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alovelyburn · 2 years

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Continuing from @zombiesgohome over here:

I think the “that misses the whole point” thing is what chaps my ass the worst. It misses the point of Berserk’s thesis statement, it misses the point of Griffith as a character and it misses the point of the whole system Miura invented to create Apostles and Godhand.

Because the purpose behind the Sacrifice working the way it does is to support Berserk’s theory on humanity - that humanity is twisted and beautiful and awful and wonderful and capable of immense cruelty and betrayal or kindness and loyalty, and all those things are in every person. It’s explicitly noted in the lost chapter that all those hellish emotions are a fundamental part of being human. When Griffith says he can feel that darkness in himself the story wasn’t telling us he’s inherently evil, it’s telling us that it’s a part of every human, and he’s exceptionally human.

When Griffith goes into the eclipse and sacrifices his friends and turns into a demon the structure of the dimensional space created by the behelit’s activation is defined by infinite human faces to represent that what happens here is in line with the collective will of humanity. And honestly if you think Griffith is a monster then what does it say about humanity as a collective that he is the one they desired?

Which is where people start talking about how they were conned by fake prophecies or whatever, but... even if the prophecy of the Hawk of Light is just a dream, it’s a dream constructed because humanity wanted a savior.

I think one of the big issues with Berserk is that its thesis statement re: the nature of humanity is at odds with what many people think: that humans are fundamentally good and that when someone does a substantially bad thing, it's either because something went wrong that pushed them to do that thing or because there’s something substantially wrong with them -they're assholes on a fundamental level. So someone cheats on their spouse and its like, well was it because the spouse was cold and unavailable and they were driven to it by feelings of loneliness and rejection, OR was it because that person is just an asshole and we didn’t realize it until now but now we see their true face: that of an asshole.

I contribute to that too. "Human" as "good" or at least "better than other stuff" is deeply embedded into the culture and also into the language. Even fans of Griffith’s character tend to say Femto is cruel because he lost his humanity. Even SF stories dealing with androids or AIs or aliens will tend to assume that the closer a non-human entity is to replicating humanity the better they are both morally and existentially.

But even if a reader believes that humanity is just great and only monsters do bad things, Berserk doesn't share that perspective. And because it doesn’t, the story will show humans doing terrible things without necessarily judging them as inherently terrible people. And if someone imposes their... idk, rosier?? worldview on Berserk they end up having to explain “bad” behavior through essentialism - Griffith did a cruel thing because he is fundamentally a cruel person. And because he’s a fundamentally cruel person, everything he does is now tainted by that cruelty. From there it’s honestly not a long walk to “he would have sacrificed them at any time and under any circumstances,” because If circumstances had nothing to do with him making the choice - if he made it because he’s evil and selfish - why would different circumstances result in a different outcome?

And I mean, realistically this isn’t true. People’s behaviors arise from a complicated mix of inherent factors and circumstantial factors. But I think that regardless of whether or not it’s true in real life, that causes a problem if they carry that into stories even when the story is saying something else.

One of the big complaints i see about Griffith a lot of the time is that the narrative doesn’t seem to judge him for his actions - and while I don’t actually agree with that, I do think the narrative doesn’t impose the unequivocal judgement of “monster” on him the way people would perhaps like or expect. But a lot of that has to do with the story just saying different things about humans than some people are used to hearing, or looking to hear.

#ariel talks about berserk #chatter #lara lara lara

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weepingwidar · 7 months

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