TheLoneStar posted:

And now the landscape and sky is faces. Really didn't expect that.

The Notorious ZSB posted:

e: since i sniped the page LoneStar, howd the sky of faces turn out for you?

TheLoneStar posted:

Well, I dunno about the ones in the sky, but one in the ground turned into a giant naked lady, so that's all good.

Just saw Pippin hollowed out like a shell (from a monster strangely similar to The Count) and Gaston broke the fourth wall.

mind the walrus posted:

He was always that crazy, but his breaking point was when Guts beat him in a duel and he had to face the reality that he wasn't in absolute control of the world around him.

The Notorious ZSB posted:

Thats another very good quote for posterity.

To the bolded thought... I'd encourage you to revisit the black swordsman chapters after you finish the eclipse...

TheLoneStar posted:

I guess I hadn't realized that had driven him so insane.

Burkion posted:

Also, read this after you get to Guts declaration of war- you'll know *exactly* what that means when you get to it-


The way the world works, magic is always teeming just beneath the surface of Berserk-world. Its a separate layer of reality. Certain things can make those realities mix together, such as the stones, certain trees, grave enough atrocities, so on and so forth. More physical spirits like elves are able to exist in the real world by crossing into it from those points. Same for demons, especially Apostles.

Guts basically becomes a walking nexus point after the Eclipse due to his Brand. The spirits too weak to normally crossover actively can around him, notably at night. So things that people go their whole lives without ever being aware of are now able to make themselves known due to his presence.

Apostles also mostly hosed off to wherever the hell they could since they're not creatures that would do well in groups. Two Apostles in one location means that there's two top tier predators competing for the same food source. The Snake Baron was a roving warlord until he settled down, the Count had his whole area already secured, and you'll see more examples soon. The Dog Knights and Zod were known as mythical figures on the battlefield, but the average person wouldn't believe half of the bullshit said about them.

Guts actively seeks them out following the Eclipse, which raises the awareness that they even EXIST for whoever survives. Which isn't many.

PhantomOfTheCopier posted:

He immediately responds by raping Charlotte. He didn't beat up Corkus, didn't send Casca through some torturous training, didn't find some enemies to go hack to bits, didn't bother to find someone else in power to assassinate. He went with the easiest, most direct solution. Lowest cost, greatest reward (greatest risk).

Figuratively and literally, "his sword was broken". Not only could he not recover Guts, he couldn't even participate in battle. That "arm" had been removed. What was left was his boyish looks or tactical skill. And with the queen gone, who really cares about a daughter they'll probably high-five me!

TheLoneStar posted:

So, what this means is that monsters aren't around every corner, except when Guts is around they come out to play more often? I had just been under the impression that after the Eclipse, it was basically like an invasion, where any trip through the woods or a lonely dirt path could make you run into all sorts of demons and creatures.

Was that really a rape? She was caught off-guard, but seemed very into things before the kiss even ended. But yes, that's true. It was about the stupidest thing he could've done in that situation aside from trying to usurp the throne by cutting the king's head.

ACES CURE PLANES posted:

I know it's probably beaten to death but I really do wonder how things would have played out if there was just a little bit of actual goddamn communication between those idiots.

It wouldn't even have to be much. Just as he's walking away, for Guts to drop a quick thing about doing it to be a true friend who can stand on his own or whatnot.

TheLoneStar posted:

So, what this means is that monsters aren't around every corner, except when Guts is around they come out to play more often? I had just been under the impression that after the Eclipse, it was basically like an invasion, where any trip through the woods or a lonely dirt path could make you run into all sorts of demons and creatures.

quote:

Was that really a rape? She was caught off-guard, but seemed very into things before the kiss even ended. But yes, that's true. It was about the stupidest thing he could've done in that situation aside from trying to usurp the throne by cutting the king's head.

Burkion posted:

For the first, nope. Its due to Guts himself. There are monsters that lurk, but they're rare and mostly Apostle related. The spirits and horrible nasties that plague Guts can only manifest because of his brand. Apostles are, to a one, humans who forsake their humanity for power, so they escape this separation by nature but they're still isolated- unless something like the Eclipse happens. As you'll see when/if you go back to the early chapters, all of the Apostles from there can be found in the Eclipse and they are the same people. Guts was basically avenging the Band of the Hawk one by one by hunting down the monsters responsible for their deaths.

For the second, it's less overt rape and more he knew how the princess felt about him and took advantage of her to make himself feel powerful.


Wouldn't have mattered. For Griffith it would have been the same.

mind the walrus posted:

Probably statutory rape, and definitely a case of Griffith leveraging his talents to predatory ends. If nothing else this is what absolutely seals Griffith as a piece of poo poo prior to the Eclipse in my eyes-- when he was proven fallible and no longer King poo poo of poo poo Mountain, he beelined to the most vulnerable person in his social sphere just so he could get the temporary high of being idealized and on a pedestal again.

TheLoneStar posted:

I guess I hadn't realized that had driven him so insane.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

It wasn't that, really. That's what crushed his world. I don't think he realized how important Guts was to him until he lost him, as it always goes. Guts leaving destroyed him, and from that point on Guts was the only thing in his thoughts (Miura shows Griffith thinking of Guts even when he was having sex with Charlotte). But that itself is not really insanity. What really made Griffith lose his mind was 1) probably the year of intense torture. I mean, it's safe to say that played a role. 2) Seeing Casca and Guts together again. The last thread of sanity was severed when he overheard Guts and Casca talking about the possibility leaving the band together (the point at which Griffith stole the carriage). And that's why Griffith raped Casca and forced Guts to watch. His way of reasserting the dominance and control he felt he lost.

TheLoneStar posted:

Really makes me wonder how things would be if this had been where the manga started. Not as a flashback, but just the very start. That dramatic irony would be gone, but I wonder how much more of a punch Griffith's betrayal would've been if no one knew it was coming?

TheLoneStar posted:

Very true, yeah. Griffith really became obsessed with those two. Wonder what would've happened if he hadn't overheard them talking about leaving...

And forgot to say, I had been wondering what that weird little monster-thing was that Guts kept seeing in the first few chapters. Never thought it was a stillborn(?) demon fetus. Jesus...

Lucasar posted:

Guts was chosen for the assassination mission because Griffith does not feel the need to maintain a veneer of nobility with him. This is because Guts is the only member of the Band of the Hawk who does not rely on Griffith. Guts does not need to believe in Griffith to be effective - think of why Corkus is so unnerved by Guts; he's not just jealous, Guts represents a real challenge to Griffith's cult of personality. Griffith would absolutely kill a child if it meant getting what he wanted, but he also wants to maintain his clean-cut reputation. His allowing Guts to see this side of him and then the following scene where Griffith talks of friendship has got to be one of the most important parts of the whole Golden Age.

PhantomOfTheCopier posted:

On the one hand Griffith never "lost his mind" or went insane. He was the same controlling ab/user the entire time. Going to Charlotte was tactically accurate: He was using her because the king would have to acquiesce if there was a child. It was a direct power play.

PhantomOfTheCopier posted:

On the one hand Griffith never "lost his mind" or went insane. He was the same controlling ab/user the entire time. Going to Charlotte was tactically accurate: He was using her because the king would have to acquiesce if there was a child. It was a direct power play.

quote:

I think the eclipse always would have happened, even if Griffith didn't go to the princess and then to the jail. Causality and such, the Godhand would have gotten him there some other way.

TheLoneStar posted:

So, what this means is that monsters aren't around every corner, except when Guts is around they come out to play more often? I had just been under the impression that after the Eclipse, it was basically like an invasion, where any trip through the woods or a lonely dirt path could make you run into all sorts of demons and creatures.

TheLoneStar posted:

Very true, yeah. Griffith really became obsessed with those two. Wonder what would've happened if he hadn't overheard them talking about leaving...

PhantomOfTheCopier posted:

Dumb question. Miura has said the story (the first part anyway) is based on a childhood/teenage experience. Has there been an indication of who it was in what circumstances? I really wonder what their thoughts were when they found out Miura died.

Second question (poor memory). Does Guts ever learn that the downfall occurred immediately after his departure? Casca obviously shares what they've been going through, but she's not a complete jerk so it doesn't seem likely she'd acknowledge much beyond "yeah it's me I'm pissed you left". Does anyone every actually say, "You destroyed Griffith"?


And since I was flipping through the eclipse checking Griffith's last line, I remembered my next reason to cry.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

As the Skull Knight said, Guts is in the "interstice" between realms. The manga will explain what that really means in due time so don't worry. Just know for now that Guts and Casca are basically demon magnets. Though you should also take note of all this "Age of Darkness" stuff. The rest of the world has not been unaffected.

Burkion posted:

Quoting this so you see- When you do go back to reread the opening arcs, especially the Count, pay attention to the Count's flash back

There's only 4 Godhand 7 years prior to that moment. Which is consistent with the timeline- Griffith only rose to power after the Count did.

PhantomOfTheCopier posted:

Dumb question. Miura has said the story (the first part anyway) is based on a childhood/teenage experience. Has there been an indication of who it was in what circumstances? I really wonder what their thoughts were when they found out Miura died.

quote:

Miura: [In high school] I was in a group full of people saying they wanted to be manga artists, but were actually busy getting girlfriends and getting into fights, so they weren't really all that otaku. So I was basically the biggest manga nerd out of the bunch. It was a group of five, and I was pretty much the yellow ranger of the group: lagging behind in terms of emotional growth, but way ahead of the others in terms of drawing ability. I wasn't capable of making a story that would really make anyone feel much of anything, though.

So that information coming from outside – the other group members' love troubles and fights – was really new to me. Also, there's the fact that people who go into fine arts tend to be people with big egos who all have something that they're particularly good at, and so with these other guys showing off what they're good at, I wanted to find what I could do. Drawing, I decided, was my only option. The only way I could keep on equal footing with these guys was to make my mark as a manga artist. It became this strange obsession for me.

Interviewer: Is that idea that you had to stay on "equal footing" something that is reflected now in the relationship between Guts and Griffith?

Miura: Yes, it is, quite a bit. I don't know what relationships between boys these days are like, but back in the eighties, boys were really obsessed with stuff like how good their friends were at things, how highly they "ranked" in comparison to their friends, etc. For boys, friendship isn't about consoling each other. Sometimes you even try to take the other guy down a peg or two. But to break away from those friends would feel like admitting defeat, and you do help each other when you find some sort of goal. That's where the Band of the Hawk comes from.

Interviewer: I see – so, that core from your high school days has been transformed into the story in Berserk.

Miura: Right. I'd done some training to change that group of high school friends into a band of mercenaries by the time I was graduating university.

Interviewer: And you took that formative experience and put it into the sprawling original fantasy world of Berserk. When'd you come up with that idea? How much did you plan out at that point?

Miura: I'd hardly thought any of it out at first. I had no idea how far I'd be able to run with just that original idea for the manga, and I really hadn't come up with the idea for the Band of the Hawk at all. Aside from the monster-slaying black swordsman, I had this idea that it'd be easier to give him something to fight if I added the element of revenge to it, and that was about it.

Interviewer: That's true of the prototype story, but from the very start of the actual series we see Griffith's transformed self as well as Apostles and the God Hand, so it at least certainly seems like you had worked out quite a bit of the universe before starting it, though.

Miura: It looks that way now in retrospect, but up until volume three all I had in mind was that it would be a story about anger. In preparation for starting this series, first I asked myself what it was that I had to pay attention to, and what I decided was that I would make sure that the character was angry. So then I asked myself how to make him angry. There are a lot of ways to depict anger – there's the explosive kind of anger, but then there's the kind of anger where your face just loses its color and goes expressionless. I decided I would just focus on expressing anger and hope I'd find something to work with.

So how well I could evoke the fascinatingness of an angry person was going to make or break the manga at the start. Now, how do I go about making Guts angry? Depending on the answer, he might come out looking like a scary monster and seem inhuman, or maybe he'll be scary in a more human way. And so when the God Hand showed up in the manga, Griffith still wasn't all that important yet.

Interviewer: Really? I figured that you must've had the antagonism with Griffith in mind from the start.

Miura: I think there were a bunch of things overlapping in my mind, and they start coming together around the third volume of Berserk. First of all, if Guts is angry, there is going to have to be an object of that anger. So I asked myself what people get angry at, and, well, something you see a lot of is the murderer of one's parents, but as I already said, I was someone who friendship mattered a lot to, so the idea of making the target of Guts's anger a friend, or at least a man of the same general age, naturally came to mind. So I put that character in, but then I have to give the reason why Guts is angry. So then we have the Band of the Hawk, where I make use of my own past.

Interviewer: So it was the idea of creating an "equal" character for your protagonist that brought out these things from inside yourself.

Miura: I'm not sure if this works as a lesson to take away from this, but like I said before, when you're working hard on something, sometimes you just hit upon the right thing and it all starts falling into place. I myself am someone not very good at planning, but when you stop and think about the manga you've already made, I think you'll find that there was some sort of reason behind it. Assuming you don't have multiple personalities or something.

Interviewer: It's all connected on a subconscious level, you're saying.

Miura: And if I dig into that enough, it comes together as a story. It's not something done intentionally.

Eej posted:

Kart Barfunkel posted:

These bug people are so freaky. Some of these Berserk monsters have shown up in my dreams, whether I want them to or not. Really effective.

Bisse posted:

I think if the eclipse didn't happen, Guts and Caska would have just disappeared into the sunset and lived a troubled but merry life somewhere.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

The fact that Miura started the series and got two volumes in without knowing what it would ultimately be about makes a lot of sense now. It also explains why Guts' edginess comes off as a bit hollow at first, in my opinion.

David D. Davidson posted:

Where my little fan theory comes from is that quite a few thing probably would still have happened without Griffith sacrificing The Hawks. Like the Kushan invasion probably would have still happened, however with the original Hawks still around things might have progessed quite differently.

TheLoneStar posted:

Really love the monster designs so far. All sorts of freaks of various shapes and sizes and limbs and eyes and claws. Truly feels like they crawled straight out of Hell.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

The fact that Miura started the series and got two volumes in without knowing what it would ultimately be about makes a lot of sense now. It also explains why Guts' edginess comes off as a bit hollow at first, in my opinion.