I think this is pretty dead on, and having experienced a psychotic episode myself (it was brought on by a complete mental breakdown, the textbook version from a combination of mental and emotional exhaustion, PTSD from the past and back to back traumatic occurrences in my life at that time; I don't suffer chronic psychosis, but I did find out I was autistic through the episode) something you didn't mention that also fits is the ability to commit feats of strength, speed and a lack of physical pain once thought not possible. I ran a span of distance through large swaths of trees, briers, barbed wire fences and very large gullys in a very short period of time (induced by extreme paranoia, for reasons I couldn't tell you now if I tried) that everyone questioned how it was even possible I did it once they found me (I'm not out of shape, but neither am I anywhere near an athlete). So I think the armor also taps into that aspect of Gut's psychosis and is a great metaphor for said psychosis as well, removing his pain and giving him inhuman abilities of strength, speed and agility. Except of course in reality it's never cool and simply more traumatic, embarrassing and sad
i'm looking forward to this! i saw the beast of darkness as a psychological consequence of gut's hatred literally coming back to bite him in the ass, but i never considered it was a parallel to psychosis!
The eclipse gets worse. Casca was carrying Guts' unborn child. It would be miscarried after the Eclipse in front of him. His child is later revealed to be corrupted by the assault into a demon. Griffith later bonds with Guts' demon child to re-enter the world.
This was a really interesting perspective that makes me want to reread Lost Children, the part most important to the person who introduced me to Berserk; I remember struggling with interpreting it the most out of any arc, and I think going back with this context would help me understand it a lot more.
Thank you for the Berserk video about the topic of SA 9 months ago. It brought me peace of mind (not a survivor but someone very close to me is). Can't wait to watch this one as well. You're a legend.
This channel is utterly addicting. Every single topic is so filled with thought-out answers that I just have to admit it's the best Berserk video analysis I ever seen
This seems more like paranoia than psychosis. Normally someone who declared a literal war against demons would be breaking with reality but in Berserk that's just what's happening.
Ya, the demons are real. But the beast of darkness isn't. It's just in Guts' head and man't having full-fledged conversations with it as if it were one of those demons. I know it's interpreted to be a metaphor for Guts' struggle with his animalistic impulses, but I dunno man, I think he really sees things that aren't there and can't make the difference between them and reality. Isn't that the definition of phychosis?
@@vicentiupredescu7205 I think the Beast is a demon manifested by Guts' more maligned characteristics like anger, lust, and revenge. I think he got his abilities by being closer to the astral world than most people, potentially explaining the superhuman way he wields a sword most people can't lift off the ground, not to mention how he shrugs off what would be normally be mortal wounds. Miura appears to have written the story with open-ended elements, leaving readers to speculate on the cause or meaning behind them.
@@JohnSmith-mc2zzsomething someone else said that could be really cool is that the Beast was in fact all in Gut’s head, was. When Griffith merged the worlds and brought back Falconia, The beast very well could have been one of the thing given life in the real world. This could be a neat story thing considering I believe Guts thinks the Beast is in his head, so I’d like to see his reaction to finding out that it’s real now
@@They_Hit_The_Pentagon Miura is good at creating mysterious story elements. I feel the Beast is something that is struggling to become real. It's not fully there yet. We have some confidence in the direction the story is going, like, people who read the first chapters know Guts won't become an apostle.
absolutely love this video as a berserk fan, psych student and psychiatric consumer (who has been diagnosed with more than one of the dxs mentioned in this video, lol.) you're very respectful and compassionate and this may seem like a small thing to people who haven't experienced psychosis, but i really appreciate the warning specifically directed at people who have experienced psychosis/AVHs because when discussing this sort of thing most youtubers seem to think no one who has ever experienced psychosis could actually be in their audience. so, thank you :) one note on something you said early on in the video while differentiating psychosis from dissociation: the line between trauma-related psychosis and dissociative disorders can be pretty thin especially re: auditory verbal hallucinations. there's a very good sourcebook going over most recent research on psychosis and dissociation and their overlap called (predictably) psychosis, trauma and dissociation: evolving perspectives on severe psychopathology if you're interested that sort of thing. with regards to that, personally i find the beast of darkness to be simultaneously a great representation of what it's like to have malicious hallucinations and an equally effective depiction of severe dissociation, especially with how common perpetrator-replicating parts/voices are in trauma-related psychosis and dissociative disorders and how the beast of darkness is (in my opinion) most compellingly understood as a facet of guts rather than something "separate" - which i think shines some light on that scene with casca (although i would argue that it's absolutely not to the degree of, like, DID for example. probably more within the realm of OSDD or just severe C-PTSD). great video!
As someone who struggles with mental health (not going into details) your videos on Berserk and other media have helped me explain what it can be like in my head to to others. It's made comunication way more efficient and kinder. Commenting also helps boost videos in the algorithm so hopefully iv done my part!
41:40 I have to say, that transition of Scheirke into Guts' psyche, the Beast of Darkness virtually swimming by like a colossal whale is so fitting. I hope this get animated properly someday.
This was a fantastic video. As someone who has worked in the acute mental health field for years, has read berserk many times, and have dealt with my own battles with psychosis and trauma, you do an amazing job explaining everything. Thank you for the video and I’ll definitely be checking out more from your channel
I would put Guts in the same class as Dexter Morgan, and I think the real older Frank Castle The Punishier is also in the same class too. They both had horrific tragic experiences, they have no problem using innocent people in their schemes to survive if their main mission is close to being put in jeopardy, and lastly they truly go after and kill the truly evil far gone beings out there.
The problem with the world of Berserk is that the physical world and fantasy actually overlap in certain cases. Sometimes it is a place where magical or fantasy creatures lived (and unfortunately the dark fantasy creatures took over), sometimes it can be an event like the Eclipse Guts & Casca were a part of, sometimes it is a mark that was burned so deep into you that it attached to both your body and soul effectively making you a walking talking supernatural beacon that attracts anything and everything, or you could dive into a giant vat of literal liquid concentrated evil that turns you into a Godzilla type monster, or you could be killed by a sword made out of keys to the supernatural world and be turned into a supernatural tree that permanently anchors or binds the worlds of reality and fantasy together. When you live in a world where crazy $#!+ like that actually happens the “Am I crazy?” issue becomes harder to deal with and understand. Though it seems like having mages or sages of magic can somewhat help prevent you from losing your mind and in Casca’s case heal you to regain most of herself that she lost during Griffith’s Eclipse.
This was awesome thank you. Started reading berserk in its entirety again after renting volume 1 through 13 from my library. This video brings a lot of insight into what im seeing on every page.
I have never been so excited for a video in my life!!! I never imagined you would ever make a whole video answering my most burning question when it came to this story! While I doubt that Miura made these decisions with his writing due to a deep or complex understanding of psychosis, you always make such great arguments in your videos that it's hard to disagree with your interpretation! You really are a credit to your profession. I think it certainly is a testament to Miura's talent on how well a lot of his story holds up and is still able to be explained 30 years later, due to his grounding of his fantasy using realistic struggles of mental health as you explain here. This was the biggest point of contention for me when it came to defending my love for this story as a female reader. Not just because I still have some qualms with how Miura handles women's and primarily Casca's SAs throughout the story, (I will give him a little credit though for later on admiting that he had been excessive with it in the past.), but also because it seems to have painted such a bad picture of men in the story, particularly Guts. As Jackson P. Brown said in his blog, by just choosing to make your main male character SA his main love intrest when both have experienced that trauma very closely and would know how horrible it is, as a way to separate the characters and drive the story forward, seemed to unintentionally indicate an additute of "if you're a male, you're a rapist". Which not only gives ammunition for Griffith stans to hate Guts and claim he's not better than Griffith, but also makes Berserk seem like a story that, ironically with how many fans complain about Twitter, seems like something written by a radical feminist. As radical feminists, particularly Andrea Dworkin claim that "men are women's natural predators". So looking at it through your lens is more than a welcome perspective. 😅 Like I said you make very good arguments using evidence from the panels for you points. I also wanted to add about the form the beast takes being a dog might also speak to Guts trauma when it came to his childhood neglect and his guilt over Gambinos' death. Guts makes a point to tell Casca durring his flashback in Wounds 2, that Gambino never once called out his name and treated his dogs better than him. Asking Guts if he had gotten them food, instead of recognizing any if Guts' victories in battle. Gambino only ever loved his dogs, and Griffith only ever loved guts. It could have also been foreshadowing of Griffiths betrayal. As you only love a dog until it bites your hand after you've fed it. Thank you everyone for coming to my TedTalk as you can tell I have a lot of opinions on my favorite peice of literature. Keep up the good work ! I think I'm actually going to become a Patron member for once! 😂
I love your editing. Such sass Also, I have read up on so many definitions of mental health disorders, and sometimes they're just too hard to distinguish on paper. And yep Google isn't helpful. Case studies of fiction like this are so helpful in illustrating something far more encompassing and complex than what we can get in a textbook or God forbid a dictionary. It's not the full picture, but it's a much bigger one, and I want to thank you for that.
One of the things I've noticed is that people learn much more thoroughly when information is presented in a narrative form. It's why oral tradition and religions lasted as long as they did. People enjoy learning from stories. Berserk is wonderful because it takes only a little bit of information to make powerful lessons out of it
A few years ago I went back into psych for being suicidal, during that time I talked to a therapist in the hospital that I have been having visual issues and audio issues and wanted to evaluated, turns out those were hallucinations, I have been having them for years and I didn’t know that the slight changes in sound, or bubbling bathmats are a thing. I didn’t realize what disordered thinking was until I recall a time off my meds and me rambling to myself. They seem to come in extreme stress and anxiety. My CPTSD is psychotic and I can relate to Guts with pyschotic ptsd
In psychology classes, teachers accidentally imply that there is a clear line that bisects neurotic and psychotic disorders but more and more I find this not to be the case. I've seen psychotic cases of depression and sometimes its hard to tell the difference between intrusive thoughts and auditory hallucinations. I hope that you're in a good place now and you have ways of combatting these interferences in your life
Most of my auditory hallucinations are rather tame (distant music or radio static) but they do intersect with invasive thoughts and sometimes my alters. Psychosis is less of a diagnosis imo and more like a comorbid. Something I am realizing while I deal with my mental health. I have great supports however and despite challenges with healthcare, I know I am okay if loose my meds. Thank you for this video though, you always make the videos that challenge my persception of myself
Your videos deserve way more views than they have, they are so excellent! I extremely appreciate your point at the end about the importance of support networks. I do want to add that I have my doubts about the sustainability of Schierke’s dynamic with Guts, simply because I am very wary of children being promoted to caregivers. While Schierke is “mature for her age” it’s a position that’s often cast upon girls, esp if they’re neurodivergent, and I think the effect it is having on her development is shown in the series, both with her difficulties socializing with other kids, as well as her fairly awkward (both for her and the reader) precocious attraction to Guts. It’s sad to me that Schierke doesn’t get to have a childhood. She looks to me like a classic Autistic Savant child who will very likely experience serious mental health consequences once she becomes an adult. Part of the tragedy, in my opinion, is that the closest Guts has to an actual therapist is a child, tho their synergy in battle is extremely cool and poignant. TL;DR I love Schierke she is my baby
something ive always loved about Berserk is how much you can read many themes into it. for example, when i read it when i was younger, i interpreted the Black Beast to be a literal representation of the most negative aspects of Guts' masculinity and violence, which he had been unlearning throughout the story. that's a reading i had carried with me and still do and has changed me a lot as a person. it also being a representation of psychosis is a great reading. i love how much we can take from this 80's comic about a dude with a sword
I know your videos aren't crazy popular but I look forward to every single one keep up the great work I was able to convince my mom to try shrooms and watch/Read berserk because of you
God I love this video . The content I’m trying to make is a much more unrefined version of what your doing . Similar but different. As someone who’s always aspiring to become more knowledgeable and understanding I really am thankful to have watched this . A subscriber recommended this channel to me and I’m gonna binge some of these vids today while I’m working . Great work
I have gone through psychosis several times in life and I have to thank you for your explanation and doubt clearing. Hearing you say "seeing something that isn't real doesn't make you believe it" was very humanising and I have to thank you for that too because many people don't think that way. Fun fact: the attitude of the voices people hear differ geographically. In the west it's common that they are abusive and aggressive but in the east it's common for them to give divinations and be culturally/religiously based. One thing I need to say is that the visuals in your simulation do a very poor job and I don't think anyone has seen stuff comparable to that outside the psychedelic experience, but in the larger scope of this video I think it matters little. Ending the comment on a negative note will take away from the positives so again thank you for a humanising explanation and your precious care with people like me, and sorry if anything I said came out as insulting.I know Guts is the focal point of the video but I have little I can say except that our interpretations align to some extent, and I was tired of seeing dudes say he's just a betrayed, angry dude. I make sense of a lot of the manga comparing the distortions in it to those of my life and I always thought Miura seemed psychotic with the way he portrays the real world in his work too, but the beast of darkness especially hits close to home as it reminds me a lot of a pale lady that I often see, feel, smell, etc... when I'm at my lowest. Though frightening she obviously seeks to help my situation and I think the beast of darkness is the same, it wants to keep Guts alive and violence, considering the world he lives in, is the easiest, optimal approach. I see it as a manifestation of the dark part of himself that just like in real life, cannot be rid off, but I also know exchanging the events in the manga to those in real life cannot be done to the extent you can exchange 1usd for 0.87eur, it must always be metaphorical or we run into poor conclusions
Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate that my visuals for that section were perhaps a little too OTT and if I ever try and do the exercise again I'll bear what you said in mind! I appreciate you telling your story and i shall look into the cultural effect on the nature of the voices, it sounds like a fascinating bit of research! Bless you and take care!
I might post multiple comments to this so I'll start here. First, really like the explanations you give for different mental afflictions and illnesses. I'm not educated in them, so the similar (yet different) symptoms cause me to get confused on what's what. Second, yeah that exercise was freaky as hell. I tried responding with my actual voice, and all I could grt out was "yes I'd like a large... large, large" and I couldn't quite get blsck coffee out because of hoe distracted I was. Third. I think we've all had an instance of imagining something not there. The amount of times I swear someone was calling my name when there was no one. Or seeing something move in my peripheral that wasn't there. A little weird, but overall harmless. I couldn't imagine living day to day dealing with that dualed to 11 constantly. My sympathy for anyone afflicted with this
4th, on Lost Children. It was always my favorite, and yet scariest, part of the arc, which is that when Guts is standing above Rosine and Jill, we don't know, and will probably never know if he actually planned to kill them both. I don't even try to guess which it was, because I really can't say for sure. I know you said he does decide to swing but that movement could have been from getting shot by the arrow
5th, Fangs of Ego. That's a chapter I accept, for any Berserk fans against it saying that Guts would never do that: How better can you portray a man battling his own inner darkness than Guts assaulting Casca, the act that broke her in the eclipse, all so he could feel more hate, and bask in his own illusion. Of course, he didn't have a fully steady mind, and he did snap out of it, but that psrf of him exists undeniably
This is a great video! The only slight nitpick I have is that at 18:43 you couldn’t used the audio from Berserk Memorial edition so we could’ve heard Gut’s amazing voice actor going over that line
While I love Marc Draisons performance, the lines were spaced out and intercut with new lines that would have dragged the moment out a bit too long for my taste.... plus I love doing line reads for these videos and messing with my voice lol :P
In my recent readthrough of Berserk I thought that Guts subconsciously associating himself with a dog might stem deeper that just Casca calling him a mad dog, but also be related to how his father figure Gambino often treated his dog better than he ever treated Guts. He'd use the money that Guts gave him to buy food for his dog instead of his surrogate son
About _Fangs Of Ego,_ and Guts's assault, you forgot to mention one parallel. When Guts made love to Casca the first time, he almost chokes her out during a flashback. Was Guts suffering from psychosis even then, during the Golden Age?
if you re interested do a video about Mari from OMORI and perfectionism i think theres so much that can be talked about in the game, many people try to portray her as the true villain of the game for pushing her perfectionism onto others when its clear on dialogues thats not the case would love to see your vision on that and how it affected her life, for what i see in the game and other things involving it it wanst just another episode of pushing frustrations onto others(as many people say)as she's known to be kind to others not the other way around Hope this makes sense. Loved both of yours berserk videos and helped me a lot(as someone who suffers from BPD and Bipolar disorder seeing videos like these are so helpful and good berserk content)
Good stuff - not a subject I'm too familiar with, but I recall one or too occasions where I stayed up late playing games, and by the time I was finally getting to bed it was like I was remembering a familiar voice more vividly than a regular memory, yet there was enough clarity to realize that wasn't actual auditory perception - I figure sleep deprivation weakens the distinction between those things neurological? Wasn't there a scene in Shirke's magical tutelage of Farnese where they get a glimpse of Guts' psyche, and it's the beast of darkness dragging a coffin? I half expected that to be covered here, but I'm not sure that was at a stage of Guts' life where more negative impulses were the only thing driving him forward... seems like it'd be a relapse to the Black Swordsman arc mindset, despite the support structure he developed since...
But i agreed with basically everything else as some that went through an episode. I also believe this is just personal speculation that everytime we learn something or we go through something that is a little bit traumatic we have a mini version of psychosis because it changes the thing learned or the traumatic thing changes your worldview
Hey there I just want to say that I really love the video however I do want to illustrate that the beast is real and isn't just a hallucination. Let me explain why I'm saying this. When Guts meets Flora for the first time she says she can give him a magic talisman that will go over his brand and will stop him from being possessed by astral creatures. And what Guts immediately thinks of is when he assaulted Casca, not when external spirits took over and he choked Casca. Meaning that when he assaulted Casca it felt like he was possessed by a spirit. Also whenever the talisman is applied and we see the beast of darkness when he isn't wearing the armour, it's chained up. Meaning the talisman is stopping it from taking over. Now when you look at it this way, with the beast being real but being unable to take over when the talismans are applied. It's quite easy to assume that's what Miura was going for here. The talismans are a metaphor for Guts taking meds. They stop the beast, (metaphor for psychosis) from taking over. It's pretty brilliant, Miura was truly a master of his craft. However there's something else I wanted to ask you, it's about Guts in the black swordsman arc but RUclips won't let me post it as a comment for some reason. So do you have an email or something I can send my original comment to? Thank you
It's true that Guts thinks of that in Flora's mansion, but as the beast is still a mystery to him it's possible he's just making an assumption and flora never discusses it directly so the point is still up to interpretation... I like your point about the Talisman and meds though, wish I'd thought of that tbh. Sure throw me an email, cant promise a response but ill read it at some point! My public email is psychosocialismeditor1@gmail.com
I’m more inclined to the theory that the beast of darkness was in gods head until Griffith merged the world together, and when he merge the planes of real and unreal, his imagination was given form and became an actual entity
Well I mean the poor guy was already a Child Soldier having to do some pretty distasteful stuff just to survive and then well the Donovan incident happened as a mercenary he was running away from his problems by getting really good at killing getting layers of PTSD issues like it's lasagna and then the poor guy gets betrayed by his best friend and sacrificed to a bunch of Eldritch God Demon things who wouldn't be questioning the reality just by the intense personal betrayals and then things get lovecraftian I'm not surprised he has psychosis I'm surprised he's standing everything about that situation is intensely heroic
"Guts can never see his psychosis coming or use it to predict what his darker side will do.." Except when was dying and allowed the beast of darkness to take over and kill the Sea God...
I’m not finished with the video but as someone who’s experienced psychosis I’ve thought about whether it relates to Guts. Ultimately while he shows signs of severe ptsd I don’t think the psychotic label is fitting for him because everything he’s experiencing is reality for the berserk world. He’s truly being hunted by demons and was betrayed countless times nothing is of a false perception on his end imo. The beast of darkness I can see maybe being psychosis but that seems to be more a physical manifestation of guts trauma overtaking him then anything.
Wow, this made me cry like a lil bitch 😭 My partner had his first psychotic break this year and this hit my chest harder than I thought it would. Well done
New subscriber here. Really enjoyed watching a berserk video that dealt with the trauma and psychosis of guts and other characters. Keep up the good work. Gonna check out the Farnese part 1-2 videos now!
One thing l want to add is that the beast of darkness might have actually become a real astral creature that is tied to guts I am certain it started out as a hallucination but with the inclusion of the Armour it has become something more. We see in the sea god battle that he is sort of able to repurpose it in a way so he can push forward an kill the sea god, you might say that he is simply talking to himself or that he thinks the beast is real but we see later with hanar the craftsman of the armour that Hanar notes he hasn't mastered it yet with the beast of darkness being shown beside him. I believe that tho the armour is a very explicitly bad thing for Guts that pushes him deeper into his psychosis it is also a tool with witch guts can come into contact with his inner self or his Shadow self as some would call it and if this is possible perhaps guts can undertake some sort of soul searching journey and confront his beast of darkness such as described in the writings of Carl Jung or for a better understanding the casca dreamscape sequence. I am not saying that Guts will magically talk to the evil wulf that haunts his nightmares and convince him to be his friend like Naruto and Kurama we already know berserk doesn't do trauma like that l mean just look at Casca. But l believe that Guts will be able to find some understanding and sense of purposes within himself and the beast of darkness, to be able to understand what it feeds on to start to combat and repurpose his dark thoughts and emotions and to fight again his dark desires and trauma more effectively. As you said the beast of darkness will be forever with Guts and l 100% believe that just as Cascas fear and trauma will be forever with her but they and by extension we as people can overcome the dark trauma that haunts us through the help of others and reflecting within. Also killing that fuck Griffith and making him burn in the lowest pits of hell would probably help calm the beast of darkness down. Anyway great video learned a lot and made me appreciate the story of berserk more then l already do.
The beast of darkness is Guts shadow taken form. It's a part of Guts, not a seperate entity or being. What it says and does Guts wants in some way, including conflicting thoughts of wanting to protect and at times, kill Casca. Guts also doesn't care if it "was him" or not. He sees the affects it had on Casca and how she sees him. He knows how she sees him is how he sees Griffith.
You’re correct, but have you heard the theory that after Griffith merge the world together because of all the different planes of both real unreal imagination in reality coming together, the beast of darkness may actually be it’s own entity now because when I first heard it, my mind was blown
Berserk takes a lot from Jungian philosophy which is why youll see the astral plane also referred to as the “collective consciousness” at time. In the astral plane in berserk concepts can take physical shape so the beast of darkness is his shadow, which is real in the astral plane, and which Guts would most likely be more susceptible to due to living in the interstice
Hello. I just wanted to ask a question about Guts that I've been thinking about recently. Do you think he's apathetic or nihilistic during his black swordsman days? I don't know enough about either of those things to know if he truly is or not. So i wanted to ask about your opinion as a mental health professional
I don’t think he’s apathetic, but I’m not sure about nihilistic either, but I would lean more that way. The reason I say he’s not apathetic is because you can see moments of true despair come over him over what happens to the people around him from his own actions, such as when he tells the count’s daughter to kill herself, but then saves her and cries about the pain she’s in after he kills her father
: The clinical study of psychosis and the philosophical study of hauntology seems to me to be the same thing, and Berserk is what I'd refer to in order to prove it. Cheers to another great video about the brilliance and brutality of Berkman, the Berkiest boy to ever berk it.
The training I referred to in the video was entitled "Managing strange experiences" for that reason. The idea is to take the strangeness of people's experiences in stride without confirming or denying them. You can't always persuade someone that something that happened to them isnt real, so you try and help them contextualise it in a way that leads them to help and health
I feel that disregarding the agreed upon definition of psychosis, to create your own definition to get your video topic across is a bit disingenuous. I'm a fan of your work so can you elaborate as to why you did that?
It's not creating a new definition exactly, it's just adding more to the definition offered by google, filling in more of the details and jostling the semantics around to make it clearer and freeer from implications. Hope that makes sense?
I love when people say "You're wrong!" and present no arguments. It's pretty simple, gender identity is just that, Identity. Identity is a psychological construct that we build in our minds to explain ourselves to other people around us. The definition of "man" and "woman" is formed in every society by a sort of agreement between individuals. It's not talking about biology, that's why the word male and female exist, to define biology. Thats the way it's been throughout history and still is today. People cannot read each others minds, so we construct the meaning of abstract concepts like what "being a woman" is, based on social agreements and use of language. Being a woman or a man, is a social construct. In the middle ages, women were treated like property to be married off. In the 20th century we moved away from that definition and now to be woman is a different thing. It used to be considered manly to dance ballet and wear powdered wigs. Thats what social construct means. "Woman" and "Man" have never had an objective measurement, because at the end of the day, WE made it up. Hope that helps!
I clicked on this to watch a video about Berserk, Guts, and psychosis and you put references to trans people, Stephen Colbert, and Trump. Why did you do that? I watch this stuff to escape politics, and I'm saying that as a trans person. I appreciate your empathy for Guts and his traumas, but would you please leave the political stuff at the door next time?
Lol if me explaining the difference between psychosis and neurosis bothers you then consider that politics affects us all whether you want it to or not. Sorry.
Politics affecting us all doesn't really have anything to do with the fact that you brought up trans people, and inserted a strange anti-Trump non-sequitur into a video on the hallowed Berserk. There are already enough leftist video essays on RUclips. Please just don't include lefty politics in your next Berserk video essay? I am genuinely asking you.
Yeah no. If I bring something up its because it's relevant, and distinction is sometimes necessary for understanding. And Trump jokes are off limits now? Just don't watch, there are plenty of right wingers who make "apolitical" berserk content with no challenging ideas in them, go find them.
@PsychoSocialism - "Trump bad" isn't a challenging idea. Neither is what you said about trans people. It's about as challenging as someone saying "F*** Joe Biden" in their video essay. Maybe you can't see it because of your leftist bias.
There's no way to read The Beast of Darkness as anything actually demonic. It's a manifestation of Guts' trauma. The fact that it becomes incarnate in the Berserker armor means it's a part of Guts' psyche, specifically his Id.
![GEEK TIMË [OFFICIAL AUDIO]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ry-6RvkH880/mqdefault.jpg)
I think this is pretty dead on, and having experienced a psychotic episode myself (it was brought on by a complete mental breakdown, the textbook version from a combination of mental and emotional exhaustion, PTSD from the past and back to back traumatic occurrences in my life at that time; I don't suffer chronic psychosis, but I did find out I was autistic through the episode) something you didn't mention that also fits is the ability to commit feats of strength, speed and a lack of physical pain once thought not possible. I ran a span of distance through large swaths of trees, briers, barbed wire fences and very large gullys in a very short period of time (induced by extreme paranoia, for reasons I couldn't tell you now if I tried) that everyone questioned how it was even possible I did it once they found me (I'm not out of shape, but neither am I anywhere near an athlete). So I think the armor also taps into that aspect of Gut's psychosis and is a great metaphor for said psychosis as well, removing his pain and giving him inhuman abilities of strength, speed and agility. Except of course in reality it's never cool and simply more traumatic, embarrassing and sad
i'm looking forward to this! i saw the beast of darkness as a psychological consequence of gut's hatred literally coming back to bite him in the ass, but i never considered it was a parallel to psychosis!
The eclipse gets worse. Casca was carrying Guts' unborn child. It would be miscarried after the Eclipse in front of him. His child is later revealed to be corrupted by the assault into a demon. Griffith later bonds with Guts' demon child to re-enter the world.
This was a really interesting perspective that makes me want to reread Lost Children, the part most important to the person who introduced me to Berserk; I remember struggling with interpreting it the most out of any arc, and I think going back with this context would help me understand it a lot more.
Thank you for the Berserk video about the topic of SA 9 months ago. It brought me peace of mind (not a survivor but someone very close to me is). Can't wait to watch this one as well. You're a legend.
This channel is utterly addicting. Every single topic is so filled with thought-out answers that I just have to admit it's the best Berserk video analysis I ever seen
This seems more like paranoia than psychosis. Normally someone who declared a literal war against demons would be breaking with reality but in Berserk that's just what's happening.
Ya, the demons are real.
But the beast of darkness isn't. It's just in Guts' head and man't having full-fledged conversations with it as if it were one of those demons. I know it's interpreted to be a metaphor for Guts' struggle with his animalistic impulses, but I dunno man, I think he really sees things that aren't there and can't make the difference between them and reality. Isn't that the definition of phychosis?
@@vicentiupredescu7205 I think the Beast is a demon manifested by Guts' more maligned characteristics like anger, lust, and revenge. I think he got his abilities by being closer to the astral world than most people, potentially explaining the superhuman way he wields a sword most people can't lift off the ground, not to mention how he shrugs off what would be normally be mortal wounds. Miura appears to have written the story with open-ended elements, leaving readers to speculate on the cause or meaning behind them.
@@JohnSmith-mc2zzsomething someone else said that could be really cool is that the Beast was in fact all in Gut’s head, was. When Griffith merged the worlds and brought back Falconia, The beast very well could have been one of the thing given life in the real world. This could be a neat story thing considering I believe Guts thinks the Beast is in his head, so I’d like to see his reaction to finding out that it’s real now
@@They_Hit_The_Pentagon Miura is good at creating mysterious story elements. I feel the Beast is something that is struggling to become real. It's not fully there yet. We have some confidence in the direction the story is going, like, people who read the first chapters know Guts won't become an apostle.
The fact that you started out with this banger of a Zelda song already has me hooked
absolutely love this video as a berserk fan, psych student and psychiatric consumer (who has been diagnosed with more than one of the dxs mentioned in this video, lol.) you're very respectful and compassionate and this may seem like a small thing to people who haven't experienced psychosis, but i really appreciate the warning specifically directed at people who have experienced psychosis/AVHs because when discussing this sort of thing most youtubers seem to think no one who has ever experienced psychosis could actually be in their audience. so, thank you :)
one note on something you said early on in the video while differentiating psychosis from dissociation: the line between trauma-related psychosis and dissociative disorders can be pretty thin especially re: auditory verbal hallucinations. there's a very good sourcebook going over most recent research on psychosis and dissociation and their overlap called (predictably) psychosis, trauma and dissociation: evolving perspectives on severe psychopathology if you're interested that sort of thing.
with regards to that, personally i find the beast of darkness to be simultaneously a great representation of what it's like to have malicious hallucinations and an equally effective depiction of severe dissociation, especially with how common perpetrator-replicating parts/voices are in trauma-related psychosis and dissociative disorders and how the beast of darkness is (in my opinion) most compellingly understood as a facet of guts rather than something "separate" - which i think shines some light on that scene with casca (although i would argue that it's absolutely not to the degree of, like, DID for example. probably more within the realm of OSDD or just severe C-PTSD). great video!
As someone who struggles with mental health (not going into details) your videos on Berserk and other media have helped me explain what it can be like in my head to to others.
It's made comunication way more efficient and kinder.
Commenting also helps boost videos in the algorithm so hopefully iv done my part!
41:40
I have to say, that transition of Scheirke into Guts' psyche, the Beast of Darkness virtually swimming by like a colossal whale is so fitting. I hope this get animated properly someday.
DUDE. You combined my favorite series with my college interest in psychology, I loved this!
Oh this is going to be good!
I love this videos on berserk, they make me appreciate the work of miura even more and are so interesting and well made, it's incredible
Miura was such a great writer and had so much intuitive knowledge that can be made into wonderful lessons! I love making these videos!
This was a fantastic video. As someone who has worked in the acute mental health field for years, has read berserk many times, and have dealt with my own battles with psychosis and trauma, you do an amazing job explaining everything. Thank you for the video and I’ll definitely be checking out more from your channel
How does this only have 8K views
Your videos are beyond amazing. Love to see new uploads every now and then
I would put Guts in the same class as Dexter Morgan, and I think the real older Frank Castle The Punishier is also in the same class too.
They both had horrific tragic experiences, they have no problem using innocent people in their schemes to survive if their main mission is close to being put in jeopardy, and lastly they truly go after and kill the truly evil far gone beings out there.
The problem with the world of Berserk is that the physical world and fantasy actually overlap in certain cases. Sometimes it is a place where magical or fantasy creatures lived (and unfortunately the dark fantasy creatures took over), sometimes it can be an event like the Eclipse Guts & Casca were a part of, sometimes it is a mark that was burned so deep into you that it attached to both your body and soul effectively making you a walking talking supernatural beacon that attracts anything and everything, or you could dive into a giant vat of literal liquid concentrated evil that turns you into a Godzilla type monster, or you could be killed by a sword made out of keys to the supernatural world and be turned into a supernatural tree that permanently anchors or binds the worlds of reality and fantasy together. When you live in a world where crazy $#!+ like that actually happens the “Am I crazy?” issue becomes harder to deal with and understand. Though it seems like having mages or sages of magic can somewhat help prevent you from losing your mind and in Casca’s case heal you to regain most of herself that she lost during Griffith’s Eclipse.
babe wake up the best psychological analysis channel just uploaded
This was awesome thank you. Started reading berserk in its entirety again after renting volume 1 through 13 from my library. This video brings a lot of insight into what im seeing on every page.
I have never been so excited for a video in my life!!! I never imagined you would ever make a whole video answering my most burning question when it came to this story!
While I doubt that Miura made these decisions with his writing due to a deep or complex understanding of psychosis, you always make such great arguments in your videos that it's hard to disagree with your interpretation! You really are a credit to your profession. I think it certainly is a testament to Miura's talent on how well a lot of his story holds up and is still able to be explained 30 years later, due to his grounding of his fantasy using realistic struggles of mental health as you explain here.
This was the biggest point of contention for me when it came to defending my love for this story as a female reader. Not just because I still have some qualms with how Miura handles women's and primarily Casca's SAs throughout the story, (I will give him a little credit though for later on admiting that he had been excessive with it in the past.), but also because it seems to have painted such a bad picture of men in the story, particularly Guts. As Jackson P. Brown said in his blog, by just choosing to make your main male character SA his main love intrest when both have experienced that trauma very closely and would know how horrible it is, as a way to separate the characters and drive the story forward, seemed to unintentionally indicate an additute of "if you're a male, you're a rapist". Which not only gives ammunition for Griffith stans to hate Guts and claim he's not better than Griffith, but also makes Berserk seem like a story that, ironically with how many fans complain about Twitter, seems like something written by a radical feminist. As radical feminists, particularly Andrea Dworkin claim that "men are women's natural predators". So looking at it through your lens is more than a welcome perspective. 😅
Like I said you make very good arguments using evidence from the panels for you points. I also wanted to add about the form the beast takes being a dog might also speak to Guts trauma when it came to his childhood neglect and his guilt over Gambinos' death. Guts makes a point to tell Casca durring his flashback in Wounds 2, that Gambino never once called out his name and treated his dogs better than him. Asking Guts if he had gotten them food, instead of recognizing any if Guts' victories in battle. Gambino only ever loved his dogs,
and Griffith only ever loved guts.
It could have also been foreshadowing of Griffiths betrayal. As you only love a dog until it bites your hand after you've fed it.
Thank you everyone for coming to my TedTalk as you can tell I have a lot of opinions on my favorite peice of literature. Keep up the good work ! I think I'm actually going to become a Patron member for once! 😂
I love your editing. Such sass
Also, I have read up on so many definitions of mental health disorders, and sometimes they're just too hard to distinguish on paper. And yep Google isn't helpful. Case studies of fiction like this are so helpful in illustrating something far more encompassing and complex than what we can get in a textbook or God forbid a dictionary. It's not the full picture, but it's a much bigger one, and I want to thank you for that.
One of the things I've noticed is that people learn much more thoroughly when information is presented in a narrative form. It's why oral tradition and religions lasted as long as they did. People enjoy learning from stories. Berserk is wonderful because it takes only a little bit of information to make powerful lessons out of it
@@PsychoSocialism true, plus an academic approach can only go so far for issues this complex and subjective to the people experiencing them
Just an excellent watch, all of your Berserk videos are!!
A few years ago I went back into psych for being suicidal, during that time I talked to a therapist in the hospital that I have been having visual issues and audio issues and wanted to evaluated, turns out those were hallucinations, I have been having them for years and I didn’t know that the slight changes in sound, or bubbling bathmats are a thing. I didn’t realize what disordered thinking was until I recall a time off my meds and me rambling to myself. They seem to come in extreme stress and anxiety. My CPTSD is psychotic and I can relate to Guts with pyschotic ptsd
In psychology classes, teachers accidentally imply that there is a clear line that bisects neurotic and psychotic disorders but more and more I find this not to be the case. I've seen psychotic cases of depression and sometimes its hard to tell the difference between intrusive thoughts and auditory hallucinations. I hope that you're in a good place now and you have ways of combatting these interferences in your life
Most of my auditory hallucinations are rather tame (distant music or radio static) but they do intersect with invasive thoughts and sometimes my alters. Psychosis is less of a diagnosis imo and more like a comorbid. Something I am realizing while I deal with my mental health.
I have great supports however and despite challenges with healthcare, I know I am okay if loose my meds. Thank you for this video though, you always make the videos that challenge my persception of myself
Aww missed the premiere. Still psyched for the video!
Your videos deserve way more views than they have, they are so excellent!
I extremely appreciate your point at the end about the importance of support networks. I do want to add that I have my doubts about the sustainability of Schierke’s dynamic with Guts, simply because I am very wary of children being promoted to caregivers. While Schierke is “mature for her age” it’s a position that’s often cast upon girls, esp if they’re neurodivergent, and I think the effect it is having on her development is shown in the series, both with her difficulties socializing with other kids, as well as her fairly awkward (both for her and the reader) precocious attraction to Guts. It’s sad to me that Schierke doesn’t get to have a childhood. She looks to me like a classic Autistic Savant child who will very likely experience serious mental health consequences once she becomes an adult. Part of the tragedy, in my opinion, is that the closest Guts has to an actual therapist is a child, tho their synergy in battle is extremely cool and poignant.
TL;DR I love Schierke she is my baby
something ive always loved about Berserk is how much you can read many themes into it. for example, when i read it when i was younger, i interpreted the Black Beast to be a literal representation of the most negative aspects of Guts' masculinity and violence, which he had been unlearning throughout the story. that's a reading i had carried with me and still do and has changed me a lot as a person. it also being a representation of psychosis is a great reading. i love how much we can take from this 80's comic about a dude with a sword
Dude. These videos need far more appreciation omg
Great work on all these berserk videos
I know your videos aren't crazy popular but I look forward to every single one keep up the great work I was able to convince my mom to try shrooms and watch/Read berserk because of you
God I love this video . The content I’m trying to make is a much more unrefined version of what your doing . Similar but different. As someone who’s always aspiring to become more knowledgeable and understanding I really am thankful to have watched this . A subscriber recommended this channel to me and I’m gonna binge some of these vids today while I’m working . Great work
I have gone through psychosis several times in life and I have to thank you for your explanation and doubt clearing. Hearing you say "seeing something that isn't real doesn't make you believe it" was very humanising and I have to thank you for that too because many people don't think that way.
Fun fact: the attitude of the voices people hear differ geographically. In the west it's common that they are abusive and aggressive but in the east it's common for them to give divinations and be culturally/religiously based.
One thing I need to say is that the visuals in your simulation do a very poor job and I don't think anyone has seen stuff comparable to that outside the psychedelic experience, but in the larger scope of this video I think it matters little.
Ending the comment on a negative note will take away from the positives so again thank you for a humanising explanation and your precious care with people like me, and sorry if anything I said came out as insulting.I know Guts is the focal point of the video but I have little I can say except that our interpretations align to some extent, and I was tired of seeing dudes say he's just a betrayed, angry dude. I make sense of a lot of the manga comparing the distortions in it to those of my life and I always thought Miura seemed psychotic with the way he portrays the real world in his work too, but the beast of darkness especially hits close to home as it reminds me a lot of a pale lady that I often see, feel, smell, etc... when I'm at my lowest. Though frightening she obviously seeks to help my situation and I think the beast of darkness is the same, it wants to keep Guts alive and violence, considering the world he lives in, is the easiest, optimal approach. I see it as a manifestation of the dark part of himself that just like in real life, cannot be rid off, but I also know exchanging the events in the manga to those in real life cannot be done to the extent you can exchange 1usd for 0.87eur, it must always be metaphorical or we run into poor conclusions
Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate that my visuals for that section were perhaps a little too OTT and if I ever try and do the exercise again I'll bear what you said in mind!
I appreciate you telling your story and i shall look into the cultural effect on the nature of the voices, it sounds like a fascinating bit of research! Bless you and take care!
I might post multiple comments to this so I'll start here. First, really like the explanations you give for different mental afflictions and illnesses. I'm not educated in them, so the similar (yet different) symptoms cause me to get confused on what's what. Second, yeah that exercise was freaky as hell. I tried responding with my actual voice, and all I could grt out was "yes I'd like a large... large, large" and I couldn't quite get blsck coffee out because of hoe distracted I was. Third. I think we've all had an instance of imagining something not there. The amount of times I swear someone was calling my name when there was no one. Or seeing something move in my peripheral that wasn't there. A little weird, but overall harmless. I couldn't imagine living day to day dealing with that dualed to 11 constantly. My sympathy for anyone afflicted with this
4th, on Lost Children. It was always my favorite, and yet scariest, part of the arc, which is that when Guts is standing above Rosine and Jill, we don't know, and will probably never know if he actually planned to kill them both. I don't even try to guess which it was, because I really can't say for sure. I know you said he does decide to swing but that movement could have been from getting shot by the arrow
5th, Fangs of Ego. That's a chapter I accept, for any Berserk fans against it saying that Guts would never do that: How better can you portray a man battling his own inner darkness than Guts assaulting Casca, the act that broke her in the eclipse, all so he could feel more hate, and bask in his own illusion. Of course, he didn't have a fully steady mind, and he did snap out of it, but that psrf of him exists undeniably
This is a great video!
The only slight nitpick I have is that at 18:43 you couldn’t used the audio from Berserk Memorial edition so we could’ve heard Gut’s amazing voice actor going over that line
While I love Marc Draisons performance, the lines were spaced out and intercut with new lines that would have dragged the moment out a bit too long for my taste.... plus I love doing line reads for these videos and messing with my voice lol :P
This video was amaziiiiing, i love your videos so much😁
Thank you so much! I wasn't sure about this one when I started, but I'm quite happy with it!
In my recent readthrough of Berserk I thought that Guts subconsciously associating himself with a dog might stem deeper that just Casca calling him a mad dog, but also be related to how his father figure Gambino often treated his dog better than he ever treated Guts. He'd use the money that Guts gave him to buy food for his dog instead of his surrogate son
I really like your content, did not know I needed to know about this but I did thank you
About _Fangs Of Ego,_ and Guts's assault, you forgot to mention one parallel. When Guts made love to Casca the first time, he almost chokes her out during a flashback. Was Guts suffering from psychosis even then, during the Golden Age?
Damn, in my old video I chalked it up to a dissociative episode, but looking at it again... hmm
@@PsychoSocialism I hope not as well! That's a lousy way to lose your V-card. Thanks for making such thoughtful content, BTW.
Please do psych analysis for casca next and her regression
Yay! The guy who caused me to start reading Berserk made another video about Berserk!
Great video man love your work I always learn something new
I love these videos of yours, have you ever considered a portrait of Griffith? I think a delve into his psyche would be really interesting.
Berk time
if you re interested do a video about Mari from OMORI and perfectionism i think theres so much that can be talked about in the game, many people try to portray her as the true villain of the game for pushing her perfectionism onto others when its clear on dialogues thats not the case would love to see your vision on that and how it affected her life, for what i see in the game and other things involving it it wanst just another episode of pushing frustrations onto others(as many people say)as she's known to be kind to others not the other way around
Hope this makes sense.
Loved both of yours berserk videos and helped me a lot(as someone who suffers from BPD and Bipolar disorder seeing videos like these are so helpful and good berserk content)
Beast of darkness is the ultimate influencer
I was falling asleep to this video ; right at the moment where I was about to fall asleep the simulator part started it freaked the fuck out of me :)
14:00 the berserk video essay became a horror video with the simulator
If Guts could recover from psychosis without medical treatment, then I can too 😢
I once couldn't sleep for 4 days due to benzodiazepine withdrawal. I skipped ahead when you warned us viewers to
Oh hey a break down of one of the fav series I've ever read that still influences my writing till this day. GUTS I LOVE YOU
Good stuff - not a subject I'm too familiar with, but I recall one or too occasions where I stayed up late playing games, and by the time I was finally getting to bed it was like I was remembering a familiar voice more vividly than a regular memory, yet there was enough clarity to realize that wasn't actual auditory perception - I figure sleep deprivation weakens the distinction between those things neurological?
Wasn't there a scene in Shirke's magical tutelage of Farnese where they get a glimpse of Guts' psyche, and it's the beast of darkness dragging a coffin? I half expected that to be covered here, but I'm not sure that was at a stage of Guts' life where more negative impulses were the only thing driving him forward... seems like it'd be a relapse to the Black Swordsman arc mindset, despite the support structure he developed since...
I really like this one. As much as I am into this story and psychology, very interesting.
Damn i love every minute of this video
Your Berserk videos are really great. You should try analyzing Batman from Arkham Knight, who goes through a similar mental journey with the Joker.
48:54 I always thought Tyler was an alter in the DID sense, not a manifestation of psychosis. But I guess it makes sense.
But i agreed with basically everything else as some that went through an episode. I also believe this is just personal speculation that everytime we learn something or we go through something that is a little bit traumatic we have a mini version of psychosis because it changes the thing learned or the traumatic thing changes your worldview
LMAO. bro indirectly called trans people delusional. and Im all for it.
he specifically said the opposite lmfao fucking brainlet
Hey there I just want to say that I really love the video however I do want to illustrate that the beast is real and isn't just a hallucination. Let me explain why I'm saying this. When Guts meets Flora for the first time she says she can give him a magic talisman that will go over his brand and will stop him from being possessed by astral creatures. And what Guts immediately thinks of is when he assaulted Casca, not when external spirits took over and he choked Casca. Meaning that when he assaulted Casca it felt like he was possessed by a spirit.
Also whenever the talisman is applied and we see the beast of darkness when he isn't wearing the armour, it's chained up. Meaning the talisman is stopping it from taking over. Now when you look at it this way, with the beast being real but being unable to take over when the talismans are applied. It's quite easy to assume that's what Miura was going for here. The talismans are a metaphor for Guts taking meds. They stop the beast, (metaphor for psychosis) from taking over. It's pretty brilliant, Miura was truly a master of his craft.
However there's something else I wanted to ask you, it's about Guts in the black swordsman arc but RUclips won't let me post it as a comment for some reason. So do you have an email or something I can send my original comment to? Thank you
It's true that Guts thinks of that in Flora's mansion, but as the beast is still a mystery to him it's possible he's just making an assumption and flora never discusses it directly so the point is still up to interpretation...
I like your point about the Talisman and meds though, wish I'd thought of that tbh.
Sure throw me an email, cant promise a response but ill read it at some point! My public email is psychosocialismeditor1@gmail.com
I’m more inclined to the theory that the beast of darkness was in gods head until Griffith merged the world together, and when he merge the planes of real and unreal, his imagination was given form and became an actual entity
Well I mean the poor guy was already a Child Soldier having to do some pretty distasteful stuff just to survive and then well the Donovan incident happened as a mercenary he was running away from his problems by getting really good at killing getting layers of PTSD issues like it's lasagna and then the poor guy gets betrayed by his best friend and sacrificed to a bunch of Eldritch God Demon things who wouldn't be questioning the reality just by the intense personal betrayals and then things get lovecraftian I'm not surprised he has psychosis I'm surprised he's standing everything about that situation is intensely heroic
Bravo I loved this 🎉
"Guts can never see his psychosis coming or use it to predict what his darker side will do.."
Except when was dying and allowed the beast of darkness to take over and kill the Sea God...
I like this channels name
I’m not finished with the video but as someone who’s experienced psychosis I’ve thought about whether it relates to Guts. Ultimately while he shows signs of severe ptsd I don’t think the psychotic label is fitting for him because everything he’s experiencing is reality for the berserk world. He’s truly being hunted by demons and was betrayed countless times nothing is of a false perception on his end imo. The beast of darkness I can see maybe being psychosis but that seems to be more a physical manifestation of guts trauma overtaking him then anything.
Wow, this made me cry like a lil bitch 😭 My partner had his first psychotic break this year and this hit my chest harder than I thought it would. Well done
New subscriber here. Really enjoyed watching a berserk video that dealt with the trauma and psychosis of guts and other characters. Keep up the good work. Gonna check out the Farnese part 1-2 videos now!
Guts goes through psychosis. Ever heard of The Beast of Darkness?
One thing l want to add is that the beast of darkness might have actually become a real astral creature that is tied to guts
I am certain it started out as a hallucination but with the inclusion of the Armour it has become something more.
We see in the sea god battle that he is sort of able to repurpose it in a way so he can push forward an kill the sea god, you might say that he is simply talking to himself or that he thinks the beast is real but we see later with hanar the craftsman of the armour that Hanar notes he hasn't mastered it yet with the beast of darkness being shown beside him.
I believe that tho the armour is a very explicitly bad thing for Guts that pushes him deeper into his psychosis it is also a tool with witch guts can come into contact with his inner self or his Shadow self as some would call it and if this is possible perhaps guts can undertake some sort of soul searching journey and confront his beast of darkness such as described in the writings of Carl Jung or for a better understanding the casca dreamscape sequence.
I am not saying that Guts will magically talk to the evil wulf that haunts his nightmares and convince him to be his friend like Naruto and Kurama we already know berserk doesn't do trauma like that l mean just look at Casca.
But l believe that Guts will be able to find some understanding and sense of purposes within himself and the beast of darkness, to be able to understand what it feeds on to start to combat and repurpose his dark thoughts and emotions and to fight again his dark desires and trauma more effectively.
As you said the beast of darkness will be forever with Guts and l 100% believe that just as Cascas fear and trauma will be forever with her but they and by extension we as people can overcome the dark trauma that haunts us through the help of others and reflecting within.
Also killing that fuck Griffith and making him burn in the lowest pits of hell would probably help calm the beast of darkness down.
Anyway great video learned a lot and made me appreciate the story of berserk more then l already do.
This is amazing
LE'TS GOOOOOOO
0:23 "hello mortals.I'm in another video cause our AI overlords deemed it so. "
Damn I should've @'ed Sciencephile the AI for his contribution. My bad!
@@PsychoSocialism 😂😂🤣
Spot on
Thanks.
You're quire welcome!
You need more subs
Ugh what a great video
The beast of darkness is Guts shadow taken form. It's a part of Guts, not a seperate entity or being. What it says and does Guts wants in some way, including conflicting thoughts of wanting to protect and at times, kill Casca.
Guts also doesn't care if it "was him" or not. He sees the affects it had on Casca and how she sees him. He knows how she sees him is how he sees Griffith.
You’re correct, but have you heard the theory that after Griffith merge the world together because of all the different planes of both real unreal imagination in reality coming together, the beast of darkness may actually be it’s own entity now because when I first heard it, my mind was blown
Berserk takes a lot from Jungian philosophy which is why youll see the astral plane also referred to as the “collective consciousness” at time. In the astral plane in berserk concepts can take physical shape so the beast of darkness is his shadow, which is real in the astral plane, and which Guts would most likely be more susceptible to due to living in the interstice
Hello. I just wanted to ask a question about Guts that I've been thinking about recently. Do you think he's apathetic or nihilistic during his black swordsman days? I don't know enough about either of those things to know if he truly is or not. So i wanted to ask about your opinion as a mental health professional
I don’t think he’s apathetic, but I’m not sure about nihilistic either, but I would lean more that way. The reason I say he’s not apathetic is because you can see moments of true despair come over him over what happens to the people around him from his own actions, such as when he tells the count’s daughter to kill herself, but then saves her and cries about the pain she’s in after he kills her father
: The clinical study of psychosis and the philosophical study of hauntology seems to me to be the same thing, and Berserk is what I'd refer to in order to prove it. Cheers to another great video about the brilliance and brutality of Berkman, the Berkiest boy to ever berk it.
The training I referred to in the video was entitled "Managing strange experiences" for that reason. The idea is to take the strangeness of people's experiences in stride without confirming or denying them. You can't always persuade someone that something that happened to them isnt real, so you try and help them contextualise it in a way that leads them to help and health
I may not agree with your politics, but still, good video! Very thought provoking.
me and the boys living with minor psychosis
Such a great video
«woman is something with no objective character»
All right, you are one of THOSE people
Why yes, I am an enjoyer of psychological science, facts and the study of human experience, thanks for noticing!
???????
I feel that disregarding the agreed upon definition of psychosis, to create your own definition to get your video topic across is a bit disingenuous. I'm a fan of your work so can you elaborate as to why you did that?
It's not creating a new definition exactly, it's just adding more to the definition offered by google, filling in more of the details and jostling the semantics around to make it clearer and freeer from implications. Hope that makes sense?
Gotcha@@PsychoSocialism
"a woman: something with no objective or measurable character"
Ok why lie so blatantly?
I love when people say "You're wrong!" and present no arguments.
It's pretty simple, gender identity is just that, Identity. Identity is a psychological construct that we build in our minds to explain ourselves to other people around us. The definition of "man" and "woman" is formed in every society by a sort of agreement between individuals. It's not talking about biology, that's why the word male and female exist, to define biology.
Thats the way it's been throughout history and still is today. People cannot read each others minds, so we construct the meaning of abstract concepts like what "being a woman" is, based on social agreements and use of language. Being a woman or a man, is a social construct. In the middle ages, women were treated like property to be married off. In the 20th century we moved away from that definition and now to be woman is a different thing. It used to be considered manly to dance ballet and wear powdered wigs. Thats what social construct means. "Woman" and "Man" have never had an objective measurement, because at the end of the day, WE made it up.
Hope that helps!
I agree, but this is still a good video!
Also, "lie" is probably too harsh.
Guts is fine and normal, it’s the world around him that’s at fault
Rfk does not have psychosis
>goes through academia
>adopts cringe politics
A tale as old as time!
Academia didn't radicalise me, work did lol
When you're out of your edgy preteen phase, you might get what I mean
@@PsychoSocialism "edgy preteen phase" oh the irony! 🤣
God is a He.
I clicked on this to watch a video about Berserk, Guts, and psychosis and you put references to trans people, Stephen Colbert, and Trump. Why did you do that? I watch this stuff to escape politics, and I'm saying that as a trans person. I appreciate your empathy for Guts and his traumas, but would you please leave the political stuff at the door next time?
Lol if me explaining the difference between psychosis and neurosis bothers you then consider that politics affects us all whether you want it to or not. Sorry.
Politics affecting us all doesn't really have anything to do with the fact that you brought up trans people, and inserted a strange anti-Trump non-sequitur into a video on the hallowed Berserk. There are already enough leftist video essays on RUclips. Please just don't include lefty politics in your next Berserk video essay? I am genuinely asking you.
Yeah no. If I bring something up its because it's relevant, and distinction is sometimes necessary for understanding. And Trump jokes are off limits now? Just don't watch, there are plenty of right wingers who make "apolitical" berserk content with no challenging ideas in them, go find them.
@PsychoSocialism - "Trump bad" isn't a challenging idea. Neither is what you said about trans people. It's about as challenging as someone saying "F*** Joe Biden" in their video essay. Maybe you can't see it because of your leftist bias.
There's no way to read The Beast of Darkness as anything actually demonic. It's a manifestation of Guts' trauma. The fact that it becomes incarnate in the Berserker armor means it's a part of Guts' psyche, specifically his Id.