In this article we will talk about Griffith, the main antagonist of the anime and manga Berserk, and also one of the most hated antagonists in the whole anime world.
Is he really such a son of a bitch? What did he do to deserve to be one of the most hated antagonists? I invite you to know my point of view, and to leave in the comments your own opinion, always with respect.
Before reading, are you interested in a broader analysis of Griffith, his ambitions, and actions in Berserk?
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Griffith’s Analysis in Berserk – History, Character and Actions
Introduction – Griffith’s life in Berserk
Griffith is one of the main characters of the manga Berserk, and from the beginning he is presented to us as the antagonist of the series, although it was not always so.
During the Golden Age saga you see the beginnings of this character, and you end up understanding that he’s not just the antagonist of the series, but the very embodiment of everything it means to be a son of a bitch.
But is he really a character that deserves to be so hated?
Let us review objectively and briefly all its history and then we will study some points of view and philosophical currents related to the psychology of its acts.
Griffith’s chronological life – Berserk
- Griffith was an extremely poor child (so poor that some days he was unable to eat).
- As a teenager he formed the Band of the Hawk, and became a mercenary.
- Years later he meets his best soldier (Guts).
- A couple of years later, this soldier leaves the band.
- Griffith is imprisoned and tortured for a whole year.
- His comrades rescue him but he can no longer speak or move (they cut his tongue and tendons).
- Griffith decides to sign a pact with the demons and sacrifices all his friends and soldiers in exchange for the power of a demi-god.
- In addition to the above, he also takes the liberty of raping the only girl in his gang.
- With this power he decides to create his own kingdom, where there is no corruption, no racism, no abuse… which is what Griffith hated so much about people.
With this in mind, it is understood that during the development of Berserk, Griffith is not a character that evolves towards evil, but rather takes a giant leap from the morally correct to the ethically incorrect.
Does that make it evil?
He had his personal objective, like every individual, and in the worst case we would say that Griffith only presented an extremely altruistic behavior because he was interested in keeping his charisma and all his soldiers happy in order to reach in the most efficient way his objective: to have his own kingdom.
I don’t think anyone can think that this is a bad thing, because in the manga we even witness several times how he himself sells his body to old pedophiles to have money to improve the armor of his men, and we constantly see him developing strategies to win by minimizing the number of losses as much as possible; in fact, he is always in the front line. By behaving in this way he earns a great reputation, and many more men want to join his cause.
The Golden Age – Berserk
Shortly before losing everything he had, he experiences his greatest moment of glory: a kingdom commissions him and his few soldiers to end a hundred-year war they had with the neighboring kingdom, and as Griffith achieves such a feat he is rewarded with the title of knight, and for the first time in his life he ceases to be a commoner, something unthinkable at that time.
Being a knight, his next objective is to conquer, little by little, the princess of the kingdom, who was already in love with him. However, Guts decides to leave the band at that very moment, and passes over Griffith without any problem. It is here that for the first time in the history of Berserk we see a side of Griffith that is not one hundred percent rational:
- Guts humiliates him in a fight, being the first time in Berserk that we see Griffith lose a duel, and furthermore, this allows Guts to leave the gang, not realizing that he was Griffith’s biggest supporter, and possibly the person closest to him.
- Griffith feeling powerless, angry and frustrated at that moment decides to sneak into the princess’s room and use her (knowing that she is in love with him) to forget everything that has happened to him and feel powerful again. While he and the princess were illegitimately intimate, the king discovers them and Griffith is imprisoned and tortured to no end.
Half of his gang is killed by this king, and those who manage to escape take a year to rescue him.
When they succeed, Griffith is a bag of bones, and has no tendons or tongue, so in addition to having no muscle at all, he cannot move or speak.
Hours later a fastastic event occurs in which four demi-gods appear, and give the Griffith the option of obtaining almost unlimited power on condition of sacrificing all their soldiers.
The tribute used in this ritual can only be people you love, so we understand that Griffith’s sacrifice is, for him, what meant the most in the world, after his own goal, of course.
After this event, the image of Griffith that Berserk had offered us until now is completely dyed, he becomes known as Femto, and the character that at first conveyed admiration and went on to transmit sorrow after being tortured, ends up transmitting only disgust and disappointment.
Sacrificing all his faithful soldiers is not his only sin, since after becoming a demi-god the first thing he does is to rape Casca, the only woman in the gang; and all this forcing Guts, his beloved, to watch this repulsive scene.
After this we never hear anything more about Femto’s life, until he decides to reincarnate on Earth to help stop Ganishka’s invasion.
Analysis of Griffith – Character and Actions in Berserk
From the viewer’s point of view, Berserk shows us Griffith as the perfect leader: a charismatic, empathetic and extremely efficient person elaborating plans for the battlefield; however, as the story progresses we see that he does not empathize with his soldiers as much as we thought, and they turn out to be a means to achieve his goal.
His goal is the kindest of all the series: to create a kingdom where there is no hunger, no discrimination, no war; and that goal is for him the most important thing in his whole life. We even come to appreciate that the white castle he saw in the sky when he was a little boy is now in the process of being a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Key points of the story
Was he protecting his gang or protecting his target?
In order to realize the dream Griffith pursues throughout Berserk and have a white castle in an ideal kingdom he first needed to gain power. At that time the only indicator of power was the quality of your army, and the number of troops you had at your disposal, so he started his journey that way: by forming the small Band of the Falcon.
In all the scenes of the Golden Age we can appreciate how Griffith takes care of his band: he sells his body to get better armor, he is always in the front line of fire, he bases his plans on minimizing losses, etc… but does he do all this because he really appreciates his subordinates, or because keeping a good army is the best way to achieve his goal?
Griffith’s altruism quickly vanishes in the scene where he talks to Princess Charlotte and comments that he is not able to see his subordinates as equals, because he pursues a dream of his own, and has reasons to live without depending on anyone, while his men only live to help him achieve his goal, and none of them seem to have a motivation of their own that makes them truly alive.
Here is where for the first time in the story of Berserk we appreciate a not so kind Griffith; on the one hand we can interpret that he is simply using this group of soldiers because it is easy for him to keep them by his side and help him climb steps towards his goal. On the other hand, his actions often indicate the opposite, and he goes beyond purely charismatic actions to risk his life on multiple occasions.
Is it all happening because of Griffith’s temper tantrum?
So far all we had known of Griffith in the development of Berserk was a purely empathetic, charismatic and even rational side, always acting with a cool head. But showing moments of weakness is something completely human, and in Griffith’s case, having known his way of being, there could be nothing more frustrating than being humiliated and defeated in a fight, and then immediately losing the only person he respected in his entire gang.
The perfect and calm leader we had known so far shows for the first time in the series his emotional and impulsive side, and by acting without thinking he triggers a series of events that will lead to the main plot of the story.
Briefly continuing with his psychological side, it was clear that the only thing Griffith could do at that moment was to reaffirm to himself that he was still a strong and powerful person. And what better way to prove it to him than by bursting into Princess Charlotte’s room to prove that the princess of the kingdom wanted him and would do anything for him.
Almost moments after this happens, the king of the kingdom finds out and has Griffith imprisoned, and this is when everything starts to go downhill.
Would the Eclipse have occurred if Griffith had been able to fight?
This is perhaps the most difficult question to answer, as Griffith sacrifices all his men in order to regain the power he once had.
He, who had been a powerful person with the ability to fight for his own dream, now could not even move or speak, and in despair and fear of not being able to return to being a loved person, or to realize his dream, decides to give all his men to the demons in order to regain that power.
Knowing a little about his psychological profile, it was the only possible option once the Eclipse had begun, and it would be somewhat hypocritical to state outright that you would not for a moment consider saving your own life, even at the cost of other people’s lives.
Moreover, the answer to this question could never be a resounding ‘yes’; let us remember that to become a member of The Hand of God you must sacrifice what you want most, and thus, even if fulfilling his goal would have been possible immediately, he would have had to make a fine balance between what he wanted most (his men), and what he craved most (having his own kingdom).
Thus I dare say that the Eclipse would not have happened if Griffith had been fully fit and ready to fight. Because for a person like him to accept that power at the cost of sacrificing his men would have been the absolute affirmation that his own power and leadership ability were not enough to gain a kingdom. Griffith would never have accepted that, and would have fought with his men even though it would lead to defeat and regret that he had not accepted.
Is it an absolutely evil decision, the one Griffith made?
It is a selfish decision, there is no doubt about it. And leaving aside the rape for which he is entirely responsible (we will talk about it later), he sent all his faithful army to die in order to save himself, but… is this an inhuman decision?
Because to my way of thinking it is nothing more than a genuine demonstration of their survival instinct. A legitimate demonstration of his last moments as a living being, and more specifically, as a human being.
It is true that Berserk ends up showing us a Griffith who can easily be branded as Machiavellian, which does not have a very positive meaning in today’s society, but in the end this teleological or consequentialist ethic is what human beings are increasingly evolving towards. Is it wrong to take the lives of a hundred people if that is the only way to build a kingdom in which millions of people can live happily and have a dignified life in a world in which that was almost unthinkable?
If, on the contrary, we look at it from a Kantian perspective, based on deontological ethics, the only possible conclusion is that the action in itself is bad, and the circumstances or the end it pursues should not be an excuse for this action to be outside the framework of action of the categorical imperative. Nowadays, who acts transcending circumstances or consequences? It is a very extreme morality that does not even have a place in the worst courts.
In this case we find a selfish action but with a utilitarian undertone; for while Griffith prioritized his life over that of all his comrades, he also prioritized his goal of building a perfect kingdom, and superimposed that idea on the purposeless lives of all the men who followed him.
At this point, the dichotomy may arise between taking a deontological point of view and assessing the action for its intrinsic value, or taking into account the other factors, such as the circumstances in which Griffith makes such a difficult decision, or the repercussions it may have on the rest of the world. Even so, I am entirely in favor of attending to a higher ethic than the one Kant proposes, understanding that we must not only judge the action, but all the factors that accompany it.
About Casca’s rape
Just after having sent all his men to their deaths, Griffith, who has now transcended all mortals and has the power of a god, takes the liberty of raping Casca, the only woman in the gang. All this he does in front of Guts; forcing him to watch, knowing that at the time he was in love with this mercenary.
This action is completely deplorable from both a deontological and utilitarian point of view. However, he doesn’t do it for the simple fact of being a son of a bitch, and everything in Berserk has a much deeper background.
Throughout the development of Berserk we can see that Griffith and Casca had a very good relationship, and it is even theorizable that he hid his feelings for Casca in order not to be distracted from pursuing his goal. On the one hand he understood that giving himself to love was adding one more obstacle to his plans, and he would have had to divide his attention to two completely different matters. On the other hand, Griffith needed to remain uncommitted in order to sell his body for money and power, as well as to end up marrying a princess of some kingdom.
At the moment in which Griffith ascends and becomes a demon-god, he completely loses the notion of what is right and what is wrong, and rushes once again, as he had done previously with Princess Charlotte, to reaffirm to himself that he is someone powerful. In this way he once again impulsively obtains what he most desired, without considering the repercussions or consequences of his action. It is here that we meet Femto for the first time, someone completely different from Griffith.
This action was completely unnecessary, and is what ends up turning the character of the charismatic Griffith into a nauseating Femto. Once again, although there is no possible justification for this way of acting, it was the correct continuation of the work that is Berserk considering Griffith’s psychological profile.
So, having studied all the important events of the Golden Age, we will now move on to answer the main question of this article:
Is Griffith a son of a bitch?
Griffith, the most notable enemy in Berserk, is considered by many people to be the best antagonist in anime and manga. This is because no one represents better than him the duality of what it means to be human.
Completely opposed to being a complete son of a bitch who works to make other people unhappy, Griffith directs solely and exclusively all his energies to a good end, in which he develops his self-fulfilling prophecy to achieve a kingdom where everyone lives in peace.
It is a series of negative events and unfavorable circumstances that lead him to become the antagonist of the series, betraying all the people who had trusted him. Now, although in the eyes of the viewer he may seem like a son of a bitch, you have to do a great job to empathize with him, and ask yourself: if you were in his situation, wouldn’t you have valued your own life as he did?
It is also very interesting to know that Isaac Newton, the genius and revolutionary of physics, mathematics and astronomy of the eighteenth century was in his time one of the most hated officials of the English Parliament, always seeking revenge on anyone who criticized him, using his influence to ruin some lives, and even sentencing to death people who had committed minor crimes, only out of boredom or anger at not achieving their goals.
Is Newton someone whose birth was a mistake? I don’t think anyone would claim that. For thanks to all his studies and innovations humankind managed to advance greatly, and all those discoveries in physics and mathematics have saved the lives of millions and millions of people to this day.
Conclusion – Is Griffith really evil?
Griffith’s character is designed with the sole purpose of being the antagonist of the anime Berserk. That’s why few characters in the world of anime and manga manage to convey so much rancor just by remembering his actions. This happens exclusively because Griffith is not just another antagonist, but the only antagonist on which a work as professional as Berserk moves.
Despite this, we do not encounter a purely evil character. He is not even mildly evil.
What makes Griffith so special over other antagonists is the fact that being a kind and empathetic character, he ends up making a series of decisions that catapult him to become the bad guy of the plot. And that sucks, because we all understand that he is human, and we find it hard to accept that even someone so perfect can end up betraying the trust of those who were following him.
Griffith is not evil, but one of the most human characters we have met in the world of anime and manga.
End – Analysis of Griffith and his actions in Berserk
You can leave a comment with your opinion, always with respect, and I will be happy to read it.
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