#AND KANEKI HAS WHITE HAIR AND IS DOING THE KNUCKLE CRACK THING THAT I REMEMBER. HELLYEAAAAAH

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

UNRAVEL FIGHT SCEEEEENE

[linkspooky]

Hi, can you tell me what other characters are like Kaneki? (Besides Furuta (my boy :'()) I read that you say that he doesn't show sympathy to them, but i don't remember other characters besides that conversation that he had with Seidou (I think that Kaneki show sympathy with him, but maybe i'm wrong.)

There’s like a whole complex web of characters who are like Kaneki, but for the sake of time I’ll give you the short list.

Who Foils Kaneki in Tokyo Ghoul Re: Every Single Major Antagonist Kaneki has fought Directly

Nishiki and Kaneki have both left behind the loves of their life for three whole years. They also both intentionally made the choice to abandon that love for their own safety, without consulting the other person. 

Kaneki and Nishiki were also both in love with a person of the opposite species. Despite the fight that that love would require, both of them are entirely non-confrontational when it comes to that person. They both prefer to operate and make decisions operating from the shadows, or fighting antagonists to protect the person they love rather than actually directly confront that person. 

Nishiki and Kaneki were both orphaned at a young age. They both tend to defer and hide their real feelings on things. Nishiki was confronted about Kimi all of once, and he almost immediately deflected. 

Kaneki and Takizawa both started out as far weaker than the woman who was most important to them in each of their lives. They both developed power complexes as a result of this. Even after they far surpassed that woman though in terms of strength, the weakness complex remained in both of them and they still see themselves as indecisive and weak.

Kaneki and Takizawa are both ghouls whose power was brought out by being tortured to extremity. They are the only of the hybrid ghouls at this point who have been pushed so far that their hair is pure white. They both form a partial kakuja rather than a full one. 

Kaneki and Takizawa both pick up habits of their torturers and captives. After being tortured, they go on to torture others. They both have tics, Takizawa bites his fingers and Kaneki cracks his knuckles. Kaneki and Takizawa are the only ones of the hybrid ghouls to actually see themselves as ghouls, and sympathize most with ghouls. 

Kanae and Kaneki are both orphans who specifically mourn the loss of their mothers most of all. 

They both represent a gender duality. Kanae is designated female, but presents themselves as male for most of the story. Kaneki has the smell and kagune of a female ghoul, as Haise most of his duties are feminine, cooking, caretaking, raising children. 

Kanae and Kaneki are both defined by their intensive loneliness. The way they deal with it is great amounts of selflessness and devotion to others, only to suddenly snap back and become selfish again and act on their own desires.

Both of them have an extremely strong internal desire to be loved, that eventually comes out through their actions. It’s no coincidence that after Kaneki’s inner self drops this line, immediately Kanae starts screaming this.

The reason why Kaneki lashed out so much is most likely because this was so in tune with his own desire. 

Then finally we have the holy trio. 

Furuta, Arima and Eto. 

To recapitulate.

Kaneki and Eto are both extremely lonely and volatile people, their main relation through other people is through books. They both have a strong connection to their mother and their entirety of their current motivation is in fact based on what their mother left them behind with. They are also both half ghouls who struggle with their own sense of loneliness due to their nature, and both are connected to Yoshimura, but Yoshimura is a surrogate father of Kaneki’s whereas Eto was abandoned by Yoshimura her real father. There is also the fact that Kaneki right now is stepping into Yoshimura’s shoes, with the Yoshimura and Ukina parallel that he and Touka are repeating. The main difference between the two of them is the way they deal with their trauma, Eto externalizes. She picks targets with similiarities to her, orphaned, abandoned, ghouls who are lashing out and then picks apart their weaknesses and poitns out their own wanting for love and how weak they are for it. Kaneki internalizes, he takes his own violent urges and gives them faces and names. He has an imaginary Rize, and an imagine Yamori, because he cannot deal with the fact that he himself is violent.

Kaneki and Arima are almost entirely too similiar in disposition and personality. They are both kind, but distant. They are unable to see at all the affections which others have for them and are left perpetually lonely feeling. They do not communicate well either, Arima is famous for never giving out praise. They tend to reach out to others, and bring them around them as support structures, Arima became the hope of the garden children, Kaneki parallels them with his treating of the Q’s more like a family than a squad. 

Their biggest similiarity is that they both tend to play helpless in regards to their lives. They forefeit away agency, which makes them different on another level from Furuta and Eto who both seize it at every change they get. It’s a passive reaction though, as often they are following the orders or abiding by somebody else rather than making decisions for themselves. 

Their plans for their own deaths were similiar too, it involved both of them being killed while being a central figure, hated and loved on both sides. Arima when he died was hated by all ghouls as a symbol of fear, and loved by all humans as a symbol of strength for the CCG. 

They both also find violence very abhorrent. Arima hated himself so much for all the lives he had to take. Kaneki at the end of his cannibalism spree in og tg was being eaten up from the inside with guilt at what he had done to the others around him in order to gain power.

Furuta, I have a post talking about it here [x], basically though Furuta is meant to be the shadow. He is the dark side of all of Kaneki’s own shitty and selfish urges come to life.

Kaneki tends to passively use people, and use them as crutches for his own importance. Furuta actively uses them then tosses them aside as they really are only objects to him, whereas Kaneki struggles between using people as crutches to prop himself up and trying to genuinely love them.

Which is where we get to the Why? Why are all of these antagonists to Kaneki really strong foils of him. It’s because kaneki is so stuck inside his own head, the only way he ever can relate to other people is always through himself. Ironically, if the greatest thematic goal of this series is to openly relate to others, form bonds of empathy and friendship then the greatest antagonist Kaneki faces is himself.