#i know yuuta cares for gojo and this was last resort

[damianwaynerocks]

why is it that even in death gojo cannot escape being used as a weapon!!

[duckiemimi]

jjk 261 leaks

i'm gonna ramble a bit here idk if it'll make sense.

i've always been the biggest advocate of not viewing things black and white in jjk, meaning everything is understandable from the readers' point of view, BUT that doesn't mean that the story itself doesn't have distinct boundaries between what's "good" and "bad" in the narrative. take geto, for example. great character, you can't help but like him, but even then you know he's an antagonist for a reason. the narrative says so, even the characters say so. there's a running theme in jjk where every antagonist (and antagonist-adjacent) character is motivated to control other people's bodies—geto and non-sorcerers (to a lesser extent), kenjaku and his CT, mahito and his CT, sukuna needing to have a host, etc. kenjaku, for the most part, has always been our point of reference when we talk about evil in the story. which is why it's so jarring to see yuuta, of all people, resort to the same thing. for the greater good? okay, let's talk about the do or die of the greater good in jjk.

the greater good in this arc is to stop sukuna to save humanity. but even then, this cause has always been eclipsed by less righteous, personal reasons, like wanting to save megumi, or wanting to fight sukuna. those are the reasons pushed for readers to see, to care about. while understandable (they are human, after all), compared to its contemporaries, jjk isn't really a manga where characters sacrifice their morals for the greater good. in fact (i've mentioned this once), for a structured organization with the goal to protect humanity, humanity itself isn't of much importance in the narrative. the story has always centered around the sorcerers. but that aside, in times of despair (like yuuji in shibuya), they've always shown remorse and regret for the things that they cannot control, hesitation. while there is no altruistic character in the series, no one has ever wanted or willingly suggested anything aligned with puppeteering. (why would they? isn't the cog mentality something we're trying to move past, especially with the machine now destroyed?)

to have yuuta be the first to suggest a plan like this is...jarring. from what's written, sure we can accredit it to his love and understanding for his teacher, but yuuta knows what happened to geto. the cast has seen what kenjaku can do and has done. you could say that yuuta has a history with control (rika, in a way), but i like to think that he's grown since volume 0. could this be a desperate last resort by a panicked child? yeah, maybe. but it barely reads that way. there are too many interpretations to call it that, it isn't convincing enough. this is also the first time we've ever seen gojo referred to as a "monster," despite being untouchable and revered as god-like throughout the manga. there are some panels earlier in the series of the cast being asked what gojo is to them, and most people answered that he's the strongest alone. i don't recall yuuta being asked, so maybe he's thought of this concept of "monstrosity" for a while, but it would've built up better if we were shown some sympathetic sentiments from him prior to this chapter. it would've tied everything together well. alas. thanks for the off-screen growths, timeskip.

while for different reasons (does the end justify the means in this story? what about geto?), the fact of the matter is yuuta has adopted kenjaku's methodology for the greater good. what does that mean for jjk's alignment and ideology? could this be commentary on the dreariness of teeth-gritting reality? maybe. i think this chapter alone has ultimately changed what morality means in the bigger story. after all, it's practically a lawless land right now with everything destroyed. but what kind of message will we end with? is there something that needs to be said, or is there nothing at all?

[cosmicjoke]

Oh yeah, you put it perfectly.

Isayama never engaged in pointless death or killing characters off simply for shock value, or to drag the story on needlessly, which is exactly what Gege's been doing for months. Honestly, anyone who tries to compare Isayama's writing to Gege's, or vice versa, is making an invidious comparison. They're world's apart in terms of talent and skill.

Whenever Isayama killed a character, it was important, either for that specific character's development, or the advancement of the plot or themes, or in regards to another character's development. I mean, every single bit of foundation Isayama laid, every bit of foreshadowing, paid off in the end, in really one of the most spectacular, nuanced and meaningful displays of writing I've ever had the immense pleasure of reading. Everything makes sense in AoT. Everything falls so perfectly into place by the last chapter. And it's poignant, and powerful, and emotional. You cared about these characters. You were devastated when one of them was lost. You were devastated even when minor characters were lost, because of the impact it had on the main cast.

Nothing in JJK makes sense anymore. And honestly, this whole "we have to become monsters to defeat the enemy" just feels like a cheap knockoff of a theme that AoT explored years ago and with infinitely greater nuance and complexity.

If they needed Gojo this whole time to kill Sukana, to have any chance against him, then what was the point of killing Gojo to begin with? Just to drive home the tragedy of the JJK world and how everyone who's a Jujutsu sorcerer ends up a dehumanized tool?

It doesn't even make sense from a logistical standpoint, or a narrative standpoint. Yuuta can't possibly be as skilled as Gojo was with the Six Eyes or Infinity, and yet Gege is asking us to suspend all disbelief and accept that he'll be able to take Sukana out with Gojo's powers when Gojo himself wasn't able to. And don't tell me it's because Sukana's worn out, so now Gojo's powers should be enough to finish him. Why couldn't everyone have just joined Gojo in his fight, then, and all gone at Sukana at once? It would have ended in the same result, only, you know, Gojo would be alive. But I know the actual reason. It's because this convoluted message that Gege is trying to push, about jujutsu sorcerers being fodder, wouldn't have worked, if he'd applied actual logic to his story, thus the word convoluted. The fact that he wouldn't have been able to demonstrate his message without relying on this sort of nonsensical, illogical garbage says it all, really. It's a failure in the writing. He couldn't come up with a better way to demonstrate his themes, so he resorted to leaps in logic that no one with half a brain cell would actually be able to buy into.

And it's honestly insulting, too, how Gege keeps reusing this tired-ass crutch of fake-out cliffhangers, where he ends a chapter trying to lead the reader to believe one thing, only to go "Haha, SIKE" at the start of the next. It's become so predictable, that anybody should have seen it coming from a mile away this time. It's not amusing, and it's not entertaining. Not to mention, just the way Gege keeps these fights dragging on and on, constantly pretending and lying to the audience with those same bullshit cliffhangers as a way to do it. The pacing is such trash. Like... just end it already.

If Yuuta doesn't kill Sukana with Gojo's body, and the battle between Sukana and Yuuji continues, or Megumi finally wakes the fuck up and does something, even after it's been declared that this desecration of Gojo's body is really their last and final resort, I'm going to revolt. I've had it with Gege basically depending on outright deception to keep a story going that should have ended like, six months ago. Because that's what it is. Gege lies to the reader, and that's his idea of clever writing. Like, no, it's the opposite. It shows you don't know what the fuck you're doing and you have no concept of how to demonstrate the themes you're trying to convey, if you're actually trying to convey anything at all.

Ugh, yeah, I'm with you. I'm just done. I haven't read a chapter since Gojo actually died, just been keeping up with spoilers. But even that's become a chore for me. I don't know if I'll even be able to see this crap through to the end.

You know, the more I think about this with Gojo, the more disgusted I am. What even is this? I don't know what the point of this is. If Yuuta kills Sukana using Gojo's dead body, then what the hell was the point of all those power-up's for Yuuji? And what's even up with Megumi? And if all Yuuta manages to do is "weaken" Sukana so Yuuji can kill him, then it's completely pointless other than driving home the disgusting disregard for Gojo's humanity that apparently even his students and last remaining friend in Shoko have for him. Why couldn't Gojo have just weakened Sukana himself, to give Yuuji the chance to beat him? Why couldn't Gojo have just KILLED Sukana to begin with, like he was set up to do by hitting him at close range with Hollow Purple? How is Yuuta in Gojo's body supposed to be more effective at using Gojo's powers than Gojo himself?

This whole thing seems unnecessary and pointlessly cynical and bleak. It's worse than Gojo just dying without apparently accomplishing anything. It's like a total desecration of his humanity.

Now watch, Yuuta won't even be able to actually put Sukana down while appropriating Gojo's body. He'll fail, I bet, and then he'll die, and then we'll be back to more pointless back and forth between Sukana and Yuuji. Either that, or Yuuta will kill Sukana using Gojo's body, then die, and Yuuji's power-up's won't have amounted to shit.

Also, someone pointed out that Sukana was about to have his heart ripped out and die, but the second he saw Gojo's body, he just smacked Yuuji away like it was nothing. Sounds exactly like the same shit Gege pulled when Sukana told the audience in an internal monologue that if he got hit with Hollow Purple at close range, he was done for, only to then... get hit at close range with Hollow Purple and not only not die, but kill Gojo with his very next hit.

That's what I mean by fake-out cliffhangers and Gege's stupid over-reliance on them.