#hxh theories

[moretheta]

listen if mr. chrollo "it's my fault" lucilfer was broken up over the deaths of pakunoda and uvogin, both which went to their graves somewhat willingly (that is to say, a result of their own choices), and downright devastated after the deaths of shalnark and kortopi (a direct consequence of chrollo "stealing" their nen so that he could attain a landslide victory against hisoka) how is he gonna feel if (when) bonolenov gets packed up by hisoka on tier 1 explicitly due to a plan chrollo made.

my brother in christ this is not how you keep your teammates alive this is not how you make your dreams come true

[cryinggirlnamedhelen]

@silverhypnos @opalwatch this is some heavy Chrollo yapping so yeah cool

———

in my humblest opinion, i just think that as a community (of phantom troupe and chrollo fans), we tend to be pretty annoying when it comes to talking about chrollo's intelligence. what i mean is that before the succession war arc, everyone worshipped chrollo's intelligence as if he was superhumanly clever and could make no mistakes when it came to predictions. however, after hisoka killed shalnark and kortopi and the troupe members were seen on the black whale, people were really harsh on chrollo and his intelligence.

however, there have been many times where chrollo has made some pretty ridiculous mistakes or missed something extremely important due to him being too invested in something else. chrollo even admits this himself, which is why i find it annoying that most fans just think that it's simply because chrollo got too depressed or something; because again, he's shown so many gaps in his intelligence. chrollo is human; he makes mistakes. he isn't all perfect and he will make stupid mistakes, like we all do. here are some examples of times that he hasn't made the most intelligent of decisions:

- during the kurta clan massacre, chrollo didn't think of the very real possibility that perhaps the full kurta clan wasn't present when he had massacred them. this is especially embarrassing because technically speaking, kurapika (in the canon hxh volume 0) was the one who revealed the existence of the kurta to the public eye (haha funny pun) due to him activating his scarlet eyes near the mountain that he lived. so chrollo not thinking that someone literally activating the scarlet eyes OUTSIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN might be OUTSIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN is definitely a mistake on his part. that mistake indirectly led to pakunoda and uvogin's deaths.

- chrollo getting revenge for sarasa's murder and making sure that “this [torturing] never happens to anyone in meteor city again” (chapter 397) indirectly might've led to even more crime and danger in meteor city. chrollo's plan was for the world's most dangerous leaders to show off their torturing video tapes at meteor city, find which one was sarasa's, and kill whoever had did it. according to chapter 405, the troupe was successful. after that, we don't know what the rest of their plan was. however, considering how the troupe members haven't gone to meteor city in a while before the chimera ant arc, the child k!dnappings have likely ended. but chrollo did indirectly lead more criminals (such as gyro) into meteor city. and what do criminals do? they commit crimes.

- chrollo doesn't learn from his mistakes permanently. in the past, sarasa went off alone, and that's how she ultimately died. however, in the yorknew city arc, before uvogin dies, he's perfectly fine with hisoka going off alone. after uvogin dies (who notably dies due to pursuing kurapika alone), for the next 2-3 DAYS, the troupe operates in small groups. however, after chrollo defeats hisoka, he lets shalnark and kortopi, two NENLESS people, walk around on their own. they're killed too. on the black whale, chrollo is perfectly fine with working alone (before shizuku and bonolenov approach him), machi is alone, and franklin is also alone. considering how chrollo and bonolenov are both currently (as of chapter 410) also alone, that means that shizuku is most likely alone too. and what happens to troupe members who are alone? they always die.

- this one's a pretty common one, but chrollo should have cut off hisoka's head for good measure; especially since chrollo literally knows of post mortem nen and literally has a nen ability in his book that literally uses post mortem nen.

so to any hxh fan who calls chrollo “stupid in the succession war arc” because he's depressed, chrollo has ALWAYS shown signs of being somewhat lacking in common sense. my personal theory is that this is due to his upbringing in meteor city, where common sense never applied. i still love chrollo (he's literally my favorite character in any source of media), but i just think that people constantly overrating chrollo's intelligence makes them have false opinions on his current status in the succession war arc.

[lightfeltmemories]

hxh theory: is feitan a p3d0phile?

tw's: mentions of l0l1c0n, paraphilia, p3d0philia, sadism and torture because its fucking feitan, cp (debatable if you consider l0l1c0n cp), mentions of problematic hxh ships such as feitan x kalluto and hisoka x gon

just a note: before you come at me with your pitchforks leaving hate in my asks and dms, i am not a fan of l0l1c0n nor am i trying to defend it, this post is a simple theory i have gathered by evidence in the manga, no one is saying that you should believe this theory, it's more of a "do with this information what you will" kind of thing.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

so, you may be reading this title and you're thinking "what the actual fuck?" and you probably believe that i pulled this straight out of the deepest parts of my ass, but what if i told you i had some plausible evidence for this theory?

so, for starters, this thought actually came to me when i was reading a post by a user on here named @/cautionworks (i'm not going to tag them here because i don't know them nor do i want to seem like a bother) who made a post relating to their favorite ships (warning as the post does contain problematic ships such as hisogon and such, not saying in particular im against the ship, im just giving out a warning to anyone who is triggered by minor x adult ships) and there was a ship listed as feitan x kalluto.

in the passage it mentions that they found out that feitan may be into l0l1, which at first thought was a bit strange but once you think about it more, the concept isn't the most absurd for someone like him.

i haven't seen anyone actually talk about feitan possibly being into l0l1c0n, much less being a p3do, probably because of the anti's in the fandom.

so, lets get on with the actual evidence!

in the yorknew city arc, after he was done torturing the owl, he is seen reading a book by an author named trevor brown, and as stated on his hunterpedia page, trevor is a controversial artist who's work involves paraphilia; atypical sexual urges.

according to trevor's wikipedia page, "His work explores paraphilias, such as lolicon, ero guro, BDSM, and other fetish themes. Innocence, violence, misogyny, and Japanese popular culture all collide in Brown's art."

there is also a reddit post relating to this topic as well, and according to said post the topic was popular on tik tok at a certain period in time (not very important but i thought it was kind of interesting since im a tik tok user and content creator kind of)

so, does this make feitan a p3d0phile? i can see why people would think so, and i can also see why people wouldn't.

why i would is simple; trevor brown's art speaks for itself, the usage of fictional little girls in... lets just say, VERY interesting situations would make one assume off rip that feitan may be a p3d0phile, or at least a l0l1con, not to mention, togashi isn't afraid of making a character like this especially since we have hisoka (not saying hisoka is a p3d0, but many do, and im just trying to prove a point and give an example as to why the concept of feitan being a p3d0 isn't something completely out of the ordinary, hxh does get pretty dark after all).

why i wouldn't: i've seen some arguments that feitan may not hold the same views as trevor despite him doing some questionable things, similar to how people may like a certain character or even person in real life but not agree with everything they say or do, not to mention he doesn't seem to act weird or overly charming with kids like hisoka, he certainly isn't afraid to hurt or torture one (gon) but theres no actual implications outside of him reading this book by a controversial artist that he is sexually attracted to them.

but in my personal opinion, unless specified by togashi himself, or given any more details about how he feels about such things i wouldn't go as far as to call feitan a p3d0 just because he's seen reading a book by someone known to create l0l1 art, hell, he might be reading a book that doesn't include anything relating to p3d0philia, since the cover art isn't explicitly shown.

[gearbox-doll]

Nanika's powers, nature, and narrative function: an analysis/theory.

First, and most central to this theory, I am a firm believer that Nanika is in fact "Ai", one of the Five Great Calamities from the Dark Continent. Ai gets its name from the sound it makes, which is the same way Nanika replies when given a wish. (In the English dub, this is translated as "'kay", since "ai" is also an alternative reading of "hai", which means "yes/okay".) "Ai" is also the Japanese word for love, leading to my interpretation that Ai (and therefore Nanika) is a being whose nature is love and care, not destruction. In addition, Ai's title is "codependence of desire", which could relate to Nanika's desire to please and her wish-granting abilities. Basically, for the sake of this theory working, I am going with the assumption that Nanika and Ai are one in the same.

To my second point: while killing may be easier for her, her healing abilities do not cause the same destructive backlash. While her granting other wishes hurts and kills others, healing only causes her to feel tired. Given the opportunity for proper rest, Nanika is capable of healing very extreme injuries in seconds/minutes and with no long-term consequences. Sure, she has to be touching the target, unlike when she kills, but I do not necessarily think that discounts my theory. According to Killua, in fact, healing is an exemption to one of Nanika's other rules: no matter how much effort it takes, she won't make any cruel requests afterwards.

As far as I remember from my last rewatch of the episodes Alluka is introduced, there is no mention of victims of wishes made before the rest of the family found out about her. The earliest (chronologically) flashback featuring Nanika shows that Killua is already aware of her and how her powers work. He makes a wish to her in this scene ("lift me up high"), implying that he has made wishes to her before, since he knows what to do. However, to my recollection, there is no mention of deaths caused by wishes made during this time.

While this could be explained as the Zoldycks not knowing about Nanika and therefore not tracking anything, I propose another answer: there simply were no deaths at all.

"But Dolly," you say, "that doesn't make sense with the rules of Nanika's ability!" To this I propose: Nanika's rules are selective, and with the right circumstances, do not exist at all.

Killua explains that the more times Nanika's requests are granted, the more extreme they get, in proportion to the last wish she has granted. When she kills someone for denying her, her requests return to the easier, simpler ones. Following this, Killua's requests were very simple and likely would have caused a low death count. However, there must be at least one time where Killua was unable to fulfill Alluka and Nanika's requests - but he survived. Killua's exemption from her rules implies that they are somewhat self-imposed, but then why would she have them in the first place?

When we first meet Alluka, she makes four requests of Killua before Nanika appears. This marks another way Killua is an exception to Nanika's rules. Killua only fulfilled three of Alluka's requests (as he did not die when requested), and did not fulfill them consecutively. (If my memory serves correctly, all other wishes were granted after three requests being fulfilled in a row.) Illumi says that this is because only three requests were made by Nanika, and only her requests count; however, all four requests were made by Alluka. If Illumi is correct that only Nanika's requests count, then that implies that Nanika can grant Killua wishes whenever she wants. In addition, there is no death toll to the wish he makes when he leaves with her (to kiss him on the cheek if they make it out).

In addition, Alluka's requests to Killua are easy to complete, aside from 'die'. Since 'die' is the first one, I'm going to assume that this is because of the last wish she granted. So her first request is a more extreme one, fitting with their rules. However, when Killua doesn't comply, and only plays dead, Alluka switches to easier requests, like playing with her.

I've seen many explanations as to why Killua is exempt from Nanika's rules - she and Alluka love/care for him, want his praise, etc. However, I'm going to say that it's not because they care about him - it's because he cares about them.

Killua is the only character in the series who genuinely loves and cares for Alluka. Her family treat her as less than human, and the servants there were taking care of her as a job. A job that some of them clearly wanted out of. Killua is the only character who loves Alluka - and also the only exemption to Nanika's rules.

Here's my theory:

Nanika's rules only exist when interacting with someone who doesn't care about her.

She's a test of selfishness.

That's why Killua can get away with not fulfilling her requests, why she can grant wishes for him without waiting, why there are no death tolls attached to wishes he makes. Because unlike everyone else, Killua loves her, and this causes her to lose her limits.

Also note that, aside from Killua, all the requests made to Alluka are selfish ones. Things like making a woman rich, getting a top-of-the-line computer, or even killing people for them because the person didn't want to do it themself. These are things that a) do not benefit Alluka herself, and b) do not benefit anyone but the person making the wish.

Contrast with Killua's (known) wishes. Killua's wishes have direct benefits for people other than himself. When he asks Nanika to "lift me up high", he asks her to play with him - Nanika seems to find it fun as well, so it benefits her, too. Similarly, Alluka enjoys being with and showing affection to her brother, so she's happy to fulfill his request to kiss him on the cheek if they escape. Killua's other known requests include him asking Alluka to heal people or animals, which benefits the subject being healed. The only truly "selfish" request he makes is for Nanika to "never come out again", which wasn't for his benefit - but rather, he thought it was the only way to keep Alluka safe. When he realizes he's wrong, he amends his mistake and requests that Nanika wake up again so he can apologize to her, and make her feel better.

Conclusion/final theory:

Nanika is a being whose nature is love and care. When shown love and care by another being, she's able to grant wishes without her rules, as a selfless act of giving. However, when a person who does not care about her makes selfish requests, granting wishes causes death and destruction. Like the rest of the Five Great Calamities, Ai was brought back to the known world as a "lesson" for humankind. In Ai's case, this is a lesson to not be selfish, or to take things only for one's own gain. Nanika's nature is to help and heal those around her in a symbiotic (or 'codependent') relationship, where she receives love and care from someone in return for granting their wishes. Potentially, in her natural habitat in the Dark Continent, she would function as a check to keep the rest of the ecosystem in balance, able to fix and change things if something went wrong. This could lean into more of the 'codependent' description, as she would be benefiting from it regardless (granting their wishes to balance the ecosystem benefits every part of the ecosystem, including her, in addition to being loved by the other creatures around).

My personal theory is that the expeditions to the Dark Continent somehow hurt the things they brought back, or damaged the land that sustained them. In getting the Trinity Elixir, the team acted selfishly and did not respect the land or its inhabitants. In turn, Ai attacked them, and was sent back with them as a lesson. Perhaps the group wanted to take all of the Trinity Elixir, instead of only some of it, disregarding the harm it would do to the land and the flora and fauna that relied on it.

And now here is the section where I say thanks, Togashi, for this absolute masterpiece of a series that you have made. I can't believe I keep finding more. I love it. This series is incredibly written, with wonderful characters and worldbuilding, and I will be sad to see it end (whenever it does) and hope Togashi will be able to write the ending he wants. I love this series dearly and I love how much thought is put into it.

@codeinerabbit @teddy-blegh @monstrousparalysis @anxious-mess19 bc y'all know hxh and I'm Going A Little Bit Insane Right Now

[grimeye-j]

I feel like, now that he works as a bodyguard, Kurapika is going to be put in a situation where he will have to chose between retrieving the scarlet eyes or saving someone's life (maybe the queen, one of the princes or one of the other hunters)

He would have to decide what's more important to him, the dead or the living, his past or his present/future.

[megashadowdragon]

How Chrollo DOOMED his comrades - Hunter x Hunter

[babyilluwu]

Thank youuu!!! I think I'm more inclined towards the 2nd theory (tho I love the detail about them knowing that Chrollo knows and it all becoming a VERY complex mind game), and I think it's worth mentioning the fact he has a VIP ticket 👀 is it just a "Zoldycks are rich" thing or?

@babyilluwu

Illumi!

Illumi is the first chatacter I'll talk about that we've seen recently. Allegedly, he's married to hisoka and stands to gain a great deal of money from this arrangement when he kills Hisoka.

I personally ascribe to the theory that Hisoka is currently disguised as Illumi and Illumi is currently disguised as Hisoka. The marriage proposal sounds like a very Hisoka lie. Needlessly flirtatous I would say, and that describes Hisoka to a T.

Illumi as Hisoka however is pretty stern, and makes expressions similar to those of Illumi. He never lies, merely avoids the question and does not directly answer to Hisoka. He's very strong and pretty evil, but that's all we know about "Hisoka."

Tbh the future holds the camera cutting back to Illumi and he's balls deep in with hisoka while they casually talk about plans to kill the spiders, then swap places as each person resumes their real identity, foreseeing Chrollo foreseeing that Illumi was secretly Hisoka, and attacking with a plan to counter Hisoka that faulters in the face of Illumi.

Basically, they're swapped but I think Chrollo has already figured it out and his plan involves Bonolonov and Machi, whose abilities are bad against Hisoka, finding Illumi disguised as Hisoka and fighting him to eliminate Illumi, Hisokas only help, only to be surpised when Hisoka is really Hisoka.

ALTERNATIVELY

if Illumi is really who he says, his methods are circuitous. If he really wanted to find Hisoka, he would probably best be served sticking to a group of spiders, following them until a lead presented itself, then ditch once it did.

Instead he chooses to travel with his younger sibling, someone trustable and obedient with passable information gathering capacities. If I had to guess, Illumi is telling the truth but not the whole truth. He is searching for Hisoka, but that's a second or third priority to a larger family project. Perhaps one of the Kakin Princes has hired the zoldyck in advance, being tipped off to succession war in advance, or at least infurring from it's convience aboard the black whale. The current hot target would likely be morena.

Thank you! Ping me again if you want any others!

[tryingmybestiguess]

"How to talk to short people" by Kacho

[timeskip]

I'm literally so obsessed with how her legs are hanging off the chair. Someone get her a smaller chair!!!!!!!!

And I'm really happy to see her again in general <3 I love Melody sm

[lumizold]

“Feitan is a Zoldyck for sure, he literally looks like Milluki, but slimmer”

I don’t know, buddy…

To me he looks more like Gotoh.

They have the same eyes, Feitan kinda looks like him, but younger and without myopia. To me it’s canon.

…lol.

[nynyhaha]

Tssereidnich is sus af with his line that he desires “works of art made by young people with potential in extraordinary situations.” Basically,acts of gory murder committed by someone he considers interesting.

atp it doesn’t matter how the troupe relates to the massacre,either way their story will be tragic,the question is if it’s a tragedy of misunderstanding and sacrifice,or of becoming as bad as the ones they wanted to destroy.

BECAUSE THE MASSACRE IS WHAT DEFINES THEM AS VILLAINS. We get introduced to them in that context and we start out viewing them as monsters,that later turn out to me much more sympathetic that we could ever anticipate to the point where we question whether they’re guilty at all,since they’ve become so human in our eyes we can’t quite imagine them doing it.THE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE IS INSANE. It might just be me,but using HxH standards,so far the troupe hasn’t shown itself to be all that horrible at all.It’s one of many conflicting crime teams so if we never knew about their alleged crimes in the past,we wouldn’t at all perceive them as evil.

so the kurta clan massacre is necessary to set the troupe apart from morally grey hunters and add some weight to their crimes that would otherwise be pretty acceptable in the fans’ eyes(I’m the fans).

If they turn out to be more innocent than we thought it will ruin Kurapika completely and it will be very fun to watch. It would counter the idea of revenge with “what if you’re wrong” and that’s hilarious. Like he lost part of his lifespan FOR NOTHING. It would affirm our ideas about the troupe having some kind of honour code,SOME moral principles still(and they really keep teasing us with those,like most of Phinks lines speaking to characters outside the troupe,or Nobunagas monologue about how they USED to be lost in the darkness and driven by hate,but NOW they’re not like that)

If that happens I’ll pull some shit like “I always believed in you guys!”(when it came to the question whether Chrollo ACTUALLY cares about his members I bet that he did,and I turned out to be RIGHT!)

but in this case i really don’t know and I might actually like it MORE if they ARE at fault. Because otherwise..Uvo and Paku would’ve died because Kurapika misunderstood everything.AND THIS IS JUST UNACCEPTABLE 😃👹👹

LIKE HOW MUCH OF A SCAPEGOAT CAN YOU BE

and yeah I find it weird how on one hand the troupe wants to be feared and they don’t care who comes after them for what reason (they’re fine with being blamed for everything since the world would hate them in any case)

AND ON THE OTHER HAND THEY SAY THEY HAVE REASONS. Like not only does Franklin say they wouldn’t attack those who didn’t start it,Phinks accuses Luini of being a GLUTTON FOR MURDER,Nobunaga goes defending the world!!!🥹💕 Sure they might be hypocrites but they don’t seem to be very delusional or self righteous characters,so it seems they want to appear to have reasons and act according to sow notion of justice. THIS DRIVES ME UP A WALL

do they wanna reveal their fucking motives or are they strategically misunderstood because the worse they’re seen as,the better??

like dudes,stop ruining your bad reputation🙄🤚

ah and if the meteor city motto note really was left by them,then I figure there HAD to be a reason since I don’t think they’d wanna paint the city as unjust when their whole slogan is based on only striking back. The SPIDER might kill arbitrarily as far as the world is concerned,but why involve meteor city?

Hunter x Hunter: Conspiracy theory

this is a big leap and a reach and feeds my narrative satisfaction.

and it involves HEAVY troupe copium and apologist things of that nature.

you've been warned. proceed with a grain of salt.

(also gonna. put it under a break bcs this got long as hell XD)

I think the troupe was not solely responsible for the kurtan massacre and are on the Black Whale 1 to show the one responsible that they aren't going to continue to protect his clean record.

allow me to explain, starting with yorknew.

so i have had this theory knocking around in my head that the yorknew auction was meant to be a sort of finale or huge thing. because that was a big deal right, that's the world mafia they're pissing off.

AND it was weird bcs chrollo wanted everything at the auction. the troupe calls him out on that. and since we all know chrollo is a theatrical bastard, there is a meaning behind everything so this is no different.

so why does he want to declare war on the world mafia.

here's what we know.

meteor city was selling their own people to the mafia for a guarantee of safety from the black market. we don't know if these people went willingly or not but it was why the mafia didn't want to continue to pursue the troupe. the connection between meteor city and the world mafia was very important.

we know a few things changed between the troupe flashback and present day.

a) the troupe gained a reputation. until yorknew, apparently no one knew they were from meteor city.

b) the elders learned how to use nen. at the very least, we know of one counteractive nen ability that was used to protect the city's citizens from unfair indictment. there were probably more but we dont know for sure.

c) the mafia had gotten really comfortable with their connection with meteor city, now relying more on the city than the city relied on it.

chrollo was the one who most likely set up this relationship. it was his promise to set up the city as a hub for criminals so that he could personally witness and sift through the absolute scum of the earth to find sarasa's killers.

so based on all of this:

Yorknew City was meant to be the start of chrollo's grand finale to tear down the criminal infrastructure in meteor city.

but, things happened. and he got his ass beat.

POINT IS: Chrollo organizes his attacks with purpose.

.... SO WHY THE FUCK IS THIS DUMBASS TRYING TO ATTACK THE KAKIN FUCKING EMPIRE.

"attack" being an exaggeration but cmon. stealing from is the same thing as coming over and spitting in their food.

here's where the conspiracy theory comes in.

what if the kurta massacre wasn't exclusively done the troupe.

yes this is the part with the troupe apologist bullshit but hear me out. i have something interesting to share.

so at this point we know the troupe doesn't do petty theft anymore. this isn't just a "hey the kakin empire is rich. lets rob them :D" job. chrollo on a mission.

i saw this on twitter and a single post led down this downward spiral. (images are linked to the post)

so these pages stood out to me. the troupe never starts fights? that sounds stupid. sound goofy even.

but it's true.

or, phrased correctly, the troupe doesn't start fights they don't know how to finish. since chrollo is the head, they all function as his limbs, meaning they share his mentality when approaching combat: he will not take fights he can't guarantee he will win.

that being said, as shown in the pages above, they will ALWAYS pick up the gauntlet. if someone picks a fight with THEM, the entire gang will spin the block. aint no one surviving.

in the succession war arc, they were framed for the murder of a char-r member because luini was a toxic fan.

so here's the hypothetical: what if the troupe was framed for the kurta massacre?

we know their hands aren't clean. uvo, chrollo, phinks and pakunoda all recall the killing, so that's evidence they were there for it.

here's some things I don't understand about the event though.

a) the kurta were supposedly super well hidden, to the point that when kurapika was shown in vol 0/the phantom rouge, there were tribe traditions that forbade anyone that couldn't hide their eyes properly from going outside of the village. this was like. i think 1 year or so before the massacre.

b) when exactly did the eyes become relevant to body part collection? if it is believed that the troupe attacked the clan for the money that the eyes sell for, that means there must have been some already on the market. we dont get confirmation of this

c) how was a process for preserving magic eyes conceived at this time? im flabbergasted.

leaning mostly on point b, the kurta clan must have had previous victims of their scarlet eyed members getting got. which leads to point a, heightened protection of the kurtans with scarlet eyes.

but, as is anything in the hxh world, if there is something rare, there will always be a market for it.

now keep in mind what i said before: the troupe never picks up fights unless they know they can win and unless there's an ulterior motive. money doesn't matter to them, neither does infamy. at this point they're grade A bounties so yeah, neither of those things mean jack shit.

so i raise the idea that was in that twitter post: what if someone framed the spiders for the massacre and they took it in stride. that's free street cred, of course they claim ownership.

but let's go back and analyze, because who in their right mind would pick these randoms.

the kakin empire would. or someone associated with a high seat of power that can't afford to be tainted with something like genocide.

let's look at fourth prince tserreidnich.

im not saying he specifically pointed the finger at the spiders, but he was most likely the benefactor that wanted the scarlet eyes in the first place. he would stop at no means and he lets his people handle the dirty work.

he even has a damn head that is probably also kurtan.

so let's go out on a limb and say that tserreidnich ordered a party of mercenaries to track down the kurta clan so he could expand his collection. but, obviously, the group can't take the blame, so they pin it on the troupe or claim to be the troupe.

and because the troupe was wronged all of those years ago, chrollo is now aiming a full frontal assault against the kakin empire. hisoka is just a side quest. chrollo *remembers* how he was wronged.

so to recap. here's how the theory says the story goes.

the phantom troupe is in lukso province for whatever reason. probably to target the large movement of body part collectors to the region or something completely unrelated.

the 4th prince's team moves into the kurta village and starts taking the eyes. the kurtans successfully fight back and demand to know who they are. they answer, "we're the spiders"

and the kurtans, now hell bent on revenge for their fallen, seek out the troupe and pick a fight. and the troupe being the troupe, pick up the gauntlet no questions asked.

(alt. the kurtans seek out a powerful ally in the troupe to fight back against what we assume are trained human hunters and when they fail, beg to be killed as well)

chrollo at the time doesn't question the interaction. it was a gang of violent vagabonds trying to right a wrong that the troupe didn't even participate in.

it bothers him, just a little bit, that someone would try to frame the troupe for an atrocity that they didn't do. sure, it fit their narrative and added to their reputation, but it bothers him that someone out there had used their name.

but come yorknew, he's confronted with a surviving kurta. and the problem resurfaces.

he has his hands full trying to reroute the course of the yorknew heist and has to cut a lot of his plans short. he still completed his goal and started the process of severing ties between the mafia and meteor city.

but now the kurta are a problem in his life again and once he gets that damn chain out of his chest, he has two things to focus on:

a) getting away from hisoka to gather abilities

b) figuring out how to deal with kurapika

he remembers the kurta and is totally okay with shouldering the blame for their elimination. but that means that he's clearing the name of someone else for free.

and he doesn't do shit for free.

since he doesn't have to worry about meteor city immediately (the 10 dons are dead and the world mafia is in shambles), he can move onto bigger fish.

right now, his goal is to figure out the truth behind the kurtan massacre. and his search leads him to 4th prince tserriednich. a man in possession of eyes that the troupe didn't sell and way more than the 36 total that *should* be on the market.

THAT is why chrollo is picking a fight with the kakin empire. THAT is why he is on the black whale one. he's here to settle a 7 year old score, and if he can take hisoka down at the same time? good for him.

anyway thats my crazy conspiracy theory. there are some wrinkles in here that may be defied by canon reveals later in the story.

but damn would this make sense for why chrollo is on that damn boat. bcs i know he isn't stupid enough to send the ENTIRE TROUPE on a suicide mission just for hisoka.

so unless we get a reveal of something else substantial, this is what i'm working with.

[moretheta]

ok i know i'm the 101st person to compare the phantom troupe and the heil-ly family, but with each new chapter we get more and more to work with & i'm chewing on it 24/7 like drywall. let's talk fatalism:

so first of all shoutout to the number one champion of this theory, my main man nobunaga:

literally idk if the guy is in a nostalgic mood or what, but he will not stop yapping about the similarities and for that i commend him & his service

for the record, phinks & feitan don't seem tooooo convinced. phinks specifically points out that hey, actually, we aren't amateurs like these guys and we don't have some crazy genocide murderscheme going on. this much is obvious in the way the PT reacts to luini's insane murderfanboying with "huh????????" *stab*

the phantom troupe do not want to destroy the world, nor were they designed to- they were designed for a very specific purpose and that was to create an environment (a web, hah) that could lure in the big criminals they wanted revenge against, while being dangerous enough to keep the petty criminals out.

these are two very different vision boards!!!

....that nevertheless share some strikingly similar imagery

and we find even more parallels in their respective leaders: aside from the obvious biblical resemblances, morena and chrollo share a similar outlook on life-- more specifically, a similar outlook on death.

more seem uncaring about their respective prospects of survival. self-preservation is such an inherently human trait- hell, a trait inherent to the living- that the lack of any such instinct whatsover is pretty damn terrifying. it leads to a certain kind of alienation from humanity that we know at least chrollo has felt (when he says shit like "humans are so interesting" like damn get your head outta your ass you are one of them). it makes them striking and scary and unpredictable. fucking brocco li points this out:

he's talking about the troupe here, but he could just as easily be talking about the heil-ly. because once again, the mafia is the establishment and the heil-ly and phantom troupe are decidedly not. the regular kakin mafia looks out for their own self-interests, which can lead to unchecked greed but is also what causes them to not go around murdering civilians just because they feel like it.

think of the loss in profits!!

now, nobunaga seems to think of the heil-ly as a sort of prototype- unrefined spider. when they're first investigating the heil-ly hideout, he says "maybe a switch was flipped when one of their own was killed," [see figure 1 above] which is a reasonable assumption to make considering his own experience. but when we check back in with the heil-ly...

their reaction to losing luini is "bummer," before immediately talking about what abilities they should develop to replace him. and in the second panel, when hinrigh kills padaille, the guys who are supposed to be his comrades just.. run away. later morena mentions that those same members are now leveling up to get revenge on hinrigh, but it seems like that stems more from hurt pride and morbid curiosity to see what they can accomplish with their shiny new powers.

these mfs are singing a "let's go hunt the mafia" jingle

big contrast to the way the xi-yu react to the death of lynch^

now both the troupe and the heil-ly are known to have fairly blasé reactions towards death and violence and general in the past. and that extends to their comrades' fights:

shalnark and co play cards while uvogin get leeches injected into his veins, or phinks & co stand by and watch feitan almost get his ass handed to him by zazan in meteor city- before he starts taking things seriously, that is. but i think that comes from a genuine respect in their comrades' strength. like everyone knew uvo could handle the shadow beasts just like they knew feitan could handle zazan. the heil-ly also seem to enjoy each others company and have a great rapport while chopping up dead bodies... but i think they don't expect much from their comrades in the way the troupe does. i mean, it's like phink's says: the troupe doesn't take on amateurs. everyone in the heil-ly is an amateur (except morena) so i don't think their laissez-faire attitude comes from confidence in their own abilities- i think they actually just do not care.

this whole exchange felt sooooo spiders-coded. which makes sense: i mean plenty of them are fans of the spiders! i think yokotani (the lawyer) was deadass trying to get an autograph lol

one thing to note is that when nobunaga attacks terebellum, he assumes the reason the gang hadn't shown signs of confrontation thus far was because they were convinced they were safe- that nobunaga and hinrigh couldn't get to them. i think that's only half the truth: when hinrigh throws a knife at this guy (the heil-ly's "organ" whatever that could mean) he just thinks "huh i wonder how long this would take to heal," before being saved by an issue of shonen jump. then he gets chastised for being reckless and going against morena's orders to keep his head down, but it's all very unserious. then everyone just kind of wanders off to do their own thing.

can i also just say i was getting from real uvogin vibes from terebellum over here

again, i can't really make any blanket statements with information we have available. but my current outlook is that the biggest difference between the spiders and the heil-ly right now is that the heil-ly is what chrollo had initially envisioned for the troupe: remember the "i am the head but i don't matter and you shouldn't make choices with my life in mind" speech? i think this is what that would look like. we know that (up until yorknew), chrollo truly believed that everyone saw the spiders as he did. that he would have no value as a hostage. that they would all be able to accept his death and move on:

and this turned out to be a fatal flaw.

the levels of cognitive dissonance going on during this whole exchange...

he was soooo in hhis head about being above humanity in his own little conceptual space where life and death don't matter that he forgot to look around and realize not everyone was there with him.

there were some, like phinks, who were in line with chrollo's philiosophy. kudos to them ig. but there were enough people who wanted to keep their friend alive- and are still working their asses off to do so today!- that his plan failed. pakunoda chief among them god rest her soul. this moment was one of the first dominos that sent into into the downward spiral he's on today. because after all he invested in the spider, all he gave up for it, it's web is slowly but surely falling apart. he is losing one lifelong member after another in events he is either powerless to stop or has a direct hand in. the ethos that kept him in this purgatory where he could temporarily transcend pain and guilt and humanity is unravelling, and the people he loves (not all of them, at least) don't share in it, and if that's the case then they've been suffering all this time. and if that's the case then what the hell has he been doing, and what the hell is the point.

so now he's stuck on a ship with a group of people that are like his own but worse (and younger and stupider g'bless) lead by someone who's like him but at peace. (and also probably worse lol). having a breakdown because people might love him. also he's trying to steal a national treasure because this is a nic cage movie apparently hey how many words is this post again

TLDR; chrollo is loosing the idgaf war

[jwwwdot]

Shizuku & Machi.

[promoxie]

Queen Seiko when I catch you

[3aoldyeck]

i used to be all for Illumi's eyes being that way because over time as he had to endure more and more torture his eyes just became completely lifeless and thats why theyre devoid of any color and are all black n shit. but i came to the conclusion that that could just be his thousand-yard stare from everything hes had to endure. not that his eyes had "lost all color and life" sorta thing.

its evident that Milluki's eyes are also as black as his, so the black eyes are definitely a genetic thing (im assuming from Kikyo) but i think the reason Illu looks like *that* is just a case of thousand-yard stare from being traumatized beyond belief, and the black eyes reinforce that. and maybe thats why hes so fucked up compared to the rest of the Zoldyck children.

[cherrymoondew]

I still believe in the theory that Kurapika did something to stop Chrollo having access to Lovely Ghost writer. These panels are right after each other in chapter 149. One discussing methods of removing nen and the second about Neon’s lost ability.

Chapter 377

Chrollo discloses he doesn’t have access to the ability.