not replying to the post bc in general i don’t like reblogging stuff just to disagree with op, but yeah that detail about Casca being Miura’s ideal woman skeeves me tf out. From the fact that I hate that a dude can get away with making his personal fantasy fodder a love interest in a serious story and no one considers that cheap or yk lacking in artistic merit while if a woman does the same her work gets automatically dismissed as chick lit/trashy romance, to the fact that Casca is sexually assaulted so often in disgustingly eroticized ways, to the objectifying descriptions emphasized there, it’s gross as hell imo.
Hi, I ended up here because you linked the post recently. So, about Charlotte. It’s not a thing I like or totally understand the cultural reasons for, but you see a lot of women/bottoms saying “no/don’t” in Japanese porn that’s framed as consensual. I gather it’s a “good girls always say no” thing? It’s still really uncomfortable and problematic, but the scene with Charlotte reads like it’s complying to an established (although ugly and misogynist) standard to me.
I agree about all the ways the trio’s
characters were gutted by the eclipse though. I don’t even really
disagree about Charlotte, I just think Miura was riding the wheel, not
inventing it.
Yeah I have like, a vague awareness of that as a cliche inJapanese porn/erotica, tho it crops up in more than its fair share of english media too, and I feel like that no means yes trope is an unfortunately p universal form of misogyny/rape culture. And yeah def agree that it’s what’s informing that scene.
Yeah, the backstories
were what made me hopeful that there was a more cohesive idea being
explored. Now I mostly hope he just leaves it alone and doesn’t go
there.
The book was was Blade of Tyshalle by Matthew Stover. It’s:
-the second book in a series
-a masterful culmination of themes explored in the first book
-maybe my favorite book ever?
-choke-full of things that should not work but do
-seriously dark and violent, but worth reading if you can stomach it
I looked it up and ngl the premise of that series sounds pretty intriguing. idk if I’ll check it out but it’s going on a list of books to maybe look into next time I’m bored, so ty.
And yeah ikwym, I feel like in a different story the Golden Age narrative culminating in Griffith transforming into a version of himself that embodies his inner darkness and that being shown through rape could’ve worked like, thematically. It just like, would’ve had to be different in almost every way lol. like about Casca’s trauma rather than Guts’, and half the narrative could not centre NGriff as a protagonist afterwards, and Casca should be a full character and have at least as much narrative significance as Guts, and the depiction would actually have to be tasteful and centred in Casca’s pov since the theme in question is trauma and the rapists throughout the Golden Age are all one dimensional caricatures – like they’re not the focus, the victims are.
But idk this is the mess we got, and I’m with you, at this point I’m just hoping Miura doesn’t make it worse.
Well, not like I can argue that sexual violence is handled well in Berserk. Tangential, but I once read a book where shit was a motif. Like, literally shit. And that sounds super gross but the author knew what he was doing and it served a very intentional literary purpose. I would have (quietly) been okay if Miura was doing something similar, but it really does seem like he just breaks out the rape card whenever he needs to up the stakes.
imo the really annoying thing about rape in berserk is that sometimes it actually is well done but most of the time it’s… just not lol. Like I think Guts and Griffith and Casca’s (with a few caveats) backstories all work really well, depicted in varying degrees of graphic but for the most part effectively so, they inform the characters and their current values and motivations, and thematically their backstories potentially inform like, the entire story.
Which imo just makes it worse that so much of the rape we see in Berserk is so badly done and gratuitous. Like as a theme I think it could’ve been strong and effective, and like, sometimes it is, but overall there’s way more bad than good. So yeah I p much completely agree with you.
and lol I’m kinda curious now, what book was that?
Huh now I’m actually curious if that speech is gender neutral in Japanese, because honestly the focus on men in that speech did seem like… pretty typical of Berserk in general lol. Like Miura really elevates same-gender relationships over opposite-sex relationships which are almost always romantic by default, and generally treated as lesser, or as stepping stones to that most important relationship (eg nina leaving with a dude so she can one day feel worthy of being luca’s friend) and the speech fits that pattern perfectly, so I always assumed it was deliberately gendered – not so much as a reflection on Griffith (tho again in the context of being repressed but desiring that all-important relationship with a man specifically… I’m still okay with it) but bc of Miura’s own biases.
But it’d be nice if it was actually gender neutral bc the focus on men men men, especially that first “but for a man he must first come upon one other precious thing” or w/e the line was, was pretty annoying.
sorry to bring bad news but that convo was anything but gender neutral. like, griffith started it by mentioning that charlotte asked him why /men/ love spilling blood so much so the men vs women divide was there from start to finish
actually the official translation was completely consistent with the original in terms of levels of gendering:
(男, otoko, officially translated as “man/men”)
(者, mono, officially translated as “one”)
(人, hito, officially translated as “people” and then 男, otoko, “man/men” again)
and then griffith ends the conversation like “sorry that must have been a boring topic for a lady (女性, josei)”
so like yeah japanese is a mostly gender neutral language in that its verbs and adjectives are not inflected by gender etc. but that doesn’t mean that all japanese conversations are completely gender neutral. far from it actually
Thank you! Yeah like I said, the way this convo is gendered fits the story to me and imo still reflects more on Miura than Griffith, but like, it doesn’t not fit Griffith imo. It still serves my interpretation of him so I’m cool w/ this.
Also yeah very good point about the abbreviation, ty for mentioning it. JP is definitely preferable if you’re going to shorten the word “japanese,” even if it’s just intended as shorthand and not a slur.
Anon who sent me the Griffith-hate ask, I accidentally deleted your second message while trying to delete a different one lol, sorry about that. Once again I hope you see this and sorry about the lack of notif again.
But basically what I wanted to say is that yeah sure that “warming a man is a woman’s duty” bit is misogynist (and I think you mentioned the Promrose Hall speech too? as another example the person you’re hatereading gave?), but yk, so is Judeau’s “she’s our woman and we want her back” statement while rescuing Casca, so is 90% of everything Guts says to her ever, and so is 90% of the narrative voice honestly.
Idk man this is another instance where I’d say if they’re going to judge other fans for liking something w/ offensive elements, they should probably just put down Berserk and find something else to enjoy.
not to mention how that particular statement coming from griffith smells suspiciously of like heteronormativity and intense repression moreso than i think it says anything about how griffith sees women
how griffith sees women is clear from the fact that he didn’t rescue casca, he gave her a sword to rescue herself, and then let her join his band of mercenaries. imo anyway
ia.
yk i was going to say something like, “in fairness I wouldn’t use it as an argument against ppl saying that line makes Griffith misogynist bc that’s giving Miura way too much credit” but lol I’m actually torn because it’s so easy to ascribe that line to repression, especially because, like you say, it contradicts what we’re later shown and told about what Griffith thinks women are capable of, and it’s at odds with his general existence in the GA narrative as the progressive dude who scares the conservatives lol.
So either it’s a deliberate contrast to show that Griffith has a particular blind spot when it comes to physical intimacy between people, which also fits in nicely with the fact that he has trauma related to same sex desire and Casca lays all that out at the same time she tells Guts that she admires Griffith because he threw her a sword and gave her a blanket and generally treated her with respect, and expresses her jealousy of Guts because of Griffith’s feelings for him. Like, basically Casca’s flashback ties everything together in a neat little repression bow.
OR it’s a mildly ooc moment because Miura needed some kind of plot contrivance to give Casca a reason to hate Guts and potentially to get her naked in bed with him for the sake of future sex, if he was thinking along those lines this early.
I still wouldn’t use it to try to shut someone down in an argument I guess lol, but I mean, I would say “okay fair enough but here’s how I take that line and why” and consider that a fairly strong interpretation.
yeah a bit lol, the heart hilt especially kind of bothers me. like where did she get that and why? was it custom made? would casca really want a sword with decorative hearts on it? (I could headcanon my own explanation, like maybe she stole it off a nobleman who kept it basically for decoration rather than actually using it, back when the Hawks were thieves. But yk I’m not giving Miura credit for that.)
tbh in general I find it kind of hard to criticize her golden age outfit in the context of like, 90% of fantasy female warriors’ outfits lol, bc in all fairness it’s p realistic and practical comparatively. her breastplate doesn’t have sculpted boobs, her boots don’t have heels any more than the dudes’ do (and to be fair I feel like i’ve heard that the thigh highs were an actual practical riding thing – tho ofc none of the dudes wear them, soooo enh), she doesn’t have half her chest exposed for the sake of cleavage (except of course for the many, many pages where her clothes are torn lol), and she like, wears pants.
but on the other hand it’s sad the bar is that low because lbr Casca wearing decent clothes doesn’t prevent Miura from drawing her ridiculously for the sake of fanservice anyway
like no it’s not technically an upskirt shot, but damn it’s hard to tell the difference with that long skirt-looking tunic and ultra tight pants. kind of unfortunately undermines the power angle imo.
and her pants get even tighter after she has sex with guts ime, there are a few panels like this one later on:
so yeah, i guess like, it is kind of nitpicky, but it’s the kind of nitpicky i agree with lol. I mean I wouldn’t write a big long post to criticize Casca’s outfit bc for the most part it’s much better than i’d expect, but it’s def not perfect.
@freewilllife I’m c/ping this bc that post is really long to reblog imo lol
I half-wonder if this is an issue with Miura writing some of Berserk
while depressed lol, considering how utterly cynical the Conviction arc
is.
I think this is the case.Depending on the real life issues of the author…and yes I think it somehow is fitting…
Because
sometimes a relationship even an unequal one is better than being
alone, however it can turn out worse if the dependent state doesn´t
develop…
Somehow I think ( I know what a thought…most
Griffith/Guts fans do know that I suppose) that Griffith and Guts had a
dependency on each other that could have turned into a nice
relationship, but fate and their own insufficient communication skills
prevented it.
Guts wished to be the equal of Griffith…he
wished to acquire it…The way he chose was…It would have not been bad if
he had somehow come to another realisation than committing murder is his
“dream” ( That is just my priority maybe?).
Casca on the other
hand wished to maintain an unequal relationship at all cost…she wished
to be near Griffith, later Guts. It is depicted as if Casca only wished
to be Griffith´s sword since she wished to stay in his shadow…Whereas
Guts wished to obtain an own dream in order to be his equal…
Yeah there’s something to be said for Guts and Casca’s (and Charlotte’s) respective reactions to hearing Griffith’s dream speech. Even if it was a stupid speech and Guts’ decision was misguided, he’s still the only one who was like, well I’d better go out and achieve something so I can be his bff.
And it’s also very telling that Guts invited Casca along on his dream adventure – it shows that Guts is not thinking of her as an equal, he’s thinking of her as support for him, the way she was support for Griffith, rather than someone who could achieve her own dream and become an equal w/ him and Griffith.
(This probably says more about how Miura sees romantic (het) relationships as opposed to All-Important Bonds Between Men, but yk.)
Like imo the whole notion of dreams + equals is stupid as fuck, but it’s what Guts is basing his life around at that point and Casca just doesn’t figure in as a potential equal as far as he’s concerned.
Also of course I completely agree that Guts and Griffith’s relationship could’ve been exactly what they both needed, and could’ve been (and was for a time) a hugely positive influence on both of them, but fate and their own issues interfered and ruined it. Like I don’t think they were ever not equals – regardless of their stupid arbitrary standards, their feelings for each other made them equals, and I s2g the water fight is symbolic of that fact.
Like, not literally but symbolically, Griffith won the first fight, Guts won the second – the waterfight. So when Guts won a third – the second duel – it fucked up the balance and resulted in Griffith losing everything, and demonstrated that Guts was leaving based on a false premise.
(also lmao yeah the dream Guts landed on is kind of hilarious in how terrible it is. i love that you describe it as ‘committing murder’ bc it’s not exactly far off)
Like I don’t think they were ever not equals – regardless of their
stupid arbitrary standards, their feelings for each other made them
equals, and I s2g the water fight is symbolic of that fact.
Yeah…When you express it like this. I mean that would mean that equal, mutual relationships would just be possible between men…I don´t mean that you said that, but the narrative seems to point to such a belief. Or maybe men are supposed to have “a woman”, but the “real relationship” is just with their comrade(s)?
Since Casca is treated by both men as a woman, a mutual, equal relationship doesn´t seem to be possible….I don´t know what that is supposed to mean…As if the sex would determine a persons every character and dreams…
Yeah honestly that is the vibe I get from Berserk. I mean honestly that’s the vibe I get from a lot of media in general. I mean, that’s the vibe I get from society lmao. Relationships between men and women are for sex and for the dude’s self-esteem and sense of completion as a man, relationships between men are the meaningful ones with nuance and intrigue and significance, that reflect upon them as individuals. And relationships between women barely exist.
Obviously there are exceptions, but let’s be real here, this is just how relationships are portrayed in media most of the time due to misogyny, and Berserk is… well the main relationships are no exception. To Miura’s credit some of the side relationships between women are interesting + significant (eg Jill and Rosine, Nina and Luca, can’t really say Farnese and Casca yet but there’s potential there), and Farnese and Serpico have an interesting relationship by these standards. Though the fact that it’s non-romantic is probably related.
@freewilllife I’m c/ping this bc that post is really long to reblog imo lol
I half-wonder if this is an issue with Miura writing some of Berserk
while depressed lol, considering how utterly cynical the Conviction arc
is.
I think this is the case.Depending on the real life issues of the author…and yes I think it somehow is fitting…
Because
sometimes a relationship even an unequal one is better than being
alone, however it can turn out worse if the dependent state doesn´t
develop…
Somehow I think ( I know what a thought…most
Griffith/Guts fans do know that I suppose) that Griffith and Guts had a
dependency on each other that could have turned into a nice
relationship, but fate and their own insufficient communication skills
prevented it.
Guts wished to be the equal of Griffith…he
wished to acquire it…The way he chose was…It would have not been bad if
he had somehow come to another realisation than committing murder is his
“dream” ( That is just my priority maybe?).
Casca on the other
hand wished to maintain an unequal relationship at all cost…she wished
to be near Griffith, later Guts. It is depicted as if Casca only wished
to be Griffith´s sword since she wished to stay in his shadow…Whereas
Guts wished to obtain an own dream in order to be his equal…
Yeah there’s something to be said for Guts and Casca’s (and Charlotte’s) respective reactions to hearing Griffith’s dream speech. Even if it was a stupid speech and Guts’ decision was misguided, he’s still the only one who was like, well I’d better go out and achieve something so I can be his bff.
And it’s also very telling that Guts invited Casca along on his dream adventure – it shows that Guts is not thinking of her as an equal, he’s thinking of her as support for him, the way she was support for Griffith, rather than someone who could achieve her own dream and become an equal w/ him and Griffith.
(This probably says more about how Miura sees romantic (het) relationships as opposed to All-Important Bonds Between Men, but yk.)
Like imo the whole notion of dreams + equals is stupid as fuck, but it’s what Guts is basing his life around at that point and Casca just doesn’t figure in as a potential equal as far as he’s concerned.
Also of course I completely agree that Guts and Griffith’s relationship could’ve been exactly what they both needed, and could’ve been (and was for a time) a hugely positive influence on both of them, but fate and their own issues interfered and ruined it. Like I don’t think they were ever not equals – regardless of their stupid arbitrary standards, their feelings for each other made them equals, and I s2g the water fight is symbolic of that fact.
Like, not literally but symbolically, Griffith won the first fight, Guts won the second – the waterfight. So when Guts won a third – the second duel – it fucked up the balance and resulted in Griffith losing everything, and demonstrated that Guts was leaving based on a false premise.
(also lmao yeah the dream Guts landed on is kind of hilarious in how terrible it is. i love that you describe it as ‘committing murder’ bc it’s not exactly far off)
God it’s just the fucking worst isn’t it? And it’s so constant, both pre and post Eclipse, and so shitty, and often straight up tonally jarring lmao.
I actually recently wrote out a whole rant about how the depiction of Casca during the Eclipse isn’t just incredibly offensive but straight up objectively, qualitatively bad writing and bad art, but then I never posted it bc I got uncomfortably specific lol. But man, and it’s not just the Eclipse either, it’s everywhere.
Actually can I just (not cut for anything particularly triggering, just me going on a brief rant anyway lol. also tits)
imagine drawing this. You’re an artist and writer, you’re trying to depict a thematically resonant, significant moment that’s also very sad and emotionally touching, and this is how you choose to do it. Look at those metallic looking nipples. Do you think Miura even knows that nipples usually aren’t hard?
Why does he want the het male portion of his audience to be turned on during a sad moment that takes place after an attempted rape?
Or, conversely, why are so many men so awful that it doesn’t even occur to Miura or the majority of his audience that the image accompanying this sad text is inappropriately eroticized? That a mostly naked woman with those ridiculously (and kind of racistly lbr) bright, eye-catching nipples and gravity-defying tits actively fucks with the emotional tone you’re theoretically trying to convey? Because it’s just default to them: woman = naked and sexy as often as possible no matter what the context is.
Honestly it’s infuriating, and this example is nowhere near as fucked up as the Eclipse, or even the way Miura continues to eroticize Casca’s body when she’s traumatized and regressed to like mental infancy, etc.
there’s something to be said about how this turns into a “men vs women” type of conversation where griffith takes men’s side with his bullshit dream spiel and pretends like it’s this profound thing women will never understand
and by that i mean that it comes off as trying too hard, the same way him talking about what a ‘friend’ is to him comes off as trying too hard. before i was a little hesitant to believe that griffith feels forced into masculine roles rather than choosing to take them bc it’s the fastest way to achieving what he’s trying to achieve, but after re-examining this scene i think i feel a little differently about that
#other ppl’s meta #totally it’s posturing – more for himself than charlotte too #the image that goes with the dream which is (how does this always fit so perfectly) an attempt at a heteronormative masculine ideal #the men are like this stuff fits that so well as does charlotte suggesting ‘family or a sweetheart’ which ofc sums up what griffith #is torn between (‘family’ if you don’t want to be saccharine and include the rest of the hawks he sacrifices) and what guts ends up #abandoning for /his/ dream
@bthump what you said here, “more for himself than charlotte,” that’s exactly what i mean, somehow it didn’t register to me, until today, that the part of this where he puts up a masculine facade is ALSO for himself, and not just for charlotte. you know, when i think @yesgabsstuff and i talked about how griffith would be more feminine without all this bullshit weighing on him, i said i didn’t think his choice to present and act more masculine was one he made out of fear. and i still think that, to an extent, but there’s no denying that he felt forced into that masculine role bc …………… it’s so tightly woven together with his dream. and since it’s something he has to do for the sake of his dream, then fear also has to be involved, even if in a sort of roundabout way. that is to say, i don’t think griffith is afraid of like, getting punched or called a faggot if he wears a dress or w/e. but i think there’s no denying that he is afraid of letting this image falter, and that’s what this is really about
I feel this tbh, like imo Griffith wouldn’t really have a visceral fear for his physical safety, he’s been the best w/ a sword since he was like 10 from all appearances lol, and honestly I feel like as a peasant mercenary with the force of personality he has he would in theory be able to get away with some gnc presentation and attraction to men if all he wanted was to fight and make money. Same way Casca could lead the Hawks even though she’s a woman in the world of Berserk lol.
but his fear of failure is a major aspect – he needs the correct image while climbing higher in society, to achieve his dream.
and also i think he needs the dream to justify hiding behind the image, which is partly what i get out of that speech to charlotte. it reads to me like he’s justifying his dream to himself as worthwhile in and of itself, in a contrast to how he justifies it to himself in the river w/ casca a few chapters later, as something he owes the dead.
idk it all goes into how his dream is a defense mechanism from his self loathing and a way to justify his existence, but he doesn’t think of it that way 99% of the time, he has to see it as inherently worthwhile to avoid acknowledging the actual reason (self-loathing) he’s pursuing it.
and some of that self loathing is guilt, some is a belief of his inherent worthlessness, but some is also connected to his sexuality, both in his traumatic experience with Gennon after which he called himself dirty, and his love for Guts, which is especially shown through how Guts is pitted against his dream and how Guts “made him weak” and his feelings for him led to him losing everything. Griffith’s feelings for Guts are connected to his belief of his inherent worthlessness, because they exist in opposition to his dream. (this is thematic moreso than literal)
So part of his reason for pursing the dream is to bury those parts of himself – like it goes both ways, basically, imo. He has to be a heteronormative masculine ideal for the sake of the dream, but he obsesses over the dream partly as a way to bury the parts of himself that aren’t that ideal?
um i feel like this doesn’t really make sense lol sorry. it’s hard to explain how my brain makes connections sometimes.
lol this just sums up the guts-griffith-casca love triangle so perfectly.
Like… it sets up both the way Guts and Griffith use Casca as an intermediary for physical (and emotional) intimacy with each other, making her life a living hell, and the way Casca’s whole existence revolves around her gender in contrast to the men surrounding her, and ties those two things together.
Plus, with Guts’ nightmare and subsequent relief that it’s a woman rather than a man with him, it adds trauma to the mix. It ties everything together.
And man it is thematically neat as fuck.
Like what I’m saying is that if you choose to believe this is purposeful, then what the Golden Age is about is two dudes who are both attracted to each other and can’t act on it thanks to internalized (trauma)*** and externalized (heteronormativity) homophobia, and this fucks up both the dudes in question, and the woman/en (? Charlotte isn’t shown to suffer from this, but I imagine being in a one-sided relationship will eventually take its toll on her) they end up turning to instead out of that internalized and externalized obligation.
Casca’s story is almost entirely about dealing with misogyny, and this makes heteronormativity a part of that. It’s not just a woman’s duty to warm a man – another man can’t. Men can’t be physically intimate with each other, only with women, and more, they have to be physically intimate with women to attain like, an artificial sense of self-actualization – in Berserk, their dreams. And this harms both the men in their enforced isolation from each other and the women in their enforced intimacy with men.
Like, Guts even references Casca warming him here after they have sex, again, tying physical intimacy with her to his trauma.
And while Charlotte is Griffith’s means to achieving his dream, Casca is Guts’ – because attaining Casca’s affection, being “good” for her, means he’s more like Griffith, and closer to his goal of being Griffith’s equal.
I mean Guts leaving Griffith because they couldn’t share their feelings with each other, and Griffith sleeping with Charlotte as a means of denial (“take all those sad and frightening things and cast them into the fire”) and then Guts sleeping with Casca as a means of denial (”don’t think about those things. Right now all you need is to feel alive”) both lead directly to Griffith choosing to destroy his feelings so he can live solely for his dream. Draw your own conclusions about how this culminates in the most destructive display of heterosexuality in the story.
Once the nature of Guts’ dream switches from abandoning Griffith to pursuing him in rage things get murkier on Guts’ side, but this reading still works if you consider that Guts’ problem isn’t exactly his lingering, twisted feelings for Griffith, but his refusal to actually examine and untangle them, with revenge as just another distraction.
And to be perfectly crystal clear I’m not saying this is purposeful, or that even if it somehow is purposeful Miura doesn’t still go about it as offensively as possible. Like, by this reading internalized homophobia is essentially positioned as a result of evil gay pedophiles, to a much greater extent than any vague reference to societal norms. Both these dudes succumb to inner darknesses and assault a woman explicitly because of their feelings for the other dude. I’m not giving him a round of applause here lmao. It’s probably actually less offensive if it’s all accidental.
And lbr it’s probably a side-effect of writing a) a female character whose life revolves around misogyny, b) a homoerotic relationship between 2 dudes and c) a half-assed het subplot between one of those dudes and the aforementioned woman
But like still, it just fits together so freaking well. It’s ridiculous how neat this reading is during the Golden Age.
***to be clear i’m not saying internalized homophobia is always a result of trauma lol, I’m saying that’s how the story does it.
I wouldn’t change either Guts or Griffith’s backstories tbh, I think they’re actually pretty well done, and important to their characters and narratives without being the be all end all. Well, I’d like to make Gennon less of an evil gay stereotype and Donovan less of a scary black man stereotype but yk, other than those details the existence of rape in their backstories isn’t something I’d change.
With Casca… tough call. Her story is all about gendered violence to the point where if you got rid of the rape attempts you’d have to come up with a whole new story for her. But it’s still a shallower and less well-rounded depiction of abuse than either guts or griffith’s backstories, bc it’s so emphatically gendered, like, rather than informing her personality or her choices it’s just framed as being a woman.
So actually I guess for Casca what I’d change is (actually pretty obviously lol) her motivations. She’s not in love with Griffith, she idealizes his dream because she knows he wants to dismantle those power structures that fuck her over and create a place where those w/ power can’t easily abuse their power over others. She hates Guts not because she’s jealous of him (tho she could still be jealous of his emotional closeness with Griffith, like she’d still admire Griffith here even if she’s not in love with him and I like that rival dynamic), but because she recognizes that he could end up destroying Griffith’s dream.
Also I think we can still cut out most of the rape threats she gets while still showing that she has something to fight against. Maybe keep Adon being a gross dick (in all fairness he kind of mirrors Gennon towards Griffith which kind of shows how they’re fighting for the same dream – ie a world where those kinds of dudes are shut down) but have Casca just fighting for her life rather than against rape attempts as she runs from the 100 man fight.
So nothing really changes much until Guts comes back from his vacation. And now Casca is genuinely, genuinely angry and hateful towards him, because he did exactly what she’s been afraid he was going to do – destroyed Griffith’s dream, and her hope for a better future.
Which means they don’t have sex lol, Casca was never into Guts, they began a friendship towards the end of the war but nothing more. And now that Guts has come back Casca is actively hostile to him, though after Guts lets her stab him she probably forgives him a bit bc it’s not like he intended to destroy absolutely everything, and he’s clearly fucked up about it.
Also no suicide attempt.
So their dynamic during the rescue mission is resentful allies, like a throwback to their first three years knowing each other.
Wyald still happens but no attempted rape w/ Casca obviously.
Now when it comes to the Eclipse, I want it to be all about Guts, and I want it to hit the audience over the head with parallels to his childhood. It’s the Eclipse, it doesn’t need to be subtle. Rather than looking wistful when Griffith sacrifices everyone, I want Guts to look betrayed, I want him to look just as sad and horrified as he did when he was 11 and Gambino told him he sold him to Donovan.
Agh I’d hate to lose the creepy silent monster vibe from Femto, but something like a cold, “you’re still alive?” would be v fitting w/ the “you should have died” parallels. Tho idk I’m torn on that.
And ok I said I want it to be all about Guts but I can’t just kill off Casca. But if she’s gonna live the Eclipse needs some serious personal meaning for her too. So maybe her reaction to being sacrificed, knowing it’s for the dream she’s dedicated her life to and in theory she should be willing to give her life for it, and trying to reconcile that with the horrificness of the situation and her desperate desire to survive anyway. So she survives long enough for Femto to show up, because she’s not the third best fighter in the Hawks for nothing, and then…
torture? Femto has monsters hold Guts down and tortures Casca in a way reminiscent of a kid pulling the wings off a fly. She loses an arm, Guts keeps his because he’s too busy being utterly terrified and possibly flashbacking to hack his own arm off in a rage.
Like, one thing about the Eclipse rape, is that if Miura had to have it as a way of emotionally affecting Guts, how the fuck did he manage to draw like two chapters of awful awful shit with Guts being held down by monsters that he’d just watched rape Casca, and completely fail to allude to Guts’ own rape trauma? How. Hooooow it’s mind boggling. It’s absurd.
But you don’t even need the graphic rape for that, like hell, Miura has absolutely adequately set up the correlation between giant monsters Guts is compelled to fight and his own childhood trauma imo to justify Guts having a very emotional traumatic reaction to just being held down and made helpless by monsters after being essentially given to them.
There’s Black Swordsman Guts in a nutshell, and this is exactly what was implied to have caused him to go full traumatized amoral asshole. Before g*tsca was a gleam in Miura’s eye all he had were those parallels to Guts’ childhood trauma – Guts being given away to monsters by someone he trusted – and that’s all he needed.
So anyway, because Casca lives, she has her own reaction to being casually tortured by Femto before being rescued, which is also a replay of her childhood trauma but without the agency of killing her attacker herself with a sword. So her reaction could very well be similar to Guts’ – a desire to kill monsters and get revenge. Maybe she’s lost her idealism wrt the dream, and she’s more cynical now – a better world is impossible, best you can do is survive this one.
She and Guts go their separate ways because they’re barely friends, let alone lovers, and remember 2 brands = big ghost problems.
After this the narrative splits 3 ways between NGriff, Guts, and Casca.
I’m reaching the limits of my creativity lol. So I’m just gonna suggest that Guts gets the behelit, Casca gets the armour and the rpg group, Casca gets the moving on arc and hooks up with Farnese while maybe finding a happy medium between changing the world and lashing out against the world, and Guts succumbs to his inner darkness and gets a highly emotional confrontation with Griffith. Since he has the behelit maybe he uses it upon realizing that Griffith’s heart is still beating for him, bc the emotional conflict is just too much, and sacrifices Griffith to become a Zodd-esque apostle wandering battlefields and fighting for no reason, basically returned to his pre-Griffith state.
It’s probably shorter than 355 chapters too lbr. I’d say NGriff creates Falconia right before the confrontation with Guts, so yk he achieves his dream b4 ironically getting sacrificed. Otherwise his story doesn’t change much. Maybe stronger suggestions that he’s not as unemotional as he looks, to build up to a guts confrontation better.
Like… I’m not a very creative or good writer lol but I feel this general outline could be written in a very good and satisfying way by someone with talent, like Miura.
i know i’ve been talking about casca a lot recently but I just kind of want to outline the biggest issue with her narrative imo:
Griffith throwing her a sword instead of personally killing the nobleman for her was presumably an important aspect of her character development. It’s why she decided to become a mercenary (”you know how to fight already”), it’s the beginning of the sense of pride and accomplishment she feels when she fights to survive.
She is personally invested in her life as a mercenary, in being able to defend herself and fight for her survival, and in rising up with Griffith as well, carving out a new path.
To Casca, Griffith represents an end to the way of life she thought was only natural – starving and being caught in between skirmishes in her village, being exploited by those with more power.
He threw her a sword – Griffith represents her personal empowerment. Rather than someone else saving her, it’s her ability to save herself if she only has access to the right tools.
Casca knows he wants a kingdom, and she has a personal stake in seeing that kingdom come into existence. This isn’t really directly said anywhere, but we know she knows he plans to marry Charlotte to get to the throne, and we know she admires his dream, and we “know” she values her hard-won freedom to fight against people who would oppress her.
This is extremely good shit when you look at it through that perspective – Casca admiring Griffith’s conviction and having a personal stake in the realization of his dream. Seeing Griffith’s vulnerabilities as well, and deciding to be his sword, to help strengthen him so she can see his dream become a reality, because it’s one she shares, and hell, even because on a personal level she loves him in whatever way – not because he saved her but because he enabled her to save herself. That’s fine as an addition.
BUT NOPE
“My dream… had… already ended.”
Like, in this chapter, she’s literally like, ‘yo remember when I said I wanted to be Griffith’s sword? I was lying, I just want to fuck him, and since you’re the only one he wants to fuck and Charlotte’s the only one he has to fuck I’m gonna kill myself.”
Her dream isn’t to fight to survive, it’s not to help Griffith cut away his own path and carve out a place where a young poor girl from a downtrodden village who narrowly escaped becoming a slave could become a celebrated general. Her dream is to fuck Griffith.
Her monologue at the start of chapter 46 starts with how she couldn’t tear her eyes from Guts as he walked away from the Band, and how that freaked her out because she was afraid it meant her feelings for Griffith were a lie. “Afraid of all that, I lived with the intent of sacrificing myself for my unrequited feelings for Griffith.”
Literally, she led the Hawks for that year not even out of duty to them or loyalty to them or Griffith or the dream – just because of her romantic feelings for Griffith.
And that’s why she’s able to drop Griffith’s dream like a hot potato when she focuses on her romantic feelings for Guts instead and he invites her to leave the Hawks and come support his dream instead. She was never actually invested in Griffith’s dream, or her life as a mercenary, or even the Hawks as a family. When Guts left he eventually realizes it was a mistake because the Hawks were his family, the place where he belonged.
When Casca decides to leave with him, there’s no acknowledgement of that for her – no sense that she’s choosing to leave a family. It’s just taken as read that that’s what she should do because she’s in love with Guts and that is what motivates her.
And like, Guts’ dream is literally just “I want to fight whoever the fuck. I just want to kill a lot of people and get better and better at it.” Unlike Griffith’s it’s not noble, it doesn’t make the world a better place, it’s not based on any kind of ideals that can make Casca’s life better. But despite that Casca’s like, sounds great, where do I sign up to cheer you on from the sidelines?
(And we know if she went along with him she would end up on the sidelines rather than fighting alongside him, because that’s exactly what happens soon after with Wyald.
“I’m takin’ him one on one.” “No matter what… I’ve gotta settle the score with him. With them.”)
And this is essentially why Casca’s narrative is misogynist as fuck. Not just because of her romantic feelings, but because of the way Casca having actual values and personal desires that aren’t romance-related was a fucking bait and switch lmao.
She was set up as someone who gave a shit about something, only for that to have been a lie all along because she only gives a shit about hooking up with either Griffith or Guts.
Honestly the more I think about it the more it boggles my mind how awful this is lol. Like chapters 45/46 aren’t even Casca accepting that Griffith’s dream ain’t happening anymore and finding consolation in having a new “place” in Guts’ heart or w/e. It’s straight up about Casca not just being in love with Griffith, but revealing that it’s been her sole motivation all along.
And like, lbr I choose to ignore this entirely because it’s so bad and so stupid and so flat and dumb and terrible, but man – it’s all there outlined clearly in straightforward dialogue
oh i do actually think casca’s not gonna forgive guts though! say what you will about miura but at the end of the day he’s a brilliant writer, and i feel like whether or not he understands women and casca as a character, he knows what would make for a really bad story. guts and casca having a happily ever after would be the most boring shit ever, i don’t think he would do that
but i DO think that all the little
nuances of casca that make her so relatable to women and maybe
especially wlw were just kind of accidental. no man understands women
like that
ohh yeah i see what you mean then by Miura only ever accidentally writing women well. bc like I do think he sometimes does pretty good with writing women as interesting well rounded characters, but boy when he gets into gendered stuff specifically, yk that kind of men are like this and women are like this shit, or the experience of being a woman in a misogynistic world stuff, etc, it’s absolutely super basic at best and usually just Bad as we see over and over with Casca, among other examples.
So yeah when it comes to like, eg expectations of a nuanced and thoughtful portrayal of Casca’s reaction to her extremely gendered trauma I have basement level expectations, and it wouldn’t exactly surprise me if Miura thought Casca being in love with Guts and/or forgiving him was a reasonable emotional response as a woman-driven-by-her-emotions-for-men.
But yeah, characterization aside, narratively it would just not be good writing, and lbr we’ve had a ton of foreshadowing and it’s not pointing towards Guts and Casca getting a happily ever after. At least not any time soon. And I’m just gonna keep my fingers crossed that whatever actually happens effectively nips the romantic potential in the bud.
…what is this a response to? Where did I suggest Casca was forced to stay with the Hawks?
The closest thing I can come up with is my tags on this post, which are referring to the fact that Casca is upset because she wants to leave with Guts and now feels like she can’t because of Griffith, and I think that’s pathetic writing that could be vastly improved if Casca was motivated by something other than men.
I mean if we’re talking about Casca’s term as leader of the Hawks, the text insists over and over again that she’s basically forced to lead them bc of her sense of duty and bc everyone just turned to her as their replacement for Griffith – Judeau tells Guts multiple times that leading the Hawks is terrible for her, we see that it drives her to suicide, and when the Hawks learn that Griffith isn’t going to recover they want Casca to keep leading them and Judeau tells them to stfu because they’re asking too much of her.
And I think Miura choosing to emphasize the toll leading takes on Casca emotionally is a shitty writing choice, especially compared to Griffith’s issues with leadership which are all about guilt, vs Casca’s which are all about how difficult it is.
Also like, are you saying I’m victimizing her by pointing out how often she needs to be rescued because she’s always conveniently feverish/on the verge of exhaustion/suicidal/up against someone so strong someone else has to step in/etc? There’s a well-known piece of writing advice: “show, don’t tell.” We’re told that Casca is the third best fighter in the Hawks who can defeat ten men. We’re shown Guts or Griffith rescuing her (or Guts easily defeating her) way, way more often than we’re ever shown her actual fighting skills.
This is a deliberate choice on Miura’s part, to shove Casca into the role of victim as often as possible despite what we’re told of her skills. I’m not dumping on a real woman who has a lot of bad luck lmao, I’m dumping on Miura’s misogynist writing.
Casca was a full character for about 90 chapters, in which she had to be rescued, let’s see… I count eight times: nobleman, guts, ch 15-21 (which could be counted as like 4 separate rescues but i’m being generous here), silat, suicide attempt, wyald, judeau during the eclipse (could be 2 separate times but let’s call it one), skull knight at the eclipse.
Compare it to the number of times we see Casca defeat her enemies
herself in those 90 chapters: Adon at Doldrey, the nobleman (after Griffith throws her a
sword), a few attempted rapists as she’s running from the 100 man fight
(before Judeau and co show up and get the rest for her), and one of the
Bakiraka assassins.
(I counted the nobleman in both categories lol bc Griff threw her a
sword and chopped off his ear first to interrupt the rape attempt, but
Casca finished him off and was also a kid so she gets points for that.
Just fyi.)
Or compare that to Guts, who is a full character throughout the whole 300+ chapters of story, and had to be rescued once when Griffith rode back for him after their first raid, once when Griff leapt in to save him from Zodd, a monster neither of them could actually defeat and it was actually fate that saved their asses, and once when Skull Knight showed up at the Eclipse. Oh, I suppose there was one time Gambino killed an enemy on the battlefield for him when he was like six. And Skull Knight didn’t save him from Slan, but he did save him from the subsequent cave collapse, so let’s be fair and count that too.
Versus an uncountable number of times he defeated his enemies himself.
Or compare it to human Griffith who is a character for about as long as Casca, and has to be rescued once after he’s tortured to the point of helplessness. Maybe twice if you include Zodd killing Wyald while Wyald’s holding him. And even after he’s physically helpless he manages to save the group once himself.
My point being that Miura chooses what to write, and he chose to write a ridiculous amount of situations where Casca needs to be rescued. He chose to make her a victim many many times even though she’s theoretically a highly accomplished warrior, and then he went all in and turned that into her entire character in the 250 chapters post-Golden Age, and I am absolutely gonna criticize that choice.
Finally, I often cite the way the Hawks fully respect and admire Casca as one of my favourite things about her character, and I don’t think I’ve ever suggested that she wasn’t hurt by Griffith and Guts lol, so i’m not sure why you brought those things up.
I find Casca a very frustrating character because I think she had plenty of potential to be interesting, and we see brief flashes of that in canon, but Miura fucked her over at every turn, flattening her, making sure every aspect of her character revolved around men somehow, etc. Personally that potential is more than enough for me to love her, because I’m easy when it comes to angry women with swords lol, but that’s just me and my ability to ignore what I don’t like about canon.
For example, when she brought Guts up to that cliff by the waterfall so she could take her anger out on him by trying to murder him. The narrative never really acknowledges how utterly fucked up that was, it’s played off as Casca being a hysterical woman, but man in theory that is a very interesting, super dark character note.
Casca’s lack of independence is actually interesting to me too as a major character flaw. But again, it’s something that the narrative… doesn’t necessarily acknowledge, but rather seems to treat as the default role of a woman.
Like Miura’s misogyny is never more blatant than when it comes to how he writes Casca, and it sucks, but despite that he’s still a really good character writer, and that still shines through even with Casca. She has relatable moments, she has awesome moments, she has strong dialogue, moments that make me feel empathy, and interesting traits. I mean the most heart-wrenching part of the Eclipse imo was when we saw it through her point of view as she fought with Judeau. Miura’s writing still makes me feel real feelings for her, and I can’t not love a character I feel for lol, even if that writing fails her enormously in many other ways.
Like it blows that her motivation for joining the Hawks and becoming an incredible swordsman was being in love with Griffith, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s an incredible swordsman who can lead an army and it’s cool and badass. Like, it seriously blows that she’s almost 100% motivated by men – either being in love with them or fighting against their misogynist violence – but I can still read moments like her capture of Doldrey, or the way she can take command of the Hawks in moments of panic, and want to cheer for her. It blows that she’s always being depowered somehow so she can be rescued, but I can still read dialogue like “they say she can defeat ten strong men at once” and go ‘yeah that’s my girl’ lol.
BUT ALL THAT SAID like, I can completely understand being exasperated by her character too. Like, I personally can kind of… ignore how badly she’s often written and just take the parts I like and form my opinion based on that. But that’s not something anyone should be required to do, and her writing fucking sucks let’s be real.
No one should feel like they have to like her when she pretty much exists as an example of Miura’s misogyny, and when she is forced into the love interest role for the sole purposes of a) no homoing Guts and Griffith and b) getting horrifically and off-the-charts offensively fridged for Guts’ manpain. One of my pet peeves is people calling fans misogynist for disliking fictional women, cause like, the thing is she’s not real and hating her as a poorly written and often offensive fictional construct isn’t the same as hating a real woman, so yk, I support you lol.
Plus yeah I do think she’s often overrated in lots of fandom – a good chunk of Berserk fandom doesn’t acknowledge the enormous flaws in her writing, and does consider her to be genuinely a well-written ~strong female character~ lol. So yeah in that case I think she’s overrated. Though it might be more accurate to say Miura’s writing is overrated.
idk tl;dr I like Casca but her writing is so deeply flawed that I completely get disliking her.
ugggggh tumblr still refusing to show me like half my notifications so i missed these til now, sry.
@madchen said:
whenever casca starts
acting out i think of that ten year study that concluded women only
express rage at the incompetence of others and at injustice
not that its That Deep
like u said… alovelyburn said that miura starts “chickifying cascas
character” once he decides to make her a love interest and it shows.
suddenly she starts crying more often, is passing out from endometriosis
and her anger is explicitly regarded as womanly as opposed to just
at some point I want to write out a full “it could be that deep” style analysis of Casca’s role in the story wrt the intersection of misogyny and heteronormativity. Like, I swear to god there’s a bizarrely coherent reading there even though there’s no possible way it was intentional on Miura’s part lmao.
But yeah as far as reasonable interpretations go it’s just sad facts that Miura uses Casca as like, a shallow way to examine misogyny, in how yk her whole life revolves around sexual violence, while simultaneously writing her romance v misogynistically as well, and it’s awkward af.
Like yeah Casca definitely got more feminine when she became Guts’ love interest, like to the point where Guts reassuring her that she’s “womanly” enough is a prelude to sex (jfc) and every one of their positive encounters before up to then shows her being nuturing/”soft”: bandaging his wound at Promrose, needing to be rescued bc of her period, tending to Guts’ wounds with the elf dust (w/ Judeau commentating that she’s softer now), wearing a dress while Guts reassures her that she looks good in it, being rescued by Guts again, etc.
But also ngl I get the sense that she was kind of doomed from the start with Judeau’s “our Casca gave up being a woman” line while talking about how she’s the 2nd best swordsman in the Hawks.
Like Casca was sadly never going to be a good portrayal of gender non-conformity because her lack of femininity was framed as an unfortunate sacrifice and something that should be rectified as soon as we met her.
cutting this for kind of graphic descriptions of sexual assault
I’d argue he didn’t even black out, he was clearly aware when he forcibly kissed her after pointedly noticing she’d been assaulted (we get a closeup from Guts’ perspective of blood dripping from her vag, ffs), we get like literally five whole pages of sexual assault depicted completely without any kind of possession or beast-y imagery, and the subsequent beast of darkness imagery in Guts’ mind that we see after that isn’t indicative of “possession,” it’s an illustration of what’s going on in his subconscious – his own inner darkness gaining strength.
Like it happens in broad daylight for a reason, in contrast to the chapter earlier when he strangled her while actually briefly possessed during a night-time ghost fight, and that reason is so that the readers can’t absolve Guts of blame. There’s nothing but Guts in this scene.
And anyway, at the end of the day the whole point of the Beast of Darkness is to show that Guts’ inner darkness is no better than Griffith’s. According to Berserk practically every dude has an evil rapist lurking in their subconscious, it’s not a great nuanced examination of male entitlement or anything lol, it’s just using rape as a lazy shorthand for inner darkness.
Like imo the only valid reaction to have to this dumb story is to recognize the misogyny on the part of the author, and honestly both excusing Guts and reacting with ott hatred towards Griffith is the exact opposite of that. Like I can’t blame anyone for hating Griffith, everyone’s entitled to their emotional reactions to a rape scene, especially one as offensively depicted as the Eclipse rape, but when that’s your reaction instead of recognizing the author’s horrendous writing, or while praising the author’s writing because he made you feel that angry, that’s an issue, yk?
And people blaming Griffith/Femto for Casca’s character being destroyed, for Casca’s gratuitious and sexualized victimization, etc, lets Miura off the hook. Like, Femto is ink on paper, Miura is the one with actual agency who chose to write Casca out of the story in the most misogynist way possible for the sake of making his protagonist feel bad.
tl;dr berserk is an offensive story about two dudes who both have rapist alter-egos, we all gotta acknowledge that.
@a-girl-named-chester I’m not reblogging that post to talk about it because I thoroughly disagree with the op and I don’t want to start shit lol
but basically I am constantly low-key irritated at people who conflate femininity (a set of traits that any given society encourages women to adopt and discourages men from adopting) with women and therefore call anyone exasperated with compulsory femininity and/or fictional portrayals of femininity (especially those written by men lbr) misogynist.
Casca isn’t a real person, she doesn’t have her own opinions on what she wants to wear, those are given to her by the man writing her character, and I personally hate how Miura goes to great lengths to feminize Casca once she becomes a viable romantic interest for Guts – by putting her in a dress and literally having her ask Guts to validate her attractiveness, but also by things like this:
and by depowering her through her period of all things so Guts can save her, and by having her try to kill herself because of unrequited love so Guts can save her again, and by having her feel fulfilled when she is able to take the role of nurturer and (sexually) comfort someone else, all culminating in turning her into a helpless long haired childlike waif in a dress after being raped to make Guts feel bad and give him someone to protect.
Like, Miura plays lipservice to Casca as a Strong Woman lol, but he never follows through. We hear that she can beat ten men, but we see her feverish and at the brink of exhaustion needing to be saved more often than we’ve ever seen that.
I don’t even necessarily mind moments like Casca feeling insecure about how she looks in a dress, like it’s fine as a character trait and I think it makes sense that Casca might be self-conscious, but it goes hand in hand with things like Casca “showing a soft side” to hamfistedly indicate her burgeoning feelings for Guts, so it’s impossible to separate moments like Casca asking Guts if she looks okay in a dress from Miura deliberately making Casca more feminine as she becomes a love interest.
And that sucks, and is itself deeply misogynist, so I can’t with anyone saying that people who are disappointed at seeing Casca put into a dress (as she herself protests) in the most recent chapter are misogynist lol.
Like we’re not even deriding a real woman putting on a dress, we’re deriding a male writer putting a female character in a dress explicitly to make a reunion feel more romantic. Because who cares that she’s a mercenary who doesn’t feel comfortable in dresses, as a love interest she needs to be appropriately feminine to complement Guts’ rugged masculinity. Gag.
I mean personally I’m actually reserving judgement on this scene in particular because I think(/hope/pray/oh my god do i pray) this is going to end up being sinister and not actually romantic lol. But god if it is played straight, fuckin yikes.
There’s nothing progressive or worth celebrating about a dude writing a romance between a man and a woman and consistently and overtly making sure the woman’s masculine traits are offset by heaping on more femininity.
someone keep men away from casca
like i know hes a gruff guy but this
isnt sweet or romantic its weird and their whole relationship was
pathetic
mood
but honestly tho guts isn’t even a gruff asshole in general (during the golden age b4 he went black swordsman), just mainly with casca.
like not to be so obviously on my gay shit but his interactions with griffith are always respectful, tender, protective, thoughtful, etc. I think he calls him an idiot twice, once while telling him to save his own life, once to diffuse tension in an attempt to reassure him. whereas even after he and casca bond he still belittles and insults her (remember when he went on a misogynist tirade about how women suck to ~inspire her~ to keep going on their trek back to the hawks and we were supposed to think it was sweet lmfao) and treats her as an accessory.
like to compare:
he finds griffith after being tortured for a year, weak, helpless, not at all what he was expecting, no longer the strong independant man guts respected, and he cries over him and cradles him and then goes on a rampage to rescue him. he deliberately takes pains to treat him the same as he used to, talks with him like nothing’s changed, and decides to forgo his “dream” to stay and take care of him.
he finds casca after she was traumatized into insanity, helpless, not at all the person he was expecting, no longer the strong independent woman guts respected, and he yells at her to snap out of it, forcefully grabs her twice after she flinched from his first attempt to touch her until she literally bites him to get away, terrifies her, then leaves her in a cave for two years.
(and this is a dude who has been raped and couldn’t stand to be touched for years afterwards, you’d think he’d have a bit of empathy, and yet)
When guts invites casca to go with him he doesnt have a dream yet at that point, he was just chillin at godo’s the whole year training, when he invites casca to go with him, he invites her to the journey of searching a purpose to live. They could search for that dream… together.. at least that’s what i think
yk that does sound pretty nice and a lot more inspiring and romantic, but guts invites casca after a long monologue explaining that he found his dream – fighting stronger and stronger enemies and becoming the best.
and moreover, this is how he invites her (after, i want to add, grabbing her tit while she’s yelling at him, but I don’t want to post an image of that bc it’s awful):
you should come with me as long as you don’t get in the way of what i want to do, because i want to have more sex.
true answer: miura is a misogynist hack who doesn’t really gaf about casca, and needed to get rid of her for a while because he hadn’t invented her yet while writing the black swordsman arc, and is less than concerned about whether guts even comes across as someone who genuinely cares for her.
meta answer:
whyever Miura decided to go that route, Guts’ actions after the Eclipse seem like a pretty strong indication that he wasn’t as angry on behalf of Casca as he was about Griffith transforming into a monster and destroying everything he values. Casca became a symbol of everything he lost – the good old days with the Hawks and Griffith – rather than seeing her as a person in her own right.
And to take that a step further, remember, Guts’ pre-Eclipse revelation was that he broke Griffith’s heart when he left, and therefore he already had what he tried attaining by leaving. The Eclipse wipes that away. Whatever Griffith has become does not (apparently) love or value Guts, and is not Guts’ equal or friend.
and this fucks Guts up
Femto raping Casca was proof that he has fundamentally changed into a monster who looks down on Guts, and Guts does drastic things when someone he loves looks down on him, thanks to his giant collection of daddy issues. Like leaving the woman he supposedly cares for in a cave and going on a self-destructive monster hunting spree.
that last ask took me a while to answer because i digressed into a rant about the depiction of the rape scene in the middle of it and then decided that an answer to an ask was not rly the place for that
but yk what it deserves to be ranted about so here’s a new place for it, tw graphic descriptions of rape
I re-read the Eclipse fairly recently without
skipping or skimming the rape scene for the first time in ages, and jesus everything about it makes me feel
like Miura drew it with one hand and very little intellectual effort or
subtlety, and it makes me very reluctant to give him credit for any
nuance of characterization there lol.
Like I am admittedly very biased
because the way he depicted it visually makes me want to throw up on
him, but like if he wanted me to give it as much analytical consideration as I
give most of the rest of Berserk he shouldn’t’ve drawn it like he was
tracing porn (some of the fucking angles holy shit), he shouldn’t’ve emphasized Casca’s physical arousal as much as, and
as graphically as, and as pornographically as possible for absolutely
no reason other than presumably to make Guts feel worse and to turn on
his readers/himself, since the emotional/psychological ramifications of a
victim becoming aroused during rape sure as fuck weren’t explored, thoughtfully or otherwise, and he shouldn’t’ve made it all about Guts’ feelings of rage and betrayal while
destroying Casca’s character for 20 real life years.
Literally her last
words from what, 1997ish til 2017 were to tell Guts not to watch her have an orgasm, and
it was all from Guts’ perspective and all about his feelings, not Casca’s feelings at all. Frankly every
reference to the rape and depiction of Casca’s trauma from now until
the end of Berserk could be careful and thoughtful and extremely
well-written and considerate and it wouldn’t even begin to make up for the actual scene itself.
Like I can’t read this digression into what frankly reads like cuckold fetish rape porn and treat it like it’s worthy of deep thought lol. If other people read it and have interesting takes and readings I’m all for it, but for myself I’m just incapable of seeing anything deeper than “this is what it means to be evil. This is what it means to be human,” which frankly isn’t that deep, Miura, and definitely wasn’t worth subjecting me to this shit.
oh same they feel posturing to me but who knows what miura meant
this is the problem with berserk there are so many thing that cpuld be interpreted as valid through through a certain critical lens but its absolutely up in the air or no way it was deliberate on his part. casca reliance on men for her sense of self and integrity as a woman is a good example, but miura probably hust doesnt know that women can exist outside of men. lol.
yeah exactly. idk berserk is such a weird combination of Actually That Deep and just Miura being a shitty dude that it can be rly hard to figure out where to draw the line
Like with Guts’ behaviour, it would make sense if it was supposed to be seen as negative because, like, part of the point of Berserk is establishing that Guts swinging his sword by himself instead of being with people affects him negatively, but that’s just not the vibe I get from those moments lol. Your Casca example is perfect too, like her narrative would make more sense and fit the whole vibe of the pre-Eclipse sequence if latching onto Guts in place of Griffith was meant to be seen as a mistake, but yeah I don’t think that’s purposeful.
I’d love to believe Miura’s just subtle and it’s all purposeful, but lol nothing about how he writes women and men and women interacting makes me want to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yeah I think his heart was in the right place, it seems like he genuinely just wanted what was best for everyone even if his methods were a little… underhanded and dishonest. Like towards the end eg, he probably thought Griffith would be better off with him and his thieves than with Guts and Casca as well as vice versa (and if Guts and Casca stayed together while taking care of Griffith he might’ve even been right, bc lbr that would’ve been a shitshow lol.) He’s likeable, and fun, and he has some great moments, like telling Guts he’s sure he’ll find what he’s looking for with the Hawks. Ngl his death scene always makes me cry lol, I do def like him overall, in part because he makes mistakes too.
Also I wonder if there isn’t a subtle indication from Miura that Judeau and Casca should’ve gotten together instead of Guts and Casca, and it’s its own little sub-tragedy based on stupid self-esteem issues that they didn’t. The way during the Eclipse Judeau does his best to save her and defends her with his own life while Guts is up on the hand still trying to “save” Griffith lol feels kind of starkly telling. I don’t ship them myself, I like their friendship and I kind of wish Judeau hadn’t had a crush the whole time lol, but it fits into the whole missed opportunity vibe of the Golden Age.
It is kind of a shame that the Golden Age side characters got way less backstory and development than the current RPG group, but the current group has so much more time. Like 200+ chapters vs 70. I did love the little enriching hints we got about the Hawks though, like Judeau feeling inadequate as a jack of all trades, the hints that Corkus is bitter about his own lost dreams. I’d say ‘etc’ but actually that’s about it really. Wish we got more on Pippin too.
Holy moly, what have we even been doing for the last 200+ chapters?? As much as I love the rpg group, nothing beats the original Hawks for me.
I definitely think that the Golden Age was all about people missing what was right in front of them, and losing their chances, or screwing them up on purpose. I mean, it can’t just be Guts and Griffith in this crapsack world that do it.
You mentioned how during the eclipse Guts was focusing of Griffith while Judeau was focused on Casca. Got me thinking about how his final acts were to be a literal shield over her body, and how he fell from her arm as he died. I don’t have the scans, but it reminded me of how Guts and Casca always compare themselves to swords. A sword and shield go mighty well together.
Lmao right? It really puts it into perspective when you realize the Golden Age was less than 100 chapters and we’re on 354 now.
Yeah that really sums up the Golden Age in a nutshell lol. And Judeau’s thoughts at the end do include, “I missed my chance to say it,” which fits.
tbh good call with the sword/shield imagery. Like yeah he does literally use himself as a human shield against that one weird apostle, and then Casca leaps up and kills it with her sword. I could def see that being purposeful. Also like… Judeau is Casca’s last real human interaction with someone before she’s driven insane. I’d love to see that acknowledged when she wakes up tbh.
You found the image I was talking about! I already put it on the post itself, but the way he fell off her arm reminds me of how shields are worn on the arm and get dropped when they’re broken!
This chapter was pure badassery on so many levels. I really hate that basically every female character is subjected to assault tho. All of them. (Sadly, I guess it’s not so different from the world we live in.)
On a GriffGuts note, I wonder if the reason Guts focuses so much on casca’s assault is because it drives home for him what Griffith has become. Griffith being his singular focus and all.
Whereas in the last chapter that got released, Casca’s memories encapsulate the whole Eclipse.
Yeah it’s genuinely fantastic, badass and touching and emotional and then it ends… like that
tbh ia. It’s like the way Guts wasn’t angry at Griffith, just sad and regretful, even while all his friends were dying and he was being attacked by a hoard of monsters, up until the rape scene. In a way it makes sense for Guts to focus on that since it’s like, the source of his violent rage that keeps him going and keeps him wanting to kill Griffith/Femto, as opposed to the rest of the Eclipse which is probably more a source of guilt (”was I the one who drove you…?”)
the beast of darkness pretty much suggests that this is why Guts was keeping Casca with him, basically so he could brood. (As did Miura in one interview :/)
Idk I wish it wasn’t so utterly manpain-y, with Guts being so focused on something that didn’t even happen to him, to the detriment of the person it actually did happen to, just so he can stay angry. You’d think his missing arm would be enough of a reminder. But it is what it is, and at least it’s not really portrayed in a positive light I guess.
Ye, the manpain is rlly intense. Muira basically fridged her and Farnesca is my only solace. And the hope that she gets badass again and bitchslaps N.Griffith and Guts tbh.
Personally the way I read it is that Guts put Griffith above acts like that, and what he did to Casca is a display of how corrupted Femto is compared to HIS Griffith. Guts would have gladly given an arm for Griffith under any circumstances, but to see him attack Casca was unthinkable from original Griffith in Guts’ mind.
I definitely don’t agree with the fact that it happened in the narrative, and even less with how she was treated as a character afterwards. (I feel like I’d be more ok with her insanity if the assault had been left out.) But considering I don’t buy the idea that Guts and Casca were “meant to be together”, my only conclusion in terms of Guts’ character is that it demonstrated how far the Godhand had perverted the man he loved. I’m really crossing my fingers that the upcoming chapters don’t focus too much on that part of her narrative.
yeah pretty much agreed on all counts.
While Guts accepted that Griffith made the sacrifice and even seemed to understand to an extent, raping Casca was like a harsh dividing line, and I’m sure that was the whole point from a writing perspective. Griffith saved her from rape, Femto destroys her through it, contrasts, yadda yadda yadda.
tbh it’s very telling that while Guts’ feelings towards Femto/NeoGriff are “tainted” by his love for human Griffith – eg still wanting his attention, still can’t stand to be looked down on by him, forgets his urge to kill when NGriff sheds the evil exoskeleton, acts like he got dumped when NGriff flies away on Zodd, etc – his feelings towards human Griffith haven’t changed. He doesn’t think back on him and hate him, he only feels longing/regret/loneliness/guilt/love/friendship/etc when he thinks of him.
Like it really does seem to show that Guts hates Femto/NGriff because he’s not his Griffith. When he reminds him of his Griffith, ie, when NeoGriff shows up, he suddenly finds it a lot harder to hate him.
god every damn time i think of that wyald scene i see red, ugh
like, guts pauses while fighting wyald to crack wise, sexualize casca and then yell at her to go away, and then afterwards when the fighting is over and done it’s casca getting teary over guts’ wounds, rather than guts showing any compassion or empathy at all.
like this is a narrative problem, casca doesn’t even get a reaction to her own assault there, and when judeau comforts her it’s while she’s crying over guts fighting wyald, not what happened to her, so it’s hard to hate guts for this when it’s more of a miura problem, but still. it’s so so so bad.
(funny enough the closest thing we get to acknowledgement of casca’s assault was griffith trying desperately to tear himself away from the men holding him to somehow help her as soon as wyald starts stripping her. so like, incidentally, there’s another point to throw out there when people start going off on their griffith is a sociopath arguments lol)
actually that post reminded me of a quick thing i was gonna write a while ago and forgot about
so i’ve mentioned before a few times that Guts and Judeau’s conversation here is kind of weird because Guts swivels from ‘what the hell are you talking about’ to ‘actually yeah I should totally fuck Casca, I just need to become Griffith’s equal first’ within about a minute
In other posts I suggested that this was an awkwardly written way of bringing a romance with Casca to the forefront. This seems to reframe Guts’ motivation for leaving as at least in part to become worthy of Casca, despite this never occuring to Guts before.
Now I’m thinking that this scene isn’t actually about complicating Guts’ motivation for leaving at the last minute – I’m thinking it’s set up for Guts’ motivation for romancing Casca.
Meaning, he doesn’t want to become Griffith’s equal so he can feel worthy of Casca’s love, he wants to win Casca to feel like Griffith’s equal.
And I’m js, that reading fits with the way the Guts/Casca “romance” is written throughout the rest of the story, ie, as secondary and serving the relationship between Guts and Griffith, and often falling by the wayside next to it, rather than vice versa.
Like when Guts says he can accept the fact that Casca is still obsessed with Griffith because he’s even more obsessed. Like how (as I thoroughly explained in the post linked above) their sex scene revolves around their relationships to Griffith. Like how Wyald almost raping Casca is treated as an opportunity not for compassion or comfort but for one-liners by Guts (his reaction is to tell her to go away because she’s distracting with ripped clothes !!! like !!! fucking hell). Like how Guts is focused solely on Griffith during the Eclipse, up to and including a moment where he looks down, sees the Band being eaten by monsters, and goes right back to trying to hack Griffith’s egg open, without even sparing a thought for Casca. Like how he abandons her in a cave for two years while hunting Femto down. Like how he only realizes that was a bad decision when he compares it to leaving Griffith kneeling in the snow. Like everything the Hound says. Like Miura’s direct statement that Casca only survived the Eclipse to keep Guts pissed off about it. etc etc etc
Basically I’m not saying it’s better writing this way, but it’s bad in a different way. It’s not clunky so much as plain old misogynistic, but hey p much everything regarding Guts and Casca’s relationship is misogynistic either way, so at least if the romance with Casca was never an end in itself but rather a means to the end of being Griffith’s equal, it’s consistent. At least it means we’re not supposed to read this bullshit and think “aw true love,” yk?
“the only woman guts ever loved” as if guts has ever come within breathing room of any other woman since the only one he knows personally is on account of her being his coworker and thus forced to share space with his smelly b*tch ass….
lmao true
also luv that w/ het ships ppl can declare shit like this with utter conviction despite guts never speaking or thinking of casca in terms of love, and despite the writer saying that casca and guts hooked up for extra eclipse drama and casca’s only around now so guts can keep being bitter.
but anything gay? clearly fake and just reaching
so it’s been stated that casca didn’t die literally to fuel guts angst (which, let’s leave aside how disgusting THAT is for a second) and bitterness, which leads me to believe that basically
without casca there as a very heavy reminder
guts would have 100% just forgiven griffith pretty much asap after seeing him again? ha
lmao right?
I mean yeah if Casca died with the rest of the Band during the Eclipse then sure Guts absolutely 100% would forgive Griffith/Femto immediately because it’s pretty clear that he never blamed him for sacrificing everyone in the first place lol. He was sad, sure, but he wasn’t angry about Griffith choosing to make the sacrifice. If anything he’d’ve blamed himself. But if say Casca died during the Conviction Arc, should we assume Guts would’ve gone ‘ok w/e fuck it idc anymore’ and moved on?
Actually yk what considering his “forgot my urge to kill” moment and how sad he was about NeoGriff ditching him it’s actually not that hard of a sell.
But damn either way I wish Miura would do something with Casca’s character other than continue making her an accessory to Guts’ desire for revenge.
Hey there! I’m always happy to get asks and I’m so glad you enjoy the blog :”)
** rape mentions below, obviously.
I think what you’re proposing is a really safe guess as for what the phallic monsters are supposed to represent. Her rape by Femto is definitely supposed to be the “capstone” to what lead to her regression, and so the phallic monsters being a reference to that experience is more than likely. However, I personally (am hoping, really) that it’s not such a narrow reason. There’s the obvious fact that she was raped by multiple apostles before Femto during the Eclipse, but there’s also how being treated as a sexual object by men has resulted in her molestation throughout her entire character arc.
I tried to compile a list of men who have tried/succeeded in assaulting her throughout Berserk off the top of my head, but I think I’m missing too many instances to even post it, LOL. I’d try to go through and do a definitive count, but that’s… so depressing. I don’t think I need to explicitly count and name every man to harm Casca for anyone who’s read Berserk to understand that Casca has endured endless abuse at their hands. Men have regularly viewed Casca as a sexual object, at whether she be young or old, mentally “there” or not, shitty background characters, villains, and protagonist alike. While the Eclipse is the most likely and perhaps largest contributor to these phallic visions that haunt her subconscious, it would be unfair to call that her only instance of major trauma. GOD would I love for a callback to wow, that one time when regressed!Casca killed three men who tried to assault her, just to be held down and touched (cough and bit cough) against her will by Guts? Her expressions once he “comes out of it” are genuinely heartbreaking.
Casca has been through a LOT of bullshit at the hands of specifically men* and so I really hope the dick monsters are representing that as a whole (and that said “coverage” is a topic broached in upcoming chapters). We’ll see whether or not Miura will take that route, or act like it never happened like he did with Guts’s CSA trauma post-Eclipse.
Disclaimer because admin isn’t cis: yeah a dick doesn’t determine manhood but I don’t expect anything woke from Berserk when we can’t even get basic feminism, so I’m leaving it on the assumption that all of the individuals depicted to have assaulted Casca thus far are cis men and have dicks
I’m not the most eloquent writer without half a dozen drafts first, so I’d like to direct this ask at @bthump as well, in case she has a different take or any extra input! ❤
I 100% agree and tbh this is probably a better, more thoughtful response than I would’ve given. Casca’s entire narrative existence is defined by rape, rape attempts, and rape threats, and honestly it’s kind of fucked up how utterly fitting the damn subconscious dick monsters are.
I would be very glad if they represent not just Femto’s attack, and not just the apostles during the Eclipse, but the way her entire life revolves around sexual violence, from her first kill to her current mental state to her fear of Guts. I mean the dick monsters are a helluva crass way of showing it, but this is Berserk. The most I hope for is acknowledgement lol, to ask that it be treated with care and respect is way too high a bar to clear lol.
And at the very least Miura definitely knowingly used Casca as his commentary on misogyny and how hard it is to be a woman surrounded by rapey men, so I don’t think it’s unlikely that all her other experiences with assault will be taken into account. I thought some of those phallic monsters might’ve been purposefully based on Wyald, eg.
Under a cut because I don’t like to be rly critical of Berserk out in the open lol.
iirc the context of me using that specific phrase was both the Eclipse rape and Griffith’s night with Charlotte.
I think the Eclipse rape was absolutely terrible writing (well, storytelling, let’s say, because a lot of what’s bad about it is in the art) for several reasons:
1. destroys Casca as a character to make Guts feel bad and motivate him.
2. objectifies and eroticizes Casca during the rape (v sexualized angles, lots of t+a, overlong and overly graphic, etc), either to titilate the straight dude audience or bc Miura doesn’t know how else to depict the sexual assault of women.
3. totally overwrites Guts’ own childhood trauma – now his worst memories, the stuff that makes him feel the “worst he ever feels” is something that happened to someone else, who doesn’t even get a reaction to her own pain because her mind is basically wiped. I find this really unfortunate because I liked that Guts had actual personal trauma instead of the more typical for dude protagonists trauma-by-proxy. And it’s not realistic that he would get over it after one flashback and confession to Casca, but that is what we’re shown happened – because after that his childhood trauma is never referred to again, except in one flashback chapter featuring teenager Guts. It’s lazy writing imo, and it ruins an interesting and personal traumatic backstory that manly dude protagonists almost never get by replacing it with a dime-a-dozen misogynist fridged girlfriend backstory.
4. tbh it is really jarring and fucked up how you spend 2 emotional chapters with Casca, in her head from her point of view, as she fights and runs with Judeau, and then the 2nd chapter ends with a bunch of tentacles ripping her clothes off and suddenly you’re back with Guts and you never get Casca’s perspective again. tonally it’s a mess – heartfelt tragedy to pornographic objectification within a page – and it’s just so emblematic of how Miura treats Casca as a character. Her main function in the story is to be objectified and assaulted and saved by men, and when she gets good, relatable and empathetic character moments they’re short-lived before she becomes a damsel again.
4.5. and speaking of perspective, it’s fucked up that this horrible experience that breaks Casca’s mind is shown from Guts’ perspective. We’re meant to be relating to his horror at seeing his former best friend raping his girlfriend, we’re not meant to be relating to Casca in this moment. During her previous rape attempts we at least got her perspective on it, we were shown her fear, we heard her thoughts. But not here – here she’s just a violated body existing to traumatize Guts.
5. Based on Miura saying he had Guts and Casca get together just to make the Eclipse more dramatic it strongly suggests to me that not only was her rape solely there to make Guts feel bad and give Femto something to do to make everyone hate him, he wrote her out as a character afterwards because he didn’t know what to do with her – she wasn’t around during the Black Swordsman arc so he had to throw her away for a while, then turn her into nothing more than a symbol of Guts’ humanity, with no character of her own. (Actually tbh Miura didn’t even need to say he threw Guts and Casca together for drama, that comes across pretty clear to me in the writing lol. When I read that my reaction was pretty much just a sense of validation.)
6. Also regressing into a walking infant is not a realistic reaction to trauma, it’s just storytelling convenience, and Casca’s current character as basically a child with an often still sexualized adult body skeeves me out.
Okay that’s enough about the Eclipse rape. I really, really hate it tbh lol.
I also mentioned the scene where Griffith and Charlotte fuck, and more briefly I think that’s bad writing because Miura literally wrote a rape scene – Charlotte said “no” – and then he treated it as consensual sex narratively because Charlotte got into it partway through. Which is very typical male writer bad writing, it’s something you see a LOT – prim virgin has to protest to show that she’s pure and proper, but the dude is good at sex so she soon realizes how great it is and everything’s okay – and it’s really misogynist and fucked up. It’s offensive writing, and it’s just plain bad writing because what we see depicted (rape) isn’t what we’re told happened (consensual sex that Charlotte enjoyed and has no misgivings about and the negative part is that Griffith is a self-destructive idiot who seduced her too soon and ended up in a dungeon for it, not that she said no).
If there was even a hint that Miura recognizes it as rape, some context showing that Charlotte’s feelings about it are complicated, anything like that, I’d be more okay with it, but there’s really nothing. Charlotte adores him to pieces afterwards and the king is angry because he’s a rapist creep, not because he’s protective or anything. Tbh I wholeheartedly approved of the film version’s choice to give Charlotte more agency and have her ask Griffith to stay and move his hand to her chest herself. It seems more in keeping with the spirit of the scene and Charlotte’s feelings about it.
In a more general sense, basically I think Miura as a storyteller has a lot of strengths, but he also has a lot of flaws. Like overall I find Miura’s strengths as a writer are enough to keep me going through the bad stuff, but sometimes it’s a struggle lol and I like to complain about it occasionally. Not all his flaws revolve around rape or offensive writing choices (like eg I think he walks a fine line with tone and sometimes his lighthearted moments come across as jarring, interrupting the flow of action, or awkward), but those are the ones that really stand out and that I’m most likely to describe as shitty writing lol.
you're the only one 