Re: Episode 284 (+ special preview)
IgnusDei, I'm glad you stopped lurking, because we both started posting right around winter of 03 I think and were hazed as newbs together, we both disappear and lurk for years/months at a time, and you have the best avatar on the board as far as I'm concerned. Newb hazing unites us all!
Anyway, I can't see Miura allowing this to go on for 20 years. Not only would Guts and Isidro hate that sort of thing, I can't see Guts and Griffith not meeting again for 20 years, provided that Guts just hangs out at the one location containing a large amount of magic users who pose a threat to him. If he allocated Grunberd, Zodd and a slew of apostles just to take out Flora, I'm inclined to believe he'll be dealing with this community of magic users as well. Plus, if Casca is healed in the course of this, will Guts still want to keep his band together? He has certainly become attached to them of late, but I think that Casca is still his priority, and Farnese wont be able to escape Roderick without some trouble (provided he survives the journey, of course). I'd be rather interested to see a jump forward in time that opened with a razed Elfhelm, a victorious Griffith and one exceedingly angry, though back to normal mental state, Casca.
For some reason, when I saw the panel where Guts looks back at his band and then thinks to the Hawks, I couldn't help considering what happened just after he had a similar revelation upon returning, just before the Eclipse. Granted, causality is a spiral, but whether Guts is able to keep them together-and alive- should prove to really develop the story, I think.