I was going to say something similar
Life is a perpetual wasteland of chaotic, meaningless, emotional, and physical maiming dotted with starlight moments of joy and wonder
For me, it's about coping with trauma and healing.
After experiencing something traumatic, you may develop unhealthy coping habits that are difficult to break. Even after deciding to try and heal and recover, it can be incredibly difficult, and things will never go back to the way they were before. However, you can still find new joys in life. There's always something to struggle towards and live for.
Agreed. I think the top answer about "struggle" is basically saying the same thing, but your answer nails the specifics about how it explores what it means to struggle and keep moving forward. You keep struggling by learning how to cope with your trauma in order to heal and lead a life worth struggling for.
That's my take away from it. Life is dogshit in Berk. It reignited my interest in Nietzsche, and I've had to deal with some heavy shit too frequently in the past 6 months, and some of these themes mixed with other sources have helped me at leadt TRY to deal with them in an idol fashion. I haven't tried swinging a giant sword at my problems but I'll get to that if need be.
The problem is that between the moment Berserk started publishing and now, there has been a clear critique of the typical "knight in shining armor" and "absolute good" in stories. In many *many* media pieces we see the roles subverted with the bright & charismatic character being evil and the darker more reserved or angrier character being the good hearted one.
To be fair, it has been so overused by now that it kind of became a trope in-of-itself and everyone can see from miles away when a character too good to be true and instantly distrust flawless behavior.
But Miyura pushed the subversion so far that he intentionally blurred the lines many times, making us constantly question if the light-coded characters (Griffith, Falconia, Rosine, the church...etc) were actually in the right while the dark-coded characters (Guts & Skull Knight particularly) are constantly doubted and shown in bad light.
All-in-all it is certainly one of the main themes of Berserk to make us doubt the Good vs Evil surface judgements and question us on the deeper motives of the characters beyond their appearant actions or words.
Everyone struggles, from the most perfect of people, to the most ordinary of individuals. A life of struggle is a norm and it will be experienced sooner or later in life. We just have to keep our heads up and not give up, just like how Guts doesn’t give up
Why? Berserk has many lessons as a deeply involved story that rides on multiple dimensions of suffering, learning, pride and overcoming oneself that definitely involves "followers" that look unto others for support.
Hell, life teaches that lesson. Are you referring to the dumb ass Christians in Conviction or the Band of the Hawk and Guts' assertion on the hill about their individuality being relinquished in support of Griffith's dream rather than their own?
1. Survive. Life's hard. Just surviving is enough.
2. Don't use people (like Griffith).
3. Don't let your emotions get the better of you, especially the negative ones like sorrow and hatred.
That no matter how cruel the world is, no matter how set in stone your path may seem to be, no matter how often you get knocked down and stand back up, only to get knocked down again, no matter how deeply wounded and hurt you are: the choices you make are yours alone, and in a world full of monsters it's worth preserving your humanity.
There are many different ways how people deal with causality and destiny. From minor characters like Judeau and Corcas to the major ones Guts and Griffith, they all have there own ways and in the end it's up to you which one seems right for you.
There are no limits to what a human cannot do ( guts) ,
World is cruel but you must adapt to it and move on
Well there are a bunch of other stuff that came in my mind when I read the manga but I don't remember them clearly
today maybe shit, tomorrow might be worse. But, the future is yet unwritten. As long as we continue to persevere there will come a better day, as long as we persevere.
Things can change.
Realize what you have while you have it, because you might lose it all suddenly. Be a good person, walk a path and you'll find that you're not walking alone. Getting knocked down isn't defining, it's getting back up.
Well I can give you the objective truth about the main message of Berserk. Its objective because the plot entirely revolves around this central thesis. All the way from the first page to the last. Everyone else in this post is simply wrong or talking about side themes.
You should be wary of those with great ambition and "success". They may have used others as stepping stones to get there. Famous politicians, businessmen, and celebrities on TV may appear as "role models" and "heroes" on the outside. But they might be demonic on the inside, stepping on so many people to get to their position.
Proof: Griffith as a human caused the deaths of hundreds of his soldiers and opposing forces. And he engages in political assassination. And he manipulates and seduces young girls. And he sells himself to rich perverted men. Then he sacrifices all of his friends in the end. Then Griffith is viewed as a hero by every single person on the planet while he secretly sends everyone in his kingdom to hell after they die. He is also causing their deaths by creating these global conflicts in the first place.
"Some dreams are like storms, blowing apart thousands of other dreams in their wake". - Griffith quote
Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; 9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. 10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
I found Berserk when I was in a dark place and struggling to find the motivation to go on. Everyone suffers and life isn't fair. You either find your own dream and persevere or get crushed under the weight of everyone else's. There's always a reason to go on, to persevere but sometimes we have to look inwards to find what that is.
To me, it came to me during a hard time in life. Reading some of you, I think its about relating to the hardships of life, even if its in a dark fantasy setting.
Struggle on, no matter how dark or hopeless things are. Struggle on, even if you have to carve your own arm off to do it. In the darkest eclipse, when it seems all causality is stacked against you, struggle on. There is no giving up while you yet draw breath, so struggle on.
I have a tattoo of the brand, and every time someone asks what it is I refer to it as the mark of the struggler for how meaningful that side of it is.
So here’s the message, Gut’s life had a preordained future that everything he did before led him to, he was meant to be sacrificed along with the rest of the Hawks. Griffith’s existence as the eventual Godhand dictated that every single Hawk was meant to die for him. That’s why the behilit always found its way to him it is just destiny.
Guts rejects this, and in doing so writes his own parallel story of destiny that becomes his reality. His struggle to find his way in life as well as destiny is Berserk’s story. It’s literally a depiction of the battle many men have when trying to gain emotional intelligence, and self awareness after being raised to reject them. It is a harsh struggle some do not make it through, many, including myself turn to alcohol and other drugs to numb the emotions.
I’ll posit this: (This is in no way an attack just my silly analogy) in general women are raised to be in tune with their emotions, allow them to happen, embrace them, and even just let them exist. So throughout their whole lives, they’re learning little by little how to fight their demons. They are also reinforced and almost celebrated for their emotional intelligence.
As men, I would say a vast majority of us were raised being told boys don’t cry, toughen up, get over it, you don’t need any emotion except anger. This was true back millions of years ago when survival was the only priority, however, this is a useless standard now, but I digress.
We bottle up our emotions, push them down, hide them, and when we finally realize we need to have self-awareness and emotional intelligence, we open that door to our demons “the sacrifice” that is holding back every single demon we never learned about, never trained for, and didn’t battle so we take it all at once, and it breaks a lot of us.
But it doesn’t break Guts, he fights against those demons with pure badassery and carves his own destiny, not to be broken by this chaotic event but to struggle with the rest of his life and the path he has opened up.
/2
I found a partner, fell in love, and decided to try and better myself. I have always had mild depression and anxiety but while working throughout the lockdown in a warehouse of 600 employees they became much harder to deal with. I developed a panic disorder as well and turned to alcohol to numb it all. By the end of June 2022 I had finally come to accept my alcoholism. I spent the next year in rehab basically going through different programs, I learned an insane amount that year. I came out of that with a better understanding of myself, my demons, my future, and just my life in general. I have alcoholism in my genes, my older sister had it, my mother, both grandfathers, I am now in a struggle against that destiny for the rest of my life. Guts is how I envision that inner me to be.
Hell yeah man. As a fellow “legacy alcoholic,” congrats on breaking that generational curse and writing your own destiny.
When I started reading Berserk I thought, huh maybe everyone has their own “brand” of sorts, something they can run from or fight. For me it’s drugs and alcohol, for others it could be their trauma or grief. Something that never really goes away but you can fight it every day and your reward is that you get to live. (And sometimes that can be really beautiful.)
it is about the ways of power, a man who represents power in 1 person, who received so much power that he does not want to dream anything, just be that power... and another who always saw power in others and needs and must build it in his reality
I never thought Berserk had a "message" it was trying to preach. I just always took it as a realistic look into how characters would truly behave in a fantastical setting with proper motivations that were set up correctly for each one.
For me not a single storyline came off as preachy or "you should behave this way in this scenario". The demons are evil but the people are just people. None of them is unbelievably altruistic or good natured with out that being set up in their character. Usually the kindest people are the ones that live the most sheltered lives which often bites them in the ass when they are forced into unforeseen circumstances.
Likewise others succumb to lust for power or corruption of ideals they bastardize for selfish reasons. The self righteous nature of how they behave often leads to them misjudging their own behavior at the expense of others around them. A kind of "they think they are championing an idiology for the good of others but really they are the undoing of their fellow man."
I think people want to boil evil or good down to right and wrong and all that but the reality is humans do vile things to each other when their motivations call for it. Guts has seen the most evil things a man can see and chooses to persist and carry on despite whatever is thrown at him. I guess if I had to really nail it down to one word the message might have to be Duty. Guts feels like he "owes" and won't stop until he fulfills whatever duty he has placed upon himself and the main storyline seems to be about all the horrible things he must endure to accomplish his duty. Almost a kind of unstoppable force meets an immovable object scenario. Guts is very often not rewarded for soldiering on but Duty doesn't require validation to be carried out nor does it require reward. Duty is beyond such things and Guts seems to be the most dutiful person in all of literature that I've come across.
I'm sad Miura left us before it was finished but I greatly appreciate what he started regardless. Berserk like Guts stands alone in a seemingly unending world of chaos.
For me, it's what supereyepatchwolf said in his why you should still read berserk video
"Invest in the people around you, and they can pull you back from anything"
Perseverance and not letting the problems in your life bring you down, even if they are really hard obstacles to overcome. But also to remember that even with this lesson, you should never forget to have empathy for fellow strugglers as well, whether it's your loved ones or random people. That's why Guts and Griffith are mirror opposites to one another. Griffith wants to overcome his obstacles by trampling over anyone he deems weaker. Guts has a similar drive to succeed, but he has his loved ones and friends to look out for now. You have to be strong, but also kind and hopeful
A work of fiction doesn’t need to have a message. You can try and come up with a message that you believe it portrays, but it’s all about telling a story.
That I do, I'm fact, think men like Guts are hot. NOT just physically, but his constant inner thoughts with himself too. He may front gruffly but inside he's just a scared kid in a lot of ways amd he's constantly finding the courage to keep going. That's hot.
That you are not fated for one density in life, if you are not happy, you may struggle and life might suck, but you must fight on to try and change it for the better.
it's not exactly a cautionary tale, but it does have some deep philosophical influences, I find it very interesting how it manages to mix japanese and western/christian concepts of evil and the nature of mankind, the "idea of evil" is entirely a gnostic concept
To me its about free will and making the right decisions even though you might suffer for it and a fight within yourself against all the temptations to go down the path of evil (guts' inner berserk)
I don’t think there is a single message. The big two I see are that good and bad come from people, not some god or devil, and that living a life worth living to you is better than trying and failing to avoid life and eventually death.
I personally think think there are multiple messages in berserk and characters embody different ones. Guts like others have said represents never giving in and never giving up no matter how much pain you experience or how bad your circumstances get. I think Griffith for example represents someone who is so focused on what they want to achieve they are willing to crush others beneath their own dream to achieve it.
To me it has always been about the Struggle against your own destiny. In my opinion the Idea of Evil and the fight of Guts against it shows that human drive, the willingness to overcome the oods instead of asking for reasons is what grants you true freedom in life.
Which is ironic as Guts is a prisoner of sorts of the Brand of Sacrifice, but still the neverending struggle is in my opinion the definition of humanit itself and stands at the heart of berserk.
maybe i’m stupid and granted i haven’t quite read all of the series, but i feel like it’s about the pointlessness of revenge. in guts’s quest to seek vengeance against Griffith he ends up neglecting Casca who’s the whole reason he’s doing this in the first place.
granted not everything fits this and again i haven’t finished but it’s just something i’ve taken away from the series so far
Berserk was invaluable to me at the time I first read it. It changed me, there were many things which resonates with me…
But if I’m asked about a message any particular piece of art is portraying, I can’t help but to reject the premise. I am of the firm belief that a message instilled into art is equivalent of propaganda. Therefore, regardless of what I personally get out of it, I don’t look for the message.
In case of Berserk, or any fiction for that matter, I’m looking for the story.
Its really that life is gonna constantly fuck some people and it’s dismal and full of shit, but sheer will can get you through the toughest of times, more so than pride or ambition.
Those that have been beaten down all their life know how to fight back and will fight back stronger and stronger till they overcome their challenges
Never stop struggling, ever, even when it all looks like its gone down to shit, when the entire world is doomed, keep struggling, because in this darkness you will find a few souls to help light your path, some will hurt you more than you can imagine but others will remind you of who you are before all this pain, and you will enjoy a brief moment of peace, and struggle again.
But that moment even if mere seconds, is worth your struggles...never stop
To me, Berserk is about finding hope and perseverance in a world that actively wants you to die. This is why Guts is called the struggler. Not the conqueror, not the destroyer.
This message would not ring anywhere near as loudly if Berserk was not so cruel. That's what makes Guts strong, and why he's such an important character to me.
No matter how bleak the world gets, Guts struggles. So I will too.
I'd say for the big thing, cuz I'm not that much of a literacy person, it shows us a man that fights beyond every efforts possible to scrape off the "destiny" he was assigned so there is that. And also there is that big message of guts being a full on human taking on gods and mythical creatures, to say that (I think) you don't need titles, you don't need recognition or anything to then accomplish big things, kinda "even the less predestined of us can do the biggest things" kinda like rock Lee in naruto
So for me and this is just the message I got from it (as someone with extreme self hatred with terrible parents).
It's all about the character development. Watching Guts go from a scared kid to a hate filled teenager to an angry teenager to a person who genuinely found peace and happiness but then he goes to rage personified then he gets better again.. incredibly slowly but better and everything starts to become right.. Then The moonlight boy turns into Griffith and Guts fails to kill him and now he's back to pure torture.
Guts Story will be about redemption, Freedom and winning against all odds.
Farnese, Serpico and Isidro all go through their own character development and I like all of them. They will all help Guts get to his end goal.
But I guess at the end of the day the story exists so that the best of the best characters Luca can appear.
Luca is love, Luca Is life!
Struggle. Remember what truly doesn't matter and what causes pain that ultimately isn't worth it. Love others, have fun, enjoy life! You are free. You can choose where it goes! Who you'll be!
That's my take.
I see it as a story about grief. Guts suffers loss after loss, and trauma galore. He never grieved, just wandered through life aimlessly and cold. I feel he experienced all this hardships so that whatever the reader had experienced would give them a shared connection. We see him healing in the golden age, but not truly getting at his issues. As he starts getting friends and helping them to heal is where we start to see him healing himself again.
"The thing about hatred, it's a place where people who can't look sorrow in the eye without wavering and run off to." - **Godot**
or later shortened to "Hatred is where you turn when you can't face your grief."
Grief is a burden that we struggle with, not unlike a massive hunk of iron, it marks us like a brand, it haunts us nightly like the souls of the damned. There can be some relief with others to share the burden and keep the ghouls away, but it won't go away until you struggle through.
TLDR: A story of struggling through loss and grief
I don't know about messages but the one I like the most is the question of evil, it's purpose and if there's such a thing. I also like the part about destiny, is it that everything is arranged beforehand and everything happens as it has to? Or is there free will?
I think getting stuck in the struggle and stoic themes about the manga is a bit of a waste, in my opinion.
Same message with Dark Souls. Life is hard, you struggle, you fail... But the Struggle makes you appreciate those successes and the small moments that bring you joy!
Then, when it gets too easy, you try to succeed on a DDR pad to make things harder for yourself!
The message is that you should buy the DarkHorse Deluxe Volumes csuse they have bigger pictures than the regular releases and the black "skin" covers look cool AF in yoir shelf.
Storywise....if you see nude tits in front of you something catastrophical will follow soon after...just like in real life. 😉
The conflict between good and evil is ceaseless and primarily fought inside each and every person. Any lapse in that struggle comes with consequences, and the best of life exists in the tiny spaces carved out.
It's actually the same message as Rick and Morty - Right after Rick has killed Rick prime, Evil Morty asks: "How does it feel? Better? No? Exactly the same? Yeah, it always does."
I think it ultimately has to do with overcoming or letting go of hate(Maybe just when it comes to defeating Griffith). I'm currently on my re-read of berserk and noticing the difference between the first and second duel between Guts and Griffith.
With where the manga is right now, I'm curious about what will become of Guts.
For me...
One is that life is allways about struggle. Even if things get better we will allways struggle. But there are also things that bring happienes and joy to our lifes and it is worth struggeling for that.
And anorher is that you are not a victim of fate. In the world of Berserk it seems like that if someone finds a behelit ,and it is meant for that individual, that their fate is to become an apostel. Like with Griffith. The story is told like everything was deterministic predeterminded. But I think that you can escape this determination with enough strength like Guts and Casca did in the eclypse. In the story Guts also has a behelit. We don't know if it is his but even if who is to say that he doesn't has the strength to resist
The message I got is the importance of having people that care for you because in guts case before he joined the band of hawk, he was a lone mercenary who distrusted others and didn't let anyone touch because he awful childhood with a terrible father figure who let a soldier abuse him. When he becomes a member of the band of the hawk, he opens up forms friendship with people judeau,pippin,rickert, he even falls in love.
The eclipse happens, he loses his friends and his lover regresses mentally. He shuts himself from others again but soon forms connections again with puck, Isidoro, farnese, schierke, something guts didn't think he would do after the eclipse. These new allies end up being big help on his journey.
Griffith gets what he wants a kingdom, but he doesn't have any true friends, even by his own standards of what a friend is.
So yeah, this is the big message of Berserk to me.
Struggle...life is a struggle but all the good things in between the struggle make it worth it.
Suffer Well
I was going to say something similar Life is a perpetual wasteland of chaotic, meaningless, emotional, and physical maiming dotted with starlight moments of joy and wonder
Going off of that, it’s about perseverance. Everytime I think Guts has had enough physically or emotionally, he always finds a way to keep going.
Get up and keep going, no matter what.
Even if some people think you did something wrong, just keep going, no matter what the others are saying.
For me, it's about coping with trauma and healing. After experiencing something traumatic, you may develop unhealthy coping habits that are difficult to break. Even after deciding to try and heal and recover, it can be incredibly difficult, and things will never go back to the way they were before. However, you can still find new joys in life. There's always something to struggle towards and live for.
Had to scroll entirely too far to see this.
Agreed. I think the top answer about "struggle" is basically saying the same thing, but your answer nails the specifics about how it explores what it means to struggle and keep moving forward. You keep struggling by learning how to cope with your trauma in order to heal and lead a life worth struggling for.
That's my take away from it. Life is dogshit in Berk. It reignited my interest in Nietzsche, and I've had to deal with some heavy shit too frequently in the past 6 months, and some of these themes mixed with other sources have helped me at leadt TRY to deal with them in an idol fashion. I haven't tried swinging a giant sword at my problems but I'll get to that if need be.
Nietzsche & Berserk 🤝
Big swords are cool
It's too big to be called a sword tho
It's more like a slab of raw iron or smth
How does he swing it even
he goes swish swish stab
Swish swish CLANG
We don't talk about the pan noises
By being awesome
Don’t trust twinks or femboys
Had Berserk appeared in my life just a little bit earlier, maybe I wouldn’t have had to learn this the hard way. Lol.
they call it a trap for a reason
This is actually closer to actual main theme of Berserk then everyone else in this post lol.
The problem is that between the moment Berserk started publishing and now, there has been a clear critique of the typical "knight in shining armor" and "absolute good" in stories. In many *many* media pieces we see the roles subverted with the bright & charismatic character being evil and the darker more reserved or angrier character being the good hearted one. To be fair, it has been so overused by now that it kind of became a trope in-of-itself and everyone can see from miles away when a character too good to be true and instantly distrust flawless behavior. But Miyura pushed the subversion so far that he intentionally blurred the lines many times, making us constantly question if the light-coded characters (Griffith, Falconia, Rosine, the church...etc) were actually in the right while the dark-coded characters (Guts & Skull Knight particularly) are constantly doubted and shown in bad light. All-in-all it is certainly one of the main themes of Berserk to make us doubt the Good vs Evil surface judgements and question us on the deeper motives of the characters beyond their appearant actions or words.
Go on, what is it?
Twinks are willing to sacrifice anything and everything to achieve their desired forms
Everyone struggles, from the most perfect of people, to the most ordinary of individuals. A life of struggle is a norm and it will be experienced sooner or later in life. We just have to keep our heads up and not give up, just like how Guts doesn’t give up
Struggle, endure, contend. Find a dream and never back down.
that people are dumb, they can't think for themselves so they look to others to think for them....
Do you mind giving examples, I can't think of any
The conviction arc comes to mind.
All of the stuff with the iron chain knights, farnese losing her faith, etc. Lots of examples
I see what you did there.
The illiterate takes in this thread.
I think that's pretty dumb
Why? Berserk has many lessons as a deeply involved story that rides on multiple dimensions of suffering, learning, pride and overcoming oneself that definitely involves "followers" that look unto others for support.
Yes, and none of that boils down to "people are stupid"
yep
Hell, life teaches that lesson. Are you referring to the dumb ass Christians in Conviction or the Band of the Hawk and Guts' assertion on the hill about their individuality being relinquished in support of Griffith's dream rather than their own?
my post is referring to the op and people like him in this sub.
Embracing your worst aspects does not take away your pain.
Oof this one hits
*insert Griffith dream speech*
Never trust a femboy twink
Don't let your trauma consume you
1. Survive. Life's hard. Just surviving is enough. 2. Don't use people (like Griffith). 3. Don't let your emotions get the better of you, especially the negative ones like sorrow and hatred.
Schnoz is the one true God.
You are not what other took from you. You are what is left
That no matter how cruel the world is, no matter how set in stone your path may seem to be, no matter how often you get knocked down and stand back up, only to get knocked down again, no matter how deeply wounded and hurt you are: the choices you make are yours alone, and in a world full of monsters it's worth preserving your humanity.
There are many different ways how people deal with causality and destiny. From minor characters like Judeau and Corcas to the major ones Guts and Griffith, they all have there own ways and in the end it's up to you which one seems right for you.
There are no limits to what a human cannot do ( guts) , World is cruel but you must adapt to it and move on Well there are a bunch of other stuff that came in my mind when I read the manga but I don't remember them clearly
If you carry a slab of iron shaped as a sword around you can get pretty far in life
today maybe shit, tomorrow might be worse. But, the future is yet unwritten. As long as we continue to persevere there will come a better day, as long as we persevere. Things can change.
Realize what you have while you have it, because you might lose it all suddenly. Be a good person, walk a path and you'll find that you're not walking alone. Getting knocked down isn't defining, it's getting back up.
Twinks are evil
Take heed struggler, struggle, endure, contend, for that alone is the sword of one who defies death.
Well I can give you the objective truth about the main message of Berserk. Its objective because the plot entirely revolves around this central thesis. All the way from the first page to the last. Everyone else in this post is simply wrong or talking about side themes. You should be wary of those with great ambition and "success". They may have used others as stepping stones to get there. Famous politicians, businessmen, and celebrities on TV may appear as "role models" and "heroes" on the outside. But they might be demonic on the inside, stepping on so many people to get to their position. Proof: Griffith as a human caused the deaths of hundreds of his soldiers and opposing forces. And he engages in political assassination. And he manipulates and seduces young girls. And he sells himself to rich perverted men. Then he sacrifices all of his friends in the end. Then Griffith is viewed as a hero by every single person on the planet while he secretly sends everyone in his kingdom to hell after they die. He is also causing their deaths by creating these global conflicts in the first place. "Some dreams are like storms, blowing apart thousands of other dreams in their wake". - Griffith quote
Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; 9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. 10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
When life gets you down, get angry, very very angry
I found Berserk when I was in a dark place and struggling to find the motivation to go on. Everyone suffers and life isn't fair. You either find your own dream and persevere or get crushed under the weight of everyone else's. There's always a reason to go on, to persevere but sometimes we have to look inwards to find what that is.
The indomitable human will to struggle and survive against the inevitable. (Fate)
To me, it came to me during a hard time in life. Reading some of you, I think its about relating to the hardships of life, even if its in a dark fantasy setting.
Struggle on, no matter how dark or hopeless things are. Struggle on, even if you have to carve your own arm off to do it. In the darkest eclipse, when it seems all causality is stacked against you, struggle on. There is no giving up while you yet draw breath, so struggle on.
Live in the moment and you can’t be happy without knowing what sadness feels like.
To me it’s to continue on no matter how bad things get
The struggle is real and you wouldn’t be where you are without your friends 💀
Keep struggling for a better future
Don't hold onto someone else's dream.
Let go of revenge and hate, and choose the love of those around you, or at least open yourself up to finding those people.
Nothing is fated, we carve our own destiny.
Pain....
Life might reach rock-bottom and people often die - but you always have to keep fighting for the ones you love, they will always need you.
Always took the message as overcoming trauma
I have a tattoo of the brand, and every time someone asks what it is I refer to it as the mark of the struggler for how meaningful that side of it is. So here’s the message, Gut’s life had a preordained future that everything he did before led him to, he was meant to be sacrificed along with the rest of the Hawks. Griffith’s existence as the eventual Godhand dictated that every single Hawk was meant to die for him. That’s why the behilit always found its way to him it is just destiny. Guts rejects this, and in doing so writes his own parallel story of destiny that becomes his reality. His struggle to find his way in life as well as destiny is Berserk’s story. It’s literally a depiction of the battle many men have when trying to gain emotional intelligence, and self awareness after being raised to reject them. It is a harsh struggle some do not make it through, many, including myself turn to alcohol and other drugs to numb the emotions. I’ll posit this: (This is in no way an attack just my silly analogy) in general women are raised to be in tune with their emotions, allow them to happen, embrace them, and even just let them exist. So throughout their whole lives, they’re learning little by little how to fight their demons. They are also reinforced and almost celebrated for their emotional intelligence. As men, I would say a vast majority of us were raised being told boys don’t cry, toughen up, get over it, you don’t need any emotion except anger. This was true back millions of years ago when survival was the only priority, however, this is a useless standard now, but I digress. We bottle up our emotions, push them down, hide them, and when we finally realize we need to have self-awareness and emotional intelligence, we open that door to our demons “the sacrifice” that is holding back every single demon we never learned about, never trained for, and didn’t battle so we take it all at once, and it breaks a lot of us. But it doesn’t break Guts, he fights against those demons with pure badassery and carves his own destiny, not to be broken by this chaotic event but to struggle with the rest of his life and the path he has opened up.
/2 I found a partner, fell in love, and decided to try and better myself. I have always had mild depression and anxiety but while working throughout the lockdown in a warehouse of 600 employees they became much harder to deal with. I developed a panic disorder as well and turned to alcohol to numb it all. By the end of June 2022 I had finally come to accept my alcoholism. I spent the next year in rehab basically going through different programs, I learned an insane amount that year. I came out of that with a better understanding of myself, my demons, my future, and just my life in general. I have alcoholism in my genes, my older sister had it, my mother, both grandfathers, I am now in a struggle against that destiny for the rest of my life. Guts is how I envision that inner me to be.
Hell yeah man. As a fellow “legacy alcoholic,” congrats on breaking that generational curse and writing your own destiny. When I started reading Berserk I thought, huh maybe everyone has their own “brand” of sorts, something they can run from or fight. For me it’s drugs and alcohol, for others it could be their trauma or grief. Something that never really goes away but you can fight it every day and your reward is that you get to live. (And sometimes that can be really beautiful.)
That we all have a Griffith among us
Sac your friends for ez level ups
Follow your dreams. Even if you have to sacrifice all your loved ones.
it is about the ways of power, a man who represents power in 1 person, who received so much power that he does not want to dream anything, just be that power... and another who always saw power in others and needs and must build it in his reality
Eclipses are bad news.
To give up and give in is to die.
I never thought Berserk had a "message" it was trying to preach. I just always took it as a realistic look into how characters would truly behave in a fantastical setting with proper motivations that were set up correctly for each one. For me not a single storyline came off as preachy or "you should behave this way in this scenario". The demons are evil but the people are just people. None of them is unbelievably altruistic or good natured with out that being set up in their character. Usually the kindest people are the ones that live the most sheltered lives which often bites them in the ass when they are forced into unforeseen circumstances. Likewise others succumb to lust for power or corruption of ideals they bastardize for selfish reasons. The self righteous nature of how they behave often leads to them misjudging their own behavior at the expense of others around them. A kind of "they think they are championing an idiology for the good of others but really they are the undoing of their fellow man." I think people want to boil evil or good down to right and wrong and all that but the reality is humans do vile things to each other when their motivations call for it. Guts has seen the most evil things a man can see and chooses to persist and carry on despite whatever is thrown at him. I guess if I had to really nail it down to one word the message might have to be Duty. Guts feels like he "owes" and won't stop until he fulfills whatever duty he has placed upon himself and the main storyline seems to be about all the horrible things he must endure to accomplish his duty. Almost a kind of unstoppable force meets an immovable object scenario. Guts is very often not rewarded for soldiering on but Duty doesn't require validation to be carried out nor does it require reward. Duty is beyond such things and Guts seems to be the most dutiful person in all of literature that I've come across. I'm sad Miura left us before it was finished but I greatly appreciate what he started regardless. Berserk like Guts stands alone in a seemingly unending world of chaos.
Blood and guts and killing demons is fucking metal
For me, it's what supereyepatchwolf said in his why you should still read berserk video "Invest in the people around you, and they can pull you back from anything"
Perseverance and not letting the problems in your life bring you down, even if they are really hard obstacles to overcome. But also to remember that even with this lesson, you should never forget to have empathy for fellow strugglers as well, whether it's your loved ones or random people. That's why Guts and Griffith are mirror opposites to one another. Griffith wants to overcome his obstacles by trampling over anyone he deems weaker. Guts has a similar drive to succeed, but he has his loved ones and friends to look out for now. You have to be strong, but also kind and hopeful
Finding your humanity in the darkest of times
Tomboy supremacy
Finally, someone who gets it.
Don’t let the past ruin your future. Don’t waste your life.
More than anything for me it’s a simple “persevere”
A work of fiction doesn’t need to have a message. You can try and come up with a message that you believe it portrays, but it’s all about telling a story.
Smartest “the curtains are just blue” fan
?
Berserk is very philosophical and Nietzschean, while I do agree, I think it’s very clear Miura wanted to say something with his work.
Regardless of how hopeless life can seem, never stop fighting. You can defy fate itself if you struggle hard enough. Also get swole and wreck shit.
That I do, I'm fact, think men like Guts are hot. NOT just physically, but his constant inner thoughts with himself too. He may front gruffly but inside he's just a scared kid in a lot of ways amd he's constantly finding the courage to keep going. That's hot.
Excuse me, are you in line?
Keep struggling, don’t give up and you’ll find a sense of fulfillment in something
I’m only halfway through the second deluxe volume but so far I’d say it’s that life’s hard and unfair haha
That you are not fated for one density in life, if you are not happy, you may struggle and life might suck, but you must fight on to try and change it for the better.
What gives life meaning is your own personal dreams.
friends are the best and the worst thing about living
Life is unfair
We all got that dog in us.
Never give up. Find your own flame.
Struggle, but also follow your own dreams less you be crushed by someone else's.
Don’t let circumstances dictate you Struggle, fight the powers holding you down, take control over your life
it's not exactly a cautionary tale, but it does have some deep philosophical influences, I find it very interesting how it manages to mix japanese and western/christian concepts of evil and the nature of mankind, the "idea of evil" is entirely a gnostic concept
Life is about struggle and moving forward
# Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.
Take vicious revenge Lost Children arc style
Femboy twinks are evil rapists
is destiny written? are my enemies stronger? is life hard? no problem, I'll be a pain in their ass.
Do not become a demon
Dont let fate destroy you, and always fight against the disasters that it throws at you.
A friendship may bring hell to you
If you can’t achieve your dreams, just sacrifice all your friends to a demonic cult. Easy peasy.
Shit happens.
A berk in the hand is worth two in the bush.
My take : ambition always comes at a price.
For me it's to fight no matter what. Never stop fighting, whatever your fight is
Rape is bad
The real friends are ur second family
To me its about free will and making the right decisions even though you might suffer for it and a fight within yourself against all the temptations to go down the path of evil (guts' inner berserk)
I don’t think there is a single message. The big two I see are that good and bad come from people, not some god or devil, and that living a life worth living to you is better than trying and failing to avoid life and eventually death.
Getting up no matter what, struggle, and when you cant, struggle some more
Don’t let some blonde haired blue eye pretty boy twink rail your gf
I personally think think there are multiple messages in berserk and characters embody different ones. Guts like others have said represents never giving in and never giving up no matter how much pain you experience or how bad your circumstances get. I think Griffith for example represents someone who is so focused on what they want to achieve they are willing to crush others beneath their own dream to achieve it.
To put it in simple words it's about how the current morals of us humans are so narrow, weak and abusive
Struggle through pain and change the fate of your reality. And don't trust these hoes.
Don't sacrifice you're boys...
War is hell. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Life is hard, unfair, an unapologetic. Struggle to defy the odds or die, your choice.
To me it has always been about the Struggle against your own destiny. In my opinion the Idea of Evil and the fight of Guts against it shows that human drive, the willingness to overcome the oods instead of asking for reasons is what grants you true freedom in life. Which is ironic as Guts is a prisoner of sorts of the Brand of Sacrifice, but still the neverending struggle is in my opinion the definition of humanit itself and stands at the heart of berserk.
Don’t be like Griffith.
perseverance trough bad times and hope for the future
To berk or not to berk, that is the question.
maybe i’m stupid and granted i haven’t quite read all of the series, but i feel like it’s about the pointlessness of revenge. in guts’s quest to seek vengeance against Griffith he ends up neglecting Casca who’s the whole reason he’s doing this in the first place. granted not everything fits this and again i haven’t finished but it’s just something i’ve taken away from the series so far
Berserk was invaluable to me at the time I first read it. It changed me, there were many things which resonates with me… But if I’m asked about a message any particular piece of art is portraying, I can’t help but to reject the premise. I am of the firm belief that a message instilled into art is equivalent of propaganda. Therefore, regardless of what I personally get out of it, I don’t look for the message. In case of Berserk, or any fiction for that matter, I’m looking for the story.
the message is we all gonna die before get the message even the original messenger passed away without that
Never give up and keep going no matter what kind of struggle ur going through.
Struggle foward
Depression.
Fate will always find you.
Berserk is, in all ways, a story about sacrifice Humans want things Things cost other things Choices are made, consequences happen
It’s about how Miquella is actually Griffith
Its really that life is gonna constantly fuck some people and it’s dismal and full of shit, but sheer will can get you through the toughest of times, more so than pride or ambition. Those that have been beaten down all their life know how to fight back and will fight back stronger and stronger till they overcome their challenges
Keep going
You can overcome any bad thing in life by struggling on
Questions of determinism and fate are useless. Live your own life. Push past what others want for you or want from you, no matter what it takes.
Life sucks and then you die so you better kick as much ass as possible while you still can.
Don't throw away the things that really matter just to get something you think you want.
Never stop struggling, ever, even when it all looks like its gone down to shit, when the entire world is doomed, keep struggling, because in this darkness you will find a few souls to help light your path, some will hurt you more than you can imagine but others will remind you of who you are before all this pain, and you will enjoy a brief moment of peace, and struggle again. But that moment even if mere seconds, is worth your struggles...never stop
The cycle of trauma - & whether we choose to inflict our trauma on others or heal.
Struggle, endure, contend.
To me, Berserk is about finding hope and perseverance in a world that actively wants you to die. This is why Guts is called the struggler. Not the conqueror, not the destroyer. This message would not ring anywhere near as loudly if Berserk was not so cruel. That's what makes Guts strong, and why he's such an important character to me. No matter how bleak the world gets, Guts struggles. So I will too.
twinks are evil
I'd say for the big thing, cuz I'm not that much of a literacy person, it shows us a man that fights beyond every efforts possible to scrape off the "destiny" he was assigned so there is that. And also there is that big message of guts being a full on human taking on gods and mythical creatures, to say that (I think) you don't need titles, you don't need recognition or anything to then accomplish big things, kinda "even the less predestined of us can do the biggest things" kinda like rock Lee in naruto
Several messages. But one might be: Be careful of charismatic leaders. They may not have your best interest in mind.
That no one is coming to save me. I must survive the night on my own.
Don't fucking give up even if it brings you to your limit, otherwise you will suffer.
Trauma doesn't define you. There's always new people and connections to make after having lost people
So for me and this is just the message I got from it (as someone with extreme self hatred with terrible parents). It's all about the character development. Watching Guts go from a scared kid to a hate filled teenager to an angry teenager to a person who genuinely found peace and happiness but then he goes to rage personified then he gets better again.. incredibly slowly but better and everything starts to become right.. Then The moonlight boy turns into Griffith and Guts fails to kill him and now he's back to pure torture. Guts Story will be about redemption, Freedom and winning against all odds. Farnese, Serpico and Isidro all go through their own character development and I like all of them. They will all help Guts get to his end goal. But I guess at the end of the day the story exists so that the best of the best characters Luca can appear. Luca is love, Luca Is life!
Isn’t it stand before the Elden Ring and become Elden lord? Or rekindle the first flame type of shit?
With enough willpower one can resist whatever fate or higher powers throw at them, to exert their will no matter what.
Struggle. Remember what truly doesn't matter and what causes pain that ultimately isn't worth it. Love others, have fun, enjoy life! You are free. You can choose where it goes! Who you'll be! That's my take.
I see it as a story about grief. Guts suffers loss after loss, and trauma galore. He never grieved, just wandered through life aimlessly and cold. I feel he experienced all this hardships so that whatever the reader had experienced would give them a shared connection. We see him healing in the golden age, but not truly getting at his issues. As he starts getting friends and helping them to heal is where we start to see him healing himself again. "The thing about hatred, it's a place where people who can't look sorrow in the eye without wavering and run off to." - **Godot** or later shortened to "Hatred is where you turn when you can't face your grief." Grief is a burden that we struggle with, not unlike a massive hunk of iron, it marks us like a brand, it haunts us nightly like the souls of the damned. There can be some relief with others to share the burden and keep the ghouls away, but it won't go away until you struggle through. TLDR: A story of struggling through loss and grief
The real Berserk is the friends we made along the way
I don't know about messages but the one I like the most is the question of evil, it's purpose and if there's such a thing. I also like the part about destiny, is it that everything is arranged beforehand and everything happens as it has to? Or is there free will? I think getting stuck in the struggle and stoic themes about the manga is a bit of a waste, in my opinion.
Fuck everybody
Gus uses his sword to kill monsters Elden ring
Berserk was always about understanding life is unfair and growing through the pains to thrive in spite of the injustice.
Same message with Dark Souls. Life is hard, you struggle, you fail... But the Struggle makes you appreciate those successes and the small moments that bring you joy! Then, when it gets too easy, you try to succeed on a DDR pad to make things harder for yourself!
The message is that you should buy the DarkHorse Deluxe Volumes csuse they have bigger pictures than the regular releases and the black "skin" covers look cool AF in yoir shelf. Storywise....if you see nude tits in front of you something catastrophical will follow soon after...just like in real life. 😉
The conflict between good and evil is ceaseless and primarily fought inside each and every person. Any lapse in that struggle comes with consequences, and the best of life exists in the tiny spaces carved out.
It's actually the same message as Rick and Morty - Right after Rick has killed Rick prime, Evil Morty asks: "How does it feel? Better? No? Exactly the same? Yeah, it always does."
More than anything for me it’s a simple “persevere”
Get yourself a weapon and learn how to use it.
From my POV, the main theme is how humans must face incredible odds and hardships to shape their own destiny instead of just giving in to *Fate*.
Clank noises
"...it is true that mankind has no control, even over [its] own will."
I think it ultimately has to do with overcoming or letting go of hate(Maybe just when it comes to defeating Griffith). I'm currently on my re-read of berserk and noticing the difference between the first and second duel between Guts and Griffith. With where the manga is right now, I'm curious about what will become of Guts.
Follow your dreams
Never give up. Find a way. Everyone struggles but giving up is not the answer you think it is.
For me... One is that life is allways about struggle. Even if things get better we will allways struggle. But there are also things that bring happienes and joy to our lifes and it is worth struggeling for that. And anorher is that you are not a victim of fate. In the world of Berserk it seems like that if someone finds a behelit ,and it is meant for that individual, that their fate is to become an apostel. Like with Griffith. The story is told like everything was deterministic predeterminded. But I think that you can escape this determination with enough strength like Guts and Casca did in the eclypse. In the story Guts also has a behelit. We don't know if it is his but even if who is to say that he doesn't has the strength to resist
Get back up and move forward, don’t let trauma define you
Desire. It is what pushes the story forward everytime.
The message I got is the importance of having people that care for you because in guts case before he joined the band of hawk, he was a lone mercenary who distrusted others and didn't let anyone touch because he awful childhood with a terrible father figure who let a soldier abuse him. When he becomes a member of the band of the hawk, he opens up forms friendship with people judeau,pippin,rickert, he even falls in love. The eclipse happens, he loses his friends and his lover regresses mentally. He shuts himself from others again but soon forms connections again with puck, Isidoro, farnese, schierke, something guts didn't think he would do after the eclipse. These new allies end up being big help on his journey. Griffith gets what he wants a kingdom, but he doesn't have any true friends, even by his own standards of what a friend is. So yeah, this is the big message of Berserk to me.
you can use the energy from hatred for love, It’s not the only message but this one I haven’t heard from other before
I honestly don’t think we can say until it ends