Tag: theme: rpg group

every time i re-read a bit of the conviction arc i want to say something about its depiction of relationships, whether that gels with the rest of the story, etc, but it’s always so hugely daunting

in part because it seems to contradict everything i get out of the golden age lmao

like according to conviction arc themes, the fatal flaw in griffith and guts’ relationship was that it was too intense and they needed each other too much

like, according to the conviction arc

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the problem here isn’t that Guts failed to understand his own importance to Griffith and therefore left, the problem was that he was important to Griffith at all. Griffith should have been able to rely on himself and no one else.

look at this:

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transcription bc the writing is hard to read:

But those threatened by the dark… can by no means ever let go of a torch. All they can do is stare in blank surprise at their illuminated, disgustingly cruel selves… and continue to suffer it…  And to protect their stunted self-esteem they depend on it… all the while hating it. Cravenly… deceitfully…

(They’re even both on the giant hands, and Luca and Guts both let go self-sacrificially. It’s a very direct parallel.)

Of course, this statement is extremely cynical and delivered by an antagonist. But the narrative seems to fully support it regardless:

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According to the Conviction arc, Griffith was right when he said this:

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And Guts was right to leave. Guts and Griffith’s problem was that they were never equals, and they admired and resented and clung to each other in turn.

I absolutely cannot reconcile the themes of the Conviction arc with the Golden Age, because that is clearly not the point of the Golden Age.

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Oh but bthump, you might say, the point is that Guts and Griffith were too obsessed wtih each other while not being equals and that was a bad thing, while Guts and Casca have an equal relationship and therefore they are an example of a good relationship, just like Nina and her shitty boyfriend up there.

Well, sorry to say, the Conviction arc is also gtsca negative, here’s Casca stating the theme right before saying it also applies to her:

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Stop relying on other people, Casca.

There’s also “a person hurts someone just because they’re strong” as a prelude to Guts assaulting Casca. Like, they’re not a happy healthy equal relationship either lol, either pre or post Eclipse.

Of course, it’s worth noting that the Conviction arc is very Black Swordsman-y, and therefore its “most relationships are bad, actually” message may not be wholly sincere, but may be more a reflection of Guts’ current stupidity.

eg

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Will you? Because to me it looks like you got caught up in trying to kill incorporeal images of the Godhand and trying to find Griffith and completely forgot about her, only remembering the whole “save Casca” plan once you realized you couldn’t kill the images you were swinging at.

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Yeah Guts, at a time like this you’re.

Someone else’s strength, Isidro’s, saved her.

And of course, Guts’ “I can do everything myself” stupidity continues until he sexually assaults Casca and finally realizes maybe he needs some people to rely on. It’s all bookended by the Beast of Darkness, and it’s later contradicted by Guts’ rpg group. I mean, he gains them because they’re all fucking clinging to him and considering him better than them lol. Farnese calls him her saint, Isidro idol worships him, there are parallels drawn between Guts and the group and Griffith and his followers a lot.

But again, by Conviction arc logic, the rpg group is bad. Following Guts is bad. But that’s obviously not the case.

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But like, man, the Conviction arc just hammers in this shit about unequal relationships and clinging to others, resenting the torches in the darkness, etc etc etc, over and over and over. Even the religious stuff feels like a statement on unequal relationships – people clinging to a God like Nina clung to Luca like Casca clings to Griffith then Guts, like Griffith and Guts clung to each other. Like it’s hard to dismiss it all as bullshit. But it’s so fucking awful lol, I absolutely loathe it.

And it is directly contradicted by stuff like the fact that this is portrayed as good:

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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. Or maybe this is all going to come back front and centre and we’ll find out the rpg group is also fucked up and about to tear itself apart. I mean if a person hates someone because they’re weak and hurts someone because they’re strong, everyone in the rpg group should be full of resentment towards Guts. Come to think of it, the Hawks should’ve all hated Griffith. Falconia should hate Griffith. It should be another Tower of Conviction, by this logic, full of resentful baby-eating heretics lmao.

OR – is that a statement on the world Griffith overturns? Silat saying tyranny will always exist, that’s the reason of man, and Jarif responding with, yeah well Griffith’s world lies outside of your idea of reason. Like, Egg’s wish, and therefore humanity’s collective wish, was for an ideal world where that shit he says about relationships doesn’t apply, right?

I just don’t fucking know what the point is man. Some relationships are good, some relationships are bad, and there’s no rhyme or reason to which we’re saying are good and which we’re saying are bad, or why.

I will tell you one thing tho: according to Conviction arc logic, Guts and Griffith are each others’ gods. So that’s fun.

Also… because Guts and Griffith’s power dynamics shift over the course of the Golden Age, my conclusion that their issue isn’t that they’re unequal but that they’re idiots who don’t recognize until it’s too late that their feelings for each other make them equals, isn’t necessarily contradicted by any of this.

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This is a pretty strong conclusive statement to be casually contradicted by a parallel to Nina and Luca an arc later.

Like Nina and Luca may be a bad match because Nina cares more for Luca than vice versa – Luca tends to see her as a responsibility lol. But that’s clearly not the case with Guts and Griffith.

But did Miura think about that, one wonders, because the parallels are very direct. Idk idk idk. Fuck authorial intent, whatever the hell Miura was going for, my reading still makes the most sense, contains the fewest contradictions, and is the least fucked up message.

izonis
replied to your post “It’d actually be pretty cool if we got more moments between Guts and…”

I like this analysis. I agree that this potential is unfortunately most likely not going to get explored, at least not any time soon – especially the way the manga is heading right now. But who knows, I’ve been wrong about predictions before… guess we still have fanfiction though if anything.

thank you!

Yeah my hopes aren’t high but I think there’s a chance Miura might explore some aspects once we get back to Guts’ side of the narrative. After all we’re at the culmination of his journey of the last 150ish chapters, so it’s the perfect time to bring those themes home and make a statement about Guts’ relationships etc. Like, if things go wrong w/ Casca’s mind coming back (thinking of omnious foreshadowing featuring the berserk armour and behelit), will his new friendships help prevent the worst from happening? Or will Guts’ emotional distance from them have negative consequences? That kinda thing.

But yeah it could also be that we’re just supposed to take it at face value that they’re a happy found family and it won’t really be examined in more depth than that. But I have my fingers crossed at least.

does guts ever refer to anyone in the current rpg group as a friend

i re-read my reply to that ask and it kind of struck me that guts distancing himself from them emotionally because he’s afraid of losing them/killing them could be similar to griffith distancing himself from the hawks. promrose hall speech.

i mean this is based on 2 extrapolations lol (guts distances himself from current group, griffith distanced himself bc he leads them to their deaths a lot) so it’s tenuous and i wouldn’t be surprised if i was wrong and we do see guts calling them his friends and i’ve just forgotten

or maybe ‘companions’ which i know he calls them is close enough to count anyway

but i do wonder if he kind of kept his raised standards for friendship after hearing that speech lol, and eventually for v similar reasons

I’m always gonna be pissed at Miura for making Isidro an annoying sidekick for Guts. I wish Miura would have went for a more father/son type of bond with them (although I feel that’s actually what he might have been going for in the beginning, but at this point it’s totally gone imo). There was a lot of potential there but now Isidro is really just so pointless in my eyes and it makes me kinda sad. I just feel like Miura could do so much more with his characters :/

yeah, big mood. I’ve kind of got some mixed feelings because I hate Isidro and I don’t want him to have more importance lol, and I dislike parenthood narratives in general, but it’s still so true that Guts could’ve had much more meaningful relationships with everyone in the rpg group, and it’s kind of glaring to me that he doesn’t.

idk I keep wondering if it’s just because I’m biased towards the golden age lol, if I’m willfully downplaying significant moments between Guts and his new group, or if the interesting aspects are there but subtle and I’m just failing to appreciate it, but idk I mean I’ve read the latter stuff twice or more recently and Guts’ new relationships leave me cold. imo the most interesting relationships in Guts’ narrative are between Farnese and Casca, Farnese and Serpico, and Schierke and Farnese. The one relationship Guts has to anyone that I feel any emotion about is Guts and Puck’s friendship, and that’s been almost dropped completely lol.

Like, I feel more genuine warmth and love between Guts and various random background raiders than Guts and anyone in the rpg group lol.

And I think it does actually make sense for that to be the case from a character standpoint – Guts deliberately keeping them at a distance because he’s been burned before when he lost people he cares about, because he doesn’t trust himself not to turn on them, because he still intends to drop them eventually and return to his revenge quest, etc – but if it is purposeful then I wish I could be shown that from Guts’ perspective. And not just through the Beast taunting him while he’s unconscious (eg ”make them precious to you, it’s all the more to lose”).

I want more moments of self-reflection and telling emotion from Guts, basically. Like, I would’ve loved to see, say, Guts starting to push Isidro too hard during swordfight training and then realizing what he’s doing with a bit of horror and ending it early. Or maybe Guts himself drawing a comparison between Farnese wanting to be useful and Casca wanting to be Griffith’s sword and being a little perturbed. Or in a positive direction, maybe include a scene on the boat where Guts thanks Serpico for stopping him from challenging Zodd with some similar language to the old staircase conversation. Or a million other possible examples of showing what Guts’ current relationships mean to him that I just feel we don’t really get.

It’d actually be pretty cool if we got more moments between Guts and Serpico. It kinda surprises me that there haven’t been more tbh, they’re the closest in age rn in the new squad, and there are some similarities between Serpico and Griffith. Also Serpico’s personality balances out well with Guts’ personality imo. Maybe we’ll get some development in the future?

ia, I think Guts and Serpico have a lot of potential for an interesting relationship dynamic, parallels, contrasts, both wrt their relationships and each other as individuals. Yk in the conviction arc serpico and farnese had some griffguts vibes (well everyone in the conviction arc did lol), they both have abusive childhoods that involved taking care of a parent and eventually killing them, they’re actually both relatively chill people but guts has a force of personality and a drive that serpico doesn’t have, idk there’s a lot of interesting comparisons to make imo.

tbh their relationship feels way shallower than it could, but honestly I feel the same way about most aspects of guts’ narrative from the millenium falcon arc on. so I’d love to see more development, but I’m not like counting on it lol.

(maybe it’s purposefully shallow to show that Guts isn’t really fully connecting with anyone in his new group. like guts and serpico dueled but… guts doesn’t really give a fuck. serpico saved guts from zodd but guts doesn’t really reflect on that or care. anything interesting between them is from serpico’s point of view, eg reflecting on how being around guts has changed him. guts just gets his bland little ‘hey thanks for the help you guys’ moment in elfhelm and that’s about it.

i’d like to think that’s a purposeful contrast to guts’ actual meaningful relationships of the golden age lol, buuuuuuut yeah right lol, that’s wishful thinking. miura’s just halfassing it.

it’s like guts going to get farnese back from her family. it’s nice, it makes me happy that guts values farnese, but what does that mean for guts? how does his relationship with farnese, or serpico, or schierke, or isidro, etc, make him feel? he likes them, he wants to protect them, but how do they fit in to his complex inner life? i can come up with a million ways griffith and the hawks reflected and refracted guts’ childhood for instance, but not the rpg group.

maybe the difference is that guts is now fulfilling gambino/griffith’s role. he’s switched from needer of attention to distant giver of attention. there are parallels there in theory, yk farnese’s admiration, teaching isidro to fight, casca/shizu similarities potentially, serpico comparing guts to fire/blazing inferno that is griffith, blah blah blah. but they also… don’t seem to emotionally affect guts much. like damn imagine if guts himself was making a comparison between himself and gambino and fearing his own potential to be a shitty abusive life ruiner. instead that all gets channeled into the beast of darkness stuff, easily blamed on a magic suit of armour, without a hint of awareness on guts’ part of the potential parallels there.

uhhhh i went off on a weird tangent, sorry lol.)

I liked your theory about casca using the behelit but it made me worry that it will be guts who uses it and he’ll sacrifice casca to do it (similar to ‘the beast’ wanting him to rape/eat/kill casca so he could be close to griffith) and therefore reduce her to just another pain source AGAIN but idk… I guess their ‘sacrifice’ status helps prevent that but then can either of them use the behelit because of that?

ty! and tbh I don’t think you don’t have to worry about that (unless Miura decides to retcon hard facts).

in addition to the count not being able to sacrifice guts because he doesn’t love guts lol, they point out

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you can’t mark someone for sacrifice twice.

But yeah there’s nothing saying that someone marked for sacrifice can’t use a behelit themselves, and everyone knowledgeable about these things seems to believe that Guts potentially could use it (like Slan saying “why not make a sacrifice” in the troll cave, eg).

Though I don’t think the behelit is Guts’. Whether Miura was considering it for a while is a possibility, but since the Berserk armour made an appearance and we started getting a lot of “is it yours or are you just carrying it for someone hmmm” moments, I feel like it’s been really unlikely that Guts is ever going to use it. The armour is more his way of letting his inner darkness loose. Which has the handy effect of not being necessarily permanent, but with the ever present threat of becoming permanent. Perfect for a protagonist lol.

Also speaking of the Beast of Darkness telling Guts to assault and murder Casca so he can pursue Griffith, I think that could be another like… factor in Casca using the behelit. Right now she’s the symbol of Guts’ humanity, so if she becomes a monster it makes thematic sense for Guts to follow suit by losing himself to the armour. He could later be brought back by ~the power of friendship~ to demonstrate that despite their quest ending in tragedy and darkness, it was still worthwhile because of the character development and relationships formed along the way.

Ha! I’ve been fretting for ages about how Casca going apostle could work thematically w/ the whole interpersonal relationships as positive influences/power of love and friendship stuff of the last 200 chapters, but there, that totally fits! Then mb Casca could have her own personal narrative rather than continuing to be a symbol of Guts’ humanity.

I really hate Schierke as a character like… her crush on guts is so yawn to me because like everyone has one at this point and it’s just causing her to be selfish and childish like wanting to keep the ability to control the armour/beast and help guts to herself rather than teach the rest of the group to help is stupid and I feel goes against everything she’s been taught about being a witch and kind of working for the world seperate from the world and also with farnese even though I like her1/2

2/2 I just feel like any kind of character development she could have
had was just quickly glazed over like she went from someone who got off
on watching people get burnt to death and wanting to torture serpico for
‘fun’ or whatever to this simpering woman who’s working on bettering
herself way too fast I wish her journey was explored more and not just
kind of put as if she met guts and suddenly all her problems were solved
and she’s just perfectly good other than a little weak and scared now

Idk I agree with most of this but I think you’re being a little harsh.

Like it’s been a while since I re-read any of the later chapters but I never really got the impression that Schierke was keeping her ability to help Guts to herself, more that she’s just… the only person in the RPG group proficient enough w/ magic to help keep the armour at bay. Like Farnese is still a beginner and no one else knows any magic, so there’s nothing they can really do. (Also I’m kind of loling at calling Schierke childish, like, she is a child.)

But otherwise I pretty much agree, there’s nothing I particularly like about Schierke and her crush is annoying and offputting.

Also wrt Farnese, describing her as “simpering” makes no sense at all. The word means coquettish in an affected, ingratiating way, and that is basically the opposite of Farnese’s character lol, both as an enemy and as an ally.

But other than that I mean yeah I do agree that her character development was not well written. I like both antagonist Farnese and ally Farnese but it’s hard to see them as the same character, because Miura really like, did not show how one became the other lol.

It might be believable that after having her religious faith shattered she’d latch onto Guts as something new to believe in, as an emotional crutch, but it’s never depicted that way really – deciding to follow Guts has been 100% positive for her, while religion was 100% negative and evil, even though they’re both presumably filling the same emotional niche for her. (And if they’re not basically the same drive pointed at different objects of belief, God vs Guts, then Farnese’s sudden switch from religion to Guts is actually super weird and nonsensical, so either way it’s not well done.)

Like, her black and white, us vs them, pure vs impure, etc, thinking should still have been an issue, at least at the start of her time with the rpg group, even if the subjects of that thinking have changed. Or if Miura wanted that type of thinking shattered with her religious faith, she should have had difficulty adjusting to seeing the world in shades of grey. Her related buried guilt and self-doubt should also not have just conveniently disappeared, aside from one vague attempt at an apology for burning witches alive to Flora lol.

(Man now that I mention it it would’ve been fantastic to see Farnese struggling with letting go of her pure vs impure thinking and more slowly accepting that everyone is greyscale, and finding self-acceptance in that too. What a missed opportunity.)

Something else that would’ve been good is showing that Farnese dedicating herself to taking care of Casca, learning magic, etc, is a continuation of her tendency to like, violently throw herself into things. “become the storm yourself,” that life philosophy. Like if she was overeager to an off-putting, borderline unhealthy extent. Or if she wholeheartedly devoted herself to taking care of Casca because of her guilt issues, but again in a not-wholly-positive, overcompensating way.

I think this is a basic problem with Guts’ entire side of the narrative actually lol. It’s too damn good. Everyone is bettered by hanging out with him, plain and simple. Not even two steps forward, one step back – everyone just happily grows as a person on his stupid journey. Farnese replacing God with Guts causes no problems for her or anyone else, because Guts is just a good person to build your entire life around, when imo there should be some critique there wrt the concept of building your life around anything or anyone. The problem isn’t what you’re worshipping, it’s that you’re worshipping, but idk if Miura sees it that way.

Tho I still have hope that this apparent sense that Guts is just the fucking bees knees who changes everyone around him for the better could be subverted. I mean we’re about to get the payoff of his whole quest, and he’s just been compared to Griffith again specifically wrt how Farnese feels about him vs how Casca felt about Griffith, which is promising. Like, Golden Age Griffith was the same wrt everyone around him growing and being happy bc of his ~conviction~ and the feeling that they’re all going places, it’s something Guts comments on when he first meets the Hawks lol, and we all know how that turned out.

But even if that is the case it doesn’t really fix the 150ish chapters of Farnese’s super quick, super positive character growth lol. Idk it’s a disappointment to me too. I still like “both” Farneses, but I really feel like Miura half-assed the hell out of her development.

anyway ty for the asks and sorry for being a bit nitpicky, i mostly agree with you, just my contrary streak kicks in if i think some crit is unfair lol.

dendromancer
replied to your post “i mean i guess it’s always been the same question: is this the prelude…”

i think if the latter is the case then perhaps there will be a more light-hearted ending but… my preferences aside, from BS arc this manga’s theme is the quest for revenge, fighting against all odds etc. so i think that if this scenario occured then the manga will have kind of deviated..? not that it couldn’t be (objectively) a development, but still the ending would be all over the place instead of tackling the core elements, ie their relationship

yeah I totally agree. While I think you could argue that Guts forming strong relationships as a way of moving on from traumatic shit is in keeping with earlier themes, applying that to moving on from Griffith completely ignores the complexities of Guts and Griffith’s relationship, which is straight up what Berserk is about. Like yeah I’m super biased but I still think it would objectively be more narratively fulfilling to see their mutual obsession take centre stage again – it’s the difference between their intense relationship getting a proper climax and emotional catharsis versus being reduced to basically a bad break up that one dude couldn’t move on from.

It’s also a deviation in another way that I was considering tacking onto that post but didn’t, but now I want to talk about it.

But like imo if it is the case that Berserk is about Guts overcoming his obsession and moving on, then functionally Berserk is basically two different kinds of stories.

Everything from chapter one to chapter 129 is the story of a kind of fucked up dude with a lot of issues muddling his way through a very dark grey narrative and trying to do his best.

Everything from chapter 130 on is the story of a dude consistently Making The Right Choice.

Like, I kind of feel that those two stories are incompatible. In a narrative about a dude struggling with himself and trying and usually failing to make the right choices in a complex world where right and wrong barely even exist, which tbh is My Berserk, then it simply doesn’t work for the main character to then make the correct choice, ie focusing on Casca, and stick to it for two hundred and twenty chapters plus afterwards. If he eventually does make a genuinely good and correct and narratively rewarded choice, that should only happen at the end and it should be cathartic.

There are stories about protagonists doing the right thing the whole time even though it’s a struggle at times, and those can be fine stories, but it’s a giant downgrade from a story about a dude making a bunch of mistakes in a morally grey world, and an absolutely enormous tonal and thematic shift. It just doesn’t work as a complete story to me if that’s the case.

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.

madchen
replied to your post “madchen
replied to your post “i want to like, write a longish meta…”

i was thinking in line of “swinging his sword is an u healthy coping mechanism and way to avoid confronting his true feelings and casca being called one here incites comparison to that, casca weaponizing herself aside”

yeah i think ultimately that’s what it is for the most part. even now, his journey to take casca to elfhelm and get her healed has had ominious forboding overtones and imo guts like… metaphorically chaining the beast up in his subconscious is reminiscent of avoiding his issues thru this side quest, rather than confronting and dealing with them.

like his rpg group is a positive influence and this is undoubtedly better than his black swordsman rampage, but like… he’s still closed off from them, still doesn’t talk about his past or only v dispassionately when questioned by warlocks lol, etc. saving casca (and sleeping with her way back when) isn’t so much helping him deal with his problems as it’s helping him avoid them.

just like telling casca about gambino and donovan was a positive thing and a step in the right direction, but not an instant fix.

vague spoilers for the newest chapter, rambly not-really-theorizing

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I am just gonna pray that ‘for now’ is still in place and nothing’s been forgiven or forgotten and assuming things don’t proceed immediately to hell it’s gonna be Farnese supporting Casca emotionally rn while Guts stays tf out of it, and Farnese’s little statement about blowing Casca’s darkness away or whatever gives me hope for that.

ALSO

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I’m torn about this. Because on the one hand, I’d be inclined to guess that this is foreshadowing for a moment in which Guts will be under the threat of being consumed by the Beast of Darkness but will manage to overcome it because he’s grown as a person and his friends come through and save themselves or whatever. Potential for terrible things to happen, but with a different outcome this time.

But on the other hand Guts has never been properly taken over by the stupid Beast of Darkness and I feel like that’s something that has to happen at some point, and we’ve already had Eclipse-but-with-a-different-outcome-thanks-to-Guts’-companions back in the Conviction arc with Isidro saving Casca for him so either way it’s going to feel repetitive, so idfk.

I guess my biggest hope is that Casca’s trauma specifically re Guts and the Beast of Darkness isn’t forgotten, and the BoD remains a giant barrier between them preventing a happy romantic reunion, and I’m gonna cling to every scrap of ominous foreshadowing bc I need that hope.

(And ftr no I’m not hoping Casca is assaulted again or anything like that just in case anyone wants to read this in extremely bad faith, I’m hoping Casca resoundingly rejects him, or Guts like, doesn’t trust himself and leaves (in a way that doesn’t lead to this turning out to be a mistake w/ a tearful reunion near the end), or something else not completely terrible.)

Like I’m trying to think of what Miura would do with Casca, and the past g*tsca relationship knowing that the relationship wasn’t intended from the beginning and was never portrayed as a grand romance but rather just a hook up with potential and a reason for Guts to be angry, and Miura said he added it for the sake of Eclipse drama. Also knowing that Casca only survived the Eclipse so Guts would stay pissed off, and the whole Beast of Darkness issue. And then there’s that fetus too. So I honestly just don’t know, but I’m hoping it doesn’t add up to either a happily ever after for them, or the two of them resuming their relationship only for more tragedy to fuck them up, or a potential future relationship as a happily ever after reward hovering over my head for the rest of the fucking manga.

All I truly want is a nail in the guts/casca coffin asap, and then mb I can finally know peace.

I was really focused on some yikes parts of the fandom so through reading your metas I realized that Miura indeed isn’t trying to sell g*tsca, it’s obvious mutliple times like you’ve said that they are both substituting in GA, plus the sex chapter’s title is licking wounds (iirc? not that subtle). And even later on Guts is trying to make up for his past mistakes w Griffith (the snow scene). Anyway what do you think will happen after Elfheim? Will they remain in the same group or part ways?

I’m glad I made a convincing case lol, ty for reading 😀

Tbh I have a hard time coming up with a solid idea of what might happen. I guess I’m leaning towards the group, or most of the group depending on whether anyone dies or what Casca does when she wakes up, sticking together. It would feel too repetitive if everyone died again or left to do their own subplots and Guts was back to Black Swordsmaning alone imo. Like granted there’s a complication with the armour potentially taking over now, but even so there’s not a lot of drama or intrigue you can wring out of that. Guts is the Beast of Darkness, eventually someone brings him back to himself again, snore. Like unless that someone is Griffith i’m already bored by the idea bc we’ve seen it like 4 times already.

I could maybe see them parting ways temporarily for plot reasons, splitting up to accomplish different things, but I don’t think Farnese, Serpico, Casca, Schierke, Puck, or Isidro are going to be written out of the story anytime soon. I think they’re here til the end, or close to it.

I could easily see Magnifico, Roderick, the knight dude, and the mermaid dying or taking off though. They’ve all had way less development and time and energy spent on their narratives.

Though I also wouldn’t be surprised to be proven wrong, bc yk, anything
could happen when Casca gets her mind back and I’m prepared to be
surprised by whichever direction we end up going in.

How do you think that guts’ new party would react if they knew he sexually assaulted casca?

I actually don’t know lol. It’s a tough question because I’m not sure how much Miura thinks we should condemn Guts for it – on one hand he’s getting consequences for his actions in the form of Casca hating him and I don’t think it’s likely that she’ll forgive and forget and everything will go swimmingly. On the other I think we’re supposed to feel like he should get a pat on the back for stopping, and we’re definitely not supposed to hate him for it, we’re probably more meant to empathize with him and his loss of control and his regret, and admire the steps he’s taken to protect her from himself by travelling with people, and his willpower in keeping the hound on a leash.

So I guess ideally I’d like their idealized and infatuated images of Guts to be shattered as they realize that he’s capable of some fucked up shit even without the armour. Farnese could get protective of Casca and take off with her and Serpico and whoever in the party wants to follow, quite possibly all of them, give or take Puck and Isidro. Because she’d definitely choose Casca over Guts and that would be nice to see.

But I think it’s more likely that some of them, like Farnese and Serpico, would maybe get a bit warier of him and he might lose some of his shine in Farnese’s eyes, but overall consider it a past mistake he’s overcome and atoned for, and just another signifier of how much of a struggle it is to be Guts akin to how they feel about how Guts + Berserker armour = trying to murder them all. Yk like it makes Serpico anxious but no one blames him for it even though it’s his own inability to control his rage that leads to the armour taking over without magical hand-holding to save everyone from him.

Idk that’s at my most cynical. Don’t get me wrong I love Guts and his narrative for the most part, I just think aspects of it and the magical fantasy metaphor of the Berserk armour, hound, etc aren’t handled as well as they could be lol.

Anyway it’d probably be something between those two extremes tbf.

mastermistressofdesire:

bthump:

Also related to that last ask but my response was getting way too long so I’ll mention this separately:

I feel like part of my problem with the current lighter tone is that a lot of the darkness, specifically the emotional angst, of Berserk so far was based on the fact that all the main characters are traumatized and have shitty coping mechanisms. Guts Casca and Griffith sure, and also Farnese and Serpico (neglected throughout childhood and coped by burning people alive and terrorizing ppl, and abused by peers and Farnese + weird expectations from his mother and coped by becoming an unfeeling doormat). And none of them have really dealt with it?

Griff transformed into a monster so fine his story has a conclusion, and Casca’s is maybe coming to fruition soon, but Guts’ trauma just transferred from rape and abuse to feeling manpain about Casca’s trauma, which is a huge disservice to both characters if it’s never brought up again and dealt with.

And while Farnese is bettering herself we’ve never really seen her actual issues addressed, and her whole sadism burning ppl alive thing just kind of easily melted away in favour of a new helping someone philosophy. I wished for more internal conflict there, basically, and I hope it’s addressed in the future but for now it seems like a pretty abrupt change and a missed opportunity. And Serpico is still Serpico. He hasn’t changed a whole lot but his issues haven’t negatively impacted anything either.

In the Golden Age all the psychological baggage these characters had contributed to its absolute disaster of a climax. And I’d love, love to see that happen again, esp with Farnese and Serpico adding more shit to the pile, or I’d love to see their issues flare up but have them manage to overcome them now that they’ve grown in a happier, healthier contrast to the Golden Age.

But throughout the Millenium Empire arc all these issues the characters have never really affected them adversely. I’m hoping that now that we’re delving into Casca’s psyche things will start to snowball and we’ll see that these traumas haven’t just been forgotten but only put on hold for a while so this group can be happy and hopeful.

But for now I do miss reading about fucked up characters and the internal and external challenges posed by their issues.

The weird part is actually, that sometimes I think, objectively, the manga hasn’t become lighter since the Golden age. The Lost Children and Tower of Conviction arc were pretty fucked up and even now we’ve had troll rapes, the daka demons ripping out uterus es, people being eaten alive, a lot of really weird ass and perverted monstrosities.

But it’s simply that the fucked up Ness isn’t viscerally gripping anymore.

In the Golden age we we’re first introduced to characters, made to care about them by slowly revealing both their strengths and flaws and slowly, insidiously piling on the foreshadowing and layers of emotional as well as external fuckery.

It felt so dark because we cared about the people it was happening to.

In recent chapters the characters are introduced along with the ‘darkness’ bringing it forward as a part of their plotlines. Even Farnese was introduced as a sadistic pyromaniac first .
Along with the horror which was the heretic related prosecution.

And only much later were we given a glimpse into the character and learnt to retroactively care about her.

I mean ultimately that worked as far as characterisation is concerned. As in I definitely care about Farnese now.

But it does reduce the emotional impact of the should have been traumatic scenes.

These are really good points. I totally agree about the grimdarkness – like I care when the protagonist has a traumatic backstory and it leads to him making unfortunate decisions, I’m less affected emotionally when random npcs are being tortured in two-page spreads for shock value.

+ tbh i don’t think it’s necessarily a mistake to introduce Farnese’s dark side first and then reveal her better nature, bc I do like when writers make you love a former antagonist and I love that about Farnese, but it definitely adds to the differing tones.

And I mean it does make sense to reverse the Golden Age format this way – now instead of beloved characters going dark, we can have dark characters learning to be better. But it really boils down for me to feeling like it’s been too easy I guess. Guts made new friends and now his hound is on a leash and now it’s the Berserk armour’s fault when he tries to murder everyone. Farnese dropped the pyromania and became a protector. And yeah for Farnese it’s been an ongoing journey as she gets braver and more competent and learns new things, and I love that journey, but since deciding to join Guts she’s never had second thoughts or felt sadistic or masochistic urges and more internal conflict for her would’ve been sweet.

But again, that’s assuming that this Guts and Friends story has all been a journey of personal growth and a brighter future, and not just the calm before the storm. So we’ll have to wait and see.

Also related to that last ask but my response was getting way too long so I’ll mention this separately:

I feel like part of my problem with the current lighter tone is that a lot of the darkness, specifically the emotional angst, of Berserk so far was based on the fact that all the main characters are traumatized and have shitty coping mechanisms. Guts Casca and Griffith sure, and also Farnese and Serpico (neglected throughout childhood and coped by burning people alive and terrorizing ppl, and abused by peers and Farnese + weird expectations from his mother and coped by becoming an unfeeling doormat). And none of them have really dealt with it?

Griff transformed into a monster so fine his story has a conclusion, and Casca’s is maybe coming to fruition soon, but Guts’ trauma just transferred from rape and abuse to feeling manpain about Casca’s trauma, which is a huge disservice to both characters if it’s never brought up again and dealt with.

And while Farnese is bettering herself we’ve never really seen her actual issues addressed, and her whole sadism burning ppl alive thing just kind of easily melted away in favour of a new helping someone philosophy. I wished for more internal conflict there, basically, and I hope it’s addressed in the future but for now it seems like a pretty abrupt change and a missed opportunity. And Serpico is still Serpico. He hasn’t changed a whole lot but his issues haven’t negatively impacted anything either.

In the Golden Age all the psychological baggage these characters had contributed to its absolute disaster of a climax. And I’d love, love to see that happen again, esp with Farnese and Serpico adding more shit to the pile, or I’d love to see their issues flare up but have them manage to overcome them now that they’ve grown in a happier, healthier contrast to the Golden Age.

But throughout the Millenium Empire arc all these issues the characters have never really affected them adversely. I’m hoping that now that we’re delving into Casca’s psyche things will start to snowball and we’ll see that these traumas haven’t just been forgotten but only put on hold for a while so this group can be happy and hopeful.

But for now I do miss reading about fucked up characters and the internal and external challenges posed by their issues.