Her "regressed mental state" or inability to "remember people" is what i'm confused about, like these are symptoms of literal brain damage, its not how people react to traumatic experiences.
Berserk is a fantasy story. Casca was raped by a monstrously powerful supernatural entity in an alternate dimension while having just received the Brand of Sacrifice that curses her soul to go to hell upon death. In that context, the fact her mind was broken by the event, resulting in those specific symptoms, is not particularly unbelievable to me.
You may also have noticed that as she and Guts are carried out of the Eclipse by the Skull Knight (a soul in an empty suit of armor) on his magical horse by flying into the sun, they emerge from a magic tornado and then we see Zodd, a giant monster, reattach his severed arm which immediately regenerates. That's also not something people can do in the real world.
Which makes me infer that the only coherent of logical explanation for this new character development is that casca is under some spell, or griffith
caused damage to her soul or something
She was not under a spell. Like I said, the best analogy is that her mind was shattered by the experience. Look no further than the Corridor of Dreams sequence for a depiction of what her psyche was like. As for the precise, "technical" details of how said shattering occurred, they are left to the reader's interpretation. Given the context, it is possible there was a supernatural aspect to it.
"her mind was literally broken", okay yeah this is the part that doesn't make any sense, and i'm assuming you didn't actually mean to use the word "literally", like if it was literally broken she'd be dead, but then you explain her recovery as "mending", as if her mind was broken and then put back together.
No, I meant to use the word "literally" literally. Again, refer to the Corridor of Dreams sequence where Schierke and Farnese literally gather fragments of her ego, associated with memories, and put her back together.
Also, I don't see why you say "her mind was broken" means she would die. The mind isn't an organ. It can be impaired (even severely) without that having an effect on bodily functions. And that's without getting into the fact that, again, Berserk is a fantasy story.
It seems more like she was broken on an etherial plane, but then written as if she had brain damage, which just doesn't make sense.
No, what happened to her has nothing to do with the Astral realm. It is quite specifically a mending of the mind, performed by her friends through the magic of the Queen of the Elves (who are natural healers as demonstrated by Puck in the world of Berserk). You seem to be specifically attached to physiological details, like how she
must have suffered brain damage, but that doesn't actually matter at all. The details of her condition are never specified, which means that you can imagine it to have a physiological component if you want to. It doesn't affect the story one way or the other.
This comment also doesn't make any sense, she doesn't directly face anything, she regains sanity before even recalling the eclipse, also it was the actions of others that allowed her to regain sanity again in the first place.
Please re-read what I said:
"Once her mind is mended (in volume 40), she does experience panic attacks when her repressed memories surface. Miura intended for her to have to directly face what happened to her and her friends in order to finally surmount it."
She has not faced those memories yet. As you may have heard, the author of Berserk, Kentarou Miura, passed away last year before he could finish the story. That means Casca has not overcome her trauma yet as of volume 41 of the manga.
I know you said this was like the plan all along but a lot of your explanations don't seem to add up, which makes me further believe this was just a plot point that wasn't fully thoughtout, and kind of clumsily resolved after going on for far longer then expected.
You don't seem to have read the story very carefully, nor do you appear to be paying much attention to what I'm telling you before responding, which is unfortunate. I would recommend you to re-read the manga more attentively. Either way, there is no doubt whatsoever that her condition was deliberately conceived to be that way from the beginning. It's right there on the page and stays consistent throughout the story. Your attempts to frame it otherwise are frankly weird and come off as being disingenuous.
