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 entire anime world.
Is he really that son of a bitch? What did he do to deserve being one of the most hated antagonists? I invite you to know my point of view, and leave your own opinion in the comments, always with respect.
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Analysis of Griffith in Berserk – Story, Character and Actions
Introduction – Griffith's life in Berserk
Griffith is one of the main characters in the Berserk manga., and from the beginning it is presented to us as the antagonist of the series, although it was not always like this.
During the Golden Age saga you see the beginnings of this character, and you end up understanding that he is not only 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's objectively and briefly review his entire history and then we will study some points of view and philosophical currents related to the psychology of his actions.
Griffith's Chronological Life –Berserk
- Griffith was an extremely poor child (so much so that some days he could not eat).
- As a teenager he formed the Band of the Falcon, and became a mercenary.
- Years later he meets who would be his best soldier (Guts).
- Another couple of years later, this soldier leaves the band.
- Griffith is imprisoned and tortured for an entire year.
- His companions 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 obtaining the power of a demi-god.
- In addition to the previous fact, 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 who evolves towards evil, but rather makes a gigantic leap from what is morally correct to what is ethically incorrect.
Does that make him evil?
He had his personal objective, like every individual, and in the worst case scenario we will say that Griffith only presented extremely altruistic behavior because he was interested in maintaining his charisma and all his soldiers happy. to reach your goal in the most efficient way: have your 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 with which to improve his men's armor, and we constantly see him developing strategies with which to win by minimizing the number of losses as much as possible; in fact, he is always on the front line. By behaving this way you gain a great reputation, and many more men want to join your cause.
The Golden Age – Berserk
Shortly before losing everything he had, he experienced 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 accomplishes such a feat he is rewarded with the title of knight, and for the first time in his life he stops being 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 precise moment, and passes over Griffith without any problem. This is when for the first time in Berserk history 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 also, this allows Guts to leave the gang, without realizing that he was Griffith's greatest support, and possibly the person closest to him.
- Feeling helpless, angry and frustrated at that moment, Griffith 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 became illegitimately intimate, the king discovers them and Griffith is imprisoned and tortured to no end.
Half of his band is murdered 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 not having any muscles, he cannot move or speak.
Hours later, a fantastic event occurs in which four demi-gods appear, and They give Griffith the option of obtaining almost unlimited power as long as he sacrifices all his soldiers..
The tribute used in this ritual can only be people you love, so we understand that Griffith's sacrifice is, to 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 colored, and is now called Femto, and the character who at first conveyed admiration and went on to convey sorrow after being tortured, ends up conveying 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 rape Casca, the only woman in the band; and all this forcing Guts, her lover, to look at this repulsive scene with importance.
After this we do not learn anything more about Femto's life, until he decides to incarnate again on Earth to help stop Ganishka's invasion.
Griffith Analysis – Character and Actions in Berserk
From the viewer's point of view, the work of Berserk shows us Griffith as the perfect leader: a charismatic, empathetic and extremely efficient person making 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 the entire series: create a kingdom in which hunger, discrimination, and war do not exist; and that goal is for him the most important thing in his entire life. We even come to appreciate that that white castle you saw in the sky when you were little is right now in the process of being a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Key story points
Was he protecting his gang or protecting his target?
In order to make the dream that Griffith pursues throughout Berserk come true 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 began his journey there: forming the small Band of the Falcon.
In all the scenes of the Golden Age we can see how Griffith takes care of his gang: he sells his body to get better armor, he is always on the front line of fire, he bases his plans on minimizing losses, etc... but Is he doing all this because he truly appreciates his subordinates, or because maintaining a good army is the best way to achieve his goal?
The altruism that Griffith exuded quickly fades in the scene in which he speaks with Princess Charlotte and tells her that he is not capable of seeing his subordinates as equals, because he pursues a dream of his own, and has reasons to live without depending on them. Nobody, while his men only live to help him achieve his goal, and none of them seem to have their own motivation that makes them truly alive.
This is when we first see a not-so-kind Griffith in the Berserk story; On the one hand we can interpret that he is simply using that group of soldiers because it is easy for him to keep them by his side and help him take steps towards his objective. On the other hand, his way of acting often indicates the opposite, and goes beyond purely charismatic actions to risk his life on multiple occasions.
Does everything happen because of Griffith's tantrum?
Until now everything we had known about Griffith in the development of Berserk was a purely empathetic, charismatic and even rational facet, always acting with a cool head. But showing moments of weakness is 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 combat, only to immediately lose the only person he truly respected. his entire band.
The perfect and calm leader we had known until now 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.
Continuing briefly with its psychological aspect, it was clear that The only thing Griffith could do at that moment was reaffirm to himself that he was still a strong and powerful person.. And what better way to prove it than by breaking 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 arrested, and this is when everything starts to go downhill.
Would the Eclipse have happened if Griffith had been able to fight?
This would perhaps be the most difficult question to answer, since 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, could now neither move nor speak, and was gripped by despair and fear at not being able to be a loved person again, nor being able to make his dream come true, He decides to hand all his men over to the demons in order to recover 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 flatly state that you would not for a moment consider saving your own life, even at the expense of other people.
Furthermore, 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 love most, and in this way, although achieving your objective would have been possible immediately, you would have had to make a good balance between what you wanted most (your men), and what he wanted most (having his own kingdom).
In this way I dare to say that the Eclipse would not have happened if Griffith had been fully fit and prepared to fight. Because for a person like him, accepting that power at the cost of sacrificing his men would have been the absolute affirmation that his own power and leadership abilities were not enough to obtain a kingdom. Griffith would never have accepted that, and would have fought with his men even though it would lead to defeat and regret for not having accepted.
Is it an absolutely evil decision, the one Griffith made?
It is a selfish decision, there is no doubt about that. And leaving aside the rape for which he is entirely responsible (we will talk about it later), he ordered his entire faithful army to die in order to save himself, but... Is this case an inhumane decision?
Because in my view it is nothing more than a genuine demonstration of your survival instinct. A legitimate demonstration of his last moments as a living being, and more specifically, as a human being.
Yes, it is true that Berserk ends up showing us a Griffith who can easily be labeled as Machiavellian, which does not have a very positive meaning in today's society, but in the end that teleological or consequentialist ethics is the one towards which, more and more, he goes. evolving the human being. 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 will be able to live happily and have a dignified life in a world in which that was almost unthinkable?
If, on the other hand, 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.. Now, today 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 background; For although Griffith prioritized his life over that of all his comrades, he also prioritized his goal of building a perfect kingdom, and he superimposed that idea on the purposeless lives of all the men who followed him.
At this point the dichotomy may arise of taking a deontological point of view and valuing the action for its intrinsic value, or taking into account the rest of the factors, such as the circumstances in which Griffith makes such a difficult decision, or the repercussions that it may to have in the rest of the world. Even so, I am entirely a participant in attending to a higher ethics than the one Kant proposes, understanding that You not only have to judge the action, but also all the factors that accompanied it.
About the rape of Casca
Just after having sent all his men to death, 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. He does all this in front of Guts; forcing him to look, knowing that at that moment he was in love with this mercenary.
This action is completely deplorable analyzed both from a deontological and utilitarian point of view.. However, he doesn't do it just because he's 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 theorized that he hid his feelings for Casca in order not to be distracted when pursuing his goal. On the one hand, he understood that giving himself over to love was adding another 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 without any commitment to be able to sell his body and get money and power, as well as to end up marrying a princess from some kingdom.
At the moment in which Griffith ascends and becomes a demon-god he completely loses the notion of what is good and what is not, and rushes once again, as he had done before with Princess Charlotte, to reaffirm to himself that he is someone powerful. This way impulsively obtains again what he most wanted, without assessing the repercussions or consequences of their action. It is here that we first meet Femto, someone completely different from Griffith.
This action was completely unnecessary, and it 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 taking into account Griffith's psychological profile.
Therefore, after having studied all the important events of the Golden Age, we will move on to answer the main question of this article:
Is Griffith a son of a bitch?
Griffith, the most notable enemy of Berserk, is considered by many people to be the best antagonist in anime and manga. This is due to No one represents the duality of what it means to be human better than him..
Completely opposed to being a complete son of a bitch who works to make other people unhappy, Griffith solely and exclusively directs 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 lot of work to empathize with him, and ask yourself: If you were in the same situation, wouldn't you have valued your own life like he did?
It is also very interesting to know that Isaac Newton, the genius and revolutionary of physics, mathematics and astronomy of the 18th 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 people to death who had committed minor crimes, solely out of boredom or anger at not achieving his goals.
Is Newton someone whose birth was a mistake? I don't think anyone would say that. Well, thanks to all their studies and innovations, humanity 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 for the sole purpose of being the antagonist of the Berserk anime. That is why few characters in the world of anime and manga manage to convey so much resentment just by remembering their actions. This occurs exclusively because Griffith is not just another antagonist, but rather he is the only antagonist around which a work as professional as Berserk moves.
Despite this, we do not encounter a purely evil character. He's not even slightly 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 villain of the plot. And that sucks, because we all understand that he is human, and it is difficult for us to accept that even someone so perfect could end up betraying the trust of those who faithfully followed him.
Griffith is not evil, but one of the most human characters we have met in the world of anime and manga.
End – Analysis on Griffith and his actions in Berserk
You can leave a comment with your opinion, always respectfully, and I will be happy to read it.
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