Winter Journey, Chapters 1-2
Protecting Casca from Interstice spirits night after night is wearying for Guts, especially when he remembers how she used to be. After going to sleep one morning he dreams about the Beast of Darkness, who asks him if Casca is really that precious to him, or just a reminder that lets him fuel his hate? After all, she’d be the perfect sacrifice to bring him closer to Griffith. He wakes up with a start and assures himself that could never be.
When he stops Casca from crawling away one night a spirit briefly possesses him just before the sun rises and she’s able to sense what the Beast of Darkness talked about. She becomes distrustful again and he starts leading her along by a rope, insisting to Puck it’s the only way. He starts to wonder if the burden of protecting her like this is too much.
Scattered Time
Casca escapes and is found by bandits after Guts accidentally dozes off. They try to rape her, but that triggers flashbacks to the Eclipse, and Guts finds her standing over their dead bodies holding one of their swords. She tries to lunge at him, but he forces her to the ground and starts kissing her.
Fangs of Ego
As Guts kisses Casca the Beast almost overwhelms him but he pulls back in time.
He and Puck had split up to look for her, and the latter spots Isidro running away carrying an armload of food he stole from Farnese and Serpico. They catch up after Serpico trips him with a thrown stick (is that his signature move?), then Puck checks and yep, Farnese can see him now. She faints.
Puck takes them back to Guts. Isidro demands that Guts train him as repayment for his earlier help but is ignored. Farnese asks Guts to let her travel with him.
Wilderness Reunion
Farnese says she wants to learn the truth – “a way to survive in the darkness, where the light of…order does not reach.” She cuts her pigtails to prove her sincerity, but Guts tells her to stop with the dramatics and do what she wants; and she doesn’t need to make amends for her earlier actions – he killed some of her men, so they’re even. He won’t teach her anything though – she’ll have to figure out what she wants to know on her own. Pucks wonders why Guts is being so uncharacteristic, accepting others so readily, but privately Guts admits that he can’t do this alone – and he scares himself right now.
At a small fief in southern Midland, a young lord named Mule prepares to lead an ambush against Kushan forces. His lieutenant insists it’s too reckless and suggests investigating the rumors that the hero Count Griffith is leading a liberation force. As Mule considers what to do the Kushan run into a group of his subjects, forcing his hand.
The War Demons
Mule’s charge is met by war slaves, Midland prisoners sent into battle with archers at their backs, forcing the opposing side to kill their own instead of actual Kushan soldiers. But help unexpectedly arrives for Mule’s forces – none other than the rumored freedom fighters led by Griffith himself.
Banner of the Flying Sword
Griffith’s forces route the Kushan. During the battle Mule is saved from stray arrows by a voice in his head and wonders if the girl he sees nearby is the one responsible.
After the battle Mule wanders through the camp of the new Band of the Hawk. There are women and children in addition to men, and everyone is in high spirits. The girl whose voice he heard – the one who predicted Griffith’s arrival at the castle – introduces herself as Sonia and offers to take Mule to see him. Also, it seems like she can read minds.
On the way Mule spots Kushan amongst the soldiers and is horrified. Locus tells him they’ve modified the war slave tactic. After surviving three battles captives are given the choice of joining the Hawks or dying. He assures Mule he’ll get used to it – the Kushan are people too, after all. Sonia assures Mule that yes, that was the Locus, the infamous Moonlight Knight every knight’s son hears stories about. On their way through the woods they’re harassed by bestial-looking men Sonia calls War Demons. The armoured giant orders them to back down, and Mule recognizes him as another famous man – Grunbeld, the northern general called the Great Flame Dragon, whose personal army singlehandedly defended their country from a Chuder invasion. But didn’t he die in battle? After walking past Zodd Mule and Sonia finally reach Griffith.
The Night of Falling Stars
People watch as specks of light flutter around Griffith. Sonia explains that they’re the souls of those who died in the battle; they gather around Griffith to say farewell to their families. Afterwards Mule asks where the lights vanished to, and Griffith assures him they’ve gone to a place where they’ll “become one.” Mule isn’t certain if Griffith means Heaven or something else, but he finds himself enthralled by him and declares for his cause even while being surprised at what he’s doing. He feels as if a voice deep inside him is saying “this is destiny.”
Like A Baby
Farnese had hoped that following Guts would help her change, but so far she hasn’t proven good for much besides gathering firewood and watching Casca during the night. Despite this, she feels she’s discovering herself for the first time.
The group is headed towards the port city of Vritannis. When they ask a shepherd for directions he also tells them the city has become a mustering point for the armies and navies of many countries under the jurisdiction of the Holy See. It seems a crusade is being launched to liberate (and, with the King dead and Princess Charlotte missing, carve up) Midland. Since they’re taking a remote road he warns them to be careful – there’s trolls about…
Commentary
What kind of noble names their son ‘Mule’? Odd name aside though, I like this guy – he seems sensible. As far as we can see he’s the only normal person (‘normal’ being the key word here) to question anything in the Band of the Hawk. I guess the unbelievably high morale, easy acceptance of the enemy, so many living legends in one place, and getting harassed by the Black Dog Knights 2.0 tipped him off that things are far too out of the ordinary and the King of the Shining Bishies is more than he seems, and that’s while still being caught up in the latter’s powers of attraction, which by now are probably at least a bit supernatural. That’s a good question, “where exactly did [the cluster of lights] go?” “To where they will become one”; hmm, where have we seen a place like that before…? Kinda makes it a bit less of a wonderful thing, no?
Still, there’s reason apart from Griffith’s androgynous charm to join his cause. The fact remains that he’s genuinely liberating Midland, so there’s not much choice if Mule wants to keep the respect of his subjects. And if there’s one thing to be said about Griffith, just seeing him makes it clear he’s not an ordinary man and things of great import – that belong, as Mule suspects, “to the domain of legend” – will happen around him; even if something’s seem a little suspicious it’s hard not to want to stick around to see how things play out.
As for Guts, well…he’s trying, but he’s still Guts. Tie up Casca and drag her along like a dog on a leash – yeah, that’s totally gonna make her trust you more. She may have the mind of an infant, more or less, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know what’s going on at some level. She’d started to trust him because, as Puck points out, “she’s stuck so close to you, sensin’ you’ve protectin’ her since the Tower of Conviction”; she could tell that he wanted to keep her safe, but when he grabbed her while possessed, it became very clear that he was dangerous too. But since she can’t talk, and lacks any capacity for nuanced understanding, there’s no way to assure her otherwise.
Puck has the right of it saying it’s “pathetic” and “no better ‘n that witch hunt,” but she can’t look after herself, not when it comes to the supernatural (those bandits are another story), so Guts doesn’t really have any other options if he wants to keep his word and protect her. That doesn’t make it okay, it just reinforces how ugly the situation is. Maybe it’s the only option, maybe she would’ve calmed down if he just kept trying to be near and protect her (which would have been difficult if not impossible since she was actively trying to run away from him post-possession). I don’t think there is an ideal solution, but the fact remains that he won’t just stop because it’s “harder than [he] thought.” If there’s one thing Guts can do, it’s give his all when he’s set his mind to something and that counts for a lot even if his way of handling it sucks, unavoidable or not.
Of course, Puck is right, again (he’s Guts’s conscience for a reason), what happened was “somethin’ the evil spirits compelled [him] to do,” but they didn’t make him think it. That’s the key to the Godhand and everything connected to them – they can’t make anyone do or think anything, they just show you what’s already there. Guts cares about Casca, but his feelings are more complex than just that. Says the Beast of Darkness: “Is she not only precious to you because she’s the wound Griffith left, because you want to keep feeling that pain he caused you?” Casca is a living embodiment of what Griffith did, the proof Guts can point to and say ‘it’s not my fault, he started it!’ She’s the one thing that can prove that the death and destruction he’s left in his wake, how cruel and callous he let himself become (he’s changing now, but at the start of this series, oh boy…), is justified, that he’s doing the right thing.
But no one made him seek revenge, and on some level Casca is a way for him to avoid the fact he just wants to heal his own pain. He may tell himself that there’s no way he’d ever do that to her, but Griffith was horrified and cried out for forgiveness when he first saw what his ambition has cost. As Mal said on Firefly, when you see something so profoundly disturbing “the only way to deal with it…is to become it.” Guts has been through a lot more than the man on that ship ever had, and we know via the Count that it is possible to resist, but we’ve seen far more people who did give in; it’s not an easy thing to do and Guts has been going down this path too long to easily turn away from it. And he knows that – “I’m shuddering at my own sinisterness.” It’s why he accepts help so readily, even though it’s normally out of character for him. He has a responsibility to someone besides himself but understands that he has darker desires that might cause him to bring her to harm. He’s not the man he was, but that part of him isn’t dead yet…
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