#but the Pilot literally is set in real medieval Europe in 1425

[philosophicalparadox]

Also, I have no idea if Miura was keeping this in the back of his head given the amount of research he did, but medieval views of homosexual behavior were…well not actually that “medieval”.

Like, yeah, the church definitely frowned on that, but the whole corporal punishment thing wasn’t really enforced even after it became a cardinal sin circa the 1280’s. It wasn’t until after the 1560’s and well into the renaissance that homosexual behavior became a Big Deal and people were intentionally killed for it. Prior, the punishment for serial sodomy (which as a legal term included things like pedophilia and BDSM in most places) was castration, which incidentally killed about half the people it was done to by way of infection. But those who survived, interestingly, were often all but forced into the Church ironically enough, often as monks or infamously choir boys,less because no one else would take them and more because they had to serve penance and if you were too poor to pay the fine, you basically became a monk or nun and toiled away the fee.

Aaaanyway back on track: The overarching view of homosexual behavior was that it was behavioral; there was no such thing at that time as a “gay” man, only a man who engaged in homosexual activity. Which many straight men did and still do selectively, I.e oral and “helping hand” type things between friends to demonstrate comraderie and/or to assert power or control over another man.

To this end, Miura did actually depict the unfortunately common practice of militaristic men “hazing” the newbies by doing sexual things to them, though raping them is an extreme example. That was a thing that happened with surprising regularity if the casualness of the few sources there are is any indication. They did this not because they were gay, but for the exact same reason frat houses haze their newbs - to establish the pecking order and display dominance, which is essential to the functioning of any military operation, but more so when your men are in a mercenary Band as opposed to a company; the former being smaller, less well organized versions of the latter, usually started by men that didn’t have the tenure to form or join a Company, which was made up almost entirely of retired knights with years of experience. Consequently Companies could be very very picky about their recruiting. Bands were less so, and often fizzled out or turned to criminal behavior because they lacked the discipline(and financial backing) of a Company. Miura depicted that element quite accurately too, with the Band of the Hawk engaging in robbery and in particular pillaging for resources. (That is the entire point of raiders by the by; their sole purpose is to raid, intimidate, and all around be jerks and thieves who dgaf about being either)

Point being, while there’s likely a correlation between Miuras personal interests and the quasi- homosexual lusting after Griffith for his androgyny, it also would not be considered unusual at all in the setting to find him attractive or want to bed him, especially given that he holds so much authority.

Part of why I think Miura threw in the jab Corkus made about Guts being a fag is to further accentuate not only Griffiths attractiveness but the implication that those feelings were not necessarily out of place for the setting. Frowned upon maybe, but not uncommon. Even in medieval times there was definitely an existing double entendre to the phrase, courtesy the aforementioned hazing behavior, implying that Guts might be using “favors” to get Griffiths approval. That he said it in public makes it feel like it leans more towards the slightly more literal archaic meaning someone who is inherently subservient (or the very literal one; fags were below pages in the order of things, so that was about as low as you could go) but that doesn’t really vibe with Guts personality or the fact he is at that point well known as a commander, (albeit maybe not to everyone) so I have to assume that what Corkus meant was intended to be suggestive, unless he was being hyperbolic in his distaste of the man - either way its an interesting addition personally, and as is the case with much of Miuras writing, very up to interpretation.

Anyway TLDR is that it wouldn’t have been remotely out of place in a realistic medieval setting (which, barring some anachronisms and typical Manga/ fantasy things, Berserks world is actually pretty accurate to the 1420’s period) for even “straight” men to find Griffith attractive or even sleep with him, for power/status reasons.

Is there any straight explanation for how a lot of men in the manga are textually thirsty for griffith? Like what was the point? And also i feel like Miura be projecting his own atracttion into it... Like he really wants to fuck him i get uncomfy sometime, idk if that makes sense

Based on at least this interview Miura did have a thing for androgyny so yeah that's likely a factor, though I don't find it uncomfortable. Who doesn't want to fuck Griffith, good for Miura if he wanted to too.

That said, it does fit the themes lol. There's no straight explanation, but imo there is an explanation that goes a little deeper than fun homoeroticism. I've discussed aspects of it before so I'll link a few things.

I have this post about people pedestalizing Griffith and how it facilitates the tragedy of the Golden Age.

This post about how Griffith is a symbol to people and his beauty reflects that.

And this post about his sexual vulnerability and how that's a major theme of his narrative wrt trauma.

Basically Griffith's attractiveness fits his narrative perfectly because his narrative is all about embodying an idealized image of himself to achieve his goals and deny his own vulnerabilty, and how that ultimately fucks him over when everyone including Guts believes that image and doesn't see the real person underneath, and results in him eventually losing everything human about himself and more literally becoming the image when he becomes NeoGriffith. And this is all tied up in trauma as well, which is also related to his beauty, eg Gennon.

Thanks for the ask!