Since
I’m on a roll with Sonia thoughts and anger towards Griffith, why don’t we talk
about how gross it is that Griffith is trying to make her over into his own
mini-Casca?
I
mean, here’s a woman he literally raped
into insanity and he’s just going to take this little girl who doesn’t know
about any of that, who has no idea exactly what he’s doing by fitting her into
place as his replacement Casca, and he’s just going to do that to her. No
qualms, no indecision. And then, then,
Griffith doesn’t even have the grace to make Sonia into Casca as she was. Not a
Casca who saw Griffith as imperfect and followed him anyways, because she was
still loyal to him and she still believed.
Not a Casca who was capable of seeing a life beyond being Griffith’s sword,
capable of falling in love with another man. Not a Casca who was capable of
leaving him. Instead, Griffith seems to want to turn Sonia into Casca-lite, a
Casca who never learned to see him as imperfect, a Casca who never grew into an
adult with an adult’s understanding of Griffith.
But what’s
really bizarre, though, is that it gives the lie to Griffith’s claim that he is
“free” and proves how utterly disposable Casca and Sonia are to him at this
point at the same time. Because we’re shown that Griffith, for whatever reason,
wants badly to recreate what he had with the Hawks (see also his attempt to
coax Rickert back into the fold), but that Casca herself (and by extension, the
rest of the Hawks) is completely replaceable.
But by
trying to mold Sonia into a mini-Casca instead of just taking her as she is (it’s
transparently obvious that being in armor and on the battlefield is the last
place Sonia belongs, and she could probably have achieved her purpose there
from the sidelines, but Griffith put her out on the frontlines anyways),
Griffith shows that he considers Sonia replaceable as well. Sure, her abilities
make her very useful, but if Sonia hadn’t been around, Griffith might have
picked, say, a girl defending her farmstead from the Kushan army with a scythe
to be his mini-Casca instead. He wanted someone to project his desire to ‘replace’
Casca on to; it didn’t have to be Sonia in particular. Sonia isn’t nearly as special
to Griffith as she thinks she is, and if there’s a reason I’m scared for Sonia,
it’s that.
I love that Farnese loves Guts and the way she shows her love is such a development from the pyrophiliac days.
I don’t want to get into a debate of how much she loves Guts compared to Casca for example, or what kind of love she has for him (compared with Schierke who has a more father/daughter dynamic) but for example the scene were she gets mad at Casca and yells at her.
And while I know this isn’t technically a blog focusing on Berserk, there is still something I wanted to point out because damn, the feels.
In this chapter we got the confirmation that bringing Casca back was definitely possible (even if we all knew that since volume 28), but the most interesting part is that while Guts smiled at Schierke being happy to hear that…
…He immediately stopped faking it a second after, something only Farnese noticed. And of course this is all linked back to what the Skull Knight once said…
…making Guts worry that, even if the woman he loves gets her sanity back, things between them might not go back to what they once were. And this is super important because of two things:
The sole purpose of Guts’ journey since vol 22/23 was to get Casca to a safe place, even if the Skull Knight gave him a different hope in vol 28, meaning that Guts’ revenge got stalled since Griffith’s rebirth while Griffith himself is gaining more and more power and was recognized by the Pope to be “humanity’s hope” (ha ha they are all screwed).
The beast of darkness that decided to “obey and stay bound and restrained for the time being” (vol 33) still is a major thing Guts will have to face one way or another and, I might be biased, but I don’t see how anyone not having with him the bond he and Casca used to have can help him on this (though Puck and the Moonlight Child are characters I’d put money on for this specific plot point).
So basically if things don’t go according to what Guts is hoping (or rather if things go according to what he is fearing) then it will be like the Black Swordsman arc all over again, with Guts having nothing but revenge to focus on, even if he found new companions since then that he knows he can count on.
The issue, if we can call it that, is that Casca regaining her sanity has been the only positive thing Guts bet everything he had on for a long time right now, so if Miura-sensei decides that Guts is to still suffer in order to have him go fight against Griffith/Femto and his buddies, then happier times between Casca and Guts might either be short or non-existent ifwhen Casca regains her sanity under the pretense that “[Guts’] wish might not be her wish”.
And about those two having different wishes… Well, personally I think in Casca’s case it has to do with their son because he is right now a big link between Guts, Casca, Griffith himself, the happier times, the eclipse and Griffith’s rebirth, but also because the first time the Skull Knight brought the matter up it litterally happened at the same moment Casca met with this little one…
And, while I’m ready to keep an open mind to any other theories, it’s basicallyconfirmed for 95% of the fandom that the Moonlight Child has a lot to do with Guts and Casca’s child (I’m ready to eat Schierke’s hat if that’s not the case) and since Griffith used their infant to reincarnate into the material world, having Casca take on a more defined role towards her child (amongst other things) would be a good way to tie Guts, Griffith and Casca together into the main plot again and towards the ending.
Often I’ve seen people writing how Berserk was the story of Guts vs Griffith and how Casca’s role was basically approaching its end with her possible recovery but personally I couldn’t disagree more:Casca still has a big role to play before Berserk ends, towards her child most probably, but also towards the battle against Griffith/Femto and what he’s trying to accomplish, as it was (for me) foreshadowed by Rickert in vol 38.
Because Rickert is the last member of the original/old Band of Hawk and Griffith stopped being their commander the day he messed up, the day Casca had to take over and as Judeau said before dying…
As long their leader lives on, the Band of Hawk isn’t finished.
Obviously though, besides Rickert all of Casca and Guts’ old comrades were sacrificed, but Rickert is currently travelling with Silat and Daiba (and Erica who’s super weird because she, like.. doesn’t grow old??? Or maybe it’s just me?) who are rather big names in the Kushan side of the story and Farnese, Manifico and Roderick are all heirs to important families who could maybe provide sufficient back up in case Casca were to lead an army against Griffith’s new Band of Hawk (and that’s without counting all the magical beings that could join on the big battle).
So the triangle Griffith/Guts/Casca is still a thing when it comes to the dynamics of the plot for me and if Miura-sensei took so many volumes to reach Casca’s recovery that means that she will definitely get her sanity back but that she’ll also still have a big role to play afterwards (otherwise way not to follow the rules of fiction and to waste time developing a useless plot point).
…This got hella long and I’m sorry about that. I’m just… y’know, hyped now that Berserk is off hiatus for at least a few months so I kinda had to sum up what developments I’m considering for Berserk right now. ^^’’
midnight-in-town 