#eto internally: godDAMNIT

[bubonem]

@animuras

Upon entering the large library, Eto wondered just how many times she had entered the establishment since it appeared in Cotes Ward. Perhaps it was too many times to count; if someone was counting, however, they likely would have lost track weeks ago.

She was a familiar patron of the public space, enough so for the staff to recognize her by both face and name. Giving a polite smile, Eto was quick to drop it when out of sight. The author came with the intention to find a few select books and read as much as she could within a certain time frame. She had other business to attend to, but it could wait until much later in the day.

Walking through the aisles of books in silence, Eto knew where she was going in her search for a particular book. However, upon finding where it should have been, Eto only saw an empty space. She frowned, but moved on. 

After finding another short stack of books, Eto scanned the area for a table. Yet, while there were plenty of open seats available, her eyes fixated upon one that was taken. A familiar face, though she would have preferred to forget it, half buried in the very book she had first sought after.

Her eyes narrowed in a glare, and she turned on her heel quickly; if she was fast enough, perhaps she could check out without being noticed. Such a hope was dashed immediately when her ears heard the grating voice of Furuta Nimura call out to her. Tilting her head back in slow response, Eto’s annoyance was barely hidden.

“Don’t you know how to be quiet in a library?”

[gastricpierrot]

An analysis of Hide and Kaneki’s relationship, choices, and reasons PT.II

AKA the sequel to this post I made some time ago, sparked by a certain discussion I had on twitter.

Before anything else, I’d like to declare that I’m not here to make a stand or anything, but rather just to lay out some brain vomit things to consider when thinking about HideKane. You’re free to come to your own conclusions because tbvh I’m a terrible judge of relationships unless there’s extremities involved. Heck, maybe it’s just me, but I feel like the lines are intentionally blurred when it comes to these two and the more I keep pondering over them the more upset I get _(:D

Anyways. In my previous post I pointed out Kaneki’s possible reasons for doing what he did and leaving Hide behind, and while I’m going to touch a bit on that again here, I’ll also blabber a bit on Hide’s reasons this time. I mentioned how I feel the lines are blurred when it comes to their relationship, and half-asleep me managed to conclude that it’s partly due to a few main external factors that might’ve steered them towards the routes they took.

*As I’m not the most informed when it comes to mental illnesses, note that my analysis might also miss out points that may involve the role of it. As I mentioned before, this is basically more of a brain vomit than an argument I’m trying to put out.

Also this contains a hella ton of spoilers. Be warned.

Right. So the first factor is, as I’ve mentioned in my first post, the fact that they have limited choices over what could be done. What else could Kaneki have done? Was the question that haunted me a good portion of the night, and let me tell you, I still don’t know. If I were in his shoes that time, I’d be too panicked to think past my own internal screaming. I mean, suddenly I can’t eat my comfort food anymore and everyone around me is killing everoyone and holy jesus there’s blood everywhere what the fu- you get the picture. I tried coming up with some alternatives, and tbh none of them sounds appealing. Well, perhaps they could be a tad bit better depending on how you see it, but from how I view it most of them wouldn’t end.. nicely??

I’d be bringing this up again a few times along the bs I’m spouting but let me begin with the most basic Route B, and that’s where Kaneki finds the courage to sit down and actually communicate with Hide about his situation and explain why he needs to stay away. Say that happens, and Kaneki makes it clear: okay, Hide, I’ve been turned into a ghoul and we’re surrounded by scary people you need to stay back or else you might have your ass handed to you again by someone even more violent than Nishio-senpai and you might die and that’s not good. Great. Fantastic. There’s communication and the main source of all angst has been eliminated. He can properly dash Hide’s hopes before he could even think of chasing after him.

But  would Hide listen?

Here comes in the second factor, which is the feeling of guilt. Pls excuse me as I take a quick break from being a Kaneki apologist and focus a bit on Hide. As a fanfic author I’ve done my best to understand his character from the bits of him here and there we’re given in the manga; mainly his personality and drives. Despite how he looks and acts, Hide is incredibly smart, and is able to remain scarily calm in dangerous situations, as seen in the scene where he admits to have stolen clothes off the corpse of a ghoul before approaching Yamori, and the time where he knew how to fend off Cain before leaving the finishing blow to the Doves in the first novel. Basically what I’m trying to say is, this boy can think. He’s rational. He would at the very least be able to guess why Kaneki would suddenly disappear. He should also know full well how much danger he’d be plunging ass first into if he decided to chase after Kaneki. But he still did anyway.

And here’s where interpretations come in. A lot of fans—myself included, tbh—believe that his main driving force for this was his pure loyalty towards Kaneki. And I understand that it’s not exactly the healthiest thing in a relationship for one to be willing to literally throw away everything for the other. There has to be line drawn somewhere and goddamnit Hideyoshi why. But it also occurred to me yesterday that guilt might also have influenced his decision. It’s like I said before, Hide would be aware of the shit he’s getting himself into if he stepped into the world of ghouls. Even if it’s Kaneki, there could’ve been an instance where he did hesitate. He could’ve realized that he’s too powerless in the face of danger to be of help and perhaps it really would be the best to keep their distance.

You could argue that it’s his unhealthy dedication that primarily drove him to go so far and I’m not going to counter that, but I also think guilt might’ve given him the push to follow him. Hide tried to discourage Kaneki from going on his date with Rize, but not hard enough. He already sensed something not right about her, why didn’t he insist for Kaneki to not go at all? If only he hadn’t doubted his intuition that one time, then perhaps it wouldn’t have ended up like this. Those sorts of thoughts would’ve haunted him. I’m almost confident that if the victim of the incident had been anyone besides Kaneki, Hide would’ve been able to turn away. He’d be able to accept that well, how could he have known that a date with a beautiful lady would lead to a change of species? But it’s Kaneki who’s involved, his best friend for more than ten years. Emotions no doubt came into the equation and Hide.. can’t just abandon him, can he? I know there’s a number of people who suspects Hide will pull a betrayal sometime in the future, but Hide’s affection towards Kaneki could very well be the real deal. To spare you from an even lengthier post, I’ll just direct you to the fourth point of bloodycarnation’s Hide analysis (which I love until this time and day, bless you for writing it). Besides, there’s also a chance that Hide wanted to be able to actually do something, rather than just acting as support from the sidelines like he did when Kaneki was still with his aunt.

And basically what I’m getting at here is: his affection towards Kaneki could’ve given him a sense of responsibility, and that sense of responsibility could’ve led to a sense of guilt that made him willing to sacrifice even his own life if that’s what it meant to make up for what he thought was his fault. Hide’s motivation might not have been blind loyalty alone.

I also notice that the main fault that a number of people hold against Kaneki is the fact that he went on with life as if Hide no longer existed until he needed him to keep him grounded while Hide was practically throwing away everything for him. I’ve babbled some bit about this in my first post, so I’ll just add on to it here and say that.. it might be a little unfair to come to that conclusion based on what’s explicitly shown in canon. We were only given glimpses of what, several hours and days out of the many months Kaneki was with Banjou and the gang? And out of all of them, he’s shown to be caught up in something or another most of the time. It’s natural that we’re not shown any thoughts about Hide when his mind should be occupied with his plans and goals and all that jazz. In fact, almost every glimpse of Kaneki’s thoughts we’re shown are about him assessing their situation, or about his hallucinations.

But there’s one relatively leisurely instance (which I rmb anyways) where we’re shown Kaneki’s thoughts, and that’s during the mention of Eto’s book-signing even. And who came up in his mind?

TG Ch.108, pg.9

It’s.. Hide(‘s voice I guess but you get the point).

Also there’s this panel during the torture scene in Ch.61 which I somehow forgot and really, I think the screenshot speaks for itself.

Now let’s take things up a notch and fast forward a bit and take a look at this certain page in :re that sent me hurtling in tears down the void:

TG:RE Ch.75, pg.17

The crucial thing I want to point out before elaborating further is how Kaneki has a tendency to put on a mask and keep his feelings to himself, even in front of Hide. So to end up like this, in tears and admitting that he’s lonely to Hide’s face, even if he is a product of his imagination—it speaks volumes. The emotions seems to have built up to the point that even he can’t hold them in anymore. And who can say how long had he been shutting the feelings away? Who’s to say he hadn’t thought of him time and again but simply forced him out of his mind because he can’t afford to crumble? I know I keep defending Kaneki for his mistakes but I just think it’s a little harsh to criticize him for not caring simply because we weren’t shown much in the narration. Post-torture Kaneki no doubt had the most fragile mental state throughout the entire TG timeline, and forcing himself to focus on his mission might very well have been a sort of coping mechanism as well. Of course, you can argue as well that he might only have felt this painfully lonely after he regained his memories and all so really, it’s up to your own interpretations. Just trying to give some food for thought, if that’s how you put the phrase lmao-

And yes, I suppose some of us would also think hey, he could at least mention Hide to his new gang and all so yknow, he could show he still remembers him. Heck I would like that too because I would give $5 to see Hinami pointing out how Kaneki seems brighter when he talks about Hide //clenches fists. But there’s always a but, and it’s that there are possible instances of violent interrogations and Kaneki might not want to take the risk. By speaking of Hide even to his own allies, he’d create the slimmest possibility of dragging him into the world he’d tried to push him away from. What I’m saying is yes, there could be issues of trust going on here too because Kaneki is a very flawed character (which you can read a bit more about in my first analysis). I think it’s also a little interesting to point out how Kaneki does mention Hide to those who already know him before things went to shit (mainly Touka, as seen here and here, but also Rize in his mind in Ch.62) but never to those whom he only met when he was deeper in that mess of the latter TG timeline.

It occurred to me that things could have been different, though. That is, only if Kaneki’s hadn’t received Rize’s kakuhou of all people, and did not have the terrible luck of a true tragic protag. If it hadn’t been for those two factors, Kaneki might—and I’m saying might—have been able to open up to Hide eventually. If he’d been able to meet Nishiki and Kimi on better terms, heard Ikuma’s story of being raised by humans, not attracted Tsukiyama’s gourmet attention, and if he had not basically received a hugeass slap of what the fuck across the face so soon and in such short intervals since his entire world changed—things could’ve proceeded differently. He might have been able to realize that there is a possibility for him to quietly live on as a ghoul while still being with Hide. But the ghouls did not give him much of a great first impression, did they?

Hypothetically speaking, it would’ve been the most merciful for both Hide and Kaneki if Kaneki had simply been one of Rize’s many snacks. Kaneki would die on the spot and… Hide might’ve ended up the protag?? Or maybe Ishida could’ve just panned the focus elsewhere and we’d be reading Osaka Ghoul now, who knows. But noo bad luck had to strike again and Furuta had to choose that exact night to vent his salt and drop those steel beams. Furuta himself mentions how he hadn’t been targeting Kaneki specifically, so yeah. Plain hecked up luck.

All jokes aside tho, Rize’s existence is a heavy plot point in the manga, and I feel that possessing her kakuhou alone has significantly limited the possible outcomes of any alternative routes Kaneki might’ve taken. Case in point, let’s say Route C is where Kaneki’s able to feel safe enough to trust and tell Hide about his transformation. Hide tells him okay, he’ll keep his secret safe, he’ll help cover for him if he needs him. They go on with life as usual. Or, Hide could propose something else: running away. He’s never heard of violent ghoul incidents in Gunma, Kanagawa, etc so let’s go there and start over! (again, the thing about throwing everything away for him). I’ve already touched on how the CCG takes the action of not reporting ghouls a crime punishable by death, and it takes very little for a stranger to suspect and report them both. And as for how Rize’s kagune plays into this.. well we see that her kakuhou brings all the ghouls to the yard and somehow or another word would’ve spread and they’d eventually find themselves in some very unpleasant situations regardless. And even if Kaneki has learnt how to fight by then, there’s still a chance that he might be overpowered (e.g by sheer numbers alone) and what would happen then? Hide would try to defend him and get himself rekt. Probably.

And here’s the thing: from my own understanding, one of the bases of a healthy relationship is  an equal amount of give and take. And there should be limits even for that. One of the reasons why Hide and Kaneki’s relationship can be seen as unhealthy is not how Hide holds Kaneki so dear that he’s willing to put his own wellbeing at risk just to find him again even after being so coldly left behind, but also how Kaneki depends on Hide’s existence so much that  he’s willing to give up his own life the moment he thought he was dead (for reference, see pg.15-17 of :RE Ch.68). It kinda gives the quote “his existence is something I depend on as much as my heart” a more literal meaning, doesn’t it-

I’m going to pose a question here because I myself am unsure, but were there other motivations for him to attempt sacrifice his life that point in time? There could have been other ways to save Hinami and escape, but was anything mentioned? Because if not, there are two (and maybe more) possible ways to interpret the scene in Ch.68, and that’s 1) he thinks Hide is dead and he didn’t think he could live in a world without him knowing he might very well have been the one to kill him, and 2) he used Hide’s death as a “excuse” for his own long-awaited suicide (I do apologize if this sounds ableist or offending, but it’s the only way I can think of putting it accurate atm). I’ll leave it to you guys to digest this yourselves.

Long story short, I can see where the notion of their relationship being toxic stems from and really, thinking about this gave me plenty of dreadful realizations as well. They’re both willing to give too much for the other about sums it up I guess? But it’s as I said earlier, it does seem a little unreasonable to peg Kaneki as the sole source of all their bond’s bad aspects. Hide, too, made his choice by his own will. They followed what they judged as the best course of action. Also, one of the incredible things about Ishida-sensei’s narration is how he’s able to weave everything into one complex web of interactions, and surrounding circumstances they did not have control over could’ve influenced their decisions as well.

And before I roll away back into my cave, allow me to state that I don’t think their relationship’s beyond saving. Kaneki’s shown to be growing as time passes, and he’s learning. I believe there’s still hope in :RE for him to finally learn about his mistakes, and with sensei’s blessings they can meet up and argue and cry and forgive and I can bang my head repeatedly against the wall in more tears.