My theory on how Theresia and Jill may have come back in Berserk's story.

For a while I've been occasionally thinking about this. I understand that Jill's story is substantially concluded and there's no real narrative need to bring her back, yet as a reader I can't help but wonder what might have happened to her in the years after the Lost Children chapter and especially after the beginning of the Fantasia arc. As for Theresia, I am convinced that the end of the Black Swordsman arc wasn't meant to be the last time we'd see her and that Miura planned to feature her again at some point later in the story, but that's just my headcanon as there's no guarantee on that. Given the circumstances we can only speculate...

Context: As for how I got the idea I have to admit that it's quite influenced by having read Vinland Saga and one specific twist of events with a certain character that happens in the second half of the manga (if you've watched only the anime, it's going to be quite spoilerous so read it at your own risk. Season 1 covers chapters 1-54, these events happen at chapters 114-122) so I'm gonna give a brief summary of what happens for context. Basically, years after the events of the first season, when Thorfinn has already made a decision to renounce to violence and find Vinland to build a new nation of peace, he meets again Hild, a female hunter whose family was ruthlessly murdered by Thorfinn himself many years prior, at the time she was a young girl and Thorfinn was in his revenge-thirsty phase while he was in Askeladd's mercenary band. She witnessed her family getting murdered by them (if I remember correctly, her father was a former Viking and was targeted due to that) and Thorfinn kills her father in front of her but he left her live since she wasn't a target. Hild isn't aware of Thorfinn's radical change of heart, but what she witnessed put her on a revenge path similar to Thorfinn's own at that time and she is determined to kill him for revenge. Thorfinn is heavily injured but Hild stops from killing him on the spot after recalling her father's words to forgive people. Thorfinn begs her to give him time to atone for his actions. After this encounter, Hild joins Thorfinn's group in order to keep an eye on him and take his life in case he'll ever resort to violence again. This encounter is honestly my favourite part in the second half of Vinland Saga since it's a vivid reminder of Thorfinn's early actions (and how much he developed), it introduces a great new character by bringing to the forefront a different point of view on the protagonist, and it adds a new complex layer of dramatic tension in the narrative and directly reinforces Thorfinn's motivation.

Now, I don't mean that Kentaro Miura would or should have done the same had he had the chance to and besides that, Vinland Saga for most of its run has taken a very different path than that of Berserk, it has a different message and goal, but I'm wondering if Matoko Yukimura might have been influenced by some elements in Berserk (Guts ruining Theresia's life when he was in his worst state of mind, but he eventually matured into a totally different man since then) for setting up this development and if in a way, he anticipated a plot twist that Berserk may only have kept in seeded form.

My Speculation: Keep in mind that I'm not knowledgeable enough about Berserk's timeline to know if this may occur (as in, how many years pass between the end of Black Swordsman, Lost Children, the end of Conviction and the point we're at now) and to be honest I don't even know how specific dynamics between characters may play out but here is more or less what it consists of:
I imagine that Theresia after the events of Black Swordsman arc, being suddently left alone, too young to take the Count's place but still of noble family, ends up in the Holy See and eventually joins the Holy Iron Chain Knights (similarly to Farnese) and maintains her intent of finding Guts and take revenge on him. I imagine her wanting to trace Guts' activity in order to eventually find him and have him killed. Being inside the Holy See, she must have heard of what happened to Farnese in Lost Children and the Conviction Arc (witnessing the Red Lake after the Eclipse, later capturing Guts for a short amount of time and abandoning her place after the events at Albion), and that Theresia would try to figure out what happened to her while also finding information about Guts. For this reason she travels to the locations we see in BS and LC, including Jill's village, years after the events we see (here we may see Jill having succeeded in bettering her life, but still struggling with many things) and I imagine Theresia bringing Jill along with her on the way back since she's the most crucial witness (this would spare her from the attack of various creatures after the merging of physical and astral world). I think it would be extremely interesting to see Theresia and Jill interact since they share the life-changing experience of being survivors of Apostles activity and also due to everything Guts did in their lives, for better or for worse. I think they would definitely be able to bond at a deeper level or at least have an intriguing dynamic.

Route 1: Conflict against Guts - Years later, I don't exactly know how I would make events play out since it's practically impossible to imagine how Miura would have brought on and resolved the conflict between Guts & his group against Griffith and the God Hand, but I imagine that after Fempto's defeat, Guts and Theresia encounter each other again. All of Theresia's anger and thirst for revenge would come up suddently and Guts & Co. are taken by shock at this turn of events.
What would comes next is pretty much inscrutable for me. Considering Theresia's own promise, how would she approach Guts and how would she confront him? How would Guts react to see the little girl from back then being consumed by revenge just like he was? Would Guts feel any sense of guilt for his actions and the innocent lives he involved in his revenge path back then (let's remember that an entire city was destroyed and everyone died in the first episode during the fight with the Snake Baron)? How would Casca and the rest of his group react upon hearing Theresia's point of view? How would Guts and Theresia settle things after so many years and after the main plots are resolved? I'm not really sure about any of these, but I'd love to see some of these things brought up... especially Guts' awful deeds while he was in Black Swordsman persona. I don't think that Berserk was ever meant to be a story like Vinland Saga that is about pacifism, an absolute rejection of violence and atoning for past sins yet I would like to see Guts be confronted by a living consequence of his own wrongdoings. I'd also love to see Jill have a crucial role in settling things with Theresia, maybe even Casca and Farnese.

Alternatively, if this may be set sometime before the complete demise of the God Hand, it may turn out that the Behelit would be destined to her and she'll be challenged to sacrifice someone she cares for (maybe Jill after they grow closer for a few years?) in order to become and Apostle and have the strength to defeat Guts. It would be quite insane but again, my theorycrafting isn't that sharp in imagining how things could be.

Issues - There are quite a few things that really don't work in trying to make things play out like this: first off, it wasn't Guts that directly destroyed Theresia's life. It was the Count and the God Hand that were behind everything that happened that, from the death of her mother to the Count already being an Apostle and activating the Behelit. Guts was just the spark that lit the fire. If anything, he could be blamed for critically wounding the Count and that eventually led to his death once he chose not to sacrifice Theresia, but technically it was the Count that chose his own fate. Also, if the trauma would lead her to obsession about Guts and looking for information, she would certainly stumble on some sort of documentation about the Band of the Falcon's rise in military ranks, Guts' role in it and their sudden demise. Since Farnese also arrived at the scene where the Eclipse took place, Theresia would easily figure out that a sacrificial ceremony happened there and that Guts experienced what she luckily didn't, so her motivation would crumble very easily. The other big issue would be... she did witness first-hand all the God Hand members, she did see Griffith (and this may be a problem now that he's becoming the central figure in the human world, she's a key witness of his real nature) and has been told by Void and viewed through Ubik's ability the entire process of sacrifice and becoming an Apostle. So it wouldn't really make sense to blame only Guts and obsess over having revenge against him only. Maybe Theresia would still blame everything to Guts due to her life being "relatively" normal and all these traumatic events happening once he showed up (besides she already seems to be doing so in the last pages we see her). Additionally, it could be that due to having lived in isolation for so long and being so young, her psyche may have blocked some details and memories of what really happened (namely the God Hand and her father being an Apostle) in order to elaborate things differently and just blame all on Guts. It would be a pretty lame excuse though.

Route 2: Peaceful encounter - An alternative version of this theory I thought of while recognizing the issues would also involve Theresia investigating not only on Guts' activity but also developing an obsession about the God Hand and Apostles. Having access in the Holy See's archives, she may be able to find old manuscripts and documentation that may reveal more of the God Hand and Apostles in past centuries (and how interesting it would be to find more about this!), but at this point, at a potential new encounter with Guts, would hold pretty much no narrative goal to solve or it simply wouldn't add much to the story (unless she may be involved in unmasking Griffith's real self in front of everyone), if that encounter would happen after the defeat of Griffith and the God Hand. Not to mention that writing down all of what Theresia did in the meantime would pretty much involve abandonding Guts' story for a considerable portion of time and I don't think it would work that well, but who knows, it may function as a pretty neat fanfiction side story focusing only on her.


I think I pretty much ended up devaluing my own theory... :ganishka: but lemme hear your thoughts!
Do you think Theresia's life post-Black Swordsman could be a plotline worth exploring or that it might actually have happened how I suggested?
Do you think Theresia or Jill deserve to come back in the story, and if so, how?
Or better, could these ideas of mine give you an alternative idea of how things may turn out for them?
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Hello, it's me the demolition man, I've come to wreck your thread! :iva:

NES_WreckingCrew.png


(Guts ruining Theresia's life when he was in his worst state of mind, but he eventually matured into a totally different man since then)

That's not what happened. Guts killed the Count, a man-eating monster who terrorized his subjects and more than deserved what he got. Theresia had lived a sheltered life until then (she was essentially a prisoner, locked in her room), but she clearly knew something was wrong with her father. She was afraid of him and wouldn't let him touch her. That aside, Guts actually saves her life at the end, and while he's extremely blunt and insensitive with her, he taunts her to put her off the path to suicide.

Just because he was callous doesn't mean he was a villain. He didn't ruin her life, he didn't murder an innocent family or anything of the sort. He rather freed her from the hold that her father-turned-monster had on her and her life. Her reaction at the end is immature and a product of the stress she's under, but it's easy to imagine that she'd have rapidly cooled off. The bottom line here is that there's really no reason to believe Theresia ever seriously considered killing Guts (especially not herself) after that initial outburst. It's not uncommon for people to say things in the moment that they don't really mean and later regret.

I imagine that Theresia after the events of Black Swordsman arc, being suddently left alone, too young to take the Count's place but still of noble family, ends up in the Holy See and eventually joins the Holy Iron Chain Knights (similarly to Farnese)

Theresia wouldn't have been old enough for that, and most likely wouldn't have been well-connected enough either. Besides, that order of knights was decimated under Farnese's command.

Also, I really must stress to you that Guts is an exceptionally skilled swordsman. Even in some fanciful scenario where Theresia would train for 20 years and have a hundred hardened warriors under her command, she wouldn't stand a chance against him. It's simply a ridiculous notion.

I imagine that after Fempto's defeat, Guts and Theresia encounter each other again. All of Theresia's anger and thirst for revenge would come up suddently and Guts & Co. are taken by shock at this turn of events. What would comes next is pretty much inscrutable for me.

Really? After Femto's defeat, instead of the story ending, we see Theresia (an extremely minor character) suddenly appear for the real final showdown? Hard to think of something lamer. How about one of the mercenaries from Gambino's group? "Now you'll finally pay for what you did back then!" It wouldn't make any sense narratively, there would be no emotional weight to it, and Theresia would come off as deranged.

(let's remember that an entire city was destroyed and everyone died in the first episode during the fight with the Snake Baron)

The apostle and his men killed those villagers. He had been eating their children every day, who they brought along voluntarily. The apostle also told the village's leader that he didn't need any reason to murder them all. Guts' arrival wasn't even a pretext; he simply did it because he felt like it. So none of that can be blamed on Guts. It would have happened eventually, it was just a matter of time. At least Guts put a stop to the monster. He acted more righteously than any of them.

How would Casca and the rest of his group react upon hearing Theresia's point of view?

I'm sure Casca would be heartbroken to hear that one of the monsters who eviscerated Pippin got killed. Oh, that poor Slug apostle. :judo: Maybe Rickert could have a word with Guts as well.

Alternatively, if this may be set sometime before the complete demise of the God Hand, it may turn out that the Behelit would be destined to her and she'll be challenged to sacrifice someone she cares for (maybe Jill after they grow closer for a few years?) in order to become and Apostle and have the strength to defeat Guts. It would be quite insane but again, my theorycrafting isn't that sharp in imagining how things could be.

Ah yes, a teen girl becoming an apostle, now that's sure to be a danger to Guts and his friends in volume 50 of Berserk. And what a novel concept too, never explored in the series so far (friends with Jill and all)! Between that and her becoming Farnese, you're really breaking new ground here. :iva:

Theresia would easily figure out that a sacrificial ceremony happened there

There's no reason to assume Theresia could be able to figure out anything about anything, even if she somehow became part of the clergy in the Holy See's capital city, as you're assuming. This is all wildly unlikely and without solid ground to stand on.

Do you think Theresia or Jill deserve to come back in the story, and if so, how?

I think Jill could return in a minor role, but I don't feel like expounding on the topic. What's sure is that reintroducing a character just for the sake of it would be pointless and lame. That's the problem with the idea of Theresia returning as anything but the smallest of cameos, which even then wouldn't serve much of a purpose. Not every character needs to have a closure "on screen".
 
Well, I commented saying I had my own idea for this, so I may as well share.

Jill I never gave much thought to, since her story ended. She may have shown up in Falconia eventually, joining Luca's gang of side-characters who knew Guts at some point. In a more realistic scenario, this would be as good a place as any for Theresia to appear again as well.

My more developed idea for Theresia was nothing I ever expected to happen, but something I thought could be kind of fun and interesting if it did happen. As Aazealh says, I doubt she ever really meant to kill Guts, nor would she have the means to do so, but let's just say that she DID mean it and DOES try to follow through.

There's a lot of stretches and half thought out ideas for where Berserk's story was going involved here, but bear with me. If I was going to bring her back with an actual purpose, this is how I'd do it:

After Guts leaves, she begins some kind of sword training as a loner. Somehow she gets by and doesn't die horribly. During the Kushan invasion, she gets noticed by Silat and the Bakiraka, and for whatever reason (maybe due to her knowledge of Guts) she is not killed, but is instead brought into the fold and trained. No, this would never actually happen. With them, she would develop her skills and become a formidable fighter, her end goal still being to gain enough strength to kill Guts for ruining her life.

The way I would use her in the present story would be as a sort of reflection of how Guts used to be. A deranged loner with nothing but hate and revenge on her mind. The reason for the connection to the Bakiraka was for context for how she'd eventually return. I imagine if the story had reached a point where Guts and co returned to the mainland, they would eventually regroup with Rickert at that mysterious mountain village he and Silat were headed to in their last appearance. She could turn up there as some mysterious woman with an unexplained grudge against Guts (kind of like Chi Chi when she reappears in Dragon Ball, but without the romance angle). We'll never know how the whole time chicanery of Elfhelm would've impacted the series, but one possibility I thought of would be as an excuse for there to be a time skip of a few years in the outside world. In this Theresia hypothetical, this would give an excuse for her to be older and have more developed skills.

I believe part of Guts' arc going forward would have been learning to let go of his inner rage and tame the beast within, the revelation of Griffith being one and the same with his and Casca's son putting Guts at the ultimate crossroads between his quest for revenge and a more altruistic purpose of saving his child. Having Theresia act as a reflection of who he was at his worst, and being an actual remnant of his past, could be utilized as a way of him seeing who he was, and in somehow atoning to this person he hurt taking important steps in becoming who he needs to be. I imagine a scene of her trying with all her fury to bring him down, he seeing himself in her, and ultimately refusing to fight back and instead simply apologizing (not that he really even did anything wrong).

Again, none of that would've happened, but if you put a gun to my head and said "bring Theresia back in a meaningful way" that's what I'd do.

I wouldn't mind if you wrecking crewed my idea too, Aaz :ganishka:
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
I wouldn't mind if you wrecking crewed my idea too, Aaz :ganishka:

Sure!

Jill I never gave much thought to, since her story ended. She may have shown up in Falconia eventually, joining Luca's gang of side-characters who knew Guts at some point.

What would be the point of Jill just joining Luka's group? They were reintroduced in Falconia for a good reason. Adding more people to the bunch without a specific goal isn't useful or interesting. I see this as a lack of imagination and creativity. Personally, I think if Jill were to reappear it should rather be within the wilderness, like with a group of survivors barely making it day to day. They could then meet up with our main characters and be led to safety (Bakiraka fortress). Now this is just an undeveloped idea and I'm not particularly enamored with it, but it would at least be a new situation and would have a narrative purpose.

After Guts leaves, she begins some kind of sword training as a loner. Somehow she gets by and doesn't die horribly. During the Kushan invasion, she gets noticed by Silat and the Bakiraka, and for whatever reason (maybe due to her knowledge of Guts) she is not killed, but is instead brought into the fold and trained. No, this would never actually happen. With them, she would develop her skills and become a formidable fighter, her end goal still being to gain enough strength to kill Guts for ruining her life.

The way I would use her in the present story would be as a sort of reflection of how Guts used to be. A deranged loner with nothing but hate and revenge on her mind. The reason for the connection to the Bakiraka was for context for how she'd eventually return. I imagine if the story had reached a point where Guts and co returned to the mainland, they would eventually regroup with Rickert at that mysterious mountain village he and Silat were headed to in their last appearance.

This suffers from the same problem I pointed out above: it's basically a rehash of existing things. Rickert, Erika and Daiba have already joined up with the Bakiraka. If Guts and the group were to reunite with them it'd already be a very busy time. Do we need Theresia there as well? What would be the point? Besides that, it basically transforms Theresia into a completely different character, which again makes me ask: what's the point? Theresia wasn't a hardened warrior but a sheltered little girl. What was interesting about her is that her innocence and dreams were crushed and she also turned ugly in the end, albeit briefly. It was a subversion of the classic tale of a "princess saved from a monster by a knight in shining armor".

Not to mention that Guts has butchered plenty of Kushan warriors who spent their entire life training in the martial arts. That includes beating their leader, Silat. I don't foresee his next meeting with that group to be a hostile one, and the Bakiraka aren't a sort where a lowly member gets to attack guests if the boss doesn't want them to. Lastly, in your scenario Theresia doesn't even need to be a fighter because Guts won't fight back. Then she could still just be a teenage girl with a pocket knife, it'd make no difference. In fact it would probably be more interesting.

I believe part of Guts' arc going forward would have been learning to let go of his inner rage and tame the beast within, the revelation of Griffith being one and the same with his and Casca's son putting Guts at the ultimate crossroads between his quest for revenge and a more altruistic purpose of saving his child. Having Theresia act as a reflection of who he was at his worst, and being an actual remnant of his past, could be utilized as a way of him seeing who he was, and in somehow atoning to this person he hurt taking important steps in becoming who he needs to be.

I mean, I do believe Guts would have matured towards more balanced goals and a better control of his trauma and such (as I've posited for years), but I don't think he would ever not be "berserk", given that's his defining trait. Furthermore, all this character development should occur with people who are actually important to him, like Casca or his friends. It would feel completely hollow for it to happen with a minor character he barely ever knew like Theresia. And it would also be just as effective (and much more efficient) for him to reflect on his dark days and have a single small panel recollection of her among others. What's sure is I can't imagine him apoligizing for hurting her feelings.

I imagine a scene of her trying with all her fury to bring him down, he seeing himself in her, and ultimately refusing to fight back and instead simply apologizing (not that he really even did anything wrong).

This strikes me as completely unlikely. Guts isn't the sort of man who would not defend himself against threats from a random character he has no reason to feel sorry for. Besides, once again, that sort of exchange has taken place before and in a much more meaningful way, when Guts and Casca fight at the waterfall (volume 9) and he eventually lets her hit him. That had enormous weight because of the context, the history between them, what she was saying, the tension in the air between them...
 
I mean, I do believe Guts would have matured towards more balanced goals and a better control of his trauma and such, but I don't think he would ever not be "berserk", given that's his defining trait.
Yeah I should've written that better. I didn't mean he'd completely chill out, more like he'd come to let go of that instinct in the back of his mind urging him to senseless kill and slaughter just to release his rage with no regard for companions or Casca or anything. All the most negative traits and trauma the beast represents. It'd be replaced with a more focused, righteous fury, as he would hopefully no longer need hatred just to keep his feet moving. Obviously Casca would've played a big role in this if it happened, not a minor character from a million volumes ago. One thing I thought might eventually happen after such a scenario would be the Berserk's Armor gaining a different appearance to reflect the shift in Guts' mind, as a kind of way of heralding in berserk's final act.

And yeah, most of those ideas were pretty derivative. I didn't even notice how similar the last point was with his non-fight with Casca in volume 9 until I finished writing it. There really isn't any great reason to bring her back in any sort of major way, it'd just be kind of fun to see her threat from the beginning of the series pay off after so long for ~nostalgia~. In reality, even a cameo would've been a bit much to hope for, the specifics of the BS arc in general weren't really dwelled upon much by later material.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
One thing I thought might eventually happen after such a scenario would be the Berserk's Armor gaining a different appearance to reflect the shift in Guts' mind, as a kind of way of heralding in berserk's final act.

Unless the Beast of Darkness completely ceased to exist I don't think that would be likely to happen. But who knows!

There really isn't any great reason to bring her back in any sort of major way, it'd just be kind of fun to see her threat from the beginning of the series pay off after so long for ~nostalgia~. In reality, even a cameo would've been a bit much to hope for, the specifics of the BS arc in general weren't really dwelled upon much by later material.

"Wouldn't it be neat if that early character returned?" is what all ideas about Theresia boil down to. But yeah, it's not something that would make sense unless it served a real purpose.

As for the Black Swordsman arc, it's deeply foundational and repeatedly referenced throughout the series, including recently with Guts recollecting his fight against the Cobra apostle while talking to Roderick and Serpico (volume 39), the Count appearing in Casca's nightmare (volume 40), or even Guts mentally focusing on the Vortex in episode 363, which he would have recognized from his encounter with the God Hand in volume 3. It's really more a matter of Theresia not being a character whose reintroduction would bring much to the table.
 
As for the Black Swordsman arc, it's deeply foundational and repeatedly referenced throughout the series, including recently with Guts recollecting his fight against the Cobra apostle while talking to Roderick and Serpico (volume 39), the Count appearing in Casca's nightmare (volume 40), or even Guts mentally focusing on the Vortex in episode 363, which he would have recognized from his encounter with the God Hand in volume 3. It's really more a matter of Theresia not being a character whose reintroduction would bring much to the table.
What I meant is that not many characters or events specific to it are ever referenced again, like Vargas or, well, Theresia. The Count and Snake Baron both appear as apostle designs, but the closest they get to being specifically referred to beyond that is when Guts vaguely references how he got his beherit and that scene in volume 39 you mentioned. And I mean, it's because most characters of those stories only exist for those stories. Beyond Guts, Puck, and the God Hand, all of Berserk's recurring cast comes later. BS was mostly for setting the foundations of the world. Probably the most significant scene of the arc as far as its far-reaching significance to later events is the encounter with the God Hand, and even that never gets directly referred to again past Puck knowing what the God Hand look like and Guts recognizing the vortex of souls later.

This may come across as me trying to downplay the significance of BS, but it isn't. I just notice that it isn't so frequently reflected on the way later parts of the story are. It isn't even unique in that regard, the events lost children is similarly not really acknowledged much past itself, maybe even less so than BS. It's because those events matter more to readers than the characters. All of those stories are more or less "a day in the life of Guts", which is why he doesn't exactly fondly (or not fondly) reflect on them the same way he does events from the Golden Age arc. Most other important characters weren't around for those days either, only Puck in BS and Farnese for LC (and her most formative experiences with Guts came after).
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
What I meant is that not many characters or events specific to it are ever referenced again, like Vargas or, well, Theresia. The Count and Snake Baron both appear as apostle designs, but the closest they get to being specifically referred to beyond that is when Guts vaguely references how he got his beherit and that scene in volume 39 you mentioned. And I mean, it's because most characters of those stories only exist for those stories.

Well that's because they were both minor characters, one of whom is dead. There was no real reason for them to be "referenced" again. Also, I don't mean to put too fine a point on it but the Count, the Cobra apostle and even the female apostle Guts kills in the early pages of volume 1 all return during the Golden Age. As for the actually important characters (Guts, Puck, the Demon Child and the God Hand), they've been central to the story ever since.

Probably the most significant scene of the arc as far as its far-reaching significance to later events is the encounter with the God Hand, and even that never gets directly referred to again past Puck knowing what the God Hand look like and Guts recognizing the vortex of souls later.

Guts meeting Puck, Guts getting the beherit, Guts facing the God Hand... I'd say those are all pretty big deals, and that's aside from introducing the main character and villains, the world and all key concepts (the black swordsman, apostles, sacrifices, evil spirits, elves, the brand, the vortex of souls...).

This may come across as me trying to downplay the significance of BS, but it isn't. I just notice that it isn't so frequently reflected on the way later parts of the story are.

It does come across like that, but more importantly it's untrue. The one event that gets referenced the most in the series is the Eclipse and for good reason. Everything else is second to it, but the Black Swordsman arc does not get less callbacks to it than, say, the Conviction or Millennium Falcon arcs. Similarly, you can't say it has less meaningfully reoccurring characters when it literally introduces the protagonist and antagonist.

Basically it's a false premise because Berserk doesn't do too many specific callbacks outside of the Eclipse and doesn't need to. Like you said, the story follows the characters' lives and has no need to continuously refer back to itself. It only does so when it's appropriate and impactful. That's why I don't think it's pertinent to frame things that way.
 
I have to say thanks to both Aazealh and Odysseus for the criticism and the discussion. I've been busy this morning so I couldn't reply earlier.

I'm not gonna reply to Aazealh's point individually, but I wanted to specify that in my speculation I never thought or anticipated that Theresia would actually succeed in fighting (or even killing) Guts but the original idea would be that she would have certainly tried to. I need to thank you for correctling my point of view on Guts' actions in Black Swordsman arc and Theresia's reaction in her last pages, since I had wrongfully interpreted them and set my expectations accordingly. Your point on how Casca and the others would react... yeah, only after reading it I realized how ridiculous my ideas were and derivative as well.

Thanks for your help!
 
Basically it's a false premise because Berserk doesn't do too many specific callbacks outside of the Eclipse and doesn't need to. Like you said, the story follows the characters' lives and has no need to continuously refer back to itself. It only does so when it's appropriate and impactful. That's why I don't think it's pertinent to frame things that way.
Yeah, reading your response, I having more trouble even figuring out what I was trying to say. Almost everything that happens in the arc comes back in some way, many things remaining extremely important all throughout Berserk. Heck, the climax of guardians of desire is one of two times we see the God Hand all together, a scene which to this day is probably the best source of info about how they work as a group and the nature of sacrifices, and that scene is almost the only time we see Griffith acting purely as Femto without the guise of his human form (eclipse and volume 34 being the other times). All of that is a pretty big deal, among all the other recurring elements you mention. I guess I just think it is interesting that the contexts these things are introduced to us the audience in are relatively trivial days for Guts (the reunion with the God Hand aside), the biggest change to his life from all of it being meeting Puck.

To wrangle this back on the original topic, I suppose this may be why Theresia sticks out in some people's minds. Things like the demon child, Guts' Beherit, the God Hand, and all three apostles we see in the arc become in some way recurring from then on. Meanwhile Theresia has this scene vowing revenge on Guts which is never followed up on or referenced again. Logically, I mean, she's a little sheltered girl. What's she going to do? In both my and Imperivm97's scenarios we had to completely reinvent the character in outlandish ways to do anything with her. She was never meant to be important past her role in BS, and I doubt Miura even thought about her later, but as readers who have reread volume 3 dozens of times, her empty threats at Guts stick out as something "unresolved", even if it really isn't. If nothing else, it'd be a fun thread to pick up in a fan work some time.
 
Top Bottom