Casca literally did not care for anything that was beyond Griffith or his dream. She cared for the Hawks. She cared for Griffith. The old band of the Hawk were an extension of Griffith’s dream. She was a sword. No more, no less.
But Guts, an outsider, was always challenging how everything worked. Griffith’s word was always absolute. Until he came.
Griffith embraced that trait of his, alternating his plans according to how Guts would act in battle. Casca hated Guts for that. It made her feel worthless.
Worthless as a woman AND as a sword.
When Guts left, she should’ve been happy.
Everything will now go back the way it was.
Except that Casca wanted Guts to stay.
Not once did she think of Griffith in this entire scene.
She picked that sword up for herself.
From this point onward, Casca was no longer Griffith’s property.
i never paid enough attention to this until i suddenly remembered the scene when griffith tried to raise his sword, but the sword symbolism and how it represents the casca x guts x griffith relationship and how it developed through the golden age arc and how griffith lost casca’s admiration and devotion??? i mean
Frankly, one thing that always baffled me in the fandom is how some readers consider that Berserk is about Guts vs Griffith and like…
I just don’t get it?
I mean, sure, since Casca had a few years of absence, she certainly can’t have become as good as Guts did or as powerful as Femto became, when they were more evenly matched in the past, but nonetheless, Berserk always has been and will be about their trio and my proof…
is right here, because that baby is the biggest link (aside Casca and Guts surviving the Eclipse) between the three of them right now. Besides, would Miura have spent 17 volumes reaching Skellig if Casca’s character wasn’t of the utmost significance to the story?
So I’m sorry that I can’t explain it in a different way xD but for me, Casca is one of the three main characters of Berserk and as such, her role is the same as Guts’ and Griffith’s: she’s partially the reason the story exists, thus she’ll drive the story forward until its end. 🙂
That’s my opinion and I’m afraid I’ll never agree with anyone who considers that Casca is secondary or not relevant anymore, same for the Gutsca dynamic.
I hope it answers your question, have a nice day Anon! :))
Hi again 🙂 And don’t worry, I think it’s natural to have mixed feelings, I do too, namely about the impending Gutsca reunion. :3
I mean, we now know that the Skull Knight’s warning was about…
…Casca not wanting to come back when Guts really needed her to, so it’s possible that she will be angry and ungrateful about this at first (coping takes time).
At the same time (hence why I have mixed feelings xD)…
…the girls caught on that too, so it’s possible that they will be able to make Casca realize all that Guts and their group went through just for her sake.
Finally, as you said, while I think the pain in her heart will take a long time to be dealt with (understandably, considering what she went through, just like Guts), I think that finding a motivation to go through in life will help Casca with accepting it’s a good thing that she’s back.
This is exactly what happened to Guts: getting Casca back in his life helped him a lot with what he had become as the Black Swordsman, that’s why Flora said…
and
how he managed to get over his violent urges at the most critical times.
So the same will probably happen to Casca with…
…what seemed to be the most important for her ever since the Eclipse, especially since it’s extremely plot relevant considering that her baby is used by Femto + that…
it was always foreshadowed the original Band of the Hawk led by Casca would come back. :3
Honestly I just want Guts to get a break right now. I love my girl Casca and I don’t mind her getting all the time she needs to cope, but I hope she will at least let Guts feel happy that he didn’t do all of this for nothing.
It definitely was a selfish wish of him to get her back when she didn’t want to, but the guy went through a lot and he’s been clinging onto this single hope for a while now, so I don’t want the beast of darkness to overwhelm him again now.
He deserves to feel better about a few things, especially since he might find out really soon about what Griffith did to his kid and there’ll be plenty of time for anger again then.
As for the people who think Casca’s going to go back to Griffith… I mean, I see people saying that Femto will get redemption, that Guts and Casca were never in love and some people just coming to the realization that Femto’s “feelings” for Guts and Casca are only the demon infant’s… So
I don’t know, sometimes people simply can’t read and that’s too bad for them, because they’re clearly missing out. xD
Ahhhh, I can’t wait for next monthhhhhhhh! >_< Thanks for passing by again and have a lovely week! ^3^
I’m so happy! And I just know I’m going to cry next month when she finally speaks again (if Sensei changes to Falconia or Rickert and the Kushians tho I’ll just… akzjhbkezbjbrzek).
Have a nice day Anon, I can’t wait for next month! ^3^~~
I’m so worried she’s going to go back to hating guts like she did before her break
@cobblepotts
I hope you’ll see this since apparently I can’t tag you, but I don’t think this is something to particularly worry about, especially since…
…the girls fully realized that she was scared to come back already.
The thing is, we know Casca is currently scared of Guts…
…but so did she use to be for a while before he managed to approach her again after some time:
so the Gutsca dynamic always comes and goes in full circle no matter what.
She used to dislike him => they talked and learnt about each other => but he left => then came back but Casca was angry => they realized they fell in love (a two-faced moment there again) => the eclipse happened and she became scared of men => but Guts still managed to physically get close to her thanks to the Tower of conviction => until he unfortunately attacked her in vol23.
So, as it happens, I think our Casca is bound to be confused and hurt and definitely in need of time to process everything now that she came back, which is why it’s hard to be sure of how their reunion will go. Still, anyone who saw Guts around Casca can say for certain that…
…he would never willingly hurt her, not after putting everything else to the side just for her sake, so why wouldn’t she realize that again as well?
The events of vol23 are definitely casting a shadow over the Gutsca reunion, I won’t deny that and in fact I think it’s something that should be addressed by the two of them, but Guts beat himself a lot over it already, so I doubt this is going to be what puts an end to their romance (even if they will probably need time to get as close as they used to be).
In other words, I’ll just quote Flora on this:
So don’t worry, the girls and even Guts (thanks to the warning of the Skull Knight) know that bringing Casca back will not magically make her feel better about the Eclipse, but Casca also has her role to play in helping Guts cope with everything too.
Being scared =/= hatred and neither have to last forever anyway. 🙂 Guts and Casca are bound together…
and this is one of the major foundations of Berserk so it’s never going to change.
So even if their reunion (next month?) doesn’t live up to what you’re hoping, they will very probably find a way to get over everything that happened to them with time. And I personally hope Sensei will allow Guts to rest a bit, emotionally speaking, because he did a lot for her & this journey and I think she’s able to realize at least that (even if she didn’t want to come back). :3
Hi Anon! And good question. 🙂 I think the fact that Griffith didn’t finish his thought led to some awkward translation because the translator understandably didn’t have any way to know what Griffith meant.
However I think you’re close enough. 🙂 Upon finding the beherit again, Griffith remembered about what it meant…
…so I think he was ready to call them (remember that he was trying to kill himself just a moment before that, so he was really desperate because everything was getting out of his reach), although probably not knowing how, which is when Guts showed up.
I definitely think that a part of Griffith knew there would be bad consequences if Guts were to reach him because…
he knew of the legend surrounding what he was hoping to do.
Also, this is how Griffith was thinking about Guts, just before he was rescued:
so I think another possible interpretation would be to say that he was afraid that Guts would find a way to bring him back from the brink of despair he was currently drowning in and that, as a result, the Godhand wouldn’t answer his call.
One thing I think is very important to understand about Griffith’s character is that there is no doubt, even though he saw most of them as his pawns, that only a real and deep desperation led him to sacrifice all of his comrades, because that was the only way he had left not to let his dream get out of reach (Griffith’s dream >>> everything else).
You can also see this in how his feelings towards Guts drastically changed between when he was still human (see above), when he was about to become Femto…
As a human, he had the luxury to have mixed feelings because humans are always considered to be on the grey spectrum of characterization (they can waver between white and black). As a Godhand though (an “all black and no white” character), he had no doubt anymore, hence saying that he was “free” (as in, free from the possibility of Guts making him forget about his dream again).
TL;DR it isn’t particularly surprising to see Griffith having mixed feelings about losing Guts up until he’s presented with the megalomaniacal idea to achieve his dream more easily and quickly than ever before. He was only human and Guts was actually the only person he couldn’t see as just a pawn.
Sorry for rambling, I hope it makes sense! Have a nice weekend 🙂
Hello Anon, no worries at all. 🙂 Did you mean when I said this? [x]
Okay so, it comes from the fact that ever since Casca and Guts realized that it was okay for them to accept their feelings for each other before the Eclipse, things changed so much so quickly that basically everyone noticed.
Judeau, Pippin… even Charlotte (who basically indirectly told Casca “hey so, love totally changed you????”) did, so you can be sure that one year of horror wouldn’t have stopped Griffith from noticing that the dynamic amongst their little trio had changed too, because:
Griffith used to be the one Guts followed and the one Casca was clearly devoted to
then Guts left because he decided not to abandon his own goal for the sake of Griffith’s dream
but after vol9, it turned out Guts was actually very happy to follow Casca while Casca’s heart now belonged to Guts.
And Sensei really insisted on the fact that Griffith instantly realized things were different, by showing him staring very intently at his friends more than once, which was extremely creepy. Two examples amongst many:
or
Basically you see the current twisted sort of love triangle [Roderick => Farnese <= Serpico] and Sensei always drawing a panel of Serpico staring most of the time Farnese interacts with Roderick? It was the same back then with Griffith, except that I have high hopes that Serpico won’t become an Apostle over his codependency with Farnese.
Anyway, Griffith stared and stared until it led to this…
Fortunately, he was so weak that nothing happened at the time but it’s really impossible to misinterpret that he was basically trying to gauge or reenact Casca’s old devotion to him by showing some… affection.
If this doesn’t make a lot of sense, just think that Griffith was definitely aware of Casca’s feelings for him in the past but he never addressed them on purpose, because Casca’s devotion made her a skilled blade and right-hand woman and it also meant not giving her an opportunity to move on (at least until she herself fell in love with someone else).
So Griffith, who totally noticed how close Casca and Guts got, tried to see if he could shift Casca’s focus over Guts onto him again, which obviously didn’t happen and which led to…
another very pivotal moment.
Moving on to the Eclipse and to Griffith becoming Femto, in that aspect it’s not so surprising that, after becoming so very powerful and invincible, his prideful demonic ass decided to make Guts and Casca pay for excluding him out of their little trio (especially when he used to be the center of that trio) while he was being tortured for a whole year.
Call that pride, jealousy or whatever else you want, he suddenly had the power to make them pay for moving on without him and so he did just that.
From the moment he always made sure to give Guts a very clear sight of him hurting Casca when she herself was begging Guts not to look, that’s how you know the main point of Femto doing what he did was to punish both of them for choosing the other over him.
I hope it’s clearer that way. For a more detailed interpretation of what happened during the Eclipse, please check this post.
Have a nice weekend!
BTW I love how Casca appears to be completely insane and yetshe is hyper-aware of everything around her on a completely meta level, more so than any characters, since everything is truthfully depicted in her dreams.
This makes me love her even more because I don’t know how many Berserk readers called her useless or not plot-relevant anymore over the years, but Sensei proved them all wrong with just how freaking accurate her dreams turned out to be.
We’re heading towards Berserk’s ending when Casca comes back guys, she’s definitely going to lead that magic army right up to Falconia and demand her son back. Griffith will regret having taught her to use a sword to get what she wants.
Okay, I know I wrote this post about who Casca possibly was speaking about in this scene already, but gosh I feel so
very sad for Guts, because Sensei is very probably not going to let him be happy soon.
Or if their reunion is a happy one (plz sensei ;_;) then it won’t last, because, considering the amount of times we were warned, I don’t think Guts’ wish will end up being Casca’s wish, at least not until they sort all their problems out, starting by addressing the events of vol23.
However, I’m kinda scared because Guts became so dependent on the idea that Casca would be by side again (to the point that it literally obliterated his thoughts of revenge against Griffth) that…
who knows if that might not be enough to release the beast of darkness within him?
…Actually, maybe this is just wishful thinking on my part, but I’d love for Guts to also be given a chance to look back on the fact that, just like Casca, he didn’t cope at all with what happened during the Eclipse while they’re on Skellig. Casca ended up becoming insane after the Eclipse while Guts became consummed by revenge and that’s not something he has yet to solve either.
That’s why he clung so hard onto the only hope he was given in vol28, which was Casca’s recovery and the idea that things between them would go back to the way they were before the Eclipse, a time where he truly was happy. Except they won’t, at least not right away.
That’s kinda why I’m hoping he talks to someone or gets a chance to look back on things, just like Casca was given, if just because narratively speaking he’s been stagnating for a while. Wait, no, that’s not particularly true because he admitted to relying on his friends more easily now, but still, he’s in need of help (especially if Sensei ever intends on breaking up that nasty parallel to Gambino).
So I was thinking, maybe it’s gonna be (a part of) Gedfryn’s role?
For obvious reasons, I’m expecting something from that guy in the current plot, but maybe I’m wrong and that look was just because he knew Guts had things to say about Femto.
midnight-in-town 