What Happens
The Golden Age, Chapters 7-8
Guts successfully delays the enemy cavalry, his one brush with death averted by the timely return of Griffith, Pippin, and Judeau. Together they lead the enemy into the teeth of waiting cannons, forcing them to retreat. As Hawks celebrate their victory Guts is dragged from his attempted solitude and hailed by the men as one of them.
The next morning, Guts is summoned to see Griffith, and he finds him by the castle well, still naked after his morning bath. He douses Guts, which sparks a water fight. Afterwards, Guts notices Griffith is wearing a strange necklace, which the latter says he bought from a gypsy fortune teller, calling it the Behelit, and to Guts’s surprise, it seems to be alive. Griffith explains that according to legend the Behelit can offer its bearer the world in exchange for his flesh and blood. He then reveals to Guts his personal ambition – to someday have a kingdom of his own. Guts doubts the feasibility of it, but is struck by the strength of Griffith’s vision compared to his own aimlessness.
Three years have passed, and Guts is now captain of the Raiders, the Hawks’ shock troops. The Band is employed by the kingdom of Midland, which has been fighting its rival, the kingdom of Chuder, for a hundred years.
A devastating charge by Chuder’s Black Ram Iron Lance Heavy Cavalry throws the Midland lines into disarray, and all seems lost. Then a single rider, Guts, charges into their ranks, breaking up their formation and leaving them vulnerable to a flanking attack by the Hawks. They are promptly routed, and afterwards everyone celebrates their victory, but Casca chews out Guts for disobeying orders and charging the enemy alone. When she calls him a mad dog the fight threatens to escalate until Griffith intervenes. Guts insists that he does care about his men, that he’s different from before, but Griffith says even Guts’s recklessness is part of his overall plan.
In recognition of his recent exploits, Griffith is both knighted and ennobled, gaining the rank of Viscount. The Hawks love it, the nobles hate it. And Guts isn’t at the ceremony; he’s too busy doing sword exercises.
Nosferatu Zodd, Chapters 1-4
The Hawks besiege a Chuder stronghold, but apparently a single man is holding up the advance to the inner keep. Judeau and Rickert are reminded of the rumours that a particular man had been hired by Chuder before the siege. A man who’s killed hundreds, maybe even thousands, on the battlefield, re-emerged after numerous rumours of his death for over a hundred years, and hailed by some as a god of war, the legendary swordsman Nosferatu Zodd.
In the fortress, Guts is angered by the Raiders’ reluctance to move inside. Fifty men had been sent in earlier, and not one has emerged in over an hour. When one staggers out and dies half torn apart at Guts’s feet, he storms inside and finds a giant, naked man who’s ripped armoured men apart as if they were rag dolls. His swordsmanship proves to be truly inhuman, but Guts still manages not only to break his sword but drive his own deep into Zodd’s wrist. Far from angry, Zodd is thrilled, claiming that Guts is the first human to meaningfully wound him in over three hundred years.
Excited at finally facing a challenge, Zodd transforms into a towering creature of fur and horns, a horrified Guts refusing to believe such a thing could exist. Only the timely arrival of Griffith with reinforcements saves Guts’s life, but Zodd is furious at the interruption and proceeds to tear the soldiers apart, forcing Griffith to order them back while he goes to aid Guts. The two attack Zodd together, and Griffith manages to sever his arm. He still proves to be more than a match for the pair, and capable of reattaching his arm, but he stops short of killing Griffith after seeing the Behelit around his neck. He breaks a hole in the ceiling and sprouts a pair of wings, but before he departs he gives Guts what he claims is a prophecy. When Griffith’s ambition collapses, if he is truly his friend Guts will be faced with a death he cannot escape…
Master of the Sword, Chapter 1
Griffith and Guts are recuperating from their injuries in the royal castle of Windham. The Chuder stronghold was captured, but no one believes the stories of a demon appearing during the battle. Because of his continued successes on the battlefield, Griffith finds himself courting the attention of court and church officials eager to be associated with the rising commander. The Hawks start to worry that he’s drifting apart from them, and Casca is still mad at Guts. This time she blames him for Griffith’s injuries in the fight with Zodd. After Griffith is let out of the hospital he and Guts have a conversation alone. Griffith argues that Zodd’s appearance proves there are greater powers in the world, gods and devils, and wonders whether the two aren’t really the same thing. Guts asks him why he keeps saving his life, but Griffith insists there is no reason and he doesn’t need one.
Commentary
Things seem to be going well for Guts. After years of being treated like dirt by his foster father, followed by half a decade of aimlessly throwing himself into battle after battle just to feel alive, he’s finally found a place for himself. He has friends, is a leader respected by his men, and serves a commander who values him highly. Sure, maybe a little more than usual sometimes, but he recently proved he’s willing to risk his life for Guts, and I don’t think the latter failed to appreciate it. Wait, “a death [he] can never escape”? What could that possibly mean?
Guts has had his first chronological encounter with an Apostle (I think the clues speak for themselves) and been forced to realize that something greater than he imagined is going on behind the scenes. Worse, he now has reason to doubt his own fate, and Griffith’s, just when things had begun to look up. The whole thing has shaken him, and cast even Griffith’s constantly saving him into a darker light – he has, after all, continually avoided explaining why he does it. No matter how much he might insist it’s because Guts is such a valuable soldier, the latter has a point when he insists that can’t justify going to the extent Griffith does. It’s too much of a short-sighted risk for someone so forward-looking. Guts obviously suspects that Griffith has something in particular in mind for him – the latter indirectly said as much by saying he values Guts’s recklessness. There’s nothing to explicitly connect this with Zodd’s prophecy per se, but since Guts has been told it’s dangerous to be Griffith’s friend it’s hard for him not to wonder whether Griffith’s plans are darker than he previously thought.
But coming face-to-face with the supernatural isn’t the only problem he has. His behaviour hasn’t changed, even if his motivations have. Whereas earlier he only thought about himself, and his need to put himself in danger to feel alive, now he’s doing the same thing out of a concern for others. His insistence on charging the Black Ram Knights alone, and storming into the keep to face Zodd by himself, both point to a concern for his men, and an unwillingness to risk their lives any more than necessary. After all, he has friends now, and people who depend on him. That’s something he finds too valuable to lose, and his assertion that “I do think about my comrades” is genuine. It’s just not in the way Casca would like him to.
And she has a point. He’s part of something bigger than himself now, and that means taking into account more than how many men he can save by going it alone. After all, don’t forget that he was almost killed the last time he faced so many by himself. He could just as easily have been killed straightaway and tipped off the Black Ram Knights to the Hawks’ presence instead of stalling them long enough to be caught off-guard. At worst, it could have turned the manoeuvre into a prolonged melee instead of a rout, which would have proved more costly for the Hawks. Sure, the readers know he’ll live on to fight much worse than knights with a silly unit name, but the characters don’t and can’t, so in-context it still comes off as reckless.
Griffith, meanwhile, seems to be proving himself capable of living up to his ambition. He’s getting noticed, not only by officials, but the King himself. Even if a full-fledged kingdom is impossible he’s still on track to securing a high position within Midland, a feat only marginally less impressive for someone of humble origins. It isn’t without cost, of course. Many other nobles resent it, and the Hawks are worried that he has less time for them now. Between that and Zodd’s warning, the others are starting to realize that Griffith’s dreams may have a price.
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