Berserk Analysis - Tumblr Posts
A The Owl House and Berserk Comparison
I know that the Day of Unity could be inspired by the Promised Day from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood but but given that Dana likes horror and Berserk is full of that plus she draws creatures that are very reminiscent of the apostles that appear in Berserk I wouldn't be surprised if Day of Unity was also inspired by the Eclipse that occurs in Berserk during the Golden Age for the following reasons:
Both events occur in an Eclipse:
In both rituals is emphasized a giant hand:
Both events require sacrifices that have a special mark for said sacrifices to work (brand of sacrifice from Berserk and coven sigils from The Owl House):
Both events are to benefit unknown entities who might be considered indifferent to the suffering of others at best case or they like to make others suffer at worst (Godhand members and The Collector):
To summon and/or interact with both entities a special item is needed (Crimson Behelit to summon Godhand and the strange disk aka "The Round Boy" to summon The Collector):
Both events are caused by unstable people (Griffith and Phillip) who, being at their lowest point and feeling betrayed, are guided by their feelings of anger, jealousy and revenge, which brings out the worst in them also they are both driven by desperately achieving a dream they've had since childhood (Griffith's dream was to rule his own country as king and Phillip's dream was to be a witch hunter) and the other Godhand members and The Collector encourage them to make the sacrifice:
Realizing this about two of my favorite series made me excited for what was to come but also made me fear the worst for the owl house family.
A The Owl House and Berserk Comparison
I know that the Day of Unity could be inspired by the Promised Day from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood but but given that Dana likes horror and Berserk is full of that plus she draws creatures that are very reminiscent of the apostles that appear in Berserk I wouldn't be surprised if Day of Unity was also inspired by the Eclipse that occurs in Berserk during the Golden Age for the following reasons:
Both events occur in an Eclipse:
In both rituals is emphasized a giant hand:
Both events require sacrifices that have a special mark for said sacrifices to work (brand of sacrifice from Berserk and coven sigils from The Owl House):
Both events are to benefit unknown entities who might be considered indifferent to the suffering of others at best case or they like to make others suffer at worst (Godhand members and The Collector):
To summon and/or interact with both entities a special item is needed (Crimson Behelit to summon Godhand and the strange disk aka "The Round Boy" to summon The Collector):
Both events are caused by unstable people (Griffith and Phillip) who, being at their lowest point and feeling betrayed, are guided by their feelings of anger, jealousy and revenge, which brings out the worst in them also they are both driven by desperately achieving a dream they've had since childhood (Griffith's dream was to rule his own country as king and Phillip's dream was to be a witch hunter) and the other Godhand members and The Collector encourage them to make the sacrifice:
Realizing this about two of my favorite series made me excited for what was to come but also made me fear the worst for the owl house family.
I've been thinking about what would have happened if Luz had been found first by Belos before Eda and I couldn't help but remember Sonia and Griffith from Berserk.
Luz and Sonia were born with a condition that made them different from other normal people which makes them both think and see things differently from others (Luz has ADHD since birth and Sonia is a birth medium) to the point that they felt they didn't fit in anywhere and that neither did their parents nor did anyone understand them or take what they said seriously:
Luz felt her mother Camila does not understand her because of her strangeness and her way of seeing things due to her ADHD and that the only person who supported her tastes in fantasy, her father Manny who gave her the Good Witch Azura books as a way to support her tastes, is no longer there. It is implied that her classmates bullied her for her love for fantasy and for her ADHD and it is even implied that Luz confessed to someone but that person rejected her for being weird and corny.
Sonia lost her parents due to the Kushan invasion but that gives to understand with some dialogues that she has with Schierke and Irvine, Sonia felt lonely to the point that it can be interpreted that she thought that her parents didn't understand her and saw her as a freak and from the way in which we were introduced to Sonia where other women dismiss her visions as the product of madness from seeing their parents burned to death, it is implied that because of her powers as a medium the other people in her home village believed that she was insane.
This is even seen by the fact that they both feel more comfortable being and talking with monsters or strange beings (Luz with Eda, King and hexsquad and Sonia with Griffith, Irvine, Schierke and the new Band of the Hawk in general) than with normal people:
Sonia is always agressive towards Mule and Charlotte and the human soldiers as if she was hurt in the past by other normal humans so she always has distrust towards other humans and would rather hurt them than let them hurt her first.
Luz was terrified that Vee would talk to other humans and even gave her advice on how to run away from them to avoid being humiliated, as if Luz herself had bad experiences with other humans and would rather run away from other humans than be hurt by them.
Luz and Sonia had to take the conditions with which they were born as something that makes them special as if they were the chosen one as a defense mechanism to face their loneliness and their fear of being seen as freaks and being rejected because of that, and they can even become stubborn and hurtful with others.
Luz and Sonia know what it's like to be alone that they even become friends with two witches (Willow and Schierke) who share similar problems to them:
Willow is a witch who is not good with abominations which causes other classmates to bully her just as it happened to Luz in the Human Realm.
Schierke is a witch that have magic powers what cause her to have conflicts with humans because of it just as it happened to Sonia with the other inhabitants of her home village.
Luz and Sonia were naive and had a great feeling of loneliness to the point that they cling to the first people who treat them well or with respect (Eda and Griffith) because they don't downplay or demonize them as girls with delusions of grandeur or as insane girls but they accept them for who they are, take them and their feelings seriously, and give them a place of belonging.
Luz and Sonia have a strong desire to be understood by others that leads them to believe that they understand those that they accepted them due to the fact that they are special and/or weird like them.
However, the key difference is that Eda doesn't respect Luz at the beginning but when Luz is in danger she doesn't hesitate to go to help her but the most important thing is that Eda teaches her that she cannot wait for others to give her value through a special destiny of chosen one but that she has to give her value to herself.
Eda: "Look, kid, everyone wants to believe they're "chosen". But if we all waited around for a prophecy to make us special, we'd die waiting. And that's why you need to choose yourself".
Furthermore, when Luz hurts others to fulfill her fantasies of being the chosen one, as happened with Willow and Amity, both of them call out Luz for hurting them, to which Luz listens and recognizes that she was wrong to project her fantasies on Amity and Willow and begin to understand them better and treat them and their feelings with respect.
But Sonia doesn't have an Eda nor does she have a Willow or an Amity, she instead has Griffith who instead of giving her the firm but caring reality check that Eda does with Luz or call her out and make her see that her projection as the chosen one is hurting others and that she has to learn to understand them and treat them with respect like Willow and Amity told Luz, Griffith really plays into and encourages her main character syndrome and makes her believe that she totally does have a destiny, this is fate, Hawk of the Light himself brought her to him at this time, so on and so forth.
And I'm pretty sure Belos would do to Luz what Griffith did to Sonia if he had the chance. I'm sure he'd love that opportunity, and he could easily play into her chosen one ideas and main character syndrome: Luz would be an honored guest of the Emperor, Belos would give her a nice suite of rooms in the castle, fed regular meals - no finicky experimenting with what cuisine makes her sick, here, the Emperor is well aware of the dietary needs of humans and his larders are stocked with all manner of things she can consume, she has access to his libraries, to all of the information she could ever want and the best tutors on magic, Belos would let Luz learn to use glyphs, he would manipulate her by telling her about the Savage Ages and how dangerous wild magic is and how he brought order to the witchkind. He'd want to form a very close and personal relationship with Luz and for her to trust him completely and for that he would allow her to do things that he would not allow anyone else like have her attending him in his workshop, spending time with him in his personal office, taking dinner with him in his chambers, listening to his stories, he would tell her that he is a human like her.
Luz and Sonia are unshakably happy, caring and naive girls who feel alone because they don't fit in anywhere and nobody wants to understand them. Luz found people who teach her that she cannot run away from reality to feel that they take her seriously because she would be more isolated but those same people understand her and love her for whom she is and they show it to her but Sonia doesn't have the same luck and she is with a monster that despite showing that he enjoys her company is also using her. It's quite scary to think that if Belos had found Luz first than Eda, Luz's situation would be the same as Sonia's and even Luz could behave in the same aggressive way as Sonia.
Gutsca and Emercury: Love, Self-Discovery and Healing
If there is something that I like and it caught my attention about Emerald and Mercury, it's that they are what I call the "shonen and younger" version of Guts and Casca because their personalities, circumstances and relationship are very similar and incredibly both couples are destined to achieve happiness through healing.
CASCA AND EMERALD - SEARCH OF LOVE AND AGENCY
If there is something that Emerald shares with Casca, apart from the fact that they are both dark-haired, it is the fact that both have been looking for love but at the same time society mistreats them to the point that both have hardened as a defense mechanism. The reason they are looked down upon so much by their societies is because Emerald and Casca are people who grew up poor.
Casca lived with her parents in a town that was constantly besieged by war and food shortages to the point that Casca's father sold her to a nobleman to feed fewer people in the home. Emerald grew up in poverty and if we go by the song I'm the One, she was abandoned and having no one's support she had to resort to robbery to survive only to find out one day while she was stealing and she was persecuted for that.
Both girls no longer have anywhere to run and are resigned to their fates until someone appears and offers to save them.
Griffith appears and saves Casca from being abused by the nobleman but he gives her his sword and tells Casca to defend herself which she does and Casca herself asks Griffith to accompany him as a mercenary and he accepts. Emerald is found by Cinder and she offers to support her and avoid being caught, to which Emerald responds with gratitude. Casca and Emerald feel indebted to Griffith and Cinder for giving them a place of belonging, but due to their personal traumas and mistreatment by society, they feel they have to constantly prove themselves to earn Griffith and Cinder's approval. to the point that externally they are harsh with others, for example when Guts and Mercury are recruited, Emerald and Casca disagree and reluctantly accept them but in a series of events in their search for love Casca and Emerald improve their relationship with them and ironically they get with Guts and Mercury what they have always wanted to get through Griffith and Cinder: to be loved by someone unconditionally.
It's Guts and Mercury that make her realize that they need to drop their dependency on Griffith and Cinder and have their own agency and they do it because they love and value them so much that when physically superior characters like Wyald and Tyrian threaten both women, Guts and Mercury do not hesitate to defend Casca and Emerald immediately. Guts respects Casca and values her fighting and leadership skills and Mercury shows concern for Emerald and they even joke between them.
Both women have a moment of closeness where they share their past with Guts and Mercury but while that happens both men tell Casca and Emerald what they need to hear:
Casca feels like she has to be strong all the time to not be looked down on for being a woman and now more, but at the same time she feels so insecure about herself for not fitting into feminine standards that when Guts sees her battle scars she is ashamed for this but Guts assures her that she is beautiful as she is and when they try to have sex Guts attacks her by remembering his past.
Emerald feels like she owes Cinder for supporting her and teaching her things and after Mercury tells Emerald that Cinder doesn't care about any of them, Emerald gets mad and tries to hit Mercury but he tells her the past about her while trying to attack her.
Curiously, both moments happen after an event where both women get so desperate about the disappearance of Griffith and Cinder that they almost die but Guts and Mercury save them. Griffith is imprisoned and the Hawks are hunted down by the king's orders and Casca, being Griffith's second in command, becomes the new leader of the band and is so tired that she tries to kill herself but is stopped by Guts and during the battle of Haven when Emerald sees that Cinder didn't come back, she gets desperate to the point that she uses her semblance to such a dangerous level that she ends up fainting because of it and Mercury tries to convince her to run away with him and Hazel but after she faints, Mercury along with Hazel they flee but do not leave Emerald behind.
And the most curious thing is that the scenes of closeness between Gutsca and Emercury happens when Griffith and Cinder are not there and what makes them have that moment of closeness that how both couples feel with respect to Griffith and Cinder but due to the environment in which Gutsca and Emercury find themselves both scenarios play out differently. Guts and Casca, being in a healthy environment, manage to reaffirm their feelings for each other and even set out to rescue Griffith, but Emerald and Mercury fail to reaffirm their feelings due to the dangerous environment in which they are and because they feel threatened by Tyrian and Salem and it doesn't even occur to them to go looking for Cinder for fear of retaliation Salem might take against them.
Another thing that Emerald and Casca share is their lack of agency and how they link love with being useful to others. Both are strong but everything they do is for someone else:
Casca wants to be with Griffith but since she knows that he will go with Princess Charlotte, Casca settles for being his sword.
Emerald does everything Cinder tells her to the point that she claims not to care about Salem but goes through with the plan just for Cinder's sake.
The desire to be useful to others that Casca and Emerald have come from the facts that they were abandoned in the past and that they both do not fit into the standards of their societies: Casca is a female mercenary, something very rare in society in the one who lives and Emerald is a poor girl who resorts to stealing to survive, so they must constantly prove their worth because deep down they are afraid that they will be abandoned again.
Something curious is that both have a connection with a minor who are catalysts for both women to face their abusers. Emerald along with Hazel and JJR save Oscar and free him so Casca could be important for the release of Moonlight Boy. However, after saving the minor, both lose the point and do not face their abusers, Emerald flees with Oscar and his team but ignores Cinder, the same could happen with Casca but she doesn't confront Griffith.
Thematically, the narrative of both stories shows with this that Casca and Emerald do not face their abusers because they should not confront their abusers alone and that they will only confront them with Guts and Mercury by their side since both men were also abused by Griffith and Cinder (and later,in Emercury's case, by Salem and Tyrian).
Later in the story, Casca and Emerald get trapped in places they don't want to be together with their abusers.
As I said before, Griffith takes Casca to Falconia and Emerald stays in Monstra with Cinder and Salem. However, once Hazel learns the truth about Salem helping Emerald and Oscar escape and she joins the latter's team and escapes with them, the story hints that Emerald must reunite with Mercury and make him face his pain, confront Tyrian together and then both go to confront Cinder and finally help stop Salem. Similarly, Casca tries to escape from Falconia and fails but the story hints that Casca might have possible allies to help her escape so she can reunite with Guts to make Guts deal with his trauma properly so that they both ultimately confront Griffith.
GUTS AND MERCURY - ABUSE AND HEALING
Guts and Mercury show us as mocking people who are not afraid of anything and do bad things without caring what happens to others and even gloat over their cruelty but the more we are shown about them it is revealed that that attitude is just a facade to hide their pain for their traumas, their lack of self-esteem and avoid being hurt. They even dress in dark clothes in an attempt to emphasize the facade they are desperately trying to maintain.
Both were raised by a violent father figure and sought his approval but were betrayed by said figures:
Guts was desperate for Gambino's approval but he sells him out to Donovan who abuses Guts and then Gambino tries to kill him because he blames him for the death of his wife Shisu and Guts ends up killing him in self defense and is forced to flee.
Marcus Black was also a mercenary and just like Gambino he raised Mercury to be a mercenary and was quite violent with him to the point that he took his semblance from him and promised him that if he became stronger he would return it to him but he never did and Mercury ended up killing Marcus.
Although Guts and Mercury killed their respective abusive father figures, the truth is that psychologically they are still trapped with them since Guts and Mercury are still mercenaries because it is the only thing they are good at and they have never learned to do anything other than have such low self-esteem that they have nothing to hope for other than surviving one more day, all of the above is even seen in the fact that when they have free time, Guts and Mercury don't enjoy doing other things but just spend their free time training their combat skills. Both are so caught up in their father figures that when they both do something, the first thing they do is remember Gambino and Marcus.
Guts: "Where am I going? I still don’t have the answer to that, Gambino."
Mercury: "My dad always said... if you need to know a city, ask the rats."
Later, both are recruited by Griffith and Cinder who are interested in Guts and Mercury because of their combat capabilities. Griffith takes an interest in Guts after seeing him fight Bazuso and his lack of care for himself and Cinder wanted to recruit Marcus but seeing that Mercury was the only one there she recruits him hoping he will be good at fighting like Marcus was before he died.
The truth is that, as I mentioned earlier, Guts and Mercury's own lack of self-esteem is so great that they both do not realize that their actions emotionally affect those around them because both Guts and Mercury see themselves as disposable and replaceable, this can be seen when Guts and Mercury leave Griffith and Cinder in search of self-motivation and to be seen as their equals:
Guts wants to be worthy of being Griffith's friend and believes he must either get his own motivation or dream.
Mercury believes it is impossible to be Cinder's equal but obeys her and Salem sensing that it is his purpose.
All above causes Griffith and Cinder to be angry and sad (in Cinder's case) and despair (in Griffith's). Griffith becomes so visibly desperate that even he ends up having sex with Princess Charlotte to feel like he has control over something.
Cinder looks angry and then visibly sad when Mercury notifies her that he no longer works for her because Salem told him promoted to an official member of her Inner Circle.
Or when both in that same decision end up having to leave Casca and Emerald behind.
But what they both don't realize is that they have always had their motivation in front of their eyes the whole time and it isn't until later that they realize about that:
Speaking of Casca and Emerald, both women function as the heart of Guts and Mercury as they are the only ones with whom they have shared their past traumas. Before Guts and Casca have sex after the waterfall kiss scene, she shares her trauma with Guts and after their first attempt at sex fails because Guts remembers his childhood trauma, Casca understands and doesn't judge him for it and Guts listened to her.
During their stay at Salem Castle, Emerald first asks Mercury why he joined Cinder and he tells her that he did it because it made sense to him as a mercenary to which Emerald shares his past of her with Cinder to Mercury along the way. He assures her that Cinder doesn't care about either of them, which angers Emerald and starts a fight in which Mercury tells Emerald about his past de ella only for Tyrian to appear and scenes much later Emerald looks for Mercury to apologize with him but he doesn't listen to her because he is visibly scared to see how Salem creates grimm.
The thing here is that Guts's departure occurs before that and Mercury's departure occurs after which makes both scenarios have the opposite effect: with Guts and Casca it works because long after Guts's departure they are in a healthy environment where they are free to express themselves without fear of others hurting them, with Emerald and Mercury it fails because the environment they are both in is toxic and they have people who use that vulnerability to harm them as happens in that same scene with Tyrian or as Salem constantly scares them and two seasons later Mercury separates from Emerald fearing what Salem might do if he doesn't obey her. Even Tyrian acts as the opposite of Judeau since both characters appear after this scene, they encourage both couples to leave and are honest about it.
Judeau: "You should take Casca with you this time."
Tyrian: "Do what makes you happy, children... please? I'm begging you..."
But while Judeau appeared a lot after the Guts and Casca scene and he told them that because he wants them to Guts and Casca (whom he had romantic feelings for) are happy, Tyrian shows up right away and he told them that with the intention of them leaving so he can kill them.
Later, Mercury's departure to Vacuo occurs and it can be compared to Guts' departure when he left Casca in Godo's cave after the Eclipse, since both departures symbolize how Mercury and Guts are fleeing from a truth that they do not want to face for fear of the pain. Emerald tells Mercury what Salem is really up to but Mercury refuses to even believe her and when Tyrian confirms the truth, Mercury simply resigns himself and goes with Tyrian to Vacuo and Guts prefers to seek revenge against Griffith so he doesn't have to face the pain of losing the Hawks and the pain of how Casca was left after the Eclipse.
It's not until Godo makes Guts realize that what he had to do was stay with Casca, cry to get it off his chest and process his grief like Rickert did but instead he chose the easy path of violence that the only thing It did was worsen his trauma to such an extent that the Beast of Darkness was born as a result.
Basically Guts chose to run away from the pain instead of facing it (which ironically made him the same as Griffith) and because of it his trauma worsened to the point that he attacks Casca and she fears him for it but thanks to Guts remembering the words of Godo, he realizes his mistake and decides to find a cure for Casca and learns to trust others and accept their help, which causes him to embark on a self-healing journey but has a relapse after Casca's kidnapping by which plunges into darkness again but later Guts will realize that it is more important to get back to Casca and that he should not go on a killing spree like he did during his time as the Black Swordsman and in turn, Guts will have He has to face his traumas, accept the emotional help that others give him and the reality that he is hurt by the loss of the Hawks from which he flees through violence.
Mercury, like Guts, has always been running from pain by choosing to be violent and hide his pain by making himself and others believe that he is the tough and strong type to the point that he chooses to serve Salem at the cost of leaving. back to Emerald but in the Vacuo arc, Mercury, like Guts, will realize that he needs to return to Emerald, accept that it is okay to trust others and that he must face the reality about Salem and his own past traumas.
Gutsca and Emercury are relationships where both are hurt but are learning to heal, to raise their self esteem through the reciprocal love and feedback they have when they are in a healthy environment and both relationships are meant to heal with healthy support systems for continue healing until they are complete individuals and achieve happiness and in turn that healing love will be key to saving their respective worlds.
I've been thinking about what would have happened if Luz had been found first by Belos before Eda and I couldn't help but remember Sonia and Griffith from Berserk.
Luz and Sonia were born with a condition that made them different from other normal people which makes them both think and see things differently from others (Luz has ADHD since birth and Sonia is a birth medium) to the point that they felt they didn't fit in anywhere and that neither did their parents nor did anyone understand them or take what they said seriously:
Luz felt her mother Camila does not understand her because of her strangeness and her way of seeing things due to her ADHD and that the only person who supported her tastes in fantasy, her father Manny who gave her the Good Witch Azura books as a way to support her tastes, is no longer there. It is implied that her classmates bullied her for her love for fantasy and for her ADHD and it is even implied that Luz confessed to someone but that person rejected her for being weird and corny.
Sonia lost her parents due to the Kushan invasion but that gives to understand with some dialogues that she has with Schierke and Irvine, Sonia felt lonely to the point that it can be interpreted that she thought that her parents didn't understand her and saw her as a freak and from the way in which we were introduced to Sonia where other women dismiss her visions as the product of madness from seeing their parents burned to death, it is implied that because of her powers as a medium the other people in her home village believed that she was insane.
This is even seen by the fact that they both feel more comfortable being and talking with monsters or strange beings (Luz with Eda, King and hexsquad and Sonia with Griffith, Irvine, Schierke and the new Band of the Hawk in general) than with normal people:
Sonia is always agressive towards Mule and Charlotte and the human soldiers as if she was hurt in the past by other normal humans so she always has distrust towards other humans and would rather hurt them than let them hurt her first.
Luz was terrified that Vee would talk to other humans and even gave her advice on how to run away from them to avoid being humiliated, as if Luz herself had bad experiences with other humans and would rather run away from other humans than be hurt by them.
Luz and Sonia had to take the conditions with which they were born as something that makes them special as if they were the chosen one as a defense mechanism to face their loneliness and their fear of being seen as freaks and being rejected because of that, and they can even become stubborn and hurtful with others.
Luz and Sonia know what it's like to be alone that they even become friends with two witches (Willow and Schierke) who share similar problems to them:
Willow is a witch who is not good with abominations which causes other classmates to bully her just as it happened to Luz in the Human Realm.
Schierke is a witch that have magic powers what cause her to have conflicts with humans because of it just as it happened to Sonia with the other inhabitants of her home village.
Luz and Sonia were naive and had a great feeling of loneliness to the point that they cling to the first people who treat them well or with respect (Eda and Griffith) because they don't downplay or demonize them as girls with delusions of grandeur or as insane girls but they accept them for who they are, take them and their feelings seriously, and give them a place of belonging.
Luz and Sonia have a strong desire to be understood by others that leads them to believe that they understand those that they accepted them due to the fact that they are special and/or weird like them.
However, the key difference is that Eda doesn't respect Luz at the beginning but when Luz is in danger she doesn't hesitate to go to help her but the most important thing is that Eda teaches her that she cannot wait for others to give her value through a special destiny of chosen one but that she has to give her value to herself.
Eda: "Look, kid, everyone wants to believe they're "chosen". But if we all waited around for a prophecy to make us special, we'd die waiting. And that's why you need to choose yourself".
Furthermore, when Luz hurts others to fulfill her fantasies of being the chosen one, as happened with Willow and Amity, both of them call out Luz for hurting them, to which Luz listens and recognizes that she was wrong to project her fantasies on Amity and Willow and begin to understand them better and treat them and their feelings with respect.
But Sonia doesn't have an Eda nor does she have a Willow or an Amity, she instead has Griffith who instead of giving her the firm but caring reality check that Eda does with Luz or call her out and make her see that her projection as the chosen one is hurting others and that she has to learn to understand them and treat them with respect like Willow and Amity told Luz, Griffith really plays into and encourages her main character syndrome and makes her believe that she totally does have a destiny, this is fate, Hawk of the Light himself brought her to him at this time, so on and so forth.
And I'm pretty sure Belos would do to Luz what Griffith did to Sonia if he had the chance. I'm sure he'd love that opportunity, and he could easily play into her chosen one ideas and main character syndrome: Luz would be an honored guest of the Emperor, Belos would give her a nice suite of rooms in the castle, fed regular meals - no finicky experimenting with what cuisine makes her sick, here, the Emperor is well aware of the dietary needs of humans and his larders are stocked with all manner of things she can consume, she has access to his libraries, to all of the information she could ever want and the best tutors on magic, Belos would let Luz learn to use glyphs, he would manipulate her by telling her about the Savage Ages and how dangerous wild magic is and how he brought order to the witchkind. He'd want to form a very close and personal relationship with Luz and for her to trust him completely and for that he would allow her to do things that he would not allow anyone else like have her attending him in his workshop, spending time with him in his personal office, taking dinner with him in his chambers, listening to his stories, he would tell her that he is a human like her.
Luz and Sonia are unshakably happy, caring and naive girls who feel alone because they don't fit in anywhere and nobody wants to understand them. Luz found people who teach her that she cannot run away from reality to feel that they take her seriously because she would be more isolated but those same people understand her and love her for whom she is and they show it to her but Sonia doesn't have the same luck and she is with a monster that despite showing that he enjoys her company is also using her. It's quite scary to think that if Belos had found Luz first than Eda, Luz's situation would be the same as Sonia's and even Luz could behave in the same aggressive way as Sonia.
Gutsca and Emercury: Love, Self-Discovery and Healing
If there is something that I like and it caught my attention about Emerald and Mercury, it's that they are what I call the "shonen and younger" version of Guts and Casca because their personalities, circumstances and relationship are very similar and incredibly both couples are destined to achieve happiness through healing.
CASCA AND EMERALD - SEARCH OF LOVE AND AGENCY
If there is something that Emerald shares with Casca, apart from the fact that they are both dark-haired, it is the fact that both have been looking for love but at the same time society mistreats them to the point that both have hardened as a defense mechanism. The reason they are looked down upon so much by their societies is because Emerald and Casca are people who grew up poor.
Casca lived with her parents in a town that was constantly besieged by war and food shortages to the point that Casca's father sold her to a nobleman to feed fewer people in the home. Emerald grew up in poverty and if we go by the song I'm the One, she was abandoned and having no one's support she had to resort to robbery to survive only to find out one day while she was stealing and she was persecuted for that.
Both girls no longer have anywhere to run and are resigned to their fates until someone appears and offers to save them.
Griffith appears and saves Casca from being abused by the nobleman but he gives her his sword and tells Casca to defend herself which she does and Casca herself asks Griffith to accompany him as a mercenary and he accepts. Emerald is found by Cinder and she offers to support her and avoid being caught, to which Emerald responds with gratitude. Casca and Emerald feel indebted to Griffith and Cinder for giving them a place of belonging, but due to their personal traumas and mistreatment by society, they feel they have to constantly prove themselves to earn Griffith and Cinder's approval. to the point that externally they are harsh with others, for example when Guts and Mercury are recruited, Emerald and Casca disagree and reluctantly accept them but in a series of events in their search for love Casca and Emerald improve their relationship with them and ironically they get with Guts and Mercury what they have always wanted to get through Griffith and Cinder: to be loved by someone unconditionally.
It's Guts and Mercury that make her realize that they need to drop their dependency on Griffith and Cinder and have their own agency and they do it because they love and value them so much that when physically superior characters like Wyald and Tyrian threaten both women, Guts and Mercury do not hesitate to defend Casca and Emerald immediately. Guts respects Casca and values her fighting and leadership skills and Mercury shows concern for Emerald and they even joke between them.
Both women have a moment of closeness where they share their past with Guts and Mercury but while that happens both men tell Casca and Emerald what they need to hear:
Casca feels like she has to be strong all the time to not be looked down on for being a woman and now more, but at the same time she feels so insecure about herself for not fitting into feminine standards that when Guts sees her battle scars she is ashamed for this but Guts assures her that she is beautiful as she is and when they try to have sex Guts attacks her by remembering his past.
Emerald feels like she owes Cinder for supporting her and teaching her things and after Mercury tells Emerald that Cinder doesn't care about any of them, Emerald gets mad and tries to hit Mercury but he tells her the past about her while trying to attack her.
Curiously, both moments happen after an event where both women get so desperate about the disappearance of Griffith and Cinder that they almost die but Guts and Mercury save them. Griffith is imprisoned and the Hawks are hunted down by the king's orders and Casca, being Griffith's second in command, becomes the new leader of the band and is so tired that she tries to kill herself but is stopped by Guts and during the battle of Haven when Emerald sees that Cinder didn't come back, she gets desperate to the point that she uses her semblance to such a dangerous level that she ends up fainting because of it and Mercury tries to convince her to run away with him and Hazel but after she faints, Mercury along with Hazel they flee but do not leave Emerald behind.
And the most curious thing is that the scenes of closeness between Gutsca and Emercury happens when Griffith and Cinder are not there and what makes them have that moment of closeness that how both couples feel with respect to Griffith and Cinder but due to the environment in which Gutsca and Emercury find themselves both scenarios play out differently. Guts and Casca, being in a healthy environment, manage to reaffirm their feelings for each other and even set out to rescue Griffith, but Emerald and Mercury fail to reaffirm their feelings due to the dangerous environment in which they are and because they feel threatened by Tyrian and Salem and it doesn't even occur to them to go looking for Cinder for fear of retaliation Salem might take against them.
Another thing that Emerald and Casca share is their lack of agency and how they link love with being useful to others. Both are strong but everything they do is for someone else:
Casca wants to be with Griffith but since she knows that he will go with Princess Charlotte, Casca settles for being his sword.
Emerald does everything Cinder tells her to the point that she claims not to care about Salem but goes through with the plan just for Cinder's sake.
The desire to be useful to others that Casca and Emerald have come from the facts that they were abandoned in the past and that they both do not fit into the standards of their societies: Casca is a female mercenary, something very rare in society in the one who lives and Emerald is a poor girl who resorts to stealing to survive, so they must constantly prove their worth because deep down they are afraid that they will be abandoned again.
Something curious is that both have a connection with a minor who are catalysts for both women to face their abusers. Emerald along with Hazel and JJR save Oscar and free him so Casca could be important for the release of Moonlight Boy. However, after saving the minor, both lose the point and do not face their abusers, Emerald flees with Oscar and his team but ignores Cinder, the same could happen with Casca but she doesn't confront Griffith.
Thematically, the narrative of both stories shows with this that Casca and Emerald do not face their abusers because they should not confront their abusers alone and that they will only confront them with Guts and Mercury by their side since both men were also abused by Griffith and Cinder (and later,in Emercury's case, by Salem and Tyrian).
Later in the story, Casca and Emerald get trapped in places they don't want to be together with their abusers.
As I said before, Griffith takes Casca to Falconia and Emerald stays in Monstra with Cinder and Salem. However, once Hazel learns the truth about Salem helping Emerald and Oscar escape and she joins the latter's team and escapes with them, the story hints that Emerald must reunite with Mercury and make him face his pain, confront Tyrian together and then both go to confront Cinder and finally help stop Salem. Similarly, Casca tries to escape from Falconia and fails but the story hints that Casca might have possible allies to help her escape so she can reunite with Guts to make Guts deal with his trauma properly so that they both ultimately confront Griffith.
GUTS AND MERCURY - ABUSE AND HEALING
Guts and Mercury show us as mocking people who are not afraid of anything and do bad things without caring what happens to others and even gloat over their cruelty but the more we are shown about them it is revealed that that attitude is just a facade to hide their pain for their traumas, their lack of self-esteem and avoid being hurt. They even dress in dark clothes in an attempt to emphasize the facade they are desperately trying to maintain.
Both were raised by a violent father figure and sought his approval but were betrayed by said figures:
Guts was desperate for Gambino's approval but he sells him out to Donovan who abuses Guts and then Gambino tries to kill him because he blames him for the death of his wife Shisu and Guts ends up killing him in self defense and is forced to flee.
Marcus Black was also a mercenary and just like Gambino he raised Mercury to be a mercenary and was quite violent with him to the point that he took his semblance from him and promised him that if he became stronger he would return it to him but he never did and Mercury ended up killing Marcus.
Although Guts and Mercury killed their respective abusive father figures, the truth is that psychologically they are still trapped with them since Guts and Mercury are still mercenaries because it is the only thing they are good at and they have never learned to do anything other than have such low self-esteem that they have nothing to hope for other than surviving one more day, all of the above is even seen in the fact that when they have free time, Guts and Mercury don't enjoy doing other things but just spend their free time training their combat skills. Both are so caught up in their father figures that when they both do something, the first thing they do is remember Gambino and Marcus.
Guts: "Where am I going? I still don’t have the answer to that, Gambino."
Mercury: "My dad always said... if you need to know a city, ask the rats."
Later, both are recruited by Griffith and Cinder who are interested in Guts and Mercury because of their combat capabilities. Griffith takes an interest in Guts after seeing him fight Bazuso and his lack of care for himself and Cinder wanted to recruit Marcus but seeing that Mercury was the only one there she recruits him hoping he will be good at fighting like Marcus was before he died.
The truth is that, as I mentioned earlier, Guts and Mercury's own lack of self-esteem is so great that they both do not realize that their actions emotionally affect those around them because both Guts and Mercury see themselves as disposable and replaceable, this can be seen when Guts and Mercury leave Griffith and Cinder in search of self-motivation and to be seen as their equals:
Guts wants to be worthy of being Griffith's friend and believes he must either get his own motivation or dream.
Mercury believes it is impossible to be Cinder's equal but obeys her and Salem sensing that it is his purpose.
All above causes Griffith and Cinder to be angry and sad (in Cinder's case) and despair (in Griffith's). Griffith becomes so visibly desperate that even he ends up having sex with Princess Charlotte to feel like he has control over something.
Cinder looks angry and then visibly sad when Mercury notifies her that he no longer works for her because Salem told him promoted to an official member of her Inner Circle.
Or when both in that same decision end up having to leave Casca and Emerald behind.
But what they both don't realize is that they have always had their motivation in front of their eyes the whole time and it isn't until later that they realize about that:
Speaking of Casca and Emerald, both women function as the heart of Guts and Mercury as they are the only ones with whom they have shared their past traumas. Before Guts and Casca have sex after the waterfall kiss scene, she shares her trauma with Guts and after their first attempt at sex fails because Guts remembers his childhood trauma, Casca understands and doesn't judge him for it and Guts listened to her.
During their stay at Salem Castle, Emerald first asks Mercury why he joined Cinder and he tells her that he did it because it made sense to him as a mercenary to which Emerald shares his past of her with Cinder to Mercury along the way. He assures her that Cinder doesn't care about either of them, which angers Emerald and starts a fight in which Mercury tells Emerald about his past de ella only for Tyrian to appear and scenes much later Emerald looks for Mercury to apologize with him but he doesn't listen to her because he is visibly scared to see how Salem creates grimm.
The thing here is that Guts's departure occurs before that and Mercury's departure occurs after which makes both scenarios have the opposite effect: with Guts and Casca it works because long after Guts's departure they are in a healthy environment where they are free to express themselves without fear of others hurting them, with Emerald and Mercury it fails because the environment they are both in is toxic and they have people who use that vulnerability to harm them as happens in that same scene with Tyrian or as Salem constantly scares them and two seasons later Mercury separates from Emerald fearing what Salem might do if he doesn't obey her. Even Tyrian acts as the opposite of Judeau since both characters appear after this scene, they encourage both couples to leave and are honest about it.
Judeau: "You should take Casca with you this time."
Tyrian: "Do what makes you happy, children... please? I'm begging you..."
But while Judeau appeared a lot after the Guts and Casca scene and he told them that because he wants them to Guts and Casca (whom he had romantic feelings for) are happy, Tyrian shows up right away and he told them that with the intention of them leaving so he can kill them.
Later, Mercury's departure to Vacuo occurs and it can be compared to Guts' departure when he left Casca in Godo's cave after the Eclipse, since both departures symbolize how Mercury and Guts are fleeing from a truth that they do not want to face for fear of the pain. Emerald tells Mercury what Salem is really up to but Mercury refuses to even believe her and when Tyrian confirms the truth, Mercury simply resigns himself and goes with Tyrian to Vacuo and Guts prefers to seek revenge against Griffith so he doesn't have to face the pain of losing the Hawks and the pain of how Casca was left after the Eclipse.
It's not until Godo makes Guts realize that what he had to do was stay with Casca, cry to get it off his chest and process his grief like Rickert did but instead he chose the easy path of violence that the only thing It did was worsen his trauma to such an extent that the Beast of Darkness was born as a result.
Basically Guts chose to run away from the pain instead of facing it (which ironically made him the same as Griffith) and because of it his trauma worsened to the point that he attacks Casca and she fears him for it but thanks to Guts remembering the words of Godo, he realizes his mistake and decides to find a cure for Casca and learns to trust others and accept their help, which causes him to embark on a self-healing journey but has a relapse after Casca's kidnapping by which plunges into darkness again but later Guts will realize that it is more important to get back to Casca and that he should not go on a killing spree like he did during his time as the Black Swordsman and in turn, Guts will have He has to face his traumas, accept the emotional help that others give him and the reality that he is hurt by the loss of the Hawks from which he flees through violence.
Mercury, like Guts, has always been running from pain by choosing to be violent and hide his pain by making himself and others believe that he is the tough and strong type to the point that he chooses to serve Salem at the cost of leaving. back to Emerald but in the Vacuo arc, Mercury, like Guts, will realize that he needs to return to Emerald, accept that it is okay to trust others and that he must face the reality about Salem and his own past traumas.
Gutsca and Emercury are relationships where both are hurt but are learning to heal, to raise their self esteem through the reciprocal love and feedback they have when they are in a healthy environment and both relationships are meant to heal with healthy support systems for continue healing until they are complete individuals and achieve happiness and in turn that healing love will be key to saving their respective worlds.