Hey Multiversity Readers! This week things really heat up with “Moment of Glory” and “Tombstone of Flames”. The war is over but the bloodshed continues as Griffith and Guts clean house while wearing fancy clothes.
1. Pastel-Colored Violence
I try hard to give Berserk some leeway when it comes to its age. As a show from the 90s, it’s not perfect. The animation isn’t as crisp as Attack on Titan and its sound effects are certainly just looped at times. Even with that sort of mindset, these episodes look terrible. Yes, the Hawks are supposed to look awkward in their ballroom attire. However, everyone in Midland seems to shop at the same tailor who apparently gets all of his fabric from the post-Easter clearance sale. I don’t know if it is a very specific vision of the artists, perhaps inspired by Lisa Frank, but wished her hue saturation was just toned down a bit. Maybe they had blown their color budget at this point in the series and just ran with what they had. I don’t know, but it takes a bit of the edge off a murder plot when everyone looks like they are straight out of Yoshi’s Story. (Although I would totally watch a Yoshi murder plot series.)
2. I Am The One Who Knocks
“Moment of Glory” sees Griffith and the Band of the Hawk raised to the rank of White Knights and made nobility. With the war over, the Band can now shift into a more ceremonial role and leave the fighting behind them, in theory. The reality, however, is that they now have marks on their backs not from the Chuders but from the nobles of Midland, the kingdom they have been fighting for all this time. This attention that Griffith has been so desperate for is ultimately now what endangers them. Laban, always a supporter of Griffith, points this out rather eloquently during the reception: “The stronger the light shines the darker the shadows grow.” Little does Laban know about how comfortable Griffith truly is in the shadows. It’s a mistake Foss made early on and one the Queen makes as well. They may dabble in the shadows when it suits them but that is Griffith’s home turf. I would make a Dark Knight Rises joke here but I already blew my pop culture quota on the Breaking Bad reference in this section’s title.
3. The Strongest Warrior in the Hawks
At the reception we see once again Guts getting, deservedly, the lion’s share of the attention front he crowd when it comes to his fighting skills. Yes, all of the Hawks are seen as heroes and carry a certain amount of celebrity, but it’s Guts’ accomplishments that they know. They know he killed 100 men on his own, that he killed General Bascon, that he led the Raiders that won the battle. Griffith, while the mastermind of every aspect of every battle, does not have the same list of accomplishments. His playacting at modesty and complete servitude has created the mysterious public image he has hoped for, and allowed him to achieve both acts of power grabbing and horror without anyone noticing. Aloof and unknowable figures don’t get the same glory as battle-hardened heroes. It’s unclear if Grittith notices or even cares about all this attention Guts is finding; to him, Guts is still his loyal pawn. Killing whomever he sees as a threat, even while wearing a dumb-looking hat.
4. Maybe He Is A Bad Guy After All
I have watched and read Berserk a few times and have pondered the question: When do you know Griffith is the bad guy? I have written about it a few times in these articles, moments when you can see just a peek of that evil, a tiny slip of the mask here and there. In this rewatch, I was struck by just how blatant Griffith’s true nature is in “Tombstone of Flames.” No, it’s not kidnapping Foss’ daughter, or slaughtering all of his hired help a la the Joker in The Dark Knight. It’s in his conversation with Foss after he mocks his conspirators as they burn to death, trapped by him in their own secret meeting place. It’s not even the fact that he wiped out a solid chunk of Midland’s nobles; we’ve seen Griffith kill plenty of people so far in the series. It stuck me when he mused about the Queen’s presence in that group of nobles he just killed. You realize that Griffith had no idea who he was trapping in that tower when he set it ablaze. Not only did he not know, he didn’t care. He knew that they were standing in his way to obtain his kingdom, so they had to be removed. Just more pebbles in his path. It is little more than amusing trivia that he just incinerated the queen, whose daughter he is currently trying to marry and by rank whose funeral he must be part of thanks to his new title.
5. Sir Griffith, the White Hawk
To round us out this week, I wanted to just bring up something I found very interesting in the burn-everyone-alive scene in “Tombstone of Flames”. We see Griffith taunting the nobles, disgusted by their inherited power as opposed to wielding power they obtained themselves. This is exactly the same sentiment we see in him in the flashback where he meets Casca. Griffith still carries that same chip on his shoulder all these years later, perhaps even more so now that he has actually gained that power for himself. He was not born into nobility, he earned it though his sweat, blood, and other people’s blood. At least that’s how Griffith sees it. We as viewers have seen a bit of a different story. Griffith should have been torn to pieces by Zodd, killed by Foss’ poisoned crossbow bolt, and lost the Battle of Doldrey when Guts’ sword broke while fighting Boscon. Every time it was the behelit and its demonic protection that saved him. As Zodd points out, Griffith is destined to become a member of the godhand. He is destined to rise and fall only to be reborn by trading flesh and blood for power. Griffith may not have been born into power, but it certainly was handed to him by a traveling witch. Ironic how this supposed self-made man really benefits from unseen help every step of his way, making his ascendance unavoidable. Crazy right? Well, this is fantasy.
