When I read these topics about Griffith I tend to think that people are divided into two camps....
1. Griffith is a sociopath
Basically, by this, we mean that Griffith really has nothing resembling normal conscience. He doesn't feel particularly guilt in the same way other people do and he feels it only in the general sense of an intellectual query.
Everyone is a means to an end and really there is no one that he cares about save Griffith in the end. He's a being that merely looked beautiful and was so narcissistic that the only time he ever felt anything was when he realized he'd lost the affection of everyone else.
2. Griffith is a extremely driven man that nevertheless is capable of feeling all the normal levels of conscience and feeling that another person can.
In this respect, we take Griffith's words to Guts at face value and he genuinely was fond of the man along with Casca. It's also entirely possible that he was moved by the devotion that Charlotte showed him. His choice to kill the members of the Band of the Hawk was done perhaps in part because he wanted to rejoin Charlotte as well as for revenge and a restoration of his body/his ambitions.
Honestly, there's evidence both ways. In both cases, Griffith is a very politically astute man whom knows a good deal about saying the right thing when it needs to be said. Even at his 'best', he's a man capable of brutal assassinations and other acts of atrocity (kidnapping children) but on the other hand...Guts is merely brutal and violent but he helped in those very same acts. We rarely see in the mind of Griffith save when he's at his literal wits end in the dungeons of Midland.
Certainly, Godhand Griffith/Femto is a being incapable of good and utterly evil. It's also difficult to say that even if Griffith were a sociopath in his original body that he wouldn't be not necessarily capable of love and affection in his new body (made from Casca and Guts). This doesn't change I believe that Griffith is evil but he's an evil capable of good, which makes it all the darker.
I tend to fall on the idea that Griffith is/was actually not that evil by comparison to the majority of people in Berserk and he's not a sociopath. The people of Berserk live a pretty much dog-eat-dog world. Elves like Puck don't have much in the way of viewpoints that allow them to percieve just how dark humanity's lives are.
Griffith in my estimation considered the band with affection but kept his emotional distance for purely sensible reasons. The Band of the Hawk was a mercenary group and everyone could get killed at more or less any given time. I actually tend to think that Griffith's speech to Princess Charlotte at the ball was bull re: The whole equality business. Guts may have been following Griff's dream but he was still the only person whom had a reasonable chance of surviving to the end. I imagine his relationship with Casca was more 'I don't know what I lost until I failed to have it.'
It's in this context that I think Griffith genuinely feels an affection for Charlotte because she loves him unconditionally and practically worships him. Griffith needs this devotion and it's something he's been searching for nearly his entire life.
Cause, frankly, after his rebirth...he doesn't need her anymore yet apparently still seeks her.
1. Griffith is a sociopath
Basically, by this, we mean that Griffith really has nothing resembling normal conscience. He doesn't feel particularly guilt in the same way other people do and he feels it only in the general sense of an intellectual query.
Everyone is a means to an end and really there is no one that he cares about save Griffith in the end. He's a being that merely looked beautiful and was so narcissistic that the only time he ever felt anything was when he realized he'd lost the affection of everyone else.
2. Griffith is a extremely driven man that nevertheless is capable of feeling all the normal levels of conscience and feeling that another person can.
In this respect, we take Griffith's words to Guts at face value and he genuinely was fond of the man along with Casca. It's also entirely possible that he was moved by the devotion that Charlotte showed him. His choice to kill the members of the Band of the Hawk was done perhaps in part because he wanted to rejoin Charlotte as well as for revenge and a restoration of his body/his ambitions.
Honestly, there's evidence both ways. In both cases, Griffith is a very politically astute man whom knows a good deal about saying the right thing when it needs to be said. Even at his 'best', he's a man capable of brutal assassinations and other acts of atrocity (kidnapping children) but on the other hand...Guts is merely brutal and violent but he helped in those very same acts. We rarely see in the mind of Griffith save when he's at his literal wits end in the dungeons of Midland.
Certainly, Godhand Griffith/Femto is a being incapable of good and utterly evil. It's also difficult to say that even if Griffith were a sociopath in his original body that he wouldn't be not necessarily capable of love and affection in his new body (made from Casca and Guts). This doesn't change I believe that Griffith is evil but he's an evil capable of good, which makes it all the darker.
I tend to fall on the idea that Griffith is/was actually not that evil by comparison to the majority of people in Berserk and he's not a sociopath. The people of Berserk live a pretty much dog-eat-dog world. Elves like Puck don't have much in the way of viewpoints that allow them to percieve just how dark humanity's lives are.
Griffith in my estimation considered the band with affection but kept his emotional distance for purely sensible reasons. The Band of the Hawk was a mercenary group and everyone could get killed at more or less any given time. I actually tend to think that Griffith's speech to Princess Charlotte at the ball was bull re: The whole equality business. Guts may have been following Griff's dream but he was still the only person whom had a reasonable chance of surviving to the end. I imagine his relationship with Casca was more 'I don't know what I lost until I failed to have it.'
It's in this context that I think Griffith genuinely feels an affection for Charlotte because she loves him unconditionally and practically worships him. Griffith needs this devotion and it's something he's been searching for nearly his entire life.
Cause, frankly, after his rebirth...he doesn't need her anymore yet apparently still seeks her.