Griffith

Griffith is one of the main antagonists of Berserk alongside the God Hand. First though he was the secret antagonist. He is the founder and leader of the mercenary army Band of the Hawk.

Extraordinarily charismatic and handsome, his 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. Griffith was willing to sacrifice everything for the dream of his own kingdom, believing that he is destined for things greater than the average man.

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, Guts heard Griffith saying to Princess Charlotte that a friend must be someone he considers his equal. Guts reflected upon this and decided he would live his own dream rather than Griffith's, so that one day they could be equal friends. After winning the war for Midland, Griffith loses to Guts in a duel which stipulates that Guts remain in his service should he lose and freed if he wins. This loss results in Guts' desertion from the Hawks. Stunned and feeling betrayed, Griffith sought comfort in a one-night stand with the king's daughter, and sole heir to the throne, Princess Charlotte. The affair was discovered, after which Griffith was imprisoned and tortured for a year.

He was rescued by Guts along with the primary members of the Hawks, but was already physically crippled with the tendons in his wrists and ankles severed, his tongue cut out, and mentally broken. Seeing Guts and Caska loving each other finally drove him insane (in his final moments before the Eclipse, he dreamed of a normal life, with children and Caska 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 Caska, Guts and Rickert, who was outside the area influenced by the Eclipse, survived, all having been rescued by the Skull Knight. Two years later, Griffith was reincarnated as a human 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 has sanction from '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, no one knows about Femto or Griffith's allegiance with the God Hand: instead, Griffith, as the entire Band of the Hawks, was hailed as a long lost legendary hero, 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. Now combining his freshly regained charisma with his tactical abilities, Griffith is able to successfully employ the superior might of the Apostles and the Apostles-spawn 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, unnamed 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 kidnapping Princess Charlotte and bringing her to him: despite earning some jealousy from Sonia, herself smitten with him, Griffith ensured the absolute loyalty of the still alive Midlands 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 the Midlands, save for Guts, at his side, Griffith has his band of Hawk turned into the new regular army of the Midlands, the Army of the White Phoenix. As the last act before fullfilling 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, weakening the barriers between the spiritual and the physical worlds in the process.

Trivia

 * While Griffith can be considered the antagonist to Guts's point of view it is mostly the four previous God Hand members who made Griffith the way he is and since he became a God Hand member and after becoming Femto he shared the antagonist position with the other members of the God Hand.
 * The armor worn by Griffith during the Golden Arc can be attained in the game Dragons Dogma as well as Gut's attire.
 * In the Berserk Film Trilogy he is voiced by Takahiro Sakurai. Griffith as a child is voiced by Minami Takayama in the Japanese, and by Veronica Taylor in English.
 * In the original anime Griffith's Armor is different from that seen in the manga and film trilogy.
 * Femto's name is possibly inspired by the mathematical prefix PHEMT.