Berserk Essay

[Rolos]

Is it just me or this forum is deader than a roadside badger? Was Berserk the only thing keeping it together? That's to sad...NOT!
It's actually just another proof of the awesomeness of berserk. Kinda like communism, only without the historical determinism. Wait, does causality count as determinism?
Yeah, I think it does. Then I guess berserk IS like communism.
Quick, let's find a backwards, undeveloped country with shitloads of natural and human resources and take it over!
Itsvan can be Trotsky, Eldo Lenin and Buzkashi Stalin!
I call dibs on a Beria-like role!
mmm...what was this thread about again?
Ah, right!
A friend of mine is writing a very interesting essay about berserk. I am writing one too, but while mine is in its preconception (you may call it masturbatory) stages, he already has a fetus on the oven.
Here are some of the themes he's gonna address:

Main points:
1) Human will as the only output of freedom against fate.
i) Declaration of war.
ii) The lower you are, the more conscious you are of the workings of the world, because you are aware of its fundamentals (remember the dassain of Heidegger)
iii) Feelings of defeat and powerlessness of the King (the hobbesian leviathan)
iv) Alienation through religion distances man not only from outer, but also inner reality, as seen in the incapability of those who faithfully follow the tenets of the pseudochristianity we see in berserk to perceive creatures from the world of thought, such as elves.
v) Struggle is shown as a form of escapism until the moment it becomes violence, the forceful pursuit of goals and ends, when it becomes something valuable and somehow “respectable”, even though the acts performed are exactly the same
vi) Griffith ruthless pursuit of power as an inversion of gutts’s own; he always exercises violence, and only when he struggles he makes mistakes. This eventually forces him to seek the aid of an external power.

2) Base Desire (as seen in the apostles).
i) Apostles represent the dark side of humanity, specifically the weakness against carnal desire (save a few exceptions).
ii) Human flesh as a representation of the direct supremacy of apostles over men.
iii) Fear of death
iv) Behelit as the easy way out.
v) Gutts represents the thirst for vengeance, but he manages to control himself once he acknowledges others as his equals. This is extremely ambiguous because it is constantly implied that he cannot defeat griffith until he throws everything but revenge away. ------- Only sincere love redeems humanity. Love = redemption Freedom= will.

3) The search for a meaning in misfortune instead of happiness seals the destiny of man.
i) Humans rarely question good, only evil causes them to inquire about its causes. This is because in good they see the fruit of their own efforts, while in evil they see the workings of an external force. The idea of evil is a representation of this desire, it chains humans to evil, the more the seek consolation, the more miserable their lives are. They don’t struggle, they beg.
b) Good and evil are not clearly defined. They are shown as subjectively interchangeable according to context. They are, however, clearly differentiated in absolute reality. Evil is inherent to the world, while good is a projection a human will, a struggling presence . You could say that in reality only evil exists, good belongs only to humans, and is relative to them.
c) The only clearly distinguishable moral lesson of berserk is that to struggle against adversity is always painful, but necessary. Only focusing on the route however, will cause a deviation, which is why we must have an ideal or a person to support us. This something we must sincerely accept, otherwise we can confuse it for a mean, when It is actually an end.

As it should be fairly obvious, most of them are halfcooked ideas, but, as in a fetus, they hold great potential. Not enough for me to respect them though, (as, once again, with fetuses) I'll plagiarize (clone) the shit out of some of them, and then refine (experiment with) them until I've got pure literary (and genetic) awesomeness.
Please, feel free to do so as well.

Edition edict: Oh, EG, how I love thee! In what other online community would people have pointed out such an insignificantly unimportant spelling error that quickly?

[Istvan]

Hmm. That essay sounds like it could be really awesome (depending on how those points are developed/defended). Will you post it when your friend is done writing it? I'd be interested in seeing the final product.

P.S. I think you spelled my name wrong. At least, I presume that you meant Istvan, rather than Itvan

[dialdfordesi]

Hey I like the outline a lot. I feel that your pal should discuss the significance of the sacrifice. What changes in a person that makes them no longer human? Simply succumbing to the dark nature of man would not make one a demon, as not every bad person in the manga is an apostle. I can't wait to read the analysis of Berserk!

[4v4l0n42]

I am very interested in reading a well structured essay about Berserk. How's your project going?

I've googled quite a bit, but I wasn't able to find any proper essay around. I found the berserk wiki on wikia, the skullkinght encyclopedia, various FAQs, but I couldn't find any real essay, nor a book.

Does anybody have any link as suggested reading?

[Superboi]

Does anybody have any link as suggested reading?

here's a start.
http://www.mangareader.net/96-1121-6/be ... ter-1.html

[4v4l0n42]

Does anybody have any link as suggested reading?

here's a start.
http://www.mangareader.net/96-1121-6/be ... ter-1.html

I started re-reading it for the third time these days. It gets better every time.

Any essay-like link? Is is possible that after almost 20 years no fan/author has ever written anything substantial?

[JEEgutierrez]

I am very interested in reading a well structured essay about Berserk. How's your project going?

I've googled quite a bit, but I wasn't able to find any proper essay around. I found the berserk wiki on wikia, the skullkinght encyclopedia, various FAQs, but I couldn't find any real essay, nor a book.

Does anybody have any link as suggested reading?

I'm the author of this "essay", but and im sorry to tell you... I'm just like miura, Rolos can talk for hours about my inherent laziness.
If you want (and if you read Spanish) you can read my essay on the two worlds of berserk: http://meditacionesnoeuclidianas.blogsp ... undos.html

[Istvan]

I am very interested in reading a well structured essay about Berserk. How's your project going?

I've googled quite a bit, but I wasn't able to find any proper essay around. I found the berserk wiki on wikia, the skullkinght encyclopedia, various FAQs, but I couldn't find any real essay, nor a book.

Does anybody have any link as suggested reading?

I'm the author of this "essay", but and im sorry to tell you... I'm just like miura, Rolos can talk for hours about my inherent laziness.
If you want (and if you read Spanish) you can read my essay on the two worlds of berserk: http://meditacionesnoeuclidianas.blogsp ... undos.html

Sadly, no. I don't know nearly enough Spanish to read something like that. Too bad, since the essay sounds like it could be interesting, and I'd like to see how you develop the various points.

[Rolos]

I'm the author of this "essay", but and im sorry to tell you... I'm just like miura, Rolos can talk for hours about my inherent laziness.

Hours? You insult my creativity.
I've never known of a subject most likely to induce verbal diarrhea in everyone who knows you, you lazy fuck.

Oh, and guys, this is JEE. If you think I have a tendency to rant excessively over barely coherent peudo-philosophic matters of little or no importance, you are in for an unpleasant surprise when reading his posts.
A little piece of advice: don't use the word "will" too much in front of him, or he'll have Schopenhauergasm right in front of you. Disturbing doesn't even being to describe it.

P.S. I can translate his mini-essay on duality if anyone wants to read it.

[DrPepperPro]

Will's will will will wills.

I... I just kept removing more words, what have I created?

edit:

[War Machine]

I seriously hope this is just a small, early draft because it is severely underwhelming. Maybe it's because Rolos is building a lot of hype, but the problem is not lexical prowess or sentence structure (though several grammatical mistakes can be pointed out), but that the only idea to point out, that in Berserk the human realm existed before the spiritual realm, is a tame subject (considering most Berserk readers would agree with you and there's little evidence of it) and the conclusion it arrives to is based on two wrong assumptions.

The first proof he used is the sentence Ubik says to Griffith during the Eclipse where he says that the illusion Griffith had of himself as a child striving to reach his kingdom was actually the "reality of [his] conscious world". This does not necessarily mean that reality is perception and mind, it can still imply that that specific illusion was a mere summary of the true nature of Griffith's actions and desires according to the God Hand. But even if it did only mean that reality is only perception and that dreams are consequently real by the same idea, how does that show any proof that the spiritual realm came after the human realm? What we do know is that the God that the God Hand pays tribute to is "born of man" (Void's own words, Vol.12, pg.133) and that all members of the God Hand used the Behelit to become what they are now (no mention that they used to be humans, but considering Behelits have only appeared as portals from the human to the spiritual realms, I don't think it's wrong to assume that), notice that this does not mean the spiritual realm itself is born of man, only that the self-proclaimed God is.

The second proof hinges entirely on the Lost Chapter, which is wrong from the start. Miura pulled that chapter out of the saga, and he may very well modify or delete it entirely, so you can't use anything in it as proof for anything in Berserk. It's like basing your research on a document that disappeared and no one else can ever find. The chapter is available to read, that's true, but Miura took it out of the storyline. If the Berserk universe was actually our universe, it'd be as if the events in that chapter never happened.

That's pretty much the entirety of this mini essay. I agree with the conclusion, but the premises aren't valid. I really hope what's to come is much more ambitious and well thought out than this.

[Rolos]

*Sniff*
I fucking love this community.

[JEEgutierrez]

You have a very good point there war machine, I'm going to re-read the saga and re do my essay; but now I'm stuck with a commentary of the spinozism of the Jena period of Hegel, but after that Berserk will be my first priority.

[Rolos]

I think my words speak for themselves.

As for the problem of duality in Berserk, I think this single frame says more than anything we could ever write (lie):



Draw your own conclusions.