LogFAQs > #976191668

The topic about souls fans got me thinking about how often I see a lot of Berserk readers completely miss the point of the plot, and Guts as a character overall. I've seen a lot of comments lamenting Berserk making a pivot from a dark revenge fantasy to more of a fantasy adventure, complaints about Guts going soft compared to the black swordsman arc, and overall just bitching about him being defeated by Griffith and currently just giving up hope.

The complaints mostly stem from the fact that we have less over the top apostle killing in the recent chapters, and more downtime with Guts realizing exactly the position he's in with the power gap between him and Griffith. People want less introspection, more big sword man swinging his big sword, basically.

But the entire point of black swordsman and by extension, lost children and conviction was to highlight that by chasing revenge, Guts didn't actually earn anything or make any forward progress. Godot spells this out word for word for him in Cracks in the Blade: he had Casca and Rickert by his side post eclipse, and he chose to walk a path of revenge instead of staying to protect them both. He chose selfish desires instead of doing the difficult thing and confronting the pain he was feeling.

Berserk was never supposed to just be a revenge fantasy like a lot of fans want it to be. Killing Griffith is a secondary objective to him and Casca healing from the immense trauma they experienced earlier in the story, and holding on to their humanity in a fucked up world.The character growth and development is the point, not the over the top violence.

tldr: Berserk fans have terrible media literacy