I’m gonna go in order from least to most likely I guess lol.
10. Guts has a sex dream about Griffith, fully canonizing his attraction.
9. Guts and Griffith admit they were and still are in love with each other, at least to themselves, and realize how hard they both fucked up their potential, and die together in mutual regret after a dramatic kiss and stab.
8. Guts kills Isidro in a berserk armour rage. Also like, Magnifico,
mermaid girl, Roderick, and also I’d add Schierke and her elf too. Maybe even Puck just to hammer home the point lol, just like, off half the
rpg group. Mini eclipse starring Guts going past his point of no return. And since this is already v implausible, it leads to an ending where Guts and Griffith do the not-so-different thing and get back together.
7. Guts doesn’t go Beast of Darkness due to Casca – not her dying (god forbid), not her going apostle, not her rejecting him, Casca just doesn’t figure into Guts losing himself to darkness regardless of what she does. Instead, Griffith comes to Elfhelm, and Guts goes Beast of Darkness during some kind of emotional confrontation with him.
6. Guts and Griffith drag each other to hell upon their deaths where they ~become one~ like lbr they’ve always wanted. also as an ironic call-back to their equality thing.
5. Schierke’s guardian spirit elemental beings and the Godhand are connected + aspects of the same shit, good and evil are two sides of the same human coin, and the Idea of Evil is not evil in and of itself, it’s simply fulfilling humanity’s wishes. Yk there’s no good spirit world vs evil spirit world, it’s all the same stuff it just looks good or evil depending on what you’re calling on them for and your perspective, because humanity contains multitudes.
4. The behelit opens, Casca makes a sacrifice, goes apostle, and gets to drive the narrative. Relatedly, there are griffguts parallels between apostle Casca and Farnese. Similarly to Rosine/Jill.
3. Danann, and Skull Knight, are using Guts and Casca in a plot against the Godhand, turn out to be giant dicks and Elfhelm in general becomes an antagonist. Also Moonlight Boy was a manipulation on Danann’s part. (And less plausible but along with that, when Griffith shows up at Elfhelm it’s right at the point where the audience, and Guts, wants to see someone fuck Elfhelm up, cleverly complicating the whole protagonist/antagonist scenario.)
2. Casca kills NGriff, probably while NGriff is having a breakdown after killing Guts.
1. Griffith does something stupid and irrational for Guts’ sake once again.
Bonus 0: the fetus is at least mostly a red herring and had nothing to do with Griffith’s heart beating when he watched Guts fight Zodd.
Also I think we’re meant to like them which I find v interesting and hopeful lol. Like from Raksas who is a huge dick but also very entertaining and fun to Grunbeld who has a whole backstory novel in which he’s 100% sympathetic protagonist from everything I’ve heard about it, they’re made to be likeable characters. Which is great because it makes it less likely we’re headed for some kind of boring Guts’ side vs Griffith’s side, Good vs Evil story lol.
Not that I’m too worried about any conflict between them being framed as simplistically as good vs evil, but still.
My ideal plotline is probably Guts’ side and Griffith’s side teaming up against a greater antagonist, like those few chapters where Guts rode Zodd into battle against Ganeshka writ large, and the fact that Griffith’s side of the story isn’t framed as evil or even antagonistic but as protagonists of their own narrative makes that seem more possible.
Failing that, just like I love Guts getting monstrous without literally becoming a monster I love seeing apostles that are sympathetic and humane. Moreso than say, Rosine who is sympathetic but also yk, pretty damn fucked up regardless, apostles like eg Locus are just chill. Locus is like a famous knight who apparently exorcised his apostle bloodlusty urges by competing in tournaments before he joined Griffith, and since joining Griffith has been pretty dedicated to fostering peace between humans and between humans and apostles. Give or take possibly sending Raksas after Rickert (or possibly not, we don’t know yet) he hasn’t done a single negative thing that we know of. Same with Irvine, who seems to hunt animals, rather than people, and Grunbeld who has the aforementioned novel where he’s p much portrayed as heroic as far as I can tell, and Zodd who is compared to Guts the most when it comes to the whole man vs monster thing.
So yk even if they do ultimately end up fighting Guts, I feel like it’s not going to be a simple conflict where we’re meant to root for one side or the other. Tonally the fact that there’s a conflict at all would probably be depicted as negative.
as an aside, imo the biggest argument against that hope tbh is the new fast travel system which feels like nothing but set up for an eventual attack on Elfhelm, but yk what, I’ve also been arguing that Eflhelm is going to end up being manipulative assholes, so maybe it’ll all work out in my favour anyway. Like maybe they’ll show up just as the readers suddenly realize we want someone to kick Elfhelm’s ass.
Like Miura has talked about writing Griffith as a protagonist of his own story, and you don’t spend a hundred chapters on a narrative that follows those protagonist/heroic story beats just to suddenly make them evil no good antagonists again lol.
I feel like Guts and Griffith’s stories are going to end up being basically morally equivalent from different angles. Man vs inner monster; monster vs inner man lol. Human volition, monstrous strength, yadda yadda yadda.
Like this is one of the strongest themes of the story lol, one brief scene where they team up cannot be the sole payoff, come on. Especially when it’s Guts and Griffith in conflict, rather than Guts and Zodd who don’t have that whole history of being ridiculously in love with each other.
Anyway like, the two sides don’t necessarily need to team up again, but conflict between Guts and Griffith’s narratives falls soundly on the monster side and it’s gonna be depicted as such, and therefore negative. like guts will be consumed by the armour when that happens and he’ll probably have killed or will kill one or more of his friends as well, that kind of negative.
When it comes to Charlotte though, I really have no idea lol. If I have any guess at all, it’s that she’s probably not going to do anything particularly significant. Like, thematically she’s got nothing going on that I can think of, she’s just kind of there being in love with Griffith and enabling his power grab, so I can’t really theorize about how she’ll fit into any future conflict.
I know a lot of people want her to learn about Femto/the Eclipse in the hopes that the rose coloured glasses break, because in a way i think she’s kind of representative of buying Griffith’s perfect image, but I doubt it. Even if she does like, see him transform into Femto or something lol, even if all of Falconia sees it, I don’t think it’ll change anything. They’ve seen him lead an army of monsters and speculated about whether he’s even human already, showing off a black outfit and bat wings is probably not going to make or break anything for him relationship or publicity-wise at this point.
I guess my biggest hope wrt Charlotte is just that she’ll get some screen time acting in some capacity as a leader. She’s got some inner strength at least, as we saw like, during the Griffith rescue mission a million years ago, let’s see her use it in some way as queen.
i don’t want her to regret guts saving her per se, as far as current shit goes because she’s been thru enough … but … so many things in berserk are cyclical it could very well still apply. and tbh i want her to be angry about a lot of things that have happened
i’d love for her to get righteous revenge for turning her good, likeable and interesting character into a plot device for the sole conveyance of manpain for the past 20 years t b f h
i want a dark call back to that moment in the cave now, either as tragedy bc casca did not want to be saved by guts or by getting her sanity “forced” back (”shouldn’t’ve saved her”)
or
as casca resoundingly and v seriously rejecting guts in favour of farnese
You get a bit more info about the whole merging of the worlds thing in the next like 10-15 chapters, w/ Rickert
visiting Falconia and talking to Locus, and some dudes talking about how
the world was altered in Elfhelm, so if you want to just keep reading and draw your own conclusions then ignore the rest of this response.
But basically I think the idea behind it is that for humanity (including apostles) to unite and yk stop being dicks to each other on a grand scale, they need a common enemy. And merging the worlds allows humanity’s collective imagination into the real world, turning it into a high fantasy and giving humanity a shitload of their own nightmares to deal with as that common enemy.
I think Falconia is also a side effect of this – humanity, or at least Midland and co, collectively willed it into existence as a safe utopia with a bird theme because Griffith just saved the world and they all want him to lead them. There’s that historical memory/legend of Gaiseric’s empire, so this is like version 2.0.
Quick and easy way for Griffith to gain a utopian kingdom with full support of the vast majority of the people in it. Plus saving the world, turning it into high fantasy, and ruling the only peaceful kingdom in it kind of gives you carte blanche to do whatever you want. Societal expectations are out the window. Human Griffith as king probably would’ve faced huge obstacles when it came to gaining support and implementing even small changes in, say, how much power the nobility had, while NeoGriffith can do whatever the hell he wants.
There’s also the effect of allowing the Godhand to exist physically in the world, I think, which will probably turn out to be important. Does it grant them more power? Does it make them vulnerable? Both? Something else? idk yet but it’s intriguing.
tbh I lean towards assuming Locus sent Raksas after Rickert, but I’d also be pretty ok with it turning out to be Griffith after all. bc like, if it’s Griffith then that’s got some intrigue because it seems like a reaction driven by emotion rather than logic – Rickert isn’t a threat in any way. He’s a kid and he was planning to leave on his own. And it’s a plan that spectacularly failed, while all NGriff’s plans succeed because he has fate on his side. Therefore, if NGriff sent Raksas, then it was probably a stupid decision driven by an emotional need to, idk, erase that rejection from someone from his past.
I think it’s a lot more likely that Locus sent Raksas on his own initiative though. Partly bc it’s kind of a hard sell that NGriff would fuck something up that bad lol, but also because, like… sending an assassin after Rickert, even if I can argue some emotional complexity out of it, crosses the line into villainous for the sake of villainous that I don’t think NGriff is actually going to cross.
Tho again like, if he does cross that line it better be in a way that I can argue demonstrates interesting emotions. I’d rather it involve Guts than Rickert tho.
I feel like it’s true that Flora and other witches, and people with brands, and probably Skull Knight, can do things that causality/fate/whatever doesn’t like… expect. So not absolutely everything flows in the currents of causality, and they do still have the power to harm NGriff, so he took the offensive and killed a bunch first. But despite that most of their actions do still flow within causality, like they maybe have a small ability to defy fate, but it’s probably v rare that they do.
Cause I feel like we haven’t seen anyone defy fate yet.
Idk, maybe I’m overthinking it lol, but we know Guts and Casca were fated to survive the Eclipse, because they were instrumental in NGriff’s reincarnation into the world.
Flora and Skull Knight imply that Guts and co are still fating along, and meeting up with the rpg group and taking Casca to Elfhelm together is all part of it. Flora was probably playing into fate’s hands when she handed the Berserker armour to Guts. She has the ability to defy fate, but imo probably most things she does are still ordained by causality. Like I don’t think she’s tried to change anything.
The fact that they have a behelit also indicates that they’re within causality, because behelits work thru fate or whatever. They’re fated to have it right now, and the person who’s fated to use it is going to have it when it’s time.
Consequently, this also suggests that NGriff was fated to save Casca from falling rocks back at the Hill of Swords. Which suggests that his feelings are fated to exist, or at least the Casca-related, potentially fetus-driven ones lol. Jury’s out on his feelings for Guts. Tho if those feelings are still there because Guts survived the Eclipse, and Guts was fated to survive, then it stands to reason that they’re part of causality too.
The way I see it, everyone p much has free will, but everyone is shaped and moulded by circumstance (”encounters”) which is causality’s domain.
So, eg, Guts could’ve chosen not to leave the Hawks in theory. But causality ensured he was picked up by Shizu on the side of the road, that the nature of his childhood shaped him into a certain person, and that he overheard Griffith’s speech. And the person Guts’ childhood shaped him into is gonna decide to leave the Hawks under those circumstances.
So yk, everyone makes their choices based on organic real feelings and life circumstance, but fate’s still there pulling strings.
So Guts is still walking the road of causality leading somewhere quite possibly behelit-related, therefore Griffith couldn’t kill him. But the reason Griffith hasn’t killed him is Griffith’s feelings. His “commandment” from God was still “do what thou wilt.” He didn’t feel like killing Guts, and whatever Griffith feels like doing or not doing is the correct fate-ordained choice.
Like after all this shit about Guts being a step outside causality, I fully expect him to actually defy fate at some point. Or Casca, or maybe Schierke. Probably not Skull Knight, not because he can’t but bc I don’t feel like that’s his role in the story lol. Defying fate seems like it should be a significant moment for a protagonist, not a mysterious tertiary character.
Maybe even NGriff, tho idk. I feel like he might actually be like, extra beholden to fate.
Does this even make sense? lol this subject wrinkles my brain.
But yeah tl;dr I think that like, it’s not that witches, skull knight, and branded ppl are living their lives totally outside of causality and able to do whatever they want, it’s more that they maybe have a small ability to nudge things in a different direction, and we just haven’t seen that happen yet.
As far as I’m concerned the only thing worse than Casca like, having healing sex with Guts and being his narrative reward would be Casca joining Griffith, so I’m very much not on board with you there.
But I do agree that I would absolutely love it if Casca ended up as like, a secondary antagonist to Guts. That’s probably my ideal development for her tbh, and I don’t think she needs to join Griffith to conflict with him. They could conflict if Casca wants revenge and Guts has mixed feelings about that for a multitude of reasons, they could conflict if Casca just lashes tf out because it’s time for her to express some serious narrative-shaking rage, they could conflict if Casca goes apostle, they could conflict if Casca wants revenge against Guts too for how he treated her (ok unlikely, but god I wish lol), they could conflict if Casca kills or sacrifices someone in the rpg group or the moonlight boy maybe, etc etc etc.
So basically a big giant NO to Casca joining Griffith, but a big giant YES to Casca and Guts becoming enemies.
Thank you! I’m glad you found something to enjoy in my meta despite different ship preferences, esp since I like to think a lot of what I have to say about them is applicable even if you go the platonic friends route in your interpretation.
When it comes to NGriff’s unfrozen heart, I definitely go with option B. I completely believe Griffith was lying to himself about his feelings, as he is wont to do lol, like you said – definitely related to his “take all the sad and frightening things and cast them into the fire” method of dealing with his feelings, ie pretending they don’t exist.
I’m going to link a previous post on this topic bc I feel like I said most of what I have to say about it already. But in short I definitely don’t think the fetus is responsible for Griffith’s heart beating while he watches Guts fight Zodd, though it may be responsible for Griffith saving Casca from falling rocks.
As for the moonlight kid, I’m not sure what to make of him. It’s suggested he’s the soul of Guts and Casca’s kid, what with the family imagery in that one chapter. Conversely it’s suggested he might be associated with Dannan, and therefore possibly taking the form of what that child would look like for the sake of… well I want to suggest manipulating them, bc I have high hopes that Danann is gonna turn out to be shady and using them for her own ends.
I do have a hard time with the popular theory that Moonlight Kid is part of NeoGriffith and like, escapes during the full moon to hang out with the rpg group bc the idea sounds very silly to me.
And on a personal level I hate him lmao. I just… I hate most cutesy fictional children, I vastly prefer Black Swordsman Guts to family man Guts lol, I don’t like that the kid’s role is to prevent Guts from succumbing to the armour because I want Guts to succumb to the armour, at least for long enough to shake things up and have consequences. I don’t like that Casca has strong maternal feelings for him despite not even having a personality right now, bc it’s so gender essentialist. Not in a surprising way, just in an annoying way. I don’t like the way he’s used to tease the audience about the possibility of Guts eventually settling down with a family. And I don’t like the implication that he briefly like, possessed NeoGriffith to make him save Casca lol, because again, it strikes me as really silly.
My biggest hope and dream involving Moonlight Boy is that he’s either a) secretly bad news because he’s a trick of Danann’s, or b) going to be what Casca sacrifices to become an apostle if she opens the behelit.
The line between think and desperately, desperately hope is thin lol, but yes. Also completely agree that the best outcome would be Guts killing one or more of his friends himself in beast of darkness mode.
The theory I’ve been pushing and will continue to push until Miura proves me wrong is that Casca’s ptsd despair is going to open the behelit, she’ll choose to become an apostle, and consequently Guts will succumb to the armour in his grief and outrage. Also symbolically it’s nice because something has to cause Guts to lose himself to the armour, we know this because of fifty pieces of foreshadowing, and Casca becoming a monster would work great for that since she basically symbolizes his tie to his humanity right now.
But anyway, whatever ends up happening, I hope it really shakes things up, raises the stakes, and causes serious permanent consequences, because we need a dose of darkness soon imho, and Guts’ fix Casca quest ending in tragedy would just… work so perfectly for me. I want it so bad lol.
hey if miura cut out the idea of evil chapter because it gave too much away, is this
secretly ominous?
or not so secretly, considering it’s the page after this:
i’m hoarding every drop of ominous foreshadowing i can find rn, and flora asiding that god brought guts and his rpg group together right after she suspects skull knight is using them and skull knight excuses himself with “w/e fate’s gonna fate no matter what i do” seems kind of fittingly ominous
i need to remember this (2017) quote every time i start to fear the possibility of guts and casca getting together and moving on just so griffith can go on the offensive and keep the plot going:
“I kept Casca alive precisely for that reason. That’s because even if she
died, and if the series continued for a long time, Guts’ reason to
seek revenge would become a thing of the past and if Guts formed new
relationships with people, his motivation would weaken. It’s a cold,
calculating move and it might feel unpleasant, but it’s exactly because
Guts has Casca at his side that he can never forget about the Eclipse.”
whatever happens w/ casca is gonna make guts go beast of darkness. miura is aware that guts needs to keep driving the plot forward and it can’t just stall out in elfhelm waiting for griffith to kickstart it again.
And then guts have sex wt casca and that stops. Now hes just a strong
character,never defeated, afraid only of himself bc ooh theres a scary
monster inside him teehee,like every shonen.He wants to defeat his evil
former bff with lingering sentiments (naruto?). His vulnerabilities, his
dependance on smo else opinion,his loneliness and lack of meaning of
his existence,which were rare traits in protag?disappeared. GA was how
life conditions impacted real ppl,now bersek is just a shonen wt rape
2/2
Yeaaaaah I agree with a lot of this. I’ve ranted about it before but I can always go on more about how much it bugs me that Guts’ personal trauma is basically ignored during and after the Eclipse in favour of switching to being angry about someone else’s trauma (someone who didn’t even get her own reaction to it, at least not for 20 years).
Cause yeah like ia, Guts’ trauma – and not just the csa trauma but also the more overarching abuse from Gambino as he was growing up – is so vital to his entire character in the first two arcs. It informs everything about him from his insecurities, to the way he fights, to the reason he stayed with the Hawks and the reason he left the Hawks, etc. In the Black Swordsman arc, the reason he’s so angry is because Griffith sacrificing him wasn’t just a betrayal, but a replay of that childhood trauma. The ghosts haunting him and claiming him are an echo of Gambino calling him cursed and selling him to someone else. It all fits together perfectly and it’s so good.
And it is a relatively unique backstory when it comes to badass manly man action hero protagonists. I mean to be nitpicky Berserk is a seinen, not a shonen, but the csa backstories seem to be more inspired by classic shojo, based on some of the influences Miura cites (like Kaze to Ki no Uta), and combining those elements with typical seinen action stuff, especially since imo Miura did it very thoughtfully and very well up til the end of the Golden Age, does create a unique and v interesting story.
And then during and after the Eclipse Guts’ trauma is basically dropped, and he does feel more generic to me – more typically cool and badass, much less interestingly vulnerable. Like eg, his very personal, actual fear-for-himself during the Black Swordsman arc was a really compelling element! And the only post-Eclipse instance I can think of where he was shown to be genuinely afraid for his own life and well-being, rather than afraid of his own potential to do harm or afraid for the people he’s trying to protect, is when Slan shows up in the troll cave. And because there was a sexualized threat there I do think that was a deliberate reference to Guts’ own trauma. But it was one scene over a hundred chapters ago that didn’t really have any emotional resonance (unlike, say, the early Golden Age Zodd encounter which changed everything, or the Wyald encounter which imo shed a lot of light on Guts’ dream), and was far from overt.
So like I unfortunately also get the impression that Miura has largely dropped Guts’ personal trauma as a significant factor of his character and story in favour of the far more common and boring fridged girlfriend backstory.
But! I also still have hope that that’s not the case. I feel like Guts’ post Eclipse monster hunting rampage was largely a way to avoid dealing with his complicated feelings, and I feel the same way about Guts’ fix Casca quest. Like, maybe it’s not Miura dropping Guts’ personal trauma to focus on manpain – maybe it’s Guts deliberately cultivating rage to avoid confronting his more difficult feelings like fear and loneliness and longing etc.
Avoidance is kind of his thing, after all.
This may be (is probably) wishful thinking, but it does give me hope
that if the fix Casca quest goes pear shaped (eg Casca uses the behelit,
or something), Guts’ issues – his childhood, guilt, all his mixed feelings regarding Griffith, etc – will come back front and centre. We
have all the ominous foreshadowing about the Beast of Darkness and the
armour,
and if something makes him go wild and succumb to it it would be nice if it wasn’t just like a one-off bad event but rather a cumulation of everything he’s (I hope) been spending the last 3 years trying to distract himself from.
And then at some point after that he can be pulled back from the armour and yk, actually grow as a person by confronting his issues rather than hitting stuff with a sword, now armed with the knowledge that avoiding stuff just makes them fuck you up harder when your avoidance strategies fail you.
ofc that said, even if that is the case I think Miura’s fucked up w/ pacing. It’s been 250 chapters since the Eclipse, there’s a reason I feel like this is a vain hope even if it does make perfect sense to me as an explanation lol. Plus like… some details do seem to not be pointing in that direction. Like:
Are we meant to regard his choice to take Casca to Elfhelm to be immersing himself in sorrow? Because that is absolutely not the vibe I’m getting, but the dichotemy between chase Griffith for revenge = avoidance vs stick with Casca = positive healing is so explicitly drawn here that maybe Miura’s just half-assing the positive healing to the point where it looks like avoidance lmao. Like that is my genuine fear, is that everything from chapter 130 on is actually meant to be seen as Guts dealing with his shit lol.
But idk like there are still intriguing elements that may be evocative of Guts’ deeper issues, back even to his childhood, that pop up now and then, that I can point to as evidence that they may still be actually dealt with in the future. Like the aforementioned Slan scene, the way he’s still drawn to Griffith as his “true light,” the fact that the Beast of Darkness is personified as a dog
uhhh the self-destructiveness of the armour (the way he doesn’t feel pain and it knits his broken bones together etc) as a metaphor for the way fighting is basically a form of self-harm for him… idk like none of these things are addressed, but they’re there to be picked up on and therefore will hopefully cumulate in something more interesting eventually.
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.
I was hoping you would make another post to respond to that ahaha.
Well what I actually meant is for Guts to kill Femto. Because Neo Griffith is apparently closer to a temporal illusionary image that appears in this world, just like.. Well, Neo. To actually kill him you should be able to go beyond the matrix, or as it was described in this case, go “outside” the story of the physical world. So even if NGriff is killed (which I doubt he would even mind) he would be still
existing as Femto in
the astral dimension. In order to bring the story to its ultimate
conclusion, Guts would prpbably need to face Femto in his true form. I
just can’t wait to see what happens from that point on… I hope Guts is
able to realize his revenge.
I think this makes sense as a theory but we don’t really have enough information right now about how the metaphysical world works in Berserk to confidently say what would happen if NeoGriffith was killed.
Like eg I’ve seen a lot of people who think that NGriff can change into Femto and that’s what he did when he killed Ganeshka, but imo we only saw him as Femto then because that’s how Ganeshka saw him, because he could see his “true” or “spiritual” or whatever form, because they were both ascended beings. But yk it’s all up in the air still.
I feel like Guts vs Femto on the astral plane would work in a different story with a greater focus on action, but Berserk is driven by complex emotions and relationships moreso than straightforward action so I feel v confident that the climax between them is going to have a strong emotional component. NeoGriffith has his inconveniently unfrozen heart, while Guts has his inconvenient mixed feelings, and I think both of those aspects are going to inform the climax.
I kinda figure that the big action sequence part of the climax is going to be Guts vs Zodd actually. I’d be surprised if we saw any actual physical fighting between Guts and Griffith/Femto/NeoGriffith, at least beyond a v emotionally-driven third duel kinda thing, along the lines of the second duel where the victor is decided by who’s less emotionally compromised.
Oh actually I do have one thing I can add about NeoGriffith, that I’ve been kind of thinking for a while but haven’t posted because it’s potentially controversial lol
But I think you could make an argument that NeoGriffith is… Griffith. As though transforming from Femto back into a flesh and blood body returned his whole range of emotions as well, basically if NGriff has the same emotional and psychological make-up of human Griffith.
Like, imo he is exactly what Griffith would be if:
he talked to god and god told him he’s not responsible for anything and everything he chooses to do is the correct fate-sanctioned thing to happen and he’s basically just a pawn
he spent a few years as a demonic embodiment of the dark side of himself and humanity, with the rest of his humanity stripped away
while he was that demon, he committed an unforgiveable and unjustifiable act of evil for no reason but spite
he is removed from the rest of humanity because he has another level of awareness/partially exists on another metaphysical plane
he made the choice to sacrifice everyone he loves both to achieve his dream and to cut out his heart because his feelings for guts ruined his life and sent him into suicidal despair
Like, basically NeoGriffith as Griffith in deep, deep, deep denial lmao, and finding it really easy to stay in denial because god gave him a thumbs up and he’s extra detached from his human emotions due to being a godlike entity with intimate knowledge of fate/the astral plane/his place in the world/etc.
I say this as someone who genuinely believes that human Griffith was more or less a good person. But I still think it would absolutely be in character for a Griffith who remembers being Femto to tell Guts he regrets nothing and then leave to do his thing.
So in this way you could say that NeoGriffith is the extreme fantasy story version of a dude who deliberately detaches himself from his own emotions for the sake of achieving a goal.
But to be clear I don’t think this is actually the case in canon.
I think NGriff probably actually has magically dampened emotions due to the sacrifice, and due to having magically transformed a few times most of human Griffith is genuinely lost, like we see him losing pieces of himself, and I don’t think he got those pieces back.
But like, I think NGriff kind of works on another level as not just the embodiment of the image Griffith portrayed, but how he maintained it, ie, by denying all his feelings. And I find the idea of NGriff as Griffith-in-extreme-denial really like… interesting and fun lol, in a headcanon way.
@bthump whew it’s been a while since ive talked berserk w/you but i had to reply cause this. this is so much more than a hc to me because i’ve always felt it HAD to be (at least semi) canon that neogriff HAS feeling but that he chooses to bury/ignore them instead.
‘it seems i’m finally free’ MY ASS.
femto was the emotionally distant one, or at least the ‘complete monster’ version of griffith that (could) truly rise above his mortal feelings and he still was acting out of spite over guts and casca and all that hurt he had to endure (partly/MOSTLY over them) when he was still human.
it blows my mind when people argue griffith now has no feelings when the whole driving force of the entire golden age and after when everything went to shit was because of the sheer depth of his emotions for guts because let’s be real that’s all we’re here for) and the fact that he tried (in vain) to bury them- which then caused them to come out later in uglier ways.
(there’s that quote by Freud right…)
“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”
AKA berserk: a summary.
I agree 100% with neogriff being in denial tho, like wouldn’t he love it to be free of his obsession with guts? wouldn’t the old griffith who had his heart more or less cut to pieces over his doomed love for guts give anything to be free of those feeling so he could pursue that dream of his that killed thousands? OF COURSE HE WOULD. but that’s not the reality of it. not even now that he’s gained this new body and his new kingdom.
like there is no doubt in my mind that consciously or subconsciously everything neogriff does or will do plot-wise is not going to at some point be overshadowed by his eternal longing for guts.
and anyone who disagrees can fight me.
If he did lose parts of himself that’s only right, like a dark reflection of guts who continuously tries to rid himself of whatever’s left of his love for griffith that could stand in the way of him absolutely destroying him. (i mean- counting the parts before the happy boat trip from hell. like- when things were still, yknow, good.)
and yeah maybe there is ancient demon magic sealing griff’s heart from unwanted emotions that could stand in the way of HIM achieving HIS goals but like- didn’t it throb tho- bthump– when he saw guts again? even if it’s at 0.01% capacity I’LL TAKE IT. It’s enough, even if it’s a sorry remnant of everything there used to be i’m sure eventually it’ll be enough to fuck up all his plans, i mean with his invulnerability now honestly what else could cripple neogriff now other than his heart itself? SO POETIC.
(also i remember when ppl used to send you song recs?? they were so good man i made an entire playlist. here’s another one: say it right by nelly furtado ‘oh you don’t mean nothing at all to me’ ugh so perfect for this little piece of meta, i listened to it on repeat typing this lmao)
Oh yeah I mean like, I 100% believe that NeoGriffith still has some emotion lol, I’d be willing to bet real money that we’re headed straight to a reveal that he’s not nearly as over Guts as he wants to be. But I think that canonically he’s somewhere between “Griffith in turbo denial mode” and “totally emotionless shell.”
Like, dude is going to do something irrational when Guts shows up again. That’s just how narratives work man, it’s gotta happen. I’ll join you in that fight lol. So I completely agree with you.
Also ty for the rec, it totally works for me. and lol ikwym the recs ppl sent me made my berserk playlist like twice as long, it’s gr8.
yk what’s great about berserk
it’s not just the story of two dudes obsessed with each other and trying to deal w/ that obsession in various stupid ways
it’s the story about a dude whose every plot relevant decision is based on how he thinks another dude feels about him
joining the hawks? dedicating his sword to him and feeling at home? deciding to leave the hawks? deciding to stay again but too late? war declaration followed by a three year monster murder spree? deciding to try really hard to get over his obsession and take casca to elfhelm?
like, when it comes right down to it, griffith’s feelings are the really important ones. they’re the feelings that drive the plot, because guts’ every fucking decision is made based on what he thinks those feelings are. that’s why the golden age revolved around them, and that’s why the current big mystery is “how does neogriffith really feel?”
from back in the black swordsman arc:
to the current decision he’s still on:
and that’s another reason I think NGriff’s beating heart is going to become very relevant to Guts eventually. it’s what berserk is about.
like the ~academic~ way of putting this is that
Berserk is the story of a man’s desire for interpersonal connection due to his abusive childhood, but that keeps coming back to Griffith. He’s the connection Guts wants and later doesn’t want to want. The true light every other light is measured up to.
So yk Berserk is a story about a dude whose motivation is almost solely based around another guy’s apparent feelings or lack thereof for him.
it’s so much more interesting for skull knight to be essentially using guts for his own means and only allying with him because they share a common enemy and guts has a sort of “in” to the god hand through griffith than for him to help guts because he likes him on any personal level lol why do people want skull knight to be a total “good guy” with no ulterior motives. like would someone who truly cares about guts well being would let guts have the berserker armour?? nah sis he needs guts to be as strong as possible to serve his own goals like it isn’t rocket science
this is a real mood, and I’m ngl one of the bigger reasons I want Casca to use the behelit is because I feel like it’s the best way of totally destroying any possibility of them eventually getting together, while giving Casca an actually interesting role in the story.
I mean ofc my major fear is that whatever goes wrong (and something will, of that I have no doubt) won’t be enough to completely kill the ship and I’ll be stuck dreading it for the rest of Berserk.
And my other major fear is that g*tsca will be dead in the water as a potential future thing but Guts will end up 100% motivated by whatever happens to her/whatever she does/her trauma/etc, with his complicated feelings towards Griffith dropped. But I don’t think that’sall that likely.
But! I think there’s plenty of reason to maintain hope lol. Like in the context of Berserk a happy ending is probably not gonna be a return of the jedi style elfhelm party where guts and casca make out. A happy ending could be Guts dying with his humanity intact lol. It could be Guts’ whole life being a garbage fire, separated from Casca and the rest of his friends, but having a moment of emotional connection with Griffith and choosing not to kill him, thus saving his soul from hell or whatever. Or the next gen children being able to grow up in a slightly better world regardless of what happens to the adults.
Like I’m pretty sure any ending that isn’t “everyone dies and Guts goes to hell” counts as not grim.
Plus that’s from an interview back when he was still in the middle of the conviction arc
–Is it even possible that we’ll see a happy ending?
Miura: I’d say it’s possible. I used to have the
final moves planned out, but lately I’ve been thinking I’d rather figure
them out when I come to it, so now it’s hard to say what could happen.
Being the sort of person I am, though, I actually don’t think I could
let such a long grim story end with a grim ending — like, say, having
him suddenly die. I don’t really like that kind of entertainment. I’ll
leave it to my subconscious.
and it sounds pretty up in the air anyway. I feel like whatever we’ll get will lean more towards bittersweet than purely happy, especially since his example of a grim ending is “suddenly guts dies” lol. There’s plenty of room there, and Berserk hasn’t been grim for ages anyway.
Plus I think Guts and Farnese getting together at least is pretty unlikely after being overtly compared to Casca and her feelings for Griffith several times, and Guts has never expressed interest in her so it would come out of left field imo (not that that stops het ships, but yk, gives me hope).
Aaaaand lastly the vibe I get from Miura when it comes to romance is that he’s not interested in it and just gives all his female characters one-sided crushes because he doesn’t know what else to do with them lmao, so while I could definitely see a bunch of boring side pairings getting together at the last minute/children making significant eyes at each other so you know they’ll get married when they grow up, I doubt we’re gonna get anything like Guts and Casca resuming their relationship for the last quarter or so of the manga. If we do get more g*tsca content I feel like it’ll come in the form of a sad kiss before one of them dies or something.
I have this fear that Farnese is going to die in part to motivate Serpico so I’d prefer this to that ngl, tho I want both to live.
And it’s possible I guess, Serpico’s had less development than Farnese overall so he might be more expendable, and it would be kind of ironic if after Serpico being p much entirely motivated by wanting to protect Farnese, he was the one who got killed.
I wouldn’t really bet on it though, mostly bc at this point in Farnese’s narrative, I feel like it wouldn’t further her story much – she’s no longer as attached to Serpico as she had been, or dependent on him in any way, so all it would really do is make her angry or sad.
Tho actually now that I think about it what if things go wrong with Casca’s return and she ends up killing Serpico? (Uses behelit, sacrifices Farnese, apostles kill their sacrifices themselves from the looks of it so monster!Casca tries but Serpico leaps in to save Farny and dies instead, then Skull Knight bursts in like the kool aid man, does his thing w/ sealing the Godhand away, and everyone else manages to escape and survive. w/e) Like i’m js farnesca/griffguts parallels would be super fun.
Or yk it would still be kind of fitting if he died in some other circumstance by sacrificing himself for Farnese, but I think that would be pretty boring unless Casca killed him.
Based on like, plot set up stuff in the last few chapters, my guess is that there’s going to be a time skip when everyone leaves Elfhelm. Rickert will have spent the last 10 or however many years in the Bakiraka village, he’ll be a cool warrior/inventor, he’ll give everyone weapon upgrades lol, and yk, village full of super intense assassins who do nothing but train + a wizard = handy canon fodder allies.
Now ofc I’m hoping really really hard that doesn’t mean we’re just going a rote route of Guts and co leaving Elfhelm to attack Falconia/Griffith and hitting up the Bakiraka and Rickert along the way for allies and power ups lol. I mean god could you imagine anything more boring?
Guts is due to go Beast of Darkness, so another possibility is that whichever of his friends survive whatever goes down trail him on his way to kill Griffith, stop at the village along the way, swap Guts stories with Rickert, get power ups and allies, and then go kick Guts’ ass and try to bring him to his senses.
Then there’s my Void (probably but hell maybe Elfhelm, I got some vague hopes there) is the actual big bad theory and Rickert and co could end up being part of an enemies teaming up to fight the worse dude plot.
Anyway I guess regardless of the circumstances my answer boils down to Rickert probably being the archetypal helpful ally who
provides weapons, maybe helps fight, and knows more about Guts and Griffith than just
about everyone else (pending Casca’s narrative future) and so can potentially provide ~wise insight~ wrt how the past could inform the future.
And also since he visited Falconia and met NeoGriffith there he could also tell Guts what happened, though I didn’t get the impression that he discovered anything particularly insightful. Unless the fact that he was able to slap Griffith goes somewhere interesting.
Yeah assuming Casca both opens the behelit and then does actually make a sacrifice, I’m bracing for it to be Farnese even though that would be really disappointing and the last thing Berserk needs is fewer female characters going forward lol. But she does seem like the obvious candidate.
On the other hand my alternate theory is that she could sacrifice whatever entity counts as her fetus, whether it’s the demon fetus incorporated into NGriff or the Moonlight Boy or both or whatever. Most sacrifices we’ve seen have been parent/child, and we just saw the fetus as Casca’s metaphorical heart during the quest to put her back together. The fragile heart being what you bury when you sacrifice someone who is “part of your soul.” Plus it would have the added benefit of totally crushing that burgeoning hope for a family vibe and making Guts extra sad. Yk, it wouldn’t just be sacrificing the fetus, it would be sacrificing the concept of a happily ever after in a way.
Idk that’s probably wishful thinking, lbr it would be too perfect for me to ever happen lol. But I really want it.
Also I dig the idea of someone sacrificing Griffith (idk whether it would be possible but it should be) but if Casca’s gonna open the behelit it’s probably going to happen like, right now, and if she sacrifices Griffith then Berserk is over and I feel like that would be a really sudden ending lol.
ty! and tbh I don’t think you don’t have to worry about that (unless Miura decides to retcon hard facts).
in addition to the count not being able to sacrifice guts because he doesn’t love guts lol, they point out
you can’t mark someone for sacrifice twice.
But yeah there’s nothing saying that someone marked for sacrifice can’t use a behelit themselves, and everyone knowledgeable about these things seems to believe that Guts potentially could use it (like Slan saying “why not make a sacrifice” in the troll cave, eg).
Though I don’t think the behelit is Guts’. Whether Miura was considering it for a while is a possibility, but since the Berserk armour made an appearance and we started getting a lot of “is it yours or are you just carrying it for someone hmmm” moments, I feel like it’s been really unlikely that Guts is ever going to use it. The armour is more his way of letting his inner darkness loose. Which has the handy effect of not being necessarily permanent, but with the ever present threat of becoming permanent. Perfect for a protagonist lol.
Also speaking of the Beast of Darkness telling Guts to assault and murder Casca so he can pursue Griffith, I think that could be another like… factor in Casca using the behelit. Right now she’s the symbol of Guts’ humanity, so if she becomes a monster it makes thematic sense for Guts to follow suit by losing himself to the armour. He could later be brought back by ~the power of friendship~ to demonstrate that despite their quest ending in tragedy and darkness, it was still worthwhile because of the character development and relationships formed along the way.
Ha! I’ve been fretting for ages about how Casca going apostle could work thematically w/ the whole interpersonal relationships as positive influences/power of love and friendship stuff of the last 200 chapters, but there, that totally fits! Then mb Casca could have her own personal narrative rather than continuing to be a symbol of Guts’ humanity.
I got this pipe dream of Casca using the behelit, being the one to kill NGriff, then ending up an immortal mercenary a la Zodd. (Hey, if the rumours are true about her being named after this book it might be plausible.) It would be a sad happy ending for her – alone, a monster, but like, finally her own sword.
And Casca riding off into the sunset with Farnese as a genuine happy ending is my other pipe dream, so Farnese is another character I’d prefer not to die.
I suppose I’d like Rickert to live too. And I can’t immediately think of a fitting way for Serpico to die, and I like him, so I’ll err on the side of wanting him to survive also.
I’d probably want Puck to live, though I could maybe see killing him off for a huge “shit just got real” moment since he’s the second longest running character in the manga and p much represents positivity lol. But I doubt it.
I’d want Charlotte to outlive NGriff and take over ruling Falconia. With Anna.
I think that’s about it, everyone else I either couldn’t care less if they live or die, or I actively want them to die lol.
On that note, Guts is the character who I probably most want to die. After his whole narrative full of being “the struggler,” refusing to die againt all odds, etc, I’d find it so anticlimatic if he lived happily ever after and died of old age lmao. His story should build to a v meaningful and emotional death imo. Also purposeful – self-sacrifice, dying to take NGriff down with him (lbr the two of them dying together would be gr8), letting NGriff stab him the way he often lets people stab him when he’s upset lol, something like that. It should feel like a choice on his part, a significant and revealing contrast to his struggler thing.
imo the only other fitting cap to his life of refusing to die would be becoming immortal, and I think that would be framed as a sadder ending for him than a meaningful death, since he’d basically be following in Skull Knight’s footsteps in that case, which has always been suggested as a Bad Ending.
Also I want NGriff to either die or live forever haunted by Guts’ memory.
This is all ignoring the ominous afterlife thing, which tbf is a huge thing to ignore, but w/e. I’m not that interested in Berserk’s afterlife, idc whether my faves go to the nice whirlpool or the mean whirlpool. (Tho honestly the happiest ending of all as far as I’m concerned would be Casca and Farnese living happily ever after while Guts and Griffith end up dragging each other to hell and ~becoming one~ so if afterlives feature heavily at the end let’s do that. hey it’d be a fitting end to all the equals shit too. you’re truly equal when you’re just a big mass of souls melding together.)
(I mean theoretically ending up in heaven together works too but I feel like there are too many hoops to jump through to justify that lol. just as long as they aren’t in separate afterlife pools.)
Off the top of my head I find them fairly disappointing. I feel like Miura’s really half-assing this glimpse into Casca’s psyche – eg we got a few scattered Golden Age scenes from Casca’s perspective, but they didn’t bring anything new to the table, we didn’t learn anything about Casca that wasn’t already obvious. The chapter full of dick monsters was ridiculous lol, and the whole concept of piecing Casca together like gluing together a broken doll is like, kind of cliche and super shallow? Again, we’re not learning anything about Casca, we’re just montaging through a dumb dream quest.
On the other hand this sequence does have good points. I loved Farnese w/ tiny Casca. The fact that Farnese is now v intimately familiar with Casca’s whole life, seeing through her eyes and feeling her feelings, is interesting from a shippy standpoint even if canon does nothing with it. I liked that dog Guts just fucked right off and got destructive to everyone around him when pterodactyl Femto showed up, to the point where they were worried he’d smash Casca. Gives me hope lmao. The portrayal of the Eclipse was remarkably restrained so I applaud Miura for that lol. And of course I loved that Casca’s heart is covered in ominous despair thorns, and that shit got dark as soon as Casca saw Guts after waking up.
Like it’s not enough to make me super confident that g*tsca isn’t gonna happen, but it was enough to make me fistpump lol.
I have mixed feelings about the fetus showing up. On the one hand, I fucking hate that fetus and every glimpse of it fills me with dread. On the other hand, the fact that it symbolizes Casca’s heart backs up my wild reach-y theory that she might sacrifice it lol.
I have seized on the fact that Danann 180ed from ‘get lost Guts Casca’s scared of you’ to ‘wear this dress and go see Guts right now’ and I completely believe that Danann is plotting something and Casca going into despair as soon as she sees Guts (who has a behelit on him js js) was planned.
There’s always a chance. I mean I don’t think he’s going to go yes homo, but I definitely think there’s a strong possibility that Guts is gonna die single and thinking about Griffith.
I am trying to brace myself for disappointment ofc. I mean you’re right, the rpg group constantly succeeding in all they do and never having actual problems narrative has been going on for 150 chapters now so banking on the results of their quest being tragedy (ie Casca gets her mind back, proceeds to fuck shit completely up) is, yk, not a sure thing. the power of friendship could come through again and Guts and Casca could reunite happily, and if that happens I’ll finally give up on my optimism lol.
But til then I think there’s a good chance that all this awful harem vibe shit is a prelude to tragedy and disillusionment (not that that makes it better, but yk at least it would mean it ends), and the narrative is going to refocus back onto Guts and Griffith’s unconcluded story. That’s p much what I mean by suggestive climax – Guts and Griffith confronting each other at the climax of the story, emotions running high, allusions to their emotionally intimate history and the way they’re each still “the only one,” “the true light” for the other despite both trying so so hard to cut the other out lol.
Yk, finally dealing with the shit they’re avoiding by focusing on a kingdom/forcing Casca’s mind back, and cathartically reconciling the fact that they’re simultaneously fated enemies and true lights. Probably right before one or the other dies.
ty! God I really, really want Guts to be shown as Griffith’s equal at some point. I feel like it’s the only way to satisfactorily conclude their whole… thing. Guts letting go of the desire to be Griffith’s equal just isn’t satisfying to me.
But that said I don’t think becoming an apostle is the way to do it. For that literal equality Guts would have to become a Godhand, and unless there’s a 200+ year timeskip after Elfhelm that’s not possible according to the rules of the world. An apostle is a follower of NeoGriff so becoming one wouldn’t make him Griffith’s equal, it would put him back in that position of looking up at him/feeling looked down on.
Ofc one could say that those technical details don’t really matter, what matters is that Griffith succumbed to his superpowered dark side so if Guts does then that’s still equality in a sense, even if he’s a “lesser” monster. But then, he has the armour to represent his dark side, which makes the behelit kind of superfluous now, and it’s been foreshadowed a lot that he’s going to lose himself to the armour at some point.
And since it’s suggested that Skull Knight became a walking skeleton because he succumbed to the amour himself, I think it’s a lot more likely that we’ll get more Skull Knight comparisons and there will at least be a danger of Guts becoming like him – powerful but… lacking humanity I guess, if he doesn’t overcome the armour. And that could potentially lead to ~the beast of darkness~ and ~the hawk of light~ regarding each other as equals in a confrontation.
BUT! What I want more than that is acknowledgement that all these standards of literal equality are essentially a smokescreen obscuring what actually made them equal from the beginning, which is the fact that they both loved each other and they were both emotionally vulnerable w/ the other. So honestly acknowledgement that they’re still hung up on each other despite everything is what would work best here imho.
Guts learns that NGriff failed his test on the Hill of Swords and started getting emotional about Guts again, and NGriff learns that in addition to hate Guts still feels residual love, and guilt and regret etc. Followed by an emotionally charged third duel, their strengths (magic superpower, inner darknesses, fate vs not being beholden to fate, whatever) and weaknesses (emotions, love and regret) equally matched.
this is one of those grand thematic statements that applies to a lot of berserk, like guts’ nearly obsessive need to fight monsters, or like, well, most sacrifices imo. But I’m thinking about how it applies to Griffith – the reverse, I mean. Griffith doesn’t really express fear, like he doesn’t really express most of his feelings, but what does he strike out?
Well, here he’s assassinated a bunch of would-be assassins, including the Queen. Gennon. Tyranny/the natural order of things in general lol.
And Guts.
Or maybe more accurately, his feelings for Guts.
tbh one of my major criticisms of Berserk is that as far as I can tell the theme of fear has been mostly dropped, like, i’m pretty sure the last time we saw a suggestion of Guts being afraid for himself rather than of himself was 150 chapters ago with Slan, and that was like the only time post-Eclipse at all lol.
So I can’t exactly say that Guts surviving the Eclipse and then Femto/NeoGriffith pointedly failing to strike Guts out suggests his narrative is gonna end with falling under the wing of what he fears, but screw it that’s what I want and I’m using that panel up there to justify it.
yk what this is what Berserk is about. Like if I had to pick one image to encapsulate Berserk, this is what I’d go with.
The Black Swordsman arc builds up to a reveal that Guts’ revenge-y feelings are a giant mishmash that confuses tf out of Puck because this is how he used to feel about Griffith, and his original feelings for Griffith are still tangled up in his current feelings.
Like, kind of the point of the Black Swordsman arc is to start with this one dimensional portrayal of rage and then unravel and unravel that until all of Guts’ various issues are laid out.
These mixed feelings are the big reveal of the first arc. Our look into Guts’ childhood right after deepens our understanding of these mixed feelings, but it’s his feelings towards Griffith that wholly drive the plot, not his feelings towards Gambino. Then the entire Golden Age continues to deepen our understanding of Guts’ mixed feelings. Like pretty much the whole point of the story up until we pick back up with Guts in the Lost Children Arc is to illuminate the complexity of Guts’ feelings towards Griffith (and vice versa) now that they’re enemies. It’s to build that foundation.
And anyway I guess my point is that with all this attention and time devoted to these painfully mixed feelings, if the ultimate resolution of the story is Guts straight up dropping/moving on from those feelings rather than finally untangling and examining them, that will essentially be a deeply unsatisfying betrayal of the first hundred or so chapters.
But hey the ominous foreshadowing’s got my back at least.
berserk is the story of two dudes who keep trying and failing to not be obsessed with each other, taking more and more drastic and destructive measures each time, and still fucking failing to get over their mutual obsession
griffith: focuses on his dream, still risks everything to save guts’ life multiple times
guts: separates himself from the hawks, tries not to focus on the fact that it’s all to be griffith’s friend
griffith: has sex as a distraction from guts leaving him; cries and ends up in a dungeon where he thinks about nothing but guts for a year
guts: has sex as a distraction from breaking griffith’s heart; eventually has to face the fact that he screwed up and decides to abandon his dream and stay with griffith. leads to obsessively pursuing him in a rage for 2-3 years.
griffith: becomes a demon to try to get over guts; next time he sees him with a corporeal form he starts getting heart palpitations
guts: focuses on restoring casca’s sanity and making new friends, doing his damndest to ignore griffith’s existence
This is like, the fucking plan. Skull Knight and Danann are conspiring to have the behelit open in Elfhelm, by Danann’s spirit tree, summoning the Godhand, so Skull Knight can do his thing, quite probably aided by Elfhelm tree magic, and entomb them in the vortex. Probably alongside Guts and Casca and everyone else watching the show.
Also something genuinely bad and dark has to happen because of this, like say, Casca becoming an apostle, because Guts needs to feel the full weight of betrayal by SK and succumb to the armour. And this will be a heavy painful betrayal because it’s gonna remind Guts of Griffith, because of the way Skull Knight has rescued him in the past and earned his trust. (tbh more on this whenever I get off my ass and write a long meta post about Guts and what his relationship to Griffith means to him.)
But also the power of friendship is going to prevent Guts from going full Beast of Darkness forever the way it’s been suggested that Skull Knight lost his humanity to the armour. Just, god willing, hopefully not before g*tsca is laid to rest.
So. Still think Guts and Casca are pawns, still think the tree and Dragon’s Road thing are relevant, definitely think the behelit’s relevant, and I’m actually pretty confident that the Godhand are coming to Elfhelm and Danann and Skull Knight have this trap waiting for them.
Whether Danann and Skull Knight’s plan is successful is another story entirely. Whether defeating and trapping the Godhand away in the vortex is even a good idea is also another story entirely. And idk whether NeoGriff figures into this at all lol.
Oh also I know the behelit only opens when the laws of causality like, make it happen, but, a) Skull Knight referred to that in that ominous scene where Flora suggests he might be using Guts and it’s not stopping him from maneuvering things into place it’s just giving him a handy excuse b) fate works thru people’s encounters and choices and Danann and Skull Knight and Guts etc are people c) they’re high level magic users a step outside causality maybe they can tell when the behelit’s likely to open and are facilitating that for their own ends or smthn.
Also I know Miura has said he writes on the fly and doesn’t have a plan, but he must have some idea of where things are headed because he has actively been throwing foreshadowing down for 150 chapters. Maybe the details are vague in his mind but I’m quite sure he knows the broadstrokes of the story. Like after all he wrote the entire golden age knowing exactly where it would end up, give or take a few details. I’m willing to bet he’s been planning some Skull Knight shit since Flora’s appearance.
Anyway this is my theory now. I may go about it backwards, ie having a destination I absolutely want and then finding evidence for it, but yk what i want to live in hope until the next chapter so screw it.
Ok so to summarize, my theory is that Casca’s despair is going to open the behelit, this was deliberately arranged by Danann and Skull Knight so they can trap the Godhand in the vortex, and the fall-out of this is going to be Guts going full Berserker for some period of time, most likely (though I am a little less confident about this aspect than the rest of it) because Casca opts for monsterism.
So anyway I was re-reading chapter 328, another one of those chapters that basically exists to be crammed full of foreshadowing, and this jumped out at me
Hey Schierke, quick question for you:
what the hell does deciphering “fates that transcend time” have to do with the elf king showing up as a child to stalk your rpg group?
Nothing. That’s just completely unrelated infodumping that happens to fully support my theory that Danann and Skull Knight are conspiring to have Casca open the behelit.
Up there I wrote
“they’re high level magic users a step outside causality maybe they can
tell when the behelit’s likely to open and are facilitating that for
their own ends or smthn” and basically I’m just giving myself a pat on the back because that’s absolutely correct, as Schierke tells us here.
Incidentally I’m also now contemplating the possibility that Schierke is right and moon kid is Danann in disguise, but I have nothing conclusive to say about that, other than it would be another extra hilarious example of Danann playing up g*tsca for the sake of betraying them and tearing them apart for her own ends.
you're the only one 