#theme: opinion

[bthump]

Hi!!! May i know what are the chapters you love the most and why? :))

Sorry this took a while to answer, I had a cold for the last week lol so I haven't felt like writing anything in depth.

I'll give you a tentative top ten. It's really hard to settle on chapters lol and there are a bunch of others I could've included, but we'll go with these for today:

2a - The Brand

I was torn between this and chapter 1 because I think it's genuinely a great introduction to the story and I love the Black Swordsman arc in general. But I went with chapter 2 because it has juicier hints at backstory and starts digging into Guts' vulnerabilities, while also demonstrating the terrible attitude that makes him monstrous. He's a good character!

7a - Guardians of Desire 5

The way the rest of the Black Swordsman arc exists to ask the question: 'what the fuck happened to this dude?' and the answer we get is: 'got murder-suicide divorced by some guy' is just peak. Then on top of that you have Femto's pettiness, Guts' rage and yet need for Femto's attention despite it, and the amazing panel above.

It's just such a good parallel to introduce us to Guts and Griffith's relationship, and a perfectly intriguing foundation to build the Golden Age on.

7 - Master of the Sword 2

"Do I need a reason each time I put myself in harm's way for your sake?" This is the high point of the Golden Age and Guts' life in general. The scene on the rooftop when Guts dedicates his sword to Griffith is the most fulfilled he's ever been in his life, and that will inform every choice he makes from this point forward. And it's just so romantic!

17 - Casca 3

We get Griffith's backstory and it's just perfect. This is where Griffith's character comes together and we're able to fully understand him as a person. We first see him as a demonic villain, and then as an ambitious, somewhat unknowable and emotionally distanced human who we're meant to believe sacrificed Guts for the sake of his dream, and now as a fully fleshed out fucked up person who is driven by irrational emotion, rather than truly lofty ideals, but can't admit it to himself because he is dependent on those ideals to cope, essentially. It perfectly lays out Berserk's theme of dreams as coping mechanisms, and it makes Griffith extremely compelling as a character. A+

27 - The Battle for Doldrey 5

I don't really have anything deep to say about this one lol, Miura just writes a hell of an action scene, and I think the Battle for Doldrey is the most gripping one in the story. I picked this chapter in particular out of the Doldrey chapters because it's such a satisfying climax, and it's my favourite Casca moment in the story.

32 - Tombstone of Flame 2

First of all it's awesome, but also it's a perfect showcase of Griffith's character. We see him triumphant, at the height of his abilities. He pulls off an incredible scheme to assassinate all his current enemies at once immediately after they thought they'd killed him, and it's cool as hell. He's intimidating and suave and totally in control.

And then you have the somber second half of the chapter, where Guts and Griffith talk alone after Guts kills the hired goons. Griffith insists on leaving their earned money with their corpses, demonstrating guilt for their deaths that he'd never admit (and which Guts doesn't share.) Griffith describes their actions as filthy and asks if Guts thinks he's cruel for dragging him into it, and Guts accidentally fails him completely here by reinforcing his dream, because he can't comprehend Griffith's vulnerability now, after the Promrose Hall speech. It's such a good misunderstanding, so rooted in the characters and their flaws. Berserk is like a manual on how to write a misunderstanding well. And it's subtle too - we only really understand how pivotal this moment is when the Godhand play it back to Griffith to get him to make the sacrifice. I love it!

49 - Infiltrating Wyndham 1

It's Griffith's monologue, it's my favourite scene in the manga lol. It's basically a point by point breakdown of my absolute favourite romance tropes. It's also such good classic tragedy - Griffith not understanding this until now is why Guts left and he ended up in a torture chamber. He learns the lesson he needed to learn, but only when it's too late to change anything.

Also has some great ominous vibes.

78 - Parting

I generally consider "Out of thousands of comrades and tens of thousands of enemies, you're the only one... you're the only one who made me forget my dream. I sacrifice." to be maybe the best moment of the manga, or at least top 3. It's just the perfect climax to the Golden Age, and the perfect culmination of Griffith and Guts' arcs. It's so intense, so romantic, so well executed, so epic, it just works in every way.

179 - The Beast Swordsman vs The Black Swordsman

This is basically a tie with 177 and 178 as well, but I picked this chapter because it has these two pages. Griffith feeling his heart start to beat and thinking it must be the fetus, and Guts on the next page in perfect, conclusive counterpoint:

Like that is quite possibly the most satisfying page we could have possibly seen post-Eclipse. That's what it's all about baby!

250 - Homing

This chapter is probably an odd choice for a top 10 lol, but I really love it for how it states one of my favourite themes of the story so well. It's mutual relationships vs isolation, humanity vs monstrousness. And it ends on Griffith, alone, making it very clear that Sonia and Irvine are both parallels to him. Griffith is the Absolute, without equal, and therefore he's monstrous, like Irvine. But like Sonia, there is part of him that longs for an equal, for a companion. Irvine also covers Sonia with his cloak when she falls asleep, showing that no one is purely a monster. Everyone has the capacity to connect with others.

it's also funny, and I love seeing this casual domestic side of NGriff's narrative, like his jokey exchange with Sonia and Mule and complimenting Charlotte's cake. Maybe appropriately considering the theme of this chapter, it's one of the few scenes where we get to see how NGriff just like, interacts with people on a day to day basis. And given that theme, I don't think we're meant to see it as purely manipulative acting to seem personable either.

Also I want to add a shoutout to chapters 67-73, I wanted at least one of them on here but I ended up bumping it for Griffith's torture chamber monologue. But the stretch from Armour to the Heart to Eclipse is practically perfect, and always makes me physically ache to read. The melancholy atmosphere leading up to Griffith's final breaking point is just flawless. Start of the Everlasting Night was also almost on here, but I figured the Charlotte sex scene annoys me just enough to put it slightly below the top ten lol.

Thanks for the ask!

[bthump]

Hiii! Why do the berserk fandom here accuse you of hating on Casca 😭😭

Well I had one(1) exchange with someone two years ago who accused me of hating Casca, and I was told that they complained about me in a few posts afterwards, so lol if it's the same person with a chip on their shoulder. I don't remember their username and I think I blocked them (though maybe I didn't, bc it takes a lot for me to block someone) but iirc they had a relatively popular blog and they cohosted some Berserk podcast? So they might have some clout in the fandom. Maybe they complained about me enough that I have a reputation now lol?

iirc they were mad because I think Casca's post-Eclipse storyline completely sucks in every way, I want her to become an apostle and stir things up and express rage rather than ending the story as a happy wife and mother, and I think they took a post where I said I would've preferred her to get a badass death during the Eclipse like the rest of the Hawks rather than spending 20 years as a fanservicey toddler who gets sexually assaulted like 10 more times and ran with it as me wishing death on rape survivors lol

This didn't come up back then as far as I remember, but for what it's worth I also believe that it's fine to dislike fictional characters because you don't like how they're written, as long as you don't express that dislike in offensive ways. So I have friends and mutuals who do dislike Casca as a character, and I think that's ok👍 Overall she is pretty objectively a poorly written character and no one is obligated to love her despite that.

Anyway, you may already know my thoughts on Casca if you've followed me for a whlie, but if you haven't I'll also add that in fact I personally do like her a lot, despite being very disappointed in her writing.

I was won over by her early role in the story as Guts' rival and Griffith's right hand woman, and Miura retconning her motivations to be purely about unrequited love and damseling her over and over and over and over and over somehow didn't manage to kill that love. I think it's possible to read a lot of interesting (and likely unintended) complexity into her Golden Age storyline, and I find her compelling and loveable when she has a personality.

But I do have a lot of negative things to say about how Miura wrote her. If you're curious about my thoughts on her and want to decide for yourself whether I hate her or not, I have a Casca tag, and the majority of the meta in the Other Characters section of this post is about Casca.

And honestly if you are new to my blog thanks for asking instead of just believing that I'm a hater lol. I'm a hater of many things but Casca managed to escape my hatred despite how badly she's been written for like 3/4ths of the manga.

[bthump]

i feel like you've already gotten this ask but favorite griffith panels?

Thanks for the ask!

blushy over Guts in ch 1:

Griffith letting his hair down while killing a bunch of people in ch 32:

"How long ago did someone I was supposed to have in hand instead gain such a strong hold on me?" is like my favourite ship dynamic in a nutshell:

Final smile at Guts during the sacrifice:

If we can include Femto, I love the "still squirming around in your pitiful existence" bitchy ex moment <3:

I'm counting the "stolen from the past page" even if it's just Guts' memory:

[bthump]

Do you think Griffith has narcissim?

Man sorry this took so long to answer, I wanted to write a thorough response since it's such a common take in fandom and something I've been asked in various ways a few times, and I just didn't have the mental energy for a while. Even this isn't really that thorough lol, but it's better than continuing to procrastinate.

So my anwer is no, for a few reasons:

1 - I just don't do armchair character diagnosis. There are occasional cases where it's very clearly something intended on the part of the writer, especially these days where everyone's more aware of basic psychiatric diagnoses thanks to everyone using them as insults on social media lol, but imo it's pretty rare that having an understanding of the DSM diagnostic criteria for any given mental illness or personality disorder furthers one's understanding of a story.

As a general principle I avoid bringing specialized knowledge into analysis. Sure, sometimes if an author is referencing something, having an understanding of it can like, help you predict the story, or maybe clue you into themes that you otherwise would've missed, but those themes should be understandable even without that niche knowledge (at least in popular media for a general audience.) Like, you don't need to have read Nietzsche to understand what's meant by "He who fights monsters should take care lest he become a monster." And you don't need to have read the DSM entry on PTSD to recognize trauma as a major theme of the story.

It's possible that knowing and adhering to the diagnostic criteria and official symptoms of PTSD or other expressions of trauma would actually hinder your understanding of the story, since Miura is not very realistic when it comes to depicting trauma lol. Like, see Casca for example, whose portrayal is not a realistic depiction of either regression or a fugue state, it's just an exaggerated fiction in every way.

(And of course what counts as "common knowledge" is hard to pin down and varies from culture to culture and generation to generation, so there's always gonna be some wiggle room here, but yk, I think it works as a general rule to not bring specialized knowledge into media analysis.

Also this is just me. There are academically accepted forms of analysis where bringing in your own niche knowledge is perfectly fine (eg reader response analysis) but that ain't my bag.)

2 - Psychiatry is also a field with a lot of problems and biases, many of which seep into the public consciousness and therefore the layman's understanding of MI. Think about black kids being disproportionately diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant disorder and its controversy as a diagnosis in general, that kind of thing.

And narcissism has a whole cottage industry of influencers making bank off of convincing people that everyone they don't like is a narcissist lol.

I have 0 interest in trying to untangle its potential validity as a diagnosis from how it's used commonly by people as an armchair diagnosis because I'm not a psychiatrist and I don't really care lol. But when it comes to people calling Griffith a narcissist, I think it's firmly rooted in its use as a convenient insult that makes you sound smart, rather than like, a reasonable understanding of either his character or narcissism.

And nothing about the story makes me think narcissism is relevant to its themes lol, or something Miura intended to be applied to Griffith in the slightest.

3 - I briefly considered turning to like web md and looking up the diagnostic criteria for narcissism and going point by point explaining how it doesn't fit Griffith, but honestly that sounds boring to me lol.

So I'll just say that the things people usually point to when they call Griffith a narcissist, ie saying he's controlling, that he's egotistical, that he doesn't care about anyone except himself, whatever else, are all just completely incorrect takes on Griffith as a character, and the story as a whole.

The Golden Age straight up doesn't work as a narrative if Griffith only cares about himself. It's a story about good intentions paving the road to hell. The main emotional hook of Griffith's character is that he cares too much about other people. He's driven almost entirely by guilt. He cares deeply for his friends, but he denies that to himself because he's a mercenary leader and his friends risk death for him every day, and he feels guilty about that. His dream of a utopian kingdom is rooted in wanting a place free from exploitation of the powerless by the powerful.

And thematically, Berserk is a story about how choices shape people, not about how choices reveal who you really are deep down. This theme doesn't work if Griffith was born with a personality disorder that (at least according to what the type of person who calls Griffith a narcissist thinks) makes you fundamentally a bad person.

Griffith becomes a monster because again, a lot of well-meaning choices and actions sent him down a path that ended there. It's a big part of what makes the Golden Age so tragic. He doesn't become a monster because he was already secretly a monster deep down. Griffith's Golden Age narrative is a negative character arc demonstrating how Griffith changes due to fatal flaws he could have theoretically overcome, but didn't. And those flaws are things like being driven by guilt, denying his feelings to himself as a defense mechanism, and self loathing. Not like, egotism.

That said, all those points require like, full essays behind them if you're new to my blog lol, because they run very counter to how most of the fandom views Griffith. So I'm gonna link some posts about my take on Griffith that are relevant, if you're interested.

Griffith and power/control/equality Griffith and sex (wrt power/control) Griffith's self loathing Griffith's morality compared to Guts The Promrose Hall speech Griffith's second duel breakdown Griffith putting the Hawks at a distance and finally The Super Long Griffith Essay which fully explains basically everything I feel is relevant about Griffith's Golden Age narrative and character and tells you exactly how I view him, which is very far from narcissistic.

Thanks for the ask!

[bthump]

What is something you lowkey miss about the golden age? For me its the beautiful love interest shots Griffith gets to go through (hope you know what I'm talking about lmao)

You mean like this?

bc yeah these kinds of panels are amazing.

tbh there are lots of things I miss about the Golden Age, since it's my favourite arc. Griffith and Guts interacting regularly, Casca being a character, the side characters having well-defined roles without taking too much time away from the mains lol, the art style, the imo perfect pacing...

I think if I had to choose one thing though I might actually go with the ominous tone lol. I looove how we go into the Golden Age knowing it ends in tragedy, and it would be nice to have that kind of assurance right now with the current plot lol, since I'm kinda twiddling my thumbs and waiting for something bad to happen.

Thanks for the ask!

[bthump]

I think you talked about how Casca’s trauma is represented is unrealistic and disrespectful which i agree with. If you had the chance how would you have done it? I think I would’ve just cut the SA entirely and made her arc more about grief and feeling powerless and scared to fight again, idk I’m not a writer but Id like anything that doesn’t feel like it was made to just remove her from the story for 20 years lol

Idk if the stipulations are that she has to survive with some trauma represented post-Eclipse, then I guess what I'd do is give her the same trauma as Guts, ie watching all her friends suffer and die horribly and being betrayed and maybe maimed in some way (not rape), and then give her a secondary narrative where the way she deals with the trauma is paralleled and contrasted to Guts.

Like maybe she gets the behelit and he gets the armour, or vice versa if the Black Swordsman arc is already written lol. And they have to go their separate ways because worldbuilding establishes that having two branded people in the same place for any amount of time causes astral plane chaos, but also neither of them wants to deal with the other anyway so they're fine with that.

I would dislike it if Casca got the wholesome healing narrative and Guts got the violence and rage narrative though :/ Maybe they demonstrate opposite spectrums of negative reactions to trauma - like Guts gets obsessive and violent and goes on a revenge rampage, while Casca becomes cold and aloof and numb? Idk what her narrative could be about in terms of plot though. Maybe she's the one who meets Farnese and has kinky sexual tension with her, and Guts ends up at the Tower of Conviction through his monster-hunting, and then a version of the Conviction arc and Griffith's resurrection happens while they're in the same area? Then some other plot happens to distract them from Griffith for a while?

I think there's a way the Eclipse rape could even be incorporated if it was depicted in a much less misogynist way and her trauma after was focused on, rather than just transforming her into a personality-less plot device. But in terms of personal preference, I'm more interested in a story where she isn't raped, so yeah.

Idk. Miura kinda wrote himself into a corner by not including Casca during the Black Swordsman arc but then having her survive the Eclipse, so I can see why he felt he had to find some way to write her out. I think having her die a cool, non-sexual death with the rest of the Hawks would've been more fitting and a lot less misogynist overall lol, but failing that then imo she should've stayed a character and gotten a chunk of the story focused on her own post-Eclipse arc.

Alternately maybe she could just go off on her own without the narrative following her side of the story for a while, maybe becoming a tertiary character who occasionally returns to contribute something and justify her improbable survival narratively, a la Rickert but with more plot impact? It would probably be less clunky and more streamlined which I prefer when it comes to plotting, but could also easily feel cheap and still somewhat misogynist if only Guts' trauma gets focused on, so idk.

I think it's a tricky situation to write any way you slice it really.

Thanks for the ask!

[bthump]

Comin at you with another ask (not that you’d know since I’m anon lol) but would love to hear your thoughts on Casca’s dream arc. Personally, on one hand I’m glad it was at least the other 2 female leads who got to be the focus of those chapters. But on the other hand I felt like it was the most shallow visual portrayal of SA survivor-dom I’ve seen in a long time. Like a broken doll and penis monsters and Casca not even getting to be a part of her own “rescue” (unless you count tiny casca I guess.) It all just de-personalized her further for me. I fear we will never get the “what you want may not be the same as what she wants” follow-up in a satisfying way that reminds the readers (and guts) that she has been and is her own person, and not just a beacon to hold onto.

Also, I’ve been reading through your metas after my recent reread and they have elevated the source material so much for me! Berserk fandom is impossible to interact with because you’re guranteed to step on a million land mines every time you try, so it’s prevented me from really sinking my teeth into the writing the way I’ve wanted to till now.

Thank you! I'm glad you've been enjoying my blog!

My thoughts on Casca's dream arc are basically identical to yours lol. My main impression of it was "not as bad as it could've been, but incredibly lacklustre."

It was nice to see the women do something, and I thought that the depiction of the eclipse and rape from Casca's point of view on like 2 pages at the end was actually pretty good, visually. Tasteful, and the image of Judeau gave me feelings. I also liked some of the thematic implications - the thorn symbolism, the suggestion that Casca's trauma isn't fixed (though ffs story can we do something with that??? ever???) and the Guts in Casca's mind endangering her to fight Griffith. Also dog!Guts' incredibly phallic sword lol. Casca gets it.

But yeah it could've been so much better. The dick monsters and broken doll symbolism are so half-assed, Schierke and Farnese navigating the world with like, helpful items from their journey was also very basic and boring to me lol, and I was disappointed that we got no insights on the trip through Casca's Golden Age memories, it was all just scenes we'd already seen (drawn worse) and stuff we already knew. Just nostalgia fanservice.

Thanks for the ask!

[bthump]

Hello, hope you're doing good! I'm so happy i found someone that has passion for this specific aspect of berserk. I wanted to ask what was your favorite post-eclipse guts moment, aside from the ones that involve griffith. Thank you fir your time! Have a great day

Hi, hope you're also good!

Thanks for asking!

My immediate first thought was the Guts + Zodd team up to fight Ganishka. I always love a fun enemies teaming up against someone worse scene.

Guts and Serpico's homoerotically charged first meeting is up there too though.

And I also really love the scene where Guts finally caves and invites Puck along with him at the end of the Lost Children arc.

Finally, I'm not sure if this counts since it's post-Eclipse chronologically but narratively it comes way before, but I gotta mention the first scene where Guts seems more "monstrous" than the monsters he's fighting, since I love that theme so much, especially in the Black Swordsman arc:

Man and since I've brought up the Black Swordsman arc, let's make it a top five and add the possession scene in chapter 4:

Honestly I love basically every scene where Guts has to contend with his own monstrousness. The ghosts taunting him in chapter 2, and chapter 118, the beast of darkness taunting him about Casca, like all the apostle fights, I love that shit.

How about you, do you have a favourite?