#Griffith the most obviously
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idk what we call these girlies but this is my gender honestly
#when my hair is long enough I just might be crazed enough to go through the painstaking lightening process to go from dark to white hair#because I am so in love with this vibe rn#maybe later this year it’ll be long enough but I can serve this vibe already brunette#idk I’ll see but ya idk what trope this is#maybe like just a niche white hair version of queer coded antagonist#but they just got that someeethin#je ne sais quoi#Griffith the most obviously#berserk#inuyasha#jujutsu kaisen#death note
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The Astrology of Muses: A Vedic Exploration 🎨🖌👫💏
This is going to be a loooong post so hang in there besties<3
Claire Nakti observed that Ketu being the root or tail of the dragon is the source of our creativity. So whatever we channel during the process of art making is reflective of our Ketu, its placement etc. While I agree with this observation, I'd also like to add that Venus is also very important in determining the creativity, creative nature and career of an individual, as well as who or what they seek inspiration from.
Obviously Sun-Moon relationships and other aspects with luminaries can also determine how we connect to and draw inspiration from others.
First of all, let's understand what a muse is.
A muse is defined as a person (often, a woman but not always) who serves as a source of artistic inspiration creativity, and passion for the artist.
In mythology, the Muses were nine goddesses who symbolized the arts and sciences.
There is a spiritual reason why women serve as the source of creativity for others. This is because of them being Yin, inwardly expansive and vessels that can be receptive to a variety of influences. Water is the most feminine element and the ability of water to take the shape of whatever's its poured into is very important in this context. Water is life giving but it can also be destructive and turbulent. All of these are very telling about feminine nature.
Anyways, let's look through some artist-muse relationships in history and pop culture.
F Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald
Probably one of the most famous literary romances. Zelda was Scott's lover, wife and muse. They had a very tumultuous marriage; Zelda was diagnosed with schizophrenia and Scott was an alcoholic but they also enjoyed immense popularity and success early on in their marriage and career.
It is now known that Scott plagiarized much of his work from the diaries and letters of his wife, Zelda and was controlling & abusive towards her when she expressed interest in furthering her own literary career.
Both of them had Mars in Mrigashira as their atmakaraka
Scott had Ketu in Ashlesha & his muse, Zelda was Ashlesha Rising (and mercury which was her amatyakaraka)
2. Vita Sackville West and Virginia Woolf
They were both married to different men when they began their affair with each other. They significantly influenced each other's work; Vita wrote Seducers In Ecuador dedicated to Virginia, while Virginia's Orlando was about Vita. The relationship lasted until Virginia's death in 1941.
Vita was Uttara Ashada Rising, whereas Virginia had Venus in Uttara Ashada
Vita had Venus in Aswini and Virginia was Aswini Moon
3. Ingrid Bergman & Roberto Rossellini
They began an affair when she was still married to her husband whilst filming the movie Stromboli. She got pregnant and they later got married.
While the movies Bergman made with Rossellini were commercial failures, the films have garnered great appreciation and attention for their contribution to Italian Neo-realism.
Bergman was Magha Sun, Venus & Rising, whereas Rossellini was Magha Rising
He had Rahu in Ashlesha and she had Ketu in Ashlesha
4. Lillian Gish & D.W Griffith
Lillian Gish is called "The First Lady of American Cinema"; she was a muse to the first influential filmmaker in Hollywood, D.W. Griffith. She appeared in his ground breaking movies The Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916), Broken Blossoms (1919) and Way Down East (1920).
D.W Griffith was Ashlesha Moon with Mars in Vishaka atmakaraka and Ketu in Chitra
Lillian Gish had Chitra Sun, Venus & Saturn (amatyakaraka) in Vishaka and Ketu in Ashlesha
5. Norma Shearer & Irving Thalberg
Norma Shearer would be dubbed the First Lady of MGM for not only being the contracted actress with the most box-office appeal but also the wife of studio head Irving Thalberg.
Thalberg, was a film executive who was called the “boy wonder of Hollywood” who, as the production manager of MGM, was largely responsible for the studio’s prestigious reputation.
Shearer and Thalberg were married in 1927, after which Shearer had her pick of films, parts, costars, and directors, and she used this advantage to avoid being typecast. Thalberg largely directed her career until his death in 1936.
She played sexually liberated ingenues in the 1920s & 30s and is now considered a feminist icon.
She was Ashlesha Sun (atmakaraka), Venus & Mars in Ardra and Ketu in Rohini
He was Rohini Sun, Mars in Ashlesha (amatyakaraka) and Ketu in Ardra
5. Godard and Anna Karina
Karina served as a cinematic muse to Godard, appearing in eight of his films; during their five-year marriage and after. Karina liked being the muse, stating in 2016: "How could I not be honoured? Maybe it's too much, it sounds so pompous. But of course, I’m always very touched to hear people say that. Because Jean-Luc gave me a gift to play all of those parts. It was like Pygmalion, you know? I was Eliza Doolittle and he was the teacher."
Their contribution to the French New Wave and to cinema in general is widely acknowledged and well-regarded.
Karina was Ashlesha Venus (amatyakaraka), Punarvasu Rising with Ketu in Revati
Godard was Ashlesha Mars (amatyakaraka), Jupiter in Punarvasu (amatyakaraka) with Rahu in Revati
6. Monica Vitti & Michelangelo Antonioni
For 10 years, Monica Vitti was the muse and lover of Michelangelo Antonioni for almost a decade, starring in many of his most famous films, such as L’Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), L’Eclisse (1962) & Red Desert (1964).
Vitti is Swati Sun with Ketu in Hasta
Antonioni has Hasta Sun, Mercury & Ketu along with his Venus in Swati
7. YSL & Paloma Picasso
Yves Saint Laurent had many muses but perhaps his most overlooked muse is Paloma Picasso
Paloma Picasso was the muse, who originally inspired Saint Laurent’s ‘Scandal’ collection of ‘71, and his career-defining turn away from the perfectionism of couture to a different kind of empowerment of something more wild, free and personal.
YSL was Uttarashada moon (atmakaraka), Paloma had Uttarashada moon & jupiter (conjunct)
8. Hubert de Givenchy and Audrey Hepburn
Givenchy designed the iconic 'little black dress' worn by Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's, which cemented the actress as one of the most stylish women of the 20th century.
"His are the only clothes in which I am myself. He is far more than a couturier, he is a creator of personality," said Hepburn. The Breakfast at Tiffany's dress also helped Givenchy gain worldwide recognition, and his intricate, feminine designs became the subject of adoration.
Givenchy is Shatabhisha Sun & Jupiter
Audrey is Shatabhisha Moon
9. Bob Mackie and Cher
Mackie is a costume designer. His work with Cher has a place in fashion history, from the sheer dress she wore to the 1974 Met Gala to the beaded see-through gown she wore to accept her Oscar in 1988 (let alone, designing hundreds of her costumes for The Sonny & Cher Show).
Mackie has Ketu in Bharani and Cher has Mercury in Bharani (amatyakaraka)
10.Jean Paul Gaultier and Madonna
The cone bra—one of Madonna's most famous and recognised stage outfits from her Blonde Ambition tour—was created by Jean Paul Gaultier in 1990. The piece soon launched Gaultier's career, and solidified his relationship with the iconic performer.
Gaultier went on to design stage outfits for many of Madonna's concert tours, and she even made an appearance as a model in his spring summer '95 collection. After almost 30 years of friendship, they attended the 2018 Met Gala together (Madonna wearing one of Gaultier's designs, of course).
Gauthier is Bharani Moon & Madonna is Purva phalguni Moon & Rising
This is an example of Venus attracting & partnering with Venus.
11. Pedro Almodovar and Penelope Cruz
They've done numerous movies together in the last 25 years. They are both Punarvasu Moon
Almodovar is a Purvaphalguni Mercury (amatyakaraka) and Ketu and Penelope is a Bharani Sun, so this is yet another Venusian creative partnership.
When it comes to artist-muse partnerships, sharing Ketu/Venus to Sun/Moon/Rising aspects seems to be very common. Its also common to see artists and their muses share the same luminaries. We are inspired by people who project our qualities in different ways. there is a reason we are drawn to certain people and its always because of how subconsciously they remind us of ourselves.
social muses, trendsetters & it girls
I'm not going to mention Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana because I feel like enough has been said about them.
There are some people who seem to inspire not just one person specifically but the tastes and culture of a whole era. They are tastemakers who set trends and are widely imitated and their influence has far reaching impact. They are "muse" to everybody.
Jackie O
she is one of the most culturally influential people of the 20th century and defined her era (60s America) and is probably an early example of an "influencer", which is to say, people imitated her style, her manners etc
Jackie is Pushya Sun & Mercury, Aswini Moon, Ketu & Rising in Vishaka, Venus in Mrigashira atmakaraka.
2. Grace Kelly aka Princess Grace of Monaco
She is synonymous with elegance, flair and grace to this day and is widely regarded for her artistic success as well as her charitable endeavours. She is one of the most influential women in history.
She has Vishaka Sun (amatyakaraka) & Mars, Purvabhadrapada Moon, Swati Mercury, Ketu and Rising
3. Liz Taylor
Liz Taylor was known for her love of diamonds. She always dressed like a movie star, in very extravagant style with her plunging necklines, fur wraps, feather boas, and eye-catching headpieces. She was very glamorous
She was the first celebrity to have her own fragrance and thirty five years later, her perfume empire remains one of the most successful celebrity fragrance ventures of all time. White Diamonds is one the best selling celebrity fragrances in history. She paved the way for numerous others to follow in her foot steps, although not everyone has had her success.
She is Shatabhisha Sun & Mercury, Vishaka Moon, Jyeshta Rising along with Venus in Revati atmakaraka and Jupiter in Ashlesha amatyakaraka
4. Twiggy
She is the world's first supermodel. She is an important cultural icon and was the face of the Swinging Sixties in her babydoll dresses and mary janes.
She's Pushya Moon & Mars, and Punarvasu Rising
5. Diana Ross
Miss Ross rose to fame as the lead singer of the girl group the Supremes, which became Motown's most successful act in the 1960s, and one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time. After leaving the group in 1970, she launched a successful solo career, with many huge hits across the next couple of decades. She is known for her extravagant style and is a true 80s diva who blurred the lines between costumes and everyday clothing.
She is UBP Sun, Bharani Moon, Vishaka Rising
Mercury in Revati amatyakaraka and Jupiter in Ashlesha atmakaraka
6. Beyonce
Beyonce is one of the most influential women of the 21st century. Her impact on culture is immense and undeniable.
She is Purvaphalguni Sun, Vishaka Moon (atmakaraka) & Chitra Rising
Bey & Jay have been each other's muses for a good while and have multiple albums inspired by each other. They are pop culture royalty.
Jay is Jyeshta Sun & Mercury (atmakaraka), Hasta Moon, Ketu & Rising in Purvaphalguni
7. Rihanna
RiRi is one of the most iconic women ever.
Her music, looks, products, personality- everything about her is influential af. She's multi talented and has excelled in several fields.
She is a Revati Stellium (moon, venus (amatyakaraka) & rising)
8. Paris Hilton
Probably the OG influencer. Paris defined her era (the 2000s) and has had a lasting impact on pop culture that needs to be studied. She was written out of her family will and built her own empire. She paved the way for all influencers.
Dhanishta Sun & Mercury, Pushya Moon & Jyeshta Rising
9.Kim & Kylie
I don't like them but to say they haven't had an impact on beauty/fashion/pop culture would be lying. I personally see it as a negative impact 😬 but its an impact nonetheless.
They normalized plastic surgery to such an extent that every other girl in the West and almost every famous woman at this point has fillers, botox, BBL or something done. They also paved the way for influencers entering the fashion world.
Kim is Chitra Sun, UBP Moon & Jyeshta Rising with Mercury in Vishaka amatyakaraka and Venus in Purva phalguni atmakaraka
Kylie is Ashlesha Sun, Swati Moon & Purva ashada Rising
She has Venus in Uttaraphalguni atmakaraka & Saturn in Revati amatyakaraka
10. Bella Hadid
cannot talk about it girls and not mention Bella.
she's had such a massive impact on pop culture in the late 2010s & now in the 2020s. she made y2k style as popular as it is today and is probably the only true supermodel of our era.
She's Hasta Sun (amatyakaraka), Purva phalguni Moon & Rising with Ketu in UBP, Mars in Ashlesha atmakaraka
she's inspired practically The Weeknd's entire discography. He has Ketu in Ashlesha
it's interesting to me how all the Hadid siblings have inspired a lot of pop music. (Gigi with Zayn, Anwar with Dua Lipa etc)
11. Selena Gomez
Selena's inspired way too many heartbreak songs to not be on this list.
She's Pushya Sun & Rising with Aswini Moon with Ashlesha Mercury (atmakaraka) & Venus
There has been a lot of Vishaka women and Jupiter natives in general, Pushya ladies, Ketuvian (esp Aswini), Venusian influence and a lot of people with Ashlesha atmakaraka/amatyakaraka. Pisces influence and Jyeshta influence is also seen. Why are these planets/naks/rashis recurring?
Talking about people who have a very wide impact, it makes sense as to why Jupiter natives would be here; its expansiveness reaches everyone. In fact if you look at the era defining cultural figures of any decade, you will see a common Jupiter influence. This is also why Pisces rashi (Pisces is ruled by Jupiter) is so common in the world of art & entertainment.
Venusian placements are what creates trendsetters imo. Its what makes others imitate you and want to be like you.
Ashlesha natives dominate the entertainment sphere because entertainment and all art tbh, is in the simplest terms, manipulating others.
Pushya women inspire others with their feminine charms. Ketu being the root or the tail means that its very easy for others to project on to them. They lack identity on their own; its a very shadowy realm. This is what celebrities are to most people; you don't know them or understand them, which makes it easier to project onto them and love them for that illusion.
Jyeshta represents lack and in the world of influence, more than abundance, its that space of lack that makes it easier for people to add/built on to the persona they see of someone.
I'll make a part 2 sometime but for now this is it. I hope it was insightful.
#astrology notes#sidereal astrology#vedic astro notes#astrology observations#astrology#nakshatras#astroblr#astro observations#vedic astrology#astro notes#jyeshta#muses#pisces#pushya#venus#aswini
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Thoughts on Sonic and the Black Knight? That game's story has really seen a resurgence in popularity as of late, which for me is odd because I remember when it came out most people summed the plot up as 'Sonic says the apocalypse is A-OKAY! :D'
I don't have anything particularly deep or insightful to say about Black Knight since I haven't played it since it came out, but I was always a fan of it. I thought it was way more fun than Secret Rings with vastly improved controls, and seeing Sonic's friends as knights was cool, and I liked the story. Also Knight of the Wind is a banger, obviously
I can't speak for everyone, but I do distinctly remember that when it came out people on the Sonic forums I browsed praised the story. We were several years into the Dark Age of Sonic at that point and people were still divided on Jason Griffith and the rest of the 4Kids cast, so when the Wii-exclusive King Arthur themed Sonic game came out and had the best Sonic characterization in years folks in my corner of the fandom were pleasantly surprised. There are a toooooonnnnn of Sonic games from that era that people hated at the time but have been "reappraised" (ie: the people who played them in elementary school are now adults who can make posts about how Sonic '06 was Peak), but Black Knight's always been a cult favorite
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okay so i see that your one of the few sane elden ring fans who understands miquellas character and i wanted to ask how you think miquella will end up being in the dlc & if you think if he ends up getting "corrupted" in what way :P
How I think Miquella will be?
Well obviously I have my biases because he's my favorite character lol But I would personally like for Miquella to be a companion character and we will be able to assist him in his goals when we eventually find him in the Realm of Shadow (fromsoft plz 😭)
But in terms of how I judge his character....
If anything I hold Miquella in the same regard as I do Ranni in terms of "the end justifies the means" I see Miquella as someone who deeply understands that in order to enact great change a great sacrifice is needed to achieve it. Like regarding Miquella sending Malenia to kill Radahn to free the stars, it would not surprise me in the slightest bit if Miquella anticipated that Malenia would have had to unleash the Rot in order to gain the upper hand on Radahn(the dude is a beast) Miquella probably wouldn't have wanted it to come to that, but in the end Miquella trusted Malenia to make the call if necessary.
And when Miquella's whole plans hinge on the very stars being freed, desperate times call for desperate measures. Especially when one of his enemies is a Golden God that has a strangle hold on the very fabric of reality of his world.
Mah boi is nuanced to hell and back and that's why I love him. He wants to create a world where the outcasts can live in peace and he will do anything to see that it happens.
But now in terms of if Miquella will be corrupted?
Well, he kinda of already is technically, thanks to Mohg and the Formless Mother.
I've said in a previous theory post about how I think that Miquella is waging is own personal war against the Outer Gods and that he is legitimately the biggest threat to every single one of them thanks to Unalloyed Gold, and who knows what else he is capable of...
But then you hear those theories(😒) about how Miquella is manipulating Mohg and how he's secretly evil and stuff....
But my theory is that it's actually the other way around, and that it is in fact the Formless Mother who is manipulating Mohg, using his weird obsession with Miquella, to essentially corrupt and cripple the young Empyrean because he is just that dangerous to them.
Malenia is right when she said he is the most fearsome of all....
BUT
As the DLC summary has explained to us Miquella has just straight up ditched his body, and, whether intentionally or unintentionally, Miquella has effectively juked the Formless Mother and her meddling bullshit, and has gone off to the Realm of Shadow to achieve something that has likely been a big part of his Grand Scheme for a very very long time now.
So then Miquella is basically unbothered, moisturized and in his lane lmao 😂
And so, okay this is heading into heavy speculation territory, but with the Ranni and Godwyn situation it's been established in Elden Ring canon that there is a Body and Soul dichotomy is going on. And I find it interesting that when I look deeper into Miquella and Malenia curses, that seemingly, Malenia was cursed in soul and is harboring the Scarlet Rot/God of Rot within, meanwhile Miquella was cursed in body, to remain forever a child.
But now that Miquella has left his body he is practically a wandering Soul, and that one voice in the trailer that refers to Miquella as "pure and radiant" I think that could also be applied to Miquella's Soul, meaning that Miquella's Soul at this point is completely pure and practically untouchable, at least from Outer Gods meddlings.
So no, I do not think that Miquella will end up "corrupted" as in turning evil and becoming a boss fight, because for now, there is just not enough substantial evidence pointing in that direction. And in terms of him pulling a Griffith and betraying everyone and doing something/becoming God for his own selfish gain is just dumb and bad writing 😒
Like I don't know how else to convey this, but the absolute biggest piece of characterization regarding Miquella is his dedication and love for Malenia. And he will do anything to keep his promise to her.
#i love him#míquella is so cool i cant wait to meet him lol#hilarious that you think im the most sane about miq 😂 because i think im the most insane about him akdhsjsjd#elden ring#elden ring theory#miquella the unalloyed#uri answers#shadow of the erdtree
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I saw a while back you were asked what your favorite interpretations of Shadow and Amy were.
While I don’t disagree (haven’t played heroes so can’t comment there, but have beat SA2) I was curious on your views over Sonic 06 version of Shadow? Ignoring the heavy problems with the game itself, I’m personally a heavy fan of the VA and how he acts.
It may be selfish of me… but I kinda wish Amy got more interactions with Shadow instead of Silver. I get WHY they did it, but I feel like it could of been nice to have them reunite and maybe even contrast the end of SA2 y’know?
First post about my favorite Shadow & Amy portrayals, SA2 and Heroes
Follow-up about Sonic Battle and Sonic Chronicles
I love both Shadow AND Amy in that game!
06 Shadow in particular has been getting a ton of interest in the past few years, and it’s wonderful to see. I considered including it in that first post about my favorites. 06 being such a failure gameplay-wise really screwed things up for the series for a long time. Sega learned all the wrong lessons. No more humans apart from Eggman. No more dark, serious plotlines. One-dimensional characters. No playable characters apart from Sonic in mainline games. None of the others can talk to anyone but Sonic. Obviously there were exceptions to this, but the series lost so much. Sonic 06 is older than most Sonic fans, but we’re only just now getting all of that back with Frontiers, IDW, etc.
This would have been bad enough on its own, but coming off the heels of Sonic 06, it hurt that much more. Sega decided Team Dark weren’t friends directly after their most poignant interactions. Shadow knew who he was. He knew what was important. And he knew he could trust the best friends by his side. When’s the last time he was so self-assured? That’s the downside of the 06 timeline being erased in the end. We know Shadow and Team Dark’s potential, but he doesn’t remember any of it.
That said, I’m ultimately still glad it’s erased. I’d hate for Shadow to go through life knowing the humans would reprogram his own best friend to hunt him down and lock him up forever. It says great things about Shadow, but it makes me like the humans a lot less.
It’s thanks to 06 that I consider Shadow to be the biggest hero in the franchise. This clip encompasses everything that makes his heroism unique:
youtube
“If the world chooses to become my enemy...I will fight like I always have.”
Iconic. Badass. I love the way he drops his inhibitors as he talks. This is Jason Griffith’s delivery at its best.
Sonic fights to protect his friends and the planet he calls home, along with the humans and Mobians who all love him, but there are SO MANY people who’ve treated Shadow like filth, and he still protects them. There’s no one else in canon who’s that selfless, and I also like that 06 doesn’t lean on Maria as the reason he does all this. Shadow himself is a good person and does good things for his own reasons, not just because she told him to.
Heroes proved this, too. Shadow didn’t even remember Maria in that game, but he still made the right call. Maria’s important, but she’s not the only reason he’s a good person.
Jason Griffith does a very good job as Shadow here and elsewhere, but David Humphrey is and always will be my favorite Shadow VA. If Jason is an A-rank, David is S-ranked. I’d be thrilled to have either of them back.
You’ll never see me judge anyone for wanting more Shadow/Amy interactions. I’ve thought the same thing with 06, and I love the Silver/Amy bits, too. She has an adorable scene with him AND starts him on the path to redemption. It’s the Amy Rose Special. I also like how she and Shadow inadvertently worked together to turn him around. Amy raised a question Silver hadn’t thought to ask, and Shadow showed him the answer.
But what this demonstrates to me is that this didn’t have to be an either/or situation.
It would’ve been nice for Amy to reunite with Silver and see how he turned things around. They were both there for the final battle, but they didn’t speak to each other. What if they’d had a scene with all three of them together? I hypothesized about that possibility in headcanon #99.
Side note: I just want to say that I think Amy is great in 06. She has the same cute accidental hug/elevator speech combo she used to turn Shadow around in SA2, but people sleep on it in 06 for some reason. On top of that, a lot of fans willfully misinterpret one particular line of hers. And anyone who knows Sonic 06 knows which one that is.
“If I had to choose between the world and Sonic, I would choose Sonic!”
I’ve seen so many people say she’s a dumb, ridiculous fangirl for this, and I can’t stand it. She’s not saying the rest of the world doesn’t matter, she’s saying that she has so much faith in Sonic as a person that she’d take his side even if the rest of the world said he was wrong. And, uh...she has good reason to! It’s not the first time he’s been falsely accused of something. It’s like these fans conveniently forgot what happened in SA2 the second they saw an opportunity to hurl insults at Amy.
You know what Amy’s line reminds me of most?
“Even if you believe everyone in the world will be against you, know that I’ll always remain by your side. Remember that.”
Yeah. That line everyone loves about ultimate loyalty for someone you care about. The line that many consider to be Rouge’s best. The only difference is that Rouge is a calm young adult talking about a friend, while Amy was an upset young girl whose feelings were too big for careful phrasing and restraint. Combine that with how much hate there was for her at the time, and you have a great, dedicated line absolutely drowned in ice-cold, bad faith takes from the fandom. And Silver needed that fervor to make him question Mephiles, too! It had to be her! It was because he saw how strongly she felt about Sonic that he started having second thoughts. You think a calm statement like Rouge’s could have made him back down from attempted murder?
Much like with Shadow in SA2, it had to be Amy. 06 did a great job with her. Some fans still need to wise up about it. They’ve been recognizing how awesome 06 Shadow is, so maybe, just maybe, they’ll do the same for Amy someday.
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If Griffith gave Guts an answer he wanted to hear on the hill of swords how do you think he would have reacted? Do you think Guts would ever have ever forgiven him?
(Not quite as old as the other one but still way too old to be acceptable, sorry).
I think he would've been conflicted, and he would've been pissed off at himself for being conflicted, and he would've been pissed off at Griffith for making him conflicted. But he still would have forgiven him, because he couldn't not do it.
Or maybe "forgive" is the wrong word, because I'm sure he'd still be pissed off. Maybe "made up with" is better? I've pretty sure I've talked about it at greater length in the past but I'm genuinely feeling too lazy to go look it up, so I guess the somewhat concise logic is:
Even now, his current mission - his drive to destroy the apostles and drag himself up to Femto's level and theoretically kill him is all informed by Griffith's stupid speech - to this day he is trying to be the kind of person that Griffith (the original Griffith, but by extension the current one as well) could value and respect as an equal.
IMO, this is a huge part of the reason for his breakdown about being unable to hit Griffith. It's easy to assume that this is because he realized he can't kill the man he's been trying to kill, and I'm sure that is part of it. But another big issue for Guts is that he's been living to catch up with Griffith ever since Promrose, and he just realized that not only has he utterly failed to accomplish that, he's actually so far behind that catching him may be physically impossible.
The drive to earn a place next to him became a drive to fight him because of the changing circumstances around the relationship, but it's evident from say the Black Swordman arc or the Hill of Swords that Guts is still looking for that validation, and still looking for Griffith inside Femto/Neo.
Furthermore, for at least a fair stretch of time (leaving open room for the idea that this changed at some point, although I don't think it has), even his determination to take care of Casca was primarily attributed to his wanting to have her around to remind him of Griffith. Obviously this doesn't mean he doesn't care about her, it's just that what he actually wants, more than anything else, according to his own mind... is to hold onto, and become further/more deeply entangled with, Griffith.
Given all that, why wouldn't he make nice with Griffith if Griffith gave him any reason to think there was a point to doing so?
Obviously the argument is that he couldn't forgive the atrocities of the Eclipse, but the thing is, Guts is largely amoral - people love to attribute noble/selfless/moral qualities to him, but he routinely proves that he doesn't give a damn about anyone he doesn't have a personal connection to - he will literally just let them die if it's more convenient that way.
He's also proven that he has an internal hierarchy of significance - he does prioritize his current companions, for example, over strangers, but he prioritizes Casca over them, in turn. I think the Hawks as a whole were one massive "ingroup" - he cared about them, even the ones he didn't know very well, because they were Hawks, and that's all fine...
...but who does he consistently prioritize over everyone else, including all the Hawks and Casca?
Obviously, Griffith. He's the one Guts literally just ignored the Eclipse to try and save, the one he once abandoned Casca in a cave to chase, and the one he legitimately left her to burn to death to search out during Conviction.
My point is, whatever it is he's trying to achieve with Griffith is always going to be the most important thing in his life, and thus will take priority over other things in his life, even things he also feels strongly (but not as strongly) about. And what he tries to achieve with Griffith is heavily dependent on what he thinks he can achieve with Griffith.
One of my favorite Miura quotes is something to the effect that Guts and Griffith's relationship isn't stagnant and won't necessarily remain the same over the course of the story - that Guts remains the way he is as long as Griffith remains the way he is (and vice versa, presumably). He said at the time that he was looking forward to depicting the changes between them as the relationship evolved. Unfortunately he didn't get to it, of course, but it's still a relevant point... that the way Guts is toward Griffith can still change, if Griffith changes, too.
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Iconic Homoerotic Betrayal: Round 2
Round 2 Directory
Context:
Griffith/Guts
Summarized by Anonymous Contributor
Griffith was the leader of the band of the hawk, a mercenary group. His goal was to some day have his own castle, and to do so he needed loyal followers. His most loyal followers eventually ended up being guts. Guts entered the band of the hawk after losing a duel with Griffith (that's where the "you're mine" image comes from).
Griffith's ultimate goal was to get his castle, but he quickly formed a bond with guts that would go on to form whole archetypes for homoerotic subtext. Guts would eventually be so inspired by Griffith's dream that he would leave the band after years to try to find a goal to espire to himself. This being spurred by Griffith saying that he doesn't view those working for him as friends, as a true friend would be an equal to him, someone who's also striving for a lofty goal. In order to leave guts had to beat Griffith in a duel, which had never happened before, but his want for Griffith to see him as a true friend let guts beat him and leave the band of the hawk, sending Griffith into a spiral of shock and anger and depression.
When guts returned to the band of the hawk after finding his dream, he discovered that Griffith's dream, which seemed all but accomplished when he left, had fallen apart. Not only was he never getting his castle, but he had been locked deep in a dungeon and brutally tortured for a long time. Apon hearing this news, guts rushed to Griffith's rescue, who had been reduced to a shell of his former self due to brutalization and malnutrition he had insured for so long. But guts and the rest of the band of the hawk didn't care. They decided to set out yet again on achieving Griffith's dream. And they slowly started nursing him back to health until one day Griffith gave up on his dream. Seeing how feeble he has become and how much he needed to rely on others now utterly defeated him and he attempted to take his own life, but right before that he was approached by the god hand.
God's who rule over countless demons and monsters who are looking for their final member to complete them. Griffith's determination beckoned them, and they gave him an ultimatum: Become reborn as a god by sacrificing all your men, or don't. Obviously the ever ambitious Griffith betrays the band of the hawk and becomes Femto, the final member of the god hand, and kick starts the apocalypse by letting all his comrades get eaten alive by demons, including guts, obviously. Especially guts.
Thanks to a talking skeleton, though, guts just barely escaped with his live after witnessing true horror and experiencing great pain and suffering. And that's just the prologue of Berserk, the rest of the series is just guts angerly screaming Griffith's name. Many betrayals in this tournament can claim tragedy, but were they a betrayal of such great magnitude? Did the betrayal end in the death of everyone the protagonist ever cared for and the antagonist ascending to godhood?
Anthy/Utena
Summarized by Anonymous Contributor
THE blueprint for homoerotic betrayals of the canonically gay (as opposed to interpretive, certainly there are older iconic examples for that) variety. listed as #2 in the infamous top ten anime betrayals video, iirc.
it is about akio pushing anthy to utena. it is about utena’s protective stance, misunderstanding. most of all, it is about anthy kissing utena’s shoulder before stabbing her.
the story has been leading us to this the whole time — utena assuming once again the protective princely position; akio, always playing divide and conquer, unable to manipulate utena to betray anthy, now reliant on anthy betraying utena; the game being rigged from the start, true victory impossible (for the duelists, who will always lose the game proper to akio, the rule maker, in one way or another; for akio himself, just as obviously); utena’s love for anthy within the princely stance; anthy’s love for utena and anthy’s fear (of the world beyond; of utena loving her truly; of utena not loving her truly but just projecting onto her still as any prince does, and turning out to be the same (as akio) in the end) and akio (framing himself) as the only one who will love her no matter what because friends turn away from you and only connections by blood are forever, the two of them are the only ones who’s real in this projected world, so on and so forth, and anthy’s bitterness towards utena (“do you know, utena-sama, how i always despised you” from that one “in the next episode” bit) and her princeliness and her being not that impossibly unlike akio (all princes are the same). everything has lead us to this moment. and yet we are shocked.
personally, i’ve never moved on from how she kisses her shoulder.
See a whole dissertation on Utenanthy here
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Round 4
Casca
She is part of a weird fucked up love triangle with two dudes. All three of them are honestly kind of terrible for each other but she gets shoved aside in favor of the two dudes in most fics and is not allowed to grow past the toxic relationships of her past. Also she’s a cis woman who dresses pretty masculinely (because she’s in a mercenary band) so she gets type casted as the mean lesbian friend, when she’s straight in canon
I've seen more than one Yaoi Shipper say that Casca should have died during this one big canon event as opposed to being assaulted by one of the people in the Yaoi Ship, which of course conveniently would remove her from the narrative and as an obstacle to said Yaoi Ship. Aside from that specifically, though, I think it's particularly cruel to imply that being killed is a better outcome than being a victim of SA, and is an example of the contempt fandom on the whole has for female characters who act traumatized - particularly when both male characters in the ship have similar trauma and its never implied they should have died rather than be assaulted.
She's an incredibly interesting character in her own right with really good dynamics and parallels to Griffith and Guts, and the way those three play off of each other is integral to the story, but most of what I've seen completely ignores her in favor of focusing on only Griffith and Guts
Elizabeth Midford
She started as just a cutie fiancée trying her best, turns out she's also a swordfighting genius, very under pressure to perform feminity in the Victorian Rose type of way. Fandom crucifies her bc she's Ciel's fiancée and they want him to be with his butler, Sebastian, the demon he sold his soul to for revenge
anime was a shitty canon divergent adaptation that butchered her character down to her "cutesy silly girly" persona, which obviously made the 2008 anime fans hate her with a passion (nothing wrong w being girly I'm just saying the adaptation made her super one dimensional) anyways fujoshis used to treat her as a villain because she's the fiance of Ciel,, who as u might know already was HEAVILY shipped with his butler, Sebastian back then (now it's kinda looked badly upon, nice tbh that ship sucks ass xD) She's a bit similar to Misa Amane from death note in the way she was treated. (Like an obstacle the yaoi ship must overcome rather than a person)
she's my silly little rabbit! i could gush about her character but i'll keep it short and just say that she's really well written and one of the best characters in the series. anyways she's ciel's fiance and she's like, rightfully annoying as any other 13 yr old girl would be but the fanbase fucking crucified her for even existing. she gets demonized for being 'annoying', but then ciel gets yaoishipped with an even more annoying guy. there is 100% an argument that lizzie/ciel is weird bc they're cousins (i personally don't ship it) but that falls flat when her detractors then ship the 13 yr old ciel with an eons old demon who Canonically looks like his father. the anime also never reached her main character development until years after its peak and that was only in a movie, so she really got the bad end of the stick here. not me though i had a giant crush on her when i was 12
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EGT's FAQ About A Fall Out Boy Cover of the Billy Joel Song "We Didn't Start the Fire" Covering Newsworthy Items from 1989-2023
Why isn’t it in chronological order?!
Was the original in chronological order? Yes, roughly speaking (it wasn’t in exact chronological order, either, for instance, the Brooklyn Dodgers won their first World Series after Disneyland opened but the Dodgers are mentioned before Disneyland, but I get it, it is roughly chronological and definitely more so than the Fall Out Boy cover).
The original, however, was also about a different time period in history: It happened to cover the Cold War. It makes sense that it would go in chronological order because there was a very definitive narrative arc to that portion of history: The Cold War started, all these things happened during it, the Cold War ended.
The era since the Cold War ended arguably lacks this narrative arc. So it makes sense that if you were doing a “We Didn’t Start the Fire” for the modern era, you wouldn’t go in chronological order. That would imply a “beginning” and an “end” that our era doesn’t deserve. Arguably, what mostly characterizes the post-Cold War era (and especially the twenty-first-century portion of it) is the jumbled chaos of time-meaninglessness. We say it all the time on the internet: What is time anymore? It means nothing? We have no sense of it. Things that happened yesterday turned out to be from 2003. There are a ton of other memes about this. You can’t believe the pandemic was over three years ago now. You can’t believe it’s been seven years since the 2016 election cycle. You can't believe that Friends is as far away from us as The Andy Griffith Show was from Billy Joel. Our histories, both personal and on a grander scale, feel like a jumble we can’t untangle, and so does this cover of the song.
In the 90s, people used to talk about being at “the end of history,” and they meant this in a good way. Like, there was this belief that “western democracies” had won and now all we had to do was keeping going up. Obviously that fell apart quickly, but I am Pete Wentz’s age, and I remember very much being given that message when I was in high school and college. In the way that the country boomed after winning World War II, it was assumed we would also boom for a long, even more extended period of time because our victory was even more complete. And then September 11 happened and it felt like it accelerated everything falling apart much more quickly. But that fever dream quality of growing up “post-history,” so to speak, is I think captured really well in the non-chronological lyrics, in a way that I think following a chronology would have done a disservice to. Our lives are this weird mish-mash of constant horrors mixed with the numbing agents of pop culture, and so is this song.
The song ends on September 11, and there have been 22 years of history since September 11, and I get why it’s upsetting to people for the song to end on an event from 2001, and at the same time I think it’s the most effective part of the song, because it does not feel like that was 22 years ago, it definitely feels like it was yesterday, and it also feels like sometimes it’s the only thing that happened in the past thirty-plus years, because of how much it dwarfed everything that came before and how much it colored everything that came afterward.
Also, Fall Out Boy did make a deliberate choice to change the way the chorus goes. Billy Joel sings, "We tried to fight it," and Fall Out Boy sings, "We're trying to fight it." That, to me, adds to the impression that this isn't a narrative with a beginning and an end, it is all over the place and we're still in the middle of it all. So the song ends in the middle, basically.
I am speaking, of course, from the bias of a privileged American born in 1980 who graduated high school in 1997. But, speaking from that bias, I personally get why it’s not chronological, and I don’t think it’s a fatal flaw of the cover. To me, after a moment of being surprised the first time I listened, I felt like I got it and it captured the era better, and it was a feature not a bug. Obviously not everyone will agree, but anyway, I just wanted to say it.
There’s no way they did that on purpose, though.
I’ve got news for you about literary analysis, which I can confidently state as a writer myself: I’m sure there are some writers deliberately doing stuff on purpose but I bet a lot of it is the stuff you don’t even notice. The stuff you do notice and make much of, I’m always like, “…well. Gotta pretend I knew I was doing that all along…” I used to feel guilty about that, but I don’t anymore, because I’ve decided that the things I do instinctively, because they feel right to me, count just as much. When it turns out later that I was doing something because of x, y, z, only I couldn’t articulate it, I think that’s okay. And I also think it’s better than okay when people read what I write with their own experiences making it mean something to them that I would never have thought about.
Which is to say, I’m not particularly bothered by whether Pete Wentz said to Patrick, Joe, and Andy, “Let’s not do it chronologically in order to capture the chaos of this era.” He probably didn’t. But he did make a choice not to do it chronologically, and that’s good enough for me. (He actually starts with a very early reference, so it’s like he’s faking all of us out, like, You thought this would be a nice chronology, but it’s not, it’s an absolute mess.)
Didn’t Pete Wentz basically say it was just too hard to do it chronologically?
Never believe what Pete Wentz says about his own lyrics. He says Thnks fr th Mmrs is about Coachella.
Okay, but you’re surely giving him too much credit.
I’ve been analyzing the man’s lyrics for a long time now. He’s so much smarter than anyone gives him credit for, tbh. Believe me, I also used to think it was just coincidence that he kept tripping over these really elegant, multi-layered, evocative phrases. After twenty years, I don’t think it’s coincidence anymore. I think he just knows how to write.
But also, We Didn't Start the Fire gets held up as a Cold War epic, and it wasn't actually about the Cold War either, Billy Joel just lucked out that the Cold War ended the year it came out.
Fine, but anyone can just rhyme a bunch of proper nouns together.
Yes! You are correct! Anyone can do that! Go for it!
Yeah, but why is everyone paying so much attention to Fall Out Boy’s?
Honestly, I don’t know. They put out a really stellar album that most major media outlets and casual social media managed to ignore, and they’re in the middle of a super-ambitious tour where on any given night Patrick Stump might cover Queen or they’ll just pull out something old or maybe something brand new and I haven’t seen anyone talking about any of that, either. So I’m not entirely sure why suddenly everyone’s so fixated on what Fall Out Boy is doing, but Idk, if you’re curious, the new album is excellent and doesn’t have a single cover song on it, it's all original and it's got ton more Pete Wentz lyrics to pore over.
The lyrics are very sports-heavy, though. Was that necessary?
The lyrics are extremely Pete Wentz. I know everyone else in the band helped him, too, but these are the things Pete Wentz cares about: Chicago sports, Marvel stuff, Tiger King, other emo bands. Lots of other stuff, too, but the fact that he includes the Cubs and not the Red Sox is entirely a function of Who Pete Wentz Is. It’s actually an extremely personal listing of the last thirty years, and I kind of like that about it, too. Everyone’s version of this song is different, and that’s cool!
But it doesn’t even mention COVID!
I, too, was surprised by that, but it mentions Tiger King, and I think that’s better, it made me laugh and also very vividly evoked that particular time to me better than just saying, like, "COVID-19 quarantine" would have.
There are other huge events it leaves out!
Yes. There are.
I can’t help it, I just really hate the song.
That’s cool. There are songs I really hate, too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(the funniest thing to me is that many people make fun of Patrick's lack of enunciation making lyrics unintelligible, but he's worked so hard on his singing that people can understand these lyrics, oops)
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Vails
I haven't actually talked about it here a lot, partly because I try not to do heavy history stuff here - this blog is meant to be a hobby, after all - and it's something I'm frankly too passionate (obsessed) about, but my main area of historic interest and focus, especially when it comes to my own personal research, is the history of domestic service. It is not an exaggeration to say it is my life's work.
Another reason I don't write about it often is I don't really know where to start. My breadth of knowledge on the subject is quite broad, so there's a lot I could say, but I think I'll try to write some small things about specific aspects of it.
Vails were, in the 18th (and I believe also 19th) century, basically what we could today call tips, often paid to servants. And when you read things written by the 'master class' of people being served, while they're obviously biased and exaggerating, it does become clear that servants rather enforced them. There wasn't a guild system for servants like there were for trades, but there were informal clubs and groups, and this is one of the ways they seem to have acted together, almost as a form of unionization. There's a letter to a British newspaper where the write says that he estimates many servants are doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling their annual salaries through vails. I could write more but I'll just transcribe some of my favourite passages on this subject from the book Life in the Country House in Georgian Ireland by Patricia McCarthy:
I will add too, while this is specifically talking about paid servants in Britain, you do see vails paid to enslaved people in America as well. Probably not as often, but Philip Vickers Fithian, who wrote a diary about his experiences in Virginia in the 1770s, writes about similar things of the enslaved people at the plantation he's staying at expecting their "Christmas boxes" of vails, although they weren't quite as beholden to the actual date of Boxing Day.
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The customary scene in the hall, as their guests waited for their carriages or horses to be brought to the door, embarrassed many. [Marshall, Domestic Servants] Hosts feigned ignorance of their guests' fumbling in their pockets to find shillings and half-crowns to distribute to the servants, who had lined themselves up expectantly. Whether the motive for allowing the practice was to salve the collective conscience of the employers at paying such low wages is not clear. [Bridget Hill, Servants: English Domestics in the 18thc.] It was not confined to great houses, but was also expected in more modest establishments, although the amounts given were less. It was also not only expected on departure from the house of a friend: vails were disbursed by 'house tourists' to whichever servant showed them around - in most cases an upper servant.
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An army officer described how much his visit to the house of a friend would cost him: 'The moment your departure is known, all the domestics are on the qui vive; the house-maid hopes you have forgotten nothing in packing up, if so, she will take care of it till you come again; this piece of civility costs you three ten-pennies; the footman carries your portmanteau .. to the hall, three more; the butler wishes you a pleasant journey - his greate kindness in so doing of course extracts a crown-piece; the groom brings your horse, assuring you 'tis an ilegant baste, and has fed well' - three more ten-pennies go; the helper runs after you with the curb-chain, which he has 'till this moment carefull secreted - two more; making a total of seventeen, or, in English money, upwards of fourteen shillings. A heavy tax for visiting a friend!' [Benson Earle Hill, Recollections of an Artillery Officervol. 1]
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Richard Griffith from Bennetsbridge, Co. Kilkenny, complained in c.1760 in a letter to hise wife that 'an heavy and unprofitable Tax still subsists upon the Hospitality of this Neighbourhood .. in short while this Perquisite continues, a Country Gentleman may be considered but as a generous Kind of Inn-holder, who keeps open House, at his own Expence, for the sole Emolument of his Servants .. this Extravagance is not confined, at present, solely to the Country .. ; for a Dinner in Dublin, and all the Towns in Ireland, is even in a Morning, with a Person who keeps his Port, you may levee him fifty Times, without being admitted by his Swiss Porter. So... I shall consider a great Man as a Monster, who may not be seen, 'till you have fee'd his Keppers.' [R. and E. Griffith, A Series of Genuine Letters Between Henry and Frances, vol. 4]
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Swift gives similar suggestions in Directions to Servants: 'By these, and like Expedients, you may probably be a better Man by Half a Crown before he leaves the House.' He further urges those servants who expect vails 'always to stand Rank and File when a Stranger is taking his Leave; so that he must of Necessity pass between you; and he must have more Confidence or less Money than usual, if any of you let him escape, and according as he behaves himself, remember to treat him the next Time he comes.'
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Card money was particularly lucrative for butlers and footmen - so much so that, in London at least, such menservants refused service in houses where gaming parties were not held. [Marshall, Domestic Servants - Two footmen at the court of Queen Anne, Fortnum and Mason, used this perquisite as capital to begin their grocery business in London. Country House Lighting 1660-1890, Temple Newsam Country House Series No. 4] But it was vails that finally undermined the authority of the employers, who virtually allowed servants to dictate whom should be received, and then pretended not to notice when the servants extracted money from the departing guests.
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In the London Chronicle a correspondent wrote in 1762 that 'Masters in England seldom pay their servants but in lieu of wages suffer them prey upon their guests'. George Mathew of Thomastown, Co. Tipperary, a man famous for his hospitality, was one of the first employers to ban the 'inhospitable custom' of giving vails to servants, and to compensate them by increasing their wages. This was apparently as early as the 1730s. His servants were warned that, if they disobeyed, they would be discharged. He also informed his guests that he would 'consider it as the highest affront if any offer of that sort were made'. [Anthologia Hibernica, I - No date given for this account, by 'Grand George' Mathew, who died in 1737, was the man described, who was host to Jonathan Swift at Thomastown in the 1720s, a visit described by Thomas Sheridan in A Life of the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift] A crusade against the giving of vails began in 1760 in Scotland, where seventeen counties issued appeals to abolish them. Four years later the movement had spread to London, resulting in riots there by footmen, the servants who stood to lose the most. [Marshall, Domestic Servants] It was probably at about the same time that employers from a number of counties in Ireland agreed among themselves to abolish vails. [Griffith, Series of Letters..., IV, 'An Agreement entered into among the Gentlemen of several Counties in Ireland, not to give Vails to Servants'] Like George Mathew before them, they decided to increase staff wages in an effort to compensate them for loss of earnings. One of them was Lord Kildare: in March 1765 he issued a directive from Carton to members of his household, stating that 'In Consideration of Vails &c, which I will not permit for the future to be received in any of my Houses upon any Account whatsoever from Company lying there or otherwise I shall give in lieu thereof... five pounds per annum each to the housekeeper, Maitre D'Hotel, cook and confectioner; three pounds per annum each to the steward at Carton, the butler, valet de chambre and groom of the chambers, and two pounds to the Gentleman of Horse.
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And I will conclude with this funny account, about the penalty for being known amongst the staff to be a spendthrift, from the same book:
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An unfortunate guest in England in 1754 found his punishment [for not giving vails] truly humiliating. 'I am a marked man,' he wrote, 'if I ask for beer I am presented with a piece of bread. If I am bold enough to call for wine, after a delay which would take its relish away were it good, I receive a mixture of the whole sideboard in a greasy glass. If I hold up my plate nobody sees me; so that I am forced to eat mutton with fish sauce, and pickles with my apple pie.' [Quoted in Marshall, Domestic Servants]
feel free to tip here (and yes the irony of this is not lost on me, although it did not occur to me until about halfway through writing this)
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What got you into Cobra Kai (Karate Kid too) and Silverusso? What other ships do you like from this universe? Favorite character(s)?
I actually was really against Cobra Kai for a long time because my aunt was shoving it down my throat. I had never seen the Karate Kid movies so I didn't get the hype. It wasn't until I actually got invested in Daniel and watched the first two movies that it clicked for me.
Then I saw season 4. And oh boy, chaos has just ensued ever sense Terry showed up playing that piano. The robe, the hair, just his stance. Thomas Ian Griffith is a force to be reckoned with, I'll tell you.
But the vibe Terry and Daniel give off is just weird and the way they look at each other, the verbiage. It's not quite..right? Even in KK3, which I saw after season 4, the way they interact just struck me as odd and strangely intimate. I loved that crap. I ate it up. My brain started making connections, and Headgames was born soon after I saw KK3 (and extensive note taking, of course).
As far as ships, my main is (naturally) Silverusso, but I do occasionally ship Terry and John when I'm feeling rebellious. And of course, Lawrusso because that is just aodrable and obvious as well. I appreciate most of the main characters from the show/franchise (except Anthony because...He's Anthony) but Terry just has a special spot in my heart. Even though he's obviously a piece of garbage most of the time, he's got some redeeming qualities. More than some, actually. I could rant about this man until I'm blue in the face, but I'll spare you.
The funny thing about this is that my aunt now wishes she had never said anything to me about Cobra Kai, yet I'm so glad she did. Cobra Kai/ Karate Kid has become such a huge part of my life, just in the day to day flow of things, and it's pulled me out of some dark places. I'm grateful for it and looking forward to this next (and last) season.
Thanks so much for the ask, I always appreciate them!
#terry silver#silverusso#karate kid#daniel larusso#thomas ian griffith#cobra kai#cobra husbands#lawrusso#i got an ask!#yayyy#answered
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Who are your top 5 (or top 3) favorite characters from Berserk? And why you loved them? And your top 5 favorite moments from the series? Thanks.....
I think I kinda only have 4 main faves, really? And that's probably a pretty obvious bunch (Guts, Casca, Griffith, and Puck). I got attached to them all in the first arcs and then stuck out the rest of the stuff mainly just for them without getting extremely attached to anybody else (though I do think the rest of the story is definitely worth reading, and there are many amazing things that come later on as well).
(Warning for spoilers below):
I love Guts because I just cared about him and what happens to him way more than I initially expected I would. I think he's very relatable to me personality-wise and just not your typical macho protagonist guy in some pretty interesting and unusual ways. I also like that he's both kind of simple and complicated all at once and not just a corny noble typical hero type guy, but not completely boring and edgy and nihilistic either. It's a fun blend. I felt a ton for Casca as well and just thought she was very sympathetic and tough yet vulnerable too. I think Griffith's idealism and ambition makes much of the intriguing drama and plot happen that I actually care about in the story, and that he's definitely a complex character that's maybe the most fun one to analyze in a fandom sense. And Puck is just that cute little voice of reason / comic relief sort of character who keeps you going when Guts is being particularly grim and surly and difficult to connect to and when the story is verging on way too dark and bleak, and since he's with you from the very start it's hard not to get attached!
Some Top Favourite Moments (I couldn't narrow it down to five):
-Guts's interactions with Theresia, the Count's daughter / that entire scene in the Black Swordsman Arc: Maybe a bit of an oddball choice, but I distinctly remember that this part of the story was surprising and interesting to me in a good way because it just showed some sides of Guts's character that I didn't expect, and made him seem a bit more unusual and interesting of a character to follow in my eyes. I felt like his weirdass/awkward dark advice to her to just kill herself if she really didn't want to live anymore was obviously because he himself had gone through something like that as a kid and then come to that conclusion based on his own survival instincts as well, and just spoke a lot about how strange and rough his own life and upbringing and worldview probably was, to see that as sincerely good advice to give to a kid at that time? It was different than what you'd expect a typical hero to say or do, and the fact that Puck comments on it like "dang, he's not even trying to be an asshole or mean, he legit thinks that's a good thing to say to her" made me laugh as well, because that was the impression I got from it too. It was also surprising to see him like tearing up afterwards? Idk it just marked a moment to me where my interest in the story and in Guts as a character deepened and changed a bit, so I like it for that!
- Guts and Griffith's first swordfight:
So good and iconic and also perhaps one of the most homoerotic things ever to be put on a page
-Guts holding his sword up to the moon and deciding he was gonna fight for Griffith's sake
- Guts and Casca's first kiss: I kinda get the feeling from most Griffguts fans that it's not super popular to have and share positive or warm feelings about this pair, but I thought the moments between them like their first kiss were actually so cute. I thought it made sense for them and their relationship at the time, and was nice to see them both having a soft and warm and consensual moment with someone else that they trusted that way
- Guts explaining how Griffith is the only person he can't stand looking down on him to the rest of Band of the Hawk:
Another moment where Guts pleasantly surprised me as a character, this time with how self-aware and forthcoming he was about his thoughts and feelings on this front. He's a pretty close-lipped character about such things and also pretty private and secretive most times, so whenever he does share those kinds of feelings I'm just like !!! and very invested in what he has to say. I also didn't expect the story to take this direction so explicitly, and thought that his prioritizing of his relationship with Griffith over everything else would remain background and buried in his subconscious at best, so I was pretty intrigued that this part actually happened at all
- Guts and Griffith's second sword fight in the snow:
So many interesting things going on between the main three characters here, and I feel like this was one of the most suspenseful parts of the story to me, I was having actual like heart racing physical reactions to it. I also love how it teases the audience a bit with certain clever fake-outs and whatnot, like making you think this is probably going to be how Guts will lose his arm...
-Griffith's visions of his childhood self / guilt about his dream:
Anytime we got a glimpse right inside Griffith's head was a fascinating treat for me, and I think the scene of him being guilted by the God Hand over his childhood dream was a fantastic bit of writing and artwork, and so important to the story as a whole.
-The Eclipse (up until that one scene):
You love to hate it and hate to love it, basically? It's an awful and traumatic time, but also just so effective at doing what it's supposed to do and such a great buildup of dread for this extremely climactic scene, and the horror of it all is super well done to me (though once it gets to the Casca and Femto part it lost me a bit, because I did not like how tastelessly that was depicted at all)
-Griffith's frozen heart starting to beat again:
There's no way that's just because he's fused with the Moonlight Boy or whatever, right? Love the idea that there's still a kernel of his old vulnerable self in there that he couldn't completely kill
-Casca's healing: this was such a LONG TIME COMING and I was so glad it actually happened and that Miura got to depicting that part of the story before he passed, I felt like it actually took 1000 years, and it was one of the major things keeping me reading due to wanting to see it resolved
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Idk I too want better for Casca but I really dislike the hype for Casca potentially becoming an apostle, these users put it far better than i would:
https://www.tumblr.com/deripmaver/723418827650727936/why-i-am-a-hater-of-the-apostle-casca
https://www.tumblr.com/deripmaver/723493450382802944/im-so-happy-to-find-another-casca-apostle-hater https://
I skimmed these posts to see whether there were any points made that I felt like "responding" to, and there's a few.
First, Casca being a good person has nothing to do with anything except people not wanting her to become a monster, which I obviously don't vibe with because I think the concept of a good person becoming a monster fucks hard, which is one reason I like Berserk a whole lot. And I think a potential Moonbaby sacrifice would fit perfectly with one of the "good person" sacrifice examples they give: the 'person you loved the most and hated the most' sacrifice motivation, since it's intertwined with Griffith in some metaphysical way and it could be a two for the price of one deal. It's almost too on the nose.
Second, I don't think it necessitates Casca joining Griffith. Griffith seems to be out of the Godhand now, incarnated on the physical realm, presumably no longer presiding over sacrifices, and my favourite worldbuilding pet theory is actually that the godhand and Griffith will be at odds. Something's gotta threaten the godhand's existence since something wiped out the last cycle that we saw in Skull Knight's memory, and an incarnate fifth that appears right on schedule seems like just the thing.
Third, Casca's apostle trauma is, if anything, a sign in favour of her becoming an apostle since like, everyone in Berserk is at least tempted to symbolically become their abuser/rapist/nemesis as part of gaining power, eg:
Why can't Casca get in on the interesting and complicated moral and emotional greys here? This is good shit, I want it for Casca. I want her to be tempted to become what she fears, to escape her own sense of powerlessness through abandoning her morals. It's just a more direct version of Guts wanting to become a monster since that's rooted in rape trauma and both the narrative and Guts himself equates monsters to both his rapist and abuser.
I didn't see them mention the fact that apostles are compelled to love Griffith which to me seems like one of the best arguments against it (though again, I skimmed so maybe I missed it), but Ganishka resisted that, and Casca has a long history of repressing her love for Griffith so I think it could actually be a neat, and overcomeable extension of her human feelings.
Another big and better argument against it, particularly after the last couple chapters, is that Miura clearly just did not give a shit about Casca lol. And I mean I already knew that, one reason I thought the apostle Casca theory held water is that it would be a way for Miura to avoid writing Casca's trauma realistically and instead veer into one big dramatic moment followed by fantastical metaphor while keeping her a less nuanced plot point, albeit a more active and fun one than she had been so far. Instead his way of avoiding writing Casca's trauma realistically was to have her faint any time she thinks about it and then take away her personality AGAIN. So yeah, unfortunately I just don't think Miura wanted Casca to be badass and actively affect the plot. Idk if he ever knew what to do with her after deciding not to kill her off just to motivate Guts post-Eclipse.
Finally I just don't know if there's really time for that anymore. My vision was an Empire Strikes Back style end of second act downturn. Casca becomes a monster and sets a new arc in motion, Guts falls into despair and succumbs to the armour, shit gets real and interesting again for a while. Instead Guts' second act downturn is being mad that Griffith is still a god lol. She could definitely still go apostle at the climax of the story, and you better believe I'm still rooting for that, but idk if it'd be as satisfying lol. But I guess we'll see.
Anyway yeah you're free to disagree with any of my hot takes, but you're not gonna convince me Casca shouldn't become an apostle, because my reasoning ultimately boils down to "I would enjoy it." I would certainly enjoy it a hell of a lot more than fainting damsel in distress Casca which is what we're dealing with right now lol. If your reasoning boils down to "I would not enjoy it" then I probably won't convince you either, and that's fine. We'll find out what's going to happen eventually.
And finally I want to err on the side of caution and make it clear that I have no interest in arguing with the user you linked, and I hope you're not planning to be like, some kind of anonymous go-between linking posts back and forth. I used the linked posts as a bouncing off point to explain some of my reasoning, and that's the end of it as far as I'm concerned.
#character: casca#theme: speculation#theme: behelit#theme: sacrifice#theme: inner monster#ask#anonymous#theme: revenge#a#b#also at the end of the day there is still the question of 'who the hell else is gonna use the behelit?'#guts has his armour he's spoken for in terms of manifesting inner darknesses#anyone else would need their motivation to be both established and executed between now and then which feels intrinsically#unsatisfying to me and a waste of a lot of time we could've been spending on foreshadowing#the exception being serpico who has motivation if farnese dies lol which lbr would suck. and who would he sacrifice?#casca is the only character with a thoroughly established reason to despair plus 3 potential readily available sacrifices#(moonbaby griffith and farnese) plus heaps of ominous foreshadowing surrounding her#plus hey she just got an animal motif to utilize
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griffguts: 2, 4, 14, 45 (was tempted to add 50 but lol we know the answer to that one)
2. Who wakes up early/Who sleeps in late?
I think they both are pretty good at waking up early, but Griffith wakes up early slightly less cranky. One of the first things we see is him running around all energetic and playful early. after a night of drinking too, so I would have to say him. Maybe he's just that lucky type of person who doesn't need much sleep. Or he can just go for a few days before it hits him and he's out for like 12 hours.
4. Who initiates affection? Why does the other not initiate affection as much?
Oh this is a tough one. I feel like in a lot of scenes Griffith is the one who is the most forward with flirting so I’d say him at first. I think that Guts gets pretty comfortable with being affectionate eventually though. It just takes time because he’s more skittish about touch in general. I think him initiating affection more often would be a good sign he’s feeling secure, and Griffith would love it too.
14. Do they enjoy PDA, or are they more private with affection?
Secret answer of they *think* they aren't PDA and very discreet, but they are not at all. Everyone who spends more than like 10 minutes with them can tell they are in some sort of relationship. They’d think it passes as like a joke or playful and Judau will glare at anyone who points out the obvious.
45. How do they support each other? How do they rely on each others support?
Mostly they support each other through actions not words. They'll always believe in the other's abilities and place faith in each other. Obviously they’d also throw down their lives for each other in a heartbeat. I would like to think that eventually, if things went differently they would learn to support each other emotionally more. I don't think either of them would go from being completely unable to do it at all to awesome at it, but literally ANYTHING would be a massive improvement from communicating almost nothing. I think once romantic feelings are out on the table they wouldn’t be super shy with telling the other they care when they need to hear it.
I also think one way Guts would support Griffith is just listening to him vent about all the stupid political bullshit he deals with. I have a feeling he lets Griffith talk about whatever and is a good listener who keeps everything private.
Lmao yes we know the answer to 50. Griffith does not handle a break-up very well! 🥲
Thanks for asking!
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So Okay, Massive props to my boyfriend (<3) for pointing this out because I doubt I'd have this thought without him, but now that it's in my head I can't stop thinking about it.
So here is: Why You (The American/Western European Reading This) Don't Understand Griffith, and Maybe Never Will.
TL;DR, details under Cut (v long): Berserk is an allegory for the struggle between Collectivism vs Individualism, which to very Indicidualism-Centered Westerners makes the Collectivist Griffith very unsympathetic.
And obviously, spoilers ahead, as well as a TW for death, violence, and sexual violence.
To put it very directly: Griffith is a Collectivist (someone who is focused on the well-being of the collective above the well-being of one's self or other individuals), whereas Guts is an Individualist (someone who is focused on the well-being of one's self or other individuals above the well-being of the collective).
Griffith has individuals he cares for, wants by his side and wants to see succeed, but in his mind, nothing and no one is above the Collective. That collective is, initially, the Band of Hawks, and then his own Kingdom, and presumably eventually the whole world. Griffith's primary and sole desire is to improve the broken world he grew up in, and there is no one he won't sacrifice for that goal, because he thinks that by achieving it he will be making a safer and happier place for an immesurable amount of people. And by no one, I do mean no one - he puts his own health and well-being on the line as well, physically, mentally, or otherwise. Most notably, the time where he, still as a child, allows a grown man to sleep with him to win his favour. Griffith is not above the collective, he's not above putting himself at stake if it means a safer future for more people. He won't let himself /die/, but that isn't because he cares about his own life more, rather because he thinks he's the only one who can achieve that ideal future, and so his survival is linked to the survival of the collective.
And Guts eventually becomes aware of this. Whether consciously or not, he realizes that however much Griffith may care for him, he would also sacrifice him for the greater good if need be. Guts is not above the collective, and he so desperately wants to be. He wants to be someone who will stand out to Griffith, who will be more important to him than anyone else (and it makes sense - Griffith is the first person that ever actually treated him as an individual, and the knowledge that he's still beneath the collective must be painful), and he thinks that the way to achieve it is to pursue his own individuality. That if he chases his individual growth, he will eventually become bigger than the collective.
Thing is, you can't pursue individual growth in a collective. You can't focus on yourself and the collective at the same time. That's why he wants to leave, and that's why Griffith can't let him - however hard Guts may try, you can't become a big enough person to outweigh the collective. Doing that is tantamount to destroying the collective, and Griffith can't let that happen. He can't let Guts become so big that he'll destroy everything he works so hard for, and so however much he cares about Guts becomes irrelevant. By just trying to become bigger than the collective he is threatening the collective, and so he must be killed.
(Note here that this scene has multiple meanings and this is only one of them. The other and much more obvious meaning is that he is outright in love with Guts, and can't bare to watch him leave. This analysis is NOT trying to argue against this, I am a staunch believer that any non-romantic reading of Berserk is outright factually incorrect. Do NOT use this to justify your weird homophobic erasure).
Here's where the Western part comes in: A lot of western countries, and particularly the U.S., are extremely radically individualist. For a lot of Americans, though of course not for every individual (ha) one, the idea of having to sacrifice yourself (whether literally or metaphorically, in a "Give Up On Your Dreams" sense) is absolutely unacceptable. And so seeing this character who will destroy anyone for the sake of the collective is immediately perceived as a threat to their very way of thinking.
Japan, meanwhile, is extremely radically collectivist. To a detrimental degree. Individuals sacrifice their dreams and health and mental well-being for the sake of making the country thrive. This is why this conflict is so important in the manga.
It shows collectivism at its natural extreme - but it doesn't villanize it. Everywhere that Griffith ends up ruling thrives. People love Griffith, they worship him, they consider him a saviour. Collectivism works, it does make the world better for the whole, objectively this is true even with the individuals left behind. But this doesn't erase the crimes committed, the lives ruined or lost. It doesn't absolve anything - it looks pretty and peaceful on the surface, it's happy and kind as long as you're not in the way of it, and as soon as you are it crushes you underfoot.
Individualism, on the other hand, it portrays as free and brave - but also selfish, lonely. Guts is an asshole to most people he comes across, he's extremely self-serving, and even when he cares about people he's very selective about them. He has to be, he has to draw that distance, because ultimately he HAS to focus on himself first. That's what makes him "greater" than the collective he wants to dismantle. And isn't that evil, too? Sure, it's revenge for what's been done to him and his loved ones, but in exacting it he'll be burning down a peaceful utopia, one which was built on the corpses of the ones he cared for.
There is no easy answer.
Guts is not a hero. He's a selfish loner, one who is free and cares fiercely for those he loves. He's the protagonist, because Japanese people need to see that individualism is an option.
Griffith is not a villain. He's a peacekeeper, a visionary, one who masks and justifies his horrible crimes and cares fiercely for everyone in the world, but never quite enough. He's the antagonist, because Japanese people need to see that collectivism can be taken far too far.
So this idea that Guts = Good and Griffith = Evil is just far, far too narrow a worldview, one affected by very western ideas of morality and justice, and one that, for a work as complex and beautiful and interesting as Berserk is just quite frankly not nuanced enough.
#berserk#berserk guts#berserk griffith#guts#griffith#guts x griffith#griffguts#guts and griffith#analysis#media analysis#collectivism#individualism#sociology
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the thing about the age old question of 'was griffith in love with guts during the golden age' that really gets me is that like. the main point of their relationship to me is that griffith felt intensely for guts in a way he never felt about anyone else before, that he saw something in guts that fascinated him and reflected back to him, that he, for the first and only time ever, felt genuinely connected to someone and grounded in this deeply human relationship with another person, not coolly detached as he usually was with everyone else. guts made him feel like a real person, not a fairy tale prince or a god king whose ambition put him above everyone else and isolated him by this very reason.
but because the only way he knew how to relate to people was by possessing and controlling them, he also related to guts in such a way. it's the paradox of their relationship: he likes guts in great part because he is his own person, because he doesn't bow to griffith as this superior being and longs to see him as an equal, eye to eye, but he also can't stand the thought of guts being outside of his control, of him not being under his wing, near him. it was ultimately this mix of emotions that caused the eclipse and everything that followed it.
this is the key concept of their relationship, and it's troubled and toxic and not something that necessarily speaks of romance and attraction. whether griffith felt affection for him as a lover or a friend or a brother, it doesn't change the result, because the specific nature of his affection is not the main point, but that he was capable of feeling so strongly for another person at all, to the point of jeopardizing his dream for his sake.
with all of this said, though. it's still painfully obvious that the golden age arc was framed as a sort of messed up griffith-guts-casca love triangle (one where guts is obviously the center of) and denying that is just crazy to me at this point, like. it didn't have to be framed like that, with stuff like the naked waterfight and casca being so intensely jealous of griffith's affection towards guts that she saw him as a (love) rival for years, but it was. it's impossible to overlook that.
i believe the reason why many people resist the 'romantic love' approach is because they assume it would render all of this complexity null and just come across as a jealous/scorned lover story, but of course it wouldn't. not even the most bad faith interpretation of the story would make people think that way, because it's obvious there's more going on there. but vehemently denying the homoerotic undertones feels straight up disingenuous at best and lacking media literacy at worst, to me
#berserk#frankly this wouldn't even be a debate if so many berserk fans weren't the edgy homophobic otaku type unfortunately#it's frustrating because i kinda wish there weren't any romantic undertones between them#it just makes the events of the eclipse even worse in my eyes
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