#bejelit

I just finished watching Berserk’s third movie and I’m BROKEN… I’m literally broken in tears and it’s not even like I didn’t already know what was going to happen! I read the whole manga first and the eclipse made me cry like a lost baby, BUT the impact of some particular scenes ANIMATED is completely different. I think the story reached its darkest phase with the eclipse, firstly because we have to witness the pitiful shadow of a man Griffith has become, secondly because nothing makes sense anymore. Past, present, future, all the memories and the dreams that were shared between those people are gone forever. The eclipse literally absorbed in itself all the light everyone treasured deeply in their hearts. I don’t want to write a long post about Griffith, because I don’t think I’ve gathered enough clarity to complete such a task, but I definitely would like to… This character is extremely complex, even if now he is a creature made not to be recognizable or comprehensible, his past human self was full of angles and flaws and sadness, silenced and suffocated into a fragile cage made up from ego and remorse. Griffith was a walking disaster and I’m sure that he’s a victim in a sense… Fate, Fortune, whatever… this awful wheel pulled him closer and closer since the very beginning, his childhood was already marked by the red behelit. In my opinion, the influx of that thing was ALWAYS present and helped him, in a way or another. A canonical proof of my assumption is Griffith’s “miraculous” survival during the fox hunting ceremony. The behelit was just THERE, ready to be pierced by a poisoned arrow. Too convenient, right? Griffith was helped by the “confidence of the conqueror” since his early days, when he moved his first steps towards an incredible dream. Yes, incredible, because Griffith’s ambition was too high to be reached by a mere human, born in poverty. But the funny thing is: Griffith wasn’t ACTUALLY born to be human in the first place. His short life as a body of blood and flesh was inevitably stained by pain and desperation. Griffith had a dream too magnificent, too harsh, and in the long way he decided to walk towards the castle of light, he had to be a martyr, thus sacrificing every weakness that could’ve been a nuisance, sacrificing his humanity. The cruelty and the irony of all this is that you can never, ever, REALLY stop being human if you’re born as one. So we witnessed Griffith’s remorse for that little soldier who wished to become a knight, we witnessed Griffith’s disgust after selling his body for cash and equipments, we witnessed Griffith smiling and playing with Guts, worrying for Guts, risking his own life (thus his dream) to protect Guts. Guts was the biggest crack in Griffith’s silver armour. I don’t want to analyse all the different shades of their relationship, BUT I think Griffith loved Guts, truly, in a way he wasn’t capable of understanding. Griffith was always alone right? Even among lots of companions, he always tried to be something else, to represent someone else, to incarnate a symbol, more than a man leading dutifully his troops. Because normal men are allowed to create real and mutual relationships, are allowed to be tied down by other things, feelings, a sense of home, friendship, passion, lust, love… Griffith wanted to estrange himself from everything unnecessary, he wanted to be a martyr for his own dream, but he also had a human soul and a human body and his deep feelings for Guts that, in the end, betrayed him. And you know, the worst thing is that Griffith HAD to fail, because there wasn’t any way out for his mortal life with an ambition so tensed towards divinity… Griffith’s fall was inevitable, because his humanity was too much of a burden. So… how do you lose your soul? Dying or, well… evolving into something completely different. But at the and of the day, who is the real mastermind? The one who threw hell upon Griffith and everyone around him? FATE and nothing more. Griffith received the behelit, Griffith started to dream and win and win and win also thanks to the behelit that gave him strenght, a kind of spiritual connection, confidence. If you ALWAYS win, it’s obvious that you, sooner or later, will develop a strong sense of self determination, nothing seems too difficult to scare you. Yeah… Griffith has been tricked in a terrible way. The world loved him, the world convinced him to go on and on and on, but no one told him how to express feelings and process defeat. When Griffith lost Guts, his whole identity got destroyed, scattered in pieces. Griffith never loses… Griffith never falters… everyone is disposable… but no, no, the truth is different, so different: Griffith lost Guts… Griffith can’t stand up, his knees are weak… Griffith can’t live without Guts… Griffith is JUST A HUMAN.