Why is Guts' hair now white?

:guts: This seems like something that has gone mostly unacknowledged. (I think one character makes a comment on it but nothing more) It may seem remarkably unimportant, but then why did Miura put it in the story? Anyone have any thoughts on what it means or why it happened? Keep in mind Miura thought about this before doing it. It can't just mean nothing at all.
 
His hair turned white due to the stress of the armor on his body. Try using the search feature next time, I know I've read discussions on it before.
Hope that helped!
 
Chaos said:
His hair turned white due to the stress of the armor on his body.

That seems like such a simple explanation though. And if that were the case, Guts would have white hair due to stress from many things other than his first 2 minutes inside the armor. Not to mention it wouldn't turn white in a single patch like that. It means something I'm just curious as to what. Miura wouldn't have gone through the trouble of changing his main character's appearance so suddenly just to show age. Besides, Guts is like 21 at that point.

Its the result of the magic properties of the Berserker armor. Aside from the obvious, the armor alters him somehow and it manifests in a tuft of white hair. It hasn't changed from that (spreading, for example) since his first moment of being taken over by the beast.
 

Walter

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Lunchbox5000 said:
That seems like such a simple explanation though. And if that were the case, Guts would have white hair due to stress from many things other than his first 2 minutes inside the armor. Not to mention it wouldn't turn white in a single patch like that.
It's a common belief that undergoing a traumatic event can result in your hair turning white. There's not a lot of science to back it up, nevertheless it's something seen in a lot of creative works.

While others have said it was the armor specifically that caused it, I think that's oversimplifying things. To be more specific, in addition to the physical toll on his body, I've always believed it was the trauma of "waking" from the armor in the manner that Schierke helped Guts with in volume 27 that caused that tuft of hair to go white. It was a traumatic event for him, realizing that he had to protect Casca but wasn't in control.

It means something I'm just curious as to what. Miura wouldn't have gone through the trouble of changing his main character's appearance so suddenly just to show age. Besides, Guts is like 21 at that point.
I don't think the hair signifies anything more than what's already been said. From a readers' perspective, the hair emphasizes how big a deal this was, and also visually underscores the new era for him with the armor.
 
Lukis said:
It definetly shows also Guts age,in last few volumes he's really matured in looks too.

Guts has aged, but hes only in his early to mid twenty's. It's not like hes some old man at this point.

Lunchbox5000 said:
That seems like such a simple explanation though. And if that were the case, Guts would have white hair due to stress from many things other than his first 2 minutes inside the armor. Not to mention it wouldn't turn white in a single patch like that. It means something I'm just curious as to what. Miura wouldn't have gone through the trouble of changing his main character's appearance so suddenly just to show age. Besides, Guts is like 21 at that point.

Its the result of the magic properties of the Berserker armor. Aside from the obvious, the armor alters him somehow and it manifests in a tuft of white hair. It hasn't changed from that (spreading, for example) since his first moment of being taken over by the beast.

Like Walter said, being scared or stressed to the point that your hair goes white is a fairly common thing is story telling. Also there are medical conditions that cause patches of hair to grey, but I don't think there is any proven link to stress. Guts has been through a lot, and his hair going white was a way to show how much more that situation and the armor was a strain on his body than other events in the past.
 
I think it is an interesting question in that Guts has sustained a lot of physical and spiritual trauma leading up to that event, as with slan, yet his hair remained normal.

As walter has said, it is a common thing to believe in, almost in a societal manner, as I don't think it has ever been proven that stress can cause hair to go white. It is commonly reinforced theme though, like we see in the first X-men movie, so whether or not it is a real phenomenon, it is something that people can connect in that manner.

As to speculate on what the causes are, I would think it was something more directly related to that event with the armor. It could have been a representation of an accumulation of all the stresses culminating in that one event, or strictly unique to Guts OD getting trapped inside the armor, imo.
 

Aazealh

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Lunchbox5000 said:
And if that were the case, Guts would have white hair due to stress from many things other than his first 2 minutes inside the armor.

2 minutes during which his psyche was almost destroyed. Without Flora's talisman he would have been gone forever, just like that. And even with the talisman, it took for Schierke to go deep inside his mind and fetch "him" back, and she had to use his undying love for Casca in order to do it. Nothing's even strained him like that before or after that point.

Tenfarther said:
Guts OD getting trapped inside the armor

More like his psyche being engulfed in and overwhelmed by the armor's Od.
 
Aazealh said:
2 minutes during which his psyche was almost destroyed. Without Flora's talisman he would have been gone forever, just like that. And even with the talisman, it took for Schierke to go deep inside his mind and fetch "him" back, and she had to use his undying love for Casca in order to do it. Nothing's even strained him like that before or after that point.

More like his psyche being engulfed in and overwhelmed by the armor's Od.

This is a very good point, and I guess it begs the distinction between physical stress and mental stress. Everything you say is true, but its mental stress. Maybe I never would have asked this question if I'd thought of it that way, but to me, the hair and its color are both physical. Guts' mind may have taken a beating during those two minutes, but how does that physically change his hair color? Maybe I'm demanding too high a standard of realism from this. I assume that in order for his hair to go from dark brown/black to ghostly white in the span of two minutes there has to be some sort of physical/metaphysical interaction with it. (maybe what you're suggesting with the armor IS my metaphyscial explanation though?) Or maybe its just that the patch of white is more symbolic than it is realistic. A sign of just how traumatic the depth of the armor's powers can be? I think I still believe we'll see more similar effects from prolonged use of the armor, but I'd take this as a fair explanation as well.

I think I'm settled with the patch of white being the result of his Od being taken through a whirlwind of trauma within the armor, only to be recovered by Shierke. He hasn't been so lost in it since then. The scene on the beach with the crocs and the Moonlight Boy would be a close second though. I guess it makes us wonder just how much his physical body would have changed had he NOT been preserved by Flora or recovered by Shierke.
 

Aazealh

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Lunchbox5000 said:
This is a very good point, and I guess it begs the distinction between physical stress and mental stress. Everything you say is true, but its mental stress. Maybe I never would have asked this question if I'd thought of it that way, but to me, the hair and its color are both physical. Guts' mind may have taken a beating during those two minutes, but how does that physically change his hair color?

It's so much mental as it is spiritual, and the spiritual can directly affect the physical, as we've been shown numerous times in Berserk. It's not like he just had a mentally traumatic experience here. You seem to be forgetting what the armor does or that it is magical in nature.

Lunchbox5000 said:
Maybe I'm demanding too high a standard of realism from this.

Or maybe you should reconsider what you think is "realistic" when it comes to magical armors.

Lunchbox5000 said:
(maybe what you're suggesting with the armor IS my metaphyscial explanation though?)

"Metaphysical" is not a proper word for it. But the armor is very obviously the cause, yes.

Lunchbox5000 said:
I think I still believe we'll see more similar effects from prolonged use of the armor, but I'd take this as a fair explanation as well.

Guts is slowly losing all his senses (sight, taste, etc.) from just wearing that armor, because that's what being continuously exposed to its Od does. His body in general has visibly deteriorated since he's first acquired it.

Lunchbox5000 said:
I think I'm settled with the patch of white being the result of his Od being taken through a whirlwind of trauma within the armor, only to be recovered by Schierke.

No, like I told Tenfarther, it's his ego that was almost destroyed by what the armor's Od did to his body. Because Guts had let himself be taken by the flow of hatred from the armor, had entrusted himself to it. And the trauma that Schierke saw wasn't the cause, just the memories fueling the flames.

Lunchbox5000 said:
I guess it makes us wonder just how much his physical body would have changed had he NOT been preserved by Flora or recovered by Schierke.

Maybe his hair would have become all white? :slan:

In any case, he would have been unrecoverable without Flora's talisman. A mindless beast that would have fought until it died.
 
My two cents: I have a friend who has exactly the same patch of white hair as Guts. It was caused due to depression and stress. So, it is very real, not something Miura came with out of nowhere (well, and when did he do something like that, anyway?).
 

Gobolatula

praise be to grail!
Giovanna said:
My two cents: I have a friend who has exactly the same patch of white hair as Guts. It was caused due to depression and stress. So, it is very real, not something Miura came with out of nowhere (well, and when did he do something like that, anyway?).
Tell your friend he's awesome.
 
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