Étiquette : tg:re153

About the message of the last anon, the one speaking that does not like Amon and Akira because they put themselves in the moral top of the story and think that all the others are wrong(don’t worry anon, this is not supposed to be an hate answer to you, it’s a question to Hamliet). Does not Kaneki do the same thing? Sorry, but all his time as King to me was him saying that all humans and ghouls are wrong and he was right with what he wanted to do and that he know the way to fix everything.

hamliet:

Yes, he does! I addressed that in my answer. It’s another parallel between Kaneki and Amon and Akira–they all think of themselves as better than. I’m going to quote this meta I wrote on Kaneki and apply it to Amon and Akira with some adaptations:

Kaneki absolutely loathes himself. He sets up seemingly hypocritical
boundaries like “killing ghouls fine, killing humans no, but I’m the
ghoul king” because it’s literally the only way he can live with
himself. It’s a maladaptive coping mechanism. He does not believe he’s
worth love if he isn’t good enough, if he isn’t kind enough…

Amon sets up this “I’m a ghoul investigator and so are you Takizawa!” boundary in order to save Takizawa, even though they are both ghouls and they are both murderers at this point so there is no logic in that argument. But it’s how he lives with himself. Being a ghoul investigator was probably his way of paying back what happened with Donato as a child, of him atoning for it really–but he can’t.

Amon cannot forgive himself. And furthermore he cannot face himself. He’s fighting with the other humans and didn’t tell them he was a ghoul even though that might have actually helped convince the CCG to work with ghouls. He doesn’t want to accept his ghoul nature for the same reason Kaneki has a hard time accepting it: because to admit that he has been turned into the creature responsible for his trauma as a child, known only for killing (though that’s inaccurate) is terrifying for him. He does not want to be Donato 2.0, and by running from becoming Donato 2.0 by becoming a ghoul investigator, he teamed up with Mado (aka Donato 2.0) and became Donato 3.0. It’s tragically ironic.

As for Akira, love has always been caught up in her father since her mother died when she was so young. And Mado always viewed himself as justified killing ghouls because of what happened to Akira’s mother. So therefore love for Akira has always been tied up in having a purpose to live, and that purpose has always been tied to killing ghouls. Without that hatred, as she herself says, she’s empty. Additionally, Akira is struggling with the same black and white worldview Kaneki sets up: if ghouls are the same as humans, then she and her father are murderers, and if they are murderers and their purpose for living was wrong, do they deserve to live at all? If her father was a sadistic child murderer, how can he also be a kind father to her? (Which he was, btw.) The answer is because it’s gray, it’s all gray, but Akira is struggling to accept this. 

Amon and Akira are hurting children internally as well, just like Kaneki. But that doesn’t excuse what they are doing by pretending to be better, because pretending is never a path to self-actualization. Enter Donato. And Takizawa.

I mean, the whole thing is that Takizawa also has many issues of his own that he needs to solve, because he doesn’t see himself as deserving of much for example, despite being the only one of their little trio who actually moved on from the past and accepted his new condition (even if that meant making it his punishment at the same time by letting go of Akira and Amon).

It’s as you said @hamliet: Amon and Akira are struggling to let go of the past because they’re scared of what consequences and changes their awareness about the world’s situation will bring to them. 

So I really think Takizawa is supposed to be the one (the hero) making them realize that moving on and acceptance are okay (and that it doesn’t make Amon anything remotely close to Donato or Akira the worst person ever), while they’ll reassure him that he still has a place to belong.

(pls dont hate me but) i actually dont like akira and amon that much, i dont hate them but ,i wont be callinf akira « queen » or « godess » ever (i wont call that anyone actually, i kind of hate those two nicknames actually), i do have problems with them, mainly how they try to always put themselves in the moral high ground, they dont do wrong bc they cant do wrong, the others are at fault, like in rueshima, the confrontation with mutsuki and he attacking akira when he protected takizawa was imo…

hamliet:

…was not ok, M has a serious problem with violence, yes, but it was
also symbolic that people  meant to protect him (akira his superior, or
his mother) protecting his agressors instead (takizawa and his father) i
did find karmatic M attacking T bc it was T’s ambush that put M in
torso’s reach, that whole figth was levels of gray with A later
attacking M and the Qs, the fact that S just killed a whole squad is
never even touch after, yet it seams that Ak & A where given the
moral high ground…
       
   

… where given the moral high ground after that, after all M is the
monster, M attacked S and Ak, but so did S and houji, M is the one that
goes into a dark path after while Ak, A & S get to peace out the
story & come back as heros later, im not saying that attacking Ak
was good, it was wrong, but everyone there was wrong, and we see M admit
that he killed and that makes him a murderer, and it burdens him, yet
Ak is proud at how many ghouls she killed and using feguchi and that
just bothers me
       
   

I don’t hate you, don’t worry! And while I really
love Akira and Amon both as characters, I have similar frustrations with
them. (Amon especially because his arc is pretty pathetic in :re
whereas it was fantastic in TG.)

I mean, I think the moral
high ground examples you’re citing are more problems with the fandom
always wanting to demonize Mutsuki than with how the story presents
them. It wasn’t shocking to me that Mutsuki crushed Takizawa’s balls or
stabbed Akira. It was wrong, yes, but it also wasn’t technically illegal
according to the laws of the CCG (the laws are wrong though).

But
I would say that I disagree about how Akira and Amon are characterized afterwards.
Akira made the morally right (according to the story) decision when she
broke with the CCG to save Takizawa.

Of course that action is perceived
as good by the story. But since then, Akira and Amon have not been
heroes–they’ve needed rescuing from Takizawa, who saved both of them,
because he is the hero in their story, as he always wanted to be. He just hasn’t realized it yet. My guess is he’s going to have to save their asses from Donato pretty soon.

Also
Akira has not expressed pride in her actions since 120, though we have seen her express that her father wouldn’t be happy with her. She expressed a very conflicted
worldview at that point, because it was undeniable to her that ghouls
were not monsters after Hinami and the Aogiri kids, but to admit that
you’re a murderer–just like we’ve seen with Kaneki–is not easy to do.
Plus, if this happens as Akira says, her father’s legacy is tarnished
forever… which is what Touka told her to do, but Touka also needs to do this with Kaneki who is a parallel for Arata (admit that what he did was wrong).

It’s no coincidence this was said in a conversation between Touka and Akira because this is a way they still need to grow, both of them.

Yes, I am bothered that they just get to waltz
back into the story after abandoning Goat, because the right thing to do
is not to run away, it’s to create a better world and if you don’t know
what that looks like (see Akira and Amon’s emptiness talk in 121) you
figure it out. 

But then again, what they did is not much worse than what
Touka and Kaneki did, because they also made no effort to find out what
that might look like as recent chapters have bluntly stated to us.
Akira thought Kaneki killed Arima too because he lied to her about that,
so she probably had a hard time coming to terms with that (and yet Hinami was forced to hug it out with her, so ughhhhh there’s definitely hypocrisy there). I’m not saying it’s right.
I’m saying it’s understandable.

Along those lines, Akira
and Amon foil Kaneki in that aspect: always seeing themselves as better
than, because that’s how they cope with what they’ve done. It’s a coping
mechanism as much as Kaneki’s brokenness is a coping mechanism. It’s
their way of feeling as if they deserve to live, because to live they
need a purpose, and their purpose for Akira was taught to be being liker
her father, and for Amon atoning for what he helped Donato do. Except
Akira does not want to be like her father, not deep down, and Amon
cannot atone for that because a) he was a kid and shouldn’t be faulted
for it, and b) you can’t bring back the dead.

Now as a
ghoul, Amon can’t see himself as morally superior, though he tries.
Hence why he can’t actually accomplish anything–not saving Takizawa,
not saving Kurona. He refuses to acknowledge that he’s been made into a
representation of what he’s always been: a murderer, and just like
Donato (and Mado) a child murderer. He’s not better than Takizawa. (This is why I think Hajime is very
important to Amon’s arc.) Until he accepts this, he’s stagnating. At least
currently he and Akira are trying to help ghouls, but like, they can’t
really help them from a moral high ground that is built on sand because
they don’t actually have a moral high ground.

Since Kaneki’s recently made progress, I really think Amon and Akira are next on the docket to get that revelation. I also believe Akira will have to give Fueguchi back to Hinami and apologize. At least. She better. And Amon better apologize as well.

Akira and Amon have not been heroes–they’ve needed rescuing from Takizawa, who saved both of them, because he is the hero in their story, as he always wanted to be. He just hasn’t realized it yet. My guess is he’s going to have to save their asses from Donato pretty soon.

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Do you still think Uta is a one eyed ghoul?

midnight-in-town:

Hi! Yes Anon, 

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I

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still

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do. :)) 

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And the official arts by Sensei are just one of the reasons. Initially he had the possibility to be…

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either OEG preceding Eto in the timeline. After his birthday art of this year and the recent chapters though, I’m now more tempted to say he’s the second OEG of the timeline, the one who almost annihilated the CCG and who was defeated at the time by the newly-created V organization.  

Here’s the general recap post of all my theories on the subject, though some old points might be slightly outdated. I’d advise you to also read this theory by @donatoporpora because it has some good points and interesting observations!

I hope it answers your question, have a nice day Anon!

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Hi Anon, and awww thank you very much for reading and for the nice words! ❤ 

Did you mean this?

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It’s too bad I never stumbled on such a post

(if anyone knows who gets the credit for this, please feel free to tell me)

because it’s a very interesting observation and I hadn’t noticed at all! 
So thanks a lot for pointing it out, because maybe it’s yet another hint indeed, especially considering this post by @eto-when-and-where. :))

That being said, the latest problem with the Uta = Nagaraj theory is what was said about his kakuja not disappearing/turning into stone down into the 24th ward, implying that the OEG who released such a massive kakuja is still trapped inside it. 

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That’s why recently I was rather considering the idea that Uta was the second OEG of the timeline, the one who almost annihilated the CCG and was defeated by V, even if nothing is sure at this point.

There is definitely something up with Uta and “eyes” though, which relates back to how the Nagaraj was apparently defeated… I mean, there is what you pointed out, the holes in his kakuja during the Clowns’ arc as @eto-when-and-where noticed and all the times he was associated with eyeballs…

…In other words, Sensei is definitely trying to confuse us with the different possibilities xDD To sum up all the different ideas for now:

Again, the general recap post of all my theories about Uta as a OEG is here, but I’m sorry that all the possibilities have to be so approximate for now. We’re surely getting closer to the truth, I just think Sensei is really enjoying giving us so many different hints in the meantime. xD

Thanks a lot for sharing this great observation, Anon and also thanks again for the very nice words! ^3^ Please have a nice day :))

About Touka’s hybrid pregnancy: how it might be viable and a model to explain species survival

midnight-in-town:

To explain simply, while thinking about Touka’s pregnancy this afternoon, I realized something I hadn’t noticed before:

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See, the reason Touka’s body has the risk to mistakenly recognize the baby as nutrients and absorb it is because, as a ghoul, she feeds on RC cells and…

  • humans have a low rate of RC cells 
    • => human meat is edible! (and tasty :D)
  • ghouls have a high rate of RC cells 
    • => ghoul meat is edible! (but disgusting, ew :/)

which means that human, ghoul and hybrid babies (like Touka’s) have RC cells too!

..But then in that case (which is what I realized today), how comes that only a hybrid baby has the risk to be mistaken as nutrients by its ghoul mama when a ghoul baby also has RC cells? 
In other words, why is Touka’s body possibly going to recognize her baby’s RC cells as food when her own RC cells in Hikari’s womb weren’t?

[READ MORE NOW]

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Hi Anon and well, logically that’s what you’d think with what I said above, isn’t it? 🙂 However, since I’m pretty sure that Sensei won’t kill that baby, if somehow I’m correct (big big if there), then there must be a catch somewhere.

I do have a theory to answer you, the problem is that…

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Itori possibly losing her own hybrid babies in the past is not 100% helping me. :/

See, initially with what I explained above, I was considering the following: Touka aside, the common point to all the previous hybrid pregnancies in the story is that the mothers always were humans. Eto’s ghoul parent was Yoshimura…

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and for the sunlit garden, the father of every child in there (be it “half human” like Arima, or ghoul like Rize) is from the pure Washuu bloodline who are, as we learnt recently, kakuja ghouls from birth.

However, now we have Touka who is the ghoul parent of her hybrid baby, which makes her case pretty unique so far in the story (Itori aside).
Touka who, as a ghoul, is supposed to be eating a lot of RC cells both for her sake and her baby’s, but who also has higher RC cells rates than a human mama, as well as a kakuhou to regulate these high rates.

In other words, her own RC cells needs (and body rates) are different from a human mama carrying a hybrid. That’s why her case is interesting, because the maternal environment that she provides to her hybrid baby is different from what Arima’s mom provided to fetus!Arima, or what Ukina provided to fetus!Eto.

=> so my theory is that the maternal environment during the pregnancy plays a part into the development of the kakuhou for hybrid fetuses.

In the first place, kakuhou development is correlated to high RC cells rates, which is the difference between humans and ghouls as @mawjaw explained here; that’s also why ghouls can develop multiple kakuhou in order to regulate their high RC cells rates, when one kakuhou on its own is overwhelmed.

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Anyway, so far in the story, we got numerous examples that a hybrid baby carried by a human mama has more chances to be born as a half human (no kakuhou) than a OEG (kakuhou), and it’s interesting because the human mama herself has low RC cells rates and thus no kakuhou in the first place.

So in Touka’s case, the fact she’s a ghoul means that she needs to eat a lot of RC cells, that she has higher RC cells body rates and a kakuhou, which may just favorize the kakuhou development for her hybrid baby.

In other words, a maternal environment

exposing the hybrid baby

to more RC cells because the mama is a ghoul (or in Ukina’s case, because she ate a loooot of human meat) might just positively influence the development of the baby’s kakuhou (in order for baby to regulate all the RC cells reaching it).

And if Touka’s baby develops a kakuhou, then my theory above that it will protect the baby from being seen as food by Touka’s body works too. 😀

In conclusion, about hybrid pregnancies:

  • mama = human = no kakuhou

  • maternal environment = low RC cells rates 
    • => “half human” baby (no kakuhou) more probable than OEG baby (kakuhou), because no need for baby to regulate RC cells while in the womb => Arima.
    • unless mama eats a lot of human meat and increases the RC cells rates in the maternal environment => that’d be Ukina & Eto.
    • mama = ghoul = kakuhou 
    • maternal environment = high RC cells rates
      • OEG baby (kakuhou) more probable than “half human” baby (no kakuhou) because there is a possible need for baby to regulate RC cells while in the womb
        • OEG baby’s kakuhou will then provide protection against being seen as food by the ghoul mama’s body

    That’s the theory. However, as I was saying, Itori might be failing me here, because TG ch34 seems to imply that she might have lost her own hybrid baby/babies, meaning that it’s probably quite complicated for hybrid pregnancies to succeed at all. So I don’t know

    ¯_(ツ)_/¯

    • maybe hybrid pregnancies will fail more often than regular pregnancies in general (which would mean that Itori is right when she says that the chance of successful pregnancy in itself is extremely slim)
    • but when they’re successful, the baby’s nature as a half human or OEG is strongly correlated to its mama’s nature, because kakuhou development is also

      mediated

      by maternal environment.

    I really think Sensei won’t kill off that baby, so there must be a way for Touka to make her pregnancy viable and I’m just rambling around with all my ideas. :3 

    Still I hope it made sense, thanks for reading Anon and have a nice weekend. 🙂

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    Anon-chan, for everyone’s sake I’ll make this extremely simple. :)) If Touka’s baby can be born then, according to the theory above, it means that:

    • it will most likely be a OEG
    • it will most likely be heatlhy/okay and Touka & Kaneki will be happy parents!

    Here are the two possibilities for Touka’s baby in my opinion, considering what I said above (please keep in mind it’s just a theory and I could be totally wrong):

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    In terms of probability though, I guess it depends on if you’re taking Itori’s words seriously or not. She said that chances for a successful hybrid pregnancy are slim and frankly, I don’t think she’s lying.

    Besides, in a human mama’s case, both half human and OEG babies can be born, it’s just that she’s more likely to have a half human baby than a OEG.
    Whereas in Touka’s case, in this theory it seems the only way for her baby to survive in her womb is if it’s a OEG, which is what Itori probably meant when she said that chances of success were slim.

    I’m sorry it sounds so hella complicated, but I hope this sums things

    up

    well enough. 🙂 Have a nice day Anon!

    About Touka’s hybrid pregnancy: how it might be viable and a model to explain species survival

    donatoporpora:

    midnight-in-town:

    To explain simply, while thinking about Touka’s pregnancy this afternoon, I realized something I hadn’t noticed before:

    See, the reason Touka’s body has the risk to mistakenly recognize the baby as nutrients and absorb it is because, as a ghoul, she feeds on RC cells and…

    • humans have a low rate of RC cells 
      • => human meat is edible! (and tasty :D)
    • ghouls have a high rate of RC cells 
      • => ghoul meat is edible! (but disgusting, ew :/)

    which means that human, ghoul and hybrid babies (like Touka’s) have RC cells too!

    ..But then in that case (which is what I realized today), how comes that only a hybrid baby has the risk to be mistaken as nutrients by its ghoul mama when a ghoul baby also has RC cells? 
    In other words, why is Touka’s body possibly going to recognize her baby’s RC cells as food when her own RC cells in Hikari’s womb weren’t?

    [READ MORE]

    Maybe that RC-cell marker you’ve been thinking of is this particular enzyme Ogura was talking about way back in chapter 2?

    @donatoporpora no I don’t think so 🙂 an enzyme doesn’t exactly work as a marker. Basically, what Ogura is talking about in ch2 is digestive enzymes being different for ghouls and humans which explains why we can’t eat the same thing:

    • As humans, our digestive enzymes are able to take the food we eat and separate the glucids/lipids/proteins found in it to send all of this to the rest of the body that will use these nutrients for energy and cell survival. 
      • an example: we can’t eat and digest grass like cows do because we don’t have the digestive enzyme for a specific type of glucids that grass is made of, when cows do.
    • For ghouls, I’m assuming that their digestive enzymes only work based on “is there RC cells or not” in what arrives in the digestive system. 
      • If there isn’t (Touka eating human food for example), then whatever was eaten isn’t digested and will slow the ghoul down a lot (that’s Touka when she was eating Yoriko’s food and faced Tsukiyama, or even in the last chapter against Mutsuki).

    Another example would be the telomeres:

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    Ghouls have an enzyme called “telomerase” that is in activated form in their cells and that increases the telomeres’ length, which is how ghouls don’t age super fast despite regenerating a lot, unlike Kaneki who, as a human, has the enzyme but in deactivated form, which is why he aged faster than normal.

    A cell marker is different: it’s something that can be found on a cell’s membrane and can be recognized, interpreted by the cell’s environment or simply to direct the cell to where it is supposed to go.

    For example, let’s say you have the flu => some of your cells are infected by the virus and as a result, a marker of viral invasion pops up on your infected cells’ membrane. So when an agent of your immune system passes by, it recognizes that marker as “not being from your body” and this triggers different reactions in order to destroy the virus (foreign invader) from your cells. 

    So back to my lil theory: 

    • because humans don’t have a kakuhou, we’ll assume RC cells are unmarked which leaves them just chilling in the bloodstream and not having any interest for humans.
      • no kakuhou regulation = human RC cells are unmarked = just chilling in the bloodstream
    • whereas ghoul RC cells are too numerous so the kakuhou has to regulate them by storing them, sometimes releasing them in the form of a kagune, sending them down specific pathways…
      • ghoul RC cells have the “K+” marker on their surface = they aren’t chilling in the bloodstream because that “K+” marker indicates they have to be taken care of by the kakuhou.

    And for the example of Touka and her baby

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    • her baby is a “half human” = no kakuhou development (somewhere around the start of the fetus stage?) = the baby’s RC cells are unmarked 
      • when Touka’s body detects that her baby’s RC cells are unmarked, the baby will get absorbed
    • her baby is a OEG = kakuhou development (somewhere around the start of the fetus stage?) = RC cells shows the K+ marker on their surface
      • when Touka’s body detects the K+ marker on the baby’s RC cells, it will be left alone. 

    I hope it’s clearer that way? Sorry for rambling :33

    About Touka’s hybrid pregnancy: how it might be viable and a model to explain species survival

    midnight-in-town:

    To explain simply, while thinking about Touka’s pregnancy this afternoon, I realized something I hadn’t noticed before:

    image

    See, the reason Touka’s body has the risk to mistakenly recognize the baby as nutrients and absorb it is because, as a ghoul, she feeds on RC cells and…

    • humans have a low rate of RC cells 
      • => human meat is edible! (and tasty :D)
    • ghouls have a high rate of RC cells 
      • => ghoul meat is edible! (but disgusting, ew :/)

    which means that human, ghoul and hybrid babies (like Touka’s) have RC cells too!

    ..But then in that case (which is what I realized today), how comes that only a hybrid baby has the risk to be mistaken as nutrients by its ghoul mama when a ghoul baby also has RC cells? 
    In other words, why is Touka’s body possibly going to recognize her baby’s RC cells as food when her own RC cells in Hikari’s womb weren’t?

    [READ MORE] 

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    Hi and sure Anon, I didn’t particularly address that in the post above, but I’ll try and use simple words. 🙂 

    So: Touka (ghoul) + Kaneki (human, even if he got grafted with a ghoul’s kakuhou) => ch125 => hybrid (ghoul + human) baby.
    The problem is that there aren’t a lot of natural hybrids that are born in the TG universe, so Touka has no idea what she has to do to make sure that her baby will be born healthy and that’s why she told Kaneki that she didn’t know if the baby would be okay, in ch131. 

    So far, Touka decided to follow Ukina’s example: Ukina, a human, partially ate “like a ghoul” during her whole pregnancy to make sure that fetus!Eto would get enough RC cells and wouldn’t starve to death. 
    So Touka chose to partially eat “like a human” upon discovering she was pregnant, hoping that it would be enough for her own hybrid baby’s survival.

    However, as @coromoor explained here, human food (cake, hamburger…) cannot provide RC cells to Touka’s baby. Only human meat or ghoul meat can and that’s not what Touka was shown eating for now (food shortage in the 24th ward sure wasn’t helping :/) which is currently dangerous both for the baby (if it doesn’t get RC cells, it will starve and die) & for her (it is like poison).

    The other problem surrounding Touka’s pregnancy is what Itori once said to Kaneki (which is what my post above was trying to give an explanation to), but Touka probably has no idea about that for now.

    TL;DR

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    Hybrid pregnancies in general are rare but it seems hybrid pregnancies with a ghoul mama are more complicated than ones with a human mama, which is why Touka is a bit worried and told Kaneki that the pregnancy might not go well.

    I hope it’s understandable? Have a nice weekend Anon. 🙂

    About Touka’s hybrid pregnancy: how it might be viable and a model to explain species survival

    To explain simply, while thinking about Touka’s pregnancy this afternoon, I realized something I hadn’t noticed before:

    image

    See, the reason Touka’s body has the risk to mistakenly recognize the baby as nutrients and absorb it is because, as a ghoul, she feeds on RC cells and…

    • humans have a low rate of RC cells 
      • => human meat is edible! (and tasty :D)
    • ghouls have a high rate of RC cells 
      • => ghoul meat is edible! (but disgusting, ew :/)

    which means that human, ghoul and hybrid babies (like Touka’s) have RC cells too!

    ..But then in that case (which is what I realized today), how comes that only a hybrid baby has the risk to be mistaken as nutrients by its ghoul mama when a ghoul baby also has RC cells? 
    In other words, why is Touka’s body possibly going to recognize her baby’s RC cells as food when her own RC cells in Hikari’s womb weren’t?

    Please note that what follows is 100% theoretical but still, I wonder if this cannot be generally explained by why ghouls find human meat tasty while cannibalizing tastes disgusting to them, despite both meat providing RC cells and it being necessary for ghouls’ survival.

    Ghouls = high rates of RC cells + a kakuhou to regulate them
    vs Humans = low rates of RC cells so no need for a kakuhou and regulation.

    Right now,

    I don’t know if it’s because the quantity of Rc cells is way higher in ghouls than in humans, or the fact that a ghoul’s RC cells are regulated by a kakuhou when humans’ aren’t, but anyway the gist of it is that, to ghouls, ghoul meat is “eww” when human meat is “yummy”.

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    This means that, on the one hand cannibalizing to survive (since ghoul meat provides RC cells) is possible but it tastes absolutely awful. 
    And on the other, the alternative to cannibalism is eating humans (human meat also providing RC cells) but that alternative tastes absolutely delicious.

    => hence ghouls choosing to eat humans instead of their own kind because it tastes way better ==> species survival by avoiding cannibalism

    Back to Touka’s pregnancy, I thought that maybe her body could recognize the “human part” of her hybrid baby and label it as “food” as a result, so I tried to look at this from a biological point of view, but how it happens remains a huge ’?’ for now.

    The only thing I can be reasonably sure of is that this implies there are cells in Touka’s body that can pass through the placenta and recognize her hybrid baby and its RC cells as “food”, when a 100% ghoul baby is sure not to absorbed.

    in other words, a ghoul mother will never eat her ghoul baby because its RC cells won’t be seen as “food” by the ghoul mother’s body.

    ==> species survival by reproduction is possible

    My current main idea (please take with a grain of salt) is to conjecture that, considering that the probability of giving birth to a “half human” hybrid (no kakuhou) is way higher than giving birth to a OEG (kakuhou

    👍)…

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    …the ghoul mama’s cells that detect the presence of RC cells on the other side of the placenta will see the hybrid baby and its RC cells as “food” only if they don’t detect the presence of a kakuhou in the embryo or (most likely) fetus.

    Again considering that RC cells in human bodies aren’t regulated because the rates are too low (=> no kakuhou needed), while ghoul bodies need a kakuhou for storage and regulation because of higher RC cells rates, what if ghouls’ RC cells have a specific marker relating to a kakuhou regulation/storage, which would imply that human RC cells and ghoul RC cells aren’t exactly similar?

    In other words, if human RC cells and ghoul RC cells can be differentiated…

    • because ghoul RC cells have on their surface a specific marker due to kakuhou storage or regulation
    • while human RC cells are unmarked because no kakuhou and no regulation

     …then maybe that explains…

    • why ghoul meat will taste awful when human meat won’t 
    • why hybrid babies that don’t develop a kakuhou (“half humans”) will get absorbed (unmarked RC cells = “food”), while a ghoul baby or a OEG will be born from a ghoul mama (RC cells with a kakuhou marker = “not food”).

    And in both cases it allows a survival of the ghoul species, by allowing reproduction (ghoul babies’ RC cells

    aren’t seen as food thanks to a kakuhou marker on the baby’s RC cells) and favoring eating another species over cannibalizing (because humans’ unmarked RC cells lead to human meat tasting better).

    in case it’s not clear, it’s the example of blood transfusion with the universal O type donor: someone who’s O-type has red cells that don’t have neither antigen A or B on their membrane. 

    So

    imagine your blood type is A (your red cells have the A antigen + your plasma has B antibodies) & you’re transfused with B-type red cells => immune reaction between the B antigen from the transfusion and your B antibodies => :///////
    Now imagine  you’re transfused with O-type red cells => no immune reaction because the O-type red cells have no B antigen on their membranes => 👍

    👍

    Back to humans and ghouls: if ghouls eat human meat, there is no kakuhou marker on the human RC cells => “human meat is yummy :D”
    However if they cannibalize => ghoul meat = ghoul RC cells + specific kakuhou marker that informs their tongue/brain that they just ate someone from the same species => “ewwww, ghoul meat tastes disgusting :///”

    TL;DR 

    image

    the theory is that if Touka’s hybrid baby develops a kakuhou (i.e is not a "half human” like Arima but rather a OEG like Eto), its RC cells that will be detected by Touka’s body will show a specific marker (of kakuhou storage/regulation) that will protect the baby from being labelled as “food”. 

    As I was saying above though, since ghouls are fictional I can’t be sure but I’d say that the one month old embryo stage is probably not when hybrid or ghoul babies develop their kakuhou. It’s probably later, closer to when the fetus stage starts, or even after that.

    In other words, Touka’s baby is currently not at risk of being absorbed by her body, at least I don’t think so. What’s more frightening however is…

    image

    Touka not providing her baby with enough RC cells to survive. Apparently she’s  been eating human food ever since discovering that she was pregnant (food shortage in the 24th ward not helping) which, as @coromoor once explained here, is a problem because it poisons her too (slowing her down against Mutsuki in the last chapter, for example).

    As always keep in mind it’s completely theoretical (I mean, maybe Ishida didn’t think this one through and I’m reading way too much into this xD) and please don’t hesitate to tell me if something is off with my explanation! 🙂

    the-sui:

    mamasaiko:

    The side effects of eating human food for the baby’s sake are beginning to show. 

    image

    This were first introduced in tg where Touka ate Yoriko’s food, slowing her movements in fights and retaining her kagune, as it was shown in her battle against Tsukiyama. Despite everything, she is still able to fight against Mutsuki which shows her strength.

    I’m 99% sure that Touka is actually holding back because if she went all out, her body might start to absorb the baby.