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Ytlaya posted:edit: One other thing I noticed is that there's a twisted sort of logic to Griffith's actions. When the eclipse first starts he goes on this mental journey when he realizes that what he's been doing up until this point is sacrificing countless people for his dream, and that sacrificing his comrades isn't really any different than killing all of the other people he had killed up until that point. If he actually became a benevolent dictator, his actions would definitely fall into a morally grey zone. If I remember correctly, him become Femto and taking corporeal form ends up making a bunch of monsters/demons appear in the world, which would makes him undeniably bad, but if this wasn't the case it wouldn't be as clear.
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Jan 20, 2014 21:50
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Woebin posted:Even if the killing is morally ambiguous in an ends-justify-the-means sort of way, I'm pretty sure the rape isn't. That was purely to spite Guts for leaving him.
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Jan 20, 2014 22:34
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Woebin posted:Even if the killing is morally ambiguous in an ends-justify-the-means sort of way, I'm pretty sure the rape isn't. Yeah, he's definitely a bad guy/evil. It's just that on a moral level there isn't much of a difference between the sacrifice itself and all of the other people who were killed during his rise to power while head of the band of hawks. I think that there are two main things that motivate Griffith. The first is his ambition to become "king of the world" - the guy at the very top. The other is his relationship with Guts, who is probably the first and only person who has had the gall to not fit nicely into the role that Griffith intended him to fill.
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Jan 20, 2014 22:59
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Azzents posted:That was purely to spite Guts for leaving him.
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Jan 20, 2014 23:41
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Azzents posted:That was purely to spite Guts for leaving him.
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Jan 21, 2014 00:38
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Your honour, I swear that rampant molestation was just to make my friend feel really bad!
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Jan 21, 2014 01:19
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Ytlaya posted:edit: One other thing I noticed is that there's a twisted sort of logic to Griffith's actions. When the eclipse first starts he goes on this mental journey when he realizes that what he's been doing up until this point is sacrificing countless people for his dream, and that sacrificing his comrades isn't really any different than killing all of the other people he had killed up until that point. If he actually became a benevolent dictator, his actions would definitely fall into a morally grey zone. My read is that Griffith falls for a Sunk-Cost fallacy. "Oh, you can't accomplish your dream? Well I guess all those chumps died in vain then... unless you're willing to sacrifice even more!" Griffith always knew that other people were dying in pursuit of his goal and at times it pained him, but he thought it would all be worthwhile in the end and he knew some sacrifices had to be made. But "The end justifies the means" falls apart completely if you don't manage to reach your goal, and a year's worth of torture is a long time to reflect on your life's work falling apart and your decline into powerlessness. So he wasn't rationalizing that losing soldiers in battle is kinda the same thing as feeding them to demons, he was deciding to double down on his sacrifices regardless of the cost. And no longer being basically a skeleton is kinda a perk too. Elite fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Jan 21, 2014 |
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Jan 21, 2014 01:25
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IMO, Griffin seems manipulated by the Godhand to believing in his evilness because he never was portrayed as particularly bloodthirsty as a warrior. He sought to avoid unnecessary bloodshed and was shown to have deep regrets about the loss of his soldiers. The only malice he held was against royalty, specifically his political rivals and former sponsor. Other than that, battle was always a means to an end and not the primary vehicle for his ambition. He sold his tail for money, offered hospitality before aggression towards Guts, and cunning over brawn in conflict. I think the Godhand needed to fulfill a destiny and therefore had to convince Griffin in their ITS YO DESTINY speech. They perverted Griffith's ideals to serve theirs. The whole thing is I think Griffith was right in sacrificing them. Not morally but logically. Griffith wasn't as much of a monster as an inevitability. The Godhand represents this end of ideals and a reduction of humanity to flesh. As for raping Casca, I think it was he was using Casca and mortifying himself to the demonic world. The question is what would have happened to her if Skull Knight didn't come? Would she have survived the eclipse? Was he and the Godhand playing puppet-master?
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Jan 21, 2014 01:52
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This comes up more often than it should: Party A - Rape is never acceptable. Even in fiction. Party B - That horrific rape of Character_A by Character_B was amazing writing, but drat did it make me die a little inside. Then Party A gets offended that anyone could justify a rape when Party B is just commenting on it from a narrative development and structure for dramatic change and severe trauma. Different discussions, same topic.
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Jan 21, 2014 02:25
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Well, Void has managed to puppetmaster Skull Knight on at least one other occasion. His behelit-sword actually made fantasy-land possible after all.
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Jan 21, 2014 02:35
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Andrigaar posted:This comes up more often than it should: Yeah, I'll just leave it at this. The number of people who use the if she liked it argument for that scene is disturbingly high. I think as far as cementing Griffith as the final villain it was completely effective. I never honestly liked him as a character, and it always came off more of,"you're important to my cause and thus me" than "I care about you". The eclipse was horrifying before what he did, then after it was just tragic and raised way to many things that make me ashamed at anime communities. Shugojin posted:Well, Void has managed to puppetmaster Skull Knight on at least one other occasion. His behelit-sword actually made fantasy-land possible after all. There is a lot of speculation that Void pulled the same thing on Skull Knight that Griffith did to Guts.
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Jan 21, 2014 02:48
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Andrigaar posted:This comes up more often than it should: I don't know, it pisses me off so much that it was either good writing or just a low blow.
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Jan 21, 2014 02:48
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ManSeriesBrofist posted:Yeah, I'll just leave it at this. The number of people who use the if she liked it argument for that scene is disturbingly high. I think as far as cementing Griffith as the final villain it was completely effective. I never honestly liked him as a character, and it always came off more of,"you're important to my cause and thus me" than "I care about you". The eclipse was horrifying before what he did, then after it was just tragic and raised way to many things that make me ashamed at anime communities. They're either tools to reach the white castle or the corpses building the staircase and must be regarded as such. Basically he's an extreme sociopath and doesn't think of anyone else as "people". I found it thematic in context of his frustration over a year of impotence. temple posted:I don't know, it pisses me off so much that it was either good writing or just a low blow. I'm with you on that, but the sequence doesn't seem to ever bring up middle ground. While I find that a testament to good writing, I just wish the online discussion wasn't instantly name calling so I was hoping to kill it now before we had another full page of copy/paste bickering from every other time. On a humorous distraction, I swear Blanche Dubois' rape in Streetcar has fewer people lashing out at each other.
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Jan 21, 2014 03:07
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Griffith was a monster from long before the Godhand got to him directly. Even at his most idealistic his goal was basically "I want to become one of the nobility, because they're worthless and corrupt and I could do better." In the process of achieving it he was already becoming more and more like they are, every bit as willing to murder, blackmail, compromise his beliefs, and treat his friends like tools to get there. He tells Guts he wants someone who could stand beside him with his own dream, and then tries to kill him when Guts actually starts pursuing that thought, because he really only said it to convince himself. All his encounter with the Godhand did was strip away his illusions about needing or caring about his human comrades. Femto is just Griffith at his most naked; the exact same state of mind as his crippled self, just now with limitless power to back it up.
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Jan 21, 2014 04:00
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Azzents posted:That was purely to spite Guts for leaving him. That makes it way worse though, if you think about it. Poor Caska. I always though the whole Femto thing was weird and unnecessary, he may as well have been reborn as he is now from the Eclipse. He barely did anything as Femto, it strikes me a bit of backpedaling on the part of the writer.
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Jan 21, 2014 04:22
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Andrigaar posted:They're either tools to reach the white castle or the corpses building the staircase and must be regarded as such. Basically he's an extreme sociopath and doesn't think of anyone else as "people". I found it thematic in context of his frustration over a year of impotence. I think that Guts' significance is that he's one of the only people (if not the only person) who Griffith formed some sort of emotional connection with, and he lost his poo poo when Guts decided he wanted to do his own thing because he was choosing to break that relationship (not in the sense of disappearing for good, but in the sense of no longer serving under Griffith/being a part of Griffith's dream). If Griffith was a pure sociopath, he probably wouldn't have been as angry at Guts leaving (since at that point in the story all he really needed to do was marry the princess, and Guts being there wouldn't make or break anything). He ends up flipping his poo poo because he views Guts leaving as betrayal, sort of like some really crazy ex in a relationship, and because he's not in a rational state of mind he fucks up big-time by making the irrational decision to pop into the princess's room and sleep with her. If you ignore the rape (which is a pretty straight-forward way of saying "HEY THIS GUY IS EVIL"), I actually find his actions post-Femto/corporeal revival worse than the sacrifice itself. Even if it's wrong, I can understand why he would be emotionally unstable when he was given the choice; he's been having to come to the terms with the fact that he'll never be able to achieve any of his goals and will - in the best case - spend the rest of his life an invalid that other people have to take care of. Right before the eclipse he was able to hear Guts/Caska talking about it, which made it even worse. Many people would probably make reprehensible decisions if given the option to avoid the rest of their lives being ruined; it's sort of like people talking under torture, though in this case mostly psychological torture. But the fact that he showed no regret after the fact (and he actually visited Rickert and the sword graveyard he made to check and see if he had any emotional response to it) sort of solidifies his position as an evil mostly-sociopath. edit: I should probably also mention that, like others have mentioned in this thread, I remembered Griffith also being a sociopath who uses others pre-eclipse. But upon re-reading it the last couple days, he's actually pretty friendly in a not-manipulative way pre-eclipse, and I think that some people might be mixing it up with his post-eclipse actions/mannerisms. Even when they get him after the torture, it takes a while until he shows any sort of anger/jealousy, and he reacts with horror when the eclipse starts (prior to his vision about climbing to the top on a pile of corpses). So while he's definitely always been ambitious/manipulative, I don't think that he was really a sociopath until he was driven crazy by the torture and then manipulated by God Hand.
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Jan 21, 2014 04:23
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ManSeriesBrofist posted:I never honestly liked him as a character, and it always came off more of,"you're important to my cause and thus me" than "I care about you". Back to Griffith, I think all of the characters are dealing with alienation. Griffith's alienation is very subtle in that he treats people like tools but he himself is the greatest tool being used. Think of our good friend Corkus; he is essential to the story. He is the common man. He hates and fears Guts because Guts has no hope. Guts has no sense of nobility in Corkus's eyes. Griffith however gives Corkus all that he could desire. Griffith is like the smiley face, passive rebellion to the alienation of existence. Even though the Band of the Hawk are just bodies to the royal army, Griffith dares to defy them. Even in death, there is honor is having served the band and therefore Griffith. Corkus sees Guts and hates the reality of his life but hopes to be part of Griffith's legacy. Guts was alienated so early and the reader experiences it with him, so we sympathize. Griffith is the archetypal lonely leader that is only as good as what he can do for others. He sorta knows he will probably fail and he has to carry all that guilt and responsibility on his shoulders. The scene when Griffith/Femto is dripping away and surrounded by his tears is dead on. He is being pushed down into the abyss by others. Unlike Guts being forcibly alienated by Gambino, he is aliened by everyone else's demands and hopes. He was just a mercenary leader before meeting Guts and fated to live or die by the king. Guts's zeal to survive ignited Griffith's own humanity. Griffith felt connected to Guts and he was Gut's "special person". I believe Griffith truly loved Guts because like true love, he couldn't explain it. Griffith was a far better friend to Guts than Guts was to him. Guts utterly betrayed him by leaving and then defeating him. Everything that went wrong with the Band was directly related to Guts leaving. I relate to both characters and I can see how Griffith is tragic but in a different way. Berserk is such a good loving story. Half of Western philosophy is depicted in such relatable terms. Tuxedo Catfish posted:Even at his most idealistic his goal was basically "I want to become one of the nobility, because they're worthless and corrupt and I could do better." His Femto form is nakedness but is it his form or the form of ambition? Guts has a naked form as well, the beast. They both have identities and both have dark sides. Ytlaya posted:But the fact that he showed no regret after the fact (and he actually visited Rickert and the sword graveyard he made to check and see if he had any emotional response to it) sort of solidifies his position as an evil mostly-sociopath. temple fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Jan 21, 2014 |
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Jan 21, 2014 04:44
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Ytlaya posted:I've been reading through Berserk again since it's been years since I first did and I remember very little of the post-eclipse plot. I like how despite his appearance and mannerisms the skull knight is unequivocally a good guy; normally a character with his appearance/mannerisms would at the very least be an anti-hero, if not a villain. I forgot how often he pops up and rescues/helps out Guts and his posse. He's even the one who tells them "hey, the elf king might be able to heal Casca," which isn't really tied into some grander mission to vanquish evil; it's just him being nice/helpful. berserwiki posted:Given that an Eclipse occurs every 216 years, Gaiseric must have disappeared 1080 years before the most recent Eclipse. The indication that there were four or five angels implies that members of Godhand, with the exception of Void, are replaced frequently unless all of the recent Chosen have refused the sacrifice. Keeping this in mind, if the God Hand started with Void and if none of them refused sacrifice then Void would have been reborn around Gaiseric's time. the old emperor sure seems to have taken on a surrogate gambino role to his adopted son, gatts. the dog gambino wished fed was valued over guts' raid prize, which i believe symbolized a possible necessity for continued bloodshed to keep a sword (armament/arm/armor) from rusting with disuse. it seems these old men have reasons for their treacheries beyond mere sociopathy, like trying to break a cycle of repeated atrocities, and priming a new hero to succeed where they had failed. femto probably took a dark path like gaiseric in order to save midland, which would have obviously fallen without the band of the hawk's original intervention. here's charlemagne's sword, joyeuse 
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Jan 21, 2014 05:05
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temple posted:As for raping Casca, I think it was he was using Casca and mortifying himself to the demonic world. The question is what would have happened to her if Skull Knight didn't come? Would she have survived the eclipse? Was he and the Godhand playing puppet-master? What really gets me is that even though Guts and Caska have been branded and thus fated to die, Griffith still felt that they both needed to suffer additional pain. Guts deserved to be punished because he once left Griffith, and Caska deserved to be punished because she took Guts away from Griffith.
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Jan 21, 2014 05:16
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temple posted:I think the first line is a misstatement. Griffith recognizes that everyone, even the king, has station and is confined. However, Griffith's dream is really abstract. He wants to be the key that moves in the world beyond his birthright. He wants to be king because that's the biggest shift he could make as a commoner. But he recognizes the trap of existence and wants to defy it. This why he is the largest flame in the bonfire of dreams. He wants to represent change in of itself. The emperor seems to be ignorant of the effect of transformation on his body. He is unable to register the fact that he is now a huge entity and thinks of everyone around him as insects.It can be observed that his mental state deteriorates as he stays in this form. At first he is able to recognition Dhaiva. But then he is disorientated and starts to get lost in his own power and loses his sense of perception. He crushes his Army under his footsteps and considers the gore thus produced as "Crimson Flowers". quote=sword_of_resonance: The full extent of the Sword of Resonance's power remains unclear, but it is related with space-time continuity like God Hand's ability. ... The Skull Knight has stated that he plans to use the Sword of Resonance to help him fight the members of the God Hand. He used the sword against Femto during the battle with Ganishka and attempted to slice Femto with the blade, only to have its dimensional portal manipulated by Femto to slash Ganishka, ironically accomplishing Griffith's dream of ruling his own kingdom. It is the reason of World Transformation.
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Jan 21, 2014 05:38
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Gigantomakhia #3 Less piss, more monsters.
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Jan 22, 2014 22:39
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LordMune posted:Gigantomakhia #3 Now that's more like it. I think I once ran a DnD campaign that went something like this.
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Jan 22, 2014 23:04
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The octopus things are just Ganishka/Sea God minion rehash but drat if they don't look cool.
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Jan 23, 2014 04:07
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So somehow Delos is going to wrestle the Titan, right?
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Jan 23, 2014 05:32
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Suplex everything.
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Jan 23, 2014 18:49
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What bothers me the most about Berserk is that Guts is able to fight with one blind eye. He wouldn't have any depth perception! How dare my show about a guy fighting demons with a sword that probably weighs at least 500lb be so unrealistic.
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Jan 25, 2014 23:19
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Ytlaya posted:What bothers me the most about Berserk is that Guts is able to fight with one blind eye. He wouldn't have any depth perception! How dare my show about a guy fighting demons with a sword that probably weighs at least 500lb be so unrealistic. That's nothing compared to his magical magnetic iron hand. How does that work
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Jan 26, 2014 02:24
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When you've got a sword that big you don't need depth perception. If you can see it, it's in range. 
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Jan 26, 2014 02:44
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trucutru posted:That's nothing compared to his magical magnetic iron hand. How does that work Presumably similar to how the real one does.  
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Jan 26, 2014 03:07
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Interestingly, Miura says he never heard of Götz von Berlichingen until someone told him about the guy after he started Berserk, and that it was a "strange coincidence".
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Jan 26, 2014 03:15
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Back before Miura had internet access, his main research source was a single library book about Authurian legend and medieval European culture. Miura really wanted berserk to look like believable European fantasy and I wouldn't be surprised if it had something similar to Götz's hand in it and Miura used that as inspiration, much like he did with the Armour and clothes (which is why the stuff in berserk both looks like things people at the time would actually wear, and cannot be pinned down to a specific period). The book itself then likely took the idea either from the historical Götz or somebody with a similar prosthetic, without actually mentioning Götz himself. Pensive fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 03:47
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trucutru posted:That's nothing compared to his magical magnetic iron hand. How does that work Also, I think this series has demons and witches and magic poo poo in it.
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Jan 26, 2014 04:44
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Ytlaya posted:What bothers me the most about Berserk is that Guts is able to fight with one blind eye. He wouldn't have any depth perception! How dare my show about a guy fighting demons with a sword that probably weighs at least 500lb be so unrealistic. You can have depth perception through parallax and apparent motion, so that's one less thing for you to be bothered about.
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Jan 26, 2014 05:05
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To be fair, the crossbow isn't in the arm. He just straps it to it when he needs to use it. I do like the little touches on his armor, like the hook and strap he uses for his sword. It doesn't just float on his back like in a videogame.
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Jan 26, 2014 05:06
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trucutru posted:That's nothing compared to his magical magnetic iron hand. How does that work I assume the idea is that the fingers are all magnetic and attach to the sword. But that would also result in a lot of things randomly sticking to his hand. Tiger Shark posted:You can have depth perception through parallax and apparent motion, so that's one less thing for you to be bothered about. Yeah, but there'd still be a huge blind spot. If you try to do some sort of physical activity (like playing catch) while keeping an eye closed you end up having to move your head around a whole lot to keep things in your field of vision.
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Jan 26, 2014 08:11
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notZaar posted:To be fair, the crossbow isn't in the arm. He just straps it to it when he needs to use it. I do like the little touches on his armor, like the hook and strap he uses for his sword. It doesn't just float on his back like in a videogame.
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Jan 26, 2014 11:35
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Ytlaya posted:I assume the idea is that the fingers are all magnetic and attach to the sword. But that would also result in a lot of things randomly sticking to his hand. Yeah and how does his helmet retract like that?
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Jan 26, 2014 14:48
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notZaar posted:To be fair, the crossbow isn't in the arm. He just straps it to it when he needs to use it. I do like the little touches on his armor, like the hook and strap he uses for his sword. It doesn't just float on his back like in a videogame. for the dreamcast. you could count the individual holes in the football player's jersey, but the wrath of guts could still not be contained outside the lightweight pulp pages of weekly circular young shounen mangazine x.
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Jan 28, 2014 06:32
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Having one eye doesnt hamper your depth perception much once you get used to it. We're just used to two so only one is all off.
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Jan 28, 2014 20:10
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KoB posted:Having one eye doesnt hamper your depth perception much once you get used to it. We're just used to two so only one is all off. Yeah, losing both also doesn't hamper it, sometimes it is even an improvement!. See for instance Zatoichi or Daredevil.
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Jan 29, 2014 03:07
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