk lol.
but his fear of failure is a major aspect – he needs the correct image while climbing higher in society, to achieve his dream.
and also i think he needs the dream to justify hiding behind the image, which is partly what i get out of that speech to charlotte. it reads to me like he’s justifying his dream to himself as worthwhile in and of itself, in a contrast to how he justifies it to himself in the river w/ casca a few chapters later, as something he owes the dead.
idk it all goes into how his dream is a defense mechanism from his self loathing and a way to justify his existence, but he doesn’t think of it that way 99% of the time, he has to see it as inherently worthwhile to avoid acknowledging the actual reason (self-loathing) he’s pursuing it.
and some of that self loathing is guilt, some is a belief of his inherent worthlessness, but some is also connected to his sexuality, both in his traumatic experience with Gennon after which he called himself dirty, and his love for Guts, which is especially shown through how Guts is pitted against his dream and how Guts “made him weak” and his feelings for him led to him losing everything. Griffith’s feelings for Guts are connected to his belief of his inherent worthlessness, because they exist in opposition to his dream. (this is thematic moreso than literal)
So part of his reason for pursing the dream is to bury those parts of himself – like it goes both ways, basically, imo. He has to be a heteronormative masculine ideal for the sake of the dream, but he obsesses over the dream partly as a way to bury the parts of himself that aren’t that ideal?
um i feel like this doesn’t really make sense lol sorry. it’s hard to explain how my brain makes connections sometimes.
yk what’s great about berserk
it’s not just the story of two dudes obsessed with each other and trying to deal w/ that obsession in various stupid ways
it’s the story about a dude whose every plot relevant decision is based on how he thinks another dude feels about him
joining the hawks? dedicating his sword to him and feeling at home? deciding to leave the hawks? deciding to stay again but too late? war declaration followed by a three year monster murder spree? deciding to try really hard to get over his obsession and take casca to elfhelm?
like, when it comes right down to it, griffith’s feelings are the really important ones. they’re the feelings that drive the plot, because guts’ every fucking decision is made based on what he thinks those feelings are. that’s why the golden age revolved around them, and that’s why the current big mystery is “how does neogriffith really feel?”
from back in the black swordsman arc:
to the current decision he’s still on:
and that’s another reason I think NGriff’s beating heart is going to become very relevant to Guts eventually. it’s what berserk is about.
like the ~academic~ way of putting this is that
Berserk is the story of a man’s desire for interpersonal connection due to his abusive childhood, but that keeps coming back to Griffith. He’s the connection Guts wants and later doesn’t want to want. The true light every other light is measured up to.
So yk Berserk is a story about a dude whose motivation is almost solely based around another guy’s apparent feelings or lack thereof for him.
If I was Casca I would’ve just said “he’s leaving because of what you said at the Promrose hall. Goddamn. Now can you two please talk it out because there have obviously been some miscommunication”
Like Casca understands those two perfect and knew why Guts was leaving
When she went to get
Griffith she could’ve literally told him “Guts is leaving. He’s going
because of what you said at the Promrose hall, may be you should pull
him aside and talk to him privately”
Knowing Casca that’s probably something that she did say but Griffith didn’t act upon it because of emotions. Damn emotions
mercenaries gonna mercenary i guess
to be fair I think Casca telling Griffith why Guts wanted to leave would be kind of a betrayal of trust. Guts’ reasons are pretty personal. (ON THE OTHER HAND she had no problem telling Guts all about Griffith’s incredibly personal issues, so lmao that’s kind of an inadequate excuse.)
And tbh I feel like she got Griffith to show up to keep Guts from leaving because she thought they’d be able to talk it out. Honestly I think you’re basically right lol, it’s kind of just plot convenience that she doesn’t tell Griffith why Guts was planning to leave. There’s no real reason for her to hold back.
I definitely don’t think she told Griffith though, based on his inner monologue before the duel and like… idk just from everything I feel I understand about Griffith’s narrative and inner conflicts it makes the most sense for him to take Guts leaving as a rejection. If he knew Guts was leaving because he admired him his reaction would still probably be negative, he might even still just default to challenging Guts to another duel to avoid examining how he actually feels lmao, but I think his thoughts would be very different and I don’t think he’d have a huge breakdown after if that was the case.
Guts, and Griffith, and Judeau, and Pippin, and Corkus:
Because it’s true lol, this is genuinely a conflict they could’ve theoretically fixed by talking it out.
Tho I do think the story really effectively shows us why neither of them are going to talk it out, so it doesn’t feel like… stupidly frustrating the way dumb miscommunication does in fiction. It’s rooted deeply in character – Griffith can’t explain why he needs Guts to stay bc he doesn’t really know, Guts can’t explain why he wants to leave because that defeats the whole purpose, ie:
Like, I’m rearranging my entire life to be your friend based on some weirdly specific criteria you have that I happened to overhear, criteria which explicitly precludes basing your life around another person, so it’s kind of awkward to fully explain.
So even if they did try to talk I could easily see it going nowhere because neither is quite able to explain themselves without additional motivation/understanding/etc. But yk, if they had that motivation and an opportunity to hash it out I could also see them figuring their stuff out, and then their lives would’ve been a lot happier lol.
Like if Casca had resorted to the old “lock them in a room together” sitcom plot lmao.
like idk man I can say that I get why people hate Griffith and say I blame Miura (when the culprit isn’t blatant homophobia) for ppl willfully misinterpreting him because they don’t want to see him as relatable in any way due to the Eclipse rape or whatever, but god it still really bugs me lol. Like read the book! It’s not unclear! It’s not subtext, or even subtle! Saying Griffith didn’t care about Guts is a factually incorrect statement!
Literally the entire point of the Golden Age is that Griffith loved Guts. Like, it’s not just a fun extra detail, it’s built into the fabric of the story, it’s the point the Golden Age exists to make. (Or more accurately it’s the point the Black Swordsman arc exists to make, and the point the Golden Age exists to explore the implications of.) It’s not subtext, subtext comes into it when you’re talking about physical attraction between them, but the genuine and wholehearted love is absolutely undeniable text.
And yeah there does seem to be a lot of fans who think Femto is just Griffith in new suit lol. But yk, also factually incorrect, again this is something Berserk is extremely unsubtle about so it baffles me why so many people fail to understand it lol. Femto = Griffith – positive human traits associated with caring for other people + literal essence of evil. It’s spelled out in the Black Swordsman arc and while Griffith transforms. A fissure into which evil will surge. A heart is frozen. The crystalization of your last tear shed. Their deaths are pouring into me. Strange… I don’t feel anything. etc etc etc. We see him visually losing pieces of himself. We see the blood of the sacrificed feeding Femto as he transforms. The Lost Chapter (tho it’s canonicity is in question tbf) says that Femto’s body is made of the same Evil Side of Humanity that the Idea of Evil is.
I mean basically lol yeah I get you, it’s frustrating.
this is so sweet… thinking bout a disabled post torture griffith and guts having a potential healthy romantic and even sexual relationship when its narratively framed as Bad is hmmm good
another point for griffiths behelit shouldve cascas all along au tbh
lol like i know there’s a million and one ways guts and post-torture griffith living a life together could go wrong but I’m an optimist and I think they could make it work
plus yk a lot of the narrative tension in the lead up to the Eclipse comes from teasing the audience with hope spots, which become meaningless if Guts and Griffith are doomed no matter what. I say they could’ve been happy together.
also lol idgaf what Miura probably intended, griffguts is extraordinarily readable as a story about how two dudes failing to act on their obvious sexual attraction was what ruined everything and it’s more fun that way.
so yeah if griffguts got together the behelit would have to be Casca’s. It’s perfect.
Your writing is so good! I love you brought up Guts tenderness and helping attitude with holding Shizu’s hand. I wonder how much different Gut’s life would be if she lived? He probably would be a Merc still but would he have the same characteristics that attracted Griffith to him?
thank you so much ❤ and yeah I find that moment so touching ngl, it’s such an interesting character establishing moment for Guts, after the Black Swordsman arc especially.
Good question tbh. We know at least some of Gambino’s abusiveness is rooted in blaming Guts for Shizu’s death (he says it’s why he sold him to Donovan), and it also contributed to the rest of the band considering him cursed. Plus yk just having a mother around, assuming Shizu would’ve been an alright mom, and I’m fine with defaulting to assuming parents aren’t going to suck, would probably be a good influence on Guts. So Guts’ issues with feeling like an ousider would be way lessened, probably.
He’d live a much happier life if Shizu never died imo. More love in his life, Gambino as a distant but maybe not actively horrible father figure. I imagine Guts would’ve started learning the sword at a more reasonable age under these circumstances, being mostly raised by Shizu until he’s actually old enough to fight. No oversized sword in this AU.
Also I think his rape trauma is largely responsible for his run directly into danger by himself and then claw his way back out style of fighting. I think it’s how he deals with a deep seated fear that started there (compounded w/ Gambino trying to kill him later too) and that hits him again every time he faces an opponent and makes him want to lash out to a somewhat irrational extent (tho he wouldn’t be conscious of it when it comes to typical human soldiers imo. monsters bring it out more). Hence things from pre-emptively charging the ram knights as a one-man army to insisting on taking wyald one on one.
So yeah without that trauma I think he would be much chiller on the battlefield. He wouldn’t be as strong as he is, or as driven, or as singular, and he might not’ve caught Griffith’s eye at all. Though I like to think there still would’ve been that spark between them. But they would lose that two lonely dudes finding their loneliness eased around each other vibe. Also Guts would probably not be as desperate for attention, though he might still be a little, since lbr Gambino wouldn’t be a doting parent under any circumstances.
I mean okay I guess I gotta admit that 99% of Guts’ character stems from his childhood and Gambino’s treatment of him, so if that changed, anything and everything could be different, and his relationship with Griffith especially is informed by his shitty childhood imo.
So even if Gambino and Shizu both died b4 he was 15 and he ended up with the Hawks anyway, I feel like his relationship with Griffith just wouldn’t have that intensity. He wouldn’t feel driven to be his equal and have him look at him, Griffith saying he wants him wouldn’t affect him much, Griffith saving him from Zodd wouldn’t have the same impact, same w/ Guts finding a new family with the Hawks, etc etc.
(Maybe this would be good actually lol. I could see this version of Guts telling Griffith what he needed to hear in Tombstone of Flame, eg. And he wouldn’t leave the Hawks even if he did overhear the Promrose speech. He’d probably be more in a position to recognize that Griffith isn’t so much admirable as fucked up. And he’d be more likely to actually apply Casca’s story about him to what he thinks he knows about Griffith and reach a greater understanding of him, when not blinded by a desperate need to be loved.)
Well there’s no proof, in the sense of like a definitive statement, because I think the point of NeoGriffith’s narrative right now is that it’s ambiguous. We’re being teased with the possibility, but Griffith is using the fetus as a scapegoat and excuse to ignore his feelings, and it’s technically left up in the air as to whether that’s true or whether Griffith is in denial. The reader is meant to be uncertain right now.
That said, I’m gonna give two reasons I’m 110% certain NGriff’s feelings are legit:
the first is straight up the entirety of Berserk lmao. Guts and Griffith’s feelings for each other are the core of the story, the driving thrust of every aspect of the narrative, from the Black Swordsman arc’s climactic reveal of those feelings, to the Golden Age’s exploration of them, to the Millenium Falcon arc’s tension as Guts tries to let go of those feelings and NeoGriffith’s feelings are left very pointedly ambiguous.
Like, even when Guts chooses Casca in the MF arc, his choice to stick with Casca is framed as the alternative to his feelings for Griffith. Those feelings drive Guts, whether it’s in feeling like he’s found the place where he belongs, striving to feel like he’s earned Griffith’s friendship, striving to hunt him down and kill him, or striving to escape his feelings.
You cannot write a story about those feelings, make Griffith’s choice to escape those feelings the epic climax of his narrative, then tease that those feelings may still exist only to go ‘psyche it’s actually just the unrelated feelings of a fetus.’ You can use the fetus to keep things ambiguous until the big reveal, but you can’t have the fetus be the reveal. it would be comedically absurd.
But the second reason is the visual details of two scenes:
Femto, completely pre-fetus, letting Guts go. These are Griffith’s feelings, maybe not entirely wiped away because Guts managed to survive the sacrifice, but for whatever reason, they’re there, and they’re still making him do irrational stupid shit for Guts.
We know Femto didn’t let Guts escape because he needed two people w/ brands of sacrifice and a fetus as part of a grand plan to resurrect himself three years later because we see that he has intent to kill. He tried to kill Skull Knight who narrowly dodged the telekinetic attack, and he’s raised his hand to attack again here, only to lower it after a close up specifically of Guts, the dude Griffith does stupid irrational shit for.
Then we close this moment with a distant shot of Femto from a high angle (used to make the subject appear weak/small/vulnerable) as a smear on the background, surrounded by monsters, perfectly evoking a feeling of isolation. This is what Griffith is left with after purposefully destroying his relationship with Guts – nothing but his own monstrousness.
This moment is followed through subtlely but consistently throughout NGriff’s narrative, in the way he’s portrayed as unknowable, distant, singular. He’s the absolute, without equal, and, in the context of Berserk’s themes, that’s just a grandiose way of saying he’s alone after sacrificing Guts.
The other of the two scenes is:
NeoGriffith has come to see Guts specifically to test whether anything can shake his heart. “It seems I am free,” he declares smugly. Then he watches Guts fight (and it’s v worth noting that his very first entranced glimpse of Guts back in chapter 12 was while observing another fight against a bigger stronger opponent, Guts throwing himself into danger then struggling his way out), and feels his heart start to stir after all.
“uhhhh that’s gotta be that fetus” thinks Griffith. Next page:
Like, everything about this says Griffith is lying to himself, at least where Guts is concerned. This is the page that inspired my url for a reason lol.
The positioning – Griffith left, fetus vs Guts right. Fetus is Griffith’s thoughts/hope, Guts is what’s right in front of him in reality.
The fact that this is the final page of the chapter, so it has a feeling of conclusiveness to it. Griffith is a champ at denial, but reality is still reality.
the “……..” “bthump,” that practically reads like a taunt.
The fact that Griffith deliberately came to face Guts to test himself, then his heart went off! Like I said at the start, there’s no way you make these dudes’ feelings the core of Berserk, have Griffith fail his own test of whether he successfully got rid of his, then say “lol it’s not really his feelings though.”
Liiiiike from a pure storytelling perspective, this scene is emotionally pointless if it ends up being the fetus after all.It may be significant to the plot eventually – I wouldn’t be surprised if it is to blame for Griffith saving Casca, even if I think that’s dumb as fuck lol – but the emotional purpose of this scene is to tease the audience.
Guts is unaware of Griffith’s heart doing anything so it’s meaningless to his emotional state and decisions.
It’s only meaningful to the audience, and only because we are invested in Griffith’s feelings after the Golden Age – we want Griffith to fail his test. “I am free” is disappointing, “my blood should have been frozen” is intriguing.
Griffith has dismissed his feelings by blaming them on the fetus, and if he’s right, then this scene is meaningless to him.
And if it turns out to be the fetus after all, it’s meaningless to us too.
Also I feel ridic doing this lol but I have such a huge backlog of posts by now that it almost seems like a waste not to link some when relevant, so for ~further reading~ lmao:
hill of swords sets up the ideal climactic griffguts drama so perfectly that it’s ridic
Guts: conflicted because he desperately misses Griffith, the way he was back when all Guts wanted was for Griffith to look at him (value him, love him). He maintains his rage by separating Griffith now from Griffith then, and NeoGriffith’s existence makes it that much harder.
That same beating heart?
Griffith: has failed to completely eradicate his past self.
Like, that’s the two important emotional points this scene sets up: Guts conflicted about killing NeoGriffith because he’s reminded of human Griffith, and NeoGriffith evidencing human Griffith’s emotions.
You can’t write this without intending to pay it off by forcing Guts to square with the fact that there’s still some of his Griffith remaining in NeoGriffith. This absolutely requires a future moment where Guts and NeoGriffith confront each other and Guts realizes that NGriff is still in love with him.
Ofc this could lead to like, a final test of Guts’ obsession with Griffith which he then passes by killing him anyway or something like that. But if the narrative turns back to Guts and Griffith focused on each other rather than Guts and Griffith steadfastly focused on their goals in their mutual attempt to get over each other it could lead to some excellently hightened, resonant emotions during their final confrontation.
Plus it’s worth noting that Guts’ obsession with Griffith which he’s trying to drop is an obsession with killing him – that’s what leads him to darkness – while this conflict between Griffith now and Griffith then makes Guts forget his urge to kill. So yk, if Miura’s theoretical not super bleak ending involves Guts not succumbing to his inner darkness and urge to kill, this conflict might actually facilitate that happyish ending.
Or maybe this is irrelevant and it’s all the fetus anyway and NGriff is fully removed from human Griffith’s emotions so Guts can kill him completely sans internal conflict and then ride off into the sunset lol. Or maybe the perfectly on point emotional content is an accidental side-effect of just establishing NGriff’s plot-point weakness.
Guts’ slow realization that
he had Griffith on a completely unrealistic pedestal and
destroyed him because of his belief that Griffith is distant and untouchable and above him is perfectly mirrored, foreshadowed, and summed up by this statement of Casca’s:
Except yk Guts never gets that moment of realization that his feelings have a sexual component.
And it’s just so easy to read this as a statement on that lol, on how if Guts did have that realization maybe the fact that Griffith isn’t a god would’ve followed. Or if he’d had another few minutes between this
and the Eclipse.
Like I’m js you equate removing Griffith from his pedestal and seeing him as a fallible human to recognizing your buried attraction to him w/ one character, I’m obviously going to follow that thread through to the other character and his paralleled feelings towards Griffith.
This parallel/contrast is a great little illustration of the significance of the Zodd encounter.
Cuddling with his sword the way he did as a child when faced with mistrust and derision vs dedicating his sword to Griffith – in the first his sword is a comfort object, an escape, a distraction. In the second his sword is a tool – he’s not wielding it as a distraction from his own pain, he’s wielding it for someone else, as a symbol of a meaningful connection with another person.
It’s also worth noting that right before the conversation with Griffith, Guts was angrily swinging his sword as a distraction while remembering Casca making him feel like an outsider (”you’re just a mad dog!” “it’s your fault!”), essentially underlining this contrast between the way Guts regards his sword before and after Griffith says he saved his life for his sake.
And check out these matching visuals of Guts looking at his blistered hands, just to drive the point home:
lol tbh I’ve been overthinking this question which is why it took me a while to answer. Like, weighing pros and cons, does the Eclipse rape count as bad character writing for Griffith/Femto/NGriff or does it at least make sense as long as you accept Miura’s premise that people’s inner darknesses are gonna be rapists 99% of the time, or is it a mistake that reflects on the character writing because of the weird tonal issues it raises with NGriff’s narrative? Like, is it a flaw more because it disaligns the way the author wants to portray Griffith vs the way the audience responds to Griffith? How is that weighted against Guts losing so much of what made him interesting through sometimes good, sometimes poor character development? If it’s believable character development is becoming less interesting still a flaw or just like, my opinion man?
And honestly fuck all that, idc. Griffith is the best written character because his highs are higher and more consistent and I find his lows easier to ignore bc they’re wrapped up in other bad writing, and there’s no way to give an objective answer to this anyway so I might as well let my opinions fly and gush for a while.
I just love his narrative.
From his first appearance as Femto taunting Guts by saying he’s beneath his notice to the hints that he certainly didn’t always feel that way to the first flashback of Griffith telling Guts he’s “the first person I’ve ever spoken to like this,” he’s introduced in such an interesting, intriguing way. Then in the Golden Age the way his apparent easy superiority and confidence eventually gives way to the reveal that he’s a giant mess of insecurities and guilt – and the way this reveal sheds so much interesting light on everything that came before, like his dream speech to Charlotte, his “I will choose the place where you die” speech to Guts, risking his life to save Guts, asking Guts to assassinate Julius, etc.
And the way all these apparent contradictions manage to come together to perfectly depict a man who hides behind an image so well that he believes the act himself, except in occasional moments of vulnerability when the truth seeps out.
Like there are so many interesting subtleties to dig into and so many contradictions to navigate but at the same time this one page tells you everything you really need to know to understand him:
This is a dude who will prostitute himself to a pedophile to prevent as many deaths as possible and then the next morning claim he doesn’t feel responsible for those deaths.
He will bury his guilt so hard that his reaction to a kid’s convenient death is triumphant delight, and then fret about killing hired goons and ask if Guts thinks he’s cruel, because Charlotte/his dream reinforces his image – his conviction – and Guts/love unravels it.
Also like, in general it’s fantastic how our impression of Griffith begins with the impression he leaves on everyone:
and then that is like, turned over and examined in the way Miura does, by showing how fucked up you have to be to embody a cool fictional archetype. (Incidentally I love how he does this with Guts’ antiheroism too. Like, hey turns out you gotta have a pretty fucked up life to become a cool monster fighting badass. tho even so Griffith’s is a little better imo because we spend more time with the image before revealing what’s underneath, whereas Guts didn’t even get a full chapter of tricking the audience into thinking he’s just a surly badass b4 the cracks started appearing.)
THEN his feelings for Guts come into it and complicate everything and we’re shown that there’s an internal war in Griffith between Guts and the dream that Griffith himself doesn’t even seem to realize until it’s too late. Which is just delightful bc god knows my favourite literary device is dramatic irony and idk if knowing more about Griffith’s inner conflicts than Griffith himself understands counts but damn it’s fun. And the moment when he does finally acknowledge it (”as he shines so glaring within me… the junk grows dull.”) is just intensely satisfying because we’ve been waiting for it since at least Casca’s “it’s as if… as if…” in chapter 18.
And the way everything cumulates so utterly perfectly in the sacrifice. Everything we see, everything in Griffith’s narrative, every moment leads directly to “I sacrifice,” and it all fits together immaculately. The dream as a defense mechanism, guilt, shame, emotional denial, “take all the frightening and sad things and cast them into the fire,” his desperate search for like, absolution, the way in the build up to the eclipse he’s stripped of everything he ever relied on as a defense, fucking love as the determining factor
the fact that he’s not sacrificing guts because he values the dream more, he’s sacrificing guts because he values guts more. like that’s just so fucking good, come on.
Honestly, Femto and NeoGriffith are both great as symbols too – Femto as everything Griffith was ashamed of but without the shame; NGriff as pure conviction, as the perfect image with none of the driving guilt. I can’t exactly say they’re great characters since the whole point of them is that they’re not fleshed out or relatable or understandable as humans one can empathize with, but they’re great conceptually. It’s cool to see the fully fleshed out, contradictory Griffith and then see him divided and carved up into representational aspects of himself.
Also the few hints of more are super satisfying with the full weight of Griffith’s human narrative behind them – Femto letting Guts escape, the unfrozen heartbeat, you know what I’m about.
And idk at the end of the day with Griffith Miura successfully (IMO) depicted a dude who would choose to sacrifice a group of people I really liked and become a demon for the greater good, for petty reasons, and out of fear of his own feelings, all at the same time, and make me empathize with that decision, and that seems like it would be hard to do. I mean granted, I’m in the minority when it comes to empathizing with him, but idk I can only answer this from my perspective lol.
Anyway to wrap this up I’m plugging this thing again because really could I have ever given any answer other than “the dude whose character arc I wrote over fifteen thousand words about”?
There’s always a chance. I mean I don’t think he’s going to go yes homo, but I definitely think there’s a strong possibility that Guts is gonna die single and thinking about Griffith.
I am trying to brace myself for disappointment ofc. I mean you’re right, the rpg group constantly succeeding in all they do and never having actual problems narrative has been going on for 150 chapters now so banking on the results of their quest being tragedy (ie Casca gets her mind back, proceeds to fuck shit completely up) is, yk, not a sure thing. the power of friendship could come through again and Guts and Casca could reunite happily, and if that happens I’ll finally give up on my optimism lol.
But til then I think there’s a good chance that all this awful harem vibe shit is a prelude to tragedy and disillusionment (not that that makes it better, but yk at least it would mean it ends), and the narrative is going to refocus back onto Guts and Griffith’s unconcluded story. That’s p much what I mean by suggestive climax – Guts and Griffith confronting each other at the climax of the story, emotions running high, allusions to their emotionally intimate history and the way they’re each still “the only one,” “the true light” for the other despite both trying so so hard to cut the other out lol.
Yk, finally dealing with the shit they’re avoiding by focusing on a kingdom/forcing Casca’s mind back, and cathartically reconciling the fact that they’re simultaneously fated enemies and true lights. Probably right before one or the other dies.
here have some optimistic picspam under the cut:
me: tbh guts’ sad wistfulness and his inability to hate griffith for sacrificing him to the point where femto had to do something ridiculously ott just to piss him off was a terrible writing choice and completely flattens guts as a character post-eclipse while contradicting like half of the black swordsman arc
also me:
i
love
this
tragic
romance
As a sacrificial offering for the Invocation of Doom, not just any lump of flesh and blood will do. It must be someone important to you, part of your soul… someone so close to you that it’s almost like giving up a part of you.
I mean, that’s like… I was gonna say ‘fair’ but it’s not rly fair to you lol, you shouldn’t feel guilty about liking a good super interesting relationship just bc the mangaka thinks gratuitious rape and rape attempts are gr8 ways to illustrate evil. It makes sense to feel that way, but yk, it sucks.
So like I know it’s easy to say “idc bc it’s fiction” and that probably doesn’t help you because you already know it’s fiction. But I do think it’s good to bear in mind that the only person who has any say in what happens to Casca in the story is Miura, so you shouldn’t feel guilty for enjoying some elements of his story just because he likes to go full grimdark at other times.
Also like, while I personally am fine with just saying “it’s fiction so idgaf, I’ll take what I like and dismiss what I don’t,” it doesn’t work for everyone, but an extra like… point that might help you reconcile liking characters who do terrible things is that these two terrible things in particular are bad and genuinely offensive writing lol.
Like it’s probably easier to say “fuck the Eclipse rape idc” when you see it as hugely gratuitous, offensively depicted, contradictory in some ways to earlier canon***, wholly unnecessary, thematically muddy, and kind of disturbingly downplayed in the future for the sake of depicting NeoGriffith as a morally ambiguous hero of his own story (and Miura has straight up said that NGriff is supposed to be morally ambiguous and heroic depending on your pov lol).
Guts sexually assaulting Casca is also unnecessary (trying to murder her seems like it would be a sufficient illustration of darkness), super misogynist in that we’re still supposed to support Guts afterwards and sympathize with him and his guilt moreso than Casca, not to mention homophobic since it’s all about his (super suggestively described by the hound) feelings for Griffith.
So yk, these things may be canon but they suck and if dismissing them makes me enjoy the story more that seems like the best course of action.
And finally, if none of that helps at all, it’s worth taking into account that these are Griffith and Guts’ magical evil alter egos at work. Canonically Femto is the worst aspects of Griffith, magnified by literal evil, with the rest of him burned or shattered away. The last thing Griffith did as a character was sacrifice the Hawks. Everything else has just been a magically augmented part of him.
Guts’ Beast of Darkness similarly is part of Guts, not all of him, and it’s also given strength by Guts’ existence on the interstice, thanks to the Brand. That’s why Flora’s magic seal of protection on the brand helped like, metaphorically chain it up in Guts’ subconscious.
One of Berserk’s main thematic points is that everyone has an inner darkness in them, it’s part of being human, so it’s not that Guts and Griffith are singled out as extra evil.
As pure unmagical humans, Guts and Griffith are just interesting complicated people, neither saints nor demons, with an intense relationship, and imo there’s plenty of room for fluffy content between them pre-Eclipse, or in an AU. I mean canon has them bond during a naked waterfight lol, you know there are a ton of cute off-screen moments between them just waiting to be depicted in fanworks.
(With the caveat that Miura’s misogyny sometimes still shows through, eg Griffith’s night with Charlotte which is narratively treated as consensual even though she says “no” first (typical bodice ripper shit), or Guts sexually assaulting Casca by grabbing her boob to distract her during an argument which is treated as cute rather than fucked up. But yk, welcome to Berserk. Miura sucks.)
***eg in v brief one thing that bothers me is that in the Black Swordsman arc
it was strongly implied that Guts’ reaction to whatever made him so
angry at Griffith/Femto was paralyzing fear, whereas during the Eclipse
all we see is violent rage
ty! God I really, really want Guts to be shown as Griffith’s equal at some point. I feel like it’s the only way to satisfactorily conclude their whole… thing. Guts letting go of the desire to be Griffith’s equal just isn’t satisfying to me.
But that said I don’t think becoming an apostle is the way to do it. For that literal equality Guts would have to become a Godhand, and unless there’s a 200+ year timeskip after Elfhelm that’s not possible according to the rules of the world. An apostle is a follower of NeoGriff so becoming one wouldn’t make him Griffith’s equal, it would put him back in that position of looking up at him/feeling looked down on.
Ofc one could say that those technical details don’t really matter, what matters is that Griffith succumbed to his superpowered dark side so if Guts does then that’s still equality in a sense, even if he’s a “lesser” monster. But then, he has the armour to represent his dark side, which makes the behelit kind of superfluous now, and it’s been foreshadowed a lot that he’s going to lose himself to the armour at some point.
And since it’s suggested that Skull Knight became a walking skeleton because he succumbed to the amour himself, I think it’s a lot more likely that we’ll get more Skull Knight comparisons and there will at least be a danger of Guts becoming like him – powerful but… lacking humanity I guess, if he doesn’t overcome the armour. And that could potentially lead to ~the beast of darkness~ and ~the hawk of light~ regarding each other as equals in a confrontation.
BUT! What I want more than that is acknowledgement that all these standards of literal equality are essentially a smokescreen obscuring what actually made them equal from the beginning, which is the fact that they both loved each other and they were both emotionally vulnerable w/ the other. So honestly acknowledgement that they’re still hung up on each other despite everything is what would work best here imho.
Guts learns that NGriff failed his test on the Hill of Swords and started getting emotional about Guts again, and NGriff learns that in addition to hate Guts still feels residual love, and guilt and regret etc. Followed by an emotionally charged third duel, their strengths (magic superpower, inner darknesses, fate vs not being beholden to fate, whatever) and weaknesses (emotions, love and regret) equally matched.
I will never be over the way these two monologues play off each other as a point, counterpoint.
ohhh man re-reading those chapters in particular and like
there’s such a clear little mini-arc. This isn’t brand new information at all, but I love seeing it laid out like this so I’m going to talk about it.
Chapter 6 starts with Guts trying to visit Griffith while brooding about Casca’s “it’s your fault!”
He’s prevented by social status.
Casca punches him out and Guts leaves and sulks, and the rest of the Hawks have this exchange:
So we start with the statement that everyone’s feeling a little distanced from Griffith thanks to his promotions, and this is very much affecting Guts too, which is why he threw a couple guards down the stairs and made an ass of himself while trying to visit him.
Then we go straight to Guts angrily swinging his sword on the staircase.
He’s pissed off about Casca making him feel like an outsider. This is a dude who has clearly defined issues when it comes to being blamed for bad shit happening. See, eg, Gambino blaming him for the death of Shizu, calling him “cursed,” along with the rest of his first mercenary band.
Three years with the Hawks, and Guts is mostly content and happy, but there’s still this doubt, still this sense that he’s a little on the outside looking in, a little distanced, and Griffith more recently drifting away from everyone puts that background feeling into sharp relief. This is why we begin our narrative, after the three year gap, when Griffith gets promoted into the nobility.
Guts angrily swinging his sword, alone, probably brooding over Casca accusing him of not caring about his comrades since this scene is placed right after that confrontation, while Griffith gets promoted, rising away from him.
Chapter six returns us to Guts swinging his sword angrily and alone while brooding over his feelings of being an outsider. His place is with the Hawks, but is it really? When it’s “his fault” Griffith nearly died, when he’s accused of not caring about anyone but himself?
And then Griffith seeks him out, joining Guts at the midpoint of a staircase, for that extra bit of symbolism.
He talks about how much he hates the other nobles, talks about how nightmarish their encounter with Zodd was, but how it was also interesting theologically lol. A bit of philosophy, a bit of personal connection and emotional opening up. Guts asks the question.
And the turn of this little mini-arc is, of course, this:
The end of chapter six.
It’s Griffith completely assuaging those fears of being an outsider, of losing him to the nobles, of being looked-down on. It’s Griffith negating his deep-seated belief that his only worth is as an asset.
Three years ago Guts began this sentence:
And now, in chapter seven, he’s finally reached a place where he can finish it.
Idk basically this is the pinnacle of Guts’ search for belonging, and I love how well it’s built up to by emphasizing Guts’ outsider status first, through Casca’s angry tirades and through Griffith’s promotions.
Which ofc also provides a solid foundation for the dissolving of Guts’ feeling of personal fulfillment in another few chapters. Honestly it provides a solid foundation for literally everything that comes after. This is the skeletal structure of Berserk – Guts’ longing for love and acceptance vs Guts never quite feeling like he has it. Except right here and right now.
“Even so, incidentally, I found someone I really wanted… to have look at me.”
That feeling goes as easily as it came, with a few words, but it’s what motivates Guts at least until chapter 130 (potentially til chapter 182), after which trying to forget that feeling and focus on what he does have is what motivates him (”I came this far by letting go of my obsession…”) And we’ll see how that goes.
vs
of only 10 chapters previous
I think it’s really cool that Berserk is basically taking this theme of darkness/light, isolation/connection, and portraying it on both an interpersonal scale and a like, grandiose cosmic scale.
With Ganeshka and Griffith the darkness is the isolation of being singular, unknowable even to oneself, and the light is another being existing on the same plane as you, seeing the world the same way as you, seeing you as you truly are. This sense of cosmic understanding.
With Guts and Griffith there’s nothing objectively grandiose or cosmic about it, it’s just a relationship between two dudes that fell apart and still haunts both of them. But their connection is meaningful enough to them that existing without the other is comparable to being a solitary eldrich abomination who can barely even perceive others.
Griffith’s existence as a monster “beyond the reach of man” is basically a symbol of choosing to isolate yourself rather than surrendering to the vulnerability of loving and being loved, and that’s underscored at the climax of the Millenium Falcon arc just as he achieves his dream (both through that moment of connection up there and through Ganeshka’s backstory of paranoia feeding into isolation which is placed right before that moment).
Like for real, all this untouchable, unknowable, eldrich abomination jesus figure stuff is essentially a metaphor for Guts and Griffith breaking up.
And like, I always get a huge kick out of this concept of playing with scales when it comes to interpersonal connection. This isn’t a groundbreaking thing, this is a relatively common fantasy friendship/romance trope – yk the world only gets saved after the couple confesses their feelings, love is the key to achieving X goal, a single person can’t do the magic thing but when their friends join/support them they can do it, Spock running away from his feelings for Kirk is a parallel to a godlike machine’s inability to understand emotion, etc etc etc.
And Griffith and Guts’ moments of connection are like finding the one being you can see and understand in a world of isolation, and losing that is like becoming a monster in a sea of darkness. See also: the Black Swordsman arc and the Berserk armour for a slightly more down-to-earth fantasy metaphor.
yk what this is what Berserk is about. Like if I had to pick one image to encapsulate Berserk, this is what I’d go with.
The Black Swordsman arc builds up to a reveal that Guts’ revenge-y feelings are a giant mishmash that confuses tf out of Puck because this is how he used to feel about Griffith, and his original feelings for Griffith are still tangled up in his current feelings.
Like, kind of the point of the Black Swordsman arc is to start with this one dimensional portrayal of rage and then unravel and unravel that until all of Guts’ various issues are laid out.
These mixed feelings are the big reveal of the first arc. Our look into Guts’ childhood right after deepens our understanding of these mixed feelings, but it’s his feelings towards Griffith that wholly drive the plot, not his feelings towards Gambino. Then the entire Golden Age continues to deepen our understanding of Guts’ mixed feelings. Like pretty much the whole point of the story up until we pick back up with Guts in the Lost Children Arc is to illuminate the complexity of Guts’ feelings towards Griffith (and vice versa) now that they’re enemies. It’s to build that foundation.
And anyway I guess my point is that with all this attention and time devoted to these painfully mixed feelings, if the ultimate resolution of the story is Guts straight up dropping/moving on from those feelings rather than finally untangling and examining them, that will essentially be a deeply unsatisfying betrayal of the first hundred or so chapters.
But hey the ominous foreshadowing’s got my back at least.
berserk is the story of two dudes who keep trying and failing to not be obsessed with each other, taking more and more drastic and destructive measures each time, and still fucking failing to get over their mutual obsession
griffith: focuses on his dream, still risks everything to save guts’ life multiple times
guts: separates himself from the hawks, tries not to focus on the fact that it’s all to be griffith’s friend
griffith: has sex as a distraction from guts leaving him; cries and ends up in a dungeon where he thinks about nothing but guts for a year
guts: has sex as a distraction from breaking griffith’s heart; eventually has to face the fact that he screwed up and decides to abandon his dream and stay with griffith. leads to obsessively pursuing him in a rage for 2-3 years.
griffith: becomes a demon to try to get over guts; next time he sees him with a corporeal form he starts getting heart palpitations
guts: focuses on restoring casca’s sanity and making new friends, doing his damndest to ignore griffith’s existence
ominous foreshadowing:
ok so in my defense i hadn’t read this full scene in ages, i only referred back to the saved pages i had which didn’t include the context, which is why i didn’t realize until now exactly why the beast of darkness phrased it as “true light” here
but now i have read the full scene again and i have the context and i’m fucking dying lol
griffith is the true light in comparison to the warm lights that are his current companions, like, fuck me that’s good.
that’s so so good
like yeah i already knew light often refers to companionship and love in berserk but to have that explicitly laid out right before griffith is called guts’ “true light” is so fucking satisfying i can’t handle it.
like there you go, griffith is still the bar by which all other relationships are not just measured but found wanting. as much as guts talks about “letting go” of his obsession the longing is always there.
and like “the true light that burns us,” is literally saying that guts still loves griffith, still “longs for” griffith, and that hurts now, and that’s his motivation for wanting to lash out and kill him. it’s a bit of a repeat of what the bod told him after the hill of swords, but more direct.
lmao i may be a little overenthusiastic about this but reading the full scene literally just made me go from fear that guts is genuinely just going to move on and that will be his happy ending, to feeling like there’s no way we’re not getting a cathartic emotional climax that involves guts finally forced to confront his conflicting feelings.
LIKE!! if it was just “true light” I’d be willing to entertain the idea that it’s just revenge, framed as a dream, in opposition to his companions, the way Griffith’s castle was also a source of light to him. but “true light that burns us”? That’s Guts’ lingering, now intensely painful feelings. That’s love. That’s something he’s gonna have to deal with at some point.
um guts u sure you’re not projecting a little
like casca’s not the only one who got all self destructive while thinking about griffith my dude
anyway i don’t think we’re meant to take guts’ statement up there without a hefty grain of salt considering guts immediately proceeds to have a flashback and talking about his dead father figure makes him feel better, and also considering that in a few days guts embraces the exact opposite point of view when he decides to stay and take care of griffith despite judeau basically repeating this sentiment to him
and also it’s callous as shit and pretty much tells us that guts is in full denial mode here while fucking casca
in fact it’s kind of similar to
oh holy shit and look at this, which i hadn’t even noticed til rn:
like we all accept and understand that Griffith is projecting when he tells Charlotte to ignore the sad shit, but SO IS GUTS!
and ACTUALLY yeah i’ll do this whole thing right now: Griffith fucking Charlotte and Guts fucking Casca are both attempts to deny their feelings for each other after being made painfully aware of those feelings
Griffith being left in the snow by Guts, and Guts learning about Griffith’s consequent crashing and burning – and specifically being stabbed by Casca while she screams that he broke Griffith
Both deny their feelings in like, a self harming manner. Sex with Charlotte is itself an act of self-destruction, while Guts just lets himself be stabbed first while denying any guilt in a disturbingly detached way
And additionally both these sexual encounters revolve around their respective dreams. Charlotte is a clear representation of Griffith’s dream and fucking her is his way of attaining it, just very badly timed due to being completely emotionally fucked up.
And Guts’ brief relationship with Casca represents his dream to an extent as we see when he compares her to his sword in his inner monologue after sex, when she’s the one he directs his whole promrose hall-y dream monologue to, when he invites her along with the caveat that she doesn’t get in the way of his dream, and when she tells him to leave to pursue his dream at the worst possible moment.
Griffith couldn’t manage to deny his feelings for very long, breaking down after Charlotte falls asleep, while Guts manages to hold out for a few days, and I’d say finally fully stops denying his feelings when he conclusively realizes he shouldn’t’ve left. “Why do I always see these things after they’re done and gone?”
basically i think guts and
griffith have parallel arcs wrt coming to terms with their particular
relationship and realizing they both value that relationship more than
their respective dreams, and both those arcs involve trying to use het
sex as a distraction before facing the music.
lol i posted the whole scene bc the context makes it better, but Griffith’s expression in this panel in particular is underappreciated.
right after guts calls him out on lying 3 years ago and before he turns away, smiles, and throws out the appropriately vague ‘no reason in particular’ denial.
like he’s uncomfortable at being called out on his distancing bullshit lol. this combined with “for your sake” *smoulder* seems like a good example of griffith being unaware of his own feelings. like i always feel like that moment, the bedroom eyes, the “for your sake,” nearly contradicts my reading of griffith as totally in denial and unaware that he’s in love, because it’s so pointed lol. it’s hard for me to read that moment and come away thinking griffith is unaware that he’s in love.
but i mean if that’s the case then griffith’s discomfort right before that is less of a “shit he’s got a point, why the hell did i save him?” and more of an “i know why i saved him and i resent my inconvenient feelings.”
Which doesn’t work because he does get genuine and personal enough immediately after for Guts to take it as a sign that he’s found the place where he belongs. It would be weird for Griffith to be thinking “because I love you(/feel very strong feelings towards you) and that could ruin everything” right before saying “for your sake” and giving him that sultry look.
so “for your sake” *smoulder* could just be a genuine expression of feelings regardless of whether he fully understands them. like it doesn’t have to be deliberate, it could just be an accidentally revealing choice of phrasing. i mean like, that’s how i default to reading it anyway, i just think that panel of griffith’s contemplative frowny face backs me up.
idk i’m just kinda bored rn and thinking outloud rly.
Yeah like, in canon they are surprisingly physical with each other. Or at least it surprises me on re-read how many of their significant relationship moments not just include but revolve around and specifically highlight physical touch.
Like from Griffith grabbing Guts’ face like he’s going to pull him into a kiss after defeating him in a physical fight to Griffith’s “if you touch me now…” moment of reality-breaking despair, touch is portrayed as a really significant component of their relationship.
Actually to get on my meta shit real quick, check out their first interactions. First Griffith shoving Casca at Guts, explicitly because she’s the only woman around and only a woman can cuddle naked with a dude (and damn if her first appearance doesn’t define her role in the story to a tee). Next, they duel with swords. Extensions of themselves, but not their actual physical bodies. Then they lose their swords and end up physically grappling with each other, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m wracking my brain and I’m pretty sure this is the only time we’ve ever seen either of them fight without weapons.
Which leads to this:
Their first meeting has the sense of an inevitable, physical pull between them imo, and that is a constant of their relationship.
And their mutual desire for physical contact can only be satisfied when they have the pretense of guys being dudes to fall back on lol. A fight, in this case. In other cases it’s saving each others’ lives, and supporting each other while injured mainly, and sometimes casual friendly touches, like Guts’ hand on Griffith’s shoulder which gains significance during Griffith’s torture chamber monologue.
When they don’t have that pretense available, when sex inevitably comes into the equation, that’s when Casca or Charlotte comes between them as outlets for those decidedly non platonic feelings, as The Designated Socially (and psychologically thanks to trauma) Acceptable Woman.
(I’d elaborate on that but like, I talk about Casca as an emotional and physical bridge between them a lot and have at least one giant thorough post about it. And Charlotte is just obvious. I figure we’re all on the same page here.)
Idk it’s not like they touch in every scene they’re in or anything, more that most of their intensely emotional and narratively significant scenes either involve touch in significant ways, or the very pointed absence of it (eg Guts reaching out towards Griffith as he transforms before pulling his hand away and turning to fight apostles. Or, yk, Griffith straight up thinking about Guts at the exact moment of penetration during the Charlotte sex scene, which I still can’t believe happened. Stuff like that lol).
So while I think them being physically drawn to each other and wanting to touch is v in character, and I can easily imagine them brushing shoulders, casually grabbing arms or w/e to get the others’ attention, back and shoulder pats, arm wrestling, play fighting, etc etc, and I think there’s plenty of indication that they probably find excuses to touch a lot, more importantly I think the narrative is telling us that physical touch is a significant aspect of their expression of feelings for each other regardless of how often they might actually get touchy feely.
ANYWAY i’m realizing that i have like fifty million things to say on this topic so I’m going to write more posts later. For now I’ll get into the headcanony stuff.
So basically I think that they absolutely would get v awkward and kind of shy about touch after acknowledging that their feelings are sexual. Suddenly they realize why they want to touch each other so much, they both have hangups about it even assuming they navigate the whole sexuality issue smoothly, and it would probably take a little while to adjust even if everything goes perfectly.
But I don’t think it would take very long, because the facts are that they really like being in physical contact with each other, and even if they got awkward for a while and second guessed things like shoulder pats or w/e a lot lol, they are ultimately used to touching and it’s pretty natural to them. It’s how they express their emotional closeness, and it would become even moreso once they accepted the sexual aspect of their feelings.
If this is in the canon universe I could see trying to keep their hands off each other being more of a problem lol. I feel like if they did get together, just about everyone would figure it out pretty quickly. They are absolutely the couple who sits in each others’ laps, leans against each other, casually wraps their arms around each other, etc, and it would be hard for them to refrain in general day to day interactions i m h o.
Also they’d be adorable as fuck.
Tho also for the sake of angst I could see things going much less than smoothly wrt the sexuality angle, particularly with Guts, and if one of them realized their feelings aren’t platonic first I could definitely see him physically withdrawing and specifically avoiding contact, whether it’s Guts or Griffith, though maybe especially if it’s Guts, and subtly making the other feel kind of neglected/rejected. But they’d get through that eventually.
you're the only one 