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Griffith’s decision to sacrifice the Hawks was perfectly reasonable not just taking into account Griffith’s own values and priorities, ie ensuring the thousands of dead posthumously achieve the thing they died for, but taking into account the Hawks’ own attitudes towards their lives, including Guts’.
It’s all there in Requiem of the Wind.
“More than half of us’ve been killed…”
These are the core group of Hawks. These are the ones who believe in Griffith so strongly that they’re willing to spend a year living as outlaws, dying in raids, so they can rescue him - so Griffith can lead them again.
There were lots of deserters over that year. People who didn’t think it was worth risking their lives for a chance at achieving Griffith’s dream. They’re presumably out there living happily ever after.
These Hawks are the ones who are willing to risk their lives, not out of friendship or loyalty to a man, but out of loyalty to what the man symbolizes for them, what he can bring them, the success that comes to them when they follow him. Out of loyalty to the dream.
Corkus is the only one throwing a tantrum, but he’s voicing all their thoughts, as we can see when his words are placed over their depressed faces.
This is who Griffith is to them. He’s the facilitator of their dreams, dreams that each and every one of them is willing to risk their lives for.
And when he can’t be that to them anymore, what happens? He becomes a burden to them.
Judeau offers to take care of him because it’s the least he can do, because he owes it to him, but mostly because if he doesn’t he thinks Casca will, and he thinks it will be a life ruining burden for her. His offer is a personal sacrifice.
Casca offers to take care of him because it’s the least she can do, he’s so small now, he needs someone, and because if she doesn’t Guts will, and she thinks it will be a life ruining burden for him. Her offer is a personal sacrifice.
Guts’ offer is probably the only one based on a genuine desire to stay with Griffith.
Now, Guts doesn’t see Griffith as the guy who can grant him his dreams. Guts is the exception to that. He sees Griffith as a guy he wants to be friends with.
But here’s Guts’ take on the situation:
Finish the battles you start.
Well, that’s exactly what Griffith chose to do. The Eclipse is, in part, a narrative rebuke of Guts’ stubbornness lol, it happens because he seized on the concept of finding his own dream and couldn’t let it go until it was a moment too late.
When Guts finally drops his own “battle” in favour of staying with Griffith, ie makes the right choice contrary to his dogged nature, it comes too late because he’d successfully convinced Casca that he was dedicated to his dream at the expense of his friendships with the Hawks. “I want to draw a line, keep things separate.” He told her he didn’t want to stay with the Hawks, and she believed him, and that attitude is what ruins everything.
And ironically that’s the exact path Griffith chose when he agreed to the sacrifice. Drop his friends and relationships in favour of renewing his committment to a dream, and finishing his own battle.
For the rest of the Hawks, the Eclipse is a rebuke of their choice to live and risk their lives for tomorrow’s success rather than today’s existence.
Now, this absolutely isn’t me arguing that the Hawks deserved to die or anything lol, this is just me saying that Requiem of the Wind is largely set-up for the sacrifice, and I think it’s a clever way of like… depicting the sacrifice not just as a random tragedy that befell a group of people, but as a darkly fitting end to the way they live their lives.
It shows that the sacrifice is consistent with everything the Hawks profess to believe in.
They are all willing to lay down their lives for a victory they may never see.
The Eclipse is the fucked up yet logical conclusion to the Hawks’ very existence as a mercenary band that fights for an ideal, a dream, rather than just day to day living. They agree to potentially sacrifice their lives in every battle. The Eclipse is just one more battle, by this logic, and it’s one they win by losing their lives in it. By dying, they achieve their ultimate victory.
And I think by taking this whole philosophy of dedicating one’s life to a dream to its logical and horrific conclusion, Berserk is basically critiquing the concept of living for an ideal. In making the sacrifice, Griffith gave the Hawks what they wanted at a cost they’ve already agreed to by choosing to risk their lives for Griffith’s victories and the success he can bring them.
Of course, in the moment, knowing that death was inevitable, they would have preferred to live. None of them would knowingly trade their life for a future they won’t live to see. But that’s essentially what they’re doing by fighting battles for future hopes and dreams.
At the end of the day, the moral of Berserk’s story is really simple and basic: live for the sake of being alive. Guts had it right during his three years with the Hawks, before overhearing the Promrose Hall speech: no grand dream, no living for a potential future, nothing but doing the job of a mercenary with a group of people he considered family, enjoying life day to day, fighting just to live a life he considered worthwhile.
Personally I have mixed feelings about this message, but I’m pretty sure that’s basically the point of Berserk.
Black Swordsman: living for revenge (and, for extra irony, Guts’ own dream of fighting stronger and stronger enemies) is bad, living day to day with those “irreplacable things” - friends - is good.
Golden Age: “I was too stupid and stubborn to notice it, but what I really wished for back then was here.” Guts left for a dream and by leaving threw away what he truly wanted - companionship.
Conviction arc: the people who survived the shadow Eclipse were the people who acted to save their own lives, rather than out of a conviction, their faith in a higher power.
Millennium Falcon: “Dreams can make for courageous challenges or opportune escapes” - emphasis on escapes. Troll village dude wanted to escape the darkness of life through a dream as a child, but eventually found greater fulfillment just living an ordinary life in his village.
etc etc. Stop dreaming, focus on living.
And essentially the despair we see from the Hawks upon their realization that the fight is over and Griffith is no longer able to lead them to a greater dream leads directly to the Eclipse and gives it a layer of dark irony.
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