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psychewritesbs · 2 years

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Chapter 212: Fester—Megumi's sense of self

Y’all.

Cursed JJK-Sunday.

So much for me being like “oh yeah catharsis is fucking amazing guys, you should defo try it every once in a while.”

And then laughing like a maniacal and tacky Mexican telenovela villainess because I loved the idea that Gege was about to make Megumi suffer and...

Joke’s on me... that cursed cat is a sadist and landed a low blow and now Megumi’s beautiful sense of self is...

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BE NORMAL ABOUT THIS?!!!!!

It’s personal under the cut btw.

Literal picture of me waking up to see the JJK leaks first thing in the morning on Wednesday:

Just because I am not using the evil laughter doesn’t mean I don’t have other tacky af moments up my sleeves.

But... as per usual, today I wish to go on a massive tangent.

As I said above the cut, this got personal real quick.

Like, yes, let’s talk about how cruel it is for Tsumiki’s memories to be used against Megumi by Yorozu...

And how cruel it was for Yuji to have to witness Sukuna take over Megumi’s body despite his best efforts to not just protect Megumi, but to save him...

Gege went to town with the irony this chapter...

And how sad it is for Yuji to continue to undervalue his life as a mere cog that has served a “practical” purpose in the grander scheme of things.

I personally really, really want to see Yuji love himself but like... I also know my kind and we can be very self-loathing.

Yes. All #the things.

Gege was seriously saving all of the good stuff for last.

That said, I want to focus instead on how chapter 212 is a culmination point to a number of disparate and seemingly unrelated factors with one thing in common--Megumi and the major reorganization to everything that he is and stands for.

Updated warning:

So today I am most interested in exploring Megumi’s sense of self because if there’s one thing that is clear to me is that I’m here for Megumi.

As a result, this turned into a sort of introspective headcanon exploration on the nature of the sense of self or self-identity using my interpretation and relationship with Megumi as the basis for it. So just keep that in mind if you keep reading because as much as I care about “canon Megumi”, my interpretation of him, however “accurate or not accurate” it might feel to others, is inevitably a projection of my own psyche.

Thing is... and I am not sure that I’ve harped enough about it in my rambles but... as an amateur art historian, I see art as a mirror upon which we can see ourselves reflected both as collective members of humanity, and as individuals. One is a macrocosm to the other after all.

This is why I am a huge proponent of how the characters we love are reflections of our deepest sense of self whether we consciously recognize it or not.

Megumi being relatable af

That said... Megumi’s sense of self has always been incredibly relatable to me and this post captures that experience really well from a personal perspective.

So... yeah. Episode 23 in the anime is THE reason I read JJK.

I know I’ve said this three hundred million times I’ve been keeping track, but seeing Megumi step into a version of himself beyond his self-perceived limitations was one of the most inspiring and beautiful moments I have ever witnessed in animanga.

It awoke in me a desire to do the same for myself and inspired me to find a way to go about it. A desire to exercise my free will to overcome my fate, to exercise my sense of agency to take control of my life.

So to see Megumi’s sense of agency, his free will and consciousness get snuffed (even if it’s only temporarily) by Sukuna was... personal, not to mention a complete shock.

And yet... in retrospect it makes so much sense that things arrived at this point. Not just from a foreshadowing perspective, but from the perspective of the sense of self.

For some time now I’ve seen Megumi as a character on an identity defining character arc. Meaning that the events in JJK were shaping how he sees himself in relation to others and his place in the world around him.

Whereas prior to this arc Megumi was insecure and had a limited perception of himself...

During Shibuya he developed a confidence in himself and his ability to exert power over his environment that was not there before and that we got to see shine through in the events that followed Shibuya.

Perhaps that is why I always had the feeling that in the CG he was going to go through a reversal of his previous character development up to The Origin of Obedience arc where he kept “loosing” and bumping into obstacles he was afraid to tackle.

Rather, starting with Shibuya, Megumi kept “winning”. He was shown to combine his incredible intelligence (boy can manipulate people like a boss and there’s something very object-relations about it) with the new creative ways he was learning he could use his shadow-based Cursed Technique.

The sense of self and the proverbial glass ceiling

Now, given the nature of an identity-defining character arc, I felt like there would come a time when his current understanding of himself would be challenged by an outside force just as he was beginning to “coagulate” this new, more confident identity.

After all, Gege has shown us several times how when a sorcerer reaches the pinnacle of strength (self-knowledge) and takes it for granted, they get knocked down by their humanity (their shadow)--everything that they didn’t know that they didn’t know about themselves and the world around them.

Side note: I LOVE that Gege drew a soul in the panel above! This man is into soulmate bonds and soulmates recognizing each other and I love him all the more for it even after what he did to Megumi.

In other words, it’s like an invitation to never take our sense of self for granted. Because the moment you THINK you are The Strongest, you are quite literally putting a glass ceiling on top of who you THINK yourself to be.

The moment you THINK you are “enlightened” you are in the ego’s grip, an illusion created by Wetiko/Mara that severely limits how you see yourself in relation to the world around you.

“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” In other words, as above, so below--an enlightened being is most human insofar as their shadow keeps growing right along with them.

To be clear, I’m not saying that Gojo is not THE Strongest. I am saying that Gojo was so confident that he was THE Strongest, that he failed to take into consideration, not just Kenny’s existence, but his own human ego’s emotional attachments--an opening that Kenny exploited if you think about it.

For a limitless being such as Gojo, his downfall was his limited human ego attachments. He might be an enlightened being, but he’s still human.

Also, just a friendly reminder that ego is not good or bad. Don’t fall for the bad reputation that the word “ego” has picked up over the years. Psychologically speaking, ego is your sense of self and YOU NEED IT to move through and experience your reality.

Anyways... that’s how we got here... Gojo got sealed, which allowed for the chain of events to unfold as it did, and that brought us to this particular culmination point...

The reason I bring up Gojo’s “weakness” is because Megumi is going through the same thing. The moment Megumi THINKS he’s got everything under control, well...

Megumi is betrayed by one of his most important people’s, and as a result his consciousness or sense of self gets snuffed like a candle in the wind.

Enchain 恵+活

So, real quick before we keep going... Just to emphasize how important kanji is in JJK: the Japanese phonetic spelling for “enchain” is “kei + katsu” and the kanji Gege used is 契闊.

The individual meaning of each kanji character doesn’t matter as much as swapping kanji that have similar phonetic sounds.

There are several kanji that mean different concepts that have the same phonetic sound, so you have to find the right combination:

Like the kanji for 恵 (kei) + 活 (katsu). Which, if you recognize the kanji for “kei”, it’s the kanji used in Megumi’s name. As for the kanji that replaced “katsu” (活) it means “Live / Resuscitation / Being helped / Living”.

I think I read about this from this user.

Boom.

Gege hiding clues in the kanji?

Ok moving on...

We all know Sukuna wanted to use Megumi for something nefarious and that he was waiting for just the right moment to activate his binding vow.

What’s interesting to me is that the precise moment that Sukuna was waiting for had everything to do with finding the right opening for taking over Megumi’s psyche. As it turns out, that was when Megumi was at his most vulnerable, which is, as I’ve said over and over and over and over again, one of the qualities Megumi deeply rejects about himself. More on this in a bit.

Basically, Sukuna’s opening was Megumi’s sense of self being weakened by the utter emotional shock he was in because of the reveal about Tsumiki.

Like... we seriously have never seen Megumi show this much emotion, this strongly. And there’s something almost... idk... infantile about the way he’s depicted?

I’m just throwing arrows in the dark here, but I get massive “abandonment issues” vibes. Almost like we’re seeing Megumi’s ego regress to a stage in his childhood where he last felt the sheer terror of betrayal and abandonment.

Gege you sadist! He’s seriously out to punish Megumi like the wrathful “God” that he is.

But going back to the idea of Megumi’s vulnerability being exploited because he assumed that Tsumiki had awakened a Cursed Technique instead of being a vessel for a sorcerer from the past...

Not only is this, again, an ironic reversal on how he looked down on Remi’s vulnerability for believing Reggie’s empty promises (even though she probably had NO clue that her lover’s consciousness did not exist any longer), but, again, it’s Megumi feeling vulnerable, a feeling he rejects.

Self-obliteration vs. self-affirmation

I have to thank Fellow Fishie #7 for helping me see this because I was so caught up in the shock to my own ego and so engrossed in my own experience of Megumi that I had failed to notice how Megumi’s self-obliterating thoughts and behaviors were a big part of Sukuna taking over his body.

Not to mention the lack of self-affirming thoughts and behaviors.

And this REALLY got me thinking. Like... REALLY got me thinking about the nature of self-identity and self-sabotage and self-hatred and how despite our best efforts at developing a sense of self, we are afraid to interface with the world and choose instead to stay within self-obliterating comfort zones.

For reference, an example of a self-obliterating behavior would be “addiction” (as an extreme example) and a self-obliterating thought would be rejecting your vulnerability.

How so? With addiction you are numbing the self, and by rejecting your vulnerability you are inherently rejecting a part of your self.

In Jungian Psychology, the goal of psychological maturation is wholeness--that is, bringing the contents of the shadow to the light of consciousness and being able to hold the tension of all of our contradictions as human beings.

During maturation and identity-formation, however, the ego creates an idea of itself. As we experience unpleasant feelings like shame or guilt, a lot of the personality traits associated with those unpleasant feelings get pushed into the Shadow to protect the ego’s idea of itself.

i.e. you know that moment when you come to the cold realization that you have been doing the exact same thing you hate about others? It takes A LOT of psychological strength to be able to see this truth about oneself and not reject it.

If I am honest, this is why “anti” stances baffle me...

So any time you consciously, or even worse, unconsciously reject aspects of yourself, you are self-obliterating. As a clue, projection is one way you can recognize when you are rejecting aspects of yourself.

In Megumi’s case, we know he rejects both good and bad people. Megumi is neither good nor bad. To Megumi’s consciousness, neither of these personality traits apply to him. Other people are good, and other people are bad.

Meaning, good and bad exist outside of himself and he is not good because if he was good he would be weak-minded and pretentious...

And he’s also not bad because, if he was bad, he would have no brains and zero emotional capability what’s up with this translation omg now I want to go read the Japanese raws...

Actually, reading these panels I am noticing just how skewed Megumi’s opinion is of both. His take on both good and bad people is immature at best.

BUT ANYWAYS... the point I am trying to make here is that, despite how much more confident in his abilities his sense of self has become, Megumi still self-obliterates and doesn’t realize it.

I think the main reason I agree that if Megumi dies right now is inconclusive and anticlimactic, is precisely because his sense of self is a beautiful example of what is possible for our self-identity when we step outside our self-obliterating comfort zones and step into self and life-affirming thoughts and behaviors.

If I had to say what it is that broke my heart about Sukuna taking over Megumi’s body it is precisely the fact that I’ve been rooting for Megumi to keep growing, to keep bettering himself. So to see him loose agency over his soul and body it just... guh. It gutted me.

Again. It’s PERSONAL AND I CAN’T BE NORMAL ABOUT IT. LIKE... WHERE AM I SELF-OBLITERATING (other than the obvious) AND HOW DO I STOP MYSELF FROM SELF-SABOTAGING?! WHERE DO I NEED TO BE MORE SELF AFFIRMING IN MY OWN LIFE?

The thing is that Megumi’s confidence in himself might have increased, but his emotional intelligence and self-awareness stagnated. And again, what happens in JJK to a character whose self-awareness stagnates? They get put in the fucking corner after having their vulnerability and their very humanity exploited.

To complicate things, Sukuna is Wetiko personified, a sense of self corrupted by the illusion and trappings of ego. Sukuna is self-affirming but not life-affirming. So whatever actions Sukuna takes in Megumi’s body, again... it will be self-affirming but not life-affirming for Megumi’s ego.

In other words... if Megumi’s sense of self is still alive somewhere in there, this is the ego death I’ve been waiting for.

IF he’s still alive, the real test to his sense of self comes after Sukuna leaves his body.

idk if this makes sense but the content of this lecture will be on your finals. Please study properly.

All of this to say...

TLDR; in conclusion

You son of a....

How am I supposed to continue to call him Daddy Sukuna?!!!! It feels SO wrong on SO many levels.

#jjk ch 212 #god I love jujutsu kaisen #give me back my megumi

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