#Tokyo Ghoul has me in its bloody grasp

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Kaneki and his Centipedes

Kaneki’s mind is a wonderfully jumbled mess of opinions that form a variety of colours, yet Kaneki always falls back into a black and white mindset that he never challenges, a theme that is central in Chapter 144 of Tokyo Ghoul:re.

There’s beauty to be found in Kaneki acknowledging his own mistakes - only to throw all of these revelations out the window to focus on his own selfish construct of a mind. Multiple versions of him do so throughout the entire chapter. Yet no version of himself can thouroughly agree with another version - something that references his terrible state of mind and shows us clearly that Kaneki himself isn’t his own character. He’s never been his own character, his own personality. Kaneki Ken is a multifaced centipede with thousand arms that are all parts of himself, yet no version of Kaneki is ever a complete person.

Simply put, Kaneki is whatever the situation requires him to be. With a twist that Kaneki maintains a persona in said situation that enables him to keep on pushing forward without ever having to face his own shortcomings.

If one version of him doesn’t work out, he can always abandon whatever he tried to build and gain a new mask, a new husk of himself that makes it possible for him to keep on moving on with no need of personal growth. Having all of these versions interact can only end in a mess of a conversation, and it does.

Kaneki’s many versions have one central ground of agreement, and that is to maintain the status quo of finding a scapegoat to keep on pushing forward for the sake of pushing forward, but we will get to that later.

Let’s establish a few main characters of our one-man cast:

- both child Kanekis -

These two observe, as they have always been. The blackhaired child Kaneki is someone who has always taken whatever abuse others hurled at him and continues to be passive. The white haired child Kaneki is much the same, referencing a different state of mind that can mostly be connected to him haunting Sasaki in the past. But both of these versions are passerbys on a train who don’t openly voice their thoughts, so here, they remain silent as well.

- #240 -

This Kaneki is breaking down throughout the entire conversation, showing Kaneki at his lowest, during the time he was tortured by Arima. #240 has no self agency and shows on multiple occassions that other parts of Kaneki have to try to calm him down or tell him to shut up, showcasing how Kaneki himself has no idea how to deal with himself at his lowest points.

- Eyepatch -

Softspoken and intent to keep the peace between the group, yet there is only one panel where he is shown to have a significant impact on the conversation. His pleading for peace is ignored fully, but Eyepatch has never been a part of Kaneki that had a big impact on his psyche. He represents the start of Kaneki’s goul life after all and has always been humble with his biggest intent being to remain unseen and unheard, much like human Kaneki behaved. Him putting all the blame on himself regarding Juuzou is central to that selfish self-blame that he has had for the longest time. Eyepatch can be seen sitting next to the child versions of Kaneki, which further shows how much of an impact he has. Indeed, one of the only things that even influences the conversation in Kaneki’s mind is this:

Which fits Kaneki’s current mindset wonderfully, because Kaneki likes nothing more than to push responsibilities away from himself. It’s not his fault for being a terrible King that things turned out this way, right? It’s the fault of the others not messaging him that something was wrong, correct? A great thing to think to yourself and all the other versions of Kaneki pick it up and lament that no one messaged him because it was an ambush that no one could have predicted in any kind of way...right?

It is Eyepatch’s cynic view on their situation that stuns all of them, even Haise, into silence, though, after Haise sadly proclaims that he simply wanted to live a happy life. Here, Eyepatch perfectly sums up a problems that Kaneki has always had: He only finds importance in trying to protect others so his life has meaning, and that cuts the possibility of him leading a normal life.

The fact that even Haise, the one who pushes for the past of a good life, has nothing to say to that speaks volumes about Kaneki’s selfish sense of self and his inability to shoulder responsibilities. No one knows how to deal with this direct confrontation, so instead of coming to the conclusion that something needs to be changed, everyone agrees to review the situation once more, as though a golden opportunity could have been found. (The irony comes in the fact that nothing that Kaneki could have done would have ended in a victory for him, since he can’t put himself onto a path that he never walked.)

- Sasaki Haise -

We’ve seen Sasaki act as a fatherly figure for a lot of characters. The Quinx, mostly, but also Juuzou to a lesser extent. It should come as no surprise that Sasaki is the one who laments on the fact that he acted kindly towards Suzuya, so maybe if he had killed him earlier, things would have turned out differently?

Sasaki is also the one who presents most points of argument to the cast of Kanekis, painting him in the teacher role that he has had for the longest time. Haise was always a kindhearted character with a lot of patience for others, so it is an obvious choice for our limb missing Kaneki to put him into a position of starting the conversation and steering it towards different topics.

We see Sasaki act as a sort of voice of reason for most of the chapter, which does make sense considering that Haise was the one version of Kaneki who led the most ‘normal‘ life out of them all. He was able to shoulder responsibilities for a long while, embraced the role of acting as a father figure and was well-rounded until his psyche broke down due to his past coming back to haunt him.

It is interesting to see how much of a central focus Haise‘s words get, considering how Kaneki cut ties with the Quinx. It is very much presented to us as a past he would love to get back to, if only he could. Haise is one part of Kaneki that our current Kaneki wants to keep hidden away - and he succeeded at that until now. He shoved Haise to the side for the longest time so he wouldn’t have to deal with the grieve that comes from acknowledging that he left something good, something precious, something important behind so selfishly.

But Kaneki can’t keep this part of himself hidden forever, and so Haise states what is true - that the Quinx saved Kaneki, multiple times. They were the first real thing to a tightnit family that he has ever had. Anteiku was something akin to a home for him, one that he never fully let himself get close to.

But he did let himself get close to the Quinx and it ended in tragedy. And Haise is incredibly saddened by that, being a part of Kaneki that has experienced something that no other part of him has.

Haise states this because our Kaneki won’t let himself feel this loneliness. Thinking of Hide alone made him so sad that he couldn’t stomach the thought of him. So of course he would try to forget the Quinx, but he can’t.

Reaper tries to push the blame onto Haise, onto himself, stating that had he not met the Quinx, Shirazu would still be alive. It’s easy to say to distance yourself from problems that you have no control over, and Kaneki loves to have control over actions. It’s Haise’s words that state what Kaneki wants most, though: To live a simple, calm life.

The problem here is that Haise ackowledges that yes, all these others are Kaneki. But he, himself, is also Kaneki, something that never once occurs to him. Haise is as much Kaneki as Ken is Kaneki. Haise is a part of himself, one that Kaneki still tries to keep down even though he realises that he wanted to live a normal life. (The irony is that Kaneki could have had a normal life, multiple times, but chose to abandon those whenever he had them in his grasp.)

- Shiro Kaneki -

This Kaneki is rather passive, as well. He very much is in his own mind, sitting on a chair throughout most of the chapter and stating calm sentences that follow one central theme: Not choosing anything.

He doesn’t want to put the blame on anyone, not even himself, as shown above when confronted with the fact that he wasn’t there during the time Shirazu died. Instead of reacting with his own in-action of the scene, he instead simply talks about the fact that it wasn’t the Quinx’ fault that he died. He is a foil to the Reaper in that way, and most of the time he is the one who gets the brute of the violence and rage that Reaper harbors, reacting to all of his insults with passive indifference.

He is as passive as one gets, mimicking the way he reacted when faced with Yamori. Until he snaps due to the words of Reaper who accuses him of being passive to the point of ignoring reality. It is interesting to note that this Kaneki gets reprimanded by Reaper, one part of Kaneki who acknowledges that he ignores reality, only to become violent and lash out. (The irony is that all of Kaneki ignores reality countless times, facing reality is something that he is almost incapable of doing and him fighting himself in that regard leads nowhere.)

- Reaper -

The Reaper is mostly the one who speaks the ugly truths. This part of Kaneki doesn’t hold back, be it verbally or through violence. He acknowledges all of the flaws of the other versions of Kaneki while willfully ignoring how he, himself, was suicidal.

He is very perceptive in how he views everything that has happened, though in true Reaper fashion ignores everything that has to do with human interactions. Kaneki’s time as Reaper was one of the darkest and lowest points in his life, one were dying in style was his only goal.

Though Reaper is a wonderful foil to most of the other versions of Kaneki, he thinks of himself as someone incapable of doing anything. He constantly talks about how he wasn’t powerful enough to bring about some change, going so far as to blaming Haise for Shirazu’s death.

This showcases beautifully how incapable Kaneki is of logically thinking of the events that he has control over (Not choosing to abandon the Quinx in the first place.) and those that he doesn’t (If he isn’t present at a certain scene, he can’t possibly help out.). But Reaper encompasses everything that Kaneki has control over and choosing the wrong path, yet this part of Kaneki never thinks of himself in that way. Kaneki himself blames himself for all the things he couldn’t change, but never stops to think about what he could have done, about facing his own demons and improving himself. The Reaper is the one who picks at the flaws of every other version of Kaneki, while presenting himself as someone with no agency, when he himself simply chose not to partake in self agency.

The Reaper has always been suicidal, always been someone who only looks at the black, the depressing side of reality and despite his strenght to pick up on Kaneki’s flaws, Kaneki lets him control the situation for long amounts of time only to regress back into thinking everything is inevitable.

It should come as no surprise that Haise is the one who tries to calm him down from these self destructive thoughts. The problem comes with the fact that even Haise is stuck in the past, being self destructive in a whole different way. (The irony is that Reaper, the one who picks up flaws of Kaneki, is stuck in his own head so much he doesn’t recognise his own destructive behaviour. Kaneki puts all of his problems and acknowledgement of problems onto the shoulders of his suicidal self, thus rendering any sort of self development mute.)

- One Eyed King -

Our current Kaneki who laments on the fact that he can’t listen to his gut feeling. Our King is a drastic failure of royalty, having been raised by two people who had no idea how to reign properly.

As such, the King did what he does best - not make a decision until it is too late. This haunts him now, to the point that he has all these versions of himself in his head who try to lead a conversation that leads nowhere in terms of self improvement.

All these versions of Kaneki show flaws that he has, most of them point out flaws of some of his other versions, but King never truly interacts with those statements. It is a pity show through and through, because pitying himself is what Kaneki does best.

Now, I have to say that keeping King and Shironeki separate is a bit difficult, so maybe I messed up once or twice, though it is obvious even like this that King isn’t the one who leads this conversation.

King pities the fact that he didn’t listen to the bad feelings that he has had, King isn’t the one who tries to provide the Kaneki squad with solutions. They all simply review the situation again and again, trying to find a plan that leads them to victory when they have already lost. (GAME OVER.)

Kaneki, being someone who cannot face reality even when he has to do so in his head, thus has multiple kinds of worldviews thrown together - and it leads to him shutting down entirely to bring all of his different versions to one conclusion.

It is what pushes Kaneki forward, that thought to see Touka again.

But Touka is a scapegoat, a wishing well that Kaneki can throw coins into to not have to improve his outlook on the world, rendering it black and white once more. It is as Eyepatch said before - Kaneki will always find something or someone who he wants to protect, thus preventing him from ever living a normal life, from ever outgrowing his selfish needs.

Eyepatch lamenting the fact that the want to protect leads to failure is rendered pointless.

Haise acknowleding that he wanted a normal life is rendered pointless.

Shironeki saying that it isn’t someone elses fault that things turned out the way they did is rendered pointless.

Reaper stating that they refuse to face reality is rendered pointless.

Kaneki is pushing forward for the sake of protecting and living, but he does so in a situation that is unwinnable, playing into the hands of a madman who planned this stage for him for a long, long time.

So Kaneki grows, but he grows backwards, ever stuck in the position as the Hanged Man, now raised from a figurehead King to an enemy Dragon.

And maybe he will win one day, but for now he has lost once more.