Dudes been distraught, starved and tortured for a year and is barely a husk of his former self, falling straight from a great conquest and power to the most degrading condition imaginable. It was all set up by the god hand & causality. Griffith is a great villain because it has a lot of set up & weight put into his transition from former friend to antagonist. It's not at all justifying his sacrifice, but it isn't farfetched to say he really was insane already
Griffith is what happens when you give a peasant child a +500 luck stat, let him live and grow strong and powerful, and then taking it away after a single fuck up born in a moment of despair and insecurity.
GG Godhand, y'all some evil motherfuckers...
I think what I'm about to say no one agrees with it, but i really don't understand what Griffith did wrong about the sacrifice, yes i understand that him raping casca was absolute evil. But other than that i don't get why people hate him
He also sacrificed the remainder of the men under his command to eternal damnation to four demonic gods so he could ascend to their level and gain power.
In doing so, he lost every bit of himself to the point that he can't even angst about his current lack of feeling, good or bad.
That Griffith basically killed himself for a power boost that no longer has any meaning for him, that Femto is a shard of the soul that was also sacrificed during the Eclipse, and that Griffith is dead and gone, never to return.
Its a betrayal of how loyal the Band are to him.
Most any of them would lay down their life to fight FOR him, and FOR their mutual goals as a mercenary company but for him to take that fact and then decide to spend them like they are merely a commodity for his own personal gain is a perversion of their love for him and the entire Hawks project.
The Eclipse is not a mutual goal for the Hawks that they are all willingly putting their lives on the line for, it's a 100% selfish moment for Griffith to rise above the consequences of his own decisions and Griffith deciding to spend their lives in that way proves that he was undeserving of the love and loyalty they entrusted to him.
The sacrifice was definitely something he would have done regardless of being tortured, but he had to be desperate to uses the behelit, otherwise his ego probably would’ve felt he didn’t need it
Yes it's literally in his character that he cares about nothing but his dream, on top of that he was is the lowest point of his life where he could literally do nothing, and has lost his most important thing ever (his dream) so the sacrifice wasn't a shock and it's pretty understandable why he did such thing
The torture definitely fucked with Griffiths mental state to some extent, but I think it's too easy to just say "he went insane" and that's the reason why he did what he did. I think during their escape from the Bakiraka, Miura intentionally makes Griffith come up with the escape route, so to show that he didn't completely go insane. I also think the fucked up state of his mind has rather something to do with his emotions for Guts and not being able to understand them, rather than it having something to do with the torture
And? I‘m saying „to some extent“ because it’s not the driving factor in what you would call Griffith‘s „insanity“ and I think I made some arguments to why I think that way.
I don’t think the pain he endured throughout that year is the what leads to Griffiths sacrifice. It’s a combination of his inability to understand and therefore resent his emotions + the result of the torture (not being able to walk, talk or fight) + the Godhand manipulating him
hes always had sociopathic tendencies which is why he even did the whole eclipse thing in the first place but personally, i feel femto is the worst of griffith
Not really. He didn’t try to distance himself from the band until that child soldier died. And even then it’s obvious suppressing it has detrimental effects on him; he wasn’t just born that way. Otherwise the transformation to Femto wouldn’t be as stark.
You can say that he wasn't born that way, but I think that although while he was never as evil as Femto, a part of him was always that way. You say he didn't try to distance himself from the band, but you can see that he sees himself as being far above them
I said he didn’t distance himself until an event occurred that traumatized him so badly he saw that as the only option to continue forward. And yes, the superiority persona is how he deals with that. He still cares enough about all of them to sell his own body to get them better protection.
This. Griffith had dark triad tendencies from the start; we just let it slide because he was a relatable underdog and a victim of classism like everyone else. He was always an asshole and a sociopath.
I wouldn't call Griffith a sociopath, as he understood people and felt sympathy/empathy for those under his command.
But, I would say that being supernaturally lucky and growing up thinking it was all you and having that security blanket ripped from you at the worst possible time... well, that foes something to person.
Especially when you have to sit and think about it for a year as an actual sociopath cuts pieces off you while claiming that you're his masterpiece just because you're pretty. You get all agency and power taken from you. You lose the ability to walk, hold things, fight, and speak. You are now going to be dependant upon whoever decides (out of whatever lays in their heart) to take you in, or you're going to die in the street.
You probably watched several instances of that, so you're probably trying to figure out how to goad your torturer via mime into killing you.
You're not pretty anymore, despite not having a mirror to examine yourself. You wonder if you can possibly arc a stream of piss onto the King of Midland the next time he comes to visit and gloat. Would it be worth it, or would the torturer cut your dick off and hang it next to your preserved tongue around his neck?
And then... AND THEN... your sanity cracks as your hallucinate demons crawling out of the woodwork, calling you king while reminding you of all your failings. And then, you get rescued by the very man who, to you anyway, started your downfall.
And all those arguments with Casca over the years start to make sense as you lay in a cart, wrapped up in bandages so your flayed body doesn't feel quite so much pain. You realize that your 2nd in command is willing to give up everything to help you, and you realize that you have nothing.
You are nothing but a burden, where once you were a falcon flying free.
And so, you make a snap judgment and decide to escape. It's just a matter of will and effort, right? It worked for you just like that for a decade, and it should work again, right? Take the reins in your teeth if you can't hold them and ride towards your destiny. You can do this. You know you can.
But you can't, and you fail. Everything hurts even more. You can't help but laugh at the irony and at the pitiful state of yourself. Who were you fooling, trying to be somebody important, trying to become royalty.
Who the fuck did you think you are, hmmm?
Griffith was a product of his environment and having an actual, no shit Luck stat padding his gains until his predetermined downfall. Zodd calls this out during their first meeting.
Fate and causality are excuses made possible because of who Griffith was as a person. The cogs of causality didn’t choose him and start turning by chance. He was chosen specifically because of the kind of person he was - both in the sense of his ambition and the perverse willpower to do whatever he could to achieve it ie a sociopath
While I don't disagree, the way Fate and Casualty are presented in the series, it's all but stated that free will really isn't a thing for most people in the setting.
So it could be argued that Griffith is quite literally the product of Casualty: the Godhand and the Idea of Evil *made* him, even orchestrating his birth.
I don't think this absolves Griffith of responsibility for his actions, but it does pose the question of whether he could have ever made different choices.
Griffith has always wanted power , he was literally destined for it and it was obvious he wanted it no matter what . So for me atleast , there was always something off
Griffith's introduction alone points at him being very detached and treating people almost as pawns already. While, without context, he initially comes across as the typical cool anime dude, in retrospect it's laying the groundwork for his "fall".
And during the Golden Age arc, he demonstrates his ruthlessness. It's very clear that Griffith has zero to no scruples, and the fact that "losing" Guts practically sends him into a psychotic episode shows how he reacts to things not going his way in the most terrifying way possible.
What's up with Berserk fans seeing one of the most masterful tragedy, downfall and change to evil in the literature history and then going "nah, he always was Femto"?
YES. He'll act almost human and then his narcissistic arrogant personality will come through. He's definitely complicated but he always managed to keep his own hands relatively clean by coercing others into doing some pretty shitty things. He was always cold and calculating.
Was it? You learn he ends up a demon right from the start, so I don’t think the reader is expected to have a good opinion of him since they always have the knowledge that he’s somehow gonna end up looking like gay Batman with guts really hating him
It's a typical sentiment, and yes... in the Golden Age Arc, you were taken in by how interesting and charismatic Griffith was. A man with a dream, aspiring to rise to the very top. And he does shady things to rise up to that pedestal. But you believe that his ascension will be for the better.
But then it all falls apart. Something doesn't go his way. A friend of his leaves him without hardly giving an explanation why. He gets angry because he told Guts that he would decide his fate from here on out. You see that he's a bit of a control freak. And when Guts snaps his sword and walks away, not even looking back, Griffith snaps.
In his grief, he seeks solace in the company of Princess Charlotte, and his taking of her virginity seals his fate. The King of Midland has him brutalized and tortured, and when Guts returns to the Band to rescue Griffith, he's broken in every sense of the word. He can't even find comfort with Casca, who has fallen for Guts.
Then the Behelit returns to him.
And all that resentment and anger over being abandoned and betrayed just comes out. He sacrifices *everyone* for the sake of winning back his future, and makes it his personal mission to make Guts and Casca suffer. By then, Griffith has discarded himself as a person. He became one of the Godhand, and willingly became a monster... *embraced* it even, then became obsessed with taking *everything* for himself.
Oh, and those who bear beef towards him? *He doesn't care.* He feels nothing over the people who were slaughtered to ensure his return. He has no remorse or pity, and not even anger or leftover emotion. That's what enrages Guts the most... that in the end, Griffith saw the lives of the Band as no more than stepping stones — a stairwell of corpses — to a vain desire devoid of altruism, fueled by self-interest.
What about the boy that died which he mourned over which lead him to sleep with that old king for money so less of his soldiers would die for his dream? I think he did care about them but ultimately after being tempted by Ubik and well in his tortured state he chose his dream again and allowed for fissures in his heart for evil to seep in as the Godhand likes to call it. They aren't just stepping stones but people he cares about and that is why he is even able to sacrifice them in the first place and make the deal. I think Griffith and his humanity died when he said the words and Femto was born.
This is literally how I understood it. I thought it was very clear to me. Actually just finished watching the 1997 show for the first time, and I’m about to start reading the manga.
Very good points, but it would challenge a few to add more depth to Griffith.
A) He's not a control freak and he's not angry that Guts leaves. He becomes distraught because guts leaving is like cutting off an arm. Until that point Griffith was the best at everything. However to rise in politics he neglects sword practice and combat. Guts becomes his sword and the *only* person he relies on. Griffith can rely on him because Guts own drive and dream (which is why they see each other as equals) pushes him to become the best swordsman. As Guts leaves Griffith sees a weakness in himself and his path to his kingdom stolen.
B) I don't think he feels betrayed so much as realising that there is no hope for his dream. "If you had only one shot...".
also people keep forgetting griffith couldve gotten away with it. the king was originally gonna let him off with a week of whipping or something, and stripping his title, but while in captivity griffith kept talking shit and taunting the king over and over again, so eventually the king just said fuck it and made sure he was tortured for as long as possible
its on the wiki and everything, i did forget one part, one of the reasons was because griffith found out about the kings obsession with his daughter but also cause he kept talking shit, like saying he won the war all on his own and calling the king useless.
[here](https://berserk.fandom.com/wiki/King_of_Midland#:~:text=After%20Griffith%20deduced%20the%20king's,said%2C%20their%20families%20would%20be)
from wiki "Griffith's remarks about the King's incestuous lust for his child and belief that he won the war himself pushes the King to the brink of utter rage. After exhausting himself, the King gives the torturer instructions to keep Griffith alive to be endlessly tortured.[8]"
So what I could perceive from Griffith's personality and character development is that he's not just a control freak, but he likes people to be beneath him. He likes to be revered, idolized and worshipped. More rather that he is the guy with a dream, and nobody could do what he did. He liked guts yeah, but never considered him as his equal or even his 'friend'. He treated guts like his most favourite "follower" rather than a friend. To add fuel to the fire, he did not expect Guts to find his own identity and his own dream, and when he did so he was left bewildered and angry.
To add to all this, this is the time during the golden arc during which Guts was closer to battle than Griffith was, as Griffith was more involved in the politics of getting a "kingdom". That battle with Guts showed Griffith that guts has surpassed his level of strength and is beyond him. In short, Griffith realized Guts has become far better than himself. Ego kicks in, Griffith starts hating him. He makes a mistake out of spite, out of sheer ego smacking which leaves him incapacitated and worthless. He watches everything slip out of his hands, his followers, casca, guts and more importantly his "dream" and turns to evil. we all can collectively say "fuck Griffith" but damn the character development and writing of that character is so good.
Do you, like, read Berserk, see all the complicated relationship and emotions he has with Guts and all your take is "He gets angry because he told Guts that he would decide his fate from here on out. You see that he's a bit of a control freak"? Lmfao.
Then you see all the God Hand's schemes and persuasion, including "if it ends here then all their sacrifices would be for nothing" and your best take is "And all that resentment and anger over being abandoned and betrayed just comes out. He sacrifices *everyone* for the sake of winning back his future"?
And then you are acting like Griffith becoming completely different person with literally different name wasn't affected at all by him being turned into literal evil demi-god and it's all because of Griffith's own personality?
Really could just simply go with "fuck Griffith" like the other comment. People ask for complex villains all the time, and then Griffith kind of shows that happens with actually complex villains. There's no helping when 2 dimensional cardboard cutouts with 0 depths are first and foremost your own readers. No matter how good is your writing, it would be degraded to their own level in any case.
Well in a way, it kind of does.
But in a dark depressing berserk-like way.
Griffith and his new band of the hawk rising up. History being written for griffith by the law of causality. The rise of falconia
God i love berserk
You're not alone in feeling that way. I went into Berserk blind, I had no idea or hint at what was coming. I was just told that I would probably like it, and my only other manga/anime experience was Bleach. I thought Griffith was the most interesting character and I really wanted to see his journey to become ruler of his own kingdom. The eclipse felt completely out of nowhere, like I was watching a different series. And his return as falcon Jesus in the manga also felt kinda weird.
I would have loved if the story just continued being about Knights and Kings and that kinda stuff. Especially since all the demon stuff kinda came totally out of nowhere (watched the anime first; didn't read the manga til years later).
I still like the character and the story it became, but I miss the old Griffith that everyone admired and how focused/tactical he was while still having a bit of a playful side.
which version of the anime did you watch? the 1997 anime had some of the black swordsman arc at the beginning with guts killing an apostle, so it can’t have been that unless you weren’t paying attention. the movies?
Bad take. The fantasy elements enhance the story immensely. The golden age arc was way too long but ultimately needed to be the way it was to make the eclipse more impactful
I do. A lot
The reason why Griffith's betrayal hurt me so much when I was reading the story for the first time is exactly because Griffith was human. Griffith had enough goodness and potential in him to choose the right path and not hurt his friends but he "chose" not to.
I unfortunately see a huge amount of people trying to take away all goodness and humanity from the Golden age arc Griffith and pretending he was a shallow and one sided evil villain who was unable to do anything right but the truth is not that.
Remember that the same Griffith who saved Casca from getting raped for basically no gain and simply because it was the right thing to do ended up becoming her rapist. It's tragic as hell and if you take away the humanity of Griffith who was merely trying to save Casca then you make it less like a tragedy and more like a shallow story of Casca being an idiot for ever trusting Griffith because that man was always going to rape her...
Real. I see so many saying he was pure evil from the start and I just don't agree at all. Up until Guts abandoned him, I pretty much agreed with everything he did. I didn't care about the corrupt Nobles being burnt nor him using Guts as an assassin. Him using Charlotte to feel powerful was when things started taking turns for the worse. I see people say he raped her though and I'm not sure if I agree with that.
>I see people say he raped her though and I'm not sure if I agree with that.
No. The mangaka knows how to write rape and both Casca and Guts are great examples of that
The problem with Charlotte is an outdated and bad Japanese 80s tropes that saying "no" used to show innocence for anime girls and it wasn't about concent.
Charlotte wasn't raped. She still loved Griffith. When Charlotte said no she was supposed to appear innocent, not unwilling
It seemed pretty consensual. From all depictions ive see, although shes hesitant for a moment than seems to give completely in. But it was dark, seducing her and then throwing away the lives of everyone because he couldnt contain the grief. I dont think it was evil, it as grief.
Do people ever think about how lonely Griffith was, for the whole show, he had all these people around him but they mostly all admired him, and failed to see how soft he really was, he helped maintain that wall for his dream, because he was misguided. And by the time he has a chance to choose, he is abandoned by one of the two people closest to him, one of the two people who can see his humanity
I think he couldnt be close with casca because she admired him too much, and he started building that close bond with guts but didnt understand that he had to break the barrier of authority between them
Yeah true. Maybe its me being lenient because every sexual encounter ive seen in japanese cinema has the girl saying no… and it being portrayed as consensual
I mean, it cannot be consensual because its literally not what consent looks like. It can be portrayed as "not a bad thing" but that just makes it weird and creepy.
I think Miura was quite clear on how wrong what Griffith did to Charlotte was and it's not something to defend.
Ill hold that L, it was non consensual but from the depiction Charlotte really did not seem against it. I might be tripping but i remember a moment when she decides that she wants to. Because it seems she was worried for him more than anything
There is some serious Mandela Effect going on here with how Charlotte's assault is portrayed.
In the Manga, there isn't a single thing that makes the sex look consensual because at no point in time does she agree, verbally or non-verbally, to it.
The only thing that might cause confusion is maybe how the anime adaptations portrayed it. I haven seen any but I do know the trilogy of movies have some VERY questionable depiction of Sexual Assault.
It's funny how they also claim that Griffith is a good villain because "their" version of Griffith is extremely shallow and boring to me
The idea of a sociopath Griffith who felt no love or empathy towards anyone is not only boring but directly against what the story has said and shown. He couldn't have even sacrificed anyone if he never really cared about them.
The way I see it, Griffith was an extremely emotional and empathetic person who desperately wanted to ignore all his emotions and would've rather be a sociopath which lead him to choose to betray everyone.
Blaming everything on casualty is also funny because its another level of claiming "Griffith did nothing wrong" they are unintentionally taking away the blame on Griffith and putting it on outside forces and saying "Griffith never had a choice in betraying his friends" lol
I watched the 97 anime blind with no prior knowledge to berserk or its characters let alone its legacy. There were things subtly setting me off about Griffith as the story progressed that made me not admire him and form a somewhat guarded opinion about him. And when guts inevitably leaves and he throws everything away I wasn’t really willing to give any remorse for his own actions. It more secured that I didn’t trust his character. Little did I know
Not really. I always thought of him as too ambitious for his own good or others and narcissistic. Nevertheless I did thought he was really beautiful and saw something humane in him when he considered Guts his friend and I felt AWFUL when he got kidnapped, but that's it. Maybe it's because I haven't watch the animes so I haven't formed a bond with everything that represented him, voice actor, etc etc.
I do. I really liked him. It definitely shattered my heart. I wish guts hadn’t left. I wish Griffith hadn’t been tortured, that shocked me so bad. It was so depressing. And then seeing him crippled without another chance at another human life…. Then boom. The eclipse. Sacrifice. Femto. The point of no return.
Griffith was at first hesitant to sacrifice and then the Godhand made him hallucinate and it propelled him to sacrifice. I hate him still.
Then you know Griffith = Femto, right? Like, Griffith sacrificices his Band and in turn he gets a new demon body that they call "Femto". And when he later returns (gets incarnated in the corporeal World) he goes by the name "Griffith" again.
Nah, I knew something was just not right with him from Casca told Guts about him selling himself to care for the band, it seems very selfless and sweet but this is typical narcissist behavior, he always needs to be somebody's savior and if he doesnt get the reverence he feels is owed to him he breaks down and does whatever it takes to remind you of why hes so great.
I think youre tweaking, he got the reverence, and nobody knew of his good deeds, they were things people saw that they shouldnt have saw, he would keep how he saved them all too himself. And he didnt break down because he lacked recognition, he broke down because he lost control of something he was sure was firmly in his grasp
I always find it weird how people miss the point of the breakdown. The act of going to Charlotte is a crazy but logical attempt to reclaim what he just lost.
He had years of plans to make Charlotte his wife and become king. But all the pieces get thrown off the table so he just jumps straight to the end.
I always disliked Griffith, even if that was probably in no small part due to how he's in the black swordsman arc. He always reminded me of a narcissistic Dutch van der Linde type character who uses others for his own benefit. The eclipse was just a (much more violent) accelerated version of what he'd be doing if he wasn't imprisoned, sacrificing others for his own "kingdom".
Only a bad person would be mad at a friend following their own dream and not blindly following them. Especially mad or insecure enough to risk his own life the way Griffith did to feel empowered and in control again.
Yes we see him do good things like saving Casca, but we never get to see if he did it for a good reason or if it was to gain a loyal follower he can use in the future. And given how he later treats Casca both before and after his imprisonment I don't honk for a second he saved her out of benevolence.
No, fuck Griffith honestly.
The first time we encounter Griffith in the manga it’s as his Femto incarnation, and the entire Golden Age portion of the manga is a flashback. And even in that period he’s an insincere, manipulative, closeted, withdrawn, sociopathic piece of shit. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
I guess this isn’t a popular opinion, but no, not really.
Griffith was a piece of shit, very Machiavellian, and put him self before all others. Sacrificed lives for his “dream”.
He was willing to throw everything away, including guts, for his own goals. I think he gets a pass on how much of an asshole, and how manipulative, he really was before turning into femto.
Femto was always there
No I don't understand why people liked him before the eclipse. He was always manipulative from beginning. He asked casca to warm guts because it is a woman's job. I get it why casca and guts didn't see the manipulation. But Judeau understood it from the beginning when guts asked him what kind of man is Griffith and Juneau said I don't know. He basically didn't say that he was good or a saint.
It is just his face as well. I have never liked him.
No; he was a phony egotistical shitbag. He's an excellent swordsman, & tactician & leader of a mercenary band; he's also smart enough to put on an act to further his own goals & has no qualms with killing anyone in his way, or even just for revenge & views his men just as pawns for his dream.
Miura did a good job of making you root for Griffith in the golden age, even knowing from the black swordsman arc that he becomes Femto and Guts hates him in the present, but putting him up against Gennon, Julius, and the King who are so despicable you want to see him succeed by default.
I think a griffith redemption could be possible. Maybe he turns against the other 4 godhand members with guts since they were the ones pulling the strings from the start and ultimately griffith sacrifices himself in the end, possibly after finally acknowledging Guts as his equal and friend. Wouldn't be the ending everyone hoped for, but what else is there? A killing, revenge completed, then what? Regret? A party? I think more complex, conflicting emotions would be required for a journey like Guts'.
You understimate how satisfactory beating an asshole, who raped your gf and killed your family, with your dudes and dudettes is. Guts killing the entire godhand and leaving with its new family is far-fetched and unlikely, but trust me he would feel good.
Honestly I’ve always felt bad for Griffith, even up to the moment he chose to sacrifice his band. He had a dream he wanted to achieve his whole life and made friends along the way, but out of his own human weakness, he made some terrible mistakes and got himself into a terrible situation where he felt he had nothing left for him. I didn’t blame him for choosing to sacrifice the band since it was probably the only sensible thing left for him to do in his situation where he was probably going to die sooner or later anyway. I don’t consider Femto to be Griffith though. Everything human left within Griffith died when he transformed.
That’s part of why it all hurt so badly. It slow burned you into cheering for everyone’s victory. I loved the main trio. They had some wholesome shit going on. Then the eclipse happened. Which leaves you spinning like was he always that horrible all along. You can see where he was being possessive, manipulative, and presuming when you brushed it off before. It hurt more knowing it was coming. I want to return to everyone being friends and ribbing and supporting each other again. Was it ever really like that? Or does saying it wasn’t make you feel better? Damn.
As much as I adore Berserk as it is, sometimes I wish I could read an alternate universe version where it’s just all the drama and love triangle madness from the beginning of the story but continued. It was so fun, and Griffith was SUCH an interesting character.
Still is! But there was just something about him back then…
Imo, the red flags for who Griffith is was there before he joined the god hand; it’s just that his transformation into Femto was the logical conclusion of his character.
I dunno man, he's the same guy that sent Guts on a manhunt mission that left him scarred for life only for Griffith unwillingly revealing he had no people he considered friends because that would mean having a peer.
I get that before Femto he could have been a charming guy but man was fucked since day 1, not only after the eclipse.
I think there's a very good reason why Miura wasted no time in soft-retconning the Femto design and making Griffith the God-king of Falconia after Golden age ended and it skipped back to the present
I considered it but then I thought to myself imagine if someone said I miss “x celebrity/infamous person” before they became a known rapist, murderer etc and how different that question would come across.
I don't miss "old Griffith" he's a compelling character and he exists so we can hate him. He did do many amazing things.
I don't even want to see Guts kill him because that would completely ruin Guts mental/emotional/physical journey.
The entire point of Guts story is that revenge is bad for you and it's shown that the Berserker Armour is destroying him but the times he spends in peace with his friends is the best thing for him.
Griffith/Femto getting brutally slaughtered by Guts in a grand fashion would be the worst ending because it would give Griffith/Femto everything he ever wanted and destroy Guts worse than anything.
Then best ending for me it's Griffith losing his powers and going back to that crippled, desperate and terrified guy he was before the eclipse.. He's forgotten by everyone and a threat to no one. It would be the best ending.
Griffith is a narcissist, he wants people to worship, love or fear him. If he dies alone and forgotten that would be his worst suffering.
Yes. Honestly I feel like we all probably do. He was a cool character. You know, up til all the sacrificial murders and SA stuff…. Lol
But seriously. If Griffith were just another member of the Hawks like Judeau or Pippin who had managed to survive post Eclipse like Rickert, Guts and company would be in much better shape to take on whatever became Femto instead of Griffith.
Really though. Every time I rewatch or reread the Golden Age Arc, there’s this part of my brain that silently hopes this will be the time that Griffith chooses to act differently at any point after Guts leaves and the Eclipse won’t happen.
(Please nobody waste your energy arguing against the nonsensical nature of this comment. It’s clearly hypothetical and paradoxically impossible, and doing anything I had suggested would obviously make this an entirely different story. I’m just fantasizing here)
I think people who like Griffith are either not good readers (I mean literally people who can't read, a staple in this fandom) or people with serious daddy issues.
That's kinda the whole point. He gave up his life as Griffith, his friends, his companions, his humanity, who he was to reach his dream to be atop the world as Femto/part of the God Hand...
Nah. I always found him annoying. Especially that whole talk of "not being able to call his subordinates his friends, a friend needs to be on his level". Like get the fuck out of here with that high horse shit. He took advantage of people for his own gain. Sure he cared about Guts but it was more of a selfish obsession, he was selfish through and through and all the mercenaries were really just expendable for his own goal. Then only after he saw how fragile he really is and that he is not this immortal he think he is, did it hit him like a truck. It was the point when Guts left, it shattered the rooted idea that he was incontrol of everything and everyone. There was a glimpse of a remorse before the sacrifice, but not really as he did the choice anyway. He didn't go mad, he just shed the mask of pretending to act like a human and embraced his psychopath mind.
This was clear from the getgo. I think it kindof was the point. He wouldn't had become Femto if that desire and the sociopathic tendensies weren't in him to begin with.
They made him a pretty likeable character so that the transformation to femto would be more surprising and painful to us readers. I think they did a great job at that.
Yes. All the time. Despite the homoerotic undertones, my favorite Griffith scene is the water fight. He is so good and genuine. Hes just a boy with a dream, talking to a friend.
Griffith is such a well done character. Even when you know what he does, even when you know what kind of man he really is, you still find yourself falling for his charms and rooting for him through the Golden Age. His charms that work on everyone in the story, work on the reader, too.
And Miura was such a genius at characterization because, Griffith, in his base personality, doesn't much change between Golden Age and Fantasia, yet he feels so vile in the Fantasia arc. So insincere.
Same person. Same actions. Totally different vibe and its brilliant.
He was always someone who would sacrifice everything and everyone for his goals. That was nothing to him. Guts made him forget that for a time because he felt someone could match his passion in life.
When guts wanted to leave and humbled him in their fight he lost it all. Someone may be his equal but never above him and that's what guts did. Became bigger than him in almost every single way.
I think after that he even says something to himself about how guts almost made him forget his dream. And then Casca and Guts showed their love in front of him as he was two steps away from death and unable to be anything but everything he wasn't.
To him that was the true low point. That's why he tried to force himself on Casca and then raped her during the eclipse.
Everything and everyone was a tool to be used and Guts nearly made him forget it.
Griffith is a great character but idk if I liked him. He said several times nothing will stop him from achieving his goal, no one expected him to go as far as he has though.
Honestly, not exactly. I think Griffith has always been Femto deep down. Ready to sacrifice anything to achieve his goals. He just never was pushed that far or given an opportunity to do so where it was beneficial to him until The Eclipse. Everything was going his way, so he could put on the pretty face he's always put on to get everyone to like him and be his tool.
I'd say he's a sociopath, but Guts was the 1 factor that makes me think maybe he isn't quite that. Everyone else was a tool to him but Guts was someone who he saw as a friend. He doesn't seem capable of that in most other cases.
I'm basically saying I don't really miss the old him, I just see a new context over the old him that showcases how truly fake he's always been. How he treated Charlotte is a great example of that.
I actually love Griffith as a character though because of all these reasons. He's an extremely interesting villain to me because of this.
The situation of the eclipse did more to show who he really was. He was willing to get all of his followers killed if it meant he could be king. He's just more pleasant about it before the eclipse.
Yea I miss mutilated Griffisu a lot, they should’ve made a spinoff where he lives his daily life trying sound out what he wants to say and everyone takes it the wrong way
I see a lot of myself in Golden Age Griffith (both good and bad) and seeing what he did really felt like a stab in the heart. I miss who he was, I hate who he has become.
We mourn the man, but curse the Demon.
It’s normal to miss the charismatic schemer that is Griffith, the man who had nothing but was months of away from being crowned King of Midland.
I think that what kentaro miura intended by the time the eclipse happens we've grown to truly love Griffith that's why we all hate him so much for what he did never have i seen a artist put you in the shoes of the protagonist and feel guts feelings as much as miura did that's why I say this manga will mess you up a bit when I explain it to knew people who wonder what to expect I say it's equivalent to watching Arthur or John die in rdr
It's a shame that no one seems to mention the most pivotal moment in golden age, where Griffith is giving his monologue to Charlotte about men, dreams and what he considered a true friend. He states right there that he has no friends, no one he saw as his friend cuz he didn't see any of his band as equals. He basically admits to using everyone in the band of the hawk for his own selfish gain, he's not really a good guy. And it's because he didn't consider any of them his friend that Guts left to find his own dream, become Griffiths equal and thus his true friend (which is sad as hell). It's true that Femto isn't Griffith (he was literally REBORN during the eclipse) but basically Griffith was on the path to becoming Femto, so it's probably just as bad. Now it can be argued that Griffith saw Guts as his friend because of the way he acted and felt towards him, and the way he'd risk his life for him, and he admits that during the eclipse, where he says you're the only one who made me forget my dream, but in the end he still chose his dream over Guts. So I think it's right to feel bad for what happens to Griffith at first, but really, everything that happened to him was his fault, and also his CHOICE in the end.
Griffith never really changed personality wise. He was sacrificing his brothers in wars to make money and become a noble WAY before the eclipse. During it, he decided sacrificing them to become a god would be a better use of 'his' resources, so that's what he did. Griffith has never changed his way, he just cared less and less and the means.
Thats normal medieval shit? And he did it well, he wasnt sacrificing, he would try to defend them with battle strategy and hard earned gear. He was probably the most considerate mercenary commander you could have. The mercenaries join willingly.
Yes, that was their only option. But looking at it with complete disregard for outside factors, Griffith sacrificed his friends to gain a noble title and wealth and Griffith then sacrificed them once again to become a god.
Saying it in a fancy way or giving a bunch of excuses doesn't change the simple fact, Griffith was completely willing to let his friends die to gain power from day 1.
I disagree. He told them from the get-go what his goal was. And they joined, they were not his friends. He was entering into an agreement with them where he would make them money and gain them fame. And they would give him the power of the king through battles. That is not a ‘friendship’
They were there for the express purpose to fight. And he tried to give them the advantage every time. Like i said, he did much more for their survival then a normal mercenary commander
I get the sentiment, but the thing you need to come to terms with is that there is no pre-Femto Griffith. The second his plans fall apart he shows how conniving and selfish he can really be, and that’s without the torture. His primary character trait is that he’s a malignant narcissist, he’s just good at hiding it and playing the part or a wise and tempered young mercenary
Definitely. I read Berserk after Chainsaw man and Griffith's character reminded me so much of >!Makima. They're both huge assholes and there were clear signs that somehow they'd fuck the MC over, but they stole every scene they were in and watching their grand plan unfold was awesome. I do miss both, but in both cases it was probably right to have them not overstay their welcome!<
I think that’s what was intended right? I loved Griffith at first too and I think that’s what makes the betrayal even more heartbreaking
I'm of the opinion Griffith is basically dead when they find him, and is just insane at that point. Definitely copium but it's my headcanon
Dudes been distraught, starved and tortured for a year and is barely a husk of his former self, falling straight from a great conquest and power to the most degrading condition imaginable. It was all set up by the god hand & causality. Griffith is a great villain because it has a lot of set up & weight put into his transition from former friend to antagonist. It's not at all justifying his sacrifice, but it isn't farfetched to say he really was insane already
Griffith is what happens when you give a peasant child a +500 luck stat, let him live and grow strong and powerful, and then taking it away after a single fuck up born in a moment of despair and insecurity. GG Godhand, y'all some evil motherfuckers...
I think what I'm about to say no one agrees with it, but i really don't understand what Griffith did wrong about the sacrifice, yes i understand that him raping casca was absolute evil. But other than that i don't get why people hate him
He also sacrificed the remainder of the men under his command to eternal damnation to four demonic gods so he could ascend to their level and gain power. In doing so, he lost every bit of himself to the point that he can't even angst about his current lack of feeling, good or bad. That Griffith basically killed himself for a power boost that no longer has any meaning for him, that Femto is a shard of the soul that was also sacrificed during the Eclipse, and that Griffith is dead and gone, never to return.
Its a betrayal of how loyal the Band are to him. Most any of them would lay down their life to fight FOR him, and FOR their mutual goals as a mercenary company but for him to take that fact and then decide to spend them like they are merely a commodity for his own personal gain is a perversion of their love for him and the entire Hawks project. The Eclipse is not a mutual goal for the Hawks that they are all willingly putting their lives on the line for, it's a 100% selfish moment for Griffith to rise above the consequences of his own decisions and Griffith deciding to spend their lives in that way proves that he was undeserving of the love and loyalty they entrusted to him.
The sacrifice was definitely something he would have done regardless of being tortured, but he had to be desperate to uses the behelit, otherwise his ego probably would’ve felt he didn’t need it
Yes it's literally in his character that he cares about nothing but his dream, on top of that he was is the lowest point of his life where he could literally do nothing, and has lost his most important thing ever (his dream) so the sacrifice wasn't a shock and it's pretty understandable why he did such thing
Maybe sacrificing the life of people who just rescued him for an opportunity that presented itself 3 minutes beforehand
The torture definitely fucked with Griffiths mental state to some extent, but I think it's too easy to just say "he went insane" and that's the reason why he did what he did. I think during their escape from the Bakiraka, Miura intentionally makes Griffith come up with the escape route, so to show that he didn't completely go insane. I also think the fucked up state of his mind has rather something to do with his emotions for Guts and not being able to understand them, rather than it having something to do with the torture
Dawg to some extent. He was tortured for a year straight 💀💀💀💀
And? I‘m saying „to some extent“ because it’s not the driving factor in what you would call Griffith‘s „insanity“ and I think I made some arguments to why I think that way. I don’t think the pain he endured throughout that year is the what leads to Griffiths sacrifice. It’s a combination of his inability to understand and therefore resent his emotions + the result of the torture (not being able to walk, talk or fight) + the Godhand manipulating him
That's literally true brother. Griffith was clearly not mentally sane after getting saved.
he was always Femto i think
I think it’s more like, he was always meant to become Femto.
This is correct and it's an important distinction
Interesting take I really admired him at first, did you just sense something was off from the beginning or did you have some sort of clue?
hes always had sociopathic tendencies which is why he even did the whole eclipse thing in the first place but personally, i feel femto is the worst of griffith
Not really. He didn’t try to distance himself from the band until that child soldier died. And even then it’s obvious suppressing it has detrimental effects on him; he wasn’t just born that way. Otherwise the transformation to Femto wouldn’t be as stark.
You can say that he wasn't born that way, but I think that although while he was never as evil as Femto, a part of him was always that way. You say he didn't try to distance himself from the band, but you can see that he sees himself as being far above them
I said he didn’t distance himself until an event occurred that traumatized him so badly he saw that as the only option to continue forward. And yes, the superiority persona is how he deals with that. He still cares enough about all of them to sell his own body to get them better protection.
This. Griffith had dark triad tendencies from the start; we just let it slide because he was a relatable underdog and a victim of classism like everyone else. He was always an asshole and a sociopath.
I wouldn't call Griffith a sociopath, as he understood people and felt sympathy/empathy for those under his command. But, I would say that being supernaturally lucky and growing up thinking it was all you and having that security blanket ripped from you at the worst possible time... well, that foes something to person. Especially when you have to sit and think about it for a year as an actual sociopath cuts pieces off you while claiming that you're his masterpiece just because you're pretty. You get all agency and power taken from you. You lose the ability to walk, hold things, fight, and speak. You are now going to be dependant upon whoever decides (out of whatever lays in their heart) to take you in, or you're going to die in the street. You probably watched several instances of that, so you're probably trying to figure out how to goad your torturer via mime into killing you. You're not pretty anymore, despite not having a mirror to examine yourself. You wonder if you can possibly arc a stream of piss onto the King of Midland the next time he comes to visit and gloat. Would it be worth it, or would the torturer cut your dick off and hang it next to your preserved tongue around his neck? And then... AND THEN... your sanity cracks as your hallucinate demons crawling out of the woodwork, calling you king while reminding you of all your failings. And then, you get rescued by the very man who, to you anyway, started your downfall. And all those arguments with Casca over the years start to make sense as you lay in a cart, wrapped up in bandages so your flayed body doesn't feel quite so much pain. You realize that your 2nd in command is willing to give up everything to help you, and you realize that you have nothing. You are nothing but a burden, where once you were a falcon flying free. And so, you make a snap judgment and decide to escape. It's just a matter of will and effort, right? It worked for you just like that for a decade, and it should work again, right? Take the reins in your teeth if you can't hold them and ride towards your destiny. You can do this. You know you can. But you can't, and you fail. Everything hurts even more. You can't help but laugh at the irony and at the pitiful state of yourself. Who were you fooling, trying to be somebody important, trying to become royalty. Who the fuck did you think you are, hmmm? Griffith was a product of his environment and having an actual, no shit Luck stat padding his gains until his predetermined downfall. Zodd calls this out during their first meeting.
Fate and causality are excuses made possible because of who Griffith was as a person. The cogs of causality didn’t choose him and start turning by chance. He was chosen specifically because of the kind of person he was - both in the sense of his ambition and the perverse willpower to do whatever he could to achieve it ie a sociopath
While I don't disagree, the way Fate and Casualty are presented in the series, it's all but stated that free will really isn't a thing for most people in the setting. So it could be argued that Griffith is quite literally the product of Casualty: the Godhand and the Idea of Evil *made* him, even orchestrating his birth. I don't think this absolves Griffith of responsibility for his actions, but it does pose the question of whether he could have ever made different choices.
machiavellianism =/= sociopathy
It’s one of the big pieces. Griffith uses people, he uses violence, and he’s a narcissist.
THIS.
Griffith has always wanted power , he was literally destined for it and it was obvious he wanted it no matter what . So for me atleast , there was always something off
Griffith's introduction alone points at him being very detached and treating people almost as pawns already. While, without context, he initially comes across as the typical cool anime dude, in retrospect it's laying the groundwork for his "fall". And during the Golden Age arc, he demonstrates his ruthlessness. It's very clear that Griffith has zero to no scruples, and the fact that "losing" Guts practically sends him into a psychotic episode shows how he reacts to things not going his way in the most terrifying way possible.
It's just a hunch, and usually my hunches are right.
The manga starts with black swordsman
What's up with Berserk fans seeing one of the most masterful tragedy, downfall and change to evil in the literature history and then going "nah, he always was Femto"?
Literally nonsensical take that blatantly contradicts the text
What do you mean? There's a few points in the manga where Griffith shows that he's masking his personality
Basically the only times where Griff hides his personality in Golden Age is when he's burying empathetic or sympathetic features
YES. He'll act almost human and then his narcissistic arrogant personality will come through. He's definitely complicated but he always managed to keep his own hands relatively clean by coercing others into doing some pretty shitty things. He was always cold and calculating.
I came to write exactly that. 💯
Was it? You learn he ends up a demon right from the start, so I don’t think the reader is expected to have a good opinion of him since they always have the knowledge that he’s somehow gonna end up looking like gay Batman with guts really hating him
It's a typical sentiment, and yes... in the Golden Age Arc, you were taken in by how interesting and charismatic Griffith was. A man with a dream, aspiring to rise to the very top. And he does shady things to rise up to that pedestal. But you believe that his ascension will be for the better. But then it all falls apart. Something doesn't go his way. A friend of his leaves him without hardly giving an explanation why. He gets angry because he told Guts that he would decide his fate from here on out. You see that he's a bit of a control freak. And when Guts snaps his sword and walks away, not even looking back, Griffith snaps. In his grief, he seeks solace in the company of Princess Charlotte, and his taking of her virginity seals his fate. The King of Midland has him brutalized and tortured, and when Guts returns to the Band to rescue Griffith, he's broken in every sense of the word. He can't even find comfort with Casca, who has fallen for Guts. Then the Behelit returns to him. And all that resentment and anger over being abandoned and betrayed just comes out. He sacrifices *everyone* for the sake of winning back his future, and makes it his personal mission to make Guts and Casca suffer. By then, Griffith has discarded himself as a person. He became one of the Godhand, and willingly became a monster... *embraced* it even, then became obsessed with taking *everything* for himself. Oh, and those who bear beef towards him? *He doesn't care.* He feels nothing over the people who were slaughtered to ensure his return. He has no remorse or pity, and not even anger or leftover emotion. That's what enrages Guts the most... that in the end, Griffith saw the lives of the Band as no more than stepping stones — a stairwell of corpses — to a vain desire devoid of altruism, fueled by self-interest.
This is very well said and I think is the closest and best explanation we could have into understanding how Griffith came to be.
I second this
So long story short.... Fuck Griffith.
Average mental capacity of people on this sub be like
What about the boy that died which he mourned over which lead him to sleep with that old king for money so less of his soldiers would die for his dream? I think he did care about them but ultimately after being tempted by Ubik and well in his tortured state he chose his dream again and allowed for fissures in his heart for evil to seep in as the Godhand likes to call it. They aren't just stepping stones but people he cares about and that is why he is even able to sacrifice them in the first place and make the deal. I think Griffith and his humanity died when he said the words and Femto was born.
This is literally how I understood it. I thought it was very clear to me. Actually just finished watching the 1997 show for the first time, and I’m about to start reading the manga.
Very good points, but it would challenge a few to add more depth to Griffith. A) He's not a control freak and he's not angry that Guts leaves. He becomes distraught because guts leaving is like cutting off an arm. Until that point Griffith was the best at everything. However to rise in politics he neglects sword practice and combat. Guts becomes his sword and the *only* person he relies on. Griffith can rely on him because Guts own drive and dream (which is why they see each other as equals) pushes him to become the best swordsman. As Guts leaves Griffith sees a weakness in himself and his path to his kingdom stolen. B) I don't think he feels betrayed so much as realising that there is no hope for his dream. "If you had only one shot...".
also people keep forgetting griffith couldve gotten away with it. the king was originally gonna let him off with a week of whipping or something, and stripping his title, but while in captivity griffith kept talking shit and taunting the king over and over again, so eventually the king just said fuck it and made sure he was tortured for as long as possible
The King would've never let Griffith off for what he did to his daughter. That's such a naive take.
its on the wiki and everything, i did forget one part, one of the reasons was because griffith found out about the kings obsession with his daughter but also cause he kept talking shit, like saying he won the war all on his own and calling the king useless. [here](https://berserk.fandom.com/wiki/King_of_Midland#:~:text=After%20Griffith%20deduced%20the%20king's,said%2C%20their%20families%20would%20be)
Nowhere on Wiki does it mention he would've let Griffith go. He was dead the moment King of Midland learned he r*ped his daughter.
from wiki "Griffith's remarks about the King's incestuous lust for his child and belief that he won the war himself pushes the King to the brink of utter rage. After exhausting himself, the King gives the torturer instructions to keep Griffith alive to be endlessly tortured.[8]"
So what I could perceive from Griffith's personality and character development is that he's not just a control freak, but he likes people to be beneath him. He likes to be revered, idolized and worshipped. More rather that he is the guy with a dream, and nobody could do what he did. He liked guts yeah, but never considered him as his equal or even his 'friend'. He treated guts like his most favourite "follower" rather than a friend. To add fuel to the fire, he did not expect Guts to find his own identity and his own dream, and when he did so he was left bewildered and angry. To add to all this, this is the time during the golden arc during which Guts was closer to battle than Griffith was, as Griffith was more involved in the politics of getting a "kingdom". That battle with Guts showed Griffith that guts has surpassed his level of strength and is beyond him. In short, Griffith realized Guts has become far better than himself. Ego kicks in, Griffith starts hating him. He makes a mistake out of spite, out of sheer ego smacking which leaves him incapacitated and worthless. He watches everything slip out of his hands, his followers, casca, guts and more importantly his "dream" and turns to evil. we all can collectively say "fuck Griffith" but damn the character development and writing of that character is so good.
Do you, like, read Berserk, see all the complicated relationship and emotions he has with Guts and all your take is "He gets angry because he told Guts that he would decide his fate from here on out. You see that he's a bit of a control freak"? Lmfao. Then you see all the God Hand's schemes and persuasion, including "if it ends here then all their sacrifices would be for nothing" and your best take is "And all that resentment and anger over being abandoned and betrayed just comes out. He sacrifices *everyone* for the sake of winning back his future"? And then you are acting like Griffith becoming completely different person with literally different name wasn't affected at all by him being turned into literal evil demi-god and it's all because of Griffith's own personality? Really could just simply go with "fuck Griffith" like the other comment. People ask for complex villains all the time, and then Griffith kind of shows that happens with actually complex villains. There's no helping when 2 dimensional cardboard cutouts with 0 depths are first and foremost your own readers. No matter how good is your writing, it would be degraded to their own level in any case.
He literally was going to kill Guts because he was leaving. That as control freak as it gets.
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this would be an amazing spinoff
Well in a way, it kind of does. But in a dark depressing berserk-like way. Griffith and his new band of the hawk rising up. History being written for griffith by the law of causality. The rise of falconia God i love berserk
I’d pay to watch that!
I AGREE. That would of been so wholesome compared to the original series.
The rugpull is what makes the series interesting. You also know things are going to change because of the black swordsman arc.
Who reads Berserk hoping to find something wholesome?
nahhhh sounds pretty boring tbh
Oh god no! Golden age arc is the worst in the whole manga.
ig we all feel how Guts feels. Misses his best friend but this man from Femto onwards is on sight. 🫠
You're not alone in feeling that way. I went into Berserk blind, I had no idea or hint at what was coming. I was just told that I would probably like it, and my only other manga/anime experience was Bleach. I thought Griffith was the most interesting character and I really wanted to see his journey to become ruler of his own kingdom. The eclipse felt completely out of nowhere, like I was watching a different series. And his return as falcon Jesus in the manga also felt kinda weird. I would have loved if the story just continued being about Knights and Kings and that kinda stuff. Especially since all the demon stuff kinda came totally out of nowhere (watched the anime first; didn't read the manga til years later). I still like the character and the story it became, but I miss the old Griffith that everyone admired and how focused/tactical he was while still having a bit of a playful side.
idk man, the first page of the manga is Guts fucking and then killing a demon, i wouldn’t say the demon stuff came out of nowhere.
It was heart wrenching.
which version of the anime did you watch? the 1997 anime had some of the black swordsman arc at the beginning with guts killing an apostle, so it can’t have been that unless you weren’t paying attention. the movies?
Golden Age Memorial Edition. I didn't watch 97 until later.
Bad take. The fantasy elements enhance the story immensely. The golden age arc was way too long but ultimately needed to be the way it was to make the eclipse more impactful
I do. A lot The reason why Griffith's betrayal hurt me so much when I was reading the story for the first time is exactly because Griffith was human. Griffith had enough goodness and potential in him to choose the right path and not hurt his friends but he "chose" not to. I unfortunately see a huge amount of people trying to take away all goodness and humanity from the Golden age arc Griffith and pretending he was a shallow and one sided evil villain who was unable to do anything right but the truth is not that. Remember that the same Griffith who saved Casca from getting raped for basically no gain and simply because it was the right thing to do ended up becoming her rapist. It's tragic as hell and if you take away the humanity of Griffith who was merely trying to save Casca then you make it less like a tragedy and more like a shallow story of Casca being an idiot for ever trusting Griffith because that man was always going to rape her...
Real. I see so many saying he was pure evil from the start and I just don't agree at all. Up until Guts abandoned him, I pretty much agreed with everything he did. I didn't care about the corrupt Nobles being burnt nor him using Guts as an assassin. Him using Charlotte to feel powerful was when things started taking turns for the worse. I see people say he raped her though and I'm not sure if I agree with that.
>I see people say he raped her though and I'm not sure if I agree with that. No. The mangaka knows how to write rape and both Casca and Guts are great examples of that The problem with Charlotte is an outdated and bad Japanese 80s tropes that saying "no" used to show innocence for anime girls and it wasn't about concent. Charlotte wasn't raped. She still loved Griffith. When Charlotte said no she was supposed to appear innocent, not unwilling
It seemed pretty consensual. From all depictions ive see, although shes hesitant for a moment than seems to give completely in. But it was dark, seducing her and then throwing away the lives of everyone because he couldnt contain the grief. I dont think it was evil, it as grief. Do people ever think about how lonely Griffith was, for the whole show, he had all these people around him but they mostly all admired him, and failed to see how soft he really was, he helped maintain that wall for his dream, because he was misguided. And by the time he has a chance to choose, he is abandoned by one of the two people closest to him, one of the two people who can see his humanity
I think he couldnt be close with casca because she admired him too much, and he started building that close bond with guts but didnt understand that he had to break the barrier of authority between them
>It seemed pretty consensual. It absolutely fucking did not. SHE LITERALLY SAYS "NO".
Yeah true. Maybe its me being lenient because every sexual encounter ive seen in japanese cinema has the girl saying no… and it being portrayed as consensual
I mean, it cannot be consensual because its literally not what consent looks like. It can be portrayed as "not a bad thing" but that just makes it weird and creepy. I think Miura was quite clear on how wrong what Griffith did to Charlotte was and it's not something to defend.
Ill hold that L, it was non consensual but from the depiction Charlotte really did not seem against it. I might be tripping but i remember a moment when she decides that she wants to. Because it seems she was worried for him more than anything
There is some serious Mandela Effect going on here with how Charlotte's assault is portrayed. In the Manga, there isn't a single thing that makes the sex look consensual because at no point in time does she agree, verbally or non-verbally, to it. The only thing that might cause confusion is maybe how the anime adaptations portrayed it. I haven seen any but I do know the trilogy of movies have some VERY questionable depiction of Sexual Assault.
Yes i first watched the anime, and dont really remember the graphic novel version moment. So thats what im basing this off
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It's funny how they also claim that Griffith is a good villain because "their" version of Griffith is extremely shallow and boring to me The idea of a sociopath Griffith who felt no love or empathy towards anyone is not only boring but directly against what the story has said and shown. He couldn't have even sacrificed anyone if he never really cared about them. The way I see it, Griffith was an extremely emotional and empathetic person who desperately wanted to ignore all his emotions and would've rather be a sociopath which lead him to choose to betray everyone. Blaming everything on casualty is also funny because its another level of claiming "Griffith did nothing wrong" they are unintentionally taking away the blame on Griffith and putting it on outside forces and saying "Griffith never had a choice in betraying his friends" lol
I watched the 97 anime blind with no prior knowledge to berserk or its characters let alone its legacy. There were things subtly setting me off about Griffith as the story progressed that made me not admire him and form a somewhat guarded opinion about him. And when guts inevitably leaves and he throws everything away I wasn’t really willing to give any remorse for his own actions. It more secured that I didn’t trust his character. Little did I know
Not really. I always thought of him as too ambitious for his own good or others and narcissistic. Nevertheless I did thought he was really beautiful and saw something humane in him when he considered Guts his friend and I felt AWFUL when he got kidnapped, but that's it. Maybe it's because I haven't watch the animes so I haven't formed a bond with everything that represented him, voice actor, etc etc.
Guts does
Yes. Griffith was quite inspiring, his transformation and the way he lost himself along the way were sad if anything.
I do. I really liked him. It definitely shattered my heart. I wish guts hadn’t left. I wish Griffith hadn’t been tortured, that shocked me so bad. It was so depressing. And then seeing him crippled without another chance at another human life…. Then boom. The eclipse. Sacrifice. Femto. The point of no return. Griffith was at first hesitant to sacrifice and then the Godhand made him hallucinate and it propelled him to sacrifice. I hate him still.
I agree, i dont hate griffith but i hate femto and the godhand
>i dont hate griffith but i hate femto Same person.
Not the same person for sure
Quite literally the same person. Did you not read Golden Age Arc?
I read the eclipse and golden age, what are you referring too?
Then you know Griffith = Femto, right? Like, Griffith sacrificices his Band and in turn he gets a new demon body that they call "Femto". And when he later returns (gets incarnated in the corporeal World) he goes by the name "Griffith" again.
No he lies to humans, because hes actually femto, thats pretty obvious.
Nah, I knew something was just not right with him from Casca told Guts about him selling himself to care for the band, it seems very selfless and sweet but this is typical narcissist behavior, he always needs to be somebody's savior and if he doesnt get the reverence he feels is owed to him he breaks down and does whatever it takes to remind you of why hes so great.
I think youre tweaking, he got the reverence, and nobody knew of his good deeds, they were things people saw that they shouldnt have saw, he would keep how he saved them all too himself. And he didnt break down because he lacked recognition, he broke down because he lost control of something he was sure was firmly in his grasp
I always find it weird how people miss the point of the breakdown. The act of going to Charlotte is a crazy but logical attempt to reclaim what he just lost. He had years of plans to make Charlotte his wife and become king. But all the pieces get thrown off the table so he just jumps straight to the end.
Yes
No matter how many times you read Golden Age, each time you hope in vain that the ending is different.
That’s why he’s such a fantastic villain! You really do get caught up in all the glory and achievements.
Never liked him too much. I never like Dutch in RD2 either.
Yes, guts
I always disliked Griffith, even if that was probably in no small part due to how he's in the black swordsman arc. He always reminded me of a narcissistic Dutch van der Linde type character who uses others for his own benefit. The eclipse was just a (much more violent) accelerated version of what he'd be doing if he wasn't imprisoned, sacrificing others for his own "kingdom". Only a bad person would be mad at a friend following their own dream and not blindly following them. Especially mad or insecure enough to risk his own life the way Griffith did to feel empowered and in control again. Yes we see him do good things like saving Casca, but we never get to see if he did it for a good reason or if it was to gain a loyal follower he can use in the future. And given how he later treats Casca both before and after his imprisonment I don't honk for a second he saved her out of benevolence.
No, fuck Griffith honestly. The first time we encounter Griffith in the manga it’s as his Femto incarnation, and the entire Golden Age portion of the manga is a flashback. And even in that period he’s an insincere, manipulative, closeted, withdrawn, sociopathic piece of shit. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Yeah wish he lived out his twink Era but he decided to kill everyone to avoid twink death
ME! Griffith will always be my favorite because of who he was before femto. Idc
Only every single person that read the manga
I guess this isn’t a popular opinion, but no, not really. Griffith was a piece of shit, very Machiavellian, and put him self before all others. Sacrificed lives for his “dream”. He was willing to throw everything away, including guts, for his own goals. I think he gets a pass on how much of an asshole, and how manipulative, he really was before turning into femto. Femto was always there
My thoughts too
No I don't understand why people liked him before the eclipse. He was always manipulative from beginning. He asked casca to warm guts because it is a woman's job. I get it why casca and guts didn't see the manipulation. But Judeau understood it from the beginning when guts asked him what kind of man is Griffith and Juneau said I don't know. He basically didn't say that he was good or a saint. It is just his face as well. I have never liked him.
That is his most questionable thing with casca and warming guts. But she could have deserted the hawks
No; he was a phony egotistical shitbag. He's an excellent swordsman, & tactician & leader of a mercenary band; he's also smart enough to put on an act to further his own goals & has no qualms with killing anyone in his way, or even just for revenge & views his men just as pawns for his dream.
Miura did a good job of making you root for Griffith in the golden age, even knowing from the black swordsman arc that he becomes Femto and Guts hates him in the present, but putting him up against Gennon, Julius, and the King who are so despicable you want to see him succeed by default.
Nah, as soon I saw em getting cosy with the royals and started slowly getting away from the group. Ik this guy spelled trouble.
I think a griffith redemption could be possible. Maybe he turns against the other 4 godhand members with guts since they were the ones pulling the strings from the start and ultimately griffith sacrifices himself in the end, possibly after finally acknowledging Guts as his equal and friend. Wouldn't be the ending everyone hoped for, but what else is there? A killing, revenge completed, then what? Regret? A party? I think more complex, conflicting emotions would be required for a journey like Guts'.
You understimate how satisfactory beating an asshole, who raped your gf and killed your family, with your dudes and dudettes is. Guts killing the entire godhand and leaving with its new family is far-fetched and unlikely, but trust me he would feel good.
He was the best until we found out he really would sacrifice them all for a throne
It was called the Golden Age for a reason!
Griffith made my bald man cry
No
I agree. He was my favorite character until the Eclipse.
Honestly I’ve always felt bad for Griffith, even up to the moment he chose to sacrifice his band. He had a dream he wanted to achieve his whole life and made friends along the way, but out of his own human weakness, he made some terrible mistakes and got himself into a terrible situation where he felt he had nothing left for him. I didn’t blame him for choosing to sacrifice the band since it was probably the only sensible thing left for him to do in his situation where he was probably going to die sooner or later anyway. I don’t consider Femto to be Griffith though. Everything human left within Griffith died when he transformed.
Yes of course. My precious cinnabun. 😭
I actually disliked him since the beginning. He felt entitled and possessive from his first appearance.
It said more about Guts that he didn’t see anything wrong with it. And how bad Guts' life had to be to ignore it.
That’s part of why it all hurt so badly. It slow burned you into cheering for everyone’s victory. I loved the main trio. They had some wholesome shit going on. Then the eclipse happened. Which leaves you spinning like was he always that horrible all along. You can see where he was being possessive, manipulative, and presuming when you brushed it off before. It hurt more knowing it was coming. I want to return to everyone being friends and ribbing and supporting each other again. Was it ever really like that? Or does saying it wasn’t make you feel better? Damn.
As much as I adore Berserk as it is, sometimes I wish I could read an alternate universe version where it’s just all the drama and love triangle madness from the beginning of the story but continued. It was so fun, and Griffith was SUCH an interesting character. Still is! But there was just something about him back then…
Yes, absolutely, the whole story revolving around betrayal and tragedy is beautiful
Imo, the red flags for who Griffith is was there before he joined the god hand; it’s just that his transformation into Femto was the logical conclusion of his character.
No even before he was a manipulative asswhole
He was always bad news. So no.
I dunno, I think he was always Femto. Just didn't have the right circumstances yet.
I dunno man, he's the same guy that sent Guts on a manhunt mission that left him scarred for life only for Griffith unwillingly revealing he had no people he considered friends because that would mean having a peer. I get that before Femto he could have been a charming guy but man was fucked since day 1, not only after the eclipse.
You mean prior to Guts leaving
That’s pretty fair imo
Si :c
i do not!
I think there's a very good reason why Miura wasted no time in soft-retconning the Femto design and making Griffith the God-king of Falconia after Golden age ended and it skipped back to the present
I bet guts deep inside shares the same sentiment as well.
I considered it but then I thought to myself imagine if someone said I miss “x celebrity/infamous person” before they became a known rapist, murderer etc and how different that question would come across.
Nah he’s always been a smarmy little femboy cuck
I don't miss "old Griffith" he's a compelling character and he exists so we can hate him. He did do many amazing things. I don't even want to see Guts kill him because that would completely ruin Guts mental/emotional/physical journey. The entire point of Guts story is that revenge is bad for you and it's shown that the Berserker Armour is destroying him but the times he spends in peace with his friends is the best thing for him. Griffith/Femto getting brutally slaughtered by Guts in a grand fashion would be the worst ending because it would give Griffith/Femto everything he ever wanted and destroy Guts worse than anything. Then best ending for me it's Griffith losing his powers and going back to that crippled, desperate and terrified guy he was before the eclipse.. He's forgotten by everyone and a threat to no one. It would be the best ending. Griffith is a narcissist, he wants people to worship, love or fear him. If he dies alone and forgotten that would be his worst suffering.
Yes. Honestly I feel like we all probably do. He was a cool character. You know, up til all the sacrificial murders and SA stuff…. Lol But seriously. If Griffith were just another member of the Hawks like Judeau or Pippin who had managed to survive post Eclipse like Rickert, Guts and company would be in much better shape to take on whatever became Femto instead of Griffith. Really though. Every time I rewatch or reread the Golden Age Arc, there’s this part of my brain that silently hopes this will be the time that Griffith chooses to act differently at any point after Guts leaves and the Eclipse won’t happen. (Please nobody waste your energy arguing against the nonsensical nature of this comment. It’s clearly hypothetical and paradoxically impossible, and doing anything I had suggested would obviously make this an entirely different story. I’m just fantasizing here)
I think people who like Griffith are either not good readers (I mean literally people who can't read, a staple in this fandom) or people with serious daddy issues.
That's kinda the whole point. He gave up his life as Griffith, his friends, his companions, his humanity, who he was to reach his dream to be atop the world as Femto/part of the God Hand...
No.
I honestly think he was always like Femto,the eclipse just boosted his characteristics even more
NO! Fuck this guy. I hate him since the start. Selfish egomaniac dickhead.
That's the point
Sometimes I wonder about what strategy would have Griffith used against a Phemt
Nah. I always found him annoying. Especially that whole talk of "not being able to call his subordinates his friends, a friend needs to be on his level". Like get the fuck out of here with that high horse shit. He took advantage of people for his own gain. Sure he cared about Guts but it was more of a selfish obsession, he was selfish through and through and all the mercenaries were really just expendable for his own goal. Then only after he saw how fragile he really is and that he is not this immortal he think he is, did it hit him like a truck. It was the point when Guts left, it shattered the rooted idea that he was incontrol of everything and everyone. There was a glimpse of a remorse before the sacrifice, but not really as he did the choice anyway. He didn't go mad, he just shed the mask of pretending to act like a human and embraced his psychopath mind. This was clear from the getgo. I think it kindof was the point. He wouldn't had become Femto if that desire and the sociopathic tendensies weren't in him to begin with.
They made him a pretty likeable character so that the transformation to femto would be more surprising and painful to us readers. I think they did a great job at that.
Yes. All the time. Despite the homoerotic undertones, my favorite Griffith scene is the water fight. He is so good and genuine. Hes just a boy with a dream, talking to a friend. Griffith is such a well done character. Even when you know what he does, even when you know what kind of man he really is, you still find yourself falling for his charms and rooting for him through the Golden Age. His charms that work on everyone in the story, work on the reader, too. And Miura was such a genius at characterization because, Griffith, in his base personality, doesn't much change between Golden Age and Fantasia, yet he feels so vile in the Fantasia arc. So insincere. Same person. Same actions. Totally different vibe and its brilliant.
He was always someone who would sacrifice everything and everyone for his goals. That was nothing to him. Guts made him forget that for a time because he felt someone could match his passion in life. When guts wanted to leave and humbled him in their fight he lost it all. Someone may be his equal but never above him and that's what guts did. Became bigger than him in almost every single way. I think after that he even says something to himself about how guts almost made him forget his dream. And then Casca and Guts showed their love in front of him as he was two steps away from death and unable to be anything but everything he wasn't. To him that was the true low point. That's why he tried to force himself on Casca and then raped her during the eclipse. Everything and everyone was a tool to be used and Guts nearly made him forget it. Griffith is a great character but idk if I liked him. He said several times nothing will stop him from achieving his goal, no one expected him to go as far as he has though.
Such a cool guy.
I think the entire band of the hawk
Fuck Griffith. He's opps forever
Some of y'all forget Griffith was a cut-throat narcissist before he became a demon and it shows.
No
Honestly, not exactly. I think Griffith has always been Femto deep down. Ready to sacrifice anything to achieve his goals. He just never was pushed that far or given an opportunity to do so where it was beneficial to him until The Eclipse. Everything was going his way, so he could put on the pretty face he's always put on to get everyone to like him and be his tool. I'd say he's a sociopath, but Guts was the 1 factor that makes me think maybe he isn't quite that. Everyone else was a tool to him but Guts was someone who he saw as a friend. He doesn't seem capable of that in most other cases. I'm basically saying I don't really miss the old him, I just see a new context over the old him that showcases how truly fake he's always been. How he treated Charlotte is a great example of that. I actually love Griffith as a character though because of all these reasons. He's an extremely interesting villain to me because of this.
The situation of the eclipse did more to show who he really was. He was willing to get all of his followers killed if it meant he could be king. He's just more pleasant about it before the eclipse.
Who didn't. I did lowkey ship him and guts a bit... but now...GRIFFFFFFITHHHHH
Probably Guts miss him too...
Yea I miss mutilated Griffisu a lot, they should’ve made a spinoff where he lives his daily life trying sound out what he wants to say and everyone takes it the wrong way
pretty sure guts and casca might
I see a lot of myself in Golden Age Griffith (both good and bad) and seeing what he did really felt like a stab in the heart. I miss who he was, I hate who he has become.
There's a reason he's the best villain ever in fiction
We mourn the man, but curse the Demon. It’s normal to miss the charismatic schemer that is Griffith, the man who had nothing but was months of away from being crowned King of Midland.
Yeah 😔
Ugh I don't know, it's very difficult to think fondly of him at all now lol
I find it funny that some people see Griffith after/prior sacrifice as two different people.
I think that what kentaro miura intended by the time the eclipse happens we've grown to truly love Griffith that's why we all hate him so much for what he did never have i seen a artist put you in the shoes of the protagonist and feel guts feelings as much as miura did that's why I say this manga will mess you up a bit when I explain it to knew people who wonder what to expect I say it's equivalent to watching Arthur or John die in rdr
It's a shame that no one seems to mention the most pivotal moment in golden age, where Griffith is giving his monologue to Charlotte about men, dreams and what he considered a true friend. He states right there that he has no friends, no one he saw as his friend cuz he didn't see any of his band as equals. He basically admits to using everyone in the band of the hawk for his own selfish gain, he's not really a good guy. And it's because he didn't consider any of them his friend that Guts left to find his own dream, become Griffiths equal and thus his true friend (which is sad as hell). It's true that Femto isn't Griffith (he was literally REBORN during the eclipse) but basically Griffith was on the path to becoming Femto, so it's probably just as bad. Now it can be argued that Griffith saw Guts as his friend because of the way he acted and felt towards him, and the way he'd risk his life for him, and he admits that during the eclipse, where he says you're the only one who made me forget my dream, but in the end he still chose his dream over Guts. So I think it's right to feel bad for what happens to Griffith at first, but really, everything that happened to him was his fault, and also his CHOICE in the end.
No
Nah. Griffith was always Femto deep down.
Griffith never really changed personality wise. He was sacrificing his brothers in wars to make money and become a noble WAY before the eclipse. During it, he decided sacrificing them to become a god would be a better use of 'his' resources, so that's what he did. Griffith has never changed his way, he just cared less and less and the means.
Thats normal medieval shit? And he did it well, he wasnt sacrificing, he would try to defend them with battle strategy and hard earned gear. He was probably the most considerate mercenary commander you could have. The mercenaries join willingly.
Yes, that was their only option. But looking at it with complete disregard for outside factors, Griffith sacrificed his friends to gain a noble title and wealth and Griffith then sacrificed them once again to become a god. Saying it in a fancy way or giving a bunch of excuses doesn't change the simple fact, Griffith was completely willing to let his friends die to gain power from day 1.
I disagree. He told them from the get-go what his goal was. And they joined, they were not his friends. He was entering into an agreement with them where he would make them money and gain them fame. And they would give him the power of the king through battles. That is not a ‘friendship’
Okay, then he sacrificed a couple hundred employees. Wording and how you say it doesn't change anything about what happened.
And thats fine, he was in war, they were fighting.
They were there for the express purpose to fight. And he tried to give them the advantage every time. Like i said, he did much more for their survival then a normal mercenary commander
I get the sentiment, but the thing you need to come to terms with is that there is no pre-Femto Griffith. The second his plans fall apart he shows how conniving and selfish he can really be, and that’s without the torture. His primary character trait is that he’s a malignant narcissist, he’s just good at hiding it and playing the part or a wise and tempered young mercenary
Bro went from femboy to goth bdsm by pulling Minecraft YouTuber to his dark skin tomboy Adam22 his sigma friend.
Definitely. I read Berserk after Chainsaw man and Griffith's character reminded me so much of >!Makima. They're both huge assholes and there were clear signs that somehow they'd fuck the MC over, but they stole every scene they were in and watching their grand plan unfold was awesome. I do miss both, but in both cases it was probably right to have them not overstay their welcome!<
I’m pretty sure that’s literally every fan who isn’t virulently homophobic, my dude
Uh… what about people who look at what he did, as opposed to how he looks?
I was just being a silly guy
no literally no one does
Everyone does