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Continuation discrepancy: Why would the destruction of the Cherry Tree cause the elves to disappear, but not Puck and Ivalera?
🕑 Added 2024-02-04 18:02:11 +0000 UTCPart 3 of this series from Walter about various major discrepancies in the Continuation compared to Miura's Berserk.
[369] Why would the destruction of the Great Cherry Tree cause Danan and the elves to disappear, but not Puck and Ivalera?
This shouldn’t have happened; at least, not by the rules we were working with for Berserk’s world. The vanishing of the elves was a surprising phenomenon that hasn’t been properly explained, and at this point I don’t expect an explanation.
Taken as it was presented in sequence, the cherry tree, Danan, and the elves seem to be connected. So perhaps once the tree fell, Danan lost her power and the elves went with her? Unfortunately, as clean as that explanation is, it is at odds with what has been established about spiritual trees, the merged state of the Berserk world through the world tree’s emergence, the nature of magic—and the list goes on.
So maybe it would help to review how Fantasia came about to begin with, verifying our understanding of it point by point.
As far as we know, the World Tree has been around since the beginning of existence. As explained by Ged in Ep 345, the tree’s branches pierce and connect the deep layers of the ethereal and corporeal worlds. This chaotic mixture was likely the original state of the world. But for centuries, the World Tree’s growth had been artificially hindered by the planting of spiritual trees, which sapped its power. This mostly prevented incursions from ethereal creatures in the corporeal world, allowing humanity to prosper.
From Puella's translation of Ged from Episode 345:
"They play the role of preventing the branches from extending into "this world" by absorbing the power from the "World Tree".
"Now almost all of the "Forest of Spiritual Trees" around the world have been burned into ashes."
"So the World Tree has become more powerful.”
"We're going back to the Chaos of the ancient times where this world was mixed with the ethereal world..."
The world tree’s reemergence created Fantasia, the new (and old) state of the Berserk world, where monstrous ethereal creatures now roam freely through a land once dominated by humans. Elves, as ethereal creatures themselves, began appearing in greater numbers to humans when the world tree emerged, along with many other beings that were previously imperceptible to humans. So why do we see Elfhelm’s elves disappearing as Skellig sinks after the destruction of its Great Cherry Tree?
To be perfectly clear, nothing from Miura’s Berserk indicated elves would disappear if Elfhelm’s cherry tree died. If it were just another spiritual tree (which was never established), then its destruction shouldn’t have signified any change, because the world tree’s influence is global, superseding any change from a mere spiritual tree. And if we suppose the world tree’s power were still being held back, then the destruction of yet another spiritual tree would mean the emergence of more ethereal creatures, not the vanishing of elves.
Furthermore, elves exist in a layer of the astral world that is sufficiently close to the corporeal world that some were still around even before Fantasia occurred. Based on that fact, a spiritual tree’s disappearance shouldn’t cause them to vanish.
Which takes us back to square one: There’s no reason for it to have happened.
Perhaps there was something unique about Elfhelm that explains the disappearance of elves–something unforeseen that changes our status quo understanding. Miura was clearly setting up more about the events on Skellig a thousand years ago, with the very recent introduction of Volvaba, Hanarr, and the hints about Danan’s origins between 361-363. It was building to something that was unfortunately never revealed to us.
Information of that sort would likely have been helpful when a curveball like the disappearance of elves was thrown at us. But the further we get from the event, the less that I feel the Berserk Continuation staff are delaying the explanation as a means of drumming up some dramatic tension, and the more I feel that they don’t actually have an answer.
There are still a few lingering threads to grapple with, so let’s tackle them one by one:
Why did Isma and the merrows disappear?
To quote Aazealh on the subject: “The merrows weren't born on Skellig. They dwell in the sea and we even know where and how Isma was born specifically (and her father was human!). For them to disappear because of what happened means that every elf was impacted.”
Furthermore, the merrows knew of Skellig, but Isma’s mother was wary of it, and it did not appear to be a home to her kind. They presumably had their own home elsewhere. And yet, they disappeared along with the other elves in 369. In fact, Isma was the first to disappear, before even Danan herself, who was intrinsically tied to the cherry tree.
Why did Puck and Ivalera not disappear with the other elves?
They should have disappeared, too. One might suppose Puck and Ivalera were spared the other elves’ fate because they were just visitors, but that directly contradicts what happened to the merrows. And even though that reasoning could explain why Ivalera remained, as she had never been to Elfhelm, it doesn't work for Puck.
From Puella’s translation of Episode 345:
Danan: Welcome back, Puck. You must be tired from a long journey.
Puck: I'm home.
If the elves disappeared because they were from Elfhelm, then why didn’t Puck disappear? I selected this panel because it’s explicit, with no wiggle room. He’s not a visitor or an outsider. Elfhelm was his home.
I think the answer to the disappearance of both the Skellig elves and the merrows is that the staff behind the Berserk Continuation had no plans for these creatures, and they represented a loose end for where they planned to take the story. As for why Puck and Ivalera were spared, perhaps they recognized that their disappearance would have been TOO disruptive for the status quo of the party, so they were allowed to remain, bending the rule they invented to remove the other elves.
Comments
Walter
I had a lot to say about this topic because it still puzzles me. There was so much that was ripe for development on the island that was lopped off like a bad branch by Mori and Gaga. This choice among all the others they’ve made feels like the killing blow for this whole endeavor, to me. Because if they aren’t interested in developing the characters, or picking up the pieces Miura left behind, then they’re simply racing these approximations of Berserk’s characters toward a finish line at the high cost of any semblance of consistency.
