#childe has survived through the ayato phase

[violettelueur]

— CHILDE IS SHIVERING IN MY MAIN SPOT…(ARCHON QUEST 3.1 SPOILERS)

[dreamofcentipedes]

If kaneki started to cannibalize and went full kakuja, couldnt he delay the old age process until it smoothened out to a normalish life span?

More than that, anon. Goat believes that the former One-Eyed King is still alive despite being over a century old. If Ghouls can lengthen their telomeres through cannibalisation, it seems to be possible for a Ghoul to live well beyond an ordinary lifespan - it just doesn’t happen often because a Ghoul would have to both be incredibly strong and avoid the attention of the CCG. Not for nothing do we cut to Ayato discovering the hidden city after Kaneki muses on Nishiki’s advice.

Kaneki could live to a ripe old age via cannibalisation - the question is, will he want to? Nothing to do with suicidal feelings anymore, he’s moved beyond that, but will he be willing to go on stealing life for his own sake? Once again, he faces the dilemma facing all Ghouls: is it acceptable to kill for your own survival?  In this Judgement phase in the Fool’s Journey, this is one of the major questions Kaneki must consider. And he has made his decision.

…At least, for now. Just as Touka forces herself to eat human food for their child’s sake, so will Kaneki force himself to eat Ghouls for both their sake. Kaneki may feast on the Oggai to move forward for the time being, but what the Lovecraftian ruins beneath the earth may reveal could cast an even greater shadow of doubt over Kaneki’s mind.

If my theory is right, the Old King is still alive, and these are his kagune. Or, at this point, I think ‘its’ might be more appropriate. We’ve already seen how cannibalisation can pervert ghoul bodies in the form of kakuja - what if, once the force of ages strips away your original body, the kakuja is all that’s left? What if the symbolic image of the One-Eyed King comes from the Old King’s real physical appearance?

Kaneki’s kagune arms and legs are his first step down its road. And, running the same train of logic that Kaneki is on to its ultimate conclusion, to keep itself going it has devoured almost the entirety of the 24th Ward.

Maybe the Old King, too, went down this road for love. Since 125, we have passed through the Sun phase to the Judgement phase, and so Choice has been the main focus: Urie, Saiko and the two Kuroiwas’ choices between their loyalty and Yoriko, Kaneki and Touka’s choices concerning Mutsuki’s letter, Touka’s choice to leave Mutsuki to Yomo and Yomo’s choice to stay, and Kaneki’s choice to cannibalise mentioned above. How perfect would it be for a Judgement phase to have Kaneki meeting another One-Eyed King, a mirror to look into his potential future and force him to seriously re-evaluate himself? In establishing his identity as the One-Eyed King, he must be contested for the title. He must meet the power of the King without losing sight of himself.

Cannibalisation will sustain Kaneki to the end of the series, but after witnessing such a monstrosity Kaneki will likely choose the righteous path over the selfish one. Like a true king, he will put his people before himself. And yet, it will not be a tragic end, as Kaneki will live to see the new world that rose from the egg he cracked and find himself beloved by everyone within it, until the Reaper calls again. A far better fate than the King who became a monster in a pit. And so :re charts the journey of a King, from birth to death.

[toukaisbetterthanyou]

It's unfair to judge the emotional development of Touka and Ken by the same standards. Touka had loving parents and while Arata's raising had some mildly abusive elements, he was overall loving which presented a good example from his children (excluding Ayato's emo phase, he has shown some great emotional strength and understanding much like his sister) and then after a period of abandonment, she was taken in by Yomo and Yoshimura where she had a relatively peaceful life (1/2)

Ken didn't have a loving mother figure and was left isolated for most of his childhood, his empathy is shallow because he learned it from books and fictional characters, his aunt despised him and that is enough to mess up a human on its own but he had to go and turn into a ghoul the one time someone other than Hide shows him kindness then he gets tortured then dies then comes back to life as the son of the man who killed him who handed him a responsibilities too huge to bear (2/3 instead of 2)     

So Ken has had no form of stable relationship save for Hide and heavens know what happened in V14 so obviously he cannot be as emotionally independent and understanding as Touka. There are a lot of things to address in this but I am not good with organized thoughts and words so sorry but just wanted to add my 2 cents                  

Mod K:

Isn’t it, though? While Touka and Ayato had loving parents -- they were also thrown onto the streets and forced to fight for survival for nearly everyday of their lives until they were finally taken in. This is also takes an incredibly emotional toll -- and it’s shown through both Touka and Ayato’s attitudes at the start of the series. Even when Touka is shown to have anteiku as support, she is still quite cold and has a hard time understanding others without exploding. She only recently seems to have gotten past this tendancy.

Note, I am not saying that Kaneki has no had a hard life -- if has had a very difficult life, but there are things about his personality that are survival tactics that he learned as a child that trouble him as an adult. These same survival tactics make it difficult for him connect with others as he has a hard time sharing his problems and being communicative.

I think that his relationship with Touka, and the friends that he’s made gives him a good opportunity to begin to learn to do this, and to learn that he is worthy of happiness, and worthy of life.

I don’t think that it’s good to say that because he is currently unable to be as emotionally independent as Touka -- that he will never be capable of this. Note -- I don’t think that he needs to be completely emotionally independent. Kaneki is quite lonely, and he finds joy in Touka (and vice versa) I don’t think this is a bad thing at all. There is nothing wrong with caring about people and relying on them -- and from what I’ve seen, I don’t see anything that shows that he’s unhealthily attached to her. He’s not trying to control her for his emotional needs, or anything like that so I don’t see a real problem.

I had only expressed amusement in people criticizing Ken because people in the fandom NEVER criticize him. Not because I necessarily agree with them.