Tag: theme: isolation

out of curiosity, why do you have that header image?

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Kind of a pretentious meta-y reason lol, this is one of my fave post golden age chapters because I feel like Sonia’s thoughts on loneliness are extremely relevant to NeoGriffith and whatever residual feelings for Guts he has, based on how Miura frames him here, and like, the themes of Berserk in general.

Yk, Sonia is lonely because she’s different from everyone else, she briefly bonds with her Guts’ narrative counterpart and misses her, we get a conversation with Irvine about how relationships humanize and isolation dehumanizes, we get our usual light = companionship, darkness = isolation imagery, and then Sonia dreams of her and Schierke in the moonlight. Followed by the page of NeoGriffith surrounded by darkness, alone under that moon.

So “A dream of a kite and an owl playing in a moonlit forest” is roundaboutly griffguts related as far as I’m concerned bc Sonia and Schierke seem like a v strong parallel to me, and I like being needlessly subtle w/ my references sometimes lol.

flooracle
replied to your post “flooracle
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Yes that would be great!! Tbh I hope the next few chapters will have some hawks interactions and not just battle stuff

Right on! The faceoff against Gennon was def more satisfying considering everything, then the millennium arc ending is good imo but almost feels too big, if not for an emotional part like that..

Of course! Idk if links embed here in the replies (like for preventing bots) so I could send them w the message function or w/e works best for you!

i think it’s only asks that won’t let you send links, either replying or messaging should work.

yeah if we’re going back to Griffith’s narrative I’d love to see more relationships and emotional stuff than just monster fights, and more revealing glimpses into the apostles lives would be fantastic.

and ikwym, I think the final confrontation between griffith and ascended ganeshka was interesting, but mostly in like a metaphorical way and because it made me really interested in the possibility of getting into what it means for NGriff to be “the absolute, without equal,” ie, the inherent isolation and loneliness that we saw with Ganeshka. I don’t actually care all that much about like… the actual literal breaking the world open plot stuff lol.

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vs

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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).

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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.

ninjabelle:

God, I was in physical pain reading this chapter.
My heart just breaks for Rickert.
The Griffith he followed, whose dream he shared and who he adored- who he wanted to save- that’s not the man who stands in front of him now, in this gorgeous prosperous city that was build on the corpses and dreams of hundreds upon hundreds of men.
I always wondered if Rickert would feel like he shouldn’t have survived, if he ever found out the truth of what happened during the eclipse and met Griffith again. And this chapter kind of confirmed it for me. But unlike Guts he cannot drown in hatred and stake his life on revenge. All he could do, and all he had to console him was build that hill of swords. I can’t even imagine how lonely and helpless he must have felt, being the only survivor left with no answers and a thousand questions.
But even so, the Griffith he faced this chapter cannot answer him, not really. I know I happily lost my shit and joked along with all of the ‘Rickert’s balls of steel and impending doom’ crap over the bitchsmack panel when it came out as a spoiler, but seeing it in the context of the chapter as a whole- wow. It took my breath away for a plethora of other reasons.
People say he’s brave as hell for daring the slap the almighty Griffith but honestly I don’t think he even had time to work up courage, and it just happened on this spur of instinct- of way overdue hurt and that hurts me because jesus, Rickert deserves better dammit. 
Griffith’s reaction was on point though- I didn’t expect him to immediately chop Rickert’s head off or anything, but it’s impossible to read him nowadays. Is it just apathy? Like always? Does he even feel anything at all when Rickert rejects his new self- his pretty new kingdom? I can’t tell- I want to believe, but, alas. It’s Berserk. It kills. And I’m done.

Totally agreed about Rickert, I don’t often think about his survivor’s guilt but it’s a huge part of his character and it was rly satisfying to see him get to express some of his feelings about everything, directly to Griffith.

As for Griffith, his reaction is the most intriguing part of the scene to me ngl.

Like overall I think NeoGriffith is automatically interesting because of what Miura doesn’t show us? The last time we saw into his head was

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like the first and only thing we find out about his internal life is that he’s not as unemotional as he appears, and every scene w/ NeoGriffith afterwards where his emotions are conspicuously hidden from us just adds to my sense that inevitably we’re heading towards a big revelation about his feelings specifically.

The scene with Rickert is especially interesting because it’s the first time we see NeoGriffith at a loss.

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Like this is his only response to Rickert’s tirade, and it’s an acknowledgement of the difference between, well, who he is now and who he used to be, essentially.

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Ngriff’s got nothing. And that is so damn interesting to me lol.

“Don’t throw away what you can’t replace,” is something Guts reminds Rickert right after the Reunion on the Hill of Swords and right before Guts does this:

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NGriff starts putting a new Band of the Hawk together like he’s trying to replace the old one, and he’s invited Rickert to join. I got this idea from @mastermistressofdesire a while ago lol and it’s so perfect, like, basically NGriff invited Rickert along because deep down he wants validation from one of the original Hawks. It would be proof that “nothing has changed.” That he has successfully replaced the original Band.

But Rickert rejected him, and it seems like it throws him off. He’s supposed to be literally untouchable, but Rickert was able to slap him. He has nothing to say to Rickert in response other than to quietly agree that the Hawk symbol is different now. And his face is hidden from us while watching Rickert leave both times:

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Like this ties in with this theory/hope of mine that NeoGriffith’s thing is going to end up being identity/isolation. As the absolute with no equal, as someone who has undergone huge changes and denies it (”this is the man I am.”), as a parallel to ascended Ganeshka, because he failed his own test and his heart started beating when he saw Guts and the first thing he did was deny to himself that it had anything to do with his feelings for Guts, and a few other little details, like eg this page at the end of a chapter all about sonia feeling lonely and isolated as the only person who sees the world the way she does:

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Like c’mon Miura, all this suggestive emotional ambiguity has to be there for something.

like remember when miura gave like a talk on writing at some thing idk and he discussed how he uses each character to draw out different emotions from guts, and one of griffith’s was ‘loneliness’

that is like the #1 thing i love about griffguts. two people, both alone in different ways, whose feelings of isolation are only fully eased by the other no matter how fucked up their thing gets or how much either of them change, whether magically or organically

also while i’m on chapter one

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idk if this is a purposeful thing but this sequence makes me think of how both guts and griffith are used to isolation in different ways, guts as a loner, swinging his sword instead of showing up to the ceremony, and griffith surrounded by people but separate from them, rising above the rest of the hawks but looked down on by the whispering nobles in the audience.

and then i remembered that time miura said griffith draws out feelings of loneliness in (current) guts and the way they’re each others’ brightest things, how they both shine in each others’ eyes and hearts, and agh

there’s something just so good and satisfying about how these two lonely idiots found each other and their relationship with each other is the only thing that fully eases that loneliness. griffith as he opens up to guts and lets him see the real him, and guts as he begins to accept that he’s maybe genuinely found a home here with griffith, after griffith saves his life again for “no reason.”

and why guts overhearing the promrose speech had such a devastating effect on him, and why guts leaving had such a devastating effect on griffith

also it makes me think of how current guts is similar to griffith – he has friends and people he relies on, but he doesn’t fully open up to them. there was even a recent reminder that farnese’s feelings for guts are similar to casca’s for griffith.

today i was thinking a lot about farnese’s isolation and emotional distance from ppl all her life

like even serpico didn’t tell her she’s his half sister and she had to ask if he hates her and agh there’s still a big unbridged emotional gap there

and her journey through casca’s mind, seeing her life through her eyes and feeling her feelings, must’ve been so huge for her because of that

like farnesca is right there. casca is now the person farnese knows best and is most emotionally intimate with and with whom she has shared the most

also super interesting potential for development and growth, both painful/fucked up and happy and good, in that it’s one-sided. farnese has seen casca’s whole life through her eyes and heart, but casca has to learn about farnese the old fashioned way

why the portrait of neogriff at the end of chapter 250, after all the discussion of loneliness, is one of my faves:

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miura’s visual depiction of isolation, loneliness, and alienation is consistent af and if this doesn’t lead somewhere i’ll eat my hat

bthump:

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Not to the Hawks, but “just me and Griffith.“

I love that Guts thinks of the Zodd debacle as something shared between him and Griffith, something they did together, even though they had a troop of Hawks with them.

And I think Griffith thinks of it the same way:

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His reaction to Wyald’s transformation into a monster is to try to join Guts’ side, to help him face it or save him from it.

(And yeah I have no problem confidentally stating that that’s why Griffith fell over here lol. He tries it again when he tries to tear himself away from the men holding him when Casca is in danger, and before this he’d tried to grab his sword, so.)

Also to add an actual point, the call-backs to Zodd are rly effective in spotlighting Griffith’s helplessness in contrast, as well as spotlighting Guts’ solitary fight against monsters, again in contrast to his first fight beside Griffith.

He saves Casca but they don’t go on to fight Wyald together, he tells her to fuck off and let him do this himself, while Griffith is removed from everyone else watching helplessly from a distance. Without Griffith Guts is alone, and vice versa.

Why do you think Neo-Griffith trying to deny the Eclipse? He even replaced each Hawk member with people similar to the old one in the Band of the Hawks. Neo-Griffith claimed that he’s “free”, but his actions speak otherwise. Is he afraid that he will feel guilty if he didn’t live in denial? Rickret’s slap surly force reality on him, and snap him out of his denial. But why Neo-Griffith pre-Rickret’s slap, trying to deny the Eclipse and perhaps his wrongdoings in it well?

@mastermistressofdesire had a post about this that I loved (i think in answer to an ask) but I can’t find it now bc I suck at tag organization 😦

But basically I agree with most of what you’re saying, I feel like NeoGriff’s half of the story with the Neo Band of the Hawk and Rickert calling him out is perfect set-up for a reveal that he has more emotions than we can see. Idk if I’d say he’s denying the Eclipse by rebuilding the Band, but I could see it being a denial of him having changed – “You of all people should have known – this is the man I am. Nothing has changed.”

mmod in her post on the subject mentioned that NGriff forming a new Band of the Hawk and inviting Rickert along seems like an indication that he wants approval/vindication from the last remaining member of the Hawks. And Rickert pointing out the differences in the insignias and saying Griffith was his leader, not the “Falcon of Light,” while NeoGriffith’s only response is to quietly agree, seems really important.

Like it’s the only time we’ve seen NGriff at a loss for words and at a disadvantage. And it’s when Rickert says he’s not his Griffith. I could easily see NGriff having some identity issues after this scene. (Especially after seeing Ganeshka ascend to a higher plane and totally lose his sense of identity.)

I do kind of wonder about NGriff’s capacity for guilt. It’s all in question bc we’ve seen his heart beating but since then we haven’t had any insight into his internal thoughts, so he’s feeling something but we don’t know what. Whether part of it is regret or guilt, idk. Guilt was such an important aspect of original Griff’s character that it wouldn’t surprise me if that returned in some form, if his emotions in general have.

(Also while searching for that post by mmod I found a different conversation with her that’s p relevant to this ask too, if you’re interested.)

ooh also now that i’m contemplating this topic i think the scene in the river with Casca could be viewed as a choice for Griffith between letting her in and growing closer to her or keeping her at a distance. When he freezes up as she hugs him, then turns around and represses his feelings and comforts her instead, that’s him choosing to keep her at a distance rather than be vulnerable around her.

So really his speech to Charlotte about not having friends is a self-fulfilling prophecy. like Griffith could have a bunch of friends but that requires letting people see your imperfections. the way Griffith describes a friend – as an equal who also has a goal and would challenge and oppose him if need be – it’s like he wants someone to fight past his barriers and climb over his walls and make him their friend, because he’s unwilling to expose himself to the possibility of rejection while emotionally vulnerable.

Guts is the exception, the one person he actually tries to let in who keeps placing him at a distance. Asking him to kill Julius instead of ordering and Guts reinforcing the mercenary hierarchy instead; asking if Guts thinks he’s cruel and getting ‘who cares your dream is more important’ as an answer; doing irrational things for him because his brain takes a back seat when Guts is involved and Guts dismissing those moments as irrelevant compared to the overheard friendship speech; etc.

Which is another reason it’s tragic and ironic that Guts takes the friendship speech to heart, because he’s probably the only person in Griffith’s life who didn’t need to follow that advice to become his friend, he just needed to accept Griffith’s overtures of friendship instead of accidentally rebuffing him.

the-black-swordsman
replied to your post “oh and i know i talked recently about how the hawks didn’t seem to…”

Guts and Casca – yes, but I always thought Judeau just wanted to take
care of him, so Casca can be happy with Guts and they can ride off into the
sunset together, I don’t believe he actually cared for Griffith, but only to have Casca move on from him asap. I actually think he is the hawk, who liked Griffith the least, but that might be my hc.

i p much agree actually. the impression i get from judeau is that he admired griffith but didn’t really know what to make of him or what his deal was and was maybe a little wary of him bc of that.

actually now that i think about it maybe the best way to put the way i think the hawks (including judeau to an extent) see griffith in general by the ballroom scene is that they’re like, varying degrees between respect for a commander and friendship, and griffith is the one keeping that distance from being closed by keeping them in the dark about stuff and keeping himself on a pedestal for them. like i see potential there for real friendship that’s never actually fully reached, i guess.

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tbh tho griffith’s second expression here fucks me up so much

i mean, cover his smile, and he looks almost like he’s holding back tears. there’s so much emotion in that one fucking drawing like… he’s hurt, but not really by guts’ words so much as the reminder of his dream. and it’s not like a sudden reminder of the weight of guilt on him or w/e, it’s like

idk like it reminds me of the moment griffith asked guts to kill julius and guts was like ‘just order me to do it’ and we didn’t see griffith’s expression then, and it probably wasn’t this intense, but i imagine guts’ answer was a disappointing reminder of the artificial distance between griffith and guts based on status and now class etc. and i feel like this is the same – this is griffith treating guts like the only friend he has and opening up in a vulnerable moment and guts returning that distance between them by reminding griffith of his dream.

and in this moment the reminder of his dream hurts not for all the reasons it should, but bc it’s a barrier between him and guts, yk?

idk this is such a crossroads moment imo and ugh this scene is so perfect

mastermistressofdesire:

dicks-out-for-griffith:

mastermistressofdesire:

strangemonochromes:

Berserk (ベルセルク) // Kentaro Miura

Casca babe. I still don’t know why the fuck you would say that.
It makes zero sense.

Tbh at this point I felt things were happening, only because they had to happen, even if it made no sense to anyone to act like this. Like Casca saying this, as if it still mattered what Griffith saw as a equal. Like Guts acting as if not realizing how severe Griffith’s injuries were and saying he will swing that sword again. Like the Band throwing a fucking tantrum how their future is ruined, while Griffith was 5 steps away and probably listening. Like even Guts and Casca having this talk there, as if he wasn’t sleeping nearby… the amount of moments, where everyone was being inconsiderate was so huge, that it felt kind of…. forced to me 😮 Either this or at this point they had all stopped seeing Griffith as a person already.

And tbh, there was no going back from there on in my opinion, even if he had never been offered to sacrifice them, even if he had accepted living in a broken body, he wouldn’t have accepted being their mascot.

Yeah,
I completely agree actually.

Like of course at this point Miura was trying to take the plot to the eclipse so maybe everything doesn’t make sense from character consistency point of view.

But really if we leave that aside this arc really was evidence that both of what Wyald said and what we knew of Griffith’s apprehensions were almost completely justified.

Like it really just came across as if nobody actually gave a shit about griffith as a fucking human being. And it was upsetting because all this while, we were thinking how Griffith was wrong and being pessimistic and he should maybe stop distancing himself so much. But then griffith was absolutely right all along.

It really just seemed like everyone was waiting for griffith because of the usefulness he’d have to their lives. The moment it became clear that he wouldn’t be able to do that, they immediately ran to Guts to leave with him instead.

Like notice how no one else even tries to visit him after that, I mean yeah okay, you were throwing around words like love before, but okay.

yes , they most probably wouldn’t have abandoned him but that would most probably be because such a thing would be ‘distasteful’ rather than anything else. I mean you might be right about the fact that they’ve already stopped seeing him as a person at this point.

And honestly even with Casca, like this really rubbed me the wrong way- but she has this little bit of internal monologue where she says “Yes now it’s my turn to fulfill this duty. ” And that sense of duty is repeated when she tells Guts that she can’t leave with him.
And wow. So it’s DUTY now ? Like a couple of chapters ago you were wondering why he’d chose Charlotte to bed instead of you and were being jealous of the fact. And now it’s only your sense of duty holding you back. Like honestly I thought you loved this person?
Wow for consistency.

I mean I remember Griffith saying in the lake, while hurting himself that the only thing he can do for his men is to keep winning.

And really he was right.

That’s all they want from him and that’s all that he’s good for in their eyes.

tbh this never bothered me from a writing perspective because it felt very realistic to me

it’s not good and it doesn’t reflect well on the hawks, but it seems consistent because none of them ever gave a fuck about griffith as a person except guts and casca. judeau practically flat out said it during his first chat with guts, when he said everyone followed griffith for his charisma but he couldn’t really say what kind of a man he is.

and it’s partially griffith’s fault for distancing himself. you can’t expect people to care about you as a person if they only know you as a flawless leader. but it’s also definitely dickish of the hawks – but the kind of dickish that doesn’t seem out of place imo, especially in berserk’s shitty world where if you’re accepting that half the men casca runs into want to rape her, ableism doesn’t seem like a stretch.

also in fairness, only corkus made a scene when casca announced the news, and that’s pretty in character for him, and there was only like, maybe a couple hours between that and the eclipse, during most of which griffith was asleep, so there wasn’t much opportunity for people to visit him, or even sort out their feelings beyond abject disappointment that their hopes are dashed.

i actually love casca and judeau telling guts to leave while he’s trying to say he wants to stay, because they are treating griffith as an inevitable burden someone has to deal with, and guts is the only one who isn’t. judeau has his, i’ll take some hawks, start a thieves gang and take care of him, because it’s the least i could do for all he’s done for us. plus being ‘self sacrificing’ for casca’s sake lol.

casca’s feelings are more complex but they also work for me – because she wanted to leave with guts after rescuing griffith and try to move on from her feelings for griffith, and now he needs her, and she’s someone who wants to be needed, so it’s like just as she had hope that she could move on she’s back to square one. also tbh her attitude strikes me as more evidence that she never really loved Griffith, just admired him.

and they both expect guts to view him as a burden so they encourage him to leave – because according to those rules of the battlefield judeau likes to cite so much, he’s no longer a hawk so griffith isn’t his responsibility.

and guts partially wants to stay out of guilt probably, but based on his actions at the start of the eclipse it seems clear that he, more than anyone else in the hawks, still just genuinely likes griffith and wants to be with him in some capacity. he’s the one who speaks out when the godhand says griffith is one of them, he supports and holds him until they’re forcibly separated and then he climbs up to griffith to try to save him, and he refuses to believe griffith sacrificed everyone for quite a while.

idk basically it’s harsh and depressing but it works for me largely bc i never got the sense that anyone except guts genuinely liked griffith as a person, even casca. well charlotte i guess, but w/e. even she believed he’d recover when she wanted to stay with him.

Do you think Griffith felt offend when Rickert rejected him? Maybe a little shocked too. I think his desire to know Rickert motives of that slap because he wanted to understand *why*. But Rickert answer end up hurt his ego even more, I think. What’s your thoughts on that?

mastermistressofdesire:

I mean if this was human Griffith, Hell Yeah.

Neo-Griffith is honestly really hard for me to understand. Like what’s going on in that mind of his, it’s so difficult to tell.

I’m not really sure about offended because he didn’t seem angry to me just dissapointed and slightly deflated but I do think he was shocked, much like most of us didn’t see that slap coming.

However I don’t think that Rickert’s refusal came as a complete surprise to Griffith, he’d already considered the possibility, he’d already said “It’s possible you may hate me after knowing the truth…”

But it’s interesting that he didn’t say probable. That’s most probably Griffith’s personal desires warping the truth of the facts around him. Griffith wants to go back to that stage in his life when he had it all figured out, and the Band of the Hawk was by his side. He wants to think that Rickert may chose to join him because he Wants Rickert to join him. All his actions with the Neo Band of the Hawk reflect his desire. He’s trying to rebuild what he’s lost. But They are empty replacements, and so to have Rickert back , a real part of the past he’s trying to recreate is important to him.

It reminds me of two lines from the Manga which have been recurrent themes

“Don’t abandon what you can’t replace”

“Even if you painstakingly put something back together piece by piece it will never be the same.”

They were said with respect to Guts but I feel are highly applicable to Griffith right now too. And is I feel one of the many parallels between them that we get.

So in conclusion, yes the slap was definitely a harsh reality check for Griffith. Which is precisely why he’s playing it cool and saying it doesn’t matter. But yes he’s shaken and contemplative now.

When he first saw Rickert in Falconia, You could see the enthusiasm in Griffith’s body language. It was self delusional yes. But he dropped everything and practically ran to him. He’d obviously been looking forward to seeing him.

Also I think he’d taken it for granted that the fact that Rickert came at all meant he had already decided to accept. I mean most people don’t come all that way, braving monsters and climbing a million stairs just to deliver a well deserved slap.

He opens the conversation grandiosely,  many words and poetry. Exposition and greeting. He’s already expecting things to go up from here, they have been for sometime after all. Nothing has changed he wants to believe that. Then the refusal comes and all that comes out for the rest of the interaction is a muted ‘so it is’ because I think he’s coming to come to terms with the fact that truly? Everything has changed.


@bthump Because you always have the best neo-griffith thoughts. 🙂

oh my gooood i got to the bolded bit and started practically rubbing my hands together in glee at your insight. this whole answer is amazing.

The exploration of identity with NeoGriffith has the potential to be so so good. The way it does seem like he wants Rickert to join him because having a former Hawk accept the NeoBand would be a kind of validation that he needs on some level.

The way Rickert phrases his refusal is one of my favourite moments because of the emphasis he places on how it’s not his Band, and Griffith isn’t his Griffith, and the small differences between insignias matter. And all Griffith can do is passively agree. Now that you’ve drawn the comparison between the NeoBand and those significant lines about forcing back what was and abandoning irreplacable things I am dying to see where that leads even more.

Also it occurs to me that this is the first scene we see where NeoGriff is taken aback and not in control – the way Rickert slaps him, the way he has no response to Rickert’s speech – since the very first scene where his heart started beating and he saved Casca and went ‘wtf’ to himself. Add the fact that he apparently didn’t see the slap coming despite his magic powers of being essentially untouchable, and I think it’s a fair guess that his beating heart and surviving emotions are throwing him off his game again here. (Which incidentally is another solid sign that it’s not the fetus screwing with him bc i doubt very much the fetus gives a fuck about Rickert.)

ty for tagging me! I don’t think there was really much to add to your answer so this is mostly me nodding vigorously and flailing a little lol.

i’m in an attaching whatever shit i think of while looking at something to the post instead of keeping to the tags mood rn so

this has to come full circle at some point, right? this is one of the most important themes of berserk it can’t just be left dangling with no resolution

so there are 2 ways (imo) for it to come full circle – Guts finally becomes Griffith’s equal (either they’re equalized in some way that makes the whole absolute god incarnate thing irrelevant, eg focusing on emotions rather than power, or Guts becomes a god, or Griffith loses godhood)

or the fact that Griffith is now absolute and therefore totally alone and Guts is achieving his new-found goal of not caring anymore gains significance

i’m expecting the latter tbh. bc i mean like… this can’t just never come up again, how unsatisfying would that be? it’s the driving force behind the wedge between Guts and Griff and was replayed when Guts was seeking revenge after the Eclipse, and there’s no conclusion to that thread yet.