The line between think and desperately, desperately hope is thin lol, but yes. Also completely agree that the best outcome would be Guts killing one or more of his friends himself in beast of darkness mode.
The theory I’ve been pushing and will continue to push until Miura proves me wrong is that Casca’s ptsd despair is going to open the behelit, she’ll choose to become an apostle, and consequently Guts will succumb to the armour in his grief and outrage. Also symbolically it’s nice because something has to cause Guts to lose himself to the armour, we know this because of fifty pieces of foreshadowing, and Casca becoming a monster would work great for that since she basically symbolizes his tie to his humanity right now.
But anyway, whatever ends up happening, I hope it really shakes things up, raises the stakes, and causes serious permanent consequences, because we need a dose of darkness soon imho, and Guts’ fix Casca quest ending in tragedy would just… work so perfectly for me. I want it so bad lol.
ty! and tbh I don’t think you don’t have to worry about that (unless Miura decides to retcon hard facts).
in addition to the count not being able to sacrifice guts because he doesn’t love guts lol, they point out
you can’t mark someone for sacrifice twice.
But yeah there’s nothing saying that someone marked for sacrifice can’t use a behelit themselves, and everyone knowledgeable about these things seems to believe that Guts potentially could use it (like Slan saying “why not make a sacrifice” in the troll cave, eg).
Though I don’t think the behelit is Guts’. Whether Miura was considering it for a while is a possibility, but since the Berserk armour made an appearance and we started getting a lot of “is it yours or are you just carrying it for someone hmmm” moments, I feel like it’s been really unlikely that Guts is ever going to use it. The armour is more his way of letting his inner darkness loose. Which has the handy effect of not being necessarily permanent, but with the ever present threat of becoming permanent. Perfect for a protagonist lol.
Also speaking of the Beast of Darkness telling Guts to assault and murder Casca so he can pursue Griffith, I think that could be another like… factor in Casca using the behelit. Right now she’s the symbol of Guts’ humanity, so if she becomes a monster it makes thematic sense for Guts to follow suit by losing himself to the armour. He could later be brought back by ~the power of friendship~ to demonstrate that despite their quest ending in tragedy and darkness, it was still worthwhile because of the character development and relationships formed along the way.
Ha! I’ve been fretting for ages about how Casca going apostle could work thematically w/ the whole interpersonal relationships as positive influences/power of love and friendship stuff of the last 200 chapters, but there, that totally fits! Then mb Casca could have her own personal narrative rather than continuing to be a symbol of Guts’ humanity.
Well that would be one way to make Isidro interesting to me lol. bc same, I really don’t care about him at all. I’m mostly just kind of annoyed whenever he’s on the page lol, I’ve never been much of a fan of kid characters in general and Isidro really has nothing going for him imo.
I think like… idk my prediction is that his mermaid crush is going to die and he’s going to grow up a little because of it, but it’s not a concept I’m all that into lol, it just seems like a logical direction for the story to go. It would be a lot more fun to see Isidro go villainous lol, and he does have that whole “ambition” thing going on. I think the natural end to his storyline would actually be giving up adventuring and settling down though, after his whole conversation with that old dude during the troll fight.
Miura did (sigh) mention Isidro/Schierke as an obvious potential relationship, which is super uninteresting to me but also I don’t really care about either of them so yk, whatever. My biggest hope is just that Isidro doesn’t suck up too much screen time lol, and there’s no focus on any potential romance there – if it happens let it be a random aside in the epilogue or smthn.
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.
This is like, the fucking plan. Skull Knight and Danann are conspiring to have the behelit open in Elfhelm, by Danann’s spirit tree, summoning the Godhand, so Skull Knight can do his thing, quite probably aided by Elfhelm tree magic, and entomb them in the vortex. Probably alongside Guts and Casca and everyone else watching the show.
Also something genuinely bad and dark has to happen because of this, like say, Casca becoming an apostle, because Guts needs to feel the full weight of betrayal by SK and succumb to the armour. And this will be a heavy painful betrayal because it’s gonna remind Guts of Griffith, because of the way Skull Knight has rescued him in the past and earned his trust. (tbh more on this whenever I get off my ass and write a long meta post about Guts and what his relationship to Griffith means to him.)
But also the power of friendship is going to prevent Guts from going full Beast of Darkness forever the way it’s been suggested that Skull Knight lost his humanity to the armour. Just, god willing, hopefully not before g*tsca is laid to rest.
So. Still think Guts and Casca are pawns, still think the tree and Dragon’s Road thing are relevant, definitely think the behelit’s relevant, and I’m actually pretty confident that the Godhand are coming to Elfhelm and Danann and Skull Knight have this trap waiting for them.
Whether Danann and Skull Knight’s plan is successful is another story entirely. Whether defeating and trapping the Godhand away in the vortex is even a good idea is also another story entirely. And idk whether NeoGriff figures into this at all lol.
Oh also I know the behelit only opens when the laws of causality like, make it happen, but, a) Skull Knight referred to that in that ominous scene where Flora suggests he might be using Guts and it’s not stopping him from maneuvering things into place it’s just giving him a handy excuse b) fate works thru people’s encounters and choices and Danann and Skull Knight and Guts etc are people c) they’re high level magic users a step outside causality maybe they can tell when the behelit’s likely to open and are facilitating that for their own ends or smthn.
Also I know Miura has said he writes on the fly and doesn’t have a plan, but he must have some idea of where things are headed because he has actively been throwing foreshadowing down for 150 chapters. Maybe the details are vague in his mind but I’m quite sure he knows the broadstrokes of the story. Like after all he wrote the entire golden age knowing exactly where it would end up, give or take a few details. I’m willing to bet he’s been planning some Skull Knight shit since Flora’s appearance.
Anyway this is my theory now. I may go about it backwards, ie having a destination I absolutely want and then finding evidence for it, but yk what i want to live in hope until the next chapter so screw it.
Ok so to summarize, my theory is that Casca’s despair is going to open the behelit, this was deliberately arranged by Danann and Skull Knight so they can trap the Godhand in the vortex, and the fall-out of this is going to be Guts going full Berserker for some period of time, most likely (though I am a little less confident about this aspect than the rest of it) because Casca opts for monsterism.
So anyway I was re-reading chapter 328, another one of those chapters that basically exists to be crammed full of foreshadowing, and this jumped out at me
Hey Schierke, quick question for you:
what the hell does deciphering “fates that transcend time” have to do with the elf king showing up as a child to stalk your rpg group?
Nothing. That’s just completely unrelated infodumping that happens to fully support my theory that Danann and Skull Knight are conspiring to have Casca open the behelit.
Up there I wrote
“they’re high level magic users a step outside causality maybe they can
tell when the behelit’s likely to open and are facilitating that for
their own ends or smthn” and basically I’m just giving myself a pat on the back because that’s absolutely correct, as Schierke tells us here.
Incidentally I’m also now contemplating the possibility that Schierke is right and moon kid is Danann in disguise, but I have nothing conclusive to say about that, other than it would be another extra hilarious example of Danann playing up g*tsca for the sake of betraying them and tearing them apart for her own ends.
Oh man I’ve been harping on about Casca using the behelit for a while now, and that’s still my hope.
I think it’s actually relatively plausible as of the most recent chapter (I laid out a theory here) but what I’m less certain about is whether she’ll actually make a sacrifice and go apostle. That’s what I’m gunning for, but I think there’s also a good chance that either a) she’ll be talked down thru the power of love and friendship and I’ll be very disappointed, or b) Skull Knight will put his plan into action before she even gets a chance to decide and “conveniently” cut things short.
Never even considered Charlotte as a possibility. I think it’s unlikely since first she’d have to get the behelit, and her and Guts’ storylines haven’t intersected since the rescue mission. Plus her sacrifice would inevitably have to be NGriff, and NGriff being a sacrifice would be super interesting but if anyone’s gonna sacrifice him I want it to be Guts.
This is like, the fucking plan. Skull Knight and Danann are conspiring to have the behelit open in Elfhelm, by Danann’s spirit tree, summoning the Godhand, so Skull Knight can do his thing, quite probably aided by Elfhelm tree magic, and entomb them in the vortex. Probably alongside Guts and Casca and everyone else watching the show.
Also something genuinely bad and dark has to happen because of this, like say, Casca becoming an apostle, because Guts needs to feel the full weight of betrayal by SK and succumb to the armour. And this will be a heavy painful betrayal because it’s gonna remind Guts of Griffith, because of the way Skull Knight has rescued him in the past and earned his trust. (tbh more on this whenever I get off my ass and write a long meta post about Guts and what his relationship to Griffith means to him.)
But also the power of friendship is going to prevent Guts from going full Beast of Darkness forever the way it’s been suggested that Skull Knight lost his humanity to the armour. Just, god willing, hopefully not before g*tsca is laid to rest.
So. Still think Guts and Casca are pawns, still think the tree and Dragon’s Road thing are relevant, definitely think the behelit’s relevant, and I’m actually pretty confident that the Godhand are coming to Elfhelm and Danann and Skull Knight have this trap waiting for them.
Whether Danann and Skull Knight’s plan is successful is another story entirely. Whether defeating and trapping the Godhand away in the vortex is even a good idea is also another story entirely. And idk whether NeoGriff figures into this at all lol.
Oh also I know the behelit only opens when the laws of causality like, make it happen, but, a) Skull Knight referred to that in that ominous scene where Flora suggests he might be using Guts and it’s not stopping him from maneuvering things into place it’s just giving him a handy excuse b) fate works thru people’s encounters and choices and Danann and Skull Knight and Guts etc are people c) they’re high level magic users a step outside causality maybe they can tell when the behelit’s likely to open and are facilitating that for their own ends or smthn.
Also I know Miura has said he writes on the fly and doesn’t have a plan, but he must have some idea of where things are headed because he has actively been throwing foreshadowing down for 150 chapters. Maybe the details are vague in his mind but I’m quite sure he knows the broadstrokes of the story. Like after all he wrote the entire golden age knowing exactly where it would end up, give or take a few details. I’m willing to bet he’s been planning some Skull Knight shit since Flora’s appearance.
Anyway this is my theory now. I may go about it backwards, ie having a destination I absolutely want and then finding evidence for it, but yk what i want to live in hope until the next chapter so screw it.
hohoho
so i did what i said i was going to do, re-read most of the elfhelm chapters to see if i could figure anything out.
and idk how solid this is, especially considering how biased in favour of it i am lol, but i came up with this theory last night
So in 345 they’re all sitting around a table having a nice chat about important spirit realm shit.
The world tree is a “dragon’s road.”
The behelit also creates a dragon’s road.
Just want to point out the little specification of “at your side” and the shot of the behelit in Guts’ pouch vs the way Guts’ cloak billows to give us a view of that pouch as he walks towards Casca.
SO dragon roads.
Schierke pipes up with a question absolutely no reader was ever curious about and is therefore probably very relevant:
With me so far? These spirit woods are lands associated with spirit trees, like Flora’s. These trees feed off the world tree like parasites, keeping it pruned to manageable levels until Griffith destroyed a bunch of them to make way for his high fantasy genre shift.
The world tree is a dragon’s road – it’s not a real tree, it’s a fissure between realms:
Again, the same kind of thing the behelit creates.
Eventually they head on over to Danann’s palace, which turns out to be a giant cherry tree:
It’s a really impressive spirit tree, maybe the last surviving one, or one of the last at least. Elfhelm is probably its associated spirit woods.
Danann specifies that Guts and Casca’s first meeting will take place right by her spirit tree.
And check out the last image of the most recent chapter:
Quite an ominous shot of that tree.
Bear in mind that Danann sensed that Casca was afraid of Guts and refused to let him join Schierke and Farnese in her dreams because of this. It seems a bit strange that as soon as Casca wakes up she’s sending her straight to Guts then, doesn’t it?
Also bear in mind that Skull Knight, who reminds Puck of the elves and is implied to be the Elf King’s oracle, is the one who both told Guts the Elf King could heal Casca, and warned him that “there’s no guarantee your wish will be her wish.”
Schierke thinks the oracle is the Moonlight Boy, because she doesn’t know it’s Skull Knight. But this is how we know that “oracle” is connected to the Elf King. And this is how we know it’s Skull Knight:
And check out this vaguely ominous thread that hasn’t been picked back up yet. Is someone using Guts…? Skull Knight, or the person Skull Knight is playing messenger for – the Elf King? (tbh it looks like he’s justifying it to himself by saying whether he interferes or not causality has the final say anyway. calling Guts “a factor.” A factor in what? What is being facilitated, and by whom? Maybe someone who understands the flow of causality, who is using it for their own ends?)
I also want to note that I had zero memory of Flora asking if Skull Knight is using Guts lmao, the only reason I went back to this part was to prove that SK is the Elf King’s oracle. But I am super stoked that it fits my theory perfectly.
SO yeah the Elf King’s oracle is the one telling Guts this. Seems probable that Danann has been planning to try healing Casca’s mind since long before they showed up on her doorstep asking her to.
Also of note in this scene with Skull Knight on the beach:
This is the explanation for why NeoGriffith had Flora killed.
To
confront him, one must also exist outside the story. Who exists outside
the story to some extent that we know of? Skull Knight, the branded, and witches.
AND one more thing of note in this scene is Skull Knight warning Guts about the armour:
All this foreshadowing is thrown into the same chapter, and I think it could be all tied together.
So, my theory:
Danann is using Casca and Guts, for two possible reasons, maybe both:
1. By healing Casca’s mind and sending her to meet Guts right beside her spirit tree, she knows or hopes that Casca’s memories will send her into despair right there, with the behelit at hand, thereby opening a dragon’s road right beside her powerful spiritual tree thing which feeds on dragon’s roads. Maybe giving Danann and Elfhelm a boost of energy/spiritual power for something.
2. Weapons.
If Casca becomes an apostle, she will be branded, ergo a step outside the reason of the world and able to harm Griffith. She will be powerful. And Griffith will have a weakness against her – that whole wacky fetus thing that made him save her life. It’s entirely possible that Danann knows this, as she has scryers checking things out.
(Granted Casca would also have her own weakness against him, that demon instinct which recognizes NeoGriffith as a messiah, buuut I’m js Ganeshka’s reaction to him was rather similar to Casca’s old feelings, which she’s had several years of experience dealing with and ignoring. Plus he’s responsible for destroying her life and everything that traumatized her into insanity, and Danann has a lot of magic. That potential weakness isn’t the be all end all, is what I’m saying.)
There’s also the foreboding foreshadowing regarding Guts succumbing to the armour. Skull Knight’s warning back there, the Beast of Darkness taunting him here
and this scene
which directly connects Casca regaining her sanity and ~doing something~ ominous to the Beast of Darkness lying in wait. And I feel like Casca choosing to make a sacrifice like Griffith did and become a monster would be a pretty solid incentive for Guts to succumb to his inner beast.
And I’m js Beast of Darkness Guts, with his own foot outside the reason of the world thanks to the brand, and lbr Femto/NGriff’s own host of issues that led to him letting Guts go three times so far, would also be a powerful weapon.
It’s also worth noting that we’ve been warned time and again about the dangers of Guts succumbing to the armour, losing his humanity, etc, and he’s been saved every single time he reaches a danger point by Schierke, or the Astral Kid, or whatever. At some point he has to actually succumb properly, at least for a while, for long enough to shake up the narrative and have Consequences, or there’s no point to all this ominous foreshadowing.
Elfhelm is opposed to NeoGriffith and Falconia and the whole merging of planes thing, it’s suggested that Guts is being used by Skull Knight, who seems to be allied with/working for the Elf King, and all these little ominous moments fit together very well.
Plus let’s be real here – Skellig is obviously too good to be true.
Like, I don’t think there’s a dark underbelly to Skellig, any more than I think there’s a dark underbelly to Falconia. I don’t think they’re secretly killing children or Danann’s going to transform into a cackling demon or that the cloying wholesomeness is all a performance to trick Guts and co lol. But I do think that despite the cutesy elf antics and unicorns and sentencing Magnifico to dishwashing duty etc, they would be very capable of ruthlessness. This is Berserk, after all.
tbh I’m really feeling the behelit dragon’s road thing, all those expository details in the recent chapters add up v neatly.
And I think the weaponizing Cacsa and/or Guts theory is a little more of a stretch, more of a “well it would logically follow” rather than having directly suggestive evidence of its own, but still fits nicely imo. And boy, would that not twist the whole revenge theme in an interesting way? If there’s another secondary antagonist who wants Guts and/or Casca to go and kill NeoGriff for their own reasons? Maybe even for the greater good – but at the expense of our protagonists?
355 spoilers
fair warning this is v rambly and stream of consciousness, and largely negative tho not entirely
all this time and i’m still in hope for the best, prepare for the worst mode, agh this is so frustrating
(lol @ reusing a bunch of images from casca’s life we’ve already seen
in our journey thru her mind. also my god i hate the art so much rn
lol. casca’s face deserves better.)
and idk how to feel about
downplaying the fetus/moonlight boy now lol, with way more memories
alotted to guts, since apparently “there’s someone i want to meet” is
repeated towards the end here, and the one saving grace of that fetus
was the hope that casca wanted to meet it, instead of guts (or griffith
for that matter).
also danann calling guts to show up psychically which then proceeds to trigger casca seems weird and fishy to me? but idk maybe it reads as less weird in context, plus i don’t trust elfhelm so.
and i’m extremely wary about guts triggering her because he reminds her of the eclipse, rather than because he assaulted her himself. those dreamy half-remembered memories sure are convenient
on the other hand they’re also convenient for this delayed reaction happening just in time for guts’ arrival. meaning there’s a reason guts had to show up first before casca remembered the eclipse.
this chapter seems to be playing up g*tsca for the sake of sweeping the rug out from under the readers at the end when casca sees him and shit starts going down, but is that leading to actual Shit Going Down or is that leading to, idk, farnese jumping in and calming her down before nobly stepping aside so they can have a tearful reunion, or guts like, saving the day by Being There For Her For Once??
i s2g miura knows exactly what the best case and worse case scenarios are (tho he probably thinks they’re reversed) and he’s taunting me personally. like i’m sorry but ivalera joking that schierke woke up the “final boss”? just plain and simple teasing about schierke’s crush on guts or also ominous foreshadowing? casca’s last clear memory is rescuing griffith, which explains why tortured griffith is one of the final images, but why make that her last clear memory, why give that a full page at the end of the chapter right before the picture of the tree that looks visually similar to the darkness in her heart unless perhaps… a parallel?
But even if that’s the case is Casca going to use the behelit in Guts’ pouch or is Guts going to get another chance to Not Fuck It Up This Time?
I’m feeling like the odds are getting higher that after a moment of emotional peril Guts comforts her, promises to stay with her, and they live happily ever after until NeoGriffith arrives to fuck shit up versus shit actually going down and Casca graduating into a secondary antagonist role. And the odds of anything in between happening, like eg Casca rejecting Guts romantically and healing while becoming close friends with Farnese, are feeling extremely slim after this. Like, imo we’re in for either g*tsca or the “tragic” opposite of g*tsca after how it’s been played up here, not “let’s just be friends.”
Also there’s a strong chance I’m just in the denial stage rn. But like I’ve been salivating over the idea of all three Golden Age protags being enemies with their own clashing goals by the end of the series for a while now and as long as that’s still a possibility I’m going to continue to keep hope alive.
like ok this visual reference doesn’t really bring anything new to the table since we already know that Casca’s heart is full of dark negativity but yk
i still like it
also i’m still on my casca using the behelit bullshit ftr
lol i didn’t even predict the fetus showing up in casca’s mind, idk.
i think it’s still possible that casca’s going to wake up and lose it? what with the whole thing about shoving her metaphorical heart in her metaphorical chest while it’s covered in metaphorical thorns. actually i’m pretty stoked about that because farnese had her line about wanting to help casca overcome her darkness the same way casca helped her, so either we’re going to get some good farnese and casca interaction or that’s going to turn out to be a pipe dream and casca’s going to do something dark, and either way i’m super intrigued.
whatever guts does would depend on what casca does, i figure. i’m thinking they’re not getting back together immediately, if at all. worst case scenario that i could easily see happening is that miura teases a reconciliation for most of the rest of the manga and i have to live with that sword of damocles hanging over my head indefinitely.
so like, if casca is chill and recovers with farnese’s help, the plot has to get going somehow. maybe we end guts’ narrative on a high note, farnese helping casca recover and guts having achieved a goal without ruining everything for once, return to griffith’s in a flash forward, and he’s about to attack elfhelm logically because it’s the last remaining threat to him but actually because he’s bored and misses guts. honestly i would mostly hate this scenario for many reasons, like guts’ narrative being passive and boring and ngriff having a more unambiguously villainous role, like it would just feel shallow thematically imo, but i could maybe see it happening. I’ve been mostly bored by Guts’ narrative for like 200 chapters now so it wouldn’t be out of place lol.
or something else entirely could kick start the plot. maybe the flower king encourages guts to go fight griffith and we start getting into skellig moral ambiguity. maybe magic deus ex machina happens. maybe casca learns of a way she can use magic to siphon her stupid kid out of griffith and that’s the new objective lol. I was gonna suggest that maybe guts takes off on his own for revenge spurred on by some unforseen event, but the fact that he’s on an island makes that unlikely I guess.
god tho i still think that the neatest and most efficient way to kick start things into gear, fulfill a lot of foreshadowy promises, re-motivate guts into doing something, and shake things up in an interesting way is for casca to use the behelit. this is the hill i’m going to die on, at least until it becomes impossible. and yk what, casca’s last remaining and most important piece of herself, her heart, being the kid could be solid set up for sacrificing it. “Someone so close to you it’s almost like they’re a part of you,” and “bury your human heart,” after all.
I mean the way we revisited the Eclipse and Casca’s trauma, ie, we didn’t, kinda makes me less inclined to think Miura’s going to do anything with it/make it a real motivation, but, yk. thorns and whatnot. ~i want to believe~
i just want something dark and permanent with real consequences to happen, guts’ story has been progressively lighter and happier for over 200 chapters by now, come on.
Someone with the brand of sacrifice can’t be sacrificed again, but there’s nothing saying they can’t use a behelit. And since the implication is that Guts might use the behelit at some point – Flora says it could be his – it follows that Casca could also potentially use it.
She wouldn’t be able to sacrifice Guts, because in the Black Swordsman Arc the Godhand said that you can’t sacrifice someone who’s already been sacrificed, but she could sacrifice Farnese (which would suck) or I’ve suggested maybe the Moonlight Boy (which imo would be awesome but I never rly liked that kid lol).
And yeah I totally agree that Casca telling Guts to leave totally fucked Griffith up and was like, the last straw that lead to his break from reality and then suicide attempt.
I mean come on, right? Guts leaving lead directly to Griffith essentially burning down his life by sleeping with Charlotte (whether that was intentional and conscious or whether it was subconscious is up to interpretation, but either way it wasn’t an accident), then he hung onto his sanity by a thread through a year of torture solely by thinking about Guts and his feelings for him, then he was rescued by Guts who cut a bloody swathe through Midland to avenge him and killed a literal monster to defend him, and finally he was lead to believe that Guts was about to leave him again, while he was totally helpless and had absolutely nothing else in his life.
And then finally Guts’ touch caused him to feel the kind of despair that makes you to want to destroy the person causing it and become a monster just so you won’t feel it again.
Like, that’s a hell of an emotional roller coaster revolving around one person.
Goddamn don’t you just love this fucking story? God.
Idk if this is a prediction or wishful thinking lol, but if I had to lay down a bet I think she’s going to wake up, have all the Eclipse related betrayal and despair and trauma hit her, and use the behelit, then go for revenge herself. I’ve been theorizing this for a while and tbh I haven’t come up with anything better yet so I’m still going with it.
My hopes for her getting a happy ending away from Guts are essentially zero, especially since reading in an interview that Miura only had her survive the Eclipse so Guts wouldn’t be able to fully move on.
And I’m assuming that Skull Knight’s warnings are going to come to something other than Casca being prickly for a while before hooking back up with Guts or w/e, then getting killed to make him want revenge again. Dramatic shudder.
So what I really want is for her to finally, finally react to what happened to her, and for that reaction to be epic as fuck.
I also think it’s plausible because:
there’ve been a lot of ominous shots of the behelit recently
flora specifically suggested guts might be carrying it for someone else
guts revenge quest was bad for him partially because it wasn’t his right to avenge the hawks after abandoning them, but if anyone earned some vengeance it’s casca
griffith instinctively acted to save casca once, giving him a huge weakness against her
“What will she do if she does get her sanity back?” Just sounds so delightfully ominous and suggests Casca actively doing something Guts wouldn’t like.
guts’ revenge quest is played out imo, time for something new. also seeing casca decide to go full monster in her rage would probably fuck him up and wake up the beast of darkness, so it would still motivate him to do something
honestly there’s some great stuff with morality and apostles just waiting to be explored and seeing a beloved character turn into one would be really interesting
Casca’s strong, badass, and her anger manifests in violent lashing out making her a perfect candidate to take over the revenge stuff.
I think Guts hasn’t really given up on the idea of revenge yet – he was still fantasizing about going back after Griffith while on the boat – but it would be pretty anticlimatic if Casca just stuck around in Elfhelm to recover while Guts went “ok side quest over, back to the main quest now,” so I’m sure there’s going to be something more to it.
And I like the idea of Casca taking over the revenge quest and Guts maybe re-evaluating himself, his motives, etc, while fucked up once again because things went south and he did something with mostly good intentions and everything got all fucked up anyway.
Like tbh I think that the conflict as it’s set up now, ie revenge = bad, helping Casca = good, is much, much too simplistic for a story like Berserk. It’s boring lol, whether it ends up tragic and Guts backslides back into revenge, whether he continues doing the “right” thing and chooses Casca over it, it’s still black and white. In the Golden Age there were no easy right or wrong options – eg Guts thought he was doing the right thing by leaving, turned out to be a huge mistake that fucked everything up, and I really liked that. I think the current arc has the potential to be similar which would be great imo.
Guts isn’t helping Casca solely out of the goodness of his heart, he’s doing it because he wants the old Casca back despite misgivings and warnings that he might be going about it the wrong way – and he’s doing it to distract himself from revenge, and also from the fact that he’s not so gung-ho about revenge now that Griffith looks human again. Imo. It doesn’t have to be as simple as revenge = bad, magical therapy = good, and looking closely at Guts’ motivations makes me wonder and hope that, like the Golden Age, a seemingly positive choice could have negative consequences, and the secret actual right choice is dealing with your many issues, Guts, instead of running off for a dream, or revenge, or to “force” someone’s sanity back.
@metalbutter that’s the going assumption but i have an extremely unlikely pipe dream that maybe she could sacrifice moonlight boy
it
would feel more symbolic of losing whatever romantic family potential
w/ guts there theoretically was, whereas sacrificing farnese just feels
like the only possible choice available and therefore not significant
enough on a narrative scale, since Guts can’t be sacrificed twice. plus
there’s this sequence of panels way back when:
i mean that’s kind of ominous right?
plus apostles sacrifice some weird shit sometimes, like eggman sacrificing “the world.” a ghost kid doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch after that.
lol so this response is going to be kind of long because you made me want to talk about her story role and speculate a bit lol, so ty for sending this.
I think there’s a difference between having whatever Casca does when she gets her mind back further the relationship between Guts and Griffith, and having Casca function as solely a plot device for the sake of the Guts Griffith story.
By which I mean secondary characters should serve the central protagonist’s story, but they should do that while also having their own satisfying arcs that serve their own characters as well. So a well-written secondary character would have her own arc, her own issues, her own stuff to work through and her own reason and way of developing, and that could still shed light on the protagonist as a parallel, or foil, or simply by weaving their stories together and playing them off each other.
When Casca was an active character during the Golden Age, there were a lot of problems I had with her writing, but she did have her own story. It was a story about being obsessed with first one man and then another, and how much it sucks to be a woman surrounded by attempted rapists, and having emotional breakdowns, etc, so like, not a great story, but she had her own issues, she made mistakes based on those issues, she changed based on her experiences.
Eg when she and Guts slept together they were both using the other as a substitute for Griffith, so at least it wasn’t just Guts using Casca, they were using each other. (And I don’t mean using in a cruel way, just in a there’s-other-stuff-going-on-for-both-of-them-than-just-wanting-each-other kind of way.) That scene didn’t only further Guts’ internal story, it also furthered Casca’s. Ofc Guts’ story was furthered by working thru trauma and starting to recognize past mistakes while Casca’s was furthered by switching which dude she’s obsessed with, so like, still a shitty story for her, but c’est la berserk.
So yeah I don’t think her writing was that great during the Golden Age, but it cleared the bare minimum bar of giving her her own motivation and character arc at least, even though her own story was pretty weak compared her more blatant, main function of serving the relationship between Guts and Griffith.
Then after the Eclipse she became a complete plot device with absolutely no story of her own, only existing for Guts to play off of and project onto.
So I guess what I think is most likely to happen is that when Casca gets her mind back, she’s going to have her own motivations and goals again. She’s going to do something active, based on what she wants. But whatever it is she does is also going to further Guts and Griffith’s story, and lbr it’s still going to revolve around her relationships with the men. So hopefully she won’t be so much just a plot device, and her own choices, goals, actions, etc might even be stronger and more central to the plot than they were during the Golden Age, but Guts is still the protagonist so Casca’s story is sitll going to further his story and his relationship with Griffith.
My guess, based on where she was when she was traumatized to insanity, and where the story has gone since then, and where I think (hope lbr) the story goes, is that she’ll come back and be similar to where Guts was right after the Eclipse. In the last 200 or so chapters Guts grew, he worked at refocusing on his own emotional growth rather than revenge, he made friends, he chilled out, he’s in a much better place mentally than he was during the Black Swordsman arc.
But the story is still about the dark places trauma and desire for revenge take you. I think it would be interesting to shift the revenge theme to Casca. It would kick the plot into gear and make things happen because Casca would have a goal, this way we could bring Guts and Griffith’s narratives back together without having Guts’ development backslide into revenge obsession again, and it would make Casca an interesting foil to Guts – if she’s at the place he managed to work past, she’d be like a reflection of himself at his worst. Now Casca would be able to drive the plot, her goals would be the ones furthering the story, and Guts’ narrative would shift in focus from his own goals (revenge, fixing Casca) to reacting to Casca’s actions.
She would still serve the main story about Guts and Griffith by being the catalyst that brings them back together, by being a dark mirror to Guts, quite possibly by embodying the dark sexual undertone to revenge in a more blatant way than Guts did (bc lbr she’s always been the one to illuminate Guts’ desires by virtue of being a woman and making them hetero), and maybe by forcing Guts into making a choice between helping her and trying to stop her (either for her own sake or because he’s still ambivalent about killing Griffith or maybe both). But now she’d be serving the story by working towards her own goals based on her own experiences and her character, rather than by being a passive mindless object for Guts to interact with.
“What will she do if she does get her sanity back?” The fact that NeoGriffith instinctively saving her demonstrates a very strong disadvantage against her. The fact that the main characters all get to kill their own rapists/attempted rapists/abusers/etc. The way Guts decided he didn’t really have the right to avenge his comrades after abandoning the Band but you know who didn’t abandon the Band? The way revenge in Berserk isn’t always a bad thing, and it could be interesting to explore how it’s bad for Guts because he was basically using it as a form of self harm, but maybe for Casca it’s earned. The behelit which, if Casca is the one to use it, would open the door for more parallels between her and Griffith for Guts to play off of.
So I guess my overall answer to your question is that yeah, I think she’s still going to exist to further Guts’ story and relationship to Griffith, since that’s still the axel on which Berserk turns, but hopefully she’ll at least get to have some agency and motivation of her own while doing it, and if we’re really lucky her own internal story might be more important to the plot now than it was during the Golden Age.
But of course there’s always a horrifying chance that she’ll wake up and just be Guts’ love interest/narrative reward for moving beyond revenge, continuing to exist purely as an accessory to Guts rather than as herself, while something else moves the plot forward, but yk, prayer circle that that doesn’t happen. And like others have speculated with dread, there’s even a chance that she’ll join Griffith and make Guts return to rage and revenge in the worst possible way. I think it’s a tiny chance, like I really don’t expect that to happen, but you never know
(also the whole revenge speculation is just my preference bc i want casca to have the chance to get angry about what happened to her, and it seems plausible, but there are probably other routes for her story to go that would bring back her agency and have her affect the plot in satisfying ways.)
man I’m pretty into this as a concept. Like I personally think Griffith is still his most important person, and it feels appropriately cyclical to me. Guts’ vengeful obsession with Griffith finally turning him into a monster and equalizing them. (well it wouldn’t really be equals if guts just became an apostle, but symbolically it could work? or hell maybe the elfhelm timeskip is 200 some years and he comes back just in time for the next eclipse lol)
I don’t rly know how likely it is, since it seems like way more of a downer ending than Miura might like based on what he’s said in at least one interview. Especially since Guts would have to fall into despair first which probably means bye bye Guts’ rpg group. Plus it’s maybe a little too neat and on the nose? but on a v personal level I’d enjoy the hell out of Guts sacrificing NeoGriff.
yk i mentioned b4 that the first two arcs, black swordsman and golden age, feel like a complete story
big angry dude has serious issues, then we learn what caused those issues. if the story had ended after guts declared war on all demons or after he’d suited up to go a monster huntin, well, i would’ve desperately wanted more, but tbh i think it would’ve worked
the black swordsman arc shows us guts mirroring griffith in like a million ways: self harming, walking over people on his way to his goal and justifying it to himself, feeling guilty about that, being described as someone out of a story, being obsessed with a dream, being larger than life, and of course, he picks up a behelit.
the conclusion would’ve been foregone – guts would eventually use the behelit just like griffith did, and the whole story would basically be a depressing cycle effectively told out of order.
(to make it really work it could use some editing ofc. delete the random fetus, have casca die during the eclipse rather than be raped into insanity as a dangling plot point. get rid of the godhand saying guts isn’t ordained by fate and therefore can’t become one of them. add a significant shot of the behelit at the end of the black swordsman arc. but yk in broadstrokes this is a solid tragic narrative.)
Also speaking of Griffith and Casca and transformations
Once you get down to it using the behelit and becoming an apostle or godhand is in part a magical fantasy metaphor for dealing badly with trauma, right? Within the confines of the fantasy story Griffith’s dark side emerged heightened by the power of evil and turned into a demi god, his heart was frozen, and he became a monster, but metaphorically u can say he’s lashing out and repeating patterns of abuse.
Idk whether Miura would put that in the same words but yk, it’s pretty explicit that you become a monster as a reaction to profound suffering in Berserk (+fate and a magic talisman), and then you turn into a giant dick and it’s basically letting your dark side reign free bc life fucked you and you’re mad about it. It’s not the most kind or sensitive of metaphors lol, especially when it comes to victims like Rosine (and Griffith imo) rather than say a dude who was just mad bc his wife was sleeping around with heathens, but that’s a berserk for u.
Guts is also struggling with the same thing but his magical fantasy metaphor is the berserker armour making him lose control in a rage, so he’s more caught in between, struggling to better himself but occasionally falling into abusive and violent patterns. There’s also the hound, but since he got the armour they’ve basically merged into one metaphor.
Casca is the only one who didn’t get a magical fantasy metaphor, she just broke. Which is partially why I want the behelit to be hers – I dislike the woman being the only “pure” one who passively internalizes pain rather than lashing out, yk?
I feel like I had more of a point with this… idk. Let Casca go on a rampage too, basically.
you're the only one 