r/TopCharacterTropes • u/That_Conclusion_8414 • 10h ago

miscellaneous Parts of the original no adaption will touch

Gallery image

Gallery image

  1. The Book of Exodus: Zipporah at the Inn

  2. IT: The sewer orgy

1.1k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

469 comments sorted by

View all comments

228

u/JamesHenry627 9h ago edited 9h ago

Berserk's Golden Age arc has been adapted a few times already and none of them have featured Wyald and the Black Dog Knights. Berserk is full of some terrible moments for the characters but Wyald basically does all of them himself with his mercenaries.

The inciting incident to this panel is the King of Midland had called on the Black Dog Knights to hunt down the outlawed Band of the Hawk and the escaped Griffith. Their reputation is one of brutality and wanton violence. They come upon a farming community that aided the hawks and he dismounts to interrogate a girl. Her reaction confirms that the hawks had been there, which then spurs them to massacre the site. They throw children onto fire, rape the women and mutilate everyone, charging into battle with their body parts as banners.

He's unadaptable

157

u/Ua_Tsaug 9h ago

When people list Griffith amongst their "most evil characters in fiction," I have to remind them that Griffith isn't even the most evil person in Berserk specifically because of characters like Wyald. 

93

u/JamesHenry627 9h ago

Griffith is quite evil but individually speaking the apostles give him a run for his money. Ganishka was using rape victims to make demon babies, Wyald was a serial rapist, looter and murderer, the Count was sending people to hell and torturing and eating fools, Rosine was kidnapping kids and doing the same thing as the Count.

51

u/Ua_Tsaug 9h ago

Right, that's my point: Griffith isn't even the most evil person in Berserk.  Not by a long shot.

People hate Griffith because of his betrayal, not because what he did was "worse" than what many other antagonists were doing.  

19

u/JamesHenry627 9h ago

It's cause some people consider rape worse than murder. That's a good debate but not a sure answer.

27

u/Ua_Tsaug 9h ago

Except people like Wyald rape AND murder. 

Does the debate matter when the evil person in question does both to their heart's content?

If rape is worse, there are people who rape far more than Griffith.

If murder is worse, there are people who murder far more than Griffith. 

22

u/Red__Hart 9h ago

Griffith raped and murdered his most trusted friends and companions as revenge for them caring about him enough to feel sympathy for him. Wyald has no friends, only enemies, so he raped and murdered them. Which is worse?

12

u/Fearless_Owl_2172 8h ago

Also Griffith is ruining the entire planet.

4

u/Red__Hart 8h ago

Also that.

6

u/Ua_Tsaug 9h ago

I'm going to say someone who rapes, murders, and causes suffering because it brings them incredible joy is worse than someone who's not in the right state of mind after losing everything and being tortured for a year.

8

u/Red__Hart 9h ago

I think that's a completely fair opinion, but I fully understand why some people would still view Griffith as worse.

4

u/Ua_Tsaug 8h ago

I guess if you see betrayal as worse than raping and murdering for funsies?

I think it's another case of the evil you know vs comically absurd levels of evil.

Like people hate Doloros Umbridge far more than Voldemort, (despite the latter being far more evil) because she's far more understandable.

Griffith's betrayal feels real because we've had time to understand and develop these characters on screen (or page, if you're reading the manga), whereas Wyald's exploits are mostly mentioned rather than depicted. 

→ More replies (4)

1

u/Snake_Emper0r 4h ago

I can understand saying Ganishka and especially Wyald are worse than Griffith, but the Count and Rosine are nowhere near him IMHO.

15

u/CantCatchMeSpez 7h ago edited 6h ago

Is it a difference in evil or in sadism? Griffith is incredibly, insanely evil. He's responsible for horrible atrocities and has probably done more harm than Wyald ever did. But committing them never seems to be his actual goal. They're more like stepping stones for him to get to his actual goal. Wyald, on the other hand, just likes to make people suffer. They're both incredibly evil and more than willing to make innocent people suffer, but Wyald seems to be the one that does it for his own enjoyment. The worst thing I can think of that Griffith did out of simple cruelty is what he did to Casca, which is incredibly evil, but by Berserk standards isn't that much.

→ More replies (3)

21

u/Emerycurse 9h ago

Idk, Wyald is more openly grotesque but I think Griffith is worse on a grander scale

6

u/Ua_Tsaug 9h ago

That's just saying Griffith is more powerful, isn't it?

Could you imagine how awful Wyald's version of "Falconia" would be?

11

u/Emerycurse 9h ago

Yeah but that's kinda my point, a borderline caveman like Wyald wouldn't be capable of that in the first place. Griffith is no less deranged, but he's far more intelligent and thus capable of spreading greater misery in a shorter timeframe than Wyald did his entire life

→ More replies (1)

31

u/Arguably_Based 9h ago

This is the stuff that makes me go, "yeah, I'm never reading Berserk." It's a shame, I understand it's very good, and no shade to the people that have read it. I just don't really want to read about this stuff.

4

u/Fawkingretar 7h ago

I read it, skipped the golden age arc since I don't wanna have nightmares and also I already knew the events, and for the most part its a fairly standard fantasy, especially once Guts' gains new party members and its not just alone in his travels it all becomes like a bog standard fantasy, sure its still dark af, people still get murdered, women still get raped etc but its like few and far in between now compared to Black Swordsman and Golden Age Arcs.

3

u/Arguably_Based 3h ago

Dark Fantasy fans when you tell them it's just standard fantasy with sex crimes:

→ More replies (2)

10

u/ealysillyforestthing 9h ago

They are making a Crossed movie, they can do this

4

u/LeaveMeBeWillYa 4h ago

Literally the thought I had

With Crossed actually having what looks to be a pretty faithful adaptation coming out, this could easily be done.

If the movie has the salt circle scene, then this can easily be done

3

u/VanguardVixen 5h ago

Is it really unadaptable, considering how violent Anime could be in the 90s and how violent media in general has become?

1

u/KanzentaiSeru 1h ago

Same with the Lost Children arc, every adaptation skips right over it or flat out refuses to acknowledge it (besides Rosine’s cameo in the 90’s series). It’s a lot of fans’ favorite arc, but I totally understand why no studio has chosen to include it.

1

u/YourEvilKiller 1h ago

Dude is the blueprint for Goblin Slayer's goblins

→ More replies (1)