#she's had her reputation & the reputation of her entire extended family dragged through the mud by whistledown

[cerullos]

watching my favorite lesbian tragedy

[linkspooky]

Prison Break

While Yoriko Kuroiwa is imprisoned, this chapter repeats cage imagery again and again. Bujin is in a holding cell, Iwao stands with Furuta in a room adorned with barred windows, the entrance to both Kaneki and Touka’s room has physical bars that they can easily walk in and out of, while Yoriko herself slowly wastes away in the sealed off interrogation room her own execution day set.

The question is, if the jailbreak arc already happened, if Kaneki supposedly broke his cage and cracked his egg, and if Goat right now is fighting to break the structure of the world then why are all of these characters being shown with clear prisoner imagery?

Perhaps the simpler question is, why are these characters in cages in the first place? Who put them there?

The simplest answer to that question would be society. Especially in a story where V considers themselves to be the orchestrator of the world’s conflicts and resolutions. However, that point of view is reductive as it leaves out the character’s own agency. As long as V has not invented mind control chips, the characters retain the ability to make their own decisions. Perhaps V sets up the circumstances, but the characters still make choices all throughout those circumstances. 

Another important but simple observation is that oftentimes in this chapter the characters are shown walking into their own prison cells. 

Urie Kuki walks in willingly in order to visit Bujin. Meanwhile it is Bujin himself who was arrested only because of an action he himself did, choosing to punch Mutsuki. Not just because of his association with Yoriko. Both of the men in the cell, are therefore, their one way or another by their own choices. 

Urie himself makes an important choice in regards to this situation. He knows that Mutsuki might have some special grudge against either Touka or Yoriko, and has evidence that can corroborate the fact that Mutsuki contrived a statement mainly to frame Yoriko.

Yet he himself chooses to sit on that knowledge. Perhaps to protect Mutsuki, or perhaps only to protect the image of Mutsuki in his mind as the man who first reached out to him in the auction arc. Saiko too, has evidence of Mutsuki’s transgressions outside of the role of a CCG officer and yet chose not to interfere or even confront Mutsuki about that because of her own fear of losing the family like environment of the Quinx home. 

However, Bujin himself chooses to sit and not think of things. After all, Furuta’s whole actions throughout this arc has been to drag the ccg through the mud. A few chapters ago we found him loyally fighting with Furuta’s 100% slaughter operations. However, the fact that humans, or even a human that he’s personally invested in also might be harmed by this new regime is finally something that gets him to call into question? He’s still not empathizing with ghouls or questioning Furuta’s actions, besides the ones that directly affect him. 

Which extends to the Kuroiwas as a whole. After all, they’ve been profiting all this time as ghoul investigators, by following this strict set of rules and enforcing it. Do they really get to question it now that it’s turned against them? Iwao is offered a choice, his reptutation of a family member. The reputation his family has spent their entire lives, building up and living inside then suddenly becomes a cage to him. 

After all up until this point, both Iwao and Bujin have simply chosen to follow the paths laid in front of them without questioning it. Bujin seems to have become an investigator not because he believes in it but because it was what his dad did and that dominated most of his childhood. 

Then finally we get to the ghouls underground trapped in a labyrinth of cages by their own will. Choosing to hide and take refuge in the 24th ward rather than fight the CCG directly. This is once again a choice, Kaneki put himself in his own cage by bidding that Goat must flee rather than face the CCG head on. 

He never chose a next plan of action beyond simply waiting. Perhaps that too comes from Kaneki’s choice, his inability to break the world in front of them. Kaneki sympathizes too much with the CCG and does not want to destroy them the way Eto meant to. Even if they are the ones currently holding the world in the cage. Even before Furuta’s rapid takeover, it seemed Kaneki’s intention was to talk with the Washuu rather than destroy them and root them out. His inability to grasp the situation, his obliviousness, is in itself a choice. After all, Kaneki’s not fighting for the sake of a all ghoul kind as he claims to be. Look at the face he makes when he casually suggests crushing the head of the CCG, even Nishiki is taken aback by a second. 

What Nishiki probably has yet to realize is, just as this is to Furuta it’s a game to Kaneki too. This is a game played between two kings who act like children, and refuse to take the conflict seriously. That’s why every move that Furuta makes that seriously jeapordizes Kaneki’s plan, Kaneki refuses to acknowledge and treats just like he lost advantage in chess. The depression of every loss against Furuta just does not hit Kaneki yet, the same way it does the starving ghouls, or even his friends under his own command who have lived their entire lives as ghouls and therefore empathize with the situation of ghouls much more strongly.

This in itself is a choice. Kaneki chooses to acknowledge maybe, but not destroy the parts of his personality that make him resemble Furuta. He accepts the title of king as something he can perpetually cling to in order to give him a reason to live, not something that the lives and deaths of others ride on. 

Kaneki’s own continued choice to be passive in every situation even shows in his own relationships. Touka lies to him about being pregnant, he lies to her about Yoriko. Even when he learns the truth about her situation though, Kaneki can barely get through confronting her. His passive attempt ends in failure. Avoiding confrontation, being gripped by the anxiety of losing others, afraid to fight for fear of hurting others, all of Kaneki’s flaws at the center of his being are rising to the surface and dominating both his personal relationships now and also the way he commands Goat. The end result is both of them being trapped down in the 24th ward, unable to truly progress. 

The final example is of course Yoriko herself. What she blames is her own ignorance. That she simply accepted that her happy days with Touka were so simple, and refused to think about her friend’s feelings besides her own personal happiness. 

Of course it also takes two to tango, while Yoriko lived in happy ignorance and chose to lie that way, Touka also chose not to tell her the truth about herself. Even when Yoriko was clearly threatened by Mutsuki and put in danger, Touka chose not to interrupt the wedding or try to warn her friend ahead of time. Once again was this chosen for her own safety? or because Yoriko is Touka’s only remaining connection to the human world and Touka feared being rejected by her?

If Touka knows how terrible it felt to be abandoned without a word by Kaneki, why would she subject Yoriko to the same thing? Why would she continue to do so even after Mutsuki was clearly hunting Yoriko and she was in need of a warning not to be blindsided?

All along the way these characters had choices that could have freed themselves just a little from the situation they were trapped in. Yet, all along we see them choose not to take action. That’s because the cage isn’t exactly something that is forced upon them. It’s a cage of their own choosing, and people voluntarily choose to live inside it instead of fighting.

Which is why I really don’t think even if the CCG team up with Kaneki in order to defeat him, that removing it’s head will destroy the will of the rest of the CCG as simply as Kaneki suggests. Perhaps if the cage were that simple and it was something enforced upon all of the investigators present, then removing Furuta would solve everything. This seems even to be a plan that Furuta himself is offering up, and Kaneki is coming around to agree with. 

Ghouls and humans come together to crush the head of the CCG, Furuta Nimura is excised and the war between the two species finally ends now that it’s greatest aggravator, and profiteer is gone. 

As we’re shown time and time again though, the cage is something entered of one’s free will. In a few chapters ago we were shown, not just the oggai but several main characters still left on the CCG’s side following Furuta’s orders for total extermiantion wholeheartedly. Even if Furuta disapperas, as long as these kind of people remain falling back simply on what’s ordered of them the CCG as a culture will continue to perpetuate. 

There are reasons people stay in the cage. To everybody it might not seem so restricting, to some it might be a place to belong one that provides comfort.