linkspooky:

In the legend of Persphone, Persephone is taken down into the underworld by Hades when standing in a field of flowers. The god of death then tempts her to eat three seeds of the pomegranate while she is staying there. Above the surface Demeter, her mother, and goddess of fertility searches for her everywhere. Until finally Demeter’s refusal to let go causing the harvest to stop, and the world to change into a permanent winter persuades Hades to let her go. However, having eaten the fruit of the dead, she’s forced to stay inside the underworld for three months of the year as many pomegranate seeds as she ate. 

In tokyo ghoul: Re, we witness Kaneki meeting a god of death in a field of flowers.

Afterwards, Kaneki is whisked away to the underworld. He becomes hungry. 

Then, Kaneki decides to eat of the fruit of the dead. 

Afterwards, he’s transformed permanently, and we learn that this was the plan of the god of death himself all along. 

One who eats from the fruit of the dead cannot go back. That’s possibly, what we are beginning in this next arc, and this next chapter. Characters slowly realizing, that things cannot go back so simply.

Tsukiyama refers to the 24th ward as the place they dwell now that they’ve been kicked out of paradise.

Much earlier, Kanae made reference to the same parable. That the reason Eve ate the apple was not because she wanted to love Adam but rather she wanted to be loved by him. (This is specifically a miltonian interpretation from Paradise Lost, where Satan preys on Eve’s insecurities in order to get her to eat the apple by saying that it would bind her to Adam forever.)

An important fact to remember however is that between the Tigris and the Euphrates, no apples grow. It’s a fruit that grows in Europe. However, the pomegranate is a fruit much more native to that reason. 

Perhaps it’s true Eve ate from the pomegranate rather than the apple. Well, regardless the result is the same. The character ate the forbidden fruit for the sake of love. Afterwards they were permanently transformed. 

The high priestess also sits with pomegranites growing behind her, and a moon at her foot. 

The pomegranates on the tapestry are sacred to Persephone. They are a symbol of duty (because Persephone ate a pomegranate seed in the underworld which forced her to return every year).  

Once again through Take, we find ourselves grippling with the idea of illusion. Everything which currently seems to matter, which mattered for the past arc, were apparently ripples in the pond of a much deeper truth. 

The high priestess herself remains Touka Kirishima however. 

For a male especially, the High Priestess Tarot card indicates that he must learn of his ‘anima’ or female side, or he will fail to grow.

Remember a few chapters ago when Hide was introduced, the chapter was named 01. 

The magician and the priestess work together. The magician is the card of active initiation, he sets the fool on his journey, while the high priestess is one of passive inspiration.

On setting out, the Fool immediately encounters the Magician (1) and the High Priestess (2) – the great balancing forces that make up the perceived world. It is a feature of the material universe that as soon as we name some aspect of experience, we automatically evoke its opposite.

The Magician is the positive side. He represents the active, masculine power of creative impulse. He is also our conscious awareness. The Magician is the force that allows us to impact the world through a concentration of individual will and power. The High Priestess is the negative side. She is the mysterious unconscious. She provides the fertile ground in which creative events occur. The High Priestess is our unrealized potential waiting for an active principle to bring it to expression.

The terms positive and negative do not imply “good” and “bad.” These are human distinctions that do not apply in the tarot. The Magician and the High Priestess are absolutely equal in value and importance. Each is necessary for balance. We may view the negative as our Shadow, but without shadows, we cannot see the light, and without a ground of potential, we cannot create.

We see in this chapter again, Hide leaves Kaneki’s side before he can even see him while he’s unconscious (Oh boy am I detecting a pattern), and leaves Touka in charge instead. 

The magician passes off to the high priestess 1 -> 2. Before any of you start to doubt me on this always wanting to be by Kaneki’s side even willing to consume the fruit of the dead thing let me make one final point. Urie and Mutsuki went out of their way to confirm that something strange happened to Saiko in the same chapter we see that the ROS is going out of control.

This is exactly what Saiko says later as well. 

I definitely think a transformation with Saiko will happen in the next few chapters along these lines, and it will happen precisely because of her unfailing want to always be by Kaneki.