#oh and footnote: kaneki is the same exact way

[ipsen]

This might sound confusing but am i the only one who gets the feeling the deeper eto's and ken's connection get the more likely is Eto to reject him?

au contraire, anon, it makes perfect sense. eto is the type who is stuck in the dichotomy of wanting to be loved but hating the idea of vulnerability, as vulnerability has repeatedly cost her multiple times over her life. putting this under the cut

one example is noroi, her foster father. her loss of him was the catalyst for her mass cannibalization and her path to later attack the ccg and then form aogiri (with some arima complication tied into there). the idea is that she believes if she had been stronger, she would not have lost him. this is further supplemented by what she says to hinami, who is one of her parallels/foils:

(re 69)

eto is one of many characters who project onto other, "weaker" characters, and the appearance of shironeki and ryouko in this panel, characters who disappeared from hinami's life when she was very young, helps emphasize that she is essentially talking down to her younger self through hinami. she does this again with kanae:

(re 43)

just so we have a pattern going on here. now, to build on what she says to kanae, hirako says this about arima:

(re 101)

putting these two pieces of dialogue side by side is rather interesting, don't you think? it implies a lot about the true nature of the relationship between eto and arima, which itself is not very clear. such is the nature of subtext. but i'm getting off track here; you can read more about that here. this person puts it into a much better context than i ever could.

point being, eto equates "vulnerability" with "weakness", and is constantly fighting against showing it in order to not be hurt anymore. however, she also contends with the emptiness of constantly being left behind by others-- namely noroi and shiono-- and wanting to fill it. this issue is pretty obvious when you realize noro is just her zombified foster dad, probably the first person in the world who showed her any affection.

in short, the people she who love her are always leaving her. so in being loved, people get hurt and die. for her. if that's the case, it's better not to be loved at all, right?

but one quick thing: how do we know eto values life? how do we know she cares?

one need only look at the first thing she says in tokyo ghoul:

(tg 78)

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thanks for the ask! this was fun :]