So, @kanekikenunot and I were talking a few days ago about the possible symbolism between the original OEK and the Minotaur of Crete, and I wanted to expand on their post about it.
**just a warning, the two stories don’t coincide perfectly because there’s a lot of holes due to possible deception and backstabbing between V and the Washuu, so take all of this with a grain of salt
As the story goes, King Minos was given an impressive bull to sacrifice to Poseidon, but decided to keep it for himself. When Poseidon found out, he forced Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, to fall madly in love with the bull. They consummated, and the Minotaur was born. Being an unnatural beast– half human and half bull– it grew to feast on human flesh.
Horrified, King Minos ordered the carpenter Daedelus to construct a massive labyrinth built beneath his palace at Knossos, and banished the Minotaur to it’s tunnels.
The Washuu Estate and the ruins of Knossos.
In the scope of Tokyo Ghoul, the story of the Minotaur offers a possible explanation of the One-Eyed King’s origin.
For one thing, the 24th ward is frequently described as a labyrinth. However, Nishiki revealed in ch128 that the OEK dug the 24th ward himself, making him King Minos, and Daedalus, and the Minotaur.
This lines up with my theory that the original One Eyed King is actually a relative of V and the Washuu– one that was most likely the result of a shameful affair between noble families; a human and ghoul. Their shared offspring was miraculously born (possibly during a time when food was scarce, when alternatives were necessary), and with it’s single kakugan, was itself proof of their adultery.
The poor half-ghoul child was most likely hidden away the same way Eto was.
And, like Eto, the future king most likely lashed out once it was old enough. A human parent could fear for their own life, or that their “monster” child would be targeted. A ghoul parent would would find that their half-ghoul offspring was eons stronger than themselves. Both sides would have to worry about their secret being revealed, and so eventually the Minotaur, who’s true lineage was that of nobility (a one-eyed “king”), needed to be quelled.
Now, King Minos in antiquity had been demanding young sacrifices from Athens as revenge for the death of his human son, which served convenient in keeping the Minotaur at bay. Eventually, the secret son of Athens, Theseus, offered to go along with the sacrifices and kill the monster.
So here’s where things get super tricky. I’ll break it down like this:
King Minos = the founder of V, human
Minotaur = one-eyed half-ghoul, result of V and Washuu
Theseus = head of the Washuu clan
Theseus eventually defeated the Minotaur by decapitating it, and left for Crete to become king.
That sounds like the end of things, but with Furuta’s statement about “sustenance for the throne” alongside the doppleganger motifs (two one-eyed owls, two rabbits), I believe that the Washuu and V wanted to create a new “Minotaur” in order to continuously gain support from the humans who believed that they were being protected from the One-Eyed King.
The Washuu were thrust into a position of political power among humans and ghouls alike– and they enjoyed it. So long as the masses didn’t discover that they were responsible for the initial creation of the first One-Eyed King, and so long as they played their cards right, they could continue to forever create enemies and acquire more wealth.
V and the Washuu may have come into power over a stupid secret: an affair which created a Minotaur.
V knew their secret, however, so they rung up a deal: they would share their power in secrecy, with knives at each other’s backs, and soon their efforts to create a new OEGhoul brought about the demi-human warriors like Arima, to be sicced on whatever “enemies” they could find until quinques were invented.
The original “Minotaur” may have survived “Theseus” (remember, if the Washuu are like Rize, they have some seriously powerful regeneration), or a new one-eyed ghoul may have been created or found.
Either way, the original OEK was most likely a Washuu by blood who was driven into the ground by it’s own family, then used as a stepping stool to their power. It’s anger towards the CCG is something still harbored to this day, which is something shared between itself and the likes of other natural OEG’s like Eto.
“Culture absolutely cannot do without passions, vices, and acts of malice.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human
No matter the answer to the question of peace, it is no less a horrifying structure than the wars it acts as the violent precursor to. Peace has, throughout history, mostly been exemplified by its duality; in the aftermath of conflict, it is equally punishment and recompense as it is an achievement and blessing. For it to exist as a monolithic force permitting the temporary absence of that conflict, one side had to be “victorious” while the other was “defeated.”
The Oggai are expensive tools in Furuta’s zero-sum game, embodying loss and gain of personal and societal identities. The kanji is half of “death” reflected upon itself, alluding to the children who were stripped of humanity and went on to exceed the basic human condition, whose collective function is to rain death upon ghouls and humans alike. Compromise cannot stand when evil and good, black and white are polarized to the point of comedy. Furuta’s vision for peace flares with passionate indifference to the end of life, the end of the inferior masses to assemble invulnerable, chaotic instruments that can conquer and succeed in their place. Dying alone is a bore, too easy, too frightening an act, so he chooses life with a noose around his neck; the psychology of a deranged, depraved man lies in his need to frantically grab on to every bit of what little he can precisely because it has failed to hold meaning for him any longer. His focus veers toward what he should have been once he has lost good sense of what he should be, and he is crippled completely by his fear of moving anywhere at all after even that necessity has disgraced him and vanished. “Peace” and “ethics” thus become simple words to lob around for a taste at trivial triumph. Only by his own lack of meaning for such can he blindly demand them from others, stoke the flames of his fraudulent ambitions, be exalted as a profane god.
But a god that sins and shits no differently than their venal worshipers is no god, else they are all gods. These souls together convulse in agony, joined by the primal fear of death, of the death of their wants and needs. What sets the pretenders apart is their unvarnished audacity in exploiting that fear in those they deem weaker than themselves, until they collapse and become the exploited.
“I want to take this fucked up, piece of shit world, fuck it up even more, and give it a factory reset.” (TG:re, ch. 86)
Each god rises from the ashes of the one before, endowed with a hereditary love of destruction and no more than that. To say that they are frivolous hypocrites isn’t a totally exaggerated assumption. Like Furuta, Eto was embittered in her fundamental loneliness, filled with revulsion for the father that she could not freely call her own. Her vengeance against the world for allowing her birth was a revolution for egoistic peace, and with the conviction that her methods would help dissolve the twisted birdcage came a pitifully inflated complex that rivaled V’s. She regarded V with the most livid contempt for their “mistaken belief” yet emerged guilty of exactly that — she would wrest the fucked up world from their vile, corpse-befouled hands with her own vile, corpse-befouled hands, a rejection of their peace for hers.
Unrepentant reapers like Furuta, Eto, and V/the Washuu can be readily epitomized by a singular line from Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death, that hatred and chaos are baneful effects of the pathetic struggle against the fragile self afraid of death in its ultimate form:
“If we
don’t have the omnipotence of gods, we at least can destroy like gods.”
Suppose that they or anyone else had their way. What follows once they have “reset” the world? Perhaps a rhythmic balance between life and death would be the prelude to this elusive peace if it could be contained, but life is death in progress, and the story is framed around characters who are thrust daily into the fetid maw of decay, killing and getting killed as they defend their right to life more than they can ever leisurely exercise it.
Juuzou voices his uncertainty and the scene exudes a palpable desolation as the paper plane is carried away in the wind to a destination unknown amidst the vastness before them. He admits he doesn’t know what peace really is, and then wonders if they’ll ever have it. How will one begin to realize or even appreciate that they have attained something worthwhile if they cannot recognize it? Further, if its meaning and existence are lost on its bearers, is there any point to its presence?
Peace is the paper plane — it can be thought of as a product of pernicious inertia, supplying its makers with a momentary calm until it must be let go. It’s both a loyal preservation and betrayal of a utopian ideal. A transition into the next essential war. Human beings inherently pursue the science of search, toiling tirelessly to invent, to claim their discoveries or distribute them for a profit. When the world is well it becomes lethargic; the monotony of that wellness sets in and weariness begins to stir anew.
The mood between Juuzou’s and Hakatori’s dialogues proffers the notion that peace is also a myth conjured by those fortunate enough to survive because they’re slavering for a conscious goal, a reason to justify the ceaseless bloodshed. If all humans were to be erased, then the ghouls’ natural source of sustenance disappears, leaving them to resort to permanent cannibalism. Without external energy being introduced into the food chain it is rendered obsolete, and they would regress as a species until they are extinct. Contrarily, a picture of the human world should all ghouls be erased would be a remarkably tedious echo of our own — political and social warfare, hate and ideological segregation would nevertheless continue to spin the wheel of violence that could never be buried.
Although Juuzou cannot explain the logic to his doubt, he does know that he prefers the status quo since there is little room for stability in either case. This is cemented by Hakatori’s (Tatara’s) statement that the innate curiosity for courses uncharted precipitates devastation. It is also a thinly veiled way of hinting at the perversion of peace as demonstrated by the Oggai, a unified symbol of peace in pieces, bloodhounds with an extraordinary capacity for sniffing out their prey and tearing them to shreds. Could their peace be the honest one if they have to flatten that of their allies and their enemies indiscriminately to reach it?
It isn’t, and it isn’t real. In their universe and this one, it’s the willful fabrication of those who have accepted that the world has unfailingly been ravaged and reinforced by war and peace in tandem, that while discovery inextricably leads to war, they are doomed to honor the duty of upholding that cycle as surely as they are wired to seek evolution. The remaining participants in the great stage play that is the riven world, like Naki and Ui, illustrate the insidious nature of the anxiety of death, why it so often extends to the people they love that they could implore life of the very gods that snatched it away.
In a series alight with the colors of tragedy, the sacrifice of life does well to encapsulate the illusory charm and unmitigated fear of a lasting peace. In this the ghouls and humans are one and the same. There are no gods or demons or monsters, just people steeped in varying shades of torment. They will strive and endure, strive to endure, but never be able to break the final barrier that would enable them to cast away the human essence. The sentimentality in fighting for what is false is their only truth, an incurable sickness shared among the living in search of an escape from the ennui that surreptitiously nourishes and devours them all.
He’s not touching his chin he’s suckling his finger like a baby.
It’s an image that repeats with Kaneki a lot, specifically on the ostereich cover, another ostereich song, and this Haise birthday art.
I think the general fetal positioning of the art is more important than whether he’s touching his chin or not.
As to why Kaneki is drawn in the fetal position so often, I imagine it’s the same reason he pictures his inner self representative of his memories as a child.
Kaneki’s primary method of coping as always been to surrender himself and lose his agency to whatever situation he is currently caught up in. That’s why a significant part of his narrative arc is about his connection to his parents, and also imagining himself as a child. Children by nature do not have agency and their parents are responsible for them. Therefore, placing Kaneki in what is essentially a symbolic newborn in this scene could have some merit. It could also mean some form of rebirth occurred, especially since the wrinkles in the blanket look like moth wings.
Kaneki says “then just like the insect mother was, I too will die” when referring to himself and his mother. Butterflies and Moths start as ugly looking grubs, and go through such a significant metamorphosis it could be termed a rebirth. Kaneki also has been compared to the scorpion and butterfly combination that Kanou made in the past. Arima when fighting Kaneki, crushes his hand around what appears to be a moth only to let it go. He at the start of the fight seemed intent on killing Kaneki, only to learn later on that he had been trying to imbue Kaneki with a reason to live.
There’s also the obvious interpretation that Kaneki is pictured alone and crawled up into the fetal position looking miserable so many times, but now with Touka next to him he finally looks serene rather than lonely and despairing.
In the osterreich picture he’s crying tears of blood, so it’s not a far off assumption that the reason Touka is specifically holding him like that at the end of the chapter is because Kaneki is crying into her lap and she’s comforting him.
Between the foetal position and the fact that Kaneki can sometimes see himself as a child, I definitely agree with the metamorphosis = rebirth idea. It even reminds me of this…
So ultimately, maybe this is just me thinking that :Re doesn’t have to end as a tragedy (”tragedies aren’t popular nowadays” + that tweet of sensei), but I wonder if the idea of rebirth indicated by the foetus and child imagery couldn’t mean that for Kaneki to really “be (re)born” (and thus live a happier life) he has to “first destroy the world”, which is precisely what Arima and Eto asked him to do (and the world being symbolized by an egg, as per this quote, would even make sense since it was depicted as being a twisted cage more than once before).
Having being the first naturally born OEG. When you look at Rize it’s the same: she was depicted as having a very special Kagune even if she was born as a part of the sunlit garden initially before she ran away. And here’s the thing, the other ghouls with a special kagune are the Clowns, as we could see with Donato and Uta, but also Nico to some extent, and since it seems that the Clowns will be explained at the same time as V, I’m pretty sure there is a link there. So yeah, I’m wondering (2)
About an eventual pattern between V, who they recruit, why they wanted Rize back so bad, even the Washuus (who’s kagune we never saw, which could be for a specific reason), the Clowns’ even stranger abilities and I think maybe you found a part of the answer with your idea about Eto and Yoshimura. Sorry if that doesn’t make a lot of sense though but thanks for the great post! Have a nice day 🙂
Hi!
Yeah, that’s along the lines of what I was thinking, too. Yoshimura said the reason he was approached by V was just because he was very strong, but it’s not like he’s the only frightening kakuja out there, so I think it must be something else on top of that.
The Clowns and V are definitely working together through Furuta now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s always been this way. Furuta said that the CCG has a history of dressing up organizations just to have an enemy to fight, and the Clowns were included on that list. It’s always been suspicious, for me, that “even Arima” had a “hard time” with their extermination. I get the feeling that certain members like Donato were given immunity, especially because he was so willingly a source of information while he was in Cochlea.
Oddly, I wonder if regenerative abilities like Yoshimura and Rize are put to use later on the members of V. Arima says the demi-humans die early, but Hirako stated that the crones were like “advanced” Garden members. They remind me a lot of Kanou’s Q’s and have the same automatic movements of Noro, so it almost feels like there’s been some kind of zomboid puppetry going on :O
Thank you for your answer, I’m glad that it made some sense. 🙂
Just on the matter of the Clowns’ annihilation and Donato’s jail time, I agree with you: the whole thing is fishy, because if V/the CCG had really tried to eradicate the Clowns’ gang (especially with Arima involved), then I don’t see why the remaining Clowns would have wanted anything to do with V in :Re (even if they are odd characters, so we can never be sure).
At the same time though, other investigators (like Hirako and Houji) were involved so if the whole thing was a set up, it was orchestrated quite well, especially since Donato’s own timeline is strange in regards to being a part of the Clowns’ gang (since he went to jail a few years before the Clowns’ annihilation took place and he’s presented as a boss, even if he never was called as such).
Anyway, between Itori being so knowledgeable on hybrid babies and Uta referring to himself as an outcast, it’s probably a safe bet to consider that the Clowns probably had a relation to V since the very beginning, maybe because of the weird kagune abilities that they showed in the last arc (I do wonder about Donato since he’s Russian and all though… unless there is a V equivalent in Russia, like there is an equivalent of the CCG in Germany).
Also, excellent point about the “advanced Garden members” like Kaiko, I hadn’t realized that they were a bit similar to Noro but I see what you mean. So maybe V does use special kagune abilities from certain ghouls to keep demi humans from the sunlit garden from dying early.
I’m not so surprised that Arima possibly lied about that to Kaneki though. I mean, he did also say that V/the Washuus “wanted to become more humans” but so far, we rather got hints of the opposite. Maybe he didn’t want to discourage Kaneki because being the OEK is a difficult task (and Eto didn’t mention anything either)…
Thanks again for your reply and sorry for rambling away!
oh yeah, I answered a followup to that post here! [x]
Basically, I think Eto/ Yoshimura’s RC cells have healing properties (come to think of it, that may actually be part of why Eto survived as a fetus on top of her mother cannibalizing). Banjou is able to heal after having “seeds” planted in him by Eto, and both Noro and Kanae showed extreme regenerative abilities after being gifted with Eto’s “strength”.
Arima stabbed Kaneki right in his kakuhou twice with Fukuro, meaning it regenerated with Yoshimura’s RC cells planted within it. If I’m right, all of Kaneki’s RC pathways will be reinforced with those cells, essentially making him indestructible and possibly nulling out the chance of him aging rapidly.
There must have been some deeper meaning to Arima ripping out Yoshimura’s kakuhou and holding onto it for 13 years. My guess must’ve learned about the RC cells from Eto, went after her father, and stole it with the intention to protect whoever he’d raise to take his place.
With Arima’s usual hindsight-bias, it must’ve been a relief to see that it really worked. Plus, it would be a nice bit of irony to see Arima and Eto– who both suffered neglect of their parents– use Yoshimura’s kakuhou to protect their own “child”.
btw, I’m guessing there’s something extra special about Eto/Yoshimura’s kagune. I still have Amon and Takizawa to take into consideration, but I’m sure you guys noticed the scar on Kaneki’s ribs this chapter, right?
It’s from the Owl quinque.
Kaneki was all healed up by the time he fought Arima in V14, and Haise had no marks when we saw his stomach during the Auction Raid. It seems like he was regenerating just fine with Rize’s super-kagune, right up until his hand was taken off by Kanae (who had Eto’s “strength”).
He lost his:
right hand = Kanea (vicariously Eto, followed by eating her kagune)
both legs = IXA – grew back normally
left hand = Owl
right ribs = Owl
Everything other that was mostly “minor” slices and plain kagune being sloughed off, so it ended up healing regularly. All the places that involved Eto or the Owl quinque are still scarred.
So maybe there’s something even more important behind that quinque that Arima knew would (hopefully) help Kaneki in the future somehow. I wonder what they can do…
Okay so, I actually got a few questions on the subject and I didn’t see anyone making a post about it (please tell me if someone actually did), so I might as well write one quickly. Apologies in advance for those I might slightly spoil about Berserk.
Death flag. I think that’s one of the words I saw the most everywhere that I looked today and frankly, even though I’m generally not bothering so much with death flags, I kind of have to admit that I got worried after reading this chapter because, well, it’s TG. And Ishida-sensei. So we’re used to crazy and violent things happening, especially right after something sweet occured.
But what’s the link with Berserk?
Well, first of all, Sensei made several references to Berserk before, mainly through Amon’s character (please see the following posts: [x] [x]), that were explicit enough to think that he might be a fan of the series.
Second thing, for those who are not familiar with it, Berserk is the story of Guts, a mercenary, who was once sacrificed by his close “friend” so that the latter could be reborn as a very powerful demon entity. Obviously that kind of broke their friendship, especially since the other dude didn’t just try to sacrifice Guts, but also cursed and heavily abused Casca, Guts’ lover, leaving her with a big trauma towards men as well as a regression into insanity.
So anyway (please read Berserk), when it comes to the link between that and :Re ch125, it turns out that a little before Guts and Casca went through absolute hell, they had the opportunity to share a very sweet and intimate moment, exactly like it happened between Touka and Kaneki for this week’s chapter…
…A moment that resulted of Guts and Casca honestly talking for the first time in a while and finally admitting to their feelings for each other, so again, a little like it happened between Kaneki and Touka ever since ch122. EDIT: @lilylunac also saw the similarities between the two scenes! 🙂
Now obviously TG =/= Berserk, Kaneki =/= Guts, Ishida =/= Miura, but the two sensei still have this shared enjoyment that is to constantly inflict pain to their main character as they make them go through many hardships and, as I was saying above, the fact that so many TG readers are now bracing themselves for something terrible to happen, because ch125 was really sweet and positive in comparison to a lot of shit that Kaneki (and Touka) went through, makes me think that we learnt our lesson long ago.
So yes, as it happens, daily happiness never really lasts for long in TG, especially not when Kaneki still has a lot of personal issues to sort out and a lot of self-reflection to do (and especially not when the current main villain is aiming to fly the TG plane into an ocean of blood), but guess what, it’s exactly the same for Berserk, happiness never lasts long for Guts either.
So, it is very probable thatshit will go down soon in TG, if just because we could have an arc paralleling the Anteiku raid arc next, as many fans already explained and as Juuzou also implied…
…which would make the new relationship between Kaneki & Touka (and the sweet chapter of this weekend) the last positive moment to behold (both for us fans and for Kaneki) before Kaneki, Touka and the rest of Kaneki’s side might be separated and hurt/injured by Furuta’s side.
To be honest, I have no idea where TG will start again next week, but here’s what I understand from the recent developments:
Furuta has a good part of the CCG still ready to obey his command
Furuta is loved by most of the public opinion in TG (those fanclubs :/)
The Clowns might fight for Furuta’s side again (unsure)
A parallel to the Anteiku raid arc would mean a lot of blood and possible deaths
Furuta wants to watch the world burn and for Kaneki to die
Meanwhile Kaneki…
has issues to solve and for now doesn’t make for a good leading figure as the OEK
has less manpower than Furuta and way less deadly weapons (as far as we know)
is supposedly dead for a good part of the world, which means he can’t really gain new allies amongst ghouls
might be joined by the Clowns at some point (unsure)
might have CCG deserters (Juuzou, Urie and co) joining him (unsure again)
also Mutsuki is a bit insane and has a real grudge against Touka, which means they’ll face off again, definitely
TL;DR Kaneki doesn’t have the odds in his favor, for now at least, especially since he doesn’t really appear to have a good plan, which is why an arc similar to the Anteiku raid one definitely sounds like bad news and a lot of pain.
To be honest, I don’t know if Sensei really decided to include explicit lovemaking between Kaneki and Touka before shit might really go down as a parallel to Berserk and Guts/Casca, or if he found that the idea of a young love being tried by all sorts of madness was simply interesting, but… there is one more possible parallel that made me think of Gutsca, as I read the new :Re chapter.
See, it’s a spoiler (sorry :/) but Guts and Casca actually conceived a child during that one moment of bliss that they shared, a child that unfortunately got cursed to have a really sad fate, and it just so happens that the cover of :Re ch122…
… triggered many theories about Touka possibly becoming pregnant, with the pregnancy unfortunately not going and ending very well (please read these posts [x] [x]).
Personally, I don’t really have much of an opinion about a possible pregnancy, if just because I don’t know if Kaneki can even reproduce in the first place (that is a very debated question within the fandom), but I have to admit that the pregnancy idea crossed my mind during ch125 more than it did with ch122 because…
the full chapter did remind me of a bittersweet parallel to what happened with Guts/Casca and their baby
So in conclusion, I can’t be certain that Sensei was influenced by Berserk when he decided to write ch125, but I suppose that it could be a possibility considering that he added references to Berserk before. I guess it might depend on what happened next in :Re and on if Touka actually becomes pregnant or not. Also please note that this is a possible parallel of situation, not a parallel of dynamics or of characters.
I hope this post was informative for the few people who were interested by the subject. Feel free to ask if anything is unclear!
Reblogging because I thought a little more about Touka possibly being pregnant and I realized that Touka and Kaneki having a child (even if that sounds too sweet for TG + we don’t even know if Kaneki can reproduce) would make for a real schism with every situation about hybrid children that we got to see throughout TG, so maybe it’s a path that Sensei could decide to follow.
I mean, as the OEK, Kaneki is supposed to fight for coexistence between ghouls and humans, and if there are characters who were a real proof of how unfair and twisted the current world is, it’s the “hybrids”, and by that I don’t just mean Kanou’s One Eyed Ghouls.
I’ll give examples below, but basically it’s a concept that was introduced by Itori at the beginning of TG…
and that Arima expanded on when he told Kaneki about V and the Sunlit Garden:
So we do know that hybrids are rare but possible. However, so far, how were those “hybrids” treated by the world?
I know, ghoul children in general don’t happen to have a very safe life (and look at Kaneki’s childhood, even though he was a human kid) but still, when it comes to Arima, Hairu, Furuta and the other kids from the Sunlit Garden -> in their case, they were all bred together to become ghoul killers without ever being left any choice…
And Furuta even refers to himself and the others as “unfit goods” while laughing, but his reaction when Eto mocked him for not even being acknowledged by his father was pretty telling of his real feelings on the matter…
As for Eto, she didn’t have a better fate since her mother was killed, her father gave her away to the 24th ward to Noro, because he wanted her to be safe from V. However we all know that the 24th ward isn’t a really utopic place to live at and anyway, Eto never had the chance to be with her two parents because of V, which triggered negative feelings towards both of them and herself…
(which is precisely why Yoshimura once asked Kaneki to save Eto by the way, because Eto refused to acknowledge that she ever was loved by anyone which fueled her desire to destroy this world, and that probably includes Tatara’s love as well [x] [x]).
So any child of this story who was born as a hybrid had it tough, no exception so far on the matter (and there might be one or two more hybrids related to the Clowns’ gang that we don’t know yet about, as Uta referred to himself as an outcast + Itori’s expression when she talked about hybrid babies was strange).
But then, or I should rather say now, we have Kaneki and Touka, whose future is obviously very uncertain but for whom pregnancy theories have been going strong ever since ch122 (please see above in the original post for links). Most of these theories conclude that the pregnancy would actually not go or end well, which is a fair point to have in mind since TG can go rough, but considering that…
Kaneki is the OEK, a leading figure that’s supposed to help change this world and make it about coexistence between the two species
He is also one of the strongest ghouls of all Japan now
He is aware of how unfair/twisted this world is and what terrible lives Eto, Arima and other kids from the Sunlit Garden had because of it
As a human kid, he also had an abusive childhood, leaving him desperately longing for love ever since then
One could also mention Touka’s abandonment issues because of what happened to her parents (amongst other things)
… if Touka’s theoretical pregancy were to somehow terminate (I know that it’s a pretty big if), their baby could be the first “hybrid” to have a happier life than any other hybrid children before, which could positively vouch for coexistence to the world’s eye (since the baby would likely be human by Kaneki and ghoul by Touka), on top of Kaneki finally getting the family he always wished for.
Obviously, we’re completely in the realm of possibilities with this post, especially since happiness never lasts very long in TG, so expecting such a sweet and positive development might be too much, but I still felt like pointing it out since, in my opinion, it can still fit whole-heartedly within TG’s story.
I’d like to conclude by pointing out that Kaneki and Touka have been associated before with Touka’s parents but also with Yoshimura and Ukina…
…which would make their theoretical child possibly paralleling Eto; Eto whom Yoshimura asked Kaneki to save (again through bringing coexistence).
So I’m honestly really on the fence here: I didn’t particularly think a pregnancy was likely before this week, but then again, I didn’t expect Ishida to include a full chapter dedicated to Kaneki and Touka finding each other through intimacy so… at this point, I suppose anything is possible and it’s not a development that I would dislike anyway. 🙂
Sorry for the long post, but feel free to leave your thoughts or to ask if anything is unclear!
Thanks anon! I’ve seen that theory and I think it’s pretty cool, but I don’t really adhere to it for three reasons. 1) I find it hard to believe that the tyrannical Washuus would let one of their Garden children go free into the world and potentially reveal everything they’ve been doing (if Hide is from the Garden, then he definitely escaped rather than being let loose); 2) I don’t think it’s necessary for Hide to be from the Garden to motivate his actions or give him the ability to do them; and, 3) The symbolism doesn’t match up.
I think Hide’s intelligence is more of a device to involve him more deeply in the story than a regular human would normally be able to, and as a crucial agent to Kaneki’s tragedy/recovery, it’s very important that he is involved. Besides, he goes to one of Japan’s top universities – his smarts aren’t all that surprising. His interest in Ghouls in particular comes from finding out that Kaneki is one – they’ve only talked about it twice before; in the park as kids as any kid might (and Kaneki only remembers it because it’s now relevant to him) and after hearing a news report about a Ghoul attack, which is pretty natural. And remaining conscious after the attack from Nishiki could easily just be a testament to Hide’s devotion to Kaneki rather than a sign of unusual skills.
Hide only starts tailing Yamori when he sees him leaving Anteiku. From his attempted phone call, we can see that his primary concern was Kaneki’s well-being. As we know that Hide is well-read about Ghouls, he might have recognised the infamous ‘Jason’ – if not, he still looks massively suspicious. Perhaps he even heard some of the noises of battle outside.
I think Hide was just an intelligent human who got caught up in this whole mess for the sake of his friend.
But this is no longer the case.
As Scarecrow, Hide is now a Half-Ghoul. Scarecrow freeing Amon and calling him by name confirmed my belief in this theory. Part of his throat is missing from when he allowed Kaneki to feed on him, resulting in his distorted voice and the need to conceal his face, and since he seems to be a failed subject, he has been unable to regenerate. Indeed, there is a scar around his throat area – and doesn’t Scarecrow’s rubbish mask remind you of Hide’s terrible drawing skills?
But now, he has a larger role in the grand schemes of things – and yet, it is a role that is still essentially the same. Both before and after, his mission is to protect Kaneki.
Hide’s role in the school play can only be foreshadowing – mentioning it has no other purpose, and we’ve already seen that Kaneki has become the King he portrayed (a role in which he will prove to be unexpectedly good). This is why I say the symbolism for Hide to be revealed to have been from the Sunlit Garden doesn’t match up – there are no witches in the Garden. Eto, on the other hand, has continuously been associated with witch imagery (observation from linkspooky’s meta).
This had led to speculation that Hide might have been working for Eto all along, or else, because of his get-up, he is secretly a Clown. But if either of those are true, why does he tail Yamori and Nico? If he’s in cahoots with Eto, he would know where Yamori’s base is already, and if he’s in cahoots with the Clowns, through Nico he would know where Yamori’s base is already.
But then, Kaneki was not always the King. He only became the King in :re, and that is when Hide becomes the Witch’s Servant. I think that Eto, after having heard about the sacrifice Hide made for Kaneki and seeing his efforts to rescue Amon, freed him from Kanou’s labs to act as Kaneki’s remote bodyguard when she or Arima could not be there in person to guarantee his safety. Eto needed to use Aogiri to harass Kaneki so he could grow stronger for the role he must fulfil, but it would all be for nothing if he died – Eto presided over him herself in the Rose Arc, and she trusted that role to Arima in the Rushima Arc, but who saved him in the Auction Arc? It was Scarecrow, who activated the intercom so that Kaneki’s screams could be heard. We also saw him rowing away from Rushima before the landing could take place a little after Eto’s speech – presumably she told him that the King was on the mainland, and he had to get there before shit hits the fan.
It’s possible that Hide might be both from the Garden and Eto’s servant, but I’m not sure how necessary to the plot Hide being from the Garden would actually be, since Kaneki already has a connection to that world through Arima. So, I think that Hide was an intelligent but ordinary human whose steady purpose in the protection of his friend has aligned with those of some very influential people. I believe Kaneki will meet Hide again in this upcoming arc to parallel their meeting at the end of the original Anteiku Raid; only where that meeting heralded Hide’s ‘death’, this one shall herald his life.
Amon’s kakuja is the one that most resembles Yoshimura’s, with the exception of his own daughters when Eto was fourteen. This also necessarily did not have to be the case because Takizawa is shown with a kakuja too, and both of his are notably different from the one eyed owl mask with slicked back hair that Yoshimura and Amon both share.
Both Seidou and Mado not only have white hair, with one significant bang in the middle that falls down their face. Takizawa was also drawn by Ishida’s admission to look like a horror movie monster the same was Kureo was. They also do the same eye buggy thing, Seidou’s is quite literaly because the eye that he keeps half lidded is his Kakuja eye, on the right just like Mado had.
Both sides of their personality, Kaneki and Arata look similiar and have visual parallels draw in between them.
Baiscally dads, there are dads everywhere.
I think this observation becomes even more intriguing when you remember the connections they have with the people that have complicated lingering attachments to them.
Touka sees Arata in Kaneki, as someone who left her when she needed him there with her because he was too deep in the belief that fighting battles far away would be the best way to keep her safe, hence her tendency to wait for him endlessly in silence – the same way she probably did for her father after he disappeared. She thinks herself to have compounded Arata’s suffering, completely unable to help him
as a child and realizing that confronting him about her knowledge of his activities at the time would’ve made it a heavier burden for him to carry. The bridge scene in the original series summarizes this aspect of Kaneki’s and Touka’s relationship well as not much has changed with them since then, all the more because every word of her screaming at him was what she wished she could have had the chance to tell her father.
Mado mirrors Arata, in that both lost the women they loved and were thus driven into an existence that held little meaning beyond bloody vengeance, whose children were inevitably scarred by their decision to lead such lives. It’s suggested that Kasuka was someone of strong work ethic and had initially rejected Mado’s proposals before giving in. Ironically, the person Taki has feelings for is Mado’s daughter, who has inherited much of her reserved demeanor and appearance from her mother. He’s like an inverse parallel of Mado in that he lost himself and consequently devotes whatever is left to live for the one he loves, rather than for revenge on those who tore him down into what he is. Akira herself, similar to Touka, didn’t want to lose any more people close to her after having experienced the death of her father, which is why when Touka posed this question…
…I was brought back to the moment Akira took the near-fatal blow for Taki, when she said, “What if back then, I had stopped you?”as though she had also meant it for someone else — because what if she not only stopped Taki from running off alone, what if she had somehow been able to steer her father in a different course than the violent one he had chosen for himself? Perhaps she could have saved him from his death, from his blinding, self-destructive hatred, but she will never know.
In Amon’s case, it’s interesting that he’s taking after Yoshimura like Eto did, reminiscent of the way a son takes after his father: Amon still has complex unresolved feelings for Donato, who preyed on the helpless as a kindly priest – a holy giver – while Yoshimura was the opposite, genuinely reaching out to aid those in need without the use of any disguises. After the traumatizing years with his foster father, Amon’s ideal father figure would have been a sacrificial provider like Yoshimura.
Many of the complex relationships in the series seem to stem from the characters’ unfulfilled desires for a normal family. Failing to come to terms with the incongruity of their emotional wants and their reality causes them to live a loop of what-ifs through other people, until the time comes when it’s no longer safe for their hearts to go on that way.
Maybe he didn’t want to discourage Kaneki because being the OEK is a difficult task (and Eto didn’t mention anything either)…
midnight-in-town 