Griffith

Template:Infobox Character

Griffith is the main antagonist of the series. He is the founder and leader of the mercenary army Band of the Hawk.

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Griffith (Pre-eclipse)

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Griffith becoming Femto (during Eclipse)

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Griffith (Post-Eclipse)

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Femto-Griffith w/ the crimson behelit.

Griffith about to activate the crimson behelit.

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Personality

Griffith was continually focused on his goal of achieving his dream of obtaining his own kingdom, willing to sacrifice anything and everything to achieve it. From birth he had always "known the way up", allowing him to command several soldiers with his charismatic ability. To this end, he sees his subordinates as objects rather than friends. In this regard, he can be considered something of a sociopath, in the sense that he is charismatic, manipulative and uses people to achieve his own ends. For example, in the anime, it is implied that his involvement with the princess was a facade to allow him to rise further.

The only member of the first Band of the Hawk excepted from his manipulative nature and abilities was Guts, who Griffith states was the "only person who was able to make me (Griffith) forget my dream". Griffith had purposely abandoned the castle he was defending to recruit Guts into the Band of the Hawk, marking the only time he had actively and forcibly recruited another person. Later, Guts became the only person who has ever chosen to leave his service, which led Griffith to challenge Guts to a duel over this "betrayal". After losing to Guts, Griffith became so forlorn as to recklessly seduce the princess and was imprisoned as a result. Some have interpreted this as indicative of a homosexual, or at least homophilic, aspect of Griffith's feelings for Guts during the Golden Age, but there is no direct evidence of an erotic inclination. What is uncontestable is that Griffith valued Guts above all other members of the Hawks and was deeply distressed by the affront that another could place his dreams above his own enough to leave him. 

Powers and Abilities

Femto (フェムト Femuto?) appears with exposed scale-like muscles, cape-like wings on his back, with his torture mask (previously the iconic hawk-beak helmet) fused to his body. The entirety of his body is black (dark red in the TV anime. In the movies, it's black). His name is possibly inspired by the mathematical prefix femto.

His known powers are inter-planar travel between different layers of the world, invulnerability against ordinary physical attacks, and a space-warping ability that either sucks or expels everything within its radius or traps a supernatural attack, allowing him to manipulate it to his wishes. The extent to which these powers have been passed on to his human form is now determined to be the same as at the Eclipse when, atop Ganishka in his second form, he reverted to his true form.

History

Pre-Eclipse

Extraordinarily charismatic and handsome, Griffith's tactical skill gave him and his army the reputation of invincibility, and the favor of the King of Midland, who was locked in a century-old war with the Empire of Tudor. Due to his many important victories in this war, he is made Lord Protector of Midland by the king, despite his common ancestry.

Early in his career, he won Guts' service in a duel and Guts became his sword in both the battlefield and in his political fight with disgruntled Midland nobles. A large part of his success was due to Guts' fighting ability and Griffith grew to be dependent on Guts, although their relationship was not exactly friendship.

After the assassination of General Julius, Griffith stated to Princess Charlotte, and in front of Guts and Casca, that he did not consider his subordinates as his friends and that a friend must be someone he considers his equal, who chases his own dream instead of following someone else's. During the assassination of the Queen and the nobles of Midland who plotted his assassination, he feigns regret and sympathy in order to secure Guts into the Band of the Hawk, without knowing the decision Guts had already made. Griffith confronts Guts with the same condition as their first hillside duel, stipulating that Guts remains in his service should he lose and be freed if he wins. He loses and does not see Guts off, morbidly staring at his hand in disbelief of his first real loss. Stunned and feeling betrayed, Griffith sought comfort in a one-night stand with Princess Charlotte. The affair was discovered, after which Griffith was imprisoned and tortured for a year.

He was rescued by Guts, Casca, Judeau, and Pippin, but was already physically crippled with the tendons in his wrists and ankles severed, tongue cut out, and mind broken. Seeing Guts and Casca loving each other finally drove him insane (in his final moments before the Eclipse, he dreamed of a normal life, with children and Casca as his wife). Despairing the loss of his dream at Guts' influence, his state of madness that coincided with both the reappearance of his lost Behelit and a solar eclipse. The God Hand appeared, and he sacrificed the Band of the Hawk to them to become the fifth and final God Hand: Femto. Only Guts and Casca (as well as Rickert, who was outside the area influenced by the Eclipse) survived, all having been rescued by the Skull Knight.

Femto

During the Eclipse, Femto's first act upon being incarnated as a God Hand was to rape Casca in front of Guts, serving to drive her insane both from the horror of the violation itself and from the extreme agony caused by her Brand being in such close proximity to him. He was only stopped from finishing off Guts and Casca when the Skull Knight showed up to rescue them. Guts spent several years tracking him down to take vengeance upon him, but when they finally came face to face when the Count summoned the God Hand, Guts, already grievously wounded from his battle with the Count and suffering the extreme ill effects of being too close to a God Hand with the Brand, was quickly beaten by Femto, who telekinetically slammed him into a wall.

Reincarnation

Two years later, Griffith was reincarnated in human form in the city of Albion, where he now leads a newly formed Band of the Hawk, still in pursuit of his dream to obtain a kingdom, only now he is sanctioned by 'God'. The body used for his incarnation was that of Guts and Casca's tainted Child. This resulted in Griffith protecting Casca, as the Child has always been watching over her, from the flying debris caused by Zodd fighting with Guts at the Hill of Swords.

Because the general public was unaware of the Eclipse, it does not know about Femto or Griffith's allegiance with the God Hand: instead, Griffith and the first Band of the Hawk were hailed as a long lost legend, supposedly dead or lost in the period of unrest between the King's betrayal and the Kushan invasion.

Now able to capitalize on his past fame, Griffith returned with a new Band of the Hawk, this time personally handpicking Apostles, like Zodd, Locus, Irvine and Grunbeld and people attuned to magic, like Sonia. Combining his freshly regained charisma with his tactical abilities, Griffith is able to successfully employ the superior might of the Apostles and the Apostle-spawns to create a bigger and more organized Band of the Hawk, now open to nobles like Mule and even Kushans, like the elusive Rakshas and several war prisoners and defectors allowed to serve as infantry units.

Upon his reinstatement as the leader of the reformed Band of the Hawk, Griffith sends Zodd to rescue Princess Charlotte, despite earning some jealousy from Sonia, herself smitten with him. Griffith ensured the absolute loyalty of the still-living Midland nobles. He then gained the support of the Holy See, due to the Pope having had several prophetic visions depicting Griffith as mystical hawk of light fighting the darkness spread by Emperor Ganishka on the behalf of humanity. With virtually all of Midland and its allied nations at his side, Griffith has his Band of Hawk turned into the new regular army of Midland, the Army of the White Phoenix.

As the last act before fulfilling his life-long dream of having a castle of his own, he defeated once and for all (with some unwanted help from Skull Knight) the Emperor, transforming back into Femto in the process, and weakening the barriers between the spiritual and the physical worlds.

Anime Trivia

Toshiyuki Morikawa in the Japanese, Kevin T. Collins in English, voiced Griffith In the original anime respectively. The actor Takahiro Sakurai voices him in the movie trilogy. The child Griffith was voiced by Minami Takayama in the Japanese version, by Veronica Taylor in the English dub.