I got a feeling griffith is in some typa way connected or like synonymous to like womanhood and womes position in society like i rly don’t know how to formulate it well but i feel many aspects of his character and and his story feel so on par with many common experiences, tropes and stuff usually weitten with female characters. all the parallels he has with casca could also play into this or like his gender as a whole if it could be interchanged w him being female or male and if that would affect the story much bc to me he feels so connected w femininity as a whole in his writing and i felt rly qurious what u think on this topic? :) like maybe its dumb question but ive jst been thinking abt it and wasnt sure how to formulate it at all haha
I don't think it's a dumb question, I've seen this topic discussed a lot and I definitely think it's a worthwhile discussion.
Like his character absolutely does hit some tropes and conventions that are usually given to female characters. Sexual victimization eg, but even comparatively the sexual violence he faces is particularly feminine - the way his attractiveness is emphasized and he's lusted after physically eg, even as an adult, as opposed to, for instance, Guts' csa trauma where it's more of an 'all male environment preying on the weakest' thing. Like the way he and Casca are both under the same threat of rape from their respective opponents during the battle of Doldrey if they lose, while the hypermasculine Guts doesn't have that problem, is one gendered point of comparison between Griffith and Casca.
And in general the way his prettiness is such a central aspect of his character and the way people respond to him. Like, Guts can achieve his goals no matter what he looks like, but Griffith needs to be physically attractive, and that's a pretty feminine aspect of his story. His looks are also explicitly androgynous, as described by other characters, rather than classically handsome.
Actually you can pretty much sum all this and more - like his role as NeoGriffith as "the desired" of humanity, the way he's pedestalized by the Hawks and turned into a symbol, etc - up as Griffith's story being largely about objectification, which is maybe the most feminine thing a character's story can be about. Subjectification vs objectification is like one of the most basic gendered dichotomies of storytelling. And I think that's probably a big reason a lot of people consider Griffith feminine, and/or relatable from a woman's perspective.
Especially because he's also objectified by the medium of the story lol, ie the art. Maybe not quite as much as Casca is, but a lot more than Guts or Judeau or any other dude (give or take Puck) is. Probably more even than Farnese, since Miura was toning down the fanservice by the Millenium Falcon arc.
All that said, I wouldn't go so far as to say his character is synonymous with womanhood, or that he's interchangeable with a woman. I mean I would say he is interchangeable with a woman, but that's because I don't believe in inherent immutable differences between men and women lol, I think every male character is theoretically interchangeable with a woman and vice versa (though it may not have the same meaning/tone/impact to a general audience.) But any woman in his place would also be androgynous and have lots of masculine traits, because Griffith also has masculine traits, and that's kinda my point here lol.
Like, his pursuit of a dream is strongly coded as masculine in the text of the story, when he describes a dream as something men specifically need in his speech to Charlotte. His role as a mercenary leader is masculine, as is his skill on the battlefield. His guilt and empathy is more feminine, but his ability to push it down and continue climbing his mountain of corpses is masculine. Obviously Femto's rape of Casca is pretty overtly masculine, and one of the few scenes where he is almost pointedly not objectified at all by the art. He's gunning for emperor, which can be understood as the ultimate patriarchal figure. etc.
Anyway yeah, I wouldn't really reduce him down to just feminine or just masculine, he's androgynous both in appearance and in story role imo. But yeah it makes sense that a lot of his story, and his thematic role in the narrative as someone pedestalized and objectified, would resonate with a lot of women, so I don't disagree with you.
If you're interested on more on Berserk and gender and don't mind getting a little silly with it, I also have this post that digs into a lot of the freudian symbolism, some of which relates to Griffith and femininity. And here's a couple of posts about Griffith and objectification if you want more on that.
Necessary disclaimers: femininity and masculinity are categories of traits invented by society, so saying something about Griffith is feminine is not the same as saying it's something inherent to all women, or something all women can relate to, or whatever else. Again, I don't believe in gender essentialism. It's saying that according to normative society (and/or the context of the narrative) these traits are gendered in certain ways.
But which traits are considered masculine or feminine also vary from society to society (including subcultures, incidentally) because they're socially constructed rather than inherent. And I'm not an expert on the nuances of gender roles in Japan. I know there are a lot of similarities but also some differences, and while I think I mostly touched on the stuff that doesn't vary between North American and Japanese cultures, I'm not 100% sure on that, so apologies if I'm wrong about something being gendered one way or the other here.
Anyway yeah, thanks for the ask!
