I had recently been re-reading the conviction arc, and I noticed some really neat symbolism involving Griffith, Falconia, and the Egg Apostle. I thought I’d share my thoughts here and see what you guys think, or if you had other interpretations.
Before we get into it all though, I think it makes the most sense if I preface all this with what I think the behelits represent. I believe the behelits are a symbol for the sacrifice made at one’s lowest moment (hence the face contorting in agony upon activation). At the lowest moment, the owner of the behelit must choose to either bear enormous suffering, or sacrifice whatever it is that is causing them such pain. In a sense, behelits are a way of avoiding the harsh reality of the world the characters of Berserk live in. Rosine didn’t want to accept that the world was as painful and dull as her life with her parents made it out to be, so she ran to the misty valley. Likewise The Count couldn’t bring himself to kill his wife, yet also couldn’t accept her smug smile of victory, so he found a way out. Of course, the primary example is Griffith not being able to accept that his road down that alleyway had finally come to an end.
Now, if you more or less agree with that take on the nature of behelits and sacrifices, then this next part will hopefully follow as well. Let’s start with the set up of the Conviction Arc, when Guts arrives at the refugee camps beneath the tower. All of these people have gathered before the tower of god for shelter and food. Every time the gates open, crowds gather to beg and plead for more rations or medical aid. However, when aid IS rarely provided, we see that it comes with a cruel price (the mother who was tortured for some fabricated sin).
While some refugees turn to the heavens for an answer, others looked in lower, darker places for respite. The hedonistic demon worshipers also offered a form of relief from the day to day desperation the refugees lived in, but clearly their ritualistic festivals also had a lot of darkness in them, and that’s putting it lightly haha.
Whether they searched above or below, they were all looking for a way out, some sort of answer that would just “fix” all the terrible things in their lives.
Switching gears real quick, let’s look at the Egg apostle. He was completely abandoned by the world, left to rot in some hole, never even having a name. All he wanted was to be of significance, to somehow be important, and so his sacrifice wasn’t to gain some personal power like most other apostles. Instead, his sacrifice turned him into “The Egg of the New World”. This allowed him to be the vessel that brought Griffith into physical existence. By bringing Griffith back into the world, he became instrumental to changing the entire world as we knew it (Astral Blast). The Egg apostle stated that what he had chosen to sacrifice was the ugly world that had ignored and rejected him. His wish was brought about through Griffith fundamentally altering the world he had lived in with the merging of the realms, “sacrificing” the old world.
Moving back to the refugees now, the Egg’s desire for a new world was almost synonymous with their own. They wanted a world without suffering. A beautiful new world that would make the old seem like a bad joke. As Griffith is reincarnated, and everyone is gathered before the tower, it says they intuitively sensed that the one they desired, had come. Now, how on earth was Griffith an answer to all their prayers? Well, take one look at Falconia. Griffiths deepest desire is limitless domination of the hearts and minds of all there is. And what better way to attain that domination than to become the people’s messiah? As a side note, I see a lot of people ponder why Griffith pretends to play by the rules when he’s a God with untold powers. To me, Griffith was never after just raw power, he was after domination. Hence why he couldn’t stand the idea of Guts being his equal, or somehow immune to his charms. First thing he does when he regains his body as Femto is assert his dominance over the one person he couldn’t before.
At any rate, Griffith has created this desired world where all the old problems the world suffered from have vanished. However, let’s zoom waaaaay out for second. From my perspective, it looks like most of humanity has made a sacrifice through the Egg apostle. Just like Rosine, The Count, and Griffith himself, humanity didn’t want to face the ugly reality they lived in. While most apostle’s sacrifice somehow transforms their own body, this sacrifice transformed the world itself, leading to Falconia. For me, this is the clearest sign that Falconia will never be a true Utopia, it is a false front, just like how apostles have human, sometimes even elegant forms, they all hide the hideous monster underneath.
Last two things I’d like to touch on are Guts and the Idea of Evil. While Guts is as human and fallible as the rest of us, the quality that Miura illustrates through him the most is directly confronting suffering. Instead of searching for some outside reason or God that explains away all the turmoil in his life, he tried his best to struggle through his suffering and still find purpose and joy in his life. All throughout the golden Age we see Guts work his way through an existential crisis about who he is and what he should do with himself. Instead of enduring the indecision and inner discord that can come from such pondering, Miura shows us that several characters look outwards for external things to define them, such as the church, or just thoughtlessly following our base desires. A great example of this is Farnese. She had built her entire identity on the church, and used it to hide her darker traits. When Guts shows up, she starts questioning her own views and loyalties, to the point she scares herself and often retreats further into her religion. Up on the wall, when the demons are surrounding her, she almost drops her torch, to once again pray to be saved from her harsh reality. Guts shows her that the only way to truly change her situation is to pick up her own torch and begin struggling.
Afterwards, she seeks Guts out to continue learning about the truth that she glimpsed at the top of the wall. Instead of dogmatically giving her a new set of rules to live by, Guts offers no advice, but allows her to come with them. I think this once again demonstrates that it’s not some particular set of rules or realizations that are just suddenly going to make life a breeze, it’s one’s own willingness to pursue the truth, and struggle valiantly to find one’s own personal truth, that actually brings some peace to people. I’m afraid I’m not conveying this idea clearly, but I’m trying to get at the idea that the only way to deal with suffering is to confront it, not hide it away through religion or hedonism as the refugees did.
Final part right here, I swear! The Idea of Evil is the antithesis to confronting suffering. Fate, or causality, enables people to point fingers instead of grow internally. As the IoE states, people desired reasons for their suffering, they wanted there to be some cause that justified their inaction, their unwillingness to look suffering in the eye. And through the concept of causality, the IoE is able to give such reasons. In a world bound by the chains of causality, every single event is necessary, and there is nothing, even the will of man, can do to change it. In the same sense that people desired reasons for their problems, the refugees wanted a savior of some sort, hence why Griffith and Falconia fill that role. Of course, through the positive characters in Berserk, we know that the world isn’t quite as deterministic as the God Hand and IoE make it out to be.
I’m afraid I’m not a very talented writer, so I’ve used way more words than I should have and repeated what is probably the same old ideas several times throughout this post, but I’d love to discuss these topics with other fans! For everything that doesn’t add up or lacks clarity I’ll try to explain it better, just ask away!
Before we get into it all though, I think it makes the most sense if I preface all this with what I think the behelits represent. I believe the behelits are a symbol for the sacrifice made at one’s lowest moment (hence the face contorting in agony upon activation). At the lowest moment, the owner of the behelit must choose to either bear enormous suffering, or sacrifice whatever it is that is causing them such pain. In a sense, behelits are a way of avoiding the harsh reality of the world the characters of Berserk live in. Rosine didn’t want to accept that the world was as painful and dull as her life with her parents made it out to be, so she ran to the misty valley. Likewise The Count couldn’t bring himself to kill his wife, yet also couldn’t accept her smug smile of victory, so he found a way out. Of course, the primary example is Griffith not being able to accept that his road down that alleyway had finally come to an end.
Now, if you more or less agree with that take on the nature of behelits and sacrifices, then this next part will hopefully follow as well. Let’s start with the set up of the Conviction Arc, when Guts arrives at the refugee camps beneath the tower. All of these people have gathered before the tower of god for shelter and food. Every time the gates open, crowds gather to beg and plead for more rations or medical aid. However, when aid IS rarely provided, we see that it comes with a cruel price (the mother who was tortured for some fabricated sin).
While some refugees turn to the heavens for an answer, others looked in lower, darker places for respite. The hedonistic demon worshipers also offered a form of relief from the day to day desperation the refugees lived in, but clearly their ritualistic festivals also had a lot of darkness in them, and that’s putting it lightly haha.
Whether they searched above or below, they were all looking for a way out, some sort of answer that would just “fix” all the terrible things in their lives.
Switching gears real quick, let’s look at the Egg apostle. He was completely abandoned by the world, left to rot in some hole, never even having a name. All he wanted was to be of significance, to somehow be important, and so his sacrifice wasn’t to gain some personal power like most other apostles. Instead, his sacrifice turned him into “The Egg of the New World”. This allowed him to be the vessel that brought Griffith into physical existence. By bringing Griffith back into the world, he became instrumental to changing the entire world as we knew it (Astral Blast). The Egg apostle stated that what he had chosen to sacrifice was the ugly world that had ignored and rejected him. His wish was brought about through Griffith fundamentally altering the world he had lived in with the merging of the realms, “sacrificing” the old world.
Moving back to the refugees now, the Egg’s desire for a new world was almost synonymous with their own. They wanted a world without suffering. A beautiful new world that would make the old seem like a bad joke. As Griffith is reincarnated, and everyone is gathered before the tower, it says they intuitively sensed that the one they desired, had come. Now, how on earth was Griffith an answer to all their prayers? Well, take one look at Falconia. Griffiths deepest desire is limitless domination of the hearts and minds of all there is. And what better way to attain that domination than to become the people’s messiah? As a side note, I see a lot of people ponder why Griffith pretends to play by the rules when he’s a God with untold powers. To me, Griffith was never after just raw power, he was after domination. Hence why he couldn’t stand the idea of Guts being his equal, or somehow immune to his charms. First thing he does when he regains his body as Femto is assert his dominance over the one person he couldn’t before.
At any rate, Griffith has created this desired world where all the old problems the world suffered from have vanished. However, let’s zoom waaaaay out for second. From my perspective, it looks like most of humanity has made a sacrifice through the Egg apostle. Just like Rosine, The Count, and Griffith himself, humanity didn’t want to face the ugly reality they lived in. While most apostle’s sacrifice somehow transforms their own body, this sacrifice transformed the world itself, leading to Falconia. For me, this is the clearest sign that Falconia will never be a true Utopia, it is a false front, just like how apostles have human, sometimes even elegant forms, they all hide the hideous monster underneath.
Last two things I’d like to touch on are Guts and the Idea of Evil. While Guts is as human and fallible as the rest of us, the quality that Miura illustrates through him the most is directly confronting suffering. Instead of searching for some outside reason or God that explains away all the turmoil in his life, he tried his best to struggle through his suffering and still find purpose and joy in his life. All throughout the golden Age we see Guts work his way through an existential crisis about who he is and what he should do with himself. Instead of enduring the indecision and inner discord that can come from such pondering, Miura shows us that several characters look outwards for external things to define them, such as the church, or just thoughtlessly following our base desires. A great example of this is Farnese. She had built her entire identity on the church, and used it to hide her darker traits. When Guts shows up, she starts questioning her own views and loyalties, to the point she scares herself and often retreats further into her religion. Up on the wall, when the demons are surrounding her, she almost drops her torch, to once again pray to be saved from her harsh reality. Guts shows her that the only way to truly change her situation is to pick up her own torch and begin struggling.
Afterwards, she seeks Guts out to continue learning about the truth that she glimpsed at the top of the wall. Instead of dogmatically giving her a new set of rules to live by, Guts offers no advice, but allows her to come with them. I think this once again demonstrates that it’s not some particular set of rules or realizations that are just suddenly going to make life a breeze, it’s one’s own willingness to pursue the truth, and struggle valiantly to find one’s own personal truth, that actually brings some peace to people. I’m afraid I’m not conveying this idea clearly, but I’m trying to get at the idea that the only way to deal with suffering is to confront it, not hide it away through religion or hedonism as the refugees did.
Final part right here, I swear! The Idea of Evil is the antithesis to confronting suffering. Fate, or causality, enables people to point fingers instead of grow internally. As the IoE states, people desired reasons for their suffering, they wanted there to be some cause that justified their inaction, their unwillingness to look suffering in the eye. And through the concept of causality, the IoE is able to give such reasons. In a world bound by the chains of causality, every single event is necessary, and there is nothing, even the will of man, can do to change it. In the same sense that people desired reasons for their problems, the refugees wanted a savior of some sort, hence why Griffith and Falconia fill that role. Of course, through the positive characters in Berserk, we know that the world isn’t quite as deterministic as the God Hand and IoE make it out to be.
I’m afraid I’m not a very talented writer, so I’ve used way more words than I should have and repeated what is probably the same old ideas several times throughout this post, but I’d love to discuss these topics with other fans! For everything that doesn’t add up or lacks clarity I’ll try to explain it better, just ask away!