Guts and Griffith - What Makes A True Hero?

life is filled with suffering some might think that everything is meaningless I mean what actually is the point of all why do we exist what is human nature why are you watching this video am I even making a point in this intro sorry about that I made my in an eyeless come out umm it's easy to fall into existential dread especially when certain people have been a massive dick ste but in my opinion a true hero is someone who says and voluntarily steps up to the challenge someone who has the bravery to leave their comfort zone and discover who they truly are someone who doesn't get overwhelmed by malevolent someone who overcomes their suffering to reach their full but someone who forges their own means embraces their innermost and incomparably uniqueness potential okay you get the [ __ ] point already I'm talking about guts guts is the guy who does this that's why he's the true hero yeah I'm just gonna kind of backtrack and why I said last video essentially the point I'm trying to make is be like this guy not like this guy wait a sec definition of a hero is a person who is admired for their courage outstanding achievements or noble qualities so is guts more heroic because he's brave well sirs Griffith is it because he's strong Griffith has the power to bend [ __ ] space because of his outstanding achievements well Griffith kind of created a mini paradise is it because noble quality are [ __ ] off we know guts as none of those from this definition doesn't that mean Griffith is more of a hero than guts well from its definition that may be true or is it no Griffith meets the dictionary requirements of a hero but that's kind of entirely superficial when you think about the mythological hero there's something about it that resonates through the human psyche on such a profound level that I think it goes a bit deeper than liking someone brave enough to do cool [ __ ] sometimes sure Griffith can be superficially seen as a hero but that's only because he puts on the persona of one very few people know the the Griffith that cell farms to repress his emotional pain the Griffith that loses his composure as he's overtaken with primal desire and the Griffith that rapes woman that looked up to him as a means to spite his best friend and some of the more cynical sociopaths out there might be saying oh so what Griffith did some bad things sorry to guts as well and I mean that's true guts did do some some bad things let me ask you this the Griffith learn anything from his mistakes or did he just cling to his childhood persona did he try to face his emotional pain or did he just repress and ignore those feelings did he take personal responsibility for the things he did or was he overwhelmed by his libido did he try to better himself through his own free will or did he just you know give into causality and use that as an excuse I'm pretty sure you know the answers to all of these if you didn't then it's yeah it's these one's guts and Griffith faced similar circumstances but make different choices they both pursue their own reasons to live faced their breaking points undergo a lots of suffering and either take personal responsibility or put the responsibility outside of themselves on an evil god organ entity or something basically these are challenges that can't be overcome with just the swing of his sword Griffith may embody the persona of a mythical hero but he loses the internal battles where guts wins berserk isn't about being seen as a hero externally but about being a hero internally it's not about looking perfect but about psychologically growing from internal conflicts seeing as we're talking about psychology let's get a bit 200 IQ there was once a big brain chap called Carl Jung who I've been obsessing over a bit recently he was a Swiss psychiatrist from the 20th century and believed that every person is unique and has a distinct destiny and the best pathway to achieve your full potential is to undergo something called individuation this is defined as a process of psychological integration whereby the personal and collective unconscious abort into consciousness and assimilated into the whole personality thereby making you distinct from the general collective psychology okay maybe I'll try and simplify it it's basically a process of self-realization where you try and reach your full potential you do this by making the unconscious parts of yourself basically all the [ __ ] that you aren't aware of or don't understand conscious Jung says the unconscious contains unrealized potential and discovering these potentials can lead to a personal transformation basically by making the unconscious conscious you realize that you are a kind of special snowflake but you can only do that by breaking away from the collective leaving your comfort zone going down your own path facing the unknown not repressing [ __ ] discovering all the things about yourself in the world that you'd rather not know of integrating that into your personality and eventually becoming your own person the process isn't easy and you will probably suffer a lot but it does provide a decent guideline to find meaning in your life and discover who you truly are well I mean it's either that or existential dread Jung relates this process of individuation to the journey of the mythological hero and you know who else does this well Meera definitely read up his [ __ ] Jungian psychology there are quite a few references in the manga and most importantly he applies this concept of individuation to the journey of guts and Griffith so let's relate this to Graham he did some of this he isn't part of the collective but goes down his own path which is pretty good he determines and pursues his own reason to live which is the first vital step of individuation so he's actually doing quite well and until he fails at everything else he fails for two reasons firstly he repressed emotions that were too difficult to deal with rather than looking inwards and making the unconscious conscious he kind of just kept the unconscious unconscious we see this when he self arms he does this as a kind of coping mechanism for emotional stress such as you know when he fell a bit guilty for causing thousands of deaths and when he had to sleep with a rather mature gentleman oh and when he gets dumped by his boyfriend as well he uses physical pain to distract himself from his emotional pain but that's still kind of avoiding the issue he never tries to confront his pain directly speak about it or even come to terms with it he just leaves things unresolved this brings us to us second issue he identifies too much with his persona of the unwavering limitless and unbeatable commander of the ban of the Hawks Jung says a persona isn't a true reflection of who you actually are but a mask that you put on in front of other people Griffith thinks it's necessary to keep up this acts in order to achieve his dream he wants to come off as plausibly strong to keep morale high and to take advantage of people but because of this he hides his vulnerabilities from himself and others Griffith thinks our the the leader of the band of the hawk needs to be strong and ambitious so let me just you know ignore all these other emotions he's been doing this since he was a kid so it's culminated into something problematic besides from his ambition he doesn't really know how to interpret his other feelings or emotions when he's not putting on his facade he can act childish overly possessive and impulsive he normally doesn't have the words to explain what he's feeling doesn't really know how to handle it and can get easily overwhelmed if you never face your internal issues that need to never grow from them and therefore identifying with this persona has repressed his individuality and left Griffith as psychologically stunted this is important as I think this emotional immaturity is why he can never understand his feelings towards guts Griffith eventually believed he was unbeatable and limitless but then he realized he was kind of beatable and limited who Griffith identified as wasn't a true reflection of himself or even reality the battle on the hilltop wasn't just a battle between Gutzon Griffith but a battle between Griffiths persona and reality he lost the physical battle and the internal battle his sword was broken and so was his facade for the first time the band of the hawk saw Griffith vulnerable and defeated and he can handle it he was too emotionally immature to properly confront his pain so he acted impulsively and [ __ ] everything up Griffith was overwhelmed by what Jung would call the shadow this is basically the part of your unconscious where you repress all your unpleasant desires and emotions you normally hide these thoughts from society because otherwise people will see you for the horrible human being you actually are but there's an issue just like my crippling need for anime thighs the more you repress it the it becomes strong enough to momentarily overwhelm your conscious personality if you're at your breaking point this is what happened to Griffith all the malice jealousy and regrets he repressed into a shadow to keep up his facade overwhelmed him causing him to act impulsively he slept with the princess because he wanted control and dominance after losing his confidence he self-harm to repressed the emotional pain of guts leaving and he got captured and pretty much said [ __ ] king Jung says we shouldn't ignore or repress our shadow but we should try and understand it and allow those thoughts to be accommodated in a socially acceptable way he says this will make you more self accepting and less likely to be overwhelmed by your shadow so what what am I saying well Griffith didn't do this Griffith did some things wrong and they were entirely his fault he failed to understand himself and to undergo individuation and it's a shame because I feel like Griffith had the chance to emotionally mature through his friendship with guts guts was the catalyst for emotionally developing Griffith because he was the only person who understood him beyond his persona he was the reason Griffith kept his sanity during his torture and he even made him question the value of his own dream this is because in my opinion guts made Griffith feel more fulfilled than his dream ever did when Griffith was shown this vision during the Eclipse which was basically his shadow the pathway to his dream was always a lonely one he needed to view everyone as a corpse to be stepped over because that's what his dream required of him but despite all the corpses you noticed that there's one person who's still alive here guts he's on a separate pathway but he's not opposing his dream like Griffith believed he's not viewing Griffith as a miraculous saint and giving up his life for him but instead treating him as a person an equal a friend whilst the god hands spoke to Griffith definitively he's saying it's too late to regret and he has no choice but to pull up the corpses guts simply encourages Griffith to follow his ambition the godhand employed Griffith has no choice as if this is part of causality whereas guts employees Griffith made this choice out of his own free will and respects him for that and that's what makes guts irreplaceable to Griffith he's someone who encouraged him beyond his persona gave him company on his lonely path and brought out the individuality he repressed Griffith can understand these feelings guts gave him because it was strained for someone unfamiliar with human emotion to be well overwhelmed with human emotion if he didn't repress his pain but chose to face it and understand it and said maybe he could have figured out what he truly valued maybe he wouldn't have sacrificed Griffith caught on to what he knew but valued less his dream and persona rather than what he valued more but didn't understand his friendship with guts after the Eclipse Griffith is pretty much the embodiment of his persona he now really is limitless strong and pretty much unbeatable he has the qualities to achieve his dream but it's at the cost of abandoning pretty much everything else Jung said the task in life is not to be perfect but to be whole Griffith may seem perfect but he definitely isn't whole he's still fragmented he takes on two forms one representing his persona and one representing his shadow he never really grew as a person if Griffith wanted to gain true fulfillment in his life he should have prioritized guts over his dream this is why Griffith fails to be a true hero however there's one big jaw line chap that does succeed I mentioned that a true hero is someone who goes their own path and brings their unconscious into consciousness well unlike griffith guts did both of these we all know he left the ban of the hawk to pursue his own meaning but what's interesting is that as soon as he gains independence he enters a forest now you might wonder what's so interesting about the [ __ ] forest soul well young implies a hero entering a forest after leaving everything behind is more than just a literal journey through a forest after leaving everything behind it's a metaphor for a journey through your mind into your unconscious the hero is said to find creatures in the forest some dangerous and some helpful that give him special weapons and resources it's also said that the hero will gain wisdom from the people he encounters and will leave the forest more self-aware what the hero finds in the forest is all a metaphor for how the individual is receptive to the unconscious if you accept what's there then it helps you realize your unique potential guts left everything behind not just to go his own path but also to understand himself and I mean that's essentially the process of bringing your unconscious into consciousness alright maybe you're not convinced that's ignore forest metaphors for a bit then let's get more specific guts doesn't identify with his persona of the black swordsman and he learns to open up about his emotions guts initially repressed his trauma with Gambino and Donna and this had a bad outcome he had nightmares that directly represented the repressed thoughts in his unconscious and he lashed out when he was touched when guts had sex with Casca the thoughts in his shadow literally override his consciousness just like it did with Griffith this is called being the shadow possessed and it causes people to act more impulsive destructive aggressive and horny of course cutters possession was personalized from his own shadow he sees his younger self in Casca and strangles her because of his past trauma but he stops himself he opens up and talks about something he pressed his entire life he shows vulnerability and doesn't hide anything and Casca it Epsom there was no persona here guts emotionally matured because he opened up to someone he cared for and in return she cared for him maybe this would have been the case for Griffith if he prioritized his friendship of guts this moment was meaningful for guts and Casca whereas Griffith sleeping with the princess was entirely meaningless guts won the internal battle against his shadow whilst Griffith lost this is called integrating your shadow and Jung says this is part of the process of individuation another example of this is guts pretty much the entirety of the black swordsman Hawk he was motivated entirely by hates and didn't care if other people got caught up in his revenge he repressed his thoughts of the Eclipse and avoided Casca because he can face his emotional pain he had a lonely self-destructive dream viewing every demon as a corpse and a pathway to get his revenge on Griffith he put on a persona repressed his emotional pain and was constantly overwhelmed by a shadow as a result he stunted his psychological growth he prioritized his dream over those irreplaceable to him if he carried on further down this path he would have been completely devoured by the beast of darkness which represents his dark desires and is literally in his shadow a lot of people criticized this arc saying it's pointless because it involves guts just randomly killing demons but this part the story being pointless is the exact points Miura isn't saying this is the right path for guts to go down oh he suddenly stops developing emotionally maturing and acting like a hero when his actions are dictated by his hatred oh well imagine my shock I'm not saying his hate isn't justified I'm just saying this self-destructive pathway parallels with Griffiths that's why he encounters similar internal problems and why his ambition is ultimately pointless in making him feel truly fulfilled Miura is showing us that guts stops developing as a character as soon as he stops undergoing the process of individuation and when does his character start developing again oh yeah when he does that individuation thing again luckily guts wasn't too far gone by this point he matured realizes limitations and adopted a sense of milah t at the crucial moment he decided to take responsibility for his fate in his own hands without his shadow dictating his actions he prioritized Casca someone irreplaceable to him over his dream he no longer were oppressed his issues but faced his emotional pain head-on he keeps his humanity by looking inwards something Griffith couldn't do oh yeah and after he saves Casca he enters a forest and gains new equipment and [ __ ] the Berserker Amma is like the most obvious metaphor for guts integrating his shadow when guts is devoured by his rage he's self-destructive but if he controls it he can use that strength constructively hmm I mean we even see Shaka literally enter his psyche she sees guts being overwhelmed by the thoughts in his shadow and the memories in his unconscious and we even see this symbol which is like an exact [ __ ] parallel of the onion symbolism and guts gains control by making the unconscious conscious Chiaki delving into his unconscious is kind of a metaphor for the importance of opening up to others and it also shows the importance of Casca she prevents guts from being overwhelmed by his trauma and is the catalyst for him to strive towards a heroic ambition rather than an ambition dictated by revenge guts places the responsibility for evil within himself and her unlike someone and it's this humility that he eventually gains that makes him so endearing oh yeah and there's also some subtle and not so subtle use of mythological symbolism that meera uses such as guts his sword being called the Dragon Slayer in European myth a dragon is the culmination of every natural predator that humans [ __ ] themselves over it's kind of ingrained in our biology that we should be scared of birds snakes and fire because evolution slaying a dragon represents conquering your fear and overcoming adversity which is you know normally a thing mythological heroes like to do it's also a metaphor for personal growth by integrating your unconscious so not that [ __ ] subtle there mera another common example is the hero waking up the sleeping princess yeah it's basically got some casket normally the princess is under some sort of spell and the hero takes many steps to end up freeing her this is a metaphor for integrating a thing that young calls the anima which is something I don't fully understand but I'll give it an explanation anyway the anima represents the inner femininity in a man and governs things like mood openness intuition and capacity for love it represents a man's relationship to a woman and also his soul basically ever since guts went on this journey with Cassio he's become a lot more contemplative self accepting compassionate empathetic and capable of healthy relationships this could be interpreted as him integrating the anima and Jung says that once a hero achieves this the sleeping princess will awaken oh and now that he has achieved this Cusco is awake yeah that definitely just a [ __ ] coincidence guys one last example of symbolism is quotes the hero travels by ship fights the sea monster is swallowed and having arrived inside the belly of the well seeks the vital organ and cuts it off thereby winning release we see Griffith kind of get in a situation like this I mean is canon that he enters the deepest layer of the astral realm and meets a giant [ __ ] organ god this myth is supposed to represent the death and rebirth of a hero and whilst this is kind of the case it's more of a regression for Griffith in my eyes I think he was swallowed by the monster named causality but instead of vanishing it he gave in to it and got overwhelmed by a shadow his perspective didn't really develop after this he believes nothing has changed and he doesn't really regret anything now in other words the only person who would on ironically say Griffith did nothing wrong is Griffith himself it's interesting as guts was in a very similar situation to this I mean there's a point where he literally travels by ship fights the sea monster is swallowed seeks the vital organ cuts it off and is released both guts and Griffith get metaphorically devoured by the monster but guts is the one who metaphorically vanishes it and slays it with his metaphorical sword called the dragon's lair being metaphorically reborn on his journey to wake up the metaphorically sleeping princess I hope you get the [ __ ] metaphor it's commentary on how they both face similar heroic trials but guts is the only one who succeeds in overcoming his adversity not just because of his physical strength but because of his internal strength griffith may have power respects and a kingdom but he doesn't have the humanity wholeness and self-acceptance guts has i believe that even if griffith takes over the entire world he will never be fulfilled because he throw away something irreplaceable people admire griffith for his persona not for his true self and people admire guts not for his persona but for the person he truly is I think why I find Griffiths so interesting is that his internal conflicts are so universally human and it's this distinction between guts and Griffith that me your comments on just how important and powerful personal growth can be it's why I find guts to be one of the most inspirational and well-written characters in manga so if you're going to take anything away from this video don't bottle [ __ ] up don't put on a facade face the unknown go into the forest slay the dragon and don't make pretentious videos about berserk wait a second [Music]

Channel: Soul

Views: 625,232

Keywords: Guts, Griffith, Berserk, Berserk OST, psychology in berserk, carl jung, carl jung shadow, jordan peterson, Casca Return, Kentaro Miura, Berserk Manga, Berserk Anime, Berserk 2016, Berserk 2017, Guts vs Griffith, Guts vs Zodd, Guts vs Grunbeld, ベルセルク, psychology, Guts and Griffith - What Makes A True Hero?, Why Guts Stands Out From Other Protagonists, Berserk Fight, Casca, Eclipse, Behelit, Anti Hero, Analysis, Dark Fantasy, Anime, Manga, Review

Id: 3RA6SPNP8ps

Length: 22min 48sec (1368 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 01 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/CrowTome]

Can I get the sauce to that tumbnail though.