Berserk/Fridge

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Fridge Brilliance

  • The King renames the Band of the Hawk "The White Pheonix Knights." Later, Griffith dies and is reborn as Femto, while the Band of the Hawk is slaughtered and recreated.
  • The name of the Purple Rhino Knights might seem incredibly narmy at first glance. But remember: during medieval times, purple was the rarest and most expensive dye, and was hence associated with royalty. Therefor, associating the Tudor Empire's most esteemed and powerful army with it (and coloring the armor appropriately) seems pretty fitting.
  • The Godhand is literally a Red Right Hand.
  • It's been established that Guts' Animal Motif is a dog, but most characters portray it in a negative way (especially since his Enemy Within is a scary black dog). But just look at all of the good characteristic that Guts has in relation to his dog motif (and it should be noted that these are traits more in association with wild canines, not domesticated): he's brave, he tries to be a loner, but most canines are social by nature, and because of that, he's loyal and very protective of his "pack" (and he has shades of the Papa Wolf, since male wolves are very protective of their young), and for the romantic twist, most breeding pairs mate for life so his devotion to Casca is very much understandable.
  • A god-hand is made every 216 years. What's so special about 216? It is 6*6*6 or 666. Fridge brilliance indeed.
    • It's also 108*2.
  • This is something that I learned from a birds of prey show at our local Renaissance faire (convenient, ay?). In the middle ages, both hawks (Accipitriformes) and falcons (Falconiformes) were trained for the hunt. You wouldn't think that there was much difference in the use of the two birds aside from general phylogenetic differences, but did you know that social class had a lot to do with the ownership of hawks and falcons? Hawks were usually owned by those of the peasantry because they were larger (therefore, considered more "bulky") and caught and killed their prey more "sloppily", tearing into the flesh more severely. Falcons, on the other hand, were only allowed to be owned by the aristocracy and royalty, because they were smaller, swifter, and killed their prey with more precision, making the kill/trophy a lot more presentable. When I was watching the display, I just couldn't help but think back to good 'ol Berserk and our favorite Badass Crew. There has been some translation debate (correct me if I'm wrong since I read both the Dark Horse translations and The Hawks' online scanlations) because the crew was first known as the Band of the Hawk, but after Griffith's reincarnation, they are referred to as the Falcons. If the name change is official, I wouldn't be surprised, since Griffith started out as a guy leading a group of misfit mercenaries, but when he came back, his battle actions are more strategic, he's as regal as can be, and has even been dubbed the Messiah all this while being a humungous Bitch in Sheep's Clothing!, surely befitting of the new title of a falcon.
  • Meshes with a bit of Nightmare Fuel, but it makes sense as to why Rickert was afraid of Puck for awhile, since his first encounter with "elves" was with Rosine and her minions when the Hawk that stayed behind during the Griffith rescue operation were slaughtered by the apostles.

Fridge Horror

  • What happens to Casca is already unimaginably horrific, there is no question. In fact, one would be hard pressed to figure out a way to make it worse, though I'm sure Miura could do it if he put his mind to it. Which is why, when imaging Guts' feelings of agony, guilt, and hopelessness, it becomes an order of magnitude more horrifying when we consider how he must feel when he failed to prevent happening the exact same thing that happened to him as a child. Then he is almost coerced by his evil half to do the exact same thing. Excuse me, but I have some sand in my eyes.
  • The sheer thought of the Eclipse and what had happened during the event is horrible enough, but we at least think that the suffering of those who eventually succumbed to the sacrifice (usually by being eaten alive) has ended. WRONG. Di you forget that once a Behelit user sells their soul to Hell in order to gain the right to sacrifice those closest to them - that will in turn give them unholy powers - the sacrifices are condemned to Hell as well? Meaning that all of the characters that we loved and/or appreciated in the course of the Golden Age arc, Pippin, Corkus, Gaston, Judeau, ARE ALL IN HELL. And unless Guts and pals do some major mojo that will undo causality itself (or unless Miura decides to give them a bone so at least one of these poor bastards will have a Bittersweet Ending in the VERY least), he and Casca are going to share the same fate eventually. Dear Lord, this series...
    • For bonus horror. Remember Count and Vargas. Vargas was only tortured and eaten a bit by the Count and was later executed. When Hell vortex came for Count, Vargas was in it. Let it sink for a minute. Try counting how many people Apostles eat and/or rape (maybe even just interact with) over the duration of manga. Now think what those Apostles did before manga began. Now, realize - ALL OF THEM ARE IN HELL!!
  • In volume 6, when Griffith calls Guts to his study and hands him that pornographic book, take a look at the illustrations in the book. The illustration on the right shows two people in a position that is similar to how Guts made love to Casca, which can make you think that Guts actually learned something from a book. On the other hand, and the other page, we see two people in a position that is almost a mirror image of how Griffith raped Casca as Femto. So what's also freaky is that Griffith might have also learned a thing or two from that book...
    • That certainly goes somewhere between Harsher in Hindsight, Fridge Brilliance, and Foreshadowing.
    • When you think about it, Griffith's rape of Casca is pretty much a twisted Foil to Guts and Casca's love scene.
  • Even though Rosine and Jill were best friends, and Rosine wanted to take Jill with her to her next Crap Saccharine World, she most likely did it so that she may sacrifice Jill to the Godhand to renew her life since she was losing badly against Guts.
  • On Casca's backstory, when she was given to the nobleman as a "servant", and she only later realized what he was intending on doing with her, since she said later that no noble was ever kind enough to take in a dirt poor girl as a servant in order to help out her family's situation. But did you ever think that Casca's parents might not have been so oblivious to this? Think about it: it happens in third world countries all the time. Being very traditional, parents set such high moral standards on their daughters' virginity (sometimes, a bit too far), but when push comes to shove, they know how high their virginity will catch on the market if they sell them to some wealthy sleaze bag - a lot more than a servant girl's wage (not that the status of being a servant would stop rape from happening). So, Casca's parents most likely had the full intention of selling their youngest, virgin daughter as a prostitute.
  • It's weird that the Torture Technician never mentioned it in his graphic description of what he did to him over a year, but Griffith was probably castrated during his torture. It was probably the first thing to go, in fact, since his crime was having sex with Charlotte, so it would make sense that the instrument used to commit the crime would be the first to be destroyed. Eek.
    • He probably didn't got there because Guts rammed his sword through him, and the door. However, by the completely depraved tone the guy spoke... He might have also done... other things to Griffith.
  • Femto, now being a member of the Godhand and having insight in causality may actually have gained a form of omniscience revealing to him the fact that Guts was ruined by his childhood rape experience and Casca was the one who cured his trauma. It makes sence because Femto seems impossible to catch off guard unless it's needed in the grander scheme of things. This would also make what he did to Casca EVEN WORSE then it would have been by itself.
    • It may also be possible that Femto also knew Casca was pregnant and that the resulting Fetus Terrible would serve as a vessel for him to reincarnate in this physical world as Griffith. This would also make what Femto did a Gambit Roulette, for how utterly convoluted it would've been to have all the pieces needed (Namely the aforementioned Fetus Terrible and the Behelit Apostle) in place at the exact time of the ceremony to begin, which happen exactly each 1000 years! It seems that by turning into a demon, Femto didn't only became a Complete Monster, but took his Chessmaster skills to a whole new level.
  • Judging from Wyalds true form it is easy to deduce that he sacrificed the family members who where taking care of him on his deathbed. Even his Freudian Excuse doesn't make him look any more likable.
  • Anna, Charlottes handmaiden and best friend, is still around, being just a bystander. She may look like a pointless character, but then you realize what good friends are all to often used for in this series and you start to worry about what our cute little princess is going to do once she finds out the truth about her lover...
  • It's not canon, but there was an implication in Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage that the real Casca is in a persistent bad dream that she can't wake up from it unless she is cured of her insanity. And this bad dream has been at it for two years... If this is true, and considering everything that she's been through, Casca has every right to come back as fucked up as humanly possible!
    • Or she may become really good friends with Farnese instead...yeeesss! Not shure how Guts would respond to THAT.
  • This is actually on the ley lines of fridge horror and fridge brilliance, but concerning Griffith's imprisonment and torture, Griffith's became crippled on account of his tendons beings severed (not to mention that he most likely suffered massive muscular damage), but the actions that led up to his imprisonment was on account of his haughty and prideful nature. What's the supposed punishment for pride in Hell? The breaking wheel, which breaks the victim's limbs, deeming them horribly crippled (if not just flat out dead). For the actual horror part, who is the patron demon of pride? Lucifer, in which Femto, Griffith's Godhand ego, is essentially.

Fridge Logic

  • Guts performs CPR on Casca when they fell into a river and successfully revives her. Although the act is pretty realistic compared to other anime examples, and though it is a medieval fantasy series, CPR was only innovated in what we would know as the modern era (1950-60s roughly).
  • Another one and it concerns the book six assassination plot. You think Miura should have drawn Guts with a normal sword instead of his typical BFS? A lot of people saw a clocked man hacking away guards with a very particular sword that also happens to be wielded by a very particular man very close to Griffith. Perhaps everyone was so terrified of Guts by then that they said nothing?
  • Apparently, having sex with Casca completely heals the massive, gaping shoulder wound that she had given Guts just moments earlier.
  • Either Midland is a very large country, and Guts has the amazing ability to walk incredible distances in mere days or weeks at best, or a lot more time has passed by than we know of, or nobody is very vulnerable to weather conditions, or Midland is the American Midwest (or was inspired by Great Britain), because they have some pretty funky weather patterns.
  • Wile at it: Guts needs to do everything on foot because any horse he used would quickly become posessed by demons whenever night falls. It's more trouble then it's worth.
  • So, Guts and Casca did the duty, and Guts succeeded in knocking Casca up. Congrats. They're expecting... a demon baby! But seriously, Guts and Casca conceive, they go to Wyndam to rescue Griffith, which took about four days, and then they had to get back to wherever they were going in the first place, which we'll say took about the same amount of time. So Casca has been pregnant for a week at this point. Then the Eclipse happens, and horrible, horrible things happen that result in Guts and Casca being Asleep for Days - four, actually. And then, no more than a few hours after have a grande mal Freak-Out, Guts witnesses Casca miscarrying their child, which is in its embryonic form. Overall, Casca has only been pregnant for not even an entire two weeks. Now, human embryogenesis is a lot more complicated than how we would comprehend it (sperm and egg meet up, hook up, and start dividing away all in about twenty minutes), and I'm not sure how much time must elapse for fertilization to be successful and how long cleaving of the zygote takes, but I'm pretty sure that you don't get a six week old embyro in under two weeks. ... Unless of course Femto's demonic semen induces super fast gestation and development which just brings in more Nausea Fuel on our part.
    • The last point gains favour when you see the embryo quickly morphing into a, very deformed but still reconizable as a, fetus right after Casca miscarries it.
  • In the beginning of the manga, the dead rise from the fields nearby to kill Guts as as well as the chariot driver and his daughter. If they're all executed prisoners whose corpses were dumped in the forest, why do they all have weapons?
    • It's not confirmed that they were executed prisoners. Guts claims that they were bandits or people who died violently.
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