Random Berserk HC's: Guts Edition
Because I should be writing bridge scenes but want to be lazy because I am tired. Some of these are supported by canon and are kinda just character observations, some are things my brain made up because it could. WARNING: dark content and a mini essay ahead.
Guts has impressive large motor control, able to finesse with a sword extremely well. However his fine motor control is pretty trash, comparatively. Don't ask him to crack eggs unless you want some extra calcium spontaneously added to your diet.
In spite of his strength, though, he can be pretty gentle. With things that are really small and delicate, he might have an accident, but if he's touching someone, or petting something, he can be very tender.
Speaking of - Guts is definitely a cat person. Dogs are too loud and too chaotic, plus he has some questionable experiences with them. But cats? Cats are cool. Cats can't betray you because that's just not the relationship you have with a cat in that kind of society. They also are more respectable from his standpoint, able and willing to defend themselves and taking no shit from anybody. Plus I bet you he's a sucker for soft and fluffy textures. They're a luxury he doesn't often get to afford.
Guts doesn't really have a favorite food in most circumstances - but if there's fish to be had, he will gorge himself on it, and nobody is getting in his way. Fish, especially freshwater fish, would likely have been something he ate very rarely prior to the world falling apart; rivers and streams were owned by nobility, and they also owned the fish in them, so trout, greyling and pike were objectively rich people food. Same goes for Venison, which was also rich man's game. Ocean going creatures were usually fair game, but things like Salmon, sharks, and crabs were reserved by those who could afford them. Though I highly doubt Guts would think twice about poaching, especially for fish, provided he was confident about not getting caught.
Guts can be quite shy, in the right circumstances. If he is expected to be naked around strangers (such as a public bath), or to talk to people who are way too interested in him, or be around anyone whose judgement of him matters, he can be painfully shy. Unfortunately, shy and bashful are not the same thing, and his response to that anxiety is the same as if the people around him were hostile - the effect of course being that they do become hostile or wary.
Contrary to the above, however, I feel that at his core, Guts is a Runner, not a fighter- at least when it comes to things he doesnt know how to handle, like emotional conflict. You see him do this mentally with Casca when she confronts him about Griffith - he doesn't physically run away, but the disassociation is kicking in and he reverts to child-like defenses/excuses to try and avoid being in trouble. In other circumstances, I could easily see him choosing to just wash his hands of a difficult situation and walk or run away from it rather than deal - I mean, he basically does this all the time after the eclipse, but even before then - he doesn't even try to reconcile with Griffith, because it was easier to just assume he was right than to confront the man about his feelings.
With that said: Guts well and truly is not a very sympathetic, or even empathetic, person. He is self interested to a degree Griffith only wishes he could be; if it's not in the best interest of himself and his own, then you'd better have a good reason to bug him with it. That isn't to say he can't be compassionate, or go out of his way to help people sometimes, but usually if he does its because he stands to gain something or quiet a discomfort which often has nothing to do with how the other person is feeling and everything to do with himself. He is that way even in the GA, though it becomes much more punctuated post eclipse.
However, he can be quite tender and loving when the person in question is someone he really cares about. He is the guy who would move heaven and earth for someone who meant the world to him, and canon rather proves that. However, being emotionally stunted and socially awkward does mean that even under better skies (AU) he would have difficulty expressing his feelings in appropriate ways.
Speaking of which, there are two possible reasons for that stuntedness - his upbringing is kind of undeniable, but personally I like the idea of him being a high functioning autistic person. He's odd, awkward, and hyper fixated enough. But that's just me. :)
Guts is quite smart, actually - he has a good head for logic and notices patterns in familiar mediums (fighting) quite easily. He doesn't really fit the mold of "ultra intuitive fighter" to me, which says something to his wit. That said, he definitely is more of a numbers guy than a words guy. Math would probably be pretty easy for him, and though his job as a merc miiiight possibly necessitate him knowing several languages, I doubt he could speak most of them fluently. Though I do like to imagine that he grasps the concept of translation better than most people - he isn't remotely attached to his native tongue or peoples, really, since he doesnt entirely possess the latter and the former might not even be a single language, given that he grew up with mercs from all over. For all I know, he may not speak any language completely fluently, just borrowing bits and pieces here and there from everywhere in a bid to be understood. Which, ironically, would make him popular for sorting out civilian conflict since he might recognise something they said.
On that note - Guts is a raider and more to the point of this one, a raiders captain; I wonāt go into too much detail about that now, since Iāve got another post in the works explaining that, but to cap: Raiders were not usually good people. Raiding parties were effectively professional terrorists whose job was to use intimidation to pillage and loot, and that, unfortunately, tended to include ālustful spoilsā. Now, Guts, having the history he does, probably isnāt too fond of the idea that his men were doing those kinds of things, and if he caught them at it a part of me feels like he might intervene, if the situation seemed intense enough. However, I do not actually believe he would order his men not to do that, and would largely look the other way so long as it wasnāt āin his faceā so to speak. This is because he lives in a world where heās been conditioned exactly like them, if not more so having been raised by mercs, and though he might never personally engage in such activities, the idea of āright of conquestā is still very much alive in his head. Guts lives in a very medieval inspired world, and it was just understood for much of the time and even before that when men came knocking on your door to steal your stuff, they might take a piece of action for themselves āby rightsā. Whatās more, post eclipse Guts is quite aversive to helping people being assaulted unless theyāre, like, actively disturbing his sleep. So the idea of him getting pissed off and fight-or-flighty if heās near enough to hear or witness the act in the GA? Yeah, I can definitely see that. But going out of his way to be a hero and intervene? Thereād have to be some extenuating circumstances for that one. Personal investment in the person counts; for instance if it were Casca being attacked, or heaven forbid even one of his own men, I think he would go off the rails over that. But if it was just some stranger? Eh, probably not.
Thatās what I got for now folks. Feel free to comment, disagree, or not, etc. but please keep it civil in the notes, or Iāll turn off comments entirely. This is an opinion piece/ study and is meant to be funā¦ish. Thank you for your cooperation.
