I was thinking, if the demon child appears during the black swordsman arc and miura said he came up with g*tsca only until later in the story, then what was it originally supposed to be? Straight-up guts and femto’s child lol?

tbh I actually love it in the Black Swordsman arc bc I don’t think it was meant to be anything particularly significant, like, plot-wise (tho lmao i wish, but it’s probably only a coincidence that it looked kind of like a fetus lol)

I think it was just supposed to be a recurring demon that represents like, the self destructiveness and futility of Guts’ revenge rampage. like a proto beast of darkness but instead of being scary and cool it’s just sad and pathetic. the twisted remains of yourself after you’ve been consumed by revenge.

which i say mainly because of that one image where guts sees it with vargas’ face. but also if you re-read its early appearances with that in mind it fits very nicely with the rest of the black swordsman arc’s themes and the way it unnerves guts more than anything else he sees, and the way it appears when he’s feeling self-doubt and fear of failure, makes a lot of sense.

also his chapter 2 nightmare where it chases him works super well with that in mind. This nightmare is later echoed by his chapter 13 nightmare where it’s a monstrous representation of donovan chasing him, which is echoed again after Guts kills Adonis and sees himself as that monster. It’s very neatly cyclical – chronologically, it goes Guts’ own personal monster followed by Guts’ fear of becoming a monster followed by Guts well on his way to becoming that monster. And I just love that the fetus thing isn’t a cool monster, it’s just pathetic, which is perfect in the Black Swordsman arc where Guts is paralleled to Vargas.

relatedly it’s really off-putting to re-read the scenes where it appears after miura retconned it into being his weird demon kid lol. Totally fucks up that interpretation. Like you can maybe read it as a reminder of Guts abandoning Casca/his repressed guilt over it, but I have no idea how that’s supposed to work with the nightmare, or the direct comparison to Vargas, etc.

Maybe it still kind of works as a symbol of Guts becoming a monster in that the fetus is is all demony because it was corrupted by Femto or w/e, but like… considering all its later appearances are helpful and protective rather than sinister, it really doesn’t work for me. It’s a big mess.

hi I really like your blog and I find your analysis interesting even though I don’t ship griffith and guts but you have made me see their relationship in a different way. I have a question. what do you think of the demon child within griffith? do you think he is the reason why griffith still has feeling for guts(and casca?)or is griffith trying to blame the child for his feelings like the time with charlotte when he denied his friendship with guts?also what do you think about moonchild?

Thank you! I’m glad you found something to enjoy in my meta despite different ship preferences, esp since I like to think a lot of what I have to say about them is applicable even if you go the platonic friends route in your interpretation.

When it comes to NGriff’s unfrozen heart, I definitely go with option B. I completely believe Griffith was lying to himself about his feelings, as he is wont to do lol, like you said – definitely related to his “take all the sad and frightening things and cast them into the fire” method of dealing with his feelings, ie pretending they don’t exist.

I’m going to link a previous post on this topic bc I feel like I said most of what I have to say about it already. But in short I definitely don’t think the fetus is responsible for Griffith’s heart beating while he watches Guts fight Zodd, though it may be responsible for Griffith saving Casca from falling rocks.

As for the moonlight kid, I’m not sure what to make of him. It’s suggested he’s the soul of Guts and Casca’s kid, what with the family imagery in that one chapter. Conversely it’s suggested he might be associated with Dannan, and therefore possibly taking the form of what that child would look like for the sake of… well I want to suggest manipulating them, bc I have high hopes that Danann is gonna turn out to be shady and using them for her own ends.

I do have a hard time with the popular theory that Moonlight Kid is part of NeoGriffith and like, escapes during the full moon to hang out with the rpg group bc the idea sounds very silly to me.

And on a personal level I hate him lmao. I just… I hate most cutesy fictional children, I vastly prefer Black Swordsman Guts to family man Guts lol, I don’t like that the kid’s role is to prevent Guts from succumbing to the armour because I want Guts to succumb to the armour, at least for long enough to shake things up and have consequences. I don’t like that Casca has strong maternal feelings for him despite not even having a personality right now, bc it’s so gender essentialist. Not in a surprising way, just in an annoying way. I don’t like the way he’s used to tease the audience about the possibility of Guts eventually settling down with a family. And I don’t like the implication that he briefly like, possessed NeoGriffith to make him save Casca lol, because again, it strikes me as really silly.

My biggest hope and dream involving Moonlight Boy is that he’s either a) secretly bad news because he’s a trick of Danann’s, or b) going to be what Casca sacrifices to become an apostle if she opens the behelit.

sad thing about black swordsman arc is that i liked what miura was going for in the first place (guts motives for revenge, evil fetus being a metaphor) also they were actually ~deeper~ than emasculating guts. miura making g*tsca happen for the drama ruined it. also it made berserk kinda mediocre lol

Yeah I really feel like the Eclipse just, hugely cheapened just about everything that was interesting about Guts in the Black Swordsman arc by putting all the focus on a) how someone else’s pain affects Guts and b) like you said, the suggested emasculation of Guts watching someone else give his girlfriend an orgasm. And that might be seen as an uncharitable take on the scene lol but Casca’s arousal seriously is the central visual focus, and it’s what the rape scene builds up to, and it remains all about Guts’ feelings, and it’s so simultaneously offensive and just… cheap and boring.

It straight up mystifies me how Miura decided to add g*tsca for more Eclipse drama (ie the rape scene) and somehow didn’t realize that not only does the Eclipse not require any additional drama, but it overwrites the actual drama the Eclipse should’ve had as a personally traumatizing event to Guts. It’s just so frustrating lmao.

Wrt the fetus you can kind of tilt your head and still see it as a symbol for the futility of revenge – in hindsight now it’s more like a haunting reminder of Guts abandoning Casca – but it doesn’t work nearly as well because in the BS arc it’s visually depicted as a representation of like, Guts’ own inner demon – the pathetic monstrousness left when revenge consumes the rest of you.

So you have things like Guts’ nightmare where it’s chasing him which is echoed in his chapter 13 nightmare where it’s Donovan chasing him, and then echoed again in his vision after killing Adonis where it’s Zodd/Donovan/himself. How’s that supposed to work thematically if the fetus is a symbol of a relationship/his humanity lmao? Or the vision Guts had of the fetus with Vargas’ face?

And I mean I love the Beast of Darkness bc i’m easy for evil dark sides lol, but honestly the vibe the fetus had in the BS arc was better, because of that patheticness. It wasn’t cool, it wasn’t powerful, it was just sad, like the Vargas parallels.

Anyway ty for this ask and giving me an opportunity to complain some more, I’m glad you agree.

what are your thoughts on the reunion at the hill of swords? why do you think griffith’s heartbeat quickens when he saw guts and casca? he blames it on the demon child but do you think that’s really true or is he just trying to rationalize his feelings for guts and casca?

OH man I have so many thoughts on this.

Ok like, to start, Griffith’s heart starts beating when he watches Guts square off against Zodd.

Which imo is very reminiscent of the very first time he saw Guts, after he took Basuzo out.

Guts fighting Zodd on the Hill of Swords is a demonstration of the very first thing that enchanted Griffith lol.

Guts fighting Zodd specifically also has this particular relevance to Griffith’s feelings:

Their first encounter with him was all about Griffith’s irrational feelings for Guts. It kind of feels right for those feelings to hit Griffith again during another encounter with Zodd, even if he’s now on the opposite side.

So yeah I absolutely think NeoGriffith is lying his ass off to himself when he blames his feelings on the fetus lol. If I was Miura I might even go the same route – like you can’t have inarguable proof that Griffith’s feelings for Guts still exist if you’re going to be coy and ambiguous about NeoGriffith’s emotional state for the next 150 chapters. You need a narrative scapegoat to keep things ambiguous.

And lbr it’s extremely in character for Griffith to deny his feelings lmao. Like, it would be out of character if he didn’t find an excuse.

And at the same time if it turns out Griffith’s right and those are the fetus’ feelings then… it will just be mind-bogglingly, soul destroyingly bad writing lmfao. I can’t handle the concept of a writer spending 70 chapters dedicated to showing how Griffith is torn between his dream and his feelings for Guts, having those feelings completely drive the plot and making them the central point of the whole Golden Age, having the climactic sacrifice be Griffith’s attempt to escape those feelings, reintroducing Griffith as an emotionless shell of who he used to be, then dramatically suggesting that those feelings may still be there… only to have Griffith’s beating heart be a total coincidence and his residual feelings for Guts be the totally unrelated feelings of a fetus instead lmao.

Even NGriff blaming the fetus for saving Casca seems unnecessary to me, like I’d believe that if some of original Griffith’s emotions survived the transition to NGriff then he would also automatically move to save Casca, though I wouldn’t be surprised if that specifically is a legit fetus-related thing. I mean Miura’s going somewhere with the fetus lol so w/e maybe it’s somewhat relevant, but I just can’t believe it’s relevant to NGriff’s feelings for Guts.

Also I want to link this previous post I’ve written on the subject bc I love how this moment is laid out visually.

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yeah, it’s just like. regressed casca even had that moment when she was trying to touch neo griff but couldn’t, plus like the stupid fetus, and idk how the gremlin man (miura) thinks so i’m assuming the worst. but yeah you’re probably right

there is a shit ton of stuff that can and should be taken into account tbh, and that post was rly just a v distant overview. i think… idk there’s probably enough evidence to make a case for either scenario happening – guts moving on vs guts failing to move on. and like the fetus eg could figure into either of those scenarios, by maybe being a source of conflict between casca and guts, or maybe uniting them.

i think there’s also enough evidence to argue that guts failing to move on isn’t necessarily a negative/tragic thing either, tho i kind of framed it as one. like there’s a scenario where guts trying to “let go of his obsession” is essentially guts kidding himself and just burying and refusing to acknowledge his mixed feelings instead of confronting them, using casca as an escape

that’s my #1 hope rly.

but yeah at the end of the day this all kind of rests on the premise that when berserk is over it will overall be a good solid comprehensive story lol, and that’s based on what I’m picking up on as important themes, which is kind of itself a distant hope.

in 30 years when berserk is finally over ppl are gonna go ‘omg can you believe that the creepy demon thing that we saw all the way back in chapter one turned out to be the key to everything all along and guts and casca’s child, wow miura is a genius, he really thought everything through blah blah blah blah’

and i’m still gonna be like, the creepy demon feus was 500x better when it was just an abstract symbol of guts’ potential to lose himself to revenge, miura played himself.

What possible scenarios that Casca’s back now? Her response and Guts revenge? What would happen?

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.

totally random question, but how is it possible for Casca to have the demon baby as her sanity’s tipping point? she was in that condition a while before the foetus was born… I don’t understand this lol and it seems unlikely to me that Miura forgot what he was writing since he has remembered smaller details throughout the years and this is a pretty big one to forget

I wish I could understand an iota of what Miura is going for with the fetus tbh.

Idk, idk if it’s so much that the fetus being the last piece means the whole demonization thing was what drove her insane, the vibe I got was more like, it’s the most important part of her and everything around it “guarding” it (the monsters, the femto-pterodactyl) was what drove her insane. Which at least fits with the fact that she’s immensely traumatized.

This is a bit of an optimistic take tho, because I could absolutely believe Miura writing that it was the corruption of the fetus that mostly drove her insane and she just innately sensed it or something.

these two pages are the most strongly visually conveyed theory -> rebuttal i’ve ever seen

like i’m sorry i can worry all i want over ominous fetus-y portents and casca’s narrative, and i am, but i just can’t believe the same guy who wrote this scene is going to skimp on the emotional resolution to guts and griffith’s relationship

he went to see guts to test if anything would shake his heart! and then failed that test! while watching a fight extremely reminiscent of his very first sight of guts! this is just so good

I mean, no pressure to answer this but what would be your predicted possible Worst Case ending(/griffguts emotional conclusion) and your Best Case one that you could actually see happening in canon either way?

WORST CASE ENDING

all plot, no substance. any heart bthumpy emotions NeoGriff is feeling are actually the fetus’ feelings. it’s his weakness™ and if Guts and Casca defeat NeoGriff they’ll be able to magically separate it out and fuse it with its soul, the Moonlight Boy, achieving a Happily Ever After™ as a Picturesque Family™

Or possibly if they defeat NeoGriffith they free their child’s soul to go to swirly soul heaven, and the ending is bittersweet™

Miura retcons Femto letting Guts go, and all the hints that NeoGriffith feels things that are entirely unrelated to whatever tf the fetus might care about are red herrings/misdirection.

In a flash forward we find out that Rickert and Erika are happily married in a terrible Guts/Casca parallel.

ummm what else… NeoGriff is defeated through a power-up/Elfland magic after a volume long physical battle.

Guts bones Casca and thus conquers his obsession with Griffith and is finally able to move on™ but NeoGriff attacks Elfhelm, forcing the final battle.

possibly the other godhand are there too, what with fusing the physical and spiritual worlds and miura hinting that void’s gonna be important yadda yadda yadda. it turns into Good Spirit Elemental Guardians against Evil Godhand in the most boring fight ever while Guts and NeoGriff fight.

Oooh Casca experiences some strong negative emotions upon regaining her sanity, but the Moonlight Boy appears to her and her maternal feelings™ soothe her.

Guts kills NGriff, rides off into the sunset with casca.

oh also there’s undertones of falconia being a naive fantasy while guts’ ‘just struggle your way through everything instead of finding/creating a safe happy paradise’ philosophy is touted as more mature and better

ok that’s enough dwelling on the negative

BEST CASE ENDING

the fetus is affecting Griffith only insomuch as being fused with its physical flesh makes his heart start beating because he’s corporeal and thus subject to those worldy emotions he’d thought he’d left behind.

The shot of it at the end of this chapter shows that Casca is kind of obsessed with it, and therefore when she wakes up with all her sanity and memories she demonstrates that her wishes were not Guts’ wishes and falls into despair and sacrifices that little fucker. I mean, half the apostle sacrifices we’ve seen have been parent/child, it’s possible right?

this destroys Moonlight Boy, aka the essence of the fetus, and whatever hope the audience had for a happily ever after family with Guts Casca and child. it’s meant to be seen as a tragic low point. I cackle gleefully.

I wouldn’t actually enjoy this but i think it would make sense: along with that low point Miura hints that NeoGriff’s feelings are gone thanks to Casca’s sacrifice – oh no, his one weakness! now he’s unstoppable! etc – but psych later on it turns out the feelings were his own all along.

casca, now an apostle, leaves to get revenge on neogriff. guts goes after her to either help or stop her, he’s not sure which. also if casca steals guts’ armour, i will die of happiness, but that + being an apostle might be overkill.

we get casca’s point of view, and it’s quite similar to black swordsman guts and full of parallels. guts has now achieved some character development which is why he’s torn between helping casca get revenge vs trying to just save her because she’s no match for neogriff (vs deep down wanting to save neogriff and/or stick his own sword in him because his feelings are still all fucked up. undertones of guts and casca’s old griffith-related romantic rivalry but dark)

thematically, Elfhelm is soured – the whole magical therapy for Casca thing turned out to be a terrible idea, the people there are unwilling to help clean up their mess because they’re isolationist dicks, AND maybe there are hints that the four spirit guardians schierke calls on for protection are other forms of the godhand?

however it happens, ultimately the thematic takeaway is that rather than there being a good vs evil thing going on in the spirit world, good and evil are two sides of the same coin and what you perceive really depends on what you’re calling on the spirit world for, and most things are both at once. yk, aren’t gods and devils the same thing?

i’m skipping over plot stuff and more theme stuff because i’m willing to accept a lot of possibilities and i really don’t care much.

the important thing is that guts and griffith have a final emotional confrontation after the dust of the big action climax settles, and it comes in the form of a 3rd duel.

also at some point in the lead-up to it, they figure their shit out. possibly this involves schierke’s or sonia’s or both’s magical mind exploration magic. we see griffith’s unemotional facade starting to crack. we see guts’ ambivalence towards griffith – does he want to kill him or plead with him or fuck him or reject him entirely?

and guts realizes that griffith’s heart is beating again for him, and everything he wanted – griffith’s respect admiration and love is still there, residing in his worst enemy. and griffith realizes that guts admired and loved him and never once saw human him as the monster he saw himself and allowed himself to become.

tragically idk how you could depict both without looking really silly, but either guts’ residual guilt for his part in the lead up to the eclipse gets the better of him and he lets a still-repressed griffith kill him, the way he always lets himself get stabbed when he feels bad about something, OR neogriffith’s irrational love gets the better of him and he lets guts kill him – guts ends up sticking him in the throat in a mirror of how he killed gambino.

either way there’s a lot of crying and cradling a corpse.

tbh i’m leaning towards griffith killing guts for that devilman ending, and this way casca gets to play the role of angry god by swooping in and killing him. if that’s the case griffith lets her because his irrational emotions have finally truly burst free and taken hold over him after he kills guts. his crying is a call-back to his ‘last tear shed.’

(maybe casca becomes zodd 2.0, living for battle and becoming a sword just for herself. kind of a darkly fucked-up “happy” ending for her lol.)

BEST CASE ENDING WITH NO FUCKS GIVEN FOR PLAUSIBILITY

all of the above but after finally understanding each other they make out instead of dueling and then casca kills neogriff and an adult theresia kills guts, and they both ride off into the sunset with their respective girlfriends, farnese and jill.

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i see people actually insist that like “nooo griffith made it clear it was the fetus making him feel stuff sweetie :)” and its just. i get the writing and irony or whatever behind thinking that but its sloppy and easy and not emotionally satisfying. or maybe it is for freaks who hate griffith idk.

i’ve seen people insist that griffith made it clear he doesn’t feel guilty lol, so many berserk fans have like negative reading comprehension

like with the fetus idk, maybe i could see an argument that it’s ironic? like lol griffith thought he’d escaped feelings but now something else’s feelings, which he’s responsible for creating during the eclipse, are fucking him over again, serves him right. maybe the idea of evil is punking him or smthn. but yeah it would still be sloppy, emotionally pointless writing lol.

tbh even if the fetus is only forcing him to save casca i feel like… it’s unnecessary. one of my major writing pet peeves is when you could explain something thru organic characterization and development you’ve already established, and instead you decide to explain it through artificial means like magic/brainwashing/physical changes to their mind/whatever.

if neogriffith’s blood is unfrozen, well, we don’t know what that means exactly, but one thing it could mean is that he’s reverting back to human griffith in mind. because he’s on another plane of godlike awareness he’s never going to be entirely human griffith again, but if miura tells me that human griffith’s emotions are unfrozen or w/e then I would absolutely believe it would fuck him up and make him do irrational things without thinking, like save casca from rocks. and i’d believe that griffith would deny it to himself and continue acting cold and aloof, bc lol it’s griffith, now re-dedicated to his dream with godlike powers and memories of being a monster and choosing to sacrifice everyone he loves, obviously he’s going to deny and repress whatever he’s feeling.

you don’t need the additional step of magic baby possession to justify it, it just takes away from all that excellent character work we already have.

like ok i’ll take the baby possession when it comes to his reaction to casca if it ends up being true, fine, but i absolutely refuse when it comes to his feelings for guts. that just crosses a line.

ok the chapter where neogriffith’s heart starts going off

visible exhale of breath as the fight begins

eventually guts kicks a sword through zodd and gets thrown back

this is rickert’s commentary, but it reminds me a lot of this

and immediately following that panel ngriff’s heart starts making itself known

denial followed immediately by one of the best pages in the manga, as though in counterpoint

the composition of those final 2 panels is interesting

ngriff on one side, fetus or guts on the other. who’s to blame? well, the first is neogriffith’s thoughts, the second is neogriffith’s reality.

whether the fetus is responsible for neogriffith impulsively saving casca for no reason is whatever. it seems entirely possible to me that we can blame the fetus for that. neogriffith thinks the fetus is fucking with him, and maybe he’s partially right.

but when it comes to blaming the fetus for making his heart stir here instead of blaming his very own feelings for guts, the visuals just don’t support it.