linkspooky:

This is from an old post: 

The Washuu name itself may be connected to the tale of Vasuki. Source x, and also @hysyartmaskstudio​, and @karnasofsun on twitter.]

Nagaraja, or king of the naga or snakes, is a hindu mythological word associated with several separate king dragon/snakes. One of these is Vasuki, which in japanese is rendered as Washuukitsu. Vasuki has several myths about being tied to a mountain or holding things together. [x]

The chapter entitled “Saved from the Web” also featured this nod to hinduism, but at the end the characters who showed up, in spiderweb imagery on the background of their panels was V. Either as a reminder that Urie had not truly escaped from the Web, or they had been the ones who maintained the web by setting up the conflict that drove him there in the first place.

Hindu mythology also shows a war of binary opposition, between devas and asuras (angels and demons respectively), when one side became weakened they sought a ritual stirring of ‘Kasian Samut’ which is the ocean of milk, which thickened and concentrated will become the nector of immortality. 

Vasukira, king of the naga had to bind his massive body around Mandra the mountain, into Kasiam Samut in order to mix it. The devas also used the asuras into stirring for them, by saying they will share it with them when the ritual ends. However Vasukira grew tired and released poison by the end of the ritual.

The connections to tokyo ghoul then, are a bit obvious in this chapter alone we are given a small sampling as to what might be the source of the ghoul’s extended vitality.

 Vasukira releases both a poison and it brews an immortality elixir the same way V views the poison that is released by Dragon as a source of life for them.

There are already pieces of foreshadowing in place to suggest that either V, or humanity at large is seeking immortality through ghouls, or at least at the labor and behest of ghouls the same way Asura labored for the immortality of the Devas at the cost to themselves.

V already also has in their possession, a way of preserving their grown up garden children who are destined to only live half lives, and also the members of the Oggai operation who were revived via ghoul cells. It’s likely that this medicine may just be the dissolved ghouls, pure rc cells then packed into liquid bottles and traded in secret by V. They also use a giant grinder in order to make them, and oh so conveniently, have a war going against the ghouls which provides them with a near infinite supply of dead ghouls in order to continue making this medicine if it really is concentrated Rc Cells.

V has also, already disposed of the main head of this brewing process in Furuta’s hostile takeover. Perhaps modeling the same way Washuukitsu, in order to make his immortality elixir did so at great cost to himself and his own body.

Achievable immortality, the mixers are definitely V, but they were born with half lives in the first place. They’re probably desperate to extend their lives by any means possible not rule over humanity forever with immortality. It’s more likely that the race of angels, the humans in this metaphor will be the one to reap the benefits of the conflicts created by ghouls and half ghouls. At least if things were to continue to spiral uninterrupted.

This is where I brought my original post to an end but, I’d like to discuss on that point as well. Let’s talk about the morality of V’s reckless way of extending their lives for a moment. Take doesn’t really have any kind of comeback for Kaiko’s taunts, even though he knows the truth of Kishou’s wants and sacrifices perhaps better than anybody else. 

It makes sense that Take doesn’t really have anything to say in response though, as I’ve said in the previous two chapters, nobody on the side of the alliance has really surpassed V morally. Technically they’re fighting for the right side because they don’t want the world end, but in a good philosophy bad philosophy sense we don’t really know what the moral philosophy that the Goat Alliance is fighting for because they don’t even know themselves.

Take himself even describes the mist that causes ghoulification as a “toxin” as if V accepting the poison into their bodies somehow made them dirty, or unclean now that they’ve become ghouls.

It is a toxin in a sense that in some patients it’s causing cancer like symptoms and tumor formations, but what about the cases where all it does is turn them into ghouls. Of course, unwilling change of species is still a violation of the body but a human doesn’t suddenly become lesser if they are transformed into a ghoul.

There are some patients who aren’t experiencing the ROS overload or cancer like symptoms that Saiko displays, some of them are just turning into plain old normal ghouls. Of course the world would be unsustainable if everybody turned into ghouls but do those people really need to be cured? Wouldn’t it be more practical to just stop the spread of the poison and find a proper food source and education source for all the new converted ghouls instead?

The thing is, being turned into ghouls unwillingly, living as ghouls is still seen as the worst fate ever (even to Take who was part of a ghoul rebellion), because the vast majority of the cast hasn’t even solved nor thought about the central conflict of the series. They all have a case of “ghoul icky.” So we see V’s desperate attempts to extend their lifespan in an entirely unsympathetic light.

V is chopped apart horrifically by the CCG agents and ghouls alike, but it’s fine, they’re the bad guys, they’re completely disposable. In the manga which has been arguing against “otherization” tactics when fighting enemies and dehumanizing them, there’s a suspicious lack of any humanity in V itself.

V however, are a matured zero squad They’re grown up garden kids. It’s explicitly confirmed for us in this chapter, but it was laid out by Furuta a long time ago.

They’re quite literally bred and then raised from birth with the sole purpose of killing ghouls. Unlike all the ghoul investigators who chose their job, and can walk away any time without any consequence at all and just quit and start a new life, the V agents are born into this life and they only have a half life to live such a pitiful life in the first place. 

Before you say I’m sympathizing with V though, I’m not, they’re obviously the villains. Yet at the same time I have to wonder if Goat has any moral high ground over them, and if that’s the challenge the narration has to take. V is undefeated so far, because the CCG’s tactics are V’s tactics, and Marude hasn’t changed anything at all from his playbook besides “listen to Hide sometimes.”

The Washuu are much more responsible for the state of the world, and they were the ones actively breeding human beings, conducting human experimentation and profiting off of it. V were cogs in the machine who went along with Furuta’s plans for a coup because it was literally their only way to keep living.

Matsuri frames his revenge against V as a noble revenge against his father, when V was dispatching a tyrant who controlled all of their lives from birth, and profited off of it entirely. There’s also the fact that Marude, and Hide are completely okay with cooperating with Matsuri. Matusri’s entire reasoning for doing so is not because of regret for his actions, he doesn’t feel an ounce of regret for what he did as a Washuu and a ring leader of V. He’s only doing it to survive when this is all over.

As for the loss of human life it took to create dragon, quite literally nobody in the entire cast cared that Kaneki devoured 100 children willingly in order to extend his own lifespan as well. 

 Then there’s Kimi, who was completely okay with Dragon happening if it allowed her to prove the useful medicine of ghoul science. Medicine is a life extending technique as well. 

Her motivations are also entirely selfish as well. It’s not that ghouls are killed simply for what they’re born as, exterminated on sight without even due process so innocent ghouls are just as likely to be killed as mass murderers. She needs to change the world so she can get back together with her boyfriend. 

It makes me wonder if in a way V itself are the asuras of the myth. They’re the ones being tricked into brewing the immortality elixir for the rest of society, because as bred half ghouls and garden children they’ve been disposable since the beginning. They’re the other and the bad guys, so nobody cares that much if they’re overcome by the alliance and slaughtered entirely to produce a better world where ghoulification and ghoul medicine are now norms for humanity to reap the benefit of. 

In the past, V was at least being used that way by the Washuu in order to stage their shadow conflicts. It’s pretty clear V considers themselves a separate entity after the Coup, so all of their earlier actions were much more likely orchestrated by the Washuu before Furuta took control, for the benefit of solely the Washuu.

As I’ve said before, not a lot of these characters care that much about the actual morality of the ghouls vs human conflict. That’s something they need to do in order to ideologically overcome V. V is bad because they kill ghouls, but they were half humans raised from birth in order to do so. There are plenty of human characters in the cast who slaughtered ghouls left and right in the past with no remorse at all, and completely chose that lifestyle. The CCG is like a day job they don’t punish deserters they could have left the conflict any time. V are half ghouls they were born into it, the conflict is literally inseparable from their beings. 

To make a better world, these characters first have to think “How am I better? How will I be better?”

The theme of the manga ultimately is “Live”, so it’s rather fitting that the motivation of the villains is a simple desire for them to live as well.