#theme: isolation

[raayllum]

The way Soren was once told he had to do things alone and that whole experience wounded him so deeply

he never wants his friends to feel that way again

[bthump]

Whatre ur thoughts on the Spring Flowers of Distant Days (329-330)? Imo theyre a nice return to the heart of the story which was always psychological more than Fight Big Monster With Big Sword Evil Spirits Begone ectetc touching in themes of protecting "precious things", struggle/survival, regret, deceit, and gratitude. I'm sure u could also read into the whole "equality in relationships" message with Guts trying to return the favor (to the flower and Martino)? Really nice after the seagod/godforsaken Boat Arc.

what's ur opinion on the chitch chapters? i liked that they returned to guts's personal history & psyche after The Boat

lol sorry if these are both you and you thought I'd missed or ignored the first ask. I've been getting a lot of them recently and sometimes the ones that require a more in depth answer take a while for me to answer.

Anyway yeah I agree that this flashback felt like a breath of fresh air after the boat arc especially. It was also really nice to get a reference to Guts' csa trauma after it's felt forgotten about since like, the literal 90s lol. One thing I'd really missed about most of the post-Eclipse story is the sense that Guts is driven by deep-seated fear - not just of his friends getting killed or of losing control, but fear for himself. I don't know if that reference was meant to suggest a return to that aspect of Guts' psychology or was just like, a way of underlining Guts' attitude as a teenager, but it was still good to see.

Loved the Gambino flashbacks too, really gratifying throwback there. (Though it really highlights the art shift in ways I don't enjoy lol, I 100% prefer the early Black Swordsman era art to Fantasia era art.)

It was also quite touching, and had a good sense of aching futility to it. Reminds me a little of the tone of Requiem of the Wind, the chapter shortly before the Eclipse.

So yeah, that's my like, emotional response to it.

On an analytical level, I want to read it as like, essentially an allegory for the cycles of Guts' life, and foreshadowing for the ending of the story. In some ways the allegorical aspect of this sequence is really obvious lol. Like Guts is en route to die building a castle at the start, and Chitch is explicitly an aspect of Guts - his own "weakness," as Guts says, ie probably his humanity, certainly the part of him that longs for companionship and likely the part that wants to help others and do the right thing.

The hill where all of Chitch's "buddies" will find her really feels like a reference to the hill of swords to me, and probably therefore Guts' eventual death. The repeated use of "buddies" to reference both the Hawks and Chitch's flowers seems really deliberate on the translator's part, but also it's just vibes.

The rest can be filled in from there, and some inferences can be made. An older figure who parallels Gambino seems to save Guts from his fate of dying for that castle, but it turns out he was using him for his own ends, to eventually defeat the nobleman who owns that castle.

Seems like Skull Knight, who we know is using Guts for his own ends and wants to destroy Griffith and the Godhand, though I don't think we've seen the betrayal yet (unless providing him with the armour IS the betrayal and we just haven't seen the bad result of that yet.)

I don't think we can get too specific with predicting things based on this allegory (like there will surely be a climactic fight scene, but I don't necessarily think it'll be because Griffith kidnaps Guts and forces him to fight to the death yk) but I think the broad thematic strokes are here and many aspects are already being foreshadowed.

Chitch overextends herself because she gets too caught up in one thing and loses sight of the consequences, which is how Godo once described Guts.

This is likely referencing Guts relying on the Berserk armour, which saps out his humanity.

Chitch's flower ending up crushed could foreshadow Guts' death, or Guts becoming a monster through either the armour or the behelit. Or both - Guts becomes a monster, but maybe manages to die with his humanity intact, or salvages his humanity in death, rejoining the Hawks and maybe even Griffith. He is, after all, framed as the most important of the friends Guts would put his life on the line for. "For him... for them."

Or maybe he doesn't, maybe he dies (or lives) a monster and his od can only "become one" with other monsters in the afterlife. It's ambiguous whether Chitch does join the other flowers, after all.

I also love this page where Chitch describes the cycle of night and day in a way that epitomizes the cycle Guts is caught in of experiencing the potential for happiness and companionship but never fully trusting it, trying to keep it at a distance, even resenting it, because he feels like it can't last thanks to what's happened in his past. The Eclipse obviously, but maybe even the way his time with his first mercenary band ended.

Loneliness and isolation has always been depicted as darkness, and companionship has always been depicted as light, so this is very in keeping with that imagery.

So yeah, I feel like there's a lot to chew on in these chapters thematically. They kinda sum up a lot of Berserk's themes and how Guts' character intersects with them in a neat little self-contained parable.

All that and it's a satisfying throwback to early Berserk. Hard not to love this sequence imo.

Thanks for the ask!

[shadowatching]

For the self description thingy: im an extravert kinda girl with short blonde hair and green eyes. I love reading and spending time with my friends. I spend most of my time learning for uni in my room (it has a balconyyyy) and have no real experience with dating/relationships. Im very argumentative :)

                   HOW WOULD THEY BREAK YOU? ( CLOSED )  –   6 / 21

Rating: Sa/fe for w/ork

Warnings: The standard fare; kidnapping, captivity, manipulation, drugging / nonconsensual use of drugs, nausea / vomiting / emetophobia, vitamin d deficiency, isolation, strangulation, abusive relationships, physical violence, confinement to indoors.

                                              ———————————————-

Genji: (pre-overwatch)

Why he’d match well with you:

- Likes to be the first and only. He’s selfish that way.

- No experience means he can mold you however he wants.

- Genji might like fun, experienced playmates, but he can sense inexperience like blood in the water. The soft eyes and subtle hesitation are irresistible.

- He’s not a stranger to western features in his dates, or even blondes- but those golden strands are so fine and soft in comparison. It’s like touching an exotic animal. And green eyes! Such a rare contrast, but so fitting for you. He’ll make them shine so beautifully with tears and shame.

- You never back down from a dogfight, and behind those sharp words, he knows there’s a fiery will he’s going to have so much fun with.

                                               ———————————————-

How he’d break you:

- Although Genji has a habit of breaking his toys, he wants to enjoy the slow burn of watching you crumble. Not too fast, not too easy. He’s going to drag this out. You’re so beautiful in misery.

- He’s going to keep you on the edge. You’re no fun, dull and broken. No, the determination that hardens your eyes and sets hard in your jaw is what makes you interesting. As much as he wants to reach inside of your chest and grip that small, fluttering thing of will and snap its neck, he needs to have self control with you. Genji has plans for you.

- There’s so much thrill to be had, he hardly knows where to start. But after watching you for a few days, of setting his heart on caging you in his hands, he makes his move.

- Chats you up in a bar, is pleased beyond measure when you’re receptive. Behaves like a perfect gentleman, even protecting you from the made-up offenses of other men. Convinces you he’s a nice guy, and makes sure you’ve had a few drinks. Slowly, you guard slips, and he uses the opportunity to take liberties with your drink.

- Flawlessly plays the part of concern when you start stumbling, and holds your hair when the nausea hits. When you’re too heavily under his drugs to see straight, he leads you gently by the hands into a sleek, nondescript car, coaxing you with gentle words all the way.

- “Someone must’ve slipped you something. Don’t worry, I’ll get you home safe.”

- You’re too suggestible to have doubts. In fact, you won’t remember this at all.

- When you come to with a pounding head and shaky limbs, you’re in nothing but your underwear and an old t-shirt that doesn’t belong to you, but smells sickeningly familiar. You stumble out of a bed that you don’t remember getting into, sheets tangling around your wobbling knees.

- The door is locked.

- Someone sighs from the mess of bedding, deep and soft with sleep. They turn over, and you see a flash of green.

- The shade makes your stomach roil with nausea. Watery memories slip through your fingers; dizziness and a deep timbre laugh. Warm hands closing around your fingers. Something cool under your cheek. The smell of oiled leather.

- The nightmare begins.

- Genji, whose name you come to believe is actually a little-known moniker of the devil, likes to keep you locked away in his room. For weeks at a time, you won’t feel the sun on your face or breathe in fresh mountain air.

- Even the windows remain stubbornly shuttered and locked. You begin to feel pale and sickly. Genji notices, and he smiles with too many teeth.

- He knows about that cherished balcony. Knows how you loved study in the open air, books spread around you like a paper halo. It’s deeply satisfying when you begin to wilt without it.

- The food is exquisite, but absolutely laced with drugs. The sickening clench of your stomach that accompanies the few hours after a meal are purely a token of cruelty. Reprimanding you for losing your stomach is a fun game.

- “What, not good enough for you delicate sensibilities? Someone slaved for over that for hours, you know. So sorry all that hard work didn’t meet your lofty standards.”

- Without the sun, your circadian rhythm is derailed completely. You never know what time it is, morning or evening, night or day. Genji’s comings and goings are purposefully erratic.

- There’s nothing to occupy you for the hours he’s away- but you can count on his absences never stretching longer than a scant day. He keeps you in his own room, which is very much lived in- but he also craves you like an addiction, and can’t stay away for long.

- You find yourself looking forward to his company. It disgusts you, and yet you haven’t seen another human face in all the time you’ve been here. You don’t know how long you’ve been here. Months? A year? The thought rocks your brain like a storm-battered ship. It takes you several minutes to remember how to breathe.

- When you open your eyes, Genji is crouched in front of you, arms slung over his knees and head cocked to the side. You want to yell- you used to yell until you went hoarse, to argue anything he said or did.

- He’d just gather up your wrists, laughing, and collapse the two of you on the mattress until you settled or he fell asleep. Arguing was a piece of who you were, before all of this. Genji had sucked it dry, amusement glinting in his eyes whenever you went off or made an attempt at disagreement.

- Sometimes, he’d indulge you, let you argue with him, would even bait you into it. And then,

- “Hey, you know what I just remembered? That it doesn’t fucking matter what you think.”

- And if the mood struck him, a pair of hands would wrap around your throat until you saw spots, until your arms wouldn’t lift to claw at his wrists. Then the pressure would release, and you’d suck down air in sweet, stinging gulps. Bursts of unhealthy color wrap around your neck like phantom imprints, slowly choking the life from you.

- He traces them with a gentle finger, and smiles. This time, it’s soft; genuine. It frightens you, more unnerving than his predatory grins.

- “I hope you never stop fighting me, babe. ‘Cause you’re gonna be here for a long time. Better make the best of it!”

[bthump]

What are your favourite Berserk symbols?

I'm assuming you mean like, usages of symbolism as a narrative device rather than symbols within canon like the brand of sacrifice or the hawk emblem.

In which case I gotta say I really like the thorns as a symbol of trauma, or like, more specifically the self-destructive lashing out people do when they're traumatized.

Also I can't deny that I enjoy the freudian symbolism too. Swords are dicks and sometimes that makes Berserk extra fun.

The Hawk mask as a concrete symbol for self-imposed isolation and emotional distance is excellent imo. That can also be generalized to dreams as a symbol for emotional distance, but I like the helmet as a visual. The helmet as his signature look as leader of the Hawks, trying to distance himself from his friends because they have a tendency to die for him; then locked onto him during his torture after Guts abandons him because of that distance and he finds himself truly all alone; and then physically part of him as Femto after he's sacrificed everyone he cares about and removed (or tried to remove) all emotional connections he had left; and then a part of NeoGriffith's main outfit almost as if coming full circle.

Maybe a sign that he's choosing to distance himself again but there is a choice now? Or maybe it is still metaphysically part of him. Either way I'm into it as a look that shows how removed he is from others while tying the metaphysical nature of that removal now to his deliberate choice to distance himself as the human leader of the Hawks.

So yeah, let's go with those three. Really there are a ton of symbols in Berserk I could throw out there and they're all great, but those leapt to mind first and I'm very into them.

Thanks for the ask!

[bthump]

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!

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Would you say Griffith was persived more as an object/symbol, as someone perfect and not so much as a human being capable of great deeds, but also mistakes by his fellow Hawks and if so, how did he feel about that? How was his mentality affected by that? Was he afraid of showing weakness?

Sorry this took a while, I haven't really been in the right mindset for writing meta recently.

But yeah I have definitely said that, and I think it's a major theme of Griffith's story. I think it isolated him emotionally, and it's a big part of why, as Casca says, he "has to make himself strong." Rather than opening up to and letting himself rely on other people, he stays isolated to keep up his image.

And yeah I think he definitely avoided showing weakness, both for the sake of his image, and his own perception of himself imo. Like in Casca's flashback when he has a breakdown in front of her, the way he realizes when she tries to comfort him and turns it around on her was very telling imo. He needs to feel like the strong perfect one.

It's like, a feedback loop in a way - Griffith isolates himself and appears perfect, people see Griffith as perfect admire him, this isolates Griffith further and influences Griffith to buy his own self-image to some extent. Not that Griffith believes he's perfect, but Griffith believes he needs to appear that way for the sake of others, and that he is capable of upholding that image and playing the part.

And eventually he essentially embodies that image as NeoGriffith.

I think it's very tragic for him.

Thanks for the ask and your patience!

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This is a really stupid question but I would likr to know ur take on this....

Do you think Neo!Griffith cares for Sonia, Mule or the new hawks at all??

I doubt he does but Ive just always been really confused over Neo!Griffith and his emotions... They are way more ambigious in comparassion to Golden age!Griffith where we actually got much more ideas over what he is truly feeling.

Idt this is a stupid question at all, it's interesting!

The manga is deliberately ambiguous about NGriff's feelings, and there are a lot of hints that he feels some kind of way about the old Band of the Hawk, and potentially that he's trying to replace them. He invited Rickert to join him for a reason, and Rickert's rejection highlighted Griffith's emotional ambiguity - his face as Rickert leaves is hidden, Rickert's rejection leaves him essentially speechless which is wild for a demi-god with magical charisma powers who never misses a step, he can only agree with Rickert that the new Band and the new Griffith aren't the same as the old, and the possibility is left open that he tried to have Rickert killed after this - and even if that was Locus instead, the fact that it's a possibility means that we're meant to consider that Griffith had a strong negative emotional reaction to Rickert's rejection.

On top of that there have been other strong hints that he's lonely, like the portrait at the end of chapter 250, aka the chapter all about the inherent loneliness of monsters and magical beings; the fact that he's described as "the absolute, without equal" which is very loaded in a story where Griffith once made a speech about how he can only be friends with an equal; the parallels to Guts' storyline of making new friends but being removed from them; the parallels to Guts' "don't abandon what you can't replace" and "even if you replace what you lost... it still won't be the same" themes; the parallel to Ganishka and his extreme loneliness and isolation; and, most overtly, the latest chapter where the dream-like memories of hanging out with Guts and Casca make him cry lol.

So there's absolutely room for him to have feelings about the new Band and his new "friends."

Idk whether I'd guess that he actually cares for them though. I think in a way he might. He's probably fond of them, I'm sure he'd act to prevent their deaths (unless he wanted them to die for some reason), and the way he behaves around them maybe indicates that he wants to be liked, not just admired from afar - asking about Sonia and Mule's day, complimenting Charlotte's baking and tea and whatever else, letting Sonia play with his cape, etc.

But I'd suggest that to him they're a poor replacement for the original Band of the Hawk. I think he misses the closeness he had with Guts and even Casca and the rest despite being emotionally removed from them - he was still closer to the band as a human than he can be now as a demi-god on another level of existential awareness.

His new companions might be an attempt to mitigate that sense of loss, but ultimately a failed attempt, imo.

Thanks for the ask!

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Hi :) sorry this may sound a bit confusing

The bond between Neo Griffith and the moon child with Guts is just a result of the feelings of the fetus that fused into Neo Griffith's vessel? Are these just feelings of a child to his parent? There is nothing in Neo Griffith/the moon child of the Griffith before the eclipse?

About Griffiths frozen heart, Griffith goes to see Guts at the tower of conviction but I don't remember his heart beating till he goes to see Guts again alone since there were too many people. And the whole reason he goes to see him was to see if anything could shake his heart, which it did when they're face to face. It's so clear NGriff still thinks about Guts and prioritizes him, how can anyone think it's MB

I’m putting these asks together because it’s essentially the same subject.

I definitely don’t think NGriff’s heart beating and implied feelings are a result of the fetus/Moonlight Boy. I’m pretty much certain they’re his own real feelings, at the very least when it comes to Guts, if not necessarily Casca. I’ve gone over my thoughts on this pretty extensively so I’ll link a bunch of posts here that basically just agree with Anon #2.

Why I’m sure NGriff still has feelings based on an analysis of two significant scenes

More thorough analysis of the Hill of Swords scene to that same effect

NGriff’s feelings wrt Rickert that should have nothing to do with the fetus

And more on that

NGriff and loneliness

More on NGriff and loneliness

Thematic set-up for NGriff and Guts having a climactic moment of emotional catharsis that should obviously involve real feelings

NGriff and Ganishka parallels and more on that emotional catharsis

Basically, there’s every indication given that NGriff’s feelings are his real human feelings, from the basic visual components of storytelling to the entire weight and thrust of the narrative to implications and foreshadowing to parallels to pure plot-based logic.

Thanks for the asks!