Part of Charlotte’s charm in Berserk is that she is a sweet, innocent, naive, and basically decent character.  In a series where all of the other major characters can calmly kill people, Charlotte becomes upset over a fox’s death during a hunt.  Perhaps one of the great ironies of Berserk is that Charlotte is the opposite, and love interest, of Griffith, a man who hunts other men as easily as the hounds in hunting chase the fox.
 It is in part this gentle innocence that makes Charlotte so vulnerable to Griffith.  She wants to believe the best in people and generally does.  She cannot believe that Griffith is in any way less than good or perfect from the time she first sees him from the back of her father’s retinue.  Griffith ensures that Charlotte continues to feel this way about him.  He is light-hearted around her, friendly, warm, non-threatening, and even “saves” her life. (Charlotte might have survived a wild horse, even without Griffith.  Regardless, though, she believes that he saved her from the horse and the arrow.  It can’t help, either, that Griffith blithely caught her before she fell down the stairs. From Charlotte’s point of view, Griffith is a knight in shining armor.)

Charlotte can believe nothing but the best of Griffith. She idolizes and adores him.  She cannot understand how he can stand to kill other men, how he can stand to make war, but she accepts that she cannot understand these topics and that Griffith must do these terrible things for some worthy reason.  Griffith kills other people because he must, because it’s part of some great plan that Griffith is wise enough to understand, but that Charlotte can only be privileged enough to listen to.  She is innocent, sweet, and naive.  She likely barely understands why Griffith loves her, and could barely imagine that part of her attraction to him is that she is a princess and the heir to a kingdom.

It is this total innocence that makes Charlotte open her window for Griffith when he appears before her late at night. Certainly she has no idea why Griffith is there. Of course she knows that she should not let men into her room. But she also loves, adores, and completely trusts Griffith. She may know that “things” (most likely “bad things”) happen to women who let men into their chambers, but she likely either believes that no such thing could happen with her beloved or is too happy and relieved to see Griffith to care.

And Charlotte is overjoyed to see him.  After weeks of worrying about how Griffith would fare in the war and crying over his poisoning (albeight, done to himself with a sleeping draught “poison), he has finally appeared right before her, proving that he is well.  Charlotte is so happy to see him alive and well, so glad to see that he’s thought of her even half as much as she’s thought of him, that she can barely contain herself. She embraces Griffith, rattling on about how worried she was about him.

And then the unexpected happens.  Griffith kisses her.  Charlotte jerks away. Maybe she’s remembering stories about why she shouldn’t let men into her chambers, stories that she’d forgotten upon seeing Griffith. Maybe she’s upset over the way Griffith is treating her, kissing her without asking, without any sort of lead to. Maybe she’s just surprised.  Regardless, she jerks away, fully expecting that her beloved one will understand and release her. He does not.

Griffith kissing her probably upset Charlotte a little, but not unduly so.  However, that he then forces her to kiss him probably is upsetting.  Charlotte’s beloved prince charming has now become unfathomable.  He is forcing her to do something she does not want, he is violating her, he is embarrassing her. Charlotte does not know what to do, how to behave. This has never happened to her before, and in her sheltered existence, she’s probably barely even aware that this can.

Charlotte is likely very confused, particularly as Griffith begins to drag her towards her bedroom and force her onto her bed.  She loves Griffith, she adores him. He is the man who saved her, the man she adores. But at the same time, he is also pinning her to her bed and slowly removing her clothing.  Charlotte still thinks the best of him, though. She pleads with him. “No, don’t,” she says again and again, wondering why it is that Griffith won’t listen.  She asks, she pleads.  She wonders why he doesn’t stop.

Charlotte likely blames herself, at least in part.  She did let him in. Maybe she encouraged him? Maybe she did something wrong? Maybe she is not making herself clear enough?  Maybe this is normal. Maybe she should get used to this. She does want to get married, after all. Isn’t this what married people do?  Maybe she should enjoy this. Maybe someone is always a little scared, a little resistant, the first time.  Perhaps this is normal.

Charlotte does not know what to do.  She knows that she’s scared, that she’s nervous, that she wants whatever is happening to her to stop. She voices this repeatedly.  But she likely is unsure about how to get things to stop, or whether she should want things to stop, even though she knows that she would far prefer that Griffith were gone and she were asleep in bed.  She’s confused.  She does not know what to think.

And even if she wasn’t confused, even if she managed to clearly think “I was wrong about Griffith all along. He’s not a nice guy. He’s a terrible fiend who broke in through my window and is now about to rape me” she might not be able to do much more than she does with her confusion.ⁱ   Certainly Charlotte could struggle, she could fight. But Griffith is much stronger than she is, and he is trained at fighting. She could scream and hope to draw a crowd.  But even then she is likely afraid.  Even if someone did hear her, they would find her like this, which might be more shameful than merely being raped, but having it be kept quiet.ⁱⁱ   If people found her, they would also do something to Griffith, likely kill him.  Charlotte is confused about Griffith’s transformation, but she does not hate him or want him killed. She wants him back the way he was when he taught her to whistle with a leaf.  She wants him to stop what he is doing.  She does not want him dead.

In essence, Charlotte does not know what to do.  She has several options, but she cannot take any of them, except beg Griffith to let her go.  She does plead, and he does not listen.  Griffith succeeds in his rape and Charlotte is left, the next morning, sprawled as if dead on her bed, to wake up and call “Griffith” likely more confused than anything as to what had happened to turn her champion into her attacker.

i.  This is again, noting, that Charlotte is so confused that likely thinking much of anything beyond “why”, “help”, and “no” is beyond her.

ii.   For those of you in doubt, remember that many people still do not recognize this scene as rape (despite that Charlotte repeatedly voices “no” during the entire scene, because, after all, Charlotte loved Griffith, and if she likes him (talked to him, danced with him, etc.), isn’t that an invitation for sex?), that sex is a major no-no for any good girl, particularly any good girl in an age where birth control does not exist, and that even today rape trials are thrown out, not tried, found innocent, etc. because the woman could not demonstrate physical injuries demonstrating that she “struggled” and is then blamed for being a tease, being vengeful, or being a slut who wanted free medical care.  If in our world a woman cannot get a trial for rape that does not bring up how hard she struggled, what she wore, her sexual history, etc. etc. and is then blamed for being a slut because she was raped, imagine the world of Charlotte, a girl who lived in a decidedly more chauvinist world.  When you think of that, it makes perfect sense that she would not want anyone to know that she was raped or about to be raped, even if this knowledge meant saving her from rape.  (Note in that in the manga, over this incident, the king calls Charlotte a “slut” and Griffith a “thief”.  Whatever mental distress Charlotte went through is negated by the idea that Charlotte is the king’s property, and that Griffith just made her less valuable.  Suddenly Charlotte’s reluctance to draw a crowd seems far more sensible.)