There are three eras of Casca in Berserk so far: Golden Age, Elaine, and Revived Casca. I find that within the fandom, Elaine is written off as not particularly worth analysis, that she just represents a transition state between the real Cascas, pre-eclipse and now revived.
I do in some ways understand this feeling - Miura has said that in developing the story of Berserk, he ultimately decided in keeping Casca alive only because he needed a way to keep Guts’ rage intact, and not let the sands of time dull his need for revenge. This comes from an interview with Miura from 2017, that he spared Casca because she makes sure Guts never forgets the Eclipse. If I may editorialize, though, I think there are narrative reasons to keep a character alive, but that doesn’t mean said character isn’t being independently developed and doesn’t have their own inner world, especially when Miura has said repeatedly he’s trying to write real people and not archetypes. If I may also be snarky for a moment, considering one of my first interactions on Berserk tumblr had someone arguing that Casca stans read too much into Miura’s quote on her recovery to the point where you can’t even really assume he intended to have her recover - perhaps it’s reading too much into this quote to extrapolate that “Casca remained alive to fuel Guts’ anger = Casca as a character is only a plot device for Guts and Miura had no intention of developing her outside of that.”
Another reason to overlook her as a character that I do understand: Elaine is completely voiceless. She literally does not speak except for baby-ish noises from the time after eclipse until chapter 355, practically 275 chapters. For all of that time, we are given no indicating of how Casca is processing the eclipse (or not processing) - and so in some ways Elaine is just a narrative place holder as Kentaro Miura found his footing with her recovery.
My intention with this post is to show that it is possible to gain a bit of insight into Casca’s feelings and emotions as Elaine from some key moments, even though she is never given a voice. Much like (in my opinion lol but also I’m right) Beast of Darkness is just a facet of Guts’ mind and not a separate being, ditto Femto for Griffith, Elaine is Casca, and she’s being written as Casca, just a shallow and surface level version of her.
