| “ | Evil has never felt so fucking good! | „ |
| ~ Femto subtly hinting that he may be a slightly less than morally upstanding human being. Line is from "The Fifth Angel." |
No, you did not misread the title. It really is another Griffith. If this guy gets approved, will we have to change the page "Femto" to a disambiguation?
Last year, I proposed this character to the Villains Fanon Wiki, but then I simply forgot to make a proposal for him here, too. But here's to making up for that forgetfulness of mine. Much of this post will be copied from said old proposal (with some edits), but since I wrote it too, you need not worry about plagarism.
But before I start, let me share you the heavy metal song that first introduced me to this topic a year ago:
Pretty cool, eh?
Anyways, it's PE proposal time.
What's the work?[]
Good question!
I am talking about several different songs all written by this one guy named Anton Kabanen, who is a songwriter and guitarist from Finland. He started this one power metal band called Battle Beast back in 2008. But in 2015, he left them and started another power metal band called Beast in Black. I am talking about the various songs Kabanen wrote during his time in both bands.
So for you running the proposals tab, feel free to either write this as "Griffith (Anton Kabanen)" or "Griffith (Battle Beast & Beast in Black)" or whatever else you wish.
Who is he?[]
Griffith aka Femto is a recurring character in many of Kabanen's songs, particularly the songs that are tributes to Berserk. You know about Berserk, right? Yeah, he's that Griffith. He isn't much different from his canon counterpart, either. He largely mirrors the things he does in the latter parts of the Golden Age Arc; namely the Eclipse, the rape of Casca, and the aftermath of said events. Except this time, the bits of the story are recounted across various songs.
What has he done?[]
FYI: when I cite songs, it's gonna be like "Song Name" (Battle) or like "Song Title" (Black). "Battle" will be used as shorthand for the band Battle Beast; "Black" will be shorthand for the band Beast in Black. That way I don't have to spell out each band name every time.
Eclipse[]
Let us begin with Griffith's start of darkness, that being the Eclipse, which is probably the most sung-about Berserk moment in Kabanen's songs.
"Hell For All Eternity" (Black) has Griffith make his sacrificial offering to the demonic God Hand; his sacrifice being, of course, the men of his own Band of the Hawk. The chorus has him ask:
"God of all desire,
Turn the wheel of fate.
Seal the gates to heaven,
Hell for all eternity.
Four unholy angels,
Take my offering.
I'll redeem my debt now,
Hell for all eternity."
It's easy to infer that the "God of all desire" is the Idea of Evil given that it's called "god we created" earlier in the song. It's also very easy to see that Griffith knows that what he does is irredemable; he outright says "Seal the gates to heaven, Hell for all eternity" which shows that he rejects any redemption.
There is also the song "Repentless" (Black), which describes:
"War cries! Hell horn!
Carnage of souls.
Taste my reward,
This will be your downfall."
Which is about the sacrificial offering. The song also has Griffith sing how:
"My dream will perish nevermore,
It's a blessing of malice and gore."
Which very strongly hints, via language like "blessing," that he's deeply enjoying this.
Rape[]
Then we get to the big one, the part where he rapes Casca. In "The Fifth Angel" (Black), Griffith sings:
"I stain your purity, become thy faithful enemy,
Defile your womanhood before his eyes."
So, yes, the rape of Casca is explicitly mentioned to have happened. What does Griffith think of it? From the same song:
"Going after a sweet forbidden fruit,
Evil has never felt so fucking good."
There's also a part in "Repentless" (Black) where he says:
"Behold its rising,
A God is born.
Black wings unfolding,
Repentless I condemn you all,
Raping the mind of the whore."
This is perhaps the only time he explicitly says the word "rape." Now, at first I felt the fact that he says "the mind" makes it too ambiguous. However, the fact that "A God is born" tells us this is during the Eclipse, and "I condemn you all" is presumably spoken to the Band of the Hawk, the "rape" line is presumably about Casca.
Aftermath[]
How does Femto feel after sacrificing his own men, raping his ally, and tormenting his best friend? In the song "Kingdom" (Battle), we hear him sing:
"I've planted my seeds, I've done evil deeds,
I'll Sacrifice you for my dream.
My future is set, I bear no regret,
I'll conquer worlds of gods and men."
That's pretty unambiguous. He calls his deeds "evil" and then says "I bear no regret" right after. So yes, he knows he's a bastard. He loves it. After all, several times he says:
"I live my dream."
Then we have a couple of songs sung from Guts' perspective. The song just called "Beast in Black" (Black) has Guts say:
"Betrayal, injustice, beheading of the innocent,
The spawn of evil celebrate."
Showing how hurt Guts is by all of the horrible things he saw during the Eclipse. Then there's "Go To Hell" (Black) where Guts sings about his experience after being branded by Femto:
"Blood comes out, I scream and shout,
But the pain won't fade away."
Mitigating factors?[]
Oddly enough, this version of Femto has even less potential mitigating factors than the original. The songs don't cover the entirety of Berserk, so a lot of the events leading up to the Griffith's turn to evil aren't shown. As a result, this Griffith doesn't even have a fake tragic backstory, and whatever heroism he engaged in pre-Eclipse is mostly offscreen. He's just a treacherous sadist who murders his comrades for godlike powers.
Heinousness standards?[]
Similarly, Femto here probably has an easier time qualifying as CM than his canon counterpart, for the simple reason that Kabanen's songs don't cover the entirety of Berserk. The only other Berserk villains in Kabanen's songs are the God Hand, who have no characterization beyond Griffith joining them, and Nosferatu Zodd, who appears in "Zodd the Immortal" (Black) and only ever maims some soldiers on the enemy side. That means that Kabanen's songs have no Wyald, no Ganishka, no Mozgus, no Gambino, no Donovan — none of 'em.
Verdict[]
I say "yes," but you all make the decisions around here, not me.