cirrocumulus-cloud:

– and enjoy bloodwine while you do it –

Itori is a
fascinating shadow of a character. Almost always away from the narrative with
very little central focus she does bring us new information each time we get to
meet her. Not only that, like the rest of the clowns she seems to have found
value in being on the sidelines, then stepping onto the centre stage not to
alleviate any boredom, but to not go mad.

But why
would Itori go mad? A ghoul that we know so little of yet someone who dares to
give us so much information about the world as a whole… I’ve got an
interesting theory about Itori’s lost innocence, so let me make an assumption
first and then try to back up my thesis.

The theory
in question?

Itori used to be a breeding machine like Rize,
became pregnant with a one-eyed ghoul and that child died in her womb.

This meta post, however, is a character study
of Itori as a whole, to further explain why I do believe she was in a similar
situation to Rize, why she might have gotten pregnant with a half-ghoul and lost the child and why I believe that she sticks with the Clowns because the
One Eyed King of old (Uta) saved her.

The first time we meet Itori, she is sitting
in the Helter Skelter bar. The bar’s name is hereby a reference to a song by
the Beatles of the same name, whose meaning can be summarised as “using the
symbol of a helter skelter as a ride from the top to the bottom; the rise and
fall of the Roman Empire – and this was the fall, the demise”. It also, in its
lyrics, very clearly talks of a woman:

“Look out,
helter skelter
She’s coming down fast
Yes, she is
Yes, she is
Coming down fast”

Itori is a Ghoul whose backstory we do not know, but
who we can be certain of has suffered much and lost her innocent outlook on
life through it, something that she tries to feel an illusion of by sticking
close to Yomo.

One of the first things that Itori realises is that
Kaneki still holds an innocence that she has already lost. She also comments on
him being the “first one eyed ghoul she has seen”. It is extremely important to
know that Itori knows way, way more than she says. She’s playing coy
all the time, to seem approachable and normal. At the same time she gives
Kaneki hints upon hints, as if indulging in the fact that she can toy around
with him as much as she pleases.

Her comment about the “other one eyed ghoul” becomes a
lot more eerie if we take the Uta as the One Eyed King theory into
consideration and if that is true, then her remark can be seen as a direct question
towards him. She looks his way, too, despite addressing Yomo instead. At the
time of this Chapter (36 of the original Tokyo Ghoul) though, we simply think
she is referring to Eto as the other one eyed ghoul. Given the fact that Furuta
was the one who pushed the beam onto Rize however, and Furuta was/is a clown no
less, would make it lot more intriguing were she to talk about Uta instead,
especially given the fact that the clowns have been looking at this whole
spectacle for a long, long time.

I mean, she gives Kaneki so many hints to chew
on!

The meat of this theory comes down to Itori being the
one to introduce us to the biology behind One Eyed Ghouls in the first place,
though. Because Itori tells Kaneki what happens when ghoul and human genes mix,
how extremely unlikely such a pregnancy is and how risky it is for both child
and mother.

She also tells us this:

Itori then goes on to claim it all as nothing but a
rumour, looking at Uta while ranting about possibilities, while affirming that
she has never heard of happy stories concerning one eyed ghouls. If she was
used like a breeding machine like Rize was, living through countless rape
attempts to bear kids that could grow up in the sunlit garden, maybe even being
made to bear a half-ghoul child, then she certainly wouldn’t be in favour of
any stories concerning one eyed ghouls. 

If Uta is
indeed the One Eyed King and the one who freed Itori (if she is older than she
looks, like Roma) from the claws of the Washuu, then her attachment to Uta is
also made clear. It should be known that Itori knows a whole lot about Rize
herself, too, to the point that she gives Kaneki the clue of ‘Rize’ not
existing (under that name, at least). We know that Rize stems from the Sunlit
Garden and that Furuta is the reason for her escape.  No wonder, then, that Itori knows a whole lot
about Rize.

(Do note
that all of this takes place in the first half of the original Tokyo Ghoul! And
Itori has already let us in on so many facts: Ghoul biology, she leads Kaneki
onto the trail of Tsukiyama as the Gourmet, she knows who Furuta is, she knows
who Rize is, she most likely refers to Uta as a One Eyed Ghoul. To put this
into perspective, this all happens before Kaneki is being tortured by Yamori.)

The next
time Itori becomes relevant is when she shares information about Kanou, of all
people. She reveals to Kaneki that he used to be an autopsy doctor who worked
for the CCG. This is also where she lets Kaneki know that he seems to get a
grasp on the value of information. Considering the fact that Itori is a clown,
one who sends Ken on wild goose chases, it isn’t wrong to assume that, as
someone who values information, Itori gets a sense of almost morbid fascination
of seeing others learn more about the world that she inhabits. Remember, she
knows about Rize, and Furuta, and most likely the Garden. She knows so, so much
and has no way to share this knowledge with the world freely. Seeing others
gain information that she herself holds close is not only entertaining, it
gives someone like her purpose when there is none that she finds in herself.

Because as
she says in the most recent chapter herself, she’s seen a lot, she’s heard a
lot. She knows exactly that the views of a Ghoul are not important to humans as
a whole. The world is against Ghouls, so it is against her. And it is
entertaining and oh so stimulating to see a man made ghoul go on a wild goose
chase trying to learn more about her world.

Keeping this in mind her advice to
Kaneki that he should take Nico’s story about Aogiri tree and the One Eyed King
with a grain of salt, because free information should always be looked at with
a keen eye, makes triple sense if she is old enough to know what really went
down with the One Eyed King back in the day.

Kaneki then
leaves Itori after she has told him that a rabbit masked ghoul has been
murdering people. But that he should take this story with a grain of salt, too.

The next
time we meet Itori is at the end of Tokyo Ghoul, where she is celebrating a
hollow evening of fun with her fellow clowns. This is also the moment she if
officially outed as being a clown and having the last laugh (within the tragedy
that is Tokyo Ghoul).

The next
time we meet Itori after that isn’t until Chapter 148 “Where is the Stone” of
Tokyo Ghoul :re!

Here she riles the Ghouls up by suggesting to watch until the
end to honour their King.; because he saved them by becoming a monster. Not
only that, she re-iterates that humans hurt them. Itori is, of course, wrong
here. Kaneki become dragon out of a selfish wish to protect Touka at all costs
when he had already railroaded himself into despair and while her words should
be taken with a grain of salt, Itori despises humans, which is made entirely
clear in the most recent Chapter (Chapter 169).

Itori does
not state this just to rile up these Ghouls to have fun; she does so because
she fully believes that Ghouls are not loved, so you should honour those who
save you by sticking with them to the bitter end, even if that end is bloody
and nothing but ungraceful bloodshed. Because if you bleed, if you hurt and
hurt others, you can feel warmth, you can feel alive, you can change something
in the world even if this change is nothing but negative. You have to watch on
the sidelines until you have to play the Fool on the stage yourself to keep yourself
from going mad.

So, here’s what I think about Itori:

1. She is older than she looks, similar
   to Roma
2. If Uta is the One Eyed King of old,
   then she sticks to him because he most likely saved her
3. Similarly, she sticks to Yomo because Yomo still has the innocence that she couldn’t hold onto
   
4. She knows who Rize is and is
   interested in her because she has probably suffered similar trauma
5. Considering her knowledge of ghoul
   biology, perhaps she got pregnant with a one eyed ghoul, who she then lost due
   to the risks of ghoul-human pregnancies