Berserk, Volume 11 Book

Here it is. The worst part of Berserk.

I'll start with the positives; I enjoy seeing how the gang copes with Griffith's condition and tries to move forward. The art, as always, is phenomenal. Charlotte's brief part was well written and tied into Zodd's approach wonderfully.

My problems with this volume have to do with Wyald. Having Rosine and the Slug Baron attack the Hawks in the previous volume was jumping the gun a bit, but you could justify it as build up for the eclipse and an excuse for Rickert not to be around. But Wyald's inclusion baffles me. We do not need to see Guts fighting apostles or apostles devouring the Band of the Hawk when the eclipse is coming in the very next volume. That isn't foreshadowing; it's stealing the eclipse's thunder. What foreshadowing was achieved just before Wyald died could have been achieved by another short encounter with Zodd.

Additionally, Wyald feels completely out of place. It does not make sense for the king to just have an apostle hanging out in his basement. It's feels very much like Wyald was just thrown in at the last minute. And all this action hurts the flow of the story. The team fighting out of the tower of rebirth, battling the Bakiraka, and escaping from the town was plenty. We did not need an entire volume of action. It's not even that good any way. Wyald is barely even a character. He's like a generic boss fight. He likes sex and violence. There's nothing there.

Most egregious of all is how Wyald is handled. When people accuse Berserk of having mindless rape and violence, they are talking about Wyald. There's no problem with using sexual violence as a part of your story. However, there is a problem with using it thoughtlessly or carelessly. Wyald raping a background character and riding around with her dismembered corpse on a pike achieves nothing.

Even worse is when he tries to rape Casca. It's out of place, gratuitous, and pointless. It teaches us nothing about Casca, Wyald, the world of Berserk, or any other characters. Casca doesn't change or process what happened. She doesn't even seem to give it a second thought. It's a shallow throw away character trying to inflict horrible trauma upon a well-rounded character that serves no narrative purpose and isn't addressed afterwords. It damages the character of Casca too. This is still a problem during the conviction arc, but this may be the worst case. It's no longer an interaction between characters or some sort of meaningful even in the story. It's just beating the reader and the character over the head with the threat of very personal and serious trauma. It takes a well thought out and complex character and turns her into a piece of meat. Want to establish that Casca is in danger? Have somebody try to rape her. It removes all the punch and gravitas something like rape should have in a story.