Griffith

About Griffith

Griffith is the founder and leader of the Band of the Hawk in Berserk, a low born commander with an impossible dream: a kingdom of his own. Charismatic, brilliant and utterly ruthless about that dream, he raises a mercenary band to the heights of Midland society. When his body and his future are destroyed, he trades his followers' lives for rebirth as Femto of the God Hand, becoming the thing Guts hunts.

Appearance

Griffith is slim and strikingly beautiful, with long wavy white hair, blue eyes and fine, almost delicate features that make strangers assume he is harmless. In the Golden Age he wears polished silver and white armour, a hawk beaked helmet in battle and a pendant shaped like a crimson egg, the Behelit, at his throat. After the Eclipse he exists in two forms: Femto, a dark, bat winged God Hand figure, and the reborn Griffith, who looks exactly like the man the Hawks followed, now in immaculate white and silver.

Personality

Griffith is calm, charming and endlessly patient, the sort of leader men follow into fire because he seems to have already seen the victory. He reads people quickly and says the thing each person most needs to hear. He is also cold in a way few characters in anime match. Every friendship is real to him and still secondary to his dream, and he has rehearsed that arithmetic since childhood. Guts is the one exception he admits to, the person who made him forget the dream for a moment, and Griffith hates that it happened.

Background & Story

Griffith grew up poor in a castle town, staring up at the castle on the hill and deciding early that it would be his. He built the Band of the Hawk from nothing, charmed nobles and won battles his betters could not, and took in Guts after beating him in a duel, calling him the one person he wanted at his side. When Guts left to find his own reason to fight, Griffith's reckless night with Princess Charlotte led to a year of imprisonment and torture that left his body ruined. Rescued by Guts and the survivors, and facing the end of his dream, he used the Behelit during the Eclipse and sacrificed the Hawks to be reborn as Femto of the God Hand. He later returned to the physical world and built a new Band of the Hawk and the city of Falconia.

Powers & Abilities

• Tactical Genius: Griffith wins wars before they start, through logistics, terrain, timing and a gift for putting his small force exactly where a larger army is weakest.
• Charisma: Kings, soldiers and demons all listen to him. His presence alone reforms armies and founds cities, first the Hawks, then Falconia.
• Swordsmanship: Before the Eclipse he is an elite fencer, fast and precise rather than powerful, able to duel Guts on even terms.
• God Hand Powers: As Femto he can manipulate space and gravity, crush objects without touching them and move between the physical and astral worlds, powers closer to a force of nature than a fighter.

Key Relationships

• Guts: His sword, his friend and the one person who made him forget his dream. Griffith claimed Guts as his own, and Guts leaving was the first crack that led to the Eclipse.
• Casca: His most loyal commander, who worshipped him and built her life around his dream. He never saw her devotion clearly, which is part of her tragedy.
• Charlotte: The princess of Midland. Griffith's night with her after Guts left led directly to his imprisonment and torture, and the reborn Griffith later takes her as his queen in Falconia.
• The God Hand: The four beings who offered him his wings, and whose fifth seat he took as Femto. He serves causality alongside them, or uses them. Even they may not be sure.

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