Yeah, exactly. Like Hajime literally asked him to make him an ally, and Kaneki didn’t even respond. He just walked away.
Mutsuki showed up and asked him to come back. Kaneki’s not wrong to say he can’t, but he is wrong not to offer Mutsuki any kind of explanation.
I never noticed this before, but it looks like Mutsuki is actually crying in the first panel.
Saiko would have joined him; we all know she would have. If Saiko and Mutsuki both allied with Kaneki, Urie would probably have come around.
And that’s one of Kaneki’s tragic flaws. He doesn’t realize things until it’s too late because he’s too focused on himself. He had no option but to eat the Oggai in the latest chapter, but where I still fault Kaneki (and I love him so this isn’t me hating on him) is that he had about a zillion options to avoid getting to this place.
Actually, no, Kaneki. You had about a million choices that could have led to a path other than the one you’re currently on. Basically Kaneki seems to think he’s a hero in a Greek tragedy whose tragedy is determined by fate and the gods; in reality, Kaneki’s in a more Shakespearean type tragedy, wherein the hero’s poor choices lead to their downfall (that’s an oversimplification, but those types of tragedies are often discussed in literary studies).
The good news is, if someone can get through to him, he could maybe make another choice other than rampaging through Tokyo as Dragonzilla. That’s what I hope for, because like I said, I do love Kaneki and can relate to him.
Well, Furuta definitely implied Shinohara’s still alive here,
though then again, Furuta is a known liar so I wouldn’t put it past him
to lie to Suzuya about that.
It also looks like Juuzou is alone here, so Hanbee and Nakarai couldn’t tell Juuzou if indeed Shinohara is dead. And I think Furuta very well might not be anticipating surviving this mission, so maybe it doesn’t matter to him what lies he has to tell since consequences aren’t going to be an issue:
It would certainly be ironic, and would certainly
reinforce the theme of chasing after the dead only serving to contribute
to you losing what you already have. If Juuzou killed his friend and
then realized it was all for nothing, well, I really hope that would
shake Juuzou to his core, and force him to reconsider his actions.
Because Juuzou’s stuck right now. He needs something to shake him, to
make him realize what he realized at the end of the first TG: that it does
matter if someone dies. He only seems to have realized that Shinohara’s
life matters; he needs to realize that everyone’s lives, including the
lives of ghouls, matter.
Which is why I’m currently very
nervous for Hanbee.
Like seriously, Juuzou, you realize there isn’t much of a difference between humans and ghouls. Please act on it.
But anyways, right now Juuzou’s become what he never
wanted to be: Rei 2.0. Instead of killing for good boy points, he’s
killing to keep his friend alive. Is that a better motivation? I mean,
I’m not sure it matters because we’re talking about murdering a friend
here, and children.
If Juuzou wants
to really honor Shinohara’s memory, he should try to focus on mentoring
other lost children, and he should stop killing, period, and develop
empathy for ghouls. Which to be frank he might have been able to do if
Kaneki reached out to him before it got to this point, and which I’m
hoping will happen in the future.
Touka leaving those flowers to Shinohara has to count for something.
Also known as: live while losing, or the thing almost every character seems currently unable to do.
In this dark moon (eclipse really) arc, everyone seems to be incapable of making a good choice because they’re too preoccupied with obsessive clinging to an illusion of someone or something they’ve lost, rather than forging their own paths ahead–which they need to do if this story isn’t to end in tragedy. It’s quite reminiscent of Hamlet (sorry I have to bring Shakespeare into anything I possibly can), wherein Hamlet clings to something that claims to be the ghost of his father told him (even though he’s not really sure whether it’s actually his father’s ghost or a demon) and his inability to decide what to do then drives him (plus you know everyone around him) into madness and tragedy. Since this is TG and everyone and everything parallels each other, we see numerous characters focusing on illusions rather than on the logical steps they could take to improve themselves–and as a result of their inability to figure out how to live, the narrator (Furuta) cheerfully takes their strings and makes them do what he wants.
Urie made some progress (possibly the most of anyone this arc), but still seems to be under the delusion that if Shirazu just hadn’t died, everything would be fine.
Were it not for the sudden appearance of Mr. Sunshine Hide, he would have been killed as fodder, because Furuta (our narrator) doesn’t see any use for him.
Ui thinks that if he hadn’t lost Hairu, everything would be okay, and allows himself to become Furuta’s puppet as a result.
Mutsuki believes that if Sensei would just return, everything would be okay, and allows himself to become the puppet of his mental illness and Furuta as a result.
Aura believes that if he could exact revenge on Sasaki for what happened to his aunt, he’ll have proved himself, and he’s become Mutsuki’s (and thereby Fruit’s) puppet as a result. The irony here is that it’s looking increasingly likely that Kaneki is not the one who chopped Kiyoko’s legs off, but rather, Hirako is.
Hirako believes that since Arima asked him and 0 Squad to protect Kaneki, they must do that. Sounds noble until you realize he likely lost two kids in Cochlea and just lost Shio and Rikai, because he hasn’t turned away from the concept of child soldiers. Because of this, he’s allowed Shio and Rikai, whom it appears he has paternal affection for, to become pawns in Furuta’s sick game.
Hajime feels only hatred and the desire for revenge for his parents, because if they were still alive everything would be okay. He is now the puppet of Furuta, and may just have been left behind to become a snack for Kaneki as part of Fruit’s dastardly plans.
Tsukiyama and Nishiki believe they should obey their king, and they’ve become Kaneki’s puppets, even though they both seem aware that he’s not exactly being a competent king. Because Kaneki, in contrast to Furuta, can’t seem to make a move, they do nothing as a result, and Furuta seems to have been well aware no one would do anything to stop Kaneki.
Naki believes similarly, and also that he wants to fight to the end to honor the dead Yamori. It may have cost him his life, and his demise is another pawn for Furuta to capitalize on.
Hinami believes she should lay down her life for her loved ones–which is very beautiful–but there’s also the motive of guilt, as she blames herself. She’s a puppet to her guilt and insecurities, and focuses on chasing what Kaneki wants her to be, rather than whom she should be. Furuta literally calls her “bait.”
Juuzou hasn’t gotten over Shinohara’s falling into a coma, and allows himself to become Furuta’s puppet as a result, and is more than willing to kill his friend if it keeps Shinohara alive (even if it endangers Hanbee’s life too).
Kaneki hasn’t forgotten those he lost:
And now he’s still operating under the delusion that he can protect everyone, and that’s his purpose:
And that’s led to Kaneki being a puppet of Furuta, because it looks like this is exactly what Furuta wants (quite possibly to become Dragon).
Really the only ones who actually made a choice this arc so far are Yomo and Touka. Good job, Kirishimas. But even that’s limited, because Touka now finds herself as Furuta’s bait just like Hinami:
And Yomo seems to have forgotten his words to Touka about living while losing things:
And Uta warns him that it may cost him his life.
Essentially, everyone in this arc is the puppet of the ghost of someone and/or something they loved and lost, and now are falling prey to the master manipulator in Furuta. I personally think the extremely tragic 143 was another illusion of the moon tarot (and how are we going to get any darker from here, we’re at the apex of it) and the sun is likely coming soon. But for that to happen, for :re not to end as a tragedy (and I don’t think most arcs will, though tragedy=/=survival) they have to get rid of Furuta, the (unreliable) narrator of these illusions, the moon tarot, and direct their own stories.
(Also quite likely certain characters will have to confront certain dead characters as zombies to fully move on, but their only hope for being able to come to some sort of peace even when confronted with the zombies of their loved ones comes if Furuta isn’t around to pull the strings, in my opinion.)
The precise parallel would have been to chapter 140
of the original one. If there is going to be a third series, that may be
what I envision for next chapter: a few shots of people carrying
on–but how? No one has reached the end of their character arcs. Not
Urie, not Mutsuki (though he’s fake-out dead right now), not Saiko, not
Ui, not Hinami, not Juuzou. No one. Except maaaaaybe Kaneki, though
again, he is insisting this isn’t over yet.
But the narrator (probably Fruit), who has proven himself to be utterly
unreliable is informing us that this is game over.
After the “Kaneki
has no idea!” “To repeat, Kaneki has no idea!” insistence, the reference
to Mutsuki and Aura possibly being dead (there’s no way for Mutsuki, and I’m doubtful about Aura as well), the narrator
is basically unreliable to an extreme at this point.
Like, I’m wondering if this is Ishida’s way of screaming at us “DON’T TRUST THE NARRATOR.” Because really couldn’t get more obvious that we shouldn’t trust him. Hence it’s not
inconceivable that, knowing that as the audience we
remember the original TG ended at 143 and would freak out at this, telling us “game over” is
actually another illusion of our lying little Fruit.
It’s possible! Kaneki has been known to have hallucinations of
Hide and Rize before when he’s contemplating death. And we know Kaneki
wants to live here, a significant change.
While I
speculated that Kaneki will maybe see the ring and hallucinate Touka (as
that ring has to be significant at some point) and that will give him
the will to bite Hajime (who will then obviously run for his life
because I’m desperate not to lose another adopted child character *cries*)
and/or eat the dead Oggai all around him, I do also wonder if, given
that this coup at the CCG happened 6 hours previously, the real Hide
might appear in conjunction with Touka or instead of her, and help
Kaneki eat to heal himself. It’d also be fitting because of Hide’s ties
to the sun tarot card, and the fact that the sun has to come for the
moon arc (Furuta) to pass away.
I don’t think Kaneki will
die, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll have a happy future. If
he’s Dragon, I’m very concerned lol. But I’m holding out hope, because
he wants to live.
As
for whether this is the last chapter or not–you’re right, if it’s the
last chapter, I would hope we’d see Saiko (and Mutsuki, Ui, and Hirako and Yusa, whom I know aren’t dead but really don’t want to wait for confirmation like we had to for Amon and Hide in :re; I can’t go through this again Ishida). But is it the last chapter?
Given that there are rumors of a major announcement that could very well
be a third series, this is entirely possible.
But
there are reasons I don’t want a third series: unlike the first TG, in
which character arcs were mostly complete even if in a tragic sense and
most major plot threads were wrapped up, that is very, very much not the case
in :re. I think @linkspooky says it best here. The set ups for Dragon
(which Fruit promised us would appear in this scene!), for Hide, for the
Garden, for Hairu and Shirazu zombies, have been in this manga; hence it makes sense to pay it off in this
manga. Starting a third one just to build towards the same plot points
we’ve already been building towards seems like not the best choice to
me, but of course, it’s still entirely possible and the announcement
would seem to indicate that should those rumors prove true.
But if this is going to be the next chapter… why would it
end at 144 and not 143 just like the first series since Ishida seems to
be trying to drive home a parallel?
Unless, of course,
this parallel is the moon’s greatest illusion. It looks like the end,
but it’s totally not. The manga will continue either way, but possibly
:re isn’t over yet. That’s where I’d like it to go, personally.
started I thought Kaneki’s arc would have been completed when he stopped trying to fill the role of a hero and would have started to fight for his personal happiness. In this moment he is doing this in a half-assed way in the sense he wants to live with Touka, bu he still fills the role of OEK. In the beginning I thought Kaneki would have been more than a catalyst for the union of humans and ghouls than a leader and that his arc would have found its meaning in somehow helping Hide: I thought con
that would have been a good ending because in TG we are shown how it’s mainly Hide who keeps doing things for Kaneki while he avoids him and is shown probably not to know much abt Hide’s situation despite him being his best friend. So I imagined Hide being in somehow some kund of predictment and that this time Kaneki would have been the one to help him. Well, no idea about all this will turn out. Sorry for all these asks, I am having fun discussing possible endings.
No need to be sorry; I enjoy answering them! Theorizing is always fun. XD
So… uh, here’s the point where I probably lose a ton of credibility with everyone and state my highly unpopular opinion: I didn’t like the Dark Knight as a film 😛 I know, I know, everyone loves it, I’m sorry (I don’t tend to like Christopher Nolan’s films in general, with the exception of Dunkirk). So I never saw the third film as a result. Hence I can’t comment on the similarities there, but what you describe certainly sounds possible, and like it fits with the things we know about Fruit’s plots.
Yeah, I agree with you about thinking Kaneki should develop more agency. That’s my preferred direction for the story to go, but at this point, he really has very few options left and that’s a fact. He’s going to have to eat the dead Oggai and probably take a bite out of Hajime first (run and leave the dead, Hajime, run for your life, my son; you’re currently grounded for probably forever but I still love you). I don’t see room for him to develop agency right now; however, once he heals, he may still do so if we ever get a Sun Arc (though with Juuzou’s association with XX or Judgment I wonder if the arcs are kind of overlapping rather than being strictly linear?)
As for Hide, yeah. He was super important the first half of the first TG and then marginally important and then vanished, and now appears to be coming back. I really love chiastic structures in literature, so I’m hoping that their relationship will get a focus as TG:re (or God forbid a third series) spins towards its conclusion. And there is a ton about Hide that we don’t know. He’s very mysterious. Like we don’t even know if he’s a ghoul or not (I think he is, but the question is when that happened). From what we do know, as Scarecrow, he’s been pulling the strings a bit, helping Kaneki at the auction arc, etc. I do think he has a very important role to play going forward… and he’s been associated with dragon imagery before. So whatever role he’s going to play moving forward, I do think it will be significant.
Crack theory: maybe Hide is Dragon and has Washuu roots and will appear to help Kaneki survive and then Kaneki will have to save his friend from himself. I don’t really think that’s terribly likely, but ya never know.
Thank you again for sharing your thoughts! I love hearing other peoples’ thoughts/theories.
ghouls through becoming a villain and all because he didn’t have the agency to become a hero and so in the end he found himself in the role of a passive villain. Obviously there many things that may disprove this idea, like apart from Furuta the clowns still didn’t have a great role, many characters must finish their character arcs and so on, but that other ask about the Quinx killing Kaneki prompted me to think what good would be to kill Kaneki for the revolution of the conflict.
I mean… yes. You’ve raised some good points and if that other theory about the Quinx turns out to be true, this is pretty much what I’d expect. It’d also fit because we know Tsukiyama’s, Hinami’s, and Mutsuki’s various obsessions with Kaneki have to break, and Kaneki turning into a rampaging nameless dragon would probably do that. It’d be tragic to an extreme, and really ironic.
But like you say, there are many things that seem to hint at a different direction/don’t fit as well, like Hide’s role, the Clowns, what would happen to Touka and their baby, etc, as well as me doubting whether the people who love Kaneki so much could ever really turn on him to the point where they’d kill him. Because Kaneki is very loved–sometimes not in healthy ways, as I’ve discussed before–but loved, and love in Tokyo Ghoul is presented a good thing.
Some of this is my personal opinion and therefore has no basis on what might actually happen, but I really want Kaneki to develop some agency. I would love for him to stop being a pawn of Eto and Arima’s and now Furuta’s and decide his own destiny. Then again, the fact that he hasn’t learned very much might indicate that isn’t in the cards.
That being said, Furuta’s not entirely correct here. Kaneki has learned one thing: he wants to live. And that is a huge change and an important one. He wants to live because he is loved and he knows it now, instead of wanting to die because he feels unloved. It’s the one sliver of light in this darkest hour right now, and seeing as how important the theme of living, even with it isn’t stylish, even if you can’t be happy, is in this manga, I am not certain the manga would turn that into a toxic thing for Kaneki and have his life be destructive. I also am not sure how working together to kill something will actually bring unity, or how that fits with the themes of the manga.
But of course, this is possible, especially if Kaneki goes berserk. Anything is possible, as Ishida knows and likes to tease us with 😛
Thank you so much for sending me your thoughts, anon!
I was just saying this to one of my friends not even ten minutes ago! Yes, I think Kaneki will see the ring next chapter (which I presume he’s still wearing around his neck) and remember her and how he wanted to live and be with her, maybe imagine her holding the baby… and be motivated to cannibalize by taking a bite out of Hajime (who is strong enough to hopefully then run away, though that may be me being desperate like Ishida you can’t take any more of my children away) and then eat more of the Oggai.. and go after Fruit-chan.
Hi so that cursed narration box of foreshadowed doom also goes through Ui’s shoulder.
Please tell me Hirako didn’t go Obi-Wan-on-Anakin against Ui like he may have done to Kiyoko after Hajime killed Shio and Rikai.
hamliet 