How Guts From Berserk Helped Me Understand Myself

(CW: Berserk is a very dark story filled with violence, child abuse, sexual assault, and other heavy topics. Please don’t read ahead if you don’t think it’ll be healthy for you.)

Introduction

This essay serves both as my love letter to Berserk, the manga by Kentaro Miura, as well as a chance to reflect on things through my life that Berserk has helped give me clarity on. If you haven’t heard of this manga, Berserk is about a swordsman named Guts who tries to protect the ones he loves through a violent hellscape while also battling his own inner demons. It is the greatest thing I’ve ever read. I’ve never found a piece of literature that I can so deeply relate to and see myself in. This is also something I struggle with since Berserk is one of the darkest pieces of fiction that I’ve ever read, where the main characters are deeply flawed and commit horrible actions. Honestly, I’m scared to share how much Berserk connects with me since I’m worried people would read it and think that I’m a psychopath, but that’s a big reason I’ve chosen to write this.

The main reason Berserk connects with me so deeply is that I am a man who suffers from complex PTSD due to a violent childhood and familial trauma. I have other essays discussing those details that you can find here: (insert links). I see myself in Guts not only because his strength is something that I aspire to, but because his backstory and struggles are relatable and have taught me a lot about myself. Guts’s main issue comes down to avoidance of relationships as a result of betrayal and loss, which is something I am working on resolving myself. He also demonstrates a lot of traditionally masculine virtues and negative coping strategies men use.

If you’re reading this, I hope to not only get you to give Berserk a try if you think it’s for you, but also to convey to you some of the most challenging things I struggle with.

Guts’s Virtues and Being a Man

If you take one look at Guts, you’ll see that he’s a massive, intimidating mammoth of a human. Through the story, he accomplishes feats that are superhuman, with the most obvious being reflected in wielding his Dragonslayer sword that no real human would be able to carry. Guts’s strength and resilience are central to his character, traits that I connect with. I’ve often prided myself on “being able to endure anything” and a general feeling of resilience and being able to handle very difficult situations. These are traits that I still hold central to myself - they’ve allowed me to survive unbearable times as well as driven me to create a better life for myself and the people that I care about. While I’m nowhere near as strong as Guts (nor do I ever think I will be), he serves as a sort of aspirational ideal.

For Guts, and myself to some extent, survival was never guaranteed. We’ve often faced situations where we’re on our own and have nobody to rely on. For Guts, this involved growing up with an abusive adoptive father in a war torn nation. My own situation was not as dire, but I faced daily physical abuse from my parents and deeply felt that nobody cared about me. The natural solution to this situation is to develop a deep belief in one’s independence and cultivate strength and discipline. Guts shows these virtues clearly in his consistent striving to become the best swordsman he can be. In the Golden Age arc, he trains constantly and has a singular focus towards mastering his weapon. During battle, he is resilient and dependable, as shown through his saving his comrade and love interest Casca in a battle against 100 enemy soldiers. While part of this is a power fantasy that I indulge in, I appreciate Guts’s strength and discipline since I feel like those are the parts of me that have kept myself going through my life. When times have gotten tough, I’ve generally been confident that I could at least take care of myself and that I’d make it through. I’ve also never really struggled with discipline. I was able to get into a top PhD program partially due to hard work and taking consistent steps towards that goal.

The other virtue that’s central to Guts is his loyalty. Guts is a withdrawn individual who doesn’t make friends easily. However, those he comes to bond with, he holds closely. His loyalty towards Casca is one of the strongest emotional arcs in the story. The two become romantically involved during their time in the Band of the Hawk as they are able to connect to each other’s wounds and show a tenderness towards each other. Tragically, Casca loses her personality and becomes a shell of herself after the traumatic events of the Eclipse. Guts is left to defend her as their sacrificial brand makes them a constant target for demons all the while he deals with his own PTSD. Although he leaves her with the elderly blacksmith for the entirety of the Black Swordsman Arc as he seeks vengeance against Griffith, he realizes his mistake towards the end of the arc and vows to never leave Casca’s side again and bring her to safety. We see this through the rest of the story as he struggles to bring her towards the home of the elves where she will be safe, defending her from demons while reminiscing sorrowfully about the past when they were together and she was her full self. I can relate to this desire to defend those I care for. It’s what drove me to take care of my sister in our chaotic childhood home where neither of us felt safe. Unfortunately, it’s become something I struggle with as it turns into caretaking for others to the point where I sacrifice myself. It’s a challenge to balance loyalty with self-care for people with our psychological makeup. Guts similarly goes out of his way to take care of Griffith before the events of the Eclipse. However, his loyalty to Griffith was misplaced and created the conditions for the primary conflict through Berserk.

It is only in light of Guts’s virtues that we can understand the impact Griffith’s betrayal had on Guts. Towards the end of The Golden Age arc, Griffith falls from grace and is imprisoned by his king, enduring horrible torture over the course of a year. This is after Guts bests him in combat and reclaims his freedom from Griffith’s control. Ultimately, Guts rejoins the Band of the Hawk to save Griffith. After breaking him out, Guts is horrified to see the condition of his friend. However, Griffith still maintains his deep desire for power, so after triggering the Behelit, when given the option to sacrifice the Band of the Hawk for the option of Godhood, he chooses betrayal and offers his friends to the demons of the God Hand. This brutal sacrifice is referred to as The Eclipse amongst the Berserk fandom. Not only does he sacrifice them, Griffith rapes Casca in front of Guts as a way of asserting his dominance over Guts. This deed is symbolic to Griffith as a way to completely destroy his relationship with Guts. Throughout the story, Griffith is portrayed as ruthless and power hungry, but he begins to notice his fondness for Guts grow, which threatens to give him enough humanity to the point where it would interfere with his dream. As a result, he needs to shatter this special bond in the most heinous way possible.

Despite the horrors of The Eclipse, Guts and Casca survive, mutilated in mind and spirit. The Eclipse colors the rest of Berserk through Guts’s struggle between pursuing revenge towards Griffith and moving on and being there for his loved ones in the present. Revenge stories have often resonated with me. My favorite superhero is Wolverine and I have often motivated myself through my desire for revenge. My revenge fantasies are often directed towards my parents, the Indian community, bullies from grade school, and some aspects of White America. When triggered, it can be very hard for me to see anything but my anger, and I throw out the nuance and humanity of the other side in exchange for a black and white view of good and evil. When I look at what lies underneath this revenge, it is deep unprocessed pain and grief - a deep belief that I am not safe amongst people and that I will be hurt if I let down my walls again. I also recognize my own vulnerability and weakness. I’m far less powerful than I believe and am merely trying to cover up old wounds.

These struggles with revenge and anger have made relationships challenging. I often worry about my anger and hurting people with it. There is an underlying fear that I’m secretly a terrible person and that other people will discover this aspect of me. However, over time I have realized that I am truly good and that I deserve to internally support the wounded parts that drive revenge. I believe this struggle is reflected in the visual design of Guts and Griffith.

Guts is a dark and towering figure who looks like he could be the villain of the story. In fact, we’re left unsure as to whether or not he’s a hero or villain through the Black Swordsman arc. It doesn’t help that he makes misanthropic remarks and enjoys bloodshed. All of this is reflected in the general hatred he’s met with by people - he’s treated as a monster and an agent of demons. Griffith on the other hand looks elegant, refined, and has gentle androgenous features. Characters are charmed when they first meet him, and it’s repeatedly stated that his charisma allows him to gain the favor of basically anybody. However, deep down Griffith is a selfish and Machiavellian individual. As readers, we understand the evil he’s capable of and has done, so we’re left angered by how people blindly follow him after the Eclipse. He prioritizes style over substance of goodness in that manner. This paradox is something I have struggled with. I often feel misunderstood and come off as Guts - treated with hostility when in my heart I am good. At the same time, I feel intense levels of anger towards people who attempt to use their charisma and general likability to slip away with their awful actions. I believe this is a struggle that is faced not only by individuals like myself, but society as a whole, when we take a look at politicians and celebrities who use status and charm to commit morally questionable actions.

The Price and Pain of Going it Alone

The best way to understand Guts, and arguably a person in general, is to look at their relationships. Guts struggles with deeply avoidant tendencies with people, choosing isolation and hyper independence over connection and friendship. I believe this is a problem many men struggle with due to socialization. In fact, there are times I feel like the manga was speaking directly to me, either through something Guts says when he is being avoidant or through one of the characters chastising him for his self defeating actions. These are lessons that I’ve actually taken in my day to day life.

The most important thing about Berserk is that Guts slowly learns to take his emotional walls down and rely on others, as we see in his trusting the Band of the Hawk and assembling his own group through the Conviction Arc. The Band of the Hawk serves as Guts’s first true family, where he’s accepted and cherished. He’s able to find friendship, camaraderie, and love and even begins to let himself enjoy life. Unfortunately, this is all taken away from him by Griffith’s sacrifice during the Eclipse, but it’s not the end for Guts. During the Conviction Arc, he returns to Casca to take care of her and begins to accept help from new allies. These allies often serve as a tonal foil to Guts - where Guts is brooding, dark, and serious, characters like Puck and Isidro bring much needed levity. They also reveal many of Guts’s flaws, pointing out when he’s being unnecessarily cruel or if he’s running away from himself and his loved ones. These new allies serve to convey one of Berserk’s most important themes - connections are what matter the most and what allow us to work through trauma and make it to the other end.

Guts’s journey is something I connect with as I struggle with my own avoidance. His finding friendship and family in new allies brings me hope that I can find the connection that I deeply desire which I didn’t get when I was younger. I’ve often struggled with fears that I’ll be alone through my whole life and that people don’t care about me. Leaving college was particularly difficult since I’d just significantly reduced contact with my family and no longer had friends at my doorstep all the time. I also most struggled with my mental health during this time period as it was when I began my childhood trauma recovery work. It was a deeply isolating time as I worked through my own Eclipse. Ultimately what got me through was my commitment to myself that was fostered through connections with my girlfriend and close friends, who consistently reinforced to me that I am lovable and brighten the lives of others. I made it a point to learn relational and life skills from others. I still struggle with isolation to this day, but find that connecting with others continues to help me work through my challenges.

Guts’s avoidance began through severe childhood trauma where he was verbally and physically abused by his adoptive father Gambino and even sold off to be molested by another man. Further, Guts’s parents died when he was still a baby and he was forced to adapt to a world of constant chaos. There was no safety for him, and the person he relied on to take care of him betrayed him in the most cruel manner. When one undergoes that level of trauma, they learn that they can’t trust anybody but themselves. This belief is paired with a belief that they are defective and unlovable. In The Golden Age arc, Guts is reserved and shy, forming connections slowly with others. After the betrayal of The Eclipse, he becomes misanthropic and deeply hateful. Because every relationship he’s ever valued has been destroyed or betrayed, he views connection as weakness and values his strength over all else. The following scene from the Black Swordsman arc gives a perfect depiction of the depth of his trauma and hatred. The lower panel image of Guts perfectly illustrates how inhuman his avoidance has made him become.

While I never have went so far as suggesting that people don’t deserve to live if they’re weak, I have a similar pattern of having a very uncaring attitude towards people who can’t “get their lives together”. In my case, if I sense that somebody is a “mess”, I start to feel burdened by them and begin to leave the relationship with the idea that they’ll drag me down or that they’re a lost cause. I wasn’t always like this though. I became this way after an abusive relationship with somebody who played the victim frequently. I ultimately endured a lot of behavior that I didn’t deserve. Before that relationship, I was a much more naïve individual who thought that being caring and loving could solve every emotional problem somebody had. At the core of it, I was deeply codependent. This pattern led to my attempting to “rescue” several people, including a brief relationship with a woman who attempted suicide as well as a friend who was suffering from a severe psychotic disorder. I find it hard to process these things, but in one session with my therapist, I discussed these events of trying to “save” these people I cared about. The memories were too painful to endure that I’d developed a very deep avoidance and cynicism about people and, at the core of it, my own worth as a person because I couldn’t save anybody. Being a brutal “warrior” type of person was the perfect way to armor myself from the horrors of the world - I’d never have to get close to people and could justify my avoidance by saying that people are dragging me down.

Underneath the tough veneer, I actually believe that I’m fairly soft and sensitive, but I struggle to express that side of myself while also feeling safe. It’s why one of the final scenes of the Black Swordsman arc, where we see Guts crying in response to a young girl’s trauma struck me so deeply. Until that point in the Black Swordsman arc, Guts had been a vicious psychopathic warrior. He had just destroyed the Slug Count, a demonic count who was granted powers of becoming a beast. However, he had to contend with the fact that the count had a daughter who was still a naive young girl who knew nothing about the violence of the outside world and her father’s true demonic nature. After Guts kills the slug count, the daughter says meeting Guts was the worst possible thing to ever happen to her. In the following panel, we can see the rage and trauma in her eyes as she directs her anger towards Guts.

We expect Guts to not care or respond in his usual cold and psychopathic manner. And he does - when she says that she wants to die, he tells the girl that she should either kill herself or try to get revenge on him. She says she’ll come to kill him one day and he says he’s looking forward to the day. His actions are callous and cruel. We later learn that this was his only way of giving the girl the will to go on, in the same way that he carries on himself. However, this is lost in the moment. After the scene concludes, we assume nothing of it, until we catch a brief glimpse of Guts crying.

Puck (the elf’s) reaction is exactly how the reader would respond, we see a crack in Guts. This was also the first moment I felt like I could connect to him. We later learn that Guts has a soft spot for children, as he can recognize their innocence and the tragedy of childhood trauma and the loss of innocence. This is something that has driven me throughout life too. While my scorn for adults can be endless, I am driven to create a better world for children, mostly so that kids won’t have to experience what I went through and can live a more peaceful and happy life. This final scene is the perfect transition to The Golden Age arc and the rest of the story, where we truly get into the psychology of Guts and what his struggles mean to him on a personal level. We begin to learn his insecurities and traumas and what broke him into the psychopathic killer in the Black Swordsman arc.

For relationally traumatized people, healing requires having corrective experiences with other healthy individuals. This involves experiencing kindness and intimacy that wasn’t there when the individual was a child or in a violent relationship. Guts begins to receive these corrective experiences in The Golden Age with the Band of the Hawk. I want to focus on his relationship with Casca, specifically in his first sexual experience with her. This chapter is interesting because it shows the deep wounds that Guts’s trauma, in particular his sexual trauma, has caused him and how it impacts his ability to connect with those he loves. Guts and Casca attempt to have sex but Guts has an intense traumatic flashback, where he pictures himself as the man who molested him as a child choking a childhood version of himself.

In reality, he start to choke Casca. When he comes to his senses, he shares the story of how his adoptive father Gambino sold him, and how he accidentally killed Gambino in self defense. He breaks down and calls out to Gambino in agony. When Casca touches him, he’s brought back to his senses and tells her he’ll leave if she wants him to go. However, she embraces him and accepts him for his trauma. For the rest of the series, Guts and Casca are bonded. We can see how deeply Casca matters to Guts as he fights to protect her and reclaim a healthy relationship with her. Guts’s choking a childhood version of himself and feeling intense guilt over Gambino’s death shows the depths of his self-loathing. This is likely the first time he’s ever told anybody about this betrayal at the hands at Gambino. His saying that he’ll leave if Casca wants him to shows that he expects others to see him in the same deeply negative light in which he sees himself, leading to rejection.

Survivors of trauma, especially sexual trauma, often have difficult times with intimacy, as past experiences of violations and betrayals interfere with their ability to be present and connect. Furthermore, they will blame themselves for being abused. Over the years, I have been fortunate to have many healing experiences with people of varying kinds. This began with having a therapist who I could confide in about all of the darkness of my childhood as well as the variety of things I struggled with. Having a relationship with my girlfriend has also been deeply healing, as we have both been able to work through trauma together and become closer. Lately, I’ve been focusing on corrective experiences from having community around me and seeing that when I tell my story about my trauma, people appreciate my sharing and don’t attack me. It has been this acceptance from others that has allowed me to move past shame and isolation to acknowledging that while what happened to me was wrong, it’s not a reflection of me and that I am inherently good.

While Guts exhibits the masculine archetypes of strength through the series, feminine strength is also central to the story and often serves to show Guts’s faults and areas that need improvement. Luca is introduced in the Conviction arc, where she is a prostitute who takes care of a group of other girls. After the Eclipse, during which Casca is psychologically broken, Guts keeps Casca with a blacksmith so she can recover. However, Casca runs off to a nearby settlement where a group of religious zealots are conducting witch hunts. Luca takes Casca under her care since she realizes Casca cannot take care of herself with her psychological wounding. Because Casca survived the Eclipse, demons begin to attack the settlement, leading to the religious zealots thinking of her as a witch. Guts naturally comes to save Casca in the settlement, where he ends up working together with several others, including Luca, to save Casca and escape.

Luca acts as a motherly figure for the lost girls in the settlement, taking care of them and also providing them with direction and protection. However, she is much warmer than Guts, with a unique strength in bringing people together and influencing them through her actions and words. She comes to act as a moral beacon throughout the Conviction Arc in this way. In fact, she is able to point out several of Guts’s character flaws. She also has a general levity to her character and the ability to bring humor to the story that are not found through Guts. The following panel references Guts’s relationship with Casca:

Luca sees the future troubles Guts will have in reconnecting with Casca, where the rage through which Guts protects Casca will interfere with his ability to truly reconnect with her and have any intimacy. When I saw this panel, I felt like she was also speaking to me. In my life, I’ve always felt a sense of duty towards those I care about and have often used rage and anger to motivate myself to get things done. While this means that I can take care of people in a more material and concrete manner, it creates severe walls that interfere with connection. Much of my rage and anger is tied in with resentment as to how I’ve been treated and generally how my life has gone. Unfortunately, this resentment has spilled out in my relationships and pushed people away. I’ve spent much time processing through the resentment and realizing that people don’t need me to take care of them and would prefer I show up with vulnerability and the ability to connect. The next panel references Guts’s focus on revenge, and ties with the discussion of resentment.

Guts’s drive for revenge is centered around a happier past that was stolen from him. In fact, Guts is generally haunted by dark events from the past that still control him in the present. He has not yet processed the trauma and pain of his losses and as a result continues to be driven by a desire for revenge over Griffith, and more broadly over those who have betrayed him. Luca can see this clearly in him, and once again spoke to me through the panel. The core of my resentment reflects a deep feeling of loss of love and happiness that continues to haunt me. I frequently feel as though there is something missing in my soul that I can trace back to happiness that was lost or unmet needs from childhood and the past. However, continuing to dwell on these things keeps me stuck in resentment and prevents me from being present in my current relationships where I can actually reclaim the happiness that I desire.

Luca is important in the story through the more canonically feminine strength she brings through emotional intelligence, strength of will, and nurturing others. I believe a lot of men miss out on this strength through the need to be “strong” and using rage to fuel their actions. Through my own recovery, I’ve been able to reduce my rage an be able to access my full emotional spectrum in conflicts. Not only does this mean that relationships are easier to manage since I can better empathize with others, but I also am significantly more effective in getting what I want since I can approach situations from a collaborative as opposed to combative perspective. At the same time, I’ve come to admire the strength that many women possess in their ability to empathize and maintain relationships. I believe the world needs more of this skill and that many men would benefit from cultivating their more feminine side. It’s for these reasons that Luca is one of my favorite characters in the story of Berserk.

Ultimately, Berserk is a story driven by its characters. While Guts is the main character, it’s through his relationships with others that the central themes of the story come through - being present for those you care about and healing past wounds by connecting with those in the here and now.

The Beast, and the Pull of Nihilism

While Guts spends Berserk largely fighting off demons and the God Hand, his capacity for violence towards those he loves and his blind rage become a central conflict in the story. Guts giving into this rage and going “berserk” is the basis for one of the central themes of the story - giving into nihilism. I connected with this theme since resisting nihilism has been a challenge throughout my own life. Coming from a home where violence is the norm feels like damnation, where I’ve often believed that I’m destined to recreate my traumatic childhood for my children. I still struggle with this in the present. Any setback or poorly handled conflict in a relationship makes me question whether or not I’m too broken to create a better future. Ironically, it’s giving into this nihilism and fatalism that destroy my life, as opposed to the other way around.

After the Eclipse, Guts leaves Casca to hunt down apostles, the demons of Berserk. This is presumably so that he can find Griffith and kill him. Although the apostles are evil creatures, Guts’s bloodlust is unsettling and it’s clear that he is deeply sick. His aforementioned psychopathy reinforces how he has given into his rage and darkness. For many trauma survivors, rage is all they know. It’s a natural response to having power taken away from you and shields you from the debilitating grief that lies underneath. I’ve observed sadistic parts in myself that desire violence and revenge. In fact, there’s a certain part of me that would love nothing more than to be able to be like Guts, where I can easily crush anybody who attempts to harm me. In a therapy session many years ago, I named this part of myself “the beast”. As the session progressed, I learned that the beast was actually protecting a very wounded little creature covered in soot, which I named “soot baby”. This was in fact a representation of myself as a child, with the soot on him representing how deeply abused and neglected I had felt by my parents. I had lost touch with that part of myself that contained hope and optimism for the future and had fully given into nihilism and dissociative rage. The ironic part was that I wasn’t somebody who was outwardly rageful since I wanted to be nothing like my father. These past few years have been a process of learning to control my anger, control the beast, and give that child part of me what I should have gotten from my parents. The following panel was striking to me since Guts’s face and words reflected how twisted and inhuman I felt deep down with respect to my rage.

Guts’s maniacal smile and eye convey the deep psychological wounds he carries from the Eclipse. Further, saying that nobody can ever understand the pain shows how inhuman of a form his psyche has contorted to. In truth, he’s giving an excuse for his violent rampage that involved abandoning Casca, and the blacksmith can clearly see that. Feeling so deeply broken that one cannot exist as a normal human is something I have often felt. However, indulging in that thought is what creates the nihilism and further trauma.

Miura also explores nihilism and giving into one’s darkness through Guts’s behelit. A behelit is a pendant which is destined to be used by an individual to turn them into an apostle or a member of the Godhand. The holder of the behelit has to sacrifice those who are most important to them however. We are first introduced to it through Griffith’s behelit. It’s ultimately Griffith triggering the behelit when he attempted suicide that causes the events of the Eclipse and compels him to sacrifice the Band of the Hawk to become one of the Godhand. What is interesting is that Guts also has a behelit, and it is mentioned several times through the story that the behelit he carries is destined for him. This raises a recurring question - will Guts sacrifice those who are closest to him, specifically Casca, to gain the power to fulfill his desire for revenge? Sacrificing the individuals one loves most is about the most inhuman thing one can do, so it thematically fits with the behelit representing a rejection of one’s humanity. In my life, I’ve seen many parallels to behelits. For example, I’ve seen people escape their trauma and feelings of deficiency by chasing money, women, and power. These people are giving into their own narcissism and betraying their own humanity. They also end up being poor friends since they’re willing to use people as means to their ends as opposed to ends in themselves. I’ve sometimes felt this pull of fulfilling my own narcissism. This has come through a covert martyr mentality than anything else, where I could use people by “saving” them and being codependent to cover up my own poor self esteem. Ultimately, this has always backfired and damaged or destroyed the relationship. It’s only after the fact that I realize I’d deluded myself and that I had unconsciously used somebody. I think to be truly human, you need to treat people as ends in themselves, and this has to start with yourself. I’ve built the resolve to not sacrifice myself and my own humanity to attain superficial things, and it’s something I continue to work on.

“Stoic” men

I want to end this essay by talking about why I appreciate stoic men in media. In current times, men are often encouraged to be vulnerable and less stoic. However, I think these messages come across as tone deaf and lack an understanding of why men develop these defense mechanisms in the first place. As I’ve talked about in this essay, it can serve as a defense mechanism to severe trauma. While it’s true that men benefit from working through this, I believe a gentler and more patient approach will be more successful in getting men to heal from this trauma. We have to treat these wounded men from a place of compassion as opposed to scorn. It also becomes hypocritical to pressure men not to be this way since there is a push to allow people to be flexible in how they want to act. I personally prefer when I’m more on the stoic side, since I feel grounded and stable.

I find that a well portrayed stoic man ends up being a good role model for myself. I’ve already explained why I like Guts as a character between his positives and his flaws, but another character I’ll briefly talk about is Kiryu from the Yakuza series. He’s another stoic man who is able to best anybody in a fight. What I appreciate about him is that he does things for the people he loves and it’s clear that those around him matter to him deeply. The game also shows that he can do goofy things like race toy cars with children and sing karaoke with his friends. After I played Yakuza 0, I felt inspired to go out and live my life more, doing things that are out of my comfort zone. I don’t think I’d have felt so inspired if the main character weren’t dark and brooding as a default.

Finally, I believe that while being a “stoic man” is not popular nowadays and tends to find more ridicule than praise, the positive traits these stoic men have still have an important place in the world and will become increasingly important in the future. Growing up, I’d go to India with my family every year. Those trips were eye opening in helping me understand what kind of world my parents came from and how difficult life can be for others. My dad grew up in a lower income family in India and studied hard to do a PhD in America. He then found a high paying job and was able to send money back to his family in India and even do volunteer work to help raise money for the education of other kids. My dad had and still has many flaws, but I have to acknowledge that he had an iron will and it was only through that strength that he was able to better his situation and help those around him. In many of these developing countries, the stoic fathers are the backbone of the family that keep them economically stable. The emotionally avoidant attitude towards life becomes necessary to survive in some of these difficult conditions. I find it difficult to write off this group of people in the way many Westerners do since I have grown up with an understanding of how hard poverty can make life. Ultimately, I think that men should maintain many of the positive virtues of strength and independence that come from the stoic man stereotype while being able to access the full range of their emotions, so that they may have healthy relationships and a fulfilling life.

I hope to have conveyed to you the effect that reading Berserk and relating to Guts has had on my own life. If you feel inspired to do so, please give Berserk a chance. Despite how dark of a story is, it’s given me a lot of direction as to how I can better my own life and who I really am.