Berserk Volume 17: A Bewitching Read

We see Guts and Puck humorously banter as Puck dangles the key to escaping over his head. Thankfully, he gives the key and Guts is off to make a stop in Farnese’s room where she is professionally whipping herself. Even the king of puns Puck is left speechless at what we are seeing.

This quietly ends, as Guts, in karate style, knocks her out. And Guts uses her, like Jill, as bait for escape. For the first time I bet, Serpico is worried. Anywhere Guts goes, from what he’s seen, he has caused a rampage on mass propositions, so him failing to protect Farnese probably gutted him. Aside from being dehumanized in this half naked state, we see Farnese is far more worried about what it represents. As her debate with Guts not along ago showed, she is for what’s moral and amoral of the world. To believe a God Hand exists and caused all this rampage, is to deny she has control and God has control, or the God she wants to have control.

And as Guts has her on his side, we see Serpico trying to get an aim on Guts, but is stopped by demons. As I see it, Serpico was as shocked as he was since he didn’t believe in spirits from experience. While he respects Farnese’s word, he saw demons, as she did, as partially make believe. Now we see Farnese affected by it, as she is met face-to-face with one. A better way of putting it is that she is face-to-face with the truth. And now her hero is her abductor. Now, a horse becomes a demon and before it can take advantage of her, Guts is reminded of Casca and saves Farnese, but the sword is left so close to her neck that likely he was not trying to be her savior. Even if she died, he wanted to make sure he could prevent the past from repeating itself.

We see Farnese in the morning with Guts, powerless and weak to the forces she fought so long to have command over. She now realizes she is as defenseless as those without a will. The demons had no reason in their attacks, they acted to their satisfaction. No preaching to God got her through the night and she is left disenfranchised. Even more affecting is that emotion that she is the evil. She survived tonight since she blended in the unholiness. We see her go to Guts and try to force him to love her, to pleasure her, but as we are shown, it is a demon that has gotten to her. But the question rests on how much of the demon caused that. Farnese is left sobbing and screaming on Guts, not able to cope with the given situation, and Serpico is there to give her a hand.

But before he can take much action, she commands him to kill Guts. Serpico jokingly says he can’t and she slaps him, walking off. As I see it, he said that so she can feel in authority again and to have time to assess Guts and how fast would it take to slash him. Serpico fighting Guts ends up happening after this, and it becomes a draw. The reason Farnese needs to kill Guts is revealed. If he lives, she can’t survive since he is living proof of all she denies.

The later chapters focus on the rise of Griffith as it’s clear he will make a return. We even get the re-appearance of Zodd who has been missed for some time. Guts dreams of Casca, alerting him that he’s been off fighting Griffith for so long, he’s forgot all about caring for the woman he loves. He arrives to Rickert’s place to learn she is missing and is now on the run to find her. There are some entertaining interactions Guts has at Rickert’s place, but nothing particularly of high note.

We cut back to Farnese as she ponders Guts and her purpose as the crew are hit with an enemy attack. Miura uses this as a nice opportunity to introduce us to the horrifying Father Mozgus. An impure hypocrite  that helps to highlight why someone like Farnese could exist. And to top it off, we see Casca again and she’s around Father Mozgus whereabouts so this can’t end well.