#character: the king

[bthump]

I was wondering if you could help me understand this scene where the king tortures Griffith in volume 9. I really don't want to draw a parallel between Griffith and Guts and incest. But is there a parallel here? Do you think Griffith by asking "don't you want her to have you?" is implying that he understands the king? if so, in what way? He then tells him "how worthless…" and pages later he is talking to himself saying "this is worthless". What does this scene imply? Does this have to do with Guts?

btw I love your blog :)

Thank you!

I actually have a pretty thorough interpretation of this near the end of this post, but since it's long and also the third part of a 4 part essay lol I'll give you a shorter version of my interpretation here too.

So basically I do think Griffith is comparing himself to the King and his incestuous feelings, but I think that parallel exists only in Griffith's own self-loathing mind, not as an objective statement from the narrative.

Guts has just left, which, to Griffith, feels like a very personal rejection - he trusted Guts to see the real him underneath the image he projects to others, and, to Griffith, Guts left him because of it. Griffith also tried and failed to keep Guts at his side through force, with the second duel, and then Griffith functionally threw his dream away over Guts by sleeping with Charlotte in a fit of despair and getting caught.

So what Griffith calls the King out on in the dungeon also applies to himself.

He calls the King a lonely miserable man with no reason to live beyond his daughter, derisively pointing out that he has the power of the throne but has failed to harness it for anything - “How worthless.” And that applies perfectly to himself - he threw his chance at the throne away because of Guts, because ultimately Guts, rather than his dream, is what Griffith has found himself living for, and he - wrongly - considers that to be pathetic. (I would love to be able to link you to a short explanation for that assertion lol but it’s basically the thesis statement of my 18k monster up there.)

And when it comes to the King's fucked up feelings for Charlotte, the parallel is with Griffith's falsely negative perception of his relationship with Guts, imo.

It's very easy to apply Griffith's "wouldn't you rather she have you?" line onto his attempt to force Guts to stay with him through a duel. The concept Griffith’s getting at there is the difference between forcing someone to be with you vs that person actively choosing you, as is thoroughly demonstrated when the King tries to rape Charlotte, then abandons the attempt and flees when she fights (rejects) him. And I think it makes a lot of sense for Griffith to feel a ton of self-loathing for the second duel, because he sees it as Guts rejecting him, and he sees his own attempt to keep him at his side by force as more of the “cruelty” that drove Guts away in the first place, in his incorrect opinion.

We know that Guts admired Griffith, that he actually left because he wanted to be better friends with him, and that he was actually reassured by Griffith’s challenge, because it meant that he was still important to him. But from Griffith’s perspective he tried to force Guts to stay by his side to prevent him from rejecting him and failed, and that false perception is paralleled in the King’s attempt to rape Charlotte. And yeah the parallel is made pretty clear through the repetition of “worthless,” as what Griffith calls the King and what he calls himself.

Idk how much sense this makes lol, it’s kind of hard to discuss without a thorough explanation of my take on Griffith and the story overall to accompany it, but yeah, basically I think there is a deliberate parallel there between Griffith and the King, but it’s not a commentary on Griffith’s feelings for Guts, but rather on Griffith’s biased, negative perception of those feelings.

It’s good that Griffith came to rely on Guts more than his dream as something to live for, to derive a sense of worth from, but Griffith doesn’t see it that way. He sees it as a betrayal of his ideals, and the fact that he threw the dream away over Guts, because he cared too much about Guts, makes him feel worthless. And then add some guilt for trying to demand that Guts stay with him, and you have a pretty thorough parallel that illustrates Griffith’s self-loathing quite well.

Thanks for asking! lmk if you have any follow up questions since yeah I’m not sure this is super coherent lol.

[sunriseovergotham]

characters have to be a little bit awful in ways that you cant defend. its good for the ecosystem. your honor he did do that. He did in fact do that

[lordspoooky]

Ice king is a really good character because they intoduce him and you're like "haha what a freak what's wrong with him" and then the show goes "oh! You want to know? Let me show you :)" and you end up just sitting there like

[kingspacebar]

queer dogz :3c

[userarmand]

[insp]

[wolfythewitch]

Flesh, Desolation, Spiral

[scurvyboy]

relativity falls but fidd is a member of the losers club or something

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Andrew Minyard- All for the Game by Nora Sakavic

Neil Josten- All for the Game by Nora Sakavic

[3motionally3xhausted]

Listen Guys..

I've had these designs cooking for ages now (Undergrowth was my nemesis) for an AU/jumble of multiple AUs that sprung up from a larger analysis of the Ghost Zone's more powerful ghosts. The thing is... since Ive had these designs sitting for a minute, Im not happy with several of them anymore :((

So... I don't really feel like explaining my whole analysis + apprenticeship AU, BUT I also didn't want to let these just sit and rot on my computer.

(Now these are sorta top-to-bottom my favorites of the designs but not really & hopefully it's obvious which ghosts each one is based on. or check my tags, they're in order)

And now... my UNDERGROWTH Danny...... I struggled. On the left, I got all the way to competing the character page before realizing I hated it, decided I had to go back to the drawing board, then the final that I landed on.

Also, I think I should say the one with the purple cloak and green wings is based on the Ancients bc its the only I feel isn't obvious enough.

[irlplasticlamb]

why have gods forsaken me?

prints + merch + commission info pinned to profile :)

[esmeamesart]

Fake complicated women when a real complicated woman pulls up !

[thebestgaysharknamedfisy]

HUGE TMA SPOILERS FOR ALL SEASONS❗❗

[bennyboybenniest]

Guess whose cracked open Magnus archives

Not sure if this is the best thing for my art block or the worst thing for projects :|

He’s sweaty I like him ^

MARTINS SO HOLDABLE I WANT HIM AND I WANNA BE HIM

*throws up crying sobbing pissing shitting wailing and flailing*

Love the emotional support lesbians, (Daisys voice got me down bad the most tho, it was so set apart and monotone-)

Designs will def differ cuz.. im eating up all of the fan art and screaming about differing things so yippie yippie!! :D

Old men are next :)c

[charlie-jpeg]

Ozymandias

by Percy Shelly

[kaumedii]

uk — pp-rank.

ha. gottem.

[petrowriting]

the revelation that claudia’s rebirth was such a twisted and horrible moment, with louis dragging her like she was a thing, a stranger who neither of them knew but he kept saying over and over “our daughter, our beautiful little daughter” to lestat, really solidified the way she was never the main character of her own story. she was always an accessory to some or the other of louis’ whims: his guilt, his loneliness, his conflict of being a killer, his rocky relationship with lestat. there was love there, love from both her fathers, but it was never enough. lestat saw her too much as a wretched mirror held up to his own self, and louis was always too steeped in his own feelings to care enough about hers. claudia’s story truly was the greatest tragedy in this tale, treated horribly by every man around her, even her fathers, relentlessly exploited and brutally ignored, always second and never first. the only one who loved her the way she deserved to be loved was madeleine, and the moment she truly had her, her happiness was torn from her. and just before she died, she got to see someone actually choose her in her entirety, not for what she can be but for who she is, and it still wasn’t enough. she still burned alive in the sunlight. the love was there, but it wasn’t enough to save her.