Enough with the blind Griffith hate
People in the berserk community have such a one-sided view of Griffith it makes me kinda sad, especially given how beautifully his character was crafted. I don’t think anywhere else in the media is there so much hate for someone who is ultimately just a morally grey character. I think this is because most readers align themselves so much with Guts’s perspective (which I can’t blame them for, guts is a badass and my favourite character in the series) and just have this blind hate for Griffith. But even guts knows that this blind hate is often not the correct path for him to live by (whole point of the conviction arc).
Anyway, I have three big points which I think a lot of people willfully ignore to depict Griffith as pure evil. 1) Griffith is not equivalent to Femto. When you become a demon in the world of berserk, you willfully give up your humanity, and all of the evil inhuman things that Griffith has done as Femto should not be put on Griffith himself. Rather, all the good Femto ever shows can be attributed to the lingering presence of Griffith within Femto (although partially also to Guts and Casca’s kid, it’s hard to completely differentiate). The most evil decision Griffith made was the choice to become Femto in the first place. 2) Griffith was driven to give up his humanity under extreme duress. After being tortured for 2 years straight, reduced to a helpless wreck who cannot pursue the dream which meant everything to him, and about to be left by probably the only two close friends he had, he is given a glimmer of hope. This glimmer of hope is delivered to him by Devils which have practiced manipulation for centuries. And he is still about to turn it down (or at least seems uncertain), until the fat little floating fuck shows him all the people who have died for his dream already. That to honour the dead, this is the right thing to do. Firstly, Miura would not have written in these circumstances were they not necessary to convince him to give up his humanity. Secondly, the actual methods used would not have worked on someone who was already evil. 3) Griffiths dream itself was not necessarily evil. The world which he has built as Femto, presumably reflecting his dream, has its evil elements but in its structure you can see the purity of his original dream. Mainly in Falconias class mobility and it’s care for children, two things that would have been deeply important to orphan Griffith as he developed this dream. His dream was a big one and came at extreme costs, but so does any revolution against a monarchy. There are so many dystopian novels depicting this exact same thing, except the rebel is portrayed, and accepted, as a good guy.
Conclusion: Griffith is not evil and is at most morally grey.
You will be able to appreciate the beautiful story telling of the manga if you see things from this (correct) perspective.
People in the berserk community have such a one-sided view of Griffith it makes me kinda sad, especially given how beautifully his character was crafted. I don’t think anywhere else in the media is there so much hate for someone who is ultimately just a morally grey character. I think this is because most readers align themselves so much with Guts’s perspective (which I can’t blame them for, guts is a badass and my favourite character in the series) and just have this blind hate for Griffith. But even guts knows that this blind hate is often not the correct path for him to live by (whole point of the conviction arc).
Anyway, I have three big points which I think a lot of people willfully ignore to depict Griffith as pure evil. 1) Griffith is not equivalent to Femto. When you become a demon in the world of berserk, you willfully give up your humanity, and all of the evil inhuman things that Griffith has done as Femto should not be put on Griffith himself. Rather, all the good Femto ever shows can be attributed to the lingering presence of Griffith within Femto (although partially also to Guts and Casca’s kid, it’s hard to completely differentiate). The most evil decision Griffith made was the choice to become Femto in the first place. 2) Griffith was driven to give up his humanity under extreme duress. After being tortured for 2 years straight, reduced to a helpless wreck who cannot pursue the dream which meant everything to him, and about to be left by probably the only two close friends he had, he is given a glimmer of hope. This glimmer of hope is delivered to him by Devils which have practiced manipulation for centuries. And he is still about to turn it down (or at least seems uncertain), until the fat little floating fuck shows him all the people who have died for his dream already. That to honour the dead, this is the right thing to do. Firstly, Miura would not have written in these circumstances were they not necessary to convince him to give up his humanity. Secondly, the actual methods used would not have worked on someone who was already evil. 3) Griffiths dream itself was not necessarily evil. The world which he has built as Femto, presumably reflecting his dream, has its evil elements but in its structure you can see the purity of his original dream. Mainly in Falconias class mobility and it’s care for children, two things that would have been deeply important to orphan Griffith as he developed this dream. His dream was a big one and came at extreme costs, but so does any revolution against a monarchy. There are so many dystopian novels depicting this exact same thing, except the rebel is portrayed, and accepted, as a good guy.
Conclusion: Griffith is not evil and is at most morally grey.
You will be able to appreciate the beautiful story telling of the manga if you see things from this (correct) perspective.