I remember seeing a post about how being aromantic is akin to being allergic to corn, and like... yeah. Being romance-repulsed, loveless, and aplatonic in addition to being aromantic is like being allergic to olives and corn. And also their common substitutes. Olive oil and cornstarch are used in everything. There is no escape.
You tell someone you can't have a food because olive oil was used, and it's "oh, but surely you aren't allergic to olive oil! That's not a real thing."
You can't have a food because there's cornstarch in it and it's, "oh, but it's such a small amount of corn, surely you'll be fine. I know you can't have corn, but a tiny amount of cornstarch?"
You tell someone that, actually, you are also allergic to a common substitute, and it's "so you just can't eat at all? that's so sad!" or "then what CAN you eat? it's so sad you have such a dislike for food."
"Surely, you aren't actually repulsed by romance! That's so sad! And also, you made that up!"
"I know you're aromantic, but you can't actually be uncomfortable with people using the word 'love' as a blanket for emotions, can you?"
"So you don't feel love for your friends AT ALL? You just don't feel AT ALL? How sad!"
It's exhausting.
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Death Is a Mirror, or How Death Is Linked to the Sense of Self in Jujutsu Kaisen
Death is a fulcrum of Jujutsu Kaisen's message, a major point of reference for both the audience and the characters within the story. Death is a mirror that catches and reflects the last light of a life reaching its end, a moment of full disclosure that overcomes all distances and renders all defenses permeable. Death is a mirror as it asks one question: who are we when there's no more need to lie?
The thread that binds together all major characters' deaths in Jujutsu Kaisen is how, despite multiple characters trying in an unreliable-narrator-sort of fashion to convince us otherwise, no one's truly alone in death. The connections that people forge with others throughout their lives become their tethers to the world -- and then reach even further, transcending death itself. This is how humans, using Jogo's words, can still linger after they die: through the loving memory of those they held dear.
No human exists in a vacuum. We live in the context of our relationships with the world, of getting to know and getting to be known in return. Our lives, in a sense, are a dialogue -- that's why we give and are given names. We shape the images of ourselves through establishing connections with others; our self-recognition and sense of self come from recognizing those connections. Once again, we learn the outllines of our souls by bumping into others.
These two concepts, recollecting your 'tethers' before death and acquiring self-reflection in others, are consistently brought together in the story. Before everything else, it's reflected in Yuuji's (who the story's focal point as its protagonist) idea of a meaningful death, one gone surrounded by those you love. Nobara, who possesses arguably the strongest sense of self with her loud proclamation 'I'm Nobara Kugisaki!' and who's highly conscious about her relationships with other people. Megumi, whose overarching struggle for self-determination has him relying on others to define his own worth and leaves him passively suicidal. Toji, who in his last moments thinks about his family and understands that by leaving them behind he deviated from his true self. Nanami, whose fading mind conjures the image of his closest friend and who, guided by that, chooses to go south and stay true to himself. Kokichi is yet another example, and actually quite an interesting one. His character is explored primarily through the juxtaposition between the concept of 'the body within the world' and his forced isolation, but who still contextualizes the world through his connections with his friends. It's no coincidence that Kokichi's character arc is closely linked to Mahito, who is dubbed a mirror of death.
In short, there's a plethora of instances where death and one's sense of self are tied to one another like that. I'll ramble a bit about how this correlation is discovered in both Gojo and Geto's characters below the cut.
The lack of self
Gojo is somebody who's essentially lacking both connections to others and a sense of self-identity. His entire personality is shaped around the notion that he's The Strongest, the very thing which prevents him, even if in his own mind, from building meaningful relationships with the people around him.
Not having to challenge or change his self-image, Gojo has little to no recognition of himself as a person outside of his title. He has never faced a need to discover himself in relation to the world; he was given a foundation to construct his identity on upon birth. Did he really need to grow past that and redefine himself? Satoru lacks self-reflection -- most literally.
With Gojo's face obscured by the gaping void, we do not get to see his reflection. I'd say it's quite an apt visualization of Gojo's identity crisis. Who are you if not The Strongest? As Gojo's position is challenged with his Infinity suddenly overcome, this question is forced onto him.
But as he's spent over a decade trying to escape answering it, he never got a chance to acquire a definitive answer. So now, in Shibuya, he flees from it once more.
It's painfully ironic and at the same time fully logical that it is Geto who exposes this issue to Satoru as Gojo's sense of self is arguably connected to him more than anyone else. During their student years Suguru was the one who persistently rejected treating Gojo as a title and not a person, who looked through decorum and actively chose to see him not as Gojo Satoru, The Strongest but rather as Gojo Satoru, a teenage boy. For Gojo, it was through Geto recognizing him as a person that he was able to reach that recognition, too.
But after Toji Gojo is forced to seek self-affirmation and validate his ego by reclaiming his position, which was threatened by him losing to somebody for the first time. He tries to reinforce his self-image by separating himself from the world, which ultimately leads not only to his now automatic Infinity rendering him unreachable (= disconnected), but also to a loss of his sense of self as he loses his one and only connection.
As I've already said, with the Prison Realm breaching the defenses of Gojo's technique, this issue, his lack of a firm sense of identity beyond his title, is exposed to him once more. It's reflected in the way Satoru places his priorities post-unsealing. He fights Sukuna with seemingly a single purpose of cementing his position as the strongest sorcerer alive and thus regaining his uderstanding of who he is. The answer to this question has never lain in the plane of strength alone, though, and that is why Satoru fails utterly.
But in death, as the relevance of his Infinity is eliminated, Gojo is finally able to reconnect with his sense of self. He's reverted to his teenage self, to the time he could still relate to somebody on a personal level and get stronger for it. The entirety of the 236 chapter, in a sense, is written as an affirmative: he is The Strongest because he is Satoru Gojo, not the opposite, but it's his death which makes him finally recognize this.
The deviation from self
Now, this image could not be intended as a visual parallel to Gojo's reflection, or lack of thereof, in the Prison Realm's eye. Nonetheless seeing that scene in Shibuya animated immediately reminded me of it, and I think there potentially might be some thematic similarities between the two as well.
Talking about how our identities are defined by our connections to other people as much as our relationship with ourselves, it'd be only logical to assume that Geto should have a firm grasp on who he is. Not only is he a deeply self-reflective character, but also one who actively relates to others.
However, Geto's reflection in Gojo's eyes is unclear and uncertain, almost indistinguishable. It might be a neat way to convey how, finally taking a moment to look at his best friend for the first time since SPVI, Gojo doesn't really recognize him for how much he's changed. But it also could hint at how Geto, driven to the point where he bends and warps his beliefs to justify his actions, also bends and warps his sense of self.
At least how I see it, the image above calls to mind this panel:
The moment Geto tells Satoru he's decided on 'his true feelings' which would define him as a person. Isn't it ironic how in the exact same conversation he talks about how the goal he's settled upon is only possible for Gojo, meaning striving to achieve it would be akin to trying to become someone he's not? The light novel outright tells us as much:
This was the final confession of a man who could only choose to warp himself, who had erased himself in pursuit of his goals. The only person who could bear such a curse was Gojo Satoru.
In this light it's interesting how Gojo's struggle with his sense of self makes itself known through something which threatens his position as The Strongest, whereas Geto's is reflected in the eyes of someone to whom he refers while saying 'If I could become you...', deviating from himself.
A major factor of overcoming trauma is embracing the inadequacy of what happened. So, to a certain extent, by becoming an enemy to the system Suguru wants to prove the world of jujutsu sorcerers wrong and himself -- right. It once again reminds me of Toji's dying thoughts.
The flip side of 'deciding on your true feelings' is ultimately anchoring your entire identity to what is just a single aspect of it. People exist in motion, and our personalities are in actuality as dynamic and complex as our relationships. But Geto bound his self-definition to what was rather simply a reactive feeling, so in the end he inevitably failed to live up to it.
And once again, it's exposed at the moment of Suguru's death. In his case, though, this failure is also what leads to his defeat and consequent death in the first place. I also find it curious how Geto's face is the first thing Gojo sees in the afterlife, while Gojo's face is the last thing Geto sees and acknowledges in his life. And just like Gojo, in his last moments Suguru reminisces about their shared past.
The image almost mirrors what we saw in the chapter 236, suggesting how Geto's true self is in turn tied to Satoru. Despite how vague and uncertain their relationship's come to be, the two are rendered inseperable even in death -- or rather, in death especially.
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