yeah i was also super into that fanart. probs not the artist’s intention but made me think of casca holding guts’ sword after he left lol
mm on the subject of broken swords in general, ngl ia, i like the idea of the dragonslayer breaking
like if guts dies that would be an appropriate af prelude to it. a nice subtle rebuke of living your life by the sword.
actually it could also be a gr8 prelude to guts sorting out his feelings properly. you know like how i say that i want to believe guts’ current sidequest is a distraction from his conflicted feelings towards revenge/griffith/etc and what he should actually be doing is trying to untangle the emotional snarl that happens when your “true light” is also your nemesis lol. well the point is guts’ sword shatting could be a nice symbol of his distractions failing him and leaving him no choice but to confront his own feelings. maybe say something.
like it would go nicely with a third duel that has a strong emotional core
this isn’t a complete thought here but i wonder/hope that there’s some narrative irony happening or going to happen if anything? idk like of course the ceremony and events leading up to griffiths reincarnation as a perfect image of his dream and ideal self would try to hammer home cynicism of not needing others enough. guts kind of well with the campiness of the arc too ig. i hope this makes a little sense i haven’t read conviction in a long time.
Yeah no I get what you mean, ngl I was kind of thinking something similar while re-reading those chapters, like, everything Egg says about relationships sounds like it could come straight from a Griffith who has been burned lol. And it is the lead-up to the creation of Griffith’s perfect world, which Egg is advocating for here. So in that way it does maybe make sense to be extra cynical, reflecting back on Golden Age stuff through a whatever the opposite of rose coloured lens is.
like, maybe that’s Femto’s perception of that relationship lol.
I mean honestly this is exactly how I think Griffith thought of himself after the second duel/even tombstone of flame, word for word. And again, that’s something that could’ve changed so easily if Guts had just told him how he actually felt.
So I can’t accept it as an objective statement, but a subjective statement filtered thru bitterness + self-loathing? Kinda works.
Also yeah the extremely campy tone of this arc does kind of lend itself to more meta (in the self-referential sense, not the fandom essays sense) stuff like this imo.
My misgiving is that this seems like more thought than Miura put into it lol. But idk I should probably re-read the whole arc before I say something like that, like maybe there are indications that we’re not meant to take some of the Conviction arc themes as objective truth, and I just don’t remember/never noticed them.
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
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:
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:
According to the Conviction arc, Griffith was right when he said this:
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.
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:
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
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
I feel like this should probably be a harder question to answer because there are so many amazing scenes, but honestly it’s easy: Griffith’s torture chamber monologue.
It’s the absolute heart of Berserk and it’s everything I could possibly ask for in a ship.
Griffith starting off with the pages on his dream. The brightest thing he’d ever seen. Then darkness. And every single time I turn the page from this
to this
it takes my breath away lmao.
It’s a monologue about how Guts holds Griffith’s heart in his hand.
And like look at this shit!
The sole sustenance keeping him alive oh my god. Why just him? Why indeed.
And the monologue that begins with showing us the dream Griffith dedicated his entire life to pursuing ends with this:
I just fucking can’t handle it. This is seven pages of absolute perfection, and these seven pages are what Berserk’s about, both literally and thematically, and that’s why I’m stuck in this fandom no matter how many other aspects of the canon disappoint me lol.
Like, a few of my favourite ship tropes are: love/hate, someone ruining their own life because of love, power dynamic reversal due to desperately intense emotions, someone forced to choose between love and the thing they value most in life, betrayal and obsession/desperate need, two people who are singular to each other, etc and this scene hits every branch on the way down.
how bout you, if you have a favourite scene you want to talk about?
On the more headcanony side I think that like, Guts would be possessive but he wouldn’t really think of it as possessiveness – it’d feel like a natural extention of their v exclusive, v intense relationship. Griffith would be possessive in turn ofc.
And it wouldn’t manifest in like, being jealous of Charlotte if Griffith still plans to marry her for power. I figure they’d talk about that and Guts would understand it’s business lol, he wouldn’t be threatened by Charlotte. But at the same time he would demand Griffith’s attention and time. Maybe not literally demand lol, but he’s really emotionally needy lbr and I think he’d get sulky if he didn’t get enough time with Griffith bc he’s busy being a king or w/e. We see that in canon even, when he tries to visit him after Zodd but can’t bc of the nobles.
But then like in canon Griffith would reassure him and go out of his way to give him that time and attention because well, he’s also needy and they’re both obsessed with each other and neither wants to spend time apart.
So things like Griffith putting off some king stuff to laze around in bed with Guts would be perfect for Guts. Or things like having sex on the throne at three am when the room’s empty lol, or leaving tea with Charlotte early because the Raider Captain has something important to “discuss” with him. Guts would want to make his claim on Griffith, and have Griffith show that he’s the most important.
But again like, he wouldn’t express that, and Griffith (unless something drastic has gone down) wouldn’t admit to himself that Guts is the most important aspect of his life. But it would still show through in little moments and Guts would notice them (yk assuming no Promrose Hall speech colouring his perception etc etc).
Sexually you got leaving marks under clothes, fucking him hard enough that he still feels it the next day, teasing and drawing it out as a way of focusing Griffith’s attention wholly on him. Like, considering how needy they both are when it comes to wanting the others’ attention and regard and desire, sex could get ridiculously intense lol. We’ve talked about this before a bit but yk it holds true. They just both want to be wanted by the other so badly lol.
On the more meta-y side, I’d argue that their relationship comes with a side of possessiveness from both – again, as a kind of natural byproduct of the singular intensity of it. They are each others’ only one, and they both want to be each others’ only one. I don’t think there’s a lot of like, canon elements that demonstrate Guts being possessive to the same explicit extent of eg Griffith’s “if I can’t have him, I don’t care,” but imo it’s there under the surface.
Guts wants to make Griffith look at him. At first that’s the whole quest for a dream thing, but after the Eclipse it’s his revenge quest. He wants to kill him because, more than anything else, he wants acknowledgement that he matters to him.
This hold on Griffith is exactly what Guts wanted, and still wants.
It doesn’t manifest as jealousy, like we see him trying to set Griffith and Casca up for a while, but it’s more like, yk, that need for attention. He’s possessive of Griffith’s priorities. The reason I think he’s ok with setting Griffith and Casca up is because lover isn’t a category he can see himself fitting into, and moreover, true friend and equal trumps lover anyway as far as he’s concerned. His competition is Griffith’s dream, not Griffith’s other relationships.
I mean you can split hairs on the definition of possessiveness and whether Guts’ feelings count if it’s less jealousy and more wanting to be the most important person to Griffith, but yk I think it’s an element.
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.
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.
here have some optimistic picspam under the cut:
ohhh man re-reading those chapters in particular and like
there’s such a clear little mini-arc. This isn’t brand new information at all, but I love seeing it laid out like this so I’m going to talk about it.
Chapter 6 starts with Guts trying to visit Griffith while brooding about Casca’s “it’s your fault!”
He’s prevented by social status.
Casca punches him out and Guts leaves and sulks, and the rest of the Hawks have this exchange:
So we start with the statement that everyone’s feeling a little distanced from Griffith thanks to his promotions, and this is very much affecting Guts too, which is why he threw a couple guards down the stairs and made an ass of himself while trying to visit him.
Then we go straight to Guts angrily swinging his sword on the staircase.
He’s pissed off about Casca making him feel like an outsider. This is a dude who has clearly defined issues when it comes to being blamed for bad shit happening. See, eg, Gambino blaming him for the death of Shizu, calling him “cursed,” along with the rest of his first mercenary band.
Three years with the Hawks, and Guts is mostly content and happy, but there’s still this doubt, still this sense that he’s a little on the outside looking in, a little distanced, and Griffith more recently drifting away from everyone puts that background feeling into sharp relief. This is why we begin our narrative, after the three year gap, when Griffith gets promoted into the nobility.
Guts angrily swinging his sword, alone, probably brooding over Casca accusing him of not caring about his comrades since this scene is placed right after that confrontation, while Griffith gets promoted, rising away from him.
Chapter six returns us to Guts swinging his sword angrily and alone while brooding over his feelings of being an outsider. His place is with the Hawks, but is it really? When it’s “his fault” Griffith nearly died, when he’s accused of not caring about anyone but himself?
And then Griffith seeks him out, joining Guts at the midpoint of a staircase, for that extra bit of symbolism.
He talks about how much he hates the other nobles, talks about how nightmarish their encounter with Zodd was, but how it was also interesting theologically lol. A bit of philosophy, a bit of personal connection and emotional opening up. Guts asks the question.
And the turn of this little mini-arc is, of course, this:
The end of chapter six.
It’s Griffith completely assuaging those fears of being an outsider, of losing him to the nobles, of being looked-down on. It’s Griffith negating his deep-seated belief that his only worth is as an asset.
Three years ago Guts began this sentence:
And now, in chapter seven, he’s finally reached a place where he can finish it.
Idk basically this is the pinnacle of Guts’ search for belonging, and I love how well it’s built up to by emphasizing Guts’ outsider status first, through Casca’s angry tirades and through Griffith’s promotions.
Which ofc also provides a solid foundation for the dissolving of Guts’ feeling of personal fulfillment in another few chapters. Honestly it provides a solid foundation for literally everything that comes after. This is the skeletal structure of Berserk – Guts’ longing for love and acceptance vs Guts never quite feeling like he has it. Except right here and right now.
“Even so, incidentally, I found someone I really wanted… to have look at me.”
That feeling goes as easily as it came, with a few words, but it’s what motivates Guts at least until chapter 130 (potentially til chapter 182), after which trying to forget that feeling and focus on what he does have is what motivates him (”I came this far by letting go of my obsession…”) And we’ll see how that goes.
vs
of only 10 chapters previous
I think it’s really cool that Berserk is basically taking this theme of darkness/light, isolation/connection, and portraying it on both an interpersonal scale and a like, grandiose cosmic scale.
With Ganeshka and Griffith the darkness is the isolation of being singular, unknowable even to oneself, and the light is another being existing on the same plane as you, seeing the world the same way as you, seeing you as you truly are. This sense of cosmic understanding.
With Guts and Griffith there’s nothing objectively grandiose or cosmic about it, it’s just a relationship between two dudes that fell apart and still haunts both of them. But their connection is meaningful enough to them that existing without the other is comparable to being a solitary eldrich abomination who can barely even perceive others.
Griffith’s existence as a monster “beyond the reach of man” is basically a symbol of choosing to isolate yourself rather than surrendering to the vulnerability of loving and being loved, and that’s underscored at the climax of the Millenium Falcon arc just as he achieves his dream (both through that moment of connection up there and through Ganeshka’s backstory of paranoia feeding into isolation which is placed right before that moment).
Like for real, all this untouchable, unknowable, eldrich abomination jesus figure stuff is essentially a metaphor for Guts and Griffith breaking up.
And like, I always get a huge kick out of this concept of playing with scales when it comes to interpersonal connection. This isn’t a groundbreaking thing, this is a relatively common fantasy friendship/romance trope – yk the world only gets saved after the couple confesses their feelings, love is the key to achieving X goal, a single person can’t do the magic thing but when their friends join/support them they can do it, Spock running away from his feelings for Kirk is a parallel to a godlike machine’s inability to understand emotion, etc etc etc.
And Griffith and Guts’ moments of connection are like finding the one being you can see and understand in a world of isolation, and losing that is like becoming a monster in a sea of darkness. See also: the Black Swordsman arc and the Berserk armour for a slightly more down-to-earth fantasy metaphor.
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.
ok so in my defense i hadn’t read this full scene in ages, i only referred back to the saved pages i had which didn’t include the context, which is why i didn’t realize until now exactly why the beast of darkness phrased it as “true light” here
but now i have read the full scene again and i have the context and i’m fucking dying lol
griffith is the true light in comparison to the warm lights that are his current companions, like, fuck me that’s good.
that’s so so good
like yeah i already knew light often refers to companionship and love in berserk but to have that explicitly laid out right before griffith is called guts’ “true light” is so fucking satisfying i can’t handle it.
like there you go, griffith is still the bar by which all other relationships are not just measured but found wanting. as much as guts talks about “letting go” of his obsession the longing is always there.
and like “the true light that burns us,” is literally saying that guts still loves griffith, still “longs for” griffith, and that hurts now, and that’s his motivation for wanting to lash out and kill him. it’s a bit of a repeat of what the bod told him after the hill of swords, but more direct.
lmao i may be a little overenthusiastic about this but reading the full scene literally just made me go from fear that guts is genuinely just going to move on and that will be his happy ending, to feeling like there’s no way we’re not getting a cathartic emotional climax that involves guts finally forced to confront his conflicting feelings.
LIKE!! if it was just “true light” I’d be willing to entertain the idea that it’s just revenge, framed as a dream, in opposition to his companions, the way Griffith’s castle was also a source of light to him. but “true light that burns us”? That’s Guts’ lingering, now intensely painful feelings. That’s love. That’s something he’s gonna have to deal with at some point.
Huh, I’ve never rly seen that opinion tbh, maybe we hang out in different parts of fandom. Well, I’ve seen a few people expressing worry that Casca might forgive Griffith, but honestly if Miura writes that I will like, personally fly across the ocean to salt his garden. And I definitely don’t think it’s likely.
As for Guts… hm I’m just going to go all out and explain my take on Guts’ reaction to NGriff bc you gave me an opening lol.
I don’t think forgiveness for the Eclipse rape is on the table. But I definitely think his feelings towards NeoGriffith are very complex and he’s absolutely emotionally conflicted towards him, not just surprised by his appearance.
But yeah I don’t think his emotional conflict stems from wanting to forgive Griffith. What he wants is for Griffith to be or contain the version of himself that like, doesn’t require forgiving, because the only thing human Griffith did that hurt Guts was sacrifice the Band – and Guts never seemed to really blame him for that anyway.
Like when we’re talking about a dude who has undergone two (2) magical transformations and basically exists as three versions of himself, each with apparently very different internal emotional lives, it’s hard not to be conflicted about him.
Guts differentiates between human Griffith and Femto, and Guts does not hate human Griffith. We never ever not once see Guts direct an iota of rage towards Griffith as a human. Not even during the Eclipse, after he sacrificed everyone.
Very consistently, every time Guts thinks about human Griffith it’s with regret, sadness, a sense of loss. He regretfully thinks about Griffith kneeling in the snow like a million times, and never expresses anger about how Griffith sacrificed everyone and turned into an evil demon a year later. He thinks about Griffith among the dead Hawks during his run through memory lane, right after the Eclipse, and cries. Griffith is the most prominent shining light Schierke sees in his subconscious. Griffith is a part of the “campfire from those days” that still burns in his chest, and prevents him from being fully consumed by hate. etc etc.
He thinks about demonic-looking Femto when he’s feeling rage and hate, never human Griffith.
And I’m going to suggest that there are three main, related reasons that Guts feels emotional conflict in regards to NeoGriffith.
One is that it’s another change. Guts doesn’t know what exactly to expect from this third version of Griffith, who looks human again rather than demonic. He knows that he’s not “his” Griffith, because Skull Knight told him the fifth Godhand would incarnate, because he flew away from the Tower of Conviction on Zodd, and because the brand bleeds around him, but there’s a reason Guts rather desperately searches for a hint that NeoGriffith has regrets or feels remorse. Deep down he’s hoping that he’s closer to human Griffith than to Femto, basically, or that more of human Griffith is in there and reachable, or however you want to phrase it.
He lets Rickert hold him back from attacking until NeoGriffith directly says he’s free from his emotions, and then doesn’t actually try to strike until NGriff reiterates that sentiment with “I’ll not betray my dream. That is all.”
If NeoGriffith had feelings, if he felt regret, if he was no longer a malevolent demon, then Femto could be considered an anomaly that would carry sole blame for the Eclipse rape. Like, when we’re talking magical transformations that affect your mind as well as your body, the concept of blame is kind of nebulous. If NeoGriffith basically had all of human Griffith’s emotions and was horrified by his actions as Femto, and wanted to regain his relationship with Guts, then tbqh Guts would probably be able to go “oh well it wasn’t really you anyway.”
Yk, kinda like a Berserk fan who doesn’t consider Guts to be responsible for “the beast of darkness” assaulting Casca, but with the handy addition of a literal transformation. You can argue fictional moral philosophy wrt the morality of magically transforming into a monster and back again lol, but I definitely think Guts would seize the opportunity to write Femto off.
So, to split hairs, it’s less about potentially forgiving him, and more about potentially not holding him responsible. But yk, unfortunately for Guts NGriff turns out to be an apparently emotionless asshole who still won’t give him the time of day and says straight up that he regrets nothing, so that’s not an option for him.
The second reason is that, well, he looks like the dude that Guts felt such ridiculously intense feelings for that he rearranged his entire life and abandoned the people he considered his family just to feel like he was worthy of being his friend.
It’s a whole lot easier to feel rage against an aspect of someone you’re p much in love with when they look like a bona fide monster, rather than exactly like the person you love. You’ll even notice that, except in moments that emphasize the potential Guts has of following in his footsteps, Griffith’s face tends to be obscured or completely nonexistent when Guts thinks about Femto.
And the third reason is that he was already very emotionally conflicted over Femto. Femto raping Casca did not make him retroactively hate human Griffith, but his love for the man Griffith once was absolutely complicates his feelings with regards to Femto.
We see this in the way becoming a rage-fueled monster is framed as a temptation because he still wants to be his friend and equal, as per Griffith’s Promrose speech.
It’s also there in how Guts blatantly wants his attention and regard after everything.
He “threw away” Griffith’s love, so if he can’t have that then he wants Femto’s hate. He wants to be seen and acknowledged, even as a threat, so when Femto says that Guts doesn’t even register to him as an enemy, it pisses him off so much it gives him the strength to climb a flight of stairs with like half his bones broken and potentially-fatal pain in his brand, and swing his giant sword at him.
And we see it when he still thinks of him as a shining light in the darkness, despite everything.
Basically, on some emotional, irrational level, he still wants this:
Like, to reiterate, imo Guts’ emotional conflict isn’t about whether he can forgive Femto/NeoGriffith. It’s about the fact that Femto and NeoGriffith are both aspects of a dude that Guts had incredibly intense feelings for. They are distinct from Griffith but also inseparable from him, and that’s really, really hard to reconcile emotionally.
Hence, eg, a bunch of this maudlin shit:
Idk basically no I don’t think Guts is going to forgive NeoGriffith, but I do think that he is still very conflicted about him. He wants to want to kill him lol, but just as much, he wants to be seen by him, he wants his attention, he wants his love, he wants to be his equal, and he also wants to completely move on and just forget all his painfully fucked up and conflicting feelings towards him.
And I guess time will tell whether he achieves any of that.
I love the Golden Age as a continuation of the Black Swordsman arc so much. Guts taken aback by Griffith’s interest in him when they first meet vs Guts absolutely fuming from Femto professing a lack of interest.
more light imagery
guts, looking up at the full moon and longing for a place to call home after killing gambino and fleeing:
guts, looking up at the full moon and realizing he’s found that home with the hawks:
guts, looking up into the sky a third time but there’s no moon and his home has just been completely obliterated:
Eventually I’m going to actually sit down and rly suss out the light/dark stuff in Berserk, but for now I’m just gonna say:
in the context of Guts’ feelings towards Griffith, light is the companionship he lost, and the longing for it, and therefore I’m calling Guts’ desire to kill Femto/Griffith his own way of trying to carve out his heart.
1. This is another one of my favourite expresions in Berserk tbh
2. I’m not saying this is deliberate, I’m not sure it would even be in character, but I can’t help but imagine this as Guts taunting Femto/Griffith about the fact that he was in love with him, his life was destroyed because of him, Guts drove him to make the sacrifice by leaving him, and Guts knows it.
Like yeah logically it’s just Guts being pissed off over the fact that Griffith sacrificed him to become a demon, especially with the follow up “thanks to me who’s fighting an army of the dead because of you,” but man, I’m js that knowing how the Golden Age goes gives this line potential Layers. You’re where you are now because this petty existence had all that power over you.
On the other hand this whole scene exists to set up Griffith making the sacrifice to bury his fragile heart bc of whatever went down w/ Guts, so like, it could be that deep?
Plus Femto’s response:
Just gonna reiterate that you mean absolutely nothing to me.
Whether that’s what Guts meant to say or not, I’m pretty sure he’s well aware of the irony of Femto emphasising his insignificance now, considering everything that went down between them. He might even stubbornly refuse to go back to post-Speech-to-Charlotte Guts, clinging to the fact that, no, I meant something to you and you meant something to me, and we both know that.
But then he would also have to know that it’s his fault that Griffith went this far. Which we know that he does, but idk, whenever I re-read the manga I feel like we should get to see more guilt from him.
Anyway, I don’t think Miura was fully taking all this into consideration while writing these first few chapters, but in retrospect you have to think about all the layers of meaning behind nearly every word Femto & Guts exchange. Like, this is off topic, but it’s in these chapters that Guts first finds out what sacrificing someone really means, and he doesn’t really react in any significant way, when realistically he should.
To be fair he’s unconscious when the Godhand actually explain the sacrifice and tell the Count that a sacrifice has to be someone you love so much it’s like they’re part of you. Which imo is kind of a hmmmm in and of itself, like there’s no reason Guts had to be unconscious at any point at all since he could barely move anyway, except to miss the explanation of who can be sacrificed. When he does wake up he just lies there and listens to the Count’s backstory before finally telling Puck to heal him. So I feel like it kind of suggests that Guts knowing that info might affect some things.
But otherwise yeah ia. I’m actually kind of rly into the idea of Guts stubbornly clinging to the knowledge that he was important to Griffith, hard earned as it was, now that you mention that. At least between the Eclipse and Griffith’s rebirth.
It’s like… idk I think there’s an argument that he left the Hawks because he knew he did mean something to Griffith, and that gave him the confidence to believe he could truly become his bff4ever if he changed his whole life lol. Whereas if he thought Griffith genuinely couldn’t give a shit about him he wouldn’t even try.
And then I think a similar way of thinking could be informing his behaviour during the Black Swordsman stuff. Like, I know I meant something to you, deny it all you want, I’m going to find you and force you to acknowledge me.
But after NGriff ditches him I think he kind of gives that up? Which is why he’s able to put his revenge thing on hold – it starts to feel futile when he genuinely believes NGriff feels nothing at all towards him. (Which is why that beating heart is a game changer in waiting js.)
idk lol I’m just thinking outloud.
And yeah like, it’s textual that he feels guilty for Griffith’s breakdown, from letting Casca stab him to:
But I do wish we saw more of that post-Eclipse other than the recurring moments when he thinks about Griffith kneeling in the snow and mopes lol. It kind of makes sense to me that we don’t see Guts feeling guilty after the Eclipse because I feel like the point of the Eclipse rape was to piss Guts off enough that he’d basically channel his guilt into rage, but I feel like we should still see more inner conflict. Not that we don’t see any, but yk, I always want more.
Ohhh, man, I remembered he got knocked out but I thought we didn’t get to see the exact moment when he came to … so I thought, you know, we don’t know exactly how much he’s heard?
But I went to check and this is him twitching awake after all the juicy details have been laid out:
Which is honestly even better than him hearing all that and not reacting.
He does get to hear these parts though:
I honestly like to interpret his expression here as loathing directed specifically @ the God Hand sans Griffith/Femto, for waltzing in and ruining everything lol.
And I agree with everything else you brought up! Like, Guts can actually be pretty confident and even cocky, so it’s not like he’s constantly putting himself down. He’s just a little naive, bless his heart.
I can’t WAIT for Neo-Griff to finally snap lol
It’s gotta happen. Even if Guts’ storyline is wall-to-wall disappointment I know in my soul NGriff’s is going somewhere good.
And yeah I’m sure the parallels aren’t lost on Guts lol, but i guess it’s not quite as direct as essentially saying ‘being able to sacrifice someone is proof that you love them.’ Also yeah I’m into that interpretation of his anger there, like imo he hates Femto on a personal level for being an evil version of the dude he loves, but he def hates the rest of the Godhand for facilitating it. His reaction when seeing Slan in the troll cave was even more overwhelmingly rage-y than when he saw NGriff on the Hill of Swords, eg.
I’m going to lay out some visuals here real quick bc I just noticed another good detail lol
Griffith on a black background, Guts on a white background. Light and dark, connection and loneliness, and Guts as Griffith’s last connection to humanity before he’s carried up into darkness.
Guts and Griffith brightly lit in contrast to the surrounding darkness as they clutch each others’ hands, because this is what they are to each other. Their connection is what illuminates the darkness, what staves off loneliness.
Guts is both the source of Griffith’s despair and the only thing capable of preventing him from succumbing to it. “He was the reason I’ve been thrown into this darkness and now he’s the sole sustenance keeping me alive.” Same kinda thing.
Guts falling away, lit in comparsion to Griffith blending in with the background. Griffith losing that light.
These pages are just a great illustration of Guts and Griffith as each others’ brightest things, and what they lose when they give up each other.
though idt he really promised a happy ending so much as a not completely bleak and depressing ending, so it’s not as ominous as it could be
like it sucks for me because my ideal ending is basically guts once again succumbing to his obsession with griffith, meeting with him again in a climactic manner, realizing griffith is actually still stupid in love, some kind of visual suggestion of equality or guts looking down at him bc their persistant feelings equalize them despite everything, and then guts finding some kind of emotional catharsis in that, hopefully while one or both of them is dying
but the story ending with guts still obsessed with griffith would probably be a negative ending according to like, the themes of berserk lol
i think there are ways it could be swung in a more positive direction. eg remove casca from the possibility of a romantic happily ever after with guts, lean on threatening the possibility of guts ending up like skull knight, eg stripped of humanity and lost to the armour and immortal and doomed to seek revenge forever or w/e, and put guts’ genuinely conflicting, based in love, human feelings for griffith opposite that. in this way immortality would be associated with monstrousness and death with humanity, and guts and griffith dying together, or just guts dying, or w/e would be extra perfect, particularly if one or both fail to go through with killing the other at the last minute
(the whole sacrifices doomed to hell thing kinda fucks with that but it fucks with any possible non-depressing ending no matter what lol, so miura is either going to have to go dark with guts’ ending or do what i suggest and make him not actually irrevocably destined for hell after all)
like idk i know what i want and i think there’s enough groundwork laid for it to be possible, but there’s also groundwork laid for like, worst case scenarios too. everything’s up in the air
like man i can’t help but fear the possibility that guts is going to succumb to the beast of darkness, be pulled back yet again by his friends, and then ~overcome~ his desire for revenge/to be griffith’s equal while getting with casca. and then they idk team up with elfhelm to defeat griffith/the godhand. like i believe miura is better than that but it’s only belief, not fact
like remember when miura gave like a talk on writing at some thing idk and he discussed how he uses each character to draw out different emotions from guts, and one of griffith’s was ‘loneliness’
that is like the #1 thing i love about griffguts. two people, both alone in different ways, whose feelings of isolation are only fully eased by the other no matter how fucked up their thing gets or how much either of them change, whether magically or organically
ooh these are some good visuals
how long will i have to creep in darkness… until him? but femto, depicted at peak inhuman here, is just more fucking darkness.
because this is still guts scrabbling for whatever’s left of the “dazzling” griffith, the griffith who shone and chased away the darkness of loneliness. like i’ve said this before and i’ll say it again, but his revenge quest isn’t (solely) about revenge, it’s about missing griffith and desperately wanting that connection again. the rage is a convenient reason to chase him that’s more justifiable to himself than “I still want him to look at me.”
the visual metaphor of light and dark, companionship and isolation, and how constant it’s been in guts and griffith’s relationship in particular is just so fucking good
also while i’m on chapter one
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.
(Ok so NeoGriffith’s eyes always do that to be fair, but idc let me have this moment.)
bonus, the night after Guts leaves:
found something new to make me tear up
brightly lit people surrounded by encroaching darkness, drawn exactly the way miura represents isolation – except that they have each other, as beacons in the darkness. the more dazzling he is in my eyes; as he shines so glaring within me…
until Guts lets go
Guts echoes NeoGriffith’s “nothing has changed. This is the man I am.”
Has Guts come this far, letting go of his “obsession” with Griffith, by letting himself buy Griffith’s own hype?
Like I’m not sure about this but I don’t remember any moments where Guts reminisces about human Griffith after this:
Is there an underpinning of Guts letting himself forget and downplay how much Griffith loved him, in order to let go of his fruitless obsession?
Guts’ obsession with killing Griffith has ultimately been about wanting his attention, which Femto/NGriff has consistently refused to give him, at least overtly. (lbr the fact that he goes to see guts to test his capacity to feel, and the constant eye contact and needling taunting as femto belies the shit out of that)
Like to lay this out real quick, “you of all people,” is Griffith asserting that he was always a monster, and Guts knew it. Part of the reason Griffith was devastated when Guts left is because he saw it as a rejection of him, based on everything he hates about himself. He let Guts in to see those things he hates, and he thinks Guts left him because of it.
Of course we know that Guts left entirely because he loved and respected Griffith. He “shone before [him] as beautiful, noble, and larger than life.”
The last 30ish chapters before the Eclipse revolve around Guts slowly realizing that he already had Griffith’s love and respect, and therefore leaving was a mistake. Even he knew that Griffith ended up in that dungeon because of him.
Guts knew Griffith loved him.
But does he still know it, after being “deserted” by him? After NeoGriffith’s assertion that “it seems I am free,” “nothing has changed,” “this is the man I am,” “you of all people,”?
And if he’s let himself forget, what happens if Griffith finally does start paying attention to him again?
I can always console myself that if Guts’ narrative is going to continue being about letting go of his Griffith obsession right up until the very end, Griffith’s narrative is going to be about his Guts obsession coming back to haunt him.
It’s only half of the story I want, but I’m still down for that half.
(ftr these 2 statements are separated only by one full page panel of Guts walking away with Casca)
lol sorry anon this got kind of long and meandering, hopefully it answers your questions though.
I guess I think that Guts isn’t really fully self-aware about the fact that he’s still trying to be Griffith’s equal. It’s not like a real goal for him the way it was when he left the Hawks, it’s just that he can’t help but crave Griffith’s attention. He needs Griffith to see and acknowledge him as someone who matters to him.
It’s why Femto’s dismissal back in the Black Swordsman arc was what spurred him to finally stand and walk up to him despite like a million broken bones, it’s why he refused to heed much sounder advice like stay and take care of the Hawks that are left, and insisted on his attention-getting revenge campaign instead, and it’s why NeoGriffith ditching him makes him do this:
Because becoming Griffith’s “equal” was only a means to an end in the first place – what Guts really wanted was to be Griffith’s friend, or, put in Guts’ own terms:
He wants to be Griffith’s number one priority. At the most genuine point of their relationship, when Griffith admitted he had no rational reason for risking his life for Guts, Guts like basically found personal fulfillment. That scene on the rooftop where Guts contemplates it and decides that this means his home (at least for now bc Guts sucks at committment) is with the Hawks, is probably the happiest moment of Guts’ life.
And when Griffith became an evil demon this core desire of Guts’ didn’t go away, I guess, Guts just started expressing it through attention-getting monster killing and wanting to personally murder Femto, to force him to look at him and value him, if not as a loved one then as an enemy.
Also, to address that last bit, I think it’s very telling that Guts doesn’t hate Griffith. It wasn’t sacrificing all his friends that made Guts’ love turn to rage and hate, it was Femto spitefully raping Casca, which is something Guts knows his Griffith wouldn’t’ve done. While Femto was born out of the darkness of Griffith, something Guts probably at least has some understanding of, he’s not the same as Griffith. He tells that to Rickert too on the Hill of Swords “That’s not the Griffith you know anymore.”
And I think a huge part of the reason he doesn’t hate or blame Griffith for making the sacrifice is because he blames himself for breaking Griffith’s heart and ruining his life.
Like Guts’ narrative from coming back after a year to this moment revolves around his slow realization that leaving was a huge fucking mistake lol. And he finally figured it out right before the Eclipse, so when he thinks of Griffith afterwards he’s associated with guilt and sadness and regret and love, rather than bitterness or hate or resentment.
Like I guess Guts’ feelings are kind of contradictory but in a way that makes sense to me. The situation is complicated af and while Guts is consumed by hate, that doesn’t conveniently erase his love. Separating Femto from Griffith is probably part of how he reconciles that, which is also why when NeoGriffith shows up looking like the old Griffith it was particularly confusing and painful for Guts to handle, and why he “forgot” he wanted to kill him lol.
And both Guts’ hate and his love lead to wanting Femto/Griffith’s attention, it just changes how he goes about trying to accomplish that.
You should have known. This is the man I am. You, of all people.
“you, of all people” is a really powerful translation imo but the literal translation would be “just you” which i think ………….. is noteworthy
yesss like this line absolutely refers back to the fact that griffith let guts (and only guts) in to see the darker sides of his rise to the throne, and specifically tombstone of flame, and guts telling him his cruelty is a part of the path to his dream, and what griffith believed guts’ reason for leaving was etc, and it’s nice when learning more about the literal dialogue only solidifies my interpretation
you're the only one 