Victims of Causality: A Defense of Griffith and the Apostles

Welcome Back to another edition of Comic Relief! where we talk about all the goings on in the world of nerd!

With all the controversy going on about a certain movie that recently released, I am going to shift focus to get a break from all the negativity surrounding that controversy and shift to another topic that is probably equally controversial in its own right: "Griffith did nothing wrong." Now before I have a whole bunch of people jump down my throats, Griffith absolutely did a lot of things wrong, that is not the point of this piece. For those of you who are unaware Griffith is the lead antagonist of acclaimed manga Berserk. If you want more information on Berserk, please feel free to check out my Kingdom Sacrifice Born piece where I break down the dynamic between the characters Guts and Griffith, the series' protagonist and antagonist respectively. Anyways the point of this piece is to show that Griffith and his apostles are victims of causality (the major force at play in the story, manipulated by the Godhand of the eclipse), and that the choice of sacrifice is only presented when these characters are at their lowest points and feel they have no choice but to abandon their humanity to achieve their dreams and desires.

Now before we go any further, I have to explain the role of causality in the story of Berserk. Causality is similar to fate or destiny in Berserk, the only big difference is that it can be pushed and manipulated by the Godhand who are the 4 (or 5 after Griffith's fall) beings that hold sway over the demon world and offer the opportunity of sacrifice to humanity. The offer of sacrifice cannot happen for just anyone, they happen to those in possession of an item called a behelit (an odd bobble that is a malformed face on an egg) and the behelit can only activate the eclipse when the owner offers it their own flesh and blood. The activation of the behelit opens a pocket dimension to the godhand where the owner of the behelit is offered a chance to achieve their dreams, but only at the cost of great sacrifice. That being said let's delve in, and let me show you that contrary to popular belief, Griffith was once good as well as the other Apostles. In order to do that we are going to look at 3 characters from the pages of Berserk: The Count (the villain/Apostle of the Black Swordsman arc), Rosine the Queen of Fairies (the villain/Apostle of the Lost Children arc) and of course the Hawk of Light, Griffith (the antagonist of the entire story, and fifth member of the Godhand).

The first character we are going to talk about is The Count. While we never know the Count's actual name outside his title, we did get to know a bit about his backstory upon meeting his former torture master. While the torture master and physician, Vargas, confirms that The Count always had a penchant for cruelty, namely in his war against heretics, he was not always a dictator of his people and that the Count had a soft spot for his beautiful wife and daughter. However, during one of his raids against the Heretics, he made the worst discovery, his beautiful wife was participating in a heretic orgy. Hate and anger flowed through the count, and he wanted more than anything to kill her. However, he loved her too much, he just couldn't bring himself to do it, so he instead tried to kill himself. This event triggered the behelit and thus he sacrificed the woman who he loved but broke his heart in order that he could have the power to wipe the heretics from his land becoming the Slug Baron. However, it is interesting because despite his sacrifice, The count managed to retain some of his humanity through the love of his daughter, and we see that in his interactions with Guts.

During their altercations, Guts eventually meets The Count's daughter, Theresia, who had been placed under house arrest. It was revealed that this had been done by the count so that she would be spared to see her father's violence and malevolence. At the end of the day, he still loved his daughter and did not wish her to see him as a monster. Guts would use this against the count in their fight as he at one point grabs hold of Theresia as a human shield and The Count withdraws his attack. The wounds The Count sustains during the fight with Guts reactivate his behelit and the Godhand offers The Count more power if he were to sacrifice his daughter. However, a father's love is not so easily discarded and the Count refuses, which ultimately leads to his death at the hands of the Black Swordsman Guts. The count is only the first example of how these characters are the victims of causality, unfortunately, there is nowhere near as much information on him to go into too much depth on this outside of what we can see from the face value of his backstory. However, with Rosine, there is more than enough. 

Children are always the easiest to manipulate. They are naive and impressionable, which was why the poor Rosine was such an ideal candidate to push into making the sacrifice. Introduced in the Lost Children story of the Conviction arc, Rosine is the self-proclaimed Queen of the Fairies, and of all the Apostles in Berserk, she is my absolute favorite. Rosine was a child of war, her father was away during the 100-year war between the nations of Midland and Tudor. While away, Rosine's village was raided by enemy forces and her mother was raped. Upon the father's return, Rosine was born and there was always a question of whether or not she really was his daughter. As a result, Rosine grew up in an abusive home. Her father frequently beat both Rosine and her mother. However, while her home life may have not been ideal for Rosine, life wasn't all bad. She had her best friend, Jill, and the story of Peekaf for comfort. 

Rosine (left) and Jill

Peekaf was a local legend about a boy who grew up in the same village that was picked on because he looked like an elf. The Misty Valley nearby was where the Elves lived, and so Peekaf went to find them to be with his own. However, when he found the Elves they rejected him as well, telling Peekaf that he was not an elf, but instead was a child of two loving parents who had brought him to them when he was a baby due to being very sick. They healed him with their magic, and as a side effect he looked like an elf, but he never was. Peekaf, having realized his mistake in leaving his family, tries to return home, but time passes differently in the world of the elves, so when he returned he had found that a great deal of time had passed and along with it his parents. It's a sad story for sure, one that shouldn't give a child hope, but you see Rosine loved that story because she believed there was a different ending. Rosine believed that Peekaf found the elves, and with them, he found his new family and lived happily ever after. One day Rosine could take it no longer, so she ran away to the Misty Valley and be with the elves, like Peekaf. Only the thing about fairy tales is, that they are for children's imagination, the elves weren't there. She was out there for days until she was found by her parents. When her dad started beating her, he drew blood and when it spilled upon her behelit, the eclipse was activated and she was offered to be Queen of the Elves in exchange for the sacrifice, and she accepted.

After becoming Queen of the Fairies, Rosine would return to her village some nights, she would go to the children of the village and offer them a chance to fly like elves after killing their parents (because adults are bad), most children accepted and together they would play in the Misty Valley. By the time Guts gets involved, this has been going on for some time and the people of the town have grown fearful of elves, understandably so. Jill tells Guts about her missing friend and how she believes that the fairies are doing the bidding of her missing friend.  The Black Swordsman takes on the Elven apostle and eventually prevails, killing Rosine with his sword: Dragonslayer. On her final flight, Rosine thinks back to her family and like Peekaf did in the story she loved, feels regret for abandoning her family and her final thoughts are of a family dinner she shared with her mother and father, a warmer memory of a dark time.  

Rosine at family dinner while her wings break and she falls to her demise

With two out of three knocked out, we finally get to the main event: Griffith. Now without a doubt, Griffith's sacrifice was the most abhorrent, so let's start there and work our way back. Again I want to provide a disclaimer before I get started that again, this piece is in no way trying to justify his actions, nor is it to take away blame from his own personal choice to do it, it's to show that Griffith was coerced into making this decision through the machinations the Godhand put in place, in other words, he is the victim of causality. Griffith's sacrifice comes after he tries to kill himself due to being completely destroyed over the year of his captivity (we will discuss this more later). Upon activation of the eclipse, the Godhand provides him the offer of his dream and more, to not only have a kingdom but one that surmounts the world, however, a sacrifice must be made. Pulled in with him to the eclipse are the potential sacrifices, his mercenary band, The Band of the Hawk. He agrees to the sacrifice, and as a result, the members of the Band of the Hawk are all cursed with the brand of sacrifice and demons start hunting them down. The Band of the Hawk is massacred save two resilient members: Guts (the main character of the story and Griffith's only "true" friend), and Casca (the Band of the Hawk's female captain, and Guts' lover). Griffith, having gone through his own demonic transformation to the Femto (Hawk of Darkness), has demons hold down Guts while Griffith rapes Casca in front of him. Both Guts and Casca are rescued by the Skull Knight, and Griffith remains in the eclipse as a new member of the Godhand but is reborn into the physical world at the end of the Conviction Arc. These deeds are horrible, however, they are not really a particularly good reflection of who Griffith was, so without further ado let's talk about Griffith and how causality pushed him to turn his back on the man he was. 

It should be no surprise that Griffith is the one person who chose the route of sacrifice we know most about. As the main antagonist of the story, Griffith's back story and dynamic with Guts are explained at pretty great lengths throughout the Golden Age stories. Growing up, Griffith was an orphan in a big town right outside a liege lords castle. Even from a young age, Griffith displayed a leader's charisma and determination as he led the other street urchins during games and always won. However, it never mattered how great the prize was in these games, it was never enough. You see every day when the sun went down and the streets were enveloped in darkness, Griffith would look to the horizon and see it, his dream and goal. The liege lord's castle towered as the only thing captured in the sun's light, and it stood out as a beacon just out of reach for Griffith, so he was determined to have a kingdom of his own, and a castle to watch over it from. This was easier said than done, so even in his earliest days, we see the threads of causality pulled. 

For those unfamiliar with how to read Manga: Right to Left 

One day while he was playing his games, an old traveling merchant-woman bequeathed unto Griffith a strange bauble, the Crimson Behelit (or as it referred to by others: the Egg of the King). She told the young Griffith that at the price of flesh and blood, this bauble would promise him a kingdom atop the world. Griffith may have been young, but the idea of a bauble giving him his dream was not appealing, he was the kind of boy who preferred to take what he wanted by his own hand. However, this did not stop him from keeping the Behelit with him at all times. As Griffith grew older, he drew in others like a magnet to help him in the pursuit of his dreams, thus the band of the Hawk was born. Griffith found in the band of the hawk steadfast friends and family, at least for a time, that was until they were contracted for their major first battle. Their client was a man who would haunt Griffith for a long time: the wealthy Tudor noble, Genon. 

While the Band of the Hawk had started to build renown in small skirmishes, they found a potential patron to fund them. The wealthy noble Genon was the richest man in Tudor, and he paid handsomely for the Band of the Hawks services. However, what drew him to the Hawks was not their battle prowess, but Griffith himself. Genon was a man with specific tastes, he enjoyed the company of young if not effeminate boys, and Griffith fit the bill to the T. Griffith rebuffed his advances, and even took one of Genon's child slaves into the Band of the Hawk. This boy worshipped Griffith, he had a toy knight he would play with and the knight would serve as Griffith's avatar during his play time. However, the boy would die in battle, and Griffith found his corpse still clutching the toy he held so dear. This death struck a chord in Griffith, and so he finally gave into Genon's advances and gave the old man what he wanted. The Band of the Hawks' Captain, Casca, would see him that night shirtless with Genon on his balcony. The next day, Casca and Griffith discuss this decision in the river, and while Griffith tries to play it cool and explain the logic behind the decision was to better provision the Hawks to ensure continued victory and their prosperity, he is unable to hide his own self-disgust as he tears into the skin of his arm while bathing, feeling unclean. However, I don't think that it had to do with the relations with Genon, it had everything to do with the loss of the boy as the Godhand would use his shade to convince Griffith to accept the decision of sacrifice while he transforming into the Femto. 

The money that Genon provided indeed furthered the dream of Griffith. The Band of the Hawks rose to great heights, earning the nickname "Reapers of the Battlefield." However, causality was spinning and twisting the thread again as Griffith was about to meet the man that would allow him to soar all the way to the heights of the sun, and would eventually lead to his Icarus fall. During a contract for the army of Midland, Griffith and his Hawks were aiding the famed knight of Midland, Bazuso, during a siege. Bazuso was a knight of tremendous strength, said to have fought a bear with his bare hands, yet Griffith watched from the ramparts as a young mercenary with an impractically large sword bested him, splitting the great knights head in two with one final stroke of his blade. This mercenary was a boy named Guts. 

Guts and Griffith's first few encounters are hardly what you would call pleasant. A few members of Griffith's Band of the Hawk try to rob Guts and find themselves completely out of their depth when facing Guts. Even Casca, the relentless female captain of the Guts, is found outmatched by this mysterious swordsman. However, Griffith enters the fray just in time and fells the mighty swordsman with one stroke. Guts wakes up in the camp of the Hawks finding his wounds cared to, and upon walking out of his tent is greeted by Griffith who invites Guts on a walk. During this walk, he tries to convince Guts that he should join his mercenary band. Guts is reluctant and instead offers Griffith a fight, after all, mercenaries must take what they want by the sword. Griffith wins this initial bout and so Guts is forced to join the Band of the Hawk. 

Years go by, and Griffith and Guts are very close. Guts had risen throughout the band of the Hawks as a captain of their Raiders and was instrumental to Griffith's success on the battlefield. Their successes on the battlefield are noticed by the King of Midland, who even sees fit to raise Griffith to the peerage by anointing him a knight. There was something unnatural to the success of Griffith, it went against the laws of convention for that age. In fact, it seemed like there was something else in play, and the foreshadowing of Griffith's decent came when both Guts and Griffith face an immortal swordsman of legend, Nosferatu Zodd, during a battle. Zodd recognizes the Crimson Behelit around Griffith's neck as the Egg of the King and bestows a warning to Guts about the future of this man's betrayal. Causality was in full swing, and the higher Griffith would fly, the closer the Band of the Hawk and Guts were to their destruction. The fall of Griffith was nigh, and it began at Doldry fortress. The final victory of Griffith was taking back the impenetrable fortress of Doldry from Tudor forces led by General Bascon and a familiar face,  the wealthy Tudor noble Genon. This achievement led to Griffith soaring to even greater heights as he was anointed general of the White Pheonix Knights, and the Band of the Hawk were recognized as well and all were knighted as White Pheonix Knights. Having pushed back the final foothold that Tudor had and Midland, and erasing the scars of his past by killing Genon, Griffith's dream was so close to reality, a kingdom taken by his own sword. However, with Griffith's dream so close at hand, Guts decided it was time for him to search for his own dream, inspired to be seen by Griffith as his friend and equal. However, it is not that simple. 

Griffith confronts Guts as he is leaving and just as it was, in the beginning, two mercenaries fought to claim what they wanted by the sword. Swords clashed, but in the end, Guts' sword cleaved Griffith's in two, stopping just above Griffith's collar bone. Without so much as another word passing between them, Guts left and Griffith's dream shattered. Griffith spiraled into a depression, Guts had been the only person he had become attached to since the death of that little boy so long ago. Griffith eventually destroys himself by seducing the King's daughter. This action has him imprisoned and leaves the Band of the Hawk on the run for a year. During his year of imprisonment, Griffith is subjected to the most horrible tortures imagined by the royal master of torturing, and it is at the beginning of this captivity, that the Egg of the King abandons him, rolling into the sewers. A symbol that the dream was dead. 

By the time the Band of The Hawk is finally able to rescue Griffith, he was not the man that had brought them together. The Griffith they knew was utterly destroyed in that chamber. His face was burned, tongue cut out, imprisoned in the falcon helmet that he had worn into battle to earn him his glory. In addition, all of his tendons were severed, and between this and his malnourishment, Griffith would never fight another battle. While Griffith had been tortured and destroyed, Guts had become stronger and so Griffith watched as the men who were once loyal to him, rallied around Guts in the same way they once did for Griffith. It was the ultimate betrayal, and so Griffith took control of the cart he was in by spooking the horses and crashes it in the shallows of a nearby lake. One of his arms is completely mangled, and both his legs shattered, Griffith decides to use the strength he has left to kill himself by impaling his neck on some wood from the wreckage. However, he is unable to, but in his despair, his hand finds something in the water, something familiar. As his hand raises from the water, it reveals the item to be none other than the Crimson Behelit. As the Band of the Hawk approaches to tend to their fallen leader, the behelit activates the eclipse and thus Causality had arranged for Griffith to be broken enough to accept the sacrifice, and from there you know the rest. Griffith makes the sacrifice and becomes the 5th member of the Godhand, Femto.

At the end of the day, Causality wants nothing to do with the strong. The godhand, wish to manipulate the weak and the impressionable because otherwise the sacrifice will not be accepted. If you look at these people before the sacrifice, during their lifetimes, none would have said yes before the exact moment of their behelit's activation. In fact, of the apostles listed, with exception to Rosine, the behelits were activated by suicide attempts, and while Rosine may not have been activated by an attempt on her life, it was activated in a moment where anger clouded her judgment. What really goes to show that is that despite the sacrifice and their ascension to a demonic apostle, these characters still cling to pieces of their humanity. Both The Count and Rosine show regret in taking the sacrifice by their end. Rosine's last thoughts are of her family, and she expresses genuine regret, The count is faced with the horror of his actions when he is presented with the opportunity for another sacrifice in his daughter. Even Griffith, upon his rebirth, can feel his humanity tug at him when he meets Guts at the field of swords (the graveyard for the Band of the Hawk). While the decisions they made were vile, they were decisions that they were coerced to make by the mechanism of causality and it makes them victims as well. They are mere pawns in the game the Godhand play, and that's a huge part in what makes the story of Berserk so compelling, that despite tropes of high medieval fantasy where light and dark are so frequently easily distinguishable, Berserk is an almost constant state of gray where it's hard to tell which way is up or down at times. 

This has been another edition of Comic Relief! I hope you have enjoyed and we will see you again soon!