#griffgutsontop

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Heya again. Sorry for the two questions but I really would like to hear some of your Griffith's past headcanons, like his life in the streets, his possible parents, the beginning of the Hawks etc ( ˶ˆᗜˆ˵ )

No worries, I'm always happy to get these kinds of asks!

I tend to be open to lots of possibilities as long as they fit the canon, I don't have a lot of strict headcanons I stick to, but sure, I have some thoughts.

I always waffle between two possibilities for Griffith's fixation on his dream depending on the vibe I'm into at the moment:

one is that it's a chlidish fixation that has no intrinsic meaning. It's just a daydream he fixated on as a kid and turned into a game-like goal to work towards, starting by stealing money to eventually become a mercenary. But before he could grow out of it and realize how impossible that dream was, one of his friends got killed in a robbery gone wrong or something, and that fixed it in his mind as something he absolutely had to achieve, because his friend died for it. So that could be like, an origin story of the Band of the Hawk.

And the other possibility is that he fixated on it as a coping mechanism for either just starvation and homelessness, or abuse he was suffering. I think this one is a little more supported by the themes of the story and some of Miura's statements, but I also like the first one as like a Griffith character detail, it's interesting to me to think of the dream as essentially meaningless until people started dying for it and Griffith had to retroactively make it the most important thing ever.

In terms of that theoretical abuse though, I'd once written out a flashback sequence that was meant as part of a bigger story I never ended up writing much of, where some nobleman found him in the street and offered to take him in as like, a playmate to his son or something, and Griffith is canny enough at like 6 or 7 years old to get him to promise to educate him before agreeing. And the nobleman's main intention is to molest him but he does let him be tutored with his son, so Griffith learns some basic skills like literacy and math and sword basics and upper class manners, and after two years or so he has an opportunity to kill the nobleman, so he does and leaves. Living with the abuse is something Griffith remembers as like, a calculated choice he made, but it informs a lot of his resentment towards the nobility that we see glimpses of even before Gennon.

Re his parents, I feel like if they were important to understanding his character we would've learned something about them, but we don't so they aren't. Since we know he was an orphan in a gang of street kids and that informs his character, I imagine him as an orphan from a very young age, who maybe doesn't even remember his parents at all. Maybe he was taken in by his first friends, who could be a mix of kids his age and slightly older kids who look out for them and use their cuteness as a begging tool or a pick-pocketing distraction.

And one of my headcanons about the formation of the Hawks is that Griffith doesn't have any particular affinity for hawks/falcons. He picked the name because he thought it sounded cool and suggestive of rising up, and all the significance of hawks to him afterwards - Femto's form, Falconia's whole look, keeping the name for the new apostle Band of the Hawk, etc - stems from the fact that the hawk symbol represented the Golden Age mercenary band. Griffith's entire post-Eclipse life still lowkey revolves around those people.

Thanks for the ask! Sorry it took a while to answer, I have to be in the right kind of creative mood for headcanon posts lol.

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Ey Bthump, How are you? I hope you're doing fine. Well, my question is how do you think Berserk will end? Now that we are getting closer and closer to the "final battle" with Griffith. And also your thoughts on the latest chaptwr 382!

Hey, I've been good, hope you are too!

I've been theorizing/hoping for a while that we'll get an emotional confrontation that parallels Ganishka/Shiva vs Griffith, in the sense of Guts losing himself to a bestial state and finding that Griffith is his sole remaining light in the world, and their confrontation being a symbolic consummation that brings about some kind of shift in humanity that echoes their remaining human longing for each other.

Like if current humanity is defined by looking up to Griffith as a godlike saviour, ie the thing that ruined everything in the Golden Age, then humanity afterwards might be defined by looking at each other as equals. Like if Falconia is meant to be benevolent authoritarianism, maybe anarchy is the next step. Or at least democracy, which would probably fit the made up fantasy parallel to Europe better. It might be kind of trite but I want some kind of metaphysical parallel to griffguts.

Or maybe they just destroy the idea of evil and whatever comes afterwards is left up in the air? Whatever, I just want some paradigm shift.

Anyway, that confrontation should also involve one or both of them killing the other, in like, a homoerotic way.

That's all I really care about lol, idc how we get there or what the other characters do.

I have a few posts where I get into my hopes in more detail in this tag, and here's a post on some specific ideas for their potential deaths, and here's one with more details on that Ganishka parallel.

I also talked about the newest chapter the other day here, so I'll just link that instead of reiterating my thoughts.

Thanks for the ask!

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Heya, Bthump! It's me again. Now, what would you think Griffith's reaction to Casca's attempt of suicide would be? Do you think he would be a little more direct with his comfort and drop the mask? Or enclosure even more after comforting her?

I think part of how he maintains his mask is by being strong for others and particularly by comforting Casca, from what we see in chapter 17 at least, so I definitely think if anything comforting her when she's at that kind of low point would only help maintain his image to himself, if we're just taking the emotions of the suicide attempt into consideration and not Casca's motivation, or the fact that Griffith has been tortured for a year. Like in an AU scenario where he catches her in a suicide attempt under other circumstances.

Since her motivation is partially that Griffith loves Guts more than her, and also he's been tortured for a year and she's had to lead the Hawks without even knowing he's alive, it's a little hard to insert Griffith into that specific scenario. Post torture he doesn't have much of a mask anymore, and it does basically drop in the scene with her in the wagon anyway.

But in that theoretical AU where nothing went wrong except Casca's life, and she explains that she's suicidal at least partly because he doesn't love her, I do actually wonder how Griffith would respond. He genuinely loves her as a friend (regardless of how he might consciously define their relationship) and I think driving her to the point of suicide would seriously, seriously fuck him up with guilt. Maybe it would be enough for him to like, panic and say something unfiltered? Give a little off-the-cuff speech about how much she means to him and how he needs her as his best friend?

tbh given how he views sex transactionally I could also see him panic pity fucking her and getting into the worst-advised most inevitably devastating secret situationship imaginable and that might be a fun fucked up idea lol. Not emotionally genuine, but certainly interesting.

Though of course the problem with this scenario is that Casca being suicidal just because she can't be with Griffith sucks even more than it does in canon where at the very least she's had a very bad year on top of that lol, so idk. But if there's some way to beef it up and make her reasoning a little less thin and misogynist, it could be worth exploring.

Thanks for the ask!

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Not really a question but after hearing the lyrics of "Fireworks" By Mitski is so Griffith/Griffguts coded

Hell, her whole work can be griffguts coded one way or another

Yeah there are a few Mitski songs on my griffguts playlist lol. I hadn't heard Fireworks before but upon listening yeah ia, it's perfect for Griffith about Guts.

Thanks for the song rec!