#Yuji villain arc

[herefortheships]

"Evil" Yuji Itadori Theory is not as insane as you think

So today I was thinking about this new viral theory in the Jujutsu Kaisen fandom about Yuji turning evil or "crashing out" after he realizes Yuta is using Gojo's body to fight Sukuna, another plan of which he was not made aware of. And while it might seem like a far-fetched, unlikely theory, it does make sense if Yuji's story ends up going in that direction, as insane as it may appear to some fans.

(Let me preface by saying: Obviously this is speculation and theorizing; no need to get heated if you don't agree with this post. Not agreeing is totally okay! If you don't want to read about this theory/speculation/character analysis, you don't have to. Just scroll past this. 💜)

In this post I'm going to expand on a comment I used to explain why some fans think this is going to happen or, like myself, at least like this theory. My comment went like this:

"[Yuji could crash out] because he’s witnessed so many deaths of those he loves, back to back, plus he’s lost his friend to Sukuna, and this friend wouldn’t even let him save him (Yuji wasn’t enough to save Megumi despite their friendship and all their efforts and all that was going on), and now he is seeing Yuta use Gojo’s body, plus the sacrifices he himself has had to make like eating his own brothers. It would be understandable if he crashes out and wants to end it all, Jujutsu sorcerers included.

He’s seen his friends and even himself become a monster, he’s lost people he loved and has no family left (except for Sukuna, but Yuji doesn’t know that, plus, it’s Sukuna). Seeing Gojo’s body being used as a weapon and by one of his friends on top of it, who, if his brain has been swapped like this, is likely to die or lose his original body forever, that might be the last straw for Yuji to finally lose it.

He’s a noble and kind soul, but even the kindest most patient people have a limit, and Yuji might finally have reached it.

In the end, it would even be the most believable plot twist this manga would pull. That said, it’s VERY unlikely Gege would go there, but it isn’t like shounen manga hasn’t seen the main character go through a villain arc. AoT did it really well. I believe it’d be a dark ending but a fitting one if Yuji ends up as the Sukuna of his generation, if he ends up the strongest who sacrificed everything. It’s all just theories though and very unlikely, but still interesting to discuss."

Now, to expand on these points:

Yuji has seen friends with whom he was finally finding a home after the death of his grandfather die brutal deaths one after the other right before his eyes. These were people who took him in and gave him a chance after he found himself alone in life. As far as we know, Yuji didn't have where to go after his grandfather's death, as far as family goes. And he had to move to Tokyo when he ate Sukuna's finger. He had to leave the friends he had and the life he knew completely. Yuji now has lost the mentors who were guiding him and giving him a sense of security in this new Jujutsu world he suddenly found himself in. Mentors like Gojo and Nanami were to Yuji almost like "uncle" or "fatherly" figures in a sense. As a matter of fact, without Gojo, Yuji would have been killed, so Gojo is not just a mentor but also someone to whom Yuji owes his life.

Then there came the loss of the closest friend he made in this new Jujutsu world. He lost Nobara. Listen, Gege Akutami can tell me in this story over and over that Megumi is Yuji's most important friend, but the writing is showing me something different. The story has shown me that Nobara was the one Yuji was closest to. Unless the Gege just wanted to make a distinction between best friend, giving that role to Megumi, and love interest, giving that role to Nobara, but that's up to interpretation. He saw Nobara get killed by the very same monster who killed Nanami right in front of him, in the very same night. If it wasn't for Todo, Yuji would not have made it out of Shibuya alive. As a matter of fact, if he wasn't killed, maybe Sukuna would have taken hold of him permanently right there and then, and then all he had to do was find Megumi and transfer without Yuji being capable of doing anything to stop him. Mahito might have failed at killing him, but that night of October 31st permanently altered Yuji's soul.

But Yuji's will is strong and unshakable, something that has perturbed even Sukuna himself. Yuji has suffered through great losses, over and over, and has even been the tool by which a massacre was committed, and yet, he still tries; he still moves forward and doesn't succumb to the suffering. It's one of the reasons Sukuna absolutely loathes Yuji: he could never break him. I also head-canon that Sukuna hates Yuji because he was forced to experience love through him, while trapped inside Yuji's body, but I guess we still have to see the love theme play out in the story to rule that one out. Who will teach Sukuna about love? Yuji already has, but Sukuna has yet to figure that one out. Yuji is technically his nephew, will that play into this theme before the end? That's entirely another post, though.

Even losing his friend Megumi to Sukuna did not take down Yuji; on the contrary, he unleashed more power than Sukuna expected him to have and faced him by himself.

But then, December 24th arrived, and it was time to face Sukuna in the flesh. The plan was to save Megumi's soul and take out Sukuna. Satoru Gojo was the first contender, and while Gojo was the strongest sorcerer of his time, he was to face the most brutal, most powerful and evil sorcerer of all time. Not to mention they gave him a full month heads-up. Oops... And while there was a hope placed in Gojo to finish this, as he always did, there was also a silent knowledge that this might be too big of a task even for him. Not only was Sukuna the most powerful sorcerer just by himself, he had also absorbed into himself one of the most powerful techniques of all: the Ten Shadows, a power that once took out a member of the Gojo clan with the very same abilities Satoru Gojo was born with. Gojo would be facing a Ten Shadows user fused with the most powerful sorcerer to ever live. Contingency plans were made in the event that he was defeated, some of which, to keep it a secret from Sukuna, had to be kept secret from Yuji.

Did Yuji know some plans would be kept from him? Or is he just finding out they kept things from him, right there in the battlefield?

What Yuji did know was that his role was going to be to separate Megumi's soul from Sukuna; to save Megumi as everyone took Sukuna down. And he managed to touch Megumi's soul and talk to him! But what did Megumi do? Megumi refused to be saved. Yuji's friendship was not enough; Yuji's words were not enough; Yuji's and everyone's efforts were not enough. Megumi wasted it all, despite the fact that his friends, mentors (including Gojo, who was Megumi's benefactor and pretty much his adoptive father!) were falling dead one after the other through Sukuna. In the end, for Megumi, there was only one person that mattered, and that was his sister. With her gone, Megumi lost his will to live, and Yuji had to see his remaining closest friend choose death over being saved.

Next Yuji saw more of his colleagues die or get potentially mortally wounded. Higuruma, Kusakabe, Yuta were all injured too badly to keep fighting, or were killed. Even though Sukuna was already handicapped by this point after fighting Gojo, having lost half of his hands and ability to use reverse curse technique, he still was capable of casting a Domain Expansion, and so, the person Yuji lost next was his blood brother, Choso. Choso gave his life for his younger brother, and died right in front of Yuji. One more horrific death Yuji had to witness right in front of him. Once again, if it wasn't for the arrival of Todo right in the perfect moment, Yuji would have collapsed right there.

Choso was his only family left, and they had just recently found each other and started to bond; Yuji, by all effects, is now alone in this world. At least, he still has a few friends around him to keep him from falling apart.

But.

Lots of people in the fandom have been commenting "Yuji hasn't spoken a word since Choso died". That is incorrect, since Yuji has asked where everyone is after Sukuna used Fuga, and he might have also said something to Todo as well, I don't remember. Maybe what they mean is that Yuji has been different since Choso's death and what we did see him say was this short statement: he declared that he was going to destroy Sukuna's heart, as he was clawing his hand right into Sukuna's chest. His eyes looked wild and ready to do exactly as he intended.

And that's when they were interrupted by Yuta, using Gojo's body just like Kenjaku used the bodies of dead people to further his plans.

Listen, even the kindest, most compassionate person has a limit. With everything I have described in this post that Yuji has experienced, and his current state of mind, is it truly that far off to conclude that Yuji might have reached his limit? And we're talking about a powerful half-human, half-curse (Yuji was pretty much a result of Kenjaku's experiments plus now he possesses Sukuna's cursed energy and the abilities and qualities he gained by holding Sukuna's soul and eating the cursed wombs). Yuji is someone who has latent potential within him similar to Sukuna's. After all he's gone through at this point, is it that far-fetched to consider that he might lose his mind and choose to go the darkest path? After seeing Yuta use Gojo's body as a tool, just like Kenjaku used Yuji's mother's body as a tool to create him, used Geto's body to cause so much chaos.

Yuji would NEVER harm or kill his friends, this wouldn't happen, but what happens when he's lost everyone? What happens when the few that are left are doing something so inhumane and monstrous to take out Sukuna? How different are they from someone like Kenjaku or Sukuna? Who is right and who is wrong? What happens when he realizes he is just like them as well, being a product himself of the Jujutsu world, having done a monstrous thing in eating his own brothers. Everything in the Jujutsu world is messed up! Not just the curses, but the sorcerers as well. What happens when, most harrowingly, Yuji realizes that this entire situation with Sukuna is, in part, a result of his actions (eating Sukuna's finger that night at the school)?

Yuji has lived through enough horrible experiences that him crashing out not only makes sense, but is also expected. As unlikely as it would be for Gege to give Yuji a villain arc however short it might be as the series reaches its end.

Yuji choosing to end not just the curses, but also the Jujutsu Sorcerers; choosing to end it all. If Yuji gets such a dark twist in this story, given all that he's lived through, plus his potential in power and his soul connection to Sukuna himself, it wouldn't be far-fetched or out of character; at this point, it would completely make sense.

It is very unlikely something like Yuji having a villain arc will happen, but we cannot say that this theory has no basis in the canon. In fact, depending on how it's handled by Gege, this could be the most logical plot twist to come out of this story as it reaches its ending.

Yuji would end up as the Sukuna of his generation, especially if the ending with him standing alone in the end is the one Gege chooses to write.

[epickiya722]

I'm calling it and I hope I'm wrong about it.

If Gege drops a backstory for Sukuna, folks are still going to be like "well, it's not the backstory I want for him".

[kindlythevoid]

Todo saw Itadori as a brother and then tried to kill him.

Choso tried to kill Itadori and then saw him as a brother.

They are all part of the same family.

[calisources]

YUJI OKUMOTO AS CHOZEN TOGUCHI IN NETFLIX'S COBRA KAI SEASON THREE AND SEASON FOUR.

base icons are 230x130in order to be use for any type of icon template.

the icons are already sharpened, no other psd or action has been taken.

base icons of yuji in all of his appearances in season three and four of cobra kai. remember to reblog if you save/use. these base icons are free.

consider donating through paypal or buy me a coffee through ko-fi.it truly helps me a lot.

Yuji Okumoto (b. 1959 ) is a a third-generation Japanese-American. His character, Chozen Toguchi is born and raised in Okinawa.

previous post with chozen's season five base icons here.

psa: some of these icons include weapons and blood. as well icons of the karate kid part ii movie.

ICON GALLERY HERE ICON COUNT: 222 ICONS.

[smeaglewantsauserthatisnottaken]

If this isn't how jjk ends I'm gonna lose my shit

I’ll rip in hands and teeth and take a bite

[runabout-river]

Yuji's accumulated Trauma

After Choso's death, I've been thinking about Yuji's reaction to it. At first glance, it looks mature and composed and obviously Yuji doesn't have the time and privilege to grieve. More importantly, Gege didn't give Yuji any panel time to be distraught; his aniki's death scene was over pretty fast. The 3000 Shibuya deaths in conjunction with Nanami's and Nobara's deaths on the other hand had been given more time and more impact afterwards.

The difference in reaction between those two times makes sense in context but, in my opinion, not with Yuji being mature and composed about it.

Because Yuji never got over Nanami's and Nobara's death, he didn't heal from that, instead, he had a negative character arc where the trauma of their deaths affected his world view and mentality in significantly bad ways.

He started to think of himself as a cog in a machine and he also identified with Mahito, the curse who killed both his friend and his mentor figure, a villain and his personal antagonist. Yuji did not overcome Mahito in Shibuya, the story makes us forget that often times. He was marked and changed by Mahito and even though that curse ended up with an extremely pathetic death that didn't mean that he hadn't broken something inside Yuji.

The only time where Yuji constructively dealt with that trauma was in his fight against Higuruma but that was only about his guilt over letting Sukuna kill 3000 people with his body. And it didn't get resolved completely, at least not in a way that would've helped with dealing with Nobara's and Nanaimi's death too.

Yuji is taking that trauma from Shibuya, his feelings of weakness and guilt, and he puts them into believing himself to be a machine that has to follow a predetermined path. Before Sukuna took over Megumi, that meant being suicidal when the situation called for it. Yuji wanted his life to make sense again and dying so Angel would've her wish of seeing Sukuna dead to save Gojo perfectly fit into that.

After Sukuna possessed Megumi, his path and role stayed the same except killing himself directly was off the table but that tendency still exists inside of him. If he were to be presented a way to defeat Sukuna while saving Megumi at the same time where he would die as a result he would take that path immedietaly without hesitation.

Back to Choso's death. In my view, this unresolved trauma and his lack of will to live lead to an unhealthy coping mechanism: thinking of his friends and allies as already dead. We can see that when he asked Megumi if Nobara had survived Shibuya.

He knew that there was a slim chance she survived but it was so low that she was basically dead. When Megumi confirmed her fate, Yuji was prepared for it. Prepared to receive the bad news so instead of crying again he could function like the cog he was supposed to be.

And this Mahito-infused cog mentality still follows him until now. He has to function so his role can be fullfilled and when that means he has to think of his friends as having already been killed so he would never break again then that's what he's going to do.

He did not despair over Choso's death, he despaired because it looked like he was alone and on the verge of defeat against Sukuna. His role was breaking just like his reason to live and I think that this mentality, his negative character arc, will find it's conclusion at the end of the Sukuna fight.

This fight is not the end of the manga, we still have the merger to deal with, there is still a big arc with smaller ones in between coming at us. But for Yuji something big has to happen, probably something pretty bad that has him crushed... at first.

At the end of it, he will finally deal with all his loss and his trauma in a good and healthy way and leave his life as a cog and being a human Mahito behind. Then he might finally shed the tears that were missing in chapter 259.

[olasketches]

I like Sukuna and Yuuji for the same reason as you! But you can tell me to back off if you don't agree with what I'll say next lol

To me Sukuna being reduced to a petty child is so interesting to me because I used to think of what lead him to take his place as the King of Curse and how it pushed humanity farther than him, as he was already not treated humanely. The same way, he say he doesn't feel anything but Yuuji keep pushing his buttons, something he end up recognizing no matter how boring he call Yuuji. Petty until the end too

As for Yuuji... Despite what the jujutsu world tried to drill into him, he found his way back and found value in life again, and that none of them were worthless. Even Sukuna. Even if he hate him

Because Yuuji applied his reasoning to everyone, Sukuna included. We all knew how Sukuna would react but I still really loved to see Yuuji put his values over his personal feelings

We are all aware of the flaws ect ect... But at the end I am happy I discovered and followed Jujutsu Kaisen.

Do you plan to try phantom parade too? And what do you think about Sukuna admitting defeat and the possibility to take another part

Seem like he took Yuji's "you don't have to take the role of the villain" to heart to me

sukuna is such a petty brat and I wouldn't want him any other way. I think the reason he hated on yuuji so much is because he reminded him too much of himself while also being nothing like him. yuuji and sukuna are two sides of the same coin. yuuji even said so himself “sukuna… you are me” 

during the shinjiku arc the fandom has been pointing out how yuuji was slowly morphing into sukuna or how yuuji is going to become another king of curses. and this could have very well been the case… if only yuuji didn’t have his grandpa. during both shibuya and shinjiku arc this boy has been battling his own demons and darkest instincts. when pushed to his limits yuuji turns into a cold blooded demon and we can clearly see that during his final confrontation with mahito and then over the course of his fight with sukuna.

��I’d argue that if he was rejected the way sukuna was he would’ve turned into something far more demonic than sukuna ever was (and that's a personal opinion) cause despite sharing a lot of similarities and having the same level of potential, yuuji is the one who’s the feeler between the two. he feels deeply and has an immense capacity for love but the same is true for other emotions too. that’s why I don’t like when the fandom downplays yuuji’s kindness and compassion as his default traits and think of them as his weakness that can be broken, exploited or corrupted. there is a reason why sukuna couldn't break yuuji no matter how much he tried (and oh boy… he DID try lol), because his compassion and kindness for others don't come from naiveness or because he doesn’t know any better. yuuji is kind because he actively chooses to be kind and his final moment of empathy and compassion towards sukuna, despite sukuna putting him through hell and back, is the biggest prove of that. 

yuuji is strong in ways sukuna couldn’t be and I think sukuna always knew this but never wanted to admit it or face it. even uraume admitted that yuuji has potential equal to sukuna's and uraume is like… THE BIGGEST sukuna glazer so for uraume to admit something like that means that this has always been the case. I believe that sukuna always knew that yuuji could be his equal. and the reason he kept denying it is because yuuji is nothing like sukuna.

yuuji has never felt rejected or resented by anyone in his childhood. his grandfather loved him and cared for him like he would for his own son. he taught yuuji his core values that he still holds onto till this day. sukuna never had anyone like that. people resented and persecuted him, which pushed him to grow stronger and reach heights no one else could. he wanted revenge to punish and curse those who rejected him first, because he was afraid his own curse would burn him from inside out. so when he came across yuuji, a boy just as strong, with the same potential and the same hair colour lol and realised he is still nothing like him that the only curse he’s burden with is sukuna himself… I think something must have snapped in him. I think that little cursed wretch got jealous. I mean how come this brat, this “weakling” who definitely doesn’t have the same potential as him could ever reach his heights and become as strong as sukuna if not stronger. how come he can be his equal when he’s just so… disgustingly human? it’s like some part of sukuna realised that yuuji is both strong and loved despite carrying a curse inside him, a curse he later realised he was also born with. 

I think that must have stung… knowing that due to some twist of fate, a guy that might as well be another version of him since he was made from the same soul as his… just had it better. that he didn’t have to become the strongest, a deity, a calamity to earn respect and receive love… because he had it from the start. 

so to answer to your question after my long and probably unnecessary rant lol I think the moment yuuji defeated sukuna and THEN offered him to live with him and accepted him even if the rest of the world might not, and despite putting yuuji through hell and later turning into a literal blob, meant more to sukuna than sukuna would ever be willing to admit. In that moment yuuji gave sukuna something no one else ever did - love and acceptance. I think this alone is what allowed sukuna to find peace in death. he may have lost everything, but in the end he was finally able to regain his humanity. I believe that’s why he decided to head north and start again. he died as a curse, but now he can be reborn as human, because in the end he was still loved…

and to be loved is to be changed. 

also right now I'm only enjoying phantom parade through other means (new illustrations and people who actually play it lol) since I’m not a gamer myself… but I still might stick around for a bit longer we’ll see :] 

thank you for your ask and hope to see you around too!! 

[rachetmath]

Pyrrha: Hi you must be Alyx.

Alyx: Yes.

Pyrrha: Well I just want to talk to you about something.

Alyx: I mean sure but what-

Pyrrha: Not what. It’s who. You know Jaune Arc?

Alyx: I mean y-

Pyrrha: You know the Rustud Knight? The one you betrayed? Who you poisoned?

Alyx: Well I can- *attempts to run*

Penny: *blocks her path*Nope. All attempts of escape are at zero right now.

Alyx: You can’t be serious.

Penny: As the current generation would say," Oh yes bitch. Try me."

Alyx: Okay I may have wronged him a little bit.

Lewis: A little? You completely poisoned him.

Alyx: Lewis you are not helping.

Lewis: At least like Jaune I was trying. But you never listen.

Alyx: Look I understand but what’s the big deal? He got back to Remnant.

Pyrrha: Why?! Why did you do it?

Alyx: I mean… well… I… um….

Pyrrha: Alyx, understand, you have two deadly women on both sides of you. If you don’t give us a good explanation well…. I guess we’ll finally see if you can fall from heaven.

Alyx: Well I saw this vision and I didn’t like it.

Penny: Understood, what was the vision?

Alyx: Um… I *whisper* don’t remember.

Penny: You what?!

Alyx: I don’t remember okay?!

Pyrrha: What vision? Who’s vision?

Alyx: I don’t know. The writers didn’t give me anything. I saved him though. That counts, right?

Pyrrha: No. He just survived.

Penny: Plus your ‘help’ could give him problems down the road.

Alyx: Like what?

Me: I mean the fan base speaks for itself. I mean the guy hasn’t been in Remnant for years it’s going to be kind of hard for him to readjust. Not only that he has to recover from years of isolation, PTSD, trauma, and because of you he might as well also be having trust issues. Not only that he had to leave another friend behind. You and the Ever After might as have shattered him

Alyx: Oh Oum.

Pyrrha: Yeah. Oum can’t save you. Penny.

Penny: Way ahead of you.

Alyx: Wait you wouldn’t hurt an innocent black child right?

Pyrrha and Penny: ………..

Me: Alyx you heard the saying, “Equal rights equal fights.”

Alyx: Let’s say I don’t.

Me: No matter your race. No matter your sexuality. No more matter your gender or age. You made a choice to do what you do. And as a result of said choice you must face said consequences. Weither they be good or bad. Basically you may be a kid but you were grown enough commit murder. And as such-

Pyrrha: You have this coming.

Alyx: *crying* I’m sorry. I just wanted to home. Jaune had no idea how. So I did what ever took. And then the Cat betrayed me and I died. Please? Don’t hurt me!

Summer: Come now ladies. I know you’re both upset but-

Pyrrha: Ms. Rose! Shut up!

Summer: I’m sorry? Who are you talking to?

Pyrrha: You are a nobody. You have been irrelevant for a while now. You left your daughters and died. Your daughter ain’t shit. Your team is still disbanded even after you died. You might as well be an afterthought at this point.

Summer: Said the girl who’s only job was to run away.

Pyrrha: I went out in a blaze of glory. I proved myself. What the fuck have you done?

Summer: Um.

Penny: Friend Pyrrha I know I have no rights to talk.

Pyrrha: Damn straight. You suffered more than myself. All you had to do was live. Instead, you traumatized my man. He just got over me too. Why would you do that?

Penny: Okay, I’m sorry. But, he’s going to be fine now. Let’s just let her go. And we pray he gets better.

Pyrrha: Fine. You're lucky Alyx.

Alyx: Thank you. But I am sorry.

Pyrrha: Shut up. Oum damn. If this story continues he better get stronger and kill Cinder. Because this is stupid. I mean how much trauma does one guy need? How he is not a villain? I mean, come on, he can’t be like Yuji, he doesn’t have skills like that.

Penny: Well friend W-

Pyrrha: If you say her name I will end you.

Summer: Okay woah, it’s been nine volumes why are you mad about this?

Pyrrha: One; he deserves better. Two; I prefer your daughter or anyone else than her. Three; she’s fucking useless. And four; it took him being an old man for her to start liking him. Fuck that bitch.

Summer: Well like said, if you stayed alive then-

Pyrrha: If you stayed alive maybe Qrow would have stopped drinking. If you stayed alive maybe your baby daddy wouldn’t be in a state of depression. Maybe if you stayed alive you could help your daughter learn how to control her eyes and be less useless in fighting the Queen of Grimm.

Summer: That was uncalled for.

Pyrrha: Move along side character.

[honeycreammilkshake]

Reading your anons and your answers I think the problem with those fans is that they only accept a character if it's involved with satoru.

Like, apparently you are not allowed to like Sukuna anymore nor like both yuji and sukuna, but you were only allowed to like AND analyze Sukuna when he was fighting Satoru loool

I'm sorry but Sukuna is more than that, sukuna doesn't need THAT fight to be a character in his own, Sukuna also kept analyzing and having cool moments with other characters, just because your favorite character was dead doesn't mean other things stopped existing. This is one of those cases where fans keep thinking the manga is about some secondary character

hi, anon. thank you so much for this ask. i'm going to follow this up by making an unnecessarily long and ranty post nobody's going to bother to read, but i felt the overwhelming need to go in-depth for this anyways. apologies for the length of this.

to start off, i'm going to point out something that will probably get me a lot of hate or at least criticism from gojo fanatics, but i think it should be said for all those out there who keep twisting jkk to fit their own problematic concept of morals.

so we all know sukuna is the big bad of jjk. he's the main antagonist, the evil cannibal monster, a god of chaos and apathy and murder. i'm not here to argue against this, though. it's been clear from the beginning sukuna is a true villain in all of his actions and beliefs. however, we really need to look at the contexts behind how he became such a monster and consider if he's actually the most "evil" sorcerer/curse in the jujutsu world or not.

i'm going to address the underlying problem with the pro-gojo/anti-sukuna fans who twist the story to suit their own views first.

so gojo was born with a tremendous amount of power, so much that he's been branded the strongest jujutsu sorcerer of the modern age. he literally shifted the flow of cursed energy and from the start was set apart from others. it's truly terrifying how much power he has...

so it's a good thing he's a real sweet and caring guy, right?

if only.

gojo is irredeemably self-absorbed, unhealthily egotistical, obsessed with his own abilities, demeaning and insulting to others, brutal to his students and dismissive of their safety, and more than willing to commit mass murder.

when fighting with jogo, for example, he doesn't seem bothered at all by the massacre of innocent people during their battle, and is even willing to sacrifice bystanders all in the name of winning.

he's displayed this same kind of general apathy for the lives of others in his past as well.

in his past arc, it was geto who saved gojo from becoming an actual villain and instead managed to set gojo on the path of becoming the slightly less evil antihero he is today. however, after riko's death, the experience turned both of them on each other as they settled on opposite sides of "good vs evil."

without geto there to guide him, though, gojo would have easily lost his way and turned evil .... so where was a person like that for sukuna?

the jujutsu world is extremely heartless and obsessed with strength. the jujutsu higher-ups were willing to kill yuuji - an innocent teenager who just happened to become dangerously involved with the world of curses and the host of sukuna - as well as risk the health and safety of countless others, sorcerers and normal people alike. the whole jujutsu world is full of corruption and cold, cruel people.

but this is just in the modern world - during the golden age of jujutsu, in the heian era, conditions were even harsher and crueler than they are now. during this time, existence for regular people in japan was demanding, quality of life was very low, and so many died of sickness and starvation. the amount of curses that arose from all this suffering was immense and required the extreme powers of sorcerers to balance it out.

this is the context of sukuna's birth. he came into this world as a child of a starving mother and he himself would have starved if he didn't consume his twin in the womb.

during his conversation with kashimo, who asks if sukuna was born with that much power or if he gained it throughout his life, sukuna himself seems to not know. all he can say is... he was an unwanted wretch.

societal demands and religious fights back then would have led to an overwhelming stigma and dehumanization of anything that people feared or didn't understand... which probably means that sukuna, who was able to be born from the act of eating his own unborn twin, was seen as monstrous from the day of his birth on. and if he was indeed born with such strength and a body merged with that of his twin's, or at least the compacity to become that, he was also most likely villainized for his nature as well.

where gojo was more embraced and highly coveted by the jujutsu world, the world sukuna was born into most likely shunned him and led him to adapt the kind of mindset he has now.

sukuna sees strength as the only means of survival, rising above the cruelty shown to him to become the cruelest himself. this philosophy, which a lot of people at this time believed in - especially in the jujutsu world - shows us that sukuna probably saw his own really option to endure was to become a monster. those at the top are above all the weak feelings and suffering of the ones beneath, after all, or so he believes.

and it seems like so many of the strongest sorcerers still believe in that concept as well. both yorozu and gojo thought they could reach sukuna by challenging him, but in the end... only yuuji ever connected with the king of curses.

(yes i will fit sukuita in here... even if you don't ship them romantically, it's an undeniable fact that their relationship is much more complex than it seems and that yuuji does in fact care for the very monster he's supposed to destroy.)

when sukuna's dying in chapter 268, yuuji makes it clear that he's willing to serve the kind of caring, understanding role in sukuna's life that was most likely never given to him.

instead of dehumanizing sukuna, yuuji actually accepts that sukuna turned out to be the monster he is and says it was all a matter of chance how they became like this.

this a level of empathy, intimacy, and compassion that someone like gojo (and pretty much the vast majority of jjk characters) could never show. sukuna himself seems at a loss for words for this unbelievably caring treatment from yuuji - he's even surprised enough to use the brat's full name.

and i dislike that fans are starting to twist this interaction between them to make it fit their own views of sukuna and gojo.

look, i like gojo objectively. he's a fine enough character and serves an important role in jjk. i'm not against him or his fans, and i certainly don't want to hurt or make light of other people's feelings towards him. however, i do want to point something out that some fans should really know better. so many antis are against us sukuita shippers and/or sukuna fans and their main argument, over and over again, is how evil and monstrous sukuna is and that gojo is obviously better in every way. they claim that because gojo is on the side of good, it means sukuna is the worst in terms of morals (when villains like kenjaku are arguably just as terrible if not more so but dismissed so easily) we are delusional or wrong for sympathizing with sukuna.

so i would like to say to these people... please stop using these pallid, baseless arguments against us sukuna lovers because they're just so inaccurate and keep misunderstanding the whole story. it's more than okay to have your own headcanons and depictions of a fictional character, whether they're sukuna or gojo or any of the others - but do not force that depiction on others and do not force your interpretation of the source material on us just to appease your own opinions.

please be more respectful to others, please keep your own dislikes to yourself instead of lashing out at other fans you could instead just avoid, and please stop being so mean to gege. whether or not he makes gojo return should not be a reason to spread such hate about him. it's disrespectful towards both him and all writers who work so hard to make the content you treat so harshly.

thank you.

[everythingseasoning]

M’s Jujutsu Kaisen masterlist

// scroll for all characters

MINORS CAN INTERACT ONLY WITH fluff/SFW CONTENT, otherwise mdni with content labeled NSFW

Headcanons here :P :D // SMAU’s here

“Canon” one-shots, fics (w/o reader)*

Analysis Stuff (characters, duos)

JJK x reader below!

Satoru Gojo

Stay With Me, Satoru masterlist (long fic)

Reader is Suguru’s younger sister. Enemies to lovers, Slow burn. Story takes place at the START OF GETO’S VILLAIN ARC (Geto tries to kill you, his sister).

You resent Gojo. He replaced you as Suguru’s best friend once Suguru went off to Jujutsu High at the age of 14. You miss your brother, and you watched him grow distant and turn cold over the years. One day, over a decade later, Suguru comes back into your life. The summer in which your brother is back home— unfortunately bringing Gojo as well— but still, you have hopes that it’ll be a sweet reconnection, until the darkness crashes down upon you. Suguru and betrayal are two words you never would’ve imagined went together. Nor did the words Satoru and warmth seem like a match either, until you have to lean on your sworn enemy when all other hope is lost.

NSFW: Feral Satoru x Virgin Reader (smut MDNI)

NSFW Drabble/*Fic Idea: Infinity backfired (smut, MDNI)

…more to come

Suguru Geto

NSFW: Your Grace (fic, smut MDNI)

You would’ve never guessed that the university’s most coveted, notorious, tortured poet would ever fall for you, much less you for him. But just as sparks fly, you’re torn away and disappear for five years…

When you cross paths with Geto again all those years later, will it be like the invisible string knotted itself into a perfect bow, linking you two together, or will the same mistakes end your love for good?

…more to come

Choso Kamo

We’ve Met Before masterlist (multi-chapter fic)

…Little do you know that you and Choso were lovers in a past life. When you meet Choso, at a college party of all places, you can’t help but feel enamored. Unfortunately, murders and missing person cases have also been popping up around your college campus, disrupting the lifestyle of all those at Jujutsu University— and the latest case has been brewing closer than you’d think. Your lying, cheating ex Sukuna, is also running around freely, and trying to prevent any semblance of finding love in your life.

NSFW: Virgin Choso touches himself for the first time while thinking of you (smut MDNI)

NSFW Drabble: Riding Choso (smut, MDNI)

…more to come

Kento Nanami

…more to come

Yuta Okkotsu

…more to come

Shoko Ieiri

…more to come

Utahime Iori

…more to come

SFW: fluff/hcs/fics/one shots/angst/comfort below:

Yuji Itadori

…more to come

Megumi Fushiguro

…more to come

Toge Inumaki

…more to come

Itafushi

…more to come

Characters are of Gege Akutami’s work Jujutsu Kaisen. All ideas and writings here are my own. Do not plagiarize them.

© M, everythingseasoning on tumblr, 2022-2024

[linkspooky]

You need to make another one of those "metas written by comparing characters with another show you liked" post about Getou now that you experienced FGO Morgan/Aesc.

Time to compare two characters from two different shows I liked (in this case Jujutsu Kaisen and Fate Grand Order: Cosmos of the Lostbelt 6 Faerie Britian) to illustrate what makes a good corruption / fallen hero arc. Two of the best examples I can think of in recent memory are Geto Suguru, and Morgan le Fay of Faerie Britian. They both have tragic arcs which follow similar beats which I think will illustrate exactly why audiences find these characters so compelling.

Both of these characters have their stories told out of order, appearing as villains first before their backstory is revealed but for the sake of simplicity I'm going in chronological order, the heroes they started as all the way to the villains they ended up being.

Before beginning though, a brief lesson on tragedy. Aristotle's poetics argued tragedy runs on the principal of catharsis. The audience feels for the characters on stage, no matter how terrible their acts may be. He argued in favor of moral ambiguity in its heroes. The tragic hero must neither be a villan or virtuous man, but a "character between these two extremes, ... a man who is not eminently goo and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice of depravity, but by some error or frailty [Aristotle's Poetics.]

The protagonists of tragedies are still heroes, but their good qualities are twisted against them. A tumblr post I see going around from time to time makes the argument that if Othello (the protagonist of Othello) were in Hamlet the story would not be a tragedy because Otello would just stab his uncle and avenge his father. If Hamlet (the protagonist of Hamlet) were in Othello, the story would not be a tragedy because Hamlet who is a characteristic overthinker would probably not fall victim to Iago's manipulations and jump to conclusions the way Othello did. Both of these characters are heroic, Hamlet is a clever and scheming prince, Othello is a talented general a moor who's managed to rise up the ranks in a racist society. However, they are both put into stories where those heroic values are twisted against them by the narrative framework itself. So to make the protagonists of tragedies into villains who were evil all along, ruins the moral ambiguity and therefore the catharsis of a tragedy.

Geto Suguru and Morgan Le Fay are heroes, placed in a narrative framework that twists their own heroic traits against them in ways they can't endure. They fall because of frailty, not because they were inherently evil to begin with. They are antagonists who have the qualities of protagonists, and once were arguably protagonists of the story, which is probably why they have so many fans in the audience despite the fact that they are both of them mass murderers and tyrants.

Now with the long preamble let's look at the stories.

Both characters start as essentially protagonists, and they foil the protagonists they are fighting against during their villain phase. Geto Suguru is a heavy foil for Yuji (we'll talk about this later) and Morgan so heavily foils Castoria because they are both the chosen one.

I'm going to start with Morgan because Fate/Nasuverse lore is a pain to explain. To simplify her story, Morgan Le Fay is from an alternate universe version of Britian. In that Britian everything is ruled by faeries. These are trickster faeries who are total jerks and extremely murderous at times. They were supposed to forge excalibur, but they just didn't do it because they were lazy. This was very bad, so the universe sent a big huge guy to tell them to forge the sword. They were lazy though so instead of listening to him they murdered him in his sleep and he died a horrible death.

The faeries could no longer be forgiven for failing to craft excalibur which is a really important sword that needed to exist, so god or heaven or fate or whoever decided to punish them and sent Aesc who will later be known as Morgan le Fay.

There's some time travel shenanigans but I'm going to skip it because it's confusing. Basically Aesc's job is to wipe out all fairy life and bring an end to their alternate universe, but she decides to defy her destiny instead. The heavens or whoever keep conjuring calamities to wipe out the fairites to punish them for their sins, but instead Aesc fights against them and saves the fairies.

I had a duty to paradise, but I knew that duty would result in Britiain's destruction. This other me, though... She loved Britiain dearly, even the lostbelt version of it. I thought about it, and I realized I wanted the same thing she did. From then on I chose to live as her. (Witch! Witch! Witch! You were the only one to survive the calamity) Countless times, I stopped the calamities. Countless times, I mended clan disputes to end wars. I did not mind. It was not the fairies I loved. I only loved britain itself and the home I would make here. It would be my very own Britian - something that was forever beyond my reach in Proper Human History. I did everything I could to make it a reality. Eventually though, I realized the best way to do that was to keep the faeries safe.

However, because Aesc is not one of them the fairies are generally ungrateful for her saving them again and again. Aesc gathers comrades around her to help ward off these calamities and save people, but she's often attacked by the same fairies she's just saved.

She continues fighting the system of her world again and again, until she's betrayed for the last time in her attempt to save Britan. The final straw is when after years of hard work she's finally brokered a piece and made a king who rules over all the allied fairy tribes, only for his coronation to be ruined, the king to be assassinated along with the entire round table. The king was also her lover, Uther.

Aaah! Aaaah! Why? Why? Why? This was supposed to be the greatest day in fairy history... Everything was supposed to change for the better! BUt they killed Uther! They slaughtered my entire round table like they were trash! They asked the world of us! They thought the world of Uther! BUt now, they've poisoned him...THey were too afraid to even face him cowards. Uther talk to me, please say something! I never let failure stop me! I've kept trying all these thousands of years! Am I doomed to failure here, too! Is it still not enough? Am I not enough? Is it not... Can I not save Britain? Is there no Britain that can be mine! Peace, equality, I never should have tried for either! How dare they! I can never forgive them ever!

You see much like Geto Suguru which I'll later illustrate, Aesc is caught in a cycle where she must continually fight disasters for the faeries to save them only to be met with their continued disdain. Her own higher minded intentions to save the people are what damns her to this painful cycle. If she'd been less heroic, if she didn't care she wouldn't have suffered. She's sacrificing herself over and over again, but sacrificing yourself is in a way just suffering. No one actually wants to walk the thorny path of the martyr, you'll get your feet hurt from all the thorns.

The people who are now accustomed to being saved despite doing none of the work themselves, are by and by completely ungrateful for Aesc's sacrifice. Aesc is a hero, but she's not in a hero's story so she doesn't get any of the benefits of a hero really. She's working with higher minded and more idealistic goals in a deeply cynical world and punished for it. I remind you, she was just there to kill all the faeries and end the world but she tried to save them instead.

It's important to emphasize their good intentions, because a shallower character reading would suggest that they just came out of the womb wanting to murder people. However, they're driven to it because they tried to be good, because they tried to be a hero. They are like Hamlet, and like Othello in the wrong story. They're also sacrificing themselves going against the system of their world and trying to be better than it, only to get dragged down. Their resentment grows against the people they are trying to save, the selfish and weak people who don't seem all that grateful for their heroism. The ones who aren't making sacrifices, the ones who are just content being saved.

I finally understood. My enemy wasn't just the calamities, it was the faeries of Britain as well. They were pure and innocent in the truest sense, they enjoyed both good and evil things alike without losing either that purity or innocence. They are at their core, no different from the loathsome humans who drove me from britain. So I crushed every possible source of malice. Vested interests. Discrimmination. Oppression. Envy. Mockery. All of it. But it wasn't enough. A few fairies took a look at the foundation of peace so many had worked so hard to build ... and tore it apart, because they didn't like it, because they could.

This is what finally leads to Morgan's breaking point, to decide that actually... fairies don't deserve rights. Morgan decides that the fairies are unworthy of salvation and rather than being the hero the only way to accomplish her goals is to become the oppressor and tyrant.

I give up, if everything has failed if it has all come to nothing, then I can never believe in people's so called goodness or understand it. Even if I did, what would be the point? Everything I did, everything I worked for... was just a waste of time. After all the times they betrayed me I should ahve known better... but I still clung foolishly to a sliver of hope. ANd now, because I wasted my time caring about something so utterly absurd, I've failed yet again. If my intent was to keep britain alive, then I was a fool to think being its savior was the way to accomplish it. No more. I will find another way. A better way. ...That's it. I won't deliver the fairies to absolution; I won't deliver salvation. Enough of this faerie of paradise, enough of being Avalon le Fae, I should have ruled this land from the start.

However, as I said it's only Morgan's repeated attempts to be the hero and save the fairies that drove her to this conclusion. However, I'd be amiss to say that Morgan didn't have flaws or selfish qualities from the start. Morgan le Fay is created from the Morgan le Fay we created with from proper legend. I'm not going to explain the lore, but basically she's an alternate universe version, who received memories from the Morgan le Fay of our universe. She knows the story of Morgan le Fay who tried to steal King Arthur's kingdom out from under him.

Alternate Universe Morgan le Fay still had the same chip on her shoulder, and entitlement that our Morgan did. She wanted the kingdom, and wanted Britain for herself. Her desire to play savior might have come from that very same entitlement that she deserves britain. Similiarly, she was most likely hurt so badly from the lack of praise because she also deserves praise for her actions. She has a bit of a superiority complex that places her above the fairies and makes her believe she has the right to rule.

However, as I said Morgan didn't start out as a tyrant she did earnestly try to save the faeries despite harboring those more negative qualities and selfish intentions. She may have had a more self-serving variety of selflessness but it's more the fragility of her that causes her fall. She didn't fall because she was rotten to begin with, she was just not strong enough to withstand years and years of ungratefulness from the faeries and betrayal. She has all the makings of a proper hero, she decides to defy destiny to save the people of faerie britain when she was supposed to be their destroyer. However, because she's in a tragedy she falls due to her insecurities and flaws overwhelming her rather than rising to the occasion.

Her manga chapter and the FGO Lostbelt game prose itself uses the light in the distance as a metaphor for this. Morgan continues going forward on the faint light of hope that things will work out for her and that even as a tyrant she can save Britain. However, it's that same light that damns her. In tragedies heroic qualities become flipped into flaws. Morgan's most heroic quality is her determination, the willpower to endeavor for thousands of years to try to save Faerie Britain, but that determination makes her unchanging, causes her to make the same mistakes over and over again, and just makes her continually suffer like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the hill.

But that light is just an insect trap - or at least that's how it is for the protagonist of the tragedy. Road to hell, and all that.

After reaching her breaking point Morgan decides she'll no longer try to save the fairies but rather only care about saving the kingdom itself. She goes from the kingdom's hero to its oppressive tyrant after seizing the throne for herself.

That's where we meet the villain we know today.

Now shifting gears to Geto Suguru, he is someone who starts out his story trying to be a hero. A little bit of context on the world of Jujutsu Kaisen, it takes place in an urban fantasy version of Japan where the jungian collective unconscious and the negative emotions of humanity create curses that kill and eat people. These curses need to be exorcised by a few special humans who are given superpowers known as jujutsu sorcerers.

There is an institution of sorcerers known as Jujutsu High, which raises sorcerers from a young age gifted with these powers to exorcise sorcerers. THese teenagers are often sent out on msisions. This is different from most stories of teenage heroes with superpower, because fighting curses is brutal and dangerous and most of these kids are going to die young. There's also no end in sight to the fight against curses, because no matter how many curses are exorcised humans will just keep making more.

Not only do they live in a cynical, and brutal world but most sorcerers are insanely selfish. Just to give an example of how immoral sorcerers are, one of the allies of the main characters is implied to molest her brother, and if she's not she still uses her like 12 year old brother as a child soldier. Nobody ever bothers to question this because the institution of sorcerers are inherently corrupt, it's an instituion that continually sends children off to their deaths and uses people as nothing more than cogs.

Caught within this unfair system and trapped in a cycle of exorcising curses that are just going to come back anyway is Geto Suguru, who is not only a model sorcerer he's presented as much more selfless than your average sorcerer. He's directly contrasted against Gojo Satoru who is kind of just a petty kid with a god complex.

Gojo uses his powers selfishly, he only fights because he's really powerful and killing curses is a way to test and use his abilities. (This is literally stated as canon by Nanami don't fight me on this I'm simplifying his motivations because this is not a Gojo meta look at the entire fight with Sukuna saving Megumi was a secondary concern he wanted to fight a strong opponent). Whether people are saved by his actions are a secondary concern.

Geto on the other hand goes against the grain for most of Jujutsu Society, and believes that they as stronger people have a duty to use their strength to protect the weak. This idea of noblesse oblige is way way different from the attitudes of most sorcerers, who as I said usually turn into petty little people with god complexes.

Not to say Geto doesn't have a god complex, but we'll get to that later. Geto is explicitly contrasted against Gojo who's the only other powerful sorcerer and his best friend, but doesn't think they have an obligation to use their powers to help anyone.

Right away we have two things in common with Morgan le Fay, number one they hold themselves to a higher minded ideal that of using their powers to act as a hero and protect the people underneath them. Number two, this is a choice they make to be better than the people around them. Morgan's destiny is to destroy the faeries and she tries to save them. Sorcerers usually just keep their heads down and do their jobs, they're not heroes, they don't save people they kill curses. In fact, the sorcerers who are selfish assholes (Mei Mei) are wildly succesful, the ones who try to help other people like Nanami die young.

They sacrifice themselves for others. Geto pursuing his higher minded ideal is faced with the same kind of tragedy that Morgan is, where his attempts to save a teenage girl named Riko not only blatantly fail, they fail because of Toji a person who cannot use cursed energy. Everyone they tried to protect died, and they're shown first hand not only does the world not really care about their idealism, but they're not really powerful enough to change this world in any way.

Morgan's lover Uther and all of her allies is ruthlessly slaughtered, by the same faeries she was trying to save after she brokered peace. Geto tries to save a little girl, and he not only watches her die, but he sees an entire crowd of normal people, the people he is fighting to save applause for her death. They all applaud her death because they're a part of a cult that believes that the girl was an affront to their god, but she was mostly just a normal teenager. He witnesses first hand that normal people do not care for the fate of Jujutsu Sorcerers whatsoever.

If Geto were more selfish he would be rewarded. If he didn't attempt to save people, if he just only cared about exorcising curses like Gojo did he'd probably become more powerful and he wouldn't succumb to despair the way he had. Geto exists in a narrative where selfishness is rewarded, and his selfless, heroic traits are continually punished.

This traumatic event makes him aware similarly to the brutal cycle he is caught up in. Morgan le Fay can't save the faeries, because faeries are jerks who can't change. Geto will just continually exorcise curses over and over again. Not only is humanity just going to keep producing more curses, but humans are vastly indifferent to the sacrifices that sorcerers (who are mostly children) keep making to try and save them.

Geto's choice to protect people is the cause of his suffering, because sacrifice is inherently taking on suffering for the sake of someone else - therefore sacrifice is suffering.

This too, leads to Geto's eventual breaking point where he lets his resentment for the same people he's trying to save corrupt him. An incident where just after seeing his dear friend die because of a curse, he's brought to a village of people. The whole village put two little girls in a cage, who were capable of seeing curses and blamed them as the scapegoat for a curse reflecting his village. Geto sees a flash of what happened to Riko again, a crowd full of normal people who don't have to fight curses applauding for the sacrifice of a little girl who was innocent. It's the macrocosm, all of society forcing a few sorcerers to die exorcising curses for them, shown on the microcosm, one village scapegoating two little girls who did nothing wrong.

That's what leads Geto to snap and massacre the whole village. He's now turned against the masses he wants to protect. He then decides that instead of protecting the masses, he's going to kill them and build a world of only sorcerers. He's no longer trying to save them, like Morgan le Fay he's turned to the hero and the Tyrant.

They both even utter similiar words.

I will never save the faeries! I will never forgive the faeries! I don't like monkeys. That's the truth I chose.

Monkeys is by the way, the word Geto uses to refer to normal people who cannot fight curses or even see them. People who don't have superpowers.

One more time I want to emphasize Geto did not come out of the womb wanting genocide. Hamlet didn't start out the play stabbing people. He does have his flaws, just like Morgan by assuming the role of the hero he sees himself in a separate, superior category to the people he wants to protect. There's a line I like in a youtube analysis for for Yuji that applies to Geto as well.

(Other people exist to be saved, which gives Yuji a role in the world) In a way Yuji thinks other people exist to validate his own existence.

Geto begins the story not seeing other people as people. They exist in a category separate from himself. Part of the reason that his failures hit him so hard, is because they disprove this idea of superiority he has for himself. He's shown his god complex is just a complex and he's as flawed and capable of failure as any mortal.

It's an inability to recognize that failure, learn from it, and reconcile it with themselves that causes both Morgan le Fay and Geto to spiral. They are the hero, they are trying to be just, they should reap the just rewards for being a hero. Geto even says as such in a moment of rare jealousy for Gojo, that Gojo is someone who also has godlike power and if Geto had that same power he could change the world the way he wants. He could create his more just world.

Morgan and Geto are characters who begin their narratives with superior complexes and senses of entitlement, selfishly selfess heroes and those negative qualities eventually lead them to fail. Geto thought being a sorcerer made him superior, he just also thought that with that superiority came a responsibility to protect others. Morgan le Fay thought she was the rightful king of Britain, she also thought that divine right to be king also came with an obligation to protect Britain. However, they're not meant to be seen as people who all along wanted to oppress and hurt others.

The key word with tragedy is catharsis, we are supposed to feel for the protagonists of tragedies. We're supposed to see our own traits reflected in them. It's their human qualities to drive them to tragedy.

After all, you reader on tumblr would probably not be able to be a perfectly selfless hero. If you saved someone and then they immediately tried to kill you, you would probably just be a little bitter about it. If you were like Geto and you were working tirelessly to exorcise curses, and all you got was your friends dying, I don't think you'd be like "This is okay :D". If anything, going mad in their extreme circumstances seems like a reasonable response, because could we as the audience do any better in their situations?

Of course the last similarity between Geto and Morgan (besides the fact they both adopt daughters they raise up to be little psychos but this post is getting too long already) is the fact that they both heavily foil the heroes of the story they occupy. They see themselves as villain, they play the role of villain, but they're really just heroes of another story.

Paradise or god or fate or whatever in Faerie britain eventually conjures up another chosen one. This chosen one Altria or as the fandom calls her Castoria is far less heroic. IN fact unlike Morgan who embraces the role of savior she would rather do anything she could to avoid Britain.

This is because for similiar reasons as Morgan, the faeries have basically abused her and tormented her all her life. Yet they still expect her to selflessly step up as their chosen one and save the day from the evil oppressive tyrant Morgan.

You have one protagonist who embraces their heroic quest, and even goes above and beyond by ignoring her destiny to wipe out the faeries and saving them instead. You have another who continually runs away from the heroic quest, and honestly doesn't seem to care that much about saving faeries.

Morgan is actually openly sympathetic to Castoria, and even offers to ally with her a couple of times because she bears the same burden as chosen one. This is another example of how Morgan doesn't quite fit the role of either hero or villain, the ambiguity who makes tragedy.

However, while Morgan does everything to defy fate, Castoria just kind of keeps marching along every step of Joseph Campbell's the heroes journey until she ends up defeating Morgan. Well she doesn't truly defeat her, but Morgan meets her tragic end and gets stabbed a whole bunch of times.

There's a similiar foiling between Geto, and the series protagonist Yuji who both start out the story believing that as sorcerers they have a duty to save others. There are several in story comparisons and direct parallels between the two.

Yuji attempts to save others with his power as a sorcerer over and over again, and is met with the same continual failure that Geto has. Yuji is the only real sorcerer in his generation that cares about saving strangers with his powers. Nobara wants money to live in Tokyo, Megumi only cares about protecting Yuji and his sister, Yuta only cares about his friends, Maki only wants revenge against her clan. Like Maki blatantly says whether people get saved or not by her actions is none of her business.

His own attempts to save people not only fail badly, but he watches people die. He watches a lot of people die in a situation where he is powerless to stop them.

He's met with the same tragedy of Geto but he doesn't succumb to it. The same for Castoria she doesn't decide to be a Tyrant the way that Morgan le Fay did. I would argue this isn't because of any inherent goodness that Castoria or Yuji have but rather because both of them are able to let go of their egoes. Yuji kind of believes the same thing Geto does, that other people exist to be saved by him. He's broken when he realizes that he's not a savior after all...but he's able to continue in a way that Geto isn't.

Yuji lets go of his ego entirely and believes that he's just a cog in the machine and he doesn't need to be some big hero or be rewarded at the end of his hero's journey.

Geto and Morgan le Fay both long for a role in the grand scheme of things. They are still employing narrative thinking, they need to play a story role to validate their existences. It's just that they flipped their role, they tried being the heroes but it didn't work so they're the villains now.

Geto is similiarly rebuffed by Yuta who is his eventual killer by saying that he doesn't actually care about saving the world or if Geto is right that sorcerers are superior to humans, he's only fighting for his friends.

I would say for both castoria and yuji it's not a matter of being inherently good people, but rather of being better at enduring than their counterparts are. Morgan le Fay and Geto try to take the world's suffering on their shoulders, and it breaks them because they're not heroes they're just normal people. Yuji, Castoria and to the same extent Yuta kind of learn to let go of their great heroic aspirations but because of that they're able to take on suffering better. They're trying to live in reality not a grand heroic fantasy.

To bring the example back to FGO, for Castoria and for Morgan the light of hope that led them down their heroic journeys mean two different things. For Morgan that light is an insect trap. Her flying towards that light just causes her to keep suffering through her sisyphian task. Castoria has a much more realistic point of view, she's not trying to get a happy ending or even save people, that light is the hope that at the end of her journey her actions will have meant something. It's more about the journey itself and the people she met along the way, then some big grand reward at the end.

Morgan le Fay and Geto both fail because they are fragile, because they are human. That's the most important takeaway of this long rambling post. They may be selfish, they may be entitled but they're flawed in human ways. After all, who doesn't want a happy ending?

[bibibbon]

Sukuna is a good villain analysis

Coming from someone who hates villains that are evil because they were born that way and with no other explanation. To be honest, out of all the villains in jjk I always found sukuna to be somewhat boring , he is well written but I just couldn't really see what people saw in him. I still think that kenjaku is way more interesting than him but I will say that due to the recent arc and chapters that my opinion of sukuna has significantly changed.

Sukuna is the abstract embodiment of nihilism (in a way). His character for the longest time has always been about destruction and chaos. Sukuna's first introduction consists of him saying that he is going to destroy absolutely everything and there is a heavy focus on him destroying the woman and children. He simply views then as little maggots that he can easily destroy with ease. We later learn the connection (I guess) he has to his mother which he doesn't regard her disrespectfully and his devoured twin whom he is shown to remember the presence of. Every time we meet him before shibuya his power is further emphasised and he is further demonised and built to be the big bad.

It is later in shibuya, during his fight with jogo that we get more to sukuna. In this fight sukuna brings out his CT of flames and jogo is surprised however, before sukuna kills jogo they share an interesting conversation. Sukuna recognises jogo's ideology and desires to be human and sukuna relates to it. He understands jogo's desires of taking humans place and ruling the world yet he views that view as foolish. This is where we learn that sukuna believes that being alone and having the power to destroy everything you care about is what makes one powerful. This can explain sukunas love for destruction and simple chaos. However, sukuna is incapable of understanding why he is talking to jogo, why does he even care for him in a way and instead of trying to understand he does exactly what he said to jogo that he should do and destroys/ fully burns jogo after calling him "strong". At this point both of these curses have experienced what it's like to be 'human' with emotions flowing through them that aren't negative but while one (jogo) questions it and tires to explore it the other (sukuna) rejects it and burns it all away.

There's also sukuna's relationship with his relatives especially itadori his nephew. Sukuna and itadori share completely different ideologies while sukuna believes in him being the strongest and destroying everything he cares for to stay that way yuji will believes that he is a simple cog in a system and tries to do everything to fulfill his role and protect others. Both are strong characters yet it is yujis drive and strong resolve that makes him so much more mentally stronger than sukuna and what irritates sukuna as yuji is claimed to be unbreakable in his views and passion. Yuji also makes sukuna question his own purpose and what he is here to achieve. Even though the two are strangely similar in many ways considering that yuji is a part of sukuna they're vastly different especially with their ideologies.

There's also the huge contrast between sukuna and his twin Jin itadori. Sukuna is strong, cold hearted and would put himself before anyone. Sukuna doesn't care for others and his existence is mainly him trying to satisfy himself and his needs while flaunting the immense power he carries. Yet from the little we have seen from Jin itadori he is is the polar opposite of sukuna. Jin itadori died for love, he was so blinded by grief that when kaori came back even though it was kenjaku he still loved her the same and he loved itadori more. It was stated that Jin really wanted to have a child and truly cared for itadori to the point he and itadoris grandpa got into fights about it. Jin from the moment we see him seems like a really nice and somewhat nerdy guy the complete opposite to his twin sukuna heck even their character designs are completely different with them only having the same colour hair and eyes (I think).

These twins are also juxtaposed to the zenin twins. Its stated that sukuna had to eat his twin to survive in the womb due to how poor their mother was. However, the only thing that sukuna got out of his twin was the physical characteristic and his CT while Jin's soul went through cycles before coming into he human realm again. This contrasts with eh zenin twins whom voluntary chose to join together and when she died Mai chose to take all the CE they both had while dying physically she joined her sister spiritually by becoming a sword. Maki and Mai will always be together and entwined by their souls. The sukuna and jin twins are only connected physically which could be why sukuna has 4 eyes and 4arms.

Sukunas own character design just shows that he is the embodiment of destruction and how he simply devours everything around him. When asked if sukuna ever feels lonely he literally says that he lives however he wants and that he can eat as much human flesh with all of them tasting different and filling him with different emotions. The closest thing that sukuna has to a friend is his loyal servant urauame and they only obey his orders while entertaining him. It's stated that the only reason sukuna keeps urauame around is due to their talent in cooking human meat, the same thing that gives him joy aka any real emotion.

There are then his other fights that focus on sukuna and his views on love and power. Yorozu's fight is an interesting one where we get more on sukunas cannibalism and how both of those characters view love as a means of destruction and death. Yorozu is happy that sukuna killed her and got to know more about her through that while sukuna is questioned on stuff that he views as pointless and meaningless like marriage. Yorozu sees the solitude that sukuna is surrounded by and think that he can understand her since she has faced similar yet they heavily clash with sukuna believing that to have power one must face the burden of solitude. In the end yorozu, does give sukuna a gift crafted by her which he actually takes and uses during the current battle. Yorozu's attempts to get to sukuna and to make him reciprocate his love all fail even when she makes a TRUE SPHERE. Something that has the largest surface area and can contaminate and touch everything yet sukuna leaves untouched by yorozu at all. I think it's interesting that yorozu's heart took a shape of a true sphere just to show how obsessed she is with sukuna and her desire to be with him.

Sukuna then fights with kashimo. Kashimo somewhat like jogo has an understanding of what it's like to be strong yet kashimo is sick of superficial interactions that the strong have to have with people that are inferior to them or want to challenge them. Kashimo asks sukuna if there is a way where he can be strong and surround himself with love sukuna says that this is selfish thinking considering his view that everything he cares for must be burnt for him to be strong. Kashimo isn't satisfied by only having strength but he also wants to experience simple things such as love, sukuna could of been similar to that long ago yet he gave up and has resorted to taking in all the destruction and enjoying himself from it. Kashimos fight with sukuna was more of a self discovery journey for the both of them and at the end they both come out on different sides.

After higumara's death there is a whole chapter about sukuna and he starts questioning his own life view. What has he been doing? Is it worth it? Where is the joy in what he used to do? And he is again faced with his complete opposite yuji. He is deep in thought and he feels empty, confused even he can't seem to understand why everyone is dedicating themselves to this belief, they're all united and strong yet he is alone and bored. Sukuna has done everything he has fought and killed but like kashimo said that caught up to him and now he is tired of it he wishes to experience the unity and stuff that the others fighting him are experiencing. Sukuna has no purpose but to destroy at this point but he has caused so much that him destroying over and over again has just been a mundane cycle.

Yet things start to change as the tides are against him and he may taste losing for the first time.

In conclusion, sukuna is an abstract and literal ideology of nihilism to a cerian extent and conveys the big bad villain trope in a fantastic way. I find him way more well written than AFO and muzan.

[epickiya722]

I'm still trying to figure out why out of everyone (sans Choso, with that whole huge curse thing... would that count? Nevermind...), Kenjaku used extreme attacks on these two. LOOK AT THOSE PRECIOUS FACES!!

Broke Miwa's sword and decided "Uzumaki it is!" After she became defenseless! No, Kenjaku couldn't just grabbed and tossed her off to the side or something.

Itadori didn't even come close to Kenjaku, he's just trying to get his teacher back, and he got a whole barrage of centipede and catfish curses!

What did my precious cotton candy head kids do to you?!

Like, I get Kenjaku needed to slow Itadori down, yadda yadda. And he got those hands (and boy, does he got hands, Mr. Left Right Good Night). But come on!

And with Miwa! WHAT COULD SHE HAVE DONE AFTER HER SWORD BROKE?! Kenjaku couldn't have been that eager to want to show off Uzumaki. Yes, she tried to cut him, BUT OUT OF ALL THE ATTACKS!

*Don't take this post seriously now.

[sulky-cabbage]

I once made a not so serious post about a possible parallelism between Megumi and Sukuna.

And....

Sorry but how do you keep Megumi trapped inside Sukuna and when Yuji reaches the depths Megumi starts saying this stuff

right after the chapter where Yuji was trying to reach Sukuna and show him the beauty of life without me thinking that what Megumi's saying is a hint to Sukuna's true buried (human?) feelings and maybe what he could never have?? (Or maybe not and he's just the antithesis of Megumi which is another form of parallelism)

Megumi's soul is trapped inside a curse!!!

let me rephrase that...

A "Blessing" is drowned inside the king of curses!!

A "Blessing" that he tried so hard to suppress by killing his love one(s)

This is the exact type of symbolism that sticks in my brain and I just can't ignore it.

Maybe it's a reach but I just can't brush it off!!

Yuji tried to save them both!!

Keep in mind the Ksitigarbha is also a guardian of children and a patron deity of deceased children and aborted fetuses.

Gege did repeat the scene where Satoru meets child Megumi but with Yuji this time!!

Satoru was trying to save Megumi and reach Sukuna but he failed. (Seems like Yuta's method of becoming Satoru also failed)

I didn't take the Yuji being Satoru's parallel seriously before but I think there's some merit to it now.. (especially after that panel of him with child Megumi, Really Gege?)

Yuta was also a gojo parallel (he literally became gojo) and his character was connected to the theme of love as well. (There is also that whole Rika= Geto thing)

Maybe Gege is showing us two types of students? the one that imitates his teacher, and the other one that does it in his own way and actually succeeds??

Reminds me of these images lol

It makes sense that Yuta is the one to carry Satoru's will and kill Kenjaku (a major villain) and maybe even get to bury geto's body and Satoru's body... maybe next to each other?👀

I imagine Shoko will be there too at the burial...

On the other hand we have Yuji dealing with the main villain (the other thing that Satoru wanted to do and failed)..

I can see Yuji having the ability to see the afterlife of others like Sukuna and Maybe he will guide Sukuna and Gojo (and the others?) to go North?

Honestly this correlation between Megumi and Sukuna is interesting I don't know what it is exactly but...

The fact that we found out that Gege planned for Sukuna to possess Megumi from the start but he was told to change it!!??

AND The cursed womb arc (which I think is the heart of the manga) where Sukuna rips Yuji's heart out and says he can live without it but the brat can't..

(Which was a very cool and symbolic way to subtly tell us the difference in their ideals)

I don't know if it still has the double meaning in Japanese... it probably does

The shibuya stuff and everything was to get gojo out of the story so Sukuna can possess Megumi (which is what Gege wanted all along) so he can repeat what happened in the cursed womb arc again but in reverse.

Also..... there's a possible parallel between Megumi killing Tsumiki and Sukuna killing Gojo?????

Gege gave Megumi a sister that's important to him (and literally does nothing with her) makes me think she was made only so she can get killed by Megumi's hands, but not before making her possessed by a woman who's obsessed with teaching Sukuna about love. (Right before his fight with Gojo mind you) and then connecting this love thing with his fight with gojo (possibly Sukuna's important person?) Bringing up yorozu's words again and again and again during the fight!!

He killed gojo while in Megumi's Body!! (He didn't need to do that!! Don't you find it suspicious that right after killing gojo he turns into his true form??????)

He only gets into his true form when he starts fighting Kashimo (who's kinda Satoru's true form in a way) and he uses the weapon Yorozu gave him on Kashimo!!

And then more talk about love ensued !!!!

And love was never brought up again!!

Honestly this whole thing is diabolical I don't know how Gaygay managed to cook this hard !!

I still have no idea how this is gonna end though.. is Sukuna really just evil? Will we ever get his backstory? Will Yuji be able to actually reach him and make Satoru proud?

[voxofthevoid]

Yuji&Co.'s ending might feel rushed as Hell or sloppy or whatever else we want but I quite like Sukuna's ending ngl... Especially when Mahito says that he's gone soft and Sukuna's like, "Of course, I've lost" Idk why, I just like it

You're not alone! I've seen quite a lot of people express satisfaction with Sukuna's ending, especially Sukuna fans themselves. I do think it neatly demonstrates the north/south choice and also serves as a good reconciliation of Sukuna's running tendency to loudly proclaim that he gives no fucks about emotions and people while clearly giving several fucks.

My main issue with it is that, while the destination is interesting in itself, large legs of the journey are missing. We know nearly nothing about Sukuna's life; the last arc gave us a handful of hints, like Sukuna eating his twin in the womb and being viewed/persecuted as an unwanted abomination after birth, but...this is the main villain who also serves as the protagonist's foil. His backstory shouldn't be left as crumbs, especially when it clearly influences Yuuji's ultimate stance toward him, which in turn influences Sukuna's afterlife reflection. We don't even know who the second person he thinks about is; hell, we don't know precisely how he met Uraume or how they could've served as a chance for a kinder life. Maybe it'll be expanded upon in the anime adaptation. I sure hope so.

Re Yuuji and co., I'm pretty happy with Yuuji's character development, as shown in Chapters 265 and 266, but the culmination of his and Sukuna's fight gives me the same feeling of seeing the destination while missing important parts of the journey. After that, the whole story's rushed, and we don't really get to see much of worth, character- or relationship-wise. Nobara becomes a plot device/twist, and the story ending afterward means she doesn't become much else. Megumi is essentially reduced to a MacGuffin in the last arc, and while I don't dislike the manner in which he resolves to live for Yuuji, the fact that he wakes up some hours later with nothing but mild brain fog to show for the possession and UV is frankly boring. Yuuta's survival without any loss or consequences for the body-switching (and its ultimate failure) is also one hell of a cop-out. Finally, the trio's last mission carries none of the weight of the events that preceded it and could've fit into a pre-Shibuya chapter. It's all just...bland. Feels like a different story, honestly.

[tokiro07]

Ichi the Witch ch.6 thoughts

[Let's Goooo Alreadyyy!!!]

(Topics: direction - art/narrative progression, character analysis - Uroro, thematic analysis - truth and lies)

The Clothes Make the Manwitch

I think we're officially out of the groundwork phase, cus this chapter really wanted to get things moving along. I really felt Kumugi's plight as the rest of the cast zipped along through the different departments to get Ichi set up for his first official mission - I wanted to hang out and chat with those cute girls for a little bit!

And based on how they blushed at Ichi, I think they did too 👀

I think Usazaki was just showing off with those designs, honestly. Those girls were clearly incidental characters, one-offs who didn't even warrant getting names (heartbreaking...), but she still went ham on the details, conveying their personalities and tying them into their respective jobs flawlessly. Maybe she figured if they were never going to show up and give her any trouble, she might as well make them as realized as she could while she had the opportunity

On the flipside, I saw a handful of comments complaining about how simple or plain Ichi's new uniform is, but you have to remember that Usazaki is going to need to draw this outfit a lot, in all kinds of poses and scenarios. There's already a surprising amount of detail on it, like the embellishments on the collar and shoulders, the thigh-high boots, the ornate knife handle...it's not a ton to keep track of, but they're finer details than a lot of protagonists tend to get in my experience, and ones that are likely to get a bit finicky as things go on

Moreover, though, Ichi already has an over-the-top, extravagant outfit: his Uroro form. Having a plain and unassuming base form gives contrast to his super form, which will help the latter stand out so much more when the time comes for him to use it. Do you really want Ichi's base form to overshadow his super form???

I didn't think so

Now the question is, when will be the next time we actually get to see his super form?

The Enemy Within

I absolutely adore that Ichi and Uroro have firmly established themselves as enemies, and that they're able to actively communicate and even fight with each other, it's everything I wanted Yuji and Sukuna's relationship to be (at least for now), but with that comparison in mind, there's definitely a question of how long this dynamic will last

As I recall, Sukuna was honestly a pretty minor factor beyond JJK's introductory arc, with Yuji only getting possessed by him twice in the beginning, once in the middle, and then once at the end. Everywhere in between, he was mostly just chilling and waiting, at worst mocking Yuji but never really actively hindering him

Uroro's role is still pretty ambiguous, as he doesn't seem at all capable of possessing Ichi, but he does seem capable of manifesting a physical form that can oppose Ichi. Depending on how much influence he has, he might actively be able to prevent Ichi from using Ultra Amplification or at least interfere when Ichi is trying to use it in battle

Sukuna wanted Yuji to find all the fingers so he could get stronger and escape through Megumi, so any time Yuji was in danger, he was incentivized to at least keep him alive, but Uroro needs Ichi to die in order to escape. He has no reason to ever help him and every reason to hurt him, so the gimmick of the hero and villain inhabiting the same body is greatly amplified in this case

The fact that Ichi can literally feel the malice coming off of Uroro from within his own body to the point of needing to resist gutting himself illustrates this antagonism wonderfully. If Yuji needed to constantly suppress Sukuna, Ichi needs to actively ignore Uroro, and Uroro is absolutely going to make that as difficult as possible

Fortunately, Ichi's sense for malice also acts as a bit of a lie detector for Uroro, which it looks like he's going to need

Unreliable Narrator

We've been wondering for a while now how Uroro actually feels about other Magiks, and this chapter's opening seemed to confirm an earlier assertion that he views them as his friends and brethren, lamenting their enslavement and discrimination at the hands of the witches, until Ichi easily saw through that lie

As Ichi says, Uroro's reaction to seeing Raiko being hunted in ch.3 didn't at all fit the idea that Magiks suffer any kind of injustice. His objections were half-hearted, and his lackadaisical attitude in ch.1 suggests that he has no interest in killing witches for the sake of freeing his captured kin. He kills and destroys for fun, not survival or revenge, but his position as the King of Magiks makes for a convenient excuse that surely he wants his people to be freed from the oppression of witches

Except...his story that humanity appeared and started subjugating Magiks is contradictory to the story we were already told. Ch.1 told us that it was the Magiks who approached humans, offering them dangerous trials seemingly unprompted, luring them in with the promise of power. That fact alone makes it obvious that Uroro was lying to gain sympathy

Or was he? Just because he doesn't actually care about the subjugation of his people doesn't mean it didn't really happen. We were told that a single Magik happened to appear to a single witch one day, which may well have happened, but was that really where it began? What prompted that Magik to do such a thing?

@wickedsick once suggested that there may be some kind of internal conflict in Magik society, like a feud between Uroro the king and a Magik queen to help enforce the themes of gender inequality. To turn the tide of battle, it would make sense for some Magiks to give themselves willingly to witches who could wield their power more effectively and defeat their enemies for them

If that's the case, though, then of course some Magiks would view the situation differently. History is written by the victors, and the witches seem to have the advantage at the moment, but Uroro was there, so his word is arguably more weighty than a disembodied voice that presumably is meant to represent common knowledge. That doesn't make him trustworthy by any means, but it's far too early to assume that there's no truth in what he's saying either

This goes for the Witches Association, too, of course. Shirabedonna's opinion may be irrefutable among the witches, but we only have her word so far that anything she says can be taken as gospel. If anything, with this chapter starting with someone lying to Ichi's face, then thematically we have to assume that Shirabedonna's assertion that anything she says is patently correct is, in and of itself, a lie, or at least a misdirect

To have a member of your organization declare with confidence "if I say it's true, it must be" is to have them declare "I can lie with impunity." If it should come to pass that there's some kind of mole within Mantinel, Shirabedonna's position as the foremost authority on facts would make her the perfect cover, even if it's just because she's susceptible to deception magic

For now, though, the status quo is that the witches are good and the Magiks are bad, so we won't worry about how things will shake up until they do. That said, it looks like Nishi already has a pretty good idea of how to pace out the escalation rate

Raising the Stakes

After Uroro's introduction in ch.1, a bird-man with a jewel-encrusted throne on his chest, Raiko honestly seemed like a pretty dramatic step back. However, this was a pretty clever trick narratively, as Uroro's outlandish appearance set the town for the types of strange things we should expect, while Raiko's relatively normal appearance recalibrated us for what's to come

Despite having lightning powers, Raiko was ultimately just an extremely large fox, even in his hunting behaviors, making him a familiar target for Ichi. Aesthetically, Hisame is just a shark, which is itself a lot more unusual than a fox, but it also has the added wrinkle of apparently being able to fly, making it two degrees further away from the ordinary than Raiko was

The next Magik, then, will likely be something a bit more fantastical, but still fairly standard. I imagine a unicorn or a jackalope would be good next steps, since they're just regular animals with horns they shouldn't have, followed by uniquely-shaped creatures like dragons and culminating in more imaginative creatures like that crustacean-man-thing or that biblically accurate angel we briefly saw in ch.2. This kind of progression would help keep the visuals from getting stale, especially if Nishi jumps back and forth a bit rather than forcing Usazaki to constantly find ways to outdo herself

If we got an Eldritch Abomination right at the beginning, then we'd expect a bigger, better abomination next, then a bigger one, and a bigger one, and so on and so forth. By establishing that mundane forms are to be expected, we not only have a much wider range of possibilities going forward, but we also can approach the early-story Magiks with a sense of familiarity. We know what a fox is, and fox-hunting techniques are easy enough to learn. Same for sharks. Tentacle creatures sleeping in volcanos? Fishnet-clad sexy legs chilling in abandoned libraries? Not so much

By the time we get to the more unfamiliar territory, we should have a deeper understanding of the Magiks as a whole, bridging the information gap between the ones that are "just animals" and the ones that are inconceivable monstrosities

Until then, let's enjoy life!