Chaos said:Maybe it could be to his benefit, though? Specifically, I mean if he were (for some reason) to resume his quest to kill Griffith. With the "numbing" of the brand, perhaps that would be something of an edge he has. [...] So I guess it comes down to if The Brand was functioning as more of a "radar" prior to the merger, or if the pain factor was still a significant one.
Well I'm not so sure it could benefit him, that's the problem. One thing that's clear is that the Brand definitely allowed him to "feel" things, not just monsters but also people like the Skull Knight or Flora. It wasn't just a matter of feeling intense pain whenever something was nearby. Similarly, Casca was able to feel the presence of her son through her Brand when he was in the vicinity (distinguishing him from mundane evil creatures, even after Femto took his body over).
Now he can't do that anymore, but as seen in this episode, his Brand apparently still bleeds when evil things are around. Moreover, what Guts says about noticing if anything gets close could imply that he would still feel pain while fighting a "serious" adversary.
Chaos said:Femto's "Level of Evil" (Think that's the right term.)
I don't think there's really a term for it.
Chaos said:In Volume 21, with The Reincarnation occurring, Guts is brought to his knees from the pain. In Volume 22, his brand is still bleeding quite a good bit with Griffith close by, though it would appear he's built up a tolerance to the pain caused by the brand. This is also shown in Volume 26 with Guts' interaction with Slan.
If you look at volume 26 I think it's made pretty clear that Guts was incapacitated when Slan played with his Brand. On one panel he's in agony, the next he's limp and defenseless in her lap. In volume 22 he was within reach of Griffith, so we can attribute his resistance to his extreme rage (not unlike what happens in volume 3), but also to the fact he didn't actually stay close to Griffith for too long. There's also the possibility that members of the God Hand can trigger the Brand's reaction to their presence at will, but that's only hypothetical.
On a different topic, what did you guys think of the reveal that the creature the pirates were hanging out with was a monstrous sea cucumber? Not what I had expected, but you can clearly see the resemblance when you compare it to a real one (not to mention that it explains all the references to food). And these things measure up to 4 m (13 ft) too!
That aside, any guesses as to what the pirates' "dessert" will be? It appears that something really has taken control of the ship (probably the same entity that turned the pirates into what they are, and whose eyes can be seen through the ship's portholes), but with the sea cucumber gone it could be anything. I also wonder how it will play out, since it might be hard for it to be impressive after the "sea god".