This is, admittedly, my favorite theory about Father: that he is a shinki/human and the freckled lady was a goddess who was killed because of their relationship. I do think Father’s motivations are likely to be legitimate in some ways, but his actions, of course, are not. It’d tie into the Kazubisha, Yatori, and Yukinora focus (and would be interesting in that Yukinora seems to be doing best out of these couples in that they’re waiting for Father’s inevitable ignition but not an actively burning dumpster fire like the others right now, and they are two shinkis).
But I feel like there are lots of details we don’t know, like how Kofuku and Daikoku living like a married couple is okay (what’s different, and what do they have to offer the others?)
Murder children, or specifically characters who are childlike in how they desperately crave love and/or acceptance but don’t have it, so they lash out at others and/or themselves. See: Mutsuki Tooru, Nora and Yukine from Noragami, Illumi Zoldyck (and like… the entire cast of HxH), Banana Fish’s Yut Lung Lee and Ash being prime examples.
Illumi, Nora, and Yut Lung are also like… the exact same archetype. Abused by parental figures and conniving and jealous in how they try to cope with it. Suffice to say, when I told my friend who recommended the series to me I had a favorite character now, she responded “Mr. beautiful hair and poisonous personality?”
If I’m not mistaken, I think yokai do exist–ayakashi are a kind of yokai, as far as I know? My knowledge of Japanese mythology, however, is severely and tragically limited atm.
Oh yeah, that’s interesting. I’m wondering about the translation, but I can’t find it anywhere else. I don’t know whether they’re killing or just seeking to otherwise bring down heroes!
I don’t have immediate concern for him. Whether he will survive the manga (which is funny to say because he’s already dead haha!), though, I honestly can’t say because it’s hard to predict Noragami.
Right now, he’s definitely spiraling–as I wrote yesterday, he’s acting just like Nora did at the beginning of the series (yet another reason why I really don’t think Nora is faking all of this–it works too well thematically that just as she’s making a bit of progress, Kazuma is spiraling). He’s sacrificing the lives of others (Kaguha), he’s lashing out at Hiyori because he doesn’t want to feel alone in his misery, etc. And he’s completely wrong in his declaration that gods and humans can’t be together. It’s entirely likely these are going to bite him in the ass eventually, and honestly it’s likely he’ll continue to parallel Nora for a bit.
However, I don’t see the point in him dying with his worldviews affirmed; I would presume that with Hiyori and Yato as well the story will take on the idea of the gap between humans and gods. Kazuma and Bisha are also tied to Father and presumably to whatever he is planning as well, so I would imagine they’d have a role to play in Yato’s final confrontation with Father, whenever that comes.
My assumption, unless the work is very clearly structured like a tragedy, is to presume a character will live unless the narrative starts indicating otherwise, but paradoxically I’m also a pessimist usually about characters living so any “death flags” that gives me immediate concern would be duly noted. But Noragami doesn’t really kill off its characters and seems to promote the idea of living (even if you’re dead, lol) in how it values Hiyori’s life, her grandmother’s, etc., and portrays the shinkis as living with very real losses in their lives. Right now I’m not worried about Kazuma. He hates himself; learning how to live with himself seems a more fitting conclusion to his arc imo, but we’ll see.
And, yet again, we have Yut Lung being shook to his core over how vulnerable Ash is whenever it comes to Eiji. His face speaks volumes, he may say it’s a weakness but it’s also obvious he longs to have that sort of warmth and love in his life.
hamliet 