Would that change the situation?
Yes it would actually, for a variety of reasons. I mean just in this very episode we see Griffith push for expansion and conquest while everyone else was content to simply hunker down. Everything that's happening in Falconia now is a reflection of Griffith's will. The advent of Fantasia and all that followed are part of a plan being executed with a specific goal in mind, and Griffith is the one overseeing it. Saying there might not be any plan, like you did, just shows you haven't been paying attention.
I think you've missed the point about everything I've written. Dune is a story about the dangers of blindly following messiahs. That putting all your hope in one person fixing everything is misguided and dangerous. It will lead to genocide and oppression. Either you didn't read it or didn't understand it. Of course I mentioned Dune Messiah because Dune is really 3 books, the first 3. Without Dune Messiah the first book is incomplete.
Haha, I've missed the point? Sorry but you're the one who thought the God Hand was waging war against Falconia.
As for Dune, which happens to be my favorite novel, it has a lot of themes to it. As a series (since Dune Messiah is a sequel, whether you like it or not), it certainly deals with the dangers of following messiahs, although I wouldn't reduce it to just that. But that's not what I was talking about. My point with that comment was that what's going on with Griffith in Berserk has nothing to do with Paul's evolution in Dune. Thinking otherwise just reveals a serious misreading of Berserk's story. See below.
Griffith's has always been to become a Messiah, lead humanity into a Golden Age as it's Emperor.
The conclusion of the Eclipse, after Femto was born, was Slan saying people would call the coming times the "Age of Darkness". And his birth had been prophetized thusly:
"When the sun will have died five times, a red lake will appear at the west of the city with a name both new and ancient, and it will be the sign that the fifth angel is born. The angel shall be a Falcon of Darkness. Both master of the sinful black sheep and king of the blind white sheep. The one who shall bring an age of darkness upon the world."
Griffith is only a hero and messiah to the "blind white sheep". To everyone in-the-know, he's a demonic overlord. This isn't a secret, nor is it meant to be a parable. Femto is literally just wearing a white knight costume in order to better bamboozle clueless people. But readers should immediately be able to see through that facade. If you're caught up along with the sheep from the story, then you're not only ignoring the facts, but the clear demarcated line that Miura has drawn for readers. Do you recall the scene between Silat and Jarif in volume 33? Griffith's rule undermines humanity's agency, and it's pretty plain how Miura is weighing that choice, since the leader of that party is a demon rapist. If it were intended as a matter up for literary interpretation, Miura would have distanced Griffith from any morally dubious decisions, instead of doing the opposite.
This is happening and he's causing it to happen. I don't see some secret nefarious conspiracy involving the Godhand at this point. [...] We know what his sins are, selling his soul to Cenobite-like beings to be reborn and accomplish his dreams, raping and sacrificing his friends and companions in the process. He needs to get his ass kicked for this but I don't see tacking on extra sins or secret evil conspiracies
You seem to be missing the fact that Femto is a member of the God Hand. The fifth and last member, and their vanguard into the corporeal world. He didn't sell his soul to the bad guys. He became one of them. And as one of them, he's furthering their plans. Again, this isn't a secret. You say Griffith is "just" following his ambition, without second thought? That he's acting all alone? Then you haven't been paying attention.
The situation in Midland that preceded Femto's incarnation into a new body was set up by several catastrophes. The king's madness. A country-wide plague, which is shown to be Conrad's doing. The invasion of a foreign nation led by an apostle. At the tower of conviction, we see Slan's influence among the heretics, and we learn the incarnation process is a "once in a thousand years" event. Was it mere luck that it happened just a few years after the God Hand became complete? No. It was by design. That is why it mirrored the Eclipse ceremony, during which Griffith had become Femto.
After Femto was incarnated, apostles flocked to him from all parts of the land. Most of them had been reborn long before Griffith became a member of the God Hand. Did the others not know this would happen? Of course they did. Now, for years we had people like you, who don't pay attention to the "details", who wondered why Griffith bothered doing all that stuff. Couldn't he just become king immediately with his overpowering charisma? What did he even need the apostles for? They were even more perplexed when, in Vritannis, while he had the opportunity to eliminate Ganishka, he chose to let him go, giving him a chance to regroup in Wyndham for a final battle.
But it all makes perfect sense when you realize that he goaded Ganishka to become that enormous Shiva monster... for the sole purpose of popping him and merging the worlds (this was of course the fate that had been decided for Ganishka from the beginning, before Femto had even been born). Thus bringing about a chaos that ended pretty much all other pathways for humanity's survival except from Falconia. And when the worlds were merged, after all the astral creatures, at the very end, we got treated to four double pages... showing us the four other members of the God Hand. It's all there for you to see, and there's more I haven't mentioned. Griffith isn't a hero with a dark past. He's a false savior leading mankind on a sinister path.
If there's a secret plot by the Godhand to do something else evil, why didn't they all lead the apostles and evil creatures to enslave and slaughter humanity instead of all the subterfuge?
Because they seek to dominate humanity, not end it. Like I told you in my previous post, the God Hand is all about humanity. They were human, and have dominion over mankind. The Idea of Evil, their master, was born from humanity. They're all part of it. But what they're doing will end up effectively as slavery. The kind of rule Griffith is setting up will inevitably undermine humanity's agency. That's a big part of what merging the worlds achieved. People don't have a choice. They have to live in Falconia or they'll die. And there they have to fit into a new kind of authoritarian society. There may be even more to it than that, but this part is already clear as day.
That takes us back to astral creatures. Why exterminate them? Because they are not human. Because they're an unknown factor as long as they exist.
And the editor's choices are interesting, why are they portraying one of Griffith's thugs as an anti-hero in their crappy spin off story? They're idiots but..
Apostles are not just born evil. The main ones are often somewhat tragic figures. Shades of grey, remember? The light novel sucks because its author is a bad writer, but even if Miura were to address Grunbeld's backstory in the manga, you can be sure he wouldn't be portrayed as a straight-up villain.
