#UOUHGHG. SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG I HAD TO SORT ALL MY THOUGHTS OUT <33

[trainingdummyrabbit]

✨ please tell me all of your thoughts on kaigaku talk like you will never have the chance to talk about him again

oh hell yeah i can do that. o7

first as a quick baseline though, ive actually spoken about him before a. fair amount. in this post [here]! which is to say im gonna try not t make the same points i did in that one! which! is going t be a lil hard actually. so instead of focusing mostly canon-textual angle with him (or about as much of it as you Can get for him..) we'll go hypothetical, aka: the inherent tragedy of being an antagonist with like two chapters of screentime.

like yeah, hes a self-centered piece of shit that exists just to kind of be a bastard for like two characters if you Squint, and thats definitely all well and good! characters can just be Awful because its Fun! but like... for a series like kny, i just cant help but wonder-- how accurate really is that? its the same series that said that Theres Only One True Demon-- The Rest Are Victims. so... really. is that all there is to him? play with me in this space a moment.

//

i do say it a lot, but i really do mean it when i consider him a tragic character. not just in regards to him and his dynamic with zenitsu, but just on the matter of... being Him. but the way that he carries himself is just. so painfully human, in a weird way. im not quite sure if i could explain it if i tried-- hes just an awful tangle of bad luck and bad decisions and even worse coping mechanisms that just makes a complete mess of who he is.

he does not have a character. which is to say, he is not a person. not narratively, at least. he's reactions to things around him, reactions to people around him-- everything about him is just completely detached from... Him. (walking tragedy, becoming a Role.) and, sure, a lot of it is that we just dont get the chance to see him due to the tight timing of those latter arcs, but it really does make you wonder... was he ever a person? did he ever get the chance? did he ever Live?

has he ever once really, truly smiled?

and. well. that's a complicated question, because the answer is. Maybe?

surprise! we have exactly One panel of him smiling as a kid! from one of the panels in gyomei's flashback. (hysterically, he only seems to have one bead on his necklace here, implying he got more somewhere, somehow, somewhen.) the question is just how genuine is this? how accurate? we just don't know. the mortifying ordeal of looking for character beats in. [ruffles pages around.] One panel of him smiling in the corner. sighs.

all that to say!! after all that, it really does feel like he just... hasn't been living. surviving, sure, but Living? everything we ever get to know of him is just, again, in response to something in an attempt to stay alive. and yeah, thats a good enough reason to live as any, but it really makes you wonder... what's he living for? what's he aiming for?

climbing the ranks to gain respect-- human and demon alike. but what then? is his reach for greater heights also just a response to protect himself? (nobody can take advantage of you if you take advantage of them first.) is this really what he wants? does he even know?

did he ever do anything other than try to get stronger? what is he like? does he have any hobbies? favorite places to be? friends? (ha.) who is he? has he ever once truly smiled? who is he?

maybe its that casting off of any of that that really marked his narrative descent into being a Demon.

and like. all that really does make me wonder: could it have been different? was this all inevitable from the start? was it just a series of bad decisions that lead to this? was he really as alone as he thought he was-- as alone as he tried to tell himself he was? did anyone notice? could anyone have noticed? a lot of people sure didn't-- in and out of canon.

he's a horrible person. there's really no way to think twice about it. the question is, could he have changed? (theres something to be said about him and inevitability.)

which isnt to say "maybe if someone was nice to him he would be nice back <:)"

it's to say "someone needs to shove him down several flights of stairs repeatedly until he gets the fucking hint."

the problem is that he's utterly incapable of taking accountability for his actions-- and responds to that by pinning the blame on others and completely alienating himself further in the process. he just refuses to acknowledge others as People-- they're either below him and not worth his time, or a threat he needs to one-up in any way possible. (Everything is some sort of conflict. he's always been alone, in his mind.)

what happens if something forces him to acknowledge others as People? breaks that view of the way things should be that he clings onto? that the people he's seen as "worthless" never really were? that those "threats" were often people just trying their best to make it-- and often trying to help Others make it as well? or in other cases... that they were often fearful people taking it out on others as an excuse to feel in control?

what happens if he understands what he's missing-- and where he's going?

would he be able to recognize that in himself? would he have it in him to overcome everything he is to turn away from the familiarity of how he thought the world worked and look to the unknown? does he think he deserves it? does he care? and crucially...

he's always been someone who had nothing to lose. what happens if, suddenly, he does?