I'm new to Berserk. I watched the 1997 anime first, then started reading the manga, and I finally caught up to the latest chapter this week.
I just wanted to say that I think the Golden Age is absolute peak. Everything about it was incredible. The characters, the pacing, the development, the climax... it was just cinema. Watching the anime first actually made the whole experience even better for me.
I also really liked the Conviction Arc. I thought it was great and stayed true to the themes of the story. But after that, I started having really mixed feelings, maybe even disappointment. I don't know if that's an unpopular opinion, but the story started to feel messy to me. I'm the kind of reader who doesn't really enjoy one mystery being piled on top of another without many answers, and that's how it felt. New concepts kept getting introduced, the villains kept changing, and I eventually found myself getting more confused than invested.
I really liked your Golden Age and GriffGuts posts, and I agree with a lot of your takes, so I was hoping you could share your perspective on a few things.
What's the actual purpose of the Brand of Sacrifice? Guts and Casca are still alive, and Femto doesn't seem interested in hunting them down or finishing anything. I feel like I might be missing something.
After Femto is reborn as Griffith, why does everything suddenly get so much worse? Why did he even need to be reincarnated as Griffith in the first place? Was everything that happened at Albion necessary for that? And if it was, why don't the other Apostles need something similar if they also have human and monster forms?
I don't really understand the Beherit. What makes it so important? And once magic, witches, and mages were introduced, I started wondering where they had been before the Eclipse. Did I miss something?
I also had a hard time getting into the whole Ganishka storyline. His kingdom, his army, and everything surrounding him just didn't click for me. What do you think Miura was trying to do with that part of the story?
Also... Skull Knight?? 😭 What exactly is his role in all of this?
The Berserker Armor is another thing I'm still trying to wrap my head around. Where did it come from, and what exactly is it supposed to represent? I know a lot of people love it, but it honestly started feeling a bit like an RPG item to me. Like Guts suddenly got this legendary armor that gives him a massive power-up, and it took me out of the story a little. Am I looking at it the wrong way?
What do you think about the Beast of Darkness? Is it literally something supernatural inside Guts, or is it more like a manifestation of his trauma, rage, and darker impulses? I wasn't always sure how I was supposed to interpret it.
Why did Griffith take Casca at the end? And what's your interpretation of the Moonlight Boy? I feel like I understand bits and pieces, but I can't quite put the whole picture together.
And finally... I really don't like Sonia 😭. She feels so random to me. What do you think of her as a character?
Sorry, I know this is a lot, so please feel free to ignore any of these. And if you've already answered some of them before, I'd be happy to read an old post if you want to point me toward it.
Thanks in advance!
Hi! Thank you, I'm glad you've enjoyed my blog! And yeah, idk if my feelings are quite as strong but I definitely agree that the Golden Age is peak and the story starts getting a little lacklustre in the Conviction arc in some ways. I'll try to answer your questions as best as I can.
cut for length
1 -- Watsonianly the purpose is to mark them as sacrifices that belong to... ghosts and demons and beings of the astral plane. Narratively it has fallen by the wayside since Flora largely neutralized it.
I believe for most of the story it was the explanation for Guts' Beast of Darkness, a lot of his implausible strength and fighting ability, and his theoretical ability to defy fate - Skull Knight explains that the brand puts him a step outside reality, giving him one foot in the interstice. The conclusion I drew from this based on other Berserk worldbuilding was that Guts' astral body, which sort of like reflects his psyche I think, has an influence on his physical existence, allowing his own rage/inner darkness to power him slightly and gain form and voice.
However! It seems that has been dropped or I was wrong to draw those connections lol because our new explanation is that Guts was just ~born that way. So now I don't know what the brand is for. Maybe we'll see someday.
2 -- The answer to this is basically just, that's how Miura wrote it. I'm not sure what you're referring to specifically by everything getting worse though - he did have to fight a bit of a war with Ganishka? I wouldn't say that was worse than the Conviction arc status quo though. Then he fused the real world and the astral world, resulting in fantasy creatures roaming around everywhere, if that's what you're referring to. He did that to give humanity an enemy to unite against and make Falconia a safe place people would flock to.
And apostles and the Godhand are different beings, so the rules are different. The Godhand are beings of the astral realm or whatever and could not physically manifest in the real world without reincarnating the way Griffith did, but apostles are physical beings in reality. It's not just about Femto/Griffith changing form, it's about physically existing.
3 -- The behelit Guts is carrying, or all behelits? They're magic stones that allow for people to make a sacrifice and become a monster or, if they get the extra special crimson behelit, a Godhand. The behelits do this by essentially opening a tunnel into the astral realm and allowing the Godhand to appear. The behelits are also indications of fate - fate dictates where a behelit is, and ensures it eventually falls into the hands of someone fated to become a monster or demon. Guts' behelit is an ominous sign that Guts, or someone close to him, is likely to make a sacrifice and become a monster, or at least get the opportunity to do so after falling into despair.
Narratively Guts' behelit serves as foreshadowing and a reminder that Guts is never too far from becoming a monster.
As for the second half of this question, pre-Fantasia arc, witches and monsters and elves etc existed but were scarce. Puck explains at some point in the Conviction arc that most people can't even see elves and stuff like that because they have no belief in them and no experience with the astral plane. Farnese is only able to see Puck after having her worldview rocked by a bunch of magic shit happening.
Witches, as we see with Flora, lived isolated lives using magic to be hard to find, so it makes sense that we never saw any during the Golden Age. Guts and co start seeing more magic stuff post Golden Age because Guts has a foot outside reality after the brand and the sacrifice, ghosts manifest around him thanks to the brand, etc.
So yeah, these magical beings live away from humanity, in their own little pockets like Flora, mostly invisibly like Puck, or in big communities like Elfhelm, closed off to regular people.
(Yeah we were introduced to Puck because he was being tormented in a bar and Guts saved him - Farnese being unable to see him because of her initially rigid worldview was probably kind of a retcon. But you can explain it by suggesting that since the town Guts is in in chapter 1 is being terrorized by an apostle, maybe that area is more open to seeing magic.)
4 -- Plotwise, the Ganishka conflict introduced a few things that are relevant now, like Daiba, and Kushan in general. It established NeoGriffith's attitude towards humanity and his general vibe. It also allowed NeoGriffith to become a big hero who saved the world so that many people would follow him without question. Ganishka's leveled up form, Shiva, provided an apocalyptic threat that allowed humanity to unite and ally with apostles, and killing Shiva allowed Griffith to fuse the real world and the astral world, bringing fantasy creatures into reality to further his goal of building an empire.
Thematically it also provides a contrast to the 100 year war in the Golden Age, showing how powerful and untouchable Griffith is in comparison to his human self, but also how empty he is. The fact that it was an easy victory for Griffith with very little tension is a way of separating him from his more vulnerable humanity.
Honestly I enjoyed that half of the Millenium Falcon arc much more than Guts' side of the story so I'm glad the whole war plot was there.
5 -- We don't know what Skull Knight's role narratively is yet, except for being an occasional mysterious guide to Guts who shows up to explain stuff sometimes. There are hints here and there - we know for sure now that he's the 1000 year old former emperor of Midland, Gaiseric. We don't know if he was a former sacrifice like Guts, if he was a former incarnated Godhand. We do know he used the Berserk armour too much in the past and it fucked him up. We know his goal is to trap the Godhand in the "vortex" they're called to when someone makes a sacrifice (presumably inbetween the astral realm and the real world), as he explains in the troll cave scene with Slan, chapter 218 or thereabouts iirc. Flora suggests he's using Guts for his own ends. Eventually we'll probably learn what his whole deal is.
6 -- The Berserk armour was made by some dude we meet in Elfhelm, and it gives the wearer superhuman abilities by essentially removing their ability to feel pain and allowing them to fight through broken bones and stuff. This is dangerous to the wearer, and it saps their lifeforce, and without a lot of magic help is liable to essentially take over the wearer's humanity and turn them into their inner monster. With Gaiseric his representation of his inner darkness was a skeleton, with Guts it's a hound.
So it has a lot of drawbacks theoretically and narratively it allowed Guts to kick more ass and gave Miura room for more epic fights with more scary opponents, while still creating tension through the threat of Guts losing his humanity and becoming a monster while wearing it.
But since that still hasn't gone anywhere and Guts is fine, I do think it ended up just being a convenient RPG power up lol, unless something dark still happens with it in the future.
7 -- Kinda both? It's literally given form thanks to Guts being a step outside the real world after the Eclipse (or because he was born that way, whatever) but it is a manifestation of Guts' trauma and rage. It essentially represents the part of Guts that wants to fight so he can lose himself in battle and not have to think.
Which is basically his coping mechanism.
8 -- We don't know for sure but with the recent chapter it seems like Griffith kidnapped Casca for the same reason he invited Rickert to join the Hawks, ie he's lowkey trying to recreate a piece of the past he destroyed. I'm sure that's not the logic he's using consciously - maybe he tells himself he wants her as bait, or as someone who can babysit him when he werebabies out lol. But he seems to be missing the past just as much as Guts does, and I guess Casca represents that to both of them.
As for moonbaby, best guess is it's the fetus that was created when Guts impregnated Casca, then Casca got raped and miscarried the now demonized fetus, that fetus was eventually used to create NeoGriffith's human flesh (when he hatched from the behelit-apostle at the end of the Conviction arc, after that apostle ate the fetus). And now on the full moon, when magic is most powerful, the spirit of the kid takes over his body or whatever.
It sucks imo.
8 -- I like Sonia. I think she's funny, and she represents one of my favourite themes of the story - the isolation and loneliness of seeing the world differently/being on another plane of existence, which parallels Griffith. She also provides opportunities for Griffith to be more personable and patient and basically normal-seeming, which I enjoy seeing. Not necessarily because it's genuine, but because it shows that he's not just an aloof saintlike figure, he's also able to be likeable.
Whew I think that's everything. Let me know if you have any follow up questions! I didn't cite a lot of direct quotes/pages bc most of this is just plot stuff that was explained in the manga, but easy to miss or forget or overlook the significance of, and I'm answering mostly from memory rather than re-reading parts of the manga. Hopefully this is all fairly accurate though lol.
Do you think guts ever knew that griffith loved him? If he did, when was the first time he realized it?
Kiiiinda, but not in a way he really internalized. I think he finally realized in the chapter Requiem of the Wind.
When he stops denying that Griffith lost his shit specifically because he left, and he realizes that he already had what he'd left to achieve.
He also reiterates this sentiment later on, in chapter 130:
When he compares ditching Casca to leaving Griffith as something he threw away without even realizing until it was too late.
I don't necessarily think he knows Griffith loved him in a potentially romantic way, but he knows that Griffith loved him in a way that Guts consciously wanted to be loved by him at least. He had Griffith's respect, regard, affection, irrational devotion, and he eventually realizes it.
I do think that after the Hill of Swords confrontation he maybe lets himself forget this a little. When Griffith tells him "Nothing has changed" and he's the same man he's always been, I think Guts like, tells himself that that's true, and Griffith only ever cared about his dream.
He thinks to himself "nothing's changed" in agreement with this sentiment later on in Elfhelm:
This moment even features a flashback of Griffith from that very moment when Griffith told him that nothing has changed, so it's a very deliberate echo.
There hasn't been much exploration of this, at least not yet, so this is pretty theoretical/headcanony, but I think Guts wants to believe NeoGriffith because it's emotionally easier to think that Griffith never cared about anything but his kingdom. It absolves Guts' guilt for leaving the Hawks, and it theoretically should make it easier to hate Griffith and feel less emotionally torn about him, the way he was when he "forgot his urge to kill" upon NGriff's rebirth.
I don't think it completely works - the beast taunts him about pining for him shortly after the Hill of Swords scene, and much later, in chapter 290, Griffith is described as Guts' true light, which in context is a reference to their friendship, as it's a contrast to the "warm lights" that are his RPG group.
But yeah like, generally I think Guts wants to feel singleminded rage, because that's his number one temptation and coping mechanism for complicated difficult feelings. It's the thing the manga is named after.
So telling himself that Griffith never really loved him and only ever cared about his dream helps him feel that blackout rage that blocks out all his sad feelings.
Plus you could even argue that it reflects the same trajectory we saw in chapter 7 -> 12, ie the rooftop scene to Promrose Hall. Guts knows Griffith cares about him, Griffith says only dreams matter and he has no friends, Guts decides Griffith doesn't care about him and dedicates himself to getting his attention.
I don't think that's exactly textual at this point, it's an extrapolation from chapter 345, as well as Guts' kinda boring angry reaction to seeing Griffith again in Elfhelm lmao. It's possible he still fully consciously believes that human Griffith loved him but that isn't being communicated very well anymore, unlike eg Hill of Swords where it was shown through Guts' hesitation, his pained reaction to Griffith saying he came specifically to see him, and desire to see some remorse.
But I'd like to think this is a deliberate shift that fits very neatly into Guts' fully established character flaws.
Hi! I recently reread Berserk and a question came to mind: what do you think about the motif of light/darkness presented in Berserk? It's especially clear in Griffith's speech: "He who bears light exists in the deepest shadow. And it's within darkness that true light is discovered." What do you think this motif points to? What does it reveal in Berserk? I'd love to read your thoughts, thanks in advance!
Thanks for the ask, sorry this took a couple weeks to answer. I definitely have thoughts on this topic that I've referred to a few times in various posts, but I wanted to lay it all out relatively thoroughly here.
At its core, imo the light and dark motif boils down to connection and companionship vs isolation and loneliness - which I'd argue is one of the most bedrock themes of the story.
In terms of pure visuals, Miura consistently illustrates loneliness as being surrounded by darkness. Guts' companions are described as "warm lights" by the Beast of Darkness in chapter 290, and Schierke sees "lights" in Guts' subconscious that turn out to be memories of people he's loved in his life.
The connection between Guts and Griffith especially is often represented by a flash of light, whether visually on the page, symbolically reflected in eyes, or as a diegetic yet significant part of the environment:
In addition to phrasing like "he shone before me" or "the more dazzling he is in my eyes." We see less from Griffith's perspective, but his torture chamber monologue is also full of this light imagery, so it goes both ways. "As he shines so glaring within me..." Here's a post with even more examples.
And I think most uses of darkness and light in the story essentially stem from this root of loneliness vs companionship. From the Beast of Darkness and the Falcon of Light, to the darkness in the heart of humanity, to the climax of the Millenium Falcon arc and the line you quote.
Everything that falls under "darkness" here springs from and is amplified by emotional isolation, and one of the major points of Berserk is that the best way to combat all the negative feelings that make up the Idea of Evil, the hell whirlpool in chapter 7+8, apostles and demons - fear, sorrow, trauma, despair, etc - is through emotional connections with others.
Godo spells it out in chapter 130 when he tells Guts a healthier alternative to his Black Swordsman rampage would've been staying with the remaining Hawks and immersing himself in sorrow with them:
As does Flora in chapter 203 when she says Guts' choice to protect Casca is also his own protection from "hellfire" (which in context is Guts' own hatred fueling his revenge campaign, as explained in the previous chapter):
Chapter 250 really hammers out this theme and the visual light/darkness motifs when Irvine describes becoming a beast when he's alone, but demonstrates humanity when he's with Sonia and covers her with his cloak:
This theme pops up constantly if you know to look for it, these are far from the only examples.
And it comes to at least one climax during the confrontation between Ganishka/Shiva and Griffith. Ganishka has a chapter detailing his life of isolation stemming from extreme paranoia, paralleled to his current existence as a being far beyond the rest of humanity and unable to connect with them (itself a parallel to Sonia's loneliness in her clairvoyance in chapter 250 above, imo Griffith's emotional distance as a leader in the Golden Age and as a virtual god in the current story, and the way Guts sees the world when he's wearing the Berserk armour and consumed by rage) and concluding that darkness is all there is.
Griffith appears as a beacon of light on a dark horizon. Ganishka forgets his own urge to kill and wishes only to connect with him in some way, as another being on the same plane of existence.
Through that brief connection the world is remade in a blaze of light:
Fantasia explicitly brings humanity together by uniting people against dragons and stuff, also described with a light metaphor:
However, there is one complication with the light-as-relationships motif: dreams can also be represented by light.
I described emotional connections as the best way to combat the darkness, and that's consistently framed as true in the story, but according to Berserk it's not the only way - another way is through having a dream, something we're told when eg Casca explicitly says that everyone is weak so they have to rely on dreams and other people as sources of strength:
A major aspect of Berserk is the way it contrasts dreams and (emotionally open, mutual) relationships as two ways of combating dark feelings, and shows how dreams are often less emotionally healthy. Griffith's dream vs his relationship with Guts is something I've written about at great length lol, but there's also Guts' dream of revenge vs the potential to be emotionally open with the RPG group, the troll arc villager's speech about dreams potentially being "opportune escapes," the simple fact of worldbuilding that people sacrifice loved ones to become obsessive monsters, etc.
I think it's also notable that apostles feel a compulsion to follow and love Griffith, as if sacrificing an emotional connection for the sake of a dream leaves an emptiness in them that they long to fill, yk? Dreams can help stave off the darkness, but they can't be your only source of strength or you'll become a monster who still craves love and connection. I think that magical compulsion towards Griffith is symbolic of this sentiment.
And basically since dreams can also be symbolized through light - like Griffith's shining castle, or the campfire of dreams chapter - I think it's up in the air whether the shift to Fantasia is more about bringing humanity together or about fulfilling its collective dream. Or maybe those two things are one and the same in this instance, tying it all together.
And Griffith's "He who bears the light exists in the deepest shadow. And it's within darkness that true light is discovered," line is particularly interesting in this context imo because it's a pointed echo of at least two notable griffguts scenes.
Griffith in the torture chamber of course, in both literal and metaphorical darkness with Guts "blazing" in his mind like lightning, and Guts shining while the dream grows dull in comparison - "true light." And Guts' nightmare in chapter 290, where the Beast of Darkness refers to Griffith as "the true light that burns us."
There are also strong parallels between this scene in Guts' mind and the climax between Griffith and Ganishka, which I've discussed before. Ganishka pursuing Griffith to destroy him and fulfill his dream becomes a longing to connect with him when he's fully isolated as Shiva.
SO BASICALLY I think there's a recurring motif of people chasing dreams instead of human connection and finding themselves, when all's said and done, still longing for that connection, because dreams aren't enough. Maybe Griffith is referring to fulfilling a dream when he says "it's within darkness that true light is discovered," as he fulfills his own dream by bringing Fantasia into the world. He discovered what he thinks is his true light when he fell into despair and sacrificed all his friends, isolating himself as a monster.
But if so, I think the narrative is still referring to emotional connection as the "true" light, and Griffith is yet another monster who still isn't fulfilled even with a dream, because he's alone. Like Rosine who has her Land of the Elves but finds she wants Jill's friendship more, or Count Slug who treasured his daughter above his life, or Ganishka who forgets his urge to kill Griffith and just wants to connect with him. Griffith did discover "true light" in the darkness once, and it was the realization that Guts was more important to him than the dream.
Just as Guts' true light is Griffith, and he wants to destroy him because the longing for him "burns" him.
I'd even go so far as to say that Griffith is the "Falcon of Light" because he's the "King of Longing." He represents light because it's what he yearns for - both the dream and an emotional connection. And, maybe, because it's also what he delivers to people. Like the way he's referred to as "the desired," and that aforementioned apostle compulsion I mentioned earlier, but also maybe Fantasia as a way to bring humanity together, depending on where that part of the story is going?
So yeah. To sum up, darkness = all those dark negative feelings that make a person monstrous, which are given strength through isolation. Light = the things we rely on to combat those feelings: dreams and relationships with people. But only relationships are truly fulfilling - if we just rely on dreams but remain isolated, we'll become monsters eventually anyway. This is woven through the story in various ways through various relationships and plotpoints, and Griffith and Guts are the central relationship that illustrates it.
Something to consider is that Miura initially did write Guts as a power fantasy and quickly became dissatisfied with that angle of him. He wanted to highlight the harsher points of Guts personality as flaws and at something shifted the story focus to where it felt more and more like it was leading towards a healed ending. I think the disconnect though of the different intentions at the beginning of the story (where the plot wasn't very fleshed out) and where we are now may contribute why Guts is so hard to pin down. What he represents has changed and has been changing for a while. But he's so well defined in the GA because that was the backstory. Griffith is a character who hasn't changed much in what he represents because he's always had the same goal in mind. How he can achieve it is what changed.
Do you have a source for that? Like, did Miura say this in an interview somewhere? I know he didn't have a strong idea of where the story would go while he was writing the first few chapters, and a lot changed during the writing process throughout, but just based on the story and how it's framed, I think that Guts has been subverting the basic dudebro power fantasy thing arguably since chapter 1 (and definitely since chapter 7 when the climax of the first arc features Guts only as a helpless audience to his nemesis). Plus imo he was never depicted as more blatantly flawed then he was in the Black Swordsman arc.
One of my biggest disappointments with Berserk is actually that I feel like Guts has lost most of the flaws that made him interesting as we progressed. Though right now it does look like we might be diving back into some of that, with his breakdown over his sword, so we'll see where we're headed.
I would say maybe anti-hero fits better than power fantasy here - he was originally more overtly flawed, and his trajectory through the Millenium Falcon arc shows him growing from someone who is not particularly heroic at all to someone trying to help his friends and stuff.
Either way though I do agree that it's quite plausible that Miura's intentions with Guts shifted as he wrote the story and it snowballed, and that Griffith has had a very firm, clear character and story which makes him very consistent and well-written. It also helps that as a human he's only in one arc lol, and just about everything in that arc was very well written imo.
What are your thoughts or analyses on the phallic imagery in berserk? Less so the more obvious ones like seen in Casca’s nightmares which are obviously pointing to her sexual trauma, but like we see with the vagina-esque monsters and how Guts’ sword is alluded to being like a penis in some cases. Sorry if it’s a weird question lol
Sorry for the wait on this lol, I was on vacation for a while, and it's also a topic I wanted to spend some time on because I love it and I wanted to be relatively thorough. Thanks for the ask!
So yeah, disclaimers out of the way, Freudian analytical theory is very silly, very gender essentialist in ways that can often be transphobic and misogynist, and as far as I'm aware pretty much wholly unrelated to real psychology. Back in the 70s and 80s you had film theorists who took it seriously as a genuine glimpse into the subconsciousness of humanity or whatever, but now it's pretty much just a readily available source of sex and gender related symbolism that's easy to understand.
And in Berserk I do genuinely think it's a valid lens to view the story through because Miura is often quite heavy handed in utilizing it as symbolism. I mean, Guts literally gives someone an orgasm by stabbing her at one point. Some of this can definitely be a stretch, taking established symbols and running with them, but some of it is also almost certainly purposeful. I'll leave it to you to decide what you see as legit and what you see as stretching believability here.
This is very long lol
So yeah, it starts off strong in Berserk with Guts' oversized sword. Swords are dicks, ie sources of masculine power, especially in Berserk
and in the context of the story the dragonslayer is Guts overcompensating imo. And it's not compensating for a small dick lol, which would be more the purview of comedy, but for a loss of masculinity, ie Guts' childhood abuse from Gambino, and rape trauma. It's about his need to prove himself because he was made to feel like he had to, imo.
And it's not just the size of his sword, his obsession with it is also a major factor. He has a grandiose speech about how his sword is like a part of his body (hmm) and that it's been at his side through everything and he's always relied on it. The dream he lands on is to be the best and strongest sword fighter ever. He's currently having a breakdown over not being able to hit someone with his sword. He has a recurring tendency to break other guy's swords lol. At one point Casca screams at him that he essentially cares about his sword more than her. etc etc.
In the story dreams are at odds with emotionally healing human relationships, and dreams are represented by swords (Guts' sword obviously, Casca becoming Griffith's sword, Griffith calling the throne a sword while taunting the king in the dungeon as well as his vision of himself throwing him a sword and pointing to the castle in chapter 72).
So through a Freudian lens, Guts' sword can also be said to represent emotional isolation, positioning masculinity as emotionally isolating. Which, yk, fits with Griffith also equating dreams and masculinity in his Promrose Hall speech (a man must achieve a dream before he can have a family or lover) and, I suppose lol, Casca getting "softer" and more feminine as she falls for Guts, as femininity is therefore the opposite: emotional reliance on and support of others.
So if swords are dicks, then it follows that wounds are vaginas, ie yonic symbols. Also pretty obvious when you read some of the lines during the Guts and Casca sex scene lol. "I too want a wound I can say you gave me." These can represent weakness and victimization (I did warn for misogyny lol) and/or (often sexual) relationships and emotional openness.
So you have the relationships - "licking wounds" with Casca; Guts letting Casca stab him when he thinks about abandoning Griffith; the Beast of Darkness calling Casca the wound Griffith left so Guts can keep feeling the pain Griffith caused; Griffith scratching his own shoulder where Guts' sword pointedly didn't wound him; Griffith being out of reach of Guts' sword post-Eclipse; "let's give him a heap of raw iron;" and Farnese grinding on Guts' sword while possessed and Slan directly treating being stabbed as sexual penetration for the most obvious examples...
Also I'd argue that any time Guts gets his ass kicked in a fight it functions as an echo of his rape trauma symbolically and subconsciously to Guts. Both kinda obviously at times, like eg when Slan overpowers him and tears off his shirt while wounding his chest, and kisses him after the stabbing, causing Guts to feel a burst of fear
or when Rosine stabs Guts through the mouth as another enemy who flirts with Guts mid-fight. And of course the first duel with Griffith in which Guts unilaterally sets the stakes to sex slavery because he's projecting.
But also a little more subtlely, such as when Zodd is given the same position as Nightmare Donovan in Guts' concussion nightmare after he kills Adonis, or all this consistent imagery that rapists and apostles tend to get.
Or, interestingly, the way the Berserk armour functions as self-harm as Guts fights by penetrating Guts to "heal" him.
Something that solidifies its hold over Guts and makes him lose more and more of his positive humanity to his urge to kill.
So yeah, from a Freudian angle I'd suggest that Guts is driven to fight to reclaim the sense of masculine power he was stripped of when he was raped, and every fight can be said to be a repetition of his rape trauma in which he (usually) successfully fights back, but also continuously retraumatizes himself rather than healing.
I'm going to delve a little deeper into how phallic and yonic symbols intersect with the characters' relationships now that we've outlined some of the preliminary symbolism, starting from the Golden Age.
The first duel between Guts and Griffith is rife with Freudian symbolism, very overtly. Griffith stabs Guts and then Guts proceeds to have a nightmare about his rape trauma. Then he projects that trauma onto Griffith when he assumes Griffith wants to fuck him and adds sexual stakes to their duel. Then, yk, he takes Griffith's sword into his mouth lol.
Griffith winning by dislocating Guts' arm can be easily taken as a symbolic unmanning/castration, nicely introducing us into Guts' three years of growth towards prioritizing relationships instead of aimless sword-swinging to prove himself. It's also suggestive of penetration when you're primed to look for sexual symbolism (and if Guts offering Griffith his ass and then biting a sword doesn't prime you for it, what does?):
And the two of them losing their swords in the course of the fight and resorting to unarmed combat can also be taken as a telling symbol of the conflict between dreams and their relationship with each other. They lose the symbols of their dreams and contend only with each other, in a more positive contrast to the second duel that ends their relationship, in which they fight only with swords and never touch each other.
Wounds come into it when Griffith nearly gets killed rushing in against Zodd to save Guts, leading to the most impactful moment of their relationship, where Griffith admits he did it solely for Guts' sake and had no other reason. Griffith also points out how wounded Guts is after that fight, in what I'd call a nearly flirtatious way:
And if you follow these symbols completely strictly this scene suggests Guts retreating into his defensive masculinity in his sword exercises after being defeated/emasculated by Zodd and accused of not valuing his personal relationships by Casca, and finally finding a new, more constructive purpose for his sword after Griffith essentially confesses his devotion to him.
Dedicating his sword to Griffith in return for the wounds Griffith suffered for his sake, with, it has to be noted when the topic is freudian symbolism, his sword held at exactly crotch level.
In the second duel Guts destroys Griffith's sword before leaving, a symbolic castration which is most likely intended to represent and foreshadow Griffith's subsequent loss of power when he throws his life away and ends up tortured in a dungeon for a year. More interestingly imo, is Griffith tracing scratch-markes on his shoulder after sleeping with Charlotte and while crying over Guts - the same shoulder Guts' sword didn't quite hit when he won the duel, drawing attention to the lack of a wound by Guts' hand, a wound he created himself and traces in his devastation.
You have a nice... I don't know what the comic terminology is lol so I'm just going to call it a match-cut here, with Griffith and Casca both getting penetrated by the same number of arrows/skewers, to signify Griffith and the Hawks' fall from power, in contrast to Guts' growing phallic power as he pursues his sword swinging. Power which he demonstrates when he returns and saves the Hawks and Casca and Griffith by swinging his sword a lot and defeating a lot of powerful enemies and, if I'm gonna be crass, healing Casca's suicidal despair with his dick lol.
Interestingly though, before he does that he lets Casca stab him while experiencing the guilt of having driven Griffith into a torture chamber by leaving. It's a wound that highlights his emotional connection to Griffith and vulnerability to those emotions, even as he tries to deny them. He then manages to successfully deny them for a little while longer after having sex with Casca.
In this Freudian context, Guts and Casca's sex scene is an affirmation of a relationship, but one which is emotionally uneven, with Casca ready and willing to emotionally rely on and support Guts, but Guts still dedicated to his sword-swinging dream, inviting Casca with him but only as long as she doesn't get in the way of what he wants to do. This does fit with phallic symbols being associated with emotional distance and yonic symbols being associated with emotional closeness lol. (Also fittingly, the one way he does open up to her is about his rape trauma after a flashback.)
It's worth noting that in this disconnect Casca erroneously assumes Guts fought the hundred men and "bled" for her, making her want "a wound" from him in return. Guts fighting those hundred men is much more reminiscent of his fights against apostles, the fights that revolve around replaying his rape trauma to make himself feel better. Casca assumes they already have an emotional bond due to Guts' wounds, but she's wrong - Guts specifically thinks to himself during the hundred man fight that he's not doing it for Casca.
This is reflected in the Wyald fight when Guts insists on fighting Wyald, again as part of the whole reaffirmation of masculinity thing I outlined at the start of this, when Casca just wants him to run away. The Wyald fight is pretty overt about being about Guts' rape trauma imo, moreso than most fights in the story. Wyald's rapiness is made a point of from Guts' point of view when he sees him wielding the torso of a woman sexually impaled on a pike and gets extra angry, and when he literally cuts off Wyald's dick when he's about to rape Casca, and then has his pointed line about needing to "settle the score with him... with them... by his own sword."
SO ESSENTIALLY to sum up this subsection, I think you can argue that what prevents Guts and Casca from being an equal relationship is Guts stlil being hung up over needing to prove his masculine power through sword-swinging, rather than embracing his emasculation (which, remember, tends to signify positive relationships in this context) and coming to terms with it ("immersing himself in sorrow" as Godo says much later.)
Like, to return to Griffith, it's fitting that after Guts destroys his sword and he goes through a year of torture and is thoroughly emasculated, he's able to recognize his feelings for Guts and understand that Guts is more important to him than the dream, the "sword called the throne."
But he doesn't quite come to terms with his emasculation either. This symbolism is one explanation for the wagon scene where he propositions Casca - a desperate bid for some form of power. Not the strongest explanation imo, but since we're currently in the business of actively looking for this symbolism, it definitely fits. Casca's rejection and pity reinforce Griffith's emasculation, and overhearing her tell Guts to leave again is the final straw. Relationships are a bust, swords are now his only recourse, as we see when he has a vision of himself throwing him a sword and pointing to the castle.
You could take the nightmarish vision he has of a life with Casca as Griffith rejecting emasculation, but an alternate way of taking it is Griffith regaining a form of phallic power, and the emotional isolation that goes with it. After all, it's implied that he has a child with Casca, while totally withdrawn and emotionally isolated.
I once said in a different silly essay that Griffith choosing the dream is, in a way, Griffith choosing another version that nightmare, and that take also fits here.
And hey, it's another reason for Femto to rape Casca lol, if we want to ascribe meaning there, and of course we must in this kind of analysis. In the wagon Griffith essentially offers sex to Casca for the faint vestige of masculine power it could give him (emotional isolation and a child); in his nightmare he imagines that life and it drives him to suicide; and after becoming Femto he forces sex onto Casca and then continues on to embody emotional distance and masculine power.
This power is painfully demonstrated through the rape of Casca, but also subsequently through his pure untouchability (often in pointedly sexualized contexts); through his phony relationship with Charlotte and ascending to the ultimate patriarchal role of king/emperor and taking that sword called the throne; and I guess also through his actual sword lol which he still uses.
An example of sexualized untouchability - check out the positioning of that third thought bubble, in this scene where Griffith lords his invulnerability over Ganishka.
And look at all those pillars, I'm js.
And I'd be remiss not to point out the most recent confrontation with Guts where Guts tries many times to hit his naked body with his giant sword, completely fails, and then Griffith kidnaps Casca. More very on-point emasculation symbolism, it might as well be Guts trying to fuck him but unable to get hard lol. His breakdown afterwards doesn't do much to disabuse you of that notion either.
Anyway, back to post-Eclipse Guts. There's not much else to add that I didn't cover at the start, but in brief:
Guts has lost his arm during the Eclipse, which is an emasculation - he loses it while watching Femto rape ~his woman~ so it's like the most traditional symbolic castration there is lol. And of course he replaces it with a bigger, better, and more overt phallic symbol: a canon. And like the first thing we see him do with it is shove it into the mouth of a monster he's banging and blow her head off. So yk, there's that.
And there's Puck, who exists to help bridge Guts' emotional distance and essentially serves as the feminine counterpart to Guts' masculinity for a while. From his magical empathy, to his tiny size, to his lack of genitalia (note that in Freudian theory the lack of a penis is an indicator of femininity rather than specifically the presence of a vagina), to his connections with female characters Theresia and Jill, even arguably to his introduction where Guts saves him from a bunch of men throwing phallic knives at him by skewering them with his own (bigger) projectiles, this is consistent during the Black Swordsman/Conviction arc era.
Chestnut Puck is a lot more boyish, with his particular humour, his cameraderie with an annoying teenage boy, and now having his own feminine counterpart in Ivalera, but that's fine because his thematic job as a feminine influence on Guts is over after Guts starts collecting more friends.
And as far as the RPG group goes, there are a few notable instances of phallic symbolism for them too. Farnese and Serpico are an obvious example, with Farnese sexualizing the wounds Serpico voluntarily suffers for her, when she demands he duel for her honour a bunch of times.
Farnese brandishing the end of her whip at him doesn't hurt the freudian power dynamic symbolism either lol.
In the Conviction arc Farnese wielded a sword she was incapable of using, suggestive of her true femininity under a brash masculine surface, and when she softens in the Millenium Falcon arc she becomes a caretaker with only a small dagger for self-defense. That said, she does get that epic moment of stabbing a tiger in the eye with a long silver pole (candlestick) when she rejoins Guts' crew rather than becoming a housewife, so she still gets some badass phallic weapon imagery lol.
Serpico wields a thin rapier in the Conviction Arc, which Guts easily grabs in his hand, and in the Millenium Falcon arc he switches to a... limp feather duster lol. Serpico is very feminized compared to Guts and his weapons fit as part of that, but they're still effective weapons. You could maybe argue, within this Freudian lens, that this is indicative of Serpico's healthier relationship with masculinity. He's not compensating for anything, he's at peace with himself.
And god I gotta say something about Guts and Serpico's duels. In the first one you have Serpico delaying Guts while Farnese steals Casca from him, and part of that delay is to force Guts into a fight where he can't wield his sword, a parallel emasculation to Casca being kidnapped.
Then you have their confrontation after Farnese's no good very bad night, which is just incredibly suggestive lol.
You cannot tell me this isn't Guts getting blueballed when Serpico leaves after one quick exchange. Particularly coming in the same chapter featuring possessed Farnese grinding on Guts' sword (which Guts was much less interested in, incidentally). Also: wounds as sexual imagery again. Guts licking the blood off his cheek? Come on.
And finally you have their fight in Farnese's basement, in which Serpico attempts to hinder Guts by surrounding him with giant pillars, which Guts smashes through as he dodges around them. Another neat illustration of Guts' pure phallic power and Serpico's much more effeminate style.
One final note to address part of your ask, which didn't naturally fit into the rest of this lol: I would interpret vaginal imagery in monsters as mainly castration anxiety, yk, vagina dentata vibes, the fear of sticking your dick in a hole you can't see into. There's actually a lot of interesting stuff to consider in terms of the feminine as the unknowable other when it comes to Freudian theory, but that's like, not something I would expect Miura to lean into first of all, and also it would take another essay of explanation. If you're interested in that kind of Freudian analysis though I'd recommend the books Men, Women, and Chainsaws by Carol J. Clover and The Dread of Difference, edited by Barry Keith Grant. I took a course on women and horror films ages ago and read chunks of those, and it was very fun, and iirc both address Freudian imagery in horror.
Okay! So that's the rundown of like, all the examples of Freudian imagery that interest me at least lol. This isn't exhaustive ofc, Berserk is long and not stingy with this stuff, but this response is already so long and meandering lol, so I'm going to wrap it up here.
To sum up, phallic imagery often represents masculine power as well as masculine flaws (like emotional isolation) in Berserk, while yonic/vaginal imagery tends to represent feminine weakness as well as feminine virtues (like emotional connection and vulnerability). As a general rule, the more phallic imagery someone violently swings around, the more fucked up they are. Phallic violence is used to compensate for past trauma, but it only continues the cycle of violence. The way to break that violence is to accept one's wounds and focus on them, to heal, rather than trying to distract from them.
I don't think this is always the best way to interpret Berserk lol, but it adds another dimension that very often complements the surface meaning and thematic resonance of the story, sometimes purposefully, sometimes likely incidental. And either way it's a lot of fun to read into!
Realistically do you think Guts would have been abusive towards Isidro? I know Guts has the rpg group around to make him chill out when he gets too aggressive but I still think the trauma from his own upbringing would worm it's way into his relationship with Isidro much more than what's depicted. I know it sounds awful but I would have liked to see a scene where Guts slaps the shit of him and everyone is like 'WTF THAT'S A KID' and Guts is just like 'You think he has it tough compared to me?"
Honestly no, but I'm not really in the business of discussing fiction realistically, because I don't really think there's much point to talking about characters as if they're real people. Realistically someone like Guts could be abusive, or he might not be. Who knows? Too many factors go into people's behaviour irl for me to assume anything about a real person.
And as for Guts as he's presented in the manga, enh I think the story rushed his character development a bit, but no I don't think it feels wrong that he isn't abusive to Isidro, especially not in the way you describe where he like, hurts Isidro and defensively doubles down. I do think that you could make a case either way in terms of what would fit his character and the themes of the story though.
Like on the one hand his callous behaviour towards Theresia and the way he projected his own self-loathing on her certainly suggests that he could be abusive to kids potentially. I don't think he has enough of a relationship with Theresia to really call his behaviour abusive rather than dickish lol, but he was certainly a dick to her. His advice to Jill to stick with her abusive family wasn't great either.
I can imagine him projecting onto a kid he has a relationship with, like Isidro, and treating him poorly without thinking because of that. Viewing his own child self as weak and trying to stamp it out in the kids he's in charge of, eg. Hurting Isidro would also be thematically relevant, because one of Guts' personal moral boundaries is hurting kids, it's one of the things that makes him hate himself most. His self loathing when he killed Adonis, his hesitation when fighting Rosine, the self-loathing the ghosts express to him after killing a bunch of Rosine's monster children, etc.
In this context I could see Guts pushing Isidro too far during training the way Gambino used to with him, maybe, then realizing what he's doing when Isidro gets hurt and falling into a fit of self-loathing. I think that could've been a very emotionally and thematically relevant scene.
Buuut I also think it makes sense that Guts has grown past that behaviour, and honestly I definitely don't think it would be in character for Guts to hit him out of like, irritation or something like that. As much as Guts lashes out physically as part of how he deals with feelings, he focuses that on enemies, people he has an excuse to fight. Like eg he hurt Casca because he specifically wanted her out of his way and a big part of him wanted to kill her and go fight Griffith instead, not because he needed a punching bag for his emotions. That's what apostles are for.
If Guts was going to be abusive to Isidro I think it would be in a subtler, more emotionally abusive way, eg pushing him too hard, maybe calling him weak, berating him for a mistake during a fight, etc. (I mean technically you can argue he is abusive in canon just by letting this kid risk his life fighting trolls and whatever lmao, but allowances have to be made for genre conventions.) But yeah I think it also does make sense that he doesn't act like that, because he is self-aware that it is bad behaviour and he is consciously trying to be better during the Millenium Falcon arc.
He has hurt kids that way before, again Theresia as an example, but he felt bad about it. And Guts doesn't often lash out at friends and allies when he's in a healthier place emotionally. He does a lot during the Black Swordsman arc, or when he's bitter and resentful with Casca in the Golden Age, but with most of the Hawks, or with the RPG group, he tends to think before he speaks imo.
So basically tl;dr I could imagine another version of the story where Guts was more emotionally abusive to Isidro and I think that could work, but I don't think he necessarily ought to be based on his characterization, and I don't think it would manifest in random physical lashing out.
Thanks for the ask, this is something I've never really thought about before and it's interesting to consider.
I would like to know your opinion about this comment that I found on yt
"the amount of suffering Guts had to go through while dragging Casca alongside him when she was in her regressed state as Elaine is true love and compassion"
my opinion is: l m a o
actually yk what, I've had a salty post in my back pocket for a long time about how shitty Guts is to Casca, and maybe it's finally time to post something like it.
So.
Was it true love when Guts ditched her with Rickert in a cave for two years like so?
Was it true love when Guts had to debate with himself for a night before choosing to temporarily abandon his revenge quest to rescue Casca, seriously considering abandoning her to die, and only resolving to save her specifically when he draws the parallel between ditching her and ditching Griffith?
Was it true love when, when faced with the choice between rescuing her from getting burned alive and trying to find and kill Griffith/Femto, he chose the latter and Isidro had to rescue her instead?
Was it true love when, upon returning to Godo's with Casca, Guts internally insinuated that he was planning to abandon her again?
Was it true love when Guts only decided to stick with Casca after the cave was destroyed leaving him no choice, AND NGriff refused to give him the time of day leaving him strangely dejected?
Was it true love when his subconscious called into question why he considers her precious?
Was it true love when he was tempted to assault Casca to get closer to Griffith?
Was it true love when he gave into that temptation? (And no, he wasn’t possessed.)
[I don’t think we need pics of the assault scene, but chapter 189/190 for reference.]
Was it true love when he kept succumbing to the armour and regularly needed two magic children to snap him out of it so he wouldn't kill her?
Was it true love when Guts’ subconscious described Casca as a warm light in comparison to Griffith’s “true light?”
Was it true love when Casca’s impression of Guts, as shown to us in her dream world, is someone who would destroy her in his single-minded focus on revenge against Femto?
Was it true love when Guts bemoaned not being able to land a hit on Griffith instead of Griffith kidnapping Casca?
And this is just post-Eclipse, that’s not getting into stuff like
Guts inviting Casca along on his dream journey with the caveat of: maybe you’ll just get in my way but let’s see how it goes because I want to fuck you a lot.
Casca miserable and upset when Guts insists on fighting Wyald alone, indicating that yeah she probably would’ve gotten in the way of his “fight stronger and stronger enemies” dream even if she hadn’t gone insane.
Guts choosing to stay with Griffith right before the Eclipse while talking to Judeau, before Casca decides she wants to stay and without consulting her about the change of plans first.
Casca’s feelings for Griffith making a comeback as soon as they go on the rescue mission and Guts getting pissy about it but recognizing his own feelings for Griffith as even more intense.
Guts looking down at all the apostles attacking the Band, including Casca, during the Eclipse, and deciding his best course of action is to continue trying to rescue Griffith.
Judeau basically needing to smush Guts and Casca’s faces together like barbies to get them to bone.
The sex being described as licking wounds.
etc etc etc
So yeah, long story short my opinion is that that person is ignoring a whole pile of negative shit to call Guts’ escort mission a sign of true love. When the alternative is leaving her to get killed by ghosts in the middle of a field somewhere like, what else is he supposed to do? I hope they don’t think Guts is so shitty of a person that he would’ve abandoned her if he wasn’t in love with her. I mean granted, he was approaching being that shitty during his Black Swordsman rampage (see that point about his internal debate in chapter 130) but yk, he wants to be better than that.
Like imo he’d’ve taken Casca on the escort mission even if he still hated her just as much as he did back in his first three years with the Hawks, simply bc she’s his comrade, same way he rescued her in chapter 15/16.
Incidentally here, have this semi-related list of reasons Guts had for taking Casca to Elfhelm, none of which include true love.
Do you view Guts party as him "finding his own dream" in relation to Griffith?
Like you mean his RPG group found family thing or whatever? If so, then I would say no.
Guts' dream is to be the best swordsman. And I think relationships with others are, in the story, positioned in thematic opposition to dreams. I mean at the most basic level one of the core worldbuilding conceits of the story is people becoming monsters because they sacrifice their relationships for a dream. So imo Guts is kind of forsaking his "dream" while hanging out with the RPG group because he's no longer a dedicated monster hunter and revenge enthusiast.
Relationships with others signify personal growth while an obession with dreams signifies regression throughout the story. I think that essentially what's happening right now is the Beast of Darkness tempting Guts back towards his dream, and I think that's directly going to endanger the lives of the RPG group.
Like I can definitely see the angle where Guts' "real" dream deep down is to belong somewhere and have friends and people who love him etc, and making friends is fulfilling a more wholesome dream for him, but in terms of like, Berserk's themes and its own particular portrayal of dreams for the sake of those themes (again, this sort of dreams vs relationships dichotemy), I don't think it quite fits to categorize Guts' friendships as a new and better dream.
That said, I do like to think of Casca and the Elfhelm quest in general as a distraction from Griffith, in a parallel to how Griffith's dream is a distraction from Guts lol. I think the story wants me to see it as positive growth for Guts, but it's an ineffective sell, and I think there's a strong case to be made that Guts is using the Elfhelm quest as an excuse to avoid interrogating his difficult, complicated feelings about Griffith and stay repressed. The way he views Casca as a "feeble flame" representing his own humanity is easily paralleled to other unbalanced, objectifying relationships in the story, like the King's description of Charlotte as warmth protecting him from the rest of the world, or the way Gennon (and most people really) talks about Griffith, or most of the relationships in the Conviction arc (torches in the darkness).
That's a bit of a tangent lol, but yeah basically I don't think it's right to call Guts making new friends pursuing a dream, but I do think that Guts' Millenium Falcon/Fantasia story arc has some potentially interesting parallels to Griffith's story and the single minded pursuit of dreams.
