About his own childs. I would like to add and explain why I Think this way cuase the way of life in muy country affected my view regarding this stuff. In muy country we do not have preventive prison for rapist abusers or thieves because our judicial system does not belive in the stigmatization of criminals instead of that they recibe containment and we have almost forbidden to self defense ourself
Tbh the criminals are better treat than the victim itself. I find it shocking when u Say that K should have saved people as Rize (though this doesn’t mean that I whish her ir furuta to die) or Furuta when they abuse K. Why do you Think he should ho as far as save his own abusers? I understand that they were Also victims butI don’t Think anyone is at obligation to save people that abuse you
Ahhh I understand. Thank you for reaching out; I appreciate it Anon! I really respect that.
So basically: my issue is in how the writing went in terms of framing. By framing I mean the context around which an event occurs in a story, which is supposed to show you what to think about it. I’ll explain why I feel how I do below, if that’s okay?
I actually wanted a happy ending for Kaneki. I always did, and only ever expressed fear that we wouldn’t get one after I believe 144, which was hardly unique. I then fully believed he would be saved and wanted him to be, and wanted him and Touka together. I also never thought she would lose the baby. I think he deserved a happy ending. He was an abuse victim too.
To be fair, I never actually said I thought Kaneki was responsible for saving people who hurt him. I don’t think that and I wholeheartedly agree with you that no one is under the obligation to save people who abuse you. But by that logic, why then did the entire world try to save Kaneki (including those who did not know him well), when he’d killed people they loved? If the reasoning around it was made clearer, I would not have nearly as much of a complaint about it as I do. You can piece it together, but I just didn’t find it clear or convincing enough. I know others did though.
I also didn’t have a major issue with Furuta’s ending at first and said as much–until 177, where he kills Rize, and said after 176 that I thought it was not what I wanted, but not inherently bad writing and seemed to be rushed but nothing bad. What happened after, though–the framing around Rize’s death–made me dislike Furuta’s ending as well. Kaneki could be seen as having at the very least understood Furuta, and I did see it as that, but him then going on to kill Rize made it seem like he was just eager to kill his enemies. It’s fine to read it differently, but the framing makes it very unclear especially since Kaneki attacked first and refused to talk to Furuta until the end (which again, is not inherently bad. Furuta was a known manipulator. But there are other things that could have happened to frame it slightly differently).
Rize was someone he tried to connect with in the Torii Gate scenes, and someone he projected his worst instincts into in his mind throughout the entire series. But the framing of the Torii Gate scene left it unclear whether or not this was really Rize, so it’s valid for those who think it’s projected Rize. I personally think it’s really Rize, and I also never really thought Rize had a good chance of surviving. But the thing is, I have a major problem with the main character killing the female he’s projected his worst instincts onto in his mind. It’s icky in a real world context, and in story framing as well. If Kaneki was Furuta’s scapegoat, then wasn’t Rize Kaneki’s and Furuta’s scapegoat? Even if he hadn’t actually harmed Rize until this point, he carried out the deeds Furuta had begun, which was confusing to me from a writing standpoint because I don’t think what we’re supposed to take away from it is being clearly communicated.
Kaneki’s always been told to live no matter what he’d done (like as Shironeki) and that’s the message I still love. Live even if it isn’t stylish. But that message only seemed to apply to Kaneki, and not to other characters, but we’re also told that Kaneki’s flaw is thinking he’s a unique protagonist of a tragedy from the first chapter, so the question becomes is he a special protagonist, even though the entire first TG and first half of re set that up as a disaster for Kaneki that only led to tragedy, so if he’s not unique then why does he get a unique happy ending while other characters who are very similar do not? If all the other characters got as happy an ending, I wouldn’t mind as much. If the message was clearer on whether he was supposed to be special and unique or not, I would also not really be complaining.
I also find that the framing of “I want to protect everyone!” and “I’m going to take responsibility by protecting what’s close to me!” disturbing when “everyone” doesn’t include someone who had no choice in this (Rize) in the exact same situation he was just in. Like, if he’d even tried and heard “there’s no way to save her with the toxins” that’d be better, but it didn’t look as if he’d tried and Kaneki’s habit of avoiding dififcult conversations (a fundamental flaw that led to Dragon in the first place) which he was never shown overcoming exactly made it hard for me to buy that he just understood it wasn’t possible. I can see how ppl would think that, I think that’s probably the intent of the writing, but the actual writing around I found flawed enough that I didn’t find it convincing.
I also have a problem with the “I will protect what’s close to me even if I have to kill to do it!” which Ishida himself identified as the message, because that’s exactly the philosophy that led to the CCG preemptively wiping out ghouls, which we’re supposed to see as wrong… aren’t we? Even if it’s understandable.
So basically, I found the ending a thematic mess, and that makes me dislike what happened even if I do like that Kaneki would up happy with Touka and Ichika. It made it impossible for me to appreciate Kaneki’s character growth because I don’t think it’s clear he grew at all, and if he did, I don’t know how he grew because the writing just was not convincing for me. And I’m not generally someone who needs things spelled out for me either; I like vague writing but writing that also seems somewhat logical in its purpose, and I just didn’t find that here.
I am, however, sincerely happy for people who did like it. We all need stories we can relate to and characters we can love, and if you found that in Kaneki, that is good. He saved my life once too. I don’t have a problem with anyone loving the story or Kaneki or the ending or thinking it’s great writing: you’re totally allowed to consider it great writing and thematically clear! I’m just also allowed to not like the ending even if I still do love the series through Rose Arc and am happily collecting all the volumes, and to talk about why I didn’t like it. I bring unique experiences (my own context) to the fiction that I read same as you and everyone do, so no one’s going to process fiction in the same way. I certainly don’t believe everyone needs to agree with me, and I wish that ppl who like the ending were better at allowing ppl who didn’t like it to talk about it without being told they’re ruining things for everyone. Because my disliking it has no bearing on the absolute validity of you loving it. My disliking it isn’t the right opinion, but neither is someone else liking it.