Let's take Sonia, easily one of the most hated characters in the series (look up some previous threads on Sonia if you don't believe me).

Let's assume Sonia doesn't know anything specifically about Griffith's past beyond their first encounter (there's nothing solid to suggest that she does). Sonia has undying loyalty to the one who rescued her and brought her in, gave some semblance of status, power, and acknowledgement; the same man who she believes basically stopped the apocalypse. Even if you hate Sonia more than any other character for being so smug and arrogant, her reverence and worship for Griffith despite his alignment with demons is understandable. To her Griffith is noble man using evil in the service of good.

At least in this regard, one could even admire Sonia for her loyalty to Griffith . But then... is being loyal to the wrong thing really a noble trait, or is it just willful blindness? Come to think of it, isn't willful blindness to evil just the same as condoning evil? But wait, she can't be totally naive of how horrendous the demons really are, can she? If she does, then that makes her bad, fullstop. But then... maybe its not bad as long as she believes Griffith is doing the right thing right? And isn't she only like, 13? 13 year olds aren't evil, except she is because she's got some weird psychic shit going on. Fuck man, what's the answer here?

The answer, I believe (as I'm sure many of you do) is non-existent. Sure, we need to draw the line somewhere, but I think this says more about our own inability to understand why people are the way they are on the one hand, and have sympathy for them (while holding them accountable, without condoning it, in any way) on the other.

We don't like to understand evil because it makes us uncomfortable to think that evil can really come from anyone given the right circumstances, including ourselves. At a certain point, we have to cut ourselves off. Why? Because it is deeply uncomfortable, at times intellectually paralyzing, and I think that is the main point in Miura's work.

Yes, the point is to understand evil while also holding it accountable, and serving justice in a way that acts in service of that understanding. I'm not stating anything otherwise. My main point in writing this post is to highlight just how uncomfortable this process of understanding and accountability is, especially when trying to maintain compassion for those who do wrong.

Because at a certain point, can we really say anyone, at their core, is inherently evil? Sure, there are evil intentions, and there are definitely evil actions. Nominally evil people are people who do evil things, or have evil intentions, we call them evil for the sake of coherent speech. Yet in Berserk we also see nominally evil people doing evil things that actually benefit others lives (e.g. Griffith establishing Falconia and taking in war refugees.) And if Good can be produced from Evil, even if that evil is unequivocal, is there really any difference between the two apart from our own intellectual assessment?

If I had to summarize my main takeaway from Berserk, it would be this: (1) There is no difference between Good and Evil AND (2) There is a real and clear distinction between what is Good and what is Evil. The fact that we regard these two truths as mutually exclusive is not due to any real discrepancy in reality, but to our insufficient ability to accept both of these things as true in our own mind.

I'll finish with a Taoist quote that I think is relevant here:

"When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises// When the world knows good as good, evil arises" -Lao Tzu, Dao Dejing v.2