"I Want Wings" - Why We Hate Griffith in a Single Phrase (Berserk's Lost Chapter)

on the old channel one of my more popular videos was an analysis of the infamous lost chapter of berserk chapter 83 a chapter that was published in young animal magazine as each new chapter was monthly only for Cantara Miura to make the executive decision to not include it in the later volume releases giving it this weird standing in terms of berserk Canon I personally love this chapter and explained why I did in the old video the video has more recap than analysis and I'm here now to make the point I was trying to make back then better and more precisely by once again analyzing the lost chapter this chapter really is the second half of the second half the previous chapter chapter 82 as we cut away from the ongoing atrocities happening during the Eclipse and take a reprieve as we follow the man responsible for the carnage Griffith as he sinks formless down an unknown abyss having just sacrificed the band of the halt in the physical realm Griffith is currently being metamorphosized into femto as his old crippled body is being rejuvenated which is important because everything that we see here is metaphorical Griffith isn't actually sinking this is all happening inside his head we are seeing a very literal symbolic representation of Griffith as he sinks into the abyss only to rise again at the end of chapter 83 is femto filled fully back up stronger than he's ever been a key aesthetic element that I love about this scene is that progressively as Griffith sinks his new body slowly comes into form the metaphor is not lost on me I just explained it but visually it looks outstanding Griffith as he sinks is showing the horrors of the Eclipse happening congruently to his transformation again if we can talk aesthetically some of these panels are outstanding not only aesthetically is Miura a genius here but he truly is an outstanding writer as well berserk is nearly universally praised for its all-time great writing but I'm not talking about character writing or the development of the plot Yura really knows how to turn a phrase here he describes the deaths piercing through Griffith and it has this elegant poetic feel to it as most of the phrasing and the Eclipse does that is perfectly juxtaposes the in elegance of what's going on another things chapter is great at is characterizing Griffith after he chooses to sacrifice everybody Meera has completely shied away from giving us Griffith internal monologue following the Eclipse so chapter 83 really is the last time in the timeline we get any objective insight into what Griffith thinks here he is honest with himself as he realized he wished for this to happen and that all this despair is the product of his selfish desires but he also admits that he feels nothing regarding their deaths which is something that is reiterated upon at the hill of swords as the idea of evil will explain in the coming chapters when a human activates a better lit it is at their most vulnerable and at the height of their despair anyone driven to this state has their heart frozen supposedly as their final tear is crystallized through the battle it as bare helots are actually just the final tears of the souls that use them the teardrop falls in the face and the battle it is a reflection of the faces around the person as teardrops are reflective this all just means that Griffith is unfeeling towards his former companions now and it's not until his rebirth vessel is fused with castor and guts as demon baby that this process is undermined and Griffith realizes that inadvertedly he now has feelings for Casca but as the scene continues Griffith continues to sink and we are introduced to the idea of evil as a narrator he shows Griffith the visualization of the crystallization of his last shed tear and explains that his suffering became so immense that as hard as being subsequently frozen as we just went over Griffith then notices the thousands of tear like bear hell it's rising above him heading for the physical world letting us know that the idea of evil is the origin of the battle it's there's so much great interesting exposition here and we don't get anything like this ever again this only continues and it's very valuable because most of the functions of the berserk world is still a mystery to us we don't know anything really if you choose to disregard chapter 83 and even with it we don't necessarily know what being a god hand member really means we don't know what each godhand member wants we don't know how they became godhand members we don't know who they serve we don't know much about the functions of the Bethel it's we just don't know so this experience in chapter 83 is a one time unique insightful opportunity for mirror to reveal some of those grander guarded secrets and supposedly Mira had second thoughts about revealing them and that's why he ultimately decided to cut this chapter though it was too late the secrets of the chapter are available online for us all to see there's so much law here Griffith questions upon first seeing the idea of evil if he is literally God which is a uniquely humble moment for Griffith in the face of something better than himself something he never found in the human world he seems trepidatious and fearful he doesn't know if for the first time in his life someone is better or more than him the idea of evil welcomes Griffith and specifically refers to him as a human implying both that Griffith is still a human categorically and that the idea of evil at least doesn't consider himself a human they then go on again to have an incredibly interesting conversation where the idea of evil explains himself as the explanation for human suffering all sorts of interesting concepts are discussed here as it is revealed that humans in fact created God in the wizard world as they yearn for an explanation for the absurdity of life the idea of evil is the unconscious black heart of humanity the monologue here is brilliant the idea of evil says that people decide an explanation for all the atrocities in their lives all the atrocities they're exposed to by the world reasons for paying reasons for sadness reasons for life itself as well as death what could possibly explain the absurdity of life the excuse they came up with was God and so God came to them the idea of evil was not created to end the pain and suffering of humanity but to explain which when you think about it is really the basis of most religions explanation not salvation this is what humanity wants the idea of evil couldn't create a better reality even if he wanted to because he's beholden to humanity's will the idea of evil also explains that he controlled and manipulated lower-level humans to create the exact circumstances and merge the right bloodlines and put the right people around Griffith for him to live the exact life he has this was all also decided in the distant past it's interesting that Griffiths lineage is brought up here since we never see his parents or anybody related to him in the story or we get a vague metaphors about his childhood Stonehenge is also interestingly featured as a fixture in the background of the page where the idea of evil explains his manipulation of the world Stonehenge features throughout berserk when the demon baby warns guts of casters apparent danger forcing him out of his black swordsman behavior and in some recent chapters Griffith has used it as a fast travel system for him in his it seems to have some symbolic meaning to the narrative we aren't fully aware of yet but now that we've talked about the interesting lore elements of the lost chapter let's talk about the characterization of Griffith here and why this chopped is so entirely epitomizes everything Griffith is to me there's three moments of characterization for Griffith I'd like to highlight there's one moment earlier on in the chapter where Griffith is still being caught off guard by everything that's going on and he's questioning whether or not the idea of evil is truly God the idea of evil gives the explanation that humans created God and they both reflect on the hellscape surrounding them that the idea lives inside and revel in the fact that it feels terribly human Meera is really good with his words here as the simple phrasing here adds to the understandability deep inside even the audience knows that humanity is capable of terrible things this is what most art is about and the simple phrase captures the feeling here perfectly not to mention that as an audience member you're more vulnerable to the idea because of the abject atrocities going on in the very preceding pages of this moment the idea of evil describes it as hell but terribly human and Griffith responds with the admittedly impeccably cool I can feel at line where he admits that just like every human this realm this hell is a part of him but the telling bit of characterization here is again that Griffith revels in the negative feelings here it's almost like a moment of adrenaline for him as he gives in to these feelings and the gravitas of this feeling is felt in this picture of his almost fully formed hand in front of his almost fully formed face explaining that he can feel it but the second bit of characterization of Griffith here that is remarkable is the titular I want wings line but you must fully understand the build-up to this moment to understand why it works so well in encapsulating why we hate Griffith so much Griffith now understanding the monumentality of this encounter forgoes his self importance and ask God what he wants from him thinking that either he now wants to serve something greater than himself or he's going to be forced to anyway so he might as well ask for orders but the idea of evil simply responds telling him to do as he will validating everything Griffith believes about himself Griffith confronted by God himself is told to make his own decisions and that whatever he wills God wills as well Griffith has always been extreme myself important in this moment here at his most vulnerable solidifies forever in his mind that he is the most important entity in existence and whatever he envisions is the right path basically this heightens Griffiths unbridled arrogance and now after learning the complexities of the undercurrent of the entire berserk universe learning the truth about humanity's collective consciousness and meeting God Himself who validates him entirely griffith concludes that if so he wants wins this is such a viscerally human response after learning the complexities of the universe and displays Griffiths aforementioned arrogance and it's absolutely captivating the juxtaposition here works so unbelievably well creating both disgust and understand something about this request is relatable while simultaneously making you so angry especially knowing what comes next this moment to me is only aptly described as incredibly Griffith there's something indescribably palpable about this moment and some of that credit must be given to the art the progressive materialization of Griffith throughout the scene is finalized here Griffith his whole again in his first line is I want wins the look of determination and assuredness here depicts what Griffith would become in the following chapters perfectly and I want to kill this man with every fiber of my being but it's so undeniably exhilarating from his perspective he just got the ultimate validation and now has the ultimate power to actualize anything it's this combination of frustration hate and magnificence that makes Griffith the Enigma that he is as well as the childishness that's always been a part of Griffith wanting to fly wanting wings is such an earthly childish desire and Griffith asks for it here when he could have asked for anything I want wings is the representation of why we hate Griffith in a single phrase and then the chapter ends as the newly formed femto rises from the abyss the formless Griffith had just sunk from ready to act as he wills but the third fantastic characterisation moment for Griffith in this chapter is the metatextual mindfuck that the idea of evil represents the ultimate irony of this scene is that Cantara Miura literally is the real-life equivalent of the idea of evil in the story the idea of evil controls destiny but in a more literal sense can towering Miura controls the destiny of the world of he writes the series he controls the idea of evil so much so that he cut him from Canon earlier in the Eclipse there's a weird moment where Miura leans on the fourth wall with Gaston right before Gaston is killed in quite a brutal way he explains to guts that he was only a minor character in a grand and narrative mirror in quick succession makes two appeals to the fourth wall and I think this might be the most interesting read of this scene this chapter is Griffith effectively talking to his own author and his own author validates it it's an even more incredible moment when you think about it that way there's just so much going on here this chapter is so much to add to the laura berserk and griffith as a character and it's a monumental shame to me that Miura had second thoughts about including this chapter in his canon but it exists and the author is dead so I enjoy chapter 83 of berserk and treated his canon regardless what my work on patreon follow me on Twitter check out the twitch channel come argue with me there subscribe for more berserk content and leave a comment about anything I said in the video support links at the description below thanks

Channel: Kyle Entertainment

Views: 905,737

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Id: QFXfLP4tl4Q

Length: 12min 9sec (729 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 13 2020