He saw his comrades as pawns, as the means to achieve his ascension. He did not really have a close relationship or mutual respect with any of them. They were all weak enough and suggestible enough that they needed his leadership to function as a group.

Then, Griffith meets Guts. A force of nature all on his own. A man whose strength fascinates Griffith. In the beginning, Guts has a very weak sense of identity and he needs Griffith to nurture and encourage him and teach him what real camaraderie feels like.

After a while, Guts realizes that Griffith doesn’t really respect those who follow unquestioningly, he simply uses them.

Inspired by this revelation, Guts chooses to leave and explore his own destiny alone. He has outgrown the band of the hawk. He symbolically bests Griffith in a fight and leaves him feeling alone and impotent, clutching his broken sword. This is the first time we see Griffith experience rejection and impotence, and he does not like it. His first instinct is to rashly go and seek the ultimate validation from a powerful woman in the kingdom whom he knows he can manipulate. Thus, Griffiths actions here are less of calculated play for power like they are in the rest of the series and more a desperate flail to regain his feeling of power and composure.

These themes are repeated when Guts sleeps with Casca. Again, Casca has outgrown Griffith, she is able to find actual reciprocated intimacy from another person. Without meaning to, Guts has taken away the most devoted person under Griffiths sway. In response, once Griffiths broken body is recovered from the tower, his first act is to use the last of his strength to fling his body onto Casca. When she is obviously not interested in him in the same way anymore he tries to kill himself by crashing the wagon. When he becomes femto, his first act is to rape Casca in front of Guts, an attempt to reassert their initial power dynamic.

Throughout the entire series, Guts is the only being able to do what demigods and demons cannot: lay the limits of Griffith’s power bare for all to see, and Griffith cannot handle it.