When Black Swordsman Falls: My predictions for the ending of Berserk

[FelixTam]

When the Black Swordsman Falls: My Tragic Fan Prediction for the End of Berserk

If I were imagining the most tragic possible ending for Berserk, I would not give Guts a clean victory.

A story as relentlessly cruel as Berserk could end with Guts defeating Griffith but still losing the thing he spent his entire life trying to protect.

My version would be a tragedy about the price of revenge.

Guts would eventually reach Griffith after years of suffering, but the final confrontation would happen only after almost everyone around him has already paid a terrible price.

The story would begin with Griffith's empire facing a supernatural crisis that even he cannot completely control.

The merging of the human and astral worlds would become increasingly unstable. Apostles would become more difficult to control. Monsters would appear without orders. The people living under Griffith's protection would begin realizing that their savior is also connected to the catastrophe consuming the world.

Griffith would remain calm.

He would continue believing that his dream can survive anything.

Guts, however, would be approaching the final stage of his journey.

Schierke would discover that the Berserker Armor has permanently damaged Guts. His body would be failing. His eyesight would continue deteriorating, his wounds would never fully heal, and his ability to distinguish friend from enemy during moments of extreme rage would become increasingly dangerous.

Casca would recognize the problem before anyone else.

She would realize that Guts is preparing to die.

Not consciously.

But emotionally.

Guts would insist that he only needs one final opportunity to reach Griffith.

Casca would refuse to accept that.

Their relationship would therefore become central to the tragedy.

Casca would finally tell Guts that she does not want him to die for her.

She would want him to live.

That would create the central conflict of the ending.

Guts has spent so long believing that his responsibility is to protect Casca that he has difficulty imagining a future in which he simply lives beside her.

Farnese would also become increasingly important.

She would realize that Guts' revenge is destroying him even if he succeeds.

Serpico would understand the same thing but would not know how to convince him.

Isidro would be particularly affected.

To Isidro, Guts has always represented the ultimate warrior. He would initially want to follow Guts into the final confrontation.

Guts would refuse.

This would be one of the rare moments when Guts openly admits that being like him is not necessarily something worth aspiring to.

Rickert would arrive with his own group at the worst possible moment.

He would have learned that Griffith's kingdom is preparing for a final ritual intended to stabilize the new world permanently.

Rickert would believe that destroying the ritual is the only way to prevent Griffith from transforming the world completely.

Daiba would agree.

The Kushan forces would therefore become involved in the final war.

This would bring together several characters and factions that had previously been separated.

The resistance would attack Griffith's forces.

Zodd would eventually confront Guts.

But this time, Zodd would not be the final enemy.

Instead, he would tell Guts that Griffith has become something beyond the man they once followed.

Zodd would fight Guts one final time.

Their battle would be brutal.

Guts would win.

But Zodd would not die immediately.

Before dying, he would tell Guts that he has finally become strong enough to defeat the warrior he once was.

Then Zodd would look toward Griffith and realize that the real battle is not between warriors anymore.

It is between dreams.

Zodd would die standing.

Guts would continue.

Eventually he would reach Griffith.

The final confrontation would be much shorter than expected.

Griffith would be overwhelmingly powerful.

Guts would use every ounce of strength he possesses.

The Berserker Armor would take control.

Guts would become almost completely consumed by the Beast of Darkness.

Casca would try to reach him.

She would call his name.

For a moment, Guts would return to himself.

That moment would be enough.

He would strike Griffith.

Griffith would finally be wounded.

But the wound would not kill him.

Instead, Guts would realize that he has been fighting the wrong battle.

Griffith does not need to be physically defeated.

The entire supernatural system supporting him has to collapse.

Guts would therefore make the ultimate sacrifice.

He would use the Berserker Armor to hold open the collapsing boundary between worlds long enough for Schierke and Farnese to destroy the mechanism sustaining Griffith's connection to the physical world.

Guts would know exactly what will happen.

He will not survive.

Casca would try to stop him.

Guts would tell her that she has to live.

Not for him.

For herself.

This would be crucial.

Guts would finally stop asking Casca to be the reason he continues living.

He would tell her that her life belongs to her.

Then the final battle would begin.

Rickert's group would destroy the remaining machinery and magical structures.

Daiba would sacrifice himself to contain the supernatural explosion.

Farnese and Schierke would use everything they have learned to stabilize the boundary long enough for the others to escape.

Serpico would refuse to leave Farnese.

Isidro would fight desperately to protect the retreating survivors.

Casca would remain beside Guts until the very end.

Guts would defeat Griffith.

But he would die immediately afterward.

Griffith would disappear into the collapsing astral world, his dream destroyed.

The God Hand would not necessarily be killed.

Instead, their connection to the human world would be severely weakened.

The world would survive.

But Guts would not.

The final chapters would then slow down completely.

There would be no celebration.

Casca would bury Guts.

She would keep the Dragon Slayer beside his grave for a time, but eventually she would leave it behind.

Isidro would return to the road.

He would continue fighting, but he would stop trying to imitate Guts.

Farnese would continue helping survivors.

Serpico would remain beside her.

Rickert would become one of the leaders of a new human society.

Schierke would continue studying magic and would remember Guts as the person who taught her that strength without compassion can become another kind of weakness.

The final image would be Casca walking across an ordinary landscape.

No monsters.

No armies.

No supernatural catastrophe.

Just wind moving through grass.

She would look back once.

Then continue walking.

The tragedy would be that Guts never receives the peaceful life he wanted.

But his sacrifice would allow everyone else to have the possibility of one.

The final meaning would therefore be painful but hopeful.

Guts could not escape suffering.

He could not recover everything he lost.

He could not live happily ever after.

But he could choose what his suffering meant.

Instead of dying purely for revenge, he would ultimately sacrifice himself so that Casca, Schierke, Farnese, Isidro, Rickert, and the others could live beyond the cycle of violence.

That would make the ending devastating.

Guts would lose his life.

But he would finally win the freedom that he had spent his entire existence searching for.

And Griffith, despite achieving his dream, would be left with nothing that truly belonged to him.