kingkishou:

ah… and I don’t mean to be exasperated, but I think Rize’s role is blindingly obvious, and the purpose of her appearing before Kaneki right now is a phenomenal representation of how an emotionally damaged person will still struggle for a long time with self-doubt and self-depreciation no matter how sure they seem about their choices. 

Rize is not real right now. Just like during his torture, she is Kaneki’s inner voice telling himself that he was stupid and selfish– as if he deserves all of this.  

Unfortunately, victims of trauma frequently blame themselves for the events that occurred to them, especially young children. Kaneki’s mother beat him and died trying to support both him and her sister, and he blames himself for not being worth loving. He gets attacked by Rize and winds up as an experiment– he blames himself for being gullible. He gets captured and tortured by Yamori, and blames himself for being helpless…

Science fiction dreams aside, it’s realistic and appropriate to show that Kaneki is definitely not guilt-free over his resolution to kill in order to protect the people he promised to protect. He’s still horrified by himself, especially over the knowledge that many of the the people who died by collateral damage were innocent.

There is absolutely no way a person as caring and reflecting as Kanenki could walk away from something this huge completely unscathed, regardless of the fact that he– once again– made the decision that he thought was best.

He had no idea that trying to live solely to be with everyone again would have such nightmarish results.

But this doesn’t mean he’s going to throw in the towel. Kaneki has been making tiny positive steps forward since Cochlea by recognized his shortcomings and realizing that the people he speaks to in his head are just manifestations of his own thoughts. 

We even saw when Furuta rubbed all his fears in his face that it only made him try harder to live. I seriously doubt this is Kaneki giving up, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he turned around and bit her or told her to shut up. He just has to realize that Rize is just another figment of his imagination and that he deserves to continue trying.