ApostleBob said:
Not to dredge up an old topic
That's just what you're doing.
ApostleBob said:
First off, the apostles didn't eat her or tear her to pieces for a reason.
She's special in that she's a woman. And that one apostle was going to kill her right there and then, in front of Guts. That apostle wasn't among those who had captured her either, so maybe they fought for who would have the right to eat her (which is what they mention when capturing her, by the way, not rape)? They certainly all seemed to take pride in how many sacrifices they'd "got". Anyways, if she'd already been raped by everything around at that point, why hadn't they eaten her or torn her to pieces? Your point actually casts more doubt on your interpretation than it adds credence to it. Why keep her alive after having raped her? It makes no sense.
And that's assuming the process of raping her with monstrous appendages wouldn't have already killed her or severely wounded her. When Femto violated her, she was rather sensitive, as is explicitly shown to the reader. Had she been butchered by monsters I doubt it would have been the case.
ApostleBob said:
Then the next time we see Casca, she's hoisted by the tentacle apostle and she seems unconscious or in a daze. Why is she not screaming her head off or terrified?
Because she's struggled to exhaustion or until they knocked her unconscious? It's not like being raped would necessarily make her unconscious either...
ApostleBob said:
Next, there is a lot of blood specifically around her genitals. She has other scrapes and cuts but there is a lot down below and I recall there even being panels that highlight this.
You don't recall it well. She's bloody from various cuts across her body, not specifically there. There's a picture of blood dropping from that area as well as from her thighs, but the sequence implies that it's fresh, having been drawn by the claws of the apostle holding her. The shot of her when Guts first sees her shows no blood flowing from that area, and it would have had it been bleeding that profusely from the beginning.
ApostleBob said:
Lastly, later on in the series, there are several times where crazy Casca is assaulted by men who want to rape her and she has flashbacks. However her flashbacks are always of the apostles, never of Griffith. Almost as if there was some horrible trauma related to the apostles that she associated with rape...
First off, symbolically, an innumerable number of apostles with the Eclipse as a background is a more fitting comparison for the danger posed by some scoundrels than the single image of Femto does. It can be explained from that consideration alone. It'd be hard to reproduce the "surrounded by enemies" feeling with just Femto.
Second, by the time Femto raped her she was barely conscious and in an altered state of mind/state of shock. The last time we saw her fully conscious is when she's being seized by the apostles (which was in itself already a serious violation for her). That was a traumatic moment, maybe the one when she in her full consciousness felt the most despair and hopelessness (though it's hard to argue given that Femto's ignominious act pushed her over the edge of insanity), hence why she's reminded of it.
ApostleBob said:
There are other small things like the fact that most of the apostles surrounding her when Guts sees her are phallic in pretty distinct ways. This doesn't prove anything per se, but it seems to imply quite a lot about what these guys were up to.
It implies a lot about what the one holding her was about to do. What was done before is not known. That being said, in volume 18 there is a scene when she's being assaulted and she has a flashback to that time. We see specifically the same apostles who surround her before Guts sees her, all around her while she screams and about to grab her with various "tentacles". At that point, according to that picture, she's still intact. Not a drop of blood on her whole body. If we assume the one who ends up holding her just won the grabbing contest before Guts arrived, well that removes pretty much all mystery from the event.
Those "flashback" scenes aren't necessarily reliable though, as the one in volume 23 seems to be a more fanciful representation.
ApostleBob said:
Also from a story telling perspective, the tension seems somewhat lessoned if the deed is already done
Completely nullified, I'd say. And the storytelling perspective is what matters most here, I believe. Simply said it's about what makes sense.
And really, do you think something that important to the story would have been completely omitted? That the readers would have had to rely on inconclusive drops of blood from tiny shots to deduct what had happened? I mean the rape by Femto was a big deal, a huge deal. It's an important part of the story, depicted elaborately, and was traumatic to everyone involved, including the reader.
But what is it if Femto's just number XX on the list of aggressors? It would just ruin it.
ApostleBob said:
but then again they were likely going to finish her off in the most degrading way possible.
Actually, the way that one apostle was about to kill her (impalement through the genitals) isn't all that bad compared to what you're suggesting (raped by countless monsters).