Yep. And Yoshimura… I presume he’s still alive and in the lab too. My guess is that if Eto is alive, that’s how her arc will end–with her coming to terms with her father. I don’t know whether I think Arata or Yoshimura are still able to be saved–it might be too late–but it might give their children peace to be able to say goodbye, at least.
That’s precisely it, I think. Freudian stories=overcoming your parents. Kaneki, Touka, and Ayato will overcome the Arata/Hikari/Renji tragedy. They will live, I do think so (Kaneki’s the most likely to die of the three but I still don’t think that’s terribly likely). Kaneki should overcome the tragedy of the first OEK, and Touken should overcome V to not repeat the Kuzen & Ukina tragedy with Eto–aka live to raise their kid. The kid shouldn’t die either.
It’s another reason why I think Mutsuki, Urie, and Saiko should also be saved from this tragedy. Just passing on tragedy means the cycle will repeat itself–or, at least, it always has in TG. The tragic cycles always have repeated themselves after they claimed more victims. Why would we believe that the cycle would be satiated with Mutsuki, Urie, and Saiko? Someone needs to say No More. But to do that they need to face themselves as they truly are and work for it.
The world of tragedy needs to be destroyed and a new one raised up.
Maybe Furuta is letting everyone loose in the lab. It really wouldn’t shock me.
Narratively, I think Eto’s arc would involve closure with her father. That doesn’t mean necessarily reconciliation, because much like Touka and Ayato with their dad, I don’t know if Kuzen is conscious enough for that to happen. But should she be alive, that’s what I’d expect.
Thank you so much! So here’s a link to the translation I’m using: x
So the line about parents failing in raising you is specifically from The Black Goat’s Egg, Eto’s novel that connected Rize and Kaneki, the one about the son of a serial killer discovering his mother’s murderous instincts also run through him.
It’s Kaneki, but the mother here is Eto, and his own biological mother (you could also say that Arima as his father figure is also a relevant point of interest). He never wanted to be like them because he never wanted to hurt innocents, especially children. He just ate 100 of them.
It’s Karren, for whom Mirumo completely failed to raise her. Her parents and family died to save her, and as the last survivor of the von Rosewald family, she then died to save Tsukiyama.
It’s Touka and Ayato, whose father, Arata, failed to raise them and left them to fend for themselves. Touka pursued vengeance same as he did. Ayato then left Touka to pursue his own interests. It’s Touka, whose father figure, Yoshimura, failed to raise her too, and she’s taken on his self-loathing, which isn’t a path to life.
It’s Eto, for whom Yoshimura and Ukina failed her. She believed Ukina had a baby just to get close to V, and uses her metaphorical son Kaneki for similar utilitarian purposes.
It’s Mutsuki, for whom his biological parents and Kaneki failed him, and he turns into a violent person like his biological father and like Kaneki, abandons the other Qs. It’s Urie, who hated his father for dying to save everyone else and leaving him alone, and Kaneki, who left him alone, who now is taking on the burden and barely escaped death doing so, and seems to still be doing that. It’s Saiko, whose mother sold her for money to live out her comfortable lifestyle, who seems to just want to live her own comfortable lifestyle. It’s Shirazu, whose father killed himself and whose mother left when they couldn’t cope with Haru’s illness, who dies saving the others… and leaves them.
It’s Amon, who has become exactly what he hated about Donato: a child killer.
It’s Furuta, who becomes as callous and cruel towards everyone including controlling the body of the woman he loves as Tsuneyoshi, his father whom he hates. It’s Arima, it’s Hirako and Ui with Arima in that they choose not to divulge important facts, and Hirako towards Shio and Rikai, as their father figure in Arima first abandoned them just like Shirazu’s father abandoned him–by ending his life–and whose next father figure, Hirako, chose to still employ them as child soldiers instead of trying to protect them. It’s all of the Garden children.
I’ve talked before about the Freudian themes of TG. if you don’t kill your parental figure, they will consume you and you will die. I wouldn’t take the ending too literally; it’s a poem, and poems are seldom to be interpreted at face value (the vast majority of these characters who are still alive I think will not die).
While I would want them to accept their nature, I can also understand why that is something that might be difficult. I’m curious to hear your thoughts about this, though.
Hi friend! That’s a good question. I agree the whole eating humans thing likely means there is always going to be gray about how ghouls feel towards themselves. However, I think the self-hatred Touka, for example, feels is pretty clearly a negative thing, and leads to her indulging in her worser instincts. She hurts herself to try and be something she simply was not born to be (via eating Yoriko’s food) because that’s what her father taught her.
Humans hating ghouls is why we’re in this predicament. The reasons they hate ghouls are highly understandable, and yet the application spirals from killing murderous ghouls to exterminating all ghouls including children and peaceful ghouls. Hajime’s parents died because they wouldn’t give up the already dead to ghouls. The hatred of humanity towards ghouls is what fuelled Eto and Aogiri, and Ayato, etc. Ghouls applying that hatred to themselves means that there can never be coexistence, because coexistence requires an equal plane.
I also think the attitude of Koma and Irimi during the Anteiku Raid is pretty clearly condemned by the narrative, and that’s why they didn’t die that time (thanks Kaneki). They wanted to fight to atone for their sins (as I believe Yomo states) and they knew they would probably die. However, the thing is, humans are just as capable of evil. Yoshimura on the other hand, while I think he had flaws, is right when he tells the investigators that life itself is evil (meaning, if you live you’re gonna do evil things).
Humans do wrong to each other and to ghouls, and ghouls do wrong to each other and to humans, and life itself is that way, and yet the answer isn’t come and kill me like Yoshimura says, but rather, live, even if it isn’t stylish.
At its heart Tokyo Ghoul very much has the theme of of reconciling one’s worst instincts, the worst parts of oneself, with one’s good instincts (Quinxes and Aces for Kaneki), and choosing to live even though you’re fucked up. That can’t apply only to humans, but to ghouls as well. Kaneki’s self-loathing led to many of his predicaments, but he hasn’t grown because he prefers to repress what he knows about himself, but that self-loathing still leaks out all the time. Touka’s self-loathing is still very much a thing.
I doubt Ishida wanted us to see little Hinami after watching her mother killed in front of her asking “is it okay for me to live?” as anything other than a tragedy. Hating oneself isn’t a way to life. Kaneki’s shown us it’s a way to death and destruction. That’s what I mean when I say that I think the ghouls have to move beyond hating themselves.
(Part of me wonders if Ishida created ghouls to expose how humans often try to pretend we aren’t monsters when every human is capable of monstrosities, and ghouls can’t deny that that’s part of their nature, and their existence has led to humans to become monsters as well.)
Tl;dr: I don’t think the answer is in ghouls not struggling, but rather in humans struggling as well, and not elevating themselves above ghouls. Empathy is love empathy is life empathy is the answer.
Yomo has no idea Uta’s been hitting on him since they met.
Nishiki likes it when Kimi does better than him in school.
Yoshimura never forgave himself for what he did to Eto.
6: favorite line from this character
Yomo: “
My hope… Hope? That’s right, in this fading world, my only desire is
to connect. For the seeds I plant to grow into flowers and for those
bloomed flowers to drop seeds. For people to say that the coffee I pour
for them is delicious. And through those two, my own flesh and blood,
for me to see my sister once again. For me to able to believe the things
I did in this life were not meaningless… That is what hope is.”
Nishiki:
“Maybe being betrayed by you wouldn’t be so bad.”
Yoshimura:
Life is to constantly sin. Life is evil itself. I am aware of it, I am evil… and so are you all.“
7: one way in which I relate to this character
Yomo and I are both socially awkward; I too take studies seriously like Nishiki; and Yoshimura… I’m not sure.
8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character
Yomo’s awkwardness is adorable; Nishiki’s brattiness at the start of TG; Yoshimura abandoning Eto
I can only side with Eto’s feelings of shame, rejection, and abandonment.
Imagine being hidden away underground and having to resort to cannibalism and theft just to survive, knowing all the while that your parent made it his sole purpose to make a warm, safe space for other ghouls– even Rize and even Kaneki– just not you.
It’s extremely complicated because I know Yoshimura did what he could. He wanted to keep V away from her. But regardless of the fact that it was for her own safety, it must have been awful to grow up feeling like a burden or an ugly secret.
And in the end, it’s just my opinion. Touka said something similar about wishing that her father would have stayed with her and Ayato– a major motif in TG is how a parent’s actions can impact their children’s lives forever. And while I even think Yoshimura regretted his decision to push her away and made Anteiku with the hopes of his daughter’s return, I know that some scars never heal, and Eto’s feelings of anger and neglect were too deep for their relationship to ever be repaired. I would hold it against him, too.
Well, I definitely think that’s a plausible direction for the story to go in. I do expect them to reach some kind of peace with each other (like what might happen between Eto and Yoshimura if Eto is still alive), but peace isn’t the same thing as reconciliation.
Mutsuki’s obsession with Sensei will hopefully break soon, with waking up to discover Dragonekizillapede terrorizing Tokyo obsessing over one person (whom he does nobly love, so it’s not the exact same thing and please don’t think I’m suggesting that it is, but there is still a loose parallel that might strike Mutsuki and he might realize oh shit maybe I should turn from this path). Mutsuki does want a family and a place to belong and a romantic partner, but he has potential for all of those things in the Quinx. He doesn’t need Kaneki to fulfill these things, and considering how unhealthy his obsession is, I doubt Kaneki will be a part of fulfilling these longings of Mutsuki’s.
And yeah, one of the things I’ve appreciated about Mutsuki this past arc (even as most of it has me screaming NO STOP WTF at him) is that he is the only person who has said no to Kaneki, who told him what he did wasn’t okay. He cried here in this panel:
And then asks Kaneki why he’s chosen ghouls over them, asks if they ever meant anything.
And Kaneki couldn’t even manage to say so, even though we know he dearly loves the Quinx (he just sucks at showing it). Basically Mutsuki and Tsukiyama are the only ones so far who have made attempts to hold Kaneki accountable this arc, and Mutsuki’s the only one who’s done more than just talk. That being said, what Mutsuki has been doing to Kaneki and to poor Touka is horrible and disturbed, and Touka’s ultimately the candidate I’m placing my hopes in for holding Kaneki accountable in a constructive way.
Yes, I think a lot of what’s coming in :re will involve learning to let people go. Ui may have to let Hairu go a second time (because I still think she will be revived), though since he’s already done that in the most recent chapter and we’re hearing talk of mystical Dragon creating life dare I hope lol. The Quinx will have to let Shirazu go if he’s revived though, that I feel pretty certain of. Tsukiyama too will have to move on from Kaneki, though he can still be there for him I think. Hinami, too, will have to let go of her ideal image of Kaneki to move forward as a character. And Mutsuki will have to let go of his idealized version of Sasaki, and possibly paralleling how Yoshimura’s relationship turned out with Eto after he abandoned her, he may choose to let Kaneki go off with Touka to live a quiet life, while he makes his own life somewhere else, with his family. That’s assuming they all survive of course, and really, who knows, but I can see something like that happening.
However, the problem with Yoshimura and Anteiku is that he didn’t allow room for forgiveness. It was about ghouls surviving in the current world, maintaining the status quo, really, rather than fighting for equal rights, because Yoshimura, Irimi, Koma–none of them believed they could be forgiven.
Really Yoshimura doesn’t see ghouls as any better than Kaneki or Touka do, because they kill to live, which is very understandable but hard, too. That being said, it’s also true, as you say, that it allowed ghouls to congregate around a place where they could find a home with each other, and that’s simply beautiful.
But the even darker part is that Yoshimura founded this place… but turned his back on his own daughter, which she didn’t forgive him for. (And now Kaneki’s done the same thing to the Quinx.) Yes, he had his reasons–to protect her–and you can argue he didn’t have a choice and there’s merit to that. But Eto didn’t see it that way. Yoshimura loved her but he fucked up and wasn’t able to face her and say so, even if he tried to protect her from the shadows. If Kaneki can face himself, he doesn’t have to end up in the same place. (And I think there is still a chance for Eto and Yoshimura, if she’s alive.)
hamliet 