Demon Infant, Moonlight Boy and Griffith: How do they relate?

I’m going to pick up something about Griffith and the Moonlight Boy that I’ve written before but dig into it more.

In that article, I still had the idea that Griffith’s body was reborn and that the demon infant was part of that body.

However, having answered a couple of asks on my tumblr and pondered quite a lot about this topic as a result, I am starting to think that Femto possessing the Moonlight Boy’s body actually makes more sense. Let me explain why.

First, let’s take a look at what exactly the Demon Infant is.

In the meantime, I’ve written in detail how the Rebirth Scene goes down in regards to the Demon Infant here, which complements the observations we could make in this post.

A Tainted Child

The demon infant originally was Guts and Casca’s child, originally conceived out of love. His form was then tainted by Femto during the Eclipse.

Skull Knight notes this during volume 14, chapter 92: “…probably due to her sexual relations with the new Godhand” (Lol I guess that’s a nice way of saying Casca was raped…) In either case, it implies the baby is actually theirs.

Abilities of the Demon Infant

The Demon Infant’s abilities cover the summoning of evil spirits, among others. We see him summon the fire children during the Lost Children Arc (volume 15) and in doing so, it even seems like the demon infant is trying to “beat some sense” into Guts by exposing him to his weak spot (namely, harming children). Guts even takes note of this during this sequence:

Another ability of the Demon Infant seems to be manipulation of dreams or mind — prior the events of the Tower of Conviction, the infant creates a dream in the mind of his father to warn him about Casca running off into the fangs of a crazy mob and getting burned at the stake as a result.

This also implies that the Demon Infant knew another festival was about to happen: Skull Knight, Wyald and Zodd also knew about the Eclipse in prior. The infant took his chances to warn Guts about the impending doom that awaits at the foot of the Tower of Conviction. That makes the Demon Infant have some similarity to an apostle (or, whatever the fuck Skull Knight is).

Rebirth of Griffith — Demon Infant Included

Griffith says in volume 22 the demon infant fused into his vessel. But if you look at the rebirth scene, his vessel was the Egg of the World, like a womb for a reborn child. Because the egg of the world picked up the dying demon infant, that means the BODY inside was the reborn demon infant HIMSELF. A body was strictly needed so Femto could assume a physical form.

Let’s take a look at what happens in regards to the Demon Infant and Griffith during the Rebirth scene in detail (I’m not going to analyze page by page, but only when appropriate).

As the tower crumbled partially, Guts and the other’s are struggling with Mozgus and his Henchmen on the wall of Albion. Meanwhile, the demon infant is lying in the rubble of the tower, as it has spent all its energy trying to save Casca. He is about to die. The Egg Apostle sees the Demon Infant and out of empathy picks up him and lets him rest inside of him (aka his mouth).

As the Egg Apostle has reached the top of the tower (which has taken the shape of the infamous Eclipse-hand), he waits for the festival to start.

We see how a body took form inside of the Egg of the New World. You gotta keep in mind and be aware the body we are seeing here is the Demon Infant. The Egg Apostle is also actually talking to the “misshapen child”, too, so it’s being made obvious for us:

As the festival continues, the area around the Tower of Conviction is falling into complete chaos. People around the tower are being devoured by the giant blob of spirits that was originally summoned by the Demon Infant to protect his mother. The astral energy or pressure is also running high partially due to the fact two branded people were to be found at the same spot.

The astral pressure was so strong that Guts and Casca were affected by it. E.g. here in this page, the blob of spirits is devouring the people at the foot of the walls, and even potato Casca (who is barely afraid of anything) perceives intense fear as this happens. This is shown to us mostly through the panel of Puck sensing her state of mind (note the monsters in the background — Berserker Guts would see something similar as well later on).

Later, as the tower overflows with spirits they even get incapacitated completely.

And just moments after, we see how Griffith was reborn. Did Guts and Casca both sense the presence of Femto’s powerful spirit that just assumed physical form…? They probably did, because THIS is what happens just two pages after this: We see how the demon infant changes his appearance and transforms to Griffith.

The order of events only confirms that the Demon Infant in fact was reborn, just to be possessed by Femto’s spirit shortly after. From the outside, Femto assumes the appearance of Griffith.

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That also means: During the eclipse, an event that happened in the astral world, Griffith’s physical body was turned into the astral body of Femto. Here, another dimension was entered the moment Guts touched Griffith as he ran towards him.

During the rebirth scene, an event that happened in the physical world, the astral being Femto was fused into the body of a reborn Demon Infant. These both events mirror each other, as we can tell by Skull Knight’s comments about both festivals:

The God Hand members do not exist in the physical world, and only manifest temporarily under certain circumstances. I can name two: Slan appears during the orgy at the heretic’s cave, and we see Conrad appear in a pestilence-ridden city, too.

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In other words, when the Egg of the New World picked up a dying Demon Infant, he was then reborn as human-like being, the Moonlight Boy. At the same time, his reborn body was possessed by the powerful astral being that is Femto.

In addition to the above order of events that confirm this, this theory makes sense for multiple other reasons, too:

• Let’s start by saying that possession of a physical or astral body is actually a “rule of writing” used in a slightly different context: Before the Sea God Fight, Schierke mentions that she is possessing Berserker Guts and that way, allows him for more or less rational thought. Note that Berserker Guts appearance ALSO changes as a result of this possession (You can actually see his face inside the helmet!)
  
  Something similar is possibly happening in regards to the Moonlight Boy and Griffith. Which leads to the next point:
  
  
• Femto somehow changes the appearance of the Moonlight Boy’s body. Assuming the appearance of Griffith can happen through physical transformation (see the example above), or manipulation of mind or perception as well. Someone as powerful as Femto should be able to do that in theory: e.g. I was always under the impression that Femto’s strong aura manipulated Mule to submit into his service.
  
  
• Because Femto is only possessing the Moonlight Boy’s body, it only makes sense that the latter appears during full moon in his true form before Guts and Casca. After all, he was reborn, his body assuming a new form during the birth scene! The process is possibly similar to how Jill was about to transform into a apostle-like creature inside the Cocoons during Lost Children chapters. Without a body inside of the vessel, you would have nothing to transform.
  
  
• The demon infant usually appears during full moon only, and during full moon the spiritual powers are the strongest. Because the moon increases the power of the Demon Infant and later Moonlight Boy, Femto is unable to control his body completely during full moon.
  
  
• Which begs the question: If the Moonlight Boy is capable to even outmatch Femto’s control and might — Is that because as Casca was raped, the unborn fetus of Guts and Casca’s child was infused with Femto-like powers, as well?
  
  This is an IMPORTANT question to ask, because if you really look at what happens during the rebirth scene, the demon infant appeared to be an extremely powerful being despite of his relatively young age. It was able to summon powerful spirits on demand, that fiercely protected his mother.

If these assumptions are correct (which they LIKELY are), there is a good chance the Demon Infant and his reborn form, the Moonlight Boy, are both almost as powerful as Femto. There is also a chance that during full moons, the Moonlight Boy is actually even more powerful than Femto. Whether their strengths are matched or not, Moonlight Boy may become much stronger as he ages.

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Abilities of the Moonlight Boy

At the same time, the power the Moonlight Boy possesses isn’t like bending space or time, like Femto does — it seems to lay more in control and influence over other astral creatures.

The Moonlight Boy is capable of manipulating Od, like during the night on the beach, where Guts and his companions were attacked by the crocodile familiars. We see how the boy just looks at the crocodile to drive it away from the cottage’s entrance. Schierke is able to redirect Od temporarily of human beings (see Vritannis), but what the boy here does appears to be MUCH stronger, because he is capable of manipulating a non-human creature that is about to charge at them (and thus have full attention/od focused on them).

Another ability of his seems to be “dissolving” and appearing on demand. He was suddenly there at the Sea God island, with Schierke noting how she didn’t notice his Od until now (which can imply he was suddenly just there). After the Sea God Fight, he disappears in a similar fashion.

More importantly, the Moonlight Boy appears to have a strong ethereal body presence, which is strong enough to save Guts from the depths of the Berserker Armor. His ethereal body must be much stronger than Schierke’s, since she actually has problems even reaching Berserker Guts in volume 37.

The Moonlight Boy however, appears to be able to reach him with ease. What is interesting during this scene, is that the Moonlight Boy did all the work on ethereal level to release Guts from the Berserker armor, but on physical level, the armor was still taking a hold on Guts — it required Schierke to snap him out of it completely in the physical realm as well.

So in other words: Miura makes a difference between ethereal body and physical body and implements these two concepts in how these events unfold, which is crazy to think about — it’s an “unspoken” thing or rule that happens and he carefully considers this writing these events as well.

The Moonlight Boy changes

Even so, as I pointed out in the article I have used as inspiration for this one (Griffith and the Moonlight Boy), the appearance of the Moonlight boy’s astral or ethereal body changes over time.

First, it looked like a normal boy with extravagant hairdo, and at the end of the Sea God Arc, he has a strong resemblance to Griffith — mostly through how his hair looks like.

In any case, the changes are apparently obvious enough that even Schierke notes how the od of the boy has changed compared to first time.

In the above mentioned article I have speculated these changes may occur because the Moonlight Boy is changing Griffith, e.g. by taking more and more control over him. What is most intriguing is that given all the things I have pointed out above, this makes a lot of sense: Femto is possessing the child, rather than “be” it, and the boy possibly is slowly retaking control over his own self as he grows older — and stronger.

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Summary

In other words, just by looking at the order of events and what entities or people are involved, it appears like the Demon Infant too, was reborn during the Rebirth Scene. That means it is correct to say that Neo-Griffith is Guts and Casca’s son. It is also correct to say that they share the same body.

However, in addition to these already known and widely-accepted statements, it is also safe to say that a powerful entity that inhabited the demon infant’s reborn body during the rebirth scene — Femto — is possessing the child, rather than “be” the child.

Which means, that in the event of Femto (an astral being) being killed, Guts and Casca’s child will be released in human form. If Griffith’s physical body is killed, their son will be killed as well, but Femto will still exist.