linkspooky:

So this chapter ends with the starts of two more fights. As I said to begin with, considering the clowns are only playing a game to buy time they’re at an inherent advantage because they’re more self aware than the flimsy CCG vs Ghoul alliance who are all repressing their issues in order to work together, and really have no figured out any solid motivation besides “stop the bad guys.”

For a quick example the confrontation with Kaiko brought up a lot of relevant questions. Is it fair that half humans have to live half lifespans with no chance of extending it, or should something risky like ghoulifying Yusa be done to help extend his own lifespan? How exactly is the harsh way Kaiko trained Arima any different from the way Arima trained the likes of Kaneki, Take and Yusa? What exactly did Arima sacrifice himself for if he could have extended his life a few months later, and what is his legacy now? Is Yusa only defined by Arima’s legacy?

And Yusa received the answer to a whole none of those questions. He’s just urged to keep fighting and keep surviving, because that is literally all the main characters are capable of envisioning at this point. 

So, that being said there’s no way the two current fights can turn out in anything better than a draw, because the two characters choosing to confront the clowns are those that understand them the least. 

Despite the fact that Amon was ghoulified literally so he could understand that 1) not all ghouls are Donato and 2) that a ghoul as wretched who ate as much as Donato could eat human meat but somehow love him at the same time because ghouls have human minds and emotions, Amon has not mentioned Donato once or even the comparison to Donato for 168 chapters of :Re. 

If you look back to the rooftop conversation with Amon and Donato, while neither of them changed their views, the conversation did a good job of illuminating the fact that both of them held self-righteous and flimsy beliefs. Kaneki said he didn’t care about the vast majority of people and only did this for his friends, and Amon said he did not care about ghouls and does not think the beliefs he held at the time of being an investigator was wrong. 

The point is that Kaneki was called out by the plot for holding such a false and self righteous belief. He was picked apart line by line in order to point out that yes, he actually does have to care about things besides the people who are directly around him because his actions have greater reaching consequences than that.

In Kaneki’s case the beliefs he held on his rooftop conversation with Amon turned out to be a bad thing. So it should stand to reason that Amon should face a similar consequence for his willful ignorance. 

Amon and Kaneki are continually put on pedestals and held up as heroes, when in reality both of them are just traumatized children trying to survive. The problem is in their coping they’ve killed a lot of people, Amon killed many in his time as a human, and then once he became a ghoul he turned into some kind of cannibal according to Urie’s observation. 

Both of them see ghoul life as expendable, and for Amon the root issue with this cause has always been Donato, which will be the perfect instance to challenge his hypocrisy on this part. 

Amon has to lose to Donato, I don’t think there’s a single Amon fan who actally wants him to win. Donato represents the ghoul part of Amon, and his demonization of ghouls which he has not at all come to terms with. Amon in this chapter even acts the same as ever.

He comes dramatically blazing in swinging his quinque (he’s still using a quinque even though he’s a half ghoul). He even attacks almost the same way he did on his reintroduction in Rueshima, with the exception of this time Donato sees him coming ahead of time and blocks him easily. 

Amon’s hero act should fail him at this point. 

Pretty much everything Amon has said in the build up to this fight is that he doesn’t actually want to understand ghouls. He doesn’t want to understand his existence of a ghoul. All he wants is to return to the time where he could easily fight at the CCG without questioning himself. 

Him and Akira are both offered illusory returns to the CCG when they were finally beginning to break away and form their own identities, the same way Kaneki was offered an illusory return to his home of Anteiku. Except Kaneki’s illusion was only enertained for so long, it burned apart right in front of his eyes and logically the same should follow for the two of them. 

There’s two things that Donato could say that could easily tear apart Amon’s resolve right here. 

1)  The Person Amon is fighting for right now, Kaneki the symbol of their alliance is somebody who ate children just as Donato did. Not only that the first child he ate was Hajime Hazuki, the child Amon was inspired to save all those years ago.

2) The person Amon holds so close to his heart, Mado Kureo is really just a parallel of Donato that the CCG told Amon it was acceptable for him to like. Kureo was a sadist, who among other things targeted and enjoyed the pain of a child and Amon stood by his side and watched, feeling himself justified because the child he was targeting was a ghoul child rather than an innocent human. 

Most importantly that Donato and Amon do love each other. As this is fundamentally unresolved about Amon there’s really no way he’s going to come to grips with it in the middle of a fight.

Finally, Renji and Yomo. This is going to be short but basically, Yomo’s words right here are the epitome of everything wrong with the Goat/Human alliance right now. 

“I’ve never really understood you, and I still don’t, but I’m still going to stop you.”

How exactly Renji, are you going to beat an enemy you don’t understand? That is the question, and Renji has delayed this confrontation with Uta as long as Donato has himself with Amon. 

The thing is Yomo has known about Uta’s relation with the clowns since the beginning. He just deliberately chose never to confront him about it. Renji doesn’t understand Uta, because Renji himself never really tried to understand Uta. 

Uta even tells him to his face, that really the only thing he defines his life by is his own loss. As long as he continues to do that, he’ll only lose others or himself, and Yomo doesn’t come up with a satisfactory answer besides. 

“Watch me Uta, I’m going to sacrifice my life for Touka even harder now.”

Yomo and Uta are really the embodiment of the tattoo around Uta’s neck. It’s even embodied in their old rivalry. 

Every single time they got close, they would both pull back because they were too afraid of dying. Their relationship is the same, they could be friends but both of them are too afraid of pulling close. To this day Yomo only barely admits that Uta is a friend, and keeps him as distant as possible. Uta at the same time makes no attempts to get closer because he prefers staying on the edges. 

Yet neither of them can be entirely divorced from one another either. The two of them both continue to associate with one another, Uta even went so far as to save his life even though they’re now on opposite sides of a conflict. 

I can live neither with you, nor without you. Neither of them can bring themselves to kill the other, but they also don’t want to get close enough to understand each other, because Yomo defines himself entirely by his loss, and the few small family members he has left and Uta defines himself entirely as a reprobate sitting on the outside of things. 

In order to actually get close the both of them would have to broaden their horizons, which both are too cowardly to do. 

Which is why Yomo really can’t win in this situation either. In a manga about understanding and empathy and unerstanding, you can’t defeat an enemy you don’t understand at all, and also have refused to even try to understand up until that point.