#enisywrites

Anonymous asked:

hello! The new berserk chapter dropped I’d love to know your thoughts when you read it, it’s interesting where it's getting I think I’m curious if it aligns with your vision of the story (I’m talking about the revelation) Thank you so much if you answer and thank you for giving so much respect for Griffith’s character as well he has such a tragic story and you see him for how he is without lying about his character! ♡

Okay I haven't seen a good translation yet but I've seen enough to get the gist I think.

I thiiiink this is the best one I have on the subject in terms of like, being concise and having an actual take.

I think this is the post I allude to in the first one, which is aimless musing on the Conviction arc that includes those parallels, with this as a little followup addendum.

But neither of those posts are very good lol, the first is fairly brief and the second is rambly and bewildered, so I'll dig into my thoughts here a bit.

I agree that Luca/Nina is really hard to unpack lol, the Conviction arc in general to me is so cynical about relationships that it's hard to reconcile with the rest of the story framing relationships more optimistically. It hammers down the theme of some people being torches in the dark that other people cling to and resent over and over and over, and Luca/Nina is the main example of that, with Nina looking up to Luca and clinging to her as a leader while (presumably) remaining immature, vs Nina striking out on her own with Joachim in a more positive, equal relationship that allows her to (potentially) grow.

Nina and Luca are very overtly paralleled to griffguts in some ways, from straightforward imagery like Nina grabbing Luca as they dangle from a giant hand, to stuff like comparisons to fire ("torches in the dark" / "blazing inferno" eg), and the general thematic relationship stuff about being weak and depending on people.

But those threatened by the dark… can by no means ever let go of a torch. All they can do is stare in blank surprise at their illuminated, disgustingly cruel selves… and continue to suffer it…  And to protect their stunted self-esteem they depend on it… all the while hating it.

It can easily be read as griffguts negative and even gtsca positive, on a surface level. Nina leaving Luca to go out on her own with Joachim could easily be mapped onto Guts leaving the Hawks and later engaging in a potential relationship with Casca. (And from Griffith's perspective, the above monologue from Eggman perfectly describes the second duel and everything that comes after.) But, while I'm obviously biased lol, I do think that's a shallow reading.

I think Nina and Luca, and Nina and Joachim for that matter, are better read as foils to Guts and Griffith's relationship, rather than a pure straightforward negative parallel vs positive contrast. Nina and Luca represent the type of relationship formed around like, admiration/pedestalization and self loathing.

They're a parallel to Guts and Griffith after Guts hears the Promrose Hall speech and starts viewing Griffith as a distant godlike figure. In some ways they also parallel Guts and Casca, with Guts clinging to Casca as his final "feeble flame," post-Eclipse, or the King and Charlotte with Charlotte as his source of warmth, or Farnese and religion, or maybe Serpico and Farnese, or Casca and Griffith, the RPG group and Guts can be paralleled as well, etc.

Nina and Joachim represent a more equal relationship with both parties relying on each other while seeing each other as people, rather than pedestalizing the other as a "torch in the dark."

They're a parallel to Guts and Griffith pre-Promrose Hall, Farnese and Casca, I would argue Casca and Judeau in potentia, maybe Guts and Casca in potentia, maybe like, Puck and Guts lol, yk. Mutually beneficial relationships where both help each other, both are emotionally vulnerable with each other, neither looks up at the other as a symbol of everything they're not.

I don't think the takeaway from the end of the Conviction arc is that all Nina/Luca type relationships should break up and see other people lol, since I think we've seen multiple relationships in Berserk shift from one to the other, healthy to unhealthy, unhealthy to healthy, Griffith and Guts being the central example of a relationship that encompasses both. Relationships aren't static - it's all about different mindsets. Nina and Luca and Joachim are just one way of illustrating the difference very bluntly.

A person hurts someone just because they're strong. And they hate someone just because they're weak. ... I think I'll go with this man who is burdened with the same weaknesses and sins as I.

I think the Conviction arc has a very cynical take on relationships, but yeah after considering it for a while I don't think it thematically contradicts the rest of the story and its more positive take on relationships. I don't think Berserk as a whole treats "A person hurts someone because they're strong and hates someone because they're weak" as like, an objective immutable fact, for example. It's not really about finding a person who is your exact equal because anyone else is going to be bad for you lol. But it's deinitely true when the characters have a certain negative mindset.

Like here's one very straightforward example I like to cite as a healthy vs unhealthy mindset that fits, even if it's not an interpersonal relationship: When Guts is happy and fulfilled, he doesn't care that Zodd is stronger than him. He cares that Griffith helped him. When Guts is unhappy and unfulfilled, his new goal is to become strong enough to kill Zodd, the only person he's encountered who makes him feel (physically) weak. Or like, Black Swordsman Guts absolutely hurts people because he's stronger than them and hates anyone who makes him feel weak, but that wasn't the case during his three years with the Hawks, and that attitude also hugely lessened while journeying with the RPG group.

The Conviction arc is all about how someone with low self esteem views relationships. Maybe it was the right choice for Nina to leave with Joachim and work on herself away from Luca. Maybe it would've also been a perfectly fine choice to stay with Luca while working on her self-esteem, and on viewing other people as equals who are all flawed in some way, rather than pedestalizing some and looking down on others. But as a dichotemy to illustrate a negative mindset (people as torches in the dark) vs a positive mindset (people are people you can connect with as equals) Nina/Luca vs Nina/Joachim is fine I guess.

So yeah, Nina/Luca is definitely a griffguts parallel, but they're also a griffguts contrast to the three happy years of the Golden Age, and ultimately imo they're a statement on how a relationship can become unhealthy when you have low self esteem. It's also telling that both Guts and Griffith are a Nina who sees the other as Luca, another big indication that it's about self-esteem moreso than any inherent inequality in a given relationship. Guts and Griffith could have been a Nina/Joachim, they absolutely had that potential to simply view each other as people and grow together in positive ways, but they fucked it up because of their self loathing.

Anonymous asked:

You were talking about Guts/Griffith parallels, and a new chapter came out and it's pretty heavy on them! Interesting chapter over all too. Maybe we're back.. mangadex*org/chapter/b9507b33-3330-4293-b6f1-9396f196e9e0BERSERK

I wasn't expecting another chapter already lol, took me by surprise. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

As for Griffith parallels, I can definitely see the tomb Guts is being thrown into as similar to the torture chamber and the hand enclosing Griffith at the Eclipse. Also the spears around Guts' neck a la Griffith's arrest. Are there other parallels either you or Anon are thinking of that I didn't pick up on?

It does feel like that sealed tree is less an execution style and more part of some magical scheme of Daiba's. That "No... here you pass on" seems suggestive of like, some spirit world shit or something.

He doesn't have his armour or behelit on him though so idk. Maybe it'll be a new third type of inner darkness transformation lol. It's hard to speculate because it feels like we could get anything here, from just more misery from Guts before fucking Isidro rescues him or whatever, to a portal to the astral plane, or a confrontation with some kind of entombed monster or spirit, or his own inner self (parallels to Casca's magical therapy in the cherry tree maybe? the negative version maybe?) or who knows what else? Anything could be in that tree.

I am looking forward to finding out though, so yeah while this chapter was mostly kind of boring, being basically just a walk to an oubliette, it's successfully keeping my interest piqued.

Honestly imo it's probably a convenient retcon to make Casca and Guts seem more positive and plasuibly romantic, for the sake of more tragedy with the Eclipse.

But I do think you can make sense of it taking Guts' denial into consideration, and it makes thematic sense. Like he has sex with Casca after letting her stab him while denying that he should feel responsible for Griffith's capture and torture, in an echo of chapter 2, where Black Swordsman Guts let the zombie kid stab him and then delivered an evil monologue about how he's not responsible because everyone else is weak.

Point being that Guts is denying his own very obvious guilt here and trying to bury it, and sex with Casca helps that along. "Don't think about those things right now. All you need is to feel alive." He tells this to Casca but it applies to his own mentality as well.

And, very interestingly imo, consistently he's only able to be with Casca when he's denying or downplaying the significance of his relationship with Griffith.

So it does make sense to me that while he's trying to bury his guilt for driving Griffith into a torture chamber and essentially downplay his and Griffith's relationship, he thinks of Casca as the one person whose touch he could bear, and conveniently forgets Griffith's touch in this moment.

Also you could make a case that it highlights Guts' gay repression. We know for a fact that the reason he was okay with Casca's touch after his nightmare in chapter 13 isn't because they have a magical bond, it's entirely because she's a woman, not a man. It's an implicit, maybe accidental but appropriate statement that attraction may not actually matter here. Regardless of who he's attracted to, men are associated with trauma, and women are not, therefore he can have sex with a woman like Casca, but can't consider it with a man.

(He flashbacked anyway thanks to their position but I think it's fair to say that Guts didn't expect that to happen with her, while if he was with a man he probably would expect to be reminded of his childhood trauma. So the point stands.)

Both those explanations together add up to: would prefer to fuck Griffith but still in denial so can't.

Yeah, those are both solid moments imo! Though I actually thought Guts said "He's my..." and trailed off, rather than "mine," but I don't have the ovas handy to double check either the subs or dubs, and idr exactly. I love both possibilities tbh, though "mine" def has a little extra homoeroticism so Nice, if so.

My favourite is definitely the 97 anime dub listing "love" as one of the emotions Griffith feels for Guts during the torture chamber monologue. Hard to top that imo.

I also really like the ova's depiction of Griffith's night with Charlotte - Griffith very clearly dissociating and dazed, almost turns right back around and leaves again before Charlotte starts sobbing on him, and Charlotte encouraging him after a token protest by putting his hand back on her tit. It felt very true to the spirit of the scene in the manga, while making it about 50x less bodice-rippery lol.

The shot in the ova during the Eclipse, where Casca looks up at Femto in a parallel to her looking up at the nobleman who tried to rape her as a child, was also a very good addition imo. The rape scene itself still largely sucked lol, but it least it adds a shade of depth, and a little bit of Casca's pov that was sorely needed.

Griffith catching Guts on the balcony in a parallel to him catching Charlotte when she trips a minute later was also a nice addition imo. The ova cut out a lot of good griffguts moments so I appreciate them adding a few overt things to at least try to compensate lol.

Thank you so much, I'm glad you've been enjoying my stuff!

That's an interesting take! I definitely agree that Guts is enabling him by telling him it's fine because it's all for the dream. To me it's not so much that he's enabling Griffith's violence, as he's inadvertantly enabling his self-loathing and his guilt complex, which are what feed the dream. In essence Guts is telling Griffith that he is cruel, but it's okay, because he has to be to achieve his goals. Ironically it's the same thing the godhand tells him (and what Griffith tells himself.)

I don't think that Guts should've told Griffith that he's cruel, and tbh I don't think Guts would - certainly not for killing the noblemen and the hired goons. Guts was fully on board with that, and wrt the noblemen at least, it was functionally self-defense on Griffith's part. And especially because what Griffith's framing as "cruel" in his question is dragging Guts into his "filthy scheme," rather than the scheme itself.

There's some deliberate irony here imo, because Guts does privately think of Griffith as cruel earlier in this scene - not for dragging him into it, but for not dragging more people into it by telling the Hawks what's going on before he fakes his death.

This scene also echoes the river scene with Casca, where he asks her if he's dirty, and then when she doesn't tell him no, goes into a self-harming monologue about how he needs to do fucked up things for his dream. In Tombstone of Flame, it's Guts who tells him that he needs to do fucked up things for his dream, which is probably even worse.

Essentially I think a more constructive response from Guts would've been something like, 'no you're not cruel for involving me, I'm happy to be here helping you, and if you'd told the other Hawk captains they'd all want to help too.' I mean okay that's obviously too neat for real dialogue lol, but ykwim. Imo the best thing for Griffith to be told here is that he's loved and supported, without the reminder of the dream. To me it's not really about the violence or Griffith going too far here, it's about contradicting Griffith's self-fulfilling self-image of himself as a monster. (Again, Guts is actually more monstrous here if we're judging the morals of killing people, because Griffith feels guilty for what he does while Guts is just pleased as punch to burn a room full of nobles alive lol. So I don't think killing people is the issue. It's Griffith's guilt -> dream cycle that's the actual problem.)

No worries, I'm happy to get multiple asks! It sometimes takes me a few days to respond because I tend to answer a few at once when I'm in the mood and queue them, so if I don't respond right away that's why, not bc I'm annoyed by too many asks or anything like that.

Anyway, yeah I think the 'all three characters' kid' theory is definitely a more interesting way of looking at Moonlight Boy than as Guts and Casca's magic ghost kid. Buuuut that is something the interviewer brought up, rather than Miura, so I wouldn't consider it automatically the most canonical/relevant interpretation. I'd prefer if the kid was framed that way personally, maybe even moreso than it being Griffith's human soul lol. But I'm not betting on any interpretation in particular.