What Happens
Sparks From a Sword Tip
For the past year, Guts has been living in the mountains with a man named Godo, who’s been a blacksmith all his life but has never questioned why he does it. However, seeing the sparks when he hammers iron makes him feel like he’s seeing his life before his eyes. Hearing this, Guts draws a parallel to what happens when he swings his sword in battle, and he realizes that’s truly the life for him.
Back in the present, Casca asks Guts is he’s back for good, but he isn’t – only long enough to rescue Griffith. She gets angry over that, complaining that he’s just like Griffith, thinking only of himself and his dream. Then he suggests she come with him when the rescue’s over.
Infiltrating Windham, Chapters 1-2
In his cell, Griffith remembers playing in the back alleys with the other children as a kid. It was during those days that he looked up at the castle on the nearby hill and first set sights on his goal. Now, in the darkness, his memories of Guts, the one person he has been unable to control, are the only thing sustaining him. He sees – a hallucination? – a window into another dimension, with four shadows looking on, and is told he will be with them soon.
The Hawks split into two groups, the wounded remaining behind while the rest go to rescue Griffith. Using a secret passage in a cemetery outside Windham, Guts, Casca, Judeau, and Pippin sneak into a mausoleum beneath the castle, where they meet their contact, none other than Princess Charlotte.
She takes them to the Tower of Rebirth, the oldest building in Windham, where Griffith is being held in the deepest underground cell. Judeau takes Casca aside and suggests Princess Charlotte would make an invaluable hostage. Casca is unhappy that he’d suggest that after she’s helped them in good faith, but Charlotte insists she’d come along willingly.
Festival’s Eve, Chapters 1-2
The others try to dissuade Charlotte, appealing to how much heartbreak it would cause the King, or how it would tarnish Griffith’s reputation beyond repair. But the Princess will not be dissuaded, and Casca finally relents, but only on the condition that Griffith agrees to it.
Back at the Hawks’ camp, Rickert goes to fetch water and suddenly spots an elf flying overhead. Following its trail he ends up back at camp, where everyone’s been killed or eaten by demons. Horrified, he is unable to move but is saved by the intervention of the Skull Knight.
Thousand-Year Fiefdom
Underneath the Tower of Rebirth is a pit that goes much deeper than the dungeon itself. What’s at the bottom is unknown, but according to Charlotte it dates back to the very founding of Midland.
A thousand years ago, in an age of feuding warlords, one man emerged to unite the continent into a single empire for the first and only time – Supreme King Gaiseric. His origins are unknown, but he was called by titles such as the Demon King not only for his ruthlessness, but also because he wore a helmet shaped like a skull. After his conquests he gathered workers from all over the empire to build his capital, which became an epicenter of decadence and corruption, and God in his wrath sent five angels (or was it four?) to destroy it. According to Charlotte its ruin are rumored to be at the bottom of the pit. Casca accidentally drops the torch and it falls out of sight. It lands at the bottom of the hole, amongst ancient ruins and withered corpses, who all have the Brand of Sacrifice on their foreheads…
Reunion in the Abyss
They find Griffith in the deepest cell of the tower, but he is barely recognizable. Over the past year he has become an emaciated husk, his skin peeled away in many places, with his tendons cut and his tongue removed. Everyone suddenly finds themselves locked in the cell by the jailer, who followed them down. He boasts that the door is too thick to be broken and taunts them with Griffith’s severed tongue. Enraged, Guts smashes through the door and impales the jailer on his sword. He cuts off the man’s own tongue with a knife and throws him into the pit, but soldiers on the stairs are pointing crossbows at them.
A Way Through
Shouting for the others to keep up, Guts plows his way through the men on the stairs and those waiting outside. Before the Hawks can be shot down the King orders them not to on the grounds that they might hurt Charlotte. Instead, he orders that the Bakiraka – a mysterious order of assassins from the east – be sent after them.
Bakiraka, Chapters 1-2
The King’s orders are clear: kill the Hawks, but bring Charlotte back alive and unharmed – seriously, she so much as stubs a toe their lives are forfeit.
Ambushing the rescue party in the secret passage, the Bakiraka nearly kill Griffith, but Princess Charlotte takes the poison dart meant for him. One of the Bakiraka reveals himself to tells the Hawks they have the antidote, promising that it’s in their best interests to keep her alive as well, and she is given over to them.
Flower of the Stone Castle
Their secrecy lost, the Bakiraka are killed by the Hawks, all but one who nearly kills them by setting off gunpowder. Griffith points out a weak point in the ceiling to Pippin, who quickly creates a hole that draws away the explosion.
Back at the castle, the surviving member of the Bakiraka is killed by the King since she failed to deliver Charlotte unharmed. The Princess pleads with her father to let Griffith go, and he is seemingly unable to deny his beloved daughter anything. But once out of her hearing he orders the Black Dog Knights sent after the Hawks. Their leader, Wyald, can name his reward when he delivers Griffith’s head.
Commentary
Guts and Griffith can’t seem to stay away from each other. Even after a year and an avowed declaration to go his own way, Guts is still drawn back to Griffith, the one person whose drive and single-mindedness surpasses even his own but has had everything crushed by his own hand when he was always so capable of mastering his situation. Griffith continues to be fascinated by Guts, the one person he was unable to control when by all rights it should have been easy. Whether they like it or not, their fates are intertwined.
While it’s Guts and Griffith’s relationship that’s the most central to the story, we see here how much of an effect Griffith has on others. The core of the Hawks have remained loyal to his cause even after a year of hardship and pursuit; Charlotte’s devotion to him has transformed her from the shy, sheltered girl hiding behind a pillar he first met to one who’s unfazed at tying up her skirts to run through the mud, willing to defy her father by breaking him out of jail and take a (metaphorical) bullet for him; the King has been so traumatized by Griffith’s words and actions that it’s physically aged him and driven his obsessions with both Griffith and Charlotte to a new level. As Griffith himself put it, “those I’ve met can by no means disregard me.” Even when he’s been reduced to an invalid, he’s still shaping the lives of others.
What I find most interesting about them at this point is how my opinions of them are different from the one that might be expected given what we now know about them so far. Griffith’s climbed his way up from poverty, won renown on the battlefield, gained many friends through his natural charisma, and captured the heart of a princess. But he’s also been tormented in the past by the burden of having so many follow him willingly that may lose their lives for his ultimate ambition. It all sounds like a typical fantasy hero, and his origins make it understandable that he’d aim for something better. Yet none of it makes him sympathetic. Rather, because of it he’s become remorseless, treating others as nothing more than pawns in his game. So many admire, even idolize him, but it doesn’t matter at all to him. When he reflects on his past it’s a review of the facts, not an analysis. There is no room in him for guilt. The only question he really asks is why Guts makes him feel the way he does.
Guts, meanwhile, is a fighter, plain and simple – always has, probably always will be. Yet there’s more to him than that. Like I’ve said before, he’s not malicious; it’s just all he knows. Even at his worst, he still shows signs of guilt over his actions, even with people like Gambino, whom one would expect him to have no remorse for, and when he reflects on his life and why he’s where he is now, it’s far more analytical. He questions his past actions and decisions. He cares about the people he knows, and by learning to care about others and come out of his shell he’s made efforts to try and get more out of life. It doesn’t make anything he’s done OK, but it does make him a lot more understandable. That’s why, even when he’s letting an entire town burn to accomplish his goal, he’s still the more human of the two.
On another note, there’s something I’m wondering about with Gaiseric’s backstory, namely the number of “angels” at his capital’s destruction. The angels themselves were obviously the Godhand, but it’s the four vs. five discrepancy that has me intrigued. Is it just misremembering on Judeau’s part (and maybe a nod to the fact that there will be five soon), or was there a fifth member at the time? It raises some interesting questions concerning the relationship Gaiseric/the Skull Knight (assuming the obvious possibility is true) has with the Godhand.
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