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bthump · 3 years

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If you could rewrite Berserk (or maybe parts of it), what would you change? I love the way you interpret this story. The way you interpret this work, makes it so much more powerful, than how some other side of the fandom understand it.

thank you so much, i’m glad my interpretations resonate with you!

tbh my ideal version of Berserk is basically a much shorter story that begins with the Black Swordsman arc and ends on this shot:

more specifically I’d open on a similar panel of Guts fighting ghosts, seen far above, and alone. I’d include a version of the Lost Children arc in the Black Swordsman arc after chapter 2, between Snake Baron and Count Slug, also introducing Skull Knight. I’d make some kind of pointed visual comparison between Skull Knight and Vargas, illustrating that they’re both similarly consumed by revenge and cautionary tales for Guts.

This version of Lost Children is even sadder and more depressing - Jill and Rosine’s friendship is highlighted as positive, the scene where they fly together is beautiful and uplifting, and it’s suggested that if Jill did stay with Rosine her influence could remake the creepy Land of the Elves into less of a horror show and more of an actual place of refuge sans monster transformations. Yk, Rosine is open to Jill’s suggestions basically.

Guts still has his humanizing moments with Jill but he’s shown at his most monstrous too when he kills Rosine. Jill returning to her abusive home isn’t uplifting or hopeful, it’s tragic. Guts’ “this is your paradise” bit isn’t an objective statement, it’s a sign of Guts’ depressed cynicism and increasingly monstrous mindset. Oh and despite the Land of Elves being fucked up (in my version it would at least be sliiiiightly less fucked up), Guts destroying it would have some thematic echoes in the destruction of the Hawks. Maybe the raid we see on the Hawks after they’re declared traitors involves a lot more fire and forest burning down. Maybe some of the elf monster kids try to save each other and one of them gets Guts with a thrown knife lol a la Judeau protecting Casca. Idk, something.

Also the Peekaf story is cut, as is Rosine’s tragic flight home, as emotional as it was in the manga. She dies with Jill here. I’m kinda downplaying the dreams as escapes theme wrt Jill’s flight with Rosine and the land of the elves because I don’t think it works in this arc due to, yk, the alternative being abusive homes.

Afterwards ghosts still taunt Guts about becoming like Femto, but without the “your friend” description bc that gives too much away. Skull Knight picks up Rosine’s behelit and has his suggestive “hm this could be Guts eventually” internal monologue even though Guts doesn’t have a behelit yet.

Count Slug arc is essentially the same. I would turn the fetus into some kind of pathetic looking misshapen dog demon (like the Beast of Darkness but in much less cool form, bc that’s essentially what the fetus was before Miura overwrote it) who follows Guts around and reminds him of what he’s in danger of becoming. Guts picking up Slug’s behelit is the last shot before the Golden Age begins.

Theresia is a more angry version of Jill, and they’re both examples of Black Swordsman Guts ruining lives wherever he goes, along with the zombie girl in chapter 2 - it’s all variations on a theme of Guts sort of creating mini versions of himself bc of his traumatized lashing out. Zombie kid is most metaphorical in becoming a monster after listening to Guts’ cynical take on dying by the sword; Jill goes back to her abusive Gambino-esque father when her potential escape, Rosine, is killed; Theresia swears vengeance when Guts kills her father who couldn’t sacrifice her to save himself.

(this mini me thing would parallel Slug and Rosine’s abilities to create their own monsters, btw. Cycle of violence kinda thing.)

Everything else follows the manga up until Guts and Casca start getting romancey. I’d cut that out completely. They can have a burgeoning friendship but there’s no romantic undertones and no sex and no meddling Judeau etc. Casca still fights Guts and stabs him and yells at him about Griff but there’s no sucide attempt. She still confesses to her crush on Griffith because it’s a good griffguts parallel, but definitely doesn’t say she was lying to Guts and herself when she said she wanted to be Griffith’s sword. But I do want that “Griffith’s not a god... and I am a woman” line in there because it’s such a good parallel.

Guts monologues about his newfound dream to Godo in a flashback during the Wyald fight instead, then does the waterfall log thing and breaks several bones, then gets told off by Erika who points out he just wants to fight Zodd again. I’d maybe move some of Godo’s lines about Guts metaphorically being a nicked sword to here too. Also show the dragonslayer leaning up against a wall lol.

Guts still tells Casca at some point that he fully intends to leave again. Maybe during the rescue mission. Because yk we still need that moment where Griffith overhears someone telling Guts to leave.

Finally the last change is that Casca dies with Judeau, Guts manages to survive until Femto wakes up, they have a moment staring each other down, there’s a clear parallel to a moment of Guts’ childhood - I’m thinkin Guts asks “Why?” and there’s a shot of Femto, shadowed so we only see one eye, a la:

Apostles begin to descend on Guts chanting shit like ‘sacrifice’ and ‘ours,’ (comparison to bb!Guts facing down the wolves btw, Guts is resigned) and then Skull Knight appears and rescues him and we get that last shot of Femto.

The End.

The implication is that Guts and Griffith are alone and monstrous without each other, violence begets violence, relationships are a positive contrast to that but they keep fucking those up, etc. There would still be a slight ray of hope though in comparisons to Jill/Rosine and Slug’s inability to sacrifice Theresia, and Femto lowering his hand, showing that, yk, even monsters have potential. It would be a very thin ray though bc Guts killed those monsters lol so the implication would still be that Guts is kind of doomed to roam the world alone with his sword like Skull Knight or Zodd.

Also... I’d fuck around with the world building and astral plane stuff because Guts and Femto being metaphysically separated doesn’t work for this. I want that thin ray of hope even if it necessarily comes to nothing lol, if only because if I was alternate universe Miura I’d want people to write Femto/apostle Guts fanfic. So no mention that the Godhand can only appear when someone uses a behelit, maybe even imply somehow that Femto could show himself to Guts at any time, he’s just snubbing him.

Anyway yeah, ty for asking.

also if you’re interested I once wrote a very long and involved post here about what I’d change if I had free range to adapt Berserk if you want a longer answer with more details that follows the actual story much more closely (including a less involved take on my answer here lol).

#Anonymous #ask #a #b #theme: opinion #theme: adaption

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