So like, in my shitty gangster au, by day, Farnese is the prim and proper daughter of a well-to-do business man, but by night she’s a punisher style vigilante who tortures the crap out of criminals. You can bet your ass Griffith and his gang are on her shit list.
i had way too much fun making shitty Polaroids. Also, I’ve never draw the rest of the band of the hawk before?! Guts smiling is physically painful to draw???
And oh no, the introduction of farnese and serpico to my shitty gangster au! More on them next time!
Obviously, it’s not a perfect relationship. And that’s an understatement. There’s still a ton of painful unresolved issues between them in need of some head-on confrontation and communication to work out, and I’m really hoping it’ll happen in a way that doesn’t involve that behelit. Despite how deeply bonded the two of them are, there’s a lot of things they still don’t completely understand about each other or how deep the other’s feelings can run – this is especially true of Farnese (and not all her own fault). There’s real pathos to that. And I just wish for them to figure out how to deal with and express those feelings, and to be happy together. I’m here for it, sign me up. And I get why not every fan feels the exact same way, but one thing I’m really not here for is when people tend to simplify things and forget/disregard details like Farnese nearly jumping off a roof while watching Serpico struggle in a fight, calling out to him and trying to stop him from taking on Berserker!Guts alone, trying to stop him from putting himself at risk in general, using his duty towards her as a way of making him look out for his own health, trying to de-escalate things and save him during the heresy accusation, excusing him from every stake-burning since then and showing awareness and concern for his trauma, and believing that Serpico has every right to hate her while being very troubled and preoccupied with whether or not he actually does. And showing that his opinion of her is something that affects her powerfully, no matter how much she insists that she’s the master he’s sworn to. These just aren’t the acts or attitude of someone who doesn’t care about him, who doesn’t consider his feelings, or who doesn’t see him as an autonomous human being.
Their relationship is complicated and messy for sure, but he’s just as important to her as she is to him, and lack of love on Farnese’s part has never been the core problem between them.
Last time, I talked about some about the superficial links between Serpico and Farnese’s relationship and Rei and Fukiko of “Dear Brother”. Well, now I can’t help wanting to draw attention to the parallels between them and the really bad end possibility for their relationship – Lady Ginko (The White King) and Kakihito (Hiiragi) from Yumi Tamura’s “Basara” (1990-98).
This one’s a lot more speculative on my part, since there’s no connection that I’m aware of between Miura and Tamura (except, interestingly, the art director of both anime adaptations in the late 90s), but the connections are still too fun not to point out. We have a young princess and her retainer raised alongside each other from childhood – their bond is absolute, but is also smothered and made toxic by the societal roles imposed on them, the secrets between them, and the repressed guilt for the many ways they’ve harmed each other through adhering to those rigid mistress/servant roles. Ginko is a woman whose value is reduced to her beauty and ability to function as a political pawn via marriage, and who rebels against her fate as a decorative doll through extremely self-destructive and self-punishing means, until she becomes a storm of pain, grief and rage. And Kakihito is a man whose life (but crucially, neither his character or agency) has been consumed by his duty of protecting Ginko and attending her needs, and whose loyalty to her and willingness to do whatever it takes to see to her happiness and peace of mind unwittingly turns him into her enabler rather than a potential liberator. They have every right to hate each other, but somehow can’t. Their feelings for each also go far beyond what they should, despite the messed-up power dynamic that hurts them both in different ways, but they can’t just talk things out and love each other either.
And to top it all off, we have details like inappropriate levels of intimacy, a love that’s impossible to consummate, an attempt to change the relationship from platonic to an openly romantic/sexual one going wrong and actually changing things for the worse following rejection, fire as a catalyst for even more violent change, deaths of other loved ones, and ritualised acts of abuse/punishment (and absorption of it) as a way of expressing pent-up eroticism. And burning labyrinths. Lots and lots of labyrinth imagery, in fact.
As children, both Farnese/Serpico and Ginko/Kakihito pairs become human sacrifices to the labyrinth of abuse. The critical difference is that while Farnese and Serpico eventually find a way to escape and start redefining their identities and relationship outside its walls, Ginko and Kakihito stay trapped inside it all their lives, until they eventually get devoured by it and become its monsters; ready to eat the newer, younger, more innocent sacrifices that follow them.
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 