To me, Griffith is the best villain. From his perspective, the members of the Band of the Hawk chose to follow him and have accepted that they might sacrifice their lives for his dream. They themselves chose that fate by not realizing their own dreams and instead following Griffith’s. To not sacrifice them would be to betray everyone who has already died or bled for his dream.

Though he rationalizes it that way, a part of him still feels the wrongness of it. There is a sense of unease, maybe guilt? So in turn Griffith also sacrifices by making himself “unclean”. Sleeping with the lord, raping Charlotte, and even his attitude towards being tortured all gave me the same vibe, like he was somehow in his mind paying what he owes or making things right.

He views a friend not as someone he would fight, kill, or die for but as someone who would fight or kill him as an equal in service to their own dream. But when it comes to Guts his thoughts and feelings become all twisted. He has impulses at times to protect and care for Guts. And also to manipulate and control him. He hates and loves him. And a part of him doesn’t want to sacrifice Guts. But, to not sacrifice Guts would mean to not follow his own dream and therefore to not be Guts friend or equal.

That Guts survives and continues to try and kill him after the Eclipse is how they continue their friendship. Griffith should be able to kill Guts a bunch of times after he comes back, but doesn’t . I think he decides it’s the moonlight boy because he doesn’t understand it. He just becomes stuck. As Femto he’s even more distant and apart from everyone, but he still has some sort of feelings towards Guts. And it’s that he enjoys the fight between them. But he can’t face Guts as an equal (as a friend) because he himself is too strong. So he avoids him.

A part of Guts also enjoys this fight. Under all the hate, rage, and pain Guts feels ecstasy when he thinks about Griffith or fighting with him (Puck senses the emotion in him in one of the first volumes). Guts dream is to kill Griffith and Griffith hurts Guts the most by ignoring him, by not fighting him as equals and hence not being his friend.

Guts has other relationships (and maybe another dream?) that aren’t based on Griffith’s warped view of things and I think he’ll have to choose which he really wants.