BERSERK: Yours is a black path through the night.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > BERSERK: Yours is a black path through the night.

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

A good 75 percent of the movies are classically animated, and that's not even getting into a comparison on how the CG is DIRECTED between the two.

# ¿ Feb 29, 2020 23:37

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 05:53

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

I'm so far removed from the Golden Age at this point just due to all the years we've been with this fiction that I dont emotionally care what happens to Griffith at this point, I just want it to make sense narratively.

Thematically, though, its important that Griffith and Guts are both similarly abused people, with one being a slave to fate and one breaking free from it. I mean, there's a big deal about them both being raped as children, and their thematic reaction to it (Guts kills his father who facilitates his rapist, Griffith uses his rape for enablement of power...and then kills his rapist at the end of a long plan/game). Part of their bond is their similarity; they even both have similar ambition - its just that Griffith was at heart more broken - even if he came off more charismatic - and thus ended up being a tool used by fate while Guts could break free from it.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2021 10:13

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

Funky Valentine posted:

Griffith got an incredibly good deal compared to how it usually goes with characters being manipulated by dark gods.

They made him an eldritch Hellraiser god, gave him his kingdom where everyone loves and looks at him in return for just a little unleashing the legions of hell, and gave him a sick Batman costume.

He still got fate-manipulated into the whole years of torture thing to get to that point though.

It was still doing the Hellraiser thing. To become a Cenobite, he did have to do his torture penance thing like Pinhead and the rest.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2021 18:56

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

Hilario Baldness posted:

Flora, who I would consider to be maybe the most in tune human as pertaining to causality and fate in the series, says to Schierke that while the Gods prescribe fate humans choose that fate. She illustrates this by pointing to Guts, who defies the fate prescribed to him by the same entities.

This is getting into a whole philosophical discussion, but once gods exist, nobody actually chooses anything because the God creates what the person is for their long term plans and makes the person that makes the decision they want ahead of time. Thats the point of Guts - you can't plan around him.

The issue becomes what happens with Femto. If Godhand are timeless than he essentially created himself which makes him far worse than imagined before.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2021 01:36

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

Rigged Death Trap posted:

Only for omnipotent, omniscient big-G gods.
While the idea of evil and by extension the Godhand may be omniscient theyre definitely not omnipotent. Just very powerful. For example in greek and norse myth even the gods are subject to the whims of their fates (the fates and the norns, respectively).

And we know the godhand arent timeless and are either eventually replaced or can be killed, judging by Skull Knights memories.

The last chapter kind of shifted it a bit by showing "old" Godhand because it was stated before, somewhere (can't quite remember where) that they weren't seeing time linearly. That omniscience is where the lack of control comes from since they constantly manipulate reality to make what they want happen.

A lot also has to do with the deleted chapter and how canon that is.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2021 18:09

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

unknown butthole posted:

thats exactly it. Once guts and casca became branded they started to exist in the interstice, which means they are no longer bound by the laws of causality. it's why when the skull knight rescued them even the godhand was surprised and proclaimed that even they couldn't predict everything. Guts is free. His destiny is no longer bound by transcendental law. Just like the skull knight. It's ultimately his biggest strength, as even griffith is bound by the laws of causality, otherwise I doubt he would of raped casca knowing that tainting the fetus inside of her would lead to him becoming the moon child. Thats just a theory though.

I think Guts was free from the beginning since he technically wasn't supposed to be born but "beat" fate by being born.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2021 18:11

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

Burkion posted:

I'm pretty sure they've said out right that he is the first of the God Hand in general, too. They've mentioned him being the eldest God Hand

Yeah this is where I'm thrown off. I also think that's where I got their nature with time from too, since I think it said he was created by the other four but is still the oldest.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2021 22:01

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

Bisse posted:

Was Hitler evil or did he just view things through a different moral lens than me?

Was Sauron evil or can he be forgiven because as a god he did not choose to consider the suffering of man?

Also sure, let's pick one of the world's most prominent religions, hmmm let's pick, Christianity, which has, let's see: God, Jesus, and Satan: The Literal Embodiment Of Evil, so yeah.

God is waaaaaay more evil than Satan in the Bible by human standards. Like unbelievably so. In a simple comparison Satan has a body count of, what was it, 6 or something compared to God's hundreds of thousands to millions to billions depending on how you read Revelation. The Bible still writes him as "good." I think that's the kind of distinction/discussion the poster was trying to have.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2021 22:16

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

christmas boots posted:

I think fate is a convenient excuse to abdicate the responsibility of one's actions. If Griffith's choice was determined by fate then he can't be held morally responsible for what he did because never had a choice in the matter and so why should he feel bad? I'm not terribly sympathetic to that idea. On the other hand there were certainly forces at work that conspired to bring Griffith to that moment but even if he was led to that door, I still believe he made the choice to walk through it.

This is a long term philosophical debate, and also tends to be whether people focus more on punishment or rehabilitation.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2021 23:49

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

Carpator Diei posted:

This whole discussion kind of shows the problem with interpretations that focus on fate and causality. That line of inquiry almost always comes down to something like: "But are Griffith's actions during the eclipse really proof that he's evil?" And that's not just some abstract debate about an interesting literary topic; it's inseparable from important real-life questions about accountability and about social structures that frequently let powerful people get away with almost anything. While I'm not sure if "evil" as applied to persons is a useful metric in general, I'd go so far as to say that if the text enables the interpretation that Griffith's actions are justifiable or excusable, then that's a moral flaw of the text. And then the question is whether a work of literature should be judged in moral terms, which is a very complicated question, but in my opinion a potentially more fruitful one than this discussion about divine morality.

Again it's high philosophy. The question is "is it your fault how and where you are born?" If you are born with the chemicals to create your brain and exposed to the life experiences that you had no choice in to mold it to make the decisions it makes, is that fault or bad luck?

One of the greatest philosophical questions ever, and are also why the right generally leans towards the death penalty while the left tries to address social/etc. aspects.

A contingent of people will always hate causality because they then feel they have no actual agency because things out of their control shape who they are. And Berserk is kind of a story about the fight against this by pure will.

Berserk says everyone is fated by their experiences as molded by gods except Guts. Guts can just break through it. And Griffith is his direct foil.

Darko fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Feb 17, 2021

# ¿ Feb 17, 2021 03:03

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

Lucasar posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INiLyUnYONE

Presented without comment.

I like how people who like Berserk tend to like the same other stuff, given the very end.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2021 12:43

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

There are definitely issues with that, but it was also the 90s, and issues with that kind of stuff abounded in entertainment, especially in manga. Over the years, he seems to have gradually lowered on that kind of stuff.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2021 18:09

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

Viridiant posted:

That reads as extremely fake to me.

It's not real. Original post ends with a hastag that says joke.

# ¿ May 18, 2021 08:37

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

Mirello posted:

new chapter owns. first new one that really felt like berserk. heartbreaking ending. really loved it.

Yeah this is going to spawn a discussion. Didn't expect that; wtf.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2022 16:25

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

Bisse posted:

The Casca rape is extremely super bad and the #1 reason that I and my friends who have watched it don't recommend Berserk to other people.

As has been discussed above, it's not one thing, it's multiple things about it. It's execution, it's misogyny, it's the aftermath compared to other manly men who handle it like manly men, etc. Compare it to Game of Thrones, that series has like five rapes per season, they are central to characters arcs, but it's just depicted better on many levels. It also has a man getting tortured and mutilated for an entire season and it completely destroys him physically and mentally. GoT succeeds in showing that it is the world and the culture that is hosed up, and succeeds in showing that being a woman in this world sucks and it is wrong that this is the case.

The Casca rape has a place thematically and it can be executed well, but it is not executed well in Berserk the Anime, Berserk the Manga, or Berserk the Trilogy Movies.

To execute it well it would need to be less graphic, and avoid the three central problems of "Main female character existing only to get raped in order to progress the two lead male's arcs", "It's just needless edgelord stuff" and "Men handle rape by becoming badass berserkers, women handle rape by becoming mindless drooling babies".

The third can be handled by not raping women all the loving time, and making men suffer similiarly and reacting similiarly - show that it's the world that's broken, not the gender.

The needless edgelord issue is just presentation/execution, show less dickthrusting and get rid of the tentacles is a good start?? Maybe?? And keep at least some clothes on maybe??

The first I don't know how to handle but executing the eclipse differently would help - clearly show that Casca gets broken from the murder and sacrifice of all her friends, perhaps she is already more clearly 'gone' by the time Femto awakens. The actual scene itself maybe have Femto stare exclusively into Guts' eyes to show it is a pure revenge/hatred act. It's still problematic but less.

To summarize it does makes sense in the plot but it is also extremely badly executed and is massively misogynistic and problematic in all the wrong ways as is. Your friends aren't reacting because it's "too edgy" they're reacting because it's childish and dumb and silly as is.

Interesting that you use Game of Thrones, as the show is worse than Berserk in depicting abuse. The show has Sansa getting raped as a character swap that adds absolutely nothing to anyone's arcs, ruins Littlefingers entire character by making him a giant idiot, and is just there to be cruel.

It's known as one of the worst changes from the books and more evidence the showrunners have no idea what to do when not directly adapting things.

I never saw the Caska thing as "pornographic," but I think a big part of that was that I think the anime (both) frames it differently than the manga by showing more of it, for lack of better term. There's a difference in timing and such between watching and reading.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2022 12:55

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

LordMune posted:

Berserk may have problems but let's not equate it with Game of Thrones, jesus

They share some narrative similarities in the Golden Age with a giant thing shocking people Red Wedding/Eclipse ans changing the series. Thats where they diverge, though in any feel or similarities.

And yeah, the show completely messes up the minute it leaves GRRMs writings in S5 (woo boy Sand Snakes) with the writing for every woman except maybe Cersei getting absolutely embarrassing.

Darko fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Aug 19, 2022

# ¿ Aug 19, 2022 23:44

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

The Black Swordsman Arc is EXTREMELY like The Gunslinger in a lot of ways. I'm just somehow realizing that right now.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2022 02:11

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

Skull Knight tried the upgraded weapon thing and it didn't do crap except serve Griffiths purpose. Guts has a magic sword already due to, as the posters before me said, the metal it's made from, and being used to kill thousands of apostles and magical things. It's probably as powerful as you can get as a weapon in this circumstance because, like Guts, it shouldn't really exist (someone wandering around killing a ton of apostles only happened because that person escaped fate), and thus may be the only thing that might work on the God hand.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2023 15:31

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

The Notorious ZSB posted:

Enh the Witcher does really capture the spirit of the stories and games well at times, and just totally misses the point at others. I haven't watched the most recent bit of it, but its not awful imo, just like a lot of Netflix stuff kinda way more compromised than you'd want from a place with the money you'd expect netflix could throw at it.

Last season is hit and miss as usual but better than S2. It follows an important part of the books and handles half okay and the other half stupid or weird.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2023 23:27

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

Diabetic posted:

My absolute dream would be to just continue the 97 anime using the same style and getting the same dub actors.

So just have stills from the manga, in color, panning on screen?

Still better than the CG one.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2023 14:02

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 05:53

Darko: Dec 23, 2004

Ccs posted:

I'm going with my friend Griffith. He's had a tough time lately, but he's really excited to see the eclipse. He asked me to bring along as many of our other friends as possible, and looking at the group chat over 100 might show up!

Be there a little late, gotta stop by the river first for some water and stuff.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2024 21:08

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > BERSERK: Yours is a black path through the night.