So I seem to just find more and more stuff to write about Berserk, and I could not be more happy about that. I've written almost thirty posts total now, which, Isn't really a lot, but It's something. Anyways, my point is simply that I've never written more than once about a show (not counting my top 10 favorurites post), before now of course. So, with the introduction out of the way, it's time to get into it. Let's once more explore just how deep Berserk is.
While contrasts and duality may be one of the ideas which is explored a lot within Berserk, the idea of the greater good is probably the more prominent and less subtle one. While it isn't made completely apparent before the eclipse happens, during the Golden Age arc, after Griffith set fire to a building and killed the Queen of Midland, Griffith asks Guts whether he thinks of his actions as cruel, alluding to the fact that he sees what he does as not being morally correct. But as we find out later, morals never really mattered to Griffith in the first place. During the eclipse, Griffith is shown a vision where he is shown the bodies of all the people who have died under his banner. All their corpses lined up like a staircase for him to walk on, as it leads up to his goal: a castle, and his very own kingdom. While Griffith is at first taken aback by the corpses, he decides that he shall continue his conquest, and sacrifices all members of the Band of Hawk to the Godhand, in exchange for reincarnation as a godlike being.
This is all pretty simple, but what makes Berserk's exploration of the greater good so well done is how see it through the characters in the story. We get Griffith's perspective, the perpetrator himself, who is more than content with having sacrificed all of his comrades, now that he controls an army of demons and has achieved his dream. We see the ones who die and suffer because of it through the brutal deaths of all the members of the Hawk, as the series spares no rest in showing their ends. We get Guts perspective, as one who survived the mass murders, and now has to deal with the fact that not only are all his comrades gone, but his best friend is the one who sacrificed everyone else, and also intended for him to go down with them. We get the perspective of Judea, who was far away at the time and had no idea of what happened, and his reaction when he finds out about Griffith's deeds, as well as when he gets to Griffith's castle and sees what he achieved. And last, we get the perspective of the unknowing. The ones who live within the walls of Griffith's castle, content with everything they've recieved, while being totally unknowing of what sacrifices had to be made for this to happen.
Usually, in a story like this, it would show Griffith's rule as being horrible and cruel, which is alluded to in the first episode of the 1997 anime adaptation, although at that time The Falcon of the Millenium Empire Arc hadn't started serialization. No, instead Miura decides to show Griffith's deeds as having been worth it. Everyone within Falconia is living happily. As Griffith is a God reincarnated in a body of flesh he has the ability to communicate with the deceased, so no one fears death any more. Everyone has a house with enough space, and they're all situated inside a giant castle protected by a large army. It truly is a utopia. Except for Judea and Guts of course (and Casca too). By showing all the ways in which Griffith's decisions have impacted the people around him, we get a more nuanced and interesting idea of what 'the greater good' really entails, which really speaks to the power of art as a whole. While someone can tell you, in factual and objective terms, what an idea means, and while nothing is a replacement for experience, through art we can meet halfway, and gain a greater understanding of each other.
That's really all I had to say about this topic. As I stated in my previous Berserk post, this is probably pretty obvious to most people, but I thought it was interesting at least.
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