The character of Griffith, in Berserk,
has a great many strengths that are evidenced in the series. However,
despite that he is extraordinarily charismatic, Griffith lacks basic personal
skills. Griffith is fully capable of leading an army, of convincing
someone to do something, and of conducting himself well in almost any situation.
However, he has a difficult time interacting with people personally. Although
it is easy for Griffith to flirt or talk with a virtual stranger, he has
a hard time making friends, dealing with emotion, and dealing with feelings.
Griffith is good at distant relationships, but when a relationship becomes
close, he has more trouble.
This is in part because Griffith cannot
admit that he wants or needs friends (see my other essay on personality).
However, this is in part as well because Griffith (perhaps because he doesn’t
believe he should need friends and confidants) is not particularly capable
of dealing with people in intimate situations. He is good at becoming
people’s acquaintance. He is not so good at the elaborate emotional give
and takes that defines being friends. But he still needs friends,
as everyone does. Like every other human on earth, Griffith needs
someone with whom he can freely share his dreams and aspirations, with
whom he can talk freely, whom he can depend on, and whom he can love.
Griffith first attempts to do this with Guts. As he mentions in episode four, after telling Guts about how he intends to reorder the world, he says, "I’ve never been able to talk about this before" before promptly giving Guts a promotion. Griffith has managed to loosen himself enough to talk freely with Guts. Because of this, Guts is seen as a friend (no matter how Griffith tries to deny it) and is thus given a rapid promotion.
It is these forces (as mentioned earlier in the Personality essay) that drive the duel between Guts and Griffith. However, it is also these forces which prompt Griffith to rape Charlotte.
Griffith is already emotionally shredded by the time he comes to Charlotte’s window. He has been conquered, abandoned, and humiliated (from his point of view) and he is not entirely in his right mind. His emotions have taken over from logic. He needs reassurance. He needs someone to care about him. He needs someone to be his friend, to be his companion, to fill in for Guts in his life.
The emotion and irrational reasoning that are usually absent from Griffith are evidenced in him from the beginning of the scene. When Griffith asks to be let in to Charlotte’s room, he asks Charlotte to let him into her room, "or your honor might be tarnished". This is thinking in a Griffith-like way. Griffith would be most interested in the benefits or disbenefits to himself in such an action. Charlotte, however, would be more interested in the benefits or disbenefits to the one she loves. Normally Griffith would be together enough to encourage Charlotte to do things in a Charlotte-like way. That Griffith states that Charlotte’s honor might be tarnished by him being sighted there rather than that he might be injured by being sighted there, is a sign that Griffith is not functioning at his highest. He has already erred. He has mistaken Charlotte’s way of thinking for the way he thinks, a mistake he is usually beyond making. He has gotten too emotional to remember to think in ways that others think. He has forgotten that Charlotte differs from himself.i
Charlotte, of course, lets him in. Unfortunately, Griffith is not sure what to do now. He wanted to see Charlotte, wanted her to reassure him, wanted her to listen to him, to care for him. But he doesn’t quite know what to say. To admit that he is here because he is uncertain of himself, because he needs a friend, because he needs someone to care about him, would appear weak, powerless. Griffith cannot accept this. But he cannot act mock confident as he did when he asked her to let him in.
Luckily, Charlotte decides what to do. In fact she gives the right response, precisely the one Griffith wanted and needed. Charlotte tells Griffith how much she missed him, how worried she was about him, how upset she’d be without him. Griffith must be pleased. After feeling so rejected by Guts’ departure, he is now welcomed and accepted by Charlotte.
Perhaps this is all that Griffith needs to move onto his next action. Charlotte does love him, she does care about him, and he has been doing virtually nothing to prove that he loves her in return. Maybe he is frightened that if he does not do something that Charlotte will leave him just as Guts did. Maybe Griffith wonders why he hasn’t bothered to show up before, why he hasn’t kissed Charlotte earlier. Maybe Griffith just needs to find some action, some way of doing something that looks powerful rather than weak, and can’t think of anything better to do. Regardless, he decides to kiss Charlotte.
And Charlotte refuses. She moves away from him, blushing, and says "no". She decides that she does not want to kiss Griffith and that she is not interested in anything that might accompany the kiss.ii
Griffith cannot accept this, though. This is one too many rejections this day, one too many people whom he cares about "abandoning" him. Once again, he has lost control over someone whom he thought he had control of. He cannot stand it. And so he forces Charlotte to lift her head to meet his and kisses her, with Charlotte, upset even with this violation, blushing.
Had Griffith chosen to stop at this point, he probably still could have seduced Charlotte. He could have told her that he was overwhelmed by her beauty, that he loves her, that he worried about her too. Charlotte would have forgiven him and he could have easily seduced her by being sweet and charming. However, Griffith is either unwilling in this emotional state to become involved in the give and take that accompanies any normal relationship, or does not care, or is too stressed to realize that Charlotte’s rejection of him was merely temporary. He pushes Charlotte into her bedroom and forces her onto her bed as she repeats "no".
Griffith must know that this is wrong, that this is violation, that this is rape, at least at some level. But he cannot admit it. He must believe that Charlotte truly wants him, that she is under his control, that she will do as he wants and accept him no matter how he chooses to behave. He must be in control and be accepted, as he feels he was not with Guts. In order to convince himself of this lie, he asks her, "Are you scared?", perpetuating the idea, to himself, that Charlotte is merely posing a bit of resistance because she’s either worried about her reputation or her first sexual experience, rather than that Charlotte is truly upset by the fact that someone she loved and trusted has just broken into her bedroom and is about to rape her.
Charlotte answers truthfully. She looks up at Griffith, logically hoping that the man she adores will avoid hurting her. She says "Don’t.". But Griffith proceeds to push up her skirt, slowly removing her clothing, while keeping Charlotte pinned beneath him. Charlotte gives up. She turns her head away and blushes, likely knowing what will happen and, most likely, wanting to avoid the idea that the man she does love and trust is about to violate her for no reason that she can fathom.
Griffith ignores her. Perhaps Charlotte now ceases to exist for him as a person whom he must love and protect, or perhaps he has convinced himself that she is just a "little nervous". It barely matters. He has proved to himself, anyway, that even if he cannot control Guts, he can control Charlotte. The feelings still weigh on him, though. He still feels abandoned by Guts, and perhaps even by Charlotte, for refusing to have consensual sex with him.
As he continues to remove Charlotte’s clothing, he says, "Dreadful things, sad things, you can burn them away with fire." He means it. After this long day, Griffith wants to forget. He wants to forget that Guts abandoned him, forget that even though Charlotte warmly greeted him, that she refused to optionally do as he wanted. He wants to pretend that Guts never left and that he has someone who does care for him, happy and willing, lying beneath him, ready to receive, love, and accept him.iii
i. Of course, Griffith probably didn’t need to go to this trouble. Charlotte would have let him in provided that he said anything other than, "Let me in, I want to hurt you." Saying something such as, "It’s a little wet out here, could I come in to your room where it’s dry?" would have worked fine.
ii. This is interesting in that Charlotte obviously wanted to kiss Griffith in episode 10, when they talked beside the fountain. Most likely, part of the reason for her refusal here is that the kiss was sudden and perhaps even violent. Griffith most likely kissed Charlotte in this way out of desperation and a need for some kind of comfort, combined with that Griffith really does *not* appear to understand intimate relationships to any great degree. Charlotte objects to this treatment, and jerks away. Along another line, Charlotte may know that semi public kisses are a lot safer than are bedroom kisses, and object for that reason. She already knows what may happen here if she kisses Griffith in her bedroom, a very different fate than had she kissed him by the fountain.
iii. A further note on Griffith’s feelings may be made by the scene when he awakens. In that scene, we see Charlotte’s body, sprawled out over her bed, contorted, as if she is a rag doll. Griffith sits on the side of Charlotte’s bed, miserable. The question is, is he miserable over hurting Charlotte, or miserable over what he knows he may suffer if he is caught? Most likely both, but at least some argument for him feeling at least in part bad over Charlotte’s misery may be seen by that he is sitting there, on her bed, rather than promptly running away. The sensible thing to do, after all, in that situation would be to flee. The longer Griffith stays in Charlotte’s room, the more likely he is to be spotted. Yet, for some reason, he stays for at least a few minutes, contemplating what he has done. Why? Maybe, again, Griffith is still barely in his right mind. Alternately, he may actually primarily be worrying about his newfound realization that he raped Charlotte (either from the view that he may have hurt her or from the view that he doesn’t believe that he would be the type of person to rape someone, or possibly both), and only secondly be worrying about the possible consequences of his action.